Flight cases are a fixture of the live sound industry. They're what enable us to take the show on the road. But one of the handful of custom makers of specialty flight cases has made more than a few that go beyond the standard mixer or effects rack.
Showcase Custom Cases in Nashville has done plenty of the usual types of cases for the usual suspects, including Tim McGraw, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Vince Gill, Larry Carlton, Toby Keith and Reba McEntire. But they've also done plenty of unconventional ones, and for some unconventional artists, as well, including a case for Sesame Street's "Big Bird" character and one for a huge champagne glass that Playboy Playmate Catherine D'Lish slid around inside for a Playmates tour several years ago. "We had to do a lot of scouting work on that one, but Playboy supplied us with quite a few VIP passes to places where you might research a woman climbing into a glass," quips Showcase owner Ken Burbage, who bought the business in 2002 from founder David Threet, who started it in 1995 after building cases for the Carlo case company since 1975 and who remains Showcase's chief case builder.
Closer to the music business, some of the case requests Showcases has handled rival the excesses found in artists' tour contract riders. Justin Timberlake might have found it hard to get promoters to be able to supply a Segway people mover in each dressing room, so he carries two of his own in large flight cases.
Brooks & Dunn do their meet and greets backstage on a sofa built into a converted Cadillac, which moves from gig to gig in its own flight case. Also backstage, Kenny Chesney pulls a fiberglass model of 12-foot marlin he caught from its case each night to act as the rallying point for his band before they take the stage. It matches the case they made for his Tiki bar stage scenery.
Another club-in-a-box is Big & Rich's recreation of the Pub of Love, a famous music haunt near Nashville's Gulch neighborhood where they developed their act. "We built a case that unfolds to resemble the bar of the club," says Threet. "It even has the original neon sign from the club," which closed last year.
Artists want personal items made road-ready. Charlie Daniels has a briefcase made to hold two bottles of merlot, two glasses and accompanying oenophiliac paraphernalia. Kenny Rogers had a road case built specifically to hold his photography collection. Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmidt has a case for his vitamins. John McBride, former owner of MD Sound –acquired several years ago by ShowCo–and live sound mixer for his wife Martina, has a case for his Starbucks coffeemaker. As if to complement that, Toby Keith's crew ordered him an eight-inch square road case for his coffee cup.
It's not all technology. A musician who plays musical saws had a case made that holds two of the jagged-edged instruments. Fred Carpenter, a noted Nashville fiddle player, also trades vintage violins globally, and has had several cases built to hold instruments that are often valued at more than $50,000 each. Considering that some of the cases can hold as many as 16 violins, there's often a large fortune riding on the cases' ability to withstand the rigors of handling and the often inscrutable but unfailingly clumsy curiosity of the TSA.
Also offbeat is the case Showcases made for Marty Stuart, who owns and uses the original B-string bender devised by the late Byrds guitarist Clarence White, a mechanical monster that requires two Fender Telecasters to mount and a commensurately large flight case. "But how do you put a price on something that unique?" asks Burbage. "It's an American original."
Even further out there is the case they made for a jet engine salesman. "It holds a working jet engine, and we put a mirror on the bottom of the pallet so he can start it up and customers can see the entire engine as it runs," says Threet. "That one was a hoot." Or the case for the world's largest-bore handgun–a .50-caliber revolver whose massive munitions require special cut-outs in the foam for each individual round.
The topper, though, has to be the case made to serve as the coffin for the late Moses Scribner, a noted Nashville luthier who once made an 18-stringed guitar for Waylon Jennings. His final wish was to be buried in a road case, which Showcases built for him after going through more red tape than the company had ever encountered. "The paperwork was unreal," recalls Threet. "It makes you realize how deeply important the idea of the road case is to this business."
