At the last minute, airport officials came thru saying the flight from Abu Dhabi to Paris had changed gates-confusing because on the departure screens the flight was still shown at the old gate. In fact, the new gate was in another terminal, which meant another security screening, but when we hustled to the new gate (past this insane atrium that was lit like a casino but in fact was a giant doughnut--the lining of the hole was in blue and green tile...startling) there was no crew yet to take care of us so we had to stand there for quite a while til they got it sorted out. The control tower of Abu Dhabi is a giant sail-shape it was floating in the mist. The fog that had made our landing so eerie--it clung to to the ground, glowing from the submerged buildings--had lifted, but now things were running late as a consequence of the now dissipated mist. But, we took off, and landed in Paris just an hour late, and it wasn’t long before I was pulling up to my home and Dom & Aden came down to the street to help me and my things upstairs. One month and one week and one day since I left them, it was great to be home again. Normally westward travel gives you a kind of jet lag that is beneficial--you never need sleep. When I land in Seattle, I have practically limitless energy and no need for sleep. It’s when I go east, like home to Paris, that I usually pay the price--it feels like I’ve been hit with a tranquilizer dart and basically my brain decides that when in doubt, fall asleep, and it’s always in a state of doubt. So, here I was, arriving in Paris but from the east, so this should work out great. But it wasn’t *quite* the same--I would nod off around 9pm, and be bolt-upright awake at 5. On the first day, I had some stomach trouble, so I crawled into the bath to sooth my innards and took the meds I have to take for that trouble, and that made me sleepy. I used a washrag to maintain a little Adam-and-Eve style dignity, and Aden took it upon herself to nurse me, bringing me water, and toys, should I need to play in the bath. In fact, when Dom tried to care for me, Aden chased her off...”you’re BOTHERING him” “Yes, Aden, but I think he is OK with it” “NO. It’s *my* papa and I am taking care of him”. Don’t worry, folks, within a day or so Aden was back to telling me I’m fat and stupid, and nasty besides.
Most of the week was spent catching up on emails and activities that had just been impossible to get to while I was traveling. This included organizing all the info for the upcoming Disciplines shows in Germany & Austria...I was cutting and pasting show schedules, train and flight times, press requests, etc into one document. Now, where are those flights for the guys...we soon discovered that the guys had forgotten to buy their plane tickets to Hamburg and home from Cologne...and that was NEXT WEEK. AHHHH!!! But they sorted it out, and it was only a little more expensive than it would have been if they had done it when I asked them to, back in December. So, no big deal in the end. So, more or less, I slept a lot, hung out with Aden & Dom, watched Star Wars on TV in French, and itemized my receipts from 2009. Listened to some music, and took Aden to school, and took Dom out for Valentine’s (we traditionally have our Valentine’s date on a different day than the 14th Feb--that night is when restaurants serve overpriced menus and the real chefs take the night off) at the
Meurice (yes, it was expensive, yes she’s worth it). On the Monday after my Sunday return, we dropped Aden at school and then went to have our traditional cafe and pains au chocolats at Maison Karrenbauer, our favorite little place that has the best ones in town (and Pierre, the owner, is always giving us little treats--like a slice of flan, just ‘cuz. Well, not just ‘cuz. Aden has charmed her way into being the local rockstar, and every cafe/store/restaurant on the street falls over themselves to give her free hot chocolates, candy...I mean, I spend hundreds of euros a year on that block and am lucky to get bread with my meal!)...I was so looking forward to it, and their oven was broken so they didn’t open that day! AhHhhhH! and monday means no boulangeries are open. Oh well.
One afternoon I was at the computer and I decided to bite my fingernail, and some how, a whole bunch of one of my teeth just pulverized and broke off. What the??
VIENNA, 2/19
I felt a bit bad that I hadn’t been able to do much to promote these shows in Austria and Germany, and hoped that the label had been able to do enough, etc. I hadn’t seen a lot of activity online, but then again, I hadn’t had time to look. But, Vienna is usually pretty good, but still...I had some doubts. I did what I could via MFT (myspace/facebook/twitter, naturlich) and prayed for rain.
No problem getting up at 5.30, in fact I was up at 5 anyway. I padded around and got ready to hit the trail, kissing Dom & Aden goodbye before heading out the door, they were still asleep tho. I caught a cab relatively quickly and at that hour we had no problems getting to Orly, cheaply--so cheaply I tipped the guy 2 Euros, which is kind of unheard of, but...it’s nice to boost your karma with a little generosity. Check in was done, and I headed to the gate. Kind of bummed that nowhere I looked were Herald Tribunes available. Do they even print it anymore? Maybe they stopped making newspapers while I was in Australia. This kind of stuff happens--you go on tour, and come back, and all your friends have changed their names and grown beards and joined communes and you don’t know what the hell is going on anymore.
Anyway, I fell asleep immediately after we took off, I have really grown accustomed to the window seat, now that’s my preferred position in any flight, it’s great for sleeping. No one crawling over you to get out and a wall to wedge yourself against. We landed in Berlin, and I found myself in Air Berlin’s cute little departure barn. On the flight to Vienna I managed to have a row to myself and I stretched out my legs and fell profoundly asleep. I woke up when the tires hit the tarmac, and as we pulled up to our parking spot I turned my phone on, and found either we had time traveled or we had circled a hell of long time. Turns out to be the latter, for an hour, and everybody else was in the same boat (Plane, actually). Even my bandmates’ plane was pulling up right alongside mine, and they were supposed to be beating me to Vienna by more than half an hour.
The VIE bag claim was anarchy, as usual, but we got our stuff and emerged and found that the the whole cab rank for the airport was...gone...vanished! Now they send you across the street to a hotel where unmetered taxis charge a pretty expensive flat rate to get you into town. This is all new to me, and I was just there in December. We got in a brand new big Merc and zipped to the
Hotel Furstenhof, my preferred address in Vienna. We just checked in, dropped our personal effects and got in another cab for the venue, Szene.
Szene was the site of a great solo show of mine a couple of years ago, supporting Trouble Over Tokyo to a nearly full house. It’s prob. the most professional of the club-sized venues, great sound, great big stage, and they are cool about letting the bands and audience hang out at the bar or in the dressing rooms (or in spring/summer, in the terrace) til pretty late. The only drawback is that it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, so it’s not so easy to get to--but that means there’s no neighbors to complain about noise, which is why they can be so relaxed about their curfew. Shows there are kind of expensive, too, but that didn’t seem to matter....so, some months ago, when this show was announced, a couple of bands lobbied me very hard to be the support band. I knew that Szene was pretty big for us to be playing our first show, so the support band had to be worth some people. The hardest lobbyers, who did all they could to demonstrate they had a good draw, were a band of 18-to-20-year-olds called
Chameleonic Cadence. they were really enthusiastic, very nice, and stayed on the task (good, when I have too many things going on to keep track of every detail). I also needed to make sure we had an appropriate backline, including the elusive Vox AC30 amp for Bjorn. And these guys drummed one up for us. Wow. Ok, you’ve got the gig. And you know what? They pushed this show, which had a very high (€15) ticket price, high and low, and really saved our butts. A lot of my regular attendees were not in the house that night, and there were a LOT of young people, which are really the D’s ideal demographic anyway--we play well with the 15-25 age group. So, the joint was totally packed. And we had a super show. Opening band Tanaka were also supported by T-Mobile, so they brought people too, and really, the night was a total success, much to my surprise and relief, actually.
FM4 had also done their part to support the gig, which was invaluable. Now, this was unusual, but not only had it been three months since our last shows, but we had a new drummer--Ivar, was filling in for Ralla, as Ralla’s other band was showcasing at
By:Larm this weekend. I didn’t even meet Ivar til he arrived in Vienna, but the guys rehearsed with him and said it had gone well. And Ivar, did an amazing job, actually. He really didn’t make any mistakes, and aside from not being sure about a few tempos, his memory was incredible and it really fit right in. I was much more worried about *my* part--soundcheck was great, but when I started moving around, I was winded pretty quick. These are difficult shows to do from a physical point of view, it takes a LOT of energy. I had really grown accustomed to the gentle pace of my solo shows, unfolding in a tropical environment, where my voice is moist and loose, and flexible. Now I was sprinting, lunging AND singing, and in dry winter air that’s twice as hard to get the vocal chords moving in. It was painful, and I held back a little on the running around. A little. Still I managed to drag the audience out of the club for some weirdness in “I Got Tired” and get the whole audience to lay on the floor with me and all that good stuff. Bjorn was rocking so hard he got a nosebleed! Finally we ran out of songs, with “Oslo” being the encore but people were not going to let us go...they were REALLY into it. So, I made Judith, the drummer of Chameleonic Cadence, come up and play ‘Shadow of Your Doubt” with Bjorn and I. Totally loose and fun. People love that stuff, when it’s off the cuff and unique just for their show. I love it too, actually. Hey, it should be said that CC were really great, and super fun, they have an unusual lineup with a female lead singer but also one of the male guitarists sings lead too, so all kinds of things happen in the vocals as the songs go along. They are so into it, and I found out afterwards that their bass player was totally sick, he left as soon as they were done, but he really gave it 1000% since they were so into doing this show. They shared their Jack Daniels with us, and were just sweet as pie. In fact, after the show, we went back to the Furstenhof, and I discovered something I didn’t know in all my times staying there--you can drink in the lobby, the desk clerk serves you (like in old school hotels in UK), as late as you want. Perfect--I wanted to hang out, but I didn’t feel like going to a bar, and it was crappy and rainy out...so, we had a couple bottles of wine and I held court with the CC kids. They are so nice, and it’s funny but of course I still think that everyone is older than me in my head, so I had to remember at times that they are TEENAGERS. Crazy. They’re just nice people, with a lot of enthusiasm, generosity and good spirits.
REGENSBURG, 2/20
When I got down to the lobby to check out the next morning, I found that our drinking session on my room’s tab came to a whopping 7 euros--for two *bottles* of wine and a beer! Gotta love the ‘Hof! Anyway, the guys and I walked across the street to the Westbahnhof, and our train was already waiting. All of Vienna’s (and also some of the regional ones, like St. Polten) train stations are undergoing massive renovation. The main hall of the Westbahnhof is totally torn apart, but the station is still functional, and soon we were on a Deutsche Bahn ICE train zipping at 200 km/h to Regensburg. Still, the trip takes four hours, there’s a lot of stops. But, I had time to have a sit down lunch (I LOVE dining cars on tains) and do some work on the computer, and shoot the shit with the guys and discuss various aspects of strategy for the new album.
We arrived in Regensburg and Dieter, our promoter and a great guy and buddy, was there to meet us on the platform. Dieter is a Posies fan (and an even bigger fan of Redd Kross) who has now hosted me four times in his lovely, medieval town of Regensburg. R’burg is small, about 130,000 people, but has a lot of students so it’s great to play. There’s been a Posies show and two KS shows at the Alte Malzerai, all put on by Dieter, but this time he had us play a new venue, the W1, which is more in the center of town. It’s very chic and modern, also REALLY tiny and cozy, and it’s right in the center so easy for people to get to. We went straight there and started to set up. We were playing with a local band called Old Death Whisper, kind of punk/grunge/art noise...they were like a kinder, if not gentler, Amphetamine Reptile band. Fronted by a fellow named Sebastian who speaks absolutely like an American, having lived in El Paso for a decade. Now, this was news to me, but evidently there is a German Air Force base there?? And later, we met Nadia who was exactly the same--German, but speaking English in 100% accent-less American vernacular. Sebastian is a memorable person, very friendly, funny, cool guy. This show was their first, the band being assembled from components of other musical entities. They rocked it, too.
Dieter’s girlfriend Andrea actually cooked for us! Vegan and vegetarian strudel, which different vegetables. Delicious. And carrot/ginger soup. And Dieter’s flatmate, also named Andrea, baked a cake! THAT is punk rock. ODW did their set, and then we set up, and did ours. There was about 100 people there, which all said was the most that had shown up for a gig at this place ever. It’s small, folks...which was kind of a relief cuz I was hurtin’, i’m a little out of shape, I had no time to get to Pilates the week before the show, and I was already beat up from Vienna. But still, it was great, and let me tell you...Regensburg people are REALLY shy. I was used to it, but if you aren’t...you can be fooled into thinking people aren’t digging it, cuz they don’t move much, don’t clap that much, don’t even look at you much...but it’s totally normal and you always find out after the show how much people are into it. So nice, people in R’burg.
Another problem with D’s shows is that there’s never enough time between dinner and playing, and jumping up and down with food in my stomach means that after the show, I often feel nauseous. It was nice to hang in the backstage room, and we were invited to a DJ night with club NME DJ from UK who was absolutely lovely, but I just couldn’t hack it...plus, we had all our gear to deal with. So, we cabbed to Dieter’s, where we were all staying, and Nadia suggested we try one drink at a nearby bar, a little cinema and late night bar one block away. I said no, but then yes. And we went over, but when we arrived, my stomach was too upset for me to really socialize and I was really tired. I chatted a bit, but then asked Dieter to get me back to his and I immediately crashed, sound alseep.
When I woke up, the guys, Dieter, and Andrea were having breakfast in the kitchen and I joined them...then the guys had to get to their train. Mine was quite a bit later so we hung at Dieter’s and listened to his awesome vinyl collection and chilled. Then at midday Dieter and Andrea drove me to the train station (where we ran into Sebastian and his g.f.) and I took the train to Munich, changing at the Hauptbahnhof for an S-train (a kind of express metro) that took me to the airport, and now...I’m waiting for my flight to Dusseldorf, where I’ll connect to my flight to Paris and be home later tonight. In the meantime, the sun is out, and I’m on my way home.
Or so I thought. Once we arrived in Dusseldorf, I went to the gate, and then we went thru the gate, down some stairs and got on a bus. I was on the phone with my dad, so it sort of took me awhile to realize we hadn't moved. Then they asked us to get off, the flight was delayed. So, we went back up to the gate, waited 45 min...then got back on the bus, waited...and then got off again! Canceled! So, now I am at the provided hotel room, having eaten the free schnitzel (which I love) which Air Berlin gave us, and wishing I was home! boo hoo!
Love
KS
Dusseldorf
