Fall Tour Dates

Stop by the HeadCount table at any of the upcoming shows and enter a raffle to win a guitar signed by Bobby and members of RatDog +. The raffle is FREE. All you have to do is "Pledge to Vote" to enter. While you are there, register to vote, change your address or party affiliation, or sign up to volunteer. For more information go to www.HeadCount.org.

As you may have noticed, we usually post a new tour profile on the first of the month.  We’re going to skip it today, because we’re getting toward the end of a website upgrade that will let us send you – starting September 1st – a monthly newsletter of all things RatDog – profiles, tour dates, pictures, news and so forth.  So watch the skies or your computer screen, enjoy the summer, look for the Dog in Maine on August 10th and after, and Sign Up Now for the Newsletter by Giving Us Your Email Address!

Happy Birthday, Jerry, wherever you are.

   If you’ve ever been in line waiting to pick up your fresh copy of that night’s RatDog show and seen a short, bearded dude sprinting like a crazed halfback from backstage to the merch booth, you’ve seen Peter “the Gnome” Ammerall, our live recordist.  Peter’s the Dead Head taper who (along with Dick Latvala and then David Lemieux) has managed to turn his musical obsession into the dream job.
    After graduating high school in upstate New York in 1988, he attended Emory Riddle Aeronautic University in aircraft engineering.  He was a serious, devoted hard science major raised by hard working conservatives – “I was supposed to go work for NASA” - and some friends thought he needed a little loosening up, and took him to the 10/15/88 show in St. Petersburg, Florida…little did they know. 
    Actually, he’d tried to go to the show at SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center) near his home that summer and hadn’t gotten in, but had come away impressed with the quality of the scene.  It was easier in Florida, and he was a classic Dead Head, hooked on the first show.  In fact, it occurred to him that night that “I’d better go back to college now, or I may never do it.” 
    Pretty soon he was a liberal arts major who went to more and more shows – more than 100 by the time he was done.  And pretty quickly he found his corner of the world in the taper section, where his tech skills came in handy.  Florida got to be a drag, and soon he found himself living in Boulder and then Eugene (Santa Cruz was too expensive!), where he got involved with landscape gardening and environmental issues, becoming a strict organic-eating and cooking vegetarian, which he’s continued to the present.
    His last G.D. show was at Highgate, Vermont, in 1995, and he was at musical loose ends when he attended his first RatDog show in Los Angeles in December of that year.  By 1999, he was a regular on the tour, and with early Dogheads Andrew Grimm (a taper) and Neal Smith (who had a fan appreciation website pre-ratdog.org called The Rat Trap), he began to plug into the board and record shows.   
    When Phish and the Dead began to sell instant-live shows, it opened the door for RatDog, and by the fall of 2003, he went out on the tour to learn Pro-Tools and the ins and outs of real time mastering.  As of today, he’s helped RatDog Live record 284 shows. 
    Selling shows on the same night as the performance isn’t something RatDog – or Peter – does for the money.  As Peter said, “Hearing those old (G.D.) bootlegs changed my life, and that’s why I do this.  It’s important for people to be able to hold that music and be able to pass it on.  It’s a gift, and I help people be able to share it.”
    “I’m trying to replicate what I hear.  We don’t put out a straight soundboard, we want folks to have a real souvenir.  Our mix brings sound from many points to one, to replicate the live experience.”
    It’s all part of the RatDog ethos.  As Peter noted, “Bob really loves that people can go home with the show.”
    Three days before spring tour Peter and his partner Amanda recently had their first child, Neal, named after Peter’s father.  It was no coincidence that his middle name had to start with an F (Franklin), so little N.F.A. is officially on the Dog’s bus from birth.

The Dog’s dance across the American West with Government Mule came to a close last night in San Jose with a molten “Morning Dew,” Mark and sitting-in Warren H. trading licks.  Of course, if the show had taken place as scheduled (renovations weren’t complete) at the Mountain Winery, it would have been hotter – like 105 degrees.  Lots of good vibes and sitting-ins between the two bands, with Kenny Brooks spending a lot of time with the Mule, and Mr. Haynes with the Dog.
    Time for a little rest and relaxation, and see you all again August 10th in Maine, followed by a run with the Allman Brothers Band.

Dear Bay Area DogHeads: We’re very sorry, but apparently ongoing renovations at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, California, have hit a snag and won’t be done in time for our shows (also some Boston – the band - shows this week, too). The shows will now be-on the same days- 16 miles down the road at the San Jose Performing Arts Center, 255 Almaden Boulevard, San Jose, at 7 pm. The tickets will be exchanged at the SJPAC box office for comparable seat locations. The SJPAC box office will open at 5 pm Refunds will be available at the place of purchase.

Sunday was a lovely day in the S.F. Bay Area, and so the Chief didn’t have to suffer too much – see pictures – to contribute to a benefit designed to fight aerial spraying in the region…the event was a sellout. 
For more info on the issue, go to http://www.stopthespraymarin.org.

For  Bobby talking to our friends at WDST (Woodstock, NY), just before the recent Mountain Jam show.

Dear Dogheads:  

Alton Kelley was one of the world's truly sweet guys.  He was a perfect reference point to the Haight-Ashbury, not merely because he had a good time there - "Hey, I was at the party," he once said - but because he used that freedom to make terrific art.  He moved us all, in more ways than you might even know.  (Go look at the back cover of "American Beauty" - that's his bedside table.) 


He died after a painful - and expensive - illness.  If you can help out in any way, you'd be creating a blessing for yourself, as well as his family.
Send some $ to  Margaret Trousdale, Washington Mutual Bank, 101 Western Ave., Petaluma CA 94952. Tel 707-763-4148.   An account has been set up in the name of Marguerite Trousdale (account #3952762942) for wires (routing #322271627).

    You have to understand that Jeff Chimenti is one of the nicest, most mild-mannered guys around – a sweetheart who doesn’t go around telling folks what to do, ever.  But in one of the pivotal moments in the evolution of RatDog - Johnnie Johnson had been the keyboard man, but the travel was getting to him (after all, he was 73), and Mookie Siegel was from Baltimore, which made rehearsals a little tough – Jeff stepped up and told Bob, “I need this gig, and you need me on this gig.”
    Boy, was he ever right.  He’s been the solid keyboard rock of RatDog ever since.
    He’s been a piano man since before he could remember.  His mom took a picture of him sitting at the piano at 18 months, looking really happy.  She said that from the beginning he never banged on it, but always made nice sounds.  By the age of four, he was coming home from church and copying the organist by ear, and by the age of seven he was taking classical piano lessons.  He’s the baby of his family, and his older brother turned him on to rock and his sister even got him to play pop like  Elton John, so from the beginning he played all kinds of music.
    There never was a question about what he was going to do.  He played his first “casual,” a musician term for a job, usually a wedding or a party or something like that, at the age of 13, and early in his high school career he began playing in the Monday Night Big Band at College of San Mateo (CSM) – where Phil Lesh had played trumpet a few years before!
    Dropping out of CSM to take a gig in Amsterdam, he returned to the Bay Area and became a rising player in the SF jazz scene, playing with people like John Handy, Art Farmer, Frank Morgan, Victor Lewis, Charnette Moffett, Bobby Hutcherson, Pharoah Sanders, and in former Ahmad Jamal associate Calvin Keys’s band, which included Gaylord Birch (who played with Jerry Garcia from time to time).  It’s not all that small a world, but the circles do connect!
    One day, a friend told him he was going to audition the following afternoon, and on arriving at the studio with 14 or so other keyboard players, he discovered the band was four beautiful girls who called themselves En Vogue.  It was their first tour, opening for M.C. Hammer (remember him?), and he spent almost four months on it, playing mostly sampled sounds 30 to 40 minutes a night, six nights a week, the same notes every night.  It was an education in being a backing musician.
    Early in the 1990s, he began subbing for Dred Scott in a Bay Area band called Alphabet Soup, where he met Jay Lane, and shortly after became part of Dave Ellis’s band; Dave was then part of the Charlie Hunter trio, which also featured. Jay.  Circles within circles…
    Jeff also backed vocalists, including Madeleine Eastman, Rebecca Parris, Marlena Shaw, and Denise Perrier, who took him to Japan for six months, where he played in the 52nd floor bar that is central to the movie Lost in Translation – and where he met his lovely wife, Moe (pronounced Moy).  
    Back in the Bay Area, Dave Ellis had joined RatDog, and Jeff casually said he’d love to jam – and two days later, he got invited up to Bob Weir’s house.  After a while, he had his conversation with Bob, and not long after that, was out on the road with the Dog for Further 1997.
    Boy, has the band evolved since then – this was a year before Mark Karan popped up and solved the lead guitar question.  And what’s changed?  “The band’s gotten so telepathic over time,” he said recently.  “You have to be able to trust each other, and that takes a while.  And if you step on yourself and screw something up, it’s still OK.”
    “The audience has evolved too, you can really feel the energy growing.  It’s gotten bigger, and younger.  I get so many people telling me that ‘Wow, that was my first RatDog show, and now it’s my favorite band’ – it feels more and more that we’re standing on our own feet.”
    And when he’s not playing piano?  If you’re ever at a RatDog hotel and see a guy with a short beard and glasses come out in proper golf attire, long hair tied back and tucked under a hat, it’ll be Jeff (or his two tour golfing partners – more about them in future installments).  And his partners swear he’s by far the best of them.  The Chimenti golden touch…