THE WEEK AND THE STRANGE
You might think that nearly a week in Paris without any shows to play would be restful, but trust me, I had just enough time to do the things that playing and traveling so much prevents me from accomplishing—I remixed and reorganized all the demos for my next record, and I recorded a track for an upcoming Posies tribute…yes, I am playing on a tribute record to my own band. Details tba…
I went to see Slint at le Bataclan. I looked at the brilliant results of our photo session in Oslo with
Mathieu, and we got a photo up on
the Disciplines’ myspace at last. NRK, the Norwegian equivalent to the BBC, added the demo of ‘Best Mistake’ to the P3 station (i.e., music for the kids) in heavy rotation…they have gotten behind us in a major way.
OSLO, 5/26/07
I zipped back up to my 2nd home for a solo show, part of the record release celebration for the Jim Protector album, which is nominally titled “Shields Down”. By virtue of my mixing and effecting, I received a co-producer credit; I also play guitar, keyboards and sing on the title track. The show was at the Garage, which is the same space as the old “So What” club, where the Posies played a couple of times and I played one of the only solo shows in Europe for This Sounds Like Goodbye (the other being the Irish pub next door to Moby Dick in Madrid). It’s a grungy basement club, with friendly staff, and decent sound, and a really nasty dressing room (tho’ there is rumored to be a band apartment upstairs…). I spent the afternoon in the Oslo train station after riding in from the airport, it’s quite nice in there, really it’s an atrium filled with shops. I spent most of my time at the Rooster Coffee shop, and then walked to the Garage when soundcheck time was getting close.
When showtime came around, there was nobody downstairs—and why would there be? It’s dark and smelly, and upstairs has a nice terrace and a good atmosphere in general. I grabbed an extra amp from backstage and brought it upstairs and plugged it in to an overhead plug, and played 2 songs for the people in the terrace…that got their attention, and then I was able to lead them all downstairs for the show. So, I played, standing on a variety of furniture, for about an hour, until JP was basically set up and ready to go. Good stuff. I also joined the band for a couple of songs in their set, which was great fun. Their record is one of those wonderful, uncategorizable things…you can go to
their myspace and find out how to order it from there…
Last night I was dog tired. I came home from Norway and went to see
Patrick Bruel, a fairly mainstream French singer, who has a couple of really good songs. I don’t know what to compare him to…like a former teen idol Neil Diamond?
Today was a great, lazy Sunday. I woke up at 9, and went back to bed in the bathtub…then we went out for a promenade to the nearby park. We did a naughty thing and gave Aden a squirt gun, which she used to avenge the attempted theft of one of her toys by an older boy. She got him right in the face. Uh, oops. I mean, haha. I mean, I didn’t mean to…encourage her to defend herself against bullies? You bet I do.
From there we went shopping at our local market, commonly known as the marché d’Aligre. And then we went to the
Musee des Arts et Métiers, which has a restaurant serving a brunch buffet on Sundays. You pay €20 per person (Aden was free) and you can enjoy the buffet and the museum at your leisure. The collection at the museum, which is housed in a thousand-year-old chapelle that’s been added on to, celebrates innovations in technology and design from 1750 until the present day. Lots of tiny models of old steel mills, building sites, trains, etc. plus examples of astrolabes, daguerreotypes, on up to early aircraft experiments, a Hispano-Suiza motor car, and so much more—including almost all the devices from
Antoine Lavoisier’s laboratory. Highly recommended.
I was going to watch a bit of the
French Open, but it pissed down rain today, and most matches were postponed. Tonight I’ll be at the Nashville Pussy show at La Maroquinerie, and will hang with one of the members of the excellent German band
Subterfuge, with whom I hope to do some collaboration (insert joke here) sometime soon.
Today we had a one-day early (since it’s the weekend) celebration of Aden’s third birthday, with cake, candles, and champagne for the adults. Aden is spoilt and happy. And very loved.
Love
KS
Paris
