Had a cool corporate Monday morning gig with drummer-in-demand Steven Walker. Steven is a world-class recording artist as well as a top-notch performer and instructor. Check him out here. His web site is a great resource on how to build a musician's page. He had subbed in The Billy Batts Ensemble and contacted us when this opportunity came along. He also enlisted his House Live partner Anton Harris for some saxophone flavor. I call us the Steven Walker Quintet. We met at his home studio to fabricate and track some tunes to play during video rolls at a convention. We planned on 4 tunes. Using Brian's new HD camera, we recorded the tracks and submitted them to the client for approval. That went well. The big catch on this gig was an early Sunday load-in and rehearsal at the Georgia World Congress Center, the day after SWJ was to play in Virginia. Ouch! The load-in time of 9 a.m. was non-negotiable, so Brian and I had no choice but to drive back right after the SWJ gig. The good news was the we had help with the driving. We were tired and a bit annoyed, but all in all it wasn't so bad.
The gig itself went well, although our program was cut by one song, leaving us to play 3 of the 4 tunes. Anton only played on 1 song! There was a marching band in the program as well, and Steven performed with them. Most of the pics I took were of us waiting around behind the screen. It was a fair amount of waiting. We had to use wireless units for guitar, bass and sax, so that we could wander the vast stage during our performance. It's interesting how these plans are made by somebody that we never really even met. They decided to stagger the instrumentation and have us perform visually. All for some corporate video rolls. Well, it went well. We enjoyed the perks of breakfast and the green rooms backstage. The pay was good, but I'd say we earned it with the rehearsal, recording, Sunday load-in, and then very early Monday call time. It turned out to be a great experience and a lot of fun. I don't get to perform music before noon very often, that is certainly the truth. Thank you Steven!
My latest gimmick is this "motion gif" enhancement, made through the Google+ Auto Awesome App. Apparently, it can only be done on the phone and then downloaded. Still figuring it out. If I take a bunch of pics with the same background, it senses that and makes one of these automatically. I was just trying to get a good one of Walt on the big screen, so I took a few all at once. Walt makes this all look easy!
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