Severe Tire Damage Opens for the Rolling Stones

In 1994, the Rolling Stones toured the world with their "Voodoo Lounge" album. As part of the promotion for this tour, they decided to broadcast 20 minutes of their Dallas show onto the Internet MBone. Thinking themselves novel, they proudly announced that they would be the first band to play live on the MBone. However, they were quickly corrected by many people who explained that Severe Tire Damage had already done this long before. As a result, the Stones promoted their MCast as the "first by a major band".

To drive home the point that Severe Tire Damage was the first, the band "opened" for the Stones by returning to the MBone on November 18, 1994, from 6:30-6:50pm PST.

Broadcasting from the Digital Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, Severe Tire Damage played a short warmup set before the Stones, which began on the same MBone channel at 7pm PST. Severe Tire Damage also played some tunes after the Stones, at 8:05pm PST, on the same channel. Audio engineering was by Ken Beckman, MBone engineering was by Lance Berc, both of Digital's Systems Research Center. The press was generous, and Severe Tire Damage received many other comments about our 'cast. If you were there, Severe Tire Damage wants to hear from you!

Comments Received During the 'cast November 18, 1994

Subject: not bad!
From: G.Huston@aarnet.edu.au (Australia)
To: band@world.std:com
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 20:16:49 PST

that was cute - press on!
geoff

Subject: Please turn down the volume you're BREAKING UP!
From: Michael.Yee@Eng.Sun.COM (Michael Yee)
To: berc
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 18:38:40 -0800

Subject: mbone
From: chang@cs.UMD.EDU
To: berc
cc: chang@cs.UMD.EDU
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 21:39:07 -0500

Play some Carcass!
mike

Subject: Re: Stones Aftermath
From: Ross.Finlayson@Eng.Sun.COM (Ross Finlayson)
To: berc@src.dec.com
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 22:21:06 +0800

> What did you think of the warm up act?
>
> Did it come through ok?

Yes, great. Putting Severe Tire Damage on as an opening (& closing) act was a neat idea.

--Ross.

ps. What did you do to get the logos, etc. to appear over the video?

Subject: Re: Stones Aftermath
From: Stephen Casner <CASNER@ISI.EDU>
To: berc@src.dec.com, van@ee.lbl.gov
Date: Fri 18 Nov 94 23:56:43 PST

> What did you think of the warm up act?

You mean the Stones?

-- Steve

From the Producers of the Rolling Stones 'cast

Subject: Re: Severe Tire Damage
From: sfitch@stones.com (Stephan Fitch)
To: rhaines@ix.netcom.com (Russell Haines)>

I dug you guys. I thought what you did just made the whole thing right. Where did you find that quote? T'wasn't from me. Where were you guys anyway?

--sfitch

Subject: Re: Severe Tire Damage
From: Stephan Fitch <gmo@media.mit.edu>
To: rhaines@ix.netcom.com, sfitch@stones.com
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 94 14:22:02 -0500

Oh you mean our http: programmer. Naw - he dug you guys too. When we did our server we decided to give it a voice of a punk rocker. So he sounds punk...We're gonna do something cool with your quote, "I sir, am not from Palo Alto - maybe make it into a link and point to your homepage. You guys made our Stones multicast magic. We've been trying to make sure the press gives you guys the credit which Ski Cry Babies have claimed. It's rock and roll - and you guys made it a true concert.

stephan Fitch

Comments from Others in the Audience

Subject: Opening for the Stones
From: jbehrle@bbn.com
To: band@world.std
Cc: jbehrle@noc.bbn
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 09:43:11 PST

Hey Guys,

Great job opening for the Stones on Friday! You were mentioned in today's Boston Sunday Globe, let me know if you would like me to fax you a copy of the article.

-Jeremy Behrle

Subject: Today's NYT
From: lazowska@cs.washington.edu
To: weiser:PARC, karlin@cs.washington, raj@cs.washington, savage@cs.washington, elf@cs.washington, dylan@cs.washington
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 06:21:52 PST

"Tarnished"? What the hell do they mean by "tarnished"?
[see NYT article.]

Subject: Re: Stones MCast query....
From: smiller@bbn.com
To: Mark Weiser:PARC
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 06:44:52 PST

Hey Severe Tire Damage!
We were at the BBN Network Operations Center in Cambridge ("ops@nic.near.net") with the Boston Globe reporter. We saw your video come up and brought you up (we were watching on a 5x8 foot screen with 8 speakers in the ceiling... Overkill, but fun). Anyhow we caught you mid song and it was the guy from the globe who first recognized the "Ass*&^e" song.

You guys were great, very entertaining (My favorite was the vat only rendition of "Jungle Love" after the show.

If you send a Tshirt, It will hang in our Tshirt hall of fame here at the NOC

Take Care, hope to see you online again.

Steve Miller, BBN, 20/2d, 150 Cambridge Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02138

Subject: Re: Stones MCast query....
From: slevy@geom.umn.edu
To: weiser:PARC
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 09:16:55 PST

Hi. By chance Nov 18th was the night our MBone connection started working, and the Stones was the only broadcast running, so we used it as a test. Tuned in in the middle, so didn't hear your music. I'm not crazy about the Stones, so didn't listen long; the audio quality would have been pretty poor even if I'd wanted to listen. This definitely seems to be technology whose time isn't quite here yet.

I haven't seen anything in the local papers about this event.

What we actually wanted to use the MBone for is to "attend" a conference, Frontiers of Mathematical Communication, from MSRI in Berkeley; it happens to be going on today & tomorrow, under the session name "FMC".

--Stuart Levy, Geometry Center, University of Minnesota

Subject: Re: Stones MCast query....
From: ted.brunner@email.hub.tek.edu
To: Mark Weiser:PARC
Cc: tedb@icebox.labs.tek
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 09:26:06 PST

Mark,
I wasn't in fact listening. I had set up vat/nv tools and vat_record/nv_record, and went home for the evening. What I got on nv was nothing. (Our ip provider just isn't very well connected.) The vat got just the stones segment, because I set up the timers accurately...

But if you want to send me a tee-shirt I'd be happy to receive it :^)

Ted Brunner Communication Systems Research Lab
Tektronix
ted.brunner@tek.com 14150 SW Karl Braun
Beaverton OR 97005

Subject: Stones on the net
From: rcs@cs.arizona.edu
To: Mark Weiser:PARC
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 09:37:44 PST

My connection was crummy: The broadcast would be fine for maybe a minute, then go catatonic for two, then come back. Frustrating, because I'd recognize a song, and then have it disappear in the middle. I gave up on it after fifteen minutes or so.

(Also, we need better speakers on our workstations.)

Rich Schroeppel rcs@cs.arizona.edu
(University of Arizona, Tucson)

Subject: Re: Stones MCast query.... (fwd)
From: ryeatman@comp.uark.edu
To: weiser:PARC
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 10:56:31 PST

Hi Mark,

Yes, I did get to enjoy your performance! Very interesting.

Your mcast came through MUCH better than the Stones.

Location: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR

Subject: Re: Stones MCast Query
From: acmansker@ucdavis.edu
To: weiser@ubiq:com
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 16:37:00 PST

Russ Hobby forwarded your email to me -- I was one of the viewers? participants? -- kind of hard to categorize the experience. We had the whiteboard up, along with sound and video. The video was interesting. There was occasional dropout, and between that and the variation in frames-per-second, the effect was strongly reminiscent of an early MTV music video, though artistically superior. We were able to hear much of the audio portion -- caught Mick's greeting to the MBone participants -- but it was clear from activity on the whiteboard that some people were getting no sound at all. Someone in southern California said it sounded fine to them, but we were experiencing more audio dropout than video. Overall, it was a technically interesting experiment. It might have been wiser for whoever set it up to can the whiteboard -- every little bit of bandwidth helps, and I saw little of interest on the pages I flipped through.

I don't know whether that qualifies as an interesting answer, but here's the address where we were sharing? experiencing? the event.

Technology Resources
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
Ann Mansker
acmansker@ucdavis.edu

Subject: Re: Stones MCast query....
From: CASNER@isi.edu
To: weiser@ubiq:com
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 00:59:09 PST

Hi Mark. I noticed that Lance was transmitting and may have seen a minute or two while you were playing, but I have to confess that I didn't pay close attention. I was trying to get things set up because an API video crew was coming. However, I can claim to have seen most of the first appearance of Severe Tire Damage on the MBone! [June 1993 -ed.]

-- Steve

Subject: Re: Stones MCast query....
From: lessem@ibg.colorado.edu
To: Mark Weiser:PARC
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 01:04:06 PST

Sorry no press clippings, but several of us did sit around the computer and watch you guys play. Your connection was much better than the Stones broadcast and seemed to pretty well show off what the potential of multicasting is.

One person did make the comment about the Stones show: You could barely see them, and couldn't understand a word Mick Jagger said---just like being there.

Subject: The November '94 Stones concert
From: kevinh@eit.com (Kevin Hughes)
To: band@world.std.com
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 1995 00:50:57 -0800

I was just webbing around when I noticed:

http://sandbox.parc.xerox.com/hypertext/std/StonesVatSites.html

Just for the record, I was rockin@eit.com (EIT in Menlo Park) at the time, commandeering a co-worker's Indy. I found the pre-show video incredibly dull, especially since MTV had been playing much the same stuff all week hawking Stones products. So I was quite relieved when you guys came on, it was great! I was the only one in the place watching since my friends got tired of waiting for the show by scribbling on the "Stones shared whiteboard" exchanging Beavis and Butthead quotes with some guy from Finland.

Perhaps one of the funniest parts was when Van Jacobson told everyone to shut up.

Maybe you should ask for a link on the Internet Underground Music Site...or at least put up some music videos!

Long live the MBONE,

-- Kevin

Kevin Hughes * kevinh@eit.com
Enterprise Integration Technologies Webmaster (http://www.eit.com/)
Hypermedia Industrial Designer * Duty now for the future!