The Curse of the PA

I often curse the day my husband got his PA. He claimed he was going to make money running sound for other bands and it would pay for itself. It would also provide him with band security, because he'd be the one with the PA, i.e., harder to kick out of the band.

So, for years, an entire room in the apartment became the storage room for the PA. Now in the house, I have to walk through a maze of PA equipment to get to the washing machine. One of the cars always has to be big enough to haul the PA. And it never really pays for itself because things break, things have to be replaced. Bands that make money buy their own PA, and bands that don't make money don't want to pay anything reasonable for PA. So you end up just being the guy in your own band that always brings the PA.

And if you're the girl dating the guy in the band that brings the PA, and you ride with him, then you're there two hours before the gig starts and at least an hour after it's over. It's a long night. Lately there's been few paying jobs and more freebies running sound for friends' parties.

Musician parties are tantamount to Woodstockian events. Musicians know musicians, so there's usually eight to 20 bands. These things start early in the afternoon and go into the wee hours because people won't go home. They camp out. They drum circle. They sleep on the lawn. If you're bringing the PA, you go in at 11 a.m. to set up, and when the final band gives up at 2 in the morning, then there's another hour or two of amateurs -- people who can't play, people who can't sing, people who are drunk -- who want to take advantage of the live mic and live out a fantasy for awhile. If you're a nice guy like my husband, you don't pull the plug on them until everyone at the party is comatose.

In the beginning -- when I was working on our relationship, or felt I needed to be supportive -- I would go to these ordeals, but I am notoriously and famously the Least Fun Person at Any Party. Now I don't go. I fantasize about going to parties in a normal way, arriving when things are well underway and then leaving before they get stupid. I fantasize about having a date for parties who actually hangs out with me, who isn't either chained to the PA for 15 hours or on stage himself. (Probably the key was to date someone who likes music, not someone who plays music.)

So my husband comes back from these things and says, "Everyone asked about you." He thinks they missed me. But I know, being the Least Fun Person at Any Party, that's not the case. I tell him, "They ask about me because they think we've broken up. They're just checking to see if there is any way possible we could still be together."