Bill Roberts - Retirement Songs

Welcome to this quiet little corner - you probably didn’t stumble here, but had me provide a link - so you know the page is about a soundtrack to my journey from school to retirement - bookended by the two songs below - one for the title and one for the milestones I've highlighted.

“Birth, School, Work, Death” - The Godfathers

Great post punk pop - nails what life is simply

“I’ll Try Anything Once” - The Strokes

“Ten decisions shape your life…….You'll be aware of five about”

The rest of the songs will be music that was highly present in my career - not all songs that I love - but songs that were all around me or transformed me.

‘Rock Lobster' - B52s

In high school, with some friends, I started DJ’ing dances- rented equipment and pennies taped to my turntable stylus to stop them from skipping - but it was all worth it when the song urged everyone to go ‘down, down, down’ - and they did, and then jumped back up. Never loved the B52s -but respect them.

’ You Send Me’ - Sam Cooke

I managed to get a part-time job in high school working at FM108 - http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/fm108hst.html

While the music was not entirely my vibe, there was a real power in what I was doing in the studio, being consumed by people in their homes and cars. Sam Cooke turned out to be someone I like - in University during my radio show on CKLN, I would make interesting mashups of him with Skinny Puppy and other hardcore punk pop.

’Word Up’- Cameo

In my first year of university at Ryerson (now https://www.torontomu.ca/) I worked as a DJ and bouncer at the filling station pub - and Thursday nights would not be same without Cameo bringing their cod-pieced clad funk to the mix.

’Something So Strong’ - Crowded House

Years two and three of university
Top 40 radio FULL ON - here is a great air check from the same time period - my mixing console and view is the first few seconds of this video: Tom Rivers CFTR Mid 80's. It was fast-paced, and hit songs were played A LOT - I used to know the length of most songs and even the posts (beat or tempo changes in the intro). It was a lot of fun making radio.

Graduation and TV Work

I got a job at a boutique post house and worked my ass off to learn and grow - After everyone was gone I would teach myself how to use the edit controller, DVE and Chyron - eventually I edited a version of the REM song with some old car footage - I still have the video, but on 1"

’Orange Crush’ - REM

Me in the machine room with ‘the crew’
(3 of the 4 ended up working for CTV 1994 Olympics a few years later)

While there we built a mobile and our first gig was about a week too soon. We were contracted to do a 5-camera shoot for MuchMusic - which we pulled off

Honeymoon Suite - Much Music Big Ticket 1988

(I’m 99% this was 1989 - not 1988 as the video states)

It was a mess - I was shading cameras and running VTR at the back of the truck - almost falling asleep. On the trip back from the venue - a belly bin popped open and a Sachtler 25 tripod fell out - and got hit by a Honda Civic - fun.

’New Girl Now’- Honeymoon Suite

I was recruited to work at Toronto EFP soon after and took care of a larger number of cameras - we purchased a 72,000 square foot 3 stage studio and I was responsible for the back corner of the building - shown below - we housed our mobile in the bay and managed a grip lock up and 25 cameras

We provided facilities for a number of shows - including Super Dave Osborne

One of the episodes I had a role in planning - and I was on location for the shoot:

Super Dave - Atomic Yo-Yo Stunt

After spending more time in Production, I realized I missed Post, and when CTV was expanding and moving the National News to a new studio, I applied and got a job there.
Progressing through the ranks to a senior editor working on higher profile news, sport, and commercial content.

Being in the newsroom for major events like the outbreak of the Gulf War was pretty wild, and I can say the movie Broadcast News was a real snapshot of what Analog, tape-based news was like. There wasn’t a lot of music in my work life back then - however, I remember a bunch of us going frame by frame through the video for this song:

’Black or White’ - Michael Jackson

Some of my work from that era:

1994 Olympic Mini-Docs on Norway for McDonald's: YouTube
Ongoing Series on impending millennium change - Towards 2000 for Volkswagen: YouTube
- One of 60+ episodes I cut.

I was recruited to join Avid after CTV - and moved from making content to making and selling tools. My first responsibilities had me travelling to pretty much every CBC location and preaching the gospel of Non-Linear:

Most trips were - fly here - drive here, here and here - then fly him from there. There were a lot of adventures on the road - and a lot of driving….and a lot of Tragically Hip

'Tragically Hip' - New Orleans is sinking - travelling across the country

When I didn’t want to move to Tewksbury MA with Avid and was a point where my marriage was ending as well - so fuck it - let’s move to Montreal and work at Discreet Logic. They sold million-dollar machines that mashed up art and science like nobody else
Some of their demo reels:

Getting to Montreal meant a trip to Amsterdam (I know weird, eh?)
IBC 1998 and a night at the Melkweg that was epic and changed my life - new connections formed that would be the catalyst for change.

This song is the soundtrack to that night in my mind:

’God is a DJ’ - Faithless

Moving to Montreal meant a lot of 5-hour drives - and a new friend in Montreal, Ken, had pre-release access to Kruder and Dorfmeister’s ‘The K&D Sessions’. This was my new aural home.

That album is not on Spotify - instead another gem from 1/2 of the group

’Sofa Rockers’ - Richard Dorfmeister

Building software is hard - so you celebrate the moments - the big project I started on at Discreet was stigma* (*depravity, corruption and vice @discreet) - Which really was tagging for 7 of us trying to build collaborative visual effects software.

Our first demo of being able to playback sequential DPX files with sync audio to sub-sample accuracy was this tune:

’Honey’ - Moby

My arrogance and a shift in the winds led me across town to work with Softimage.

We released some 3D visual scripting software, when we settled on the name Interactive Creative Environment - ICE, we thought we had a winner - when during sales education with the field someone started humming a certain bass line….do, do, do, do de dee doo…

We knew we had to try to book Vanilla ICE for our party

Softimage @ SIGGRAPH 2008 Nice Ice User Event

’Ice Ice Baby’ - Vanilla Ice

“Oh dear god....this was the most AMAZING party ever!!! Vanilla Ice and Ron Jeremy....that says it all. Absolutely the most fun party in Siggraph history. Thank you to everyone at Softimage who made this possible."

After the divestiture of Softimage, I was working on the core Post Production and Broadcast Strategies at Avid - more time writing and Bon Iver’s ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ was my soundtrack

’Skinny Love’ - Bon Iver

I was recruited from Avid to Adobe - with the proviso that I would be in California a lot - this song was part of my Thursday night BART to MUNI to Air Canada for the Red Eye flight home

’Dance Yrself Clean’ - LCD Soundsystem

The video business grew at Adobe, and soon we had a slew of outstanding projects that people had used our tools for - but we didn’t have the rights to tell the world - so I made a home movie…..Microsoft OneDrive Cut to this song - which worked well

’How you Like Me Now’ - The Heavy

We eventually grew the business where we needed to reach a wider audience - so a TV commercial was made with Queen as the soundtrack -

’Don’t Stop Me Now’ - Queen

The soundtrack to this career is nothing compared to the bonds I’ve made with friends all over the world - this industry is unique - you can’t learn it from a book, you can’t ask ChatGPT to tell you what to do - the only answers truly emerge when we talk - creative to technologist - visionary to architect, scientist to dreamer. At our best, we are but a paint brush in the hands of someone with creative intent to tell their story to inform, entertain, or educate the world.

During the pandemic, I cut this spot to help bring the global Adobe team a little closer DVATOGETHER_FINAL.mp4

’Together' - R Plus Dido

I’m sure music will be a part of my future as well as I explore the world...

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