Next up on the agenda, mixing the Relentless 7 on an upcoming California club tour. Back to the small clubs, it’s been almost over a year now since I’ve mixed on anything besides a Digidesign Profile, and now back to the humble beginnings of dusty consoles in dusty small clubs.
To see the dates check out the ‘Upcomming Shows’ page here on the blog, and also check out the bands web site – www.Relentless7.com
Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin get an introduction to the Relentless 7, a new group with Jesse, Jason, Jordan, and Ben Harper, as they joined the Get Out and Vote tour for four shows encouraging people to, you guessed it, get out and vote. Not necessarily for one candidate or the other, just to get out and vote, or as Ben put it “to give you the right to complain.”
In the live sound department, the Sheryl Crow tour basically turned into this tour, so I was mixing on their Clair provided Digidesign Profile, and Sheryls monitor engineer took care of us on a Digidesign Venue. Stacks and racks were “locally” supplied with Eighthday providing a V-dosc rig for the Ohio shows, and Audio Visions providing a Vertec rig for St. Paul and Milwaukee. And while all went well, all I can say is arenas are absolutely horrid rooms to mix a live show in (and waves plug-ins seem to take a really long time to load.)
It seems the plan worked, people voted.
Buy! Consume! Trash! Buy! Consume! Trash!
I find an apartment for rent and like what I find quite a bit, now we just pray for hot water. Gots me a balcony, and a fireplace, and some of them there hard wood floors, made of wood and all, and its hard, though I also gots me a bit of carpet to cover up certain sections of the hard wood floor. I thought I was all cool getting these low wattage lights, and then I hear that it takes more energy to make them and dispose of them properly thereby voiding out their current environmental friendliness…. hrmpf.
So I’ve moved in, unpacked a couple of things, and then off on the road again with Ben Harper. There is still a bit of furniture I need to ascertain upon my return to home at the end of the tour. Sofa, Dinning Table and Chairs, Desk, that’s my mantra, and some renters insurance, and a phone line, and DSL, and Electric, and door entry program set up thingy, and frame posters, and, and, and….
First Snow! Yea! My first warning was this, a good indicator of the weather patterns in Colorado.
Awoke on sunday to a couple of inches of snow as predicted, some sun latter that day but still cold, chilly on monday, and all the snow gone and warm on tue. There’s those seasons I was missing.
I’m “home” from a great first leg of a US tour with Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. Playing fancy theaters across the country including the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Radio City Music Hall, the Chicago Theater, and 2 nights at Massey Hall in Toronto as seen in the picture. The PA was supplied by Rat Sound and I had a L’Acoustics Kudos rig with Arc and dv-Dosc front fills and Rat subs. At FOH I was using a Digidesign Venue, and on the next run I’ll be taking out the Digidesign Profile for a nice compact FOH package.
But before we go out on the next leg of tour, through the southern states and then up (and down) the west coast, I need to find myself a real home here in Denver. I was in the middle of searching for a place before I joined the tour, and now have just under 3 weeks to find/confirm/move into my new place. In the next couple of days I’ll be looking at some that might be it. I’m itching to get setteled in, but not necessarily enjoying the search. Their are many places available in my budget, but being the picky person I am I still think I’ll find a needle in the haystack. Wish me luck!
I hope to have more pictures up on the site soon. A gallery page is in progress, and I should have some pictures up of my trip out here to Denver to start, and then some pictures from the tour (though there are many great pictures of the tour available for viewing at BenHarper.net). Till then…
The return of the blog! Thanks to a good friend, and a friend of his, the old G3 has found a new home and is back connected to das intervebin for more blogging fun! While there is much catching up to do in the blog department, just a bit today on the drive to Denver, and more to come in the near future!
Farewell to the fond and totally ready to crumble in the next earthquake home in San Francisco. Early morning I grab the 10ft box truck and with the help of some good friends it’s packed in no time and I’m ready to hit the road for my 3 day trip to Denver. A sad farewell to Katie, Kelly, Kevin, Mark and Jason and I’m on my way. On my way into traffic that is, as San Francisco tries to hold on to me. Good time to chill and check out the skyline for one, well, not last, but one more time. Honking my horn as I pass another friends house, and then then past the Maritime Hell, oh, excuse me, Maritime Hall, and then over the bay bridge to Berkley like my old commute to the Berkley Square.
From there onwards the bear and I had a pretty smooth ride. Up past Sacramento and up to and over Lake Tahoe, down into Reno, and finally into Winnemucca for a nights rest at the ever so cheap and simple Motel 6. Luckily they left the light on for me. 😉 Oh yea, and the first rainbow of the trip, a good omen hopefully.
Next day more wild wild west travels down to and through the winter white salt flats of Utah, and more good omens from rainbow #2. Another stop for the night, this time in Rock Springs, WY. Note to self (cause I didn’t seem to remember this from the last couple of times doing this drive), don’t bother stopping at the Little America off of 80, it’s just not worth it.
Finally I take a turn and head south down I-25 into Colorado and eventually off in the distance the city appears and I return home, Hooray! My stuff goes into storage and I stay with a good friend as I hit the streets and look for a home. Searching around Denver there are tons of places available, but as I go looking about in person nothing catches my eye. Then on my good friends b-day I get a call for possible work, and all of a sudden my home search is put on hold. A couple of days of waiting and I’m confirmed for the tour and hired to mix house sound for Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals in fancy theaters across the US.
Shortly thereafter I head out to Burbank for rehearsals, back to my temp home in Denver for a day, and then conveniently I get to meet the bus a block away from where I’m staying to start the tour, with an in-store performance at Twist and Shout in Denver.
I hope to have some pictures from the trip and from the tour up soon. I was working on sticking photos in this post, but things were being odd and slow, so I’m now looking into some other methods of posting and it’s looking like there will be some sort of photo gallery system added to the blog soon. Till then, my schedule is on my work page and hopefully there will be more posts to come soon.
“You’d like to do it instantaneously, but that’s too slow.”
While a place has yet to be found for a new home in Denver, I’ve reserved the truck and hotels for the trip, and there by committed myself to the journey to Denver leaving San Francisco on August 2nd, and arriving in Denver on the 4th. Upon arrival, if lucky I’ll be moving into a new place, but more likely I’ll be storing my stuff with a good friend, and the search will continue.
Funny bits looking for apartments –
– “1 bedroom studio for rent!” – ummmm, is it a 1 bedroom? or a studio, and your just reminding us that a studio is just one room, and if you feel sad about living in a box, you can call it a 1 bedroom studio, and it sounds more impressive?
– “Cute/Cozy studio for rent!” – used quite a lot in descriptions of places, read “small”, it’s not fuzzy and it doesn’t have big weepy eyes like a puppy, or baby cute. It’s not cozy like a warm blanket. It’s small, like a box that is a studio.
– “$575 studios available!” – yes, I’m calling about the studio you have for rent per your advert on craigslist posted today – ooo, that place is sold, but we have 1 bedrooms you would like so much better for $700! – umm, no, I’m calling about your add, not your bait and switch project I just wasted cell phone minutes on…..
– adds that don’t put the address or even part of town its in, so let me get this straight, and you want me to waste my time calling you to find that out…
But for real the search doesn’t look too bad, there are a lot of places available in my price range, just a matter of sorting out the good and the bad. And on that note, back to work I go.
– By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you. –
After about 12 years of living in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s now finally time to get moving on to Denver, Colorado (or back to Denver, as I used to live in the Boulder/Denver area from about 1st grade till 10th grade, and a summer or too in college).
I first ventured out to the bay area in the hope of a cool place to live and the possibility of finding work in the studio or live sound. After finishing at SUNY Fredonia, my main choices for places to go with a good chance of finding work were New York City, Nashville, and Los Angeles. Not wanting to live in any of these places, and with the recommendation of a friend in Fredonia, I chose to head out to San Francisco. First moving in with a friend of mine in Oakland, then in with some friends of my fathers in Fairfax, and then in with the Family Lopez Circus on Steiner St. in San Francisco. I have met many great friends out here, many fellow Fredionia alumni, and it will be tough to move far away from everyone I’ve come to know and love here, but in this year of many changes, the time has come for yet another and a change of location. I could write gigabytes on all the great people and events that are are my history here in the San Francisco bay area.
Why has it finally come time to move on? Well, I’ve been in this flat since about 1996, a bit more than ten years, and while the rent is cheap, there is a reason, as the rooms are small, and the place is pretty old and beaten up. It’s had Lopez Family Circus in it since 1992 or so, and that will certainly take it’s toll. While the Steiner street flat is rich in lore, it is time to move into a nicer place. While this could be accomplished here in SF, it’s a bit out of my budget. I’ve always lived with roommates since I left home 15+ years ago, and while I have lived with all good people, no crazy hassles or anything throughout the years, I’m now wanting to get a place of my own. Moving to Denver, or somewhere in up-state or Western NY has always been in the back of my mind. I always knew I wasn’t going to stay in SF forever, and always had a dream of moving to one of the two states eventually, with some of the delay in moving from deciding which of the two. Denver always had a bit of a lead over NY state, though with friends and family in both states it was tough to choose. With my fathers recent passing, change seems to encourage more change. I’ve been taking a lot of time off, so that has given me time to think about life in general, and where it’s going and what I want to do with, and with all that is has come time to try out that pesky dream in the back of my head. I’ve been getting work offers for various tours, but nothing that jumped out at me to take, or more so pull me away from moving, so there is a convenient break in my schedule to do a move.
Why Denver? well, most folks reading this blog would already know, but here goes (in no particular order and very spontaneously)
– I used to live there, grew up there, liked it when I was there, simple enough.
– My mom and brother and sister are out there along with friends I grew up with.
– I miss the seasons, not that seasons are completely non-existent in the bay area, but the variance is no where near as large. Sounds a bit odd, but I miss those “marks of time passing†in a much more obvious way. I’m ready to take the bitter cold and snow, along with the burning hot, and all in-between in exchange for the a bit cold to slightly warm and rare extremes of the middle of San Francisco.
– I really like the mountains, the ocean is cool, but the mountains more my thing.
– Yards, I miss yards, and that bit of grass inbetween the sidewalk and the street, with trees in these bits of yard, as compared to cement, and more cement, with the occasional square bit of dirt with a tree coming out of it. I’m not putting San Francisco down, it’s in the top 5 cites in US in my book, but I’m liking something different.
– It is in the middle of the US per se. Since I’ve been doing mostly touring work, and haven’t had or needed a steady house gig, it doesn’t really matter where I live, long as I can get to an airport (though I’ll definitly look into the possibility of working the Fillmore, Ogden, or Gothic, possibly even the Bluebird though there SPL limit due to neighbors complaints is a bit annoying to deal with). And there’s a downside in Denver, the airport, I’m not particularly fond of it. I could easily see the chances of a flight of mine being delayed due to weather or such is probably a bit higher at SFO certain times of the year. And any airport designer that needs to put in some form of transportation in their airport design, to get you to and from your plane, such as buses or trains, needs to go back to airport design school and try again.
– Denver is affordable to me, I may be touring with the stars, but in now way does that mean I’m rollin in the dough, and in my searching, it’s definilty cheaper to rent a one bedroom or studio of decent quality in Denver that in San Francisco.
And speaking of searching for a place to live, that’s numero uno at the moment, as I hope to be in my new home no latter then mid August, so I better get back to working on finding a place!
Nothing endures but change.
— Heraclitus
Audiosquid 
