Category: Musicians

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Musicians Random Rants

Collecting from musicians

One of the things….nightmares….I’d tried to forget about dealing with bands was getting paid. That’s one thing I haven’t missed in my sound engineer retirement.

With the completion of the metal project I’ve had to relive the nightmare. This band has 3 guys and each of the 3 is chipping in his share, supposedly. Band guy #3 keeps “forgetting” to bring his check book or money for me. It sucks to have to collect at all, but having to collect from 3 different people is a pain in the ass.

Bands should have a “representative” who covers all of that and if some band member didn’t bring his checkbook the representitive covers his ass and not me…

UPDATE: Just to be clear I didn’t start this job until I got half the dough up front. I never start jobs like this until I have a deposit. That’s what working with musicians for 25 years will do to you.

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Musicians Random Rants Recording

Metal project done

I wrapped up the big death metal project last week. Glad to have that one in the can so my weeknights are free again. That was one of the things I really didn’t like about running a studio was having no free nights or staying up till all hours of the night listening to boneheads who can’t sing or play their instruments…

You’re going to have to leave

On one of the last sessions I had to kick some drunk ass out of the studio. The band had some “friends” there and they were being drunken idiots. I couldn’t concentrate or hear what I was doing because these guys were jabbering. I hit stop on the playback and sat there. After about 10 seconds all the people in the studio looked at me. I then said I’m not hitting play until this guy is out of here. Thankfully, the band agreed and he was gone.

Don’t bring your damn friends into the studio if you are recording. All you do is end up trying to keep them entertained rather than concentrating on the task at hand.

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Musicians Recording

Didn’t get much done

Working with a completely new system, in a foreign place which isn’t set up for “studio” recording is a pain. I fought and fought with some new gear trying to get the monitoring working properly for the metal band to do some guitar tracks.

Just when I thought I had it, the guitar player’s Marshall fried. What little mojo we had was lost and we didn’t end up getting one measly track done in four hours. So naturally the guys in the band broke out the bong. Yep, all musicians are on drugs.
Dave on guitarBong

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Gigs Musicians Random

Tonight I meet Al Di Meola and my pal Michael

I’m about to jump in my car and drive to Vegas. I’ll be back stage at the House Of Blues for the Al Di Meola show tonight. I’ll be meeting Al Di and my pal Michael Renna for the first time and I’m very excited.

A detailed report with lots of pictures will follow.

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Boneheads Musicians Rants

All musicians are on drugs

I’m out there fighting the battle and trying to prove to the general public that not all musicians are on drugs. Just when I thought I was making progress this article pops up… F’n musicians.