Man was I glad to get back to work. I am not a guy that really takes or even likes days off (away from home). I figure, if I'm not going to sleep in my own bed some night, I should be getting something done. Or...at least it should be above freezing where I am. Palm trees and such. So, anyway, everyone was in a good mood after their break, and Bjorn and I worked on vocals and writing some more songs as the guys came back one by one from various parts of Norway. We actually wrote at three new songs while we were here, a Stones-y romp by Bjorn called 'Boys Don't Try"; a maniacal punk blast, straight outta the Saints catalogue, called 'Strange One' and I adapted music and words that Bjorn wrote a year ago for a teenage Norwegian singer named Ariol, that he never used (!) and we made a very spare guitar and vocal only song called 'Anyone Else'. Everything's tracked now, mostly we're working now on vocals and little keyboard, guitar, etc. bits.
We worked on New Year's eve, til about 9 then we called a cab (in Tromso, you can call a cab at 9pm on New Year's freaking Eve and it comes in 5 minutes. Try that in Paris). We went to the home of Willy Rundmo, who's taken some great photos of us, at Bukta Festival and our club show in Tromso in 2008, and he's visited us here at the studio as well. You can see the shots on
the Disciplines myspace. Willy is a wonderful guy, he has a great house in the middle of Tromso, and he and his gal and their friends welcomed us in without hesitation. He even had a few D's tracks laced into his Spotify. Now THAT's a host.
I had been to a mall earlier, to get passport photos taken for my Vietnamese visa, and found that there was a great fish shop there. I bought some gravlax (that was lunch and dinner), smoked salmon (lunch and dinner on the subsequent days) and some red caviar. I brought the caviar and some Drappier champagne to the party. Installing both in the fridge, Willy opened a bottle of Jacob's Creek (when in Rome, I thought) and I was happy to have some. I sipped that and got festive with his and my friends. I suppose not many people were sharing that bottle with me, but I felt OK. Then it came time to go outside--there was no countdown, just suddenly it was after twelve and we went outside to see the fireworks--both the municipal ones shooting off the top of the mountain, and people shooting roman candles out of Big Gulps. We missed the change of huge burning numbers on the side of the mountain facing town--somehow they change from one year's numbers to the next rather instantly--and they had to change two of them this year. Well. We went back inside, and by this time we were also joined by Pernille Sparboe and her friends. The champagne was opened, and I had already opened and shared the caviar with all. The point of this is to say that I had had prob. 4 glasses of wine at this point, which is not that much in 3 hours. For me. Usually. I had a buzz, for sure tho. Then I had a big glass of champagne, which was topped off. Still--remember the Posies acoustic tour 2000? This would have been a palate cleanser. So, we were invited to a friend of Pernille's--where this friend, Ingvild, and her parents, and other friends were. I made it into the entry hall and sat on the couch. The shock of freezing cold and warmth, the combo of eating very light meals for the last weeks, and not drinking at all when I work in the studio, and mixing white on top of red...it hit me all at once. BOOM! Up it came. Oh no! I was shocked, but it wasn't like I was going to be able to stop it.
Soon I found myself in a warm little tunnel, so cozy, and dark and snug...and the tunnel was moving...moving thru the night. I saw buildings, and street lights, and people walking around. But, they were far away, somewhere at the other end.
It was Pernille who either accepted or chose the task of taking care of my sorry ass. She took me to her flat, got my soiled clothes off, and washed them. She cleaned my SHOES. I woke up around 11, and oh...was I sad. How could that happen? I used to be one of the all time greats. I mean, if I had been downing tequila shots, sure. But bar wine and champagne? Noooooo.
Pernille fed me toast, gave me her phone so Dom could call me, and let me lay around until my clothes were dry enough to wear and called me a cab.
I went back to the studio. Now, I had the keys, so the guys used that as a convenient excuse to party until what would pass for dawn at most latitudes. The guys came back over the course of the evening. Alison, our friend and fan from the UK, who came here to observe a bit of the recording, had brought some wine. We had that, listened to music, and at about 9.30 that night I felt good enough to do some vocal editing, and followed that by doing some vocals for a
White Flag song.
We were up til 4 amusing ourselves this way, then up today and back at work on the album--it's the fun stuff now just doubling vocals adding keyboards and such. Now it's almost 4am again...when there's no light, you can't say it's late, can you?
Love
KS
Tromso NORWAY
