After my move from Maryland to Arizona with the boys is when things got really busy with me. Matt Brown of Guitar Center- Peoria Ave. got us on our feet with sound and light initially (before I knew about ClearWing and Four Wall). I first started going through Four Wall Entertainment getting my gels together from Roscoe special thanks to Nancy Tallman for her help at the time and pointing me in the right direction which led to ClearWing Lighting who have been my go to guys ever since Adam (LTP vs. HTP), Dave, Nick (Repair Extraordinaire), Tiffany, Ashley, Seth, Christian, and Jeff you all rock and have helped me learn so much technically and aesthetically much respect.
Now onto my pal Jesper Luth a great lighting director/designer whom I was introduced by a close friend of the bands and mine Tim Orchard. The first time I met Jesper was at Tim’s and it was quite interesting I felt like Anakin’s first visit to the Jedi Council, lol. We talked about our interests and styles of lighting and if I ever got asked the question, “What’s the best advice you’ve been given?” I’d answer “Less Is More.” I would also like to take a moment to recognize Colin McQuilkin a lighting director from the band Galactic based out of New Orleans. Colin is a badass to say the least. I’ve gotten to see him work twice now once in Arizona and again in Indiana. He was kind enough to let me hang out in the both to watch him work his rig which is roughly off the top of my head comprised of….
12-14 Martin Mac 250s, 6-8 Color Kinetic Color Blasts, 4 Banners used for great visuals in the back, haze for atmosphere, and a Hog 1000 for control. House par cans are used from his left side for standard scene changes. This guy truly knows how to light his band with an original psychedelic look and great orchestration to every change of the music. In my eyes you can always tell a lighting director is great when you can anticipate a musical crescendo simply by watching the motion of his/her hands. If you’ve heard Galactic before they are almost entirely instrumental with some exception with guests on stage from time to time you’ll capture them in front light. The show is dominantly back lit with the exception of moving heads and color kinetics LED panels placed in the front. With my band they sing all the time so I have to concentrate a lot of front lighting so all you folks can see their wonderful Colgate smiles. But the elemental approach that Colin uses comes from the same principals of lighting guys before as such as the late great Dino DeRose and of course my personal favorite Chris Kuroda which puts him at the top of my list for club touring lighting directors. You can also check him out LIT Visuals.
Again I’m going to bring up Tim Walbert who also hooked me up with Jason Robinson, Jeff Wilkin and some other great fellas of the well known Bandit Lites whom I got to sit in with at a gig and watch them work which a lot of fun and educational to see ‘the bigs’ at work. Thanks again guys! Of course I can’t forget to mention the guys who have been taking me under their wings of some sort. They would be Richard Cadena of PLSN magazine who allowed my work to be featured in the Febuary 2007 edition of PLSN magazine, in my weekly blogs here on “The Notebook”, and introducing me to some really cool people out there in the business. The other is “one of those cool people” Fred Mikeska of AC Lighting which I’m hoping to work pretty close with on some gear in the near future. Well shit I am officially tapped out for now. If I have anyone else to mention I promise it won’t be this long of a list again, but it is certainly necessary to recognize my people along the way. Thanks for reading. In the following weeks I'll be writing about a great show I saw recently of the band Cross Canadian Ragweed, EastonAshe back in Arizona, and my new learnings at the warehouse of Clearwing Productions where it all begins!
Artist of the week:
Lily Allen
Movie of the week:
Ali G InDaHouse… Sasha Baron Cohen is genious.
Cool Product of the week:
My new NES Flat Screen Monitor that I'm using beside my laptop for an extra eye on video editing and PC lighting control.
EastonAshe URLs:
http://www.myspace.com/eastonashe
http://www.myspace.com/squints4
Don’t for get to email me at:
