| Sometimes, someone writes a song that you hear once at a show and months later, know all the words when it comes on the radio. I saw the Two Minute Miracles in the basement of a Masonic Hall in Mississauga. A year later I heard "Half an Average Song," on their new album, and was singing along. This is probably as good an endorsement as a songwriter can get.
Known for writing country-tinged pop songs with elegant brass flourishes, Swordfish trombone-style set pieces and hooks that last and last, The Two Minute Miracles have just released their third album, on Teenage USA records, Volume III (natch) The Silence of Animals. Produced by Magoffin, it is just one of the many records that bear his stamp.
The half dozen or so of you that are hip to the Three Gut Records hit incubator, responsible for the Constantines, Royal City and Cuff the Duke, may have noticed that pretty much every album coming out of southern Ontario has been recorded by Andy Magoffin at the House of Miracles. Fortunately, name recognition has no necessary relationship to music production and, if the truth be told, most producers become infamous rather than famous. Though Magoffin has never waved a gun at Markey Ramone, so far as I know, he makes great albums.
Magoffin estimates he’s recorded somewhere between 100 and 150 full length projects, from one copy CD-Rs for friends, to the Juno nominated Constantines debut album and the Hidden Cameras’ Rough Trade hit, The Smell of our Own.
"It was looking pretty dangerous for a while," says Magoffin from his London, Ontario home and studio, the House of Miracles. "There was a period where I was recording everybody. Now everybody is exercising their right to try something new. Gentleman Reg is with Dave Draves in Ottawa, Royal City is at Chemical Sound in Toronto."
While some producers stamp their own style on any project they tackle, Magoffin has the perfect knack for catching the right angle for every band. The Constantines rumble and stomp while Gentleman Reg needs room to breathe, and the only real similarity between the two of them is how good they sound. Magoffin has the sense to trust the bands he works with, and the results speak for themselves.
"Have you ever flown radio-controlled airplanes?" Magoffin asks. "There’s a class known as the trainer that’s really easy to fly. If you take your hands off the stick it’ll return to a stable neutral flight position. If you get into any aerobatic trouble – if you look like you’re going to crash – you just let go and it’ll right itself. I just try to trust my house as an acoustic space."
The house is a 100-year-old bungalow on a riverbank in downtown London. "I used to walk by it every day on my way to work. It went up for sale, I asked about renting, the real estate agent talked me into buying," he says.
Taking a short break from the producer’s seat, Magoffin plans to tour the country with the Miracles supporting their new disc. In the meantime, if the newly noticed Three Gut bands are finding other studios, there’s still plenty of work at the House of Miracles. When asked what projects would constitute a lottery win as an engineer and artist, Andy replies, "The Rheostatics would be a nice feather in my cap. They’ve been at it so long, they’re the quintessential experimental Canadian studio band. Van Halen would be a lot of fun ’cause I could make them sound the way I always thought they should sound. Tom Waits I’d do for free." |
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