thing equally valuable, but exceedingly
rare – an almost unshakable calm, complimented by a wry sense of humor, and
a virtually omnipresent smile that seems
to say ‘I know we’re in trouble now, but
we’ll laugh about this in two hours, so
suck it up.’
“You have to be diplomatic with people to make the performance go well for
everyone,” he stated. Particularly when filling the
dual tour Manager/Foh
engineer spot, he explains
– an increasingly common role on mid-budget
Canadian tours. “People
aren’t really motivated
to help out once you’ve
yelled at them.”
lamarche’s attitude
stems not only from past
work with people who
“freak out and still don’t
get results,” but from an
intimate knowledge of
the challenges everyone faces day to day in
the business, at both the
top or the bottom of the
food chain, and whether
they’re musicians, touring, or local crew.
when he started
at ottawa-based wall
Although he does appreciate the capabilities of digital mixing consoles, Matt Lamarche still prefers the
familiarity of analog desks.
sound in 1987 in shipping and receiving he
learned the business literally, from the ground up; “Pulling feeder
cable through mud,” he said, “loading
trucks, cleaning the bathroom. all the
good jobs that everybody starting at a
production company gets to do. Good
times.” even though we’re speaking on
the phone, you can tell he’s smiling.
when he was deemed capable
enough he moved on to doing lights,
but wasn’t a fan. “how do I put it
politely?” he asks, then tries, but doesn’t
quite manage it. “It was terrible. I knew
I didn’t want to do lights. I wanted to
do sound.”
like many engineers, lamarche
started out on stage as a guitar player.
For him the move from stage to pro-
with not terribly great results, he says
laughing, “but I blame it on the bands
I was with.”
still, he took as many gigs as he
could to deepen his chops, simultaneously studying electronics at algonquin
College and, later, electrical engineering at Carleton University, while moving up the ranks at wall. eventually he
duction was motivated by an early
recognition that the grass – and the
cash – was greener behind the scenes.
“I used to wonder why the sound guy
was making so much money. I wanted
that job – I can make it sound bad,
too.” at age 18, while working at wall,
he began engineering for local acts,
moved up to systems tech status, doing
stints as an electronic service tech, and
getting an introduction to the business
and financial side of the industry in
accounts receivable, before finally taking over as GM at wall.
while the fundamentals he learned
in university and a healthy computer
