Kevin Shields
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Kevin Shields (born Queens, New York City, USA on May 21, 1963) is a singer, guitarist, and producer who fronted the London-based, Irish/British band My Bloody Valentine in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He has also played for Primal Scream since 1997, played and produced with Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis on Dinosaur's Hand It Over (with Bilinda Butcher) and J Mascis + The Fog's More Light, and recently contributed music to the motion picture Lost in Translation.
Although holding a USA passport, Shields spent his adolescence in Dublin, Ireland after moving there with his family as a nine-year-old.
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[edit] Guitar sound
One of the most remarkable aspects of Shields' music is his unusually thick and dreamy guitar sound.
Using Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters, Shields manipulates the tremolo arm while strumming chords. The effect is of chords being constantly bent in and out of tune, a style only possible on instruments with floating tremolo systems, such as Jaguars and Jazzmasters. To thicken the sound, he plays through a Yamaha SPX 90 using a reverse reverb effect. To further augment his sound, he cranks amps to exceptionally loud volumes, causing speaker "breakup" and increasing sustain. He also employs open tunings, modulation effects such as flanger, and reverb.
Recording techniques have also figured into the creation of his tone. For example, Loveless track "Only Shallow"'s was recorded by enclosing a microphone between two speakers.
Shields has noted that he uses far fewer effects pedals and overdubs than the music press sometimes makes him out to use - a surprising and perhaps disingenuous claim in light of how unique his sound is. Nonetheless, he has sometimes said his sound is "just a guitar plugged into an amp."
Many have tried to replicate the guitar sounds on Loveless, with varying degrees of success. Shields even had trouble reproducing the sounds himself, as his live guitar sounds at the time varied greatly from those on the record. He was known to try to duplicate the sheer power of the recorded tone by turning on-stage monitors to face the audience, rather than the band; many, including Shields, note that the Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine shows were amongst the loudest rock concerts they had ever experienced.[1]
[edit] My Bloody Valentine
When creating My Bloody Valentine's album Loveless, Shields became a relentless perfectionist according to some reports. [attribution needed] Shields attributed the time involved to both their lack of resources (money to get their guitars in shape was one example noted) and simply not recording when there was no inspiration to guide them. So many mistook the main guitar track for ten to fifteen layered guitars. Most tracks ultimately were done in one or two takes with one or two main guitar tracks. The most notable exception is "To Here Knows When" which tooks months to create and even longer to mix. He went through 14 recording engineers before finishing Loveless. Other eccentricities included not allowing the engineers to hear him or Bilinda Butcher singing while recording. These drawn out, expensive sessions nearly drove Creation Records bankrupt. Shields has commented that the extent of the contribution of the engineers was to get him tea and other gopher chores. The plethora of engineers coming and going is indicative of the fact that no one engineer contributed to the sound of the album; it was all dreamed up by Kevin Shields and the band.
After Loveless Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, the then "remaining" members of My Bloody Valentine, signed the band to major label Island Records. Island ended up empty handed after years of financing the band (amounting to £500,000), forcing them to terminate the contract in 2001. In the meantime Shields wrote some songs but never released them.
However, he recently showed interest in a reunion and releasing a new album with My Bloody Valentine. In an interview with Magnet magazine in 2007 he said, “We are 100% going to make another My Bloody Valentine record unless we die or something. I’d feel really bad if I didn’t make another record. Like, shit, people only got the first two chapters, but the last bit is the best bit. It’s just that it’s taken me such an oddly long time for that to happen.” He didn't estimate when this would happen.
[edit] Solo work
Shields has done remixes and recording/mixing for over 20 other artists and these tracks give a fascinating look at Shields ideas about rhythm and sound in general taking him away sometimes from the 4 minute pop song. After having worked with and remixed Primal Scream, he joined them on tour and in the studion between 1999 and 2006, featuring on the albums XTRMNTR and Evil Heat. He also contributed (uncredited) guitar to the Manic Street Preachers' 2001 album Know Your Enemy on the track 'Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children'. He contributed some solo tracks for the 2003 Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation. In 2005, he appeared at London's Meltdown Festival with Patti Smith, providing accompaniment to her reading of her book The Coral Sea (a tribute to her friend photographer Robert Mapplethorpe). (This is available for streaming at http://www.inkoma.com/pages/my_bloody_valentine.html .) He co-wrote, performed on, and produced Le Volume Courbe's debut album. He has remixed two songs for The Go! Team, "Ladyflash" and "Huddle Formation", which can be found on the "Ladyflash" single. The band has also expressed their desire for Shields to produce their second album [1]. He has also remixed two songs by Bow Wow Wow, which are to appear in the soundtrack for the Sofia Coppola film Marie Antoinette [2].
Shields has a younger brother, Jimi Shields, who has been a contributor to the bands Rollerskate Skinny and Lotus Crown.
[edit] External links
- Unofficial website about Shields and his work
- From My Bloody Valentine to 'Lost in Translation' NPR interview with Shields
| My Bloody Valentine |
|---|
| Kevin Shields | Colm O'Ciosoig | Bilinda Butcher | Debbie Googe |
| Albums |
| Isn't Anything | Loveless |
| EPs |
| This Is Your Bloody Valentine | Geek! | The New Record by My Bloody Valentine | Sunny Sundae Smile Strawberry Wine | Ecstasy | You Made Me Realise | Feed Me with Your Kiss | Glider | Tremolo |
| Compilations |
| Ecstasy and Wine |
| Labels |
| Creation Records | Island Records | Sire Records |
| Related articles |
| Shoegazing | List of songs by My Bloody Valentine |
