11.29.2009 CRANKS, GIVING This week I wrapped up the mixing of the Oh, Libia! album and thus my major studio projects for 2009 were complete--starting a few weeks ago, knowing my workload for the last quarter, I stopped taking new projects or at least have been directing people to next year’s calendar. So I had a little extra time even this week to do other things than work at my computer day in day out. On Tuesday I trucked out to Saint-Ouen--two metro lines, all the way to the end of line 4, and then wait 20 minutes, and catch a bus another 5 minutes past the city line to Mains D’oeuvres, the rehearsal complex and more where I have spent much time before--rehearsing various projects, and recording my part of the Cheap Star album. It was at Ms. Lunch’s invitation, and she dedicated a rather steamy number to yours truly. Also, I had time to go out a bit, and believe it or not, I took Dom out for her birthday dinner--just 7 months late, but it’s the thought that counts. I took her to Tour D’argent, which may no longer occupy the top slot in Parisian cuisine (it held it for 450 years, however), but is still extremely good, and in an unbelievable location--second story of a building that overlooks the Seine, facing the Ile Sant-Louis. You look down at passing boats and over perfectly lit bridges, and across to the most expensive real estate in France, and it seems perfectly OK to order a baby duck that costs $200. I had to leave early the next morning for a show, and separately Dom & I had the same experience over the next 24 hours plus--we felt drugged. Bizarre dreams, and a kind of post-acid trip feeling...that’s powerful stuff. Good to know that almost every world leader since 1900 has dined here...and woke up the next day feeling like they were coming down from an acid trip “hmmm mannnnn I could just DROP THE BOMB ahahahahah”. Was also trying to figure out what Paul & Linda McCartney ate when they were here? Did they put mock duck in the duck press? SEVILLE, 11/26 As I mentioned, I was up at the crack of dawn (before, even) the morning after this fabulous dinner. It was all I could do to put a yoghurt in there somewhere before I hit the road. My shuttle service called to say they were pushing it back 15 minutes. Great, that’s the time I wanted anyway, but their web ordering wouldn’t allow 8am on the form-- “You have miss your flight! Please to allow at least 45 minutes before the takeoff for get to airport!” Yes, but my flight is at 11...I don’t really get their math. Well, it worked out. I had time to hang around in the lower level of Terminal 1 at CDG, where Vueling has their check in desk. It’s a mini city there--post office, pharmacy, stores of all kind. Arriving in Seville, I met up with David, the promoter, and the sound guy, Miguel, and they took me to my hotel. Seville is pretty torn up at the moment, they are putting in bike lanes all over the city and building an absolutely bizarre structure for the main public market--it currently looks like staircase-encrusted mushrooms a hundred feet high, stairs going to nowhere (perhaps a disowned project of a former Alaska ‘govern’ er?) But the old center of Seville is still charming, intimate, and intricate. But, this was an emergency, not a day for tourism. Checked in to the hotel, and bam. Out. That evening, Dani Llamas, my friend on whose album “Speaking Thru the Others” I played on this year, met me and walked me to the venue for soundcheck. I opened up my guitar case. Neck was twisted a little from all the travels--thus, it was pretty much unplayable. And--somehow, the promoter had forgotten to provide any backline. No amp, no keyboard. Well, alright then. Time for dinner! I dined with Dani and Miguel F., who put my show in Malaga last summer together. Then we headed back to the venue (well, Dani went ahead and sorted out the backline--including loaning me his guitar). Now, this was a late in the season, I’m-almost-done-with-my-year, Thursday night show to about 60-70 people. The keyboard we found had no sustain pedal (but it acted like the pedal was down all the time, so it actually worked pretty well). Not my gutiar, and one with a slightly jumpy jack. So, I thought, ‘well, I’ll play an hour and a half and that should do it. THREE HOURS LATER I was done--at least two hours was done in the middle of the floor unamplified. The crowd wouldn’t let me stop. It was one of those effortless shows, it *seemed* like I played only half as long. A few special moments--a nice jam on ‘Like A Virgin’, an impromptu pulling of Dani into the show to make him play ‘My Hands Are Tied’ from his album, with me singing along. I worked ‘Enter Sandman’ into the intro of Solar Sister...good nite a tous! The next day I could sleep in--the double excellent whammy of no breakfast included and late check out. No reason to get up before noon, and I didn’t. Dani, Miguel & I had lunch at ‘La Bodeguita Las Ninas’ an absolutely tiny place near the hotel, and two glasses of wine and a pedro ximenez, and a manzanilla at the bar on the corner, and I was well armed for the journey home. Psychedelic dreams on the flight home, which got in a half an hour late, so I was able to just stumble in at 9 (guitars and other oversize bags are always the last to be delivered in Terminal 1). This weekend I recorded and mixed a collaboration with Jad Fair, for a compilation to be released next year--he sent me a stereo mix of a poem with sound effects (his own voice and breathing etc) and I added my own rap in the gaps, and sound effects using a can of coins and a stack of hundred dollar bills. His is a love poem, but the line ‘you’re my parachute’ got me thinking about D.B. Cooper, so, I riffed on that. I also am working on my last studio project of 2009, some overdubs on two songs by Montreal-based (his myspace still sez Vancouver but he has moved east) musician Bob Wilcox, I’ve already worked on some songs for him this year. That means if I can finish that this year, I’ll be done with my work for the year (save for my show in Clermont-Ferrand next Saturday, my two shows in Vienna next month, and The Disciplines recording) and can devote some time to writing, some time to Aden, some time to exercising, some time to going to nice restaurants (we haven’t done my birthday dinner yet). And some time to do nothing... Love KS Paris 11.23.2009 OOSTENDE, 11/15 This was for sure a surprise hit. I remember the Posies show there last year being a bit sleepy, and in fact Oostende in the off season has a kind of half empty luck to begin with. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place that is full of kids looking to get down and smash their heads on the punk rock. But, it’s a cozy place, the Manuscript, and Glenn, the owner, is a lovely guy. Our soundcheck consisted of half a song, since it sounded great onstage, and the bar is open all day, we didn’t want to bum the patrons out. Then we had some downtime, so we checked into the Hotel du Parc, which is where bands from the Manuscript stay--it’s a really good hotel, small with great decor, and as an added bonus we had single rooms. This really helps--I was able to sneak back and forth until showtime (it’s only a block from the club) and get my head together. Dinner was brought to the dressing room, and it was rabbit, one of my favorite things, so that felt good too. Manuscript is tiny so it filled up fast, I think we outdrew the Posies last show--it was seriously SRO. And people were into it, and somehow the restrictions made my antics more extreme--and they didn’t need to be, but it’s always nice to have four walls to push against. The club is so small I put my set list on the opposite wall in front of me. The audience is kind of divided in two--there’s a small space in front of the stage, but more space off to the right of the stage, where there is the entrance and the bar. So I had to entertain the two groups, (a big post and the sound desk divides them) and that was fun too. I crawled on the bar, I dove thru the audience, I crawled from bar stool to (occupied) bar stool. I was manic and in great spirits. At some points with my long cable I actually ran out in the empty street, and yelled at the buildings, listening to my voice bounce of the street, then came back and pounded on the window, and sang to the people inside. At the breakdown of ‘I Got Tired’ I felt everyone should hear that cool echo thing, so I brought much of the audience (and the rest of the band) outside into the cold night (the streets were empty) and tried to get them to listen to my shouts but then this guy who came out the bar next door started to sing back to me, and we had this little jam, and then it was cold so I ran back in, and started to play like the intro to ‘Thunderstruck’ on the drums and then we jammed to the end of our song. Nathalie, a fan, had written ‘Oslo’ on our setlists so we did that, me sitting on the bar. Awesome night. The guys had to be up at 5am to get their train back to the airport, but I didn’t have a train til 11.45 so it was my duty to accept Glenn’s free drink, as he dribbled wine from his glass on my leg (I am pretty sure it was accidental!) The next morning I walked thru the town to the train station, and stopped at one of the little seafood shacks by the harbor, and bought some crevettes gris (shrimps so small you can eat them whole, legs, antennae and all) and a rollmop (pickled herring around onions) and had that smelly lunch in the train station. Then trained home, via Brussels. The Oostende train was in to Brussels a little late but I just made my train and all was well. Upon arriving home, I went back to work on mixing Oh, Libia!, managing to get pretty close to finishing the album. And still worked in a nice long dinner break with the three generations in the house that evening. Had to make a post office and wine run. Tuesday was one of those there’s-no-cabs days, but finally one pulled up to the cab stand (a feast or famine kind of cab theme inhabits Paris, marking yet another similarity between the Big Apple and Le Pomme de Terre Enorme) and I was on my way. CDG was delightfully and uncharacteristically depopulated that morning, even tho my flight turned out to be reasonably full. I went to what I thought was my seat, and was on the phone saying bye to Dom as I sat down in my aisle seat on the outside (meaning I had just one seat next to me). Eventually I hung up and a woman in the center group of four seats said “you’re in my seat”. Hmm. I realized, she was right--and two people were in the row in front of me where my seat was, which threw me off. And of course, she was getting pissy. So, I said, please take your seat. And in one of those great passive aggressive moments said ‘oh, no, I’ll just, you know...sit somewhere else’. Oh, am I supposed to feel bad? I mean, you were on this plane a long time before I was...why weren’t you in your seat already? Give me a break. Landed in NYC and threaded my way to the Gershwin Hotel, which is an arty little joint in pretty much no-man’s-land in the 20s--a neighborhood so boring that only insurance companies use it for their HQ’s. There is the new Ace Hotel there nearby, you know, owned by some guys from Seattle, the Ace Hotel Bar being the hippest thing around (with a Stumptown Roasters--now the Starbucks for groovers) so it’s jammed with...uh, assholes. I went for a hanging out with my dad and brother at a really unhip joint. That was great. BROOKLYN, 11/18 I slept in and in and in. I was rather relieved to find that the two hour interview for the Big Star documentary was not happening, Drew the cameraman had been editing a piece for MTV until 5am, and needed to rest if he was going to be on duty for the show that night. Not that Alex had given permission for the show to be filmed or anything. But they were going to be there soaking up ambience and getting backstage shots (which Alex was fine with, as long as he wasn’t in them). So I took my time to get ready, and ran some errands. Being that France isn’t the land of endless choice (and subsequently, is also not the land of endless waste) I find the astonishing variety of products in a typical Duane Reed astonishing. I’ll go in one of those American ‘drugstores’ and just look. Here I made some impulse buys--things, again, you can’t get in a French pharmacy--Neosporin, Zyrtec in a 45-dose bottle. I went to a Mailbox Etc to mail a Disciplines T-shirt that was purchased on our website--and walked in to a place that has no lines--just the thought of going to La Poste in Paris--I’d fly somewhere just for the pleasure of avoiding my local post office. Finally I gathered Jody, and Danielle, the force behind the Big Star doc, into a cab and we headed for Brooklyn. I gave the cabbie directions, even tho suddenly in Brooklyn he was able to improvise...hmmm. Suspicious. The Masonic Temple of Brooklyn is an impressive, if slightly shabby, edifice. Its lived-in feel was oddly perfect for Big Star. Anyway, we sold the joint out. We walked in and the PA and backline were a work in progress even tho we were late as it was, but our tech Lola was organized and on the case. Since the show was sold out, the first order of business was to get paid. I had enough hundred dollar bills to stuff a toilet. Easily. I was eager to distribute them, so I spread out the cash amongst Jon Jody & myself (Alex wasn’t in a soundcheck vibe today). By then the sound system was ready. The in house backline tech was already checking the drums for Carl, our chipper Irish FOH engineer. Then Jody stepped up and BANG the volume of the drums quadrupled. Quite a marvel of human engineering that Mr. Stephens. He had discovered that one of the crash cymbals that had come with his kit had arrived broken, so I had sent the promoter on a scramble to replace it, which he did. I was using a bass completely new to me, a 1968 Guild Starfire that Baard Discipline had bought online, had sent to my hotel, and I was going to mule it back to Europe for him. Lola found the neck slightly bowed, and did a truss rod adjustment, and it was absolutely playable as is. Looked cool too. Gotta watch that push button that cuts the lo end, tho... Jody wanted to run thru lots of stuff which suited me just fine. I felt pretty good, even tho doing these shows just 3 times a year means that I have to dredge up the notes from a filing cabinet somewhere behind the open drawers marked ‘Disciplines’, ‘solo album’, ‘mix engineer’, ‘Parisian dad’ and ‘put pants on before going outside--if you go outside and feel cold in the yarbles, look down and check’. But, like my accumulated bits of the French language, my knowledge of Andy Hummel bass lines is *in* there, I just have to reach in my head, find it, and dust it off. So the long soundcheck was perfect for me. I felt really good by the end, and Baard’s bass was too cool. I wanted that thing! Jody was already looking winded by the end of the soundcheck, he mentioned that even tho he practices for an hour or so every day in the weeks leading up to a show, when he actually gets on stage it’s a totally different animal, much harder. I had more details to work out--guest list, what kind of passes for whom, getting the support acts, the dressing rooms, etc etc all sorted. I had a chance to chat with Kurt Vile, whose band the Violators are pretty much the War on Drugs whom I’d seen in Paris earlier this year. Very nice people. And Tara Angell, whom I’d spent time in the studio with this summer. She’s a great person and one of my favorite songwriters, in fact, and the only reasons I didn’t play with her at this show are that a) I play bass in Big Star so I didn’t have a guitar etc. to use and b) I just knew that as tour manager as well as bass player, I would have a lot on my plate and didn’t want to add anymore layers of complexity to an already intense evening. So, in the meantime, I paced the building and got to know its twists and turns--as impressive and mysterious and exclusive an organization as the Masons allow themselves to be perceived, this place smelled, depending on where you stood, of cat piss and or long-dead rat. Our dressing room was a dining hall, behind which was rather gruesome kitchen. There was a Green Room, like we call the place to hang out before a show, which was Tara & Kurt’s dressing room. And, a nice change of pace, there was a Blue Room, which was the bar for the venue (and, being that technically the Masonic Hall is for members, you can smoke there...woah. All of this, and the bathrooms--a grungy men’s room and a ladies room with a lounge (old school) were downstairs from the hall. In the foyer between these rooms one of the walls had a mural based on Masonic themes--stars in mysterious Colgate-practices-witchcraft alignment, calipers, etc--except this tableau looked like it could easily have graced the cover of a vintage Santana album. I would say that despite the idea that Masons are kingmakers and world puppeteers--the ultimate dead white white guys runnin' the world, Bavarian-syle--the vibe of the Masonic Temple of Brooklyn was mainly working class African American. They tolerate the odd rock show to add a little upkeep money. But, our invasion of the Blue Room was a serious disruption on the regulars, working guys who just wanted to watch the Knicks in peace. Jon, Jody, the Big Star doc crew, Christophe from Warners (our publicist now) and myself had dinner at a great little Mediterranean place called Olea just one block away from the venue. I took the risk and had oysters, flown in from Washington state...I didn’t die. Evidently 15 Americans a year do die from eating bad oysters, enough to foment a movement for a ban in certain areas in certain months. No smoking, no foie gras, and now no oysters--but of course Whoppers and other corporate heart cloggers are fine. Notice how the banned items (not ciggies, but the food ones)--raw milk cheese, foie gras, and the like are all items that are made by small farmers--these bans for ‘health reasons’ get signed into law. Meanwhile, McDonalds and other corn-crammed agrishite stop more hearts than the average ground war each year and somehow they are allowed their relentless march over the bulging bellies of American eaters. We’re all getting fragged on Hamburger Hill, and Capitol Hill is fine with it as long as their War Chests are full of big bux from the big companies. Again, you wonder why I live elsewhere? Hell, last time I checked even blowjobs were illegal in Texas. This country blows (where permitted), often. But it was a beautiful fall evening, in fact. Yellow maple leaves made a damp parquet on the sidewalk. It was warm enough to pleasant but not unseasonably so. You could detect November. I walked back to the venue, after a hilarious dinner episode where Jon, who *was* playing with Tara Angell, canceled and subsequently un-canceled his salad. I loved watching the waiter roll his eyes on that one. We got back to the venue and I was surprised to find Alex already there--which was good, so I could get Lola working on his guitar. In fact, I didn’t have much to do, so it was calm enough that I could watch Tara’s set with no stress. Everything was in progress. Guests were coming in, and getting the right passes. All was well. I did find that the ice bucket holding our champagne and other cold beverages was leaking all over the dressing room floor, so I was constantly applying towels to the hemorrhage, and mopping up the tracked-over water so people didn’t slip and break their necks. I watched Tara Angell from the wings and then went out in the house and found one unusual sonic attribute to the building--Tara being basically an acoustic opener, a lot of people were walking in during her set, and talking. And in the cavernous main hall, which had a seated balcony level so we’re talking 50 foot ceiling here, the ambient chatter reverberated on itself and compounded to make quite a lot of noise--and of course the broken window theory means that if there’s some talking noise, that will encourage more talking. However, going back to the wings, that noise was undetectable--it sounded like Tara was playing to a completely hushed audience. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Tara’s set was excellent. Watching Jon play along and play a bit too much of the unrehearsed hand reinforced my decision to not take another set of music on. Kurt Vile & the Violators made a mighty squall, I was into it, tho I think some of the older Big Star fans were horrified by a couple of the longer, dronier numbers. I heard some scuttlebutt as I worked the room making sure everything was in order. Then they were done, and off stage efficiently, and Lola did a great job preparing the stage for us. I made sure all had towels, water (Gatorade for Jody) and after a visit to the secret toilet next to the stage (I blocked it off with a huge waste bin to discourage overuse) all were ready. In fact, in classic style, Alex just nonchalantly strode onstage and started fiddling around. Well, there wasn’t much we could do wrong. There were over a thousand people there ready to worship (it was a temple, after all) at the altar of Alex. We kicked in, and from my POV we were great, the stage sound was great, and in fact I was so calm that I could just explore and have fun. I was incredibly centered--in the old days, not being nervous would mean that I wouldn’t be amped enough, the show would be flat, I wouldn’t be able to find the energy. But I am at a way different level now. Ken the 2009 Dude...abides. Actually, I did more than just abide. I went for it. Took lots of swooping chances on the bass, made only a couple of tiny errors that didn’t matter one bit. And I had energy--as a man without a time zone I was in a surreal place of calm but with inspiration. As the smell of cheap weed drifted in I pointed out that was the ‘Secret Masonic Shake’ which set Alex into giggles. With the weird separation of the stage and room acoustics, I couldn’t hear it but I guess everyone was singing along loudly with all the songs. I sang ‘Feel’ and in fact, I had some extra gut juice so I was really into it--and evidently, it brought down the house. I had such an ovation that it was embarrassing, actually. Again, Alex was laughing and digging it. Then we launched into ‘September Gurls’ and for some reason Jody didn’t start. Alex didn’t restart tho, he just chugged along, and Jody came in for the chorus. Well, it was a moment. We did only ‘Slut’ as an encore. People were freaking out, leading up to that, and freaking out afterwards, they wouldn’t leave and the stage manager cut the music playing on the PA after the encore, giving people a false hope we were coming back--I yelled at him PUT THE FUCKING MUSIC BACK ON-- I like yelling, but while smiling, it’s double dirty. I love being a tour manager, at times. The bass was beautiful sounding and beautiful looking, but it had frets with a different size and marking than what I’m used to, so I had to really pay attention to where I was. It was also some time (well, July) since I’d played a full set on bass, and since I play with my thumb, I had a blister the size of a kidney bean rising up soon into the show. It hurt, so of course I just dug in and played harder. After the show I did guest wrangling, getting people who didn’t know to go to the Blue Room. I had some good hang time with Bob Mehr, the freelance writer whose piece on Chuck Prophet I’d just read on the American Airlines inflight mag. There were Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon, and just tons of New York friends. I had my champagne, and after all that--the show, the after show wrangling--I was suddenly just done. Alex was too at the same time, so called cars for all of us and headed into the city with Jon, dropping him at some LES dive bar. Like, no thanks--I was ready for bed. Nothing good happens after 1am. Ever. Well, maybe in Spain. I had a good night’s sleep and the next day I had my interview for the movie, finding myself in good wit, I was rather articulate for a change. Danielle walked me out to the nearest corner to flag a cab, and of course it was shift change (I mean, can’t these guys figure out to stagger the shift changes so people can still catch cabs). One off duty cabbie saw my suitcase and stopped anyway and took me to JFK. That was it--my visit to the USA was over. It’s only when I’m leaving do I suddenly feel a little tinge of regret, like, was there something I didn’t do? Did I tell my dad I loved him enough? ARNHEM, 11/20 Just before I got on the plane to Amsterdam two Dutchmen were in contact--Leon from the Gasoline Brothers, who have played numerous Benelux shows with the Posies, walked up and gave me their latest CD; and JB Meijers, who you may know from my recent blog entries, offered to pick me up at the airport. Are you sure? I get in at 8? He was just finishing up a show in Haarlem, so it had to be like 1am. No problem! I’ll be there at 9, after I drop my daughter at school. Woah. What a mate! Well, I landed, and JB found me, and we went to his place. What a guy! You see, I knew that our accommodations in Arnhem were a hostel, so possibly very undeluxe, and quite far from the center. I wasn’t even sure when they would be available--most hotel/hostel check in times are 3pm, and had I left directly from Schiphol I would have been in Arnhem like at noon at the latest. So, JB’s offer was a godsend. I went to shower up, and JB went to meet his missus for lunch. I was in the bathroom before he left, and pulled out a bottle of black nail polish--which instantly shot out of my hand, landing--in pieces--on the slate floor of the bathroom. Blobs of black goo on the floor, door, wall...luckly only two pieces of glass. But still. Fuuuuuuck. What a bummer. JB said thru the door ‘I’m off to meet Wanda, back in 45 or so’. ‘Uh, no problem dude...see ya’ and frantically set to cleaning up the mess. It took a lotta TP and a full bottle of polish remover, but I actually managed to undo the damage. Then at last I could shower. I told JB what had happened, tho, so that no nasty surprises happened when they emptied the waste bin in the bathroom...of course he’s cool so he didn’t care. And my handiwork was quite thorough, and no paint was damaged. Phew. JB and I went downtown, and he hung with me til my train came, and helped me get sorted. In fact, on the track just outside of Arnhem someone had jumped in front of a train, so the trains from Amsterdam were re-routed to approach Arnhem from the south, via Den Bosch, adding 30 minutes to the trip. I had better get a move on, and I did. Stepping off in Arnhem, I got my bearings to find out which door of the station to exit, as the Luxor is across the street. Thar she blows. I rang the bell, and the staff was there to greet me and get me settled. Really cool people. The Luxor is an early 20th century cinema that became a disco, and finally went tits up in the 90s. The city paid to have it restored to it’s Art Nouveau glroy, repainting all the murals and details (while retrofitting it with a modern basement and other helpful things). The main room that night had a show with Vanvelzen, a singer, who happens to be also be a dwarf who sings very commercial, U2-lite commercial pop. That kind of thing goes down big in Arnhem tho--lots of secretaries and other normal squares going for their one big Friday out that isn’t NYE. Backstage, the band was somewhat obnoxious--they just wouldn’t shut up! Singing ELO covers, like, hyping themselves nonstop. I am all about enthusiasm, but sometimes...it’s like, dudes you are playing a small theatre in Arnhem, this is not Live Aid, just stop with the prayer circles and shit. These guys did a prayer circle and RAN onto the stage with the tour manager doing the paratroop drop “GO! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!” ....for SOUNDCHECK. I was thinking of the Royal Tennenbaum brother who makes his kids do the fire drill over and over again. Like: crazy. We were playing in a small cafe upstairs, also with beautiful art nouveau touches. Perhaps not the most acoustically pristine environment, but it worked for us. And although VanVelzen was soaking up most of the populace, we had a good crowd that grew as the night went on...and we were insane. The stage was low so I could leap off and go nuts non stop. Again, jet lag can give you that ‘I’m so tired--fuck it’ kind of gentle nihilism that makes you do crazy stuff. The fact is, the people ate that shit like MSG-coated skittles, and we made some VERY loyal fans. Everybody in that room bought a CD or shirt or both. Bjorn and I took the gear in a cab to the Stayokay (read: it’s not called the StayAwesome for a reason) Hostel, which is in the freaking woods a ten euro cab ride from the center. Baard and Ralla were convinced that Friday night in Arnhem would be good, and also they always need to eat after the show. I ironed my clean clothes and went to bed. I never heard them come in--or the snoring that kept Bjorn up for two hours. HAARLEM, 11/21 We were up and breakfasted. Yep, it’s a hostel so we had 4 bunk beds, isn’t that cute. It’s like being one of the Seven freaking Dwarves. Eventually we got a cab sent out to us and the guy was very nice and helped 4 guys and a bunch of guitars (including one extra bass) get in his Mercedes and to the train station. We had time to have lunch, and for me to return the key card that opens all the doors in the Luxor. I used it to open the back door, in fact, even tho the venue was empty. I was relieved not to hear an alarm beeping however. The office was locked with a conventional key so I left the card on the floor right in front of the office door where they were sure to see it. I bought the train tix to go to Haarlem, and for the boys to go from Utrecht to the Schiphol, and had itineraries printed out for both journeys. We got on the train for the hour-ish ride to Amsterdam, had a quick but successful transfer to the Haarlem train, and then had just a fifteen minute ride to Haarlem. We got in a cab who wound up gummed up in the market near the cathedral, so we got out and walked and eventually found our hotel, which is in fact right next to the cathedral. A little down time and we were then off to find the venue. I’d seen a map, but didn’t have it in my head that day--I just asked the guy at the front desk, since bands from the Patronaat often stay there. And of course he gave us totally fucked directions that took us the wrong fucking way. I realized something was wrong and asked for further directions. And this guy gave us the WRONG FUCKING DIRECTIONS again. Finally I went in to a cafe, and the girl working there had a map, and I sussed it out myself. For Fuck’s sake. Thar she blew, the new Patronaat, which I had never seen before, I’d only played the old one. The new one is huge, has all these different venues inside (three different concerts that night). Huge loading dock--if you go in, you find the main hall actually floats on these giant springs inserted into the concrete pillars that hold it up...earthquake proofing? I mean, what the...we went up to our dressing room and found out that even tho we were late we were early--the FOH wasn’t there yet, the backline was still being set up. We went down to check it out, eventually. The Vox AC30 amp was a rental, and it was stuck in traffic. So we worked on the drums, bass and vocals. Then, Exile Parade, our support band, from the UK, arrived. We set up the merch table with room for both. I got Ralla talking with the drummer and they agreed to make a hybrid kit out of the best parts of the house kit and EP’s kit. Then the Vox arrived and we were able to soundcheck. The elevator for the building goes to the lowest level--the backstage of the small hall. Then up one level it lets you out ON the stage of the small hall. Next up, the 0 level, is of course the loading dock, which is big enough to accommodate repairs on mechagodzilla. Up from there there’s stuff for the main hall, then on level 2 are all the dressing rooms, all in a row. You’d think the bands would hang out in that case, but...they didn’t. The headliners were this Dutch hip hop trio who are supposed to be really good. They got on at the loading dock and rode with me to the dressing room level, and were all like, serious and cool and shit. So I just subtly made fun of them for the ride. They didn’t get it. Oh well. They had that vibe of ‘we don’t...hang out. We sit around in brand new jeans looking all Euro badass’. Puhleeeze. There was enough down time after eating dinner at the venue to go back to the hotel, and stop off and have a coffee on the way back. We came in and saw the end of Exile Parade’s frantic, shirtless rock. That was a nice surprise, it wasn’t brooding Britpop, that’s for sure. A curtain came down and we started to do the change over. I got water and towels onstage, and set lists, and then went up to put away my jacket, have that last pee that always waits for the last possible second to make its presence both known and undeniable, and drink a little water to soften the blow of the opening song on my throat. Somehow, I must have been there for awhile, as when I strolled coolly out of the elevator onto the stage, my band was there waiting for me, curtain up. It could have been 30 seconds, it could have been two minutes. But you bet I felt like a rock star, and it played well with the audience. I walked on, ‘as if nothing had happened’ and we went into it. Another burner...as always, I think at the beginning, man, we are gonna bore these people, I can’t breathe, I have to take it easy....and by the end of the night I’m sliding down bannisters and engaging in all sorts of tomfoolery. We did, however, have a great ally tonite--Igmar, who happens to be the air guitar champion of Holland. I didn’t know this, but it was him I selected to dance with me for “I Got Tired”...and he went into this routine of...undescribe-able awesomeness. Something like the dance scene in ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ meets the dance zone scene in a recent episode of The Office, meets the ‘Beat It’ video...we were dancing in synchrony, as best as I could, but honestly, I had so much to learn from this jivemaster. So cool. I brought him up on the stage to work his magic, but not before using his leg as a limbo pole. Yes! At one point when Bjorn broke a string, I was asked to do air drums, so I did a really nasty drummer satire, then made Ralla get up and make fun of me and all lead singers. He wasn’t too evil tho. Dang! We earned an encore for sure, and we did ‘Oslo’ in it--we’ve been doing this “Bon Jovi style’ which means sitting down on the edge of the stage and getting all unplugged and sensitive. But first I did some banter, and pretended not to know the difference between ‘Haaaaarlem’ and ‘Harem’ which Dutch people pronounce Hah-rem, nor Hair-’em like Americans would. And it totally worked, a woman came forward and tried to explain the difference...and I just acted dumber and dumberer. Then I switched subjects on her, and asked her if Haarlem-ers used Haaamsters for bedroom play. And without missing a beat Bjorn said ‘I think that’d be more in Hamsterdam, Ken’. I mean come on...you pay for the jokes, we do the music for free! After the show our friends and we went to the hotel region, so we could drop our stuff, and then found a bar to order a drink at....with the slowest bartender EVER. I think it was his first day on the job (at least, I HOPE it was). Every question we asked him, he would get this look of panic, and go ‘uh....mmm...er...OK and come back 20 minutes later with almost the right thing--ONE DRINK AT A TIME. I had a glass of wine and then asked about the vintage port, since it wasn’t on the wine menu. They produced a port menu and I asked for a vintage ’67, €50/glass. “Oh, the bar is closed. Sorry”! I just saw a guy order a €2 beer...and I’m about to order (and pay cash) for the most expensive drink on your menu...are YOU FUCKING NUTS? Can people really be so stupid? Answer: ‘duh!’ UTRECHT, 11/22 Pissing rain in the morning. Bjorn and I had breakfast in the ridiculous Egyptian-themed breakfast room at the Ambassador hotel. At 11.30, Rene, sound eng. for JB Meijers, was waiting at a pick up point a 5-minute walk away (in the daytime, cars can’t drive into the market area around the hotel). I pounded on Ralla & Baard’s door, finding them in pretty terrible shape--they went in search of ‘the ultimate Haarlem lesbian bar experience’ and god knows what they found, after the dumbdumb winebar closed. I went to bed. Anyway, they were down in ten minutes and we got in Rene’s car and drove to Amsterdam, to take part in the 2 Meter Sessions. This is a long running show of live music sessions, that’s been on radio and TV (currently it’s radio only on Kink FM) hosted by Jan-Douwe Kroeske. The Posies have been featured on it a couple of times. JD has over 10,000 songs from over 1400 sessions in his archives. And he’s still happy to see me! That’s a compliment. We loaded in to the studio, which is a broadcast studio with several different shows going on for different networks at once. Our thing was in a radio session upstairs. JB and his crew showed up, and we got the backline upstairs. Pim, the keyboard player from De Dijk, Holland’s biggest band (JB is the producer of their albums and their live guitarist) was there to do some photos and video. We did music for two shows--JD is going to do an hour on JB (since he is not only the solo artist I play with, but producer and musician for many of Holland’s biggest acts...and one of soul musics ‘biggest’ artists, the King, Solomon Burke) and an hour on me, focusing on THE DiSCiPLiNES. Cool! Well, we did JB’s music first. The D’s had learned 3 songs from JB’s album, I played keys on two and guitar on the rocker ‘Motherf***er, and I did backing vocals as well. We would run thru each song 3 times or so, and then record a couple of keepers. The guys did a great job, I have to say. Then we did 4 songs, of course, we know our stuff so there was no run thru, so we banged out three songs from the album plus ‘I Got Tired’ with JB on guitar and BVs. We were SMOKIN’. My voice sounded like Kim Carnes. Just awesome. It’s a great document of a band on fire. Then we packed up and headed to Utrecht with Rene, and loaded into the Ekko. I’ve played now 4 shows at this nice small (but not that small) place. This was my 10th show in Utrecht overall--Big Star, REM, solo, The D’s, 2 x White Flag and 4 x Posies. Maybe even 5, maybe this was #11? We checked, we ate the vegetarian meal (for some reason all the clubs in Utrecht serve veg or even vegan food??). JB arrived and we shot the shizz and then I realized we had a lotta down time so I opted to find the hostel and check us in. I looked it up on the map, and even tho’ the route was far from direct, I found it no problem. I have a mighty good sense of direction...usually. One great landmark I passed on the way is Utrecht’s huge brick water tower--a mighty thing that looks like a section of castle sticking up in the air. This was filled with water using steam pumps and used to keep Utrecht’s water pressure up via gravity, back in the day. I turned on Voorstraat, passing the ACU, where White Flag played last year. And found the hostel, much friendlier than the Stayokay...nice old hippie guy checking me in. That hostel thing is weird tho, when you go to some city, and just hang out at the hostel...I mean...this is one of those cases where the journey is not the destination...go somewhere and order a beer. It’s vegan. I then paced out the route to the train station so I could time it for tomorrow and explain it to the guys, since they were leaving earlier than I was. Then I walked to the Tivoli (where Pete Doherty--no, I don’t call him Peter, the R evidently stands for ‘rehabilitated’ but I just don’t buy it--had a sold-out show, with Graham Coxon on guitar) and found the Cafe Belgie, where Bjorn, Rene and JB were having a drink, and I had a cafe. Rene and JB have each spent lots of time in India, and they had some rather amazing stories about their experiences. Then we walked back to the venue, in the biting wind. That black canal water never looked colder... back inside I distributed keys and ID cards and breakfast vouchers to the band. Then I called Dom, and walked out the front door--much to the bouncer’s dismay. I had made sure when we entered to introduce myself and the band to him and the girl in the box office, and evidently it didn’t stick. Gerard, the bouncer, has been working at Ekko for something like 20 years. And of course he hit a TM nerve when I came back in, and he said--”you can’t just go out if you are not in the band, and I didn’t know you were in the band( this part was OK and understandable). When I am working it’s my show, and I have to ...” uh, hold on a second, pardner. I said: “I don’t want to get in a pissing match here. But I am the TM on duty. I made myself and my bandmates clear to you. Your venue doesn’t do wristbands, so it’s hard to tell who is who. But anyway, this show is as much mine as it is yours. Without one component, the other can’t function. So, I will introduce you to my bandmates again, so they can come and go with no problems, oK?” Grrrr. But a gentle grrr. He wasn’t a bad guy. OK, now about those setlists. I had emailed our guest list, our set list for printing, and our passport copies to the manager on duty. “Any sign of those set lists?” “Ah, it came up as read only (which you CAN print, just not edit)”. “I see”. “Anyway, I didn’t think you needed them”. “And I emailed it to you just for my own entertainment? We can’t go on without it. You have a strict curfew at 23h. If we don’t have setlists in 5 minutes I am not going to be responsible for going over curfew and we are going to play our full set”. 2 minutes later--’aahhhh!! The printer is jammed!” I ripped a poster off the wall and Bjorn and I made a big set list each. And we went on. Here, the room was full, and the crowd was super into it. I was nice and wild, too. Just sayin’. But this crowd was easy (which is nice); many had seen us that week already, and they were ready for a good time. And I think we provided that nicely! Good moves included me stepping on the big set list by Baard’s monitor and having it tear away from the gaffer tape and become a banana peel for me to slip on (but I stayed upright). JB joined us for ‘I Got Tired’ again, and I did my best to call and response with his wild solo-ing. We did the Bon Jovi version of ‘Oslo’ at the end but slowly built up to being on our feet til the end was really rocking. And I sang like crazy....it was...insane. We sold the last of our CDs and lots of other stuff too. After the show we went for a drink at the Bastaard Bar, the favorite hangout of Roel from Action Park/the Gasoline Brothers, and it was his birthday too. We had the customary coupla rounds before calling it a night. In the morning, I got up to do my tour manager-ly duty and get the boys up for their train. Ugh, pissing down rain. But the room was warm. Mmm. And quiet, once they were gone. I had an hour to sleep still. Soon I was dreaming of hanging out with Bob Dylan but needing to give Aden a call...a call...calllllllll AGGH! I woke up at 10.30! Scheisse! I trudged to the station in the rain, and paid for a new ticket Rotterdam-Paris, and was soon having a steak in Rotterdam Central, and home by late afternoon. Aden was watching ‘Gremlins’, or ‘Greezlees’ as she called them...I put away the shirts and buttons and the dirty clothes...cracked open some Bordeaux, and was glad to be indoors, while the wind busted open the windows... Love KS Paris 11.15.2009 After some epic nights of mixing, I brought the Sad Knights record in for a landing, and went straight back into mixing the Oh, Libia! album, which I had been working on in September. I am really pleased with both sets of mixes, fine work! The Oh, Libia album has a little more work left on it, hopefully I squeeze it in tomorrow when I get home. Being a bit bummed that I missed so many good concerts the week before I took the opportunity to sneak out from mixing for an evening to check my friend Eric McFadden playing at Cafe De La Danse, just a few minutes’ walk from my place. I was familiar with his music, but had never seen him play. To be honest, usually when friends are playing in Paris--well, I’m busy, or I’m enjoying a rare evening without work with my family. But, on this night, I finished the Sad Knights stuff in the afternoon, was able to keep my date with Aden to watch ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ (I actually liked the French voices better than Ms. Barrymore’s, etc) and hopped out to make the last few songs of the show, which was a perfect amount for me. Eric is a wicked guitar player and plays a wild, Django/Tom Waits kind of stomping swing, with gruff vocals and great lyrics. Paula O’ Rourke, his bass playing partner in crime for many years, is a great musician too, and a vibrant personality onstage and off. For this unique Paris show, Eric had a French drummer and Max, a blind accordion genius. I was amazed at Max’s ability to know when to take a solo, or trade licks--since this set was not very rehearsed and most of those ‘take a solo’ bits are done with visual clues--but Max was on it, as if we could see Eric’s gestures. Incredible. Oh, and there was a blues harp player, who came out and jammed superbly between fits of vomiting backstage--he was a victim of food poisoning, and he still gave it the goods onstage. After the show I was hanging with Eric and his crew, and opening act Killing Mood, whose guitarist was quite a Posies fan. All of my neighborhood was buzzing that night, a Tuesday--Wednesday was Armistice Day, so a bank holiday for most, and thus all the bars were packed. At Le Motel we could barely approach the bar, let alone speak to the judge. I finally got Eric installed at a place that had single malt scotch (French people don’t really drink it, so it’s not so easy to find). I had two glasses of champagne over the course of the evening and I was beat. The next evening I met Eric and Paula and some of their Parisian friends for dinner, with Aden having a great time playing with Eric’s dreads and giving him a few extra tattoos. (Aden, knowing Eric didn’t speak French was drawing abstract blobs and speaking in a friendly, cooing voice--’Oh, see, I’ve made a nice dogshit tattoo on your arm. Oh, you like that? Yes? Oh, fine, how about another one then?’.) But I was working that day--so after dinner I went back to editing til 5.30 in the morning! HASSELT, 11/13 Friday the 13th. Lucky day for us. I was up early, took Aden to school, had a morning appointment, bought Dom a hard drive to back up her ancient Compaq laptop, worked on the latest mix for Oh, Libia!, and headed to Gare du Nord. I picked up all the tickets I needed for my upcoming travels, boarded my train, fell asleep. Woke up and got off in Brussels, and ran into Audrey and Jerome from the band Liquid Architecture, for whom I played guitar for a few shows in 2007. Jerome has been the director of several contemporary art museums around the world, and was coming to give a lecture (Jerome: “I am here in Brussels for a lecture”. Ken: “Oh, are you in trouble?”). I got on the train to Hasselt, which takes its time picking its way thru beautiful rolling countryside, little farms with chickens, goats, etc. running free range. I thought--I wonder if all Belgian farms are this perfect, this organic, this natural--or is this like where they painted the grass green along the railroad when Mao would tour the Chinese countryside, so he never saw the famine and wastelands his policies were creating...but, let’s not be paranoid, now...enjoy the lilting gauze of autumnal dusk... I arrived in Hasselt, the end of the line, and emerged from the station, and cabbed to the venue--a little farther out than I imagined, in an industrial ‘park’ on the edge of town. But what a venue--the Muziek-o-Droom is now three venues, a bar (with a small stage, so 4 venues), a music school...it’s one of the great culture houses of Benelux (and there are many). The staff is super pro and friendly. And they did good promo--I was surprised to learn we had 130 tickets already sold. The guys soon arrived from Norway via Brussels airport and train to Hasselt, and we set up on the ace backline that was already set up to our stage plot, and were able to jam a bit. Then we were served a delicious meal, and could chill until showtime. An from V2 came and delivered some CDs to sell on the tour, and we were able to just enjoy the pleasant atmosphere in the spacious backstage. The support band arriving in the dressing room a little sweatier than they were earlier meant they were done and we could get down to business. And soon it was just time to launch. We plugged in, taped down, and did the D’s thing. Now, the place was full, people were into it, we sold tons of merch (the best measure of a crowd’s appreciation, believe it or not) but during the show, the typically shy Belgians were actually a-typically even MORE shy, I couldn’t get them to jump for love nor money, except a few brave folks who were super into it in front. Even after the shows, people who I had seen standing like scarecrows in the back, not smiling, not even swaying, would gently come up to the merch table, buy a CD, shake my hand and mumble “it was very good” without making eye contact. That’s shy. A couple of 16 year old girls actually left because they were AFRAID! I had half jumped off the stage and shot out a leg straight in front of me to touch a pole on that was behind them, and stood screaming into the mic, spread eagle, my other leg still back onstage some 4 feet away. They were shaking like...chihuahuas. Funny we should be mentioning chihuahuas cuz after the show, an long time Posies fan, Antje, and her b.f. invited us back to her place for some wine and such (she had offered use of her jacuzzi bought no one went for it) and Antje makes a living breeding chihuahuas...she had about 30 of them, adults for breeding and puppies of varying size (well, varying sizes of small)...adorable. I was so glad Aden didn’t see this...and that she can’t read...cuz she begged us for a chihuahua after seeing the movie... ROTTERDAM, 11/14 Not much to do on a Saturday morning in Hasselt, except the support band guys worked at a music store, so the guys went there. The wifi didn’t work with Mac--Holiday Inn is PC-only, folks, beware--so I had to actually *read* something. And have lunch--I ordered a salad with camenbaert, but actually it was the other way around--two enormous wedges of camenbaert, with a sprig of salad. The cheese was heated up, and gooey, and I thought there’s no way I can eat that all, and then I did. We walked in the sunshine to the station, and I picked up the guys’ train tickets for Monday, since I wouldn’t be going to the station with them to make their 6.17am train to Brussels airport. We got on the train to Antwerp, initially we were in first class, and I moved the guys out a misguided sense of fair play to the next car. The first class car had great 70s decor, orange with kind of jungle animal drawings. Tacky in a homey, Belgium kinda way. Antwerp’s station is enormous--you can see that they dug into the earth and added many new levels of track below the original platforms--and most of the platforms are open, so even at the bottom (where our train to Rotterdam was coming) you can look all the way up to the fishribs of steel and glass of the atrium of the art-nouveau masterpiece that Antwerp’s main station hall is. We had cafe in the Royal Cafe, all white marble and gold leaf. And then descended down to track 21, and got on the train, which was pretty full. It was one those compartments-with-a-narrow-passageway-down-the side, which is not a very efficient use of space. But, we made it, and Rotterdam was blustery and fabulous--if you’ve been following this far, you’ll know it’s one of my favorite cities in the world, full of preposterous and fun architecture and public art. The war’s tragedy made it a blank canvas (to see what was lost, go to the garden district, the old city’s beauty is still preserved there) and the city’s triumph is that they didn’t rebuild that grim way that London did...the wealth of Rotterdam and the progressive spirit of Holland combined here with some dramatic experiments in building. Unf., not so much to see today, since it was dark...we checked into our 4 person room at the hotel Emma, across the street from Rotown (I played Rotown on the Soft Commands tour, and stayed at the Emma, and they charged the prepaid room to my credit card, it took me like two months to get that back, but no hard feelings, guys). They recommended us a restaurant, which we walked to, but it was packed and had an hour wait for a table, so we went down the block and found a great little place and dined on canette, springbok carpaccio, and other delights. Then we headed to the venue, Watt. Watt in the 90s was the classic venue Nighttown, where the Posies had some legendary shows. It’s been refurbished and updated and is now a stylish modern joint--with a big room (where Belgian artist Milow had a sold out show) and the small club where we were playing. No support band, since our show was supposed to start right after Milow finished (people from his show could come to ours for free). I would say this show was even better than Hasselt, we were warmed up, played some new songs, I was more relaxed since we had a show under our belts. I was able to lead the crowd all over the venue, at one point pulling them all out of the club into the cafe to yell at them a cappella. I did some crawling, some bending...I sang better. Rotterdam is good for you, tho. After the show, the club kept going with some really obnoxious (this is a good thing) kind of scary electronische musikk. The big room had more like 80s disco going on. We hid in the dressing room til we got bored, then took the stuff back to the hotel, and then split up--the rhythm section always has post-show junk food munchies, and the front dudes can’t be bothered. I had a civilized glass of wine at one of Holland’s many ‘brown cafes’--candlelit, wooden bars that I enjoy so much. Then got some rest--we had this weird hotel room that was two rooms joined end to end--a key got you in to the whole deal, then you had a skeleton key to get in the back room. One bathroom served both, but the back room had a washbasin. When I came back, that made three of us accounted for. Ralla had gone out with Alison, our dedicated UK follower, and Ralla wanted to experience some of the local vegetation, a novelty for most visitors to Holland. Since the smoking ban applied to all smokables, you can’t sit in a coffee shop and enjoy your product (except for that which is in edible form of course). So, Ralla consumed his on the street, which is legal. And predictably, his appetite thusly stimulated, he went in search of kebab. Baard grew weary of Ralla’s increasingly erratic wanderings, and asked him to bring him back something to the hotel, and went to bed. Many hours later, Ralla stumbled in...having forgotten he ate a kebab, he ate Baard’s, in a (so he thought) clandestine struggle with the foil, in the bathroom, Ralla lost the match--the kebab one, and Ralla ended up flat on his ass with a bonked head in the shower stall. When I went to take a shower the next morning, shards of foil were everywhere, the sink was lined with napkins for a reason that was never properly explained, and a half eaten, victorious (and still living) kebab stood defiantly on the edge of the sink. Our train to Antwerp today was the actual Thalys, that’s some deluxe comfort there, folks. Now we’re on one of the IC trains, bound for the end of the line, Marvin Gaye’s former home base of Oostende. As the conductor is coming down the aisle, I can tell you that not since I boarded the Thalys in Paris has anyone checked our tickets. Not Brussels-Hasselt, not Hasselt-Antwerp, not Antwerp-Rotterdam, not Rotterdam-Antwerp. Weird, eh? Love KS IC 1836 Antwerp-Oostende 11.07.2009 I put some new photos in the photos section. I got home, I got sick, cuz you can only hold it together for so long going from Hollywood to the Arctic, not sleeping, taking bone-crunching overnight, multi-leg flights, sweating and throwing yourself around on the filthy floors of various bars and then being exposed to the night air...well...thru willpower I managed not to get sick for all the D's tour and my solo shows in Macedonia and extreme northern Norway--so when I relaxed at last, I was done for. But I still had work to do. In addition to tour management duties for the upcoming Big Star show in New York, the Disciplines shows in Benelux, and my upcoming solo shows in Spain, France and Austria...I had work to do on top of the work that I was doing. I breathed a guilty sigh of relief that the Sad Knights' master files didn't arrive til Tuesday evening, and took 5 hours to move from a 32G USB flash drive to my external Firewire drive. So, Monday and Tuesday were more or less mine--to catch up on the above. Plus, I finally put together my rough ideas for some English lyrics for a song by Brainstorm--the Latvian band that supported REM for some of the 2005 winter tour I did with them. Great band, who have already done their album entirely in Latvian and then entirely in Russian, and they looked to some outside help to do some of their stuff in English. They remind me quite of Deus, actually. This is good! Then on Wednesday I got to working on the Sad Knights mixes, and certainly hit a groove. They added and improved a few things we did in our very rushed, 11 songs in 4 days session back in July. So, I had plenty to work with. I added a few bits here and there, but mostly edited and mixed, and did a great job. I have I think 4 more songs to do. But, being busy, and being sick, means that I had to pass up what was a great week of music in Paris--Bat For Lashes played the Olympia, Bebel Gilberto played L'Alhambra, and I was invited to the Arctic Monkeys/EODM show at the Zenith. Merde! But it would have killed me to add anything more to the schedule. In fact, I am not adding any more work or shows to my schedule this year. I'll be gone a lot in Dec/January, and I need to be healthy for the D's recording. So, the 6 D's shows in Benelux, Big Star in NYC, and my 4 KS shows upcoming...that's it for the year. I'll mix this record, then finish the Oh, Libia! mixing, and then I have two one day projects, and then I'm done. So, most of late Nov and early Dec I'll be home, writing and recuperating. Trust me, it's really hard to turn down work, but...I have to at this point. Plus writing time is hard to find. On that note...I will write...good nite...and sniffle my way to greatness. Love KS Paris 11.02.2009 I arrived in Honningsvag after my surreal day of travel from Macedonia, via Zagreb, Vienna, Oslo and Alta--and two and half hours drive from there, ever Northward, to Europe’s northernmost point, Mageroya Island, and its town of Honningsvag (there are a couple of villages further up island, but H-vag is the town of the region). At the top of Mageroya is North Cape, the Northern tip of Europe, at 71 deg. N and then some. The seas here used to eat ships for breakfast (a 16th century English expedition with three ships in search of a passage over the top of Asia, famously froze 2/3 of the crews to death and ice crushed the boats--the survivors sought mercy and found none on the frozen Russian coast, but a handful found a village and were able to travel by sleigh to Moscow, and presumably, find a heart-warming beverage or two). But in fact, the Gulf Stream here means that the sea doesn’t freeze, fish are abundant, and temperatures don’t fall as low as they do in the interior of Finnmark, where you can find Siberian extremes of fifty below (F or C, at those extremes it’s roughly the same). Here is was -4C, or about 25 deg F, and it didn’t even feel that cold. I arrived at the hotel, and my driver, Ole, who is pretty strong dude, picked up my suitcases like they were match boxes and brought them in. His sister Ele, one of many helpers around this show that I was there to play, sat with me while I wolfed down a stew of reindeer and whale meat, and then handed me off to Carolyn, who has organized the U-Kultur 2009 event, and with whom I’ve been in contact with for months as we discussed the idea of me playing. Carolyn is Scottish, married to a local fella and now perfectly at home in the Arctic. Knowing that to make this show happen required a bone-crunching day of travel on my birthday no less, she arranged a little parry in my honor--a local nightclub, or the local nightclub I should say, was commandeered in my honor. Carolyn took me over and there were folks prepared to make me feel welcome--local dignitaries, pals, and students from the local cooking school, who had prepared hors d’oeuvres for all. I was given a bottle of bubbly and plunked myself down at a table of locals--mostly teachers, which is what Carolyn does for a living too, teaching English. I also was introduced to the members of Dallas-based bands Downlo and The Cast--who have most of their members in common--and singer Howard Hancox to the Cast and you mostly have Downlo. Clint Barlow, drummer for both bands, is now the owner of Trees in Dallas, the club where the Posies have played on Dallas stops in the past--it closed down in the 2005, not long after we did our last show there, having run afoul of bad business decisions. It sat dark for a couple of years, then in stepped Clint to take it over. He also plays drums for Vanilla Ice, how cool is that? Hey, that was actually a good unintended pun. Ice, cool. Well, we have been in the Arctic, so we think this way... In Cast configuration, they did an impromptu mini acoustic set--Todd (who plays bass or guitar depending on the band), Nabil (who plays guitar in the cast and runs sound for Downlo) and Bryce (who plays guitar in both but is the main singer in the Cast) busted out a few of their tunes and a cover of ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’--these guys have impeccable, three part harmonies thru a lot their music. You can detect some hard rock influences--the heavy sounds and dropped-C tunings bring to mind Alice in Chains and that kind of post-metal, but with the harmonies and a more musically diverse program they are an evolution into something unique. Cool people, too. Well, of course there was a cake, and I made a little speech, and it was great fun. Then the Cast/Downlo guys bought me a few shots, and then it was time to get outta there...hehe. I think it was closing anyway. I am such a lightweight, that a few shots means I can’t totally tell you if that was the case. But I do know that we went back to my room and drank some wine, and then I was able to crash at last. HONNINGSVAG, 10/31 Let me tell you, 10am came *way* too soon. I didn’t have a hangover, no headache etc., but it seems that I had some seriously accelerated jet lag...my eyeballs were glued shut. The mission this afternoon was to head to the North Cape, and touch the top of Europe’s head. It’s about a half an hour drive to the other side of the island (people used to live there in greater numbers, but the introduction of a motorized fishing fleet mean that people could live further away from the fishing grounds, on the inside passage of island. Oh--I didn’t mention it but the island doesn’t feel like an island, since the coast is so jagged anyway it’s hard to tell what is and isn’t an island there, and you access Mageroya via a 3-mile long tunnel and never see the water you are going under. So, we drove up over the island’s moonscape and ended up at the visitor’s center at the tip of the island. It’s a big building with a restaurant, a movie presentation with a panoramic film of island life and scenery, and of course viewing decks where you can observe the point from behind glass. However, you gotta get out there and have a look, and that’s what we did, walking the 75 yards or so out the fence at the edge of the cliff. Now, we can describe a wind as howling, but that wouldn’t do this wind justice--it was bestial, roaring, terrifying. I would guess it was blowing about 80mph. Almost impossible to walk against...fun to let it push you around tho. It wasn’t so cold as you’d think, but the strength of the wind, shooting up thru deep cuts it had gouged in the rock that concentrated and directed the gusts--well, actually, the day was comprised of one continuous blast, not gusts--it left me dizzy after a few minutes of exposure. Unf. clouds had descended to our level, blocking out nearly all the view. You could see over the cliff’s edge, tho, down into a sea of pure black, about 600 feet below. To my amazement, a small fishing boat emerged out of the whiteout and chugged pleasantly along the vertical coastline, as if it wasn’t in the midst of nature’s full fury. After we took in the sights we headed back to Honningsvåg, I was still jetlagging so hard that I fell asleep in the 30 minute drive back, and could barely open my eyes as I navigated back to my room in the hotel. The wind was moaning and beating on the building here, too. I shut the curtains and was in pure black. So tired I was, that I immediately went into REM sleep and embarked upon an elaborate dream, where wakefulness and dreaming were confused--sometimes I thought I was awake in my room, but with the lights on, people coming in and out and talking to me. Sometimes I was exploring our hotel, but it was enormous and labyrinthine, not the modest building I was actually sleeping in. This went on for what seemed like hours, and then I woke up, and looked at my phone to check the time. I had been asleep for ten minutes. I went back to my nocturnal work in the daytime, until 5, when it was indeed night. We all assembled for soundcheck, which wasn’t much for me--I requested a different guitar than the one provided (a tele instead of a strat), dialed in a sound on the Line 6 amp which was cool cuz I could save it as a preset. The piano provided had two keys that didn’t work; they had another one there but they couldn’t find a power supply for it. Ok, done! Next, we were taken to the home of Tonnelise and Alf Roger, who I had met at my birthday party the night before, for an incredible meal--boknafisk, and rypa, both of which had been fished/hunted by Alf Roger, and cooked to perfection by him too. A few of the folks from the night before were there, plus T&AR’s kids and their friends, and Pernille Sparboe (I produced Pernille’s brand new EP “Buzz” in Tromso earlier this year, check out her myspace here). Boknafisk is cod that has been hung to dry and reconstituted by boiling it, but just right--you don’t want it to fall apart. Rypa is ptarmigan, and its flesh tastes a bit like liver, if you like that kind of thing, and I do. It’s just strong red meat, you’d never guess it was a bird if someone plopped a steak down on your plate. This was followed by local blueberries and cloudberries, and of course coffee, conversation, and wine, too. Great people and great company. Afterwards, we walked over to the venue, which is a kind of community theatre, vintage 50s. You won’t find but one building here from before WWII--as the Germans pulled out of Finnmark to divert resources to the two fronts on the continent (tho’ Hitler had been convinced that the Allies invasion that manifested in the D Day Normandy landing was going to occur in Norway) they evacuated all the inhabitants and burned every single building in every single town to the ground. In Honningsvåg, only the church remained. And it’s here that the town’s inhabitants lived while they rebuilt. Honningsvåg wasn’t even supposed to *be* rebuilt--the government, in good socialist the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few efficiency, had decided to consolidate many of the towns and hamlets in Finnmark to further centralize services and administration. However, these were people’s recently destroyed homes we’re talking about, and they weren’t having it. They wanted to go back to the places they knew. And they did. The building now has a kind of 50s gym vibe, but there’s a real stage. When I came back from dinner, local band Moilrock was ontage (tho it’s about the band’s ability to rock, too, “Moilrock’ is a local slang for ‘dirty’, nasty wind--dirty in the fact that if it’s not frozen, a strong wind can pick up loose topsoil and make a dusty mess. They are kind of a hard rock band, and somehow Todd from Downlo/the Cast ended up playing bass with them, including on songs he’d never heard before. Then Pernille played, alone, with her acoustic. She has a stunning, incredible voice. Her thing is no frills--she plays her songs, sings, and chats a bit. Very natural and easy, and everyone loves it. Next up was my deal, originally I was headlining but we all agreed that it was better to have the rock bands go last, plus the Downlo/Cast guys had been there all week doing workshops and different events, so they had really bonded with the locals, they earned the top spot. I had to earn my stripes too, and since most of the crowd was seated at tables, I felt just hanging back onstage wasn’t really gonna do it, tho I opened with “110 or 220V” from the stage, I quickly abandoned the idea of a concert setting and hopped down to the crowd, and got them to stand up and join me. I finished at the piano with people all around me, on the stage, and off. I even did a solo version of “Oslo” knowing that people would know that song, and they did. Fun--and over in about 40 minutes. Prob. the shortest show I’ve done in a LONG time, maybe ever! But people loved it, the merch table is always a good sign and I sold about €275 in solo EPs, Disciplines t shirts and badges. Pernille’s freshly minted EP sold well too. I had been pretty tired before the show with the jet lag but like in Macedonia two nights before I was energized by the performance and was happy to stay and watch Downlo and The Cast, who ended up doing acoustic sets with electric bass regular rock drums. I thought it was so good they should always play that way, it brings out the vocals in a great way. People loved them, and they are really charming, cool peeps, great singers, fantastic players. At the end there was demand for an encore so they had Pernille and I join them for an impromptu version of that Kings of Leon song that has “ooooWOAHooo--ooWOAHooo-oooo” in the back of the chorus...you’ve heard it, trust me....after show was done, and the attendees went home, all the musicians gathered upstairs in the trophy room (it’s a kind of football team HQ as well as a theatre, dance hall etc) where there was an incredibly groovy vintage Hammond console organ from the 70s), to drink a little wine, eat peanuts and meatballs, and joke around. Then...bedtime. Ahh, I slept for ten hours, easily. Got up for breakfast and went back to bed for an hour or two, then Downlo/Cast/Carolyn/Pernille all went to lunch together, and then the Americans, Carolyn and Ole the driver from Friday headed to Alta, a drive that took 3 hours. It was a clear day, and in these latitudes in November the day is short but the twilight is really long, and gorgeous. But, also, I slept pretty much the whole drive--so we’re talking 15 hours of sleep that day. I needed it, but the short polar days also trigger that a bit too. Carolyn, having spent the week with the Americans and having already been friends with them from before, was tearful as she bade us farewell. It’s a two-hour flight back to Oslo, and I had time to watch “The Abominable Dr. Phibes”, which has some of the funkiest art direction ever. We landed and claimed our bags, and then tried to sort out where to catch the shuttle to our hotel. Which turned out to be damned near impossible. The airport info people told us one thing, every bus driver we asked told us another, and it was impossible to get anyone from the hotel on the phone. Finally we gave up, after searching all over the airport, and grabbed a cab, which turned out to be cheaper for the 7 of us to be in a van than individual shuttle fares. We got to the hotel and tho I had dined on a sandwich on the plane, I joined the guys for dinner and I consumed a small bottle of South African dessert wine, and then said my goodbyes, and watched “Big Man Japan” before going to bed (oh, and gave the two DVDs to the guys to watch on the flight home). All that concentrated sugar in the wine, the decompression of all these adventures, and the heat seeping in from the heated bathroom floor meant I had a little trouble sleeping--oh and the fact that I had spent half the day sleeping already! But I finally got a little sleep in, then was up at 5.30 to start my travel home. Love KS SAS flt 835 to Paris

The latest release by Ken Stringfellow is a split EP with Spain's Muy Fellini, featuring never-heard-before music incl. Ken's take on Bob Dylan, released by King of Patio records in Spain on Oct 8, 2009. Order it directly from Muy Fellini here www.myspace.com/muyfellini 10" VINYL ONLY!!! Subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up to date on all things KS! older news : 8/3/2003 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004 07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005 01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005 09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005 12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006 04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007 12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008 01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008 02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008 03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008 04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008 05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008 06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008 07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008 11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009 01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009 02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009 03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009 04/01/2009 - 05/01/2009 05/01/2009 - 06/01/2009 06/01/2009 - 07/01/2009 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009 10/01/2009 - 11/01/2009 11/01/2009 - 12/01/2009 12/01/2009 - 01/01/2010 01/01/2010 - 02/01/2010 02/01/2010 - 03/01/2010 03/01/2010 - 04/01/2010 04/01/2010 - 05/01/2010