Photo by Kevin Browning
In Part I of our two-part series we looked at the background and various musical beginnings and education of Umphrey’s McGee lighting designer Jefferson Waful. As we pick things up in Part II, Jambands.com looks at his origins on the improvisational scene not only as a band manager but also as a radio host and writer, followed by his stint as the moe. LD and subsequent status at the helm of the light board with Chicago’s finest.
Truss 1
There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk “his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor” on an outcome dubious. – *Stranger in a Strange Land*, Robert A. Heinlein
__Photo by Bret Saul_
RR: Let’s go back to when you were managing Uncle Sammy. What did you learn? What did you take from it? What are your thoughts on the experience today?
JW: I learned everything about the music industry by working with Uncle Sammy. That’s how I learned about the way financial deals are structured with venues. That’s how I learned to do lights. That’s how I learned everything behind the scenes. It was a crash course in the music industry.
Obviously, there were a lot of people who were involved in teaching me those things, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even though Uncle Sammy eventually went the way of most young jambands—decided to get in the van and tour the country—it was an invaluable experience. You could go to music school. You could go to college and major in music business for four years, but to me I learned everything—I mean, I’m still learning—but I learned a great deal by managing that band.
I think like a lot of young jambands, we thought we could be the next big thing because Phish was this band that didn’t get played on the radio. They didn’t have mainstream appeal at the time, and you look at them, and you think, “Oh, we’re a young jamband, and we play bars, we have word of mouth, we’re not on MTV, and we’re not being written about in magazines, so we could do that and maybe, someday, we’ll play Madison Square Garden.”
Ultimately 99.9% of the bands that thought that way had a few years of touring and then never went anywhere. Most of my friends were in bands that traveled around the country in vans. They were motivated. “This is it; this is what we’re going to do with our lives.” It just goes to show you that there’s so much luck involved. Certainly we all worked hard. We all put in the time and the effort, but ultimately, there can only be so many bands that “make it.” Even the bands that make it don’t ever really make it unless you get to be arena level or, I guess, the theatre level.
Financially, it didn’t work out in the end because people go on to start families, and they have to get real jobs that have financial stability, but boy, what fun it was to have that post-college innocence and be able to dedicate your life to a musical project that we’re all so passionate about. I believe it went on for four or five years. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
That’s why I started doing lighting. We didn’t have a staff of people. We had a sound guy, and in our later years, we had a tour manager. In the early days, I was the tour manager, I was the manager, I did all of the various things that needed to be done just because we didn’t have anyone else. I just started flicking par cans at the local clubs because I knew the music and my experience as a musician playing guitar and drums. I knew the songs as well as anyone because I was sitting in the house that we all lived in while they learned all the songs. In a weird way, I was at all of the rehearsals so it was just my way of trying to participate.
I’ve always been a musician, but these guys were in a different league than me, musically. They all went to the Berklee School of Music, and they were all real accomplished musicians. I could never compete with them on a musical level, but lighting was something I could do because I knew the changes.
Truss 2
Still the same, the fog is blowing over the walls of the canyon obscuring the sun but the sun keeps fighting back… – *Big Sur*, Jack Kerouac
RR: During the turn of the century, you worked at Jambands.com, had a stint at the news desk, and wrote a column called Waful House. I was always very impressed with how much information you accumulated and wrote about back in the early days of the site in the late 1990s. I couldn’t keep up with your pace!
JW: Well, thank you. I have to give all the credit in the world to the people that were emailing us. Again, at the time, the Internet was still pretty young. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. Really, the information that I was providing to people was being provided to me. If you were doing publicity for a young jamband, Rolling Stone is not going to take your call, and Rolling Stone is not going to read your press release so you’re going to go to Jambands.com. I may have looked like I was getting this information out before anyone else, but really it was just because bands were contacting us, and because, at the time, there were no other outlets. I was merely the conduit.
RR: I remember reading one of your Waful House columns from that period where you had lost your job, but you had all of these great things that you could do, and you suddenly remembered that you had to pay your rent and eat. It’s one of those pieces where you want to jump ahead ten years to see what happened.
JW: Well, right. It’s funny that ten years later, I’m still in that quandary. I still feel like it’s a neverending story. Again, like so many of my friends, we work in this music industry because we’re passionate about it, we believe in it, and we love it. At the same time, it’s not as lucrative as being a software engineer, sitting at a 9 to 5 job.
It’s this constant balancing act of “well, I’m having fun and I’m doing what I believe in, and I have this job that so many people come up to me and say, “_Oh, you’re so lucky. You have the greatest job in the world_. ” In some ways I do, but at the same time, if I was sitting at a cubicle, you have that stability of sleeping in the same bed every night, and having structure in your life. And, as everyone knows, there is not a ton of money to go around in the jamband scene. We do it because we love it.
RR: Your working relationship with Dean Budnick grew over the years as you began a radio show co-hosting Jam Nation.
JW: Again, that was lucky timing. We always talked about it on the air, too. Andy Herrick—who is the drummer in the Assembly of Dust now, and was the drummer for Moon Boot Lover, one of the old school bands that I think was in the original shoebox at WERS in 1995 or ’96—knew me as a radio guy at WERS. That’s how we first met. A few years later, it might have been five years later, I was a writer at Jambands.com, and I had been out of radio for a couple of years, and I missed it tremendously as I do now. Andy called me up and said, “Hey, I just got this gig.” I believe he worked for Clear Channel at the time through, I believe, a promoter in New Hampshire. Somebody he had worked with was trying to put together a radio show to promote some jamband-friendly concerts that they were doing and had asked Andy because Andy was young, in the scene, and said, “Hey, do you know anyone who would be good for this?” And he called me up.
I was thrilled, and Dean was just the obvious choice because Dean had more knowledge about the jamband genre than anyone. He was arguably responsible for coining the term “jambands” when he put out his book Jam Bands, and when he launched the web site to promote the book, Jambands.com. He, literally, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre so it seemed perfect. With my broadcasting background, I remember saying at the time, “Oh, I’ll be the play-by-play guy, and you can be the color guy. You’re the knowledgeable expert.” It just seemed like a perfect fit.
We started that show in Hartford in 2000 and we had a great run. We eventually wound up on XM, in addition. The station in Hartford flipped because the format was not selling as well, and they became a hip-hop station literally overnight. We went in on Sunday and did our show as we normally did, and the next morning, we found out that they were now a hip-hop channel. It was owned by Clear Channel, and the money wasn’t being made on the station so they just decided “Oh, hip-hop is the next format.” Literally, the show just ended abruptly, but luckily, we were still being broadcast on XM. We had a good run there, too, up until last year when XM and SIRIUS merged. And, of course, SIRIUS already had a jamband channel so there wasn’t any space for it. We’re still looking for a new home for the glorious Jam Nation if anyone out there is looking for a jamband show.
RR: What were some of the highlights of broadcasting Jam Nation?
JW: There were tons. The one that always comes to mind—and Dean and I have talked about this—was during the AFC Championship Game between the Patriots and the Steelers. Again, just by total luck and total coincidence, this particular radio station—and not all radio stations have these—just happened to have a recording studio. Unlike WERS in Boston, this, I think, was a board room where they held meetings Monday through Friday, and it could be converted into a studio. They had a control room with a mixing board, and when we got the show, it was completely fortuitous that we were able to bring in live bands, record them, and go out over the air. For our genre, and for what jambands are, this was perfect. It’s not about playing the single. It’s about spontaneity and the improv and the live show.
We would bring in bands twice a month, and one of the bigger bands that we got was the Steve Kimock Band. Our show was on a Sunday so they came in on Sunday afternoon to pre-record; we were going to play it live on the air that night and it happened to coincide with the Pittsburgh/Patriots game. I remember Rodney Holmes who was playing drums was a huge Pittsburgh fan, and a couple of the crew guys, and Dean and I were really big Patriots fans. Everyone in the band was paying attention to this game. As we know, Steve Kimock Band are completely tremendous and professional accomplished musicians. We’re sitting there in the board room with a big screen T.V. watching the game as the band is recording their set. I remember there was one pivotal moment in the game where [Patriots kicker] Adam Vinatieri was lining up for a pretty lengthy field goal, and the band sort of vamped in the improv section that they were playing because they were all hanging on this play, waiting to see what happened. The music wound up scoring the action, and I remember watching Rodney Holmes, who was not happy with the outcome of that game, and the outcome of that field goal, with this big frown on his face. Meanwhile, he’s playing one of the sickest grooves I’ve ever heard because he’s such a great musician that he can be watching a ball game, be bummed out at the outcome, and the music’s secondary. Just another day at the office.
Truss 3
I needed not only the sound track of control but the image track as well before I could take definitive action… – *The Soft Machine*, William S. Burroughs
Photo by Jeff Waful
RR: How did you break into the field of lighting design?
JW: Believe it or not, that also goes back to WERS in Boston because I had a band that I became friendly with called Jiggle the Handle. Their light guy at the time was a guy named Jack Trifiro. He’s worked with a lot of guys, but most recently he can be found as the sound man for Assembly of Dust. He became a sound guy shortly thereafter, but at the time, he was a lighting guy. I thought it would be a cool if when Jiggle the Handle came in to the studio to record they had a light show. I’ve always been a fan of irony, so having a light show for a live radio broadcast was right up my alley. But, not just for the sake of irony, which would be plenty, but because we were going to bring in ten fans and it would sort of create the vibe, and the band would play better if they had their light show going, and they would have the energy of these ten fans dancing in the studio.
I had to jump through hoops and get special permission, but ultimately, it was a Sunday, for some reason my shows always wound up on Sundays, you know, competing with The Simpsons, but we were able to bring in this little light show. As the band is setting up, and getting ready to soundcheck, I just asked Jack out of curiosity: “Hey, is it cool if I play around with the lights?” He said, “Sure.” So I started tapping the lights to Jiggle the Handle as they were soundchecking, and that was the first time I had done lights.
I took an interest to it. I’ve always been a very visual person. I’ve always associated music with lights. I grew up going to the beach all the time, watching the sunset over the water, and I think that was one of my earliest influences—sunsets, sunrises, and nature. I continued to fill in at times and help out Jiggle the Handle, I believe, because I think Jack made the switch to doing sound, and he had this little light rig that he owned. For some of the shows that were in the area that I could get to, I would go and I would flick the lights. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I knew the music and so I have always thought, to this day, that knowing music is much more important than having any kind of technical background. The technical knowledge is important, and that’s all stuff that you can learn, but music has to be more ingrained, has to be more second nature.
People ask me from time to time: “Hey, how did you get involved? Do you have any advice? I want to be a light guy.” I just say, “Learn the music. That’s more important.” I knew Jiggle the Handle’s music and I would flick the lights. I had rhythm but I didn’t necessarily know what I was flicking. I would hit the button, and the stage would turn red. To me, that was the same thing as hitting an E chord. Ultimately, you’re just trying to coincide with The One at the end of the day, and make the lights look pretty, evoke certain moods that the music evokes.
I did that for a few years. When Uncle Sammy was a band, I would flick the lights at Harper’s Ferry, which is the local bar. I remember there was even a show we played at Club Helsinki, and my friends who were there that night still love to talk about this. It was the night before Berkfest and Addison Groove Project and Uncle Sammy played at Club Helsinki which is this tiny, tiny little bar, and there were no lights whatsoever except for these actual light bulbs that were in the ceiling. I think there were a couple of red bulbs and a couple of normal white bulbs, and at a certain part of the song, I started flipping the switches which are behind the bar. I asked the bartender if I could go behind the bar, and they were literally just wall switches, and I would flip them on and off to coincide with this complex section of the song. My friends thought that was the most hilarious thing.
Now, when I’m doing the lights at Radio City Music Hall, or some of these bigger venues, they always say, “Oh, I remember when you were just flicking those wall switches.” Again, to me, it’s the same thing. Even if you’re at Radio City, or Red Rocks, if you’re hitting the button in time to the music, you’re still doing the same thing. The lights may be bigger, the light rig may be more complex, but really, it’s still just my hand on the button. It’s the same thing as flicking those wall switches. As long as you’re in time with the music, that’s more important than anything happening on a technical level.
RR: Let me ask you a question that may appear like it has a simple answer. Uncle Sammy and Jiggle the Handle were both quartets, right?
JW: Yeah, they were the same instrumentation.
RR: moe., obviously, added a different element to that so does having more members on a stage make even the slightest bit of difference when lighting a gig?*
JW: No, not really, I wouldn’t say. Although, maybe on a subconscious level when it comes to improvisation. I tend to do lights, like I said, without thinking about it, and I find myself at times following different instruments depending on what jumps out at me. That part of it isn’t normally planned. If it’s a written out section of a composed song, I may do certain things the same way each time. But more often than not, and especially in an improvisational sense, I’m, again, trying not to think. I’m just reacting to what the band is doing.
I know I said before that it’s all about anticipation, and not reacting, but it’s a little bit of both. When it’s an improvisational section, clearly your brain is reacting to what’s happening, and anticipating at the same time. It’s that balancing act. But, at times, I find myself following the bass if the bassline jumps out at me. Or, sometimes, and again this is the goal is to have the lights follow multiple instruments.
You talked about moe. Sometimes Jim [Loughlin, percussionist] would be playing a staccato line with a bunch of sixteenth notes on the xylophone, and so I might have a little strobe action going on in the lights. Rob [Derhak, bassist] might be playing quarter notes on the bass so I would have a big circle effect going at 1/4 the tempo of what Jim was doing. Al [Schnier, guitarist] might be playing big power rock chords so the lights might be changing in color based on when his guitar chords change so you have multiple things going on.
The goal is for the fans to not notice the lights. The goal is for them to be so in tune with the music that the lights are just sort of a subconscious enhancer. They’re not sitting there saying, “The lights are going in time with the music.” It’s so they enhance what the musicians are doing. I feel like if I do my job perfectly on a given night that people don’t notice. It just makes the music better.
In a roundabout way, I guess, having additional musicians might effect what I’m doing in an improvisational sense.
RR: And how did you move into the moe. camp?
JW: I guess through being in the industry as a writer, band manager and a radio host, I knew some of the people in the moe. camp. We had a mutual friend, Brett Fairbrother, who used to manage Strangefolk, and he used to also do the lights for Strangefolk. We had that in common that we were both band managers that had an interest in lighting and just started doing the lighting. When you’re the manager of the small band, you’ve got the gig if you want it. You don’t have to go audition (laughter). Brett was a mentor of mine in those days. We would talk about lighting and he would give me advice on managing and on lighting because he had been doing it longer than me. I looked up to him in a lot of ways. He was really good friends with the moe. camp because moe. and Strangefolk did a lot of shows together in those early days and did some tours together.
When moe. was looking for a new light guy, Brett started telling them about me. I don’t think they really took him seriously at first because they knew me and they knew me as a media guy so they sort of laughed at him. They said, “Well, Waful’s a writer. What does he know about lighting?”
I talk about coincidence and luck and being in the right place at the right time. I, literally, had a conversation with Brett in what must have been 2004. I wasn’t doing lighting regularly at the time. I think Uncle Sammy wasn’t really doing a lot of touring anymore, but I knew enough people that knew me as a light guy. If I remember correctly, Jack from Jiggle the Handle probably got me this gig. Percy Hill played at the Paradise in Boston, which was a quarter mile from my house at the time, and Jack said, “Hey, we need a light guy. Why don’t you come down and do it?” I did the lights and had a blast, and I remember calling up Brett the next day and I said, “Hey—I did lights for Percy Hill last night and I had a blast,” and I realized how much I loved doing it. And I remember him asking me, “Would you ever think about doing lighting for a band full-time?” I said to him, “Well, I don’t think I could do it unless the band was at a certain level where they rented their own production and they had a tour bus.”
Living on the road in a van is something I had already done, and I had outgrown it. It’s really hard to sleep on the floor of a hotel room, and travel around in the middle of the night in a van. You can do it when you’re in college, but you get to a certain age, and it’s like you’ve been there and done that. He told me that when I said that that the only band that he could think of at the time that fit those criteria was moe.. Just by chance, the next day he was on the phone, and I think [Jon] Topper, moe.’s manager, was asking him if he knew of any light guys. He had to sort of remind them a few times before they actually got to the point where they asked me if I wanted to try out.
That was at the Jammys in 2004. I remember Topper asking me if I was interested in coming to try out in Mattydale. I went and I tried out. I had listened to as much moe. as I could between the time when they asked me if I wanted to do it and I still didn’t know the music that well.
The light board that I asked them to bring in was the same light board that I had used at Wetlands. Wetlands, as much as I learned how to flick switches for conventional lighting, was where I learned how to use intelligent lighting. They had a little light board and some Track Spots. That’s where I met Matty Iarrabino who went on to do lighting for a lot of bands, and Jake Szufnarowski who was a talent buyer at Wetlands. Between those two guys, they taught me how to use that light board. That was the first time I ever used moving lights.
That was the only board I knew how to use. It was a little LCD controller, and when moe. asked me to try out, I said, “O.K. You’ve got to bring in this particular LCD controller.” Which I think was pretty out of date by then, but it was the only one I knew how to use. They brought in the same board that the Wetlands had, and I did the gig, and I guess I didn’t do too bad because they asked me to continue.
I think a couple years later, I was telling that story in front of Al and I said something about “I tried out and I was on a trial basis.” Al said, “Well, you still are.” He was kidding, of course, but there was never a point where they said, “You’ve got the job.” It was just sort of like until they told me to go home, I just kept doing it.
Truss 4
Your heart heard Nature singing everywhere,
In the sighs of trees and the whispering of night. – “Ophelia,” Arthur Rimbaud
Photo by Jeff Waful
RR: We began our discussion in Part I about your initial challenges working with Umphrey’s McGee. What was your biggest challenge working with moe.?
JW: That was a completely different set of circumstances because I had never worked on the road with a band of that caliber. I had worked with Uncle Sammy, but that was minor league. That was just going into bars and pubs that weren’t used to having light shows. I would just use whatever lights were there with a few exceptions at the bigger shows we did. With moe., we were walking into these major venues—theatres in major cities that had unions and there’s all these sets of rules and regulations, and just things that are assumed that you know because most people don’t walk into a job at that level. Most people work their way up, have official training, and I came into it really not knowing anything other than music. Music was the only thing I knew. I didn’t know anything on a technical level.
This is the other big distinction. With Uncle Sammy, we were all learning at the same level because we had all done it at the same time together. With moe., they had been doing it for ten years before I had ever worked with them. To them, everything was old hat. They had played all these venues before. They had lived on a tour bus. This was their life. They were all conditioned to it. It was just another day at the office. But for me, I was completely blown away and overwhelmed with all these different circumstances—living on a tour bus and living with 11 other guys in such a small space, and trying to learn the ropes and trying to figure out how to delegate. When you’re working with local crew, your job is to tell them what you need them to do. I had always just done everything myself. I remember one of my first shows running around and trying to setup all the lights. Our production manager pulled me aside and said, “Hey, don’t be afraid to tell people what you need.”
I didn’t know what to tell them because I didn’t even know what to do. I was trying to run around and do everything on my own. I didn’t know what to get done. Again, you’re working with local crew guys who have done this for 30 years, and they’re just standing around, waiting for me to give them some direction. The first time I looked up to focus a par can I had no idea where I wanted the lights to go. I learned everything from doing, from making a lot of mistakes, and being really embarrassed because I didn’t know any better. It was just the only way to learn.
For me, when I started working with Umphrey’s, I already had five years of experience, and it was a completely different set of circumstances. I was just trying to concentrate on learning the music. With moe., I was trying to learn everything from scratch, and that was easily one of the biggest challenges of my life.
RR: How did you segue from working with moe. to becoming the new lighting designer for Umphrey’s McGee?
JW: Back in March of last year, moe. sat us down and told us that they were taking an indefinite break from touring. They all have families, wives, and kids and, in their defense, of course they needed family time and they needed a break because they had never taken a break in fifteen years. That was a little scary for me though because it meant I didn’t have a job after moe.down, which is Labor Day Weekend. I had one if and when they decided to come back, but there was no timetable.
Just by total coincidence, last August, I got a call from Vince [Iwinski, band manager] at Umphrey’s and he said, “We need a guy to do lights this weekend at the Up North Festival (which is in Maine). Would you be interested?” I said, “Yeah, of course.” I always liked Umphrey’s. We had done a lot of gigs with them through moe. so I knew the guys, and I always really liked the guys in the band on a social level, and I always really liked their music.
It was a little daunting because their music is so complex, and I didn’t have any time to learn the music except for the car ride up. With moe., I had probably a month or so. With Umphrey’s, it was a few days so I was cramming. I was trying to learn the music on the car ride up. I did the gig and it was fun and didn’t have any clue where they were going musically except for when they covered Pink Floyd, which as a light guy, was a gift.
Things just started happening. They asked me to come out for a month of shows that October and I had a blast. At this point, there was still no indication of when moe. was coming back so it just seemed like a no-brainer, it seemed like a lucky coincidence, again. Here was this band that was in the same genre, similar musically, people I already knew. It wasn’t like Tori Amos was calling up, asking me to be a light guy. It was a very natural fit, stylistically and improvisationally. There’s really not that many bands—I could probably count on one hand how many bands are at a level—that moe. and Umphrey’s are at that improv that can afford to carry production, and play venues of that size right now. It was just really lucky that one of those names happened to be in need of a light guy. I started doing it, and I believe it was a couple months later that the job became available on a full-time basis, and they asked me to do it. It seemed like a no-brainer.
Interlude, or The Space Between the Lights
RR: What interactions have you had with Phish LD Chris Kuroda?
JW: He’s actually been very generous with his time to me as of late. We use the same lighting fixture called the [Martin Professional] MAC III, which just came out this year. We started using it back in January when Umphrey’s debuted Mantis. At the time, I was very conscious to have a show that looked different from moe. because I’m the same lighting designer, but now it’s a new band. I want it to look like a new band, and not have it look like a moe. light show. Plus, we all wanted to have something special for the new album.
We started using the MAC III’s, and it’s still a very new light so the software is being updated, and there are lots of little quirks. Kuroda and I have talked a little bit about some of the quirks with that new light because there were not a lot of other bands using the fixture, especially earlier in the year. I also interviewed him this summer for a Relix piece, which sort of seemed like a no brainer since I’ve got a background in both writing and lighting.
RR: What did you think of Kuroda’s rig at Hampton in March and the Phish Summer tour?
JW: It seemed to me that he was going for a sparser look. I’ve actually heard him talk about this—the whole concept that less is more. I feel that his light rig peaked—as far as size—in the late 90s. When you talk about sheer fixture numbers, some of those shows in the 90s—I remember there was a show in Las Vegas with just huge numbers of fixtures, hundreds of fixtures, and now, it’s down to maybe a third of the size as it once was. Stylistically, I think that is something that I’ve heard him talk about: less is more.
One of the biggest differences between the rig that he debuted at Hampton, and the rig that he’s always used was that he didn’t have any ACLs and he didn’t have any par cans. He went to LED fixtures, wash fixtures. ACLs look like fingers coming down, they’re white lights, and he would always use them to accent the hits, accent every little nuance of the music. In Hampton, he didn’t have those. He was using the Atomic strobe to accent the hits. I spoke with him about that, and I know that is something that he picked up doing lights for different bands during the break—R. Kelly, for example. To me, that gave Phish more of a futuristic look rather than the old, more organic look because now, you’re having big flashes of strobe accenting certain hits.
Other than that, really to me, it was refreshing to see him do lights again in the context of Phish. Obviously, when he was doing lights for Trey’s solo tours or the Black Crowes, they were in smaller venues with lots of smaller rigs. To see it on a large scale again, and to sort of get back to my roots, the whole reason I essentially got into lighting, it was really a thrill for me to see those songs lit up again.
Truss 5
It turns like the huge earth ball slowly surely and evenly round and round spinning… – Selected Joyce Letters, edited by Richard Ellmann
Photo by Kevin Browning
RR: You’ve received fairly positive feedback from the various fan boards on the net. I was wondering how you felt about that. What has been the acceptance of your lighting work from the Umphrey’s McGee fan base from your point of view?
JW: I would say that the response from the Umphrey’s fan base has been overwhelming positive. I don’t always feel comfortable getting praise. Certainly, it feels good to know that people think I’m doing a good job, but I always view it as the whole crew is a team, and the whole crew helps me setup the lights, and they all do their jobs to the fullest extent. Each member of our crew is equally integral to making the show happen. If our monitor engineer has an amazing night, he’s going to be just as responsible for making that show great. An improvisational band, especially—the monitor mix with him anticipating where the band’s going, which instrument the band needs to hear during the jam, you know like if Jake [Cinninger] is taking an active role in the improv, our monitor engineer, Bob [Stone] might turn up Jake just a little bit in everyone’s ear because he knows that Jake is the lead voice at that particular time. All those little things are going to create an amazing show.
Because a light show is so in-your-face and so palpable, people will tend to compliment me, and a lot of times I feel a little bit guilty. People don’t usually go up to the monitor guy, or our tour manager, or sound guy, our crew chief, or our stage manager and say, “Hey, great job tonight,” because it’s not as easy to notice maybe. To me, I feel like all those roles are integral to the band and I’m just a small part. I wish that the rest of the crew got as much recognition as I feel like sometimes maybe I do. “Oooh—flashy lights!” is easy to see because it’s so in-your-face.
RR: How was your debut light show at Alpine Valley when Umphrey’s opened for the Dave Matthews Band in July? What were your thoughts about that weekend?
JW: Well, first of all, I have a whole new respect for the Dave Matthews organization. The fact that they have opening bands at all is a testament to their character because they can fill those venues on their own and they certainly don’t need opening bands to help sell tickets. They have such a classy production and management team who were nothing but friendly and welcoming to us, which isn’t always the case when you’re opening for bigger acts. The fact that Dave personally comes out and introduces the opening band each night speaks volumes. Most headliners of his caliber wouldn’t even be at the venue yet at that point in the evening, but he always makes it a point to do so.
As far as the light show, there wasn’t much of one simply because it was still pretty light outside, being an outdoor summer show. But their lighting team certainly let me use a large amount of their rig and was nothing but accommodating. I was running a full light show, but it wasn’t very noticeable with the sun shining on the stage.
RR: What have been your most memorable experiences with Umphrey’s McGee?
JW: By far, one of the most transcendent experiences of my life was when the Chicago Mass Choir performed with the band this past New Year’s Eve. Had I been there just as a fan, I would have thought the same thing, but to be involved in the performance aspect was just other-worldly. It was easily one of the top 3 musical experiences of my life. The nature of gospel choirs in general is based on channeling a higher power, so when the band combined “Amazing Grace” and their own “Glory” with the choir, the energy was literally through the roof. I still get goosebumps and tears of joy when I watch the video. I made absolutely zero effort in running lights for that song. It was like an out of body experience and the light show just seemed to run itself. And, that is precisely the reason we all do this. For those moments. It was pure heaven, and it wasn’t about the band playing a bunch of notes on some crazy technical level, it was just this overwhelming wall of positive energy.
RR: What are your goals for the foreseeable future?
JW: It’s very rare that I walk away from a light show thinking “Wow, that was perfect.” A couple times, I’ve thought of the analogy of pitching a perfect game. It’s very rare that that happens. I don’t think it’s ever happened to me that I walk away saying “Everything went perfect.” I think that I’m always motivated to improve. Certainly with Umphrey’s McGee, I have a long way to go because I’m still learning the nuances of the music.
Just listening to a band over and over and over again is not enough. Being a lighting designer, you have to actually physically execute the cues to the music because there’s a certain level of dexterity that you have to achieve in order to make the light show look the way you want it to look. And the first phase of that is learning the music. In the second phase, you have to, by trial and error, figure out what looks good and what looks bad. The third phase is carrying that out. The fourth phase is carrying that out, flawlessly.
There are just a lot of layers and I’m still barely at phase one with Umphrey’s of learning the music. I think I’m going to be motivated to pitch that perfect game if I am so lucky at a certain point. By that I mean no errors, no hits, no walks, and no hit batsmen.
And just like in baseball, you need a lot of luck from your fielders, your defense, to make a lot of great plays; I’m relying on the band to play the perfect show. In improvisational music, that’s subjective. When everyone is playing well together, that’s what I’m looking for. I want to have a show where every little thing is perfect. I know that’s not actually possible, but that’s what I’m chasing. Every little nuance of the music is accented in a way where it’s not too busy, and it’s not too flashy.
It’s hard for me to sometimes find my voice because the band has been together for so many years that they all know the part that they’re supposed to be playing—in a composed section of the song, anyway. Our percussionist, Andy [Farag] knows the part he is supposed to play, and Ryan [Stasik] knows the bass line he’s supposed to play, but I’m still trying to figure out what is an appropriate lighting theme, or a certain level of complexity or simplicity. It’s important for me to find my voice, or to find an appropriate level of lighting for a given song.
For example, I had been with moe. long enough that I knew the style of the individual players. If Chuck [Garvey] was soloing or if Al was soloing in a given song, I sort of knew the parameters of the solo. Obviously, the solo’s going to be different every time. I knew that Chuck is going to start off by introducing a theme, and he’s going to build it, and it’ll eventually peak, then he’s going to give a certain look to the rest of the band, and that’s when the solo’s going to be over. Al might go in a different direction. Al tends to throw more curveballs so with Al, you might think that the solo is about to peak, and then he might go in a different direction, and he might reprise that theme.
I knew, very intimately, the different styles so that meant that I could interpret things that they did in a certain way, and I knew I wouldn’t be repeating myself. For example, when I sensed that Chuck was getting to the end of his solo and the climax was near, I could go to strobes, and then he started to move his hands really fast. I could even tell by the way he stepped on a certain pedal that he was about to kick it into high gear. There were different levels to his solos so I knew when he looked down, he would step on a pedal, and “O.K.—here comes the strobe part.” That’s how I interpret what’s going to happen next.
With Umphrey’s, there’s more of those sixteenth-note arpeggio runs so I need to learn new ways to interpret that. It’s a really steep learning curve and I’ve barely scratched the surface. I’m an amateur when it comes to Umphrey’s music, and I’m trying to learn the nuances.
RR: However, I would gather you are enjoying this opportunity.
JW: I am enjoying it immensely. I think that it’s like any job in that no matter what the outside perception is of “wow, what a great job”, when you’re in that job, you see it as anyone sees their job—what you need to improve upon and where your weaknesses are. It’s like any job in that you view it differently when you’re on the inside rather than when you’re on the outside looking in. I do enjoy it, but it’s much different than just going to a show, watching and taking in the majesty of improvisational music than when you’re actively involved in the process. There’s less enjoyment and more concentration.
RR: When I ran into you at Bonnaroo, you were involved in some VIP work. Are you still linked with ConsideritDan, and is that part of your workload?
JW: Absolutely. Dan [Berkowitz] is someone who I’ve gotten to know really well since moving to Brooklyn. We have a lot of mutual friends, and we’ve really hit it off. He’s just one of those people I clicked with right away. We’ve got the same sense of humor. I work with Dan whenever I can, whenever I have free time, and whenever I’m home. Ultimately, I feel so passionate about the experiences that I had when I was 18 or 19 years old going to shows, having my mind blown that at the end of the day, I want to help other people have those same experiences. Whether it’s lighting or writing or radio or putting together these travel and VIP packages for fans, it’s ultimately all working together towards the same goal. I want to be involved in something that I believe in. So yeah…Bonnaroo was an amazing experience because I’ve been to enough of these festivals that I know what I liked as a fan, and what I don’t like about going to a festival. Dan and some other people on the Bonnaroo team have been working with ways to bring people that VIP experience. To me, that was a joy to work on.
