Faders All The Way Up
It is said that one must learn the rules
before they decide which ones to break
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I am often at odds with my chosen profession. Perhaps the most representative description of what it is I do as a live sound engineer is that I amplify peoples’ voices. Most of the time I am privileged to work with and serve a community of people whose values and collective actions I can stand by proudly.
This is a fine description of my responsibilities and usual work environment, and is satisfying enough until that moment when my job entails amplifying a voice or a message that I disagree with fundamentally, or even find dangerous and harmful. A friend of mine once told me that as musicians and artists we have the responsibility to stand up and speak on what we believe when we are given a platform. I often wonder if I have that same responsibility to advocate for my beliefs when I am putting together the stage on which my opposition stands.
The environment in which I encounter this quandary most frequently is in the big wide world of event production, where companies are contracted to build stages and operate PA systems for the broad gamut of conferences and organizations which span every topic and profession. It is the natural course in such a broad field to encounter opinions that differ from our own. In fact, meeting and working closely with people whose opinions differ wildly from mine has opened my eyes to just how nuanced peoples’ life experiences and values really are, and how difficult it is to ascribe someone as “good” or “bad” based on a couple choice encounters and opinions. However, there are still voices that I have been contracted to amplify whose messaging deeply unsettled me, and which made me question if I was complicit in their rhetoric by my failure to intervene. I could shut the whole thing down at the flick of a switch, or at least pull the faders down a bit—but I don’t, for the sake of impartiality and professionalism.
The upside to working large professional contracts like these is that they necessitate professional equipment and resources, and as such it is often with these jobs that I have the most tools at my disposal as an audio engineer. The technical issues I face there are thought-provoking and engaging, broadening my understanding of audio as a whole and usually resulting from having to build a system from scratch in several hours while making sure it works properly. I am never worried that I can’t make things loud enough—we have a budget for big speakers.
Contrastingly, the most important and impactful music or messaging I have had the opportunity to amplify has been on a small, independent scale where technical issues stem from components breaking randomly due to misuse, and where I often rely on a piecewise construction of amplifiers, speakers, and microphones from a handful of generous enthusiasts to run any given show. I am speaking, of course, about my work at The Poacher’s Arms.
A theme often felt while working at Poacher’s is the constant stream of workarounds for various technical limitations. This should not be interpreted as a slight at the management or the owners, as they are kind and convivial people who have lent us a lot of trust and support in making the bar into an essential local music venue almost every Thursday night; any limitations we encounter are simply a result of the kind of resources a pair of young independent bar owners in the middle of town can reasonably expend on my sound-engineering wish list when they have an actual business to run.
Doing sound in an environment where the typical user has no idea how a microphone works is a bit of an adventure. Encounters include gut-wrenching cable management from people who don’t know any better, monitor speakers abused and filled with beer by the weekend cover bands, and various amps, subwoofers, and huge CRT-TVs left behind by well-meaning musical regulars. I find myself constantly testing stagebox connections and console preamps, unsure if the deafening silence during line check is just another broken cable or something more insidious. Every night with a partially-deaf lead guitarist (much love) means trying to push the lead vocal as high as I can without clipping the main amplifier too severely or making the PA squeal with feedback.
In working through such obstacles I have become accustomed to carefully pushing in different directions, making slight adjustments and careful movements so as to gently bend the system’s limitations and get a couple more dB out of the vocal. The rule in pro audio is to always have headroom, always have more space into which you can turn up the volume. We don’t always get to have that at Poacher’s.
THE SHOW
Last night I ran sound for a Stompbox Halloween show at the bar. It was a Folk-Punk sort of night. If you’ve never heard of the genre, it is a lively and protestative sound usually characterized by a blend of electro-acoustic instruments, quick and aggressive rhythms, and lyrics lamenting the oppression and exploitation of the working class. Folk-Punk stems and actively borrows from roots in Appalachian mountain music, often using acoustic guitars and banjos. Notably, where Folk-Punk capitalizes on the speed and energy of punk with an acoustic sound profile, the adjacent genre of Post-Country does the opposite and transplants the plodding basslines and baritone storytelling of mid-century American Country standards into sheer cliffs of distorted electric guitars.
I would be remiss not to speak on the different talents I encountered last night. The show began with a performance by a ghost, a noted and recognizable local punk whose insistence on performing under an anonymous moniker speaks to their devotion to and understanding of punk and folk as music of collectives, of people as a community. They filled the room with gentle clawhammer banjo and hundred-year-old songs before launching into modern laments, yodelling about spending half of their income on rent and about wasting time on their phone. The ghost’s act was ancient, dynamic, and simultaneously strikingly modern.
The second act, a duo by the name of Uncle Dirtnap, radiated a raw and eclectic energy from the stage. They are a Folk-Punk act by its most classic definitions, wailing away on the ghost’s generously-lended acoustic guitar and screaming about injustices inflicted upon our community’s most vulnerable people. This was not an act about restriction and self-moderation, but an act unfiltered like a hand-rolled cigarette. Though not without its hiccups, Uncle Dirtnap’s debut live performance was successful in inducing vigorous two-stepping and sympathetic screaming in its audience.
Thirdly, HUXTER took to the stage and got the room moving with a healthy dose of those Post-Country line dances. Frontman Kellen is the friendly moustachioed face of Punk and Noise in London, and as usual his and the band’s presence that night lit up the room. Seeing a venue full of young music lovers moshing to heavily distorted country music is a great, great joy. I am always excited to see Kellen approach a microphone—even though I know I will be pushing that mic to its limits so I can hear his low voice over the roar of his amp. It’s worth it, after all, to hear what he has to say.
At last, Whine Problem descended upon the evening. What I have written so far about this collection of grassroots genres is entirely insufficient to describe what Whine Problem did on stage. This night was a departure from their usual sound, a sound which I have known ever since I adjudicated the band’s very first set during an event at Western. Last night featured a guest violinist, Bret, who made several appearances. Lee was crunching their acoustic guitar through a long series of pedals and their Fender Vox amp, and drummer Cora made departures from behind the kit to join the band on banjo and bass guitar at the front of the stage, even singing lead on two songs. In fact, every band member lead a song vocally in their own style and cadence—a remarkable feat. Finally, the climax of the set and of the evening, the moment why I’ve sat down to write this little essay at all, happened during their last song.
Midway through the final arrangement, the band stopped in their tracks and sang a haunting harmony in four parts, ensnaring the audience in a moment of isolated, vulnerable, and heart-wrenching sentimentality. The room stood still—it was impossible not to. As they had broken my heart, they just as soon ripped it wide open and launched headfirst into an impassioned, world-ending breakdown. I was in shock, in awe, and in complete disbelief. It was in that moment where these rules and best practises of sound engineering whose nuances and gentle curves I have spent countless hours internalizing seemed to evaporate. I acted on instinct alone, completely moved by what I was experiencing. I took the violin, guitar, reverb, and master faders and just turned them all the way up. The PA growled and caterwauled like a wild animal, reacting to the absurdity on stage and in the room. The whole venue and the people within shook and pulsed in reaction to themselves, squealing and screaming the catharsis of all of us: a community, a people, a collection of human beings in the same room at the same time on a dreary night in London, Ontario.
It is in these moments where I realize there is nothing I would rather do than find those experiences and voices that I don’t just amplify, but that I turn all the way up.