Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 26, 1992)
Arts & Entertainment ‘Startracker’ shoots for Lincoln’s stars Basement studio offers personal, casual recording By Chris Burchard Staff Reporter It lies within the bowels of Brett Holihan’s house: a mass of black and silver shapes with words like Lexi con, Alesis and Korg glaring from their surfaces, bound together by strands of life-giving electric wire. They arc portions of a greater crea ture named Startracker. But what lurks in the basement of 933 N. 45th St. isn’t a brain-devour ing science fiction monster or the latest Pentagon financial snafu. It’s Holihan’s baby. “Having my own studio was al ways a dream,” Holihan said, refer ring to the recording studio he opened in Lincoln 12 years ago. Startracker is one of only a few full-service record ing facilities in the Lincoln area. “It started small and grew slowly,” Holihan said. When it opened, the studio consisted of four pieces of equipment, the most sophisticated of which was a recl-to-rcel eight-track recorder. Now Startracker’s compo nents number in the dozens and arc worth about $80,000, he said. And the basement housing the equipment is hardly a dank, creepy boiler room or cellar. It’s a $26,000 structure complete with slanted walls, ceilings and floors, quarter-inch-thick glass separating the sound room from the mixing room, and hundreds of feci of aluminum screen inside the walls to deflect radio interference. It’s comfortable, too. The walls arc paneled with angled wood; thick carpet covers the floor. A large couch dominates the mixing room. “I think it’s a matter of style,” Holihan said. “It’s a more personal atmosphere. It helps create a relation ship w ith the client. Going to a com mercial building is a little scary for many artists ... the woodwork here, the couch, the house — it just helps.” Startrackcr certainly hasn’t scared away any busincs's. The studio 4& operating debt-free, Holihan said, with its facilities and equipment paid for. “I just seem to make the right business decisions intuitively,” he said. Holihan said he saw the studio as a compromise between business and music. ‘‘I love music, and I love being able to hook my artistic talent up with being able to cam a living,” he said. “The recording studio is a viable medium to connect an artist to the business world.” That connection can take many forms, Holihan said. He arranges and orchestrates the works of other artists to their specifications, duplicates cassettes (up to 30 at a lime) and rents out his sludio to those needing his equipment. He also composes with artistic license, he said, which includes writ ing musical pieces for private indi viduals, corporations and businesses. Companies characteristically want his music for use in grand openings, dinnerparties, promotional purposes, theme songs and ceremonies. Indi vidual needs get a bit stranger, from psychologists who want background music for guided imagery tapes to a woman who wanted music to accom pany a video of her horse. Startrackcr produces commercials and jingles, too. Remember “Video Fever at the Video Station?” That grand opening theme was Holihan’s. He’s also jingled for Havelock Bank and the Volunteer Connection in Lincoln, Gcrhold Concrete in Nor folk and businesses in Wisconsin, including the Elegant Farmer and Alien Import Auto. Jingles arc complicated orchestra tions, Holihan said, sometimes in volving weeks of planning and sludio time. They aren’t cheap, either, rang ing from SI,500 to S4,000 apiece in Nebraska’s market to more than S6,000 in other states, he said. Holihan’s talents don’t end with jingles, though. Startracker has re corded demo tapes by such groups as the Yard Apes, Stale of Shock, the Echoing Green, Sawhorse and the Demagogues as well as a host of others. Holihan said he’ll record anything — country, classical, rock, folk and alternative. The Millions cut its first tape at Startracker, and the band’s new label — Smash Records — accepted a number of Holihan’s original tracks for the recent album, as well as his trumpet solo for the song “Ruth S lark - man.” Marty Amsler, bass player for The Millions, said Startracker is “great It’s a really good, inexpensive way to gel some great-sounding demos.” • Amsler said Holihan “gets so into the bands he’s working with — he’s likea mad scientist behind themixing board.” And Holihan is more than a good producer and recording engineer, Amsler said. “Brett’s a very talented musician and we loved whal he came up with for ‘Ruth Starkman,’” he said. Holihan credited what he calls his family’s “musical gene pool” for his abilities. His father played piano with the famous Sammy Kaye Orchestra, and his mother was an accomplished concert pianist, he said. “Whether I can stand up to those standards remains to be seen,” he said. Holihan, who grew up primarily in Ohio and Wisconsin, said he was always interested in music. At age 10 he tried to write his first piece of music called “The Clock.” Since then he’s studied with such famous performers as Ted Jackson and Jimmy Cheatham, the last living member of Duke Ellington’s original band. “I grew like a weed studying with him,” he said. Holihan loured in a number of bands during his college years, in cluding Jcttin Janes, Minstrel (which opened for The Monkeys on the reun ion lour) and Chucky and the Dip sticks, the band which made him the most money, he said. He eventually quit those bands to pursue his studies, he said. He re ceived his undergraduate degree in music history and theory from the University of Wisconsin at Madison before coming to the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln. He said he was drawn here by Randall Snyder, a professor in the School of Music, who offered him a teaching assistantship. “It was a gofer assignment,’’ Holihan said. He graded papers, made up class rosters and checked for student pla giarism. “I thought it would be more teaching.” That time in his life, Holihan said, was a period of soul searching in which he weighed teaching music against opening a recording studio or performing on the road. “I had a burning desire to open a studio,” he said. “1 decided I was not going to teach unless 1 totally chose to, absolutely 100 percent, with my full mind, body and soul. 1 knew that’s what it lakes to be an cncourager — to be able to influence children, adults, whatever. For me, I hadn’t chosen. If some day my heart says 1 really want to teach, I’ll do that.” So Holihan tried to open the studio while he worked on his thesis. “That didn’t work. My thesis is silling upstairs with an inch of dust on it.” He said he plans to finish it some day. “Sure, I made some mistakes,” Holihan said, but he has few regrets. "I struggled a lot of years to open up to understand myself,” he said. “At this time I feel successful. I feel very confident. I feel very whole as a person doing exactly what I’m doing. I get to perform at the studio. 1 get to write music, and I get to help people bring their music into the world. ‘‘I’m having a blast. I love it.” Erik Unger/DN Brett Holihan sits in his homemade basement studio, Startracker, where Lincoln bands such as The Millions have recorded. Fates Warning wraps up tour with show in Omaha coru'prt By John Payne Senior Reporter If you look closely ai “Parallels,” the fifth and latest album from Fates Warning, you might notice that the old man adorning the cover is the same wrinkly gentleman from those Mctallica videos. And if you listen closely to the eight tracks inside, you’ll hear what a fully matured metal band sounds like. The Toronto-based quintet, which has drawn comparisons with Queensryche, will wind down its American tour tonight at the Ranch Bowl in Omaha (tickets are $9.75, available at the Ranch Bowl or Tick etMaster outlets). Calling from a truck stop “some where between Chicago and Omaha,” Fates guitarist Frank Aresti said the tour has been the most fruitful of the band’s eight-year career. Fates has picked up new fans in every city, Aresti said. “We’ve been surprised by the sell outs,” he said. “I think ‘Parallels’ has brought us a lot of new fans. We’re doing belter in certain places, like San Francisco, where we didn’t have that broad of a fan base before.” If “Parallels” is the reason for the band’s snowballing success, it would make perfect sense. Produced by Terry Brown of Rush lame, “Parallels is Fates’ most polished work to date, retaining the group’s flare for musi cal exhibitionism, but with the em phasis on accessible rock melodies. The vid^o for “Eye to Eye,” the second single Trom the LP, was re cently picked as the best new clip on MTV’s “Headbanger’s Ball.” “He just did a great job,” Aresti said of Brown’s studio help. “He made us sound better, and at the same time he didn’t interfere too much. If we were having one of those days when things weren’t going well, he’d be like?Don’t worry about it, let’s go get a drink and we’ll come back to it.’” Brown and Fates also taper the Courtasy ot Matalblada Racords Metal-mongering Fates Warning will be at the Ranch Bowl tonight. songs considerably. Unlike previous efforts, such as “Perfect Symmetry” and “No Exit,” the tunes are closer to four, rather than eight, minutes this time around. “In the past we were into that pro f;ressive sound. I think with our first our albums we went so far in that direction that we didn’t need to do any more," Aresti said. “I think we’re through with that phase where we were constantly prov ing ourselves as musicians.” Today’s show starts at 9 am. Doors open at 8 p.m.