Ken Stringfellow dot calm

4.29.2007

Like I have often thought, musicians, who are accused of being unemployable layabouts, have the double bind of being having to get up the earliest while also working the latest. It seems I’m always getting up at some ungodly hour to catch a plane, but on the morning after working 'til 3a.m. in a studio or having played a club or whatever. This Monday I was up at 7.45 so that I could meet Xavier “Axe” Boyer at our metro stop by 9. We went to Strasbourg-St. Denis, famously the red light district, where Benoit “’s Symphonic Orchestra” Rault has a studio…in a 7th floor walk up! No need to stay, I didn’t investigate. We loaded up my things, Xav’s things, and Ben’s things into Ben’s car, which left a little room for the three of us, and drove out to Microbe studios, which is far from the middle of nowhere—it’s in the suburbs of nowhere. Therein we rehearsed a cover of the Zombies’ “Care of Cell 44” together, and I ran thru “Tell Me Why” for Axe’s benefit (I just thought the phrase ‘dooblaveh axelle rrrose’ in my head. At 12.30 Audrey from Liquid Architecture picked me up and drove me across Paris for another rehearsal, which went into the night. By the time it was done…I was done!

MILAN 4/24

The next morning I was…yep, up early. I headed to Orly, hurrying at a decent clip, and arrived at 9am for my flight to Milan. Ah, but, my flight wasn’t 'til 11. I had convinced myself it was at 10. OK. I had a bad coffee and read the IHT and also got myself checked in as part of Boarding Group A. Which meant I sat in my preferred front area of the plane. Once in Milan I headed to the tacky hotel by the venue, hotel Rex, which has several competing old empire fabric designs going at once in every room. I loved it. I took a nap, and pretty much stayed in the hotel checking email etc. as there was nothing around in the neighborhood. I didn’t have any times for the schedule of the day, so I just went over to the venue on foot when I felt like it, sometime around 6.30. I ran into Roberto, who runs the place, out front; he was on his way to have a coffee. Things just fell into place without even having to speak towards a consensus. A sound check happened, the piano ended up by the front of the stage, an amp came out from underneath the stage, a guitar stand was found under some junk backstage…my support act, Marco Icampo, turned out to be a Big Star fan…and as an even more unexpected bonus, Alfredo, the sound guy, was a wicked bass player who had his bass plugged into a DI at the mixing board—so we worked up “Tell Me Why” and “Thirteen” as a three piece—it sounded so cool, all of a sudden to have groovy bass coming out of nowhere! I think it was the best part of the night, really—playing with new energy input from good musicians. Thanks to my awesome Italian friends who brought the present for Aden!

PARIS 4/25

I didn’t have to leave that early for my flight but that did mean that when I got to Paris, I basically had just enough time to get to my flat, and head to sound check at La Fleche D’or. Luckily, things were running a bit behind, so I could chill a bit. The biggest pain of playing in Paris is lugging my keyboard down 3 flights of stairs (and up again later). I have to hope that Laurent and his lengthy car are always available when I play in Paris! I soundchecked with Axe Riverboy and band, and did my own sound check. Dom wandered down and other friends came in—including my bandmates in Liquid Architecture, Jerome and Flairs (Flairs is Symphonic Ben’s brother!!); and Olivia Baum and her guitarist; it was a regular ice cream social. Champagne was free—they wouldn't even take my drink tickets! And my show was really fun. Short and to le point! Axe/Xav joined me for some ace harmonies on “Tell Me Why”, and I did my Zombie bit. Also on hand was Fugu, to play my piano on an Axe axiom. I stuck around ‘til the end of the night, when Xavaxe was doing some killer DJ-ing, and loaded in my stuff at like 1.30 a.m.

ROMA 4/26

…and was up at 5. 5!! It can’t be real. The airport shuttle came at fucking 5.50. And I wasn’t too early. I was on Air One, a regional Italian airline, with a very short layover in Torino. Naturally, I slept thru both flights. Torino airport is pretty small, but you do have to go thru security to get to connecting flights, and we were a bit late so I think I had like 20 minutes to get from plane to plane—but there were quite a few people on the same itinerary, so they wouldn't have left without us (would they??). I got to Rome’s big airport, Fiumicino, on time—it took a long time for the luggage to come; and even then I had to get someone to retrieve my guitar, which was just sitting in the ‘backstage' of the baggage claim, like the little dressed-in-black rockstar that it is. I came out and couldn’t find anyone waiting for me, but after a few text messages, I found my ride—she had been waiting in the international arrivals area, thinking I was coming from Paris. She and another driver for this little festival were there to pick up me and the band Just Head from Boston. Of course they had two tiny cars, but we managed. They took us to the hotel, which was out in the middle of nowhere—this is apparently normal for playing club shows in Rome, as the clubs are * also * in the middle of nowhere. Along the freeway I was shocked by the number of prostitutes just standing on the shoulder of the road, in the middle of the day, in bras and g-strings. Not that it’s the safest or healthiest profession to begin with, but this has got to make it downright dangerous. Obviously we were going at freeway speed, but I could see that at least some of them were probably 15 years old. This made me feel quite badly for them all.

I had a quick lunch at the hotel, and we ran off to rehearse. The band playing tonight was Chariot, which was originally comprised of myself, Brian Young when he was the Posies’ drummer, Pat Fear of White Flag, and Javier Escovedo of the Zeros. We made a one-off album in 1997, recorded over the weekend between the recording and mixing of the Posies’ “Success” album, on the same gear set up at the studio. The album was only released in Spain, and we did a short (but fun) tour there in 1998, with I believe Dave Nazworthy from Chemical People on drums. Another Chariot tour happened in Europe in 1999 with Jon Auer in my stead but with Brian on the throne. The album is a weirdo mix of garage, country and 60s covers with some truly bizarre original songs. It’s actually a really fun album. Out of print, but you can probably find it on Ebay for nothing.

If you contact the White Flag myspace, there are some vinyl LPs thhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifat Pat would be happy to sell you.

Anyway, we were going to play—Pat, myself and Javier--with Baba, the Zeros’ drummer, but he was having wrist pain, and even the Zeros’ set was in jeopardy. So, a local drummer was found, Alessandro from the band (among others) called the Illuminati. How can you say no? He did a great job, too. We ended up going on last—not a ton of people turned up—this little punk festival had a bigger name on a better night (meaning the next night’s Zeros show), and I guess people were a bit hesitant to make the trek into the industrial zone of Rome’s prison neighborhood for us and Paul Collins Beat, and saved their energy for the other nights (by all accounts the Zeros show was quite full). Paul Collins sort of figured things out quicklike, and asked if we would mind going on after him. We didn’t--what else did I have to do that night? So, I don’t even remember what time we went on, but I’m sure we were on ‘til about 2. I had fun, anyway—and people dug it. After the show, Alessandro gave me a ride home—we were going to have a nightcap but all the bars were closed and we settled on grabbing a to-go bottle of wine from an all night café (no tables and bright lights, so not a good hangout) and hanging out in the hotel parking lot! Eventually I ran out of steam and went back to my room, quietly slipping into one of three beds—I was rooming with Pat Fear and Robert ‘El Vez’ Lopez. I slept in pretty late and casually made my way to the airport, which was FCO’s little brother, Ciampino, after having lunch and shooting a bit of video footage for a White Flag video at the hotel.

I got to Oslo, direct on Sterling, a Danish-based budget airline…that, incredibly, showed a film on the flight (I didn’t watch it tho’). I was pretty wrung out from 4 flights, 3 shows, plenty of early mornings and late nights etc. and was in the mood for some rest. However, my bandmates were headed to a birthday party for a friend, which was large in scale—an entire restaurant had been commandeered, in fact. I lasted about 1.2 glasses of wine, and could take no more. Claus gave me his keys and I went home and crashed.

Our Disciplines work was really effective tho'—we wrote and demo’d three new songs this weekend, and rehearsed for our upcoming shows…that would be a good week for most musicians, even without all the shows. As it is, rehearsing our set 2 times is like playing 2 live shows, so I’m one burnt piece of toast. So…goodnight!

Speaking of the Disciplines, we moved our show at Café Mono to a rare Saturday night show there, so we will be playing on May 19 now. More shows to be announced soon.

Love
KS
Oslo, NORWAY

4.22.2007

FUNK BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

In one of those it rains it pours kind of turnarounds, found myself with more opportunities to play music this week than I could possibly accept, but I did accept them all and so far it’s working out pretty well…I was given three sets of music to learn this week for three different bands (and three instruments mind you!). Plus I am faced with doing better mixes of my demos now that I’m home, plus I offered to do a bit of mastering for the Cosmopolitants, and I wanted to fool around with a mix or two for Cheap Star of the stuff we worked on a few years ago (that isn’t released yet but could be soon). Well. First off, my ProTools crashed for a night. I had tried to mount Cheap Star’s hard drive, and it wouldn’t show up on my desktop. I installed a driver that was included and it didn’t get the drive to mount. OK. I gave up, and put my hard drive on and was about to do some work, but ProTools was now not working—it tried to load, but crashed and gave me an error message to “Call Apple for a secret decoder ring”. What the? Is that a joke? A virus? I emailed around, and Googled, and searched Apple and Digidesign forums. Nothing on a “secret decoder ring”. I was really panicking. And then, in the morning, everything worked fine…I still don’t know what happened…if anyone has ever heard of this phenomenon, please email me.

Wednesday night I went to see Deerhoof at the Point Ephemere, the ultra cool club down below street level along a canal. The show was sold out, but I managed…to work a little magic (merci Benoit). Deerhoof are pretty incredible…wicked drummer who plays a kind of emo jazz; a guitar player who utilized alternate tunings to play a kind of Sonic Youth’d John McGlaughlin, and a bass player/singer who squeaks cryptic poetry, and plays a violin bass. And points at things the audience can’t see. Brilliant. The Blow opened, a one-woman show with kind of charming-heroic synth and drum machine backing, wherein the heroine tells you her triumphs, fears and fantasies, and does wicked hand gestures and dance moves. Approved!

I spent two days rehearsing with two different bands, one is art-contemporain crossover duo Liquid Architecture; the other is the group of singer Olivia Baum. Totally different, each one. Oddly, the tour manager for Olivia is the drummer for Liquid. There’s not much I can say about rehearsals. They are not entertaining, by any means.

Friday was Dominique’s birthday. I won’t tell you which number. I had rehearsals with Olivia Baum that afternoon, but I managed to get some flowers and clean our flat while Dom was at work and before I had to get on the metro to Main D’oeuvre, the rehearsal place way up on the north side of Paris. I came back from rehearsal around 7, and in 30 minutes I was back on the metro heading to the center of Paris where I met Dom for dinner. We were debating whether to go out of town for the weekend up until the last minute, so I found myself booking a place for a dinner on a Friday night in Paris the day before. But we found a place, and it turned out to be lovely—the Mori Venice Bar, next to the ‘Bourse’, the stock exchange in Paris’ center. In fact, the place was relatively quiet until Dom and I were on our way out. So, we had a quiet place with an attentive staff. We had called in advance to see if they would be willing to do corkage, and they couldn’t really give us an answer—and in fact, they were completely thrown by the concept. I had brought from my cave a bottle of Ermitage, Le Pavillon 2003 by Michel Chapoutier. Robert Parker gave the wine a perfect score of 100, and it absolutely merits the score. It was massive, with huge vanilla and berry/cherry flavors. It didn’t have a super long finish, but the front end of this wine was like getting a punch and a caress at the same time—the flavor was shocking, complex, and intense. It was about as early in this wine’s life as one should drink it, it will be amazing in about 15 years. I have another bottle of Ermitage Chapoutier, Le Meal 2003, that I’m not opening 'til the next decade. A bonus note: the restaurant staff was too surprised by our BYOB action that they didn’t charge us a corkage fee. After the dinner Dom & I had a drink at Le Motel, but somehow we found ourselves more or less done with the night before midnight. It was enjoyable enough that the night felt long and full, and I guess it was…we were out for almost 4 hours, but it was one of those occasions where time stands still…in a *good* way.

NANTES, 4/21

I spent an afternoon running thru the five song set of Olivia Baum at home, and on Friday afternoon, Olivia, myself and the guitarist (who also does amazing backing vocals) Mateo got together for a couple of hours and ran thru the set a couple of times. A good sign was that I didn’t need to refer to my notes during the rehearsal; I had more or less memorized the music and arrangements, and what I didn’t know, they were able to teach me quite easily.

On Saturday morning I got up and packed and kissed everyone goodbye and headed to Montparnasse station. As had been true at rehearsal, I was the first on the scene. Jerome ‘La Perruque’, in tour manager mode, arrived soon after and the rest of the band fell in. Lawrence Clais, the drummer, hadn’t been able to come to rehearsal so I met him for the first time as we boarded the train. I made friends quickly by sharing the excellent (and you can say that like Bill and/or Ted) Led Zeppelin rehearsal and studio outtakes I have on my Itunes.

We got to Nantes and checked in to the hotel. It was fairly sweltering (Paris today is supposed to be about 25C/77F) and Jerome and my room was pretty small so we went walking around, took a little snack on a terrace, etc. Olivia was the support act for Chiméne Badi, a very popular French singer, who sings very pop French music, and sells millions of albums…it’s mainstream, to be sure. She does have an excellent voice (and her vocals sound amazing, enough that I noted the microphone she uses and may get one for my live shows in the future). The venue was Le Zénith of Nantes. Every big French town has a Zénith; they are state owned centers for sports, music, even political rallies. Le Zénith in Paris is not really used for sports, as there are several other large venues in Paris, but in Nantes the Zénith is a one-size-fits-all events center. I think it must hold 5,000-7,000 depending on the configuration. Olivia’s set was just the 5 songs we learned the day before, with acoustic guitar, bass, vocals and one of those South American boxes that you sit on and slap with your hands. Laurence, the drummer, originally from Martinique, has played with many artists, including a tour as the drummer in Phoenix. He was wearing a t-shirt from the Southgate House in Kentucky when we boarded the train, a venue I played with the Long Winters in 2002.

The bass player in whose place I was playing is the musical director of the band, and one of those virtuoso, 5-string bass kind of players. I play in a more laid back, more old school soul style, but managed to make it fit. The show was actually really good, and I managed to play without any significant errors, and with plenty of feel and ‘good groove’ as Olivia said. Only five songs meant that by the last song I was really starting to feel relaxed and enjoy myself and loosen up. And then it was done—everybody happy.

After the show, we attempted to make merry with the band and crew of Chiméne, in a positively awful (to my tastes, but they were having a great time) nightclub—, but it just wasn’t rubbing off, and I really don’t need to hear “It’s Raining Men” EVER again…and it was packed, and it smelled like poo from the toilets (the woman at the coat check, who has to work down in that basement all night, had the biggest can of air freshener I have ever seen—and even *it* didn’t help!). So I went back and got my groove on with my Itunes (I am preparing for a DJ set this summer at Le Motel).

Love
KS
on the TGV between Nantes and Paris

4.15.2007

my workspace in cussy-la-colonne------------------------>

above: view of the next house down from me in Cussy

FRANKISH

I’m not exactly psyched to leave this place—it’s peaceful, about 8 deg. cooler than Paris, clean and simple. But, my work here is done for now. I have 4 new songs to show for it, one of the recordings I think is so peculiar and vibe-y that I may just put it on my next record as it is. I went for a final walk in the countryside last night at twilight, the perfect time to be out in the misty fields. I went thru a fence break and walked across the grass, rolling away from me in every direction. I made my way to a line of trees and took in birdsong and the bizarre colors of the place at this time of year. I keep thinking that Syd Barrett would have done a photo session here and it would come pre-psychedelically colored: the dark pink of the sky, the explosive green of the grass, the blackness of the silhouetted trees, still leafless in the cool of April.

A strange phenomenon that I noticed on several occasions walking back up the hill towards the village is that I encountered alternating breezes, some brisk and fresh, and some oddly warm, like the Chinook wind, but always gentle. It was a truly odd sensation. I didn’t see any unusual wildlife but of course the birds are constantly twittering and flickering everywhere you go. Yesterday I saw two European goldfinches, called chardonneret in French, which aren’t really very golden but they sure are purty. As happens every night—the streetlights go out at midnight; on cue, a number of animals start to make noise. The squeaks of bats are constant, and there were some other avian noises I couldn’t identify, but it really it like a tiny jungle out here in the campagne.

Most days I would get up around 8 or 9, and head down to put on coffee and shower. Frederic, Didier’s wife, had left some confiture de cerises for me in the pantry, which was happily consumed. I would work a bit until the afternoon lunch break; work another hour and half 'til a mid afternoon email break.http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif I found I could get wifi by opening the second floor window—the second floor was where the music studio was; the ground floor is kitchen and bathroom; the third floor was the loft with bedrooms. This worked well, except for the fact that during the daytime, emailing was often interrupted by lost or curious bees. One day, outside a closed window, I saw the legendary European hornet, called a frelon. It was almost as big as a Chapstick.
My roommates here in the house also included some spectacularly oversized arachnids (at least I thought they were real!!)—the biggest I saw was hanging out on the bathroom door, when I took a pee break late last night watching the ‘original’ (quotes inserted by request of the estate of Bram Stoker, who successfully sued to have the film taken out of theatres) version of Nosferatu—his/her timing couldn’t have been more astutely chosen. It was a wolf spider I suppose, with the legs it was almost as big across as a pocket watch.

On Thursday, Didier and I took a road trip along the ‘Route des Grand Crus’ (which I surmised could be shortened to the ‘Grand Cru-ise’ warf warf) thru the legendary domaines of Bourgogne.

The first stop was Montrachet, which straddles one slope of a hill called, not surprisingly, Mont Rachet.

I stood at the patch of wine-snob terra sacra that is called Chevalier-Montrachet (the gate at the top actually says Chevaliers-Montrachet), and looked down on the regular clos Montrachet and Batard-Montrachet. You can read the mythology of these names online. What is shocking is how tiny these patches are; it’s just an oversize garden, Le Chevalier.

It’s amazing anyone can get these bottles at all. The be-all-end-all Domaine, Domaine D’Auvenay, is something like €700/bottle if you can find it. I’ve never seen it. The individual patches of each Domaine inside the larger appellation are not marked. I am not sure how Bouchard and Auvenay tell whose grapes are whose. Hmmm. Later in the day we went to the estate d’Auvenay. It’s a gorgeous little farm on a country highway quite a ways from Montrachet. The gate was locked, not a soul was present. Not much going on at this point, Chevaliers for example was completely untended.

A few other workers were out in other vineyards, but really it’s just sit and wait I suppose—the vines are barely visible at this stage, just a few leaves on a tiny seedling coming out of the old trunk. There were a few corbeaux (ravens) guarding.

Above the Chevaliers clos, Mont Rachet is just a scrubby bit of wilderness. I hiked up pretty high and the view of Puligny-Montrachet and the surrounding vineyards was fantastic—most of the area is flat, so you can see for miles and miles. There is a trail that goes to Beaune—like 12 miles away. Two uniformed school girls or girl scouts came walking up the hill and passed me, disappearing into the brush, I think they were kind of like girl scouts.

We drove on, thru Meursault, Pommard, etc. We stopped in Beaune and looked around. Beaune is a mix of charm, money and tourists. Evidently one of the most popular tourist spots in France, not sure why tho'. There’s no beach. The center is tiny. It must be for wine…has the world really become that oenocentric? I hope not—it just drives the prices up…hey, let’s make a new snob fad…onyx, or baskets or some crap I don’t care about. After Beaune, we stopped at Vosne-Romanee, not quite ugly as described by ………… but not the most handsome village. I don’t know where the Illuminati of Romanee-Conti hide, but they weren’t apparent today. Nobody seemed in the village at all, in fact. Afterwards we stopped in St. Romain, which is surrounded by incredible cliffs—there was a little music venue/restaurant atop of one that looks down on the entire village from about 800 feet up—until it was discovered that no building permit had ever been asked for or granted for building a place two meters from a cliff face.

I didn’t do any tasting—it’s not quite like Napa—and that suits me fine. The less user friendly, the fewer tourists. Didier kindly surprised me with a bottle of Montrachet while I snooped in a shop in Beaune. We saw a bird smashed on a car’s grill, looking rather similar in mortal repose to the archaeopteryx fossil famously found in a German quarry.

I spent this morning packing up and cleaning the place. Lunch was some oreilles de cochon and a…beer—I never drink the stuff but it seemed like Sunday afternoon in France thing to do. Plus, in Cockney Rhyming Slang, pig’s ears are beers.

OK, I have time to throw some photos in this blog and post it; Laurent isn’t due here for a couple more hours.

Love
KS
Cussy-la-Colonne FRANCE

4.08.2007

THE DAYS ARE JUST PAQUE'D

There are new photos up in the photos section, and the map is current. Have a ball!

I am away again. No sooner was I home from the tour than I found myself deep in the heart of Burgundy, in a tiny village, where I knew no one. Laurent, a.k.a. the one-man-band that is Paloma, was again my driver. The journey started with a stressful load out—I have to get all my gear down three flights of stairs (and up one on the other side when I got here). A few hours later I was dropped off in Cussy-la-Colonne, population 60. Why here? I am renting the live-in rehearsal/recording/whatever space that is owned and maintained by Didier G., actor/musician/whatever, who has lived here in the village for 13 years. Didier is an extremely kind gentleman who has been making things happen in theater, music, film etc. all over the world for quite some time, and helping make things happen for other people as well. He, his wife and their children live in a lovely 18th-century home (all the homes here are at least 200 years old), and over the years he bought the grange in which I am now working and the house next door to his. His brother lives on the other side next door. We’re talking more than 10% of the village in terms of population!

Cussy has no restaurants, no store, no businesses of any kind other than agricultural. A few artists live here, and there is magnificent house that I was surprised to find belonged to an English pastor and his companion who only live there occasionally. “I’m in the wrong biz, AGAIN”, I thought. Also, Burgundy is the new Tuscany, evidently, so much the worse for Burgundy. Next thing you know it will be retirees from Wall Street. God-for-fucking-bid. Yes, I know it’s Easter. Yes, I hope God feels the same way I do. Even if he is assigning his workers here, evidently. "An English pastor and his companion purchase a manor home in Burgundy for weekend escapes. Hilarity ensues..."--ok, who is going to help me write and produce this British comedy series? It practically writes itself.

The ‘colonne’ bit refers to a Roman column that stands in the middle of a field about 200 meters from the village. There’s much that is not known about it—it’s estimated to be from the 3rd century; it may have marked the entry or center of a village; it may have had a lamp on it; the identities of the faded carved figures on its side are educated-ly guessed to be Hercules, Minerva, Diana…or maybe not. Scholars are pretty sure the faces on the capital are representing the sun, the moon and the wind. Or, maybe not.

Around Cussy, you find a gorgeous valley, where runs the Ouche—not a deadly minotaur-like beast, but a pacific little stream, that runs through, among other places, Bligny-sur-Ouche, which is the nearest town that has stores and doctors and police and all those things we take for granted, until they’re 15 minutes away by car, and you don’t have a car.

The first day, the arrival day, Madame Therand, whom I later learned is the mayor, greeted me. She made sure I got in the place OK as Didier was on tour, and made an appointment with me for the next morning to take me shopping. I had bought a few groceries in Paris to get me thru so I did not starve—quite the opposite, I have found that cooking for one is always going to come out a bit heavy as this world markets many things in 2 portions together. A rather unfair assumption for all the lonely hearts out there. Also, Madame Therand gave me a steak as a welcome gift, from her son’s cattle farm. I spent the rest of the day setting up my gear, unpacking, etc. Didier had left me a bottle of Bourgogne rouge as a welcome gift, which is more than sufficient to cheer me up on almost any occasion.

Day 2, the first full day. I went to Bligny with Madame Therand, and did my best to guess what I might need. What I didn’t need, as I discovered when I found a cupboard I hadn’t checked, was olive oil, candles, matches, vinegar, salt, pepper, cornichons, moutarde…well, at least they will come back to Paris with me. Dom had also sent all the chocolate and cake in the house out with me. I was going to have to go into overtime to eat all that I had with me!

I picked at the piano on this day, but nothing was really coming. I felt glazed over. If cracks appeared in the glaze, it was only to emit melancholy. I recognized that I was not physically or mentally recovered from the tour, so I decided not to force things and take a rest day. Early bedtime. Cook up the delicious steak, and listen to Itunes. “Just A Little Bit Of You”, a Holland/Dozier/Holland hit for Michael Jackson early in his solo career, definitely lifted my spirits (“just a little bit of you every day is sure to keep the doctor away” is the song’s premise). Also, a demo of an unused Pete Townshend song for the Quadrophenia album, “Four Faces” completely blew me away. I don’t know if this has ever been released, but it’s such a great track.

Day 3 I was sufficiently recovered. I started to work on a song that I had started to theorize on Ile de Re last month, and it came quickly. I demo’d it and still went to bed early.

Day 4 I finished the demo—I was hoping to get some drums from Didier, but his drums were packed up on a truck for the tour he his on, he’s now home for the week but this is just a pause in the action. So I mixed the demo of the previous day’s song after adding a bunch more stuff to it, and wrote another, rather improvised, song, and mixed that.

During a break, Didier took me to the farm “des Levées”, a pig farm out in the sticks. The man who runs the place was until 5 years ago running a business in Dijon completely unrelated to farming, and cashed out to pursue his dream of running an organic farm. He raises pigs plus a few sheep, and I think grows a few spuds somewhere too. All organic. Unfortunately I had to limit my purchases to what I thought I could keep and eat easily, he had some beautiful roasts but I don’t really have an oven, and I don’t have time to experiment really, I’m here to make music, not cook all day. I did get some bits—pied porc panee, which I love (I ate two of them yesterday, and they were excellent), and some joue and groin (which is the snout, not the private bits!) cuit. And a terrine de boudin—meaning, a pâté of blood sausage. I know, all of you anemic Seattle-ite indie rockers are howling in agony right now, but, I am at least French enough to eat French well if not to speak it well.

Day 5 is today.
I will attempt to do a better mix of yesterday’s song, and hopefully another will come (I’ve got an idea already). It’s Easter, and Aden and Dominique are in Tours, and I am missing them.

At night, it’s so dark that the window looks out on pure black, like a square of black velvet is hanging on the wall. The only sound at night is the church bell, and very occasionally I hear an animal stirring, sometimes a steer lowing, sometimes just a whisper in the grass. About every other day a military jet or helicopter flies over, on its way to some nearby aerodrome, but the intrusion is brief, and it’s never after dark.

Now, I don’t care if you can find Cussy on a map. I know you will never come here. And you don’t know how long I’m staying. So I am confident to leave a full description of my days here on this blog. If you do come to Bourgogne, I suggest you visit the aforementioned pig farm, and the village of St. Roman, the mythical birthplace of the ultimate Jesus juice, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. You are allowed to visit if you come bearing a bottle of La Tache 2003 and/or Domaine D’Auvenay 2002 Chevalier-Montrachet. No, we won’t be drinking them now. Just drop them off, get a quick tour, and off ya go!

Love
KS
Cussy-la-Colonne, FRANCE

4.02.2007

WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN

SALZBURG, 3/29

Our taxi driver to Graz seemed to take the fact he was responsible for our safety rather lightly, considering he had to have known we were accident survivors, fresh from the trauma. He really wanted to make his hourly pay go up (he made almost what I make in a day, by the way—and his day wasn’t done). Hungary has almost no superhighways, and no roads lead to or from Pecs that are of any significance (good old Route 66, tho'—really). So we hurtled like a fucking luge over these ridiculous little asphalt pinstripes…we passed the Balaton, which is central Europe’s largest lake, curious for the fact that it is rarely more than 6 feet deep in all of its 230 square miles. We went by it so fast it actually evaporated. Our driver dumped us in Graz, having only stopped once, at my request—so I could spend the meager proceeds of my Pecs merch sales. It got me a nine-volt battery, a couple of bottles of water, and a sandwich. Rah rah rah. Then Matts’ girlfriend Sabine was there to pick us up—and Matts’ flatmate was there to receive a garbage bag full of rescued items from Matts’ car. I had to pee, but I was worried about being late—we hadn’t left Pecs until about midday and we still had to cross all of Austria (which isn’t saying much, but still) and get me onstage by 8.45 that night. But really that taxi driver had helped us out quite a bit; he shaved probably 45 minutes of our estimated travel time with his lead foot. And Sabine was no slouch. We pulled up to the ARGE Kultur at something like 7.45.

ARGE Kultur is one of those wonderful beneficiaries of Austrian public funds, and let me tell you, the money isn’t going to waste. It’s appropriate that Salzburg, even though it’s not a huge city by any standards, receive generous largesse from the state, seeing as how an outrageous number of tourists pass thru spending money as they go. And personally, as much as I love the idea of an opera house (and was honored to play it with REM in 1999), I think Salzburg’s Kultur haus is more bang for your buck than the Staatsoper. Within its walls you can have theatre, cinema, music rehearsal, dance classes, cafés/restaurants…much of that at the same time. It’s well run and friendly. It’s a similar entity to the Posthof in Linz, where I played last year, but I think the ARGE is enjoyed more often by its constituents—it’s located much more centrally than the Posthof, for example, and it seems to bustle with quite a bit more and quite a few more kinds of activity.

The show that night was in support of a really decent Austrian band called Garish; despite the goth-sounding name, they perform a gentle kind of spacious pop music…some of their musical moments would sound good in a Wim Wenders film. They incorporate accordion, Rhodes piano, etc into the act. They drew a pretty decent crowd, and this crowd was very receptive to my show—they simmered down and drew close when I played and gave me a very warm ovation. No one told me to stop, I kept asking the sound guys how much time I had left…but they would just look back with a pleasant sort of blankness (and they did speak English, as I spoke with them before the show). I just picked a point in my head that felt like the right time to stop—I still don’t know if it was over or under my 45-minute limit—immediately after my set I hopped up on the bar and sold CDs.

GRAZ, 3/30

I was sound asleep when we pulled up to the club; I had my headphones on and was listening to Garish. The PPC is a ramshackle affair, located at the end of a dusty driveway in a kind of industrial backwater of Graz’s red light district. Sounds great, right? Well, it’s not so bad…it’s run by a kind of stern looking mom-and-dad type of couple, who hang out at the coat check and glare at everyone? Still not sold on the place? Well, read on. The music staff is quite friendly but the security guys are kinda intense (I wasn’t sure to be more afraid of the wannabe thugs coming for the hip-hop night or the thugs at the gate) and the girl at the bar wanted to charge me for a bottle of water, even after she knew I was playing. They cutoff my set, which was reasonably full of 50 paying (and drinking) customers, in favor of jump starting the hip hop club night, which had about 5 paying customers (the DJ was friendly). And they don’t have an espresso machine…complain, complain. I played in a small lounge upstairs; the main floor has a larger venue that hosted an eclectic dance night of indie rock/soul music/80s hits (it was pretty fun, actually, I had to walk thru it quite a few times going to and from my dressing room and got a contact high from the patrons there rocking out). Another complaint just came to mind: no wifi or Ethernet access!

People were really into the set, and we had a good laugh at the two snotty girls who were laughing thru all the quiet bits of my songs, in their own private conversation, oblivious that there was a show happening 10 feet away (are people really that stupid? Answer: yep). Even with everybody laughing at my mockery of their imagined conversation, they kept plowing along. Why do people pay to get into my shows and then talk the whole time? Isn’t there a nicer bar somewhere that has no cover?

As I mentioned, I was politely asked to stop playing after about an hour or so. The crowd’s applause had been getting more and more enthusiastic with every song, there was no way the show would be over under less restrictive circumstances. So, at first I took about 40 people and managed to stuff them into the restrooms (the men’s and women’s rooms have a common entrance and foyer). I played my electric guitar, so of course no one could hear it, but everybody clapped and sang along, I played Bee Gees songs, “O-o-h Child”, whatever I could think of. As you could imagine, and I agreed with this, the management was pretty unhappy I was blocking the entrance to the toilets. At that point a young man volunteered to grab an acoustic guitar from his flat—I told everyone to head down to the club entrance, where I sold CDs until the guy, Herwig, came back with his guitar…and a hand drum! Usually hand drums are a no-fly zone in my book, but he did play along rather well. I took the crowd out into the parking lot and was about to play when the security guy, the same guy to whom I’d asked if people had in-and-out privileges (they did) just minutes before, said “this is private property—you have to go the street”. Private property? What kind of bullshit logic is that? I mean, these were * your * paying customers, you dumb prick. We’re part of the activities taking place in your private walls. My theory is the club didn’t like the fact that their night had been upstaged, and that I was more responsible for customers being there, and spending money on CDs that they had no interest in, than the lame hip hop night that was apparently their brainchild.

I took everyone down to the end of the driveway, and played for about 20 minutes. More people came by, and one guy who stopped by on his bike for a couple of songs actually put €10 in Herwig’s guitar case. I even sold more CDs to some of the people that dropped by…and also had to accept my fee for the show on the street…several hundred Euros, much of it in €10 notes! Embarrassing…and dangerous. No harm done, however. The ‘friendly’ security guy came to check on things, I think he realized the idiocy of basically making 40 people not want to comeback to their club, potentially ever for live music in a town as small as Graz. Or he just wanted to find more things to say no about. You could tell that this club was a kind of 2-dimensional place where any original idea would be met with suspicion. I mean, come on, it’s run by people who like the mom and dad of your girlfriend, who don’t like you—of course they’re gonna say no to anything fun.

My hotel was across the street, an Etap, which is a pretty grim lo-budget place, but hey, it was conveniently located and actually the staff was very friendly. I threw my stuff in there and met a bunch of the fans, Herwig, etc. at a pretty cool, quiet little bar just 100 feet up the road. A very friendly couple that had been at the show, with their teenage son, bought me my two glasses of wine; I signed some CDs, talked to fans, and then headed back to the Etap.

VIENNA, 3/31

Although the breakfast wasn’t awful at the Etap, the fact that you served yourself on cafeteria-style trays in a brightly lit room that just said ‘school’ to me turned me off and I asked if Sabine and Matts would take me to a café (they live in Graz, so, I knew they’d know a proper Konditorei). I had a jam-filled croissant (hey, it saves the environment if the condiment doesn’t need to be packed separately, and you don’t have to wash a knife afterwards). We hit the road for Vienna, and were there in a couple of hours. I basically had time to hit a net café briefly and then head to the B72 for rehearsal with the band. My band was a mix of local musicians, from various bands; we put together a really strong set list comprising of songs from my last two albums plus “Don’t Break the Silence”, plus a couple of covers—unusual ones: “Communication” by the Cardigans (which I introduced as ‘half of a Led Zeppelin song’) and the closer “Tell Me Why”, Neil Young’s song which we did as a country rocker. No Big Star or Posies songs this time, which meant that the focus was entirely on my own merits as a songwriter, which I felt was a real kudo for me. We also tackled songs that I don’t often play live: “You Become the Dawn” and “For Your Sake”. Ben Martin, stage left, moved between guitar, Rhodes and synth/organ (he did an amazing guitar part, sort of echoing the string section, on “Any Love”). Bernard Eder, stage right, incorporated guitar, trumpet, and melodica, and did lovely backing vocals (his part on “Death of A City” was absolutely beautiful). Alex ‘Fire’ Tomann, the drummer added a beat to the last chorus of “Death of A City” that was totally unexpected and cool, and Georg Winter, the bass player coped with my nitpicking and really picked out the nuances of the bass lines on my records. The owners of B72 were super friendly, they were there thru the whole day’s rehearsal and soundcheck, and made sure I had everything I needed in terms of liquids throughout the day and night. Thomas, the sound engineer was awesome, and the lighting guy, who I never got introduced to, was great too—he remembered my cue to keep a bright light on me during “For Your Sake” so I could read the words! Even the security guys were cool—one of them had his picture taken with me after the gig. And there were DJs on afterwards, too, so…this is a model of how things * can * be done well (PPC, you could learn a few things). In fact, you can pretty much tell how a club is run by the kinds of people they hire for security and the kind of training they give to them. I always thought the Crocodile Café and Neumo’s in Seattle had really friendly, reasonable security people who lived up to the promise of the job title—keep the assholes out, and keep the vibe inside happy. Even if you are an asshole one night, you drank too much or just fucked up one time (PMS or its male equivalent—it exists, trust me), you will be welcomed another time if you’re not causing trouble. The guys at the Showbox, which is in a slightly more intense location in downtown Seattle, were tougher but still reasonable—and that’s all you need to make a security guy into a human being instead of a robot on steroids.

The rehearsals were thorough enough that we didn’t finish until almost 8.30—and I realized I had a dilemma—I had to eat something, * and * I was the holder of a ticket to see Joan Baez, who was playing at the Stadthalle. I found a posse of friends and colleagues who were willing to put up with my dining parameters of something both good and fast, and went to a traditional Viennese restaurant, where I was almost immediately served a tartare. I believe the name of the restaurant was Prinz Ferdinand—I would definitely return under more leisurely circumstances. I left some money and my apologies, and headed to the Stadthalle.

The concert was well underway when I arrived. The box office was closed, but as I stood in the huge foyer of the place wondering what to do (I had bought the ticket online—auf Deutsch, at that), an usher came up to me and asked if I was Mr. Stringfellow? Teutonic efficiency roolz! I was lead to my seat and managed to see the last 4-5 songs. Just as she was wrapping up, I got out of Dodge to beat the rush for cabs and got back to the venue just after 10, on time for my 10.15 start.
I had an espresso and some water brought to the stage, my erstwhile bandmates got themselves sorted, and it was show time. I started off with the two new songs I’ve been playing, which is always a lot to ask from any audience, but they were timidly warm…I really wanted as much to be different about my 4th show in Vienna in just over a year as possible. Then the band came and we ripped into “Don’t Die” which kind of sounded more like Nirvana than KS, meaning, it rocked and I was really into it. Something great happened over the course of the evening—the applause got louder and longer after each song—until by the last songs, the applause was going as long as we stood there after the song—it was freaky, but I can’t say I didn’t dig it. I was the shakiest member of the group by far, so the songs were played with great solidity, and any errors that happened were probably barely registered by the patrons. I saw a lot of people singing along…I felt like a member of Good Charlotte or something…well…emphasis on the ‘or something’. My favorite bits included the aforementioned stuff from rehearsal, but also I thought the versions of “Let Me Do” and “Any Love” were particularly fantastic. During “Any Love” it felt like a real concert, there was something really confident about our playing and I think the song is pretty majestic in a full band setting…it didn’t sound like something that came together in an afternoon, that’s for sure. The crowd’s reception during the set meant the encore was a fait accompli, so we didn’t make ‘em wait too long. “Tell Me Why” was the closer, and became a bit of a jam. During a breakdown of that song, a very well groomed, well-dressed man came to the front of the stage and made a series of intense motions, signaling, “ok, you’re done, get off the stage”. I thought he worked for the club, so after the song I said, off mic, that I think it was unlikely the crowd was going to let me go. His bizarre, cowardly reaction made me realize that this was the typical ‘I’m on PCP’ guy, you can replace that with the typical ‘I’m the drunk guy’, they’re all the same—they think it’s all about them, they can’t stand that some skinny kid is getting all the attention, and they act like babies. This guy was telling me to get off the stage—man, if it was BJM he would left with 3 less teeth. I just said, on the mic, that I wasn’t stopping, and if he didn’t like it, he could leave. And security finally took his bad vibes out the door. I have sympathy for the insane, but not that much for the guy that can’t handle his drugs—no matter what drugs I’ve been on, I’ve never been the one annoying guy at an otherwise happy musical occasion, heckling or pestering the performers and making zero sense (on stage at my own show is another story!). So, I felt vindicated that for all the times my show has been disrupted by this kind of jerk: I finally scored a decisive, solid victory. He was forgotten, and I went on to deliver two more solo numbers, “It’ll Be A Breeze”, and “Solar Sister”, Reinhold’s request—an energetic Posies fan who tried to sing along, but actually was singing virtually every word in the wrong order! It was sweet though, and everybody had a laugh at our exchange. And then it was done. Killer merch night—I sold more than one full box of CDs. What you don’t know is that I get killed by excess bag fees, so whatever I bring along on tour in terms of heavy plastic CDs, I am under tremendous pressure to convert into a lighter, paper form for the return trip. As it is I overestimated what I would sell on this tour and had one box of Soft Commands too many, which did contribute to a pretty stiff bill on my SkyEurope flight home.

After the show, the club owner refused even my drink tickets for the two glasses of wine that are my customary post show ritual, he insisted on buying them for me. The amazing news is that show was sold out—over 200 paid. I can’t thank my Viennese fans enough. And even crazy PCP guy, if you ever come back to my show off your drugs or on your meds, you are welcome, no hard feelings.

The next day was beautiful. I was not. My voice was hoarsened by my all-or-nothing vocal going-for-it at the show, I smelled like smoke, etc. I went for a long walk in the sunshine, parked myself at a café and read the Herald Tribune, and visited the Secession Museum, Vienna’s tiny palace to art contemporain. The ‘Beethoven Frieze’ by Klimt is always something I marvel at—not just as a piece of art--although we musicians are flattered by the idea of the composer as St. George, prepared to slay the dragons that make man mortal, with art’s immortal ideas/ideals. But, in fact, the story of the artwork’s survival of two world wars is a marvel, and rather neatly supports the idea that the painting encapsulates—ideas, i.e. some things we cannot see, are in fact more durable than the atoms of the flesh and blood, and their transcendence of lifespan gives us the concepts of our past and our future.

And here’s to that future, mes amis.

Love
KS
Paris

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!!!