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I swore I’d never write a review of a show I ran sound for.

And I’m not, not really. But this just seems to go with the other half of today’s editorial. Anyway it was a long time ago in a city far, far away, and all the names have been changed to protect the guilty (in part because, somewhat to my surprise, some of these sad bastards are still slogging away).

. . .so, about 2 years ago, I was part of the sound reinforcement crew for a self-congratulatory show an organization of careerist rockers put on for themselves. It was at a converted school in a peculiar part of town, and the concrete walled room in which I ran sound for 10 bands in 2 nights was one of the nastiest spaces, acoustically-speaking, I’ve ever been in (let alone run sound in). Instead of hordes of industry taste-makers, most of the bands performed to virtually no audience at all. Well, that’s what happens when you emphasize competition over camaraderie, ain’t it?

I was weirded out by how incredibly homogenous the experience was. This is what I scribbled down about it as soon as my ears quit ringing:

Today’s young-rocker-on-the-verge-of-making-it-big is dressed in a plain black shirt (T is okay, but button-down is preferred), black jeans — no glam pants, puhleeze! — and plain black shoes, preferably with crepe soles. (Exception: if tattoos are not otherwise visible and you are buff, shirtless is acceptable, if slightly “retro”) Front men may not vary this uniform (or go shirtless unless very buff); side men are allowed to accessorize slightly. Only slightly.

If at least one member of your band is not sporting a wireless rig you are clearly not “serious about making it.” The more times a band member runs through the “audience,” out the back door, and back onto the “stage” There wasn’t a stage. through the front door, the more “serious about making it” you are. Several bands really did this. None of the bands sounded as tight when one member was in the hall (they didn’t have in-ear monitors or anything.) I ain’t making this stuff up, I swear.

Bonus for advanced students: play a solo while humping and/or squatting on a female fan, if you have one (there are no women in your band; you are all very, very het) in a cool postmodern interpretation of the traditional lapdance.

Forget about Marshalls and Fenders. Today’s young stars-in-the-making favor boutique tube heads, the more obscure the better (Demeter?) — but scrimp on the cabinet and go with Crate. Once all the effects are on, it will sound so shitty that the speaker will make virtually no difference anyway.

Remember at the end of the ’80s when we said that the delicate ballet dance on all-in-one fx devices and other multi-footboard controllers was neither cool nor “rawk”? We were wrong. Sorry. Dance on. Also, cheap — or anyway, cheap sounding — digital effects are the best way to stop your rig from sounding much like an actual guitar. Bonus points if your rack is almost as tall as you are, or if your pedal board assembly is a two-man load.

Your front man should painstakingly explain to the sound man that he sings very quietly, and needs a lot of monitor. Remember that singing on-mic is for amateurs and losers (except when you wrap your hand around the ball of the mic; then it’s cool and success-oriented. But only then). Your band’s stage volume should approximate that of a jet engine at takeoff. Understand that none of these things contradict each other. Remember to look daggers at the sound guy if anything squeals, ever, or if the backing vocal mic is not all the way up the instant the backing vocalist howls at it from a yard away.

You have the best chance of “making it big” if you sculpt your sound to be almost exactly like 1, or at most 2, successful bands. Examples: Blink 182, Live, Creed, Dave Matthews. No one will ever be sick of classic artists like these; their work will endure for centuries. Even their imitators will have accolades (and record contracts, dollars, pussy, and dope) showered upon them.

The award for most pricelessly horrible self-serving patter goes to 69 East (a.k.a. Goldfinger Jr.) After almost every song the singer proclaimed, “we’re 69 East” with a new embellishment. My favorite: . . .and we’re all hung like stallions.” Runner-up was their heartwarming setcloser: “you’ve been a great audience . . . and we’ve been a great band. 69 East.” (Sadly, they played convincingly. Some weasel guy was demanding to know if i was their manager during their set, and he all but tried to get a business card from the bone player while they were actually playing.)

Biggest surprise: I’d been given review copies of both Liter and Dagwood Assists’s records and thought both were well-recorded, but boring and banal. I played ‘em each 3 or 4 times, but I remembered every song in Liter’s set (though I still think the lyrics really suck) and only two from DA’s, which I’d heard much more recently. But: DA’s singer is at least half as easy on the eyes as she thinks she is, and if her band ever did an all-Pat Benatar cover set, I might show up.

The very funniest thing about the very ludicrous Nayles Yalet’s set was that some roadie or buddy sang the last song, Alice in Chains’s “Rooster” (which pissed me off; I told ‘em they had 4 minutes, and they killed a solid minute dicking around before playing a 6 minute song). But I didn’t cut them off in the middle, mostly because the roadie dude could actually sing (in contrast to the front man),
and he was doing a dead-on [sic] impression of Layne Staley. I think in the big book of how to be a rock star it suggests that you don’t close your set with a song much better than any of your own stuff, nor have it sung by a better and more convincing musician than your sad little self.

I see somehow I left out the bit about the bass player for — oh, let’s call them Red Hot Cold Head — who cracked me up twice: First, when the guitar player had to tune his bass for him (which was even funnier because his tone emphasized the slap sounds to the extent that the notes he played were almost irrelevant), and second when after an ill-planned jump he landed on his back like some ungainly black beetle (or Spinal Tap member). But I guess that was just too mean to write about. Oops.

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