Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 10:01 pm Post subject: Daved's Bio
For newcomers to Robben's world, please allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Daved.
I have been Robben's tech, stage & production manager, and occasional tour manager for well over 4 years now, since March of 1999.
Perhaps this would be a good spot for a little history:
I began my love of music as a keyboard player in my own central California psychdelic-rock bands during the mid to late 60's, cutting my chops playing the music of Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, The Doors, Deep Purple, Spencer Davis, Love, Clear Light, Buffalo Springfield, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, It's A Beautiful Day, Spirit, Byrds, etc.
I then spent 6 years in Naval Aviation Electronics. With 3 years of shore duty and 3 years of Aircraft Carrier sea duty, I carried a top secret security clearance, working on navigational computers, Tacan, radio, search & track radars, and specializing in ECM & IFF systems, working primarily on EA6B and A-4 aircraft, till the end of the Vietnam war.
During this time I picked up an interest in guitars, fueled by the instrument's portability and a fellow shipmate from Ohio who had played with an early version of the James Gang (pre Joe Walsh) before being drafted. Jim gave me my first acoustic guitar and lessons as a birthday present while stationed near Memphis in 1970. He broke me in with the music of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Jose Feliciano, which we played as a duo till orders shipped us off to different corners of the world.
I was honorably discharged in 1975.
I closed out the 70's living out of an Econoline van, travelling around the country, getting back in touch with myself, my country, and reclaiming my love of music making.
The early 80's found me in the Pacific Northwest, where I remained active as both a performer and session player, gaining some local celebrity in the Portland, Oregon area till I fell into production and found my true career calling.
Starting out as a keyboard tech with Quaterflash, I moved onto guitar teching a year later with a spinoff group fronted by their lead guitarist/lead male vocalist, Jack Charles. Eventually I moved onto an up & coming Portland band called The Dan Reed Network which eventually led to my association with Bill Graham and his stable of BGM acts.
In the 90s I moved back to California and worked for years with groups such as Eddie Money, Joe Satriani, Edie Brickell, Jefferson Starship, Jellyfish, Don Henley, Testament, Savatage, Black Sabbath, Tom Petty, Santana, and many others till finally hooking up with Robben near the close of the century.
Robben, being a very unigue & special musician/human being, remains my primary client. During Robben's down times I do occasionally work with other artists, such as Little Feat, as long as it does not conflict with Robben's schedule. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Welcome onboard Daved ! It's nice to see you here .
It's funny that you mention having worked for Dan Reed Network, as I was wondering recently what they had become, I used to listen to them in the late 80's.
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:45 am Post subject: Dan Reed Network
Hi Pierre.
It doesn't suprise me that you are aware of DRN. They were a GREAT band, but never got the recognition here at home that they did in Europe, where they were huge for a time. Especially after they supported the Stone's Steel Wheels tour over there.
I remember taking them thru the recording of their first LP in Vancouver, Canada. Tho not credited as such, I am actually performing in several places on that album, mostly as either a backup vocalist or percussionist.
Legendary Bruce Fairbairn (Loverboy, Aerosmith, etc.), who produced that album, stated in several interviews right up till shortly before he died that that first Dan Reed Network album was his favorite project of his entire career.
Anyway, to answer your question, they disbanded in the early 90's after their 3rd album The Heat. Dan got slightly into acting and appeared in bit parts in a couple of movies. He has also recorded a couple of "solo" albums under other band names. But mostly, he returned to Portland, Oregon, and bought one of the clubs the band 'grew up' in called Key Largo, renamed it The Om and still resides in the NW.
The keyboardist, Blake Sakamoto, married a NW television news anchorlady and is a prominent session player in Portland.
Drummer, Dan Pred, is part owner of a Northwest multiMedia company.
Bassist, Melvin Brannon, moved to L.A. and is a local player down there.
And guitarist, Brion James, moved to somewhere in South America after living in L.A. with several years of success as a R&B songwriter. He still continues as a sessionist and support performer.
In fact, when Edgar Winter came to play on Robben's new CD, he & I discussed Melvin & Brion who had both worked with him for a period of time a few years back.
I see all of them occasionally and keep in touch with Brion and Blake fairly regularly. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Last edited by Daved on Tue Sep 30, 2003 10:21 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 534 Location: SF Bay area
Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:14 am Post subject: Daved, Daved, Daved! Yessssssssssss!
I cannot tell you how FANTASTIC it is to have you back! Welcome home...help yourself to anything you like. (Wait...that did not come out sounding right...) But I hope you know how much we appreciate you!
Gotta run...I need to listen to "Homework" 100 times before class!
elizabeth _________________ www.elizabethgage.com
I will dig out my old LP's with DRN. I know I've got SLAM and THE HEAT...maybe even the first one. Nice story Daved. Didn't know you are an ex-rockstar
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 8:20 am Post subject: DRN Trivia
johan wrote:
I will dig out my old LP's with DRN. I know I've got SLAM and THE HEAT...maybe even the first one. Nice story Daved. Didn't know you are an ex-rockstar
Hi, Johan.
I don't know about the European issuings, but in the States the first pressings of the initial DRN album were rushed to production and gave very limited credits and no 'special thanx'. Following pressings did actually credit crew & such.
During the recording I was one of the voices in the opening "street scene" montage and one of the background "rappers" during the first tune, World Has A Heart Too. I also contributed bit background vocals amongst other spots thruout such as in (I'm Only) Human, Rock You All Night Long, Resurrect, and Halfway Around The World.
On the percussive jam which opens the song Ritual, I play the very noticable 3/4 time shakers which supports the myriad of pounding drums . Dan told me later, when listening to playback of the piece after recording it, that my part was the heartbeat which actually made the segment work.
I am also the jingle ring thruought Baby Don't Fade which Dan always encouraged me to play during his shows.
One of my most unique contributions was during the song, I'm So Sorry (a song about teenage suicide) in which Dan played the grand piano. If you listen carefully to that intro segment you will notice interesting harmonic notes. These were produced by Terry Finley (Dan's tour manager.... these days Terry has been road managing the Little River Band for several years now) and I, as we leaned into the piano and lightly touched selected strings in key places, just as a guitarist would do with the strings of his guitar.
I found it interesting during the recording of Robben's new CD that he recorded his own version of Ain't No Love (In The Heart Of The City) which didn't make it to the album. This kept flashing me back to DRN's first album which closes with Dan singing this same song as the sound of a mass transit train fades out the album. A 'full circle' kinda vibe for me.
And I always felt Brion James (Chef Bree-own, as we lovingly called him because he always 'cooked up' such interesting sounds) played some great sounding guitar, especially on the first album.
Other info you might find interesting... Dan told me that he composed & arranged the style of Seven Sisters Road on the Slam album with me and my musical tastes in mind.
Also, when Dan cut his hair and shaved his head bald, sparking a massive outcry amongst his fans, he told me that he had been wrestling with the idea and finally went ahead and did it because he saw that the image worked for me.
I have a lot of great pictures from those studio & tour days. Maybe someday I'll post a couple somewhere.
Hope you enjoyed these trivia notes. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Last edited by Daved on Sat Dec 06, 2003 10:01 am; edited 2 times in total
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2003 10:59 am Post subject: ( }:-D Re: Daved's Bio
jconstant wrote:
Daved, how did you meet Robben and start your working relationship with him?
Robben's manager, Dal Booth, and I first met back when he & I were both members of the Bill Graham stable during the late 80's. We crossed paths many times during my days with Eddie Money and later with Joe Satriani. He later left BGM to do some work with Chris Coyles' Industrial Management for awhile (where we again crossed paths when I worked with the Jellyfish), until he started his own management company, DBM, in the early 90's. Thru these years we gained healthy respects for each other's work ethics and became friends.
One of the acts Dal took on when he founded his new company was Robben Ford. Somewhere around 1997 Dal called me to see how my work load looked. He told me that Robben's long time tech, Jeff Rivera, was thinking of retiring from the road and Dal needed to prepare for finding a new guy to take care of Robben.
I was, however, commited to Carlos Santana at the time, so Dal asked me to help them out as an additional hand, mainly teching Roscoe Beck, during a blues festival in San Francisco at Fort Mason, to meet the band and check out the gig. This was the second time I met Robben. (The first had actually been in Italy earlier that year when Robben had been on the bill at the annual Pistoia Blues Festival. Robben also sat in with Santana when Carlos headlined later that evening.)
Time passed, till the winter of 1998. The day after I finally left the Santana gig, I made some calls into the industry 'network' to let my connections know that I was back freelancing and available for work. One of those calls was to Dal, whose secretary told me that he was tied up with a phone call, and asked if l would like to leave a message? I did and Dal called me back about 10 minutes later.
"This is sooo weird", he said. "When you called, I was on the other line with Robben Ford. Jeff has finally served us his notice as he wants to 'settle down', so Robben and I were discussing who we could get to replace him.
I had just been reminding Robben of you and wishing that you were available for hire, but the last time I had seen you was a few months earlier at the Filmore Auditorium where you were working with Tom Petty and you had mentioned then that your main gig was still with Santana.
After we hung up, I saw this post-it from my secretary on my desk telling me that you had just called to tell me you'd left Santana and were available for work. It must be fate!"
Jeff finished out the year with Robben, so I returned to Satriani and finished out his touring for that year. I then went to work for Robben when he started his 1999 tour season the following March. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2003 2:20 pm Post subject: Amazing BIO.
Hallo Daved,
Greetings from Brussels.
I've read your bio and found out that you are working with a lot of great and well-known artsists like Santana and Satriani......woooww.......!
You probably have seen that whole world yet, ain't it ?
Is there a place you wheren't yet ?
Can you place some (old) pictures on the board from touring with sucha great musicians ?
Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 943 Location: Terra Firma, Ether Sea
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:46 pm Post subject: ( }:-D
Filmore wrote:
I've read your bio and found out that you are working with a lot of great and well-known artsists.... Is there a place you wheren't yet ? Can you place some (old) pictures on the board from touring with sucha great musicians ?
You know, actually, when I was first learning how to put my other Robben site together, I was messing with a test site that was a more "Dave's World" kind of a thing.
It's still sitting out there... "Under Construction!!!"
Maybe I'll format it a little more and post a few 'glimpses of my own days-gone-by', if you're interested. I'll post a note here when, and if, I do it. _________________ B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)
Joined: 13 Jul 2003 Posts: 1043 Location: Boulder, CO
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:44 am Post subject: Re: ( }:-D
Daved wrote:
Filmore wrote:
I've read your bio and found out that you are working with a lot of great and well-known artsists.... Is there a place you wheren't yet ? Can you place some (old) pictures on the board from touring with sucha great musicians ?
You know, actually, when I was first learning how to put my other Robben site together, I was messing with a test site that was a more "Dave's World" kind of a thing.
It's still sitting out there... "Under Construction!!!"
Maybe I'll format it a little more and post a few 'glimpses of my own days-gone-by', if you're interested. I'll post a note here when, and if, I do it.
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 6:10 pm Post subject: Amps
Daved,
I enjoyed reading your bio.To me you are no longer "the guy with a ton of tools who looks kind of like Terry Bradshaw".I assume with your background that you must work on Robben's amps also.You know,there are so many stories about Dumble and it's easy to get caught up in them.
I've heard that some of the insides of the amps have silicon blobs covering them and that only The Man can work on these.True?If no,What else do you do besides re-tubing and biasing?Dan
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