The mixing of the Twice album came to a peaceful conclusion, I got out of the studio on the last night of work in time to catch the metro home, and in the morning didn’t have to leave so early that my family were still asleep; I left just shortly before Aden would have been leaving for school. As usual Aden tried to keep cool about the goodbye, but fretted after I was gone that she hadn’t kissed me enough.
my flight to New York left a little late, and the equipment had been swapped which meant we were jammed into a relatively tiny aircraft, looking out the window at the aircraft parked at our gate I thought how it looked out of scale with the other internationally-destined vehicles.
But no matter. I managed to sleep soundly, and arrived in New York not too disheveled. I claimed my materiel and parked at a net cafe and waited for Baard and Ralla to arrive, which they did, with no problems. “Hey, you made it in. Great. Where’s your drums?” “oooh...I want to buy some.” Ah. Well, between now, about 4pm, and the load in at 1pm the next day, with a photo shoot in the morning, when would we have time to sort that out? Ralla was interested in going to a particular drum shop, which I managed, with no web access and not even knowing which town it was in, to locate the number for. It was far away. More calls. Soon Ralla was happily chatting with someone at Main Drag Music in WIlliamsburg.
We got to our Brooklyn digs, at my friend Cristina’s place, where Bjorn had already been staying for a couple of days. Cristina’s roommate was out of town, so we had the run of a rather large and comfortable flat, and also Cristina’s dog, Sassy, and her cat, who wouldn’t tell me her name. After I finished arguing with the cab driver about the relative paucity of the gratuity I chose to include on top of the fare, we settled in and I immediately sent the boys to Main Drag (Bjorn had already been there that day shopping) as well as hooked up Bjorn with Jeff from the band Aden to pick up his Badcat amp. I headed into the city to have dinner with some of my NYC homies but zipped back to Cristina’s to finish the evening with my Norwegian homies, having a little wine and enjoying unrestricted access to the interweb.
NEW YORK, 10/20
I felt fine in the morning, but Baard was not so confident about the Mexican meal he ate the night before. But, we had a photo shoot to do, with Ivan from Zaragoza, now living in Brooklyn. We all, including Cristina and Sassy, went into the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, which were ablaze with Indian summer warmth (our cabbie in from JFK: “We call this time in Russia ‘middle age woman summer’”). Green and shimmery, they inevitably gave a cheerfully psychedelic edge to the shoot. Maybe that’s because I have spent a bit of my early twenties tripping my neurons out my ears in various Seattle parks. A dog is a good prop. To make sure we didn’t look like tough guy wanna be doofuses, I grinned like a freaking idiot.
Then it was time to go to the city, we called a van, and after a long wait to cross the bridge due to some urban project or other, we were dropped at the corner nearest the Mercury Lounge, and walked over with our stuff--including Ralla’s new snare and cymbals, the Badcat amp, and a suitcase full of tshirts. We started to get it together, and soon were joined by Stephen from Second Motion, who released our record in the USA. Stephen’s a great guy, we know each other from the time of Soft Commands coming out on Yep Roc when he was working there. We soundchecked, which other than youtube would be the first time Stephen would have seen us live. And, predictably, after a month off, we sucked. Horrible! But he didn’t care, and we didn’t either. I figured we’d figure it out over the intervening hours. Next stop: lunch. We headed over to Katz’s, an NYC landmark that somehow I’d never been in. Now, I am such a goy that I didn’t even know what I was looking at: “Is that roast beef or brisket?” “Uh, that’s pastrami, sir”. And that’s what I had...and it was ridiculously good. A sandwich was also like $15, but really, you’re paying to sit in a kind of jewish food museum, so factor that in.
Ralla is very shy. He had heard about this guy who cuts hair out of his flat, cash only, make appointments via Facebook or phone. Of course he was too scared to call. So I had spent the day trading phone calls with the guy and finally got Ralla booked in after soundcheck.
Then we had down time, so after checking mails in Stephen’s tiny hotel room, I walked over to B’way and was on a planned mission to Zara, hoping they had something along the line of those groovy patent plastic wingtips I’ve worn for all the Posies shows and most of the D’s shows for the last year, who were starting to be more notional than actual shoes. While asking for my size, and settling one size too big that actually seem to be a perfect fit now, I ran into Rosie Thomas and her b.f., and chatted with them for a long time. What a positive and kind person Rosie is...then, back to the show area, and my friends started to arrive, I picked at a salad at Little Frankie’s then sipped mediocre champagne and a superb macchiato at the Pink Pony, surrounded by an ever-increasing cadre of my New York pals. Then it was time to head to the venue, and I actually ran into Ron, from the band The Churchills, on the street, with his wife. The C’s are a band I produced some great songs for about ten years ago, in a studio in the Chrysler bldg. Ron & I chatted and compared notes on our respective kids and then finished the travel to the Mercury Lounge. I said hello to Marty Wilson-Piper from the Church and went downstairs to find my bandmates happily buzzed on Bud Lite (it must have taken a LOT) and we waited for Jupiter One to finish their funky space jams. When they were finished, we had already discussed the urgency of getting onstage quickly--midnite on a Tuesday is asking a lot, even of hardy New Yorkers. In fact, like most urbanites, frequent access to top-quality entertainment means that when the trains stop running, almost nothing is considered worth staying out any later for. Luckily the subway doesn’t stop, but still. It does *slow down*.
Well, we didn’t. I was really nervous about this show, actually. I mean, Tuesday nite, big deal. CMJ...the stakes aren’t quite as high as when I played there in 1990. But for me the stakes are *always* high. Just the presence of that many friends and colleagues put me on edge. Strangers are always better to play to--you have much more opportunity--and the right--to reinvent yourself. Your friends want to see you the way you are, the way you’ve always been. Even if they don’t know that they do, that’s how they’re always steering you. And for me, singing in the Disciplines is a kind of unique space of uninhibited lunging in a particular direction, the direction of freedom.
We hadn’t played in over a month. When the show began, and as usual, my mic stand fell into its component parts, my lungs were aching by the first third of the first song. And of course I saw steadfast groovy hipsters--good looking boys and gals, smartly dressed, with blank or skeptic looks on their faces. Now, I have some experience in this realm so I know that this look means nothing and in fact the two examples I am thinking of as I write this were the most gushing fans--they just kept their cool on during the show. One person who did not keep her cool was the girl who danced with me during “I Got Tired”, she was completely feral, in a good looking way--whatever frequency we were broadcasting was sizzling her motherboard. The effect was pretty pleasant, if a bit over the top. It’s great to have someone like that in the crowd--it really raises the bar of how into it everyone should be--if you’re not letting your guard down and having as much fun as they are, it’s pretty clear you’re missing out. But we had the crowd long before she emerged from the pack. We made a few mistakes, and I was somewhat breathless, but it was fun, and rowdy and sweet all at once. And the best part is that I was surrounded by friends all night, all of whom saw me in a new situation, and gave the thumbs up. So, perhaps my earlier statement about where your friends want to keep you needs some revision...
BOSTON, 10/21
Everybody was in fairly good shape the next day; I abstained from the breakfast outing in Brooklyn, and caught up on emails and bookkeeping (the noting and organizing of receipts and income is not just a daily ritual--it’s practically an hourly one. You have to stay on top of it or you’re totally lost, all it takes is a slight fuzziness around the edges of the merch count and you’re done). I got us into the cab and we headed, slowly, for the city. Dumped off at Penn Station, we loaded up all our luggage, boxes of merch, instruments, and looked for the Amtrak counter. I’d only done Amtrak once or twice in my life, so I wasn’t entirely sure of the regulations. At one point it looked like we had to check the bags like on an airplane, so I was waiting in line, watching our margin of error dwindle perilously close to single digits. So, I jumped, got our tickets from a machine, and we made a run for the platform. Only to find it was open seating, put your bags wherever, and mostly empty. We had plenty of room to stretch out for the next 4 hours.
At Back Bay station, we came out of the back entrance, so we were just on some road, with no available cabs, or so it seems. I copped a number from the side of a passing, occupied taxi and was told they don’t do phone orders. One did finally pass by and we got in and headed to the venue. T.T. the Bear’s has been on my radar forever--it’s next door to the Middle East, where I’ve played a half a dozen times. TT’s is more punk rock. OK, it’s a dive. No frills. A splintering stage, a grimy bar, a pool table and rather unfortunate men’s room. Randi, who runs the place, and probably has for some time, told us to go out and get a coffee, the sound guy wasn’t there and the other band’s weren’t there. We ended up at...the Middle East, and decided just to have dinner even tho it was a little early. Yummy Lebanese wine, grilled lamb, hummus. And afterwards, we came back and were even still a little early for soundcheck. As we came around the corner, we some dudes leaning up against the wall, chatting. As they ahve doors right next to each other, it was a little hard to tell if this was one of our support bands or one of the bands playing upstairs at the Middle East. So, I came up to introduce myself and realized I was talking to Al Kooper--and I was quick to run in and grab him Smoking Kills on vinyl. He didn’t seem to thrilled about it, but I was. Then the bands started showing up at TT’s, and the sound guy was there, and our pre-arranged AC30 came thru the door. Soundcheck was achieved. Our hosts in Boston, Richie and Judy Parsons, also arrived, and we went to Zuzu’s or whatever the annex of the Middle East is called, and got to know each other. I’d met Richie in Rome when Chariot played there a couple of years ago, he has been part of the Boston punk scene since the early early days (in his band Unnatural Axe, among others) and now manages Newberry Comics, aka Boston’s most important music retailers. Before you think nose piercing and mohawk, stop thinking. He’s just a great, unassuming, generous guy. He, his wife and teenage daughter live in a lovely little home in Quincy (pronounced by locals as Quinzee), a leafy suburb south of the city. Judy went home, she had a cold, but Richie stayed with us, and drove us back to his place after the show--more on that later.
Fatal Flaw was the middle band, whose gear we mostly used. The band is fronted by ex San Franciscan Joel Reader who still plays in SFO bands Pansy Division and The Avengers, so we *also* played together in Rome. Hmmm. The room was a little sparse, unf., it didn’t seem like either band had that many loyal friends...but then, neither did we. We did get some peeps out tho, but it was first support act Yoni Gordon and the Goods that saved the night--their two beardy, kind of University-quad-hackey sack-looking friends were the BOMB. They got out and DANCED. Non stop, the whole show. When it was time to jump, they were already jumping. And they were just cool people. After the show, one of the hairy guys, who looks kind of like David Cross if we were to let it all hang out (like he did for his portrayal of Allan Ginsberg in “I’m Not There), showed me a cassette that he made as a post-breakup tape he sent to his ex, comprised mostly of ‘Touched’. They got back together...still are. Glad to help!
After the show, Randi suggested that I pay for the disintegrated mic stand, that literally exploded into its constituent parts in the first 20 seconds of the first song, and I declined. She didn’t press the issue.
So, afterwards, we piled into Richie’s car and headed to his cute little house in the quiet lands outside the city. He had some beers, and the guys were staying up but I knew I had to keep it cool and went straight to bed.
TORONTO, 10/22
In the morning, Richie had the full spread--bagels and cream cheese, scrambled eggs & bacon, coffee cake--all essential breakfast items that I was proud to be there for their introduction to the 3 Norwegians. The excellent coffee cake was from something like “www.ilovemygrandma.com” it was spot on. I had the guys get all the serial numbers from all their gear, and I typed up a manifest for the customs folks, knowing that the act of going thru the trouble meant they would never ask for it (and they did not). Richie’s brother brought over his SUV so we had a little extra room, and Richie drove us to Logan. All thru this tour, my bandmates were blown away by the hospitality and generosity we were shown. And the fact that these were my friends housing us was only partially true--I had only, briefly, met Richie once, and we hadn’t stayed in touch--it was Suz, my friend from Italy, who put this all together. our hosts in Toronto were strangers too. So, we give cheers to Richie, and there’s more to come.
We flew to Toronto, and I of course was sleeping on the plane, waking up only when we were about to land. Looking down at the south Ontario landscape--it was so clear to see that humanity was an imposition on the landscape--and the perfectly polite, Canadian way of development--not a nightmarish blight like formerly industrial Detroit, for example--all perfectly spaced trees, the perfect proportion of well-spaced cars and trucks on the highway, all going about reasonable, purposeful business--the architect’s rendering-style blandness of it all, on a terrain-free flat landscape--well, coming out of deep sleep as I was, I suddenly had this vision--it was all *fake*. You could just see that mankind was a temporary coating, like a mold growth, unimportant and ultimately superficial--the solid bowling ball of the planet was unmistakably *there*. Canada just is too good orderly, reasonable, and tasteful to be believable.
Good thing we had a closer look.
Meanwhile, we still had to get *in* to Canada, as opposed to just *on* it. Ralla and I were let thru no problem, but Baard & Bjorn were given a pink stripe on their paperwork, so they went off the ‘special place’. And I had to help. Back in the old days, there were elaborate work permits given, for a fee, for bands playing in Canada. It looked like a stock certificate, or a very large piece of money--colorful (well, colorfully *brown*) engraved official looking docs. Now, most music venues have ‘exempt’ status--as long as you aren’t taking away the livelihood of a Holiday Inn lounge band or picking up a few table waiting shifts between sets, you’re free to come and deliver your unique, culture-enriching arts performance in a space that is uniquely and exclusively devoted to such acts. No food can be served, no other activity than music (with available liquid refreshments) can go on. Our venue, the Velvet Underground, certainly didn’t offer much--it seems to satisfy the regulation, but the fact it had regular DJ nights, and listed this on their website (unlike the concerts, which it never listed at all, which I found rather unhelpful) made it seem like they were always open--a no-no in the exempt status POV. To be by the books, the place should be closed when there wasn’t a culturally stimulating event in progress. So, this translated in us having to sit there and think about it for awhile. Then we could go. Customs took a look at our instruments and boxes of CDs coming thru, and decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble.
Oh, one funny note: Ralla, dear boy, has not traveled much. So, when we got on in Boston, he gate checked the big nylon circular bag that holds his cymbals. As we walked thru the halls in Pearson, I said to Ralla simply: “cymbals.”. He turned red, and ran the 150 yards back to the plane to claim them, where they had been all along.
So, we were still too early to go to the venue, so I suggested we wait at the airport and have a coffee. I changed some money and was pretty bummed about the results. Then we got in a cab (all the cabs at the airport are Town Cars or similar, so much better for us, tho we still had to ride with guitars on our laps). We worked our way towards the CN tower, and the driver had time to give me his number, offering to take us to the airport the next day, but bring a van.
We got to the venue, and brought our stuff. A lot less glamourous than it looks on its website, the place has several times more Underground than it does Velvet. The opening band was there and before we even finished the hellos they were offering a bag of green stuff that none of wanted, but we appreciated the gesture. This show was being promoted by Dan, who is a legend in two media--he had a career in the late 70s as one of the most tenacious investigative journalists in the nation (as his father had been before him), then fell off the map for a bit, and re-emerged as the consummate tastemaker and underground music champion. He’s not the most reliable emailer, but he believes in what he does and has great passion for the shows and the musicians. Craig is another promoter in town, and also had interest in the show--but was promoting the Raveonettes in one venue, Dave Bazan in another, and a Canuck country legend at the Horseshoe. So, he brought in Dan, and they put us in this venue, which is not really one of the main rock venues--those were occupied. But the fact is, both Craig and Dan wanted the band to come and get a toehold in Toronto that they put the show on anyway, knowing we’d get creamed by the competition, but knowing we’d make an impression. Kind of insane, but I respect that.
We did our soundcheck, and then went off in search of victuals. Craig had recommended Jules Bistro, a few blocks from the club, and boy was he on the Canadian money. What a spot. Friendly, affordable, and divine. I don’t know what airport my hangar steak had lived in, but don’t be a fool and give me an ID badge. I’d go in with a blowtorch, aller-retour the whole freaking inventory, and come out some kind of Adkins diet Iron Man champ.
We were joined at the end of the meal by a Facebook connection, Jeff, who was going to shoot some pics of us--oh, and casually pick up our dinner tab?? I mean *seriously*--this is the kind of hospitality we encountered on this trip. Well, Jeff got our undivided attention, and while the first band played their bizarre mix of covers and, I guess, original material, we were backstage getting our portraits taken. Our turn came and we did our thing, prob. to about 30 people, which isn’t actually that bad, considering all the circumstances I described. The place turns into a goth dance club after shows, so some of these patrons came in during our show--and loved it.
After the show, a number of people loved it so much, they wanted to express their gratitude not so much in words but in marijuana, but again, not on our agenda. We met our two hosts--Spooky and Dylan (rhymes with “stylin’ “)--two strangers, the whole meeting arranged by Bob Wilcox, who I also haven’t really met in person, but I did some music for this year. Spooky had a flat around the corner, and I sent the boys there. Dylan had a flat a little ways away...and a deluxe iron and ironing board. Sold. I had my huge suitcase with me, so when I tried to go into a bar with Spooky and the boys, the doorman said no way. So, Dylan, and my dear friend Brendan, super star publicist, and I cabbed to Dylan’s, dropped my rig, and we went in search of a place to await last call. We would search hard, but we didn’t have to wait long. First try was a kind of yuppie singles bar, absolutely out of “Entourage” which I vetoed, straight up. Kelly, who was a very chirpy fan who was tagging along (on a bike, tho--we were in cabs and she would meet us along the way) suggested a gorgeous little wine bar. So we walked, and went in, and found we’d missed last call. So, we ended up in this little basement cowboy bar, well, fake cowboy, but real bar. A country band was playing, and hipsters were drinking big red & white beers, and they had horrible wine which I was as grateful and a shipwreck survivor to receive. Kelly as it turns out started to tell me about her upcoming trip to Toulouse, when she found out I live in Paris. She has a b.f. there, he has a little record label, and they have bands like...the Sad Knights. “Uh, I *play* i that band...what the hell??”. Weird, but normal. That’s the only way I can sum it up.
Then this place closed, after one round, and it was time to go to bed. Dylan suggested (and had tried to convince the whole band) that his friend’s place was much nicer. he suggested that we go there instead of his place, and I could rendezvous with my bag in the morning, the two places were only a block apart. This turned out to be a simplification, but anyway, when we got to his friend’s place, it was full of very drunk boys, who were really begging us all to loan them money for some coke. Pinot grigio was being spilled and occasionally sipped, disco music on, the whole shebang. I asked Dylan if perhaps I could now go to his place! So, his friend and I walked me to Dylan’s, where he discovered he had no keys, and we woke up his roommate (well, all of them, actually, in the process), but Armando was a saint and took time out of his copulation schedule to admit us. Which was repaid by Dylan and his friend showing me their latest song ideas on acoustic guitar and asking me to play, so I honored the Canadian-ity of my hosts and played a Neil Young song, wherein another roommate asked us if we could be so kind as to please fuck the fuck off. So, Dylan and cohort went back to drug-lacking queens and I went back to sleep, after a 12-hour break.
CHICAGO, 10/23
I woke up and found Armando the saint had left breakfast makings out for me, but unf. it was mostly eggs which I can’t eat, so I had the apple he left and did my thing. At one point I had been in the entry way, naked but for a towel, getting out my clothes I needed to iron. I just missed one of the other tenants of the building’s arrival, too. Dylan and I were supposed to meet up but his phone was off. Guess they found what they were after! I called Sid, the driver from yesterday, and told him to meet me with a van at the address where the other guys were staying. I was told Spooky had room for three which is why I was set up with Dylan. But actually Spooky had other guests, and only room for three *more* and even that was a stretch. So, evidently as the D’s were bunking down, the other guests returned from their nighttime errand of searching for some fine Incan herbal remedy, and proceeded to inhale, drink and argue like they were the freaking Pogues. In fact, when morning came, one of the party-ers, who had been politely accommodated in semi-coherent conversation by the Norwegians--in great detail he asked my bandmates about Norway, the music scene, the show, all that stuff--when the D’s were getting ready to go, he was face down on the floor, like the guy in the first ‘Saw’ movie. He woke up and asked the guys...”uh, are you guys friends of Spooky’s?”. Like, he had no *idea* there even *was* a night before, let alone that it consisted of, like, words and actions n’ stuff.
I showed up, and Sid didn’t show up, but his van did, with another driver, who gave us the same deal Sid promised, and we were soon at YYZ and did our customs clearance--guitars, boxes of CDs, and all--in no time.
Landing in Chicago, I think our flight was late but it didn’t matter, we got to the venue with plenty of time to sit around and go “um....”. Then Vince showed up, who you might remember as the host to the Posies in our Chicago visit earlier this year. Vince has been a host and party pal for some time now...I can’t even remember since when (and there may be a good reason for that). So it was cheery to see him and introduce him to my crew. Then also came Scott Lucas & the Married Men, or his band of married man as I like to think of them. Scott is somewhat of a legend round those parts as I understand it, and this was the debut of his Pogues-esque (hey, that’s the second Pogues ref. in this blog) combo, with accordion, fiddle and such. He seemed kinda cranky, in fact, much of his nattily dressed ensemble made a point of *not* saying as much as a hello. I guess that’s how you keep the legend intact. Well, his drummer was friendly, and his guitarist had scrounged up a Vox head and combo for us, even tho my emails with Scott had informed me that they had Fender Twins and only Fender Twins. In fact, a friend of a friend came some time *after* soundcheck with a Vox AC30 for us, but by then Bjorn had dialed in a sound with Vince’s guitarist’s vintage Bassman head and Mesa cab. Sorted, no matter how you slice it.
The venue was called the Subterranean, I’d never heard of it before but it’s on the map of cool places, for sure--they specialize in bands that end in ‘o’--Polvo, Gogol Bordello--it’s a classic old Wicker Park saloon with a pressed tin roof, lots of wood, a wraparound balcony so a whole ‘nother set of viewers can look down on the show. It had a lovely, antique, lived-in vibe. Oh, and it’s not subterranean--the stage is on the second floor. Which would still be underneath the train, tho. Maybe that’s what they mean?
After dinner we met up with Thomas Metcalf, a painter with whom I’m acquainted, and tho we had missed his art opening that afternoon, we went to his friend’s working loft and hung out. This loft is the writing ‘pad’ of Elephant Productions, which has brought a few films to the big screen, and this is where they work on screenplays and such. So, it’s a groovy space with a kitchenette, much cleaner toilet than even the Subterranean could provide. Piles of DVDs and records and the latest issue of Q, some beers--we felt at home. One of the guys is a patron of Thomas’ and thus Thomas is welcome to crash there whenever he’s in town. We talked art, and being that Bjorn is a talented drawer and decent painter, he and Thomas had a lot to discuss.
Then it was back to the venue--we watched Vince do his thing--The Artist Formerly Known as Vince & the Nuclear Power Pants (funny when we played the Comet in Seattle the next day there was a band playing that week called the Nuclear Power Pants as well, and our support band The Choke were New York friends of Vince). Vince had broken his elbow when a car cut off his bike and sent him tumbling like Mick Jagger’s dice, over the handlebars, about a month before the show. So, he wasn’t playing guitar, but watching the show I wondered why he should have to? He had a pretty rippin guitarist, and the effect of the two lead singers--Vince in a kind of T-Rex version of drag, and Lauren, in suit and tie and fishnets they bounced off each other vocally and otherwise...goofball songs about drugs and what not. Fun! THey had an actual muppet for a bass player. You don’t see that every day.
During the cranky Scott set, I admit that I went next door to Estelle’s to have a drink with Thomas, and my old friend Penelope and her friends and bandmates. Penelope I’ve known for some time and in that time she’s lived in L.A., Nashville, New York and now Chicago. She has a kind of covers band that does Americana stuff. Her friends were really cool. At one point Thomas, who is pretty into my music, was asking me detailed questions about the nature of what kind of shoelaces I was wearing during the sessions for the last Posies album, and managed to knock over my wine glass, and I did this incredible ninja move, going from seated and leaning forward to hear him above the din of the bar patrons, to standing straight up and off the ground, on the lower rungs of the bar stool, avoiding 100% the torrent of cheap red wine that fell harmlessly on the floor.
Then it was our turn, and we set up and tore into it, like we do. No less than a great show, I know I always say it, but our band is pretty good. I was able to utilize and visit and scream in the upper balcony, during “I Got Tired” ...running around the venue with no mic and doing my Robert Plant thing from every corner, and then running into the dressing room and down the spiral stairs that go to the stage, leaping off them on to the Bassman/Mesa cab combo--which teetered, and buckled but somehow by leaping off and spinning backwards I was able to catch and stabilize them--and picked up the mic to finish the song, the band kicking in to high gear right on cue...I mean, come on...that’s, like. some Cirque du Soleil-level shit.
After the gig we loaded all the stuff into Vince’s van, sent some of us ahead in a cab, and loaded all ours and Vince’s stuff into the house, and lay down for a couple hours’ rest.
SEATTLE 1, 10/24
I was up at perhaps 5.45 that morning. Bjorn seemed to have hurt his foot, and was hardly able to walk. Eek. In any case, the arrangement we’d made with the taxi driver who took us from the venue to the airport the previous day was not honored--no cab showed up at the appointed time, and when I called the cabbie (who didn’t speak English so well) he seemed to not be able to hear me. “Message” he said, and hung up. Vince had woken up, and volunteered to drive us and our crap in the Vince van...like, this was at 6.45. Yes, I gave him some money! That’s just too much beyond the call of duty. We got to our flight on time, wheels up at 8.45. It was a long haul to Seattle, for which we were all grateful, so we could sleep.
We landed, and I suddenly realized I was in Seattle, of all places. Woah....we admired the huge Halloween castle facade that American Airlines had erected around the gate we came in thru, complete with a shield depicting a scary-ized version of the AA logo with the eagle looking all frightening.
Right as we claimed the last bag, my pal Brian arrived, and loaded ourselves into his Subaru. Then I remembered--driving in Seattle SUCKS. We basically inched thru gridlock all the way to the exit. We pulled up to his place, dumped our stuff, grabbed his g.f. Meghan and headed on foot to the Red Mill, so I could show off how a world class hamburger could be. It got the Norse thumbs up. As we walked back, and Ralla went into the gas station up the street to get something smokable, a woman, looking not too bad but just thin enough to set off the ‘meth head’ detector in the back of my head approached us and asked if any of us had a pocket knife? Leatherman? Razor blade? Anything sharp?
Back at the house, I settled comfortably into wifi, wireless printing of set lists, and looking thru all the DVDs I’d ordered on Amazon and had shipped to Brian’s house, while Brian and Baard went to Bass Northwest to pick up a vintage Music Man Stingray bass that Baard bought online. Other showered. Seems Bjorn’s foot was OK now.
Eventually, we headed to the rendezvous point, the Jam Box, to meet up with the boys from Red Jacket Mine, who were blowing good will beyond the bro-o-sphere by loaning us *Their Entire Backline* and driving it in their van to West Seattle, for our instore performance at Easy Street Records. Good guys, the RJMs! We helped them load up and I rode with them to Easy St., which is on the main intersection of West Seattle--now ever groovier than I remember it being. It’s jammin’ down there now, that strip of California Ave SW. We arrived and started to set up, and it wasn’t long before old friends--from David Belisle (REM’s tour photog) to Michelle Auer (representing for Jon, who was on tour) and her teenage goil Darian, and many more familiar and loved faces. 5pm rolled in and we did our thing; as it turns out, we were on fire. We had a great crowd, and they loved it. Highlight of the 6-song set had to be me climbing up a wall, onto the door frame, over which I was suspended when my parents walked thru it! Not bad. We rocked hard, but also took advantage of the occasion for the tour’s sole performance of “Oslo”. The appearance had the desired effect--we sold a ton of records that afternoon.
Then we headed back up to the Jam Box to help RJM put their stuff back in their space, an act which I managed to duck out of by doing an interview with KXLU radio in L.A.! Clever boy.
SEATTLE 2, 10/24
So, Lincoln from RJM dropped me and his AC30 off at the Comet, and went to drop the van. We were the only rubes naive enough to show up for the load in time, so after a short conference with the sound guy, we went our separate ways--Brian & I went to meet my parents at the Hunt Club for dinner. We had a long and leisurely one, I didn’t even open the menu for the first hour. Still, by the time we were done, we still had a lot of time to kill before the 12.30am stage time. So I parked myself at Tribunali and slowly assembled friends around me. Finally, it was time to investigate the venue, and to our delight we found ourselves right place, right time. The joint was slammed. Cute Lepers had just wrapped, so we set to preparing. Will, the sound guy, asked if we wanted to turn the pool table lights off, and I said no--so the black painted walls and floor were lit with pure white light, and we looked like total rock stars. We played to a packed house of old friends, fans new and old, and the mildly curious, and you know, the Comet is basically the embodiment of our band, it seems. Familial, inviting, and just a little crusty. Many people who know and love me, but had no clue what I’ve been up to with the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys, were there and the sound of jawbone connecting with floorboard was happening often enough to sound like someone was making an institutional amount of Jiffy Pop, sufficient to serve the whole ‘hood. We basically melted the place, flamethrower style. I had kudos from Ron Nine, and more. My son Kenny was there, and emerged after the show to help sell merch. Mission not only accomplished, but chiseled into the granite, monument style. We retreated back to Brian’s to drink expensive shiraz and get something in the vicinity of a decent night’s sleep. Oh, except I sent a very tipsy Bjorn off with Lincoln to help haul the AC30 back into their rehearsal place, we all envisioned that Lincoln would probably end up loading Bjorn into his car!
SAN FRANCISCO, 10/25
Brian dropped us at SeaTac and I managed to get myself bumped to first class, since I’m an Alaska Airlines MVP. Sorry, boys. Unpaid Tour Manager perk. Perhaps the only one! We arrived to SFO and cabbed up to the city. There was a sold out show in the Swedish American Hall above the Cafe du Nord, where our show was happening, and it was early, so when we were dropped by the cab on the street, someone was able to come out of the Hall and unlock Du Nord for us, and then we sat in the Cafe part of the Cafe. I read the Sunday NY Times, and then the guys set out for some exploration of San Fran, which would end up yielding Bjorn an Ipod Touch. Ralla was going to stay behind and play online poker, til I reminded him he was *In San Francisco For the First and Possibly Last Time!!* so he ran after the guys. For me it was neither the first nor likely the last so I chilled, maximum. The guys returned around load in time, and my buddy Chris Xefos arrived with the night’s AC30. The first band of the night, Farewell Typewriter (onstage I congratulated them for participating in Officer McGruff’s “Take A Bite Out of My Rhymes” program) had only a kick and snare, and the middle band, the Spyrals, hadn’t arrived yet, so we bailed on the soundcheck idea. The soundguy, Matt, had to be the most confident guy I have ever encountered--I’d call him cocky if we wasn’t so dang friendly and nice. I knew we’d be fine. Since we had eaten in the club already, we went to a nearby bar and I gathered many friends and family around--my cousin Dan, Chris X., our hosts Heather and Kosta, and so on. We wandered back to the gig and found a loud and reverb-drenched Spryals set, uh, winding down hahaha. I found Scott (Game Theory etc) and Christine Miller, who gave me presents for Aden, and me too (between my mom, Michelle Auer, and the Millers I had enough stuff for Aden, plus my birthday, that it necessitated the purchase of another suitcase in L.A.) and then it was showtime. Yes, we were great. Come on, it’s the D’s we’re talking here! I think the highlight is when our new friend Henry, who was visiting from Detroit, picked me up and put me on his shoulders and carried me around for much of “I Got Tired” and I nearly was decapitated by the ceiling fan...I also swivel-kicked someone’s beer but managed to buy another one between songs for him. I crawled on the floor, I climbed banisters and other things, and had a great time. I questioned why Bay Area citizens are always called ‘denizens’ and then went on a long riff about who “Dennis” might be. This caught the ear of a Swedish audience member who thought I was making some kind of mental eye contact by deftly and subtly referencing the Refused. Er, no. But, yes. I said “that’s what happens when you are tuned into the cosmic membrane”.
After the show we went to Heather and Kosta’s place in San Bruno, conveniently located next to the airport. In my recon mission, I had sussed that one of us would be sleeping on the floor, so, I opted for a hotel that was like 3 blocks away. However, I did come by to sip Chateuneuf and watch a televised Robert Plant concert, the Golden God himself clad in a questionable bowling shirt that seemed to have come from Social D’s rock-in closet. As I made the on-the-fly wise cracks, one D’s member who sampled the local greenery was giggling like a 6-year-old girl.
The next day I cabbed over the airport and checked myself in, United Premier style. However, my bag was too heavy and I had to pay an excess weight charge (hence the $35 suitcase purchase the next day). So, I left the check in machine and was directed to another place. Meanwhile, the smiley guy who told me I had to pay $125 to get my boarding pass TOOK MY BAGGAGE CART AWAY, and handed me the heavy box of LPs that was on it. I was like, fuck off--you have a mileage MVP paying triple digits on top of his fare, basically 3 dollars a minute for the flight, and you take my $4 cart away, and think it’s funny? I would like to say: “fuck you, smiling, pink tie asshole”. He was unimpressed when I complained and said: “I can get you another cart. I have lots of them”. Not quite the point is it...United will get a nice call with my complaints. I have lots of them.
I met up with the guys and we boarded, landed LAX. I gave them all the claim checks and headed to the rental car shuttle pick up area. The thing is, I watched as one, two, three and even four in some cases rental car company shuttles came and went. Nothing from Dollar. I called my travel agent, I called Dollar. Finally, as I was about to cancel my reservation and simply do what other people do in L.A. and carjack someone, the Dollar bus showed up, and took me to a place where I could at last efficiently stand there and wait like a schmuck for 45 minutes. I complained and was given 10% off my next rental...like there would *be* a next time! I’ll go with a company that has more than one fucking shuttle per day, TYVM. But, at least I got to pick my own rig. I chose a dark blue Chrysler minivan and finally headed back to grab my bandmates, and all our crap. I drove them to the home of Tom & Rachel, in the Hollywood Heights. Right behind the Magic Castle, in a a kind of lantern fairyland of winding streets and precariously stacked cozy little cottages. This to me is the real American dream. Like living in Whoville. I’ve known Rachel for years, since she lived in Chicago and cracked me up after a Big Star gig. She’s now hooked up with a delightful chap from Grande Bretagne, Thomas P., and they’ve set up camp in the Dream Factory. They agreed to take on the boys, and again, for reasons of space, I opted for the London Hotel, which happens to be directly behind the Viper Room, where we’d be playing this week. I thought it would be a good base camp. So, I dropped the lads and headed over to my digs. I had brought my GPS from home and it really came in handy, except where it assumed I could turn left from Highland to Franklin, and you that sure not can do.
Once settled there, with all our gear stashed away in storage, I prepared for a visit from Tanya, who has been my masseuse of choice for 8 years now. She was in San Fran, I used to crash at her place, too; now she lives in L.A. and I was glad to have her there on a day off. Amazing. She’s in a band too, with a great name--Hearts of Palm. Perfect for L.A.
Despite the fact that I could have easily gone to bed right then and there, after TJ had gone, I had things to do--namely, meet my band, our hosts, mutual friends, Jody Stephens, and some recently laid off Rhino records staff at Yama Shiro, an enormous Japanese restaurant, in a kind of hunting lodge atop a hill by Rachel and Tom’s place. The place gives way to superb views of the lights of the city, in many directions. Andrew from Rhino presented me with a copy of Big Star’s box set and the repackaged Chris Bell album.
While hardly traditional--sipping Albarino while eating something called a Darth Vader roll--dinner was yummy (incredibly, Bjorn picked up the $600+ bill) and we followed up by heading over to T & R’s for some RNR. Quite a few friends gathered, a nice random assortment of fun peeps. There was a big singalong at the piano--including a rather surprising request by another English gentleman named Jeremy for “You Drew” which I of course honored. The Millionaire from Combustible Edison was among the partygoers. Stuff like that. Being that I had to drive back to the London, I left the actual Londoners and other partygoers, and gave up my seat at the piano...
WEST HOLLYWOOD, 10/27
The London has the perfect bathroom. I got home after the party and had a bath that seriously could have easily accommodated Michael Phelps’ warmup routines, Shamu, and a few kayakers, with ample room for me to lay undisturbed. In the morning I actually did my exercises while the shower rained down on me. I paced around the room, noting its favorable size in comparison to where I live Paris. Then I ironed my gear and headed out to pick up the boys, and then head to the rendezvous point somewhere down in generic on-the-way-to-LAX-ville. We were assembling for a photo session with none other than Bootsy Holler, my artistic foil for many years. Bootsy has shoot the covers for all three of my solo albums (not the UK edition of Touched, but the US one), and the Posies’ portraits for the last two albums. We had the band Twin Princess together. We lived together, more than once. Bootsy is now married to filmmaker Seth Gordon, living in L.A., and sporting a fine little bowling ball under her Tshirt, that will be a person early next year. We met in a stretch of grass under some electrical pylons, and she shot ‘polaroids’ on partially decayed Fuji instant film. Polaroid the brand doesn’t exist, and Fuji now makes the film with that technology. So, this was like the natto of Polaroid film, it was past its due date so the colors go all weird. Then she used a little half-size 60s Japanese travelers’ snapshot camera to do some other stuff. Then we all drove to the roof of a parking garage in Culver City and she shot a few digital things.
After the session, we got in the van and drove to the nearest taqueria we could find--Pancho’s Tacos, approx. 100 yards away. Sharing a parking lot with a mini mart, we pulled up alongside a sign advertising Camel’s new snus for the American market. So, after I showed them the glory of great, cheap, Angeleno Mexican food (I had street tacos of cabeza, lengua and something called buche which looked a lot like chopped up pig ear) they went and bought some of this so called snus--’mellow’ flavor turned out to be chocolate. They were mighty disappointed.
So, I dropped Baard & Ralla off at the HHTR house, and then dropped Bjorn off on the Strip--he wanted to walk the hallowed trails where once his boyhood heroes--mssrs Neil, Lee, Mars and Sixx--once trailblazed back in the 80th century B.N. (before Nirvana). I went to the hotel for a short chill--it’s not often I get a (clean) bathroom throne, total isolation, and time all at once. I also filled up Bjorn’s new ipod, charged Baard’s cell phone, and prepared the guest list for the show. Then it was time to go, and I drove straight over to La Cienaga and Santa Monica
The wind had picked up a bit as I drove back to the house to pick up B & R, and traffic had picked, uh, down. So, I was a bit late for the rendezvous at the hotel but it didn’t matter (and I’ll tell you why). Bjorn arrived, and we recalled all the gear from storage and walked around the corner to the Viper Room, only to discover the windy weather had knocked the power out. So, we left--I went back to the hotel, and the boys went for a coffee. The power came back on, but not in time for soundcheck, so we concentrated on dinner and such. We parked ourselves at the London hotel bar---the band, Stephen from the label, Pat Fear from White Flag, Tom & Rachel, and a few L.A. friends of mine, Stephen’s, etc, Kumamoto oysters were slurped, $20 glasses of Chateuneuf blanc were guzzled, and once all the cash was thrown down, I rounded out the bill to the tune of some $150. I had already emailed the set list to the front desk for printing, and we headed to the V-Room. The middle band were finished already, and they were really excited about the show, so they said--tho they were all disappeared by the time we finished, even tho we were using their AC30.
Now, a day off is always deadly. You think of it as recovery time, but it’s basically time to atrophy. Your beat to shit, ragged voice, barely hanging in there state is actually how you are *supposed* to be. So, a day of rest, a massage, some fine meals and company meant that I was in good shape. Uh oh. So, perhaps my voice was a little tired, and in the end for some reason I didn’t crawl on the floor; I think that was the only show where it didn’t happen. But hey, let’s not quibble. It was a great show, and I still walked on tables, broke many a glass, and, evidently, thoroughly disgusted our support band. GOOD. I still ‘gots’ it. We were awesome. We always are.
After the show, we all went back to the London, and i put the gear in the van, helped Stephen FedEx the remaining merch back to himself, mailed the two checks promoters had given me to my acct (although my acct had been at the show, and I had to sign a tax doc afterwards, I still hadn’t been paid yet), bid my bandmates, save for Bjorn, goodbye. Bjorn and I drove in the van to T&R’s, dropping our ultra fan Alison--who, it should be said, attended every one of these shows--at her hotel on the way. I said goodbye to T, R & B, and drove back, alone in the windy Hollywood wee hours. It was glorious. Part of Santa Monica Blvd was completely dark, power co. crews were in the process of restarting it but for the moment, the darkness, the swirling leaves, and the frightening ambient music on KXLU were a great environment for enhancing the feeling that we had just wrapped an amazing, fun, epic tour--in just a week.
I slept for a couple of hours, and was up before 5, showering, packing and re-packing. I checked out, paid cash for the room. I love that. Drove in the darkness to the airport environs, gassed up the van, dropped it at Dollar. Found out there was a big old gash in the right rear fender--I hadn’t seen it til now. Oh well. That’s why I took out the max. insurance. I paid cash and shuttled to LAX. Checked into my flight to JFK and conked out.
In JFK I had to go to another terminal and recheckin, and go thru an agonizingly slow security lane, and got on my Austrian Airways flight to Vienna. Annie Liebowitz, apparently able to secure business class travel even while 24mil in debt, imperiously, studiously pretended not to be aware she was the most famous person (aside from me, of course) on the plane as she punched important-er than-you-type-shit into her Blackberry.
I was seated next to a young fella named Nicola, an Italian-speaking Swiss dancer/singer who does theatre, mostly in Vienna. When we were awake, we actually conversed, and I can tell you, that *never* happens. It was nice, actually. I did have to hold his hand while he nearly crapped himself when we went thru some seriously turbulent turbulence.
SKOPJE, 10/29
We landed in Vienna, and I said bye to Nicola, and then made my way to the little flight to Skopje. I was so jet lagged, like I have rarely been, my eyes were fluttering and I just felt sure I was going to have to check into a hospital. I did finally finish ‘Inherent Vice’ which made me sad--I always hate to get to the end of a great read.
So, I was sound alseep when we landed in Skopje just after midday. I was able to sort of prop up an eyelid during the descent, and saw some forested rolling hills, then...zzz.
We boinked down on the tarmac, and I don’t know if it’s on purpose or not, but we were obliged to taxi along in such a way as to be able to review the Macedonian Air Force--i.e. about a dozen Russian helicopters in various states of readiness or otherwise.
We entered the terminal building, cleared passport control and customs, and I emerged into the sunlight and found Petze, or Pedro or Pyotr. He and I have been in email contact for about a year, working on this show. He’s a great person, and since I couldn’t get a read on his personality via email, I found him to be much more gregarious and funny and informative than I had previously imagined. He did not hold back on his opinions and conclusions about the Macedonian state of affairs. Which is the kind of host you want, of course. I needed a crash course in what the F what up in M.
First up--a bit of misinfo. As we headed to the car, cheers erupted somewhere by the terminal. What’s that? I wondered aloud. A guy told Petze that it was a celebration of the acquittal of an accused war criminal from the 2001 ethnic conflict. Which, of course, it wasn’t. It was just some students traveling together doing a group cheer. The road to town from the airport leads you to some rather unofficial little roadlets that then dump you out on this huge intersection--which had no working signal. So twelve lanes of semis, taxis and you name it all played chicken, all at once. At one point a guy actually got out of his car to clock some other driver’s intransigent ass.
This big road evolves into a kind of highway into the center of town. Until now, I hadn’t known about the 1963 earthquake that completely razed the city, killing thousands of inhabitants. No doubt, what arose in place of the original structures was...weird. Weird and wonderful tho. Check the main post office, an enormous concrete space station, as if to say: “we guarantee your post, anywhere....and we mean....anywhere.” Other structures, bulbous, imposing, arbitrary jump out of their foundations at random intervals. As I said to Pedro: the zoning for Skopje is “Everything, everywhere, anyway you want to cram it in”. You’d see futurist Yugo-architecture next to some seriously Borat’s village shit.
We pulled up to the Ambassador Hotel (Macedonian pronunciation: Amba SAH dor. Like Ambidextrous, but really make that SAh something between Saw and So). A tall place, with a Statue of Liberty replica at its summit, and a couple of other heroic figures perched on the front (no one could tell me who they were supposed to represent) and other birdbath statuary items--lions and such--around. In the stairwell there was Yelstin-size figure who we all agreed was Marshall Tito--except it wasn’t, according to the staff--it was a representation of the hotel’s owner. I might have to call bullshit on that one. My room was cozy, in a kind of crowded way--not that it was small, but there were a lot of empty cupboards, an empty, deplugged fridge (upon which a sign read: “minibar to be reset upon request if you wish it be backfilled please see the list of items to reception” or something like that), and a full desktop computer that wasn’t connected to the internet but did have a bunch of games on it. The shower was just what I needed--unlimited hot water. I got my act together, and rearranged my hastily packed bag. and chilled a bit til Pedro returned to collect me.
Macedonia has quite a few unusual forces affecting its identity, its sense of ‘self’ as a nation. The largest groups within the population are those that are referred to as ‘Macedonian’--i.e., Orthodox Christians speaking the Macedonian language--and ‘Albanian’--i.e. Muslims speaking the Albanian language. Tensions between these groups and Serbians to the north led to widespread fighting in the earlier part of the decade, and the creation of Kosovo. Tensions exist still--the Macedonians and the Albanians tend to lead fairly separate lives. In fact, Skopje itself is divided by the Vardar river--and this marks roughly the ethnic division of the city. The old town, i.e. the ‘Albanian’ part, is where we went first, for a long lunch. Lots of little shops and restaurants, and fairly narrow streets, and buildings usually no more than a couple of stories high. Out restaurant was in the Kapan An , which is a typical Turkish construction of where the building is mostly empty space--the interior courtyard takes up most of the space inside the walls. In this case it’s lined with dark word bannisters; the walls themselves are brick. We sat at a table outside, in a booth with well worn cushions on the benches. Rakija was the first course--a finer, slightly aromatic liquor made in a similar fashion as is grappa. Cucumber & tomato salad with yoghurt followed; and then the main courses were a selection of typical things--skinny sausage reminiscent of the merguez we enjoy in France; something called ‘village meat’ which is meat chunks and mushrooms in a brown gravy; and some white beans in spicy matrix of red sauce. Oh, and roasted potato chunks with white (almost like feta but milder) cheese. Needless to say, it was plenty, even when Pedro’s friend came to join us. We were probably eating there for 2 hours. I went easy on the Rakija and supplemented my bloodstream with caffeine about every 15 minutes. The colder air that came when the sun went down was good for making me alert, but I was jetlagging like a son of a b. and there were moments later in the evening where I was falling asleep in mid sentence despite liberal application of macchiatos. In the meantime we left the quiet of the old town, where shops were open but empty, and a few cafes had a few patrons, and occasionally there was someone on the street, and walked over the bridge. On the old town riverbank there were numerous construction projects going on, the most activity by far in that area; but then you walked over the ancient stone bridge (which was reconstructed in modern times--minus a guard niche that fell in the river and was never recovered! Even tho the river is at most a foot deep, and reduces to a trickle in summer. Odd.) and you were ‘downtown’ and the place was buzzing with light and activity. However, downtown was all concrete and square, modern architecture that would have been approved of in the Socialist days. It’s more or less a big mall, the center of town, and this is really popular--a break from the weather, it’s lit up and busy and safe. We stopped in a cafe for Baklava, too many of them, but they were so good...and a curious drink made of fermented wheat--slightly sour, slightly fizzy, slightly sweet.
I couldn’t understand how the old city hadn’t become hipster central, that there were no disaffected youth out there rallying against consumerism, and choosing the slow pace and cheaper prices on the old city side--we’re talking a 5 minute walk across a historic bridge. And yet, the two cities lived completely parallel, seemingly unconnected lives. As we walked to the car, parked up by a grand mosque sporting a deep crack up and down one wall, a souvenir from the quake, we stopped at a tailor’s shop in the old city. It was like stepping back at least three decades. I had busted off a button on my coat in the airport the previous morning, and repaired it and tightened up another one, and had a look at the rest--for 50 denar, less than a euro--and insisted it was too much.
I mentioned other factors in Macedonia’s development and of course it will be mentioned if you speak to anyone about anything the Greek role in influencing the size and shape of Macedonia’s sovereignity. The argument officially runs that Greece assumed that Macedonia has some designs on reunification with historical, or ancient Macedonia--which would include territory now in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania etc. So, to dampen these tendencies, Greece has insisted, and has been able to get the UN, the US, etc to go along with it--that Macedonia only be called officially by the cumbersome title of ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ so it’s clear we’re talking only about the little ball of land that currently makes up the nation. Macedonians will say that in fact there are no projects, clandestine or overt, to expand the national borders, and that it’s really about a WWII-era land grab that forced many Macedonian families out of Greece, losing their farms and other property, and that this current Greek argument is to squeeze out any attempts by the descendants of the ousted Macedonians to lay claim to compensation--if they did, it would be decried as nationalistic claims to Greek territory--tho it’s really not about getting the land back, at this point. Even the Macedonian flag, a red field with a radiating golden sun, is a compromise replacing the original design that included too many radii, objected to by Greece as implying national unity with former Macedonian lands currently under other flags. Macedonia is trying to get in to the EU and NATO--in fact, Macedonian troops have already gone into ‘coalition of the willing’ type engagements in the middle east. And so Macedonia has adopted a strategy of acquiescing to Greece’s demands, hoping to avoid conflict and be rewarded with the good guy status and membership in the Club. So far, no dice. Macedonians considered their standard of living quite high in the Yugoslavia days, and thus still view Bulgaria as a kind of vast turnip farm, and when they joined the EU and thus Macedonians suddenly needed a visa to go there...well, they saw that as an absurdist form of insult. Macedonians need visas to go just about anywhere.
While I digested all of this info, the dessert, and the soon-to-be-lethal bean concoction, we went to the club and had a look around. I had vetoe’d the soundcheck in favor of a line check right before the show. I met Constantine Odessa (his real name), my support act, who, with a little band he put together, was playing his first solo show. I had a look at the gear I’d be using, and chatted with the soundguy a bit as to what I’m all about. The venue, Club Castro, is wedged underneath the rail/bus station. Trains rumble overhead every ten minutes or so, but it’s not so noticeable when the bar is open and people are yakking away. It’s not a basement--the trains are elevated in this part of town. You catch buses behind the station in a lot, but go up to access the trains. The club is L-shaped, brick, and just the right size. Girls Against Boys and Shellac have played there in the past. I was told that people prefer Turbo folk nights or cover bands, but all agreed it was important to keep original music coming in, even tho it was universally seen as being important to keep fighting the good fight.
After the non-soundcheck, we went to this great little pub that was technically a biker bar, but generally seemed to be a student hangout. I was really jet lagging, falling asleep at every turn, but slurped more coffee and stayed on my feet, chatting with members of High Control the Incubus-loving cover band that was playing after me. Then it was time to head back. The club was TOTALLY dead. I could see the fear on Pedro’s face--this wasn’t the first time his efforts had met with total indifference. I went into a corner and did an interview for the local TV, and Constantine started up his thing, which was rootsy, gentle rock in English. Quite good, actually. He did his bit and by the time he was done, the club had filled up healthily, about 100 people I would guess. And they were really glad to see me even if most had no idea what I was all about. There were some Posies fans there, however, and even the occasional person who was singing my stuff...my voice was still really tired from the D’s shows, lack of sleep, too much travel, my range and fluidity was a little compromised, but I was still able to do the off-the-mic thing, and people loved it. I would guess my show was about an hour and a half, good for the introductory kind of thing. The difficulty of my acoustic show scared off a few chatty types after an hour or so, but the core of about 50 people really into it got closer and closer, and were absolutely into it. I did ‘Solar Sister’ by request. After the show, people just...gushed. They’d never seen a show like it. Pedro’s missus came and introduced herself--I thought that was a great gesture that they did this show on the eve of their son’s first birthday--I knew that he & I shared a birthday 40 years apart. After my set, the cover band set up, and they were pretty loud, so I only watched a little bit, then headed to the hotel, Mrs. Pedro took me in a cab, as a phenom that Pedro had told me about came to pass-they were hassled by inspectors who had the power to assess fines and shut the club down on the spot for the most minor of violations, and they have a way of always finding them. So, he was tied up. Before we left, I asked my escort if we could pick up a bit of burek for my burek-fast. I love burek, the greasy, flaky pastry lined with meat or white sour cheese. Of course, now there are pizza bureks filled with tomato sauce and such, but I consider these total sacrilege. Back at the hotel at about 2, I chatted with the front desk guy a bit then went to bed, but not without taking a call from Dominique--who had stayed up to be the first to wish me a happy birthday! Sometime during my show, I quietly turned 41.
I was so tired, and the hotel so quiet, I couldn’t sleep. My poor timezone shaken brain kept waking up with short nightmares and other signs that I’m really tired. But I got about an hour of quality sleep and at 4 I was up, eating my burek bits and getting ready to go. Pedro, stressed from the inspection that for all I know could have just finished, showed up with the guy who requested ‘Solar Sister’ and took me to the airport, after I checked in we had a coffee (they had beers) and I had the chance to think him again (of course I sang his praises in the show). He disappeared at one point and gave me a birthday present, a little statuette of Skopje’s most famous modern native, Mother Theresa. Very sweet! And then I had to go to catch my 6.20 flight to Zagreb, followed by a flight to Vienna, followed by a flight to Oslo, and then, after a pause, a flight to Alta.
As I write I’m in the car of Ole, having been picked up at Alta and now we’re in some incredibly long tunnel heading to Honningsvag, where I’ll perform tomorrow. I had a call from Aden for my birthday, and of course lots of messages on email and Facebook and my phone. It feels good. It’s nice to have a less momentous birthday.
The moon was at quarters, and the air so clear as to be its own focusing tool--even in the nighttime I could make out subtle details in the landscape as we passed. the sea when we pulled alongside was pure basalt black, the moonrays smashed and scattered on its impenetrably opaque shale.
At one point in the drive, it looked like the hills were giving off faint tracers--I thought I was having a flashback to that lethal pot cookie I ate on 4.20 a couple of years ago in Alaska, but Ole confirmed it was a faint occurence, slightly early in the season, of Aurora Borealis. Then it grew stronger, a greenish arc across the sky, boiling and receding as the winds descended from the cosmos.
And that’s how I feel at this moment--truly radiant, but early in the season. More brilliant things to come.
Love
KS
Honningsvag, NORWAY.
As I wrote last week, the Twice album mix sessions were plenty intense. I worked from home editing and adding last minute ideas, then crossed Paris by metro to get in the studio, add my data to the sessions and take over the mix from Henry, the engineer. Usually Henry's work up to that point was pretty much in the home stretch to a final mix we could all be happy with, but I would just tweak a few things to my liking. Well, that doesn't imply as much customizing as it should, we're talking about 2-3-4 hours work but still these things are more a matter of imposing my vision as opposed to pulling back from from, say, Henry going in the "wrong" direction or shall we say a direction I didn't like. His work was solid, and I took over from there and pushed further into my own vibe.
On the metro rides to and from the studio I had time to read. I mentioned Lydia Lunch's "the Gun Is Loaded" last week, it's truly beautiful, please check it out. After I read that, I started Thomas Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" and of course it's excellent, I find something hilarious in almost every line, esp. reading it aloud in my head as he captures realistic inflections so accurately. It's detective noir in psychedelic Paisley garb as the universal bummer that was the 70s descends on L.A. and its environs. Love the acid trip descriptions...required reading.
On Wednesday I had a leisurely flight to Zaragoza; there's only one flight a day direct between there and Paris, on Iberia, and since we were planning to rehearse on Thursday at noon I had to be on the Wednesday midafternoon flight. I was pretty burnt from working long studio hours etc so I took it easy. A little caviar, a little pedro ximenez, and zzzz for Zaragoza.
ZARAGOZA, 10/8
The guys from
Muy Fellini arrived and we headed to the venue around noon. Muy Fellini is a drums/guitar duo, featuring Edu Ugarte (one of the best sounding names in the world), drummer from successful Spanish indie band Half Foot Outside, and Juan, who looks a little like Billie Joe from Green Day, and is one of 14 kids in his family! So, he has a really relaxed idea about personal space. Edu arranged a few of the Posies acoustic shows in Spain this spring, which Muy Fellini supported, and arranged this mini tour of the two groups together as well. This tour is commemorated by a beautiful 10" vinyl record, a split EP that has my cover of "Nature Boy", which was on a compilation a few years ago, and my cover of Dylan's "Quinn the Eskimo", which has never been released. You can contact the label that released it on
their myspace.
So, we set up, minimally, as ever. This was at La Lata de Bombillas, the tiny club that's a music institution in Zaragoza. THE DiSCiPLiNES had a great show here in May. It's super tiny--you have to squeeze by the band onstage to get to the bathroom. 40 people and the place is packed. I ran the guys thru things they had heard and things they hadn't. Songs of mine, Neil Young covers, this kind of thing.
One enormous steak later, we were playing, I say we cuz I had the MF guys up every other song, to do new and old songs of mine. I think we opened with a keys/guitar/drums version of 'Spanish Waltz'. Of course, my show went on and on. I did a new song, 'Doesn't It Remind You' with the singer of a local band called
Kyoto, the song calls for a female duet partner, and she read the lyrics I wrote out, and did a great job. Generally people were having a great time, I think...I was wandering around, yelling my fool head off like always.
MADRID, 10/9
We were out the door of the hotel at 7.45, to head to Madrid and my interview on SER radio, one of the biggest commercial radios in Spain. Generally this kind of radio is lite, not that music oriented, but I have to say, I was treated with great respect, the DJs did their homework, and we had a very deep conversation for a daytime, mainstream radio show. Nice!
I went to sleep after that, we had a lot of down time before soundcheck--the radio was over by 2pm. What a strange hotel we had. The Hotel Alexandra. The logo of which shows the hotel’s initials inside an oval. So, the doors of the hotel, each with the logo on it, say “HA HA”, essentially. We checked in. No wifi. OK...we went to our floor and found painters painting, workers working, construction debris all around. Oh, great. We rolled our stuff down the hall and the painter sloshed a bucket of burgundy paint out of the way. There was a temporary carpet down that had the logo in red on a blue field--this produces a visual effect that makes the border of the blue and the red parts dance a bit--so essentially I was walking down a hall on a field of bouncing HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH’s...it was like being in a Batman comic with the Joker. My room did not smell like paint, but the bad news is that this was because my room smelled damp and...not sure what else. My ‘window’ was an open space that looked out on the interior staircase of the hotel, which had workers going up and down it, so, I pulled down the metal shade. Holes in the wall indicated where the hotel intended to put electrical sockets one day. And, when I did lay down and start to sleep, a plastic shelf with some bath products on it came unglued from the wall and dumped itself and its contents into the bidet. Amazing!
Well, after that restful afternoon, I was ready for soundcheck, and after checking mails at this kind of Spanish Kinko’s (next to a sweaty guy watching Manga porn) Pepo the promoter met me and walked me thru various winding streets to the club. A grungy, homey tiled basement bar with another, brighter looking bar on the main level. We set up and did our thing, and this time, the ‘Doesn’t It Remind You” singer,
Rebecca Lander, who I had met earlier this year when I saw her singing with Aaron Thomas in El Puerto, was able to come to soundcheck and do a run thru. So, when we did it in the show, I pretended to just pick her at random like I had done to Alicia from Kyoto the night before. Rebecca was still in a green wig from her kind of disco cabaret gig around the corner, and our performance was wonderfully surreal. The rest of the show--was real. The club has all kinds of surfaces--big stairs coming down the side, split levels of sitting and standing space, so, there were people at all angles around me, above me, looking down from the stairs. So I had to walk around a lot to get them all feeling included but it was really good. As ever, some really big fans, singing along, and as ever, some funny jokes on my part. I think. Anyway, a great, 2-hour show. Everyone, club included was really happy. After the show I took a drink with friends at El Sol, which was a riproaring disco with funk going on, it was funny for about 5 minutes. Then I walked past the pukers and hookers and, after running into friends from Malaga on Gran Via, went to bed in the HAHA.
BARCELONA, 10/10
The hammering, and funny smells, and collapsing architecture of the HAHA didn’t even wake me up for breakfast. So, before we started our 6-and-a-half-hour drive to Barcelona, I made Edu and Juan stop across the street for chocolate croissants and cortados, and then we went back to the Berlingo waiting for us in a nearby garage. Evidently Edu’s packing job the night before had been influenced slightly by the free beer at hand, and thus we found ourselves repacking all the stuff for a LONG time. Cars trying to navigate around us in the garage while Edu had rolled forward halfway out of the space so we could open the back. But we got on the road, stopped once for sandwiches and diesel in some windswept hellhole and rolled into beautiful Barcelona around 7 that evening. Easy on the eyes, the city at that time. It was still light out, but we passed this teen disco on the way to the hotel that had about 1500 kids waiting in line to get in. Checked into the same hotel we always stay at when playing the Apolo, but I had the occasion to have what has to be the world’s smallest room. ‘Individual’ it was called, a single, but I swear it was actually for half a person. The wifi cut out on my floor so I went to the lobby and tried desperately not to listen to Zombie Zombie getting interviewed about how they just love new challenges and blah de fooking blah.
Dinner and then walked over to the venue, at 11pm, for soundcheck. There had already been a show there that evening, with the band
Maple, and the singer, Laura, had volunteered to play my widow in the song. We soundchecked it. Great. Back to the hotel to freshen up, grab a cafe and then at 1.30 in the freaking morning, I went on. The place was packed but with about 50% people to see me and 50% people there cuz it was going to be the happening place til at least 4am. So, as you can guess, a noisy crowd. So, my usual super quiet antics were not going to cut it. So, I did the opposite. I was the LOUDEST Ken Stringfellow ever. Constantly yelling in the mic, jumping off the stage and dragging the mic with me, running along the bar with Juan’s acoustic guitar...I completely manhandled that crowd, and they loved it. The show was only an hour or so, but it would have been ill advised to keep up that manic energy for much longer. It actually was a great show, maybe the best one. Certainly a unique one. The duet was excellent, and my friends were all there--Oh Libia (who were also in Madrid!), Nacho from Poet in Process, all kinds of people. And fans, too. The girl who had the Posies set list made into a T shirt. This kind of thing. It was thrillsville!
4 hours later I was getting up and stumbling into a cab. Oh, the night guy at the hotel was a big Posies fan and was bummed he couldn’t get the night off and watch the show. I gave him a CD. Got some sleep on the plane to Amsterdam, and when
JB Meijers met me at the airport, we had cafes and sandwiches right then and there and the cafe was so good it just bolted me right awake. So. We drove into town, and he dropped me at his place, and there I met Harry, the drummer for the show we were in town to play. This was to be the release party for JB’s solo album “Catching Ophelia” as well as the release party for a novel, “Engel” by JB’s wife
Wanda Bommer. You may recall that I played on JB’s album in a session near Malaga, the day before the Big Star show there this spring. JB had contacted me out of the blue, I hadn’t met him or heard of him before, but during the sessions we bonded, he’s a great person and one of the most important, prolific and successful musicians/producers in Holland. His biggest successes are with Dutch language bands who don’t do a lot of export biz, but can tour for weeks selling out arenas all over this tiny country, and JB plays live with a couple of them--De Dijk and
Acda en de Munnik. A&dM are a duo who started out as a kind of cabaret/comedy act but have matured into truly great songwriters--Thomas Acda is also a successful actor, etc etc. Their album just came out, and it happens that JB brought me in to mix the title track, earlier this summer in Brussels. The album entered the charts at #2! OK. So, JB’s album, is truly wonderful. It’s in English, too, so feel free to check it out and dig in! I play piano, bass and sing lots of harmonies on the album. It’s a super pop production, with tons of variety.
So, while JB and Harry chased Harry’s drum set, arriving from Hamburg, I ironed my clothes (taking a chance I had the house to myself for awhile, as I had to iron my trousers, too) and practiced JB’s tunes on his piano. I had been listening and making notes on the long van rides, so I was pretty well prepared. Indeed, when we assembled in the Van Dik Hout rehearsal place, our first run thru’s were really good. Stefan from the band Racoon on bass, and JB’s pal Wouter on guitar. Wouter broke his arm recently in a bike accident and has it set, Les Paul style, in such a way that he can play, but it ends up with his guitar going upwards, kind of Bill Wyman-ward. He rocks, don’t think otherwise. Very able band we have here. JB is a really formidable guitar player as well. There is a song that we all three play full on rock guitar on, too. Mostly, tho I play keys--piano, organ, and some string parts. I had a Nord Stage to do piano and organ, and then a USB keyboard and JB’s laptop with the strings, some other piano sounds, and some very specific sounds from the album. We did a run thru, had a wonderful, long, dinner at Wouter’s place, had a much sleepier run thru, then went back to JB’s place to drink Pedro Ximenez and while the guys talked rock, often in Dutch, I booked plane and train tix for the Disciplines! The tour managing never stops.
AMSTERDAM, 10/12
It’s always such a pleasure to be in Amsterdam. It is the coziest city. It needs to be--usually it’s windy, damp, etc. but this morning it was truly radiant. I got up early and walked to de Balie, a big cafe next to the Paradiso, and did two interviews with different magazines. In fact, I enjoyed them so much I ended up talking to the journalists for three hours. One was for a guitar mag, so we geeked out hard. Then I wolfed down a delicious sandwich of spiced mackerel spread on very dark bread, and walked over to the Paradiso and found I was on time, and thus the only one there. I’ve had great shows at the Paradiso--the Posies/Teenage Fanclub show on my 25th birthday was a monster--a storming Posies set and then Jon & I sang for almost all of TFC’s set, since Norman was sick. I had great solo shows there for Touched and Soft Commands. So it was feeling very homey when I arrived. Again, the day was sunny and it just felt great to be alive at that moment...coffee in Amsterdam is REALLY good. The guys showed up and we assembled the gear slowly, and ran thru most of the set, it was sounding quite good. Loud, tho--it was an arena-sized show in the small hall of the Paradiso. So, kind of a challenge to make it sound good in there, actually. But the sound engineer is one of the best in the land, so we were in good hands. After soundcheck (remember that everyone is laughing at me as every time there’s a pause in the action I was checking mails and doing Disciplines/Big Star tour management duty) we had dinner together, with the band, Wanda, and some of JB’s famouzz muso friends, some of whom were playing in a musical segment that tied into Wanda’s book presentation, taking place before our set.
Upon returning to the venue, I watched my bro’s Friska Viljor play in the big room, as always they sounded superb. I had time to get nervous, and then it was time to play. The good news: the laptop crashed. But for reals. No coming back. So, much of the cool textures we had worked up were just Oh Yew Tee. Anyway, time to rock, and tho my game was thrown a bit, and I was really feeling the nerves of responsibility--I have to carry one song, the title track in fact, with JB singing over just my piano--but I think we did a great job. There was some feedback, but not many clams, and we nailed a lot of stuff just right. The vibe was a mix of friends, family, press and VIPs which actually is not the ideal composition of an audience--these are not people who are going to cut loose and jump up and down but it was really cool and I think it was even better than we think we thought it was. So, we had no guilt about drinking the methuseluh of champagne someone brought! I hung out with the Friska guys who were plastered, and also watched a little bit of Peter Bjorn and John...they are really good, funny, a bit lite on content but highly enjoyable, and very nice people, which counts for a lot. We all ended up back at the beautiful little flat Harry & I were sharing. When I woke up at 6.30 to get ready to taxi to the station, I didn’t remember going to bed. I had thrown some Pedro X on top of the bubbles, and you know...it didn’t *not* work. But I was soon crisp and by 7.45 I was purchasing train tickets for future Disciplines shows, and boarded my train to Paris. Here at home I was reunited with the family, and checking Aden’s progress in her English class. I did some vocals for a Belgian band called
Zender. And bloggedy bloggedy.
Love
KS
Paris
