[0] comments

How'd you get to know so much about music?
Just lucky, I guess. I don't seem to have that built-in garbage disposal that lets most people get excess pop culture trivia out of their heads; I remember pretty much everything. Which is pretty useful when it comes to RMAT-writing.

I've always been obsessed with music. I listened to the Beatles and the Monkees as a little kid; by the time I was six or seven, I'd moved on to the Osmonds, the Partridge Family, and 70's AM radio. When I was about thirteen, I came to the conclusion that, despite what my all my friends said, there was nothing wrong with liking both the Sex Pistols and King Crimson. Since then, I've only gotten more eclectic (some people might say "perverse").

For the last several years, it's actually been my job to know about all of this stuff. I've written promotional and advertising copy for thousands of albums in every conceivable genre, as well as liner notes and compilation work. Right now I'm in the middle of producing a four-disc Echo & The Bunnymen retrospective for Rhino; it should be out either late this year or early next.

Are there any particular artists/styles you're a fan of?
My tastes tend to be maddeningly all-over-the-place, but I'll admit to having special soft spots for messed-up cult-hero singer/songwriter types, psychedelia, turntablism, any record Joe Boyd ever produced, krautrock, electric-era Miles Davis and inexplicable found-object records I salvage from thrift stores.

By way of example: the pile of discs next to my CD player currently includes Grandaddy, Primal Scream, the Loud Family, Kid Koala, A Tribe Called Quest, Glen Campbell, Pearls Before Swine, Alice Coltrane, Busta Rhymes, Death In Vegas, Eels, David Axelrod, Judee Sill, Fela Kuti, The Fall, Belle & Sebastian and this completely deranged album I just bought which compiles something like 20 different foreign language cover versions of "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!"

My favorite album of all time? Forever Changes by Love. Favorite song? "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers. Favorite band? The Velvet Underground.

How long does it take for you to write the test?
It's a month-long process that involves lots of staring into space waiting for inspiration to strike, flipping through thousands of records after inspiration has failed to strike, drinking too much coffee, shaving infrequently and generally feeling as if I'll never be done.

Music can be divisive; much more than movies or TV, people take refuge in their own favorite style(s). Given that, how do you determine what "everyone" ought to know?
I'd never assume that anyone "ought to know" anything. It's a pretty safe bet that anyone taking the RMAT already has a fair amount of musical knowledge. But everyone also has pockets of ignorance: a 52-year-old Eric Clapton listener may not know much about Lil' Kim; a 17-year-old Korn fanatic might not be familiar with Sam Cooke. I try to make sure that the questions have enough breadth to them so that people will have a certain portion of material they're likely to be comfortable with. To win, though, you'll have to know at least a little bit about a lot of different areas.

How do you distinguish between "good trivia" and the merely obscure factoid?
The way I make the distinction is to ask myself: If I didn't know the answer to this question, would I want to know it? A good trivia question should be inherently interesting, even entertaining. Whether you win or lose, taking the RMAT should be a fun experience. If I'd put together a test composed solely of obscure questions about catalog numbers or artists no one had ever heard of, the test would be incredibly boring. Who'd want to subject themselves to that? I certainly wouldn't.

Are there genres or time periods that are particularly rich (or poor) in trivia?
Amateur cultural anthropologist that I am, I'd have to say that trivia is an inevitable byproduct of almost any activity human beings engage in. There's as much useless information out there about Hank Williams as there is about Britney Spears, or as many potential questions to be written about Miles Davis as there are about Nirvana. It's all grist for the mill as far as I'm concerned.

Do you write for specific categories, or do those evolve once you've started coming up with questions?
Yes and yes. About half the test is categorized; the rest is a random mix of topics. Rhino's David Dorn and I plot out a few general areas ahead of time. Other categories tend to emerge as I'm working; either I'll come up with an idea for a category ("Hey! How 'bout Finnish Folk Music?") and then write the questions for it or I'll notice that I've written several questions around a common theme ("Gee, I really came up with a lot of stuff about Liberace") and then group them together.

How can you tell if a question you've come up with is too hard? Too easy?
Bearing in mind that one person's "hard" can be another's "pathetically simple," I mostly trust my own instincts. The difficulty range of the questions is pretty broad; there's some easy stuff and some pretty hard stuff, but I think the great majority of the test falls somewhere in between.

Independent of any musical background, is there a discipline (geography, history, English) of particular utility in taking the RMAT?
Probably not. Unless being a record geek qualifies as a discipline.

What's the best way to prepare for the RMAT?
I'm not convinced that there's any good way to study for the RMAT. You could spend an intensive weekend locked away with all your records and a stack of books and magazines and you still might not wind up with a single bit of information that'd help you when taking the test (although there are certainly worse ways to spend a weekend). The best way to prepare is probably just to take a few deep breaths and relax. You'll either know the answers or you won't. Such is life.

Do you think it really helps to bring reference material?
Within reason, yes. I wouldn't go to the trouble of bringing a huge quantity of stuff; you'll never have time to sort through it all. There are, however, a number of reference sources that might be useful to have at your disposal. But I'm not going to tell you what they are.

Not everyone can win this thing. But what do you consider a good score?
I hate to sound like somebody's 5th grade social studies teacher, but whether you have a good time taking the test is more important to me than whatever your actual score might be. However, if you're the type of person who requires objective assessments of skill in order to boost your own sense of self-worth, I'd say that any score over 200 should allow you to feel reasonably smug about your abilities.

Any other RMAT-related topics you'd like to address that you think might be of interest?
I'd be curious to hear what RMAT-takers think about the experience. I can be reached at: andyzax@hotmail.com

Subscribe to Feed