Audio and Exhibition

This section contains links to audio experiments, performances, installations and exhibitions.

As many of my friends in high school and college in the mid nineties were able musicians, I found myself interested in audio engineering. Being gifted a large 80s Yamaha mixer by Bill Dillon, and assembling a hodge podge of amplifiers and PA speakers, I began a long adventure in probono amature sound engineering. Focusing on hardcore punk rock shows and avant-garde experimental musicians (well I guess I really was working with my friends and the weirdo stuff we’re into) I attempted to not only provide sound reinforcement at shows, but also to document the events in high fidelity and multitrack when possible. Upon moving to Philadelphia I found an important role for myself in the new weird psychedelic folk music scene in fishtown. Studying under the amazing Eugene Lew, I acquired a pair of Mackie SRM450 powered PA speakers and an assortment of microphones(also some ancient MIDI gear). Using this as a main portable setup, I would grab a PhillyCarShare rental for 30 minutes and run the PA speakers, mics, mixer, cables, and stands down to the Big Jar Books, First Unitarian Church, Latvian Society, or whoever’s house/backyard/artspace in South or West Philly. This technique allowed me to get a round trip scheduled for 530p load in and 1230p load out for about $25. By drastically reducing transportation costs, and offering a modest setup, I was able to provide a decent service for my friends and the philly arts community.

Following shows, I would immediately delve into mixing and mastering the evening’s recordings, posting an mp3 on my electricityforprogress.com/Audio site (really just an index) and I would then send out a link to the bands, curators, and friends in the early morning hours the next day. This was my favorite part of the whole process, after thinking really hard about what I could capture and amplify with the minimal setup on-hand, riding the mixer and following closely along with each musician through the evening, I was then able to tinker and tweak the stereo or multitrack recordings in order to provide something which I thought captured the sound of the evening/performance. Many guests (Rich, Mark, Lea, that young guy) would video record the performances, which always lead me to hope for a future documentary where we combine all the media and recordings from the music scene to produce and share a documentation of the performance and experience. This work is still pending 😉