East Bay Way 40 Years of Funk with Tower of Power
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No. 45 JUNE 2007 www.iLiveToPlay.net DOIN’ IT THE EAST BAY WAY 40 YEARS OF FUNK WITH TOWER OF POWER MEET IDOL COACH “BYRD” THE ABCS OF COMPRESSION MONITORING YOUR RECORDINGS BUYING POWERED P.A. SPEAKERS NEW IN SAM.U • TiPS FROM A HiT SONGWRITER 0 • SUccEED AS A WORKING MUSiciAN 5 8 0 6 % M 6 1 9 A . Y 8 5 / J • ASK THE SOUNDMAN B 9 U W 9 N R 7 E 3 P D 1 3 0 6 inside Published by Features Dayspring Communication Group, LLC 14 Tower of Power PUBLISHER Still Doin’ It the East Bay Way Robert A. Lindquist 17 Paying Up and Getting Paid EDITOR IN CHIEF Two rulings simultaneously caress Bill Evans and smack down the Indie artist ASSISTANT EDITOR 20 Song Byrd Dan Walsh Tips and insights from the vocal OFFICE MANAGER coach for American/Canadian Idol Elizabeth Edwards ARTIST LIASON Tech Stuff Jake Kelly Director of SALES & MARKETING 12 Live Sound 101 Eddie Fluellen Puttin’ On the Squeeze Art Director, PRODUCTION 23 24/7 Studio Linda Evans, Evans Design Monitoring Magic EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS 27 Buyers’ Guide Priscilla DiLallo • Erin Evans Self-Powered Speakers CIRCULATION 30 New Gear Barbara Lindquist 38 Gear Reviews Future Sonics m5 Earpieces, Peavey 32 FX Mixer Columns 9 On the Road The Perfect Press Kit 10 In the Trenches Gig Etiquette 101 42 My Back Page You’re Fired! Singer&Musician University HOW TO REACH 31 “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet SINGER&MUSICIAN 32 On Songwriting For subscriptions, change of address or back issues, contact us at: 33 Soundcheck Singer&Musician 34 Playing in the Real World P.O. Box 10 35 Ask the Coach Naples, NY 14512-0010 37 Ask Lis Web: www.ILivetoPlay.net Departments LETTERS, COMMENTS,& 6 Set List editorial suggestions: 8 Contributors [email protected] 18 Now Playing on iRadio 40 Singer&Musician’s Mall Classifieds Proud Member of: 41 Advertiser’s Index • Folk Alliance • NAMM • IAJE Singer&Musician (issn#1555-9831) is published six times per year. Subscription rates - US and possessions: $29.95 for one year, $39.95 for two years or $49.95 for three years. Canada: $29.95 for one year, $39.95 for two years or onthecover $49.95 for three years. All other countries: $60 Tower of Power are still doin it the East Bay Way per year. Subscriptions outside US must be paid in after nearly 40 years. See this issue’s cover story US currency. Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. on page 14. Reproduction of copy, photography, or artwork prohibited without permission of the publisher. All advertising material subject to publisher’s approval. SETLIST Finding What You Weren’t Looking For THE ANSWER OFTEN COMES WHEN YOU STOP LOOKING By Bill Evans aybe it’s just me, on what she is supposed to be doing, my wife—who is much wiser than I—just gives me and the screwy way “that look” to remind me that the fruit does not fall far from the tree. my mind works, It’s a tough call. I know she needs to be M able to focus but I also know that most of the but I can’t count the number really good things in my life came when I was of times I have gone looking not looking for them. The thing that got me thinking about this for something that I REALLY was the Live Sound 101 piece in this issue. I needed and could not was looking for a graphic I had seen years ago showing how over-compression had made find, but found something a Celine Dion song louder than AC/DC. So I else totally unrelated and typed “Celine Dion vs AC/DC” into Google and came up with a very scary You Tube video lost track of what I was that you can find a link to on the iLiveToPlay site. doing and went in a totally I took over editorial at Singer&Musician as different direction. the result of a diatribe I wrote about the nature of magazines in the Internet Age. I got my day Sometimes this is a good thing. Other times gig as the result of a series of unrelated phone it drives people around me nuts. Every time I calls between people I hardly knew that took start to rag on my daughter about not focusing place minutes after the Brits who owned GIG canned me. I am currently playing in probably the best version of my band that I have ever had since I put it together in ‘84. The bass player I met through a friend and he was playing in a metal tribute band—not a place I would have naturally looked—but he is so good it’s scary. Our “beloved” editor and his posse at play at The I mentioned to the same Club at the Cannery Casino, Las Vegas. friend that I needed a bone player and he happened to remember that his friend Eddie—who has made his living as a keyboard player for years—was a bone player. And get this—A week before I first called him, Eddie had finished a five-year gig at a major Strip hotel and had made a resolution to play his horn more. My sax player came to me when I asked someone about a trumpet player because I thought I already HAD a new sax player. He gave me a card and said, “This guy is a sax player but he probably knows someone.” Our #2 vocalist is a woman who we met as one of the organizers of a parish festival we have been playing for years. A couple of years ago she asked if she could sing with the band and we said “Sure.” And she has been around ever since. I guess the point I am trying to make is that the answer often comes when you stop looking. Like this one, here at Singer&Musician we have been looking at ways to freshen up the SMU section of the magazine for a while. We added a couple of things and moved some people around but still felt it needed more. But other tasks beckoned and we stopped thinking about it for a while. So what happens? Two new columnists fall into our lap. For the next year, the father and son team of Greg and Ry Kihn will be expounding on the intricacies of songwriting and the ins and outs of being a working musician. So welcome the new guys and stop thinking so much. SM singer&musician June 2007 CONTRIBUTORS ots of new folks this month as Singer&Musician You will also find an expansion of our music biz coverage with a feature on two new rulings continues to grow and evolve. You will find info about out of Washington D.C. that will directly affect many indie musicians. Expect more of this kind two new high-profile columnists in SMU on their of important coverage in future issues. L Meanwhile, a column we have been respective pages. Hit songwriter and real-life rock star threatening to introduce for a while now finally Greg Khin will be taking Singer&Musician readers through makes its debut. It has been said that there are two rules for a good gig. #1 Don’t piss off the basics and intricacies of good songwriting while his son the sound guy. #2 See Rule #1. You can get Ry, a noted guitar-slinger who learned a lot from Dad’s lead the lowdown on working with (as opposed to against) this person who can make or break your guitarist—some nobody by the name of Joe Satriani—gives gig. In Soundcheck. Here’s the lowdown or our readers the 411 on being a working musician. resident audio guy. BOB GIBSON—SOUNDCHECK We’ll let Bob tell his own story. “I started out as a musician in the late 70’s, playing various rock and punk clubs around the San Francisco Bay area. I got into the sound business the usual way; hanging out at the clubs, meeting some sound guys and becoming interested in what they did for a living. Eventually I met a local sound company owner willing to hire me and teach me a few things. In 1984 he hooked me up with my first road gig, a van and trailer tour with a country band. I stayed on the road for the next 10 years, traveling the U.S., Canada, and Mexico with various bands and theatre shows. In 1994 I moved to Las Vegas. Since then I’ve worked for local sound companies and at the casinos; doing lounge, show room, and corporate gigs.” Bob’s current gig is with on of Sin City’s best regional soundcos, H.A.S. productions which does a large percentage of the one-off concert gigs around town including work with acts as diverse as the Beach Boys, Hootie and the Blowfish, Big and Rich, Sheena Easton and Quiet Riot. We met Bob when he was mixing a Loving Spoonful show at a casino in Laughlin. Welcome him aboard and take note of RICHARD GILEWITZ Known as one of the strangest men in acoustic music today, Richard We want to hear from you! Gilewitz fascinates his audiences with fingerstyle gymnastics while Drop us an e-mail at: [email protected] spinning yarns too unbelievable not to be true. His ability to make one guitar sound like an entire orchestra stems from 33 years of well-honed technique and 25 years of on the road touring, creating his own signature sound that has been captured on his six releases.