11.26.2006 “This is why folly is immortal: wise men are too busy to correct fools.”—Rebecca West It’s a radiant Sunday morning in Paris: blue skies, long autumn shadows running up and down the buildings. I’m listening to Minky Starshine and the New Cardinals, checking out the work I did on his album (I produced/engineered/mixed/played on 6 of the songs). Last night I checked out the two albums soon to be released by Seattle’s Dolour; “Storm and Stress”, which seems to be a more electrified take on XTC’s “Oranges and Lemons”, and “Hell or High Water”, which is a brilliant indie rock update on “Pet Sounds”. NOT the High Llamas in sheep’s clothing, mind you—Dolour’s music is American indie rock in its soul, and the work stands on its own. Last night I went to see Sebastien Tellier at the Trabendo, part of a complex of venues and attractions on the outskirts of Paris, in the Parc de la Villette. There’s the Zenith, a 5,000 capacity venue; the Cite de la Musique, a large and modern performing arts center (where I saw Charlie Haden and Carla Bley a couple of months ago); the Theatre la Villette, a lovely old stone creature (I saw Archie Schepp there with dancer/unclassifiable performer Boris Charmatz recently); and the Trabendo, which is a modern conglomeration of concrete walls and metal scaffolding, all precisely tagged with the creatures from the “U.N.K.L.E” album artwork. Oops, that’s pegging it squarely and unfortunately in 1998. I can’t say that many good things about the Trabendo—it’s voluminous but seems cramped; it’s wide and sloping but has terrible sightlines; and the sound has been tweaked to perfection—in other words, it sucks ass. It’s a charmless, vibeless place. This did not help Mr. Tellier’s cause. Mr. Tellier is one of those charmed individuals, who, to his credit, doesn’t give a fuck about much (his peons to Africans and Les Peaux-Rouges are more endowed with the embarrassing as opposed to the uplifting/charming sort of naiveté) and shambles thru life in such a way as to arouse the sympathy of wealthy benefactors (read: Air, who grew up in a part of France where a Bentley would be considered an appropriate 16th birthday present, and by their introduction, my new neighbor in the 12eme, the very talented Sofia Coppola) . To be sure, he is talented—a decent pianist and guitar player, and his songwriting has many fascinating moments. As a singer he can touch a song with a delicate whisper, or an absurd faux-operatic baritone, coating himself in slapback delay, John Lennon style. His band, dressed alike in suits and shades, are competent—although the evening was peppered with a couple of false starts, and what I couldn’t tell was if these, or at least the ensuing tense jokes that followed, were choreographed or not. Both in terms of attitude and visual presentation, Mr. Tellier seems to be picking up the baton dropped by previous generations of naughty, shambolic, Gallic icons---Gainsbourg, Nino Ferrer, etc. Tellier commenced the proceedings with a fairly interesting ballad, accompanied solely by his keyboard player, playing a big Yamaha electric piano (this is his trademark sound on stage and record). Mr. Tellier couldn’t help but keep it light, occasionally interrupting himself with schizophrenic gestures (with his stringy hair, scruffy beard, wrinkled shirt half tucked into his Levis, he looks a like a homeless Russian novelist) and all the while keeping his hands free to further articulate his points: this freedom is accomplished by sticking his lit cigarette up one of his nostrils. I kid you not—a drawing of him doing this is on the cover of his latest release. The joke, he implies, is on all of us, if we take him too seriously. It sort of has the opposite effect—he doesn’t want to be labeled pretentious for assuming his emotions are more important than ours, but—this kind of studied eccentricity is in itself pretty pretentious. I left before the encore, hurrying out with a few other patrons to make sure I wasn’t alone in the 500 meter run (across the No Man’s Land of a Parisian Saturday night on the edge of town) to the metro. Love KS Paris 11.20.2006 IT'S ENVIRONMENTAL I have been sinking into my home environment, like water receding into loose dirt, seeming to disappear but changing the composition of my home substantially. Water and earth were, by the reckoning of antiquity, two of the irreducible elements that all things were variations of the combinations thereof--and all personalities as well. As it turns out, each playfully and beneficially contaminates the other. Only in laboratory conditions can you truly isolate one from the other, and very little life if any will come forth from isolated quantities of either...so, in a sense, there was something intuitively correct in their estimation. I can think about this as I have the luxury of time. Since I came home from tour, I've been a delighted layabout, a dilettante, wandering to a few concerts (Wolfmother, Mojave 3, Jon Auer/Cheap Star/Paloma), the cinema (I saw _Shortbus_ just up the road from where I live; I also showed _Spirited Away_ to my family at home), to an exhibition of theatre set designs by André Acquart (André Acquart, architecte de l'éphémère, at the Bibliotheque Nationale--unf. I think yesterday was the last day of the exhibit)--Mr. Acquart is our neighbor in this building. I have been reading, visiting a few cafes and restaurants, and of course our local market, the Marché D'Aligre, to buy whatever struck my fancy, regardless of practicality. Dominique stopped me short of buying a whole pheasant, although we did get some feathers for Aden. I've been making tea, taking coffees, sleeping late and/or going to bed incredibly early. I've window shopped, people-watched. Rode the metro. Chatted with a novelist/journalist over lunch for three hours. I bought and enjoyed immensely Emily Haines' album "Knives Don't Have Your Back". I received a very good record in the post called “sorry machine” by The Subhuman I emptied and filled the dishwasher several times. I had an early morning coffee and croissant with Dom, Aden and Mira Dulok, who came over to watch Jon's show. I gained and lost 80 pounds in the course of a glance, put on a nice green suit, and also spent almost a whole day in my bathrobe. I took long baths. I spent time with Dom, and Aden. We let her run and jump over and over in a huge mud puddle (we took her straight home for a warm bath afterwards). We had oysters and wine at Le Baron Rouge. Dom and I swapped scarves. And spit. I packaged up some CDs to send to radio stations and never bothered to mail them. I received a box I mailed myself from Oklahoma with clothes for Aden, some DVDs and a book inside. I admired some paintings Aden made. I reseated the screw that holds my strap button on my guitar, which stripped out during the last tour. I listened to the Bee Gees and Sinatra. I read the Herald Tribune. I took out the recycling and folded clothes. I even picked at writing some lyrics on some Disciplines songs. More to come. Downstairs my neighbors are listening to the Everly Brothers. It's grey and cold, and probably raining. I am, perhaps, feeling close to happiness. It took a few days to adjust. Love KS Paris 11.16.2006 IF YOU HAVE SOME GOOD PHOTOS FROM THE KS NOVEMBER EUROPE DATES, EMBED THEM IN A COMMENT ON MYSPACE.COM/KENSTRINGFFELLOW...GIVE US CONTENT TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT Recommended listening: Nude Combinations by Extra Virgin www.dependentmusic.com minimalist organic sounds CESKE BUDEJOVICE 11/6 It’s a pity this show followed Zagreb, as it was going to have a hard time competing with such a top night as Zagreb was, and it also followed the tour’s longest drive—an hour working our way out of Zagreb, then the slow road to Maribor, as there is a bit of reluctance to fully link the provinces of Slovenia to the provinces of Croatia, and then a construction-plagued crawl across Austria, and finally a dark, two-lane crawl in the pitch black thru the southern part of the Czech Republic. So, when we arrived to Budejovice, I was pretty tired (amazing how tired you can get from just sitting in the front seat of a van, but it’s the case). Klaus woke me up so I could help navigate, but the minimal map from the promoter wasn’t quite doing the job. But Budejovice (aka Budweis, to Germans and beer historians) is pretty small, and eventually, we pulled up to an unassuming little bar called Club Velbloud. A very cozy little cellar, with a tiny stage, I would say it would be as close to the ideal size for a KS show. And it was actually a pretty busy night, for a Monday in a country I’ve never played solo, especially. Before the show, Klaus and I dined at a restaurant around the corner, I think it was called the ‘Apothek’ or something like that—the menu’s theme was written in a kind of medieval times-style over-the-top parlance—“sizzling javelins from the headsman’s torture chamber” was the name of one dish. I myself shied away from the “deeply fried” mushrooms, picturing a Jerry Garcia-obsessed champignon, but I did have some nice trout, which didn’t have a funny name. I mean, maybe it was born with a funny name, as I can imagine the kind of things a trout would name its kids would be pretty funny. The show was one of those of the category of ‘work’—not that it was laborious, or unpleasant, but that to keep the attention of the audience focused I had to really concentrate, it required a great deal of effort and concentration on my part. They were a noisy bunch, but perhaps that is just the style in those parts—they were definitely into it, judging from the reception I received and also the number of CDs I sold afterwards—they were just boisterous and talkative. But it didn’t offend me; I could somehow tell it wasn’t lack of interest on their part, but that they were simply excited. I talked to one guy after the show, wearing a Sub Pop T-shirt, who was a fan of all things Seattle, but especially the Posies and Mudhoney, interestingly enough. Now, a bit of personal info. According to the documents I have, my birth mother’s heritage is Bohemian, although I suspect her name is Polish in origin. And so I have come to think of myself as an Anglo-Boheme. I think my passionate, mystical and poetic traits are easily identifiable as Slav, and my workaholic and witty tendencies, what to mention the most uptight and formal manifestations of my external personality, are classic Anglo/Protestant DNA indicators. So, being that this night was my first visit to Bohemia, I was quacking around quietly, peeping like a baby bird for signs of its mother. And I couldn’t help thinking of my birth mother, whom I have never met, and found my vision of her as a young woman, becoming the subject and protagonist of many of the songs I sing; the women I sing about are not the love objects of sappy sonnets, but more like people, strong and weak, inspired and lost, all in the same moment. Connected to her roots, which would be my roots as well, she took human form, rather than the usual statistical form—normally she is to me like Pluto—not seen, but implied by the effects of bent light and faint, infrequent gravitational tugs on my orbit. It gave my performance another layer, possibly detected by the audience as a slightly deepened intensity—but having no other performance of mine to compare it to, they wouldn’t have noticed that they were receiving something unusual. The next day, Klaus and I walked around the town; I tried to spend all my Czech money, on fruit, toothpaste and fuel for the van; I still changed what I had left, at the border, for about 40 Euros. The drive thru the southern lands of Bohemia and the corresponding territory in northern Austria is exceedingly pleasant—healthy little farms and rolling hills. We paused at the charming little town of Freistadt, recommended by Eva from the ORF: this is her home turf. In fact, she hooked us up with a celebrity-level welcome at Konditorei Poissl, where we had coffee and cake and oddly enough Snow Patrol was playing on the radio during our visit. I discovered here that what Austrians call a macchiato is really a kind of café latte: for the fantastical and creamy Austrians, the minimalist microcosmic perfection of an Italian macchiato would be to small to show up on the sensors. On the way to Freistadt we passed a little village called Vierzehn, directly translated as “fourteen”, I found that its name referred to the number of houses it had when it was founded. It hasn’t changed much since then. And we’re probably talking about a history of 500 years. ST. POLTEN 11/7 I can’t get the umlaut to appear above the ‘o’ there. So, insert it yourself, draw it on your screen, or live without it! The venue here is an art house cinema, and wins the award for having the tiniest stage that can still be called a stage. Conditions for playing here are excellent, as the seated audience comes with their smarts built in, manifested in the cinema lover’s pliable willingness to be entertained, and be silent during the proceedings. The bar is out by the lobby, and thus I was able to take it down to the next level of intimate intensity. My keyboard also took things down the next level, the stand wasn’t tightened all the way and in the tensest moment of “Reveal Love” it basically dumped itself in my lap! It was a good icebreaker tho. We had a good laugh, and the show was a memorable and enjoyable success. I think this was the top merch night: I sold at least 20-25 CDs. Cinemaphiles are typically employed (often in video stores—where they roll their eyes when you get “the Ring” instead of “Ringu”; I would too, by the way) and they don’t mind putting their money where their taste is. REGENSBURG 11/8 It was freezing cold and mostly dark when I visited Regensburg for the first time, with the Posies in January. And we stayed at a typical motorway hotel, so I never knew that the center of Regensburg was medieval jewel, with 2nd-century Roman foundations (I guess they called the place Castra Recina—which sounds like a guy with no balls making Greek wine). It’s about to be recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site (but, so would Sheboygan Wisconsin be if the current pope was from there—it’s good to be the head of the Illuminati!). The morning after my show Klaus and I walked around in the center, which has wonderful, rather Italian-looking buildings from the 15th -17th century, a massive Dom, Germany’s oldest coffee shop (from the 1600s), and a stone above a doorway carved as a woman mooning in the direction of the next door neighbor, who was apparently unpleasant enough to deserve the effort, and to have that effort continue long after his death. Down by Danube, we breakfasted at the Wurst Kuchl, which is in fact a wurst kuchl. A bratwurst place. This one has been in operation for 500 years, perhaps the oldest fast food place still in operation. There are tables outside but we went for sitting indoors, in the roughly triangular salon that seats about 20 people, has very low ceilings, and has been flooded several times over the years, most recently in the 1980s, according to the high water marks on the wall. I was told that even when the Donau floods, the place stays open as long as the water is below the grill! The show was at the Alte Mälzerai, same place where the Posies performed this year, and were filmed for Belgian music TV. We played in the main room, but my show was in the tiny room downstairs, entirely apropos to the KS show vibe. My friend Dieter runs the stuff here; he’s an extremely sweet guy who seems to be a pretty big Redd Kross fan. And he’s come to more than his fair share of Posies shows, too. The kitchen at the Alte M. has improved considerably since the Posies’ visit; I had some falafel with a very nice salad (and I opened the bottle of very good chardonnay I picked up on our WeinStrasse side trip on the way to Croatia). There was a band, the Sonic Angels, that were spending the night at the Alte M’s hostel, a garage rock band from Montpelier, which happens to be the city where I first met Dominique, and experienced true love at first sight (compounded when Dom squashed a spoonful of sardine pâté on my first wife’s nose). I got down to business after a long nap in the dressing room (which I shared with the opening band, Fonoda, plus Klaus, plus my traveling companions for the next few days—my friend Carsten from Essen; and webguru to the stars--Posies, Duloks, etc.--Taylor, from Minneapolis). There was a nice little crowd down there, ready to be soothed a bit after the high-db drone and wail of Fonoda. I drifted amongst the attendees, and at one point Pontus, who was part of the hospitality wagon team, brought me candelabras and a glass from my wine bottle! Pontus is your go-to guy for the historical insight into any aspect of Regensburg; unf. I was getting ready in the hotel when he gave Klaus the tour of the historical center of town. My show went long enough that the DJ set afterwards lasted about 10 minutes and then the place was empty. Klaus, Dieter, Pontus and I walked down the road the “witches’ bar” which is populated by beings far more frightful than spell-casting crones, but is open til 6am every morning. We didn’t stay that long, don’t you worry. Just for a glass of wine, and then we walked down to the hotel, the “Happy Turk” and I counted sheep as they slowly rotated on a vertical spit. LINZ 11/9 We met up the next afternoon, bellies bursting with wurst, sauerkraut and susssenf, and loaded up the gear (we always leave the gear in the club overnight and load it up the next day). As had become usual since St. Pölten, we needed a jump start to get going, but that’s pretty easy to arrange. The Posthof club in Linz has been in operation since the early 80s, and now boasts three venues, a restaurant, and accommodations for the artists. And, was one of the only venues with wifi! If only they could all be this pro. The production is at the level of a real venue, like, there were way more guys working for me than was really necessary, but I like the attention (and the results). One of support acts this night was Niels Frevert, a German-language singer/writer from Hamburg. Probably he should have headlined, but he was courteous to accept his middle billing, and despite the fact I can’t follow the text, I really like his stuff. When I went onstage, there were a couple dozen hardcore listeners, who were all sitting on couches or the floor, and were so deadly quiet it actually made me nervous at certain points! But they were into it. A curious mix of REM fans, teenagers with their parents, young good looking couples, and one incomprehensible drunk who mostly managed to stay quiet but at one point mumbled something about “rock & roll” before slithering off to a dark cistern somewhere, the crowd kept me going for quite a while. That night in my room, it was so quiet that I could hear all the breathing of the heating and other machinery that runs the place, and it actually was again so quiet it made me a bit nervous—this time I had to count sheep that were operating Das Boot. AFLENZ 11/10 This is Klaus’ turf, and in fact, the Sublime club is his club. So you would expect that this would be an easy night, and in fact it was. The Sublime is one of those places you are surprised to find has been done so right, partially by virtue of the fact that it rests in it’s natural state. Not too fancy, but not shabby by any means. The stage is a decent size, but not intimidating; couches and tables are spread around the room, and candles burn on the tables. The bar serves about 10 choices of things; and next door there is a café run by Klaus’ sister that has free internet. Valhalla, I think I have crossed into the musicians’ Elysium. We dined up the road – pretty much all I eat here in Austria in November is venison—and I got to know the support act for the evening, Morgan Finlay, who hails from Vancouver BC. These days he pretty much lives on tour in Europe, especially Germany, Austria and the UK. A friendly fellow, he is totally indie: self-released records, one-man-and-his-guitar show, and building a following brick by brick. He’s kind of a force of nature, his Canadian hardiness makes it so he can’t help but sort of overcome the audience by force—he plays hard, sings loud, and don’t take no crap--but with a smile on his face all the while. He had already played the Sublime a couple of times, and was well known to all the crew and the regulars—a tough act to follow indeed! But it worked out fine. I came on and did my soft feather duster of a show, and it went down perfectly, a fine complement to Morgan’s more rockin’ set. I busted out a few covers, and over the course of the evening managed to play “You Become the Dawn” in parts, as I recollected the words. In fact, the audience wouldn’t let me stop—at one point I handed my guitar to Morgan so I could at least have a pee break! And the night didn’t end there—after I finally found a natural place to say goodnight, and sold a bunch of CDs, and met some French kids, the dozen or so people that wanted to stay on after closing time were treated to Morgan and I passing the guitar and playing covers, or our own songs, as inspiration dictated. A few shots were had, which gave everyone a friendly but not oppressive buzz. It never got ugly. Oh, except for one of us who is 5 foot two and named Taylor. As the sign says, “You must be this tall to go on this ride”. But we got her home safely—Morgan (again, see hardblooded northerner) actually drove the van to our hotel, which was in a village a ways down the road, called Etmissl. We had, that afternoon, explored it in its entirety—a few farmhouses, a church, a general store, and two hotel/restaurants. One of them, which we unfortunately didn’t have time to visit, is evidently one of the best restaurants in the region, notable for tediously slow service that doesn’t really open it up to touring musicians with a schedule to keep. Etmissl’s cemetery and war memorial told the story of more than one family, in this tiny village, who donated whole complements of brothers to the two world war—and in one case, 3 brothers in one war, and one of their sons in the next one. Even today, the graves show more than a few lives cut short—the winding mountain roads claim a few victims for Pele. The next morning we spent a long time having breakfast, then lunch at the hotel. Klaus, his brother, his sister in law, Carsten, a very green Taylor, Morgan, Matthias from the Sublime (at least as green as Taylor), a couple of other Aflenzians, and myself dined together. Well, Matthias abstained from food. Poor bastard! KLAGENFURT 11/11 We took our time getting to Klagenfurt—evidently, that’s the vibe, as all thru this night, the promoters, Carrie and Herwig, told me not to hurry! On the way we stopped to do a little shopping (I am starting to look for a gift for Aden to give when I walk thru the door) and also to visit a castle perched up on a spike of a mountain, looking over a smoky valley. We had a new battery, so we never needed a jump, however! As dusk darkened, we got to Klagenfurt, which has a tidy little center, quite attractive in the light of a November evening. The venue was the Jazzkeller Kamot. Kamot sounds like the name of a Pharoah, maybe Pharoah Sanders plays here. The room is a curious math problem for performers—there are separate compartments to your left and right, and straight ahead—each with a wall between, so you have to cater to three distinct populations---the people stuffed along the bar, who are often not really there for the show; the pinhole camera straight ahead, where there are tables but people also cram in the doorway and block the view from the tables; and the right side, which is as close to the bulk of the audience as you’re going to determine. People sit, stand, order drinks (there was a table behind me and to the left, only accessible by crossing the stage, which the server had to do quite often!) etc. It took awhile, but I won them over and was getting their polite jazz applause of slightly increasing length after each song. I tricked them by not doing an encore, but just picking a spot that was the ‘end’ of the set and then staying on for an ‘encore’ performance. They bought the rest of my CDs, and oddly, for the first time on this tour, people asked me if my stuff was available on vinyl (it is: This Sounds Like Goodbye was released as a 10” pink vinyl on Munster Records in Spain). I chatted with folks for a while—the club was still going strong when I went upstairs to the apartment of the promoters and promptly crashed on the couch. BRATISLAVA 11/12 Driving between Carinthia and Styria in southern Austria could be marvelous—you are on a flyway hundreds of feet above sweeping valleys—but the flyway is a 75 km construction site—most of the time you are having to eyeball nerve-wracking jersey-barrier lanes that curve and spit you from one lane to the next without a predictable rhythm. There are quite a few tunnels—the one that takes you under and around Graz is really very dull, all told—it’s 11km long. We got to Vienna, and then kept going—the city (which looks very industrial when you are on the A4 heading out of town and past the airport—you pass OMV’s huge refinery, and quite a few industrial operations of a similar scale) starts to dwindle and then you are quickly amongst brown fields and small villages. There are some Roman ruins around here, and Hainburg is a particularly handsome village, with a massive wall around it. The gate is only wide enough for one car to pass thru, so it has a traffic light on each side, alternating directions to pass thru. Right about here there some bizarre bluffs, volcanic hills, and rough looking mountains—the Slovakian frontier looks somewhat like Nevada. Crossing the border into Slovakia was no problem, even with Carsten unable to locate his passport; they let him in with just his driver’s license. Christian, a former Seattleite who plays in the local band Kukuspit, met us at the border and guided us to the venue. Bratislava emerges soon after the border as little bit of Hapsburg wedding cake architecture dwarfed by concrete Soviet-style blocks—all of which is surveyed by two vantage points—the castle, which roosts on top of a muddy hill, and a UFO-shaped revolving restaurant that is on top of a modern bridge over the Donau (Dunaj in local parlance). Unfortunately I didn’t have time to visit either, so I never got the bird’s eye view of town. Our first stop was the SubClub, which is something like you would expect to play in the emerging east—a former nuclear bunker dug into the side of the same hill that the castle rests upon. I never did find out if there’s an elevator going down there from the castle. I doubt it. I really don’t think people would have had time to get in there in the unlikely event—and who would be chosen? It had room, it claimed, for 180 people. Next question: who would want to be chosen? I think I would rather be incinerated instantly than die of malnutrition, depression and lord knows what else in a dank little cave for an extra two weeks after everyone else I know is dead. But it makes a fine venue now—you enter thru the blast doors that are up a muddy drive from the base of the hill—really it’s more like a creek bed than a driveway—and then go thru a bizarre tunnel of some 30 feet, thru more blast doors and you emerge in a gallery that has a stage at one end, and a bar at the other. It’s L-shaped, to the base of the L has a few tables and when you pass thru the coat check, you go thru a tiny office and emerge in another gallery—this is a shooting range. There is a shooting club run by a friendly gentleman named Peter, who also maintains a small lounge for the shooters (this was my dressing room) and has a glass cupboard filled with WWI and WWII weaponry—machine guns, rifles, and the like. A few helmets. And he showed me a few handguns as well; I held a Colt .44 magnum—briefly. They feel like danger. The .44s and .357s are dense and seem like they would be hard to control and aim. Skipping ahead to the show—after Kukuspit played their set, which was driving rock, and quite loud (I was amused when Yurei, the sound guy, was cranking “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie at about 125 db to test the PA for my 40 db show), I set my stuff up and gathered everyone around, and soon descended into the midst of the audience, and we made a really nice vibe. Whether thru the PA or not, the long tube of the main room made an incredible reverb for my voice – I often played with it, holding notes out for unusually long suspended moments. The next morning Christian was kind enough to show me the center of Bratislava in the daylight, we coffee’d up at a kind of Konditorei, walked around a bit, and of course I had to jump on this musical device comprised of metal squares flush with the ground, that trigger chimes when you step down on them hard enough. I managed to work out a pretty good version of “Airport Man”. And then we hit the road. VIENNA 11/13 Our first stop upon arrival was the ORF studios, where Eva from FM4 had arranged a session on the big Bösendorfer 9 foot grand piano in their classical music recording studio. I did a bunch of songs, always a bit nerve wracking doing the piano/vocal thing in those deadly quiet studios…I even had Carsten, Klaus, Taylor and Eva form a kind of audience but they were afraid to clap—it was oh so serious! But it prob. sounds great. After the session we zipped across town to a warehouse where ORF stockpiles its ‘obsolete’ gear, and I bought an 8 channel mixing board with nice mic pres and summing, perfect for my home studio situation, for not too many Euros. Then we slogged back across town to get me situated in the Fürstenhof hotel (evidently the only place in Vienna that will accept Pete Doherty). Fürstenhof; last in line to shelter the untouchable crack rockers. Then it was soundcheck time at the Chelsea, which, like the B72 where I played earlier this year, is situated under the arches of a viaduct for metro trains, which rumble overhead periodically (it brings a nice effect to the show, I think!) Chelsea is bigger than the B72 and the bar is even more separate from the show room—always a plus for KS shows. I dined at a kind of Austrian soul food restaurant—cafeteria-style service of down home cooking—even fried chicken, Austrian style. I had blood sausage, sauerkraut and a little bit of a cheese strudel. I think my dinner was like 8 euros with wine and coffee. I got back to the club just in time to start at ten and pulled the 100 or so people up to the front. It felt very much like a homecoming—I saw many familiar faces from my previous two weeks’ worth of shows in Austria—and everyone was determined to make me feel welcome. They were extremely quiet, gave thunderous applause at the right moments, and even laughed at (some of) my jokes. I clawed my way thru “For Your Sake” for the only time on the tour thus far; I had to tape the words to my mic stand. Incredibly, I was able to make a great show with a powerful ending without even playing “Here’s to the Future”, OR a Beach Boys cover. BUDAPEST 11/14 It’s been exceedingly difficult for me to get online—and much to my chagrin, the €18 T-mobile connection I purchased in Vienna didn’t allow me to effectively post this blog in the form it was at that point. For the last show of this tour, and having had what one could argue was the most high pressure show (Vienna) out of the way as an unmitigated success, I was relaxed on one hand but also emotional and intense on the other. I had no reason to hold onto a reserve for a performance to follow, so I let the audience have it—my voice, which was pretty tired (the amount of projecting I have to do when I sing off the mic is certainly pushing my voice to the limits of its strength) had a ragged, soulful edge to it—I say describe it thusly not out of pure vanity but because I usually find my voice quite boring tonally—it’s soft and pure, but not readily capable of having the emotive power of a great soul voice—say, Otis Redding. I sing in tune, usually perfectly so in good acoustic conditions—I can’t help it, my voice conforms to precise tones automatically. Al Green sings sharp, usually. Which is more likely to speak to you? But tonight my voice had edge, and even a little bit o’ soul. I pushed the songs quite a bit, played the piano harder, found some depths in me that I hadn’t explored before, and let those erupt out to the audience, and they seemed to be into it. Not that it was all a wailing expedition on my part—there were quite a few guests brought up—Mira from the Duloks, in full Duloks regalia, joined me for “Something Stupid”—although she sang Frank’s part an octave higher, and so I had to jump to Nancy’s part—but, hey, I’m a professional! Peter, who opened for me under an extremely complex nom de scene, took my guitar, and my videographer, Alberto, who came from Italy to film the last three shows, took the mic and we did fantastical renditions of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and a ludicrous, barroom piano-fueled “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which Mira promptly joined (I think she was a bit hammered). Alberto also backed me up very sweetly on a version of Big Star’s “Thirteen”. But, most of the show was pretty serious—I even had to shush a couple of friends during “Here’s to The Future”; although neither of them were Hungarian, I was told that by Hungarians that they consider themselves in general a very rude audience and in need of castigation. After the show we decamped to another bar and I caught up with Nathan (who I knew as Nate) Johnson, who used to live in Seattle and played drums for the Fastbacks and Flop. Nathan has been living in Budapest for about a decade now, has married there and has an editing job with a business journal. He’s always entertaining, well read and thoughtful. This morning I bade goodbye to Klaus (I am not a fan of goodbyes), did a little shopping and had lunch with Mira and her friend Gordo, and hopped out to BUD/Ferihegy to take advantage of being first in line to check in to my SkyEurope flight to Orly, and the free wifi the airport provides. I am absolutely spent, but really pleased with how things went on the tour, amazed by the interest the audiences have shown in what I’m presenting, and their willingness to go with me down the path I chose to go down each night. That’s why they call it love. Thank you to Klaus Plewa, for all his hard work and patience. To Eva Umbauer, for providing the initial idea and connecting me to Klaus, and for continued support on and off the air. To Justin Barwick and Weekender, for lending me the backline and in general bringing such incredible energy to Innsbruck and Austria. To Natasha, Andras Greff, Christian and everybody who brought me somewhere new, and made what I hoped could be into something that not only was, but was effective, moving and memorable. To all the local promoters, to all the support acts, to my friends who came along and helped—Carsten, Taylor and Alberto. And lastly, to the audiences who have shown their willingness to let go and let the night transform itself, letting ourselves be transformed in the process. Love KS SkyEurope flight 326 from BUD to ORY 11.05.2006 THE BAGMAN'S GUMBOOT My visit home felt very much like an assembly line version of being home—deplane, unpack, pack, re-board. I could have just left my guitar somewhere in Charles de Gaulle—if it had made it there on my flight from Chicago. But, it somehow decided not to come home with me and it hopped the next day’s flight. And of course, on my one full day home, I had to wait around at home ‘til 5.30 in the afternoon when United finally delivered it (and my bass which was taped to it). But, sometimes having a kind of rest imposed on you isn’t the worst thing. GRAZ 11/1 Other than the slight panic caused by the airport shuttle coming half an hour early to pick me up, my travel to the first show was pretty painless. I flew on Fly Niki, who were generous enough not to charge me anything extra for my guitar and my suitcase, which was full of CDs. Fly Niki operates from CDG T3, the small and very easy to navigate terminal at Charles de Gaulle. I dozed and woke up during our extremely bumpy descent into Vienna. The plane came down very low, to avoid the heavy turbulence that was causing the passengers to whoop, and laugh nervously. We banked over the Neusiedler See, and probably over the Alois Kracher weingut, and headed into VIE. My stuff made it, and I strolled thru the EU passenger exit, my wares safely imported into Austria. Upon exiting baggage claim, Klaus, who put together almost all of these shows, and is also driving me to them, met me. Very friendly, and having his shit together, he’s a most welcome addition to my touring life. We had a coffee and hit the road to Graz. This day was a national day of remembrance in Austria, shops etc. close and one is expected to pay a visit to the graves of relatives, and perhaps light a candle or leave some flowers. How it affected us was by making it pretty damn hard to find a restaurant that was open—the first one we visited for dinner that night was closing when we sat down—at 5 minutes to 8. We finally ate at the Hotel Mercure, and were basically the only customers in an all-too colorful and brightly lit place. Before dinner, after soundcheck, we checked into the hotel, which was a place that divided itself between two nodes about 3 blocks apart. Naturally, we were staying at the furthest node from the club, and spent some time trying the keys at the various doors found around the perimeter of the closer one. We finally got the right information, checked in, and I took a shower. I had hoped that my fresh haircut wouldn’t need to be washed for a couple of days, but it was looking flat and greasy already. So I washed it, and then (now, to be fair, I already was charging a phone, a toothbrush, and a laptop) I managed to knock the power out on my floor by plugging my hair dryer in. I turned the switch off, and felt my way in the dark to my phone and called Klaus, who I knew was waiting down in the lobby, and he got the night manager to come up and trip the breaker. Actually, I think he found it and did it; she was clueless and probably about to call an electrician. The event I was playing was a songwriter night called Platoo, which has been gaining quite a following in Graz. In this case it was held in a small kind of student bar called Café Mo.xx, which has a nice stage, and a grand piano to boot. And the bar itself is outside of the performance room, which always makes for a quieter show—the drinkers stay out there, and bartenders don’t throw me off when they toss empties into the bins or drop a handful of spoons in a metal sink on the last note of my songs. So this audience was pin drop quiet, and didn’t mind that I was a tiny bit rusty, having been a couple of months out of practice. I had two little zones to play in: in front of the stage, the Platoo organizers had made a little set with vintage furniture and lamps and half a mannequin—I played guitar there, and sang sans mic. Onstage, there was the piano, and also some more chairs and lamps and a Victoria. The audience sort of moved with me as I changed positions. It is always so wonderful to have a piano; this was a Yamaha but played quite nicely. My support act was a young London-based trio led by one Josh Weller, who is a confessed Elvis Costello fanatic, and his demo certainly has some definite ‘This Year’s Model’ influence—including the wheezy keyboard a la Steve Nieve, played in this case on a Casiotone. Anyway, the guys are very cool, and Josh is a very knowledgeable student of all kinds of music; he’s 20 now, and I think will be a talent to watch for as his writing develops. INNSBRUCK 11/2 The next morning we walked around looking for an internet café, which we found about half an hour’s walk from the hotel. Which meant by the time we got there, we had about 15 minutes to spend there before we had to head back to the venue to load our gear in the van and head on. Now, when I left Seattle last it was May. I put my winter things in storage, and didn’t really have a plan for when to get them again (although, at one point I was supposed to go to Seattle last month, but it didn’t work out). So I didn’t have a nice coat for winter and I didn’t have time to buy one in Paris while I was home. I quickly found that the tour would not be survivable with the herringbone jacket I brought with me (the one I’m wearing on the cover of Soft Commands—in fact, today I’m wearing that and the same Jill Sander shirt as in that photo as well). But there was nothing doing in Graz. I hoped for the best in Innsbruck. And we took a tram back to the hotel—there was no way I would walk back in the cold. We drove out west to Innsbruck, which is far from everything else in Austria—the main freeway there actually goes thru Germany rather than the skinny little tail of Austria. I was asleep when we pulled up to the Weekender, feeling like a home away from home in Austria, as this was my third time playing there this year. When I played there the first time, in January, my longtime friend Justin was just doing nights under the name Weekender, at the venue that was then known as Nutopia. Since then and the Posies’ subsequent visit, Justin has purchased the place and is running Weekender as a full time club, with live shows and DJ nights 5 times a week, and a café nightly. There is now an apartment for the artists to stay in, which is also the dressing room, and it’s great although I will miss staying at Justin and Conny’s lovely chalet, it’s always great to be able to just float into bed after a show. Pretty much every aspect of playing at Weekender is a pleasure, from the dinner, to the really friendly staff, and hanging with Justin and his wonderful family. For the show, I tried to present as much different songs…monologues…weird corners of the club to play from, etc. to distinguish it from my previous visit, and I think I did a bang up job, myself! And the audience seemed to be happy too—they were quieter this time, which is certainly a compliment. SIGHARTING 11/3 The next morning, Justin, Klaus, a visiting journo from London named James (who is not Norwegian, and not only does rock writing but works for the Lancet!) and myself went walking in search of a warm coat for me and a konditorei for all, and Klaus looked for a net café. We nailed all three; I picked up a handsome and very warm coat with a black faux suede exterior and a grey faux fur lining. It’s cozy enough that I have been using it for a blanket when I take my evening naps. And it is very well made, high quality Italian design and manufacturing, but it doesn’t scream ‘money’ like a leather coat would. Just right. Klaus & I hit the road around one in the afternoon, and started to navigate towards the village of Sigharting. We traveled by motorway until Salzburg, and from there on we went by ever smaller rural highways. We passed quickly thru Braunau, right on the German border, birthplace of a troublesome little vegetarian corporal. The countryside around there is quite pleasant, little villages with big churches, and woodland. You have to wonder when Adolf’s catastrophic disconnect with his fellow humans happened. I know that many a priest stopped believing in God during World War I, and I would pick that as a likely departure point from compassion for him. I wonder if he was connected as a boy to the fields and forests around him, if he was ever touched by the sweetness of nature and if he ever shared the young boy’s innate awareness that nature, humans, and earthly phenomena are driven by the same engine, composed of the same substance. As I contemplated this, we banked along sweeping hills as dusk closed in around us. A storm front emerged, black as smoke, and like smoke appeared to rise from the ground rather than be falling towards it. When we reached it, the sky, which around the storm was perfectly tranquil and clear, suddenly lashed at us with massive snowflakes. But it didn’t last long. Soon we were back to driving under a pleasant, blue-purple sky, a huge moon starting to dominate the view, the fields around us a beautiful luna moth green—the still green plants were dusted with snow, giving all a silvering effect. We picked our way along the little lines on the map, and finally arrived in Sigharting, at the Gashouse Berghammer. Sigharting is a very small village, just a few houses, a church, a couple of small shops and the Berghammer’s establishment, which has a bar, a restaurant, a few rooms to stay in, and upstairs is a kind of small dancehall, with its own bar, a lovely little stage, and a curved ceiling decorated with typical Austrian decorations, which remind me of things you would find on an Olympic medal, or on candy wrappers from the 1930s. The sound in this room is incredible—the whole place looks a bit rickety, with furniture strewn here and there, a creaky old wooden floor, etc, but somehow it all adds up to being a natural, acoustically well-balanced room that felt good with the hundred or so people I played to, but would I think be fine if you played to 20 people there or several hundred people as a couple of popular Austrian bands have done. I spent most of the show down on the floor, even sitting on it at one point for a few tunes. The audience got it right away, and we had a great night. There were guys in the audience with grey hair, and there were punked out teenagers (including the lovely Berghammer daughter, who is going to be a real heartbreaker pretty soon—very soon, considering I told her about a little website called myspace). A lovely, lovely night, and the people not only loved the show but also took excellent care of me, ladling out some warm chai backstage, or giving me some nice wine after the show. Most of the building is unheated, and this night was pretty chilly—they heated the venue with a contraption that looked like something built for Survival Research Laboratories, basically a jet engine shooting a blue kerosene flame straight out of a metal tube. In my tiny bedroom there was a space heater provided by the promoter, but it wasn’t able to combat the ambient chill very effectively. When I took a shower the next morning, I stuck the back end of the hair dryer in its mounting and left it running the whole time! NITZING, 11/4 The Culture X Club is another combination venue/restaurant/hotel—albeit with heated rooms!—located again in a tiny village, which boasts one of the tiniest little churches you’ve ever seen—and not much else. It’s just outside the small town of Tulln, which is the birthplace of Egon Schiele. There is a small museum in Tulln, which unfortunately is closed from November to April. The Schiele family’s apartment in the train station (Egon’s father was stationmaster) is also maintained as it was when they lived there a century ago, as a satellite exhibit of the museum. The venue is the basement rather than the attic, but you get the idea. The restaurant has a hunting season menu, and thus I had excellent venison for dinner. I had a nice nap, and wandered down to the venue at about 11.30 when Love (pronounced Loova) Wollberg was starting his set. He was a little shy, and the people became shy in kind, so he felt he didn’t really connect with the audience. I had my work cut out for me, but I coaxed a dozen or so of the kids in the crowd to come up to the stage, and sit in the chairs and onstage or whatever. The rest remained a bit aloof in the back of the room where there were some tables. This show was perhaps my favorite musically, the crowd was so quiet I could really take it down dynamically, and that felt great. The Berghammer show was probably the best night all around, but this was a very well played show indeed. This morning we headed off to Croatia, the sky dumping very unpleasant rain on us as we pulled out Nitzing. We circled Vienna and picked up the motorway south, stopping in the wine country at the Slovenian border to taste and pick up some wonderful chardonnay and some eiswein, and drive around a bit in the hills and admire the gorgeous view of vineyards and wooded hills. Much of the little road we took through the countryside was also the border, and in fact when you are driving on it one way you’re in Austria and when you reverse and are in the other lane you are in Slovenia. ZAGREB 11/5 This show seems to be the winner so far. The sad truth is, I’m so tired that I can’t bring myself to write that much. Maybe someone could email me a review and I will post it here! But, every detail was just perfect—the audience was incredible, I played and sang my best, *everyone* in Croatia seems to be very friendly. Were that they could all be this good! I might comment more on this show later, except there’s not much to report—no problems, no dramas, just a damn fine KS show made possible by a thoroughly excellent audience. Many thanks to a very enthusiastic fan, Natasha, for making the effort to make this show happen. Myspace comes thru! Andf thanks to Dolibar from Babmi Molesters for taking me to dinner, and showing us where the venue is! Love KS Zagreb, CROATIA

The latest release by Ken Stringfellow is a split EP with Spain's Muy Fellini, featuring never-heard-before music incl. Ken's take on Bob Dylan, released by King of Patio records in Spain on Oct 8, 2009. Order it directly from Muy Fellini here www.myspace.com/muyfellini 10" VINYL ONLY!!! Subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date on all things KS! older news : 8/3/2003 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010 03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010 04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010