DISASTER STRIKES! COPENHAGEN CANCELED!
On Thursday, when I got home from London, I found out that our drummer in the Disciplines, Claus, had crashed his bike and sustained a small fracture on his wrist. My first thought was “since when does Claus ride a bike??” Evidently, not often, and for good reason! It soon became apparent that Claus’ life would be drum-free for a few weeks. It’s not a big injury, but he could aggravate it very easily by playing a show, and at the very least that show would be extremely painful if not impossible. Our show this week in Copenhagen was more or less expendable in the grand scheme of things—it could wait for another time. Sorry to everyone who had purchased tickets—Loppen will refund them. Due to our busy schedule this year, we couldn’t find a date to reschedule.
Disaster also struck our little neighborhood in Paris yet again—our local shwarma place burned. The rest of the building seems OK, but the shop is totaled. I’m very sad, the owners are extremely friendly and the place was very good quality. I hope they can rebuild.
So, my week in London was fun, and I accomplished a little business there; but mostly, it was a kind of vacation. On Monday night Henrik and I went to see Josh Weller play in Shoreditch, at the ‘Scottish Pub’—I guess I’m not supposed to say the name since I’m in the performing biz! Anyway, his band is extremely good, their show was short and superb. I ran into Toph from Trouble Over Tokyo –we’re touring together in May, and we’d never met in person. Turns out he’s not Austrian at all! He’s just popular there—but he’s as English as beans on toast.
Dom came to town, and we had a couple of days getaway—popquiz at the Boogaloo one night (Shane McGowan is the local resident, and it’s been a Pete Doherty hangout), and dinner at the Hospital Club one night. The Hospital Club is a private club with bars, restaurants, recording suites, a full TV production studio, etc etc.. It’s a place for TV and music biz folks to work and socialize; evidently it’s owned an operated by Paul Allen.
On Thursday we came back to town, and I went to see Grand Pianoramax at the Divan du Monde. GP is the project of a young Swiss keyboard virtuoso—playing in jazz and funk idiom, but it’s in done in very good taste, and with unbelievable skills. He plays piano, Rhodes, a couple of synths—he loops himself with delay pedals and plays along with himself, and is accompanied by a drummer with equally formidable abilities. On top of that, three vocalists were brought out in all the possible combinations to improvise on top—Mike Ladd, of whom I’ve been a fan for some time; Celena Glenn, and Spleen. Spleen is French and in addition to rhyming skillz he has a great ability to make all kinds of instrumental noises, one minute he’s a squeaking trumpet, one minute he’s a gospel choir. In general it was a complete musical diet, and I was glad to have seen it—attendance was quite light, but the performers gave all their available energies.
Over the weekend I watched ‘Rock & Roll Wolf’ with Aden—I had seen it on TV in Norway, and gotten the people at NRK to make me a copy! I’m not sure it’s available on DVD, unfortunately. It’s a kind of musical for children, with Russian ballet dancers dressed as various animals, but thru suggestion, not masks. Their faces are visible, and their characters indicated by wigs and makeup, mostly (the make up artist was a top artist at Max Factor). The director is a Bulgarian woman, and the voices were done in English, but they were done as ADR, and I have read that they simultaneously did a version in Russian, and one in Bulgarian, which is quite impressive, considering the songs had to be in rhythm and make sense. It’s a wonderful eastern bloc oddity from the late 70s. Rock & roll!
Aden had her first sleepover last night, at her friend’s place. Her friend has two older sisters, and they all adore Aden! So Dom & I had dinner on our own, at Chez Paul, which is in our neighborhood—in fact, Dom used to live upstairs. I always have the same thing: “Le tentation de Saint Antoine’—which is panned and fried pig bits: snout, ear, tail and foot. So good! Dom & I, sharing a bottle of wine, of course got completely drunk, we have no business drinking that much on our own. So, we had no choice but to sleep in til the last possible minute before picking up Aden. We spent about 3 hours having brunch.
ENGLISH OBSERVATIONS
Merry Olde. Well. We know this: it’s cold there, and it rains, and it’s windy. And people don’t seem to mind. They just work harder, and watch their currency and property values ascend in skyrocket fashion, and then they leverage into property markets in sunnier climes, and drive the local prices up into a zone that only British can afford. It’s re-colonialism, and it’s a brilliant strategy for this soggy little island. In general, if you are European or from the Commonwealth, you can come take a shot at the game. It gets trickier if you are from a nation of less than equal footing on the global chessboard. In fact, it was my observation the other day that Europeans all want to buy homes in Cape Verde, Morocco, etc., and Moroccans and Cape Verdeans are always looking to come to Europe and work. So, I thought, why not trade? Why the barriers? We establish the European Nations in tropical/equatorial latitudes, and we reestablish Africa in a new home in less a less grueling climate. Sounds fair to me.
Food: there is nothing in cuisine that an English chef can’t find a way to overcook. Even in the nicest places, even with fresh local produce, they will reduce via baking meat to a mangled shadow of its former self, and vegetables are forced to surrender to superior firepower. Even in the nicest places this holds true. I am impressed how much better the average French eatery is than even the highest echelon of British restaurant. Yes, there are bad meals possible in France. And yes, there are Michelin stars on over 100 places in the UK and Ireland. But, for example, I have never tucked into a gigot in France to find that the center is ice cold—the whole thing being a pre-made, frozen item reheated when I ordered it. And this happened recently in London, when I was paying the equivalent of €2o for it.
Architecture: London is no Rotterdam. In fact, London to me is a series of brown brick boxes, replicated. Many of them are so plain, or even ugly…one wonders how an architect got them green light-ed—let alone OK’d for replication…it’s like looking at a squirming mass of larval rats…all the same, all kind of icky. When someone does take the initiative to paint over the brick in a more appealing hue than porridge, the effect is obvious---it puts a smile on the neighborhood’s face. So you think—why doesn’t everybody do it? Do people really like living in an identical box to their neighbor’s, each the color of crappy industrial bread?
Music: you cannot compete with Britain about music. You can’t discuss it to greater detail, you will never find a country with people trying harder to make it, or a more ravenous, protectionist media. Conclusion: everybody on this island is bored shitless. It’s either this, or football, or else you’re left to contemplate the fact you live in Europe’s rain shadow, with nothing but a few turnips and brown buildings as company.
Good looking men and women: as rare as a properly cooked gigot d’agneau, they do exist in Britain. Weirdly enough, the only time I saw a consistently handsome segment of the population was inside Top Shop. Suddenly every woman was tall, thin, and power shopping in between running their own law firm/movie production company/art gallery. And the guys were mostly thin and handsome, evidently they let everybody else eat their share of the turnips, chips, and Cadbury’s.
Nature: the last wild animal in Britain died 30 years ago. It’s name was Keith Moon.
ATMs: are all broken in the UK. Seems Northern Rock as taken away everybody’s Brighton Rock money.
Public transport: I do think the two-level bus is a great invention, and I don’t know why more cities don’t have them. Are they trademarked? The tube is kind of awful, and subject to disappearances. Like, on the night of the Zombies show, there were no lines operating to Shepherds Bush. Unf. The Central Line station at Shepherds Bush is out of commission for the rest of my thirties.
Cinema: to reserve tix on the British Film Institute’s website, I had to create a user ID, password, give them my home address, etc etc….and since my address wasn’t in Britain it froze the process—AFTER I had put ten minutes’ work into it. Next up: Odeon, who put me on a mailing list that I can’t seem to get off of. They did let me complete the transaction tho’, and thus I had the luxury so spend $45 for two tickets to the cinema.
Scottish money: not one person complained when I paid with Scottish notes. So, there’s that settled.
Wine: I kept soldiering on, ordering wine in the relentless, no-victory-in-sight slog in pursuit of acceptable wine in London. The problem is, nobody orders it—so when you have wine by the glass at a pub, the bottle was opened for the last naïve Frenchman/Septic who passed thru the doors. I did have an excellent Albarino at the Hospital Club. Also: remember that in any given neighborhood, the locals will recommend the shit restaurants and will not have noticed the cute bistros there. You mention the tiny bistro that serves great food and the locals snicker, looking at you with pity, then tell you to go someplace that microwaves frozen gigots. Also—for some reason, almost no restaurants open for lunch during the week. You go to a pub.
I do like the place, however! And Archway/Highgate Village/Crouch End, where I was based this time around, is kind of a magical slice of London, far removed from the urban vibe. It’s leafy, and full of hills and valleys, and some very nice houses (and plenty of brown ones). So many thanks to Meggean and her amusing/friendly roommates Pete & Ida for housing Dom & I! And many thanks to Henrik and Caroline for being pals, and to Lydia for the invitation to the Club. Hoo!
In the meantime, we’ve been debating and sculpting the Disciplines album SMOKiNG KiLLS’ running order and artwork. We’re getting there!
Love
KS
Paris
