Asher Griffith | Audio Producer

Hello, everyone. My name is Asher Griffith, & I am a producer, sound designer, & composer. I love great writing and interesting sounds. I have about ten years experience in the business of audio production.

After I finished grad school, it dawned on me that the only job I’d really trained for, teaching music theory, was the last thing I ever wanted to do. I was, all along, more interested in storytelling with sound than I was in formal music. I quickly picked up work in the service industry, and began to work as a freelance sound designer for live theatre.

From there I expanded my toolbox (both literally and metaphorically) into film, TV, radio, & podcasts.

I founded Cicada Radio in 2018 to make my audio production freelancing a little more above board, but I also wanted to create a podcast production company & network. The vision was of a group of shows locally focused on New Orleans and the rest of southeast Louisiana. Our mission was to promote artistic equity, urban environmentalism, & service workers’ visibility.

By the beginning of 2020 we were getting ready to launch the second member of our growing family of shows, and had collaborations in the works with Beaubourg School and Bard Early College (to document the erased BIPOC history of the Central Business district with Beaubourg, and a pilot program training the Bard prep students in storytelling and audio production). All of that would be indefinitely back-burnered by COVID.

But, by 2023, our little local network was five shows strong, not counting an audio drama miniseries. I stepped into every single role involved in audio production at some point along the way. From acting, reporting, and hosting to web design, cutting tape, and coiling cables. Usually I just did everything all by myself. It was fun, and the body of work we created is still my proudest, but I was being pulled in another direction.

Now I don’t live in New Orleans anymore, but I’m still remotely helping to produce the two shows that chug along (tho haltingly) with the producers who are still on the ground down there. Otherwise, Cicada Radio is just me & I’m off to new adventures.

All of the work done under the banner of the Cicada Radio network can be found on this website. Just click “NETWORK” up at the top of the page.

Ever since 2018

I am a classically trained percussionist, vocalist, & composer. I play a pretty mean harmonica, too. Mostly I just scream and play guitars in rock & roll bands, and I’ve been doing that since around 1996.

This means that I have a lot of experience setting up & trouble shooting sound systems that I have never used under less than ideal conditions and with very little time. I’m also good at getting along with colleagues even when the car is very hot and crowded.

Grass Mud Horse was a New Orleans-based country-rock outfit consisting of five members. I played slide guitar and sang some back-up vocals. It’s not on the EP, but we had a cover of “I’ve Never Been to Spain” by Three Dog Night that absolutely knocked. I sang the lead on that.

2017

Consisting of my brother on bass, our childhood (and still) best friend on drums, and me on screaming and guitar, Lovehog was a rock and roll band with heavy Mississippi blues roots.

2008

This is the space to write about SERVICE INDUSTRY.

The Moth’s StorySLAMs are “Community-focused, open-mic storytelling competitions in which anyone can share a five-minute story on the night’s theme.”

They are also recorded for posterity and to be featured on The Moth Story Hour public radio show, and it was my job to make those recordings. I used a matching pair of microphones situated stage left and right above the audience to capture audience reactions. The storyteller’s mic was the same signal sent to the PA.

2022-2023

HAPPY HOUR was a cocktail-fueled 60 minutes of random conversation with folks who have nothing in common, other than being New Orleanians in a bar. Featuring extraordinary New Orleans musicians playing live, host Grant Morris and sidekick deluxe Andrew Duhon. I was the Facebook Live Producer.

This meant that I was a social media manager, digital content producer, and director of photography. None of those skills were really in my wheelhouse before the gig, but I got pretty good with the camera, considering my limitation to a single continuous shot. That’s me in the plaid.

2015-2020

A couple of years back, a friend and colleague of mine mentioned that the skillset needed to be a radio producer translated pretty well to film and television. I knew how to use microphones and field recording equipment, I just needed to learn to hide lavs and stay out of frame. And a great deal of jargon. Below is a list of my film credits, but I’ve also worked on several commercial spots & an episode of a video podcast about cocktails.

FEATURES & SHORTS

The Capitalist
(2023)
-Boom/Sound Op

Riding Halley’s Comet
(2023)
-Post-Production Sound

Cannibal Witches from Hell
(TBD)
-Boom/Sound Op

The Bayou
(TBD)
-Boom Op

Senior
(2022)
-Boom/Sound Op

Momma Bird
(TBD)
-Boom/Sound Op