Top record producer has a new artist: James Joyce

jackson@sanduskyregister.comSANDUSKYProducer and record company executive David Kahne has worked with some of the top artists in show business. Paul McCartney. Bruce Springsteen. Sublime. Tony Bennett. The Bangles.But on his latest recording, Kahne finally got to work with his all-time favorite artist: James Joyce.A generous slice of the Irish modernist writer's avante-garde novel, "Finnegans Wake," provides all of the text for Kahne's album-length recording, about 46 minutes long.It's part of the second version of the "Waywords and Meansigns" project, which converts the entire text of the book into an audiobook accompanied by music.Version One of "Waywords and Meansigns" came out last year. Version Two, featuring an all-new lineup of musicians and performers, was released Feb. 2, James Joyce's birthday. Both versions are available at the project's website, http://www.waywordsandmeansigns.com/. All of the tracks in various formats may be downloaded at no cost from the Internet Archive.Kahne's contribution, "The Humphriad I: His Agnomen and Reputation, pp. 30-47," is the second track on the album. All of the music and the narration is by Kahne.Kahne, based in New York City, was invited to participate by another big name on the project, legendary punk rock bassist Mike Watt. Watt played with the Minutemen and fIREHOSE before launching a solo career, and Kahne had used him when producing Kelly Clarkson's "My December" album.Watt also is a big Joyce scholar, and he connected Kahne with Derek Pyle, coordinator for Waywords and Meansigns project. (As it happened, Watts is late with his own track, but it's expected to become available soon.)Kahne wanted to take part. He did the soundtrack for "Bloom," a 2003 movie adaptation of James Joyce's most famous novel, "Ulysses." It describes one day in Dublin, Ireland, June 16, 1904, following two men around the city who wind up together at the end of the day.Kahne, speaking in a telephone interview, says that "Ulysses" is his favorite work of art, and that includes all of the arts, such as painting, music and literature. He said he has read it all the way through probably ten times."I could read it another ten times easily and get as much out of it," he said.Kahne said he tried several times to read "Ulysses," each time giving up. But then, when making another try, he found the passage early in the book which refers to God as "a shout in the street."That struck Kahne as "very Zen.""From that point on, I read right through the book," he said.Kahne worked on and off for four months on his "Waywords and Meansigns" track, making the music with computer-generated sounds and also doing the narration.Because he doesn't like the sound of his voice, he tried using another voice before giving up and doing the narration himself."The narration took longer than the music," he said. "I'd go for an hour and get a paragraph."Kahne said he has six computers dedicated to orchestration. The ability of computers to generate music has really advanced in the last five years, he said."Most of the music you hear on television is mostly done on computer," he said.Aside from producing artists such as Sublime, the Strokes and Paul McCartney, Kahne has worked as an "A & R" record company executive. The "artists and repertoire" executive is responsible for signing new artists, developing them and marketing them.Sylvia Beach, owner of the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris before World War II, "discovered" Joyce and published "Ulysses." Kahne said that when he visits Paris and walks by the bookstore's location, "I do a little bow to Sylvia Beach, because she was James Joyce's A & R guy. She signed him."In recent years, Kahne has concentrated on writing film soundtracks and doing ballet music.Much of the music is posted at his website, http://www.vincristin.com/home.php, along with behind the scenes anecdotes about the recording sessions he's produced. He produced one of his biggest hits, "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles, by insisting that the group cover the song.Kahne discovered the song by accident. A publishing company mailed him a cassette of a tune it was trying to get recorded. But instead of the song on the label of the tape, Kahne got the offbeat "Egyptian" song, written by Liam Sternberg, who emerged from the Akron, Ohio "new wave" scene.A similar unexpected twist helped Kahne in his career as a ballet composer.He had been composing film soundtracks, and wrote a soundtrack for a film about Peter Pan that a friend was producing. The film eventually turned into "Hook," but by then Kahne's friend was no longer involved and he didn't get to do the soundtrack.Kahne gave a copy of the recording to his daughter, and one day, he noticed her dancing around to the music. Kahne thought, "Oh, is it a ballet?" and realized he could do dance music.Working on the stage production for the "Peter Pan" ballet put the hit making producer's music career in a different light. Kahne helped pay to get it staged, and even set up the sound system.Kahne's resume includes producing two albums for Paul McCartney, "Memory Almost Full" and "Driving Rain."McCartney was willing to listen to his producer, Kahne said.He explained that he's worked with many famous artists, and one of their main concerns is that people are always lying to them. But sometimes, while the artists don't want to be lied to, if you tell them the truth they get angry and call you names, he said."Paul is the opposite of that. Paul wants to know what you think," Kahne said."He's actually one of the most open people I've ever worked with. He still cares about his craft of songwriting," Kahne said.Producer David Kahne at Avatar Studios on March 27, 2013 in New York, N.Y. James Joyce is remembered for books such as "Ulysses," "Finnegans Wake" and "Dubliners."