Sound Engineer - A/V Technician - Sales Associate - Guitarist - Nice Guy
As a youngster I dreamed to work in the music industry. Guitar lessons began at the age of 8 and continued on and off for the next 10 years. By high school my dream had boiled down to the profession of sound engineering. Studying of music production and sound engineering began at the age of 16 as part of the year 10 high school certificate and continued through the next 4 years. After completion of high school and certificates 1, 2 and 3 of music production at Whitefriars college and Croydon High School I enrolled in the Advanced Diploma course at the School of Audio Engineering in Melbourne, Australia.
In June of 2005 I was accepted into a mentoring program run by the Freeza group. Run by the Victorian Government, the program connects young people aspiring towards a career in the music industry with well established professionals. I was paired with Paul Martin, owner of the PA system at the Corner Hotel, Northcote Social Club, East Brunswick Club, front of house engineer for Augie March, The Living End, Dan Kelly & the Alpha Males and many more notable Australian and international acts.
Thanks to Paul, in September of 2005, I started interning at the Corner Hotel at the age of 19. After spending 5 months assisting the in house techs, learning monitor and front of house systems and dealing with many touring Australian and International bands, I became the Corner Hotel's youngest in house tech.
My job at the Corner helped my studies at SAE greatly. I was able to apply my theoretical knowledge from the classroom in real life situations, often under great pressure in a live sound environment. My colleagues at the Corner recommended me for jobs elsewhere, one of which was with B.S Sound Reinforcement. The owner of B.S is Mark Barry, he had me working on all of his larger PA setups throughout 2006-2007. Mark's PA is as old school as they come and a great way for a youngster like myself to learn the ropes of setting up a full outdoor festival PA system.
Some friends at SAE one day mentioned a company they had been working for called Vivid Audio. Vivid had recently moved from being a company which hired our small PA's and DJ setups, to being a company with large PA's installed in a few clubs and bars around Melbourne. Dave Galea at Vivid needed a tech to work every now and then at two of his clubs as an in house and front of house tech. By the end of 2006 I would be working for Dave at these two clubs every weekend mixing most of the bands to play there. This led to relationships with many bands, mixers, bookers, tour managers and other Melbourne music personalities.
In September 2006, another friend Dan O'Callaghan recommended me for a job with a company called Audio Visual Dynamics. AVD is a corporate A/V company with in house tech's in some of Melbourne and Australia's biggest venues including the MCG, Docklands Stadium, Sofitel and many more. Through working with AVD I was able to learn a huge amount of skills in lighting, vision, presentation and operations. Through working at the Corner and AVD I soon met Mick Summerton, who had been involved in hiring me at AVD but at the time worked for another corporate AV company called Microhire. Working for Microhire I was given a great deal of responsibility and was thrown into a steep learning curve about client relations and acting as "the face of the company". I was soon after working with AVD, Microhire, Vivid and working night shows at the Corner. I had achieved my life time goal of being a full time sound engineer.
This busy working life continued until March of 2009 when I would jump on a plane to explore Canada and it's surroundings for the remainder of 2009 and early 2010.
Watch this space....
Monday, December 7, 2009
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