You’d be hard pressed to find a more down to earth musician calling Madison home than Marty Finkel. I was introduced to Marty through my friend and co-worker Spense at Strictly Discs who’d had Marty’s self-titled release on his list of favorite records from 2007. That’s enough of a reason to get me excited. Recently Marty has established himself as a viable support for national acts including Why? and an upcoming stint with fellow songsmith John Craigie opening for MoB favorites The Acorn on Sunday, April 27th.

Could you lend some information on the recording process of your self-titled record? Where and how was it recorded, and were there any lessons learned that you’ll apply towards future recording sessions?

The bulk of the recording was done in Portland, Oregon at the legendary Jackpot! Studio. I had worked there with Adam Pike on my previous release (Songs My Mom Likes EP). I had a really great experience so I decided to go back out there. The plan was to go in the spring of 2007 but the original Jackpot! location was going to be demolished and turned into condos by then so I decided to go out in January before they made their move into the new studio. So in a week we recorded and mixed the whole album except for “It’s Gonna Be Alright” and some additional mixing and mastering that was done later on. The lesson that I learned is to just spend more time in the studio for my future releases. I’m going back out to Portland this summer to work with Adam again but this time I’ll be spending two weeks out there.

How long have you been playing music and what do your live performances consist of?

I’ve been making music for about seven years. I was always a rocker at heart and my early shows were usually played with a drummer but all of the musicians I knew were already in bands so I switched over to playing an acoustic guitar. So my shows have just been me and an acoustic guitar for the past four or five years. However, recently I put together a band that consists of a drummer and another percussionist. We played our first show in the new outfit a couple of weeks ago and it went well enough that I think I’ll be doing more shows like that in the future. I like having the freedom to do acoustic as well as electric shows with the band so I think my shows will vary depending on who else is on the bill.

We’re always looking to uncover new favorite artists, are there any band(s)/record(s) that you could recommend to our readers?

I don’t listen to a ton of new music. I’ve been enjoying Kelley Stoltz’s new album as well as Bon Iver. The bulk of what I listen to is from the 60’s and 70’s. Some bands/artists that I would highly recommend include Judee Sill. Though her career and life were short lived the two albums she put out (”Judee Sill” and “Heart Food”) are pure sonic beauty. Honeybus is another great jangly pop band from the 60’s. I also am a huge fan of Tyrannosaurus Rex’s album “Unicorn”. It’s before Marc Bolan was playing electric guitars and banging a gong. It is psych/folk at it’s best and a big influence on the debut album of my alter-ego Spinning Swords.

The internet has dramatically altered the way artists can reach an audience. With things like blogs/myspace/etc, what are your thoughts on the power of the internet in terms of helping (or hurting) your music?

I’ve often had a battle of pros and cons with the internet. I think it’s definitely helped artists reach out to people that otherwise wouldn’t have access to their music. But it has also allowed the marketplace to get over saturated with music which I think has a tendency to just overwhelm listeners. It also allows listeners to take music for granted. Instead of going out and buying an album people can just go to their favorite band’s myspace and listen to three or four of their favorite songs. Though I personally would rather have 1000 people listen to my music for free than to sell 10 CDs so I guess the internet is a pretty good tool.

If you were to play an entire set of someone else’s songs, whose material would you choose and/or enjoy playing the most?

I’m a huge fan of The Coasters. They had the greatest songwriting team of all time behind them (Lieber and Stoller). Their songs are just witty and fun and I think would go over well with audiences. I also got really into Harry Nilsson in the past year or so and we played “Gotta Get Up” at the first show with the new band and it was a blast. I think Harry Nilsson has a great catalog of songs that are again witty and fun. Otherwise, it would take a lot of instrumentation to do it right, but I would love to do “Pet Sounds” in its entirety.

Myspace: Marty Finkel
MP3: Marty Finkel - “Make It In The Morning”

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