Turn You On To... www.daytrotter.com

I Wanna Turn You On To...

www.daytrotter.com

Interview with Sean Moeller

Words: Ashley Marie Sansotta

Photos: Courtesy of Daytrotter

Who it is...

Mastermind: Sean Moeller

... and others.

What’s their story...

Sean describes his Daytrotter Sessions better than anyone else ever could...

“These fine people – as they’re traveling through America’s heartland – take two hours out of their travels between shows to stop in for a Daytrotter Session at Futureappletree Studio One in downtown Rock Island, Illinois. The name of the city is not ironic. They use borrowed instruments, play with their touring mates, utilize an often unkempt toilet, eat some food and then cram back into their vans for the last half of the drive. What they leave behind is a pile of ashes, sometimes a forgotten stocking hat and four absolutely collectible songs that often impart on whomever listens to them the true intensity that these musicians put into their art, sometimes with more clarity than they do when they have months to tinker with overdubs and experiments. These songs are them as they are on that particular day, on that particular tour – dirty and alive. We want you to make this your new home as it is ours. We promise that you will love it here.”

Why I want to turn you on to it...

Daytrotter puts our beloved musicians to life with raw recordings, candid interviews, and beautiful illustrations. I was fortunate enough to pick the brain of my friend, Mr. Daytrotter, himself: Sean Moeller.

REAX: Of course, I have to begin with (probably) the most common question you are asked... How did you get the initial idea of Daytrotter?

Sean Moeller: It came out of thin air really. I believe I was talking to a diehard Bob

Dylan fan, just shooting the breeze as we Midwesterners are known to do, and

the idea formulated and came down from on high. It was divine intervention

of the indie sort. I just wanted to do something different. I had no idea it

was going to be so encompassing and so much hard work, but this idea of ours

has been such a phenomenally exciting little beast that I'm not complaining.

After the idea occurred to me, two weeks later we were recording our first

sessions with Catfish Haven and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. We

were learning on the fly.

REAX: Was the illustration portion of Daytrotter in the picture when the idea first came into your mind? How did that come about?

SM: The illustration idea came kind of secondary. Well, that's not necessarily

true. I wanted illustration to play a prominent role in the site and I think

I knew that I wanted there to only be illustration -- though it's hard to

know what I think I thought way back two years ago anymore. We started with

all of the sessions being illustrated and then gradually met enough starving

artists to make it exclusively illustrated, like a Marvel comic. The comics

in the newspaper were always what I read first, even as a little kid. And

nowadays, I just love The Believer and I've never hidden the fact that I'd

love Daytrotter to be considered Internet-ly in the same league as The

Believer is print-ly.

REAX: How would you describe Daytrotter to someone who didn't know what it was?

SM: I'd probably use some phraseologies from “Good Will Hunting,” “A Few Good

Men,” “Disorderlies,” every DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince record, plus

select bits of lyrics from Atom & His Package songs like I would in

describing pretty much anything else in my life. Oh, and I'd use Wiffle Ball

as another reference point in telling people all about our world record

breaking passion for sweet ass music and analog recording, as well as giving

these one-of-a-kind, collectible musical sessions away for free, like North

Pole elves.

REAX: What do you want people to get out of Daytrotter?

SM: I want people to understand that we don't care about hip, trendy or cool. If

we want to have Garth Brooks on Daytrotter, we're going to do it. And if we

do put Garth on Daytrotter, it's because we think he's great, not as a bit

of sarcasm. The way that I've always approached music is by trying to get

something out of everything. All of the people that we bring in for sessions

affect me in a different way -- from song to song and from album to album;

and all of that changes from day to day. I just want people to appreciate

all these writers and artists for their contributions to the greater

library. And I hope that people listen to our sessions and then go out and

support these bands -- buy their records, go to their shows -- so that they

can keep making these songs that we love.

REAX: What is your reaction when people compare what your doing to the legendary John Peel sessions?

SM: It's flattering and a little daunting. Having read up more on Mr. Peel since

those comparisons started happening, we've realized that we do things quite

dissimilar from the way he did them, but the thing that I'm honored to have

compared to him is our love for genuine, true blue music. We're championing

the bands we're fond of and we believe in them more than anything -- without

being swayed into liking anything. We like a band because our heart tells us

to, not because a web site did (though I see the irony in being a web site;

I see a difference also though in that we present bands that we like, but

rarely if ever do I tell bands that anyone is the new cool or that they

just HAVE to like someone; I consider Daytrotter to be a fair and level

platform where we present and then let you go for it).

REAX: What's your typical Daytrotter day look like?

SM: There's coffee -- never drank the stuff until we started this thing -- and

there are billions of e-mails to be waded through. There's scheduling of

sessions, scheduling of shows in our favorite little pizza parlor here in

Rock Island, piles of writing, being with my little daughter Dylan, feeding

her, changing her, taking her to listen to sessions that we're recording,

and more and more and more.

REAX: What are your personal favorite sessions you have recorded so far?

SM: I really would have to give you a list of 250 or so, but I'll say the two

Delta Spirit sessions because I perform bottle-banging and singing in them,

Will Oldham and then all of the encore sessions because we have so much more

fun the second time around.

REAX: Daytrotter has such a positive impact on the bands that stop in. What's your personal, most rewarding experience that you've had making this happen?

SM: We've just made so many damn friends in these bands -- real friendships --

and I think most everyone who comes in contact with us and the site

understand and can really grasp that we're doing it for the right reasons --

for others, and maybe that's a lost notion these days. The thought of not

doing something for greed. Doing something for others out of the goodness of

your heart because you believe in it and in them so much. I think people see

that we're going out of our way to make something special and it feels good

-- all of it.

REAX: Who's an artist you would someday wish to have come through in the future?

SM: Willie Nelson, more than anything. and Neil Young, about the same amount of

more than anything.

REAX: What are some projects you have coming up that your excited about?

SM: Well,we're partnering up with some really tremendous people -- the people

who run Wolfgang's Vault (www.wolfgangsvault.com) and they're going to make

it possible for us to do some really dope things that we couldn't do before.

We're trying to buy an old theater on the same block as our studio. We're

working on getting a weekly radio show on NPR and we'll be teasing people

with live web cam video shooting onto the site at random times when we have

people in for recordings. It's going to be fun.

REAX: Who's the next band/artist everyone should check out?

SM: Here's a list: Dri, Golden Boots, Delta Spirit, Grand Ole Party,

Botticellis, The Dodos, Fleet Foxes, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, Luke

Temple, Speck Mountain and I'll leave it at that for now.