Sean Moeller | Founder | Daytrotter.com
Daytrotter
Sean Moeller
Founder
www.daytrotter.com
CMJ: What type of music fan did you have in mind when Daytrotter was launched?
Sean Moeller: I didn’t have any specific type of music fan in mind when we launched the site and as of yet, I still don’t have anything in mind. The reason it’s easier to work with indie acts is because they’re so receptive to the idea at this point. There are no dimensions to the kinds of music we want to host. If we love it, no matter what it is, we’re going to have it happen here.
CMJ: How would you like to influence the way people enjoy their music?
SM: I would love it if people thought about music as art again, not just as a bunch of interchangeable 3 1/2-minute songs that are there to be used as ring-tones and such. I think the idea that a record is something very intriguing to behold isn’t there as much. I don’t like the idea of music as singles and all these tracks that are thrown up individually on blogs and such to be plucked out of the air and thrown onto some MP3-playing device without its brothers and sisters around it. I hope people download all four tracks every week and don’t just come and pick and choose. I like the romantic thought that they’ll not be split apart. Music as beautiful art is the way I’d like people to enjoy their music. I don’t know if people are getting that about us, but I hope they do.
(L-R: Sean Moeller, Johnnie Cluney & Patrick Stolley)
CMJ: How do you select the artists for your sessions?
SM: We bring in people that move us. I give Pat Stolley (Sound engineer) stacks of CDs every week of people I’m considering for sessions and he listens to them while he paints houses and drives around in his truck. He tells me which ones he digs and which ones he doesn’t. I overrule him sometimes. They just have to be interesting to us in one way or the other. We aren’t influenced by what everyone else is writing about out there.
CMJ: Your sessions have a unique sound and feel to them. What kind of set up and equipment do you use?
SM: We record everything straight to sweet, loving analog tape. There are no overdubs, no headphones for the players. They’re all just looking at each other and playing as if it were a practice — all in one room and playing through a PA system. Once something is laid onto that quarter-inch tape, that’s it. The room we record in used to be an old radio studio. There’s always beer around to set bands at ease. It’s like they’re home. It’s funny how many come in and comment that it feels like they’re back at their practice space. I think it’s a room that’s so completely unfancy and comfortable. Bands and artists immediately feel at ease, it comes off in the recordings. The equipment that we use is all stuff that Pat has salvaged from old men who used to install sound systems in schools or other various places. He gets stuff for stupid cheap at garage sales and flea markets. He has connections with people who find out about colleges getting rid of all their “crappy/undesirable” analog gear and he swoops in like a falcon to snatch it. There’s usually a 10-minute period of wowed awe when people first come in. Then everything gets going.
(The Ponys)
CMJ: Who do you have coming in over the next couple of months?
SM: I really am excited about everything we have coming up soon. Dr. Dog, Elvis Perkins, Jolie Holland, Eef Barzelay, About, The Silent Years, Owen, Tokyo Police Club, Tilly and the Wall, The Kingdom, another Catfish Haven session, Grizzly Bear, The Teeth. Then we’re heading down to SXSW to record sessions using Sound Team’s analog studio and we’ve got a lot of really great sessions lined up down there. We’ve got Cold War Kids, Delta Spirit, Richard Buckner, Aloha, Spinto Band, Dios Malos, The Broken West, and dozens of others stopping in this spring. We’re talking to The Decemberists, Patty Griffin, The Thermals, Bloc Party, Albert Hammond Jr., Andrew Bird and many other greats so we’re excited about everything, to be redundant.
(Nathan Willett, Cold War Kids)
CMJ: How did the idea to accompany each session with original artwork come about, and is that artwork for available for sale?
SM: I get so sick of seeing the same press photos all over the place. It’s so easy and I think we here at Daytrotter strive to not do things the easy way. I think the artwork was an idea that I had all along, but just didn’t know it. We started off with the art accompanying every session, and then slowly it interested some other artists to help Johnnie Cluney (Artwork designer) with those. We’re trying to figure out ways to make that artwork available in print form. All of the artists that have worked with us I am so indebted to. I think if we were just using those same photos everyone else is using, we’d be a much less cool place to visit.
CMJ: You will soon be closing in on over half a million downloads of your sessions. Has this lived up to expectations?
SM: I don’t think we had any preconceptions. We were going to start it, grow it and hope that people found us valuable. I think that’s for sure happened, so it’s lived up to our expectations that way. All I hope it that each band we put up on the site that people take the time to give it a listen — even if they don’t decide to download the session. I’m so proud of every session we’ve posted that I know if given the chance, those unfamiliar with certain bands would be won over by the recording we did with them.
CMJ: Anything else you’d like to say?
SM: I think that’s about it. I just hope that everyone comes and visits once. I remember hearing a record store owner — whose shop was a little off the main drag — say that, “If people just came in and saw what we had, they’d find something they were looking for every visit.” I feel that about the site.
