I was basically certain, as we watched our flight in Tromsø get pushed further and further back, that I would miss my flight to Paris and lose precious time on one just three nights off I had this month. They had been using the midnight sun and the clear weather to do maintenance on the runway, and it was supposed to have finished, but it didn’t get done until our flight was 30 min. late. Nothing to do. Me and Juliette Lewis and crew and band on the flight. Unbelievably, they held the flight back–I, and others on the same flight, ran from our gate to the new gate in Oslo and boarded, and was told before we took off that our luggage had made it as well. I really have to hand it to SAS, they seem to be among the best in working this kind of thing out. I landed that afternoon and spent a beautiful hot July afternoon hanging out with Dom. That evening Dom walked me thru the process of renting a Velib, and we rode to the Ile St. Louis, which of course was throbbing with tourists (who had their own bikes, thank Dieu, so we had space on the island’s only Velib terminal. We met up with Mike Mills and a friend of his at the restaurant Mon Viel Ami, and like the Doctor in Rocky Racoon, we pro-cee-ded to lie on the table. Well, actually we ate delicious food, told stories, and drank plenty of wine, and even took a bottle to go, we cabbed down after dinner to check out Le Batofar where Dom often organizes events but it was dead and closing up, so we ended back at Mike’s place, he was renting a flat for the week just ten minutes’ walk from our home. It had an incredibly groovy rooftap hang out that you access thru a hatch Jules Verne could have designed.
The next morning I wasn’t in exactly museum quality condition but I managed to have fine day of work with Liisa, and we hit a groove that continued thru the week, I went thru all the songs, loaded in our drums from our session the week before and got them sorted, and put bass on all the songs, and started to dig into the vocals. Monday night I was a bit wrecked but stayed up watching “Ponyo”, being a such a huge fan of Miyazaki ever since I went to see “Princess Mononoke” in the theatre with John Roderick while we were working on the Long Winters’ album some years ago. I’d bought the DVD in Indonesia (it’s the Japanese version, subtitled in English, which was fine for me, I can maintain my Hannah Montana-free existence a bit longer this way)–and I’d been savoring it til now, not watching it on purpose til I could sit down and concentrate and absorb all the details (impossible–just the opening scene alone is so rich I could frame by frame it for weeks). Tuesday night after the session I was interviewed for yet another book about grunge, and Wednesday night after the session I met Mike, Dom, Dewitt (REM’s guitar tech), his wife Jackie, a work colleague of Dom’s from the Rock en Seine festival (Dom’s working this one this year) and her husband, for drinks at my local (Le Motel) and an EVENTFUL dinner with about 6000 bottles of wine, at the ultra trendy hotel/bar/restaurant Mama Shelter. That’s *two* nights I kinda don’t remember how the hell we got home. Totally great way to blow off steam after a long day of work.
That’s also two mornings that making my way down to that first coffee in the morning was oh so difficult–and imagine listening to two loudspeakers all day.
Thursday Mills & I had a glass of wine after the session, but that was it (still, we sat on the terrace of a wine bar I like til about 2am). At one point this dazed looking guy stumbled up to our table and asked if we had a condom, presumably that he could buy from us on the spot but I’m still not sure.
On Friday night after the session Mills & I dined at Chez Paul, ate WAY too much, and went back to my place with a bottle of red and l had the privilege of hearing the REM album-in-process, which was a mix of songs with and without vocals, some of which I was excited to hear that the vocals were kind of mumbled and down in the mix–old school! Some beautiful recordings, great songs. Of course I played some new Posies and D’s songs and Mike was really impressed, esp. with the Posies (there’s some pretty far out bass playing on the songs I played). I played him one of Liisa’s tracks and he enjoyed that too. Oh, in fact I felt like crap for the THIRD morning that week. And, again, TOTALLY worth it. Mills traveled onward on Saturday and my diet began (or shall we say, resumed–there’s almost no time after age 40 that I have NOT been on a diet) shortly thereafter.
Saturday night was a movie night, Dom was at the summer place, it’s a little sad when the session ends and everyone goes home and I’m like…boo hoo. Tho I do enjoy a good putter around the house, but….not too many. One putter per month and I can put my putter in the golf bag where it belongs.
This morning I: a) felt absolutely fine. b) met Liisa, her fiancee Trav, and Mark from a band called the Stanleys, with whom I’ll also be working this week. Mark just came to say hi and hand off his hard drive, and then Liisa and I had a really good day in the studio, including some absolutely neighbor-arming levels of screaming in one song.
It’s pretty much been roll out of bed, take a coffee downstairs, start working, wrap 12 hours later, do a backup, check mail, and crash every day except those that involved going out and enjoying nights that would Bacchus himself check in to rehab. A heady mix, and my body was a bit confused by all the up and down…but I have a week to get it together (thru the magic of basically eating nothing unless Dom rams it down my throat (after perfecting the art of foie gras, I have to say the French are rather good at that) to look good at Friday’s DiSCiPLiNES show in Belgium….then it’s vacation time and I have a massive agenda of SLEEPING EATING AND SWIMMING and NOTHING ELSE. Almost.
Love
KS
Paris