Shane Henry and Maggie McClure, a husband and wife duo, first started out without even having a band name. They wanted a name with boldness, adventure, and big dreams. Shane finally came up with a name and logo, which came to him in his dreams.

As it’s kind of hard to become a musical star in Oklahoma, the couple headed for Los Angeles. Now they have a couple of albums released. Their music is full of gritty blues-rock riffs, mesmerizing vocal harmonies, driving pop-rock tunes, heartfelt singer-songwriter ballads, delicious guitar tones, and dazzling solos. They’re really good. I actually enjoyed listening to them from the wings.

The band included Ryan Miller on Bass https://www.instagram.com/slapmillerokc/

And Jordan Oliver, on the drums. https://www.facebook.com/SoulBubble

Everyone in the band was super easy to work with and as friendly as could be.

We were all impressed with Shane’s guitar pedal board and the great sounds which he could produce with it. He explained that he and his father in law had a business building guitar pedals, Westerlund Audio. Shane described the Westerlund ONE pedal as his desert island pedal and the Swiss Army knife of pedals. For more information visit www.westerlundaudio.com.

Check their website at https://www.imaginariesband.com/ for more information about this great band, their history, touring schedule and merch!

Some more band links:

https://www.instagram.com/imaginariesband/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/imaginariesband

https://www.youtube.com/theimaginaries

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With a swinging rhythm section (Bass and Drums), and full complement of a horn section, and two fun frontmen. (Plus a great guitar player and keyboardist) And if that’s not enough there’s the added bonus of beat box to liven things up! If you want to see a great energetic and highly entertaining band, Phat Cat Swinger is one for you. They are off to do some shows in Las Vegas next, where I’m sure they will be greeted with enthusiasm.

After their set, and a quick four minute change over of the stage Jay Leno came out without announcement and made the crowd laugh until they cried. He has been here a few times, and I wrote about him in my book, Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories.

Jay is always friendly and happy. When he arrived he came to our crew break room to say hello to everyone. Afterwards I presented him with a copy of my book. When I stopped by his dressing room he was skimming through the pages. He commented on the chapter about Art Garfunkel. Apparently Art is well known as the guy I wrote about in the first part of the chapter about him. I’m glad to have yet another chance to work with Jay. He is one of the most down to earth entertainers who I know.

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But today I want to talk about the heart of what makes a theater: its crew—and specifically, some of the new young people.

If you’ve read my book, you may remember a chapter about a new kid I called Ducky. That was eight years ago—and wow, has he become an important part of our organization since then. Right now, he is technically my supervisor. Crazy.

As amazing as his rise has been—from a new person with almost no knowledge of the business to where he is today—it isn’t unique, just highly unusual.

We now have a new batch of “kids” (they’re really in their twenties, but they’re kids to me). Some are outstanding.

Let’s talk about two of them.

First, there’s Jason.

Jason is a bright young guy who wants to work as an audio engineer, and as you can see, he’s already moving toward that goal. As it turns out, he’s also one of the more gifted new hires—although he doesn’t know it, even if you were to tell him.

I’ve also taught him how to run our video rig, which he learned faster than anyone else I’ve trained. He’ll need to work on his confidence, but he absolutely has the potential to thrive in this line of work.

Right now, my top pick to skyrocket to success is a young woman named Sarah. She is, without question, the brightest, most organized, and most driven new technician I’ve seen since Ducky showed up on our doorstep.

I keep thinking she’s been here longer, but she says it’s only been about nine months.

She excels at nearly every task we give her—and then some. Ducky had even started teaching her the art of mixing monitors until our Executive Director put the kibosh on that effort. Which brings me to the “troubles” section of this post.

One of the reasons we need to teach a “new kid” how to run the monitor board— one of the most technical and responsible jobs in a venue, is because we no longer have anyone doing that job in-house. We are currently relying on contractors.

Our monitor engineer/audio assistant, Kerry, stepped down from mixing. He simply didn’t need the stress anymore. The place burned him out. After mixing hundreds—literally hundreds, possibly thousands—of shows, along with many other duties, he’d had enough. I empathize completely, as I stepped away from mixing myself years ago. Not gonna mix again.

We were all hoping Ducky would step into that role, since he had been mixing frequently as the second monitor engineer and had become extremely good at it.

Good luck keeping track of this story!

Last year my ex-roomie Jack retired. He was our front of house engineer. (Main sound guy for the civilians out there.)  He was replaced by everyone’s first choice: Jon, an incredibly talented and knowledgeable engineer.

Then my longtime friend, business partner, and other ex-roommate Tom—our Operations Manager and Technical Director—also retired. After almost a year, he was finally replaced by Steve, one of our smartest and best technicians, who had been working in the city’s IT department. (Steve had also been a monitor engineer here before leaving to IT.) He was fired without cause after only a few months.

Then Paula—our Stage Crew Supervisor and my favorite boss ever (and everyone else’s too)—was promoted to the front office. A big step up in pay and prestige. While this was a huge loss for the backstage crew, we were genuinely happy for her. (The smart move would have been to keep her backstage and pay her executive wages.)

After a loooooong time, Paula was replaced by Brenda, a valued tech, especially on the lighting crew. Brenda lasted only a few months before being let go in the middle of a workday.

Meanwhile, Rogan—our Master Carpenter/Rigger and union president—finally retired after years of talking about it. His assistant, Alma, had already left more than a year earlier and was never replaced. Her position remains open.

Ducky, realizing the audio assistant job was unlikely to open anytime soon (based on the painfully long delays in filling other positions), applied for assistant to the Operations Coordinator. Both Ducky and a wonderful, talented young technician named Tori were hired. Everyone was happy—both are incredible people and excellent techs.

Then our Operations Coordinator, James, decided he’d had enough of the bad management above him and quit. His job was integral to our operation, especially since he had already been covering the duties of the Stage Crew Supervisor, including scheduling the crew.

Which meant Ducky and Tori were suddenly doing all the work of the Operations Coordinator, the Stage Crew Supervisor, and their assistants.

So now they’re my supervisors.

Circling back to Sarah: our Executive Director has now decided that since Ducky holds a coordinator position, he can’t touch the soundboard (because union blah blah blah). Which means he can’t teach Sarah—or Jason—how to run monitors.

P.S. Ducky is also on the union board. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

Simple, right?

The Titanic has hit the iceberg, and our Executive Director is trying to turn the ship around for another pass.

What’s holding this place together now is a handful of longtime crew members and the courage and dedication of a few young technicians who have stepped up to enormous challenges under chaotic and deeply flawed management.

So kudos to the “kids.”

My hope is to work another couple of years, helping these young crew members carry this place forward for decades to come and live the dream—just as my friends and I did for so many years.

Fingers crossed.

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Guitarist Terry Sylvester of The Hollies told me the story of how it accidentally became their biggest hit during sound check tonight.

“A DJ in Germany was playing the A side of the record we recorded, it was late and he was feeling lazy- so instead of getting up out of his chair to grab the next record to play, he just flipped over the record on the turntable and played its B side. And the song on the B side was “Long Cool Woman.””

“Long Cool Woman” wasn’t like our other songs, it didn’t have the three part harmonies we were known for. We figured that our fans wouldn’t be interested in it. So we used it as a B side song, nobody expected anyone to pay any attention to it at all. But as soon as that first guitar part started playing, the red lights on the DJ’s telephone switchboard started lighting up! People started calling in like crazy, and the next thing you know we were on a world tour with a number one hit song.”

Also, tonight The Lovin’ Spoonful played. Rob Bonfiglio, the guitar player (also, Carnie Wilson’s husband), has been here many times with various bands. Rob last played here with Al Jardine and the Pet Shop Band, who I wrote about in a previous post.

I was glad to get to see Carnie, who I missed at the Al Jardine show because I was so busy. But she has always been a sweet person who is always friendly to me. So I quickly ran backstage to say hello, and had a short chat before going back to work on stage.

Talking to Jeff Allen Ross, the keyboard player (and vocalist) of the Hollies and Lovin’ Spoonful, we found out that we are practically neighbors. So we talked, naturally, about our shared home turf.

Closing the evening was Gary Lewis and the Playboys.

So all in all a good day on the stage. Filled with interesting conversations and talented musicians. Pretty much why I decided to dedicate most of my life to this business in the first place.

Photos and video below.

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He was sitting stage left in the wings struggling to put his feet up on a rolling cart, so I offered to get him an apple box, to which he declined. But this started a conversation. I asked if he still lived up in central California. He lives in the Big Sur area. I told him that I had taken a drive up highway 1 many years ago before the road closed, but the next time I took that drive I discovered the road was washed out when I came to it’s end and had to drive a small road back to the 101. He reminded me that it was Naciamento road, which joins the 101 at fort Hunter Liggett. Exactly as I then remembered. He said that although it’s not to bad if you’re on vacation – as the drive is still nice, but as a resident, the two plus hours drive is tough for residents to get into the city in both directions, north and south. “It’s not always as easy as one thinks living in paradise,” he said. I told him as I was keeping an eye on real estate on the big island in Hawaii, and I always thought about that when looking for houses because of floods and lava. One must choose wisely. And, also the story of when I lived in the hills here in LA that a tree crushed my house and my car. I lost most everything. Paradise at work.We talked about travel, as I want to go to Thailand in a couple of years when I retire. I was surprised that he had never been there on any tours. He said, ” I made it as far as Singapore, but never Thailand.” So I said, ” I guess you still have things to do and places to visit in your life!”We talked about New Zealand and Australia, where he said they had a lot of fans, Australia in particular, and he loved to visit. But then I needed to go back to work, as there was a small audio problem on stage, and he had to go back out to play for sound check. I had received a graphic from the company which they wanted to display on screen the day before the show, but it was square and didn’t fill the 16×9 screen so I did a bit of work to fill it out for them. I displayed it for Al on the screen, and he liked it, so we decided to use it for the show. I’m glad about that, and will give it to them to take on the road. I always love when I get a chance to talk with the performers, especially when I have worked with them over the years, like Al. Also “Weird Al” Yankovic showed up at the end of the evening and I got to meet him. which was cool! So another good evening at work.

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The load-in went smoothly. The band and crew arrived in a bus with a large trailer. They are traveling light for this tour as they have a series of fly days. I believe they were recently in Europe and in the morning they will fly to Hawaii. So they are traveling with limited gear, making everyone’s day easy. The crew, including Johnny, their monitor engineer, with whom I worked with most has been professional and super easy going, making for a good day.

I took a few photos from stage, so without further adieu, here they are.

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But tonight my story is not about the bands and crews so much as it is a personal story. If you read my book Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories, you would have read about my time spent with my friends at the mall, whom I like to refer to as ‘The Old Guy’s Club”. A group of older Vietnam war veterans. One of them who I consider one of my best buddies, Cecil, is a fifty year martial arts champion and Sensei.

When I told him that I was working with the Temptations he said to me, “Really? Otis was one of my students and a good friend! Make sure to say that Sensei says hello.” (For those who don’t know Otis Williams is the last surviving original,  and founding member of the Temptations)

So of course, since I love Cecil, when Otis arrived, I went to the dressing room and gave him Cecil’s greeting. He was very happy to hear from Cecil and asked, “Do you have his number?” Which I do. So I called Cecil and put him on speaker phone. Cecil had forgotten all about our conversation and was very surprised! I ended up giving Otis Cecil‘s contact information so they could catch up later, as it has been a few years since they have talked to each other. It warms my heart to have been able to hook up two old time friends after them being out of contact for so long. (It’s not easy to get a hold of famous performers, so it may have been hard for Cecil to contact Otis.)

I’ll include some photos below.

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In the middle slot for the night was KT Tunstall. KT has been through our venue before. She’s a talented musician. Playing guitar and singing. She also plays percussion. She’s a looper. Making music by starting different rhythms using percussion and guitar lines, and running them through looping pedals to create soundscapes that form songs. A pretty cool type of music which I happen to like. She also brought along her cute little dog to sound check. 

The opening band tonight I had never heard of before, but they are a pretty rocking band. They’re called Vertical Horizon . Tight with good songs. I enjoyed listening to their set.

All the musicians and their crews were nice people today and the day went better than expected, although it is a long one and we are back tomorrow for 90’s Mixtape Live.

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Easy Peasy. Load out isn’t until tomorrow night as we have a second show tomorrow night, so it’s a walk away tonight!

Also, it’s a sell out show!

Excellent.

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Next up, and opening the show was Tommy Tutone. He played acoustic guitar with his band-mate Greg. You may or may not remember who Tommy is but I’m absolutely sure you will remember his 1981 song “Jenny”, which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Still don’t remember. Well here’s her phone number: 867-5309.

Tommy wanted to walk out into the audience during the show and then head out to the lobby to sign autographs near the merch table, so I gave him a short tour of the facility and introduced him to the usher staff (Penguins as I like to call them). While we were out there chatting he told me “I’m almost never recognized out in public, unlike some other musicians.” to which I said, “That’s probably for the best, you can live a normal life, but you still have one of the most recognized songs of all times. You’re famous enough for me to get a photo with!” He was a really nice guy and you can see the photo above.

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