Sad news about Barry Craig, better known as A Produce

[Matthew Davenport]

I love A Produce. I remember hearing a few tracks of his on Hearts of Space and my favorite track of his was The Golden Needle....absolutely awesome pedal steel guitar. Looooove it.  he was awesome and very talented. God Bless him for his work and talent

[sraymar]

I was a little shocked reading this a couple weeks back, he was only five years older than me.  I'm in that age group where this becomes more and more common as time goes by. Barry actually emailed me about ten years ago after reading about a CD I did back then and wanted to trade me Inscape and Landscape for it. His CD is much better and definitely my fav of all his work I've heard so far. I still remember him telling me he was leaving MP3.com just before "the dreaded Vivendi" as he put it took it over. Lost touch with him after that.

So long Barry.

[drkappa]

I was taken aback when I read of this tragic news in Ron Boots's Groove newsletter.

It is strange that I learnt the true identity of the mysterious A Produce only after
his passing.  I first came across his bewitching music on Hearts of Space in 1999
and soon bought Land of a Thousand Trances, later followed by all but two of
those mention in earlier posts.  I shall look forward to the legacy of Intangible now
I'm settling inafter a move, like Seren with added poignancy.

Such is the quality of the music, nearly fifty tracks made by Barry solo or with
collaborators appeared on Hearts of Space over the years.  It might be time for an
A Produce retrospective Mr. Hill.

Given that we've lost many in the ambient and electronic genres in the last few years,
dying in their forties and fifties, those of us of similar vintage need to consider how to
make the most of each day.  One never knows when the metaphorical bus will hit.

[LNerell]

Just thought I would pass the word, for those who are interested next Saturday, October 1st at 1 pm we will have a memorial for Barry (A Produce) at his house in LA. If you are interested in knowing the details (not many at the moment) feel free to get a hold of me
 privately. I think it will be a fairly causal affair, just bring yourself and some stories about Barry that you would like to share. I will update more if needed.

[stephaniesante]

This last week or two I was lamenting the loss of Dennis Ritchie (C Language, Unix) and Steve Jobs. This morning I woke up very early this morning thinking about Ambient Music and decided to surf over to the Hypnos Forum and lurk a little. Sadly the first thing that I noticed was the passing of Barry Craig (A Produce). While I did not know Barry well, we did exchange a few emails back around 2000-2001 (if memory serves me well) and exchanged some CD's. I love Barry's music and hold his creative insight in high esteem. I wish his family the best and am most grateful for the legacy he has left the Ambient community.

Blessings to you Barry.

[Mark Mushet]

Another reason to absolutely loathe CD-Rs: I just found my copy of Barry's  "A Smooth Surface - Special Edition" disc. Of course, it loaded and virtually self destructed in my MacBook's CD drive. Was barely able to get 5 of the 6 tracks loaded into iTunes to salvage them. It's made by TDK and appears pristine. CD-Rs are absolutely fucking evil...and I can't e-mail of phone Barry to get a replacement...

[mgriffin]

In this case, Mark, the problem isn't the CDR medium but the stick-on labels Barry used for his Trance Port Special Editions.

It's my belief that stick-on CD labels are responsible for at least 90% of the problems people report with CDR releases. Either the labels are stuck on the disc off-center (so the disc's rotation is imperfect), or they come un-stuck inside the player, or they warp the disc slightly so the laser has a hard time reading the disc.

[Mark Mushet]

I know Barry very much preferred properly pressed CDs to having to go with CD-Rs. If I recall correctly we had a few conversations about the Opal Eno installation soundtrack CD-Rs (at $28 bucks apiece) failing soon after release (all but one of mine are now toast).

Your thinking on this does make a certain amount of sense but I've had too many non-labelled CD-Rs fail on me as well. In this case, Barry's CD-R is playing in one CD player fine. But in the MacBook it literally grinds to a halt. That may be the result of the combination of the drive design/sensitivity and sticker placement thickness.

But in any case I must ask: "What would Barry do?" I think he'd be pretty frustrated and wish it had been pressed as a proper disc!

[drone on]

Avoid TDK blanks at all costs.  Almost every bad CDR I've encountered has been TDK...