Category: Boneheads

Stupid musicians, stupid clients, general dumbasses and things people do that drive me nuts.

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Boneheads Gigs Musicians Recording

Board mix breaks up band

I do live sound gigs sometimes when someone wants to pony up a few bucks to pay me. When I do run sound it usually kicks ass.

There’s a heavy metal band I did some albums for and they hire me to do many live sound gigs as well. They have a big PA and it sounds killer.

The last gig I did for them was at a scary biker bar. The day after I did this gig a guy staggered into the bar with more than a dozen knife wounds…

This is a pretty easy gig. They set up the PA and I show up and twiddle some knobs. So for the hell of it I decided to bring my laptop, and an I/O (that’s soundman geek talk for input/output device) to capture some audio. I just ran a “board mix” straight into my laptop. If you know what a board mix is then you know they don’t necessarily sound very good. The issue is that POST mixer a ton of processing can take place in the PA. For these guys it’s namely thousands of watts of power with some EQ’s and compression blasting out of dozens of big speakers. So the sound coming out of the console may sound quite weak and out of balance if you don’t listen to it out of the PA.

Board mixes are almost always out of balance due to the stage volume of the players. The guitar player in this band for instance has quite a few Marshall amps which are loud as hell. So since his stage volume is very loud it’s not necessary to pump him out of the PA very much. The resulting recording of would then be lacking guitar because of this.

So what we ended up with was a mix that you would simply critique the band’s playing and tightness. I burned the band a CD of the gig (not from awedeals.com).

A couple of weeks later I get this crazy email from the drummer listing his $30,000 (supposedly) drum kit for sale. I later find out that after the drummer heard the board mix he got into a big fight with his bandmates. He thought the sound sucked and said that the singer sounded stupid when he talked to the audience inbetween songs. This singer has talked like this from day one. The only thing I can figure is that the drummer didn’t have as good of time since he was SOBER for the first time at a gig! Whatever the real reason is the band broke up. I felt a little guilty even though I clearly explained that the board mix wouldn’t sound all that great.

So in trying to do a favor for some guys, I produced the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ll think again before I do any more clients any “favors.”

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Boneheads Gigs

The only Yoko Ono fan in the world

You’re having a drink at the local establishment. Next thing you know you’ve been thrown out on the street because you happen to be the only Yoko Ono fan in the world. It happened.

My band was playing the best live music club in town with a pretty large crowd on hand. Our singer is quite good at “working” an audience with some comments and humor between tunes. One of the things he often says before we play a Beatles song is “why would anyone shoot John Lennon when they had a clear shot at Yoko Ono?” (a valid question I must say)

Upon his delivery of this question someone in the audience yells out “F**K YOU.” Our singer, not to be outdone yells “F**K YOU TOO.” This goes back and forth and our singer says “Jesus Christ, we have the only Yoko Ono fan in the world in our audience…I remember what it was like when I had my first beer too.”

Yoko Ono fan: “F**K YOU”
Singer: “Why are you messing with me? Do I go to your job and rock the slurpee machine?” (audience laughs).
Yoko Ono fan: “F**K YOU”
Singer: “Come up here buddy, let’s make up.”
Yoko Ono fan comes up to the stage…
Singer: “I had a guy like you last night only he had a human head!”
Yoko Ono fan takes a drunken swing at our singer and finds himself being tossed out of the bar by the bouncers.

That’s what you get for being the only Yoko Ono fan in the world.

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Boneheads Gigs Musicians

The gig: Buddy from Fender, drunk chick

Tonights gig was at a new club for me. The other two guys in the band had played there before when I had a sub though.

The club was a pretty cool place and it was packed. I was happy to see an awesome crowd. One of the worst things to have to do as a musician is play in front of no crowd. Our poor bass player has been suffering from pneumonia and he did a great job.

An old pal of mine Jason dropped in to the show tonight from Scottsdale, AZ. Jason is the marketing manager for Fender Audio. Jason is also a crazy guy who had a really cool punk surf band a while back. I let him know about the happenings with this blog and the forum section and he said he would try to link from Fender’s site and he’d post some news in the forums! He also jumped up on stage and sang a song with us tonight (see pic).

There is a stereotype of rock & roll musicians that we always get hot chicks. That’s nice but sometimes there are some “other” types of chicks that are into the band as well. Tonight was a prime example.

There was this obnoxious chick who was drunk as hell. She had the hots for our bass player and stood in front of him almost all night. Finally her mullet ridden boyfriend came up and grabbed her and dragged her away from the stage. I managed (while still playing the drums) to snap this pic (below) right when he grabbed her around her head. They both bit the dust by the side of the stage and couldn’t get up for quite some time…

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Boneheads Gigs Random

BMW Repair


BMW Repair, originally uploaded by mediaguru.

Killing time at the gig. Tonight it is a corporate christmas party. We had to have our gear setup by 6pm but we don’t play until 8:30 (if all their little “presentations” don’t go too long). These corporate gigs are almost all carbon copies of each other. On the breaks they had two CDs they wanted us to play: Kenny G’s Christmas and Mannheim Steamroller Christmas…..Pardon me while I puke.

About the only thing of interest at tonight’s gig is what I noticed about our singer’s car (see picture). I’m wondering if this was done by a certified BMW repair center?

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Boneheads Gigs Musicians Rants

Smithereens=cokeheads

I’m on the “stories of bands I’ve done shows with” flow right now. So today’s victim is the Smithereens.

First off I must say I like the Smithereens music. It is just plain good rock and roll. I don’t want to ruin their secret, but you know all those Marshall guitar amps you see on the stage? They’re all empty. If you know anything about Marshalls you know they are loud as hell. One Marshall can cover a large stage/venue. The Smithereens have tons of Marshalls on the stage and the audience goes “wow look at all those marshalls.” But the cabinets are hollow with no speakers in them. It is all for show those damn cheaters. They are not the only ones that do this either…

My band has done several shows with the Smithereens. I’m guessing about 5. One time we did a show with them in Park City. Apparently the venue didn’t provide them with an “ample” PA system. While I was listening to their show I noticed a terrible distortion and crackling out of the mains. I went up to the soundman and asked him if he could hear the distortion. He said sure and explained that since the PA wasn’t as big as they wanted it, he was going to simply push it way beyond the limits and “blow the fucker.” Well ok then.

The next time we played with them was at a convention hall in Salt Lake. The shows went well. My band had to book out of the gig because we were playing another show at a club about 1 block away. When the Smithereens finished their gig they came over to our gig and the rest of the night was a fun jam fest.

After the gig at the club we all went to my bass player’s house to continue the party. We were all having a good time but the Smithereen dudes needed to have even more of a good time. They started asking everyone there if they had any “blow.” Apparently someone there actually did. (After all, all musicians are on drugs). The party continues until the Smithee’s ran out of their blow. Then they start asking everyone there to call their friends or drug dealers to get them more blow. This happened SEVERAL times.

After doing that much blow, our Smithereen buddies started to get obnoxious. They were starting to really bug the hell out of everyone there and scared most the people away (including me). My bass player told me that the Smithee’s were the last ones to leave, when he “kicked their miserable asses out of his house” at 5:30am.