I got this to work but not following the steps laid out above - but appreciate the suggestion (I hadn't seen it!). I got to the shoot and the stereo cable was exactly where I had predicted - running into the back of an iMac in the models' dressing area. Potentially akward to be in there all day... And it was 50 feet away from the set where I needed to see what was going on while controlling the music. Let's see, I did a soft reset on the AE with a paper clip. Then I used Airport Utility to set up a LAN (without internet and without joining an exisiting network). I saved it as a profile. That's a long story short as I don't remember exactly how I muddled through the set up but it worked. I plugged the AE into a power outlet, plugged the stereo cable into the AE. I went over to my laptop and selected the wireless network I had just set up. I did the same with my iPhone. I then launched the Remote app and ran the music (while taking photographs no less!) from my iphone. The only down side was not having the internet - and not being able to instantly buy songs on iTunes throughout the day. But I just switched to the studio's internet signal for that... but of course that meant the music would stop playing so I had to time it well and not bring the whole vibe down. Anyway.... When I got home I plugged the AE back in and my home profile was still there, easy breazy. And next time I go to a shoot, the AE profile will be all set up and ready to go.
