FOH at Large

I take a fair amount of pride in my writing, so I was humbled when an audio engineer with whom I was working with told me he enjoyed my column in FOH and that it made for great reading while on the crapper. Although storing FOH in the bathroom — whether it’s on a tour bus, a venue or in an audio shop — seems totally logical, his comment, nonetheless, seemed like an underhanded compliment. My first reaction, after all, is that I am an author who writes words that convey lofty ideas. I articulate the inexpressible. I transmit cosmic truths to thousands of readers who hang on my every word — and this dumb schmuck reads my vaulted letters while sitting on the toilet. The nerve of him! OK, I’m humbled. It’s neither the first time, nor will it be the last time, and I’m sure I’ll recover. After all, humbling experiences are often a chance to reevaluate one’s perspective and grow past previous misconceptions.

Politics, slander, innuendo! Who’s qualified to lead? Who is all talk and no action? Who’s tainted by scandal? Whose decisions and reasoning are questionable? Who drinks too much? Who does too many drugs? Who visits hookers? Who takes kickbacks, which one steals, who never has the correct information and then refuses to take responsibility and back-peddles when challenged? Who leads through coercion and intimidation? Who, what, when and where? With so little time and yet so many questions, it’s amazing that anything gets accomplished… and this is just office politics.

On Nov. 10, 2007, right before the busiest season of the year, the Broadway stagehands decided to go on strike and piss off quite a few tourists and theatergoers who made the trek into Manhattan just to enjoy a show or two. Of course, these same stagehands were also finding themselves lam-basted in the media as spoilers for not only the Broadway patrons, but also for the producers, actors and ushers, as well as ancillary businesses such as restaurants and shops. In the mainstream media, the stagehands were collectively portrayed as “The Grinch” who, due to their own avarice, ruined the top moneymaking season for all the aforementioned and more.

There’s a Bunch of Stuff to Keep Track of…
Inventory! Not necessarily the sexiest or most glamorous part of the live audio business, but definitely the lifeblood of what we do. As well as pro-viding income, our equipment defines us professionally. The equipment we stock as audio providers draws to us a certain clientele who, once happy with the product, will hopefully return to us time and again looking to repeat past successes. As our companies branch out and expand, we may sell or dispose of old equipment, while updating and replenishing our inventory with the hope of adding new clients to our roster. Certain companies cater to nonmusical corporate events, while others accommodate concert venues. Whether one has a warehouse filled with all the latest gear, or just a small DJ rig stored in the back of a van, it is still inventory that needs to be taken into account.

The band was Korn, and the record label decided to hold a press conference on Military Island, which is a tiny triangle of real estate in the middle of Times Square. Someone in marketing had the brilliant idea of creating a corn field, for obvious reasons I suppose, complete with bales of hay. All was going well until the mounted police arrived and couldn’t keep their horses from snacking on the aforementioned bales of hay. Not a disaster by any means, but I’m sure that the label’s marketing department did not intend to have the New York mounted police and their hungry horses in the cornfield with Korn as they held a press conference in Manhattan. And so it goes with the best laid plans.…

One of my coworkers came to me the other day and asked me if I could handle a sticky situation with one of our clients. He told me that he couldn’t handle another problem because he was getting overwhelmed, and all he wanted to do was to go home. I was more than happy to help remedy the situation, and what was presented to me as a major issue was, in actuality, an easily resolved minor quandary. This, of course, does not make me a hero, nor does it make me a better person than my coworker, but it does cement in my mind the reason why I am such an advocate for labor. After all, the outcome of any gig is dependent upon clear thinking and the deftness of the crew. 

First Bosch buys Midas, and now Harmon International has agreed to be acquired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Goldman Sachs for $8 billion dollars. Hey, I’m small time and $1 million dollars seems like a lot of money to me. Therefore, an $8 billion dollar purchase sounds like the type of numbers my friends and I would spew out when we were little kids trying to outdo each other on the playground. “When I grow up,” I’d say, “I’m going to have a gazillion million billion dollars.”