5.31.2008 THE DiSCiPLiNES ‘SMOKiNG KiLLS’ OUT NOW! CAN BE ORDERED HERE (CD) OR HERE (DOWNLOAD). My night at home was absolutely essential, but it was so short…I arrived to an empty house, too, at about 9.30 Sunday night. The girls had been stuck in a traffic jam leaving Ile de Re, and thus missed their train to Paris, they had to jump on a later one (packed to the rafters, no bar/food service); they arrived well after midnight. We had the usual ritual, giving Aden presents as a way of apology for my absence…proof that she was thought of while I was gone. The nature of the gift doesn’t matter (often I ‘bring back’ Aden something that Dom slips to me, having bought a little toy at the thrift store for a Euro), just the symbol that she is in my thoughts when I am away (it cements the deal that the phone calls home outline). At about 2.30 we all fell asleep, and at 8.45 I was out the door on my way to the airport. Aden was up and seeing me off, blowing me kisses as I headed down to catch my shuttle. My mom had put in a request for some confiture de lait, but I had said that neither myself nor Dom would be able to pull that off under the circumstances…but there was an epicerie gourmande past security by my gate…they had every imaginable delicacy…EXCEPT confuiture de lait. Was a generous receptacle for my good intentions, however. 3 movies, much sleep (longest I’d had in weeks), and a pleasant re-entry to the US in Cincinnati, where they asked me next to nothing and were happy to see me, later, I returned to Seattle after one year’s absence. My mom and stepdad were there to greet me at the airport; they had driven two cars down so as to be able to deliver mine to me, which was exceedingly sweet. We also knew that there wouldn’t be much time to see each other, so we had dinner together (I had also had a 2004 Colgin Cariad sent ahead to their place so we had something exquisite to enjoy over dinner). My friend, and host, Brian, joined us as well to help dispose of the all that spoilt grape juice, very kind! I have to give a special shout out to Brian, who has put me up at his place, with all my late night/early morning comings and goings, and provided great company, loaned me some gear (given me some more), etc. More on our adventures later. It was so strange to drive again. It had been a year for that as well. Luckily, Seattle was familiar enough…well, *sort of*; it’s changed a lot: I call it a ‘steroids’ effect. Every block where some hulking clump of condos can go, one is in progress or already installed. It’s starting to crowd out the pleasant greenery that made Seattle so livable in the first place…this was readily apparent when I visited Portland this week. I got a little lost trying to find my way to the Edgewater Hotel to drop my folks there (I ended up buying a GPS to save myself brain strain). Before I went to Brian’s I found that I had hung on to a garage door opener from my old house (sold two hours ago). I left it on the doorstep of my old house, in the middle of the night. They had replaced the garage door…wonder if they had kept the same unit. Day one in Seattle was a mad dash, retrieving my Posies backline (or what seemed to be left of it) from its home at the former studio of my former bandmate Blake. My Hammond organ was there, too—realizing I was never coming back to Seattle in recent months…there’s a lot I don’t need to storing, waiting for my return like I’m some kind of King Tut who plans to have a serious jam session in the afterlife. Craigslist. Two years ago, I had attempted to sell my piano on Craigslist, and had received not one nibble (I ended up giving it to Blake). I guess people have caught on now—I had something like 40 emails within a couple of hours about the Hammond. I went with the first one who emailed, and thought…”I didn’t ask for enough money”, tho it was plenty for me. I took my tennis racquets in to get restrung; I stocked up on items from the pharmacy unobtainable in France--like EO products lip balm (they didn’t have the lavender one at Whole Foods, tho). I sold tons of CDs. I was refitted for musician's custom earplugs at the Seattle Ear Clinic (recommend). Soon I was loading in to the Jambox, a flyshit encrusted rehearsal cube filled with smaller still rehearsal cubes. I was there to rehearse with Red Jacket Mine, whose album I was to be producing the next week, on which I would be playing keyboards. I set up my enormous digital piano (on a flight case, seems my keyboard stand as well as my Fender Bassman speaker cabinet, didn’t survive the winter in storage and somehow evaporated—rumor has it the Fleet Foxes have a pretty wicked guitar sound now) and my amp, which sounded kinda weird. Cue me pulling out the desiccated furry and flat corpse of an enormous rodent from the back…a quick call was made to amp guru Jeff Stone, who was kind enough to accommodate me, the day before he was leaving on tour with Smashmouth…my amp back up and running, we ran thru 5 songs before I started to get as glazed as the average doughnut. TACOMA, 5/14 First order of biz that day was a teef cleaning at the dentist. Who says I am not the EPITOME of rock & roll. Hell’s Kitchen is the punk club in a not very punk neighborhood in Tacoma. We loaded in and had time to walk around…we discovered many, many great things in the neighborhood: 1) Jim Anderson, who used to run sound at the Crocodile (and would again if it reopened tomorrow), who lives around the corner; 2) an odd little café/florist/handmade jewelry shop/jazz club—good espresso, 3 people watching a jazz trio duly run thru the standards, and an arched doorway lined with tree branches—all the gewgaws hanging everywhere made me say ‘Blair Witch’ but it didn’t seem too dangerous. Number 3) was Slot Car Racing. I’m not sure what this place’s business plan was either, but it sure was a great place to hangout after soundcheck. A huge oval of teenage electric powered wet dream, little plastic race cars are placed, and you grab a squeeze gun from the perimeter and race away. No charge to do so, no refreshments sold, but it occupies a storefront there in the biz district. Hmm. Money laundering? I didn’t ask. I wasn’t the fastest, but I was the winner since I didn’t whiz my car off the track in the tight curves. Good turnout tonight, and we definitely rocked it. We were getting beat into submission (I suffered all week from the most brutal jet lag I have experienced in quite some time) by the truly strange support band—the singer had seemed very excited before the show, and introduced himself as a fan, citing me/us as a big influence on his music…but, as Matt pointed out, ‘this guy’s peaking right now’—his stage banter was somewhere between Jim Morrison and the bit on the Grammy’s where Sinatra starts getting lost in a baseball metaphor and the director cuts to a commercial. All their songs had taped intros and kind of sounded like the soundtrack from a ‘shreds’ video on You Tube. We managed to really deliver, or ‘bring it’ as they say. We were on fire—no rehearsal, etc., and we burned that club to the ground (musically speaking). BREMERTON, 5/15 The problem with going whole hog into the first show is the feeling you have the next day. I felt like I had been strafed with jagged iron bullets. However, we didn’t have much to do, just bust ass and get on a boat. OH, except, I had one of those funny feelings and realized that when my stepdad had kindly detailed my car to show it to a potential buyer, he had cleaned out the glove compartment thoroughly enough to leave me without my registration and proof of insurance! I had just enough time to dash to my insurer’s office—to find they’d moved. FUCK! They left forwarding address, entered it into my GPS (Seattle is getting less and less familiar with its steroidal condo ballooning) and hustled it to the new place, grabbed the insurance, and got to the ferry just in time. On board, we signed a few autographs, and out on the poop deck I met an African American gentleman, in full ‘hood regalia (doo rag, Raiders jersey), urging me to buy his CD and trying to get my number so we could ‘collaborate’. Eventually, I relented and bought a CD. “How much?” “7 bucks, man”. All I had was a twenty. He left his bag and went to get change. I wondered if I was being scammed somehow, but he returned with a tenner and said for the other $3 he’d give me a bootleg DVD, of the film ‘Matador’, which was among the other wares he was hawking. I am so glad I bought this CD! ‘Go Getta’ by Don Pierre, with the classic opening salvo of ‘Seattle Seahawkin’ (Trappin’ in the Sky)’ absolutely rips. I have a weird feeling Don Pierre left some promo CDs lying around that were then re-sold…but it was totally worth the price. After the fresh air, sunshine and expensive real estate gawking on the ferry, we drove off into Bremerton proper, and pulled into the lot of Winterland, a multi-purpose dive bar where toothless locals can gum buffalo wings and wash ‘em down with Old Crow in one half and local rockers trying to keep the flame of culture alight can have a place to get they freak. I can’t say this was the best sounding show; my former Saltine bandmate Scooter’s brother Mike was doing sound…he told at least one of us it was the ‘first time’…er… I was tired, too…during the opening band, I was sitting on a couch, earplugs in, cup of coffee in my hand…sound asleep. I can say that the drive back was the WORST. I was so tired, I was slapping my face to stay awake. When we crossed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, we were the only car in sight paying the toll, which is like $2.50 or something like that. I thought about the lone toll collector, and what a shite, bizarre job that would be. PORTLAND, 5/16 I drove down early to meet with Erin, my website designer. Seems Portland has blossomed, really. It retains (for the moment) the qualities that the building boom has heavily encroached on in Seattle…leafy green neighborhoods, parking. Erin has a lovely little house with rock room downstairs. I used to live in a little house like that in Seattle, in not quite as picturesque a neighborhood—I could never afford that same house in Seattle now. Later (to the soundtrack of ‘Seattle Seahawkin’’) I pulled up to Dante’s in downtown Seattle. A strip club at certain moments, a rock club at others, a pizza joint, a watering hole…it serves many demographics (and certainly these demo’s cross over at various intersections). The stage is no longer designed purely to accommodate pole dancing; it’s been expanded, widened, and is of uniform depth. We slogged thru our soundcheck and then, despite the fact we were cranky and in need of food, Jon & I met up with our old friend Jeremy Wilson, singer of Portland’s beloved Dharma Bums. The Dharma Bums and the Posies go back to our earliest days; our first shows in PDX were together, our first albums came out on the same label on the same day (you could do this sort of thing then) and we had back-to-back record release shows that we played together the same weekend. We toured the West Coast together in 1991. Etc. Jeremy’s good peeps. He now has a video podcast, with a strong set of subscribers, for which he films live in studio performances…and Jon & I did one this evening. 6 songs, a little shorter than others, but we were in that self-digesting-due-to-lack-of-food mode. Still, we were really into it, tearing into the songs with an emotional depth that mere hypoglycemia couldn’t explain. You can watch the podcast, starting on June 2, here. After a very nice meal au terrace, in quite authentically summer-ish heat, Darius & I went to a local hotel to search a late night macchiato (our server at the restaurant was kind enough to give us free alien-green shots on the house, but it came at the price of a lecture against espresso in general and Stumptown roasters in specific when we tried to order something to wake/sober us up). This show was quite good, I *felt* like the sound was really good…certainly the stage was generously laid out and we were in much better shape than the night before…must’ve been a good one, really! I had a pre-emptive heckle versus Juanita, our friend from Seattle who generally has the last laugh at our shows. Afterwards, I found myself with reverse jet lag—I was completely sober, and completely awake. Weighing the prospect of bunking with Jon and driving in the full heat of day, and going straight to soundcheck, versus my own room at Brian’s in Seattle, and zipping up under cover of darkness, it was easy to choose the latter. SEATTLE 5/17 My eyes were burning with fatigue when I got to Brian’s, but it was still worth it. I crashed, and was up in the late morning and we busted out a brutal set of tennis—something about re-beginner’s luck, and being a little tired that helps my game immensely. I served six aces! In the afternoon, we loaded in to Neumo’s. You might recall we played the club’s opening night in 2004. When I landed on Monday, I found that Neumo’s, among other venues in Seattle, was getting the rough treatment from the city. The SFD had decided all of a sudden that the existing capacity was no longer applicable, and cut it down be several hundred. Basically, this would shut down Neumo’s as a business. Now, the timing is interesting: right about now, the opposite end of the block is scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt as—you guessed it—condos, and evidently Seattle’s Mayor Greg Nickels is an investor. Hmmm. This is of course, hearsay…all over town. Anyway, our show had already sold enough tix to be sold out under new capacity, so we were left with one realistic option—play two shows. And this is what we ended up doing. It was a logistical nightmare. However, I have to put these two shows up there as among the best moments I’ve had in this band. The additional juice we had with having all of the former Posies – Arthur Roberts, Mike Musburger, Dave Fox, Joe Skyward, and Brian Young—join us for few songs each set; the pure ‘because it’s there’ runner’s high of doing 4 hours of music in one night; the outstanding audience reaction; plus, my band was on the money, we were all sober and focused. It’s about as good a Posies show as you will ever see. It was also the release party for ‘Beautiful Escape: the Songs of the Posies Revisited’, an astonishing 3 CD set of bands from all over the globe doing Posies songs. I haven’t been able to listen to all 45 tracks yet, but what versions I’ve heard are fantastic, super diverse and imaginative, and recorded with great care and quality. You’ll find a few familiar names on the track list—the Drowners from Sweden, The CosmopolitANTs from Spain, Ian McGlynn from the US, Luis Francesco Arena from France, Even from Australia; plus contributions from myself (A revamped piano/vocal version of ‘Everybody Is A Fucking Liar’), Jon Auer, Joe Skyward, and more. But, the unknowns in the cast often render the biggest, most pleasant surprises. More info here. Also it should be noted that I joined Preston School of Industry for two songs, on keys, which was just another mile in the marathon evening, but a great one, for sure. BELLINGHAM, 5/18 I was up early (again) and soon on the road to my hometown, to spend the afternoon at my mom’s place, having lunch with my family there, going thru my mail, etc. Promptly after lunch I fell asleep for like two hours. I was already suffering from a kind of exhaustion—not just the Posies shows, but also the travel, the last month of touring, plus the 1,000 errands I was running in the hours before the shows—selling gear, buying gear, all the stuff I’ve already mentioned. I was going to try to purge my storage space as much as I could, but one look inside the place, where I could barely open the door for all the stuff inside, nixed this idea—that would take a special trip. We assembled for soundcheck, at the venerable Wild Buffalo in Bellingham. Now with a bigger stage, it’s not only the best but seems to be the only game in town. The Nightlight Lounge (which I wasn’t that thrilled with, from a sound POV) closed its doors during the winter. There’s the University, and with a bit of investigation I imagine I could dig up an all ages venue, I detected whisperings of such in the local free papers. A bit of wisdom from one of the local papers in a review of a live show by Tegan and Sara: “indie rockers proclaim to like cutting edge music but have been shown time and time to gravitate towards the music with the most pop sensibility, provided it is presented with the image of being indie”. So true! All the hipsters like melodic pop as long the singing voice is a little quirky. Give 99% of the population something truly out there and experimental and a-melodic, and most will turn up their noses, supposed elitists included. The writer went on to compare T&S to Avril Lavigne, asking, at the end of the day, what’s the difference, stylistically? T&S are shouting to further and further back in the arena that Avril simply came out broadcasting to from the get go. The main difference to me is that T&S write their own material, and haven’t been as heavily marketed as they *could* be, considering they are on a major. BTW, I am a fan of T&S, and have no hesitation in proclaiming my love for clever melodies, esp., when packaged with lyrics that yield rewards deeper than just good phonetics (the writer above took T&S to task for some laziness/cliché-mongering on their part). The show: a great sleeper. The venue (also expanded considerably since Jon & I played there last year) looked absolutely abandoned when Le Concorde took the stage. Having missed them in Portland, I was thrilled to have them to myself, and I was able to join them to reprise my singing part on “All These Fragile Unions”, from their last EP. Our show brought people out of the woodwork, and the place looked healthy—hell, just Jon & my relatives would have at least filled the first few rows. I felt we delivered, the show was the sleeper of the tour—the least attended, but we didn’t hold back in the least—we gave the full two hours, and gave it with full throttle. After the show we had tons of friends to catch up with, and at last I was loaded up and headed to my folks place to catch a few hours sleep. JUNEAU, 5/19 I woke up and was able to take in the view for a few minutes. My stepdad made me a smoothie, and we had a conference call in the driveway with my cell on speaker—Dom at her office in Paris, and the three of us gathered around my phone. I hightailed it to Brian’s in Seattle, dumped some stuff and grabbed some other stuff, and found a parking space on the roof of the garage at SeaTac. Jon still held elite status on Alaska Airlines (I had it last year, and never had a chance to use it, although they did send me some cookies in the mail), so we could check in chill-style and got no hassles about the gear. The approach to JNU gives one an intimate view of the surrounding hillsides and local buildings…of course, the landing is preceded by an hour of huge white mountains scraping the fuselage. People always associate big-ness as a Texan thing, but Alaska has the most, the biggest, the most voracious, the coldest (and sometimes the hottest)…it was Extreme before Extreme was named. Juneau is, by any standards, esp. by the standards of state capitals, small—the downtown is a huddle of government buildings and a frontier-style façade of saloons; this and the airport are crammed into a small valley/waterway that provides slim footholds for civilization to establish itself. Across ‘The Bridge’ to Douglas, and you find suburbia, Alaskan-style, clinging to mountains at enough less of a degree of pitch as to make settlement sustainable. We were greeted by Matt’s friend ‘King Sh*t of F*ck Mountain’, who was also part of our cadre of promoters. We checked into Juneau’s biggest hotel, a.k.a. one of Juneau’s 3 hotels, this one happening to be the tallest, named the Goldbelt. After settling in, we had a look at the venue, Centennial Hall. Holy crap, it was enormous—a convention center, just for us. There was a local band, the local teenage pop punk sensations, Missed By A Long Shot, supporting and providing backline. Serious backline, stacks and all that. Anyway, it was a full on, major production, and one that we are not really used to for our headlining shows. Not that we told anybody; we acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. And of course, the Posies on their best days are consummate professionals, adapting to the terrain no matter how craggy, lava-covered, or smooth. We had a splendid dinner and very good wine at the Boathouse, the restaurant that was more or less bankrolling our visit, and returned to find the kids already blasting away to an audience of 250 screaming teenagers, and two bemused local law enforcement officers. The band, although one could say they played in a style that was a bit played, certainly were fun and more than competent, and remember, in all things except for open heart surgery, confidence is 99% of the game. I was truly pleased to find that the screaming and the teenagering continued for our set—it’s amazing how different it is to play for all ages than a bar crowd, and what affect that had on our music—we became as frisky as they did. At some point the kids started stripping and throwing their shirts on the stage, so naturally I tossed of my Iggy Pop T-shirt and played most of the set PUSA style. The preceding week of starvation and stress and pure exertion onstage left my body in the perfect condition for such a display…just 6 days later and I would be totally ashamed. Now, here I am in a hair salon in Paris and some band is covering ‘Umbrella’ by Rhianna in a kind of Lemonheads style on the stereo, and I just remembered that MBALS closed their set with a pop punk version of the same. Anyway, the kids of Juneau were totally starved for music, so I felt this show was a win win win. We got to play in the best technical circumstances imaginable; the kids got a gnarly rock show with a band 7 shows warm, i.e. in top form but not burnt out; the venture was prob. an expensive one for our hosts but with $25 tix I guess they came close t making their nut, and the rest can be written off to cultural exchange—in that sense it was totally worthy. After the show, I had intended to sell my Danelectro, unused during all of these shows, to the highest bidder, but when the guitarist for MBALS said, please, all I have is $20—there was no question it was his for about 5% of what I could have gotten for it on Ebay. It was basically a gift, with a little money changing hands so it meant something. After the show we found out where the adults were that night—the local MC battle at the Alaskan Hotel, probl. the most jumping bar in town (remember, this was a Monday, too). I took one look inside and realized I had to be up in a few hours. You know, most people come to a town to play, they build in a little denouement, they commiserate the indulgences of the night with a greasy breakfast the next day, hugs are exchanged, etc. Not this guy. You can be sure that before the last cymbal crash is done bouncing off the walls, I am already stuffed in an economy class seat heading to another gig, usually in the single-digit hours of the morning. No difference here. At 7.40 I took off for Seattle, and by midday was back in rehearsals with Red Jacket Mine. We went thru the songs, making a few alterations, some of them quite profound (adding another chorus to one song, e.g.) and then we loaded in to the Soundhouse, chatting with studio manager Jack Endino, yes, the grunge legend. Guys don’t come much nicer, more committed to the grande bataille than Jack. After we loaded in, this night we began a ritual that we managed to enact each night of the studio project (save for the first night, for reasons explained below)—Brian and I would retire, at about 11 each night, to the Palace Kitchen (we also went here the first night I was in town). There, we would crack a prime bottle from my cellar, which I visited the first morning I was in town and pulled out a dozen choice vintages. Every wine we tasted was a Robert Parker 99 or 100. From esoteric Austrian dessert wines by Alois Kracher to an absolute brain-wasting Abreu Napa cab., we had nothing less than top shelf stuff every night. One night we were so crazed we went back to Brian’s, this was when we were stoned on the Abreu, and opened a Sine Qua Non Syrah that tasted exactly like an old Chateauneuf. Lots of wow factor. Mostly it was us two, occasionally Brian’s g.f. or a Seattle associate joined us but mostly we were greedy bastids and kept it all for ourselves. As for the sessions themselves, I was reunited with my most comfortable audio environment in Seattle, the Soundhouse, and with Kip Beelman, veteran of many a KS session, and a friend I was absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to hang with. Then there’s the band—Red Jacket Mine. These guys were about as well prepared as a band could be—they made my job incredibly easy. They set the parameters—this would be an analog recording, live in the studio. With that in mind, considering we didn’t have a ton of time, just 6 days, and also considering I would be playing keys on some of these live tracks, I enlisted Kip’s help to engineer. I would become a ‘hand’s off’ producer—making judgment and performance calls. I did hit the EQ a bit to make some vocal sounds straight outta ‘Melodie Nelson’. Anyway, with any other band (including my own) I would be gravely worried about such an ambitious concept, but the band was ready—they had sent me demos months before, I made suggestions as to the arrangements and possibilities with the songs, they incorporated the suggestions they found inspiring, sent me updated demos, we winnowed down the song list to 10. Anyway, the recordings turned out incredibly well. I would say we played each song, working on 2 a day, a maximum of 5 times before we achieved a take we loved—none of them were rough, by any means. The band had prepared so well, the takes were good straight outta the gate, so we could pursue nuances beyond the usual level of detail pursued in a live setting. The band members are really great guys, as well; they put up with my insane schedule, my Norwegian TV interview in the middle of one day, my jet lag/need for quadruple iced americanos, etc. I was feeling a bit bad that this project was sandwiched in between so many other activities, but that’s another reason I had Kip there to provide technical structure. After the tracking, I added a few overdubbed bits—guitar, keys, backing vocals; and we had a guest appearance from Ian Moore, doing some absolutely spooky guitar and vocals. After the first night in the studio I headed down to the ultra seedy rock club the Fun House—which didn’t exist when I lived in town, to check out filthy funk legend Blowfly. A 65 year old man in a kind of Mexican wrestler’s outfit, telling us “The ABC’s of Pussy” (A….angry pussy!...B…Britney Spears pussy…C…and so on, up to “Zooooombie puuussssyyyyy”!) and many more jems of wisdom. Fantastic, of course! Suddenly, it was the last night—we tracked the last vocals, moved the last songs to ProTools, did my overdubs…packed my stuff up and I had my last bottle (er, bottles—the RJM boys handed be a Stag’s Leap cab on the way out the door!)—an R.J. Buller rare Muscat. I grabbed what seemed like an hour’s worth of sleep at Brian’s and was up at 5, not 100% sober, either. Brian, bless him, was up to take me to the airport. I had sold my Honda to Jon Auer…leaving my last set of keys with Brian (part of the deal was that I use my car until I left). We crammed all 5 pieces of luggage—plus my computer bag now jammed with TWO laptops, I picked up a MacBook Pro while I was in Seattle. I had new mic pres, new ProTools rig, new mics—the fine folks at Lauten Audio had let me demo mics for the RJM sessions, and loved ‘em so much I had to keep ‘em. The Horizon LDC and Torch SDC’s…just about the best guitar amp mics I have ever come across. Big part of the RJM album sound. Plus my suitcase, full to bursting with presents from my family to Aden, all the beauty and health products I can’t find in France, etc. And my guitar. 5 pieces. I had called ahead to Air Canada, for clearance on getting this stuff on the plane. $550 later, I was on my way. This doesn’t count the $350 I spent shipping 100s of KS CDs and the power supply for my mic pres to myself. All part of the expat game. I settled into my flight to Toronto, and the in-flight movies were so good I didn’t sleep. I spent 5 hours at Toronto’s Pearson airport (YYZ to Rush fans and airport geeks like me and Le ConcORDe). Oddly, the long haul flight to Paris had no personal in-flight entertainment so I did manage to sleep on that one. We landed in Paris at about 9am. Whatever sleep I got, it wasn’t enough. I was walking exactly like a newborn giraffe. I claimed my stuff and headed for customs. I was pleased to find that France had done away with landing cards—huge waste of time, paper and man-hours that they were. I also had the great fortune to push my cart, with boxes stacked higher than my head, thru the customs exit at the exact moment the shift changed. No one wanted to be stuck with me and have to stay a minute longer. By 10.30 I was home, and in the arms of my family—and to the great relief of my daughter, age now 4. It was her birthday. We buried her in presents. I tried to stay up til midnight, my patented beat-the-jetlag rule, but I couldn’t make it, I passed out for a couple of hours that afternoon. The next day I was still tired, and this day we took Aden to Eurodisney. I was doing quite well, getting up, walking to Gare de Lyon, taking the RER to the park, getting us in (Dom’s folks met us there), and going thru the first half of the day’s attractions. It wasn’t too crowded—early in the season, midweek, and looking like rain. I would say the crowd was roughly 30% French, 30% British, 30% Indian, and 10% a mixed bag of Americans and other assorted nationalities. I think it depends on overall crowd capacity versus which tour groups are coming thru that day. Observations: 1) despite the fact that all the attractions, characters, and merchandise are from movies, and despite the fact that any conceivable movie tie-in product is for sale at no less than 25 feet distance from wherever you are in the park, I never saw anyplace that you could buy a DVD of a Disney movie. 2) Anyone there not accompanied by a child is, IMHO, kinda weird. My favorite ride was the last one of the day, a boat ride thru canals of a kind of greatest hits of storybookland…you pass a miniature Emerald City, a miniature gingerbread house from Hansel & Gretel, a miniature snow covered cottage from Peter & the Wolf, all while tooling along at about ¼ mph. There was a little town built around the theme of ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ as visualized in ‘Fantasia’—the demon creature is frozen, emerging from a tower…and up on the next hillside is a perfectly rendered, tiny cemetery. All was going well until we stopped for lunch at the Blue Lagoon restaurant, which straddles the pirates of the Caribbean ride. Dark, humid, and gently pulsing with a mélange of tropical musicks of the world, this completely broke my will to stay awake, and I passed out at the table. Aden punched and kicked me, but to little avail. Finally they got me out in the daylight. I fell asleep again in the Haunted Mansion. I eventually encountered my second wind. Observation 3): despite the fact that we were in France, and wine can be had for cheap, it was Gallo’s Turning Leaf that was offered by the glass in the restaurant. Couldn’t they find a cheaper alternative? It’s not just America-first protectionism—the restaurants also served Nescafe, a Swiss product. I had to scratch my head on that one. We did the Mad Hatter’s Teacup ride—essential, IMHO. There was a laser target ride with a ‘Buzz Lightyear’ theme. Good stuff. Aden danced with Woody from Toy Story as well. That was her highlight. Fair enough. I do believe she was happy with the excursion! I fell asleep again on the RER back to Paris…and then, with no other obligations, slept for 16 hours upon arriving back at the flat. Since arriving home I’ve been digging myself out from a month and a half’s worth of bills, clutter, packages received and packages to send. I’m getting back in my rhythms—back in my neighborhood, back in my bed. With the Disciplines album just out, it’s a little intense of a time to call down time, but, being home, I can pretty much handle whatever is being expected of me. So, to wrap, my thanks to my family for their patience; to Brian for being such a great host and friend in Seattle; and to Red Jacket Mine for allowing me to participate in what I believe will be a great album. And thanks to my readers for checking back after two blog-free Sundays. I’m back on my regular weekly schedule now…I imagine! Also enjoyed upon coming home, the 1905 Perez Barquero Pedro Ximinez. I read about this in the Wine Advocate, and being a huge PX fan, I had to know what a century-old PX would be like. The fine folks at Perez Barquero were very helpful and managed to work with my peeps at Legrand here in Paris to get the oily elixir shipped up to me. I’ve been enjoying it for the past couple of nights as the ultimate nightcap. Forget about calling it a dessert wine…this is liquid gateau, a wine dessert. A rich, brown-black syrup tasting of figs, toffee, caramel…a serious wow factor and certainly more than narcotic enough to ease any pain that ails you…if you can find it, sell your family jewels and jump on this, only 1,000 bottles available. On that warm note, goodnight! Love KS Paris 5.23.2008 I haven't quit blogging. Honestly. I am just too busy to finish my post from last week, and stuff keeps happening that is worth writing about. I hope to catch up on the plane back to Paris next week! Love KS Seattle 5.13.2008 Just arrived in Seattle...have seem a million people I know in just my first few hours here...managed to upload over 30 new (well, a couple fun old ones too) photos of Posies, solo KS, and Disciplines to the photos section. Love KS Seattle 5.11.2008 110% RESILIENCY VIENNA, 5/6 I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting much from this week. I mean, I haven’t really been into performing solo shows this year—I have done just a modest handful (half a dozen before this tour, and always only by request…I never solicit them); my head is really actually into The Disciplines, and I accepted the Posies 20th Anniversary shows as a worthy diversion. But, despite the fact you could say I am touring to promote the release of the Covers EP, really I’m mostly playing songs from my albums, the last of which was released four years ago—an eternity in terms of most records’ lifetimes. It’s a compliment to the strength of the music and the hard-won development of my live presentation that I am still being asked to do these shows. But, tired as I was after my long day of travel from Oslo, I arrived in Vienna with rather low expectations—my 7th solo show in Vienna since the start of 2006. Who could possibly...care? Did I? Not having played a solo show in 2 months (the last one having been in…Vienna!) was I going to be any good? When I landed and claimed my gear, I found there were *two* people picking me up—Klaus, who booked the tour, and Eva from the National Radio. Turns out that Klaus was going to have to wait for a severely delayed Asha Ali and band, they had missed their connection from Sweden. So, Eva had volunteered to be a second driver, bless her. So she shuttled me to the Szene, a nondescript interior in an industrial neighborhood of Vienna not often frequented…except when there’s a show. I got settled in the backstage, and Trouble Over Tokyo’s soundcheck was in progress. TOT is the project of one Toph (long ‘o’, as in ‘toe’), who, due to his popularity in Austria and so far not really elsewhere (I suspect that will change soon), I had assumed was Austrian. Until I ran into him in a bar in London a couple of months ago…and found he is a cheerful (and blond) British lad from Kent. TOT is his bedroom project, I think on the (amazing) album he played/programmed almost all the music. He had been playing shows singing and playing acoustic guitar, accompanied by tracks from his laptop, but now he has put together a live band—he brought his friend Galli from London, who has a hipster beehive (kind of Robert Smith vs. Amy Winehouse) and plays keyboards and sings; he recruited drummer Max, who I knew from when I supported Garish in Salzburg last year—Max is an outstanding drummer, and managed to fuse the drum machine parts of the record and his own feel and beats, seamlessly; bassist Marlene and guitarist Renee, who are a couple, are immensely talented, play in their own band in Austria (voted the best looking band in Austria at one point!) and are both, well, diminutive in stature—but massive in presence. So, we chatted over dinner a bit. I soundchecked and email checked and met Asha Ali and her band when they arrived—Asha, her keyboard player Daniel, and guitarist/harmonica player/vocalist Therese. The venue filled up, I met the A Life A Song A Cigarette guys, and Asha played…I had a ton of email stuff to catch up on and plane tix for Disciplines shows to buy, so I didn’t really get to watch much, but I knew we’d have more opportunities as the week went on. Then I went on, and straight out of the gate I had one of the best shows I’ve had, ever—by far the best show I’ve done this year. My Vienna track record is unbroken. I was able to play in the crowd to some 300 people, get them all to listen, and they went absolutely mad after each song. So good! I sold an entire box of CDs after my set, a good sign of how people were reacting. There is a couple in Vienna who have asked me to play at their wedding this summer, and they were at the show and kind enough to bring me a bottle of very fine wine, which, since there was no way it would survive the upcoming travel, I had no choice but to share with my friends. We sat at picnic tables out back, and had a lovely time. Sort of the same story with TOT, I knew I would see them later. A brilliant night, however—everybody played exceedingly well, and the audience was delightful. SIDE NOTES Asha Ali band profile. Asha is a songwriter from Sweden. She’s ethnically Somali, spent her early childhood in Uganda and Kenya, and is fully culturally Swedish, having lived there since the age of 9. She sings in that pure way that Swedes can do so well, gentle breathy vowels and sweet tone; however, she can also growl and purr in a kind of Billie Holiday way too. She’s incredibly bright and positive. She has big active eyes and is quite thin and delicate looking, but also has great strength. Daniel, the keyboard player has a kind of 50s tough guy look—slicked back hair, tattooed forearms. He is absolutely gentle and is prone to playing Burt Bacharach when he’s warming up. Therese has her own band, Lowood; it’s basically her, singing and playing guitar—also with that pure, sweet tone that Swedes do so well. She harmonizes magnificently with Asha—they sound sometimes like an indie pop Carter Family. Trouble Over Tokyo band profile. Toph is Trouble Over Tokyo. He generally records everything himself…it’s a marvelous mix of soaring, dramatic falsetto vocals, programmed beats, strings, pianos…the music has moments of almost Erasure or Scritti Politti but that’s selling it sort. It’s not really retro at all, actually. It’s kind of like emo-tronic Kate Bush, if I had to describe it. He can devastate you with just an acoustic guitar (his set closer is a song that seems to be written from the POV of a couple about to be disintegrated by a terrorist’s bomb, called ‘Eyes Off Me’ that is jaw dropping. It’s like, Glastonbury huge. And he’s the nicest, most cheerful person you are likely to come across. Very unassuming, dressed in jeans and trainers and something stripe-y, with glasses and blonde hair going in various directions. He opens his mouth and you can’t believe what his voice can do. I can’t recommend enough his album ‘Pyramides’. I never once saw Toph in a bad mood. Galli, also a Londoner, was in a band with Toph BITD, and he recruited her for this and other upcoming adventures. She’s usually seen smoking a local brand of ciggies, and singing along with all the TOT songs—and she sings marvelously with Toph. She has lots of hair, black streaked with blonde piled up in a kind of ‘Winehouse’ but with out the ratty bits. And she plays keys too. Renee, guitarist. He is an absolute perfectionist—but will also be the drunkest guy onstage—but will also yet play perfectly under the circumstances. He and Marlene take care of each other like two doves. Marlene might even be quieter than Renee. She has a way of speaking that shows she chooses her words carefully—in English, to be sure, but also it appears to be the same in German. She rocks in such a tough way on the bass…it’s so cool. I guess she is about 5 feet tall, and always looks so serious onstage. Amazing! Max I realized at last walks like a sheriff in a Western Film. Or he has aviators on, and at that point walks like a Highway Patrolman. “Are you aware of how fast you were going, ma’am?” He is the ultimate van pack organizer—you can’t even help him—just bring the gear close and back off. He is also the main driver, although Renee does quite a bit too. We had two vans for the tour—Klaus, the agent who put this together, Asha & co, plus myself in one; TOT in the other. On the last day, since Asha was off for more shows, and TOT and I were heading home, I spent one day in the TOT van… LJUBLJANA, 5/7 We were staying in my favorite Vienna hotel, the Furstenhof. It’s family owned, a little bit rickety and old fashioned, and extremely comfortable. The décor is a bit 70s but the bathrooms have all been redone, it’s in fact just perfect esp. for the price. In the lobby there are photos of guests from the entertainment world—a few indie bands, the odd Austrian comedian, etc. I have been trying to get a portrait on the wall for years now, but I usually have to leave early in the morning—not this time! I sat for my portrait after breakfast and in 4 shots it was done. Now, a week before the Ljubljana show, the promoter called our agent and wanted to cancel. He begged us to do anything we could to help the show. I asked Chris Eckman, ex-Seattleite now living there, when I ran into him in The Hague, and said—no surprise, Ljubljana is always a disaster. The local media doesn’t support alternative music at all really. The Orto Bar is pretty much the only game in town, so we were at the right venue, but it couldn’t have been at a worse time. On this very night, there was a massive, free music festival aimed at the student crowd. Why our promoters didn’t just move us onto that bill…so, we had 13 people—11 paying, and I had put Chris’ wife on the list plus one. However, it was a nice way for all the bands to bond—we all watched each other’s sets in their entirety. I played mine basically from the bar, walking across the empty show room to approach the shy attendees who were sort of hugging the wall there. I still managed to sell 6 CDs, so it is true that those in attendance loved it… Afterwards we stashed the gear in the dressing room, and Klaus was too drunk (i.e., he had two beers) to legally drive in Slovenia so we took a caravan of taxis—who I swear were driving 75 mph on city streets—it was like ‘Bullitt’ on the way home. We were in a hostel, just given a pin code to get in and we wound our way up and down stairs til we found our rooms—one for each vanload of people. I bunked over Asha and Therese’s heads, and Daniel woke up every hour or so, having been punched from below by Klaus, in an effort to arrest Daniel’s supposedly out of control snoring. I never noticed it—I was asleep immediately. GRAZ, 5/8 We weren’t in a particular hurry this morning. Klaus had risen early and actually walked back to the club to retrieve our van, and then we drove back to the club area with Max, who was to drive back and pick up TOT in their van. We parked and went in search of breakfast, which we found in a busy little café downtown. I introduced the Swedes to the mighty burek, my Balkan breakfast item of choice (they are excellent for lunch as well—recall the Zagreb bus ride last month). Oddly, when the Disciplines played in Drammen last week, there was a burek stand in the venue. Well, you can’t keep something that good a secret for too long. My macchiato (which I ordered in the Slavic fashion, saying ‘macchiat’—I had even ordered my burek with meat in Slovenian) was so excellent I ended up having another. Eventually, TOT located us, and we decamped to a sunnier terrace. Asha and co and I walked across the Dragon Bridge (the title of Steve Wynn’s excellent new album, recorded in Ljubljana with Chris Eckman at the helm) and explored the market. Daniel wanted to get a typical local product for his g.f.; I suggested, ‘why not a cabbage?’ Eventually we drove on, thru the beautiful countryside that Austria and Slovenia share at their common border, and in the afternoon we reached Graz. Checked in once more to the dreary Etap hotel basically across the street (they did, however, provide me with an excellent iron and ironing board) and eventually we set up camp at the PPC—you might recall that last year I played the small room (our dressing room for this show) upstairs, to a full house, but was cut off by the thumping (and empty) disco downstairs—then taking the crowd into the gents for more songs, finally ending up in the driveway basically busking—I even sold some CDs to passersby. IMHO, the PPC is a weird place—run by a very un-rock-n-roll family, with unsmiling security guys and basically 0% sensitivity to the artists. And their patrons are known to be the worst kind of audience for me. This is the kind of place that will put on a thumping 120db disco to an empty room while I’m playing to a packed room (and the rooms aren’t isolated from each other) and then kick me out unceremoniously when I want to play to the interested people; it’s the place where 300 people are talking thru mine and Asha’s sets. I did my best, really I did, and I did have some fans there, and I gathered the people around me on the floor comme d’habitude, but I can’t say this was a * fun * one, it was a bit more of a struggle than pure joy. In that sense playing to 13 people was more rewarding, as they were all into it, and they were moved. I did get some great compliments tho. And to be fair, this was TOT’s night to shine…they were immense this night and the people were clearly devoted to them. It was great to be a part of what I think was a very important night for them—it just wasn’t as fun to *play* as some other nights. I did have the best off-the-cuff line of the night, at soundcheck—when the sound guy saw me putting yet another keyboard in front of TOT’s input-heavy backline, he said, barely concealing his dismay ‘new keyboard, eh?’ I replied, instantly: ‘well, it’s slightly used, but just by a little old lady who used it just to get from A to C each day’. BASEL, 5/9 The next bonding experience—getting up and hitting the road at 7. It seemed like the entire hotel was surging at the metal grating, waiting for it to lift at 6.30 and permit entry into the breakfast area. I mean, who gets up at 6.30 by choice? It seemed like people were excited to be up and having breakfast at this most inconvenient hour. We simply had no choice—we had a 9-hour drive ahead of us. Even at the breakfast table I was telling stories and making merry, trying to distract everyone from the pain of the early morning hour. We piled in the vans and headed off, driving across most of Austria, up into Germany for a while, into and across most of Switzerland. We entertained each other as best we could. My only previous experience visiting Basel was for R.E.M.’s 2005 show at St. Jakobshalle, a small indoor arena that I played deep in the haze of the nasty flu that everyone in the band and crew passed around during the very long winter tour that covered virtually all of January, February and March, and in fact ended in mid-April. In other words, I have almost no memories of Basel at all. Well, in spring, it’s just a miraculous place. We were playing the Kaserne, which is part of an old military training ground, meaning, a square of extremely solid buildings enclosing a field of grass and a huge paved area—it’s now a park, with people laying on the grass or playing basketball, and the entire region is strung with cheerful lanterns and ringed by outdoor bars and cafes. It looks suspiciously like paradise. The Kaserne has three showrooms, one could easily hold 2000 people; we were playing on a small stage in the bar. The night was a bit too lovely to get too many people inside, I guess we had 30 or so people there. However, it was an incredible show, I was simply deeply into it and felt free to give all I had. I even got a kind of encore—delivering a version of ‘Reveal Love’ that was calling on places spooky by even my standards. I hadn’t planned on selling CDs but I ended up selling three of them, including one for CHF20, i.e. more than I was charging, to the #2 of IKEA—his daughters happen to be Asha’s friends. I, too, was guilty of wanting to be out on the terrace, so I skipped TOT’s set this night and hopped the different little wine bars around the square, eventually joining a table with one of the CD buyers of the evening, and his friends (none of his friends had gone inside with him!). We had some (more) wine, and had a great time talking. I then saw we were loading out, so I helped, and afterwards all the bands transported all the remaining alcohol from the backstage, took over a couple of picnic tables that we joined together, and proceeded to have a bonding session! At one point some Palestinian kid jumped right in from playing basketball, grabbed one of the wine bottles and took a lengthy swig, and ran off saying thanks, back to shooting hoops…we all had a big love fest, although I wisely avoided the vodka bottle, sticking with white wine—Toph and Renee heeded no such restraint. At one point Toph was leaning on the picnic table and said ‘this table is completely staggering drunk—I am trying to hold it still!” INNSBRUCK, 5/10 The next morning I was just a bit wobbly, stumbling down to breakfast. The hotel, the Balade, was so wonderful—my room, my bed, the artwork in my room, the espresso at breakfast, my incredibly powerful shower…oh my, best hotel of the tour, if I just sidestep my loyalty to the Furstenhof for a moment. Check out was 11, and I had been on the phone with Claus and Dominique (another cool feature is the direct line number for your room). I jumped in the shower at 10.50 and texted Klaus that I was going to be 5-10 minutes late. Like it mattered. When I came down at 11.15, Klaus was the ONLY one in sight. Asha and Therese were next, but Renee had to be coaxed out of the room very gently indeed. We were all sitting around the terrace of the hotel restaurant, and Toph was playing me a song on his Ipod, when we were gob smacked by a man who walked up from the park across the street, followed by a duckling. He led the creature to the fountain by the hotel, scooped it up, and allowed it to swim around. It was 12 days old, with fuzz pointing out in different angles of cute-reinforcing perfection from its head. After a short bath, he scooped it up again, and walked off, the bird following at his heels. When he had walked just a meter or two from the fountain, the bird squeaked with concern. We couldn’t believe our eyes; we were being absolutely irradiated with cuteness. There being no hurry to leave, we walked around the Kaserne fortress after putting our bags in the vans, and walked down to the Rhine. There was a little stand there selling a limited amount of food and drink, and I had 3+ CDs worth of Francs to get rid of, but I couldn’t even make a dent in them—even after a sandwich, salad, glass of wine, and macchiato. We sat at the riverside, watching families of ducks, an anxious dog who was afraid to jump in and retrieve a ball, etc. Eventually we had to leave and start making our way to Innsbruck. On the way back to the van, I was walking with Renee and Marlene, and we saw an enormous metallic green beetle, searching for a place to roost in a bush…it was easily as big as a USB key. We took the scenic route to Innsbruck—avoiding a 12km/€12 tunnel and driving up into the mountains past the tree line, where everything was still covered in snow. The road winds up thru a few hardy villages and now closed ski resorts. There were people riding bicycles on this route. I mean, really now… At last we pulled up the Bierstindl, a little theatre with a biergarten tucked up against a wooded hillside. A truly idyllic little spot. Wir haben Weisswurst gegesse und wir haben weisswien getranke. The showroom is a small theatre, indeed they had it nearly fully seated when we arrived, and left it partially seated for the show. Tonight truly was Asha’s night, I thought she never sounded better than at this show, her voice was just on, emotional and deep. A hard act to follow, really, but I did my best—people dug it, but I think they were ready to rock when I came on. Over the course of the dates, starting with Ljubljana, I had Therese join me to play harmonica on ‘110 or 220V’—I had forgotten to bring mine along. I played it in G, and she was able to play along by inhaling on her C harp. She added some vocals over the days, and this was sounding great by Innsbruck. We also worked up a duet for ‘Communication’ by fellow Swedes the Cardigans (I introduced the song, saying it was by a great group from Sweden…Entombed). We did an alternating line thing, very Peaches and Herb. Great! Before my set was done, my last CDs had sold, so I guess that was a sign of approval… TOT was also excellent this night, I preferred their show on smaller PA’s, just a little quieter level made the drums sound more natural and you could hear all the vocals. I’ve said it before, but Toph is just a phenomenal singer. I don’t know how he does it. He can just swoop up to the damn rafters with his falsetto…it’s truly unique, and absolutely affective. Now, this weekend being a big holiday weekend in all of Catholic Europe, and Innsbruck being a destination for many of said travelers, all the hotels in town were booked. So, we were assigned to two different B&B’s outside of town. As TOT was driving me to Vienna, and Asha was going back to Switzerland for the next show, I was to stay with TOT at their accom’s. It was quite emotional to have the abrupt load-out/farewell to the three musicians, they were just lovely people and we had come to enjoy each other’s company pretty much instantly. I found room in TOT’s van, and Toph, being the guy that he is, instantly had delicious caramel-filled chocolate that he shared with everyone. It’s hard to imagine someone with a more uplifting outlook on the day. We wound our way up into the hills outside of town, and eventually found our little gasthaus; Klaus had already checked us in and delivered keys to the venue. I went to my room, after we spent 10 minutes admiring the stars visible in the mountain air (equally beautiful: when I went out to the van during the start of Asha’s set to get my toothbrush, and from the hillside vantage point of the Bierstindl’s parking lot, I looked across the valley of Innsbruck, against a backdrop of incredible deep velvet blue—the sky not yet fully night, but just showing the liquid blue evidence of what was once light). In the morning, I was uncontested when I headed to the common shower room that served all the guests. I was alone with strangers in the breakfast room having my dark bread and liver pate. Eventually we started to assemble and we drove down the hillside to meet up with the freeway, and headed first to Salzburg airport to drop Toph and Galli for their flight to London. Toph being just so damn cheerful, even his goodbyes are happy. Amazing person. The rest of us drove on to Vienna—the TOT band had to get their rental van back by a certain time, which made it impossible for them to take me to the airport—but they dropped me at the Westbahnhof, and even before my bags were out of the van, the airport bus pulled up. It was leaving in 20 minutes, so I had time to say good bye to Max/Renee/Marlene, buy a newspaper and some water, and was still first in line to pay my €6 and get a seat right in front. I arrived to VIE with time to spare—and thus have been at Caffe Ritazza for an hour, just 30 meters from my gate, and the flight won’t leave for almost another hour. It’s Mother’s Day—I already called Dom (even tho the French assign mother’s day to another weekend). I’ll call my mom when I get home; I guess they are just waking up in Bellingham now. Another epic tour—these 5 days have been full of images and experiences as rich as the 20 date Posies tour, in a way. All my musical experiences since I left home April 7-the Posies tour, the Veliki Prezir sessions, The Disciplines shows, the solo tour—34 days, 9 countries, 27 cities, 27 concerts— contain some of the best I’ve had (I would highlight the Posies Stockholm/Amsterdam/ Eindhoven/Den Haag shows, and my Vienna show as the absolute top, perhaps?), and I’ve had great company, and hey, I came home with a little money, too. Now to see the people that need me most, and that I need most, in 3 hours and change. Love KS VIE ‘B’ Gates 5.08.2008 Interview and photos from Serbian studio sessions last week here. Love KS Graz, AUSTRIA 5.06.2008 THE HAGUE, 4/29 We slept in. That was good. Yes. Fred brought croissants and made coffees, and we got our acts together, went record shopping with Fred (he bought CDs, we didn’t) and then he dropped us at the train station. We had time to have yet another sandwich lunch (I wonder how many sandwiches I have eaten in the last year in train stations/airports/on trains/on planes?). We boarded our train, already on the platform, and settled in. I read the IHT, and after about 15 minutes, we pulled out. It was a lovely ride through green crevices cut into the hills of the Ardennes. Hardly anyone on the train, too. That is, until we started to get close to Brussels—for the last half an hour, the train was quite full. As we stopped at each of Brussels’ stations, we made our way towards our pile of luggage standing by the doors. We weren’t sure which side of the train the platform would be, but, thankfully, it was the one we were closer too (the foyer of the train car was filling up with people anticipating disembarking). We had just 7 minutes to make our connection—and the platform for the second train couldn’t be found online, nor could the ticketpeople in Luxembourg tell us. So, we got off at Bruxelles Nord, and I checked to see if just by chance the other side of the platform was our train. Nope. We grabbed our stuff and went down into the passageway leading to the other platforms, found a monitor. It tells you the ultimate destination of the various trains, departure time, and track number. There was an Amsterdam train with the same departure time as what we had on our itinerary. That seemed like the one. Unf. they don’t give you train numbers anywhere—not on the platform’s sign showing the next train, either. Seems like that would be helpful. We hauled our gear up to the Amsterdam platform—then by reading the printed timetable up on the platform, a massive list showing the departures for all the trains serving the station, found our train number, and yes it was an Amsterdam train, stopping at various places including Den Haag. The train arrived, and we fought our way on board—and found ourselves on a train so crowded—every seat, every aisle, all the foyers, packed to the point where we were all unable to move even one step, true Tokyo commuter sardine style. Two hours of this, eh? I practiced deep breathing. Occasionally we stopped and exchanged basically the same amounts of people with each town. Sometimes people would manage to barge their way thru the crowd, thinking there was a better place to be—but there wasn’t. They got to where Jon & I were and found the train just as crowded as where they had come from (well, it was one person more crowded, wasn’t it?). I counted each minute til we were at the Hague, and we got in a cab at the taxi queue, to be informed that with a flag drop of €7.50 (normal in Holland) and €3/bag (not normal, but not told to us until we had loaded it all in) our 5-minute cab ride would be €20. Oh, but it was a small price to pay to not be on that train anymore. We found our hotel, the ‘T Centrum, to be a groovy joint, very stylish. Unf. we were confronted with another Dutch tiny staircase, but, after climbing it, we were greeted by a stunning, spacious room with a very sleek and modern look. One side was glass, with a small balcony—and the view was of other rooftops, didn’t seem like there were too many windows looking back in at us. So, it was private, but exposed. Most pleasant! Free computers in the lobby allowed me to catch up on email, and soon we headed to the venue—courtesy of a van the festival organizers sent to pick us up. I had been joking that “Queen’s Night”, the holiday that provided the occasion for the festival, was the night when all the worker males of Holland were expected to mate with Queen, following which she was to lay several thousand eggs which would thereby guarantee the survival of the Netherlands. Actually, it’s the eve of Queen’s Day, which is NOT the Queen’s birthday (sounds like a holiday devised by Monty Python). The last Queen had her birthday on this particular day in April, and the current Queen (occasionally listed as Europe’s richest woman, at least before Harry Potter books started showing up in bookstores) decided her winter birthday would not make a very nice holiday for people to go out and get drunk in the streets in. So, Queen’s Day stayed in spring, as the first occasion for non-football fans to be drunk outside in the calendar year. And they were doing their royal duty as we drove to the gig at about 9pm. Many dressed in Orange, the Dutch national color, which of course ISN’T represented on the Dutch flag. Bands were set up all over the city (The Hague, being the nation’s capital, generally hosts the most vibrant celebration on Queen’s night, but there are outdoor concerts and events all around the country), each providing their own little pool of noise. We were playing in a regal little theatre, which itself was divided into 4 parts—the city’s premier cinema, which I imagined wasn’t doing much business, and the 3 venue of the ‘Binnenach’, or ‘Inside Night’, which is a thoughtful attempt to counterbalance the drunken hordes and their evil rock and roll with some highbrow singer/songwriter music. Incredibly, a handful of people actually attend this event. We arrived, met the crew, were shown to our shared dressing room, and then went to have some dinner—the only reason we were showing up 3 hours before showtime was to get in some free vittles. After dinner I went for a stroll thru the battlefield—it was pure chaos on the streets. I was in search of espresso, which seemed to be unobtainable in the theatre. Across the street at the Mercure hotel, it was obtainable at the bar. The hotel was crawling with rockers and wannabees and all kinds of weirdos. Meaning, businessmen of course. I had my coffee and went back into the fray. There was a band flailing away in the square next to the hotel, I thought they looked a bit familiar so I paused as orange-clad stumbledrunks boinged off each other (not dancing, but just in their attempts to navigate), and the orange-jumpsuit-wearing trio onstage happened to be Voicst, who supported our 2005 UK tour. Back safely inside, I checked out Dirtmusic, with Chris Eckman, whom I know from Seattle, where he played in the Walkabouts; the band is a trio of –you guessed it—singer/songwriters, in a nice, atmospheric setting. There’s also Chris Brokaw from the band Come, and Australian crooner Hugo Race who was in the Bad Seeds. They were in the big room, which is seated. People still drifted in and out like they would at any festival. I slumped in a chair and shot dirty looks at the sound guy when I couldn’t hear the vocals. Which was too often for my liking! After the set I chatted with Chris, hoping he might send some buzz around about my upcoming show in his adopted town of Ljubljana. We checked out Johnny Dowd, who is a kind of whacked-out jazz/gospel/freak of nature with a fantastic band, with a zoned out version of Chloe Sevigny’s mom on occasional, 1000-yard stare accompanied, vocals. Oh yeah! Eventually the chatting, with the other bands, with fans, with the crew, with Dom on a phone I found backstage, with record label owners dropping by for Disciplines handouts, with our emcee from the National Radio/TV, whom had interviewed us many times in the past, etc., it was at last time to play. Jon & I had been moved to our own dressing room when one became available; we’d been paid. Then at 12.30, it was time for music. Now, given all I had described taking place—free, loud rock and jazz shows all over town, hours of country bumpkins and intelli-folk music, you’d think the LAST thing people wanted was to hear more music (I didn’t see it, but the blind pianist who had been playing in the foyer, a kind of lounge music for the actual lounge, chasing Jon around backstage singing ‘Dream All Day’ in a crooner voice. He is kind of autistic, I think. I mean, the piano guy) but many of the people who attended the event, not numerous to begin with, stayed. And they were very into our show, as were we—another great, effortless occasion. I was really going for elaborate runs on the guitar, and pulling them off with no runs, no drips, no errors as the paint commercial says. And then it was done—we had just an hour allotted, and it was 1.30 after all. They allowed us one encore, and then they wanted everyone out of there. Fine with me really—tour done! We said our goodbyes to the crew (fantastic backstage/stage crew this night) and headed to the hotel. The lobby was closed, and anyway, access to our room was thru a door down the street, so we hauled our guitars up the tiny stairs, cracked a bottle of wine to celebrate, and were asleep in like two minutes. Up in the morning, I took my time to navigate down the tiny stairs and into the lobby with all my belongings, had breakfast, checked us out, and wrangled us a taxi (no more trains after yesterday’s experience). We earned a few minutes in the back of a Mercedes with our hard work. We were dropped off at the Schiphol, which evidently means ‘place where ships founder’ back from the days when it was underwater. As usual, our taxi driver wanted to talk about the Rolling Stones. Fair enough. He was quite jovial. He told us that the drummer from Golden Earring lives right around the corner from where our hotel was. I saw Jon off, and then checked in for my flight to Belgrade, on the airline that bears Jugoslavia’s name, and dates from the days of that particular union. JAT they are currently known as, and have planes with colorful dots on the tail; a zoomed-in version of the SN Brussels logo. The flight was indeed packed, and I did some sleeping. It was such a relief not to wear contact lenses for a change. Ah. AH. AHHHH! Touched down in Belgrade, retrieved my bags, not even a glance from Serbian customs, and met my hosts, from the studio I would be recording in the next days. We first headed to the hotel Slavia, taking the same road I had driven into Belgrade on the last visit, which parades you past enormous apartment buildings and convention centers, built apparently to look friendly for an invading Martian army that they expect to billet there. They seem to serve no actual current function. One of the apartment buildings is covered the length of its broad side by a hanging advertisement, upon which is a design made to look like a smaller design in amongst windows that are in fact printed on the hanging sheet. So, I guess about 75 apartments that would normally have views just see the inside of this sign. How awful is that? The hotel Slavia is another one of those time capsule wonders you find in Serbia and other places in the liberated east-- rotary dial phone in the room, brown and green furniture. Personally, I love it, it’s like being in a museum. I also love old school hotels that have their own self contained world with way too many employees within—this hotel had a bank, a dentist office, a travel agency, a net café (not working). They didn’t seem to have a gift shop. And they definitely wouldn’t let me have access to an iron. I had to surrender my shirt to the staff for pressing. It’s one way to make a buck. They pull this stunt in Italy too—‘ah, it’s against the law, it’s a fire hazard’. SO, why aren’t all the other hotels in the world that allow me to iron my own clothes burning to ground as we speak, then? In fact, the last hotel I saw that had burnt nearly completely was in—ta ta ta: Serbia. A huge hotel in Novi Sad that was torched by a sore loser from the casino within who stormed out and returned with a Molotov cocktail, killing at least one person. We walked down to the studio, and I met the band (some of which I had met before). Veliki Prezir, which is an untranslatable pun in Serbian. They play a wonderful kind of psychedelic, playful rock. A sort of mix between the Kinks and Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ album. Great! I was there primarily to play keyboards, and I immediately got to work. I hadn’t heard the songs before, so with each of the 8 or so songs I played on, I would listen, come up with ideas, play along very badly for one or two takes, listen again and take a few notes, then go in for the final take and make a part for keeps. They had some fantastic instruments for me to play—a ridiculously cool Farfisa console organ, for starters. You know console organs—the kind that film directors use when they want to show how cheesy a character’s aunt is, they sit her down and have her wail along, with a beat on the ‘foxtrot’ setting. These machines are made of plastic simulating wood. They have built in drum machines and weirdo effects, and when you touch the keys on the lower end of the lower keyboard it fakes a kind of bass line, so you accompany yourself, and play the melodies on your right hand on the upper keyboard. Perhaps you play some more bass notes with the pedals at your feet. Unfortunately these machines are pretty much dinosaurs now, everyone uses keyboards like Aden’s Delson CK49. Ah, but this Farfisa is such a wonderful beast! I used it on almost every song. It had its own speakers, which gave it a big, heavy bass output. They also had a MemoryMoog, and a Rhodes, both of which were used extensively. I was able to work on about 4 songs that afternoon and evening, and we had time to pause for lunch and dinner, at the same restaurant (for dinner I had spicy, cheese covered tripe). They brought in lots of nice wine, and proceeded to pretty much drink it all! I think I had a glass with dinner…maybe one in the studio…maybe not. Anyway, at the end of the night, I walked back to the Slavia, and was amazed that right in the lobby, I was asked “you want girl?” by a very kind eyed old gas cooker slightly past the sell by date. I guess the hotel actually pimps them out? I mean, she was asking me immediately after I retrieved my key from the desk. The next morning, after she left my room (kidding), I had breakfast, and set out in the brilliant sunshine to meet the band at a café on the corner by the studio. The streets were gloriously empty; it was May Day, the International Worker’s Day, when all the workers of the world do something other than work. The Yugoslavian Communist Party HQ was on my way to the studio (when I told the guys this they assured me such a thing didn’t exist). Out front there was a guy holding the hammer and sickle flag, being photographed in front of his Yugo. I felt like the two guys might have been the only ones showing up for the rally. I felt sympathy for them, in fact. I was at that point a communist sympathizer. The café was open, but almost empty. The café by the studio is part of a cinema, and there’s also a wonderful, crammed little bookstore there, which unf. I didn’t have time to explore, but mysteriously was still open at like 10pm that evening, on a holiday. Like, you couldn’t buy a toothbrush that day but you could get a translation of Nietzsche in Serbian. A country with such priorities can only be a place worth hanging out in. We were very productive—I had played keyboards on all the songs they had recorded, plus one that Kole and I did as a live duet, acoustic guitar/vocals and Farfisa. So, I volunteered to do some singing in Serbian, and they taught me some lines, so I was able to harmonize with Kole on some tunes. I was able to do most of them, but there was one line I just couldn’t do, and my version of it had the entire room rolling on the floor with laughter—“you sound Japanese!” So, at which point I was done, I guess! It was, however, 1am. Oh, it should be said that Boris, the bass player, produces the sessions and is an excellent engineer. STAVERN, 5/2 Oof. Up at 5. The sun comes up early in Serbia, so I never had trouble getting up. But still…why I am I, the musician who is supposed to be sleeping in til 3 in the afternoon every day, always getting up at 5? When I checked out, breakfast wasn’t fully served. I had a dry turnover of some sort and had the desk call me a cab. A little tiny car pulled up, and an enormous bear of a driver emerged, tattoos on his fingers. He stuffed my gear into whatever crevices were left allowing for himself, me, and his LPG tank. I had been given 1000 Dinars, about €12, by the band, and was told this would be more than enough. When we pulled up to the airport, the meter red 1140, and I gave him the 1000 note and a 500 note—he said, oh, don’t worry, no change, so I just take 1000. I gave him the coins I had, and he was more than happy. Very friendly! I checked in, and took advantage of the fact that no one was going thru security—they were waiting in cafes outside security to linger with their non-traveling loved ones—to take care of that unpleasant business. Once inside I found a café and had my morning macchiato and my daily dietary tea. There was no Herald Tribune to be had. I had entered Serbia with a handful of dinars left over from the Novi Sad show, but I hadn’t been allowed to pay for anything during my stay, the band took care of my every food and drink need. So, after paying 200 for my shirt to be pressed, paying for my cab, paying for my café, I had 860 left in notes (they have notes of 10, and coins of ten and more than ten, oddly. 10 dinars is 12 Euro cents.) I walked up to someone at the gate for my flight and asked if they were Serbian. Yes, they replied. Would you be willing to trade me 860 dinars for 10 euros? Well…actually I live in Toronto, he said. I don’t really need dinars, but…ah, what the hell. He gave me €10, it was a good deal for him if he was spending the dinars soon. But, I think it was just the Serbian tendency for extremely good hospitality in effect. Crammed into a little Austrian Air regional jet, the kind with no usable storage bins overhead, so I had my computer bag at my feet. Quick change at Vienna, but I still managed to get my IHT. I arrived to Oslo, and boarded a train for a three hour ride to Larvik. It took two hours to travel to Oslo from Vienna! Three hours on a train seemed like another punishment. But I was asleep for most of it. At the station in Larvik I was met by Gunder—it was at Gunder’s home in the village of Stavern that Dom, myself, and my bandmates and more greeted 2008. It was probably Gunder who had bullied the local tavern into paying us an enormous sum to play what is essentially a pirate/biker bar. And there are not that many people—let alone enough bikers or pirates—in Stavern. The band was already set up when I arrived, but a vocal mic hadn’t arrived yet. I gave Claus shit about his ridiculous purple pants (what kind of yoga class are you teaching?) and gave hugs to all. Finally a mic arrived and we started to run thru songs only to find the high end speaker on one side of the PA was actually broken. Soundcheck over! The local sound tech agreed to replace it while we went off and got ready for the show. I was taken back up to Larvik – OK, Larvik is where my bandmates are from, it’s a medium size town with a big ferry terminal. I have often compared it to Bellingham but it’s smaller as far as I know. I think nearby Sandefjord is more Bellingham sized. Stavern is like…Alder? There can’t be more than 2000 people in the village. I would say, less. More like 1000. I was checked into the Grand Hotel Larvik. It’s so Grand that they are tearing it down. I spent the evening on the phone with Dom, and checking email in the lobby. Now this is great—my computer, ever since I had the power cable repaired, has had problems receiving wifi signal. When most people have a full set of four black bars in their wifi icon, I may have one—or it may not receive anything at all. Usually I have to be so close to the wifi device as to render the distance comically similar to the length of the average Ethernet cable. So, I was barely able to get wifi in the lobby. Their lobby computer was down, but they allowed me to disconnect the cable from the back and use it for my rig. There was a small, nearly uninhabited bar by the front desk—the front desk person would go around and serve the two customers drinks and then return to waiting for people to check in. The in house music played for ambience was a dreadful RHCP album, I guess one of the last two. The unbelievable chorus: “hey-oh…this is what I say-oh”. I mean, Anthony, were you waiting for the tallyman to tally your banana or what? Alternating this was a soundcheck in progress in what was normally the breakfast room—a band was rehearsing. It sounded familiar, and then I realized—it was ALL CHICAGO COVERS. Played with maniacally faithful expertise but sung by a guy with decidedly less vocal altitude than Peter Cetera. Yes, it was THAT era of Chicago. No Saturday in the Park, just “You’re the Inspiration”. I was turning in my as-yet-undug-grave. Bjorn’s mom came by and picked me up, dropping Bjorn and I at the tavern at about 9.30. We weren’t due to play for another two hours. So, we walked up to Gunder and Kaja’s house—and it was Kaja’s birthday party. Claus, in his sales expertise had told me ‘there will be all kinds of tapas there, it’s gonna be great’. And it was great—but no tapas. I hadn’t eaten dinner—you might remember I had eaten a lone, dry turnover at 6, and then had been served a little bit of food on each flight—a single slice each of ham and cheese on the first flight; a tiny square dish of pasta on the second. I was ravenous. There *was* a tureen of very good soup, and couple of pieces of meat – small, coin sized pieces of a kind of cevapcici. I mean, two pieces, each the size of a €2 coin. I had some wine. Hmmm…would this be enough to get me thru a Disciplines acrobatics hour? I was worried. I needn’t have been. Despite the fact that we hadn’t played together since February, we were on fire. On FIRE. I was everywhere—one minute I was outside the building, screaming at the huddled smokers; one minute, ON the sound desk; one minute, writing around the ankles of various men and women; one minute an inch from Claus’ face. There are some great photos from the local newspaper here. It was a storming set. STORMING. As usual, the minute it was over, I just wanted to play another one. And they had 200 people show up—20% of the town! They said they had NEVER had the place so full. They actually made money on the deal and they paid us a LOT. So, they were happy. I was exceedingly happy—I also found that the vocal exercises and training, plus the fantastic regimen that is a two-hour Posies set every night—meant that even tho I was singing hard and loud, my voice wasn’t the least bit thrashed, which didn’t used to be the case. We sold tons of vinyls, including one smart aleck (named Gunder) who paid for two with a ripped in half NOK100 note. After show party was at Gunder’s…I crashed completely. I was awakened and sent back to Larvik in a taxi van, the only taxi in town. It’s a share taxi, driven by a very friendly guy who of course in the course of his work knows everyone’s problems. We stopped at one house and a young girl came out, after like 10 minutes. She got in the cab, we went one block, she got out. I finally made it ‘home’. DRAMMEN, 5/3 Up for breakfast? Of course. Not loading the equipment we left at the venue overnight? Of course not. Baard and Bjorn came by and picked me up just after noon. I was veeeeeery sore. I had bruises on my hands, feet, abdomen. But, I was happy and ready for more. We weren’t driving for 15 minutes before we heard ‘Oslo’ on the radio. It sounded so good! Right at the end we went into a tunnel but we came out in time to hearing the DJs question why I didn’t pronounce it “ooshlu” like a Norwegian. I can answer this—the song is sung from the point of view of a visitor, not a local. That’s the whole deal. Anyway, Drammen. Drammen is the but of many, many jokes—it’s the Cleveland of Norway. It’s not a bad little town, you know? But it has the unfortunate position of being within earshot of big bad Oslo. Drammen used to be a mill town. So, you get the idea of some snooty class distinctions being made between the workers of Drammen and the owners of Oslo. And in their guilt, the owners degrade the workers by painting them as hapless rubes, unworthy of sympathy. Well, the sure got a purty venue down there in Drammen. The Union Scene—named after the long-gone workers of said mill. The mill is now a glass-covered architectural wonder, housing music venue, a music school, a theatre company, and more. The glass covering unites what were once separate buildings into one big complex. The buildings inside are wonderful old brick lofts. Outside, the river that once powered the mill and transported the timber and processed paper rushes by. Thomas, from local band the Jessica Fletchers, helps run the place, and was our guide. The event was their spring fling, called—in the spirit of the ‘Union’ theme—Working Class Hero. It lasts for two days, and there are bands playing in the big room (cap. 1000) and in the small room (cap. 300). In the foyer in between a DJ spins 70s rock. Sadly, with all this beautiful infrastructure, and all the assembled talent, it wasn’t enough to draw the conservative people of Drammen out of whatever cover band hell they inhabit on the average weekend—and no self-respecting Oslowegian would ever deem to descend to Drammen and waste a perfectly good weekend out. Even friends of the band who called and asked to be on the list didn’t show. So, I guess there were about 300 people there. Which was great for us—we were the headliners in the small room. But the big room was looking kinda lonely. And once an audience becomes aware they are all that’s gonna show up, they start to get real shy. So, I had my work cut out for me. The bands on the two stages were staggered in theory—but Magnet was running pretty long—however, he was urging everyone to hurry over to see us as soon as he was done. Dinner in this case WAS actually tapas. I mostly ate the jamon…and then, around 10pm (showtime of midnight) the whole building had run out of bottled water. Oops. And I wasn’t into lubricating my instrument with Yellowtail shiraz, TYVM. During the day—in addition to an interview with the local TV, I had plenty of time to work online; plenty of time to watch the excellent interview/documentary “Fellini: I’m a Born Liar”, which gives incredible insights into the mind of the filmmaker. I had time to do my vocal exercises, with a piano, which is rare. So, we went on, and people were trickling in. I had to really work on them to get them comfortable. I think I sang into the eyes of every man, woman and child in the room. And it worked! By the end, people were going absolutely insane. We were supposed to finish and get out of the way for the headliners in the main room. On this assumption, Baard and Claus ran in the direction of the cheap Shiraz. But the people were howling for more. So, I got onstage and said thanks…urged people to join me at the merch table—they weren’t havin’ it. Ok. Well, I picked up Bjorn’s guitar—his strap had broken during the last song (we rock that hard). I started to strum on his out of tune strings, and I played a solo version of “Shadow of Your Doubt”—the whole room was clapping the beat—it definitely was a ‘moment’. Bjorn came back in and gave the assist—he started to play bass, and I put down the guitar, and just sang along with him. Everybody was happy! They wanted more, which is just how it should be. I crawled on top of the merch table and hawked our vinyl wares, successfully. One guy, a very nice, kind of conservative looking fella—short hair, denim jacket, non-fashionable jeans—came up and said the greatest compliment—he said that he was a real AC/DC fan, and I was as good a frontman as Bon Scott. And that, furthermore, that was only made possible because of the dynamite band backing me up. I thought that was incredibly cool. We loaded up the van, and Claus and I drove back to Oslo, and unloaded it. He dropped me at my hotel—the festival paid for two nights of hotel for me, mercifully in Oslo! No offense to Drammen, but it’s good to be in the town I know best. I had asked the festival, just that day, to book me a third night that I would pay for—I was supposed to have been staying at Claus’ house, but it’s not done yet (having visited the site yesterday, I told him to consider moving his housewarming party from June to, say, mid 2014). Unfortunately, there was a big convention of some kind in town, and the hotel, in fact, all the affordable hotel rooms in town, were booked solid. Sigh. Sunday—I took the time to linger over breakfast, to linger over café at Tim Wendelboe’s. Running into the singer of the Lionheart Brothers in the park, I walked with them across Oslo, (running into Claus and Nanna having lunch along the way!) and parked myself, gloriously alone, in the third row of the Colosseum Theatre, to take in “Shine A Light”. Being a lead singer myself, I watched Mick with a totally new kind of…ahahah sympathy for the old devil. He is superb. He comes off as a real prick in the Uncut interview (the ‘bonka bonka’ issue) but he is ‘the ultimate driving machine’. Charlie Watts, flawless. Snare has sounded exactly the same for 30 years. Perfect. Keith is acting more and more like Johnny Depp. Weird. But, loveable. He always looks surprised in a weird kind of way—like he is amazed to be enjoying his unique position for yet another day. Ronnie comes off as a bit of a burnout when he speaks, but his playing is magnificent. The sound quality is excellent. I’m not sure what Blondie Chaplin is doing up there, but hey, hats off to a good gig for the bloke. Claus met me at the theatre, we had dinner al fresco, and headed to the Living Room studio, a veritable fortress situated behind more doors than seen in the intro to ‘Get Smart’, right above Café Mono dead smack downtown Oslo. It was here that I first recorded with Briskeby for the ‘Joe Dallesandro’ single; and it was here that I mixed half of the Jim Protector album (which just came out on vinyl, BTW). It’s also perhaps the most used mastering studio in Norway (?), with Briskeby’s producer Espen Berg at the helm. We had already mastered the album for Norway—it’s in the factory now—but here we were mastering different tracks and versions for the international release. We dropped in the new extra guitar for ‘Falling Knives’ that I had recorded the day before the Posies show last month; I added an extra ‘f’ to a word in ‘Shadow of Your Doubt’. Everything sounds marvelous. Made a few other adjustments and B’sYU. Espen dropped me at the hotel, now one bag of 50 KS Covers EPs heavier; Andre from the Sellout had dropped them by. Monday was a press day. I spent the morning either online, on the phone as manager, or at Tim Wendelboe’s. I met up with Lasse, our live sound engineer, and paid him for his work this weekend. And headed up to the Grand Hotel’s rooftop bar for an interview and photo session with one of the biggest dailies in Norway. Norway has three national newspapers—VG, Dagbladet, and Aftenposten. We did lengthy, in depth interviews for all of them this day. Our label who work with bands such as Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys for Norway, say this is unprecedented. Also, moving from B list to A list on the national radio is equally unprecedented—and all this we have done. I was really grateful for all the interviews this day, they were really interested, and the conversations were intelligent and fun. Most of the journos had just gotten the album that morning—last week was mostly a holiday, and the label was holding out sending advance copies, hoping the artwork copies would come back from the factory, but no such luck. But, they already loved the album on first listen. So, they were on our side. We also dropped in on the national radio for an interview. When we entered the studio, they were playing ‘Best Mistake’. Since they had made the demo version a hit last year, I assumed it was the demo, and was thinking, ‘oh man, it sounds so much better than the album version. But…wait a minute…I didn’t do that vocal harmony on the demo…hey, this *is* the album version…and it rocks!’ It was really weird to see how into it the DJs were, they were rocking out to it, and not, I believe, for our benefit. They were sincerely into the music. We spoke, they played ‘Oslo’ and ‘No Vacancy’ and we were done. Claus and I had time to drive around and listen to the new masters, make critiques etc. We dined, and then met our designer Joakim for a meeting on ideas for merchandise, our new backdrop, the international version artworks, and our website/myspace redesign coming soon. Finally it was time for the last interview, on the terrace of a bar next to the Sentrum Scene, the first place I ever played in Oslo. The journalist from VG had had to postpone the interview until 10.30 as he was meeting deadlines for the week (Monday is the journalist’s worst day—so I was very grateful that the three most prominent journos in Norway had each agreed to take an hour out of a day that has none to spare, for us). I thought we’d be burnt but we perked right up, and had a great chat for over an hour. Claus dropped me at my former hotel, and I got my bags out of storage, and cabbed over to Ole and Sarah, from Revolver Bar, ‘s new flat, very close to the Disciplines’ studio. They have a magnificent rooftop terrace. I thought about sleeping up there, under the stars—it was actually warm enough—but, they had brought their extra bed out of storage and set it up in their tiny main room. So, I used that one! I was up at 4! Taxi at 5. €110 later, at the airport. I had two many bags, and too early a flight to f*** with taxi to train to etc. I boarded the relatively empty SN Brussels flight to…Brussels, sort of in the opposite direction of my destination, Vienna. It was the cheap flight, although, one could argue that a more expensive flight at a later time might have actually saved the band money since I could have taken the train instead of cab to airport. But, I think it was about the same, really. The long layover has allowed me to catch up on this overdue blog. So…all is well. On to the KS tour. Love KS BRU Terminal A

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