231. Adam Brunetti, Sound Engineer & Much More

After a brief foray into his time touring the world with monster trucks, sound engineer/lighting designer/production manager/event producer Adam Brunetti joins the show in Episode 231 to talk about producing and mixing the Levitt AMP Woonsocket Music Series as well as the positive impact small music series and festivals can have on their cities, and more. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath, RCF, and Rational Acoustics.

Episode Links:
Levitt AMP Woonsocket Web & Facebook
Gina Chavez, “She Persisted”
Angie K, “Laredo”
Team StarKid
Firebringer, “We Got Work to Do”
Steve Smith and the Nakeds
Advanced Production and Design
Socials: X (Ew), Instagram, and Tik Tok — @ABrunetti1

Be sure to check out the Signal To Noise Facebook Group and Discord Server. It’s a space for listeners to create to generate conversations around the people and topics covered in the podcast — we want your questions and comments!

Also please check out and support The Roadie Clinic, Their mission is simple. “We exist to empower & heal roadies and their families by providing resources & services tailored to the struggles of the touring lifestyle.”

The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by Live Sound/PSW and pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.

Transcript

Transcript

Signal to Noise

Episode 231 - Adam Brunetti 

Andy Leviss: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience. 

Rational Acoustics, makers of Smaart, the industry leading acoustical test and measurement software. Rational Acoustics, rational people, smart products. 

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise on the ProSoundWeb podcast network. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me is my co-host, Sean Walker. How you doing, Sean? 

Sean Walker: I'm awesome. How are you guys? 

Andy Leviss: You know, just, just hanging, doing the thing, taking the dogs to the vet today, picking the wife up from the train because a building collapse. 

Sean Walker: Dogs? you took them both at the same time? 

Andy Leviss: Both at the same time, it was an... 

Sean Walker: Oh bro, didn't you have one that was like super good at the vet? How did that pan out? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I, I had one who was super good at that. And um, yeah, the new dog's supposed to be teaching the old dog lessons, like to chill out about stuff. But he was very quickly, "Wait, Maya, you're scared of this place? You're Oh shit, should I be I'm gonna, I'm gonna be scared. I guess I'm gonna, I'm gonna hide in the corner too." 

Sean Walker: So you can teach an old dog new tricks? 

Andy Leviss: No, it's unfortunately the new dog was learning the old tricks. Yeah, like, he's the super food motivated, he's the one I was talking about the other week that, like, jumped full up on the kitchen counter to get food. It was pulling teeth to get him to take a treat at the vet. To the point that even the dog, who for, who is nine years old and hates the vet, was like, oh, I'll take a treat, yeah, whatever. 

Sean Walker: My gosh, dude, that's a day. And then you said you had to go get the wife at the train station because you had a building collapse? Like, bro, you had a whole ass day. Not even like one of those partial days. That was a whole ass day, bro. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I need to look up later because there was a building, like a landslide building collapse on a cliff like a month or two ago that shut down part of the line for days and I'm unclear whether this is further fallout for that or if it happened again. 

Sean Walker: Bruh. 

Andy Leviss: Either, either way, a couple of curve balls. 

Sean Walker: Bruh. That's a whole ass day, bro. Get yourself like, you know, three fingers or something in a glass and sort that out while you're, while we're working this out here, 

Andy Leviss: Laphroiag 10 to the rescue. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. This episode brought to you by our unofficial sponsor. 

Sean Walker: Booze. 

Andy Leviss: Um, 

Sean Walker: At least for one of us. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. What have you been up to? 

Sean Walker: Moving shops still, dude. Holy crap. 

Andy Leviss: How's that going? 

Sean Walker: It's, it's going great. And we're stoked to have a new space that's, you know, bigger and better. But the amount of stuff that we stuffed into corners, that was like a catchall where you're like, "Oh man, I did have 900, 000 cat5 jumpers. I did not realize I should stop ordering these on Amazon every time we have a big show." 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, how many things you sub-rented that you've now found that you own four of? 

Sean Walker: Oh bro. I'm so thankful, right? Cause now it doesn't have to be, you know, triple stacked and just, you know, a zoo, but like, holy crap. Trying to, and you know, it's all things that don't make sense. Well, like cat five is hard to make sense of when it's three foot jumpers. It's just a pile of shit. You know, you're not like, it's not like 25 foot extra large. 

You can put it in a pipe wall or in a trunk or something that all neatly stack or hang or whatever. This is like, I guess that's the bin. Good luck. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: Yep. And how's the fenced- in yard going? Have you gotten like, you know, the, the, the, the Sean Walker, uh, Squid Games going with the staff yet? 

Sean Walker: Uh, bro, the cool part is the new landlord already has the motion sensor alarm system for the outside of the building. Which is dope. So we're just trying to talk them into the turrets on top. You know what I mean? So that as the alarm goes off, just like get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get, get paint balls to everybody. 

You know what I mean? Just everybody just gets covered in like pink paint. So you see cars driving away like what the what? 

Andy Leviss: So you don't really need uniforms. It's going to be like, yeah, the people in black with the paint splotches. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally dude. Totally. Cause you know, you don't want to really hurt anybody, but man, those paintballs sting like a mug. Like it's, you're not going to just hang out in paintball fire, you know? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: But we're, we're stoked, man. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, glad you're finding the bottom of the inventory and all the, all those surprises. Hopefully, mostly good surprises. Not like, "Oh shit, we packed snacks for that gig two years ago!" 

Sean Walker: There was only one of those ice chests. There was only one, like, thankfully in the pile of ice chests, there was only one that was like, maybe it just goes to the dump, maybe 

Andy Leviss: going to say ratchet strap it close and throw a hazmat sticker on the side. 

Sean Walker: Maybe, maybe it's too far gone for a Simple Green wash and it's just done. But we, we got it anyway. 

We've, we figured it out. 

Andy Leviss: So, uh, speaking of Simple Green washes, 

Sean Walker: Uh oh. 

Andy Leviss: No, no, I'll, I've gotta work on a better segue, but, um, no, I, I, we should introduce this week's guest to clean up our act right now. Uh, Is, uh, we've got, uh, I'll, I'll be bold enough and ballsy enough to call him a friend. , uh, my friend Adam Brunetti, who, yet again, which this is gonna be a drinking game soon, I originally know Adam through, uh, the TSDCA--drink!--. Um, a theater person also involved in, in politics and concerts like, in your limited years on earth thus far, you've had a pretty varied and cool career. Like you want to give us the highlights? 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah, I mean, it's a little crazy and, uh, people like to, I had someone come up to me one day and said, Adam, I feel like your entire career is you walked into the wrong room, but it was full of people who wanted to hire you. And then you just said, all right. Uh, so, uh  

Andy Leviss: I feel attacked by that. This is very relatable. Yeah. 

Adam Brunetti: But you know, no, I, 

Andy Leviss: Wrong place at the right time? 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, but it's like, so I, what I've been the international production manager for monster jam through Feld entertainment. Uh, so when I was with them, uh, I was able to produce the show and on six continents, uh, 14 countries and in eight languages, I still only speak English, but, you know, made it work, uh, 

Just  

Andy Leviss: gesture and grunt a lot? And just for the, for the folks who don't know that, that's monster trucks ? 

Adam Brunetti: Yep, 

Sean Walker: My six year old son thinks you're the coolest dude in the planet. 

Adam Brunetti: There we go. You know what? I'll take it. I will take that and I'm gonna 

Sean Walker: You're like 11 feet tall in his mind right now, dude. 

Adam Brunetti: great, cause I'm just under six. Uh, but I, I bet, I was lucky enough to do that for four and a half years. Got to do a lot of cool plays, uh, shows in a lot of great stadiums. I helped produce an episode of The Ellen Show, uh, when she had her producer, Andy. He did an Average Andy segment, um, at Angel Stadium. with us. So they kind of just said, by the way, Ellen's show is here in two days. 

Um, have fun. And then I end up having to figure out the majority of it. 

Andy Leviss: All right. 

Adam Brunetti: Or Terry Bradshaw and his family for the Bradshaw Bunch TV, uh, TV show. Uh, his two daughters did, uh, we taught them how to, how to drive the monster trucks and they did a race during intermission. So I got to meet some pretty cool people. 

I met Stone Cold Steve Austin, uh, Which was great. I texted my dad. I'm like, by the way, I'm walking around Angel stadium right now with Stone Cold Steve Austin. He goes, Oh my God, tell him it's great. Oh my God. I tell him how much I'm like, no, 

Andy Leviss: It's like, we're working here. 

Adam Brunetti: Exactly. But it's, it's, it was, I got a lot of cool opportunities. It gave me a lot of cool chances to go see the world and go travel. And to be able to do that before I was 27, it was pretty great. You know, 

Andy Leviss: You said, uh, like a bunch of different countries, like, uh, what were the highlights? 

Adam Brunetti: Oh, so, absolutely, I think I'm torn between two as my, as my top countries that I loved. I did three weeks in South Africa. We did the shows in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg and that was incredible. I got to pet a lion cub, uh, it bit my finger and it started, it drew blood and I'm like, you know what, I'm okay with this because now, and I hope it scars, 

Sean Walker: So now you've got Scar with you everywhere you go. 

Adam Brunetti: yeah, that was pretty good, 

Sean Walker: I got kids, bro. I got, it's dad humor. I got 

Adam Brunetti: There we go. There we go. 

Andy Leviss: I don't have kids. I don't have an excuse. 

Adam Brunetti: I, I just, this is the only way I know how to speak is with really shitty jokes. 

Andy Leviss: That's...clearly that goes well, that goes well for us. So you'll fit right in. 

Adam Brunetti: There we go. 

Sean Walker: I mean, if my jokes were any good, I'd be on stage making actual money. Right? Like, you know, 

Adam Brunetti: yeah, and instead 

Sean Walker: got an excuse. 

Adam Brunetti: instead we stay way the fuck off the stage and, uh, but  

Andy Leviss: and, and, and, and based on your accent, I know folks can tell you're clearly from like middle of Wisconsin, right? 

Adam Brunetti: Oh, absolutely. I am from the, not an island, state of Rhode Island. Uh, and no, there is no Quahog, uh. Unfortunately, that is a lie that some people actually believe is a city next to us. I do, however, work with the executive producer of Family Guy, work alongside his brother. I'm the lighting director for his band. 

Andy Leviss: Oh, cool. 

And what's, what's the band? 

Adam Brunetti: It's, uh, Steve Smith and the Nakeds. Uh, they're, we are celebrating our 50th year this year. And they are a mainstay of the music festival that I produce here in the city, and from getting to work on that with, on that, with them. 

Uh, I ended up becoming their lighting director. I just did my first sub mixing gig with them a couple weeks ago. And, you know, they're, they're sponsored by Narragansett Beer, which makes me happy, because I will walk out of a show with a couple, couple, uh, six packs of Tallboys, and I'm very happy Adam at that point. 

And They've worked with Clarence Clemons, they've worked with members of the E Street Band, uh, they've had a lot, a lot of guest stars come in and out of the band throughout, throughout these years. Uh, and, uh, Steve Smith, his brother just happens to be Danny Smith, from Family Guy. So that was cool. That was cool to meet him and to work with him. 

I also work with this online theater company called Starkid Productions. Uh, they are people on, who listen, uh, they might know them from A Very Potter Musical that went viral on YouTube. Uh, Darren Criss, who was, played Blaine in Glee uh, he was, he was in American Crime Story Versace as Versace's killer. . Darren played Harry Potter. And it is a three hour long musical about Harry Potter. And then they made a sequel and they made a threequel. And we, then that took off and started, we created our own theater company. It was formed at the University of Michigan. And I joined in 2015 when we brought one of our shows, The Trail to Oregon off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theater. Uh, and it, yes, it is exactly what you think. It is based on the Oregon Trail video game. As the audience walked, walks in, they voted who died of dysentery that night. 

Andy Leviss: All right. 

Adam Brunetti: And in the opening number, they named all the characters. 

Sean Walker: Beat me to it. 

Adam Brunetti: So it was a fan. It was so much fun. It was so much fun to do. That was my first time working with Starkid. I've been a fan of them since 2009 when I found A Very Proud of Musical on YouTube, which they had only put up on YouTube because they were too lazy to burn DVDs for everyone to watch the show. 

Then they took it down for a bit when Warner Brothers found it. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. 

Adam Brunetti: And they re uploaded it, um, with slight edits, uh, but you have, like, Voldemort does a tap dance at the, uh, at the end of Act 1 as he comes back from the grave, and he falls in love with Quirrell, and all of that. And from that, we formed Starkid Productions, and this past March, we just put on our 13th original musical, called "Nerdy Prudes Must Die" over in LA, had a three week run, uh, uh, in over there and it just released on YouTube, um, middle of October and it's already up to about 1. 6 million views. And every musical we do, we film and then we put it up on YouTube for free, um, so we have a Star Wars musical, a Harry, uh, Batman musical called Holy Musical, Batman. Uh, uh, one of it's like Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers. It's called Starship. It's a three hour space opera. 

Andy Leviss: I feel like that's a thing that sounds like it should be terrible, but I'm won't be, because it's so terrible that it becomes like 

no, 

Sean Walker: Or a cult bro. 

Adam Brunetti: Right. So, so I sound, I designed, uh, a production of Firebringer, which was an original musical about. Cavemen and Discovering Fire, and a little portion of that kind of went viral throughout the pandemic and on TikTok. I don't know if you heard the, "I don't want to do the work today. I don't really want to do the work." 

That's, that's my show. Uh, and my royalties is like double each quarter every time that, uh, that little thing goes viral again. 

Sean Walker: Bro. That's how I feel every morning when the alarm goes 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, I think I just found a new alarm 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally. 

We're gonna have  

Andy Leviss: to link to a little clip of that for an alarm in the show notes. 

Adam Brunetti: Listen, absolutely. It's, it's so much fun. It's a really great, uh, 

Right? And like Book of Mormon actually covered it. And like they, their TikTok had a video of all of the cast doing the dance. And so it just, it took off. And as with anything that StarKid does, we have a really devoted fan base. Uh, we just did our third national tour last year. 

So we were at the House of Blues in Boston, which was a fun time for me. I wasn't originally supposed to be working the tour, um, but I had a, I had a free day when they were, when they were over at House of Blues, so I sent a text like, I, I can come down for the day if you guys want some help. So they asked, you know, well, do you mind helping out with merch? 

Absolutely. You know, whatever. It'll be great to see you all get to hang out for a bit. I haven't, I haven't seen a lot of them since 2019, so it's, it's always great when I get to see them. So as I'm driving. I get a text message from the tour producer and the merch manager. And I'm like, Oh no. Uh, Biden and Prince William were across the street that day at the MGM hall, uh, for some green initiative kickoff, which means UPS couldn't get onto the street to deliver the merch to the house of blues. So my entire job that day then was waiting on the phone with UPS. Because they were going to halt the delivery, have it put to the UPS, um, uh, station, UPS store, and then I was gonna go and pick it up. Here's the issue, the show started at 7, doors at 6, UPS closed at 6, and by 5. 30 we still hadn't heard from them that they had dropped off the packages. 

So, I rush to this, and of course, 5. 30 on a Friday. In Boston, 

Sean Walker: Can you imagine if we had the same customer service in our industry? 

Doors at 6. Haven't heard from the production company at 5:30. Like, I don't know, man, 

Adam Brunetti: right. 

Andy Leviss: I'm, I'm not saying I have the phone number of the guy to know at the local UPS depot, but I know the guy to know at the UPS 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. But text you 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah, so I had to, I rushed there and I get, because then I hit Storrow Drive in Boston, which anyone who's driven on Storrow Drive knows... 

Andy Leviss: I went to college in Boston. I feel ya. 

Adam Brunetti: Yes. Uh, I got, I got, I pulled up to UPS at 6:01. So, they already locked the doors. I see them inside and I'm banging on the doors and I'm like, I wave my arms like crazy. 

And they let me in, and they're on the phone with all these people. They finally, after 20 minutes, figure out which truck it's on. They give me the cell phone number of the truck driver. They call him, and they go, Where are you right now on your route? And he goes, Oh, I'm on the street. 

And I GPS it. It's two minutes away. So I go, Can I meet you? So I get the driver's number, and I race through the streets of Boston, chasing down a UPS truck. He unloads. His name was Orlando. It's all I knew. I had his name and a phone number. I still have that piece of paper with me, just in case this ever happens again. 

And, so I'm driving, I see the truck, and I go, Orlando? Adam? Pulled right up on the side of the UPS truck, and he opens up the back, I open up my trunk, and he just drops the boxes into my trunk, I rush back to the parking garage, House of Blues sends staff with a dolly to meet me, and we bring the merch right for, like, seven o'clock. 

Sean Walker: that's gangster. Good work, dude. 

Adam Brunetti: So, that I was like, Oh, I need a drink. But it was, it, it, it was a fantastic show. Yes. 

Sean Walker: they have drinks. 

Adam Brunetti: Yes. Uh, I, I'm aware. It was great. 

Andy Leviss: It's like, I'm well familiar at this point. 

Sean Walker: like, I sorted that out right after merch got dropped off. 

Adam Brunetti: Yes. So, but yeah, so that's my, my, and every, every show I do with Starkid, there's always some random weird thing that happens. Like I'm, I'm driving to Boston, I call my mom, I'm like, I just need to tell someone that this is happening right now. Because like, someone just needs to know in the moment that this is a thing. Because only me, it would only happen to me. 

Sean Walker: That you're playing rally cars through the streets of Boston so that you can catch the UPS truck to crossload the merch for tonight's show that already started so you can rally car back. Try not to dukes a hazard anybody on your way and boom shakalaka. 

Adam Brunetti: Yup, and then hope that, and then hope that I didn't get tackled by Secret Service while I'm like, trucking 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, I forgot that part. Don't get tackled by Secret Service while you're dukes a hazarding into the House of Blues. 

Adam Brunetti: know, and I told someone after, and they're like, only you, because this is just my life, this is, I love 

Sean Walker: that's awesome, 

Adam Brunetti: I love it, that's why I'm in this industry, you know, and it's like, even this music series, I, I got, I accidentally found my way into that, uh, you know, and so. I am the production manager of the Levitt AMP Woonsocket music series, which is one of 34 Levitt AMP sites across America. 

And we just finished our fifth year, so technically our sixth, but fifth live. We had to go virtual in 2020. Um, so, even that, I was at a, I was out at a bar one night with some friends and my friend, Melissa, pulls me over. She goes, Adam, I want to, I want to introduce you to Meg. So Meg's like, Hi Adam, you know, I work for NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley, which is a local housing nonprofit here in the city. 

And Meg's their grant writer. And she says, you know, I found this grant for some music festival or something that I guess we could bring to the city, but like we need production part, like we need partners, like to submit the application with, I, so she goes, Melissa says, you do sound. Uh, do you want to produce this festival? 

And I'm like, sure, why not? Next thing you know, uh, 50, 50 live shows later and seven virtual productions later. Uh, we've had Grammy or we have Grammy award winning bands that come we've had Luther guitar, junior Johnson, Terrence Simeon and the Zydeco Experience, uh, Florida Toloache, which they just got nominated again for another Grammy. 

Uh, you know, and it's just, it's so great because the entire point of of Levitt. Uh, AMP stands for Amplify Music Place. It's for, uh, it, it's for recreating and revitalizing underused green spaces in small to mid sized cities. So it's up to like a 40, 50, 000, uh, population cap. Those are the only places that can get it. 

And they won't open up a new site within 50 miles of an existing site. And the entire point of it is to bring underserved, uh, under. Not well-known genres, every single week has to be a different genre. It's required that 50, uh, 50% of the performers have to be, uh, uh, L-G-B-T-Q, uh, or sorry, had to be women or gender non-conforming. 

And the other 50% have to be, uh, uh, people of color. So you can, you can mix and match that if you need to. And you know, because as we found out, that does make booking a little harder, , especially with, with the budget that, that we look at. So, you know, we'll have, we've had Gina Chavez, who is, um, non- binary, and, uh, they had a beautiful, beautiful three piece band that, that they came with. 

All of them, uh, and their late, latest album was recorded, produced, performed entirely by, uh, women and gender non, uh, non conforming, uh, artists, engineers, producers. Because that's what that, they noticed a lack of representation in that, in the, in the, the, in that industry. 

Andy Leviss: that's really cool. 

Adam Brunetti: So, and they were fantastic. They actually have a song called "She Persisted", and it samples Mitch McConnell's, uh, "Nevertheless, she persisted.". 

Andy Leviss: Alright, we gotta make sure we get that to the link in the show notes. 

Adam Brunetti: It's, it's fantastic. They were, they were so amazing to work with. Very welcoming, very grateful. Uh, I've got to work with them this past year. I got to work with this wonderful country artist. Her name is Angie Kay and she is a Latin country artist from El Salvador. And she moved here when she was a kid and all of her music is now bilingual. 

She has a wonderful song called, uh, Laredo, which is one of my favorite songs now that I listened to every single day and she. Cat Country currently has her on the top 100 women to watch in country. She's played at the CMA Awards. Uh, she's played at, uh, CMA's, like, Country Fest at, uh, at the Tennessee Titans Stadium. 

And she is just absolutely incredible. She, she called me a couple days after and basically was like, I want your contact information. I want to make sure I have everything of yours right now so that if I'm ever in Rhode Island again, I want you to mix me. And that's, those are the kinds of moments that like, you, you know, that you're doing something great as a sound engineer, 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. That's 

Adam Brunetti: uh, you know, and I, I've, I always, I'm, I'm very proud of my vocal chain. 

I'm very proud of like my vocal effects chain. 

Sean Walker: Alright, spill it. I wanna hear it. Come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get that nerd shit going, 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. Well, you know, that's the thing I, and I feel like. 

Sean Walker: me, dude. Come on. 

Adam Brunetti: I feel like mine is, you know, fairly similar to what most people use, but I always have, always have, have reverb. I always have, uh, delay is where I really have a lot of fun with, uh, chorus sometimes, or I'll use that my third effect, cause I mix that on an X32. 

Sean Walker: now you're speaking in his language with the extra delay, dude. Like, he uses an illegal amount of delay. Like, you know what I'm saying? An illegal amount of delay, 

Andy Leviss: Well, I, I, I simply, I do what could be done with one delay with three, 

Adam Brunetti: Okay. 

Sean Walker: So on brand for you, you over complicated son of a gun. 

Andy Leviss: And I did, and you know what, I, I put a correction on Discord and Facebook, but as long as we're talking about it, I'm gonna, one quick clarification, I said last week that I use an eighth, a quarter and a half as my 3 taps. 

 would give you really weird syncopated rhythms. What I meant to say was a quarter, a half and a dotted half. 

Adam Brunetti: Okay. 

Andy Leviss: So basically what, what, what I do when I've got the space, which I would not have on an X32, but I've been spoiled and living on a, on a PM5 lately is one send to three reverbs, to three delays with the same tap, no feedback. 

So there's one that's giving me the quarter, one's giving me the half and one's giving me the dotted half so that I can design the pattern on the fly off the three return faders. 

Adam Brunetti: Oh my god, yeah, I can't do that. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, 

Adam Brunetti: I have gotten some good feedback from the artists about it. I had one artist where luckily it was herself, two backup vocalists, and a guitar. So I had four inputs that I could then really just have fun with. 

Andy Leviss: you go to town 

Adam Brunetti: And I had one moment in that show where the entire song was literally called Echo. So I was 

Sean Walker: Well, 

Andy Leviss: are right on the package 

Sean Walker: Yeah, now you gotta, dude. 

Adam Brunetti: and I did. Oh, I did. So, and there's a video of, because we live stream all the shows, so there is a video of it, and you could see in her face when she heard, she heard it happen for the first time, like her, the biggest smile went on her face. And like they, at the end of the song, they actually like stopped and said, Yes, Adam. 

And like, they like pointed me out in the middle of the show, just because of that, probably that because I like to dance when I mix, I'm a very energetic mixer. And by the end of the show, if I, if I'm not breathless, I did something wrong. Uh, but I have, I have so much fun when I do it because it's, it's, it's, it's just, it's such a great time and the audience loves it. 

And we have people who go, who go to the show that. Every year, you know, at the final show of the season, well, I'll, 

Sean Walker: to watch you dance in front of house, you're selling tickets to front of house show, you're 

Adam Brunetti: You know, there are people who sit behind front of house now and they love it, or they'll turn around every so often and watch what I'm doing. Um, you know, but it's really cool. The end of every season we'll have our MC, Marlon Carey, aka Infinite the Ghost, which is his stage name. And he always likes to, you know, he'll always say, Somebody say infinite! 

So I'll go and throw reverb on, on, on just infinite just for him. Uh, so he'll ask, if you've been to, if this is your first, if you've been to one Levitt, please stand up. And then it was, if you've been to five, please stand up. If you've been to all 10 this year, stay standing. If you've been to every single one, so this year on the 50th, if you've been to all 50 Levitts, please stand up. 

And we had at least like 20 people standing up at that point. 

Sean Walker: Dude, how cool. 

Adam Brunetti: you have people who have formed community together that, and that's the entire point. It's building community through the power of free live music. And you see, you see that in every single one of these shows. I have this wonderful photo of when we had this band, the Adam Ezra Group. 

Beautiful, remarkable group. They're very, very like, almost like Noah Kahn style. Like Adam plays barefoot on stage. It's, uh, it's bass, bass guitar kit and fiddle. Uh, and they do a version of Devil Went Down to Georgia called Devil Went Up to Boston. Uh, and they sing the entire thing with the thickest Boston accent. 

Uh, and like, it's, it's, it's amazing. And 

so,  

Andy Leviss: in Rhode Island, like, is there like a war and a battle between the accents of like the Rhode Island accent and the Boston, like, is it a 

Adam Brunetti: well, so it's funny. It's, I, I always, people always think that my accent is like, It's like part Boston, part New York. So they called it Boo York. That's how they started referring it as with me. So we won't go, like, 

Sean Walker: Oh, I love that. Oh, I love. Oh, I'm into that, Boo York. 

Adam Brunetti: Right. So we, you know. 

Sean Walker: you're getting that too, dawg. You don't even know. You're 

Andy Leviss: Dude, no, I had that for a time because I, I grew up in Jersey and New York and I went to college in Boston and after four years in Boston I would start dropping the ahs. 

Adam Brunetti: Yep. 

Sean Walker: Except 

Andy Leviss: then I went on tour. 

Sean Walker: So you're bougie Boo 

Andy Leviss: Well, and then, and then my first tour was with, was as an A2 to an A1 from Cincinnati and a production engineer from Texas. So I was not only dropping the Rs, but then by the end of, by the end of production for that tour, I was like, "Jeso Pete, what'd that sumbitch do?" 

Adam Brunetti: yeah. 

Andy Leviss: never did, however, develop Brian's taste for Skyline Chili. We did Cincinnati for a week. I don't understand it. 

We'll get hate mail today. Signal2Noise@ProSoundWeb.Com. 

I'm sure there will be like three defenders of Cincinnati style chili coming out now. 

Sean Walker: Can I, can I be honest, Andy? We're not going to read that email. Let, I mean, let's be honest. They can send all the hate mail they want. I'm not reading it. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, it, the bosses read it though. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Fair enough. 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. We, we don't do the whole pack the car, but like, especially here because, uh, Woodsockets are very French Canadian. We then have like, very, very much, uh, so it's, we get like the, the Cabo Cua kind of thing. So the throw me down the stairs, throw me down the stairs, my keys, or we're going to park side by each, uh, all these like very one socket ish phrase that nowhere else says. 

Andy Leviss: But do you have poutine? 

Adam Brunetti: We do have poutine, and we have an annual poutine off, uh, every year between like five different restaurants 

Andy Leviss: When is it and do you have a couch I can crash on? 

Adam Brunetti: Uh, I can get you that information, and yes. 

Andy Leviss: I am a slut for poutine. 

Adam Brunetti: You know, it's, uh, the same restaurant, uh, has won every year for the past five years. And it's my usual Monday night trivia spot. 

Sean Walker: Obviously, we need to go to trivia with this guy, bro. 

Andy Leviss: Right? 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Adam Brunetti: do. I do trivia Mondays, trivia on Wednesdays. 

Andy Leviss: I see on Adam's Facebook, Adam does not fuck around with the trivia. 

Adam Brunetti: No, no, I play at least once a week, if not more, usually twice. I've, I've had weeks where I've done, done it every single day. And I, I, with different teams. So on Mondays I am parental supervision required, uh, with my cousins and, uh, my cousin's father. 

Andy Leviss: Also discarded title in my memoir. 

Adam Brunetti: There we go. Uh, and then. On Wednesdays, I am with the, I am with the pop squad or depending on how we're feeling, we might be the pop squad, we might be the smartinis. 

Um, we have another team that would play. at the restaurant Wednesdays at some, that they're, they're the wolf pack. And I joined them on Thursdays sometimes, but not anymore. Cause now I do karaoke on Thursdays. Um, but if we, if we would play with them, we'd become the wolf super pack. Uh, but we do the PAC spelling 

Andy Leviss: Right on. 

Adam Brunetti: because my Wednesday trivia group is my political group. 

Andy Leviss: That just  

Sean Walker: We're going to come Monday night. I'm bringing the wife cause she's good at trivia and you need a heavy hitter cause I'm no good at trivia. I'm good at buying drinks, but not good at trivia. So we're going to come eat your poutine and, and buy drinks. 

Adam Brunetti: There we go. And they have some really 

great  

Andy Leviss: we can't say oh, you said poutine, sorry. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Adam Brunetti: but  

Andy Leviss: we call a Muppet level joke. 

Sean Walker: yeah. Right. 

Andy Leviss: The adults get it, and are, oh my gosh, and the kids 

Sean Walker: So those Pixar jokes, right? 

Andy Leviss: Yep, yep. 

Sean Walker: I'm like, dude, with kids, I didn't, I didn't understand that we started watching the, you know, all the Pixar movies cause we got kids and I was just like, oh my God, so many. So many parent jokes in there.  

Andy Leviss: Alright, and the Muppets before that. I mean the whole Good Grief, the Comedian's a Bear! Which that might have to be the off topic YouTube link in the show note of this episode for the few people who don't know that classic Muppet bit. 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: my God. 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. You know, and, uh, actually, your Disney brings you right back to, uh, to love it because one of our acts, two time Grammy Award winning, uh, Terrence Simien Experience wrote some of the music for, uh, Princess and the Frog. 

Andy Leviss: Nice. 

Adam Brunetti: And then Angie Kay just did the Happily Ever After song at the Magic Kingdom for their fireworks show with Jordan Fisher. 

Andy Leviss: Nice. 

Adam Brunetti: So it's, it's kind of cool. I I've gotten to work with some really cool people. And I, every, every time you see the power of music, you've seen the whole thing that we just completely got sidetracked off of was when I was talking with Adam Ezra and I just look, look up and there's a group of like six people that had never met each other, arms all around each other singing, I think it was like country roads, uh, And then I have a video, I'm walking around the park, and all 800 people in the park are together singing Country Roads. 

Andy Leviss: That was awesome. 

Adam Brunetti: And it was the greatest thing, and Adam always ends the show, he walks, he unplugs, walks in the middle of the audience, and does Let It Be. 

Sean Walker: No fun, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah.  

Adam Brunetti: it's, it's a really cool time, it's a really great experience, it's, it's, it's really fun to be able to say, I made that. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's cool. And, and I mean, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on us, cause I know like when, when we say the word festival, like we all think of like, you know, like Coachella or like all these big things. And it's like, there's this whole world of festivals that I know a lot of folks out there listening, like work on or don't know exist to work on. 

Sean Walker: Speak for yourself, bro. I got a whole ass company that lives on SL100s and SL75s, bro.  

Andy Leviss: you know, I realize you always call me out when I use the slang that like some people don't know, and you drop those all the time, and I know what they are, but can you fill in for the rest of us what is an SL for the 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah. I got, I got a whole company that lives on small mobile stages, like 16 by 20s and 24 by 20 small mobile stages. So when you're talking about small music festivals, that's our wheelhouse, dude. Like, you know, a thousand, 2000 kind of people. Most of the time is like, they're stoked. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna  

Adam Brunetti: Oh yeah.  

Andy Leviss: and that's like large compared to yours, right, Adam? 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. Uh, our biggest crowd is usually around 800 people and that'll be for like the, the big names. So the Adam Asher group, like, uh, Steve Smith, Anthony Akins and groups like that, those are going to be the ones that we draw in the full, like 800 people into the park. And this is a park that up until we started, the music series was used maybe once a year. 

It used to have an ice skating rink in it. That hasn't had that for over 10 years. It used to have that. It used to play host to things and it was never used. And that's part of the point, the mission of Levitt is to activate those underutilized spaces. And because of that, we've seen such a significant growth in our downtown area, which for me, I'm biased of, uh, cause I'm top of doing all this, I'm the chairman of the local downtown organization. 

So I'm, I'm very heavily involved in Main Street. 

Andy Leviss: So, chicken or egg, that came, that came first, or did that grow out of this, or 

Adam Brunetti: Uh, the downtown, the downtown organization. 

Andy Leviss: You're involvement with it. 

Adam Brunetti: Uh, so that was before Levitt. The, we, we, we reformed the Downtown One Socket Collaborative in April of 2015. Uh, and I, I had no plan. I had, I was, I wasn't on any committees at that point, anything. And you look at back at brighter times at that point, cause now I have free time. 

Uh, no longer. So I got a random 

Andy Leviss: Sean's like, try having kids. 

Sean Walker: right. 

Andy Leviss: Adam's giving a face at his Solly like, I don't have time to. 

Adam Brunetti: exactly. Yeah. You know, I can't have kids. I'm in meetings. Uh, but I got it. 

Sean Walker: I got a superhero for a wife at home. I couldn't, I couldn't do it without her, dude. Like she's incredible, man. Holy cow. 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. I got a random email one day basically going, Hey, go, go to this meeting. Oh, okay. So I'm sitting out in the audience and as they're reforming the organization and some and they go, if anyone here would like to join, please stand up. And I'm just sitting there and the mayor just kind of looks at me and goes, 

Sean Walker: I mean, when the mayor gives you the head knob, get out of your fucking chair, bro. That's 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. So I, I, I stood up and uh, That was April 2015, and I've been chairman since January 2021, 

Andy Leviss: Alright. 

Adam Brunetti: uh, so I'm going into, uh, 2022, so I'm going into my third and final term as chair now, uh, if I get re elected next month at our, uh, annual meeting. So, but from those, that time period, we, uh, Main Street had a 50 percent vacancy rate, we're down to 17%. 

Sean Walker: dude. Good work. 

Adam Brunetti: that's huge. We're the only mainstream organization in Rhode Island and the Rhode Island chapter of mainstream America is being organized right now under the model of us. So I'm on the steering committee now for, for that. Along with people from all over the state where people from, from the state House, from the governor's office, from Main Street, from all these different nonprofits. 

So we're, we're gonna create this, this overarching organ organizing, uh, main, main Street, Rhode Island that then DWC would fall under and every city and town in Rhode Island or 39 would then hopefully having ma, a Main Street organization that then talks to Main Street, Rhode Island, which would then be the liaison to Main Street America. 

Andy Leviss: Now, now to complete the image of the mayor like kinda urging you into that. I like, cause my, my image of a coercive Rhode Island mayor is, is, uh, buddy can't you level? Like, uh, is this what we're talking about or is this like 

Adam Brunetti: um, 

Andy Leviss: Is this an offer you can't refuse? 

Adam Brunetti: it, trying to, I'm trying to think of anyone from, from One Socket's gonna listen to this, uh, because I don't want the snipe, the, the, the red dot on my forehead, um, 

Sean Walker: get yourself in 

Adam Brunetti: we're, we're just gonna, we're just gonna say, uh, that Buddy Cianci reference is, uh, more apt than you would, uh, than, than you, than you think it is, uh, and we now have a new mayor. 

We'll, we'll just go with that. Um, yeah. 

Andy Leviss: And Adam is going out tomorrow to buy a set of new knee guards. 

Adam Brunetti: Yes, but no, so is, so because of that, uh, DWC, Downtown One Socket Collaborative is, is an, uh, partner with the Levitt Levitt Series and we've seen businesses grow and choose Downtown One Socket because they saw the, the, the, the, the impact Levitt has. And outdoor businesses, when they have their restaurant, they have their little patio. 

And they'll have people get tables out on the patio just so they can sit and still listen to the music. Or, and all the local restaurants, they donate the pizza to feed the volunteers. Uh, Christopher's, which is right across the street from the park, uh, feeds the bands. So they'll, they'll give, if the band has a very specific rider for their meal and they won't take a buyout, uh, we give them the Christopher's menu and they just order from that. 

And that's part of Christopher's donation to us. 

Andy Leviss: That's awesome. And it's like, cause you see so many places where like concerts or festivals are like this very, like, I'm not wording right now, but a very antagonistic relationship with neighbors. And like, it's awesome to hear about where it's like, like understanding and embracing what it can bring and like working together. 

That's really cool. 

Adam Brunetti: Absolutely. You know, and it's because we've seen, because we do a survey at each show of everyone, as many people who want to take part in it. And we'll, you know, we'll ask where are you from? How did you hear about us? Did you visit a local business before coming to Levitt? Or do you plan on going? And every single week we have at least like 70 percent of. 

The survey takers have either went for dinner before, at a local restaurant, or going out for at post show drinks 

Andy Leviss: Data science, bitches. I 

Adam Brunetti: Right. You know, and it's fantastic. And because we have that, uh, we draw in people. The first one we did, we had people from 20 different zip codes. And if you know Rhode Island, anything over 20 minutes, we consider a road trip. 

Like you pack a snack. Because, 

Sean Walker: ha ha ha ha! Wait, wait, ha ha ha ha ha! Wait, wait, ha ha ha ha! 

Adam Brunetti: Sean, 

Andy Leviss: don't understand this, you're a tiny 

Sean Walker: Wait, stop! Stop! 

Adam Brunetti: Put it this way, Sean, you can fit Seattle inside of Rhode Island. Or you can fit Rhode Island inside of Seattle. That one. It takes us one hour to get from the top of the state to the bottom of the state. 

Sean Walker: Oh my god, 

Adam Brunetti: Everything you need is 20 minutes away. 

Like my, my commute to work is like 35 minutes. I'm like, ah, 

Sean Walker: Oh, I'm, I'm coming. That's, oh, I gotta see this, dude. I gotta experience this. A state the size of the city I live in. That's killer. 

Adam Brunetti: it's been, I love it. And because of that, you have that really small town feel, but you have it statewide. And because of that. The Rhode Island music scene itself is just, Oh, you worked with them too? Oh, you were in that band? I mixed that band. Like, when were you there? And it was, they left the band right before I went in to mix. 

Or, and it's so funny between like, the engineers, and it's like, wait, you work with them too? Or I'll show up to a mixing show and I'm like, what are you doing here? 

Sean Walker: They're like, I'm ripping today, dawg. What do you mean? What am I doing here? I'm your headliner. And you're like, oh, snap! 

Adam Brunetti: Right. Pretty much. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. 

Andy Leviss: That's, I'm not gonna spoil who it is yet, but I had a phone conversation with another guest we're working on lining up in the next couple weeks, uh, who was saying a similar thing that he has. He has a career as a musician and a career as a sound engineer. And it was very funny that like people that as a musician would, Oh, I didn't know there was a pedal steel player on this gig. 

And he'd be like, Oh no, I'm your sound mixer. And then he'd show up to like play steel on a gig. And they'd be like. Wait, we got a sound engineer, and he's like, you know, I'm playing in the band, and like, neither side knew about the other side. Are 

Sean Walker: He's all, I swing both ways, dawg. Don't even worry about it. 

Adam Brunetti: Right. It's great. You know, it turns out most of our Levitt acts know each other or it's, it's 

really  

Andy Leviss: grudge matches? 

Adam Brunetti: So not yet, not yet, but you know, we've, we've only done 50 yet. We are, we have the grant for at least another two years, but probably another eight 

Sean Walker: I want some, I want some old school stories by the time this is done, dude. I want some 

Andy Leviss: Or at least a  

Sean Walker: fill that tub up, you know what I mean? Ring the f ing bell, you pansy, you know 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, or at least a Jets and Sharks style dance off. 

Sean Walker: yeah, totally. 

Adam Brunetti: right now that's more of other things in the city. Uh, but, but no, it's, it's a really great time. And it's a, it's a. It's, it's been fun to have to like design a system because we have to tear it down every, we have to put it up every single, every single week, tear it down right after. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, let's go into that, because that's, I know, we've been trading stories, but I know listeners love, like, the logistics and the nerd shit, so let's talk some Logistical nerd shit. 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. So the entire rig is, uh, two, uh, QSC KW 153s per side as my mains, uh, and they have little speaker stands that they sit on, on the sides of the stage. Nothing is flown. And then underneath the stage for subs, I have four Turbosound M18Bs. And then we have six, uh, Uh, K10. 2s as a, uh, for monitor package. 

Everything's run off of my X32 at front of house. So I mix monitors and, and, uh, front of house from front of house, 137 feet away, which is really fun for me. Uh, and 

Sean Walker: 137 feet, specifically. 

Andy Leviss: specific, but  

Adam Brunetti: well, I have, I have to know because I have a delay speaker. So I had, I had to time that out. Uh, 

Andy Leviss: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna call out, uh, past guest and friend of the podcast, Brian Maddox, uh, recently. I forget whether it was on the Discord or on Facebook through what he was like. He's like, this might be a hot take. He's like, if I'm going to have to mix monitors and front of house from the same console, I would rather mix front of house from side stage than monitors from front of house. 

Adam Brunetti: yeah, I mean, it's not, I've made it to the point where it's not too bad, where I, what I'll do is on each monitor in spike tape, I'll put what monitor mix goes to it. Because I, cause I, I always start when I talk with the artists, I'm like, listen, I'm all the way over there. I'm in a gazebo. That's my fun of 

Andy Leviss: I need, I need a fucking semaphore. 

Adam Brunetti: Right. So I was like, so I don't care if you're going to. And for the most part, my artists are usually pretty good where we'd set one monitor level at the start of the, uh, during soundcheck and they're pretty much good the entire night. Um, and if they need anything, then they'll just, you know, the bass player who I, is on two, he can just tell me, Adam, can I get more of this on two? 

Sends on Fader, done. So I've, I've made it work. And because, 

Sean Walker: a better engineer than me. I would need fucking hand signals like they're landing a goddang jet from 137 feet  

Andy Leviss: I'm just, I'm just picturing that scene from A League of Their Own. 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, dude, seriously, 

Andy Leviss: It's like Geena  

Sean Walker: everywhere, like,  

Andy Leviss: fighting with the hand signals. 

Adam Brunetti: and that's why I tell them, you know, I don't, don't hesitate to just use your vocal mic, or tell whoever has a vocal mic, hey, can we get more of this in two? And it's, it's just so much easier. And it's, they understand, you know, they, a lot of these bands that do like the Levitt circuit, they do these small kind of festivals. 

So they know that they're not always going to have a mind of engineer. They know, you know, so I, I have at the stage box on stage, uh, well, just off stage, I have two, I have two stage hands that work with me. So if something happens, they can run to the stage and, and, and help communicate. And because it's digital, I have my iPad. 

So if I need to run and mix while also running to fix a problem or do a monitor adjustment, I can do that just from the iPad. 

Sean Walker: I think I'm with Brian. I've been thinking about that since you said that, Andy. I think I'm with Brian. I think I would rather mix front of house from an iPad, like console side stage, and have to go  

Andy Leviss: And yeah, and, and that was 

Sean Walker: of headphones can sort out a freaking mix on the first layer. And then you got a whole ass monitor desk there basically, without a big snake to pull and a bunch of nonsense. 

Adam Brunetti: Right. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, he's like, yeah,  

Sean Walker: run out with an iPad.  

Andy Leviss: that was Brian's point was, yeah, you can, you can communicate with the band then and you can grab an iPad and go tweak shit out front. He's like, is it ideal? No, but of the two unideal solutions. 

Sean Walker: I think, you know what? I've been doing it the wrong way all these years. I mean, that's just the story of my life, dude. I've been doing it the wrong way. I think that's how I'm, when I'm in your situation, cause I got a bunch of those too, man. I think I'm going that way. I think I'm gonna drop the whole front house snake and just use our W2 package from the side stage. 

Send an iPad with the kids and be like, good luck fellas! 

Adam Brunetti: Yeah, and it gets fun for me too because there's times where I also have to go on stage and speak. So I have, you know, when DWC is like the, the, the nonprofit of the night. So we'll send our board to be the volunteer group. Um, well, next thing you know, I have to go on stage and speak as the head of DWC, so I'll, I'll do, I'll do a full on costume change where I mix in the Levitt shirt. 

Okay. Well, I got to go on stage. So I have my DWC shirt right on the side of me. So, okay. I hand the iPad or I say to one of my assistants, I'm like, you're mixing. Throw the shirt on, run on stage. Be horrible on a microphone, run back, change the shirt back to Levitt, and then mix the headliner. Uh, so, it gets fun sometimes, but it's, I love it. 

Sean Walker: That's a whole ass day, bro. 

Like every day of yours is like Andy's day today. Just a whole ass day. 

Andy Leviss: Well, and I feel like I've, I've seen some of like your Facebook posts, like during Levitt season of like, cause it feels like y'all try not to do rain dates. Is that what I'm catching? 

Adam Brunetti: Correct. Because of the, because of the routing that always has to take place where we'll book a band for Levitt because, oh, you're playing at Levitt Utica on Thursday. Uh, you can make it over to Levitt Woonsocket on Friday> And that, so, and then you're going to be going play at 11 a. m., um, wherever they have it in Vermont, like on, on Saturday. 

Andy Leviss: Gotcha.  

Adam Brunetti: it just, it makes, so we can't really do a rain date because most of these bands, especially like the Nakeds, uh, Steve Smith and the Nakeds, they, they book out their entire. He already booked his week for next year because he goes, I already know that that's my only Friday in that 10 week span that we haven't booked something yet. 

So rain dates are almost impossible for this. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, so like, you've pivoted on the fly a bunch of times, 

Adam Brunetti: have, we have, 

Andy Leviss: Cause of course, for those who don't know New England, the thing about New England weather is always, if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes, it'll change. 

Adam Brunetti: exactly. You know, and we had, we've only actually had to officially move it indoors twice. Of the 50 Levits that we've done, we've only moved indoors twice. The first one was 2021, our very first show back from our COVID pause, and Tropical Storm Elsa decided that she was gonna swing through that day. 

Um, so luckily, it was the Nakeds who are with us, and they travel with their own stage, and we have an indoor event space, uh, right by the River Island Park that NeighborWorks owns, the Milrace Event Center. And it has an incubator kitchen. It has a full like 125 person sitting capacity event space. And it's all the money for there goes towards NeighborWorks mission of advancing housing equity and all of that. 

So we were like, well, so we, now we just booked that event space every single Friday during 11 and that's our rain venue. So if it's, if we see rain, we make the call by 11 because I start my load in at noon and then we just. So the Nakeds pull the truck up and they take their entire stage out and they build it up and they built it inside. 

And we made it work. And then next thing you know, Elsa never swung by that day.  

Andy Leviss: Of course. That bitch.  

Adam Brunetti: right? Like, she, she, she'd let it go. Uh, and so  

I  

Andy Leviss: was waiting for the frozen joke, I knew one of us was coming with it. 

Adam Brunetti: Yep. Uh, well, well, when, when we moved it indoors, we actually put the storm never bothered us anyway. We're still on. Uh, so, uh, so We threw, we threw a delay speaker out on the patio, people were sitting out on the patio, we had a wood fired pizza oven, we had food trucks, so it was still a full, great event, and with the Nakeds, the horns are all wireless, so they're all in in ears, they're wireless mics, and they like to go out into the audience. 

They'll do, uh, Make Me Smile by Chicago, and during the big brass break, they will go out and they're, they're on top of tables when they're in bars. Uh, they're on, they're behind the bar playing the trombone, or they're standing on the bar playing the trombone, or So, they went out and they're on the patio, and they're having, they're, they're walking all over the place. 

So, we make, we always make the most of it. 

Andy Leviss: them, cause if you're a band covering a Chicago song, you gotta know your shit. 

Adam Brunetti: Oh, oh, they know their shit. It's You don't last 50 years if you don't know your shit. And, you know, they'll do, uh, beginnings, they'll 

Sean Walker: Hey, Hey, I'm right here, dude. God, I said, I was sorry. Okay. 

Adam Brunetti: But no, it's great, you know, it's real. But it, like Andy said, you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes. And we've had many times where I just have a poncho. At my front of house, uh, kit, I have an umbrella just ready. We have started what we call the OSI, OSIR box. The oh shit, it's raining box that lives on the side of the stage, just full of trash bags and tarps. 

And the minute it starts raining, we, you know, we, we, we, we, we, we bag all the speakers, we trash bag, we put tarps all over the amps and everything. 

Sean Walker: All right. I got a hot, hot tip for you. of trash bags on the speakers, use. Like queen size mattress covers. 

Adam Brunetti: Really? 

Sean Walker: They are way thinner 

Adam Brunetti: Well, so, we don't, 

Sean Walker: keep going. 

Adam Brunetti: we don't, we won't keep going. Normally when that happens, we, we, we, we, we, we hold. 

Sean Walker: Got it. 

Adam Brunetti: Uh, because it's an out, yeah, because it's outdoors, it's like, it's a whole, like, uh, yeah. 

Sean Walker: Rhode Island, people stop partying when it's raining. 

Andy Leviss: He didn't say they stopped partying, he said they held the show. 

Adam Brunetti: yeah, so, so, well, well, 

Sean Walker: Here in Seattle, they start dealing out drinks. You know what I mean? 

Adam Brunetti: oh, oh, oh, we will, we will deal, deal out drinks, like, 

Sean Walker: They're like, Oh, it's raining. Drinks are half off. Let's go. 

Adam Brunetti: there we go, yeah, a local bar is on site and has, and, and has a full bar on site, and it, but it, it's, we've had too many, like, It's, it's, uh, the, the, the roof of the stage is basically, uh, heavy duty tarp. 

So, like, it, it just, 

Sean Walker: I I'm just making jokes, man. I'm just being 

Adam Brunetti: oh yeah. But it's funny, you, uh, there's always a picture every year of me just kinda standing there with an umbrella, looking sad. Uh, 

Andy Leviss: Adam. 

Sean Walker: your Eeyore 

Andy Leviss: So the part I, the part I legit forgot to tell you before we recorded was that we need a photo for the show notes. And I think that's now the photo we need. 

Adam Brunetti: okay, I'll, I'll go, I'll go through, through my files, uh. It's, it's so much fun, it's, 

Sean Walker: Eeyore umbrella or nothing, dude. 

Adam Brunetti: and you, you just, you just see me, like And I just sadly pressed a button for it to unfold. 

Andy Leviss: I will, and I will promise if we, if we do use that as the episode photo, I will in the discord post, there is a photo of me. With, uh, another mutual friend of ours, Jess Paz. Jess is not in the photo, but it was a gig I mixed for Jess, like, a decade before she won the Tony. Literally standing doing the Shawshank pose in the rain, but with the fucking again as we were doing outdoor theater in the middle of Connecticut. 

But, uh, I will, if you give us the sad Adam in the rain photo, I will  

Adam Brunetti: what I can find. It's, it's, it's a great time and I, I, I've gotten really good at pivoting in the rain because of this. 

Andy Leviss: Pivot! 

Adam Brunetti: Pivot! I, yes, uh, we're, it's, it's, we're used to, to it at this point. And like, I see rain, I'm like, there we go, okay, bag it. And we went down, we, you know, we started, took us a while to figure out how to do it. 

We're done in two minutes. The minute we, we hear a raindrop, we're like, okay, yep, we're done. 

Andy Leviss: That's impressive. 

Adam Brunetti: I mean, when you only have two speakers per side as your main, it doesn't take, you know, it doesn't take, it's not as, yeah. But no, it's, it's a lot of fun. We have a blast. The audiences love it. Great, always great photos of me in a poncho. There's always great photos 

Sean Walker: Dude. That's what matters though. As long as the audience is loving it, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, as long as, yeah, as long as everybody's having  

Sean Walker: for a  

community.  

Adam Brunetti: Yeah. Now the audiences, they are, we have like diehard Levitt fans. Like, they will make it no matter what. They don't care if it's raining. They, and because I like, I mix a loud show. We have people who show up because it goes, I heard the music from my apartment. I didn't know where it was, so I just followed the music and they found Levitt. 

And then while they're there, all of a sudden they were standing next to some random stranger. They, they didn't know end of the night they made plans to go, to go back next week together. And like now they're, they're, we had, we've had relationships form, 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, have there been some Levitt marriages?  

Adam Brunetti: So we haven't haven't, haven't had a Levitt marriage, but we've had plenty of Levitt love stories. 

And with the Levitt Foundation, uh, they like the hashtag music moves because it's either music moves, community music moves, um, friendship music just moves. And it's, you, you want, you put that hashtag with all your, all of your Levitt AMP posts. 

And they'll, they'll pick like three people each year to win like a free, like a Bluetooth speaker or things like that. They'll, they'll do a featured music moves post every single week of, from across the country, the Levitt AMP sites across the country. Uh, mine has been used a lot, especially that one of everyone with their arms around each other. 

And you, you, we show off the music moves. You wanna make sure that you know, if you're dancing, make sure you're getting a video, video of yourself dancing and, and, and tag us in him. Put the hashtag music moves. Uh, our mc is fantastic at getting the audience pumped. He'll, he has more fun than I think they do sometimes in the audience. 

Yeah, but no, it's fun. It's, it's a lot, really cool thing that I've been honored to be a part of, and we have at least another two years of it. Levitt is turning into a, uh, a spend-down foundation. So they are Now working to spend down the rest, the rest of their assets. So I don't think there's going to be any, there's not going to be many more new Levitt sites that pop up. 

There'll be a couple permanent Levitt venues, but Levitt Woonsocket, for the most part, um, cause it was a one year grant at 25, 000 a year, and then you have to reapply every year. Now it's a three year grant, 30, 000 a year. And you'll, and then we can apply for it two more times. So we have, there is a, there is a possibility that we'll be eight years left of Levitt Woonsocket, and at that point we'll own everything. 

So it'll be a lot easier for us to continue it. And get funding elsewhere. Cause I, the way that, that it worked out, which I really liked, they, the first couple of years I got paid in gear as well as cash. So because we only had about like 7, 000 budgeted just for production, uh, you know, we were going to rent an X32. 

I didn't own any of this. We were going to rent an X32, rent the stage box. And it was going to be like 2, 800 for the 10 weeks to rent it. So I said, or. You're paying me 3,500 for, for the entire series. Buy me an X32, buy me an S32, give me 500 cash. Now I own the X32. I own that. Uh, and we don't have to worry about it anymore next year. 

They bought me all the microphones. So my two 81s, my my 52, my my 91. Everything is now. 

Sean Walker: There you go. 

Adam Brunetti: now we're cutting down rental costs. Uh, year three, we bought me the M18Bs. Like, so now we own all the subwoofers. And then last year we got a grant from the, from the state. So we bought the 153s. We bought the 610.2s. So the only rental really is Backline. and I  

Andy Leviss: Which is the smart way to go. Nobody wants to own Backline. 

Adam Brunetti: No. No, so 

Sean Walker: Nobody but SIR. 

Adam Brunetti: no one, well yeah, no one wants a setup backline. That's the thing too, because then when we rent it, I have to somehow fit an entire drum kit, keys. I, I've had, I put an eight by 10, uh, in my car, in the back of my truck. 

Like, thank God I have a Rogue but. I've, I have packed that thing full with back lines. Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to take two trips. Cause again, Rhode Island and it's like 35 minutes away. I don't 

Sean Walker: Both minutes across the state. 

Adam Brunetti: Right, exactly. So, but it is, and listen, I, I, I have no problem bringing an eight by 10. 

I'm like, you know, if your bass player wants that. I get an actual, like, Ampeg on top of it, and it's just, it makes me so happy. 

Sean Walker: All of our Texas listeners are literally throwing things around their cars right now as they're driving down the street listening to you complain about driving two trips in Rhode Island, 

Adam Brunetti: Correct! 

Andy Leviss: my front yard's 20 minutes away, sumbitch. 

Adam Brunetti: It, it's cool. It's cool. I've gotten to do a lot of cool things, and I've gotten to work a lot of cool venues now across the state. 

Andy Leviss: Right on. Um, well, it's been cool having you. I want to like, you know what, let's wrap up. It's, it's a game we haven't played on the show in a while, but, um, we're, we're, we're coming to Woonsocket to hang out or, or to do a show where, where, where are we going for dinner? 

Adam Brunetti: All right. So we are going to have, we're going to start off at Kay's restaurant. They've been around for, I believe they're about to go on to 70 something years now. They have a beautiful steak sandwich. That's what they're known for. Guy Fieri has been there to show off the steak sandwich. You go to Kay's, you get a steak sandwich, 

Andy Leviss: Are, are we talking like think cut like slices? Are we talking like, think out, like describe the steak sandwich to me now. I'm now I'm  

Adam Brunetti: uh, it is nice, thin cut slices. Um, and you can get it, uh, their menu is their napkin. So you open up the napkin and you have the different, uh, what meat you could put on your sandwich. If you don't want a steak sandwich, you got plenty of options there. They have a full menu now. Uh, and you can tell them what kind of cheese you want. 

What, what, what, if you want mushrooms, any toppings, and it just comes with a thing of ruffle chips. Uh, a uh, uh, pickle and a thing of pepper, uh, pepperoncini, or I just do a steak sandwich, no green, so I don't get, I don't get the, the peppers and I have just my steak sandwich and chips and it's a wonderful time. 

It's one of the places I always take someone to on their first time, to ones socket. And then we will go to Ciro's Tavern, uh, for drinks. That is my spot. I am their. I should have stock in that restaurant at this point. Uh, and in true Rhode Island fashion, I'm friends with the owners. 

Sean Walker: Norm! That's how it is when you walk in. You just, yeah. 

Adam Brunetti: yeah. I walk in and a Jack and Coke is placed in front of me 

Andy Leviss: Nice. 

Adam Brunetti: and that's, you know, and I, I am there Thursday nights now for karaoke. 

I will do a mean "Smooth" by Santana as my warmup song. And I close 

Andy Leviss: wait, that's your warmup song‽ 

Adam Brunetti: That's my warmup song. Uh, I close the night with "Rosalita" by The Boss. And during the minute long instrumental break, that's when I, that's what I'll use to promote the next week's Levitt AMP Series. So I'll be like, all right, if now, if you want to hear this song correctly, come down to the park tomorrow and you'll hear, and you'll hear the Nakeds play it or something like that. 

Uh, but those  

Andy Leviss: And now you're speaking Sean's language. So it's some, some marketing right there. 

Adam Brunetti: And if you're in for, if you're, if you'd rather have, uh, Fish and Chips, uh, we have Yield English Fish and Chips, which is right by the Levitt AMP site as well. And they've, they've been around for over a hundred years. Uh, the same family has owned it since the beginning. 

It's been just passed down. And so, yeah, you have that for, for Rhode Island in one socket, uh, right down the line, we have Wright's Dairy Farm, which is a family owned, uh, farm that I've been getting my milk at since I was born. They've been around for over 125 years. And they have the greatest thing of coffee milk, which is something you don't know about. 

Andy Leviss: No, no. I, I, I, I do 'cause I'm, I'm married a New Englander  

Sean Walker: I sure don't, I sure don't!. 

Adam Brunetti: so Sean, coffee milk is, it's picture, like, coffee, uh, chocolate milk with, like, chocolate syrup. This is coffee syrup, and you put that into your milk, and it is the official state drink of Rhode Island. It's almost only available in Rhode Island, uh, except for maybe one or two towns right by the state line. 

Sean Walker: It's coffee syrup or it is coffee syrup in milk already as a drink. 

Adam Brunetti: Uh, well, you put the coffee syrup in the coffee in the milk, and now it's 

Andy Leviss: So, straight up, Adam, I have a bottle of Autocrat in the fridge downstairs. 

Adam Brunetti: Yes. Yes. Uh, it's Autocrat is the actually, 

Andy Leviss: I was going to say, do you have one there? 

Sean Walker: He's got it with an arms reach, dude. 

Adam Brunetti: yes. 

Andy Leviss: Yep, Autocrat coffee is there, there we go. We got a giant ass bottle of that in the fridge from last time we, from last time we went through New England. 

Adam Brunetti: And then of course, you would then we could also then grab a nice cold Narragansett lager, which is brewed here in, in Rhode Island and is the, the, the Steve Smith and the Nakeds are the official band of Gansett. Um, 

Sean Walker: just love that he's got both coffees and booze  

within  

Andy Leviss: He brought 

Sean Walker: within reach his desk, cause he doesn't fuck around. You know what I mean? Like 

Adam Brunetti: no, I, 

Andy Leviss: I also love that we asked where to eat and Adam's got a full on damn prix fixe tour of Woonsocket. I'm loving this. 

Adam Brunetti: But no, it's, uh, that's why I love Woonsocket so much. Why I always, when people come, I know exactly where I'm taking them. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, we're understanding why you're so involved in the city, and that's awesome. 

it's, 

I wish every city had people as passionate about it as you, dude. That's 

Adam Brunetti: well, say, and now I'm running for city council, uh, so that's going to get even more crazy. 

Sean Walker: I'll vote for you. 

Adam Brunetti: Well, thank, thank you. I'm sure that the, uh, election deniers in the city are going to love to hear that. Uh, that I have votes coming in from Seattle. 

Sean Walker: I mean, 

Andy Leviss: I mean, that sounds on the par for what I know about Rhode Island. 

Sean Walker: All your friends say yes, and then you're elected. 

Andy Leviss: I'm going to say we get back to Buddy's Cianci 

Adam Brunetti: oh, we could get back to Buddy that's for sure. 

Sean Walker: I'm definitely not trying to take a political turn on the podcast. 

Adam Brunetti: No, 

Andy Leviss: No, nor are we trying to get ourselves kneecapped. 

Adam Brunetti: You're right. 

Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. 

Adam Brunetti: no, I already know, I 

Sean Walker: Well, on that note, let's wrap it up. Good to see you. Bye. 

Adam Brunetti: ha ha, 

Sean Walker: It's been fun. It's been real. It's been real fun. K bye. 

Andy Leviss: If you don't hear from us, send help. 

Adam Brunetti: yeah, yes. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Well, Adam, thanks for joining us this week. Uh, it's, it's been good hanging. Um, yeah, like I'm Andy Leviss. 

Sean Walker: Sean Walker, thanks to RCF and Allen and Heath for having us  

Andy Leviss: and Rational Acoustics, rockin it out with Smaart.  

Sean Walker: Check out the other podcasts we got going on ProSoundWeb. We got Church Sound Podcast, and we've got Live Sound Bootcamp. Those guys are ripping over there. 

Yeah,  

Andy Leviss: we've got Brian and Brendan, or Ryan and Brendan on, on Live Sound Bootcamp we got Samantha and, and James over on, uh, Church Sound who are all rockin it out. Like, I actually, I hadn't listened to Church Sound , uh, admittedly, until, like, recently. And I've been diggin in, and they've got some awesome episodes. If y'all haven't listened...  

Sean Walker: Totally 

Andy Leviss: Even if you're not, even if you don't do church sound, you're not into the church thing at all, check them out. Like there's a lot of just killer...they did a whole episode on work life balance last month or the month before that's really solid.  

Sean Walker: What's that? 

Adam Brunetti: Right. Ha 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, exactly. Sean, you should go listen to this episode. 

Um, yeah, they like, they had a solid episode on like troubleshooting and like eliminating human error, like someone like makes basically, check it out. There's a wide world of ProSoundWeb podcasts beyond just our dumb asses, and I strongly encourage checking  

Adam Brunetti: ha  

Sean Walker: Hey, hey, hey, hey, I resemble that remark, Andy. Thank you. God, I'm, I'm still here. I haven't logged off yet. 

Andy Leviss: Alright folks, well, that being the case, that's the note we're going to leave you on, and we'll catch you next week on another episode of Signal to Noise. Peace everybody!

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green