Wednesday, September 14, 2011
In Profile: Maryland Sound’s Bob Goldstein, Doing Really Big Really Well
“Doing shows is our first, primary love. There’s nothing better than a great sounding show.” - Bob GoldsteinIt’s fair to say that Bob Goldstein loves a challenge, and the bigger, the better.
“We do really, really big, really, really well. Everyone puts in the effort. There’s no quit,” he says.
Consequently, when Goldstein talks about his life and career, he does so by relating anecdotes that focus on the challenges – personal and professional – that he and MSI have proudly met over time.
Some are a result of the incredibly complex jobs he delights in taking on, while others are the product of a love affair with the arts that dates back to the very beginning of his career, from when he first began playing bass guitar in local Baltimore-based bands in 1961.
That love has always fueled his work in audio, he explains, as well as an abiding interest in history, art and architecture that has, literally, caused him to lose a fair bit of sleep over the years. “As long as I was on the road, I never did a tour bus. I’d always make a point of driving through places, going to museums and historical sites. It was tough because I never slept, but I liked driving the truck because it allowed me to stop and see things.”
As a result, Goldstein has a wealth of stories well worth telling. Stories that range from good, like the company building its first MSI “Super-board” from scratch for an early Andy Gibb tour in 30 days, to downright ugly, like an early misadventure with electricity that prompted him to rethink his pursuit of a career in music.
“When I was 15 I picked up an electrical cord. I had a bit of moisture in my left hand and the thing exploded and burned all the skin off of it. I had a gig the next night, and it’s hard to fret a bass with the skin burnt off your hand. So I realized right there, this is a really fragile existence.”
It was that realization that would ultimately lead him to a life on the road and the founding of MSI, a company that has gained a reputation for taking on jobs considered virtually impossible, and doing so with a degree of calm that has often prompted clients and competitors to shake their heads in disbelief.
Taking It On
Anyone responsible for sound reinforcement in large outdoor venues faces challenges, including huge storms and often punishing timelines. But some that MSI has faced trump weather and scheduling issues in a big way: chief among them negotiating security while trying to provide sound for more than 2 million people - the largest audience to attend a civic event served by an outdoor system in the history of the U.S – for the January 2009 inauguration of U.S. president Barrack Obama. (Go here to see our Photo Gallery of the system for the inauguration.)
Then there’s the Times Square New Year’s Eve extravaganza, which had never had sound reinforcement prior to 1998-99. It was an event other companies approached for the job considered impossible, but also suggested organizers speak to a “crazy company from Baltimore,” who might just take it on.
In all, there were 150 conditions governing what type of infrastructure could and could not be used. “
No generators, structures, or wires, nothing you could climb on, nothing with fuel. And no testing time; you have to set it up and it has to work perfectly,” Goldstein says.
The solution: individual negotiations with owners of surrounding buildings to get clearance to drill holes in those buildings and crane-mount loudspeakers that would tap into existing A/C infrastructure to power a unique microwave system to transmit signal. And although the system has changed since then, MSI has been contracted to provide sound for the event every year.
Goldstein’s passion for audio manifested itself initially while he was growing up in Baltimore. “When I was 11 my grandmother bought me a bass guitar. There were no bass amps that were worth anything back then, so I built my own and taught myself what sounded good and what didn’t.”
He went on to gain a reputation as a bass guy, he adds. Correspondingly, MSI always set the bar very high for bass devices, providing some of the most powerful of the time and prompting a member of the Commodores to comment, “A lot of guys got bass, but MSI’s got the thunder.”
Early Touring
By age 16, Goldstein was working as a musician and as a sales manager for a local electronics company, a combination that led to his first job as an engineer/DJ, a regular weekend gig in the summer of 1966 at Baltimore’s inner harbor.
Working from midnight to 6 am, he soon got to know the staff and owners of numerous local nightclubs, and it led to a house gig at Club Venus, host to numerous well-known acts of the time. “That was when I started Maryland Sound,” he adds.
When Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons came through in 1968, Clair Brothers asked Goldstein to tour as their mix engineer. Studying architecture at the University of Maryland at the time, Goldstein jumped at the chance, becoming one of the first touring engineers for the company.
Although he wanted to be an architect, he also wanted to be a sound engineer, and there was no formal training available for audio. “I took engineering and music composition courses, but you couldn’t really put a useful group of classes together.” Instead, he opted to continue his education in sound on the road. His first lesson: expect the unexpected.
“I had a bunch of Altec Voice of the Theatre (loudspeakers), power amps, and a mixing console made up of Altec rack mounts strapped together with a treble and bass control on every five mics.” All packed, he adds, “in my brand-new blue Dodge Maxi Van.”
After his first show, at Temple University in Ambler, PA, Goldstein got into his van and headed for the next gig.
Just as he was coming out of the Lehigh Tunnel in his sparkling new ride, around 3 am, he felt something hit the front of the van.
“I hear BAM, pull over to the side of the road, and there’s blood and guts all over the side of my new van. And there, in the middle of the road, about 150 yards back, is this headless Black Angus steer. He must have lifted his head just as I hit. If I’d been driving a foot and a half to the left I’d probably be dead.”
Goldstein found the head wedged into his front bumper, but what first occurred to him wasn’t how to pull it free, it was what to do with the rest of the beast.
“My family would buy a quarter of a steer for, I think, $1,800 to $2,000 back then. I thought, my god, this thing’s worth 8 grand, so I’m trying to figure out if I can strap it on the van. You’re not thinking, right? Then I realize I’m going to be out on the road for six months and it’s going to stink by tomorrow, so I gave up.
“My first day on the road,” he adds, laughing, “and I said, ‘well, this is going to be an interesting life’.”
Building A Reputation
Two years into the gig, when Clair Brothers asked him to take on another project, Goldstein felt he couldn’t leave Frankie Valli. “You’re talking about a show that has a lot of cues. You can’t just put someone else in there without training them on what Frankie and the band liked, and I didn’t like the idea of leaving them high and dry.”
He still considers the band his favorite. “It was where I started. When I played music that was what I played - doo-wop, Motown and R&B.”
He also felt he was an integral part of delivering the music to the audience, a role he takes enduring pride in. And although he did tour with many acts over time, he continued working with The Four Seasons until 1985, at times doing upwards of 200 shows a year.
Building MSI from the road before the advent of cell phones and email was nearly an impossible task in itself, but Goldstein explains, “You do a good job and people start asking ‘can you help with this or that?’ You start hiring people, sending them out and they do a good job. Then you hire more people, they do a good job, and you get a good reputation.”
As MSI grew it integrated other companies to expand its capabilities and geographical reach, among them Northwest Sound and Stanal Sound, and since, has branched out into virtually every segment of the industry. But concert sound remains Goldstein’s greatest pleasure.
“Doing shows is our first, primary love. There’s nothing better than a great sounding show.” Having said that, Goldstein stopped doing sound personally in 1985 to focus on his company. “I didn’t mix for 20 years. Some could argue I should have stayed on the road instead of tinkering with what was working at the office,” he says, laughing again.
Pushing Limits
A self-admitted perfectionist, high production values and great musicianship are what Goldstein has always valued most highly in an act; artists who push their own limits and thus force him to push his. “Great voices,” he explains, like Whitney Houston, Frankie Valli, Minnie Ripperton, Mariah Carey, Daryl Hall and Josh Groban – who he began mixing when he felt able to delegate the day-to-day running of MSI to others.
“I went back to mix Josh Groban in 2004, and what I’d forgotten about when I was in the office for all that time was that addiction you have for the drug of the audience. When they go nuts it’s not for you, but part of it is, and it’s a great feeling knowing you translated the music well.”
As for the future, Goldstein sees MSI working on more and more television, broadcast and corporate applications and continuing to push the limits of possibility at ever-larger events and concerts. Again, he stresses, the bigger, the better.
“Tell us there’s something we can’t do. We thrive on that. We like doing big. Anytime somebody’s got a big project, send it on this way. We don’t mind doing small, but we love really, really, big. If you can think of something that will draw 15 million people, give us a call. We would really enjoy that.”
Based in Toronto, Kevin Young is a freelance music and tech writer, professional musician and composer.
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