The 6th Man
(Originally posted June 11, 2013)
It's an appropriate moniker for the sound person in a live music performance. It is also an Oscar worthy movie from the 90s! The sound engineer is rightly thought of as an extension of the performer on stage, at least they should be thought of and think of themselves that way. Like most sound engineers I found we are wannabe (or at least at some point wanted to be) performers ourselves. My first experience with music was in my elementary school as apart of the music class. Then in middle school until I graduated I was in the school band and in and out of chorus. Janet Jackson was the first performer I wanted to be when I was little, then I wanted to be James Hetfield (what a leap that was), then I wanted to be Dave Matthews, then Sade , then Otis Redding and even now I want to be a combination of Adele, Dave Grohl and Julia Dale.
With my vast (or crazy) musical taste and the decline in music quality (at least in popular music) I was happy to watch a couple documentaries recently that got me wanna be-ing again.
Sound City - I remember watching the first teaser last year and waiting in anticipation - it didn't let me down. I purchased the digital download of the film and bought the CD - yeah like an actual CD.
A Band Called Death - I ran across this documentary on Apple's website. I had to buy this one too and bought the CD - yeah like another actual CD.
Good music isn't dead, its just harder to find and for a sound engineer like me it woke up my wanna be performer spirit - I am back to singing in the shower again! My husband doesn't complain which means I must sound good. Actually recently I saw a video by Alicia Keys & Maxwell that pretty much summed up how my husband and I met - we were singing to each other and everything, just like in the video, what a coincidence!
Speaking of singing; what goes good with good singing? Good beer and cool people. So living in South Florida we got all three when C&I Studios does their Live @ C&I Events.
Live Music + beer from The Riverside Market + People who like the live music & good beer = A Good Time
That above was math. I hangout with a great photographer that took some cool pics of the band Hoyle at the last event we went to at C&I. Hoyle was great - they are from all over Florida which means they are eclectic and have shirt tans or farmer's tan as some may know it.
more pics below, courtesy of @todrickmoore www.todrickmoore.com
Here is a list of where I peruse to find new music and new artist I wanna be when I grow up :)
Cheers!
Noise Trade free music site with new music and audiobook downloads with email signup - all genres
Band of the Day I think the name is self explanatory, cool site and app. with new and independent artist.
BBC Introducing has different unsigned, undiscovered and under the radar artist.
Singersroom features R&B music and has some really good finds sometimes if you don't mind navigating around the gossip articles.
Soul Culture is an online magazine with good music finds updated daily.
