How about something new today? Come have a seat at Chad's drum kit and check out the view:

and lookie here, nothing like a sweet romantic love song to bring joy to the heart and tonight Freaky Styley is very much one my old school favorites!

**** Roadie Insight ****

As glamorous as the roadie life of pushing cases and bus riding marathons appears to be to the outsider, believe it or not, it truly is a bed of roses, thorns and all. As quickly as the euphoria of knowing your 1 1/2 years will be spent in many elsewhere's, the swirling 'drink me' temptation of all the pretty colored alcohol bottles, seductive wine labels and selection of local temptresses can all to easily become the preferred evening ritual. Load in, rock, load out, party, bus ride, TV, sleep, repeat. Days can easily slump into sleeping in, eating and meeting for drinks again. Add in some strip clubs, extraneous drugs, power dating and burn a few all nighters and bingo, you have the recipe for a generic rock roadie. That of course is the easy path and has its assets in the short term and prices in the long. Getting out of bed early to workout in the hotel gym or booking a car rental over the noise of the gig for a snow boarding trip on the next day off is where the true challenges lie. The obstacles of orchestrating scuba diving and fishing trips range from predicting bus arrival times to finding out that your alleged day off has morphed into a loading in day early.

For the roadie me, I have to have projects above and beyond the adventure of mixing the best rock show I can mix or at least I need drink enough to forget that I need them. Sober and project-less I spiral into boredom and the worst thing of all happens, I become no fun to be around or maybe too much fun depending. As you may have well guessed, one of my projects for this tour is sharing the adventure of this tour. Another ongoing one is is always my passion for Rat Sound and the livelihood of all those that make it what it is. Next I am going to learn to fly fish so I bought a fly fishing rod and Scott the Lampi is going to teach me how.

I guess because the product I am hired to create is so intangibly fleeting and the sound of the show vaporizes into a diffused set of opinions whisked away as the audience leaves. The only remnants that remain from something that was just hours ago phenomenal, is just some distilled words by a few reviewers sharing their own microcosm of the experience. As meaningful as they are meaningless and I have finished all to many tours with nothing to show for it but a wad of cash, a monster hangover, some ringing ears and offers for another tour.

And so spawns the playfully absurd and roadies desire to frolic and where better to frolic than in a grassy field? Non-where better there is. And so was realized Nick the Fly's dream of the FOH micro lawn. In October 2003 it became a reality and though short lived, on the west coast part of the Pepper's By the Way tour, we purchased and toured with several square yards of Marathon sod. To this day I still reminisce of the cool sensation mixing barefoot upon the lovely green.

**** End Roadie Insight ****

The appreciative of my world,

Dave Rat

ICWTSMGAMHC!

It has been a while and who would have knew, the return of:

**** Issue of the Day ****

Every tour with any duration always seems to have a point where 'tanti time' comes. Oh the heart warming enjoyment of grown roadies all upset over the relatively insignificant. And I never want to be left out of the fun so I naturally join in in anyway I can. Bus food. Seems there is a discrepancy between what the roadie bellies desire and what what the roadie bellies are being fed for overnight drives.

Though roadies are well known to want nothing other than Pizza every night, best I can figure there were a few busses that made a few trips with minimal or non existent supplies of drinking water, bee and wine stock. This, of course, angers the roadie's bellies and angry roadie bellies are capable of inspiring the roadie in which they reside into either profuse whining or even worse, taking matters in there own roadie hands. Couple that with the fact that a loaf of Wonderbread was discovered on one of the busses and hence erupted:

The Wonderbread Mutiny 2006

Though similar to the Boston Tea Party, the Wonderbread Mutiny 2006's place in the history books is yet to be determined. What was truly incredible was that word of WM '06 spread so quickly that within hours the head Peppers office 3000 miles away not only got the news but was able to orchestrate an eyebrow raising delivery of three additional loaves of Wonderbread. Anyway, soon afterwards the uprising lost steam because it was too difficult to be mad while laughing.

Furthermore, concessions on the food supply end were made as well and without a single drop of bloodshed, the the tour slid back to its lumpy harmony of balance that we all love and enjoy.

**** End Issue of the Day ****

And since I have to watch these guys every day so I may as well have you do the same:

And so ends another day on the road.

The reminiscing

Dave Rat

P. S. Have you ever peeled the crust off of Wonderbread and squeezed the middle part back into a dough ball?

IDTCYFBAAF!

Roadies love truck stops and if you are chipper enough to pop out of your bunk at a fuel stop, there is some real fun to be had. With everything you could need from truck parts

adorable gifts for the kids

and you can pretty much live off of these these multipurpose macro-marts. With restaurants, shower rooms and special trucker only lounges that have couches, movies and internet. The trucker sub culture is right at home here and most importantly, they are located with easy freeway access and 60 foot long parking spaces.

For us roadies, truck stops provide a place to frolic, shop and occasionally get left behind. Being left behind is called "oil spotted" in roadie speak. No one truly knows the origin of the term but evidence does indicate that it may have evolved from the statement "the only thing I could find was the oil spot where the bus used to be." To avoid oil spotation, it generally a good idea for roadies to leave a note on the drivers seat if they leave the bus. What happens is the driver goes inside to pay for fuel, roadie wakes up and leaves the bus to go crap in the bathroom, (piss only on tour busses) and the driver returns and drives off, hence the note idea.

I have a few good oil spot stories that I will save for a rainy day, but since today is sunshine, lets go sailing!

Nick the Fly's brother Joe has a boat in the bay and picked up Nick, Scott and I for a sailing adventure soon after we arrived in SF. Here we can see these salty sailors out on the open sea:

First they said something about coming around then it gets really noisy, all hell breaks loose, a metal thing swings across really fast and and then the boat goes the other way. I hide in the cabin.

They did that a few times and then started looking at the swingy metal thing

and it was much easier to fish without all the ruckus. Good thing too, cause otherwise I may not have gotten the chance to land this impressive behemoth

And such ends another rough day on the road.

The weary,

Dave Rat

IWTSTSFYEAIRYA

Special "what people do on tour" special!

**** The Amazing Durable Roadie ****

Touring gigs vary drastically in workload, responsibility and exposure to stress. Equally diverse is the schedule that each roadie in the herd maintains.

Riggers - are the sharp edged early risers. First in and last out, they calculate and hang the heavy loads safely over our heads. These clean, mean and meticulous machines effortlessly climb to frightful heights. The upside is that they typically can get a nice long mid day sissy nap.

Bus and truck drivers have even earlier call times as they drive all night and sleep all day, these nocturnal roadies like riggers, hold our roadie lives and the safely of our beloved wires in the grip of a steering wheel. An interesting side note is that bus drivers typically get carted off to a hotel during the day, while truck drivers sleep in the micro hotel room located in the cab of their truck. Bus drivers drive straight through to deliver their roadie cargo while truck drivers do showers at truck stops that are setup for exactly that, along the way.

Production roadies include the production manager, stage manager and production assists. With their early load ins and late outs they have possibly the most stressful gig of the bunch. Their chosen tasks of keeping the whole show running smoothly, sooner or later brings every unresolved issue into their lap. Plus they are responsible for organizing all the humans and gear to show up in the right place, right time, within budget and as many people as happy as possible. The positive side? Well hey, they run the show so if they need something they just ask themselves if they can have it and that has its advantages.

Lighting Techs. One thing about lights is that they take a lot of power. Big power means big heavy wires and a heck of a lot of them. These roadies are coming in soon after riggers and are at the gig till the hairy end. If you look to the upper sides of stage during the show, you will see there are four follow spot roadies. Those the specialized lighting people you see climbing ladders right before the Peppers play. We carry two of them, the other six are locally hired each night. Lighting techs to this day tend to be some of the more rugged roadies, maybe it is the wires or genetics but the work hard/play hard ethic runs strong in lampi world.

Carpenter. A highly specialized roadie whose purpose is to be able to fix, repair or build anything the tour may need and then do what ever else need to be done afterwards. Carps are cool!

Catering - In Europe we, as most large tours, carry full catering. In the US, the opposite is true. Why that is, heck I don't know. On this tour we carry a band chef and he also looks after the crew a bit as well. They shop, they cook and they feed and though it is a good solid day of work over hot stoves, the appreciation they get from grateful eaters is not in short supply.

Video Techs - Video is a bit of a newer gig compared to old school lighting and sound worlds and as such tends to vary quite a bit from tour to tour. With huge video sets like we have out here, the vid crew is running about the same workload/schedule as lighting. With the current video setup including two active cameramen and two roadies in real time control over video shots, they keep pretty busy during show time.

Sound Techs - A bit later call times than the lighting, the sound techs get to do a lot of waiting and then have a bit of a crunch to get set. The sequence of events during load in is usually rigging, lights, video, sound and then backline, with overlaps of course. The state of the art sound systems that we use today are a far cry from the old "hang a pile o boxes here" mentality of 5 or 10 years ago. Currently, every room is measured with laser range finders to determine the dimensions. The data is input into 3D sonic prediction software that calculates optimum coverage, potential volume levels and determines the precise angle of every speaker box. To learn this, the techs go through a training course and are certified as such.

Dressing room coordination - As you get closer and more directly involved with the artists, things take on more of an air of finesse. A far cry from thousand pound set carts bouncing on a forklift, building the happiness escape that keeps the musical humans smiling and harmonious is the job of dressing room humans. A world of comfort within a world of frenzy. Their day starts later but the end is dictated randomly by who stays how long. So, flexibility and adaptation are the name of the game while being the delicate buffer to protect one of our most valuable assets and the reason we are all here, the band.

Backline Techs and Monitor Engineer- These techs have an even later of a call time and finish relatively early in the big picture. The workloads are fairly light comparatively but the responsibility huge. Each backline roadie deals directly with their band human, one each for bass, guitar and drums while the monitor engineer with all four in he band. Every nuance from which guitar tuned how and when, to making absolutely double extra sure that the guitar, bass, drum and monitor rigs operate as close to perfection as possible, every single show. There is no error unseen by either the band member or possibly the entire audience. They have both awesome gigs and mind bending stress as each of them is pretty much responsible for the band hearing themselves and each other so they can perform the show.

FOH World - Lighting designer and FOH Sound Engineer live in a bit of a different realm. On one hand they are far from the fray of stage where the action is, on the other hand, everything the audience sees and hears is at their finger tips. The mass of ears is a unique critique that responds to feeling and emotion. Meanwhile, there are enough people in the know at each show that errors do not go unnoticed. It's an ethereal slow distance once removed stress that can pop into immediate trauma if something important goes pear-shaped. A gig I love and would not trade for the world.

Band Entourage includes the tour manager, TM assist, the band members and a few key people that keep 'em in tip top shape. The band entourage travel separately from the rest of the tour crew and many mysteries surround them. Actually, I am just side stepping the description as the documentary Spinal Tap has already adequately covered the facts from the band angle.

**** End The Amazing Durable Roadie ****

And time for this roadie to sleep,

Dave Roadie Rat

IHAWTJACBUYA!

**** More Roadie Research ****

Just as pictographs, petroglyphs and later, hieroglyphics were used to depict the hunting, battling and deaths of ancient man, roadies too are capable of understanding simple little pictures. Astute stage-manager roadie Tim was quick to pick up on the surprising intellect of his fellow roadies and determined the best way to communicate clearly was in exactly that method, simple little pictures. Below you can see the load out sheet for our Denver show:

Though time has weathered this ancient papyrus scroll, if you look closely you will see to the bottom center a depiction of the antifreeze escaping from the bus motor. Directly to the right notice what appears to be a catapult launching roadies into the burning fire of Phoenix desert heat. You can ignore the other scribbles here, as they have to do with which gear goes in which truck and stuff, so it can be considered useless info.

There seems to be some disagreement between experts as to whether roadies were truly able to make a catapult that could fling a roadie over 900 miles. Many believe that it it is just a symbolic representation of an event while others believe that the roadie catapult did exist and may be located on a mountain top somewhere.

**** End Roadie Research ****

So, I took a wander backstage looking for something new to share and look, I found a little tiny drum kit! And it was in a room strangely enough called "drum room." Turns out, this little kit can make a ton o noise when Mr. Smith beats the crap out it before each show. And I must say, it is really cool to watch Chad warm up.

And lastly but not leastly, here is venue early on in the eve. For the PA nerds out there, you can see the dual stereo V-Dosc clusters in this shot.

good night.

ave at

MHLBWPFBSAT!

We lost a roadie transporter unit on the trip. There is something spooky about that SLC to Denver drive and more than once I have had strange experiences on that road. If I ever get around to digging up my old journals I remember writing down some interesting stories of trips through there. And whatever inspired someone to put a giant Brontosaurus on the side of the road and name a town dinosaur, clearly had no idea of the trauma that would cause some already lost and unsuspecting hallucinatory sleep deprived punkers. Talk about thinking you made a wrong turn. Add in all the crazy lightning and insta-storm thunder explosions and cops that have that backwoods mentality of shaking down the undesirables and that trip was a bit of a gauntlet run back in the day.

But now we ride in the comforts of our bunks in a professionally driven land yachts. Well at least some of the "we's" did. One busload of "we's", bus #1 to be specific, lost all the motor coolant 150 miles out of SLC and were scooped up and divided into busses #3 and #5 to do a cramped over packed trip showing up six hours behind busses #2 and #4 arriving at noon. The only good part was that bus #2, my bus, was so far ahead that turning around was not feasible. Though we could feel slight compassion for our delayed comrades, fortunately we were not personally inconvenienced and were well rested enough to give them a hard time when they finally made it in.

The realities of traveling in these luxurious sardine cans at high speeds while sleeping also came crashing into clear focus when bus #1 took a hit earlier this tour leg. From what I heard, a wayward truck tire slammed into its front bumper from across the highway with enough force to mash the bus up a bit while and test the crews ability to restrain themselves from pissing in their bunks. Just take a moment to admire these sexy land yachts that carry the precious roadie cargo from city to city:

No land yacht is complete without its brave bus captain. These specialized and highly navigationally developed roadies are amazing in their ability to operate equally well diurnally and nocturnally. Here we can see bus captain roadie Brian caring for his precious land yacht:

The sometimes nomadic,

Dave Rat

MGIIMBIIHS!

**** Approaching a Roadie - Etiquette ****

By request, I have put together a brief list of useful roadie terms. Using these words when approaching or attempting to converse with a roadie is highly recommended as it will put the roadie at ease.

When referring to a person that works with lighting, use the endearing term "Lampi" or if you really want to win their favor call him or her a "Squint."

Sound related roadies of both male and female persuasion bask in being addressed as "Noise Boys" or "Squeaks."

Any roadie having anything to do with video always with appreciates the the loving moniker "Vidiot."

Riggers who climb and do all the hanging of stuff from the ceiling are always warmed by being called "Monkeys."

When approaching a roadie in the wild, it is usually best to test the waters of safety by shouting "hey roadie!" really loud from a safe distance before running towards them at a very high rate of speed.

FOH (Front of House), refers to the shangri-la of blissful happiness that holds the caged roadies on display in the middle of the audience area. These special caged roadies are generally considered safer and less likely to bite than their counterparts that are displayed behind the security forces guarding the back stage area.

SWAG (stuff we all get) would be considered the equivalent of a 'roadie peanut.' Basically SWAG items are the treats given to roadies by the patrons. Watching roadies get SWAG is amusing to the givers like feeding an elephant or having a little goat eat snacks from your hand. It is always wise to bring little bits of SWAG for the roadies as this makes them very happy.

**** End Roadie Etiquette ****

Upon arriving in Boise, I spent a most enjoyable afternoon hanging with Lampi Scott and his twin 6 year old daughters whom have joined us till Arizona. All Good!

Dave Rat

TIWETYMLR!