Dirty Laundry Department
By Jack Alexander

And skeletons in the closet

As I went through the local music rag today, noting all the shows I wasn’t going to see and all the acts I had done whenever, I came upon a rather large skeleton in the old closet and decided it was time for a few words on the subject of “selling it by the pound.” Sound company administrators, whether one of the “big boys” or the music store on the corner, price their offerings based on preset guidelines for systems, parts of systems, and tech folk. Producers do the same thing.

When I used to work at the “BoomBoom Room” at Armitage Avenue and Lincoln Park in Chicago (The Park West to the uninitiated), various elements of the monitor rig would change depending on the sale of the show and the political situation between the act’s management and the promoter.

The whole thing became surreal after a while; one night I’d have big drumfills and better wedges and we’d eat sushi, the next night we’d half strip the rig and run out for Polish sausage. It was all tied to the politics of the event. The actual needs of the act and any thought to pride of craft and total support for the show, regardless of ticket sales, were low priorities.

This became a bad habit for all concerned, and unfortunately started to migrate to other venues and situations.

So it came to pass that an engineer from our company was a bad boy yet again, and I found myself exiled from the palatial confines of the BoomBoom Room to the relative desert of the corner of Belmont and Sheffield, as we couldn’t find anyone else to cover the jerk’s house gig that night.

This venue, located on the second floor (not the big theatre down the block), had a disgusting load-in and the pervasive smell of shoe polish from the repair shop on the Belmont side - not exactly the high-rent district. We had a rental system in there that was O.K. for the times but certainly no screamer. FOH was better than the monitors, which were a bit dubious. When directed by the promoter rep, we’d go get some of the wedges from the fancy venue and beef the thing up - otherwise the monitor presentation was less than stellar.

As I waited out my coughing fit at the top of the stairs, induced by the unwanted exertion and that smell, the alleged production manager for the event greeted me with “My, how the mighty have fallen, what are you doing here?” I ignored the chump and made for the crummy little mixing booth, wondering who the hell Richard Thompson was and why fate had dumped me in this hole this particular night.

When he arrived, Richard Thompson appeared to feel the same as he noted the low ceiling, crappy wedges and bad attitude from the promoters’ rep (the show was a stiff). We spoke, and I explained that it would indeed be these weak wedges and only four mixes from the board. I made the mistake of admitting that we had the real deal stashed at the other venue, and he asked if some of that could be brought over. I explained that we couldn’t do it (though the promoter wouldn’t have cared if I did it as a freebie), and Thompson was a pro and got on with soundcheck.

We got through the show – the material was a little folky for my taste at the time – and I got myself back to my usual turf and proceeded to forget about the whole thing. Years later, I started to buy Thompson’s CD’s (get the double “you? me? us?” that features truly amazing bass, vocals and songs) and realized that I had participated in the screwing of a great artist.

Within the rules of the game, I had played fair, but (isn’t hindsight great?) it wasn’t good enough, especially when there is so little real music out there anymore. If purveyors of corporate shlock are the only ones who get the real treatment, we do a disservice to the audience and the poor musicians as well as ourselves.

Remember that next time you’ve got the digital crossovers and the hot wedges stashed in the basement. Drag them upstairs and give some act a memorable night, instead of a marginal one.

And when the promoter’s rep tells you that the extra kit isn’t authorized for that particular show, and therefore can’t be billed, look into his beady little eyes and tell him that it isn’t about billing. Tell him it’s about something he wouldn’t understand anymore, and not to take it personally.

Jack Alexander hesitates to tell you exactly what he thinks. He can be reached at jalexander@colum.edu.