CAMPBELL, 10/21
Scott Miller picked me up at the hotel, and drove me to San Mateo, where he lives now...we played blazing tennis in the almost blazing sun, and had a great time--and afterwards, I cleaned up at the Millers' place, and Scott and Kristine drove me and my wares to Campbell, a small (but surely growing) community in the nighborhood of San Jose. My cousin lived there for a number of years, so I've spent quite a bit of time hanging there...it's more or less a part of Silicon Valley now, but it's still kind of sleepy. We passed the garish McMansion-style HQ of NetFlix on the way.
The Padilla Party is a time-honored tradition; Jon & I first played there in 2001. Basically, it's a Sunday barbecue in a small townhouse (with very tolerant neighbors--one couple is elderly and hard of hearing, which helps) with live music. the furniture goes out, and mayhem usually ensues. The 2001 affair ended with John, uh, sort of reliving his dinner as Jon & I headed out the door to play a second show that night in SF. I played it solo in 2004 (and ended up in a jam that included electronic drums!)...Jon's played it solo, and I think Jon & I played it in 2002 or 3; he's also had Jill Sobule with John Doe, Pat Dinizio from the Smithereens; and a band featuring the drummer from Journey!!
Scott and my second set went into a tiebreaker, so i was a little late for the planned start time of 4.30. It didn't seem to matter at all, people were just digging into the barbecue (perfect timing for me, I needed to refuel after being in the direct sun running around). I opened a bottle of
T-Vine Zinfandel and noshed and socialized. At last, Jon & I set up, and I think we must have played for like 2 hours. The sun went down...the people got scared...we started out playing it straight, but since a Padilla Party should, in my estimation, involve a little craziness, we started changing the words, referencing the possibility of John's cockatiels being in the chili, and inserting the word 'Padilla' into as many songs as possible. "Wasted away again in John Padilla-ville" was my big number for the night. A drummer joined us on the cocktail drum set that was behind us, and we did a version of 'Flood of Sunshine' as if we were Apollo Sunshine for like 40 minutes. I sort of felt like we should end on a musical note, so we did "You Avoid Parties" but the drummer kept on playing, so it was a first ever version with drum accompaniment.
As soon as the show was over, I went to bed. Like, immediately. I ended up waking up at 3am and working online til it was time to go to the airport.
I spent one night at home.
Wednesday Dom & I flew to Barcelona and met up with the various Posies. I had checked my email just before going to bed Tuesday night and found a message from Matt saying he had missed his flight--because the airline had entered his name as "Matt Zeekharris"--they had glued his middle name to his last, and thus, were unable to find him when he presented his ID. Still looking for his record, his flight left. The Expedia number we had on file was a dead end as well (the reservation name change, accidental as it was, had killed his legit reservation). Finally they found him, somehow, took the blame for the error, and got him rebooked. He only ended up getting into Barcelona a little later than planned. Dom & I were an hour late ourselves, our plane was short some crew members and we had to wait for them to get to Orly, stuck in a traffic jam.
Anyway, we checked into the hotel and we all met up...and that night, Matt, Darius, Darius' g.f. Christine, Dom & I had dinner at the Arola Restaurant...I felt like a family member there, everyone treated us so well. In fact...Dani, the sommelier treated us so well, I could hardly walk afterwards...I hadn't been drinking much and the great selections were too good to resist, so I was a total mess by the end of the night...I sorta don't remember getting home...evidently I was cheerful tho!
BARCELONA 10/25
First order of business was to walk to Scanner FM, where Jon & I were interviewed. They are always so thorough there, they always bring up funny stuff and ask interesting questions. I had been promising them a podcast forever, and I hadn't had time to do it at home, so I actually gave them the songs straight off my Itunes and cut the intros and outros in their production studio...guerilla indeed!
Our hotel and the club, Sidecar (where I played in 2004 solo) are on the Plaça Reial, the site of many a knock-down drag out evening, especially in the bar Karma (where we managed to lose Joseph Arthur one night). Sidecar's 25th anniversary shows, taking place all of October and November are incredible--the place holds 250 people and they have been bringing bands like the New York Dolls, the Undertones(!) etc. for shows. And us...
We hadn't been in the same room since September of 2006, and I had been pretty rusty on a couple of songs at the Padilla Party. However, we fell into playing together so well, it was a tremendous relief--it didn't take hours and hours of rehearsal for us to sound confident and...well...better than just competent. Lasse from Lemonator (Helsinki's beloved pop band) was in town, had already booked his travel to Spain and back to Finland before finding out about the show...well, we'll see him soon enough...but, he stayed to watch the soundcheck. Also, the Cosmopolitants (upon whose gear we were playing) and my friends Nacho, and Gemma were all there to hear the soundcheck, and I felt no hesitation to play in front of them.
After the soundcheck, I had dinner with Dom, Gemma, and our booking agent James. And suddenly it was time for me to join the Cosmopolitants on stage, I provided a guitar part that I played on the record...and also, just as quick, we were on. And I mean, ON. I knew my neck would regret it, but I exploded and threw myself into it. But, you know, it felt so good. How many Posies shows in Spain have we (I) played way to the left of inebriated, or in a state of detente between the various members...well...on the Posies v.2007, I feel like we're communicating better than ever, and the shows are benefiting immensely. All the fire and intensity is there, but, we're playing more musically. Everything was lining up correctly...it was impossible to make a mistake. After the show, (I should mention a great audience helps) Dom was grinning so widely I thought she was on drugs! And the band was enjoying each other's company enough that we were backstage having a glass of wine long after show was over, just joking and chatting.
SANTOñA, 10/26
Oh, my lord, did I hurt the next morning. But, I had expected it to be worse. Just a sore neck. Dom caught her flight early, I was devastated to have her leave so soon. Our van, and our driver Aritz, pulled up at the appointed hour of ten, and we loaded up our guitars etc. (they had spent the night backstage at Sidecar). I had to work up an invoice before we could bail, so the finances were all in order. Matt was in a cheerful mood (had he slept? doubtful) and had bought a bunch of fruit, meat, cheese, bread and basil at the local market...off we went. Across most of Spain.
Santoña is a lovely little fishing town on the north coast of Spain...I think it's the main place for anchovy fishing in Spain. To get to it you drive on a causeway across a massive lagoon, which is a national park/wildlife refuge. It's pretty small, not even 12,000 people, although apparently the population in summer is significantly larger. I know this because our hotel was on the beach, and was part of a huge parallel community of vacation homes and hotels, virtually empty when we searched for the hotel after soundcheck. In fact, we were the only guests in the hotel, except for the support band, and they hadn't bothered to turn the heat on in the building. Darius was already feverish from the travel and sweat. It was lovely to have the beach to myself the next morning. A moody gray morning, huge breakers unraveling on a virgin beach about 2 miles long. I could see a couple of black dots about 200 yards away--surfers.
Ah, the show? Well, we were tired. So we played it kind of safe--a slightly shorter set than usual. Not so many fast songs. Still, I think we played with plenty of soul, and probably rocked harder than many a band. There was a super insane bit where Solar Sister devolved into "What A Fool Believes"...uh. Yeah. We had a decent crowd considering the town was much smaller than about 75% of the REM shows I've played over the years...
Before the show we enjoyed a gift from Dani at Arola, a bottle of
Celler de Capcanes Pansal del Calas from 2000, a sweet concoction made from old vines Grenache.
After the show, we loaded up and went back to our freezing hotel...I went straight to bed. In the morning, I went for a walk on the beach...looking down from our balcony, at cinder block houses, palm trees, and lush green vegetation, I felt like I could have as easily been in Laos as Cantabria. The intense gray sky was hardly threatening, even with monstrous waves rolling underneath. It just seemed...exotic and beautiful.
Soon it was time to go. We started to put our luggage in the van, and Jon noticed one of his guitars wasn't in the van. Now, I had done a thorough sweep of the club, so I knew it hadn't been in there when we left. We asked the opening band if it had migrated into their stuff. No. We drove into town to check at the club, even tho' we knew no one would be there at 10am. We couldn't get close to the club as a market had taken over the surrounding streets. Jon stopped in a cafe on the corner and asked if anybody had seen...and pretty soon they were bringing his guitar out of the back room. It had spent the night on the steps of the club, and when the owners of the cafe came to get ready to open at 5am, they picked it up and brought it in. I love small towns! In Paris it would have probably been stolen before our soundcheck was done!
TARRAGONA 10/27
Basically, in the grand tradition of Spanish tours, we drove back the same way and same amount we had covered the day before--Tarragona is less than 50 miles from Barcelona--and guessed what we passed early in our drive today? Logroño, where we're playing tomorrow! The vines of Rioja, surrounding us on our drive today, were burning in autumnal crimson, so very striking...but they are so ubiquitous, it sort of reminded me of the 'red weed' in the War of the Worlds...not the image I want to hold alongside my beloved red beverage.
We made good time to Tarragona, and pulled up to a completely shuttered club. A couple of guys were leaning up against a wall out front. In fact, they were the guys organizing the show. The show being one of quite a few put together for the In-Somni Festival, an underground music festival that takes place in different venues and in different towns in Catalonia. Originally the show was to have been outdoors in a park, but a stretch of bad weather had spooked the promoters to move everything into some clubs. Of course, today, it was a gorgeous day, hot even, as we crossed the Monegros region of Aragon. However, I think we benefited from the move. It didn't look like much, but in fact the sound at Sala Zero was incredible, and it made our show that much more powerful. The audience had to crowd in around the architecture of the different bars and posts and things, and so, we had the opportunity to get right in everyone's proximity and deliver the goods point-blank. It really worked, and we had recovered enough strength to get up to the level of Barcelona, almost (poor Darius is still hurting). I saw at least 3 people singing along with "Terrorized", so that means real fans were in the house. And this helps...
For once I was in bed, writing this blog, when Daylight Savings Time came to an end. Typically in Spain we'd be just getting into our festivities at that hour. I am very happy with my choice. And I'm going to capitalize on it now!
Love
KS
Tarragona, SPAIN
