Plaid Dragon – “SoND” Live @ Gillioz Theatre

Springfield, MO has an excellent music scene. The Bootheel, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Spacetones, Lilly Bee & The Pollinators, Knife Death, Delta Sol Revival, Kids & Chemicals, Speakeasy, Ryan Spilken–I challenge you to find a Midwest college town, or even a larger, more mainstream market, with a music scene as delightfully diverse.

Before leaving Springfield and the Gillioz Theatre, where I hung my hat for many shows, I had the pleasure of working one last concert. Fittingly, the event featured SGF’s own Plaid Dragon playing by themselves, in my favorite “an evening with” fashion.

This show would be the final installation in a series conceived over a few porch beers by Gillioz media czar/talent buyer, Vance Hall, and I aimed at featuring local performing artist known as “First Firday Live.”

I handled the live audio production for the event, mixing FOH and multitrack recording straight to Logic from the Gilly’s Midas Verona 400. I used the direct outputs of each channel of the Verona to feed the line inputs of a Mackie Onyx 1640 for analog-to-digital conversion into Logic over Firewire. After the show I turned the tracks over to Plaid Dragon’s synth/guitar player, Sam Gibson, for a final mixdown.

The show was bittersweet, but 100% Springfield, Missouri live music. I could not have picked a better send-off from the town and venue that will always be “home.” Please enjoy a video featuring Sam’s mix of Plaid Dragon performing “SoND.”

Home Studio: Make It Happen

The decision to move 1300 miles for a new gig came with a good share of challenges.  MSU wanted me to start work as soon as possible and to expedite the move they offered me the option to rent a readily available, on-campus apartment in family and graduate housing.  The dwelling leaves plenty to be desired.  It’s about half the square footage of the house I moved from, but only a 3 minute bike ride from work, utilities are included and I won’t have to worry about snow removal come Winter (a big, big plus).

I moved in with the notion this would be a temporary fix until I could find a house with more space for my various projects and interests.  Operating under this idea, I avoided getting too comfortable and setting up my home “studio.”  Though the more I live here, the more I realize how much the space works for my current situation.  Time to get comfortable.

Before leaving Springfield, I sold most of my furniture, including the desk that was the center of my creative space.  I don’t really have a vehicle fit for hauling furniture, and do anticipate a move at some point, so for now I’d like to avoid collecting more baggage.  But I can’t go any longer without a place to mix.  Just make it happen.

Barely an hour of my time in the extra bed/storage room, some spare pieces of garage shelving and I’ve now got a place to mix and work on recording projects.

The motive behind this entry is to encourage anyone else looking for reasons to put-off building their home studio, or other creative workspace, to just go ahead and do it.  Those excuses are just another thing standing between you and dreams.  If you can’t exercise your talent, you’ll never reach your potential.

Sure, my setup leaves a lot to be desired–tiny room, zero acoustic treatment, extremely un-ergonomic desk/chair combo (see camp chair in photo)–but it’s my space.  The more I use it, the more it will improve.  And if you can practice working in less than ideal circumstances, just think of what you can pull off when the odds are in your favor.

Rainy Day

Seemingly appropriate for the weather, I couldn’t help but do some critical listening of the track “Rainy Day” from The Spacetones’ upcoming mix-tape, Welcome to the Planet of Drugs & (e)Money, set to drop May 5.  I was honored when the ‘tones asked me to be a part of the production process and my excitement only grows as the project evolves.  Sorry, no sound samples today, but I anticipate a preview coming soon.