How We Got Loud

When Bonnie Raitt’s road manager agreed to hire Silverfish Audio, Joel Silverman and Ross Ritto had not finished building the PA.

Joel takes us from his first “Silverfish Presents” concerts at Clarkson to a basement in Rochester, where he and Ross built the four-way system that went on the road with Raitt in 1975. He shares how they worked with Bill Thompson on custom Ashly consoles, designed gear a small crew could set up and repair, and grew Silverfish into the company that would become Sound Image.

Joel also talks about his later work at MXR, dbx, Lexicon, and Millennia. The same problems he faced on tour shaped how he approached product support, live presets, controls, and reliability.

It is a firsthand account of the people and decisions behind a major live sound company, told by someone who was there at the beginning. Visit the episode page for a deeper look at Joel’s story and the equipment behind it.

www.HowWeGotLoud.com

Lee Brenkman’s career connects the early psychedelic ballroom era with nearly five decades of sound at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall.

In 1968, Lee was working at the Denver Family Dog when he supplemented the touring vocal system for a Jimi Hendrix performance at Regis College with two Altec A7 cabinets. After the Denver venue closed, he arrived in San Francisco on July 4 and began working at the Avalon Ballroom the following weekend. He later worked for Bob Cohen’s Lumiere Productions and witnessed Cohen and Charlie Butten drawing an early Clear-Com intercom concept on butcher paper.

Lee also toured with Lamb under Fillmore Management before accepting a Monday-night job at the Great American Music Hall in 1973 for $7.50 and a beer. That small job became an approximately forty-six-year relationship with the venue.

In this episode, Lee shares the progression from vocal-only PA systems and Altec tube mixers to Soundcraft, Yamaha, Tycobrahe, and digital systems. He also recalls Duke Ellington, Robin Williams, Tom Waits, a neighboring CB transmitter invading the house mixer, and the practical lessons learned from a lifetime behind the mixer.

When asked about his legacy, Lee does not point to the famous artists, memorable shows, or equipment he worked with. He talks about the look of comfort and relief on a performer’s face when they recognize him and know they are in good hands.

That trust may be the clearest measure of a great house engineer. The equipment changes, but the engineer’s knowledge of the room, the performers, and what the music needs becomes part of the system itself.

Check out the full Episode page for more pictures and stories on www.HowWeGotLoud.com

Steve Nider entered the live sound business at sixteen, driving an equipment truck for Black Sheep, the Rochester band fronted by Lou Gramm before Foreigner.

He later joined Silverfish Audio, helping build and tour the company’s early systems for artists including Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Buffett, Jesse Colin Young, Warren Zevon, Emmylou Harris, and Pablo Cruise. Steve shares the story of Silverfish’s rare Ashly consoles, custom-built speaker systems, small touring crews, and the company’s move from Rochester to California before becoming Sound Image.

He also looks back on decades of touring with Foreigner, Jackson Browne, Aerosmith, the B-52s, the Eagles, Joe Walsh, and others.

This episode is a firsthand account of the resourcefulness, relationships, long hours, and unforgettable moments that helped build the modern live sound industry.

check out the episode page for more pictures and details www.HowWeGotLoud.com

Greg Price has spent more than four decades moving between the recording studio and front of house at the highest levels of the industry.

His career includes work with Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, KISS, Poison, The Cult, Steve Miller, Pablo Cruise, and many more. But Greg’s story is about more than an extraordinary list of artists.

In this episode, Greg shares how he went from driving the truck and working as a roadie for Pablo Cruise to learning under legendary recording engineers Bill Schnee and Tom Dowd. He explains how those studio lessons shaped his approach to live sound, why he spent years trying to turn front of house into a recording studio, and how he became one of rock’s most respected and competitive mixers.

We talk about Sound On Stage, Silverfish Audio, Maryland Sound, Showco, Ozzfest, the evolution from analog to digital, working with Eddie Van Halen, and Greg’s belief that a live mixer should begin by faithfully representing the record and then take the music somewhere bigger.

As Greg puts it, “Start with the album and then become a producer. Don’t flatline the thing. Make it exciting.”

Visit HowWeGotLoud.com for the full episode story, career timeline, technical details, and additional history from the interview.

David Morgan spent five years behind the “wrong desk.”

After coming up through A1 Audio and the early West Coast live sound scene, David was called by Jim Gamble in 1981 to help manage Innovative Audio, the company that grew out of Tycobrahe. What followed was a crash course in sound company life: gear, people, payroll, pressure, system design, client relationships, and the reality of supporting major tours from the other side of the desk.

In this second conversation with David, we dig into A1 Audio, Tycobrahe, Innovative Audio, Schubert Systems Group, Gamble consoles, JBL’s role in early touring systems, Maryland Sound, Whitney Houston, Paul Simon, and the complicated relationship between freelance FOH engineers and sound companies.

David eventually found his way back behind the mixing desk, but those five years changed how he saw the business forever.

For more historical context, photos, names, companies, and gear details from this conversation, visit the full episode page at HowWeGotLoud.com. 

Greg Carttar of 3rd St. R&D Production Services joins me for a deep dive into the early days of live sound, regional sound companies, and the era when people were still building, modifying, and figuring out the tools of the trade in real time.

Greg talks about getting his start in electronics, building amplifiers and mixers, and learning from Stanel Sound, where theory, field experience, and the Don Davis book all became part of his education. From there, we get into early country shows with Mel Tillis and Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass, mixing Judy Collins and full orchestra at Red Rocks, and what it was like ground-stacking PA before the venue had modern infrastructure.

A big part of the conversation focuses on Greg’s work with Steve Martin during his arena comedy years. That tour pushed Greg to think deeply about articulation, coverage, and directivity because every word had to land. It was not just about getting loud. It was about making sure a whisper, a scream, a cue, or a punchline could be heard clearly in every seat.

We also talk about early flying PA systems, venue baskets, Stanel’s “flying junkyard” approach, homemade rigging, Johnny Cash, the Statler Brothers, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Alcons Audio, ribbon drivers, and the practical problem-solving that defined that generation of live sound.

This episode is part technical history, part road story, and part reminder that the live sound industry was built by people who were willing to learn, experiment, fail, rebuild, and keep the show moving.

Check out the episode page for photos, links, and more details.

Bill “Doc” Gans worked for Showco from 1973 to 1982, during one of the most important eras in the development of modern concert touring.

Doc came into the business with no formal audio background, learned by doing, and found himself on the road with some of the biggest artists of the 1970s and early 1980s. In this long-form road conversation, he shares stories from his years in live sound, from the Showco shop to stages with Jackson Browne, James Taylor, The Who, ZZ Top, Average White Band, Uriah Heep, and more.

We talk about the Running on Empty tour, “The Load-Out/Stay,” Merriweather Post Pavilion, monitor mixing before in-ears, loud wedges, feedback, recording trucks, stage volume, The Section, Jim Bornhorst, the Showco Superboard, Vari-Lite, and the constant problem-solving that came with doing large-scale shows before the modern touring playbook existed.

This episode started with one song, but it became much more than that.

It is a conversation about Doc’s story, Showco’s impact, and the wild, funny, difficult, unforgettable reality of life on the road in the 1970s. Some of the stories are technical. Some are hilarious. Some are from a very different era of touring. All of them are part of the history How We Got Loud is here to preserve.

The history of live sound is not just about gear.

It is about the people who figured it out as they went.

Check out the episode page at HowWeGotLoud.com for more pictures and details.

David Dansky has been mixing shows since 1970, stepping into live audio at a time when the industry was still young, raw, and being figured out in real time.

With a background in electrical engineering, David was uniquely positioned for an era when sound engineers were not just mixing shows. They were solving problems, adapting gear, learning from each other, and helping shape the systems and workflows that became part of the live sound industry.

“I wasn’t just mixing a band. I was mixing textures, tones, strings, horns, arrangements, and emotion. It was like having the 64-color box of Crayolas instead of the one with eight.”

His career took him from Mandrill, where he learned fast while mixing a band with horns, percussion, vibes, flute, and deep musical range, into the world of showroom entertainers, orchestras, theatrical productions, Las Vegas production shows, and international work. Over the years, David worked with artists and productions connected to Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Engelbert Humperdinck, Bette Midler, Debbie Reynolds, Shirley MacLaine, Neil Sedaka, Tommy Tune, Burt Reynolds, Donna Summer, Cher, Yoshiki, and many more.

A major theme in this conversation is texture. David talks about the difference between mixing a typical band and mixing a 32-piece orchestra, describing it like the difference between an artist having a box of eight crayons versus a box of sixty-four. For him, the beauty was in the tones, the arrangements, the strings, the horns, the space, and the emotional detail inside the music.

We also get into his early years with Mandrill, his time with MSI and A1 Audio, working with Frank Sinatra in the round, the A1 VIP self-powered system, early in-ear monitor experiments, House of Blues Sunset Strip, Splash in Japan and Las Vegas, Broadway and theatrical work, and what it meant to be part of a generation of engineers who helped cross-pollinate ideas across the industry.

David’s story is not just about the artists he worked with. It is about a period of live sound history when innovation was happening show by show, city by city, and engineer by engineer.

Learn more about David Dansky and see pictures referenced on eh episode here : www.HowWeGotLoud.com

Jim Yakabuski’s career started in Vancouver bar bands, learning live sound the hard way: small rooms, limited gear, feedback problems, and a lot of figuring it out as he went.

In this episode, Jim walks through the path that took him from those early club gigs to DB Sound, Summerfest in Milwaukee, monitor gigs with Aerosmith and Poison, and eventually front of house for Van Halen. Along the way, he shares stories about learning before the internet, working with massive proprietary PA systems, mixing Van Halen, chasing Eddie’s guitar tone, and watching the industry shift from analog consoles and huge speaker walls to digital desks, measurement, and modern line arrays.

Jim has mixed for Van Halen, Journey, Peter Frampton, Avril Lavigne, Matchbox Twenty, Rob Thomas, Gwen Stefani, Luis Miguel, and many others. He is also the author of Professional Sound Reinforcement Techniques and continues to give back to the audio community through writing, teaching, podcasts, and The MIX Institute.

This conversation is about more than the resume. It is about the climb, the craft, the luck, the pressure, and the lifelong pursuit of making a show feel right for the people in the room.

David Morgan spent more than 50 years standing between artists and audiences, helping translate performances into emotional experiences night after night.

As the longtime front of house engineer for James Taylor, Paul Simon, Bette Midler, Steely Dan, Whitney Houston, Fleetwood Mac, and many others, he’s mixed everything from intimate theater shows to massive outdoor performances for hundreds of thousands of people. But what drives him has never really been the résumé.

It’s the people walking out smiling.

In this conversation, David reflects on the path from hauling PA and carrying a spotlight in a North Hollywood country bar to mixing some of the most celebrated tours in modern music history. Along the way, he shares stories about the Doobie Brothers, Graceland, James Taylor, analog gear, mentorship, touring culture, and what it actually takes to survive in live sound for over five decades.

More than anything, this episode is about service to the music, service to the artist, and the responsibility of helping audiences feel something real.

About David Morgan

David Morgan is a legendary front of house engineer whose career spans more than five decades. His touring history includes Paul Simon, James Taylor, Steely Dan, Whitney Houston, Bette Midler, Fleetwood Mac, Barry Manilow, Simon & Garfunkel, the Doobie Brothers, and many more.

He has received eleven TEC Award nominations, winning for Steely Dan’s Y2K Tour in 2001, and received the Parnelli Award in 2019 for his work with Fleetwood Mac. He also wrote a long-running column for FOH Magazine and has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Blackbird Academy.

More importantly, he remains one of the most respected and humble people in live sound.


Originally released in November 2020.