Sabotage In The Music Industry... (Part 1)

As with every industry there's a lot of backstabbing and general nonsense that goes on. I now have two rules:

1.) Never work with someone you don't trust; and
2.) Never divulge your plans unless you explicitly trust that person; otherwise, they may screw you over

I learnt this the hard way!

Some people in this industry just don't want to see you succeed, and that's what happened in this case - or at least, that's what I have pinned it down to. A question for you: Your sound man, do you trust him? Ask yourself this question. If the answer is yes, that's great - keep him on. If not, lose him. It's that simple. A sound man can make or break your live performance - and if you don't trust him, or he doesn't give a damn about your music - you need to move on and find someone that does. A sound man is like another member of the band, hence the focus on them for this post.

The band I manage had finished recording their album and were putting together their live show. They practiced hard and got it perfect and were ready for their debut performance at a New Years festival. We did our part, arrived at the venue on time and the guys were ready to do their thing. The opening band sounded pretty good - and we heard that they were mates with our sound guy - which is how they got the opening slot. Cool.

They finish up, the changeover happens and the guys hit the stage. Their keyboard intro kicks in - the lights flicker and do their thing and I'm sitting back thinking "it's all good, I can relax". Then I notice that something is wrong with the sound - there was heaps of drum and bass, but there were no guitars and the vocals were somewhere in the mix!

I was getting pretty frustrated because we had specifically met with and talked to the sound guy about the sound we were wanting (i.e. as close to the sound on CD as possible). The mix was completely wrong, the singer couldn't reach the notes because he couldn't hear himself on stage and when he could it was so weak and had no guts - so it ended up being a struggle for him, and to be honest - the mix sounded like cr*p. What a let down... [to be continued here...]

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Success is falling nine times and getting up ten." - Jon Bon Jovi