"Stupid stories!"

[ashivraj]

Originally posted by Six String Stuntman Steve ... tommy, was dropped on his head. ... Some people are truly gifted. -Nigel

amen to that. he would play ten-finger chords, and ask for steve's or my opinion on them. i remember this one time, steve, him and i in the room:

tommy plays 10-finger chord. "how do you like this one?"
me: well what chord is it?
tommy: its like a C minor, add the 9th, augmented, subtract the 3rd, .... (on and on)
steve: you can subtract the third? anyway, you're not even playing the C note
tommy: see thats the beauty of the chord... its good no?
at this point, i sit at the other end of the piano stool (the higher notes), hold my hands in the air, and bang the keys with my forehead. then i say - see i can do better... how do you like *this* chord?

steve and i were in splits, but tommy looks at us, pretty lost, and says, well that chord doesn't have a bass note...

some people are truly gifted.

AS

[mitchdoggMDR]

my first "gig" was at a 4-h talent show during the state conference. myself and a freind, scott, had lined up mxpx-chick magnet and blink 182-damnit. i had never before heard chick magnet. we both had some setting up to do, pluged into the house pa but then, the moran of a "sound tech" took the transformer for powering my effects processor. i tried to get it back but we had wasted enough time already. i plugged straight into my lil 6 watt amp and got it miced quick. while i was doing this, scott started to play into chick magnet. i got everything right, he fininshed the song, i did a quick check. we chatted for a bit, made sure everything was kinda working and started into damnit. he took all the parts except i had the interlude solo. it was a really simple 3 wire solo, barely any finger movement at all. i was on vocals. this was supposed to be keept clean so we were wondering what id do for during the second verse "did you hear he {censored}ed her." once we got there, i was ready to either pause singing or say it under my breath but right at that moment BUMPBUMPBUMPBUMPBUMP. something had really {censored}ed up, immediatly we both unpluged which for some reason fixed the problem befor when it happened. i was completly lost so we started into the chrous. and the rest of the song went well, we got back to the back stage. i grabbed my transformer from the asshole, bitched him out, packed up, and went to the balcony.

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Refer here for background on this story.

 

Oliver is a perfectionist....and he's ruthless. Everything has to be perfect on the first try, and if you screw up, you RUN FOR DEAR LIFE!! I guess it's a good thing, because Oliver always managed to do the best shows in the country, but it can be trying for the people involved.

 

About 2 days before the show the sound providers came in. At the helm was a scrony little fellow who looked like a stiff wind could blow him away. They set up in record time and there were millions of monitors, speakers, condensor mics, wireless head-attached mics for me and a few others, and loads of other stuff, including a lot of lights (some halogen).

 

As soundmen, all of you do know that you're gonna have to sit with all this stuff and slowly balance and cut out frequencies on each speaker, mic, and whatever else. It takes time, and more importantly, patience.

 

Oliver knew that, but he decided, what the hell. So at the first mic failure he blew up and abused the crap out of the soundtech. At the first speaker pop he threw out a loud "F****CK", and then the hisses started.

 

"STOP THE BLOODY SHOW"

I was centre stage at the time, and almost started pissing in my pants.

"THIS SHOW IS GOING TO SH*T!!! Nigel can't get his bloody act together, Sharon's singing like she's constipated, the choirs are so dead, they look like they're gonna fall off the bloody stage any minute.

 

"And as for sound! Tommy's playing so much sh*t that I can take a swim in his Caspian sea of SH*T, the piano sounds like a rat got into it and pissed, the bloody keyboards are too loud and the SOUNDMAN....THE F-ING SOUNDMAN!!! He's sitting there drinking his bloody coffee and giving me {censored} for sound...his cacophonic equipment sounds like a thousand pigeons being castrated.

 

"Come on everyone, stop whatever the hell you're doing and let's have a big round of applause for our bloody sound tech. He's so f-ing generous, he gave us these f-ing hisses, pops and feedback free of cost!!"

 

Most people went home with wet undies by the end of that day.

 

-Nigel

[MrKnobs]

Here's a short road story that someone over in OJ enticed me to tell:

I've seen some amazing fights in bars, over the years. Sometimes guys against guys, sometimes girls against girls, and sometimes with really surprising results.

One time while I was running sound for a band in Dime Box, TX, a big tall dude was bullying a short dude about 20 ft from the sound board. I couldn't hear {censored} they were saying over the band, but it was obvious from the body language what was going down.

The big dude kept pushing the small dude's chest, and the small dude kept putting his hands up, palms forward, backing up, as if to say he didn't want to fight.

Suddenly the big guy threw a sloppy haymaker from out in left field. It never connected. The little guy stepped adroitly inside the punch, reached under the big guys crotch, picked him up bodily and slammed him to the concrete dance floor. He then calmly turned his back on the crowd and walked straight out the door without looking back.

The big dude was down for the count. EMS guys arrived and put on a neck collar, but it was over an hour before they moved him.

Watching this made me shudder. If I got in a fight at a bar that's the last thing I'd expect, getting picked up by the crotch and slammed into the floor.

Nobody knew the little guy and I think the cops never found him.

Terry D.

$$$TDP$$$

[Zeromus-X]

Here's a mildly amusing one from Saturday.

We had just finished our set, about 45 minutes long, and were in the process of unloading. We finally get all our stuff outside, and start loading into the van. We spend about 15 minutes doing this... I think that's record time for us, because we wanted to check out the band after us. I forget their name, but they were supposed to be pretty good.

So we go in there, and they're still setting up. They brought lights, PA, the works. Looks promising.

Our manager comes up to me and tells me to get the band rounded up, and to meet behind the building. We figured we had a little bit of time to set up, so we said okay. We took some promo shots behind the place that turned out to be pretty cool, and had a little band meeting about two hundred feet from the club. The place is loud.

Anyway, the band goes on while we're still talking. They're kinda heavy, but their singer has a pretty good voice. We're outside talking and finishing up, and they end their first song. We hear them start the second song, and -- wait, that's one of ours! We're sitting there completely silent and listening to this band kick into Bola. And I'll be damned, they're doing it perfect, especially for a band that only heard us for the first time an hour ago. We're all looking at each other like "what in the {censored} is going on?" and get up and all start running towards the building.

The song stops as the car parked behind the building shuts off its stereo. A guy walks out and says "thanks for the sampler!" and heads inside.

Cue look of extreme stupidity on five band members' faces.

[6tring]

Here's one we did just recently. Played a small club in Tualatin/West Linn area. The 2nd night we turned everything on and went up and played the first set. All through that set everyone was telling us we needed to turn the sound up because they could barely hear the vocals. Everything sounded good to us through the monitors but we abliged the crowd and eased the mains fader up a little each time. By the end of the set we were perplexed with the constant requests to "TURN UP". When we took a break we took a closer look and found that the volume knob on the power amp had not been turned up. The signal from the monitors was fine because we use powered monitors. We have been gigging for almost 3 1/2 years now and this is the first time something like this has happened. What a night that was.....

[IsildursBane]

I think the folks at my parents' church may be in the process of pulling a Stupid Story. They're installing a new PA system, for which I have provided some input and am the sole anonymous donor. They were looking at getting a Mackie 1604 mixer, but decided on a similarly equipped Crate mixer because "it was $300 cheaper." I don't know much about mixers, so I couldn't really give any good reasons why Crate=bad, Mackie=good; but I've never heard ANYBODY recommend at Crate mixer, so I'm inclined to believe that they're wasting their money. I also couldn't say "hey, wait till I send the next check so you can upgrade your mixer."

-Dan.

[6tring]

I have an 8 channel powered crate mixer in the band room. Been using it pretty regularly for about 5 years. No problems yet. We run a Mackie 1604 board in the gig rig and it too has been a workhorse. They will probably be ok.

[theelmsrock]

This story gets back to the orginal post of this thread...showing the ignorance and stupidity that people show when using their equipment.


Just got home from an outdoor festival. We did our own sound, but there was a few other performances who used another system. It was quite sickening to hear. The board was an old peavey 12-16 channel. Not quite an ancient table hog, but old still. FOH speakers - 2 Peavey SP118 and 2 SP2G's. If they were setup right, it would've been a nice kickin' little system. The problem is, they weren't. There was NO crossover...they powered all four cabs off of one CS-800S....two boxes daisy-chained on each side. (subs were 4 ohms, tops 8. That made a 2
-ohm load on each side of that poor amp) The overall sound was very muddy, and with no crossover, the drivers in the SP2's were working too hard; getting all the low-end right along with the subs. Also, the enginner seemed to enjoy the red clipping lights on the peavey channel strips...
However, the amps never quit, and I don't think I saw the DDT lights come on. More proof that CS-800's never die.



Keep 'em coming, guys. Terry, you're behind schedule.

[bassknave]

Mackoid--

Not to quibble, but an eight and a four ohm load per side works out to 2.67 ohms. Probably just enough to keep the smoke in on that poor CS-800.

Phil

[theelmsrock]

Can't ever get anything past you.

[agedhorse]

It's how tech-heads keep their chops up!

[DPower]

Originally posted by 6tring Here's one we did just recently. Played a small club in Tualatin/West Linn area. The 2nd night we turned everything on and went up and played the first set. All through that set everyone was telling us we needed to turn the sound up because they could barely hear the vocals. Everything sounded good to us through the monitors but we abliged the crowd and eased the mains fader up a little each time. By the end of the set we were perplexed with the constant requests to "TURN UP". When we took a break we took a closer look and found that the volume knob on the power amp had not been turned up. The signal from the monitors was fine because we use powered monitors. We have been gigging for almost 3 1/2 years now and this is the first time something like this has happened. What a night that was.....

 

 

I had something similar happen to me a few years back. I was doing sound at a bar in Mississaugua, for my studio manager/head engineer who worked this bar for a side income. The band playing was running through 70s disco and funk hits, and the lead singer was really smoking. I had a lot of trouble getting any volume out of the system though without the lead's mic feeding back. During the break, the bar owner came up to me and asked what was going on, to which I responded that I was in the process of figuring out. After checking all the amps etc... I ran my eyes and fingers across the surface of the board. Down near the end, I found a single channel with the solo function engaged, and its indicator light blown. Pissed off at this point, I pressed the button... Big mistake. Thank god for quick reactions. I quickly pulled back the mains, as the system went into full howl mode startling the patrons (and myself). Well, embarassed, I reset all my levels, and worked the rest of the show without a hitch.

 

I had a few words with the owner about letting people in the sound booth (i.e. the DJ) who touch things on the board without knowing what they're doing. All in all though, no harm, no foul, the only thing hurt was my pride.

[Foooz]

Had one a couple of weeks ago that was along the same lines. Recently the sound engineer we had been working with moved on to bigger dreams. He did however set up the board one time and show my wife (I know, I know you don't have to go there ) what to turn when. She even smugly showed me later that night on a break that I did not need to mute all the channels on breaks just the busses (8 vs. 18 buttons). Well things went ok that weekend so decided to let her do it again the next weekend (I know, I know you don't have to go there ). During soundcheck I went out to the board and she was complaining about the effects being to heavy I also noticed the volume was very low but the mains were up fairly high. I muted the effects channel and still had heavy effects it was then that I noticed the mute buttons on the busses were in. Agitated I started pushing them and got the large howl that I should have expected. Anyway gave her a hard time about these buttons she had showed me last week and let it go at that since sound checks are for stupid things like that. Well it comes to show time we kick off with a song I sing. Noticed that my wife was looking at the board funny . As the second song started see the roadie head to the mains and start sticking his ear up them. I head off the stage and to the board, probably don't need to tell you that I found those same 8 f**ck#*g buttons in . I pulled the main faders down cleared the buttons and brought the mains in. She became a hired hand at that point, the rest of the song I spent with a few (quite a few) four letter words aimed at her and those little buttons. Anyway bet she doesn't forget that one again although with any luck I will find a sound engineer by the next gig and let her go back to lights.
foooz

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Last year I joined a band called "Rhapsody" for a brief stint. The leader (singer) was a guy named Shane who I felt kinda sorry for because he couldn't walk because of a meningitus attack in his youth. The bassist, a whacko named Sanio, was his "sidekick" if you like. They weren't great musicians as such. Shane had a good voice that worked, i guess, but Sanio was an average bass player. Nothing great about them.

Shane had a really irritating "autocratic" way of doing things. The band was going no place because every new song would be an Elvis tune or something out of the 60s....Shane wouldn't permit any form of rock, and the drummer, other guitarist and myself all got quite frustrated and split.

I helped Shane out a few months later with some solo singing stuff because I felt sorry for the guy. He proved to be more of a stubborn mule everyday. Then the compositions started.

"Hey check out this knew tune Sanio and I composed".
All were inevitably some below-mediocre C Am F G pieces with half-ass lyrics about loving a girl and flying away with her. I said nothing. Finally I couldn't take his frequent (and rather devastating for the rest of us) attitude swings anymore and left. The last I remember talking to him was when he was telling me that he and Sanio were going to quit their day jobs to persue full time music playing in small restaurants. In my country we don't have a flourishing "bar" scene for bands and quitting your job is like jumping into a well.

.....

Today, almost a year later, I pick up the newspaper....and these two jokers are on the COVER PAGE of the tabloid. Apparently they made it big at some live performance at some local event....and they're being SPONSORED by God knows whom to go into the studio and record their tunes !!!

And here I am with a PC with a virus trying to get Cakewalk to work.

There's no justice in this world.

-Nigel

[ATOMICDOG1]

This past week our singer managed to blow the fuses on all four channels of a dimmer pack. We were a little behind setting up and the singers job was to help get the lights up and running. So he gets the bar into position and proceeds to plug in the dimmer and then the lights. He plugs the first can in and theres a large arc in the can, seems that theres a short in the mogul and the fuse blows. So he says "hmmm" takes THE SAME PLUG and inserts it into the next channel with the same results, he repeats this process on each of the channels and then comes to me and says " I dont think the dimmer's working. It took me 10 minutes to figure out what actually happened. All he said was the light was making a "flash" when he plugged it in so he tried a different outlet. GRRRR

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

I remember when I got into the whole excitement of my first proper recording. It wasn't my first song...but I really wanted to record this. I was using Cakewalk and had to sequence the drums, bass and keys on my Ensoniq Workstation.

So one morning, after I'd finalized the song structure, I woke up at 5:30...and got to the keys at 6:00am and started sequncing away. This wasn't your everyday pop tune...it was a prog tune with double bass drums, 64th notes, the whole deal . I was naturally quite excited.

I skipped breakfast, lunch and dinner and didn't take any breaks...all the way till 8:00PM!! Then my mom walked in with the vacuum cleaner...and pulled out the first plug she saw.

And in all my excitement, I hadn't saved a thing the whole time. That was 14 hours down the drain...aaarrrggh.

..........

My prelims a month later weren't too good, so my study leave for my board exams, my folx took the pc into their room, which they would lock when they went to work.

This was a rather trifling setback...so I set to work.

Every morning, I'd find a window of opportunity to sneak into their room and unlock their balcony door from the inside.

Then when they went to work, I would get out into my balcony with the guitar and keys and get into their balcony and go into their room and get onto the PC. Did I mention I live on the 21st floor?

I finished the tune that way....it was called "Greenstar Part 1".


-Nigel

PS.....for all of you worried about me falling down 21 floors and damaging my guitar...it was one big connected balcony by the way.

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Just before school closed for the summer, I learned that they were gonna sanction a certain amount of money to the "music section" for all round improvement. The sum was to be appx $3000 USD.

For years now our great "head of music dept.", Tommy, has been b*tchin away about how the school sound system is crap and there are no good facilities, no drums, no guitar amps, mediocre mics, cheap keyboards, etc.

When I found out about the donation, I went straight to the Headmaster and said that I'd like to help in choosing the right stuff. Over here, that amount of money would be sufficient to get a cheap drumset and a small guitar amp, then still have money left over for a decent workstation and a mic or two.

BUT

I gathered from my brief stint with the Headmaster that Tommy already took the money and billed the school for some absolutely top of the line Korg workstation (which we don't need that much).

AND THEN

He billed them again for appx a little under $900 USD......get this......as "carriage" for the instrument.

Note, the distance between the music store central and our school is no more than 75km....and the school has an official "business car". Dubai would fit on Ellis island.

That's not all.

I further managed to gather from my subsequent investigation that he took the workstation home....and said that he would bring it back "when the school requires it".

All the school every really has are couple of special ceremonies here and there...or a number of special functions where a choir sings along with a piano and sometime a bass and guitar.

Whenever we do have a big fest, we hire a whole sound package from outside...and keys come with the package. Tommy knows that.

Damn...I thought this guy was a real duffer until now. But this one really affirms my belief that the principal is still an @$$ for sanctioning all of this (refer to earlier posts on pages 2-5)


-Nigel

Hey Abhi, if you're reding this....the money was 10,000 dhs "slash dash" as part of the 50,000 we won for the Hamdan award.

[qtuner]

call the school board, and superintendent and get his ass fired.

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Originally posted by qtuner call the school board, and superintendent and get his ass fired.

Heh, if only it was that easy!

The principal hates the sight of my wretched face...simply because I'm more into rock...and in his opinion, I don't have any talent because "it doesn't take any talent to play an "electric guitar".

As for good ol' Tommy, the funny bit is...I do his job half the time...and I don't get paid!!

Now they've made him teacher of some kids class and they leave most of the musical stuff to me...he just signs the papers. Oh did I say "they"? I meant "HE" comes to me, telling me it's an "opportunity to shine"....and I end up doing the job for him. Glutton for punishment, I am.

Reminds me of another story.

Last year our school b'day crept up again, bringing with it the "Creative Festival". That year the choir song chosen for the opening ceremony was "I believe I can Fly" by R. Kelly.

Fair enough, the principal announced auditions, I went to sing...and got stuck in the guitar slot as usual. ashivraj got stuck on bass.

As is tradition, the principal walked in on the first day itself, saw my face, associated it with the name "D'Souza", and said, "no, he's not solemn, enough, he'll ruin the show." and so as is tradition, Abhi and I got the boot.

I say tradition because it happens every time there's a ceremony, and we get called in 2 days before to save Tommy's lousy @$$.

And as is tradition, the headmaster came to my class one day and called me out. He was gasping and pale as a ghost who's just seen a rat.

"Nigel, did you hear the song this morning at the rehearsal assembly?"
"err, no sir, I went for tryouts for the..."
"Nevermind....please, you have to do something. Go to the music room today...and do something....SALVAGE THE SONG! It's dead, the songers don't know what's happening, they'r esinging like they're dead...it sounds AWFUL."

I'll never forget the word he used..."Salvage".

So I showed up that afternoon, the choir was in...and the principal walked in with the headmaster and saw my face and nearly threw up....but I guess the headmaster told him to play nice....so he stood at the other end of the room, as if he feared contracting measels from me...and spoke..

"errr, yes, err, Abhishek and..err...D'Souza are talented chaps...err...especially Abhishek...and they'll get the song working in no time."

So I decided to be a hero and spoke up
"Well sir, I don't know...I mean...only two days...and reworking the whole choir and..."
"Be quiet....have you no responsibility?"

He then lectured me for 15 minutes about responsibility and devotion and dedication to the school and pride in doing a good job....so I finally submitted.

So we got down to work...and Tommy started playing. As I've said in an earlier post...he's famous for his maj7th-addthe5th-augmentthe8th-castratethe11th chords. And this time was no exception. He started off the song with some wierd 12 note chord (note: there are 12 notes in a chromatic ) and the WHOLE choir (about 30 of 'em) didn't have the foggiest idea what to do!

So Abhi and I got some of the boys in....reworked the whole choir breakups...got rid of the 10 piece harmonies which the singers couldn't follow.....and put some life into the damn thing.

And at the end of the ceremony....about 15 people went up to Tommy, in front of us, and told him how beautiful the song sounded!!

You guys should meet him....he's the 8th wonder of the world I tell ya....you don't know what you're missing!!! Did I tell you he could set a delay processor so that the delay signal comes out once second BEFORE the input??? :eek: Read this earlier post!!!


-Nigel

[ashivraj]

Originally posted by Six String Stuntman Steve ... Hey Abhi, if you're reding this....the money was 10,000 dhs "slash dash" as part of the 50,000 we won for the Hamdan award.

dude... when i was there, guzder had big plans of getting a triton... which rai walked around saying tree-nhee-tron (sounds like the sony tv thing)... as in "abhheee aahre you sayy thhees treenheetron eejh vhaary goohd?"

see if u can find out what board we have. while you're at it, also tell tommy i got a 5string bass and a nice little ampeg amp. playing alone, 50 watts isnt too bad. in fact, it would comfortably power the IT centre or some similar room. hall, mayyybe not; classroom definitely; etc.

rush's vapor trails is out - had no money on hand or i would've bought. audio cassettes here are ridiculously expensive - equivalent to dhs45 for an audio tape; CDs are {censored} cheap tho. double CD for equivalent of dhs75. the new aerosmith double CD, the DT double CDs, etc... all like dhs75... and i had no cash today

anyway im outta here... sounds like im writing an email here! have some nice stories to post... not so great but fun stuff anyway... like this one gig where the band thought they were dream theater going loud, except they had like 15watt amps and insisted on blowing up to full level. so we get this brilliant idea - we turned the amps backwards (i.e. facing the performers) and placed mics in front of them, saying that it would help the FOH eq and levels. then we had most of the mics off, and here and there turned them out to a mousefart level. the bands thought it was awesome coz all 15watts of tinny guitar was being thrown back at the singer's face, etc.

another gig, there's this lead singer guy singing through his nose, sounding worse than sanjay even... so i run up to brent on the mixer and say, DUUUUDE MUTE CHANNEL 4! so brent says "why, is it feeding back?" i said, just do it!

so he turns off 4... then looks at me funny and says, something's missing...

... soon to discover that i'd managed to mute 2 lines of the lead singer's solo lines, so that was quite fun too.

AS

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Originally posted by ashivraj dude... when i was there, guzder had big plans of getting a triton... which rai walked around saying tree-nhee-tron (sounds like the sony tv thing)... as in "abhheee aahre you sayy thhees treenheetron eejh vhaary goohd?"

I really didn't bother to find out what keyboard that quack bought.....but the mofo sacrificed all the monitor money, and the drum money, and the amp money which we f*ckin EARNED over the last few years.....over some absolute top of the line keyboard....I dunno which...but guzder said it was a "good casio".....which means either that the keys light up when you play them or that Tommy bought some feckin Kurtzweil just because it looked cool and had more features than he has brain power (which doesn't really say much about the keys).

I still didn't get the point in your "big cool 50 watt amp"....but I ain't sayin {censored}. I ain't telling Tommy sh*t...because I've decided that I've taken enough of his {censored}.......I blew up and fired the bastid before prize day....and he still begs me to do more {censored} for him after that. No feckin dignity.

As for the board....like I said...no-one has the foggiest clue what it is...they only know that Tommy blew the better part of OUR HARD EARNED CASH and then billed the school to claim the remainder as "carriage". @$$hole

rush's vapor trails is out - had no money on hand or i would've bought. audio cassettes here are ridiculously expensive - equivalent to dhs45 for an audio tape; CDs are {censored} cheap tho. double CD for equivalent of dhs75. the new aerosmith double CD, the DT double CDs, etc... all like dhs75... and i had no cash today

Vapour Trails came out May 14th...still hasn't hit DxB yet...actually I haven't shopped around in about a month. I found the DT CD at Carrefour selling for 50dhs....bcuz some guy thought it was a single disc....and marked the whole batch 50!!! I love that place now.

Believe me that DT CD is worth every bit of the 50dhs I paid...and more...it's bloody outstanding. But I know you're never gonna buy it "because Lumaine didn't tell you to, and the chix don't listen to that stuff, and there's more than 3 chords in the song".

F off.

this one gig where the band thought they were dream theater going loud, except they had like 15watt amps and insisted on blowing up to full level. so we get this brilliant idea - we turned the amps backwards (i.e. facing the performers) and placed mics in front of them, saying that it would help the FOH eq and levels. then we had most of the mics off, and here and there turned them out to a mousefart level. the bands thought it was awesome coz all 15watts of tinny guitar was being thrown back at the singer's face, etc.

Good Lord, suddenly Andrew comes to mind. "Hey Nig, check it out, I can play Greenstar" (turns gain up full and bashes out some crap). I thought specimens like him only lived in this country.

Oh and here's a bit of news. This morning Suraj called me from the airport to say bye before leaving for college.....and it turns out our dearest Tommy missed his flight to Calcutta...which is fully booked till September. Serves him right....he can sit at home and play on his new keyboard.

If I ever die of high blood pressure....he's gonna be the cause.

-Nigel

[Zeromus-X]

Just played for a two hour set tonight with the HPF on my bass rig set at 200 Hz without realizing it. I was bitchy the entire time wondering why I had no low end whatsoever. Checked everything but the stupid HPF slider.

That's back to the original idea of this thread, I think.

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Our "head of music dept." Tommy was never any good with the concept of "monitors". I mean, if i'm not mistaken, these things are out there for the band (especially the singer) to hear just what the hell is going on...right? But he never figured that out...and if you lost beat/key...it was becuase YOU are not a good musician...and YOU don't have a good musical sense.

Recently our inter-house music competition crept up (all students are divided into four competing houses). Since Tommy didn't "have the time" to pick up all the C F G pieces on the piano, he turned to ashivraj, sherinian_gonnabe, and myself to fix everything. We decided to let the singers sing along to MIDIs....a concept Tommy's never heard of.

So all the singers rehearsed in the music room, and the day before the competition, they were taken to the auditorium to get used to the mics/speakers/monitors, etc.

Only problem was, Tommy didn't (and still doesn't) quite know how to turn the monitor level up, and the first 3 or 4 divisions (around 12-16 kids) went up, lost their time, sang false, broke down....oh well

Finally my turn came up....I was the only one accompanying myself....I couldn't hear the MIDI tracks nor my guitar....I just cut it short and got off.

By now Tommy had blasted all and sundry with his usual "you have no music sense, it's not the monitors, YOU have to HAVE the music WITHIN yourself". (Note: he was telling this kids below 15)

I walked up to him...pissed off, "oi, you see this knob here on this monitor?"
"Yeah, so?"
"It says V-o-l-u-m-e"
"So what?"
"Look at what I'm doing"

I turned the thing up.

The girl who was singing on stage realized that she could hear the MIDI track.

She turned around and waved in our direction.

I waved back.

"Thankyou sir!!!" came the reply with a flying kiss.

I walked away, head bowed.

Tommy grinned to himself...another job well done.



Life is thankless I tell ya.

-Nigel

[Six String Stuntman Steve]

Last year when I was on holiday in Ireland....I got to watch "Party in the Park" on tv.

Naturally I waited for Geri Halliwell's "performance".

She came out wearing....well...I'll leave that to your imagination ....on a motorbike.

Then she got off, and had to do these jumpy dance steps while singing....and all the time her singing was absolutely flawless. NO breathing, to jerks...nothing.

Then the mic fell from her hands and it took her about 5 seconds to get it back......but her singing was still flawless (even when the mic was down)

-Nigel