SMC: Jack Endino - Permanent Fatal Error

psycosmic · March 2006

this week's SMC selection is "Seattle Noisemonger" Jack Endino's 2005 solo album 'Permanent Fatal Error'... some of you might know Jack as the guitarist for Skin Yard, but he's most famous for his work as a producer (Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and countless others - or more recently Hot Hot Heat and Zeke)... or you might have seen him in the documentary 'Hype!' (essential viewing for anyone interested in Seattle and the grunge era) where he's called "Godfather of Grunge" - a title he shares with Neil Young, obviously...

there are two reasons why i chose this album... one, for diversity's sake, i wanted to go into a different musical direction than the recent SMC picks... two, not only is he an amazing musician, he's also one of the most down-to-earth legends i will ever talk to... i had the pleasure of interviewing him and he's not only smart but also very approachable and friendly... (i might post the interview later if you want)... i didn't receive a promo from his record company so he personally sent me one himself (still got the envelope somewhere - nerd!) and even checked back multiple times via email if i received it ok and how i liked it... i can't think of anyone else with his legendary status who would do the same for some random person which makes this record even more special to me...

this album features ex-members of Screaming Trees, Accused, Skin Yard and Coffin Break... the Mike McCready fans on here (and i hope there are a lot) will know that Barrett Martin also was in Mad Season... it took Jack more than 10 years to complete the album and some tracks feature two of his old bands

Jack Endino: all vocals/guitars; all other instruments on 2, 5, 10
...with the mighty EARTHWORM -
Barrett Martin: drums on 4, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15
Rob Skinner: bass on 4, 7, 8, 13, 15
Pat Pedersen: bass on 6, 14
...and the SUITCASE NUKES -
Alex Sibbald: bass on 1, 3, 9, 11, 12
Josh Sinder: drums on 1, 3, 9, 11, 12

for more info about everything Jack Endino, i strongly recommend his website
http://www.jackendino.com
(lots of info, production credits, articles, and his faq's are a treat - he's a very amusing writer, too... you won't be disappointed)
and you can also find him on myspace
http://www.myspace.com/jackendino

barcoach · March 2006

kewl, my friend, sounds like a great pick...

by the way, tomorrow's my birthday and tonight there's gonna be a great party with some amazing music blasting loud, beer's ready, whiskey's ready, gin's ready and the stereo speakers are afraid... all my fellow SMC'ers are invited... oh, yeah, I forgot you all live so far away... well, you're gonna miss it guys, will have a couple of toasts to you...

transplant · March 2006

downloaded and playing. happy birthday barcoach!

burnin-candle · March 2006

I'll pick this one up tonight. Wasn't he just great in that Hype movie?

I can imagine him being a great guy. And this album has some awesome musicians on it too!

Happy Birthday barcoach!!!:)

transplant · March 2006

This CD is like reuniting with an old friend. You don't know how much you miss them until you see them again.

I have gone off on so many musical tangents the past 10 years (that I have thoroughly enjoyed) you don't know how nice it is to just put in a CD and listen to straight balls to the wall rock and roll.

Songs like Count Me Out, Get Out, and the instrumentals, all just rock. This is a VERY solid effort. This is a pop in your car CD player, roll down the windows and hit the highway.

I wanted to put that out instead of simply bumping. Hopefully there will be more to add in a couple days.

psycosmic · March 2006

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY BARCOACH!!!!

i hope you had a good one, arturo! how old are you, mate?
i have no doubt you had a good time and blasted some great music..
oh, and rest assured i had a couple of drinks in your honour as well

psycosmic · March 2006

as promised before, here's a little interview i did with jack... i think it gives some good background information about the album...

Me: 'Jack, lots of people in your business complain about falling out of love with music... How can you still be so enthusiastic about it? No, really, how do you do it?'

JE: 'By only choosing to work with music and bands that I like, period. My music taste is not necessarily very trendy or fashionable; in fact I don't pay much attention to what is happening in popular music. I also don't pay much attention to TV, radio, or popular culture in general. Or to the music business. I just do what I like, and I'm lucky that people pay me for it.'

Me: 'Your new solo album "Permanent Fatal Error" is going to be out soon - and it took you quite long. Does this mean that it also musically illustrates the long way to its completion? You told me that you wanted to title it "Six funerals, two suicides and a divorce" at first, because of the things going on while the record was still in the making... "Permanent", on the other hand, doesn't indicate any change... What's the feeling you get when you look back at it?'

JE: 'The late 90s were hard years for me, as the alternate title would suggest. I went to too many funerals, and too many people around me were having hard times. Then Bush got elected, 9-11 happened, etc. I watched a lot of people doing really dumb things, both around me and worldwide. The overwhelming theme of the songs was disappointment: me watching other people fucking up, over and over. The record I started in 1993 as my "next" record (after "Endino's Earthworm" and "Angle of Attack") ended up stalled completely, for years and years. I just got discouraged and couldn't finish it. Too many other things were consuming my energy. In addition, my producing career started to take off, and I had no time anymore for my own music. Finally, some good changes occurred in my life and I was able to get back to it... and it drastically changed into a MUCH better rock record, that I am now actually excited about.'

Me: 'There are some great guests on your record, most of them long time collaborators and friends. Which leads to the question why you didn't make it another "band" record? After all, there are Barrett Martin and Pat Pedersen on it... Does this mean it's more of a "you" record than a band effort would be?'

JE: 'I had two bands... Earthworm (me plus Barrett Martin and Pat Pedersen from Skin Yard, and sometimes Rob Skinner from Coffin Break), which played its last actual gig in 1996, and Suitcase Nukes, me plus the Accused rhythm section, who played two gigs in late 1997. Then my parents, very old and sick, started their long decline in health, ending with their deaths in 2000/2001. That took me away from making music for a while, and those "bands" fell apart. But I managed to record a bunch of basic tracks with each band; I just never finished the guitar and vocal parts until very recently. Plus I started recording some new stuff, playing all the instruments myself, just in the past couple of years. And then ProTools and hard disk recording entered the picture, and I became expert with those systems... and that allowed me to do some rearranging and editing on some of the songs that would have been impossible before. There wasn't enough from either band alone for a full album, but when I picked the best from all these projects, it was obvious I had a "me" album, not a band album.'

Me: 'More people know you as a producer rather than as a musician - now you're both again, in one person. Are there times in the studio when Musician Jack Endino and Producer Jack Endino do not get along? Who wins the fight?'

JE: 'No one wins... it's a draw. Recording myself is very hard. Musician Endino just wants to get stuff recorded quickly, but Producer Endino wants it to sound as good as any other band I record or produce. It is a classic right brain vs. left brain situation!'

Me: 'So, how was it to work with Nirvana then? Just kidding!!! I just have to say that your words on your website (http://www.endino.com) concerning the 10th anniversary of Kurt's death were the most honest and most touching I have read during a time when every rock journalist and their mother turned Kurt into what he probably never wanted to be. Your 'Thank you' to all the artists who made it through those crazy years and, like Eddie [Vedder], could sing "I'm still alive" was well needed to put it all into perspective and show everybody what really matters - the music! Errm, I have no question, just wanted to thank you for that...'

JE: 'Thank YOU. A few people somehow missed my point and thought I was dissing Nirvana, but you can't do anything about idiots, can you?'

Me: 'Well, you can try to educate them. As a guitarist myself, I have to say that your article on Tuning Nightmares saved me from those but probably caused some for my band mates. You also published numerous articles about production issues, most famously "How to Overproduce a Rock Record". Is there a chance of a full length book sometime in the future?'

JE: 'Probably not until I go deaf, at which point I won't remember much anyway... but it crosses my mind all the time. Love to do it, but no time. There's records to be made.'

Me: 'You not only make records. You are involved with music in so many ways, one of them being "Jack's Weed Cafe" (http://www.jacksweedcafe.com), where you offer legal music downloads where artists actually get their fair share of the money. Too bad the music industry didn't pick up on this idea on a big scale. What are your thoughts on online distribution of music in general?'

JE: 'I know people who are making significant money from iTunes. But the "disintermediation" phenomenon that was predicted for the internet has not happened... now there are middlemen popping up all over the place, content aggregators, etc. For instance, people who will help get your music into iTunes, for a percentage of the sales. There are still gatekeepers keeping the small people out of the big pipelines. But overall, the barriers to entry for an indy artist to "do it themselves" are lower than they have ever been.'

Me: 'Any famous last words of wisdom you want to share with our readers?'

JE: 'Life is short: one must go forth and rock.'

© 2005 by Stephan Rott

psycosmic · March 2006

b-u-m-p...

barcoach · March 2006

psycosmic wrote:

i hope you had a good one! how old are you, mate?

oh, man, don't ask me that... thirty-fuckin'-one... it's all downhill from now on, ain't it? anyway I still rock like when I was 15... which actually is a problem, last friday went to see Mogwai, next day I couldn't even walk... I'm actually still recovering from the celebrations on monday and tuesday, but well, there's nothing to do about that...

Let's go to the topic... I'm listening to the Endino album as I write this... when it started I thought "yeah, transplant is right, is good to go back to basics, listening to an album of straight rock free of any pretentiousness"... however as the tracks went on I started to notice I was getting bored, I guess I just don't have a taste for this kind of album any more, to a point that I have to confess I'm strugglin' to listen to it until the end, if I was in any other situation I can tell you I'd have clicked on the stop button since long ago, what keeps me with the headphones on is the love I have for the SMC and the respect i feel towards psy, and Endino himself...
Thing is I really don't find much imagination on these songs. I remember seeing a thread on this album some time ago, I'm almost pretty sure psycosmic started it, there I commented I knew Endino was a good guy, 'cause he produced an album for a friend of mine's band... and yeah, he was a friend but truth be told, that band sucked... the whole grunge thing still was fresh and these guys were trying too hard to be PJ or Alice, so the songs lacked a personal view, they were poor on ideas, they just wanted to fit in that sound... and maybe one of the reasons I'm really not enjoying this ride as much as I'd wish is that this album reminds me a lot of my friend's band album... I try hard to get excited, but nothing happens. I appreciate the production, the guitar work, the tight sound of the whole thing, but it just doesn't hit me, is like everything sounds the same. If I was like the 18 year old rocker I was in '93, this album would have me rocking my socks off... unfortunately I'm not and can't help thinking I've heard this stuff over and over again, sometimes done in a whole better way, at least with more memorable melodies. I don't know, maybe my opinion will change with later listenings, but that will take a lot of strength. Maybe I'm just bitter, maybe sometimes listening to so different kinds of music is nocive because you loose enthusiasm for the simple thing. Maybe -which brings us back to the beginning of this post- is just that I'm getting old.

thebetterman · March 2006

barcoach wrote:

however as the tracks went on I started to notice I was getting bored, I guess I just don't have a taste for this kind of album any more, to a point that I have to confess I'm strugglin' to listen to it until the end
...
I appreciate the production, the guitar work, the tight sound of the whole thing, but it just doesn't hit me, is like everything sounds the same.

thats exactly what i thought the first time i listened to it, some good guitar work and music, but it doesnt grab me at all, it kinda leaves me bored and wanting something more. I'm not liking his voice either, he sounds like a poor mans Lemmy from Motorhead. I dont know, this one just didnt do much for my tastes these days.

transplant · March 2006

thebetterman wrote:

I'm not liking his voice either, he sounds like a poor mans Lemmy from Motorhead.

I swear at times I feel like a bunch of us share the same brain. When I mentioned it was like reuniting with an old friend, Ace of Spades was what I was referring to. nice one!

barcoach, you make some interesting points. You mentioned if you were 18 again, this disc would rock your socks off. Last week I busted out some old late 70's Scorpions

. This was the music, Priest, Maiden at all that I listened to religiously to the point of nausea. Well, while listening to Animal Magnetism, the music didn't hit me nearly like it did when I was 14/15. It made me wonder if I never ever listened to it when I was young and right now I was introduced to it, would I like it? what is it about age and its relation to the music? I mean there are some records from that period that are indeed timeless (Moving Pictures, 2112 comes to mind) that rock my socks off now as it did when I was 11. I find it interesting.

I wonder if the simple fact that back then I didn't have the access nor the money to listen to all that I do now and that I just beat those old albums to death? I mean I probably had Dio Holy Diver and Last in Line in my tapedeck in my first car for 8 months straight. I probably can't listen to them now.

Ok, no clue if I am making sense. I really like this selection as it does remind me of those days that I look upon fondly. the production is in my mind flawless. I am on my third spin just today, probably 10 so far total as it is just on repeat here at work.

Oh, I'm older than you

burnin-candle · March 2006

OK, got this spinning all day today, and yes it is a very good record. The production is near perfect!! I can see how much work was put into this. Very tight guitar work, awesome drumming (as always) and again, some very sweet guitars!

I do feel, however, that the great production may have lost some of the raw energy that could have made this ound more "live".

The voice, I actually don't mind it that much. I mean it's not spectacular, but it kinda fits in with the music more than having a guy shout into the mics or something. I haven't put much thought to the lyrics though. Perhaps that wasn't all that good, but who needs that when you got rocking music.

But it's the guitars that do it for me. I love how he uses the wah (I wanna use it like that!), I like the lead play, and the riffs are just simply rocking. Very tight and a strong thick sound. I was a little surprised by the pace of most of the songs; much faster than I imagined. I thought it was going to be a more sludgy, bottom-heavy affair, but it really flows along fast and crunchy. I like that!

And thanks for putting up the interview, psycosmic! A very thought provoking read, and it's easy to see why Jack Endino is considered great. You're a sweet interviewer, too, mate!

And this sub-topic of age. Man, I thought you guys were so much younger!!;) (no offence) I mean, reading your posts, you guys rock harder than anyone near my age over here. I'm 22, does that make me the youngest in the SMC?? I'm sure Echoes or swede is close to that.

Oh yeah, psycosmic and barcoach, I'm assuming you guys do something in the music industry. I'd love to get some advice someday. I'll be working at a small label over here from next month. Anyway, when I start my label in the very distant future, I want all you SMCers to be a part of it. Somehow, anyway.

Well, it was a rocking pick, psycosmic, and I'm enjoying it heaps.

Cheers.

transplant · March 2006

burnin-candle wrote:

Oh yeah, psycosmic and barcoach, I'm assuming you guys do something in the music industry. I'd love to get some advice someday. I'll be working at a small label over here from next month. Anyway, when I start my label in the very distant future, I want all you SMCers to be a part of it. Somehow, anyway.

cool! interested to hear more about this.

yawwwwwwn, slow around here.

swede · June 2006

ok so im backtracking my SMC catalogue that i havent had time to go through - just going through this now, so i thought id bump it up since there werent that many replies.

the start sounded wicked, the first tune gets u moving like nothing else! i hope the remainder of the album is like that

will write more after the weekend when ive given it a few spins

SMC: Jack Endino - Permanent Fatal Error

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