A thread for funny stories

Definitely not "funny", more along the lines of a creepy coincidence; It was around 2001, and I was starting to get paid recording gigs. I met an older musician who wanted to shift into producing and after hearing my work he hired me as his engineer. At a remote gig, recording a church choir, he and a silver haired lady in the choir kept looking at each other oddly. It was getting weird and he was really uncomfortable. During a break, she came up to the desk and said to him, "I know you from Michael's, 20 years ago?". As it turns out, they both worked on the Thriller video as dancers, and as backup singers for Michael (maybe on the tour, I don't recall). They talked about how creeped out they were being in Michael's house for rehearsals, and how they were certain he "did it" (referring to old molestation accusations from the 90's that most people had forgot about). This was right before it became a hot news topic in the 2000's so it was shocking to hear people say these things. They both recounted the same stories. Please don't ask me to repeat as I don't want liability. I'll just say it sounded insane at the time, but that would change as the topic got into the news.

To me, it was a strange coincidence that they should re-unite in a musical capacity, at a small church in Phoenix two decades later and recognize each other despite looking wildly different than they did at the time of the video. It was also weird how the reunion was almost like a funeral rather than "Hey, remember when we worked on the most iconic music video of all time and made a ton of money?" It seems the MJ stuff truly bothered them.

I tell this one all the time, about a month after getting out of the hospital after a year I am at the Brew Pub owned by a friend Fellow FullCo sales guy and his brother. A band of mostly Full Co alums one who was a Vap at Shure at the time and her husband An AVID live sound specialist are all having a hard time figuring out what’s wrong with their big old Crown Macrotech. Eventually someone comes over to our table and sheepishly asks for help.

“ did you turn on the power switch on the bacK? “

“ Eric I don’t know if you remember but the power switch is on the front of these. “
“ yes there is a switch on the front, but it follows the switch on the back that if you don’t turn it on no power”


As the one band member is arguing with me another who over the years I have guided and solved many issues for grabs a flashlight looks in back of the rack finds the switch presses it and we have sound.

Keep in mind between all the members of this group they had probably sold about 200 MacroTechs, yet in all the years of looking at the spec sheets none of them ever noticed the rear power switch. 2 of them are probably some of the 1000 most powerful people in pro audio, and the guy who solves the problem has spent 3/4 of the last year in a coma.

To of my OT’s were out with us, after solving this one with their jaws on the floor they explained that everyone on the medical team had been a little worried about my cognitive condition. When told who this band was they reported back that at the very least all of the audio knowledge was still there.