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Crystal Wise
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Crystal Wise
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Crystal Wise
Sound technician and musician, Blake Barker, sits comfortably on the opposite side of a cross-hatched, iron patio set at his professional home base, Tulips. Bespectacled and wavy-haired, he takes a long drag from a cigarette before clearing his throat. "I was a barback at Scat Jazz Lounge," Barker says impishly. "And the bartender handling sound that day got too busy. He needed me to help, and I had no idea what to do. So, he drew on a cocktail napkin signal flow: microphone, cable, mixing console, amplifier, and speaker."
It was one of those sink or swim moments for Barker; he was either going to succeed or fall flat on his face. "I did it. And I liked it.” Barker was hooked — the signal flow he saw that day made sense to him. "It was just a straight line," he laughs. And the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of equalization in sound has kept Barker hooked for 12 years. "I'm still not 100% sure how it works, but I can make it happen."
Born in Galveston, Barker’s a little hesitant to talk of his childhood, when he frequently packed his bags and bounced around the Houston area. But Barker would eventually find a home in Fort Worth, where his fateful first sound technician experience would catapult him into the music industry professionally.
Barker worked at the Scat with local singer/songwriter Luke Wade, who Barker would tour with, and who he also credits with ushering his entry into the sound technician lifestyle. While on tour with Wade, Barker would frequently wear any hat necessary. "I know a lot of things now," Barker says. "If I can get into something and reverse engineer it, I can probably figure it out."
While he’s often the man behind the crowd, largely invisible to attentive concertgoers, Barker’s also had his fair share of time in the spotlight, touring internationally with electrofolk duo Tall Heights — going as far as Germany as the group’s front of house audio engineer — and playing mandolin for Tripp Mathis from 2012 to 2017. Despite the rush of playing in front of large, cheering crowds, Barker admits, these days, he prefers being behind the scenes. In many ways, it’s the challenge he loves. "Typically, when people listen to music, it's by themselves," he says. "My job is to recreate the emotion you felt experiencing that song alone, accept you're in a stadium with thousands of people."
"When I transform the songs into live versions, the band is trust falling into me. They want me to interpret the music in an honest way, and the audience is hoping I do that, too."
Barker started working at Tulips a couple months before the venue opened in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. According to Blake, Tulips’ owner, Jason Suder, asked him to check out a few things, and he simply never left. “I got my squatter rights,” Barker jokes. But since his time at Tulips, the music venue has developed a strong positive reputation due in no small part to Barker’s nuanced approach to sound.
"The human ear doesn't really want to hear anything perfect,” Barker says. “The skill comes in dancing around notes and making them stand out."
Top 10 food and coffee joints I dream about on the regular
“I’m a fairly boring eater when I’m off of tour, but I love food and coffee especially, so I make a concerted effort to find new-to-me restaurants and coffee shops every time I hit the road. Some of them I’ve been to only once, others have been staples throughout the years, some are local spots where I’d visit every day if I didn’t have to pay bills. Below, in no particular order, are some of the places from far and near that live rent free in my stomach brain.”
Taqueria El Jarocho - Philadelphia
Rosako’s - Fort Worth
Monell’s Germantown - Nashville, Tennessee
On’s Kitchen - Saint Paul, Minnesota
The Mortals Coffee Shop - Grand Rapids, Michigan
Taqueria Mazamitla - Chicago
Tacos La Bonita - Los Banos, California
Luna Rotisserie - Carrboro, North Carolina
Pho Hung - Fort Worth
Sol Food - San Rafael, California
