Well, show three is in the can we have two full days off in Cincinnati Ohio. Since we last hung out I have had few adventures. The most traumatizing of which was back in Nashville when I grabbed my bags off the bus on the last day off, I thought I would be slick and cruise to the room with just my big yellow suitcase and leave the other two in the bus. Well, that actually was an excellent idea except for the fact that I packed every single sock that I own in the other suitcases and had worn my shoes sockless out of the bus. Really, it seems to be not that big of deal and I do a few sockless short walks in my boots for food and coffee and figure I can get to the gig the next day grab socks and all will be fine. Well it was until the last minute dinner invitation came to join some industry friends at Morton's (great restaurant) for nice meal. Oooh, did you say we will be walking there, yikes, I can already feel the blisters already just thinking about it, plus it is stupid cold out there.. The busses? Of course they are miles away getting serviced. So I am in the lobby now, gathering humans, ready to roll. Oh nooooo! This requires drastic measures, I had no choice, so humbled I mumbled my sockless predicament much to the glorious amusement of my peers. When the chuckles subsided, much to my relief, Bill Rahmy offered to dash to his room and grab me a pair of the biggest socks I have ever seen.

Good thing I got the socks too, because we ended up checking out a few local Nashville bars and walking all over the place. Here you can see the preferred dancing spot at Tootsies is atop the bar.

**** Highlight of the Day ****

New Tiki Swag! Donovan shows up at the gig with two super cool additions to our tiki setup, check out the lighted sign

And the Lava Lamp

As it turns out, Donovan is also roadie and is quite well versed in the finer points of tour absurdities and instantly took a liking to our adventure.

**** End Highlight of the Day ****

I know I have been a bit sluggish in blog posts, partially due to dedicating some time to writing an article for a sound magazine on about line arrays vs other sound system types. I should be able to post a draft up here soon.

Hey look what I found!

I don't know if this is the first show we did with the Peppers but it is the earliest one we have a record of. Oh and whale we are digging around in the past, check this out

'What is This' was a band that Flea and former Peppers guitarist Hillel and Jack were in. As you can we did not charge a whole lot of money for the show. Hmmm, how about free? It is really cool that those seemingly fleeting past connections can re emerge into life long friendships and interactions.

The looking forward to an adventure that melts my heart heart,

Dave Rat

Safe and sound we are. Our first show in Dallas went on without a hitch and it looks like everything is running smooth after our longest break yet. Gnarls Barkley is our new support act and some cool familiar faces on the tour. Normally I would have some photos to show you but guess what. You will never believe this but it appears that somehow my camera has made a break for it and escaped. Ya know, I spaced on attaching it to the my new laminate and it appears I have not fully re-acclimated to tour mode yet as battling the scattering of personal items escaping is still pretty much a full time job. Give me a few days and a few more donations to the world of elsewhere and I will get my deal dialed in. In the mean time, well, I guess I need to go camera shopping. Arrrgh! I had some good pics on there too and the best one was three little girls maybe 6 to 8 years old that I gave pink flamingo glasses to and a case to stand on. So cute! Oh well, at least I don't have to be worried about being overly attached to material things. Plus, that little camera served me well and I did have a fun and wonderful night so a silly camera is just a small price to pay for adventures I love to remember, in the big picture of it all.

In the mean time, since I am picture less, I guess I will share another blast from the past. This the following is a calendar that a guy named Joe Cole made. Joe friend of Henry Rollins that Rat Sound hired to tour as a sound tech on the final Black Flag tour. Joe ended up being murdered in a robbery at the house that Joe and Henry shared in Venice. Joe went to down town LA and took pictures of homeless people, printed the calendar and then gave them out in exchange for donations which he then donated a portion of to a homeless shelter in LA. Whether you feel it shocking, altruistic or creative, I thought it unique and interesting enough to share and share a memory of someone no longer hanging out.

The dedicated to not losing the next camera,

Dave Rat