Del Mar, show in San Diego, CA

On the way to San Diego, I had about two and a half hours to kill in Del Mar.  It was mid-80s and sunny, with an on-shore breeze that made everything very nice.  I had lunch (a grilled panini sandwich) at a nice place with an outdoor patio, view of the beach, and enjoyed my situation immensely. 

Then a stroll along the beach, watching the surfers and people enjoying themselves as in a nice summer vacation.  Only this was mid-November.  I couldn't believe the weather.  So, the punch line is that I had no idea I would be spending any time at the beach, and I was in my gig clothes.  Not exactly beach attire.  Head to toe in black, long pants, black t-shirt, black shoes.  I must have looked a teeny bit out of place.  Nevertheless, to make the most of the situation, I did take off my shoes and socks and waded into the water at least up to my calves.  Nerd alert!

It was warm.  In mid-November.  There must be a reason people choose to live in SoCal.

Then it was on to the venue in San Diego.  The Anthology Restaurant is relatively new (opened summer of 2007).  The place just screams "MONEY!"  High-end dining, with high-end interior design, and a great sound and video system for shows.  There's seven cameras positioned around the stage to capture the show, each with remote controlled pan/tilt and zoom, mixed live and distributed to a large screen over the stage and many video screens throughout the three-story venue's dining, bar, and lounge areas.  Also, distributed audio in all the remote locations, and in the main viewing area (all three floors of it) a Nexo Geo line array with fills.  Yamaha M7CL surfaces in both the FOH and monitor worlds, and EAW wedges.  And I forgot my camera at the hotel.  Look them up online to see how fancy the place looks.

All this money poured into the place, and yet, here's where they skimp:  The sound crew is also the video and recording crew, and sometimes it's one guy doing it all.  We were doing two shows that night, and we started with two guys, one on monitors and one at FOH helping me and mixing the video and recording the video/audio feeds.  By the start of the second show, I guess the assumption was that things were dialed in with monitors so the FOH tech left.  Just left.  No explanation, nothing.  So monitor dude (who was great, by the way) was supposed to run the second show from FOH.  They have a laptop to remote control the monitor desk, but the interface wasn't working.  It was explained to me (after FOH dude left) that for a lot of shows, one guy runs monitors, FOH, video and recording all at the same time.  And we're talking full production seven camera video and audio recording, with the video show distributed in the venue (and that's a big part of the atmosphere of the place).  Well, I wasn't planning on mixing the co-bill star's show, only my boss's show (we were opening this night).  But again the co-bill star of the show had guest musicians sitting in with him on the second show, which meant extra inputs that had not been sound checked.  We had planned for this, and the extra inputs were staged and ready to be a plug-n-play situation, but someone would need to be at the monitor desk and the FOH desk when they came on stage.  I knew if I left, the remaining sound dude would suffer (and the show would certainly suffer).  So I agreed to stay and take care of FOH for the late show's co-bill star set.  

Turns out I really suck at mixing FOH and trying to run a seven camera video shoot at the same time.  After things had settled in for the guest musicians, the monitor guy came to bail me out of the flaming nose-dive that was the video show.  He was so practiced at it, he probably could have done a decent job of all of it himself, but that's a lot of stress for one dude.

All in all, a great place to have a show, but the vibe was maybe a bit cold (lots of polished metal and glass, and video everywhere, making things feel disjointed and connected only by technology).  The food was great, which scores high in my world.  Thanks for a good time.

The Tristan and Lana Show

I should mention that the day before the show in LA, I got to visit my friends, Tristan and Lana, and their two wonderful kids.  Pictured here with Finley, Elijah was in the kitchen at the time.  Don't they look fantastic?  Recently transplanted to the LA area, Lana teaches at Cal State Fullerton, and Tristan works in Hollywood for Nickelodeon.  I rented a car, picked up Tristan at his work (and got to tour the set of iCarly) and drove him home where we went out to a yummy dinner.  I had been feeling a bit lonely with all the traveling, and missing my family.  It was terrific therapy hanging out with witty intelligent friends, and witnessing a slice of "married with kids" life.  Sure beats hanging by myself in a hotel room.

Thanks for the tour, Tristan!  I think you have a cool job!  And thank you both for letting me interrupt your routine.  I miss seeing you more often.

The Canyon Club, Agoura Hills CA

When you walk up to a rig and see this curve on the graph, you should be worried.  I could go on and on about why they get the award, but I'll just say The Canyon Club's sound crew have no contest for the worst tech crew of the tour.  Well, okay, I'll go on and on...

The FOH guy was filling in for someone else and just didn't care at all - he spent most of the tech time ignoring us and talking on his cell phone.  The monitor guy was outright destructive and hindering in his ineptitude.  After a long and frustrating time waiting for these guys to get their act together, which included such gems as "don't touch that", "I'll do that for you (just not any time today)", "we have a keyboard you can use (but there's no sustain pedal)", they pulled out the clincher:  "You guys were late - we were ready for you at 4".  The comedy there was that we pulled up at 4:30 to load in and soundcheck before the 6:00 doors, and it took until 5:50 to get eight inputs plugged in and 4 wedges placed.  And we were still waiting for a sustain pedal that was thankfully coming by way of a friend of a friend who lives in the area.  We would soundcheck without it, and hopefully get it before the show started (we did).

Ultimately this led to the 90 minutes of soundcheck time being reduced to a hurried few minutes of sound check (really more of a line check) before doors opened.  All the while, the FOH guy was trying to track down why the PA sounded so bad, especially the difference between the left and right sides.  I have to say I wasn't impressed with how the opening act sounded.  It wasn't until just before the start of the headliner when I got behind the board that I noticed the main graphic EQ had one side in 6dB mode, and the other side in 12dB mode.  I fixed that and started over with the EQ and by the end of the first song, we had a show.

During the show, the monitor guy spent half of his time running far away from the stage, abandoning the show to see what the score was on the game he was watching.  The other half of his time was spent at the monitor desk, loudly talking to his friend.  So loudly that twice during the show, the artist had to stop the show and walk over to him to tell him to be quiet.  He didn't seem to care, he just kept talking over the act.

Now, the gear.  The club has all they need to rip the place apart with brute force.  Lots and lots of custom TAD boxes.  I think it was eight 2-way mid-hi traps (each 4x10", 2") over four subs (each 2x18") for each side.  And fills.  A PM4000 at FOH, and a H3000 at monitors, and all the outboard you'd want for the biggest of bands.  I can't say they're lacking any gear.  I can say the guys at the helm are burned out.  I don't think the club is getting their money's worth with these guys, at any price.

After the gig, I got to hear a story that made me feel better.  Apparently the monitor guy approached my boss, the talent, and asked "What's up with your sound guy?  I mean, you don't just come into a venue as a guest engineer and start riding the house guys!  He's definitely "on our wall"; we'll be throwing darts at his face for a long time..."

I think I was polite, but I was trying to get a soundcheck to happen.  If I made enemies with those guys, I'm not upset about it.

Largo, Los Angeles

Largo at the Coronet is the new space near Beverly Hills/West Hollywood that places great musicians in front of intimate audiences.  I've heard stories that the old Largo (on Fairfax) was legendary, and the new place is on the way to establishing that reputation once again.  The night before, Rickie Lee Jones had played, and the night after, it was Robyn Hitchcock.  It's also home to a number of "resident" type comedy shows, with stars like Patton Oswalt and Sarah Silverman.  And Jon Brion does a weekly Friday night show that sells out every time (with all-star guests dropping in to perform).  Quite the scene.

Unfortunately the mix position is in a booth, and the sound system is rudimentary.  A single stereo pair of QSC HPR 153i are the only PA, and you get two monitor mixes total.  Run from a Midas Venice 320, with a DOD stereo 15-band graphic and a DBX 266XL across the mains.  Reverbs were limited to a Lexicon PCM unit and an Alesis Microverb II (with no cheat sheet or manual, so it's a guess at what program numbers 1 through 99 will get you).  That's it.

Still, we had what we needed, and I can only say good things about Joe, the friendly and helpful technician.  What lacked in gear was made up for in vibe and an atmosphere where the performance is everything - once the show starts, there is no talking, no cell phones - nothing to distract from the stage.

I had a great time mixing here.  It was all about the performance and not about fine tuning every aspect of the sound.  Also, several big name guest artists came to play with the co-bill star of the show.  Monster musicians having fun performing music together.  It was great to see.

A day off in SF

I had a half day and then a full day off in San Francisco, and I tried to see what I could.  I was staying on the top of Nob Hill, so I was central to and got to see the downtown shopping areas, Chinatown, Lombard Street, and Fisherman's Wharf.  I bought the pass to ride the cable cars around - I felt it was mandatory.  I actually spent a lot of time in the Cable Car Museum, fascinated with the history and the low-tech systems still in place after all these years.  

Also, I liked the Musee Mecanique at Fisherman's Wharf.  Largest collection I've seen of nickelodeon type entertainment machines.  There's even a one-of-a-kind steam-powered motorcycle.  And it's free admission.

I'm such a geek.

San Francisco CA

Slim's in San Francisco is another legendary club.  I hear this sign made it into a "Zippy" cartoon.  An older custom JBL system, with subs, a Midas XL3 for monitors, and a M7CL out front.  

Alex was the very capable FOH tech, complete with a secret hide-out of his own to pass the time.  If you look closely, you'll see the blue can of "Touring Sound-Guy Correction Spray" (or something to that effect, a label that is stuck over a can of bug killer).  Luckily Alex did not feel the need to use that on me.  Thanks!

I want to thank the monitor tech too, and here he is, but I am very bad at remembering names.  That will teach me to wait a week to blog the show.

  

Eugene OR

I didn't take any pictures in Eugene, Oregon.  The Concert Hall at The Shedd Institute is an old church, with good acoustics and a decent sound system.  Meyer CQ-2's (one per side) is all you need for a nice acoustic show, and a Soundcraft Series 5 out front.  A nice Steinway D grand on stage too!  Some of the outboard gear was pieced together, but I had all I needed and it was a great show.

The next morning I took in the farmer's market downtown, and was amused by the micro-economy of the aging hippies with tie-dye and scented everything, mingled with the new age organic produce eco-friendly wares and good old-fashioned baked goods.  The rain was refreshing too.

From here we drove back up to Portland to fly to San Francisco.

Portland OR

Okay, I've been bad about posting.  I'll be catching up, so while I'm in Southern California right now, I'll be writing about where I was last week.

We played at The Aladdin Theatre in Portland OR, and I mean "played".  What a nice place for a show!  A nice EAW 850 rig, with a Crest X8 out front.  Paul was the the venue sound tech, pictured here pretending to have fun.

This was another co-bill show.  Two of my very favorite artists, what a treat.  It was great to see my production friends, Nick van Nood, and Mark Adler.  I also got to see my favorite brother-in-law, Jason, who came to see the show.  Too bad I couldn't hang out much, I had taken the train down from Seattle that morning, and I was pretty tired after the show.  Got a good night's sleep and I was ready for Eugene the next day.

I realize I'm being spoiled.  The work is really play, the hotels are super nice, the traveling is light (I'm not even driving, and we fly when the drive would be long), I've been getting plenty of time off for sightseeing, and I'm being paid well.  What more could I ask?

Alexandria VA

The Birchmere in Alexandria VA is a cool place for a show.  All good gear, Vertec array with subs and fills, Midas Legend 3000 out front, a little monitor board, and a great crew.  There was something funky with the mains that was difficult to nail down (I'm guessing a phase problem somewhere) but aside from that we had a great time.  This was the first show with a co-bill singer/songwriter, and it was great to see them in action.

From here, I flew home for a couple of days, voted, and had an election night party at our house.  Great to be home, great to see friends.  Thanks to the lovely Kim for setting that up.  I didn't feel like blogging much while I was home, so now I've got some catching up to do.  I'm actually waiting for a flight from Portland OR to San Francisco CA, and taking advantage of the free wifi in the airport.  I guess I'm cheap, but paying $10 a night at the hotels for internet is not my cup of tea.

More later, on travels in Portland, Eugene, and San Francisco.  

Baltimore MD

Last night's show was in Baltimore, at the M&T Bank Pavillion (part of the Hippodrome).  It's a ballroom with a four-story tall ceiling.  They've treated the walls, but still it's a big boomy echo chamber.  They've mostly used this space for weddings and parties, and they wanted to try a club type act (and we were their guinea pigs).  The turnout was not great, but ones who came were appreciative.  PA and monitors were Mackie SRM450's, with a couple of Mackie subs.  Everything run from a Yamaha DM2000.  It was hard to keep the sock monkey from climbing the mic stand, if you know what I mean.