'Arrogant' - True or False?

bouldersoundguy said:
Or it could be that having to babysit half a dozen needy, insecure babies who think it's all about them gets old pretty fast. Of course there are exceptions to both stereotypes, that of arrogant sound people and that of self absorbed musicians. I've seen both types of both types. Maybe you just need to get out of Texas more often.
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I will interject here to the fact that in the bands I were in that I thought were worth a shit 'back in the day', we paid a soundman to travel with us. There have been many times before and after that the hourly/nightly/hired by venue soundguy was good. I would place that at 10% of the time however. But then that has much to do with the venue. The Gothic Theater for example has a viable sound systems and staff that run the system well. Playing a shit-hole dive bar like 'Lions Lair' is a different experience all together. You get what you pay/paid for.
 
I regularly do sound for a dance/party band. They have a conga player that thinks he needs to be mic'd and put through the mains. 90% of the time they play in such small places he doesn't need to be mic'd. He'll actually turn the PA mains and bang on his conga just to see if I have him up in the mains. Saturday night he even turned his vocal mic upside down so there were 2 mics now picking up his congas. He also bangs away on cow bells, chimes, shakers, timbales which are piercing if I'm not riding the fader. The rest of the band is a dream to work with. A mix of professionals and weekend warriors that listen to each other and are concerned with the band sounding good. The conga guy, who otherwise is a nice and fun guy, is a complete shithead when it comes to music. And I won't even go near his constant banging which throws the drummer and the bass player off.

On a side note, I saw the band Little Feat at The Wilbur Theater in Boston and pretty much had the same conversation with their soundguy regarding the Feats percussionist. I ended up texting him towards the end of my gig the following night and replied with a "Now you know why soundguys are so grumpy".

Oh and I have many more stories.
 
Greg_L said:
That's saying that there's something uniquely bad about soundmen in Texas. There isn't. If musicians are egomaniac primadonnas everywhere, then soundmen are flunkee hacks everywhere. They go hand in hand. The claim that simply leaving Texas will show me a utopian paradise of competent soundmen is as laughable as thinking that only Texas has bad soundmen.

It's not like Texas is some little hole in the wall village in the middle of nowhere. It's fucking Texas. Huge state, huge cities, huge population, huge music scenes.
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I think whats laughable is a certain texans inability to recognize a bit of humor at his expense. Jesus!
 
I used to love being a soundman in Texas. When the band was onstage, the waitresses would come hang out with me. Ahhh, good memories.... :D
 
Chili said:
I used to love being a soundman in Texas. When the band was onstage, the waitresses would come hang out with me. Ahhh, good memories.... :D
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Lol. Right! That's one of the problems with soundmen. As soon as the band starts, they're off doing something else.
 
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