#309 - Chris “Smoother” Smyth - Navigating the Music Industry: Insights from Smoother - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Supertramp One O 1, OK, I touredin Australia with Spy Matthews
as production manager. Spy, really, really good guy.
I'm back at task, I get a phone call, it's Spy Matthews.
Hi, I'm out with Supertramp, OK?He said.
These guys have bought their ownarena sound system and they're

(00:22):
not really proficient in handling a unique crew.
They've basically been in theatres prior to this.
So can I come on board now? I've got background.
I've worked with Tasco with flown PAS and so I was happy to
go out there when we finished the Breakfast in America tour in

(00:43):
1979. The band we're now talking about
two or three-year break. So I'm looking at this I go wow,
you know what's the the deal here where they've got their own
sound system. So I, I went to management said,
how about if I start a production company and your guys

(01:04):
can be partners and you don't pay retainers, you don't pay for
warehouse and you don't pay for equipment insurance.
What's the, what's your thoughts?
And they went for it. Well, hey there and welcome to

(01:50):
Geese of Gear and happy to have you here today.
We got a good one for you. So I'll tell you more about that
in a minute. A couple of things.
So one, I've been having some conversations with some of the
large companies in Europe right now.
And I don't know if it's becauseof tariffs like in the US as

(02:10):
well, we're seeing used gear market really picking up like in
a big, big way. It's it's getting kind of crazy
actually. And So what can that be
attributed to? You know, again, I think it's
got something to do with tariffsin particular some of the items
that we're seeing getting reallyhot audio gear of all kinds,

(02:33):
lots of line array, certainly some lighting fixtures as well,
like certain lines I think are getting really hot right now.
And it's mostly Chinese product I guess on the on the lighting
stuff. But yeah, it's just something is
happening. And I don't know if it's because
like here in the US, maybe companies can't afford new gear

(02:54):
right now because it is Chinese and it's got 100 and something
percent tariffs on it, which, you know, if you're buying used
gear from within the United States, you're not paying any
tariffs. So if you're buying used Chinese
gear from outside the United States, you pay tariffs just
like you do on new. So yeah, it's an interesting
market right now. Couple other things where

(03:14):
there's shortages of certain products.
A lot of the digital audio consoles, for example, in Europe
right now are in short supply for summer.
So people are just scavenging for them right now.
And we're selling a lot of used consoles in Europe.
And so, yeah, the markets picking up happy for me 'cause
it's been weird. So And in AII think I already

(03:37):
mentioned to you that we're building a new platform right
now on top of Gearsource. And I've been having some
incredible meetings. We have an AI developer and a
team developing some stuff for us right now on that platform.
And I will tell you, it's been really, really educational and
really interesting what you can do with AI.
It really is like, wait a SEC, we don't have to do that.

(03:59):
We can have AI do that. So there is a lot of stuff that
we're building that our users are not going to have to do
anymore. Some complicated things that
they've had to do in the past and some really simple things
that they'll just go, oh, this is much easier now.
And so we're really looking forward to showing that to our
customers very soon. That's gear source, of course,

(04:20):
and I do believe we are going toquickly change the way that
people are looking for gear. So I'm confident about that.
Pretty excited about today's guest.
I've been trying to get him on for a while, waiting for him to
be ready. He's finally ready.
And so I have Smoother, founder and CFO at Delicate Productions,

(04:42):
but so much more of a story around Smoother Chris.
Smoother Smythe is his name and Smoother is the founder and CFO
of Delicate Productions with over 45 years of live event
production. His career began in the early
70s with a spontaneous leap ontoAUS tour, eventually working

(05:04):
with artists like Genesis, Leo Sayre, Patti Smith and Kiss.
A pivotal tour with Supertramp led to the founding of Delicate
in 1980, whose first show was The Clash at the Santa Monica
Civic. Smoother has since supported
acts like Dire Straits in Excess, Tool and Yanni and built
long lasting relationships across the industry.

(05:25):
Known for his calm leadership and commitment to learning by
doing, he remains A respected figure in the field.
I still don't consider this a job, he says, Just a passion
that became a legacy. And he really is a legacy.
And I'm looking forward to this conversation.
I hope you like it. Here you go.
Smoother Smythe. Smoother.

(05:48):
Good morning. Good afternoon.
I don't know where you are. So good evening.
Where are you? Are you in California?
Los Angeles. OK, I've actually.
Decided the quietest place for me is my office at at Delicate.
Yeah, so. Nope, nobody bothers you there.
Well, shit, the wife, I don't need a cup of coffee.

(06:09):
I need to get to the drug store.I need, you know, it's like.
Yes. Don Yeah.
The honey do list. Yeah, yeah.
I get my piece. I get left alone here pretty
much so. So you were just mentioning
Marshall because Marshall, God bless him, he he convinced you
to come and do the podcast and, and or at least connected you to

(06:33):
Sarah to, to come and do the podcast and so.
We appreciate you, Marshall, because I know you'll Today's
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(07:49):
Listen. But then we got into fishing.
Yeah, I, we, we were over here in America and I knew that
Marshall and his partner Colin were big on, on, on fishing.
So I, I, I bought a bass boat. And then I approached him and

(08:10):
said, hey, man, we've got to go do it.
And he was reluctant and I couldn't quite figure it out.
They, they did tournaments. I mean, they were the bass
kings. I.
Was over in England and a coupleof my friends said, hey look,
we're going to do some fly fishing.
And I was a bit confused. They said, well, we'll show you

(08:32):
how it's done. So that went well.
I came back to to America and and I mentioned it to Marshall.
I said, all right, it's some flyfishing.
Fly fishing. You're into fly fishing.
Let's go, let's go. He was just fly fishing snob.
You know, really I. Thought yeah, he'd given up the
bass thing and he was into the fly fishing so.
Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, but he made-up for it.

(08:54):
I think he bought me my first rod for my birthday.
Oh, that's nice. And we're immediately off on
trips. And I was, I, I loved it.
I loved getting outs out there. Put it, you know, it's if you
put a rod in my hand, I can walkfor miles and miles.
We don't take a, a sort of fishing box or anything.

(09:17):
Everything's on us. We're mobile.
So we, we wade upstream. So we climb over rocks, we, we
skirt around mountains. I mean, we just keep going.
That's amazing. It's it's a whole, it's a rush,
just being there. You're not like nuts about it
where you do all your own flies and stuff though, right?
Oh, you do. Oh, absolutely.

(09:39):
Wow. Different aspects to fly
fishing. There's some who are all about
the casting and I have I actually have casting clubs, not
that you beat people with the clubs you have membership to.
And and then there's the fly tying, there's the rod building.

(10:00):
I mean, there's all sorts of deviations to this sport.
There's there's, there's, well, Fisher puddle, OK, It's the
challenge. It's there.
We'll fish ponds, we'll fish thesurf down on the beach.
We'll go deep sea fishing. We're everywhere and anywhere.

(10:21):
We're lakes, we're on float tubes.
You name it, we're careening down a river in a drift boat.
So fly fishing is not just sitting on a lazy bank.
Yeah. England, it's it, it can be you
put yourself in danger in many situations.

(10:43):
Yeah, do you? Do you do the Florida trips with
them too? No, I, I going back, no, I think
about 1213 years ago, I, I did the first one down to Ascension
Bay, which is addictive. That's incredible.
Down there. Yeah, sort of up from Belize and

(11:05):
down from Cancun. Yeah, that's nice.
The. Fly fishing is more more than a
sport. Yeah.
And then there's the camaraderie.
Yeah. It's.
Good. And we'll, we'll have to get you
guys up. I have a house in Banff in
Canada and we'll have to get youup there someday because some of

(11:28):
the fly fishing up there in the Bow River and stuff is pretty
incredible. Supposedly I don't do it, but I
know people who are guides and all that kind of stuff.
I. Fish Banff like.
Really. Yeah, yeah, I was on tour with
Supertramp. We were going to fly from
Moncton to Frederickston and there was a death threat on one
of the keyboard players. They cancelled the show and the

(11:50):
next one was Calgary. So we got the Calgary.
That's where I'm from. We had days off there and there
was a van for us to run around in so I grabbed that, went to a
store, bought a fly fishing rod of frying pans, some vegetables.
Couple of the guys caught me heading out and said where you

(12:11):
going? I said I'm going into the
mountains, so I'm going fishing for a few days.
That's amazing. We're.
We're staying at The Four Seasons Quatre Saison up in
France there. And I gave up that room and we
we slept in the van and fished up in Banff and.
That's amazing. That's awesome.
Terrific. Yeah.

(12:32):
Yeah. Again, I mean, this, the
fishing's supposed to be incredible.
But I I don't know, because I'm not really a fisherman.
I'm. I'm too a type or whatever you
want to call it. I can't relax.
I can't go. OK, let's just slow everything
down and wade through the water and do this little thing into
the I can't do it. It's here's your rod, here's
your flies. Follow Marshall and yeah, up to

(12:54):
about four hours of constantly wading and walking and hiking
and falling. Your it's can be extremely
physical. Do you do you ever catch
anything? Because I.
We catch everything and anything.
I never see fly fishermen catch anything.
Like, you know, if you go to a dock in Florida or if you just

(13:15):
watch people in a fishing boat or whatever, you're going to see
people catching fish. And whenever I see people fly
fishing, even by my house in in Banff, I never see anybody catch
anything. Well, it's it's, I don't get
into it too much, but 95% of thetime they're on the bottom.
So I get. Putting something on the top and

(13:36):
in the colder months they don't move to to.
Yeah. To, to pick anything up.
So it's it, it, it. And then you've got to match the
Hatch. They, they key in on a certain
insect at a certain stage of theHatch and you, you, you, you've
got to replicate it because they're, they're definitely
focused on that one particular flight at that particular stage.

(14:01):
And so when you figure that out,then you're you're off and
running. Yeah, Yeah.
That's, that's wild. Yeah.
I don't know anything about it. There's a there's a guy who
lives next to me where I have myhouse, who is a former
professional football player called Anderson.
What's his first name? I forget his first name, but he

(14:23):
he's like the winningest or the highest points he ever anyone
ever got in the NFL. Maybe it's different now because
of Tom Brady or something, but he, he started a fishing guide
business. He, he found this area and just
went, this is God's country. It's the best place in the
world. And he moved in.
He had lived all over the world and stuff, but he decided this

(14:46):
was, this was it. And he was a big time fly
fisherman and, and then started a guide business.
And now I think he just guides for his friends and stuff.
He doesn't. He doesn't do it as a business
or anything. One of the things that draws you
to fly fishing is you have to replicate the fly.
You're not putting a worm on, you're putting a fly on there.

(15:08):
We call it a fly, but it may be an emerge or something that
would typically live under a rock under at the bottom of the
river. So you, you, you're going to tie
that, replicate it. Now you're going to fool the
fish, if you can fool him then to take in the fly that you tie
to replicate that which he is eating at that time.

(15:28):
Then that's an. Achievement.
And that's kind of our goal. So it's a lot of searching and
and lot of effort can. Go.
Well, you got to understand whatkind of flies they're eating
there, I guess, right, in whatever area you're in.
Yeah. And try and replicate.
Kick, kick some rocks with a little sign net and see what
what goes into. Or look up in the shrubbery and

(15:50):
see what's climbed out of the water.
That's about back on the water with lay eggs.
This is about fly fishing. Yeah, that's wild.
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(17:13):
So. Yeah.
You mentioned the Supertramp tour that you went to Banff.
Do you remember which tour it was of?
Which there was the 19. Which tour?
79. So would that have been crime of
the Century 83 Were you with them before that?
Or was is that when you started?Were you with them before that?

(17:37):
79 I I joined the Breakfast in America tour.
OK, yeah, I think the one beforethat, which was like crime of
the century, I think in 76 or yeah, the.
Quietest moment 77 Yeah, I. Didn't one of those, but I, I
think it was the Crime of the Century tour, if I remember
correctly, was actually my first.

(17:59):
It was, I think my second concert, but it was my first big
one 'cause it was in, in the terrible stadium in Calgary,
McMahon Stadium. And, and I, I'll never forget
it. It was a crazy, crazy night.
I think it was Atlanta Rhythm Section who opened for them and
it rained like crazy the whole time And, and it was just a

(18:20):
crazy night. It was a fun night, but I was
just like, wow, this is amazing.And I became a massive
Supertramp fan for a long time because of that show.
So, So yeah, it was cool. Well, I want to go, I want to go
back even further than that. I cause you have such a
remarkable, interesting career and obviously Supertramp played
a big role in it. So we'll talk about that if

(18:40):
that's OK. But you know, even before that,
I think you started like you were one of the really early
guys in our industry. You started in the early 70s,
right when we were just becomingan industry.
Yeah. I started in 72 and I was, I
thought I was a bit of a late entry actually, because by the

(19:01):
72 I'd done three years in the Air Force, 4 1/2 years with Pan
American at Heathrow Airport, and then I dropped out.
I'll give you a background on that if you like.
Yeah, please. Paul Newman Numo as we know him,

(19:23):
he's currently with, with Clairebrothers.
But he, he was in the RAF with me and he came down to London,
He got a job down in the city. He dropped out.
Next thing he was working for a band.
We, we were always close and good friends.
And he was working for a bank called Flash, Peter Banks and

(19:45):
yes, and a four piece and they were doing well in America.
And he said he would go and theywere going back over there.
And I said, who's your Rd. crew?And he says, just me, you're
going to pick up a drum roadie in in New York.
And I'm with Pan Am. I'm thinking I'm not the

(20:05):
sharpest knife in the jaw here. OK, Paul, what if I get a ticket
from Pan Am and I'm your roadie?And he agreed.
He kind of had to agree because the drummer was sleeping on my
sofa. So I got my ticket from Pan Am

(20:25):
nice and cheap. And then I gave notice and my
first gig was September 1972, fairly Dickinson College, New
Jersey. Wow.
I had no idea what I was gettinginto.
I had no, no background in hey, if if I knew the drummer, you
know, it's sleeping on my soap. Where?

(20:47):
So, yeah. Hey, show me how this goes, you
know, bit of gaffer tape. Mark a carpet and away you go.
Yeah. So I I was.
So that was your first gig. You were a drum tech.
Yeah. For flash.
Drum roadies. What's the difference?
We did. The difference is the elevated
the Roadie became sort of like acircus name, you know, drum

(21:11):
tech. Yeah, yeah.
Probably get another 500 a week for being a tech.
But is the difference just the name or is it a different type
of work? Exactly that.
Yeah, that's hilarious. That's so funny.
And. You're figuring out how to put
the symbols on? I'm not sure.
Well, maybe if you're a tech, you can actually tune one of the
drums, you know? Yeah, you're allowed to tune it.

(21:36):
That's funny. So that was my early start.
And you did the whole tour, the whole U.S. tour with with them.
Yeah, we, we were. We started with 17 shows
back-to-back. We flew every day.
This was an incredible trial by fire with 13 pieces of musical

(21:56):
instruments and we convinced theairline people that this was the
band's baggage when in fact the band hadn't arrived.
It was their back lines gear. Oh my God.
Guitars and stuff. So we had to get that on the
airplane. We'd have a rent A truck and

(22:21):
we'd often pull around to actually to the gate, round the
perimeter track to the gate and I'll and offload the gear next
to the plane. That was all done.
But Numo did that. He used the $20 bills to to and
and. Does usually work right?
We pulled that off 17 in a row. It was crazy.

(22:44):
That's hilarious. But I loved every minute.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, it, it's an amazing way
to start just like toss you right in there, right?
And the the gig prior to it was sort of a corporate gig.
Yeah, we were opening for The James Gang Quicksilver Messenger
Service. Steve Miller.

(23:09):
It was. It was fun.
Yeah. And I, I was big on music.
Being there was just unbelievable.
So you were hooked. I got hooked.
I was in the Air Force and I didnight shifts.
This is 1967 and the BBC didn't play records.

(23:33):
The Musicians Union dictated that they had to have live
musicians doing cover, cover certain songs and such.
But they. Played maybe one single every
hour and one guy had a feature in his show.
It was called the Daily Double and they played within that
hour. They played two records.

(23:54):
So I'm working night shift and I'm able to tune in to the
pirate radio ships. And.
This is 1967. This is the summer of love and
I'm listening to The Doors, Love, Mothers of Invention, just
all all this great music and that I was caught.

(24:14):
Next thing I'm off down to London to these all night shows
and getting into the music big time.
Trouble was I got back to base and I'd find, you know, my
locker had been opened and that this suit had gone missing and I
was in there with 11 other guys and they were all drinkers.
So writing was on the wall. I, I eventually got out of there

(24:39):
and managed to get a job with Pan American down in London, but
I stayed close to the music scene, went to Ronnie Scott's
every Wednesday to try and broaden my mind.
I was a jazz club, went there one Wednesday, didn't know who I
was going to see. And it was Eric Burdon and War.
And it was, they were dynamic. And then Eric says, hey Jimmy,

(25:04):
come on up. So Jimmy Hendrix comes up and
he's. Playing with the fans and.
It was electrifying. In fact, Eric Burton sat next to
me at the front row and he actually kicked the little table
over. He was just digging it so much.
That was on a Wednesday night. On Thursday night, Jimi Hendrix

(25:24):
dies. Oh my goodness.
Wow. So.
Sad, so sad, and I can't believehow many people say they were at
that concept when it wouldn't hold more than 200 people.
Wow, that is incredible. So we, I was always going trying
to check out different music, different venues, different

(25:47):
styles, because we weren't all focused on one thing at the, the
Top of the Pops, you know, wouldhave the singing postman at #1
you know, Pink Floyd at #2. So we were very open to all
kinds of engineers and music. Well, I mean, what a time to be
in England, you know, with, withthat massive explosion of music

(26:11):
coming in and The Beatles and obviously Led Zeppelin shortly
after and all of that stuff. It was just, yeah, wild.
Yeah, it was a good place to be London in the late 60s.
Yeah. Sort of Led Zeppelin at the in a
pub Seven Sisters Rd. in London.No, that was.

(26:31):
Communication break there, you know.
That. Oh my goodness, that.
Was that was electric Writing was on the wall right away with
them. Yeah, have you seen the new
movie about them? The the documentary.
No, I never get time for that sort.
Of thing it's quite good it's quite good.
I think it might even be on likestreaming on TV now or

(26:52):
something. But it's quite good.
It's it's just a lot of early stuff in them telling stories
and it's pretty cool. I liked it.
I enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah.
I, I, I, I'll tell you what, I just in my drawer, I keep my
Diaries. This is 1975.
This is wow. 50 years ago and I look it up, I was in Medford OR

(27:20):
opening for that was with Leo Sayer Golden Earring.
Wow. Yeah, at the Armory in Medford,
yeah. So you've kept a diary your
entire career? Sorry.
You've kept Diaries your entire career.
Yeah, I, I did, yeah, all through.
The that's incredible. That is incredible.

(27:42):
Because we didn't have itineraries, so you had to know
where you were going. Yeah, you.
You had cash, you didn't have a credit card, you didn't have a
phone. Yeah.
So you put in your diary where you had to be on what day.
Yeah. You might have a phone number
for the venue, you might not. You, you turn up, do your show,

(28:03):
you know, and then the tour manager would pick up the cash
and run off with the band. So great.
It was. But what was nice about that was
when say you, you, you finish inthe Midwest somewhere and your
next show is like Charles, Louisiana down on the coast,

(28:23):
down the Gulf Coast. And it's up to you how you get
there. You've got two days to get
there. And so you figure out where you
want to go on route. Do you want to swing into
Memphis? Do you want to stay in
Nashville? I just, for me, being English
and coming up, living in a smallisland, driving across America

(28:44):
was breathtaking. Yeah, yeah, Canada would have
been so breathtaking had the city had been a little closer to
each other. That's true, there's no quick
trips in in Canada. We've always gone left to right
on Canada. You.
Always started. Off in Vancouver.
If you're lucky, you ended up inLethbridge.

(29:04):
You know. Yeah, kind of Jesus left bridge
your. Way up to Edmonton, down to
Calgary and. And and.
Then across with China as in andsuch Thunder Bay.
You know, it's interesting because Calgary used to be like
the place in sort of the centralprovinces to go to for bands.

(29:26):
But over the years the, the building there, the saddle Dome
got a little long in the tooth and, and you couldn't hold the
weight on the ceiling with all these new LED screens and heavy
line array systems and stuff. When everything started flying,
they started losing shows because bands couldn't bring
their rig there, that they just couldn't get it, you know,

(29:47):
approved by the engineers or whatever.
The weight was just too much andso bands started skipping
Calgary and going to Edmonton because they had a newer
building with with better specs.And it's just weird because
bands never used to go to Edmonton, they'd go to Calgary
instead. And now it's the opposite, sort
of. But they're building a new
building now. Yeah, I.
Took in Canada. I was surprised how many bands

(30:12):
that that music broke in Canada first before the US Supertramp
is a good example. But when I started Delegate we
we we're doing tours in Canada and next to no dates in the US.
The bands, I don't know if you go back as far as let's see

(30:37):
split ends. Of course, yeah.
Forerunners to Crowded House split ends were going up.
In Canada. Didn't they do that song?
I don't know, but sometimes I. Is that them?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember them.
Was another Canada 1 band calledAngel City.
I remember them. Yeah, I know all those bands.

(30:58):
Then it worked. Canada first.
Really. I didn't know that.
Yeah, yeah. Huh.
Yeah. Christaberg.
Canada only. Just kidding.
I didn't know that either. Yeah, lady in red.
Canada and and in in the US, Cleveland was the Mecca

(31:21):
Cleveland was. Didn't matter who you were with,
Cleveland was on the itinerary. Really.
Yeah, I think it was KMMS or something.
The kid, the radio station. Great promotion tool.
He, he, he, he, I, I think he was responsible for a lot of
that large market share they had.

(31:44):
Isn't the music business so different today, like how how
bands broke back then compared to how they break now?
And it was really, you know, like I was talking with Gilmore
from Triumph. The drummer in Triumph is a
friend of mine. He has a a sound and lighting
company in Canada, Metalworks, and I was talking to him about
it and he told me the whole story of how Triumph broke.

(32:05):
I think it was a Texas small market, Texas radio station that
really was instrumental in breaking Triumph in the United
States. And it's just totally different
now. Well, the big difference now is
we don't have records, so we don't have record companies, so
we don't have record company funds to to back a tour.

(32:30):
Or to pay off radio DJs and. That was, you know, that was
that that covered our budgets for sound and lights with, with
record company support. Yeah.
And we'll the, the, you know, things are very different now.
Yeah. You're not going to live off
your royalty so much as you got to get out there and perform.

(32:51):
That's good for us, but I miss those the the 2, the variables.
There was record company supportand there was so many theatres
where we do theatre tours, soundand lights.
One, maybe 2 trucks if. And it was incredibly good fun
because you're playing venues downtown.

(33:15):
So when you stepped out at lunchtime, you could nip next
door into the the pharmacy or across the street to the sushi
bar. You felt you were in the city.
Now you're in a in a bus. You pull up at the arena.
If you've got a day off, they put you in a hotel where 22

(33:35):
interstates set cross each otherjust close to the arena.
You don't see it downtown. You just see concrete all the
time. And I, I loved touring.
I loved all these cities with the theaters right smack in the
middle of the city. That doesn't happen for US
production companies anymore. It's in house, sound, lights,

(33:59):
Big difference. We had.
We had a lot of fun then and andand it was much more intimate
because you're also closer to the band.
Yeah, I'm not going to be too nostalgic.
All this change had to come about.
Yeah, well, everything evolves, of course.

(34:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a, there's the
difference with touring now. And what it was is chalk and
cheese. Chalk and cheese.
Yeah. In fact, when you think back
when you the arenas, right, the arenas come out of the

(34:42):
basketball and ice skating leagues And and when the arenas
came about, then it was like, well, we want to put a concert
here, but we didn't really have the, the, the, the, the, the
technology. Yeah, we didn't have the sound
and lighting we had now. It was so sort of very
primitive. But you see, there was something

(35:05):
necessary, the something of invention, mother of invention.
I don't. Know, but I think.
I had something to play with it.So it was interesting for me who
started in 72 when sound systemswere so crude, looking back and
how they developed and the people who developed them, hats

(35:25):
off to them with that, that those cottage industries just
absolutely grew out of nothing. I, I love that part of our
business though, like I love that, you know, people were kind
of going back to their shop or their garage or whatever it was
and they were. I got to build a bigger box.

(35:46):
You know, and they would just build a bigger box and put 215
inch speakers in it and then they'd go, well, it's still not
loud enough. We need more bass.
They'd put 218 inch speakers in it, you know, and it was just
very primitive and very just need driven, you know, like, oh,
we need it louder. It's a bigger venue.
Let's just stack a few more boxes on each side, you know?

(36:06):
Exactly. Right.
Yeah. We got to say, you know, hats
off the Claire brothers, they had their S4 early in the game,
and that was incredibly slick. That was the design that held
it, you know, up for such a longtime.

(36:27):
So yeah, that that that was a really good example of a clean
PA. And it was more about number of
boxes. Yeah, very, very well put
together. Yeah.
You know, we, yeah, I've, I've seen it, saw a lot that that

(36:51):
that those developments. Yeah.
I want to get into that a littlebit here too, because you've
been, you know, in the lighting business for me.
I'm 60 now, but I've seen the the sort of growth from, you
know, just park hand rigs to, you know, verilite, very early
stage verilites to hey, there's these intellibim things that are

(37:15):
available to, you know, every stage of that.
And I worked in the moving lightbusiness for a lot of my career
and but you've done that like since the beginning of sound
systems practically, right. So I like.
I like that you touched on on lighting myself because before

(37:36):
the Genesis funded very OK that that was we call it a
metamorphosis. I don't know, show lights Eric
Pierce in the 70s. I was working with Tasco back
then, formerly MEH. Marshall equipment hire.
There's another story. And they'd put together the

(38:00):
lighting rig for the ELO tour and there was the spaceship.
And the spaceship, the trust configuration was it's all
Telestage trust. It was aluminium trust, sort of
triangular trust aluminium. That was the where we first saw
the six lamp bars with the soccer pecks on them.

(38:21):
That that innovation right therehad made a huge change.
In fact, I bought my my Supertramp rig was Show lights,
Eric Pierce, and he had these great, these dimmers, Oldham
dimmers. We even had to keep it

(38:44):
lightweight. We had aluminium foil, which was
later outlawed, but that caused such a stir here in the US that
when Tasco came over here, I've got delicate together.
LSD came out of the the back of Tasco.
We're all in use. Oh, I know you've got show

(39:05):
lights and I know you've got, I think it's Super Mick and some
others. And we were cleaning up and
there was, perhaps it was calledthe Professional Entertainment
Production Society was formed. And I caught wind of this
convention that was going on in Santa Monica.
And so I thought, well, that'd be fun to attend.

(39:25):
So I put the word out. So all those Brits and such go
down there. And but the schedule kept
changing and we were in the bar kind of bit puzzled as to why
they were, they were changing this seminar to something else.
And Patrick Stansfield came in and said, OK, I'm going to let

(39:45):
the cat out of the bag guys. This convention is all about how
do we get our business back fromthe tea bags.
The principles there was Obie, Bob C, Jim Moody from Sundance
Lighting. It was it was McManus from the

(40:08):
East Coast. Now.
Trying to figure out how they'regoing to get their business back
from the tea bags. That innovation there was
tremendous. Everybody got on it late in
Marshall. You know, as as left Electrotech
with Colin, one of the first things he did, I think it was
what he went to Korea and and had them making power cans and

(40:32):
he was bringing them in in the container and they sold like hot
cakes. And then he came up with the the
six lamp bar with the centre soccer pics all wired up for you
and that got TMB off the ground.So all that happened before we

(40:53):
saw the very light and and. Crazy.
Myself. Now here's one that puzzles me a
bit. Early on with the moving light
business, you go to LDI and it was Jack Kelly was the
distributor and he had Clay Paki.
Right Group One look. At this stuff and it was

(41:13):
amazing, but it nobody used it it.
Was. Yeah, it was discos only.
Sharpies came out that anybody gave a damn about Clay Paki, and
yet years and years and years before, I always thought Clay
Paki had this fantastic. It did package yeah.
If I'm. Not mistaken, High end were

(41:33):
involved with clay, Paki decidedthey were.
Going to do their. Own thing.
Yeah, they were, one of the distributors told.
You. That one I don't know.
Yeah. No, of course he did.
Yeah. No, he, I mean, they, they were
one of the, they were the distributor for Clay Paki at one
point. And they pretty much just, you
know, fixed some of the things that Clay Paki needed to, and

(41:56):
they made it a lot less expensive.
And, you know, they came out with the Intela Beam 400 and and
then the 700 after that. And, you know, again, great
stories. Because at the time, nobody
would ever use a moving mirror light on a rock'n'roll show,
right? And it was actually Chaz,
another fellow countryman for you, Chaz Harrington, who put

(42:18):
him out on on Dire Straits and changed everything.
You know, it was like it became suddenly very acceptable to put
in tela beams on a rock'n'roll rig.
Yeah, I, I, I remember that whole, the high end thing I had
Yanni was my client and he was about to embark on his tour.

(42:40):
He was doing shows at the Taj Mahal and the the Palace
whatever in China and he was looking for a high end rig
studio spot studio Wash and Marshall was was a distributor
locally and he would he actuallystepped back and allowed us to

(43:03):
become a dealer. And.
And and so that that high end product really kick started us,
you know, we had the turbo race and we had the cyber lots to
follow. But by then it was everyone's
game, wasn't it? I mean, buying coma fixtures and

(43:26):
a big nice moving lights, but there was no service, you know,
so that yeah, they they disappeared you.
Yeah. You, you know all those stories.
I I do. Yeah, I do.
I was involved in many of those stories, so I know them all too
well. This.
Big disappointment for me was I bought a a high end.

(43:47):
Jeez, I'm trying to remember what the fixture was called now
the. X Spot.
Export, Yeah, yeah, OK. It was right after the studio
spot in Studio Color and Studio Beam You.
Only had it like 3 months, 3 three months exports and then
the Mac 2000 came out. I just crushed it, killed the X

(44:08):
spot. The X spot was big and ugly and
not very bright and it was just,it was a flop.
It was such a flop. That taught me a lesson.
Don't buy what you think. You've got to wait and see which
way the market goes. Yeah.
Sticking your neck out if you'rejust going to just.
Jump in. I don't know that anybody saw

(44:28):
that Mac 2000 coming, though. I remember when they launched it
at LDI and I was just like, whoa, this thing's going to do
some damage. And it really did.
I mean, it just completely took over the market.
It had it had companies scrambling pretty good.
Yeah, so I had the wrong one. Yeah, yeah, I.
Know but high end for me I mean when we became dealers fact you

(44:50):
know you had to go to Austin andand I spent three or three days
there or something at school. You know I'm I had to learn
because I represented the product my company.
I had to know everything about it.
So I'm learning about rare earthand oh, God knows what you.

(45:12):
Know because I really need to know this, right?
Yeah. Yeah, 1 funny thing happened
there, Robert Mockery. You know Robert I.
Think, of course, very well. Like he was the go song with the
comas. Robert's there with high end and
he says, have you got a minute? I said, yeah.
He says, follow me. So we go around this little

(45:33):
warehouse. He says, I, I, I developed a new
product and I thought, OK, well,let's see what Robert's got to
offer here. We walk in, he fires it out.
He says, get a load of that. So he's got a smoke machine and
it's putting out what smells like absolute pure marijuana.
That's Robert. Or that was Robert.

(45:54):
Yeah, Yeah. Big big on festivals.
Oh my God, that's hilarious up in.
Prison. Yeah.
Yeah, they were. I'm not going to keep going are
they were fun. Robert.
Robert used to like his weed. He definitely did.
You know he quit. He quit a few years ago, right?
He completely quit smoking weed.He's off of it completely.

(46:17):
I don't even think he drinks anymore either, he's gone
healthy. Head strike now I'm at a kid and
who's a Robin's a one of those luminary figures for me.
Yeah, he's a good dude. Robert's a good guy.
We lost Craig recently, and thatwas a bummer because they were
sort of the partners in crime when you visited High End, Craig

(46:41):
and Robert. So you know that that Wiseman
and I started working for High End the same day in 1996 or 7, I
think 1997 he and I, I met. Wiseman I think when he was
pushing Coma out of Obie's. Yeah, yeah.

(47:05):
Obie's had the exclusive back then and you had to go through
Wiseman to get a rental. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a flashback.
But sorry, I interrupted you there.
Yeah, no, it's, it's funny. Everybody's got a Wiseman
flashback because it you got to kind of shake your head a little
bit to try and remember it because you might have been
under some sort of influence at that moment, you know, kidding.

(47:30):
I don't know. I don't.
Know he, he, he, he was, how do we put it with if it was an
industry gathering like we used to have the performance magazine
thing and everybody would know when he arrived back in the
hotel. Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

(47:52):
A cloud followed him. Yeah, well, he, I talked to him
almost daily at this point and he's healthy and happy and
really doing super well. You know, he, he quit at the
right time because I don't, he wouldn't be with us today if he
didn't, you know, and he, he actually told some really good
stories on, on the podcast wherehe hit bottom and had to borrow

(48:13):
money from his parents to, to goto rehab, you know, and, and
thank God he did because I thinkthat was 2027 or 28 years ago or
something. And he wouldn't be with us today
if he didn't do it. So So what was do you remember
your second tour after the afterthat one where you were the drum
tech? Yeah, yeah, I was back.
I was in the Marquee Club in London on Wardour St. and a guy

(48:38):
comes up to me and he says you're Roadie.
I said yes and he said. Can.
Well, yes, I am and. I said yes, and I said who's the
band? And he said it's Genesis and
this is with Peter Gabriel. So this is 73 and I so I was off

(49:02):
on a European run with with Genesis setting up.
Trump's. With Phil.
And wow. And carrying a lot of junk.
They had a lot of scenic elements and you didn't have too
much Rd. You didn't have stage hands.
Then you had to lug it in yourself and set it up so it was
an. Experience but I.

(49:24):
Absolutely love that. I love Phil and he, he, he was
one of these musicians who couldn't sit still between
tours. He and Peter Banks with flashing
and so they formed. There were bands like there was
Brand X was his and he was, he played with another band called

(49:46):
Zucks and the Radar Boys. And I'd, I'd pick them up.
Then we'd go off to the, the venue and they were unannounced.
They were like a super group andthey would go on first.
They just wanted to play. So.
The people next door in the pub and is suddenly you won't
believe he's on stage, you know,And that was that was Phil.

(50:09):
He just wanted to to keep working.
He loved playing. That's awesome.
Smashing guy all all the the Genesis guys were were nice
people. Yeah, yeah.
I mean I. Didn't stick with them too long.

(50:29):
I I was living in South London over Hammersmith Bridge place
called Barnes and my Greengrove.So Willie Fife was a good friend
of John Lord and John Lord just been very successful with big
Purple and he'd now bought a nice big country house out in
the in, in in Berkshire and and was wanted to hand moving.

(50:53):
So Willie and I helped John moveout to to to Sonning in
Berkshire. And while I was there one of
John's friends came up to me andhe said, are you eroding?
Yes, I am. It's a theme.
It's a bit of a theme. And yeah, I said, who's who's

(51:13):
the artist? What are you looking for?
He said, well, only two guys want to take care of the band
and want to take care of the artist.
I said, who is this? He said Gentleman Leo Sayer so I
know I pulled 1 so I called NumoHey Numo got a tour for us What
do you want to do? Front of house?

(51:34):
I beg your pardon You want to take care of the band or you
want to take care of the artist?No brainer.
So he. Was.
Leo Sayers personal and so we wedid quite a few tours with Leo
Sayer. Interesting.
Yeah, and. What was fun was in 74, I think

(51:54):
75, we did a lot of one week in in a in a city.
We did a week at the bottom line.
We did a Denver's, oddly enough.Oddly enough, it's called
Ebbetsfield, the boarding house in San Francisco, the Troubadour
in LA, Paul's Mall in Boston andI really enjoyed that.

(52:16):
You can imagine, Oh, we would bein, we were in Memphis for a
week at Lafayette. It's a club and if you walk
through their kitchen, you'd be kept walked into the kitchen of
the tgi Friday's, right in the early days when it was a more of
a sawdust type burger joint. So that was fun because all the
bar people were ready to go and have fun after work.

(52:37):
So I loved that for a week, and then the same thing happened in
Nashville. The exit in was next door to tgi
Friday's. So touring was a lot of fun.
Touring was a lot of fun. Hard work good.
Fun. Yeah.
So was that all luck? Like was that all just, were you

(52:57):
just a really good worker and people came looking for you or
was it just luck you were alwaysin the right pub when somebody
was looking for a roadie? Maybe it was my big Afro.
You think? No, I was, I, I was hanging out
the place. Well, it's, it's no good sitting

(53:19):
at home waiting for the phone toring.
You know, we didn't have e-mail or anything.
You can just put it out there. If you wanted a road, you'd go
see where they went drinking. So they went drinking at the
ship, the shafts, the Marquis and the speak.
And if you did four of those in a row, you probably should be
arrested because the the the Speakeasy went till the early,

(53:42):
early hours of the morning. In fact, the Speakeasy was it's
in a song by The Who. Drink.
Easy, pull, easy, speak easy. Keep your bands together with
Rhoda sound strings. That was The Who sell out.
They mentioned the Speakeasy because that was where all the
bands went after the shows. So it was a big thing with us

(54:04):
Rhodies that when you finished your show, if you were in,
everybody knew where where the other guys were playing.
So you it was always a race backto the Speakeasy.
So if you're playing in Birmingham, you want to get
there before the guys who were playing in Leicester or if the
guys from Manchester be you, youknow, you're most embarrassed.

(54:24):
So everybody would go and have adrink at the Speakeasy before
they went home to bed, to get upagain the next morning to go
back almost to the same place they were the day before.
We. Didn't get hotels.
There was never far enough different today, so Speakeasy
was a big, big place there. So it's just basically right

(54:45):
place, right time. Like if you wanted the gigs you
you hung out at those places. Yeah, that's, that's where we,
we that, that was the drinking hole.
Yeah. You wanted, if you wanted to
find crew, that's where you went.
Yeah. And so by now you decided that
this is my life, I'm a roadie, this is what I'm going to do.
Or or where you just. Yeah, there's a whole heck of a

(55:10):
lot of trial by fire because what happened, like with Flash,
was Paul took care of the NUMA, took care of the back line, I
took care of the drums. Paul left because the band
weren't going to pay him more than what they're paying
themselves. So he left and I'm left.

(55:31):
Now I'm the guitar roadie as well and I haven't got a clue so
quickly. Yeah, I've got this pedal board
as well that was custom built byPete Cornish in on Wardour St.
and it needs servicing from timeto time.
So it's, it's crazy. I'm in the Yellow Pages trying

(55:52):
to find a place where you can look at a custom built pedal
board that this electrician guy has never heard of in his life.
There were there was crazy demands on you when I went to
Leo Saya I I I now meet the infamous B3, the Hammond B3 and

(56:13):
the. Lesson.
Oh boy. Yeah.
This game? What the hell is this?
Yeah, it's a monster. In the D bed, you know, so I
was, I was heavy into doing all the back line and I was down in
Australia and the monitor guy wasn't getting it together and
I'd made a foolish mistake of stepping up and made some

(56:35):
adjustment to which suddenly I was now the Leo, says monitor
engineer. Oh, Jesus.
Yeah. That's well, you know, again,
like that's a theme though. Like a lot of people who come on
my podcast, it's a theme. It's like just say yes and
figure it out, you know? Yeah, I know how to do.
Of course I know how to do that,you know, and you figure it out.

(56:57):
It's not like there was a lot ofexperts back then, you know?
Yeah. Yeah, I, I was fortunate that I,
I had, I worked with some great people, great engineers who who,
as I say, were very, very helpful.
I think I got on well with musicians.
I made a point of being attentive, especially with

(57:18):
monitors, stand behind the lead saying oh, listen to what he's
listening to, check what's coming off the stage, try and
figure, you know, try and work it out for him.
That it was only when I'd got into delicate going that I had a
more of a free hand and I was like touring with Heart in 83,

(57:40):
four and five. But I just realised that trying
to get the vocal levels out of the floor monitors that we had
at that time was kind of hopeless and you couldn't pump
the side feels too hard. You were annoying other band
members. So I developed the box that I
flew because you couldn't find out.

(58:01):
All there was was full range boxes.
I didn't have a box I could buy that I could hang out there from
a trust, so I had to build it. I used a Mart and fill a shave
which is a 2 by 12 that had a phase bung horn loaded that and
a couple big 2 inch drivers nextto it.
Hung those boxes, focused down on the artist and I was home

(58:26):
and. Driving.
Oh interesting. I I've never seen anybody do
that. I don't think like flown
monitors like that at the front I.
Did something similar. I did two different designs over
the years that I was mixing monitors.
You just take a 12 inch Truss, make sure your your hang is not
interfering with the downstage lighting Truss and and and fly

(58:49):
these cabinets where where you're downstage where you're
the vocalists are. And.
You you can crack the hell out of it without any feedback and
you're not just covering that area directly by the mic stand.
You're getting a little bit of spread out onto the stage.
But this is all now it's in heremonitors so.

(59:10):
That's the interesting. Yeah.
Well, I mean, there's still a lot of people who use floor
monitors who don't like in ear monitors, as you know.
But so tell me how, how did the Supertramp thing happen?
Like I I've heard, I've heard stories, or I should say the the
delicate thing. How did the delicate thing
happen? Yeah.

(59:31):
Supertramp 101 OK yeah, I I toured in Australia with Spy
Matthews as production manager. SPY really, really good guy,
very good at this job. And God, it's hard not to go off
at a tangent here. I'll try and stay focused on.

(59:53):
Go for it, go for it. We got time so.
I'm working. I'm back at Tasco Sound Company
and which funny enough is about quarter of a mile from where I'm
sitting now. I moved them out here in 19. 78,
but we'll pick up on that in thenext hour or two.

(01:00:15):
Just kidding. So I'm I'm at task.
I'll get a phone call. It's by Matthews.
Hi, I'm out with Supertramp, OK,he said.
These guys have bought their ownarena sound system and they're
not really proficient in handling a uni crew.

(01:00:37):
They've basically been in theaters prior to this.
So can I come on board now? I've got background.
I've worked with Tasco with Flown PAS.
I just basically, I long finished the 7778 tour with Kiss
and so I was happy to go out there.
I was the new boy. They weren't exactly enthralled

(01:00:59):
that oh, he's spies boy, but they got down quickly with
everybody got them often they were in good shape.
And when we finished the breakfast in America tour in
1979, the band we're now millionaires and they're talking
about two or three-year break. So I'm looking at this.

(01:01:22):
I go wow, you know, what's the the deal here where they've got
their own sound system. So I, I went to management said,
how about if, if I start a production company and your guys
can be partners and you don't pay retainers, you don't pay for

(01:01:44):
warehouse and you don't pay for equipment insurance.
What's the, what's your thoughts?
And they went for it. So.
What an interesting idea. Now what what was happening with
Supertramp was everybody startedat 8 O clock in the morning or
whatever. No, nobody got to stay on the
bus or sit in the in the crew room or whatever catering.

(01:02:06):
So the the drum Rd. he's still adrum roadie.
Then would do audio until the stage was ready for him.
Lights were up. Patrick Ampie was the guitar
roadie. He worked lights and so all
these back line guys were working sound and lighting.

(01:02:28):
And so when we, when I started the, the company, the guys who
weren't going to go off and workwith Rodger in the studio.
I'm working with Rick in his studio.
I'm going with John Elliwell to build his studio.
You know, all, all the old guys decided they were, they were
going to stick with the musicians and that.

(01:02:51):
And Spy said this, you'll never get this off the ground, mate.
So he took off to Australia. So I found a warehouse in
Beverly Hills, the old Wanderloaf factory, and I was
able to rent that, that premises.
And so when the gear came back at the beginning of January 19,

(01:03:11):
8045 years ago last January, we offloaded the container straight
into the warehouse there and that it was now up to me so.
So Supertramp owned owned the gear.
Yeah, and and you bet. It's better than that.
It's better than that myself. During the tour payments to Eric

(01:03:36):
Pierce's show, lights were getting a little bit behind.
So the manager did a deal with Eric and said I'll pay you extra
money on top of what I owe you. And we own half the gear, half
the lighting rig. OK, so I've now got a lighting
rig that's the bandown half. Nobody's not sure.

(01:03:57):
Which half? OK, well, right away Jim Moody
calls me from Sundance. He wants lights for John Denver
Electrotech. Call me.
They've got George Benson. They need lighting.
Obie's calling. He wants dimmers and others,

(01:04:20):
cabling and stuff for The Beach Boys.
I've got Tasco now who are my allies.
They're looking for gear. So Eric calls and says I've got
to come and pick up my plant. That was his term for the gear.
I say, well, hang on, mate, we've got it in bits at the
moment. We're sorting it out.
Another month goes by and after a while he calls up.

(01:04:42):
He says, all right, I'm sending the truck.
And I said, Eric, don't send a truck.
I've got a check for you about the skin of my teeth.
I had enough money to buy the rest of the lighting.
Wow, that's amazing. What a story first.
Thing that went out the door that that's really answers the

(01:05:06):
question. I think of that transition from
oh, by the way, March, end of March, Spy calls up.
He said, I've had second thoughts.
You seem to have cut this thing off the ground.
I said, yeah. He said, I want in.
I said, let me think about this.He said, what if I bring you

(01:05:26):
Little River Band sound and lights?
And I said, come on in. And Little River Band were very
hot at the time and they that wewent off, we were, we were
playing, sometimes we were playing college football
stadiums and. All the.
Venues so it's a great start to for the for the audio.

(01:05:50):
We've already been doing a few shows.
I my first show shows were with the Clash in 1980 at the
beginning of the year. And it it was odd because we're
totally different cultures. You know, this was supposedly
the punk period and and I got the best accolade there.

(01:06:12):
I got Joe Strummer, the singer came up to me at the end of the
last show and he said not bad for a bunch of hippies.
That was good. And then shall I carry on here,
Marcel, because it. Yes please, I love this story.
OK, Segways into a call I get from England.

(01:06:36):
The NAC are going on tour. My Sharona and the tour
engineers are are from concert sound in in England.
So they come over, we do, we do the tour and everything's great.
And then I get a phone call fromBarry Marshall.

(01:06:57):
Barry Marshall in martial arts, big promoter in England, but he
was formerly the manager for theband, the Man Band in Wales.
And when the man Band was going,he bought APA.
The Man Band fizzled, but he hadAPA.
So he started APA rental companyand it took off.

(01:07:18):
He called me to say, look, let'sdo some trading, you know, And I
said I'm good for it. So he sent me, I think the
Pretenders and I sent him in excess.
He sent me Dire Straits, I sent him Supertramp.
So I'm getting on really well now with the Brits and the word

(01:07:43):
is out there in Good Britain that we're the go to company,
you know, super small company with a big name.
I. On the other hand, with Little
River Band has got this Aussie thing going.
So then we get in excess, come on over.
They were opening for Adam Ant and at Long Beach Arena and

(01:08:06):
they'd heard of us and they drove up.
They'd knock on the door most atthe warehouse in in the Valley
here. She says it's a band at the
door. Their name is Inks and they're
from Australia. I said OK, go down to the off
license, the liquor store, get acase of Fosters and we'll see
where we go with this. That was the beginning of a

(01:08:28):
great relationship with with theband.
After INXS came probably, oh, Crowded House, Midnight Oil, Men
At Work, Men At Work came over. So we were doing great.
Now we've got the Brits calling us constantly and we've got the

(01:08:49):
Aussies calling us constantly. Amazing.
We're knocking. These sound and lights to us out
the door, it's just. Amazing.
We started in 1980 with one rig.By 85 I had Little River Band
out doing sheds, I had Dire Straits in arenas and I had
Supertramp in arenas. How I pulled that off, I had no
idea whatsoever. That is incredible.

(01:09:14):
I didn't have the light rig on Dire Straits, but I did on
Supertramp and Little River Band.
That's where I got to with Dire Straits, got to meet Charles.
And work with. Charles Harrington So yeah,
things things took off pretty, pretty quick.
Demo. So did you did did Supertramp

(01:09:36):
take back their sound system at some point, or did you just pay
them out for whatever was left? No, 1983.
I'd done so many upgrades with consoles, amplifiers,
equalizers, just you name it that when that I put on there, I
put that on as a rental list, right?

(01:09:58):
And at the end of the tour, we just, it was a wash.
So. I ended up after 83 owning the
rig entirely. Oh, I see.
But most interesting? Stuff that I replaced was it, It
had no very little value. In fact, you know the amplifiers

(01:10:20):
at the time we're called Midas blocks.
We know that Midas, Martin Midasmaking concerts, well, they made
amplifiers. I've got one that we use as a a,
a stand for our plant a plant pop.
It's a massive, great block. Metal block.
With 4250 Watt amplifiers in each corner and you built them

(01:10:43):
like bricks and and so they theywere gone new new amps, you know
sound craft series 4 console formonitors.
You know, I, I'm not sure how weput, I know it was, it was a
little hand to mouth and everything was always put the

(01:11:03):
money back in. We started off at 200 bucks a
piece When I, when the guys who said they wanted to be with
delicate, you know, found out that all I was going to give
them was 200 bucks a piece. So we, they were a little bit
down hearted, but some of them had walked away with $10,000 of
bonus from the Supertramp. They were.
Very right and. Talking about.
Generosity. After a couple of months the

(01:11:26):
manager called me up and said smooth to come over the office.
I went over there, he said this is from the band Good Luck and
they gave me $40,000. Whoa, that was real money back
then, you know. In today's market, that's.
It was 40, yeah. Probably up there at about 280
or something. Like that?
Yeah. Yeah, real money.

(01:11:47):
Good luck to you mate, you've already got the gear for nothing
that hadn't hit. This is just a little icing.
No, no, they're wonderful guys. They're very it it I I learned
about work ethic and such with them.
Maybe not work ethic. Everybody started work at the
same time on the tour. Everybody had a criteria.

(01:12:09):
You got to give 100%. Didn't matter who you are, what
your job was, give 100%. Yeah, kind of took that.
I carried that on initially withwith delicate.
I wanted everybody on the same salary.
I want everybody pulling hard. You know, if you just look to
the left and right of you and you see everybody working so
hard, it's the best incentive inthe world.

(01:12:29):
Yeah, it's a real team. Yeah.
Yeah. So you why did you decide to
open a sound company in the US versus UKI?
Was already I've been living here since 1976.
I started off with, when I was touring with Leo, say over here,
my sound system came out of New York at that time and we had an

(01:12:56):
office up up upstate and I decided that I was here so much
that I was just going to stay. So I stayed for 76 through 70,
nearly 78 and and then moved to the West Coast where Tasco had

(01:13:16):
opened up a place on the Beechwood lot.
That's the old Columbia Studios lot, which was a Mecca back then
of of sound and lighting Companysaid that that that the Sir is
still like down on the Beechwoodlot.
But we had C factor had an office there.

(01:13:39):
Sundance Lightning had an officethere, Pirate Sound INS, cases,
They even have their own newspaper that circulated
monthly with jobs for roadies, Who's with who, what musicians
are with what bands, who's on tour with who.

(01:14:00):
I've still got those. Stuart Ross gave me a whole load
of copies that I photocopied. That's fantastic.
Fun days in the late 70s on the in LA.
Yeah. Yeah, I kind of tell you,
though, it's a little story, allright?

(01:14:21):
I'm good, I'm good. We've got time, my friend.
All. Right.
I've got one of them. My good friends is Derek
Wilkinson, Wilco. Wilco's always been trying to
get this Enterprise roadie off the ground.
Roadie's for ATV show, so we getso close as we're going to
actually all meet and they're going to, I'm going to meet the
the producer, potential producer.

(01:14:43):
So we go to the cat and fiddle, I guess down on Sunset.
I remember it well. And there's no one there.
So we go. And that was our sign, that was
our call sign for back in England where if you went into
a, a gig or a bar and you wantedto see if your friends were
there, you did that. And if you got a response, go
ahead. So I go in there I go.

(01:15:03):
And then the side room, I hear all the replies and while I'm
sitting in there having a beer and the other guys are arriving,
they're all doing the same thing.
It wasn't rehearsed. So really the producers go and
this is outrageous, this is fun.So we get in.
We didn't, no scripts. So we're all sitting around
having a free beer and and a lunch and they've got the camera

(01:15:25):
guy working and the mic keeps popping down and, and we're all
ignoring it. And then the camera guy goes
stop, stop, stop, he says. I can't hold the camera.
I can't stop laughing. That's funny.
There's. So many stories, right?
So the producer guy says, all right, fellas, we've been doing
this for nearly two hours. He says, I thought this was all

(01:15:48):
about sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, and we haven't even
touched on sex and drugs. And.
And that, to me, tells the storythat it was really all about
camaraderie. It was.
Absolutely. Challenges, yeah.
I mean, there was some of the other stuff too, but you know,
when everybody got together back.
To the hotel, the bloody HolidayInn bars closed.

(01:16:11):
The everybody's all the Everybody's disappeared.
Yeah, the band maybe there. Or the opening act.
Yeah, but not us. Yeah.
That was that's that's bull. Yeah.
That, that's that. Yeah, there's stories here and
there, but that wasn't our will.Yeah, we.
I'll tell you man, we were professionals.

(01:16:32):
We didn't know. It at the time.
Look, here's one for you, right,Peter Alexander?
He's. Working with Deep Purple, he's
trying to get from Yugoslavia into Italy, all right.
Gets to the borders lined up with trucks.
All these Europeans, semis, right?
Borders closed, all right. He's got a shark man.

(01:16:54):
So what does he do? He goes back.
He drives towards the border again and he runs it.
He knocks down the barrier and they open up and they start
shooting the back of the truck all right, and it gets to the
other side. The Italians are all welcoming
and and it was those commitments.
Now I reason I know this is because meh, the blue truck A5

(01:17:15):
tonner with a big metal lift gate had patches in it.
Covering bullet holes. The patches.
They said. You don't know the story of
Peter and and there's these little metal patches across the.
That's fantastic. What a madman.
I don't know that I would have tried that.
I don't think so. I might.

(01:17:36):
Get a cup of tea. No, no, but.
But we were fiercely committed to making those shows happen.
Yeah. And, and in return, the bands
compensated you for that. You see, when Supertramp were
compensating the crew, it was because of the sheer dedication

(01:17:58):
and efforts above and beyond. I, I, I can think of many
instances where we just went through help and make a, a show
happen. And that happens if there was
happening everywhere, somewhere every day.
It's nice when they notice, you know?
It's nice when the band notices because they don't always has.
Nothing to do with the fact thatthe T-shirts weren't sales,

(01:18:20):
weren't declared to the tax man couldn't have been, could it?
When you when you're at CNE stadium doing 2 nights in
Toronto at the football stadium and you look out there and you
see these 33 gallon trash bags full of something going into the
back of a semi with on a semi where the wall keeps moving
towards the back. It's a wall with a door in it

(01:18:41):
and a big lock wouldn't have hadanything to do with that.
I'm. Sure, that's wild.
That's wild. Wow, I won't even.
For that one. I won't even ask you questions
on that one. I'm not going to dig any deeper.
No, no, no, no, no generosity. Yeah.
It was a it, it was a two way deal there.

(01:19:01):
Yeah, and. That that, that that was very
much the case. So I want to ask you about the
evolution of gear. And so if we look at we've
talked a little bit about lighting, but if we talk about
audio, you know, again, you wentfrom stacked to line arrays,
well stacked sort of the really old school stacked like in your

(01:19:24):
face kind of stuff to like that face plug kind of when they
started using some technology inthose boxes, but they were still
stacked. And then I.
Could I I should pull an envelope out?
I've got the letters from Dave Martin from Martin Audio.
Yeah. With his pencil cats, he's
smoother. I'm looking at this concept.
What do you think? And yeah, the F2, the Martin F2

(01:19:48):
was a big breakthrough. Kavanaugh, as they would say
down South, I'd knock a burgeoned off a shit wagon.
It was a it was a beast. It.
Really was and it was so well thought out modular.
Where do you want to go today with that?
And then they came up with the WA, which was just a really good
sounding box, but. Never.

(01:20:09):
Got the flying concept together again.
Claire brothers consistently. S. 4 was by far the most.
Yeah, they owned it, Yeah. Aesthetically 2 of us out they
they did well with with their presentation after Martin Audio

(01:20:32):
with the the W8. Then they went to the line away
and I think we've probably gone through with Martin.
We went through about 6 different line array systems.
It all ended when the company who who were then owned Martin

(01:20:53):
Audio, bought ODAW and they spent a whole ton of money to
promote the new EAW product and didn't support the MLA product
that was out there. And that's why we got rid of our
MLA. That's why SES got rid of their
MLA. We lost the support.
They had the best cabinet by fartoday.

(01:21:14):
It's technology. It's it's it's a way in above
anything. Yeah, I've heard other people
say that they. Screwed up, you know, and.
We, we, we, we've seen that, youknow, we saw avid.
Everybody had an avid console. Everybody had an avid profile.
Where are they today? For support explain it.

(01:21:37):
It's a puzzle. It's.
An absolute. Puzzle how you could be so
successful and lose it. Yeah.
Well, you know what, you get greedy.
I mean, I think in the line array world, you've got L
acoustic and D&B and then everybody else kind of chasing
behind them. And those two have become such
big companies. And so you've got some smaller
companies that are trying to be aggressive to go after a little

(01:21:59):
piece of the pie. And it's just not that easy to
do, you know, once somebody ownsa market like that, it's just
it's tough you. Think they own the market, you
know, until such, but as you mentioned it, everything
evolves. It does, yeah.
There'll be another super something.
Yeah. I don't, I, I missed the days,
you know, with Charles Brook, with Brookside and I think it

(01:22:21):
was Ian or something with Ian Wallace or Ian something with
Avo lighting. There.
Were these these single guys, you know, developed that that
product in the early days? Dave Martin's an example.
And there's so many others. And I mentioned, perhaps I'm too

(01:22:43):
biased because I mentioned all of the English, but the same
things were going on here in in the US.
It it it it not, not now, of course, it's like everything
else is massive corporate. But I think at the end of the
day, like what you said with Martin, it's still where we're

(01:23:03):
at is you got to take care of your customers.
You know, if you take care of your customers and you treat
them really well, even if it's, you know, 3% less good than the
competitor, they don't care because.
I I've got, I always try to impress on people here.
Now look at this service comes first service all right and

(01:23:28):
execution. The show has got to be perfect
and the money comes later. It's this isn't about the money.
This is about service and execution.
If you can get those two and stay on top of those two, the
rest will take care of itself. Yeah.

(01:23:48):
Yeah, it's totally true. You're you're not wrong.
I think at the end of the day, do what you say you're going to
do and do it really well. Do it to the best of your
ability and and you're going to make a lot.
Of friends out there, you know? Yeah, I bought on something
myself. Uh oh.
Go ahead, friends. Friends.
Yeah. You know the important thing I
learned right from day one? I needed friends.

(01:24:10):
I needed other companies I couldgo to.
I needed to be everybody's friend.
I didn't want to be the enemy. I we had a little thing going in
the 80s and early 90s and it wasit was honor amongst thieves.
We didn't steal each other's projects.
Now it's now it's a lot of salesguys who just got to make their

(01:24:31):
numbers and they don't give a rat's ass about.
It Yeah, yeah, it's true. So.
Yeah, but friends still important today to have friends
who will call you for support and you can call them for
support. Well, it's been a theme through
your career because you, you were talking about, you know,
swapping bands. You know, we'll take, I don't

(01:24:52):
remember who it was. We'll give you in excess or
we'll take in excess and we'll give you this one or whatever.
Yeah. Yeah, Barry Marshall, he's, by
the way, he's Paul McCartney's man now.
Oh, is he this? Is a funny thing.
Talk about a full circle. So my son ends up working with
Paul McCartney as his teleprompter operator.
My daughter works for Negra in West London.

(01:25:13):
OK. Somehow or other I get a
photograph from from London. It's Barry Marshall in the
middle, and my two kids are either side.
And it's Barry says hello, you know, and this is Barry from
1980. That's hilarious.
That's amazing. Hilarious.
With. Yeah, he had to have loved that

(01:25:34):
photo. Yeah, it came into rehearsals
with, with, with, with, with McCartney and that.
And he says, I hear Smoother's son's working for us.
And I had nothing to do with it.Absolutely nothing.
And the sooner my son Spencer joined them, he said, oh,
there's four guys here. I'm working with all your old

(01:25:55):
pals. You know, that's funny.
So he was made at home and. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's got to be interesting
being Smoother's son when you'reout there on the road and
running into some of the, the old geezers and stuff, you know,
smoother look. I just emailed Chaz's son.
Yeah, her and son. I've already seen it.
Yeah, Yeah. You're part of the same part of

(01:26:16):
the same business now, yeah. Yeah, and then out on McCartney,
it's if it's not the original guys who with the cruise, their
son is involved somewhere. Yeah.
And it's the same, you know, with I like, you know, Gallagher
staging here and, you know, Joe Junior.
Yeah, I love it. I love.
It it's cool, yeah. Well, you know, and my, my son,

(01:26:39):
on the other hand, has no interest whatsoever in the
business that we're in. And, and that's all good.
Like I, I'm totally OK with that.
Like I keep telling him, if you ever want an adventure, you
know, I'll connect you to some people and you can go out there
and find an adventure, but go dowhat you're going to do.
You know, I've, I've been meaning to ask you because I
don't think I know the answer tothis, but you know your name.

(01:27:03):
Where'd it come from? Oh, I'm the smoother mover.
Is that it? Yeah.
It's that simple. No, you asked.
I'm going to show you. Hang up.
OK, go get it. We've got props, people.
We have props coming this time. I like it.
Uh oh, the. Smoother mover.

(01:27:31):
That's hilarious. That's funny.
So the name came from that or that came from the name I.
Was out on tour with Kiss and those left behind a semi and
it's Smite Van Lines. So they go hang on Smite.
That's Chris Smite me. So next day they go and he's the

(01:27:52):
smoother mover. And I got stuck with being the
smoother mover for a year and a half.
And that later was abbreviated to just smoother.
So when I started delicate and I'm calling people and I'm
going, oh, it's Chris Smythe here.
Is John available? I'm sorry, he's busy.
You know, I called back another couple hours later, tell him

(01:28:14):
it's smoother. Why didn't you say so?
They're on the phone. My wife said, you know,
nicknamed smoother when I met you.
Stick with it and it's hard to lose that now when you're 76
years old and you introduce yourself and this is smoother.

(01:28:34):
Yeah, that's funny. What a silly name, Sir I.
Met. I was introduced to Margaret
Thatcher and she's smoother. That's a rather peculiar name.
Yeah, but people don't. So is Margaret, ma'am?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
I told her I was a Lincolnshire lad right from where she comes

(01:28:56):
from. Yeah, that's awesome.
So have I. Kept Have I kept you up long
enough? Yeah, no, no, hang on a second.
So hang on a SEC. You've worked with bands,
managers, accountants and now attorneys.
Which is? Which is the toughest?
Which is the tough one. Yeah, well, attorneys don't

(01:29:17):
bother me 'cause you set your dog on their dog.
Yeah, attorneys for me are always at the bottom of the
pile, I'll tell you that one. Well, we became this litigious
society about in the beginning of the 2000s, accounts came into
started off the bands ran the show.
In the 70s, if you lost the renta car, they would tell the ban

(01:29:42):
the manager, get over it. All right.
In the 80's the the manager started to take back control.
In the 90s, they, we started running into accountants.
And then as we got into the late90s, we started pitting the
serious litigation. Yeah.

(01:30:03):
And so it but now, now it's sortof all found itself.
Yeah. For the most part, nobody reads
anything, they just sign it anyway.
Yeah, it's kind of true, isn't it?
Insurance. That's it.
COICO I/O? Off we go.
You know, The funny thing about all of that is like, you know, I
went up against one of the world's largest companies

(01:30:25):
because they stole a trademark from me.
And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether you're
right or wrong. It matters how deep your pockets
are to fight that battle and. Let's not talk government now.
Right now. Let's kick politics out of this.
Yeah, Moving, moving on. This wasn't the government

(01:30:45):
though. This was one of the largest
companies in the world that I had a lawsuit against.
And and they not only did they decide to defeat me, they
decided that they were going to try and crush me completely put
me out of business, murder me, whatever it was.
They just wanted me to be squashed like a little bug and I
just had to give up. You know, even though I was

(01:31:07):
right, they were wrong. The final judgement was you're
right, they're wrong, but they're not going to give you
any money. And so it's brutal, you know,
but when you've got, you know, when you walk into a, you know,
a hearing or a mediation or whatever, and you've got your
one attorney that you're paying $400.00 an hour and they've got

(01:31:27):
like 6 attorneys that are each getting $2000.00 an hour.
And, and then they've got a bunch of these pretty girls
carrying briefcases for them. And you know, it's, it's wild.
You know, I learned really fast,you know, lawsuits are crap
sheets. They tell you that that's true.
Now for a delicate up until the live events chapter, we had the

(01:31:51):
same attorney for years and years.
And he said, smoothie, you know,you're one of my oldest.
You are my oldest customer. And he said you're also the
worst. You never go to court and
because most of these things canbe avoided, obviously you
couldn't you were that the side swipe there.
And I think that's that's reallyimportant to stay away from it.

(01:32:18):
I agree. It's only entered, it's
disappointment. So I've, we've been, we've been,
we've had our laws since I get aguy who says, you know, I was
work setting up a Yanny show andthis light hit me on the head

(01:32:39):
and it was their fault, you know, and then I got to be
careful here. But the guy ended up the
insurance company paid him $1,000,000, you know, out of
court. I've had the hearing once, you
know, concert. My ears shut.
And and and. She's but really it's about it's

(01:33:04):
avoiding them. Yeah, it's.
It's it's avoiding them. I'd go to K Rocket, which would
be Irvine Meadows back then. And I'd, I'd have a big bag of
earplugs and I'd go up to the people who were closest to the
stacks. And I'd say, guys, look, if you
kid, you know, you want these, use them, you know?

(01:33:25):
But that wasn't cool. That wasn't cool back then to
put earplugs in. I, I just, I, I, I'm very
conscious about what what we're doing to, to, to the kids
hearing. Yeah, it's true, man.
You know, I know that I've lost a lot of my hearing over the

(01:33:46):
years, but being a musician and then being in the industry and
going to concerts myself as a fan, even, you know, I've I've
lost a. Ton I I.
You know the story here. I got gold albums, platinum
albums at $6000. Hearing aids, Are you listening
to this, Gene Simmons? Gene, are you listening to this?

(01:34:08):
Have you got your ear plugs in? After.
A year and a half Paul Chevroletis is roadie runs out and says,
Gene, you forgot your ear plugs.I'd spent so much time trying to
get that guy's vocal going. The bottom end is coming out of
the side film. My trousers are flat and this
guy's got his. He's given me a hard time, he's

(01:34:31):
given me a lot of tongue becausehe wants more level and he's and
he's. And he's wearing earplugs.
Earplugs. That's funny.
That's crazy. Well, fortunately for you, he
doesn't listen. He doesn't listen to my podcast.
So, you know, not that I'm awareof.
Anyways. I did have Doc McGee on.
I had Doc McGee on at one point.Yeah.

(01:34:51):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Otherwise, yeah. You was some.
Great, great artists. Yeah.
Had some fun times but back thenthe worst job you could ever
have was being the monitor engineer you.
Know, Yeah. Do you know, Do you know Jim
Yakoboski? No, I know, I know.
Yeah, he's a, it was a Tasco A1.Yeah.

(01:35:17):
So it didn't. Work with him.
That I, yeah, I knew him in Canada.
He, he was doing sound for a lotof the bar bands that were up
there when I was playing and when I owned a music store up
there as well. And we were good friends.
And he got a gig, I think it waswith DB Sound out of Chicago
doing monitors for Ingvey Melmstein.

(01:35:38):
Could you imagine that gig? I mean it was just constant
like. For a couple of tours.
Oh, did ya? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, there's some storiesthere and all of that.
He said he would just look to the side of the stage and be
like, I'm gonna kill you, you know, just this look.
And and there was so much guitarcoming out of every monitor on

(01:36:00):
stage that nobody could tell what they were doing.
No, because guitar was just everywhere.
He had, he had these huge speakers for his guitar amp and
then he had guitar coming out ofthe the floor monitors as well.
It was just like. Well, I have to have his guitar
in the warehouse. Oh, really?
Yes, it's 20 foot, all right. It's 20 foot.

(01:36:20):
It's a Stratocaster. It was made as a prop for the
OK. At the end of the tour,
management said they wanted the guitar.
The guy who built it said he wanted he wanted this other half
of the payment. So between the two of them, they
couldn't decide who's it was. And it's still here.

(01:36:40):
Yeah, 20 foot strata car. That's hilarious.
Not just talking a cut out. Yeah, dog.
Frets everything. Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's, that's funny. How long have you had it?
How long has it been sitting there that.
Would have been about from 84. Oh, it's been there for like 40

(01:37:00):
years. Yeah.
Oh my God, Have you ever thoughtof maybe getting rid of it?
Yeah. Yeah, there was.
His manager at that time was a guy named Andy Truman.
And. Andy's a chapter in itself that

(01:37:21):
quite a character for formerly tour manager for ELO started Jet
Productions, which I was part offor Supertramp called.
Yeah. So smoother, you've said follow
your nose. What does that look like today
like in practice for someone starting out today?

(01:37:43):
Someone said that you said follow your nose in business in
this business. Yeah, just no matter what you're
doing, even the guys who are outthere with a, with a, with a,
with a job, you know, in front of house engineer or whatever
else, you know, you always look for opportunity.
If you've been on the road for along time, you might want off,
you might want to, you might, ifthere's an opportunity where you

(01:38:04):
could be the in house guy at this venue or that venue, you
can follow your nose. I think it applies to every one
of us. Go where the instinct goes.
Don't, don't, just don't look straight ahead.
Look left and right. Look for opportunities you know
above all those. Don't do anything you don't

(01:38:27):
enjoy. You know I.
Try to get everybody who comes to work here to enjoy coming to
work, not just happy to go home.In fact, sometimes I want them
to. Yeah, I know they feel they'd
rather be here than sitting in the traffic.
So if I can, if I can get that kind of enthusiasm where they
want to be with their pals, the people they're working with,

(01:38:48):
they're not, then I've done my job because now I've got
productivity, I've got a happy house.
People who come in like band engineers to come and set their
consoles up. You're aligning guys check over
programming and such. They they like to be in a happy
house. And that makes so much sense.
So I advocate that. That's so important.

(01:39:12):
Well, on a similar topic and I promise this is the last
question I'm going to ask you unless you have another story
you want to share. So a lot of times when call it
private equity or call it an acquirer or call it someone
who's doing a company roll up orwhatever, a lot of times when
they put these businesses together, founders either don't

(01:39:33):
survive or choose not to stay and yet you're still there.
And I actually spoke with StevenVitale a couple weeks ago and he
said smooth, there's loving it right now.
He's having a great time. And I was a little bit surprised
because honestly, I, I just, youknow, you didn't seem like you,
you intended to continue workingforever.

(01:39:56):
But no, no, you seemed quite happy.
No, we had that. We had the COVID right.
Yeah, and. I I thought, you know what,
now's as good a time to, to makea move.
So I, my wife and I moved up to Oregon.
We went to Salem when the pandemic was over.

(01:40:16):
Salem was the same. It was dead.
So we we moved close to the portand that was good, but my wife
developed a respiratory issue and at the.
End of the day. They said you've got to go where
it's warmer. So we came back down here and I
got a call. Hey, would you like to now
you're down here, would you liketo come in?
Because I was already working from Home Office as a sort of

(01:40:36):
keep an eye on my existing accounts bit of a consultancy
thing. And I, I've just jumped at the
idea because I'm with my, my, my, my work mates, you know?
I'm yeah these. Are this is a second home.
Yeah, that's awesome. I love that all.
My industry friends, you, you, it's, it's hard to walk away

(01:41:01):
from now. What live events did is they
kept us autonomous. Yeah.
They didn't try and make it all one big.
Yeah, yeah. Which I like.
Yeah, yeah. So we we've got Zenith and we've
got Gemini and such an an activeand and.
Yeah, they didn't disappear the brands.

(01:41:22):
Instead, they they honored and and celebrated the brands.
All we have to do is produce. Yeah.
But we've got now got more toolsin the toolbox because we got
that inventory referrals from intercompany, yeah, that's that.
So one-on-one makes. Three.
Yeah, that's awesome. So why would I?

(01:41:43):
What? Where's the harm in that?
Yeah. I, I, I don't blame, I can't put
the pandemic on Steven and live events.
Well, you could try. Yeah, I think I, I think I might
have. You know, the pandemic is the
pandemic. Yeah.

(01:42:04):
It was unfortunate for me because for 40 something years I
was always look, always put everything back into the
company. In the early days I had
partners. I couldn't take more from me
even though I did more, because I had to have parity if I wanted
to have a happy camp. That.

(01:42:24):
Was all for the end game for me.Unfortunately.
COVID beat me by three months. Discussions having discussions.
COVID hit. I get it, my friend, Trust me,
my, my business got the shit beat out of it during COVID.
So, you know, I completely get it.
It, it was a special moment thata lot of people didn't survive.

(01:42:47):
I mean, a lot of businesses didn't survive.
People didn't survive too. But let's hope we never go back
there, you know? Let's hope it doesn't happen
again, ever. Yeah, we, we, I don't, I, I
think right now the culture herepretty much as good as it's ever

(01:43:07):
been. Good for you, good for you.
Long serving people here. Yeah.
I don't want to be corny, but there's a fair amount of love
around this place. Yeah, I've always heard it.
Yeah, I've always heard it. We're.
In our new facility, we went from 23,000 square feet to about
50. Oh, good for you.

(01:43:28):
We're. Able to actually set up full
lighting rigs and we're able to do things without falling over
each other. All this is, you know, I've got
to it goes back to live events and Steven for having faith in
US and going with that investment.
And so do they're. Not They're not the bad guys.

(01:43:49):
No, no, and I wasn't suggesting they were at all.
I was just like I said, I was happily surprised to hear that
you were heavily involved and really enjoying yourself.
And you know that to me says it all like it.
That's, that's meaningful, you know, because usually what
happens is these businesses get bought and, and either the owner
retires or the owner gets in a battle with the the owner and

(01:44:13):
you know, it's it I. Must say this, our general
manager, Brian Boyd, he came on board with us just before the
pandemic. Yeah, I I met Brian.
And he he deals more with any sort of rebuff for this.
And. You know, I'm, I'm fairly
insulated from it. I, I, I, I'm, I'm nobody's

(01:44:36):
pushing me to be in the office, you know, every day of the week.
I'm sometimes working from Home Office.
Yeah, nobody's putting any pressure on me.
But then again, the last couple of weeks I was doing kind of
work days where I was working 8:00 till 8:00.
Yeah, with. With with the projects that I

(01:44:57):
was, you know, working on, we'vegot Coachella going right now.
It's we've got a big light rig out there with one of the acts
just came off doing sound like some video with Danzig.
That was my account working withthree promoters, yeah. 4 bands,
10 crew, 2 trucks, 2 buses, and that was a handful.

(01:45:19):
Yeah. So is it mostly?
It's mostly all touring still oror corporate or no?
No, I said Pomoda College doing the site survey for graduation
video and audio on that one corporate special events.
So it's a nice. Blend meetings.

(01:45:40):
We do it all. Yeah, that's what.
Keeps it fresh. Yeah, you know.
Guys come off off the road and they start working corporate.
They get time and a half double time walking on the carpet and
then are fed up with the 405 freeway every day.
Yeah. Back on the road.
So it's a young ank. It's good.
Yeah, good. That's fantastic.
Yeah, that's really good. Well, smoother.

(01:46:03):
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Some great stories and I puttingthis.
Together. Marcel No, thank you so much.
I I I've enjoyed it very much. I love the stories.
And and if I could keep you all day, I would We'd keep we'd keep
recording it, but I got to let you go.
I Steven told me that, you know you can't keep them all day.
Marcel, you know what this guy'scosting me?

(01:46:25):
No, he never said that. Thank you.
Smoother. All right, man.

(01:46:50):
The.

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#309 - Chris “Smoother” Smyth - Navigating the Music Industry: Insights from Smoother

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#309 - Chris “Smoother” Smyth - Navigating the Music Industry: Insights from Smoother