[Harp-L] Re: Arrogant sound man

[Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Both of my bad experiences were in the same town. Memphis.

We played the IBC comp. 3 years ago.  The band I was in was playing at
Alfred's.  The booth for the sound crew was high up near the ceiling   
with a narrow slit for them to see out.
You could not see the sound guy from the stage to give cues unless he  
put his head out the long narrow window.

Just about every harp player that went on was way too low in the mix.   
I felt bad for one guy because his amp was squealing from him
trying to get more stage volume.  The house sound would not turn him  
up in the system.  Alfred's is a very large room so every instrument  
needed to
be miked to be heard properly. The pa speakers were large floor  
columns.  They set our levels before playing then left them.

When we got our feedback sheets from the judges we lost points because  
"the harp player wasn't playing loud enough."
I wasn't loud enough because the idiot sound guys they hired made it  
that way!
I used the house 4x10 Fender the first night and my Deluxe Reverb the  
second night both cranked to near feedback levels which is around 2 1/2.
It's not uncommon anywhere to see the soundman set it and forget it  
and walk away from the board or engage in conversation not paying  
attention for
cues from stage.

The second bad experience came the third night in Memphis. We were in  
a secondary competition of "battle of the bands" that the club owners  
held.
We won at Alfred's and moved down the street to another bar.  I forget  
the name but they had an Elvis imitator that went on before the"  
battle".
I think Ryan Hartt's band played there during the regular comp.

The guy running sound was also host (from his booth) and super egoist.  
He was the star of the house.  We waited for Elvis to finish then we  
put our gear on stage.  I moved an amp mic 2 feet to the side so I  
could position my amp behind it.  The soundman got all beside himself  
and started chewing me out, being very condescending for touching his  
mic.  "Who was I to move the equipment. Only he moves it. Am I the  
sound man. No.  From there he started to talk to me like I was a 3 yr.  
old making sure the rest of the band heard him talking down to me.     
I wanted to rip him a new one but I knew it would hurt the  band's  
chances at performing or me being in the mix at all.  He made me wait  
with my amp off the side until everyone was set up then moved my amp  
into place.  I mentioned there was no power strip for me to plug into  
and he started to mock me again like I was whinning child.

To this day my blood boils because I never got a chance to shove that  
mic up his....  or my fist down his arrogant throat.

mike

On May 8, 2009, at 5:56 AM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Message: 9
> Date: Fri, 8 May 2009 00:24:40 -0400
> From: "John F. Potts" <hvyj@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] Arrogant sound man (true story)
> To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <9CDBA868-DC14-4ECE-862B-B4321C70103C@xxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> snip...
> The guy mixing the stage sound was just too cool.