Unless you have put up ad blocker or some such thing while perusing Crasstalk, you have obviously seen the following ad:
I had to postpone the tasting due to a funeral, but we now have a date: Thursday, April 7th at 8pm sharp — East Coast time natch. It is a fitting day because on April 7, 1933: Prohibition ended as Utah becomes 38th state to ratify the 21st Amendment. Come celebrate this glorious event with a toast. You will need to purchase the wine today or tomorrow in order to participate.
Click here to read which wines were are tasting and the specifics of the program. Two key things to remember:
– Use coupon code FEEDTHEBADGER to get 10% discount and 10% to support this website
– No code=no discount and no money for Crasstalk
Just to keep it fun, I’m also going to ask those that participate to buy the best bottle of White Zinfandel they can get their paws on as a ‘control wine’ by which we will judge all other wines we taste. I’m personally going to go for the box of Franzia.
It’s that time again. Another day, another fizzled out semi-relationship with a guy who smelled delightfully of cigars and sweetly came up with clever nicknames for me. And so I reactivated my OKCupid profile last week. This got me to thinking about my previous forays into online dating, and I have provided a few select ones here so that you might laugh at me from the comfort of your strong, enduring marriages and partnerships or your basement apartments filled with cats.
I have been on many terrible dates. Punishing dates. But every bad one is an opportunity to learn and do better next time, no? For the Marrieds and Coupled Ups here and various others who have managed to avoid the Seventh Circle of Hell known as match.com, I have provided a list of things that should make you feel infinitely better about yourselves. And for the rest of you who suffer through endless OKCupid emails about your Quiver Matches (isn’t that some kind of Christian superbaby cult?) and messages from people who were never taught about the sanctity of the shift key, I want to give you some pointers and let you to know that you are not alone. Except–wait, you are! Otherwise you would not be online dating.
In any case, here is what I learned from a year of perpetual bad dates:
1. A sex shop is not an acceptable venue for a first date. This gentleman seemed quite promising! He charmed me with his jokes and his South Side Irish strawberry-blond hair. We could have ginger babies! This is my mother’s fondest wish—that I someday produce spawn that will be inevitably haunted by comments from evil 7th grade girls about how oh my God I can’t believe you don’t tan! and drunken twentysomething dudes desperate to know if the curtains match the drapes.
We got along swimmingly. In any case, the subject turned to online dating. If there is one thing I have learned from online dating, it is that men love to talk about the other men that women meet through online dating. I cannot explain this, but virtually every man I have been on a date with has desperately wanted to know what other men who do online dating are like. In any case, I mentioned that one of the first messages I received when I signed up was from a guy who described his love for his Fleshlight in his profile. And this South Side Irish man claimed to have no knowledge of what this “Fleshlight” thing could be, so, being the teacher that I am, I kindly explained it to him. Somehow this explanation led to the mention of a nearby sex toy emporium, which led to joking about visiting this sinful haven of carnal pleasure, which, two very large beers later, turned into an actual trip. Shockingly, this relationship did not work out. If there is one thing that Cosmo didn’t warn me about, it’s that dates that begin in a sex shop rarely end in a meaningful, satisfying relationship.
2. Do not date men who think it is sexy to tell you that they would like to tie you up and rape you in front of your family. It took me far longer than it should have to figure out that this fellow was an unmedicated psychopath. Luckily, after the family-rape comment, I told him that he should perhaps never speak to me again or ever try to contact me or I would report his freaky ass to the police, and he listened. This is also true: he had a tally next to his bed. You know, a tally. On the wall. In Sharpie. He also drank all of the alcohol I had in my apartment–including the mysterious bottle that a friend brought back from China that no one else would touch. Looking back, there were a lot of red flags with this one.
3. Do not judge unless this person totally merits judgment. Get out your gavels, because you are all going to judge me for this. (I am also listening to Coldplay right now. Judge away!) This fellow and I did not speak on the phone before our date, but we exchanged many flirtatious emails. He seemed so nice! Worked in education! We met for a drink, which became two drinks when I realized that he was unable to finish a sentence because of his severe stutter. It seemed terribly unfair to judge someone because of a speech impediment, so I tried my best to ignore it and just focus on what he was saying. This is where this story could take a heartwarming turn, where I learned that it was what was on the inside that counted, not the speech impediment! But this was no after school special. I soon realized that he worked in a part-time job, lived with his parents, and spoke with an inexplicable Jersey accent. And not in a funny/ironic way. In a bad way. A very bad way.
4. Do not be fooled by sexy accents. This sexy British guy had such a sexy British accent! He insisted on adding me as a Facebook friend after a couple of dates, which seemed weird at the time but, hello! Sexy accents cover a multitude of sins! And we discovered that we had the same birthday. It was fate! Except that he was screwing some other girl the whole time he was seeing me. I discovered this when he posted photos from a trip they took together on Facebook. Some people think that a British accent makes you sound smarter. But do not be mistaken: a British accent does not actually make you any smarter. Especially when it comes to things like hiding your ladyfriends from one another on Facebook. In a moment of near-instant karma, a couple of days later, his other girlfriend went snooping through his phone, found text messages from me and dumped his cheating ass.
5. Last but not least, do not meet a man at his apartment on the second date. This guy did improv and (because I was trying very hard not to judge– not all improv actors are self-important and insufferable!) seemed nice at first. We had ice cream. It was okay! He was not too creepy, though his bug eyes did sort of weird me out. I agreed to a second date, and I met him at his place. He answered the door in nothing but a towel. I could not get out of there fast enough.
I have learned a lot of lessons through online dating. Don’t be blinded by accents or the promise of ginger babies! Avoid improv actors at all costs! Don’t go to sex shops on the first date! Wait until at least the third date for that.
I’m sure I missed a few things here. What lessons have you learned from online dating?
Sinful Colors Green Ocean over OPI Jade is the New Black
If you work in an office job, you probably have to adhere to an office-dress code. Depending on your office, that might mean you can’t rock shimmery blue-green flaky glitter on your nails and you have to wear pumps. However, you can still have interesting nail polish without resorting to one of Essie’s ten thousand sheer baby pinks.
Vampies
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Midnight in NY
Black, or so dark it’s nearly black, nail polish is not just for goth teens anymore. Depending on your office, you can definitely rock a vampie. This look is best when you have very short nails.
China Glaze Lubu Heels
Some classic shades include:
Chanel Vamp
OPI Lincoln Park After Dark
Revlon Vixen
Wet N Wild Nocturnal (this is from the Craze line and is actually being discontinued, so it may be difficult to find but it’s a lovely dark blue with a jelly finish.)
Gray, Greige, Gravender
Revlon Perplex
If black is a little harsh for you, you might enjoy the relaxing world of grey, greige and gravender. These are purple-gray colors and they are very elegant looking. These are actually some of my favorite work-appropriate polishes.
China Glaze’s recent Anchor’s Away collection has a lovely polish called Below Deck which is intended to be a dupe of China Glaze’s own old-formula polish, Channelesque.
China Glaze Channelesque
If you check your local drug store, you might also find Revlon Perplex, which is a nearly exact dupe of Chanel Paradoxal.
You can also check out Sephora by OPI’s Metro Chic or Rimmel London Steel Gray. If you prefer a strict gray, try American Apparel Factory Grey or Echo Park As much as I hate American Apparel, I have nothing but love for the incredible formula on their classic cream polishes.
American Apparel Factory GreyAmerican Apparel Echo Park
If you have any questions about nail care or polish, please feel free to type them below and I’ll try my best to answer them in another post or in a reply.
As a singer songwriter (more on that at a later date) I have frequently been fascinated by the personal back-stories of songwriters whose work I really respect. I really enjoy reading books like Brian Wilson’s autobiography, mostly because I like finding out the stories behind his writing of songs like “Caroline, No” and “Warmth of the Sun”.
Country-Funk Musical genius Jim Ford
It’s particularly interesting for me when I discover an artist from the past whose work I was not aware of previously. Such is the case with Jim Ford who I just “discovered” this past weekend.
Friday night I was home doing work, and had the R&B classics channel on Fios on in the background for music. I heard this song, “Harry Hippie” that I had never heard before, and was instantly into it. It is wonderfully sung by the great Bobby Womack. But a quick Google search revealed that the writer was one Jim Ford.
Born in Kentucky in 1941, he spent time in New Orleans before making his way to L.A. and success in the music industry. Incredibly prolific, he was at the forefront of the musical “mixed marriage” that was country-soul-rock-funk; so popular in the early 1970s. Musical luminaries such as Nick Lowe (one of my personal all time favorites) called Jim Ford a big musical influence and a friend. Ford’s good friend Sly Stone called him “the funkiest white man I know”.
Ford released just one solo album in his life, the somewhat unsung “Harlan County” released in 1969 on White Whale Records. Listen to the title track, if nothing else, to see how Ford blended the various styles of American popular music with incredible finesse and excitement. His arrangement is complex and highly satisfying; if those horn sections alone don’t get you moving, you’re just too tired to move.
Apparently he recorded a second album, set to be released in 1970 on Capitol Records. However after some sort of dust up between Jim and some Capitol execs, they pulled the plug on the album. He was sent on his way with $20, 000 AND his master tapes, and specific instructions never to show up in the Capitol Records building ever again.
Although his career as a solo artist was indefinitely stalled, he maintained his rock star lifestyle by writing hits that were covered by many major artists like Womack and Aretha Franklin, who shined with a bangin’ version of Ford’s “Niki Hoeky”. He even wrote an entire album for the Temptations, “Wings of Love” released in 1976.
If you listen to Ford’s own solo tracks, you easily understand how both his songwriting and vocal style might have been influences to so many new artists of the time. Nick Lowe and the rest of the London pub rock scene guys were just getting started when Ford went over to London to lay some of his soul on the people. And of course Ford’s influence could be seen in all kinds of American southern rock artists.
Jim Ford claimed for years that he actually wrote or co-wrote the famous “Ode to Billy Joe”, which was singer Bobbie Gentry’s entrée to musical fame. Gentry has always denied that Ford was involved with writing the song. The two were a couple and living together when the song was written, and sometimes songwriters living or working in close proximity can develop nebulous and conflicting perceptions of their “boundaries.” Gentry later showed that the “Billy Joe” story was something she had written up as a short story before putting it in song form, and showed early drafts of the lyrics that had many more verses than ones she finally recorded. Places mentioned in the song like Choctaw Ridge and the Tallahatchie Bridge were real locations from her particular southern upbringing, not his. And Gentry did go on to have artistic success and hits on her own after her breakup with Ford, shortly after the song hit. But you can see some of Ford’s style in the song too. I believe it’s at least conceivable that while Gentry was in the process of turning her short story into the song, that Ford suggested some part of the melody line or chord structure. Was Jim hurt because she didn’t acknowledge his contribution to a huge hit, or just hurt because she left him? Only the two of them will ever know for sure.
According to this article about Jim on Aquariumdrunkard.com, after those initial years of living in the fast lane, came a story we’ve all heard before, namely: charismatic musical genius gets lost in the world and makes friends with drugs and drinking.
He cleaned up in the early 2000’s and found himself living in a trailer, in Mendocino County, California, strewn with myriad master tapes of tons of amazing Jim Ford songs that had been recorded and never released.
This is how and where he was somehow found, lounging in obscurity, by a Swedish music magazine publisher in 2006. Thus started the last, brief phase of his life, garnering one more bit of the spotlight for the road.
In 2007, a German indie label named Bear Family Records put out “Sounds of Our Times”, a compilation consisting of the entire “Harlan County Album” plus 15 of these unreleased tracks.
There were plans made for a subsequent album of even more of Ford’s demos (which was released in 2008 as “Point of No Return”) and old friend Nick Lowe was planning a big reunion concert for Jim in London.
But before the hoopla could ensue, it was over. Ford was found dead in his trailer on November 18th, 2007, at the age of 66. His neighbors were worried something was up when they noticed that he had left his Peugeot with the hood up parked in front, in the rain. I haven’t found anything about the cause of his death online.
RIP, Jim Ford. You’ve certainly made this girl love you, and darned if you didn’t make it “out of Harlan County.”
We all have bizarre idiosyncrasies, strange things we’re afraid of, paranoias that just seems irrational. Have you ever wondered what it’s called? Well, here is a completely random list of phobias that may or may not relate to you.
Phobophobia – fear of having a phobia.
So you’re afraid of being afraid, so you become even more afraid, causing you to become even more afraid of being afraid than you were in the first place, and so on. It’s like a dream within a dream within another dream, within a movie screen. Only not really.
Agyrophobia – fear of crossing roads..
What about jokes about crossing roads? Why did the chicken cross the “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” No? OK.
Anthophobia – fear of flowers.
I don’t understand – this seems perfectly natural.
I wasn't afraid of flowers until just now.
Ablutophobia– fear of bathing, washing, or cleaning..
I believe this is the patron phobia among hermits. I love taking showers and being clean, but I hate picking up after myself. Can I be considered partially ablutophobic? Would it be called hemi-ablutophobic?
I just can’t even conceive of that. Sleep is what I do when shit has hit the fan and I’ve been exhausted by stress. Sleep is a sweet, sweet escape from the world. I am most definitely pro-sleep.
Ergasiophobia, Ergophobia – fear of work or functioning, or a surgeon’s fear of operating.
Seriously? “Sorry boss, can’t come in today, I have Ergophobia. Yeah, it’s a thing.”
Of course surgeons could be imagining this.
Well if it isn't my old friend Mr McCreg. With a leg for an arm, and an arm for a leg!
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia – fear of the number 666.
I’m afraid of words of that length. What’s that called?
Kinemortophobia – fear of the undead, specifically zombies.
Who wouldn’t be afraid of zombies? Are there some sort of warm fuzzy zombies that bake pies and give back massages I haven’t heard about that most people wouldn’t be afraid of?
OK, this one is kind of adorable.
Koumpounophobia – fear of sewing buttons.
What about sewing on snaps? Hemming something? Having buttons thrown at you? I need more information!
Nomatophobia – fear of names.
But…. Why does it have a name?
Oikophobia – fear of home surroundings and household appliances.
“Home surroundings”? As in walls? Or just your toaster? In which case, I understand.
Not technically a toaster...
Paraskavedekatriaphobia, Paraskevidekatriaphobia, Friggatriskaidekaphobia – fear of Friday the 13th.
These names have to be made up. They probably are – I’ll admit my research was minimal.
Tetraphobia – fear of the number 4.
This must have made being a Brett Favre fan rather difficult. John Madden most definitely does not have this phobia.
I have a phobia of this guy.
Coulrophobia – fear of clowns (not restricted to evil clowns).
Does anyone actually like clowns? How about this – who would you rather have direct contact with; a dentist or a clown?
Exception to the rule? Fizbo. Thus is the power of Cameron, of Modern Family.
So what did I miss? Feel free to add to the list with your own favorite phobia. My real phobia, which I didn’t even know was a thing until a few weeks ago? Trypophobia – I just went to google image it to share pictures, and it just about made me cry. So, no visuals for that one (at least not from me).
The NYTimes implemented their long-discussed “paywall” today, in an attempt to make some money on online viewers. Unlike proposed paywalls designed by the folks at Fox News and The Guardian, this paywall is “loose by design.” What that means is that you’re still able to view up to 20 stories online per day, and they purposely did not make it hard to circumvent their system.
So why would a newspaper not make their paywall ultra-secure? Quite simply, they’re smart. In independent studies done by organizations not affiliated with content producers (basically any University study and nothing by the MPAA, RIAA, etc) researchers have found that people only pirate things they can’t afford. When products are priced too high, piracy increases, and oftentimes it deters people from purchasing legit versions. Microsoft released Windows Vista in China and priced it at about $180 USD. The Chinese version of XP was priced at about $20. A month after Vista’s release, Microsoft had only sold a total of seven copies of Vista in all of China. Windows XP, being a much more affordable product, sold in the tens of thousands of copies. When Microsoft dropped the price of XP to $20, the number of pirated copies dropped significantly, to the point that it was easier in the long term to purchase a legit version of XP than buy a pirated version (for a tenth of the cost.) The same thing happens with music and movies. Studios have realized that in Asian markets they can’t market legit DVD’s at American prices. They now sell “Region 5 DVD’s” for about $3USD. As a result, Chinese pirates aren’t bootlegging any DVD’s released as a “Region 5.”
The New York times is also pretty much THE place for news online. If they locked down their paywall, sites would stop linking to their stories, and they’d lose readers. Its in their interest to maintain their userbase at the expense of a couple of paywall subscriptions.
The last factor comes down to development cost. The NYTimes would basically have to re-vamp their website to program in serious DRM. By applying a “loose” paywall, they didn’t have to spend millions on re-doing their website.
Even though its pretty cheap, and even though you get 20 free stories, people have released hacks for the NYTimes site. Pay for your digital subscriptions, or better yet pay for home delivery. For those of you who are eating stewed tomatoes every night and stealing wi-fi from your neighbors, you can drag and drop the NYCLEAN bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar and read all of the articles for free.
Last weekend we here at Crasstalk waged a mighty battle to find the worst that modern music has to offer. Unfortunately, we also discovered that many of us are big fans of these horrible songs, even if we will only admit it on the internet. I will not name the person who likes the Little River Band, but it was really that bad. So, after some discussion, it was decided that Crasstalk needed a regular column to celebrate bad taste. So I bring you Guilty Pleasures, a series for you to confess the darkest secrets of your cultural soul. This week we will discuss the very worst in television. There is plenty of bad TV to choose from, but don’t be bashful. Show us the absolute worst stuff you watch when you have the house to yourself. I’ll show mine first, just to make it fair.
A special thanks to LoremIpsumDolor, Mean_Ol_Liberal, and Daisy_Sage for coming up with this idea.
This is Jericho. Yes, I know it is terrible, but The Grand Inquisitor pretty much likes any show that starts with a nuclear war in the first episode.
On sort of a similar note, I am the only person in the entire country who liked this show.
Back off, nerds. I’m not gonna argue about it.
All right, I have bared my soul. Now it’s your turn.
With the unwanted departure of Splendorina (come back!), there has been a void in Top Chef foofaraw. I am here to assure you everything will be ok. The sous-vide machine is plugged in, the GE Monogram appliances are fully stocked, and Padma and Gails’ breasts have been hand-inspected by yours truly. It’s time for the finale of Top Chef! After such a strong start to the season Top Chef has been dragging its feet for the past few weeks, though it would have been hard to match the epic first elimination challenge (cook the dish that got you booted off the first time around). Maybe it’s because I don’t find myself rooting for either of the finalists but considering how epic the first five episodes were it’s kind of been a letdown. But after the waste of time of the D.C. season it’s still a step up, and it would be criminal to not have a quality breakdown of the final two contestants.
You fancy, huh?
The somewhat surprising flame-outs of Angelo and Dale (and most shocking of all Jennifer’s Ep. 2 freakout) seemed to pave the way for a Richard Blais redemption. All season long the edits kept hammering home the point that Blais “choked” in his finale, and that everyone else saw him as their biggest competition. If the talking heads didn’t remind us that Richard was extremely neurotic and self-critical, it also painted him as an unlikely villain, talking down Carla’s simple food or acting like there weren’t any chefs of his caliber in the Top Chef house. I didn’t expect to find myself hating Blais, but thanks to the magic of Bravo editing I want him to fail miserably and succumb to all the stressors in life. You’re a fucking grown man, get a real hair cut and take some goddamn pride in your work, you’re fucking weak. But while I would like to see him fail, I don’t want to necessarily see him lose. And that is because of…
His name is Head. Dick Head.
Jersey Mike! Oh, what a perfectly despicable reality show character Mike Isabella has become. Barely memorable in the Las Vegas season thanks to the greatest final four the show has ever seen, Isabella added twenty pounds and a whole lot of attitude for the All-Star season. From the first episode his talking heads have consisted of nothing but disparaging others for their so-called “simple” cuisine. As for his own cooking, I don’t recall him making anything particularly memorable or garnering a ton of praise from the judges. There was the whole “controversy” of Mike stealing Blais’ dish but as much as I dislike him that seems rather extraneous. He could be a fantastic chef and an overall quality human being, but there is just something so eminently hatable about Jersey Mike. His terrible wardrobe consisting of Ed Hardy/Affliction t-shirts, copious use of hair gel, oh did I mention the misogyny? Because it’s pretty obvious after two seasons that Jersey Mike does not have much respect for women in the kitchen. Throw in the constant “Eyy I’m Italiano!” references and it’s enough to make you under-cook your Buitoni ravioli. I want Mike to lose and I want him to lose badly. I want Richard to dump a tank of liquid nitrogen on his greasy hair and shatter it with a hammer.
Who do you think is going to take home the title? Also, to further discussion, what were your favorite moments of the season? Aside from the awesome season opener, I thought Restaurant Wars was pretty incredible. The way Marcel’s team kind of just threw him under the bus before things even started was a bit sad but equally hilarious. Tre’s awkward laugh destroyed any notions of going gay, Antonia became a hero to high school stoners everywhere and Carla continued her reign as greatest Top Chef contestant ever. Hootie Hoo!
When I’m not awesomeing it up all over the Internet, I’m mixing live bands for money. I have what’s referred to as a “house gig.” I don’t tour. I work in one venue, and bands come to me. Sometimes they’re well-known national acts, other times, they’re smaller regional acts. The bigger bands usually come with their own crew, and I just tell them where they can plug in and how to use the sound board. The smaller acts, I usually have to mix them. The following lists happens in both instances, but with the larger acts, I’m not the one who has to deal with it. On the smaller acts, it effects my job directly.
The Person Who Plays the Tambourine
There are two people who play the tambourine: The guy who has nothing to do during this song, and the girlfriend of the lead singer who wants to join him on tour, so she knows he’s not sleeping with the groupies. (Trust me – if I’m mixing you, you have no groupies.) Either way, you’re not helping the song. You’re just shaking the shit out of a bunch of metal plates near a microphone. That becomes the loudest, and most grating part of the song. And then, right afterwards, you step up to the mic to say something, so if I take the mic out so I don’t have to hear the tambourine, it’s still out when you speak, and now you know I wasn’t putting the tambourine through the P.A. And now you’re pissed, because nobody could hear the complex rhythms you were playing that like, totally made the middle eight of the song. If I’m lucky, you’ll mention this on mic so everyone can hear, which brings us to number 2:
The Band that Calls the Mix from the Stage
Don’t stand on stage and tell me how it could sound better. The speakers I use aren’t pointing at you. You really have no idea how it sounds. You’re getting the low end from the back of the cabinets, and then the reflection off the back of the venue. Of course you think it sounds like crap. Don’t start telling me how to fix it, because you are going to be wrong. Then we’re going to get into an argument and I’m going to look like a stubborn dickhead house sound guy who doesn’t know how to do his job. And, for the love of God, if you decide to poll the audience on the sound, I will shut you off. No audience has ever collectively decided that the reverb time is too long or anything else that might be slightly helpful. All they want is LOUDER. And if you take that to mean that I should turn it up, and tell me to do so on mic in front of everyone, you’re not going to get what you want. Barring some freak of physics, you’re loud enough. Probably too loud. And I have to do this shit for a living. If it becomes too loud, I will walk away. I have to listen to loud volumes for extended periods of time, and unlike the douches who are hanging out right next to the subs, I care about my ears. I put a lot of time and money into educating them. They are how I pay my rent. If I break them, I have to find something else to do for money. Four hundred drunk guys on the dance floor yelling “LOUDER!” are not worth my livelihood.
Keep Your Fucking Family Members Away from Me
That’s your brother playing guitar? Great. I’m not turning him up. I can hear him fine. I don’t need the whole night to be about him picking around on some chords. There’s also some guy singing. That part of the song is pretty important, too. If you keep coming up to me and telling me you can’t hear him, and each time I don’t turn him up, guess what? I’m not fucking turning him up. Nine times out of ten, this results in family member getting pissed, and then telling the guitar player it sounded like shit and they couldn’t hear him. Then I’m the jackass.
People Who “Do the Sound” at their Church
Please don’t come up to me with mix notes, or want to talk about gear. I haven’t been to your church, but I’m guessing you’re back in the corner with a tiny console, and you mix by telling the band that plays those super-awesome Jesus Rock songs to turn up their amps. You also probably read Mix Magazine and pour through Guitar Center catalogs searching for new gear. First off, Guitar Center sells crap. They’re the Best Buy of music. Second, my work buys my shit, and unless it breaks and can’t be repaired, it’s not getting replaced. I don’t keep up on the latest models of effects units because I ain’t getting one. When it’s time to buy a new one, I’ll spend the two hours it takes to research them, and then buy the one I want. I don’t need to study up on that stuff monthly. Also, unless your church is run by Rick Warren, what I do is on a completely different level than what you do. You have one guy speaking, I have five or more guys all doing loud shit. It’s very different.
The Audience
You see this big, expensive-looking thing with a bunch of lights and knobs on it? IT”S NOT A FUCKING COASTER. If your drink gets anywhere near it, I will send that Malibu pineapple off in the opposite direction. And, no, I’m not buying you a new one. Also, don’t stand right in front of me. I have to see when the guitar player decides to play an acoustic guitar on this song.
Tone Freak Guitar Players
My venue isn’t that big. We seat around eight hundred maximum. When I get a guitar player who needs to have his amp up all the way to get his tone, and can’t live with it facing away, or in another room with a mic in front of it, that means the show is going to suck. It’s going to be the an evening of trying to get everything up to the same level as your amp, until I just give up because, like I said earlier, I need my hearing. Then, I’m going to get a bunch of people telling me the guitar is too loud, and they’re going to be right. But I won’t be able to do anything about it. I hate these nights.
Bands that Screw Around During Sound Check
I’m good at my job. Really fucking good. I see a lot of acts and listen to a lot of mixes, and 80% of the time, I can put together a better mix. I don’t tell them that, because it’s not nice. (You know who has a great sound guy? Asleep At The Wheel. That guy doesn’t do sound check, and within the first half of the first song, has put together one of the better mixes I have heard.) I will make your band sound good. But I can’t just pull it out of my ass. I need like four songs, and I need you to play all your instruments. I also need you to play at something close to show volume. Most of the time, everyone walks through soundcheck, half-assing everything, and then come showtime, everything is different. The guitars are all louder, and the drummer is beating his kit like it owes him money. That means soundcheck was a complete waste of time. It’s always fun to un-mute the console and find out your mix isn’t working at all.
Most of the time, I love my job. Once in a while, I have to deal with these people. Then, I don’t love my job. Whatever. At least I’m not touring.
