As mentioned, I picked up a very nice rather powerful power amp yesterday from Grey Vanaman of Audio-Clear.  It is now on the floor in my living room with some of my other equipment, somewhat surreptitious for its small size.  Between now and Thursday night I will need to add to it a rather large mixing board, a pair of mikes with stands, two compact but noticeable speaker columns, and a pair of self-powered monitors, all of which will be considerably less surreptitious.  I worry a bit, because that is nothing compared to the planned addition of another mixer with built-in amp and the two large cabinets, one with four tens and the other with four twelves, each large enough that I anticipate using them as tables for the two mixers, which will be added to power my instruments.  My basement might have been large enough at one time to host a band, but it has been sectioned in various ways which make that impossible unless I oust someone from a bedroom.  On the other hand, we will never fit all of this plus two drummers (or likely even one drummer) in the living room, so I probably ought to be more concerned with how I am going to get all of this plus my son’s equipment and my son into the back of a compact car.  I’m good, but given that he will be using a good sized amp (my old Ampeg B-15) plus another column which matches the one with the four twelves, I think neither a Neon nor a Saturn will do.  I will probably wind up moving gear in the pickup truck, which means dealing with weather by means of a tarp, a handful of come-alongs, and a box of bungies.  Rain will not be my friend.

It is ironic that I have had vans for many years, but none of them when I also had a band.  I always wanted a van particularly so that I could transport equipment for the band, but the two have never managed to fall together.  Ah, well–better to haul equipment in a pickup than to haul trash in a van, I suppose.

–M. J. Young