Friday, April 27, 2012

Who are you?


A Blog by Mick Anger #1

Who are you?

This is the first installment of my new blog about how I feel about the things that make up my (and by association, your ) world.

Like it says up there, who cares? Well, I hope someone does and that is the most important thing when it comes to this blogging thing, at least it is if your first goal isn’t to make money. The internet is littered with unsuccessful attempts at self publishing. You don’t have to look far. I have a couple myself.

Why do I think I have a chance would be a better question. And to elucidate that I offer a brief Bio.

I’m a white male, 61 and I confess to being of liberal persuasion. I was brought up a catholic in Phoenix, Arizona. I was a hippie in the mid sixties, into drugs like pot and acid and went to all the love-ins at Encanto park, if only to score. I was into music and the equipment to play it from the age of about 12 and ended up dropping out in my junior year of high school to end up in 1969 working for a band as a roadie, one of the people who takes care of the gear and the musicians, or musos as they are affectionately known. That band was “The Beans” eventually known as “The Tubes”.
I got lucky and made the “big-time” going pro in 1973 with a gig taking care of the back line and Carlos for Santana from’73 to ’77. 

After that I tried a brief stint as a graphic artist from ’77 to ’80, with a fabulous side trip into the field of concert video projection in 1978, years before it took the touring world by storm. After a summer with the Kool Jazz Festival I knew that the video business was the place I wanted to be from that day on, but it would take a few years for the world to catch up. That’s when (1980) I took a job with Nightmare Inc, the management company for Journey. 

With Journey I was the receptionist and the main go-between for the entire industry and their manager, Herbie Herbert at a time when they were rapidly becoming the the hottest act ever seen in the arena rock world. As the gatekeeper I met a lot of new and influential people who had to get past me to get to Herbie or even to his secretary. I learned a lot in those days about how the business really ran. A not especially fragrant vision.

Then in 1982 the management made me a proposition. They were going to invest in a new division of their production company for large screen video reinforcement and their first client would be Journey, guaranteeing a paying client from day one.

I talked it over with my wife, Nicki, and told them I was in, even though it meant I could not go back to the old job if it didn’t work out. We never looked back.


I continued to tour in the music business with some of the biggest names for more than 30 years until recently when the brutal physical nature of the work finally disabled me to the point where it got to be difficult to do the job, at least the more physical aspects of it.

I am currently recovering from total knee replacement and find myself with the time for other projects, including this blog.

I hope you’ll find it interesting to read and that you may occasionally agree with me, or even more interesting potentially, disagree with me. 

Like it says, “Who Cares?”

Let me know how you feel in the comments.


© 2012 Mick Anger - All Rights Reserved

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