January…..well that was a crap month…or was it just me? I had a piano downtime recording, a couple of local bands and one bloke who not only didn’t turn up…but couldn’t even be bothered to let me know ! I have had 12 requests for work experience or placements….6 calls about life insurance…..8 calls about changing telephone companies….yellow pages have called 4 times and a bogus charity keeps calling thanking me for supporting children with cancer….which I haven’t.
I guess we all have months like this…luckily February looks a little livelier so I won’t shut up shop just yet. My big idea of selling gear that we don’t use…and replace it with gear that we will use…..well, one side of the transaction has been done…but I’ve spent the money on rent, bills and staff. So, I might have to hold off a little longer on my new buys….I’ll just explain away the gaps in the outboard rack as….repairs!
Anyway, moving swiftly on….in a former life I worked with a multi-cultural bunch and we had some interesting names amongst the gang. Two in particular remain scarred in my memory: one was an Indian chap called Ramatul Upaboy and the other was an Indonesian guy called Pharney Tikla. I promise you…I am not making this stuff up….in fact they became muckers of mine and we always had a chuckle. In fact, to take a small tangent for a second….one of the guys from our Mumbai office used to call me everytime he was visiting London and demand that I have a car ready for him at Heathrow when he landed. His name was Anil Bhandhari….I got so fed up with this attitude that I organized a cab (as opposed to a taxi) from my local Jamaican cabco…and got him to hold a very large sign up in the foyer at Terminal 4 with the words ‘ANAL BANDIT!’ After that he didn’t bother me again.
Back to Pharney and Ramatul, and trying not to laugh. What to do when someone is clearly so poor at recording, that they clearly don’t belong in a studio? We had this very situation recently. The band had paid good money and had entered the studio whence upon it became clear, very quickly that they had not rehearsed…nor could they play their instruments..in fact the singer was precisely a semi tone off (which at least made Melodyne easier to use.) What can you do? Well, our job is to ensure that we re-create the sound of the artist accurately…whilst, when required polishing a turd.
Which we did. The band was over the moon with the end result…I was happy….the producer was glad the whole thing was over…and our assistant has developed an allergy to comping. Would I buy the album…of course not. But that’s the point isn’t it? Although I might not like it…there are plenty of people (at least 5 band members) who do! Although some of my more immature colleagues saw humour in my two mates’ names above….after a little time it wasn’t funny…it was what they were called.
My point is, there are occasions that you will feel compelled to smile or even laugh out loud…either because an artist is sooooo bad or someone’s name has an alternative meaning in our language. However, over time, you get to know the band (or the person with the name) for being somebody..and although I might think the music sucks…and the drummer can’t play…it doesn’t matter. THEY are happy…isn’t that reason to smile??
By the way…some of you have tried to contact me….please fell free to drop me am mail on compressor123@hotmail.com if you have any thoughts or ideas.
TTFN
The Compressor
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