#Siggraph PARTY!
>>What happened to the band?<<
Good question, Kevin. Actually, there IS a core 3DS band down here in SD
consisting of myself on guitar and vocals, Ralph Frantz on drums, and Craig
Harris on Bass — along with plenty of other folks (like JohnS) who come from
all around that have expressed an interest in jamming. Heck – I even wrote a
song called "The 3D Blues".<g>
The problem is really a logistics thing. The more I thought about it, the more
inappropriate it seemed to convolute a gathering based on voice communication
with loud music, etc. Here would be folks coming from all over to finally talk
to each other in person and relax a little, only to find it extremely difficult
with all the noise from a live band going on. A quick visualization of previous
parties confirmed my thoughts as I remembered how everyone seemed to enjoy just
hanging about and talking together.
So although a great idea, the band/jam thing just isn't really right for the
ASOFT party, eh? What I thought we needed would be another time when everyone
is together and not too much is going on. The last hour or so of the Adesk
party immediately came to mind. You know, the part where everyone is pretty
much done talking and eating and just kinda hanging around having a drink
together? So I got in touch with the Adesk folks some time ago and floated the
idea. Although they thought it was a good one, it seems that Adesk is involved
with two other major companies (I'm not gonna mention them here as it still may
be a hush-hush subject, I'm not sure) and they have some pretty big plans for
that evening, and they really didn't think they could include us. 🙁
I guess that there is an outside chance for *something* to happen that night,
but I couldn't say what, who or how.
If enough folks here write to Kathy Clinton at Adesk and tell her that they'ed
like to see a Jam like this, maybe it could be "on the bill" for next year?
I'll keep doing my best to convince them, but some support would probably go a
long way.
I hope this explains things. I really would like to play for everyone here,
Kevin, and would love to see anyone that wanted to get up and jam. Maybe next
year…
-Alan