2007
Let's Active
2007
CareySound's first tour
was with Mitch Easter's band Let's Active shown
playing here at Washington & Lee University in
Virginia.
Papillon's
2007
What can you say about
Papillon's. My best friend Simon Ritchy, first opened
this club in the Quaker Village Shopping Center as a
disco following the success of the movie Saturday
Night Fever starring a young John Travolta. When the
disco craze abruptly ended he started booking
national rock acts in the room and for several years
Greensboro was host to the biggest, most successful
rock club in the state. In an era of drugs, sex and
rockin' roll, perhaps the biggest unknown secret of
it's success, and then it's eventual down fall, was
that Simon was the most honest and honorable
promoters in the south. In that he stood alone.
In the picture bellow Elvin Bishop performs to yet another sold out crowd.
In the picture bellow Elvin Bishop performs to yet another sold out crowd.
Blackfoot
2007
One of my favorite bands
at the time, Blackfoot performed at the Kenneth R.
Williams Auditorium on the campus of Winston-Salem
State University. We have done a lot of shows at WSSU
over the years but this one was notable for being the
only rock show we ever did there.
Coffee
2007
There are two people that are most responsible for
our success in the audio business here in
Southeast. Both are great friends. One is Simon
Ritchy owner of the states biggest rock night club
Papillon's and the other is James " Coffee" Yourse
founder of the legendary band Covacus. Coffee and
his band Covacus helped us make the move from
nightclubs to major concert halls. Coffee's current
band is Sweet Dreams.
These pictures of Covacus were taken at a show in the collisium in Roanoke, VA. The first person to the left in the picture below is Barbara Weathers who was still in high school at the time. She latter went on to be the featured female vocalist in the band Atlantic Star (thanks for the correction Arron) and was responsible for their biggest hits with her knock out ballads.
These pictures of Covacus were taken at a show in the collisium in Roanoke, VA. The first person to the left in the picture below is Barbara Weathers who was still in high school at the time. She latter went on to be the featured female vocalist in the band Atlantic Star (thanks for the correction Arron) and was responsible for their biggest hits with her knock out ballads.
Secret Garden
2007
Located on Davies Street
in down town Greensboro, Secret Garden was the second
club to open in this spot after the Boardwalk closed.
It was owen by Que Lee (his second club in
Greensboro) and here we are loading in for a show.
Cosmos II
2007
Richard Bowling's dad
owned Greenboro's first sound company Bowling Sound.
Richard owned a succession of Greensboro night spots.
We started doing shows for him at his Florida Street
Club Cosmos II and worked with him until he stopped
doing shows. This is a picture of one of our many
nights at the club.
Alkaphonic's
2007
The many faces of
Greensboro's own, The Alkaphonic's. Mike Armeniox was
their Soundman.
Friday's
2007
Tate Street at the campus of UNC Greensboro,
believe it or not, was the center of the music
scene in Greensboro, It boasted no less than four
live music venues in one block. The biggest was a
restaurant during the day named Friday's that they
turned into a club at night. Among the many bands
that we did at that club was R.E.M, The Bad Brains,
The Fly's and the db's. Pictured below was a the
local favorite The Alkaphonic's. Keith Roscoe had
his guitar shop upstairs across the street.
100% Failure Rate
2007
This was one of the
first AHB (Allen & Heath Burnell) consoles sold
to the US market and it had the unfortunate notoriety
of having a 100% failure rate (it was officially 50%
but all four of the ones we got broke immediately).
It was the first desk that the British manufacturer
had farmed out to another company to be made and it
was on of the most poorly made desk I have ever had.
It wasn't that it was a bad design, it was just badly
made. The company that made the desk for AHB stole
the next design and sold it under their own name
Sound Tracks who went on to become DiGiCo. It's a
small world isn't it.
I had designed a monitor console that I was ready to build when AHB sent me one of the desks for all of the trouble we had had. Like I said earlier, the design was fine, it was the workmanship that was terrible, so I decided to use it as a platform instead of starting from scratch. Here I am starting to dismantle the desk. I completely striped it down, removed the faders and the subgroup buttons and rebuilt it into a our first dedicated monitor console. It had twenty inputs and was capable of 14 mixes when I was finished.
I had designed a monitor console that I was ready to build when AHB sent me one of the desks for all of the trouble we had had. Like I said earlier, the design was fine, it was the workmanship that was terrible, so I decided to use it as a platform instead of starting from scratch. Here I am starting to dismantle the desk. I completely striped it down, removed the faders and the subgroup buttons and rebuilt it into a our first dedicated monitor console. It had twenty inputs and was capable of 14 mixes when I was finished.
& Son
2007
I would never have
thought that John would have grown up to be a
SoundMan. Here he is at less than one year old at our
warehouse on East Sycamore St.
East Sycamore St.
2007
This warehouse on East
Sycamore was another of CareySound's many home's.
This was the sales counter. This picture was taken 25
years ago. showed up to work one day to find Mike
standing on the front poarch and cops and police cars
all over the place. They had found a dead homeless
man across the street and were looking for his shoes.
We moved shortly thereafter.
The Catalina
2007
The console, not the
band. This was Electro-Voices first concert mixing
desk before they bought Greg Mackies TAPCO and
introduced their second series the PANJO. This is an
early picture of the desk taken at Simon Ritchy's
club Papillon's.
Here is another shot of the Catalina with three side cars making for a 36 channel desk. An unheard of number of inputs for that era. The desk was eventually sold to Jim Reese of Audio and Light Rental.
Here is another shot of the Catalina with three side cars making for a 36 channel desk. An unheard of number of inputs for that era. The desk was eventually sold to Jim Reese of Audio and Light Rental.
Once More Back In The Back Yard
2007
I've lost track of
exactly how many different homes that CareySound has
had over the years but needless to say it's been a
lot. I started out in my backyard and then returned
their a few years later for a short while. Here is a
picture of Jay Speetjens helping to put up a work
building in my back yard where he built a lot of
loudspeakers for us and Associated Sound Products of
Raleigh. My neighbors "encouraged" me to move back
into a more suitable building.
David Emory
2007
Dave was a co-owener of Associated Sound Products in Raleigh with his partner Steve Foley. We were very close to them and traded shows from time to time. I guess they call that networking now. Dave and Steve are now rich after selling their business to their employes a few years back and are living the good life that comes to all hardworking soundmen. OK - so I lied a little and they aren't even rich in spirit but they did sell their business, or was it give it away, I forget. David is now one of our sales reps working for Bob Edsall who owns Applied Audio Marketing out of Asheville.
The Hayes Brothers
2007
Burly Hayes, owner of
Somewhere Else Tavern, and his brother Steve produced
an outdoor concert on a farm. I remember that Bill
Kennedy talked me into doing it for next to nothing
(I'm not exactly sure what he had to do with the
Hayse brothers) but I had insisted that we get get
extra money if it rained. It's bad enough doing a
show for next to free in the middle of the sweltering
southern heat, but add rain and it can be down right
torture, hence the hazard pay. It rained and we
didn't get the extra pay, but at least it was hot and
the only toilet that was in a small cabin behind the
stage plugged up really early in the day. On
retrospect, looking at that strange pile of speakers,
I guess that we were lucky to get any money at all.
We all had to start somewhere and we started
Somewhere Else. Thanks Burly.
Greensboro City Stage
2007
Ok, this wasn't an
official stage at City Stage. It was an alternative
festival that was at the same time and in the same
place as City Stage. If I remeber the City didn't
want to have two street festivals so close together
and they made the Arts Council integrate this event
into their festival. The stage was located next to
the parking garage on Davie St. If you look real
close you'll see a young Jay Speejens with his
Soundcraft 400B desk doing monitor duty. This was the
first of our Brown systems. Also not my favorite
performer vocal microphone of all time the EV PL80.