Jeremy Hatch

Motivating and Practical Ideas for Producing

Revisado: 12-06-24

Excellent book which is a blend of practical advice, strong opinion, and personal backstory. Somewhat repetitive but that’s fine. Not everything in it is for everyone, and I often disagree with his firmly stated opinions. But that has just made this book more valuable to me over the years. I am going to see if this is in print so I can keep a copy in my project studio, on that near-at-hand shelf of books that give me ideas for things to do when I’m feeling blank or discouraged. I’ve been producing electronic music for almost 9 years and have 8 tracks releasing next year, so I’m actively in the game. This book was helpful to me when I was just getting started (it was part of Kindle Unlimited at the time), and it remains helpful to me today.

Unfortunately they made a very poor choice of narrator, so that is something you’ll have to tolerate. For one, his folksy tone doesn’t suit the material at all. For another, although I wouldn’t expect a narrator to know much about production, the fact is, he frequently seems to not understand even in principle what he is saying, which leads to weird mispronunciations and errors in emphasis that entail repeated re-listening on my part. However, the truly inexcusable fault is that he does not bother to pause around section headings! He reads them like they’re just another sentence in the flow, following hard after the last sentence of the previous section, and sections are so frequent that you end up having to re-contextualize what you’re hearing every couple of minutes or so. Incredibly annoying!

That said, I must still recommend this title based on the content alone.

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The only bio, well-reported and listenable

Revisado: 07-24-19

I actually listened to this entire audiobook from beginning to end in one marathon stretch during a 700-mile solo drive I had to do today. It was compelling enough from beginning to end that I was never tempted to put on something else during the entire 8.5 hours and found myself suddenly at the end of his life story as I approached my destination in the evening. That's a good review right there.

You're probably here because you already know who Molina was, and you want to know more. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the only book-length treatment his life gets, so I'm glad it appears to be well-reported. The writing is not great in itself but it wasn't distractingly bad or gossipy, so I'd give it 5 stars for the genre. The last couple hours shed much more light on the end of his life than any other source I have read. Those hours were deeply sad and disappointing, but I'm glad the info is well-attested here, because at the time he died it was basically impossible to figure out what had even happened to him, or why.

The single criticism I have is about the narrator: this guy is really badly-suited to the material. He sounds like his natural element is business books and news. His readings of Molina's song lyrics were especially trying, since he clearly has no feel for the pregnant pauses you'd need to include in order to convey anything like their impact in the songs. However, his reading is functional and understated, and to be honest, he really does seem to be making an effort to connect with the material throughout. He also doesn't overdo it. For example, imagine how totally insufferable Edoardo Ballerini would have been on this same material. So I have to give him 4 stars. Not the best conceivable performance, but it does the job just fine, and with the exception of the lyrics the reading didn't get in the way for me, which is the most important thing.

Overall a really excellent listen for this long-time fan of Molina's music.

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Flashes of brilliance, overall worth it

Revisado: 04-12-19

Overall I’m glad I spent the time with this book, but I’ll be honest, by chapter 4 I could not wait to get out of this guy’s company. He often comes across as a whiny, over privileged sad sack who at 57 STILL hasn’t learned to let go of his unrealistic youthful ambitions, and his observations and viewpoint is banal for long stretches. His awful reading voice does not help this impression. HOWEVER, often enough he would write these passages of such insight and beauty that it drew me up short and kept me going for more — and also when he remembers to deploy self-deprecating humor it is very funny and saves him from the bathos that otherwise would ruin this book. He can be really quite funny and I laughed out loud at his jokes many times. It would have been better with a professional narrator, but I liked it well enough even with its shortcomings that I’m going to give his other book, about writing biography, a try too.

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Not really an argument

Revisado: 04-05-19

More of a manifesto — extended ranting and riffing that adds up to a sort of an anticapitalist, leftist goulash. My sentiments are with him in general so, up in my place in the choir, I was okay with being preached at, but I can’t honestly say I remember a single well supported argument for any position he outlines here. It didn’t help my impression that in the one area where I have expertise — audio engineering and music recording — he perpetuates certain canards in a comical fashion, and let’s just say, he has little idea what it’s really like to play in a group in a recording studio. (Much less alienating than he implies.) All the same, I share his alarm at the current state of the world and I don’t think he’s wrong, broadly speaking. His call to “find the others” is well taken.

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Another Stellar Jon Ronson Piece

Revisado: 02-09-19

If you don’t like Ronson’s voice, you probably won’t like any of his programs, so preview before you buy. I’ve been a big fan of his work since the pieces he did for This American Life way back. This is another stellar piece of careful reporting, and is a very affecting story too.

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In-depth on the 2nd major phase of Miller's career

Revisado: 12-12-17

Really enjoyed this book. I have given it five stars overall mostly because this book fills a significant gap in the literature and I don't know of any other like it. Most bios of Miller concentrate heavily on his early life in Brooklyn and Manhattan and the first phase of his career in Paris, when he wrote the three sensational books that made him famous. Understandable enough, but the bulk of his work was composed outside Paris, mostly in Big Sur, from about 1940 to about 1960, and I would argue that these later works are at least equally important, and perhaps even more important, than the earlier works. This biography finally gives this second phase its due. It also tells, in brief, the story of how the Tropics ended up getting published by Grove Press and the trials and tribulations that brought into Miller's life, replacing his previous problem of not-enough-money-ever with the opposite problem of too-much-money-at-once. Miller's final years in Pacific Palisades are summed up in a single chapter, which is also appropriate, since Miller effectively retired from writing in his late 60s, pursued watercolor painting almost exclusively to his death, and led a fairly settled life compared to the previous years.

I gave story four stars because the writing is very slightly repetitive, giving the same information several times as if the chapters were written to be read as stand-alone articles. This might be ideal when consumed over a long period of time, but as it happened I listened to over half this book in one sitting on a sick day, so the repetition of information stood out for me.

As to performance... well. Jonathan Yen is basically a good narrator and is pleasant to listen to. However, I have to deduct one star for his terrible pronunciation of French and German names. When correct or half-correct, it seems accidental, as if he's had zero real exposure to those languages and just made it up on first sight and stuck with his first notion. There is really no excuse for this -- in this day and age he could have called up advice on every term on YouTube, in the studio itself, before proceeding with the narration. What makes it even 'better' is that he sets off these badly-pronounced words and names with a pause and a sense of moment. It was bearable mostly because his pronunciation is so far off the mark that it was actually hilarious. I mean, who manages to mispronounce 'Proust'? And if you're going to narrate a book about Henry Miller, the least you can do, the *very least*, is ensure that you are pronouncing the name 'Anais' correctly. (Here's a hint: it DOESN'T end with a 'z'!) Passages about particular authors, especially the ones on Rimbaud and Cendrars, repeated those names so many times that I was in absolute stitches listening to his portentous mispronunciation over and over again. Certain European cities come up a few times later on and, for example, it took me a little while to realize he was talking about *Laussane* after its first mention.

That said, it really is a good reading despite that particular bit of silliness and if you can have a sense of humor about it, I do recommend this book overall on all counts.

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Excellent collection of Miller essays

Revisado: 10-25-17

Thank you so much to whoever brought this back into print and made it available on Audible! I first encountered this program twenty years ago, enjoyed it so much I made my own copy, and at some point through the years lost that copy and have always looked for it since then. I actually recently purchased it on cassette tape in order to hear it again, and then this was released so I bought it here as well. Way better to use my phone than an old Walkman.

The program is a collection of essays and excerpts from longer works by Miller describing people he knew or friendships he had, usually with a lot of over-the-top praise. It's the most positive aspects of Miller that are on display here, though it must be said that some of the ways he puts things and some of his attitudes about women and race and nationality are not anything I can endorse. He had prejudices that were complicated by the fact that he also held opposite views simultaneously, in most instances, which develops over the course of longer works, and the complexity of his attitudes are not always evident from these brief excerpts. Still, for a guy born in 1891 he seems positively progressive for his age on these points, and it is mostly Miller the metaphysical seeker and keen observer of human joys and foibles that is on display here.

The reader is basically perfect for the material and it is largely his voice that has continued to draw me back to this particular program over the years. The one small point that I've taken a star off for, is that when French phrases come up, as they routinely do, his pronunciation is way, way, WAY off, enough that I sometimes have to pause the program and repeat the sounds he made in order to figure out what the French he was looking at must have been. It's basically first-year stuff, so I don't really understand why he didn't get guidance on these passages, especially since he reads them so dramatically, his pronunciation makes it almost comical. On the other hand, Miller was fluent in French but notoriously spoke it with a thick Brooklyn accent, so maybe the terrible elocution was purposeful. And of course, if you don't speak French at all, this will not bother you.

Great program overall and thank you again for bringing it back to the world!

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