Category: Work/Sound

Things have been going well with Octane … So far, all of the rumors I heard about this band haven’t happened … They’re very easy to work with and haven’t gone off the deep end at all … The gig is high pressure … Stress levels are high … It’s a high profile band in more ways than one … I have come down in stress level though as things are working better … In Early November, their monitor guy of 4 years quit (basically without notice), so this left me with one less crew member and no one to do monitors … I called in Alex who used to do lights for Weekend at Bernie’s, and he has been coming out ever since … The band likes him and is offering him the job … He’s a little wishy washy about it, and I can’t really read what he wants to do … Seems he does want to do it but something in the back of his mind won’t enable him to fully committ or something …

I stopped by Cintioli’s yesterday … They wanted me to bring by money … So, instead of bringing by money, I went there to review the current order I have had outstanding with them since August 27th … They still have not got some things in that I ordered … I was told by several people not to go to Cintioli for this stuff and use some guy that they knew at another music store, but I was like; ‘I have been going to Cintioli’s since I was 13 years old … They have helped me out in the past, and I will honor that loyalty and buy solely from there.’ Welp, here it is 3 months later, and still things I ordered for Octane have not come in yet … It is very frustrating … So, after last night, even things I have been waiting for I decided I will get elsewhere, and I finalized what I will definitely be getting from them and a final payment when it’s all in … It really sucks that it’s turning out this way since a lot of my life … or career … went through that music store …

Well, I started this job 3 weeks ago, and I am already on vacation … I still haven’t done the web billing for September … Hope to get to that before September ends … I don’t want to give away a free month, and surprisingly no one has mentioned that they didn’t get a bill … Hmm … Originally I took the Octane job so I could have more free time to myself, and so far I haven’t even had any more free time … I guess this really has to do with not receiving everything I ordered from the music store yet, and not having things set with the system yet … I still have work to do on the system as well as doing things to the band gear to make the sound better each night … for example, the E609 mics hang on Quinn’s A cabinet just fine, but on Tripp’s B cabinet, the mic sometimes turns off axis and it drastically changes the sound … This also affects their ears so I am planning on sewing a couple elastic pockets on their cabinet grills to further avoid this problem … I still have yet to incorporate the DriveRack into the system as well as the other 3 amps that we’ve been pushing into clubs … Crowns aren’t light you know … The 1200 I got offa Pirylis has a custom PIP installed and I recently asked if he had the original and he did, so I have to swap that out for the horns … I have to make speaker cables to allow for 3 way stereo … This will require 3 cable runs to either side … 10 pairs which will actually be 12 pairs … 2 subs, 2 mids and 2 horns … I could jump the horns, but running 12/4 wire will just have the 3 runs with 2 pair each … I will jump the horns at the amp instead being that the Speakon connector at the cabinet is wired for the crossover in the cabinet …

Clubs I’ve been to since the last post are as follows: Reeds, Tinks, Montana West, Park City and The Whiskey Tango … It was raining at Reeds, and while we came in the back without any rain, we loaded out in the rain going down the ramp … What I envisioned as a very difficult load out with slipping worked out well … no slipping … Tinks was VERY far away … All the way up to Scranton … Montana West is just down the street from Ed’s Quakertown and it’s a very big room … Sorta like the old Bronco Bill’s … Park City was near The Meadowlands and it was a house system … They had It’s the Pigs open up for them there … Even though we brought in the light show, it was still considered a walk-in … The house system was 2 SR4732as flown and 8 JBL 15s on the bottom … It actually didn’t sound that bad, and the room isn’t that big … Sorta like a 15 North … And Whiskey Tango … Everyone was asking me if I was going to bring in my system being that I had mixed almost a year on their house system … I said that it was sort of like borrowing somone’s car … You’d rather drive your own …

After every show I ask who I can how it sounded … I am certainly very concerned with this … I still have the stress at the shows of doing a good job and hoping things go smoothly … Since the little trouble spots at The Ridge (first gig) I think everything has gone smoothly … The things that we need to do as a crew are to make sure we’re set up by the time the band gets there if they want to run a song or two … Otherwise, I think things have already progressed in that we’re setting up much faster … Then the load out needs to get faster and part of the problem there is the size of the truck and how to pack it each night … We still haven’t settled on one pack … It has been getting packed differently night after night … John is incredible with the pack … Each night there seems to be more and more room … but even though this happens, there still is the need for a larger truck cause stacking is not good … Not only does it require more muscle, the truck drives differently depending on the pack …

Anyway … so most people are telling me that it sounds really good … I have my own reservations cause there are things that I would like to sound better … In particular the drums … I think the kick drum could be fatter and the toms should sound better … The wood hoop kit that Bob is using sounds much different than the kit he used at the audition … While the kit sounds good when they’re all playing (read: in the mix), I think if it sounded great to me before everyone else started playing that the mix would just sound that much better … I have been going with very hot guitars as they specified they wanted it to sound … but one only need to listen to their CD When All is Said and Done and be able to tell how they should be mixed … Whenever they play an original, I hear that familiar mix and I really get into it … Some of the songs that I’m not familiar with yet, or don’t get the adrenaline pumping as much I kind of suffer through in that I am hoping it sounds as it should … Sometimes bringing Brian’s voice over those guitars is difficult, even with the Distressor … I am using the Symphonic a lot in this area, and it has been helping …

There are many people I promised to get to things this week (being that I’m on “vacation”) … and I hope to get to them … They include my father and some people need some recordings that I made with the minidisc transferred to CD … This requires re-recording the stuff to get it into computer format … Which reminds me … I have been sorta told that I shouldn’t record Octane … I don’t necessarily know why … I think Brian is afraid to immortalize a mistake or something? I don’t rightly know … Anyway, again, I hope to get a lot done so that eventually I will have this time to myself that I thought I was getting when I left the Whiskey Tango 6 night a week job for the Octane 2 or 3 a night job … I still work at The Whiskey Tango on Sundays nights … Regardless of who is there … It will help finance this huge investment I have taken on with Octane … New light show, and a lot of new PA gear … Whew!

“It’s all about the ‘he said, she said’ bullsh*t … I think you better quit lettin sh*t slip … Or you’ll be leavin with a fat lip … It’s all about the ‘he said, she said bullsh*t … I think you better quit talkin that sh*t (Punk, so come and get it)“

This is pretty appropriate … There is “talk” going around, and it’s simply ludicrous … It’s amazing to me how “adults” can be so childish … It’s also amazing to me that some people simply can’t tell the truth … They have to put a spin on things maybe cause it makes them look bad, or it alters the perception they were going for in instigating something … I appreciate the fact that I tell nothing but the truth all the time … For me, there is no reason to lie or stretch the truth … There is no benefit in it … ever … Eventually you will be caught, and when that happens, you lose all credibility … you will never be trusted again, no matter what the situation is … No matter what the relationship is … business, social or personal … It is very frustrating to me that these sorts of people exist out there, and it is very disappointing that at this point in my life I have to deal with this sort of behavior … It is very simple … I am trying to provide for my family, and I am trying to do that multiple ways … In providing for my family, I am also trying to upgrade their environment as well … It’s just sick to me that people would want to jeopardize that … If not for their own selfish reasons or for sport, I don’t know … Cause I think the only result they will receive is a negative one no matter what the outcome …

In the Aug 15 entry I mentioned that that Tuesday was shot and there were things about it that I might mention at a “later time” … Well, what I did on August 10th when I should have been doing the paper or sleeping, I went and auditioned for Octane. I was so sick that Tuesday … I was the walking dead as far as I’m concerned … but I did so much work that day … I got up early … about 9am and I went and rented a truck … drove that to my parent’s house where I worked on several speakers that needed to be replaced … They actually had to be soldered on … The current speakers were the press down kind, so soldering them was a hassle … I was sweating and being very sick … I had to take breaks … Once speakers were wired up, I had to load the truck … Then off to The Whiskey Tango to get what equipment I had there … While I was there I borrowed the mics and some monitors for the audition … A manager was there and I asked if I could borrow them … The manager didn’t even ask why, so I thought … okay! … I mean, I lent them my stuff, so I was just borrowing their stuff for an afternoon … I was already late for the audition, but I went anyway … So I finally got there maybe about an hour to an hour and a half late … But I was so sick, I was like “Yeah, I’m here, I’m late .. sorry, I guess I don’t get the job.” … but no, no, no … it was cool … I was fine … okay … Should I wait outside or should I come in? It’s okay to come in … Cool!

I was very happy that I could come inside and hear the first audition … You have to understand, I went in there feeling defeated before I had even started … I didn’t have the kind of boards that they would have needed … I only had my little Mackie 24-4 … my little Peavey 16 channel monitor board … Old crusty JBL speakers and like no substantial amount of equipment … I went in there with 4 tops, 4 bottoms, 3 racks, a cable trunk … monitors and boards … That was it … The guy before me had the room filled with 32 or 40 channel boards, tons of cases, etc … Me, even the speakers I just soldered the new speakers into I didn’t test cause I would have had to basically set up the PA to test them, so I didn’t even know if they would work … At that point I didn’t even care … At that point besides the fact that it didn’t matter cause I was so sick, I knew that my PA even without those speakers would WOW them … While I was there, the third guy to audition showed up … It was about 3 or 4pm at this point and I had to get back to The Whiskey to do The Interns … Waited a long time for the first guy to load out, and in the interim the offer was made that the third guy load in his system and I mix on it so they could hear me mix and save me the loading in and out because I was so sick … The third guy said that was cool with him, but I declined the offer … I wanted to mix on my system … After all, wasn’t that the point? After all, didn’t I go through hell to get it there including renting a truck? Didn’t I spend about $320 on new speakers and $155 on renting a truck? Well, hell yeah I did … so I was going to set up my system … The band helped load in (my hand truck went flat) … so did one of the managers … So I set up all the stuff and got checks while each guy checked out their stuff … There wasn’t much talking going on … When I got everything I needed and they got what they needed through what monitors they actually used, they just basically started playing … I cranked it, and it slammed! It sounded awesome in my opinion … Fat clicky kick, snappy snare and November Rain toms … cutting guitars and deep bass … A suggestion here and there and they just played and listened … No real direction to me … Then a mic was used to sing a song … okay, onto the acoustics … We checked those through the PA and monitor for the drummer at the same time, and they jammed on the three acoustics for a little while … The only vocals were that one song … Then the drummer had the monitor guy play his drums so he could hear them out front … and that was it … Thanks Dave. So I packed up and ran out of there to get to The Whiskey … spent … so sick …

I’m not mentioning who the other people were that auditioned for obvious reasons, but if any of them happen by this, I would certainly like to thank the third guy for helping me out as much as he did … I mean he wasn’t there to help me … but I was so sick, I guess everyone felt sorry for me … But everyone was cool about it, and I was very happy with the way things sounded … I certainly hope they were …

Well, 3 weeks later I guess they were happy cause they hired me … So I had to tell The Whiskey Tango and purchase the stuff that I said I would get if they hired me … The sound company that was covering them between sound companies was also in the running to do them permanently … They gave them notice (as promised) so they knew that their system was going to be available again. They would keep them for 3 weeks so that they wouldn’t lose any down time and the transition could be made to the new sound company (which is me) … Well, this company immediately decided if they weren’t getting the account, they were done doing the band entirely … no notice or anything … They supposed this might happen, but they didn’t think it would … So this would screw the band and it would screw The Whiskey Tango if I went out and did the band with the system that I auditioned with … Screw the band not having sound, and I would screw the Whiskey not being there for the weekend … Who would they get on such short notice? Props to John John at The Whiskey for being very understanding and helping work everything out, and props to the drummer for finding alternatives for that weekend … We are still going to rush to get everything for this coming Thursday, but heck … What else are we going to do?

So, I am now officially the new sound and lighting provider for Octane … I was also able to hang onto Sundays at The Whiskey Tango … I really feel bad about leaving the Whiskey, but this opportunity had to be pursued … It was what I wanted in the way of coming “out of retirement” if I had chose to go back “on the road” … plus the money isn’t something to shake a stick at … I will have more nights home now and my 6 year old was very happy about that …

There was also a lot of rumors going around about all sorts of things revolving around this band and stuff … Well, I got the job, and I will know first hand soon enough if the rumors are true … I will certainly vent here … Stay tuned …

As I have said before, I have no idea who reads this stuff, or who happens on these pages in their Internet travels … There are many ways that someone could happen on this stuff being the wonderful way that the Internet searches and documents itself through search engines and web crawlers … So, at times I am vagues about things that I want to post up here for whatever reasons … I post this entry as a sort of vent as probably most of the other posts are up here as well …

I have been working house sound for approximately 9 months now. While it is something to easily fall into and something that someone like myself who has been “on the road” for the prior 7 or 8 years, it’s just not the same in many ways. The biggest is the money. In my current situation, it’s not my PA that is the house PA that I work on, so my PA has been sitting in a truck for the last 9 months. I don’t take any outside jobs as I am at the install 6 nights a week. Yes, 6 nights a week. The money is less than I made working with a band in the same situation. What we would refer to as “walk-ins” … I would show up just with the band’s equipment and run sound on the establishment’s PA system. In most cases, that PA was owned by a 3rd party and they were making money from the bar by them having that system in there … But that’s besides the point … So right off the bat, I am making less money in my current situation by not using my PA … Not that I don’t have a nice install to work on, it’s just not mine and therefor I don’t put as much “love” into that system as I would my own …

While I could have realistically sold off my PA either whole or piece by piece, I didn’t actively pursue that … Not for any particular reason, and not with any plans in mind … I just haven’t done it … and with the current job, my time has been severely limited … I may only work a certain amount of hours each night, but it is 6 nights … 2nd shift basically … I have also done extra things at my job … I have run a self serving network connection to the booth so that I can be on the Internet and do other things while I am at work. For example, if a band brings in a guy like my above example of the band’s gear and mixing, well, I just sit there and wait for 2 o’clock to roll around. So, I put in the network connection so I could work on Internet things while there doing nothing … So, I get paid to work on other projects while I am there “babysitting” as I call it …

When I started there was a DJ that worked Sunday and Wednesday nights … He moved to Chicago and they never replaced him … I purchased the appropriate cables and started to bring in my laptop to play music from the computer … I purchased a program to “rip” my CD collection (I was a DJ way way back too) and I provide the music between sets on these Sunday and Wednesday nights now … In fact, I did that before I put in the Internet connection, and I did that cause I started bringing my laptop to work more and more and I currently bring it every night now … When they needed things to use while others were repaired, I opened up my truck and grabbed those things … The short list is a drum monitor (that eventually got blown), a monitor board and some mic stands (or mounts) … I didn’t ask for money for any of these things … I have also done benefits where I essentially worked a “double” shift and I received quite less money than a normal shift … The thing about these benefits was that you were dealing with bands that were right out of the garage or who had never played such a club, so in my opinion it’s more work …

Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining … It is a fine place to work and very easy to sit back and just do it because there is little pressure what-so-ever … The stress factor is very close to zero … There are perks that I don’t even take much advantage of, and that’s free food and drinks … In fact, I buy $1.00 sodas out of their take out … When I get food, I believe I tip very well … All I am leading up to is that this job would be great for someone who hasn’t had a taste of “the road” … Where there is much more money to be had … While I may not think it’s that much money, someone else may think it’s the best job in the world … They could look at it as getting fed 6 nights a week with the opportunity to tie one on every night … While I don’t choose to do this, someone if well behaved could manage it … I seriously don’t think there are any plans of doubling my pay anytime soon, and I don’t think the bar would consider investing anymore money into a sound guy simply because in actuality, I don’t really do much … I may be realiable and a great worker and a pretty go0d sound guy even, but there just isn’t enough to justify paying more I think …

So, on to the title of this post … I decided that if I “came out of retirement” as I like to think of it, that I wouldn’t do that for a mediocre situation … In other words, when the band I worked for broke up, I could have easily did sound for various bands that needed sound for various venues and did it that way … I would have had to be responsible for booking myself and finding work … That wasn’t a scenario I wanted … I also didn’t think that if I ever got the itch to take my PA back out that I would do it with a band that wasn’t a true “A” band … I would need to do a band that would bring me the recognition that I think I deserve … I have done many things for many people in the entertainment industry and I seriously don’t think that it’s something that I shouldn’t take advantage of, or expect to be respected for … it’s about that time …

So, there is currently 2 bands that I would want to work for, and I am waiting around to see what pans out with them … One is very near and was a recent surprise availability … In the case of “Pick me!” it has to do with a semi-local sound company that does a lot of bands on the circuit … While the owner seems to be doing very well for himself, while it was said he would be declining this recent availabilty … that changed … He isn’t in business to say “no” to money … Me neither …