The hAloha Brothers Live!

The hAloha Brother Live - Special performance of Highway to Hell 

  

KoRn Lighting Guy - What He Can Teach Us

I came across this video -Thanks to Stagehand World's Google Plus page -  of the lighting tech for Korn really feeling his job.   Some have made fun of just how involved his is in the performance, but are we not just a little jealous at how much he loves his job and that the  passion is so evident? 

If you are unfamiliar with Korn they are a rock band who are part of the nu metal genre which blends  influences from 80' metal, Hardcore punk, classic rock and New Yorks No Wave movement.  

The influence extends beyond cord structure and double bass drums to the inclusion of the crew,and often the fans, as part of the band.  The lines delineating between the three is thin and often fluctuates.   In many ways they whole operation is similar to the Grateful Dead where the  band is seemingly on tour without end complete with fans who travel to multiple shows across the globe.  The band keeps a constant contact with fans through direct response via social media and appearances in smaller of the beaten track events.

In short they have  a community not just a business relationship.

Which do you see in your own work? 

 

 

Presumptions are Dangerous Boomerangs

It would appear that the editor of Daily  DOOH  has taken umbrage at rAVe [Publications] methodology of show coverage.  I posted this to my Google Plus account but after looking around on the DOOH site I found even more sniping on the part of Mr. Adrian J Cotterill, this time about the apparent age and gender of rAVe's journalists.   Really AC?  

While this will not endear me to Mr. Cotterill I posted the below on the rAVe blog post:

An interesting bit of vitriol Mr. Cotterill spits out. I say interesting in that midway through reading his screed I kept thinking his real message is 'Get Off My Lawn You Whippersnappers!"

In my view, this is a classic example of new media vs old.  Industry professionals like myself gravitate to news sources such as Rave because of the timing and format it is presented in.  

Balanced is a funny word, what exactly do you mean by it sir? Balanced in that you decide which exhibitors I get to hear about or is there some preordained hierarchy of who gets coverage or what I should be interested in if I were but a learned AV professional such as yourself? 

I have had the opportunity to work professionally with the American rAVe staff as a manufacturers marketing person and as associates (rAVe publishes my blog and hosts the AV Nation podcasts I am producer for). I have found the individuals Gary hires to be professional, accurate and remarkably interested in the AV industry from all angles no matter how small or large.  The intensity they show translates into interest from the readers - What could possibly be wrong with that?!

I do not write for rAVe nor agreed as one of AV Nations advisory board members to partner with them just for business reason, I admire the sense of community and engagement they foster.  The online community of AV folks gather around them for the same reasons. 

As I read through the article and comments I was reminded of the infamous Bill Gundy episode on Thames Television circa 1976. Whatever happened to good times Bill anyway?

If you are unfamiliar with Bill Gundy you can see the moment he killed his own career ( and the staff at the Thames Television technical staff)  on YouTube.  *Warning the content is not for those who find expletives disturbing *   

 

 Bill Gundy typhooned his career because he engaged in Character Assassination with a group who were more fearless and smarter -(on the whole and despite appearances) then the learned and esteemed journalist.   The video shows an interview with the group 'The Sex Pistols' where the right honorable Bill Gundy proceeds to goad the band with devastating results.  Love him or hate him John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, is a horribly intelligent person  who channels the prolific anger of the situationist  into an artful confrontation.   Even in this interview you can see his eyes alight with the ghost of Guy Debord.  

Mr. Gundy did not know what hit him - presumptions are dangerous boomerangs 

Hoist Meet Petard.

Train Master to My Heart

The Power of a Simple Story Can Bring You to Your Knees

When does a bad movie become a monumental message? If you are like me, you may have spent many Saturday mornings watching MST3K on Comedy Central, ripping bad movies with Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and the gang. While most films deserve these royal send-ups, we tend to forget that someone put their heart and soul into a vision, perhaps emptying themselves into a gasp of creativity. In the past, these films may have been relegated to the trash heap only to be viewed by an archivist or lone aficionados. Ah, but the 'New' Media revolution has forever changed this.

A Child's Obsession, A Remarkable Find

A kid's movie recently reinforced the value of these individual voices. One rainy day on Netflix, when our house was feeling low ebb and feverish throughout, little did I know that a shared movie would break me into pieces.

My four-year-old is a train nut; from the moment he could express an interest in things, trains were always at the top of the list. He would crawl over to my older son's wooden train sets and spend hours

rolling the trains over the tracks. 

We bought him the entire 'I Love Toy Trains' DVD collection and spent countless hours watching them, singing the songs, and discussing what trains he would like to get and set up. He pours over Lionel's catalogs and asks me to read them to him like story books. Yeah, he likes trains. (Do not get me started on how many times we have watched the 'Lionelville' animated video that came with his Scout set. Hey Lionel - Why, six years after it was produced, is there no conclusion to the story?!)

On this rainy and sickly kind of day, my son asked if he could watch a film about trains on the Wii. My search turned up the film "Train Master."

A Simple Story, Unexpected Depth

The film is about a Train Master- a person who is the top railroad engineer who lives and breathes all things railroad-related, who loses his job when an ambitious and morally questionable investor purchases a local freight line. As it would happen, the investor's son, Justin, and the Train Master's grandkid, Thomas, go to the same lower elementary school. When the former learns that Thomas knows how to drive a train, he holds Thomas's favorite dinosaur ransom. Thomas and three other children board an old engine in for repairs and accidentally turn it into a runaway engine, causing a chain reaction of events.

I sat and watched the first 10 minutes of the film to make sure it was what I expected and did not hide an inappropriate theme. The film is awkward, with a storyline that feels like the extemporaneous tales young kids tell excitedly to their friends and parents. It is the kind of story whose point is to talk about trains but where a coherent plot is secondary to the fantastical first person. To be blunt, the film is clearly amateurish, with jerky story transitions and acting that can only be kindly called wooden.

My kid immediately connected with scenes that shift from a model train set to real trains. Over the day, my four-year-old watched this movie four times with me by his side for parts here and there -(he would fill me in as to what I 'missed'). Suffice it to say I was able to see a large part of the movie over the four showings. While I was fascinated with my son's enraptured attention to the movie, what came at the end took my knees away, like being 'surprised by a left hook.'

A Father's Love, A Parents Fear

Just as the film ends (happily, of course), a picture of a child who looks a bit like the actors in the movie, complete with a childish mop top hair, but is clearly not one of them, fades up with a dedication and a set of dates. The last name is the same as the Writer / Director of the film.

As the credits rolled, home movies of the kid on trains, with model trains and rail yards, played in the background. Looking at my son, who was still fixed to his spot, watching with rapt attention, my mental math finally kicked in. 

Seven years old. Seven. The film results from a shared story between a father and son who never made it past seven. I looked over at my four-year-old, and the connection with the filmmaker's despair and dedication rolled over me. The emotions came on so hard, so fast, I had to excuse myself and turn to find a quiet spot.

As I turned the corner into our home office, I found my wife sitting at the computer - in her arms, I promptly lost it. I cried; I cried hard at the thought of losing my own son, the comparison to the seven-year-old on screen so clear, and the silent fear all parents grapple with. Simultaneously laughing at myself, I was almost aghast at a depth of my emotional reaction to a silly kids' film, yet the tears and sobs came in waves as I clutched my wife, releasing the anguish and trying to find a center and gaining control. 

The power of communication and connection can come in the most surprising places. 

I played a long game of trains with my son that day.

42 days/ 1008 hours

Weather Geeks know the year 1816 as ‘The year without a summer’ which most likely was caused by the  eruption of Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia  on April 10th 1815.  The resulting volcanic plume which spewed into the atmosphere would make the Mount St. Helen’s eruptions look like a squid ink squirt in comparison and its effect was felt worldwide for years.

If you are old enough to recall the Mount St. Helen’s eruption in 1980 one side effect for  photographers around the world was  the dramatic almost pastel colored sunsets the residual dust in the sky caused. This eruption also showed some affect on climate albeit only on a very regional scale not, the entire planet as Mount Tambora is fairly well determined  to have caused.

The 1816 volcano did indeed cause a year with out summer with average temperatures dropping five to ten degrees below normal.   This may not seem like a great deal of difference but the small drop had economic, progressive, cultural and agricultural consequences.  For example Discovery.com lists some of the following as directly attributable to the eruption and subsequent residual suspend particulates in the air:

• Famine in large parts of northern Europe


• Crop shortages due to shortened growing season worldwide


• Mary Shelly writing ‘Frankenstein’ due, in part, to the miserable weather while on summer retreat at Lord Byron’s estate.


• An increase in seeking out innovations to reduce reliance on draft animals to transport food and goods - in response to skyrocketing grain feed costs. (read steam and combustion engines)

It is almost as prophetic as the movie Americathon!

Setting aside the ‘debate’ as to if what we are experiencing is a natural earth weather cycle or something at least in part exacerbated by human production of CO2’s  it is pretty obvious that  the cycles in weather do seem to be more dramatic just in my lifetime.

This year could reasonably - at least from the mid-west to east coast of America- be deemed the ‘Year Without Winter’.   Last year with all the snow and wet, wet, wet spring my neighborhood had fewer cookouts and picnics over the summer as it was  one of the buggiest ever.  Nothing seemed to work short of bringing in tanker trucks full of DOW chemicals to saturate the area - plus after awhile the smell of insect repellent hanging in the air from night to morning does not really make a burger appetizing.  Any more summers like the last and we will become shut ins who only get to swim at indoor pools and BBQ at McDonalds.

Did Mary Shelly and John Polidori warn us of more than just mans attempt to be a god?   

Six Weeks more winter, or maybe not.