INTRODUCTION TO MY BOOK.

For many years my friends have been telling me I should write a book about my life working on the road with the many bands, musicians and celebrities, I wasn’t sure about doing it, I’ve never worked with The Beatles, The Stones or Pink Floyd, so why me? my friends told me that not many people had been there right from the start during the 1960’s or survived 30 years through to the 1990’s and worked with so many different types of bands and artistes from different genre. I said OK, I will start to write and see what comes out, what I found was that memories came flooding back and this book is the result.

This book is an autobiography of my life on the road and with the bands, musicians and celebrities I met along the way and what it was like working with them. It traces my 30 years from 1965 to 1995 working as a roadie, sound engineer, tour manager and production manager. It tells what happens on stage, off-stage, back-stage, at sound checks and rehearsals, on the tour bus and in the hotels. I’ll tell what really happens on those live television shows and in the recording studios. The road crews, stage crews and people I’ve met along the way and the liggers I wish I hadn’t.

The events and problems that happen on tours, the good, bad and the disastrous times. Events like me perforating Ozzy Osborne’s ear drum, watching a lighting truss crash on to the stage minutes before a show, being stopped at gunpoint by German police, wrecking a tour truck, having a festival blown out by a cyclone and flying in your own private jet. Did you ever wonder where the real ‘Spinal Tap’ stories came from? I’ve been there and seen it all in real life.

This is also the history and evolution of the Rock’n’Roll sound system as it came to be used in the entertainment industry and by many performers around the world. How the sound system started out as a public address system for a vocalist, evolving into a sound reinforcement system for the bands equipment to what is now a totally sophisticated digital sound mix. It’s about the technology and how it has changed over the years, where it started and where it’s going, from microphones to loud speakers, from mixers to digital processors, and the special effects that are used, how the equipment is used on stage and in the studio, the mistakes that some sound engineers make and what we had to put up with in the early years.

No matter what you’re listening to, whether it’s a folk singer in a pub, a disco in a nightclub, an arena rock concert, outdoor festival, a concert hall orchestra or just your own personal hi-fi at home, the sound system is an important part in the overall experience. A bad sound system can ruin your entertainment and a good one makes your entertainment experience great and if it’s good you probably don’t even notice the sound.

The ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll’, I know it went on and I was exposed to a lot of it but this book is not about that, there are plenty of books telling the stories of life in the music business, just read any autobiography of a rock or pop star.

I’ve called this book ‘Soundman’ because that is what people called me, there are a number of job titles given to a soundman, I’ve been given a number of different titles over the years including sound engineer, audio engineer, sound mixer, sound tech, my crew have been called some not so flattering names like noise boy’s and black box boy’s (referring to the black speaker cabinets). Some professions regard the inclusion of the word ‘engineer’ with a university degree, college diploma or membership to a professional organisation, no such qualifications existed in 1965 and the only sound ‘engineers’ as such that existed in those days worked in radio, television or recording studios, wore white coats and were mostly self-taught on the job or by their colleagues. Live sound engineers for pop groups didn’t even exist when I started out because there was no actual sound ‘engineering’ to do as such, so I’ve just gone by the name I was usually called and that is simply ‘Soundman’.

From the Marquee Club to Wembley Stadium, from the Newport Jazz Festival to the Hollywood Bowl, the pubs, clubs, ballrooms, theatres, concert halls, arenas, festivals and stadiums, they are all here. What it’s like to work for a band versus working for a sound rental company, working in a television studio to owning my own sound company.

I make no apologies for what seems like name dropping, but I did work with a lot of people and they are all part of my story, there may be people reading this book that didn’t realise that a musician who is in band B, once played with band A and then later went on to play with band C.

I have over simplified some of the technical terms for those not familiar with the music or sound business. I apologise to any soundmen or musicians who may feel that the technical explanations are over simplified or stating the obvious.

All the information contained in this book is from memory, my gig diary, tour itinery’s or notes. I’ve changed some of the names to protect the innocent and sometimes the guilty but everything in this book is true. It’s not a complete history of the music business but it’s my history and what happened to me on my journey.

So climb about the tour bus and click on your seat belt. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.