Wheredoes post-Rhino find you?
Well, I can't give a lotof details as they're all in motion at the moment. What I can tell you is thatI'm most likely starting my own entity with some colleagues of mine. After 20years working within mostly the corporate-owned side of the music business, Ifeel like I've learned enough to do something on my own.
Whatis a greater challenge to the music industry today, the ease of downloading orthe ease of home recording?
I'm not sure if eitherof those are challenges. I see them both as positives. If more people can hearmusic and make music, it's terrific. I think the greatest challenges to themusic industry today are marketing and curation. Marketing, because the digitalera has blown everything up. We are no longer a culture that looks to the sameplaces for information. In many ways, the business of music, by necessityalmost, is going back to the cottage industry it once wasperhaps for the best,for now. The second challenge is that of curation. Everyone needs someone totell them that something is cool. You can find things on your own, but mostlikely you hear, see or read something, or your friend tells you about a track,or a trusted source turns you onto some new tune. Nowadays sources havemultiplied exponentially, and they're not all trustworthy. The Internet wastouted as the great equalizer, leveling the playing field for everyone, but tome it's a lot of trees falling in an endless forest. It's a real challengefacing the business, and these are issues I wrestle with dailyhow can I, assomeone who would like to release great stuff that has an audience that may notknow about it yet, get to you, the person who would care?
Howdo you go about working on an archival project as large as the Big Star boxset?
Step one is always:Start by building a comprehensive discography. Step two: Run down all the tapesyou can find. Step three: Tell the story. Step three is the trickiest partbecause large projects, ones that are comprehensive overviews of an artist or athematic matter, require a mastery of the subject so you as producer can pullperspective and context for the listener.
Whatwas your most gratifying project and why?
There are so manydifferent types of projects and so many different reasons why they aregratifying. I guess the most gratifying are the ones that I feel like Iaccomplished the storytelling the best.
Howlarge is your record collection? Can you foresee the day you would give it up?
Well, it's hard to tellbecause it grows dailyit's probably around 50,000 pieces across variousconfigurations, not counting memorabilia. I can foresee a day when I give itup, but not until I'm done working in the businessand if I have my way, thatwould be never. It's a research library on one hand and, on the other, I loveit all so much and just want to keep learning and listening.
