David Dansky, Mixing Audio With Texture

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You are listening to How We Got Loud.
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I'm your host, Chris Weller, and I hope you are enjoying this journey with me as I explore stories about the people, technology, and pastors that built the history of livestock.
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This is just the beginning of a long-term project I'm working on.
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When it comes to the history of livestock, you can find a lot of info, but it's often buried in various parts of the web.
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I want to create the ultimate place for the history of livestock.
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What does that look like?
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I'm not quite sure yet, but we will get there together.
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We wouldn't have this industry if it wasn't for the people who made it happen.
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I want to hear the individual stories and get to know people, whether it mixed engineer system tech to just a local roading.
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We have all added value to creating experiences of connecting people to the great universal language of music.
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These interviews are not intended to be released in chronological order of how the full industry progresses and what will come in time as this project evolves.
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The audio industry is relatively young, and we still have many people with us from the early days.
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I intend to speak with as many of them as possible.
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Today I'm talking with David Danski, who has been in the business since 1970.
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Coming from an electrical engineer background, he was well suited to jump into an industry that needed a lot of innovation early on.
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It's hard to summarize all that David had ventured into over the last 50 years.
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However, David had spent a lot of his career working with adult contemporary showroom acts like Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Engelbert Humperdick, Bet Midler, and many more.
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I mean, I'm mixing, instead of mixing three guitars, keyboards, and maybe a saxophone with drums, I'm mixing, well, not anymore.
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Times have changed.
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And the acts that I work with are gone.
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So I was there during the heyday of, you know, 14 shows a week, but that was a 32-piece band, a 32-piece orchestra.
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All those textures.
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Think of an artist who has a box of Crayolas with eight colors in it, and think of the one who has the box with 64 colors in it.
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That was me.
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I can have textures and tones, and it was, you know, it was wonderful.
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And plus the arrangements, you know, to listen to a beautiful string section.
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Playing with it's it's great.
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So I love it.
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It is very apparent David loves what he's done.
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He also has documented so much of his work.
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So make sure you check out the show notes for a link to the episode page where I will share many of the photos he has sent.
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Please subscribe on whatever podcast platform you use so you don't miss an episode.
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I would also like to ask that if you're enjoying it, tell a friend, help spread the word as we all go on this journey together of how we got loud.
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So David, I want to I want to jump right to one of the most intriguing pictures that you sent me, uh, which is uh Frank Sinatra in the round.
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Now, I I have done a handful of in-the-round gigs myself, and I and I know how difficult that can be.
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Can you can you describe to me what's going on um uh you know, kind of in this picture and and what that system was like?
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This was A1 audio, from what I understand, a VIP system.
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Take take me back to that time, what what was happening there?
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Well, first of all, you have the picture of Sinatra on the stage.
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All right, so you don't you don't need me to show it right now.
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Nope.
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Okay.
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Well, you see how clean that stage is.
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Even you there are no monitors on that stage, there's nothing.
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And it's because it's Sinatra, so he could hear what he needed to hear.
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Uh there were monitors around the edge, and of course the orchestra was down off the stage as well.
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And it was just him looking and it was pretty wonderful to work with him.
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Uh Classy Act, you know, it was he there was no chit-chat, but there was definitely hi, how you doing, that kind of stuff.
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I had a button once that said it's Sinatra's world and we just live in it.
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And uh it's exactly what I was, you know.
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He was in in his own world and he was the chairman of the board, like they said.
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So to tour with him, now I went out as they win audio system engineer.
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I was not the mixer.
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A guy named Bob Kiernan was, and Bob Kiernan had worked with Elvis first, and he was the guy, I believe, who said Elvis has left the building.
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And with Elvis, it was you know 24 spotlights, and that's all you needed to do.
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So he used to call the spotlights and mix the sound.
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So he would have a headset around his head, his ears wouldn't be on, he'd be listening to the show, but the microphone would be in front and he would do the show.
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So now for Sinatra, he was doing the same thing.
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He was mixing lights, calling lights, and mixing sound, and I would set it up for him.
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And he was an in-charge, take charge kind of guy.
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So it was like, okay, I'm you know, working with Frank Sinatra, this is very cool.
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And so I would sit with him during the show and uh watch him mix.
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And now, because he was doing two jobs at once, I kept saying to myself, oh, he should have done this here and he should have done that there, you know, how every engineer does anyway.
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But if you're you can't be 100% on both, it just doesn't work that way.
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So I was a little frustrated, but at the same time, I was really felt special that I was there.
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You know, uh we did in the rounds and we also did um regular shows.
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Like we went to South America, we did shows uh in hotels, which that's a whole nother story about how we did his first time in Argentina and second time in Brazil.
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And uh that's where I got to mix the South American mix.
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So I did mix his show twice.
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I mixed a show that went to South all of South America while Bob was mixing the local show, and then uh he was coming to the Universal Amphitheater in LA to do a show, and he had a show in Denver like the night before, and Bob wanted to be in LA to set it up, so he said, You mix the Denver show, which of course I felt honored to be the guy who mixed it.
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And then Vinny Falcone, his conductor, told me after the show it was the best that old man ever sounded.
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So I had my little, you know, my moment there.
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Absolutely.
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Frank Sinatra.
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I got to mix Frank Sinatra and I got the kudos for doing it.
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That's awesome.
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In the round, it was really interesting because uh that was the only in-the-round tour I ever did.
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And the stage, if you look at it, is not that big, you know, maybe 25 feet across, uh maybe 30 feet across.
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So it wasn't a big stage because it was just him.
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So, and then of course the orchestra was it took out about, I don't know, maybe 90 degrees of that seating area, and then the rest were people.
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So we could set up the PA on the ground outside the stage and then just fly it.
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And I don't know if I sent you those pictures, I think I might have.
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But that was the VIP system.
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A1 Audio had this really interesting system.
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He called it the VIP for vertically integrated power, and it was a self-powered system back in the 70s, which was really unique.
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Al Stenescal understood the uh loading on uh amplifiers for uh back EMF and all of that stuff.
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So they had crown amps in the back, and and uh the main speaker cabinet was an RCA movie theater speaker that he discovered that had 215s in it and a lot of air.
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It was seven feet tall with two fifteen, and it had a horn and it had ports, and he'd have a uh BGW 750 in the back of that, and that would be uh one side per speaker, and then for the horns, he had another cabinet that fit perfectly on it or in between.
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They had two 2482 uh JBL compression drivers on 90-degree horns that were rigid because he jammed that expanding home foam in there so there was no resonance.
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You would tap them and it was like clunk clunk instead of ring ring, and then he had a uh I don't know how what the degrees were, but he had eight of the JBL bullets with the with the circular uh cones in them for the high end, and so he had uh one half of an amplifier for the two drivers and one half of an amplifier for the eight drivers, and so it was really simple.
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And then he had this multi-pair connector that went in and just daisy chained every speaker together, and then the back of the speaker you could click left, center, or right.
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So it was really a simple one line from the front of house to the stage, an eight-pair, and then daisy chain throughout the entire PA and get what you wanted.
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So we could put left, right, left, right, left, right around uh the flying system, and that was really wonderful.
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The other thing that he did, because A1 Audio, uh, I know you wanted to talk about A1, so let's talk about that part.
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Al Sanderscal is an actual electrical engineer.
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He did guidance systems for the military, the Air Force, and then he put all of that knowledge of fail-safe, you know, no room for errors, it must work into his set his company.
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So it was an amazing company.
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One of the things that he invented that actually won an award was that he would have uh the banana, a double banana connector between the speaker and the amplifier, and in that he was able to mount fuse clips on the end of the connector.
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So every speaker in his system was fused.
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So you would never blow a speaker.
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But in order to know when that fuse blew, he put a little neon bulb in between.
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So when all of a sudden there was a voltage difference between the two sides, the bulb would light and it would light with like music.
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You know, you could see it so you could tell right away if you blew a fuse, and meanwhile, you had a system that never blew drivers.
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So that was pretty cool.
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That's one of the many things that that A1 Audio did.
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So when I uh most of the most of the time you didn't work for A1 Audio, I worked for the artist.
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90% of my career or more has been working for the artist.
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And Al would find you that job and tell the artist we have somebody and you'd work for the artist.
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So you made more money and you were an independent.
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And then when you weren't working, your system would go back into the shop and you go back and put in shop time for your system or somebody else's, but that meant that these other guys would have a first engineer working on their system.
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So it was a wonderful thing all the way around.
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You know, Al wanted every engineer to be able to buy his own home, and the way to do that was him for not to for him not to pay us, but for the act to pay us.
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And it worked out great.
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You know, he was just a great guy.
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So Snatcher was one of the very few times I was actually a systems engineer for A1 Audio.
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But it was worth it.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Um, so let's let's let's jump back.
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Um, how did how did you get into this uh this this crazy business of audio?
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I was very lucky.
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I uh I went to college and graduated as an electrical engineer.
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I didn't like it.
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I didn't like the people, the people were boring.
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Uh I found the whole concept boring, but it was a great background for me to then maybe get an MBA, move on.
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Uh Vietnam War was going on at that point, and I figured this would help me stay out of the infantry.
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And I was always good in electronics.
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So I graduated as an engineer.
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I got a job my first year out, an amazing job, which in itself is an interesting story.
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But after a year, the company went out of business, and I didn't know what to do.
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I was living in Manhattan.
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I had lucked out, like I said, I was lucky.
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I had an apartment in Manhattan in the Upper East Side for $44 a month for two bedrooms in a nice building, a walk-up, but a nice building.
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So I had no overhead.
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I was able to say, okay, I'm collecting unemployment.
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I don't want to do engineering, electrical engineering anymore.
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What am I going to do?
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And after six months, I had a guy living with me, so my rent was really $22 a month.
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And uh we ran into a friend of his who was working for a management company who was the guy who put the Beatles in Shea Stadium.
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He's an impresario.
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He uh had found a band that he really liked in New York, and this guy was saying, Yeah, we're looking for a road manager and we're looking for a sound engineer.
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And I went, Well, I'm an engineer.
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Ed Ganappe.
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It turns out the band was a huge success.
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The entire album was being played in New York.
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It played at every venue in New York City, it played Carnegie Hall and uh Lincoln Center and Madison Square Garden and the Academy of Music, and it played every place you Schaefer's uh in Central Park.
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It played everywhere, and it was this huge hit, especially on the East Coast.
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They they headlined an 85,000-person concert at RFK Stadium.
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They played with Duke Ellington, they played with Deep Purple, they played with uh Stevie Wonder, they played with James Brown, they played with the Allman brothers because they were jazz, RB, funk, horn band, and percussion band.
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The name of the band was Mandrill, and there's some amazing videos of back in the 70s, and people to this day say it was one of the best concerts they ever went to because everybody was dancing throughout the entire show.
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It was one of those, and they had 22 instruments, and so my first band with me now is a house mixer.
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My first job.
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I didn't have to work my way up through the trenches or any of that.
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Was this huge hit, and they had like congos, bongos, and timbales, or trumpet, sacks, and trombone, or flute, or vibes.
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So they did jazz.
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I mean, they did everything.
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So I had to learn quickly, but I had a background.
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You know, what's a dynamic versus the condenser mic?
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Oh, it's a charge plate.
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Ah, okay, sure, I got it.
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So all of those things that you needed to learn quickly, I learned quickly.
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And meanwhile, the band was doing great.
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And it was early enough that SIR had just gotten started.
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So that I got to meet the guy, the owners of SIR, because they only had one place.
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And the case company, the only people making rock and roll cases was a guy whose father had a case company.
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It was Anvil Cases.
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So I met the owners of Anvil Cases, and Mandrill ordered 40 cases from all these instruments, and they never had an order like that.
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So I became a big fish in a big pond of my first band.
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I was really fortunate.
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And I spent five years with those guys, and I was like part of the band.
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It was it was family because the me reason they picked Mandrel for a name is the Mandrel is a baboon that's really family-oriented, and yet it has fangs this long.
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So I was like, you know, whatever you need, it's got.
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And so that was my start.
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And you had never touched an audio console before working for them.
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No.
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As a matter of fact, in rehearsals, they had a sure vocal master, which was, you know, little round knobs, six inputs, and they didn't even have the balanced inputs.
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They had the quarter-inch instrument inputs, so I had the inline transformers, some XLR to quarter inch.
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They rehearsed, their mom had a beauty parlor in Bedford Stuyvesant.
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So we rehearsed there, and then my very first show where I actually had a console was the downstairs at the village gate on New Year's Eve 1970.
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So that's my anniversary, is is that.
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I mean, the mixers back then were there weren't mixers.
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Right.
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You had the Altec Green mixers, which was you know a base and treble for four inputs or five inputs, and then you had the Little Shore M67s, and then they had an EQ that would go to that.
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So now you had that with a base in treble and all of that.
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So I was around watching these companies and these engineers build the very first consoles.
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And I, you know, like the pilots who flew with the stick when they were, you know, flying, and eventually they're sitting there punching in frequencies for the radios.
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I was there for all the new stuff that came along.
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So and plus with my engineering background, everybody wanted to talk to me about stuff because I'm now the one thing about Mandrel is they didn't tour like touring, they went out and did spot gigs all year long, but that's what they did.
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So I used a PA that was local to the promoter wherever we were.
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I had a list of acceptable PAs, which to people from my era will bring back a lot of memories.
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You know, Claire was in every, so was you know, Kelly DeYoung in Vancouver, and all these other companies were in there, and so I got to use every piece of gear that was available, see what microphones were available, and then tell people what I've learned from other sound companies.
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So I was kind of you know cross-pollinating the sound industry in the US at the time.
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And for me it was great.
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It was a great experience.
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That's awesome.
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And so um, how did uh how did how did you progress beyond that or how long did you stay with them?
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I stayed with them for five years.
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After five years, I saw that I mean, at one point they were headlining over Earth Window Fire and back and forth.
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I mean, they were doing really well, but they weren't getting past that point.
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And I got a call from someone, uh a friend, a guy who owned a sound company in Philly, who was now in charge of the Doobie Brothers sound system for their new tour when they just got Michael McDonald and they had just gotten Jeff Baxter.
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And it was like Doobie Dan, you know, and when it minute by minute came out, and they were getting ready to be this major show.
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And he said, come out west, they're gonna have two consoles, one for percussion and drums, because they're two drummers, and one for the rest of the band.
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That guy's gonna be the lead guy, you'll be the drum guy.
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And Gray Ingram from the Agora in Cleveland or Cincinnati was gonna be the main guy.
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And so this was the whole thing before cell phones and everything else.
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So I was where was I?
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I was living in the uh I was I had moved to California just before that.
00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:26.319
But the band was so popular in the East Coast that I was spending all my time in a in a hotel in Philadelphia.
00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:41.759
So anyway, by the time I was able to get from Philadelphia to Winterland in San Francisco for the rehearsals, they needed a oh, and they said to me, until we get to two boards, API was building them two studio consoles for the road.
00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:44.880
This was going, you know, state-of-the-art stuff.
00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:50.000
But they didn't have them yet, they were still mixing on the Spectrasonics or one of those.
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:52.319
And so they didn't need a second mixer yet.
00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:56.559
So they said, You'll be the drum tech, drum roadie, which is what we were back then.
00:18:56.559 --> 00:19:01.039
You'll be the drum roadie until we go on the road, and then we'll pick up the boards on the East Coast.
00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:04.160
The manager didn't want to pay for the second mixer in rehearsal.
00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:05.920
So, okay, I'll be the drum roadie.
00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:07.200
Meanwhile, they start rehearsals.
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.960
It's taking me a long time to get there, so they hire a drum roadie.
00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:14.640
I show up, they go, Oh man, we don't know what to do.
00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:21.680
Stick around, build the system, and then we'll go out, and hopefully the manager will pay for you because we're going out to get the second console anyway.
00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:25.519
So I build the sound system, I get to meet the guys, I'm hanging out with the crew.
00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:27.920
The music is wonderful, of course.
00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:30.079
They leave without me.
00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:34.400
Because the manager was the board, they weren't getting the boards for weeks.
00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:35.839
So they left without me.
00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:38.160
So I had called up Bob Goldstein.
00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:40.400
He had offered me a job.
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:42.079
So MSI.
00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:54.400
So I take my truck and with my camper in it, and I drive back to the East Coast, and I park it in the in the in the factory in the warehouse that they have there, and I I rent an office because I don't want to move to Baltimore.
00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:56.640
Keep me on the road, Bob, keep me on the road.
00:19:56.640 --> 00:20:09.440
And uh I started working with MSI, and MSI sent me out on Harry Chapin as assistant tech, and sent me out on uh blood, sweat, and tears as the mixer, and sent me out on all sorts of stuff.
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:14.640
It's MSI, they were doing great, and and MSI was also a state-of-the-art company.
00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:16.000
They were building their own consoles.
00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:23.119
They had a guy named Dave Smith, who was a brilliant engineer, and so everything was in-house at MSI.
00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:25.599
And as a matter of fact, I'm very proud of this.
00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:35.599
The three sound companies that I actually worked for in my life were Bobby Goldstein at MSI, Stan Miller at Stanel Sound, and Al Sanderskell at A1.
00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:41.440
Among the first three of the audio pioneers for the uh the award, the uh what you call it awards.
00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:42.480
My mind just forgot the name.
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:43.119
Pornelli.
00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:44.480
The Pornelli Awards.
00:20:44.480 --> 00:20:48.480
The three guys who are so I worked with the best of the best.
00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:49.839
It was really great.
00:20:49.839 --> 00:21:00.960
Uh anyway, so uh Bobby uh had I was out with the with uh I guess blood, sweat, and tears, and they wanted to make me the road manager.
00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:06.720
They liked me so much, they said we're gonna get so now I have this major move up in my life and career.
00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:09.519
And Bobby says, No, we just picked up the Neil Sadaka account.
00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:10.720
I want you on that account.
00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:14.079
So he pulled me off of this and put me out with Sadaka.
00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:22.720
Now, Neil Sadaka, who was a huge hit in the 60s with Dom Dooby-Doo, Dom Dom and all that, had died the day the Beatles arrived.
00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:29.200
Nobody cared about that old rock and roll music, and so he couldn't get arrested in the U.S.
00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.359
This is in the 63, 64.
00:21:31.359 --> 00:21:37.200
So he moved to England, where he was still popular, and he's still not doing great, but he's doing okay.
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:54.960
And then in the 70s, Elton John hears that his hero, a Juilliard graduate piano playing singer songwriter, Elton John, an older version, was having issues, and he said to Neil, Neil, let's put out an album.
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:57.119
I have Rocket Records, my own label.
00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:59.839
And Neil put out an album with Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.
00:21:59.839 --> 00:22:07.359
And uh the corporators did uh uh my mind is like a Swiss cheese, it's got holes in it.
00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:10.079
They did uh Siddhartha with Sedaka's back and all those.
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:12.240
So Sedaka was huge.
00:22:12.240 --> 00:22:19.599
And I got to work with Neil, and through Neil, I got to do my first casino show.
00:22:19.599 --> 00:22:21.519
I had never done a casino show.
00:22:21.519 --> 00:22:23.680
I didn't know there was an orchestra.
00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:33.920
When we're driving, we had done a bunch of uh radio shows and festivals because it was summertime, and now we were gonna do the first casino show that he was first headliner.
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:35.519
He had opened for the carpenters.
00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:39.359
He did so well that Bill Harris said, Neil, you're gonna work with me now from now on.
00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:50.000
So we're driving from San Francisco Airport with the equipment, and the and the monitor guy, Pete Giansane, who's another led legend because his brother was a big one at MSI too.
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:52.720
Uh, Pete had done the show with the Carpenters.
00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:55.039
And he said, and I'm saying, well, this console's fine.
00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.440
You know, I got my 1824 inputs, so I'm doing great.
00:22:57.440 --> 00:22:58.799
He says, What about the strings?
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:00.160
I go, what strings?
00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:01.440
What?
00:23:01.440 --> 00:23:02.880
How do I mic strings?
00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:10.400
I had tried to mic Mandrel at Carnegie Hall, which is, you know, not is made for a violin to fill the room.
00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:15.359
And here's a band with horns and percussion and drums and monitors.
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:25.839
And I foolishly went to a friend of mine from Electric Lady Studios who lent me these U87 microphones to put over the strings, and they were totally useless.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:30.319
You know, so I'm sitting saying, Oh my god, my only experience with strings has been a disaster.
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:31.920
And we said, Yeah, well, what about the horns?
00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:32.720
What horns?
00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:33.759
What are you talking about?
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:34.559
Percussion?
00:23:34.559 --> 00:23:35.680
What's in the percussion?
00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:36.480
A harp?
00:23:36.480 --> 00:23:37.759
How do I make a harp?
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:40.319
This is all while we're driving to San Francisco.
00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:44.000
It was Harris Reno was the first one, which is a tiny little room.
00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:54.319
So I get to the room and Jim Jawasky, this sound guy, uh, who's been doing shows here forever, you know, and uh it was 14 shows a week.
00:23:54.319 --> 00:23:58.640
So you close a Sunday night and you work all night.
00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:06.880
They come in at Sunday afternoon, they do the two shows, they tear out that show, they put in the next show because everybody had their own bandstand.
00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:10.240
And then you rehearse that show and then you go home.
00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.920
So they're putting in 36-hour days, and I'm putting in a long day too.
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:17.839
And I uh and but they do the same thing, there's the same orchestras, the same.
00:24:17.839 --> 00:24:22.559
So I say to him very nonchalantly, so what do you have for strings?
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:25.599
And he tells me, I go, Great, perfect.
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:28.160
They put the string mics on because it's his crew.
00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:36.880
I did that through all the mics, and that I I kind of skated my way through, and of course it sounded great because they knew how to mic it and they had the right mics for it.
00:24:36.880 --> 00:25:04.000
So, but uh what I discovered was instead of one-nighters and sleeping in the truck while we're driving to the next gig and wearing jeans and t-shirts, I now was in a place for a week at a time where I could take an elevator to the job, work with 30 musicians who studied music and could read sight read music, and work for one star and not a band, with the best arrangements and the most wonderful songs.
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:05.839
I thought, who couldn't love this?
00:25:05.839 --> 00:25:07.279
And that changed my life.
00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:12.480
So Neil Sudaka is one of the big Zecs as far as changes go, and that's it.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:14.720
I stayed in that genre forever.
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:20.079
Give me 2,500 people or 1,500 people in a showroom with someone who can make people laugh.
00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:23.119
I've worked with some of the funniest entertainers ever.
00:25:23.119 --> 00:25:26.640
You know, Debbie Reynolds just cracks people up all the time.
00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:28.079
I spent 40 years with her.
00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:34.079
Charo, Coochie Coochie Charo, who's an amazing flamenco guitarist, makes people laugh.
00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:44.799
So, and then these acts, even if they didn't, you know, working with Sidaka or um Bobby Vinton or any of the other acts I work with had comedians to open them up.
00:25:44.799 --> 00:25:47.039
I spent my whole career laughing.
00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:48.480
It's been great.
00:25:49.759 --> 00:25:52.640
So I'm curious, um, a couple things.
00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:56.400
Um, how much were you influenced as a kid by music?
00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:00.000
Um, given that this wasn't necessarily the career path you had chosen.
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.000
So I'm curious, you know, I you know, I you kind of stumbled into it from an electronic standpoint.
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:11.359
Where was that shift where you realized, hey, uh this is why I'm doing this, and it's not because of technical.
00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:13.839
I I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm assuming I'm not sure if words in your mouth.
00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:22.000
I'm assuming that like there's probably a shift at some point where it's, hey, I'm here for the art and passion of what's happening here, more so than I am because of the tech that's happening here.
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:22.720
Or maybe I'm wrong.
00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:24.480
Oh no, you're absolutely right.
00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:26.240
Because first of all, I'm from New York.
00:26:26.240 --> 00:26:29.359
I was born in the Bronx and I was raised in White Plains.
00:26:29.359 --> 00:26:31.839
White Plains is a 30-minute drive to Manhattan.
00:26:31.839 --> 00:26:34.880
And my mother loved theater, and my father couldn't care less.
00:26:34.880 --> 00:26:37.519
So she would take me to see Broadway shows.
00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:42.000
Uh, you know, Oh Dolly or Gypsy or, you know, the first runs of these shows.
00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:45.039
And so I always loved that part of it.
00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:49.920
I studied piano from 9 to 15 or 14.
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:52.240
So I had music theory.
00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:53.759
I hated to practice.
00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:56.480
I could just I could just play stuff by ear, no problem.
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:01.440
I could pick up any instrument and get sounds out of it, but I just didn't like the practicing part.
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:05.759
But I had a music background, and on top of that, my family loved to dance.
00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:11.519
I had an uncle, my father's brother was a champion at Roseland in Latin dancing.
00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:14.160
They would have lessons and all of that.
00:27:14.160 --> 00:27:25.359
So I danced, you know, you know, whether it was ballroom dancing or not, I danced, and I got to the point where I actually was paid once to be a go-go dancer at a major club in Manhattan.
00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:28.880
Now it was just a bunch of this stuff, but it didn't matter.
00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:33.279
I was in college, I used to drive in on the weekends to New York and dance and drive back.
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:35.279
It was great for my reputation.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:40.000
I was in a fraternity, and next thing you know, we're all dancing on the tables and having a great time.
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.480
But I've been around music my whole life.
00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:43.279
I've loved music.
00:27:43.279 --> 00:27:46.160
And when you're a dancer, you feel the music.
00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:51.839
So that's why Mandrel was such a great band because that's what everybody did.
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:52.960
They just danced.
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:58.480
The minute the band came out on stage, they were on their feet and they didn't sit down for the whole show.
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:00.000
And so it was great for me.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.039
I know how to make people dance because I know what makes me want to dance.
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:06.720
So yeah, and the art of it was really big in the beginning.
00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:11.519
When when I heard that this band needed a sound guy, it was like, wow, music.
00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:12.559
I'm in.
00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:16.079
So yeah, that was that was it.
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:18.400
Well, what was the point then, though?
00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:20.960
So you were kind of fake it to make it in the beginning.
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:26.160
What did you when was the point where you maybe felt comfortable, like, okay, I got this.
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:28.960
This is I I know where I am, I know where I need to go.
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:29.839
Like, where was that?
00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:30.880
When was that shift?
00:28:31.119 --> 00:28:40.720
I actually was comfortable almost from the very beginning, you know, learning a few things here and there, but uh there wasn't that much to learn.
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:45.839
Balance lines, that that was all pretty simple stuff, and especially back then when everything was simple.
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:53.359
But having to find one of the biggest problems putting a sound system together in the beginning was ground loops, buzzes, and hums.
00:28:53.359 --> 00:28:55.359
And I had a background in that.
00:28:55.359 --> 00:29:03.440
So right away I was able to help the sound, and remember this on top of that, we were using local sound companies.
00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:10.720
So I had experienced people there ready to help me in what I if I needed help.
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:15.200
So I was comfortable right from the very first day, no problem at all.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:17.680
You know, that's great.
00:29:18.799 --> 00:29:22.079
Um, so uh Engelbert Humperdick.
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:25.039
And I I can't say I cannot say his name right.
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:26.079
How do you say his name right?
00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:27.039
Humperdink.
00:29:27.039 --> 00:29:28.000
Humperdink.
00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:35.200
Humperdink Engelbert Humperdink was a famous German literary character or something like that, and they just took the name.
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:35.680
Oh, okay.
00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:40.400
Tom Jones was a you know, because they came out around the same time, they had the same manager.
00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:46.400
For all I know, the guy came up with the two names for the two of them, but uh that's where it came from.
00:29:46.400 --> 00:29:53.519
But anyway, Engelbert my wife says I got my gray hair from Engelbert, that's where it came from.
00:29:53.519 --> 00:29:58.240
He he he was the best and he was the worst.
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:02.160
I mean, I have to say, I feel really fortunate to have worked with him.
00:30:02.160 --> 00:30:09.680
His voice and his material, the songs and the arrangements, were unbelievably wonderful to work with.
00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:20.079
To be a mixer and to have a full orchestra to mix the textures and the beauty of the songs, and he picked the best songs and he had the best songs.
00:30:20.079 --> 00:30:21.759
And his voice was unbelievable.
00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:24.880
He was a great-looking guy, and he was two people.
00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:29.200
He was Enge offstage and he was Engelbert on stage.
00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:36.559
And Engelbert, as you saw in that article, well, actually, the article didn't begin to tell you how difficult he was to work with.
00:30:36.559 --> 00:30:49.440
He was really hard to please because even when you had it perfect in three days, without changing a thing, all of a sudden it wasn't perfect anymore, and it was horrible.
00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:53.200
And so you had to come in and try something else, and try something else.
00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:57.279
And the poor monitor guy was, you know, Engelbert had his own language.
00:30:57.279 --> 00:31:04.319
He used to, while he was singing, he used to do things with his hand to give you signals of what he wanted.
00:31:04.319 --> 00:31:09.200
More hives, less hives, more reverb, depth, louder, softer, everything.
00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:17.759
So these monitor guys who are, first of all, in order to get the gig, it's not that you ever got fired from Engelbert, that's your recommendation.
00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:19.759
It's that you got hired in the first place.
00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:28.799
Because only the state-of-the-art, top-line best engineers got hired because they're the only ones who had a chance of surviving on that show.
00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:32.480
And he paid well, and so you got the best guys.
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:38.640
And they didn't do and and still during the 18 months I was with them, there were 18 different monitor guys.
00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:53.519
You know, one guy lasted weeks, but one guy lasted less than a song, which is a whole we uh uh we were in the round, which of course is horrible because the sound, the monitors shoot straight up to the ceiling and it's a dome.
00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:54.480
So what does it do?
00:31:54.480 --> 00:31:59.279
The sound bounces straight down and and just mixes everything up.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:03.519
So we'd be in the round, and he'd be making signs all over the place.
00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:06.400
And we had one of the best engineers in the business.
00:32:06.400 --> 00:32:11.680
And Engelbert and a friend of ours was working for Shure Mics.
00:32:11.680 --> 00:32:25.519
He was an engineer, he was the first guy out there with Melissa Manchester, all these other acts, and he was working with Shure and helping them develop new microphones, and so he came to us with a new capsule, an SM87 capsule.
00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:27.920
It was 85, the 87 wasn't out yet.
00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:30.240
The 87 capsule for us to try.
00:32:30.240 --> 00:32:32.240
Maybe we could make him happy with that.
00:32:32.240 --> 00:32:35.359
I mean, it would working with Engelbert was non-stop.
00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:37.119
What can we do to improve it?
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:38.480
What can we do to make it better?
00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:44.400
And it got better, and it got unbelievable, but it still wasn't enough many, many times.
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:54.960
But anyway, so he's standing next to the monitor guy while the show is going on, and Engelbert is unhappy and he sees the guy there and he goes and he points to him.
00:32:54.960 --> 00:33:04.720
I can't see your hand, he points to him and says, You, he didn't say it, he went you there for the monitor position, and you out.
00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:08.880
So the monitor guy gets off, and the other guy gets on.
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:10.000
What's he gonna do?
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:15.039
You know, so he stands there, and before the song is over, he goes, Okay, you off, you back on again.
00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:18.799
So I count him as one of the 18 that got fired.
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:25.759
And so uh um, and Ken, so Ken Newman had that gig before you is that correct?
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:30.640
Ken Newman had Engelbert before me, and then he came on to Engelbert to work on the monitors.
00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:36.880
And Ken is a brilliant engineer, so he was able to keep him happy for a relatively long amount of time.
00:33:36.880 --> 00:33:43.599
And what happens is you either get burnt out and you say, I can't take this anymore, I'm out of here, or you get fired.
00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:46.720
Sooner or later, you're gone for whatever reason.
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:50.559
Uh, I started to bring up um what was I?
00:33:50.559 --> 00:33:54.240
I was gonna tell a story about uh Engelberg.
00:33:54.240 --> 00:34:05.039
But anyway, uh these guys would just come in, and and and the road manager used to have one of them sitting in a hotel waiting, you know, on deck to do it.
00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:09.679
So but at the same time, mixing that show.
00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:31.760
Well, mixing the show was difficult because the what the level coming off the stage was so loud that many times all I could do was roll the high end off his microphone, or roll the low end off his microphone, and just put some sibilants in there and try to get some sibilants on some of the strings, and I couldn't mix the show because the stage volume was so loud that all I could do was augment it.
00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:39.760
So sometimes, but every once in a while we were in a big enough place that I could really get into the meat of the mix, and it was just wonderful.
00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:43.519
And so this is around around 1985, correct?
00:34:43.519 --> 00:34:48.719
Yeah, what uh what what what console were you on at the time?
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:54.000
Uh I have a lousy memory, but probably a PM 2000 around that era.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:55.760
Now, here's another thing that happened.
00:34:55.760 --> 00:34:58.159
Like I said, it was constantly looking to improve.
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.840
In-ear monitors were not really around yet.
00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:26.159
And the guy who invented in-ear monitors for Stevie Wonder, Stephen Ambrose, and now you may hear stories about all these other people, but Stephen Ambrose was the guy who started it, and he got he he he found the ear molds, but he needed the electronics, the transmitters and receivers to go with it, and he convinced Crystal Taylor Sound to come up with that.
00:35:26.159 --> 00:35:33.119
And the two of them together created the in-air monitor system, and so we hired him for Engelbert.
00:35:33.119 --> 00:35:35.280
And of course, Engelbert doesn't, you know, what do you do?
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:45.199
First of all, it's a new they didn't want to pay for a second console, so now you have to set up an in-air mix and you have to be ready for him to pull them out and go to the speaker mix.
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:52.480
We ended up with a studio engineer and a monitor engineer standing next to each other waiting for whichever one was going to be on it.
00:35:52.480 --> 00:36:21.599
And we got Engelbert on uh in ears, and what was interesting was once again, A1 Audio being what they are, uh they decided that the best, and by the way, Morde Garcia hadn't really come up with this stuff yet, so you couldn't buy it, you had to make it, and so A1 Audio created a wireless radio station for Angelbert, and instead of a tenth of a watt milliwatt, I mean you know, 10 milliwatts or 50 milliwatts, it was a 10-watt radio station.
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:25.280
We were broadcasting all over Vegas for the show.
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:35.599
But in order to keep it private, we realized that in Japan, FM radio starts at 66 or something, as opposed to 88, where it starts for us.
00:36:35.599 --> 00:36:42.480
So we went to Japan and bought little FM receivers, tuned the whole system between 66 and 88 somewhere.
00:36:42.559 --> 00:36:42.800
Oh, wow.
00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:51.119
And we had a wireless monitor system for Angleberg, which worked with no dropouts with the shitty antennas and everything else that we had.
00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:56.639
Uh, but of course, and after just a couple of minutes, he would pull it out and we go back to the live.
00:36:56.639 --> 00:37:03.280
But we got I got to know Steven Ambrose, I got to understand and work with the in-air wireless monitor systems back then.
00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:06.960
And I have pictures of that original transmitter.
00:37:06.960 --> 00:37:11.199
That should be in the Smithsonian or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
00:37:11.199 --> 00:37:13.119
Because this is the very beginning of all of this.
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:20.000
Stevie Wonder was about 74, 75, 76, and and that was just you know little ear things.
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:26.960
And then the ear molds came in somewhere around 81, 82, 83, 84s, and we we were doing this in '84.
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:35.360
So like I said, I'm the guy who started by with the flying by stick and working my way through technology as it all came along.
00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:38.960
I feel very fortunate to have been part of this.
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:47.360
You had um along along that journey?
00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:55.199
Well, with Mandrel, I was on my own, other than you know, meeting people left and right.
00:37:55.199 --> 00:38:04.320
And then uh when I went with Maryland Sound, Dave Smith, who was building all the electronics, and I became very good friends.
00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:14.239
And he, you know, being one of the very few engineers in the business with an actual engineering degree, he could talk to me about things that he couldn't talk to with other engineers.
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:18.480
So I was in there in the shop a lot and watching a lot of what was going on.
00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:19.840
So Dave was pretty good.
00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:23.599
He wasn't really a mentor, but he was an informative friend.
00:38:23.599 --> 00:38:28.000
Uh and Bobby Goldstein was always great uh to work with.
00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:39.920
Uh Sam Miller also, but Al Sanderskal was probably my biggest mentor because he took it as his job to make sure I had a great career.
00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:44.000
He liked what I did, he liked my personality, we became friends.
00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:47.199
He knew he could count on me, that I could do the job with these.
00:38:47.199 --> 00:38:50.800
A1 audio had the most difficult artists in the business.
00:38:50.800 --> 00:39:02.639
Everyone who you know was firing everybody else, we've come to A1, and because of the quality of the equipment and the quality of the engineers and the personal service that they got, they would stay with A1.
00:39:02.639 --> 00:39:04.880
So I loved it.
00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:06.559
Al got me a lot of work.
00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:09.840
As a matter of fact, uh, most of my work came from Al.
00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:13.519
I started with A1 officially in '79.
00:39:13.519 --> 00:39:18.239
And he sold the company in I don't know, 2000 something.
00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:22.800
So that was a lot of years of uh Al helping me out.
00:39:22.800 --> 00:39:25.519
So he is my biggest mentor and a great friend.
00:39:25.519 --> 00:39:36.000
All right, so Ken Newman is working with a friend of mine, and they're putting the sound system in the House of Blues Sunset Strip, and uh designing it from scratch.
00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:57.039
And this is a stage uh that has a bar in the back that swings open, and now the people in the upstairs bark and see the show or swings closed, and now there's a wall in front of the stage, and so there's all these areas that have to be done, uh state-of-the-art equipment going in, and I end up taking over from Kenny and doing the install.
00:39:57.039 --> 00:40:04.880
So that was fun because the opening night act could uh these things always run late, so we never even had a real sound check.
00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:14.079
The opening we didn't have a sound check, the opening act was Aerosmith, and they're gonna come out and blast out, and we have no idea if the system's gonna blow up or it's gonna work.
00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:18.239
But it ended up winning Nightclub of the Year, and it worked great.
00:40:18.239 --> 00:40:22.559
But uh, that's another one of the things I'm really proud of having done.
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:26.800
House of Blue Sunset Strip, which is now a hole in the ground, it's gone.
00:40:28.239 --> 00:40:29.280
That's awesome.
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:31.840
Where did you go after uh Engelbert?
00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:34.880
Oh, it's just a series of acts that came through.
00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:41.440
It was uh Shirley McLean, it was Tommy Toon, which got me into the theater world.
00:40:41.440 --> 00:40:45.760
I've done I've got a Broadway design credit, and I did a bunch of theatrical stuff.
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:59.599
Uh installs through A1 Audio when I actually did work for A1 Audio, or myself and hired A1 Audio, uh Tony Orlando and Don, uh uh Donna Summer, uh Bet Midler and Cher.
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:00.880
That was actually Steno.
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:04.159
Uh Jesus, there's so many.
00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:09.840
Ann Margaret, um well, of course, Sinatra, uh Julio.
00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:16.719
There's uh just another 20 that my mind isn't coming up anymore.
00:41:16.719 --> 00:41:18.400
But I just I just kept working.
00:41:18.400 --> 00:41:35.840
I mean, I was with Angelbert for 18 months, then I was with Shirley for a year, then I was with Tommy Toon for a year and a half, and then I did a show, uh a Las Vegas production show called Splash, and it was a water show, and it had a tank with mermaids in it, and it had a typical Vegas show.
00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:39.440
You'd have a dance number with themes, and then you have specialty acts.
00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:42.960
You'd have a juggler or you'd have a Michael Jackson look-alike.
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:50.800
And it was this show that was so popular that it was the number one show that the Japanese would come, and this was in the 90s when they owned everything.
00:41:50.800 --> 00:42:03.280
So one of the ja uh one of them, a man who had his own golf course, which meant he was a you know multi-multi-millionaire, decided to bring that show to live to Japan outside of Osaka.
00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:11.440
And Awan Audio had done Awyn Audio was in charge of almost every Vegas showroom because of what they did.
00:42:11.440 --> 00:42:15.519
And so at the Riviera Hotel, that was their sound system.
00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:21.360
So they got the call to design and help design the sound system for Japan.
00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:25.280
And I get this call from Al says, I need you to go to Japan to put the show in.
00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:27.199
You'll be there for two weeks.
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:33.920
And this show had lasers and it had uh time code and it had uh pyrotechnics.
00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:35.679
It was a really big production show.
00:42:35.679 --> 00:42:38.960
It won the Las Vegas Production Show of the Year like nine times.
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:45.440
So we get to Japan, and this show is 90 minutes outside of Osaka, where the hot springs are.
00:42:45.440 --> 00:42:47.920
That's where you build the golf course, is where there's a hot springs.
00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:50.960
You don't just build a golf course, you gotta have both together.
00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:58.079
So we're 90 minutes outside, and we're surrounded by rice patties and a little two-story town that the train stopped in.
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:05.599
And so the only people that they could get to work on the show were people, local people, who had no experience whatsoever.
00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:12.000
The sound guy's requirements, his qualifications were that he was a ham radio operator.
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:14.880
That was his qualification for mixing a musical show.
00:43:14.880 --> 00:43:16.239
That's as good as it got.
00:43:16.239 --> 00:43:18.239
So the pyro guy had no idea.
00:43:18.239 --> 00:43:21.119
So we all get to Japan, the whole American crew.
00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:33.280
The concept was there was an English show caller, an American crew to teach the Japanese crew things coming in and out, the whole deal.
00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:35.760
They were gonna learn upstage, downstage, in out.
00:43:35.760 --> 00:43:44.000
They were gonna learn the American words, and then the only American running the show was the show caller, who sat in the audience instead of the stage manager, you know, and then the dancers.
00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:49.920
So we get there, and there's a big meet and greet, and everybody starts to realize that nobody knows what's going on.
00:43:49.920 --> 00:43:53.920
You can't the pyro guy says there's no way in hell I'm giving them explosives.
00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:58.400
The laser guy says it's gonna cost you $100,000 in less than a week, it's gonna burn out your laser.
00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:03.599
So the Japanese realized they've Better hire every one of these Americans to run the show.
00:44:03.599 --> 00:44:06.159
So my two weeks turned into nine months.
00:44:06.159 --> 00:44:06.480
Wow.
00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:13.599
Living in Japan, working there on a great show, and having an amazing experience.
00:44:13.599 --> 00:44:18.000
So that was Al who gave me that gig, and it was wonderful.
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:24.880
So for a better part of your career, were you were you mixing or were you system teching or was it a good balance of both?
00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:27.760
Most of my career I worked for the house guy.
00:44:27.760 --> 00:44:31.039
I mean, I worked for the artist and I've been a house mixer.
00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:52.239
I would say out of a thousand shows, or let's say a hundred percent, five percent was not even five percent, two percent was at a monitor guy, maybe twenty percent was a monitor and a house guy together, and the rest was front of house and system tech five percent, maybe, if that.
00:44:52.239 --> 00:44:56.559
I mean, I've been a front of house guy for my whole career, and I've loved it.
00:44:56.559 --> 00:45:00.880
I don't want to do monitors, that's too close to the insanity on stage.
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:13.760
I know it's great when you get to be friends with the band, but you also get to work with the star, and the star is a star, you know, there's something that makes them unique, and it's usually not being soft and fluffy, it's being rough.
00:45:13.760 --> 00:45:22.880
Now, on the other hand, because of the Vegas acts I've worked with, people like Debbie Reynolds and Jim Neighbors and Florence Henderson and Charlotte, they become friends.
00:45:22.880 --> 00:45:33.599
And they come to a wedding, we go to weddings and and have dinners together, and you know, and I've spent 30 and 40 years with these acts, Bernadette Peters, an amazing, wonderful woman, sweetheart.
00:45:33.599 --> 00:45:38.480
And at the other end, there are you know the other ones who are really tough to work for, who I don't end up with for that long.
00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:43.440
30 and 40 years with the good ones, a year or two years with the not so good ones.
00:45:43.760 --> 00:45:51.199
A common point in history for a lot of engineers um that have been around for your time was the transition into digital.
00:45:51.199 --> 00:45:53.920
What was that experience like for you?
00:45:54.159 --> 00:45:54.800
That's a good one.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:56.000
I love that.
00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:05.199
Uh when digital first came out, you know, I want to get my hands on everything, I want to mix on everything, I want to get to use everything, and I found digital fascinating.
00:46:05.199 --> 00:46:09.199
You know, the whole concept of losing knobs was not great.
00:46:09.199 --> 00:46:19.440
On the other hand, the concept of memory was amazing to me, and especially since I'm using a different console every place I go.
00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:31.119
So the Yamaha boards became the de facto standard because of all the boards I've ever worked, and now we're not talking about the quality of the sound, because I know early Yamaha boards, people used to go there garbage.
00:46:31.119 --> 00:46:32.880
Give me an English board, you know.
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:44.400
But the ergonomics of the Japanese boards, what hand goes where, and how easy it is to figure it out, and how easy it is to set up a show is as good as any board has ever been.
00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:47.360
So that's one of the reasons that they became so popular.
00:46:47.360 --> 00:46:50.480
So the PM1000 and the P well, that was the analog.
00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:53.360
Uh the the one V.
00:46:53.519 --> 00:47:01.199
Yeah, but when we got to the the Pro the Pro One, the well it was the O1V and then the Pro V's and all those things.
00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:04.079
Uh I didn't get too much of a chance to use those.
00:47:04.079 --> 00:47:06.239
They were became mostly sideboards.
00:47:06.239 --> 00:47:11.360
You know, you got the 22 string mics, uh, you just put them on the side and submix the strings in.
00:47:11.360 --> 00:47:15.280
So I got to work with them, but I didn't get them as a major house board.
00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:17.760
Uh but eventually I did.
00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:19.519
I never felt uncomfortable on them.
00:47:19.519 --> 00:47:21.679
I totally got what they did.
00:47:21.679 --> 00:47:28.719
I'm doing one show with this PA, with that room, with that console.
00:47:28.719 --> 00:47:30.400
I have no idea how the board sounds.
00:47:30.400 --> 00:47:34.800
I'm going to another place with a different board and different mics and different stage space.
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:38.079
So I could never really say this is it.
00:47:38.079 --> 00:47:39.920
I couldn't fine-tune anything.
00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:42.639
I could just get in, do the show, and get out.
00:47:42.639 --> 00:47:45.360
But I started being able to bring in memory.
00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:52.000
And all of a sudden, these acts that were difficult to set up from scratch were not as difficult anymore.
00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:54.800
Because I would have that guitar sound, right?
00:47:54.800 --> 00:47:57.519
I would have the vocal effects sounds.
00:47:57.519 --> 00:47:58.320
I could have all of that.
00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:04.079
And I didn't really, I mean, there's that we had our outboard gear, you know, that we had those settings on those too.
00:48:04.079 --> 00:48:10.239
But slowly but surely I've been eliminating all the outboard gear because the boards are getting better and better.
00:48:10.239 --> 00:48:14.079
And I just absolutely love digital.
00:48:14.079 --> 00:48:19.360
I mean, I remember hearing my contemporaries going, I'm sticking with analog, I don't want that digital crap.
00:48:19.360 --> 00:48:22.400
And slowly but surely, of course, they've had to come along.
00:48:22.400 --> 00:48:25.039
Only maybe one or two left.
00:48:25.039 --> 00:48:28.159
And that's because the act insists on having an analog board.
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:33.679
But they, you know, they were moved in kicking and screaming, and I was there racing ahead of the pack.
00:48:33.679 --> 00:48:35.760
Get me in there, put me in, coach.
00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:36.639
I want that board.
00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:37.679
And I'm still like that.
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:43.360
And I'm still PA de jour, I'm still this showroom as this board and that ship if I'm on doing a ship.
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:46.239
And I get to use every board there is, and I love it.
00:48:46.239 --> 00:48:52.480
And there's a common denominator that makes digital digital, and then there are the shortcuts that are unique to each board.
00:48:52.480 --> 00:48:57.360
So you still have to learn stuff, but conceptually, they're all the same.
00:48:57.679 --> 00:48:58.800
That's great.
00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:05.440
What uh what's been your um what's been the core thing that's driven you through all these years?
00:49:06.239 --> 00:49:12.880
I love doing shows, I love traveling, I love being in another city and discovering that city.
00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:14.559
I love going international.
00:49:14.559 --> 00:49:26.960
I haven't had the really bad gigs internationally where you're dragging stuff through the mud and there's no load-in, or uh, you know, there's guys with guns outside waiting to you know protect you from stuff.
00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:28.400
I haven't had those gigs.
00:49:28.400 --> 00:49:32.639
But the when I travel internationally, well, I'm getting paid to go.
00:49:32.639 --> 00:49:34.079
How wonderful is that?
00:49:34.079 --> 00:49:37.920
I all I travel with is a set of headphones, a sharpie, and a flashlight.
00:49:37.920 --> 00:49:38.960
That's all I need.
00:49:38.960 --> 00:49:47.840
You know, I have a I have my own piano mics that I use if I'm doing the acoustic piano to make my what I and they're wonderful, and I'm one of the only people who carries them.
00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:51.440
So I have my own thing to make, you know, to make me unique.
00:49:51.440 --> 00:49:54.159
But uh traveling is great.
00:49:54.159 --> 00:49:55.199
I don't mind planes.
00:49:55.199 --> 00:49:56.800
I'm not big, I'm five's six.
00:49:56.800 --> 00:49:59.679
So sitting in an airline seat is not a chore.
00:49:59.679 --> 00:50:05.280
I'm not a you know, I'm not six foot three trying to figure out where to get my legs because you don't always fly business class.
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:06.559
I mostly fly coach.
00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:10.159
It's only a few acts that'll take me business because I don't do the big acts.
00:50:10.159 --> 00:50:16.639
If I was doing acts that were playing 40,000 people or 20,000 people, they make enough money to fly me business.
00:50:16.639 --> 00:50:20.239
But I'm playing showrooms, 2,500, 1,500 people.
00:50:20.239 --> 00:50:23.039
So I don't really travel uh business class.
00:50:23.039 --> 00:50:26.159
So anyway, I fit in the airplane, I don't mind it.
00:50:26.159 --> 00:50:28.559
It's all fun for me, it's exciting.
00:50:28.559 --> 00:50:30.880
I eat in restaurants all the time, anyway.
00:50:30.880 --> 00:50:32.480
I never wanted to cook.
00:50:32.480 --> 00:50:38.719
That apartment in Manhattan was a fifth floor walk-up, so I wasn't carrying food up, but I wasn't carrying trash down.
00:50:38.719 --> 00:50:42.800
As New York, you eat in restaurants, so my whole life has been restaurants.
00:50:42.800 --> 00:50:44.079
I'm very happy with that.
00:50:44.320 --> 00:50:44.960
That's great.
00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:50.159
I don't, I you know, my when my wife and I got together, her kids were four and six.
00:50:50.159 --> 00:50:55.199
So there was a lot of, you know, oh, I want to be back for the kids, but I was on the road.
00:50:55.199 --> 00:50:56.000
That was my life.
00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:06.239
And now the kids, I have grandkids, so it's really cool that I've got a family that I didn't lose, I didn't get divorced because I was on the road all the time.
00:51:06.239 --> 00:51:20.320
I mean, the acts I'm with, those acts, those the other thing about those MR acts, the Vegas acts, is that they work year-round, but they don't work solid, they don't go on tour for two years, like the the rock acts do.
00:51:20.320 --> 00:51:23.840
You know, I I have a life because they have a life.
00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:27.760
They'll, you know, they'll go out for four weeks and they'll come home for a week or two.
00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:29.360
That's not bad.
00:51:29.360 --> 00:51:31.760
You know, that's that's livable.
00:51:31.760 --> 00:51:38.480
So that was the other reason that I really loved working these uh show, the headline entertainers is what they're called.
00:51:38.480 --> 00:51:40.639
I love working with those guys.
00:51:41.039 --> 00:51:48.000
Yeah, obviously, it's I imagine a lot of that came from, and I'm noticing obviously a trend with the A1 audio, right?
00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:52.480
Just about anybody who's kind of in that camp, or a lot of people are in that camp, you know, you know, like Ken and stuff.
00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:55.679
I mean, you know, Ken's still doing Barry Manilo and and others.
00:51:55.679 --> 00:52:02.079
It's it's that adult contemporary Vegas style style vibe is definitely what you know what what A1 bred.
00:52:02.480 --> 00:52:10.320
I mean, I'm mixing instead of mixing three guitars, keyboards, and maybe a saxophone with drums, I'm mixing, well, not anymore.
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:14.800
Times have changed, and the acts that I work with are gone.
00:52:14.800 --> 00:52:24.000
So I was there during the heyday of you know 14 shows a week, but that was a 32-piece band, a 32-piece orchestra.
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:24.960
All those textures.
00:52:24.960 --> 00:52:31.760
Think of an artist who has a box of Crayolas with eight colors in it, and think of the one who has the box with 64 colors in it.
00:52:31.760 --> 00:52:32.960
That was me.
00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:37.840
I can have textures and tones, and it was, you know, it was wonderful.
00:52:37.840 --> 00:52:45.679
And plus the arrangements, you know, to listen to a beautiful string section playing with it's just great.
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:47.519
So I love it.
00:52:47.519 --> 00:52:50.880
I'm working with this Japanese guy, his name is Yoshiki.
00:52:50.880 --> 00:52:54.559
He's a world-famous guy that nobody ever heard of.
00:52:54.559 --> 00:52:58.960
He had a band called X-Japan, he was the speed metal drummer.
00:52:58.960 --> 00:53:01.440
It was KISS was his inspiration.
00:53:01.440 --> 00:53:08.559
And the band played the Tokyo Dome, which is 60,000, 55,000 people, sold it out 18 times.
00:53:08.559 --> 00:53:10.800
He is huge in Asia.
00:53:10.800 --> 00:53:14.960
And he started out as a classical pianist.
00:53:14.960 --> 00:53:21.519
So he's a classical pianist, and he's a heavy metal rock drummer, which in one person is amazing.
00:53:21.519 --> 00:53:23.840
And the band did his thing, and it was a peak.
00:53:23.840 --> 00:53:29.280
And if so, he decided to take his classical music, the songs that he wrote.
00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:31.599
He hired George Martin to produce the album.
00:53:31.599 --> 00:53:34.719
It went to number one in 13 countries in the first day.
00:53:34.719 --> 00:53:37.519
And he writes the most beautiful music.
00:53:37.519 --> 00:53:39.360
He wrote the theme for the golden globes.
00:53:39.360 --> 00:53:42.159
He wrote uh just wonderful, wonderful stuff.
00:53:42.159 --> 00:53:45.280
And so I get to go on the road and mix his stuff.
00:53:45.280 --> 00:53:54.719
And he decided, and first we went out on his promotional tour, and I got to go to Taiwan and Moscow and all these wonderful cities uh on a promotional tour.
00:53:54.719 --> 00:54:00.000
And he had six-string players, six-string girls, beautiful girls, because he's just a rock god, you know.
00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:03.360
And they played it, and I kept saying, Oh, this music is unbelievable.
00:54:03.360 --> 00:54:04.480
I'd love to have an orchestra.
00:54:04.480 --> 00:54:10.239
And sure enough, he says, We're gonna go to Carnegie Hall, and we're gonna, and he does live streaming all the time.
00:54:10.239 --> 00:54:15.199
He's got his own channel on TV, he's got his own credit cards, he's got his own cellular company.
00:54:15.199 --> 00:54:16.719
I mean, the guy is huge.
00:54:16.719 --> 00:54:23.199
So, in order to do the uh Carnegie Hall show, he needed a bunch of concerts to get it together.
00:54:23.199 --> 00:54:27.280
So we did Hong Kong, we did all these other places, and then we did Carnegie Hall.
00:54:27.280 --> 00:54:34.559
So I got to mix again, because it's rare now for me to get an orchestra, but this is only a year and a two years ago.
00:54:34.559 --> 00:54:37.119
I got to mix this wonderful music.
00:54:37.119 --> 00:54:41.199
So and his name is Yoshiki, and the band is ex-Japan.
00:54:41.199 --> 00:54:52.320
And the uh the YouTube videos of ex-Japan concerts, if you think Kiss is his idol, you can think what 65, 55,000 people are gonna see when he has the money.
00:54:52.320 --> 00:54:56.239
You know, his drum riser goes out to second base and goes up and spins around.
00:54:56.239 --> 00:54:58.159
I mean, it's just a real production.
00:54:58.159 --> 00:55:06.239
And then he sits and he plays and he conducts, and he's just the softest guy, and he composes and he arranges, he does all that stuff.
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:09.360
He's brilliant, and he's a nice guy on top of that.
00:55:09.360 --> 00:55:12.559
But he's still the Sinatra, you know.
00:55:12.559 --> 00:55:16.960
You talk to him, you say hello, but you don't sit and talk about the wife and kids.
00:55:19.039 --> 00:55:21.039
So I want to jump back.
00:55:21.039 --> 00:55:27.199
Um, you know, when you started, you know, it's obviously uh groundstocking is probably all there was in terms of speakers.
00:55:27.199 --> 00:55:32.800
What was um what was the first time you had to fly speakers or the idea of flying speakers?
00:55:32.800 --> 00:55:34.000
What was that experience?
00:55:34.320 --> 00:55:40.559
Well, back then you took your speakers and you put them into a tray, you know, a platform, and you flew the platform.
00:55:40.559 --> 00:55:45.760
You still didn't fly the speakers, you flew the platform and you strapped the speakers into the platform.
00:55:45.760 --> 00:55:55.679
So, but that in order to do that, you had to be in a in an arena because you really didn't need to fly the speakers in a theater.
00:55:55.679 --> 00:55:58.719
So I really wasn't doing arena gigs.
00:55:58.719 --> 00:56:04.239
I've done some, I've done up to 100,000 people, but in general, they've all been ground stacked.
00:56:04.239 --> 00:56:19.760
Then when I started with A1 and we started doing Sinatra and stuff, that's when we were flying flying PAs, and some showrooms you would fly them, but in general, especially the VIP stack, they were so big you would only fly them if you needed to.
00:56:19.760 --> 00:56:21.599
Yeah, it was ground support.
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:28.480
And then so when you came into MSI, was it was they had the claws at the time or um claws.
00:56:28.800 --> 00:56:34.079
Now the claws had uh four fifteens or four eight four fifteen's, right?
00:56:34.400 --> 00:56:35.360
Something like that, yeah.
00:56:35.840 --> 00:56:42.559
Well, he had he had half a claw and he had the full claw, but that was a uh oh, I forgot the name of the box, Carlson.
00:56:42.559 --> 00:56:48.559
Carlson cabinets, the guy who invented a horn that was the shape of a rabbit sear.
00:56:48.559 --> 00:56:58.880
He decided that that was such a perfect way to amplify that he took that and he folded it down, and that's where the claws came from for bass.
00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:02.000
Yeah, and so yeah, that that was it.
00:57:02.000 --> 00:57:10.719
There was the claw, and then he had bought Northwest Sound because he wanted to pick up uh the James Taylor and the and the Eagles and those acts.
00:57:10.719 --> 00:57:18.880
So he and that's where he got the Northwest cabinets at the 215s and the horn, yep, and W-2s, yep, and the silken hole.
00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:23.519
So that was that era, and then he had his own consoles, custom made.
00:57:23.519 --> 00:57:29.760
You know, you get a big uh uh you can build a frame and build the electronics and put it together and make it sound right.
00:57:29.760 --> 00:57:30.719
It was really good stuff.
00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:41.280
And so through the years, uh being the electronics background you had, did you ever get involved in any of that building of EQs and compressors and consoles and stuff, or did you prep just stay stay mixing?
00:57:41.519 --> 00:57:45.280
To be honest, I did not graduate near the top of my class.
00:57:45.280 --> 00:57:50.559
I found it boring I found it very first of all, I made the mistake.
00:57:50.559 --> 00:57:51.519
I'm a night guy.
00:57:51.519 --> 00:57:53.119
My whole life I've been a night guy.
00:57:53.119 --> 00:58:05.920
So when the engineering classes were at 8 30 in the morning or at 6 30 at night, I took the night classes, not realizing that I was sealing my own fate, because I was in school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, University of Bridgeport.
00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:10.480
And in Bridgeport, especially during the Vietnam War, you had Sikorsky helicopter.
00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:11.760
Think about the war, right?
00:58:11.760 --> 00:58:12.800
All helicopters.
00:58:12.800 --> 00:58:20.559
You had AFCO Lycoming jet engines, you had Timkin ball bearings, really big military supply for the war.
00:58:20.559 --> 00:58:26.239
So there were loads of technicians working there who wanted an engineering degree.
00:58:26.239 --> 00:58:28.639
So they went to the night classes.
00:58:28.639 --> 00:58:35.360
Those guys who had families who had experience learned the stuff like I did in audio.
00:58:35.360 --> 00:58:37.119
They just picked it up like that.
00:58:37.119 --> 00:58:39.199
And me, I'm struggling.
00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:40.559
What are you talking about?
00:58:40.559 --> 00:58:42.159
A power source, a voltage source.
00:58:42.159 --> 00:58:42.719
What do you mean?
00:58:42.719 --> 00:58:43.840
Oh, a battery.
00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:46.719
Oh, that you know, you have to find out what they're talking about.
00:58:46.719 --> 00:58:51.039
I fell behind day, well, uh day three, I fell behind.
00:58:51.039 --> 00:58:52.079
And I caught up.
00:58:52.079 --> 00:58:56.960
I mean, I graduated, but I did not graduate enough to go ahead and start designing circuits.
00:58:56.960 --> 00:59:03.440
I could reuse schematic, I could repair some stuff, but I wasn't designing anything.
00:59:03.440 --> 00:59:06.400
Uh it just became a great background for me.
00:59:07.199 --> 00:59:08.159
Yeah, and who knows?
00:59:08.159 --> 00:59:15.679
I mean, had you not gone there that you might not have gotten actually in this industry, you know, uh, even though that's not the uh path you you know to go.
00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:18.480
So I couldn't have said to that guy, I'm an engineer.
00:59:18.480 --> 00:59:20.639
That got me the job.
00:59:20.960 --> 00:59:22.000
That's awesome.
00:59:22.000 --> 00:59:27.679
Along the way, you know, um, I think we often learn from our mistakes.
00:59:27.679 --> 00:59:33.119
What were some what were some what were some mistakes that you learned from?
00:59:33.440 --> 00:59:36.559
You know, that's not a question I really want to answer.
00:59:36.559 --> 00:59:39.840
But there are some.
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:41.199
There are some.
00:59:41.199 --> 00:59:47.760
Uh a couple of times in my life I assumed it was okay and it came back to bite me.
00:59:47.760 --> 00:59:54.559
You know, a mic pack on somebody got disconnected because I I didn't make sure the tape holding the connector in was tight.
00:59:54.559 --> 01:00:02.559
So in the middle of the show, I had to run from front of house, backstage, put the mic connector back in and run back out while she had the band Vamp.
01:00:02.559 --> 01:00:04.320
That was very embarrassing.
01:00:04.320 --> 01:00:07.039
I never got high for a show.
01:00:07.039 --> 01:00:12.800
I got a high once before a show and you know, smoking pot.
01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:15.599
Uh, it was really early in my career.
01:00:15.599 --> 01:00:18.880
And by the time I was getting behind the board, I went, This is not good.
01:00:18.880 --> 01:00:19.920
So that was it.
01:00:19.920 --> 01:00:20.960
I learned my lesson.
01:00:20.960 --> 01:00:25.679
I didn't drink, so that was a mistake, but I survived that one too.
01:00:25.679 --> 01:00:35.760
Uh with Engelbert, I assumed that after a year and a half, he trusted me to know what I'm talking about.
01:00:35.760 --> 01:00:52.400
And Engelbert, one of his problems was he was losing his high-end hearing because those loud monitors were so loud, and then there was feedback all the time because he was telling his guys to give me more, and the only way he knew that he couldn't get any more was when it would feed back.
01:00:52.400 --> 01:00:57.280
So, you know, his hearing was especially during the show, it would just get worse and worse and worse.
01:00:57.280 --> 01:01:03.519
So the good part of that is Engelbert never came out to front of the house during sound check or rehearsal.
01:01:03.519 --> 01:01:04.880
He was always on stage.
01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:07.280
I had total freedom to do what I needed to do.
01:01:07.280 --> 01:01:17.679
But one time he came out and he sat in like road 10 and he said to me, It sounded dull, which I knew it didn't.
01:01:17.679 --> 01:01:19.920
But I knew it sounded dull.
01:01:19.920 --> 01:01:21.920
Okay, I let that pass.
01:01:21.920 --> 01:01:25.440
Uh, but time goes on, time goes on.
01:01:25.440 --> 01:01:29.519
Then you get called backstage after the show, and he's ranting and all of that.
01:01:29.519 --> 01:01:31.679
You gotta remember, it's a great show.
01:01:31.679 --> 01:01:32.960
I loved his show.
01:01:32.960 --> 01:01:36.800
He he would sometimes interject his sound problems to the audience.
01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:38.159
I'm having a problem here.
01:01:38.159 --> 01:01:40.480
You're not doing a good, you know, he would do that.
01:01:40.480 --> 01:01:42.880
But generally, it was a great show.
01:01:42.880 --> 01:01:51.440
But one time he was having a discussion and he said to me, it wasn't, you know, it's something about his hearing, it wasn't right, it wasn't bright.
01:01:51.440 --> 01:01:57.360
And I said to myself, okay, I'm going through hell trying to keep this guy happy.
01:01:57.360 --> 01:02:08.079
What's supposed to be for me, a walk in the uh in the afternoon, make sure the system works, do the show and leave, has turned into every day trying a different setup, moving the monitors, trying something else.
01:02:08.079 --> 01:02:11.679
It was work all the time and difficult.
01:02:11.679 --> 01:02:15.760
I finally said to myself, you know, I've been doing this a long time.
01:02:15.760 --> 01:02:22.559
I'm gonna tell him the truth, and hopefully he's gonna respect it and accept it.
01:02:22.559 --> 01:02:33.119
And I said, Well, Ange, I didn't, I thought it was a little bright, and I saw his eyes turn cold, and I said, I'm out of here one of these days.
01:02:33.119 --> 01:02:39.119
And sure enough, during the next massacre, because they would he would have massacres where you're all gone and you're all gone.
01:02:39.119 --> 01:02:49.199
He fired the dancers, he fired the musical director, and he fired A1 Audio, and I got and I ended up going, even though I worked for him.
01:02:49.199 --> 01:02:50.000
That was it.
01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:51.360
And I went, okay.
01:02:51.360 --> 01:03:02.960
You can't trust them to be your friends, especially someone like him, you know, Charo and then Debbie Reynolds, those others, they were different, but that was a mistake, or it wasn't.
01:03:02.960 --> 01:03:07.519
You know, I went on with Shirley McLean, so that was uh really cool.
01:03:08.480 --> 01:03:18.880
Well, then let's uh the stories you do want to tell then what's what's uh uh what what are some of the more memorable uh most memorable experiences looking back on your uh you know amazing career?
01:03:19.199 --> 01:03:19.920
Oh wow.
01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:24.400
Well, Mandrel was a big one for me because I experienced so many things for the first time.
01:03:24.400 --> 01:03:36.880
I mean, because they were had a flute and vibes, uh well, the background is they came the three brothers came from Panama, so they had that lip so feel, and then they moved to Bedford Stuyvesant, so they had the funk.
01:03:36.880 --> 01:03:42.320
Uh the brothers also played horns, including flute.
01:03:42.320 --> 01:03:56.639
They got a keyboard player who was a jazz guy who played the vibes, the fender rose, the clavinet, and uh B3 organ back in the day when you had to move a B3 around, and I was crew, you know, I wasn't hands off.
01:03:56.639 --> 01:03:58.400
So the band played with everybody.
01:03:58.400 --> 01:04:02.559
We did a jazz festival in Morocco early in my career.
01:04:02.559 --> 01:04:04.480
It was like, oh my god, this is unbelievable.
01:04:04.480 --> 01:04:13.119
And they were all the shows were out in a bull ring, and the last day it started a poor rating, so they moved the Mandel Headline, so we moved into the theater.
01:04:13.119 --> 01:04:20.239
But I was doing the shows in Morocco, and the band was buying all these great outfits that they ended up wearing on stage, and that was a great one.
01:04:20.239 --> 01:04:28.719
And then the RFK Stadium Festival, which had the Funkadelics and all these other acts, with 85,000 people.
01:04:28.719 --> 01:04:41.440
They only seated 60,000 people, but they had another 25,000 on the infield because they couldn't keep them out, and the promoter wanted to keep making money, and that's the biggest crowd I had ever been in.
01:04:41.440 --> 01:04:43.039
It was unbelievable.
01:04:43.039 --> 01:04:45.840
So that was a big one.
01:04:45.840 --> 01:04:50.400
And I remember trying to get out from backstage through through the throngs of people.
01:04:50.400 --> 01:04:53.280
I've become really good at getting through crowds.
01:04:53.280 --> 01:05:00.880
I mean, that's one of my talents is how to get from point A to point B, swivel around, you know, getting through.
01:05:00.880 --> 01:05:04.880
Because they're all, they don't want to move, and I'm just dark, they can't see me.
01:05:04.880 --> 01:05:06.719
The lights are back there.
01:05:06.719 --> 01:05:07.599
But I did.
01:05:07.599 --> 01:05:11.119
I got out the front of the house and uh I did that show.
01:05:11.119 --> 01:05:13.679
That was a great, I mean, there were so many great shows.
01:05:13.679 --> 01:05:17.119
Uh Bernadette Peters under the uh arch in St.
01:05:17.119 --> 01:05:21.519
Louis for July 4th for 100,000 people with an orchestra.
01:05:21.519 --> 01:05:22.719
That was wonderful.
01:05:22.719 --> 01:05:28.480
The day before, there was a mini tornado that came through and wiped out the sound, half the sound system.
01:05:28.480 --> 01:05:28.719
Wow.
01:05:28.719 --> 01:05:29.840
They had to build it up again.
01:05:29.840 --> 01:05:31.119
I was in my hotel watching it.
01:05:31.119 --> 01:05:34.239
I got pictures of stuff flying around.
01:05:34.239 --> 01:05:35.760
I mean, I just can't think of it.
01:05:35.760 --> 01:05:37.280
There's so many wonderful shows.
01:05:37.280 --> 01:05:48.239
Someone like Debbie Reynolds, who grew up in the business as a child, she was 16 when she got her movie career going, loved being around talent.
01:05:48.239 --> 01:05:49.119
She loved talent.
01:05:49.119 --> 01:05:51.280
She lived her life for talent.
01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:59.760
And we would be on the road and we would be doing these shows, and you're in a casino, and after the showroom, you go to the dressing room.
01:05:59.760 --> 01:06:04.800
Is you go we would go into the dress room, all of us, maybe 10, 11, 12 of us.
01:06:04.800 --> 01:06:06.159
She'd order whatever you want.
01:06:06.159 --> 01:06:17.360
You want shrimp cocktails, you want meals, champagne would come in, and we would sit there until six in the morning, just visiting, hearing stories, getting to know each other, becoming a family.
01:06:17.360 --> 01:06:21.519
So, you know, that family feel, which is really rare on the road.
01:06:21.519 --> 01:06:23.599
I had a lot of that.
01:06:23.599 --> 01:06:29.760
You know, like I said, I'm really lucky to have experienced all of these things.
01:06:30.719 --> 01:06:36.000
So talk about you, you had mentioned you you won an award for uh a Broadway design, is that correct?
01:06:36.239 --> 01:06:42.719
No, I or uh I Tommy Toon took his show, which was a uh a song and dance act.
01:06:42.719 --> 01:06:46.800
Tommy Toon has got more Tony Awards than anybody in history.
01:06:46.800 --> 01:06:54.159
He's got 11 Tony Awards, and he's got him in six categories director, producer, dancer, actress, and all of that stuff.
01:06:54.159 --> 01:07:02.880
I mean, he's an amazing talent, and he's six foot six, and yet he started out as a chorus boy when they're all like 5'9, 5'10.
01:07:02.880 --> 01:07:07.840
So, but he was so talented, and he put out this show and he took it to Broadway.
01:07:07.840 --> 01:07:15.360
And so I got to do my show on Broadway, which put me in as a sound designer in the Broadway thing.
01:07:15.360 --> 01:07:22.400
I did win an award for uh there's an arranger who I met with Neil Sidaka, who's should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
01:07:22.400 --> 01:07:28.000
He did unbelievable amounts of shows and arrangements for Madonna and Whitney Houston and Barbara Streisand and Barry Manlow.
01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:30.400
He did he does everybody as an arranger.
01:07:30.400 --> 01:07:32.239
His name is Artie Butler.
01:07:32.239 --> 01:07:34.800
And he wrote a and he's a very funny guy.
01:07:34.800 --> 01:07:36.960
He's like a Brooklyn Borschtbelt comedian.
01:07:36.960 --> 01:07:43.039
So in between shows and after shows, sitting in the coffee shop at the Riviera Hotel for hours and hours and hours.
01:07:43.039 --> 01:07:45.760
Once again, you get to know somebody really well.
01:07:45.760 --> 01:07:53.119
So Artie did a show called The Last Supper, and it was all about people going to a fat farm and they're having their last supper.
01:07:53.119 --> 01:07:57.519
And it was a very funny one-man show, and I won a Dramalogue Award for that.
01:07:57.519 --> 01:08:09.679
So I got to give a speech, and being the the person that I am, I got up for the you know, the guys behind the mixing board mixing the awards, and I go at event every for this award.
01:08:09.679 --> 01:08:13.840
He didn't think it was funny.
01:08:16.720 --> 01:08:20.319
So this is an interesting yeah, question.
01:08:20.319 --> 01:08:23.359
Uh yeah, I thought about when I was talking to uh David Morgan.
01:08:23.359 --> 01:08:33.199
And um if if you could be remembered for one thing, you know, call it legacy, call it whatever, uh, what would you what would you want to be known for in your career?
01:08:33.760 --> 01:08:39.840
Well, first of all, my the ability to mix a full orchestra, which is nobody's gonna have that anymore.
01:08:39.840 --> 01:08:41.520
Who gets to mix an orchestra?
01:08:41.520 --> 01:08:47.119
Who gets to work with all of those textures and make something that can be self-finessed?
01:08:47.119 --> 01:08:51.119
I feel really lucky to be one of the few who can do that and do it well.
01:08:51.119 --> 01:08:52.319
So that was it.
01:08:52.319 --> 01:08:57.039
And being, you know, in the beginning of the business when I was the guy cross-pollinating.
01:08:57.039 --> 01:09:05.760
Oh, did you ever see the uh the snake system on a on a motorized reel with a foot pedal, variable speed foot pedal, so you can put your snake up and roll it up with one guy?
01:09:05.760 --> 01:09:09.840
I mean, Maryland Sound did that, and everybody looked at me like I was nuts.
01:09:09.840 --> 01:09:10.720
What are you crazy?
01:09:10.720 --> 01:09:12.079
He said, No, he just did it.
01:09:12.079 --> 01:09:16.399
You hold a wet rag and you just uh clean your clean it and you're done.
01:09:16.399 --> 01:09:18.960
I mean, there's so many wonderful things like that.
01:09:18.960 --> 01:09:21.039
Aphex, do you remember Aphex?
01:09:21.039 --> 01:09:29.359
The guy who created Aphex was in New York, and it added high-end to whatever presents to whatever you were doing.
01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:36.640
They were using it on albums, Paul McCartney used it, but you couldn't buy it, you could only lease it, and you you paid for how much time you had.
01:09:36.640 --> 01:09:46.000
Uh, I met the guy Kurt Canopel, and he and I hit it off because I'm New York engineer, Sam Mandrill, and he gave me one to use and to travel with.
01:09:46.000 --> 01:09:56.000
So I had one on Neil Sidakin, I'd be in a theater in around where they had this two-way horn system, and all of a sudden I'm getting sibilants coming out of his PA that didn't have it before.
01:09:56.000 --> 01:09:59.039
So I've kind of been around for a lot of that.
01:09:59.039 --> 01:10:04.319
I was lucky enough when Mandrill was recording, they recorded at Electric Lady.
01:10:04.319 --> 01:10:07.680
They were one of the first bands to go into Jimi Hendrix's studio.
01:10:07.680 --> 01:10:10.960
Jimi Hendrix never finished an album at Electric Lady.
01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:15.840
They were building it while he was making his last album, then he went to England and died.
01:10:15.840 --> 01:10:21.840
But the guy who built it for Jimi Hendrix became the maintenance engineer in the back.
01:10:21.840 --> 01:10:24.319
And while the band was recording, I had nothing to do.
01:10:24.319 --> 01:10:26.239
I'd sit and watch, but it gets really boring.
01:10:26.239 --> 01:10:29.920
I always found I get bored easily if there's nothing going on.
01:10:29.920 --> 01:10:34.239
And you know, those creative decisions weren't mine, so I just was bored.
01:10:34.239 --> 01:10:39.840
So I would hang out in the shop in the back, and I got to be really good friends with the two guys there who built Electric Lady.
01:10:39.840 --> 01:10:47.279
We're talking about a console from a solid sheet of aluminum that had holes punched in it, engraved, and building the cards and building the whole thing.
01:10:47.279 --> 01:10:49.600
These were brilliant, brilliant guys.
01:10:49.600 --> 01:11:06.880
And they decided, they got a call from Abe Jacobs, a famous theater studio designer, uh Broadway designer, to do to build a board for Lemmings, the National Lampoon Show that had Chevy Chase and John Belushi way before anything else, and was going to play at the Village Gate.
01:11:06.880 --> 01:11:11.039
And they decided to build this tiny board that I helped build.
01:11:11.039 --> 01:11:13.359
And that's another story.
01:11:13.359 --> 01:11:26.960
That board also should be really famous because one of those two guys, Ted, actually designed the along with George Massenberg at the same time, totally independent of each other, parametric EQ.
01:11:26.960 --> 01:11:36.880
So this little tiny board that they built that I could that I ended up buying for having Mandrel buy was so far ahead of the game.
01:11:36.880 --> 01:11:54.720
It was a full studio quiet recording board that folded up into a box maybe two and a half feet by a foot and a half by a foot, two halves that opened up and became uh 24 inputs, eight inputs and a master section, and 16 inputs with an umbilical that joined them together.
01:11:54.720 --> 01:12:03.680
I mean, I was having a great time with that stuff, and I was also working on state-of-the-art groundbreaking equipment.
01:12:03.680 --> 01:12:07.039
So I've had a great time.
01:12:07.039 --> 01:12:15.439
And what I want to have, I don't know, you know, I'm being remembered for being a uh a groundbreaker in many ways.
01:12:15.439 --> 01:12:20.079
Taking that Apex and bringing it all over the country to sound systems that never had them.
01:12:20.079 --> 01:12:34.880
All they had them was in the studio, you know, that ROR, Ron and Rothstein, the two guys, Shimon Ron and Ted Rothstein, two amazing designers, and uh taking that board around and saving my ass on shows.
01:12:34.880 --> 01:12:36.239
Mandrel did a show in St.
01:12:36.239 --> 01:12:37.359
Tom and St.
01:12:37.359 --> 01:12:39.199
Thomas and and uh St.
01:12:39.199 --> 01:12:42.800
Croix, and the soundboard never made it from the US.
01:12:42.800 --> 01:12:48.720
We were using the Allman Brothers PA that they gave to their roadies when they became really big.
01:12:48.720 --> 01:12:51.920
So we had their roadies with us, and the soundboard didn't make it.
01:12:51.920 --> 01:12:55.119
And they had this little tiny board that we were using as a keyboard mixer.
01:12:55.119 --> 01:12:57.760
It ran the show and did a beautiful job.
01:12:57.760 --> 01:12:59.680
So that was kind of cool.
01:12:59.680 --> 01:13:02.640
I didn't send you the picture of that, but that's I will.
01:13:02.880 --> 01:13:06.399
Well, so I I've I've talked a little more about the R ROR board.
01:13:06.399 --> 01:13:08.079
I've seen some pictures of that recently.
01:13:08.079 --> 01:13:10.479
Um, what what exactly was that board?
01:13:10.479 --> 01:13:14.000
What was it made of, um, you know, channel-wise and and stuff?
01:13:14.319 --> 01:13:15.680
Well, it was really interesting.
01:13:15.680 --> 01:13:25.119
It had it was a solid panel, uh, two panel, two boards, two panels, uh, the first half and the second half, and it was left, right, Q1, and Q2.
01:13:25.119 --> 01:13:28.399
They called it Q because they were studio guys instead of AUX.
01:13:28.399 --> 01:13:32.800
So it was a left, right, Q1, and Q2, and then one through eight.
01:13:32.800 --> 01:13:35.600
And then the others were nine through 24.
01:13:35.600 --> 01:13:40.720
And what they put on the top of every input was a one through eight rotary switch.
01:13:40.720 --> 01:13:44.640
So you could reroute that input into one through eight.
01:13:44.640 --> 01:13:52.399
So you could take input one and route all the drums into input one and have a subgroup that nobody had before.
01:13:52.399 --> 01:13:57.279
And you could put the kick on there and adjust the kick with uh, and it was post-EQ.
01:13:57.279 --> 01:14:05.600
So you could do the EQ for the kick and the and the and the level, and then route the rest of the drums in there or the background vocals and stuff like that.
01:14:05.600 --> 01:14:07.680
So that was something that was really unique.
01:14:07.680 --> 01:14:33.119
It had uh low and high EQ uh fixed on each one and a pre-post switch on the auxes, which was also revolutionary, and then on the outputs, it had a high, it was four outputs, and it had a high and a low notch filter that was came to a little patch bay in the back of the board, so you could cascade them together.
01:14:33.119 --> 01:14:38.079
You could put four frequencies on Q1 and four frequencies on Q2 if you wanted to.
01:14:38.079 --> 01:14:48.720
I mean, the board was really made, and then I had them, I insisted on because Mandrel bought it, and then putting a ClearCom station in there that would go into the headphones.
01:14:48.720 --> 01:14:54.640
So if I put the headphones on and I hit, I could listen to you know somebody talking, or I could listen to the queue.
01:14:54.640 --> 01:15:04.720
So I mean it was just a really the little board, and then on top of that, because they were studio guys, they put an XLR out on every input, a direct out on every input.
01:15:04.720 --> 01:15:08.640
So you could do a 24-track recording with this little board.
01:15:08.640 --> 01:15:14.079
And the story is that when they first plugged it in, okay, we built it, we designed it.
01:15:14.079 --> 01:15:16.399
Now let's plug it in, they turned it in.
01:15:16.399 --> 01:15:23.119
They thought that it was broken because there was no nothing, it was totally quiet.
01:15:23.119 --> 01:15:31.439
There was no hiss, there was nothing, and then they picked up the mic to talk into it, and it blasted them out, and they knew they had a winner at that point.
01:15:31.680 --> 01:15:32.239
That's funny.
01:15:32.319 --> 01:15:33.760
That's Mandrill still has it.
01:15:33.760 --> 01:15:36.000
I just saw that board about a month and a half ago.
01:15:36.159 --> 01:15:36.479
Really?
01:15:37.119 --> 01:15:38.880
That the pictures I have are more recent of it.
01:15:38.880 --> 01:15:42.640
Uh Mandel still has it because they're still a band.
01:15:42.640 --> 01:15:48.399
They're after 50 years, they they got back together and uh did another album that's just coming out.
01:15:49.039 --> 01:15:49.760
That's awesome.
01:15:49.760 --> 01:15:51.600
Yeah, I'm I need to look more into that console.
01:15:51.600 --> 01:15:53.680
I I'd seen some more stuff about it recently.
01:15:53.920 --> 01:15:54.960
Oh, I'll send you stuff.
01:15:54.960 --> 01:15:56.960
I even have the original brochure for it.
01:15:56.960 --> 01:16:00.640
Uh, Bearsville recording had one.
01:16:00.640 --> 01:16:02.960
Todd Rundgren took one on the road.
01:16:02.960 --> 01:16:04.640
Of course, it did the show Lemmings.
01:16:04.640 --> 01:16:08.800
They only built four of them or five of them, but they were groundbreaking.
01:16:09.439 --> 01:16:13.680
So, what were what were some of your uh favorite you know analog consoles back in the day?
01:16:13.680 --> 01:16:19.600
Some you know, any ones that stood out out outside of the standards, uh, you know, the Yamaha PM 2000s and stuff like that.
01:16:19.600 --> 01:16:23.680
What were some of the more unique consoles you get to work on that were fun or different?
01:16:24.239 --> 01:16:29.039
I knew the MITES boards were great boards, so whenever I could get a hold of a MITS board, I would really do that.
01:16:29.039 --> 01:16:31.600
Remember, analog, you don't have to know anything.
01:16:31.600 --> 01:16:37.600
You know, it's an input, there's auxes, there's EQ, and then your outboard gear is everything.
01:16:37.600 --> 01:16:47.119
So you have the same outboard gear, you know, drawer gates, and you know, that you just have all that stuff that you wanted, and and so then you just have a board.
01:16:47.119 --> 01:16:55.359
And if it had good meters and it had good ergonomics and sounded good, which of course all the miters spores did, that would be great.
01:16:55.359 --> 01:16:57.920
So, you know, stuff like that.
01:16:57.920 --> 01:17:05.119
Those are my favorites, and or you know, it had the the cachet, you know, this is a miters board.
01:17:05.119 --> 01:17:08.800
You're you know, you know you're mixing on the best sound that you're gonna get.
01:17:08.800 --> 01:17:15.199
It's funny, the English they drive on the wrong side of the road, they do all of this stuff, they don't care about the rest of the world.
01:17:15.199 --> 01:17:18.479
The original, now whose board was it?
01:17:18.479 --> 01:17:20.800
I can't remember whose board it was.
01:17:20.800 --> 01:17:35.760
They put a trident, I think, live board, they put input one on the right side of the inputs, and they numbered them from right to left.
01:17:35.760 --> 01:17:43.520
And I remember saying the English are really different than you and me when I saw that board.
01:17:43.520 --> 01:17:45.279
I would love to see a picture of that board.
01:17:45.520 --> 01:17:51.760
Now, the important thing was would you still do kick on the first channel on the right side of the board, or would you do it on the left?
01:17:53.039 --> 01:17:54.800
Well, you'd think that you put vocals over there.
01:17:54.800 --> 01:18:00.880
Kick was always it was always kicks, or or maybe possibly bass first, but it was always drums, bass, or bass drums.
01:18:01.039 --> 01:18:03.600
So they're that'd be that'd be at the end of your stake, right?
01:18:03.600 --> 01:18:06.399
They would be it wouldn't be at the beginning of your stake if you're gonna have one on your left.
01:18:06.640 --> 01:18:06.880
Right.
01:18:07.359 --> 01:18:07.600
Yeah.
01:18:08.399 --> 01:18:09.520
It would be number one, right?
01:18:09.520 --> 01:18:12.479
So it would be at the so it would be where input one was.
01:18:12.479 --> 01:18:18.399
The snakes, I don't remember how they were how they those were probably still one through one through.
01:18:18.399 --> 01:18:24.800
But when I saw that first console and the input one was all the way on the right, I just went, all right, the English or the English, you know.
01:18:24.800 --> 01:18:26.319
Love them, love them.
01:18:27.039 --> 01:18:28.319
That's awesome.
01:18:29.680 --> 01:18:36.880
Okay, back in the day, you know, LA had the motion picture lots all over the place, and slowly but surely they would close or whatever.
01:18:36.880 --> 01:18:49.920
But Columbia back in the 70s realized that the lot was costing a lot of money to keep going, so they rented space on the Warner Brothers lot and did as much as they could remotely, live, out and on location.
01:18:49.920 --> 01:18:57.680
So the Columbia lot, a full motion picture lot with 11, 12 sound stages and everything that goes with it, was sitting empty.
01:18:57.680 --> 01:19:06.159
And uh one group of people rented the biggest soundstage and turned it into a tennis club.
01:19:06.159 --> 01:19:10.640
They had two tennis courts on the sound stage, and it sat like that.
01:19:10.640 --> 01:19:16.399
And then two guys who worked for Tycho Bray Sound, which was another trendsetter.
01:19:16.399 --> 01:19:20.319
Jim Gamble was building consoles for them before he built Gamble Consoles.
01:19:20.319 --> 01:19:32.560
Those two guys discovered the Columbia lot and realized the potential of pre-production on location.
01:19:32.560 --> 01:19:34.880
This had never happened before.
01:19:34.880 --> 01:19:42.640
Every tour that ever went out went to the first city, set up, and was shipping stuff in to try and get it right.
01:19:42.640 --> 01:19:44.640
You know, do the rehearsals there.
01:19:44.640 --> 01:19:54.000
These guys created a sound company and started renting out this, talk to the owner of the lot and started renting out sound stages.
01:19:54.000 --> 01:20:04.079
It didn't take long before A1 Audio moved on the lot, um Olson Lighting moved on the lot, a whole bunch of people started moving on the lot.
01:20:04.079 --> 01:20:16.319
A company called World Stage rented two lots, and their concept was live performance videoed remotely.
01:20:16.319 --> 01:20:31.520
In other words, you'd be on camera, and there would be a projection screen in Buenos Aires and a projection screen in Cleveland, and then they would have cameras in those cities and a screen for the artist to see the audiences and say, How are you doing, Detroit?
01:20:31.520 --> 01:20:32.880
And Detroit would go.
01:20:32.880 --> 01:20:46.880
This is they they did this by building a satellite truck outside the two sound stages and going up to the satellite, back down again, and then getting these really expensive Ida 4 projectors, which was a state of the art, and showing it.
01:20:46.880 --> 01:20:56.239
So they had one soundstage with whatever musicians they could cajole to play for them, and the other one where they're playing, and how do you keep people entertained?
01:20:56.239 --> 01:21:01.119
They had lasers on mirror bowls, they had all they were trying to what do you do in between the acts?
01:21:01.119 --> 01:21:03.439
And so that was two of the sound stages.
01:21:03.439 --> 01:21:08.399
Then at some point, they had a magazine called Road and Show and who's out with what and who's doing what.
01:21:08.399 --> 01:21:13.600
And then they had a restaurant, and then Fleetwood Mac moved its management onto the lot.
01:21:13.600 --> 01:21:19.119
And actually, Elton John and America and David Bowie are walking around the lot.
01:21:19.119 --> 01:21:25.600
And I mean, this was like going to Disneyland for audio, and this is like an unknown piece of history.
01:21:25.600 --> 01:21:27.840
That's the reason I wanted to tell you about this.
01:21:27.840 --> 01:21:31.840
No matter where you looked, you found somebody famous, some famous act.
01:21:31.840 --> 01:21:38.640
Then, on top of that, SIR saw the beauty of it and built their flagship facility on the lot.
01:21:38.640 --> 01:21:42.159
So now whatever you needed was right there, ready to go.
01:21:42.159 --> 01:21:44.560
A1 Audio, use Emphasound.
01:21:44.560 --> 01:21:46.159
Uh, I can't remember who else was there.
01:21:46.159 --> 01:21:51.119
Oh, well, mine, Maryland Sound rented those guys, by the way, those guys blew it.
01:21:51.119 --> 01:21:55.680
After they got this whole career going, they ran out of luck.
01:21:55.680 --> 01:22:01.840
They either uh blew it with money, drugs, whatever it was, they were out of the picture.
01:22:01.840 --> 01:22:08.720
But they had the only space on the lot that had a loading dock because lots don't have loading docks, everything rolls in off the ground.
01:22:08.720 --> 01:22:10.560
But they had the one loading dock.
01:22:10.560 --> 01:22:18.720
So at this point, I get to the lot, and Maryland Sound rents space in that area along with C Factor Lighting from New York.
01:22:18.720 --> 01:22:22.560
So I was on the lot, and that's how I met Al, and that's how all that happened.
01:22:22.560 --> 01:22:35.920
But I was on the lot for this amazing experience and part of history that nobody knows, that deserves a documentary, that deserves a book, that deserves a Rolling Stone article, it deserves a place in the Rock Roll Hall of Fame.
01:22:35.920 --> 01:22:39.520
They invented pre-tour productions.
01:22:39.520 --> 01:22:41.520
It never happened before.
01:22:41.520 --> 01:22:44.239
It was really an incredible time to be around.
01:22:44.239 --> 01:23:01.680
And it lasted for only two or three years, and then the the owner of the lot sold it, and the guy who bought it wanted to rent it to television, and it went from 15 cents a square foot to 50 cents a square foot overnight, and they all moved out and it was over.
01:23:01.680 --> 01:23:03.920
But I was there for it.
01:23:03.920 --> 01:23:14.159
Really an amazing, magical time because she never knew who was gonna be walking by, and it wasn't like a guard gate, but nobody knew about it except the people in there.
01:23:14.159 --> 01:23:18.479
So the acts could walk around and didn't have to worry about security or any of that stuff.
01:23:18.479 --> 01:23:21.279
The restaurant was there, it was really fun.
01:23:21.279 --> 01:23:22.640
It was a great time.
01:23:22.640 --> 01:23:24.079
I wanted to tell that story.
01:23:24.319 --> 01:23:25.279
Oh, that's awesome.
01:23:25.279 --> 01:23:26.319
I appreciate that.
01:23:26.319 --> 01:23:30.800
Yeah, no, I knew I knew Maryland Southern had a West Coast office for for a period of time.
01:23:30.800 --> 01:23:33.520
So so you so you were that wasn't it though.
01:23:33.680 --> 01:23:34.880
That that wasn't their office.
01:23:34.880 --> 01:23:37.680
Their West Coast office was in the 80s.
01:23:37.680 --> 01:23:39.199
This ended in the 70s.
01:23:39.199 --> 01:23:45.439
They actually had Mike Stahl was running their West Coast office, and Stan Miller had something to do with it also.
01:23:45.439 --> 01:23:51.199
I can't remember what it was, but I know they were, or maybe Mike Stahl ran Stan off after that or before that.
01:23:51.199 --> 01:24:04.479
But uh but Maryland Sound was gonna actually move into the prop house, which was also had the the tank where the floor would come up and they could fill it with water and do all that.
01:24:04.479 --> 01:24:06.880
So there were big steel plates on it.
01:24:06.880 --> 01:24:14.640
But Maryland Sound and Pro Piano, renting pianos, were gonna take over that just before it ended.
01:24:14.640 --> 01:24:19.680
And that must be when Maryland Sound moved to the you know, they moved to the other place.
01:24:20.079 --> 01:24:20.880
Gotcha.
01:24:20.880 --> 01:24:30.399
Well, I uh yeah, I uh I do appreciate your time um and all the the pictures and articles you've sent me.
01:24:30.399 --> 01:24:31.520
It's been it's been amazing.
01:24:31.520 --> 01:24:38.319
So uh and I look forward to you know still getting to know you some more and and find out more stories from you.
01:24:38.640 --> 01:24:42.079
I mean, I have such a good time at doing my life, and I love talking about it.
01:24:42.079 --> 01:24:42.960
It's fun.
01:24:42.960 --> 01:24:47.359
And it helps me remember when I, you know, I feel like, oh yeah, yeah, okay, that's a good story.
01:24:47.359 --> 01:24:48.560
I only told that a year ago.
01:24:48.560 --> 01:24:50.239
I still remember that story.
01:24:50.239 --> 01:24:51.760
Because I need my friends.
01:24:51.760 --> 01:24:57.039
My friends, some of them who have you know loctite, uh airtight uh memories, will say, Don't you remember?
01:24:57.039 --> 01:24:58.239
And I go, No, but thanks.
01:24:58.239 --> 01:25:00.159
Keep telling me, you know, I need that.
01:25:02.880 --> 01:25:07.520
I hope you enjoyed the beginning of this journey as we explore the history of livestock together.
01:25:07.520 --> 01:25:10.960
If you enjoyed this conversation, I would like to ask a few things.
01:25:10.960 --> 01:25:14.560
First, make sure you subscribe on whatever podcast platform you use.
01:25:14.560 --> 01:25:17.600
Second, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
01:25:17.600 --> 01:25:20.880
Throughout the week, you'll see various pictures and stories from the past.
01:25:20.880 --> 01:25:24.239
Lastly, but most importantly, please tell our friends.
01:25:24.239 --> 01:25:26.640
Help us get the word out about this project.
01:25:26.640 --> 01:25:29.920
Please check out the support that committees.
01:25:29.920 --> 01:25:38.720
Their mission is simple to empower and heal roads and their families, by providing resources and services to killers and troubles of the story lifestyle.
01:25:38.720 --> 01:25:50.079
The clinic is committed to providing a safe space for roads and their families, to heal while off the road, and to advocate for and empower them to obtain a healthy work environment while on the road.
01:25:50.079 --> 01:25:53.760
Go to the roadieclinic.com for more info.
01:25:53.760 --> 01:25:56.640
Do you have a story to tell?
01:25:56.640 --> 01:26:00.800
Or maybe you want to know more about a specific topic within the history of live cells?
01:26:00.800 --> 01:26:04.319
You can send me a message on our website, how we got loud.com.
01:26:04.319 --> 01:26:07.279
After all, this is a journey for all of us to take together.