...but we know better!  Let's see, a blizzard between Minneapolis and Milwaukee, floods in St. Louis (but we got have dinner with our old pal Jimmy Voss at his restaurant Duff's there (this is what is called in the trade a plug - and all Dog Heads should know about Duff's, it's a terrific place), and a kind reception for us all, Mark especially, in Covington, Cleveland, Detroit (more snow), Syracuse (frikkin' cold), and Philly.  The band has been rocking, and it's a matter of taste which show you like better.  Day off now in the Poconos, and we can use it.

Which brings us to our second subject, namely, the second monthly installment of our tour biographies.  The guy you see onstage to your right with the goatee, Charucki. 

    Our monitor mixer and production boss, Charucki – like Brazilian soccer players, he goes by one name – is an international man of mystery.  Little is known of his background before the day he began working for RatDog.  His penchant for all-black clothing has been explained as a result of his birth in Transylvania, but we can’t find any proof.  Rumors abound that he once served as a spy and agent provocateur for the Freemasons, but that may be simply because he’s handy with bricks and widgets.  His skills with diplomacy are complex and varied.  Thanks to him, RatDog has played before the crowned heads of Europe.  
    But mystery is the operative word.  No one, for instance, knows where he lives.  When your humble editor requested an interview and photo session, he and his photographer partner were simply told to make themselves available.  Our front door flew open to reveal two enormous thugs, who blindfolded us and put us in a no-window van with very loud German techno music and a strong odor of cathouse and Jack Daniels.  When we could see again, we were in a psychedelic vista of superheroes – Charucki clearly has many (mostly very small) friends.  
    During the photo shoot, your intrepid reporter briefly evaded the thugs and investigated details of the apartment as much as possible, and I can inform you that the sole food in the refrigerator was a 15 pound block of Velveeta cheese – but, contrary to rumors, there were no real human skulls anywhere.
    He brusquely refused all questions, but when asked about RatDog, he snarled, “They’re a bunch of leftist Marxists and they’re bad for America.  But I do like that “Money for Gasoline” song.”
    Photos done, the thugs helped us on our way, and I can only report that the pictures do not do justice to the tokens of affection sent him by every known superhero.  Whoever he once served as special agent for, they must have been heavy.
    They had to be, since he came to RatDog – of course.

  

photo galleries of the spring tour are being posted, starting in st paul. check under Gallery tab, 2008 folder. 

RatDog truck  as shot in Covington, KY
photo-Tom Sweeney

Backstage at RatDog shows there are signs printed up by the production guys that give the schedule, and occasionally add notes like "turn your laundry in tonight."  The one in St. Paul, the first night of the tour, read:  "MK's back.  Ain't that freekin' cool?"  Too true.  The Dog is running once more. 

Most of you know that Al Franken is a serious Dead Head...so on landing in Minneapolis to start the tour, Bob and Jay Lane went over to Archie and Tina Smith's house to support Al's campaign with song.
Bob Weir (guitar, vocals); Jay Lane (cardboard box); the Grateful Volunteers (Mike Weinberg, guitar; Jim Hinckley, bass; Annie Hicks, vocals).

K.C. Moan
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Friend of the Devil
Brokedown Palace

A serious good time was had by all.  Vote early, vote often!

However cold it is where you are, you know it’s spring when the newspaper talks about baseball and RatDog tickets go on sale.  And it’s definitely spring – lots of good stuff starting to happen.

First and Foremost:      
    Uncle RatDog Wants You To join the Kennel Club!
    Please direct your attention to the impressive button/icon on the lower right corner of the home page.  Please fill in your email address and zipcode.  When you join our email list – we’ve been awful slow about this so far, but that’s changing – we can make sure you’re the first on your block to learn about tour dates and other stuff.  And, promise, no spam – all quality RatDog News.  Sign up!

Second:
    We’re starting a series of profiles of tour members today, so please look at the other new news item!

Coolest news of the week:      
    Our esteemed reedman, Kenny Brooks, is on the cover of the newest Saxophone Journal (March/April issue, when available)
– big article on him, mostly on RatDog.  Check it out by going to   http://www.dornpub.com/saxophonejournal.html

   
Hey Night Owls! 
    For those of you who never stop rockin’, Alphabet Soup – Doggies Kenny Brooks, Jeff Chimenti, and Jay Lane, plus Dred Scott on keys, Ben Rubin on bass, and Avi Bortnick on guitar, will lay down the funky groove after the 4/4 Beacon show at the Highline Ballroom at 431 West 16th St. and 10th Ave., starting at 12:30 am (to be exact, on 4/5). 
For information and to buy tickets

Dear Dog Heads:  
    As we put more energy into our website, we’re going to be offering you features about the band – which of course includes everybody who works with the band – and you.
    Once a month, we’ll be profiling a member of the travel group that brings you the Dog, from roadies to truckdrivers to – oh yeah – the band members.  
    We’re starting with the guy you can see the easiest because he’s out in the middle, our sound mixer, Mr. Michael McGinn.
    Hope you enjoy!           (“signed” by paw, K-9, the Dog Editor)



    That tall, lean, long-haired guy you see standing at the soundboard right in the middle of the Dog Heads is Michael McGinn.  Since he works for RatDog, it’s not a big surprise that he’s not your average knob-turner.  Actually, he’s a guitar-playing art school near-graduate (all the good ones leave early – actually, he may be the only guy whose professors told him to go) who fell into Weirworld a long time ago.
    McGinn’s the son of an Irishman who managed to combine being a member of both the I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army) and the R.A.F. (Royal Air Force) who landed in the San Jose area repairing televisions.  Not so many homes in the early ‘70s had a tube in every room, and although at heart he’s not a tech, McGinn learned how to solder like a champ.  From the time he was seven or eight, he was rewriting the pop songs he heard on KFRC – “If they had just changed that last chord, it’d be so much better!” – and when he was 13, his big brother’s 8-track compilation tape led him to Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, the New York Dolls, and the Dictators, among many others.  “They say you peak in your sensibilities at 14,” he reflected recently, “and I feel lucky to have been 14 in 1977.”
    His first band, Joker, played a lot of Who.  After high school, he worked at Tower Records doing the art displays, and formed 3-D Jesus, an art rock band that made an album at the legendary Hyde Street Studio (where American Beauty was recorded).  Good result for bad reasons:  it sounded so bad to him that he got serious about the process of recording, which would lead to things…
    Early in the ‘80s he met his girlfriend’s best friend’s brother-in-law, who turned out to be a guy named Tom Paddock, one of the bright-mind techies in the Grateful Dead’s world.  Needing a job, he began working for Paddock, and by the late ‘90s, that job would evolve into being Bob Weir’s main studio guy.  Early in 1998, McGinn’s life got rough enough to make him think about how nice getting out of town would be; Bob’s guitar roadie broke his hip, and McGinn got the job.  Since his philosophy was that “the studio as we’ve known it is like going to the hospital,” he was clearly simpatico with our fearless leader – the studio is not Bob’s favorite place – and so he became the producer of 2000’s Evening Moods, and then RatDog’s sound mixer.
    Mike sits in his living room surrounded by computers, guitars, and his current art project, 108 (a sacred number) different covers for a 4- song CD he’s created, and reflects on life with the Dog:  “Bob does something that nobody else does.  It’s in the tradition of the Grateful Dead, but it’s definitely not the same; it’s in the spirit, but it’s not his intention to sound like them – that’d be boring – but it’s about exploring…”
    Hey, more mixers should go to art school!

 
 

    Short and sweet, Dog Heads:  If you were wondering who’s playing lead guitar for our upcoming spring tour, it would be one Mark Karan.  In the words of our fearless leader Senor Weir, “Mark’s back.  It’s pretty much a miracle.”  
    Mark added, "with much gratitude after long months of hard work, joy, fear, hope, affirmation... and finally triumph... i have been given the ‘all clear’ by my wonderful doctors @ UCSF and am really pleased and excited to be able to say i'll definitely be on the RatDog bus heading your way this spring. yippee!  i'm looking forward to seeing all y'all and to playing with and for you very, very soon...
thank you for all the love and support you've given me thru my greatest challenge.
much love, MK"

here you go

Bob, Phil, and Mickey – along with Jackie Greene, John Molo, and Steve Molitz from P & F, steelslingin’ Barry Sless, and our own Brother Mark Karan – came together for Barack Obama and made sweet music late into the night last night (Monday, 2/4)…from the opening “Playing in the Band” through a sweet acoustic set featuring a lovely “Ripple” to the closing – what else? – “U.S. Blues” (I still get a surge of pride when “Hippie” Bill Garbe brings out the peace flag), it was smiles and good vibes.
photo gallery

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