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Would You Say That to Your Boss?

 

In my position, I spend the majority of my time teaching new students how to run the equipment we own. All the artists know they are coming to a college where learning occurs, and a majority of the audience members know this too.  We constantly hear from artists that we have better equipment and are more prepared than the last school they were at, and I pride myself on that achievement. My expectations for a show are no less than what a professional production person would produce. (more…)

Life on Tour: Your Emotional and Physical Well Being

 

As I write this, I’m just over three-quarters of the way through a 60-day North American tour. My life in the past six weeks has revolved around spending anywhere from 3 to 12 hours a day sitting in a van, loading in, hopefully getting a soundcheck, waiting around for the set, mixing, and then loading out, all fueled by little to no sleep and a questionable diet. I might not be a doctor, but I know from personal experience that this lifestyle can take a toll on a person’s emotional and physical well-being. (more…)

The Translator

 

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Often in my job, I end up being the middle person. I don’t own the contract with the band, but I have to fulfill the requirements. Sometimes I get a say in what is allowed in the rider, other times I get to deal with cross renting items late in the game because I didn’t see the completed contract until the day before. I get to communicate with the band the possibilities for their show but must get all changes approved by the purchaser.

I’m sure many of you deal with people like me while on tour where others are in the same position as venue operators. I would like to point out that being the middle person has also given me an interesting aspect of my job that I tend to forget about the most: The Translator. (more…)

Kim Watson on Mixing and Teching Monitors

image1What goes into being a great tech that engineers request or want to work with? The fourth in a series of articles on system teching and what it takes to be a great tech.

UK based sound engineer Kim Watson has been a freelance audio engineer since 1999.  She is currently touring with The Subways as a monitor engineer.  (more…)

The Road to 23db Productions – Fela Davis

 

11864830_1025765017455651_8199922057651526845_oFela Davis graduated from Full Sail University in 2002 and works as a live sound and recording engineer. Last year she started 23db Productions with Denis Orynbekov. (more…)

Girl Power! Conference ~ Women Empowering Women

By: Victoria Boyington

Girl Power Staff

Girl Power Staff

San Francisco, Saturday May 30th, 2015 11377075_448758455292995_6607751830982807755_nThe 2015 Girl Power! Women Working in the Music Industry Conference was the place to be. Located at San Francisco State University downtown campus, founders Kerry & Gian Fiero, adjunct professors at San Francisco State University’s Music/Recording Industry Program presented this year’s theme: Profiting from your Network. (more…)

The Only Dude on Tour

1978764_10100302702953475_1618346859_nAndrew Miller lives in Los Angeles, CA, and produces music. He has a project called UUV. He also works in film and televison, as well with as other artists.. Andrew played guitar on the Dum Dum Girl’s first record and now tours as a guitar player with the band.

Andrew recently toured with the Dum Dum Girls and found himself as the only dude on tour. We thought it would be fun to ask him some of the questions women in the industry are often asked. They of course have nothing to do with his actual job or abilities. This piece should not be taken seriously, except to point out how ridiculous these questions are.


What’s it like to be the only dude on a tour bus?

Great. In practical terms, wouldn’t anyone rather share close quarters with women than men? Creepers aside.

Do they expect you to be bus dad?

Ha, I have no idea what that means, so probably not. It’s funny though, I can imagine a bus mom, the nurturer. Actually, Claire was obviously the bus dad.

Do you get all grossed out by the girl talk?

I do girl talk, it’s one of my favorite types of talking. What’s not to love?

Are there lots of guy groupies on the bus after the show?

No. The male groupies need to step up their game though.

Do people ask which one of the band members you are sleeping with?

I don’t think so.

Don’t you want to have kids?

That’s the idea.

How does your wife or girlfriend feel about you working with all these women?

I had a girlfriend when I first joined the band and now I don’t, so I might be the wrong person to ask. Touring is hard on relationships, obviously. But there was never an issue in terms of touring with women.

Do you still get to watch porn on a bus full of women?

Porn is welcomed and well regarded in Dum Dum Girl land. But I don’t feel like a tour van is an ideal place for porn, no?1231387_10202618034362891_475064863_n

Do the Hard Jobs

 

I’m Kirsty, sound designer, sound engineer and voice artist, a native New Zealander now based in London, UK. I’m delighted to be joining SoundGirls.org as a new regular blogger. I’ll be writing about sound design, live and theatre sound, and what I’ve learned over my 14+ year career so far. For my first post, I thought I’d dive right in and talk about why you should always do the hard jobs. (more…)

Adventures in Sound

 

In 1992, I was on tour with Pearl Jam. We had been on tour crisscrossing the U.S. for the past two months. Ten, their debut album was starting to blow up, and by summer you would hear Alive, Even Flow, and Black blasting from car stereos, out open windows, and on every station is seemed up and down the FM dial.

One of our gigs was at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We had an army of college volunteers that were eager to help set up, although one young woman that was assigned to the sound crew stood out. She would turn out to be one of the best local hands we had all tour and a life-long friend. We would also learn later that Kim had never worked a show before.

Kim’s recollection of that day

I remember being at a party the night before. We had on MTV, and they had Pearl Jam on. I remember looking at the TV and saying “ Hey, that’s the band I’m working with tomorrow.” The next day I was assigned to the sound folks.  I had no stagehand or sound experience. I wasn’t going to college there; I just wanted to see free concerts, so I signed up to do security. I hated it because they would put you outside or in a hallway, and the patrons didn’t exactly like you because you were security.

I couldn’t believe there was a woman doing monitors. I was super excited, and I had a great time working with them that day and it made me seriously consider going into sound.

That Day Changed Kim’s Life

Kim would go on to sign up to work with other productions at the university and would begin on a path that would lead to a career in sound. She was working as a stage-hand at the University and as a coffee barista when a friend visiting from Los Angeles suggested she move out to LA, as that was the place to be for working in sound. Kim figured she had nothing to lose and packed up her 68 VW bug and headed to Los Angeles.

Kim made her way to Los Angeles during the winter of 1993 in a VW bug that had no heat. She spent the drive dressed in many layers and wool socks. She would switch back and forth with her feet on the gas pedal and on the floor where the heat of the engine was really hot. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, she started to hit up sound companies for an internship.

No Show Sound, later to be known as Industrial Sound gave Kim an internship and she secured another job as a coffee barista. Kim remembers Greg Dean’s sound boot camp. “He would hold up cables and ask what it was, what it did, and where it patched. It turned out to be an xlr cable, and I was so intimidated I didn’t know where it went. I will never forget that moment”.

Ronnie Kimball, currently FOH for Bad Religion would take Kim under his wing, and she would spend most of her time working shows with him. Kim says they worked so many shows, but one of them stands out. It was a Truce Jam in East LA, (in 1992 there was a historic truce between the Crips and the Bloods, it eventually broke down as the City of Los Angeles walked away from their promises to help rebuild South Central after the Rodney King Riots) the concert as its name implied was to celebrate the truce between the gangs.

This experience was entirely new for Kim

I was still a little mountain hippie girl and oh so new to the big city. When we arrived for load in the stage wasn’t quite built, so we sat around and waited for a while. It finally gets finished, and we start building the PA, FoH, and monitor world. I notice we are the only white people there, and racial tensions are still high from the recent riots. The event was poorly organized, and security was provided by the Nation of Islam. I had a Leatherman that they took away from me and told me they would give it back to me at the end of the show.

So the concert starts. They had a cleansing ceremony with a Native American blessing with sage. While a band is playing, I look up to see the crowd parting ways and a guy carrying a folding chair chasing after another guy. People ran backstage, everywhere leading to the cancellation of the show. I remember some people saying damn whitey’s ruining the show with the sound. Everyone was saying it was the white guy’s fault and blaming the sound guys. It was some scary stuff.

Kim would eventually make her way to San Francisco where she knocked on the doors to the Warfield. There she met the late Paul Majesky, the production manager for the theater and presented her case as to why he should hire her. Kim still had a limited resume and lacked experience, but Paul took a chance on her. Kim would spend several years working at the Warfield and occasionally still works there. She would also start working at other Bay area venues such as the Shoreline Amphitheater, Slims, and The Fillmore.

In 1998, Kim was hired by Grant Lee Buffalo as a monitor engineer and drum tech for a short tour of Australia. Kim did not have experience as a monitor engineer or drum tech. She had no clue how to do monitors or even how to tour. She convinced the sound guys for Big Day Out to mix monitors for the band, and somehow faked setting up the drums. Kim says it became evident that she had no idea what she was doing and needless to say did not become friends with the drummer. Miraculously, she survived the tour and became friends with Grant Lee Phillips.

Grant would go on to recommend her for a sound gig at Cafe du Nord.  The “Monday Night Hoot” series at Cafe du Nord is named for the hootenanny movement of the ’60s. Kim would learn to mix during this Monday night folk series on a small Allen Heath board set up on the side of the stage. She would work at Cafe du Nord until 2007 and become known as Audio Elf and Tough Love Griess.

10400259_52155062747_7199_nDuring this period, Kim also fell into a lot of TM/FOH work. She toured with several bands ranging from Arab Strap to The Cramps and Nada Surf to Chapterhouse. Kim says, “all of the bands sounded so different, and I loved mixing every single one of them. When you’re on tour, you get those songs in your head. You wake up with them and fall asleep with them. I love that I got to mix every night. It’s great to be able to add the effects where they were meant to be, bring up the solos and really be able to mix something. You get to feel like you’re part of the band.

As much as Kim loved being able to do FOH, she disliked the tour managing aspect of the job. Kim explains “I never wanted to be a TM. It was just a means to get to do sound. I am still willing to do some very small tours as TM/FOH, but I won’t go out and do any long and grueling tours like that anymore. I really didn’t enjoy TM ing as you are never off and it is one of the hardest and thankless jobs out there but I did the best I could. Kim would continue to tour as a TM/FOH  until 2010 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Kim fights breast cancer and puts a touring career on hold

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Fighting Breast Cancer

In 2010 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This put a little damper on the work thing. I was offered a tour with Chapterhouse a band from the UK. I wanted to work the tour since it was going to be my last for a long time. I was the TM/FOH, and I had a blast. I was also asked to do one more four-day gig, in Hawaii with Dengue Fever. There was no way in hell I was gonna miss going to Hawaii. It was a beautiful visit with two shows and some fabulous free time spent sitting on a gorgeous beach. It was a wonderful way to come home and start four months of chemo, surgery, and six weeks and five days a week of radiation. I have been cancer-free for ten years.

I didn’t work for over a year taking care of myself. I slowly started working at clubs again and have recently just done my first tour as FOH for John Doe.

Touring with John Doe

It was a pretty amazing realization I was doing sound for John Doe, that sexy bass player from X. You bet your sweet bibby I was gonna go out there. Getting a call from John was so surreal. I was honored to be asked to mix his sound.

We had gigs in many different types of clubs. Venues ranged from 300 to 500 seaters. I had to do monitors and FoH from FoH on every show we did. I didn’t mind so much. In some venues, it’s better that I do monitors as some of the guys out there don’t care as much about the show.

The band and crew traveled in a van, and we all shared hotel rooms. So you have to be willing to spend every day together, you are thrown into a 24/7 situation with people. It isn’t easy, but it is part of the job. Sometimes to just get some free time to myself, I would take myself out to a nice Italian dinner and just sit back and relax. It’s good to make sure you give yourself some me-time on tour. It’ll keep you sane.

Kim continues to work in the Bay area with Sound on Stage, Delicate, at the Fillmore and as a member of the IATSE Local 16.

I used to work at Shoreline Amphitheater, Slims, Great American Music Hall and sometimes at Bottom of the Hill. The thing is I’m not getting any younger, and I had to start thinking about what to do for the future. I have benefits and make a living wage working with the union. I do miss working at all those nightclubs, hearing all the new bands and just how much fun it is, but you don’t really make that much, and there are no insurance benefits. So I sadly gave up most of the rock and roll lifestyle but not all of it. Good lord, I couldn’t give it up all the way. I think I’d lose my mind if I did. That’s what I grew up doing. I was 18 when I started in the “biz.”

Kim’s favorite gig The Stern Grove Festival has just ended for the season. The Stern Grove Festival is a ten-week series Kim mixes monitors for. The festival keeps her busy through the summer; typically prepping the gear at Delicate on Thursday and Friday, loading in and setting up on Saturday and doing the show on Sunday.  This year the festival opened its season with Smokey Robinson and closed with The Zombies.

So see, I still get to do some rock. I’m just doing a bit more corporate shows to keep food in my belly and keeping a roof over my dog Ollie’s and my heads.

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Stern Grove

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