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
