I know that I cannot wait until I get to the place where I can afford to have someone else do this bit of the work for me. Even still, even the most successful of bands typically don't have simple muscle as part of their traveling crew. Instead, these bands have contract riders which specify a number of people at each venue to help (item #10, paragraph 2) with loading and unloading. The roadies that travel with the band usually have multiple duties (security, gopher, support system) and extra skills (electrician, instrument tech, amateur psychologist). And speaking of extra skills....
Techs:
Techs are the unsung heroes of a show. They are the people who ensure that the band's setup and instruments are right. It can be a pretty thankless job, as some musicians tend to be a little bit picky when it comes to their setup and the horror stories of abuse rained down on techs from various musicians are legendary (Buddy Rich quickly comes to mind). If you ever go to a show and you see someone dressed in black run up to a musician and hand him a new guitar, or switch snare drums for her, then you've just seen a tech in action. It's part of the tech's job to make sure that all the instruments on stage work correctly throughout the entire show.
Most bands don't get to the level where they have the luxury of techs; rather, the band acts as their own techs. And, most techs typically pull double duty as roadies for the gear on which they work. If you are lucky enough to have a tech, try to keep in mind that they are probably as passionate about the music and the instrument as you are and treat them accordingly. And, sometimes the techs play on stage when a member of the band gets hurt (see #23).
Agents:
When a band is just starting out, the hardest part of the business is getting anyone to listen to them. And even harder still is getting anyone to pay for the privilege of listening to an unknown band. The primary job of an agent is to get bands work. Once the work is available, the secondary job of the agent is to get the best deal possible for the band at the specific gig. During the earlier part of a band's career, this is a hard slog, with lots of frustrating phone calls and unreturned messages. When a band is very successful, an agent may get overwhelmed with people wanting the band to come to their venue and perform. In the middle, the agent will typically have both ends — lots of lower tier venues requesting the band and frustration of not being able to get into the top tier venues.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
Very interesting, Casper. This is the kind of stuff all music fans need to know. We fans get demanding at times and often don't think about how things that we think only effect the bands actually touch all these other people's lives, too. It's nice to know who's behind the scenes - it makes it all a little more real.
2 - duane
It would be nice if a Behind the Music epsiode (or something like that) showed all this stuff instead of talking about how the singer's Mom's death was a crushing blow to him and bla bla bla.
In my younger days, I was a guitarist in a club band. We had a manager who doubled as the sound guy, and his wife operated the lighting. We had two "roadies," who we didn't call on that often, since we would work a given place for a few weeks before having to pack up. We were lucky enough to not have to tear down after every show. But the roadies' job was limited to muscle work mainly. I taught one of them to set up my equipment, which took even me about 30-45 minutes (two guitars, two pre-amped Fender Twin Reverbs joined at the hip by an A/B box, echoplex, phase shifter, octdivider, and other assorted goodies, all independent boxes with a jumble of cords to tie it all together -- I had to be able to sound like a lot of different players, since we got paid to do covers). The first time he was tasked with setting up all my stuff, he made a complete mess of it, and I decided that I better do it myself from then on. That, I guess, is what a tech would do. Never had that luxury, but it sure sounds nice.
3 - HW Saxton Jr.
Casper, I've been a Union stagehand for
years(IATSE)and the usual scenario for a
sound gig is: On bigger shows the artist
or band usually has their own sound guy
working in tandem with the local crew/s.
Flying the delays,running miles of cable
the PA and all that,are usually done by
locals while the lead soundman works out
the bands sound specs w/ their own crew.
Front of house,onstage and the backstage
monitor work is almost exclusively done
by the local crew as well at least in my
neck o'the woods. Seeing as how most of
the bigger shows these days have gone to
Multi-Media type productions you usually
have a large A/V crew too as well.You've
neglected to mention this but I am sure
'twas just an oversight.This applies to
the lighting as well.Usually, most bands
will have their own TD for all the stage
lighting who works with the Audio/Visual
guys and local stage electric crew. You
are very correct that a good / bad sound
man can make or break a band.Did you dig
the major sound SNAFU during the Grammy
Awards this year??? Several people were
fired after that.You're usually only as
as good as the equipment warrants and as
your stagehands are.I'm not saying the
artists lack any merit on their own,it's
obvious that w/o any talent* they would
wouldn't be where they are.However,most
artists respect your work as such and
are quite respectful of your talents and
ability to help them come across to the
audience the best that they can.I have
been one of those guys in black lurking
in offstage shadows for years now.It can
be f***ing grueling & thankless work but
it's also satisfying and the $ ain't bad
either.Thanks for the indirect mention.
Most people have no idea that the Stones
show they just saw took 5 days to build
and present to them. Anyway,great post.
*RE: Talent. Actually that's debatable.
4 - Casper
You're right; I forgot to mention A/V; mostly because the kinds of bands that I play in and the kinds of shows that I frequently tend towards jazz bands in small clubs. But you are absolutely right; the A/V guys have a lot of work to do (particularly in some of the bigger production shows and/or venues). I also don't know enough about what they do to really be able to speak to it very well.
I did catch the Grammies with their technical issues. I'm have no doubt that people got fired over it; the Celine thing by itself probably warranted some kind of action.
5 - Michael Croft
As HW points out, as you scale up to bigger venues, the sound guy job (and I have met the occasional 'soundchick', including one who called her company Soundchick Sounds) get broken into Front of House and stage mixing. While I don't think even the hottest engineer can make a completely lousy act sound great, I agree that bad engineering can make a great act sound lousy.
I've been the engineer for a touring band where it was me and five on-stage performers. I've also run sound for a dozen bands on a festival stage where we didn't always get a stage plot or a list of the drops the band wanted until they showed up while we were breaking down the last act. There are bands I utterly love because they were nice to us on a hard day.
My wife says that she's been ruined for live shows by going to them with me because she has picked up my ear by watching when I wince.
Be nice to the support staff. They work hard to invisibly make the show sound good.
Oh, and Casper: good call with the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. Highly recommended for all engineers and gearslut musicians who want to know more than 'you plug it in and it works'.
6 - Karl Kuenning
Hey Casper,
Thanks for the nice article featuring my book. Good thing all those years mixing sound didn't affect my hearing.
Would someone please answer that phone that keeps ringing?
Stay LOUD
KK RFL