Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Second show of three and how incredibly cool is it not to have to move 100's of thousands of pounds of gear around everyday. I want to thank roadie Lee, he rocks and gets all the stuff that I need to mix the sound dialed in each day. It is not easy stuff and I don't know if y'all have figured it out yet but I am a bit "out there" especially when it comes to sound world. There are a bunch of sound things that most engineers stress over that I could care less about and there are crazy and seemingly insignificant details that are crucial to things running smoothly for me. Patience, persistence and once again, he has gone above and beyond.

So, I have been getting a lot of emails and Myspace messages and text messages and blog comments and that is beyond awesome and I read every single one and apologize for when I do not respond right away or take a long time but I will do my best to and it is tough while out here and I truly appreciate the communications as it really makes this bloggery world worthwhile when I know that the effort is appreciated and enjoyed. So in my thank you's I want to thank all o yoos!!

So we left off last as we were heading out to do some possum petting. Now, possum's back home are not the most appealing critters but the Aussie possums are really cute and friendly

They let us pet them and they were gentle and even when my finger found it's way between possum teeth and a banana slice, the nibble was gentle

Roadies love days off in warm places! Off to St. Kilda

and the beach and wanderings and check ot this cool building near the tram stop

It looks old and there is a lot of cool architecture here and look at the external plumbing pipes. There are cool parts of town and little micro tiny shops and fun places to wander and see.

And so the day comes and goes with awesome food and magic friends and just a bunch of all around happiness and show #2 hits stride

Night Night,

Dave Rat

Back to back gigs with a flight in the middle is a bit of gruel.

Quite a few fried roadies. With a bunch of the crew getting out at 2 am or so and up at 4:30 am to make the 6 am flight just to land and spend the whole day at a tourbus-less gig really can take the sparkle out the step of the road crew. Add to that the awkwardness of setting up in this un conventional one truck at a time venue and it made for a long but not a bad day.

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

Look! The lampi's somehow have decided to convert the sub woofers into light stands. Arrgh!

Actually, it is all good and you got to do what you got to do to make things work.

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

Now that josh is out with us and pretty much the official 5th Pepper for this run, it is time to bring him fully into the fold and get him his very own custom designed road cases to keep his gear protected and safe in the travels. Here you can see Dave Lee showing off the latest addition to our travel gear

Though wedging the show in here was tough, it really does look cool. Sound wise I am good as well, I do miss the dual hang PA clusters but hey, there is a time a time and a place for everything and this mini rig is working just fine.

Alright, no load out, two more shows here after a day off tomorrow, awesome! Oh, and Scott says we need to go feed bananas to the possums in the park tonight. Ooooooh!

Dave Rat

Each country comes with it fair share of eccentricities. The more time you spend there the less you notice them so I guess that kind of explains why isolated subcultures so often spiral into the depths of some really strange shit. Anyway, in the not so strange realm but somewhat useful info angle, it is handy to know that in order to get a proper coffee here you have to know some code words. Now I don't really know what they all are but I do know that a flat white is sort of a foamless latte kind of thing and a long black is really strong fairly good sized cup of coffee, no do cream, no half and half, only milk sir. So that leaves me with a long black with a bit of milk as the local drink of morning choice.

So in my self appointed quest to highlight the curious I thought perhaps a peek at Goji berries is in order. They are not overly sweet, a bit pasty, more mild tasting and way less gooey than a raisin and fairly chewy. It takes a few to grasp the flavor and decide whether you like 'em or not, though it is hard to recall that part distinctly as liking them is easy now. Yumm!

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

First show and as expected, projects are plentiful with each roadie department immersed in fixing, rebuilding and upgrading some sort of adventure. For me, outside of the normal wanderings, two projects popped into my lap. First is drum thumper. The thumper is a speaker like device that makes no noise because instead of a speaker cone it has a heavy weight. This weight shaker device is attached to the drum throne and sound is sent to it and it shakes the drum seat. If you have not felt one, you really should, they are way cool and give the human seated a powerful impact with each kick drum beat. Well, as things so often are, "a lot" is often not enough and more is so often better. The initial project started as adding a second thumper unit but upon further analysis it became apparent that when the drum thumper shakes the seat, a large portion of the energy is wasted because the seat is so securely mounted to the seat stand and stable on the floor. Sooooo.... instead of adding a second unit, how about remounting the seat so that is mechanically isolated from the tripod floor stand. Here you can see roadie Big Daddy doing mounting the cool wood bracket he made and I put some rubber tubing as a spacer to create a iso-thumper seat. Thump thump good!

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

Next project is fixing a really cool electronic trumpet pickup for Flea and with a bit of solder and some scavenger hunting for some bits, check it out

For those of you out here for the gigs, there is a special treat of Flea rocking one of the most crazy sounding fuzz overload delay saturated trumped solos you can imagine. I will take some more pics of the cool little setup at some point.

And finally, here is the gig in test mode

The warm and happy,

Dave Rat

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Due to the far awayness and the timeline of travel, we have left behind the Rat PA system in the US and I will be working on regionally hired sound systems in Australia and Japan. The stuff we carry with us we have paradoxically named the "global gear" which consists sound wise of the band's backline gear, the monitor system, my front of house console and outboard gear, the Pro Tools recording rig and two large tigers. As far as the main PA system is concerned, we do our best to mirror image it as best we can. The success rate of getting identical gear varies from country to country but for the most part, we can get pretty close with the main difference usually being that we can only get the Rat Subs from the Rat Shop. I will miss them dearly but the V-Dosc SB 218 subs can get pretty close with some audio massaging. So here is the sub cannon setup built with SB 218 triple stacked rather than the double stacked Rat Subs.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

For all y'all that have yet to do earthly traveling down under or to the UK and also happen not to live in those regions, you may not be familiar with the black gooey substances with a strong savory odor known as Marmite in England and Vegimite for the Aussies. Though the two are a bit different and there are several other versions available like Bromite, they all carry the common trait of being an emotionally and passionately dividing line of opinion. Talk about a love hate/hate thing, this stuff is one of the top contenders of acquired taste or immediate revulsion depending on your culinary adventurousness and childhood exposure. Personally I hate the stuff. Or at least that is what I used to say before I started thinking. "Hmmm, so many people love this stuff, it smells like crap and tastes even worse but wow, the people that love it truly love it and it seems to make them so happy." So one day many years ago I set aside my closed minded bias and asked an English friend to make me up a Marmite toast and gave it a shot with big eyes and curiosity and you know what? It was good! Spread super thin on hot buttered toast, I understood and added one more thing to my life that makes me happy.

It is not for everyone but once you get it, yumm! Oh wait, look! Some magical face has mystically appeared on my Vegimite toast and I was going to sell it on Ebay but alas, I could not help but eat it up.

Hmmm, I wonder what is in here, this smells delicious as well

Show tomorrow!!

Dave Rat

You never really know at what point the day disappears. I get on the plane on wednesday evening, fly for 14 hours and land on friday morning. Bye bye thursday. Though I guess it does not really disappear and it actually is just a really short day that comes and goes with the monotone blur of muffled jet noise and questionable plane food and though it may have been a short for a day but it sure makes for a very long plane flight.

So there I sit for hours on end in various forms of uncomfortable, tilting the chair back only to experience my pants working their way into a giant wedgey and my shirts creeping up my back as I slow motion ramp slide downward into the foot rest. So to no avail I start pushing more buttons before thinking as I am sure everyone does "How do these motor tilt plane chairs work, I wonder what's down under?" Lets take look!

Ewwww, lots of stuff, some necessary to the operation of the chair and the rest more resembles an archeological dig into the eating habits of past plane riding humans, ewww! Oh, and I want you to meet my friend Joey, who lives in the square box mounted in the seat in front of me,

Wow, check out the belly button on that critter! Enough monkey business, I really got nothing for you today except that even in the short time on this giant island I have spent here so far I have been drenched in sunshine,

smiles and an all around feeling of happiness amplified by the constant stream perfectly refined Australian sarcasm.

Correction, I do have one thing with a bit of relevance to offer beyond random babbling's and focusing on the irrelevant. The support act for this Aussie tour is Har Mar Superstar and though I am not familiar with their music, yet, I did receive their stage plot and technical requirements. This information in roadie terms is known as the "Tech Rider." The tech rider is a critical document that is hopefully but rarely forwarded to all involved parties so that the proper sound, light and specialized equipment can be supplied. Assuming the tech rider is up to date, which actually occasionally occurs, and it is within the scope of some sort of achievable reality, which also does occur at times, then the sound, light and production crews all set about on their busy ways to assemble bits of equipment so the support act is can be filled with glee. Fortunately, Har Mar Superstar appears to be one of those few bands that actually have their world together and have supplied all the relevant info in a timely manner to the proper entities. I like them already! In case you are curious as what a real life tech rider actually looks like, I have taken the liberty of posting the sound portion in it's entirety below. If you are not technically inclined though, feel free to skip the next section.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

Oh, and by the way, for all of you still trapped in yesterday, tomorrow is already a pretty good day.

Dave Rat

 

Four hours to go till lift off, bags are packed, I feel reasonably sure I have everything and I am watching some old tour footage I took on Sonic Youth's Dirty tour that I am copying to DVD. At some point I will try and put up some bits on Youtube.

On another note, i know I have been slacking on the roadie cards but I do have one I made a while ago and speaking of Sonic Youth, I present you Jimmy V, who I have toured with many times including Sonic Youth and Beck tours.

Bye bye home, bye bye dead plants, bye bye mess I hid in the closet, bye bye car, bye bye bed, bye bye little people. Hello airplanes and vans and rock shows and beaches and unknown adventure and wondering what will happen next. See you all from far away.

Dave Rat

Still home but tomorrow I fly with humans in an aluminum tube. Talk about being the opposite of free, plane flying in just a modified air jail. Oh well, sacrifices made for the adventure received. We speaking of adventure and feeling free, how about a bit of a glimpse into a past adventure when Chad and I undertook a an adventure under with some swimmery friends. Hey, come on! Lets go hang with the sharks!!

 

Tomorrow I fly. Australia with smiles. May I recommend a something to to you all? Well if you said yes, then I recommend that somehow, someway at some point you find a way to adventure to a world of wonder and sunshine and if you are not sure where or which one, you can't go wrong with North Eastern Australia, or perhaps any part of Australia for that matter.

Ok, sleepy time with big eyes,

Dave Rat

PS, if the video does not work yet or says not available, try back in a bit. I gotta sleep and it should be done processing soon.

I run across humans that choose a way of life of ruthless self perpetuating greed, and also those that choose selflessness to the point that it becomes cripplingly hindering to their own health, livelihood and then all those that have balance somewhere in between with strength in direction moderated by compassion and patience, for people, for the environment, for the critters and for their own selves. As long as I just keep remembering not to forget to stand mid teeter totter, all is good.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

I went to a few shows and once again was baffled by what I heard so I thought I would share some illusive and amazing secrets of mixing a rock show with any engineers or engineers to be out there:

1) Make it so you can hear all the instruments and vocals.

2) Make the instruments sound somewhat similar to what they actually are.

3) Have some sort of concept of either how loud the audience wants to hear it and how loud the band wants to be presented and try to make the appropriate humans happy.

For some reason, these three basic concepts escape many a sound engineer. So I have compiled a list of helpful hints:

If a high percentage of the audience is holding their ears or leaving, that is usually not so good.

• You can typically assume that the percentage of the audience that would prefer to hear it really loud with feedback howling is lower than the percentage of the audience that will be ok with it a bit lower in volume and not feeding back.
• Hearing the lead vocal is more important that the effects on the snare drum. Though I have no actual hard evidence of truth to this, I have noticed that if I watch the moths of the audience members, very few if any are singing along with the snare drum effect sound.
• The kick drum may be channel #1 on most stage plots. That does not automatically mean that the kick should also be #1 in volume.
• Make a live tape of the show with a mic in the audience, if the you can't hear all the instruments and understand the vocals on the live tape, it is highly likely that the audience had the same experience.
• If a venue has a whole bunch of low mid boom to it, EQ it out. Don't be shy, don't just live with it, take it out. Boomy room sound = bad! The most common issue I see with sound engineers mixing in larger venues is that they do not deal effectively with the room resonances. Typically it will be between 120 and 180 hz in arena type rooms. Please, please, say bye bye to the room resonance and then be happy along with 10,000 of you new best friends.
• Things that hurt your ears a little bit are usually excruciatingly painful to the bulk of the audience that has not been exposed to near as many shows as you have. Ouch = bad. Exception: If the audience is really drunk you can turn it up really loud and they usually don't mind
• If you are so buried in the console that you are not watching the band or anyone else around you, then you are most likely mixing for yourself and you are most likely out of touch with the band/audience interaction. The band/audience interaction is pretty much the whole purpose of doing a live show in the first place so not paying attention to it may not be the best plan.

Ok, got, cool!

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****

Finally I have both had the time and figured out how to convert the old video files I have and actually get them to upload properly. Here is a video of some roadie wanderings back in 2002 on the Pepper's By the Way tour. Random antics and hopefully amusing and interesting enough. This has been up for a while but the video was not working right, now it is!  At least mostly.  For some reason the video moves faster than the sound, but hey, I am not a video guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNBXIs-yLgA

Sunshine in Southern California rules!

Dave Rat