Soul Mining with Daniel Lanois

Bouncing Around Brooklyn with the Sonic Explorer

Daniel Lanois, Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn.

Canadian multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and ambient/electronic music artist Daniel Lanois was recently in Brooklyn to perform two shows; the first at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church presented by Reflections, and a second at Baby’s All Right. (A limited tour continues in Chicago, Los Angeles and Ontario.)

I first met Daniel 10 years ago when I photographed and interviewed him for a profile series with Mother Jones. I sought him out because he had produced several albums that were important to me: Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball, Peter Gabriel’s So, and U2’s The Joshua Tree (co-produced with Brian Eno) among others.

Within the framework of the New Age-oriented Reflections series, the performance at St. Ann’s was formal and meditative with a luminous video projection playing off the lines of the church architecture. After the set, seven or eight ambient/electronic music fans came up to the stage to reverently inspect the rig of samplers and processors that Lanois has fine tuned over the years to summon his distinctive sound.

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The second night at Baby’s All Right was more laid back. I reconnected with Daniel in the green room and he was welcoming and very encouraging of taking whatever photos I wanted to do. Before the show, we went across the street where he said “the rock star guys” were hanging out. I braced myself to meet The Edge and Neil Young, but he was referring to the team from Rockstar Games, with whom he contributed music to the very successful Red Dead Redemption video game. After a couple quick rounds, he gathered us up and led us back across the street, chatting up the bouncer before escorting in our crew of a dozen ticketless people.

The back room at Baby’s was lively upon return. Musician, songwriter and vocalist Trixie Whitley had come to the show. She and Daniel had a band project together in 2010, Black Dub, and Daniel had been closely connected with her father, the late Chris Whitley.

Daniel with Trixie Whitley

The Rockstar Games crew.

Discussing woodwinds with musician Stuart Bogie (Antibalas, Arcade Fire)

Last minute deliberations with Wayne Lorenz before the set.

Stuart Bogie with Elori Saxl, who performed an opening set.

Although technically a solo show, Daniel’s co-producer and right-hand man of 40 years, Wayne Lorenz, was by his side as they confabulated intently on which collections of samples and multi-tracks to cue up and where to send them. Their four hands moved in busy coordination to feed the source material into processors and mixers. The spontaneously mixed compositions morphed from movement to movement, weaving together a library of steel guitar sounds, drum loops (probably Brian Blade?), vocals (Aaron Neville) and other concoctions from a lifetime of sonic discovery.

Daniel then switched over to the pedal steel—with which he’s developed many idiosyncratic techniques for coaxing sounds out of—frequently tapping on a delay trigger near the bridge to build and layer the sonics. He worked the pedals in a pair of ragged boots held together with duct tape which he explained were originally from 1986 when he had two different songs in the top 10.

At the conclusion of the set, Daniel balanced precariously on a wobbly drum stool to address the audience.

In hanging out, I hoped to observe the attributes that made him an effective producer an unique artist in his own right. The magic for me came at the very end of the night after friends and revelers had left and it was just us back in the green room. He asked if I had a nice time and then requested that I take a picture of him sitting in a spot he liked. It wasn’t quite right but it served as an opening to interact creatively. A few more minutes passed and we were about to leave. My photographer brain noticed a spot in the corner with red lights at the edge of Hollywood mirror. I did an, “Oh, hey, come over here for just a second,” and we both recognized we had a moment to do something. I shot a few dozen frames within about 40 seconds, some direct at him and some through the mirror. I don’t even remember him making those gestures seen in the double image at the top of the piece, it must have been something in-between where my photographer brain again went on auto-pilot and said, “who knows, just shoot it.”

What I distilled from the two evenings with him is that he keeps the people around him happy and engaged while maintaining a subtle center of gravity, a good host, if you will. But then he’s very focused on the art making when it’s the right time, which is part spontaneity and part having dialed in his tools and sounds over many decades. The portraits of him are my favorite images from the weekend. It’s hard to say if they were made spontaneously in 40 seconds or from being present through that 48 hours. Maybe it’s even from 10 years of listening and rumination. Whichever it was, I think he helped draw it out of me.

Thank you Daniel, Wayne and Margaret.

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By the way, these portraits are part of a group exhibition of music photography, ‘Presence’, that has its opening reception TONIGHT at 7PM at Brooklyn Grain Studios - 1166 Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Come say hello, meet a bunch of photographers and have a beer.

I’ve also finished the design of our That Million Dollar Bash Official Membership Card, which will be hand stamped and numbered and mailed to our beloved paid subscribers.

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