Kimberly Zesky is a young writer from the Adirondack Mountains of New York who was introduced to music at a very young age, growing up with parents who were live DJ’s and a father who has always been an avid guitar player. Being introduced to a wide variety of genres, has allowed her to expand her musical horizons and build in depth knowledge and appreciation of all types of music. Seeking to explore music on all of its levels, Kimberly is especially interested in the history and progression of music, as well as its political role in society. But experiencing music live and in person is above all, her true passion.
In the summer of 2004, Kimberly was led to her first music festival and was deeply moved by its ability to unite, enliven, and inspire people. She felt motivated to write about it, and share her experience with others. Since then she has written multiple show reviews and in the winter of 2011 she wrote her first official review for UpstateLive. In the past year she has covered shows in the North Country region of the state and offers words on all different types of music.
Some of her favorite bands include: Railroad Earth, moe., Yonder Mountain String Band, String Cheese Incident, Driftwood, Sim Redmond Band, Rubblebucket, Beats Antique, Widespread Panic, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, and Alison Krauss & Union Station. Kim’s musical bucketlist includes Bonobo, Mumford & Sons, Neil Young, Van Morrison and Crosby Stills & Nash.
She moved to Jakarta, Indonesia when she was eight years old, where she drummed in several pop-punk cover bands to drown her parents’ love for Bollywood hits and Springsteen songs. Her stint as musician ended in her first year of college, shortly after she sang in a Hunky Dory cover band, which she joined solely because the bassist looked like the guy from Seether.
Getting into this line of work happens serendipitously as told by each of these lighting directors. From being a sound engineer to following a band on tour, each took a different path and happened to be in the right place at the right time. Ryan started as a roadie for The Manhattan Project and says, “It started with learning their gear and how they liked it setup.” There were a lot of shows in that position until the band asked him to become the tour manager. Once each of them discovered lighting though, they were instantly hooked. Luke graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2009, with a focus on guitar performance. Despite all of that time spent on his degree, he says, “I get more out of lighting Dopapod, both personally and creatively, than I ever got out of playing the guitar.”
After that initial taste of photonic creativity, each went all in. Ryan says, “Every extra penny goes into my ‘new lights’ fund.” With that investment, lighting designers begin to develop a collection of tools to use, each with its own purpose. Johnny Goode says, “My go to piece of hardware would be my console; I wouldn’t do a Disco Biscuits show without it.” Luke on the other hand uses a bunch of MIDI controllers and various computers all hacked together. “It allows me to control the rig like an instrument”, he says. These tools begin to shape their style and how their shows are lit. Luke defines himself as using a “top down” approach. He says, “The music defines what I’m doing at all times.” Jefferson takes an artistic approach that pulls from his background in video editing. “I like to describe my style as graceful ballet with dramatic and ominous movements. When I used to edit video, I would put things in slow motion because it felt powerful. Now when the band is playing a million notes per second, I think it’s equally powerful to have a slow moving light rig.” And just as two guitarists can use the same three chords, yet sound different, two LD’s can use the same three colors, but create a completely different atmosphere.
Since the jam scene is driving this, an additional hurdle for the lighting designer is the spontaneous nature of improv that most bands use within their live shows. Where lighting a rehearsed song eventually becomes part of muscle memory, improv adds the possibility of variance. Those nightly musical changes make it next to impossible for the lights to run on auto pilot. Jefferson says, “Because it’s happening in real time, I can be an active participant in that process.” Additionally, varying setlists only compounds the problem. Ryan Bress says, “Knowing a bands music is huge. You can’t depend on a setlist because a band will change it up last minute or even during a set.” Luke from Dopapod only uses one sequence at the moment; the rest of the time he says, “I’m playing the lighting designer’s equivalent of notes, chords and riffs instead of just pressing play.”
With all of this at their fingertips, there’s a lot of room for creativity and endless combinations of color and movement. The key is control and patience though as you don’t want to show your entire hand within the first two songs. Even new LDs understand that point. Ryan says, “If you give away all that your rig has to offer right off the bat, then you have nothing to deliver when the music gets more intense.” Luke echoes a similar point saying, “I usually get through a two-set show using only 75% of my cues and effects. I kind of treat it like a guitar and only use one effect or look in a specific song.” Jefferson Waful explains, “If the band is doing a ten minute improv, I’ll do nine and a half minutes of slow graceful movements. I’ll wait to throw in strobes and additional lights at the very end, otherwise you can lose the audience’s interest.”
As the lights fade, your senses come back down from overload. Music’s deep resonation has found a perfect match in the visual space the lights play in. The show’s temporary nature makes the combined effort more of a traveling work of art; setting up only to tear down again. The role of the lighting designer is only going to grow from here, leaving a legacy that’s equally important as the guys with instruments. There might be a sensory difference with what an LD brings to the table, but their absence would certainly leave the band in the dark.
During his most active three years, Greg contributed some of our biggest “gets” including interviews with Steve Hackett and local luminary Dave Frisina, cover/feature articles on regional and national bands from UL favorites like AudioInflux, Roots Collider and Mark Doyle and The Maniacs, to Porcupine Tree, Renaissance, 
When she isn’t attending live shows, Kayla’s work is her life’s pleasure. She is a teacher and program manager at the Allegheny Mountain School – a sustainable farming and food fellowship program located in the Allegheny Mountains, just outside of the West Virginia line. Currently, she is living in the least populated county east of the Mississippi, but she entertains herself by noodling on her mandolin, weathering her djembe, clogging, and joyfully working in her expansive gardens, barefoot in the mountain air. She has also taken up a keen interest in home brewing, with the intent of opening a farm brewery/live music venue someday.
In addition to his love for live music, he also enjoys all racquet sports, snowboarding, climbing and ultimate Frisbee. James is an aspiring music industry professional that is majoring in Music Business at Syracuse. He has previously worked at music festivals and venues in the tri-state area and hopes to continue to keep music at the forefront of his life. Traveling is also one of his favorite things to do, as he has spent college semesters in both London and Los Angeles studying music and the music industry. During his overseas excursion he visited The Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and France.
Lenny likes German vehicles, Danish microphones, French and Swiss pre amps, American built high resolution decks, and recording from the mouth of the beast. Having written some reviews in the mid 90’s of Grateful Dead and Phish shows, some published and most scattered around the net, Lenny joined the team in 2012 to add a taper’s perspective. You can check out 