Fistful of Lies

5/7/08

Well... I want to talk about boobs.

When I worked for 311... hell, even when I worked for everclear... every night was a boob fest. Girls of all ages, races, religions, an sizes on the shoulders of boys were lifting their shirts in joyous celebration of the rock.  I don't really know where it all started. You know... like... the history of boob flashing. But I bet it would be interesting. For those of you still in school... maybe it would be a good essay of project or something... on second thought, maybe not. Anyway, I miss it.  Boob flashing, not school.  The past few bands I've worked for don't really get the boobs at the shows they play. Weezer... no, not really. Tenacious D.... very rarely. The Foo Fighters also get it rarely... and when we do get it, Dave makes fun of them. Saying the boobs are lopsided or too small or big. Basically scaring anyone else that might want to show their mammaries into keeping them imprisoned inside their bras and rock t-shirts. I speak for all the roadies and "some" other band members when I say to Dave "stop quashing the rock tits!". C'mon dude... let the boobies free, loose.. whatever. I mean, you Foo Fighters are my favorite band and all but we roadies see the show every night... Gawd.... The boobies are a pleasant change of pace from the groundhog day we are paid to endure. Just kidding.. but not really.  Ladies, Don't let the mean old Dave Grohl scare you into keeping your boobs hidden. Be proud... fly the flags of femininity. 

I Australia we actually got a couple of boobie flashes... very exciting.  Australia is always good... in fact, I don't really even mind very much traveling there. Hehe... Australia is kind of the culmination of all things good about other countries. Y'know... the best of the states, the best of Europe, the best of Asia. Good and beautiful people everywhere. We flew into Perth from Japan and the flight went through Hong Kong... but all was good... the Qantas lounge in Hong Kong was frickin DOPE! The had a free noodle bar inside the lounge! Kickass was it.

The Perth show was in a dumb venue. An inflatable venue actually. Air pressure held the circus like roof up. When you go in or out of the venue, you have to walk through air locks. You cant have the internal and the external doors open at the same time... if you do... you get a wind tunnel, and if you left it open for long enough you'd deflate the roof. God, that would've been cool. The show itself was great.

Next was Adelaide... I like to call it the Salem, Or. of Australia (I'm not going to explain that). The hotel was right next to "restaurant row"... a pretty nice Hilton. Although, every time I stay at a Hilton I always picture my money going straight into the pockets that stupid bitch, Paris. I try not to spend any money there. Anyway, my psycho pal Ben lives there... unfortunately I didn't get to hang out with him. He was too busy building a diorama of the new Burger King they built down town Adelaide for his junior college extra credit.

The shows were good, but they had these creepy Dave masks with the eyes cut out... super scary... I'm not sure who thought that would be a good idea but they were wrong.

Then it was off to Melbourne... My favorite Ozzy city. It reminds me of where I live... the great Pacific Northwest. A little wetter, a little greener, a little cooler... just better. Didn't get to see my pal Mark that lives there either. Something about a diorama of his bathroom... dunno what it is about Australians and dioramas. Stupid Melbourne hilton... they had the worst internet service ever.  They charged by the bandwidth used... lame. So you could buy 1 day or 400 megs of traffic... whichever came first. Fuckin stupid. There are actually a bunch of places that do this down under. Our old pal Wiley got really screwed in New Zealand once... the problem is... they don't tell you when you reach your allotted bandwidth traffic. So once you go past it they start charging you an astronomical rate... like 50 cents per megabyte. When Wiley checked out after uploading shitloads of photos he was taking of the band to the bands website.... he had a 1300 dollar room charge... I thought he was gonna cry.  Anyway, I complained and got it free... awesome. In the States hotels are giving internet away as a hook to beat the competition. The UK has the most expensive daily rate for hotel internet... an average of 29 pounds... about 60 bucks a day. Still better than "by the byte".

the Melbourne shows were great. My pal Jeff Lyster from Portland just happened to be in town. Somehow he got a gig with the Eels and was there playing a show with them. They call him "Dirty Jeff".  I wont elaborate.

Great crowds here in Oz..... possibly the best.

If you're a foreign band you can't tour in Australia unless you put a local act on the bill. Our local act was Mess Hall... not my cup of tea but I loved them cuz they had a bed sheet with their name painted on it.... keepin' it real.

The gigs in Australia are too far apart to use tour busses... so we fly. The drawback to that is that normally the crew would have no bus to hang out on show days after the show is up. But  we usually get a crew room whenever there is an extra room available... sometimes they aren't really comfortable or adequate for the 40 crew guys we have.

Brisbane next. The nice folks from the crocodile hunters animal sanctuary were nice enough to bring some critters down for us to play with backstage... I have to admit I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a kangaroo and a koala but it was still cool.

Off to Sydney we went... flying domestically in Australia sucks ass. I heard a bad joke... Why doesn't Qantas have a U?.... Cuz Qantas doesn't care about U.... yuk yuk yuk.

Here's sydney.

After the 2nd Sydney show myself and a few of the fellas had to go with the gear to the airport to Qantas air freight. We sat through a safety briefing and were issued cute little yellow vests and yellow gloves so we could go onto a loading dock to supervise the pallet loading of our gear that was being shipped to New Zealand. Silly.

New Zealand crowds are possibly the loudest crowds on earth... it would be a battle between NZ, Ireland, and Scotland. Auckland is a beautiful city as well... really reminds me of growing up in Hawaii. The good parts. 

The hotel was my favorite on the tour... a Hyatt Residence. I thought I checked in to the wrong room at first... I thought I accidentally got a band room. A nice suite with a gorgeous kitchen.

Another awesome thing about the Auckland show was they had the best catering of the whole tour.

On the second show day it was Chris's birthday... and Dave hired a male stripper to jump up on stage like a stage diver. The rest is predictable...

Like I said... This NZ crowd was fuckin loud! A good crowd always makes the band put out harder... Dave got so wound up that he blew out his voice on the first night. But being the consummate professional that he is... he said no to canceling the second show. Here he is nursing his voice before the second show in the dressing room.

These shows really were great and the second night was every bit as good as the first. Mad Props to New Zealand.

I'm sure you all have seen the you tube footage of Dave crashing off the drum riser already... yes... he took a tumble. Ever since lights have been getting put in front of the drum riser... Sean and I have been saying it's only a matter of time till disco eats it. Thank god it was only the guitar that broke and not his bones. He got tangled up in the cord somehow. When he got up and realized his fiddle was broken he abandoned it like a true survivor. I'm taking home with me to try and repair it... or have it repaired at the luthiers. It's only two pieces... it shouldn't be that hard. The drag about it is... it's his 001 guitar. The first one off the production line. He's fine... everyone had a good laugh about it... Oh well...

Here I sit on the plane now... on the way back home, typing this website update for all you nut jobs that actually visit my site. Really looking forward to the couple of weeks off before Europe... my favorite place. To finish I want to respond to you fuckers that complain about my site "not being correctly formatted" and how I need to resize my pictures. To them I say.... "suck it"... you're lucky I post shit at all. These posts take a long time as it is, to sort through photos and come up with stories that wont get me or anyone else in trouble. Plus... I take high rez and quality photos for a reason... If you want to resize them and dumb them down.... do it on your own time. I thumb them... that's it.  In most browsers there's an option to automatically resize photos... also is an option to automatically format pages to fit your screen. I can't make everybody happy... nor do I try to.

With that I bid you a fond Farewell.

4/29/08

So the fucking web server that I pay to host this site had a catastrophic crash that destroyed my site… all the backups they supposedly had too.  But thing are slowly getting back to normal… postboard is back up but all users were deleted so please sign back up for abuse by Nelson. Please choose a user name he would approve of as he’ll change it anyway if he doesn’t.

Well, Madison Square Garden was where I left off last, so that’s where I’ll begin. That show took my soul. All started out well though. What usually is a nightmare venue (because of the shitty union labor) was quite painless in the in. We got it all in and up in plenty of time to make the house dark for the allotted hour of two. The penalty for not going dark is quite expensive. Going dark means “shut down”.  NO ONE working on anything on or around the stage. This was a high profile show for the Foos. First of all, seeling out MSG is a big deal. Secondly, it was being filmed and recorded. Third, always a lot of VIP’s and famous people running around backstage in NYC.

Everything was fine till the acoustic part of the show. I gave Dave the acoustic guitar……………………… and nothing. No sound. I looked at the wireless meter and it was showing signal. I hauled ass out to the B stage and checked the tuner pedal (as that is where the signal is then routed to).  I’m clueless at this point. It worked just at set change about 25 minutes earlier. By now the B stage has landed and the band is still standing on the main stage in the dark waiting for Dave to start Skin and Bones. Dave tries to get Pat or Chris to play the riff so at least they can all start walking out there to the B stage but they don’t un-mute the monitors until they hear Dave’s guitar and get out to the B stage. Lots of confusion. My heart was sinking. They finally get out to the B stage and start playing, except for Dave , who was still silent… me still clueless as to the problem. I dropped to my belly and slithered under the B stage to check connections…. All fine. Wireless signal registering on the meters and everything. Sweating and dirty I slither out from under the stage and give him a new guitar…. Still nothing. At this point Skin and bones is over and it feels like a half an hour has past. About a minute or two later… Boom!!!!!  Everything starts working again. No rhyme or reason.

I felt terrible and inept. I had no idea why or how. For the rest of the show Dave was frustrated at me. Let me tell you folks… that doesn’t happen very often and it’s awful. Angry guitar changes… thrusting guitars into my hand… mad looks that burned my soul. By the end of the show though… he had gotten over it and moved on. He forgave me. He’s a good man. But I didn’t forgive myself for a couple weeks… I was miserable. Because I could not figure out what happened. Magic off and magic on. Lame. I changed all the signal routing after that day to something much simpler and easier to diagnose. That show took years off my life. I’m glad it’s behind me.

All fun and games… right before “the incident”.

Here's the photos of earlier that day.

I didn’t take many photos that leg of tour… too depressed. But here’s what I got.

This is the make up show in Fayetteville. College Gymnasium gig. Lots of meatheads in this crowd.  I thought it was a lame gig… maybe it’s cuz all there is in Fayetteville is churches and lawyers.  Yeah… I said it…. What. I guess I'm not makin any friends in Fayetteville.... Sorry.

Actually there was a good part of that day... Load out... and chillin on the bus afterwords.

Binghamton was a pretty good gig.... Super snowy.  In fact we ran into a lot of foul weather on this run. I remember one of the overnight drives was pretty sketchy. Freeway iced over... I just sat up with the driver and watched the chaos. Cars spinning out everywhere.

After a much needed week off at home, it was back out to Canada for the next run. Poor Geof, our bass tech, was denied entry.  I really missed him on this run. As one of the only other sober crew guys I realized just how valuable he is to me. I felt squirrelly the whole run.  But we all chipped in and did his gigs for him while he was away. Ruff took care of the bass tech duties and I took care of his recording duties. Sean picked up Ruff's and my slack. Shit.... Canada almost didn't let me in either.  I was detained in customs for about 45 minutes. Now that all the law enforcement databases are shared... all infractions show up. no matter how small. I guess I shouldn't have killed all those hookers.

We started in Montreal. Montreal can suck it. I think it’s the French thing that ruins it for me. Pompous and snooty has been my experience… so ‘nuff said. I'm sure they think highly of me.  Good show though.

Toronto was awesome. Taylor got to live out a childhood fantasy. Geddy Lee and Alex Liefson from Rush come out to the show and played YYZ with him in the middle of the set. Dave said that watching Taylor rehearse the song at soundcheck made him all misty eyed… fuck man…. Me too. It really was like watching someone living out a life long dream. Taylor was so amped… just like a little kid bouncing off the walls. It was so cool to see. The performance was flawless and awesome. I didn’t get to talk to Geddy but Alex was a sweetheart. Polite, humble, and thankful… that guy gets the nicest rockstar award. 

The “middle of Canada shows” were weird… meathead fest… lots of mullets. I didn’t take photos but I should’ve.

Here’s Vancouver. My favorite city on the planet. I would move here if Canada would let me immigrate. Dunno why, I just feel at home here. Kick ass old school snake runs for skateboarding… whistler/blackomb for snowboarding… great music scene…  good friends. My pals Libby and Dennis came down from the mountain and hung out. Love you guys!!

Good Van show.

A little more time off at home then we were off to Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The big overseas trips for me are always preceded with travel anxiety. As everyone knows... flying in this day and age sucks balls. Overseas international travel just raises the bar on suck. But it doesn't have to. There's a few things we as travelers cant change. Security policies, the size of airplane seats, the strange flavor of airplane food. But there are some common problems we can overcome if everyone followed BB's rules of travel etiquette.

1. Pay attention to your surroundings. Don't fucking stand or sit in high traffic areas like doorways or in the middle of the concourse.

2. when picking up you luggage from the luggage carousel... stand back a little. If you get right up next to the damn thing, only a few people have access to their luggage and no one knows who's shit comes out first. In most airports in Europe there's a line on the ground that's about 3 feet away from the carousel that you're not supposed to cross except to pick your shit up off the thing.  Standing closer to the conveyor doesn't make your shit come out any faster. So back off!!! If you're in my way when my bag comes out... I will lift you up and move you over.

3. For people picking up friends and family in cars... don't be the dick that parks at the curb and just sits there and waits. You screw everyone by doing this. It creates traffic because everyone has to stop a lane out to pick up. Just do laps around the airport like you're supposed to.

4. For people meeting friends and family outside the customs door.... see rule #1.

5.  Check a damn bag in at the check in counter. Everyone thinks they can get through airports faster by not checking bags.... wrong. It slows everyone down at security checkpoint and especially boarding the plane. There is only so much overhead storage and it always runs out... so there's always the last minute overhead repack and inevitable gate check that is sooooo unnecessary. If you're gonna bring shit on the plane... make it small please.

6.  When going through security checkpoints... pay attention. Plan ahead. Look at the signs. listen to the fucking idiots robbing you of your civil rights. Just get it done. ***sidenote*** don't think that because you think you're gonna miss your plane that you have cutting rights... you should've got to the airport earlier. If there's a question about this... just ask one of the security nazis.

7.  Most Airlines have controlled boarding... starting with their first and business class passengers then followed by economy in whatever their system is. Sit your ass down and get out of the way until it's time for you to get on the damn plane. Again... see rule #1.

8.  If you have a window seat. Pull the damn blind down once you get to cruising altitude. Especially on long flights. People either want to sleep or watch to shitty movies they show you. The light through the windows glares and washes out the crappy screens and obviously the light keeps people up. If you want light... use the overhead lamp. And don't be the guy that in the middle of a 12 hour flight at 30,000 feet in the air over the ocean...  decides he needs to open the blind to make sure there's nothing to see. Trust me... there's nothing to see. You just woke up everyone in the entire cabin.  Prick.

9. Don't OD on perfume and cologne when flying... Duh.

10.  Give the guy in the middle seat the armrests... he got screwed and could use a little courtesy.

11.  If you have small children... check them in as baggage. ************just kidding........ jeez.*************

I will add to this list as humans inevitably continue to piss me off.

Ok... Japan.  Roadies love Japan cuz they really take care of you. Every tour is a little different but I've been on Japanese tours where on the first day, the local promoter shows up with a measuring tape, a notepad, and a digital camera... and documents how the gear is set up. Then every show after that, by the time you get to the gig, the shit is all set up. The promoters love to take you out to dinner. Everyone is just so damn great.  I feel really comfortable with the language and culture having grown up in Hawaii.  But you can still feel pretty alone and alienated in Japan no matter who you are. That movie "Lost in Translation" really did a good job at capturing what it's like.

Tokyo... check out all the blonds in the crowd.

Japanese audiences are a trip. So orderly and polite. When there is music being played, everyone is rocking out or dancing or whatever... just like anywhere else. But when the song is over there is an appropriate amount of applause then.... silence.  Unless you're ready for it... it can feel pretty uncomfortable. I've never gotten used to it. It just seem so UN-rock. 

It's easier and more comfortable to take the bullet train to travel internally in Japan than flying. This is on the way to Osaka.

I didn't attend many of the many Band/Crew dinners... sometimes they just take too long.... and when you're jet lagging, you just don't care. But here's one I did attend. We had the cutest sushi chef.

Osaka is pretty cool... they filmed alot of "Blade Runner" there.  Here's me and Sean toolin around.

The Osaka show was pretty good. Huey Lewis... yes.... Huey Lewis come out on stage and blew harp for a song. It was awesome. Huey Lewis and the Foos... hehe.

After Osaka we went back to Tokyo to do some TV thing.... and ya know what?... TV sucks in Japan too. But there was a WII in the "dressing room" and everyone seemed to make the best of it.

I'm in Australia now... I've taken piles of photos.... I'll get around to sorting them sometime in the next 6 or 8 months I'm sure.

Yeah... I talked alot of negative shit in this post... fuck it.... it's how I felt. Feel free to talk your own shit on the post board. I'm sure I'll get hate mail from Montreal and Fayetteville... yeah, I suck... whatever.

2/12/08

Pain in the ass Grammy week. I think I've worked the Grammys for like six years in a row... or something like that. Did it with the D, Weezer, and Foo...  And every year it tops the list of worst gigs for roadies. However, this year it was a little better than previous years. We didn't play on the same "main" Grammy stage as everyone else. They put us on our own stage outside the staples center on the street. This made it a little better. The performance was kickass too. I was super impressed with John Paul Jones' arrangement of the song and variations on the pretender theme... and every single one of the contest winners were amazing players and a lot of the girls were smoking hot. The roadies were beside themselves and stupid over the talented hotties. The soloist that won the spotlight has a second major in school besides music... conceptual physics... go figure. Hot, talented, and smart. None of the roadies stood a chance.

Awards shows and TV shows in general suck because of all the "hurry up and wait" that goes on. Always early load ins... then it's setup and wait for a couple hours, then tap the mikes out and wait a couple of hours, then its ring the monitors out with the techs and set levels and wait a couple hours, then do all that again for the broadcast truck and wait a couple hours, then sound check with the band and wait a couple hours, then camera block with the band a wait a couple hours... makes for very long days.  Roadies with time on their hands get is trouble. We try to stay busy doing productive stuff but inevitably do some damage somewhere. Luckily a friend of Ruff brought down a couple of giant chicken pot pies for us. Sean and Ruff chipped away at one of them all day... finished and managed to get halfway through the second one by the end of the first rehearsal day.

The day after the Grammy rehearsal we had to play a Clive Davis industry party. For those of you that don't know who Clive Davis is.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Davis . There are other websites with other descriptions of him and histories and opinions... find 'em yourself. I'll probably be killed for the small amount of shit I'm gonna talk about him. I'll step out on a limb here and say that it's probably the most exclusive shi-shi party that goes down for the music industry. If invited, it's probably not a good idea to miss it. If invited to play... it definitely not a good idea to turn it down if you want your career to continue. The 80 year old Jewish man is like the Godfather of the music industry. This is the second time we've played his party. It sucks. Hotel ballroom, small stage, many huge acts, sharing gear, poor planning, bad communication, shitty load in and outs, overblown security, uppity party planners. Hehe... Taylor had to play on the house bands kit... and nobody told the house drummer. His kit was super proprietary and barely movable into a configuration that would work for T. Flat drums and low cymbals... definitely not rock.

Right at the top of the show Clive comes out and rambles about who he knows and introduces famous people he knows in the party... basically everyone. Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Slash, and shitloads of others... but while he was talking he managed to kick out the input jack on Shifty's pedal board. Clive introduced the band and they came out and of course nothing was coming out of Chris's amp. He glared over at Sean (shifty's tech) and Sean ran out and within 5 seconds had it figured out and fixed. But the damage was done... Sean would stay pissed off for two days about that. But Sean earned his money for the month in that 5 seconds. Traced the signal path and diagnosed and fixed instantly and calmly. Awesome. Clive made it worse right after the performance by standing on Chris's loom that is connected to his amp... so we could not strike the amp off the stage without either pushing Clive or taking the time to dismantle the loom. They wanted 2 minute set changes which is pretty unrealistic... but we were close. 

The food they set out for the production staff was awful. Big iceberg lettuce and cabbage salad with some ranch dressing... pasta and marinara sauce... done. So lame. I heard the party food was amazing though.

This was another long day with no place for the crew to hang... so we all went up to the suites they gave the band for dressing rooms and invaded. I taught everyone to make a very special paper airplane that my father taught me how to make and we threw about a hundred off the balcony there at the Beverly Hilton. Then settled down to watch Howie on deal or no deal for way too long... I felt dumber afterwards for sure. Sean drank the mini bar and a good time was had by all. Everyone (except the roadies), looked fantastic... especially Gus.

For the fancy events of this week... security is retarded. They make everyone get the passes with the photos on them. I went with the angry look for the Grammys and my Emo look for Clive's party.

After the party, the boys and I stopped to take some photos in front of this ridiculous jewelry store. Jonathan Arndt... a huge store on Wilshire near Rodeo Dr. By appointment only... Weird... this dude can't be serious... or is he? You decide.

No photos of the actual Grammys... but hey I watched it on TV and apparently we won a couple... Awesome. The show itself looked like a train wreck.  The part with Kid Rock and Keely Smith bummed me out. I love Keely Smith... she is such a pro... and kid rick just completely butchered that song... terrible. Our part was pretty fucking killer though. Congrats to the Foo Fighters... thank god they exist in this age of bullshit and lies. My love of their music and respect of their work just keeps going up.

I'm off at home for a few days then it's off to the NE... see ya there bitches.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Aldous Huxley

2/5/08

New Year... New tour. I successfully avoided xmas once again and the new year passed by without much pain. Mission accomplished. There wasn't much that I felt like celebrating until January 3rd when I turned 2. Yes... 2 solid years of sobriety and not just dry. I haven't had a drink since February 6th of 2004 but managed to find sniff out a relapse on coke after a couple years of white knuckling it. How I managed to do blow without drinking is beyond me. In these past two years I've come to be a grateful man... a humble man... and a spiritual man. (and a fat man... sheesh). I don't try and control the world anymore and I certainly have learned to be accountable to other people in my life. I can recognize my own bullshit when it pops up and I'm pretty damn happy these days. I have a lot in my life to be thankful for. Like my job, my family, my dog, and these guys.

Now that we're in a proper tour mode... not promo... not festival... our show, our venues, our production... roadie life gets good. I think it's better for the band too. With a show as big as we have... 9 semi's, 7 busses and 50 or so touring personnel... tour life gets really consistent. The show wont fit into smaller venues so we only play the big rooms. Rooms with enough space, trim height, and power to accommodate the spectacle that we're carting around. It really turns into groundhog day. The only thing that is really different every day are the local crews that help us set up and tear down and of course the crowds.  Some good crews and some bad ones... almost all good crowds.

We started with a crappy club gig though... the Kevin and Bean morning radio show at the famous Troubador in boy town LA. Many groggy "dingo and the baby" jokes flew around that morning... and an early morning it was. Who plays a rock show in a shitty club at 8am? ... we do I guess. Whatever... it was actually kinda fun.

Now we've just finished the first leg of the US tour... and I'm sorry to say that I just didn't take a whole lot of photos... like I said, these shows are very consistent in the way that they look... and as a crew... we just get into a groove and there aren't a lot of backstage hijinks... yes, we are a boring crew. We don't have wild sex orgies in the back lounge of the bus, we watch various seasons of desperate housewives and prison break and lost. Porn doesn't even make it on the bus TV's as often as you'd think. It's kinda creepy watching naked chicks on TV with a bunch of dudes on a bus. So like I said not a lot of photos... I'll try a little harder on the next leg.

The first real show was Miami. I thought it was the worst crowd of the whole tour... sorry Miami, please don't send me hate mail. I got to meet a couple of my WoW guild mates so I was stoked. These two met online and are now in love and live together... pretty cool.

Another cool thing about this leg of tour is that Jimmy Eat World opened up for us. I've toured with them many times before and I dig it but this time was special cuz fellow roadie Timmy Chunks was working for them. Timmy is an OOOOLD roadie and has worked for many monsters. Here he is keeping Sean on his toes.

We got these new guitar vaults to house all the axes for the upcoming big tours... they really cut down on our setup and teardown time but more importantly they are new toys to customize... here's what I did to mine...

TV, DVD, IPOD dock, stereo w/ sub, and rope light... soon to have ground effects underneath.

Here's miami.

The only other show I took photos at was Nashville. Playing Nashville is as bad as playing New York or LA. Lots and lots of VIP's. Famous people and other industry people that must have the special treatment so everybody is on edge. I wont drop all the names in attendance but My VIP's were a bunch of folks from the Gibson custom shop and the Sheryl Crow crew. I love these guys.

This is Andy and Soya on our bus after the gig (yeah I didn't take pics of the gig itself). This bus is a slide out from Ziggy's... the slide out was about the only thing that worked on this bus the whole tour. Crap.

Don't ever play hoops with Sean... he'll fucking school you. That dude has a 44 inch vertical leap. It's sick.

My new post board is up!!!!! No more spam!!! You have to sign up for an account so if you're one of those fucking bastards that advertises boner pills, I can delete the message and ban your ass. Once again the main morality cop is Nelson... He loves Foo fans but be careful, he actually needs boner pills... and he's easily riled so post carefully unless you like abuse. Talk as much shit as you like... flame away... just don't fucking advertise!

'Deus, dona mihi serenitatem accipere res quae non possum mutare, fortitudinem mutare res quae possum, atque sapientiam differentiam cognoscere.'

12/19/07

Video Game awards... Spike TV... I did it last year with the D... and actually it was pretty awesome. This year was no different. This year it was is Vegas. We stayed at one of my favorite hotels... The Mandalay Bay. This was yet another day it was good to be a roadie. Instead of the presenters opening up envelopes to announce the winners... a naked girl would prance out... painted to look like she wasn't naked... the paint was in the theme of the winning game. Can't complain about that. More strippers were on site due to the kid rock performance.... and hey, I'll be honest... I love video games. Naked girls + video games = I love my job. Another good thing about this gig was that we guitar techs got some new cases... guitar vaults that will make our lives way easier and speed up our load in and out times a lot... which will make everyone else happy. I'll take photos of them when we're done customizing them. Sean is gonna put a sweet ground effects system on his and I'm not telling what I'm gonna do.

One other cool thing that happened is I got to meet the actors from Chuck... Zachary Levi and Joshua Gomez... nice fellas. Phone photo... lame.

OK MUTHAFUCKAS!!!!

Please... oh please watch this movie.... ZEITGEIST. It will change your life... it's about the state of thing... religion, government, money, and media. You can watch it free at www.zeitgeistmovie.com . If it doesn't give you answers to all the questions you may have... it will at least make you question all the answers. Keep in mind the first few minutes of the movie is black... audio only.... just keep watching. Download it from limewire or some other peer to peer network... the movie makers have no problem with piracy. In fact they encourage it. Please watch it... you wont be sorry.

Lastly, some shots of disco... fooling around at the studio, threatening all our jobs.

12/15/07

It's been a few months since my last post... Sorry kids... I just don't have the same blogging fervor that I used to. I'll post photos grouped by the show but I'm not sure I'll get it right... I haven't sorted my photos in months. So if you see some photos in the wrong place... DON"T write me to tell me it's wrong... I don't care. It's all I can do to keep posting these days.  Those of you that write me and thank me for doing this site... I love you guys.  Those of you that still write me to ask me to get shit signed for you or to get the band to play at your bar mitzvah or worst of all... "please get Dave to listen to my bands mp3"... please just get a life and leave me alone.  I will not explain the futility of your requests any more. I will stop reading the email at the hint of a favor request and delete the email. Man, I'm a grumpy bastard.

I think that my photos start way back in the beginning of October at a New Orleans House of Blues show. I like New Orleans but I don't really like playing shows there. The audiences are too drunk genuinely appreciate what they came to see. I guess what I mean is that going out and seeing a show has more to do with getting fucked up than seeing the band. Maybe not for everybody but for most. When I used to play out in my band... I admit I used to encourage the audience to drink... I thought that if everybody was hammered then it would be easier for me as a performer because the audience would be easier to entertain. That's bullshit for me now. When I perform now... I'd rather have the real reactions... even if it means people don't like my music of performance... and there is a damn difference people! There are so many bitter musicians out there... blaming the world for their music not being popular or no one showing up to see their band or worst of all, people that actually show up to see their band not dancing or enjoying the music as much as they think they should. Well you can be a great musician and a crappy performer or a great performer and a crappy musician. Rarely do the two qualities exist in the same human. Grohl is one of the blessed few that have both in spades. New Orleans for me also means shitty, drunk stagehands... no help or bad help. With all the bitching I just did... We had a pretty good show aside from a nightmare load in and out. At HOB there is no space for roadies so Sean pretty much just stood out on stage with the band and Geoff, Ian and I crammed into this tiny dressing room off stage left.

Tabernacle in Atlanta is a cool venue... played there with a bunch of bands I've worked with and have never had a bad show. Just really like it even though it's a fucked load in and out up and down a bunch of sketchy ramps. Doesn't hurt that there are so many hot southern girls.

This fuckin' dude though.... Mastodon guy... standing on stage right... got progressively more fucked up as the show went on. He tormented Sean... I thought it was funny watching Sean trying to work and be nice and pay attention to drunk dude... he did the old... pretend you're walking down the stairs mime behind Sean's workbox... which is way too short to pull it off. Plus he was way too drunk to pull it off. But he thought Sean was entertained so he just kept doing it... the whole show. Sean was mortified... Hilarious. Not so funny towards the end of the show though... dude went past the "fun loving drunk" point and pounded half a beer then got this angry glazed look in his eye and chucked his now empty beer bottle at the front of the crowd... hit some poor girl right between the eyes... lame. He was asked to leave.

Charlotte, NC was the next stop... More hot southern girls...

these shots of Dave in the crowd there kind of disturb me... it's just the amount of camera phones is kind of weird... the fact that people are so focused on the technology of capturing the moment rather than being there and enjoying the moment.

Next was the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City NJ. Casino shows are always goofy. You never know who's gonna show up in the audience. Yes, there's always gonna be fans but at casinos you get people that came to gamble and just wanted something to do off the casino floor or people that came to party and aren't necessarily fans of the band... a rock show just happened to be where they were staying. Tickets were pretty spendy and a lot of tickets were scooped up by scalpers which bumps up the ticket price even more... I saw $800.00 bids for this show on EBAY... Lame.

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Wilkes Barre at the Wachovia Center... another good show... but difficult... here's the story.

Every night the band plays the song "See you". It's a part of the show that Dave uses for introductions... and Solos. Soloing is an art unto itself. You can be a great musician and suck at soloing... and vise versa... you can be a basement shredder and play 1500000 notes per minute and suck at playing with others. It's just my opinion... but the only thing that I enjoy about this part of the show is Drew's triangle solo... because it's funny and ridiculous. Drew is a great guy and a great musician... for those of you who don't know he is Joe Walsh's drummer among many other notable résumé pieces. The crew has tried to perpetuate a modified double handed Ozzy as a sign for Drew metal triangle prowess... Drew fucking kicks ass.

The rest of the solos are as follows... 'yes, I can play dotted 8th notes", "Brian Setzer look out", "I rip so hard I can play funny", "the call of the dying whale", and "no solo's please".... Pat, when introduced for his solo get huge applause every night. He's another one that refuses to solo much to the disappointment of the fans... Dave ribs him a bit before he moves on to the next solo victim. I had and idea... I sent a runner out to buy a cheap acoustic guitar. One of those $79.95 fender specials. I told Pat that we'd do a guitar change at the beginning of "See You" and the next time that Dave gave him shit about not playing a solo... he should just smash the acoustic... surprising the hell out of Dave and thereby amusing the hell out of everyone especially the crew. Well, it came off without a hitch... guitar in splinters... Dave's face... priceless.

The next day...just as they started that song, it occurred to me that this could all go terribly wrong. We didn't have another cheapo guitar for Pat to smash and I was sure that Dave was going to talk some shit about the previous night's antics. I told Sean of my fears. When it was Pat's turn to refuse to solo... yes, Dave goaded him... Dave told him to smash his guitar like the previous night... Pat just couldn't. He was playing a $3000.00 Taylor that didn't belong to him. So Dave did the next best thing... he smashed his own guitar. A $5000.00 Gibson Dove. Ouch. He looked right at me just before he did it as if to say "don't ever think you can play a joke on me and get away with it.".  Now I would be short a guitar for Dave... I would have to retune acoustic guitars more times during the show until I got a new dove for a backup. Talk about your all time backfires.

Glen Falls, NY..... another Hockey arena show... Piece of shit stage covered in spike tape that was years old... our production manager made them scrape it all off.  I dunno why... maybe out of principal... after "cleaned" it didn't look any better. We should have been traveling with our own carpet or Marley to roll out and cover shitty stages as it's a common occurrence. The guy that got the crappy job of scraping tape off was this nice old geezer with a limp and a cane... Sean felt sorry for him and spent the afternoon helping him out. God I love Sean.

After the Glen Falls show it was off to NY for Saturday Night Live. I have no photos... I was too frustrated and pissed off to take any.  When Madonna is the host, there is still a musical guest that plays two songs. When Jack Black is the host, there is still a musical guest that plays two songs. When Barry Manilow is the host, there is still a musical guest that plays two songs.  But not when Bon Jovi is the host. He had to have one of the two musical spots. The SNL studio is small... even for one band... so what they do to make it easy is... they set you up, strike your dead cases, and leave you there on the tiny stage throughout the entire show. Because it's live, it would be pretty difficult to set an entire band into the tiny space in one commercial break... or during the show while the comedy sketches are going on just a few feet away on an adjoining set, trying to be quiet. But not this show... We had all the Foo's gear and roadies... and Bon Jovi's arena setup of gear and roadies because he had to have the second musical spot. It would have been easier if Bon Jovi would've just been the Host and musical guest and just did both musical spots. All the SNL stagehands and staff were pissed because there was no room for anything... sets, tools, cameras, audience... etc... it was twice as much work for everyone cuz everything had to be moved for every shot. The Foos played good and I guess that's all that matters but I've done that show many times and have never had a bad experience until this time. Fuck Bon Jovi and the horse he rode in on.

After a few days off we loaded into the forum in LA for production rehearsals. The production ideas for the whole next year of touring were big and difficult and needed to be worked out and we needed a huge place to do it hence the Forum.

This is Brian our new stage manager. He is the shit! He's been in the biz a long time... most recently with the Beatie Boys and before that... Green Day. We are lucky to have him.

When the band takes time off... especially during the tour cycle... it's very expensive for them. If they don't keep their key people on some kind of a retainer, those people will need to find other work. Also, sometimes gear or equipment has been rented or leased and rents still have to be paid... plus the storage for that gear.  It can get super expensive. So, one of the ways bands offset those costs is to play private functions... we call them "corporates" and after our Forum production rehearsals were over... our next show was a Fredericks of Hollywood corporate. Which I to say is something that we all kind of looked forward to. For those of you that don't know... Fredericks of Hollywood is a naughty lingerie company and we knew that were gonna be a lot of scantily clad models running around in sexy undies. We have done private company parties for other organizations such as Best Buy, Doc Martens, Sony Playstation, LG and others... but this one was going to be good. Sometimes I really love my job... sorry no nekkid photos.

The next day we all headed off to Germany to start our next tour.

We were missing our drum tech Yeti for the first couple of shows cuz HE GOT MARRIED!!!! Congratz to Yeti! Our "not so new" guy, Ruff, took care of Taylor.... and Rami... and Pat. Ruff is a superstar and multi talented enough to pull something like that off. He's also one of the most patient guys in the world... which I hope to gain a little of through osmosis.

Our first show was in Oberhausen and what a great start is was.

Good old Shiflett found himself a new tour outfit to wear that he caught a bit of shit for. Fuck 'em all Chris... wear what you want!!!

Munich was next... one of my favorite venues... The Zenith. This weird old warehouse that I was told that they used to build tanks in during ww2 or something like that. I've played there with a few different bands and never had a bad show. This place is a big metal box... and what happens is... when it's cold outside, the body heat of the crowd causes an incredible amount of condensation on all surfaces especially the ceiling. It literally rains sweat on everything... ew... gross.  At the end of the night when they finally open the huge exterior load in door a dense fog rolls in and it's really cool looking.

Off to the MTV Europe awards...

Normally, awards shows in general suck ass to work... especially an awards show outside the US. But I guess all the planets aligned cuz this one wasn't so bad... in fact there were some really cool things about it. #1 cool thing was the set design. The LED floor was bad ass and the programmer for the floor should get a raise cuz the content for the floor looked amazing during the Foo performance. the other thing I enjoyed about this gig was seeing Amy Winhouse perform... I actually liked it. I like the motown vibe.  Reason #3 this was a good gig... kickass artist catering.

Full day off... the next day... Sean, Ruff, and I went out and did some shopping out by Dingwalls... and this is what it looked like. Sigh.

The following photos could be scenes from pretty much any night on our bus...

We all would gather in the back lounge and watch Prison Break... within 5 minutes Sean and Ruff would be asleep...

Manchester Arena.... Huge.... Amazing show. As you can see from the following photos... this is kinda what the big show looks like. About half way through the show, a second stage with a second, smaller set of band equipment lowers out of the ceiling over the mix and lighting position. Everyone walks out to it down a catwalk that protrudes from the front of the stage and goes about 100 feet out to where it connects with the second stage. The band then plays an acoustic oriented set out there "in the round". After about 6 or 7 songs... they all make their way back to the main stage where they play the rest of the set. What seems like a simple gag... is actually quite complex. First of all... the space taken up on the floor by a second stage is always an issue. It reduces capacity and the amount of potential tickets that can be sold. The weight of the second stage is a huge issue... the beams that support the stage in the air are different in every building so it's very important to check on the weight limit of the hang points before the shows are booked. Because it's not just about the weight of the stage... a second PA system has to travel with us and be hung around the second stage. The speed at which sound travels becomes an issue once you get in front of the main PA. At approximately 100 feet away from the main PA it would take the sound about 1 second to reach your ears. Imagine trying to play and sing in rhythm if you were hearing everything that you did 1 second after you did it.  There is also a completely separate monitor system that needs to be out there at the second stage. Our monitor guy Ian really earns his money on this tour. Soooo many mixes and sooo many inputs to manage.  But guess what... that's not all... lights... yes... gotta have a way to light the band out there. All of these logistics add up to a lot of extra cabling and weight and and work and risk. Sight lines are also a huge issue. When the stage is up... is it blocking the view of the main stage... what about when the stage is down. Since sound has to be ready the second that the stage hits the ground it all needs to be cabled up and ready to go. Which means there is an umbilical loom that contains sound lines and power lines that will be hanging from the stage when it is up then coil on the ground as it lowers in... or the coil of wire would be on the stage when it was up in the air and as the stage lowered in, it would end up hanging down once the stage was down. That cable is gonna be in someone's line of sight before or after it lowers. So we were traveling with a lot of extra stuff... 2 PA's, 2 complete sets of backline, 2 monitor rigs, extra lighting, extra rigging, extra trucks to carry it all, extra personnel to set it all up and tear it down, and extra busses to carry all the extra personnel. A lot of things that can go wrong. But nothing major has. I attribute that to the amazing family of professionals that make up this Foo Fighter crew.  A lot of extra cost, a lot of extra risk, a lot of extra effort, decreased potential income... is it worth it? Hell yeah... the show is amazing.... but it's not for me to decide. If the band is happy and the audience is happy and all asses are rocked then I say mission accomplished. This is Manchester.

There were a bunch of other UK shows I didn't take photos at... sorry. Glasgow is all I have left to show in this post. I love playing Glasgow... one of the best audiences on the planet.

For all you pick collectors... this is the new set of Dave picks... including the unauthorized "DG" picks. He's never wanted his name on picks but it's amazing currency for me. If I give picks to the local stagehands, I'm assured of a good and helpful day.... and the fans love them. So pick freaks... it's a set of 5... collect 'em, trade 'em with your friends... whatever.

Everyone's days were longer on this tour... days were harder... and more stressful... but it was great... this Foo team really solidified... Everyone really helped each other out in a way I've never seen before. Crossing the lines of a job description was a common occurrence on this run. It made me happy. Our production team did a great job as well... keeping traveling solid and consistent and meeting all needs of personnel as they came up... props to y'all. Another thing that made me happy was an abundance of other sober people. We were able to put together an "in house" AA meeting almost every day for those that wished to attend. It really made a difference for me. I'm really looking forward to more tours like this one... all in all I have to say... Fucking Awesome. I leave you with this....

Ok... this will be a big post with a lot of photos covering a lot of time but first... please... will some of you fellow video game nerds please come play WoW with me. I'm Horde on the Moon Guard server and my character name is Foolutador. Which is Portuguese for Foo Fighter of course. It's a level 66 Blood Elf Priest.  I have another toon named Beebs that's a 13 Warlock if you need a lower level to quest with. I'm fully hooked on this damn game... sucks... but I love it. So please come find me.