8.24.2008
This was a real week of vacation…enjoyed immensely and lived fully. I divided my time between going to the beach, either the rocky one by our place, or the massive expanse of wave-flattened sand at Le Gros Jonc; biking around our part of the island; walking, up to 4 miles a day; going to the spa for various activities: swimming in the pool, taking aquagym classes, broiling in the hammam. Beyond that, and falling asleep at roughly 9.45 each night, there was one other main activity: eating. Typically, in the morning, I would peruse the best stuff at the poissonerie, and bring that home to cook, or, even better, drop by the Cabane de Marie, a brilliant new eaterie just 150 yards from our house. The cabane has been there for years, but sitting idle. This summer, a chef has taken up living there, and he and his wife operate a barbecue, very simple but with such quality products available, and under his expert direction, the results are nothing short of perfect. The grill is used to perfectly roast fresh lobster, and the burner on the side is administering perpetually boiling pots of mussels or vanneaux, small scallops. Or clams. Or crevettes gris, which are whole tiny shrimp, slightly dried out, and eaten entirely up to the pointy stuff around the front of the head. There are raw oysters, and if you are a Marge Simpson type, there are sausages on the grill too. Ice creams for the kids, and two fridges of drinks—soft and alcoholic. Our man at the helm is prone to offer shots of rum. But, mostly, we drink Le Royal, the tart white whine produced on Ile de Re. All the vineyards here give their produce to a collective production, and thus there are 4 wine products made on Ile de Re: a red (Le Gouverneur), a blanc (Le Royal) and a rose (Rose de Dunes); also a Pineau, which is a kind of fortified beast too strong for me. I am not a consumer of rose, and I don’t find the red that inspiring, but Le Royal is an excellent accompaniment for the local seafood. So, the team at La Cabane were happy to grill for a small fee whatever we brought by—an enormous Dorade Rose, a fat mullet (haha), each grilled with herbes de Provence and drizzled with beurre blanc. Despite the fact we never had a fully scorching summer day, and frequently were drizzled on, I managed to take a dip in the ocean almost every day, at least for a quick run of strokes, even this morning in between rains I was out, the only one in the water (which makes me nervous, I much prefer the buddy system for my plunges). I did watch the Olympics occasionally, as much cynicism as I can fire in the direction of these expensive and media swallowing diversions in times of war and starvation, the expression of human potential and the cohabitation of all the diverse people of the planet for the purpose of celebrating the individual and team achievement is inspiring, and I found myself interested in whatever sport or activity was on—sailing, handball, gymnastics…all were inspiring. And tho' I didn’t see Usain Bolt’s victories, I did see many a Kenyan obliterate the competition on the track, male and female, most inspiring. No owls this year. The usual cast of lizards, bats and birds around our place. At La Cabane we encountered an enormous orb-weaving spider, striped like a wasp, with an abdomen as big as an olive. We found a mouse in its death throes, apparently poisoned. We traipsed thru the fields and climbed on crumbling German bunkers from WWII. This reminds me, when we were at La Cabane drinking an apparently bottomless and free aperitif of Le Dunes, the mayor of the village told me in French, after a lengthy critique of the Iraq war, how much he likes Americans. I said, I like them less and less collectively, the further we dig ourselves into our pit of political/industrial/cultural ineptitudes, and thus my current Eurocentric lifestyle; and he said in all seriousness, that the sacrifices of ‘44 and ‘45 still give the world a huge debt to les Americains. One night Dom and I each woke up around the same time. A flash...what was that? And the answer: a cannon blast of thunder, less than half a second later…so 1km away, or less. The storm erupted, and of course I love storms so I opened the shutters and watched the firefight. And what of my daughter? For her, Ile de Re is heaven. Sleeping in, bathing optional (i.e., I think she has been hosed off once in the last month), clothing optional, with the entire beach and all the fields at her disposal, and two grandparents to see to her every whim, she couldn’t be happier. A couple of days left in my Ile de Re vacation, and it looks like the next days will be stormy. No worries. I will be under water no matter what. Love KS La Noue, FRANCE
8.20.2008
This post delayed by reason of sloth, lack of connectivity, and general vacation-ness. Belle Isle de la Pause As I write it’s 4 p.m. in Beijing, and in theory, the men’s tennis gold match has begun, however, it’s yet to come up on France 3, they are showing rowing at the moment. But, I’ll stick with it for awhile and see if it comes up. This week I have been on vacation on Ile de Re, sleeping late and smoking tea. As I have remarked before, the atmosphere—the pure air, the soft light—induces a condition where I can’t open my eyes between 10 and 10. And sometimes need a nap in between. I have been spending hours with Aden, putting her on the merry-go-round, combing the beach for skate egg cases, touching sea anemones, and so on. Just before dinner one night, Dominique spotted a baby rabbit being chased by a huge tom cat, and we leaped out the window into the corn field across the road to chase the cat off, but we imagined ourselves too late. The rabbit was injured and disoriented. The A Life A Song A Cigarette record is done, I shipped off the hard drive before heading to the train last Tuesday. The last things I worked on were changes to the mix of the last song at the band’s request, and making an extended intro to one of the songs, kind of a remix, but only 8 bars long. I was extremely pleased to find in my mailbox that morning a package from Jello Biafra—we met at the Disciplines’ show at By:Larm in Oslo in February, he gave us the thumbs up, and wanted to buy a single, but we were sold out. I said I could send him one, and he said he’d gladly trade a CD for that…well, I wanted to wait to send him also a copy of the finished album, so I got around to this in May…and how pleased are we to find he’s a man of his word, like we suspected but these days you never know. He sent me the Tumor Circus album (his recommendation as I am such a fan of the Witch Trials EP, he said this was in a similar vein) and the Blowfly album. And included a personalized note. Thumbs up for Jello, he gets my vote and then some—of all the people I deal with from various walks of the music world, most of them can’t even return an email—and Jello went above and beyond even what he said he’d do…well, as I have been a fan and admirer since I was a teenager, it means a great deal. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, I’ve been on the island taking care of my family (extended this summer, we have in the house 5 adults, 3 kids, and two cats {one pregnant}). Going to the market, playing with the kids, building sand castles. This kind of thing. I hadn’t seen my daughter in about a month, so it’s been a very anticipated and joyous reunion. The first days I was here I forgot about the phone and the computer, hell I didn’t bathe or brush my teeth, I just went feral and it was fantastic. OSLO, 8/15 Up at 6, tipping into the kitchen to make my café and tea, I went out on the back porch to retrieve my underwear, which I were subject to a spontaneous ocean swim the previous afternoon. They were *almost * dry. Overhead, the sky only barely acknowledged the approach of the sun, and the bats were making their morning run. I stepped out to my taxi as the skies were turning orange over the mainland. The taxi took me to the La Rochelle train station, and from there I took the TGV to Paris Montparnasse, then a bus to Charles de Gaulle, then flew to Oslo. Somewhere in the airport I was relieved of my mobile phone. Comme ce comme ca. Arriving in Oslo, I trained to the National Theater station, and after consulting my GPS was able to walk to the venue, La Belle Sole. This is the same place we played for fashion week in February, and we were back to play for Tiger of Sweden’s party for the summer fashion week (last summer Oslo Fashion Week we played for Miss Sixty, but were of course bedecked in Tiger. We did a quick soundcheck—I had more important business to attend to! As soon as we had run thru a song or two I hopped a cab in search of the Kulturkirken Jakob. Now, I was certain, and the net seemed to confirm, this was the church on Hausmanns Gate, around the corner from where we made the Disciplines album. However, when we pulled up in the cab, it was covered in scaffolding and surrounded by fencing, and there wasn’t a soul around. I thought…this *has * to be it. So I told the cab to make a full approach, and I jumped out. There was a gap in the fencing just big enough to allow access to the door, and the door, incredibly was open. I was in the foyer, and there were two people there—and they confirmed I was at the right address. I jumped back to the cab, paid, and went back inside. There were about 250 people seated on folding chairs going up a riser, and where the normal church action would be taking place, there was old guy hunched over a Steinway. Pews along the side were more or less empty, so I was able to get quite close, albeit off to the side, but I could clearly watch the man’s face and the sound was more or less unamplified, and bouncing gently off the expanses of the church. Paul Bley was improvising. Now, the only Paul Bley record I have is “Introducing…” on which he appears a cool nerd in the young Brubeck fashion: skinny tie, glasses, math genius hair. Now he was classic grandpa/history teacher near retirement. The kind of guy that would spend a lot of time on a small boat. Charcoal slacks, non descript sweater, non descript silver hair. His whole appearance spoke “I don’t give a damn, I’m just glad to be here”. Fantastic. His improvisations were superb, full of humor, surprise silences, huge low end crashes that he let ring, quotes from almost familiar pieces but twisted with diminished notes, and occasional ragtime flourishes. His hands chased each other on lightning-fast parallel runs, and then there would be wistful major-seventh holds, and gentle pentatonic drifts. His ovation was undeniable, he had to continue, and he did two more short pieces before simply saluting the crowd and hobbling off, he seemed to have great difficulty walking, and leaned on the piano as he went off towards his dressing room. He never spoke a word. I stopped by Revolver Bar to pay my get well wishes to Dan Marius, by way of speaking with his co workers. Dan Marius is a sweet and gentle guy that was on duty when (two?) taggers were about to deface the front of the building. He went to dissuade them and was stabbed and seriously wounded. Had another staff member not had some first aid training, he might have bled to death on the spot. He is recovering in hospital, and I wish him recovery—and I hope the perpetrators are apprehended. So far, they remain at large. I took the tram back to Solli Place, and the Tiger party was in progress. I did photos with the Tiger/Skar agency folks, who are really great people, I can’t say enough good things about them. From the staff at the store to the head cheese (Mr. Skar, who says little but rocks out during our sets) these people are a family even if they aren’t sharing the same last name (but, the Skar daughters manage the business under their father). My bandmates all arrived at about 10.45, and at just after 11 we went on, a much different band than the one that played the same stage 6 months earlier. Healthier, more seasoned and confident, we tore into our set like hungry crocs fighting over a roasted chicken. Many of the non rock enthusiasts immediately fled to the back, the rest of the attendees pushed forward…I had everyone leaping in “I Got Tired” just like they were teens at a festival. You have to imagine the crowd at a clothing line’s fashion week party are retailers, fashion writers, people who might not ever go to rock concerts. You know, fashion has a Euro-club vibe. So, some people were simply confused or scared (we like this) and most folks were just into it. I had many people tell me after the show that they normally listen to electronic/dance music, and that they loved the show and had never seen anything like it (it’s nice to find a group of people not previously inoculated by Iggy Pop). Everyone was quickly drunk, and at some point the club opened to its normal clientele—models, yuppies and such. It was absolutely packed and our upper bar idyll was opened and immediately overrun. We still kept the VIP table, tho'. I had two glasses of chardonnay but knowing what lay ahead I switched to Pellegrino. The staff of Tiger was in full party mode, and it was fun watching them cut loose. Bulle was so drunk he kept asking Claus to slap him, and Claus obliged—hard! Finally we cleared out of there, and cabbed back to Claus’. I had about 2 hours of sleep, but since it wasn’t my phone that was providing the alarm, I couldn't “trust” it, so I kept waking up every two minutes to check the time. 5am, up, showered, wrote emails, my cab arrived at 5.51, and took me to the train station, and from there I took the train to the airport, and then flew to Paris. I had a row to myself, so received 2 more hours of sleep in more or less supine form. Cabbed home, and dumped my dirty clothes, and consulted email a bit more, listening to one of the Paul Bley CDs I bought at his show. Next I cabbed to the station, and then the 3 hour train to La Rochelle, and a one hour-plus bus ride to La Noue. The bridge was completely backed up, so we were stuck at the peage for some 20 minutes. Upon arrival I went to the pony club to assist Aden’s equestrian lesson! This was followed by dinner and almost immediately by a long sleep…and now…onto an agenda-less agenda. Love KS La Noue FRANCE
8.11.2008
OOOOOOOOOYAAAAAAAAAA I spent the beginning of the week laying low, we went to see the Batman movie, which I found to be heavily influenced by the nonsense/dada editing style of Godard. In other words, half the time I didn't understand what the hell was going on, but also we were in the main auditorium of one of Europe's biggest cinemas, the Colosseum. On Tuesday we Disciplines met up at the SAS Radisson Plaza Hotel, and filmed a great live version of "Oslo", with Bjorn on acoustic guitar, and Baard and Claus manipulating cocktail glasses, bar nuts, and ice cubes for percussion. We start outside in the parking area, and over the course of the song we go up the glass elevator to the 34th floor panorama bar--incredibly, I am walking into the bar when I sing "I bless the bar that held me tight the night I fell"...it's still daylight when we are doing this, and the bar is far from being a smoky den, it's a brightly lit observation deck. The handful of patrons are obv. not Oslo folks, since they're in a hotel--it's a great mix of typical people off the street: a few middle American looking types, a few dudes in turbans, a few so nondescript as to defy description! And they all do an amazing job of completely ignoring us. It's so great! It was all done on the first take, with no real way for us to know how the timing would work out, and it couldn't have worked out any better. If you listen carefully, there are wonderful transitions as we go from audio landscape to audio landscape--outside, reflective hallway, elevator, bar. Here it is: On Wednesday, Dominique arrived! We took it really easy, as I wanted to be in top form for Oya Festival. OSLO, 8/7 Well, this show was so huge that, much like the Batman movie, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I had to ask Dominique a hundred times afterwards "was that any good?" It wasn't until I got home that evening and put on the DVD that NRK burned for us that I realized, holy bejeezus, this is enormous. We were so well practiced (I won't say rehearsed because all of the moves are spontaneous, but we had a good solid footing to operate from) that we managed to hit all the right cues without effort. I was nervous enough to be a bit breathless, but essentially all was superb. And best of all, you can see the whole show online. I will put one song below, but you can go here and see the whole show. You can play individual songs and skip around, but left to its own devices the player will jump to the next song when one finishes. The sound is superb on the DVD...I guess that NRK shows these concerts on TV a few more times thru the year, I hope they show us again! Well, climbing back up onstage during one of the songs I boinked my leg on the edge of the stage and essentially gave myself a charley horse that I am still getting over. BUT IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT. I loved this show, even tho I was so in the moment I couldn't tell anything about it during the time...it's hard to explain, but being in the moment is a joy in itself. Freedom! After our set I recovered, watched a bit of the National, watched a bit of Lightspeed Champion, and watched what I thought was the highlight, an amazing Sonic Youth set. I have seen this band perhaps 20 times, and I tell ya, they never cease to amaze. Duel bass action! It was apocalyptic, ecstatic, and outrageously good. I went home! What else could be done? As soon as Dom & I got to Claus' haus, we watched the Oya DVD, and marveled at how little I realized what a boot stomping I had just given Oslo. Relief! Everyone else came stumbling in later, Bjorn was, uh, celebrating hard! I found him in the entryway, on the hardwood floor, the next morning. I had gone to bed nice n early and quite sober. The next day I had to go to Drammen, 40 minutes by train, to meet with our accountants! Hahaha! I took Dom with me and by way of compensation I took her to Statholdegaardenwhich I believe holds a star from Michelin. It was superb, anyway, although we avoided the 'crapaccio'. AARDLASTANGEN, 8/9 The last of the great festivals on our summer run! It went by so damn quick. Ah, it's not online, but there was a great photo series in Norway's biggest paper, VG, the day after Oya, of me hugging the cameraman, plus a 5 star review of our show. Anyway, we didn't have to leave until the late afternoon for this show, so during the day Dom & I went into town and I bought a bunch of the very special Aricha #7 coffee from Tim Wendelboe. It's available nowhere else, it's $4 an ounce, and in my Aeropress (cue Harry Nilsson) it's berry and cream tones in coffee. Oh, so good. Claus borrowed an enormous 7 series BMW for the 4.5 hour drive to Aardalstangen, which is both in the middle of the country and on the sea. It rests at the tip of Sognefjord, the second longest fjord in the world at 127 miles (the longest fjord is in Greenland). So, you drive up into the mountains, take some hairpin turns inside tunnles on the way down, shoot out over Aardal, which is coal mining town, and come to est in the smaller town of Aardalstangen. The festival, Maalrock, takes place in a small park nestled next to the lovely old Klingenberg Hotel. Well, underneath the 1960s remodel was a lovely little hotel. Now it's like a kitschy small town motor in, in a way. Well, I enjoyed it! The entire hotel was devoted to the bands, and thus the dining room was our catering area, with a tabel for each band, and a buffet (with lots of delicious salmon, and bowls of the world-renowned black cherries that grow on the western slope of Norway. The sun set. The Delillos played. A superb rockabilly quartet from Sweden, Nisse Hellberg's band, played. We went on at 12.30 that night, the headliners tho much of the audience had passed out drunk or were a bit too old to really have it for us. So, we were left with the kids, which is exactly who you want to be left with! And they were great...I had a few 'I am going to die' moments when I was in the crowd, but no one incl. me was hurt (I am usually more worried about losing my earplugs than actual harm but it could happen). My bum leg didn't slow me down too much, and we pretty much brought down the house! Then it was done. I went to my room (after seling tons of merch) and turned on the TV and there was a live Queen show from 'the Game' tour. It looked so tame and unrock after being in the sweat sprinkler that is a Disciplines show. Sorry, but...we DID rock you. Long drive back to the airport the next day, I finished Lord of the Barnyard and embarked on my 3rd Pynchon novel of the year, 'V.'. I forgot to mention til now that this drive is quite stunning, with exceedingly primeval landscapes, the teeth of Norway's long jawbone. Blue green lakes, endless forests, and lonely cabins. Upon arriving in Paris, and unpacking 3 weeks of travel, I was instantly depressed...the fun of those shows and those times are so hard to hold on to, and then, it's a memory. But, I had work to do. Mixing A Life A Song A Cigarette! On Sunday, after fortifying myself with the usual welcome home meal of a steak tartare, I revisted one song, adding horn parts that we weren't sure were going to arrive (but they did), and then today, mixed the last song of the batch. During the day I had errands to run, and it's great to see Paris boarded up for summer. Tomorrow I set off for Ile de Re, and Aden, whom I haven't seen in a month! All this is a bit hard to write over the top of the fact that there is a war unfolding in Georgia, once again most of us are insulated from a huge amount of human suffering, and are oddly, able to go to restaurants, get mad at cashier lines for going too slow, leave a shitty tip, zone out to 'Cold Case'. I am sorry for this. Also, I thought, being Georgian, that Katie Melua would have something more sympathetic than 8,000 live photos of herself on her website. Guess I was wrong. It's like it's not happening. But, check it out, it is happening, and I think it will get worse before it gets better. Love KS Paris.
8.03.2008
ANDALSNES, 7/31 The night before, my bandmates cleared out the rehearsal place, as Briskeby is subletting it to the National Bank. My bandmates all stayed at Claus’ haus, which was fun. In the morning we all went shopping at Tiger of Sweden for new threads. I picked up some elf boots, and a sweet ensemble in grey for the next shows. We trained thru the mountains, winding down ever narrower crevasses, taking steep grades that make hairpin turns inside mountains, crossing a raging river several times, and finally, after switching to a tiny two car train, arriving in the evening to Andalsnes, a small town sitting on a fjord, miles away from the open sea. A car came to pick up our gear, and we walked up to the Grand Hotel Bellevue, the tallest building in town, itself perched on a promontory with a commanding view of the fjord and the surrounding mountains. The landscape, with numerous cascades spilling out over impossibly high and steep rock faces, is very Tolkein-worthy, so it was to our great amusement that our host for the evening was named Frode (you pronounce the last ‘e’ as separate syllable, so, his name is said ‘fro-deh’). We checked in to the hotel, had a look at the theatre where we’d be playing, which was the lower floor of the hotel itself, and had dinner. I was pleased to discover, with my busted wifi antenna, that the wifi hub for our floor was actually *in * my room. We had a decent dinner in the hotel restaurant, and since it was a festival style show, we had nothing to do and no access to the stage til quite late. Email binge! I came down to the backstage, thru a lobby full of Norwegian kids well into their drinking for the evening, at after midnight, when the preceding band was already done. We quickly set up, and were on at 1am. As we began, the kids filtered back in from the lobby and the terrace and began filling up the room. They were into it from word go; the crowd was generally quite young, they were definitely quite drunk, and being mostly inhabitants of the surrounding area, they were up for it in a major way. So, we, being fresh and rested, were ready to deliver a full on ass whipping. It was great! We sounded like a million kroner, and the kids were losing it. Awesome! As soon as we were done, the venue was closing, which hampered CD sales a bit, but also kids had spent their allowance that week on frothy lagers, too. But it was great to meet the peeps, and folks were genuinely into the show, including some really young ones, there were kids as young as 10-12…great to have young fans, they should stick with us for awhile! We did ‘Solar Sister’ in the encore… After the show, I hurried to get to bed, of course the nicer the single hotel room the shorter the stay, that’s the rule of tour, and as I got to bed at about 3… STORAAS, 8/1 …I was up at 6.15. I had warned my band about this leg of the journey, multiple times. So we were all prepared for the worst, most brutal trip ever. Nobody really drank after the show. And thus, when we were shuttled down to the train station (just 2 minutes drive from the hotel) to catch a bus to Molde at 7.30, we were actually in better shape than we should have been. I myself was feeling great, and it was a stunning morning. I sat up front as we headed to Molde for the next hour and a half, picking up and dropping passengers on the way. There was a short hop over a fjord on a ferry, and since the bus headed first up the fjord, then around the end of it, then worked its way west, we had a perfect panorama of the scenery, really for the first time—the train takes narrower breaks thru the mountains coming from the east, so you are looking straight up mountains and cliffs on either side—the bus heads west where the countryside starts to level, so you can look back at the mountains and marvel. We arrived to Molde with an hour and a half before the next bus was leaving for Storaas. The only source of food and coffee seemed to be this old diner above the bus station, but it dawned upon me to explore a fish shop nearby, and I bought some excellent smoked salmon and gravlax. I was able to spread this out and eat it when we had another short ferry ride across a fjord and I could leave the bus for awhile. Eventually we were dropped off at the village of Storaas, site of the Storaasfestival. Spread around a gravelly quarry site, the festival entertains some 5000 people. We were the first band on the second stage, so, it wasn’t long after we arrived that we were setting up, and playing, to what seemed like zero people when we went onstage, but, people started trickling in and soon we had a marvelous crowd. In fact, this show was a fantastic one, full of all kinds of mischief. At one point someone put their toothbrush in my pocket! And I sang part of some song using the bristles as a kind of moustache…the facial hair theme continued when I crawled up under a guy’s big ZZ Top beard (someone told me he was a guy from the band Motorpsycho). I can put this and Raumarock (Andalsnes) up there with the best of ‘em. After our set, Sons and Daughters, from Glasgow, used our bass/guitar and pedals for their set, as their luggage was lost in their travels. Great band, and being Scottish, well, the default setting of a Scot is super kind and friendly. STORAAS, 8/1 pt. 2 Eventually we went to our hotel, which was a collection of troll cottages very far away from the festival. After a short chat with the guys from Mudhoney, who were just checking in after arriving from the states, Bjorn and I got back in a van and headed back to the site, and I played ANOTHER show. Totally different, and believe me, after the Disciplines show, plus playing til 2 am the night before, plus getting up at 6 this morning, with my legs all bruised and beat to shit after slipping sliding crawling and jumping with the Discplines, I could easily have been in bed by 8pm. But, duty called, and I wandered over to the campfire stage with some trepidation. Would anyone be there? Would I even be audible above the din of 3 stages all blaring away around me? Well, I set up and people started trickling in and sitting around the fire. In fact, this show turned out to be wonderful. I played to about 150 people, just the right size, so I could go off mic (there was a pause in the festival program that allowed me not to have to compete with all the other stuff for most of my set). People were really into it, and in fact since my voice was edgy from two Disciplines shows and little sleep, it was very emotional sounding, I love when it’s like that. Wonderful show! After the show Bjorn and I watched some of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, who I believe has the easiest job in show business—get a crack band to lay down the groove, and make some nursery rhyme shit up on top. But, that’s to say that it was highly enjoyable! He wheels a rolling suitcase onstage with him, and off when he goes…the tour money? And, following that, we watched Propaghandi, the excellent Canadian punk band, who I’ve been a fan of for a decade or so. They don’t play festivals with corporate sponsors, so they are a rare sight on the Euro festival circuit. Sporting wicked riffs, at least one terrible moustache, and passionate convictions on subjects of freedom, (anti) nationalism, racism, etc. Very good! We were beat, and we had few opportunities to get back to the hotel, some 30 minutes away, so we took a van leaving at 1am, just as Blondie kicked off on the mainstage with ‘Hanging on the Telephone’. ASKOY, 8/2 Not too early a departure, and perhaps more time in Trondheim airport than we really needed (flight was an hour late) but we arrived in Bergen, and settled into our hotel. Lots of down time, mmm! In the evening, a van drove us to Askoy, about 30 minutes from Bergen, and dropped us off at the local yacht club. That was the HQ for the Lost Weekend Festival. Dinner was served on picnic tables (with a little patience I obtained some wonderful poached salmon). I chatted with Thom Hell and band, and Surferosa. Then we, and our gear, were loaded onto a boat, along with a crew of Dutch travelers who had sailed to Iceland and back…we worked our way into a tiny little inlet, and pulled up directly alongside the mainstage, where the Waterboys were in full swing. The festival site is spread on a little crag of stone and pine trees, lovely spot. The Waterboys could be called the de facto headliners, they certainly had a the crowd’s attention, and they went on to do a two song encore. They did lose some points for covering Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’. I asked aloud if there wasn’t a UN Mandate to ensure the non-proliferation of cover versions of that very song… Ok, they were soon done, they sounded good, really…then we set up…it looked like a damn ghost town. I thought, ‘oh, no, big mistake that we were put on after them’. But, when we started, as will happen in festivals, people started to filter back and eventually we had a crowd. It was the late night crowd, so lots of drunk freaks, so the show had a weird edge to it. When I was out in the crowd a female security guard started pushing me, telling me I had to get back to the stage, and people could get hurt. Now, if I hadn’t done ten shows like this already, I would wonder, but having been a veteran of punk shows, with slam dancing, stage diving, and other potentially injurious behavior, I had a bit more faith in my audience than that. As much as they were drunk Norwegians, they weren’t turkeys doomed to drown by looking up in a rainstorm. In the old days, I would have just head butted her, and gone directly to jail. But, I was calm enough to say “this is my show, I make the rules, and you are overstepping your authority’ and refused to comply! KS 1, the (wo)Man, Null! So, no one got hurt. I think I liked the first two shows better, since the audiences were just a bit less fucked up, and I was less tired, but, people loved this show. Our sound engineer, Lasse, said it was by far the best sound of the three. And the praise I got from the other bands! After our set, the DeLillos heaped praise upon us; the singer of local band Sagh (which means ‘Saw’, as in the tool), told me that he was just amazed and inspired; and the singer for the headliners, the very Alice In Chains-ish Audrey Horne (who were very good), came to say: “thank you for making my job the hardest job in show business! How am I supposed to follow that??”. So, I guess it was pretty good! I was very happy that it gave some inspiration to my peers! After the show, we watched some Audrey Horne, then boated back to Askoy YC with some very drunken DeLillos (who? You ask—The DeLillos have been one of Norway’s biggest bands, for over 20 years. Singing in Norwegian, you won’t have heard of them if you’re not from there, but everybody knows them here), and then were shuttled into vans back to the hotel, by which time it was after 3am and time to sleep…at least for me! Today, in the hotel a fire alarm went off at 7am, followed by message (in Norwegian) that it was a false alarm. I tried to call the front desk…no effect. So I got dressed and went down to the lobby. OK, found out we were not on fire. I couldn’t sleep, as tired as I thought I was…ANOTHER alarm went off but was quickly followed by an all clear. Evidently the toaster in the kitchen was acting up. I kid you not! I had lunch with REM’s tour manager Bob Whittaker and his gal Val. He was on holiday as the tour has a break in it, and picked Bergen as a place that would be away from the summer heat and not too touristy. Except that Bergen IS full of tourists, but just around the fish market. Now back in Oslo, ready for Oya, O ya! Love KS Oslo
I put up a bunch of new photos in the photos section. Including some of the best Disciplines live shots ever! Love KS Oslo
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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!!!
older news :
8/3/2003
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