Of all the game-changing technology that allows the Love Drunk project to set up and shoot live, one-take music videos with six cameras, capturing audio through a 16-channel board anywhere we can find a power outlet — including today's video with Jukebox the Ghost — it's the ability to tether internet from our iPhones that makes this tour we're on doable.
People are often surprised at the amount of laptop work required to handle the, perhaps, most important part of the process: sharing the videos. When we're lucky enough to stay with friends (new or old) on this tour, we unfortunately don't always make the best company, with our noses aimed at our trackpads. But in order to let people see the videos we produce, we have to load them online, typically on YouTube and Vimeo. We have to tell the story, right here on Hear Nebraska. And we have to share them through all the social media channels at our disposal, aiming for an 11 a.m. (CST) drop.
From the back of our 15-passenger van on any stretch of interstate, we do a lot of this work while channeling 3G Wi-Fi from the cyber heavens. It's really pretty amazing. Without it, we'd be stuck at coffee shops instead of moving to the next city.
Between Pittsburgh and New York Tuesday night, we did a lot of moving. We left the Donora house at about 10 p.m. for a seven-hour drive (not including traffic) to NYC, where we needed to hit a tight window to shoot Jukebox the Ghost before their guitar player caught a bus early that afternoon. At about 3 a.m., we decided to crash at a hotel, knowing we'd have to leave by about 6:30 a.m. to safely navigate early morning rush-hour traffic to make our 10:30 a.m. meetup time. So after about two-and-a-half hours of sleep, Wednesday morning, we move our gear from the hotel to the van and hit the road. With Angie Norman behind the wheel (she's driven every single mile so far), we make it right on time to A Gallery of the Tribes, in the East Village.
When you walk up the narrow stairs to the second-floor art space in the 174-year-old building, you're greeted by the nonprofit's 77-year-old executive director Steve Cannon, chain-smoking in an armchair. A retired professor of the humanities who went blind from glaucoma 20 years ago, Cannon is a gracious host, allowing us to essentially take over his gallery space to set up equipment while he strikes genuinely fascinating conversations with whomever sits on the couch across from him. We talk about the Omaha artist who had a show in his space recently, about him getting mistaken for Ray Charles in Central America and about our shared belief that arts culture benefits society by highlighting similarities between people.
In the next room, NY-based Jukebox the Ghost is about to perform the first track off their upcoming full-length, Safe Travels. The album drops June 12 on Yep Roc. You can purchase the song on iTunes.
***
Six Love Drunk videographers are on tour shooting live, one-take videos with bands across the eastern part of the U.S., spreading the word about Nebraska music along the way. This was day six of 17-day tour. Learn more about the project and the tour here. Watch all the videos here.
Special thanks to this year's tour sponsors, Proxibid and Havana Garage, whose generous support is paying for much of the travel costs. Please support these Omaha businesses.
***
audio.video.live.one take
audio recorded/mixed by Matt Hovanec
video directed/edited by Django G-S
cameras:
Django G-S
Matt Hovanec
Andrew Norman
Angie Norman
Andrew Roger
Ben Semisch
photo:
Ben Semisch
* performed Wednesday, May 9, 2012
jukeboxtheghost.com
lovedrunkstudio.com
Andrew Norman is Hear Nebraska's editor-in-chief. His new friend Steve Cannon is currently embroiled in a fight against eviction. Please help save this cultural landmark by donating to A Gathering of the Tribes. Contact Norman at andrewn@hearnebraska.org.