Another tour with eX-Girl from Japan on the record books. This time a short trip down the west coast of the US. Seems it’s near impossible to rent a 15 passenger van in San Francisco now. There is Bandago, but the insurance options made that more expensive than renting two mini-vans. So Brendan and I grab a van in SF and head up to Seattle. Next day in Seattle we grab another van, pick up the girls at the airport, and head off to the first show, supporting Quasi at Neumo’s in Seattle. The band surprises me with a last minute request to take care of some video projection for the intro. They have the intro on DVD, but upon closer inspection to the DVD player they brought to play the disc on, we find that it’s really a VCR. DOH! Luckily my mac has a DVD player and an s-video out, so after a quick trip out to buy a cable, we are good to go.

The next day a short drive to Olympia for a show at a small bar called the China Clipper. Not a well attended show, but it was Easter Sunday. None the less they put on a good show and I have some fun projection some screen savers and whatnot during the show.

Another short drive the next day to Portland for a show at Lola’s Room, which is right below the Crystal Ballroom. Here I find a little Midas Venice, and learn that you really need to make sure the projector is high enough to get over everyones head…

Then we had a couple of days to make our way to San Francisco, so on the way we made some stops around Mt. Shasta is the girls could reconnect with the God Mountain.

Right before we finished the trip to San Francisco we made a stop at the Marine Headlands, where they could get a great view of the city, a trip to the beach, and a look at some old WWII bunkers.

An evening off in San Francisco to rest from the past two days drive, and we play yet another show at the Bottom of the Hill where the Allen and Heath is still kicking, though I’m not sure the eq’s actually do anything…

The next day we drive down to Hollywood, and with not too much traffic to deal with we find our way to the in-famous Hollywood Motel 6. Not all that bad really… Next day we make our way to Spaceland for the last show of the tour. Ken Samurai opens the show with his movie inspired comedy act

The next day is off in LA as I hang with fellow Tön Meister, college class mate, and now grammy winner Greg Collins (congrats to him on his work on U2’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”). Early early early the next morning we take everyone to the airport for their trip back to Japan, return one rental van, and then Brendan and I make our way back to San Francisco, and with little traffic we have a smooth 6 hour trip.

Here’s the view of Tokyo from my hotel room window. At the bottom of the tube shaped building on the left is a Starbucks, and luckily, grande latte is the same in Japanese as it is in English, you just need to add “kudasai” at the end, and your being polite.

The day after we arrived it snowed, which is fairly rare in Tokyo. It’s a game of frogger trying to walk around Tokyo sometimes as there are so many people, and then add umbrellas into the equation and it’s Supper Frogger.

All the venues in Japan are pretty sick. At least if your doing the Club Quattro tour (as most major cities have such a named club.) Places fit from 500 to 800 or so people, the smallest clubs you would play over there as a national touring act. Normally such a tour in the states would have you mixing on some allen and heath or old soundcraft, through a slightly too small PA. But in Japan the S*#t is tight. For example…

The First show at Club Quattro Tokyo – Capacity 700 – 56 channel Midas Heritage 2000 , XTA, Arcs and SB-218’s. There’s even an Allan Smart C-2 comp across L/R to protect the pa, and the Midas desk caddy or whatever they call it tops it all off with a bow.

So they don’t have the traditional snake that other places would have, and all the clubs pretty much have the same set up, the back of FOH wheels out like a huge door and reveals endless patch possibilities. The snake from the stage ends in the XLR “patch bay” below the desk (as well as all outboard) and each show they start fresh and patch things as ever you like.

Here’s the house PA, 3 arcs on top of 3 sb-218’s, for 700 people in a deadish, low ceiling venue, heaven…

Oh what’s that? You say, that looks like 6 Arc’s? But no, to get the pa higher, and look pro doing it…..

They have dummy boxes. (as we see from the rear)

The monitor desk was a 48ch XL-3 and in monitor world there is the same “however you like it” patch bay set up.

We ate so well in Japan, always do really, the promoter takes care of taking everyone out to dinner each night, and it doesn’t get much better, just watch out for the nato (or however they spell it, it’s fermented (read “rotten”) soy beans, ug! And they also eat Horse, which is a bit odd, to each their own.

All the shows are over before 10:00 PM if not earlier, locals crews have your shit packed in no time, and out to dinner you go, and the best place we ate was a place called By the Sea, a more “homey” looking place then many of the other places we went, but the best, best, best food I’ve had in a long time. And just cool as all hell.

From city to city you just hop on the bullet train, nice smooth ride, no hassle with having to go through security and all that jazz, just hop on and off, always on time.

And you even get a good view of Mt. Fuji on the trip from Tokyo to Nagoya.

The last gig in Hiroshima, my second time there. First time there I went to the memorial museum which is quite a heavy experience. Another Heritage 2000 and Arcs and SB-218’s, but this is the newest club quattro and the room was also custom designed for sound. An absolute pleasure to listen to a CD at FOH. You put on your normal stuff like your going to EQ the room, and then you just stand there and listen…… ahhhhhh……..

So there is Tristan Prettyman on stage who I was doing sound for. Never heard of her? Me neither till I started working with her. Singer songwriter sort of stuff. Small drum kit, some percussion, acoustic guitars, and banjo (and, Jesse on Banjo, just a stock fishman pickup, a really nice old banjo, and you know how you normally bring up a banjo and then contemplate where to start EQ’ing it to somehow make it pleasing? Well this was the first time I just brought it up, and things were just about golden, probably never happen again 😉

One last trip through Europe with Mercury Rev. First a couple of shows in Belgium (seems like Belgium really likes Mercury Rev this year), and a show at the Crossing Border festival in Den Haag. Definitely no complaints when ever we get to play Holland.

On the way to Portugal we first make a stop in San Sebastian where we get to be tourists for a bit. As the usual tourist routine goes for me, find a high point, go to the top of, look around. And San Sebastian provided a nice hill with a church on top that provided a great view of the city.

The a long jaunt down to south to Portugal where we find ourselves in a concert hall and I find myself behind an XL-4. It’s just a whole other level with the XL-4. The sound of that desk is just a step above anything else out there.

Next off to spain and a run of shows with the Dirty Three and the Decemberists. First a theater/restaurant in Bilboa, and then the Aqualung Madrid, and then on to Republica in Valencia where I find a Midas XL-2… Who knew such a thing existed? First time I’ve seen one, and the same for everyone else. Seemed like something halfway between an XL-3 and the XL-250. Sounded pretty good. There was a Aero line array here to, and, I don’t know if it was set up wrong, or that just how the thing sounds, but it doesn’t really sound like a line array, sounded different all over the place, could be the room, could be the cheap knock off line array…

Our last gig in Spain is at Razzmatazz 1 in Barcelona where we find a real line array, and my first go on the Kudos. Seems Razzmatazz is looking for a new speaker system for the room, so they are demo-ing a bunch of stuff, and while I was there it was the Kudos turn. There was a very cool tech from L’Acoustics who was there (sorry I’ve forgotten his name). He had the room all programed into SoundVision, down to each individual pillar.

How’s it sound? Pretty good, not quite like the V-Dosc, sort of something inbetween the V-Dosc and the dV-Dosc.

Brand new speaker system and already it’s covered in dust. A dirty business this live sound thing.

Here we a shot looking up from the bottom showing the movable plates, or wings, or whatever you like to call them. I was thinking, with the boxes close to the wall, you might do something like angle the one side in, but as you can see they are in the standard con-fig.. Nothing really too fancy science about this stuff here, pretty basic.

Next we head out to the eastern block. First stop, Croatia, and a club called Aquarius in Zagrev. It was quite cold that day, and the gig was right on a lake, basically sitting in a park. There was a bar at the front that was enclosed, and then the room where the stage was had tent walls basically. It would be really nice in the summer with it all opened up. Sadly, while we were there it was about 30ºF. They had one of those gas powered blowing heaters, but I think they were trying to save money on gas, as they couldn’t or wouldn’t start the thing up. The PA is a bit makeshift. An Allen and Heath at FOH and a Yamaha GA32 at monitors.

Dig the PA. Someone’s rendition of a line array. They actually even flew a couple of feet off the ground, and you know what? It actually didn’t sound too bad, it definitely had some nice qualities to it, though it would only give me so much.

The amazing part about this gig, was the crowd. The place was packed, and it was definitely the most pumped up Mercury Rev crowd we’ve ever had. They sang along to just about all of the songs, including allot off the new album. And this was the bands first visit there. Who knew? Amazing.

As we get ready to leave we get some directions from the promoter on how to get out of the park and make our way out of town. Here we can see me showing these directions. Lets see, round and round in circles, and you will eventually get out.

Next we head off to Belgrade, Serbia for a gig at a place called Dom Omladine. We have to park the bus at the local bus station, and do a cross load. And then at the venue, there are 3 flights of stairs to tackle. Lucky for us, there was a very hard working local crew that made it easy for us. Another amazing crowd in a new place. Seems the eastern block is hungry for some music.

Next we head off to Greece, having to pass through Macedonia on the way. We heard all sorts of horror stories of border crossings, and possible hassles and long waits, but all in all for us everything goes smooth and easy with fairly short waits.

Our first Greek gig is in Thessalonki, at the Mylos club. Last time I was here I think they had a crest time, but this time I find a Midas XL-250, which normally makes me very happy. Sadly, this was not the case today.

I plug my headphones in, go about some other work,put my headphones on, wonder why the left side isn’t working, and then wonder why my left ear is feeling very warm. I get the clue pretty quick, but it’s too late. I pull out a meter, and sure enough, there’s i can’t remember how many volts DC on the one side. The headphone amp is shot. That’s the second time this has happened to me. Luckily I carry a spare pair of headphones for just such an occasion, and a spare headphone amp from the band takes care of the rest.

Since this has happened before (with a Crest) I had a pair of half blown Sony’s, so I took the two half blown pairs and made one good one… Hopefully this doesn’t happen again for awhile.

The next day we head off to Athens, and we have a day off here, so as per the usual tourist routine, I find the nearby high point and make my way to the top of it. This time a large park on a hill behind the hotel. On top I find an amphitheater, a church, and a great view of Athens, including a view of another hill I climbed on a previous tourist adventure on which sits the Acropolis (as you can sort of make out from this picture).

It’s not Greece if everything doesn’t take twice as long as it needs to eh? Oh well. Our cross load finds us enjoying a bumpy truck ride with our gear, and some loader helpers that were probably twice our age.

I hear the Rodon Club doesn’t exist, or has moved, and it doesn’t bother me a bit not to be in that stone hell sounding room again. This time we play Gragarin 205, where there is a wonderful Arc PA with a Midas XL-250. During the check I find a sub with a dust cover that has come off, making a very annoying buzzing noise as it vibrated against the grill with every bass hit. As we “fixed” the sub, I noticed that though the sub boxes looked allot like SB-218’s, I don’t think they were the real thing. Worked fine though.

My second trip to Tel Aviv with Mercury Rev, this time with a show at a recently converted warehouse. Another gig with the Kudos, and my impression of them is still good.

I feel sorry for sound companies here, this was the dustiest Heritage 3000 I’ve ever seen.

The show goes well, and we have another great time in Tel-Aviv.

Back to London for one last show at Shepherds Bush Emprie. They have upgraded to an enormous 52 channel Heritage 3000. Still the odd sounding room with the big EAW 850 rig, and an old dusty patch bay below the desk.

Finally back to the states, and after a short break we have one final “home” show at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock. As there house PA is a bit lame, I had a rig from Firehouse in Red Hook brought in. Nothing too fancy, some EAW 850’s and the new Yamaha mc7 digital desk. I was trying to safe some money and mixing space and the Yamaha did the trick. It’s doesn’t seem all that different than the 5D, sounds the same. Sort of odd that the offline editor for Studio Manager only runs on a PC when the 5D runs on the mac. In a road case the mc-7 is barely smaller than a 5D, so you wouldn’t be saving too much space in trucking…

The show goes well, and we all get to see friends and have a bit of a party to close it all off. Back home to San Francisco I go and on to the next adventure…..