Archive for the ‘music’ Category
More Keys Please
Mar.06.2010
New keyboard player joined the band. Unfortunately, he is a little light on equipment. Specifically, he has no laptop to drive his rig. Click on the photo for a full size view.
O Holy Night
Dec.22.2009
A friend of mine recorded O Holy Night and he asked me if I would get the song up on YouTube and create a video overlay of still images to accompany the song. It took about nine hours all in to create the video clip. Here it is.
Celebrate Christmas
Dec.14.2009
Rob, our lead vocalist, told me: “It’s like Thanksgiving dinner.” Precisely. So much work leading up to the event. And, in what appeared to be a few seconds later, the concert was over. The time simply flew by.
We enjoyed a full house and the team did a terrific job. A wonderful memory and a great way to launch the Christmas season.
A view of the guitar workstation before the concert start — nicely dressed stage:
Rob in the zone of concert lighting:
The back-end engine of the band hard at work:
And the people came:
Celebrate Christmas
Dec.12.2009
A few shots from the evening before the big concert. Spent about 15 hours today getting things ready. But we have a great team, a great sound system and wonderful Christmas music to play. Looking forward to the main event tomorrow night.
Sound system is being controlled by a Digidesign Venue digital console. Very cool.
Despite all the chaos, I think I am holding myself together pretty well.
The room is looking nice with all of the Christmas decorations.
And, after a hundred hours or so of preparation and planning, I finally get a chance to play. My son is backing the team on bass.
Do As I Say Not As I Do
Dec.08.2009
Interesting story in the Toronto Star about copyright violations.
Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history. His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year.
The infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim could exceed $60 billion. If the dollars don’t shock, the target of the lawsuit undoubtedly will: The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
The real interesting observation in this article:
After years of claiming Canadian consumers disrespect copyright, the irony of having the recording industry face a massive lawsuit will not be lost on anyone, least of all the artists still waiting to be paid. Indeed, they are also seeking punitive damages, arguing “the conduct of the defendant record companies is aggravated by their strict and unremitting approach to the enforcement of their copyright interests against consumers.”
Planning a Christmas Concert
Dec.01.2009
On Sunday, December 13th, I will be part of a Christmas concert event here in Kingston. I will be on guitar and my son will be with me on bass. We also have a great team of vocalists and players assembled for the event.
I remember the days when I used to be just a player. I would often play at Christmas events where I would receive the charts in advance, show up to rehearsals and then play. For this particular concert, I elected to play the role of “producer”. And that meant a lot of work. At a very busy time of year.
My personal work plan included the following tasks:
Permissions and Schedule
- Obtain approval and location for event
- Set concert date
- Set rehearsal locations and dates
Recruit Personnel
- Lead vocalist
- Lead guitar
- Bass
- Acoustic guitar
- Drums
- Background vocalists
- Program director
- Audio engineer
- Multimedia
Presentation
- Select songs
- Prepare arrangements
- Prepare charts
- Prepare multimedia
- Lead rehearsals
Technical
- Contract sound system
- Contract lighting system
- Contract audio/visual recording
Promotion
- Prepare posters, flyers
- Media notification
- Call lists
Logistics
- Hall booked
- Hall dressed
- Dress rehearsal
- Refreshments
- Child care
- Ushers
With the event just under two weeks away, I have one additional task remaining: rehearse my guitar parts. Although my wife might add: “have some fun!”
Barber of Seville
Nov.10.2009
An interesting interpretation of a classic. On the drums no less.
U2 360 Tour
Sep.19.2009
So. How many people does it take to run a U2 concert?
Jake Berry, production director for U2 360, recently joked that the tour had gotten so large and complex that the production team should be called Crew 360. Judging by the design, production, and vendor crew list below, he’s not far off. The group of individuals involved in this tour below clocks in at over 250, but that doesn’t include all of the staffers working for the vendors involved on the tour (PRG, Tait Towers, Kinesys, Clair Brothers, XL Video, etc, also listed below). Add those folks, plus, we guess, the four band members, and they may be pretty close to that final tally.
The crew list can be found here. Makes for some interesting reading.
The U2 Stage
Sep.19.2009
I will look into the details a bit further, but some people have told me that it took over 500 people to set the U2 stage and that the cost of the stage was somewhere near $40 million. I’ll confirm that data over the next couple of days.
Here are a couple of photos that I took of the concert. That stage was huge. The concert was sold out and by the time U2 started, there were well over 60,000 people in attendance. The dome was open. It was an amazing evening. The opening act was Snow Patrol and the front person was having the time of his life. And it showed. You can even tell from the picture that he was in the moment.
I have collected pictures of some of the most stunning recording studios in the world and you can travel through the set by clicking 
