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FOH at Large

Government? Audio? It’s All In the Mix

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.

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Is It Overtime Yet?

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.

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A Culture of Cheating?

Audio, music, baseball (New York Yankees) and girls are pretty much all I think about and not necessarily in that order. Well, not really girls since I’m married, but something like it. Believe me, I’m not trying to imply that I’m shallow…OK, I’m a superficial scum, so sue me, but they do all go together, although maybe not in this article. So, just for expediency, if I forget about the girls, it leaves audio, music and baseball. That brings to mind the steroid scandal of 2007, and boy does that upset me! Not because of the obvious reasons, such as drug use or that George Mitchell is the director of the Boston Red Sox and not one Red Sox player was named in his report. Nope. The cause of my distress is that the steroid scandal makes me think of politics, technology and ethics, and that gets in the way of my important thoughts about audio, music, baseball and girls (or in my case, my wife). 

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How Do You Get to the Garden?

The idiomatic phrase “This is not Madison Square Garden,” when directed at an audio company, sends a universal meaning that is not bound by either state lines or time zones. While I am certain that the names of other major event institutions have been employed in the same allegorical fashion as Madison Square Garden, it appears that evoking the image of this iconic venue epitomizes all that is grand and glamorous in the concert world. Though I am New York-based and have often worked at “The Garden,” I have also done shows in almost every state and have traveled ex-tensively around the globe. Regardless of where I go, the aforementioned axiom keeps popping up.

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OK, so there I was, all gakked up and sitting in the back of the bus

An engineer friend of mine, who is now retired from the business, started his audio career in the early 1970s and spent most of the ensuing 30 years traveling throughout the world mixing front of house and monitors. As well as being an excellent engineer, he is endowed with a charismatic charm, wit and a talent for networking. He was in with the rock ‘n’ roll elite and always worked with top name acts in the business.

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Bits and Pieces

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.

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AES: Let The Feeding Frenzy Begin…

The AES convention is the feeding frenzy of the audio world. Like sharks to chum, audiophiles from the world over descend upon the caucus and devour the newest, the latest and the yet-to-come of the best that audio manufacturers can offer. It is a feeding frenzy catering to the most basic needs of any gear-head. As exhilarating as it is overwhelming in its enormity, the experience of AES truly has the feel of a school of sharks gorging themselves on the massive body of a whale until they are overly satiated by their own gluttony and can do nothing but float belly-up in a stupor. Each year seems to bring more vendors, newer products and, in short, more bells and whistles. While many products are just the same old offerings in a new package, there are always the new designs, add-ons and plug-ins that make the convention exciting and worthwhile. 

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Is There Integrity at the Mall?

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.…

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How to Handle Those High-Stress Moments

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. 

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Follow the Money

 

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.” 

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The Shadows on the Pyramid

I recently returned from a trip to Cancun, Mexico, and other than the tequila and the beautiful beach, my most memorable day was one spent at Chichen-Itza, site of one of the well-known Mayan pyramids in the Yucatan Peninsula. The Pyramid of King Kuku lkán, the serpent god, is the centerpiece of the area and dates back to about A.D. 1100. This spectacular pyramid showcases the astronomical, architectural and political brilliance of its creators. During the autumn and spring equinox, due to the position of the sun, one can still witness a shadowy snake moving impressively down the north stair. The story is told that the priests, because of their precise knowledge of the seasons, would come out and address the masses assembled below the pyramid and tell them when to expect rain. The arrival of the rain on the predicted date would cement the priest’s claim that he had a direct line to god who, in the form of the bird-serpent Quetzalcoatl, lived in the temple built on top of the pyramid. The proof of Quetzalcoatl’s alliance with the priests was that if someone clapped their hands at the bottom of the pyramid, the returning echo is a sound similar to the quack of a duck.  

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Better Heard and Not Seen

How do you get big if it’s your job to be transparent?

“How do I get into the big time?” was a question that was recently asked of me. How indeed? Although I understand the person’s desire for success, and seem to comprehend what is meant by “the big time,” I seriously have no absolute viable solution to the query. The good news is that for any neophyte seeking a job in the audio business there are many available avenues to “The big time.” The bad news, on the other hand, is that once you arrive at your destination it may not seem as glossy as “the big time” you once expected. Therefore, I must say that it’s not as much the destination as it is the journey, because if one keeps seeking the big gig just around the corner, then it becomes increasingly difficult to see that they may have finally arrived.

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