Soundman / Engineer, Mike Todd, is genuine Seattle. He is an authority, a product of Evergreen State College, and protégé of the Crocodile’s Jim Anderson. People call Mike ‘Dr. Heavy’. You do what Dr. Heavy tells you.

For the 2003 Ozzfest, he tour managed and ran sound for a band called Nothingface. All the shows were outside, the first band of the day started at 9 a.m., they were allowed 5 minutes for set changes, and they were sponsored by Jägermeister.

Imagine trying to keep that in line. One would think the bands would be Nothing but Shitfaced. However, due to Mike’s firm hand, things ran smoothly, kind of.

Picture: Howard

Dr. Heavy speaks:

Sound outside is hard. We were setting up in parking lots and fields. The sound system would be different in every location. Somedays it would rain. Sound is funny in the rain, sort of muffled. The crowd loved it in the rain though.

The first band would start at 9:00am, so things got going right away. For set changes we were only allowed five minutes. That included setting up the band. The stage techs would set up the drums and amps behind the stage and during the set change they would move the gear up and stack the amps three deep. When one band finished the next set would move forward and reset the mics. There were three drum risers that rotated. Each riser had its own set of mics and they would switch snakes between each set. The monitor crew also had two monitor boards that they would switch between. After the first few shows it was clockwork, if you went over your set change time, you would lose a song from your set, so we learned to move quick.

All the gear worked great most of the time, some days one of the front-of-house boards wouldn't be working, but they had two so it didn't bother me. I had documented my general settings for the band, so I could get set up real quick. Live sound on a summer tour was all about adapting and working on the fly.

The sound company that was providing the equipment for the second stage of Ozzfest was Showco. They had two custom front-of-house boards, that were built by Showco. I think they had Crown amps, and EV arrays and subs. They also had a drive rack for front-of-house crossover / compression. For outboard gear Klark-Teknik gates, DBX compressors, Lexicon effects, and Yamaha effects. The front-of-house console sounded great, it reminded me of older SSL recording consoles, but more of live sound configuration.

I had some patches that I liked to use on the Yamaha SPX 90 for drums. I also used the Roland SDE-3000 Delay for vocal delay, and the Lexicon MPX-1 for vocal reverb.

The headliner of the second stage was Cradle of Filth. They were like a traveling circus. They had jugglers and acrobats on tour as part of their show. They also had a backup singer that sang opera. They dressed in full leather outfits all the time, even when they weren't onstage. They looked like goth superheros walking around all the time.

The rest of the day we did autograph signing at the FYE booth, and the Jägermeister booth. Our band was sponsored by Jägermeister so we would get Jäger and Grey Goose vodka from them almost everyday. It kept the band happy most of the time. It did cause trouble though. On the first date of the tour in San Antonio, the drummer was trying out a Razor scooter that some of the crew people would use to get around the stadium grounds. He hit a drainage grate and ended up with some good road rash and a sprained shoulder. He had trouble playing for the next few weeks.

Dr. Heavy Mike Todd Bio:

Mike started doing live sound in college around 1988 at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. He worked for one year in 1990-91 at the North Shore Surf Club. Then he did an internship at a live recording studio in Newburg, OR called Dogfish Sound. The studio was in the back of a truck. He also worked at the same time for a company in Portland called Concert Sound, they did live sound reinforcement.

Mike moved to Seattle and started working with local bands like Treepeople. Then he worked for Goodness and Green Apple Quickstep. He also worked in Seattle for the Crocodile, covering for Jim when he needed nights off. You may have seen Mike working at Chop Suey too.

Dr. Heavy can be heard in the bands: Phase 3 and Impacttestdummy.

Whatever you do, do what Dr. Heavy says. Do not make Dr. Heavy angry. If you are in a band on Ozzfest and you want to spend all day at the Jager booth, I urge you to show restraint. Dr. Heavy will crush you and take away your Jager privileges.