Thursday, April 15, 2010

Phoenix and The Lost Dutchman

My first 2 weeks of the trip were spent here in Phoenix, Arizona.  Tomorrow I hit the road again.

Excuse this delayed entry.  I have been doing nonstop things like visiting friends and doing charity work, of sorts, and all while trying to finish a decent edit of my video blog.  I'm letting you all know right now that I think I'm going to have to cancel the great editing jobs on these video entries.  They just take WAY too much time to do and I'm supposed to be concentrating on the destinations.  From now on I will post very rough videos, and I apologize if I have spoiled anyone with these present ones.  

The charity work?  Lol, well, I have been mentoring people who desire to be musicians.  Some of these are ex-musicians and some are not.  Some I know and some are fresh acquaintances.  On that note, obviously if you are a friend of mine, never hesitate to ask me for help with anything creative or music related.  If I have the time I'm usually game for it.

So I first arrived here to my life-long friends Alexis and Alma, in the town of Mesa on Easter Sunday.  They are mother and son.  The day I arrived, it was too late to comfortably record, so we all just went for a day hike at the Superstition Mts.  While there I realized that the foot of the main mountain, The Lost Dutchman, would be a good enough location for our first recording session.

Two days later, we went back to a similar hiking spot and recorded.  It was an interesting session for something so on-the-fly.  I had taught Alexis some of the basics of my software.  He has had an amazing musical talent ever since we were in Jr. High together.  

During our session at the Lost Dutchman, Alexis was able to play chords and do fairly decent cross-fading of rhythms while I played flute, but even though he was new to this form of music, his talents extend far past it, as do mine (as addicted as I am).  Alma took pictures and footage during the session.  It was a beautiful feeling, doing that with them there.  Alexis and I could have gone deeper into the mountains for this session, but it was important for me to have Alma's presence and her creative knack.

After leaving them, a week later, I joined up with my good friend and colleague, Joe Jakub (known as recording artist Mr. Soon).  I've been at Joe's for almost a week as well, in his awesome, eclectic-minimalist apartment in northern Phoenix.  Joe and I relate about a great many artistic 'issues,' and I'm sad to have to leave, but I'm scheduled to hike to Weaver's Needle in the Superstition Mts. tomorrow before continuing on my trip.

From there I will drive to the San Carlos Appache Rez where I always visit my good friend Doug miles, and I'll record the singing voice of his daughter Grace (possibly).  I saw Doug here in Phoenix almost a week ago, but that's a story for the next entry.

Also, a mention: Joe and I were talking about this project and he made me realize that since I've done projects in the past that tie into a charity, I should make this project the same.  When I tie into charities in this country it is always for Native causes, so thus it will be again.  I will use World Book Aid as a conduit and will start providing that link after Lisa and I situate the program a little better.  We will be juggling that with another program we are in the middle of.


Meantime, here's the video for the session with Alexis and Alma.

Notice: try to bare in mind that these videos are for the purpose of showing some friends and fans the project, and keeping a record of it.  They are not meant to be serious cinematic achievements of any kind.  You can continue offering suggestions if you like, but the software I am using on the road is very limited, and thus what you are seeing is the result of it's maxed-out capabilities.  I know---that's limited, but it still does the trick and makes for some webisodes the people seem to be responding positively to.  But I'll fix that...   ,'-)

To see this video as a better quality:

To see an extended version of this video that is funny and basically ridiculous:

Dean De Benedictis



VIDEO OF LOST DUTCHMAN SESSION

1 comment:

  1. the editing is actually great dean.. Fits perfect, quick cuts, engaging start to finish, nice..

    ReplyDelete