Episode 3 - Gregg Brunclik / Jamieson Filip - (Clearwing Audio / Apollo Productions)

Episode 3 is one of our favorites so far.  We sit down with the President and CEO of Clearwing Productions, Gregg Brunclik and the President of Apollo Productions and former Clearwing employee Jamieson Filip for an “All Crew” special.  We discuss the humble beginnings of Gregg’s company and how Eddie Rabbitt played a big part in it.  We also talk about the transition in concert production from the 70’s and 80’s when everyone was building their own cabinets to the present day systems and some of the in between.  Jamieson discusses the things it takes to produce large events including drilling through 10 feet of concrete at the Superbowl and a huge electrical debacle at the 2010 Winter Olympics.  We talk about some classic road pranks from back in the day, and how the “touring brotherhood” has evolved.  Gregg tells us about the time he provided production for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Violent Femmes at the north pole.  It’s capped off by Gregg’s first hand account (from behind the monitor desk) of the infamous Plasmatics show in Milwaukee where Wendy O’Williams was arrested spurring a years long legal battle between her and Milwaukee Police Chief Harold Brier. Take a ride on the Crew Bus this month and hear the real deal stories from the people who always tell it like it is.

Transcript

spk_0:   0:04
Welcome to Soft Fast, hosted by John Michaels, a 30 year veteran tour manager and sound engineer for some of entertainment's most well known touring. Sit down with songwriters, musicians, producers, managers, lawyers and touring professionals. Talk about what really goes on behind the scenes in the studios, offices and on the road in the entertainment industry. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Soft Pass John Michael's here this month. Show is special to me because I'm among my co workers way Have no professional musicians on the show this month. This month you're riding on the crew bus with us. I'm excited because we get toe, have a candid look at the back side of the business with no musicians around and weaken. Pull back the curtain on the great and powerful Oz and take a look at the inner workings. And I can't think of two better people to have this discussion with than my guests and let me get to introducing them now. From his humble beginnings as a bus boy, which we're definitely gonna talk about, this month's guest has made the transition from musician to sound engineer to one of the industry's major concert production companies in the seventies and eighties. My guest work for bands like Blackfoot, Eddie Rabbit, The Police, Def Leppard and others before focusing his efforts on his own production company. Starting from a garage to now owning giant buildings. A fleet of trucks managing AH 100 employees and satellite offices in Phoenix and Denver, as well as to offshoot businesses, big event logistics and clear wing systems integration. Clear Wing Productions is a major vendor in our industry, especially here in the Heartland. Since the inception of Clearing Productions, my guest has done thousands of gigs with his company, including major tours, huge events and all kinds of promotions, which we're going to talk about. His company provides a wide array of services not only in the music industry but all kinds of event production, ranging from politics to professional sports. And it all came from the dream and leadership of this man. It's my honor to welcome the president and CEO of Clear Wing Productions, Mr Greg Bruns Lick to the show.

spk_1:   2:24
Oh my gosh, John, I don't know how to respond to that. I feel like somebody. Thanks for having me. It's always great being had

spk_0:   2:33
all right. Ah, my other guest has been in the business for 25 years, and it's somewhat fitting that he's an ex clearing employee. He is currently a freelance technical director with accolades under his belt from the NFL, Google, Samsung, the Olympic Games, Nissan, BMW Cores, General Electric and the whole list of others. He's also worked with GMR marketing on an array of events. Most recently, he developed a mobile electric car charging system for event rental. But let's rewind to 1998 when he first started working at Clear Wing Productions in Wisconsin. I remember this because it was also about the same time I started doing some gigs for clearing. He was the lead project manager, handling all of the logistics for Milwaukee World Festival for the first couple years of his employment. I think handling over 1000 shows a year there. I'm sure he's probably one of the best logistics people I've ever had the pleasure to work with. We all knew him as Greg's right hand man before he left Clear Wing in 2009 to pursue his freelance endeavors. Please welcome the guy who you always want on the gig and my good friend Jamison. Philip.

spk_2:   3:37
Hi, John. Thanks. Appreciate it.

spk_0:   3:39
So let's jump right into this here. Greg, how do you go from busing tables to busing subgroups? And where did you work as a bus boy?

spk_1:   3:48
One of my first jobs was I don't friend of the family got me a job as a bus boy at a Holiday Inn restaurant. You know, I was 15.5 or something at the time, and I started, you know, picking up everybody else's garbage. And I guess I continue to do that on some level.

spk_0:   4:09
Oh, so how did you go from that? Like what Drew you into doing work with bands

spk_1:   4:15
in length, middle school, like eighth grade? I think my dad worked for Wisconsin Bell telephone for his whole life, so we got transferred around the state quite a bit. He got transferred from Madison to Milwaukee when I was just about to go into eight grade. So when we moved to Milwaukee and I started to get settled in with a new group, we're friends here. I met a couple of brothers that had a band. One of the brothers was the drummer. No, I had already started playing in marching band and one night in school and I was a drummer, so I wasn't really going anywhere separating the brothers when one of them was a drummer. But they had a little basement band, and my mother had always been a piano organ player. So I knew something about keyboards and just learning some basic court, you know, four chord progressions and whatnot. I started playing with this band as a keyboard player. That's really where I started. We did see Wyo. Dances, you know, really small time stuff as a four piece band and just doing all cover tunes and whatnot. That's really where I got started in the business and found a passion for music.

spk_0:   5:14
So did you end up buying and providing all the P A gear for the band? Then when you're in?

spk_1:   5:18
Actually, no, that was quite a few years down the road. I think that when we really got started, our first P A system was, Ah, I think the brothers dad bought it or something. And it was one of those customs single 12 column padded charcoal gray, you know, five inputs on the head kind of a thing, P. A. We didn't really Mike into the instruments at that time. It was just vocal mikes. And you don't need much of a mic when your plan through a dual showman, I never really had any interest in sound. At that point, I was just amuse, elated, actually. I was more of a jock in high school, moving on just a year to when I got into high school and I was always playing in this band on the side. But I went into sports and one not so I was a football player, basketball player and all that. But when I got to my junior year of high school, I realized the Chicks were a lot more fun for the guys on stage, and they were for the S. So I quit the football team to be a musician. I was still playing in the band then and doing all that, but the band reformed a couple times late in high school and one of the Reformation. They went to be a country rock band, and they took on a pedal steel guitar player, so the pedal steel guitar player played through a Leslie, which sounded very much like a keyboard at the time, so I just started mixing sound.

spk_0:   6:35
Well, Who was? The ban

spk_1:   6:36
by the very first band that I had in middle school was called The Restless Set. And then we changed the name after that toe what four before you are. Then that band reformed into a couple of other iterations, but it ended up being a local country band. When we went to the country band, it was Diamond Riel. Okay, not the Diamond Rio out of Nashville, but a diamond Re a lot of Milwaukee that ended up reforming again into a band called Arroyo.

spk_0:   7:03
I remember hearing that name

spk_1:   7:04
and then the latest formation of those guys even is Plum local, which is still like a little band that plays around here with Paul Bast and Jason. And then a couple of other guys are local patch shots. So we went through a number of iterations, but I moved from keyboards to the sound when the band reformed into a country rock thing.

spk_0:   7:22
How did your collection of concert production equipment start like? Usually it starts off pretty innocent, a mike here and there, and then the next thing. You know you're applying for a CDO

spk_1:   7:30
almost less than that. Yeah, one of the times when the band had reformed and I was being a sound guy. I met a guy from another band who was a guitar player, and he happened to be the fella that owned the P A system from the other band. That band was called Louisville Sluggers at the time, and so he owned the P A system. And because I was a pretty well known, reasonably talented sound guy around town, he and I got together and we started doing little gigs. There used to be a thing on Milwaukee's lakefront called the Free City Music Festival, which was on Sundays. And it was, you know, Bad Boy and Ruby Star bands like that that played down on the lakefront. And then there was, you know, just small church festivals and what not that we did with, you know, a couple of folded horns and a couple of mids aside, I had some reasonably good carpenter skills. My dad was ah, woodworker as a hobbyist, so I picked up, you know, by us most list of some of his woodworking chops and and we started just building mawr eliminator, Cabinets, Um, you know, for our inventory as a little production company and and we just kind of built two, then four, then six. You know, whenever we had a couple extra 100 bucks and we could afford some, why would we go out and build a box? So that's how it started to grow.

spk_0:   8:50
Let's talk about the L. R. C. Okay. Did you build those boxes?

spk_1:   8:54
Well, yeah, the L. R. C was pretty far down the road. This partner out his name was Chris. Chris and I had been building P A. And like I said, two boxes, then four, then six. And we were building road cases as well because that was just another former carpentry. And we were doing all of this out of my dad's basement or my dad's garage and or Chris's garage. You know, we started to get a little older. That point. I think he was married. Maybe even, but so we were building folded horns and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then we got called one night to do a show at the Performing Arts Center. Now it's called the Marcus performing arts center downtown. And there was a guy coming through town that didn't have P A and we had enough to do that room, and this was in about 1978. I'm going to guess, or 79 we want took our trailer down there and stacked are crap up and I mean crap because time it was crap up on the wings. And we did the sound that night for this guy named Eddie Rabbit. Eddie Rabbit at the time had two hits that were climbing the charts quickly. I love a rainy night and driving my life away with the two songs that ended up being in the top 10 at the same time. I think so. He was really hitting it at a point where you know, he wanted to pick up production. He said, Hey, you guys did a really good job tonight. Can you be in Norman, Oklahoma and three days re simple? Sure. So we rented a truck and you know, drove to Norman Oklahoma and did another gig and then another and then another and mended up touring with Eddie Rabbit for five years.

spk_0:   10:24
So the company literally started trial by fire.

spk_1:   10:26
Oh, yeah, totally. It was just the right place at the right time to for the Eddie Rabbit thing. At one stage in the Eddie Rabbit years, he was going to put together a co headline tour with Kenny Rogers. They wanted a bigger, different, more state of the art P A than we had. So my dad went to the bank and co signed for a loan for us and this At the time it was called Clear Wing Audio. It was, in fact, it was called Clearing Audio and Trunk Company because we build road cases, we call them trunks at the time. So my dad went out, co sign for a loan, and we partnered up with a couple of other people. One of them was a guy named Dave Lund, and he worked for a company out of Minneapolis called MTs, and they actually specialized in movie theater installations. And they did some big arena or stadium stuff. But primarily their specialty was movie theaters. They were a JBL dealer out of Minneapolis. Dave Lund engaged a guy named Marc Gander from JBL, who at the time was just a design engineer. He's gone on to become a VP of the universe or something with them. Marc Gander and Dave Lahnd and MTs and Clearing put together this box that was similar to an s for And it was to eighteens two twelves 24 45 driver and two bullets in one box. It was s four esque, but it was rectangular. So it wasn't a squares and s four was And it was called an L R C, which stood for Lansing Mark Anders, Investment Royal, which is MTs Royal Systems, Dave Ones and Clearing. So it was an L. R C Lansing Royal Clearing hybrid concoction and that started out the Eddie Rabbit Kenny Rogers tour, which unfortunately only lasted about six weeks on. Then I have this giant p a system that we had to put to work. We built 16 of those boxes initially. Now I think we put the whole speaker and amplification package together at the time for about $75,000 which today in today's it's like five boxes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But we built all the boxes ourselves out off 13 ply Baltic birch, and and the design came from market JBL. So the porting was right. It was actually a pretty righteous system at the time. So we did a bunch. Eddie Rabbit dates with that. And then when that fell apart, when the any rabbit Kenny Rogers thing fell apart, we continue to do some rabbit dates with it and then pick up whatever else we could just, you know, pay the bank notes back. That's kind of how we went from, you know, just a small garage company to somebody that was legitimately putting up. Ah, relevant cabinet.

spk_0:   13:05
When did the company take on the Milwaukee World Festival as a client? Like, when did the Summer fest thing start?

spk_1:   13:10
While we really eased into that? I mean, that started with one little puppet show stage, probably in the first year. And then we picked up another stage because when summer fest began, there was all kinds of folks doing it. There was a company in Milwaukee called Metro Sound that was owned by Hobo. I forget his last name, but his first name was Jurgen. Here's a German guy and he had a big folded horn system that did the first few years of of summer fest when it was just a stage or two. But then, as it grew at some point in time, it ended up gravitating over toe db Sound and upstaging were the primary vendors, and then, as they started to take over, just the biggest of the big stage is clearly was given an opportunity to come in on the small and doing scraps. That's where we started. But as time went on and those guys got bigger with other stuff that demanded their attention in the summer touring season and they were less and less capable of doing summer fest is, well, we started to pick up bigger and bigger parts of it, and over time it ended up that we do the whole grounds now unless an act is coming in, you know, with some touring stuff. Were the supplier for the whole grounds.

spk_0:   14:19
I remember the company was growing at that time period where d B and upstaging. We're kind of not doing as much. I remember the company was it was a Martin company. Remember, a lot of F to remember stacking a lot of TV.

spk_1:   14:31
Yeah, as the L. R. C. Because again, you know, the only company even today that really gets away with building a proprietary boxes, Clair Brothers, because there they're just so well known and their expertise has been proven over time. But back in the day, there were so many guys that had proprietary boxes. And of course, there's there was no constant at all to a proprietary box. I mean,

spk_0:   14:53
JBL was one of the only Constance back in the day.

spk_1:   14:56
Yeah, right. They're probably their 1st 1 I mean, might have been that little line array that some of the folks had around town. I don't remember Big JPL, Cabaret, Syria. But, I mean, I'm talking about a one box, proprietary kind of thing. And there were so many people building boxes at the time. That didn't matter if it was loaded with Tad or JBL or whatever, it all came down to the construction of the box. And then on top of that, there were guys that were used an 18 gauge lamp cord for wear, guys that were using 12 gauge riel wear and any other guys were, you know, under powering the speakers by 50%. So there were so many variables in it that the consistency of an act getting something coherent date to date was just all over the man. Until I want to say maybe the 1st 1 I remember really taken off other than an s for of course, was E A w like a k f 8 50 where they started to come out with a plug and play system where you bought the package and F two was off that same ilk we bought into F two at the time because we really like the wreck configurable element of it. And they sold me on the fact that because it was a module in Iraq vulnerable speaker box that as time evolved, you just be able to switch out the modules and you wouldn't have to buy a whole new box. We were enough to company. There was another company in Colorado called Jacob's Audio. That was enough to company. And, of course, then there was delicate, who was always a Martin company because they were, you know, evolved out of a Supertramp camp. So when we were doing Summer fest and needed more F two than we owned, we went to Jacob's audio or delicate sub rented stuff. And that's where all the F two came to town from

spk_0:   16:36
now you're an AL acoustics company like How did that happen? Where you just so sold on the packaging of the acoustic?

spk_1:   16:42
Well, in the eloquence sticks thing is a kind of a funny story as well, oddly enough because one of our guys, Tom Martinez, who is now the systems Tech for the Steve Miller Band, was out doing he might have been doing

spk_2:   16:56
was rods Tour.

spk_1:   16:56
Well, that's where he saw it, but I think he was doing some Natalie Cole dates if I remember right. But he went into Fox, Woods and Fox. Woods had installed one of the first video OSK Systems, and Tom came back and said, and I heard something You just got here. I hadn't even heard it or seen it or anything. But Tom, I really worship Tom's opinions at the time

spk_0:   17:19
that Tom's great.

spk_1:   17:20
He's a consummate professional question. He came back with such a strong impression of this box that I had to check it out. So I called Jeffrey Cox, who was running Eloquence sticks us at the time, and I said, You know, I'm really interested in looking at some Vitas boxes and he said, Well, well, well. Wait, wait a minute. Here. This really took me aback. He said we're gonna have to do some diligence and find out if clearing is the kind of company that we want to represent our products. And I thought, Wait a second, I have a checkbook that because everything before that was just You call somebody up and you order what you want and they send it and you send a check. And these were the first guys that wanted to pre qualify a vendor as reputable enough for lack of a better term to put their product stop and deploy it As much as that kind of set me back on my heels. In some ways it was kind of a new trend in what became, you know, the world we live in today. And I really respected in hindsight because they saw the difference between the guys that were used, an 18 gauge lamp cable and you know, this and that and what a real sound system as a package should be and should sound like. And if there were going to be a lot of regional companies that were putting up rigs that wanted to have any consistency to him at all. They had to be sold with parameters that you had to meet or there would be no consistency, right? Everybody just did whatever they wanted. That was part of it. And then I went back to Martin at the time, and Martin was just evolving from the F to box to the W Wait. And I said, Okay, you guys sold me on this Martin F to rack system years ago. What's it gonna cost me to refit all my F two racks with W eight modules? And they said we're abandoning the F to format, and the W eight box is a trap box. The W eight module will not work in enough to rack. And I said, Oh, wait a second. Um, I bought the EFTA, and I'm not slagging off two or w eight. Martin makes great products. Don't get me wrong, But it was a It was one of those political forks in the road. Well,

spk_0:   19:36
you're like, Hang on a minute here. I I bought the box on this premise. Right now you're telling me that Yeah, it's not there anymore.

spk_1:   19:43
Exactly. It would happen to be very timely with the introduction of the the vetoes cabinet and the whole evolution in tow line ary, which, of course we know is taking over the universe.

spk_0:   19:54
I was a little floored when I was told I had to go to Las Vegas to do videos training. Yeah, and add a specific. It was only a couple of places you could go. Vegas was one. I think you guys were one place. Yep. Quality control to the umpteenth level.

spk_1:   20:08
Yeah, we were a pretty early adopter, But even then there was still on external crossover that gave you options. That so there were some variables in the in the Vitas box. Even that provided a lack of complete and total consistency from system to system. I think we powered Jamison. Do you remember how we power RV dusk with Crown

spk_2:   20:30
crown five thousands at first, If I remember right, I think that whole thing came out of them tryingto figure out how to get into the American market. They were already certain to show up in Europe,

spk_1:   20:39
though they were big in Europe.

spk_0:   20:41
The lab group ins weren't in the mix from the beginning. That was an adopted thing.

spk_1:   20:45
Oh, yeah, Wait on. The

spk_2:   20:46
thing was, Camco was in the in the mixed first and they were pushing that in Europe and that was their model in Europe. You buy the cable, you by the this you buy that Geoffrey Cocks, Since people aren't gonna buy this box unless we put in NL eight on it. Because everyone has an elite. That's how they kind of first started. And that was when the boxes were being made by art art 1st 2 and they were black instead of the color that they were in Europe at the time that there was some inconsistency between the U. S. In Europe, the look and amplification, that was the way that they got their foothold in North America.

spk_1:   21:21
When you first could buy Vitas, you could power with Crown or QSC or something else. I think there was 1/3 option. But as you'd guess that and then allowing the buyer to to purchase all their own interconnect lead to lack of consistency, veto osk to veto OSK systems that they have sent stamped out in a big way. And I think you know, although it was a thing that kind of put my nose out of joint first. What do you mean? I have to buy your wire. What do you have to buy? You know, in the end, I really see what their philosophy was. And I appreciate it because it has brought a whole new evolution toe what we're doing for sound systems today

spk_0:   22:01
when you got the first Vidas boxes in from L acoustics. How long was it before you and Martinez had that thing ripped open to see what was in

spk_1:   22:10
it? You know, I don't remember ripping it open at all. It's funny because even though I started out as a sound guy and when a lot of this technology started to come along and the business started to groan, started to have multiple employees. I had to gravitate away from being as arms deep into the technology because I was running a business and, you know, cover and payroll and watching the books and all that other stuff. So Martinez and Jamison and some of the boys out back might have got it those things a time or two, but and there were a few people I think that tried to knock those things off somehow. But what was the processor Jamison Did they have, Ah, proprietary processor. The time I don't remember

spk_2:   22:50
knows an extra is what they started with

spk_0:   22:53
all the audio core.

spk_1:   22:54
But it was their presets and all that. I think it was their card or a comb card or something.

spk_2:   22:59
It was like a piece n c ap to kind of card to load this stuff into it. But the comb cards was that was the next step in kind of controlling the process. They came up with the whole system for configuring the AMP racks so that you used Devi dos with it or whatever it was. And it was that card that was like a he sub connector on it. You plugged into the front and reconfigure the inputs to the amplifiers in the back of the rack accordingly, so that everything worked right? But they still weren't in control from two back on it. You still have a survived the amplifiers and, you know, something could still end up like polarity reversed or something like that. We struggled with that for a while to with those

spk_1:   23:39
well, and even back then there was still the pin to pin three hot thing where some people did it. One win and some people did another. But to the point that Jamison are making here, opening up a vitas box and looking at the construction of the box was like 1/3 of science. At the time, it was still all the processing and the stuff that you couldn't see that they had control of that made it something that you couldn't really knock off yourself if you wanted to. May I don't

spk_0:   24:05
know if it was so much about knocking it off for me, it was trying to understand it. When I went into class and I first saw the plug, the horn plug, the whole thing made a lot more sense to me as to how it worked.

spk_1:   24:15
All the wave guide, you mean Yeah,

spk_0:   24:17
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

spk_1:   24:18
That was the original patent piece that was the rial differentiator that l acoustics came up with. It was, ah, lock down patent for the 1st 10 years of that production.

spk_0:   24:27
Because if you know anything about frequencies, how did they'd set it up so that they all come out of the front of the box at the same time when they're all different wavelengths. That was the whole curiosity with me. But since Jamison's been popping in, why don't we talk a little bit about summer Fest? Because I was just commenting to Jamison on the phone the other day that the hardest work we do is the work that no one sees. For people who aren't familiar, Summer Fest in Milwaukee is the world's largest music festival, the summer fest. Part of it is only one small part of the whole summer of events that happens there. So they have something like 12 stages and a number of other production needs. In addition, like Greg said, Clearing Productions handles the whole festival grounds. And when Jamison came over from his company in Madison to Clear Wing, Summer Fest was already a client. So Jamison, can you just talk about and Greg to about some of the difficulties of doing a festival of that size and the festival's constantly growing, the company's growing changes are happening. Stages air, getting rebuild. Things are in a constant shift. What kind of things you do to accommodate for that stuff and what other hilarity is ensued from it?

spk_2:   25:38
The first thing I think is, you know, like what you do to prepare for. And I think the interesting thing about it was that were there so much, just give a scope of how many things happen There were some professes what, 11 days? Right? There's what six stages that are really stages you can fit. Somewhere between 7,515,000 I think, is the maps they counted at the stage.

spk_0:   26:00
When we say there's 12 stages, it's not like a 20 foot stage in a parking lot. These air, huge built structures with right, and they both run between four and seven major artists on them, like a headline artist on each stage. So just to give an idea

spk_2:   26:16
every night,

spk_1:   26:17
Yeah, and it's important to mention just real quick. That summer fest is one of the rial exceptions. Two festivals in our country because it doesn't it might not have the notoriety that at Coachella, our Bonnaroo or something, maybe, as the biggest difference for summer fest is that everything there is hard riel infrastructure, meaning there's no feeder cable running across the ground. You know all the stages have riel rigging. You can drive past summer fest right now in the middle of January and all those stages air sitting there, and they all have reald disconnects backstage and the whole bit, so it's kind of a whole different animal than most of the summer festivals.

spk_0:   26:54
It's like 12 venues in one part,

spk_2:   26:58
and there's the amphitheater as well, which they also have a headliner there to every night, right?

spk_0:   27:02
What is that? 20,000? 27,000 or something?

spk_2:   27:05
26 or 27? Right?

spk_1:   27:07
Was 22 before they did. The last year was a phase one redevelopment, and this year is they're finishing up phase two, which adds all kinds of V I p stuff on the sides and hospitality suites and creature comfort amenities that weren't there before. But as far as just actual seeding goes, it's always been somewhere between 22 24,000 depending on how as hold available, that cram a minute. Are

spk_0:   27:32
you talking 250,000 people out of festival grounds?

spk_1:   27:36
Oh, yeah. Easy. And I think their record night. Maybe it pushes a 1,000,000 people.

spk_0:   27:41
Yeah, you guys provide the audio for all of it. Jamison, how do you even go about how many months out. Do you start planning it?

spk_2:   27:48
We had always, You know, back then, you know, now it's something. It's a different animal, but that's and and it was something we looked at early on. You need certain roughing out what gear was gonna go. Where is earliest April started kind of grappling with that. What we might be able to do on either side of a place that was going with it was kind of what, Greg, it's that about it being a lot of it being permanent infrastructure. But it hasn't always been that way. You know, there's two stages that in the last 2025 years that weren't really there the entire time there's north end stage. That was a temporary structure. It was put up the beginning of the season, taken down at the end of the season, and then that moved down to the south end, and then that became another permanent stage. It's a kind of a smaller amphitheater. The other thing I was going to say about it is the scope of events that happened. There are just those 11 days. There's a festival there almost every weekend from from beginning of June until mid September, except for maybe two weekends, some of our more complicated than summer fest or, at the time where more complicated to summer fest take Irish best. For example, it's like one of the biggest Irish festivals in North America.

spk_1:   28:55
I think it I think it is the biggest Irish festival. Yeah,

spk_2:   28:59
like that one in Kansas City or something are the two big ones they've got, like every square foot where you could put a little stage. There's a stage, even it's the size of a postage stamp. There's two mikes and a speaker there or something. So from a logistical standpoint, summer fest was kind of easy because it was big shots, right? It's like put a lot of gear here, put a lot of gear there, put a lot of gear there. You know, we also had a grapple with back line because back line was a whole different deal, cause a lot of bands rent back line there. The festival runs back line forum, whichever it is. Some of those other festivals actually are bigger logistical challenges that summer fest because of that. In on top of it, you're still dealing with a smaller festival with not as bigger resource is you're always fighting the I need labor. You know where I meet this, You know, you're not always winning that fight or you're you're you're finding the compromise that gets everything loaded in, you know,

spk_1:   29:50
touching on Irish festival quick. There's another really interesting element about that is the diversity of what they present. So I mean, summer fest is pretty much Iraq show, right? But Irish Fest, they have ah ah, harp tent. And they have, ah, drama tent where they put on theatrical presentations. So you're dealing with 20 wireless mikes and boundary Mike's all the way across the lip, all kinds of other things that wouldn't be a normal festival element, slots, a different things to do

spk_0:   30:17
all that stuff. And yet no Guinness at all. Travis, let me ask you this. Even though Summerfest is a union gig, the problem with having one of the most successful audio companies in the city is that don't a lot of the union people also become your employees and vice versa. How taxing does it become during the summertime with having to have all of that gear out for three months or four months and having a lot of your personnel taken up in the summer. Does it really hit it hard on the touring side and the other side of the business?

spk_1:   30:50
Yes, Jamison was just touching on the logistics. You know, figuring out about summer fest in what Gear has to be where. But then you got to think about the summer touring season peaking at the same time, and all the other things that are going on this year, for example, we've got the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee the week after summer fest that happens to be a dark week between summer fest and fest Italiana here the logistics of getting gear in people where they got to be on time and getting it in and getting attacked and getting it scanned in and out. And all that stuff is it's huge inch Yugi. Do

spk_2:   31:28
you remember when the All Star Game was in Milwaukee?

spk_1:   31:31
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,

spk_2:   31:32
it was the same deal was the week after summer fest. We loaded entire radius summer fest out the last night of summer fest. The last thing I did before I left the summer fest grounds on Monday board. I chucked a chunk of 50 foot to out feeder in the back of the golf cart, drove it up the sidewalk

spk_1:   31:50
to the other. Hig defected

spk_2:   31:53
to the other gig up to the Are you Stephen, like seven in the morning? Drop that off the guy on the street stuck throws to the shop and hold until 10 30 in the morning Way was falling asleep standing up.

spk_1:   32:05
Sometimes you just do what you gotta dio, right?

spk_2:   32:08
Yeah, exactly.

spk_0:   32:10
Also, guys, I think that back in those days it was a different era. Like I tried to explain this to people nowadays, kids who are 20 years old working in the business. And this is where we can go back and have a little fun back in the eighties, even into the nineties and somewhat a little bit in two thousands before the industry just got completely politically correct. You can't do the kind o little pranks and fun things that you could dio back in the day. It's a different world that we used tohave toe, get 16 crew hands and stack a P A. You know, 15 feet in the air, sometimes ground stacking it or flying. It took a hell of a lot more time that did. It was just a different world, but, ah, lot of what we did because they were long days. And sometimes when you're on a tour, you're with the same people all the time. So we would have fun with each other. And, uh, Greg, uh, I gotta ask you There's a story about a prank which was so legendary it gave one employee a moniker for life. I just like to get the story from the horse's mouth here today. Can you just tell us a little bit about the short sheet story?

spk_1:   33:19
So this is leading up to the hog leg in that rescue. Yeah, well, you know, as you're touching on here, you know, when you're out on tours and you're doing gigs together, there is off family bond created in our industry That doesn't really exist kind of anywhere else. You know, I mean, you're doing all day with somebody, and then you're either sharing a room with him at night or you're, you know, sleeping on the floor of the truck back in those days, getting from gig to gig. And even when I was, ah, full on touring guy. But, you know, in the in the early eighties, the touring was much more Neanderthal. And it is now, you know, we didn't have, ah, satellite tracking, you know, constant WiFi affect white tight in a wife. I didn't. Why? Why tie the Wu Tang clan didn't exist back then. S O. So it was a whole different world. To be honest with you, there was a lot of stuff that went on that was just either prank E or just trying to kill the hours on the bus or whatever. And so we were doing a gig in Cleveland, Ohio, and this this happened, This wasn't a tour. This was, ah, the National Association of Campus Activities annual there. Big show, whatever they call it. Jamison. The national. We were stand up there and there was an employee that was on our roster at the time, and he just decided to mess with the man. Maybe we were sharing rooms I don't even remember. I don't think so. But somehow he got into my room and short sheeted bed, and you know what that is? You know, you crawl in bed and you go to stretch your legs out? No, it's been a hard day at work, and he's made the bed in such a way that you can only get into like, the fetal position. Then you can't stretch. You can't stretch your legs out, you know? So the bed's been short sheeted. So I found out who the guy was and and I declared, Game on, which is a term feared among the clear wing ranks. By the way, game on with Craig. Did you

spk_2:   35:19
give him out, though? Did you ask him? Very strange about this.

spk_1:   35:21
I think I may have. Yeah. And he said no. Bring it on or something. He was feeling, you know, high and mighty. It's time. So anyways, he was one of the text on the stage, and I was either the production manager. I was just There is the client rep or something. I had a lot more free time on my hands, and he did being involved in the show. So it started out with just little prank e stuff. Like, I went to his room and took all the light bulbs out and then took the phone away so he couldn't call the front desk yet walked on and then he retaliated with something to me I don't even remember. It was And then I retaliated to him by I went to the store and bought a pig's hoof, you know, because some people eat that shit, you know? So I put a little Styrofoam pan of pig's hoof, and I put this pig's hoof under his pillow so that when he went into his room at night and called in for a good night's sleep when he reached his hand under the pillow, there was just cold, clammy hog leg is still it'll. You know, he went in and kind of freaked out on that at the time and brought it down the next morning. And and I don't even remember it because, like I said, he was bolted to the stage, so he didn't have a lot of time to get at me. But, boy, right, I unleashed the fury of hell on him. So there was first the pigs off and then he was about to do it. Dr. From that show from Cleveland toe Las Vegas. So I put a piece of raw fish in his work trunk, figuring that by the time he got to Las Vegas it would smell pretty good. So that was stepped to. And then when he got in the truck to drive away, we had stuck the hog leg in the front grill of the trucks like you know it car with bull horns on the front. Well, this was a truck without sticking out the front of the truck. And then he got in the truck to drive away, and I had put shoe polish, black shoe polish all on on the steering wheel of the truck. So he got in and grabbed the steering wheel and his hands all got black shoe polish. And he caught me on the last one I had bought up state from pan of raw liver, you know, bloody raw liver. And I put it up above the visor of the truck. So when the son got in his eyes, itching for a visor down, the bloody liver would all fall in his lap. He's key, caught that one, but by the tiniest shoe polish all over his hands. And he was just like Uncle you uncle. So that's the progression of the hog leg story, which started out which getting my bed short sheeted

spk_0:   37:58
And to this day, that's particular person is known in our industry as hog leg

spk_1:   38:03
like, yeah, yeah, those kinds of time. You know, that's the stuff that we as the touring brotherhood have to remember that just, you know, there's no other business I can think of where those kinds of things stick with you, you know? I mean, what are other guys going to say bye? And you remember that stock trade we did in 82 right? Yeah, it's the second thing.

spk_0:   38:28
What did you do it? Summerfest To keep yourself busy for 11 days while you besides, ride around in a golf cart.

spk_2:   38:34
You know, im hands pretty full there. So there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of downtime, but a lot of the time it was it was, You know, there's a lot of people there that working some infested, see him once a year stage managers and that kind of thing. So a lot of the time it was catching up with those guys that have been up to whatever it is, really didn't get too crazy. Except maybe, you know, early on, when I first started, they had their backs at each of the stages, and it was pretty much

spk_0:   39:00
have the free beer tap.

spk_1:   39:01
It was the Paps Miller. An old style stage at the beginning. So they're all touting their wares. Yeah, unlimited tappers, baby.

spk_2:   39:08
98 ish. You know, a lot more stages were permanent, so it's all pretty much Miller. A lot of the time. You don't like we have a beer waiting for all the traffic to die down. That I think you know, some polarity and suit later on after hours. Eventually that stop had to do with someone, have it a little to indulge in a little too much one night and not being of age.

spk_0:   39:29
Oh, wait a minute. Is this the cherry? The Brian Miller's vodka Cherries That spurred that? Oh, my goodness. Well, we won't talk about that.

spk_2:   39:37
Yeah, we won't talk about that. That was kind of the end of the year. Backstage

spk_0:   39:42
rise, right.

spk_2:   39:43
Attended, like, immediately after that.

spk_1:   39:45
But we've seen some other crazy shit like there was the year that Lois Lobel stole the golf cart, took it on a frickin joy right across the grounds and crashed it into something. And when Justin Bieber was just coming through the ranks, he had. This is when Segways first came out and Justin Bieber was writing his Segway backstage and to know how to control it and crashed into a whole stack of merch boxes. Lay it all sprawled out backstage on merch boxes and stagehands were all laughin Animal. Now, of course he's, you know Justin Bieber. But then he was just some crazy 14 year old kid troll that Segway backstage, man, you see some crazy shit. I get a kick out of people that want a backstage pass because I go, what do you want to do? Look at the trucks and the you know the loading dock is There's really nothing during the show, especially, there's nothing going on back there.

spk_0:   40:36
Now it's all work.

spk_1:   40:37
Yeah, yeah, at the same time, being behind the scenes and catching a glimpse of some of the rarities that happened is a pretty special privilege in life for sure.

spk_0:   40:46
Pretty much that's what the show is all about. When I have the musicians on is some some of those encounters that they have dealt with, but we never get to talk about, you know, production stuff on the show. So I'm happy you guys came on. I want to go to back to 96. I think it was 1996 when you guys went to the North Pole. Greg, could you just talk a little bit about that cause I saw clearings. Facebook Page. There was something posted recently about it.

spk_1:   41:10
Yeah. Jamison, were you You went on that trip where, you

spk_2:   41:13
know, that was for a couple years before I started

spk_1:   41:16
on the sound side. That was me and Martinez. And I think John Show Bo somebody else on the lighting side. We got engaged by GMR marketing, who is, of course, huge experiential marketing company. And they happen to be located here in Milwaukee. So we have a good relationship. But this was a project for Molson Beer a time, and it was called ah, hot time in a cold place. It was a bunch of radio contest winners for Molson Canada that they flew out to some remote place and they boarded a converted Russian ice breaker that was now some form of Arctic cruise ship. And you know they did went out for a couple of days on the Arctic Ocean and word up to an iceberg and played Frisbee golf on an iceberg or something. There was a bunch of antics that happened that we didn't see it all, but our role was to produce the the final climactic event, which was the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the violent Femsa's were supposed to play on the deck of this Russian ice breaker for the final concert party night. Well, as it turned out, the weather was not conducive to the, you know, the waves were too high or whatever. There just wasn't possible to produce this concert on the ship. So they diverted us to an island where the ship came into and the island was called Resolute, which is 3000 miles due north of Ottawa, Ontario. Wow. You know, everybody refers to it at the North Pole. Whether it's the rial North Pole or the magnetic North Pole, I don't know, but we just called it the North Pole. And so we offloaded all. We put all the gear on a plane here in Milwaukee and fluid to Ottawa. Actually, maybe we truck to tow. I don't remember. But we put it all in these gigantic pie 10 things and the gear all went into a C seven cargo transport. And then both bands and all the production people got on this C seven cargo ship transport plane, and we flew from Ottawa to Resolute. We landed this jet cargo plane on a gravel runway. Oh, and then loaded all of the gear off because, like I said, the show had been diverted to a venue on Resolute Bay. Well, we took all the gear off the plane and put it into the bucket of a front end loader on and trucked in across. And it was lots of trips. I mean, it wasn't just one trip and took it across the island toe. ACC wants it hut. What That they were. They maintained heavy equipment like earthmovers. So it was a nasty old jury oily quants. It hut with a dirt floor and we fabricated a stage on one end of this room and we put a little p a up. We found enough power and we had taken along just as a contingency plan we took along to Honda 50 amp generators in case we needed some extra power. We ran the red hot chili peppers in the violent fams off of two Honda 50 AMP generators, Sound and Lights. And Dan, she's The funny part was, is that there were the contest winners of the ship, you know, that came aboard, came on ground and they all went over to this quantity to party because we did this on the island. All of the inhabitants of the island were invited as well. So all 120 people that lived on the island came to the concert as well, my favorite partner. And believe me, I love the red Hot chili Peppers. But this was just funny. So we did the show in this quantity hut in part of the lighting rig. What we took along a couple of hampers. We went to Goodwill and bought a couple of hampers of old nasty, ratty ass lamps. And all across the back line there, we put these lamps on the, you know, on the amps, on the mesa, bogeys or whatever and behind the drums, because we didn't really have much in the way of lighting. Okay, the end of the show happens and a bunch of the people rush up to the front of the stage and Anthony pulls out a sharp because he thinks everybody's gonna want to autograph and he runs down stage and and he says he's got his Sharpie. All the people go well, no, we don't want your autograph, but there's no stores here. Can we have a lamp?

spk_0:   45:28
Locals wanted the lamps.

spk_1:   45:30
They just want lamps because there was no stores on this island. Are you taking those lamps with you? Could we have? That's the kind of shit that is etched in your memory forever. It's just hilarious. That was one of those special gigs that you never get to do again in your life. Your

spk_0:   45:48
bio says that you did sound for Def Leppard back in the day. Was that a touring thing? Or was that just a couple of shows or how did? Well

spk_1:   45:54
and yeah, I mean, it was clearing did the sound. I didn't. I mixed monitors for some of their shows, as I recall, but that was a tour that we did after Eddie Rabbit. We had already built these LR sees that we talked about earlier. You know, Ricky Medlock was now with Leonard Skinner. It again was the lead guy in Blackfoot. There were a four piece full on rock band, you know, highway song and trained, trained where they're big hits and they were going out to do a tour. We engaged with their management and book. Dlr sees onto that tour, but it wasn't enough plywood on the sides of the stage for them. They wanted something bigger than just 16 s. Four type boxes looked eight aside, so we split the eight boxes of front end loaded stuff apart. And in the middle we stacked up four JBL 45 fifties, six community MB, 80 horns with twelves on the back of him and then another 46 JBL 24. 45 of the top of that. It was like just giant massive wall of plywood on both sites. The odd part was it was front loaded boxes mixed it with fold, so there were probably a few acoustic anomalies going on there. At any rate, the Blackfoot tour went out, and the opening act on that tour was Steph Leopard on There high and dry tour Def Leppard. Kids came in and they were like 2 17 year old. Nobody's at the time. But I mean, I'm not kidding. They brought the rock, and obviously they are where they are today. So they were the opening act, which is why I ended up mixing them. They had a front of House guy Robert Allen, who was Richard, the drummers brother. And he I think he's gone on toe. Last. I heard he was maybe production manager, something for Taylor Swift. So he's going on to big things. And obviously Def Leppard has as well I'm still here. Just you're here with clearing. Just what

spk_0:   47:41
was it like doing the expansion? Because Clearing Forever was a Milwaukee company and then, obviously at relationships with Was it Sunbelt? Yep, in Phoenix for a while, and then you ended up going on to buy them out. Is that what happened?

spk_1:   47:53
Not exactly when you're in business, especially in a business that was as seasonally controlled is on hours here in the Midwest. We started out at the beginning of the company doing just rock bars, and we had no summer business, and then we started doing a little church festivals and what not in our business model flopped being a completely summer business. We were just trying to find a sweet spot where we had some good revenue stream all year round. Well, when I was touring or when I was on vacation, I used to just go into a town and open a the Yellow Pages and look at who was there doing what we did. I came across this company in Phoenix at the time, called Sunbelt Scenic Studios, and they were alighting only company at the time. And I was a sound only company in Milwaukee at the time because we had inverse busy seasons. There wasn't a lot of business for them in the summer because it's the polar opposite of here. It's so flipping hot down there that, you know all of their stuff happens in the fall to spring. So we fabricated. Ah, thing. I called the NAFTA of production at the time where we traded equipment, you know, they would send us lighting in a stage all summer when they weren't using it, and we would send them sound in the winter. When we were using, we generated revenue off each other's investments until we didn't you know, the agreement was that we're going to do this until we don't need each other anymore. While 12 years down the road, Sunbelt had some problems and went through. Ah, let's call it a divergence between the partners and and they ended up closing their doors. And it left a void in the Phoenix market that we knew pretty well. And Jamison was with me at the time. This was all going down. One of the people in the Phoenix market that had been another former Clear Wing employees tried to start up on offshoot of Sun Belt called Genesis Audio Systems down there, and he wasn't doing so well. So we actually went at an acquisition of that of Genesis, not of Sunbelt. He ended up failing as well. So we just ended up finding some people down there, and Jamison went down to Phoenix to open up the Phoenix office. We knew the market. We knew a lot of the people. We weren't stepping on any of our friends toes because they had all closed up and pulled out. Coincidentally, it about the same time we ended up getting a guy mask. Sound, based in New Jersey, was a father owned transition to his sons kind of company, and the sons decided to pull other attributes back to New Jersey and closed their Phoenix and Orlando offices that both the same time. So there were two production companies, maybe three, that went out of the Phoenix market, and it left a void there that we could fill again. We weren't piston anybody off to do it. So Jamison went down there and opened the Phoenix office for us with Dave Tembe, who's now our c 00 down there. We just started out in traction on paan. Traction upon traction have spent all good ever since. Jamison was instrumental in that, for sure, because I stayed here most of the time and he went down and got that off the ground. My hero.

spk_2:   50:39
That was a couple of months. It was a great time of year that was, and it just whether we're really nice,

spk_1:   50:43
that's the upside of Phoenix,

spk_0:   50:44
James said. You've gone on to do a bunch of other gigs, but not band gigs, so to speak. You do a lot of logistics. And what did you call yourself? A. Uh,

spk_2:   50:54
really. It's technical director,

spk_0:   50:56
a freelance technical director So smoke jumper, right? What exactly do you do here, James? Because you're involved in a lot of trade shows in a lot of events. And you have this car charging system which I want to ask you about. But what does someone bring Jamison Philip in to do these days? You

spk_2:   51:15
know, it's funny. I just had this discussion last week with my brother simply doing him do Jamison. It was kind of weird. Is it? It's a little hard to explain to people who don't work in this business that it's harder without a basis of at least starting somewhere a lot of its corporate work. Now a lot of corporate events and it usually circles around corporate incentive trip were like a corporate eating or something along those lines. But usually I'm working with agency or ah, producer or someone that's putting that event together for a big company like let's say, IBM or Google or something like that. We listen to the client, see what the heck they're trying to do and come up with some parameters.

spk_0:   51:56
He doesn't do anything, Greg does. He he's just making stuff up right now.

spk_1:   52:00
I think

spk_2:   52:01
it all making it up. So the way I explained it to someone was, you know, one slice of it. It's kind of like vendor management, right? Get all the quotes 100 November managed. The vendor a slice of it is straight up production management schedule, a logistics, all that kind of thing. Another slice of it is technical management. So making sure that all the dip apartments are talking to each other, especially if they're not from the same same company, drafting all that kind of thing and then on site going on site, making sure that what we plan happens

spk_0:   52:33
and that makes a concert seem like Child's play.

spk_1:   52:35
I just wanna say to that Jamison worked for clearing for quite a few years. He came to us when I acquired a company from Western Miss Johnson called Creative Zone and Light. So Jamison was with them before he came to Clear Wing, and he obviously climbed the corporate ladder of clearing very quickly. He's always been very organized, very good about everything he does. So when he went on to do some things for himself, he had attributes that crossed over just being a sound guy. He had broader perspectives and he certainly gotten involved in a lot of really interesting projects. And I can't say enough about his skill sets and how he interacts with people so I can see why he's going on to be a rock star of his own, so to speak. Some of the projects that he does now are much more diverse, as you say, then just doing a concert. Yeah, I mean, it's there's a whole lot more to it. And you've done some things in the Caribbean and such lately, right? Jamison that involved transporting containers and all of that other stuff and scheduling all of that.

spk_2:   53:34
Yeah, Yeah, there was a couple of last year. I'm sorry. Two years ago, and then the year prior did a big corporate show. One of them was in Kabul and the other one was in Dominican Republic on the beach.

spk_0:   53:46
Oh, yeah, that's right. You are in Punta Con around the same time I was I remember you talking about building a road.

spk_2:   53:51
Oh, yeah, it was crazy. We convinced the hotel early on to take down a college thick, 10 foot high, 20 foot wide concrete wall so we could load in so It was a big accomplishment and then way didn't think they'd agreed to it, but it was kind of the only repressive get in. And

spk_1:   54:08
for you, it's not. Build the wall, Let's tear down the wall. Right. So

spk_0:   54:13
you've come in there The first thing you haven't tear down this cement structure. That's like a Tony Luna move. Yeah, you're gonna have to move this water.

spk_2:   54:21
Yeah, well, you know, it all fit in the budget is fine,

spk_1:   54:23
but it's funny, though, because sometimes what it takes to get the gig done. Is that a cute? I mean, we're down at the Super Bowl right now doing some of their stuff and what I've seen. Those people cut down trees, you know, every plant, um, but cut him down for the gig and then put a new tree in there later. And so taken down a wall or building a wall or any of that stuff. People don't understand what happens to really make an event go. Sometimes it's pretty astounding.

spk_2:   54:49
For four years, I was working for the general contractor for the NFL, kind of in the last couple of in a project management capacity for them and You know, this stuff you have to do for that is just gone. So, John, I don't know if I there explaining to you, but this is totally outside of sound and lighting. I never touched a decent trust was as close to that. I got the touching sound and lighting here on that. But it was everything temporary from the perimeter to the center of the field. Anything that was temporary except for like, the entries we touch tents, trailers, Jersey area. The good example is in Minneapolis, which is the last one that I did. We also took care of stable paths like establishing able pass for all the broadcasters to get in and out of the stadium. There just wasn't enough room to get down into the docks. We cord, uh, 12 inch hole through the and put a cabinet in there so that they could take cables in and out of the stadium.

spk_1:   55:45
What's a core drill? 12 inch diameter core drill for Let's just say, 10 feet. What's it take to get that done? Holy smokes.

spk_2:   55:52
They did it in half a day. The Korean company. It was a whole deal.

spk_0:   55:57
Speaking of big events, in cold places. What was it like doing the stuff up in Vancouver for the Olympics?

spk_2:   56:02
For me, it was pretty cushy because we have such a big team that I spent a lot of my time in office. So yeah, team of guys that were there were pretty big, especially the ones that were working in the cypress, which was the South facing mountain that was in Vancouver. If you don't remember that Olympics, it was a warm year, and that is facing the Valley of Vancouver. So snow melted over and over again, was rainy and it was pretty terrible. Ate a fly snow in from other mountain imported snow. Yeah, because it was a war. Not great. I didn't have anything to do with that. But the guy said of rebuild. We had field of play tends and they used snowing. Chris for them in the snow was melting underneath the tents. They had a ready built attends daily that we're off on the field of play. It was interested in, you know, I worked for the 10th company. It was clear, so intense. I mean, the smallest ones, like 10 by 10 and the biggest one was like three football fields long and why. It was pretty interesting thing, and there is a lot of politics involved in it. You know, We met daily with the Vancouver Olympic Committee, and there are a couple things that happened that that that were really kind of challenging. One of them was the Olympic Committee. They hired folks that manage their sites. It would give us orders on where to build things. Well, one time, you know, they were the project manager for that site, one of them that place a couple tents under basically underneath high tension lines. When the guys were up on the tenants, like doing doing work, they get little zaps and they couldn't figure out why. And then someone looked up and said, Henderson, attention lines right there. Work state BC Came and shut the whole site.

spk_0:   57:41
Is that like OSHA

spk_2:   57:42
Work State? It's their version of OSHA.

spk_1:   57:44
Was it like Vanda Graaff? Generator click Coming off the workers across the atmosphere to the people on the tents.

spk_2:   57:51
Totally because it was like it was like, Wow, 200,000 volt lines up their ridiculous tino

spk_1:   57:57
60 man. Okay,

spk_2:   58:01
because we're doing lights of the tents we had to have electrical engineer sign off on everything. Smith, all this stuff and then sign off has installed it was a school of permitting thing. Ah, the inspectors the engineer has inspected as installed and sign off on it submitted to the authorities. So it's like it's kind of deep. Honestly, he gets another engineer that specializes in grounding to come in with a solution. Bc Hydro, Who's the electric company up there says in L. A. This isn't gonna work. We got this p 60 guys gonna look at it and it turns into this whole process. And it turns out that the high tension lines they couldn't spend off because they're the only power that powers Vancouver Island out of the day. It took six weeks meetings and all this crazy stuff. At the end of the day, we had to do this stuff where everything had to be grounded. There had to be a lineman there, the engineer at the other end, because even if you hit the lines, it won't shut off. We had to clear the ground and drag chain behind this auricular. It was just a troll. Okay, that was just, like, what? The word but gotten into.

spk_1:   59:03
And you know what? That's the kind of stuff that the public doesn't ever have a grip on and technically shouldn't, right, That's our job to get those things done. So very enjoy the end product. But sometimes the path get it. Isn't it funny that somehow it always gets done in the allocated time, But it takes every minute you have your ad it right up to the end,

spk_0:   59:26
right down to the last second.

spk_2:   59:27
Totally. Yeah. The other story from up there is we have a contractual obligation to ground all these structures toe physically ground them. It was on us. It wasn't on the electrician's, as we had thought it was. So we went through the whole thing. The engineer came up with this. Really? Anyone that looked at would be like, What are you talking about? Like this is manufactured tablet had to go under two big bolts and then it had a big Camelot became are they had to go into the ground system. And then there are two big things that came out of it. One of it was it was a bunch of money right, of

spk_1:   59:58
course. What makes the world go around? The

spk_2:   1:0:01
bigger one was the Vancouver electrical inspector. The head electrical inspector insisted that the tents cannot have a ground rod driven. They have to be on. The same electrical plane is the rest of the system, which meant that all these tents that have been up for two months have to shut down completely to plug the ground. And some of them were pressed into their operational. Already, every 10 had to be done this way, including the 10 by tens that have a single light hanging that has one Edison cable often get the plug into the wall

spk_1:   1:0:33
sees. That's the bureaucratic nonsense that really bogged down any show right there. Oh,

spk_2:   1:0:38
yeah, there is no way to plug this cam lock into the Edison. You know,

spk_1:   1:0:43
you could make an adapter. There's adapters.

spk_0:   1:0:46
I've seen some of the funniest adapters online. Cam locked a thin,

spk_2:   1:0:52
so long story story. What happens is this becomes an issue, and it's escalated through Vanna all of a sudden, like a week after this gets escalator. A few days after that, the intellectual inspector for Vancouver is opting for early retirement.

spk_1:   1:1:07
Wow, I was just gonna say he's gone. Sometimes political pressure gets it done.

spk_0:   1:1:15
What happened, Jamison, The first time that you drove a tractor trailer out of town,

spk_2:   1:1:20
that was a little here. We

spk_1:   1:1:22
probably wasn't any worse than mine. No wanted. Actually, it

spk_2:   1:1:27
was one better than yours Could. I only ran over like a traffic course or something like that bone around a corner. But the thing about it, once you were in the truck and 14 years were in the truck. It was like, my first time driving out of town across the country kind of thing. I think we're going. We're going to Iowa. That's what it was. Nothing like putting the most important people in a truck with me. Hopefully, it won't turn this thing over. Run over anything like what

spk_0:   1:1:52
happened to you, Greg.

spk_1:   1:1:53
So my shop at the time was in Lexus Little neighborhood in west Side of Milwaukee. I had just gotten my CDL and I petted driving. Maybe for a couple of weeks. You know, this is when clearing was growing to the point where we couldn't fit straight trucks anymore. So I go pick up a tractor trailer toe, toe load a gig and I've got an empty trailer on my truck and I take this turn to go to the shop. I just kind of feel something like hanging up. It's just kind of just kind of a snag truck and I look in the passenger side mirror and I had the whole rear tandem axle that on the trunk of a car. What's the biggest thing about tractor? Trailer is the off tracking of the trailer, right? When you take a turn, the trailer doesn't follow the tractor. Exactly. It's a whole different art, right? So I look in the rear view mirror and my trailer is up on the trunk of this car. I thought, Oh, Jesus, What am I going to do now? Well, the front end of the car was up off the ground because all of the way to the trailer was on the back of the car and this was like July or something was the middle of summer. So I figured, Well, I got to get it off, you know? So I just I geared down and I drove a little bit forward until the whole tandem axle came off the rear And when it came off the trunk of the car, the whole front of the car slammed down to the pavement along the windows exploded on windows. On this lady comes running out of the house. Oh, my God. My car by car. What did you do? We're supposed to go on vacation tomorrow. Oh, no. And I said, Well, you know, you're going to be going in a nice new rental car. No, because, er, I got I'm in shirt, but I can't do anything about that. So, yeah, Jamison was much better driver than I was first. Shit happens. That's where they make that hat, right? This is shit happens on it. I gotta tell you, Over the years, Jamison and I have had more laughs, then most people have in a lifetime in this industry. We have had so much fun doing what we do. And even though it's a ball buster of a job and there's always the next problem to solve, it's a fun thing to be involved in. And who is the guy that said baseball been Betty Betty? Good to me. Well, you know, the production life has been very good to both of us. Jamison has ended up doing some really awesome things, and clearing is doing well. And, ah, you just got to keep at it. You know, do the next right thing and your career will grow.

spk_0:   1:4:32
It's a very interesting business. It attracts a lot of interesting personalities. Dan O'Brien told me one time, and I never forget this. It takes a certain kind of person to be in this industry to do this job. It's not for everybody,

spk_1:   1:4:46
John. I refer to it as a chromosome. Oh, abnormality. There's just something in your D N A. It says. This is what you want to dio.

spk_0:   1:4:58
It's also those unique people that make the industry what it is, or at least my memory of it. It's somewhat diluted now, I would say, is a lot of schools teaching what we do back when I first started as a little kid, first getting into this, there wasn't a school to go to. To learn this job, you had to find somebody. You had to apprentice with them. You had to learn your

spk_1:   1:5:18
was the school of hard knocks, for sure,

spk_0:   1:5:20
absolutely. It's a little different now, you know, like you said it was more of, ah kind of a touring family atmosphere back then.

spk_1:   1:5:26
Well, you know Kevin Suker, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, he just did a Facebook post the other day about what he had to do to get to where he is in the industry, wherever that is. And just his observation that some of the kids nowadays air looking for the shorter, faster path. And, I mean, I always I don't begrudge anyone what they're trying to do with their life, but I could concur with his perspective. You know, we've had lots of kids come in from the Conservatory of Music in Phoenix or the full sail in Florida, or there's chill coffee, Ohio. You know, a number of places I've had some of them literally say to me, I got my degree. Now, you know how long before I mix in the Rolling Stones kind of thing,

spk_0:   1:6:06
right? Right. It's

spk_1:   1:6:07
not how it works, You know? You gotta pay your dues. I don't care if you go to work for Claire Brothers, the biggest company in the world. You spend six weeks in the cabinet shop before you go to six weeks in the cable I'll before you go to six weeks polishing cabinets before you know there's a ladder that you climb to get anywhere, and the only thing that really works and allows someone toe earn something respectable in this business is hard work, just that simple.

spk_0:   1:6:32
There is a lot of trial by fire that goes on. I mean, back in the day when I was trying to get on a tour, I got my first tour. There was just an ethic that you didn't screw up, and if you did, there was a conversation about it.

spk_1:   1:6:44
Well, yeah, I mean, what's the saying? You're only as good as your last gig, right?

spk_0:   1:6:47
Right, right. And nowadays I see people making terrible mistakes daily on shows is just It's just part of the way it is with with having a younger generation that doesn't seem to care Aziz much. And you know, I heard that you guys were doing some more training and schooling of your employees. Is that Is that an ongoing thing there? Because it's really needed in this industry to teach people the right way.

spk_1:   1:7:09
We do a lot with employees, but we do a lot of public outreach as well. I mean, we have the A V l Expo in each of our offices where we have all kinds of manufacturers. Bring product in kind of a mini L D I, if you will or are a mini infocom, we do one in Denver, one in Phoenix, one in Milwaukee, and then we have a couple of other training elements as well to wear high school kids come in and learn about our ref frequency coordination or whatever. You know, I think we have to do something to continue to replant the forest, if you will.

spk_0:   1:7:44
Yeah, I agree.

spk_1:   1:7:45
Fire burns down the forest or the we cut down trees. We gotta replant, or we don't have anybody else to support us. And unless you want to be 80 years old loading the truck yourself, you gotta have somebody that knows what they're doing that's younger than you. So, John, what was your was BoDeans one of your first things?

spk_0:   1:8:02
My first riel tour, I guess, was BoDeans. And it was funny because I was coming off of a clear wing gig with with hog leg. Okay, I was on a clearing gig with Jeff and I think it was the Lieutenant Dan Band.

spk_1:   1:8:17
Okay, Gary Studies. Yeah,

spk_0:   1:8:19
Yeah, we did three dates, and then I got a call on our last date from I think, from Barbara Newman. And it was basically getting the gig, and I flew that right from there to the Marcus Amphitheater. Those So that was my first rial tour. But I had done some, you know, baby bands. Before that, there was the the Gulf's and okay, some other things. But

spk_1:   1:8:41
there's a Milwaukee ban. The BoDeans were just huge. It's summer fest for a few years in a row there. And, you know, you get an opportunity to start somewhere doing something with somebody, and you go out there and perform. I mean, I remember doing a gig. Get this is probably before your time, but they used to do shows out at Marty's If goes ballroom in Hartford.

spk_0:   1:9:00
Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. As if goes,

spk_1:   1:9:02
it started out as a roller skating rink. It's around building, and now they do just wedding receptions there and shit. But back in the day, we did Ted do Jin meat loaf. You know all kinds of people there, and I remember one night and you don't warn Martini ac, right?

spk_0:   1:9:18
Oh, yeah, sure,

spk_1:   1:9:19
it works our shop. We still chuckle about this one because there was one night when we did Iron Maiden out there

spk_0:   1:9:24
as it goes,

spk_1:   1:9:25
Yeah, and they had a bad night with somebody on their crew and they left this kid behind. I mean, that bus took off with all of his backpack in his driver's license and everything on the bus, and they left him behind in Hartford, Wisconsin. Bug Tussle, USA. They just they were mad at him or something. So you gotta perform you get stuffed behind in Hartford. Richard was concert.

spk_0:   1:9:53
It's for real. That's right. And it could have been something as little as a, you know, a guitar malfunction or something during the

spk_1:   1:9:59
show. You know, the drummer dropped a stick and you weren't there to hand of another one, you know, whatever it waas. Yeah,

spk_0:   1:10:04
I think I started doing bodeans in the late moves like late nineties early, two thousands. But before that, I had done every that's his house guy at every club in the city. I had worked for badger sound truly the work at that company was the best experience I could have gotten because I was literally on my own at each gig. And if there's a problem, I had to fix it. I learned so much by doing those gigs.

spk_1:   1:10:29
You know what? You're hitting on a really solid point because we say all the time it clearing. I take nothing away from somebody who has spent a bunch of tuition money to go to full sail or chila coffee or wherever more power to him. I would rather hire somebody who has spent the last three years doing a bar and bowling alleys. They just they know how to get into a box and tap into it, right? No matter where it is, they know how to do just about anything necessary to pull a gig off. And when you start at a school where you walk into the same medium every day, there's no variables. And what gives you your good gig experiences dealing with the variables

spk_0:   1:11:07
right? And more often than not, you have to deal with them with, like you said one or two minutes remaining before the show starts.

spk_1:   1:11:12
Oh my God on the fly have ever told you my Plas Matic story.

spk_0:   1:11:16
No, I got to hear this.

spk_1:   1:11:17
Have you got time? Absolutely. Okay, so this is at the palms, and this story is labeled the worst day in Greg Brown slicks life. And I won't tell you all of this story because there was a lot of decadence around my life. Right? At that point, I'll tell you the show part of the story. Okay, this was Wendy O Williams on the Plas Matics. And, of course, this was January 18th and I don't remember what it was. You can google it and find it, cause this is the night that Wendy O Williams was arrested by the Milwaukee Police Department in Milwaukee.

spk_0:   1:11:46
Oh, you did that

spk_1:   1:11:47
show I was mixing monitors for Wendy for that show. Yes, I have every detail for you right now. Right here, John.

spk_0:   1:11:59
Let's do it.

spk_1:   1:11:59
21st of all, let's let's see, How should I put this? I don't use the c word on many people, but when he had it coming, she was a nasty human being. So we did sound check in the afternoon and it was I need more monitor. I need more monitor. I need more monitor and everybody in the whole building is all. I'll just say it. Everyone was whiffed. Okay, so he was back in that period of time where the, You know, the drugs were pretty prevalent in Iraq scene, and this was the punk era tool. So anyway, she comes in and it's more monitor, more monitor, more monitor. I said, OK, is everything gonna be as it is right now? Meaning she's gonna come out the way. Shit. So we e que. The monitors for maximum volume blah, blah, blah. The show starts, and when he walks out and she's wearing nothing but a pair of white cotton panties and some strategically placed one inch strips of black electrical tape, right, she's wearing a black patent leather policeman's hat. Ah ha. Now I say that because

spk_0:   1:12:59
I know what's going

spk_1:   1:13:00
on. You know what the brim of the hat does? Two monitors, right? Well, I gotta back up just a second, because the show starts and it's supposed to be Wendy. There's a video honest digits, a sheet dropped in front of the stage, and there's a video of Wendy in a police chase. She's dressed in a full cop uniform, which is why she has the black patent leather had on. She's dressed in a police uniform and she's running from the cops. And there's this whole video on what's supposed to happen is the sheet drops down from the ceiling and there's a TV, but at the time, a CRT TV on a ladder down stage that Wendy swings a sledgehammer into the face of the TV and the glass explodes all over the audience. Okay, well, that was supposed to be the start of the show, okay? And it was. It was supposed to go uphill from there. So the video starts and Wendy's roadie comes running around. Where's the ladder? Where's the ladder? They had a white, small, a frame ladder. It was painted white. It was fair gear. It was exactly the right height to put the CRT TV on. So when Wendy swung sledgehammers, it hit the TV. Well, guess what? The ladder had been put under the stage on the lighting guy had run his feet or cable through Ratter into the disconnect. Okay, now, back in these days, the disconnect was like a inch and 1/2 wide bus bar, right in the open up? Yeah, and there's three fuses in a BuSpar. And you'd put on these gigantic alligator clips onto the bus bar. Okay? It was all fine to do when the both of pox was off. Video wars already playing the show is going. We said, Can we put it on the road? Case going? No, I have to have the FN ladder. It has to be the way. Get the clamps off. Just connect. We get the ladder Already takes the ladder. No, keep in mind. There's not powers up the boxes hot. It's open, but it's hot. So they take the ladder up to the stage to get everything ready in the video. I mean, the videos only, like, five minutes long. So we're dealing with all of this in five minutes. Right? So the lighting guy looks at me and he says you're stronger than I am. Can you put these clamps back on the bar? Oh, no. Oh, no. You're the moron that ran your feet. So he goes to put the clamps back on the buyers. He hits to bus bars at the same

spk_0:   1:15:30
time. Oh, no.

spk_1:   1:15:32
Whom the whole building goes down right 900 screaming drunk punk rockers in the dark Start tearing the place apart, man Crazy. Okay, so we run to the other and the building we replaced the main fuses. We get the show back up. Wendy does the show. And Wendy is a complete piece of work the whole time, you know, spitting. And and she's not this patent leather hat on. So of course, now the monitors air feeding bags so much high frequency into him yet yada, yada, yada, and the show is just complete decadence. When he comes out on stage half naked, they're breaking shit all over the place. And again, oddly enough, the back line had not this time lamps but potted plants all over the back lines. Oh, the end of the show comes when he comes out on stage with a shot gun and it's loaded with blanks. But it's a shotgun nevertheless, So the end of the show is supposed to be, she points the shotgun of the ceiling lays off a blank round in the downstage lighting trust crashes to the stage Oh, climax of the show. But before that she does that. She emulates flay Shal on the shotgun and then lays the shotgun round off the ceiling. That trust crashes to the floor. The guitar players run their guitars through the amplifiers. The guitar player on my side of the stage, because I'm mixing monitors, was a six foot six inch white guy with a black Mohawk wearing a complete French maid's costume, complete with garter belt and fish net nylons and a guitar tied just tattooed on the side of his head. The bass player on the other side of the stage was a little short block guy with a white Mohawk wearing nothing but a diaper with a giant diaper pin on it on. Wendy, of course, is half naked, wearing cotton panties and black electrical tape, and the sort of guitar players run their guitars through the amps kick over all the ants that drummer walks through the drum kit. There's broken glass and dirt from the potted plants and flowers and shit all over the stage, right? So Wendy goes off stage, and we figured the show's almost done. I mean, how could they do an on court off to the States? Right? When Wendy went off stage, the Milwaukee police arrested her backstage and she resisted. So you remember this picture of Wendy with her head in a frozen mud puddle and a tactical cops boot on the side of her face? It was on the front of the Milwaukee Journal the next day, also them the guitar player with the French maid's costume runs back on stage. He grabs the mic, and I think how they're going to do an encore. And and so we unused to Mike's. And he says, The cops are beating the shit out of window out back. So the audience goes freaking ballistic. There's bottles flying and chairs on fire. And I mean, the riot squad had a common clean the place out. So

spk_0:   1:18:36
did the gear survive?

spk_1:   1:18:37
Mike? It did, because it was above the stage on the wings. Yeah, they couldn't get at it. But that was chaos and complete cast that night epic at

spk_0:   1:18:45
the Palms. Was that the same place where the famed meatloaf encounter happened

spk_1:   1:18:51
when he walked offstage? Yeah. Yeah, that happened once at the Palms, and it happened once at Marty's If goes ballroom to yeah, when he got, like, halfway through the set and said, Screw it, I'm done and left. Yeah. Yep.

spk_0:   1:19:05
Do you address him as Mr Loafer? Just meat.

spk_1:   1:19:09
I don't know. I didn't talk to him at all. I just left along. Just left it alone. But, you know, another funny oneness. We did the police at the palms and they pulled up late in a van with a trailer behind the van. And I helped this guy carry an AM peg s v t up to the stage. I got to mix the police that night, which is one of my all time favorite nights ever.

spk_0:   1:19:31
Yeah, very cool.

spk_1:   1:19:32
It was walking on the moon eso at message in a bottle. You know, all the hit. They were so good. But I helped. This guy carries AM pig s V t up to the stage, and later on, he comes out and plays in its sting. So I helped him care. It is he was schlepping his own gear time. That's kind of fun.

spk_0:   1:19:49
Our friend Tony Trovato said that he once went down Teoh help you with a loaded, and it was Metallica in a van

spk_1:   1:19:57
at the Palms at the Palms. Tony boy, do we go back? I met Tony when he was, like, maybe just turned 15 years old. His band, Tripper was in a battle of the bands at the Palms. They used to have those things all the time, and and he was there with Tripper. Was he a character? Oh, my God.

spk_0:   1:20:15
I mentioned that I was interviewing you on the show, and his comment is a short pause. He went Well, I think it's gonna be It might be a long show

spk_1:   1:20:25
over Terry I pants stomach Alpine Valley.

spk_0:   1:20:28
Oh, is he the guy that you're referring to on the bio?

spk_1:   1:20:33
He was standing. I don't remember What show was some sold out show in Alpine Valley. Might have been like deep purple are sold out show at Alpine Valley. And you know, Tony, he walked downstage, right, And he was standing next to the P A. System, which at the time was like the size of the Empire State Building, you know, I mean, it might have been Judas priest or somebody was gun g Mex, and I remember that, and he was standing on the lip of the stage with his hands on his hips, kind of evaluating his kingdom as he does on I came up behind him, took his shorts right down to his ankles. 40,000 people and he just turned around. Looked at meeting. Went Really. I get so lonely. Oldest pants up and walked off. Yeah, so that's funny.

spk_0:   1:21:23
Well, guys, it's been a real pleasure having you guys on this show and talking about all this stuff, and we might have to do this again because it was really fun. If people want to check out anything going on with Clear Wing, there is a website clearing dot com. Is their information on there about the training that you guys do if people want to get involved?

spk_1:   1:21:41
Offerings. Clear Wing lived there? Yes, all the offices, all the community outreach stuff. We have gear for sale there. We have solicitations for new help there. Eso people are looking for a job or want to get into the business. You know, obviously got to start at the bottom and work your way up where I was taken on new folks. So, yeah, that's all on the web.

spk_0:   1:22:02
Jamison will definitely have to do this again because we never got to your electric car charging station, which I want to find out about. But if people want to get a hold of you, do you have ah website?

spk_2:   1:22:11
No word of mouth buddy. Tell him to contact you.

spk_1:   1:22:16
I'm just gonna tell I'll put in a plug right here. Jamison's the best. We were together all the years we worked at clearing, and we're still the best of friends. And if somebody's looking for a guy to take point on their project, I couldn't recommend anyone more than him. So you know, we would like to use him or we just can't afford him. But we would like Teoh. I'm kidding. We would like to use them or unclear ring projects. But usually by the time we talked to him, he's busy. So you know he's really good at what he does. Jamison,

spk_0:   1:22:43
Philip the Man, The legend. Jamison, Greg. Thanks for coming on the show. We definitely should do this again. Absolutely. This has been soft fast. Take part in the conversation on Facebook. Search. Soft past podcast. Soft bass. Thanks blue microphones. Visit them at blue designs dot com. The music by the sandy honest fan join us again next episode for more behind the scenes stories and experiences of working professionals in the music industry