Bob Weir at SF MusicTech Summit: TRI takes sight & sound beyond ‘Furthur’ http://www.examiner.com/culture-events-in-national/bob-weir-at-sf-musictech-summit-tri-takes-sight-sound-beyond-furthur
Rick Marianetti September 13, 2011 The future of Internet sound and visual technology took the stage yesterday at the 9th biannual MusicTech Summit in San Francisco. Besides experimental instrument demos and panels covering everything from music apps to navigating the legal conundrums of new-tech, the scene was energized by three generations of indie rock stars: Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald of Slightly Stoopid, Jack Conte of Pomplamoose, Joe Satriani, and Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir of Furthur. Weir appeared with CNN’s Laurie Segall to talk about his Tamalpais Research Institute (TRI) in San Rafael. He began the conversation recounting the beginnings of the Grateful Dead’s famed technical and acoustical finesse. In 1965, Stanley Owsley met Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions -- soon-to-be the Warlocks, Ken Kesey’s house band -- before morphing into the Grateful Dead. “Owsley was known to be an LSD king, a genius. He made a lot of money selling what was not illegal at the time,” Weir said. Owsley was not only a chemist and psychedelic marketeer, but a brilliant sound engineer as well. “He was a dog on the bone of the future of music – and a quality freak,” according to Weir. Owsley set up the band with McIntosh amps and theater speakers. He developed an amplification system that became known as the “wall of sound,” a label appropriated from Phil Spector . While Spector became famous for his audio-mixes of layered vocal harmonics and lush orchestration created for the monophonic sound systems of his day, Owsley focused on perfecting the acoustics of electronic instruments in live performance. To achieve the sonically undistorted effect he was looking for, he built 45-foot tall towers of stacked amplifiers that mutually propagated each other's sound. The whole system took an entire day to set up, so one-night stands were logistically and financially impossible. Owsley died in a car crash in Australia in March. TRI Flash forward to today. "The Internet will Furthur influence music,” Weir said, tongue not visibly in check. “It started about four years ago. At first, it was just a rehearsal space." Then API Audio Products offered to equip the studio with a high-end system in exchange for a performance by Weir. They couldn’t make enough money to make the business model work, so he brought in Dennis “The Wiz” Leonard and John Cutler, who had produced several Grateful Dead records and mixed sound for their live shows. They installed a Meyer Sound Constellation System that includes 20 mikes installed in the ceiling that can make musicians sound like they’re in Carnegie Hall, a cathedral, or hockey arena at the touch of a button. “You can bring the listener inside the band,” Weir said. Tonight Slightly Stoopid will perform two sets starting at 6:00 p.m. PDT. The world-wide Internet broadcast will be accessible to mobile devices, Internet-ready HDTV home theaters, and everything in between. Featured guests include Karl Denson (Greyboy Allstars, Tiny Universe), Ian Neville (Dumpstaphunk, Funky Meters), Don Carlos (Black Uhuru) and surprises galore. Slighty Stoopid members will do a live Q&A via Facebook and Twitter between sets. . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to sixties-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sixties-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
