Winston-Salem and Ziggy's... This venue is a GOOD TIME.
I think I've described the place before...
(Ed. Note - No, you blew off the Roadrashes after Atlanta that tour!)
AHEM!!!! Anyway, as I was saying....it's a club that's made out of a
big timber frame with heavy tent panels instead of walls and ceiling... the
floor is tiered so that just about everyone get's a good view of the stage
and a clear shot at the PA, which is a quality I LOVE in a venue... it's nice
and loud but I can tell I'm not abusing the front rows of people in order to
provide decent concert sound for the people who showed up late and had to
stand in the back... in a place where the floor is flat I usually get people
from the back asking me to turn it up because human bodies absorb an amazing
amount of sound... not so at Ziggy's...
The PA at Ziggy's is a bit shaky but with a few changes of power here and a
good ol' fashioned *thump!* of the fist there, between myself and Jack the
monitor engineer we managed to get the system fairly noiseless... Mike
Maraat's amp, the monitors, and Scott's Fender Rhodes were different matters,
however...
I like to joke with house engineers about how we might use everything a venue
has: Every cable, every stand, every channel on a console... but at least
when we leave a venue, they know that everything they have is working
correctly... this doesn't ALWAYS lighten a tech's mood when I'm asking them
for a channel they NEVER USE or yet ONE MORE mic stand or cable, but
generally they see the plus side to my statement...
... at least I haven't had anyone pop me in the mouth or give me the bird
over it, anyway...
But our problems started with the monitors... after Jack and I had gone
through and gotten the vocal mics up and running, Maraat was walking past his
mic and it began to feed back...
Dark Star Engineering Lesson, Pt. 2:
Feedback occurs when certain conditions are met, one of them being an object
reflecting frequencies from the monitor wedges (those speakers in front of
each performer on the floor) back into the mic... this is why you will see an
engineer putting their hands up to the windscreen of a vocal mic; They're
attempting to cause feedback so that they can pinpoint the frequency and
remove it using EQ... sometimes this will happen with John's glasses, for
example:
When the distance between the surface of John's glasses and the diaphragm of
the mic is just right... the frequency is usually quite high... around 8k or
eight thousand cycles per second... when his glasses are at the PERFECT angle
and the PERFECT distance away, the monitor sound at that frequency is
reflected back into the mic which goes into the monitor system and so comes
back out of the monitor... reflected back into the mic, the frequency loops
on itself and regenerates...
Feedback.
That's the term for those nasty little shrieks and squeals (and sometimes low
rumbles) you hear from time to time, which are even done on purpose with
guitars during Space (which is the pick-up in the guitar going microphonic)
or by me with my delay during Drumz/Space (which is the engineer mentally
going off the deep end), but NEVER in the monitors... feedback in the
monitors can be damaging to the equipment (blown speakers) or damaging to the
performers - Permanent Hearing Shifts (PHS) or other scarring to the ear
drums causing possible near-handicap conditions including but not limited to
Tinitis (a permanent ringing in the ears) may occur... Pete Townsend and many
other "older" rock performers suffer from it due to years and years of
exposure to unsafe decibel levels...
So while I've got you thinking about this, I'd like to make a request here
and I would like you all to abide by my wishes... what I have to say pertains
to to all of you parents out there who bring your children to concerts or
clubs...
IF YOU BRING YOUR CHILD, BRING REAL HEARING PROTECTION FOR THEM.
I can't tell you what an incredible disservice you are doing to your child's
future music appreciation by bringing them (ESPECIALLY a toddler) into an
environment where the decibel level is going to be anywhere from 90dB (a loud
talking crowd at a concert) to 108dB+ (standing in front of the band during
the end of "Sugar Magnolia"... some of you know what I'm talking about)...
YOU (the average audience member) have been walking past jackhammers and
riding subway trains for the last on-average twenty-one years at least (not
to mention the concerts you've seen in that time if you're as old as me,
before safe sound levels were something that was taken into consideration by
the industry... or a court of law for that matter, which I'm not going to get
into here because it's not germane to my point)...
Your hearing has gradually changed over the years to accommodate the world of
jet planes, trucks, etc. which surrounds you... but focused sound like one of
our shows is not a healthy environment for a small child.
You need to understand that your child's hearing is still in the very
important stages of development and exposing them to these levels could
cause a PHS in your child... and you DON'T want that, right? I know WE
don't... we're not too much good to the deaf... there are limits which I
respect so that I don't injure our adult audience, but the young ones don't
have those "natural" defenses you have...
I don't mind kids at shows, just BE RESPONSIBLE... they may not like earplugs
or soundmuffs (like those ground crew guys where at the airport? They make
'em for kids too young to insert plugs, like infants!) but BELIEVE me,
they'll thank you when they're old enough to... the bones in an infant's ear
aren't even SOLID yet and it IS possible for a child to lose hearing entirely
if regularly exposed to this sort of SPL (sound pressure levels)...
In other words, don't let 'em do this....
OK... enough of the soap-boxin'... but I only say this with such emphasis
because I care... A LOT... the hearing of our audience is just as important
to me as my own, and when I've said things to people about their child and
high SPL effecting their development I have been met with such venomous
reactions from some parents...
"Who the HELL do you think you are, telling me how I should raise my kid?!?"
"I'm not a doctor, but I saw a guy play one on TV..."
Actually, I'm a guy with a college education who uses his ears for a living,
THAT'S who... and believe me, you may know more about changing a diaper or
how to appease a three year-old, but I know sound... I think you ought to
take my advice on this one before you unwittingly maim your kid in the name
of family togetherness or "introducing them to the joys of The Dead (or DSO)
at an early age".
Back to the feedback for a minute again... if you remember, it took John's
glasses being in fairly close proximity to the mic to cause the feedback to
happen... so my question is, what caused the leap in power on the monitors to
enable the side of Mike's HEAD... a foot and a half away AT LEAST and not
nearly as reflective... to set it off? This meant the mic had become
extremely hot or loud... I had never seen anything like it, but it happened.
This meant that we had to go back and start from scratch and rework the
monitor mixes... luckily it was a '73 show again and there were only three
vocal mics for the night instead of FIVE (more open mics exponentially
increases the chance of feedback, but I'm getting Geek-Style boring now,
aren't I? "What happened to the FUNNY STUFF? I don't KNOW from a microphone!
'Expo-WHAT-tial'? What the HELL is this nonsense???")...
The next little technical hurdle came in the guise of a grounding difference
between Maraat's amp and the PA... what this means is that his guitar was
running on power that was slightly different than the power the PA was
running off of, and what happens when you have too much water in one location
and not enough in another, generally? The water seeks to even itself out,
flow to where there is not, right? OK, same with electricity... the problem
with this situation is that the point of transference is usually where the
human body gets closest to the PA...
That would be one's LIPS ON THE MIC.
*ZZZZZZZZAAAAAPPPP!*
... right to the kisser!
Bob Weir has told the story of playing Woodstock and getting an arch off the
vocal mic good enough to give him a fat lip... this is NO EXAGGERATION, folks!
And when the band kicked in to "Bertha" for the sound check, Mike stepped up
and sang the chorus "I had to mo-" and his head snapped back, his hand went
to his mouth, and obviously, he stopped playing guitar... and I QUOTE:
"@#$%*&!!!"
- Mike Maraat, guitar player
After THAT matter was solved, I thought we were home-free... but Scott's
Rhodes piano would sit up and make nasty "wind"-type sounds, like someone was
blowing into a mic when he tried to use it during the first set due to a
broken pedal getting stuck on him... which he fixed for second set...
But when all was said and done, I gotta say I was pretty pleased with the mix
at Ziggy's... the band had settled in nicely to the 1973 mode and this was a
great melting pot of the last three shows to wrap up Lisa's stay on the tour.
The band walked out to a cheering damn-near packed house and delivered in
SPADES... this was one of those nights where I just sat back and beamed like
a proud parent about my kids on stage, they were that good!
The first set had a few nuggets in it... The "Cold Rain & Snow" opener was
great, getting the crowd moving, and a rare "Race Is On".... especially with
Lisa around... "Ramble On Rose" almost incited a riot when John's solo kept
getting more and more insistent... the "Big River" was wonderful AGAIN, with
Maraat's guitar pickin' sounding simply shit-kickin' (sorry... no other way
to put it, mom)... and the "Weather Report Suite", although not the best of
the tour, was just what the crowd in Winston-Salem was hoping to hear judging
from the reaction to Maraat playing the Prelude...
The second set opened with an odd choice by today's standards: "Wharf Rat",
followed by "Half-Step" and a "Playin" that was a hybrid of the last two
nights, keeping a great dance groove going while still licking at the cosmos
with a little added extra thrown in...
Some of you ask me or other band members where we get our info about how a
song sounded on a given night... well, one of those sources is the Taper's
Compendiums volume one and two... and for this show the book informed Hazdra
that he was expected to make his bass sound like "a Tyrannosaurus Rex getting
stabbed in the groin", I believe the phrasing went, during the "Playin"
jam... and DID HE EVER!!! Big scoops of sliding bass and attacks on the
strings... it was INCREDIBLE!!! A rare "Mind Left Body Jam" got a nice cheer
of recognition before "He's Gone" lifted fists in the air as well as heels...
"Nothin' left to do but SMILE SMILE SMILE" for sure...
The "Stella Blue" was absolutely captivating that night. I love the song with
all my heart and I never get tired of it, but the song was so perfect, and
John's voice so tender, that the place was just about SILENT during the
song... everyone was enraptured by it... transfixed...
Maraat cranked the band up to the aforementioned 108+dB for "Sugar Magnolia"
before they left the stage to a rabid crowd reaction, only to return and play
the show's encore "Morning Dew"...
Ziggy's, quite simply, went nuts.
After the date of the show was announced and it was disclosed that this would
be Lisa's last show on the tour with us, the band played "Here Comes
Sunshine" for the filler, and although it wasn't text-book perfection like
the first night in Asheville, no one seemed to mind one bit! Nice long jams
sent everyone home with a psychoactive smile...
Thank you to everyone who came out and made Winston-Salem one of the best
stops on the tour, and especially big thanks to Ziggy's and Jack for the real
good time!!!
I'll see you all here for class again really soon, everyone! And HEY... Let's
Be Careful Out There!!!