It all started with the desire to make very loud noises. Around 1988 I began to get very passionate about playing music, & had a deep desire to somehow make a living involved with music. This was definitely a low-percentage shot at success, as I knew very little about the industry & even less about actually playing instruments proficiently. Nonetheless, the desire was overwhelming, and after finding some friends to make music with, using my father's empty living room as a practice space, I knew that I was hooked and this was the place I wanted to be. I picked up a couple of large PA speakers, an amp, a cheap mixer, a copy of Yamaha's Sound Reinforcement Handbook (which I had no comprehension of), and started to get into playing and writing songs. My mother, being a professional musician & teacher, had brought me to several recording studios during my adolescence, & I knew that audio engineering was something I would be interested in as a career, as I had always leaned towards things of a mechanical and creative nature.

It didn't take long for me to realize I had more fun watching and mixing shows, than actually playing them. Friends of mine in other bands often had me bring out my system to help with their gigs, & for a couple of beers & some real-world experience, I was glad to lug that stuff anywhere it was needed. Alas, I still needed a real job, and my local, punk-rock bar Emo's in downtown Houston needed someone to help work security a few nights a week, I jumped at the chance to earn the meager wage and surround myself with beer, smoke & vomit. After all, this was one of the places (along with the Axiom, Power Tools & Numbers) that I had come to see some bands that were influential in my decision to be involved in music & somehow make a career out of it in the first place. Bands like Helmet, Steel Pole Bath Tub, Bad Livers, Neurosis, Ween and countless others had mesmerized me from that dinky little corner stage, & I longed for more experiences like that in the future.

A few months passed & I got more involved with the shows at the club, picking up the occasional sound shift and barbacking a few nights a week. The booking agent went on tour one summer & I got to help put some shows on & learned the ropes about concert promotion & stage management, the crux of which seemed to be yelling at the bands when they had 1 more song, & giving them their cases of free beer & often a place to sleep. I started dabbling in graphic design on Macs at the local Kinkos, where several musician friends worked, and soon I was creating posters and press releases to help promote the shows. (thanks, Kinko's)

Then I got a call from the booking agent at the Austin Emo's, who was moving to San Francisco, & I took him up on the offer to go run the shows in Austin. I hottailed it 180 miles to the capitol, & spent the next year putting on some amazing shows, all with no cover charges at the time. Johnny Cash, Frank Black, The Supersuckers, Drive Like Jehu, Stereolab, The Offspring, Hawkwind, Boss Hogg & countless others made some amazing appearances there that year, the place was becoming a punk rock oasis in the middle of a country & western wasteland. I was able to keep doing sound engineering projects during that time, at Emo's and in other venues, even helping out with some live recordings and friends' recording projects.

It didn't take long for the road to start calling, and I decided to leave the Texas bar scene behind and live out of a suitcase for awhile, only 2 weeks after meeting my future wife, no less. Enter the beginning of Flightpath Productions, which began as a home office for arranging tours for bands out of my house, conveniently located 3 blocks from the Austin airport, where the Southwest nonstop flight to Houston-Hobby served as a wake-up call every morning.

After tours as sound engineer (& often tour manager) with several bands, including Cop Shoot Cop, Barkmarket, Into Another, Psyclone Rangers & Imperial Teen, I decided to get off the road for awhile, get married and stay involved in sound engineering. I packed up the Austin home & moved my bride and self to the college town of Lawrence, KS, where I took a position with the local promoter, serving as stage manager and lead sound engineer for the major venues there: The Bottleneck, The Granada Theater & Liberty Hall. After another year of churning out some quality entertainment to the college crowd surrounding KU, I was able to return to my hometown of Houston as stage manger/sound tech, where a new 3,000 seat venue was about to open downtown.

Houston's LD Systems soon offered me a position helping run the live sound production department, & assisting in putting on shows all around Houston, in venues like Jones Hall, The Astrodome, Compaq Center & The Woodlands Pavillion. I spent a few enlightening years at LD, & really got to know how the big boys do things at that level, even got to hit the road again as systems tech on the ZZ Top/Lynyrd Skynyrd tour (Freebird! yeah, whatever). But the long days and hard work of concert production at that level took it's toll quickly, and I decided to retire from the concert industry. My passion for music was dwindling, I no longer had the desire to be involved in concerts 5 days a week, my passion was waning, and that was the sole reason for wanting to get involved with audio engineering to begin with.

So I went to work for my wife's company and started getting into graphic design again. It's taken us to Santa Fe, San Francisco, Austin and now Washington, D.C., & although I have a different role and responsibilities now, I still manage to freelance graphic design & web design projects, and have recently begun to pick up equipment for studio recording. Give me a call sometime & let's work on a new project.

Todd Bamberg
10 Nov 2005



Front-of-House mixing
Barkmarket
Blink-182
Bob Mould
Bouncing Souls
BR-549
Chris Rock
Cop Shoot Cop
The Crystal Method
The Dirty Three
Ed Hall
Firewater
The Flaming Lips
Get-up Kids
Imperial Teen
Into Another
James Brown
Jim Rose Circus Sideshow
Leo Kottke
Los Straightjackets
Master P
Neurosis
The Reverend Horton Heat
Rocket from the Crypt
Run-D.M.C.
Snoop Doggy Dogg
Southern Culture on the Skids
Spoon
Sebadoh
Unsane
Willie Nelson Stage mixing
Ben Folds Five
The Black Crowes
Cake
David Grisman Quintet
Gov't. Mule
Gwar
Helmet
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Lemonheads
Little Richard
Linda Eder
Low
Lyle Lovett
Matthew Sweet
Medeski, Martin & Wood
Monster Magnet
Patti Labelle
Pavement
Poster Children
Semisonic
Son Volt
Soul Asylum
Soul Coughing
Stereolab
Wallflowers
Ween
Weezer
Wilco
Voivod
House System Tech
Alanis Morissette
Ani DiFranco
Descendents
Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo
Rat Dog
Red, White & Tuna
Social Distortion
The Orb
ZZ Top/Lynyrd Skynyrd U.S. Tour

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Published on: 2005-12-11 (1803 reads)