Come Together: The Official John Lennon Educational Tour Bus Guide to Music and Video [With CD]

COME TOGETHER: THE OFFICIAL JOHN LENNON EDUCATIONAL TOUR BUS GUIDE TO MUSIC AND VIDEO tells of a nonprofit mobile recording and multimedia studio that travels the country providing hands-on audio and video production opportunities to students. Now in its tenth year, it has achieved much - and COME TOGETHER explores its history using celebrity interviews, technological discussions, and how-to information to blend travel and engineering insights under one cover. An outstanding survey, highly recommended for both general-interest lending collections up to college level holdings specializing in multimedia education. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

"Something like this should be parked outside of every school in America." Vernon Reid, Artist-Producer and founder Living Colour At minimum, a copy of Come Together should be on the desk of every community leader, school principal, and district superintendent in every city across America. Much has been written about the social trends leading to the result that music education is becoming an endangered part of the curriculum of many school systems today. However, there is still hope. Based upon the accounts of Mark Garvey, the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is living proof that hope is not lost. It just hasn't gotten to you yet. Come Together is an enlightening narrative documentary for both musicians and non-musicians, young and old. It is a unique testament to the positive power of music making and the many talented people who work on all levels to make it happen. Garvey presents the why and how of the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus project from its start in 1998 to the most recent stops in late 2006. He provides unique insights into the condensed production schedules, physical and technical requirements, and also various elements of the creative process itself, which when all work as planned, results in a professional-quality finished product equal to what we normally see and hear from the major record labels. Additional inspiration for songwriters, engineers, and producers is provided through the eclectic voices of several of today's major artists such as Don Felder (guitarist and songwriter for the Eagles), Macy Gray (film and recording artist), Al Jarreau (Grammy-winning jazz vocalist), and the Bacon Brothers (yes, Kevin Bacon the actor and of "six-degrees" fame, together with his equally talented brother Michael). You learn quickly that with a little imagination, a relatively modest budget, several civic-minded leaders and a few other dedicated people in the mix, almost any community can begin to plant their own seeds of inspiration and opportunity. Seeds that will blossom and multiply in the youth by empowering them like the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus does. Traveling over 65,000 miles a year crisscrossing the country between January and October, the state-of-the-art mobile recording and video production studio offers selected students the very latest in audio and video technology and the staff to make it all work - with only one session to get it right. I had the privilege to be on the bus myself in January while at Macworld 2007, in San Francisco. It was a genuine thrill seeing the actual set-ups, speaking with the engineers, and watching a final product of the local band called Eat the Beat and their production titled "Here Come the Cops." They had a little help from Bob Weir, guitarist, singer-songwriter and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, now leader of his own band, RatDog. The professional gear and technology tools are a result of some generous sponsors such as Apple, Roland, Maxwell, Audio-Technica, Neu

I got a copy of this at the launch party at Macworld and I have to say its a really nice book. Its very hard to describe though - one section will have a story about Mos Def writing a song with kids and then you'll go to a whole diagram on how the power system on the bus works. There are profiles of the people involved, there's a lot about how the whole thing came together and there's a lot of the book dedicated to the "how to" of making music and video distilled from people that do it everyday. There's a really nice mini-bio on John in the back and tons of pictures. Big Ups to Jeffro for being the Studio Manager and getting a whole section devoted to him.