After a long flight from Mexico City, a 12 hour visit at home and a 6 hour drive to Manchester, TN I finally arrived at Bonnaroo. Before the masses arrive we have a day for set up. I wake up, go to the hotel lobby, get some coffee and wait for my commerades to begin the day when out of nowhere a dreadlocked, tie dye wearing douchebag hippie comes up to me asking if he can photocopy my credentials to sneak into the gig.
Of course I tell him no, but I actually try to be nice and I don't tell him to go fuck himself or anything of that sort, but he keeps persisting. When i offer him the alternative of buying a ticket for the show he responds in typical hippie fashion with all of the wealth envy excuses that could lead me into another blog but I won't go there now. He tries to explain that the artists make too much money and that he's a musician who plays for free all of the time. I tell him that I'm a capitalist and that his attempts at guilting me into giving my pass to him won't work he tries the typical hippie wealth is evil assault approach.
Dirty Hippie - "What does money do for you?"
E-Rock - "It provides me with the things that I want or need."
Dirty Hippie - "Like what?"
E-Rock - "Like my mortgage payment."
The hippie tries another approach.
Dirty Hippie - "So does money, like, give you power?"
E-Rock - "only in your mind."
Dirty Hippie - "What makes you say that??
E-Rock - "you think that because I hold capitalist ideals that I am wealthy. You also think that since I have something you want, namely my pass, that I should share it with you because you are less fortunate than I am. You are wrong on all accounts."
The hippie moved on to someone else thankfully.
Later that day a REALLY dirty hippie approached me while I was tuning and aligning the PA with pink noise after standing in front of a stack of subs holding his ears.
REALLY dirty hippie - "are you making that noise?"
E-Rock - "yep"
REALLY dirty hippie - "why are you making that noise?"
E-Rock - "I'm taking reference measurements and aligning the sound system"
REALLY dirty hippie - "you're listening to that noise?"
E-Rock - "yep, along with my computer"
REALLY dirty hippie - "oh. do you have to make that noise?"
E-Rock - "yep. Hey why do you have mud on your face?"
REALLY dirty hippie - "I'm making a cob house"
E-Rock - "so it's mud and shit?"
REALLY dirty hippie - "It's cob"
E-Rock - "isn't cob part mud, part shit, part straw?"
REALLY dirty hippie - "sometimes but we just use mud."
E-Rock - "couldn't find some quality shit for free around here?"
REALLY dirty hippie - "we never use shit, just mud"
E-Rock - "still looks like you have shit on your face"
The hippie leaves and I return to my adventures in pink noise. This is going to be a fun week.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Day Off, Mexico City
Friday was an off day. Since Thursday was a LONG day I slept in late and finally got up around 9:30 am. I spent about an hour convincing myself to get out of bed after which I ventured out into the unknown.
I like to explore so wandering a strange city is very appealing to me, however I'm not used to not being able to communicate with the locals that I meet. I've retained a little Spanish from my high school days, but communication is still difficult. Luckily, the locals seem to be very patient with my slow and choppy Spanish, even trying to help my language skills out with a friendly correction now and again.
Mexico city is nothing like the Mexico that I expected. I expected the American stereotype of Mexico. Dirty. Desert. Rusty El Caminos and Camaros lining the streets. Instead I discovered a gigantic metropolis that sprawls for what seems like forever in all directions. The streets are very clean and there are people going about the business of living in a big city everywhere. I wandered into a lovely park that had a rose garden that led me to a monument and statue of Ghandi. (I don't know what Ghandi had to do with Mexico, but he's there nonetheless)
The graffiti is much more artistic than the typical USA graffiti and just as illegible.
I should take this opportunity to tell my American friends that your favorite Mexican restaurant sucks in comparison to the food here. The only problem is the water. Drinking the water here will turn your colon inside out; this includes ice in the mixed drinks. I'm looking forward to coming home and having a glass of nice, chlorinated and fluorinated, government water.
My wandering lasted about 3 or 4 hours when I finally realized I was tired and lost in a foreign city. I tried to find a landmark, but there are no tall buildings here to use as a reference so I walked in what I thought was the right direction. Block after block I just soaked in how the Mexicans went about their lives and stumbled upon a bicycle rental kiosk. (these kiosk's are cool. You can rent a bike and return it to any of the many kiosk's around the city) The kiosk had a map of the city on the side of it and after asking the clerk where I was (in Spanish, thank you very much) I was happy to see that I was only 6 blocks away from the hotel. I wandered up the street, back to the hotel and straight back to my room for a nice siesta.
Not at all a bad day.
I like to explore so wandering a strange city is very appealing to me, however I'm not used to not being able to communicate with the locals that I meet. I've retained a little Spanish from my high school days, but communication is still difficult. Luckily, the locals seem to be very patient with my slow and choppy Spanish, even trying to help my language skills out with a friendly correction now and again.
Mexico city is nothing like the Mexico that I expected. I expected the American stereotype of Mexico. Dirty. Desert. Rusty El Caminos and Camaros lining the streets. Instead I discovered a gigantic metropolis that sprawls for what seems like forever in all directions. The streets are very clean and there are people going about the business of living in a big city everywhere. I wandered into a lovely park that had a rose garden that led me to a monument and statue of Ghandi. (I don't know what Ghandi had to do with Mexico, but he's there nonetheless)
The graffiti is much more artistic than the typical USA graffiti and just as illegible.
I should take this opportunity to tell my American friends that your favorite Mexican restaurant sucks in comparison to the food here. The only problem is the water. Drinking the water here will turn your colon inside out; this includes ice in the mixed drinks. I'm looking forward to coming home and having a glass of nice, chlorinated and fluorinated, government water.
My wandering lasted about 3 or 4 hours when I finally realized I was tired and lost in a foreign city. I tried to find a landmark, but there are no tall buildings here to use as a reference so I walked in what I thought was the right direction. Block after block I just soaked in how the Mexicans went about their lives and stumbled upon a bicycle rental kiosk. (these kiosk's are cool. You can rent a bike and return it to any of the many kiosk's around the city) The kiosk had a map of the city on the side of it and after asking the clerk where I was (in Spanish, thank you very much) I was happy to see that I was only 6 blocks away from the hotel. I wandered up the street, back to the hotel and straight back to my room for a nice siesta.
Not at all a bad day.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
From Jan - Present a brief catch up session.
I haven’t been very diligent about posting gig blogs. In fact, I haven’t posted anything in a while. I suppose it’s time to post somewhat of an update. Let’s get everyone up to speed quickly.
From January thru April I was the audio systems engineer on the Avenged Sevenfold / Buckcherry tour. On that tour I also mixed FOH for Burn Halo who was the tour support band.
In May, as I was preparing for the summer of festivals with Thunder Audio, I was called by Nigel (the FOH for A7X). Nigel was having some health concerns that made him unable to mix a few gigs with A7X and asked me to fill in; of course I agreed. I’m happy to help out a friend and I’m very happy to be mixing a band like A7X. It’s another move in the right direction for my career.
The first A7X gig was opening for Korn at DTE Amphitheatre in Michigan. Once I stopped trying to recreate Nigel’s mix and created my own, I was comfortably in the pocket and had a great show.
The second A7X gig was at the Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, OH. It was my first stadium gig and I was more than slightly nervous. Luckily I also mixed Burn Halo on the third stage early in the day and I got my head wrapped around the gig instead of the festival. Both Halo and A7X were great gigs for me and led me to where I am now.
As I write this, I am sitting in the production office for A7X in Foro Sol Stadium, Mexico City. A7X is playing 3 shows with Metallica this week in front of 50,000+ crazy Mexicans every day. Every show is sold out.
I took a walk around the venue before the doors opened to the public. Taking some photos along the way I all of a sudden realized that this was my 2nd stadium gig EVER (the first being Columbus the week prior) and I was standing on a covered pitcher’s mound in a baseball stadium on my first trip to Mexico about to mix a metal band in front of a sea of people. That’s 3 things to cross off of my “to do” list… ;-)
I’ll have some good photos to post soon. For now, I think I’m going to find some churros. I have some stories to tell about my first trip to MX, but I want to go outside right now.
Cheers!
From January thru April I was the audio systems engineer on the Avenged Sevenfold / Buckcherry tour. On that tour I also mixed FOH for Burn Halo who was the tour support band.
In May, as I was preparing for the summer of festivals with Thunder Audio, I was called by Nigel (the FOH for A7X). Nigel was having some health concerns that made him unable to mix a few gigs with A7X and asked me to fill in; of course I agreed. I’m happy to help out a friend and I’m very happy to be mixing a band like A7X. It’s another move in the right direction for my career.
The first A7X gig was opening for Korn at DTE Amphitheatre in Michigan. Once I stopped trying to recreate Nigel’s mix and created my own, I was comfortably in the pocket and had a great show.
The second A7X gig was at the Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, OH. It was my first stadium gig and I was more than slightly nervous. Luckily I also mixed Burn Halo on the third stage early in the day and I got my head wrapped around the gig instead of the festival. Both Halo and A7X were great gigs for me and led me to where I am now.
As I write this, I am sitting in the production office for A7X in Foro Sol Stadium, Mexico City. A7X is playing 3 shows with Metallica this week in front of 50,000+ crazy Mexicans every day. Every show is sold out.
I took a walk around the venue before the doors opened to the public. Taking some photos along the way I all of a sudden realized that this was my 2nd stadium gig EVER (the first being Columbus the week prior) and I was standing on a covered pitcher’s mound in a baseball stadium on my first trip to Mexico about to mix a metal band in front of a sea of people. That’s 3 things to cross off of my “to do” list… ;-)
I’ll have some good photos to post soon. For now, I think I’m going to find some churros. I have some stories to tell about my first trip to MX, but I want to go outside right now.
Cheers!
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