An analog recording session with the band Flaming Fire at my place.
You can see the big tape machine in the back under the window

Musician walks into the control room of the recording studio - where the band listens back to their 1st performance of the day - and exclaims; OMG ! listen to that TAPE ! And he takes on a look of profound satisfaction and relief. And he owes this aural salvation to ..tape -- as opposed to digital.

 What's wrong with this moment ? (I wouldn't mention it had it not been tellingly repeated with other musicians and artists). Basically, tape got all the credit. My countless technical and creative choices were not the easy and comfortable explanation for the excellent sounds -- ahem.

Some things come with the territory.
 
Many musicians claim better results at analog/tape studios. Is it the gear, or the people and ears running the gear ? Older, more experienced engineers, or engineers with certain sensibilities at those studios might be the reason, as opposed to the tape itself.

I solicited a quote from another Brooklyn producer, Bryce Goggin (Pavement, Antony and the Johnsons, Phish, Sebadoh, Akron Family): "the true beauty of the medium is that analog recordings demand the participation of more professional operators. The limitations of analog recording enforce a level of discipline which digital does not. Sure the peak limiting is far smoother on analog....etc"

Well, more difficulty editing and fixing performances is one of those limitations of analog. And better musicians as well as engineers are more likely to be willing to work with those limitations (because they'll have less to fix), in order to get the hoped-for enhancement of tape. Better engineers and musicians = better sounding records no matter what

Aren't the sounds going to be only as good as the medium used to record them? And isn't some basic quality of that medium going to define the sound?

[sure, somewhat] - but comparing top end pro digital audio to analog is a lot closer than comparing say, film and video. Pro Digital is improving. The quality gap is closing

Brooklyn producer Joel Hamilton (Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Elvis Costello, Frank Black) of Studio G in Williamsburg chimed in with this (and he does use tape regularly): "None of the tape machines, which are simply tools for hanging on to something that me and the band fought very hard to collect, EVER made the record great for me. Conversely, none of the computer/digital based recording systems (including RADAR, ADAT, DAT or DASH ) EVER wrecked any of the records I made on them"

Credit and blame don't lie with the tools. Producers/engineers do what it takes to satisfy their ears.

Producers/engineers work hard to achieve a sound, alternately working with or against the recording medium. They try to achieve what's in their mind's ear. They don't capitulate to the sound inherent in the equipment or "capture format" (tape or digital conversion)

Joel Hamilton continues: "In both cases [digital and tape], I have to hear the result of the playback and make adjustments to everything affected by the capture format, to get the results we are looking/listening for. Mic position will always be 10 million times more important than the capture format"

Not all records made in the golden era of tape sounded great.

Please, please. When I started engineering in 1981, I was largely motivated by how much I hated the sounds of so many records.. not by LOVE. There was to my ear, more bad sounding records than good. I do wonder if the rose colored glasses of history are fully in place on this topic with most people. The great recordings of decades past are more likely to be remembered, and great music tends to flatter the recording (and vice versa)

Blaming the entire state of sound today on the "umbrella" technology of digital.

That would be like 20 years ago assuming that a pro analog recording would sound the same as recording onto a consumer analog cassette. In fact on the consumer level, digital and specifically MP3's are clearly worse than a good 'ole turntable was with decent vinyl. It's not surprising that people's vinyl sounds better than downloads on itunes. That shouldn't prejudice people to digital in the studio

Something's always retro.

Yep, there's a natural fear in people that "something is being lost" with changing technologies, lifestyles etc. It's human nature that someone's gonna be paranoid. So it makes sense that at the onset of digital in the 80's, some people asked "is the soul of music being lost, because it's being turned into digital 1's and 0's ?"

  "There is nothing to fear but fear itself" or ...see the advantages, and work on the rest


find Martin Bisi music and show dates on his Myspace

Me, with John Zorn cover in hand. Sonic Youth's Death Valley '69 pokin out in the back

 30 seems like one of those unfathomably big numbers for the anniversary of my recording music, in one location. I'll try to stay clear from any "what a long strange trip it's been" type stuff. I feel I mainly want to make a mundane commentary about life - a commentary about the basic, mundanity of life.

 Thankfully plenty of people, including me, can view my 30 years through rose colored glasses. But there was the mind-numbing boringness in between the standout records, and in fact sometimes *during* the standout records. The overwhelming magic was really there 1.5% of the time. An analogy would be touring, which I've done more of lately, and thankfully. You play 45min's sets, of which 1 in 5 is magical, and then it's welcome back to the nothing-to-somewhat-something, of moment to moment life. I don't want to be a big stick-in-the-mud and ungrateful sour puss, but I look back on -let me take a stab here- 5 or 6 very ground breaking records, and maybe 40 moderately so, and what I remember is that even the scenes surrounding the music, were much more underwhelming than the collective memory seems to make them.

 When I was very young -barely over 20- what seemed most exciting, was that my immediate peers and I were seemingly doing something important. The broader scene (downtown New York in the 80's/No Wave/post punk) seemed 88% mediocre and tiresome. But I am very happy that that era in New York has taken on a golden mantle. I'm grateful for some people's rose-colored view of that era, cause it has slightly enhanced my own memory. It's like when you show a visitor around town, and everything feels more interesting cause you share their viewpoint.

 One main thing I can say is that these 30 years seem to encompass a golden era in independent recording - from when it started to be more affordable and democratic, to now, when recording is extremely accessible and common, and concerns about quality are at a minimum

 Speaking of rose-colored glasses. Tom Antona from Alice Donut (a band I first recorded 17 years ago), wove a tale from stage the other night of fishing with me ("a young Martin Bisi") back in the day, at a polluted canal near the studio, and how we'd catch "magical", mutant fish with mutant butterflies flying around us - not exactly how I remember it, but a version I'd like to hang onto

 Well, if you want to stroll down memory lane with me, you can watch this video of when I took all the records down from the studio wall recently. The reasons for me doing it are complex, but I place each cover in a basket and "reminisce". They include indie stuff like Sonic Youth, Swans and Dresden Dolls, avant garde and World like John Zorn and Bill Laswell, and more mainstream records like Ramones, Iggy Pop and Herbie Hancock. This is part 1 of  5, but you can easily find the other segments:

VIDEO HERE

Find Martin Bisi on Myspace: www.myspace.com/theendcredits

The petty hierarchies of music - bands and songwriters

Let me premise this with saying that if I could, for every live show, I would list the musicians I'm playing with that night, as part of the billing. And in an ideal world there would be credits, like on an album, so everything was completely fair.

But why would that not work ? There needs to be a single name that tops everything, exclusively.

Well in jazz it can be different - particularly in instrumental, improvised jazz, where you sometimes see a list of musicians, as the band name. In that genre there is such an ethic of equality of musicians, that even 1 musician writing the songs, undermines the primacy of the players, so that's partly why it has to be improvised. They often eschew vocals with lyrics also, because they must know that words tend grab people's attention more than a pick hitting a guitar string.

You might point out that many classic rock bands are collaborative endeavors. But still there is the front person. Somehow there is that one person who enjoys being more public, and is in fact often better at it. Even bands with a strong stick-together ethic, will see just 1 or 2 people doing all the talking. Often there are the straight up interviews with the front person, and interviews with anyone else, will have a "behind the scenes" tone.

So far, what I'm suggesting is known to everybody - it takes all kinds. And in music its: extroverts and introverted specialists, lyricists and instrumentalists. But the truth is, this makes things ripe for unfairness. And we all play into it.

If you argue that lyrics are especially important, or that the songwriter/composer are who really make the music mean something, you have to recognize that in most cases there's a pretty steep hierarchy involved. Songs and lyrics need to be realized, and without the chemistry and talent of other musicians, no one may ever have heard certain songs or lyrics. So there's a symbiosis there of all the people who go into recording or performing music. You can even say that not all the components are equal. But honestly, in the end result, they end up very - very, un-equal

For something so symbiotic as a musical performance, or recording, it's striking how much it's TOP-MAN-TAKE-ALL. But still, We relate to a singular name, and identity for something. So this petty hierarchy as I call it, is not likely to ever change

I say this from years of inside experience on both sides of the issue. Even as a record producer, my role has been similar to that of a another musician on the record.  And I have my own band, with a revolving group of musicians, so uuhh... we just use MY NAME.. it just "makes sense". But I stand to benefit very disproportionally from anything good that could happen - cause my name is right there at the top

I'll just end with this - Think of music history. History is written and remembered as a collection of those single names - TOP-MAN-TAKE-ALL. And everyone else is a footnote. Thankfully, there are those who really care to look in depth at everything and everyone that went into the music. So, that's something I suppose

You can find Martin Bisi's songs and live appearances on my Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theendcredits

The US constitution on COPYRIGHTS - To promote the Progress of Science [includes literature] and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors [..] the exclusive Right to their respective Writings...

So the constitution is clear here -"clear" ? ha ha, I'm in trouble already. Congress is mandated to promote innovation in knowledge and art. And a key component is the right granted to creators over their work.

This is going to be a long process where we fight over the rules that dominate the information age. We've been spared the messiest phase of this battle because for several decades the technology to deliver information, outpaced the technology to copy it. In the music industry and community, we've focused on unauthorized downloading, but unfortunately the debate is on a scale involving the essence of culture and group communication. This has broadened the issues to the point where it becomes difficult to apply any of the principles to a specific problem. Disney cartoon characters are a completely different type of conception than Martin Luther King's "I Had A Dream" speech, or than news reports in a daily newspaper, or than scientific research papers - but copyright laws apply to all these. 

I like the wording in the constitution. To all of us, an artist's ownership of his work is intuitive. We understand that "creative control" is important. We don't want an artist's work to be changed by someone outside that creative process, ie: someone at a record label. We bristle at radio edits that change a revered song. We generally want the creation to be a clear expression by that individual artist, unmodified - it is not society's - it is self expression.   

  Yet somehow in the fray, copyright and the concept of intellectual property has been demonized - largely the result of aggressive tactics by large business interests, and the ensuing backlash. Innovative organizations such Creative Commons have promoted important new concepts in copyright, with what I see as a heavy dose of fear-mongering. According to Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig: "..creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past". Well I don't know too many musicians for whom that statement would apply. Not too many want to include a snippet or sample of Britney Spears in their songs anymore. Also, not all those you might seek permission from, are "powerful".  It's not as simple as us against them. There are casualties right here, amongst us.

I believe the more one knows of how the middle level of the music business works -independent labels, distributors and booking agents- the more one supports intellectual property rights.

Some of the issues as they pertain to downloading and independent music culture:

Free sharing benefits artists

 Providing free, but limited, products and services to generate demand is as old as commerce itself - ie: "the first one's free", "special introductory rate".Providing promotional, free copies of music to radio stations is nothing new. And even as far back as the 70's, The Grateful Dead were authorizing unlimited bootleg recordings of their live shows. That made obvious business sense for them, because they were a gigantic live act and could simply sell tickets.

So it's important to artists and their labels to control and select what is given away promotionally. That's business, and if that's a dirty word for some people, that seems to suggest that artists shouldn't be able to earn money from their creations. Music making is expensive - both recorded and live. Where there's music reaching the people, someone is treating it like a business

Some people are suggesting music itself shouldn't have to be paid for, only performance - live performance.

"If all the money is on the road, why not give out more recorded product free" Bob Lefsetz (The Lefsetz Letter - music industry blog) on Twitter

 Taking to an extreme, I believe diversity in the art of recording would suffer. A recording budget basically pays for the 1st copy, so you need to sell subsequent copies to justify the initial expense. And having time to spend in the studio with good equipment and acoustics, is part of a tradition of great record making. But we're seeing how large recording studios are closing in droves, and large live-music venues are multiplying. That shows how things follow the dollar. I believe that despite the renewed popularity of vinyl, most people don't really care about recording quality. There are few audiophiles amongst us. But we should know there's a cost here. There are also many important creators in recordings - producers, engineers, arrangers, extra musicians - who would not receive royalties if records are not sold - or would not be hired in the first place.

The enduring importance of labels.

The music industry is like the financial industry, in that it has shrunk but has not disappeared. There is a whole infrastructure that has remained entrenched, and on some fronts is being re-enforced. One reason is that there is a flood of self-released records. Many publications - like on-line megazine Pitchfork - have an official policy of only reviewing music that is on a recognized label, maintaining the old vetting system of record labels. Also, booking agents will usually only consider artists who are on a label that's based in their territory - they know that an entity interested in selling the music itself in that territory, is necessary to help create awareness.

Less new artists are being signed to labels big and small.

Many well regarded small labels have greatly curtailed the signing of new artists. This feels like the equivalent of banks chocking off the supply of credit. An example would be Young God Records which discovered Devendra Banhart (other artists include Akron Family, Larkin Grimm). The label has turned down many worthwhile artists because of diminished revenue from distribution

Is downloading truly to blame?

On average, yes. The tanking of the record industry has been across the board, hitting both Davids and Goliaths - and it was underway many years before the current economic turndown. Napster just passed it's 10 year anniversary

The penalty for unauthorized downloading ?

I feel it should be a social taboo - like not tipping your bartender or driving a gas guzzling SUV. With that in mind, I'd like to say how gratifying it is to see music blogs taking a lead on this. Most blogs that post MP3's urge you to buy it, if you enjoy it.

Why are some fans not getting this?

There's a misplaced schadenfreude about the music business collapse

And there's a misperception about the term "independent". There's an assumption that the machinery of the industry only applies to the major labels, when actually the machinery is very similar on a small scale. Also many artists with large fan bases who make a big point of their independence, were once on big labels and benefited from the big promotional push. And many perceived DIY artists, are actually on small labels, and work with small booking agencies. Once an artist goes beyond his home region for extended periods, true DIY starts being impossible - an artist needs to tie into some kind of machine. So small out-of-sight music biz entities that are in jeopardy, don't get the kind of sympathy that small businesses get in our physical neighborhoods.

Different rules apply to the rock elite.

When Nine Inch Nails released Year Zero in 2007. Trent Reznor told fans in Australia to "steal the record" - in protest of the Recording Industry Association of America's outrageous lawsuits against individual downloaders. But yet his record had sold 187,000 in its first week, and reached #2 in Billboard. I don't personally know any touring musicians who could afford to ask audience members to steal their records from the merch table. Records sold at shows are a crucial means of financing a tour for independent artists

Musician ghetto and the fan base paradox.

It seems like there are always those who will have fans, including Myspace miracle buzz bands with viral fan bases. And it's now generally easier to build on an existing fan base.

 But it's hard to know what we're missing. It's hard to know why artists drop off the radar. So when you really know the situation intimately, you see the contradictions - apparently successful artists unable to tour with extra musicians, or to record at a good studio. Many are increasingly asking for donations,,, $5, $10, $20 helps.

 It's hard for the public to see artists as workers in the classic sense - who's livelihoods we have a common interest to protect. Intuitively people see the arts as a wild west niche in society. A tremendous amount of ideas are not really seeing the day - many artists have to simply give up. You can apply the notion that the true visionaries will persevere, and so even independent music is a Darwinian sink-or-swim ruthless environment.

A lot of music is shrinking away in horror.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors [..] the exclusive Right to their respective Writings..."

Check Martin Bisi West Coast tour dates - June 16-21:

And visit him online at  myspace.com/theendcredits

By Martin Bisi


On the way to an event last night called "Dances Of Vice," I was planning this blog post about irony, and trying to define the different possible threads of irony in music.
 
So the event is themed, with most people in Victorian or fantasy clothing, and all the musical performances involve cellos, violins, and harps - everything very baroque. I walk to the side of the stage and I see a Flying V guitar. I think, OMG, how ironic ! The Flying V is a staple of hard rock/metal -almost the opposite of what the event was about. Then i see a capo clipped to the guitar. (A capo is a common accessory of folk music, and metal guitarists as a rule will not use them.) So the irony pleasure-center in my brain goes into double, triple overload. I ask the people around me about the guitar, excitedly pointing out the irony. The guitarist (for performer Fern Knight) is somehow summoned, and he says "don't see one of those (a capo), on a Flying V too often, huh". I think that might have been a first in history actually.

 So that's almost a textbook definition of irony - something being in a context outside of how it's normally defined. But something about our use of the word with music, has always suggested to me the assumption that it was a new phenomenon.
 
The first time I was confronted with the issue of irony, was in the very early days of 80s indie rock, around the time I was recording bands like Live Skull and Sonic Youth. A friend of mine who specialized in Middle Eastern string instruments, and worked with Bill Laswell, said to me disparagingly: "there's a whole lot of irony going on" —in reference to indie rock. I thought he meant that elements, primarily lyrics, were going into the music for the sake of being funny. I'm sure you can find funny songs in every culture. And all cultures have at least 2 distinct musical disciplines - sacred, and social music. In social, popular music -music for the people- you will have had humor, for as long as people had a sense of humor. So maybe when a type of humor in music is old and established, we just wouldn't call it ironic. Somehow Johnny Cash singing "A Boy Named Sue", or "I killed a man in Reno.." isn't ironic, but Sonic Youth singing "We're gonna kill the California girls.." is. (And that's ironic in itself)

The other type of irony is using an instrument or method that is normally considered bad, and suggesting that it's actually good, and doing it consciously. The way I just described it, you'd think we'd encourage that, and we do - when it works. But when it doesn't work, we can dismiss it as a fad, or a pointless, vacuous attempt at irony. So when you add a kazoo solo in a rock song you're ironic, but when you add distorted guitar to polka beats it could be the record of the year - hello Gogol Bordello.
 
Very recently, I threw the irony card at someone. I said to Amanda Palmer (from Dresden Dolls) who has been doing more songs on ukulele, that the ukulele was an "ironic instrument". I asked: "where is the Jimi Hendrix of ukulele ?"—"why hasn't Philip Glass composed for ukulele ?". For those who've missed this, using a ukulele has been falling into a sub-genre called Steam Punk - people with a punk attitude who use non-electric instruments, such as one would find during the time of steam engines. (Can I write irony in all caps here ?) Well innovation wouldn't be innovative, if it made sense to everyone at first, and what if the steam-punks prove punk doesn't need loud guitar ? A little more time might tell.

 I've suggested that traditional music is insulated from being thought of as having irony. Same holds for so-called serious music. In my young engineering years, I worked with Fred Frith who is a notable avant garde innovator, viewed by many as serious. He once said to me: "sometimes when music is really good, it's funny". And Frith is well known for laughing copiously during sessions. I think it's because of the combinations of things he would try—and when they'd sound good to him, it was like the irony in a good joke.

I think if he had found that the right choice in a piece of music was a Flying V guitar with a capo on it, he would have laughed his ass off.

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. Visit him at www.myspace.com/theendcredits.
 

By Martin Bisi

When telling a story about a time in history, what does the teller owe society? Can a small truth about a time in history, contradict the larger, socially progressive, educated truth? What if the story teller wades into the small-scale, inter-personal stories that are the back drop to any moment in time? Can there be a conflict? controversy ? Yes.

Gone With The Wind, the 1939 mega-blockbuster Hollywood movie, romanticized the old South and glossed over the great injustices of that era. One subject of controversy, was the image of a slave crying in sympathy for her masters. The view of history Gone With The Wind projected, is not the one we want to teach our children, or put forth as a society, especially in 1939.

But that does raise a difficult question. With the millions of slaves in the old South, is it not a certainty that some slaves cried for their masters? It's the tip of a small iceberg. There were likely love affairs, elopements--many kinds of relationships under the radar, that an artist may want to elaborate on.

But what if the artist lived in that era?

Phillis Wheatley was a slave, and poet, living in Boston in the colonial era. She was first published in the 1760's, at the age of 14. Her masters placed a high premium on education in their home, and having recognized Wheatley's talent in writing early on, they introduced her to the literary elite of Boston, and helped advance her career. Wheatley barely mentioned slavery, or race in her poems, even after she was freed later in life. And there was a positive tone in her writings, in regards to Boston and the colonies in general. She was later sharply criticized within the civil rights movement of the 1960's, for presenting a flattering picture of her world.

General opinion on Wheatley has been more forgiving in the last few decades. It reminds me of how some scenes in Schindler's List ('93) may have been unacceptable 60 years ago - particularly the one where Schindler, still wearing his lapel-pin swastika, even after the fall of the 3rd Reich, suddenly grasps it and collapses in tears, not because of what the symbol may have meant to him, but because he realizes he could have saved one more life, had he sold it. We can accept now that there was a gray area there, and it's valuable to depict it.

How interesting that in the present, we can accept that most artists are like Phillis Wheatley. Most current artists don't include the wars and injustices of our time, in their creative expression. And most of us know that a lot happens between the bad headlines, that needs to be expressed. But when the battle is on, for defining an era in history, art is expected to serve the writing of history. History needs to be taught in blacks and whites. One group invaded the other --period--not, some people fell in love, a barbarian hugged a child, things were nice temporarlily in a certain week, and, a woman eyed her reflection in a store window. Why am I suddenly giggling (stop that)?

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. Visit him at www.myspace.com/theendcredits.

By Martin Bisi

The explosion of energy I saw on Brooklyn's streets after the Obama win, recedes into the background. And I feel I'm looking at an economic and social playing field that is now undeniably different. The financial crisis has brought a shift in the dynamics of how the neighborhoods will change in the coming years. And I do believe neighborhoods like everything else, occupy the 4th dimension of time, so their identity exists in the context of history and change. The result of the election also has brought about a massive shift, in the mental realm - how 2.5 million residents see their connection with the rest of the continent. That these two forces would occur simultaneously, almost gives a sense of cosmic synchronicity - paradigm shifts occur at break points.

Compared to the near spiritual feelings about Obama's election, the downsizing of the economy in Brooklyn is the yang, to Obama's yin. I live across the street from an empty lot that has been the anticipated location of a mega Whole Foods market, with rooftop parking - for years. That plan is now dead in the water. If the company does open its first Brooklyn branch, the official plan is now to do it on a much smaller scale. Atlantic Yards, the gargantuan development project for Downtown Brooklyn, is also being scaled back by an indefinite amount. Common sense suggests it will be scaled way back. That project was so iconic of the over-development of Brooklyn, that it inspired the slogan "Don't supersize Brooklyn". Well I wish I'd gotten the T shirt with those words when I had the chance. Those words are not exactly relevant anymore, and that's what happens in a paradigm shift - concepts and words need to be re-defined, discarded, replaced.

I'll throw in another word - gentrification. That word was the lightening rod for all the cultural, economic and political ire of the last 15 years in Brooklyn. At issue was the opening of many businesses that catered to economically upscale customers, and the consequences of that. I can say for myself, that the termination of the Whole Foods project across the street, is making my living status feel more secure. The closing of a Starbucks a couple miles from me - in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn - must have a similar effect on some of the residents there.

So with the heat turned down from 10, to maybe 7, the whole phenomenon of gentrification can be looked at more objectively. Some of the obvious contradictions - like the mutual reliance of valuable culture and the influx of educated, moneyed residents - make the classic 'gentrification' analysis inadequate for the tensions sure to come. We are also now stuck with the harsh downside, that economic downsizing means less employment, and a different kind of challenge.

It seems things can only be perfect for a blink of an eye - sigh. So I'm glad I hit the streets of Brooklyn on election night - definitely, a unique moment of collective elation.  

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. Visit him at www.myspace.com/theendcredits.

THE CRAZY HOMICIDES: Twilight of the Old Brooklyn

Waxing nostalgic for a stylish street gang and the spirit of the city they tormented.

Last month I took a car service into Manhattan from my neighborhood in Brooklyn. The driver was a Dominican or Puerto Rican about my age. The conversation quickly embarked on "the changing of the neighborhood," the most common form of small talk in NY since 'Where were you on 9-11?' This stroll down memory lane turned into a'Where are they now?' of a peculiar group of Brooklyn residents in the late 70's-mid 80's: The Crazy Homicides.

You could easily pick them out all over Park Slope, Sunset Park and Gowanus, cause they had a specific style. They all wore Civil War-type, Union cavalry hats--the kind with a small bill and a flat droopy top, and motorcycle-type leather jackets. My driver gleefully boasted, "My brother was one of their leaders. He was a very, very funny guy." I was stunned and shot back, "I was mugged once by a group of the them, and the one who did all the talking, was in fact, very, very funny!" The driver, without any sign of discomfort retorted "yep, that was probably my brother."

He continued with a gushing description of one of his brother's top career accomplishments--a victorious battle about eight blocks from where my recording studio was then, and is now. "[The rival gang] left the pool hall and were hanging on 10th St. My brother knew that they were waiting for more guys, so when they were about 30, he sent 20 of his guys down from 5th Ave., and another 20 up from 4th Ave. He had them trapped--six or seven of them ended up in the hospital." Ahhhh--epic Brooklyn history.

So, this is how my own "funny" encounter with The Crazy Homicides went, 27 years ago.

I was walking near my recording studio with Bill Laswell (Material, and major record producer). He was my studio/roommate at the time. Three Crazy Homicides approached from behind: "Hello, we're Brooklyn muggers, and you have to give us your money." The put-on announcer voice was disarming. I turn around to see three guys with big smiles, grasping big screwdrivers, in Union cavalry hats. The jovial tone made me decline the demand for money, and we kept walking.

Me and Laswell made the mistake of starting to talk about music. "Oh, artists," the funny guy says. "Now we'll have to throw you in the Gowanus Canal." The canal was, and is today, a fetid and toxic body of water on the edge of Park Slope. I quickly coughed up $40.

The mugging really ate Laswell up. A couple weeks later, we had seminal hip-hop artist Afrika Bambaataa at the studio. Bam, as everyone calls him, had himself been the leader of a gang in The Bronx called The Black Spades, that he later transformed into the pacifist and utopian Zulu Nation. There always were a handful of young devotees from the group following him around. Laswell had the vision of a great moment, The Zulu Nation taking an assertive stand against The Crazy Homicides in a defiant display of confidence. So, off they all go for "a walk," unbeknownst to Bam, to find the Homicides.

Laswell spots a few of them in a Blimpie. "Yo, why we goin' to Blimpie?" Bam inquires.

Now Bam had quite a gregarious style, as you might imagine an African king--leopard cap, lots of  jewelry, a staff. As they walk into Blimpie, the Homicides turn to face Laswell and Bam in a moment of silence. Then one of them bursts out: "Yo, it's Mr. T !" The two watch stonefaced as the Homicides burst into a torrent of laughter, practically falling out of their seats. "Hey, Mr. T!"

(For those too young to remember, Mr T. was a very popular black action movie and TV star who sported a heavy gold jewelry style, years before mainstream rappers like LL Cool J and Run DMC wore heavy gold chains.)

Back in the cab--2008--two men from Park Slope, Brooklyn are reminiscing about a neighborhood that's practically been erased from memory. I found myself lamenting the demise of a violent neighborhood gang, who had style and humor, and in that sense seemed kind of smart. We arrived at my destination, and the tone in the cab changed.

Sadness overtook the driver's face as he says, "Sorry about the $40." I don't think the look of sadness was about the $40, because he still charged me $30 for the ride. I think that in apologizing, it became clear that we'd moved forward, but that there's a trade-off. And that part of us that is mythologized with Jesse James and the OK Corral, and Don Corleone in The Godfather, is really just below the skin, periodically finding a toehold in our aspiring utopias.

By coincidence, I decided to buy a new lock for my door tomorrow, because I didn't feel safe enough. I think that ties it together nicely.

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. Visit him at www.myspace.com/theendcredits.

WHAT IS PUNK?

Everything and nothing.

1977—I'm in high school. I ride the subway at night instead of giving 100% to my homework. Uh... “Why?” Graffiti. Yes, that was my empowering activity as a young man. I was contributing to the prodigious chaos that decorated the subway walls and doors of the day. Tellingly, we called this 'bombing' the trains This visual assault of color and seemingly meaningless words, was for the average subway rider, a perfect metaphor for the unhinging of society in the late 70's—the urban blight era that will surely have a mythic place in American history, similar to the Wild West.

Where does punk come in? It was being born concurrently. Well, truthfully, to use the child-bearing metaphor, it had already been conceived invisibly somewhere, and had developed anonymously, and had now been thrust into the larger world, with a name and identity. Punk rock was a living idea, something human beings bear into the world from time to time, and other human beings recognize as being ‘of them’.

That's what happened to me, and that idea was first articulated to me through the Sex Pistols. Punk appeared to be a musical extension of what I was seeking through graffiti. There were shared ethics of simple and neutral concepts—my tag was the utterly meaningless Tag-e—of self projection for its own sake—you just want to ‘get up’ and share a common reveling in the human chaos of society.

Graffiti collectively was a jumble, a mess, so as this was the year of Saturday Night Fever, of slick sharp clothing and dance moves, something downtown called me—loudly. Soon, I'd meet two or three punks, and found that punk was a vague ideal, already morphing, but threaded through everything that was downtown and underground.

When downtown, I quickly realized I had to shut up about the Sex Pistols. I also had to shut up about punk. It wasn't ‘til five years or so later—when it was timely to say 'post-punk'—that people from the downtown scene I knew would acknowledge the connection. But in the meantime, there was a scramble downtown to identify oneself with punk-like movements. People who would later develop indie rock, made no-wave. Avant-gardists like John Zorn adulated hardcore. I knew two places I could count on finding punks, Max's Kansas City, and hanging out upstairs at Mudd Club. They seemed to have their dedicated niches.

So I'll tell you what I thought punks in '77 were like. I ran two of my dicier assertions past bona fide punks Legs McNeil and Lydia Lunch and I'll also tell you what they said:

—Punk was working class. There wasn't a high value placed on sophisticated, nuanced lyricism.

—Punk was apolitical. Since Punk saw itself as re-claiming youth culture and rock n' roll from the 60's and the 'Age of Aquarius', punk wasn't very bleeding heart.

Legs McNeil, founder of Punk Magazine author of Please Kill Me—and coiner of the term ‘punk,’ responds: "For the most part, punk in NYC was tired of the Vietnam War and leftist politics that stifled creativity in the early 1970's, but that doesn't mean we were apolitical. And whoever wanted to be political was allowed to be. I mean, you didn't have to ask permission, that's what it was all about."

—Punk was masculine. Men wore leather jackets reminiscent of 50's gangs. The masculinity affected women in that they were either bomb shell types, or fairly butch—and of course an edgy, and socially outgoing personality was essential. The nerdy/ cool girl who was more bookish than brash, was celebrated in later post-punk/ indie rock.

Lydia Lunch, front woman of Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, responds “…Or were butch bombshells—when punk first hit, there was a squadron of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Types—tough-talking bombshells who had graduated out of the glam scene which was all about style, sex and blurring the boundaries of what was accepted. Hot shit chicks who'd just as soon fuck you as fight you, or preferably both, simultaneously. Sex was still a pretty vicious weapon, especially when wielded as both bait and trap, wrapped in leather and tucked between a pair of thunderous thighs, whose greatest joy was squeezing the life out of an unsuspecting punk monkey.” (Yes, indeedy.)

—Punk bands put on a show. They may have eschewed large drum kits, fog machines and big lighting, but The Ramones still did similar rock posturing on stage to big commercial rock acts. Iggy the proto-punk, acted more like Mick Jagger on stage than Thurston Moore.

—Punks valued the will-to-do, over time-perfected know-how.

—Punks felt spontaneity was the best context, therefore the presentation of anything was best left haphazard and imperfect.

So music related to the punk movement, quickly veered away these original tenets. The Clash were punk, but the social consciousness so tiresome to the original punks, was part of their punk energy. The heavy dogmas of kids in the punkish Hardcore scene, were in contradiction to the nihilism of punk. College educated and ironic indie-rockers like Sonic Youth, still did Ramones and Stooges covers. The grunge/Nirvana era essentially proclaimed itself punk in the film The Year Punk Broke ('91). Metal technicians Metallica eventually cut their hair and covered Ramones songs. And recently The Dresden Dolls—with their heavy theatrical makeup and moody tango/ ballad interludes—hyphenated punk into their self proclaimed genre, punk-cabaret.

Why is punk such a grand concept, that so many scramble to define it in their own way, and appropriate it? Hyphenating punk never goes out of style, because punk directly reflected the vacancy of American life without truly escaping it. Because it gave the juvenile delinquent status as an intellectual. But were punks the first to do so? Maybe not. But when punk got its name, straightforward, unembellished (in true punk fashion) and a face or two (or nine or 17) to give it life, it became an archetype for Americans like me.

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. Visit him at www.myspace.com/theendcredits.