NORTHERN HEAVIES
SEE THE DISCIPLINES THIS FRIDAY, OCT. 5, AT CAFÉ MONO IN OSLOI spent the week deep in the work on Mateo’s album, with horn players, a quartet of professional vocalists, a percussionist, the guitar player, and myself all contributing noises of all sorts to the proceedings. On Sunday I had been out after the studio to the Pop In and Le Motel, two indie rock hipster watering holes, meeting a few friends including my friend from Seattle, Gavin, who was in town for the week. My friend Etienne, who is a wonderful guy and perhaps the ultimate music snob (he completely rebuked me for even considering liking
the Yolks, for example—he said they were too happy and upbeat to be enjoyable—to which I thought, shit, I hope he never hears the Duloks…the Duyolks?), told me that
the Raincoats were playing the next night at a tiny bar in the 18eme. The Raincoats! So, on Monday, since we had an early day anyway, and were finished at 10, Dom met me at the studio and we took a cab up to the 18eme. The 18eme can be described as the ‘hood, and to many white Parisians, it is a place described as dangerous and frightening. Unfortunately, it can be quite dangerous; there are plenty of crackheads and gang dudes and the like. The cab driver was even a bit nervous about where we were going, enough to make a joke about it. As we arrived we took a wrong turn and were in a very different Paris indeed, it looked like a kind of movie set—as most of Paris is sleepy and boring on a Monday night, here the streets were packed and bustling. It was Ramadan, so there were Mosque services going on in the streets; streets were blocked for them. It didn’t feel dangerous as much as it just felt like complete chaos, more like the busiest parts of Dakar than Paris. Anyway, we arrived at the club, and it was almost empty. But, I knew we were early. The Raincoats were in town as they were invited to the premiere of a French film that uses some of their music; they arranged a small gig for after the premiere at a new bar…a previously derelict space that Dom (who used to live in the neighborhood) had been looking at for years wondering what would become of it. It looks like the diner from “
Nighthawks” turned on its side—it’s a building like the prow of a ship, thrust into the point of a pie-slice-shaped block, but with walls almost completely in glass. In fact the three floors float in a giant atrium, the two upper floors are like lofts, and they don’t touch the walls completely, at least not on all sides. It’s called the Floor, at 100 rue Myrha. The middle floor has a bar; the top floor has seats for a café—in the hipster diner style that has been in style in Seattle for some time (think Cyclops, et al). Anyway, when we arrived, there were maybe 4 people in the bar. I saw a backline set up on the ground floor, and little chalkboard hanging on the wall said “THE RAINCOATS” so I just went up and made sure it really was yet to begin (it was listed as 11.30 on their myspace—but on a Monday night in Paris, this is unheard of). The guy at the bar confirmed, and we paid the cab and came up. This block, compared to the block of rue Poissoniers that had all the mosques and nightlife, was totally dead. It didn’t feel like a show was going to happen at all. In fact, it was quite like “Nighthawks” in vibe. People trickled in tho’ and by 11.15 the bar was bustling. Dom ran into a friend, who had been the drummer in a band she managed, and as it turned out, he was the drummer in the Raincoats. He had moved to London in the 90s and auditioned for them, and got the gig—eventually. At the time, they didn’t feel that a French guy with no papers, or even a place to live, could be counted on to stay to play with a band at their level. So they chose someone else, and got rid of them in the middle of a tour at one point, and called Jean Marc on short notice, and he continued on with them from that day. Conveniently enough, here they were with a gig in Paris. By the time they were a couple of songs into it, the place was packed; it was free, and so I think there must have been 70-80 people there. And in that room, that was more than enough. But everyone arrived fashionably late, so when Dom & I went down for the start, we had them almost to ourselves. The two founding members, Gina Birch and Ana Da Silva switch between guitar and bass and lead vocals. A bit of harmonica. The songs are honest, confessional in a lighthearted way (check the great song where Gina describes a false alarm pregnancy and later applying her maternal instincts to caring for her dog). Punky, but in a thoughtful, non-testosterone way. You can see they set the stage for many primitivist bands from Beat Happening on. But their intellect and wit mean they aren’t primitive in terms of depth; just their presentation is without posturing, pretension or other b.s.
So, I was working in the studio all week, and thus my hours outside the studio were mostly limited to sleeping but this week was significant in our household as it was Aden’s first week of school! She came home from summer vacation, and started school on Thursday. As she is three, school is not voluntary, so they didn’t mind that she started late. In fact, one of the administrators told us, Aden was lucky to arrive late as the first week after vacation finds the kids overexcited, and more likely to be in fights, etc. Aden’s fashionably late arrival made her the subject of interest and she made lots of friends right off the bat. She’s learning music (singing in the choir, like her papa) and handwriting (she new ‘A’ and ‘S’ and ‘O’ already but it getting a could of letters a week now). I hadn’t seen her since we were on Ile de Re some 2 and a half weeks prior, and she had grown even bigger in just that time. Bigger in size, and more articulate, and more interactive: you can really converse with her now. In French, of course! English will come soon.
BERGEN 9/28
Over the course of the week in the studio, and esp. in the calm before Aden’s arrival, I packed my bags for this trip, did my ironing, etc, knowing that on Thursday I would be in the studio til late (I got home after 1am) and I had to be up at 6.30 on Friday to catch my flight. Even still, I was panicking running out the door at 7.40, having to throw my bags in the cab and run to a cash machine for some € (now at an all time high against the dollar—and more growth to come. I predict the euro to reach €1.50 by my birthday. It’s the new peso. Check the Canadian dollar at parity for the first time in my memory, etc. I thought Republican presidents were supposed to be good for business, with their bottom-line ruthlessness, versus the Dem’s and all their sclerotic social programs—oh, except which Republican added 34 million people, who happen to be Iraqi, to the welfare rolls? And, oh, what about the unprecedented prosperity under the last democratic president that has almost completely under the current admin.? The Small Government GOP is a total lie; gov’t is not smaller under them, it’s just re-budgeted—to the black arts of killing. I say black because the Iraq war isn’t even on the budget, right?).
I flew to Oslo, checked in for my segment to Bergen, and arrived in the mid afternoon. The approach to Bergen when the sun is out (as it was) is glorious—slate colored islands with Vermont-in-October foliage—in fact Norway often reminds me of a giant New Hampshire crossed with a more pulverized and expanded version of the San Juan Islands. I took the bus into the center and checked in to the hotel, and caught up on some online work. At 6 I went across the street to the Garage, where I played solo in 2004, and with the Posies the following year. Bergen is analogous to Gothenburg in Sweden—it’s a west coast second city that rocks harder than its dominant sibling. I’ve never had a bad show in Bergen (the other visit being the acoustic Posies show in 2000 at Hulen). And this night was no exception. Even tho’ I had been working long hours in studio in the days leading up to this Disciplines show, and even tho’ I was up at 6.30, I had had plenty of time to rest on the two flights, and felt really good when we showed up for soundcheck. And it sounded great onstage. I have reversed what used to be a golden rule in my life. Previously, with the Posies for example, when the soundcheck was good, it typically raised our expectations of the show, made us overconfident, and set us up for a fall. When the soundcheck was bad/arduous, we bonded and rallied against the prevailing difficulty, and the show was often better than we expected. These two shows reversed this principle. I think it’s a sign that at this stage in my life, things mean what they mean, and adversity isn’t as much of a motivator as is success. So, we had a great soundcheck, and a great show. I mean, really rockin’! People loved it, and I was even able to do the real rock star thing where the crowd was signing Best Mistake loudly enough that I didn’t have to sing my part! We debuted a new song, “Shadow of Your Doubt” which went over very well too. It’s a slower song, so it gives me a much-needed chance to breathe in the set. But I sang harder than ever, and really made it a furious rock show. What’s with Norwegian rock clubs and barricades, tho?
STAVANGER 9/29
The 29th is Jon Auer’s birthday—I sent him an email after the Bergen show…we loped down to Stavanger, which takes 4 hours, with two ferry rides. We pulled in to Folken, where the Posies had a very good, if sparsely attended, show in 2005. Our info had the load in time listed as 3; we arrived at 4.20, worried we were late. But we found things in a peculiar state when we arrived. In fact, as Folken is run on a volunteer basis by students of varying degrees of experience, things can be a little kooky in terms of organization. So, we found everybody hungover (most of the staff had been drinking til 7 that morning in the place) and out of it; they made an assumption that we would have been drinking in Bergen and unable to make it til 6—I mean, they just made that up and so were surprised to see us relatively onetime. They also made an assumption that we had a sound engineer, even tho’ our contract requested they provide one. And, they made an assumption that we were bringing no backline, so they had set up the support band’s backline already, even tho’ our contract didn’t mention anything about backline. Bottom line is, I didn’t advance these shows, tour manager style, as I left it in the hands of my Norwegian colleagues, since they were in contact with our Norwegian agent for these shows. I know better now! Well, we had them break down the support band’s set up; we brought in our stuff. They found a sound engineer (none of the qualified volunteers were available—they were probably still in bed!), and said it would cost us NOK2500—about $460. I said, we weren’t going to pay, as we had contracted for them to provide sound, lights and personnel (anyway, this is absolutely standard at the club level of touring). They backed down, agreed to pay, and the guy came down. I started, tour manager style, to get the backstage organized with drinks, wifi, and the access codes to the locks. We soundchecked and I thought it sounded a little strange—but Folken is really big, so it can sound a bit messy when it’s empty. However I found it inconsiderate that the soundguy kept muting my vocals in the PA, when he knew that I don’t use monitors (I am rather unique in this regard). After soundcheck, he asked us if we minded a little ‘slapback’ on my voice. I was thinking he wants it to sound like Elvis. Great! Robin Zander always sings with slapback, so if it’s good for him, it’s good for me. Oh, yes, one other interesting note on the disorganization—they told our agent on Friday they had sold over 100 tickets, and before the show they showed me a report that indicated we had sold over 200 tickets—which seemed to good to be true. We don’t have a record out, we’ve never played in Stavanger before, so…who would they be? But, there were the figures, in their files. Of course, we had about 80-90 people show up, similar to Bergen; in other words, what you’d expect. Turns out a student had entered the amount of tickets printed in the ‘tickets sold’ column. Weird, huh? But it's all inexperienced people running the place, so you have to give them a break.
Come show time (after an excellent meal at the “Half 12” restaurant in the old Customs House; the restaurant has a very good sommelier— he paired an Austrian sauvignon blanc with my Hardanges Mountains wild trout, which seemed left field to me until the wine warmed up a bit, then it was a very suitable pairing) we came back, assessed the ticket count as a mistake, new better than to let that discourage us, and went onstage. The thing is, the stage is REALLY high at Folken, and there was another barricade, so it makes everything seem a bit overblown and it’s hard to get close and sweaty with the crowd (it was easy in Bergen, even with the barricade). We came out, and opened, as usual, with our cover of the Duloks’ song “Children of the Sea”. Being a cover, we can fuck it up/punk it up and sort of adjust everyone to us, us to the sound, etc. and then get on with our stuff with the kinks worked out. And there some kinks…as it turns out, his idea of ‘slapback’ was actually a massive echo/delay on the voice, drums, whatever—it sounded a total mess, and we almost couldn’t feel the beat of our own music anymore, you could hear it thru the PA. I tried to be subtle, saying tonight was the first in a series of collaborative gigs with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry at the board—I saw him high five his friend when I said that—but he never got the hint, and random echoes as loud as our music came out of nowhere all night. But, it’s a true test to face such situations with humor and creativity, and I think we did really well. I managed to clamber down to the audience, falling down a lot, and I used my mic cable, in the hands of two audience members, as a limbo bar! I got some other people to limbo with me…anyway, we had fun, and people were more than happy. Stavanger has more of a cool stance than Bergen, so when people are a little demonstrative, it means a lot. And, for the first time in our live career, we played an encore! The problem is, our set has all our songs, so we played “Flavor of the Month” by the Posies…very funny! After the set, we never saw the $460 soundguy again—I think he realized he had been inappropriate, and slunk off. As it turns out, the soundguy for the opening band, who told us initially he had to leave after their set, so he wasn’t available to do our sound, ended up staying, as he thought our soundcheck was so great sounding! Next time, HE gets the call!
After the show, we were flagged down by two tipsy young women who thought we were a taxi (we have a silver Opel van, and in Stavanger, the cab companies also have silver Opel vans). We ended up giving them a ride to our hotel, which was near where lots of clubs were! Then I went to my room, and watched a pay-per-view film (“Hot Fuzz”, with Simon Pegg and a hilarious Timothy Dalton as a cheesy/slimy villain). My room was at the end of the hall, so I had my own lounge, more or less, a little library room that was like my own private front room; then the room itself, almost REM-style comfort. Of course, there is one rule of thumb from touring that applies—the nicer the hotel, the shorter the stay. Seems every time the Posies would be in Le Meridien, we would have a drive the next day that had us leaving at 7am or whatever.
Today we’re driving back to Oslo, where I’m spending the week, and almost the whole drive, which is virtually across the breadth of Norway’s widest section, is thru incredible mountain scenery, with fall colors, dramatic cliffs, and one-lane roads.
See some of you in Oslo this Friday, when the Disciplines play Café Mono.
Love
KS
on the highway between Stavanger and Oslo, NORWAY
