Princess Katie & Racer Steve is a 4 piece band.
Sometimes we have a 3 piece horn section too. That is a blast!
Playing Rock for Kids!

Performing in Parks, Parties, Clubs on weekend days for audiences of 300
Show type: Rock Concerts for Kids... (and their parents)

Using the L1® System since April 2007

Geographic location: New York City

Notes about Princess Katie & Racer Steve
5 years ago My wife Katie and I began dressing up in costumes and visiting local hospitals to cheer kids up. We started out by renting Spongebob and Spiderman one weekend and we went to 3 hospitals and 2 parties for children in crisis over 3 days.

The next thing we knew we had a closet full of costumes, Spiderman,The Incredibles, Shrek and Fiona all started making regular appearances at local hospitals. We just went in and visited with the kids. It was amazing to see how they responded to us being there just to see them. We were the only people coming to see them that were not there to take blood or tests. We didn't do anything fancy, we'd just go into their rooms and chat for a minute and take a few pictures then go to the next room. The kids loved it and it was very fulfilling for us. We have lots of great stories about kids getting a real lift from the visits, both emotionally and physically.

After a year or 2 we decided to sing songs for the kids at holiday time. I have been playing guitar since I was 12 but Katie had never sung before, but she is a natural. We decided instead of me trying to play guitar in big rubber Shrek hands or sing through a Spiderman mask we should dress up in our own costumes.

Katie decided on a Princess costume because the kids really loved that and one of her favorite people was Princess Diana. She really admires all she did for children and how she took her position in life and used it for good. I created my stage persona, Racer Steve because I am really into cars and racing. I actually built a sports car myself (a Cobra replica from a company in Mass. called Factory Five) and have always been around cars and motorcycles. I actually had a few racing suits in my closet from track days and stuff so it was an easy choice.

Cut forward 2 years and now we have 2 CD's, great reviews and a DVD of one of our live shows that is being edited as I write this. We really love to play for kids and they are the best audiences out there. Here's a link to one of our recent reviews for our second CD, "Fast & Feisty".

PKRS Cookie Review

We really try to make good music that you cannot tell from the music made for adults except for the family and kid friendly themes and lyrics. We don't want to play "kid's music" although there are some great songs and artists in that genre. We want to play and create music that kids can share with their families.

Bose L1® equipment
We have 2 L1 Model 2's with Tonematch a engines and 1 sub per system.

Comments about the L1® System
I originally had a big PA system for this band with a 15 space rolling rack 2 100 pound QSC fronts and 2 more floor wedges. It required a ton of set up and constant mixing when we were playing.

Since we were just starting out I ran the mixes myself from the stage. Needless to say it was a tough gig, playing guitar/singing and mixing all at once then breaking down and setting lugging that system from gig to storage. A typical gig day stated for me at 7am and ended at 9pm after all the pick ups and drop offs.

Then I found this forum and began asking questions and liked the answers. We now have our 2 L1's and everything has changed for the better. We sound better, set up and break down faster and the system consistently delivers. I have set up our wireless vocal mics receivers and sampler in a 5 space rack with the 2 Tonematch Engines so all I really do at a gig is plug in the ethercons and set up the towers and we are ready. We can actually show up and be ready to play in about 15 minutes if we need to. We often play outdoor spaces with no stage or risers and it is always amazing to me how we can pull into a park and 15 minutes later have transformed it into a concert venue. That is all about the L1 systems.

Web Site: Princess Katie & Racer Steve

Here is a link to My Stage Layout in The Sketcher

The Players
Princess Katie: vocals.
Racer Steve: Guitar and vocals.
Space on Bass: Bass
Crash the Drummer: Drums

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SBRocket,

Oh! This is just too good to be true.

The world IS okay, after all.

Thanks so much for posting this.

Ken

Hi Racer Steve,

Thanks for creating this Sketch of your band with Princess Katie.


-- click image to make changes to the live version --

Legend
L1® Model II
T1 ToneMatch® audio engine
Orange numbers are Systems and Inputs using those Systems.
Blue filled numbers are Channel connections to/from the T1 ToneMatch® audio engine.
Green numbers are for general notes about the Sketch and connections to non-Bose gear.

Quoting SBRocket from The Sketcher

quote:

The lead vocals are in input one of the first T1, then we send the direct out of that to inut one of the
second T1. That way the lead vocals are on both towers.

We do something similar with the sampler. The right side of the sampler goes to input 3 of the first TM then out the direct out to input 4 of the second TM. The left side of the sampler goes to a small headphone amp for the drummers click tracks.

quote:

Oh! This is just too good to be true.

Man oh man, what a great thing you two are doing! You have the right tools, too.
By your appearance, you could easily be pop idols, yet you do it all for the kids...an amazing thing these days!
Bless you!

This concept is so cool! Thanks for sharing,you've cheered up my day.

Respect
Andy

Thanks everyone for the nice replies. We are very lucky that we get to do what we are doing now.

We still do hospital visits regularly, but now we go as ourselves and the kids are getting to know us. We are thrilled to be able to make our music and share it.

Thanks Again and please come to a show and say hi anytime,

Steve

Hi Steve,

Given your audiences, how do you manage sound levels? How would you describe the levels you try to achieve with your audiences?

Ken

Ken,

Great question. We have a small drum kit and I usually use a low wattage guitar amp (Swart AST 20). The kit is made by Taye and is almost a cocktail kit. The kick is 18x7 and the toms look positively cute. It's made for city dwelling jazz drummers who need to get a full kit to a gig in a subway or a cab, but it works great for what we do too. If you play it like a rock kit you get an 80-85% volume rock drum sound. On a side note, it is one of the most fun kits to record ever. You get all of the energy of a big kit without all of the bleeding and clipping you can get with some drummers on full size kits. It just sounds tight and focused.

With that kit, we do not hold the drummer back. If were are in a really loud hard walled room, we sometimes make him play with timbale sticks or taped up plastic brushes but that is the exception, usually we just go for it.

We are not a loud band, but I don't think we'd be one if we were playing for adults either. As I said in one of my earlier posts we play with a lot of oomph. The best description is that we try to play very dynamically, which we would do if we were playing for adults also.

As you know, continuous loudness is very different from loud transients. So the kick is played at full volume as is the entire kit. Most drummers play cymbals too loud, and Lev (Crash the Drummers real name) does not do that. Decaying loud cymbal crashes would add a lot to the apparent level. Since he does not do that, he is still very punchy but not loud.

we are also lucky that our bassist respects note values and rests. He really adds punch without making us fight the volume wars or muddy-ing up the mix.

For me on guitar, being the only one carrying the chords (and the MD), I usually turn my guitar down 20-30% whenever Katie starts to sing, maybe a bit less in the choruses or if there are BG vox going on. That leaves a lot of space for her to sing dynamically too and the band follows that lead well. Also since the guitar is the most continuous sound in the band, I can do more to affect the apparent volume than anyone else. I find that many musicians are amazed when someone turns down and it really gives them the freedom to play instead of compete for space in the mix.

As you know better than most the L1's really allow us to do this because we know exactly what the audience is hearing. When we gig with a traditional PA, our individual levels can sometimes become more static. Because since everyone gets there own monitor mix, we are all somewhat detached from what we actually sound like as a unit.

I hate asking people in the crowd how we sounded but it is a fact of life when we are standing behind the speakers they are listening to. Most of my friends know that that means, "how was the mix?" I suppose if we had a steady sound mixer and trusted him that would be good too, but we are not in that position. And if we ever are, I will insist that the monitors match the FOH (as closely as possible) so we all remember that we need to adjust our playing and blend. And that is a lesson straight from the L1's playbook.

So the short answer (too late ) is that with the small kit and the small amp we are kind of a 7/8ths scale rock band. So we play full force and still end up a bit quieter than we would if we were playing full sized drums and big amps. But the most important factor is our being able to hear ourselves and each other and mix ourselves.

Steve

Hi Steve,

What a fascinating and articulate answer. I'm dazzled. I simply MUST hear the band now.

Your remarks about musical execution (in addition to equipment) are really compelling. They fit right into the remarks of Cliff Goodwin, who MD'ed the Joe Cocker band for 12 years and MD'ed the band we developed to launch the L1 system worldwide. Cliff gave what I thought was an incredible talk on these same topics at one of our L1 conferences. You can see the talk by clicking on the "...change your life..." link at the bottom of this post.

Again, many thanks for your thoughtful reply.

With best regards,

Ken

Ken,

Thanks for the link. I've watched it before and I'm sure it has affected how I lead this band. Cliff is a genius. I am going to send it to everyone in the band today.

I especially like his comments on arranging in space which is something we are not as able to do fully given that we run the systems as we do as sort of a 2 pole PA, but it really makes sense to me. I do some spatial arrangement by keeping my bg vox behind me and the bassist's behind him.

From the stage, you can see people look at me when I begin to sing along. And since I was not singing before and they were not watching me begin to sing, then the location of my voice must be what got them looking over.

It's simple to me now but it took time to get it, give everyone their assignments. The truth is that we are not a drummer, a bassist or a guitarist or a singer. When we step onto the stage we are a performance. And we need to want to be a great one. You can't get to the gig in Philly on just one wheel no matter how great a wheel it is.

It really is not about how loud I can play anyway. That education came to me when I realized that the many of the songs that I love that I perceive as loud, like Hendrix' version of "Watchtower" or Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" are not loud all the time. They just cover a very wide dynamic spectrum so the loud parts sound loud. Ask any non musician about them though and the will think of the intro's and band breaks and say that those are loud songs.

I must also confess though that some of this is out of love for my wife. She is the first vocalist I've ever worked with that I truly want to make happy all of the time, even if it means turning my guitar volume down.

Seriously though, It's an education to play with someone who can never compete on volume no matter how hard they try and in who in fact simply won't try. Katie never sang in a band before so she simply does not "get" the volume wars.

The physics for a vocalist like her to compete are simply not there. With floor wedges we get too much feedback and bleed to the vocal mic and in-ears are too isolating for her so the only choice is to give the vocals their space.

Thanks Again for the nice compliments and of course you are always welcome as our guest at any show we have. I will let you know when we are up your way. We'd love to meet you.

Sincerely,

Steve Borne

Steve and Katie,

You are awesome! And your website is perfect - it's been awhile since my kids were the right age, but I still remember what caught their eye.

Thank you for doing what you do - it reminds me that there's more going on that what they report on the news.

V/R,
PmP

Ken, thanks for asking Steve that right question.
Steve, you totally *get it*, and you've found the right gear to express it.
Your reply is a guideline for future forum readers.

WOW! Just wanted to share that our 2nd CD, Fast & Feisty was just named one of the top 10 Children's music CD's of 2008 by Cookie Magazine.

Cookie top 10 Kids Albums 2008

We are very proud of that CD.

Also in other band news, we played a free concert for some local families for Halloween in a park in downtown NYC and were approached by a huge national booking agent. It took 6 weeks but we made a deal and soon we'll be playing all over the country.

We are so excited about all of this. Stay tuned!

Steve

Hey Steve,

Great news. Congratulations!

Please let us know where to come and hear you when you have your tour dates set.