Posted: Jan 31, 2018 1:29 pm
The_Piper wrote:felltoearth wrote:Three times, though other more trivial ones.
First was a 30 minute live performance of a band I was in, broadcast nationally on the CBC for Brave New Waves, a kind of Canadian version of the John Peel show that ran from the 80s to the early naughts.
Second was for a show on the House and Garden network featuring one of my gardens. I was interviewed, though because it was to be broadcast in the US I couldn't mention it was in Toronto, only that it was in a "major North American City" which was funny because it was a roooftop garden in full view of the CN Tower, an unmistakable Toronto icon.
Third and possibly best, I was a servered torso in a TV movie. I shared space for a while with a movie effects shop and they needed a model for a bloated severed torso in a dramatization of the Emily Dick story – the woman at the centre of a sensational "trial of the century" in the "not so major" Canadian City of Hamilton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Dick
I also had to wait to watch it however as my tv premiere as a bloated piece of meat was pre-empted by 9/11. The movie was supposed to have run that night of.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torso:_ ... Dick_Story
What band, what instruments?
I'm a bit embarrassed by it actually and at the same time proud. I had joined the band at the behest of the lead singer leaving another one for a while. Before the tour that this session was a part of, the other long time keyboardist had an episode and couldn't join the tour, leaving me to manage his arcane set up and play his parts. I was overwhelmed but did an ok job on most nights.
My typical before this was an Ensoniq Mirage Sampler, Korg DW6000, Korg Poly 800 and a Sequential Circuits Pro One and an Alesis HR16 drum machine all connected via MIDI to an Atari 520st running Steinberg Pro24 software (the precurser to Cubase).
His setup was a Casio FZ1 one sampler (worst loading time and interface of any sampler I've used) a Korg Poly 800 mkII, Roland MC 202, Sequential Circuits Pro 1 and the amazing Korg Mono/Poly and a Roland TR707 drum machine (I am so pumped by iOS version of this on my iPad right now. Sounds so close to the real thing!). If any of you recognize these, you know that the only synth with patch memory is the Poly800 (the FZ1 had memory recall from floppy but was so slow as to be useless). That means setting patches on each one of the synths between songs. OK for Tangerine Dream and three people, not ok for one person and four minute synth pop. To top it all off, none of the synths were connected and there was an even more arcane system of using the on board sequencers. If Inhad more notice and time I would have adapted everything, but I had to learn his part and the synth patch arrangements too. Like I said, overwhelming.
The net result was some weird (though interesting) versions of their back catalogue and some (really) rough sketches of new material for the band. One song that was written after this session I am really proud of and is one of my favourites. It was pressed and released on a limited edition in Germany and played heavily on alternative radio there. That was the biggest royalty cheque I ever received (it seems Germany pays more per play too).
All in all it was an amazing experience in retrospect. The recording was made in CBC's orchestral suite in Montreal (huuuuuge room) and I played to some of the largest audiences I will ever play to. I'll try to dig out a pic if I can.