Last week, CNN reported that Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine is pushing for the sale of 24-bit audio on iTunes and other online retailers. In a news conference for Hewlett-Packard, Iovine said: “We’ve gone back now at Universal, and we’re changing our pipes to 24-bit. And Apple has been great. We’re working with them and other digital [download] services to change to 24-bit. And some of their electronic devices are going to be changed as well. So we have a long road ahead of us.”

The term 24-bit refers to the “depth” of an audio recording. We can explain this technical dimension somewhat by comparing it to video; most of us have bought at least one HD television after reading a little bit on video resolution. Audio CDs are limited to 16-bit, which you might compare to a basic cable channel coming in at 480p. 24-bit is theoretically audio’s equivalent to the 720p or 1080p video coming from our Blu-Ray players or digital cable services.

However, that’s a bit of an oversimplification, and it might be a little more accurate to compare the depth of an audio signal to the number of different colors each single pixel on a television could be (rather than the total number of them). Audio sample rate (which we’ll get to later) is somewhat equivalent to video frame rate.

Yet for those of you not aware of the so-called “Loudness War” that has been raging since the late 1980s, the music most of us listen to is almost without exception “compressed” to be as loud as God allows, to compete for our attention next to whatever came before on the radio or in our playlist. And when everything- all of the colors so to speak- are so relentlessly saturated to be as bright and loud as possible, the question arises: Are we even using 16 bits’ worth? Why do we need 24?

Our own Tom Davenport, in a recent editorial for Gizmodo entitled “Why 24-bit Audio Will Be Bad For Users,” presented the theory that 24 bit audio is a consumer con, and a format that regular consumers will “never need.” This sparked a debate here at Antiquiet. There was the speculation that Iovine’s idea is simply savvy marketing designed to turn audiophiles into even bigger suckers to sell his possibly overhyped Beats Auio headphones. There was my confidence in my own precious hi-fi system and few 24-bit audio sources (I was ecstatic to read that 24-bit audio could be coming to iTunes). And of course, as always, there was the passion we all share for cutting through bullshit.

So we had a bit of a debate, and finally Saturday night we sat down with the most experienced professional we could blackmail, Sean Beavan of the band 8mm. Over the course of an extremely enviable engineering career spanning two decades, Sean has had a hand in the mix of several favorite albums of yours and ours, including Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, and Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals. Also possibly Chinese Democracy.

The bottom line is that while it may not be appropriate for every consumer, the 24-bit audio format has at least the potential, for those that care, to be the best thing to happen to the art form of recorded music since the CD. I choose these words carefully, because there’s as much subjectivity involved as science, as Sean explains in much depth.

It absolutely must be understood that 24-bit audio isn’t just about “ripping” the fully mastered recordings we’re all familiar with to a slightly different digital format. Just as the mastering process for vinyl is- and in fact must be- completely different than the mastering process for 16-bit CDs or radio; to bring 24-bit audio to market, it’s nearly guaranteed that the labels will locate the pre-mastered tapes (or Pro Tools sessions or what have you) and remaster them responsibly to take proper advantage of the benefits of the 24-bit format. And you may or may not be surprised to learn that these differences aren’t so subtle. Even a non-audiophile can hear them on a regular consumer stereo system. You may also be surprised to learn that the infrastructure to properly bring what is essentially an entirely new format to market is already in place (more or less) at the labels.

Through the course of our internal discussions, Tom Davenport clarified that his piece as it was originally submitted to Gizmodo was directed more towards Dr. Dre and his headphones rather than Jimmy Iovine and 24-bit audio. It was in fact originally titled “How Dr. Dre Engineered the 24-bit Con.” As Tom says, “it’s really an observation that the headphone manufacturer [is] pushing this, and that I predict the marketing around 24-bit stores will be conning people who really shouldn’t care.” Which is a very fair suspicion. “For some people and circumstances there’s no doubt 24-bit is appropriate. Of course, [Gizmodo's title change] changed the angle and my attitude somewhat.”

With that said, the more you examine the technical and subjective aspects of the format, the more you may come to see it as the opposite of devious marketing: Quite possibly a huge gamble on Iovine’s part, and actually a miraculous, radical idea to cater to a minority of consumers- specifically the hardcore fans- to give them something that most people are not willing to pay for, and in fact may not even be capable of appreciating the value of at all.

24-bit audio, as even Jimmy Iovine seems to see it, could represent a small revolt against the “Loudness War,” and a refocus on the art. Not a gimmick to wrench a few extra bucks out of our hands, but finally a genuine value-add, and an entirely new reason to pay for music… That is, if the labels don’t fuck it up. After all, while, as Beavan explains, Iovine himself is a qualifiable audiophile, there may very well be pressure from insensitive “bean counters” to cut corners on the 24-bit mastering processes, or even to make the 24-bit audio louder (at the cost of precious dynamics), just as we’ve seen them do with 16-bit CDs.

And on the other hand, as our writer Fernando Scoczynski speculates, it’s not necessarily purely about giving better sound to consumers; Aside from the obvious creation of a new revenue stream, there’s a very convenient cross-promotional opportunity presented by this initiative. Why (really) would Iovine go so far out of his way to cater to such a small minority of consumers? Fernando answers:

It just so happens that Mr. Iovine recently teamed up with Dr. Dre to release a line of high-end audio equipment called Beats Audio, promising greater fidelity than most devices out there today. At the Hewlett-Packard event where the promise of 24-bit was made, they also took the opportunity to announce their upcoming iPad-competitor, the TouchPad, which will feature audio technology provided by (you guessed it) Beats Audio. How convenient is it that both the device and the change to 24-bit were discussed on the same event?

Perhaps this 24-bit initiative only exists because it will help Iovine and Dre sell Beats Audio. Or maybe Beats Audio enables Iovine to bring a new format to market that has previously been unfeasible. Either way, it’s hardly a scam.

Now it wouldn’t hurt if record contracts paid a little more respect to the artists in recording contracts when it comes to new formats. In a revelation that could easily warrant its own headline here at Antiquiet, Beavan reveals that many major label recording contracts let the label hold back a significant portion of an artist’s dues from CDs (while they’re paid 100% of their earnings from vinyl) through an absurd and outdated clause held over from the mid-1980s that essentially defines CDs as an “unproven format,” that may or may not take hold among consumers. Fascinating, shocking even, but I digress.

These two clips just scratch the surface of the extremely in-depth discussion I had with Sean in his studio. Everything summarized above (and much much more) is explained in detail in the full lecture, which we present to responsibly educate the audiophiles, aspiring audiophiles, and those curious enough to spare 45 minutes. And in addition to cutting through the bullshit orbiting this 24-bit audio story, there are some interesting (albeit nerdy) little anecdotes from the early days of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson that will definitely be of interest to at least the more hardcore of fans out there. Either way, we hope you get as much out of it as we have. Enjoy, and sorry for ruining your lunchbreak if you’re heading down the rabbit hole.

Big thanks to Fernando for getting the ball rolling on this story, and for writing hundreds of words that wound up getting no further than my interview notes.

In addition to continuing to produce music for everyone from Guns N’ Roses to Envy On The Coast, Sean and his lovely wife Juliette are very active with their band 8mm. Feel free to browse our ongoing coverage of them, and keep up with them through their official site at 8mmLovesYou.com.

Keep up with Tom Davenport’s opinions on this story and other developments in his world and the audio world in general over at his personal site.

P.S. The debate has spilled onto Reddit, and somewhat responsibly at that.

Many believe he peaked out with Antichrist Superstar, and hasn’t done anything worthwhile since. And with a larger than life, schtick-heavy artist like Manson, there’s a great risk of eventually arriving at the land self-parody.

For example, while I think 90s contemporaries Rage Against The Machine quit right before they wore it out, Green Day’s newest, in my opinion (not to discredit Johnny’s), is one American Idiot too many. And so a new Marilyn Manson album might be one too many, if all it was was a dozen more songs about Satan, blood, sex, drugs and violence.

I love Mechanical Animals, and I think Holy Wood & The Golden Age Of Grotesque were extremely underrated. 2007’s Eat Me, Drink Me is Britney Bernstein’s favorite of all, for a very valid reason; It’s a bravely raw, personal, album- it was Manson at his most vulnerable and honest, by far. While I recognize and appreciate that, the music was not on par with the lyrics and vocals. I found it to be a low point in that sense.

With Twiggy Ramirez returning to the fold for High End Of Low, and a single called Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon, my hopes were high for a return to form. The only question was if songs like I Have To Look Up Just To See Hell would bring musical achievement to match the song-naming achievement, or if the clichés would be left standing naked in the cold. It’s a fine line to walk. And the first track to be released, We’re From America, didn’t excite me.

The album opens with Devour, which I expected to be nothing more than a prologue, given Manson’s affinity for setting the scene with spooky noises and the like. It starts with an understated guitar hitting some high notes, very reminiscent of A Perfect Circle’s Thirteenth Step album, not to make any accusations. Lyrically, Manson throws right down the center: I’ll swallow up all of you like / a big bottle of big big pills… You’re not crying / this is blood all over me… Then the lead drops out to footnote the chorus, where Manson howls, And I’ll love you / if you let me / And I’ll love you / if you won’t / make me stop… It’s almost as if he’s teasing you, picking up right where the last album left off- and maybe he is. Or perhaps he’s just threatening to do it all over again, for anyone out there that might assume he has any regrets. But then the song explodes, screaming, over and over, The pain is not ashamed to repeat itself / I can’t sleep until I devour you!

So that’s how the stage is set, and then comes the onslaught we’ve all be hoping for. Pretty As A Swastika obviously has a fair share of shocking, oh-so-Marilyn-Manson imagery at the core, introducing a play on symbols where the US dollar sign stands-in for the swastika, which we’ll see more of in a bit. But the rock song written around it is dynamic and hooky. It’s not one of the most outstanding tracks on the album, but it confirms that there’s a bite to go with the bark.

Leave A Scar follows, which had previously leaked with the title May Be Harmful If Swallowed. It’s centered around another bold Manson-ism; Whatever doesn’t kill you / is gonna leave a scar. But it’s a mature composition, as the beat drills the song through alternating electric and acoustic verses, aerodynamic pre-choruses, and screaming choruses. This one is an outstanding track, as is the follow-up, Four Rusted Horses, with a swaggering, bluesy acoustic guitar riff that warrants a crossroads analogy I can’t quite come up with.

With a name like Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon, you expect Marilyn Manson to pull out all the stops. And he does, calling for nothing less than the end of humanity, while more subtly calling back to Golden Age Of Grotesque with a swinging vaudevillian rhythm. For the hell of it, we did something we normally don’t do, and checked out the “clean” version of the song. It sounded like a bad drive-thru speaker, or a 50 Cent song on the radio- every other word missing. Here’s the “dirty” version:

Blank And White is another pleasant surprise. It starts off basically straightforward, with Manson in typical form, threatening to choke the world, over a bassline that builds to a battle song of sorts. But the chorus brings an interesting new sound; with subtle piano highlighting the power chords, the band nods towards the Rolling Stones.

I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies has a similar structure, but with a brooding goth-rock tone. Unfortunately, it drags on a bit too long, and together with the indescribably bad head-scratcher WOW, comprises, well, the lowest point of The High End Of Low.

Fortunately, the aforementioned I Have To Look Up Just To See Hell is indeed worth such an audacious name, as I had hoped. It’s a essentially a power dirge, but the vocal rhythm is constructed for a pop song, keeping you on board through sparsely placed hooks that lead into a chorus that defies the odds by not coming off as overly contrived.

Running To The Edge Of The World, Unkillable Monster and Into The Fire provide the album’s ballad relief, all mostly acoustic, with Manson waxing poetic over drawn out passages and solos. Into The Fire is the superior of the bunch, but none wear out their welcome in between the ragers.

The bottom line is that whatever you may have to say about Marilyn Manson as a person, as a demon, as a cultural icon, relevant or not, he’s a true artist, that continues to produce good albums. He shows no signs of abandoning the image & schtick that has always been central to his artistic expression, and in fact this newest album may feature more Manson-isms and controversial sound bites than any other. At the very least, they’re far less hidden than the usual. And many actually seemed to be designed to be dramatically, soberly repeated on television by a concerned parents’ advocacy group.

But contrary to what the naysayers and shit-talkers may have to say about Manson’s modus operandi, you can’t build a career on astonishing sound bites alone. If that’s all there was to the guy, we’d all just have a chuckle and leave it at that. You know, like we do when Ted Nugent speaks.

The High End Of Low may not be quite the masterpiece that Antichrist Superstar was, especially given the latter’s perfect timing. But it’s an accomplishment, effectively signing a new lease on Marilyn Manson’s artistic relevancy.

The High End Of Low
May 26th, 2009
Interscope 

01. Devour
02. Pretty As A Swastika
03. Leave A Scar
04. Four Rusted Horses
05. Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon
06. Blank And White
07. Running To The Edge Of The World
08. I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies
09. WOW
10. Wight Spider
11. Unkillable Monster
12. We’re From America
13. I Have To Look Up Just To See Hell
14. Into The Fire
15. 15

UPDATE: The album now be streamed in its entirety on MySpace. Check it out.
Thanks to Base Tendencies for the tip.

He mixed the demos for Pretty Hate Machine, the album that put Trent Reznor on the map. He’s since done production, engineering and mixing work on Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, Portrait Of An American Family and Mechanical Animals, as well as the record that brought industrial to the mainstream: Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral. Oh yeah, he also worked on albums for a jillion other bands, helped Trent built a studio in New Orleans and worked on the mythical Chinese Democracy around the turn of the century.

And then there’s Juliette. The second half of the grinding sensuality machine known as 8mm is a double-take blonde with danger in her eyes and a deceptively silky voice that flows in symbiotic fluidity with the moody, post-industrial backdrop her husband provides. She’s the perfect uncaged canary in his coal mine, her breathless velvet weaving through his seasoned melancholy for a sound that would fit seamlessly on a mix featuring Tricky, Massive Attack and Portishead. 

One EP (2004’s Opener) and a full-length (2006’s Songs To Love And Die By) later, 8mm have hit their stride and are finally getting some well-deserved attention. Their songs No Way Back and Forever And Ever Amen were featured on a December 2006 episode of the WB show One Tree Hill. The exposure’s worked wonders for the band, and last year was a busy one- they covered Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better for the Mr. & Mrs. Smith soundtrack, were featured as one of 2007’s “Top Bands You Need To Know And Love And Worship” by Alternative Press and have had their songs on various MTV shows that, like nearly all shows on MTV, have nothing at all to do with music.

But to hell with all that. The brass tacks are that 8mm is a standout independent band doing things their own way, and we love what we’re hearing. That’s why we called up Sean and Juliette last week for a ranting, impassioned discussion about their inspirations and aspirations, the chaotic state of the music industry and Axl Rose’s joke-telling prowess.

Antiquiet: How great is the world when you can interact with an artist through MySpace and set up an interview without going through a hundred different channels? Imagine that concept twenty years ago.

Juliette: It’s great, isn’t it? It’s a really exciting time to be a part of this whole process.

Antiquiet: Juliette, you don’t come from the conventional singing background, but more from a storytelling and entertaining place artistically. What does singing mean to you now?

Juliette: It’s funny, the first thing that comes to mind is that it gives me a little more control over the tone of the story. As opposed to writing, where you have to rely on your ability to create a setting and an atmosphere in words alone. In a song, I have the benefit of having Sean, and with what he does musically, it allows me to sort of dance through things lyrically and vocally. And so together, it paints the whole picture.

Antiquiet: Sean, you’ve got a dream resume going, having worked with Slayer, Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, done mixing on some legendary albums like Pretty Hate Machine and Antichrist Superstar and so forth. Having done all that, having built a recording studio in New Orleans with Trent Reznor and worked on these incredible albums, how does that background translate into what you do now? You’re known for a guitar-saturated kind of sound in your production. 

Sean: It made it easy to build a studio in my backyard. (laughs) Yeah, a lot less cockroaches… I mean, all those experiences inform what I do now, and helped me figure out exactly what I want to do. Working with several successful, seminal artists helped me realize the importance of going for what you want to achieve artistically instead of just trying to sell a lot of records. The artists I worked with that sold the most records were the ones least concerned with it all. They ended up making the kind of records that they wanted to listen to.

Antiquiet: What’s the recording setup for 8mm like? 

Sean: It’s our house. We’ve got a drum kit in the bedroom, there’s microphones hanging everywhere… 

Juliette: It looks kinky, but it’s for the music.

Sean: Yeah. And I’ve got the studio out in the backyard, which is nice, because you can kinda feel like you’re going somewhere when you set out to record. It’s not like you’re going into the next room. So that’s pretty cool. We work there as 8mm, but I also work there with a bunch of other clients.

Antiquiet: Walk us through the experience of working on the new Guns N’ Roses album.

Sean: Ah yes, that was a long time ago. It was between ‘98 and 2000, I think. Tommy Stinson and I became good friends, and we see each other quite a bit, so he gives me updates here and there. I have no idea what’s going on now. Almost everybody involved with the project when I was working on it isn’t a part of it anymore. It was Josh Freese on drums, Tommy was playing bass… Dizzy was playing keyboards, and I think he’s still doing that. It was a blast working with Axl. He was a really funny guy. That’s probably the one thing that surprised me the most- just how funny the guy could be. When he’d come in to do vocals, he’d warm up for like forty-five minutes not by singing, but by telling jokes. He was just extremely funny and super nice. 

Antiquiet: Was there any sense that Chinese Democracy was nearing completion back then? 

Sean: I thought there was. (laughs) I think we worked on thirty-five songs or something. But the guy just continually creates, and as people changed into and out of the band, a lot of things got re-tracked. I’d love to see the record come out soon, but we’ll see. They say it was turned in.

Antiquiet: How do you feel about the term trip-hop?

Sean: I like the atmosphere that the genre allows you to go into. Also, it allows you to go into a variety of progressions as well as interpretations of the genre. It allows us to use more organic instruments that something like electronica would really prevent us from using. Just certain types of guitars, real drums and strings all lend themselves to more of an emotional release. That’s one of the problems with electronic music. This genre allows you to explore the heartstrings with more natural sounds. And coming from places of industrial or hyper-realized heavy metal stuff, I really wanted to be able to stretch out on something that was more pretty and natural, while utilizing some of the cool things I’ve learned about creating textural atmospheres in a downtempo nature.

Antiquiet: You filmed the Stunning video by yourselves, right?

Juliette: On the DYI side of things, about a year ago, I shot what ended up being the official video for Stunning. I shot the entire thing on my cell phone, then edited it in good ol’ iMovie. At the time I was getting a little overwhelmed with the never-ending bombardment of “newer-better-faster!” technology, when I felt like that we’re barely getting the juice out of the stuff we have in our hands right now. And the feeling somehow that you can’t make something cool without the newest/latest just felt obscene. In other words, I looked down at my cell phone one day and thought… here’s our video. 

I wanted to make something that we thought was beautiful and cool with the tools that all of us carry around everyday or have at home. So, I confined the shooting to only the cell (an A900, Samsung) and the editing to the basic iMovie program that comes with every Mac. And absolutely nothing else. For lighting I moved around table lamps until things looked the way I wanted… and so on… that’s it.

It was really a cathartic reminder that you can create with anything.

Antiquiet: Where do you hope to take your sound in the future?

Sean: We’re talking about doing an EP where we’re mixing elements of Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? with PJ Harvey’s Dry. That might be really fun. We do a cover live of PJ Harvey’s Long Snake Moan, and it’s so fun to do. And John, our drummer and I just really get off on playing that kind of bluesy heaviness. So I think it would be fun to explore that. It wasn’t where I originally envisioned things going, but it’s definitely fun to pull something like Liar out in a set and then go all the way to that. 

Juliette: Look at a record like PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love. It’s scary, it’s aggressive, and it’s cool. It’s dark stuff, but she plays like a ninety year-old black man. It’s a little grit, and a little vulnerability, and a lot of sex.

Antiquiet: The perfect combination. Given that you’re a seemingly thriving independent band in the industry, how do you perceive the current sort of volatile state of things?

Sean: As an independent band, if we had two dollars for every person who’s got our record, we’d be doing pretty good.

Juliette: We’d be doing alright. We have several friends who are pretty much out on tour permanently, and we get so many random calls going “You have no idea how many kids know about you guys and have your record.” But they didn’t buy it. So yeah, if everybody laid down a couple bucks things would be a lot easier. But this way, you’ve got the freedom of not having to go through four or five different levels of A&R approval or jump through all these flaming hoops. You’ve got control. The bad news is that you don’t have their checkbook.

Sean: Right. And you get to play for the radio people and do things the way you want to. There was a long period of time in the late nineties and early 2000’s where there were just a whole lot of bands out there that were dropped after putting one CD out and that would be it. But nowadays, things have changed to the point where it’s like ‘So you lost your record deal, so what? You can still play shows and make music your own way.’ I think we’re breaking into a new renaissance where people are just really into writing and playing music.

Juliette: And that opens up the listener audience to a much more eclectic playlist. And it’s incredible now to have things like MySpace, where so many people in so many different places can hear your music for free. And then to have them be able to send you an email and tell you what it meant to them, directly… it’s incredible.

Antiquiet: There’s such an unprecedented saturation of material coming at you, it’s hard to sift through the good and the bad with any sense of direction. But the fact is, the options are there. When we were kids, that really wasn’t there. 

Juliette: In the eighties you really had the same five or ten bands all year, and if it wasn’t on the radio you’d have to dig through the piles at your local head shop / record store. And if you didn’t have someone to point you in the right direction…

Antiquiet: It all changed with Smells Like Teen Spirit. Before that song, the top 40 was packed with Wilson fucking Phillips, Whitney Houston and Phil Collins. The closest thing to real rock n’ roll anywhere near the charts was Skid Row. And I remember hearing about Teen Spirit at school before I’d heard it myself. Never before or since has there been a more pivotal moment in music, in my lifetime. That song changed everything.

Sean: When Nirvana came on the scene, it really made people stand up and pay attention to all these independent labels that were out there. People started thinking about what these indie labels were doing, but as soon as it started the majors came in and bought them all up and destroyed them. So for that period of time in the late nineties, early 2000s, it was just full of the worst shit ever getting put out. The labels had bought everybody up. Then things like Napster hit, and MySpace, and suddenly this big evil conglomerate is falling on its face.

Antiquiet: It’s beautiful. And for the artist, it really seems to be coming down to touring and putting out a quality product. The good music will speak for itself. Yeah, all those kids at the shows might have your record cause they downloaded it for free, but it’s great music, and that makes them want to catch you guys live when you come around. 

Juliette: Right. And you can’t download a concert experience. The albums, the MP3s, they’re pretty much marketing tools to get people into the shows. Then the next step is, how do we balance things out with the fact that you’re spending four grand on gas on tour? Gas prices aren’t going down. 

Antiquiet: When there’s such a wealth of new music out there, how do you stand out? 

Sean: It becomes an arbiter of originality. If you’re doing something new and interesting, it’ll bring you a different kind of support from a different kind of audience. We don’t fit into the trip-hop genre exactly, but then we don’t fit into something like pop or country either. You have to bring originality to the table, but you’ve also got to know who you’re trying to get to listen to your stuff. Different minds will have different levels of reception.

Antiquiet: What artists most influence your sound?

Sean: First and foremost, David Lynch… his soundtracks and energy is very influencial, as was Portishead or Radiohead or…

Juliette: PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love, Ziggy Stardust’s Spiders From Mars record, pick any Sigur Rós record…

Sean: Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline…

Juliette: Things with emotion and pathos, things with an authentic depth. 

Antiquiet: Any word on new material?

Sean: We’ve been writing, we’ve got about five or six things recorded, but nothing totally finished yet. They’re in Pro Tools in various stages, awaiting further development.

Juliette: we’ve got maybe five little handheld recorders full with bits of song ideas and notebooks with two lines here, three lines there…

Antiquiet: Are there any other artists out there that you’d like people to know about?

Sean: Miniature Tigers.

Juliette: Oh yeah, Miniature Tigers. They’re on a little label out of Phoenix called Modern Art, but they’re just… it’s great songwriting.

Sean: It’s just awesome. It’s got such a great vibe. There’s all these beautiful happy-go-lucky melodies with these twisted lyrics… it’s really interesting stuff.

Antiquiet: What do you say to someone just getting started in music and has the passion, but doesn’t know how to put a song together?

Juliette: GarageBand is a great way to start recording yourself. But I think it’s critical to listen to songs that you love the most and try to figure out what it is, that you love about it. See if the songs have something in common that makes you love them and run with that.

Sean: If you wanna be a blues guitar player, you’re gonna have to sit in your room and listen to records and play guitar. Eric Clapton listened to thousands of albums before he became what he is. He built off of something he discovered and loved. If you’ve got a MacBook and you’ve got GarageBand, you can make an album.

8mm- No Way Back

8mm- Give It Up

8mm’s MySpace