L*A*M*P Hosts "Top Producers Reveal All" 2004
By Lauri Shaw, MusicDish Reporter
Photos by Jim Steinfeldt

On Saturday, August 11, Los Angeles Music Productions hosted an event at the Bungalow Club titled "Top Producers Reveal All". The assembled panel of producers featured an impressive list of guest speakers, all with major credits in the music industry. They were there mainly to demystify the word "producer" to would-be artists, songwriters, arrangers and otherwise interested parties who sat in the audience.

After Leslie Waller, L*A*M*P's creator and CEO, gave her keynote address, Bernard Baur interviewed Nathaniel Kunkel for the audience. The interview was absolutely electric. Bernard is the Review Editor, Feature Writer and A&R columnist at Music Connection Magazine. His twenty-year background in the music business includes his work as an attorney and an A&R executive before becoming a journalist. Nathaniel Kunkel is a producer, an engineer and a technological innovator - he is also the creator of Studio Without Walls, a portable studio environment that includes clients as diverse as Barbra Streisand, Sting, and Insane Clown Posse (thus proving that what he has created crosses not just physical barriers, but also musical ones). The themes of this interview seemed to lead back to one simple observation made by Kunkel: "If you want to be truly successful, you must follow your heart. Otherwise, your success won't be repeatable. We're seeing plenty of evidence of this in the music industry right now."

Kunkel answered a lot of technical questions, but kept reminding the audience to continually be creative and to try new methods of their own - even methods of listening. "What is a good song and what is a produced song?" he asked rhetorically. "Over the course of their lives, people buy real music."

Next up was Denzil Foster (shown left pictured with Keith Cohen), a producer / songwriter and arranger who is known mainly for his work with female vocal acts such as En Vogue, Club Nouveau and Madonna. Foster's work has led him to help artists develop their careers, and he is looked upon as something of an expert in vocal mixing techniques. After a brief introduction and synopsis of his career, Foster played some examples of his work and deconstructed both the songwriting and the recording procedures for the audience. He cited his role as a producer by saying, "It's give and take with an artist. I allow the artist to do what they need to do, but at the end of the day I have to say something, because my job is to make the song commercially viable."

Asked his advice on how to bring forth an artist's best vocal performance, Foster replied, "I tell the artist to act like they are living the part, so that I can close my eyes and hear the emotion."

Lunch was split into two groups, so that one group could eat while the other group had a listening session. At these sessions, members of the audience played their own material for the producers. It was a rare opportunity for independent artists to have access to the wisdom and to the constructive criticism of these professionals.

The audience reunited mid-afternoon for a presentation by Rogers Masson, a producer and mixer whose clients include Marilyn Manson and Eric Clapton. Roger played two songs by an artist he works with. First he played the pre-production version to demonstrate the song structure. Then he played the finished arrangement, and explained how he had arrived there.

Masson made it a point to encourage would-be engineers to do what they could with their real-world recording conditions before relying on the many plug-ins and other quick-fix solutions built into ProTools. "I use ProTools as a tape deck," he explained. He also emphasized the importance of microphone placement, and cited "good mics, clean preamps" as vital ingredients that could make or break a recording.

The final presentation was the payoff - a panel consisting of Carlos Warlick (Quincy Jones, Babyface); Joe Warlick (Dr. Dre, Kanye West); Keith "KC" Cohen (Prince, Paula Abdul); Matt Forger (Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney); Dito Godwin (No Doubt, Motley Crue) and Marvin Etzioni (Counting Crows, Toad The Wet Sprocket). Ritch Esra, publisher of the Music Business Registry, moderated the panel.

Esra introduced the panel along with a quick speech about how much the industry continues to change. He discussed the "slenderizing of rosters" at the major labels, and the fact that the largest majors are merging with each other so rapidly that his prediction is: "In seven years we'll see them go from six to three." He noted that each of these mergers often leaves many dropped artists in its wake. "Anyone can make a record. But is this your career?" he asked the audience.

Then Esra addressed his questions to the panel.

"What is the role of a producer?" was the first question.

Joe Warlick said that in addition to producing the act, a producer sometimes shops the deal. Godwin mentioned that sometimes a producer parallels a film director, matching artists with songs and taking on other tasks formerly delegated to A&R. "It depends on the act," Cohen said, making it clear that there is no universal role for a producer, who can be asked to do anything and everything.

Esra asked the panel what qualities made them excited to work with a particular artist. All of the producers agreed that if they loved the music the artist made, then both time and money were secondary commodities, and that they would find a way to make the project happen.

Everyone unanimously stated that the hardest thing about being a producer was getting paid. "Working with people that closely makes it hard to talk about money," Cohen told the audience.

"Outside of the music itself," continued Esra, "What are the personal qualities that you can cite with some of the big names you have worked with that have made these people successful?"

"No Doubt was very focused, aware of their market and seemed to have an ability to know where they were headed," Godwin responded.

"Dre lives in the studio," Joe Warlick offered. "Some producers get a hit and then lose their focus, but he's in there for sixteen, eighteen hours at a time."

"Madonna's the hardest working person I've ever known," answered Cohen. "She had the trainers, the gym next to her room in the hotel.she worked out after every performance."

Esra pointed out that lately it seemed that artist development tasks were also winding up on the producer's plate.

"Development often falls on the shoulders of the artists themselves, and they are under more pressure now to understand both the creative and the business sides of music," said Forger, while Etzioni opined that in the next five years, artist development would receive a lot of attention from record labels. He stated that it looked as if labels might guarantee artists who self-develop a shot at a second or third album. "This is an exciting time for real artistry," Etzioni stated (pictured left with attendee Vic Fox).

"Success needs to be redefined," suggested Esra.

Etzioni summed up the whole day's theme when he invited the audience to learn their history in an effort to make timeless music. "Study the great artists of the last fifty years," he offered. "The Beatles wanted to be Elvis. Don't ask if this is the trend. Create the trend. Don't ask
permission - just do it."ADVISORY BOARD