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Chris Brecht, Montana Slim
9 pm Thursday, August 28
Sam Bond’s Garage • $5
21+ show
18+ to party • 21+ to drink
KNRQ & KZEL PRESENT
TONIGHT, AUGUST 21 ST
NRQ, & WILLAMETTE VALLEY MUSIC
SCENE PRESENT:
BACK IN
THE
DARK
PLUS:
Gladhander,
Distortion Sleep, First Stop
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 TH
NRQ, & WILLAMETTE VALLEY MUSIC
SCENE PRESENT:
REDOX
PLUS: Road Home,
Busket, Ineffectuals
Recording to Tape
Chris Brecht writes country music for the ages
I
f Austin alt-country songwriter Chris
Brecht’s debut record The Great
Ride seems born of another era, that
might be because Brecht himself is a
little old-fashioned. He writes his songs
on a typewriter. He doesn’t own a TV.
And though digital recording is standard,
Brecht committed The Great Ride to two-
inch tape rather than computer memory.
“I don’t think I’ll ever make a digital
record, anymore,” Brecht says. “I don’t
think that tape really makes [music]
sound old or vintage; I just think that
tape adds such a warmth and beauty that
digital can’t quite capture.” Brecht sings
songs about traveling by rail (trains show
up in about half of his songs, something
he attributes to living near them for a
good portion of his life) and love lost.
You know, the same stuff that Woody
Guthrie and Bob Dylan sang about. But
while these themes could seem gimmicky
or contrived in the wrong hands, Brecht’s
songs feel genuine, his lazy drawl a
cross between the soulful North Carolina
slur of Ryan Adams’ early work and
Dylan’s nasal, off-pitch utterings. But in
his processes as well as his day to day
existence, Brecht prefers the old school
to the new. “I grew up listening to, like,
the records I found in the box in the
basement. And a lot of those were Stones
records, and Simon and Garfunkel, the
Yardbirds, the Youngbloods, a couple
Dylan records ... they just had a sound
that I always loved,” he says. “As I got
older, the industry kind of made its way
from analog to digital records. And there
just seemed to be something missing to
me sonically.”
Part of that, Brecht says, are the errors,
the foot taps and the guitar clicks that
can’t be taken out of a taped recording.
“The artifacts inside the music, to me, are
so much more important when I listen to
records, and that’s kinda what I wanted
on my own record,” Brecht says. “You’re
trying to create something substantial in
the artifacts that are left behind, rather
than having an album exist solely on a
MacBook hard drive. It’s more fun to
have 35 pounds of reel to reel tape sitting
there.” Preferences like Brecht’s can be
cumbersome and inconvenient, or more
expensive, as tape recording is. But to
Brecht, they’re worth it — and for the
uber-modern naysayers who might call
a love for dusty vinyl records and tape
recording pretentious, Brecht says this:
“There’s a certain amount of effort that
goes into creating something. There’s
more artifact. There’s the residue. I don’t
think an artist is pretentious for holding
onto that.”
ew
∙ 3 S t a g e s , I n c l u d i n g H o t Tu b
and Shower Stage
∙ E xc l u s i v e C h a m p a g n e
a n d V I P Ro o m s
∙ Extensive Beverage
Selection
∙ Fu l l M e n u w i t h G r e a t
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32 AUGUST 21, 2008 EUGENE WEEKLY
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