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Rock ‘n’ roll’s first female roadie has lived with AC\/DC, toured with Suzi Quatro, Leo Sayer and Status Quo, and though she couldn’t have imagined it as a teenager, she’s proven women belong backstage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tana Douglas<\/a>, a teenager whose childhood was troubled by a spiteful mother and an incompetent father, found her escape in live music. It was largely fate and circumstance that lead to her beginnings as a roadie in 1973. Without a home, nor an income, helping the road crew to unpack and load the band’s gear back into trucks post-show was a means of making an income and feeling part of a community. Her dedication, her relentless hard work and “I can do it” attitude meant she was constantly working, her reputation forged through word-of-mouth commendations. By 1974, she was working for – and living with – AC\/DC. Their management had set up the band, along with Douglas, in a suburban house in Melbourne\u2019s St Kilda East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey were so welcoming and friendly and so close to my age. It was their first time away from home, and that\u2019s what I\u2019d been missing, so I thought it was great,\u201d Douglas tells Audiofemme<\/em>. \u201cThey may as well have been [my] brothers, since we were doing everything together and we all got on really well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Douglas and AC\/DC would spend a lot of time listening to records. \u201cThe brothers, Malcolm and Angus, listened to old blues. Bon was into the new ZZ Top album, Tres Hombres, [and] Alex Harvey Band because all the Scots loved him,” Douglas remembers. “We\u2019d sit and listen to all sorts of things: Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley. I liked Janis Joplin and though I don\u2019t think any of them liked her, they were polite enough to let me listen. Everyone was equal, there was no separation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Douglas has just released her memoir, LOUD<\/em><\/a>, which recalls much of her early life and illuminates the contradiction between touring with glamorous, cult-favourite rockstars while knowing she had no home to go to in the evenings, nor family to call if she was lonely or in trouble. Like many women who forge a path for other women to follow, Douglas had to bear the brunt of criticism from male colleagues, threats and abuse from female fans who saw her as a competitor for attention by the objects of their obsession, and heckling from audiences when she could be seen from the stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is also the tale of a true music industry pioneer, forging ahead in her field thanks to ingenuity, work ethic, and passion. Douglas transitioned from the backline into working on lighting and sound, despite having no previous experience in either specialty. In those days, it was a matter of learning on the job – not always easy as one of the rare women working in the support crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe technology has evolved immensely to this day, but it was the new technology of the 1970s and nobody really knew anything about it,” she recalls. “It was a starting point, and people like myself kept pushing the envelope. The work schedule back in the ’70s was so heavy – with AC\/DC we were doing 12 to 14 shows a week. You learn by setting it up, and when something broke you fixed it. My biggest learning curve was with Paul Dainty\u2019s production company ACT. We were learning first in the country from experts from the US and the UK coming through on tour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early in her career, Douglas realised she’d be more likely to have ongoing, reliable and well-paid work if she was working for production and touring companies, rather than for artists directly. Her employment by TASCO, a London-based production company, enabled her to work with Status Quo, The WHO, Ozzy Osbourne, The Police, Iggy Pop and Elton John. When TASCO opened a Los Angeles office, Douglas transferred to the US and became a resident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the coming years, she’d gradually shift out of working on lighting and stage production into logistics for artists as diverse as Lenny Kravitz, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ice-T and Pearl Jam – stars with star quality. \u201cIt\u2019s how they hold themselves before they say anything,\u201d muses Douglas. \u201cYou can just see star quality, they just ooze it. Iggy just oozes it. He\u2019s very feline, he prowls, it\u2019s amazing to watch. Other people, like Elton John, it\u2019s the way he carries himself. You know he\u2019s a star. He\u2019s a bit stand-offish until he can figure out what\u2019s going on in the room. Stars have a different nuance to them. George Harrison was so quiet, so low key, but you knew it when he walked into a room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the grunge era, Douglas says there still that star power under the flannel shirts, albeit less obvious. \u201cWith Pearl Jam, there was a more laid-back, of-the-people vibe but they\u2019ve still got it. They\u2019ve got cargo pants on, carrying surfboards, but you can still tell,” she says. “If you\u2019ve got to put it on, then you don\u2019t have it. Star power, you\u2019re either born with it or you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tana Douglas says she would always make an effort to talk to fellow female roadies before and after the show to build a rapport. She\u2019d suggest companies to talk to and people to talk to. \u201cI\u2019d also let them know that they\u2019d have to work as hard, if not harder than the rest of the crew,” she recalls. “You would have to give up the feminine niceties of life, and if you started making demands to stop and wash your hair, it wouldn\u2019t fly. The trade off is if you make sacrifices and you\u2019re good at the job, there\u2019s room for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even today, Douglas admits, \u201cYou pretty much have to justify yourself to someone, somewhere along the line. Young women have a similar struggle now – it\u2019s not as bad or as obvious, but it\u2019s one of the last frontiers of men\u2019s domain. When I had my own company, I was running it and not a lot of people knew how to do that so they\u2019d respect that. There were contracts I wouldn\u2019t get because I was a female, but I had a ton of different clients who knew the job would be done at a good price and they could count on me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t until the late 1980s that women started to become the norm backstage. \u201cIt started trickling in in the 1980s and 1990s. Lollapallooza were very pro hiring females,\u201d says Douglas. She’d met festival co-founder Ted Gardner<\/a> on a Men at Work tour; Gardner and his wife Nikki Brown had established a management company that handled Jane’s Addiction, Tool, and other alt-acts tapped for early Lolla lineups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They were so supportive. There were so many bands that it became something where females would turn up, do their job, and it wouldn\u2019t matter who they were. That was a shifting point in the industry, I think,\u201d remembers Douglas. \u201cNikki managed bands, and [Gardner] knew females worked backstage way back. They were professionals who realised that what they were doing with Lollapallooza was different, so why couldn\u2019t personnel be different?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Douglas has spent long enough in the industry to know that women have greater capacity for some roles than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFemales are really detail oriented so we make excellent tour operators. There\u2019s also a lot of females in the video departments. There\u2019s very few female production managers, but the few there are are very good. Females are good at departmentalising, figuring it out, organising and doing the job,” she says. “Men have been holding down these jobs, but women are good and often, we have an eye for things like lighting design. Perhaps it\u2019s more of an emotion thing of the music and the colour; they really excel at it. Things like soldering and repairing equipment, these are things women excel at with finer attention to detail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for writing her memoir, Douglas found it \u201cincredibly therapeutic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So much of her life had been spent on tour and between tours that the hardest part was working out how to write her memories in a way that made sense. She was able to go back to old itineraries and call old friends to confirm dates, events and stories. \u201cI think we got it mostly correct, so fingers crossed!\u201d Douglas laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was one figure who is especially responsible for Douglas\u2019 wild career and someone who is at the forefront of her memoir. \u201cWane \u2018Swampy\u2019 Jarvis<\/a> made room for me – he would listen and offer advice. He was a brother figure to me, and we remained friends for his entire life,” Douglas says. “That was a bond that couldn\u2019t be broken and that\u2019s miraculous. We met when I was 16 and 50 years later, there was always that bond there.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In LOUD<\/em>, Tana Douglas raves about the men who were supportive, who didn\u2019t question her right to be there, and what really becomes clear is that for women to excel in male-dominated domains – like backstage – it requires both men and women to provide space and opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Alain-Le-Garsmeur_StatusQuo-negs006_5-1024x810.jpg\")
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