"THE SOUND GUY WAS SO GOOD, WE PAID HIM TWICE" SAYS VENUE BOOKER

    “Wow! Just wow. That was amazing!”

    These were the words of Don Phillips, booker of the Trash Room, one of Milwaukee’s hottest punk venues. But he was talking not to one of the bands playing that night, but to the sound guy.

    “The way you switched the position of the vocal and kick drum faders while at the same time turning up the reverb on the tom drum. That was genius, man.”

    Ryan Davis simply nodded his head and went back to wrapping XLR cables. As sound guy for the Trash Room, it wasn’t his job to be the star of the show.

    “I just do my job every night, and work to make bands sound their best on stage, no matter their talent level. It’s nice to get a little recognition though.”

    Meanwhile the members of Radar Militia were packing up their gear. They are a touring band from Des Moines who had played that night, . Lead singer Phil Specter was engaged in giving away one of their CDs to an interested fan, with the hopes that he would offer some money in return. That did not happen, but he did promise to “listen to it in my car”. Phil then approached Don to settle up.

    “Hey man, did we make any money tonight?”

    Don barely heard him, as he was still dreaming about the perfect monitor mix he had heard wafting from the stage.

    “What?”

    “I said, did we make any money from the door?”

    “Well, we only had 52 paid entry. And you heard that amazing board mix…I just had to pay Ryan twice for tonight! This was probably the best live sound experience of my life!”