Sunday Sound Day.

I kind of Love running sound. Load-in can be annoying, and load-out, after an evening full of paying attention, playing or not, is invariably drudgery (though it’s the drive HOME that’s usually really exhausting) but the process of making someone, whether myself or someone else, louder and sounding natural in a room is something I really enjoy.

Recently I’ve been hired a couple of times by Focus Music to run some shows down in Alexandria – specifically at the George Washington Masonic Memorial’s North Lodge Room which is the worst load-in of almost any I’ve known. I borrow a cart to load in all the gear in one trip, and I do NOT travel light. But it’s about an hour and a half of tense driving through whatever DC can throw at me, over the river and up the winding hill – load the cart in the cold or the heat or in yesterday’s case after waiting out the rain….

Then it’s up a very long but shallow two story handicapped ramp with trick switchbacks, then up a very short but steep handicapped ramp, holding the cart in place while buzzing the doorbell. Then I catch my breath for a sec until the guard opens the door, then it’s an out-of-breath explanation – 2 out of 3 times so far the guard’s face lit up in recognition, this time they were kind of confused and I really struggled to explain where I was going, balancing the cart, “Focus Music” and “Bill Staines” immediately leaping to mind, but “North Lodge Room” not so much. There’s a LOT of different little hidey holes and though their website declares us to be in the “theater” (a massive, beautiful room) I KNOW that’s not where I want to be going and the guard’s schedule was clear that nothing’s happening in there…

Anywho, after finally convincing the guard that I hadn’t shown up with 250lbs of sound gear with any kind of ill-content, he calls another guard to operate the elevator. I struggle into the little entry way to the hand operated lift, go up a floor, down an echoing walk way, struggle through a couple of brass and glass doors, down another ramp, hairpin turn, another ramp, through a couple of rooms and finally into the North Lodge Room.

As I said, just NOT a good load-in. And as usual the room is still set up for whatever Masonic ceremonies they do – so it’s a couple of minutes of moving heavily padded chairs and lit pillars and podiums before I’ve got space to set up – but THEN it’s time for the blissful part. Slowly unloading the cart, running lines… it’s an easy set-up tonight. Previously artists here had included five or six members, myriad instrument mics – but tonight the opening act is 2 DIs and 2 vocals, and the main act is just an instrument mic supported by a DI, and a vocal.

Not that it’s simple. It’s somehow NEVER simple. I really struggled with getting the volume from the main artist up to an acceptable level and though NORMALLY I take a little angst from Focus for running things too loud, last night I actually got the “too quiet” complaint. Though I could make out every word, I agreed so during the break I moved the microphone around in the hopes of “fooling” the artist into singing into it in a way that I deem to be “correct”, cut the monitor levels, boost the mains, and hope that I’ll be able to game more gain from the man in the second set.

See – though there’d been brief discussion of mic placement at the beginning of the night I knew better than to press the point. People within 10 years of me in either direction seem to trust my judgment and take my advice. Younger than that and I’m generally treated with the general level of contempt reserved for the old by the young, and old than that and I’m generally treated with the general level of contempt reserved for the young by the old…. This guy’s been doing this since before I was born and was NOT going to change how he sang into a mic for ME… so I moved the mic by a couple of inches hoping he’d just roll with it when he sat back down, but he immediately spotted it and moved it back… I dropped the monitors dramatically but he immediately asked for more guitar in the wedges…

No matter, I did eke out more volume by tilting the speakers a little different and by dropping his guitar mic from the monitor, leaving him solely the line – and I think the second set in general had a lot more oomph.

Unfortunately I doubt he came away thinking “damn, every time I hit the DC metropolitan area I’m going to ask for rob Hinkal on sound!” but I got plenty of compliments from the staff and the audience, and that’s who I’m REALLY working for I guess…

In any case – load out. The first time I did this was pretty smooth. The last time I did this the guard could NOT be found and me and the volunteers carried everything down three flights of stairs rather than continue to hunt for someone who could operate the elevator. LAST night was kind of … the worst of both worlds? The guard was found and he was bringing the elevator up JUST as we were done loading up the cart. I’d managed to get it out of the Lodge Room, up ramp 1 and balanced on ramp 2 only to be met with a LOCKED set of brass and glass doors.

Damn. And this guy was going through ALL the keys, cursing all the while, failing, failing, failing… I had actually JUST said “okay, let’s do the stairs” when he got to the last key on the ring and managed to get the doors open…. Yay! Everyone into the elevator… which he then didn’t know how to operate. He managed to close the doors… and then everything came to a standstill. He couldn’t get signal to his cellphone to ask for help… longest five minutes of my Life sitting in there wondering if the doors were going to open again.

Still, getting stuck in the elevator meant that I’d missed the torrential rain outside. Two inches of water in the parking lot meant that I arrived at my car with soaking feet, but at LEAST I’d finally arrived at my car. I got a toad visit for my trouble and drove home in a relatively good mood despite the stupidity of massive amounts of traffic at 10pm on a Sunday night.

No worries. Good job. Good music.

Tonight’s easier. Yaaay!