Confessions of a Studio Owner :

The Compressor is Waiting for Bono.

It’s a crazy business. In theory, a producer books for a few weeks. That should mean one invoice….I count the money and wait for the next booking. How can it be so time consuming being a studio manager? Well of course, firstly I have to string things out otherwise my wife would make me get a proper job. Secondly, I have to write this blog…which takes me days! So we put in place loads of procedures and policies to cover every eventuality. We have a policies for recall sheets, faults, software upgrades, cleaning, health and safety, accommodation (we even have our sheets and duvets filed in order of size!), air con, security…..you name it…I string it out. That’s before we get to financials, VAT, coffee, clients etc. There’s always something to keep up the impression to my missus that I’m critical to the operation.

Every time the phone rings….I hope it’s Bono: ‘Hi Compressor, we’ve been looking at your studio and we would like to book it for our next album…..at full lock-out rate….for a Year….with full accommodation and catering…..for 10 people….or £1,000 per day to be precise. Would that be OK?’ Hang-on while I have a jod….and then I wake up…and it’s not Bono on the phone, it’s Music Maker magazine (talking to me as if I’m their best mate) asking if I would like to take out an advert before the deadline expires later that day….a unique special offer…..like last week and the week before. ‘IT”S A CRAP MAGAZINE…Piss off!’

However, most of my time is spent staring at my spreadsheet, shaking my head!  I can never believe how small the gap is between my revenues and my costs….. I sit there everyday shaking my head!

This day in particular was no different…..I sat there staring at my lap top. Anyway, out of the corner of my eye I sense movement. A bird is sat staring at me…a wren to be precise. We stare at each other for about 5 minutes until I stand up and try and catch him, and fail. We have no windows in our office……so how the hell did this bird get in? I devise a plan….which involves a kid’s fishing net, a didgeridoo, some masking tape and 4 cushions…all of which inexplicably happen to be by my desk…which is about to work when the studio assistant opens the door and walks in, allowing the wren to escape out the small office into our very large lounge, with very high ceilings.

OK, we now have a problem. The wren is flying around the lounge, and starting to crap. Three hours later and nothing has changed….and it’s time to go home, but we can’t as the wren will set the alarm off. Finally, we catch it in the net and I take it downstairs and outside. I place it on a wall and urge it to fly away. Instead it hops down onto my shoe, and stares at me…..as if to say…please can I come back in?…it’s cold out here and it’s warm in there!

With a heart of stone I refuse and lock up the studio. The next day, I’m sat at my spreadsheet again…shaking my head….waiting for Bono, when the same bloody bird lands on my desk. I am not making this up. It’s the same frickin wren! Shit. I fnd myself saying, in a David Attenbrough voice…Even here there’s life…..

This time though I see where it comes from, a tiny hole in the roof of my office. Well, three hours later the wren is caught, it’s taken outside, it sits on my shoe…but this time…..the hole in the ceiling is stuffed and another day…another box ticked.

Until the next day, when my wife asks me to take a bag of rubbish from the garden and stick in our skip at the studio. I pull up at the studio and open my boot, when a mouse jumps out of my car and runs up my arm…..turning me into the proverbial elephant. I am Dr Doolittle….

I sit at my spreadsheet, waiting for Bono….

A month later, the engineer complains about a smell in the control room. A smell of rancid milk, no less. We sniff everything, until eventually we find the source, coming from a sound hole in one of near field speakers, a Quested to be precise. Opening up the speaker reveals a dead, decomposed, stinking mouse…..lying in a little nest. It had made it’s home in a monitor! When we turned it on, it must have died of a heart attack! What an end…..death by Indiebanditus!

So, another day goes by. The excitement of the wren and the mouse has left the building and I find myself once again talking to Music Maker about how we don’t advertise, and never will….with them…..praying for THAT call to come

TTFN!

The Compressor