Joe Johnson:  

Hello from Albuquerque, NM. I'm back where I was born. I moved back here in 1981 with Lenny Seward. He and I came out in November of 1980 to visit my parents and we were hooked. My picture is the view from my back deck. After high school I worked at Graham Electronic selling HIFI systems and a little bit of PA gear. The store was sold and I was out of a job. Next I went to HFC and entered their manger training program. I talked Lenny into taking a job there so I could score a whopping $50 bonus. He's been in banking ever since. And they say you can't influence your friends. Once in Albuquerque I worked at a few HIFI stores where I was fired for knowing more than the owner. So I started my own business. I owned a small PA system and mixed bands in the night clubs for a while then joined forces with another PA guy and stated doing concerts. We did most of the local concerts in Albuquerque and continued to grow, adding more and more equipment. Ya, I'm gear head, love spinning those sound knobs. I split up with my partner and started my own company doing concert sound. After a few years of work in town I had some offers to travel with some bands. I did a lot of short tours with bands like; The Ripingtons, Spyro Gyra, Reba McIntire, Dwight Yoakum, Jack Mac and the Heart Attack, Bobby Weir as Bobby and the Midnights, Huey Lewis and the News, Night Ranger, etc.. Yep, I had no life. I got burnt out of the concert life and started a computer store in a small town south of Albuquerque with my brother in 1988. It grew and grew and I worked less and less. I met who I thought was a nice lady and married her. That lasted a whopping 8 months and we divorced. She had a cousin in LA that did divorces for the stars. Ya, she got two houses, two cars, the boat and the business. Oh ya, and she stuck me with $150k of unpaid medical bills from an auto accident that should have been paid from the $300k she received in settlement. I got the old truck we used at the lake to pull the boat with, the shirt on my back, and a huge hole to climb out of. The first order of business, work on my choice of women and lawyers. So, back to sound I go. I worked for the local PA company in Albuquerque doing concerts again, built up some money and broke out on my own in 1994. Working concerts is tough, lots of big ego running around without a clue. I've got hundreds of stories about bands and not that many are good. As I matured in this business I discovered that if you eliminate the band the equipment is truly what I enjoy about it. So why not just build sound systems? So, another new company was born. The new company is TSC we sell and install sound, lighting, and video systems, the big stuff, no residential. We do a lot of churches, performing arts theaters, and schools. Business is good but again I had no life. So, what do you do when you're in your 40s and would like to find a mate? Online I go. I tried that for 2 year...Expand for more