CX Magazine - The News Magazine for Entertainment Technology

CX knew him for a decade prior and ran into him in unlikely places. One was Hamilton Island where the first auditorium was burned to the ground. Richard was supervising the second and duplicate audio installation. Other times he would appear at the opening of a new recording studio - he designed more than 100 over his career.

CX first knew Phil from the road.

As the FOH sound operator for Mi-sex, I probably spent more time with Jeff Merryweather than just about Anyone for a brief but incredibly hectic 4 months in 1979. At the time I didn't Realise that Jeff was the most complete roadie that I would ever witness.

Expelled from school and having worked briefly as a copy boy for the defunct Sydney Mirror, I took my only $12 and registered my first business on March 1^st, 1973. The Certificate of Registration for Zapco Lightshow was framed and hung above my old desk at home. I was 15.

Blame Led Zeppelin; whose concert at Sydney Showground blew me away the previous year. I saw the Jands guys with their blue painted PA serving the side seats that the promoter had sold over the top of a sellout. I was amazed at the Showco PA that towered either side of the scaffolding stage. It rocked. I had the bug, bad.

I'd already accumulated some lights: a slide projector, black light, and built a mirror ball with little one inch square mirror tiles that came on a cloth backing sheet so you could decorate a really trendy bar. Coloured Par 38 lamps were $5 each at Radio House. I bought a Jands 3 channel chaser and a feeble strobe that Ian Eastman built for me.

Gary Glitter is today better known as inmate Paul Gadd and is doing hard time in a Vietnamese jail for child sexual abuse. But in the early 80’s he was on the revival trail and became the first significant overseas act for a local promoter, who scheduled a run of the east coast of Australia. Glitter had been a major act in the early 1970’s, and remained a kind of glam rock icon, earning great money, until he overstepped the mark and became a convicted pedophile in the late 1990’s. This story doesn’t condone what he has done, and he has seen the inside of courts and jails in the UK, Cambodia and Vietnam.

When former Chisel roadie Gerry Georgettis took his life in dramatic style early last year, media from around the world picked up the story. How could a seemingly placid, stable theatre manager go suddenly crazy and burn down a car dealership in Miami; then hang himself in a cramped airplane toilet? What darkness exists in a human heart, some of the more intuitive media asked? Gerry’s brother Joe summed up at the funeral – “He liked beauty, and he liked the beast”. How does the music industry affect those who serve? Tour veteran Michael Lippold put it this way: “A call from my older brother has helped put things into perspective; he pointed out that we ‘roadies’ are different to the norm, somewhat like the Vietnam vets, damaged by their experiences, some physical, some mental, some both. The vets have done something about it and it is time that we did the same for our ‘brothers’.” So what was it like, through the halcyon days of the Australian music industry, when guys like Michael and Gerry rose up? Gerry went on to tour manage Bon Jovi, and work with the elite. Michael worked for Midnight Oil around the world. I did the highways the back alleys and saw Australia driving the truck.

Dear People, I first met Swampy (Wayne Jarvis) when I was playing drums in the 'Wild Cherries" in Melbourne and worked with him many times as he was so good at keeping everyone together. The thing that made Swamps stand out from the other guys was his incredible energy and from 1968 to the LWTTT Tour, he was the same person, even though he had worked with Frank Sinatra and all the big guns of the Entertainment Industry, Swampy never changed as he was a really beautiful human being. He never let anything go to his head.

In 1973 there were two kinds of lighting. Stage Lighting in the Theatre (say it with a prim and proper English accent like this: Thea-a-tRe) or psychedelic lighting. Neither camp spoke with the other. The latter attracted me.

For those that have only worked in and experienced the entertainment industry of the last ten years, some of the most import people in the history of our industry may be unknown to you. Reg Batram, Dennis Irving, Jack Singe, Roger Barrett are big names from an era of technical production that is still recent history. Some are quietly retired, some have past on and some are still working today after many, many years.

The CX website states that the first custom lighting desk with flash buttons was made in the mid 1970s. There was at least one built as early as 1971. In 1969 I started in the lighting department at GTV9 Melbourne at the tender age of 19. I got the job on the basis of my past experience in amateur theatrical lighting. Some fisticuffs between a previous lighting tech and the head of the Department got me the opening I needed! It was not long after starting at GTV that I started to do some rock lighting on the side. The need for a compact desk with plenty of facilities for this type of work led to many discussions after work with electronics wizard Ian Whitelaw who also worked in GTV's lighting department. Ian offered to build a desk to my requirements if I paid for the parts and development work. This was agreed and, by 1971, the desk had been built and was in regular use at local venues under the banner of the "ESP Lightshow".

Sydney audio industry identity Walter Gerin died today at Calvary Nursing Hospice in Sydney. Walter had terminal cancer. He was in denial until this week. His story is told by Jeff Stewart, a friend and a former employee. Jeff was forced to close the doors at Anything Audio, Walter’s company, last week. “He had a cancer 18 months ago – and an operation. Then he got a lump in his groin, we suspect it was going on longer than he admitted, he is a typical male with the ‘I’m OK’ type thing. It wasn’t until the lump got bigger and painful that he got serious about it. The doctor's gave him a bit of a runaround, and he didn’t follow up as well as he could either.”

I would like to add my appreciation of swampy. A fond memory we used to tour via me being an employee of JPS with numerous acts. I remember one time going into the production office and as I usually did and asked if it was ok for me to be booked on the next flight home ASAP to Tasmania at the end of tour. He would look a bit funny and do as I requested.

I found this while cleaning up the other day and remembered the discussion: the advert clearly states WE INVENTED IT. Did they? Hope this adds some evidence. Regards Tom Benson In Phase Productions Port Macquarie

This is history. Kevin was there when crew didn't wear shirts, and when OH&S wasn't invented. These pictures show a different world, with some different equipment on the Australian scene too. Come into the time machine, as we go BACK to the early 1980's. And while you are with us, skip over to the HISTORY area, for our large archive of Life As We Once Knew It. LAWOKI, for short? It's where you can play pick the buff dude, and compare with today's often sad (but wise) version!

A few more pictures, this time of the rigs for some classic Australian rock bands. And words from John Pryzibilla, in Adelaide. This is a web-site of interest to me, because I worked in the industry from the late sixties to 1980, doing some lighting and early stage pyro, but mainly doing sound. I worked mostly for Trevmar Sound in Adelaide - rigging, mixing and finally managing the company before we sold up.

I just found an error in your website at: HISTORY! “In 1978, the 12" box truss and winch-up stand was invented by either Phil Salmon, or Richard White's Rock Industries (depending on which legend you listen to!)“ Well actually old chap the story goes like this…..

We remember Swampy: I was checking out your moving description of Swampy's funeral and Gig, and I speak for all of the Oz crew here in England this summer, Chris Pyne, Andy Greenhall, myself,Tony Szabo,and I'm sure all the others who are out touring the pound, when I say how sad we are for Kerrie and the girls. We remember the breath of Big World Touring that he brought to the Australian touring scene. He'll be much missed.

In the early nineties in Melbourne you wanted to work for Troy Balance or McLean Audio. Troy's seemingly had hundreds of Meyer MSL 3's and UPA's, mostly powered by Yamaha amplifiers, Yamaha PM 2000's, 3000's, Lexicon Processors and all in really nice wood grain racks and road cases. I still remember how easy it was to EQ those Lord Nelson wedges with the wooden horn flares.

More threading of the travails of the road, as Adelaide reader and industry veteran (love the 'V' word) Phil Eastick has some flashbacks...

This was the year that interest rates went past 20% while inflation was running hard at 12%. That sure stopped things! A very quiet start to the decade.