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
