NeWorDeli is a funky little sandwich shop and music venue that has become an Austin institution over the past 25 years. They've earned a reputation for their support of local original music, as well as great food. Seemed like a good fit for my band, Kinda Sorta (all of the songs we play are ones we've written), and I was excited when they responded to my inquiry about performing there by offering a date. We would play on a Sunday, from 2-4 pm. Perfect for old farts like us who don't like to stay up late. I also liked that NeWorlDeli is a "listening room"--meaning that people aren't there to party and drink and carouse (not that there's anything wrong with that) but to sit and listen and eat a good sandwich.
Sunday morning, load out:
Our rehearsal room cleared out, which the cat assumes has been done for her benefit.
Although it's still May, and Summer won't begin for 25 days, it was in the mid-90's and humid, with no breeze to cool things off. Ah, Texas. I recently insulated our garage in hopes of being able to store some of our equipment (such as our PA) in there without fear of it being damaged by the heat. It helps a bit. I loaded up the car inside the closed garage with a portable A/C unit running, which made it tolerable.
Our RAV4, loaded with our Bose sound system, a rack containing our mixer and IEM system, my wife's digital piano, my bass amp, two basses, and various stands & cables.
The band met at our house and convoyed an easy 30 minute drive from Georgetown (where we live) to North Austin where the venue is. If it hadn't been the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend there would have been a lot more road congestion--even on a Sunday. Sorry, no commute photos.
The stage at NeWorlDeli is small, but our band, although a 4-piece, has a small footprint, so we knew it would be tight but doable.
Once at the venue, the load-in and setup took 2 hours. Although the venue has a decent sound system (including floor monitors), which we were allowed to use, we opted to bring in our own. We don't usually have a soundperson. So we have a baseline mix/EQ that we begin with on our system and then I stand out front during soundcheck with a long cable for my bass and tweak the levels and EQs on an iPad. Fortunately, very little tweaking was required and I set the overall volume level to what I figured would be optimal. I spoke with the manager and told her to please signal me if we were too loud (or too quiet) and I would be able to immediately adjust the overall volume from the stage. We use IEMs and have no speakers onstage, so this gives us tremendous control over the sound that we put out to the audience. It also means that regardless of the room, it always sounds the same to us in our IEMs.
The completed stage setup. Cozy, but not too bad. Our drummer plays a Roland Handsonic digital drum, which sounds fantastic and has hundreds of drum kits and percussion instruments built into it. It's remarkable to hear a full drum kit in my IEMs and look back and see him tapping pads with his fingers like a stenographer (he also has MIDI foot pedals for the kick and hi-hat). If it weren't for the Handsonic he wouldn't be able to play drums due to nerve damage that prevents him from holding sticks, which would be a real shame because he's a terrific drummer. Our guitarist managed to fit two acoustics onstage. I brought a backup bass (always do) but kept it in the gig bag offstage. This was the maiden voyage of my black Reverend Dub King that I recently had converted to fretless by Pat Wilkins of Wilkins Guitars. It worked wonderfully.
Our drummer, Jeff, and our guitarist, Jeff, collectively known as "The Jeff's."
Mission control: My pedalboard (tuner, octave, overdrive, compressor, reverb), my Demeter amp, my personal monitor mixer, the FOH mixer on the iPad. The other two pedals on the floor under the stand are reverb for my mic and the keyboardist's mic (we've found that for us it make more sense to use personal mic reverb units than to do it via the FOH mixer).
Showtime! A few gig shots...
The crowd was smallish, due to a lot of folks being out of town for the 3-day weekend. We managed to bring in 14 of our own followers (who mostly came down from the Georgetown vicinity), plus 8-10 regulars from the neighborhood.
Part of our compensation, in addition to a percentage of the till, was free meals. We all opted to wait to eat until after the gig. I had a Reuben--quite possibly the best Reuben I've ever had.
Then we needed to get cracking on tear down and load out before they closed at 5pm. We made it, and got our last piece of equipment out the door right at 5pm. We were home by 6, tired but happy (and full).
When it was all said and done, the manager told us they really liked us and that we had the best sound they had ever heard there. Yay! We hope to perform there again. Heck, I'd do it just for another Reuben sandwich!
A few cell phone videos (not great sound quality as the person filming was seated off to the side):
Sunday morning, load out:
Our rehearsal room cleared out, which the cat assumes has been done for her benefit.
Although it's still May, and Summer won't begin for 25 days, it was in the mid-90's and humid, with no breeze to cool things off. Ah, Texas. I recently insulated our garage in hopes of being able to store some of our equipment (such as our PA) in there without fear of it being damaged by the heat. It helps a bit. I loaded up the car inside the closed garage with a portable A/C unit running, which made it tolerable.
Our RAV4, loaded with our Bose sound system, a rack containing our mixer and IEM system, my wife's digital piano, my bass amp, two basses, and various stands & cables.
The band met at our house and convoyed an easy 30 minute drive from Georgetown (where we live) to North Austin where the venue is. If it hadn't been the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend there would have been a lot more road congestion--even on a Sunday. Sorry, no commute photos.
The stage at NeWorlDeli is small, but our band, although a 4-piece, has a small footprint, so we knew it would be tight but doable.
Once at the venue, the load-in and setup took 2 hours. Although the venue has a decent sound system (including floor monitors), which we were allowed to use, we opted to bring in our own. We don't usually have a soundperson. So we have a baseline mix/EQ that we begin with on our system and then I stand out front during soundcheck with a long cable for my bass and tweak the levels and EQs on an iPad. Fortunately, very little tweaking was required and I set the overall volume level to what I figured would be optimal. I spoke with the manager and told her to please signal me if we were too loud (or too quiet) and I would be able to immediately adjust the overall volume from the stage. We use IEMs and have no speakers onstage, so this gives us tremendous control over the sound that we put out to the audience. It also means that regardless of the room, it always sounds the same to us in our IEMs.
The completed stage setup. Cozy, but not too bad. Our drummer plays a Roland Handsonic digital drum, which sounds fantastic and has hundreds of drum kits and percussion instruments built into it. It's remarkable to hear a full drum kit in my IEMs and look back and see him tapping pads with his fingers like a stenographer (he also has MIDI foot pedals for the kick and hi-hat). If it weren't for the Handsonic he wouldn't be able to play drums due to nerve damage that prevents him from holding sticks, which would be a real shame because he's a terrific drummer. Our guitarist managed to fit two acoustics onstage. I brought a backup bass (always do) but kept it in the gig bag offstage. This was the maiden voyage of my black Reverend Dub King that I recently had converted to fretless by Pat Wilkins of Wilkins Guitars. It worked wonderfully.
Our drummer, Jeff, and our guitarist, Jeff, collectively known as "The Jeff's."
Mission control: My pedalboard (tuner, octave, overdrive, compressor, reverb), my Demeter amp, my personal monitor mixer, the FOH mixer on the iPad. The other two pedals on the floor under the stand are reverb for my mic and the keyboardist's mic (we've found that for us it make more sense to use personal mic reverb units than to do it via the FOH mixer).
Showtime! A few gig shots...
The crowd was smallish, due to a lot of folks being out of town for the 3-day weekend. We managed to bring in 14 of our own followers (who mostly came down from the Georgetown vicinity), plus 8-10 regulars from the neighborhood.
Part of our compensation, in addition to a percentage of the till, was free meals. We all opted to wait to eat until after the gig. I had a Reuben--quite possibly the best Reuben I've ever had.
Then we needed to get cracking on tear down and load out before they closed at 5pm. We made it, and got our last piece of equipment out the door right at 5pm. We were home by 6, tired but happy (and full).
When it was all said and done, the manager told us they really liked us and that we had the best sound they had ever heard there. Yay! We hope to perform there again. Heck, I'd do it just for another Reuben sandwich!
A few cell phone videos (not great sound quality as the person filming was seated off to the side):
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