6.28.2009 My flight to Frankfurt got in late, we were about 45 minutes late out of Newark and going east there's a headwind. So we we touched down over an hour late. My flight to Paris was already gone, but I was already rebooked on another--but the connection was quite tight. Evidently there's a way to go directly to the gates w/o security but the signs all lead you to security for those particular gates. And of course, with my boarding pass belonging to another flight, one that had left, I was not allowed to pass. Another interesting twist: the woman who checked me in was a trainee, and was quite nervous, and it wasn't til I was on board my flight that I realized she had neglected to give me my luggage claim checks. So, I went to the transfer desk, and was booked on a flight for noon, and he was able to look up my luggage and give me the numbers. I was hoping to have lunch at home, but now I would arrive while Dom was already at work and Aden at school. Anyway, I had work to do--I pretty much went straight back to mixing the Pernille Sparboe EP, the last song was left somewhere shy of completion, it was hard to tell how much, I hadn't listened to it in 2 weeks. It needed some tweaks, and I sent the results off to Pernille for approval. I was of course falling asleep at my computer from jet lag. Friday morning I was up to take Aden to school at 7, and by 9 I was working on a TV mix for the last Pernille song (an instrumental mix for use on TV shows that don't permit a live band but can accomodate a live vocal). I had a last listen to the final mix and thought it was good, and got approval on it later. In the meantime I started in on a project for Bob Wilcox, a Canadian artist who is doing elaborate pop with a mix of vintage and modern elements. I added guitar, keyboards, vocals, and tambourine to 4 songs over the course of Friday and Saturday. With my work done by Saturday afternoon, I was free to check out the Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 that I brought back from the states...I set up my computer to play thru my stereo, since the discs are DVDs that have mostly audio content. You play a song, and the screen shows a vintage record player or tape machine playing. There are things to click on and see photos, old documents, etc. from Neil's early years. Evidently there are two hidden tracks on each disc, and I haven't for the life of me found how to locate them. Any help available out there? I looked online a bit. Of course the dominant news of the weekend--Friday morning I logged on to Twitter and saw that the leading trend was MJrip and so I pulled down the BBC headlines tab on Firefox and saw the news. Read this sobering article that implies his death as a fait accompli. From the Daily Mail UK, I found it via the Drudge Report. It implies his death was related to anorexia, itself related to anxiety about making an embarrassing spectacle in a show where he would reputedly only appear onstage for 13 minutes...at £1000/ticket. Yikes. We're off to picnic in the park. Love KS Paris 6.25.2009 I spent days chilling at my dad’s place in New Canaan and watching torrential rains fall on Connecticut...occasionally the clouds took a coffee break and I was able to get my carcass on the tennis court for the first time in a year. Most of the time I was catching up on emails, having dinner with my dad, his family and friends, and enjoying some down time at home. NEW YORK, 6/16 I zipped in to the city for a brief guerilla appearance at the 140 characters conference--I described it as an “ad hoc emergency council of elder geeks” (not that the attendees were old but they reign high in the Olympus of tech eggheads) to muse, debate and articulate the impact of Twitter and it’s short message universe. It was put together by Jeff Pulver, one of the developers of VOIP, and had Wyclef Jean, the Today Show’s Ann Curry, and many many more people speaking from their different business and personal perspectives. My role their was a little unclear, I called myself a a ‘palate cleanser and right brain stimulator’. Basically as the attendees returned to the theatre after lunch break, I played a couple of songs and told a couple of jokes, and that was that. But, the panel that preceded lunch, on Twitter’s impact on newsmedia, was quite fascinating. I really enjoyed Ms. Curry’s passion, integrity and her ability to articulate it. Our brief conversation afterwards was remarkable because of her ability to radiate that passion and inspire you to share it and take it on. On Wednesday I was in the city that evening to check out Loudon Wainwright III’s free show in Madison Square Park--just down the street from the Gramercy Theatre, so, when I found I was there with time to spare, I returned to the Live Bait Lounge for more shrimp cocktail and oysters. The Ipod providing music was stuck in the ‘B’s so the Beatles, Beach Boys, and...Big Star were playing over and over. Reminded me that BStar is long overdue for a full length NYC appearance--we did the Little Steven Underground Garage show in 2004, but that was only 3 songs. We haven’t done a headlining show since the 90s. Big Star seems to be bubbling up in coolness again now in the US...on a morning talk show to promote ‘Year One’ Jack Black and Michael Cera spontaneously start singing ‘Ballad of El Goodo’...and evidently ‘Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist’ opens with a Chris Bell song. Vanessa Paradis was covering ‘El Goodo’ on her last tour, too. So maybe we can play Paris sometime? I watched LWIII (has he ever played with Bob Log III?) for an hour or so. He had sardonic songs about the idea of Heaven as place to eat, drink, snort, smoke and screw with impunity; his grandad (No. 1 in the series) and more. About 1000 people were sprawled out on the lawn to watch. 9 songs in to the set I walked over to Madison Square Garden (which despite the names are not very close together) and checked out Earth Wind & Fire who were...well, on fire! They sounded totally vintage and played hit after hit of course. It was a weird co-bill with Chicago, where the two bands play together in a big jam, then EWF did 50 minutes on their own (the part I saw) then Chicago did a set of similar length, then another big love-fest at the end. I liked the fact that I saw 45 minutes of focused funk intensity and before long was on the train back to New Canaan. BROOKLYN, 6/18 My tennis plans were washed out. It rained like vengeance, like a curse put on humanity by wronged and thirsty trees. Like the severed jugular of some clear-vesseled beast. I don’t have the stats handy but I’ve heard it’s rained some 28 of the last 30 days in and around NY. So, I loaded what I needed for the weekend into a town car and headed for Brooklyn. The rain had softened the ground enough to let a heavy tree break loose from the earth and fall onto the highway, so we had to dodge to an alternate route. Pulling up to Littlefield, a sustainable artspace in Gowanus, there was nothing to see, not even the street number, and the driver and I missed it. After circling and calling I had Caroline, the booker, out and waving us down. I know Caroline from when she worked for REM’s promoter in Australia 4 years ago, specifically taking care of Bright Eyes, our support for the tour. She tracked me down after my set with Robyn the previous week and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, in the race to get Littlefield on the map. It’s only been open for a month, and most of the locals still don’t know it yet. It’s a great space, tho, and I am sure they will develop a clientele over time. Now, the rain, the short notice, the lack of familiarty, and probably Andrew Bird’s Radio City show made for quite a series of obstacles to overcome but I did get some people out. The bar is in a separate room from the concrete-floored showroom. So my quiet show was eerily quiet, people sat on the floor and took it in. There were photographers there who were pinging me with flash shots every two seconds which was kinda weird but I do love attention, and it had a weird effect of breaking the ice--my show is so intimate that it’s kind of awkward, and with a new audience especially it’s very much like a high-school backseat grope--there isn’t an established checklist of procedures to get us from awkward silence to harmonious lovemakin’. So, I could play off the flashbulbs and put the audience’s attention on other aspects of the room than me, and the reverence is downplayed a bit. I played many ‘new’ (post soft commands) songs and lived up to my promise to play a couple of hours, and people were truly floored. On Friday I flew to Chicago, and started getting calls that the Posies were not going to be happily reunited that evening--Matt’s flight from Austin and Jon’s connecting flight from St. Louis were canceled due to weather. My flight from LaGuardia’s Marine Terminal was just fine, if a bit bumpy. The Marine Terminal as it sounds was built for the old ‘clipper ship’ seaplanes of the 1930s. Most of the building as you use it is bland modern non-architecture. But the main rotunda of the terminal, off to the side, is a fabulous WPA structure with a similar kind of vibe as Grand Central. But it’s quite compact. Built for times when travel was the rare haunt of the privileged, it has just one small bathroom for each sex. Not that the modern terminal offers much more. I liked that they were selling Clear passes just the week before the company that offers the service went out of business. Of course there was nothing to eat on the flight, not even for sale, and as we sat on the ground for awhile I couldn’t take and ate my sandwich, balancing the plastic container on my already boxed-in knees. I had been lucky to ask about what was available and to grab something from the limited--and expensive--selection in the waiting area. I arrived to Chicago Midway, and claimed my gear, and cabbed to our friend Vince’s place. I had a panoramic view of Chicago as we basically skirted the downtown, and saw the weather attacking it from all sides--lashing wind, snaking lightning, and whipping, bullet-like rain. It had, however, calmed down substantially by the time I got settled and decided to go out. In fact, as there were no cabs in Vince’s neighborhood, I thought about walking all the way to the Double Door, about 4 miles. It got boring after awhile tho, and I flagged a cab for the rest. I soon found Darius there--and as soon as I said hi this girl in a prom dress chatted me up about how humanity needs to move to other planets etc etc. she seemed smart enough, and she was young and pretty, but mystifyingly driven to make sure I never had time to respond. Was it a pickup? I couldn’t tell. And I certainly wasn’t going to find out. We were all there to see X, with Billy Zoom in the lineup it was a first for me (The Posies played a couple of shows with the Tony Gilkyson lineup in the early 90s). They sounded amazing, but little did I know they would sound even better the next night. This was night #2 of a three-night stand at the Double Door (where the Posies had a near death experience in our two night stand in 2001 and a decent inning in 2005). I was tired, tho, and headed back before the show was over, just staying up late enough to beet CHICAGO, 6/20 Matt and Jon arrived early in the morning. Matt managed to get on a flight at about 4am out of San Antonio and Jon was diverted to Minneapolis--he even played in a hootenanny that night. When I got back to Vince’s place he was still at the X show (Darius stayed with friends from hight school). I had the place to myself, and could have grabbed one of the beds upstairs in the attic/office. But I was too scared to go up there in the dark! I fell asleep on the couch in the front room. In the morning I was up early and Matt came in while I was pretty much starting my day. I went out and looked for sustenance. Vince’s neighborhood is a traditional Polish neighborhood--in most shops people speak Polish to each other, even the younger ones. There are a few Mexican/Ecuadorian etc restaurants and businesses. But the Polish community is very much dominant here. It’s old, working class, and yuppie free. So, no soy latte’s to be found. I did find a Polish bakery and enjoyed an apricot jelly doughnut. But no coffee to be had. I ended up in a Mexican bakery and had a very large cup of coffee that was a ‘chico’ so I had to wonder what a ‘grande’ would be like. I found out that in Mexican Spanish, a croissant is a ‘bigote’ (moustache). I thought that was clever and made the idea of eating one ever more amusing. Most intimidating item: a cone, basically of pie crust, laying on its side and filled with oozing, weeping custard. Knife and fork? Hands? How would you approach it? I was proud we conducted our entire transaction in Spanish, and in fact they made quite a fine sugar cookie. While I was scouting the nieghborhood, I found a lot where one of the typical buildings--old, brick, square, not more than two or three stories--had once stood. There was concrete covering all of the lot--the light sandy kind, like around my grandparents’ swimming pool. In fact, the place had become a swimming pool. The perfect rectangle of the foundation had filled with water. Only one piece of the actual building remained--a door, floating now in the water that had filled up the rectangle to a depth of a foot or two. A few scraggly weeds had erupted from a collection of rubble that filled out one corner. On the floating door, there was a mating pair of mallards and one scrappy duckling. The tallest weeds had attracted the attention of enormous dragonflies. Photo from my phone...made just before a local came up and delivered an anti-arab tirade since the 'arabs on the corner' were 'not treating the ducks right'. Then an old man in a green suitjacket and a cowboy hat walked by with a stuffed lion... Well, I came back from my breakfast run, sweating. Having no other clothes, I was dressed for the show--long sleeve shirt, tie. The evidence of yesterday’s storm was completely obliterated and it was now about 85 degrees. I built up my strenght and convinced Matt to go out with me to look for more eats, for lunch. I had spotted the small supermarket with the giant deli counter earlier, offering sausages in a remarkable variety of sizes, shapes and colors--from cadaverous grey to deep purple. Now, I thought it was funny that this place was next door to a pet store, and I hope you do too. I mean, surely there must be some two-way trade on leftover, expired stock. America recycles! Except this store, too was a little slice of Poland. You could get Polish magazines, DVDs, and even bottled water, which was exactly as cheap if not cheaper than Dasani or some other American product. Because we can’t read Polish and didn’t pay attention, Matt & I ended up buying water that was strawberry flavored. But also...smoked kielbasa, enormous blood sausage with chunks of tongue, smoked pork ribs, and other wonderful meat treats. A little more than we needed for lunch, but it wasn’t expensive. Vince had warned me that calling a cab to his place would take a long time, and it took even longer than his estimate--so we arrived to the grounds of the Taste of Randolph St. Festival a little later than our 4pm get in. But the band preceding us was still in full swing, and Darius had already arrived and sorted out the backline. We got settled and I started tour managing--making sure we got the French white wine we had been promised, and more importantly...making sure there was bottled water in our trailer. It was still very hot out even tho the sun had done its worst. When the band before us finished, we went into action but it was such a smooth set up that we had time to kill even after setting up, taping everything down, setting our monitor levels, etc. The crew was very good. I had time to indulge my pre-show need to pee every 2 minutes. And then the Poetry Man, who writes poems about bands right before they go on and reads them as an introduction, did his poetry thing before us. Unfortunately, he was on Jon’s mic and I had earplugs in and couldn’t really hear him. So, we took off in the hot sun, and did our Frosting on the Beater show. And you know, we were really good. It’s hard to rock in the daylight. Sound just doesn’t travel as far as it does in the suggestive dark. I hit plenty of weird notes and I was beaten down by the heat but it didn’t matter. We pushed it and played with some seriously unrehearsed fire, giving back what was being dumped on us from above, heat and light. I saw familiar faces in the crowd and just lots of people singing along. Awesome. I broke a string and changed it all in the first verse of “Lights Out” and didn’t break a sweat. Darius had some things fall apart due to heavy rockin’ and used the guitar/organ breakdown in ‘Burn & Shine’ to repair them. We were quick on our feet and played with passion and a kind of elephantine grace. Yes, it’s possible. After our set Matt had agreed to help get my stuff offstage and Jon & I jumped down to sell merch on the pavement. From that point, we were free to enjoy the rest of the day/night which was truly and epic night of music: there was our show, in which we shared a bill with Urge Overkill and Tinted Windows; there was the X show at the Double Door; there was the Lemonheads show at the Abbey Pub; the Church and Adam Franklin at the House of Blues; and Wooden Birds at Schuba’s. All friends, in a way. And we saw almost all of them. And many of them saw us-- I was pleased to find John Doe backstage at the festival saying wonderful things about our set. Evan Dando was there too but in a rather...otherworldly state. John from Starling Electric drove from Ann Arbor to see the show. And so on. We got a big time shout out from the Urge, who were on fire and have a great new lineup. Tinted Windows were quite cool too, it’s like you’ve heard it all before but that’s also what makes it great--it’s a tribute band in many ways, but the quality is extremely high. About halfway into TW’s set Jon & I hopped cab to the House of Blues where the Church were in encore mood. We got to hang backstage with Adam Franklin for a bit, and spent some time with Stephen from Second Motion, the Disciplines’ label, while he worked the merch table. It was amazing that everywhere we went that night, people recognized us. Chicago is really our town. We cabbed to The Double Door and watched X, all four Posies, from the soundboard. And they were even better than the night before, and played the songs I missed from Friday--White Girl, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts...etc. They were just astonishingly good and the benevolence of John Doe makes me like them even more. After the show we spent some time in the creepy basement of the Double Door and I had a great chat with D.J. Bonebreak. Note: they should really consider using the Double Door’s basement as the set of the next installment of the ‘Saw’ franchise. So, the Posies, Vince, Ed from Urge and mrs. Ed, aka Beth, who has become something of a superstar in the burlesque/burlesque fashion world, piled into Vince’s van (it should be noted that Jon & I each had a guitar plus a bag with pedals and merch to carry to all of these different places), the van itself being from slasher film central casting, and headed to the Abbey Pub which is a long way from Tipperary. There we watched the Lemonheads who were very very strange. If Evan was trying his best, then his best days are currently on suspension. If he was phoning it in, then he should retire. His drummer was really good, and the two teenager who play guitar and bass wouldn’t even *look* at him. Other then the obvious references to blood additives, I’ve never seen *less* chemistry on stage. It just wasn’t on. They looked like they were paying a debt, not playing a show. Matt was starting to fall over, speaking of cooked geese. It was time to go. We went back to Vince’s and I nodded in and out of ‘New York Doll’ the biodoc on the late Killer Kane. It was a great film and I really wanted to get into it but look at my day--I was spent. On Sunday, I was up before everyone else. I helped myself to the rest of my blood sausage and cabbed it to Midway. Despite my delayed flight I made it to LaGuardia just a few minutes late and my dad was soon there to pick me up. We drove into New Canaan and as sure Mussolini’s trains the rain came crashing down again. But we had a lovely father’s day dinner and after I had drained the house of dessert wine my half brother Scott, his g.f. Sam and I got in a town car and drove to Hoboken, where I crashed on his couch. Monday morning I was picked up by Tony Shanahan, my lovely friend who plays bass for Patti Smith, and is a major part of my album Touched. He and Emery Dobyns have a studio in Weehawken (next door to Hoboken). Emery is a gentle and modest man who makes incredible records--Antony & the Johnsons, Noah & the Whale, and now--Strings & the Angel. Well, I was guesting on recordings for Tara Angell. Tony & Tara go way back and he plays with her on occasion. Originally, I was coming over for one Posies show in Brooklyn. That became two when we added the NYC show the next day. From there I was planning on going to Nashville and producing an artist there, and playing a show or two while I was in town. I don’t know if I witnessed a breakdown or if one had already occurred and was just well masked at first but it soon became apparent that my potential client was not going to come thru and was in the midst of some kind of crisis. The plane tix from NY to Nashville were never bought, no deposit was sent in, but it was always ‘just about to happen’. Well, I had made my return to Paris two weeks after my arrival to accomodate the session. When it didn’t come thru I tried to make the best of it, and in fact, this trip was full of rewards that I wouldn’t have been able to reap, and all in my best interests--the NY solo shows, the Chicago Posies show, getting to see all those great bands. And I got to spend some time with my dad, which of course is something that has no price tag. Now, the client finally admitted the session wasn’t going to happen some time ago, sometime in May. Travel was purchased. The calendar started to fill up with these new activities, but the days after Chicago remained open. Tara Angell made a record for Rykodisc around the time that my solo album and the Posies album were released. I picked up a copy from our Swedish distributor when we came thru town at one point and really enjoyed it. And one day, I received an mp3 in my webmail inbox, from Tara herself. A demo, with not much explanation. I liked it and asked her to send me more as she wrote more. And now and then I got some more. In recent months, the frequency has been increasing--and so has the quality. Seemed like a record was soon to be made. I really wanted to be involved, but there wasn’t a budget to hire me at my normal rate. And normally I might have to pass because of budget concerns. I gotta go with the stuff that pays over the stuff that doesn’t, unless it’s *really* exceptional. However, Tara’s stuff is. It was worth it to me to be involved simply because I detected a great record in the making. So, with days free on the calendar, I wrote her with a challenge--find the studio, and my services to whatever end she needed--playing, writing, engineering--would be free. I figured I should at least be productive and here was a chance to give back a little generosity. And when she arranged for us to work with Tony and Emery--well, i knew it would be a great meeting of musical heads and the hang would be ample reward. And in two days we did 4 amazing tracks. Some adapted from her Garageband demos, some done from scratch. Emery is a minimalist drummer but somehow hits everything that needs to be there. Most of the drum sound is a Wunder Audio mic just out in the middle of the room and it sounds incredible. I also loved singing on this mic. Over the course of the days I sang, played guitar, and some keyboards. Results: fabulous. After the second day we went for a celebratory drink as Emery has a really big gig coming up. Not only that, but Noah & the Whale are on Radio 1 so he has plenty to be happy about. He’s one of those wonderful people who treat every project with the same enthusiasm, are never negative or dismissively opinionated. A reminder that the truly great--think Rafa--are humble, and stick with the important stuff. I can think of a few people who are less impressive, crying over the fact they didn’t get handed the right statuette at the right time, and telling everyone who can’t get away how great they are. I spent my last night in the US at the Renaissance Inn by Newark airport. I chose it not only for its proximity and free shuttle but because it had a swimming pool. I tried to watch American TV and get all excited about the hotel experience, but the programming is so awful I turned it off after 5 minutes. Up in the morning I had a swim and did some excercises, and then had a photo shoot with Jen Maler, who was at the Posies show and offered to do some work. I didn’t have my best clothes to work with, being the end of the travel, but I just tried to be my natural self and see if we got the goods by chance. One thing, tho, is when we were done it was time to hop the shuttle to the airport and I totally forgot to take out my contacts until long after my bag was checked. So, I still have them in. No place to buy contact lens stuff after security either. You can buy a toenail clipper, but not a lens case. As usual, Lufthansa has horrible movies. Goodnight! Love KS Lufthansa flight 403 to Frankfurt 6.16.2009 FLOURENS, 6/7 Was this a show? We drove to the little town of Flourens, maybe 20 minutes from Toulouse. What were the odds that this little village of a few hundred people would have not one but two shows on the same day? Hmm. There was the village fete with cover bands playing day and night...we were kind of an extension of that...playing in a great little restaurant on a small lake. We arrived and I went straight to the lounge where a TV had been set up so interested parties (which turned out to be me and one other guy) could watch the weird and wet Roland Garros final. When it was done, I was expecting to see the rest of the band, who had scattered to run errands, pick up supplemental gear, and get their voting done in the general election that day, any minute but that dragged on. Anyway, there was a big party happening, perhaps a wedding dinner of some kind? and we couldn’t set up until they left. And they went on and on, as was their right. A couple of fans of mine actually came at the advertised time--I had been told we were going to play at 5 that afternoon but it turned out to be more like 8 when we played...and they left long before we started. Funny. So, in the end, it’s not even clear the place was open, we basically played for the owner and some friends of the band. Kind of a rehearsal, with a lovely dinner afterwards...the owner of the resto grilled us some amazing brochettes. Wine flowed. We all talked and laughed. I DJ’d. The owner’s 4 year old daughter played the drums now and then. It was starting to get a little intense and then the owner of a local recording studio, who wasn’t a friend of the band’s, so basically a stranger at that point, got on the drums...I chased him off as the other guys in the band were too timid. Leave it to the ugly American. I had to be pretty stern, and he was huffy trying to save face but later when we had the chance to eat and drink and talk it was all cool and he understood, no hard feelings. Quite a talker this fellow...he gave me the spiel about his studio, for, man, 40 minutes? Hard to say. Jolly guy. While we played this kind of private show, or rehearsal with dinner as I like to describe it, we did the entire set....it was getting close to ten and I was HUNGRY. So at some point I just said “dinnertime”. Enough! It was worth the wait tho... TOULOUSE, 6/8 Gloriously slept in. We were really late in looking for lunch, most restaurants were closed when we were starting to get organized at 3...so I had my first visit to a Hippopotamus...a chain, there’s many in every city. Eric was ashamed to take me there, but I didn’t mind. In terms of status it’s rather like a Denny’s. I had a steak tartare, and you know, the fact is, a cheap French chain restaurant is so much better than its American equivalent. Even the wine was far from vile. Le Saint de Seins. “The Saint of Tits”. Saint and Seins are homophones. I guess it’s funny...?? Well, it’s a student bar, so a place to get cheap beer (they actually had no red wine, a bar in France, imagine). Decent stage, but the PA sounds pretty horrible. It took them forever to try and EQ the feedbacking frequencies out of the monitors. The club looks very new and is quite tastefully done but on closer inspection you see that the toilets don’t work, and that the construction in general seems to have been done in a hurry. Nice thought when you have a 700 pound lighting rig hanging over your head....now, this being a student place and a place for students to drink as cheaply as possible, the very inexpensive 5 euro cover charge was seen as a royal bummer to the regulars. But, still people came. I guess about 40. The band was hoping for more for their big Toulouse show--but I said, hey--40 people on a rainy Monday night paying to see a band that has only released a 7 inch single, and recently at that, is really good. It was only the Sad Knights’ 4th show, right? And despite the kind of crappy stage sound (after so many years of touring, I just ignore these things and play on) we had some great moments. The jam on ‘Who Do You Love’ was particularly demented...I was working this kind of ‘snake charmer’, egyptian sounding kind of mode (or should I say ‘scale’?) and stomping on the wah pedal and pushing the bass keys til they were throbbing and pulsing the PA and obliterating their original tonality for something that was registering more in the lower intestine than the eardrum. Fabulous. I played lots of flashy licks, and in fact I drew a few young people who I am pretty sure were just there for whatever and ended up coming over to check me out going apeshit on the piano and Farfisa. Props! It was a bit painful to be up at 7 the next morning (actually I blame the cot in Eric’s office that I slept on...it pretty much undid the work my osteopath did to set me right after my Primavera Sound tumblin’ dice move) but in fact we had to fight thru awful traffic to get me to the airport and my flight. I came back home and was soon back to working on the Pernille Sparboe mixes...I got one more song done and got pretty close on the 4th and final song but much to my chagrin I had to call it a wrap Wednesday night before it was completely ready. So, it’s waiting for me for next time. Pernille was totally cool to wait another two weeks to hear the last song! But anyway, I said from the beginning that I would try to get it done in early June, but it was probably going to be end of June that I could finish everything. So already Thursday it was time to go--took Aden to school Thursday morning and that night I played in New York. BROOKLYN, 6.11 I always have the same feeling when I go to the states. Intercontinental travel is exciting and all, and I look forward to seeing my friends but at the same time I always think...argh, the states. Time to start falling on deaf ears again. Last time I played the US the vibe was partially hostile, you might recall my run in with some frat dudes at my show in April-- a minor annoyance that luckily didn’t derail what ended up being a very good show, but the fact is...why should I even bother with annoyances when everywhere else I play the audience is comprised of ADULTS. Even when it’s an all ages show and some of those ‘adults’ are 11. Even the 4 year old watching the We Build Airplanes, the solo acoustic opener for the Sad Knights shows, knew not to talk during his show. Now, my flight from Paris to Munich got in late, so I was running to catch my flight to Newark. I ran straight to the front of the passport control line, and happened to encounter one of those little clerks who wants to let you know he’s in control. He spent forever giving the guy in front of me shit and then took his sweet time. I told him my flight was boarding. He said it was ‘not his problem’. This kind of thing. Then he told me I needed a new passport and that there was no place for him to stamp. I said it hadn’t been a problem before (true) and that I would be happy to find a place for him to stamp (Let me tell you I wasn’t thinking of my passport when I said that). I am sorry, but I am not going to let a foreign polizei tell me when to get a new American passport. I’m not particularly patriotic, but I draw the line there. Also, there are two blank pages and plenty of spots left. So screw him. I ran to my gate, and found out that they were holding my flight back because weather problems had delayed lots of people trying to make that connection. So, all was well, and this meant my luggage was going to make it too. FYI, Lufthansa has SHITE movies. And I’m stuck with them on the way back, too. So, I landed that evening at about 6, had no problems getting thru customs quickly and was soon looking for the guy with the ‘Stringfellow’ sign that was supposed to be waiting for me. Only he wasn’t there. I called the venue, I called the car service. The guy answering at the car service said ‘I am very very far away’. Not good. So, I found a car service there and there soon ensued a three way debate between myself, the venue contact and the driver about the best way to get to the Bell House. We went thru the Holland tunnel and over the Brooklyn Bridge, and soon we were in a land of scrapyards, oil recycling trucks, etc...in other words, Gowanus. Pulled up the Bell House, and Jack and Ben from the club came out and paid the driver, and I went in and started to unpack, look for my merch that had been sent to the club, and say hi to Scott, Peter, Robyn, Bill....Robyn’s TM Brian, an old Seattle homey; Angie, the Disciplines’ publicist, and her man Jon Wurster (Minus 5/Superchunk veteran) and so on. Lots of friends in the house, lots of fans in the house. I brushed my teeth and put my contacts in, at the grimy work sink backstage. eew. Takka Takka were wrapping up their set (Posies fans it turns out). Soon I was plugging my stuff in. My guitar took a few minutes to get up to speed, it was having trouble with all the travel. I set up, went off, and a few minutes later came on for the set. Such a different story playing to a packed house of Robyn fans in Brooklyn. The audience was mine from the git go, and I opened with a challenge--a mic’less ‘It’ll Be A Breeze’. My voice had a little trouble with the long hi note--”it’s exACTly how I feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel” but gimme a break it was my first solo show since the Delancey two months prior and I just walked off a plane from France FFS. All told, it was a big success, and people loved it...I sold hundreds of dollars worth of merch afterwards, so that’s still the great litmus test...then Robyn played and I watched from the wings, I hadn’t seen the Venus 3 and they were on fire. At the end of the set I came up and sang Waterloo Sunset with them, but then...we came back again and I sang my favorite Robyn song, Airscape, with them, and then we ridiculously jammmed on Roadhouse Blues...yes, you read that right. I played ‘blues harp’. Hahaha. Oh, I sang ‘Give it to the Soft Boys’ with them too...epic! BROOKLYN, 6.12 The Posies arrived to town on the 11th and made it to the Bell House but after the show was done. But it was a fun hang. I was kicking back some fine wine with McKenzie from Midlake, who is in town rehearsing with Regina Spektor, til...er, later than late. Good times! So the next day I was lucky to have jet lag on my side waking me up early and bright. About midday the Posies all hopped in a town car and headed in to the city to meet with the fantastic team at Rykodisc, and then schlepped back to the hotel with a very cranky cabbie (a cranky cabbie, in New York? Really?) and headed to the Bell House. Tully Hall was setting up and Darius’ drum kit was delivered from the drum co. that sponsors him. We set up and started to run thru stuff. Woah, it was rougher than Jamie Farr’s 5 oclock shadow. We hoped for the best. It’s not so easy to find good eats around the Bell House. It’s a wonderful venue tho--it’s pretty new, but feels lived in in a lovely way. It’s already a classic joint. And the people working there are just cooler than cool. So friendly and pro. Now, if we could just get some more restos in the area...after soundcheck the band, my friend Brian from Seattle, Posies fan Jason from Idaho, and Karsten who released the Disciplines album in Germany, all walked pour chercher manger. We split up but K/B/J and I found a little Italian place that had great wine by the glass, and they managed to whip me up a grilled chicken salad in an incredibly swift manner, as I had to rush back to the venue to do an interview with NPR, on how musicians make money in this time and day. Should be really interesting and it should air in a couple of weeks. The Brunettes were on first, I played with them in Auckland a few years ago, and they’ve grown up since, they are a really quirky, really interesting and fun band. And it seems they live in Brooklyn now. Tully Hall reminded me a bit of a vaudeville act, they even dressed like it....I was expecting them to do ‘the old Bamboo’ from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, tipping their straw boaters and all. Now it was time for us to play. FOTB is an easy, solid thing to play, so I wasn’t feeling tenative. But we did have a few tuning issues and a few patches of potholed road...but the crowd was so into it, it kept us aloft. There was a lot of singing along, esp. in ‘Earlier Than Expected’ and we fine tuned the set as requests came in--so ‘Ontario’ was a late addition. We closed the night with a surprisingly raw and visceral ‘Beautiful One’. NEW YORK, 6.13 I was still up pretty early. As it turns out there’s a great organic coffee shop around the corner from the Holiday Inn Park Slope so we brunched there. Then we were picked up by a battered van and driven to a recording studio in Williamsburg, where we did a live session and interview for Jack Rabid’s internet radio show. We did three songs with the band and ‘Throwaway’ just Jon & I. Snack of the year: chocolate covered pretzels. There were only 8 of them. Thank God. It was about 3.15 when the interview portion was wrapping, and we got in the van (studio was on 4th floor, and the freight elevator had been condemned) and drove into the city. It was pissing down rain. With great effort, we circled around and pulled up to the Gramercy (formerly Blender) Theater. What a great venue--seated in the back, sloping floor in the front. Full NY crew, like any big union venue. So we were well taken care of. And the backline was much better for this show...Tully Hall’s stuff was weird. I had this AC30 that the more I turned it up the quieter I got and the speakers sounded out of phase. I fired up the twin at the Gramercy and was like hallefrickinglujah. Everything about this show was just so much more blessed with flow than the Bell House show, but the Bell House show had this great crowd that made it work (and the Bell House itself). My favorite parts were a long spiel about Tequila Tom and the fact he had a doppelganger standing right behind him. My dad, stepsister and stepbrother made the gig, my favorite tennis pro from New Canaan, Xavier was there, lots of old friends. Ticket sales had been damaged by the fact that when the name changed from the Blender (as in the now defunct mag) to the Gramercy, the Blender Theatre domain name became available and was bogarted by a scalper site that listed tix for our show at $60...and even $300...so that scared a lot of people off. That and the fact that most people don’t know the venue that well, and the fact that John Vanderslice was playing the Bowery was all collateral damage. But, still, the venue filled up more than I thought it would, and we really played extremely well. At the end we did a final encore of ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the Road’ with Don Fleming, FOTB’s producer, a 6’ 3” crazy man (who Jon referred to as Spalding Gray) singing and diving in the audience, the drum set...I had to dive on him when he crashed the drums. Awesome. After the show Tequila Tom and other friends and I inhabited the rooftop bar at La Quinta Inn, it was weird.... On Sunday I took the train to New Canaan, it was intense to lug my guitar, my massive suitcase, my computer bag and the small carryon that had my merch and guitar pedals etc to and thru Grand Central (and I added a weighty Sunday NY Times to that) and got on the train to New Canaan. Actually, I arranged to go to Darien and have my dad meet me there so I didn’t have to go up and over and change trains. But in Stamford I had to run out of the car with all my stuff as track construction in Darien meant that only two cars would open at that station...we had to walk on truck plates to get to the platform. My dad’s neighbors, just across the street, are very cool. Bob is a wine enthusiast--fascinatingly he has never had a sense of smell, but his palate has developed to compensate. And he loves Rhone wine, and we bonded on MANY issues. Like me, he has lists of things to get, and lists of what his cellar contains and when it will be mature. We had some extraordinary Chateauneuf, Ermitage blanc and vintage champagne, with a plate of snacks incl. cheese and grilled steak...well, with three days of nonstop rock & roll action straight off a plane under my belt this pretty much killed me (but in a great way). So by 9.30 I was in bed. Monday I spent just hanging in the house, catching up on business. I got out on the tennis court for the first time in a year with Xavier who gave me a great lesson and got me hitting again. My dad cooked an absolutely gourmet chicken recipe with basil, olives and grape tomatoes. We watched ‘Man on Wire’ but I was already starting to crash. I downloaded Tweetdeck...I *think* I understand it...I watched the ‘Crack Fox’ episode of the Mighty Boosh. I totally got that. Love KS New Canaan CT 6.06.2009 Most of this week I was hard at work mixing the Pernille Sparboe EP. Some late nights, even tho' I try and avoid that when I'm home. The results so far are great, tho--this has been a mixing experience that's been less about problem solving than about how far can I push it to ever greater heights. So many insanely good vocal takes to choose from. Etc. I had the chance to sneak out for a bit and see the Miserable Rich, an excellent UK band, that basically seems to be comprised of some fiddle-playing farmers, with great songs about drinking and...what you do when you are about to be or have just been drinking. They were supporting Rodriguez. 6-Rod had a shit hot band, really playing a great 60s groove--Hammond, bass, guitar and drums. The Man Himself has this nice reedy Dylan-like voice, so he just automatically rings of authenticity and righteousness (I would love to hear him cover 'Royal Jelly' by Dewey Cox)...until he stops singing; then he seems a bit befuddled, with really weird stage banter. There was a really long one about the Pope, North Korea, and Amsterdam that was like...wooooooah. But it actually drew applause...somehow. On Thursday I flew to Toulouse to rehearse with the Sad Knights, learning the 22 song set in...well, no time. We just played. And I played along, and I pretty much nailed it. After rehearsals we checked a bit of Sonny Vincent, quite a fascinating guy, really. His show was kind of rock rock rock but he has been involved in many things over the years... ALBI, 6/5 This rock & roll show was held at a great little bar owned by an incredible man, Fabrice. Originally from Normandy, he lived literally around the world--Reunion, Madagascar, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Australia--working as a radiologist and also playing bass in a few awesome garage bands. I guess he's in his 50s now, and in the last decade he moved back to France, opened a venue in Bordeaux for awhile, and then in the last three years, this modest little bar, Le Jour de Fete, which is able to entertain and feed the rockers of Albi pretty much 24-7. And he cookedd us dinner, breakfast and lunch during our stay. The show itself was super fun, basically I got to beat on the piano like a caveman, playing all my 50s lixx and then some. People actually danced to the rockabilly numbers. So, there's your answer right there. The monsoon-style rain didn't scare the peeps away. And in Albi we find small-town folks who are really civilized. I guess to them it's not a small town. LAUZERTE, 6/6 After lunch with Fabrice, we drove on the back roads to get to Lauzerte. We stopped in Cordes-sur-Ciel, a quaintly crumbling medieval village, built on a little plug of of a hill or mountain...the kind of place you would build a little medieval town on, to keep it safe from the baddies (like the 'English' that the French fought for a hundred bloody years, who were actually French, but coming from England, who ruled a French speaking England which had more land in France than did France itself at that time). I bought some foie gras and some sweet Gaillac wine. We drove on to Lauzerte, which also turns out to be a little medieval town clinging to a pointy rock, from which you can survey the country for miles and miles. On the way, we drove thru oak forests (I never saw how much this part of France resembled Connecticut til now), along massive limestone cliffs, and thru dazzling, dreamy wheatfields. We passed a fantastic destination in itself--the village called 'Bonnemort' or 'Good Death'. Heavens! I assume they meant something about cramming your own throat with throat-crammed goose product, until you explode like Mr. Creosote. We finally drove vertically into Lauzerte, and absolutely did not bother to set up our stuff. We worked on the foie gras/Gaillac combo, and I explored the town. Show--we had a real piano, and our Farfisa, and it was a quieter show tonite--instead of Christian on the drums, we had Jenny on the cahon. I knew people were listening, at least to the webcast, so I tried to really play as incredibly as possible...success? At one point, Jenny's lack of experience showed--but only at one, because otherwise she is excellent--when she had never really heard a Bo Diddely beat, and played 'Who Do You Love' in a kind of double time shuffle. So, I waved at her, and got her to play with one hand, and hold down the root note on the Farfisa; then I got on the kit and blasted out a Bo Diddley bumpdebumpdebump bumpbump til she got the point, then she grabbed the sticks and took over. I picked up the bass, Eric moved to Farfisa, and Simon walked around the room amongst the ever drunker-villagers...awesome! Eventually the bass amp broke, the so I picked up the stand up bass and we finished like that. Love KS Lauzerte, FRANCE

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!!! Subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date on all things KS! older news : 8/3/2003 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010 03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010 04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010