PORTSMOUTH 11/6
As a result of my morbid sensibilities, I suppose, being faced with partial blindness, I spent the van ride this grey afternoon watching the biopic ‘Ray’, which, of course, being a great example of what Hollywood can accomplish…it’s a little manipulative, but, man-it just hooked me—the story of a man, a husband, a father, a musician, a human…it’s such a great story, there’s almost no way you couldn’t find something that affects you should you watch it…
The show tonight was one of those affairs where the audience was made fairly self-conscious by their modest size…so I spent more jokes about how shy they were than actually enjoying the show. But…in the evening’s favor, I have to say, we were served a lovely Sunday roast by the club; what’s more, I was able to spend 5 minutes talking to my friend Sarah, with whom I went to high school, and whom I adore.
I almost saw the most amazing thing—as we were loading out, I came out to the street and our roadie, Joe, was looking up the street, and said ’…uh…there’s a naked woman…uh…’ and I looked up the road and saw that, indeed, there was a fully topless woman, very drunk, stumbling up the street. Understand it was a chilly, soggy night in November on the south coast of England, and that must have been a very uncomfortable situation to be in. All the more bizarre that she seemed to accept her circumstance as a completely natural way to end a Sunday night.
CAMBRIDGE 11/7
I had a great breakfast this morning—you gotta work with the little things when you are touring secondary markets in the UK—I had a sausage, egg and salad sandwich at a diner near the hotel—the hotel that had the most hidden entrance of all time…we had to walk the full circumference of the place to find it…
The Junction in Cambridge is one of those Arts Council-sponsored places that make for such great changes of pace. A complex of intertwined theatres, rehearsal places, dance classrooms, etc. ...there’s some guvmint money to burn here! They gave us a nice bottle of bubbly, which we enjoyed safely. Anyway, this was a really fun show—we did some goofy stuff, like, when I grabbed the mic and serenaded our beloved web guru, Taylor; or when we all switched instruments for the most bizarre version of ‘Burn & Shine’ that we have ever done; or when we fit the _entire_ audience onstage for the finale of ‘Earlier Than Expected’ and ‘I Am the Cosmos’…after the show, Taylor was a mess, telling us she hated us and loved us in alternating phrases; I wasn’t much better off…and then there was the hotel…a typical Holiday Inn Express…the staff made Jon wake Matt up from the conference room floor in the middle of the night; and somehow, I found myself face down on the floor on the main floor hallway, being awakened by the morning duty manager! Score.
NORWICH 11/8
The area around the Waterfront, the venue we played here, has rows of gorgeous 15th century buildings, and several obsidian-bedecked churches…some of which you can rent out for parties, oddly enough. On the same street there are a few car garages, and we were drawn into one, where a beastly Dodge Charger was being restored.
The audience was pretty small tonight, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t make a ton of noise…we played a short sharp set and scurried back to the hotel for our 4 hours of sleep before we had to hit the road for Brussels.
BRUSSELS 11/9
In fact, we hit the road at 5. We got to Brussels in the early afternoon—it wasn’t much longer that Dominique and Aden Stringfellow arrived, and took all the attention from any possible perspective—you have a tiny, brilliant girl with a Mohawk who is willing to win your heart at any cost; and a dignified, sophisticated, raven-haired franco-italian beauty who makes all the right jokes…jeezus, how can you go wrong?
Tonight’s show was taking place in the Studio Brussel radio theatre. Studio Brussel is in a huge complex of national TV and radio studios in a big ugly 60s square edifice of brutally boring architecture. The theatre itself is quite small, and incredibly unlike a rock club. They do sell beer tho…Europe is very good about making sure everybody has access to the basics in life, as defined by the unspoken charter—people have a right to their daily ration of wine, coffee, tongue kisses, and music. Amazing, no?
So, this show was recorded for later broadcast on Studio Brussel radio, 5 songs went out last Sunday, and 10 more will be broadcast on, I guess, the 27th and Dec. 4th. There’s some mixing to be done on the other stuff. Evidently 2 songs went out live that night, too. Well, I hope you get a chance to hear it, cuz we totally had it together and played a great set. A long one, too. Plus, ‘Burn & Shine’ clocked in at 13 minutes!
MECHELEN 11/10
Now here is one of those great examples of the unexpected coming up—a 300-plus audience, totally into it, coming to see us play in a fookin’ 14th cent. chapel, remodeled to have modern features (that every chapel needs, like a full service bar!). We played an epic set, with a bunch of encores, including at least one or two done after the house lights had come up and the PA was playing the ‘go away’ music. We closed with a slo-core, duo version of ‘Coming Right Along’. After the show, we drank everything in sight…and saw many friends, from around Belgium, plus France, Holland…you know how it is in Belgium—great.
Earlier in the day a very respected eye doctor gave me the thumbs up as far as my eye recovery was concerned—my eye had healed totally, and as it turns out, I’m lucky—the doctor had seen quite a number of people in her office that had been blinded in one eye by champagne corks. She advised me to take it easy onstage for another week, but, she couldn’t detect any damage at this point at all.
After that, I went for a haircut, and followed that with lunch and seeing the girls off on the train…and then Waldo DeK, who is our label guy in Belgium, met me and drove me to Mechelen. GREAT guy.
GRONINGEN 11/11
This show was destined to be great. A club that’s been bringing great music to the people since the 1960s…not just a club, but also…the people’s access portal to the musical arts happens here…Vera. The Posies played it three years running—96, 97 and 98. The same guy has been running it since then and who knows how long before that.
We had almost 400 people there for us this night. And they were a crowd to die for! Screaming, jumping, yelling, buying drinks and CDs and whatever…man, this is why we keep having our best shows in Holland. The great design of this venue—you play, then stumble downstairs to drink basically for free, then stumble upstairs to drink for free again, then stumble back down in the morning for breakfast…(what to mention they order in absolutely slaying Chinese for dinner). You just keep stumbling, a transportation mode looked down upon in the states, but in Holland that leads you over and over to a life you’d rather be living every day.
THE HAGUE 11/12
This show was part of the ‘Music in My Head’ festival—I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but basically there’s a two room club in this town, and bands play all the time, and they serve up some great food, all with the expectation that you will come there and kick ass. We did it---our show was another Dutch slab of wickedness. Spent a few minutes chatting with the lovely Tracy Bonham. Spent quite a bit of time drinkin’…I was invited to join the fingerprint gallery, so my art is on display at the club now as well.
Matt and I took the tram to the club from the hotel—they really have it easy there in Den Haag. And they are building some of the most bizarre Buck Rogers shit all over town. Check the tramline housing by the NH hotel (the hotel we stayed at this visit).
COPENHAGEN 11/14
We had a day to get there, with no performance. And we needed it---it takes a good 10-11 hours to get from Den Hag to Copenhagen. Plus, we had to stop in Groningen, as some T-shirts needed to be picked up there. To entertain myself on the journey, I ingested a ‘space cake’ there—I don’t know exactly what’s in it, but I was as stoned as a hemp-chewing parrot for the whole drive. We watched a bunch of films in the van—‘Dazed & Confused’. ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, and ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. Fun! We pulled up to the hotel in Copenhagen just as the cab was dropping off Dom and Aden. So, we had the short time remaining that night to have a bottle of champagne, play as a family (there is never a shortage of direction or quantity in terms of entertainment when Aden is around).
The next day, after breakfast, Dom & I did some emergency shopping, as BA had lost Dom’s bag for the time being. Jon, our tour manager Jan, Dom, Aden, our label rep. Alan and I all went out to a radio station about an hour outside of the city to do an acoustic set and interview. Great set up out there—nice folks. In the middle of one of the songs, Aden cried out ‘Bravo!’ in her baby voice (so, it sounds more like ‘Bappo’—but she claps! She picked up the ‘Bravo’ thing as she gets a Bravo for every new trick she learns).
We’ve played Loppen a couple of times before; on this particular night, a rainy Monday night in November 2005, it has a kind of Cirque du Parole vibe, but I still think it’s a lovely place. Somehow however I didn’t feel like taking a promenade with the girls around the neighborhood tho’. Which is too bad. You get all kinds of feelings as a father you don’t expect. At least I did. I didn’t know how much I would love her. I didn’t know how many things I would instinctually wish to avoid, despite what I feel is a fairly open reception I have to most places. But, the protective instinct is just as irrational yet evolutionarily supported as other instincts…you have to work hard to override them.
Ok. The show, or should I say, shows. My Norwegian friends Briskeby, whose new album 'Jumping on Cars' I sing on, supported us. I have been a fan of them from hearing their recordings and getting to know them—but, I had never seen them live (like Beezewax, who are supporting us in Norway and Spain, with whom I have logged hours in the studio going back 6 years, and have never seen live). And they kick ze ass—what a great sounding band. The combo is of different talents is really intimidating. Great tones from their instruments, great songs, great singing from Lise; it’s all an incredibly pleasing package. They are very popular in Norway, and just not really known outside of there. It shows that popularity has nothing to do with accessibility or skill. It’s just one of those contextual things, or, maybe even less than that—maybe there’s no reason for artists to be popular or unpopular.
So, I got up and sang the song that I appear on on their new album, a tune called ‘Joe Dalessandro’. I was really nervous, but I have to admit I loved it. I’ll be singing it with them on a show, a concert that takes place at the Oslo Spektrum (where REM played in Feb. of this year) on the 26th and will be broadcast on TV the following day. I don’t totally understand the details of the show—it’s a kind of charity concert, attended by the royal families of Sweden and Norway, and headlined by a mash up between a Swedish and a Norwegian artist (the Cardigans and Briskeby in this case). Anyway, if you live in Sweden or Norway, you probably know about it, and if you don’t, you probably can’t see it anyway, so moot point!
www.briskeby.com
I sang with them at Loppen; that was great. The Posies show was fantastic…full of bizarre Pink Floyd moments and several encores. In fact, I believe this night we played the weirdest version of ‘Burn & Shine’ ever…it just ended with our leaving the stage one by one while serious space sounds breathed out of our amps. I really enjoyed this night—two amazing sets that I got to take part in, and my girls were there too!
I have to admit the next morning was terrible…saying goodbye to the girls as I drove off in the van, as Aden pounded on the hotel’s glass door from the inside and screamed for papa when she realized I was leaving. It’s terrible when you can’t explain everything to them.
Today we enjoyed a really long drive to the northernmost tip of Denmark, and boarded a ferry to Bergen, Norway; the seas have been rough enough to cancel most of these crossings! However, we’re still going, and as I write, I’m bouncing up and down on the waves with a stomach full of venison and Bordeaux. I don’t get seasick—thank god for that. But we’re really rocking and rolling in a way that even I can’t duplicate on the Posies’ stage.
On to the beloved north!
Love
KS
On the ferry between Hantsholm, Denmark, and Bergen, Norway
