Rubble rubble rubble rubble rubble rubble

The second show of our warm-up run was at Rubble’s Bar in Mt. Pleasant, MI. We loaded in fairly early and were pleased to see that the promoter from the last night’s show, Corey, was also promoting and doing sound for us at Rubble’s. Corey is a really nice guy with a super great attitude. Rubble’s has a PA system older than anyone in the building. The horn-loaded design, complete with bass scoops, was eerily similar to the PA system I used to build at glamorous Starshine Sound.

"That's not a snowplow, it's my subwoofer!"

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the age of the PA that presented the challenges. Rather, it was the assumptions that the PA’s installer had made about what bands would need and where people would be standing. The PA, which was 3-4’ deep, sits a foot in front of the stage on either side, pointed out. This means that the first 4-5’ worth of audience don’t hear ANYTHING from the main speakers. More disturbing, however, was the fact that, while we had 4 monitors and 4 mixes, only six things could go to the monitors. In a band with four vocals, I had only two channels to play with really. Once again, the guys reminded me of why I love working with them and were totally cool, going with the flow in masterful fashion.

"Monitor World:" Note the lack of graphic equalizers.

After soundcheck, Joe, Zubin, Ross, Andrew and I went to a brew-pub called “Mountain Station.” I’ll be charitable and say that the food was mediocre. I had a pint of their IPA, which was mediocre at best. The hops felt thin and without a decent base of flavor to build on, sort of like a rock band that’s all vocals and no bass. I don’t usually drink before gigs, since my judgment is why the band hired me, but since we had 3 hours between the dinner and work, I decided to have a tasty adult beverage. My wrap was overpriced, under heated and unsatisfying.

After dinner, we wandered back to the club, where I spent a little while talking to my housemate, Will, while wandering the streets of Mt. Pleasant. Mt. Pleasant is a nice enough town, though, as far as I could tell, its downtown was empty on a Sunday evening except for the hundred or so people who came to the Tally Hall show. I did notice one idiosyncrasy: liquor stores in Mt. Pleasant are called “Party Stores.” Before looking in the windows of one of the three “Party Stores” within a 2 block radius of the club, I had thought that people in Mt. Pleasant just liked to throw parties. I guess I was more right than I could’ve imagined.

Talking to Will was great, especially since I could describe to him what I was seeing in Mt. Pleasant, so I could feel like I had someone with me. The whole experience left me with a funny mixture of feelings, at once at home and adventuring, kind of like this whole touring thing. Seems like I spend all of my time doing what I’d wanted to do for so long, while being in strange places with relative strangers.

Red Lights

After two warm-up shows in Michigan, we’re heading to Albany, NY today. We left Ann Arbor at around 11 this morning. It’s 11 at night now and we’re still about an hour away from Albany. I’m thankful this will be the longest drive of this tour. East coast touring seems to be total cake, driving-wise.

The first warm-up show was at Mac’s Bar in Lansing, MI. I knew our night would be interesting as soon as I walked into the club and smelled that all-too-familiar mix of stale sweat, spilled beer and cigarette ash, all covered with a healthy dose of the citrus tang of Lysol.


As with so many of these small shows, we were faced with the unpleasant reality that people often exaggerate. The club had told Mike, our new tour manager, that there would be four separate monitor mixes.

Mike.

As it turned out, they had only two monitor speakers and only one monitor mix on site. Seth, the house sound guy, was very nice about trying to get another pair of monitors, but to no avail. While Seth was on the phone with his “sources,” I searched the club for a possible solution to our silence problem. In so doing, I stumbled on a massive sound-gear graveyard.


Seeing a monitor-shaped object, I thought I had succeeded in solving my problem. Alas, it was missing an important part. Can you tell which one?


As it turned out, we had to make do with only the pair of monitors on a single mix. I am thankful that this band is so easygoing, monitor-wise. There’s a certain freedom that comes with working for a band: after a little while, you come to learn which shit will float and which will not. This shit floated famously.

Later, I managed to find the venue's backup PA system, and was glad we ended up going with the A-rig.



Between loadin and soundcheck, I managed to crack my head pretty badly on the main speakers, which were hung at a perfect height for aiming at my cranium. After I’d rubbed the goose-egg on my scalp, we soundchecked and, in spite of some other important pieces that were missing from this PA, I got things sounding about as well as they were going to. I am really spoiled in Portland. After soundcheck, we struck our drums and pedals and guitars. I hung around a little bit and enjoyed our luxurious green room.

"Not so bad," you might say.

Oh really?

Eventually, Joe and I wandered off to get some dinner. We ate at a truly cavernous internet café and snackbar a few blocks from the club. I had a really good veggie burger and Joe had a veggie sandwich. No, I haven’t gone vegetarian, but I am starting to notice that, like the rest of our touring party, I’ve started to become a little rounder in places I’m not too happy with, so I’m trying to eat a little more healthily.

I know, of course, that no matter how healthfully I eat, if I don’t get exercise (which I most certainly do not do on the road), I won’t be in shape, but I can at least try to minimize the damage. I can’t say that I have any more appreciation for my Portland routines of walking everywhere and working at a physically demanding job, because I already did appreciate them quite a bit. My mood and physique both benefited immensely from the strenuous physical demands I placed on my body. I look forward to reestablishing these routines when I get back in April.

Joe and I made it back from our healthy dinner in time to see both openers. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the first openers, Island View Drive, but they were an instrumentally tight pseudo-Indie rock band. The second openers, Empty Orchestra, were really up my alley: blues-based hard rock. They looked really rockin', too:


Tally Hall's performance went pretty well, though somehow the microphone on Rob’s guitar managed to have its cable severed in half. Seth, our intrepid house sound guy, jumped right in and got things going again, thank goodness. Losing Rob’s guitar for a song or two, however, was the least of my worries. I found rather quickly that the sound board at this club had some serious problems. Frustratingly, the problems were serious as far as operation was concerned, but to repair them would have taken nothing more than a can or two of electrical contact cleaner and an afternoon. Allow me to describe the symptoms of a dirty fader*. When you move the fader along its track, bringing up, say, the lead vocal, you will reach a point where the lead vocal, instead of increasing in volume the way you would expect, drops out completely. As you might imagine, this is immensely frustrating.

Sometimes it is possible to get the fader to fix itself by moving it around, but this action almost always causes audible crackling, not the most desirable sound. At one point, try as I might, I could not get the lead vocal to come back, so I resorted to a delicate technique once explained to me by a dear, dear friend. I’ll call it the “eine cable expert**” technique. Having attempted to use more subtle methods to fix your non-functional sound board channel, you apply rapid, violent down-force to the recalcitrant bits. In short, you pound on the sucker until the channel works again. It is really delightful how reliable this method of sound board persuasion can be. Seth came up to find me pounding away on his mixing board and was a little perturbed, but once I demonstrated how effective it was at making broken things function, he backed off.

The band finished the show in extra-special fashion that day; having been inspired by the kind early-Spring weather, they took their acoustic encore (and the audience) out into the world, sitting in a circle in the parking lot across the street and playing “Here Comes the Sun” as the sun came down. I didn’t stay to see it, preferring instead to begin taking down the stage so we could make it back to Ann Arbor that much earlier.

We loaded out pretty quickly and got all the gear crammed into the Sprinter’s cargo space with a minimum of injury or grunting.

We’re almost at the hotel. We’ve got to make a quick pit stop to get Joe, who flew into Albany an hour or so ago. If I’ve posted this on 4/8, it means that there’s wireless internet at the hotel. If it’s later, it means that there’s wireless internet at some other hotel. If I’ve posted this earlier, it means that the space-time continuum has a rupture in it and the universe is over. Long live the universe.

*For those of you asking, “What’s a fader” (hi, Mom), allow me to explain. In general, the fader on a sound board controls the level of its given instrument in the main mix. Unlike the rotary volume controls on your stereo, a fader is linear in appearance. A less common synonym you may be familiar with is “slider.”

**To be said in a German accent.

Back to the Highway

Michigan TV show in our home away from hotel this tour, a dark blue Dodge Sprinter. The guys are on a conference call about something or other. I’ve become used to these moments of absurdity, sitting in the van, listening to half of a discussion. It’s fun to make up the dialogue in between what the people I’m sitting next to are saying.

(in the van) “Isn’t that how all bands do it?”
(in my head) “No, Bill, not all bands make a record out of cole slaw. You just can’t do that. I’d suggest making one out of cranberry orange relish. I think the sonic properties of hardened relish will really bring out the background harmonies, and the orange flavor will add a delightful ‘tang’ to the mix.”
(in the van) “Well, I guess if you can make a case for it, but I’m still not convinced.”

And it goes like that. Sometimes for 25 minutes at a time. Still other times, I just stare out the window and watch the USA pass by. It’s funny how similar this Michigan highway looks to the Mass Pike. It’s just long stretches of not very much but scrubby, scruffy, trees.

Last night, we did a show at the Michigan Union Ballroom in Ann Arbor, MI. The Union Ballroom is a pretty large space about twice the size of the Reed College Student Union. It’s got a very classy feel, with white walls and light wood accents, a big fireplace, and nice-looking bay windows. Hopefully I’ll be able to snag some pictures from the band and audience to either post here or link to, but I was preoccupied with making things sound good.

A big change for us was having an outside production company come in with a sound and lighting package. As a production person, I’ve got to say that this was the best rig we’ve seen by far, purely from a gear standpoint. Furthermore, the whole crew from Allen Audio was super fun to work with. Bill helped Toby take care of the stage duties and mixed monitors for the openers, Toby mixed Tally Hall’s monitors, having a pretty good first gig doing monitors on a digital mixing board. Jeff made the lights look really pretty. I’m seriously bummed I didn’t get any pictures of the looks he had for the songs, because by-and-large they were totally spot on. Last, but certainly not least, Mark Allen (he puts the “Allen” in “Allen Audio”) made it his business to keep me happy at Front of House. He walked me through making the unfamiliar digital sound board my friend, and catered to my every whim, including messing with his system presets to give the subwoofers a little more gut thump, a key quality when trying to get people to shake their booties.

I woke up super early yesterday, especially considering how exhausted I’d been and the fact that I’m still on West coast time. Rob dropped me off at the Union Ballroom around 11 and I went in to help Mark &co. finish setting up. I built some truss, something I haven’t done since my days with the Oregon Convention Center, did some little rigging, hung some motors, and then tried to stay out of the way as the well oiled machine that is Allen Audio got its rock on. Around 12:30, the band showed up with the backline and we loaded it in up the stairs into the ballroom.

We futzed around with stuff for a while, got set on stage, and I dialed up some monitors with Toby. Then we got the band up and we had a soundcheck. For those of you wondering how that goes, let me give you an idea:

Each instrument has a microphone on it, or else it plugs directly into the PA system. We get the band onstage and, speaking to them through their monitors, I ask them to play each instrument, starting with the kick drum and going on up in order through the vocals. The order is decided both by convention. Basically, you build up from the rhythm section to the lead parts, so the drums and bass go first, followed by all of the other instruments. After the instruments come the vocals. Soundcheck is pretty much my only opportunity to hear each instrument individually, so I take a little time with each channel to ensure that each one is receiving a clean signal (i.e. without hums, buzzes, hisses or pops) and each one will tonally fit in the mix.

As I go through the instruments, the band members ask for more or less of each instrument to be added to their individual mix. In order to test the sound, the band plays a few bars of a few different songs to be sure there is enough of each instrument. I also play around a little with the tones, trying to give each instrument its own spot in the mix. This is especially hard with the guitars and keyboards in this band because they change tone so much throughout the show. For example, on one song Joe’s guitar may be quiet, reserved and swooshy, Rob’s guitar chunky and Andrew’s keyboards sparkly. Then one song later, Joe’s guitar is distorted and dark, Rob’s guitar is zippy and honky and Andrew’s keyboards are thumpy and bassy. This is one of many aspects of Tally Hall that makes it a fun challenge for me at the mixing console. This tonal variability means that I can’t be too extreme with my tonal adjustment, or people will miss the subtleties of the show.

After soundcheck, the band and I, along with a bunch of their friends, spent about an hour blowing up a bazillion balloons to decorate the room. The overall effect of our decoration and the extensive production was one of smile-inducing juxtaposition: bundles of balloons standing next to high-tech looking truss, futuristic lights, and scary black speaker boxes. After decoration hour, we hung out in our green room for a little while. I took the opportunity to call my special lady and my parents and to pace out my nerves. I really like talking to home people just before a show; it re-adjusts my focus by getting my brain to work on something that’s not noisemaking.

I met lots of awesome people last night. Among them were Moe and Keith from the band “Bellicose.” Bellicose is a funky rockin’ hip hop band. I haven’t heard them yet, but I’ll be sure to make sure to post links when I find ‘em. Keith is the bass player and reminded me, on first meeting, of Scott Pemberton, my guitar teacher. Scott is a singular talent; a guitar player with a voice all his own, and a teacher with a great feel for making his students comfortable. His best known project was Triclops, an organ trio with an undeniably funky vibe. My favorite Pemberton band, however, will always be Conanza. Conaza is an art rock band for funkheaded geeks. It started as an art project, essentially, with Scott, drummer Micah Kassel and bass player Norm “Large Curd” Buccola. The three dudes would get together in Scott’s studio on Wednesday nights to write, arrange and record at least 2 songs. I engineered a few weeks worth of sessions and they were some of the most rewarding learning experiences I’ve had. To be in a room with creative dudes like that while they made music was truly electric.

I just looked out the window at a water tower that reads “Portland.” Who knew I was so close to home.

Scott is the reason I’m a professional sound guy today, having given me my first “professional” sound gig at the Goodfoot. Together with Ji Tanzer, we ran an open mic at the Goodfoot for about 2 years (Summer ’05 thru Spring ’07). As a formative experience in a sound guy’s career, the Goodfoot was great. They had just enough gear that I couldn’t get in trouble, but not enough that I could be complacent. Also, they had really interesting acts, so I was able to learn to mic a whole lot of cool instruments, from the in-house Hammond B3 to Nigerian talking drums, accordions and violins to sitars and pan pipes. A very cool place for a budding sound guy to get some basics. Our post-Goodfoot sessions on my front porch definitely formed the basis of a mixing and being philosophy that I think I practice to this day.

Thinking about Scott Pemberton brought the Meters back to my playlist, so as we cruise down the Motor City highways, I’m bopping my head to some heavy Louisiana swamp funk. These guys must be as close to the Platonic form of “funky” as anyone can be.

Production Geek Time!

Production for the show was provided by Allen Audio, a local sound and lighting company. The main speakers were EV XLCs, a really nice sounding, affordable line array cabinet. For those who don’t speak sound guy, line arrays are a type of loudspeaker cabinet characterized by even coverage across all frequencies at all areas of coverage. Basically, where it makes stuff loud, it makes bass, mid and treble loud evenly and predictably. These qualities are desirable because they make it much easier to shoot sound directly at the audience, instead of at walls, floors, ceiling or sky. Line array speakers also tend to have a very narrow band of vertical coverage so that when you stack a bunch of them together, if you hook them up correctly, you can ensure even coverage from the front of the room to the back. Sound guys call this “shading.”

The FOH console (main sound board) for this show was a 48 channel Yamaha M7CL. The M7CL provides a whole lot of processing power in a very small package. In footprint that would normally only accommodate a 24 channel mixer with effects or signal processing, the M7CL accommodates 48 channels and a seemingly unlimited number of effects, signal processing, and output routing options. Of course, being a Yamaha, the M7CL is a very utilitarian product. If it were a car, it would be a Honda Accord; it’s got lots of nice features, but none of them are spectacular, it’s fairly easy to get the hang of and it can go somewhat fast, but won’t break any land speed records. Don’t get the wrong impression, I liked the M7CL, but I still prefer the Digidesign Venue we have at the sound company.

For microphones, we used Allen Audio’s Shure beta98s on Ross’ toms and bongos. Beta98s are miniature condensor microphones, which clamp onto the rims of drums. Unlike the Audix clamps we’d been using the last tour (and will use again this tour), the mostly 98s stay where you put them once you place them. I say “mostly,” because the bongo microphone fell off halfway through Praise You. We also tried something new on Ross’ kick drum: instead of just putting the D6 inside of the kick, I laid a Shure Beta91 inside of Ross’ kick and stuck the D6 in the hole. This allowed me to better capture both the oomph of the shell of the drum and the crack of the beater hitting the head. I really liked this combination. We also tried using a microphone on Zubin’s bass in addition to the normal DI, and to great effect. I found that I got a little more roundness out of the bass.


I feel incredibly lucky to be doing this job with these people. Returning to Ann Arbor, while I’d only been there the one time, felt very comfortable. The week I’d been away suddenly felt like a very long time, and the band members each greeted me as though we’d been away from each other for longer than we had. I think my return signaled the beginning of a new tour for them, and so things were happy. Touring seems to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it’s great to trade the concerns of home for a singular purpose and a regimented schedule, on the other, it is difficult to be away from the ones you care about and the places that feel comfortable.

The TV show is all done now. Remember the TV show we were going to do? Yeah, all done. We drove 2 hours there and are in the process of driving the 2 back, all so people could point cameras at the band and have them play an acoustic version of the single for five minutes. The things we do for rock and roll.

Still alive

Sincerest apologies for not updating the blog in forever. SXSW really killed my bloggery spirit with late nights and lots of work. Also, we had a really busy last week of tour. Add to that the timely arrival of my special lady during my week off, and you have a recipe for no blogging. I promise I'll start up again now that I'm back out. I've also got some last-tour stuff saved up for you.