Earth-Neil Young + Promise Of The Real

Neil Young's new live album hits the streets today, entitled Earth.  Taking songs recorded during the Rebel Content Tour in 2015, Neil went into the studio with producer John Hanlon to add a choir and an assortment of sound effects to the concert mix. The sounds of the natural environment as well as the manmade world blend themselves into this song cycle to form a cohesive tale.  I'm honored to once again be part of a Neil Young release and to have some of my field recordings used on Earth...all captured at high resolution 24 bit 192kHz.  Quality ...whether you want it....or not.   Enjoy.

Earth is available at the Pono Music Store  and the usual online retailers such as Amazon.

 

Tracking The Treacherous French

I'm really enjoying bringing recording artists into Hillside Recorders in Hayward, CA these days.  Such a great sounding room and the staff lead by Bob Nunes and Jim Hawthorne make for smooth and productive sessions,

A few weeks ago we had the Bay Area indie group The Treacherous French in for a day and they walked away that evening with 5 songs tracked, overdubbed and and mixed.  One nice surprise was a twist on Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters", to which they lent the band's signature swampy, Cajun, folky Celtic sound to… this time including accordion and glockenspiel.     Treacherous indeed!

 

Patreon & The Art Revolution

Being based out of the San Francisco Bay Area allows me the opportunity to be exposed to many great creative people, production groups and energetic businesses thru the work I do.  One booking recently was with Eva Luna Marini on her short piece that looks at Patreon, an innovative start up venture in San Francisco.

Wikipedia tells us this about Patreon- Patreon is a crowd-funding platform popular with YouTube content creators, musicians, and webcomic artists. It allows artists to obtain funding from their fans or patrons, on a recurring basis, or per work of art.  This San Francisco based company was started by musician Jack Conte and developer Sam Yamin 2013. Patreon has been featured in Forbes, Billboard, and Time magazine.  

Patreon was founded in May 2013 by artist Jack Conte, who was looking for a way to make a living from his popular YouTube videos. Together with Sam Yam he developed a platform that allows patrons to donate a set amount of money every time an artist creates a work of art. The company raised 2.1 million dollars in August 2013 from a group of venture capitalists and angel investors. In June 2014 the company raised a further $15,000,000 in a series A round led by Danny Rimer of Index Ventures.

The company has signed up more than 125,000 "patrons" in its first 18 months. In late 2014, the website announced that patrons were sending over $1,000,000 per month to the site's content creators.

Spoiled To Perfection- Episode 5

Update to the April 19th post on my location sound work with the web food series Spoiled To Perfection.  Episode 5 is now complete and takes a look at Sonoma Brothers Distillers and their grain to glass handcrafted spirits.  To find recipes and more depth looks at these craftsmen at work, go to the Spoiled To Perfection website.  Kudos to Shoot Blue Productions, Steve Rustad and Alan Campbell for their ongoing fine work on the series.

 

Instaply- "Reimagining The Way We Connect"

Recently Hands on Sound was called upon to provide Location Sound Recording for a video shoot that was promoting the Instaply App and in particular it's use by local retailer, Cole Hardware.  This handy App allows customers to interact directly with businesses rather than calling or sending e-mail inquiries.  One takeaway for me in this case study was learning that a customer wanting to know if a product was in stock/ on order or not gets an immediate text reply and notification instead of the frustration of being placed on hold…perhaps indefinitely.  In toddy's fast paced and competitive world, Instaply IS transforming the customer experience.

 

Sleep Revolution

Hands on Sound was called in for fun day in San Francisco last week with Arianna Huffington and Uber.  Arianna was on a book tour, promoting "The Sleep Revolution" and also raising awareness to the issue of drowsy driving (hence the Uber tie in).  

Our shoot consisted of a series of GoPro cameras mounted in an SUV to capture Arianna as her driver picked up Uber passengers in downtown SF.  One lucky rider got the surprise of not only taking a spin with Arianna but also with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

 I had wireless lavaliers on the subjects and went the extra mile by adding PZM microphones hidden in the vehicle along with redundant mounted lavs for a total track count of six.  On "bag drop" gigs like this, redundancy goes a long way toward insuring great sound for the client.

 

Spoiled To Perfection

Recently I joined the crew of the web food series, Spoiled To Perfection on the set of Episode 5 as Sound Recordist and Boom Op. The producers describe this as a show that "unlocks the magic behind food preservation techniques such as pickling, fermenting, curing, salting and curdling.  Episode 5 focused on Sonoma Brothers Distillers and their grain to glass handcrafted spirits.

The first day of shooting took place at the distillery and featured the show's Host, Garrett Martin, guiding viewers on a walk thru on how artisanally crafted spirits are made in the distillery's  copper pot still.  We then moved onto Geyserville and spent a day at the Geyserville Gun Club Bar & Lounge learning the finer points of mixology with Garrett, the Sonoma Brothers (Chris and Brandon) and resident mixologist, Damian.

Such a great crew on this series with Leslie Simmons producing and Steve Rustad directing the DP Alan Campbell and the rest of the team.