THE DISCIPLINES PLAY THE
OLD BLUE LAST IN LONDON THIS SATURDAY (15TH) FREE ADMISSION
NEW "BEST MISTAKE" SINGLE OUT VINYL/DOWNLOAD ON WEEKENDER RECORDS UK
(you can order it on
the Disciplines myspace)INVERARAY/ARGYLL, 9/2
After spending the afternoon on the phone (at £2.50/minute!) organizing the pickups for the various members of Big Star (long story) plus taking full advantage of the hotel's facilites, we started to head up to Connect Festival in the late afternoon. The drive from Glasgow is fairly dramatic--mountains, heath, plunging valleys with little cabins at the bottom, slate colored lochs, etc. The weather was practically nice this day, which didn't seem very Scottish at all...as artists with a drop off, we were driven all the way to the backstage--well--there was a security guy, as always, who thwarted our ambitions at one point, just 50 feet short of the backstage. Whatever! By the time we had unloaded the guitar tech's stuff and the spare guitar from the boot, another security person came along and said the the first one, "WTF...these are people from one of the bands...". Like, I so don't care! I will walk 50 feet...in the mud...boo fucking hoo!
Given the fairly vast spread of the festival site, and the fact Dom & I had trudged it the previous day (the backstage being the furthest point from the mainstage and much of the food stuff, etc) we pretty much didn't go around...there weren't any bands we were dying to see...anyway, I needed to rehearse, so I did that in the tiny trailer we had. There was a tent in the middle of the backstage that was very nice, with kind of a spa feel--lots of beige, candles...and an espresso machine, complete with barista! So we were hanging out there, or out on the picnic tables--before it started to rain again! In fact, most of the bands were hiding in their trailers. Dom did get a hello from Björk, tho! I would have watched her set...if it hadn't been 8 miles and a muddy road away. So, most of the day I was hanging with Dom and
"Guitar" George Borowski, our tech! As George works for Teenage Fanclub, we got to know him when the Posies toured with TFC in 2005. George is really one of the nicest people you'll meet. He's been the Pixies guitar tech and he's famously mentioned in a Dire Straits song...that's enough of CV there...he has his own albums as well, I think there's a new one coming out soon. He rocks.
As darkness and drizzle fell, Jon, Alex & Jody arrived (along with a couple of Alex's friends and our friends Mark & Suzy). Some of us watched the Polyphonic Spree (which was kind of an exhausting mess, but that's the charm). Dom & I ate all the smoked salmon that was in catering (and the odd cranefly). And then Big Star...gently spilled onstage. We set up our stuff and didn't do the "we're changing into rock stars now, be right back" thing. Alex in fact had a kind of Mac on...I introduced us as "Old Age Fanclub" and we were off...it was a great set--you'll never find a guy who has more of a "I don't give a fuck" attitude than Alex...superb. Some of the songs evolved spontaneouly into extended guitar duels between Alex and Jon...there was artificial fog (as if Scotland didn't have enough of the natural stuff)...all the hits. Afterwards we got the fuck out of dodge. I helped Jody count the money afterwards...just as so we could all pile into our people mover and be people moved back to Glasgow. I wish I could say that Connect was this great 'hang out with all the bands' kind of vibe, but I think people were just too cold to do much socializing, and most bands limited their stay to the bare minimum. Counter that with say, Primavera Sound, where the hotel is a 5 to 10 minute walk from any of the stages! And it's in June, in Spain...different vibe!
Monday we visited Krista Blake's shop,
Hitherto, and had a quick cafe with Norman, and spent lots of time browsing in the shop (and buying a few things). Hitherto is like a kinder, gentler Collette. It's a mix of art and art objects, design objects, books, and little things that you didn't know about before but could easily find essential. It's great one-stop shopping for the most interesting names in the Glasgow art scene, plus you can buy genuine Audubon Society birdwhistles.
You can't anywhere near the terminal for Glasgow Int'l anymore, since the burning car incident this summer. So, the huge Mercedes with the 'Stringfellow' sign on the dash dropped us behind the parking garage. I got a luggage cart and found that it had a vintage women's jacket with a gold/pearl pin on it. I turned it in to the lost and found--you have to fill out a form with your name and address and phone number on it! It made me feel weird. Then we flew to London. That night we stayed with our friends James and Katinka, meeting them in a pub at Notting Hill Gate, frequented by music biz types--meaning, tour managers, techs, etc. I chatted with one Ian, who is PJ Harvey's TM about her upcoming solo tour. James himself has been TM for Depeche Mode, Snow Patrol, etc. Katinka lived in Paris for awhile and knows Dom, after we all met on the REM tour (Katinka once worked at one of the top hotels in Berlin, where I stayed a few times with REM). Anyway, J&K are super nice, and not only put us up, but sent us out to have a quiet dinner on our own while taking our luggage home with them, and drove us to the train the next morning--remember, our arrival coincided with the tube strike in London--we had to cab from Liverpool St. Sta. to Notting Hill Gate when we arrived--the tube had just shut!
So, Tueday we flew home, and that night we went to see Jon play at La Fleche D'or--which was really good. Xavier "Axe Riverboy" B. from Tahiti 80 was there and volunteered to join the bill for Jon & my show at Fleche D'or in November! Many of our usual Parisian friends were there; we rode up and back home on the bus with my neighbor, Remi from Cheap Star, and his wife Isabelle. LFD is actually a pain to get to by metro but it's super easy by bus from my house.
Wednesday I went to see the Gossip at the Nouveau Casino. I had been mixing something for Cheap Star at home all day and was kind of burnt but I cabbed up with Dom (who was on her way to do some recording of her own--!) and got there just after they started, so it was perfect timing. Yes indeed they rock, and of course they sound good--my friend Julian, from Seattle, was doing sound!
PARIS, 9/6
I have never really DJ'd a full night before--Jon & I did some tag-team DJing at Sonic magazine's anniversary party in Stockholm in 05 and that summer I DJ'd, sort of after my show at Schuba's in Chicago...but 4 hours of standing there and picking songs to fit together is a long time--and it's kind of stressful. Then you realize that if you're doing the DJ-in-an-indie-rock-bar thing, no once is dancing, just getting pissed, and as long as you don't drive them away, you become part of l'atmosphere. Fine with me! I played some vinyl but I don't have much here in Paris so mostly it was off of my two laptops, either mixing them together or mixing inside them with
Traktor. I did get compliments for playing 'El Paso' by Marty Robbins...I played lots of soul, Metric, and an unreleased track by Flairs! This all went down at Le Motel, my local. Super nice people run the place (who were psyched, as we brought them back from Scotland, Le Motel being the indiepop epicenter of Paris--think it's supplanted the PopIn--an autographed set list from TFC!) and all of my Parisian friends came down--which didn't matter, as I couldn't talk to anyone! I was too busy cueing.
Earlier in the day we used Le Motel to tape a TV appearance by Jon & I, playing one song from each of our 6 albums live. This will be put together with an interview and prob. some live footage from one of our next shows for airing early next year...details to follow. I also spent the day with jitters from having a long band meeting with Jon about our future plans, and I met with Michel P., who runs Fargo Records...and needs to play tennis with me again! I have all but given up...it's been like 2 months since I played.
Friday evening Dom & I took a late train to Ile de Re. This weekend was our 4th anniversary. Dom & I met in 1993, and saw each other sporadically, but never were really together (other relationships, 10,000 miles of geography, and the fact that the internet and Skype were a few years away from practical use were contributing factors). When Dom came to visit me in Seattle for a 'let's see what's really there' visit in 2003, I hadn't seen her in two years. However, I do know the following things: one, when I first met Dom, I had love at first sight. Two, when Dom arrived in Seattle on that visits, I had no doubt right at that moment that we would get married and have a child (I had had no previous wish to have another child at that point, I figured with the birth of my son in 1986 my obligation to the continuation of the species was a box well ticked--sorry, I couldn't resist the d.e.) and that it would be more than OK, it would be something that would bring me great happiness, and Dom was a partner I could trust and grow with. Dom has never disappointed my judgment since that day. you could say that prior to that I had never spent enough time with Dom to *really* know her, and that I had no right to jump into something as serious as parenthood under those circumstances. And yet, I knew everything I needed to know about Dom--as everything I have learned since then has only shown Dom to be exactly who I thought she was, and exactly who she presented herself to be--and more. I have gotten to know that Dom is someone of great strength, great vision, great perception. She's honest, to the point where she doesn't flatter anyone--so when she says something positive it has absolutely zero hot air. She's a dedicated and responsible parent, and she's intelligent and loving and...unique. She's Dominique. I love her more with each day/year that passes...GTM dom cheri!
We spent our anniversary weekend on Ile de Re, quite a bit of Dom's family were there (including her aunt & uncle from the south, who brought me tons of foie gras, which is verboten under my current regime...hope it keeps!). The weather was unbelievable so we spent both days on the beach with Aden. Aden and I found another big sea slug in the waves, alive, and I found for her later, a seahorse, but dead. We brought it home to dry out and keep. Dom & I hadn't bothered to make a reservation for dinner and the nice weather had kept people on the island, but we managed to bum rush a place by pretending we had made a reservation that had been lost! They tried to call our bluff ("who did you speak to, male or female? Can I see the number in your phone to prove that you called?") but we were tenacious. And we let the owner/chef have a small glass of the bottle we brought, a 2004 La Creu Alta Priorat that was a gift from the sommelier at the Arola Restaurant in Barcelona. Aden was jealous we went out without her so the next day between trips to the beach we took her to the terrace at Le Richelieu, Ile de Re's only Michelin-starred restaurant. Aden fell asleep for the duration, and we put her on a canapé and enjoyed lunch, then after a quick change in the car we went back into the sea right in front of Le Richelieu. At high tide the sea comes right up the harbor wall, but at low tide there's a sliver of delicious soft sand. There's even a diving platform floating out in the area, kind of an American style thing, in my mind.
Dom & I took the last train back on Sunday which gets into Paris at midnight; it was completely full with summer's last gasp attendees, we had to go first class (which doesn't get you much on a late night TGV) last minute but, you know, a weekend amongst the stars, sun, waves, flittering bats, golden light, etc. of Ile de Re was more than worth it. Saturday night after the restaurant we were walking to the beach by our place to stargaze and a white chouette was perched on a road sign on our street. Good sign. The next day was the start of hunting season...it's a big deal on IDR and very loud. I don't think it's a very good time for even the non-hunted animals.
Last night I rehearsed with Olivia Baum & band til late, I am filling in as keyboard player for upcoming shows and promo including a show at L'Europeen in Paris next Wednesday...I found out last minute, when Olivia and I were discussing the matter before our pilates class, and she hired me on the spot...! Honestly, I think that's how all them Hollywood types make decisions...with 5 minutes of chatting while they are on the treadmills at the gym. So I guess I am on to something! I learned 7 songs (and they're not all easy) Monday morning/afternoon and had them totally down by the end of last night...now I have time to forget them...uh oh.
Love
KS
Paris
