by Rees Shad | Feb 16, 2021 | Big Ideas, Guitars, Videos
Roeboy Ampersand Guitar One SM
So in 2019 I found an old arch top guitar hanging BY A HOOK in an old junk shop. The back and face split in several places, the back coming off and the sides misshapen. That hook through the headstock and deep pits in the ebony fretboard should have told me to walk away. But the inlay in the fretboard was unique, and I’m a fan of English history… so the name, while unfamiliar as a brand name made me wonder… $35 later and it came home with me. The neck was the width of a baseball bat’s business end, and mysteries clattering came from its inner depths.
I hung it on my office wall and promised I would have a go at gluing it back together. I did a bit of research and discovered this guitar was a 1930s Cromwell. It was a “house guitar” made for merchant shops by Gibson. Cheaper and less refined then their more expensive Gibson brethren, house guitars filled out stock and made for attainable starter guitars.
They often shared designs and materials, but had less time spent on them in refining those materials.
Anyway, then I took Nick Lenski’s luthier class, and figured maybe I could do more than simply glue the guitar together again. Showing it to Nick and fellow Luthier Steve Sauve got some great ideas and inspired me to open the Cromwell up and see about a rebuild…
But then I really got a wild hair and decided to rebuild it into something more than a luthier practice project….
I have built several amps and electrics over the years. Always slapping or branding the name “Roeboy!” on the final product as my signature. But what if I started making an effort to rework unplayable and destroyed instruments into new and wonderful instruments? Thus was born the “&” project. The ampersand signifying a combining of things new and old to reuse, repurpose, and most importantly make music with.
So here is the guitar from before to now… it’s been a fun challenge!
More Ampersands are in my future for sure.
by Rees Shad | Feb 16, 2021 | Installations, Uncategorized, Videos
A Child’s Christmas in Wales – read by Rees Shadsm
Growing up my family celebrated Christmas with all the trimmings, but my wife and I raised our kids in her faith – Judaism. Every year I had one christmas tradition, however, the reading of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales. Sometimes I would read it to the kids, sometimes just my wife and I would read it together, and other years we roped in a larger group to share in the reading. This past year, with Covid and everything, the family couldn’t get together. So I recorded it and shared it with everyone.
by Rees Shad | Feb 16, 2021 | Big Ideas, Presentations, Research, Videography, Videos
Defense Presentation V4_smallest
In the early months of 2018 I announced to my colleagues at CUNY that I would be stepping down from my position as Associate Professor and return to graduate school. The goal was to get my PhD while exploring my interests in futurism and its potential role in higher ed. On February 16th, 2021 I presented the following video at my comprehensive exam, which was warmly received along with the literature review and mini-study which accompanied it. I was accepted as a PhD candidate as a result, and I share here the film, which explains my motivations, my research, and my findings to date.
by Rees Shad | May 22, 2019 | Installations, Music
In 2009, I announced to friends and colleagues (in my most cavalier fashion) that I would commence work on a new Fester Spunk project ….composing a score for the 1920 Wegener film ‘The Golem.’ I set to work and quickly became overwhelmed with the enormity of an 84 minute piece. Over the decade since I have gone back to the project, playing with the mix, adding new parts, reworking others, or finding ways of repurposing parts of the work for other projects such as Songs of Extinction Theatrical compositions and tracks on other Fester Records such as Spackle & Glue, How to Combat Ghosts & Interference, and Tech Tonic. In the midst of end of term madness this Spring I opened up the ProTools project for the film and recognized that in fact with a little tweaking the piece was complete! It was the perfect distraction from my research, and actually recharged the batteries to get me through on all my assignments as well as the soundtrack.
An associated album is in the works, and I am now looking for a place to present the work
by Rees Shad | Feb 6, 2019 | Big Ideas, Games, Ongoing Classes, Past Presentations, Presentations
In Dr. Sharon Rallis’ graduate class “Strategies for Institutional Change” (Spring 2019) we were exploring Boleman and Deal’s structural framework analysis of organizations. I had been pondering the metaphor or magnetic polarity as it might correspond to the flow of an organization’s energy and wondering if I might model this for an assignment in which I was to teach the structure portion of that week’s class.
I put together a presentation which explained a brief history of magnetic turbines and how they can harness the natural flow of energy.
I then introduced the class to a game that I had developed which I call Structure & Flow.
The game uses an existing product – desk toys called Speks Blocks – which are small magnetic building blocks. Players assemble prescribed designs modelling various organizational structures paying attention to magnetic flow and structural balance. These designs are picked from a deck of cards depicting the designs from various angles. Some angles are more revealing than others, and subsequently earn the players more or less points depending on the level of complexity.
I was fearful that the game would be too simple for this audience, but they were thoroughly engaged, and the game (and my lecture) sparked some very interesting conversations about how organizations can be designed, and redesigned.
