MY OWN 38TH PARALLEL
As I write, I am up in the loft-style bed in our van, hurtling (am I not hurtle-y enough for you? Hurtle—hurtle) towards Bavaria. It’s a grand sunny day, and the first day of my next year on the planet. As I was born at 1.28 am, even tho’ that was 9 time zones away, I celebrated it locally and marked the time here twice, as the clocks moved back an hour at 2 this morning. OK, by the second one I was sound asleep, my present to myself was a quiet night in, a hot bath, and a full night’s rest. And calls from the girls both at night and in the morning. For a present from Aden, she took it upon herself to get up early and destroy the apartment…
Today in Dresden the Frauenkirche opened it’s doors for the first time since it’s nearly total destruction in WW2. I won’t get into all the possible tangents such an event could stimulate…but, did anyone notice the eye in the pyramid that looks out from the center of the pipe organ? Woah. It’s an Egyptian symbol of omniscience, no? I would have to say it seemed a bit odd in a Christian church. The Illuminati, with their Bavarian legend, the Freemasons, who built the great cathedrals…it’s all there, it seems.
BIELEFELD 10/26
Even after a weekend at home spent mostly resting, I was still recovering from what had been an incredibly demanding and intense North American tour. So it’s no surprise to me that once I boarded my flight to Amsterdam, I pretty much fell asleep immediately. I woke up to have a bit of dinner, and woke up towards the end to have a nibble of breakfast, but other than that…probably put in a good 8-9 hours in. After crossing the entire Schiphol (missing the mysterious and deadly fire by just a day—I haven’t read much about it, but I am wondering if it was an elaborate escape tactic, as if that will ever be admitted…some detainees did escape, that much is known), I got to the gate, and managed to sleep almost another hour, as our flight was delayed a bit. Yes, on our little KLM flight to Dusseldorf I slept most of that hour; and when we arrived, after claiming our bags, and meeting our tour manager, Jan, and grabbing a Turkish spinach pastry for lunch, I grabbed two more hours of sleep on a bench as we waited for Matt’s flight to arrive (he went to SF for the weekend to play with Oranger at their rec. release). Then it was into the van for the two hour drive to Bielefeld, and I…slept in the loft the whole way. Checked into the hotel…slept for 3 more hours…got up to have a very nice dinner (medallions of venison, in fact)…watched a couple of movies (the fantastic martial arts film ‘Twin Warriors’ with Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh (or Khan, as she was known then, which we watched in German; and the Alec Guinness-starring Ealing comedy “The Lavender Hill Mob”). At about 3am, I was ready to sleep more, and I did! 7 more hours. So, let’s see…that’s like 20 hours in 2 days…and I felt almost caught up on zeds.
Our first real tour of Europe, in 1993, was opening for our heroes Teenage Fanclub. They were as gracious a group as I ever encountered, and helped us out immensely—both in merely inviting us as support, but also in how generous they were in their hospitality. Thus, the Posies’ first visit to Germany was on this tour. And, here we are, twelve years on, supporting them in Germany once more. And tho’ many, many things have changed since then—our band split up and reformed; I divorced and remarried, and had another child; plus the myriad of historical twists and turns since that time—I still hold the Fannies in ridiculously high esteem; they are still as friendly and hospitable as ever; and they sound like a hundred million bucks (added bonus that ‘Grand Prix’, ‘Songs From Northern Britain’ and ‘Man-Made’ are all fantastic albums that are now part of the repertoire).
So, night one, in the little Uni town of Bielefeld, was a fine fine gig, in fact, I daresay that our efforts, plus the press we’ve received, has helped to nudge our profile up just enough to make it cozy for us in Germany…hard to tell til we play our own shows, but, certainly we met quite a few fans this and the subsequent nights, and not all of them are from 1993. With 3.5 months of solid touring under our belts, we are playing a pretty solid rock & roll show, and we came out of the gate tonight with flames a-roaring. We were called up for a nice little encore, thrashing out a version of ‘Definite Door’ and then we got out of the way for TFC, and got to enjoy them from the merch booth. Jon & I drank a bottle of champagne in about 2 minutes, and worked on selling our respective solo works…which has evolved into a friendly competition—hint hint, if you want to make KS feel good, and take home some great (IMNHO) tunes as part of the deal, come up and buy a copy of Soft Commands at any one of these shows…
HAMBURG 10/27
Here’s where we made our German debut with TFC in 1993; although tonight we played a tinier place, the Knust; evidently some kind of abattoir from umpteen years ago, it’s now part of an arty little rethink as a cluster of shops and restaurants somewhere near a kind of Tivoli with big neon signs that say ‘Dom’ in meter-high letters; and adjacent to a Wal-Mart. A Wal-Mart?
The TFC crew had passed a message to Jan—‘please stop spitting on all the gear’. It takes everything I have to hold it back…but I managed. Again, the reception was extremely warm, an encore was had…
After the show we had a nightcap at our hotel, which was a cut above our usual residence (many, many thanks to Kurt!) and I had perhaps the best rest I’d had in some time…and a champagne breakfast, swim and sauna the next morning. One must strike while the iron is gilded, or something like that!
BERLIN 10/28
One of my all time favorite places, and I have been lucky to visit Berlin several times in recent years, mostly with REM, but damned if my solo show here last year wasn’t a great experience as well. Tonight we had many friends, both local and coming from Holland, France, you name it. We rattled the bricks quite a bit, all by 9.30, as the show had to be done by 11, disco time afterwards. Our man Kurt kicked off the après-show by opening the champagne with the sword method—and the night fell into place—we sold a record number of EKOLs at the gig, and retired to the 8mm Bar for festivities with no bedtime. TFC dropped by, and things remained lively til about 4, when we took a few friends back to the hotel, and saw the sunrise. We were a little grumpy the next day, but nothing a series of healthy naps couldn’t fix. Another Berlin success. Yes, we got an encore!
DRESDEN 10/29
The PA fried itself during soundcheck, plus there were many comical ‘mics set up with no cables plugged in’ bits, but after working out the bugs we managed to play pretty good set at the Star Club. The name is kinda naf, it doesn’t tell you that the club is a beautiful 18th or 19th cent. ballroom. They’ve been putting on shows in the alt-rock mode since at least 1992. We were a bit lo-key tonight, you know, the day after Berlin is gonna have some rock-lag, and we hesitated a bit about the encore, there wasn’t quite the fanfare as the previous 3 shows, but to be fair to the fans who were there trying to keep the magic we went up for an encore…a little hesitatingly, which is never a good thing in show biz. Of course, we feel sensitive about the fact it’s not our show, but…well, TFC had been OK with it the other nights, and so we figured we might as well give everyone their money’s worth. Plus, the Star Club has no curfew, so…anyway, of course the Gods can sense that I was tentative getting up there, and they let me have it. My whole rig died and was out of tune and I spent most of the song (a one time rendition of ‘Apology’) looking like a doofus. I did a full dismount at the end…hahah, joke’s on me. Back to the hotel then!
And, now, I am going to put this to bed, and myself shortly thereafter. I should note that this is the 2nd birthday I’ve enjoyed on tour with TFC, my 25th in Amsterdam 1993 was pretty epic…let’s see how they do it in Munchen…
Love
KS
on the highway...on the byway…mr. robotron…
GERMANY
