Audiosquid

Back from Canada eh? and “How about a bimonthly new update” Back in upstate New York with the rev after two shows in Canada opening for Oasis. All went as well as could be expected. Solo Tech of Montreal supplied me with an XL-250 for our show at Molson Centre. Thunder Audio supplied a good Nexo rig, though the strangest thing was, in the two isles that were just stage left and stage right there was absolutely no low end. In the center it was power alley as per usual, and way out on the sides there was booty, but down the isles (which happened to be where my mix location was centered, there was nothing. Weird. Good local union crew, and a friendly and helpful Oasis crew.

The Molson theme continued in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheater, this time with an XL-4 (flying faders and all) from Thunder audio. Lot’s o bands, no sound-check, and not one of the better sounding amphitheaters made for a challenging show, but all worked out. Big thanks to Oasis’s Crew and the fine folks at Thunder Audio.

European Summer Festivals – and since I have been a bit lazy in updating nothing was mentioned of trouncing through Europe with the Rev on the festival circuit. Well, in brief, highlights included… a rough start in Germany as expected (though not as bad as expected really)… sabotage? in Holland… fun with Garbage… a show for the thin white duke… a good show at Glastonbury with wonderful assistance from Skan… speakers for days at a rock Werchter… more fun in Holland… a reverberant hell hole in Italy, followed by a Cadac desk (way cool) and a great show with a partially working Turbosound rig… in Italy… Austrian and German fun, including a party at our monitor engineers house with live, well, something are best left unsaid… the Montreaux Jazz Festival… fun with Sonic Youths gear and lots of mud in Ireland… a monstrous tent at T in the park… a return to some clubs in UK… a family picnic at Guildford… and finally, heat and dust, and mixing sideways at a fest on the island of Majorca.

In June we did a short west coast US tour from San Diego to Seattle. Our last stop was at the Showbox in Seattle where they have a wonderfull Gambe and Nexo rig. The board is in great shape and one of the best sounding consoles out there.

Here we see a fine collection of gear supplied to me for our show opening for Garbage at the Zenith in Lille, France by ArtoTech SA. A nexo rig made this a very enjoyable show.

Mercury Rev at the Zenith in Lille, France. Our lighting designer James seems to be having a good time. Thanks to Garbage for letting us make use of it.

We return to London once again for a show at the Royal Festival Hall for David Bowie’s meltdown festival. The in house system consists of a bunch of Meyer and a Yamaha PM-4000. A bit tricky mixing in the hall but things go well.

The Squids point of view at Glastonbury. SSE supplies my favorite desk at FOH, the Midas Heritage 2000. The turbo rig wasn’t half bad either.

We visit a new Italian town for the Arezzo Festival in, you guessed it, Arezzo, Italy. And what do we have here, a brand new Martin line-array and a Cadac at FOH. We even get to do a bit of a sound check during the day, only problem is, in the day light you can’t see the lights on the desk to save your life, so that made things a bit tricky. And what you would do with so many VCA’s and sub-groups/buses I think I’ll never know. But a damn fine sounding desk with a very beautiful layout. I wonder what you could do with the usb ports on the back…..?

You can’t see it in the picture, and you can’t hear it either, but the new Martin line array sounds pretty darn good. A very natural high end, a very flat in your face sort of box. A rep from martin was there, he spoke of trying to design a box that works compared to loads of processing on many line array boxes. Seems they pulled it off pretty well. Sounds much better than any of their old stuff I have mixed on.

Another festival show in Italy, this time in the wonderful town of Bergamo. Been awhile since I’ve mixed on a Europa. Big monster of a desk, but I always liked the soundcrafts having grown up on a delta. And I think we only lost power once during sound check! 😉

Montreux Jazz Festival – Miles Davis Hall – Inside the hall I find a Meyer line array and a Soundcraft Series V. I was thinking there were going to be extreme sound level issues, but with the limit at 100db SPL-A I have no problem. On hand they had the new TC-M6000, and it has to be the coolest effect unit out there. Sounds great and has a remote to die for with a touch screen and flying faders. I could use just one of these for a tour to do it all but at $6000+ it probably wont be happening any time soon.

To finish up this run we find ourselves on the island of Mallorca off of Spain. A beautiful day in the sun, and a dusty night at the show. We open up for Oasis and a find my self mixing sideways with the Xl-3 facing the FOH tent wall. They hadn’t really set up the house mix/lights/video tower to accommodate another desk, so they did what they could.

If the effects rack is right in front of you it does make a convenient stable surface for getting some long exposure pictures.

4/20/02 – Is that the day to be in Amsterdam or what? Great show at the Paradiso, not the greatest sounding room, but a great crew and sound system. Must be nice to live in Amsterdam and work at such a cool venue..

Back to the UK, and after a gig at a Disco in Brighton (which went great none the less), we find our selves in Liverpool. Good to see some friends from Adlib Audio bring in a mighty fine Nexo rig. The Series 4 looks a bit small without it’s meter bridge, but works out great.

We return to the Rodon club in Athens. Though if you saw it written in Greek you might think it was the Podon club. Once again George is there to greet me at front of house. Always good to see familiar faces.

After a battle with the monitors at soundcheck, we settle in, and I thought this show kicked the last show that we played here’s… butt. And a great opportunity for me to get some camera angles from the balcony.

An old and battered Soundcraft Venue, EV MT-4 rig with no where near enough subs, and the audience members that cram onto the staircase.

In the middle of the town of Coimbra, we play this large sort of festival thing. A fantastic PA provided by SoundLights and Crew or Portugal. My first time behind the new JBL line array, and I must say, JBL have finally made a box that sounds decent.

A big thanks to Miguel and all the crew here for a great job.

The month of April found Mercury Rev returning to Europe for a months run of shows supporting the release of their new album “The Dark is Rising”. After a couple of days rehearsal we started the tour in France with a show at L’Ubu in Rennes ( a very small club to get things going) and then a show at La Nef in Angloume.

La Nef is a nice room, good PA and an Amek Recall, though they don’t have a computer to run the recall. The two small racks on the right is what I was carrying with me. The top rack is the bands, and the bottom one was rented from Canegreen.

Next we move on to Italy, and four shows with an Italian band called After Hours. Here we see them at soundcheck, the third show in Milan at a hall in the Centro Sociale, a sort of “squat” like Christiania in Copenhagen. A big reverberant hell hole of a room. They stole there power (which only cut out twice during sound check), they stole any phone lines they had. A 6000 capacity hall run be the locals.

After our sound check, including an all star jam of your favorite zep hits the band comes out front to hear just how wonderful it sounds…

Live in Rome..

We were using in-ears for Jonathan, and he finally wore them for a show (besides just trying them for sound-check) in Rome. All went well, and though there are still a bunch of things to work out with the mix, it seemed that things would eventually work out, that is until Oliver, our new monitor engineer, left the in-ears behind in Rome. So much for that idea. Otherwise Oliver has been doing a fantastic job and the band has seemed much happier on stage.

Our four shows with Afterhours went really well. We had separate front of house set ups. I got a great set up from Imola Audio Scene – the one in front – midas XL-200 and more outboard then you could shake a stick at. The desk behind was a trusty Soundcraft Vienna II for Afterhours.

Big thanks to Dedia and Thomas for all their help. After Hours put on a great show with Flavio mixing house and Mamo on lights. The crowds were loud and into the show.

After a sad farewell to our new Italian friends we go on to play one more show on our own in Turino at a club called Hiroshima mon Amour. Here I find myself in a scaffolding perch high above the crowd and behind a Yamaha M3000. Note to self… Don’t buy a M3000…..

A good show none the less. A fond farewell to the fabulous Italian food and back to France we go.

We then made our way to Paris for a pre taped TV show. We crammed into this very small bar with a massive amount of TV and sound equipment, and then somehow they crammed a small audience in to watch the event. Me, I spent most of the time in this nice air conditioned truck down the street….

One last show in France, this time at a very cool purpose built venue in Clermont called La Cooperative De Mai. Here we see a nice fuzzy photo of their front of house including my personal favorite, the Midas Heritage 2000.

Two nights at the Liquid Room in Tokyo. A fantastic venue that holds a bit over 1000, but has a PA you’d find in most places that fit 20,000. A Midas XL-4 at front of house. Flying faders on the VCA’s. Though I think it may be getting a bit old as the faders didn’t always make it back to the exactly same spot each time. Like you have time to program any automation for a one off show.

Among choices of compressors they have Two 1176’s, 4 dbx 160’s, 6 Channels of BSS Comps, 8 Channels of Drawmer Gates, and 4 Channels of KT Gates.

And to the other side more effect’s and house EQ’s than you could shake a stick at. 2 SDE-3000’s, a PDM-70, SPX-990, SPX-90, a ATL parametric EQ/Compressor and a KT 31 band on the house.

On stage a Midas XL-3 with meter bridge handles monitors. Here we see Ernie at the monitor position. Ernie was with Clair Brothers Japan and did a fantastic job of mixing monitors for the tour.

For about three years I worked at the Maritime Hall in San Francisco. We had the only ATL desks that we knew of in the states. Finally I meet another version of our monitor desk at Club Quattro in Nagoya. ATL (Acoustical Technical Laboratories) distributes or at one time distributed Meyer in Japan. Really good sounding desks, though the faders in the middle were a bit weird on the monitor desk, and Ernie said that this particular model was in the need of some repair.

Today our hotel was on the 3rd floor, a mall was on the 4th-8th floors, and the venue was on the 9th floor of the same building. A large music shop was one floor down from the venue. How convenient! If only more touring was like this!

Front of house in Nagoya, another great collection of gear in a small club (though I really don’t care for the PM-4000). The house engineer saw on our rider that we need more channels of compression than the club has, so from his own collection he brings the Amek/Neve and the Tube Tech shown. Very nice thing for him to do. On the far left you can see the rack I carry with me containing a TC D-2, a TC Fireworx, and a 2 channel SPL de-esser. On top of the rack is the Audiosport Quattro USB Audio/MIDI interface I use to record the shows onto the powerbook and change programs on the D-2 and Fireworx.

The view from front of house during sound check. Hiding in the darkness is an EV MT-4 rig, ready to roar into an area that fits 500 at most.

Bayside Jenny in Osaka…

A PM-3500 tucked in the corner driving a Turbo Sound rig. While still a good set up, not quite as top notch as some of the other clubs. The show was absolutely packed, not fun squeezing through the audience while sick, but somehow I survived the night.

Tonight’s show at Club Quattro in Hiroshima. A brand new club, and they cut no corners in its construction. The club (like many of the others) was on the top floor of a mall, with a music store one floor below.

The room holds up to 500 or so people, but has a pa better then most US rooms twice the size. A 48 Channel H-2000 feeds an Allen Smart C-2 stereo comp for system limiting, XTA;s for processing and a L-Acoustics ARC rig. I remember working at a club of similar size in Berkley, Ca. where I mixed on a 24 channel Soundcraft spirit. Maybe I should move to Japan.

The more I use them, the more I like the Midas Heritage series of desks. The H-2000 (seen here) being my current top choice for front of house.

I guess I’m settling into the one update a month pattern. So much has happened in a month! The shows in France went really well, though just as all the bands were getting friendly it was over. We had a great time playing with Lift to Experience and Elbow. The show in Toulouse was supposed to be at Bikini, but due to an explosion in the town, the show was moved to another venue with some of the sound system (which survived) coming from the roofless club. Hopefully they will rebuild, it was a really nice club.

As we bid farewell to France, we moved on to Spain for more fun, and believe it or not, really good crews and PA’s. We seem to have been blessed so far on the European tour, no grumpy or lazy local crews. Our finally show in Lisbon went over extremely well, which made up for the extremely lame load in up a very small lift.

Finally we flew home to NY for a couple of days to catch up on laundry before heading off to Toronto for a show on Thanksgiving day. No turkey that day, though I did at least get a small piece of pumpkin pie.

Our first show on our US/Canada tour started in Toronto at the Phoenix Concert Theater, where they have the oldest Midas monitor desk I have ever seen. Dig the font on the meter bridge.Back into the US for our next show at Magic Stick in Detroit. A small club with a fairly lame PA, but a friendly and helpful house sound engineer, a bowling alley, and some classic neon signs in the front window.

We picked up some lighting equipment at our show in Detroit, only problem was, our bus driver hadn’t gotten the trailer when he was supposed to, so…. Our gear sat on the street with nowhere to put it until a trailer showed up, which was on it’s way, but didn’t arrive till 4 AM. So we sat and waited, well, that is our Tour Manager and Lighting Tech waited as our Roadie and I got some shut eye. Next morning our bus driver asks for a trailer repack to distribute the weight a little better. I guess we couldn’t expect the guys to do a great job at 4 in the morning 😉

On to Chicago and a run of shows opening for Wilco. The beautiful Riviera Theater in Chicago was our first stop, where our soundcheck gets cut short as db Sound tries to figure out why the XTA units wont let them control the subs. Got to love all this computer technology. After Chicago the band and myself took a trip to LA for the Late Late Show, and then hooked back up with the bus in Missoula, Montana.

We beat Wilco to the gig, so with some free time as we wait for them to set up, I took a hike up the nearby hill with a giant M at the top. The building in the middle was the gig and if you look hard enough you can pick out the two tour busses in the parking lot.

.A long drive to Seattle was our next task, and some great weather we had on the way. I woke up to find us traveling down a road that wasn’t really there, I was amazed the bus driver could see where he was going at all. As I sat down in the front lounge to do some work on the computer I suddenly hear the bus driver yell “Everybody hang on to something!” I look out the front window wondering what he is shouting about, and see not the road, but the mountain next to us. In the time it takes for me to wonder what I will do if we flip over, we go from sliding sideways, back to traveling straight down the road. Whew! Seems a transmission line broke and at that point the Jake break gave up, and lost control for a bit. We safely arrived at the next exit, where we sat for hours as a mechanic tried to get us on our way again. A big thanks to that mechanic who spent those many hours under the bus in windy rainy crap weather.

Our show in Seattle with Wilco was a bit of a mess, as the crew couldn’t seem to patch anything to save there lives. Luckily to make up for it, our headlining show the next night in Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom was excellent. The venue is a “House of Blues” though that isn’t too obvious. A beautiful room, and some really nice dressing rooms with the best showers you could ever see in a venue. Can you say heated tiles on the shower room floor?

A great crew and a really good PA rounds out this fine venue. A Soundcraft series V resides at FOH driving a V-Dosc rig that could do a room twice the size. The only down side (as you can see from the picture) is front of house is way off to the right side close up to the front, so you get pummeled with one side of the V-Dosc rig, but I guess this might help from some folks mixing too loud.

We hooked back up with Wilco in Portland, and then on to San Francisco and a show at the Fillmore. Luckily the Fillmore is only a couple of block from my house, so I got to have some time at home to catch up on mail and things.

The Fillmore’s new house desk, a Crest X, is OK, nothing special. Show goes well, and good to be at home among friends.

We say goodbye to Wilco and continue our tour with a sold out show headlining the Troubadour in LA. Here another Series V in a lame mix position greets me. Nicolai Dunger opens up for us, and it was good to see him again (he opened up most of the European tour with me mixing sound for him as well). Another great local crew gets us through the night.

Next morning a show at KCRW for Morning Becomes Eclectic which went really well (always a pleasure to do the show).

Back on the bus and a long drive to Austin Texas…

Been quite awhile since the band has been in Austin, so we aren’t sure how the crowd is going to be, but luckily we sell about 70% of La Zona Rosa.

Another Soundcraft here, a Series IV. I’m starting to like these “new:” Soundcraft desk quite a bit, plus these meter bridges look great.

Yet another great local crew greets us here. So far we have been really lucky in having some great local crews. How long will it last?

There was a note on the desk – “Anything above Zero will clip the amps”. Hmmmm. How about you turn down the amps, so when the desk clips the amps clip? I find I turn the amps down with a lot of sound systems, get some meters moving on the desk without being excessively loud or damaging anything.

Our next stop was Dallas for a show at Deep Ellum Live, the show went well, though I must say that those Yamaha M series desks are crap.

Another long drive, and we find ourselves at the fine 9:30 club in DC. A nice EAW rig, a great house crew, and a Crest desk that has seen better days.

Up to Philadelphia and our third show at the Trocadero in the past couple of years. a nice surprise to find that they have replaced their top speaker cabinets with some EAW 750’s. Definitely an improvement.

We have some fun here watching the locals grab some bits of crumbling ceiling out of the net that protects the audience from such bits falling on them.

Our US tour finishes out with a sold out show at Irving Plaza in NYC. It took me awhile, but I finally convinced the house engineer to move the house EQ from being inserted on the mix bus to in-line. Weather that made or broke the mix is of question. I think the last time we were here I wasn’t able to convince them to do it. And here is yet another Crest desk showing its age. Luckily there is a can of Deoxit near by.

After the show we try to hang out with a plethora of friends before heading upstate to the bands homes, and some days off before we make our trip to Japan….

Extremely busy tour… and finally an update! On tour with Mercury Rev for over a month now and it’s been very very busy with days off eaten up with recording sessions, promo, or just trying to catch up on computer work. So now a quick update on how things have been going.

Ireland – The tour started off in Ireland with long load ins as the bus can get nowhere near the venues, so everything has to be transferred to a van first. The first gig at the Savoy in Cork gives me a difficult mix position half way up the stairs to the balcony and all the way to one side. Where no one else is watching the show except for me. One of those “I hope it sounds all right down on the floor” sort of affairs. All goes well and the tour is off to a roaring start with a sold out show. Our show at the Ambassador Theater in Dublin goes as well and I get more of a proper mix position. What was supposed to be a day off in Dublin turns into a recording session of “Lucy in the Sky” for a possible movie soundtrack. So the day is spent running pro tools.

Scotland and UK – On to the Barrowlands in Glasgow and a fine rig supplied by EFX. There’s that Heritage desk again. The show in Manchester gets bumped up to Academy with a boxy Martin rig from Adlib Audio. Finally a show at Newcastle University and a John Peel session before heading off to….

Norway – Cool clubs, great gear, a Midas desk in every club, can’t complain. And a JBL rig that actually sounds all right at our first stop in Bergen at Kavaretet. A Midas desk in every room and all the shows are close to if not sold out. Big thumbs up to Norway!

Stockholm and Copenhagen – a really small club in Copenhagen with a small but good PA. They even have a pair of Tanoy near fields at the desk. Can’t hear them over the blast of the PA, but I have some fun jamming out to tunes in my own personal world before the show. Copenhagen gig is really really good. Best crowd yet.

Germany and Italy – Germany starts off with a bang and a monstrous Meyer rig at the Grunspan in Munich, but its all downhill from there. A bunch of old Soundcrafts and other junk awaits me at the rest of the shows. At least the crews are friendly and helpful. I must say, we have had really good local crews everywhere, usually there is some bit of grumps here and there, but so far everyone has been really cool.

Amsterdam – Nothing better to cure the German PA blues than a couple of days in Amsterdam. Show day is a bit insane, though the show goes really well. Day starts off with us waiting at the bus for a truck to pick up the gear to take it to the Melkveg as getting the bus in would be a bit tight. So our tour manager arranged with the person responsible for transport, for a vehicle to come and pick up our gear. So we are sitting in a large parking lot on the outskirts of town. And we wait, and wait. Our tour manager gets on the phone and tries to find out were the truck is, and a bit of confusion arises as to where the truck is meeting us. After our location is sorted out a vehicle shows up, an 8 passenger Mercedes with all the seats. We give a good laugh as we point out that there is no way in hell our gear is going to fit in the van. So we give Mr. Transportation a call and explain the situation. We wait another half hour, and a 12 passenger van shows up…. with seats all the way to the back. Seem Mr. Transportation is in idiot. So we head off to the venue in the bus, pull into the middle of the street near the venue, meet a fellow in a yellow jacket who sees how fucked up the situation is, and gets a large truck to come get our gear to load in. A supper fast set up, sound check, and tear down as Supper Furry Animals play before us. After all the madness the show goes really well, and the next day is a day off my favorite city in the world.

Back to the UK – Back to the big shows, a Heritage 1000 in the Anson Rooms in Bristol. Saw allot of these desks on the tour so far, and I like them quite a bit. Best “budget” desk around. Next comes two sold out nights at Shepherds Bush Empire in London. These shows go really really well, as I tire myself out running up flights of stairs to check the sound in the three balconies. Next off to Wulfren Hall and another Heritage 1000 in a big shit sounding room with me at the very rear, at least it’s nice and quiet back there. Finally the Leadmill in Sheffield and a good EV rig that has just been beat on too many times with disco. Another great crew makes up for a disco load out.

In London now for a day off, well… a day spent in front of the computer. Off to Belgium next and then the challenges of keeping under the French SPL limits. I don’t like to mix louder than 100db SPL-A weather the venue has a limit or not, but the French can push it a bit far with limits such as 95db SPL-C. Can you say “no booty and I guess I’ll just turn on the vocal mic and be done with it”?