Through the Wire

New Orleans — The Battle of the Bands, last Tuesday’s all-star collection of cable industry musicians that helped raise $300,000 for the revival of this national treasure of a city, was rollicking fun. (Please see Multichannel.com for more coverage of the event.)

But mightn’t it have been more entertaining had a certain Southern blues rock combo known as The Allman Brothers Band joined the fray.

Sadly, it’s a musical dream The Wire will never see. But we admire the attempt to make it happen by ramblin’ man David Fellows, the former Comcast chief technical officer whose most excellent title now is part-time Executive Fellow.

Fellows, whose cousin is married to Allmans’ percussionist Jaimoe, planted the seed several times, he revealed under questioning by The Wire. When a hole opened in the band’s schedule, due to an unfortunate illness to Gregg Allman, hopes for a mountain jam by the ultimate ringer band became more than just pie in the blue sky.

But as things often do, it came down to timing. As in 15 minutes, the allotted timing for each battling band. The dealbreaker, Fellows said, was ABB doesn’t schlep anywhere to play for less than an hour.

Instead, Paul “Purple Haze” Allen and his cable colleagues had the Morial Convention Center stages to themselves, untrumped by the likes of Derek Trucks, Chuck Leavell (who’d have filled in for Allman on keyboards) and Warren Haynes.

C’est la vie as they say in the Quarter and, as the Allmans themselves sing, you can’t lose what you never had.

New Orleans — What’s in a name?

Project Canoe — the code name for the six-operator initiative to provide a unified, national platform for placing interactive and targeted TV ads — is supposed to imply teamwork. You know, everyone rowing together in the same direction.

But to Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett, who moderated last Tuesday’s general session panel on advanced advertising at The Cable Show, the appellation sounds somewhat … preindustrial.

He kicked off the panel by reading a dictionary definition: “A primitive, unstable boat traditionally made from bark or a dug-out or burned-out log, generally used for navigating very calm, very small waters.”

Moffett then deadpanned: “So, welcome to the future of advertising.”

Whereupon Cox Communications president Pat Esser queried, “Was that a satellite dish?”

New Orleans — The Wire caught up with Dave Fellows — and pried that Allmans story out of him — at a Cable Show surprise party for a fellow retiree, Rogers Communications senior technology adviser Nick Hamilton-Piercy.

The longtime chief technology officer, mentor of many a cable engineers, including current Comcast CTO Tony Werner, has reached mandatory retirement age and is stepping down. His last official act at Rogers was to gavel down a technical papers’ session at the convention last Tuesday.

Fifteen minutes before that was to happen, National Cable & Telecommunications Association senior vice president of science and technology Bill Check interrupted the proceedings for an important NCTA announcement. Off to the side of the room stood an all-star cast of cable engineers, including Michael LaJoie and Mike Hayashi of Time Warner Cable, former Broadbus CTO Tom Jokerst and Dan Pike of GCI.

A cake was wheeled in. Hamilton-Piercy was completely surprised.

In addition to achievements in the realms of fiber optics, high-definition television and radio technology, Hamilton-Piercy is known for his love of cars, particularly muscle cars, specifically ones with a Chrysler 426 Hemi engine, Pike said.

“His claim to fame, among car guys, is to have been ticketed in a Hemi. Going 110. Uphill. Pulling a boat,” according to Pike.

Hamilton-Piercy (properly) first thanked his panelists for being there, and then for his friends “doing this, to my embarrassment.”