Well this week past week for me was all about home depot and repairs, which triggered me to start saving cash for a few new consoles because of specific things that have happened with gear recently. So let’s start with what I had on my plate first shall we? I had to fix burnt out par 38 bulb sockets by soldering in new cables and new sockets. The 38s are a huge part of my show because their wide angle beam covers a lot of my drummer’s kit and it looks pretty damn good shining off the chrome while I’m hitting bumps with him playing. Next were the electric heads for the AC cables. Well as you all are aware grounds are the first to eat it on AC cable so our sound engineer and I were soldering on new heads on the dinner table. Hah, I never mentioned to you all before that the sound guy and I live with the band in a ranch house here in Cave Creek, Arizona.
It kinda reminds me of the movie "Grandmas Boy." If you have seen it be sure to check it out! Let’s just say it’s not your normal surroundings. I mean come on we’re using a dinner table for a work bench. I may start to teach the monkey karate.
OK, so next I had been having problems with a moving head bulb shorting in mid show. This I effing hate, because when you’re only working with 6 automated lights the other head looks geometrically lonely! No bueno. Luckily the lamp socket screws just needed tightening and it’s been cool. Next came my scanners gobo rotation wheel was jammed so for a whole show I had to reprogram my cue with 0 rotation until I could get it home to find out what exactly it was doing. When I got to look at it I just had to wind it like a clock. That’s something I caught on about the parameter wheels inside lights. They are a lot like clocks. I notice I’m trying to learn how to do some repairs to help save money that really doesn’t need to be spent unless it’s something I don’t know how to fix and make the situation worse. The main thing is that I try to be as careful as possible. It seems to be doing me justice because I have everything running properly. I do like getting good at troubleshooting things. It makes me feel handy. I think I’m due for a change though. I really need to get a console with more memory and features that I’d like to have to make my cues for automated lighting happen to the fullest. I also noticed I’m probably going to change out my conventional console too. I need fast acting faders with less resistance. I admit it; I pop off faders from time to time. So repairing them is somewhere I don’t like to tread because the console needs to be thoroughly dismantled. Good thing is I work around and make to the show go on. Like last week, I had fader 5 go out so I bypassed channels 5-8 and reassigned the dimmer pack to channel 9 and I have four fresh channels with their faders. Ultimately the coolest thing would be for some of you lovely lighting companies who get a chance to read this magnificent piece of literature may be kind enough to set up a sponsorship. Seriously I put out 😉 My PR guy will be in touch.
Next week I’m going to let you in on some of my cue writing for songs. So far we’ll take a look at Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel” and The Cars “You Might Think I’m Crazy” with a melody from “Walk 500 Miles.” The week before they learned R. Kelley’s “Remix Ignition” and The Beatles “I Am the Walrus.” They do it all man! I will also be mentioning my track lighting. Yes, track lighting, and I use it in a very cool way, and also talk about video work I’ve been doing. Here’s a pic from one of our shoots. Hubba, Hubba… Bless models from Yuma.
Drop me a line if you want at tonycap22 (at) hotmail.com. Have a good week. ~Tony
