In 1983 I started working as a lighting tech at the Paradise Garage. My first few weeks were made up of repairing cable connections, changing burn-outs and organizing gels. A month or so went by and I began to help out with focusing lamps and assisting with new lighting designs. As I began to become more familiar with the gear and understanding the basics of electric power flow, my duties changed to a more active role in hanging lighting fixtures and coming up with basic designs of my own.
   After 6 months working at the club my skills as a lighting technician began to take shape. My duties were now expanded to doing the "Preset" of the lights on the dancefloor for the evening party. Doing the preset of the dancefloor gave me a chance to learn the lighting boards and how they worked. I learned the different parameters and functions of certain types of fixtures and how they produced light. This is a major concept for understanding the effects of light coverage on the floor, and the potential effect on the people dancing.
   Time went on, I learned and experimented as much as possible. It wasn't until a year had gone by that I finally got the opportunity to operate the lights on the dancefloor during the parties, but when I did, I was hooked. I wish I could explain to you what a feeling of power it is to "play" music with lighting . . . This is truly and Art
   Almost every weekend from that point on until the closing of the club in 1987, I spend my weekends practicing and learning the art of being a Lighting Effects Artist.

    The Cape Cod Melody Tent is an outdoor concert arena located in Hyannis Massachusetts at the West End Rotary. The Melody Tent played host to a wide assortment of musical acts from various decades of rock and roll. The types of acts and the range of performers was staggering. On Monday night you could laugh 'till your sides hurt from the comedy of George Carlin, and on Tuesday listen to the mellow sound of Little Feet or Patti LaBelle.
     This was a career transition job for me, it was the opportunity for me break away from nightclub lighting and to jump into the vast world of Production Lighting. My first summer at the Melody Tent I served as one of the lighting tech's. This season was just about learning the ins and outs of the business. My second season at the Tent I held the position of Lighting Designer, it was here that I used this title for the first time and I got my break. I got the chance to design my very first stage lighting plot, and get a taste for rigging. The Stage design was huge, it was 'theater in the round', a totally foreign concept of lighting for me. How on earth do you light a revolving Stage? I had over 250 fixtures and 150 circuits to use and trust me I used all of them ...
   As I said, this Job was instrumental in exposing me to the production world and lighting on a larger scale. It gave me the tools and the experience I needed to expand my electrical and technical ability to do more intense projects. Over the next 4 years I put these skills to work on the Cape and in the Boston area doing Theater and Nightclub system installations of permanent and temporary grid designs.

   In 1990 I started working for Club Med as a Lighting Designer. Every six months saw me at a new Club Med Village working on a different stage. When I got to a new Village I would do the hand over with the out going designer, learn the new shows of the choreographer, and settle in to my new surroundings. Once I was comfortable with my stage environment and had a good grasp of all the shows, I would drop the old lighting plot, and begin to design a new one without disturbing the flow of the nightly stage productions. I believed that by stripping the stage bare and rebuilding it, I would know exactly what instruments I had and where all the used, broken, and free electrical circuits were. The gear at Club Med was generally in poor condition, partly because of the lack of maintenance by the revolving technicians, but mostly because of the environment. You see all of the theaters in the club villages were open air, and seeing how all of the villages were located on beaches, salt air moisture attacked everything. i would have to say that I owe a lot of my repair and trouble shooting techniques to Club Med, I did it a lot. I repaired everything from the heat regulator tension spring on a Martin fog machine to blackout shudders on ellipsoidal's.
   I became very good at my job at Club Med, so much so that towards the end of my time working for them, I was being sent to villages in order replace problem lighting tech's, or to villages that needed to be closed for the winter seasons. In which case I would finish out that existing season, strike the stage and box it all up for the next season opening. Closing a Club Med village was a cool experience, and a job that wasn't done by just anybody.
   In 1994 I started working on Cruise Ships. This particular venture was not as gear isolated as Club Med, on ships I could get pretty much whatever I needed to do a show. The lighting gear on cruise ships tend to be a lot more up to date. I used Martin 1220's 518's with ETC boards and dimmers. The largest system I had was 75 static fixtures, with 30 1220's, 7 banks of pyro positions, and a dual 10w laser system. not bad for a floating theater. All the shows were run to a SYMPTE time track so this took a lot of fun out of it for me as an LD, but there was still an element of involvement I enjoyed. Although one night on a Carnival ship, the midi connection from the sound engineer was lost at the top of the show. I found myself doing the show manually, it didn't look quite the same but I kept pace. This was probably the longest 50 minutes I ever spent in my life.

   Capron Lighting and Sound is a full blown production company from Boston Massachusetts. Capron did most of the upscale events in the city of Boston, and a slew of events throughout New England. It also has production ties to WHCA (White House Communication Agency) so we did a lot of presidential events as well.
    Capron was an opportunity for me to get into Production Lighting and sink my teeth into the business for real. My first year with Capron forded me the opportunity to do lighting for the then President of the U.S. William Clinton. The gig was the Dartmouth College graduation In New Hampshire. The lighting plot was simple; outside video shoot we, used a dozen HMI lamps on stage, a few 12k's at the camera positions for fill. It was a nice event, I got a certificate.
  Capron is very big on these types of events; The Boston Pops 4th of July Celebration, The Boston Marathon, college commencements, press engagements, corporate functions, television news spots, and even lighting for the Massachusetts State Lottery. I must say I covered a lot of territory with this company.
   I learned a tremendous amount about film and video lighting with Capron. I would work all day then go home to watch my stuff on television at night. I found television and film lighting is so dramatically different from "music" lighting , that it's almost a totally different field, and thanks to Capron I am fluent in both. At some point in the middle of all this, I did a commercial for Continental Cable Vision ===>    Video Link    13.96 megs.

   It was with Capron that I got into rigging and major power distribution, it seemed that this was a natural progression, and something I definitely needed to know. What good is a lighting designer if he can't fly and power his own rig.? So needless to say I have flown a fair amount truss in a lot of venues in and around New England. Yes I owe a lot to Capron, but you know we all have to start somewhere, I guess I picked a good place.

    The band "PHISH" started having these 2 day jams at airports throughout New York and New England. It was usually at the end of their tours that they would set up these large scale gatherings. I came on board in 1997 through Capron, we were contracted by Great Northeast Productions to do the power and do support lighting for the entire concert site.
   The amount of gear it would take to put this show together is staggering. Hundreds of miles of cable of all types, hundreds of gigawatts of lighting, thousands of tyraps, and enough gaphers tape to wrap a tour bus twice. There are exact figures somewhere, I just don't have the access to them today.
   As the Lighting designer for Capron at those events it was my job to light every square inch of the commonly used areas of the entire site. I didn't do any of the stage lighting as Phish has their own LD and lighting rig. However I did design and set up all of the work support and house lighting in the venue and stage areas.
   The lighting style used here was basically general illumination. I used a mixture of standard stage fixtures for all of the tents and an assortment of metal halide, and high pressure sodium lamps for outside and field washes. There was a small amount of artistic and architectural design used. Mostly this was for lighting the bands personal spaces; their living compound, the practice trailers, the family areas and the "party places". However for the rest of the tents I just basically put in a general wash to give people light. But did I say there were about 70 or so tents of all shapes and sizes to light?
   A tremendous amount of power was needed to energize these events. The largest count I can remember was 55 generators. We used large caterpillar 3 phase generators to run distro to all parts of these small cities we were building. The smallest genny was a 25k, the largest being a 225XQ dual voltage.. (what a monster that was). the next largest generator was used at the stage for band power and stage lighting. It was a huge 800 amp twin generator 3 phase. Lots of power boys and girls.. lots of power.
   I did all 6 of the large festivals starting with the "Clifford Ball" straight threw to "IT". The Last concert in Coventry I missed, it broke my heart not to be there, but I had to miss it. Even though I couldn't work the show, I did however make it a point to be there for the opening set. I couldn't let the last show go by without me being there in some form. I brought my wife, we drove down for the day.

    In 1997 I started to do lighting gigs outside of Capron, aside from the cruise ship contracts, I had other projects I did around Boston. I worked as grip on a few small independent films for an associate of mine, and also teched on a few local commercials.
   One of the projects I am proud of was hooking up with a local band called "Division Street". I met them while I was doing a gig at Faneuil Hall. I heard a band outside doing an acoustic set. The sound was good and the kids had some awesome energy. I approached them during a break and made an offer ' if ever they needed a lighting designer to give me a buzz'. A few months later I got a call, and for the next two years I toured with the group doing smaller venues around New England.
   In '98 they put out a promotional video ===> Video Link      63.16 megs.

  I had hopes for Division Street, they were really good, had a tight sound and a few CD's with some really hot tunes to their credit. But the group as a whole never took off, as good as they were it was a shame they never went far. I often wondered just who is in charge of the music scene when talent like this goes un- noticed.