Fish, Kid or Dude, which one are you ...knowing your station in the Studio

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Hey Fish …! Newly married to a wife and a career in the entertainment business the world was my oyster. It was only natural then to be called Fish by my new family of co-workers at the Las Vegas Convention Authority. Hey Fish, grab 200 feet of microphone cable, climb up that 40 foot ladder to the catwalk and drop it down to me. Maybe they called me Fish because I was new and got all the dirty smelly jobs. Regardless of why, they were jobs that needed to be done and it was the Fish’s job to make it so. I could not have been happier, or so I thought …


…Sitting at a custom recording console in a quiet calm control room enjoying the moment of being a part of such an exciting career I overheard Donny, the studio owner, say to a producer during a phone conversation; “…yeah have the guitar player arrive around noon and I’ll have the kid get it to tape.” At the conclusion of the phone call Donny came into the control room and casually said, “I need you to record the guitar solo tomorrow afternoon.” Keeping my enthusiasm in check I said “no problem.” It was all I could do to contain myself for I had just graduated from Fish to Kid.

Many years later when my happiness faded and the elation of being called kid waned into commonplace, not by complacency but by shear comfort of self and surroundings, the third transition took place. Following a 5.1 surround playback of a music mix the producer of the project looked at me, smiled and said; “Dude, that is amazing. You should do this for a living.”

Sam Elliott was right when he closed the movie ‘The Big Lebowski’ with this line; “…the dude abides.”

Scott Spain