Her musical career took root in New York City, where she first moved to study at NYU, and later dropped out to start working in recording studios (working with the likes of Phillip Glass, among others). In the meanwhile, she also began to write and record her own music. Her first record came out in 2005 and she has been making them ever since.
Dawn has just finished working on a record with Doveman (Thomas Bartlett) that will be coming out in early 2014. Three preview tracks are available for streaming online here.
I recently sat down with Dawn before her show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, where she was both opening for and singing with the Brooklyn-based folk band Hem. Since she has been working with Bartlett, our conversation began by discussing the recent Kate McGarrigle tribute album that he has been part of. We went on to discuss her role as a female music engineer, her views on creativity and technology, and what her top five "Girls on Your Turntable" playlist is.
Read full interview below.
Dawn Landes: I was lucky enough to stay at the McGarrigle homestead with Thomas (Bartlett) for New Year's, the past two years we went up there. And it's gorgeous; it's like a ski lodge out of town. And it was cool because I got to meet Anna and she is so demure, and very shy and withdrawn, but also kind of sarcastic too, but in a sweet way. It's very alarming.
Brandi Howell: So like a
Canadian form of sarcasm.
DL:
Exactly. So I remember her
basically saying that she never really liked performing. Kate was the one who wanted to be out
touring, but her whole life was spent performing and writing songs, like
"Heart Like a Wheel."
BH: I love how
Martha and Rufus are such a mix of their parents' style. You can see characteristics of both in
their music and performances, yet both are so great in their own way.
DL: Yeah,
Martha is amazing. I've seen Rufus
play, but I've actually seen Martha play more than I've seen Rufus play.
BH: Did you
catch any of her Edith Piaf shows?
DL: I was at
the taping for the album. Gorgeous.
BH: She played
here [at the Great American Music Hall].
DL: She
did! (Sigh...) Her channeling Piaf is amazing. It's like watching it. I opened for her in the UK and I had
made an album in French where I covered a bunch of French songs, and lived in
Paris for awhile. It was great,
because she hadn't done the Piaf project yet, but she was singing a song of
hers in her show. So, in my set I
sang Francoise Hardy's song, which you might recognize her from that movie
"Moonrise Kingdom", and she (Martha) sang a Piaf song!
BH: One of the
things I think is interesting is that there are so few female producers. I think a lot of doors have opened for
female musicians, especially in the rock/folk genre. I don't think it's as limiting for [female] musicians, but
you really don't have many female producers. I know you studied production at NYU, but can you tell me
more about how you started?
DL: Yeah, I
studied at NYU, and then I just started working in studios. There are always women around, as in
there are a lot of female studio managers and female studio accountants, but
there aren't a lot of females doing the technical stuff, so I remember reading
about Trina Shoemaker who is probably one of the best known female engineers. She worked with Sheryl Crow, Lambchop,
and Giant Sand, and has just done all kinds of stuff. She worked with Daniel Lanois as his main assistant for
years and she has gone on to have an amazing career. I remember finding out about her. She is beautiful, and I thought, "This person is so
cool!" I wrote her a letter and she never responded, I don't even know if
she got it, but...actually the other day I met a woman named Jaime Sickora, who
is a badass. She's the main engineer
at what used to be A&M Studios.
It's now owned by Jim Henson, so it's like the Henson lot in L.A. I went and got a tour with her and we
just had a little moment where we were like, "It's so good to meet another
female engineer". It just
doesn't happen that often.
BH: Do you
think you approach music differently when you are writing music or when you are
behind the console?
DL: Yeah, I
definitely think so. It's taken me
a long while, I used to produce all of my own records and engineer them and mix
them and everything, and I think knowing your strengths and your
weaknesses. I don't like to admit
it, I don't like to say no to anything.
I like to think I can do anything, but when you are trying to create and
edit at the same time, edit yourself, meaning even down to what mics you are
using or what arrangements are going to be on this song, it's really difficult
to be of two minds at the same time.
If you think about it, I'm really inspired by a lot of this
new wave of young talented women telling their stories on camera. Like Lena Dunham, I think she is a
genius, and Miranda July. They are the creative force behind it,
and they are starring in it. I
haven't been on the set of any of their films, but when they are acting, they
can't be holding the camera. It's
actually impossible, and I think that idea, I've had to learn to deal with
that. Like, okay...I can actually
have someone else recording me, I can have someone else producing me, because I
know what my vision is and it's okay to collaborate with people. Especially when they are amazing. So, it's not necessarily giving up
control, it's just opening the possibilities of working with other people.
BH: I know you
record on tape, but what are your thoughts are on new technology and the
accessibility of recording?
DL: Have you
read the David Lynch book on creativity?
It's got a little fish on it ["Catching the Book Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and
Creativity"]. I like what he
says about it, which is that people who are purists of the old school - if it's
film or music or whatever - they are holding on to something and rightfully so,
because the quality of it is so amazing, but what technology has done has made
the creation of it so blown open that you can do anything. And it might not look beautiful, but it
might be a narrative thing that you could not have captured otherwise. And I think that's the same with
recording. I mean, I have tons of recordings of stuff on my iPhone and I
haven't particularly used any of it.
Even before I had a phone, I had a miniDisc player and I would clip my
little Sony microphone to my lapel and I would walk around and record random
shit on the street. And I love
people like Tchad Blake, he is one of my favorite producers and engineers. It's just the stuff that you hear in
life that inspires the sounds that you are making.
BH: Do you feel
inspired by New York? Versus the
Midwest and Louisville.
DL: You
know, I have thought about that so much.
It's that kind of thing where you are nostalgic for whatever you don't
have at the time. I don't know. I was just telling my friend Hannah
[Cohen] that I've realized this about myself: If I'm in New York, I can't be there for longer than a
month. I have to leave, just even
go out of town for the night.
Luckily I tour a lot, so I've been able to live there for long
enough. But I don't think I could
have lived there for that long if I hadn't been able to experience other places
and get out of there. Because it
is, it is so fast and so noisy.
BH: I lived in
Brooklyn for awhile after college and found you couldn't get out of the city as
much as here [San Francisco], where you can walk across the bridge and be in
the Marin Headlands.
DL: I've never
lived out here, but I sort of fell in love with LA. I was just there for three days and we just played
there. I love driving. I grew up in a place where I had a car
immediately when I was 16, and that's how I experienced music -- other than
headphones, being able to drive and being able to listen to music all of the
time. I miss that a lot. But luckily I get to tour, and when you
are touring you are in a van with five or six other people, or eight other
people, and you don't always agree [on what to listen to].
BH: What do you
guys listen to on the road?
DL: Well, I'm
traveling with Hem right now and I've known them forever, and it's a really
interesting mash up of musical tastes.
What did we listen to today?
We listened to Rose Polenzani, my friend from Boston, we listened to Tom
Petty, as Tom Petty is the best road music ever, and we listened to Rolling
Stones, we talked about the Neko Case album, which I really like.
BH: What would
be the top five "Girls on Your Turntable" albums?
DL: I listen to
a lot of vinyl at my house, and let's see, definitely Dolly Parton, I actually
don't know the name of the album, but I can tell you what she is wearing on the
cover, she is wearing an amazing white shirt with little music notes on it, and
the music notes are black with little red dots, they are amazing. So that, that's one. Francoise Hardy, "Tous Les Garçons
Et Les Filles", it's got an orange vinyl which makes me so excited because
I have multi-colored vinyl for my record.
Let's see, what else, Julie Doiron, do you know her stuff? She is amazing. She is from Canada. And her album from four years ago, I
really like it. I got a Joni
Mitchell "Blue" on heavy rotation. And...
BH: Any new
artists you are listening to?
DL: Well,
Hannah [Cohen] is wonderful. Her
new album is “Child Bride”.
BH: Lastly,
what would you say your earliest music memory would be?
DL: I remember
writing "songs" on my dad's handheld tape recorder, because he would
do arbitration and he would say his notes into his little recorder, and I
remember writing songs. I wrote a
song about Valentine's Day. But I
was six and had a cold, so my voice sounded really weird, and just making stuff
up off the cuff.
BH: Whenever I
have a cold I say that it's a perfect time for me to make a Tom Waits cover
album. [laughs] Okay, before we
close, do you have any advice for young female musicians or producers? Any parting words of wisdom?
DL: Actually,
when I first started out I worked a bunch of jobs around the music business and
I worked at a festival called Summerstage in Central Park, and there are all of
these musicians coming and going, and I would always ask people for advice,
because I was young and wondering, and Jonathan Richman said something really
interesting, he said, "Always say 'Yes'." You know what I mean, play as much as you can, play your
next door neighbor's friend's birthday party, play any time you can to
practice. And I think that is true
for production too. Any time you want to work with someone or work on
something, just ask them and just do it.
Because the more you do anything, the better you get at it.
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