warm fuzzy geek scene in Tucson

I'll tell you, I loved the Tape Op magazine from the first issue that I saw (which was probably their 2nd). I've been following their convention from afar but this year was the first year where my schedule let me go.
Convention host was Craig Schumacher from Wavelab Studio in Tucson. Like I said in the post from Friday they had the thing at this Resort east of town.

I could tell right away it was an interesting mix of people just like I've imagined Tape Op readers to be. Had a great time on my panel with some guys I knew (Mitch Easter, Pete Anderson, Mitch Gallagher and Joe Chiccarelli) and also met John Morand. We had a very large crowd for the panel.

They had a mini show-exibition with a bunch of pro audio vendors there which was very cool. You could ask questions of guys who worked on the stuff. Ran into friends there from Mercenary, Chandler, Royer/Mojave, the aforementioned Aspen Pittman of Groove Tubes (who is a tireless goodnatured ace), Scott from Cranesong, AT. Also heard some top secret stuff from a couple people including API.
..all kinds of stuff. Saw the Steve Albini playing cards.

My Saturday workshop was on 'open room recording' which is the 'no control room' style setup that we use at our Studio. On that panel was Allen Farmelo, Adam Fuest and Pet Weiss. For the panel we had collected photos of our studios to illustrate how we roll. We got to the room and realized we were missing the adaptor to get to the VGA projector. I asked a guy if he had one and he looked at me and said "You didn't bring yours"? Saw his badge and realized it was one of the all time Pro Audio Guru's George Massenburg. George is a great engineer/producer who has also designed and built great analog and digital gear and recently opened what people say is the most perfect sounding control room of all time in Nashville at Blackbird.

I heard about George's new super control room last year when a friend of mine Rick Clark from Mix Magazine went to check it out. He got there and George says "You gotta hear this" and puts on the Yayhoos Put The Hammer Down cd. Rick said our record sounded awfully good in George's perfect environment.

So anyway when I saw George's badge and introduced myself he was all smiles and said "I love the Yayhoos. The sounds are great! Take my adaptor. Find me later"

Did make me look good to my fellow panelists to get the assist from George.

My favorite Rant:Joel Hamilton from Tony Maimone's Studio G on the "Anatomy of a Mix" panel. Joel played individual tracks that were recorded at the Steve Albini's studio by the Steve Albini without mentioning the Steve Albini. One track that was supposed to be Tom Toms was described as "tom-ish" Joel also took issue with the use of a double headed kick drum for asthetic reasons saying that he "wished he could have sent the kid 26 bucks to buy a new head so he could cut a hole in it..... The guy is not Louis Belson!!!"

Got to meet Nic Luca who has played at the Lakeside Lounge and heard Calexico for the first time.

Also spent time hanging out with 2 other producers of the Bottle Rockets Jeff Powell and Ross Hogarth. That was a blast. Couple great guys.

Albini (who played the orig version of "Had A Real Good Mother and Father"....recently recorded by Gillian Welch on her fabulous Soul Journey), Massenburg and Larry Crane, founder of Tape Op were on the last panel of the show on Sunday. Mark Rubel from Champaign, IL spoke last. After his rap about a live cut from the Band he called Les Paul on speakerphone to wish him a happy 94th Birthday. Mary Ford answered and put Les on the phone and we all sang happy birthday.

I didn't get a lot of pics but I did see this Rainbow on the way back to the Airport