Roadies in the Midst - Touring with the Red Hot Chili Peppers - Pauses

Hellooooo!!

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:05:45 -0700

Bloggery Update

I know it has been a while and as much as posting has been a goal on my mind, the sheer process of rebuilding my post-tour life has been fully encompassing. That is not to say that I do not get to venture out and going down south a few hours to say hello to Muse crew was super cool.

Hanging with MC, Muse sound engineer. He mixes a great sound and he is doing some cool stuff. He, like myself, had some issues with diving into digital boards and and after testing the best of the best, went back to analog. Unlike me, he has a much more complex show to mix so he set up a midi controller footswitch tied into the console with all the song names and scene changes on it and can step through settings, not unlike a digital board.

One of the scenes:

And of course some Rat swag for all. Paul, their production manager made the best choice right off the bat!

Oh, and Muse is great music, a great show and all good.

**** Other Stuff of interest ****

This is a 1976 picture of a 20,000 watt home stereo sent to me by Craig O. Oh my, hit the link if you want to read more:

http://www.scrounge.org/speak/burwen/index.html

And check out this Saturday Night Live clip

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/#mea=166786 from when Foo Fighters were on SNL. So honored and how cool is it that Dave Grohl rocks the Rat Sweatshirt, and the video clip is really funny.

The playing catch up with a smile,

Dave Rat

Day 22 Post Tour - Monday Sept 16

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 21:28:00 -0700

First of all **** Kudo's to all that have been rocking out on Roadiepedia! Awesome to see it growing and I check the recent changes every day and chip in when I can. I love the mix of serious, informative and sarcasm developing. All good!

**** Dormant Roadie Babble ****

Slowly the layers of tour habit peel a way as I re-acclimate, sometimes begrudgingly, to the world of home. I love my own bed but changing and washing sheets, well, not so much. My fridge 'food to consumption' ratio is way out of whack and I buy way too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right ones so I end up hungry as toss I out things gone rotten. I do a short run to the beach and back each morning which definitely makes my day better, I would love to get some serious exercise but instead I run around from project to project still feeling a sinking sensation that I think is for the most part illusionary as I know I am making headway, I just have so much catching up to do that the progress is not readily apparent. Have you ever tried walking to what appears to be a nearby mountain only to find it is like ten miles away?

If the darn house would be done, it would sure help. Then I could unpack from the garage, then I could have room to work on projects in the garage and I could find things without searching and un stacking tons of boxes. Almost ready to get the molding caulked and everything primered except the guy that did the molding messed up and mounted it all backwards around the doors and screwed up some other stuff too. The contractor is like "there is no way I can let this stay like this, it would kill my reputation." And I am like "oh, and also it looks really bad too!" So after that I get final inspection, then I have a few more projects that do not require a building permit but if I start them now, the inspector won't sign off on inspection till they are sealed up, aaargh. So all this work I could get out of the way needs to wait wait wait some more.

**** End Dormant Roadie Babble ****

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

On another note, I am really excited about progress with MicroWedge products.

I have been working on designs for a complete series of stage stage monitor products for some time now. Seven years ago I got a patent on the design and licensed it to Radian Audio to manufacture and distribute. While Radian did a pretty good job of getting a few of the products to market, without a dedicated engineering staff, it was really tough to get the rest of the complimentary designs done, processor settings refined and such. Anyway, I had been approached by several larger companies interested in the MicroWedge designs and when the contract with Radian ended in May, I was able to seriously follow up. Hence my adventure as a designer/consultant has begun with a company called EAW. I even got to hang out with Jeffrey Cox, the Prez who used to run L'Acoustics, all good!

http://www.eaw.com/frontrow/2007/09/post_21.html

Hurray! We get to build cool audio toys!! Not only that, I get to work with and hang out with all these incredibly brilliant audio engineering humans. Finally after all these years I feel like my dream of making all these cool designs I have been working on for so many years will become a reality. If I was a rock band, this would be the equivalent of me getting signed to a major label after putting out 3 albums on an independent. Except for the fact that most audio companies are not all creepy like record companies tend to be.

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

Next up is "Dave and Scott brave the wilderness known as the crowd." What will they find? Is it safe? Will they be eaten? The answer to those and many other questions, coming soon to a blog post near you.

Dave Rat

Day 14 Post Tour - Sunday Morning

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 08:50:09 -0700

Good morning sunshine! I can't say it exactly a haze I am emerging from. More accurately it feels like "velocity differential acclimation" sort of like when I look outside the car window at world around while driving and all is smooth and normal. I sit in a comfy seat watching it slide behind me yet if I were to step out of the door while traveling 60 miles per hour, the "velocity differential acclimation" experience would be quite life-disruptive. In fact the velocity differential would be so great great that rather than acclimate, I would most likely end up absorbing the 60 miles per hour in a flailing arms tumble to an eventual big owie stop. That is how these last two weeks feel except without out the big owie part.

So before I work my way up to now, how about a bit of catching up on then......

Day 455 - Over the Pond, Again

The final bit. Three shows, one our own and then two mirror image festivals. For me as a sound engineer, today is the last real day with all the toys. So over we wander and stumbling across delicious delectable's makes me smile, Yummy!

Oh, and speaking of yummy, we roadies went a wandering and once again stumbled upon the same place we ate here last time. Or was it the time before?

Either way, greasy bar food was exactly as we remembered it.

And once again we chickened out on ordering the Haggis, though I regret it now and won't make that error again. Next time for absolute sure. For those of you wondering what haggis is, well like so many things, you have two choices from which to pick

1) "A haggis is a small four-legged Scottish Highland creature, which has the limbs on one side shorter than the other side. This means that it is well adapted to run around the hills at a steady altitude, without either ascending or descending. However a haggis can easily be caught by running around the hill in the opposite direction."

2) Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish.

And lucky you! I have included a recipe for y'all to try at home.

"Here's a recipe for the beloved Haggis of Scotland. In addition to the other naughty (read 'delectable') bits, the lungs are traditionally included in Scotland, but are omitted here as it's illegal to sell lungs in the U.S. (Any clues as to why, anybody?). Some folks also think that liver shouldn't be used ..."

1 sheep's lung (illegal in the U.S.; may be omitted if not available)
1 sheep's stomach
1 sheep heart
1 sheep liver
1/2 lb fresh suet (kidney leaf fat is preferred)
3/4 cup oatmeal (the ground type, NOT the Quaker Oats type!)
3 onions, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup stock

Wash lungs and stomach well, rub with salt and rinse. Remove membranes and excess fat. Soak in cold salted water for several hours. Turn stomach inside out for stuffing.
Cover heart and liver with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Chop heart and coarsely grate liver. Toast oatmeal in a skillet on top of the stove, stirring frequently, until golden. Combine all ingredients and mix well. Loosely pack mixture into stomach, about two-thirds full. Remember, oatmeal expands in cooking.

Press any air out of stomach and truss securely. Put into boiling water to cover. Simmer for 3 hours, uncovered, adding more water as needed to maintain water level. Prick stomach several times with a sharp needle when it begins to swell; this keeps the bag from bursting. Place on a hot platter, removing trussing strings. Serve with a spoon. Ceremoniously served with "neeps, tatties and nips" -- mashed turnips, mashed potatoes, nips of whiskey.

Hello Scotland and if I was to vote on the most likely birthplace of sarcasm, this would be it, I like this place .

**** Teary Eyed Goodbye ****

Well this is it. The Double Hung PA I designed for this Pepper's tour now hangs it's very last hang. I have no idea what the future will bring. We do have two more shows to go after this but those are festivals with typical V-Dosc rigs and sound pressure level limits so strict that if it was near the sea, the ocean would get fined for it's waves being too loud.

Say bye bye double hung PA

**** End Teary Eyed Goodbye ****

To bloggery back soon,

Dave Rat

Day 454 - Aug 21th - At War with Wires and Greed

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:49:00 -0700

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.

Day 380 - June 11th - My Birthday.

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:04:00 -0700

Oh boy, I get to remember a new age I am. Next year I need to remember to use my birthday as an excuse to have BBQ or party but this year I am more concerned with catching up on bills, making some decisions and doing the tour break scramble. I am up at 6 am and hit the sack around 1 am last night as I will do for the next few day. Jet lag, delirium, kids, lunches and carpools and right now just making it through each day with a smile good enough. Thank you to everyone for all the Happy BD wishes and such and here is by far the most unique.

www.photagious.com/slideshow?7fb74b7015b99a2e25eece1181394702\

The underlying story line is that a group of my bloggery friends from the Red Hot Chili Peppers fan club bought a pair of Rat Sound hot pants and have been shipping them all over the world, taking a picute with them, signing them and shipping them on. These things have been to at least three continents and may hold the world record for the most adventurous undies ever. Rumor has it that I will reunite with the traveling undergarment some time soon. I must admit it is really funny and fun.

Home. After exiting the plane, grabbing my bags, heading home and nearly two hours straight of deleting and quick responding to a few hundred emails, I was relieved to have just over 200 left.

Light at the end of the tunnel and hey, it's better than being neglected! Home sweet home, that comforting feeling of escaping to the blissful world of...

a construction site. But look! The insulation is blue, so very pretty and not by accident. I have been waiting and wanting for over a year now to use this stuff in a project and when my contractor, Woody (ha ha, a very fitting name) mentioned fiberglass, I requested he use this stuff instead. It meets or exceeds all the specs for fiberglass, it is fire, bug and mildew resistant, does not make you itch like fiberglass, does not shed glass fibers that make your lungs bleed, has better sound proofing qualities, is not a hazardous material like fiberglass and is a 100% recycled "green" product that looks like ground up blue jeans. Oh wait, it is ground up blue jeans!

http://www.bondedlogic.com/ultratouch.htm

Many cities have approved it as a building material and the only down side is that it is about 30% more cost wise but in the big picture of house building expenses it is still cheap, especially considering it's superior specs. What relevance does this have and why have I brought all this house remodel stuff into the blog? Finally, the moment I have been awaiting. This blue stuff is the cheap, readily available and non hazardous with excellent acoustic properties. Hmmmm, I wonder where it would work really well? Oh oh oh, I know! How about using it inside speaker cabinets for damping material? Perfect!

So to celebrate, how about we destroy something. Say bye bye fireplace. "Bye bye fireplace."

I love birthdays!

Dave Rat

Day 337 April 25th - Camping by Candle in a Powerless Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:22:00 -0700

Moving sucks but when my mind is clear, I must follow the direction I feel. The twin shorties were 9 when I started this, now they are 11. Living an hour away was beneficial financially as I was close to Hollywood and Hollywood is full of people that love to rock. As one that connects those that rock with those that bask in their rockness, Hollywood is an open slate of opportunity where pretty much whenever I am willing to stay up late in the world of loud, I can drive home avoiding drunks with some money in the mail. That was then and this is now and now I am a bit more free to be more creative in my endeavors and less geographically limited.

Current supplies:

1- Australian tent, don't know what they are called but they are canvas, rectangular and for camping in the rugged outback (hey, a little help from my Aussie friends on what they call these things?). I brought it home and it already is coming in handy though I wont "tent it and will just use it as a mattress.

2- Jesus candles I bought at the liquor store for illumination. That's his gig, may as well put him to work.

2- Bottles of wine that I found in the house unopened, one bottle is still unopened.

1- Liter of Fiji water, room temp. Also from the liquor store, I had them grab a room temp bottle from the back, cold water is just too discomforting to enjoy drinking, except as a shock while in overheat mode.

1- Of the shortie's sleeping bags and a pillow borrowed from the shorties' mom, thank you!

1- iPod Shuffle. Yes, I do feel a distaste for them and Mac and Apple as well as everything else that pretends to be nice while secretly trying rope me in, but the music on it is magic and makes my heart hurt but in a touching happy way and I have not taken the time to bypass Mac's annoying attempt at blocking me from taking the music off it. I kind of like the idea that the tunes are captured in a tangible entity, old school style like before all this ripping happened and I also like the reminder when I charge the iPod shuffle by plugging it into my computer that Mac's iFucked software tries to erase it and I kind of enjoy my often frivolous battles against the things with which I disagree. As in "I can't stop mosquito's from biting but I can put up a mosquito net and move on as they struggle in trying to feed upon me."

1 - Pair of old, like 15 years, little plastic stereo battery powered Sony speakers that I recently repaired that were my 'hotel room stereo' from back in the early 90's when cassette tape Sony Walkman's were the thing to have. I didn't hate Walkmans but also they did tiny policemen injected into their electronics. And no, I don't hate cops and in the words of Barfly, "I just feel better when they are not around," especially inside something I purchase. Oh, so I do a search on the little speaker's model #, SRS-57 and whoa look at this: http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/13/5/637 . Which I found quite interesting not only in the use the speakers but also in that these female birds apparently call out to their dudes to get them food and the neighboring male birds eavesdrop. Turns out that if the birdy boyfriend/hubby does not bring her enough food, she will keep calling out and nearby single male birds listen in and pop on over for a conjugal visit and the chicky birds have a go with the neighbor. Uh oh, I have this overwhelming desire to head off to the grocery store to stock the fridge with lots and lots of food and then open all the windows and listen really carefully.

1- Mini travel pack with all the stuff I would bring if I was doing a trip to San Francisco for an overnight and a gig.

1- Me. My own humanly self and as I lay here I realize that I have already mentally acclimated to my new home yet it will be three weeks or so before I can actually entirely move. I feel more comfortable here camping in a powerless house than I did walking back into full familiarity. And I realize that last night my displaced feeling was less about tour ending and more of being in the construction phases of a new home world beginning.

And speaking of beginning, here is me in the earlier beginnings of my humanly life with my pop teaching me to ski

Roller coaster. Right now I am sitting in the seat of the roller coaster of decisions I made and beyond the point of turning back, and must feel the string/sting of outcomes unfolding. Scary, fun, fast, nauseating, and everything in between. Parts I love and parts I hate but hey, I made the choices, no complaints and just because I chose to do it does not mean it will be easy. Roller coaster. Surrounded by so many people and more alone than ever, roller coaster. Re-acclimation to being home. And now that I think about it. Sitting in a seat, whether in a living room stationary or on a freeway going 60, it's all good. But introduce an abrupt transition and everything changes. Try launching a couch potato with a catapult or putting a halt to a freeway driver with a brick wall and all of a sudden that seat sitting takes on a whole new dimension. Perhaps that sheds light on the underlying trauma experienced when transitioning between the high speed motion of tour and the grounded base of being home.

Good morning sunshine,

Dave Rat

Day 263 - Feb 10 - Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:55:33 -0800

**** Merging of the Worlds ****

Something I realized a bit ago was that writing this blog has a strange side effect of connecting all my worlds. Past meet tour, tour meet home, home meet business, business meet friends and everyone meet family. This cross life interconnect is an odd sensation and as time progresses, so does my caution fade. Plus, I guess I now have a 600 page answer to the question "So, what do you do?"

And what I did on thursday was to go on a snowboarding blitz with Grier.

I had to head up and grab my boarding gear and from up there and may as well do some runs while I am there and awesome, Grier was up for joining. Two hours away, wonderful day and home by 4pm. Years ago I bought a house in Big Bear, up near the ski resort,

used to live up there and now I just use it as mountain get away of peace and quite to balance the flurry of tour. I have been renting it out as a vacation rental and if any of y'all are ever wanting to head up there, let me know and I figure out some sort of super bloggery friend discount.

http://www.allseasonsbigbear.com/units/54.html

As you can see, in one of my wacky brainstorms, I decided to put a in a train that runs around near the ceiling.

**** End Merging of Worlds ****

Grammy's rehearsals went well, familiar faces everywhere and it seems like just the other day I was here last year with Maroon 5 keeping an eye on the room sound while their FOH engineer Brian was in the broadcast truck looking out for the sound sent to the TV networks. Before that I spent the multi-hours hanging out in TV world when I was in the truck doing the TV sound for the Foo Fighters and Chick Corea combo. It is all pretty much the same each time, the Grammy's, the MTV video awards and all the big TV productions. Lots of humans, lots of rules, lots of caution and lots of waiting around.

**** Nerd Speak ****

I learned something cool. Ok, normally with touring shows we use chain motors (hoists) to lift up the gear. An up-rigger goes up to "the roof," drops a rope which a down-rigger attaches to a hook on the end of the chain running through the motor. The up-rigger pulls the hook/chain up and attaches it to the roof in one of several ways. Then, when the motor is energized, it can be remote controlled to climb up and down the chain. Occasionally something goes wrong with the remote control and a motor stops working. When this happens, a rigger either climbs up or or lowers down on a rope to the motor and fixes it or they attach a second motor and transfer the load. This takes quite a bit of time. For live TV, there is no time for that type of mucking around and there are quite a few stage bits that move in and out during the show. So, in order to insure that a stalled motor does not screw up the elaborate TV production, they put two motors case to case on the critical moving set pieces. One motor is upside down attached to the other. So just imagine in the pics below that the motor hooks are connected and the chain bag is not defying gravity

So what they do is, control one motor to move the set pieces in and out and the other just gets towed around but.... If the primary motor fails, they can switch to the secondary motor really quickly and still keep the show going.

**** End Nerd Speak ****

While I am down at the Staples Center doing Grammyish things, I walk to lunch with my good friend Frank and brother in law, Jason who is working there as well and look at that!

It is the Variety Arts Center, have not seen it for years. The riot when the Butthole Surfer played, Janes Addiction and we did so many gigs there it was like a second home for years. Ahh, the memories I love to hold and hope not to repeat

The not so nostalgic,

Dave Rat

Day 261 - Feb 8 - Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 23:21:00 -0800

When I started writing this blog, I carved out time in most days to paste myself behind the computer for some to several hours. As with most projects, there are obsicles in the early stages and one of those obsticles for me was my roadie friends missed me and two roadies in particular chose show that miss by repeatedly informing me that I have become "boring." Heart warming. Well, one of those roadies, Grier who is very creative and works on the Peppers show designs as well as owns part of a taco stand in New Zealand, makes cool clothing (he did several of the Rat Wear graphics) has fallen to the dark side and much to my glee and hopefully his dismay, I see that he has become boring as well and started his own blog http://www.griergovorko.com/blog/. Ha ha!! Hey Greir, Boooooriiiing!!! So for all you lampi and artsy fartsy types out there or anyone else desiring to be bored, it may worth a gander.

Now that we are done passing the boring wand over to Grier, we can have some fun and what better way to start having fun and while also sticking with the coffee theme, I dug up an old video that I took way back when I kept critters in my house. Oh! and some day I hope to again and I did promise my shorties that when this tour found an end I would acquire some little fuury friends. In the mean time, say hello to "Coffee Bean," a pet cat with a puzzling name.

And that completes coffee lishious blogerishious segment for today,

Dave Rat

Day 260 - Feb 7 - Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:34:45 -0800

Starbucks office again. I failed!!! After waking up to see that Dan had posted this comment:

Great blog (and I don't say that about many!), it's kept me suitably entertained for the past few months - but I've got to call you up on one thing: Starbucks? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Pseudo bohemian corporate scum - there must be somewhere better just round the corner or have they already put them out of business.

http://www.ofb.net/~epstein/sl/0412/20041210-starbucks.jpg
(contains swearingly altered merchandise.)

dan mac

___

In my delirious morning state, I decided he was right. Why support some corporate conglomerate when I can support a smaller local entity. So I set off to find an alternative, drove around for 20 minutes looking and then after getting jammed in local traffic decided it will have to wait for another day. I don't hate Starbucks nor do I feel any alliance to them. Though I must admit that the grungy mix of homeless people, local starving actors and business people on morning break that come in waves to this particular location does provide a wonderful backdrop. I will try again to seek a new office, but I will save that battle for another day, today my time is short now shorter.

Hey, lets have a look at the work week - Today the monitor rig gets loaded into the Grammy's, tomorrow rehearsals, friday is more rehearsals, saturday is off and sunday is the real Grammy deal, monday we fly to London to arrive tuesday, Brit awards wednesday and fly home thursday, friday I am going snowboarding with the shorties.

Hey, look! Rat Sound is up for Pollstar "Sound Company of the Year" and the awards ceremony is on Friday as well and if all goes well, I may even make it down there to watch! An honor to be nominated and how absurdly cool would it be for little Rats to win against companies that dwarf us so dramatically business wise. Furthermore with Mcdonalds being voted "Best Coffee in America" and after tossing a pathetic chuckle in the general direction of the absurdity of the humans that actually marked Mickey D's as "Mmmmm, yumm, wow, this is the best coffee in America!," I ponder the relevance of winning anything that involves a cross-sectional american vote.

But here I am sitting in Starbucks, possibly without much a leg to stand on as far as being coffee critical. Oh well, off to the Rat shop,

Dave Rat

Day 259 - Feb 6 - Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 10:35:49 -0800

Starbucks, Magnolia and Vine. My morning office that satisfies the the requirements of hot coffee, edible food and a constant flow of humans reminiscent of trying to work in the crew room or catering. Fifth day home and the first day the tour haze begins to lift and the realities of this other world come into focus. Fifth day at home and for every morning I wake up and realize how cool it is that a housekeeper has not tapped on my door every 15 minutes for the past 3 hours, I am equally dismayed that the mess I left here yesterday is still where I left it and once again there are no clean towels. If I only had a phone in my room I would call the front desk to complain.

I spend the bulk of my home-time solo, at least solo as in "not in the proximity of the humans I speak with other than buying things like food." The exception being the two or three days a week I go in to the Rat office or the weekends that I have the girls. I spend most of my tour time surrounded by huge quantities of people I know quite well with the exceptions being the mornings of days off before the quest for coffee inspires me out of my hotel room. My two lives could not be much more different. I think the term used in describing these transitions is culture shock, when applied to normal humans.

I guess working at Starbucks is just my little version of Cargo Cult Science as if hanging out at home around bustling humans will somehow inspire the tour bus to show up. If you have not read it, it is worth a look look, if you have read it, well, it's is still worth a look. Richard Feynman would have made an excellent roadie.

Perfection is unachievable and on projects that I put my heart into, mediocrity is unacceptable. Combining that thought with the project of the big rock show and the fact that my sound world is but one facet of a multi-dimensional presentation results in a complex balancing act that is far from boring. Pushing for the best but not to the point that it will overly compromise another department's presentation, requires a level of cooperation, understanding and the ability for all involved to look at the bigger picture. I guess that applies to just about every cooperative life endeavor.

OK, my newly implemented morning work/blog time limit is and the fully charged laptop battery is reaching red line warnings. Upload time and oh, hey, tomorrow we load into the Grammy's!

The shaky hands, 20 oz drip coffee buzzed

Dave Rat

Day 231 - Jan 9- Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:00:32 -0800

The time to board the plane approaches and as I always seem to experience in the not too distant memory, I am filled with this anxious feeling of remiss or more accurately pre-miss and it dawns on me to ponder the things I will miss. With that in my mind, today I add to my computer a new folder called 2007 where I will store month by upcoming month each batch of photos I accumulate in my travels and wanders that inspire the snapshots of time I grab paste into the physical memory banks.

**** The Things I will Miss ****

I First is the little people I love. My daughters, my niece and the little ones in my heart that I rarely see. And though far away and disconnected, I always I hold them in my heart. Some things hurt too much to think about more than in flashes so I let them slide out of my mind and find distraction.

Next would be sensation and familiarity of my bed. The place I go at the end point of each day when I have had enough and where I climb in to recharge to be for feeling of warm fresh start.

And when I wake I like to play a album as I start my new day, I will miss the scratchy sound of the needle upon the spinning black disc and how I never know exactly how long before the music will start.

I will miss the way the the dreary and hazy sleep fades away each day as I head to the ocean blue room of clean. The rubber ducks that sit on the shower head and the way my day comes into focus as I ponder my plans under falling water.

I will miss drinking that first morning coffee without having to get dressed and the way the espresso maching always scars me when it gets hot and starts spitting steam out the relief valve when it is ready.

I will miss searching the fridge for bits of food when I went too many days between shopping and being able to eat simple clean cool mangos, making shrimp tacos and salsa and my two favorite knives, the one that rusts if I don't wipe it off and the one that makes the cool shhwriiing sound like a mini "Kill Bill" sword.

I will miss my favorite pan made of cast iron that I cook nearly everything with and how I need to take care of it to keep the perfect layer of cooked in oil and how it never touches soap.

I will miss the enjoyment I feel to create new things or fix things that are broken with my pile of tools

I will miss the freedom that my motorcycle and car gives me to be able to travel on a whim to destinations without hindrance. I will miss not getting anything good in the mail and then after day after day passes to the point where I stop checking, actually getting something good. I will miss the two ladies next door that take a walk every morning and always smile and loaning tools to my neighbor across the street. I will miss going to the Rat Shop and especially everyone there that each day come to share a bit of their life together for a common goal and the challenges and successes that each day brings. I will miss the people I care about that that I hang out with at home.

So to all that I press the pause button and step away. But it never pauses, it just keeps rolling along without me. Bye bye home and soon all this will fade, I know it will, it always does, it is just so hard to see there from here.

The not sad and getting ready to leave,

Dave Rat

Day 227 - Jan 5 - Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 21:06:52 -0800

So I am doing my best to keep to clean the house in between making messes. Seems I spend my home life doing one, the other or in a horizontal position. Projects unfinished expose themselves as I peel a few layers of between-tour-sediment away from the various clustering spots and low and behold, I find some old journals. Though most of the contents consist of cringingly unreadable babble and actually unreadable hieroglyphics, a quick scan through did reveal a few pages of interest.

The was written while on Black Flag tour. "Cel" was the bass player for the band that was riding with me and we were on our way to do a show at a club called Maxwell's in Hoboken. As you can most likely tell, the truck ran into a serious 'hitch in it's get-a-long' right about the time it's wheels were no longer on the pavement. Some idiot had cut our brake lines in San Francisco after him being tossed out of the club and our brakes never worked quite right since then. Well, also it did not help that we were doing about 60 in the fast lane that was actually not a fast lane but in reality a left handed freeway off ramp, downhill into a "T" intersection in a fully and completely overloaded truck. Anyway, I am pretty sure that I could had ground the gears down and pumped the brakes up enough to force that manual steering piece of crap truck around the right hand turn when a stressing and screeching and "POW," the actual box mount to the truck snapped and over we gover. Splash goes the window and I must say that to this day I still recall that it was the strangest sensation to have your head just 6 inches await from a window view consisting of sliding asphalt.

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

For the next blast into the hand written past, I present some high resolution images of a PA design that never got built.

This was to the next incarnation of the system we carried on that tour

but due to the decision to pay rent and eat food rather than finance yet another PA from the ground up plus our in ability to locate satisfactory 8 inch drivers we ended up reconfiguring the "Brown System"

into the "Thin Fills."

For you sound nerds out there, I thought you may get a kick out of a line array based design that was based on dual 15", dual 8", dual compression driver components that is 48 inches wide and 18 inches high designed in 1986.

Anyway, the cool line array wave guides were still a decade away from being developed by L'Acoustics which was the true turning point in line array feasibility. I know most of the Rat site regulars are familiar with all this but for all our new friends, if you are curious about the development of the Rat PA systems, you may way want to check out the Evolution http://ratsound.com/evolution/evol1.html pages. I have not updated them in a while so it just stops about five years ago but you may find it kind of interesting.

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

Pondering. Air brakes are good, especially on big heavy trucks! For you non trucky mechanichy types out there, did you know that air brakes work the opposite way of the brakes in a car or small truck? In a car, you press the brakes and the brake fluid pushes these little pads to rub on either a disc or cylinder attached to your wheel. Brakes are normally 'off' and press to put them 'on.' Air brakes are normally 'on' and have big strong springs that push the pads against the cylinder and then when you start the motor, it builds up air pressure in the brake line hoses that forces the brakes to be 'off.' When you step on the brakes, it releases pressure and the brakes then go 'on.' This way if you have a leak in the system, the brakes get stuck 'on' rather than 'off.'

Ok, enough! Till we meet again in a day or two, good travels to all!

Dave Rat

Continue reading "Day 227 - Jan 5 - Home"

Day 208 - Dec 14 to 17 - Home

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:12:00 -0800

First order of business is to skip jet lag. I am not going to play that silly little game of being all tired and screwed up and off to the Rat shop. Right now, my biggest stress is peeling back seven months of mini messes that I leave behind each time I on tour break. Endless bits of homeless items strewn about. Clean up time! The worst part is that at some point I picked up a room mate. More of a squatter I guess. The little guy moves in and roams freely for I don't know how long. A couple of breaks ago, with the help of a cage trap and some cheese and my friend Andy, we were able to persuade him to relocate. But not before he ate the only living plant, the corners of a half a dozen album covers and build a few nests. Oh, little ratty rats, testing my patience but ya know, all they want is a warm place to sleep, a bit of food and to exercise their curiosity. At least it was not herd of cows a grizzly bear because they make a lot more poo.

Wayno's Catering (Yes, it is owned by the Wayno who is the band's Personal chef!) going to handle the food for the Rat Sound holiday party, how cool is that? Clean house, clean house. Looks like thirty or so people are coming this year and I have two days. I can't believe the little butt head ate my records.

Off to Costco to stock up on essentials and some party stuff. I love Costco. I love it exactly as much as I hate Wal-Mart. No comparison between the two. Walmart is predatory slave labor compared to the employee partnership of respect that Costco forms. The result? Well, Costco has the lower employee turnover, much better medical plans and pays workers nearly double. Oh, and they provide better products are more fun to shop at, have great prices and treat customers really well. Do some reading up on Costco vs. Walmart http://www.laborresearch.org/print.php?id=391 if your curious. Honest ethical business, great people, great gear, great prices vs pure growth, greed and world domination. The best part of seeing something cumbersomely large is watching it fall!

So the festivities include, massive amounts of awesome food and drink including a pot of Gluhwien, the hillbilly fire pit, Guitar Hero, the Hookah spot (with the Hookah from Keli!) and different tunes in all the rooms.

And Thank you Daniella and Danalle Rat for putting this all together! You are awesome!!!

Well alright, guess what? It's clean up time again!!

The somewhat hazy but very happy,

Dave Rat

Day 102 to 112 - Sept 2 to 12 Tour Break

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 23:19:00 -0700

Not only was my dad at the show yesterday, so were my daughters as well. Family day and since their mom works for Pearl Jam and is currently on tour as well, the little people have been parentless for a bit. The good part is is that they are well cared for, safe and happy and the downside is that the two tours are awkwardly and consistently overlapping and putting them for longer periods without either parent in town. Regardless, what it means right now is that I step into full time dad mode instantly which is all good. Unfortunately though, I live too way far away from where they go to school so after the weekend I say bye-bye to my home and move up to their mom's place for the break, good thing my bags are already packed.

At this point tour has pretty much become the norm and getting back to home feels more like just an extended set of days off. Time to play catch up until get ready to leave time comes around.

As far as touring schedules go, this is one of the best in my opinion. Three weeks on and two weeks off is the rough pattern we follow. Many if not most bands will do six weeks as a typical segment length with ten weeks out not being too uncommon. My first tours was four months long and in the pre cell phone era, pre internet era, a four month tour meant total and complete disconnection from the other world. At the peak of my touring I was doing sound or PA tech for three bands with interwoven tours flying directly from one to the next. I used to try and call home when I had someone I wanted to talk to in my life but it was pretty easy to spend 1/2 the tour pay on calling cards and hotel phone charges. The largest hotel phone bill I saw was $ 1200. One of the guys had used a hotel phone to talk for a few hours to his gal from Europe. It happens to most new touring humans at least once. That hotel phone just looks so tempting sitting by the bed, so easy, how bad could it be? I have paid the bill of shame myself but where and how much I have long ago forgotten. There was even a "mail day" because our schedule kept changing, as did our hotels and the cities we though we were going to. So any mail was sent to the management and they would then forward it to certain cities. Motion meant disconnecting and that disconnection is both the best and worst part of touring.

In it's purest form disconnection can be one of the most invigorating and wondrous experiences imaginable. Completely letting go of everything. No bills to pay, no car to register, no set schedule to follow. Each day is just a simple set of instructions to follow cryptically written in a the book of life called the itinerary. Lobby at 8 am, eat, set up gear, eat, tear down gear, shower, eat, sleep in bus, wake up, repeat. Each day someone paints a different picture of the world outside the bus and makes it a bit hotter, colder or wetter. Each day the gear comes out of the trucks and each day your focus slips farther down from the horizon to seeing only that which immediately is at hand. It is at that point where living distinctly in the moment is all that matters where the sensation of true freedom solidifies. That sensation is the essence of what I believe is the allure and magnetism of choosing a life on the road.

The price paid for disconnection is that when the tour ends and reality is crushingly dropped back into your lap, you have no where to stay, all your worldly belongings are scattered in various garages, the battery is dead in your unregistered car. Motionless is depressing. New cities and music and crowds of excited humans all gone. I used to dig through all my stuff stored at home and rediscover things I tucked away and forgot. Drive somewhere, I guess, eat food and begin to miss the endless string of adventures that had presented themselves daily. Instead I sit with four walls waiting for the phone to ring and take me away from motionless stagnation.

After about 16 years of touring and around 5 years ago, I made the conscience decision to try to learn how to be a normal human and try and adapt to a more normal life. I wanted to learn how to not to travel and also to be happy at the same time.

The enjoying my time off,

Dave Rat

OSMCITBRAPMWIDNLHC!

Days 98 & 99 - Overnight to LA and Day Off

nospam@example.com (Dave Rat) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 10:22:00 -0700

Woke up at a gas station near Magic Mountain, when I was shorter I would have been bouncing of the walls seeing the huge wooden roller coaster. No such luck this morning though as we are dumping roadie Dave Lee and roadie Daniel off before heading into to town. All of the out of town roadies and some in towners, with no reason to go home, are staying at the hotel in Marina del Rey. The rest of us will make our various ways home. It says two days off in the itinerary but if you interpret that it means drive day and pre-rig day where a bunch of roadies go load in a day early, fortunately I have been immunized against pre-rig-itus so I get to stay home.

First order of business, swim. Then clean up the splattering I left the house in. My friend Andy has been staying here on and off and we get caught up on the happenings. He arrived two weeks after I left and it has been mega hot here. He was especially curious as to whether I still wanted the chinese food that I left in the microwave before leaving on tour. I guess It took him quite a while to discover the source of the less than pleasant new house odor.

Fixing the house AC (again) was not so bad. This time it was just water leaking out all over the garage floor from a little pump and once I got inside the little thing reglueing the impeller back to the shaft was pretty easy.

And with that being as interesting as I got for these two days, how about rewinding back to a decade onto Rage Against the Machine tour and here is a picture of Matt, myself and Tom Morello in business suits after visiting the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange

And that was the first and only time I saw Tom in a suit while I have actually put one at least twice since then. Oh, and here is Brian Rat, myself, Ford Engerth and Zach de la Rocha standing in front of a Buddhist temple in Thailand.

And while you imagine exploring Thailand, I am going to wash the sticky kitchen floor.

The multi-lived

Dave Rat

DYTDCTTHYS!