VIENNA 1/4
The painlessness of these solo shows, I tell ya. Costs are incredibly lo (I think my out of pocket expense for these shows was limited to my shuttle fare to CDG, €24. I pay for the Ken Stringfellow CDs I sell at the shows, but I price them enough to make a profit), I get my own hotel room, I often travel alone and on a mode of trans. much more civilized than a van full of dudes. No physical trauma, no earplugs, and no lifting equipment—I walked home from the Gare de Lyon, 15 minutes from my home, with all my luggage and gear for this trip—a tiny black bag with toiletries and other personal effects; and a guitar. On the flight to Vienna I had two guitars (I left one in Innsbruck as I am returning there this week for a Posies show), the aforementioned bag and a box of 75 CDs (all gone!). Easy! No one gets pissed off because their club is full of the rubble of a furious punk show, no backline gets broken. At the end of the tour I come home with a wallet so fat with cash I have to have a seamstress on hand to get it out of my pocket. On this occasion I was proud to hand Dominque a stack of €100 notes for butter n’ egg money. No crew, no merch table competition…ahhh. All the credit, all the glory, all the champagne.
I arrived to VIE on Air Berlin, which, as budget airline go, was quite good—I am really starting to enjoy CDG T3—the rest of France’s flagship airport is a bit tired and certainly large, confusing and often unhelpful. Plus the collapsing roof thing. You won’t find that in T3—T3 is cute. Off the beaten path. The bistro, say, to the rest of CDG’s noisy brasserie.
Enough of that. I was greeted by my Austrian connections: Justin, Andi and Robert; the first two being the ones responsible for promoting my Innsbruck show; Robert is who I have to thank for the invitation to Vienna. Let it not be said that Robert is a fellow without ambitions—he acts, plays music, puts on shows, and has a label. And he has good hair and fluffy coat! The three aforementioned people are doing lots of good things for their towns no debate there.
My solo debut in Austria was eventful to say the least; I went directly from the airport to PulsTV for a hilarious interview with a woman who perhaps had the straightest posture I have ever seen. She asked me some really weird q’s and I performed one minute’s worth of ‘Any Love’ and we were done! I had makeup applied beforehand, tho…which was kept for that night’s performance! After the TV, I went to FM4, the young person’s national radio, which has nothing to do with Benjamin Britten by any means. I did a few songs, and chatted about various musical subjects, and all went very smoothly. And I soon discovered Austria, esp. Vienna, has the best coffee in Europe—OK, start sending the hate mail now!
I checked into my incredibly large hotel room—I could have sublet the bathtub—and then we made the soundcheck at the B72; went for your very Viennese boiled beef for dinner; then I came back and found the B72 (one of those half-barrel shaped storage dens under an elevated railway) packed to the rafters/gills/what have you. I guess the media hat trick (there was also a massive piece in Der Standard, the big big daily—by the way, thanks to Klaus Hoffmann for help on the ground!) paid off. And lo and behold, we had a Ken Stringfellow show on our hands. Musical guests pulled out of the audience; a very long improvisation about an undersexed vegan (eventually done as a round in two parts!); some Sinatra reworkings; trying to climb up to the balcony a la Eddie Vedder; multiple rounds of ‘happy birthday’; sounds terrible, but, honestly, people loved it! I sold a record 31 CDs at this one show (let the bar be raised—this trumps any Posies show—see what I meant up in paragraph one?)
It went late, and in fact, they wouldn’t let me stop! Good stuff.
INNSBRUCK 1/5
It is a tour rule that the nicer the hotel, the earlier you will have to leave. So, despite wanting to sleep in and enjoy my posh digs at Le Meridien Wien, we hit the road at 9 in the ‘Weekender Club’ van for the very long drive to Innsbruck. We rolled into town in the mid afternoon, and Justin put me up at his lovely Tyrolean hideaway, leaving me to his device (that is, a wifi-enabled laptop) and then came and grabbed me for soundcheck in the evening. Tonight’s show was a bit of a car chase, with me avoiding some of the louder folks whilst pursuing the magical artist-audience synergy that separates the good shows from the great ones. After playing from various parts of the floor, stage, etc., we finally got down to business. Landscape Izuma, the talented young man who opened both Austrian dates, joined me for a dreamy ‘Moon River’. I played standing up; I dragged the audience around the room, looking like a parade dragon at one point. Worked for me!
CRANS-MONTANA 1/6
Up at 7, on the train at 8: I guess Justin’s place is pretty nice in light of how short my stay was…
But the train journey to Sierre, Switzerland, was gorgeous, for the most part. And though I had to take 4 different trains, I still slept a bit, did some sightseeing (really, you’d have to do a lot of sight-ignoring to avoid being awestruck by the geography of the Alps). In the afternoon, I was dropped off in Sierre, which I soon discovered was in the Rhone valley. That vine-laden river begins somewhere in the vicinity of where I was to play tonight. There is a fantastic amount of viticulture in the area; the slopes are covered with 60 degree slanted vineyards. Covered in snow at present, which looks odd. Also, the Rhone here is fed by some hot springs, so it steams, and covers the trees along its banks with a lovely sugaring of frost.
So, my friend Raphael picked me up for the zip up to the winter sports playground of Crans-Montana (yes, there is a Buda and Pest here, the two villages are cojoined at the roundabout). Intense views of the valley and the Alps leading to Italy and France from up here. And some chalets that are, to say the least, probably pretty expensive to heat.
So, I was shown the two towns, checked in to the hotel, shown the venue, took an apero of local wine, checked my email, went for a great dinner: fondue and viande seche and local sweet wine (and a little digestif afterwards). A big vat of cheese, into which you dip bread, or you ladle some out onto a pile of potatoes—it sounds like it would be filling to the point of rupture—but, there is a strange effect in that you have to accommodate others in the same plate, so you have to go at a slower pace than you might devour something on your own, so…you acknowledge being full perhaps sooner than otherwise. You have to have a pause in the action to take those kinds of measurements.
By this time is was after 10pm and I hadn’t even soundchecked…so we went back to venue and I set up my stuff, and went up to my tiny dressing room. Lo and behold my favorite brand of bubbly bev, Drappier, is a sponsor of the festival that my promoters tonight also organize, and thus I had a guaranteed pipeline of the golden stuff (I didn’t have any til the break between sets, but after the show, the hospitality of the locals really kicked in and we went thru gallons of the stuff—but in a social setting, mind you!
Admission for this show, at the Sporting Club, which is a 1940s gentleman-ly lodge, with occasional touches of 1970s updates (somehow it makes sense Roger Moore is a neighbor, there’s a kind of generation ‘les annees 1960s-1970s’ vibe to the area, which, the sons and daughters of said gen. are trying to update with cultural events—hence my appearance!), was free. So, that usually means attendees reserve the right to get drunk and talk as loudly as possible during your show. No exceptions here! I gathered around a knot of interested parties, and above the din of general Friday night chatter I played, with some effort, and some success, about 10 songs. I took a little break and said I would play more later. I went up to my room, had a glass of champers, and returned determined to rise above and make a connection. Somehow, the second set was effortlessly better. Those interested in getting hammered moved on to other bars, and those who were hammered and stayed were at least interesting about it! And my knot of interested folks stabilized at 40 or 50, and we had a ball. Covers, original songs, a guest guitarist (we did ‘Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World’!) I had set up the last Soft Commands for the trip at the bar, but none had sold by the break. So, I brought a handful up to the stage, 5 to be exact—and during one emotional song someone had bought the lot and left CHF125 by my foot!! I ended up selling all my copies, but that’s not the important part—the important part is that we--audience, staff and me—we bonded, connected and made that magic thing happen. I drank Drappier and listened to terrible jokes til 4…slept for a matter of minutes at the hotel, and took a TGV direct to Paris Gare de Lyon at 7.40am!! Back in time for lunch!
Posies kickstart again this week…bon courage a moi.
Love
KS
Paris
