My partner (Bill Veldran) and I worked with many bands over the years when we owned and ran Centour Sound. One year we produced over 350 shows by either having systems out, in which we had 3 complete PA systems or was managing a club or on tour with a band. That year Bill was touring Europe with Motorhead, I was doing weekends producing the shows and bands at the Mudd Club and all 3 PA systems where out with bands like Jelly, Insex, Tom Robinson among others that I can’t even or don’t want to remember. All of that in between playing with the Lampshades band – Talk about living, breathing and eating Rock N Roll, WE DID IT.

Literally it went something like this – getting up at 12 or 1 pm – working on the equipment, repairs etc. – on the phone booking systems with bands – loading up the vans with equipment –  leaving by 6 or 7 pm – setting up and doing a sound check –  eating a quick slice of pizza – mixing the bands to 2 or 3 am – breaking down the equipment – loading the vans – driving home and unloading the vans as the sun rises – catching  a few hours sleep and starting all over again.

Our crew, that we sent out daily and especially on the weekends on shows were Chris Connolly, Gerry Palumbo and whom ever else we could grab to set up and mix a band. A complete PA system consisted of a full 3 way speaker system (Bass, Mid and High end), monitors, an amplifier stack with crossovers, microphones mainly the work horses of Mic’s SM57’s and 58’s, a mic snake, mixing console, mic stands and cable’s, a Roland space echo and EQ’s and a lot of humping of equipment around all over the dam place. We particular got into a genre of reggae bands from Brooklyn that we were getting a lot of work from–one band that stands out was Burning Spear among other local reggae bands in the area. This part of the business was so interesting as we did do some many different types of bands and  music. In future blogs I will break down some of the shows Centour sound produced in detail – some fun facts and great stories.