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Day 319 - One Down and Nine to go

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

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Janine McDonald on :

Glad you got there safe and seem to be enjoying yourself fiddling with the 'bits' and 'bobs'. Take care from a not quite so sunny.... (or interesting!) London Janine x

Richie P. on :

As a trumpet player myself, I am looking forward to closer look at Flea's trumpet setup!

Chuck Matt on :

I had a pickup like the rat sound (Flea) photo years and a few trumpets ago. wish i had it now, trying to find one again. I had to drill a small hole into the mouthpiece like in the photo, I don't know the manufacturer do you?

Sarah on :

Lookin' forward to checkin' out the Melbourne gig Tuesday night!! Glad to hear that you've worked out the coffee lingo....if you'de like to try a delicacy that I personally can not live without...try a Vanilla Chi...Once you've converted to chi. you've never go back to coffee again!! Hope that Kel (tanqgirl) gets in touch with you today, as I'm hopin' to check in with you tomorrow night and send you some of the Ratkateer love from the Ozzie contingency!!! "Good girls go to heaven, Bad girls go Down Under" Sarah (aka Scorp79)

Matt Uecker on :

Hey Dave...Matt here. Question about the mouth piece pickup... Can you explain a bit how that works? As a horn player, I would think that would pick up the buzz of the lips (embrochure) more than the resonance of the horn? Just looking for some physics behind this setup as I've never seen it before (but looks awesomely cool). Thanks. Matt

Anna on :

hi Dave, Goji berries are used as a type of Chinese herbal medicine...they are known for their benefits for improving eye-sight! Pretty neat huh? Anyways, keep up the good work, still dreaming about the day when the Chili Peppers can tour to Taiwan!

Dave Rat on :

Thank you Anna! And I want to go to Taiwan and I would love the join the Peppers there.

Lisa on :

Har Mar Superstar were way awesome!

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