ON BORED
No, it’s just a pun. I’ve definitely not been bored at any point lately, with all the things that I have been in pursuit of. First off, I should mention I put a ton of photos, old and new, in the photos section. I found a few old things I hadn’t posted in the past, plus there are photos from my tour in March and other recent events.
Also, I finally managed to watch the massive 4-DVD set of performances from the Live 8 Concert in July 2005. I’m clearly visible in REM’s 2-song contribution, there’s a really good shot of me jamming during the long outro groove of ‘Everybody Hurts’. A partial list of other artists on the DVDs includes Paul McCartney, Coldplay, Green Day, the late James Brown, The Who, Brian Wilson, Pink Floyd, Razorlight, U2, 1 Giant Leap, Madonna, Roxy Music, Elton John, Youssou N'Dour, Jay-z, Bjork, Stevie Wonder, The Thrills, my boys Snow Patrol, and Neil Young. the collection was released by EMI Music.
May 1st was of course international workers’ day, called Labor Day in many places outside the US. With the elections looming in France, the opportunity for vigorous agitation of the political atmosphere was taken by the extreme left, who paraded en masse very close to my house. There were floats with punk bands playing on them, all sorts of shouting and banner-waving, and the like. Me, I’m not voting, and I ain’t working in the conventional sense, so I drifted alongside the day’s events as, yet again, a detached observer of human frenzy. I was picked up in the afternoon to go to rehearse with Liquid Architecture, and after taking our time to find a parking space (think New York with more one way streets, and smaller streets in general, and hills, and you have the parking landscape in Paris), we trudged up Menilmontant to the rehearsal complex on rue Boyer, just down the street from the Maroquinerie, where the Posies played in our second visit in 2005. We were a few minutes early, and the management of the place had arranged that they would open late that day (most businesses—stores, banks, restaurants—plus schools and other government offices are closed on May Day in France), at 3pm. They had called Audrey from Liquid to tell her that they would open at this hour, and to make sure she was still coming. There were about 20 musicians waiting for the staff to arrive and open the place…which never happened—and of course, no one had a cell number for anyone connected with the place. The staff just didn’t bother to open. Shitty! We gave them 'til 4, and in the meantime Audrey booked another place for 6 that evening. We gave up on the first place, and went for a coffee, and then found that driving to the next place was impossible—we would have to cross the parade route with all the commies. So, we threw our gear on our backs, and trudged a good mile from the café to the next rehearsal place…crossing the insane parade at one point, and slogging down rue de la Roquette, just 100 meters from my house, at one point. All in all, we spent 6 hours on this escapade but got only 3 hours of rehearsal, leaving us simultaneously overworked and underprepared. No need to say I was totally wrecked by the time I walked home, and Dom was in one of her “let’s rearrange all the furniture” moods. It * did * make sense…Aden said that I scared her because I was grunting so much moving the various armoires and music gear all over creation.
LUXEMBOURG, 5/3
I had some seriously sweet rock gear courtesy of the good folks at Tiger of Sweden, and I was eager to debut the stuff. Dom was pissed that I was going to look good but was going out of town. I told her, “don’t worry, I’ll be wearing this stuff for the next three days.” And I wasn’t kidding. I headed down to buy a newspaper at my local newsagent, and went to the Metro. It’s a bit awkward with a guitar, a small bag (toiletries and merch) and my computer bag, but manageable. I had to change at Republique (unless I wanted to walk up to Bastille—or change at Bastille, but the correspondence between Line 8 and Lines 5 and 1 is basically like walking there from my house). I got to Gare de L’est, which is a shambles right now with the preparations for the new TGV service to Strasbourg (Luxembourg’s service will also be high speed this summer). I had a café, and waited for my track to be announced.
As I made my way to my voiture, I remembered that I had splurged for a first-class ticket for the outward journey. I had a seat with no adjacent seat, and plenty of space to arrange all my crap. As we waited to depart, some young women came through the train asking for donations ‘to help deaf children’. The woman who accosted me was truly aggressive, saying “you speak English? Help the children? Give money!” and thrusting a kind off PeeChee with a badly Xeroxed form on the front showing previous donations of €15-€20…curiously in the same handwriting. I was beyond miffed. I asked, politely, if I could see some literature from their organization. Suddenly she didn’t speak English at all. I stood up, and got in her face, and told her she was not only lying, but stealing—and in a sense, stealing from deaf kids by interceding in the finite good will directed on their behalf. I chased her off the train, in fact, harassing her and her cohorts all the way. Later, I saw them being led off by the police. Good riddance. I know there are people who are desperate for money, but these women were clean and well dressed. And something about the fact it was a fraud based on the exploitation of our sympathy for handicapped children simply outraged me.
Three hours later, I was surprised to find the Douanes asking for my passport. Weren’t we in an economic free zone? I imagine his reply would have been something along the lines of telling me that it was free for everyone except drug mules. He asked me if I smoked, asked me if I had “just clozes” (clothes) in my bag, and the very fact that I offered him the chance to have a look meant I wasn’t the droid he was searching for.
And then we were in Luxembourg. It’s a real bourg, Luxembourg—a little fortress on it’s own little mountain, with formal feudal lands around the base. It dates its history back about a thousand years, when a town started to solidify around a monastery that had been established by an Anglo-Saxon missionary. Before that, the area was under Roman rule, and was in the land of the Gauls before that, but in those times the action was centered around a city called Trier, now in Germany.
The venue, d:qliq, is a brilliant little bar with a cozy little music room on the second floor, accessible only by a tiny spiral staircase…I don’t recommend bringing your SVT rig here. The music room has its own bar, and the whole place has outrageous wallpaper, fuzzy blue classic French-style wall tissu, with a metallic silver backing. I was to play with Brokeback, which features a member of Tortoise and two cronies, playing very Tortoise-y jazzy post rock. I wanted ask them if they, as Postal Rockers, could provide the franking for my postcard to Aden, but I kept that one to myself.
Note: Luxembourg has low taxes (compared to France), high wages (compared to anywhere outside of Dubai) and cheap prices. You could eat, as we did, for ten euros, and a pichet of wine was about five euros.
I explored, soundchecked, politely sipped about half a fluid ounce of the beer that the very friendly bartender, Manu, thrust in my hand when I arrived, sent my postcard, checked out the cathedral, and so on.
Brokeback went on first, as they had full band instrumentation, and d:qliq has noise restrictions after 11.30. Due to Luxembourg’s vast expenditures on art contemporain, and d:qliq’s esoteric booking choices, I had assumed that the Luxembourg-ois would have little to no interest in my pleasant musings, and infinite interest on the free jazz stylings of Brokeback. So I was a little sad about going on last, thinking that I would play to the owner and a couple of houseflies. I enjoyed Brokeback, but by the end of their set almost everyone was down in the bar, and there were about two indie rockers left. Shit. I set up my stuff after they cleared out some space for me on the tiny stage (sign of a cool musician—the drummer turned his snares off without me asking). The amp provided didn’t have functioning reverb. Shit again. I was ready, anyway, and so I climbed down the spiral staircase and in my best crap French (going for the ‘oh cute, the American is trying to speak to us’ tactic) I invited everyone upstairs and told them a bit about my music. Hey, it worked, people came up. Now, having never played there before, we’re talking maybe 30 people, but the place is so tiny that it feels plenty full with that size of a crowd. And people were * really * receptive. I opened with one of my new songs, forgetting one line and faking it, and people cheered and it went on from there…the place was so tiny I didn’t even need the PA when I played the keyboard, I just shouted above the piano and was totally audible. I played for an hour or so, and by then it was late to even make that much noise, so Fred gave me the nod. I got at least a minute of solid applause after wards, and we all went down to the bar—I set up my merch at the entrance, and sold almost all my CDs—people were buying them in 2’s and 3’s so I think that’s a good sign! I got my laptop out and DJ’d for a while, and eventually, the place closed, and I went upstairs to the 3rd floor, where there is an apartment for the musicians. I had told Brokeback to leave me the futon by the door, as I had to be up super early.
The next morning I was up at 6!!! Fuck, what is it about musicians having to work the latest and get up the earliest! Incredibly, Fred had volunteered to come and pick me up at 7 to take me to the train station—he even bought me a café and croissant at the gare. Vive Fred! Great guy, his wife is also wonderful (it was she who picked me up on the show day).
Advice: when you buy tickets for the TGV, it’s better to buy a one-way, and pick up your return at the station when you leave (give yourself 40 minutes at the station before your train leaves and you should be fine)—if you buy a cheap return fare online, it’s non-refundable and non-changeable. So, since I was going back earlier than I originally planned, I had to eat the return ticket (about €30). The new ticket was being reimbursed by Universal, but still. I bought a paper, said goodbye to Fred, and boarded. And fell asleep. There is no comfortable way to sleep on the TGV in 2nd class, I woke up every ten minutes with sore ankles, a sore ass, a sore face from the vibrating window.
I got to Gare de L’est, and to get to the Metro from there you must at present leave the station, cross a street, and then descend into the Metro station. With all the passengers from les Grandes lignes, the Metro staff is always busy giving foreigners directions so it’s really hard to get their attention to open the gate for people who can’t fit thru the turnstiles. I had to push and pull my 3 items under the turnstile, and then get thru, it’s a real ballet…I’m bending like Keanu in The Matrix dodging bullets, and of course any delay in the turnstiles really pisses off the Parisians.
I got home and depacked, and kissed Dom, and had to go right out again to meet Olivia Baum, as I was playing bass with her on a TV show. She lives just up the road from me, so Dom & I walked up to her block, and Olivia, her drummer for the day and I shared a cab to the TV studio. I played bass, not live, just taped for later broadcast, on two songs for a show on French cable. After the performances there was an interview segment with the host, and several guests. It was kind of a strange show, but I enjoyed it, and eventually I shared a cab back to my hood with Olivia and my day of work was more or less done (I always have little projects to work on in my home studio tho'). I needed to spend a little time with Aden as I have been very busy, so we played, and then there was a massive thunderstorm, probably the first she has seen since she was speaking and walking, so we watched that out the window. There had a been a downpour earlier in the afternoon, but I had missed that as I was in line at the Post Office—for once, I was glad it was moving slowly! Dom was totally caught in the thick of it and came home with her recently coiffed hair all curly (which I really love, actually!).
Saturday I fiddled with stuff in my studio, listened to a great EP of music by my friend Chris who goes by the name ‘Madison House’ (he plays in a great band called Living Better Electrically and also plays in the touring band of Sparklehorse from time to time). I helped Dom clean the flat. That kind of stuff. Packed, but I was doing that in bits all week. I just realized I didn’t bring a hair dryer…and I’m waiting to board my flight to Seattle! Tennis rackets are on board. Ah, yeah, on Saturday, as exhausted as I was by my travels, I got up at 7 and played tennis with my friend and neighbor Remi, in the cold and wind of the morning after the big storm.
Last night I had an apero with the very talented photographer Mathieu Zazzo, at Le Motel, of course—they now have a tiny stage, I expect to be on it at some point!
Looking forward to seeing my Seattle friends, family, and fans this week. Really looking forward to getting into my wine storage and pilfering some choice bottles, now mature! Tasting notes to follow! Expect spelling errors…
Love
KS
CDG terminal 2A, outside of Paris.
