Illustrations by Johnnie Cluney / From left to right: Diplomats of Sound, Dirty Beaches, Alejandro Escovedo and Tegan & Sara
We’ve been fans of the DT folks for a while, probably since before BTTV was even an idea. Come SXSW 2010 and through the events of life DT got a taste of BTTV hospitality. Good times where had. Lots of Pabst and tacos where consumed. Hay bales mimic’d couches and the formation of Eagle Meat occured. On the cusp of SXSW 2011 we bring you a little one-on-one time with Sean Moeller, he who started it all.
For those who are not privy. What is Daytrotter?
Daytrotter is essentially a music web site that has its own analog recording studio in Rock Island, Illinois, and access to other analog studios in Austin, Texas and Asheville, N.C. and in these studios we record bands/artists as they’re passing through, as a document of where they were that day. The sessions are recorded straight to quarter-inch tape and they are honest and raw. They are then placed on our site for people to download and stream for free — accompanied by an essay and a hand-drawn illustration.
You’ve grown a lot the last few years. You now work out of two studios, one in Rock Island and one in Austin. Tell me about the first few years getting things off the ground. War stories if you have some?
I think that our war stories are rather minor. I don’t know that they really even count. We’ve been awfully fortunate to have been able to grow up the way we would have liked and we’ve not hit too many bumps in the road. I think a lot of that is owed to how we go about doing it. We do it out of passion and we work our asses off and I think that anyone who’s ever met us, recorded with us, etc. gets and respects that immediately and that sort of currency pays huge dividends. We’ve been lucky and yet it’s all felt very natural.
You push out an amazing amount of sessions and writing. Talk to me about your writing process. How do you go about it? Do you have a routine?
The writing process is just me sitting down for hours and hours every day and letting it come to me. Some days are harder than others, but it really is a muscle for me. The more I write, the better I feel like my craft gets. I get inspired by the people who make this great art. I find inspiration in them as people and as artists and I take little sparks from the stuff I’m reading at the time too. It’s always remarkable to me how I’ll read something in the morning that I feel at least oddly applies to someone I’m writing about that day. I’m not afraid of the odd tangents and you shouldn’t be either.
How is it different writing for the sessions out of Austin because, obviously you can not be in two places at once. How does proximity effect the writing?
It usually does help meeting people, but I really do try and just let their art inform me and it’s nice sometimes to be able to take the posture of someone, their fashion, their mannerisms, etc. out of the equation entirely and focus exclusively on the music. I think most artists really appreciate that — to have their music taken at face value and to have someone really, really listen and even if that essay is a weird little fucker when I’m done with it, at least it was thought about long and hard and something drawn from the images in the words and music they wrote. That’s a win to me.
You curate most of the content on DT. Talk about your tastes and how they’ve evolved over time?
I don’t really know how they’ve evolved. I think you — and the regular Daytrotter listeners could tell me better than I could. My wife tells me that I listen to slower music now, but I don’t think that’s necessarily right. I don’t think it would do me much good to analyze the evolution of my listening habit because, lord knows, they’ll be different two months from now. I sure do buy a lot more old bluegrass records now than I ever thought I would. And I love Odd Future so go figure.
Why do you do DT?
I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to say this just because it’s me doing it and it’s my baby: I think Daytrotter is important. I feel like we’re doing some awfully important chronicling for history and posterity-sake. It’s so much bigger than just the five of us here at this point. It’s something I’m very proud of.
Where does DT go from here…can you lift the lid on future plans?
Not really sure. We’re just going to plan on getting better and better at what we do. I don’t think we have to change anything with the formula. You will start to see some of this great stuff in physical form — on wax — very soon.
Talk about where things are going musically these days? It appears there’s never been more of a separation between the mainstream appetite and what “good/great” music really is. Thoughts?
I think the world of music — the world of the ARTIST — couldn’t be healthier right now. As far as where things are going, who fucking knows. I think this is potentially the most exciting time for music in history. Honestly.
What’s on your breakfast plate?
I wish I made a regular point of breakfast. It’s usually nothing as it takes forever to get the kids fed and at that point it’s monitoring and making sure they’re not busting their heads open on hard stuff and us needing to rush to the hospital. If I had my way — a waffle with maple syrup and strawberries every goddamn day!
