So during the near six week break, I finally got the chance to feel truly home for the first time in fifteen or so months. I started getting up early everyday, doing some running down to the beach for short dive and swim. Healthy food rather than the crap shoot between wonderful Wayno cuisine and the slop that is available to roadies in between. Detoxing from jet lag and drinking with friends evolves into clear thoughts and energy excitement to return back to my more nerdy roots of technology and wires and new soundie designs.

My laptop has finally re reached a state of usefulness as I install the last missing program, (Corel Draw) with which I do all my designing. But alas computers as they are and do, fail. None are immune and down drops another. This time it is a full size machine that one of my daughters uses.

Notice my workbench and the poor defunct mother board with all of her children sprawled out on the bed. Can you believe it? A complete computer melt down and $ 39 and a trip to Fry's electronics buys a new mama!

Bing, pow, boom and she is up and running better than new. 1 gig ethernet, hifi sound, firewire, USB2, high speed video and SATA drive compatible. Old by new standards yet more than enough. I have never attempted a mother board swap before and was amazed how easy it was. So many choices and everything fit, plugged right in, fired it up, a cross compatibility dream as I smile that the e-waste will be just a single card rather than yet another whole computer headed to the dump. Hmmm, I wonder if I would have had the same luck and cash outlay if it was a Mac? Perhaps the $ 39 Mac motherboard were just around the corner or more likely they cost a wee bit more, perhaps 10 times as much? Oh that's right, the dead Mac laptop I have in my closet cost more to fix than buying two new PC machines. Now don't get me wrong, I have no lost love for Microsoft either and I really can't stand the extortion of intentually building in incompatibilities to something we purchase.

Oh, and speaking of making things incompatible, check out this guy, he rules! A 17 year old in New Jersey has successfully figured out a way to bypass the Mac/ATT collusion orchestrated to sap max money from those jumping on the iPhone status symbol bandwagon.

http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/2007/08/full-hardware-unlock-of-iphone-done.html

Unfortunately the modification is beyond the scope of normal humans including myself but headway is being made toward freedom of choice, not that I would buy an iPhone anyway. Oh, have I mentioned that I am all about the concept of fair and cool competition and companies making products that people want without sneaky strings attached? What I am against is crap like "hey, if you want to buy an iPhone, you will have to sacrifice your freedom to choose your cell phone carrier company." "Hey, buy the cool stuff we make and then after you own it, we will do all in our power to milk you for as much money as possible to keep whatever you bought from us running." Printer companies selling their $ 80 ink cartridges for their $ 79 printers is a perfect example. Aargh, greedy sneaky humans annoy me.

Anyway, on a more enjoyable note, I bought a BBQ and it came with a rotisserie so I thought I would take a stab at making my first spinning chicken.

I put melted butter, some olive oil, fresh garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper in a food processor and blended it up to a paste and rolled the chicken in it then took unchopped versions of the same and what was left over and stuffed it inside. Who would have knew it would be so good so easy? Who would have knew dinner could take so damn long to cook. I have never cooked a meal before that took more than 30 min's. To complete the two course meal, a salad with tomatos, feta, olive oil I brought home from Italy and some crazy thick balsamic vinegar I found in France. I got the lettuce locally though.

I really don't want to leave home, right now.

DR

I just finished reading "Enter Naomi," a book sent to me by the author, Joe Carducci, and long ago comrade in the legends and confusion of the Black Flag against world collection of memories. I am forgetful by nature so immersing myself in the hauntingly familiar chain of events of the decade 80's LA punk world is both depressing and yet feels empowering to have survived with manageable amounts of mind splatter. I remember meeting the razor thin girl at my High School, Mira Costa (which believe it or not, actually was the Rock and Roll high school in the Ramones movie) with a blades on chains around around her neck sealed inside tight clothes with random zippers and spikes, later to be roommate and then to become Michelle Flipside. We are 16 and she tells me about the "The Church" in Hermosa Beach, just three blocks from where I live with my dad. Half full of hippies and the rest full of punks in a virtual war like stand off The Descendants, Red Cross (Redd Kross), Black Flag and The Last rehearsed there in virtual anarchy. When I could muster up some cash, I could usually persuade Ron to make a beer run with the " I buy, you fly" negotiation tactic. Over time my after school hangout welcomed me in and I became a bit of a punk rock repair technician and began recording the bands at shows and helping out in exchange for getting me in to the gig and something to do. Especially and most of all I remember that I don't remember except for a few impactful highlights, that was until I start to dive into a refresher course.

So I dig up a few pics and the girl on the left was my short lived girlfriend at the time, I think her name was Julie but everyone called her Phoenix after she corrected them that she was not Julie anymore. Next over, Bart, then me, Bart's friend, and Mike Livingston. Maybe 1979 or so.

Rolling over in my mind a way to describe my recollections, the best I can muster is I feel like I was part of an expedition. Not one where people set out all organized for a goal but rather a haphazard conglomeration of humans who find themselves all headed a similar direction for various reasons that leads them on precarious journey that ends up being littered with self inflicted and coincidental tragedies. The goal, if there was one, was a loosely knit propagation of musical lifestyle anarchy, to actually succeed was to also fail which can be debatably envisioned in the hypocritical concept of "successful punker."

The westward movement of early America comes to mind. Each wagon train being a punker band and it's entourage. The meek, content, fearful and lazily rich stayed home with the status quo and waited for Hot Topic to sell fashionable outfits of the excursion while a kludge of the outcast, impoverished and explorers types who are never content, seek a new domain beyond the boundaries of safe and acceptable. An exodus into lawlessness.

I don't remember who sent me this pic but it is me, Dave Markey, Mitch Bury, Vic, Davo and C'el

Many have died over the years to follow and even more have disappeared into the non-musical frameworks of society. Bright lights burn out quickly, any lampi can tell you that. The Donner Party ate itself and perhaps so did Black Flag as the stress of relentless touring upstream took it's toll. Not too dissimilar from that westward movement, Punk Rock did relatively little directly, other than make a big mess and piss a bunch of people off enough to send the police out with billy clubs to attack their own children. The original bands and people that carved that path or long gone or obscure from a global perspective except as a name on a shirt to look cool for those that wish they were there. What is not gone is the stage they set for the future waves to build upon. What were the names of those that died in wagon trains long forgotten? Perhaps heroes of great accomplishment or criminals for ruthless Indian killing. Regardless, once carved the results remain forever etched as those crazy punker bands that stood up against the odds, were beat down by police riots and spiraled out of control, they drug us out of disco and 80's hair metal and have changed music forever yet as usual the glory goes to those that follow, not for a second that it is undeserved and each fulfills their purpose in the chain.

Oh, and speaking of hair metal band's of the 80's, for all you back East'ers and the curious, check out Girls Girls Girls, an all girl Motley Cru cover band, fun! Though I was not a Motley Cru fan, ever, there is something twistedly cool about the recycled version presented by hotties that rock!

Ok, that is enough for today. Oh, by the way, I am on my way to Scotland, for surprise surprise! Yep, some Peppers' shows for a change.

Dave Rat

My computer crashed, the worldwide rocket ship I was riding while blasting through cities has come to a near screeching halt as I find myself road-rash skidding - POOM. Here is me. No longer a motion full roadie, merely another of many humans that stands in lines and alternates between being annoyed at lead foot drivers and resisting the desire to honk at red lights.

Without motion I no longer can describe the blur from a first hand perspective leaving me only with the remnants of enlightenment or damage caused by the journey. I spend my friday night wavering between solitude appreciation and debating winding myself up into taking a stab at finding an enjoyable interaction and decide to make a solo dinner of habenero turkey burgers in a cast iron skillet. One pound lean ground turkey, one slice of diced onion, 1/4 diced bell pepper (yellow), some garlic powder, salt, pepper, one whole minced habenero pepper and a handful of granulated feta cheese. Mash, burger-ize and pan fry in a tiny amount of olive oil. It is all about knowing when to stop and done right, all good. Listening to the sounds of heat and watching the textures evolve, I try to time when to flip, too soon and she will break apart captain, too late and the burger will hermetically bond itself to the non-non-stick pan.

Then suddenly I stumble upon the thought "The world is dirty, and we poison ourselves in our efforts to to create the 'clean' illusion." For a flash, it all fits, landfills overflowing and smoggy skies from manufacturing and transporting millions of plastic "clean" water carrying bottles. Priests attempting to be so clean and pure they end up in jail as child molesters and the hydrogenated, modified whatever that is in all our food so it stays as "fresh" as possible even though it becomes the opposite of healthy. "Yuck, dirty insects, quick, put poison on our food." There are many debates about good and bad and various things and for the moment at least, it appears so simple. If you have a box gray sand and pull out all the light or dark bits, all that will be left is the other. It is that polarization, the acceleration towards dividing our infinitely gray world into the much more palatable black and white of "This is clean, this is dirty. This is good, this is bad." But perhaps the reality is that it is similar to Newton's conservation of energy law, "good" and "clean" are not created, they are only temporarily separated from "bad" and "dirty" counterparts. I ponder as I wash the raw turkey remnants from a bowl now clean while soapy turkey water flows down a drain to an unknown destiny.

Long ago a friend named Davo said something that I never forgot. "Many things in this world are like air conditioners, the cooler it gets on the inside, the hotter it gets for everyone else." He was referring at the time to the United States versus the rest of the world, mid Reagan era. Except it even seems bigger than that and impacts us on all levels as we all seem to eventually leave the air conditioning at the end of the day and sit there fighting that irresistible desire to honk at red lights.

From the inside out I view, as we all do and I often wonder if everyone feels as disconnected as I. And if so, how they are so good at masking it? Perhaps I should watch more TV

but I keep forgetting, in the mean time I will sift through the pile of things that I want to remember to do, so I don't regret later.

And oh, where did I go? I guess, everywhere but here. "One more, one more!" Oh ok, last one, these roller coaster's are fun, one last ride before the park closes.

On another note, as one curtain closes another opens. How excited am I? I have signed on as a consultant/designer for a large sound manufacturer and looks like we are going to be building some Ratty designs! A dream come true and cool stuff too! Secretly in my other life I have been designing cool soundie stuff between being transported and bloggery posts and now if all goes as I dream it to be, the thoughts will become real tangible entities. I will post more soon with details once the company releases the info publicly. As I slip away from pondering into personally following those same humanly ways of sorting through the sand box reforming the bits of the world around into things for a differing purpose.

Dave Rat

I never cease to be amazed at how willingly people offer opinions about things they have no clue about yet they speak with a such bravado in their false authority? While pondering one of those gaseous blabbering's as I read while electro-wandering the thoughts carried me to a viewpoint illuminating that aspect of of our world where humans scurry from a plethora of fears. It must be disconcerting for them to realize that water is toxic. What is it that inspires that useless desire to form a black and white overlay upon our lives? Pure clean water kills and radioactivity is abundant in red bricks from which we build our houses, yet only in debatably harmless amounts. Can it be true that snake venom sufficiently diluted it is healthier than overeating an abundance of leafy greens? Will we continue to fail to realize that it is not the substance but the quantity and balance that perpetuates life and continue to be cursed with propagating confusion? Of course we will as the ultimate quandary is that everything kills and the primary cause of death is life itself. Oh, and speaking of red bricks and houses, check it out:

Looking down at the full "pre-modified" state. Notice the wall of blockage.

Bye bye wall, Bye bye all the walls and see we do and hello big beams.

And then came the cool bio friendly blue stuff to add the coziness.

Bye bye bad 70's fireplace that would be more at home in a porn movie and hello drywall with bull nose corners.

A bit o primer paint really cleans things up.

Add in a simple concrete fireplace surround and some acid stain on the floor and it is getting closer.

And hopefully someday, I dream of having a place to sit!

Dave Rat

So off we dash to gig #2. A 1 am show time in Denmark. Bleary delirium haze as the sun is too shiny for the slow motion muscles. Auto pilot pulled by the momentum of being done and going home tomorrow, hurray!

Oh, I remember this place. Lets head out to front of house and I specifically carried boots this trip for this particular show. Ah yes, the familiarity slips back in.

Another day, another PA and some familiar songs as I find myself once again surrounded by thousands of happy humans.

So, I turned it up of course, as me the soundie so naturally would and should. Uh oh, what do I do now?

I know exactly what do! Sally forth, onward ho and away we go with some more of the same!

11 am flight tomorrow. It's 3am now so night night and see ya from the other side of the Atlantic pond soon.

Dave Rat

**** Ponderings ****

Is it a quandary to impact the environment by having a tremendous amount of humans gather for a giant rock show to promote social awareness of the impact that a the tremendous number of humans have on the environment? Is the event itself in it's magnitude directly undermining it's own cause? Busses, trucks, planes and trains haul masses of bottled water and beer drinking humans to create a mind bending amount of trash to promote reducing trashing our world. The hypocrisy was most purely embraced in full ignorance by Duran Duran's singer's attempt at self elevation when he walks on stage spewing "Raise your hand if did not arrive here on a private jet." As if somehow throwing spikes at the fellow performers gathering for a common cause would have some sort of positive spin.

More specifically, I arrived on an overnight bus ride of misery and left on a private jet to get to the next show that same night, with the rest of Peppers core crew. No other other way we could make the jump to Denmark for the show we had booked long before the Peppers were personally asked to support Live Earth by Al Gore. We all jumped many hoops. So one could ponder, would it have been better that Peppers not play? Was the environmental impact of transporting the band and crew to the event excessive compared to the effort towards of catalyzing humans to take up the mission of walking more softly upon the planet we tread? If the answer is yes, could than same response be applied to the event as whole and therefore it should never have existed?

First I must say that I fully support treating the world we live with care and respect. Whether it is global warming, decimation of other species or obliteration of the key components that necessitate healthy life, I feel that care and respect should be considered in all avenues. What concerned me was not the events existence but it's lack of thoroughness. Cool concepts like "return 10 empty cups to get a free beer to promote recycling, reduce the mess to be cleaned" that they do at the Werchter Festival in Germany and how Roskilde pays cash for empties, was sadly missing. The laminate lanyards they gave us said they were made from 100% recycled fiber while the laminates themselves were plain old plastic instead of cool recycled paper. How much of the festival was powered by renewable power? All I could find was that the web site servers were, the festival itself, while we just plugged into the wall of course. In the back of my mind grows the thought the true change will grow from innovation in grass roots events that focus on awareness while maintaining near zero impact, setting an example rather that just preaching what "you" should do.

Perhaps to truly solve the issue we face, we would have to also address the speed at which humans mass produce more humans at alarming rates. Where do we draw the line on whether we attack each other or work together and how effective we can be at slowing down the inevitable, all remains to be seen. Regardless though, there should be little doubt that less splattering of the planet sure beats screwing it up faster.

**** End Ponderings ****

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

So I am on little sleep, nearly all our gear in another country, I am mixing on a console I just met an hour ago and an EV X-Line PA that I have never used on a large event. Oh well, no biggie, it's just for hundreds of thousands of humans all over the world. What better time to play it safe? So I ordered in the best mixing board I could think of to handle the job. This is a big huge show and we all know that big huge shows must have big expensive complicated mixing boards so the soundman looks cool. Unless of course the soundman desired something small, fast, dependable, predictable and easy to setup. Hmmm, I see a $200,000 dollar Midas XL8, three $100,000 Digico D5's and $70,000 Yamaha PM 5D laying around the mix area here, all high end digital desks. Somewhere around here is my baby, aha, there it is on the left:

Oooooh, wow! Look at that $15,000 analog Midas Verona! Though the show could have gone smoother for me, given the fact that I had absolutely nothing in my favor, including loosing most of what little line check before I actually was given working snake lines and no time to play music through the PA so I could tune it, things went relatively well and compared to the various forms of trains wrecks I heard leading up to Peppers, it fell well into the window of good enough.

*** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

And off we go...

But not before grabbing a few pics

Meet Roadie Bryan, an awesome sound engineer and a long time friend, he mixes Foo Fighters, hanging with Roadie Daniel.

And just because I can, the gratuitous glamour shot with the guy that introduced the Peppers

Hurry up, we rocked and now we got to roll. Hour to the airport, two hour flight, 30 minute drive to the gig plus we lose an hour in the time change. Roskilde, the last show of this tour leg, here we come!

Dave Rat

**** Daily Ponder ****

Competition is an instinct that refines the survival of the individual and the group.

**** End Daily Ponder ****

Today was was one of the most stressful days of this year plus tour. You know that scene in Goodfellas where Henry is is trying to make dinner but has to meet up with the babysitter and he keeps seeing helicopters and he is hectically pulled in all directions of disarray? That is how I felt but the outcome was a bit better.

We are in France where they make V-Dosc, the speakers I use for the main system. The last three times I was here L'Acoustics, the manufacturer and more specifically, Christian Heil, the CEO and physicist behind the design, for whom I hold tremendous respect, has invited me to the factory. To not go yet again would have been disrespectful beyond comfort. Plus curiosity and the chance to sit face to face with him and chat sound is an honor indeed. The best part was I felt as if he was as excited about what I am doing with the dual hung PA system as I was to gain knowledge from the system's creator. All good, except....

I have more friends and people to attend to than any gig yet, I am an hour away from the gig and given the magnitude of changes that were implemented, I could not help but be scattered as my ability to present calm was pushed to new levels. But that did not stop from following through with my turn at wearing the "Hot Pants." The adventures and photos of which I will leave to the curious to scavenger Google hunt, should they wish to know more.

One of the downsides of being swamped is I forget to take pictures but did grab a few that came out. On the upside, the relief of running smooth and having a good solid show and some smiles with friends, made it all good in the end.

And today is the last day for Roadie Thomas on the right. He was our advance sound tech for this trip and would be at the next gig before we got there making sure the sound was setup properly when Lee and I arrived. Lee then would fine tune and dial it in. Thank you Thomas!

And so we drive overnight to London, except you cant actually drive to London because the English Channel is in the way. So we drive and then we float and then we drive again. Oh the pleasure of getting up at 5 am and trying to focus my eyes on questions some border cop is throwing at me. Then once again the choice comes. "Do I walk up topside where the seats and humans and life rafts reside or do I hide in the underbelly of the ferry in my bunk, in a sealed bus in a sealed chamber in the boat belly with no hope for survival should the boat sink? What would you do? Well, I applied the "airplane theory." Heck, if a jet plane falls out of the air, I will become the human version of a squished snail tossed in a campfire. If the boat forgets to float, hey, at least I wont be on fire!

The glad the boat floated,

Dave Rat

**** Ponderings ****

Survival is a choice heavily inspired by instinct.

**** End Ponderings ****

Which brings about the subject of food. To eat is a choice which is highly complementary to survival of the individual. Sleeping and breathing kind of fall into this same general category. There are few general "rules of thumb" which seem to apply globally to things that are alive. If you keep them "Well fed, well slept and secure in the fact that the next breath will be available in a relatively reasonable amount of time, they tend to be more fun to hang out with than if you take those things away.

**** Legendary Delectable Euphoria ****

That is why the celebration culinary delights called "catering" really pushes us roadies to new heights of exuberance. Come feast your eyes upon this mouth-watering collection of pure temptation:

Though I realize that when something is so beyond tasty, there is no need to go further, yet still, yes there was more

**** End Legendary Delectable Euphoria ****

Some people just absolutely love to look at knobs. So here today I present you none other than a collection of knobs for those that seek the view to bask in. Long awaited, much requested and not forgotten, here we have the in it boldest "show all" Mr. Silver Jubilee amp to left and what we call "rig #1" in soundman speak

Stepping up next to show it all in full glory, we have the big boy weighing in at 200 tubular watts, Mr. Marshall Major

Not to be left out but still left out of all but 1 or two songs each night, rig #3, the powerhouse driven by Gretch, the twin brother to rig #1, show your stuff Mr. Other Silver Jubilee

**** Roadie Research Segment ****

Roadies, like other critters don't always get along harmoniously. Competition for desirable mates, feeding grounds and other important roadie issues often drive roadies to spar and mark their turf. Also, on occasion, in order for roadies to gain status in the herd, it is necessary to elevate oneself at the expense of another roadie. In roadie speak that 'stepping on another' to elevate is commonly referred to "throwing under the bus."

Fortunately, Peppers roadies are much more civilized than that and know how to work out their differences in more practical ways.

**** End Roadie Research Segment ****

Yep, back to the dome stage. Fortunately someone put a pole in the middle of the audience area.

Light it up, make it loud!

Tear it down, drive away. Deja Vu, Deja Vu, Deja Vu.

Off to where ever we are headed. oh joy!

Dave Rat

P.S. In case you were wondering, the 4th of July is not much of a party in Germany.