prove much of a stretch, since Jackson had
always been the one to handle business for
the regional bands he played in. But, he did
have to adjust to the differences of travel-
ing on a national level.
When the artist downsized his organization at
the end of the year, Jackson was
faced with the choice of returning to the role
of musician, or continuing to work as a
road manager. He turned down an offer to play
bass with a band in order to road
manage singer David Ball. Since that time,
Jackson has been out on the road almost
continuously with artists like Hal Ketchum,
Buffalo Club, David Kersch, and Gary
Allan.
GUITAR TECH · INSTRUMENT TECH ·
STRINGED INSTRUMENT TECHNICIAN
JOB OVERVIEW
These technicians ensure that all stringed
instruments are in good repair and are
on stage for the live performance. This
includes electronic repairs, changing strings,
and overall upkeep of the instruments. They
also clean, polish, tune, and setup the
stringed instruments on stage prior to each
performance. They are available during
the show to change broken strings and handle
any other problems, and oversee the
packing and transportation of instruments to
the next gig.
PREREQUISITES
"Without a doubt, my basic hands-on knowledge
of stringed instruments and
how they function is the reason for my success.
There is a lot of electronics involved.
It's knowing how the instrument functions--all
the parts that come together to make
that whole--knowing how to take care of
instruments. I'm kind of a doctor and
guitars are my patients. They come to me when
they're sick, and I make them well."
A DAY IN THE LIFE
"When you're the headline act, you get
everything packed up after the show and
get on the bus that night and roll to the next
venue. There could be as little as 150 to
200 miles, all the way up to 600 to 700 mile
runs overnight. You wake up on the bus
at the venue the next morning, stagger into
catering and get yourself some breakfast,
and start taking care of your individual job.
`Building your world,' as we call it. I build
guitar world, the monitor engineer builds
monitor world, and so forth."
"You normally start loading-in rigging around
8
a.m., sometimes earlier. The
techs are usually the last off the bus because
we can't start building our world while
the production crew is putting up lights and
sound. You don't want to have the
guitars sitting out and have a speaker cabinet
or lighting tower fall on one of them.
Typically, I'm in the building from
10
a.m. and, except for a quick lunch break,
I'll
work nonstop through sound check. We do a line
check before sound check, which
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