This week has been a productive one, in a very different rhythm than usual. No working for other folks, just working on new music. Going for so long without a writing break (I mean, I seriously haven’t had a writing retreat in a couple of years) means that access to that place where songs come from is highly available...I just turn off my thoughts and get out of the way, and my subconscious has been working on whatever equations it has been working on these months, and starts spewing forth results. A bit lecture-y, too--like “dude, you’ve been ignoring me, and I have some things to let you know”. So, by stepping out of the way, so far some 4 really good songs have come out of it.
My last work, a tambourine part for the Bob Wilcox record I’d been working on over the weekend, was done and I could go on to writing. However, the end of solitude, solitude that I desire so very much, is the death of a thousand cuts--no need to say, that the end of a heavy period of work, 3 solid months of record making and touring, means that there’s a LOT of unfinished business--doctors to be seen, guitars to be repaired. I started Pilates classes again to take a forward offensive against the holiday lethargy (as if I’ll have any). And of course my family should get some of me too--I’ve been head down in work for months, and I’ll be leaving in a week and half for essentially 2 solid months of work, travel and touring in time zones distant enough from CET as to be almost absurd. Better get some airtime on the Hubble, that’s how far away I’ll be.
Also, Twice, the band I’ve been working with much of this fall, had a listening party for their album, and this was in conjunction with a show in the bar Truskel, near to the studio where we made the album. The place was packed, and I was honored to be asked to join them onstage, singing and playing tambourine (things I definitely didn’t do on the song in question, but it was fine). I had a few nice ovations just for the concept of being the producer of the album (even tho almost no one’s heard it yet--it’s still being mastered). It was playing at the studio, where people went after the show for champagne, snacks, and a LOT of smoking.
CLERMONT-FERRAND
On Saturday, after spending the morning and early afternoon at Aden’s school for their holiday festivities, I headed to Gare de Lyon (luckily the torrential downpour that had trapped Dom & I earlier had stopped) and boarded the slow train for Clermont-Ferrand. I was glad to have some down time, to sleep, read, all that. Listen to a bootleg of the REM show I saw in Seattle in 1986...
Upon arrival, I met up with Gaylord, who put the show together. He also released the Dani Llamas record that I played on, and Dani was playing this show too, driving from Bordeaux that day. Gaylord took me to the venue, La Puy de la Lune (a ‘puy’ is a well, and I think there was a Puy de la Lune there, many things around the bar are also called ‘Lune’, so it must have been quite a landmark). Dani was there, by now, and soon arrived St. Augustine, who I had played with at my last show in C-F, the 2006 blockbuster at the Coop de Mai. Francois, as he is really known, had a cellist with him today, and they played together seamlessly. The Puy de la Lune music room is a tiny basement, lit with soft blue lights, that fits about 50 people, and that’s how many we had. Even though it was December, it was soon hot down there--there were some bright lights pointed at the performance area, a tiny raised stage in the arches of the cave, which during my set, I asked to borrow someone in the front row’s sweater, and unscrewed the bulbs. The club was so small that we didn’t use a PA. The digital piano, which was built into a wooden frame to make it resemble an acoustic piano, had its own speakers; the small amp Gaylord rented amply supported my guitar and St. Augustine’s acoustic. The cellist, who had a great medieval French name--Edewige--and Dani’s acoustic guitar, needed no amplification. Voices were unassissted in any way, just singing into the air, and you could hear everything just fine. My kind of place. Everyone played about 45 minutes, I managed to squeeze and hour long set in there just under the curfew. I also joined Dani for the last songs of his set, playing parts in theory based on what I did on the record, but in reality adapting the local circumstances to the music--I played piano and sang.
In my set I played guitar and stood inches away from the front row, and then took to the piano. Playing mostly my new material plus a few oldies, including ‘Please Return It’ on the piano. I even debuted one brand new song from my writing week...it went over very well. Because I was pressed for time, my show had a nice manic edge to it, not unlike my show at the Apolo in Barcelona a couple of months ago, that also had to fit into an hour-long format. I’m not used to that short of a show, you know I like to play like Springsteen, but actually, it really works. It’s so easy to only have to sustain the energy of a show for 60 minutes, it makes me put quite a bit more intensity into every vocal...
After the show we crashed at Gaylord’s place, and he fed us and took great care of us, and now I’m in the Berlingo with Dani and his g.f. Sylvia, driving a few hundred clicks to Paris...and over a week free from shows, which will be devoted to writing time yet again.
Love
KS
A71 to Paris
