Monday morning I was up at 6, and walking down to Gare de Lyon at 7. It was still dark and the streets were much less than busy. At my local supermarché, Monoprix, there was a guy unloading pallets from a refrigerated truck. As he manipulated his handtruck up on the high deck of the truck, thick white mist/fog rolled out of the bay around him. I was reminded of the
Tsukiji fish market, and other early riser activities involving hard working people and ice, and I felt like I had this beautiful little scene all to myself.
I arrived to Gare de Lyon, found the quai my train was on, and met up with the Cali team. We were heading to Carpentras by way of Avignon, to oversee the recording of a string quintet on
Cali's new album. The sessions are being produced by
Scott Colburn, who mixed several of the songs on "Soft Commands", and also has been one of the main in-house engineers for live sessions at
KEXP in Seattle since 2001, thus he engineered my live session there in 2004, as well as dozens of others. Scott recommended me as string arranger for the album, and lo and behold, just a week or so before this session became a reality, I got the call! So, as I mentioned in my last blog, I spent a few furious days composing the parts at home and got the sheet music prepared just in time for my departure.
I spent the train ride down getting to know the players in the quintet, who were musicians the A&R from the label had found. We arrived in Avignon in the late morning, and were met at the train station by several members of the staff of
Studio Vega, and we were driven to the studio in a fleet of cars--5 musicians, me, plus several members of the Virgin records staff who were coming to hear the tracks. The studio is a fantastic residential studio in the countryside of Provence, and boasts among its impressive list of equipment, the vintage EMI TG Mk. Q desk from Pathé-Marconi studios in Paris, similar to the type of desk that was used in Abbey Road, more or less. This particular desk has seen a number of classic Rolling Stones tracks recorded on it, from the sprawling sessions that gave birth to the albums "Some Girls", "Emotional Rescue", and "Tattoo You".
I was introduced to Cali, and the studio staff, and as the label team listened to the tracks in progress, I printed out the sheet music. It was great to see Scott again, and his lovely wife J. Then it was lunch time (the studio has a chef, Patrique, who is marvellous), and we all ate outdoors in the cool sunshine of the Cote D'Azur autumn. The first activity we pursued was a group vocal on one of the songs, with me, some of the string players, and some of the staff from Virgin all singing along with a refrain. Eventually we set up for the strings, and tried a few passes of one of the songs. We soon decided to set up the quintet in a less reflective part of the studio, to get a, shall we say, less reverberant sound. Then we started to cut the pieces. In general, the parts I wrote sounded quite good--but, not having really written for strings before, some of the parts were difficult to play. But these were really good players, and they were able to pull it off, with all the nuances I suggested! Cali and Scott liked the parts, too; there was just one section of one song (of the three I orchestrated) that didn't seem to fit. Anyway, it was pretty soon time to have dinner, and after dinner, we didn't really work. Cali and I stayed up til the wee hours drinking wine from a box, and talking about our respective histories, musical and otherwise. He is a Posies fan from way back in the day, and a really nice, humble person. He sort of kicked around in bands for about a decade before hitting the success he has found as a solo artist, so he was able to engage his popularity with some maturity and perspective.
The next day, soothed by some headache powder, I got back to work. We worked on the other songs, and did some doubling/tripling of the parts. We worked on a fourth song that I didn't orchestrate, but it wasn't quite working so that was abandoned in favor of making sure the three songs I worked on were OK and we could say that all was complete before putting the players on a train back to Paris that night. After dinner that night Scott, Cali and I shared YouTube moments--we watched some of his stuff, some old Posies stuff (somehow the very rocking vid of me in my underwear in Madrid has disappeared), the Disciplines stuff (I think I have to edit this down, as some of the stuff is old, and kind of not super exciting), and footage of Scott's band Wizard Prison. And of course, the
Russian robot body builder!
The next morning I was up early and Manfred, the owner of the studio, drove me to the train. By midday I was back in Paris having lunch with Dom. I spent the evening playing tennis with my long time tennis partner Remi (first time in months, on a beautiful crisp autumn night) and that night Dom, Aden & I met friends from the states, Ed from Urge Overkill, his wife Beth who used to manage the band, and their son Soren, age 4, for dinner. They were checking out Paris for a week or so. Aden and Soren fell in love right away! Evidently they all were at our flat the other day and when Aden kissed him goodbye she said "we're married now!".
Thursday I was back in the studio with Mateo, there were some hastily recorded horn parts on one song that were out of tune and out of time, and I edited them for like *seven hours*. Ouch! Sounds good now, tho'! It was a gorgeous day, and as I walked to the studio, I was loving the peacefulness of Paris, stilled by the transportation workers' strike. Many people had decided to not go to work--like Dom, for example. She could have made it to the office, but...it was more difficult to know if the metro or bus would be running, or there could be 20-30 minutes between connections, so a 40 minute commute could turn into 2 hours; taxis of course were all busy, so no guarantees you could find one free; Velib was sold out; and of course, once you got to the office, what was there to do? Whoever you might be calling was probably in the same situation and had not bothered to come in, and meetings were just about impossible. So everybody pretty much stayed home, so walking around you had the illusion that Paris was largely empty. I love Paris in these moments, like in August when it really is empty.
I got back from the studio that night at about 10.30, and still had to pack for the states. My suitcase was up in the attic, which has no light, and I couldn't be bothered to creep around up there in the dust and pigeon shit in the pitch black, even with the mighty roar of Aden's
Glowin' Lion Flashlight at my side. So I emptied one of the numerous suitcases with to be sold/donated baby clothes in the flat, and packed and went to bed to get an hour or two of sleep.
Friday I was up at 5.30 and the shuttle picked me up at 6.40. Long boring flight to New York; easy and friendly customs clearance (JFK is my favorite port of entry to the US). In the airport I picked up a magazine called
Good, a magazine about activism, progressivism, altruism, high art, high and lo tech...it's marvelous. Subscriptions are matched by a donation to charity of your choice. The writing covers a fascinatingly diverse set of subjects. Highly recommended!
My flight from JFK took off a bit late and I arrived to SFO at about 7pm. My friend Tanya picked me up. Tanya is a masseuse, I've been getting work done by her everytime I'm in the Bay Area since 2001. She's a great person, and has given me her spare room to crash in a few times too, I stayed at her place on the Soft Commands tour, for example. So, we pretty much went straight to work, which is about the best thing you can do coming off an international flight. She took me to my hotel, and I was in my room by about 10.30. I had lots of packages and messages to sort thru, and I was relaxed, and didn't really feel like going out, so I just stayed up til about 1am doing some work, to adjust to the west coast time, and then slept til 8am.
SAN FRANCISCO, 10/20
The 25th anniversary of the first time I went to a real rock show, to see the Who and the Clash in the Kingdome in Seattle. I always think of that night every October 20. Being a kid in Bellingham, WA, and being amazed that you could just go down to the mall and buy a ticket to be in the same room as Pete Townshend--it seemed too easy! My stepdad, Dewey, drove myself, my bandmate and friend Chip, and his dad down to the show. My stepdad, now 82, had become a fan of the Who upon the release of "Tommy". Even tho' I was already in a band at this time, being 13 and just starting high school, seeing that show and all the accompanying Who-mania that year (like the broadcast of their 'farewell' show at the Maple Leaf Gardens in December) drove me into a fever pitch of wanting to be Pete Townshend that pushed over all the dominoes that led me into music...all that thrashing around and intensity that I put into the Posies live show is direct from Pete, and equal parts Black Flag, who I followed intensely during high school, and finally got to see live in Seattle in 1986.
I woke up, breakfasted, and did some things that I can only do in the states--sell CDs & DVDs (there's no market for used music in Paris, really), and change my rate plan with Cingular (now back to being called AT&T? Cingular was just a phase it was going thru?). I never use the Blackberry service with my Nokia E62. So, I canceled it, and bumped up my texts to 400/month, and basically reduced my operating costs by $800/year. After AT&T I cabbed up to
Amoeba to sell unwanted promos, DVDs I don't feel like keeping, etc. I applied the $90 credit towards purchases of
the Fiery Furnaces--Widow City
Animal Collective--Strawberry Jam
Matmos--the Civil War
Matmos--The Rose Has teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
the Cardigans--Super Extra Gravity
Gilles Peterson Digs America Vol. 2
Joanna Newsom--The Milk-Eyed Mender
plus DVDs
"Friends Forever"
"You're Gonna Miss Me: A Film About Roky Erickson"
"Blow-Up" by the late Michelangelo Antonioni
"Rashomon" by one of my favorite artists, Akira Kurosawsa
add to this the fact that I received a promo of the new Bat For Lashes album, and I would say this was a very successful weekend of getting some new music in my life.
I know, I'm old school--I still like going into record stores and browsing and buying CDs. Due to the immense size of my music collection, the CD is still a pretty good storage format, I would have to have tons of drive space to put all my music in my Itunes, e.g. --and what if it crashes? I still find record stores--good ones like Amoeba, anyway--a great place to browse and discover. With stuff online, you have to enter a keyword--you won't really stumble on something that has a wild looking cover, and make an impulse purchase (like the anthology of Rai music I picked up at the Posies Amoeba instore in 2001).
After that I did some wine shopping, picking up a recent release of Zinfandel by my friend Greg at
TVine and a bottle of Shafer cabernet.
then it was soundcheck time, I met Jon & Jody in the lobby and Jody drove us down to the Fillmore (eventually! He sorta got lost). the Fillmore as I describe it would be a world-class venue if I thought there were others in its class--but the level of production and professionalism is so high here, it's more or less unique. Even the new Fillmore, the reopened version of the original 60s venue, has been historic to me--I have seen great shows by Nancy Sinatra & the late Lee Hazelwood, Bob Mould, etc. here. Big Star has played here on two previous occasions: in 1994, with the Gigolo Aunts supporting (along with the Counting Crows under the name 'The Shatners', since Adam Duritz is a real devotee of great pop music), and in 2002 for the Noise Pop festival. The stage, the sound, the sightlines...all pretty much perfect. We set up and had a very easy soundcheck (remember my new theory that good soundcheck = good show, as opposed to my old rule of thumb that was exactly the opposite). The Oranger guys filed in as we checked and I saw Matt for the first time since, I guess a year ago when the Posies played their last show, in Spain? Matt has a big new beard...after soundcheck I had dinner with him and Trevor, who used to sound for the Meices and now works for a big studio in LA. We polished off my Shafer cab no problem! Having said that, I was sort of sick that night, I think my body is just not digging American food, which, no matter how high quality, is still on average more processed and toxic than French food. The standards in Europe (no GMOs, etc) are just higher and my body feels better eating in France. Plus when I'm working in the studio I barely eat (exception: Studio Vega!) so when in the states I am confronted with larger portions and I think my body was overwhelemed. Having said that, even after eating filet mignon last night and a gourmet chocolate bar for breakfast today (I took it from the backstage spread) I way 142 pounds/64kg today, which is light even by the standards of my too tight
April of 77 jeans. I will have to put a little carb along with my protein. Anyway, I'm going on tour in Spain this week where the food is heavy--but, it's with the Posies, and those shows are like 2 hour aerobics sessions.
I was pleasantly surprised that we had a pretty big crowd for the show, I sort of had my doubts going in that anybody would be there at all...but it was reasonably full when we went on, and we played a great show. We did 'Thank You Friends' for the first time in ages. We didn't make any real mistakes, we played really well together, but efficiently. I thought this was much better than the recent outdoor shows we've done, the environment of the Fillmore is just so perfect, it really made us play better as we could hear everything so perfectly and we were translating well to the audience. Oranger was great too, sporting really scary fake moustaches.
I was really happy with the show--and afterwards, I said hello to a few folks at the after show, but went back in our limovan to the hotel. Evidently, while we were backstage, someone claiming to be Alex commandeered our van and had the driver, who hadn't seen Alex before the show, take him and a friend to a club--now, that takes a peculiar kind of balls!
This morning I was up at 7.30, looking at my view of the city from the 20th floor. I have so many connections to the Bay Area, my mom and dad are both from here. And I have had many great shows here, spent weeks here recording with Lagwagon, played my first REM shows here, etc etc.
But, having lived in Europe now for 4 years, I feel just that much more like a foreigner here. I feel like a small mouse darting between the legs of elephants as I negotiate the supersized-ness of the US and all its features. The buildings, the food, the people, the megastores...all big big big.
I have moved into smaller is better...I am for boutique living all the way.
Love
KS
San Francisco CA
