J Boog Live at the Fall Mixup in Monterey

About 3 months ago, Scott Clayton of ON POINT PROMOTIONS told me there was this guy named Mason Proud that I had to meet. He said (and I quote) that he was one “Gnarly Dude” when it came to sound. Scotty saw what was to be the beginnings of a great team. Since then, Socal Reggae and MASON PROUD PRODUCTIONS have teamed up to film and record several times (Mike Pinto Band, Stranger, Tribal Seeds), and it just gets better and better.
Last weekend, we attempted to push the envelope a little further and take our operation on the road: The Fall Mixup in Monterey. STRANGER had agreed to let us film them along with Josh Heinrichs and Skillin Jah, as they would be backing them. Thanks to the “Sales Saavy” of Chris Warner (talking head and lead guitarist for JET WEST), we were able to negotiate a little extra work on the trip and film J BOOG as well as his supporting Band HOT RAIN. We assembled the team at Socal Reggae HQ in Leucadia. In addition to filming, we decided to bring along photographers AUBREE JEAN and HEATHER VANDERMARK. Others on the team included Thomas Persichilli (also from Socal Reggae), Matt Tolk, Jennifer Webb, Jeff Hodson from Shoreline Rootz and Jacob Stella.

From Left: Jennifer Webb, Aubree Jean, Heather Vandermark

We caught a serious break when Heather offered up her van, because Mason’s Pro Tools rig is pretty huge and quite a challenge to transport on the roof rack of my Honda Accord. So we loaded up everything, and around 10PM Friday night, we headed up to Monterey.
Things started off fairly smoothly, until we passed Burbank, and Heather’s van got a serious flat. This could have been a major snag, but with cool heads, we threw on the donut, and made it to the next exit which just happened to have a 24 hour tire place. The guy sold us a used tire for $40 and all in all we lost about an hour, so “VICTORY”. A few of us even had time to burn one!

Jeff Hodson at the 24 Hour Tire back office – funny that there was a trombone there.

At around 5AM, we arrived in Monterey. Not much to do but try and get a little sleep in our vehicles. No such luck. I personally took pleasure in going for a walk to survey the Fairgrounds. It was cold outside, and we still hadn’t had a cold snap in San Diego. It felt refreshing to say the least. Eventually people started showing up. We met Jeff Monser, one of the organizers of Cali Roots, as well as this event. He gave us some of the info on where and when to load in and what to expect. Nice guy. Later on, we met Dan Sheehan (also an organizer of Cali Roots), and he was very helpful in telling us the agenda for the day, and covered the ground rules. So we methodically took our time to figure out where everyone was parked, and began to formulate our plan to setup.

Mason Proud

Mason Proud has got this incredible Pro Tools recording rig. It’s all portable, and can record up to 32 channels. This is one of the main bonus points to the shows we are recording: SOUND. With great audio, comes a great product. If you have poor audio, they will NEVER forgive you. Mason spent a few hours hooking his rig up to the sound board, and he must have done a good job, because I listened to his mix though the headphones and it sounded better than hearing it out of the main sound system. We were all kind of waking up still, and making sure our process was setup correctly. We had 4 GoPro cameras, a Canon XH-A1 for the wide shot, a Sony A55, 2 Nikon D7000 cameras, and a Nikon D600. All cameras shoot amazingly clear video, but there is a tremendous overhead for video data. For my day job, I am a Data Engineer, and my job is to essentially invent ways to efficiently save data for my company. I devised a “system” so that all of us videographers could come back to our little area and upload the video that we shot. It worked, and by the end of the night, we had all data from all cameras on a hard drive, organized by band and videographer. I can honestly say that our level of professionalism is making these endeavors worth it. Working with people that not only KNOW what they’re doing, but also maintain the proper level of courtesy and respect is an awesome thing.

Matt Tolk – videographer for Mason Proud Productions

Mason Proud is handling all of the editing and has been doing an outstanding job at it. For the most part, we got footage of every band, including Fortunate Youth, Whiskey Avengers, Clear Conscience, and Dewey and the Peoples, but as far as producing a high quality Live Convert video with multiple angles goes, we filmed Hot Rain, Stranger(also with Josh Heinrichs and Skillin Jah) and J Boog(with Hot Rain). Look forward to this footage. We’re not quite sure about the whens and hows of releasing it, but we will keep you informed as we know, and possibly send out a sneak peak or two.
-Leucadia Bob

*PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT CALI ROOTS WILL BE HAVING SOME SPECIALS ON TICKET SALES FOR NEXT YEAR’S 4TH ANNUAL CALIFORNIA ROOTS ART AND MUSIC FESTIVAL:
SUPER EARLY BIRD SPECIAL NOVEMBER 1, 2012 TO NOVEMBER 30, 2012. THIS WILL BE THE OPTIMUM PRICE FOR 2 and 3 DAY PASSES TO THE EVENT SO DON’T MISS OUT. TICKETS WILL BE LIMITED.
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL DECEMBER 1, 2012 TO JANUARY 09, 2013 – TICKETS WILL STILL BE AVAILABLE AT A DISCOUNT. TICKETS WILL ALSO BE LIMITED.
JANUARY 10, 2013 ADVANCE TICKET PRICES WILL APPLY
THEY WILL BE SELLING 2 AND 3 DAY PASSES ONLY UNTIL MARCH 1ST, AND THEN RELEASE A VERY LIMITED AMOUNT OF SINGLE DAY TICKETS. VIP PASSES WILL BE VERY LIMITED AND WILL ONLY BE AVAILABLE AS 2-3 DAY PASSES.
GOTO THE CALIFORNIA ROOTS WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

For now – enjoy this quick clip from J Boog’s Sound check during the day, as well as some very choice photos.