DRAWLING OSLOTS
I didn't mean to type that as my headline, but, it is too weird and wonderful a creature to just callously delete...so, take from it what you will.
Ok, last week I posted about our near miss with the flames, and the tone of the concern in response made very glad I have loving friends and readers, but also, I wanted to make sure if it wasn't clear that the fire was across the street in another building--my point being that a burning, potentially explosive building can never be too far away, and we were more than close enough to be potentially in danger. But, in the end, the
pompiers (who get their headgear from the same planet as
Daft Punk) did their job, and the damage was minimal, and certainly contained to the one building. Dom did meet the inhabitants of the burned flat on the street in the following days. Bad electrical panel. Lots of buildings have old electrical work, including ours, and updating it is horrendously expensive. I mean, less than buying a new flat--but, still.
I spent the week mixing Mateo's album, walking home in the freezing clear nights. As usual, with the long studio hours, the week slips by in quicksilver pacing, and suddenly you've got a pile of AIFF files and greasy hair, and a long beard, and you're tired as f**K and it's time to go to Finland, again! I think the stuff sounds fantastic, however! The last day was my second day of working on the most elaborate production, a song called "Love At First Sight" which had almost 100 tracks of audio--all kinds of bells and whistles. At about 10.30 on the last night we finished, and I mixed the most minimal recording--a song called "Let It Be the Day" that only has piano, guitar, and voice, all part of a live take. It's really powerful--maybe one of the most moving things I've recorded. We allowed no digital tomfoolery here, the vocals are exactly as we recorded them, everything on the ProTools is unbroken, contiguous file. No plug-ins. etc. And it's magical!
HELSINKI, 12/13
On Thursday I was up, I had packed Wednesday morning before the studio, I just needed to pretty myself up, and get picked up by the shuttle at 9. I was in a cafe across the street with Dom, having just been served a croissant, when the van came. They had called earlier and said they would be 15 minutes late, and they were about 14 minutes late--I was going to down my cafe and croissant in that minute, but, I abandoned the cafe and
emporter'd the croissant. I got in the shuttle, at 9.15, for my 11.05 flight. OK, there were two passengers already on board, so I figured I must be the last stop and we would easily be at CDG by the recommended check in time of 10.05. But then we started to head south at a moment we should be making a beeline for the
peripherique (you know, the singer of Jane's Addiction's sister). We ended up in the 7th arrondisement, picking up someone, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tour. We drove around L'Arc de Triomphe, in other words, we crossed all of Paris. And then got on the freeway-where one of the big overhead lit signs told us of an accident on the A1--and 30 minutes of travel time to CDG as a result. There's only one major freeway heading to the biggest airport in France from the biggest city in France. ?? I have a couple of choices in Seattle and some fairly big surface streets to choose from. Ah, old world. Or driver did his best, did some fancy lane changing, and got us there as quickly as he could. At 10.25, we were miles from our destination, and not moving. We got there at 11.10. I ran in and headed to the SAS check in counter. The cool thing about being the last guy to check in is that the line has already gone on to form at security, and you have the check in to yourself. He said my suitcase would make it on no problem, and I ran to the gate. I managed to get thru security with time to get a cafe. I texted my puzzled bandmates "the show is still on".
In Copenhagen, I had a 2 hour layover (even with our flight leaving late--they held it back til all the bags were loaded on -- now that's class). I did a phone interview with Radio Helsinki. For some reason, I suck at interviews when I'm on my cell phone. Don't ask me why. I mean, it was fine, but I thought of like 10 funny things to say afterwards, and at least 5 ways I could have explained our band more succinctly. And then I boarded, and got to Helsinki as darkness enveloped the north.
I cabbed directly to the venue, Kuudes Linja, which is in an old factory complex--Surprise! Anyway, I was at the front door, which is in back. I was *supposed* to go to the back door, which is of course in front of the building. Luckily, I met the always friendly Tomi Palsa on my way in, so I had someone to freeze with for awhile while we awaited rescue. And rescue appeared, with the accompanying dazzle of magnificence, that is Milla. Milla is not only a bona fide rock star herself (
see: evidence here) but incredibly kind, generous, and a Disciplines believer. AND she writes songs and sings in
one band, and plays drums in another, and she scuba dives. Woah! Next thing you know, you'll be telling me she works for the label of Hanoi Rocks and the Hellacopters, commuting by ferry each morning to a beautiful island with a recording studio on it. But, that would be too good to be true, right? More on that highly un-rhetorical query later.
The Kuudes Linja is perfect wooden box with a parallel bar, and it happens to be great sounding--plus, the band had gotten in a lot earlier than I did, so the soundcheck was done, really. I just confirmed what we already knew--that it was going to be a great night. And it kept getting better! Tomi gave us a lift to the hotel, the ultra chic
Klaus K. We only had a little time, so I made myself as pretty as possible (I had a HUGE zit--the studio does that sometimes--but it was so huge, and awful and dark, it could be passed off as an
exotic mole). We shot photos with Tomi in the lobby, and in the handicapped toilet. In the meanitme, Claus and I ordered room service (which the club was going to pay for!!) as the hotel restaurants were full and we didn't really have time for anything else. We met complete nutter and powerful journalist Otto T. in the lobby, he brought a friend to meet me, the friend being the host of Finland's biggest morning show--and evidently, like most Finnish people, quite a Posies fan!! Then Tomi gave us a lift to the venue, and handed me a CD of great photos of the acoustic Posies show last month. I put a bunch of them up on the
Posies' myspace. When we arrived, there weren't too many people there, but, Finnish rock time is always late, so I retreated to the dressing room to write the set and not worry aobut attendance. It's never been a problem in Finland, so...ah, I also ate some chocolate. It started to get busy. The DJs were playing great music--Judee Sill, et al. When I snuck out to put the set lists on stage and chuck a box of 45s up there, it was getting more full--and then, it was showtime. Milla had suggesthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifed we wait til 11.15, but at 11.05 a guy came in and said "ready". So, we hopped up, and seamlessly launched into "Children of the Sea". And, so on--a great show--frightenly professional, esp. in contrast to the chaotic show we played in Berlin the week before (tho that was great too in its own category). And, like at our Oslo show in October, the audience started out polite, and by the end the people were LOSING it. Jumping up and down..a guy HUGGED me when I went in the crowd. It was like I was Andrew W.K.! We had to do the "Flavor of the Month" encore--and we had no more (ready for live) songs! I sold the ENTIRE box of singles--people even gave me money and their address in order that I would mail them the single when I got back to Oslo (which I did this morning!). I had chatted with Lasse from Lemonator before the show, I knew that we were up against some serious competition--
Jonna Tervomaa was doing her last big show before a long break. Jonna is a friend, and a great singer and performer, and really one of the more popular and credible artists in Finland, so, many people were torn about which show to go to. I saw Jonna and her band (including the drummer from the formidable organ and drums duo
Nieminen and Litmanen in 2005, and she was incredible. And I don't even get the words! As she sings in Finnish. Oh, to summarize: the Disciplines' Finnish debut was a great, great show, and I think we'll be spending lots of time there in future!
After the show we went to the headache-inducing bar "Lost and Found" where all the rockers in Finland go when they've already had enough. It was surprisingly mellow on this occasion, but got progressively more full, starting about 1.30. We had already snagged the catbird seat, and were hobnobbing with fans from the show, and Milla and her super cool bandmate Alex. After the show, Alex had approached me and wanted to tell me something. I was dreading another Florian-style lecture on our similarities to Bon Jovee (like that's a bad thing!--you give love a bad name, Florian!) but he just wanted to tell me that evidently we had spoken on the phone--in the middle of the Posies acoustic set in 2000...!! Anyway, we had a great time, and I caught up with Jonna, and a few other people I hadn't seen in a long time--including a guy who sang with the odd Finnish choir that played at the Holland Lowlands Festival in 1996! At 3, I went back to our hotel and watched the Simpsons Movie...I didn't want to get too drunk and two glasses of wine were starting to affect my 64kg. framework (esp. the mainframe).
The next morning I had breakfast with Bjorn--it was now his birthday, the sneaky devil! Klaus K had cloudberry jam as part of their spread! And, they claimed to be offering jam made from Buckthorn--which I doubt, as it's poisonous (or, at least, in small doses, a powerful purgative). And then Milla, who *didn't* leave Lost and Found when I did, met me, and we walked in the weak northern sunshine to the harbor, and boarded a ferry to go to her office. Yep, she works for record label/recording studio, in a heritage building (a former army barracks, but a nice one!) on a gorgeous little island a 15-minute ride from downtown Helsinki. Insane! I raided the fridge to make lunch, and listened to some rough mixes of her album, and met some of her coworkers, and then hopped back to the city and got back to the hotel in time to do the late checkout (the rock and roll fan at the front desk made our movie and internet bill disappear--and the club paid the room service, so my total bill was a one euro call to Milla). We had a big van come and pick us up, and we got to the airport to find our flight was leaving an hour late. No worries--we hung out in a cafe. Flew to Oslo, and went straight into the studio to start setting up for the Disciplines album. I was tired and beat up--oh, I forgot, I totally chipped my tooth during the show! After the show I had another piece of chocolate and thought there was a jagged piece of hazelnut stuck to my top left incisor. It wouldn't go away...and then I realized...I chipped my tooth on the mic! I never even hit it that hard! Oh well. You can see it if you look closely, but, I count it as a totally worthy memento of a great night.
Back in Oslo we were setting up gear and mic'ing up the instruments, with our engineer Jon Marius Aareskjold--who has lately been recording Beyoncé--I kid you not! I was pretty much unable to move, I was in so much pain in my thighs from my James Brown splits that I had to have a BEER. I went to my flat afterwards and fell asleep on my computer.
I was up this morning at 11, so I think I slept 8 or 9 hours, and there's nothing like a Norwegian blast of cold to make you alert (or, more likely, kill you dead and leave you like a desiccated pile of rags). I took my time to get to the studio (upholding the grand tradition of lead singers), taking the number 12 tram downtown. I did my grocery shopping for the week (turns out they have
blanc de dinde here too--it's called 'kalkunbrysst'). And we started to make our record!
We are working on drums and bass--it's going really easy, as we've been playing the songs live for a year now, so--we are more than ready. For each song, we go out and rehearse live, and then Claus plays the drums on his own from memory. Where? At our rehearsal place. Yes, we looked at many options, and decided the best sound, the sound that sounds like we sound, was captured authentically at our humble rehearsal studio. Jon Marius brought in some equipment, and we got a box of microphones from our live sound engineer, augmented with my Shinybox ribbon mics. We're at home, and it sounds HUGE. Already. It's very much like AC/DC crossed with the Strokes. Yes, it is! It's way better than ANY MUSIC EVER RECORDED EVER.
At least it is in that moment! I probably won't say too much about the recording, unless you ask me too--I want it to be a little surprising, so, in my mind, the record should say everything about us you need to know, and everything about our trajectory you need to understand.
On that note, I will sleep for awhile--
Love
KS
Oslo, NORWAY
