On the record with Joe Rainey

When we meet Joe Rainey, he’s sitting in his basement in Green Bay, Wisconsin, surrounded by microphones, audio recorders, rare Native American tapes, and a lifesize Zelda figurine that he picked up that day by chance on the job (he works in heating and cooling as his nine-to-five). The Minneapolis-born, Red Lake Ojibwe audiophile has been capturing powwows – Native ceremonies that involve feasting, singing and dancing – since he figured out how to use a tape recorder at eight years old, and his archive now contains hundreds of recordings dating back to 1994, some of which you can listen to on his Soundcloud.

But, for Joe, it’s not just about recording for posterity – it’s about capturing the music in a way that does justice to the singers and the social dimension of the celebrations. On Niineta, his debut album from last year, Joe dramatically expanded the boundaries of powwow music. Working with experimental producer Andrew Broder, he created innovative songs using his vast archive as the raw material: at different moments, you can hear kids yelling and running around, powwow announcers introducing the next drum group, a phone call from Joe’s incarcerated relative singing from inside a correctional facility, and samples from people who have passed away.

Here, Joe talks about his craft and his vision for the future of Native music.

DICE: How did you get into powwow singing?

Joe Rainey: There are Natives all over Minneapolis, but I really felt a sense of community on the Southside where I grew up. I started singing when I was about five or six, and asked around to see if I could join a drum and dance after-school programme. But my fascination with recording is what led me to become interested in singing powwow music. I had to learn without YouTube, and instead used the tape collections of the older generation as a resource. If it wasn’t for them, I really wouldn’t be involved in the singing side.

What got you hooked on recording them?

In my teens, I’d go to powwows with my peers, we’d record, listen to and borrow each other’s tapes. I felt like a small sample of all the tape recorders out there – I just wanted to be among the crowd. There’d be people watching drums three or four rows deep, and they all had tape recorders, trying to get a good angle. On some of the studio recordings of live recorded albums you can hear people stopping their tapes after the song was done – that’s how many tape recorders there were.

Then what would happen to the tapes?

The way most people found music was being around the drum group, seeing them in person and asking them, “Where’s the new tape?” You’d see tapes pop up in trading posts or in the local tribal community gas station, but you had to know where they were. When I was making my album, my focus was on making these tapes discoverable. I want to figure out how to archive this music to leave something useful for the youth. YouTube is a great tool, but I’m really a Native empowerment type of person – there needs to be some sort of collective where we’re getting the views, we’re getting the revenue, and we’re getting the clicks. So much of it is word of mouth or only exists as digital files in someone's archive. I think it’s really sad that there’s erasure of powwow music.

Why is it important to you that people understand powwow music?

Putting out my album, I wanted to be clear that I’m more of a proponent of powwow music than someone looking for personal gain. As a powwow singer, seeing someone doing something on their own might go against everything we’ve been taught, and critics might think I’m using the names of Iron Boy and Midnite Express [drum groups Joe's been part of], but those groups are part of my life. 

I want to change how people think about what we do, and let it be known that powwow singing is not just chanting (I have one song named ‘no chants’ for that reason). If this album serves as someone’s introduction to it, that’s cool, but I really want to stress that it’s a social thing. And if it moves you in a way where you have to go and see it for yourself at a powwow, then I’ve achieved my goal.

What’s the best way to capture the sound?

How you mic up powwow singers and drummers matters – and I get annoyed when it’s not done properly. I want to hear people’s breath, but when things like low-pass filters are applied, it takes away the breath, which sounds good to someone who is classically trained and wants to get rid of background noise, but cutting that breath means you’re almost going against what powwow singing is about.

Sound engineers always focus on capturing the drum, but it’s so important to pick up everything at the same time: the drum, the singing, the background, the ambience, the bells… you even want the announcer clear as hell. Also, when they cut that low end, the way the leather sticks hit the drum sometimes gets lost, too.

Who else should we know about in the scene? 

I have a friend named Jt Seaboy who’s going into beta testing on an app called Kulture Stream where drum groups can release their albums, so there’s a central place to listen to powwow music. I’m really proud to have partnered with him on the project as a ‘consultant’. I’ve also been working with my good friend Steven Arrowtopknot lately – he’s a sound wizard and he’s helped me master some stuff. I have people in my corner saying I can work on music full-time if I just figure out the fundraising. Jay LeBeau of South Dakota told me, “Man, just go get some grants and do your thing.” 

There’s a good handful of us who appreciate capturing sound, and I think the more we work together, the more we’ll head towards being a proper label or a collective for Native music: capturing it and making a space where people can record. I don’t want to keep bugging the same one guy who has all these albums. I just want to be able to listen to it – there should be no gatekeeping. Everything else lives on the internet except for powwow music. There needs to be something in place, and it needs to be Native-run and Native-curated. 

Have you received lots of support for the album?

I know my bros reach out and say stuff – it means a lot to me – but some bros haven’t said anything to me yet. I know they still love me and they’re proud of me. And I really do know that doing something different might not always be the right thing at first, but once they start to see what I’m really trying to do, I think all that is going to go away. I’m bringing their music with me – I’m not leapfrogging anyone. We’re all monkeys in a barrel and we need to link on to each other to get out of that barrel. I really hope that happens.

I really do think there’s a future in bringing talented Native voices to light, because I think the expression of oppression is music. And Natives have gone through tons of things that make expression through music that much deeper, so it means a lot to hear that stuff. What you hear in my music is my experience through grief, and being able to express that creatively was something new to me – I didn’t expect it to happen.