#247 - Joe Casanova

0:01 Hello and thanks for coming Geese of Gear episode #247. Today's podcast is brought to you by ACT Entertainment. Unlock your potential with the ACT Academy New Professionals Bundle exclusively designed for students and educators in North America. This comprehensive package provides not only access to the entire Grand MA 3 Beginner Learning path, but also a Grand MA 3 Vis key with the power to unlock the most exciting visualization tools on the market today. Tailored to empower a new generation of professionals and the educators who train them, the New Professionals Bundle equips you with the skills and tools needed to excel in tomorrow's entertainment lighting industry. Whether you're a student aspiring for a passion driven career or an educator striving to inspire, the ACT Academy New Professionals Bundle is a massive opportunity you won't want to overlook.

1:00 Visit actentertainment.com today. And this episode is also brought to you by Gear Source. Founded in 2002 with an ambitious mission to support live events, businesses buy and sell gear globally. Since that time, the company has transacted in more than 100 countries, selling 1/4 billion dollars in sound, lighting, staging and video gear. Gear Source continues to evolve the platform for massive global growth, enabling localized currencies, payments held in escrow to protect buyers and sellers, AI powered logistics behind a new global logistics brand, and much more. Throughout 2024 and beyond, the company will continue to grow its toolbox for the benefit of users worldwide. So now why not take full control over your gear with a visit to gearsource.com?

2:22 Hello and here we are. So the most recent episode 246 with Finn. So Sarah edited that one and she wanted to make sure I told you that because I think everyone thinks she's just another pretty blonde hanging around helping us and Nope, she actually does stuff. So Sarah edited and uploaded her first episode without much help from me. I won't say any help from me. She had a few technical issues, nothing major, and we worked on it as a team and we got it done. So from now on, Sarah is going to be editing, uploading and scheduling the podcasts.

3:06 So yeah, a singular clap for Sarah. Good job. So an interesting story just popped in for me. You might know that my son Jeremy is a racing driver. And a lot of our listeners either love racing or they tolerate it for my behalf. And so F1 News is an interesting story connecting our world and the F1 world. So a company called Explorer did some pretty innovative work along with Final Pixel and Red Bull Racing creating a campaign that launched the winning RB19 car, Sorry. And so as they launched the card and they won an award on this, on this video that they created, Sorry, I'm trying to read notes from Sarah while I'm also talking. Anyways, Explore Final Pixel and Red Bull Racing worked on this campaign around the launch of the RB19 car and they won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. So as a side note, which is really cool, our friends at Production Park handled the filming. The film was done at Studio Four in the UK at Production Park. And of course Red Bull created this video on the F1's first ever ever virtual production

4:37 shoot. And so the car won, of course, they won the championship. And so, yeah, the shoot blended archive footage, video plats, drone shots with scenes produced in Unreal engines, CGI and VFX. And so then she sends me this big long link that I'm supposed to read, which is basically production p-ark.co.uk news. And then you can look for Oracle Red Bull Racing campaign. But pretty cool story and cool project. And again, it ties sort of my two passions racing or two of my passions racing and and the live events industry. In other news this week, the DOJ sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster last week.

5:24 I'm sure many of you have seen that and read the articles and interviews and both sides of the story. I've kind of reviewed, I've tried to review, you know, stuff written by or said by both sides. And the Fed appear to have a pretty strong case. You know, it certainly looks like a monopoly on the surface. If you look at it, Live Nation now owns the artist contracts, management, venues, ticketing. It's kind of the definition of a monopoly. So, you know, it's hard to compete against them, that's for sure, whether you're a venue or a promoter or a ticketing company or whatever it is, 'cause they kind of have this whole 360 thing going on.

6:11 And of course, Live Nation is blaming venues and artists and, and the DOJ is blaming Live Nation and Ticketmaster. And the reality is even if the Fed forces the companies to break up, it's highly likely that ticket prices will not go down for the end consumer because what will likely happen is that whatever drop in cost that is will just be eaten up by 1 or all parts of that system. So as an example, you know, Taylor Swift tickets are $2000, let's say. And if if Ticketmaster and Live Nation are forced to break up, it's not like suddenly those ticket prices go down to 500 bucks or something. So certainly one could argue that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are charging fees that are a little higher than necessary, but the fees only make up a small part of that ticket cost still.

7:11 So, you know, even if the fees on a $2000 ticket or I don't know, I'm making this up, but let's say it's $400.00, you know, 20% of the cost of the ticket, $400.00 on the surface looks really ridiculous. That looks like a super high fee for getting me a ticket to go see this concert. But it there's still $1600 sitting there and where's that going? That's going in Taylor Swift's pocket. So still the artist is is making most of that money. The venue's making some of that money. And the other problem is you have to address the secondary market.

7:53 And by that I mean resells. So fans reselling their tickets or scalpers, you know, and, and you've got all these sites like Seatgeeks and whatever they are, there's thousands of them out there right now. Marketplace sites where people buy tickets for 200 and sell them for 600 or whatever it is. You know, I have a friend with with Florida Panthers season tickets and because they're playing against New York and you have so many rich New Yorkers who live in Florida now everybody wants tickets to go see the Rangers, hopefully beat up on the Florida Panthers and they're willing to pay for it. And so I don't know what face value is on those tickets, probably $200.00 each. They're paying $700.00 or 750 or $800.00. And so, you know, it's intriguing to the person who owns those tickets to say, hey, you know, let's say it becomes A4 game home series.

8:45 And in this case, I think it can only be three because the Rangers had home ice advantage. So let's say it's a three-game series of of home tickets because the series goes to seven games. So, you know, if I sell one game for $800, that pays more than enough for the other two, plus parking, plus a couple of beers. And by the way, I went to a game on Sunday. Beer was 1950. This is nuts. You know, $19.50 for a beer at a hockey game? Come on. And parking was 65 bucks. And I mean, it's insane, you know, you without even the ticket, without paying to see the game, you're spending, no matter what, you're spending 100 bucks no matter what. I don't care if you'd, by the way, water was 950, I mean, or no, 850, Sorry, it was 850 for a bottle of water. Come on now.

9:37 And I'm not talking those big, you know, huge bottles of smart water or whatever. I'm talking a bottle of water. So anyways, you know, as much as we want to blame Live Nation and Ticketmaster exclusively, my point isn't that they're angels and that they're flawless or perfect. My point is that there's sort of a lot of hands in this cookie jar right now. And you can't, you know, typical of the DOJ, you know, they want to make a big press release and say, you know, we're throwing away nuisance fees and attacking the monsters that are creating them. They're part of a system, you know, and the whole system is creating these high prices on, on concert tickets.

10:18 And I wish it was all going to production companies, by the way. I wish it was going to sound engineers and, and managers and production managers and lighting designers and stuff. It's not, you know, there's certainly some of those prices are going up a little bit, but they're not getting the bulk of it. The bulk of it is going to the artist still. So as much as the artist wants to sit quietly back and let Live Nation take all the punches, the artist is as responsible as anyone in this. And then again, the the secondary market, the resales. I'm going to cut you some slack because we're going a bit long here already. I won't go heavily into AI today, but I will tell you that I'm working right now to schedule a podcast with Bob Bonio, who like myself, has taken a real interest in this topic. And so Bob and I are going to do a podcast just about AI and as it relates to our industry.

11:12 So that should be an interesting talk. I'm thinking about making it a live stream so that we can then take questions and take comments live while we're going. So we'll see. I got to talk to Bob about that and see what he thinks and make sure that it fits the current technology that I'm using, which is constantly evolving. But yeah, that could be fun and or will be fun because Bob is very knowledgeable on the topic and he's a smart guy. So I look forward to it and as always, please wherever you're listening to or watching this, like and subscribe, it helps me. It helps the podcast tremendously when you like and or subscribe to the podcast, It helps us to get additional viewers, which helps us to get more guests, which helps us to get more sponsors and it just keeps this machine running.

11:58 So I appreciate it. We appreciate it very much. Please like and subscribe. And with that, today's guest, finally an audio guy. We've had way too many lighting people I think. Joe Casanova is the sales executive and managing partner and Co founder of SAV Entertainment, specializing in audio, RF coordination, communications, system design and engineering, box rentals and much more. Joe started back in the 80s on the rental and production side of Century Music Systems and worked as a staff engineer prepping tours, repairing equipment, training new road staff and then engineering shows for Shoko. Some of the artists Shoko worked with were Prince, Vince Gill, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, The Rolling Stones, and Paul McCartney.

12:49 Joe also served as the audio product manager, working directly with manufacturers on new product ideas and vendors with new purchases. In addition, he conducted market research on new equipment and developed market strategies for recent trends and pricing. For nearly 17 years, Joe was the senior National Account Executive and Co founder of the Audio Division at VER. Welcome Joe Casanova to the podcast. Joe, how are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. No, thank you for coming. Were you saying you've never done a podcast? Never.

13:31 Wow. Never. You're the one. Never. Ever. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, listen to plenty of them, you know, but never, you know, watch plenty of them, but never, nobody's ever asked me, hey, you know, been been in, you know, magazine articles and, you know, stuff like that, the the trade, the trade magazines, but never just, you know. That's wild. Like. Never, never. Just a, you know, like we're doing now. I would say the. First time for everything, right? I would say 90% of our guests have been on multiple podcasts and a lot of our guests are on mine more than once too. Like you were just mentioning John Wiseman earlier and and I think he's been on three or four times.

14:12 He's one of my real good buddies in the industry. He's always got something to say, don't he? He does, yeah. And you don't even have to ask him. It just comes out. He'll let you. He'll let you know. Well, you know, the other thing I love about John is he's so willing to be so transparent and honest and, you know, especially having gone through the what he went through, you know, with addiction. And he will tell you, you know, he'll tell you the deepest, darkest stories. And on my podcast, he talked about borrowing money from his parents to go to rehab. You know, a guy who's that successful, you know, in his job and having to borrow money from his parents to go to rehab. You know that's.

14:53 That's very, it's very, it's very humbling. And he's, he's seen, you know, all aspects of the, of the industry, you know for sure. Yeah, yeah. No, I, you know, I feel so fortunate. I'm so grateful to do this because, you know, this is episode 247, I think. Plus we did a whole bunch of other sort of outside stuff. I love doing this. I love, you know, like you and I, we were talking before we started recording. I think we met at a trade show, but I don't think either one of us is positive of that. But we certainly don't have a relationship. So I get to learn who you are and how you became who you are and all of that stuff over the next hour or so. And I love doing that. Like, I love people's stories.

15:36 And you know, do you know Finn? Mike Finn? No the name. 'S Finn Big Finn Productions. These are mostly lighting people, but you know, I had Finn Finn. Everyone in the industry knows him. I didn't know him and I had him on recently. Actually, I think it launches tomorrow and just super cool getting to know these people, you know, like just amazing. I love it. It's so much fun. Yeah, I'm always amazed, especially with that, you know, with Facebook and social media where, where you, you know, you, you, you know, gives you recommendations on who you should be friends with or connect with. And it was like, you know, there's people out there. It was like, how does, how does this person and myself have, you know, 200 people, You know, we're in the same circle, but we've never met or we don't even know each other. You know, that's, that's what's, that's where I'm blown away because this industry is so small compared to other industries.

16:32 And it's like. That's why I always say, I always tell the young kids I was like, don't ever break. Don't ever burn bridges because you never know. You know when you're going to be working with with whoever you know. Download. Yeah, no, I mean, look at all the post VER people who are floating around or you know, or you're at VER and you're hating on PRG every day about those guys suck. We're so much better and all this stuff and next thing you know you're under the same roof. Yeah. That that right that conversation right there could be a whole another podcast of just the two of just how 22 big companies kind of, you know, watch together and then. Yeah, yeah, that's a whole other story. So, well, I, I was so close to, to Jerry and, and the group of companies that he originally started putting together under the PRG banner and just some of the mistakes that they made, you know, they were, they were sort of the OG of rolling up companies in our industry like they were the first ones to.

17:29 Buy a lot of buying a lot of industries. I remember when it was like, you know, I really didn't, you know, early on, you know, I remember Randy Hudson selling his company because Randy Hudson was he had Hudson audio, you know, and he's like, yeah, you know, he was real successful. You know, he lived here in in the in the Dallas Metroplex and, you know, and he was a he was an ex show Co guy as well. So, you know, we, we knew each other and we would we would do business. And then, you know, just got to know where, you know, he was doing he was real successful at doing a lot of these car shows and, and corporate stuff like that. You know, when they called, when they used to call him industrial shows, you know, before they called him corporate. And, you know, he was like, yeah, I'm just going to sell my company to this, you know, this PRG, you know, Then oh, a sudden you start hearing these other companies just kind of follow along and it's like.

18:15 Yeah, no. It's like the OPS, you know, like they're like, you know, they Yeah, same thing. Well. No, but you know, four wall out buying up sort of the mid sized companies. Solo Tech is buying a lot of companies, you know, but PRG really was sort of the OG like they started in the 90s rolling companies together. And before you know it, they were this massive. They, I remember when they were called the Borg. But you know, now look, there's other companies that are at least as big and in some cases bigger. And it seems to be a model that continues going. Like, you know, Christie Lights is getting bigger and bigger now. And on the audio side, certainly Claire buying up companies.

18:57 No kidding. You know, I don't know what your thoughts are on it and and you might you might share some neat thoughts on this one because. I think my thoughts are a couple of things is like when it comes to mind, it was like when, when you, when you work for a company that big and you have that many locations, it's really, really tough operationally to, just to, to, to make things happen sometimes, you know, and it's, and it's really expensive too. You know, it's, and you've got to have a really, really good software program, you know, VER, you know, we were just using, you know, one off the shelf, you know, and it was, it was, you could, you'd only have, you know, when I joined VER, we only had maybe three or four offices.

19:42 You know, I, I, I, I joined real early on. As a matter of fact, you know, when I met the owner, No, I was working for another. Let's start back. Let's start way back, I guess. You know, I was starting, I was, I was working for Shoko Head. I left Shoko, I think in 2000 because they were bought out by Clare Brothers, right. And then from there, I, you know, I had a friend of mine, Randy Williams, he was working for this company. It was a, it was an AV company called AVW. You know, they're now called Freeman. And he goes, man, you gotta come over here. You know, he goes, he goes, you know, his boss was another Shoko guy and he goes, you know, we just, we do these corporate jobs and, you know, you're working in, you know, hotels, you know, ballroom stuff and. We got this real simple PA and I was like, man, sounds great, sign me up, I'll do it.

20:32 And I was like, I remember one of the first corporate jobs I ever did was like the hardest job I've ever done in my life. I wasn't used to people telling me, well, you can't put the speakers there and you can't put the speakers there. You got to put them over here and you got a mix from, you know, over here on the side. You know, when in Rock'n'roll it was like speakers going here and I'm sitting up here and it was like you didn't have anybody to tell you what and you got and you and you got to put the key way high up there because you know, we got these screens and they can't, you can't walk the screens, you know, whatever you do. So stuff like that. And then it was like, oh, by the way, we're going to have like 10 guys on stage and they're all you have. They all have to wear a lot, you know, And it was like what you know, and it was like, oh, by the way, on comps, you know, you have to run coms for, you know, everybody that's in the production when you know, I was used to like, you know, front of house monitors, you know, done that was it, you know, and half the time, you know, the belt pack and the flasher were just already connected and you know, they just lived in the dog House of the mixing console, you know.

21:29 So anyway, so you know. Well, but the the point, so the point I was, I was making is that like when you look at companies like Claire now who own tons of, of different audio companies and you know, or four wall or any of these roll up companies, solo tech, When you look at those companies, like you said, there are some challenges to being that big operational challenges. You got to have real disciplines in place. You know, one of the early problems that PRG ran into was infrastructure like things like Rd. cases and cabling not matching, you know, like you know, when you're trying to pack a truck and you got different size Rd. cases for the same products, for example, it became problematic or, or when you were doing cross rentals between company owned businesses and the stuff didn't have the same connectors on the ends or the whatever it was right.

22:28 But then what the point I was going to make is, is where you would have some really unique experience. When you're large, you have access to resources. When you're small, you don't. And I think as many of these companies continue to grow through acquisition and through investment from private equity or venture or whatever it is, it's becoming more challenging I think for the smaller business to businesses to be able to compete. And it is, especially as resources are becoming so much more, you know, like a sound system now costs so much money.

23:08 A console costs so much money. It's not like it was 20 years ago or whatever. No, no. So that's just evolved because it was like, you know, in in manufacturing, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day about this. It was like, you know, back in the day there was, you know, there was so many amplifiers and there was so many different model mixing boards. But the one industry you could get into that didn't cost a lot of money was just building speaker, you know, and back then everybody had their own proprietary speaker, you know, player built on show, Co built on speaker, you know, and, and, and so on. But you know, it's one of those where it's like, you know, you get a CNC machine, you buy, you know, some really good wood, you maybe know something about acoustics and, you know, speaker design and you buy the you buy the drivers and all of a sudden you're in the speaker business.

23:59 You know, whether it sounds good or not, that's subjective, you know, but it was, it's just one of those things that, you know, people started, you know, building. I was when I first went to Shoko, I was, I was just blown away. I was working for a small regional company, you know, you know, in San Antonio and I, I found an ad, you know, in pro sound news, Hey, work for Shoko. And it was had that iconic logo that they had. And I was like, I'm just going to call one day. And I, you know, I ended up talking to, you know, somebody there. And then sure enough, you know, I, I bought a Southwest Airlines plane ticket and flew myself there. And I, you know, I met with him and I remember walk, you know, you walk in and it's just the typical office, you know, lady at the front desk.

24:42 But then you start looking around and you start looking at all these photos of ZZ Top and The Rolling Stones. It's just, and, and Shoko was, and Shoko Verlite, they had their own staff photographer named Lewis Lee. And he's like, you know, he was like an iconic just, yeah, he was a, he was a industry. He's really a pioneer of just photography of concerts, you know, And it was like, you know, they had The Moody Blues and just just go down the list of just all the Choko clients and just all these posters all the way around the building. And, you know, I, I walk down the hallway and I, you know, I pass up ML procise, you know, which was like, man, it was like one of the reasons I wanted to work there. I just, you know, he was, he was the, you know, engineer of engineers, you know, they had all these tech awards, you know, and stuff.

25:29 So I get out to the warehouse and it's just this massive, you know, warehouse and they've got just speakers everywhere. And I just remember seeing crown amplifiers where you know, and, and all this outboard gear and I just, you know, the sound company I worked for, you know, we had like maybe two or three racks of amp racks while they just had amp racks laying around. Like it was like it was cord wood, like it was just nothing. It was just like they had plenty and they were prepping for, they were prepping for, I can't remember whatever, whatever tour it was at the time, but it was just blown away something massive. And I was like, well, this is the company I want to work for for sure. You know, at that time the two biggest companies were just Shoko, you know, Shoku and Claire, you know, and then there was there was Audio Analyst and there was, you know, there was, I can't remember the other ones, but you know, they were, they were all out there and I was just, I just wanted to be part of it, you know, for sure.

26:24 I know. I can completely. You know, it's funny because I've heard similar stories, like George Masek told me a similar story about Vera Light. Basically, you know, like when I walked through that building, I was like, this is where I want to be, you know, and, you know, very similar story. And I mean, that was sort of again, when we talk about the foundation of our industry, that's what it was about. It was like, hey, I really want to go do these cool shows with The Rolling Stones and all these people. And but yeah, you know, so many different directions we can go here because I know, I know. I keep on. It's my fault. I keep on going. No, no, no. If I do the same thing. There, there literally are a lot of things we can talk about because I, I want to pick your brain on so many things, But let's start with, you know, let's start with your career, you know, because I know you, you started like around the mid 80s or something, right?

27:18 I started, I graduated high school in 1986, right? And like I said, I grew up in San Antonio and I got into this business because all my friends were musicians. It just worked out that way. You know, it was like, you know, when I was in 6th grade, a buddy of mine, he had, I went to a private, you know, parochial, you know, Catholic school, you know, and one of my buddies, his name was Michael Jones. He had, he had come to, he had, I met him in the 6th grade. He had transferred over from public school. And then we, he had a mutual friend, he or no, he had a friend that he introduced me to. His name was John Boyd. And John was, you know, he was a musician and he was learning to play bass. And all of a sudden, you know, he had a little band and the band just, you know, if we got friends, the band kept getting bigger, you know, richly.

28:06 And they would play, you know, back in the day, you would, you would just hire a band to play your school prom or your, you know, or your or your or a homecoming or just a party, stuff like that. And that's how I just got involved. I was just hanging around, you know, I wasn't good enough to play, you know, an instrument. I was more of AI just like to tinker with things. You know, my parents got me a soldering iron when I was early on and I would take apart the can opener and just stuff like that, you know, just figure I was like, why doesn't this work? You know, my, my, my dad and my, my grandfather, they were both, you know, tinkerers as well. In fact, they just, you know, something broke, you fixed it yourself. You know, that was just the. Thing, you know, that's why I'm in sales 'cause I would take apart the can opener and a can opener and I could never put it back together.

28:50 You just leave it. Yeah, yeah, that was it. I just leave a whole bunch of pieces sitting there and hope my parents didn't notice or I put it back together without the one important piece that made it all work right. How? Come I got all these extra screws what the yeah, yeah, no, I wouldn't try to do that. And then I just, I, I was, it was one of those to where, you know, I, I, I went to college and then the guys call me, they're playing down on 6th St. in Austin. And they were like, he's like, Hey, you really need to come down here. We've got a sound guy and he's just not cutting it. He's is missing all the cues and it, it just doesn't sound right. And, and they're like, just come down and just stand next to him and tell him, you know what to do. Because, you know, part of mixing a band, just like running light for a band is to know the cues and to know the parts of the song, right?

29:34 You know, the the other part of it is the technology part of it. Yeah, I can't imagine that went well though, standing next to a sound guy and telling. Yeah, to a seasoned guy with tattoos, you know, ponytail and smoking cigarettes. And here I am, happily listen. To you. Yeah, fine. You know, he had a good attitude because I don't think he wanted to be there to begin with. And he goes, he goes here, why don't you? Finally, after I think he finally got fed up. And then he was like, here you do it, here are the faders and here's that. And all of a sudden I was like, hey, I'm I'm doing this, isn't it? You know, And I just started to figure it out, you know, and I was like, man, this is really neat.

30:15 You're really, you know, being an audio engineer, you're kind of like the 5th Beatle to a certain extent. You're, you're, you're playing, you're playing the, you know, I briefly Beaufort Jones says it's a lot. He goes your, your instrument is the sound board. That's what you're doing. You're mixing that. So I never thought of it that way until years ago. I listened to him speak at A at a Meyer conference or something and I was like, wow, that, that totally makes sense. You know that's that's. Somebody you should have on your show Talk about stories. Gosh. Beaufort Jones. Oh, cool. Yes, Sarah, reach out. Sarah, reach out. Great, great human being and just boy, he's got, he's got some stories to tell you. From Love Stories.

30:57 So that was the beginning of your career? So that was it. I was doing that. And then, you know, I was going to college at the same time, but I got a job at a music store and it was called Century Music Systems in San Antonio. And they I remember. Something music. I think I was doing business with Century Music in at Martin like in the 90s. Probably, yeah, for sure. Yeah, they were. They were based in San Antonio. They're kind of A2 store operation, but part of what they did as well. You know, they did, they did, you know, rentals and stuff and they did backline rentals and what not. But they also had, you know, they had a small production company where we would go out and you know, do gigs down at you know, we would do whatever, whatever it was, whether it was a fashion show all the way up to doing found out at, you know, there's in South Texas, there's a dance hall everywhere.

31:43 So we were doing, you know, a lot of those, you know, regional, you know, back when that's when Americana was just starting up, I guess, you know, it's getting more popular, you know, the Robert O Keene and the Jerry Jeff Walker and, and bands like that, you know, I call them three name guys. You know, it was that was that was going on. So we're just doing stuff like that. And so finally, I, I just worked there long enough to where it's like, gosh, I just feel like I'm outgrowing this company. And, and, and the owners just, you know, they didn't want to, they just, they didn't want to move forward. They just wanted to say, let's keep it small. And I was ready to just I want to, I want to do something bigger, you know, and that's when I just answered the added Shoko, you know, and I was like, and that's when I had worked there, you know, I worked there from 94 up until the time, you know, they. That's a huge jump from century music to Shoko. Wow.

32:34 It was a huge jump and I was like, but I caught on quick 'cause, you know, I already back then it was like, you know, there was only a handful of mixing consoles. You know, there was like APM 3000 and yeah, you have these Rams of modernists, but what they had that nobody else had, they had these Harrison consoles that were built specifically for them. And those, those were just a game changer. You know, not a lot of other companies had them And, and Choco was one of the first to build their own mixing board called the Super board, you know, which was amazing. You know, this is back, back in the in the 70s, you know, where they're able to just manufacture and build their own console because there wasn't anything else like it. You couldn't go out and buy a you know, we used to joke. It's like you couldn't, you couldn't buy a store bought a store bought speaker.

33:18 You know, they just didn't make it. You had to make you have to build it. You have to build it yourself and you have to build it with, you know, components with, you know, that the manufacturer had, you know, you look back at it and it was like, gosh, you know, these speakers were only, you know, they're only this powerful, you know, and you're doing, you know, they're doing these massive concerts now. You know, they have speakers that were, you know, three times the. Power, you know, in the lighting business, we always talk about sort of these these like game changing big moments in the industry or whatever and and you know, shortly after Vera light there was sort of the advent of moving lights for sale. So, you know, we went from these static lights to moving lights in call it the late 80s, early 90s.

34:01 And then, you know, went from moving mirrors to moving heads and went from, you know, from that to like from lamps to LE DS and all of these, these big changes that happened and control, there was big changes on the control side, but in audio. So, you know, I used to play in bands in, in the early 80s and you know, we, we had like JBLW bins and, and these I forget what the I think it was like Altec. Altec, Lansing. Altec Horns. And horns. I forget what the mids were. I think they might have been JBL boxes or something too. But and I remember when we went from using those W bins and stuff to Martin with the what was the Martin thing called? What did they call that thing?

34:53 Like a it had a funny name the the shaver or razor or something Shave. Yeah, I can't remember. I know what you're talking about. Though something shave, I forget, but anyways, you know when when you went to those Martin bins and they were fifteens and they just sounded incredible and it was so much smaller and more compact. But then like, so one of the cool things about being our age is that you got to see these massive shifts in technology, like just monumental changes in the industry generations, you know, And so you saw the the shift into these, you know, fiberglass boxes where they were firing backwards and and reflecting out and all these different types of technologies. But then it went from stacked speakers to line ray and from audio conflict.

35:44 To let me interrupt you. I remember when that first happened and it was like, so I, so this, this story was told to me by another close friend of mine. He's named Stewart Bennett. And he's a, he's a very popular, you know, engineer, tour engineer. And he was telling me he was out on tour with like Soundgarden or, or, or something like that. And he was in he was in Europe and he came back and I remember he went into the office, you know, there at Shoko and he talked to, you know, one of the bosses and he was like, you wouldn't believe, you know, I was I was at this a venue there and they had this line away with a bunch of speakers and they're just, you know, all, you know, in an array, you know, vertically.

36:28 And it was just it sounded amazing. And I remember Stuart telling me I was like, well, what did you tell you? You know, it was like, you know, he was kind of convincing. This is where this is where it's going. This is where we need to be as opposed to just the big massive, you know, stack and high D. You know, the at Choco they had, you know, the prison system, which is phenomenal himself. But this was, this was more of a, this was just a different way to look at it, you know, and the fact that you could, you know, you had a program and you're able to change the angle of every speaker to where, you know, you could point every speaker where it needed to be from, you know, people in the, you know, in the 300 section all the way down to, you know, people on the floor, you know, where you just have, you know, great coverage.

37:11 Whereas, you know, before Choco, you just set it up and just, you know, I had a friend. That you just made it loud. Enough so you had a friend that told me one time, hey, just point the speakers where the people are going to be. Well, that makes a lot of sense. So, so, but then I go, well, what did he what did they tell you? You know, what do you say he goes. They just didn't want to hear. It was like, go back in the shop, you know, we're we've got, you know, they were just so proud of, you know, of, of what they had and they just thought they're and and that for the longest time, yeah, the system was the was the best out there. Yeah, the other, other sound companies out there, you know, so, so yeah, that was just, it was just amazing to to hear that.

37:51 And that was, you know, that was in the late, that was in the late 90s. Now it's like, you know, now, you know, the and for the longest time, you know, line array was just kind of a it was a phenomenon. It was just a buzzword. You know, I remember VER people like I need to have I need to book a line array. OK, well, let me let me just ask some questions before how how tall are your, you know, like how tall are your ceilings? You know, what are you? Oh, there, it's just like a 12 foot ballroom, you know, not like. Well, you don't need a, you don't need a, you don't need a. You don't need a line already for that one. You know. It's just exactly and that was just one of those where people were like, you know, it just became it just became a thing. But yeah, it's just amazing how how it has I I want to say that, you know.

38:31 Speaker The the gear itself, it's probably, it's probably, I don't know, maybe 30% even more lighter, you know, than than what the gear is now, you know, and just, it's just, it's just built way more efficient. I I bet you could probably, you know, beat in bands. I don't know what instrument you played, but you just remember the guitar player having to move his position of the pickups. That way he wouldn't get a buzz from the from the neon beer signs, you know, or something like that. You know, of course. But do you? So when did you use your first? Like when did you mix on your first line array system? Gosh, it wasn't probably until it was probably when when at VE, it was probably at VER is when we we, we when I joined, we had we didn't have anything. When I first joined VER we I had met with the owner and he hired me like right off the bat because I had told him that thence correct.

39:30 He he had picked me up and we had we had had breakfast at Bob's big boy in in, in in Glendale. You know, that was like his spy and he was just he was just asking me all these questions just left and right, just kind of just peppering me with all these questions, you know, and at the time, you know, I met him because I was working. I I started, I I took a seat back. I took a step back from, from going on the road and I was just kind of, I became like the cross rental guy, you know, I took a desk job and you know, and, and the people, the guy I replaced, he goes, well, you want to start calling If we need cameras or something, you want to, you want to talk to this company. They just opened up in Dallas. They're called VER, they're called video equipment rentals and talk to talk to them.

40:13 So I got to, I got to, I had a report with them ordering gear. And then I told them one time I was like, gosh, if you guys had more audio gear, I would probably rent it from you because back then there wasn't just a place where you could go and get everything. You'd have to call. This company for that and this you'd have to kind of piece it together and that's how and that's that's how it was back then. There wasn't just a go to place where you could just get everything like you can now, you know? Yeah. And and that's, and that's what I thought was just, I was like, so then the wheels on my head was like, well, you know, if ER got more into audio, then then we could, then we could do something. So I, I talked Vincent to it. I told him what my idea was and he hired me like that.

40:54 And at the time there was only one other audio guy. His name was Brady, Brady Belovic. And, and, and all we really had were just, you know, speakers on sticks, you know, some wireless mics, you know, some random stuff, you know, not a full system. And it wasn't until we, we got there and people started calling, Hey, do you got this? Do you have that? And we just went bananas. And it was like from 2000, I started working there, I think 2001, 2002 from then on, we just never stopped. It just snowballed up until the time that, you know, we started getting more into, you know, touring, audio touring and everything else. And it was just, it was just non, it was just non-stop.

41:35 What about the stop buying gear? So, so to answer your question, it was the we had bought the JBL Vertex had had come out and we had bought, we had bought 80, we had bought, you know, 80808080 and 80 of the of the of the four different style of boxes that they had. And we had, we had partnered up with sound Image because we had built that was our first rental, you know where we became. That's where that's where that's where we became the solution for a lot of companies where where let's say X band decides, hey, we want to go out on a summer tour. And usually most sound companies there, they're sold out. You know, you want to be sold out in the summer, right? Well, we were their problem where it's like, all right, let's go to this company.

42:21 Dr. So we built our Amprax identical to theirs. So that way we would, we even, we even went to their warehouse in San Diego and we, we built the Amprax there, you know. And we matched. Up. We matched up with them and then, but it was so it was so random because I would just go to different companies and tell them, Hey, you know, if you need extra cabinets, Well, you know, we're, we're, we're kind of Switzerland. Hey, we're, we'll rent to you. And, and they'd be like, you're just going to rent us cabinets, Not even send a guy or anything. I was like, no, we'll just rent it to you. You guys know what you're doing. Just don't, you know, don't blow it up. But and that was it. And that's when it just then all of a sudden we bought, we just, it just never stopped. Like, so that's why, well, you guys got so good at, you know. You know, cross rentals, you know, whether it was lighting, video or or audio, that became a really big niche, obviously. Yeah, being in the rental business just, yeah, that's when I was like, gosh, I always tell people if I was to, if I was to start it all over again, if I had my own client or, or a handful of clients, I would use a company like that to do everything.

43:30 I'd I'd make them be my warehouse, my trucking company, my logistics company, my gear source, just everything and just work from, you know, the kitchen table and do it that way it. Makes it makes things a lot lighter on the on the cost side. It does and you're always getting the and you're always getting the latest greatest year because it was well, I thought was cool about VE Rs that they never put their logo on anything. You know, they're very all their cases were black and you know, they didn't really have as far as branding or their big load. They didn't do any of that. You know, they would just, people would just, they would just show up and you know. Yeah, no, it it was a really good company until it wasn't. Exactly right.

44:13 So right. Yeah, I mean, right around that VR time is also when consoles started moving from analog to digital too, right? Absolutely, Absolutely. So what was that like for you? That was the the first. Well, I went back to Shoko where it was like there was still, you know, I remember. So Shoko they, they had come out when, when Kiss went out on tour, their engineer, Toby Francis, he had his, he went out and bought this console called an Amec Amec recall. And it was kind of like an analog console, but it was kind of like a digital console where it it'll recall all your settings from let's say you had multiple bands. Well, it would record, it would remember your settings from from the other bands.

44:56 So like kind of the beginning of digital consoles and then then show called built their own. They built their own digital console with the help of Harrison and it was called the show console. And that was that was another amazing thing where it was like, you know, it had all the the rotaries in there and it was like you would actually see faders move up and down and you'd see the pots move, you know, like, like somebody's, you know, doing it for you. And I was like, wow, this is bananas. This is crazy. And then it wasn't until, you know, the other manufacturers, especially like Yamaha started coming out with with digital consoles. And it was just, it just became the norm, you know, And, you know, all these young kids started coming up, you know, where they were like they were, they were trained and learned on these digital desks, you know, which was, which was really the game changer because I, you know, I call all those young kids, they were just kind of the young kids with laptops, you know, they just. Yeah, they just knew everything.

45:54 They knew all the programs like this and they just, they just really, they just really got it. You know, there's a whole church group of people that that are just, they're just amazing that that they're just smart and they just know how to. It was funny that. How that all happened, Well, I guess it was a little later than than the lighting business. The lighting business was sort of the late 90s when they went from like the big avo huge console to the little tiny hog console hog two. And but then the same thing happened to audio where you your consoles got a lot smaller. It's amazing. You know how much easier front of house got when when you guys all went to digital conference?

46:35 I bet there are promoters like that, you know, with smaller footprint out in front of house, you know, you can sell more, you can sell more seats, you know. Yeah, That was, you know, yeah. It's just amazing, like I said, how it's just evolved. The smaller, more compact is overall better electronics and parts than than how it was before. A funny story, It wasn't that long ago that I went to see a friend. He was doing a show out at the Gaylord here in Dallas. So I went out there and it was like I was just, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't blown away, but it made me think back. I was like, man, not that long ago it the setup wouldn't be anything like this. He had a small digital console and it's like he didn't even have, you know what we would call a, a, a copper snake and you know, multi multi channel snake.

47:23 He had just a CAT5 cable going to a rack that lives backstage. And then, you know, with, with all these different protocols, Maddie and Dante and all this stuff, he was able to plug in all his, his wireless rack of, of wireless racks. Well, that was just a, you know, again, it was just a, a CAT5 into the, you know, into the console. I was like, what? And then it was like, you know, all the lights were just all the LED lights. It was like no Dimarack, no ETC, whatever. It was all just, it was just a, it was just a distro where they just wanted and, and you know, and just DMX cable. And then it was like, well, where's your I don't even think they had a distro. He tied into the lighting his he got his power from the lighting distro.

48:10 When would that, you know, back when we were doing it, it was like that was just, it was just, it wasn't possible. It wasn't even frowned upon. It was like, you know, you can't do it. It doesn't, it's not going to work. You know, you're going to get a buzz. It's like, no, that's how they, that's how they do it, you know? And I was like, this is this is crazy, you know? Well, you know, to this day, like I, you know, I used to be able to walk up to a sound craft console or some kind of a, you know, an analog console and, you know, turn some things and move some things and make it sound half decent. You know, for my own band or for another you. Can at least get sound out of the board. I mean, we're talking about like a 40 channel sound craft console or something, right?

48:51 And but today I don't even know how to turn them on, you know, like, and and then you get into Dante and all the plugins and stuff and you know, like where's my effects rack? You know, where's my outboard? And you know, it's, it's just so different now and lighting, I've stayed up on audio. I haven't audio just went way past me. Audio's over my head at this. Point they just keep pushing, they just keep pushing, you know, the envelope and it was like, gosh, you know, now you know, there's a company out there where it was like, what else can they do to speakers? You know, they can make them lighter, they can make them you know, they can make the the rigging easier, you know, quick. But now, you know, there's this company called PK Audio and, and they're from, I want to say they're from Calgary.

49:35 They're from. They're. PK Sound, Yeah, you've heard of that. They are in Calgary. So, so these guys, they what's I think the owner's name is Jeremy, I think. Yeah, Jeremy. Yeah, Bridges. Jeremy Bridges. Bridges, that's it where they've got APA now to where it'll just the cabinets will just kind of, you know, they've got robotics and robotics and servos in there where they'll just open up and do their own thing And it was like, you know, that's just. Yeah, no, I I got last summer, I went in and saw that system and and it's to me, and I compare it to when I first saw moving lights, like when I first saw lights go like this and and adjust their beams, I was like, whoa. And I have the same feeling like why would anybody ever want fixed position lighting again?

50:25 When I saw that audio system move, I got the same feeling. I was like, why would you want to drop a rig to the ground and have to change all of the rigging and stuff and then lift it up again and go, okay, yeah, now it's good. And when you could. Just smart. I think it's just smart. It's just super smart and it's really brilliant. And I remember having, I remember having breakfast with Jeremy. Yeah, this is back when we were at VR and we were, and we were like, again, we were like at a Nam or a, or a nympho com. And we were having breakfast and I and you know, there was other guys at the table and I just asked him, I was like, what, why did you do this? What made you do this? And then he goes, he goes, well, you know, we were, you know, I, I owned a sound company and we were using, I can't remember whatever, whatever brand speakers there were.

51:11 And I was like, he was just sick and tired of, you know, losing the, the pin that went into it or, you know, it wouldn't fit or you get your fingers pinched and it was like, no, take the motor no lower. But it was like all this back and forth and he goes, I just got sick of it. And his dad, I think he think he told me his dad was a welder or something like that. And he just came up with the idea of, you know, basically taking an amplifier and just shove it into the, you know, into the speaker and, you know, it's, it's a, they've come a long way since, since we had the conversation. But it's funny, I had an audio guy on recently and I can't remember who it was, but I had somebody on my podcast and we were talking about PK and he said, you know, yeah. Oh, it was Sarah would know.

51:55 It's her friend. It's he's a, a guy who does sound for a, a band from I think Sweden or Finland or something, a real metal band, a hardcore metal band, really good sound guy. But we talked about it and he said, yeah, I saw the demo. It was kind of cool. But he said, I can't tell you of a single situation when I needed to move the sound system or readjust, you know, the the array. And so he said it's cool, but I'm sure there's extra cost and weight there that I'd rather not have the cost or the weight. So you know, what seems brutally obvious to me, I guess to some might be like an added expense or something. Yeah, I think. It's got, it has its, IT has its place.

52:37 You know, it's just, it's one of those where it just like I said, it just has it has its place, you know, and it was like if, if, if the sound engineer for the band can, can talk production into having this and prove and prove their point. It's like, man, this is this is going to save on time and we're going to set up quicker. And, you know, especially if we have, you know, if we have three or four shows in a row, you know, we didn't mean we're coming in late to another venue. You know, this is going to make the set up a lot quicker and more efficient. Absolutely. Then then why not? Or, you know, let's say somebody moves the, you know, the front barricade by 8 feet or something, and suddenly, you know, you need to adjust for the first five rows or three rows or whatever.

53:20 You know it's a fairly easy problem to fix, right? And so. No, I, I think it's brilliant. To me, it's definitely the next evolution. I just hope they don't like Betamax themselves, you know what I mean? Because if they went out and licensed that to D&B&L Acoustics, the two giants out there, right, it would be in every sound system. But exactly because they've patented the hell out of it, L Acoustics and D&B are gonna be like, you don't need that. That's stupid. You don't need. You don't need that, yeah. Yeah. So we'll see how it goes. I mean, the future will tell, but I connected them with my friends at ACT Entertainment and that's, that's who's distributing them now in, in North America. So they have a real distributor now with real inventory and, and people and service and everything else. So.

54:11 Is that act lighting acting? Same company. They're called Act Entertainment now. Is it PJ? PJ is the guy over there or JP? PJ I I don't know who you're talking about, Ben, Ben Saltzman is the CEO. That's that's he's my buddy. Gotcha. But it used to be Bob Gordon who who was the founder of ACT Lighting and he sold the company to Ben and a group of investors. So yeah. So I mean, again, like that's one of the cool things about there's not many cool things about being old. But you know, one of the cool things is that you got to see these these crazy generational changes of the audio business and for me, the lighting business more so, you know, going from things like lamps to LE DS was a massive evolution for the Yeah, and. Just the other day, I was visiting a friend at PRG and I had, I ran into Clay Powers.

55:11 You know, Clay is, you know, he's just, he's super brilliant, you know, and he was, you know, he was the president of Shoko, you know, that's, he was my boss, you know, for years. And then he went over to the Vera light side and then the VLPS side and then of course the PRG side, always on the manufacturing side. And he's just, so he's just a brilliant person. And he, I was over there and he was outside, you know, smoking a cigarette on the stairwell. And so we started talking and he was telling me that, you know, I can't remember what fixture it was, but they're basically getting rid of all the lights and putting in all the innards to make those lights, No. LEDL fives, yeah. Is that what it is? Yeah, they gutted all their VL fives and made them into LE DS isn't.

55:53 That something, yeah. So they, they, you know, totally cool. They brought life back back into them. That's like, that's pretty. That's pretty smart. Popular wash light that was ever manufactured was the VL 5. And you know, there's still guys out there who who don't want to use anything else and who think it's sacrilege that you're changing the lamp source to to LE DS in them, right? But I mean, it just it's so much more sensible. You know, it's and efficient. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah, totally. Well, you know, the other thing is with the whole world being as concerned as as they should be, you know, with with becoming greener and becoming more sustainable. The cool thing about LED is like with all the big moving lights that were all discharge lights, not so much with the, the tungsten or whatever, but with all the discharge lamps, the gas discharge lamps, You, you couldn't power them down. So you had to shutter them when, when you wanted them to be dark or off, right.

56:52 And So what they would do is they'd set the rig up in the morning on on tour, they'd set the rig up in the morning and the lights would be on from like, call it 11:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night. Never. Never power them down. They're just burning energy all day, all night. Whereas with an LED, you turn it off. You know you don't. You don't put a shutter in front of it to dim it, you just dim it and shut it off you. Shut it off and it comes right back up where you left it. Exactly. So I mean the that has made a massive difference for venues burning electricity, you know, during the day for these shows. Everything is becoming much more efficient sound systems, but did you ever think you'd see a day when amplifiers were like, you know, 1520 grand for a for a power amp?

57:41 No, no, I yeah, that's what blows me away, 'cause I was talking to, I was, I was talking to somebody the other day and they were like, yeah, so and so company wants me to become, you know, a dealer. And I was like, well, what do you think? You know, you're going to do it. He's like, he goes, man, I just don't know. You know, it's like, you know, you take this, this speaker, let's say. Speaker X And it's like man, after my after my discount and, and you know, dealer pricing, you know, that speaker is going to cost me $12,000 for one speaker. And then, you know, he pulled out the calculator. He goes, well, let's see, I, let's see, I get, you know, X amount of dollars for that. It's simple math, right? Well, let's take that and time and divide it into, you know what speakers, he goes.

58:22 I have to rent that speaker 88 times to get my money back. That's crazy. Think about that. And that's just one speaker. You know what you got to have, you know, 4060 plus or whatever. You know, that's and that's where it's tough. That's why it's like when people, when I tell people or when people tell me rather, you know, I'm thinking of something to sound. I was like, don't, don't you know, I was like, it's bad, man. Just go out of math, It's tough. Because it's, it's a long, it's it's, I think audio is to me. It's just, yeah, I think it's the slowest return, you know well when. You audio's moving faster now than lighting did in its heyday, you know, because like, you know, I just sold somebody a, a sound system from Europe, a AKSL rig from Europe into Canada and you know, it was almost $800,000 I think.

59:16 And you know, the next day or whatever, I see LMG promoting that. They've got the new L series out, you know, on some show or whatever. And I'm like, God, we're going to be at Z series in no time. Yeah, it was like, but I just got, you know, yeah, like, you know, there's. What's the difference between AJ series and AK or an L series? Like the difference is that somebody's specking it. So you got to have it, you know, that's. Exactly, right. Somebody, there's somebody out there that's going to want the latest and greatest, you know, And it was like for some of these companies, you know, they'll buy the latest, greatest and as soon as they're done with it, they're selling it and they're on to the next, you know.

1:00:02 But you know, I remember and I think it was during COVID, like a friend of mine, maybe it was just before COVID. A friend of mine bought a GSL Series, A GSL rig, and that's ancient now. And I mean, that was five years ago. You know that was 5. Years ago and now it's ancient like I never see GSL anymore. Hardly you know it's all J series Ki mean it's crazy. It's just. And there's and there's nothing and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that system. You know, it's just they just came out with something different. You know, they, you know, every so many years they got to they come out with something different and and that speaker, you know, is probably puts out more power and it sounds better and it's just it's always that next. But what is this?

1:00:52 Like what? So you know, if if someone was to say, hey, I've got AJ series and AK series, how, how do you explain the difference between AJ series? I think the difference on that were just the components inside where maybe the Jays were like, you know, maybe AA12, whereas the next speakers are like it's a maybe it's a different size speaker, maybe the maybe the coverage on it, maybe they have a new amplifier that complements it that's more efficient than the than the amplifier from the old. So it's just it's new all the way around. It's but. Again, those yeah, it does blow me away. Like 1520 grand for a for an amplifier. And now, and that's another thing is just, you know, back in the day, it was like you would never think to you would I never think to, to buy a self powered, you know, speaker system. Because I remember a client telling me one time, you know, he was doing an exhibit.

1:01:45 He goes, well, Joe, I can't, I can't have powered speakers, you know, up in the air. I was like, well, why not? He goes, well, what if something happens to it? What if I lose power? And then I, I looked him right in the eye and I go, you know what? The lighting guys and the projector guys, they've been running data and power to their gear for a long time now. This isn't any different. And he kind of rolled his eyes and I got him, you know, he was like, yeah, you're right. You're right though, it's totally true. Yeah, it's true. It was like, you know, and it was, and it blew me away that, you know, I just remember reading, it wasn't that long ago I read an article where, you know, before DMX came out, they were just using RS422, you know, 9 pin, you know, connectors to control, you know, some of the old, some of the old, the very first their lights, you know, go to a computer, you know, and then you'd have to have three of these computers and each computer could, could run 32 lights. So yeah, the biggest you could have is, you know, 96 fixtures of whatever.

1:02:42 Yeah. So. You You and a partner founded a company, I think in 2020 called SAV. We did. And that was Brady. It was that was he's my he's he's one of my he's one of my best friends, you know, and he, he and I, like I said, we had started the audio division for, for VER. You know, we were the two, we were the two audio guys. You know, he lived in, he lived in Glendale and I lived, I lived here in Dallas. So, you know, there wasn't a day, you know, we worked together for, for 20 years, you know, where we just, we were the, we were the two guys until, you know, until we started the, the, the VR tour sound part. And then, you know, there was a whole group of people. We were still involved in it.

1:03:26 But you know, that was just another, another, another segment of the, of the audio of VR. But our the bread and butter for, for just VR was just, you know, it was just the speakers on a stick and it was just, you know, just whatever we had, you know, we were just everybody's, you know, solution, you know, when it came to audio and, and getting them, you know, the right gear. One time, you know, I'll tell, I'll just say this. It was like, and I always wondered one time it was like, what is the most popular? What's the most popular thing that VR rents on the audio side? And I had somebody look up the data and it turned out to be this push to talk microphone that sure made. And it was like, if it wasn't on a show, it was, it was on a transfer to another office to go on a show. They're constantly moving, you know, and that was just, it was just crazy.

1:04:16 Anyway, he and I decided once, once the company was sold it, it went to a private equity firm called Catterton. And, and sadly, they were just, you know, they're just a bunch of people that weren't, they didn't, they weren't, that wasn't their Forte. They didn't know about production, you know, they just didn't, you know, they questioned a lot of things and stuff like that. Yeah. They just weren't. It just wasn't their thing. And so, you know, like, and, and, and they brought in their own people, of course. And, you know, when you bring in your own people, you know, they're not going to listen to the old people, you know, that helped get the company where it needed to be. So it was that. So they sadly, they ran the company, you know, into bankruptcy, you know, and then and then, you know, on the flip side of that, you know, PRG was kind of in the same boat. They were just, they were, they were struggling financially, you know, as well.

1:05:08 So the banks put both companies together and merged both companies together. And that's when and, and, and whenever that happens, when you've got two companies like that, you get 2 totally different cultures, right? And that's where things just kind of went sideways. You know, it's like, well, who, who reports to who? Or well, we do it this way. Well, we do it this way. Well, what software are we going to use? Well, let's use this now. Ours is better. OK, let's use. Now let's go back to y'all's because y'all's is more. It was just, it was just back and forth. And that's when, that's when we decided we're, let's just move on. You know, you and I know enough people to where we could, we could just, we could start something different.

1:05:48 And let's just be a, a, a, a niche company in a, in a more specialized field, you know, and that's when we decided to be more into comms, more into, you know, RF and, and, and do that and. So what is what is SAV as a What's that called? An acronym. It stands for Sound and Sound and vision, Entertainment and Sound and vision was it was a it was a song from David Bowie. This is David Bowie song. Yeah, it was. I think you recorded. It you were Brady. But I think Brady came up with it, you know, so came up with it. It's like, let's call it sound and vision, OK? You're you're either, you know, a a complete lunatic or a genius for starting a company in January 2020, right at the front end.

1:06:36 Yeah, we had no idea. I remember coming back. I remember we went to Nam in Anaheim in 2020 and it was, it was packed. I just remember, I remember coming back and I was like, gosh, I don't, I don't feel good, you know, maybe I got the flu or maybe I got something, you know, and it was like, but I kept, I guess, I guess I just got through it. Or I'm thinking to myself, maybe I had Covin and I didn't know it, you know, but maybe. You gave it to all of us, like maybe you were, you know, maybe you were #7 I don't. Know, but there was just a lot of you know, think of all the people that come from Europe and Asia and everywhere to that. And it was like, you know, this was long before you know, there I am riding the escalator, putting my hand on the rail that's like go up, you know, just telling what what was going on.

1:07:22 It was like that movie. You know when they're in the movie theater, they got coffee to see. You know. All the germs go everywhere anyway. So yeah, that was that was crazy. But what really kept us going was, you know, I think it was all the TV studios figured out how to how to keep it going. You know, was there going to be a big convention with a lot of people where a lot of people can meet together? No. But can you have a close set and every people get tested every day and and have TV shows and stuff like that? Yeah, absolutely. But so that's where that's what. Did that really look like, though, like, you know, you started the company in January. You came back from Nam and started to realize, hey, there's something going on here.

1:08:04 By March, obviously it was full force, but did you guys second guess your decision and go God man, maybe we should maybe this isn't the right time to start a. Company no, no, we just, we just kept we just knew that you know, we had a big gig coming up and that was the NFL draft and and at that point we were just like, man, how are we going to pull this off because they wanted to do it virtually. So, so we figured out, you know, with the help of, you know, clear Com and Riedl and some other com manufacturers that we can, we can pull this off. It came out with a way where you can have an there's an app on your phone where you can, you can have comms on it and you can, you know, we could have a conversation and you could have multiple channels just like if it was a multi channel belt pack or whatever. So we're able to, we're able to pull, we're able to pull that off, you know, and we're able to successfully, you know, do the draft, you know, and I remember, you know, we were, you know, Brady was, you know, I was at home. We had another freelancer, you know, at at his house, you know, in Orlando.

1:09:12 And then Brady was in his garage, you know, there in there in Burbank and or rather in Glendale, you know, calling the shots, you know, here we are listening to, you know, and we're talking to Roger Goodell. He was in his basement, you know, you know, calling, you know, making the pics and stuff. Like, yeah, it was just, you look back. I'm like saying so we're able. Money that's being spent and stuff too, right? Like these people are drafting players that are going to. Get Oh, I know, yeah. And everything, yeah. And everything was just a remote. Everything was a a remote hit. And I and and one of the I think one of the NS, one of the higher up NFL guys and we just weren't connecting with it was always something. And finally we made a phone call and I was like, let's can we do a speed test or whatever?

1:09:56 I know his his Internet was just really low, you know, and I go, I go, man, what's going on? He goes, hang on. I think I know what it was. He had like his two teenage kids were in his basement where they were like gamers just sucking up all the bandwidth. So I was like, you got to stop that. We can't, we can't, we can't. You're going to be on TV, you know, and the producer needs to talk to you when you're in your ear and all this. And so it was like stuff like that. But it was like, yeah, it was just. So the show show went off OK though. Showing off, showing off great. You know, we, we actually, we, we just pulled off very stressful, but we pulled it off And then, you know, we were able to do, we had some other clients, you know, we were doing, you know, some, we were doing some TV shows. We do, we do some TV shows in some game shows in, in, in LA that we were able to keep that going. And then the sports was still able to, they were able to figure it out.

1:10:49 There weren't any people in the stands, but they still had a production and they still needed, they still needed to have, they still needed to have comms. You know, they still the, you know, the, the, the, the, you know, the producers and directors and we got camera people and you got all those people need to take directions. And that's. What, you guys stayed pretty busy then? We stayed, we stayed, we stayed busy. And you know, we're, we're, we're just, we're like a four person company. You know, it's just myself and Brady. We have another person that works that preps all the gear and then we've got kind of a operational guy that gets the gear out and checks it in, checks it out, kind of our warehouse operations guy that you got to have.

1:11:33 And where's your warehouse? It's. In Glendale. OK. Yeah. So you're still, you're still small like that. You're still four people. Oh. Wow, No, we're small. We have we have a long, we have a long list of freelancers. You know that we use that are that are that are fantastic. You know that that are go to people and and and that's it. You know, it's so smart because it's so tempting and so easy to grow, you know, and it, it's like, oh, but you got all these shows coming at you. Look at all this stuff you could be doing and next thing you know, you're, you know, up to here in and people and debt and payroll and all kinds of stuff. And that sounds like our, our, our thing was like, we don't, I don't, we don't ever want to work.

1:12:16 And, and it's not a knock against these, these companies, but we don't want to work for a company like like what VER was or, you know, these other big box rental companies, you know, where it's just like, man, we've already done that. And we know we. Don't want to become it You definitely. We don't want to, we don't want to become it. And we want to be smart about, you know, we want to definitely be smart about, you know, our purchases. And that's how we were with with with vents and, and, and VER. We always treated any of the purchases that we had, like if it was our own money, you know, we just, you know, wasn't till later on where people would come, Hey, we need to buy this. And it was like, you know, at that time, you know, the the other company, they would just say yes to everything. Oh, you think we need, oh, yeah, let's buy it. And it would just sit on the shelf or it would do one or two rentals and it would just sit there. But you know, nobody knew about it. It's funny 'cause you mentioned like their systems were a bit lacking.

1:13:09 You know, we, we were doing business on the equipment side with them in the early 2000s and they didn't even know where their stuff was, how much they had, they had no idea. Like their inventory control was just nonexistent. I was blown away. As big as that company, like it was just like they just outsold their losses or whatever, you know what I mean? Like. Right. No, I start with hearing. The sides, but they were replacing it with so much more stuff that you didn't really notice those losses. Yeah, it was like, that was a perfect example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I remember hearing stories where it's like, well, where is this gear? It's showing that.

1:13:51 It's showing in the system that it's available. They're like, oh, that that's it's, it's, it's in a trailer somewhere, you know, in in the Vegas parking lot or something. I was like, well, I got APO for it. We got to rent it. You know what's going on? They're like, it's not going to happen. I was like, you know, and then they were just, and then they got to the point to where a buddy of mine was telling me it was like, man, you don't believe what I just bought from VR. You know, they're they sold me all this stuff. And it was like, you know, it was stuff that was like, you know, I was talking to another buddy that still works there and, you know, I told him it was like, did you guys need to sell it? He was like, no, we need that. We've got a show where we need it. And it was like, like you said, is infrastructure stuff like multi pin stuff and, and you know, panels and all that stuff that you don't really necessarily charge for, you know, but it's, it's, it's part of the.

1:14:40 Kill without it you got. To have it, it's like, you know, it's like selling off the steering wheel of your car. Well, you need the steering wheel to sell the. Car you can't get important sell. That it's kind of. Important. Yeah. You know, so that's like nothing until, until it's gone. And then you're like, wait a second. Yeah. And then you're going back and you're like, you know, you're writing the PO to a cable manufacturer. I mean, can you build this more than even can you build something? It's like, Oh my gosh, yeah. And that's when I was like, this is this isn't good. You know this is on on the. Com side of things like other than this, this phone technology that you were talking about has have there been any huge advancements to Clearcom and to just Coms in general? Yeah, there's a so there's a company out there, You know, back in the day, it was just Clearcom. It was almost like a it was a buzzword like Kleenex or cool. Yeah, Yeah.

1:15:28 And that was just, it was just a way for, you know, people to communicate with each other. You know, it was just a, you know, back in the day it was just a, you know, they just had single channel, you had a single channel belt pack and you know, you're able to talk to everybody was on a single channel, you know, and now they have it to where, you know, then they built it up to where it's like, oh, you got a 2 channel belt pack. So channel one could be like production and then channel two could be, you know, whoever else want to talk. And then it just kept on growing to where then you had more of a matrix system, you know, where it's like, Hey, let's put all the lighting guys, you know, on Channel 2 and then we'll get the audio guys and they can be on a different, and then you can get the fall fucker. And then you just start spreading out. And then, but now, you know, with the truck companies and stuff, they've always had matrix systems to where you know, you've got multiple, multiple channel party lines that can, you know, different groups and, and different groups can, can talk to each other, you know, different departments. So, so a company out of Germany, they came out, a company called Riddle came out and they just, they came out with just IP based stuff and they just came out with just their own software. And they're just a program where they just made it just a lot easier and more versatile than any COM system out there where you could have, you know, multiple party lines, you could have, it was just multiple groups and conferences and you could just go, you just go bananas. You could just, you could do whatever you needed to do. And that's, that was really,

1:16:59 that's where that really changed things around. Yeah. And completely like what about has sound quality gotten better? Have ranges gotten better? Way, way better now. Now, you know, Riddle came out with a belt pack that's just so robust. You know, it's a imagine having a bell pack that's got six buttons on it, and those six buttons can be whatever you want them to be. It's like you and I can just have a point to point conversation, or you can listen to the entire production or you can just listen to, you know, you can just listen to the the show caller. You can listen to, you know, the lighting guys or the, OR the LD speak to the speak to the, to the, the follow spot guys, you know, and give them direction, which you know, I always the cool thing about coms is that you're listening to, it's almost like the, the old, you know, black and white, you know, movies that you see where you see somebody behind a big switchboard operator and you see a line of ladies and they're just, you know, playing switchboard operators and they're listening to every conversation.

1:18:02 It's real similar to that to where, you know, think of it as you're mixing monitors for a bunch of different people out there and you're giving them what they want to hear. But it's it has to do with comms and comms is how you communicate in a big production, you know, and when you want to hear somebody come unglued because, you know, a producer or director can't talk to a stage manager or speak to, you know, a camera guy to get a certain shot. And then it's just, it's just crazy. It's AI and I'm always amazed how things just end up on TV sometimes with just. You say that. Goes on which? Well, which is what goes on behind the scenes, you know. Yeah, you know, you mean in like a a live situation, like a sporting. Life situation sometimes, yeah, it was like. And sometimes you just you know, how TV is a lot different in production wise sometimes than what you see in touring. Like touring, you know, they've got all the great connectors and you know, every cable is black and everything's twisted this and that.

1:19:03 And you know, in, in production, I mean in, in, in TV sometimes, especially live TV, you see guys running orange extension cables or red extension cables and they're plugging into the wall into a power strip fiber things plugged into it. And was like, if any of those things were to turn off or go wrong, I almost feel like your TV would just be snow, like you wouldn't like it would just something horrific would happen, you know? And I was like, how, what, how is? This, you know, well, I guess it's because they're sort of building it on the spot, right? As opposed to building it. For every situations different and it was just some of it's you know, some of it is fly by the seat of your pants. Some of it is just you know, it's kind of it's it's just it's just temporary.

1:19:46 You know, in a few days it's just or, or that night it's going to be gone. You know it's not. And they're not going, they're not packing it up and going to the next city. It's going on a truck and then you don't know if you're going to see it, you know, on the next gig or forever, whatever. Yeah, that's, it's just an interesting comment, you know, like I'm amazed at that, how some of these things end up on TV, you know? Yeah, it's just, yeah. It's just, it's amazing how things and, and what I like about what, what makes it really cool on the com side is that when you, it's the only department, I think is that you're able to work with all the other departments. So with comms, you're able to work with the graphics people, you work with the truck people, you work with the house sound guys and the lighting guys.

1:20:33 And you work with, you know, you work with the stage managers, you work with every, every aspect of a production. You know, to, to, to create to what you see on TV or, or you know, whatever, if it's a concert or whatever. And every, you're working with all of them. And I always tell the younger guys, it's like, if you know how, if you know how a production gets put together, you know, for TV or, or even live, you know how things, you know what the flow is and how things operate, you're just that much more valuable to the, to the overall production. You know, so is is your like? Your main business is comms. It's it's, I would say it's 90% comms.

1:21:16 We do a lot of and and and that and yeah, and that is both I would say that's both us going out and, and working, you know, the events and, and being there on site. And also just straight up dry hire rentals. There's plenty of companies that call us. Hey, I, I need this. We just, you know, we'll just send it out if they can pick it up or, or just, or whatever. But we do a lot of sports. We do a lot of sporting events, whether it's, you know, the Super Bowl, well, Super. Bowl. And we do. What do you do? The Super Bowl, All the comms. We do, we do all the comms that has to do with just the show itself. So just like any other show, there's a script and there's, you know, at, at the, at the, you know, at 4:19, they're going to, they're going to do a hit and they're going to do a satellite reporter's going to do a hit down on the ground or they're going to do a promotion or, you know, there's a script to follow.

1:22:08 So we do the, we work real closely with the guys at, at Van Wagner and they're the ones who actually produce, you know, the, the home shows, you know, so you're. Not doing like the coach to the quarterback. Or any no, no, no, no, no, no. The NFL, the NFL has their own, they have their own group of people that just do that. And it's a it's another, it's another, it's another manufacturer that do that. And what about half time halftime? ATK does that. OK, so ATK is part of, is part of, well, they were, they're part of Claire now. Yeah. So they do, they do the they do the halftime. So they do the halftime and they do all the halftime entertainment. And then we do everything of we do the whole game itself from from, from all the pageantry, you know, the national anthem and all the stuff that happens before the game, during the game, after the game, all the trophy presentation and any, any cool stories.

1:23:06 Any massive crashes or anything? There's been crashes, but you know, it's just, it's part of the things that happened, you know, and it was, it was just recently where, you know, we, we, and when we really work closely with the manufacturers on this, where we'll, we'll bring, you know, somebody in from the manufacturing site and this is like your biggest gig. So we should, you guys need to be here, you know, 'cause there's, there's a lot going on. And in the early days it was tough because before, and this is, this is all wireless stuff that we're talking about is that it was just tough. You know, there was a lot of frequency coordinating and it was just, you know, you just got to cross your fingers, you know, 'cause it's live, you know, it's like anything can happen, you know, And, but now it's like, you know, we're able to, you know, work with the SEC and, and work it to where, you know, Regal, you know, I mean ATK, you know, they're doing the half before they would be like, OK, during halftime, you know, we'll turn off all our packs and our antennas and then when it's over, then we'll just switch back.

1:24:06 And it was just all this back and forth and it was like, now it's now I think we've, we've finally, I think we've got it. You know, so is that like the biggest show you're doing every year or? It's, believe it or not, the biggest, one of the biggest shows we do is, is the NFL draft, you know, and that's, there's a lot of moving parts to that because you're working with, you're working with the NFL Network, you're working with the NFL and you're working with ESPN. And there's, so there's multiple things, you know, going on. You know, there's a lot of remote hits though. They'll have people like we had, we had to get comms to somebody in Australia because they wanted to do the presentation. Like, you know, if you ever seen the draft, they'll be like, and now so and so is going to announce the 42nd pick and he'll be somewhere remote and these guys are like on the beach somewhere, you know?

1:24:54 Oh, wow. So it was like, yeah, it was something like that where it was like, there's just a lot, there's just a lot of moving, moving parts to it. So comms there's kind of so. NFL's a big client for you, though. NFL is the NFL is a good one. And like I said, we worked along. We work with Van Wagner. You know, they're the ones who bring us in and we're working with them on stuff like that. We do, we do some, some decent amount of corporate shows and you know, not that long ago, it's just a couple of months ago, we did a rodeo. We've I've never worked with live animals before. It was the craziest thing, you know. So yeah, lot of, lot of sporting national championships for we do the US Open, we do just big, we just do, we do sporting. Sarah said.

1:25:37 You know, you've worked with three US presidents. Who are they? Who? Didn't I work for? Well, I've worked with. Who did I work with? I worked with AI, worked with George Bush, George W Bush, and worked with President, President Biden. OK. All three of them, whether it was just, you know, some of them was actually me, like, you know, running sound. I've got the, you know, my hands, my fader, my hands on the fader, you know, controlling his microphone, you know, kind of a corporate event. And then the other one was just, you know, doing comms, you know. Oh, yeah, that's cool. You know, they do a, we do a lot of these Department of State type, you know, events, you know, in, in DC, you know, so, yeah, no, it's fun. It's so it's you just you just like I say, you never know who you're going to meet.

1:26:28 And like I said, it's just fun to work with other, other departments and see how they and see how they operate. Of course, I have an affinity towards the audio guys cuz I was the audio guy and there's a good chance that, hey, do you know so and so, Yeah, I know. So it's, yeah, I know. I used to work here. So there's always, it's always fun to talk to the audio guys. Do you have any crazy predictions on on gear, like where you think something's going or where you'd like to see it go or? Gosh, you know, I, I always said I was like, man, that would, you know, back and it's already happened. But I was like, boy, that'd be cool if you could just walk around with your phone, you know, just make it just, well, they already have that, you know, they already came out with that, you know, it's like, so you know, yeah, I don't know why. So I just, I, you know, I think of it. I was like, boy, that'd be cool if we did that, but I was like, I don't, you know?

1:27:20 Well AII think is playing a massive role in a lot of different things. Audio like. That's the thing too, where it was like, gosh, are we going to be out of a gig? I talked to the guys and I was like, can a can, can AI just, you know, can somebody make a request and and, you know, all of a sudden, you know, we're out of a gig and they make the com change for you or something like that. Somebody still physically has to, you know, set it up and and stuff like that. But yeah. You know, I think there's a lot. Of I don't know. There's a lot of aspects of, of what you do, what we do, what the world does that you know, you're, you're obviously still going to need people doing it. But I to me, I still try to look at the positive side of everything. AI to you know it's going to help you, it's going to make you more productive, It's going to make you better at your job, not take your job away from you.

1:28:11 For sure. I think people who use AI are going to become more value than valuable than people who don't. Is is really where it's going to come down I. Think it's just, you know, you use it to your discretion and you know, you can use it or, or you can't, you know, just use it. I think you use it, like you said, maybe just use it as a tool, you know, to, to, to help you along. Somebody had told me that there was an, an AI that you could listen to somebody. Let's say you're, you know, you're middle of an arena, you're running sound for whoever. And it would listen to your mix and then it would tell you, hey, on the lead vocal, you know, and it would just tell you, you know, how to EQ it or what, what it needs to make it. And it was like, man, that's tough because it was like, well, how do they know? It's how do you know what makes them right? You know, like, you know, because audio is just so subjective.

1:29:00 You know, well, but I think you're going to be able to dial in the subjective, you know. So I I want a warmer sound. I want a this sound. I want a more this sound. I want it the stones in 1976 at you know, whatever. I want it to sound like that, you know? Yeah, I had a friend that that worked for a Shoko, you know, Alanis Morissette was one of the artists at that we did. And I want to say it was either the monitor guy or the, or the, or the front of house guy. She would just come out on stage and do soundtracks. She's like like, man, my my monitors just sound. It sounds like a dusty addict. It was like what? And then after a while, or she'd say things are like, it just sounds like, it sounds like an old shoe. And then he kind of figured out he'd make an adjustment. So then he'd have like, you know, he'd have his notes, right?

1:29:52 And then he's like. And then down, you know the Yeah. It was like turn down the mids. It was like, oh, shoe means you know, add 2 DB of you know, whenever the formula was and it was like he'd have a hilarious. List of of that hilarious. That is so funny. How do you make that up? Right, a glossary of, you know, Alanis Morissette audio terms. 100% that's exactly what it was. Yeah, the artists are always right though. You know that, Joe? Exactly right. I mean they. They know it. If you want to keep your job, you want, of course. Yeah, you want to do what they told you? To do yes, ma'am. No ma'am. Did we miss anything? I feel like we have. We've talked about a lot of stuff.

1:30:34 Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I can't think of. Did you know? Did you know Randy Wade? I do know Randy Wade. Speaking of Shoko and audio. Had talked to him not that long ago. I knew him through mutual friends. I I know him through all the guys from like George Strait. They kind of hang around that he kind of hangs around that that circle of of of guys. But yeah, I remember he would he would use VERI think he was working for Usher maybe or Janet Jackson or one of those he. Was audio analyst for a long time and I think he worked at Show Co. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure he worked that show. Randy, Randy. Wait. Was he was he a lighting guy? He was.

1:31:17 There's an Eric Wait. Eric, wait. Yeah, Eric, wait. I think I'm sorry. There's Eric. Wait. There's a Randy. Wait. Randy sounds very familiar. He was a Dallas guy as well, but I I'm. The Randy, he was a Randy Bryant. I know Randy Bryant. You know he would go by Rainbow. No, I was just wondering if you knew Randy Wade because he passed away, I don't know, two years ago now probably. Yeah, No, I heard about that. No, I, I, I knew him, but we weren't, you know, just more of the acquaintance. There's so many people, it's hard to know everybody. It is. It is just recently. I appreciate you taking the time to do this. And, and like I said at the front end, it's always fun getting to know new people. So, you know, I, I enjoy it a lot and I learned about comms.

1:32:00 You learned about comms. It's very important. It is. It's part of a production. You got to have it. Oh, it's you got to, you got to again, take it away like the steering wheel, you know, take away comms and let me see how you do your show. Be ugly. It's tough, it's ugly, it gets, it gets, it's, it's pretty bad. I'm more than happy to, to, to e-mail you guys back. I I could I could come up with probably a notebook page of people you could talk to that are. We appreciate that very much. All the time. They're really good, you know. Good stories, great knowledge. You know, like we get young people and old people that listen to our podcast. So a lot of times it's younger people just trying to figure out how the old guys like me did it. Not that I did anything, but you know, older people in the lighting space, older people in audio, you know, how they got successful, how they did what they did and then sort of try to follow that path hopefully.

1:32:54 Yeah, mine was just a little bit of both. You know, I went to college, but then I also just wanted to, you know, I just, I kept at it and I've made and I like I tell all the young guys like I've made every mistake. I've left gear in the warehouse. I've, you know, ran cables backwards. I, you know, I showed up late to, I showed up for the day before. I showed up the day after. I missed flight. It was like every mistake you can make. I've made them all, you know, and, and the young guys always asked like, well, what piece of advice, you know, I'm running sound for this band. I was like, you know what, what advice can you give me? I was like #1 job in audio. If you're going to run sound for a band, run sound for a good band. You know, run sound for a band that, you know, singer knows how to sing, guitar player's got a good tone, you know, it's helpful.

1:33:40 It makes your job way easier. If you run sound for a good band, man, you're just, yeah, you're pushing. But also when you do something stupid, have a great attitude about it, you know, own it, have a good attitude, you know, and it makes such a difference. Like when you start blaming other people, it doesn't go very far. No, no, people nowadays, people just, they'll just pick you off. And you know, and, and I say that to young guys too, it's like don't, if you're going to show up late, then just don't, don't bother showing up. Yeah. Because that's, that's a big part of it. Show up, show up on time and, and, and if you don't know, tell them you don't know. You know, it's just. You know, what are we married? I was married over 20 years to somebody who is late for everything.

1:34:20 And I'm one of these people who's nuts, who has to be early for everything. And so I'm now divorced and my girlfriend now and I are exactly the same. Like, you know, 10 minutes before you're late. You know you're late if you're only there 10 minutes early. And so it's much. Easier Zero. I have zero patience for that. I just me too. Drives me bananas. Yeah, me. Too, you know, you know, and running to the gate for a flight. I just, you know, why create that kind of anxiety when you don't? Need to know. I know. That's crazy. I know. And you think people like that would learn their lesson? Just, you know, we're not my ex. I never want to do that again, you know? Not my ex-wife. Yeah, no way. Yeah, just yeah.

1:35:01 Jeez all. Right, Joe. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Thanks, Marcel. Are you going to go to Infocom? You know what? I'm not. I, I am going to Canada next week. Oh. That's right, you told me. That and I was going to come back a week later for Infocom, but I don't think I'm going to as of right now. So if I do though, I'll look you up. Thank you for sure. And tell Brad, I said hey. Of course, absolutely got it. Will do. OK, All right, man. So I'm not gonna touch anything, right? Don't. Nope, Nope. We're all good.

1:35:49 None.