OVIEDO 12/4
I knew this would happen. We’d get thru Spain, I’d come out the other side sick as a dog and happy as a clam…but, now…the memories of the preceding week are a bit…weak. This place, Oviedo, a first time for the Posies, welcomed us with open bar. Har har. That’s actually a joke. What was true is that the Sala Tribeca looks like the set of some hideous 70s TOTP-meets-the-deck-of-a-submarine TV show…with a bizarrely shaped stage, a huge rail, and…they strung a pathetic looking piece of rope at the audience’s throat level to keep them back from the front of the stage, as the PA is about 6-7 feet out front. Well, no one ever said shows in Spain had to sound good, did they? Just full of people (which it was) and full of energy (which it was). After the show, we made out way to a restaurant that was open, and ate barnacles. Again, no joke!
VIGO 12/5
The van pulled up to the hotel, and me, being a bit tired, slothed up to the room for a bit. Everybody headed to soundcheck and I eventually got it together, and realized I had no idea where the club was. So, I set out to find it. Within a block of the hotel, I found Sala Iguana, site of fantastic Posies shows in 1995 and 2001; thinking there’s no way we’d be playing a place on the same block I turned around and went a block behind the hotel. Nothing doing there. Went further in the first direction and found La Fabrica de Chocolate—not exactly a venue, but, a bar with a stage. Hmmm. How many presales? Like 200? And they’re gonna go where, exactly? In the end there were about 300 people crammed into this tiny bar…the fire marshal in Galicia must be a very busy guy…great show tho'. After the show we went for a drink at Sala Iguana, which, despite having a torn awning and being boarded up when I passed it at 7pm, was open for business and happy to see us. Big Posies poster on the wall in the downstairs bar…
BURGOS 12/6
This is a little two-way lesson. We will look at two issues here—how one monkey can stop a show—or at least 2-3 drunk fools can; and how clubs that free pour gin into pint glasses for their customers are asking for trouble. Since the second bit is fairly elementary, we’ll look more closely at the first.
I had a strange foreboding—I have been watching enough zombie movies in the van to basically sniff apocalypse in the wind at every bad omen…well, when we rolled up to the club I had been asleep all day in the van…I always fall asleep in moving vehicles if I’m not driving. When I woke up, we were at the club…which was in the middle of god knows where…nothing but Halloween-shaped trees as far as you could see. La Quinta Avenida--whose only resemblance to 5th Ave. in NY (second NYC ref. in two consecutive club names??) might be the land that each was laid out on, but in 1305--does boast a fine restaurant, but it’s not exactly a rock & roll club. It’s more like a golf course clubhouse meets Elks Lounge but not in a cool way. Some funny bits—the stage, which is covered in putting green/blackjack table green carpet, rises up and down from being flush with the floor to being at least, oh, a foot high. Impressive! A big red Q lit up on the front edge of it.
So there I was, enjoying some duck and steak, and I just had a weird feeling, this show wasn’t going to be a good one. Outta nowhere. Which is very unlike me—we have risen to the occasion against far more unlikely odds.
The slide began at the merch table. A young woman approached and bought a Posies shirt, in the feminine style, the black tank top with the ‘Rush’ parody logo. As she was one of the first customers, I didn’t have any change yet, so I told her I would hold the shirt for her and she could get change at the bar—just 6 feet to my left. The price of the shirt was €15, and she had a €20 note. She came back—having bought a beer at the bar (this was confirmed by the bartender later), and pushed all the money my way—a ten, a five, and some coins. She seemed really annoyed already. I took the ten and the five, and said ‘keep these, this is enough’. Then something really weird happened. She started to speak in a very agitated way to me in Spanish (she had earlier been saying how much she enjoyed Solar Sister etc). I called Zoe, our production person and translator, over, to find out what was going on. Turns out, the girl thought I owed her €5. I explained all that had happened, told her to look in her purse, the coins would be there…but she wouldn’t relent. She claimed she went to the bar and returned with only her note broken into two tens. I asked, why would I want two tens when I didn’t want a twenty? It doesn’t make sense. At this point, you’re thinking, just give her 5 euros and she’ll go away, but, dammit, I don’t owe her 5 euros so she can take a flying leap! Well, in the meantime, her friends, who are also members of a band, who gave me their CD before the show, are drinking gin in pint glasses and might have been on Ecstasy as well…one of them is in the front row, scaring away everyone else by being, well, intensely into it in a really scary way…he is screaming for Solar Sister…every second and a half—between songs, during songs, I mean, by the time we were three songs into the set, Jon & I were telling him to shut up—we’ll get there, and all the while it’s like he’s begging for a stay of execution with the words ‘solar sister’. Next rock number and he’s jumping around with a full bottle of beer and then thinks it would be fun and celebratory to spray it in our faces, mostly mine. Now I’m pissed. I don’t care what the local tradition is, if it includes beer in my eyes I’m out. Call me the ugly American, but I will beat your ass into the frozen ground if you do that at one of our shows henceforth. In this case, I just glared holes in the dude and Zoe led him off…finally, the crowd trickled back up towards the front. Not that there was any enjoying the show, no…in the meantime, the 5 Euro girl is in a psychotic pantomime, pretending Jon is the most handsome creature on earth and batting her eyes at him, then turning to me and flipping me the bird. Honestly, I have decided I hate these people, I don’t care if they are fans, they are now in the rarified category of ‘asshole’. Ah yes, their fuckin’ dad or whatever, a potbellied dude in a black turtleneck and leather jacket, waits for a pause in between numbers to request, to no one in particular, ‘Frankie Goes to Hollywood’. Sort of belches it out in the direction of the nearest wall. We oblige him of course. Hmmm. Cut (an agonizing 32 minutes later) to the end of the set, and finally, we are in position to do Solar Sister…I see the dude Zoe chased off with little saturns and @ symbols orbiting his head, at the bar to my right. I call out, to make peace with the fucking prick, and can’t get his attention—no one can, it turns out. Well, I tried. And when you wake up, you piece of shit, in a fucking mental ward, trying to remember the night you lost your mind, identity, and dignity, I tell you this—you fucking dribbled in your lap during the one song you wanted to hear the most. So fuck you, fuck your midget, addition-impaired girlfriend, and fuck your pedophile dad (who tried to pick fights with Jon and Zoe, respectively, after the show and almost got his head flattened like an overripe melon by me for the trouble)—don’t come within 800 miles of me or my band without the words ‘I’m sorry’ ready to be deployed preemptively. You ruined Burgos for the people who wanted to enjoy it—so eat shit, pigs.
MADRID 12/7
Was up at 8 (we checked into the hotel at about 3) to enjoy the nerve-tingling sensation of sending €6000 cash from merch sales to our accountant via wire transfer—from one country to another, with two languages, etc. etc. thanks to Zoe for walking me through it, and the money did make it. I was dodging bank holidays (in my next life, I want to be a banker in Spain or France—you basically work nine days a year) and working with a bank called ‘Banesto’, which, to be honest, sounds like a guy who would be robbing the villagers in ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Of course, there’s nothing like the sphincter-regulating sensation of carrying six thousand euros around Europe for a month. Anyway, we got to Madrid, and checked into the ‘Hotel Senator’ (which Scott McCaughey would find funny). Jon wasted no time in helping himself to a complimentary glass of cava, and I for my trouble received a free key to my room.
Our show tonight was at the fabulous, colossal, extremely well tiled disco called Sala Arena, which has nothing to do with sand as far as I could tell. What it did have something to do with is a stellar rock event—500 or so patrons losing it to the Posies…culminating in a nearly-nude-tastic ‘Jungle’. After the show, we were invited to a bar that didn’t open til 12.30, so, as our show was done by 11.30, we found ourselves with nothing to do. Which was just as well, cuz I was wrecked. Burgos had depressed me, getting up early to go the bank didn’t do anything for my health, and I gave everything I had to the cause in Madrid (including my trousers).
MADRID 12/8
So, naturally, the best thing to do was to get up at 10 and play another show! Barnaby, former lo-end wrangler for the Pleasure Fuckers, now a big time concert promoter, for us at least, picked Jon & I up in the lobby as the rest of the Posies band & crew were getting in the van and driving to Granada. We headed over to Moby Dick, scene of many KS appearances, and at least 2 other Posies appearances over the years, to play an all ages matinee (and of course we played ‘Matinee’) for a handful of brave souls willing to get up and check into a bar at 1pm on a bank holiday. It was great to do these songs in the duo format; it really allowed me to take another emotional perspective on the songs, i.e. one other than ‘hell bent for leather’. We jammed out an hour’s worth of…uh, jams, and headed for the airport.
GRANADA 12/8
Leading highlights of this gig—hilarious TV interview with burnt out Jon & Ken in possibly the worst lit hotel corridor; rock show in a gigantic industrial rock palace on the edge of town. Hundreds of fans; not, perhaps, the liveliest crowd of all time (methinks they wuz largely stoned)…but a damn fine showing all around. Monitor guy with the protruding brow took great exception to Jon gently laying the mic and mic stand to rest on the stage at the conclusion of the evening.
SANTA POLA 12/9
I get misty-eyed just thinking about Camelot. And my nose hurts. And I think about my life insurance policy and what a good idea it was. Our legendary exploits at this club in 2001 remain…uh, legendary exploits. Ahem. In fact, Camelot has grown, now in addition to a funky looking castle there’s several giant glass pod-bars, each with different music and smells. And the main room itself boasts a much bigger and sturdier stage then it had in days of yore. I would have to say, this crowd was perhaps the most intense, and for Spain, that’s saying something. Over 600 customers and we threw down in kind. Pinky the Promoter treated us to a grand dinner of paella and langoustine and wine at the hotel beforehand, and we worked that off in about the first verse of the opening number. As we went on at 2.45am, we didn’t end up leaving the club (free drinks and ‘Joe Dallesandro’ on the wheels of steel) til 7.30 and still managed to have a DJ party in our suite until it was time to roll at 10.
BARCELONA 12/10
Oddly enough we arrived in decent shape for our show here, at Bikini, site of 2 previous Posie appearances. And oddly enough, we blew the doors off the joint. Another hilarious TV interview (I think they filmed the whole show, too), another packed house, another blistering set. I could get used to this country!
PALMA DE MALLORCA 12/11
Well, payback is a bitch. I think all the festive nights, all the intense travels, all the physical full-on-ness of the previous 5 months of touring (that’s just the Posies tours—I’ve been on tour pretty much ALL of the last few years, it seems) caught up to me, somewhere during our descent into Mallorca’s Palma Airport, PMI—which I refer to as the Earth Evacuation Center (this is the biggest, emptiest, airport you are likely to see in your lifetime). Anyway, my head was pretty stuffy, and I was starting to ‘harsh out a bit’. I took a nap at the hotel, breathing some sea breezes, which actually helped. I drank a lot of tea. The venue this night was a rather functional if not comely theatre named after a dude named Xesc Forteza. But, it had a grand piano and very restrictive db limit so we advertised the show as an acoustic show. In reality it was a hybrid: Jon played electric guitar, I played acoustic, but thru an amp, Matt played comme d’habitude, and Darius played a little bit quieter. Also, the aforementioned grand gave us some serious lounge-tastiness. I am listening to a recording of the show as I write, and there are some ‘And the Range’-worthy moments on several tunes. We busted out some rare gems in this config—‘Last Crawl’, ‘Anything & Everything’, ‘Love Comes’ etc. and I have to say, a quiet evening spent sitting on my ass and concentrating on my licks was highly enjoyable…hint to promoters…Posies acoustic at your place…
After the gig we enjoyed dinner with friends, local musos, and grilled roadkill.
GENEVA 12/13
My health, after another flight (it’s the descents that get ya), started to really decline. We had a long haul to Geneva, we got there at about 1am, checked into the hotel, and I started to try and utilize the sleep cure. Didn’t take right away, although I slept all day (yeh, sing the freakin’ song). And hauled my carcass down to L’Usine in time for some prison curry and free wifi. I can’t say this was our best ever set, at least for me, who sounded like Ms. Love and I don’t mean Darlene. The scattershot audience (you know Swiss folks—lots of dreads but very clean) dug it enough and I was glad to see friends there—but I had no energy for it. Right back to bed.
TORINO 12/14
Still feeling pretty shitty. I was covered in sweat right as we started to play. Great club, small but enthusiastic crowd, it wasn’t a total loss but I needed another 15-20 hours of hush eye to start climbing out of the hole.
ROMA 12/15
Ok, this one was fun. My voice was starting to come back, and I had at least a little of my energy back. We had an incredible feast before the show, too. I loved this little club, too. I can’t say we were ever actually in Rome, but I enjoyed the visit to wherever the hell it was. I will say these are our first club dates in Italy, a place we never visited in the old days, so it’s no worry for me the crowds are modest here. We’re building an audience here. Our summer gigs both had built in audiences, and they were both great. These are taking a little more work, but it’s work I love doing. Especially when I feel good, and that’s coming back to me right here.
BOLOGNA 12/16
We threw ourselves onto the stage, tipsy from chugging a little Italian bubbly…people trickled in over the course of the night til we had a pretty good little crowd (admission to our show was free! The People’s Posies!) and for them we played a loose but fun rock gig…I can sort of sing again…this is welcome.
Highlight of the drive to Bologna—we bought a copy of ‘Fletch Lives’ to watch in the van. It’s the little things…
Two more shows on the tour…
Love
KS
Bologna. ITALY
