ROCK THE MAL:L
This week was populated by far too many harsh moments, I felt completely battered this week by rude postal clerks, rude airline passengers, rude rock show attendees...no, they weren't all French. But sheesh, the human race was really trying hard to make me not a fan. Then there were some just plain bad luck bits...somehow, my new credit card from my bank account here in France just plain disappeared (and when I went to my bank to try and sort it out in person, they decided for some reason to close my branch early that day. I rode a bus there, found it was closed at 4pm for some {?} reason and rode the bus back. Now that's a sad day). Packages that I mailed to myself at great expense from the states showed up at my return address (my mom's house) for no apparent reason. In many ways, it was a shitty week. One day I slept thru my alarm (as did Dom) and we missed getting Aden to school on time (they lock the doors, and you can't get in for love nor money). Seriously, all this in one week.
Not just for me, tho--I went to see Tapes N' Tapes this week, one of the most hyped indie bands of the last couple of years, play to barely 60 people in a club here in town, and they definitely did not rise to the occasion. They sulked, barely spoke to the audience, and were, I thought, highly average.
OK, there were some good bits. I saw/made the hang with perhaps the most hyped band of the moment, Fleet Foxes, when they played Paris this week. They keyboard player, Casey, is the brother of Blake Wescott, who played in my band Saltine. Casey ended up with the enormous tape machine that I sold them. I guess that will be used to make FF rec's in the future...I also saw Patti Smith and co. play a kind of unplugged show at the Cartier Foundation; Patti's excellent photos, films, and drawings were are part of an exhibition there (which runs for another couple of weeks, check it out if you have the chance) and caught up with Patti's bass/keyboard player, Tony Shanahan, who played a large portion of the bass parts on my album Touched. Claire Chazal, who is probably the most well known new presenter in France, she reads the news on TF1, was standing in front of Dom & I (if you click
this link you can see a picture of her and her b.f., who was there too).I got in some tennis one night with my partner Remi who was not 100% on form, so I was able to actually beat him for a change. Well.
But the rest of the week was, shall we say, challenging. Just werid, annoying shit just kept happening to me over and over again, like a steady, cold rain blowing in my face.
So, I went to Spain. OK, it was planned, but it was a nice refresher, and brightened my mood considerably.
TORRELAVEGA, 6/6
One of the many rude people I encountered this week was behind me in the security line when I was heading towards my flight to Bilbao. She was a Spanish woman, I would guess in her late 40s. She had probably failed to notice that I and many of the other people in the security line had been in the check in line with her (she stood right next to me in a parallel line). There was a family--mom, dad, and two daughters--who were squabbling in front of me, having a really rough time staying organized. At one point the dad grabbed the kids out of the stroller to get them thru security; the stroller tumbled, and i grabbed it before it totally flipped over, top heavy with stuff as it was. The dad was grateful, then went back to manhandling his kids. I guess there was a lot of tension. Sure, the lines were long. At some point, anyway, this Spanish woman panicked and thought she was going to miss her flight. Which was also my flight. And the flight of many others still in line behind her. Suddenly *I* was taking too long, and she pushed my stuff out of the way just as I was putting my trays on the belt, and tried to get past me. The nearest security officer tried to restrain her, and to maintain face she yelled at me in a string of surely unprintable Spanish. Sigh.
We got thru, she didn't even bother to apologize, and you could see that our flight wasn't even boarding yet on the monitor.
Well.
I landed in Bilbao, and emerged into the cool air. One of the promoters, Coro, was there to pick me up and drive me an hour or so to the small town of Torrelavega. TLV is about 10 minutes from Santander, and looks remarkably like a mini Santander, very similar layout and of course the buildings look pretty much the same, contagious regional architecture being what it is.
We drove straight to the venue, the Andalusian Cultural Center. It's a stucco building tucked under some enormous trees on the edge of a shadowy and tranquil park. There is a kind of awning that covers not just the outdoor tables but also forms a roof for an enclosed space inside which there's a small stage, this is where the show took place. However, behind this stage there is the building's actual wall, and thru a door there you emerge into yet another venue, which was unused and apparently haden't been used in some time. No lights were on, and there random things strewn about the floor, but from what I saw it was quite ornate and lovely, like a little church. But the administration of the ACC don't like rock shows happening there. The rest of the building, at least as I saw houses a bar/restaurant. It's a little beat up and shabby, but very homey. Pit toilet in the men's room tho. Not my scene!
I did a quick soundcheck, and went over to the restaurant side to dine on some tortilla, pork ribs, and the universal tuna salad that's served at every spanish dinner. Since it was the Andalusian Cultural Center, naturally I asked for some Pero Ximinez, and naturally they had none. !!!
I went back to Coro's apartment to freshen up, and when I came back to the venue Brian Hunt, from the band Half Foot Outside, was already playing. The little show room was already totally packed, I couldn't get anywhere near enough to see, so I chilled in the bar, had a cafe solo, and found to my delighted surprise that Eric, from the band Palace of Sin I produced in Toulouse last year, had driven down with a friend to see the show.
Being a free show, you get all kinds of folks showing up, esp. since I guess not too many people play in Torrelavega--I hadn't even heard of the place til this show was booked. But there were definitely some true fans there, people were singing along with some of the songs. There were also some just fucked up freaks who drifted in as there was no cover charge...one girl in particular was so stoned she could barely stand, kept offering me her spliff in the middle of songs, and stuff like that. Somehow I always end up with the acid casualties. You should have seen the girl haunting us after the Posies show in Bellingham. I always think: how do these people even survive? How do they manage to get a fork from up to their lips to get sustenance sufficient for the next day's actions? I mean, really.
So, I can't say this was the most delicate of KS shows. I had to go with the fact that people were more excited there was just *a* show in their town than it being my show, and of course it was noisy--the fans also were shhhshssing the talkers a lot and that gets old quick too, as much as I appreciate the sentiment. But it's just as loud as the talking usually. So: let's discuss the highlights, shall we? There were these two girls on the side who kept telling me between songs that they were singers. This was after the show had gotten quite wild so I guess they felt they wanted in on the action. So, I said 'well, sure--what do you want to sing?". Blank looks. "Like, what songs do you know?" Blank looks. Eventually I got one of them up to sing--with heavy lyrical assisstance from me, "Stairway to Heaven" in its ENTIRETY. Like, be careful what you demand of KS when he's onstage. You might just get your wish. There were some nice duets with Brian Hunt on a couple of Long Winters tunes. Samy, the promoter, who looks like a more fit Jason Alexander (no glasses), drunkenly playing "Sweet Jane" on my guitar, while I accompanied him on a pipe organ sound!! My own solo version of Led Zep's "Communication Breakdown". A rare performance of "Spanish Waltz" when someone asked for 'something Spanish'. I spent some time talking with a video camera that I apparently thought was alive. Someone managed to bring me a glass of Pedro Ximinez in the middle of the show! And so on! People, myself included, had a great time. They bought lots of CDs which is always a sign that people liked the show. It was a wild, weird, unusual KS show. But I also did my usual stuff--even after the night was mostly over, and alot of the crazy stuff had happened, and it seemed like I would abandon my own material, a fan requested "Death of A City" and I happily obliged.
After most people had left, and a few of us were in the bar drinking (it was obligatory to have a shot of the local liquor, a foul spirit that I don't recommend--I mean, ah, yes, delicious, thank you, no, really!). Eric produced a banjo, and we had a big old singalong, Brian playing a few songs, Eric's friend Simon playing a few songs, Samy tried to do something...it was tons of fun. We visited another bar, and then when we arrived in some crap nightclub I told everyone that's as far as I was going. We went back to Coro's place (he was nice enough to take the two Frenchmen in his flat as well), and even Samy ended up crashing there. I had poured myself a glass of wine but I never drank it. I passed out and woke up in not too bad of shape this morning.
Samy and his lovely g.f. drove me to Bilbao airport this afternoon, and we had a cafe in the airport bar before I headed off. Everyone was so friendly, it really helped my mood. Made my week! They gave me some bread, called El Macho, as a little gift--it's more or less pound cake, actually. It's baked crack, is what it is...Aden wouldn't stop eating it. Yum!
Bedtime now. Here's to a better week.
Oh, also, I was directed to a kind of blog from the Loud Family/Game Theory's Scott Miller, where he said very nice things about "Death of A City" and claimed it the 'song of the year' for 2004. Follow
this link and scroll down.
Love
KS
Paris
