CARAMEL NIGHTS
The Disciplines have moved up to the A list on NRK’s P3 radio in Norway---truly heavy rotation! Also, we will be supporting Snow Patrol for a show at the 02 Arena in London; this is part of multi-night stand: our show, on the 27th of this month, was only made available to residents of Greenwich (where the 02 is located), employees of the 02, and Snow Patrol fan club members. Think that’s going to be a small show? Think again—we’ll play to 15,000 people. The following night, we will support a band called Brinkman, at the Monto Water Rats Theatre in London. Wimbledon is on at the same time...anyone want to take me??
I wrote a long rant about my feelings seeing Tony Blair making friends with Col. Muammar Gaddafi, celebrating Libya’s participation (on the Western side, anyway) in the war on terror. I cut it down to a size in proportion to my journalistic abilities and credibility. So, the same day as the meeting in the tent between the two leaders, BP signed a deal worth half a billion pounds to extract oil from Libya. I am certainly in favor of Libya making good on efforts to turn a softer side to the West. But, really, Tony Blair trying to convince the world it’s about ABO (anything but oil)…certainly that’s a stretch? I mean, really now…
BARCELONA, 6/10
Well, I managed to watch the Roland Garros finals in short snatches, some in my hotel, some in the bar by the classroom.
I spent the afternoon with about 20 students, talking about music production (I primarily spoke about music * pre production *, pointing out how much work can be down with just the equipment of your ears, long before you start mic-ing things up. I spoke (this was all with the aid of a translator) about my own experiences with different producers, and my own experiences recording artists over the years. I really enjoyed the experience, and I hope I gave out some useful information.
The show that night as it turns out was in a club quite far from Barcelona, in the suburbs, and there were no metros running late enough to get people home after my show, plus the show wasn’t even advertised in BCN, just in this little suburban town…but, it was mainly for a TV broadcast so we didn’t need a * huge * audience…but, still, we had 50 or so diehard fans (I had 250 at my last proper show in BCN, so it was hard not to be a little disappointed. Easy come, easy go). I played with the legendary
Paco Loco, I played guitar and harmonica while he made up a song on the piano (he says he improvises all his lyrics, and frankly, I think it’s possible). I did my set—the TV can’t use the stuff I do off the mic but that’s a huge part of my show, so the broadcast will show one of my new songs, and all the piano songs (I played a new song I’ve never played before in the piano set!). I’m not sure when it will air…
I spent the morning at the offices of
Houston Party records, I delivered the master for a song of mine that will appear on the label’s 10th anniversary compilation early next year, in fact the track, a demo I recorded for my next album, will be like a sneak preview of the album. The track is exclusive and will appear nowhere else.
I flew home, had a few minutes’ rest before heading to Le Zenith to see the White Stripes. I think the venue gets its name from the fact it resembles the innards of a big 1970s color TV (like the first TV that we owned that had a remote control, on which I watched countless episodes of “M*A*S*H” and “Space: 1999” and saw ads for news albums by Boston and Ted Nugent being advertised). The White Stripes were like an older version of themselves, dressed plainly in red, like they did back in 2001, playing on a red stage with red instruments and red amplifiers, and red monitors. Hey, I got news for ya—Sammy Hagar has been doing this shtick for years! The band sounded great, they really are like Led Zeppelin without the drum solos.
On Tuesday I headed to London again, to mix
the Duloks tracks I worked on earlier this year. I made quick mixes at that time, and these were quick too—I had 9 hours to mix the three songs from scratch. They’re simple enough, but you’d be amazed how quickly nine hours goes by. On Thursday I had a few meetings in London, and on Friday I came home. I spent the weekend with my family in Issoudun, attending the wedding of my friends Remi and Isabelle, which was an elaborate affair, with a civil wedding (we missed that bit), a church wedding (we were there, but it was a tiny church so most folks had to hear a play by play on the P.A. set up outside!) an aperitif outside (champagne and ice cream, among other delights) and a long reception/dinner (Remi’s band
Cheap Star played, I played a couple of songs with Remi’s brother too; embarrassing photos and home movies of the couple were shown, and copious amounts of Chateauneuf-de-Pape were imbibed).
Issoudun is a very small town in the middle of France. Dom actually went to school here for awhile. On Sunday there are no cabs, virtually no restaurants. Dom & I found ourselves more or less stranded as our hotel was quite far from the station. Aden needs to eat at regular intervals, and it was getting to be lunchtime. The hotel restaurant was fully booked—all the old timers in the region gather on Sundays for a long lunch. It was suggested that we walk across the road to see if the hotel across the roundabout was still serving. In France, it is unthinkable that a hotel you have stayed in would place a call for you. So, Dom trudged across, found they were serving, and called me. I stored the bags at our hotel (including 4 balloons Aden was hoarding) gathered Aden and her things, and trudged across to the Hotel Marmotte, where for 32 Euros we ate vegetables from a can, overcooked meat of a suspect origin, and patently awful café. Hey, that’s the only game in town. To add to the ambiance, the tables were populated solely with couples over 60 (Aden said aloud—“one papy, two papy, three papy”—papy being the diminutive French word for grandpa). The mood they created—by not speaking a single word, not smiling once, just looking concerned when Aden made any noise –don’t these people have grandkids? The restaurant were nice enough to arrange a ride to the station for us (at first we were told, that since no cabs run on Sundays, the only way to the station, some 6 km away, was on foot. With a child and luggage. Yeh right. But they found a member of the staff willing to give us a lift (we paid him €10). We had planned to go the lunch for the wedding, but that was in a village 20km away, no one’s cell phones were working there, and there were, again, no cabs. So we found that a train was leaving at 3.15, and lunched with appropriate speed (no need to say there was no lingering over that lunch necessary). I trudged back to the first hotel, now accompanied by the steady and unspectacular rain that small towns excel in, and retrieved our stuff. The area is not meant for pedestrians, so to get out of the hotel on foot you more or less have to scale an embankment that serves as noise protection for the hotel guests from passing traffic. I came back, and we stuffed our belongings in a little SEAT and were driven to the station. We managed to get a place on an earlier train—just a place, tho'…no seats. And the train was packed. Of course, in the train stations in small towns have no escalators or elevators—if you are in a wheelchair, or have a stroller, or more than the most minimal luggage—you have to go down and up stairs to get to the platform. Ah, travel. We managed to find empty seats here and there during the journey as people got on and off. Finally we got back to Paris, and Dom pushed people around in the taxi queue to allow the people with little kids to have priority. It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t taking it sitting down however; she really got in the face of a few rude Parisians, which is saying something.
Hey, it’s not all complaints from me. It’s la fete des peres, a.k.a. Father’s Day, and Aden made me a little crafted present with wood, glass, glue and blue paint. And she gave me some balloons…and lots of calins. I called my dad and stepdad, and I think it’s a rainy and grim enough night that it qualifies as a movie night…
Love
KS
Paris
