Young guns and Tea leaves ..

Don't you just love the fukin internet ..

On Monday before I went to the venue , Me And B knocked up this TV show theme tune thing at my house ..

So , I wake up this morning and the guy wants a couple of bits changed .. Now normally this would have involved a trip to the studio , making the changes , putting the thing on a cd , waiting for a courier to arrive , giving him the CD and then waiting for it to arrive at it's destination to be evaluated and then there'd be a couple more calls and the process would all start again ( it gives the producer far too much time to change his mind about what he wants !! )

Anyway back to this morning , I get an email , we want this , this , and this changed , so , I pull up the mix , do the changes whack it in a dropbox ,send it off and go back to bed for an hour , total time approx 10 mins ... Not even enough time for the producer to take a shit and because it's done soo fast ; he hasn't had time to change his mind ..

From initial idea to finished product synced to his TV prog in half an hour ...

Gawd do I lurv the fukin internet !!!

Mint ...

Anyway , last nights band night was truly atrocious ...

I don't know why , but at Christmas these people come out of the woodwork and proclaim to be band night promotors , but , their just fukin not ..

Ok so , it all starts when I get to the venue and the sound system is already up and running , strange , it usually my job to boot it all up : I check out who's behind this ??

I walk into the mixing booth , there's this kid ( about 17 ) fiddling with the desk ..

Kid ; " Oh I hope you don't mind mate , I turned on all the rig so I could have a listen "

Me : " And er , who the fuck are you ? "

Kid : " Oh I'm engineering the first band , it's my first gig "

Me : " What first with this band , or first ever ? "

Kid ; " A bit of both really "

Oh fukin ell !!

At this point I notice the graphics ( the things I was on about yesterday )

THEY'VE BEEN FUKIN RESET !!!!

Me : " Who the fukin fuck reset those graphics ???? "

Kid ; " Oh yeah , me , I thought I would start from fresh with this band "

WRONG FUKIN ANSWER !!!

Imagine if you've just cleaned your house or washed your car and somebody dumps a skip full of rubbish in the middle/on top of it ... That kinda wrong fukin answer !!!

Me : " You thought fukin what !!! , I spent 3 hours ringing out the fukin system last night and you've just completely fucked it up you fukin little shit .. get the fuck out of this sound booth , NOW !! "

He disappears sharpish ..

Oh for crying out loud , does this shit ever fukin end ..

Please somebody tell me where I can find a copy of " The Boy Scouts Guide to Sound Engineering " so I can track down the author and fukin throttle him ... Especially for the chapter that says .. When first entering a venue .. Reset everything in the room to zero and then make friends with the in house engineer as to avoid him hanging you from the fukin lighting frame !! "

Soo , I stand in front of the graphics and mentally retrace last nights steps to try and redo what this little fucker has undone ..

Ok , what frequencies did I notch out ?

I'm actually glad that I wrote that post on graphics because luckily for me , as I was writing I must have been mentally picturing what I had done last night , so it was still very fresh in my mind ..

So I start to reconfigure the graphics ... Like I've got nothing else better to fukin do ??

The kid returns .. " I'm really sorry mate , is there anything I can do to help ? "

Me : " Err no I think you've done just about enough already thanks .. actually though mate , there is "

I decide to cut this kid some slack , after all , we all fuck up sometimes and he's young and enthusiastic " and " , I could do with a hand really ..

So , I draw him a little stage plan and give him the keys to the gear room .. ( the room with all the mics , monitors , cables etc )

Me : " Right kid , you can get back in my good books by following this plan and setting up the stage exactly as it is in this diagram ... EXACTLY though mate , don't get any ideas that you have a better way of doing this "

KId : Coooollll , I'm on it captain !! "

He salutes me with a big grin on his face and toddles off to the stage ...

Fair play to this kid though , when I get to the stage ( after half an hour of correcting the graphics ) , apart from one wrong mic used on the kick drum stand it's pretty near perfect ..

Me : " Outstanding young man , now fuck off !!! "

He laughes , we laugh , everybody laughs ..

Ha Haaa !!!

So I gained a little apprentice for the night which was ok I suppose , we got kinda pissed later on and I told him rock n roll stories about life on the road , he just stood there with his jaw on the floor going " Really , they/you did what , that's fukin mad !!" etc. etc .


Oh yes , and the bands ... All crap ... Really crap ..

I'm watching this girl singer and as she finishes onstage and accidentally ( or so she makes it look ) knocks over one of the mic stands . I then look in disbelief as she then removes the mic and slips it into her bag ... Fukin tea leaf or what !!

Oh Oh ... I make my way to the stage and grab her arm as she's making her way out of the fire exit ..

Me : " Something you wanna tell me mate "

Her : " Pardon ? "

Me : " Are you like taking that mic off to be serviced or something dear "

Her " What mic , I don't know what you're on about ? "

Now I don't know about you lot , but I fukin hate tea leaves , especially lying fukin tea leaves !!

I grab her bag and empty the contents out onto the stage ..

Me : " That fukin mic "

Her : " What the fuck you doin , that's my mic !! "

I unscrew the mic ..

Me : " Oh , is that why it's got the venue name etched on the inside of the casing ?? "

Note to all live sound enginners : Take an hour out one day and mark up every cable , mic , DI box , stand etc. in the venue in a way that only you can recognise and out of plain site ( so it can't be removed by band members/punters/chancers etc. )

Her : " But , but ?? "

Me : " it's a good job you're a fukin girl mate , now fuck off out of my site luv !!! "

Fukin thiefs !!!

Arrghh !!

To be honest , I was glad when last night was over , coz it fukin sucked ..

Ok , so tonight is an easy peezy night , one partie , no bands etc , a simple case of turn everything on , have a drink and then turn it all off again at the end of the night ...

I've got a copy of Narnia to watch ( with a couple of the doormen ) on the video wall ... Their won't be any trouble tonight , it's a classy advertising firm ( well , you say that !! )

Sooo , I'm gonna go have some lunch and then I'm off to work ..

Laters ..