Behind The Board – Starting Where We Started

This year is starting in a great way for us. Our first concert this year will be Black Taxi. The third time in a year that we’ll have worked with them. The show will be for NEXT Music (allthingsnext.com) Charity Concert Series which is how we started the music season last year! In style with My Pet Dragon at Paulie’s in Pleasantville, NY. This year will be at the Captain Lawrence Brewery, our most fun venue! We’re expecting this show to sell out just like the last time we worked with Black Taxi at Captain Lawrence Brewery. We’re also expecting this to be just as fun as last time! So if you are going to the show this Thursday get your tickets at Captain Lawrence’s website (linked above).

 

Winter is usually slower for us. Not that the music stops, but there are a lot less weddings, festivals, and corporate events once you get past Christmas and New Years. Some birthday parties get planned. The biggest holiday of winter is Valentine’s day and that usually doesn’t draw crowds to large parties. Weddings do happen but really not a lot. This is where we get to work more on recording music and also catch up on new music we haven’t seen.

This is also the time where we begin scheduling our DJs and bands for the coming seasons weddings and festivals, so please give us a call (203) 200 – 0265 and get on the schedule soon.

 

Last year was a busy year for us. We had some milestone events happen in 2012 as well as some amazing fun! We did a small gallery of pics to give you a view of last years moments. Most pics were taken by Doug at Focus In Digital. Some were taken by camera phones as well. You should be able to tell the difference!  Keep any eye out on our blog for pics and recordings from this Thursday’s Black Taxi gig and also links to recordings from last years great events coming up soon.

 

  • 1-january-with-my-pet-dragon
  • 10-the-modern-electric-bnk
  • 10a-the-modern-electric
  • 11-the-stationary-set
  • 11-wedding
  • 11c-wedding
  • 11d-wedding
  • 12-a-deadbeat-darling
  • 12-deadbeat-darling
  • 4-the-attic-ends-keyboard-world
  • 4a-the-attic-ends
  • 5-heading-into-a-gig
  • 6-pctv
  • 6a-robbers-on-high-street
  • 8-alive-at-five-matt-oree-band
  • 8-wedding
  • 8a-alive-at-five-with-matt-oree
  • 8b-black-taxi-august
  • 8c-black-taxi-in-the-rafters
  • 9-captain-lawrence
  • 9a-my-pet-dragon
  • 9b-pana-at-the-oyster-festival

 

So, as we get ready to start our concert schedule for 2013 we’d like to tell you we’re looking forward to seeing you at one of these events. And you can contact us for help in putting on your own event! Remember, even a simple speaking engagement requires a professional touch if you want someone to pay attention to you. Be Effective-Be Heard in 2013!

Goodbye 2012, 2013 – A New Year of Music And Production

Happy New Year to you all. Welcome to 2013. We’re very excited for this new year and have been preparing for a bigger year. We also want to thank all our staff, friends, and partners for an amazing 2012! Special thanks go to Focus In Digital for all the great photography work. And a special photography mention goes to Aaron Kershaw of Studio On Main in New Rochelle for supplying some amazing artistry!

Our Wedding crew ended the year with some exceptional receptions. Hurricane Sandy threw a curve ball at one reception. We got that ironed out and the music was pumping afterwards. It’s always fun to see one of our DJs getting people involved and moving with in a reception party. The performance production side has been continuing to upgrade the systems we use for live music. November/December saw a series of new upgrades to our concert system and monitor system. If you’ve been to the NEXT Music Charity Concert Series in November/December you would have noticed a bit of change in the subwoofer system. The Stationary Set and Deadbeat Darling really enjoyed the improved monitors systems. We have always gotten great feedback from the bands about our monitor systems but it is important to us to continue to improve and expand the systems we use to make the band’s performance easier. The better the stage sounds to them, the better they’ll perform for you! This year we worked with some amazing bands including The Attic Ends, The Modern Electric, My Pet Dragon, Black Taxi, Fifth Nation and others.

The promotions side did some great things through 2012, especially the Matt O’Ree Band double-header in Stamford, CT. A night of acoustic blues on Wednesday, then a full throttle performance on Thursday in front of thousands of people attending Stamford, CT’s Alive at Five Concert Series opening for classic rock’s Foreigner. This was an exceptional part of the year! We especially enjoyed watching the younger crowd really getting into the band. We will have more shows coming into the area around spring 2013 with fun being a priority. Info will be posted here soon.

Eric Safka of The Matt O'Ree Band signs an autograph for a new young fan.
Eric Safka of The Matt O’Ree Band signs an autograph for a new young fan.

The last 6 months of 2012 saw a major change to the NEXT Charity Concert Series which we have enjoyed working with for so long now. A move that added to the fun of the show and the challenge of the production! The venue changed to the Captain Lawrence Brewery in Elmsford, NY. Performances are held inside the brewery in a large space, with exceptional craft beers and food. The sound is big! The dancing is big! If you haven’t made it out yet to one of these shows make it part of your 2013 plans. 20120825-171810.jpg Chris Bro of allthingsnext.com and the NEXT Music Radio Show/Podcast deserves a lot of praise for also constantly trying to improve his concert series and getting new music to the people of Westchester and Fairfield Counties. After all, this is an award-winning concert series and for obvious reasons! He has raised thousands of dollars for various charities. He has brought great live music to people throughout the area. He has improved people’s lives simply by the joy and love of music. We look forward to continuing to work with Chris and the NEXT Music crew through an exciting 2013.

So now we move into 2013. We have a series of goals to meet. The main goal is to improve the sound of life around you! We will make your weddings and parties more fun, your speeches and seminars more effective, and your concerts more energetic and moving! There is already a series of great performances scheduled starting with New York City’s greatest band Black Taxi on January 24th at Captain Lawrence Brewery. Our current small format (100-250 people) and medium format (250-500) systems will continue to be upgraded while we do have plans in place to build a newer larger format system that will match the sound clarity and dynamics we look for. Keep an eye on our blogs for more news about 2013!

Remember, music needs to be experienced. Live music is the only way to experience it. Make a resolution this year to get out and see more live music and new bands.

Be Effective this year! Hire us and be heard!

Behind The Board – Tales From The Other Side of The Board

So, (some of you may be familiar with this from my live tweeting) as I was attending a marketing seminar last month, I had the chance to prove our point about “Be Effective – Be Heard”. The house provided a little self powered, 2 speaker sound system for the speaker to use. He also used a screen and projector to show videos from his laptop computer. Said laptop was also connected to the little sound system. Add in a wireless lavalier microphone of questionable quality and no experience with the equipment and you have a recipe for disaster. (Side note, this was a seminar about using today’s technology to market your company.) So the seminar starts with a video. The video showed up on the screen but all you heard was crackling noise  as the wire he was given to connect his laptop to the sound system was a bad one. When he got it to work, there was so much bass you couldn’t understand. I actually looked outside for a thunderstorm first (legitimate thought as it was storming that day). Then he began to speak. This guy was a large man with an average male low voice. Here, he sounded like an AM radio (for the kids, that was what they listened to before streaming internet and podcasts). Static, no depth, hissing, all the things we pick on the fast food drive through for. Once in a while the mic would cut out. As a sound tech, I was out of my mind. But, let me be objective and look at what others reaction might be. Looking around the hall, I could see only about 40% of the attendees actually looking ahead. Afterwards, I asked a couple people the straight question “what did you think?” The first three told me they couldn’t hear it. Moral of this story. How can you get your point across, if you’re not getting your point out to their ears? People are pre-programmed to block out bad sounds. Extraneous noises get ignored by most people. Sound Techs on the other hand get annoyed by it. HAHA. If you sound badly, people will begin to tune you out.45 mins of listening to hiss is not most people’s idea of effective. Let alone the embarrassment of all your equipment failures. You’re supposed to be a professional?

A proper sound technician would have checked all the equipment prior to embarrassment. They would set up better equipment under a proper budget. They would have tested your sound prior to show and set the tone reaction between you and the microphone properly to give you clarity with the right amount of strength. 

If you’re doing a speaking engagement anytime soon and you’re in our area, give us a call. It’s a lot more expensive to fail to reach people than it is to hire us to set you up right. Or in any other area, look up “sound technician” or “sound engineer” in Google for that area. It’s really not that expensive in the long run, and you look more professional than this guy who was less effective than the girl at the Wendy’s drive thru I went to earlier for lunch!