Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

I wake up out of a jet fly haze to the sound of an upset voice. Something about a missing wallet. All her money, passport, credit cards in said wallet have disappeared on the plane, while flying! Yikes, talk about a bummer. To make matters worse, immigration was on the jet way and she was trapped in the nether world. Not allowed into the country and yet has to leave the plane, flying alone on business, ouch. Just before security I turned around went back and handed her a fifty English pound note (about $90 us dollars). She told me thank you but she was ok, they will surely give her some $. I insisted she take it and gave her my email address as she promised to pay it back. I received an email the next day that she had ended up needing the $ for a cab to the hotel after all. Who would have guessed it was a bank holiday and they cleared her into the country but gave her nothing.

They found her wallet on the plane sometime later, money was gone. I lose enough things in my travels, where having some credits in the "help me out department" can't be bad. That was at the plane change in Paris.

Starting up a major tour is kind of a big deal. Having already completed 3 weeks of Euro promotional dates doing TV, radio and small gigs. In the US there was Saturday Night Live

some small shows, a NASCAR event

and some web broadcasts.

Crunching a band of this caliber into small and awkward venues

is quite the challenge and can be frustrating. Doing the real deal with 13 trucks, full sized stages, proper loading areas and all our gear will actually be easier in many ways once the initial dust settles.

Sound, lights, video, rigging, barricade, catering, busses, trucks, dressing room and accounting departments all get to meet each other and figure out how to interface safely and efficiently. It pretty mind boggling to see it all come together. The time has come for The Gathering.

The order of business is #1 -Communication, #2 - Battle Jet Lag, #3 - Keep Battling Jet Lag.

Communication with the Homeland. Intentional communication with the Homeland, not the in advertant communication with Homeland Security that I guess is a given at this point. So, the plan is to buy a local SIM card for my spare unlocked GSM cell phone, in each country. I will then give out my Skype #, which is a Los Angeles 213 # to all that need to reach me. As I arrive in each country, I set Skype to forward to my cell/SIM card # for that country. The end result is; one phone #, worldwide, that rings on my spare cell phone. Since all the phones over here are free incoming minutes if you use them in their own country and the Skype forwarding charges are relatively low, I now can be reached easily and inexpensively via a single US phone # worldwide and I can monitor the costs by watching the Skype account charges. Sure beats the $1 a minute they charge to use my US cell overseas.  For outgoing calls, I will use Skype in my hotel room for long chats. The cool thing to do there is get a blue tooth ear piece so you are not attached to the computer when you talk.

Dave Rat