Jim Diamond (music producer)

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For other persons of the same name, see Jim Diamond.
Jim Diamond

Background information
Genre(s) Indie rock
Occupation(s) Audio engineer, Record producer
Instrument(s) Vocals, bass guitar, guitar
Years active 1995 – present
Label(s) Ghetto Recorders
Associated acts The Dirtbombs, The Fleshtones, The Go, Paik, The Ponys, Screamray, The White Stripes

Jim Diamond is a veteran music producer, studio engineer, and bass guitar player based in Detroit, Michigan. He is also known for his work on the first two White Stripes albums and for his time playing bass with the Detroit garage rock band The Dirtbombs.

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[edit] Background

Jim Diamond started playing saxophone and classical guitar at 10 years-old. By 13 years-old he was playing bass guitar in a rock band called Inferno. Later in high school he also played guitar and sang in a band called The Neo Plastics. In 1983 Diamond graduated from Trenton High School, in Trenton, MI. In 1988 he went on to get a Telecommunications degree (with a minor in music) from Michigan State University. In 1995, after college, Diamond started working at Harvest Music and Sound Design in Lansing,MI. At Harvest Music Diamond worked on "car commercials and Christian metal," he later remembered. He then moved to Austin, TX and started playing guitar and bass with such bands as the Beatosonics, Herman the German and Das Cowboy. Diamond returned to Detroit and started Ghetto Recorders in the fall of 1996. Diamond was also a longtime member of the popular Detroit band The Dirtbombs. Diamond wrote and performed the vocals on the tune "I'm Through With White Girls." The song appears on the Dirtbombs studio album Dangerous Magical Noise and the compilation cd Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit, which was recorded by Jack White.

[edit] Ghetto Recorders

Jim Diamond is well know for Ghetto Recorders, his analog recording studio in a huge, downtown loft and apartment space in Detroit. The studio contains equipment that is at least 20 years-old. He uses 2" tape, which is uncommon in today's computerized recording world. He uses a 24-track tape machine among other mixing boards and various equipment. Diamond was quoted as saying: "I find it interesting that today most people make records while staring at a computer screen. I make records while listening to the sound coming out of the speakers." "i hate america"!

[edit] History of Ghetto Recorders

Ghetto Recorders studio was originally a chicken processing factory in the 1920s and 30s. The control room (where the recording equipment is) used to be the freezer where the factory stored the chickens. Ghetto Recorders first release was by the spazzy, garage-punk duo Bantam Rooster, fronted by Diamond's long time friend, Thomas J. Potter.

[edit] Collaborations

On the Motorcity Brewing Works' live compilation "GhettoBlaster," Diamond appeared as the front man for "Jim Diamond's Pop Monsoon." As proprietor and chief engineer at Ghetto Recorders, Diamond has worked with, and in some cases helped launch the careers of, several well-known indie rock performers, including The High Strung, The Dirtbombs, The Fleshtones, Electric Six, The Witches, Bantam Rooster, The Gore Gore Girls, The Mooney Suzuki, The Compulsive Gamblers, The Dirtys, The Ponys, The Silencers, The Go, The Hentchmen, Screamray, Thee Emergency, Outrageous Cherry, Paik, The Clone Defects, They Come In Threes, The Sights, The Volebeats, and The White Stripes.

  • Diamond also composed and performed songs for the 2005 horror/comedy movie Santa's Slay which is distributed by Lion's Gate. He also composed and performed the theme music for Detroit Metropolitan Airport's "123Park" campaign.

[edit] White Stripes Legal Dispute

From 2004 to 2006, Diamond was involved in a legal battle with The White Stripes over royalty payments, with Diamond claiming to have been a joint author of the master recordings(Diamond is credited as co producer on their first recording,"The White Stripes") he and the White Stripes created at Ghetto Recorders in 1999. In 2006, Jack White cited the legal battle with Diamond as one of his reasons for moving to Nashville.[citation needed] Diamond lost the case , the statute of limitations being the grounds for the loss.

  • Authorship of the master recordings means the physical "sound" recordings, not the authorship of the songs themselves. Diamond has never claimed to have written or co-written any of the White Stripes songs.

[edit] References

[edit] External links