Mad old week!!

Ok soo, It's been one hell of a week. I just haven't had the time to post it's just been completely fukin manic.

So studio sesh Wed ran till like 9am coz the co-producer (after taking a half-hour meeting break in the West end) decided it would be ok to roll back in at 3AM with a bottle of JD, a gram of coke and two blondes in tow after seemingly stopping off at some bar in Soho for a quicky on the way back to the studio. He then insisted on finishing the tune? This sort of shit happens now and again, but if he's the one sorting out the money then you just have to bite you lip, be diplomatic and say jack shit!!

So yeah out of the studio by 9am, back home for 10 am, in bed by 11:30 and out the door again at 2:30 to do a band night: I felt absolutely fucked to say the least!!!

I am, as one would say though a " Trooper "

Band night was good though, four pretty decent acts and some really heavyweight A&R kicking around the venue to see them… Always a good thing as when bands find this out they tend to pull out all the stops and kick the shit out of it on stage... So, all good.

So I finished at the venue at about 1am and go home for some well earned sleep.

Then it all started again.

So, last night.

Yep, last night I arrived really fukin late at the venue after getting stuck on the train for two hours coz of some signal problem in Vauxhall???

Ok, I arrived late but I wasn't really too worried as everything was still set up from the bands the night before and therefore it should be a case of turning it all on bringing up the mics and checking the bands... Easy!!

Think again batman??

Cue the curse of the fukin Foreign Headlining bands Anal Engineer!!!

This guy has arrived early, I'm not there of course and he's seen this as a green light to do as he pleases?

Soo, like a coakroach in a fukin empty biscuit factory he goes on a rampage!!

Yep, I arrive at the venue and go to put my coat in the soundbooth. Oh fuck!! Everything has been re-set? The graphics, mixing desk, effects, compressors, amp settings, channel assignments... The fukin lot ??

Arrrgghhh!!!

He introduces himself, I just want to fukin throttle this guy, but I'm the one that's late here, not him..

I tell you what mate, why don't I come around to your fukin house and rearrange it all as return favour. I'll change around all of your kitchen cupboards and put the toilet in the fukin bedroom and the bathtub in the garden… Just so you know where everything is then eh!!

I'm sure you'd be over the moon just as much as I was!!

Oh, and while I'm on it, you know your cooker and fridge mate, I've brought my own, so I'll just leave yours in a place where you have absolutely no fukin chance of finding them ever again !!

So yeah, not what I fukin needed ... At all!!

To top it all off this guy has brought all his own mics... Ok not a problem we'll just use his mics for the other bands, but oh no! His mics are too fukin precious to use on the other bands and he doesn't want anyone to touch his channels once he's set them all up...

Oh for fuck's sake... Who the fuck do you think you are?

Pink Floyd's fukin sound engineer???

It's a charity gig mate ... And your bands are a completely fukin unheard of Funk number!! Your only headlining coz your lot need some sleep (seemingly) before the gig ...The headlining band soundcheck first and therefore have the time to return to hotel and rest before they play...

The real Headlining band are not that happy with this arrangement but have agreed out of a combination of common decency and the fact that you've taken it upon yourself to completely avoid stage etiquette set up your band prematurely and just pilled into the venue equipment?
Of course while all this was happening, I was stuck on a fukin train in no-mans land!!

Personally, I would have told you to " Fuck off, mind you manners and sound check in the right order!! " but of course I wasn't there..

Fukin foreigners, you think you can just fly in to Heathrow and take over the fukin country.

Arrogant twats!!

I digress.

Ok, so I've walked into a big pile of horse shit and I'm already stressed from being so late.

Right, I take a walk about the stage to try and make sense of the situation... His band are all cabled up and ready to sound check, fine, I check the rest of the cable stock to count out what I'm gonna need for the remaining three bands.

What the fuck, there's like 5 XLR cables left over. What the fucks going on???

I turn around to the drum kit and nearly fall over in amazement, it looks like a bunch of aliens have landed on stage, I kid you not, this guy is using like a thousand mics on the fukin drums, there's two bassdrum mics, two snare mics, double tom mics, four overheads, individually mic'd cymbals, four DI's to electronic pads etc. etc. etc.

Jeez louise, this guy's trying to break the record for drum stupidity?

It's not a drum kit anymore, it's a sonic fukin time bomb spacemobile!!!

Sooo, this means I'm gonna have to take half the cables off after he's done the sound check.

Just so I have enough stock to mic other fukin bands?

Of course what gets taken off will have to be replaced before his band plays later on!!

Headache!!

So yeah, you try and remember where that lot is all gonna go back on a dark stage with musicians trying to exit and arrive from all sides of the stage (usually, the musicians will all be pissed drunk by this point in the night just to make your job that much easier!!)

Big fukin headache!!

Fuck him he can do it all. I can't be arsed.

If he wants to build a sonic rocket ship on stage, he can damn well learn to fly it himself!!

This engineer takes about an hour just to soundcheck the drumkit and we're starting to run really fukin late.

The other bands are all starting to look really pissed off as well, nothing worse than being sat in a venue waiting forever to do a sound check...

The engineer's a real fiddler as well, I fukin hate fiddlers, if you take more than two minutes to EQ a snare drum, in my book it just says you don't know what the fuck your doing... 125k boost on the bottom, 4k on the top, roll off the bass, set the compressor and gate, place it in the monitors, bring up the main fader ... Two minutes, easy!!

This engineer has the drummer hitting the snare for like 20 mins , it's driving everyone up the fukin wall !!

Thwack, thwack, thwack for twenty minutes...

Bassdrum , thud , thud , thud for twenty minutes...

Bassdrum mic 2, thu, thud, thud for ten minutes...

Get the fuck on with it will ya!!

I tell him he has five more minutes, he's not happy, I don't care.

So, I finally manage to kick this twat out of the soundbooth after virtually prying his hands from the mixing desk.

There are still three bands to do so it's all hands on deck at this point and of course this engineer is nowhere to be seen??

He's disappeared, just like Houdini, just when he's actually fukin needed?

Twat!!

Well if he hasn't labelled everything up properly he's gonna have one hell of a change-over to deal with at 11 o'clock.

Ok I fly through the first band at breakneck speed.

The second of the three bands have their own sound engineer, but this guy is a true professional and does his band in about 15 mins (thank fuck)

By this point the venue is half full and the house lights are still on, good job this is a charity gig so nobody seems that bothered.

The last band (who are first on) are gonna have to sound check and then go staight on and play, not good, but that's just how it is I'm afraid...

Ok, all done, first band are on stage and playing, everything's sounding great, everybody happy, all good.

I take a deep breath and then collapse on the mixing desk out of sheer exhaustion!!!

Thank fuck for that!!!

Sooo , the night actually went really well after that , right up until the " headlining " band arrived back at the venue !!

Of course this guy hasn't labelled his stuff up properly, so I give him a hand setting up and re-cabling the mics he should be using on the drum kit, then I disappear ( ust like Houdini) and leave the rest to him ...

I return about 20 mins later, and the bands in full swing on-stage and it's sounding ok, but not brilliant...

This band are pretty shite anyway, nobody knows who they are, half the crowd have gone home (it's 1am) and the remaining crowd are too pissed to notice, so who really cares at that point ... Not me, that's for sure!!

Ok, night over, everthing packed away, everybody's gone home.

I turn off the house light, sit on the edge of the stage and crack open a well earned bottle of beer...

Phew ... Wot a fukin night!!

Bloody rock n roll...

Right, I have a club to run so I suppose I should be out the door...

Laters...