Ian Brennan (producer)

Ian Brennan
Birth name Ian Brennan
Born Oakland, California
Occupation(s)
  • Record producer
Instruments
Website ianbrennan.com

Ian Brennan is an American music producer based in California.[1] He has won awards at the Grammy, authored four books and lectures about violence prevention.

Early life

He was born in Oakland, California[2] to James Brennan, a railroad engineer, and Marilyn Brennan, a nurse from a tiny town in eastern Kansas. He grew up on the Pleasant Hill border in the same suburban home his entire life. He and his older brother and sister have a mere two-and-one-half year span between the three of them. This is due in part to his sister, who is the middle child, being born more than two months premature with Down Syndrome.[3]

At age five, he began playing drums and switched to guitar at age 6 - which he taught himself to play.[4]

Career

San Francisco Bay Area

At age 19, his poetry was published for the first time in an anthology (Fineline Thunder)[5] curated by his adult-school creative writing instructor, Professor Betty Solomon. He was published again that same year in the Berkeley poetry journal, Agape.

At age 20, he self-released his first solo album and went on to produce eight more. He reflects now that he was his "own worst enemy" and made some of “most horrible albums possible" due to his obsessive-compulsive, autocratic approach.[6]

Beginning in 1996, for five years, he hosted a free, mostly acoustic music show in a San Francisco laundromat. He would perform solo and feature a different local band each week. He documented the shows as field recordings and these resulted in three Unscrubbed compilation releases.[7]

He also regularly organized benefit shows for social and/or political causes during this period-- most notably presenting Fugazi, Vic Chesnutt, and Sleater-Kinney for free in Dolores Park to honor the 20th anniversary of Food Not Bombs, as well as staging Green Day for free on the front of the steps of San Francisco's City Hall on the Sunday before George Bush's election as president.[8]

He produced two albums nominated for Grammys in the Traditional Folk category (Ramblin Jack Elliott 2006[9], Peter Case 2007[10]).

In 2015, his semi-autobiographical novella, Sister Maple Syrup Eyes, was published, after working on drafts of it for over 25 years. It deals with the aftermath of the sexual assault of a partner, a trauma he experienced at age 21. Readers+Writers journal praised it, "A beautiful book. Achingly beautiful."[11] And Louder Than War states it is, “….alive with the energy of an eye-witness."[12] Small Press Picks noted, “In vividly re-creating Kristian’s personal journey, Brennan offers a layered and moving exploration of the truth…” [13]

International work

In 2009, he and his wife, the Italian-Rwandan, Marilena Delli, began traveling the world in search of countries and languages that were underrepresented internationally. Amongst others, this has resulted in releases from Rwanda, Malawi, South Sudan, Cambodia, Kibera, Tanzania, Romania, Vietnam, and most notably, the Zomba Prison Project.

In 2011 he won a Grammy[14] for the Tuareg band, Tinariwen's "Tassili" album, which was recorded live in the southeast Algerian desert just months before the Arab Spring erupted and war swept through the area.

In 2015, he scored his fourth Grammy nomination for the Zomba Prison Project[15], a story which was covered around the world including on the front-page of the New York Times[16] and featured on the television program "60 Minutes" with Anderson Cooper reporting.[17]

Due to the encouragement of his wife, he wrote a book on music, How Music Dies (or Lives): Field-recording And The Battle For Democracy In The Arts. It explores concerns related to the continuing domination of English language media across the planet, and details how recording technology can lead to more lifeless results as well as centralization of content. LargeHeartedBoy calls it “…one of the most thought-provoking books on modern music that I have ever read.”[18]

Production style

Brennan is known for his “fly on the wall” style of production and is often sometimes to Alan Lomax [19][20][21]. He states that relationships and emotion are what interests him, not technology. He advocates for embracing imperfection as a partner and prefers to record outdoors and 100% live, without any overdubs.

Mental Health background

At age 20, in need of a way to support himself, he began working in locked psychiatric hospitals as a counselor. He continued to do so for another fifteen years in psychiatric emergency rooms in Oakland and Richmond, California.[22]

In 1993 he was asked to develop a curriculum and teach his co-workers in verbal de-escalation at East Bay Hospital in Richmond. This request was based on his having regularly demonstrated skill at de-fusing emotionally charged and violent situations. Through word of mouth, he began teaching full-time at hospitals, clinics, jails and schools in the Bay Area and greater California. This teaching eventually led him around the country and then the world, having now taught in Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East at such places as UC Berkeley, the Betty Ford Clinic and the National Academia of Science (Rome)[23]

In 2010, he wrote a book for publisher W.W. Norton on anger (Anger Antidotes)[24]. A follow-up, Hate-less, was issued in 2014. [25]

External links

References

  1. ↑ "Past Winners Search". The GRAMMYs. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  2. ↑ "Ian Brennan On Honesty Without Fear". GRAMMYPro.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  3. ↑ Glionna, John M. (2008-03-10). "Here died a homeless person". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  4. ↑ "The Write Stuff: Ian Brennan on the Arrogance of Believing We Are Modern - By - SF Weekly". www.sfweekly.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  5. ↑ "City Lights Books". www.citylights.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  6. ↑ "Ian Brennan: Searching for the Truthful and Genuine". tapeop.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  7. ↑ "Clients of Silent Way: Ian Brennan | SilentWay.com". www.silentway.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  8. ↑ "Green Day To Play Free San Francisco Show". MTV News. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  9. ↑ Staff, Variety (2006-12-07). "49th annual Grammy nominations list — part 2". Variety. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  10. ↑ "Peter Case On Mountain Stage". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  11. ↑ "Book Review - Sister Maple Syrup Eyes by Ian Brennan". Readers+Writers Journal. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  12. ↑ "Sister Maple Syrup Eyes by Ian Brennan". Louder Than War. 2015-08-16. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  13. ↑ "Sister Maple Syrup Eyes". Small Press Picks. 2016-04-17. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  14. ↑ manu mary (2012-04-01), Ian Brennan, Grammy acceptance speech (2012), retrieved 2016-12-04
  15. ↑ "Grammy Nominations 2016: See the Full List of Nominees". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  16. ↑ Onishi, Norimitsu (2016-02-14). "Malawi Gets Its First Grammy Nomination, With Album by Prison Inmates". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  17. ↑ "The Music of Zomba Prison". Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  18. ↑ "Largehearted Boy: Book Notes - Ian Brennan "How Music Dies (or Lives)"". www.largeheartedboy.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  19. ↑ Deschamps, Stéphane. "The Zomba Prison Project, enregistrer la réalité - Les Inrocks". Les Inrocks (in French). Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  20. ↑ "How Music Dies (Or Lives): Field Recording And The Battle For Democracy In The Arts - Record Collector Magazine". recordcollectormag.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  21. ↑ "Zomba Prison Project: I Will Not Stop Singing". PopMatters. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  22. ↑ "Anger Management and How to Deal with Angry People | The Aware Show". theawareshow.com. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  23. ↑ "Aracne editrice - Antidoti contro la rabbia". www.aracneeditrice.it. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  24. ↑ "Ian Brennan On This Life Podcast". Dr. Drew | Official Website. 2016-10-04. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  25. ↑ "Articulate | WHYY". whyy.org. Retrieved 2016-12-04.
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