localcrew

This is my line of work; being a stagehand. I can say that a different type of stage would have survived this. The type we use on Parliament Hill (and other locations)would have born these winds as it is designed for the roof to blow off if worse comes to worse. We had quite a microburst a few years ago on July 1st which was so strong that many 1/2 million dollar sound boards were ruined and the show was much impacted but was able to continue as we improvised to make it work. We had to hold down the catering tent we were in at the time and the wind was so strong that it broke heavy plexiglass windows that are meant to protect the stained glass windows on the Parliament buildings. When the wind is that strong we clear the stage because the ties that hold the roof on will fly around but that is the biggest danger-that and lightning-it is never good to be on a stage like that in lightning. Noone wants a 200 foot heavy duty tarp roof falling on them but it is certainly a better outcome than having the stage collapse. Events such as the Alberta one should always have minute by minute wheather updates and I am surprised that they didn`t clear the stage and crowd sooner.... They are lucky in Alberta that more people didn't perish. And as for the Blues fest-those are cheap stages as well which would not likely survive much of a wind. They also skimp on the labour and are not using the most knowledgeable people (the most important of which are the riggers who decide what flies and what doesn`t-our riggers have been asked many times to double check things they have done at Bluesfest and have not come away happy-in fact refusing to be involved or sign off having had all of their recommendations ignored). Their first accident at Bluesfest will likely be their last as they will probably be sued into exinction... They`re not miles and miles away from being safe but not close enough to avoid tragedy.

I didn't make it this year but have gone before. I would have gone if I could.....fun for the whole family!

Safe home Marmaduke.

RIP Les!

Nice! I never saw that one. Jeff does the odd thing I suppose; I suggested he go pro but I guess he just preferred doing what suited him when it suited him. I can understand that. It can lose a lot of the charm when you do it all the time for a living. I discovered the same thing with music years ago. When it started to feel like a job I decided I'd rather just have a job and do music for the fun and inspiration rather than money-maybe it would be different if I was making a lot of money but I guess I'll never know......that's alright. At least I work with people who are making a career in performing their particular craft-I'm a stagehand so I get to see all different kinds of arts.... Jeff really is a great artist as I discovered back in the eighties. The only work of his I ever saw was an incomplete pastel (I think-my memory may be off) that was incredibly beautiful. For some reason he doesn't feel the urge to play with his gift in that regard. That piece is probably still unfinished.... He is an excellent recording engineer and pursues that more than anything else as well as mixing sound live. He is very gifted with electronics of all sorts and given the schematics can accomplish anything you can imagine. He is dogged in his pursuits once he gets going and can even somehow manage to find the most obscure schematics and things when he sets his mind to it. He used to soup (sp?) up my guitar from time to time and we would joke how I would ask for a simple wiring modification and end up with a guitar that would slice bread and make toast.... A lot of people have run into his impatience and finickiness over the years-I don't know how many times he almost got us killed in the States over the years dealing with sticky situations being lost in some ghetto or other..... but he can also be the most generous and unashamed person in giving praise and encouragement when he feels it is needed where other people may have shied away. ....interesting cat.....

I should point out that as to the original subject of the poster and the compliments in general as to the posters we had for those gigs that the bulk of our excellent posters were made by Jeff Bass (TMNS bassist) and the poster for the last gig at the Carleton Tavern was made by Dave Ouellette our `synth`guitarist who runs the site you found the poster originally Here`s a gallery of many of Jeff`s posters in case you missd it: http://woolyproductions.com/tmns/gallery.html

Thanks, I'm glad somebody may dig it! I'm just uploading a few remixes to Windsmith-there's always something that needs fixing that becomes more apparent once I upload these things and realize someone else might listen to it. I'll probably make a thread formally announcing the new uploads once I have a chance to listen to the two new 'albums' but am busy with work and then going to cottage country for a couple weeks so who knows when I'll get a chance to listen to it.....it needs to be done if for no other reason than sometimes there's an actual good old fashioned technical glitch....Arcadia for example had some kind of squeal right in the middle for some reason.....a simple remix fixed it.... ...noone said it was going to be easy....

I hope you realize I was kidding. I'd be up for any kind of critique; even something as mundane as 'the second song is more quiet than the rest' or 'the harmonies are off on.....'... Since I'm doing everything from writing to playing all the parts and recording/'engineering' I never expect it to be anywhere near to or resembling perfect. I do however try to make it as good as I am able considering the number of songs to work on and the amount of time I have to put in. Fresh ears can help point out the things that are more in need of attention. It still comes down to whether or not I get around to revisiting a song as I am always working on writing and recording new ones. I usually get around to it though so bring it on.

Sure thing. And I don't mind criticism at all. I'm just serving the music and if that means ignoring you then so be it.

Indeed! And by the bye I just uploaded those other two 'albums' I mentioned. I think that song is cooperating enough for now. http://hydrophonica.com The link is also in my sig below....

Wow what an epic setlist!

Let's do it. We don't have to stick to all Dead format-whatever everyone wants to play. Me old drummer from Longbottom has been wanting to play too.....Terry Calder is always up for music too...multi instrumentalist so can fit in anywhere he likes.... ....doing followspot for Greenday tonight so gotta go but hey if we can make joy in this world why not do it eh?

No great story unfortunately. We never actually named ourselves as we kind of organically morphed into a band-we never planned it. People just started calling us that so we went along once we had a need to make posters etc. As you might not be surprised it was mentioned a few times that the name may offend some so since we were offensive enough we decided to use a name that would not be in itself in any way offensive unless we could offend everybody equally at once. It's funny that I hadn't really thought about all this stuff until the other night when I was at the Laf with my stepson and stepdaughter (we had gone to see Serena Ryder and were rewarded by her hanging out with us and her band for quite a while after the show!!).....anyhoo I was reminiscing about how I had played there since the eighties and what a wild scene it always was. There was something about the Laf that whenever we played there even as Longbottom that the place would be overflowing into the street with hippies dancing on the tables and out into the street. In the Longbottom days we would start in the early afternoon with the Gold Nugget Express or 4 Way Street or Cabin Fever or whoever and go right til closing (actually usually until after closing) so by the time Longbottom played I guess everyone was quite primed. As I sat there with the kids (23 and 26) I was approached by a couple of nice ladies who said 'hey didn't you used to play in Jerry's Kids-geez we used to have a blast-hey we used to dance on the tables and everything...' We talked for a while and I can't believe I didn't get their names except I'm not really surprised that I am such a space case..... Anyway the timing of that and this post-makes me think it's time to get out and about a bit....I've had an over riding urge(nt) to record my songs which have built up over the years and have made good enough progress (quantitatively if not quality wise) that maybe other things can come more to the forefront. May as well follow the signs....

Bye the bye if anyone is interested I'll be posting two new 'albums' to my hydrophonica site sometime soon but there is just one song (as there always is) that is misbehaving. Also in those cassettes I mentioned there is probably some old Gold Nugget Express, 4 Way Street and Straight no Chaser and Vick Fraser stuff from days gone by at The Manoir Des Rapides.....anyone remember those gigs...they were quite epic....

Ok....maybe it's time for bob to get his buds!!! Anyway it's nice to read this post as I am the guitarist in question here. I miss those days as well...I suppose that's the nature of having had 'those days'... We started as you may recall at the gathering in memorial for Jerry just after he died; we played the Laf totally unrehearsed and just made it up on the spot. It wasn't until quite some time after and many requests that we decided to do it again....and again.....just to keep the Deadhead spirit alive. I always thought of us more as an event than a band.... We never planned that last show as being the final but there seemed to be some kind of an intuitive understanding that maybe it was....we had played as TMNS for ten years since Jerry's passing (we couldn't believe it when we realized it had been ten years as we didn't feel like a band that had gotten as good as one should after playing together for that long). We had been talking about going different directions as far as keeping the same vibe but adding original music and panning out since some of us had originals and the Dead themselves seemed more ready to keep on with their legacy. In the end most of the band decided to move on with their personal lives and not continue at all. You can see with my signature below that I have kept up with the writing of the music that moves through my soul some of the others have done the same..and everyone's doing something or other.... This music will always be with me and I will never let it go and I will always honour my muses...that's just me. I'm getting the urge to get it happening again (well I never lost the urge) but don't see the need to have a Dead tribute band since they are doing it themselves again.(of course I'd be up for anything from time to time just for the fun of it). I know from the past that you don't need to play only Dead to have a night of music with similar results. I don't know if anyone around here remembers Longbottom but that's where it started as far as Ottawa goes and the jam band scene hereabouts (back then there was no such thing actually-it was long before PHISH etc...). We started playing around town in the early to mid eighties and had many riotous nights at the Laf, Downstairs Club etc etc and played whatever we wanted in 'Dead fashion' so I know you don't have to be a tribute band to make the magic happen (or let it happen which is more accurate). It wasn't long before other bands formed such as Gold Nugget Express, 4 Way Street etc and we had quite a good scene for a few years. Longbottom had the same fate as TMNS in that people just moved on and left that crazy music part behind.... Perhaps if we had more resources it would have been different but we hit the wall. Our biggest event was the Earthball which ran for many years until it got so big that we couldn't find anywhere to do it that didn't require insurance etc which was all beyond our means.....so we let the (Earth)ball drop there and life went on; at least back then there was always Dead tour to look forward to..... ....jeez...quite an essay eh?..... Anyhoo hey I would like to check out any footage people may have as I was just recently saying what a shame it is that there was none....maybe I was wrong. I didn't know anyone had any video of TMNS and have never heard any audio recordings (that's something-in all those ten years I only ever heard about ten minutes in total of anything we ever played.....?...) I have a dvd recorder if the footage needs to be transfered (in real time unfortunately) but I think it would be cool to see if any video is worthy of posting somewhere......I've thought of expanding my website (see my sig below) with any archival Longbottom (am I imagining things or was there some video of us at Barrymores when we opened for Hawkwind or closed for Days of You) or TMNS stuff that isn't too embarrassing..... I've also been asked recently if there was any Longbottom stuff that could go on Archive.org and the answer is that I have tons of cassettes that were given to me for safe keeping that cold be transferred to digital.....but I doubt I will get around to much myself so if someone wants to tackle this let me know. Be warned that some of these tapes are twenty years old or older so I wouldn't want just some wahoo with an old Walkman to take this on. Also be warned that some of the Longbottom stuff is to my ears quite hard to listen to (as I recall). We had a great drummer (dave Bissessar) and a great bassist (Joe Burns) but the rest of us were just learning and our keyboard player had the habit of selling hash as he was playing so would lose track of what he was doing.....I was such a beginner that i remember the first time I played electric guitar was the first Earthball at Glenn Macintosh's when Chris Swain gave me his SG before we played and I said 'cool thanks'....well we played Franklin's Tower and when I sang 'if you get confused listen to the music play' I ripped right into a solo upon which I remembered that I had never played a lead solo in my life-that may be caught on tape as well....I don't recall...... Anyway that's quite a rant but there it is. And for the record I loved playing with Blue Grassy High and Dr. Huxtable and thought at the time that we should have done it much more often but for some reason it never happened......alas.. ever anon

Though it's Cambodia (hey when are you getting any closer to Cambodia than Vietnam?) the temples there (in Cambodia) are something I've always wanted to see. I believe they are in Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat....

All the belated best!

This should be interesting! It'll make for some good skits on Saturday Night Live as well before long.

..firewire..

Great tour! I haven't heard much from the boys since Jerry passed that made me want to hit the road but this tour made me want to get back truckin' on! Warren really found a great balance of playing in his own style and adding a bit more Jerry and Dead style to his chops. I think he really 'got it' this time and grew into it more than in the past. He really found his singing voice too. I think their vocal stylings are the best they have been since Brent died. The way they played some of their vintage stuff was great as well....love Born Cross Eyed etc-that was terrific!! The 'core four' as Chimenti calls them (he played great keys of course as well as adding some vocal harmonies) are definitely one of a kind (or is that four?).....I never get tired of hearing their unique and powerful, transcendent interplay. Some people can't get past the chaos that sometimes ensues from their unconventional approach but I have loved it and found it incomparable since I fell into it back in the early eighties. How unique and enjoyable. I wonder if they will write some new stuff.. that would be cool.....maybe if they wrote some new stuff exploring the weird stylings of the sixties in the vein of Born Cross Eyed etc as it seems they really found a way to bring back those vintage sounds that are at once new and old...?... LOVE IT!

It certainly sounds to be worth every penny to me!

Yes he is outstanding. Timeless. Vintage sound though I agree...of course to me this is a good thing.

People are free to like what they like and take away what they like of course. That being said; back in the day we were actually surprised when the dead sounded pleasingly professional. It was a nice bonus and also a bit of a laugh when Bobby played the rock star. We didn't go hear them because they were the tightest most presentable band. They were a band who used their music to embody a philosophy in a way and a band that journeyed in a way that others didn't-and still don't. They have lost a lot with the passing of Jerry but the core still are trying to live out their-and our dreams-it's a little harder to take without Jerry but they try...... Bobby was always the weaker singer and in fact I don't think he really was able to pull if off until the eighties when he found the right way to harness the power of his voice. In the seventies he was alright but his voice always had a shaky weakness to it. I'm not surprised that as he ages his voice is losing a little-it happens to them all....well most of them..... And the band...they're just not made to be slick....in fact they have almost always come off poorly when making tv appearances or other events of note (ie Woodstock). It's almost as if the powers that be are making sure they don't become too palatable or mainstream.

What are you folks listening with. Man with my setup (which consists of a set of $30 earbuds which crank bass from my laptop-my main computer goes through a full stereo) Phil is all over this tune and it kicks ass at high volume. As somebody who is interested in posting my music for folks to listen to on the internet I'm a little distressed to think that people on what is fundamentally a music oriented site listen to music from their cheesey computer or tv speakers and judge music accordingly. It was like 35 years ago that Led Zeppelin refused to play music on tv because of the horrible sound. I find it strange that people with the kind of sophistication of the 21st century are limited similarly.

Wow-they sound relatively grate! I haven't had much interest in seeing them since Jerry passed but I think this is the best they have sounded yet. I toured with the boys from the mid eighties until the end and haven't felt the urge to make the pilgrimage but am feeling a slight twinge now....