I was getting into the groove of the Bud Reichard project. I think at the beginning of the project I was experiencing feelings of musical colonialism--I thought Bud’s relative lack of experience and his dissatisfaction with his own recordings thus far authorized me to take a greater degree of control than he really wanted--and my relative wealth of experience sort of made my ideas ‘better’ than his, in a way--or at least, I tried pretty hard to put him thru a typical KS filter. But, even tho he asked me to be the ‘producer’ he really in the end has a clear and consistent vision. And the more I got into it, the more I enjoyed the recordings and the process, and the more Bud enjoyed himself. These are subtle changes, my description makes the whole process sound more dramatic than it was, but let’s say that at the beginning I didn’t really see where it was all going, I didn’t even really know Bud at all but after working on it for a few days Bud’s vision started to make sense to me. And, yes, in some instances, Bud’s *relative* lack of experience in the *music* environment, makes him sometimes a little naive on certain things, but that’s a trait that can be exploited to his artistic advantage--he knows less of the “rules” and doesn’t weigh the pressure to conform against his own vision. Now, last time I checked, that’s the artistic prerogative, no? Anyway, in reference to the adjustments above, to both Bud and my credit, we never clashed on any subject. Bud is a very gentle guy. Prob. more polite than me, the old jaded music burnout!
Now, in the meantime, if you read this blog more than a little, you might get an impression that I work pretty much nonstop. And you’d be right. I have a very advanced case of freelancer’s disease--the absolute inability to say no to anyone who meets my price (and occasionally I give a break on projects I am really excited about). I have the luck to have a lot of opportunities to work--or, I’m not charging enough, but it seems like I make a more than decent living, so, hard for me to believe.
But, this year, with multiple Posies tours, KS tours, Disciplines tours and the finishing and releasing and promoting of the album, plus innumerable studio projects, plus perhaps a little psychic residue from turning 40, has been a very intense one. I’ve never been on so many airplanes in one year (imagine that each one of those days is more stressful or at least annoying in a death-by-a-thousand-humiliations kind of way). And in general I felt my health--thru improved diet, more exercise, and far less toxins--to be better than ever. So, sometimes I felt a little swamped by all the work on my plate, but generally I accepted and encouraged the calendar to be full to bursting (remember I have not only the workload, but I have to fit in pilates classes, getting my daughter to school, writing this blog, and managing the calendar/promotion/activities/tours/career of myself and most of the bands I am involved with). However, this week something odd happened. I woke up in the middle of the night in INTENSE pain--a continuation of a slight pain that had awoken me a little earlier than usual that same morning, but ebbed over the course of the day. However, at this time there was no escaping. I couldn’t sit still, I had to walk off the pain around the flat, and then put myself in a hot bath to try and meditate into and thru the pain. It would subside for a bit, then a new wave would come back. The pain was settled in my lower abdomen. A doctor from SOS Medicins came (this is a great thing about France--a doctor can be called to make a house call, at 2 in the morning, and it costs about €70 for the visit), and examined me. This started the first of what I expect will be a parade of latex-sheathed fingers marching up my rear end. Oh lord. Not finding anything definitive, he gave me some (ineffectual) painkillers and I went the rest of the night alternating bath, sleep in bath, sleep in bed, pacing. The pain coming and going. In the morning I cancelled my session with Bud and did get a little consistent sleep, and then headed for the hospital around midday. More exploratory fingers, and no conclusions. Only, it didn’t *appear* that I had cancer. This is good, but what was the cause of the pain? The good news: I got better drugs. Thru a combination of heavy pain killer, muscle relaxant, Xanax, and a few other perscription drugs, I have been able to function, and sleep for the better part of the night.
Just canceling the session did ease up on my ambient stress level; even tho I spent most of the day in the hospital or asleep, the fact that my constant workload had been interrupted for a day was something of a relief. I still went out that night--I had purchased a ticket to the Keith Jarret concert at Salle Pleyel, and I was not going to miss out on €70 worth of entertainment. In fact, the concert provided me with a superb distraction. I wasn’t sure even if I was going to like it, but in fact I was impresed by his explorations, I found them beautiful. I had a single seat along the side of balcony 1--the Salle Pleyel reminds me of smaller-scale Lincoln Center--and I had a great view of his hands. The acoustics in the venue are incredible, there was no PA used, and his piano and occasional Tourette’s-like grunts were clearly audible. However, I was pretty worn out by recent and cumulative general activities, so I only stayed for the first half, going home at the intermission.
Earlier in the week I had also gone to see Micah P. Hinson’s show at the beautiful Theatre Marigny, up along the Champs Elysee where all the little Christmas market chalets are. A rich and influential media figure in France has commandeered the place and ordered them to insert indie rock amongst the plays and cabarets normally taking place there. Visually, it’s stunning. Acoustically, they are obviously not used to rock music yet, so the sound was a little overbearing (and definitely over the 90db limit mandated by law for concerts in Paris). Micah makes a kind of swampy drawl over Cocteau Twins-y guitar, mainly; he is accompanied by a precise, indie-rock central casting drummer, and also by his wife, who plays drony, sometimes barely audible keyboards. When not playing, she sits at a 90 degree angle from him and watches his every move...impressively so, as even if I was onstage with Led Zeppelin, after 5 months of non stop touring I would probably *occasionally* look at how my nails were doing or at the light show or weird people in the audience. But her gaze never wavered, and in fact her reverential attitude never changed at all. Hardcore. For stretches of the show, Micah moved to acoustic guitar and the drummer moved to banjo. A few notes of feedback that seemed to be caused by the banjo drew the kind of glares from Micah that you read about Neil Young giving his hapless bandmates, and the song in question was started over, the banjo player looking like he was afraid to breathe. Poor bastard. This was the last night of the tour--draw your own conclusions. Let’s say that for me, attitude is everything, and you can only get away with being kind of an evil princess if you are in fact Prince. Most people don’t practice enough to be that good, so you are stretching your credit rating by assuming you hold the world as collateral. On Thursday I did feel good enough to do some vocals for an upcoming White Flag single, a cover of ‘The Witch’ by the Rattles. The Rattles are a German band, I guess late 1960s vintage (tho still active today)--sort of a cross between Blue Cheer, Sweet and Status Quo. Thursday night I flew up to Trondheim, changing planes in Oslo, and getting in to Trondheim after midnight. Needless to say, my health condition had put a small but noticeable dent in my enthusiasm--I wasn’t sure if I was in a state that would allow me to perform at all, let alone at my best.
A nice couple picked me up at the airport and drove me to the hotel. I checked into my room, first cranking up the heat to temperatures normally associated with Riyadh, then then going immediately to sleep.
I woke up in the night after Xanax-enhanced dreams where limbless strangers pursued me, wriggling on their chests in brain-starved-zombie fashion. I woke up and my room was humming, some kind of heating or other machinery was causing the whole room to throb. A storm whipped the skylight. The machinery noise gave the room an Eraserhead vibe. Ugh.
TRONDHEIM, 11/28
I did sleep most of the night without pain, however. Was it pleasant? Not really. I spent most of the day in bed--catching up on business, getting things organized for the show that night, etc. I only left my room twice--once to go to breakfast, where I found very little appealing; and once to find cafe and lunch. I vowed to patronize the first place I saw, which, to my delight, was next door. Kafe 19. No windows, not much to indicate if and when it was open. I opened the door, and found myself in a hallway. Another door ahead for the cafe. I entered, and a very friendly guy looking a bit like one of the ABBA guys greeted me with a big “Hello! Where are you from?” The landscape around us wasn’t exactly what I’d expect to find a cafe. Eventually I got the vibe: it was a community center staffed by and for the enjoyment of people with a diverse set of mental and physical issues. They were welcome here, and there were opportunities to work here. The menu was quite limited--a few cakes; or the meal of the day: Norwegian style pancakes and bacon. There was espresso, too. A really friendly guy waited on me, and I found it such a relief from the dour cafes of Paris--he was making little jokes and really engaging me in pleasant, light conversation about who I was and what I was doing. However, his interest was genuine. I enjoyed that meal more than many recent tour meals. Now, I could have interpreted the place incorrectly, there's nothing about the place online and even locals couldn't help me, and honestly, I just didn't have the strength to go into investigative reporter mode. So, feel free to tell me a little more about the mission statement of Kafe 19.
I slept much of the afternoon, and finally at 6pm I had to face the fact that I had to do my best to not look like shit. Showered, shaved, contacts in. I still really wasn’t ready, and there was no way in my condition to feel fully ready for the physicality of a Disciplines show. I was met at the hotel by the super friendly Magnus, who was definitely an uplifting person to run into at this point. He walked me to the club, and my guys were soon there too. Jim Protector had decided to soundcheck, which was rather premature, considering we hadn’t even arrived yet--they would have to remove their stuff, let us put ours up so we could soundcheck, and then set up again. Which I had told them. But these guys live in a little JP Universe all their own, so sometimes they just do stuff. In the end, all the Disciplines arrived and we did our soundcheck. One thing was true: all the painkillers and mood calmers and what not had made me so relaxed that my voice was *fantastic*. I sang like a million dollars at the soundcheck...this was a good sign. We went back to the hotel, and returned some time later when JP was in full tilt. I joined them, as per tradition, singing and playing guitar on ‘Shields Down’.
When we took to the stage a good and typically rowdy Trondheim crowd had assembled. We tore into the set, but from the get go the added adrenalin canceled out the benefits of my meds. So, in fact, my voice was a little fragile. I was able to perform, but I didn’t have 100% of the usual energy, neither to move nor to sing. No one noticed tho--and of course, the limits just made me push myself harder. Like my last show in BLAEST, with the Posies in 2005, there was broken glass everywhere, and lots of people in knit hats going nuts. There were even two stage dives...truly ridiculous, and a Disciplines show is the kind of place where the ridiculous is more than welcome! In the end, I was shirtless, and covered in god knows what kind of filth; while I lay on my back, someone poured beer in my throat, and I managed to keep singing without choking on it. Blech, I just don’t like beer, sorry! No need to say I smelled like a chicken processing plant when I got back to the room. However, the show was great. No complaints.
DRAMMEN, 11/29
Drammen, as I’ve said before is the Cleveland of Norway. The mistake by the glacier. The butt of endless jokes. However, due to its underdog status, I have made a conscious effort to enjoy Drammen, and I will say this: they have an incredible venue complex, the Union Scene. We played here back in May, part of a little festival, and I think I described the place pretty well then--but, to catch you up, it’s a group of brick factory buildings roughly a century old, that have been encased in glass and modernized into a super structure of various theatres, rehearsal spaces, venues, bars, cafes etc. It’s a wonderful place. The only problem, is that Drammen doesn’t really have the population to keep a place like this busy. so there’s a lot of art here being put on for a rather miniscule audience. People in Drammen tend to be conseravtive--if they aren’t, they move to Oslo, just 30km up the road, so a lot of the great work at Union Scene falls on deaf ears.
Before going to Drammen, we flew to Oslo, and were met my Espen, our tech for the day, and our van and trailer. We drove to our rehearsal place, and loaded up the gear. At first, the lock the rental co. gave us for the trailer didn’t open with the combination we’d been given, and after some time on the phone we had permission to cut it. Cool! Breaking stuff with permission is cool.
We still had lots of time to kill so I walked up to Tim Wendelboe’s for a cafe, and actually met Tim himself--we had a chance to express our mutual fandom and we discussed other things. Very focused and interesting guy.
Eventually we hit the road to Drammen, and loaded in and soundchecked, and we *still* had hours to kill. I did more work and, also went to an empty room that had a piano, and warmed up my voice.
Finally, it was 10.30 and we could go on. We went onstage and there were like four people in the venue. Ooh, dear. OK, more like six, which I felt justified us getting on with it--I knew Drammen would be quiet. However, within a few minutes of our opening chords, people came in from other parts of the building--not a ton of them, mind you, but enough! And we delivered a violent, out of control show. I kicked the barricade away from the stage with my feet, to the edge of the timid bystanders, and then physically dragged it away--I crawled in the beams and on the PA and on the mixing desk and wherever. The people loved it, and they got a massive show for their money. I couldn’t really live with doing less. However, the tour ended at the perfect time. My voice, my body, my life, in this condition, couldn’t take much more.
After the show, I rode back with the van and crew and slept on the couch at our sound engineer, Lasse, ‘s place. Made the morning trek to Tim Wendelboe, then continued on to the airport. I actually feel like wet garbage today. Need a break. I pretty much feel what the white shirt I wore for these two shows looks like--dragged thru black ickiness of indeterminate organic origin, needing to be boiled and buried more than merely rinsed off.
But, tomorrow is back to work.
Love KS OSL
11.23.2008
GRAZ, 11/18
I spent as much of this day asleep as I did awake. Rising up to catch my flight to Copenhagen and on to Vienna, I slept almost the entire duration of my time in the air. Stumbling into baggage claim, the promoter of the Autumn Leaves songwriter festival, Michael, met me at the airport--we got in his car for the two-hour drive to Graz, and I fell promptly back asleep. There are some things that when German speakers speak English, their enquiries can sound like critiques--not intentional. So, when I woke up as we arrived in Graz, and he asked me rather sternly “but are you so tired?” I tried not be defensive...”I guess so...” I demurred. Is this a real verb, by the way? It should be.
I checked into my spacious digs at the hotel Weitzer, following the odd path to my room--up one elevator, across into another building, up another elevator--and commenced to chill, somewhat. I had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, where I was served an excellent red wine by the glass--and dammit if I didn’t forget to write that one down. The restaurant actually opens up into a wine store, which seems to have almost the same hours as the restaurant--pity that I had only a soft bag for luggage--I hope they repeal the liquid ban soon for flight carry on luggage.
I almost bailed on going to see the bands playing that night, but I was a good sport and checked out Neuschnee and The Poem Is You. The former is a Vienna-based group, really a songwriter who happens to be able to write his own string arrangements, which he then passes on a quartet for accompaniment. The latter is a quarter, recently downgraded from a sextet, from Berlin. A mix of male and female voices, and the inclusion of bassoon, sax, keyboard bass, give the group a rather quirky and patchwork kind of sound. I liked them. The singer bears an uncanny resemblance to John Malkovich, he should play him in a meta-movie.
The next day I spent in my room. I was short on Euros, and needed to rest, play guitar, and be still. Michael picked me up in the afternoon and we drove the short distance to the venue, the Postgarage. This is a lovely little place--well, actually it’s two venues, the larger one was being used as the backstage, and the small one was where the festival was taking place. Perfect size--the room is lit by illumination seeping thru intricately patterned metalwork, giving the room a kind of Moroccan feel. The stage is low and set into the corner, and the festival organizers had hired in a lovely upright piano. I did my soundcheck, and then had the inspiration, this also being my 4th show in Graz since the release of my last album to make this so-named songwriter festival a showcase for songs I’ve written--new songs, that is.
Meanwhile, I joined the band Esteban’s, fronted by the singer of Garish, for vocals and piano on one of their lovely songs. The singer, Boff, looks like a kind of 50s John Roderick. He plays for the most part of the set a nylon string acoustic, and is joined by a drummer, a stand up bass player (who also occasionally diverts to ukelele) and the formidable talents of Ben Martin, who was part of my band for the show I did at B72 in Vienna early last year. Ben mostly plays electric guitar here, but occasionally could be seen on the piano. The song that I joined them on, “I'm Below Your Balcony” can be heard on their myspace...the album version, that is!
For my set I launched straight into 5 new songs: “110 or 220V”, which I’ve been playing for awhile; “Even the Forgers Were Left Fingering the Fakes” which I’ve played a few times; “History Buffs” which I might have played in Barcelona last year? But maybe only at soundcheck...; “Shit Talkers” and “Savior’s Hands” which I’ve definitely never played anywhere else. The audience was incredibly into it, and the fact that I didn’t really know these songs well, and was often leaping without a net, made the performances much more interesting for me, and I think the audience, too. I did a few songs from each of my albums, a cover or two, and then brought up Ben Martin to duet on one of his songs “I Only See” and then all of Esteban’s came up for a monster version of “Any Love” that brought down the house. Seriously, people were freakin’ out! So, I had to keep going. I ended with a version of “Here’s to the Future” that I dedicated to the American people, for not giving into the fear and cynicism that was rattled in their faces, and to the Obama era they helped usher in.
After the show I sold an entire box of CDs, which is certainly a good sign! Me and the Esteban’s crew walked back to the hotel in the chilly Austrian night.
I was up super early to drive back to Vienna with Michael the next morning, and was home by lunchtime. That evening Dominique and I dined at a great little place in our neighborhood that has previously escaped my attention--L'Ebauchoir--joined by out of town visitors--my friends Lasse and Jenni, Lasse being one of the central figures in the Helsinki music scene and just an all around sweetheart; and the violin/guitar duo Tin Cup Prophette, who reside in Athens GA and had played Paris the night before. Add a couple of locals to the mix and we have something interesting going on.
Thursday I mostly watched over my daughter who was home with a cold, but in the evening I worked on vocal contributions for an album by Mark Lassiter, a North Carolina resident who has managed to get quite a few heavyweights on his album.
BERGEN, 11/21
The next morning I was up super early to head to CDG for my flights to Copenhagen-Bergen; Terminal one was a madhouse when I arrived, packed flights to Saudi Arabia, Tokyo, etc., just slammed with people speaking a multitude of languages, babies crying, you name it. Oddly, out at the SAS gates, which usually has a massive security line, there was almost no one when I went thru.
At last, I arrived in Bergen, which was experiencing a kind of blizzard. I bused to the hotel--this takes about an hour, as the road from BGO to the city center is essentially two lanes, with construction every step of the way. When I arrived at the SAS Royal Hotel, the line to check in was four people wide and 20 rows deep. Sigh. Eventually I made it to my room and immediately went for a swim.
The rest of the band, save for Bjorn, who lives in Bergen, was coming from Oslo and their flight was delayed by an hour. So I didn’t even go to the venue until 9pm. I thought about walking, but after about ten steps I gave up on fighting against 50-mile-an-hour winds stuffing snow up my nose and got in a cab.
The Garage, where Jon Auer and I had already played this year, and the Disciplines had played last year (plus the Posies in 2005, and a solo show of mine in 2004) is run by the eccentric Dennis, a true rocker--he reminds me a little of Frank Gorshin’s character in “Twilight of the Ice Nymphs” meets RiffRaff from Rocky Horror. Wispy white hair retreating from the central battlefield, and scattering while doing so. You don’t really converse with Dennis so much as receive his part of the conversation; you have to sneak your requests in while he takes a breath now and then.
The guys arrived, we soundchecked, I set up the merch. We went upstairs for a few moments and then back down, and magically the place was full. Bergen folks ALWAYS rock, especially at the Garage. It’s the kind of place that, if you play on a weekend, you just don’t have to worry if people will be there. They were there, they were drinking, jumping, and singing along, and it was marvelous. No complaints about this show! It was what a good Disciplines show is all about. Fun, spilled beer, and conviviality par none. After the show Bjorn’s medical school buddies drank all our beer, so it was time to go home!
OSLO, 11/22
I was up in the morning for a swim, and barely got my guys on to the airport bus (I won’t say who I was waking up at 12.10 to get him on the 12.20 bus that we needed to be on, but I will say he plays bass) but we all made it and got on our flight to Oslo. We took the train into central Oslo, and then loaded up a MaxiTaxi--a Mercedes sprinter that accommodated easily the band, crew and gear. It also had karaoke, but we didn’t take advantage of that.
We pulled up to the Parkteatret and brought our gear in. The Parkteatret is a lovely old theater in the hipster neighborhood of Grunelokka; in fact, it’s just a block from Tim Wendelboe, my favorite espresso stop in all of Europe. It’s kind of a big place, probably too big for us to be playing so early in our career, but the fact is we padded it out with a big guest list and by the time of our show we had a nice looking house. We were sharing the night with a Balkan Beat Party, a super popular destination on Saturday nights, with DJs and a live band playing that Croatian Klezmer that is all the rage at the moment. The band--Copenhagen based, mix of Croats, Poles, Danes and Macedonians--were really good, I managed to watch their soundcheck. They had a drummer plus a guy banging on a kind of marching band bass drum, a tuba, an accordion, a kind of tiny clarinet, some oud-looking thing, and bass. They set them up on the small stage at the back of the room, and we were on the big stage. Probably in terms of popularity and appropriateness the places should have been switched, but, the big stage here is so lovely and prestigious, I didn’t make a fuss.
Oslo concertgoers, especially for a show whose headliner goes on at 9.30, are pretty standoffish. The difference between Oslo and, say, Bergen is polar. Hahaha! Nordic jokes. nyuk nyuk. But, really, there were a lot of people cramming into the back behind the sound board, a few really young kids up front going nuts, and a kind of no-fan’s-land in between. I had to work HARD to rectify it. My strategy was simple--this venue is so refined, so genteel, that I felt I had to bring the dirty crust of true rock and roll insanity. There were points when I saw my Oslo friends in the audience (including much of the TIm Wendelboe staff!) and I felt totally ridiculous--shaking my shoulders and pouting a la Robert Plant in 1974; sucking a spilled beer off the surface of the stage; spitting on myself, etc. I whipped the mic cable in the spilled beer, flicking it and smelly liquid on the audience. I brought a (male) audience member up and proceeded to do a kind of Prince-meets-Deliverance bump and grind on this extremely good sport. I stood on tiny barricades, bounced on the little wood slat that runs in front of the sound board...walked from table to table, basically risking my neck about 1000 times. It worked--by the end of the night, we had convinced Oslo to loosen up and give in to our charms. But I tell you it was hard work...today I am basically one big bruise. It was a great show, but it took awhile to break the ice...but, I think we won the respect of Oslowegian hipsters, the kind who get into shows for free so aren’t there as fans as much as just to be somewhere without paying cover on a Saturday night. We won the hard fight.
Back to Paris this evening, and yes, I was at Tim Wendelboe’s this afternoon!
Beginning of the week was spent on sessions for the Bud Reichard record...our days are short since we’re working at my place so I have time to get out at night, and thus on Monday I went to see Adam Green at L’Alhambra; he’s funnier and a better singer on the record than live, IMHO--the records are wry and subtle, but live it was more cartoonish, he had copied some Iggy Pop moves and a few other things that came off as a bit ridiculous and not subtle enough for my tastes. Now, Tuesday I went to see a band that operated in a zone completely devoid of subtlety--Slayer. This was fun to see, however I will say that metal bands in general often have a kind of factory-like approach live, so there’s very little interaction between the band members, or band and audience. The bands, like Slayer, look down at their instruments, bang their heads and grind out their music, and the audience thrashes away. It seems that being a band like Slayer, and metal in general, is about being in control. Their show every night will be more or less the same, they can change the order of the songs but most of the stuff works with precision and moves into the same mood. Also, these bands have to deliver at a certain volume and intensity, with the occasional breather of a song done at half time speed, not what we’d call a ballad but they might do a number that’s more sludgy than balls-out thrash. In other words, they are providing a commodity, the substance we call metal, and they are not allowed to diversify or experiment really. One thing I will say in favor of what I do as a solo artist and with the Disciplines both is that the shows depend heavily on the audience’s reaction and their participation--web 2.0!--if we/I don’t get the audience to start generating their component of the show, the show fails. I’m not talking about the excitement that comes with numbers--these shows can work or fail on these terms whether the audience numbers in the thousands or if there’s just a handful. Also, to be fair, tho, the arena experience can spread the energy of even a great band quite thin, and Slayer’s show was in the Zenith, not a place I really feel imparts a lot of charm on a show. Something in France’s favor, however--I would be sure that if I went to see Slayer in Florida or something that the audience would be full of deranged, scary and murderous bikers and Freemen separatists. In France, the audience was far from hardcore. I saw gothed out teens, and a couple examples of what looked to be someone’s parents, conservative couples in their 50s, prob. brought their kids to the show and were checking it out. The pit at Purified in Blood in Stavanger the week before was out of control. Here in Paris, there wasn’t really a pit at all.
I saw a movie recently that really affected me and I highly recommend: The Visitor. The story line could easily fall victim to overacting, overdramatazation/melodrama/corn--I mean, you float the idea of a white dude learning the djembe and I am already starting to break out in uncomfortable sweats, but the acting is brilliant in this film, and I found myself totally invested in the characters and their story. I won’t get too deep in the plot, but you don’t need to know anything in advance to enjoy this film, just trust me, it’s a very powerful and moving piece of cinema.
The music world took a beating this month. Yma Sumac, who you might have heard in a car commercial lately if you live i France, the Peruvian singer who explored many styles, toured the world, and was gifted with an unearthly voice, passed away at an old folks home in California. Miriam Makeba, the benevolent voice of South African pop for many decades, fell ill and died after participating in an anti-organized crime benefit in Italy (investigation, anyone?) and the curse of the Jimi Hendrix Experience finally managed to settle its accounts with Mitch Mitchell, who died after the last night of a tour, in his hotel room in Portland OR. It’s hard to imagine it wasn’t lifestyle related, like the OD/barf death of Jimi, and the internal hemorrhaging from liver damage that felled Noel Redding a few years back. Condolences all around.
On Wednesday I flew up to Oslo, and stayed at a very weird hotel somewhere nearish to the airport. It was made of parallel halls that were crossed by parallel halls, meaning it was super easy to get lost and disoriented. And it was sort of empty, especially by the time I showed up, coming on the late flight from Paris...it really had an Ice Station Zebra vibe.
TROMSØ, 11/13
For each of these three shows I could write the same review--we came to play a small student bar in Norway; the clubs seemed totally dead an hour before the show; people started arriving, although no shows were totally packed we had decent crowds; and the shows were absolute mayhem in the greatest possible way. Each show had a kind of break-the-ice period, and once we, band and audience, got used to each other, we had a great time.
During the day I had time to go into Oslo, and at one point I was on a public bus, standing towards the front hanging from the little loops coming down from overhead. There was open space behind me, with jump seats that snap back to the folded position if no one is sitting in them; one of them, directly behind me, was occupied by a woman who appeared to be about 75. All of a sudden, the bus driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a car that didn’t give right of way, and this woman was launched straight ahead, and into me. I was looking forward and like everyone else was taken totally surprise by the bus driver’s action, and soon found I had an old woman crumpled up on my backside. A true testament to the hardy Norwegian people, after I helped her up, she claimed to be fine. Did the bus driver even seem to care or notice? Nope.
From Oslo, the flight up to Tromsø is almost as long as the flight to Paris. And the early descent of night makes it seem even longer--I fell asleep during the flight and when we landed at about 7.30 that night, it felt like almost midnight. But, it wasn’t and we had work to do! We went and set up at Driv, the same place Jon Auer and I played 7 months ago.
Excellent, excellent show--we looked like a million bucks with Driv’s deluxe light show, and the audience was ready to get going--always we have some hardcore folks in the front singing every word, and they help get everyone else OK with the fact this show is about having fun, not the kind of indie rock show where everyone should look at us like we are an art installation...like the audience at the Fuck Buttons show in Oslo--yes, they are arty, but their show was WAY more fun than people were allowing it to be, they were trying to keep it squarely in the ‘this is difficult music, so I am getting smarter than the average person by standing in front of it’ vibe. Our music isn’t experimental for that reason. What’s experimental is the attitude that it’s not a ‘show’ for an ‘audience’. We are the ignition cap and the audience is the gunpowder, and without one you won’t get the desired effect that results from their co-reaction. In this, we were all successful in our union. Driv is an old wooden building down on the harbor, and has huge beams for rafters, and I managed to climb these very items several different times--sometimes climbing up into the balcony, one time I was up on rafter suspended over the audiences heads, then I was hanging off it by one arm (It was quite big around so this gave me quite a few bruises) and jumped down into the audience! Another time, I ran up the stairs at the back of the venue to the balcony and did a jump into a sofa that was facing me, tipping it over and landing so I was seated on the couch’s back, which was now on the floor, then I tipped it backwards, rolled out and went back downstairs.
Yep, it was a rock show, and yes, we played well too!
After the show we had some friends up to the dressing room, including Jon Marius, who recorded our album and is now living in Tromsø, we hadn’t seen him in quite awhile so this was great. And, expect to see great photos of this show by Willy Rundmo, who took photos of our show at Bukta Festival that I feel are the most successful yet at capturing the vibe of our live show.
HARSTAD, 11/14
We had a late check out, and despite the false fire alarm at about 10 that morning, I managed to get plenty of rest. I avoided the staff of Driv’s kind offer to get me free shots...yeeech. I did have some wine tho, and these days, two glasses is enough to get me more buzz than the Strokes in 2001. Anyway, we made our way to the ferry, which was leaving from a place about 50 yards from our hotel. Easy. Then we had 2.5 hours journey to Harstad. Now, generally, much to my annoyance, my French mobile, which is much easier and cost effective for me to use for texting than my US phone (a Nokia E61 ’smart phone’ that is so fucking DUMB: for some reason it takes like 5 minutes to upload and send a text message, rendering the phone inoperable during the process) can’t get on Norway’s cell phone network most of the time. There are some compatibility issues between Telenor and Orange, evidently. However, lo and behold, all of a sudden, out in the middle of the sea, my French phone sprang into life and started receiving texts that had been sent since I arrived in Oslo Wednesday night.
We arrived in the little town of Harstad, and were met by the promoter on the quai. He loaded up our gear into his car and we walked the 500 yards or so to the Studentkroa, a tiny little student pub. This is the kind of place that we were born to play, really. And Norway has such a great network of student venues, we have many places that cater perfectly to our agenda. So, we set up our gear and then had many hours to kill--typically these places don’t get going til about midnight. So we chilled at the hotel, and got some dinner at a nearby restaurant. There was a ‘shart’ incident that I won’t go into great detail about here, but let’s just say it was lucky I paid Tiger of Sweden a visit when I was in Oslo!
So, we trudged in the snow to the venue and it was pretty dead. Uh oh. However, 30 minutes later when we went onstage, the front had filled up, and there was a little crowd there that continued to grow. And 15 minutes into the set it felt like 500 people were there--we were rocking hard and the audience was there with us. I did the usual crawling around on the tables etc. and at one point I kid you not I was on a long kind of bar, on my back, my feet on the ceiling, and I was acting out the video (while singing the song with improvised obscene lyrics) to Billie Jean. We crossed a serious line there, Bjorn said later! People ate that shit up. A guy actually requested ‘Flavor of the Month’ trying to be clever, and to his absolute astonishment/joy we played it! This show was 100% in the ‘ace’ column. After the show a couple of my bandmates were raging pretty hard at the bar--I knew better and went straight to bed this night.
LILLEHAMMER, 11/15.
As we had to be ready to go at 8.50 the next morning. No need to say I was calling my bandmates quite a few times from the lobby and it was apparent they had no idea what time it was. But we got ourselves on to the airport bus for the hour-long ride to Harstad/Narvik/Evenes airport, and got on our flight no problem, and by midday we were in Oslo, getting picked up by Theo, our tech for this night’s show, who had already picked up van, trailer and all our gear in Oslo, and we drove to Lillehammer. Having been in the frigid north for two days, Oslo was warm and sunny, especially by comparison. I fished out my shades from my bag, got in the van and fell alseep for the 2.5 hour drive to Lillehammer. When I woke up, we were entering the town, and it was cloudy and grey, so I was looking pretty ridiculous when we walked into the club. Sunglasses at night is one thing--sunglasses in November in Lillehammer is pretty much asking for an asswhipping. Thankfully none was offered! First order of business, since we had arrived a little early, was to put the new AC/DC album, Black Ice in the stereo and play it full blast over the PA--it’s marvelous. ‘The new AC/DC album’ is a bit of an oxymoron, since they recycle themselves so much, but, this one is really fun and benefits from clear, realistic production from Brendan O’Brien. Recommend!
We set up our gear, and once again, the whole town seemed completely depopulated when we went to the hotel at 7.30 or so. I was actually running out of ways to entertain myself by the time we assembled in the lobby to walk back to the club. We were pretty sure that no one would be there, but when we turned the corner and could see the club way down the street, we could see some humanoid shapes going to and fro around the club--and let me tell you, there was no other place they could be going. So, it was decently busy when we arrived. Again, none of these shows were packed, but the crowds we did get were plenty enough to make the place feel busy and they were seriously hard core--or ready to be converted. We told tons of CDs and T shirts at these shows, which is evidence that people were moved by the show...so, this one was maybe the best one yet. It was just out of control, wild, sweaty and beer soaked--shit was dripping from the ceiling, I was shirtless, guys were hugging me, girls grabbed my ass, and everybody was jumping like a fool, even the gal who booked the club was drunk off her tits and jumping like a frog in a skillet.
We did bits of ‘Dirty Deeds’ and some other songs...and we debuted our truncated cover version of ‘Crazy on You’ by Heart--the first attempt resulted in Bjorn completely shearing off his guitar cable at the jack, somehow...so we got his rig rebuilt and tore into it with renewed vigor. At one point I surprised the audience by pulling down a movie screen that hung over the front of the stage, putting it between us and them; kids were slamming into it, totally wild. After playing all of the stuff we new, more or less, my band was ready to be done but I refused to let them go, grabbing Bjorn’s guitar and playing the opening riff to ‘Hand of God’ and making it impossible for my band to leave! A great show. Maybe my favorite of the three.
After the show, we, the promoters, various friends etc. came to our little cabin behind the club to drink our beer. The promoter was so drunk, her boyfriend was laughing his ass off--she kept putting her headphones on everybody, trying to get them to listen to some godawful album by Primal Scream. Then we watched her in the corner, and suddenly she had set the table on fire, somehow, and her drunken attempts to put it out were basically making it worse, very quickly! Did I mention that we were in a 150 year old wooden cabin? The fire went out, but she didn’t! We left her and others there, and walked home in the snow. After a bit of theatre, when two of the guy hanging out with us looked enough like Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen that we enlisted one of the scruffiest of the film students with us, put glasses on him and we pretended we were shooting alternate takes from Lord of the Rings. hahaha. Many of us left at the same time, so as we were walking back in the night, Bjorn was in conversation with some gal that was walking our way and to illustrate whatever point he was trying to make, he started dancing, looking very much like a cricket that’s just been dosed with LSD and is under the impression its feet are on fire! Claus and I were gasping with laughter!
We left the gear in the club overnight (usually the safest option), so this afternoon we loaded up and drove back to Oslo--well, I’ve been dropped off at my hotel, not the same one I stayed at on Wednesday, so, there’s a different batch of in-room movies to watch...
Big Oslo show next Saturday...Parkteatret on the 22nd...tell yr friends.
Love KS Jessheim NORWAY
11.09.2008
A CABANA BUSH SMOKER, I
Obviously the dominating news of the week preceding was the US Presidential election, which I wrote about briefly a few days ago. Let’s put it this way--with the general trends, the general sentiment, the general worldview--if McCain had won, it would have been a shock, even to his supporters, I think. The system has to tick left of center and right of center now and then to effectively represent such a large and diverse country. If we stay with one political party too long, we risk alienation and division of those who aren’t represented by those values/philosophies/policies. And 8 years of Bush was starting to feel awfully long. I hope, and I believe at this point, that Obama has the ability and desire to put the best people, with the best qualifications, in his team and in his government. Bush’s gov’t put loyalty and ideology as the leading qualification, and we ended up with a few real numbskulls in some incredibly powerful positions. And Bush cultivated an array of yes-people, it seems--hopefully Obama is more deft at incorporating other people’s wisdom into his vision, but able to know when to settle on a decision--in other words, we hope he will the great leader we expect him to be.
Beyond that, most of my week was spent in the studio, the home studio, working on the Bud Reichard record. After the session on Monday Dom & I went to check out Okkervill River, at L--a recently reopened and refurbished small theater near Republique. They’ve been getting tons of good shows there, and the fact is the location is really quite good, just a quick run up line 8 on the metro from my house. Much easier than going out to La Trabendo--which will be competing for the shows of about the same size as L’Alhambra--La Trabendo has worse sound, is much further away and on a different, less convenient line for me, is much further from the metro, in a dodgier part of town. Like many dyslexic people, I was convinced that they were called Overkill River, until I tried to find their myspace. In fact, the cover artwork on their new album, “the Stand-In”, consists mainly of a skull, drawing association with the logo for 80s metal band Overkill. Maybe this is all on purpose? I thought the band played incredibly well. The singer comes of as a bit of a cliche of lead singer types, maybe a bit too in love with himself, but, if that was a crime, the world would have precious few lead singers outside of incarceration. But the band is smokin, and it all works. There was an extended bit of sophomoric poetry with a metaphor aggravatingly stretched thin that was performed by the singer primarily alone on his acoustic guitar, and this was too much for me to take, but the rest of the set was enjoyable.
SOGNDAL, 11/7
On Thursday, I flew up to Oslo (there was a strike at Orly airport involving security workers, so the line for security was the longest I have ever seen there, but they managed to get us thru on time) and went directly from the airport to Cafe Mono, to check out the Fuck Buttons, a superb minimalist electronic duo from the UK. With backing tracks, super cheap keyboards, and one small drum they make insane amounts of noise. I arrived pretty late on the evening Norwegian flight, so they were already going and the place was really full, I would like sometime to see them up close and see what gizmo is making which noise. Anyway, what a cool show and what a great band. Of course, being in Oslo is like old home week, I saw tons of friends and my glass was never empty.
The next morning, after a lightning strike on Tim Wendelboe, I met our sound engineer Lasse at the train station, and we headed to Oslo airport, where half my band was waiting. We checked in and took our little puddle jump flight to Sogndal, on the west coast of Norway. Actually, the airport at Sogndal and the airport at Volda seem to be more or less the exact same building, and the scenery around each is of similar dramatic scale and scope--mountains shooting straight up out of fjords, and such. We were quite high on approach above sea level, so the fjords were far below, but suddenly a snow dusted peak would be right below us, and you could spot little cabins on the mountain tops, no roads leading to them--quite lovely all around. We bumped down and headed for the 20 minute drive on switchback roads to town. Sogndal is largely built on the side of a hill, and the ‘downtown’ is at the bottom. So, at night, on the short walk between the venue and the hotel, on one side was more or less a straight wall of lights, where people lived. But the downtown is extremely quiet, except for the small bands of kids roaming around, who have at their disposal this lovely clubhouse, the student bar/cafe/venue, Meiriet. This year, this week really, the place was celebrating its tenth anniversary, so our show was the main event of that celebration. We were paired up with Katzenjammer, an energetic band playing kind of gypsy swing and many other things, four women who rarely play the same instrument to two songs in a row--each of them shifting comfortably between drums, accordion, mandolin, guitar, and an enormous balalaika played like a bass guitar. We’ve played a few shows together and only now did we break the ice on their natural shyness and really hang with them. I really enjoyed their show, it’s very positive and fun.
Alison, our most loyal fan, who has traveled all over Europe to see us, who has probably seen 80% of our shows plus the odd KS/Posies/etc show, was there, and brought me a lovely bottle of wine for my birthday, and installed on that a kind of puzzle that you put on a wine bottle and have to solve to get it off and access the bottle. ONe of the gals from Katzenjammer actually solved it after we all gave it a try--but she did just by fiddling with it with one hand absentmindedly during dinner--we asked her what she did and she had no idea!
Well, despite the fact we hadn’t played together in almost 2 months, and despite the fact that Bjorn didn’t arrive until after soundcheck (I played guitar and sang--hilarious), we played a marvelous set--this was just a superb, fun show. All the kids in Sogndal were really ready for a good time, and Katzenjammer really got them jazzed. I was wearing a shirt with snaps that I discovered has their own ideas about when to unsnap, so I spent much of the show somewhere between Robert Plant and Wishbone Ash modes...righteous!
After the show I did an interview with the local paper, our liason from the venue also doubletiming as journalist conducted the session. The dressing room was populated with various locals that we didn’t know at all, and one of them, a quite pretty young girl, was repeatedly walking into a coat tree, instead of what we assumed was her intended itinerary, thru the door one foot to the right. Poor little drunk student girl.
Incredibly massive kudos go to the Norlandia Park Hotell, whose staff members were friendly and charming from the get go, and who served us a more than decent dinner of their own version of tapas. Tapas appears to be in Norway this year what Thai restaurants were to Seattle in the early 90s--an inescapable phenomenon--the difference being that 95% of Thai restaurants in Seattle seem to be run by Thais; but I haven’t seen any Spaniards around the various tapas joints flung throughout Norway.
When the desk clerk learned we would be leaving before breakfast started at 7.30 the next morning, he immediately arranged that a tray of breakfast food would be put in out rooms while we were out at the show. So, in the morning I had bread, cheese, meat, yoghurt, and fruit. The rooms were kitchenttes, too, and thus I was also able to make tea for myself. Now, that’s a nice hotel.
STAVANGER, 11/8
Indeed, a big bus taxi--a very common form of transport in Scandinavia, for group excursions to the airport, e.g.--you’ll see them with trailers, even, and they are usually Mercedes Sprinter Class (what we often find ourselves riding in when we’re on tour)--picked us and Katzenjammer up in the morning and took us to Sogndal airport. It was a beautiful morning, and as I always ride in the front passenger seat of any taxi/van etc when possible, I had a great vantage to watch the dawn’s cool glow come into focus above the hills as we progressed. Another short hop to Bergen airport, where we had a couple of hours’ layover. We located the reclining leather chairs with footrests and snoozed til it was time to board our very short flight to Stavanger.
We were there to play an event called Nordic Music Week, a nebulously-themed multi-venue showcase of medium-to-unknown bands from around Scandinavia. The background to this is that Stavanger has been pummeled by 11 months of cultural events, free concerts, festivals of every stripe, since being named 2008’s European City of Culture, sharing the honor with Liverpool. Now, to me, that’s like putting the Olympics in two different cities in the same year. Already, the honor is diluted. But that doesn’t stop the money from pouring and and subsequently out. The effect: there is absolutely no cultural event at this point that would hold any interest whatsoever for the citizens of Stavanger. They have been beaten to death with video installations, operas, free Morten Harket concerts, you name it. So, you spread 50-60 mediocre and relatively unknown bands/DJs around a few clubs for a weekend at this point, and you’re just asking to be let down. Even with a few choice acts, like us IMHO and a couple of others...I mean, you cannot cram any more photons, sound waves, vibrations, etc. into the sense organs of these people. They are hunkered down with boxes of Chinese take away, wearing the same sweat pants again and watching You Tube videos and the Discovery Channel. They aren’t coming out until it all goes away, and Stavanger regains its usual, moderately-cultured appearance.
Even my friends didn’t come to this show. Now Stavanger is a tough town under any circumstances, but this show was under pretty severe conditions. Nevertheless, there were some people there--maybe similar to the numbers that have seen us before. We were on at 9.30, about two hours before most folks leave their houses, and playing before two bands that...well, let’s say that relative popularity didn’t seem to be a factor in booking. Nordpole, who played a pretty lackluster take on--yep, 80s electro pop--played after us, to about 8 people. The crowd resurged somewhat for the headliners, a rather uninspiring (sorry, guys) band from Denmark called Veto. Denmark is really hard country for most non-Danish bands, and now, if this is one of their biggest bands, I see the outer edges of the problem. I think the crowd was together for them simply because by midnight, there was nowhere else to go. The shows in the basement (where I saw some of Norwegian thrash heroes Purified in Blood’s set) were probably done, the bar was too mellow, and at least they might still be able to pull in the main room, if they could find someone drunk enough.
Now, back to our show. Being that Folken is large, you can have what in a small club would be a decent crowd, and it looks like a ghost town. Now, when I look at some photos from the show it seems more crowded than I remembered it, but anyway, I was deeply into it, so not exactly counting heads. Highlights included" 1) me doing a full 'Eddie Vedder': climbing the PA up into the balcony and pulling myself along the railing with one hand, mic in the other; 2) me putting my arms into the coat of an audience member, while he was still wearing it, and doing some kind of extended puppet/robot dance 3) two guys who were at the last Stavanger show, who were super into it and singing along with every word and 4) a young gal who has seen all of our Stavanger shows and was jumping a LOT. You can see all of them in the photos, the balcony bit was a bit out of range for this cameraman.
Back in Paris now, more shows coming up this weekend in Norway as the weekend warrior tour continues!
Love KS Paris
11.05.2008
BTW, the issue with the photos in the photos section not showing up correctly in some versions of Firefox has been resolved...
Oh, fuck it.
WOOOOOOOOO!!!! YEAH!! YEAH! YEAH!
YESSSSSSS!!!! CONGRATS TO OBAMA!!! I am proud to be an American on this day. I woke up and Dom was already up and had the TV on to tell me the news, since when I went to bed on election night, no results had come in yet.
Very excited to see the team he builds, and where things go from here.
Yes, it's certainly true. On Thursday I turned 40. I don't really know what to think about that--I tend to think in the here and now, and the here and now of my life is better than its ever been--Dominique and Aden, great music happening around me, my parents healthy and money enough to pay the bills. In fact, physically, I look and feel a hell of a lot better than I did a few years ago, I tsk tsk at some photos that come up now and then from the early part of this decade.
My phone, email, Facebook wall, etc all buzzed with well wishes from thoughtful friends and family around the world. I really appreciated that. Thank you friends and folks that I didn't know knew me!
So, my day--I slept in. Dom brought me a cafe and pain au chocolat in bed, damn! Eventually she went off to work and I didn't. I did catch up on some emails, but I didn't fire up ProTools today. Outside, it was absolutely freezing. I did crawl up to the Mac repair place to receive the dearly departed remains of my iBook G4 (2005-2008). The motherboard fried a couple of weeks ago, and after some thought, I decided not to fix it and to move on to a new laptop. So, I went to pick up the remains, plus the contents of the drive now moved to an external drive (I hadn't done a full backup as recently as I should have, and in the end it was pretty cheap to have them pull my data off my internal drive. I couldn't help but see this as the modern day equivalent of pet cremation--here are your little companion's remains, in a resilient little box meant to go on a shelf in your home.
FYI, from the lines that I've waited in and the number of units I can see on the shelf, Mac repair appears to be a VERY lucrative business to be in.
I know, I am not very green here. BUT--after 3 years of solid travel, the airport wasn't functional, the performance was slow, the hard drive was completely full, the keys were blank, and who knows what problems lay in store, with €500 Euros investment in a new motherboard. I was planning on getting a new laptop in another year or so...this just, well, call it fate/planned obsolescence.
I also voted today. My ballot came in the mail, I filled it out, and sent it back straight away.
My only other indulgence during the daytime was to spend some time in a cafe reading the Int'l Herald Tribune but in fact yet another strike in the newspaper publishing world meant no papers today. This happens quite often in France.
So, Dom came home and we headed to L'Ambroisie for my birthday dinner. L'Ambroisie has been on my list since Sergi Arola told me it was his favorite restaurant in Paris. Dinner here was my birthday request to Dom, placed many months ago, and anticipation was extremely high.
Expectations--exceeded. We took the bus up rue St. Antoine (going to a €1000+, three stars Michelin dinner on public transport = cooler than cool) and walked to Place des Vosges, right on time for our 8pm table. Arriving at the door, and...it's chained shut. We had instant basset hound faces. Shiiiiit. Ah, we were just the first people there. They were just opening, and for 20 minutes or so, we had the place to ourselves. It filled up over the course of the evening. As did we!
My starter was a fantastic layering of delicate, translucent scallops, layered with generous slices of white truffle, on top of broccoli and a kind of puree of parsley. Now, broccoli is not one of my favorite things and it can often taste cabbagey and bitter or, sugary and artificial, but here it was delicate and far from cloying.
Dom's starter was just a radically huge chunk of foie gras, which had a glaze on it that we're still arguing about what it could have been made out of. But suffice to say, this was magic.
Wine #1: a half bottle of 1997 Jadot Chevalier-Montrachet Les Demoiselles, which was a mysterious and tantalizing parade of mineral and nut flavors; wine #2 was a 93 Guigal Cote-Rotie La Turque. 93 has been called a mediocre or worse year for the upper Rhone, and this bottle would be estimated from afar to be past its prime. Indeed, it was lighter and more delicate than, say, the big 100 point 1999 would be--but, I often like wines that don't force themselves to center stage and reduce your meal to irrelevant status. It's time in the cellar had imparted exactly what you hoped it would--mellowed out any hard edges, and increased complexity...although, true, it was somewhat diffuse and distant compared to a bottle in its prime but we loved it.
For the main course, Dom and I had some highly tender lamb that La Turque melded beautifully with, and there was enough room to stuff a little cheese and chocolate cake on top.
Pilates class the next morning = hell. Worth it.
Spent most of the week finishing up the Minky mixes, and then embarked on a recording project with another Seattle expat, one Bud Reichard--Bud is hanging in Paris for awhile, and after doing some home recording stuff he wanted to up the audio ante, and we've been recording at my place--yep, in the flat. The songs are generally on acoustic guitar, and we're planning on building it up from there.
After one nights' session, Dom & I had the good occasion to dine with one of my favorite peeps, Rebecca Gates, who I have known for some 20 years, going back to when she managed Portland OR band the Dharma Bums...she went on to form the incredible Spinanes, who, among other things, made a masterpiece a decade ago in the form of Arches and Aisles, really a stunning thang. RG has a couple of new records in the works, I'm pleased to hear; meanwhile, she was in Paris as part of the FIAC, being involved as she is in the visual arts world as well.
Friday I recorded a new song, in collaboration with one Eric Litcher, another Seattleite, part of long time Seattle band the Green Pajamas. We'd worked on some music before, recorded at his home studio a couple of years ago, some of which ended up on the GP's last album, The Night Races Into Anna. This time around, Eric sent me a song of his, and asked me to record a version...which is what I indeed did do! It turned out really cool, not sure what will come of it but will keep you posted.
The rest of the weekend we spent in Tours, Dom's hometown. Aden has been stationed here during the mysterious 2 week school vacation that starts just 1.5 months into the school year, and 1.5 months before Christmas holidays...anyway, she's been with the French grandparents and we went to visit with her and eat up some delicious home grub. I brought some mediocre foie gras and some excellent late harvest wine that I bought at the Bilbao Airport. But Claudette did the rest--we had pig bits on Saturday, and a roasted duck (and excellent foie gras) on Sunday, each night accompanied by some '96 Chinon--this bottle may not have been much to write home about when new, but it really picked up some character and dignity in Claudette's cave. We also spent some time picking around Tours' open air market, I bagged an enormous cepe for tomorrow's dinner. On the way to Tours we opted for the cheap way down--bus to Gare D'Austerlitz and the 2 hour local train--and we lucked out: turns out the TGV's were delayed by 2+ hours due to technical problems that night. On the way back, we opted for the TGV--and left the Corail that was supposed to have left 15 minutes before us sitting in the station. The TGV, which takes just under an hour, was packed, and in fact--we lucked out here too. They never bothered to make us buy tix.
Let the roaring forties continue.
Love KS Paris
The latest release by Ken Stringfellow is a split EP with Spain's Muy Fellini, featuring never-heard-before music incl. Ken's take on Bob Dylan, released by King of Patio records in Spain on Oct 8, 2009.
