Don Zientara

Biography

Best known because the maker for most from the rings about Washington D.C.’s legendary Dischord Information, Don Zientara was also a musician — once an associate of Under Heaven, in the first eighties — who released his first single album, 16 Ssongs, on very long time collaborator and friend Ian MacKaye’s North Liberties label in 2003. Originally an studio room artist and audio engineer in the Country wide Gallery of Artwork, Zientara started his foray into documenting the music lately seventies/early eighties Washington, D.C. when he was asked to record displays for rings like the Appear as well as the Urban Verbs at night clubs like the Atlantis. His skills being a manufacturer gained him some quick person to person success, as well as the demand for his providers deemed it essential for Zientara to start a studio room to record increasingly more from the area’s music artists. The studio room, dubbed Internal Ear, would ultimately turn into a Mecca of kinds for the D.C. underground picture, with Zientara dealing with rings like the aforementioned Urban Verbs (afterwards know because the Verbs), the Teenager Idles, Small Threat, Fugazi, Q rather than U, Dag Nasty, Slant 6, Circus Lupus, Wise Went Crazy, the Evens, Joe Lally, Poor Brains, and southwestern punk clothing 7 Secs. Although Zientara’s close romantic relationship with Dischord gained him the respect from the punk community countrywide, his work had not been limited by the noisier, even more angular areas of music. At Internal Ear canal (which would ultimately outgrow its cellar space, and proceed to more appropriate configurations in a industrial space in Arlington) Zientara also documented such mixed musics as chorale music, Celtic folk, traditional, jazz, spoken phrase, and books on tape readings. Furthermore, Zientara became somewhat of the master, imparting his understanding and skill to those that he previously the satisfaction of dealing with, such as for example Ian MacKaye, Man Piccotto, among others in the picture who, while getting part of their very own effective rings, had been also adept at documenting and producing brand-new groups that arrived. In some instances, much like Jawbox, Burning up Airlines, and Stations frontman J. Robbins and Chad Clark of Beauty Tablet, he helped spur some to start their very own studios. Sterling silver Sonya, one of the most prominent of the next era of D.C. studios, was work by Clark, and Magpie Studio room, in Baltimore, was Robbins’ workspace. The studio room and its own quality of function gained it and Zientara a boatload of respect over time, being discussed and praised within the press, in addition to being kept in high respect by rings from coast to coast. After finally getting a audio for his personal work which was acceptable, Zientara released an recording of his personal, Sixteen Ssongs — which got its exclusive audio from an antique (40 yrs . old) Wollensack tape deck — on North Liberties, the label started by MacKaye to display a number of the even more rootsier and folkier areas of Washington D.C.’s talented band of music artists, such as for example Zientara and Lungfish’s Daniel Higgs. A follow-up record, Clocks and Watches, premiered on that same label in 2007.

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