Mic Check???

I'm a fairly competent, semi-professional musician. I've been playing guitar for years, and know what things are supposed to sound like when playing live with a band. My band played some pretty decent shows and we had a decent following...

So..... why do I inevitably get the moron on the mixing board who went to the local audio/visual college who's tonedeaf, squints a lot, and has a soul patch? And from what I can tell, quite a few musicians are having the same troubles.

Admittedly, these people work pretty hard and spend a lot of money to get the "degree" that they have. But I think I know why they are all as useful musically as Helen Keller....... and not like Beethoven.

Number One. Not everyone is competent or has an ear for music. Attending a 14 month college to become a sound technician doesn't mean that you're ready to help produce The Alkaline Trio's new album. Just because you know what button to press and what level things are technically supposed to be at doesn't mean that you know what level my guitar is supposed to be in relation to the rest of the instruments during our third song. I'm supposed to tell you that! You're supposed to listen to me!

Why would you cut the level of my guitar at the chorus? Are you nuts?

Numero Dos. These "colleges" compress a roughly 3 year degree program into about 14 months. They have STRANGE hours for their classes and labs. They basically shove these people against the wall, force feeding crap into their brains so that they literally crap information about the newest Mackie 24 channel mixers out of their mouths! When these people get out, they are excited and come to the gig feeling like they know EXACTLY what they are doing, even though the only live performance they've done is their final at the college. If I hear one more of them talking about how now they want to set up a studio in their apartment, I may have to start carrying a gun to put them out of their misery.......

Number Three. They secretly hate the fact that I'm on stage and they are not. I know, I know.... Your parents bought you a guitar for Christmas five years ago, and you SWORE to yourself that you would get a band together and be the next... I don't know... The Edge from U2. (They're popular again, right, iPod lovers?) It's not your fault that you just don't have the drive or the ability to get people to listen to your latest rendition of "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" from Drowning Pool. But why must you punish me? Why, my little tech, why?

And finally, I realize that there's nothing I can do. These guys come cheap. The bar and club owners want to make money, and they could probably give these people a few beers and a churro and they might even forget they were supposed to get paid for this job. And the owners don't trust the bands to run the sound equipment, so I can't even correct it myself.....sigh.....

Maybe I should write a song about it and play it at our next show... while eating a churro.....

LATE!
Kelly K

Did you know that Douchetones doesn't set off my spell checker?