4.28.2008 BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE BONKA BONKAS UTRECHT, 4/20 Dom’s birthday… Outstanding show. The stage bathed in only cool blue light, we faced a rapturous crowd, who supported us…the feeling is like when you are crowd surfing, where you are confident that you won’t be allowed to fall. And we surely did not. We played two encores, at least—and would have played more had we not been told repeatedly that there was a strict curfew on sound at 23h, due to an agreement with the neighbors. But, to our surprise, the DJ spun records on til 1am. I asked the staff…”surely, this music being played thru the system is louder than two guys gently playing guitars?” “oh no, the monitors are much deeper than the thumping bass drum of this Franz Ferdinand record being played at full blast”. Bollocks. The next day, the incredible was upon us: no show, no travel. No doubt we slept in late, just ‘cuz. We didn’t have to leave Roel’s house, as we had brought home enough food and drink from the hospitality rider at the Ekko to supply us for quite some time. Eventually I went for a walk, to do shopping for typical tour things—a phone charger to replace the one I lost at some point; a phone card to call Dom and other with; a newspaper; allergy med’s, which I can’t tour without in spring; and a decent coffee. Sending a Disciplines promo in the post. Almost all of this I accomplished at the train station, about a 20-minute walk straight down the road that goes by the end of Roel’s block. In the evening, Jon made a fabulous caprese salad, I supplemented that with yet another sandwich compiled from last night’s deli tray, and I set off in search of a small cinema downtown. I got a little lost (like a fool, I left without my GPS, which would have saved me some mis-turns). But I got to the tiny cinema/café/bar that is right behind the Hotel Karel V—the hotel where I spent more than a week with REM when we rehearsed at the Tivoli in 2003. I had eyed this charming little art house kino at that time, but never went in. So, myself and half a dozen others late on Monday night took in ‘I’m Not There’, the bizarre kaleidoscope based on a kind, or many kinds of Bob Dylans. Like any movie made by non-musicians about rock music, it has its overdramatic, cornball elements, and for all the riffs that point you down the barrel of some alternate universe, the most compelling parts of the film are the re-creations of swinging London and Cate Blanchett’s drugged out Bob, the most ‘realistic’ parts of the film. IMHO. During the day I had been leafing thru an issue of Uncut, with the Stones on the cover, and came across this quote from Keith, when asked if Mick ever asks him to join him in his fitness regime: “I think a lot of Mick’s frenzy about physical stuff is actually mental. That’s the way he is. For me, doing a Rolling Stones show for two hours a night, that’s enough f**king exercise, you know? Then I’ve got to go to bed with the old lady, bonka bonka. You know?“ Oh I certainly do know, Keef. Needles, I mean needless to say, bonka bonka became the theme of the tour, mentioned inappropriately in many a Posies/Gas. Bro’s lyric, etc. It got to the point where inexplicably in the middle of a Posies song, Jon & I would cut into the GB’s “We are made of stardust” riff and lyrics, but just sing “bonka bonka BONka!!”…this could happen anytime in the show. BRUSSELS, 4/22 GPS mounted, we set off for Belgium in the afternoon, and stopped by our odd by very pleasant modern hotel in a bit of industrial sprawl outside the city—there was a ‘seafood convention’ in Brussels that absorbed up all the available rooms in the city—and then wound our way into central Brussels, getting a little lost because Brussels shuttles much of its traffic thru tunnels under the city, and you can get lost in a GPS-deprived wormhole pretty quick. But, we found the Belle Vue club, which inside an old brewery along a canal. I learned that ‘brasserie’, which we Parisians associate with generally tacky restaurants for businesspeople to spend trade in their ‘cheques dejeuners’, is simply the French word for ‘brewery’, and the restaurants that bear the name now originally were like a kind of ancient Gordon Biersch that started to serve a bit of food along with their tankards. First question I asked was: since when has a brewery gone out of business in Belgium? But, it hadn’t, it had just moved to a more modern facility, and before this building was to be turned into ‘artist lofts’ that no artist other than Jeff Koons could afford, they were allowed to put on art happenings, like our show e.g. The only downside being that since it was not a venue in regular use, most people in Brussels had no idea where it was, so there were many conspicuous absences this night. But, the showroom is incredibly tiny, and when we took to the 8x8 stage, the room was packed. And we played very well. Playing Posies shows, esp. without the full band, is a kind of vocal workout, but the kind of workout that strengthens my voice, not like the Disciplines workout, which usually leaves me worn out the next day. But, my voice has been really strong on this tour, and its grown since the first shows. Feels great! After the show we were given a box of incredible gourmet chocolates from a couple who happen to have a Belgian chocolate factory—it’s good to have fans who aren’t in bands for a change! I chatted with the friendly guy whose band Milk the Bishop covered ‘Flavor of the Month’ on their album back in the day, and his Serbian girlfriend who was amazed we had just played in her hometown of Novi Sad. We are everywhere, I assured her! Back at the hotel, we all crowded into Jon & my room—that is, the Posies and the Gasoline Brothers—and watched the pitiful Ben Affleck vehicle ‘Reindeer Games’, drank wine, and ate an entire box of chocolates. Rockers gone wild. OSTEND, 4/23 With such short drives between shows in Benelux, we could afford to sleep in til noon, take lunch at the hotel restaurant, and leisurely make our way to the coastal city of Ostend (which houses an absurd convention of mathematicians, and an attempted murder via planned industrial sabotage of a mayonnaise factory in Pynchon’s Against the Day) or Oostende depending on who you speak too. It has an enormous slice of beach, but you don’t notice it—high-rise hotels and a casino block the view. We checked into the art deco Hotel du Parc, and immediately went around the corner to drop the gear at the venue, Manuscript. Manuscript is a tiny bar with an old wooden stage in the corner, covered with tables during the day. It lists a capacity of 100 but I can’t imagine more than 60 people being in there and being happy about it. I guess we had about that many that night…maybe more, but they still seemed happy! Ostend is a funny town, because it’s no metropolis, and usually these kinds of vacation/beach towns are really un rock & roll, but this particular venue has been going out of its way to bring quality music to the town since the early 90s. We in fact played there once before, in 1994—but in my memory I had confused this venue with another one (we played half a dozen medium-to-small towns in Belgium on that particular tour), so when I walked in the place on this day, there was absolutely zero déjà vu. I had been picturing the snack bar in Kortrijk we played on that tour. Well. And Ostend itself I had no memory of either, despite the fact that Manuscript is right in the center. So, the crowd was quite rowdy that night—definitely some real fans, but one of those peculiar situations where fans are enjoying the show, and making comments to each other, but really loudly, and right in the front row, as if Jon & I can’t hear them, but in fact…anyway, I can’t get mad at people who are having a good time, and they were roaring for an encore by the end. After the show, I really wanted to hang out—we had made a bet that if we could get Roel, the vegetarian Gasoline Brother, to eat meat, that the next drive between cities would be undertaken by Mathijs—naked. I thought if we could get Roel drunk enough…so, I had the audience working on buying him drinks, and he was good and hammered by the time I left, but I was so tired…the hotel was just two blocks away…mmmm. ANTWERP, 4/24 Having gone to bed relatively early and quite sober, I woke up at 8, and found the sun was out (Ostend’s default setting is drizzle). I headed down to breakfast, and then went for a walk on the beach. The tide was out, enlarging the already generous stretch of sand that the town greedily hoards with a huge wall of typical seaside resort hotels. No stones at all, just shells, millions of them. Small clams, and razor clams. There was a crew of people picking up litter, a few strollers, and a guy fishing in the surf. These kinds of moments can be an instant ‘reset’ button on tour. I headed back to the center, bought a newspaper and had a coffee at the hotel’s very fine café. They serve drip coffee, but it percolates in a little dripping contraption made of aluminum, that fits perfectly into the top of the glass cup. So, you wait a bit while it brews, and then dig in. After checking out, we had lunch in the café—I had pig’s tongue in Madeira sauce. Then Mathijs went to fetch the car, since the hotel’s garage was quite far from the actual hotel; we met at the club, which was just opening up for cleaning, the owner Vanessa (I think?) made me a café and we loaded up the car and drove to Antwerp. Antwerp is a major port, and quite industrial. I’ve never found it to be very beautiful, even in the old center…I remember R.E.M. having a day off here, and Dom came up to visit, and after staying night after night in palatial hotels, we were in what was essentially a 2.5 star dump, with stains on the carpet. Sigh. Our hotel was in an industrial park, natch. But it was essentially more appealing than the place mentioned above. A little ways down the ring road was Trix, the venue. Trix is a large, multipurpose cultural center-there are venues, a café, a kind of media laboratory, rehearsal places. It appears to be a modified insurance company HQ—the architecture is quite hideous, but no worse than it’s neighbors. And inside it’s SO new that it could use some piss and barf stains to make it a bit more homey, but all in good time. Certainly the show was good, and very well attended. The audience was extremely mellow compared to the football hooligan vibe of Manuscript, but we played quite well. After the show, we tried to have another wine and chocolate binge with bad TV in the hotel with the Gas. Bro’s, but the TV and the wine were SO bad we gave up after watching a Discovery channel show on tae kwon doe after 15 minutes and crashed. DORDRECHT, 4/25 Since we had no hotel to go to in Dordrecht, and they weren’t expecting us until 5pm, we had negotiated a 2 pm check out at our hotel, so I went back to bed after breakfast, and got up in time to have lunch before the restaurant closed. We hit some shitty traffic on the way out of Antwerp and again at the Dutch border, but we still made it to Dordrecht basically on time. We were trying to call the promoter but it wasn’t going thru. The GPS had led us to a street that isn’t open all day (like the streets leading to the center of St. Martin on Ile de Re, metal posts come out of the ground at certain times of the day, and you need to punch in a code to take your car into the center—locals only). We navigated as close as we could—the alternate street leading towards the club is *also* blocked, but permanently, by metal posts at the mid point of the block. We had to call our booking agent to get an alternate number for the club, and someone popped out of a doorway just past the posts, and we loaded in the stuff. The Bibelot. Planet Bibelot as I will call it. This club definitely exists in an alternate universe standing in absolute contrast to the usual professionalism of clubs you encounter in Holland. It’s the same principle as many places—funded by state money, run by a combination of paid staff and volunteers, many of whom get educational credit for their work there, while they learn how to run sound, or what have you. The place I’m in now, Effenaar, is like that. And the shit here is so tight that no detail is overlooked. At Bibelot, they pretty much had it wrong all down the line. It’s not that they weren’t nice—the volunteers were very friendly, and doing their best…my theory is the booker, who is paid, is not very good at passing the info down to the volunteers. But, let’s go down the list, shall we? 1) “We didn’t receive the rider”. Ah. So, the technical rider and hospitality rider weren’t there. Now, the thing is EVERY other club received the rider, and several weeks before the show, those that hadn’t emailed me—I was in email contact with every single venue we played on this tour—it’s part of my job as tour manager. So, did they ask me for it at any point? No. And, they told me they had “called and called” Mojo, our local agency in Holland, which was denied by Mojo when I met them last night in Amsterdam. So—they were set up for a full band, mics all over the stage, drum riser, tons of monitor wedges. But, they had no catering backstage—no deli tray, nothing. Now, me, I would have looked at the budget that Mojo gave me, and I would have improvised, put some bread, cheese and the like in the dressing room—pretty much what every band gets, so without having explicit instructions, aka the hospitality rider, you can easily fake it. So, we had to re set up the stage, ok, no big. Just a few mic stands and a few wedges. Nothing to snack on, but we had had lunch in Antwerp, so we were OK. Dinner came, with meat and veg options, so that was good (there was so much of it tho, since they were expecting a full band, that we took home a kilo of leftovers). During the show, the weirdness intensified. 2) Now, each week, the venues all report in their advance ticket sales to the agency. So I get a spreadsheet every week with updated sales. And, like all the other clubs, who ended up having accurate counts, I watched Bibelot’s counts steadily mount over the weeks to advance sales of about 110, consistent with the other venues in Holland we were playing. While the Gasoline Brothers were playing their set, replete with Bonka Bonkas strewn throughout, the stage manager came in and apologized for the lack of turnout. Ah, I should mention that Bibelot is a former church, so quite spacious—perfect for our music, in fact. I replied, “well, 110, that’s pretty good for us, really. I’m happy”. She looked puzzled…well, in the end there were about 75 people there, so they had been sending a fictional number to our agent…but a steadily increasing fictional number. No explanation. 3) Being a subsidized venue, they can afford to have quite a bit more staff then they really need. Every show, no matter how big or small, probably has the same staff—several technicians, bar staff, security, office staff. So there were about 20-25 people working there that night. Many of which had nothing to do—so they drank at the bar, and talked. Nay, screamed. Like, shrieking, outrageous laughter, even during our quietest songs. I was getting pretty pissed off so I pulled the stage manager over and told her to do something about it, which she did, but still… 4) I had told the lighting technician my usual speech about no fog or hazing machines are to be in use during our set. They are too noisy, and I don’t like the fog/haze stuff, it’s not nice to breathe, no matter what the lighting people will try and tell you. She respected my request, but when the show was over and we were selling our merch off the stage like we always do, she blasted us with tons of fog, just out of spite, I guess. 5) They had no record of the fact that they were supposed to pay the Gasoline Brothers their fee. And yet they knew our fee…of course they didn’t get the copies of Jon & my passports I emailed EVERYONE before the tour (each club needs to retain a copy for tax reasons) either. 6) When it was time to load out, long after a disco had started, suddenly the 25 staff members milling around were NOWHERE to be found. 7) The club booker had given me his cell number incorrectly, that’s why I couldn’t reach him. 8) I’m sure there’s more but you get the idea. It sure sounds nice in that big old church, tho, and people loved the show. Our fan Dirk, who videos many of our shows, had bought some Chariot, Jon Auer and other oddities at a used record store that was going out of business, so we had more merch to sell! Thanks Dirk! After the show we drove back to Utrecht, scratching our heads at this bizarre place—it could be so great, with minimal effort. And with so many great venues in Holland, I would think they would be trying harder—I told Mojo not to send any more shows there, and I’m sure I’m not the first. Note: Dordrecht is a beautiful little town; I had a lovely stroll after dinner in the twilight, crossing canals, and discovering the larger body of water the town observes from different places. AMSTERDAM, 4/26 Well, you couldn’t get a greater contrast. The Melkweg is run as tightly as a venue can be run. The loaders jump up when you arrive, and your stuff is onstage and set up in 5 minutes. More on this. That morning I got up early, and took a train up to Alkmaar, north of Amsterdam, to meet with Sonic Rendezvous, a big distributor who also have a label. I am always meeting with folks about the Disciplines record, looking for labels outside of Norway for its release. William from the label was kind enough to meet me on a Saturday, and we headed down to the warehouse to have a look around, chat a bit. His 5-year-old son played video games on one of the computers. After the meeting, I trained down to Amsterdam, and this time I had my GPS with me, so I could navigate to the Melkweg with no guesswork. The Melkweg is a serious institution in the Amsterdam music…uh, universe—now considerably expanded and modernized since we first visited the place in 1993 (Big Star rented the place for a rehearsal on our first ever visit to Europe), it has two music venues for 700 and 1500 people respectively, a cinema, a theatre, two art galleries, a café and restaurant. It’s continually in motion. And like I said, it’s professional at the highest level. I spent the afternoon here checking email, and the rest of the guys showed up at 5pm, right on time, and we were all done soundchecking both bands by like 5.40. Our friend Alfredo, now living in Amsterdam after leaving Italy, was there, and did a short interview for the film he’s making on us. Ok, so this show was excellent—packed house, exuberant crowd, we did three encores, sold all our remaining merch, and so on! Loaders were there to help us even after we had an hour’s worth of after show beers with our local friends, and the two head cheeses from our Dutch promoter, Mojo. We drove back to Utrecht and drank wine and listened to Pavement til it was crashie crashie time. EINDHOVEN, 4/27 Such a friendly face to see, greeting us at the loading dock at Effenaar—our old tour manager, from the Amazing Disgrace and Success tours, Menko Leeuw. Looking and acting just the same—big laugh, still big bunch of blonde hair in a long ponytail. Great that he was stage manager for this show, so we got to hang out and catch up. The Effenaar is €12 million complex right next to the Eindhoven train station. Two concert halls, a restaurant, etc. We were in the small room, same place we played in 2005 (the Effenaar used to be in a much smaller facility, an old fire station, and we played there several times in the 90s/beginning of this decade). In the big room tonight was reggae legend Gregory Isaacs; his bus was pulling up just as our little car was. Unf. we were on almost exactly at the same time, so I only managed to see the first 5 minutes of his set, but it sounded amazing, what I could hear. He’s a dapper gent, short hair, no beard—not the dready/beardy typical Rasta look, but the real deal nonetheless. Before the show I made calls and checked emails (and started to write this blog) from the production office on the 4th floor—big windows looked out on the comings and goings of the trains in the station; there’s a pond and a small park right next to the Effenaar’s parking lot, with ducks commuting in and out as well. This show might be my favorite of the tour—I can’t tell you how good it felt, it’s indescribable. So relaxed, and so…accurate. I was trying things on the fly, and they were all working out, in perfect synch with Jon. The place ended up being pretty full, so we had a great crowd, and they indeed called us back for two encores. So good! We had a few drinks after upstairs, and then the Gasoline Bro’s drove Jon & I to our hotel. A runner had already checked us in and delivered the key to us at the venue. We were sad to say goodbye Roel and Mathijs, who were kind enough to help us up the tiny stairs, all four flights, to our tiny (not en suite) room. Now, the Benno Hotel seems to be haunted. That’s my theory. The gleaming red sign on top is meant to be friendly, a landmark, an invitiation—but its red glare comes off more like a warning. BATES MOTEL. You have to understand how good Jon & I felt when we went to bed—and how awful we felt when we woke up—each of us plagued by horrific dreams. In my dreams, hands were emerging from the mattress of my bed, as if I was in the hotel room in real life, and grabbing me. This is not good. They would evolve into children—evil, tormented…truly a vision of horror. Later, when freed from the hotel location in my dreams, I wandered in another landscape, and another child was horribly injured, I had to remove shards of glass from its eye. I woke up at 6, having to pee (no toilet) and some workers were noisily unloading what sounded like scaffolding outside somewhere. When my alarm went off at 8.30, I was exhausted. And drained by the presence of energy in that room. Oddly enough, my cell phone was drained of battery, too, and I had just charged it—and I don’t use my cell that much. I had a mediocre shower, and had breakfast. The front desk (we let ourselves in with a key, there was no one working late at night) is also a bar, so I asked the desk clerk for some hot water (I bring my own special tea on the road with me). I asked him if there was anything strange about room 12, but he was just a young dude working there, he didn’t know anything. I guess they probably wouldn’t tell me. In my dream I met the owner of the hotel, and was asking her repeatedly “What happened in room 12?” Any Eindhovenes can tell me something? LUXEMBOURG, 4/28 To add to the mood, a streak of what had been gorgeous weather during our visit to Holland was broken by an absolute pissdown outside. Ugh. I hauled my stuff down the tiny, typical Dutch stairs, and had them call me us a taxi, and we went to the station. The club in Luxembourg had bought and mailed me the train tickets. They were open—we could take any train to Luxembourg we wanted to. There aren’t any direct trains from Eindhoven, so I had selected a 10.30 itinerary with a change in Maastricht and a change in Liege, the least changes you can have to Luxembourg. A bit early, a bit hard, but, doable. We boarded the train to Maastricht, and settled in. It stopped at a few little cow towns along the way, and came to rest in a town called Heerlen. End of the line, they said. Uh, what about Maastricht? Oh, Maastricht? You would have had to change in klakdlakkfjaadsf. Er, it doesn’t say so on my itinerary. Ah, you were in the wrong part of the train. At sflksdlaalkfknnfd it splits, and only part of the train goes to Maastricht. So, we had to hop a train to Maastricht, then go to Liege, then go to a little town called Namur, and then we got to Luxembourg, tired as hell. Note that each change of train involves moving two suitcases, two guitars, and two computer bags off and on a train—plus whatever change of platform might be called upon. The first change was from the same; the second had elevators to get to the different platforms; the third had escalators; the last, good old fashioned escaliers. The last stop before Luxembourg Gare is a little town in Luxembourg, and on our train at this time we had about 800 chattering school kids get on, nap time was over for the poor old Posies. But, we arrived, and Fred from the D:Qliq was there at the platform, and we were soon up in the band apartment, happily checking email. I got a text that ‘Oslo’ by the Disciplines has been A-listed by radio P3 in Norway—in other words, it’s a hit. We better get that up on our myspace! Fred ordered in some delicious risotto, cracked a bottle of Portuguese red. I’m coming back! A few nightmares associated with my last, insane visit…not musical ones, but D:qliq has some rather heavy associations with a period ‘perdido’ –the dissolute/libertine (baby)shambles that was my life a year ago. However, we redeemed the place with our show--turnsout, Luxembourgish people are shy, and so are we...so it was a bit of an awkward first meeting, but sweet nonetheless. I feel bad, but Jon & I felt beat to shit by the weird night and hard travel, so we played a little more compact set, and are planning on sleeping a bit longer (and better) tonight. Love KS Luxembourg 4.20.2008 STOCKHOLM, 4/13 The hotel in Stavanger was so comfortable, that I slept right thru my alarm, and had to hurry to get ready—I kept our driver waiting while I shoveled down some breakfast. Anyway, we had plenty of time. We checked in, and flew to Oslo, and I had time there to check in for our next flight, have lunch, check email, and pick up a new book—one of my favorite activities. I chose carefully, literally (ahahaha) consulting every single English-language title at the main bookstore in OSL. I settled for Pynchon’s faux-18th-century travelogue/tall tale Mason and Dixon. We flew to Stockholm; our flight had been delayed by almost an hour and had switched gates about 5 times, so we headed straight to the venue. The Sodra Teatern is a lovely establishment, crowning a prominent hill in Stockholm’s trendy Sodermalm neighborhood. The elegant and stately structure has 4 venues inside—the main theatre, a mini-opera house where Jon & I held court for 3 hours in 2000; the Kagelbanen (bowling alley), where Big Star played in 2006; there’s a small bar that has live music; and the Cafeteatern, the other end of the former bowling alley, which is more or less a mirror image of the Kagelbanen, but with a tinier stage. We set up, and soon found that Jon’s amp wasn’t working well. They were going to get another one, but not during soundcheck, so we struggled thru and then walked to the hotel. I pretty much turned around and walked back, wanting to spend some time burning advance copies of the Disciplines’ album. Presales were strong, but in fact the venue was truly packed when we went on, and we slid into a simply flawless performance—I can say that objectively, that from any angle I would want to analyze this show from—Jon’s and my level of comfort, number of mistakes made, audience reaction, audience respectful silence, sound quality—I can find not one single detraction from rating this show absolutely note-perfect. In fact, we went on to do extra encores, and just generally surprised ourselves with how well we were received and how effortlessly we relaxed into rising to the occasion. I saw friends old and new there—including my dear old friend Melinda, from the Pusjkins (band I produced in 1997). She’s plenty pregnant, so I was impressed she had the energy to stand and watch our two-hour show! GOTHENBURG, 4/14 Another pleasant surprise, really—in the Pusterviksbaren, the second floor music venue that is attached to a larger theatre (which is only used for the dramatic arts, as far as I know). This venue has seen Posies shows in 1998 & 2000; KS solo shows in 2001 and 2004. I would say we know it well, except that now the stage has been moved to a logical part of the room, i.e., the closest end of the room to the backstage, and the stage is now a conventional rectangle shape, not the odd inverted triangle cutting across a corner of the room, making the audience choose which projected ray they want to align themselves with. We all remarked how the now-sensible setup meant that it wasn’t quite as funky/fun as the old days—but by showtime that seemed to matter not at all. Another decently full house (and this on a Monday, no less), and another reception full of enthusiasm. And more old friends—Kent from Sator, the ageless wonder that he is, slowly and steadily decimated our beers. After the show I had the chance to watch Iraq in Fragments, James Longley’s documentary made while living among Iraqis for two years, before Iraq was too dangerous for an American to travel freely. The film is a result of his extraordinary patience as a filmmaker: he worked his way into the local populations—including a Kurdish agricultural/brickmaking family, and the h.q. of the followers of Moktada al-Sadr—and became as invisible as you could imagine an American with a video camera could be; the result is that you truly feel as immersed as he would have been in the moments depicted—which could be someone telling you about their thoughts and dreams, or it could simply be images of the chaotic streets, or perhaps just roiling smoke erupting from a brick kiln. It’s life like we see it—our eyes jump from place to place, and rest upon the daily activities of men and women, and occasionally we focus on a conversation—one already in progress, or one we instigated. It’s fascinating, and, as you might expect, harrowing, depressing, and in my mind, suggested a conclusion then that has since been proven, but is still true now: the worst is yet to come. MALMO, 4/15 Another oft-frequented by Posies venue—this was our 6th show at the KulturBolaget (known to all as KB Halle). The golden rule of tour: the nicer the hotel, the shorter the stay. I remember the one day off I had with REM where Dominique could come visit, after a string of 9-star hotels with enormous green marble bathtubs and such, was spent in Antwerp in what barely passed as a moldy Holiday Inn. Smelling of paint. Here, with a 6.20 lobby call looming, we checked into the Radisson SAS, and I had a huge room, with functioning wifi, a full length tub, and bed that surely warranted its own post code. I took a good look, as I wasn’t going to have much time to linger over this particular oasis. Soon, we were heading to the venue, itself being rather like a bowling alley in size, shape and vibe. As usual, we rearranged the setup that awaited us to get us closer to the audience, and then knocked off a quick soundcheck. Dinner was immediately served afterwards, and following that I went for a stroll around the neighborhood, taking a café, reading home décor and design magazines. KB’s a big place, and this show was oddly underpopulated this night—our 2005 show here was among the best-attended shows of the tour. Still, we played extremely well, and, I believe, warranted two encores. Magnus Tingsek was in attendance, and we would have loved to have his local guidance as we sampled the local alehouses, but, alas, we had an early morning departure, and I can’t afford the slightest hint of grog-gy feeling when I have to get us from points A to points B. I was up at 5.45, making tea and making sure my bags were as compact as possible, and we were in a cab at 6.20—before breakfast in the hotel was even laid out. We were deposited on the steps of the train station, and I eventually figured out how to buy a ticket to Copenhagen airport and which track it was leaving on—in five minutes. We hustled, and got on the train. Note to Swedish national rail: not only is your website heard to navigate, but why not have a ‘Copenhagen Airport’ button for one stop shopping? There are all kinds of confusing buttons, and in one route, you’ll see ‘Kastrup’ nestled amongst the names of stops along the way. Well, we made it, anyway—it’s just that our train didn’t. At some point, we came to a halt on the tracks. Our train was fine—but another train had broken down, and we were effectively blocked from accessing the airport. Oh, sh*t. The minutes, which would normally be crawling in this situation, got up and ran—our flight time was getting closer and closer. A solution was enacted—we would bypass the airport, and go to another stop, where a train would pick us up and take us back the other direction a short bit, and we would make it to the airport. The only bummer in this solution is that Jon & I travel with slightly more objects than we have arms, but, we managed. The train that arrived to rescue us all was unfortunately half the size of the train we originally boarded, so far too many people were crammed on, SRO front to back (which makes moving luggage and guitars even more awkward). Incredibly, we arrived at CPH at 7.35, exactly one hour before our flight was due to take off. The check-in didn’t take too long, the airline didn’t charge us too much for our bulging suitcases, and we headed off to…an absolutely huge security line. I mean, there were easily 500-1000 people, in two converging lines 4 wide, being sorted to the various metal detectors. It was 8, and soon 8.15. 8.35 was wheels up—so finally I asked if we could jump the queue, and we did just that…at last, running the 200 meters to the gate, having thrown belts and wallets into whatever bag we had with us…only to find that we didn’t even start boarding until 5 minutes after the flight was supposed to have left. Ah ha… So, breakfast in Sweden (there was an ‘early bird’ spread in the bar when we left); plane caught in Denmark; lunch in Germany; dinner in Austria, and ended the night in Hungary. Lunch in Germany was expensive--€13 for two pieces of bread with some salmon on top, €4 for a double espresso—but it was good to be back in the Eurozone again, and to have some Euros in pocket to spend there. In Vienna, we cabbed into an address near the Westbahnhof, a café colled Ronahi, recommended by our host in Wien, Phil. He came and met us, in fact—we passed the afternoon/early evening dining, having wine/café (the French speedball), checking emails, shooting the proverbial Scheiße. Phil was very kind to come and hang out with us, playing the host even tho’ we weren’t actually staying with him until 3 days later. He walked us to the station, helping us lug the gear, and got us to the correct platform for our train to Novi Sad. You might recall, it was Phil who helped me buy the tickets, which was done in German on the phone to the OBB, and then helped me pick them up at the Sudbhf, all when I was in town to play his birthday party in March. The wagon-lits was at the end of the train, and thus, the first car we encountered on the platform. We found our compartment, and found it to be great—like a little Japanese hotel room! A bunk for each of us, and plenty of space to arrange the grear. Jon had bought a bottle of wine—no need to say that, after two airplanes, the stress of our morning travel, a belly full of adana kebab and a glass of wine, and the gently shuddering train, I was asleep ten minutes after we left. My head was propped up on a pillow, and there was a large window at my feet, so I watched the beautiful purples and greens of the verdant dusk—we hadn’t seen any leaves during our time in Scandinavia, so Austria was looking tropical by comparison—rolling by, adding to the hypnosis, and ultimately knocking me out cold. We were woken up by the conductor at about 2 for a passport check on the Hungarian border, and then at 5 in advance of our arrival in Novi Sad. Jon & I stumbled around and hauled our stuff to the door, for a quick departure—although, staying on til Bucharest didn’t sound like an altogether disagreeable plan B. NOVI SAD, 4/17 We hopped off the train, the predawn temperature was much warmer than we were accustomed to, so we were feeling a bit sweaty as we hauled our stuff into the main hall of Novi Sad’s station. After a short wait, Igor, one of the organizers of our show, arrived, bless him, and we crammed into his little car, and he drove us to the hotel—Jon had asked about getting two separate rooms, after such a brutal travel—the modest budget of the show meant that they were able to offer us a double room for our stay—Jon offered to pay the difference. As it turns out, a huge agricultural convention had booked up all the rooms in town. No worries, we said. But, when we arrived at the hotel, only one room had been vacated and cleaned at this hour—and it was the ‘apartment’, which had two separate bedrooms, and a large common room, plus a second level with a twin bedroom. It was up three flights of stairs, but, it was quiet, and very comfortable. Perfect—as Jon called it, it was the reward for our travel karma. We went back to bed and recovered from the journey. Sometime after midday, I got up and cleaned myself up. I sent a text to Misha, the other organizer of the show, who came and met me at the hotel. My first request, having missed breakfast, and thus having gone 18 hours without food, was for a burek, the filo dough pastries that come filled with meat or sour cheese, and happen to be among the greasiest, and tastiest, things on earth. This accomplished, we headed out in Misha’s car for a short drive into the next small town, passing thru Novi Sad’s old city on the other side of the Danube, which lives in the shadow of the massive fortress and its miles of earthworks and ramparts. In ten minutes we were in Sremski Karlovci, a pleasant town, too big to be called a village. We paid a visit to an old family friend of Misha’s, one Radmilo Dimitrvijevic, known as ‘Rosha’. He is, like many people in this town, a garagiste, buying grapes from the Frushka Gora vineyards, and fermenting various kinds of wine, much of it from a pinot grigiot-like grape called neoplanta. Red is made as well. The white is made into a dessert wine as well as a dry table wine; and via various family recipes the white is transformed into a red concoction called ‘bermet’, which appears to utilize cloves, thyme, and some two dozen other herbs to make a spicy red mixture, bearing a direct similarity, with the use of cloves, to mulled wine as you might find it in Germany, e.g., but…they don’t seem to add sugar, or very much of it. It’s more intense and less obvious than gluhwein. Rosha was happy to let us taste a few different things, and I observed all the small details, trying to ‘taste’ this tranquil and unexpected moment of slow living, and make notes for its recollection later. I watched him as he told stories to my friends, he had an everyday kind of look to him—his hair had thinned to a sparse white fuzz on top, his face was vital and energetic, too youthful to look like a granddad, but, he had all the ease and authority of a man who has been practicing his skills for decades. He was jovial, but not giggly. As I watched, his head was framed against a green door, that lead to one of the rooms in their small compound that contained tanks or barrels. Wine is sold in corked bottles or in two liter plastic ones. The place itself has a patina of exposure to the elements, to the point of fusing with them somewhat—a tree grows in the compound, moss eats into the stones that make up the driveway, spiders do their business amongst our feet. The scene felt timeless, but truly—meaning, when Rosha made a quick call on his cell phone, it wasn’t breaking the mood. Very kindly Misha gave me a bottle of bermet, which, due to traveling conditions, I knew I would have to enjoy that evening. We stopped by Misha’s café, Graffiti, which I had visited on my first trip to Novi Sad, and treated me to a macchiato. We stopped by Misha’s art gallery, next to the café, where he was showing lithographs from the late 60s, by art professor Milan Stanojev. Misha is himself a visual artist, and shows artists from around the world at his space—but this being a homegrown product was especially interesting. The colorful lithographs show scenes of daily life in 1960s Yugoslavia, but not without a subtext of commentary on class difference under the Tito regime (party members vs. non party members), the explosion of ideas and imagery of the 1960s, etc. There is a portrait of Tito himself, looking rotund and Mao-like, his hand curled into a fist, as photographers clamor around him. The artist was forced to chose between never displaying his work publicly or going to jail, after his first and only exhibition at that time. Dinner was had in a small family run place on a leafy street that hardly looked like it would support restaurants or other businesses. I had a goulash of tender veal—plus the veal soup that was required tasting as a starter. By dinner’s end I was a bit bent over in trying to carry my bursting stomach, but another café at Misha’s helped, and by soundcheck I was feeling quite good. CK13, the Black House, is an alternative cultural center, usually putting on punk shows, but open to anything. Anti-capitalist posters adorn almost every wall. I hoped they were OK with us selling CDs! The place was completely empty at 9, still so at 9.30, but by 10.30 the tiny room was full with about 75 attendees. Just before we went on, a local TV news presenter came in and asked about interviewing the band. She was tall, blonde, and in midriff-baring costume. When she found out we weren’t a local band, and there would have to be English translation involved, she couldn’t be bothered. This being our first and only Serbian show, folks came from Belgrade and other places further afield, and the reception was definitely extremely warm, from the get go; one guy in particular sang along with almost every word. In the audience this night was young guy, who looked a bit like an unshaven version of Kip, the engineer I often work with in Seattle. Turns out he was the very guy that wrote to the Posies from Novi Sad, more than 15 years ago. I had sent him records and a Tshirt, which he wore to the show. In a way, our show was for him—he had been unable to attend my solo show last year, but he was there in the front tonight, and it was great to bring such a thing full circle. ZAGREB, 4/18 Oh, the morning came all too soon. They always do, at this point on the tour. I was up at 7.45 and by 8.30 was winding my way thru the passageways in the center of Novi Sad towards a bakery that supposedly had the finest bureks in town. They are almost always sold out by the time place closes at 10am. For a Euro or two I came away with one meat and one cheese burek, since I was told that our bus travel to Zagreb might not involve a food stop. In fact, it did, but I’m glad we had the bureks…read on. Igor took us to the bus station, which is really an extension of the train station, and we entered the boarding area. We were early, so we watched buses pulling into the other bays, loading up, and heading out. Some were city buses on local routes, others were heading to Macedonia, Slovenia. Each arriving vehicle brought speculation that we might be boarding such luxury liners as were arriving, but it was not to be…our bus was the one that drew ‘oh no’s when it pulled into the station—it was the short bus! A stunted creature, it was booked solid. After placing suitcases and guitars below, we took our personal items and Jon & I were crammed into tiny seats for our 6-hour passage to Zagreb. By the time we reached the border and underwent our formalities, I already had to pee—I asked about a ‘toilet stop’ and the driver indicated thirty minutes by flashing his open hands three times. But, noon arrived and Jon & I were starving. Enter the bureks, which we managed to divide and eat, using our tray tables, managing to avoid the copious amounts of oil that had soaked the wrapping paper completely. Shortly after our repast, we pulled into a gas station that had a small café, selling substandard bureks and the usual gas station style factory made sandwiches. Plus, it was in Croatia, and we had dinars. Maybe they would have taken them, but we had no need to find out. Some ass-cramping hours later, we pulled into Zagreb’s bus station. Our promoter arrived on his mountain bike, while I was navigating the mall-like interior of the station in search of a bureau de change. He gave us some money to get us to the hotel, and we were taken by a Rolling Stones loving, road rules ignoring cabbie who drove 80 miles an hour in full charge towards stopped traffic, swerving into the least populated lanes at the last minute to avoid slowing—all while looking over his shoulder at us and telling us about his brother in Chicago. Some tense moments later we arrived at the Hotel Laguna, the only hotel I’ve stayed at in Zagreb, and we checked in—and in about 15 minutes, we were leaving again, picked up by a guy from the student radio who is a dead ringer for The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. We climbed up the stairs to the radio station, with borrowed acoustic guitars, and upon entering the studio found a TV crew poking its apparatus at us—they were doing a report on the student radio itself, we in a sense were just extras. They stayed in the room with us thru our interview and performances. After that, we headed to the Student Center Theater, where I had a wonderful solo concert last year. You might recall it's a circular room painted deepest black, built alongside another circular theater, a gift from the government of France sometime in the 20th century, that is on the point of collapse. Soundcheck completed, I had a glass of wine and we sat in the courtyard, watching a hapless male turtle dove trying to present his mate with one last twig to complete the nest they had made on a light fixture. In an endless loop, he selected a twig, approached the nest, which seemed way too small to accommodate anything other than the female, let alone any of her eggs, found no purchase on which to land, then waited on a beam nearby, looking at the situation, then flew up on the roof nearby, dropped his twig, descended, reshaped it a bit, tried again. No luck. Another twig sought, and repeat the above sequence. They said he had been at it for days. Again, at say half an hour before showtime, the place was nearly empty. The adjacent bar, which is solely staffed by a friendly 50-something guy, same as my last two visits, had a dozen or so people in it, some of which were theatergoers in for the play in the other hall. But, when we went on, the room was full, perhaps 100 in attendance. At first it seemed like nobody knew exactly who we were, and were there out of curiosity. But, as we warmed up, the requests started coming, and in fact, by the end of the night, we weren’t allowed to go—three encores later, and we were eating into any hope of getting some sleep before another brutal early morning departure. As it was, we stayed for a drink or two and got back to the hotel around 1. And, we were up at 5.45. Argh. VIENNA, 4/19 We had been given a choice by our promoter in Zagreb as to which train we wanted to be on—the 7.30 direct train, or the 9.30 train with two changes. With the amount of stuff we had along with us, the multi change train seemed like the greater of two hassles. At 6.45 we loaded our stuff into a cab, and headed to the train station, and found to our delight that our train was on ‘Platform 5 track 1’ which doesn’t make sense to me. Why not just call each side of a platform a number that corresponds to the track number, like everywhere else does? We were too tired to sort thru that logic, but we found our compartment, and according to the little slips clipped to the wall outside, we had it all to ourselves, which proved to be true for 80% of the way. We were so tired that we couldn’t sleep…you’d have to be a hardcore traveler to understand this concept, but trust me, it’s real. And thank god—as this was one of the most scenic train journeys I’ve been on. The show started with a torrential downpour, that commenced immediately after we boarded (a little luck on our side there). Lightning slashed the sky in every direction, but in an hour or so, we were looking at the little farms in the valleys coming to life. This wasn’t the boring agribusiness landscape like you find in central Germany or Iowa—these Croatian and Slovenian hills were little Alpine paradises, complete with frolicking goat kids, tidy chalets, outrageously vibrant cherry blossoms, and spacious orchards. It hardly seemed like any agriculture was going on at all, except that which happened by the default fecundity of the land itself. The train had a bona fide dining car, in which we were able to spend the last of our Kuna, on excellent coffee, a cheese and prosciutto platter, a watery (but not altogether unpleasant) Croatian red, and warm apple cake. I read Pynchon and stretched out for hour-long naps. We had our passports examined, and were given multiple opportunities to confess to customs violations, which we chose not to accept. Eventually, in Austria, the train started to take on more passengers, and also increased in speed dramatically. We had stopped at every little hamlet along the way in the Balkans, but in Austria we stopped at just the border, then Graz, then Wiener Neustadt, and then Wien itself. OK, maybe one suburb as well. We had a new companion with each stop in Austria, trading them out at each next station. There was a woman, who had lived in Vancouver, and her dog; a shy guy with one crutch; a friendly man with his chatty daughter on his lap. We arrived and threw our stuff on some carts, always a rarity at train stations, and used the moving belt ramps, the latter of which I basically skied down, hoping Jon would be off the ramp before I skidded into him. We had a short and amusing cab ride to Phil’s place, and it wasn’t long before Stephan and Philipp from A Life A Song A Cigarette were picking us up in a tiny car, already loaded up with the two guitar amps they were lending us for the evening! The boys were looking a little green, evidently the open bar at the Amadeus music awards was still with them, more than twelve hours later. I basically had to sit in Stephan’s lap, with my guitar clamping us down like a rollercoaster safety bar, on the way to the Flex. The Flex is a complex of metal shacks on the quai of the Donaukanal, you might remember my solo show in the café two years ago for Eva Umbauer’s birthday, and a handful of you might recall Jon & my show there in 2000. Not likely, tho’. We set up our gear, wolfed down the massive spread, and had a quick and efficient soundcheck. Eva appeared, and she, the ALASAC guys and I went walking in the quiet sunny evening, and had a ‘café mélange’, which is the closest thing you can get to a macchiato in a proper Austrian café (in Austria a macchiato ends up being more like what we would call a cappuccino). Presales for this show were a bit slow, I was surprised, since my solo shows have done so well here, but it seems I’ve cultivated a new audience that has not much to do with my Posie past. There were quite a few people that I spoke with after the show that were there because they had been to my shows, and were essentially novices to the Posies material. Flex can hold 500 people, so it seemed pretty empty when we went on, but people filtered in from the corners, and from sunning themselves by the canal, and actually, the crowd looked pretty health by the end of the first song. This show was one of my favorites; my expectations had been low, and it turned into a real sleeper—two encores, excellent sound and a great light show—including slowly swirling images coordinated across a bank of old TVs. Again, it’s these relaxed shows that I love the best, where playing with Jon feels like putting on your favorite old leather jacket, and effort is minimal for maximum effect. And for sure people loved it. We had great praise after the show from Daniel from Nada Surf, who was home between tours. After the show, Phil and his friends, Jon & I hopped the underground home to his place. He had pulled some movies to watch from his collection of some 2,000 DVDS, opened some wine and filled an air mattress for one of us to crash on. That was the party killer—after I called Dom to wish her a happy birthday at the stroke of midnight, I had half a glass of wine and was out like a light. I woke up when my alarm went off at 3.30, and showered, and, bless him, Phil was there to see us off, into the cab that he ordered for us at 4.30 to take us to VIE. On the flight, I dreamt as if I was awake and on the flight, but sitting with old girlfriends, famous people. We arrived, claimed luggage and soon Mathijs from the Gasoline Brothers, our support band and hosts for the next few shows, picked us up, and drove us to Utrecht—we were laughing, as for once we * didn’t * have an 8 hour drive to the next show. We arrived at Roel from the GB’s place, to find comfortable couches, functioning internet, and Lars Von Trier DVDs. A piano. Recording equipment! Now commencing: the easy days. Love KS Utrecht, NETHERLANDS 4.12.2008 NEW KEN STRINGFELLOW RECORD! THE SELLOUT COVERS EP! READ ON HERE. I couldn't sleep. I woke up at 5; eyes not shutting again, fully alert. So, I was able to take my time as I prepared to depart. By the time I headed down to my taxi, Aden and Dom were still asleep. I was at the airport early, which ended up being useful--not just in the sense I wasn't in a hurry, but I needed room to maneuver--when they sent me to put my bag on the odd size belt, there was no one there to receive it. I waited. I went to the 'Paul' just a few yards away and had my croissant and cafe. I waited some more. Finally, I went back to the Norwegian air check in, and told then to send somebody. In the 5 minutes my guitar was abandoned at the odd size belt, it was surrounded by soldiers, on the possibility it was a suspicious device with reason to arouse it. When I jogged back with the attendant from Norwegian, the soldiers were laughing. But, another 5 minutes and it would have been shitcanned. I hit the ground running in Oslo--straight up to Tiger of Sweden to get some shoes, and then to the Disciplines' studio to do a guitar overdub with Bjorn. And, then, a photo shoot in our studio. It was relentless, and I was hungry. What good fortune had I, as at about 7.15 that evening, I was picked up by a taxi and taken to the home of Jens, the chef from the very fine Arakataka restaurant in Oslo; this where my friend Matthias is sommelier. Jens had offered to cook for us at his flat, and it was wonderful. He seared some king crab, among many other delicacies. And, naturally, wine was paired with every bite. And, naturally, after a full on day of work, having been up since 5, I fell asleep right after the cheese. A happy man, however. Jens let me watch over his shoulder, and it was fantastic to see how simple the actions were, but they were guided by experience, so his timing was perfect. OSLO, 4/8 I was hurting a bit--having mixed red, white, sparkling and sweet wines over the course of the dinner. Fair enough--a worthy cause! Jon & I spent the morning doing TV and newspaper interviews. I had a meeting with the Disciplines' label, and with the folks at Tiger of Sweden. PLUS we had a show. And what a show it was--oh, except, also, I had an instore performance at the record store, Big Dipper, that occupies part of the same building as John Dee, the venue we were playing that night. At first, when I walked in the door, it looked like a tumbleweed racetrack. But, people filed in and I played, well, covers--it was promotion for my covers EP after all! John Dee was full of friends that night--my booking agents, UK and Norway; some of my Revolver Bar crew; some of my flatmates from the recording period in December/January. There were a lot of people at this show, actually, and they were heavily into it; it was inspiring! I think we were held up for at least a couple of encores...and lots of merch sales afterwards! TRONDHEIM, 4/9 Early train--that hurt, and for some reason, the train didn't seem as luxurious as when we did the same trip in 2005. It was more crowded, more threadbare...it seemed to stop every 2 minutes along the way. We arrived in Trondheim, day two of the tour, already a bit tired. And, we suffered only from the best hospitality--the promoter here gave us a table at the excellent Credo restaurant (which also has shows in its upstairs bar--Jon has played here). Once again, the wine and delicious food, prepared with great care and skill, was applied and took its customary toll. We weren't drunk per se when we played, but we were a bit slow on the uptake...anyway, the point of this show was that we had switched venues not long before, having been booked originally at a club that was *already* booked. So, in the resulting confusion, not as many people made it to our show as might normally. No harm done. We played just fine, but, Oslo was, technically, better. TROMSO, 4/10 A beautiful flight. Flawless skies gave us an uninterrupted view of the whimsical meringue that is the landscape of extreme northwestern Norway. On the way up, the plane stopped in Bodo (blogger doesn't recognize non-American letters like the 'o' with a slash thru it that occurs frequently in Norwegian, e.g.) to drop off and take on passengers. Bodo was established originally as an airbase in the Second World War, and is still one today. On this day, Norwegian jets were on maneuver, circling the airfield--a free show for us. We arrived to Tromso, and had some down time--I went book shopping, and took in some sun (despite the temperature around 0 deg. C.). We walked, taking care not to slip on the still-frozen streets, to Driv, which is an old fish processing house in the harbor. Remarkably, this old wooden barn of certainly more than a century in age doesn't smell like fish in the least! It's just a nice sounding, rattly old music hall, with several levels and stages, but all built from huge and ancient wooden beams. Our show here was great--turnout was decent, boosted by an enormous article in the local press. There was the requisite really drunk guy, who, when I was saying goodnight, suddenly tackled and dove on one of his friends. haha! I got the hell out. The big revelation of the day was that we received word from Richard Kern that we could use his photo...unwittingly placed on the Disciplines' album cover by our designer. There's the photo of a horse that was clipped from an issue of Vice, and we all loved it as part of the cover collage. So, when we found it was Richard Kern's, we all congratulated ourselves on our good taste, and then the task fell to me to investigate it. Luckily, we have a mutual friend in Lydia Lunch, and he liked the music. I mean, the *other* big revelation. It seems the Disciplines will be supporting R.E.M. for their stadium shows in Scandinavia in September! Read on. BERGEN, 4/11 We flew on to Bergen, and were soon at soundcheck in familiar surroundings--I've played at the Garage on 3 previous visits. There's Trygve, the Posies' promoter in Norway, and Dennis, the manager of the venue, who is a kind of RiffRaff biker guy, really funny and enthusiastic. So, it was old home week. And Bjorn from the Disciplines is a Bergen-ite, so he was at soundcheck as well. After s.c., Bjorn and I joined the Lerche family at their favorite table, at a nice eatery off the beaten path in Bergen (Ok, the whole town is off the beaten path, technically. We did experience our first Bergen traffic jam in on the way from the airport, so I guess the place is growing). Sondre Lerche and his clan of brothers and sisters--Jon & I know his sister Bianca--were dining, and Bjorn and I joined them and two more friends. One of the friends, fully Norwegian, related a story about being on a date in New York with an American female, and trying to say a toast, along the lines of 'Bottoms Up'...but he ended up saying 'Up yours' instead...and immediately knew that couldn't be right. No need to say, 'Up yours' became the theme of the night! The Bergen show was quite busy, and tons of people were singing along with almost every song...no complaints from me! Some girls that kind of looked like Lita Ford hogged the front row, but, what the hey. They were into it, so, I can't really criticize. STAVANGER, 4/12 Jon & I dragged our carcasses down to the harbor and got on what I can only described as the 'Greyhound of the Norwegian coast', a small ferry boat heading in the general direction of Stavanger. Turns out we had to change at about the half way point, so, we had to be on our toes even if we desperately wanted to sleep more. Nobody seemed interested in my E-ticket receipt. I kept trying to show it at every embark-/disembark -ation, and no one was interested. We changed boats, on to a bigger, catamaran ferry for the final leg. Again, my offer to show the ticket were brushed off. So, as we came into the harbor, I tossed the ticket receipt, thinking the journey was basically over. And, basically, it was. Except, on the way off, they were checking tickets all of a sudden. No problem--I went to retrieve the receipt from the wastebasket near where I had been stretched out on a banquette. Uh, the wastebaskets had been emptied already. Well, surely they'd understand--but, as it turns out, they didn't. The ferry employee told me I would simply have to locate the ticket. How? Well, there were two huge, black garbage bags by the door. I said...'you know what this means, right?' and he wouldn't relent, so I dumped the contents of the bags on the deck. And began to look for the ticket. I was told the boat wasn't leaving for two hours, so I had plenty of time. Why, thanks! I found *another* ticket, but not ours. And then, the guy actually found the info I threw away--but in another part of the ship! So, we were free to go--and then he told us he could have looked up the res. online. Hmm....so you *wanted** to humiliate us. Thanks! At least the show was fantastic! Quite a bit better turnout than the last Posies show in Stavanger...people were into it too. We actually did a *second* encore, here, I felt like it was the least I could do. Jon & I copped a buzz from the Burgundy provided backstage, and headed back to enjoy the high speed net and the big bed in each of our rooms. These things matter... Love KS Stavanger, NORWAY 4.06.2008 AMBITIONS, THWARTED I've added some new photos to the photos section, here. I was mostly defeated in my ambitions towards concert-going this week—disasters all around. There was the aborted attempt at seeing DJ Shadow last weekend (evidently, during soundcheck, a tech up in the rigging dislodged/dropped a metal object that hit DJ Shadow in the head and sent him to hospital!) and on Friday, I left the house at midnight to head up to Le Bataclan for a clubbing night, the 10th Anniversary Party for Ninja Tunes, featuring among other DJs, Herbaliser. I had an advance ticket, but found that did me little good—the line, when I arrived at 12.20, had yet to start moving, and was a thousand people long, all the way down to the end of the block. After 20 minutes we had moved about 20 feet. The line included a mix of ticket holders and hopefuls, and I thought…is this * really * worth it? Answer: no. So, I sold my ticket to someone possessing more patience for long lines than me, and walked home. Dom & I did take in the early set of Benny Green at the Duc des Lombards, a once musty jazz café that’s been updated to a kind of high tech jazz ‘experience’ (their own words), in the center of Paris. What that translates to is that there are video screens in every corner, giving you multiple perspectives of the action onstage. The crowd was fairly small for this show, about 30 or so people, which meant we had a great view of the keyboard as Mr. Green (who looks a bit like the singer of I Am Kloot, were he more sartorially attuned and attending AA meetings), who is incredibly deft—his best moments are parallel runs in octaves, shockingly precise and swift. The PA is an invisible partner in the act, barely amplifying the sound—the trio is allowed to play at the dynamic level of their own choosing, which is refreshing, esp. if you more typically find yourself in a rock club on a given night. The highlight of my week was an ultra jetset outing to London midweek—I rose predawn and met Mateo at Gare Du Nord, boarding the Eurostar for a 7.45am crossing. We were heading to London to master his album, which I produced/engineered/mixed between last summer and the beginning of this year, at Abbey Road studios. Abbey Road! We installed ourself in one of Abbey Road’s 3 mastering suites with engineer Sean Magee. Sean’s worked on records by Placebo, Pink Floyd…he knows his stuff, to be sure. I was very impressed by how lo-tech his set up was—just the old program EQs from the famous EMI desks of the 70s; the usual Prism EQ that you find in most mastering houses; and a ½” machine that acted as his main compressor. All our mixes, which were digital files, were printed onto tape, and then loaded into Sadie, the mastering program where everything is assembled. Most of the EQ was done with the EMI EQs/filters, and precise, surgical needs were attended to by the Prism EQ. The monitoring was flawless, and indeed, when you take away the typical low-end reflections/buildup/resonance of, basically every other listening environment—you are left with a much more detailed picture—I heard many things I had never heard before in the mixes (including, despite my best efforts, some phase issues in the overheads—argh!). But overall, the mixes held up and we didn’t have too many issues to address. The EQing was minimal. Sean let me go hands on, and do a bit of EQing as well. In general his manner was incredibly professional and pleasant. We came home with a reference CD each, that was very close to being perfect (there are always small changes to be made)—a few level matching issues, and two of the spacings will change—but the musicality of the songs overall was beyond reproach. While we were working, the reception called and said that I had two visitors, and that they were on their way up (Abbey Road looks like a medium-sized house from the front, but it's a huge complex that has over 100 employees—unheard of for a studio facility)—a journey that would take them a few minutes to complete…but they never showed up. I was scratching my head, as I hadn’t told any of my London friends I was in town—since I would be working the whole time, and going back in the evening. Was it a repeat of the famous ‘Gramercy Hotel’ incident of 1991, when the desk clerk patched a London Times interview for ‘Mr. Stringfellow’ to my hotel room at 7.30am, much to my surprise—we had gotten offstage at CBGB four drunken hours earlier—and I found myself fielding questions on my (bankrupt) financial status. Turns out, the journalist was under the impression she was being patched through to Peter Stringfellow, nightclub owner. To this day I have never been able to solve the mystery—did we happen to be staying at the same hotel? Were all the hotels in NYC called in search of the elusive Kenny Rogers lookalike? So, I was contemplating the new mystery, and about an hour later it was solved—Charlie Francis came through the door! In tow was Corin Ashley, a Bostonian musician who was treating himself to a day in Studio 2 for his birthday. Turns out, Corin had spotted my name where I signed in on the register (an echo of the famous ‘Brubeck’ incident of 1998, when I spotted Dave’s signature on the BBC register, and ended up meeting him, being invited to his show in Croydon, and hitching a ride on his bus back to London, with an hour of great conversation en route). Corin is a Posies fan, and great singer and songwriter himself, I had just been reading about his very good album ‘Songs from the Brill Bedroom’ before my trip to London. Charlie F. has engineered various album sessions and broadcasts for REM, and was part of the ‘Four Croakers’ show at Dingwalls in 2002—where myself, Robyn Hitchcock, Mike Mills, and Scott McCaughey, plus many special guests, had a superb evening of musical cross-pollination. After our work on Mateo’s album was done, we headed down to Studio 2, where many a Beatles, Pink Floyd, Zombies etc. session took place. The control room is situated one floor higher than the floor of the tracking room, but the tracking room is two stories high, you see. Drums and other instruments instantly sound full and musical with the room’s perfectly designed reflections. Corin had me sing on one of the two songs he was working on that day, I busted out a vocal on an immaculate U47—and then we hit the road! I was back in bed by midnight. Incredible! Thanks to Mateo for inviting me. Beyond that it was the usual working on the artwork and mastering of the Disciplines album, lots of phone calls, etc., plus this weekend I’ve been staying close to home to soak as much time with Aden and Dom as possible. Aden was home sick on Thursday, so I spent the entire day with her—then we were also taking care of her best friend from school Colleen, as her parents were both working out of town. That was a major dose of parenthood…exhausting, but I loved it. Tonight we checked out ballroom dancing at Le Balajo. I packed for the upcoming tour(s)—I’ll be gone for over a month, home for one night, and gone for two and half more weeks. This weekend Dom’s folks came up to help me corral the two girls, and to assist with Aden while I’m gone. It’s great to have a home full of one’s tribe, everyone talking at once, kitchen always going full steam. In many ways, these days of a full house have been my happiest so far. They will be missed in the coming weeks. Love KS Paris

The latest release by Ken Stringfellow is a split EP with Spain's Muy Fellini, featuring never-heard-before music incl. Ken's take on Bob Dylan, released by King of Patio records in Spain on Oct 8, 2009. Order it directly from Muy Fellini here www.myspace.com/muyfellini 10" VINYL ONLY!!! Subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date on all things KS! older news : 8/3/2003 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010 03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010 04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010