Well, just wrapped up a month-long US club tour with a young band called Boyce Avenue from FL.
As to the venues, this was a tough tour for me since I haven't done a van/trailer/small club tour in years. Guess I've been spoiled with larger clubs/theaters and buses. We had lots of breakdowns with the van and trailer and rolled up to Fitzgerald's in Houston (downstairs room btw) with the van on a flatbed tow truck and the trailer hitched behind. That was after:
Blowing a trailer tire the 1st day out.
Losing power after overheating in Utah causing us to lose brakes and steering going downhill... thank God for emergency brakes on both vehicles.
Blowing the brake controller for the trailer and upon having that repaired we discovered the trailers axles were on backwards (!).
Breaking a leaf spring on the suspension.
Lastly, we simply stalled on our way to Houston due to the gas tank somehow getting warped (??!?!?) and a malfunctioning fuel pump.
Some of the venues gave me similar headaches. Some were just plain skanky, others couldn't meet a standard rider on a good day. How the contracts were signed between booking agent and promoter I'll never know. Probably good for my chops as I was given minimal gear and terrible acoustics on many occasions. I got lots of "Best I've ever heard this room" comments from a lot of fans and house guys. That makes it worth it. A few observations from some of the more memorable shows:
1011, San Antonio
Yammy MG-something or other... I hated it. Mounted next to the stage! Small, awful little club. We were supposed to play @ Rock Bottom (didn't look much better) but the promoter had some issues...
JBL speakers...
Dallas HOB, Cambridge Room
Yammy M7CL...meh. I would like these consoles a bit more if the touchscreen worked without me having to hit it at least twice for everything. Not a fan of the way you tweak the graphics either... a few freqs at a time. I'd much rather have a Digidesign.
EV powered boxes 4 across, 4 subs stacked two per side. This room would work ALOT better if the subs were laid flat across the floor under the stage. Hint, hint. Sonic Youth played the main room that night and we got to see a bit of their set and hang afterwards. AWESOME!
Martini Ranch, Scottsdale
A&H GL2400
EAW boxes.
Great room with cool people. A nice, loud rock club.
HOB San Diego - 5th Ave Side Stage
A&H GL-something
JBL EONs on sticks with one 12” sub. Lame.
Knitting Factory, Los Angeles
A&H GL-something?
? PA. Meh.
Lousy load in. Decent enough room though. Crowd loved it.
Hotel Utah, San Francisco
Total joke. Mackie 8 ch rack mixer onstage!
Yorkville/EV boxes. Smallest stage EVER! No green room, no amenities whatsoever.
Kilby Court, SLC Utah
A&H PA28
EV rig, 1 sub, Crown Xti amps. This is literally a garage, bare studs, concrete floor and all. Not the worst venue of the tour though...sadly.
Soiled Dove, Denver
APB Dynasonics console. Nice!
Homemade cabinets, McCauley subs. Nice room with cool people. Odd layout but very workable.
Beat Kitchen, Chicago
A&H GL-something
? PA. Good people and a decent sounding rig. Great food!
Bowery Ballroom, NYC
Yammy PM3K FOH
EAW rig from the old days. Venerable NYC rock-n-roll venue. Nice size and sound.
World Café Live, Philly
Midas Venice
Clair boxes, Bag End dual 12” subs. No way we should have been booked here. An acoustic gig would have been ok but not a full-on band.
Stephen Talkhouse, Long Island
Midas Verona - cool!
??? Boxes, huge subs. Odd room but fun, and lots of hot, nude girls on the walls in the back room and bathroom.
Café 939, Boston
Yammy M7CL
Meyer subs and single line array components. Great staff (Berklee alumni) and a decent sounding rig.
Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
A&H GL2200
JBL 918s (?) on top, SRX728 subs. Not as bad as I was lead to believe... made it work.
Local 506, Chapel Hill
A&H GL2200
??? JBL rig. Teeny room with lousy rig and acoustics... First gig of the tour... off to an interesting start.
I figure by now I'm an expert A&H user. Boy, do I miss mixing on Profiles. :)
Touring with Boyce Avenue
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More from the road with Ryan Star!
Well, it's been a while since I've blogged. Things have been pretty busy on the road and since I've also taken over TMing it's been even crazier. As many of you likely already know, David's brother died while we were out on the road. Very sad situation as he had been battling brain cancer for many years. I have to hand it to David, he handled it very well and only canceled one show.
So, from what I remember, here goes from most recent to oldest:
Corpus Christi, TX - Beach Jam '09
Radio station show at the beach. Had to drive 27 hours straight through from OH to make it in time. That SUCKED. Since we made it alive it's now time to go barefoot and try to tan my shockingly white body. Home-made (by Willie Mellon) boxes that actually sounded really good.
Soundcraft 200SR at FOH and monitors. Since I've been on a Profile for many months now it was a drastic change back to analog world of inserts and patch cords. Sounded great!
Midland Theater, Newark OH
Nice old theater. FOH was stuck under a balcony... again. Ugh. At least we have a tablet controlling the Profile and XTA so we can get out into the audience and mix from there perspective. Lemme tell ya that capability has made a huge difference in the way I mix since I can be confident when I go back to FOH that things are ok out front. I think the rig was an E/V line array, sounded decent enough.
Had a few other shows that were great but not really anything special.
Toad's Place, New Haven CT
Now this was a venue I was looking forward to. I went to shows there when I was a kid since they had tons of cool artists come through. Talking Heads, Blondie, etc. Lots of cool new wave bands from the 80s.
Ancient old mono PA original from the 70s when the place was built. Wow, still sounded pretty pumpin'. The dressing rooms and hospitality areas are skanky but I don't expect much from a rock club in that category. So glad we carry our own console, I didn't even want to peek under the dust cover of the house rig. The house lighting guy, I forget his name, was simply amazing. He seemed to know the songs and cues even though I'm pretty sure he never heard them before.
Skirball Center, NYU, NYC
Ah, a show on the home turf. The best thing about shows in NYC is the good food abundantly available within a few blocks of pretty much anywhere.
Decent MILO sound rig but not nearly enough of it. We really needed 2X more subs and perhaps 2-3X more boxes on top. Oh well, we made the best of it.
Ollie's Point, Long Island, NY
A decent rock club run by a cool guy I've known a while. Not a bad rig out front but their monitor rig needs some work, even though they swear by it. Soundcheck was rough and the show was rough on the band but I was ok out front. Good thing it was one of our 'hybrid' shows wherein we played mostly acoustic but with a few accents from an electric guitar and keys. Despite being barely able to hear anything on stage Ryan killed it.
There were many others that I simply can't remember the details of. Usually the pictures will help so once I upload some maybe I'll post an update. I'm expecting to go back out and do more shows with Ryan soon so more to come!
So, from what I remember, here goes from most recent to oldest:
Corpus Christi, TX - Beach Jam '09
Radio station show at the beach. Had to drive 27 hours straight through from OH to make it in time. That SUCKED. Since we made it alive it's now time to go barefoot and try to tan my shockingly white body. Home-made (by Willie Mellon) boxes that actually sounded really good.
Soundcraft 200SR at FOH and monitors. Since I've been on a Profile for many months now it was a drastic change back to analog world of inserts and patch cords. Sounded great!
Midland Theater, Newark OH
Nice old theater. FOH was stuck under a balcony... again. Ugh. At least we have a tablet controlling the Profile and XTA so we can get out into the audience and mix from there perspective. Lemme tell ya that capability has made a huge difference in the way I mix since I can be confident when I go back to FOH that things are ok out front. I think the rig was an E/V line array, sounded decent enough.
Had a few other shows that were great but not really anything special.
Toad's Place, New Haven CT
Now this was a venue I was looking forward to. I went to shows there when I was a kid since they had tons of cool artists come through. Talking Heads, Blondie, etc. Lots of cool new wave bands from the 80s.
Ancient old mono PA original from the 70s when the place was built. Wow, still sounded pretty pumpin'. The dressing rooms and hospitality areas are skanky but I don't expect much from a rock club in that category. So glad we carry our own console, I didn't even want to peek under the dust cover of the house rig. The house lighting guy, I forget his name, was simply amazing. He seemed to know the songs and cues even though I'm pretty sure he never heard them before.
Skirball Center, NYU, NYC
Ah, a show on the home turf. The best thing about shows in NYC is the good food abundantly available within a few blocks of pretty much anywhere.
Decent MILO sound rig but not nearly enough of it. We really needed 2X more subs and perhaps 2-3X more boxes on top. Oh well, we made the best of it.
Ollie's Point, Long Island, NY
A decent rock club run by a cool guy I've known a while. Not a bad rig out front but their monitor rig needs some work, even though they swear by it. Soundcheck was rough and the show was rough on the band but I was ok out front. Good thing it was one of our 'hybrid' shows wherein we played mostly acoustic but with a few accents from an electric guitar and keys. Despite being barely able to hear anything on stage Ryan killed it.
There were many others that I simply can't remember the details of. Usually the pictures will help so once I upload some maybe I'll post an update. I'm expecting to go back out and do more shows with Ryan soon so more to come!
Ah... a real venue...
Ok, it's only a gym but it's huge and we had a tremendous sound system to play with. This was a pleasant change from the previous and two subsequent shows. We played the PAWS lounge in Towson, MD and the Uptown nightclub at Bucknell, both tiny venues with only a few hundred people. Oh well...
More big shows to come.
More big shows to come.
Sinkholes, traffic, delays...
The last few shows have been somewhat rough due to sinkholes appearing on route 295 outside Delaware heading into NJ. Traffic backed up for MILES... that sucked. Almost didn't make the show. No soundcheck, barely a line check... no problem. Played in a gymnasium last night. Boomy, bassy madness. What fun. We made the best of it. As long as the audience digs it we're cool.
More with Ryan Star...
Just a short update from the road. We just did a free show for students at a college in Selinsgrove, PA. Tonight we're at Penn State in York, PA and the theater is a really great one. Whoever designed this place took the time to do it right and make things just that much better. Nice backstage area with big dressing rooms and nice bathrooms with clean showers. You appreciate these things when touring in a van. BTW, if you haven't heard about the "Cow Incident" from the 1st night's show that I was on you need to check out Ryan's blog here:
http://www.rstar.net/
Too funny!
http://www.rstar.net/
Too funny!
Out with Ryan Star & David Cook
So, I got a call on Tuesday asking if I would be into going out to mix for Ryan Star who's on tour opening for David Cook. Here's how it went:
"Hey Void, you want to go out and mix for Ryan on a college tour with David Cook?"
Me: "Sounds cool... when do I leave?"
"Uh... You'll maybe meet up with them next week."
Me: "Ok, send me the details and hook me up with the tour manager... blah, blah, blah..."
On Wednesday I get a call from the manager who proceeds to tell me they'd really appreciate it if I could go out immediately, like Thursday. That's tomorrow. Wow, nothing like a little lead time! NOT! So, I tell my wife I'm heading out tomorrow and plan on waking up early Thursday to do laundry and pack up. Woo hoo.
First show went well after being thrown into the fire. The band and crew are all awesome. Second show at Borgata (the 1st of 2 nights) went really awesome and we're all looking forward to kicking it tonight. Hope to see you there!
"Hey Void, you want to go out and mix for Ryan on a college tour with David Cook?"
Me: "Sounds cool... when do I leave?"
"Uh... You'll maybe meet up with them next week."
Me: "Ok, send me the details and hook me up with the tour manager... blah, blah, blah..."
On Wednesday I get a call from the manager who proceeds to tell me they'd really appreciate it if I could go out immediately, like Thursday. That's tomorrow. Wow, nothing like a little lead time! NOT! So, I tell my wife I'm heading out tomorrow and plan on waking up early Thursday to do laundry and pack up. Woo hoo.
First show went well after being thrown into the fire. The band and crew are all awesome. Second show at Borgata (the 1st of 2 nights) went really awesome and we're all looking forward to kicking it tonight. Hope to see you there!
Accepting New Artists!
I have a new arrangement with Push Play that allows me more time to work with other artists. So if you're in a band looking for a producer/engineer reach out and say hello. I'm available to produce, record, mix (studio or live)... whatever is required.
NY Islanders
Played at the NY Islanders Kids Day. Check this out: we performed on a platform that was lowered from the rafters onto the ice, we got on and then it was lifted about 20 feet off the ice for the show. It was then brought back down for us to get off of it. We played 3 sets like that. Pretty fun stuff, especially for me, the huge hockey fan. We of course got to watch the game but it was an embarrassing 7-1 loss to the Sabers.
9/27 Miley Cyrus, MGM Grand
Just thought I'd share my experience from last night. We opened for Miley Cyrus at the new MGM Grand/Foxwoods resort. I am up at Foxwoods often but this was the first time I got into the MGM. It's beautiful and the rooms are very, very nice. The staff are beyond reproach, all terrific people. The band played an awesome though short set.
Sound guy stuff:
The sound system is awesome. D&B Audiotechnik Q series array with plenty of subs with the D12s... sweet. Dolby Lake processing... sweet. Digidesign Profile at FOH with a Venue at monitors... sweet. A fun night was had by all and it sounded... sweet.
Sound guy stuff:
The sound system is awesome. D&B Audiotechnik Q series array with plenty of subs with the D12s... sweet. Dolby Lake processing... sweet. Digidesign Profile at FOH with a Venue at monitors... sweet. A fun night was had by all and it sounded... sweet.
9/14 Recher Theater, MD
Played a show at Recher Theater in MD last night. Cool place I've been to before. Nice sounding rig and a good sized room. The boys played a great, tight set. They just keep getting better!
