MMM Makes Craigslist

Sorry for the absence, but I've been sending out mailings, which I'll post about at a later date. Basically, last week I did 20 art galleries, and for the next three weeks I'll be doing 60 restaurants, 20 per week. Then, there will be about ten hotels, and twenty event planners, wedding planners and caterers. San Antonio is huge: "restaurants in san antonio texas" returned over 50K Google search results! I went throug about 500 of them to get a list of sixty that have live music of some kind or other.

The goal is to get over 100 promo packets in circulation, which include a cover sheet, a flyer, a demo CD and a business card. Like I said, I'll detail this later. I haven't posted about developing business plans here before, but it's probably the biggest area of weakness among musicians. Anyway...

I do check in to my Sitemeter stats every morning over coffee, and today I had about twice my usual traffic, which averages about 110 hits per day now. I noticed that all of the extra flow was coming from Canada - British Columbia mostly - so I looked at one of them and found a referring link from Craigslist Vancouver with this link back to MMM.



LOL! He could, you know, just email me and start a correspondence. Anyway, I got a chuckle out of it.

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Showing Mom Some Love

Being, as it were, sick and tired of being sick and tired of my computer problems, I decided to back up my new-to-me PowerMac G5 2.3 Dual Core and aluminum 23" Cinema HD Display with an old G4 450 Cube coupled with my old lucite 23" Cinema HD Display. Sure, I have a G4 400 15" titanium PowerBook (The very first model of that machine) and a 17" G4 1.67 aluminum PowerBook (The very last model of that machine), but I don't care how cool a notebook is, it just isn't as good as having a desktop with a vast display to work on coupled with a full sized keyboard. So...

After considering several options, I noticed that the old G4 Cubes are very inexpensive on eBay these days. Since I had a Cube before, I did bunches of upgrades to it - and so I know how to work on and in the machine - I decided to get another Cube for my backup. While buying all of the components for my "Super Cube" I decided to go ahead and get a second one for my mom. See, she has an Intel Pentium III machine that a friend gave her - a very nice gesture as it was a major hotrod in its day: Two HD's, two optical drives, &c. - but I haven't worked on a PC in about ten years, so when she gets stuck, I'm stuck!

Worked out perfectly. I actually bought three Cubes since they were so cheap and I wanted a machine to cannibalize for parts should something go wrong with one of the other two, and with all the extra memory, I was able to set mom up with a nice Cube with a lot of memory and a 17" TFT Studio Display (The largest display the stock Cube's graphic card can run). Those old 17" lucite displays are cheap now, so I bought two of those as well.

After upgrading the memory from the stock 128MB to 512MB I booted up the machine only to discover that the internal backup battery was dead. Ack! Well, better to start off with a fresh one anyway, so after a trip to Radio Shack I had mom's sexy machine up and running in the Hucbald Testing Laboratory.



I upgraded the OS to OS X 10.4.11 and ran Software Update to get her up to speed (I didn't think 10.5 would really give mom any advantages, and it's a memory hog). Then, I took it over and surprised mom with her new computer. She was tickled pink, and I felt like a good son: More than ample reward.

Of course, for the rest of the evening she was calling every fifteen minutes when she got stuck. LOL!



She's really cute - and she reminds me of a GF I had named Sydney - but her name is Georgia, so it could never work out. I like the name, but think about it: George and Georgia. See what I mean?

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Back in Bee's Wax

Things are settling down here at the monastery, as I have my "new" PowerMac G5 and 23" Cinema HD Display system all sorted out now.



YESSSS!

Funny thing, but this exercise proved me a genius. Why? Well, when I first took the Cinema Display to The Apple Store's Genius Bar, the resident Genius who worked with me declined to take the display's power supply. In fact, he used the store's power brick to test the monitor and confirm that it was dead... but he never tested my brick. So, when I got the repaired monitor back and plugged it in with my supply, the monitor was uncannily bright. I mean, it was like sitting in front of one of those light therapy boxes people use to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder. I dimmed it as much as the controls allowed, and it was still brighter than my seven year old lucite 23" Cinema HD WFO (Wide Fucking Open. LOL!). When the monitor burned out after a mere thirty hours, I figured that my power supply must be malfunctioning, and sending the display too much power. Way too much power.

At my second appointment, a different resident Genius - both of them were nice guys, mind you. I'm not slamming them at all - took my case, and went through the same test as the first, with the same results, natch. When I told him I suspected that my power supply was burning the monitor out, he quick plugged it into a 20" Cinema HD he had for testing, and I thought it was too bright, but he thought it was fine. I got him to send my brick in with the monitor this time - "OK, if it will make you feel better." - and guess what? Yup, I WAS RIGHT! The original power supply I got was malfunctioning and wrecking the monitor, so they gave me a new one, free of any charges but the original repair. Oh, that was $275.00, which still made my original purchase good, but not screaming great like it would have been without any troubles.

I was thinking about actually buying another G5 and Cinema HD display for a backup, and then I had another masterstroke: BUY AND HOT ROD AN OLD G4 CUBE! Since my old lucite 23" display is still fine, all I'd need would be the Cube, a pair of those special Cube USB speakers, and a GeForce 2 Dual graphics card, and I'd have a very inexpensive backup system! Long time readers will remember I had a hot rod Cube before the Mini - and, truth is, the Mini is still no replacement for a Cube - so that's what I did. I can't believe how cheap Cubes are on eBay now! Bought a Cube, 1GB of RAM, the GeForce 2, an original AirPort card, the Cube USB speakers, and another MiniMate Firewire/USB HD and Hub (It will be a CubeMate, while my original MiniMate will go with my AirPort Extreme Base Station as a network HD), plus, I bough a second complete Cube system for my mom! She currently has an old PC I hate - have no idea how to fix the thing except by trial and error when it messes up - and so now she'll have something Apple, something cool, and something I can work on. I did all of this for WAY less than my G5/Cinema system cost too.

Damn, I'm good.



She looks like she has doubts about my extreme awesomeness.

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Unintentional Hiatus

I used to have excellent luck with computers, but I'm currently in a slump. My Mac Mini's HD died, and the G5 and 23" Cinema HD Display I got to replace it is having teething pains. The tower is fine, but the monitor was DOA and the repair lasted all of 30 hours. ARG! Plus, I couldn't find a G5 with Airport and Bluetooth, so I had to order the combo card and it's not here yet. I probably have a backlog of four or five posts I want to do.

This has spurred me into the idea of having two G5's and two Cinema HD displays now. I just can't afford for computer problems to cramp my style, and my laptops, while serviceable, just aren't the same to work on at all.

Here's an interesting Christopher Parkening reminiscence of Andres Segovia I found on YouTube, in two parts:





I was busy learning one of my first E-Axis Studies when I got the news that Segovia had died. Difficult to believe it's been over twenty years now.

Oh, and, a wholesome babe, of course.

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San Antonio Wedding Fair

One of my musical buds - a guy I go back to The Southwest Guitar Conservatory and Berklee with - tuned me in to an event I'd never have thought of attending before, the San Antonio Wedding Fair. I've been to several music industry trade shows in the past - NAMM, AES, and CES - so I sorta/kinda knew what to expect, but I decided to play it minimalist nonetheless: Just my 17" PowerBook with iTunes playing a five-song demo, flyers, cards, and my RMC Nylon Fly as a prop.



My primary mission was to connect with as many wedding planners, event coordinators, caterers, &c. as possible, because I didn't really expect much "off the street" business, and I accomplished that, but I also got a surprising level of interest from the brides and grooms to be. I was kinda ticked off that I had to miss the last day of the Southwest Guitar Festival - the Assad brothers played - but I'm glad I went.

There's another one of these in June, and since I got the lay of the land this time, I'll bring a full sound system and do some actual performing at that one. I'm guessing there were two or three other musicians at the show, plus a couple of bands, and they would play briefly every hour or so, and everyone seemed to be conscientious about not stepping on each other's toes. The DJ's, OTOH, were a different story. Oh well.

I'm sure glad I brought a pair of headphones!

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Southwest Guitar Festival, Day Four

The main competition event, the final round, was at Travis Park United Methodist Church, just a block away from the Majestic in downtown, San Antonio (Don't get me started on the touchy-feely UMC business; I'm a Lutheran. LOL!). It was a nice venue in may ways, but it was down freaking town, so loud trucks passing by were a distraction from time to time. I know it's a historic church, but I think a more modern venue in a quieter location would have been preferable.

Our four finalists, Nemanja Ostojic, Florian Larousse, Pablo Garibay, and Austin Moorhead, were all excellent. There were a lot of plusses and very few minuses to each performer, so I was really glad I wasn't a judge (Yeah, yeah; like that would ever happen).

Serbian born Ostojic played pieces by Moreno-Torroba, Castelnuevo Tedesco, and Koshkin - Koshkin's The Fall of Birds was the only piece I wasn't familiar with, and I loved it. The others? Feh, I've heard them too much, but they are great competition pieces. I figured he'd come in second or third as everything was well played, but he didn't wow me. He won the grand prize, of course. LOL!

Florian Larousse of France was my personal favorite. He's only 20 and doesn't have very good stage presence, but I liked the subtlety and clarity of his playing. I also liked his selection of pieces: Fantasie by Napoleon Coste and the amazing Sonata by Antonio jose, which has become a competition staple, because it's like a frenetic novel for guitar. It's way to bombastic for my personal taste, but I can sure see why competitors love it, because it is positively epic and filled with bravura. Since I liked him best, Florian got third, of course.

Pablo Garribay of Mexico also played the Jose sonata, and everyone I talked to thought he played it better than Larousse did, so as far as I know I was in a minority of one. Typical. Story of my life. Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. What I found irritating about Garribay were some of his showy mannerisms. He'd flip his right hand open after some chord plucks, for example, which I found distracting, and perhaps even a bit pretentious. I thought he should have been third, but he ended up second.

Austin Moorhead, the sole American in the final, was the only one I got right: He ended up fourth, but damn what a great field he was playing in. He played really, really well, but there wasn't any highly virtuosic and showy cap piece to his selections. It also didn't help that he played last and had the same Torroba piece in his set as Ostojic did. One thing I did like was his guitar, which had a really bad-ass, spruce-top, smack-you-in-the-eardrums, crystalline sound. He's been a GFA finalist a couple of previous times, so perhaps this just wasn't his day.

Well, that wraps it up for me, as I didn't attend the jazz concert or Sunday's festivities, as I had other business to attend to, which I'll post about tomorrow.

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The Southwest Guitar Festival, Day Three

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet played the world premier of Sergio Assad's new Concerto for Guitar Quartet and Orchestra, Interchange at The Majestic Theatre last night.



The Guitar Institute of the Southwest, where I studied with Jackie King, Herb Ellis, and Pat Martino - among others - was on the 14th floor of The Majestic Building, so these are old stomping grounds for me. I used to watch parades down Houston St. from the balcony above that sign.

The Majestic Theatre is one of those old super-ornate movie theatres built back in the early 1900's. I took this shot with my iPhone from my seat before the concert started.



Everything was restored, so even the ancient cloud machine works. That's right, those clouds appear to move across the night sky. Today, The Majestic is home to The San Antonio Symphony. Back in the late 70's, before the restoration - when the place was full of cobwebs and looked like a haunted castle - me and my buds used to sneak in there and smoke pot. LOL!

I ran into Bill Kanengiser - the head of the LAGQ - before the show (I got there WAY early), and he actually remembered me from playing some of my originals for him at a master class he gave back in the early 90's. We just basically said hello, I told him I was excited about the world premier, he admitted to being a little nervous, I said they'd rock, and that was that. He's a real gracious guy and a class act. Hell, he even makes music page-turns look elegant.

Mr. Assad's piece is quite nice, and an excellent - as well as much needed - addition to the repertoire for GQ and orchestra. He wrote it especially with the LAGQ in mind, so he was able to tailor movements to suit the strength of the various players: Bill the super-legit classical guy, Scott the Flamenco monster, John with his 7-string bass-extended Humphrey Millennium guitar, and Matt - the FNG LOL! - and his big-time jazz chops. Seriously, it was way better than I expected. Sergio has developed some serious orchestration chops, which frankly surprised the hell out of me (Most guitarists suck at orchestration, myself included), and Bill needn't have been nervous, because the guys rocked, as I told Bill they would.

Sure, there were some moments of very slightly out of kilter and out of sync stuff, but considering that this is a positively monumental undertaking of a piece, it went amazingly well. I was very pleasantly surprised, because my expectations were pretty low, to be blunt. Regular readers know I think the guitar is kind of ridiculous as a concerto instrument, but last night the LAGQ had just a touch of amplification, and you could hear the guitars quite well without any overt intrusions by the amp tech. Seriously, it was one of those things that made me go, "hmmmm."

I just got home from the competition finals. I'll write that up tomorrow night.



Simple and natural is good.

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