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EV Wireless On World Tour With Industrial Rockers Ministry

EV Wireless On World Tour With Industrial Rockers Ministry

BURNSVILLE, MN–A Ministry show is not something an audience forgets in a hurry: Al Jourgensen and company take the stage to administer a riot of intense energy, insanity-inducing lighting and massive SPLs, all driven by a relentless barrage of industrial rhythms layered with roaring samples and instrumentation. In this most extreme sonic environment, wireless failure is not an option. For the current Ministry world tour, guitarist Tommy Victor and bassist Paul Raven are relying on the EV RE1 wireless systems to get the job done.

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Bayside Chapel Gets Sonic Makeover

BARNEGAT, NJ–In 2000 when Bayside Chapel in Barnegat, New Jersey was making plans for a new church building, Bayside's technical director Bob Seibel put in a call to consultant Tom Young of Electroacoustic Design Services in Oxford, Connecticut. Six years later, the church completed the long journey of fundraising, breaking ground and construction by installing a new sound system featuring Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers which went live in June 2006.

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Parnelli Award Nominations Now Open

LAS VEGAS, NV–Since 2001, the Parnelli Award has recognized pioneering and influential individuals and their contributions to the live event industry, honoring both individuals and companies. Nominations for the 2006 Parnelli Awards are now being accepted. Nominees for all categories, including Lighting Designer, Set/Scenic Designer, Lighting Company, Staging Company, FOH Mixer, Sound Company and more are now being accepted at www.parnelliawards.com/nominate.

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David McNutt To Lead Sennheiser Installed Sound

OLD LYME, CONNECTICUT–Sennheiser Electronic Corporation has appointed David McNutt as industry team leader, installed sound. McNutt will be responsible for all aspects of marketing and distribution to the installed sound channels. In his new role, McNutt will liaise between Sennheiser's U.S. headquarters, the factory, and the marketplace with regard to product development, distribution strategy, channel and marketing communications, and strategic growth initiatives. He will additionally work to establish and maintain strong relationships with the key channel influencers.

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Cheap But Not Easy

[The Regional Slants piece written by Larry Hall in the May 2006 issue of FOH generated more mail than anything we have run in a very long time. The story about losing the gig because of an uncooperative engineer who did not advance the gig well, coupled with some discussion about growing your company evidently hit a nerve. At the same time, the Anklebiter duo was getting ready to discuss the topic of cheap gigs. Because Larry came up the ladder from musician to anklebiter to strong regional soundco, we asked him to sit in on the discussion here as well. Enjoy. –b]

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Hometown Heroes?

It has been about two years now but as I sit here trying to compose my thoughts for this month's missive, I am reminded of a particularly busy Saturday night doing work for FOH back in L.A. before we all made the move to the desert.

First came a call from the production team with Dream Theater who were loading in at the Pantages and wanted me to come down. Next came the reminder that I needed to get down to the Forum between soundcheck and the Metallica show so I could drop off the trophy that Big Mick Hughes had earned as the winner of the Parnelli Award for FOH Mixer of the Year (Mick had been on tour when the awards were given out and not able to make it to the event). And then I got a call from Steve La Cerra, a friend from previous editorial pursuits and someone I had been trying to make space for in FOH (he's now our Bleeding Edge columnist). He was in town mixing Blue Oyster Cult (one of my personal fave rock bands) at a place called the Canyon Club. This was a circuit that would have taken me from my then-home in Altadena to Hollywood, on to Inglewood and way out west to Agoura Hills. That's about a 100 mile loop which, in L.A. on a Saturday night… Well, let's just say it was going to be tough. I ended up missing the Dream Theater thing while stuck in traffic, arriving at the Forum for Metallica just minutes before they went on so I ended up staying for the entire show so Mick and Paul Owen and I could chat a bit after the show, and then blasting out to Agoura Hills to catch the last three songs of the BOC set and talk with Steve for a few minutes. A nutty day.

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Discovering The "Live Music Capital of the World"

When you get off of an airplane at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the first thing you see is a plaque on the wall proclaiming Austin as the "Live Music Capital of the World". With more live music venues per capita than Nashville, Memphis, Los Angeles, Las Vegas or New York City, it's tough to argue the point.

Live Music From Concentrate

The city's live music scene is most concentrated downtown, just north of the Colorado River, with dozens of clubs situated side-by-side on Fourth, Sixth, and Red River Street. Other pockets of venues are scattered throughout the city, most notably on South Congress Avenue a couple miles South of downtown. Walk down Sixth street on a weekend night in July and you will very quickly see what all the fuss is about. Amongst a plethora of bars with names like Chuggin' Monkey, The Library, Iron Cactus, and Red Eyed Fly, the sounds of country, rock, metal and dueling pianos mix together, offering up a new artist to almost any musical taste.

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Regional Slants

Last month a relationship I have been building and nurturing for several years paid off in the kind of gig that companies like mine rarely get called for. A couple of days before the Academy of Country Music Awards were held at the MGM Grand, we did a "pre-concert" show in conjunction with the ACM and The Fremont St. Experience. With 25 or more A- and B-list acts doing one or two songs each and two primary headliners doing full sets, we had our hands full.

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The Bleeding Edge

How many times has the following happened to you? You're in a room watching a band (or perhaps a public speaker), and you notice that the sound of an instrument or voice is coming from the P.A., not from the physical location of the source. Sometimes it's subtle, but sometimes you think: "Why am I seeing this guy directly in front of me but hearing his voice to my left?" It's such an unnatural phenomenon that it distracts from delivery of the musical content or message.

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Call Me Ishmael

I was contracted to bring audio on board the "Freedom of The Seas" promotional voyage around the New York harbor and down the eastern coastline to somewhere off the coast of Virginia. We were to cruise with a boatload of travel agents and marketing people who were all there to take advantage of the free food, booze and entertainment offered by the Royal Caribbean company as the world's largest cruise ship was introduced to the world via a live, onboard broadcast of "The Today Show" with Katie Courac and Matt Lauer. It was a gala event that included a bottle of champagne broken across the hull of the ship as well as performances by Barry Manilow, Jon Secada and Lauren Harris.

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Gold Mixer

Over the course of a 20-year career, John C. Clark III has gone from stagehand work in clubs in his hometown of Albuquerque, N.M. to running FOH for R&B phenom Kanye West. Today he finds himself on the backend of West's "Touch the Sky" tour–a massive undertaking that started out as a coheadline thing with U2 where Clark was driving a huge Meyer-powered rig that included four M3D line array loudspeaker s, eight MILO cabinets, four MICA units, and nine 700- HP subwoofers per side–doing one-off fly dates with the system du jour and making his boss sound great on whatever gear he is given.

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Feel the LOVE

LOVE, the latest production from Cirque du Soleil is a collaborative effort between the Cirque and Apple Corps. The show features original Beatles tracks from master tapes at Abbey Road studios prepared specifi – cally by Musical Directors Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin. "We wanted to make sure there are enough good, solid hit songs in the show, but we don't want it to be a catalog of 'best of's'," said Sir George Martin. "We also wanted to put in some interesting and not well-known Beatles music and use fragments of songs. The show will be a unique and magical experience."

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