my George Harrison dream

Recently, I had a dream that George Harrison was at my house...

I have no idea where this came from... but, he was walking around my house, and all I could think of was "I can't let him see all my Beatles stuff.. he'll think I'm crazy"..

In my dream I was worried about hiding my Beatles collection, and I was remarkably calm about the fact that he was back from the dead....So...what does it mean ?

After a couple of days somebody sent me a link to MTVMusic (which has thousands of videos from the days when MTV played music) as I was looking around at the videos I found this video of the Traveling Wilburys , a great band featuring Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbinson, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison...I remember when this video came out... Roy Orbinson had passed away,... and the scene with his guitar in the rocking chair (at 1:45)  just floored me...

and now when I watch it, and see George...

The Traveling Wilburys |MTV Music

more Traveling Wilburys

"Handle with Care"

The Traveling Wilburys |MTV Music

McCain

We brought in PA, video , and lights for a McCain event in Zanesville, Ohio...

Load-in was Saturday at noon, and we went till midnight...

We were back in at 9:00 am on Sunday to finish setting up, and making a million changes...

at 1:00 we had to go outside while the Secret Service did a sweep then at 2:00 we were back inside.

 

Doors opened at 2:30...music... lights...

Senator McCain spoke at 6:oo....

and we left at 11:00 PM....

a long 2 days..

From McCain Rally Pictures

 

From McCain Rally Pictures

"To make an apple pie from scratch, 

you must first invent the universe." 

Carl Sagan

Spiral Galaxy NGC 7331

wow...

please, please, please...

please, keep it going....

Sara Evans

We brought in PA for Sara Evans at the McCoy Center...

EV XLC's - 8 cabinets per side:

view from the cat walk

view from the follow spot

from FOH - pre show

more pictures are at Picasa

thirsty....

Stats

"90% of all statistics can be made to say anything 50% of the time."

Podiums in the news...

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi accidentally bumped the podium during a toast to President Bush at Monday night's White House state dinner -- and the podium fell apart.

Endeavor to persevere

"I wore this frock coat to Washington, before the war. We wore them because we belonged to the five civilized tribes.
We dressed ourselves up like Abraham Lincoln.

You know we got to see the Secretary of the Interior.
He said "Boy you sure look civilized." He congratulated us and he gave us medals for looking so civilized.

We told him about how our land had been stolen and our people were dying.

When we finished he shook our hand and said "Endeavor to persevere"...

They took our pictures and the newspapers said "Indians vow to endeavor to persevere."

We thought about it for a long time.
"Endeavor to persevere."

And when we had thought about it long enough,
we declared war on the Union."

Lone Waite, Indian chief - from "The Outlaw Jose Wales"

YouTube clip

"les Indiens jurent de s'efforcer de perseverer"

Things I never wanted to know

From Wikipedia :

"Churn rate, as applied to a customer base, refers to the proportion of contractual customers or subscribers who leave a supplier during a given time period. It is a possible indicator of customer dissatisfaction, cheaper and/or better offers from the competition, more successful sales and/or marketing by the competition, or reasons.... "   more...

back from Las Vegas, off to Chicago...

it felt like a month...

 but it was only a week in Las Vegas...

Comedy of Errors

...so there I was, running audio for the Aquila Theater Companys' reinterpretation of the Comedy of Errors....an hour into it, everything was going good, the audience (aprox 400 Middle School students) were enjoying the performance, I was enjoying it, and then...people started leaving...within minutes the place was empty...what the....? Apparentley, some parents/teachers? in the audience felt that the material was inapproriate for middle school students, so they walked out...show over...

Thankfully, the evening show went off without a hitch, and it was fantastic...

it's a small world

it's a small world...I wouldn't want to paint it....

According to Sitemeter recent visitors to "have podium mic"
have been from the following places ;

Melbourne, Australia
Manchester, England
Enniskerry, Ireland
Bothel, WA
Oxford Park, Australia
Buffalo, NY
Sevenoaks, England
Liverpool, England
Hamburg, Germany
Newark, DE
Cranbury, NJ
Gray, ME
Sydney, Australia
Altrincham, England
Brooklyn, NY
Edinburgh, England
Gold Coast, Australia
Ipswich, England

it would not be a crime

It would not be a crime if
someone were
to break into my house...

and clean it...

i'm just sayin'....

places i visit...

When the cat is not sleeping on my computer these are some of the non-audio related web sites I've been visiting recently :

• Whatever - the online home of author John Scalzi
• lifehacker - tips and downloads for getting things done
• Astronomy Picture of the Day
  
• Gizmodo - the Gadget Guide

The Story Of The Podium, The Microphone and The Light

Once upon a time I was doing a corporate show, where we had about 10,000 watts of PA, moving lights, 2000 people in the audience, and a podium.

Now, first understand that our podiums have two microphones, typically something like the EV PC18-XLR (pictured on the right), and our podiums all have a gooseneck light made by Littlite (pictured on the left)..

So the event begins with a speaker who has a wireless lavalier microphone. The theory being he will be walking around the stage, and with the wireless mic he won't be tethered to the podium. Great theory, right ? Not quite, because the first thing he does is walk up the podium and push the microphones down, and then proceeds to give his speech standing at the podium. This is not a problem, he has a wireless lav, I turn it up...everything's great...
This is the problem : first speaker now intros the next speaker (who does not have a wireless mic)...next speaker walks up to the podium..looks at the mics that are pushed down...pauses... pulls up the light...and begins his speech speaking into the light...needless to say there are now 2000 people, plus myself who can not hear a thing this guy is saying...the next speaker (who must have realized that the light was not a mic) walks up to podium...pauses...pulls the light closer, and begins speaking...meanwhile I am too far away from the stage to do anything except bang my head on the console...

Now, these are all CEO types, who I KNOW have given speeches, and you know.. talked into MICROPHONES!!!!!!!..

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is : if it emits light IT IS NOT a freakin' MICROPHONE.

The End.

Yellow Pages, why ?

This was delivered today... I think it is called Yellow Pages, it seems to be 50 pounds of paper with phone numbers listed... not really sure what to do with it... neither is the cat...

Ring Nebula (M57)

from German website Astro-Kooperation
with some cool space pictures.
As they say, "klicken Sie hier..."

Rober Forster-Velvet Underground

Update : Greetings to all the visitors from the Robert Forster site. These pictures are more of the 'behind the scenes' variety, taken while I was setting up for the show, thus the quality is less than stellar. However, the show and the band was stellar. Also, I posted some more pictures here...

Update #2 : More pictures here

As part of the Wexner Center for the Arts show Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms, we provided PA and monitors for Robert Forster :

"Celebrate the opening weekend of Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms with this special event spotlighting the music of art-rock legends the Velvet Underground—a band Warhol produced and championed.

"You’ll hear timeless Velvets’ classics performed by Robert Forster, one of the founders of revered Aussie indie band The Go-Betweens. We’re one of only two venues in this country to host Forster’s tribute concert, which he originally performed with his band at a Warhol exhibition in Queensland. (The other venue is Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum.) Forster and his excellent combo rip into "I’m Waiting for My Man," "All Tomorrow’s Parties," "What Goes On," and others from the Velvets’ influential catalog. Polish up your "shiny, shiny boots of leather" and step into the electric demimonde of the Factory era."

set-list-on-a-plate

what is it with turning left ?

What is it with turning left ? This is NOT a political question..


The Last of the Mohicans:

Duncan : "There is a war on. How is it you are headed west?"
Hawkeye : "Well, we kinda face to the north and real sudden-like, turn left."

Hard Days Night :

Reporter : "how did you (the Beatles) find America on your first U.S. visit"
John : "Just turn left at Greenland..."

Looney Tunes :

Bugs Bunny arriving accidentally at the South Pole : ''I knew I shoulda toyned left at Albuquerque."

phantom power

Two ways of assigning phantom power on the Yamaha M7 :

1. Select channel
-tap on Head Amp
-tap on "+48V"
repeat for each channel that needs phantom power....

or (the more better way)

2. go to User Defined Keys
- scroll to "SET BY SEL"
- go to "SET +48V"
.....now, holding the user defined key and hitting the Select key on on any channel turns phantom power off/on....

WalMart

From Flowing Data

This cool animation shows the spread of WalMart :
"Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America"

no podium ?

It's not just a job, it's an adventure...
we spent four days on Lake Cumberland..
working...

sometimes you just have to take one for the team.....

Lake Cumberland, KY....

somebody has to do it....

Bluesfest

We just got back from the Riverside Bluesfest in St. Marys, Ohio

One of the artists was Ana Popovic , an amazing guitar player born in Belgrade, Serbia, she and her band had done a show two days before in Amsterdam, then traveled to Ohio and put on a fantastic show...

power of the internets...

...was watching the Olympics, and I thought I saw cheerleaders....at the Volleyball Tournament...cheerleaders...seriously ?...quick search on Google, and I found someone who was thinking the same....

"Really? As if the intermittent blast of 80’s rock wasn’t bad enough on the beach volleyball court, cheerleaders at the Olympics? Sure we can appreciate the Chinese trying to honor the origins of beach volleyball played on boardwalks with music and food and drinking. But this is the Olympics."

continue reading at GlamFit

White Spaces

From Shure

"the white spaces proposal creates a potential for interference to wireless microphones from unlicensed devices"....

continue reading at Shure.com

From FOH online:

"NILES, Ill. – Prototype White Spaces devices were tested by FCC engineers on Saturday, Aug. 9, at FedExField just outside of Washington, D.C., at a preseason exhibition game between the National Football League’s Washington Redskins and Buffalo Bills. Starting at 10:00 a.m. and continuing through 8:00 p.m. ET, the period of observation and analysis assessed the ability of the proposed devices to detect the presence of television signals, wireless microphones and other existing wireless technologies."

continue reading at FOH online

....what is this ?

One of the strangest and coolest things I've ever seen on stage...