May 8, 1971: KRC Productions

 

Our good friend Dan Sack makes an appearance here in a hard-working supporting role. All that hair on top of his head in the photo is now under his chin. The sound company is still around, now known as Indigo Productions. See Footnote at the end.

 May 8, 1971

 They’re Good in Audio

An ordinary week might find KRC Associates doing sound and maybe lighting for three or four shows, but lately a week like that would be considered a vacation.

The 21st consecutive work day got rolling around 1 p.m. last Saturday when Dan Sack and Fred Sandner, sleepless for three days earlier in the week, eased a big yellow rental truck onto the Kensington Expressway and pointed it toward Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

In back were four bass speakers (two 400-pound black boxes and two exponential horns), four high-frequency “radio” horns, two monitor speakers, four amplifiers, a 15-channel mixing console and, of course, 15 bass-and-treble-adjustable microphones to go with it.

In all, roughly half of KRC’s audio inventory. Bill Rofod and Casimer (Kayo) Stolarski had most of the rest on tour with McKendree Spring, who contracted with KRC after a UB concert last December.

* * *

“YOU GOTTA have big, powerful, expensive equipment these days. If you don’t, you get distortion,” KRC founder Joe Romanowski will tell you. “And it’s what the groups want. They’re demanding it.”

By rock ‘n roll touring standards, Dan and Fred didn’t have much of a drive. And 5½ hours later, when they reached the Wilkes-Barre Commonwealth College gym, they were happy to find the promoter had even rented them parking space.

Coming up at 9 p.m. was the same show that would be in Buffalo the next night – John Sebastian and Mashmakhan – although KRC wasn’t doing the sound in Buffalo. Instead, they’d come to substitute for another sound company that found itself short on equipment.

* * *

WILKES-BARRE, unlike Buffalo, yielded plenty of student volunteers to help unload and Mashmakhan’s equipment already was on stage. A talk with the road manager and an easy set-up. Dan and Fred were done by 7:45.

The gym’s echo softened as it filled with kids and Dan and Fred spent the show in front of the console, maintaining balances. Except for intermission, when they reset microphones for Sebastian.

Mashmakhan took 12 mikes, Sebeastian needed 14 – two on piano, four on drums and one each on electric piano, the bass amp, Sebastian’s acoustic guitar, his electric guitar amp and his vocals.

* * *

TEARING DOWN was a little more leisurely – 1½ hours. “We like to take our time afterwards, talk to people,” Dan says, “and we got paid by the promoter. He must’ve given us about 200 $1 bills.”

        After that, into a motel for sleep before the Sunday drive home. Straighten out a few things at KRC’s headquarters in an old Main Street office furniture store, a quick snack at home, a visit to the Domus production, then join Joe Romanowski until 3 or 4 p.m. setting up sound for “Indians” at the Studio Arena Theater.

        By Monday afternoon, things had eased up. Move equipment, return the truck, later on wire extra circuits into that big console, doodle around by making up a few more of those double-action light flashers.

        The normally busy phone stays quiet as Joe talks in machinegun bursts. “There’s just six people here and we work a LOT. Sixteen hours a day. We’re running a lot. Even the part-time people like Fred and Kayo are working double time. When you think about it, how many people would work like that?

        “I’m having a lotta fun,” Joe continues, “that’s why I’m in this business. Once you start going 9 to 5, get into that kind of a week, it takes all the fun out of it.

        “I’m living this 24 hours a day. I enjoy the people and the work and I enjoy being patted on the back for a good job. It’s a bit of an ego trip, especially when you’re doing big groups.”

* * *

HE TALKS about how five years ago a band could run vocals through a 100-watt Bogen, how groups now are concerned about monitoring and what goes into each monitor speaker (“some guys don’t want piano, some guys don’t want guitar …”).

        And how the secret of audio (and lighting) is to change settings slowly if something’s wrong, how The Who is going in for quadraphonic sound, how there’s a new $1,000 microphone with bass and treble controls for each octave.

        “If you wanted to run 12 mikes, that’s $12,000,” he exclaims. “And it might cost you another $25,000 for the control board.”

* * *

KRC HAS been what Joe calls “regional” since last Christmas or so, mostly to get more use out of that rock concert equipment, $35,000 worth of which is traveling with McKendree Spring. In six months, he figures, KRC will have all the basic equipment it needs.

        “You buy a good amp, there’s 10 years in it,” he says. “Mike stands have been the same for years. Mixers we can sell used and update ourselves. Cables aren’t going to be obsolete.”

* * *

DESPITE THE regional move, there’s still plenty of work in Buffalo. Studio Arena, the colleges, a new sound system for Melody Fair, sound and lighting for the Buffalo Zoo’s rain forest thunderstorm, the Chicago concert last August, lighting for Hodge Displays and work for numerous weddings, parties and social affairs. Ann Marie Plubell, a UB student, is KRC’s lighting specialist.

        “No one person can do it,” Joe notes. “We’ve had six or seven jobs in one day. My people are handpicked. They’re very hard to find. Usually they’ll come around and say they’ll work for nothing. Then you work with them, see if they’re sincere, if this is what they want. I trust Dan and Bill with anything. They’re both vice presidents of the company.

        “How do you become good in audio? You have to do audio every day. You have to set up mikes, listen to them, see what they can do.”

* * *

THE PHONE rings. Someone from UB.

        “They’ve got a program in Norton Union tonight that requires 12 color TVs,” Joe laughs, hanging up, “and they just found out Norton doesn’t have a TV antenna.” 

The box/sidebar: 

Wants to Go International 

        An income tax return started Joe Romanowski into being a freelance sound man when he was recording engineer at UB, but he’d been up for having his own business since he was in the Marines.

        “I got some requests from Norton Union and they asked me at a good time,” he says. “It was tax return time and so I went out and bought four Voice of the Theaters and figured the work would pay for them. I just planned to use them around the house.”

* * *

JOE, WHO’LL be 29 this month, is a Lackawanna native and father of three. Communications technology was his specialty in the Marines and he used his time off to start a TV repair business.

        Later, he worked on missile systems at Sylvania and went on the road as a field rep for a computer firm. Then at UB he spent three years as recording engineer.

        “It was a good job, it paid well and it was a lotta fun,” he says. “I met some tremendous people up there. The Creative Associates. Lukas Foss. John Cage. I even did a couple recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and went to Carnegie Hall.”

* * *

KRC STANDS for Romanowski and the initials of an early backer and a former partner. “I’ve worked without drawing a penny out of it,” Joe says, “living on what I’d saved. The money we’ve made has gone back into equipment.

        “It’s starting to get there. It’s this first couple of years. After that, you don’t have much to pay out. I mean, we’re all out seeking something to set ourselves up financially and it was hard for me to find what I wanted to do in life.

        “Actually, as I got more and more free to do what I wanted, I liked it more. I really enjoy this. I’d like to go national, even international.” 

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Joe Romanowski has been in the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame since 2004, where his bio notes that he does sound and lights for Thursday in the Square and the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop and toured seven years with Bobby Vinton. Along the way, he’s also done work for the Erie County Fair for 50 years.