It was an immense pleasure to head back to my alma mater Oberlin College to attend and perform at the TalberTronics Festival to honor the career and retirement of John Talbert from/within the Oberlin Technology in Music and Related Arts (TiMaRA) program.

Background:

I had spend my first three years finishing my BA in Psychology, playing drums in various bands, and studying Contact Improvisation, and buying/using modifying guitar pedals (for samplers, drum machines, and vocals, as I didn’t play guitar).

However, it all changed in my senior year, when met John Talbert to take his class “Analog Circuit Design for Audio.”

I had simultaneously just been able to join the Oberlin Student Union Concert Sound crew, and started learning and working live sound under John Miess.

The best part was that boss John Miess and friend/coworker/bandmate Reed Brooks jumped into Talbert’s audio-circuitry class with me (along with TiMaRA student and eventual band-mate Philip Raath), so senior year became a comprehensive theory-and-practice intensive to drive all my “hobby” level interest (and bullshit) into a set of skill and knowledge that drive my career, my hobbies, and my music to date.

Thus, John Talbert was a huge influence on my life and career. His classes were an exciting blur, with a LOT of emphasis on enough theory to help us figure out the exciting stuff on our own, if we cared to. He was also a peacefully-forceful instructor.

In the years since graduating, I’ve increased my tinkering into a full-blown creative pursuit, and I have John to thank for planting rich seeds.

It was an honor to finally get to catch up and (try to) thank him.

SO ? …Well ?

I’ll write more articles as soon as I can put them together.

Stay Tuned !