GLASGOW 8/1
Hey, you know, we can do this thing! Drive hours and hours, set up, and rip the face off the joint. Decimate a bottle or two of Jameson’s…well, we can almost hold it together. Evidently I was loaded into the van at the end of the night gurgling and screaming, and somehow, I lost my shirt. It was a cheapie anyway. But still! Had many muso friends there, Eugene Kelly, Snowpatrol Gary, all friendly in that Glasgow way…too bad I wasn’t able to reciprocate! Also, major props to Kate and Stevie, the stars of the REM catering team, for bringin’ wine n’ cheese…you are missed!
BENICASSIM 8/4
Hideous overnight drive (for the others, I passed out immeditately!) to London, then had several radio interviews…we taped a session for BBC6 Music, that will also be broadcast on the BBC Worldservice…Jon on ac. Guitar and me singing, Noel G.-style (stance, not adenoidal timbre-wise).
Had a boisterous interview with Phil Jupitus on BBC6, then headed to Gatwick, where we waited for a plane with a flat tire to be taken off the runway, finally we were in the air, and off to Benicassim! Europe’s most fun festival, site of an astonishing Posies performance in 2001…here we played on a dream bill—us, followed by Polyphonic Spree, followed by the Tears, followed by Underworld…holy shit…unf. our set was plagued by some seriously bad sound, onstage and off…so, I can’t say it was our best, we triend to make the best of it, and at least gor some Butthole Surfers-style nudity and destruction to happen…but, musically we were skwered by horrible monitors and truly random, dub-reggae-like effects by the guy out front. SUX!! Sorry to our Spanish fans who had to suffer thru the sound to hear us. We will be back with a proper sounding show. However, the staff at Benicassim couldn’t have been more kind and the Polyphonic Spree band and crew were outstanding, lots of fun—Brian Teasely, who we met when he was bashing for Shannonwright when she supported some east coast dates of the Posies acoustic tour, is abusing all kinds of percussion inst. for the Spree…we retired at about 5am to Darius and Matt’s room with some Sprees to discuss George Jones and other important topics…thanks to our handlers, Maria, Yolanda, Elvira et al for seeing us thru!
KORSO 8/6
Too many days off! It’s killing us! As you can see, we only played three shows in the last week. We get too soft…give me a 15-in-a-row run anytime!! Anyway, the day following Benicassim, we were loaded (we were in no condition to do it ourselves) into a plane and flew to London…got in at 10 at night and had phone interviews til 12.30 in the morning on the phone…I know Jon & I fell asleep in mid answer at least a couple of times…up at 5!!! To catch a shuttle to Heathrow. Argh. Had to get our tix reissued as we had left the originals in the van…which was in Finland at this point! Anyway, we got on and snoozed, and arrived to Helsinki ready to go. Headed out to the Ankkarock Festival grounds…out in the piney suburbs of Helsinki…felt right at home, greeted by nice folks and given sandwiches and coffee. We were preceeded onstage by the mighty Uriah Heep! What a blast! They played hard and tight—I mean, they have been playing since about 1970 so I am guessing the orig. members Mick Box and Lee Kerslake must be in their mid-fifties—and were obviously having a great time. Trevor Bolder (Spiders from Mars, anyone?) plays bass…monstrously! One of their techs, Dave, turns out to be a big fan of all things Posies. Anyway, tough act to follow, but we gave it our best, and again, festival situations not being ideal, it took us a couple of songs to get the sound together, but, we gave the Finns a manic, slobbering rock show, destroyed the backline, and left the stage the ravenous kings of the afternoon, semi nude as usual.
That evening we were treated to a Finnish smoke sauna and multiple dips in a lake, thanks to Marcus N. for setting that up, and our host and his family for accommodating us.
The rest of our visit was vacation time! Partied with the Hellacopters, saw an excellent set by Jonna Tervomaa, got bored about 15 minutes into Franz Ferdinand (the fame to charisma inverse ratio is pretty brutal) and ended the day off on Sunday by heading to a tiny club in Helsinki with Lasse Lemonator (who releases their records…read on to see what I’m talking about) and other friends to see Niemanen & Lietmanen, a fantasic Hammond and drums duo, in the style of Hansson and Karlsson…our man on the drums is perhaps the top drummer I’ve seen in terms of tone and being that the Hammond is about my favorite instrument, well…we went out on the right note.
GOTEBORG 8/9
Damn, no more days off! Please! I am going to call our agents and have them fill every hole in our calendar…sure, we spent a day on the ferry to get to Sweden, but, damn, next time, we’ll play a gig on the freakin’ thing!
In any case, we managed to mount a top class rock and roll show, topping off a fantastic bill, with a couple of my Swedish heroes on board, Kristofer Åstrom and Hidden Truck, and Dungen. I’ve mentioned KÅ in articles and reviews before…and I’ve spun Dungen in my few documented DJ sets, at Schuba’s in Chicago last year, for example…I won’t bore you with ultimately unjust descriptions, but the most recent albums by both artists won’t steer you wrong should you pick them up. We took the stage at 10.30, and burned off the rust for the next hour. At some point, evidently, a bunch of blood was dripping off my face. Whose? I was fine after the show…spent about 5 minutes filming some video footage for a White Flag video…from the now fairly dusty album I played on (Eternally Undone, which was released by Houston Party rec. in Spain, and was just released in Italy by Valium Rec. in Italy with extra video footage). This was done in duet style with Kent from Sator –even more casual footage was shot today with Chips from the same band. After the show merry was made at the Jazzhuset, the Posies commandeered the dance floor…I’ll leave the rest to your imagination!
Love
KS
Stockholm, SWEDEN
