[sdiy] Re: DEVO SYNAPSE Magazine Ah-0000000H

[Peter Grenader]

Ah.... i KNEW this was going to come up sooner or later....

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Make sure to check out the Performance column in this Synapse issue...it
reviews a concert of mine that i put together in 1978 'Electronic
Explorations' which is, to date, the WORST review i've read about ANYTHING,
EVER.  So you can read all about one of the worst nights of my life if you
care to.

No in all fairness to me, Doug was a bit too harsh..I mean, the cut about
the sign saying 'Electric Concert' was a bit trite. In all fairness to Doug
though, this event was plagued with technical problems, simply because for
once I opted to sit in the audience and not behind the tape console - BIG
mistake.  The co-producer, the late John Waddell arranged for some of his
seniors (that's high school) to do it.  Now remember, this was back in the
"this piece is 1/4 quad, use this deck, this piece is 1/2 track stereo, use
this deck - than this piece is also 1/2 track stereo, but it's a 7.5 IPS.
not 15".  In brief, the high school students (bless their hearts, hope
they'reall  working in gas stations now) took every opp to screw this up
totally.

Barry Schrader's piece - which was actually the performance premier of Lost
Atlantis, which started off with narration - was run AT THE WRONG SPEED.
Yes, we're talking munchkin voices.  To make matters worse, what did they do
to fix it shortly after it began?  Instead of rewinding,, making the
adjustment and then starting over, they just hit the speed switch while it
was running so we got the Alvin the Chipmunk to Leonard James Earl Jones
glissando.

Alan Strange was so pissed off about this he pulled his tape and refused to
have it played!  I was able to talk him out of this shortly after - but it
was a very very close shave and luckily for me, to this day he does not
remember the evening, not one bit of it  - even though he drove down from
San Jose to be there.

Now, the up side, it was a packed house and we picked this venue because it
was free and it held 1000 people.  So, a lot of people there to hear to
mistakes.  The two members of Sparks showed up - I remember that, but most
important, Joan La Barbara,  who came with then newlywed husband Mort
Subotnick wrote the review for the LA Times on the event and she was kind
enough to over look the errors and stick to the content and gave the show an
excellent write up.  She did another review in High Fidelity and was a bit
more...ah...unforgiving - but it was a huge article and included a couple of
photos of the live performance.

OK -  So there you go. We all have bad hair days, but fortunately not many
of us get them are reviewed in a national magazine.  It wasn't Ashlee
SImpson on SNL category, but it was pretty f'n bad.

enjoy -

- P




Cynthia Webster wrote:

> Get your DEVO New Year by reading the latest issue of Synapse!
> 
> http://www.cyndustries.com/
> 
> DEVO Issue Just Posted!
> 
> Click the News link or the Cynthia Logo for what may be one of
> the very first magazine interviews with Devo ~ever~ way back in the
> summer of 1978.
> 
> Other features in this issue include interviews with Don Preston,
> Frank Zappa, and Cameron Jones of Synclavier.
> 
> Also read more on Guitar Synthesis, Electronic Music Notation,
> Laser Sculptures, and a review of some newfangled polyphonic keyboard
> called The Sequential Circuits Prophet!  Wow!
> 
> 
> Hoppy New Year to Every Bunny!
> 
> 
> Cynthia
> 
> http://www.cyndustries.com/
> 
>