Knob Twiddler

I was asked to run sound for DNA, which is the other band that Craig is in. We played with them at a fire station last year. They practice every week, so they're pretty tight, but they only play live a few times a year. They've usually rented a PA, but have been buying their own piece by piece. They have a new Allen & Heath mixer, but rented a snake. Their old board must've only had 1/4" outs, because they got a snake with only 1/4" sends. Oddly, the board has 1/4" aux outs, XLR main stereo outs, and a 1/4" main mono out. So the snake ended up working by using the mono out (which is all you need anyway). The mains are self–powered JBLs like ours (they even borrowed our subs), but the monitors are powered by some little Peavey 6– or 8–channel mixer/amp. Lame, but it works. They had one actual speaker cable for the monitors—the rest were regular shielded patch cords. One guy went back to their place and got another one—a 50–footer—to connect the last monitor a foot away from the other one. They keyboardist had a small 4–channel powered speaker on a stand. He placed it right in front of his keyboards at face level, coincidentally, also right in front of his mic. When I couldn't give him a level that didn't include brain piercing feedback, he said, "it always works in the studio." Studio ≠ live.

Prior to that day, Craig says they were going to set up at 3:00 in the afternoon. "What?!?" was my response. They wanted to be able to do a sound check and go home and eat, shower, etc. I told them I'd be there around 4:00 to plug in the PA and do a sound check. I stopped by John's to pick up the subs, and he drove over with me. Nobody was there. Craig showed up within a few minutes, then another guy with a van. Over the next 3 hours or so, the rest of the band eventually arrived. By 6:00 it was obvious I wasn't going home to eat supper with Kim and drive back together, so I ordered a cheeseburger and she drove herself. We managed to do a sound check at maybe 7:30, then everyone left. They reappeared between 8:30 and 8:55, and went on maybe 10 minutes late. At one point John said that he now understood why Craig is surprised at and has mentioned multiple times how organized we are. I told John that if Turnstyle was that unorganized, I wouldn't be in it.

John & Kim joined them onstage for a couple songs. Before their last set, they talked us all into playing a couple Turnstyle songs. The drummer uses a cheaper Roland electronic set with 4 real cymbals, which sadly doesn't include a hi–hat. It sounded OK, but way too canned. The snare was probably the worst, very reminiscent of something with the name Casio on it. He's the one with the kick trigger mounted inside an acoustic bass drum. His kick pedal is probably as tight as it can go, so I had a hell of a time playing it, even after taking off my right Caterpillar boot, very similar to these. Not so good for playing the bass drum, even if Terry Bozzio does wear Doc Martins when he plays. He also uses a fairly small keyboard type amp for his drum monitor. Small enough that he has to crank it way past a usable level, so every loud note is horribly distorted. That was probably the worst drumming experience I've ever had.

I finally left the bar over 9 and a half hours later. I love doing that stuff, but god damn, let's get the shit together, boys. Had Lodin been there, I'm sure I would've heard his "can't stand incompetence" or whatever phrase more than once.