Feature Articles

DMC: You are a well traveled man, musically. What are your core musical influences in the tunes you create?

John Egenes: I supposed "well traveled" is one way of putting it, both figuratively and
literally. Lots of road miles behind me, I guess. And oftentimes I've felt (as
cowboys say) that I've been "rode hard and put away wet".

I won't make a huge list of influences here because it'll end up looking like
those MySpace pages, with a list of 200 names of artists who supposedly were
"big influences on me". The fact is, in my case, I really HAVE been influenced
by a lot of artists from widely varied backgrounds and styles. But I reckon my
main music is country, folk, americana, contemporary singer/songwriter....
mostly *song-driven*.

Names? Well, I'll rattle off a few: Johnny Cash, Dylan, The Band, Jim Kweskin,
Merle Haggard, Geoff Muldaur, Townes van Zandt, Eliza Gilkyson, Paul Siebel,
Clarence White, Buddy Emmons, Roy Nichols, Django Reinhardt, Bill Monroe, Buck
Owens...... jeez, it could go on and on....

DMC: What are some of the highlights of your career thus far?
Slightly off-topic, but fascinating nonetheless, what was this about riding a horse across the USA?

JE: "Highlights" is an odd way of looking at the way you live your life. I just
don't think in those terms at all. If, by that, you mean good gigs or getting to
meet bigshots and movie stars or that sort of thing, I suppose a few have come
my way. The highlights for me have more to do with finding a path and following
it, about making great friends along the way, and about raising a couple of
beautiful daughters who have a love of music and life. It's all about getting to
do what you love, but having to take the blows that come with that.

I did ride my horse, Gizmo, across the North American continent back in the
70's. I was young and stupid then (as opposed to being old and stupid now) and
just didn't know that you weren't supposed to be able to do that kind of thing.
Gizmo and I left from the Pacific Ocean in California and we ended up seven
months later at the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia. I spent a lot of time talking to
myself while he listened. He was good that way.

Along with playing music in California, New Mexico and Texas, I made saddles and
other horse gear for a living. I grew up with horses and cowboys and all that
stuff, so it just seemed natural, I guess. Being in New Zealand, that all seems
like a distant, exotic sort of world now.

DMC: You are on the verge of releasing an album.
Can you outline for the readers the process and experience of making it?

JE: Well, let's see... One of the things I pride myself in is my ability to pull
good players together to produce a record. For this one, I twisted the arms of
some of the best players in Dunedin, and even managed to wrangle a few musicians
from the outside world. Marcel Rodeka on drums, both John Dodd and Rob Burns on
bass, Mike Moroney playing rhythm guitar and singing BG vocals, Greg Waite on
Irish pipes, my longtime pal from England, Jane Clark playing fiddle, and
Gunther Flutney did some bass and drums on a song. There were some wonderful
vocal cameos by Anthony Lander (The Tweeks), Geva Downey and Rainy McMaster
(Haunted Love) and the fabulous Sami Sisters (Anji, Pryja and Madelaine) from up
in Auckland.

We recorded rhythm tracks over a couple of days at Otago University's Albany St.
studios, where I also recorded the background vocal overdubs and some of the
instruments later on. I ended up playing more instruments than I wanted on this
record, which include acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, Weissenborn lap guitar,
and some accordion. I did most of these at Red Planet Land & Cattle Company,
which is my home studio in Port Chalmers.

"Mr. Golden Ears", Dale Cotton, engineered the rhythm track sessions and mixed
the record. I engineered the overdubs and put my two cents' worth in during the
mixing process. The album was mastered by the great David Glasser at Airshow
Mastering in Boulder, Colorado (USA). The album is called "Up For Air".

DMC: What is your take on the Dunedin music scene?
Do you think being a university staff member colours your view of it?

JE: Good question. I hadn't thought about how being a staff member might colour my
view of the local scene, but I expect it does somehow. As we who live here know,
the scene in Dunedin is very vibrant and interesting. It's not unlike many
university towns whose student population dominates the cultural scene, except
that Dunedin is a bit more remote than most, so people here tend to follow the
road less traveled and do things their in own way. Lecturing here gives me
access to developing musicians and artists, but I still recognise that there are
many, many musicians outside the university's ivory tower walls who make up a
huge part of the scene here, and who have a big influence upon what's happening,
both musically and culturally.

There are some really good musicians here. The singer/songwriter thing is
finally catching on here, and I'm seeing some wonderful songwriters emerge out
of it. Good music is based upon good songs, and it is Kiwi songwriters who will
put a New Zealand stamp on the music that comes out of this scene. I see the bar
being raised and the level of songwriting rising here in New Zealand.

DMC: Can you spill any more beans about this new digital project that is still
being crafted to do with your music and the creative commons?

JE: It's a sort of "folk music remix project". I had Dale Cotton create what we call
"stems" from the original tracks. These are the individual tracks on each song.
So, for a song with drums, bass, guitar, mandolin, dobro, fiddle, lead vocal and
two background vocals, we'd create a stem for all the drums, one for bass,
fiddle, lead vocal, harmony vocals, and so on. The user would then download the
song in this raw format and remix it herself. She can change it all around,
leave tracks out, cut and paste, and insert her own music into the song. After
she's finished she can upload her remix to my website for others to enjoy.
She'll be able to send links to her remixes to places like Facebook, MySpace,
and others.

Others can download her remix and remix it again. This is the "folk process" at
lightspeed, so to speak. A recombinant culture of ever changing style and
structure. Remixing isn't new, but this offering up of folk music in its raw
format (stems) is. I'm not just focusing upon folk music fans. I'm hoping to get
veteran remixers to take a look at my music and have their way with it. Thrash
metal banjo playing, so to speak.

All of these raw tracks will be licensed under a Creative Commons license, which
will allow use of them in a "like manner", and disallow commercial use. Any
remix made will automatically be assigned the same license, and remixes of a
remix, the same, and so on. I won't go into my support of Creative Commons here,
but those who are interested in the future of copyright should check it out.
Whether or not you are a supporter, it's an interesting take on copyright issues
and the shrinking of the public domain.

DMC: Where will the album be available from?

JE: Obviously, at my gigs. Online you can get the CD from Dunedinmusic.com, and from
CDBaby (in the USA). Digital downloads will be available from iTunes, CDBaby,
and various other aggregators who sell music downloads. Oh, and my website is
usually a good place to look for stuff: www.johnegenes.com

DMC: Where do you see yourself as a musician in 5 years time?

JE: Well, you know what they say..... every day above ground is a good day.


AK


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