straight to hell
September is the beginning of the freelancer's year, and whilst things haven't exactly taken off with a roar, work is starting to trickle in.
Last weekend I was at Audley End House in Essex, our mission was to floodlight the exterior in pink for a wedding. The commission originated from an unholy alliance of a society catering company and a DJ/disco company. This meant, for us, that they supplied most of the equipment, and that it conformed to that special substratum of kit designed for DJs, which meant that it looked nice but didn't actually do very much, or do it very well. In particular, the shade of pink that the floodlighting units produced was so insipid that the limestone walls of the house simply sucked it up and spat it out. Fortunately we were able to save the day and opt for magenta, which looked splendid, and only slightly kitch. Personally I think the chocolate fountain in the wedding marquee had the edge on us, but only just. Just for your delight, the picture is of that very building in its pinkness.
This has also been the week of PLASA, the other entertainment technology annual beano, this is the one where suits from the middle, near and far east wander around, bemused by the never ending displays of flashing lights and disco gadgets, and spend, spend, spend. There is some merit in attending, usually there are one or two new things that are worth seeing, it can be fun to go onto a stand and crash the lighting desks, and more importantly; you can get a good idea of what new trend is worth making a determined effort to avoid.
The lighting company I work with is also a dealer in a certain brand of PA speaker, and in consequence, as the nearest supplier, we were asked to provide the PA for their PLASA party, which was held at HELL on Curtain Road in the East End, this building, a former button factory, and the second location of the Brick Lane Music Hall (no prizes will be awarded for guessing it's first location) is built on the location of Burbages 'The Theatre' and is now a large and surprisingly pleasant bar, although the signs exhorting patrons: Out of consideration for our neighbours please leave HELL quietly, did make me raise an eyebrow.
The entertainment provided for the party was a band, mates of one of the sales people, and forcefully reminded me why I ran away from mixing bands in pubs, it has been a long time since I have heard anybody sing 'Smoke on the water' without any sign of embarassment. They produced a suitable pubby sound, having bought their sound desk at the industry equivalent of a carboot sale for £60.00, and believe me, you could hear every one of those pounds. It was perhaps fortunate that alcohol numbs the pain.
This year I was invited to attend an American market survey companies' stand, in order to participate in a survey of industry professionals. My reward for this public spirited gesture, was to be an iPod, a device I have never felt the need or desire for. I turned up for my interview with some trepidation, fully expecting to be sold a florida timeshare, and was rather surprised when the entertainment on offer was exactly as promised. I did the rather curious survey, pausing only to crash their computer, and, duty done, collected my iPod. Since then I have been grappling with the device, as a (thus far), lifelong PC user, I am not used to Apple syntax, and as a proper techy I have long since learned not to read the manual unless the device in question is actually on fire. So progress has been slow, but I think I'm on top of it now.
I haven't used a walkman for years, but when I'm touring I take a portable cd player and a stack of cd's to use in the vehicle, this device, which is able to store 5000 songs (I don't quite know how you measure opera's) has so far swallowed up the contents of six albums and a copy of Peter Grimes without showing much evidence of having indigestion, so I suspect my travels will be a lot lighter in the future.
posted by Lampy @ 9/14/2005 10:33:00 am
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