MF AV Team Trip Blog

In March a couple of us met up with Larry DiMarzio to shoot the May cover for Musician’s Friend down in San Francisco with Joe Satriani.

The weather was nice, a bit windy, and it didn’t take much at one point ot get us outside to take a few shots on some nearby railroad tracks.

Check out the snap shots from the shoot!

You can now see the video on Musician’s Friend, HERE!



Here are some snap shots of before and after the shoot! ENJOY!

On October 10th we took over the stage at the Craterian Theater in our own town. Fortunately, Jeff Pevar lives close by and we had him join us to help show off the new Gibson 339, and as well as a new Rogue electric guitar, which he quite enjoys.

To give you some idea of who Jeff Pevar is, he has played with legends such as Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Marc Cohn, Crosby & Nash, David Crosby, and is a part of CPR (Crosby, Pevar, & Raymond). The list goes on: CSN, Donald Fagen & NY Soul, Graham Nash Band, Rickie Lee Jones, and so many more you can see at www.pevar.com.

You will see in the photos how we were able to use lighting, and the openness of the stage to create a very comfortable environment for all of us! We hope to do many more shoots in this space, and this one has set a new bar for us!

After our wonderful trip to beautiful New Brunswick, Canada, where everything is green, and the Sabian Factory positioned right on a river, Bill and I fly into NYC! What a change!

So, neither of us had been to NY before and we definitely were overwhelmed at first. We stayed at the Marriott Marquis right in the heart of Times Square! Talk about, right in the middle of it all! That was the 29th when we arrived from Canada, in the morning. We had the rest of the day to venture a little, until we found out our rooms weren’t even ready until late afternoon. So, we napped in the lobby.

Later that day, a new addition to our team arrived into town, Skyler. He is based out of our Salt Lake office. We all went to eat.

The 30th began the venture of Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy Camp, which turned out to be quite the adventure in and of itself! Bill and I had video cameras, and Skyler had the digital still camera and we went to town! We covered a little of the progress of each of the bands, and more importantly, we were able to get a nice handful of interviews with the camp counselors. Here is a list of the counselors at the Camp in NY:

Spike Edney
Corky Laing
Alan White
Mark Hudson
Sandy Gennaro
Glenn Hughes
Simon Kirke
Larry Oakes
Gary Burr
Jane Wiedlin

In addition, we had some guests pass though:

Paul Stanley
Leslie West
Mark Farner
Paul Shaffer
Max Weinberg
Scott Ian
Bruce Kulick
David Letterman Horn Section

This made for a great place to be last weekend! Shuffling between 3 practice studios, thankfully, all within walking distance, and lugging our gear around, we got a lot done.

On the last night we did a full 3-camera shoot with full audio of the final concert at BB Kings, where each band played 12-mintes, usually 3 songs. At the end, the counselors all got up and played through a nice set of tunes! That video will be available soon!

In the meantime, enjoy the photo colliage of the camp! There are 6 galleryies posted here! Go through them! Enjoy them! You can click on the gallery to take you to the photo site where you can see them all a little easier, if you wish.

We should thank David Fishof, Producer of the event, and the lovely Camp Host, Elizabeth Vargas.

Enjoy the rest of the blog!

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DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

DAY 5

DAY 6 (our day off in NY)

On August 27th we began a long two week journey which started with a 2-night trip to Sabian Cymbals in Eastern Canada. After an adventure of flying there and arriving in Fredericton, NB in a 18′ish passenger plane, we arrived in our hotel. The next morning we realized how beautiful the landscape was where we were! We drove almost an hour out to the Sabian Factory in Meductic, NB. The drive was beautiful!

The property in which Sabian stood was on the edge of a beautiful river, the Saint John River. The weather was definitely favorable!

We went through the factory with still and one video camera, and another time with full 2-camera set up.

This fascinating process of watching cymbals being made was a great change for Bill and I. Since we have been doing guitars up to know, it’s nice to see metal in action!

After we finished our work day we had a chance to relax and enjoy some social time with the folks who helped get us there, including Bob Zildjian and his wonderful wife, Willie! Such a hospitable group of people! After the long travels it was nice to just b taken care of and well liked.

Enjoy the slides!

Thursday the 23rd we flew into LA. Friday the 24th we spent most of the day documenting a photo shoot on film and with stills. This session was with Steve Vai as the subject for Musician’s Friend. Photographer and music icon, Larry DiMarzio was a joy to work with! In addition to him and his crew, our very own Director of Creative Services, Ken Sager was there to help direct the shooting making this a real success! When the session was a wrap, we had Larry and Steve sit down and interview each other for 20-minutes. This allowed us to capture their story behind their long professional relationship.

SEE THE VIDEOS HERE! 

As a side note, Larry took a couple of snap shots of Bill and I, and now those pictures are going to be our profile shots for our bio.

In December of 2006 we had the pleasure of capturing an interview with Mark Farner to produce a video piece that could be the most definitive video on Mark Farner. You can see it on his personal HOME PAGE – CLICK HERE.

Bill and I will get a chance to see Mark again in NY next week at Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.

Our last night in Nashville turned into an inspirational and enjoyable evening with Zoro The Drummer. He opened up his house to us as we set up our new gear in his new room where he hopes to be able to put up all of this pictures and memorabilia that represent his wonderful career.

The taped interview was right at 2-hrs long without a break. We were fortunate as a video team that Bill actually grew up with Zoro right here in Southern Oregon, so there was a lot of catching up to do, and a lot of old memories revisited, even as far back as what inspired Zoro to start drumming in the first place, and that Bill was one of the first guys to ever play with Zoro when he was learning how to hit the skins.

This interview was a great experience, a great time, and will provide a ton of versatile video content!

August 13th, we visited Chester Thompson in his private studio. A very hospitable gentleman, and a joy to be around. Bill did a great job getting Chester to talk about his career with Phil Collins and Genesis, Weather Report, and Zappa, as a drummer. Chester shared many other great stories, and of course we talked about gear.

We look forward to getting the interview up on the Musician’s Friend and Harmony-Central website, but in the meantime, check out the pictures we took following the interview.
We are still in Nashville, visiting Gibson USA and the Custom Shop. Today we did a walk through. Shot a ton of video on one camera, and about 450 stills. I will post them – most of them, anyway. Thursday we visit Zoro the Drummer, which will also be a great treat!Promise, we’ll share.

Whether this becomes a journal of our trips, a log, or anything else related, I hope to post pictures, and share stories related to our trips.

Below is the first of hopefully many more pictures. This was taken following our time spent with Eric Johnson at his private studio. We look forward to seeing the final video product from this visit!