Buford Jones Interview — Reference, Trust, and the Art of Serving the Music

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:00:00):

We'll start where this was. Man, I did that good. I didn't think it was taking too long. But anyway, I was saying that like getting golf, I learned, I bought every putter. I think I've got seven now. And then a new driver knew this going to make me a better player. And my good friend who runs the cost of Mexico Country Club said, Beaufort is not the arrow, it's the Indian. Okay? But there still is something to be said about looking down and seeing, liking what you see. It makes you more comfortable. I think that applies with any option. Like I said, we teenagers and see a pretty girl walking by and you just wonder can she hold up to her good looks and what have you? But I certainly prefer her to looks, they always attract me first. Well, anything that I spend money on a boat and a car and whatever, I want it to look good and then I'll start testing its abilities.

(00:01:10):

So here we say, without a doubt the workmanship that is in these microphones. And I was putting out that also that my dad, I was raised, I remember when he got, I was probably eight years old when he got his West Bend eight foot metal lathe. And I'd watch him work on that lathe and he'd make pedal steels and he'd make the rods and everything. And I was always fascinated by the lathe. I tried to make a chess set in high school on a horse is very hard to do. The rest of 'em, I got along. But no, we're back to workmanship and looking at something that you're very impressed with. And these microphones just have impeccable quality to them. I think those of us that have, again, worked with good instruments and we look at something and you can see the quality with them, now you go further and test it.

(00:02:14):

Yeah, I buy the Tesla and I say, well, it looks good, but when I push the pedal to the floor, I say, oh yeah, it is good. It is good. It's real good. And so that's one of the best ways I know to bring the song on. I can tell the quality workmanship. Now, I have seen not a lot because I haven't been in the field in probably four or five years now, well, on a tour. So I've certainly heard of Earthworks. I'm familiar with Earthworks and everything that I've heard about Earthworks was very, very good. And now I'm getting to see some of it firsthand. So something that I like looking at and now I'm testing it. So I've had a lot of fun in just the last couple of nights of playing a little bit. It's actually three nights ago. And I'm trying to put an acoustic guitar to a song, which I think is very appropriate for the time.

(00:03:12):

Buffalo Springfield and Steven Still's for what it's worth. And so I was trying to get my acoustic guitar on there. I was using some micing techniques that I had tried with Eric Clapton actually, that I was doing this. And I'll say, I tried this with Eric Clapton, and this will be a story, but let's stay on the microphone a minute and then we're going to tell the Eric Clapton story. But when I see the principle behind it, and especially with the icon and taking the head off, and it appears to me to be a calibration microphone, and that wow, right off the bat interest me and to use the calibration mic for a vocal or instrument mic seemed like a no brainer to me. I love this. I love the fact that when I worked for Meyer Sound that John Meyer believes totally in an equal amplitude response device.

(00:04:14):

So the speakers that he makes, he bills them on pretty much their output is equal amplitude. Now most people call that flat and our flat response and all the union here doesn't want hear flat bunked all that. You've got to have a reference point. When I have a reference point that is accurate and that I trust, well then I trust what I hear back from it and I know what to do when I hear a curve that's been processed into a microphone or speaker or anything that you have, it somewhat annoys me that that has to be done in the first place. Well, maybe they're doing it to make it easier for beginners getting into it and they want something that sounded sweet right off the bat.

(00:05:05):

But I'm not one to agree with this. Well, flat frequency response, I don't want it flat. Well, I don't want it flat either, but I need a flat reference. And with that reference, then I'll make my curve the way that I want it to be. Meaning with EQ in the console, a processing within the console and down the chain. So these microphones to me, both of 'em are just amazingly right down the mount. I have not seen a mount like that. Now, maybe that's new, but it seems like no matter the position of the mic stand, that clip holder will allow you still to get any angle that you want. Now, still, we're not into the meat of the microphone, but that alone is another thing that makes life easier, that makes things simpler, that makes things better and more flexible and very easy to do, very easy to grab that little knob. And then I put the microphone precisely where I want it. And so that's very impressive. Now when I'm talking,

Mike Dias (00:06:16):

Go ahead. One thing I want you to notice while you're talking, just go ahead and move the mic, change the manhandle a little bit and just listen to the handling noise on it.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:06:27):

Oh, good. Listen to the handling noise. Now, of course, I don't think I'm hearing this, Mike, but at the moment

Mike Dias (00:06:36):

You heard the swivel a little bit, but there's no handling noise at all. The way that earthworks mics work, you could hold 'em in your hand and go physically set them where you want, move 'em around. There's absolutely zero handling noise on that. Wow.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:06:52):

Wow. Very impressive. So when I tell the stage tech that I want that mic lowered a little bit to give me a little bit better high end, lowered a little bit, then he can go make that adjustment while the drummer's playing and hope that he didn't get his hand in the way of the stick and get slammed real hard. But he can do that. So that's a very interesting feature and a very useful feature I would think. And very good. So I'm very impressed with that as well. I'm proud to have this in my studio. Getting back to the looks again, somebody that walks in and looks at this, okay, this is a serious microphone right here. And so now we start performance. Now, I haven't been able to do enough comparisons between the two. Now I do notice quite a change when I had two inputs going into logic.

(00:07:50):

I'm back to logic because I can't make Cubase work anymore because I've upgraded the big sir and it's just too much of a smile. So I'm going back to logic. I'm just going to stay in logic. I'm learning it all over again. So at any rate, I took both channels, identical paths into logic and recorded. Now, when I listened back to 'em, I did notice a difference. I would like to describe that difference much better that I'm able to at the moment. I should have given this in a listen last night to be able to talk to you today on it. Now, one of the other, it was around two to three K, I thought that I heard a difference, whether it be for the better or not, I don't know. I did hear a difference between the two mics. I would want to give you a precise answer, but I need a little bit more time to be able with the microphones to do that. I was very cognizant of, as you said in the instructions, not to directly pop into the center of the microphone

Mike Dias (00:09:01):

Actually with ethos. So on Icon, because it's a steel wind screen and a small cap, you want to have that at the angle. The way ethos was built, you can be right up on it an inch away. In fact, that's the best sound of it.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:09:17):

Okay, get right on it.

Mike Dias (00:09:20):

That's where you get your, so not only do they have slightly different signatures, but different use cases as well for the people who want to be up on a mic and ride it like a dynamic ethos in that windscreen do it and it's tuned to the windscreen.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:09:36):

Oh, okay.

Mike Dias (00:09:37):

So the windscreen's not an afterthought. It's tuned to it.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:09:40):

Well, am I accurate in saying that these microphones do sound a bit different from each other?

Mike Dias (00:09:46):

They do.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:09:47):

They do. And like I said, that's good when it comes to maybe different applications that they would use them for and

Mike Dias (00:09:58):

Just different flavors of what somebody wants, right?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:10:02):

Yeah, yeah. But again, I'm really strong about this reference point. To me, my thing if you told me and I trust your word totally. And then John Meyer would take an HD one and put it in front here and then give you a flat frequency response. And then we test the microphone, which is what he made the HD ones for. Originally when they was created, they were created as a test tool to record calibration microphones and to look at the frequency response of the microphone. And so he needed a equal amplitude source to go into that microphone. After Roger Nichols and Stevie Wonder used a pair, they were fascinated by him. And then he decided to make it a production item. And the HC one became a Meyer sound icon, so to speak, for quite some time nonetheless. So I am strong in that theory because I know what processing is available to us, and it's endless. It's mind boggling, endless in consoles now and what we have with Parametric eq. I can still remember when it was. I had Mason trouble knobs when I started. I remember when we added the middle and had three band EQ and a three way crossover. In fact, crossovers were two way when I started in early 70 and then finally go to Four Way and then all of that. Beaufort, how did you

Mike Dias (00:11:45):

Start?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:11:47):

Well, I started, I got a degree in electronics in college, and my dad encouraged me get an electronics field, and he was certainly right about that. And so I had a degree in basically electronics. I started working with stereos is what I did right after I got out of college. And I really enjoyed it. It was the type of thing where it was the biggest, one of the biggest repair centers in the United States. It's called Electro Me. It was in Dallas, Texas, and it was warranty service for everybody but Sony. And so Pioneer, San Zui, Hitachi, whatever stereo you can name I would work on and fix it. And to me it was a great challenge. Set it on my bench, figure out what's wrong with this thing, put it together, make it work. And that was fun. That was fun. That's always been fun to me.

(00:12:39):

I like to fix things. So after I'd been there about a year and really enjoyed it, and I was doing some part-time work at a place called Control and Computing devices that hired me. He makes things that are projects that ti spins off in Dallas so that smaller electronic companies can keep busy. And he built, his name was Cliff Montgomery, and he designed and built the first seismograph that went to the moon and stayed on the moon and read the thing there. So I was learning that and I was really, really enjoying all of this. And in fact, if I'd have stayed with that guy, that'd have been great. He made all sorts of really cool stuff that did not use computers as we think of them, but they were computer chips and he would design the whole thing. But anyway, so I'm digging this and then somebody comes to me.

(00:13:35):

I'm trying to make it short as to how I got into the business, trying to make it short. But anyway, a friend comes up to me and says, Hey, you need to go down, talk to some guys. In fact, he was the cousin of Rusty Bruche of Shoko, and I did not know what Shoko was. I did not know anything about sound reinforcement. My dad and I had built some speakers that we jammed with in the garage, but I didn't know anything about live sound and professional touring. So anyway, I walked in the door at Choco, mind you not having a clue where I was walking into, I noticed these big speakers in there and I went, wow, I like to plug my guitar into them. That'd be some cool stuff. So anyway, I went and sat down with him and all three owners, it was a trial situation and Jack Cowes and Jack Maxon and Rusty Boucher.

(00:14:33):

And so they all three interviewed me and they like, okay, you got a college degree, that's great, and musician, that's really good. And you got a studio and you play with gear all the time. That's really good. And they said, then, are you married and 21, what has that got to do with anything? And then I realized that after I took the job with them about a year later, what that meant, because that means I was packing the big suitcase in a box of Tide and not coming home is what that meant if you were married or not. So because that was the work that was at that time, it was just a booming time. In 1970, Shoko had one sound system and had just completed or just almost finished the second sound system when I walked in the door. So they ended up, I think having a dozen I want, they call sound systems.

(00:15:28):

And so was, I walked in, I haven't a clue what this company does. I just saw big speakers. That's as crazy as it sounds, but that's the way it was. And so I figured I'd be doing a bench technician job. I came in the next morning, I was soldering connectors onto Belden 27 pair of snakes. And I said, okay, I know how to do this. I can get into this. And so I'm doing that. Well, I take a lunch, come back from lunch about two o'clock. This is the first day I'm at Choco. And Jack Maxim walks in the room and he says, Hey, go home, pack your bags and get back down here and you're going to load this truck up and you're going to go to Atlanta and you'll be on the Three Dog night tour, three Dog night. Wait a minute, that's a big band.

(00:16:19):

I've heard about them. I know them. Jeremiah was a bullfrog or whatever it was. So I said, yeah, sure. So I go home and pack my bags, come back, load the system up, and I'm driving to Atlanta. So here it is, two days after hiring on Choco, I'm standing on the stage in at Atlanta Fulton Stadium with Three Dog Night in their heyday. And it was quite like, wow. Stacked up all these speakers. And I said, wow. Choco had cleverly, I think made everything in a way that you really couldn't plug it in wrong by multi pin connectors and the secs of them that you could not plug them in wrong. It was pretty simple then. So getting the system up and going was no problem at all, no problem at all for me. And wow. And watching Three Dog Night Play and then, well, three Dog Night at that time toured only on the weekends. So that's rare for rock bands to do that. Country bands do that, but not rock bands. But Three Dog did and they only played on the weekends and then they went home. So instead of us coming home, I'd be out with a guess who, it's a beautiful day, the Kinks Traffic.

Mike Dias (00:17:50):

What were you doing for 'em at that time?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:17:53):

Well, I was a system engineer, so at that time it was mainly setting up the system and getting it done very few times to be able to mix. Most of those guys had mixers, most of 'em did. I think there was a few things I did, but I stayed close to Jack Maxon and watching him do Three Dog and Jack was very, very consistent, a very full and rich sound. I hear some comments nowadays of how bad the sound was back in the seventies, and I highly disagree, and maybe I was just young and crazy and didn't know what I was saying, but I was well impressed with what I heard with Three Dog Knight and Led Zeppelin was the other account that Shoko had with his two systems. And then I heard Rusty Boucher mixing Led Zeppelin. And I'll tell you what, to this day, I think that was the first time they ever experienced my vision going into a blur when John Paul Jones would play some low notes on the synthesizer, and you're just shaking.

(00:18:58):

It's like, wow. But not only that, but the sound was just full and rich, and I'm into the show. I'm into the artist. I'm too young to technically be judging everything or I have no reason to judge everything. This is right, this is wrong. This could be better. This needs to be this. No, I'm experiencing it for the first time. And I was very, very impressed with everything that I heard and saw. And we look back now on the power ratings. I remember when Prince was out with Purple Rain and I was talking to Ru Boucher and I said, when you were mixing Zeppelin at the Capital Center, 1971, what wattage did we have at that time? And he said, if I remember correctly, it was about 9,000 watts, 10,000 watts. And I go, what do you have on prints right now? And he said, about 240,000.

(00:20:00):

Okay, the math doesn't seem to balance out, but you see what I'm saying? It's like this is minuscule against what Prince has, but yet I was fulfilled as a listener. So that's how I got started. And that all of that, and working with these other groups in between Three Dog nine established an enormous amount of contacts for me in the business. I began to meet a lot of people. We'd do a lot of festivals. Shoko would be hard to do these festivals. Once again, I meet a lot of people and whatever they thought of me or I thought of them, it was a lot of fun at the time. It's really a hard gig. It's really, really a hard gig. I've always said, the two hours of Showtime, I'm fine, but the other 22 hours of the day is what I have a tough time with when I'm on the road.

(00:21:04):

So it's like when it comes around showtime, it's priceless. It's like one of those Visa or MasterCard commercials. It's a priceless thing. Well, it's priceless. It's priceless. And get to see as many as I have, I've had such a blessing there that I cannot believe when I look back, people always ask me, what's the best situation you were in? Or What's your favorite artist or whatever this, and it's really a difficult question for me. I mean between James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Brown and Pink Floyd to George Harrison, to Eric Clapton to keep going, David Bowie. I mean, none of these that I frown upon at all. And it was like something that just kind of came my way. I didn't have a resume until I moved to Nashville, and that was 1991. So that was 20, 21 years in the business. And actually I kind of thought I was going to make an exit out of the business, but that was short lived three months, I think it was the longest I ever went in 47 years of not being on the road.

(00:22:20):

And so it was like the phone would just ring, I'd finish a tour, I'd get home. I accumulated money in the bank because I'm not there to spend it. So I'd get home, there'd be a little money I had right to the music store, Arnold Morgan music in Dallas, huge, huge music store. And I'm buying tape recorders and microphones and guitars, and I go home and I'm jamming and the phone ring and Hey, you want to go out on the Jackson Brown tour? And yeah, yeah, okay, when's it start? It's in three weeks. Okay. Okay, fine. See you then. And it seemed like that process kept repeating itself. I get home and it's really funny, and Mike, you saw my studio and I think it's only until the last year that I've ever figured this stuff out. I get home and I can't remember on the road, I can't remember how I hooked it up.

(00:23:22):

I think when I got into my home in Dixon, when I moved to Nashville, I had a big area in the basement and I set equipment up everywhere. And I think it actually took me almost 20 minutes to power everything on. It's like I had so many gadgets, and I am such a gadget freak that though all the gadgets are plugged in and I probably wouldn't use them. I probably don't need them on this project or this, whatever, but they must be working. They must be on and they must be ready. So it's just a medusa of wires and this going on everywhere, collision. And I get home and I couldn't remember it. I'd sit there for hours and just try to figure out how to get it all back on again. So until, yeah, I retired that I started spending more time in the studio and say, well, I can put down a guitar track within three hours. If I sit down, usually I forget what I've gone into the studio to do by the time I get it working.

Mike Dias (00:24:34):

That's too funny. Beaufort, I got to ask you as an linear guy, how come you never, did you ever do monitors or you always ended up front of house?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:24:43):

I had two monitor situations and I said I'd never do it again. Yeah, never wait. I want to make sure I get that on record. I admire monitor mixers tremendously. Their job is, I feel more psychology than it is audio. And it was an interesting story with bad company that when they come out with their album, bad Company and the Song Bad Company, and I did that tour and I was through Show Co and I got sent out on it. Well, bad Company is managed by Peter Grant, and he started the Swan Song label with them, but it's Peter Grant of Led Zeppelin. I don't know if you know Peter Grant seen pictures of Peter Grant, but he's a guy that's pretty intimidating. I mean, you really don't care to have encounters with him if you can avoid it. But I guess he did a great job for those people that he worked for.

(00:25:52):

So nonetheless, here comes bad company and we are in Florida. We got rehearsals done and we go do this gig and short rehearsals just a couple of days. And then we go into the first gig. And the Monitor mixer was Donnie Meyer. And Donnie was one of the finest individuals that ever worked at Shoko. He was on the Skinner plane crash. He survived that, but he later died from a lung disorder and or lung cancer. But Donnie, I just respect him tremendously. And he mixed monitors for Jimmy Page on Lip Zeppelin. So he was appropriate to fit this job with bad company. So he's doing the monitors. I'm engineer Clive Colson was mixing, and so I'm kind of running back and forth. Well, anyway, after the show, they came up to me, the management did and said, you got to fire this monitor guy. You got to send him home. I said, first gig, what? What'd he do? And he said he was looking down. When Paul Rogers looked over at him, I said, looking down, I what are you expect him to do? Mixing braille, he's got to look down. You got to look down and see a knob. No, not when Paul Rogers, Paul looks over, Donny's got to be looking at him. And I says, you want me to send him home?

(00:27:18):

So that was the plight way it was put to me. And then I was called in the dressing room and all of bad company were sitting over there in the corner and Peter Grant was face to face with me screaming at the top of his lungs, he's going to shove these monitors up my and I better get it right tomorrow, or I would be shoved in. And so quite a screaming match and in front of bad company it was. So as soon as I got out of that room, I called Shoko and I says, Hey, this is about mixing monitors. I called Shoko late at night and I said, look, at that time we had rotary pot mixers, we had Morants amplifiers, which is model 16 B. It was a hundred watt amplifier. And I said, I want a crown 300 day on these monitors and I want my console out of my studio, which was a task cam, a task cam model 10, I think it was.

(00:28:37):

It had eight inputs and four outputs, 12 inputs and four outputs. They went to my house, built a case for it immediately and had it shipped to me within two days. We had the next day off and the next day was in Atlanta. And there my console was in a couple of Crown DC 300 days, which in the early seventies, that was the amp. So I plugged these in, I figured I'm going to have to do the monitors, I don't know what to do. And so I started mixing and it's the most terrified time of my life. I mean, after being confronted with Peter Grant, and of course I'm keeping my eyes right on Paul Rogers and what would I do? What would I do as a sound mixer? Mixing monitors for the first time. I'm going to go out and make them sound real high-fi, nice lows and crispy highs.

(00:29:37):

Yeah, this is real nice. I quickly learned that ain't the way mix monitors, that ain't the way it's done. But anyway, I made 'em all nice and sweet sounded and the band come in and we did the show, second show, and I think we were about two months, three months, maybe on two months, I don't remember. Anyway, second show. And so terrified, I was shaking so bad at 21, 22, I was shaking so bad that when I turn a knob, I would have to hold this hand because I'm shaking and I didn't want to. So try to calm myself down with both hands and push the fader up a little bit on my console. And there was, I made it through the show without anybody beating me up and nobody throwing anything at me and got through it and I was expecting anything. So they come up to me and said, Hey, it's alright.

(00:30:41):

It's a lot better, but we're going to let our guy do it tomorrow night. We're going to let our guy do it. One of the guitar techs, what'd you wait so long for? Sure, sure. Let your guy do it. And absolutely. So this guy comes in and we do the soundcheck for the third show. We do the soundcheck. And I'm out here talking to the mics for him. I'm talking and I'm trying to call frequencies back to him, which I know he doesn't understand. But anyway, and I was just learning them train mayors in time to learn frequencies.

(00:31:19):

But anyway, I'm talking on it. I mean, it's a brittle oh 2K thing, just awful. And he said, yeah, it's good. Move on to the other one. Alright, so I go to the other Mike and do it or do this and do that. And I think only one of 'em, same backing vocals, maybe Mick Raus did, I don't know. But any rate, got 'em set. And I said, oh man, they're going to be mad. Now when they hear that against Mike glossy HiFi thingy and now they're going to hear this brittle thing. Oh, they're going to be bad. But no, they loved it. They loved it.

(00:31:59):

There we go. Okay. I learned my first lesson and that, no, you don't mix monitors. And you know what? I always thought through the years and some guys that we would get in, I always got rookies with me a lot of times. I was always in charge of my crews at Show Co for the 10 years I spent there. And some of 'em, I'd ask 'em, do you have any audio background? They said, no. I says, well, do you play guitar or anything? No. Do you have a big stereo at home? No. Okay, alright, that's fine. But yet you're mixing monitors for Linda Ronstadt. Okay. I don't quite get it. And this happened in many cases. So at any rate, I was figuring all this out one other time where I didn't, with three Dog nine, their monitors were controlled from front of house. Now mind you, we only had two side fills. That's it. Two side fills wedges in 1970, I think it was 71 or somewhere in there. The wedges became the norm after that. But just side fills or hung or on the sides. Well, we would send a mix of the three vocals, Jack would, and when Jack left, he had me mix them later. I mix them.

(00:33:33):

Chuck would say something to me or whatever. And that's real bizarre, trying to mix monitors from front of house is what I'm saying, from front of house by an A send, sending them back to the stage through the side fields. And that I found very annoying. I just didn't want to be bothered with that. I thank goodness that we did come up with separate monitor mixers. We've seen this in smaller clubs and situations and maybe some smaller house of worships where the front of house mixers has to do the monitors too. What a distraction to me. What a distraction, because I want my concentration to be on the music. When I had a cab driver pick me up in New York City in 1977, I think he summed it up best that I've ever heard it. And he picked me up and take me to the hotel and interrogating me as cab drivers do in New York and on the way. And anyway, he says, what are you doing in New York? And I says, well, I hear, I mix concerts, live concert sound. He says, who do you mix? I said, Linda Ronstadt. He goes, oh, mama bakes a cake and you serve it.

(00:34:50):

Brilliant, brilliant man. You must be a player or something. I said, that's cool. And that's going to be the name of my book If I ever get my book written, which I'm getting to think it ain't going to happen, but I'm trying. But that'll be the name of the, they baked the cake and I serve it. I think that's the way it ought to be approached. You have a sound that's generated there with a purpose. I mean, it was created, it was built. This needs to be delivered to the audience. It doesn't need to be manicured, it doesn't need to be shaved or anything else. I mean, yes, we can put a little icing on the cake, a little bit more sparkle in it. We can add few effects here and there, but why would we ever want to take away from the concept, which is always strange to me.

(00:35:42):

I've been so fortunate in my career those first 10 years. I traveled with Linda on her jets for a while, and then when I quit Sheko, I became an independent engineer. And then I made my deals with the artist management. And I'd be clear right up front, I said, I've stacked enough black boxes, I've done enough. I'm sorry, but I've done enough and I want to work with the band and their music, so therefore I want to travel with the band. I want to stay in the same hotel. I wanted to discuss music. And everybody that ever followed in my resume from 1984 forward said, that's exactly what we want you for, and we want you to mix. And yes, no problem. It never was a problem. Jackson Brown was one of the first and Jackson Brown since Beaufort. You were one of the band.

(00:36:31):

And I said, wow, that's nice. That's a nice feeling. And I am, I'm playing with them. I'm detached from the stage. I'm front of house, but I'm playing music with them. Nixon console is a musical instrument. It's just like a keyboard, guitar, anything else we're playing, you're playing. If you're playing music, it will sound like music. If you're nothing but technical, it'll sound technical and it'll have technical problems. But I think if you play the console with your heart and with the music and you strive for it so hard that it will come out and you'll find the ways to do it. So it's like I found this fascination in 1980 when I went independent was traveling with the artists, get on the bus with the artist, going to the next gig and talk about anything. The feedback, loud feedback. That was me. I did that.

(00:37:31):

I'm sorry, but I was trying to get the vocal on top of the loud guitars and the vocal feedback on me. I'm sorry, that'll work. You can go to a lead singer and say that, well, you know that feedback. I'm just trying to get your vocal over those loud guitars. But nonetheless, the he learns so much and it's about the music. So when that took place, and that was Jackson Brown, I think firmly took place. It already kind of happened. Jackson in 1980 made it firm. And I'm one of the band I'm playing with the band. We listened to show tapes. Most engineers don't want to go there. And I think if you don't, and I heard one very reputable engineering person in the business, well, a lot of people get fired from their show tapes. I think it's silly to listen to a show tape.

(00:38:22):

I said, if they get fired from what's on their show tape, maybe they needed to be fired. I don't know. There's a way, and it goes back to the reference theory. So you can see why I'm so strong this, and it happened with David Bowie. When David Bowie, I would, Soko got us, this would be 74 Diamond Dogs. It was my first tour with him. And Soko got us a Nakai five 50, which was really at that time, a high end big deal cassette player. It's kind of inaugural in a cassette form. And so anyway, I'd record the shows with David's permission and I listened to him back a couple of band members. But when I listened to him back first, I wanted to hear what I did so I would know how to improve it. And most people don't go there and do this.

(00:39:18):

But I did. And I noticed when I listened to the tapes back, I didn't hear hardly any bass guitar. I didn't hear hardly any kick drum. I just hear a tick, tick, tick. And I'm going, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm not a rocket scientist. I'm not an audio genius. I'm not. When it comes down to it, just after a couple of nights, I figured this out that, hey, I'm putting far too much low end in the PA when I set it up on the crossovers. So I want this thunderous sound. Well, we all like thunder sounds. Concerts are all about thunderous sounds, but do it from the console. So I'm tuning the pa as most people do, and putting your Steely Dan tape and or whatever. I'd say tape. I'm showing my age, but Steely Dan in the eighties was so common in taking nothing away from their incredible production and extremely fine quality recordings. But steely Dan's not playing tonight. I got Linda Ronstadt playing here tonight, so why don't I play tape? Linda Ronstadt from last night back into the pa. That's what I'm doing tonight. Okay, so when I listen to this tape from Bowie and I realize there's no low end on it, it's because I'm probably backing the low end down on the console because I'm hearing so much of it already inherently in there. So no, there was no accusations came in. There was no, I was one to start using RTAs real early and then I would just reduce the low end energy at the crossover when I'm tuning.

Mike Dias (00:41:03):

Tell me more about that. You were one of the first to start using RTAs.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:41:06):

Well, I was doing it Crown Beat app. That was 74, I guess. I don't know. Crown Beat app was a color. RTA Ivy had made that little black thing that I never really trusted, but I think a lot of people use that. The little black thing with the red dots. But crowns was real nice. It was a big screen and color display. And then what followed that others? So yeah, no, any new audio gear, I'm going to have it. I'm going to find it and play with it. And so there it was. I was playing with analyzers and that's where I was teaching my ears. But at the same time, I realized just reduce the amount of low end energy coming back in this pa, going to the pa. And then when I did that, now I found myself for the first time adding bass to the bass guitar, adding base mind you.

(00:42:13):

And when it comes to parametric eq, when that rolled around, now I can shape what frequency I think really, really enhances that base in the low frequency, be it going down into the sub bit, wherever it be B, a hundred cycles, 80 cycles, whatever. Okay, I added on there. And when I add it at the console, not only does it go to the pa, but it goes to my recordings as well that I listen to later. So I've had Nathan East, I've had Leland Slar, I've had other bass players, I'm just drawing a blank on some other names here, Stanley Clark. I worked a little while and then to say, I've never heard my bass on a show tape, I don't like listening to show tapes because of that, and I never heard my bass on it. I said, yours sounds amazing. What are you doing?

(00:43:06):

I said, I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing anything. You're playing the bass. I'm just turning it on to the pa. So the medium to improve your work, you must analyze it. So I try to teach that at Belmont University and really encourage the students to have open discussions with the artist. And now while you have full multi-track recording, there's a breeze. That wasn't the case when I started. But you have full multi-track recording, you have virtual sound checks, and yes, what a great advantage that is. But I would also, I go to anybody, and I think the reason I was asked to mix the Pink Floyd Delicate Sound of Thunder is album was because David Gilmore, it took almost a year. We were out two years. So I think as almost a year before he really started listening to my show tapes, I would listen with John Karen, who was the keyboard player, and he had an amazing knowledge about the Pink Floyd Library.

(00:44:13):

John was my go-to guy, of course, David Gilmore, any of 'em that had anything to say, I'm all ears. But John would work with me and we would listen to these tapes and he would say himself, he says, I've never heard show tape sound this good. And I said, well, we're talking about frequency response as a balance. And I says, yeah, I like to do both. I don't see why we can't have both. And especially if you learn to control the sound on the stage, contain the sound on the stage, keep the sound on the stage, and I can do that. I can deliver you something that we can analyze and we can make our final result better. And if it's the last show of a six month tour, that's still a fine time to do it. And so that's what we do. John, Karen would sit with me and he'd say, man, this is great where you got this, and it's what great where you got this, but you got to get this up.

(00:45:07):

This is a signature tour part that works with this guitar, this keyboard part. They work together and yeah, yeah, I couldn't wait the next day to go out and hear that. The other thing about traveling with an artist, which most engineers don't get the luxury to do, I can be sitting in the back of the bus just listening to them talk. We're not even listening to a tape. I can listen to the bass player or guitar player talking to the keyboard player and saying, Hey, on the bridge, I was trying this figure. I wanted to lock in with a figure that you were doing there in the bridge. And so the next day at soundcheck, I, I'm checking that out, what they said on the bus and like, whoa, whoa, that's cool. I never would've known that. I never would've known the other things about the complexity of the music had it not been people.

(00:46:00):

And every band that I ever worked for after 1980, there was somebody that I queued on that would listen to tapes with me. Most band members don't really care to do that, but they're done with the show. But then they're all ones that do. And there's always the more me factor, where's me? I want more me. Okay, well, I understand that, but at the same time, there's so much to be learned. And when it is a group effort at that point, well then, oh man, the results are outstanding. My career and whatever I've been recognized from it is a collective thing. It's not Buford's thing. If you ever heard me mix a show, you're hearing a collective effort. You're not hearing Buford saying, this is the way it needs to sound. I have worked closely with the band members. I have worked closely with what their music is and their producers and or engineers.

(00:46:58):

And in fact, I find it almost amazing Now, Greg la, I love Greg. I'm so sorry to hear of his passing A few years back, he was Totos Grammy engineer and many other things with Jackson Brown and Greg, after he worked months and months and months on the album and we're about to go on the road with Jackson Brown, he wanted to come out for the first week or two, and he would sit with me and he would describe signature parts that were in there that really, really needed to work together and lay out things. He made it very complex and very complicated for me. But at the same time, I sit back and listen to results and I said, wow, this is very good, and I love what you've done. In fact, after a week or two he says, well, you are getting this down. I guess I got to go home. I don't want to go home. And I said, well, no, you don't have another album to produce for Toto or Stevie Nicks or whoever. Well, anyway, that was No, Greg. Greg. I appreciated the fact that after he spent so much time of putting sounds together, that when it goes on the road, let's trans this. Let's get it out there.

Mike Dias (00:48:18):

Me producers don't do that. No. You touched on two of my favorite topics, and I want make sure we touch on both of these a little bit more, but to me it's the spirit of excellence in practice and rehearsing. And I want to pick your brain on that a little bit more, but I also want to talk about this idea, which is a lot harder. How do you translate someone else's idea? And I think that this is really going to get back to the psychology of what front of house is, but I think you take this to a very different place, this idea of how do you hear and then understand what somebody wants and translate that for them. It's not an easy skill.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:49:02):

No, I know what you mean. And I think I've misunderstood the point maybe several times. And it is very difficult. It is very difficult, especially in live touring. You have such a short amount of time. By the time all the equipment gets set up, you have limited time for soundcheck, limited time for discussion. There's a lot of racket going on. And so there you go. Having that time after the fact would be really the only time that you can, we're on the road in a bus, plane, whatever, and start talking about the gig and those points and what they're trying to get across. So I got it. I know what you mean now. And most all of those cases, when I knew that the artists wanted a specific something, I couldn't wait to do it to get out and do it. And I think there was a song that Jackson did a long time ago, and he would himself repeat and echo and he'd just kind of back off the back a little bit and do something.

(00:50:14):

I said, well, I can do that from out there. And so I learned how to time intervals on the stopwatch and hundreds of the second count on intervals of, and I would get my delay time and I'd get the echo and then apply the echo from front of the house and he loved it. It's things like that, just one echo punch, punch, there's the echo, whoop, got it. Level down, done, gone. But it's like, wow, that was fun. That just felt good. It's like hitting a long drive to a golfer. So it was very nice. So that's where it takes getting the point across. Now some on the other case, and I think maybe what you're asking here, faith Hill, who I loved dearly, she was an artist. I worked with six years in the country music and in Nashville, it's not packed a big suitcase in the box of Tide, but you go out on the weekends and then you're home during the weekdays like Three Dog Night did.

(00:51:18):

But all country artists do that now. Well, anyway, faith Hill, she had really struggled a lot more than I wanted her to. I didn't want her struggle at all with her monitors. And we hired several different guys. I would go up with her every day on stage, and I would ask her, I could tell when she's struggling. I can tell by pitch when an artist is struggling, usually when they're singing off pitch, and I'm not a pitch perfectionist either. I don't think that's natural. I expect a little bit of naturalism in here. But at the same time, if they're singing off pitch, I can pretty much go up to 'em after the show to the dressing room and says, are you having problems with your monitors tonight? And they go, wow, monitors are horrible. I couldn't hear a thing. I said, okay, we need to work on monitors tomorrow.

(00:52:12):

And I never mentioned that you sang out a pitch. It's clear, you know where that's coming from now. When I would walk up to her on the stage and ask her, I said, I can just tell that you're not quite happy. And then she said, yeah, I'm frustrated with it. And I says, well, tell me what you can. She says, I don't know those terms, Beauford. I don't know how to, I talk those terms like y'all do. I says, no, no, no, no, no. You say what you think. It is my job to interpret what you say and put that to a technical solution. So say something. If you say nothing, I don't know what to fix. So if you say that it sounds white, okay, that's pretty clean, I guess. Lemme see. I'll find some terms of that. No, if it sounds dirty, bulky, quirky, boxy, whatever, say whatever terms that David Bowie would use terms when he wrote a notepad for me and a book, and he'd write notes in that and he'd say, cathedral on the reverb.

(00:53:29):

Well, cathedral to me is three plus seconds. I know what he means. I know how to interpret that. And so this song might need a bathroom reverb. Okay, okay. We're talking about 1.1 at best on the tail and so on and so forth. But faith, I just try to encourage her, tell me something as frustrating. It is, tell me something and I will get it done. And she struggled with it a lot. And I know other artists too that some don't know the technical jargon. And then some do. It's interesting that some musicians, we in audio talk in frequencies where musicians talk in notes. So CNA Flat or whatever, be sharp that I'm hearing. What's that? I need a calculator.

(00:54:30):

It's four 40 cycles. Okay, I got it now, whatever. It's interesting that musicians talk kind of like that. So this is always an interesting part of the gig and doing what I do is figuring out what they meant because I want them happy. I want them walking on the stage. The biggest compliment that Linda, like Linda gave me once I remember Ronstadt would, she was walking in with Emmylou Harris, I walked up, then they got out of the car and I just said, Hey, everything's great. We weren't able to do a sound check. I said, everything's solid, don't worry about things. She says, great. She says, when you're out front of house, I don't even worry about it. I don't even think about the sound. And that's one of the biggest compliments that can be given to me, that that artist is going to go on stage and do what they do with no inhibitions, no drawbacks, no nothing.

(00:55:27):

Or wondering if this, and I've seen a lot of artists go up there and they wonder where worry and criticize and comment and where it's just not necessary. It's really not necessary if you trust and have this very strong bond between you and your artist. And I'm bashful. I'm basically a bashful guy. It took me a long time. And they're with Led Zeppelin and the other groups, they walk in the building and you can't look at 'em and you can't go talk to 'em as you would a friend. You'd like to. Some people can, but then not everybody can. And so it's good to have that freedom. So that's how I get around that. I think if that answers your question.

Mike Dias (00:56:20):

Yeah, that does. This idea of translating somebody else's vision or creating the vision together and being able to execute it. These are really different things. I don't think you get to that point without that analyzing, that practice, that rehearsing the continuous process improvement, whatever you want to call it. Sneaking up on it.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:56:43):

Go ahead.

Mike Dias (00:56:44):

I love what you were saying that even if it's the last day on a six month run, there's still something to learn.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:56:50):

Oh yes. At the last gig, there's still something to learn. I've always thought that. And in fact, I've always been sad when it was over with. It's like, man, I'm really on a roll here now. We got this thing fine tuned and it's ending. It is always a heartbreak for me. But Jackson Brown on, I think it was the holdout album, might've been downtown. They contacted me when they were going pretty much into the final stages of the mix process. And they just flew me to LA a couple of weeks earlier than the production staff for the production rehearsals. And Jackson would have me in the studio, and I don't have a specific job, I'm just there. And I thought, man, this is brilliant. And I'm watching how Greg Ani at that time was mixing how he was layering things and putting things together. I'm watching Jackson work out comp vocals and do this, and I go, wow.

(00:57:58):

And so when we went into a full two or three week rehearsal, I've already felt comfortable with these songs, the new songs, which every artist wants to promote their new songs and their live shows. And that's what touring is all about, really. We're promoting music for you to go and buy if you hadn't already. It's beyond entertainment. So that was excellent on his behalf. And I've never had that before. Any other artists do that. Maybe if I contacted him and said, Hey, can we work this out? But it would, because I learned so much from just sitting and watching that final Mixdown process. And every once in a while they'd say, what do you think Whatcha doing? Oh, I like Tom Fields's. A little bit more of them. And otherwise it's perfect. I don't hear nothing wrong with anything, but it's just nice to go through that Chester.

Mike Dias (00:58:52):

Nice and Beauford, we'll wrap up, but I just wanted to ask you, what's one of your funniest memories of being out on the road, whether it's just a crazy story or everything went wrong, or just something that always makes you laugh?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:59:07):

Makes me laugh. That's good. Because most of mine are mishaps of some sort. And Well, I'll tell you one, I got a bunch meeting. George Harrison is pretty much on top of the list, but that may take a little too long. I want to tell you about Richard Harris, though. It does kind of have a funding ending. This was moves way back into 1972. I would say Richard Harris, the actor, if you're familiar with him,

Mike Dias (00:59:44):

I don't know him.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (00:59:45):

I think he had King author, the movie that was in the sixties, I guess. No, he was a very fine actor, a very well-known actor. And he was doing a show at the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas. And Jack Maxon was mixing this as well. One of the owners of Show Co. And Richard Harris was there for week. Richard was a pretty big man, and he plays heavy duty, bad guy and all his shows and everything and movies. And so anyway, he has an orchestra. Well, this is at the Fairmont Hotel, which is a pretty ritzy hotel in Dallas. And the stage, the room is not that big. It'll only hold 300, maybe 400, 500 dots, something like that. I'm not really sure. The stage is kind of in a corner. And really it was cram packed with violins and some horns and grand piano and all this stuff, and a small orchestra with a conductor.

(01:00:49):

And the way the show started, Richard would be off from the side behind the curtain and they would play songs from the orchestra, would play songs from his movies, theme songs from his movies for the opening of the show. And then he would recite some poetry back there and then he'd come out, be face to face to the audience. So great, okay, so we're there for a week, and the first night went fine. I met Richard and he's very firm and stern and he let me know I better be pretty good at what I do, and so I'll try my best. So anyway, there we go. So the second day goes by good third day, and I'm talking to Jack and I said, look, my girlfriend, she's leaving the country to go to school on a foreign exchange thing. And tonight's my last night to be with her.

(01:01:45):

And I said, could I anyway get out? I mean, I'm not doing anything, I'm just sitting here. Everything's set up and been set up and I'd just really like to go be with her. And he said, oh yeah, okay, once the show gets rolling, you can leave. And I said, alright, thank you. And so I just immediately, I was just like, okay, I'll go Central Expressway Royal Lane, it'll be faster. No, no, no, no. I can take Interstate 35, take that exit there, and I get there quick. So all I can think about how quick I could get there to my girlfriend. Well, when Jack told me this was about five in the afternoon, he said, now go put another battery into Richard's microphone. Well, at that time, a KG, we had a inline nine volt battery, phantom supply, and it was inline. So it was on back there by the J box.

(01:02:37):

And so anyway, I did, I went and put the battery in it and the switch, I flipped it off, and if I finish catering and dinner, I'll go turn it back on. So did that. Well, so here the show begins. My hair was about halfway down my back. These people were in suits that will come to see this show. I think the mayor of Dallas's wife was there. So anyway, just sitting there next to Jack, it was a long bench that he mixed on, and I, I can't wait to be my girlfriend or we'll go here. Where we going to go? We'll go out to the lake.

(01:03:21):

So anyway, it comes up and the orchestra starts playing. The conductor comes out playing the theme songs from the movies. Okay, cool. And then I see Jack, he's kind of feverishly looking at the console feverishly, and I see the conductor kind of giving it this. And I said, yeah, usually Richard's in by now. I thought, oh no, I didn't flick that switch back home on the microphone. Microphone. Oh no, my hair. I had to run up on this teeny little stage. There was no side entrances, no nothing. I crawled on my hands and knees underneath the piano, between the legs of people playing violins and so on and so forth to get to the back to where that switch was and flick it on. And when I flick it on, I walked off the side of the stage where Richard Harris was standing behind that curtain. Oh no. Oh man. I mean face to face. And he grabs me by the arm. He's got such a grip on me, I cannot believe it. And my eye's blinking. I'm just ready to be hit. You fool. You fool. You ruined my show. Well, of course the microphone is on now.

(01:04:52):

So I guess this is a public hanging, so to speak. And you fool. You're absolute fool. You're an idiot. I said, yeah, there's nothing to say. Nothing to say. There's no excuses and no nothing. And so he let me go without hitting me. He walked on out, started to show, I went out to the console and I could just see steam coming off of Jack Maxim's head. Sit down. Sit down, said Okay. I sat down. I had a laugh is when a public hanging. But I'll be glad to tell you other ones too, because there are some others. But I mean similar things when you make

Mike Dias (01:05:43):

A, did you make it to see your girl? No. You didn't get off her,

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:05:46):

I don't think. I don't know.

Mike Dias (01:05:49):

No, no, no. Yeah. Give me one more actually. I don't think that this one's appropriate. You were telling me a story one time and it got cut off in the middle of it, about the time that Bowie, the cops came in, had to party. But I don't know if that one, I don't know if that's one

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:06:11):

Well be reproduced. That one wouldn't be good to be reproduced. No, I don't think so. Saying goodbye to him and George Harrison. Yeah, the boy thing. Did

Mike Dias (01:06:26):

You get to say goodbye to him?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:06:28):

When I was saying goodbye to him, I'd already gone through the band, which was in another room in a suite of the manager suite. And I made it through the band because I was forced to go there. The tour was over. I wanted to go home. And so when I finally made it to David, and I'm shaking his hand, he looking over at my shoulder and he says, I think we're about to get busted. And I said, what? You said what? And he's really concentrating on the door. And I looked behind me, and sure enough, the manager was trying to hold the door. And among them, probably 60 people in those two rooms of that suite with lightning on their face and orange hair and whatever, everybody was always behind Bowie. They looked the way he used to. David always changed. And yeah, it was quite an ordeal. But they came in, one guy comes in and he was acting like he was going to bust all of us. Everybody's under arrest, put your hands up. And he went in the other room and was screaming in there and nobody in our room, which sounded odd because one guy's going to bust 60 people. They say, it's a wind up. This is a wind up. It's not really happening.

(01:07:46):

Yeah, well it was. And I started walking toward the door. And when I walked toward the door, there was just a wall, it was a corner room and down each thing, it was police. And I lined up, I said, yeah, this is for real. And I walked back and I was looking for a place to stand. And because one guy had come in this room for almost 10 to 15 minutes before anybody else did and saying it a bust, everybody was emptying their pockets. So I'd go over here and stand. I looked down, there'd be a vial of coke here, be a bag of pot, and don't stand over there. If I was just emptying their pockets, I wouldn't have anything on them. And I think I had some nose spray. I was worried about my nose spray. I didn't have anything on me. I wasn't doing anything.

(01:08:40):

So finally a guy in suit come in and said they was poking the roof. It was a drop ceiling and they were poking it up, looking up in there. I dunno. And then they said, everybody get out of here. But whoever's got this room and it was his manager. And I was one of the closest ones to the door. And I got out that door and I didn't say goodbye or go to hell or nothing to nobody. I got on that elevator and went down and got in my running truck and drove back to Dallas. But that was, yeah, it couldn't find out. It was just, they don't even know what it was about. It wasn't a loud party. There was nothing out of hand. There was nothing really at all. Maybe somebody wanted to come in and couldn't.

Mike Dias (01:09:29):

Yeah, who knows.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:09:31):

Yeah.

Mike Dias (01:09:33):

What do you think the biggest show you ever played was?

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:09:37):

It was obviously Venice. Venice in Pink Floyd, 1989. And they don't have a full count because it was the only free show that I think Pink Florida's ever done. And there was no place to really have a box office. So they played on barges out in the main lagoon, and I was on a barge, had my little barge. So we were completely submerged, well, completely a floating all of us. And

Mike Dias (01:10:14):

The boat didn't sink or nothing

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:10:17):

Done that before. There's estimates of 240,000 people. So a quarter of a mill. That's a lot of people. A lot of people.

Mike Dias (01:10:26):

I think you sent me a picture of that before. I'd have to dig through my email to find it, but if you got another one of those, I'd love to see that. That's such a,

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:10:33):

I've got several. Somebody sent me something a while back. There's been articles written recently about that, and somebody sent it to me and it's staggering to read. It's sad in many ways because the Venetians, all the city government council, whatever seemingly were out to make money and any way that they could make money off of it, they were going to. I think they even got on the television rights and charging enormous amounts of money to be out in the lagoon and in the way of the goers and all of this and all of that. But then again, the production staff of Pink Floyd and management tried to tell them what you need to do. Now, Paul McCartney was there once, they should know, but I don't think it was to the magnitude of Pink Floyd's as far as attendance, however, they just did nothing. So 240,000 people in Venice was endless bodies.

(01:11:43):

When I walked in at nine in the morning and landed the boat, the taxi boat that brought me in from another island to Venice dropped me off around the Danieli, people that are familiar with the hotel row there. And I had to walk to another taxi boat that would take me out to the Pink Floyd stage. And this is nine o'clock in the morning, in the morning, nine o'clock. The show didn't start until 11 o'clock that night when it was completely dark. And it was the summer. So they had to wait 11 o'clock. So mind you, nine in the morning, and I'm going the boardwalk, excuse me, excuse me. That was 14 hours before the show began. And we watched people stack up there like nothing I've ever seen. And it was a colossal show, but that many people, no port of toilets, no security, no police or if the police were doing anything.

(01:12:57):

So unfortunately it made a mess out of Venice. But I think if they would've listened instead of looking for the next dollar sort to say that. But it just certainly appears what it was then. It wouldn't have been that. But the show itself was incredible and people that got to see it, it was just incredible. And me to walk out and sit down in front of that, it was kind of, most shows for me is another day at the office. But that one had a little bit of chill to it when I walked out in front of that many people. And Gilmore said they were going to send my mix out of my console to the television send. So it was not mixed again in the truck, what you hear on that. But remember what you're hearing, you can hear any of that on YouTube.

(01:13:48):

But that is somebody recording it on a VHS recorder on their TV at home, and then they play that bag, put it up on YouTube. So the quality's not very good. But nonetheless, it was outstanding show. I have the recording of it and it sounds really good. And it was our 200th show, so it was quite a spectacular, such the biggest gig. I think the other one, I remember James Taylor at Central Park, couldn't see an end to that, but I think there's been a lot like that. But couldn't see an end. Couldn't see an end, get up on the platform and look as far as you could see in whatever direction. There's bodies and several others like that, stadiums. But I think with those was Floyd for one band, one show. And I think the most amazing show, and maybe you've heard of it, was Networth.

(01:14:54):

If you're familiar with Networth, it's an area, I think it's north of London. And they were doing concerts there every year. It's a very expensive area. And we had to come in by helicopter. And to start that show off, I have to look at it for sure, was Cliff Richards and status Quo. Then it went into red hair, curly red hair into that. From that into Phil Collins out of Phil Collins into Genesis, had reunited for that show, then called Super Band. And Super Band was made up of Elton John, Eric Clapton, Nathan East and others. That was super band. Then they played, then Paul McCartney and then Pink Floyd closed it. What a lineup. That's one show, one day, one show one time. And I look at that lineup again, there's somebody in there I forgot too. And I said, what in one day? What's it cost to get into that? I don't know. But anyway, that was quite fun. But the George Harrison story, I kind of want to tell it, but you said you got a game on and anyway, we've done a long time. I'll do this again with you.

Mike Dias (01:16:28):

Alright, let's do this again, Buford, this helps work. I'll make sure you've got the recording on your end. To me, this is getting your stories down and part of the book anyway.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:16:40):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do it again with you. I'll do it tomorrow night. I'll do it whenever. I don't know what is tomorrow night, Friday night,

Mike Dias (01:16:49):

Let me take this, digest it. Let me turn this into some art and make something special. I think I got some good stuff.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:16:55):

Okay. If that's a good starter that they'd like to hear that or my, it's funny. Minute put my head down. All these whites. Mine is showing. We do. This is perfect. My eyes sagging. But anyway. Yeah, no, Mike, with all my heart, I'm telling you, I'll do this for you gladly and really excitedly. So

Mike Dias (01:17:21):

Thank you Beauford. Yeah.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:17:22):

What you're doing for me, that's, that's a friend there. I look at you as a friend. Thank you.

Mike Dias (01:17:30):

Let's get these stories down and I'm going to take a little clip of this and send this back over to our guy over at Full Compass and just kind of move that one forward too.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:17:39):

Okay.

Mike Dias (01:17:40):

This is good stuff, man.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:17:42):

And I hope, I don't think I've offended anybody, even Richard Harris. I'll tell a lot of stories that yeah,

Mike Dias (01:17:52):

We kept everything above the board.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:17:54):

Yeah, nothing against anybody I've ever worked with. And so it's like, but

Mike Dias (01:18:00):

I'm going to send you a clip from you on monitors. That's some of the funniest bits I've ever heard. And again, for my monitor trade organization, I think I'm going to send you a clip and get your approval for that because it's one of the funniest bits you'll see. Okay? Okay, cool. Alright, I'm going to go find out a Peru one

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:18:20):

When you want to resume.

Mike Dias (01:18:22):

Cool Buford. All right. I'm going to find out if Peru one at all. Thanks man. Have a good night.

Buford Jones, Legendary Front of House Engineer (01:18:26):

You as well. And enjoy the game and we'll talk to you soon, Mike. Bye. Bye.

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