Latest Entry
Col-Labor-ration
Sep 1, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a comment
Posted by
JohnHampton
Collaboration … root word, labor. So, labor together. Work together! AS IN DON’T WORK ALONE!! At least sometimes.
A buddy and I were always working on studio problems together. But we didn’t call it “collaborating … we called it by the acronym THABTO. Two Heads Are Better Than One. THABTO. Simple, right? Well, we collaborated on coming up with that name.
You see, no two people think EXACTLY alike. I may be a bit stronger in the physical, scientific side of it while a good collaborator would be the one with common sense. On our own, we couldn’t get it. But together, we could get everything. And on something that takes long term planning … say, writing a book … I will write until I’m just running out of creativity, then lateral it off to Mr. THABTO for a few weeks. When I got it back, his imagination fired mine right back up and I would go again for na few weeks, then back to him. Over and over this scene repeated until we had the work of a genius on our hands, when actually neither one of us individually was even a near genius material.
Think back. Leiber and Stoller. Karen and Richard Carpenter.Jesse and Robin from Gin Blossoms. JOHN AND PAUL . The Coen Brothers. Sid and Nancy (Sid and Nancy??)
You must admit. By himself, John Lennon had an edge. Brought up like he was, he had plenty to give him that edge. But to many it was just a bit too much reality. Too acetic. Enter Paul McCartney. Alone, he was just a bit too “sweet”, if I may. (Too much honey gluts the stomach) Too much acid BURNS the stomach. BUT … together, for many years, each tempered the other, and the result was exactly what the mainstream music listeners wanted. And neither self-destructed, like many solo artists are prone to do after awhile. Doug Hopkins from Gin Blossoms. Kurt Cobain. That nutty Beck is a definite exception. But typo many times, the BEST music comes from collaboration. Just like “O’ Brother Where art Thou?” is a mind-melding from the Coen Brothers.
And you know what? Since everyone gets a recording studio in their laptop or whatever, collaboration has gone down the tubes. Not only that, but the “Musical Masturbation” that goes on in these self-imposed music prisons has given us nothing but SHIT! (But there are always exceptions)
John and Yoko, Bogie and Bacall, Hanna and Barbera, Simon and Garfunkel, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Missy Elliott and Timbaland… the list is MILES long.
