Road Warriors

Road Warriors 12 Sep 2017 Stories From The Touring Women Who Keep The Music Sounding Sweet Listen, I'm not going to treat you like a girl.' Dana Wachs is recounting her interaction with a male staff member at a show she was working as front of house tech. Wachs is a self-professed gear nerd and a self-taught jack-of-all-trades who works as an audio engineer, tour manager, and monitor engineer. But in effect, by saying that, what he did was to treat me like a girl,' said Wachs.

Dana Wachs at the controls.

The gendering of roles within the audio and technological side of the music industry is one of the more complex parts of the problem found in dealing with misogyny and sexism in music. Is this discrimination founded on ignorance or are people really that condescending and threatened by women in the field?

I've definitely had band members or audience members or other techs, who are like, Do you find it hard being a female tech?' As if it's never crossed their minds that I could do this, said Rachel Ryan, over the phone from her home in Los Angeles between tours. It's just that they've never seen a female tech, so they're genuinely confused. That's coming from a very different place than just let's talk about your experience as a female, as an engineer, as both'.

Rachel Ryan, FOH engineer, unloading a touring rig.

Sharon Levinson - another FOH engineer who doubles as tour manager for acts like Amon Tobin, Swans, and Kid Koala - approaches it from a slightly different perspective. When I was 20, when I first started, I looked like I was 15, so it was probably less about the fact that I was a girl and more about the fact that I looked 15 and probably didn't know what I was doing, said Levinson. [Men not taking me seriously] doesn't happen as much now as it used to. Or if it does, it's usually only the first five minutes and then they realize I know what I'm doing and it's not an issue.

Sharon Levinson, FOH engineer and tour manager, takes a break backstage.

When I was younger, I did experience a lot of condescension, said Wachs. But that may have been because of the fact that I was just young and nothing to do with being a woman. Other times, it seemed more obvious that I was being targeted because I was a woman. If there is any difference between the way men and women techs work with each other within the industry then Ryan, Levinson, and Wachs all seem to share a similar view: That it is more about individual styles and personalities than boys versus girls. It always depends on the individuals, said Levinson. I've been hired by bands that include girls specifically because I'm female being the only girl on a tour can be isolating, but if there are two of us (or more) it kind of cancels out the gender issue.

Tour life is gruelling. Twelve hour days, hundreds of miles of driving, organizing a crew of 40, weeks away from friends and family, solving problems on the fly. On the recent Deerhunter/Kings Of Leon tour, the fiber communication between the FOH console and the split somehow died just two minutes before their set, Wachs recalls. I ended up having to mix FOH from the monitor console, using the monitor engineer's show file with no effects, low-pass engaged in every channel, on headphones, probably about 50 feet behind the mains. That definitely brought my heart rate up a bit!

These problems can sometimes be magnified or diminished, depending on the context and the country. In Japan, many of the crew were women. said Wachs. They worked hard. Everything was efficient and ran smoothly.

Ryan has had similar experiences working abroad during her time out on the road. I've definitely been to other countries where I've been the only female tech and they've never seen one before, said Ryan, who has been behind the board since she was a teen. Working with bands like Silversun Pickups, School of Seven Bells, Phosphorescent, and Little Boots, she has an enormous amount of experience. I happen to work with a lot of female bands who are specifically looking for female crew or have female band members, she said. I also work, within the industry, with a lot of men, who are engineers or tour managers or even in bands. This last tour, out of 45 people, four of us were female.

I hate to separate female engineers, but because there are issues, usually from males in the industry, we need to talk about it or else it will never change. - Dana Wachs, Touring Engineer

Ryan has a great fondness for some of the women she's had the pleasure to work, with behind the board and on stage, over the years. I love all the girls that I've met, she said. We run into each other on tour. It's good to have that community of people - male or female, it's good to have a support system. Touring is hard, whether you're male or female. It's important to have your people to keep you grounded.

Ryan is part of a few different female-focused groups, including The Knife Set (a group of women all working in tour management, audio engineering, and tech). She is also a member of Soundgirls, an online resource center and community for audio engineers, of which Wachs is also a member.

Soundgirls not only shares plenty of job opportunities, but is a resource for technological troubleshooting, as well as supporting women in a vastly male field, said Wachs. I hate to separate female engineers, but because there are issues, usually from males in the industry, we need to talk about it or else it will never change.

The importance of these discussions and facts becomes clear for both the recognition of issues and the successive dismantling of the currently male-dominated workforce. There are not a lot of women in this industry. said Ryan. If we don't talk about

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