The Story of Black Sabbath, Swivel Chairs and a Live IMTS Interview

Left to right, Bill Herman, Brent Donaldson and I enjoyed chatting about current machining trends during a live video taken at IMTS 2022.

Brent Donaldson and I are music aficionados like I’d hope most everyone is. The executive editor of sister brand Modern Machine Shop also is a talented drummer, while I occasionally make noise with guitars at home largely to annoy my wife and neighbors.

Anyway, he and I were asked by AMT—The Association For Manufacturing Technology to partake in a live interview on the main stage in the middle of McCormick Place’s grand concourse on IMTS 2022 show-day Thursday. The idea was we’d talk about technology and process trends we’ve seen in today’s high-mix/low-volume job shops as well as high-production machining businesses, and how these technologies are being leveraged to drive manufacturers deeper into customer supply chains.

Fellow Gardner Business Media editors were asked to do similar, daily, live interviews solo earlier in the week relative to their brands. Apparently, they also were asked ahead of time to choose what “walk up” song they wanted heard throughout the grand concourse just prior to their interviews.

Nobody asked Brent or me what song we preferred, and, actually, we had no idea any music would precede our discussion.

So, here are Brent, me and interviewer Bill Herman, AMT’s vice president, membership and sales, sitting on the stage mic’d up and under the lights chatting prior to go-live time at 11 am. Just before the interview was to start and we get all serious-like, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” song starts blasting throughout the grand concourse. Brent and I glanced at each other like, ok, this is cool, albeit unexpected. And, perhaps reflexively, we started swiveling and moving around in our chairs as that song was now in our heads. We continued doing this through the start of the interview not thinking anything about it. I don’t feel it was obnoxious, but, apparently, the video crew somewhat frowned on such proclivity.

Brent was sitting in the middle between Bill and me at the desk and was in a better position to face the camera crew. One of the crew members eventually gave him hand gestures and I believe mouthed the words “stop moving.” He noticed that and did as advised. But, I didn’t see it as I was off angle a bit stage left looking more toward Bill. So, I kept occasionally moving. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, I saw said camera crew guy now holding a handwritten sign that read “STOP MOVING.” I nodded and ceased such egregious movement.

In the end, the interview went well, which you can view at gbm.media/imts2022. For sure, this silly moment with Brent from IMTS 2022 is one I’ll remember for a good while.

While a trade show like IMTS is educational, informative and a source for technology discovery, it’s also fun. Technology there is often presented in creative and clever ways, you might unexpectedly run into industry friends on the show floor (this happened to me a number of times). So, for those of you who also attended this year’s show, I’d love to hear about any of your own unexpected, funny, odd or neat experiences.

I’m looking forward to similar experiences at the Precision Machining Technology Show (PMTS), which runs April 18-20 in Cleveland, Ohio. The opportunities for frequent interaction with others is higher, given the show’s manageable footprint. And, although the show is a few months out, we have some fun plans we expect we’ll put into place and hope to knock it out of the park...

I hope to see many of you there. But I also hope that Iron Man is now in your head. Rock on, and see you at PMTS.