Alasdair Watson

I’ve just gone through the photos I took at the Evil Genius gig last night. Any y’know, it’s not my tools – my camera is quite good, after all. But suffering zombie jesus, what I would give to be able to take photos at gig venues where the lighting guy has a a clue.

If anyone out there is a lighting person for a small venue, here’s some helpful hints:

There should a spot of some kind on the lead singer – doesn’t have to be constant, if you really like turning lights on and off for some reason, just perhaps on for about 75% of the time. I’m not even fussy about the colour (although, I shoudl also add that red and sodium orange are the ones everyone else is using, and everyone is used to seeing bands lit in red, and I know I’m sodding bored of it), I just have this sense that it might be important to see him or her. More than, perhaps, the bassist.

Secondly: if you cut across the very front of your lighting display with a beam of white light from the side, aiming the dancefloor wall, rather than, say, the band, it will become harder to see through it. Two additional random-motion colour-changing downlights aimed at the crowd are similarly pointless – if you want your lights to do all that pattern and colour throwing shit, and generally change every ten seconds, well, OK, but aim it at the stage, not the crowd. The band are getting money to compensate them for your annoying inability to pick a lighting design and stick to it. All this shit in front of the stage does is get in people’s eyes. There’s a reason the house lights go out, and it’s not just that the crowd are often ugly.

Yes, I am whinging about this because it fucked up my photography. And yes, I should be able to get around it, but even a hood on the lens didn’t do the job, and I don’t like to use the flash at gigs for lots of reasons. But y’know, the reason it fucked up my photography was in part that it was very hard to see anything with my goddamn eyes, and I’ve got good nightvision.

Why yes, I did just go through 150 photos, and find nothing usable. Does it show?

Bollocks.

1) Bush Moves Toward Martial Law. The US has previously had admirably strict laws regarding the use of the military on it’s own soil. Is this a move toward a dictatorship? I’d be astonished if it were (although the fact that the question is one that even occurs is a little disturbing). Is it alarming anyway? Yes. You all know the quote I’m thinking of about liberty and safety…

2) Via sigma7, strong rumours that Studio 60 is to be cancelled. Not a shock, given that it’s a ratings disaster, but the rumours that it’s to be replaced by reality TV or a game show have a particularly (sickeningly) inevitable ring.

Questions from sushidog:

1. When you cut your hair off, how did it affect your self-image? Have you ever regretted it?
I don’t regret it, but I do still find it a bit strange, the fact that suddenly, I blend into the crowd. I spot another alternative type walking down the street, and get no flicker of recognition from them, and that’s a little saddening.

2. What makes you angry? What’s the angriest you’ve ever been, and why?
Lots and lots of things, in an abstract sense. The state of the planet, creationism, the fact that George Bush has not yet been hunted down by an angry mob, all this pisses me off. But in a more genuinely about to lose it way, the single biggest thing is when others treat my friends and loved ones badly.

Angriest I’ve ever been? Well, in as much as it’s an indicator: the only fight I’ve ever started was at a gig, over the singer of the headline band that night yelling abuse at my then-girlfriend while she was on stage as part of one of the support acts. Not big and not clever, but it’s the only time I’ve been so pissed off that I started a screaming row that ended in violence.

I can think of one occaision that I’ve been angrier off the top of my head, but I really don’t want to talk about it on LJ (not ghastly trauma or an attempt to seem interesting, I should add, just a lack of desire to go over something long since dead and buried where other people who might know what it is can see). Ask me at some social gathering or other, if you’re curious.

3. What do you look for in a potential partner? Do you have a type, whether physical, personality-wise, or whatever?
Hmmm. I don’t think I have a physical type, other than perhaps a preference for pale skin. Other than that I don’t think any of the people I’ve dated have had much at all, if anything in common with the others, physically or personality-wise. So, erm, novelty? Only meant in a way that doesn’t make me sound bloody awful, if such a way exists.

4. Do you have a unified philosophy on life? If so, what is it?
Firewater summed it up very nicely: “We walk but once among the living, so no regrets and no forgiving”. I have no idea if there’s anything after this, but I don’t think it matters. I feel I ought to add though when I say “no forgiving”, it tend to reserve it for really *big* things – once people are on my bad side, they’re pretty much going to stay there, but it does take quite a lot to get there. Everyone gets a second chance, but a third is often pushing it, perhaps…

I once wrote quite a long post trying to sum up my beliefs, which is here, and remains pretty true, especially the part about belief being and analogue state.

5. If you had to choose between never working again on anything productive (not even your own writing, food criticism, or whatever), or working every day for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
The latter, in an heartbeat. My big problem is laziness, so if there was something compelling me to do things, that’d be absolutely great. (This is assuming that my own creative hobbies count as productive work, or at least, that I would not have to sacrifice time on them as part of working every day. And that I’d still have time to see my friends. And possibly an extra couple of hours in the day…)