The final TapeOpCon was held in Tucson, AZ June 8-10, 2007

Held at the Hilton El Conquistador Resort in Tucson, Arizona on June 8-10th this past month, the sixth annual and final TapeOpCon proved to be an educational and entertaining event indeed. Advice, talent and brainstorming sessions flowed through five main panels, 36 workshops, nine PotLuck Studio sessions and more.

On Friday, Club Congress and The Rialto Theatre hosted a New Orleans benefit with Rebirth Brass Band, Mitch Easter and many others - plus some good Creole food. Saturday morning's "Classical Recording" workshop saw Linda Ronstadt dropping in to banter with her long time collaborator George Massenburg! Saturday night brought a fantastic free concert by the pool, featuring Calexico, DeVotchKa and John Vanderslice. Then O'Malley Jones and the James Brown revue - featuring Geoff Daking, Greg Gualteri (Pendulum Audio, Anamod) and Dave Amels (Bomb Factory, Anamod)) performed Live at the Apollo 1962 in its entirety, playing their last note around 2 a.m., showing the kids how to play for nearly four hours. Truly a special event. After Sunday night's "More Records that Made Me Want to Record" moderator Mark Rubel called up the legendary Les Paul and led us in a sing-a-long of "Happy Birthday". Couldn't be a better end than that!

For the past six years, Tape Op Magazine has partnered with conference director Craig Schumacher to host TapeOpCon. This year's event was an amazing event but also the last of this run. This may seem like an odd choice of actions, as the event is always successful in attracting some of the most creative and forward-thinking producers, engineers, musicians, exhibitors, sponsors and panelists around, and is a highly enjoyable time for all involved. Tape Op's reasons for this change are complex. With my partner John Baccigaluppi we handle the constant editing, publishing and running of Tape Op Magazine, which this spring also launched a branch in London to handle publishing, UK/EU subscriptions and related advertising. We are also working on a series of books compiling the back issues of our magazine. For over a year I have seen many changes in my own life. A personal move to southeast Arizona, where my girlfriend and I purchased a home to renovate, led right into to a move for my studio (Jackpot! Recording) to a new building in Portland, Oregon. I also began work as an archivist for the estate of Elliott Smith, a job I am just beginning to tackle in full and foresee taking up a large amount of my time. What this leads to is a question of time and energy - what do I excel at and want to do on a daily basis?

Given the monthly deadlines I already cope with, layering a year-long deadline for the conference on top of it was just more work than I could handle or do to the best of my abilities. As I kept thinking about it - what did I really want to do with my time? - I decided that working on Tape Op Magazine, owning a studio, making albums (which I haven't been able to do in eight months) and working on Elliott's archiving were enough recording-related tasks in my life. I decided that helping run and putting my magazine's name on an event - even a successful, enjoyable and positive event like TapeOpCon - isn't something I have the time or drive to do
anymore.

Six great years of TapeOpCon sit behind us. I hold many friendships that have been made at or reinforced through this venture dear to my heart, and have always been thankful for all the work everyone has put into this event. Given all the experience he initially brought to the table and has gained over these last years, TapeOpCon director Craig Schumacher is now poised to bring a new-yet-familiar recording related event back to the city of New Orleans in summer 2008. Me? I’ll take a quick breather and then jump back in and try to catch up with my own life!

-Larry Crane