Back to the Highway

Michigan TV show in our home away from hotel this tour, a dark blue Dodge Sprinter. The guys are on a conference call about something or other. I’ve become used to these moments of absurdity, sitting in the van, listening to half of a discussion. It’s fun to make up the dialogue in between what the people I’m sitting next to are saying.

(in the van) “Isn’t that how all bands do it?”
(in my head) “No, Bill, not all bands make a record out of cole slaw. You just can’t do that. I’d suggest making one out of cranberry orange relish. I think the sonic properties of hardened relish will really bring out the background harmonies, and the orange flavor will add a delightful ‘tang’ to the mix.”
(in the van) “Well, I guess if you can make a case for it, but I’m still not convinced.”

And it goes like that. Sometimes for 25 minutes at a time. Still other times, I just stare out the window and watch the USA pass by. It’s funny how similar this Michigan highway looks to the Mass Pike. It’s just long stretches of not very much but scrubby, scruffy, trees.

Last night, we did a show at the Michigan Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, MI. The Union Ballroom is a pretty large space about twice the size of the Reed College Student Union. It’s got a very classy feel, with white walls and light wood accents, a big fireplace, and nice-looking bay windows. Hopefully I’ll be able to snag some pictures from the band and audience to either post here or link to, but I was preoccupied with making things sound good.

A big change for us was having an outside production company come in with a sound and lighting package. As a production person, I’ve got to say that this was the best rig we’ve seen by far, purely from a gear standpoint. Furthermore, the whole crew from Allen Audio was super fun to work with. Bill helped Toby take care of the stage duties and mixed monitors for the openers, Toby mixed Tally Hall’s monitors, having a pretty good first gig doing monitors on a digital mixing board. Jeff made the lights look really pretty. I’m seriously bummed I didn’t get any pictures of the looks he had for the songs, because by-and-large they were totally spot on. Last, but certainly not least, Mark Allen (he puts the “Allen” in “Allen Audio”) made it his business to keep me happy at Front of House. He walked me through making the unfamiliar digital sound board my friend, and catered to my every whim, including messing with his system presets to give the subwoofers a little more gut thump, a key quality when trying to get people to shake their booties.

I woke up super early yesterday, especially considering how exhausted I’d been and the fact that I’m still on West coast time. Rob dropped me off at the Union Ballroom around 11 and I went in to help Mark &co. finish setting up. I built some truss, something I haven’t done since my days with the Oregon Convention Center, did some little rigging, hung some motors, and then tried to stay out of the way as the well oiled machine that is Allen Audio got its rock on. Around 12:30, the band showed up with the backline and we loaded it in up the stairs into the ballroom.

We futzed around with stuff for a while, got set on stage, and I dialed up some monitors with Toby. Then we got the band up and we had a soundcheck. For those of you wondering how that goes, let me give you an idea:

Each instrument has a microphone on it, or else it plugs directly into the PA system. We get the band onstage and, speaking to them through their monitors, I ask them to play each instrument, starting with the kick drum and going on up in order through the vocals. The order is decided both by convention. Basically, you build up from the rhythm section to the lead parts, so the drums and bass go first, followed by all of the other instruments. After the instruments come the vocals. Soundcheck is pretty much my only opportunity to hear each instrument individually, so I take a little time with each channel to ensure that each one is receiving a clean signal (i.e. without hums, buzzes, hisses or pops) and each one will tonally fit in the mix.

As I go through the instruments, the band members ask for more or less of each instrument to be added to their individual mix. In order to test the sound, the band plays a few bars of a few different songs to be sure there is enough of each instrument. I also play around a little with the tones, trying to give each instrument its own spot in the mix. This is especially hard with the guitars and keyboards in this band because they change tone so much throughout the show. For example, on one song Joe’s guitar may be quiet, reserved and swooshy, Rob’s guitar chunky and Andrew’s keyboards sparkly. Then one song later, Joe’s guitar is distorted and dark, Rob’s guitar is zippy and honky and Andrew’s keyboards are thumpy and bassy. This is one of many aspects of Tally Hall that makes it a fun challenge for me at the mixing console. This tonal variability means that I can’t be too extreme with my tonal adjustment, or people will miss the subtleties of the show.

After soundcheck, the band and I, along with a bunch of their friends, spent about an hour blowing up a bazillion balloons to decorate the room. The overall effect of our decoration and the extensive production was one of smile-inducing juxtaposition: bundles of balloons standing next to high-tech looking truss, futuristic lights, and scary black speaker boxes. After decoration hour, we hung out in our green room for a little while. I took the opportunity to call my special lady and my parents and to pace out my nerves. I really like talking to home people just before a show; it re-adjusts my focus by getting my brain to work on something that’s not noisemaking.

I met lots of awesome people last night. Among them were Moe and Keith from the band “Bellicose.” Bellicose is a funky rockin’ hip hop band. I haven’t heard them yet, but I’ll be sure to make sure to post links when I find ‘em. Keith is the bass player and reminded me, on first meeting, of Scott Pemberton, my guitar teacher. Scott is a singular talent; a guitar player with a voice all his own, and a teacher with a great feel for making his students comfortable. His best known project was Triclops, an organ trio with an undeniably funky vibe. My favorite Pemberton band, however, will always be Conanza. Conaza is an art rock band for funkheaded geeks. It started as an art project, essentially, with Scott, drummer Micah Kassel and bass player Norm “Large Curd” Buccola. The three dudes would get together in Scott’s studio on Wednesday nights to write, arrange and record at least 2 songs. I engineered a few weeks worth of sessions and they were some of the most rewarding learning experiences I’ve had. To be in a room with creative dudes like that while they made music was truly electric.

I just looked out the window at a water tower that reads “Portland.” Who knew I was so close to home.

Scott is the reason I’m a professional sound guy today, having given me my first “professional” sound gig at the Goodfoot. Together with Ji Tanzer, we ran an open mic at the Goodfoot for about 2 years (Summer ’05 thru Spring ’07). As a formative experience in a sound guy’s career, the Goodfoot was great. They had just enough gear that I couldn’t get in trouble, but not enough that I could be complacent. Also, they had really interesting acts, so I was able to learn to mic a whole lot of cool instruments, from the in-house Hammond B3 to Nigerian talking drums, accordions and violins to sitars and pan pipes. A very cool place for a budding sound guy to get some basics. Our post-Goodfoot sessions on my front porch definitely formed the basis of a mixing and being philosophy that I think I practice to this day.

Thinking about Scott Pemberton brought the Meters back to my playlist, so as we cruise down the Motor City highways, I’m bopping my head to some heavy Louisiana swamp funk. These guys must be as close to the Platonic form of “funky” as anyone can be.

Production Geek Time!

Production for the show was provided by Allen Audio, a local sound and lighting company. The main speakers were EV XLCs, a really nice sounding, affordable line array cabinet. For those who don’t speak sound guy, line arrays are a type of loudspeaker cabinet characterized by even coverage across all frequencies at all areas of coverage. Basically, where it makes stuff loud, it makes bass, mid and treble loud evenly and predictably. These qualities are desirable because they make it much easier to shoot sound directly at the audience, instead of at walls, floors, ceiling or sky. Line array speakers also tend to have a very narrow band of vertical coverage so that when you stack a bunch of them together, if you hook them up correctly, you can ensure even coverage from the front of the room to the back. Sound guys call this “shading.”

The FOH console (main sound board) for this show was a 48 channel Yamaha M7CL. The M7CL provides a whole lot of processing power in a very small package. In footprint that would normally only accommodate a 24 channel mixer with effects or signal processing, the M7CL accommodates 48 channels and a seemingly unlimited number of effects, signal processing, and output routing options. Of course, being a Yamaha, the M7CL is a very utilitarian product. If it were a car, it would be a Honda Accord; it’s got lots of nice features, but none of them are spectacular, it’s fairly easy to get the hang of and it can go somewhat fast, but won’t break any land speed records. Don’t get the wrong impression, I liked the M7CL, but I still prefer the Digidesign Venue we have at the sound company.

For microphones, we used Allen Audio’s Shure beta98s on Ross’ toms and bongos. Beta98s are miniature condensor microphones, which clamp onto the rims of drums. Unlike the Audix clamps we’d been using the last tour (and will use again this tour), the mostly 98s stay where you put them once you place them. I say “mostly,” because the bongo microphone fell off halfway through Praise You. We also tried something new on Ross’ kick drum: instead of just putting the D6 inside of the kick, I laid a Shure Beta91 inside of Ross’ kick and stuck the D6 in the hole. This allowed me to better capture both the oomph of the shell of the drum and the crack of the beater hitting the head. I really liked this combination. We also tried using a microphone on Zubin’s bass in addition to the normal DI, and to great effect. I found that I got a little more roundness out of the bass.


I feel incredibly lucky to be doing this job with these people. Returning to Ann Arbor, while I’d only been there the one time, felt very comfortable. The week I’d been away suddenly felt like a very long time, and the band members each greeted me as though we’d been away from each other for longer than we had. I think my return signaled the beginning of a new tour for them, and so things were happy. Touring seems to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it’s great to trade the concerns of home for a singular purpose and a regimented schedule, on the other, it is difficult to be away from the ones you care about and the places that feel comfortable.

The TV show is all done now. Remember the TV show we were going to do? Yeah, all done. We drove 2 hours there and are in the process of driving the 2 back, all so people could point cameras at the band and have them play an acoustic version of the single for five minutes. The things we do for rock and roll.