the sound guy where we played last night was a total dick. Yeah, we use three DI's. I've debated buying them myself, because every once in a while we run into some tool running sound who doesn't even know what one is. Anyways, we asked for them, to which he replied (quite bitterly) "Have any MORE Surprises?" Um, is that really a surprise for you? And this is the first opportunity I've had to talk to you, so when would have been a better time to avoid this element of "surprise?" It's not like we're about to start. Hell, we're an hour from the first band starting. Um, well... you're a dick, but that's probably not a surprise to you.
Between that and orders to "move, get out of my way, etc." I hope he got shafted at the end of the night.
We're not twats. We don't roam aimlessly around stage. We aim to be set up in 5 minutes, and be off the stage in five minutes. It's not my fault your stage sucks, and that for some reason you prefer to work in the dark. He tells me he only has two DI's... then magically, I notice 5 on the stage. I tell him, he doesn't care. He says it's fine. None of them get plugged in, until we bother him some more. Turns out only 2 of the DI's worked. Fortunately our set got cut short, so we scrapped a song that needed the other DI. We've taken to using in-ear monitors as well... since stage sound almost always blows. I wasn't about to ask him to run a monitor mix on stage for that.
Though, we played Circus last Wednesday, and had ZERO problems with any of these things. How many DI's? Sure, no problem. Sure, I'll send you the monitor mix through your in-ears.
The show where the sound guy was a dick... we brought practically everyone. I hope he got screwed. The Circus? Left happy, and he earned every penny.

pretty classy photos on the lackluster fb page

keep up the good work

Ha, yeah well... what are you gonna do? I understand that most sound guys deal with pissy teenage bands spilling beer on their gear and whatnot... but also, I don't appreciate being treated like a little shit. Even if I am one. If you care to find out where that happened, go right ahead. I didn't even care to ask his name, so I couldn't name him if I wanted to. We've played about everywhere of that size here in Columbus, but hadn't played there before. We've had soundguys be short with us, for reasons I don't presume to fully understand (but would probably appreciate). It's not often that a guy is just a total prick to us. The way I see it is... we busted our asses to promote a show with a few days notice at a venue with no visible sign or address to people on an off day.
We do bring a lot of gear, and we try to have almost all of it set up off-stage before the first band starts. If possible, we put it on stage. Wanna give us an attitude? If you'd rather, we can just take 30 minutes to set up and tear down.
We were happy to play the show, played well, and some people came out that don't normally. I have no issue whatsoever with any other aspect of that experience but what I'd mentioned. While I stand by what I said, I don't want it to be misconstrued.
And our pictures were taken by Paul w/ Cool World Photography. We hired him twice, we liked him so much. I'd definitely recommend him. He's affordable, dependable, flexible and being in a touring band himself is happy to offer advice. Even if it means staying a bit later than he would have liked.

I'm gonna have to dig up a link for him.... http://www.myspace.com/coolworldphotography

Ha, yeah well... what are you gonna do? I understand that most sound guys deal with pissy teenage bands spilling beer on their gear and whatnot... but also, I don't appreciate being treated like a little shit. Even if I am one. If you care to find out where that happened, go right ahead. I didn't even care to ask his name, so I couldn't name him if I wanted to. We've played about everywhere of that size here in Columbus, but hadn't played there before. We've had soundguys be short with us, for reasons I don't presume to fully understand (but would probably appreciate). It's not often that a guy is just a total prick to us. The way I see it is... we busted our asses to promote a show with a few days notice at a venue with no visible sign or address to people on an off day.
We do bring a lot of gear, and we try to have almost all of it set up off-stage before the first band starts. If possible, we put it on stage. Wanna give us an attitude? Or we can just take 30 minutes to set up and tear down, so you can run around in the dark looking for things without the inconvenience of having to treat the ones who are paying you with any sort of respect.
We were happy to play the show, played well, and some people came out that don't normally. I have no issue whatsoever with any other aspect of that experience but what I'd mentioned. While I stand by what I said, I don't want it to be misconstrued.
And our pictures were taken by Paul w/ Cool World Photography. We hired him twice, we liked him so much. I'd definitely recommend him. He's affordable, dependable, flexible and being in a touring band himself is happy to offer advice. Even if it means staying a bit later than he would have liked.


I'm gonna have to dig up a link for him.... http://www.myspace.com/coolworldphotography

If no one cares... then I guess I won't be reading any replies to this. But yeah, nothing's perfect. Even with the in-ears. You can only try to make things better. I guess we'll just spend the cash on DI's. We SHOULD hire our own soundguy though! How would that work with these types of places? Normally they don't like that do they? And would I still have to pay the house guy while he waits for our set to be over. Or would my soundguy work the whole night and basically let the house guy take the night off? If someone knows, I'm listening.

I had to run sound the other night. It was at a neighborhood party. The monitors weren't loud enough for the drummer, so he was pissed off. When the guitar amplifier started squealing uncontrollably, he though it was me. He stopped playing, stood up and yelled (at me in front of 100+ people, many of whom were children) "What the fuck? Can we get some fucking sound? What the fuck is the problem?" It was like in the movies when the record scratches to a halt and everyone stops what they're doing. Kids stood with their mouths open as he stormed into the house. Meanwhile, the amp was still squealing and the PA was cut. The rest of the band was cool. They apologized.

That's my soundguy story.

Turn On
Tune Up
Rock Out

What the fuck else do you need?

what's a DI cost? maybe 40, 50 bucks? sounds like if that's the keystone of your live show, it'd be money well spent. The bar doesn't supply your amp or your pedals either.

I always (try to) bring my own DI instead of assuming the club will have enough working ones.

Fair enough, I suppose. But every other venue that we've played in here has it covered. Hell, every venue we've played out of town (besides the one where the sound guy didn't even know what a DI was) has had it covered. "Anything smaller than the Newport," sets some pretty lofty standards. I'll just go out and buy them though.
Any advice on bringing your own soundguy? Has anyone done this w/ original-music oriented venues?

$99.99
and your problem is solved.



keep it in a rack and it wont break.

whoa.