The Monthly Mailbag With Noah Hickey – Noah Hickey

Thanks everyone for all the great questions. Without further ado …

From H.W.: Thank you for your work at The Dispatch! I’ve enjoyed many of your illustrations and wondered how you make them. Would you describe your creative process for illustration? How would you compare that process to creating music? How do you feel about AI in art?

My go-to simple way to start an illustration is to download the relevant assets (e.g., a picture of a politician, a building, a logo, etc.) and put them into a Photoshop file. Then it’s a game of composition, coloring, and texture. I also take input from editors and try to take inventory of what other news sites are doing so I don’t step on any creative toes. 

I have lots of opinions about AI in art and wrote about it for The Dispatch here. But I am worried about AI. I’ve occasionally asked Claude for suggestions for how to approach illustrations but was never impressed. I think music, however, is in AI’s crosshairs. I’ve heard quite a few people defend apps like Suno because “they make music accessible.” I’ll be the jerk here and say that’s not an obvious good. I guess juicing may make the gym more accessible, but that’s not a terrific moral defense. I don’t believe music or any other art form ought to be accessible. That seems to be a modern notion. I understand many think they are too busy to learn an instrument, but you will thank yourself if you buy a crappy electric piano and spend 15 minutes every day practicing. It’s rewarding, and I promise you have the time. 

I’d argue that it’s discipline that makes music great. Hearing a great pianist isn’t just fun because it’s enjoyable to listen to, but because this person dedicated some discipline to it. 

I really have no interest in listening to music plopped out of some online generator. Not because it’s not capable of making good music, I’m sure it is and will continue to get better. But I’m a fan of humans and think it’s cool when we make stuff. 

From Jaybrown: [John] Mayer better than Hendrix or Clapton? Huh. What about Mark Knopfler? And I assume you’re limiting to rock guitarists. How about Segovia and Parkening?

Alright, I’ll admit, the whole “John Mayer is better than Clapton and Hendrix” thing was just clickbait so I could have an excuse to write about John Mayer (our manifesto doesn’t apply to mailbags). 

I think attempting to rank Mayer, Hendrix, Clapton, or any other guitarists for that matter, isn’t worth our time. Each player served their genre in different ways. I wouldn’t want Hendrix to play like Mayer or vice versa. And Mayer wouldn’t exist without any of those guys. But for the sake of the argument I would ask that you listen to Mayer’s cover of “Bold As Love” and compare it to the original Hendrix version. Mayer’s playing is articulate and Hendrix’s is sloppy. I’m happy to grant that it’s just Hendrix’s style, and many probably prefer it, but it’s true. (Clapton himself called Mayer a “master” and “extremely gifted.”)

Anyone skeptical about John Mayer’s talent on the guitar (and at songwriting) should listen to “I Guess I Just Feel Like” from the album Sob Rock. It contains my favorite guitar solo of all time and it’s a great exhibition of both Mayer’s skill and unique playstyle.

And yes, this was a trick question: Mark Knopfler beats them all. I don’t even love Dire Straits’ music but whoever writes “Money For Nothing” and “Sultans of Swings” deserves the “greatest guitarist of all time” title. 

From Walt H.: Noah, I think graphics are an underappreciated element of making a long-form journalism site like The Dispatch inviting and readable. The aesthetic trajectory of articles in TD, IMO, has been toward greater engagement—and I expect you’ve been largely responsible for it. Thank you.

My question: If the best Beatles album isn’t Abbey Road, then why not?

Not only is the correct answer Abbey Road, but I’ll give what is maybe a hot take among Beatles fans: I think the Super Deluxe Editions (with the new 2019 mixes) is the superior way to listen to this album and their discography broadly. At the time most of their albums were engineered, stereo mixing was a novelty and the left-right panning was done haphazardly. The engineers clearly intended for the listener to hear the song in mono and, importantly, they also intended to have the vocalists be in the center of the mix. The 2019 mixes put the vocals and drums where they should be (in the center) and added clarity and punchiness that aren’t present in the original mixes.

I used to say Sgt. Pepper’s was my favorite album, if not only for the reason it contains their best song “A Day in the Life,” but after watching Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary, Abbey Road became a new experience. And the decision to end the album with a demo of Paul McCartney’s Her Majesty—with the master slow panning from right to left—was brilliant. It’s an underrated tune despite its short runtime.

Blair M Gardner: Do young people still listen to the Beatles? Which album do you think was their best and why?

I can only speak to my demographic of people currently in their late 20s. I probably have some serious selection bias going on here as well because my close friends and I all went to a performing arts high school and were heavily involved in music. But with all those caveats, yes, I think young people still listen to the Beatles. It seems obvious to say, but out of the major pop bands of the 20^th century, the Beatles seem to have quite the half-life. I think that’s partly to do with the fact that psychedelic rock and its production style never went out of vogue. But more simply, a good melody is a good melody, and the Beatles knew how to write them. I’d rather not listen to “Here Comes the Sun” again, but it’s undoubtedly one of the catchiest tunes (“I’m an earworm!”) of the last 100 years. The Beatles have an entire catalogue of songs just like that. 

Bruce: Where do you think is cooler—St. Pete, Tampa, or Clearwater?

St. Petersburg and it’s not even close. As a native Floridian, I do not understand how Tampa has the clout that St. Pete deserves. St. Pete actually has beaches, it’s cleaner, the downtown area is walkable, they have better bars and food. Tampa is a glorified airport with a strip club that unfortunately got out of control and sprawled. 

Angie: What instrument do you play in your band? (Guitar?) What kind of music genre is it? Do you write lyrics and the melody/sound itself?

I play guitar in my band, Foxhall. Although I’ve stepped in on bass and synth in some live sets. I think we’d classify ourselves as indie pop. We were mostly inspired by bands like COIN (RIP), Young the Giant, Valley, and Phoenix. 

I never wrote lyrics or melody outside of some minor suggestions to the members of the band who did. Writing lyrics to music is a very foreign skill to me. I don’t have the poetic chops. I wrote and performed guitar parts and assisted with the production of the songs broadly. I did have a brief 30-second stint as a percussionist when we covered Toto’s “Africa” in our singer’s backyard and ended the song with everyone but the drummer setting down their instrument and going over to the kit and smacking random drums to the rhythm of the song. That was fun. 

Victoria: Who is your favorite coworker and why?

Then Victoria, or something.