Music Man on the Move

Grammy-winning producer and engineer Stuart Sikes says goodbye Dallas, helloAustin

Music producer and engineer Stuart Sikes recently moved from Dallas to Austin.
Photo courtesy of Stuart Sikes
Sikes with Baptist Generals.
Photo courtesy of Stuart Sikes
Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose, for which Sikes won a Grammy.

After 10 years making Dallas a bit cooler than it was before, music producer and engineer Stuart Sikes has packed his bags and headed south, to the town he seemed destined for all along: Austin.

Sikes is best known for the Grammy he won in 2004 for engineering the album Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn. He relocated to Austin in September, and he will continue to mix, engineer and produce records. He says he is looking forward to working with Austin artists as well as the national artists with whom he's worked over the past 20 years.

"My wife Diane got a job in Austin," he says. "I'm still processing it, but I'm really excited. I've spent a lot of time here; I have a bunch of friends here. And I've worked here before, with Austin bands like TV Torso, The Great Nostalgic, Collin Herring, Marcus Stripling from Pleasant Grove — hopefully we're going to do some stuff together."

"The fact that I built Elmwood is pretty amazing," Sikes says. "I never thought I would get to do that."

Sikes, a Plano native, moved to Dallas in 2001 after having worked at Easley-McCain Studio in Memphis, famous for its connection in the 1960s to Elvis Presley, and then as a recording destination for alt-rock bands such as Pavement, Sonic Youth and the White Stripes. (Easley-McCain suffered a catastrophic fire in 2005 and is currently undergoing restoration.)

Sikes started as an intern and spent seven years there, mixing and engineering such acts as Jets to Brazil, Modest Mouse, the White Stripes and Cat Power.

The Loretta Lynn record came about because Sikes had worked with Jack White of the White Stripes.

"Her manager called and asked if I would do it," he says. "Honestly, I think they wanted the guy who mixed and recorded the White Stripes' Elephant, but he was going to charge an assload of money," says Sikes, modestly. "But I had done [White Stripes'] White Blood Cells, which Loretta's manager liked. I had worked with Jack, and they wanted to keep it in line with that. That was a long time ago, so it's a little hazy."

As for his 10 years in Dallas, he has something solid to show for it: a studio called Elmwood Recording.

"The fact that I built Elmwood is pretty amazing. I never thought I would get to do that," he says. "But I was traveling a lot for work, and I wanted to try and not travel as much. I would ask bands I was working with, 'If I had a studio in Dallas, would you come here to work with me?' Whether they were telling me the truth or not, they said yes. So that gave me the confidence to build it."

The studio was finished in 2007. Sikes shared the studio with musician/producer/Renaissance man John Congleton, who's now using the space full-time. The first act to record there was Cat Power, who came to Dallas to work on her '07 release Jukebox. "I've worked on three Cat Power records," Sikes says. "My atrocious voice is on one of her songs."

The recording industry has changed dramatically since Sikes began.

"Instead of traveling to a studio and mixing a record with a band, people send me hard drives," he says. "I mix it and send them a song. If they want changes, they tell me — often via email. That's one thing that's a little weird: I’ve mixed I don't know how many bands where I've never met or talked to them on the phone. It's all through email.

"What's even crazier is if they sing in a language you're not familiar with. You don't even know what the song's about. It's awesome to be able to do that. I would never have been able to do that seven years ago."

For those reasons, among others, he has no plans to build a studio in Austin.

"There's already a lot of good studios in Austin," he says. "The drummer from Spoon has an amazing one, Public Hi Fi, and there's another one called Wire I’ve worked at that I really like. There's a long list. But I am bringing a load of equipment, which will need a place to live. More than likely, I'll set up something when we buy a house — maybe do something in the backyard."

Some of Stuart Sikes' favorite recent recordings:

Baptist Generals, of Denton, Void Touching Faster Victuals. "They're on Sub Pop. They haven't put out a record in 10 years. We tried to record five or six years ago, but it didn't turn out the way they wanted. We did it again, and everybody is really happy. It's the best thing they've ever done."
RTB2, of Denton, We Are A Strange Man. "For two people, they are more impressive than most full bands."
Riverboat Gamblers, The Wolf You Feed. "They live in Austin now. I had a blast doing that. It showed you can make a really good record in 10 days."
Stomacher, from San Francisco, Clara. "They’re sort of Radiohead-ish, but more on the rock side. They also have spaghetti Western reverbed-out guitars."

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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