The week between ACL we traveled to Tulsa, OK, and Lincoln, NE. We had two days off in Tulsa, right in downtown – let’s say it leaves a bit to be desired and with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees walking around was out. I did make a trip to the Greenwood Historic District, which was once known as the Black Wall Street. (more…)
Did I make the right choice to return live sound?! I have contemplated for a very long time. Did I still had the energy that it takes? Was I strong enough, mentally and physically? Could I deal with my insecurity? Would anybody give me a job? I knew this would turn my life upside down. (more…)
Rachel Ryan has been working as an independent audio engineer for the last eleven years. She has worked as a FOH and TM for School of Seven Bells, Phosphorescent, Little Boots, Nightbox and Honeyblood. FOH for Albert Hammond JR, MNDR, Streets of Laredo, and as ME for Silversun Pickups, The Strokes, and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. She is currently doing monitors for The Strokes and FOH for PHOX. When she is not touring she works at the Brooklyn Bowl as both a FOH and Monitor Engineer. (more…)
I always thought live sound was a thing that I had managed to put behind me in those years, where I was doing “something totally different”. I could not have been more wrong. No matter how much time goes by or how much your surroundings, (and maybe you self), are trying to convince you that you should do something totally different than live sound, it was always there in the back of my head and deep in my heart. Time could not keep this passion down. (more…)
Last night we successfully completed our first weekend at Austin City Limits Festival. If it was a competition it would be safe to say we won or at least made it into the postseason. (review of show) It was a great show, the weather was not brutally hot or cold and it did not turn into a mud-fest. Both the audience and band brought it. This show at this festival should be put in memory books. Except we get to come back next weekend and do it all over again. Should be a piece of cake right? (more…)
At the young age of sixteen, Magali Couturier happened upon a man setting up for a very small concert in a park. As she watched him set up a couple of tiny speakers, microphones, and equipment, she questioned him. After he finished explaining to her what he was doing, she asked him if that was a real job? When he replied yes she thought to herself that it sounded much more interesting than all of the jobs she had heard about before, and since she always had a love for music it might be worth pursuing.
Magali enrolled in a two-year technical school in France where she earned a degree specializing in sound for Television/Cinema, which she found to be rather useless. She moved to the UK at age 19 where Mags met a small UK audio company and got her start in the business. Some of the lessons she learned working for that company were; “(among how to make a proper cup of English tea!), perseverance, confidence, flexibility, multi-tasking, never to think you know it all, mix with your ears rather than your brain, how to load a truck, and how to lift things a lot heavier than my own weight.” She also picked up skills in accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll, dealing with clients, and all sorts of management skills.
It paid off, and Mags has been working as an independent Monitor Engineer for 19 years. She’s toured with The Dandy Warhols, Rufus Wainwright, My Bloody Valentine, Gary Numan, Duffy, Nick Lowe, Natasha Beddingfield, Lila Downs, Mathew Herbert, and Camille and is soon starting with Marianne Faithfull. Mags occasionally does Production Management as well. Her first tour was with Nils Lofgren. Thrown in at the deep end, she ended up mixing monitors for her company. Mags also spent eleven months managing a US band but recalls that she would never want to do that again.
Mags has had some obstacles to overcome in her early days at the sound company- being foreign (French and working in the UK) young, and female. “There was this one guy who spent every gig we worked together re-doing what I was doing.” She dealt with it by being stubborn, persevering, and having faith in herself. “However the boss of the company believed in me, and he didn’t treat me any different. Actually, he was a very hard boss/teacher, but he pushed me more than I would probably have been able to push myself.” Mags ended up working alongside her boss in running the company for years.
She started working for the Dandy Warhols in 1998 and would still return to the company to work in between tours. Mags did this until 2004 when she became strictly a touring engineer. She now spends her downtime between tours working on her home, an ‘old ruin’ she bought nearly ten years ago in the French countryside. Mags still tries to work at least once a year with the old company, “not mixing but just loading trucks and moving gear around, to keep sane and grounded in this industry.”
Mags loves the constant travel with touring, losing track of time and what day it is, as well as the diversity of the people, places, and culture she sees while on the road and enjoys ‘being a little part of bringing joy and entertainment to the world through music.”
The downside of being independent, however, is that “you never know when the next job is going to come.” The other difficult bits about touring for Mags are “saying goodbye to your touring pals when a tour is over, bad catering, and the lack of a proper croissant and hot chocolate.”
Mags enjoys her alone time on days off, along with running, going to a museum or movie, and “eating gorgeous food.” Her long-term goals include doing what she loves and loving what she does, and right now she wouldn’t change her job for anything in the world.
Advice to anyone wanting to enter the field of live sound reinforcement– “make sure you know the meaning of perseverance.’ Be flexible, open-minded, and have a good work ethic.”
SG Member Sarah Black
Sarah Black has been working in live sound since 2006, and is one of the seven women on the sound crew at the iconic Sydney Opera House. Sarah shares her experiences working Vivid Live with SoundGirls.Org. (more…)
By: Karrie Keyes
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera house is an iconic performing arts center in Sydney, Australia. It was designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon and opened in October 1973. The first performance was the Australian Opera’s production of War and Peace. The Syndey Opera House cost over one million Australian dollars to build. The Sydney Opera House hosts over 3000 events each year with over two million people attending, and provides guided tours to over 200,000. It is 185 meters long and 120 meters wide, has 2194 pre-cast concrete sections in the roof, with sections weighing up to 15 tons. There roof is held together with 350 km of tensioned steel cable and has over one million tiles. There are 6225 square meters of glass and 645 kilometers of electric cable. The Sydney Opera House has 1000 rooms. (more…)
The gigs that you remember usually have had a great impact on you. They can inspire & empower or devastate & destroy you. They can humble you. They can make you laugh or make you cry. They can provide a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes you witnessed a performance that becomes legendary or history being made. They can open your eyes to other viewpoints, cultures, musical genres, and artistic expression. The gigs you remember are the ones where you stood on your own when everything clicked when you overcame challenging situations. They are the ones where you thought “I Have the Best Job in the World”. The gigs we remember shape our lives in small ways that may be unnoticeable, but sometimes they alter our life path. The gigs that you remember provide us with experiences that make us stronger humans and engineers. (more…)