Message: 2 Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:37:54 -0700 From: Greg Heumann <greg@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Why Charlie's Cruncher was backwards, and other stuff To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx Message-ID: <5543BC99-A282-4161-AABC-D626DD2819A5@xxxxxxxxxxx> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
I emailed Charlie and asked him. Here's what he said:
"They picked up the band at 5:15am. When we got to the studio they had it all set up like they wanted. A Times Square TV studio like that with an audience and all is a very busy and complicated place. I was curious about why they had my amp turned around, but there was no time to even discuss it. We just had time to get straight to work. When it was over the crew started breaking everything down with the precision of a drill team while they hustled the band out to a waiting van. Next week when I fly back to meet Cyndi in Cleveland to start the tour, I'll get to discuss it because I'm curious too about the amp placement. Another thing all those folks should know is that whatever sound I was getting from my Cruncher, it was at the mercy of the studio before it reached the TV listening audience. I have no way of controlling that and they can change your sound dramatically and the player has no way of knowing about it. A professional that's backing somebody up plays what's appropriate for who they're backing up and what's appropriate is what the artist that hired them wants. If you ignore what they want and just play what you want.....you ain't going to last long in that line of work. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. If you hired a guy to paint your house and he decided to paint it his favorite color instead of the color the homeowner asked for.....well that'd be plain stupid. That shouldn't be so hard to understand unless you're the kind of person that just likes to look for something negative to say. If you come to hear me live, you would hear something very different. But, no matter how hard you try and no matter how much you care, there's always some sour puss out there just waiting to jump on you with something negative and they are, for the most part, clueless - they weren't there; they don't know what all went on behind the scenes, but they're not going to hesitate from blabbing a bunch of baloney as if they're some kind of authority. Personally, when I see anybody getting any kind of work at all in this business - I'm pulling for them. All that negative baloney is just plain silly."
I couldn't agree more.
/Greg