Its nice to know and encounter people who come to you after listening to specific artists.
One of my colleagues at the University directed Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" in the campus. Because she asked me to assist her during the three performances of the play, I naturally requested that I be assigned to assist in the sounds/music. I guess, its quite predictable that on the first performance, I played Joni's BLUE album while the guests and the audience were being shown their seats. I could see a lot of stares in my direction as "All I Want" progressed to "Little Green" to "The Last Time I Saw Richard". Many of those who were already in their seats, took time to come over to the control room and asked me the artist and album (most Filipinos do not know Joni at all). Naturally I gave them Joni's BLUE cd for inspection. I could sense the happiness from people when they stumble upon something they themselves discovered. Next night, I played Fred Simon's (yes, our very own Fred Simon) USUALLY/ALWAYS album, and maybe because the audience was quite different that night than the first night, those people who mustered enough courage to leave their seats and asked me where professors. Almost always they asked me if its available in the local Tower Records, and I told them to check out the internet instead. A few commented on the nice cover of Fred's album. On the last night, I played artists ranging from Mary Margaret O'Hara to John Pizzarelli to Tania Maria to Randy Vanwarmer. The questions were quite hard to deal this time because I am not sure if they referred to a song of the previous song or the one previous to that. Overall, it was quite a great experience for me to experiment sounds and meet people who connect to specific music. I don't know what kinds of people will go to the control room if I played Diamanda Galas! Joseph np: hum of the air con (its 33 degrees here in Manila!!)
