Live (sound) at the Roxy
The bread and butter of a live music scene in a city is it’s small venues. They create legendary memories where people first saw someone on the way up or had a great experience with a former stadium act on the way down.
From July July 2013 until September 2014 I did live sound at Roxy 171 on Great Western Road in Glasgow. I’d been back in Glasgow roughly a year after spending 10 years in Amsterdam.
The Roxy is now the Hug and pint, before it was the Roxy it was the Liquid Ship. I have no recollection of what it was during my student years. If I was in it then I have no memory. I think I was out of town the whole time it was the liquid ship. It’s neighbour on Great western road, or across the road on Rupert street is now The Bull, then it was Munros, before the it was Captains Rest. I was in there for a few gigs during the late 90’s. Anyway, I’m the least suitable person to give you a history of Glasgow’s bars and clubs in the 90’s, cos I have a better recall for beers and late night takeaways than I do for bands and venues.
I can’t really remember how I got the job in the Roxy, I think my friend Kyle asked me to fill in a few times and eventually I was just expected to be working there 3 or 4 nights a week. It fit in well with what I was doing at the time. I was networking trying to find Glasgow bands to work with and this was the ideal situation - line-ups packed to the gunnels with local bands.
Not only are these venues a place for bands and artists to cut their teeth, they are also a proving ground for promotors. Gig promotion at this level rarely works. It doesn't stop people constantly reinventing the wheel to try and make things work.
6 five piece metal bands each playing a 20 minute set. Each bringing two half marshall stacks for their guitarists. Each insisting on playing through their rigs so that they could have their signature sound(which was identical to the last bands). Not necessarily the ideal recipe for a flawless night of music, but that’s 30 musicians to network with.
Most nights were less busy. A typical night at venues like this is 15 people paying to see 3 singer songwriters midweek. It’s not particularly groundbreaking, but it wasn't a bad way to get paid. The main problem as a live sound engineer is that a singer songwriter is a single mic and a DI’d guitar. The equipment at the place was far from complex, so once the soundcheck has been done, I basically had two volume controls.
After a while this got pretty boring. I had always tried to approach even the worst musicians with a modicum of respect - everyone is entitled to their own creative journey. This said, five 30 minute sets of music that you aren’t particularly interested in is two and a half hours, and I get bored quite quickly. Sitting reading a book to use the time better would have been a lovely use of my time and I would probably have appreciated the music better, but it could be seen as a slap in the face to the musicians, so I started filming the bands.
The technical bits
I’d had a digital SLR for ages, and I’d taught myself to sync up different audio to the one recorded on the camera back in Amsterdam by doing some rudimentary “acoustic sessions”. Audio was my bag, so I was convinced I could get some recorded audio out of the simple Beheringer desk in the venue. The place was kitted out with equipment barely above toys from Argos, so the only output I had to play with initially was the headphone output. I was able to pan the guitars to one side and the vocals to the other and then feed this into a stereo input of a little Zoom H2 recorder. Once I was home I could split the stereo signal and I had an isolated vocal and an isolated guitar. It required some jiggery pokery on the desk, and I was limited to how much control I had over gain and (lack of) effects, but after a few practice runs, I had created a means of recording simple gigs with something that could fit in my pocket.
So I would sit an SLR on a tripod at the back of the room and record the audio. The next morning I would edit everything together over my morning coffee. Within a few attempts I was sending two tracks of each artist to them the next morning. All the while I was teaching myself Final Cut Pro. The initial results were terrible and I struggle to look back on them, but there is little to no footage and photos from all my early bands, so I saw the whole process as a win win situation for the bands and me. It as also a great way to drop the bands and artists a line the next day and remind them I was there for work and networking. I still work with many of these bands and artists and some have become lifelong friends. Eventually I was using a shitty little handicap as a second camera, and my audio recording was getting involved enough that I could record bands and split things up a little.
By the time I finished at the Roxy, I was spending far too much time on these videos. Bands would get disappointed and perturbed when I didn't do it(for free), but I was also getting enough paid work that I often didn’t get time or I was a week behind in the editing.
Touring acts
It wasn’t just mundane amateur singer songwriter nights. These were peppered with better nights when touring bands would stop off here. They were invariabley low level indie label acts, but it was always more interesting to hear a few tour stories of van breakdowns and even sometimes an American accent or two. The best thing about these acts was they brought a different sound with them. After repeated Fatherson inspired arpeggiated Scottish indie every night, an accent singing some country folk was like a breath of fresh air. These musicians had usually tumbled out of a smelly transit van and were keen to see a bit of Glasgow. Having only recently returned myself I was always keen to exchange stories over drinks in various bars.
One memorable night it was Kathleen Turner’s daughter, Rachel Ann Weiss. She was touring her debut album. It was heavily Amy Winehouse inspired(who wasn't??), but it was put together by a solid team and they played a great set. Listening back to it on Spotify - it probably didn’t get the love it deserved and ten years on, lesser acts mining the same seam are doing better. Anyway… on this night she had arrived from a delayed plane direct from the airport with suitcase in hand. After the gig she was keen to bypass the sensible decision of getting back to her hotel and instead wanted everyone involved to go out and show her some Glasgow. The support act was younger, so when she asked them to get a round of shots, they came back with Sourz.
At 15% Alcohol Sourz wasn’t quite the mythical hardened drinking that this New Yorker had expected of Scotland. She thought we should be doing shots of Single Malt. I reckoned the night would be over quicker than it started if they started doing that, so I offered to give “Big Neil’s Introductions to Scottish whisky”, which is really just as much as I can remember of my Dad’s introduction to whisky. It required sitting at the bar with whisky from each region. Rachel insisted on paying, but international credit cards being what they are, she had to use her backup card which was her mum’s credit card. She held her own and I’d like to think she still enjoys a dram.
So technically… Jessica Rabbit once bought me a round of Whisky. I’m surprised that one didn't make my 10 claims to fame
The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning
Eventually my stint at the Roxy came to an end. I got a phone call one day to say that the owners had been up to some dodgy finance things and the bailiffs were on their way round - if I had any equipment - I should get round there as soon as possible and get it out. To protect me from libel, that is my memory of what happened and what I was told. There was very much a midnight flit. Staff went unpaid and the place basically closed over night.
I was taking less and less shifts. My networking was paying off, but I still had various bits and pieces stored there, so I went round and took everything I had. I’m annoyed that I didn't get any notice, because one of my favourite things about small music venues and bars in general is the “junk room”. Every venue I’ve ever worked in has one. It’s full of a cornucopia of discarded musical bits and pieces and lost and found. The first time someone left stuff, I would post to Facebook, but eventually the stuff would stay uncollected. Guitars, amps, broken drum bits, effects pedals. I didn’t pay for drum sticks for many years after the place closed. Personally I think someone in the staff should sell all this stuff on eBay and add it to the staff tip jar or charity - but it’s not my place. Perplexingly, periodically kilts would be abandoned. The collection grew in the time I was there. Eventually 4 people had went for a night out and returned home without their kilt. What did they wear?
All in all it was a great time. I got involved in various open stages and met some great folk. Most of the nights were fairly mundane, but people continue to approach me and remember me as the sound engineer that “wasn’t an arsehole”(See below). Memorable nights include James Bay(who became a stadium act shortly afterwards), Marcus Bonfanti(There was a biker riot during the gig), Courtney Marie Andrews(By the time I saw her again at SXSW she was Grammy nominated) and all the up and coming musicians who remain up and coming musicians still fighting the good fight.
By the time I left there was exactly 500 videos taken “live at the Roxy”. The video work verges on embarrassing, but it is what it is and it represents a lovely little slice of a really important part of the music industry.
In conclusion - Why are LIVE sound engineers arseholes?
I didn't need to do many live sound gigs before I realised that people were surprised when I wasn't an arsehole. They would say it out loud at the end of the gig. Live sound engineers being jaded and grumpy is such a trope in the music industry that they were genuinely surprised. So here it is - My analysis of why I think Sound engineers are arseholes. It should really be a whole article on it’s own, but here we go.
For a start it’s not a stable job. The music industry relies on taking advantage of people. It’s not always done with vindictive or negative intentions, but the entire thing is based around a structure of people banging a square peg into a round hole and hoping it sort of works. Someone has to get fucked over for it to work. People (quite rightly) rail against pay to play and bad ticket splits. At some point I will write a lengthy post on that, but the venues doing that often have contracted staff. Many of the super cool indie venues trying to make a living don’t. They may have more honest deals for the bands, but it just means someone else is taking the brunt. That means zero hour contract staff and sound engineers. Managers and promotors and bands were usually amateur and just cutting their teeth so it wasn’t unusual to turn up and find out no one had told me the gig was cancelled. The event manager would always blame someone else’s lack of professionalism and I was usually given a free pint and a burger for my trouble. Management of events didn’t seem to be in his remit. Not only do Scottish Power still not take burgers in payment, I had lost out in using that time in more lucrative/productive ways.
That is the environment that Sound Engineers generally start out in. The next issue is that I don’t think anyone starts out wanting to be a live sound engineer. I’ve taught and lectured on music and music technology at pretty much every level of education(including pre-school and post graduate). These courses are filled with people who felt they should do a course while they waited for their death-folk-psych-metal octet to take off. The performance course just won’t understand my music, so music technology will suit me better. If you look at the sheer number of people qualifying from these courses annually and then ask yourself how many new jobs are opening up every year in this area then you start to understand why someone is sitting behind a broken mixing desk on a zero hour contract in a dive bar wearing a death metal T-Shirt while trying to make the technical know-how for making “she left me in A minor” look difficult or interesting. The truly great live engineers are a different breed. They get off on big multicores and pulling off big events without a hitch - it has little to do with preferring Jeff Buckley to the Spice Girls.
I was at a definite advantage in this area. With a few more load ins under my belt, I was pretty aware that this was the case and entered with open eyes.
Not always, but the sound engineer has probably seen your act before. Music runs in cycles. I arrived at the tail end of the Mumford and Sons period - or The Waitrose Levellers for anyone that gets the reference. As banjos became less popular, I was plumped directly in the middle of the period where people tapped their guitar to use the piezo pickup to make percussive noises while they noodled in an open tuning. They would always explain to me that they used strange tunings. The tunings were so strange that the guy the night before had used them too.
If that wasn’t enough, the ultimate reason may be a bitter pill to swallow. I’ll put it in the nicest way possible. Creativity requires egos, attitude and sensitive souls who have been isolated from criticism in order that they are willing to get up on stage and tell you how important their thing is compared to yours. The sound engineer in a venue is sort of their boss and sort of their employee. From the earliest moments in their “career” the sound engineer becomes the focus for any nuance of failure in achieving stadium level fame.
If they can hear their vocals are out of tune then they blame it on not being able to hear their vocals in the monitor. They rarely can’t hear their vocals in the monitor when they are in tune. Shrodinger’s monitor mix. There is a belief that the raison d'être for sound engineers is to prevent lead singers from hearing their vocals. I have yet to work out any motivation for this at all. Should the really shitty system then feed back when you turn them up, you are once again an arsehole.
Somewhere in the beginners guide to being a rock star(I blame Liam Gallagher - Oasis not Shameless) a certain breed of musician is taught that if you act like a privileged arsehole all the time then people around you will assume that you are used to better things and treat you accordingly. The opposite is actually true. The people who passed through the doors of the Roxy and went onto bigger things were all really lovely people who were a pleasure to work with. All the ones who acted like arseholes continue to plug away at the same rung of the ladder a decade later.
One scrawny little scrote is always my go to memory in this area. He’d come into the bar and asked for a gig and they had given him a free hire. There had been a cancellation and he was told he could put on a gig at short notice. This was relatively common. It was a pretty good idea for everyone involved. The bands got a stage. I got a wage. Everyone generally drank enough to cover my wage. So he’d arrived for soundcheck pretty plastered from day drinking. I liked to get in early and do the humphing of speakers without an audience. He arrived and was instantly annoyed that no one was there yet. Why hadn't I promoted the gig? He was used to playing to big audiences in big venues. There was a pretty big confusion as to what my role was. He was artist and promotor. I was responsible for setting up equipment and “doing sound”, yet he voiced all his complaints to me. He then gave me a big rant about how he didn’t play for people like me. He played for the working man. We’ll gloss over my confidence that he has never worked enough to bother the HMRC. After this line of abuse he squared up to me chest on mine and asked me how much I was getting paid. I should give it to him because he was more talented than I was. Pre-soundcheck neither of us had had opportunity to demonstrate any talent as of yet. He was built like the gable end of a pound note. I’m 6’3” and gravitate between 18 and 20 stone depending on the global price of crisps. I told him in no uncertain terms that he could play the gig or I could remove him from the venue. My cameras and recording equipment would be staying well and truly in their bag for this one.
He had invited a girl down to get an opportunity to see him in such a small venue when he’s used to playing stadiums. She arrived with a friend. Through whichever subterfuge, she looked like she was dressed for dinner in a nice restaurant. He’d done his best, but his crumpled velvet jacket had seen numerous spillages from even before he arrived at the venue. He kept on postponing starting to see if any more audience would arrive, so by the time he was going on, my shift was due to end. I was supposed to be going out afterwards, and had told my friends to just come down to the gig, so to complicate matters an audience arrived half way through.
He had recently discovered the major 7th chord so his set consisted of over complicated renactments of Oasis wannabe songs with too many chords in them. Rendered with his eyes shut and awkwardly targeted at his prospective date, it got really boring really fast. He would meander drunkenly around the stage between songs. Tuning to a “strange tuning” and then changing his mind and tuning back. Songs would get started and then abandoned. About an hour into his 90 minute set, my friends arrived. They had pre-drank. I stayed quiet and respectful, but their interest in his schtick was waning. He was getting more and more annoyed and telling me I should be telling them to shut up.
Not. My. Job.
He stropped off in the huff and we stayed and had a great night. His date and her friend joined us too. I check on his progress every year or so. Ten years later, he’s still plugging away at it. Still living like a stoner student. Still not bothering the taxman. A legend in his own bedroom to the working man.
That is why sound engineers are arseholes .