If It Ain't Broke, Break It

Anything out of the ordinary is a welcome thing for me on my current gig. I do 10 three-hour shows every week with one day off. It's the same show over and over again. It's a lot of fun though because we (the band) are constantly entertaining ourselves on stage and the inside jokes never stop.

However, I must be careful of what I wish for, because yesterday, I certainly got it. Our bandleader, Marc Sohier, came up to me an hour and a half before the first of two shows and said, "Armen, we have a problem." See, I was having lunch/dinner with my wife and just relaxing in the dining area. I was planning on finishing our meal, doing a sound check, putting on my makeup, and then starting the show. "They were cleaning the inside of one of your sound modules (Korg Wavestation A/D for those of you keeping score) and the tech removed the battery that keeps all your sounds in memory when the unit is turned off. So all your sounds are gone." Because I "inherited" this keyboard rig and was told that everything was backed up, I never double-checked to see if in fact there was a backup. Apparently, there were two backups made for this unit, but they were no where to be found.

In short, I looked at my wife, smiled, and said, "I've gotta go." I went into the type of calm that I would imagine one experiences as the plane is going to crash into the ground and they quietly accept their own death. I became very focused because I knew that I would probably have to program new sounds for the entire show in a matter of 30 minutes. Usually, you could spend days programming sounds on this unit for a show like this. This is a sound module that I'm not familiar with, but if you've programmed any synthesizers in the last 10 years, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out. It's amazing how quickly you can learn how to program one of these things when you're under the gun.

I did the best I could, made it through the sound check, put on my make up in 20 minutes (usually takes 45-60 min.), the show went on as I continued to tweak sound patches during the show, and I received kudos from the Marc. Whew! Marc came up with a great phrase during one of the shows when things were going haywire, and I'm going to use it right now: This was "too much situation."