This blog was originally going to be about my evening with the band INXS. But, as you will hopefully see, it’s about more than that. The band part is a hell of an anecdote though so I’ll start there.

Another Living Room Rundown, this time from FOH engineer Sean ‘Sully’ Sullivan.

In this age of MP3 files, streaming services, earbuds, and just generally crappy sound being taken as the prevailing standard, it's easy to forget that lots of folks still care about their home sound systems. We've been talking to them and bring you the Living Room Rundown series in which we will feature the gear that industry pros use in their home. To kick things off we have Martin Frey, our good friend, from Nashville TN describe his set-up.

The details of how this next move came about are a bit fuzzy but my friend and co-worker Chris and I decided that it would be fun to “borrow” the Haji truck for the weekend and record Lost Angeles at a little bar in Newport Beach. I still can’t believe that we got away with it – you’d think that my purchase of several rolls of very expensive two-inch recording tape late Friday might have tipped off my boss. That, and asking for the keys to the truck. 

This is a story of two guys named Dan. Well, just one was really named Dan, or Daniel. The other was a crook who went by many names but for the sake of this story I’ll call him Fake Dan.

Photo: The real Daniel Adair, left, and Nickelback sound mixer Joe Keiser

I’ve decided that this “finger thing” as I call it is an artist’s built-in, God-given antenna. They aren’t necessarily hearing these things. They are receiving them. 

The irony is not lost on us that our line of work – one that puts us smack in the middle of hundreds or thousands of people – save for a barrier and a laminate, many of us would faint.

Production people are my best friends. The men and women who do this touring gig are amazing. I don’t think there is another field of work where such a wide range of skills are brought to bear. Drive a forklift in the morning and program a digital device in the afternoon. Oh, and mix a concert in the evening for thousands of fans who have paid good money. 

Through an admittedly thin relationship with his management, help from a contact in Colorado who works closely with one of the tour background singers, and a brash call to another tour that had the gear already and was passing through Detroit – “I don’t care, you have to leave it in Detroit. I’ll send a guy to St. Andrews Hall tonight to pick it up. Something’s come up…” You get the idea. I was on a mission.

Why isn’t there a better connection between the rock guys and hipsters when it comes to marketing? The hipsters would seem on the surface to be really good at helping the rock guys. Hell, they act more like rock guys than rock guys do. In truth though, the only similarity to rock and roll that hipsters have is that they dress like indie musicians and thus all look alike.

I would love to go out on something that was interesting and required little or no heavy lifting. I could work with my clients or other interested parties and tie AR into this.  Sounds crazy, I’m sure. But for me, thankfully, the fire for this gig burns brighter than ever. Simply put, I love being around this stuff.

A couple of weeks later my very own blue Anvil briefcase showed up at my house. I had arrived. This, combined with the fake Marshall Tucker Band tour jacket that my brother had given me, made me feel alive. I loaded my papers, pens, and a copy of CREEM magazine into it and, well, didn’t do much. But I looked good.

If you ever get the chance to fly on a seaplane, do it. With Chalks, given their long history, the experience is amped up. Just prior to takeoff headphones drop from the ceiling. Actually they sort of crash down – these were old heavy headphones. Expecting the usual flight safety recording, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in The Head” playing rather loudly.

My most recent endeavor is with Sony, Heil Sound and the Tony Visconti/Woody Woodmansey “Holy Holy” tour. This band of all stars will be performing “The Man Who Sold The World” on the east coast and it will be amazing. Steve McGuire is mixing FOH and Tour Managing, and it’s been a riot fielding phone calls from him and hearing the scoop. 

At one point in the middle of our chat about all things impedance, he said to me, “Greg hang on one second.” Bobby grabbed the mic with one hand, did something on the lighting control with the other and before I knew it he had killed the sound and shined a spotlight on the dance floor where a fight had broken out. He said, “Stop fighting right now or you will go to jail. Believe me when I say that you do not want to go to a Mexican jail.”

My first thought after reading her response, honestly, was to pull the plug on the whole deal. Take the coward’s way out. But I realized that Shelby was right. We would be in her way and, most likely, would get on her nerves. But I also knew that when that promo train leaves the proverbial station, you not only better be on it, you are on it. 

I believe that a comparison can be made between great songwriters creating a song and content gatherers (a horrible term I think I just made up) putting together posts. Just like a song, social media is fairly structured, especially platforms like Twitter. Think of the social platform as the melody and your message as the lyrics.

It’s only recently that I’ve come to embrace the totality of that experience for me as an artist relations specialist and businessperson. The photo is compelling, just my dad and Ernie Harwell – a broadcast legend and artist in his own right – sitting in an empty Tiger Stadium talking. And the fact that all sorts of movie activity is going on nearby is cool too.

My point here is that there is no substitute for visiting your customers or artists and talking face to face. Too often we communicate, and I use that term loosely, via email or texting and think that we are tight. Spending time, real time and not “thanks for the tickets, sorry it was too loud to talk, and I had to leave early to deal with the babysitter” time doesn’t cut it.