THE DiSCiPLiNES in Q MAGAZINE THIS MONTH! Or, more like 'on' Q Magazine. 'Yours for the Taking', from the DiSCiPLiNES upcoming album 'SMOKiNG KiLLS' (coming May 5 in Norway & Denmark on
Voices Music and Entertainment), is featured on the covermount CD accompanying the April issue of Q, in newsstands now. On the cover this issue: R.E.M., and the free CD 'R.E.M. Jukebox' featuring their hand-picked selections: tracks from The Young Fresh Fellows, Billy Bragg, Steve Wynn, the Minus 5, Robyn Hitchcock, Grant Lee Philips, and Chris Bell are included along with the DiSCiPLiNES and many others. More info:
Q4music.com.
I've uploaded new photos to the
photos section.
ST. JEAN DE VEDAS, 2.27
How great is being a support act? I love it. It worked great for me this night, I was still feeling a bit frail from the deadly escargots that ravaged my insides that morning. But it was a great show, I gathered round the peeps and played my little lungs out. My lungs are also still scorched by the bronchitis I had a couple of weeks ago, but I'm crawling back to full steam. But after I played and sold some CDs, I was ready to sleep. In fact, I fell asleep in the car on the way back to Hugo's place--I wasn't even aware that we had stopped for gas on the way. I slept like a king and felt much better by morning. I did stay at the show long enough to watch a few shows from
Radio Moscow--they are indie rockers, but they play 60s music, thru and thru they recreate the vibe of Cream, Hendrix, Blue Cheer etc. The Strat-wielding guitarist has J. Mascis' hair from 1991. They are great players, and the songs are, well, authentic...
MARSEILLE, 2.28
I woke and felt the warmth of the sun coming in my window at Hugo's groovy pad. Chirping birds. The springtime vibe enhanced my sense of renewal and recovery. We strolled up to the center so I could hit the post office and then we hit the road. Marseille is completely surreal, if you're not prepared for it. Dense and sprawling, with no real center to it. Huge apartment blocks loom over the highway, but there is no steel and glass district, just rolling hills coated with the same red tile roofed building over and over again. It could easily swap places with
Oran and you'd never notice (they are more or less the same size). Many would consider the Old Port the center. Fair enough. But most of the city just dribbles out with little rhyme and less reason.
Behind the main train station is a massive factory that's been converted into a kind of Culture Mall, called
La Friche de Belle de Mai, with a theatre, radio station, music venue, restaurant, dance studio, cybercafe...all in delightful post-industrial gothic...more or less you could film extra scenes for the movie 'Alien' here and it would edit in fine.
Le Cabaret Aleatoire ('The Random Cabaret') is the music venue here. It's a spacious concrete enclosure, but in the end it was quite cozy. Some futuristic lounge chairs helped everybody feel at home, and although the stage was quite high, I was able to get down with the peeps.
Before the show, up in the restaurant, which was open and had a few patrons, we did a radio broadcast--normally
the radio station housed in La Friche operates out of a huge pile of contruction site trailers that also house all the offices for the comples, and the cyber cafe--but in this case they ran a cable into the restaurant, and operated using the DJ station as a base for for the music sources and to mix the mics for the interviews and the live performance. This was the first time they had attempted such a thing to there were plenty of bugs--squeals of feedback, and the like. But the hosts were really cool people, and I had a great time--in fact a few journalists from Marseille converged on the scene, and I sort of had a press conference, or round table interview session, on air.
Luis Francesco Arena was playing tonight as well, and the very talented
Chris Garneau opened. I used Luis' acoustic guitar for my live tracks on the radio, of course, being the guerilla situation that it was, the guitar was cutting out while I was playing, but whatever!
The show was a good one, and I was able to do the Lover's Hymn with Luis, as we did on our
split single. After the show, I went for a drink with Thomas, my guitar student, and his g.f., at a bar down by the harbor. I ran into Yann, one of the hosts from the radio show, and also spoke with a local club night organizer who was chewing his face off on an E binge. Yikes!
The next morning, Luis, myself and Chris and his entourage--his cellist, and two travling companions of unspecified job description--were all heading to the train station at the same time--we called two cabs, and two came--a van and a station wagon. In some kind of bait and switch shell game, instead of loading Chris & co into the van, and Luis and I and our two guitars into the wagon--which had plenty of room for it, we were basically commanded to put all the gear in the van. Of course, it was now now stuffed, and the stuff all rolled out onto the ground when we lifted the hatch uipon arrival at the station. And, we had the bizarre situation of having to pay the luggage fee to one cab and the fare to the other. Hmmm. I know we lost money on the deal...except that the club had given us money for this anyway. So, Luis and I were on a later train, so we had lunch at the gare, and eventualy boarded and road together to Paris.
VIENNA, 3.1
I went to bed early on Friday, to complete my recovery and also because I had to be up at dawn to ride to the airport and get my early flight to Vienna. Upon arrival, I met up with my friend Christian, who had organized the affair--the show I was playing this night was a split birthday for Christian and his friend Philip, who are friends and have birthdays one day apart (born in the same year). Our first stop was the local tennis club, next door to the arena I played with REM in 2005. We played two hours of tennis, me for the first time since October. I felt great, my body was feeling very healthy, and my mentality is much less competitive than it used to be--I can thank "
Tennis, Play the Mental Game" for that--so, in effect I enjoy playing more than ever, and I actually play better. Our second set went to a tie breaker...I lost, and I was happy to do it!
I was installed at Philip's flat, I was meeting him for the first time, but he and his mom made me feel right at home--and actually, more than that, he helped me work out a fairly complicated trains-action for the upcoming Posies tour, spending time with the OBB on the phone, and taking me to the station to pick up the tix.
Next up, the gig. Well. i knew this birthday party was taking place within the
WUK--another multifaceted cultural cluster--but I didn't realize that when we walked into the WUK's small, smoky cafe that this would be where we were spending the evening! I had said aloud upon entering 'I want to play *here*!' thinking that we would be playing more like in a small banquet hall, a more generic space, like a wedding reception. But, the cafe it was. Pothos vines growing all over, intellectuals discussing subtle nuances of Socialist Realist Theatre, espresso machine giving its extended cough.
Ben Martin, who was part of my great full band solo show last year--which Christian organized--provided the backline. There was barely a PA, and ben had to run home to get a mic stand, as none could be had here...but it worked out OK. Lukas from
A Life A Song A Cigarette showed up with his cello, too--so we worked on a couple of songs for the program. In the end we worked out a great evening of music--I played on my own, Lukas played along at times, Ben played along at times, and Stephan from ALASAC sang and played with me. Oh, I forgot to mention--the cafe was actually open, instead of closed for the occasion--so we had noisy cafe patrons going full steam, especially during my first set. But, I felt like I really needed to rise to the occasion, and I think I did admirably. And by the second set, it was loose and fun--Stephan and sang Beatles and Neil Young songs together (and we reprised the version of 'Love Hurts' we did at my last Vienna show); I learned the favorite songs of C & P and their respective g.f.'s--'Simple Things' by Belle & Sebastian and 'At My Most Beautiful' by REM--I did my own songs, I did whatever. Fun! A few interesting characters came in randomly--Steve from
Amber and Gold, who are working on a truly fascinating musical project--time stretching a 'popular song from a well known group' in the computer to make it 24 hours long, then setting up and playing along with it, in a non-stop 24 hour improvisation, and then time stretching the recording of all of that back into a 3 or 4 minute piece. We talked about collaborating on one of these pieces later. Then there was the 'bird man'--an extremely cheerful cafe patron, who can make an incredible variety of bird sounds with his mouth, sometimes including his hands in process but mostly just chirping--often in time with the music playing, including mine some of the time. a really friendly, peaceful person...with an extraordinary and unusual talent. In fact, Vienna reminds me of a wonderful kind of freak show--but not grotesque freaks--I mean, more that it's an arty place with a lot of things going on that are far from run of the mill. I love it there.
There was never really time to sleep. We stopped at Phil's place after the show, and I had a shower, but it was pretty much time to head to the airport after that. I was home by 9.30 this morning, and was able to spend a lovely, relaxing Sunday with Dominique at home. Aden is with grandma for the week on winter school break. "There Will Be Blood" and sashimi were the highlights...
Love
KS
Paris
