A Barking Dog

First Show

Originally uploaded by Dave Stevens.

If this is Weds.it must be Baku

It’s good to see others getting into the moblog/blog/pic posting meme. Dave Rat is in Europe right now doing a gig that makes me look almost Jr Varsity with a great moblog at http://ratsound.com/cblog/ Excellent stuff, particularly the way he deploys his rig. Ratty is known for some pretty unconventional deployments (one of my favs years ago was tweeters on an aux) and doesn’t disappoint on this outing. I particularly like the sub deployment. These days it’s all about steering the subs for the best coverage.

Varisty corporate guy Mac Kerr is in town with a pretty nice rig. He’s got pix up at the Roaddog forum in the Lobby Bar section but the URL is a bitch http://forum.roaddog.com/index.php/t/28/S=e6039bd9fb9d44906bdcac6a3b742bc0 Hopefully that will work. It would be good to see Mac do a regular blog that highlights the differences between doing bign time corporate and music gig. Two very different animals that use a lot of the same gear. Mac is so Varsity he even has two Instant Replays.

Perhaps qualifying as the oldest roadie working for the youngest bands everyone’s fav Triple J, Jon Martin is over in Europe doing the big time rock fest scene. Some of those gigs are mega, the Europeans do the festival thing a bit differently than we do here. We’ve got Bonneroo and Vegoose and they’ve got perhaps a couple dozen big fests that don’t tour. Over here we tour the fests, Ozfest, Lolapolooza (rip) aznd Warped among others but over there they still do the big fest thing over there. We do some of that here regionally, but it doesn’t seem to have the cachet that it does over there. Perhaps Super Roadie was right when he said I was a Europhile roadie. Triple J checks in at the LAB, http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/14996/5/

Mikey P has a few up from what he’s been doing lately at http://blog.mikeyp.net/ and Chris Hinds has some pics from what looks like his graduation gala, http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/cjehinds. After graduation I understand we’re going to lose Chris as a full time audio guy as he takes a big time gig with a world class company. Anyone with that much formal education probably has too much sense (or student loan debt) to persue a career as a sound guy anyway. Good luck Chris, keep in touch.

The car will be here in a few hours to wisk me off. It’s a service I haven’t used before that’s really a clearing house for independents, hence if you call to confirm it doesn’t exactly leave a good impression. If worse comes to worse I can schelp to the bus stop or the hard rocking hotel next door and catch a cab for my ‘Muricun flight to beautiful downtown Toledo where my M7CL turned into an MH3 then turned into an LMx. It’s got the makings of Jr Varsity and agony but at least I have a 21 hour travel day to Azerbijian (happens to be next door to Iran) to start the Euro jaunt the next day. Should be a gas. This may well indeed be the last extended touring visit for this old dog, but I don’t want to jinx anything. I spent part of the last day in town making sure my paperwork and resume were up to date so HR could start the background checks and processing and getting some locks chopped for the manditory casino style drug test. Back in the olden days when we took drug tests we could have told you what each one was like. These days it says we’re so old we haven’t done drugs in years. The opportunity is pretty exciting but I probably shouldn’t say to much more about it as it won’t start until late summer or fall once I’m back in town.

It’s a dry heat, only 109 today. On the way back from Memphis earlier this afternoon when I boarded the plane at DFW the flying waitress, errr, I mean flight attendant said it was only 94 in my fair city. Of course I knew by the time we got there it would be almost 110.

I just got word from the “Two Way Hard Three” RSS feed that Hairspray will close next week. YIKES! The guys on TheStripPodcast.com broke the story earlier tonight. (BTW, one of the best Vegas podcasts out there, if not the best). It’s confirmed, they close the 11th. That and Avenue Q closing kind of tanks my theory on musicals in LV. What the hell do I know anyway. Bummer for all those that are losing their gigs. Especially those that moved here from NY. It’s not like I haven’t been on any tours that cancelled after a few weeks or so. But still, and it was a good show.

The Beatles Cirque show, “Love” opened for previews a few days ago (gotta see it next week before we leave overseas next week) to rave reviews. It will probably go for the next decade or so. Reports from Cirque principals are that the next Vegas Cirque show will have an Elvis theme. It’s Vegas, that’s what we do. Now if it were a Meatloaf themed show, I might be able to get the lead. Apparently I resemble Mr. Loaf.

We got Phantom opening next month, The Producer’s in the fall and Spamalot next year so it will be interesting to see how that shakes out. I’dathunk Hairspray would do well, but let’s see how it goes with these others. Could it be that Vegas and it’s tourist centric demographic more represent what mainstream American want to see? Let’s face it, the Broadway audiences are pretty elitest and do half of the shows per week, in rooms that are at least half of the capacity. Broadway ain’t Vegas and Vegas ain’t Broadway and I’ve got the testicular circumference to sack up and admit I was talking out my ass when I pontificated not that long ago that Vegas would save musical theater. Vegas is going to do what it needs to do and it’s the fastest growing economy in the country, and one of the fastest in the world. When something like Headlights and Tailpipes outdraws Hairspray, that basically signal either we are just about to armageddon or that people here would rather see tits than hear showtunes. (actualy I enjoy both)

For assholes like me that haven’t been able to break into the theatrical or production show scene (not for the lack of trying) it doesn’t mean much. When guys like me aren’t on the road, we’re doing big time industrials and that market is far from being tapped. Yeah, it’s not as cool as mixing Tracy Turnblad in the finale but it’s a constant stream of talking heads that aren’t going to dry up anytime soon. And that’s a bummer because I’d rather be mixing the guy with the messed up face and crashing chandelier than Fortune 50 CEOs and what little remains of my touring rock/pop career.

Always greener on the other side, ain’t it? Well, in a week and half we’ll be way into where no western band really goes that often.