Spotlight

Nigel 'Skippy' Monk

Crew

March 25, 2021

Full date (and place) of birth?

1964 Cardiff

Profession?

Lighting Designer/ Crew chief

Your first job after full-time education?

Trainee Quantity Surveying Technician

Your work:

What inspired you to get into the world of lighting?

Going to gigs as a youth...Thin Lizzy /Queen / Boomtown Rats etc. I didn't know at the time that it had inspired me, but it lurked and when a mate started driving for a local lighting company, I was in and it clicked.

Is there anyone you would describe as a mentor?

Colin Jones/ FinbarQuinn (RIP...)

What’s your favourite touring memory?

Phew now there’s a question...too many but as a generalisation, seeing the smiles/sweat/joy of a crowd ‘having it’… makes me smile every time.

What's your WORST touring memory?

David Bowie Reality Tour… Miami 2004… local crew falling off truss, just missing me and dying in my arms.

And the funniest?

Again 33 years of laughter… but up there must be dressing as one of Bros’s dancers on the lastnight of their European Tour’ 88 and doing a whole routine on stage, step perfect. Matt and Luke cursing us out… there are pics somewhere... make up and all.

What have been the major highlights of your career to date?

Crew chief David Bowie Reality Tour 2003/2004, Motorhead LD 89-92 , Black Stone Cherry …Crew Chief and LD… last 3 UK arena tours, friend and LD to the most underrated act to have surfaced in the 90’s…The Mighty Utah Saints

Best guestlist justification request?

Well they did give us free drinks all night and give us cash for a cab to make load in

Do you think there is currently enough practical encouragement of young production talent?

In my field there are a whole army of youths coming through…knowledge... fantastic, common sense… lacking… I know, I love having youths out on tour, they are our business future.

What people may not know:

What is the trait you deplore in yourself?

Sometimes that I care too much and just can’t say fuck em

What occupies your free time?

As it was since I first bought my first 45 single… Music… listening, reading, collecting... neverplaying… Spike Milligan, Hunter S Thompson, Gerald Scarfe and of course, the only team in Wales… Cardiff City Football Club... home and away

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

On a day off … room service, long bath and then any old comedy I can find on the net... The Goons, Hancock, etc… with a bottle of a good red wine.

What’s the most inspiring thing anybody has ever said to you?

We are all in this together, there is so no lights. Sound, backline… there is the last gang in town (courtesy of the Clash)

Who would be your four ideal dinner party guests?

4 dead … Spike Milligan, Dylan Thomas, Hunter S Thompson, Iain Banks…

4 alive… Tom Waits, James Ellroy, Irvine Welsh, Mick Jones

What have you been up to during the Pandemic?

At the beginning too much drinking, then trying to get a benefit TV show commissioned, over the last 2 months been lamping on a BBC Drama

Your favourite record of all-time (could be an album or single track)?

Heroes … David Bowie……could be anything by him

What was the first gig you attended?

Now here’s a thing it was either The Boomtown Rats or the Tubes at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff 1978

What would be your advice to a teenage you?

Don’t go and waste 4 years working for the council… get in there and see the world. Work hard and play harder

What's the best piece of kit you've discovered over the past 12 months (and why)?

Ma3 … only because I hadn’t been behind a desk in 20 years and BSC trusted me and it worked…

Closing questions:

What are your hopes for the future?

That the youth get the same pleasure, joy and excitement that I have had out of this incredible industry

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

That there are many routes to the same destination … explore all possibilities... there is not one definitive answer to any question.

If you weren’t doing this, you’d be?

Tired, sad and unsatisfied

Article By:  

Joel Perry

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