Re: logistics nightmare?

[The Man Himself <altruist@shoko.CALARTS.EDU>]

On Wed, 6 Nov 1996 KILLINFO@aol.com wrote:

> > Mind you, an hour isn't exactly the model of brevity!
> 
> Well perhaps not. But to drive 400+, miles lug heavy gear
> with a bad back (remember some of us are no longer as
> young as we once were), spend 15 to 20 minutes setting 
> up and dialing in a complicated rig (and our muse), for 
> a mere 15 to 20 minute spot does not seem to be that 
> much of a trade off. My wife thinks I'm crazy to do it
> for a mere hour (3 kids, 18 years of marriage and I still 
> can't get no respect--ha!). 
> 
> I'd do it for the smaller spot, but I'm affraid that I'd 
> just be warming up and have to stop. It's not so much 
> that "brevity" is a problem per se--it's more a matter 
> of "invoking the spirits" (for lack of better terms) 
> that seems to take all of the time (particularly under 
> harried and stressful circumstances). 

This is a very good point; the main inclination for an hour-long set 
would be to ensure that all participants had some opportunity to play.  
But as it seems more and more likely that the "gig" will in fact be 
divided between the different state regions, it does seem that longer 
sets would be both more feasible and more appropriate.

And I definitely agree as far as the tradeoff of set-up time vs. 
performance time; I try to operate under a maxim that I don't spend more
time setting up and tearing down geat than I spend actually playing music,
and hour-long sets could well walk the border for some of us (myself
included).  And there's no point in creating an environment where
everything is so harried and rushed that it's a struggle just to try and
get yourself into a solid frame of mind. 

The flip side is that, as Dave @17 indirectly alluded to, if you've got
just four people playing an average of 90 minutes to two hours for their
set, and you figure in *at least* a half hour between sets for changeovers
of gear (any realistic scenario will probably be more on the order of at
least 45 minutes), then you've got somewhere between 8 and ten hours of
gig time for four people!  This was the main thing on my mind when I
suggested the "short" set length of an hour as a guideline. 

It looks more and more like we'll have to do seperate northern and
southern gigs, both for the logistical purposes and for the sheer amount
of time involved in accommodating the performance needs of a handfull of
people.  More problematically, just the fact that the average desired set
length seems to be in the 90 minute to 2-hour range means that the whole
program will be far too long to stage in a situation such as Nels Cline's
New Music night (or any club for that matter), unless the proceedings are
spread across several nights or weeks.  And then it becomes less of an
actual gathering than it does a series of seperate solo gigs.  Not a bad 
scenario by any means, but definitely not the same sort of thing as a 
summit concert. 

Damn, it gets complex, don't it?  8-/

Thanks to Ted and the rest for the very astute suggestions.  Any ideas on
where to go at this point?  I must confess I'm a bit stymied. 

--Andre