Editor’s Note

You may notice a small change on the cover of this issue of FOH. Where it used to say “The News Magazine for Live Sound” it now says “People. Production. Gear. Gigs.” I know it seems like a small thing, but it speaks volumes about the role of news in print media and the future of FOH magazine.

So, it’s a Friday late afternoon and I am trying like hell to get access to the Journey/Heart/Cheap Trick show in town. I figured we already had interviews with the crews for Boston and Styx in the can and we could do a real classic rock extravaganza. But, of course, me being me, I was trying to do this at about 4:30 p.m. on show day. A couple of friends in the biz with ties to a couple of the acts tried mightily (a big tip of the hat to Dave Shadoan and Greg DeTogne), but it was just too late to make it happen.

When the first draft of the piece in this issue of FOH on the events surrounding the recent visit by the Pope came across my desk, I freaked out just a little.

Not because the writer had included frickin’ lighting info, but more because there was a crew list attached that was about three-pages long and included everyone who had even thought about working the gigs.

A friend of mine has a T-shirt that reads, “People say I have ADD, but they just don’t understand. Oh, look! A chicken!” It has become a kind of shorthand in my very nonlinear-thinking family. Kind of a warning that someone is about to go off in a seemingly totally unrelated direction. Now it only seems unrelated. Truth is that if you sit down and really analyze the situation, it is something like this: Something the other person said reminded me of something else, which reminded me that I had forgotten to do something I was supposed to do, which made me think of this thing I need to tell the other person. We used to just sound nuts. Now one of us will say, “there’s a chicken.” And the rest of us know we are about to go nonlinear.

It’s really easy to tell when someone really cares about what they do. When I am out on gigs I see it all the time. The funny thing is that the bigger the gig, the more likely you are to find at least a few people who just don’t really give a rat’s ass about the gig. It is just a paycheck.

Don’t know why really, but the coverage in this issue of the recent Led Zeppelin show caused a bit of an “I remember when” kind of nostalgia among most everyone I talked to about it. Love ‘em (me) or hate ‘em (my wife), you could not ignore them. Yes, they were horrendous live at times, but just like the generation of rockers who came up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and point to seeing Elvis or The Beatles as their “I wanna play guitar” moment, an awful lot of next-generation players point to Zep as their reason for doing what they do. 

A good friend of mine — not in this business — has recently started a new line of work that requires a high level of organization. This guy is smart and talented and — like me — less than organized.

Last weekend — post turkey/triptophan-induced stupor — I had the absolute pleasure of going to a Tony Bennett show here in Las Vegas that was mixed by recent Parnelli award winner Tom Young. After the show, he took us backstage to meet the boss (not something I generally go for, but it was not like it was some wannabe kiddie celeb. Tony Bennett is a f*&%ing legend) and then, cigar and diet coke in hand at the bar, my wife and I hung out with Tom and just shot the shit for a good hour or so.

Well it’s that time of month again. The staff is screaming for an editors note, and I would rather have all of my fingernails pulled out with a pair of rusty needle-nose pliers that came from a lampy’s fog juice-soaked tool belt than write one.

I mean, I have been shooting my mouth off in print in this space for more than five years. Is there really anything left to say? Does any of it really matter? OK, way too philosophical. It just gets hard to keep up sometimes with an industry that is changing at the speed of sound.

Yeah, it’s a cheesy headline, what can I tell ya? Like so many other choices we make in life, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  So, it is actually official. FOH has made it through five years. Pretty amazing. I know there are a few folks out there who lost money on this particular bet.

Well, almost. This issue marks the end of five years of FOH. That’s right, next month will open year six. I am getting a little jump on things just because, well, just because I feel like it.