About Time

Okay, I've been slacking on the blog updates. But my vast group of followers have indicated they'd like to see what my latest random thoughts have been. So here goes!
   It's been a busy beginning of the year, it's already March! I've been doing live sound for a bunch of shows with my friends at the Indian River Arts and Music community.  The visiting dignitaries have been great to work with. We've had concerts by, Sarah Lee Guthrie, Radislav Lorkovic, Andrew Hardin , and T Bruce Bowers, Runa, Susan Werner, David Amram, and our last show of the season was John Flynn.  Needless to say my engineers hat needs to cool off for a while! But it was a blast!
     From the Gear head dept: I've been using a Behringer wireless digital mixer for all of the shows for sometime now. The 100' audio snake is history, and I can't say I'm sad to see it go!
I can do all the mixing from my iPad anywhere in the venue, and it has set my soul free! The App that controls the mixer is chock full of effects and a Real Time Analyzer (RTA) to clean up those pesky frequencies. It's a beautiful thing!  
     On the more musical front, I just returned from the Will McLean Festival.  A fabulous family reunion of sorts, deep in the heart of Brooksville, Fl. Thanks to long time compadre Paul Garfinkel's generosity to share one of his sets with me, an Ashley Gang reunion took place.  I have to say, it was more fun than i could have anticipated.  Many thanks to Paul, Kay, and Bob.
  I also, for the second year in a row, was asked to do a young folks song writing workshop. I thought that last years successful attempt at writing a song with the younger crowd was a fluke and most likely would not be duplicated.  But the kids were awesome once again, and managed to turn out a very cool song.  The topic we finally landed on was an ode to the Sound man, "Sound Guy" I believe was the official title.  They performed it on Sunday before the  festival closing ceremony, very cool! They make an old guy proud!
     I've got some other things coming up, and I'll do my best to keep you informed. Don't hesitate to bug me if I appear to slip off the grid. I'd love to hear from you! 
  Take care of each other, turn off your TV, and try to put yourself in someone else's shoes!
     Al