Check out the CosmopolitANTs, from Barcelona, new album, wearenotsocool, which I recorded and mixed, and played on. You can check it out here
LOGROÑO, 10/28
Now, we know enough about wine and geography to understand Logroño is the business epicenter of Rioja, and in fact it shines with wine wealth, a kind of oasis in the middle of what is generally kind of barren country. If it weren’t for vines, the area would resemble other areas of north central Spain, like Zaragoza—essentially the same as the western USA; hence all the spaghetti western filming locations. At many points in our drives, I kept expecting to see the choppers from M*A*S*H come over the hills, if that gives you a visual.
As we drove into the city, we had a good feeling about the place. It’s relatively small, but it isn’t as dusty, and it’s much more lively, than many a northern Spanish town of similar population. Our first impression was not wrong. We completely fell in love with the town, and the people we met there. We were incredibly well taken care of the whole time we were there—the promoter gave us half a case of very decent Rioja, we had single rooms in a 4 star hotel (this really helps), we felt like we had made friends straight away. Our dinner that night was at a place whose name I think translates into something like “grill everything”. I had a steak so tender I could rest my knife on it, and the weight of my hand would make it cut the meat. And of course, the meal was well supplied with wine. The club, 7 Monos (7 Monkeys), was a new establishment, in retro hipster brown and orange (but with green lighting—yes, it actually worked all together). The stage had alcoves in the back where we could fit our amps, and a kind of glass tube that you could walk from the backstage to the stage through. Like, an episode of ‘
Rhoda’ meets ‘2001’. Great! Better still that the place was packed, and we played a ripping show. There’s no way we were going to let our hosts down! After the show, we cooled off and went to a bar across the street from our hotel and never paid for a drink, until something like 3am—I never had an empty wineglass in my hand. They even gave us the club's roll of gaffer tape--no small thing as this stuff is really expensive and hard to find in Europe. I spent time with our promoters, plus local musicians, artists, etc. As usual on this tour, the night ended with just the Posies, in one of our hotel rooms, having a last glass of wine and enjoying each other’s company. This town really made an impression on us, and we/I will surely be back. View photos
here.
MURCIA, 10/29
Another first for the Posies. I had stayed here with REM a couple of years ago when we played a nearby city, but I’ve never played music in Murcia. I knew it as the hometown of Ross, whose album I produced in 1995 (in fact, it was the first thing I ever engineered—lucky him!). Of course,
Ross and his lovely wife Merche were at the show tonight. OK, so it was Monday night but my word, this place was jammed to the gills. People were going nuts. Where have these last two towns and their audiences been all my life?? I mean, we’ve toured Spain how many times? Well, I’m just glad we had things left to discover in Spain, and so pleasantly. During this show, it became my birthday, and I was toasted on stage. After the show, we had a nice get together in my room—the four Posies, our tour manager Aritz, and some of the wine from Rioja, another fan donated bottle, and the wine from the backstage. We had spent some time after the show at the club socializing, but usually I have so much to do—sell, count, and pack up the CDs; pack up my gear, and sometimes, like tonight, interviews—by the time I’m done, everybody’s gone home. The lights were on, and a few folks wanted to go to another bar, but I thought the best place for me to land would be my room, with my 3 long time friends and one new one, and some green glass filed with red liquid. Good call.
MADRID, 10/30
But not wake up call. It was 12.15 when I woke up! I had time to quickly get ready and get down to the van. We completed our morning ritual—go to the club and load the gear, as it’s safer to leave it in the club overnight than in the back of the van—and drove to Madrid. I was still pretty tired, as my birthday party lasted til about 6! So I slept the whole way to Madrid. I actually have a hard time staying awake in a moving vehicle, esp. when the sun is shining thru the windshield on me, I become like one of those cats that spends all day in a sunbeam on the floor. I perked up when we got to Madrid, as I was very excited to see Dominique, who flew in for my birthday. Of course, with the complicated overlay of streets, overpasses, and tunnels in the part of Madrid we were trying to navigate, our GPS was pretty much useless and it took forever to get to the club. But we made it, and Dominique, Darius’ g.f. Christine, and our friend Juanita from Seattle all came down to the club. The club itself, Gruta 77, is a black box on an obscure corner of what is not reputed to be a very nice neighborhood. It has an extremely small and extremely high stage, a tiny backstage, and a very large man who can deadlift just about anything onto that high stage (this would mean for me lifting a Fender Twin over my head, and he can do it). We did our best to hurry thru soundcheck, but we were hampered by the fact that somehow, Jon’s bag of guitar pedals and cables had been left in Murcia. So, we had to seek some equipment from around town, and let Jon get his rig sorted. After an eternity, soundcheck commenced and quickly finished.
Now, a month before, I had made arrangements to dine at
La Broche, the signature restaurant of Sergi Arola, the brilliant and innovative chef originally from Barcelona, who now has several restaurants around Spain. I met Sergi a few years ago when he hosted a private dinner for REM at La Broche, and saw him later at various REM shows—and found out he is also a Posies fan (Sergi used to play in a band back in the day, also). I’ve spent quite a bit of time in his restaurant in Barcelona (see last week’s Barcelona entry, and also the entry describing my show there this summer). Anyway, he’s a great person, and I have become great friends with his brother Nacho, staying at his place in BCN on numerous occasions, and his brother Eddie too. I couldn’t imagine a better venue for my birthday dinner. Originally we had a night off scheduled on the Monday, but we were offered the show in Murcia and were happy to play, knowing this was our main purpose for being in Spain, and also knowing it would help cover the costs for our promoter (we were paid a flat fee for the tour). So, I booked dinner for the time between soundcheck and show and figured it would work out just fine.
After soundcheck, we asked the club to call us two cabs to go to the restaurant. We told them where we were going, and that we might be late for the posted stage time of 11pm (I had cleared the dinner plan with the promoters weeks in advance). They said it was no problemo. Literally!
Darius, Christine, Jaunita, Matt, Dominique and myself headed off. Jon had decided not to go so he could go to the hotel and get cleaned up for the show. Aritz needed to stay to keep things organized but also he wasn’t really going to be spending €100-plus on dinner. It took a little longer to get to the restaurant than we estimated—we left the club at 8.50, and arrived at about 9.20. We were greeted by Sergi’s extremely elegant wife, who runs the service of the restaurant—she and Sergi are probably the thinnest, healthiest looking restaurateurs I have ever heard of. The restaurant is a white box (incredible contrast to the black box of Gruta 77), the light is brighter than average, but it has an effect of intensifying the meal experience—you have no distractions from the tastes you are experiencing—nobody comes to your table playing the violin. We were seated at a round table in the corner, which was perfect. The ladies were given small folding tables for their handbags. It’s certainly true that every second of the experience at La Broche is perfectly timed, and every minute detail is attended to and anticipated. It’s an absolutely virtuosic exercise in concept, execution, presentation and accommodation.
The menus are small booklets inhabiting slots in a small box by each place. We were looking at a la carte choices when we were told that Sergi had a special menu for us in mind. How could we say no? We mentioned we had a show that night (I had heard that the running time of a meal there was quite long, and honestly, I could have spent an entire evening there without hesitation) and that we should be on the road by 11-11.30. They understood. And the courses started to arrive. I have a menu from the evening, and I could scan it and put it online, but could I describe the effects? I don’t think so. We had to leave before the meat courses, but honestly, we were completely full and satisfied, and the odd thing is, we didn’t eat a lot in terms of mass. But the flavors were so dense, and penetrated so deeply into the brain, it was pummeled into joyous submission with just a few tiny plates. Accompanying this was a bottle of 2004 Numanthia Termanthia, 100 points from Robert Parker, an old vines Tempranillo from the Toro region of Spain. I knew from the first noseful it was going to be legendary. A good sign for me is when a wine has rich vanilla in the nose, and this had that and so much more. My notes included mentions of chocolate and venison flavors…again, a bottle of this (there were only 1500 bottles of this vintage made) is rather thinly spread amongst 6 people, but the taste was so huge I was able to sip it slowly and didn’t feel unsatisfied in the least. After the meal, we were invited into the kitchen and sat with Sergi at his private table, where I was presented with a cake and candles, and champagne. Uh-oh…it was 11.40…we had to run. I felt awful, but we got to enjoy a few minutes with Sergi and made our goodbyes and thanks, and ran into cabs to get back to the clubs.
Well, things had gone a bit sour back at Gruta 77. Jon was onstage playing by himself, and the mood was drunk and ugly.
Devil’s Night in full effect. As it turns out, the club had led people to believe we were going on at 9.30!! which was never the case—we have a contract that lists 11pm as the stage time, and this is signed by the promoter and the venue. Granted, we were an hour late, but the audience was under the impression we were more than two hours late!! Some people had been given refunds, which is too bad as all the club would have had to do is either: a) learn to read and b) post the right time and make things clear. Might I mention again that when we left at 8.50 and said we’d be back by 11.30 at the earliest, they said no problem. In the end, it’s just bad communication, but it cost the club some money, and a few people were really bummed out. But, we got right onstage and go to business, and the show was highly punk rock…except the stage was so small we couldn’t move. There was not enough space above our heads to jump, and nowhere for me to thrash. People were actually slam dancing during our set. And of course, Spanish being hot blooded, a lot of people were fully pissed off with me when I got onstage, and were totally happy after the night was done. It was totally weird, and I am sorry to our fans for any part I played in the confusion, tho’ I defend my actions as innocent of most of the controversy foisted upon me. I was clear with my intentions, and was upfront about my plans. Naturally, the club has had not much good to say about us afterwards (hey, how about some WATER and TOWELS—did you hear us complain?), without for a second considering they might be at fault, at least partially, for giving out misinformation. If they had just told the people we’d be on at midnight (which is pretty normal for Spain), everybody would have been OK. The information was there for the giving.
We packed up and got out of there afterwards. I was very happy to have Dom there, and to spend the night and morning with her.
BILBAO, 10/31
Dom & I have had many a hotel breakfast together, there’s something about it I enjoy so much. Little tiny tubs of jam. Sliced cold cuts. Silver coffee service. Etc. We had a late checkout, so she & I could actually have breakfast, go back to bed, and STILL have time to walk around and spend some time together. Finally it was bye bye time.
Aritz was really glad when we pulled into Bilbao. He turned off the GPS—this is his home turf. We pulled up with great relief to Kafe Antzokia—we knew this would be friendly territory—we have had two great shows here in the past. It’s a big cinema converted into a venue, with the stage dramatically at the top of a set of stairs. The sound here is amazing, cavernous but controlled, if that could be possible. And the hotel the bands stay in is next door. Perfect. For the last show, we made the set a bit longer, and we played very hard. There are some photos from the night that pretty much show us constantly in mid-air. I bled, spit, went down in the pit. A great crowd—one has to keep in mind the Bilbao crowds are sort of too cool for school, so they don’t applaud much, but that doesn’t mean they’re not into it—during the songs, they jump and thrash, and then, like…nothing. It’s kind of weird. They didn’t call for an encore, but went crazy when we peeked out from behind the curtain. We went out on a great note. There are amazing photos of the show
here.
After the show I had the usual packing and merch and making sure the gear was all sorted for the departure, etc etc. I took my guitar and effects back to the hotel and had a last glass of wine with Jon, Matt and Aritz—Darius and Christine were both beat after the show and went immediately to bed! I went to the room and had tons of email to check, the travel, birthday, and no access had kept me off email for a couple of days. By the time that was done, it was already 2am, and so I just kept working, packing my stuff, and soon it was 4, I was totally sober, and totally wired from the show. I took a bath, and was down in the lobby by 5. Called a cab. Of course it was All Saints so in light of the bank holiday, the street in front of the club/hotel was completely going crazy when I got in the taxi, 5 in the morning. Kafe Antzokia was open til 6. But by 6 I was checking for my flight. And off to Brussels at 7. I slept for the length of the two 2-hour flights, Bilbao-Brussels and Brussels-Toulouse. No direct flights to Toulouse, and it actually would have taken the same time or less to drive. I will say the Brussels airport is extremely modern and clean. From what I remember.
I arrived to Toulouse at midday and was picked up by Eric, who had hired me to play at he and his wife’s 20th anniversary this year—they are fans from, you guessed it—back in the day. Exceedingly nice people. I was there to produce Eric’s band, currently called Palace of Sin. Sort of a country-ish rock band, right up my alley, really. We went straight from the airport to Verdun-sur-Garonne, a small village some 40 minutes from the city, and met up with his bandmates and the owner of the
Studio ATL, Patrick, for lunch. I had a salad with foie gras (it’s the southwest of France, after all). The woman serving us was really unhappy, she all but threw the plates at us and all but slapped the cutlery out of our hands when she came to collect. I think she was a little overworked.
Day one in the studio, i.e., me working on no sleep was supposed to be just a preproduction rehearsal, for 4 songs, so, easy—but when I found out the rehearsal was taking place in the studio, I wasted no time and started to get sounds and found that we were off and running with the recording. I figured that it was easier to just rehearse a song and dive into recording it, and that we did. The studio is part of Patrick’s house, and his agreement with his neighbors is that there are no drums playing after 8, so it wasn’t a super long day, but kind of intense after no sleep and 7 days of intense travel and Posies shows. And yet, I didn’t mind at all, I was happy to be there. And the next day, where we discovered the café in the village where each morning a guy, with his dog sleeping at his feet, plays Jacques Brel (including ‘Seasons in the Sun’, which he sings in English even tho it is originally by Brel) on guitar, singing and playing a little harmonica as well. I did my grocery shopping in the Auchun by Eric and Helene’s place, which is perhaps the most enormous supermarket I have been in (and I am American, remember, from the land of the biggest everythings).
So, since then, I have a kind of studio routine, we break fast at home, drive 40 minutes to Verdun (not the site of the WWI battle), take a café at with the singing man, get to working at about 10. I work straight thru til 10pm. The musicians come and go, but I’m at the computer all day, I bring (minimal) food with me and eat in place. Anybody who has worked with me in the studio in France is familiar with my ‘blanc de dinde’ regimen, a la Chris Walla and his Veggie Lunchables regimen! At ten, Eric and I drive back to Toulouse, and have a midnight snack with Helene (and now, their two teenage kids, who were away for school break), and then I check a few emails, write this ridiculously detailed blog for the entertainment of 6 people, and, perhaps now, sleep…
note--since writing this last night I should add that at the end of the studio day today, Patrick gave me a cake! Just as he's a nice guy!
Love
KS
Toulouse, FRANCE
