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
