Move to Denver / Return of the Blog

Posted by audiosquid on September 9, 2007
Posted in: compy, life. Leave a comment

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.

Off into the unknown

Posted by audiosquid on July 27, 2007
Posted in: life. Leave a comment

 

“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.

 

Moving On

Posted by audiosquid on July 20, 2007
Posted in: life. Leave a comment

– 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

Life goes on?

Posted by audiosquid on July 2, 2007
Posted in: live sound, music. Leave a comment

Life goes on I guess, looking at it all through a reflection in a lamp at the Dour Fir in Portland, Or.
A short tour with the group Hot Chip, 6 shows in 7 days, starting in Portland, down the coast, across the country to Bonnaroo, and then back the other way for what was a heavy dance show in Lawrence, KS, and our final show in Denver, Co. Amazing that these Soundcraft Series IV’s are still going out here.


Kraftverk style the band is a line across the front of the stage of keyboard fun.

The extra great bit about these guys is that they actually play all the bits, rather than a computer somewhere playing back some tracks. Bonnaroo was well run this year, at least our stage, festivals are always a bit of a mess but it all worked out well. Sadly I sent a couple of Meyer subs into thermal protection, but with only 3 each side and a low end heavy mix, what else can ya do? All was good, that’s what the protection was for, and I was actually quite impressed with the low end coming out of the Milo’s above when the subs stopped working for a bit. On the funny end of things, as the band leaves the stage well before there set time is up, at front of house, knowing there is lots of time left, I expect that they will come back out for an encore if asked for, and sure enough it’s asked for. On the flip side of the coin, the local monitor system tech, thinking our show is over, recalls the generic zeroed setting for the PM-5D in monitor world, and sadly, our monitor engineer had not saved his settings, so the band comes back up on the stage, and all the monitor mixes are gone. Bravely the band carries on, and with no monitors on stage, I suddenly notice that my mix is clear as a bell, and the vocals are quite easy to get where I want them to be. I guess the monitors and the slap off the tent roof were effecting my quite a bit. So while the band and our monitor engineer were having a bit of a difficult time, I was having the time of my life. As the second song of the encore rolls around, my vocals suddenly have a “blur” effect on them, which I take as an indication that now the monitors are working again.
The Tour finishes in Denver, and I say goodbye to the band the next morning as they head off to the UK, to return home for a bit, and then play the Glastonbury festival. I stay in town for a bit to visit family and friends, and a bit of light work on my next project……..

Patrick Michael Shaw – Loving father, son, brother, friend

Posted by audiosquid on May 7, 2007
Posted in: family. Leave a comment


OLEAN, NY – Patrick M. Shaw of 332 N. 8th St. died Monday May 7th, 2007 at home following a heart attack. Born August 18th, 1948 in Olean, he was the son of Donald R. and Beatrice “Betty” Gaino Shaw.
Mr. Shaw was a graduate of Archbishop Walsh High School, class of 1966, and was employed at Dresser-Rand Co.

He was a member of St. Mary of the Angels Church, the Friends of Good Music, the Pine Acres Golf Club, and was a past member of Bartlett Country Club and was an Eagle Scout. He also enjoyed playing softball (Don’s, Kamerys, B&N Tropies to name a few) and was an avid bridge player who achieved Life Master status in 2003.

Surviving are his mother of Olean, his son, James A Shaw of San Francisco, Ca; two brothers, Michael F (Susan) Shaw of Savannah, GA, and Mark D (Judy) Shaw of Olean; a sister, Mary L Henning of Olean, and several nieces, nephews, and cousins.

He was predeceased by his father on June 19, 2006.

Viewing and scripture wake service were held at Guenther Funeral Home on May 9th and 10th, and a Mass of Christian Burial was held at St. Mary of the Angels church with Father Gregory Dobson as celebrant.

Memorials may be made to the American Heart Association, the Special Olympics, or St. Mary of the Angels Church.

Coachella Festival

Posted by audiosquid on April 12, 2007
Posted in: live sound, music. Leave a comment

Coming up next in the “touring” schedule, the Coachella Festival in Indio, Ca. About 2.5 hours east of Los Angeles. I’ll be there with Peaches, as we play on the tba stage. PA will be provided by Rat Sound. Looks like I will have a Heritage 3000 at FOH with a V-Dosc rig. If it’s not too windy it should be fun. There are also 2 Heritage’s at FOH, so I’m thinking I will have time to set myself up on one while the previous band is playing through the other. That will make for a much less stressful change over. On stage, our monitor engineer Adam gets to work on a Yamaha PM5D, of which there are also 2. This will probably be the last show with Peaches and Herms for awhile as her touring schedule winds down.

My G4 Powerbook gets fixed

Posted by audiosquid on April 4, 2007
Posted in: compy. Leave a comment

Finally I take my G4 powerbook to the apple store here in San Francisco to get fixed, hopefully for free with applecare. Last August the powerbooks’ screen started flickering in and out. If I moved the screen a small bit I could get it to stop. It was acting like there was a loose connection somewhere… As this started I had to head off to London for a tour of the EU. Upon arrival at the hotel in London I came upon two very sad realizations. One, that I have seemed to have left my cell phone in the taxi, and two, only the top half of the screen will show me anything. This is very sad indeed. With no time in the UK to take care of it I’m off to Reading and Leeds festivals. Then we went to Berlin, where luckily we had a bit more than a weeks time for me to work on it.

First I tried calling applecare, I found numbers in the EU, but was having some translation issues. Then I tried calling applecare US with skype, but found myself on hold for hours on end. Searching around on the web to find local applecare approved repair does not look to promising. And during working on all this I’m using the bands computer to make the calls, and continue on advancing shows and whatnot, booting via target disk mode, so everything is as I expect and I don’t mess with the bands computer too much.

Eventually I decide that I’m just going to have to get a new computer and work on fixing this one latter. Keyboards are a bit different in the EU, a bit too different than I liked, so I had my friends at Powermax in Portland Oregon ship me one of the first macbookpro’s. On with a long tour with the intel as the not pro macbook (amateur?) sat on the bus. Using the intel I lost the gumption to take care of getting the other one fixed, as I didn’t have an immediate need for it and the applecare was still good for a couple of years. Finally with time to spare I make an appointment with the genius bar at the apple store here in San Francisco…

After about a 15 minute wait I show my G4 to a genius, the problem was pretty obvious, and he tells me it needs to be sent in and here sign this and here’s your tracking number and off I go. This was on Friday.

Wednesday the computer shows up at my house, and has been fixed, covered by applecare! Boots up and works just fine. There wasn’t much info in the box on what they did, seems they replaced the screen (though not the outer shell as all my stickers were still there). They also took out half of my memory, a 512k chip, which was in a plastic bag and sent back with the computer. When I bought the computer from Powermax I had them beef it up to 1Gb of RAM, and they basically put in a 512 chip. When apple repaired the screen they took this chip out, and the documentation seemed to suggest that this “3rd party part” was either causing the issue or was not passing their diagnostic test in general. It’s really easy to install memory on the powerbook G4, four screws, off comes a plate, and there you are. So I put the memory back in, and all seems to be fine. I’ll have to do some other tests and talk to Powermax about it, but at the time I’m guessing it’s something they have to do legally for some reason, since they didn’t put it in (though I purchased it that way).

Now I just need to figure out what to do with it, as now I have 3 computers. The original G3 powerbook which is serving this blog, the G4 powerbook that I just got fixed, and the intel macbookpro that I now do all my work on. I could see using the two live if I feel like carrying two around, one for work work, and the other at FOH to play music and record and/or analyze the show, or maybe as an effect box…..

New Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau Recording

Posted by audiosquid on March 28, 2007
Posted in: music. Leave a comment

I bought the new album by Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, or I guess to be more specific the Metheny Mahldau Quartet. Not bad, but nothing that grabbed me right off the bat. There are some sound issues on the second track, the sound of the low bass strings on Pat’s 42 stringed guitar sounding a bit… amateur, not his playing, but that DI’d in your face farting string buzzing sound is a bit… amateur. I think I like the previous album that Pat and Brad worked on a bit better than this one, but I’m not disappointed I got it.

I still buy CD’s, and very rarely download music. Nothing wrong with the download thing, I just like to have the highest quality version I can get if I’m going to spend money on it. I am picky like that being a sound engineer. I also like having the package, the collection, and my own “master copy”. If I really like the music on the disk I’ll end up importing it into itunes, many times as an mp3 at 192k or so, which on close examination sounds inferior to the original, but for casual listening that fine, and I have the CD if I really want to get into it. And if my hard drive holding this music goes boom, I have my “master copy” to go back to.

Like many other live sound engineers these day I’m using computer file playback (or ipod for some) instead of a CD to listen to refrence material on a sound system, when I import music I’m going to use for refrence into itunes, a either import as a aiff at 16bit 44.1k (which should be an exact copy), or with apples lossless encoder. I have heard rumors engineers out their using an ipod with 128k mp3’s to listen to their reference over a pa. For walk in, sure, for reference?

In other music news, as you might see on the sidebar to the left, I’ve figured out how to add a couple of iteresting things into the blog. The first being the top 10 artists I have been listening to, via last.fm. You can click on the list if you want to find out more.

I’ve also added the box showing my google reader sharred RSS’s. RSS’s….. lots of s going on there. This is a list of RSS items I have come across that you might find interesting, if you find things that I find interesting, interesting. Basically, your bored, on the web, reading my posts, what to do next? Well, click on these and watch the time fly by…

And finally, so you can always know the current status of our nation, for your convience I have also included the terriost allert level, or whatever, brought to you be aqua teen hunger force.

Now was that some mind blogaling blogging or what??