Xifer's Braincookie archive:
Aug 6, 2003 | here
July 30, 2003 | here
July 23, 2003 | here
July 16, 2003 | here

August 14, 2003
Xifer's Braincookies is proud to present a day late, many dollars short, and in no particular order, a few of my soon-to-be-world-renouned:

CLUB-ENGINEER'S PET PEEVES!
Okay, so maybe there are some folks for whom this will be really geeky and boring. For this I am profoundly sorry, but I figure I'll warn you now so you can cue up your new DVD copy of "GIRLS GONE MILD!!! Scenes so excruciatingly tedious we can't show them on TV!" I hope sincerely that the items contained herein might make some readers' future club dates run a little more smoothly. Read and heed with all speed. Or not.

ENGINEER'S PET PEEVE #1 (tympany)
Learn your engineer's name.

There are few deadlier arrows to the heart of an engineer's attitude about your set than some guy onstage (midset) saying, "Hey! SOUNDGUY! Could I have more me in the monitor?" Plus, don't you sound like a badass-pro when (midset) you realize you're not hearing your voice quite enough and you say, "Hey Jim! Could you take a little bit of that acoustic outta my wedge please?" Not only are you thinking smart (ahhhh...I don't need more ME, I need less HIM), you're also
pretending, if only for a moment, that your mom raised you right. You need to converse with your knob-twister at some point. Introduce yourself.

ENGINEER'S PET PEEVE #2 (kazoo)
Bring a stageplot.


It doesn't need to be particularly detailed. While it's fascinating to know what your first 3 choices for vocal mics are, save it for the 1000-seater headline gig. Try something that tells your engineer who plays what, through what amplification (if any), roughly where they stand in relation to each other, who sings, that sort of thing. Every club-engineer in the known universe will really love it if he or she knows in advance that the 3-piece band with 1 guitar, bass, and drums ACTUALLY has a drummer, an upright bass through a DI with no amp (so he needs a profound amount of bass in all monitors all over the stage), and a guitar player who mostly plays electric, but has 2 acoustics with open tunings that each require their own direct box. Some folks like to include a rough outline of who needs to hear what in their monitor. Fax or email it ahead of time if the venue has a protocol for that sort of thing. Even if the house has less equipment than the stageplot assumes, the engineer at least knows what he's trying to simulate onstage. Its easy. Its smart. Its even fun to some degree. More to the point: make your soundcheck run smoother and you'll be nursing a pre-gig cocktail or 3 a whole lot sooner.

ENGINEER'S PET PEEVE #3 (digeridoo)
Tell your friends not to meddle in your soundcheck.

Sound lame? Well - if you're in a band, and travel with an engineer, congratulations. In a perfect world, all bands would. Some bands do. Others show up with some sort of anointed colleague whom they INTRODUCE to the house engineer and authorize him or her to guide the engineer in his mixing choices. How cool is that? Very. Someone who knows the tunes and the set and the general vibe the band is aiming at? YEAH! Send 'em my way.

Here's what sucks: You're soundchecking and the engineer is endeavoring to make your experience onstage really comfy, asking you this and that about what you're hearing, what you're not, in short -- setting up your monitor mix. Suddenly the fuckin' goombah you brought with you (who I'm certain is perfectly nice, and the oldest friend your bassist has) stands up, unable to contain himself and yells, "I can't hear your VOICE at ALL, man!!!"

The front mains aren't even on. The engineer is making a STAGE mix. What was once a perfectly elegant soundcheck is now bad-vibed into oblivion by the guy who didn't observe the rules of a soundcheck, to wit: If you're not IN the band or explicitly authorized BY the band, you must keep your mouth pretty well shut during soundcheck. I've never asked anyone to leave, but I have responded to, "HEY! You need to turn her vocals UP!" with, "Who in the fuck are you, and how did you get into a closed soundcheck?"

ENGINEER'S PET PEEVE #4 (oud)
DON'T ask from the stage, "How does it sound out there?" during your set.

I am often stunned (read 'amused') by the number of bands that do this. Can you think of a less-constructive way to spend your stage time? You've played one song, and you're asking a room full of people you can barely see to critique your mix? Should the engineer stop prioritizing the clarity and audibility of the lead vocal to the audience so that he can address the 20 comments from delegates in various corners of the room? There's always that guy standing in front of the subwoofer yelling, "TURN THE BASS DOWN!!!" Yeah, bud...I'll get right on it. There're many things you can do to make your engineer better understand your intent, and feature your sound in the best way possible. Asking the crowd to act as an ad hoc committee on 'how it sounds' isn't one of them.



ENGINEER'S PET PEEVE #5
Do you HAVE to throw your gum on the floor of the stage???

I just don't get it. At first I thought it was just me. It isn't. Engineers say this happens everywhere. The singer chews some gum to get those juices a-flowin' after cheechin' up on Polk St. By song #3, the gum tastes like paste, so out it goes onto the carpet. Nice. I mean, is it nitpicky to ask you to keep a napkin in your pocket? Christ...A shout out to Josh Landiss, who walked off the Devil stage last night with gum on his shoe, and a word to the wise: Quit it.

The irony of it is this:

[Quick irony-oriented digression: During a recent set from the Beanweevils (whose lyrical content is bitingly funny), a Marina-esque couple stormed out of the Red Devil. The woman in the lead was shaking her head. The man, really determined to patch up this date-gone-wrong was following her, speaking full-on Connecticut, "Irony is SO STUPID!"]

The irony of it is this: most of this stuff is just common sense. The Cliff Notes of this column would read, "Plan ahead, do what you can to make your show run smoothly, say 'please' 'thank you' and 'you're welcome,' and throw your gum in the trash." But this ain't no Cliff Notes. This is Braincookies, and its aaaaallllll about belaboring the point. SO --

ENGINEER'S PET PEEVE #6 (76 trombones in the big parade, yadda yadda, jazz hands!)
Sing into that microphone.

Its a club. Its probably an SM 58. It's really a fine microphone for the money, especially when the voice going into it is NEARBY. Its great that the kids on Divas LIVE can hold a wireless Beyer dynamic a foot and a half from their mouths and belt out the Aguilera-woo-woo acrobatics and that we in TV-land can hear it in stunning digital clarity. While you and I are still playing clubs and singing into 58s, lets get close to that mic. Kiss it if you gotta. Its your friend.

And so am I.

Thanks for stoppin' in. Thanks to all who came by the Griddle show. Thanks for sending mail. Send more. Questions, stories, rants, recipes -- all welcome.

x

christopher@jaysieganpresents.com