[blog.line6.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-13 13:47 by bv.

Cool read Koen. Thanks!

A lifelong dream to be a roadie? Talk about low aspirations
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jazzbass
A lifelong dream to be a roadie? Talk about low aspirations
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I am not sure I got all the ins & outs of the link koen posted -many thanks koen, I really enjoyed the read -
but why being a roadie wouldn' t be a lifelong dream for a man who likes his job and doing it?
As I always says, not everybody can be a president, a head singer or a famous head singer.

"....But if I had to come up with the thing that sticks in my mind most about being on the road, it would have to be being on the Stones stage on a night when they are so unbelievably ON. Usually during a show I’m not really paying attention to it. My mind is on the next song and getting the guitars ready for 4 or 5 minutes from now. I’m always thinking ahead. But sometimes I’ll stop for a second and say to myself “What is that I hear?” and I’ll look around to the other guys I work with backstage to see if they hear it too and pretty soon we’re all at the top of the stairs and we’ll see that the guitar players are huddled up in front of the drums and they’re all smiling and at that moment they sense it and we sense it. That at that moment the Rolling Stones are playing as good as they can play and they are absolutely on their game. I can honestly say that it doesn’t happen at every show. In fact it only happens maybe a dozen times in a whole tour. But when it does, man it’s something to see."

Sounds like a pretty amazing life, and the veritable opposite of a "low aspiration". Thanks for the cool read.

"In 1976...There were only about 12 guys on the crew...Now the Stones crew numbers around 120."

A big jump!

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Title5Take1
"In 1976...There were only about 12 guys on the crew...Now the Stones crew numbers around 120."

A big jump!

Just your standard government department!

At the job I currently hold we occassionally have to set up stageing and everything that go's along with putting on a show. Lights and sound and the instruments of course and I can tell you it's really tough physically hard work. The stageing is heavy even with today's lighter stronger materials and try lugging a baby grand around sometime. Then you have to take it all down again after the show with quite often not much time to do it in. The life of a roadie wouldn't be easy I'm sure and I don't think it'd be for me?

Does a roadie really handle the guitars? Don't they have guitar technicians for that? Or even assemble the stage? Maybe they did everything in the past. But now?

I'll bet roadies, especially in the 70s, got to see the grimy things groupies would do just to get to the band. I'm sure that warps your perspective.

—Ronnie in his book RONNIE said roadies work harder than anyone.

—VH1 profiled a groupie who'd slept with rock stars from Keith Moon to Trent Reznor, and said, "I never slept with a Rolling Stone, but did sleep with some of their roadies." I have to say—as Keith once said about a lot of groupies—she wasn't too attractive (so I didn't envy those roadies). And she lived in a trailer park, so didn't exactly sleep her way to the top.

Haven't seen Johnny around 2012-2014.

[www.youtube.com]

Johnny Starbuck backstage in Hamburg 2007.

Very nice.

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Keep On Rolling

Fantastic interview with Johnny Starbucks. Great perspective on what goes on behind the scenes.

I would love to roadie for the Stones.

I'd probably dig roading with any band for just a tour. How do you get into being a roadie?

Johnny Starbuck was more than "just a roadie" for the Stones. By the way, the roadie job is an important task, and I think it is wrong to look at that job as someone who just handle guitars, work on stage. Some might have seen "roadie" pictures of Ian Stewart from the good old days...

There is a good article about Johnny Starbuck here:

Who is Johnny Starbuck?
[lovecohen.com]

By reading the tour programs you may see who is in charge of the stage and all other parts of the tour organization. The person in charge of the stage as see from the guitar technicians, what I would call the stage manager, is titled "Backline Crew Chief". Royden "Chuch" Magee had that position with the Rolling Stones until he sadly was suffering a fatal heart attack during the rehearsals in Toronto Thursday evening July 18, 2002:

Chuch Magee
[www.iorr.org]



I think Johnny Starbuck was involved in managing the backline crew and the technicians at the beginning of that tour, i.e. FORTY LICKS, then Pierre de Beauport took over the stage management postition as "Backline Crew Chief" some time during that tour, and has been in charge of the technicians i.e. the backline since then.

This is from the "Who is Johnny Starbuck" article:

"Chuch died of a heart attack during the rehearsals for the Licks Tour and Keith and Ronnie had me take Chuch’s place as Ronnie’s guitar tech. Not being a guitar player, it was quite a responsibilty for me, but I learned a lot and did the whole tour without getting myself or Ronnie into too much trouble. For the beginning of The Bigger Bang Tour I bowed out of that position telling Ronnie that he deserved a real guitar tech that knew more about guitars and amps than I did, and Pierre thought it would be a good idea to have one guy just to do the re-stringing and tuning of all the guitars… Keith’s, Ronnie’s, Mick’s and even Blondie’s. So I took that on. It’s a big job,since there are about 65 guitars on stage every day that have to be show ready.”

Bjornulf

Nice articles and this pic is from the lovecohen.com article.

Looks like Mick Taylor maybe in the background.






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-04-13 17:01 by crawdaddy.

Great article...thank you for posting it!

Sorry to bump up an older thread, Bjornulf, but I thought the history here significant --

I didn't read this article in july 2012, so thanks 35Love for pulling it out in august 2017. Great story; roadies are essential for a show to happen. I rise my cup to them!
Rockandroll,
mops

Where is he btw?

Outstanding

Johnny Starbuck lives in the same town in Mexico that I do, and we bump into each other occasionally (we met when I mentioned to his wife, seeing her Stones Tshirt, that I loved the band. 'Oh, you should meet my husband..' she said, introducing him to me).

He is a charming fellow, for sure, and it's great to hear some of stories from his Stones days.

One day he gave me a couple of guitar picks, with tongues and KR name on them!

A great guy for sure.

thanks Koen, great read !!!

"...at that moment the Rolling Stones are playing as good as they can play and they are absolutely on their game. I can honestly say that it doesn’t happen at every show. In fact it only happens maybe a dozen times in a whole tour. But when it does, man it’s something to see.

At that moment I always say to myself, ‘THIS is why I do this. THIS is why I keep coming back to do this job.’ There’s nothing like that moment. At that moment you realize that they truly deserve the title Greatest Rock ‘N’ Roll Band in the World. And I also realize how damn lucky I am to be there."

precious moments !!!

had the pleasure of meeting him over a couple of cold ones during the Licks tour. Lovely bloke.

Very good article.
I wonder what he does and how he is able to live when the band is not touring.