| ||
 | ||
|
Matt Resnicoff: A Musician's musician
By Steven Ward Matt Resnicoff crossed a line. The former Musician Senior Editor and Guitar Player and Guitar World writer is now a professional guitarist and record producer. During the e-mail interview below, Resnicoff talks about working for Musician (a magazine he once described as "The New Yorker of music magazines"), and the good and not-so-good aspects of interviewing and writing about musicians. Although he doesn't miss his music-writing past, he admits it was fun working with such talented people.
Resnicoff gained a reputation among Musician readers when, in 1991, he penned an unflattering cover profile of Eddie Van Halen, prompting a phone call from the band's manager, who physically threatened him. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it's a truth Matt wasn't willing to hurt for much longer.
(Photo of Matt Resnicoff by Sharon Case.) Steven: First off, we haven't seen
your byline in any music magazines in ages. I know you are a musician and
have produced some records. Where are you living these days and what have
you been up to lately?
Matt: I'm in New York, where I've been
all my life, with the exception of what in hindsight seem like extended
West Coast vacations. But out there I actually worked quite a bit: I played
guitar and sang on Reeves Gabrels' new record Rockonica,
co-produced and sang on Wooden Smoke by Mike Keneally, and also
worked with Steve Lukather and Larry Carlton on a record that won a Grammy
a couple years back. The latest thing I produced is Phil deGruy's Just
Duet; Phil is (was?) a New Orleans-based "guitarpist" who sounds like
nothing else I know, and we're very grateful because all the reviews have
been really positive.
I'd always played music on the side, and one reason I quit
Musician was to refocus on that. But soon afterward I was asked to
co-produce Pat Martino's comeback album for Blue Note, and the next thing I
knew I was in the studio with Les Paul, Kevin Eubanks, Cassandra Wilson,
Michael Hedges and a bunch of others. Then the people I was producing found
out I could play, so I picked up the guitar again. It was pretty
anticlimactic to go back to writing after that, though I did try
freelancing for a while. Even more recently, my dad finally corralled me
into the real-estate business, which by comparison makes the horrible music
industry seem like a charming community of selfless do-gooders.
Steven: Let's go back. Where was your
first piece of music journalism published? Was it a review, an interview?
If so, who with? And how did it all happen?
Matt: I was in college upstate in the
mid-'80s and came to NYC frequently to hear bands. On one occasion, as I
was pressing my nose against the window of the Bottom Line hours before an
Allan Holdsworth gig, a famous journalist named Bill Milkowski announced
himself to the guard, and because I'd enjoyed so much of his stuff in
Down Beat, I buttonholed him as he was going inside. He let me
watch the soundcheck with him while he waited to talk to Allan for
Guitar World, and although--or maybe because--I was a wayward
college junior with absolutely no connection to the music world, he offered
to let me help do the interview and put my name somewhere in the piece, so
I could later show it to the editor. So that was my first "published
interview," though I didn't write the final story--but that didn't stop me
from scouring every newsstand in town every other day, not realizing it
took at least three months for anything to appear in a monthly magazine!
Then right after graduation, Guitar World hired me as an editor,
and my first articles were a short thing on Craig Chaquico and then a big
feature on Joe Walsh.
Steven: Did you always want to write
about music or was your journalism career an accident?
Matt: The whole thing was utterly--or,
since I call Milkowski "the Milkman"--udderly by chance. It so happened
that my enthusiasm for music dovetailed with an English major's ability to
write and edit, which is just a default educational setting for the lazy or
undecided. I always felt school robbed me of my music and that music
distracted from school, so in stumbling into that career, the vacillation
finally got put to work. I'm not sure I'd have elected to do it, especially
after finding out how little the field of music journalism has to do with
music, or an actual love of music. It took a few years for that grim
reality to set in, and by the time I left Musician I could see a
pretty alarming trajectory in my excitement level and my awareness about
how ruinous the business side can be. I distinctly remember during the
early '80s devouring consecutive issues of Musician featuring Pete
Townshend and Ed Van Halen--delicious irony since Pete was a primary reason I had
any success in music journalism, and Eddie a catalyst for my ultimately
deciding the field wasn't for me.
Steven: Tell us about when and how you
first hooked up with Musician.
Matt: In a roundabout move typical of
this business. I'd met Bill Flanagan, who was then Musician's
Executive Editor, at a party while I was still an editor at Guitar
World, and was too awestruck to think I'd ever hear from him again. In
the meantime my Guitar World gig started to sour, and I did a
brief stint as the New York Editor of Guitar Player, a great
magazine which rescued me from arguing all day with Guitar World
publishers who thought "bass" was a fish. All of a sudden I was sitting on
a drum platform in an English airplane hangar surrounded by Pete Townshend,
Roger Daltrey, and John Entwistle as they rehearsed their 1989 set. It was
just a surreal experience for a Who fan, and resulted in a lengthy
interview with Peter that spanned two issues of Guitar Player.
Immediately after becoming Editor-in-Chief of Musician, Flanagan
looked me up to say that the piece was the sort of thing he'd like to see
in his magazine, and offered to make me Senior Editor. Guitar
Player's Tom Wheeler--a sage and gentleman, calmly hearing this news
within only months of hiring me--acknowledged it was a big step up for me
and handed me over to Bill.
Steven: What writers at
Musician did you love to read, and what editors were your
favorites to work with and why?
Matt: My favorite writers were Mark
Rowland, Chuck Young, Bill, Chip Stern, and of course Vic Garbarini, who
was sort of the Syd Barrett of the magazine--a spectral presence whose
vision still informed the concept but who'd unfortunately stopped working
for us long before I got there. Mark was a fine editor and incredibly sweet
guy who could turn out a great piece on anyone or anything, but he worked
on the West Coast so we saw him all too rarely. Between being in those
guys' orbit, and being handed copy by cats like Jon Pareles to edit, it was
a total rush. As far as direct editing and day-to-day stuff, I really only
worked with Bill, whom I still regard as among the most keenly brilliant
people I've encountered in any field, and one of the more emotionally
unapproachable. He didn't really have that avuncular quality, which I'd
attribute to us both being relatively young for our respective
positions--he called me "the kid" for most of my time at the magazine, even
though I was 23--and because of that distance, much of what I learned from
him was through observation and inference. I'd have liked knowing him
better, but like I said, I was the first person he ever hired. So there
might have been a certain proprietary awkwardness complicating our
occasional bouts, but I was and am deeply indebted to him for his
confidence in my abilities, which manifested in plum assignments, and more
indirectly in him leaving things in my hands for weeks at a time while he
went overseas to research and write books. I don't think I secretly wanted
his job, but I must say I coveted his fiercely acute ability to do it and
so many other things at once. I watched him make highly creative decisions
and turn out topflight copy on a moment's notice in an office spinning with
distractions.
As I consider this now, it's funny that I was young and insecure enough
to take perverse pride in how these much older guys valued my work enough
to overlook the age and personality differences. What buoyed me was Bill's
professional faith in me, so that even when I'd irritated an interviewee
(sometimes with a specific question he'd told me to ask, though he'd never
admit it), he stood by my work, protected my more provocative articles (and
my physical safety) from our advertising department, and sent me on stories
I was too intimidated to write. I'd told him about the very early stages of
Frank Zappa's illness, and he immediately instructed me to fly out and do
the interview, insisting upon it when I hesitated; he later called it the
best piece to appear in the magazine that year, which just knocked me out.
Steven: Let's talk about your infamous
1992 dual profiles of David Gilmour and Roger Waters. You interviewed both
men for Musician covers around the time of Waters' third solo
album, Amused to Death. The Gilmour profile ran first. He made fun
of Waters' skills as a musician and his leadership methods. During your
interview with Waters, there was interesting exchange between you two where
Waters accuses you of dredging up his fight with Gilmour to just sell
magazines. You included the back and forth in the interview and held your
own. Did you and the editors ever think about excluding that? Also, looking
back, what are your thoughts on those two profiles?
Matt: Exchanges like those were
often the spine of the pieces. The only gripes about offensive or
controversial material were usually raised by the ad guys and, to Bill's
credit, shot down except in egregious circumstances. Not that we were
intent on raking muck, we just wanted the stories to come in from angles no
other magazine could or would address. "Controversy" in big business can be
caused by the simple act of saying something true--not necessarily unseemly
personal stuff, but, for instance, evocations of an artist's weaknesses or
creative stagnation, things which nobody on that artist's payroll wants
broadcast by a prestigious journal. Or as with my encounter with Ed
Van Halen, confronting a truly great musician about questionable
musical choices, which brought on a shitstorm of pointless aggravation and
cost us advertisers even though my approach was fairly benign. Keep in mind
that this was 15 years ago, when few music-media outlets existed, and even
fewer had access to this echelon of artists. How many journalists getting
to sit for hours with such heavy musicians--and we demanded much more time
than even the mainstream press--would risk this or future interviews by
asking tough questions? This is what gave our magazine its purpose and
audience. Whatever sacrifice the policy brought on with certain artists or
record labels at least accrued to our credibility, which is why important
musicians usually listed us among the two or three magazines they'd talk
to. And because there are no ad guys in the room now, I can tell you that
our circulation was a scant, scant fraction of the others on that short
list.
(From the Letters page in Musician, June, 1991) As far as the Floyd stories, I wasn't aware they were infamous or
remarkable in any way, apart from my nearly getting killed on the
expressway on the way to Waters' house. I do know that of the many articles
I've done, they're among those most often pirated on the Web, which did
kill my foreign-language reprint income. But they were both relaxed,
polite, aristocratic chaps. I know David to be a committed bandleader and
genuine music fan; I've run into him at Gary Moore and Joe Satriani shows,
and he did enjoy that story enough to ring me at home and ask if he could
include it in the hardcover book that accompanied the Pink Floyd box set.
They say if a subject ends up liking you, you're not a very good
journalist, so I guess in that respect the piece was a failure. In
retrospect, I'm far more jazzed that he liked the guitar licks I'd played
on my outgoing answering-machine message at the time.
Steven: Most of your profiles in
Musician were of guitarists--Jimmy Page in 1990, Mark Knopfler in
1990, Slash in 1992, Jeff Beck in 1993, Frank Zappa in 1991, just to a name
a few. Was it as simple as: you were a guitar player yourself, so that's
why you were drawn to those guys, or was it something else?
Matt: Mostly that I played, and
sometimes the only way to unravel these guys journalistically was to have
someone conversant do those interviews. In many cases I already knew the
person so it was easier to get in touch, or we assumed they'd be more
comfortable talking with someone they'd dealt with before. But it was just
as interesting, and often refreshing, to talk with Sonny Rollins, Carmen
McRae or Bowie, because sometimes you can find out more by not having as
much familiarity as you would if the subject played your instrument. We
didn't go at it from the scripted, clichéd guitar-magazine perspective, or
at least I didn't; I think the idea at Musician was to treat them
as artists rather than technicians, and to explore that side of their work
as it related to the overall creative process.
Steven: Why did you leave
Musician? Looking back, what are your thoughts on
Musician magazine in general, and do you think any music magazine
out there today comes close to what Musician did in the '80s and
early to mid '90s? Also, do you know why it folded?
Matt: Well, I left when it started to
feel like a grind, and a lifeless one at that. I also just decided to apply
myself directly to music before I got too old. You can only do so many
interviews, and have so many of your heroes telling you that you should be
playing before it finally sinks in. I've always been insecure about my
abilities as a musician anyway, so being friends and jamming with guys like
Reeves or Steve Vai or Robben Ford is a blessing and a curse; it was
tremendously important for me to be able to walk away from writing and know
these people would still involve me in their music even without the promise
of a journalistic favor. Also, "writers who play," including famous ones
like Dave Barry, can be so stigmatized by their day job that they're often
forced to relegate their own music to an unabashed joke. And as critical as
I am about mediocrity in famous artists, I'm exponentially harder on
myself; very few people can be good musicians on the side, the rare
exceptions being Joe Gore, Bob Doerschuk, Chris Jisi, and Mac Randall, all
of whom are more skilled players than I am.
Musician folded because when Flanagan left, not long after I
did, they replaced him with a talented but far less assertive editor, and
every promotions slickster and bean-counter who for so long wanted a say in
the magazine's direction eventually got it. Of course, the result was a
total lobotomy. BPI, our parent company which also owned Billboard
and many other trade titles, never understood the magazine's appeal or the
community it served, but those bosses respected Bill enough to give him his
head with Musician and were clueless without him. They also had
the suicidal notion that Nashville was a better home base for the staff
than New York, but their crowning abomination was trying to reposition the
magazine as a technical handbook in an already cluttered market. To phrase
it like an ad man, we were always a niche publication without a real niche,
competing for limited ad revenue with what are called "vertical" magazines,
like Calculator World or Dog News; no matter how many
dogs we'd mention by first name, the flea-collar companies wouldn't spend a
single ad dollar with us before hitting all the dog books. So although we
had the eyeballs of serious musicians and smart non-players, we were
often too unclassifiable, and too expensive per page, to have unending
financial security from the Fender Guitars or Ernie Ball Strings of the
world. By shifting the focus entirely, the doomed new regime figured they'd
secure their usefulness to readers and advertisers, and that everyone would
forget that this eloquent, clever and insightful journal somehow became a
how-to manual for aspiring roadies.
Steven: You did some work for
Guitar Player in the '90s too. How did you hook up with that
magazine, what editors did you work with there, and do you still read
Guitar Player or any of the instrument-oriented music magazines
today?
Matt: I was becoming increasingly
unhappy with the direction of Guitar World, particularly after Noë
Goldwasser left. Despite how the history of that magazine has since been
rewritten, it was Noë who created the foundation of soulful irreverence
which gave Guitar World its character; he was an instinctive,
experienced writer and editor who loved music passionately, and wasn't
about to be a tool of opportunistic publishers who would blame poor sales
of a Guns N' Roses cover on the fact that the issue also contained a jazz
feature. Luckily for me, Guitar Player's Tom Wheeler and Jas
Obrecht had read some of my GW articles, and when I met Jas at a
convention he was kind enough to say he thought my stuff was the best in
that magazine. Not much later, Tom--whom I'd not yet met--called me at home
and said that Jas talked me up and had been pushing for years to infuse
GP with a New York vibe anyway. I remember Tom asking my age
(which I was reluctant to reveal), flying me out to Cupertino to be
interviewed, creating the New York Editor position expressly for me, and
printing a big "welcome" picture of me in his column, all in one big
thrilling blur. Then he gave me the coming-out gift of the century by
taking that pivotal Townshend story away from another writer and
reassigning it to me.
From there it was nothing but completely cool, albeit a long-distance
relationship--and we all know how those go. Jas and Tom were total pros and
veterans even then, and Tom Mulhern was always a pleasure to interface
with, especially in the clunky days when "modeming" a story took the better
part of an afternoon and countless maintenance calls. Gore was closest to
my age and seemed to find himself in New York the most, and we had a blast
traveling around the country in Stevie Ray Vaughan's tour bus on the
Vaughan/Jeff Beck tour. Really fun days, and great guys to a man.
I never see the instrument-oriented books now except at studios or
friend's houses, or unless I seek one out for a specific reason. There are
only a few trustworthy venues for the stuff, and I seem to have lost my
taste for pursuing it because I suppose I get my musical education from
being around musicians.
Steven: Do you read any music
magazines today and if so, which ones? And are there any music writers out
there today that you like to read?
Matt: I rarely see the magazines, but
I have enjoyed the odd Mojo and I look at the local papers to see
who Pareles likes or who's fallen under Jim Farber's guillotine. And in
many of those instances I find myself being more impressed by the writing
than the music, if I ever actually hear it. Maybe I'm just getting too old,
but reading about it just isn't as compelling as it once was.
Steven: What about when you were
growing up? What music magazines did you read then and which writers were
your favorites?
Matt: Creem, Punk,
Circus, Trouser Press, Rock, Guitar Player, Aquarian,
a New York magazine called Rock Scene. The photos of Ace Frehley
in Grooves were unbelievable. There was writing in those
magazines?
Steven: You wrote liner notes for Joe Satriani, and you have done others as well. Do you prefer that kind of music writing to magazine profile writing? How are they different?
Matt: I vastly prefer liner notes.
Besides the crass reality that they can pay very well, it's a direct
communication with the listener. And in most cases, unless the musicians
are deceased and you're dealing with the label, the artist is the "editor"
and usually is too busy or, if you're a halfway-decent writer, too
appreciative to bust your hump. Joe probably asked me to write notes in
Surfing with the Alien and some of his other albums because he was
feeling nostalgic and I was one of the first people who ever interviewed
him. And I was honored to write essays in Who Are You, and also
for George Benson, Tony Williams and for four Kinks records, including the
concept albums from the '70s which I grew up on; to my delight and
amazement, Ray Davies didn't change even one of the roughly 10,000 words I
submitted. In that forum I've never been edited no matter what I wrote, I
guess the logic being either that direct criticism within its own sleeve
only adds to the overall credibility of the package, or that it can't hurt
sales of a record that's already been purchased, or just that the people
who have asked me for notes are exceptionally cool.
Steven: Why did you stop writing music
journalism and do you miss it?
Matt: I can't say I miss it, but it
was very often hilarious and fun. They were instructive times for me, and a
necessary step toward working as a musician and record producer with people
I could really learn from. I remember doing articles where I'd be observing
a recording session and restraining myself from making suggestions; without
question, active involvement is immeasurably more interesting and
validating. I've since been involved in situations that were either so
inspiring or amusing that they warranted writing down in some form, which I
still find myself doing. But those experiences are too personal and
probably beyond the scope of "reader service," and given the unforgiving
critic who still inhabits me, I might just cringe and think, "Jeez, look at
this writer trying to be a musician...."
Like anything else in life, that business is not a meritocracy. That's
the last thing it is. I had a brief, naive feeling that it was during my
first year or so at Musician, because I was surrounded by smart
people who, though all very different in temperament and taste, still
shared a specific professional vision and enjoyed mutual trust and respect.
Outside of that cocoon I saw some grim things: I did a bunch of pieces for
the New York Times, including a record review in which I
referenced the legendary, seminal bluesman Lonnie Johnson, and the editor
Fletcher Roberts, who in terms of power and responsibility has perhaps the
most coveted position in music-news publishing, said to me, "This Lonnie
Johnson--I don't know who she is."
There's potentially a tremendous price to be paid for directness, which
is the great paradox in music journalism. But I'm as grateful for the
freedom to "out" an under-qualified charlatan like that as I was for the
chance to bring unheralded geniuses to the attention of a larger audience.
As the business gets stiffer and more corporate, my instincts just don't
mesh, either with the music being promoted or the personalities gravitating
toward the industry. Nor do I think the politics of publicity or media
relationships should govern that world, because music criticism has a
purpose more noble than providing uninterrupted hype for huge companies who
buy ads and promote pretty faces. There's a responsibility to aggressively
sift through all that nonsense, even if it means catching crap for writing
from the heart or asking great artists straight, tough questions about
their music. For me, it was an honor to get that opportunity--enough so
that I wouldn't squander it by lobbing Larry King-style softballs, avoiding
crucial points and sublimating my love for these artists' work just for a
chance to line my coat pockets with tin foil and take home eggrolls from
the next record-company Christmas party.
The other side of it is, where did a yutzy kid like me get off grilling
the gods about musical decisions before actually acquiring some credentials
of his own--like standing at a mic trying to layer twelve tight vocal
harmonies while the studio clock is ticking? Unless you're a spectacular
writer, journalism is a reductive process, and without solid experience
it's just not fair to sit on the sidelines and make judgments which might
be construed by a large readership as absolute truth. As much as music is a
commodity and often gets debated and contested like a sport, for me it's a
spiritual refuge and one of very few things, apart from my family's
well-being, that move me at the deepest level. Sadly, the overwhelming
majority of people in the music world, and certainly music journalism, have
absolutely no grasp of the process of music-making. I'm not saying I'm
Quincy Jones here, but you have to start aspiring sometime. And I'm
constantly reminded of the whole cycle: Just a few weeks ago I went on a
date with an attorney who the next day in her office was playing a record
I'd produced, and when an associate heard it and read the credits, he
asked, "Is that the same Matt Resnicoff who interviewed Eddie Van
Halen....?"
|
