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
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.
