Ken Stringfellow dot calm

5.30.2009

ZARAGOZA, 5/24

It all was going so well. This was a classic Spanish show, dirty, sweaty, unhinged. The club was tiny and I was crawling all over it. People danced. It was exactly what I hoped it would be. They didn't want it to end--finally we ran out of songs and I closed the evening with a solo version of "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" by the Beatles. You know...'so I'll go-za' so I could wrap it up with 'Zaragoza'. After the show I chatted a bit with Cuca, aka Hada Quimica who I worked with in Zaragoza on her record, just being released now, in 2002. We actually went to this bar one night, according to her. She lives in Germany now with her guy and their boy, but were in town visiting and found out we were playing.

The next morning I woke up early--we had to hit the road at nine. I couldn't speak. I thought with rest in the van it would go away. It didn't. When we got to Castellon, it was no better. I could only croak. Now, I did go pretty crazy during the show, but that's a Disciplines show--I didn't do anything I haven't done at all our other shows--scream, yell, howl, act like a fool. Forgot to mention the funky freestyle that we did in Stockholm to get people up to the stage in my review of that show...hahah. But, I guess that the long hours during the previous week's mixing, the two super early morning flights in a row, the fact that a late night show in Stockholm was followed by no sleep and an afternoon show in Denmark...and then I got hit with allergies in Zaragoza, just knocked me out. Boom.

We got dropped off by Sergio in Castellon, and the promoter took a long time to meet us at the drop off point, so we were sitting in this park with our shit for like half an hour. Finally he came and in the meantime I had already found a doctor recommended by my insurance online. Our promoter had brought a friend along to translate, so she walked with us to the hospital which was just a couple of blocks away, and we made an appointment for later that evening. We were all staying at the promoter's mom's flat--she was out of town. I went to bed. Got up at 5.30, and we went back to the hospital while the guys, optimistically, went to soundcheck. I told them not to get their hopes up. We ended up waiting well over an hour past my appointment, but finally the doctor had a look. No problems beyond ordinary laryngitis. It would go away. He prescribed a cortisone shot, and soon, I was getting one. But, this would take at least a couple of hours to take effect and the show was in like an hour--and who knows what kind of damage I would do that would effect the important festival show the next day. With great sadness, I felt it was necessary to cancel. We'd sold 50 tickets in advance and the club only held about 50 more so I guess it would have been sold out. So sorry about that, but we'll be back.

Dom & I went to dinner at the Casino Antiguo a pretty fascinating place that seems to be a private men's club of *some* kind...we weren't allowed to sniff around and find out much and they ain't tellin'. But it's a lovely old building, with glorious heavy wood beamed ceilings in the lobby, and simple tables set outside in the garden. It's right in the center of town, and they are not hiding from customers, but they aren't trying too hard to bring 'em in. It was Monday, too. But they were open. The restaurant clings to one side of the edifice, the side that faces the garden where we ate. The lobby shows a couple of salons closed in glass, with groups of old dudes smoking cigars and what not. Up the stairs...who knows. A security guard chases you off if you get curious. The food was outstanding, however...totally weird little world worth checking out if you find yourself in Castellon (which is right by Benicassim, so if you're in town for the festival...have a look).

BARCELONA, 5/25

I woke up and was totally OK. I could speak. No pain. It was eerie. We went and got my prescriptions for anti-inflammatory meds and the pills to protect my stomach from their harsh qualities. We went back to the Casino Antiguo for breakfast--again, almost no one there, and we had a continental breakfast--espresso, pains au chocolates, and fresh orange juice--for €2.50 each. I mean, really. They must be doing some serious business in those back rooms. This was basically free food, and we paid a couple of Euros for them to bring it out and let us eat in the garden.

The promoter had a tiny car in which we stuffed Bjorn and all our gear, and the rest of us walked and...eventually...found the train station. The first thing we came to was the *old* train station, in front of the Corte Ingles...this little tiny building that says Ferrocarril on it. It's used as some kind of tourist office now, but they could barely describe where the real station was. But we found it. And got on the train, with some stress--it pauses at the station and we had guitars, bags and 5 people to get on board--same kind of stress getting off. But all fine.

We checked in to the hotel and I sms'd the production to tell me when they were really ready for us, and when they said to come soon we walked to the Apolo. Reigning Sound were still checking, so no stress. We got up and did our thing. And it was going to be fine, and I knew it. It was so weird. My voice was 100% gone 24 hours earlier. And now it was like nothing happened, almost.

So, the show began. It was a Tuesday, 8pm. Not many people there, but the place filled up during the set and we did our special set restructuring to put the hits a little further back. By the time the set was halfway the room had plenty of people, dozens of photographers and I was pushing, pushing my body to do all the things it knew it shouldn't be doing one day after being in a hospital. It accepted the challenge...at one point, I launched myself from the dance floor onto the stage as a flip on my neck and shoulders into a standing position--there was a mighty 'crunch' and I knew I'd be paying for that one...but anyway, the voice was great, we played super tight, people rocked out, and we did real real fine.

I made the after show which was held at my friend's bar Las Guindas--chatted with admirers and all my colleagues and friends, and also Reigning Sound's organ player, Dave Amels--who is a very fascinating guy--he co-founded Bomb Factory, for starters--but I knew not to push it and thus called it a night by about 12.30. I know my bandmates had a good time and represented!

DONE! Mission accomplished. We made it to the Primavera Sound Fest., we did a great job. I celebrated with Dom by doing...nothing. We checked out of the hotel and went across the street and had tapas for 2 hours. We checked into our next hotel, closer to the main part of the festival, and rested. We went to see the Star Trek movie, and listened to the city tense up and then completely spooj when Barca won the cup. We went to Arola Restaurant and had a glass of wine with Nacho while he DJ'd. Again, I knew not to push it, so a lot of my friends were partying around the city, I had a lot of options, but I took a nice quiet one and again got to bed by 1.

On Thursday Dom & I walked to the beach and I swam a bit. We had a great lunch with Lydia Lunch, she is always a machine gun of ideas and energy and wit, and inspiring and
ready to bring it, now.

We went to the festival, too. I had a very narrow agenda. Jaime from Houston Party told me to check out Women, and I did--seemed like 4 guys kinda standing there playing guitar, so I have to admit I didn't really give it too much time, but... I watched Kiwi pop legends the Bats, and I thought...these guys are really old, not super charismatic, they don't move too much...and they are on a big stage, and people are loving it. There's hope for me yet...I ALWAYS feel too old and behind the times to really be welcome, but in fact, if these guys can be up there, so can I. They have some really great songs, I'm not knockin' em, I'm a fan. Just sayin'. We watched a bit of Spectrum on the main stage..."here's our new single"...and then 20 minutes of the SAME CHORD. It was AWESOME. The sound was so enormous, and heavy...usually, to be honest, it's hard to find a UK band that plays with such brutality, but these guys were HEAVY. I loved it.

Then we watched the Vaselines, and they were great too. It rocked a lot harder than I expected...It's Frances & Eugene with some Belle & Sebastian bits to round it out. Superb. We tried to watch Phoenix do their acoustic set in this little tiny tent but it was impossible. I had my picture taken with about 20 fans. Fun! But time to go. Dom & I went and had some paella, and then I met up with a guy who puts on a festival in the Dominican Republic. We ended the night listening to MBV from our room...it was an incredible sound...a weird distortion of what the people in front of the stage were hearing, an abstraction made by echo and bass throb, but totally absorbing.

And on this day, Aden turned 5. She had a party at school, and was happy to have her party with us postponed til our return...more presents spread out over more days.

I was really pissed off that I kept hitting my head on this stupid light fixture over the desk in my room so I kicked an ashtray in the elevator instead of breaking this ugly glass thing that prob. costs thousands of euros. The door opened and a tech for some band said "Isn't that the guy from Big Star?", while the top half of the ashtray was still rolling around, decapitated from its base. Good for the legend.

BRYNE, 5/29

Up at 7.30, so it was wise for us to have retired early--I still had a show to do, and I was still wary about pushing my body--and thus my voice--too far. We checked out and I ran into my friend Brian with all the Andrew Bird folks waiting for their van--Brian is tour managing, and he worked for REM and of course at the Crocodile in Seattle so I've known him for heap long time.

I checked in for my flight, and went to have a cafe with Dom, then ran back to retrieve my laptop from the check in machine, still waiting for me. Damn.

Flew to Copenhagen, flew to Stavanger. Bag with the merch and our backdrop didn't make it. Made arrangements that the other guys could get it when they got in. Waited for Baard's flight, coordinated with our driver, and headed to Bryne, about 20 minutes from SVG. Glorious sun, blazing green meadows...and stretches of pure white beaches. What a place.

We pulled into the Jaeren Hotell, for the Jaernatta Festival. I played the exact same place with Brikseby in 2006, when the D's made our first recordings, May 2006. Now three years later...well, a lot has changed. What an amazing thing grew out of this. Funny I famously kicked an ashtray that morning before we drove to Stavanger too. So, some things only change by...degree.

I was so glad to have some quiet time, and so...somewhere else. A couple of days off, a medical scare, a massage at the hotel...wanting to be home for my daughter's birthday...and sort of a mission accomplished feeling after our great shows at Spot and P Sound...hmmm.

Plus, there were other things going on, too. I am not going into those details here. But, let's say that the night was bigger than the show, and the show was smaller than the night. All in all, I was intersecting the show from a completely different angle than the audience, which is usually not the case. When it was almost showtime I walked down from my hotel room into the lobby (the show was in the hotel ballroom) and the place was packed with drooling drunk folks. I mean, this is normal for a Norwegian party and it's totally OK. But I was just not there. And when we played, it was hard to get a real connection with the audience, they were just too hammered, and the stage was all skinny and weird, and I was just not able to make it as awesome as I wanted it to be. There were people into it. There were also lots of people just staggering off and the room was less crowded when we finished than when we started, and it was really late, but still, that wasn't a good morale booster. It all sort of seemed like it didn't matter, and that's a bummer, because I want EVERY show to matter. But this was sort of ending the great week with a whimper. We weren't terrible. But we were in danger of being OK. That's not good.

I went to bed immediately afterwards, and slept for an hour and a half. The hotel was loud. Then, at 3, when I woke up, it was quiet. Light was starting to emerge again outside. I ate a sandwich and some fruit from the dressing room for breakfast, and had a bath. I didn't really start to crash til I was waiting in SVG to board the first flight. So, in the cab going to the airport, which took no time at all so I was there WAY too early. It was, as it always is, psychedelic to hurtle thru the sunrise past the kneeling cows and steaming streams and popsicle colored morning light.

Sleeping on the flights and in CPH airport. Incredibly, my flight to Paris was at the adjacent gate to the one I arrived from SVG to.

I got home and it was a great big party, granparents, Dom, Aden, and LOTS of presents. We had been sticking presents away for months, actually--I picked up a Furby at Value Village in Bellingham in Janaury. She got a tennis racquet. DVDs. Lots of stuff. A package from my mom. She made out like a bandit, and we had cake & candles. I will say, she was so happy to have me home that she fed me the candy bits off her piece of cake. That's love.

Dom & I went for a walk later, having a cafe and walking on the Promenade Plantee, an old elevated railway that's now an elevated walkway with all manner of flowers--a parqueduct, as it were. We stopped an bought a bottle of wine on the way home. It was finally warm here in Paris. Glorious.

My files are uploaded. I'm going to bed and not setting an alarm.

Love
KS
Paris

5.24.2009

My hours working with Billy & the Firm, mixing their album, were pretty long. And after hours, I had tons of tour manager work to do. So I was really the walking dead, and it didn’t change until a couple of days into this little tour. But, I think the album has turned out really superb, the two mixing sessions have different personalities, but I believe it will all make sense together. But we were working so hard, the week is really a blur. It’s only this morning that I feel grounded again. At times I was working as late 4am, and getting up to do things in the morning. I was too exhausted to get up at 7 and take Aden to school some mornings, and Dom & Aden understood as best they could. By Wednesday evening, however, we wrapped the last mix at about 8.30, and spent an hour revisiting one song for some small changes, and then I bid Billy goodbye and got a little sleep. Her husband Shy was in town, too, but I barely saw him--we were just working too hardcore to socialize.

STOCKHOLM, 5/21

I was up at 4, after going to bed around 11. I had spent an hour or so just hanging out with Dom, we’d had very little time to do so in the last week. Then up at the crack of dawn and in my cab at 5. Oh, I should mention that at Charles De Gaulle my 7am flight time meant that nothing was open, and the airport itself was barely functioning--the moving walkways were yet to be turned on, so passengers going to our full flight had to walk the 200 meters to the satellite gates, going up and down stairs to do so. Fun! I slept everywhere--in each flight, in horrible, contorted conditions in Copenhagen airport--and landed at last at Stockholm in the early afternoon. I was greeted by our Swedish agent, Pontus--whom I’d only known via email so far. So we had a pleasant ride into town in his Honda hybrid car, and got to know each other, exchanged biographies etc. He dropped me off at the hotel and went back to grab the other guys coming in from Norway.

It wasn’t long before it was time to head to the venue--the Kagelbanan, where Big Star played in 2006; part of the larger complex of the Sodra Teatern--where Jon & I played the gorgeous main room in 2000 and the Cafe Teatern that adjoins the Kagelbanan, last April. This is one of those government subsidized wonders that just has a great staff, incredible acoustics, and a highly eclectic programmation. I met the guys from the Flare Up, our support act, and also my friend Love, who was loaning us some gear for the night (Love supported me in a small town in Austria in 2006). The guys finally fought thru the traffic and arrived, and we set up and did our thing. I was really tired but it was great to play, and the room sounds so good it was a pleasure, even to soundcheck!

After the check, the two bands and Pontus had dinner in the building’s restaurant and we were joined by my friends Melinda and Jorgen--Melinda who played bass in the Pusjkins, whose 1997 album I produced; and Jorgen, who recorded and played drums on the bulk of “Soft Commands”. They brought along their baby boy, who was lots of fun, already a pretty good bongo man.

Well, I felt about a hundred years old when we went onstage but there were these two teenage girls, whom I had never seen before, who were so into the Disciplines it was totally surreal--they sort of put the whole assembled crowd to shame, enough to back off the bulk of the audience a few feet while these girls went nuts and sang along to every word--in fact, they were singing the words even *before* we went onstage, just hollering and in general having a great time--they really stole the show, it was all I could do just to keep up with them! But it was inspiring for sure, and it made sure that despite my fatigue, I had to truly rise to the occasion! And I think we did just that, and then some. A great night. We got kicked outta there pretty fast afterwards by the rapid closing of the venue, which was good cuz by the time we got to the hotel, we had about 2 hours before it was time to get up and get ready to leave again...

AARHUS, 5/22

And so it was. I spent the two hours catching up on tour manager emails, and while I was writing them, my alarm went off indicating it was the surreal hour of 3am, time to shower, and get to the lobby for our 4am airport taxi. Now, I felt fine, really--I was still energized by the show. But then we got in the taxi, and in that 40 minute ride to Arlanda, I fell asleep. And it was hell from then on. Snoozing everywhere, sleeping on the flight and generally feeling like I had just been ejected from the mouth of the dog that was mauling me.

The domestic terminal in Copenhagen is a LONG way from anything else. At the very end of the longest arm of the ‘A’ gates...endless passageways and moving walkways later...we arrived at A30, as far as you can go in CPH. Our flight to Aarhus was delayed. MMM. More sleep. Finally we hopped over to the mainland. Aarhus airport’s decor is rather like the locker room of many a German tennis club I’ve changed in, all red brick tile for easy cleanup. The place is equipped with ludicrously small luggage carts, kind of a ‘why bother’ but we managed and ofund our way out to our driver. By now I was feeling a *little* better, but my voice, out of shape as it was for the Stockholm show, was even more ragged and the prospect of a matinee concert was a bit daunting. But the fact is, the Danish spring countryside was so beautiful and lush and green I never fell asleep in the hour-long ride from airport to town. We got the center of town, and then out the edge of the center of town, and pulled up to the enormous Musikhuset--the epicenter of the Spot Festival, the new music showcase weekend with a focus on Scandinavian up and coming bands, although there are also bands from the US, Belgium, and UK playing. But 85% of the artists are Scandinavian, and most of them are new to the public. The entire festival is put on by the Danish music export bureau, and not only do they foot the bill for the three-day event, but they fly in journalists and other music biz notables from all over the world to attend. The Musikhuset is a proper concert hall with several different concert venues inside, it’s also a vast rehearsal and teaching complex...it goes on and on. It has a bit of Lincoln Center look to it, squarish and important, but in a more futuristic, Scandinavian way...anyway, our hall, which could easily hold 600 people, was just a box it seemed but I am here to testify that this box had absolutely unquestionably perfect acoustics. Just standing in the room talking was perfect. So...this was probably the most pristine sound any Disciplines concert-goer will ever experience, and I’m glad to say the experience wasn’t lost on the attendees--the room filled up about half way, so there were a couple of hundred people there to witness a crystal-clear absolute decimation of the joint. My voice was more Tom Waits than Robert Plant, but it was fun. We had to contend with the fact that not only Danish audiences are quiet, but this was a show at a quarter to five on a Friday afternoon, so not exactly prime bacchanal hours. However, a couple of drunk punk rockers did the same task as the two mystery teens in Stockholm--not giving a flying fuck, and jumping around like fools, and that helped the rest to loosen up. A bit! However, after each song, the applause was rapturous and at the end of the set we could have easily done an encore but this was a festival situation. Good stuff!

After the show we hung around with our friend Tim, who we had talked to in the early days about management, but now were really just pals with and is always an inspiring, clever and kind person to talk to about all kinds of things not the least of which is music.

Well, by 7pm it was all over but the shouting, and I was about as happy as a man could be. We were driven to our hotel, Hotel Guldsmelden, which I soon recognized as the very same where Jon Auer & I had stayed in 2000, my only other visit to Aarhus. However, it had undergone extensive cute-ification, and the friendliness factor was way up (plus I was much more sober, so perhaps details that escaped me then reached me this time). So, in the evenings in the tiny lounge area in front of reception, they have complimentary wine, coffee, incredible apple-rhubarb cake, bread and two kinds of olive oil with herbs. And wifi--so, this was the perfect way for me to spend the roughly one hour of consciousness I had left in me.

ST. FELIU DE GUIXOLS, 5/23

12 hours of blissful sleep later, and a quick blitz of the righteous breakfast spread, and we were on the road to the airport, once again traversing CPH in all its cavernous-ness, and then were plopped into Barcelona. I slept every minute of every flight, again. I was still feeling a bit shaky--that week of all night mixing and the two brutal show/early early travel days were not out of my system yet. But things were looking up. Dominique was coming to meet me--we arrived first, and grabbed our stuff, and parked at a cafe, and I searched for Dom’s arrival area, located in Terminal C. Her flight was was about 30 minutes late, so our van arrived and we were all loaded up when she finally arrived. For me it was like waiting for the last day of high school, I was pretty excited. So, there she was, and off we went into the hills of Catalunya.   St. Feliu de Guixols is a little seaside town that doesn’t even have much in the way of tourists; it’s a getaway for Barcelona folks, but not much else. It has a fine little beach right in front of downtown, and a cluster of shops and bars and hotels, and a church that looks like a castle, and a nice theatre that serves the town. Not a lot of rock shows pass by here. Girona, up the road twenty or thirty clicks, gets some action (tho’ I’ve been touring Spain for 16 years and I’ve never played there). So, peeps were happy to see us, that’s for sure! We dropped our stuff in the hotel and went straight to eat (I like this line of thinking). Soon we were on a terrace looking at the water, by the Triton Bar, owned by one Jordi who was a real fan of Posies and related--and had never seen us live, and wouldn’t that night--the bar was his lady and she was a demanding mistress to be sure. So, he was just happy to have us there, and serve us from his mostly veg menu--tho he did have some damn fine hamburgers. All his food is organic and seasonal--so the anchovies were out. Not till summer he said. But we were well fed and lubricated.

We walked up to the theatre (nothing in this town is far away from anything else) and found there were already folks hanging around in anticipation of the show. What they had done was turn the venue sideways--exactly in the style of the Capitol Theatre in Olympia--if the show wasn’t big enough to fill the seats of the theatre, they just closed the curtain and put a riser on the stage, and the stage became the complete venue. This was the case tonight, and there was room for about 75 people, which is exactly the size of the crowd available in this village for a show, so it was, in a word perfect.

Hmmm, by the end of the show I was REALLY hot so for the encore, I came back in just my underwear, with a parasol. Quite a show. In the breakdown of this song, I ran into the back and found a T-shirt that I turned into a kind of loincloth, which made things slightly less obscene...slightly. But the rest of the show I was all over the shop--my best move was to leap from the top of the fridge holding all the beer onto the table that served as the bar and continue to ground level in two bounds, all while singing. Hot damn. When I wanted to crawl on the PA stacks, if someone had placed their beer there, I just chucked it out of the way, bear-slaps-salmon style...but playing small clubs in Spain is really the real shit, and I’m so glad I had the chance to show my bandmates what it’s all about and how great that can be...!

After the show I was well and truly fried. Back to to the hotel, the boys went out on the town. Then two funny things happened. One, I realized I’d totally forgotten to even think about being paid. So, a few calls later and some guys came to the hotel bearing several hundred Euros. Second, the pipes in the hotel were a bit rickety and something truly weird happened. Air in the pipes had given Ralla the illusion that he had turned the tap all the way off. But in fact it was just blocked by an air bubble, for a long time. Off he went to the bar, and later, the pipe came alive. It started to howl and moan like a horny tasmanian devil in need of a root canal. In fact, it woke up the entire hotel. We soon traced the sound to their room, and I had them and the hotel night manager, who was at home, on the phone, getting them to make it stop, which they did. Something also smelled like burning plastic, which gave an ominous tone to the proceedings, but in fact the hotel never did burn down, the night manager came and turned the tap off in their room, and the guys came back and said that they had turned the tap off--as far as they knew, but were fooled by the faulty pipes. No charges were brought, and the matter was settled in the nearest bar, prob. with Jager bombs or some such thing.

I woke up at 8.30 this morning, finally feeling like I had the exhaustion of the studio week and tour’s start off my back. Dom & I had a tranquil walk to a cafe for breakfast (man, they make big pains au chocolates in this country) a sniff at the Sunday market (cheap clothes and shoes from Chinese sweatshops) and a brief dip in the surprisingly icy Mediterranean.   Now, it’s post soundcheck in Zaragoza, and we’re at an outside table waiting for some grilled animal. I’m sipping a tinto de verano, suffering a bit from hay fever, but looking forward to rocking the tiny tiny Lata de Bombillas, enjoying seeing Sergio, aka the Posies’ best tour manager ever (better than me, even!) as he arranged this gig!   

Love
KS
Zaragoza SPAIN

5.16.2009

This week I have been catching up on all my tour managing duties, doing a little editing on the Pernille Sparboe project, signing various contracts and what not, and trying to squeeze in a little time just enjoying being home. On Tuesday night Dominique and I went to see Beirut's sold out show at the Bataclan. I like the band, but somehow I felt that the instrumental parts were the most interesting bit...the singer is not exactly a dynamic or versatile singer. He has a pleasant sound, but it's kind of a one-trick pony. But, he has assembled a great band and the instrumental sections of his songs are undeniably magnificent. Now, having not been too complimentary about his singing I will admit that he did a brilliant, spot-on Serge Gainsbourg cover...I don't know if they learned it just for shows in France, but it certainly got the audience singing along. One other thing: when the bass player played his stand up bass, and the keyboard player wasn't playing Wurlizter, it was music played on no electric instruments, and it was LOUD. Bravo!

Kite & Butterfly, who I knew as itinerant musicians, and produced some songs for way back when, but the world now knows as fashion designers, are in town this week and Dom, Aden & I met up with them and Kite's tiny daughter Lavender Blue and went to the museum of magic, in St. Paul, so not too far from our place. Aden participated in the magic show, and was as surprised as we were when her empty hands that she had palms down on the table suddenly were filled with the foam balls that had been in the magician's hands seconds before. Good one.

After the magic bit, we went to have a coffee next door in a courtyard that has a cafe, an antique shop, etc. Turns out this little place had lavender ice cream, a fetish of mine. Not long after my cone was consumed, a little rain started to fall. The awning was lowered to cover the terrace. Good thing--ten minutes later the skies erupted with thunder, lightning, buckets of rain, and chiclet-sized/shaped hail--for the next 45 minutes we were pinned at this place. I've never seen it rain like that in Paris, ever.

On Friday Billy, from Tel Aviv, arrived. The wife of Shy Nobleman, who put together my tour of Israel in December. I have been mixing Billy's band Billy & the Firm, and she came to be a part of it--I did the first half of the album in March, and since I had less time to work with now I thought it would be much quicker if she was here to give me feedback. On the first day I ended up playing guitar on the song, and in fact I'm not sure it's going any more quickly but we're having fun.

We took a break tonite to see Kristov & the Commoners at La Scene Bastille which is pretty close to my hood. He did a great job, you can tell the band is a bit new but you gotta love a drummer who not only plays great but sings awesome backups. La Scene is weird tho, it's a showcase club, so no vibe of its own, and not the most cozy place on earth. They didn't even give the band a 5-minute warning, just cut 'em off, which was really awkward of course. Dumb place.

It's rained every day this week. Remi from Cheap Star & I had two tennis dates, both foiled. I think it's gonna be quite awhile before the racket gets taken out again...

Love
KS
Paris

5.14.2009

I added some new photos to the photos section, including some exclusives, just to keep old fashioned things like websites alive.

Love
KS
Paris

5.12.2009

LOGRONO, 5/3

For the last show of the tour, we were pretty tired, but in buoyant spirits. The sound on stage was a little weird, so for the first few songs I struggled to find my singing pitch but got settled in eventually. We interspersed nearly every lyric with references to our support act’s drummer, who organized these shows, Edu Ugarte. Partially to razz him, and partially because ‘Edu Ugarte’ is really fun to say. Things like singing the Police’s “De Do Do De Da Da Da” as “Edu Du Du, Ugar ga te” and many more elaborate schemes. To add to the fun, we altered many lyrics, of songs we pulled out of the air or the Posies songs in the set, so include the story, which is true, that Edu dates the sister of his bandmate Juan. We had lots of fun with that in a surreal riff on “Rocky Raccoon” that I am sure left Posies fans scratching their heads and any casual onlookers completely in the dust. We did play our songs seriously too. But the mood was not somber. Another guy, whom we remembered as a crazy dancer from our 2007 full band show in the same town, was moved to stomp his booted feet and bounce up like a dolphin at Seaworld at feeding time (thhis was a jazz club, so tables and chairs in forn t of us, so he was REALLY sticking out)--when I say stomped his booted feet, he was slamming out Morse code punctuation to the music--and then at other times he couldn’t control himself and would shoot up to standing position and put his hands in the air and writhe and wriggle. His girlfriend was laughing, sort of bewildered but you couldn’t help but enjoy his ability to let the spirit move him.

For a Sunday, the show was quite late, I don’t think we got out of there before 2am. And at 5.30 I was up, to be in the lobby by 6.30, when Angel, a friend from the 2007 show, had offered to pick me up and drive for the hour or so drive to Bilbao, where he works twice a week. I watched the dramatic landscape go by under low hanging clouds--it was surprisingly lights considering it was 6.30 and overcast, so it was strange and beautiful, the hills, and later, massive crags that we drove through to get to Bilbao. We never spoke, and listened to a live Wilco show he had in his CD player. Traffic came to a standstill in Bilbao, and it was starting to make us both really stressed, but we didn’t say anything! But, we had built in an extra 30 minutes (the drive w/o traffic should be an hour, but I gave it 1.5) so I was dropped at the terminal at 8.05, exactly one hour before my flight, plenty of time to check in.

My travel was long: first I flew to Barcelona; waited two hours, and flew to Oslo; waited two hours and flew to Tromso. Having left the hotel at 6.30, I landed in Tromso 14 hours later. And went directly to work. I was in Tromso to produce an EP for Pernille Sparboe, whom I’ve met at the Disciplines’ appearances in Tromso last year. Pernille is a very shiny and fresh young woman, very kind and very positive. By appearances you would prob. guess that is she is a few years younger than she is, and you might think she is a fashionable college student. She looks like a hipper version of the small town girl that she actually is. But there is much more to her than appearances. She is of course very bright, and quick to laugh (a good quality). By day she is a police investigator, and has worked the street beat as well--so she has seen dead bodies, murderers, domestic violence, etc etc. This seems to have only reinforced her ability to stay optimistic and be of service to her community. And when she sings, if you are expecting girly--you would be dead wrong. She sings with a rich, soulful, powerful voice...reminds me a bit of Carrie Akre but perhaps even more R & B, even tho’ her music is not funky per se, but it’s delivered with mountains of soul. I knew her demos, acoustic guitar and voice, and with a band behind her powerful enough to match her dynamic (her acoustic guitar by itself didn’t stand a chance versus a voice like that) the results are really stunning.
 At this preproduction rehearsal, I had a chance to hear the band better than the few youtube videos I’d seen from her shows. Espen the drummer; Frank the guitarist; and Hogman the bass player. E & H had played in a very 90s-rock (STP/AiC/Candlebox) style band called Hangface that spent some years living the dream in the USA. Living the dream means working with legendary engineer Eddie Kramer, touring casinos nationwide with Pat Benatar, dating Miss Norway, this kind of thing. So, the guys were young but had been to school, as it were. So they had great feel and great chops--that American thing had rubbed off on them, I think. So, in the rehearsal my suggestions were quite minimal. They made good choices, and played tight, and we simply adjusted a few small things--a drum fill here & there, etc.

The studio we were working in was put together by a local music visionary (who used to book Briskeby’s shows in Norway) and Jon Marius, whom you might recall as the engineer/collaborator for the Disciplines album. It’s in a building that looks a heckuvalot like an old mental hospital--nobody seemed to know what it used to be. But it had a nice big room and within that room a control room and an isolation booth had been built, and the rest of the space was open, very high ceilings, with no parallel walls, and lots of ducts and other things making the space random (this is good for sound--you don’t want featureless, parallel walls in a recording space. Go clap your hands in an empty house and you’ll see why--you get rapid, bizarre sounding echoes, esp. near the corners). They have tastefully assembled a great collection of equipment, so working here was a breeze. Jon Marius was my engineer for the first day, the difficult day when everyone played live together--lots of channels to put together, lots of headphone mixes to make for the different musicians, etc. After that, I pretty much had the hang of it and was able to work on my own. So, the first day we got the basic sounds and did two songs, with the bass/drums/guitar all live. The second day we did two more songs and then electric guitar overdubs. There was a hilarious episode where I had to try and coax/coerce/inspire/force Frank to play in simple, bluesy style. He had way too much Steve Lukather in him. After awhile, it was like “Play like a moron! Imagine you have 4 notes to play in the entire song, and you don’t know where they should go but if you play in the wrong places your family will be killed!” That actually worked--til he played some crappy L.A. jazz lick and I had to tell him he lost a cousin, but the fat one who picks his nose and nobody liked anyway. In the end even I had to play one or two guitar licks...it’s hard to go back to simple after you learn to be a virtuoso. So I never learned that...

On those first two days, since the musicians had day jobs, we worked from 6pm til maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. On the third day, Thursday, we worked from 3pm til 4am. Just Pernille and I, doing all her vocals and her acoustic and electric guitar parts. The last thing we recorded was an insane harmony on an already insane vocal part...we were trying to figure out what it could be and we were going crazy trying it...finally we got it tho. I think! It was hard to tell at that point.

With all that done, what was left was vocal editing and keyboards, and I had determined that my home set up was actually better suited for what remained. So we didn’t end up working on Friday. I slept off the 13 hour work day, and in the evening we went to see a kind of play, a performance of a poem, ‘Fever’ by Knut Hamsun, set with action and singing and bizarre movements and set pieces. Of course it was in Norwegian but you could get the gist (a screen also showed lines from the piece in English and German occasionally). There is a female role, hard to describe but theme of the poem is a man who loses a woman’s love and goes thru rage, despair, all the rollercoaster of emotions, but being Hamsun, it’s dark and he generally is in a violent, hateful rage. The woman is somewhere between sprite and ghost...making strange movements and noises, and always being remote, otherworldly. The role was created uniquely by Anneli Drecker, who is Jon Marius’ girlfriend, well more than girlfriend--they are not married but have children & live together. She’s from Tromsø and that’s how they came to live there now. So, she is a regular performer at all kinds of high art things in the area, and this particular piece was a perfect showcase for her unique talents. She squeaks and chirps, and her face contorts and pantomimes. And she sings. She has the gift of pure, perfect tone and pitch. Pure enough to be hallucinogenic, really! So, the production, the staging, etc. of the piece was most interesting, but Anneli’s voice was the star of the show, really, at least for me.

On Saturday I flew to Oslo, to spend some time recording on a very intense project, organized by Street Magazine (similar to UK’s Big Issue or Seattle’s Real Change), featuring songs written and performed by the magazine’s sellers, who are homeless. Many are drug addicts, or suffering from other forms of dysfunction. But the magazine’s staff managed to get them into a studio (imagine trying to organize a recording date with someone who has no phone, no address, and a set of priorities that don’t involve a music career). The results are rather what you might think--sincere, ragged, sometimes haunting, sometimes just right on, and sometimes, right out there. I played piano and sang on one song, and sang harmonies and what could become a duet for another.

That night my hotel, due to a shortage of available rooms in the center, was way out in the industrial part of town, near where the Disciplines’ label HQ is. A big concrete building with “33” sculpted on the side. Well, I checked in and was told the restaurant was fully booked from 8pm so if I wanted dinner...I should go now. Hmm. I had already made my mind to stay at the hotel since going back to town was quite a journey and there wasn’t anything going on in Oslo that I felt like I needed to check out. It was 6.30, so I dropped my stuff in my room and headed up to the 9th floor to try and get my nutrition on. Upon arriving, to a mostly empty restaurant, I was told that they couldn’t get me in and out in time for their 8pm seating. I pointed to the panoramic view, currently showing a torrential downpour, and reminded them that the front desk had indicated that I dine there as long as I was done by 8..it wasn’t even 7 now. They claimed not to be open yet but upon enquiry the chef was happy to start, he was prepared for a full house and one more meal wouldn’t throw off his calculations. So, I was seated, and as I started to read the menu, I asked for some help as it was in Norwegian. At first they refused to translate the starters as they said there was no way I was having a starter and a main. By this time, I wasn’t angry, but I was playing the ‘exactly what kind of reviews do you want me to post on my blog, or tell my colleagues about this place?’ card. They eased up, and actually my server was really friendly and told me to relax and enjoy, he’d work out the timing. In the end I was done eating by 7.35, so plenty of time to set the table again! When you dine alone, it goes quick! I had some seared foie gras that had sliced coconut and salt infused with vanilla...and wonderful reindeer steaks that seemed to be marinated in lemongrass. I took my unfinished bottle of Cotes du Rhone back to my room, and drank myself to blissful, long sleep.

Except at 7.30 daylight in my window woke me up half way, just enough to stretch a bit and rollover, intending to drop back into deeper levels of sleep. But, upon stretching, I gave myself a leg cramp that was absolutely brutal. I couldn’t even scream! I was just making a kind of rr-r-r-r-r-rrr-rr-r-r-r-rrr-r-r-r sound and hoping it would stop. I got up to walk it off, and decided to go down and have breakfast. I thought it was starting at 7 or 7.30, but soon found out that it was starting at 8, and I, who had put some herring on a plate, was chased off and *yelled* at in Norwegian...I thought...’oh, but this is what blogs are for’, so here I am complaining for you all. I went to the front desk and complained...and was told ‘they are under stress, preparing breakfast for 400 people’. To which I said ‘it’s their JOB. If they find it to stressful to serve their customers and be pleasant, perhaps they should try something else for a living...’. In the states or UK if you treat a customer like that, you’re on your fanny that minute on the sidewalk.

Anyway, the point is, I got home to Paris, after months of travel, and saw my daughter, who was gone when I was home last month, for the first time...extreme shock at her two months of growth followed.

My flight home was fun as we had a good view of the countryside around Paris on our approach to Orly, I love spotting all the chateaux around, huge homes stuck in the woods, with gardens and tennis courts.

On Monday I had French songwriter Kristov over, to give him some feedback on his new songs, we spend a couple of hours not only dissecting his recent compositions, but also talking philosophy and singing technique and all kinds of things. And then I fell asleep at 7.30 in the evening, and slept for 12 hours.

Love
KS
Paris

5.03.2009

In 1996, the Posies played the Holland Lowlands Festival, which is held on a man made island in the center of Holland. It’s a pretty big one, and it was our second visit to the mainstage, the first being our very first show in Europe, in 1993. Three years later the festival was even bigger, and our placement, right before Bjork and Sonic Youth, was much more auspicious. We played a great show, and hung out and enjoyed the headliners. I had seen Bjork a coupla times before, and each time she had pretty much been doing very wacky karaoke to her hi tech backing tracks. She’s a great singer, great artist, but at the end of the day, it’s performing to playback and that just limits the dynamics of a show too much for me. But this time, she had a band, mixing in programmed stuff with live players, and it was much better. The focal point of the band was this incredibly slammin’ drummer. He looked older to my eyes, kinda scruffy grey sorta-dreads. Man he was beating the hell outta of the drums, and giving a wonderful swing to the cold techno beats and bass lines.

Well, I didn’t know it, but the fella greeting us at El Cortijo studios when JB Meijers and I pulled up was that very drummer, Trevor Morais. Trevor’s CV is immense, and he’s been able to adapt to different generations’ musical styles, and thus at some 65 years is youthful, hip and ready for action. He cut his teeth in the Liverpool beat scene, at the same time as the Beatles; continued to play rock, R&B and jazz into the 70s. In the late 70s he started a rehearsal complex outside of London on the grounds of a farm, and when bands remarked how they like the barn’s acoustics he created a recording studio and soon had clients like Genesis and other heavy hitters recording there. Meanwhile, he started the experimental project Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and even played drums on Tina Turner’s bajillion-selling Private Dancer album. His R&B and jazz expertise led him to hooking up with an young R&B band in the UK whose interest in electronic music caused them to transform into dance icons Underworld. Trevor played live and on their records with them, and this in turn surely brought him to Bjork’s attention, and we was a part of several of her records and tours, like the one we saw in 1996. In the meantime, he bought some property in Spain, near Marbella, and built a magnificent house with a studio at its heart. He lives there, but it’s a residential studio with a dramatic cliff view, looking over a valley with a reservoir at the bottom, and nothing but swooping hills covered with trees as far as you can see, except for a few of the heights of Marbella are between you and the sea, so you see a bit of the town looking south. But looking north and east it’s almost uninhabited, and there’s even a snow-crusted peak in the distance. Eagles swoop by day, frogs go at car-alarm level at night, lizards scurry about. We were there for a night and a day and a night. We worked on some songs for JB’s album. Now, JB is no slouch himself, being perhaps the most successful producer/guitarist/songwriter in Holland, being part of literally millions of sales there, impressive in a country with less than 20 million inhabitants. He’s adept in the rock and electronic worlds, and now in his late thirties is getting around to making his own album for the first time, in English and full of great pop songs with big parts--epic things you might hear on a Queen record, but his stuff isn’t pretentious, it’s more down to earth, but in a Beatles kind of way...I played bass, piano, and sang various backing vocals. Sometimes I sang parts that he had mapped out, to give the choir more tonal variety; sometimes he just let me make stuff up (there are some SUPER weird parts that came out of this). A lot of the time we listened to Trevor’s stories, which after over 40 years playing music and running studios...well, we spent hours doing so and barely scratched the surface. It was so lovely there I didn’t want to sleep, I just wanted to absorb the incredible views and the wonderful, no-hurry vibe. But we did get quite a few parts on quite a few songs done, and JB seemed quite happy.

MALAGA, 4/28

The next day, we cabbed in to Malaga, about 40 minutes’ drive, and checked in to the hotel. JB was going to hang for the Big Star show, and in fact I ended up recruiting him to guitar tech (he was a real fan and Alex really liked him, so this was a great solution). I checked in with my bandmates, and we assembled at the Teatro Cervantes, which is a stunning little opera house that holds the occasional rock show. We ran thru ‘Kizza Me’, which was a song we’d never done before, that Alex had expressed interest in doing to spice up the set with some fresh blood, but when we actually played Alex wasn’t that into it. ‘You Can’t Have Me’ had been suggested to, but that was scrapped without even trying it. We did work up ‘Do You Wanna Make It’ from ‘In Space’ so there was a never-before-played tune for the show that night.

Now, I am all for playing opera houses, but it’s true that a seated show, with bright lights in your face, and an empty orchestra pit between you and the public, is not exactly what a rock show is all about for me. So, the prestige of playing this beautiful building was perhaps paid for by being a kind of detached show...however, I was on fire. I have been playing a lot of stuff on a lot of records these months, and I new JB was in the wings and he’s a great bass player, so I wanted to nail it, and in fact i did. There were a few catastrophic failures, notably confusion as to when to get out of the guitar solo in ‘Slut’ and Jody completely forgetting to do the fill in ‘September Gurls’ but with Big Star, you pay to see us make mistakes--we do the perfect stuff for free. So, all in all, I loved this show. No merch to sell, no guests backstage, ah, paradise. Our after show party was Jody, Jon, JB and one guy (me) whose name doesn’t start with ‘J’ drinking champagne in my room.

GRANADA, 4/29

Dani (my recording buddy from the previous week) and Migue, who put together my Andalusian solo shows last summer, met Jon & I at the hotel, and we took a little lunch in the sun and then drove to Granada. Now, the Posies at this point have played shows in Spain in 2005 (including a massive one in Granada), 2006, 2007 and 2008. And remember, in between those tours, I’ve been there as a solo artist, and with the Disciplines, and...in fact check this out: Posies 93; Posies/White Flag ’95; Posies ’96; Lagwagon ’97; Chariot/solo/Posies/REM ’98; REM/Saltine ’99; Posies ’00; Posies/solo/Big Star/REM ’01; White Flag/solo/REM ’03; solo ’04; REM/Posies ’05; Posies/solo/Big Star ’06; Posies/solo ’07; Posies/solo/Disciplines ’08; And now, Posies/Disciplines/Big Star ’09. I mean, how many opportunities can one country give? Evidently, endless ones. Cuz, once again, we walked into the club after dinner (which were killer tapas, eaten outside from communal plates--everybody digs in with their fork, which I thought was quite thrilling, doing so during a flu pandemic) and found the place jammed. Jammed! It was the Planta Baja, where White Flag & I played in 2003. So, about 100 people chainsmoking and going absolutely nuts. I mean, we played ‘You Avoid Parties’ and dudes were screaming like it was 1964. Yes, dudes. It was out of control. Jon & I hadn’t played together since the Posies last tour of Spain six months, and with all I have going on I hadn’t really thought about these songs...and our soundcheck was short, and in fact, we fell right into place. I only botched one line, in ‘I Guess You’re Right’. But other than that, it was like plugging into a really strong network, on a virus-free computer performing at top speed. Other than inhaling everyone’s smoke (which did make me cough on one line) the show was absolutely effortless. After the show, we went to a nearby bar for a couple of drinks (I was treated to my first and second ‘tinto de verano’, a sugar and lemon-enhanced red wine drink served over ice. Delicious. In the 40 minutes we spent at the bar, the DJ played my perfect mix--90% KS solo/Posies/Chariot etc. with the occasional Byrds or other harmony-laden nugget.

JEREZ, 4/30

We were in no hurry to leave the next day, which was good was for some reason traffic in Granada was completely gridlocked. Seems everyone was running around getting their shopping done before the long, May Day weekend. After some hours, we pulled up to Paco Loco’s studio, so Jon could have a tour of the place and meet Paco and Muni. Then we wound our way into Jerez, and checked in to our hotel, which of course was awesome--forshadowing our hellish departure the next morning (the rule of tour being: the nicer the hotel, the shorter the stay. You’ll always have your day off in some moldy, windowless piece of shit right in the middle of cracktown). This was a little oasis with a beautiful garden, and a gourmet restaurant to boot (we were able, at least, to have dinner there). We had to do a TV interview on the local channel, which was hilarious of course. And then back to the hotel for our meal, during which the van got towed, with all our guitars and what not inside. Hmmm. I adopted my ‘he who park in tow zone go it all alone’ attitude. Saying that the driver is always responsible for tickets and such. They were cool with that, and somehow the show managed to cough up another €200 to get the car back with no consequences on our pocketbook. Again, the show was packed. Sound was a little jury-rigged (like the PA speakers stacked on each other and held in place by pieces of string, for example). But aside from some people in front being blasted when I hit high notes, this show was just dandy. We were even more relaxed and played even better, with lots of guitar free jazz bits that resolved perfectly. This combo of Jon & I, when we are mentally fit and not burned out, have this ability to get in and stay in ‘the zone’, very consistently. Weird, wonderful things happen where even the mistakes make little magical moments. Hard to explain. But it’s a feeling of flying, in a way. Our voices combine into kind of one voice; the raggedy style of my guitar and the precision of Jon’s compliment each other perfectly. And the crowd in Spain knows and loves these songs. So, that pushes us up to new heights. We had 2/3 of our favorite trio of German fans (two members of the trio are twins, one of whom had recently become a mom so she couldn’t come--but it was their birthday) who received some of their requests...including the show closer, ‘O-o-h Child’ which was actually epic. My voice was just ON. It’s been working a lot, and this has made it extremely powerful, it’s a muscle that has received a lot of exercise lately.

After the show our dressing room suddenly turned into an insane coke den, so we got the hell out of there, and went to the hotel to sleep for 3 and half magnificent hours.

VALLADOLID, 5/1

Well, this show was a lot of effort for...perhaps my least favorite of the 5 shows (well, we’ll see how tonite stacks up). We were up at 6.30, on the road at 7.30 for an hour drive to Seville, where we caught a bus for an 8.5-hour journey north to Valladolid. This was made doable by the fact it was warm, comfortable and I could sleep virtually the entire way. When we arrived, Muy Fellini, our support act for the next three shows, was there to meet us. We went to the club, which was in a strange little neighborhood outside the center of town, but was actually a very cool and pleasant little grotto of a place. The promoter was losing money on this one, to be sure. I think V-lid is a hard town to get people out. Our show wasn’t empty, but attendance was far from spectacular. So, in his panic, the guy was kind of weird--I had offered to put these two kids on the guest list and the promoter refused! This kind of thing. Well, we played OK, but the vibe was not that cool.

BILBAO, 5/2

Now this town is all about the good vibe. Bilbao was at its best this visit: the sun was out, people in general were in a good mood. We had plenty of chill time so Jon & I bee-lined to Cafe Iruna (blogger doesn't let me use tildes, FYI), picking up right where we left off in October--drinking fino, eating pinchos and brochettes, and soaking up the lively atmosphere. The place is serving drinks and snacks at a phenomenal rate, but you can’t call this fast food. The quality of the ingredients and their preparation are very high...and yet, everything seems to cost about a Euro. It’s great to see tourists, old Spanish folks, young hipsters, and....40-something rocker dudes enjoying the atmosphere. The place simply is a temple of pleasure. The priests, in black and white, are friendly but very serious about their rites. Well, we had a show to do.

I think this show was my favorite so far, beating out even Granada even tho the place was less crowded and the crowd that was there was incredibly mellow. But the sound was so excellent (our FOH this night was this fella who really reminded me of Khan in the Star Trek movie) on stage that I was just soaring...it was a feeling that I would call remarkable, except that with the acoustic version of the Posies, it seems to happen night after night. Even with the weird vibe in the previous night’s show, we had some soaring moments...but this show was comprised of ONLY those moments.

I can’t say it was the healthiest decision, but it sure was a satisfying one--as soon as the show was done we were back at Cafe Iruña. I thought I was going to be strong, but as soon as those little pieces of bread with anchovies and roasted peppers or gooey bacon fat-slathered jamon were available, I went nuts and Jon followed suit. Elvers, goat cheese, all kinds of fantastic combinations were brought out. We were chugging fino and eating pies and all kinds of stuff. Old folks were dancing to flamenco pop in the salon, the place was buzzing and we closed it down. Somehow the bill for four people came to like 80 Euros, which is basically impossible to do without SERIOUSLY pigging out.

No need to say, when I woke up this morning, all those different species were battling for some kind of Darwinian pecking order to be digested, so I needed to sleep it off. Skipping breakfast, and checking out late. However, we went back for lunch today! Our waiter at dinner and after show was VERY happy to see two customers with appetites like ours, and he even invited us for a final round of fino. A meal like that...makes you feel like you can conquer the world, and it’s with this feeling that we got in the Jumpy and rode the one hour drive to Logrono.

I’ve been in the hotel watching Djokovic and Nadal duke it out in Italy, and our last show of this run awaits us tonite.

Love
KS
Logrono, SPAIN

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!!!