Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

What would be the perfect gift for a music fan that loves 70's rock in it's hey day? Hmmmm, what about, I know! A gingerbread Kiss!

And then he said "Hey, what is the worst thing that can happen?" spoken in a sarcastic tone and "Well, it cant get any worse" tossed out with some sort of authoritive presumption. I find to be statements curiously out of whack as I can't even begin to internally structure and comprehend various forms of the worst thing that really could happen and it can always get worse. I try and never forget it can always get worse, a lot worse no matter how bad it is. That is all beside the point though and nothing even close to the big pile of 'not so good' that turned out actually to be a bit amusing. It is more like Winnie the Pooh getting stuck in Mr. Rabbit's hole while trying to get some honey. Not so good for the Pooh but still still a level of amusement while getting unstuck. Well, that is exactly what came to my mind when I saw this today;

It appears that there was a slight incompatibility involving the height of the truck and the door opening enhanced by the velocity traveled that caused a bit of a venue modification. Fortunately they were able to push Trucky the Pooh back out and in time for our last load out of the run. That truck has a shipping container on it that will hold gear for the boat ride home.

Speaking of home this is it. The last day at our far away home. Say bye bye to hotel home, Bye bye to gig hugger home, bye bye to little micro bus bunk home and hello to sleeping place that has a refrigerator larger than the television. Tomorrow we fly and today we say good bye. Goodbye to the pirate shit and fierce scoundrels of the open gig seas.

As this brings an end to our piratey adventure and a new theme will be discovered as we cross the seas to travel the new world. With that we head back to our final night in our luxurious carriage

Six hours till lobby call and 22 travel hours from then to get home, night night

Dave Rat

So yesterday, after the Christiania adventure it was fly-time to Stockholm

Waking up to a morning wander with Scott for a change to find some coffee for a change. Open fire on the street is not common at home unless there are a bunch of red trucks zooming around it.

Hey, look, water that looks like sound

and as we drive toward the gig we spot an alien space ship

that has landed and most likely is on a mission to abduct and probe the Swedish people for the secrets to making the perfect meatball or perhaps to pick up a few things at Ikea. Oh, wait a minute, that's not a space ship, that is the gig.

**** Little Mini Sound Nerd Speak ****

In order to mix in the dark or more precisely, in order to mix without needing to look at the console, I have set up a few brail like markers. Here you can see from my right hand's point of view that I taped ear plugs on the 'gated toms' and the 'non-gated toms' VCA's. These soft squishy fader nipples allow me to locate them easily. Typically I do not use such distinct markers but the non-gated toms' VCA is in a dangerous spot between my pre-compressor master VCA and post compressor VCA pair. A slip up to either side while dropping the non-gated toms would mean turning off the sound for the entire show or turning off vocals, Kick and Snare, hence the foam plugs. For more on pre/post tom gating, check out Day 181.

**** Little Mini Sound Nerd Speak ****

The ready to go home but still happy to be here,

Dave Rat

I feel like a little kid I am so excited! Today my adventure was to head to the amazingly cool Christiania with an amazingly cool human with an amazingly cool purpose. Today I hung out with Woody and wandered Free Town, capturing video and photos of as he interviews people that live in Christiania with the purpose of documenting the plight that this incredible community faces. When edited and finished you will find video of this story and more, including a magical exclusive interview with the Peppers on Woody's web site called http://www.voiceyourself.com. I will not forget to let you know when he has it up. Today was an adventure I will never forget and will always love to remember.

Regardless of who we talked to, there was one clear and common thread of heart felt pure and caring passion. They spoke of the community as if they were referring to a living entity that was their own child with a meaning and purpose that far exceeded the physical boundaries it occupies. It is a concept, a living ideal, and experiment in forming the perfect harmonious relationship between group of humans seeking a common goal and the natural environment and it is being destroyed. They declared their independence, they are their own country autonomous, they have their own council that decides solely by unanimous agreement and they are being dismantled one brick at a time.

Our first stop was for some food and I had the most stunningly delicious vegetarian meal of my life while sitting on a cold low concrete wall behind the restaurant chatting with locals. I don't recall the restaurant name but it is the one with the wooden sign with a girl holding a plate. If you go to Christiania, just ask anyone and without doubt, a kind friendliness will guide you there with sincere smiles. We hung out with the staff

as I watched in awe at the outpour of emotion telling their story. I stood in near silence holding a video camera. It ruled!!! We went on to circumference the lake and any and everyone we talked to felt as open and pure as best friend could be. Willing and hungry to share every nuance with pride and dismay. I kept finding myself wishing that the story was not such a sad overlay upon fond memories of days past. Next we were off to a Sports Club, coffee for me and speed chess for Woody to meet more cool people in an alcohol free sports bar. I thought this cell charger block was incredibly cool

To me it just so simply symbolized the fabric from which this community is woven. Freedom allows those with which you do not agree to be elsewhere as much as it allows you to follow your own dreams. Like a predatory pack of dream-hunting hyenas attacking a peaceful buffalo, Christiania is under being preyed upon by those that wish to consume her. Their destiny is grim as the property values of the haven built by love is now overwhelmingly tempting to those that originally had cast her aside as a discarded wasteland. It resonates in the same way art collectors savor the creations of artists with which they disagree with the lifesyle led by the creators. Go find the movie Barfly! I can't help but wonder why the society I live in takes such a belligerent stance toward self indulging naturally occurring substances and is so open to life crushing alcohol. What entities or organizations motivate the hypocrisy and why, when cats are permitted catnip and koala bears live a life inebriated by eucalyptus just as bears will consume fermented fruits. Anyway, whether one agrees with the open acceptance of natural 'soft drugs' and non greed-driven life style, I can't imagine it not hurting your heart on some level to see something so unique and beautiful,

irreplaceably vanish forever.

To each their own as long as it does not infringe on others and as with many things, though their future looks grim, surprises can be built and we never truly know what can happen next.

The supporting of those who dedicate their lives to pursing their dreams,

Dave Rat

P.S. Thank you Woody!

Day 200 - Dec 9 - Copenhagen Show

Home of the amazing and magical Christiania a magical paradise being consumed by the greedy and afraid.

**** Super Ponder 2000 ****

When I was young my mom told me that if I ever did drugs I would immediately go crazy and die. I was deathly afraid of drugs. So afraid that when my best friend and I discovered his older sisters smoking pot, I headed up a mission to rescue them from insane deaths by finding their stash and flushing it down the toilet. I discovered that this was not the best plan as I had no idea that they were so skilled at torturing young boys. I also discovered that though they were adept at our misery, they also seemed far from crazy and rather than dying they seemed to be getting attractively healthier than ever. I was faced with a quandary. My mom who loves me and cares about me had adamantly provided information that seemed to be clearly amiss. This was not the first time as I distinctly remember being nine years old at sleep-away camp and when the subject of sex came up, I naively defended, much to everyone's amusement, that my parents did not have sex and some babies just "come," as my mom had precisely explained to me. The unanimous mockery indicated that perhaps some more investigation was needed to gain facts to prove their wrongness. Depressingly though, the more information I gathered, the more I began to realize that it was highly improbable that I was correct and I had been supplied inaccurate information. I clearly realized beyond a doubt that my mom had supplied me false information and I was resentful she had put me in a position of ridicule. This whole smoking pot and instant death thing seemed to fall in the small category.

So when that same best friend handed me some pot to smoke that he had taken from his sisters stash and the quandary rolled through my mind, the doubt created by dishonesty was strong enough for me to discard my mon's credibility. I did not die and though I am a bit crazy I am convinced it was inherited rather than induced. I am neither pro nor anti drugs. I personally have chosen not partake in consuming mind altering substances other than alcohol on occasion and coffee whenever possible. I avoid even aspirin. Had I been informed that drugs, like many things in life, have pit falls and ramifications mixed in with whatever pleasure may be derived, I would have had better set of tools to navigate my choices. Like a skier's knees or a sound engineer's ears, a smoker's lungs, a drinker's liver or sky diver's landing, each life choice has potential ramifications with varying degrees of certainty attached. There were now holes in the fabric layer of the things I had believed to be real and that was the catalyst that started my mission to unravel my mind. I used drugs to try understand the world around me and the most important thing I learned was that I never needed drugs to understand. While I have no regrets and savor my memories and the perspectives realized, I had chosen a precarious path, one of many, but only one I saw at the time. Like reformatting a computer hard-drive, though they did not exist back then, I wanted and start fresh and to be free from the tainted viral concepts that others had injected into my understanding. I eventually adopted the mind strategy that "for any concept to be a component into the structure that forms my beliefs, it must be completely harmonious with the world around me as I personally see and experience, everything else will be relegated to the various levels of doubts and likelihoods that sit off to the side."

**** End Super Ponder 2000 ****

And this morning I share my first smile of the day

Wandering about this beautiful city and who would have guessed I would find a California Highway patrol car

Today was the smallest non promo gig of the tour and here is a good shot of the FOH pirate ship in the open venue sea

It was refreshing to have a small power filled room full of amazing fans and happiness abounds and here is a picture with Chad, Truck driver roadie Neil and I

Tomorrow I have a special adventure planned!

The forever pondering

Dave Rat

Do you ever just wake up with anxiety panic? That sensation that you are forgetting something or that there is so much to do that it is unfinishable? Today I woke up facing a wall of over-whelmation and the realization that I need to cut my losses and trim the workload rather than hit meltdown. Maybe it is just holiday panic. I have a tough time with the whole gift thing en-masse and with so many people I care about, I go through it every year. I want o give everyone a well thought out and caring gift that makes them smile. I then realize that I know too many people so I painfully trim the list. I then begin the cumbersome process and get almost nowhere before time runs out and a mixture of panic, luck and forgetting all fit together to end me up with some form of half satisfaction and a desire to hide far away. I would much prefer an un-regimented life pattern of ongoing generosity to the holiday gift giving blitz but oh well, this happens every year and it always works out fine.

Abandon ship, ratman overboard as the buses leave for a seventeen hour bus ride without me. I could not do it. Too much on my plate to be trapped in a land submarine for nearly a whole day. Instead I will fly a commercial airline for a 2 hour flight. Do you know when you meet someone who is just an angry little person? Well today I met the electronic counterpart who came into my world in the form of a ticket machine. The grumpy little twerp asked me all kinds of questions and then responded with various forms of denying me the ability to answer or ignoring the answers all together. So you can imagine my delight when I arrived at the human version of the ticket machine and the much friendlier blond says "Oh, I am sorry sir, are you aware that you have been downgraded?" Huh? No, how come? "Well, the business section is overbooked and we have no more seats for you, didn't the machine tell you?" I could not believe that nasty little machine was still messing with me. After I told her "I don't want to be downgraded," she looks at me as if I had provided new information and takes off. Only to return and say that I indeed will get to be downgraded. So I turn around to see a wonderful view and felt the holiday spirit take a turn for the better

And as I walked and not far away I found out what what all those presents in red wrappers look like unwrapped

Wow, check out this mullet sighting!

As I boarded the plane a wave depression filled my heart as I gazed down the isle and the true reality of being downgraded became clear. Look if you dare at unbearable contrast between what I thought my future was and my new reality

And I was so looking forward to a blue headrest napkin. Oooooh, darn it and for dinner Scott and I did Moroccan, all good, yumm!

and on the way home, I caught Scotty in a curious fit of repetitive jumping

The loving presents

Dave Rat

**** Observational Opinion ****

Most people envision roadies to be mono dimensional, hairy, butt pack wearing, gruff, crude, horny, hard drinking land sailors with a pile of backstage passes around their neck. While this version of roadie truly does exist, they only make up one segment of the modern day roadie population. There seem to be three basic roadie roadie types; the hotel room clingers, the bar hoppers and the city explorers.

The hotel room clingers tend to do a lot of phone time with loved ones, rock the TV or hotel stereo or book read world. These are the roadies that bring their home world on the road.

The bar hoppers tend to spend most of their free time exploring the various layouts of drinking establishments and doing price analysis of beverages throughout the world. These roadies live on the road in the liquid state fully immersed in the sub currents of the cities they travel.

The explorers are the roadies who sacrifice late nights with friends for early morning of wandering in new places. They look at the topside of the places they travel. Photo's and stories that rival vacations.

The well balanced roadie can do all three and be trapped by none.

**** End Observational Opinion ****

Good morning again, for a change, Scott and I are going for a wander

Here is Scott's cool art item of the day;

Chairs and table that form a rocket? Awesome! And the unusual is both created intentionally and by accident

Which brings us to another amazing stop on the Dave Rat and Lampi Scott's European Adventure

**** Halloween Video Special ****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCVHEng22HM

**** End Halloween Video Special ****

And now, off to do another rock show.

The being all three roadie types,

Dave Rat

Good morning sunshine! Europe likes to rock the free breakfast included with the hotel and I try and get down there in time whenever I remember and face the morning choice between greasy eggy meaty world and fruity crunchy yogurt world. Strange how once I pattern with one, the conversion is tough to the other though I always feel better when I follow the tree-hugger option.

And I ran back up to my room really quick to find

which made me ponder the fluid malleable nature of religious beliefs. So in my analytical sarcastic way, lets take a gander in that direction. First, we few amongst us have not played that game where all the kids get in a circle and you whisper something in the ear of the next person. Then, by the time that something makes it around the circle it has been embellished and altered to the point where it has little if anything to do with the original words. We know this, we can show this, this is not in question and is readily demonstratable indicating that humans in general tend not to be very good carriers of accurate information. Now have a story pass from ear to ear and hand to pen for thousands of years. What are the odds that it bears much resemblance to the original? What are the odds that over time various entities have injected bits of self serving spin? Hmmm. Just a thought to consider and in a reversal, I have heard that the red jolly Santa we have today was an invention of Coco Cola corporation. Being the curious roadie I am, I decided to take a quick look and found that to be at least debatable and Santa may be a bit more authentic in that his current form was most likely created by a greeting card company. I feel much better now.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

And check out this cool place that Santa's people built

I wonder what this piratey looking guy has to say

I enjoy the contrasts in life. They seem to illuminate the betwixt and unbeknownst to me, candidly Scotty took this picture of two humans focused on what currently was of importance to them. Each immersed in separate realities yet separated by just a few feet.

Uh oh, it's getting late, better head over to the rock show. When we have really long bus drives, they bring in a 'double driver' for each bus. That way they can tag team and take turns driving to get us to our next city. Well, I would like you to meet bus 2's double driver and temporary pirate

We call him Nasty B'stard. Why do we call him that you may well ask? Well, not really sure, we just do.

The contemplating changing my name to the sound of pirate saying 'Aaargh,'

Dave Rat

**** Roadie Ritual Segment ****

The intracasies and mechanics involved in trying to understand The Universe machine that encompasses the lives we lead, are quite captivating. In my observation, for every creation there seems to exist a subcurrent of anti-creation, evolution, metamorphasis or perhaps deterioration, depending on what it is and how you choose to percieve it. Regardless of whether the world we live in is a creation, a rammification or just a natural progression, the one thing that always remains constant is change. Change can be seen in all things if you expand the time frame of observation wide enough and at some point one could propose that wherever you look and see something, there was a time in the past that that something was not there. Extremist practitioners of roadie-ism are so enamored by the 'something is, where nothing was' aspect of the Universe that they have created a ritual that demonstrates thier appreciation for it and it is called 'Secret Wall Tattooing.' This financially percarious and not so ancient rite is perfomed by a sercret roadie society whose identities are never revealed.

Secret Wall Tattoo practitioners follow a very strict set guidlines and though I am not privy to the exact rules, I have heard a few things I believe to be true.

1) SWT are to be original works of art created in hotel rooms

2) The art is typically a permanant alteration

3) Any surface may be used as long as the completed work of art is invisible when the room is re assembled.

4) The most common location for the SWT is on wall area located behind a removable picture or mirror. Other areas include the wall behind a removed toilet, the back of sliding closet doors, the underside of chairs and under the bed and on a desk under a bolted down phone. It is even rumored that one ritual involved removing a wall portion between adjoing rooms that was concealed by mirrors on each side. Accordian dropping wall paper is another known technique. Of course it is imperitive to travel with the proper tools including small vaccums, special keys to remove hotel pictures and assorted art supplies.

5) Though destructive, the purpose of the SWT is not to destroy but to add a hidden layer of charater to an otherwise sterile human rental habitat called a hotel room. It is to invoke an unseen change.

Being the curious roadies we are and also knowing which hotels are most frequented by roadies and much to our glee, one of our roadies has located an SWT at one of our hotels!

and

If you are cuious and want to see other SWT's you may want to check out

http://www.secretwalltattoos.com/getFiles.php

Also if this underground guerilla style art intrigues you then you may enjoy http://www.woostercollective.com/ and in paricular maybe explore one of my favorites http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/index.html . Oh, I forgot to mention that the 'maid sweeping' Banksy painting is right near the Roundhouse in London. If you ever are over there, be sure to check it out.

**** End Roadie Ritual Segment ****

Roadies are curious and roadies love to play. A gas station is the next best thing to a roadie playground!

Check out the gas prices whoa!

Let's figure that out in US dollars. 1.085 Euros would equal about 1.41 US dollars and there are 3.78 liters to a gallon so that is a bargain at only five dollars and thirty three cents a gallon!

A cool looking water can

Here we can see roadie Neal has located some delicious and tasty food. Yummy yumm yumm!

And my favorite juice

And these crafty Vienese has come up with the brilliant idea of using super slick concrete in a fuel station. Not that great for cars starting or stopping, but who would bring a car in here anyway. The upside is that it is excellent for service station surfing

The wondering if that was poison ivy we hiked through in the nearby woods,

Dave Rat