Up at something like 5, and was picked up by Maan in front of the Rijksmuseum at 6.15, and we went on to pick up Carice and drive out to Hilversum, where Holland’s media resides. We were there as guests yet again of Giel, one of the most powerful DJs and tastemakers in the country, doing a live session where we did two songs from the album and a cover of “Alive” by Empire of the Sun, then just released. We couldn’t get reliable lyrics on line, but Carice had it, but there’s a kind of chant in each verse so JB and I worked it out as “EAT MORE DEAD CATS” check out all three songs online! It went extremely well. Then JB & I drove down to Breda and I took a nap in the backstage of the Mezz, the bulbous, copper culture-thingy where I played on my tour last year and where we rehearsed with Carice last year. We had the afternoon to do a lengthy soundcheck and prepare for the first show of our short run. The way the main room of this venue is laid out is brilliant–onstage you’re looking into the eyes of the audience, everyone in the house seems to have a great sightline. Despite all the new material we’d taken on in that weekend’s rehearsals, and the fact that Carice is still learning the ropes in many ways, it was a brilliant show. Carice’s voice is pure beyond description, lines terminating in perfect vibrato. Were the reviews of Amsterdam good? Of course not–Carice is too popular to be liked by the press. I am one hundred percent certain the reviews were written before the show even started. It’s like that, folks. I haven’t seen her warrant criticism in any way. She rose to the challenge and nailed it. And the band…well, folks…that’s a hell of a band, JB, Joost, Maan and me.

GRONINGEN, 4/23

The venue a little bigger, and somehow a Tuesday night is even more of question mark than a Monday (Breda had a full house) but this was a great show too. Hmmm….too easy. Careful. Should mention that James, our lighting tech, is really, really good. Living in Holland for years now, he hails from New Zealand originally, and we had much to discuss about bands from the heyday, which I stumbled upon just out of high school via the Tuatara compilation that my summer job boss, of all people, had brought back from an Antipodean adventure. Hey, the show was great, OK? If you want to know a little more, I switch, often in the same song, and sometimes with the keys doubling up, Wakeman-style, between the following instruments: A Nord Stage that JB & I have programmed with a variety of splits and other programs to emulate the album and add texture to the covers we do; a Roland XP-60 which I use for its Mellotron sounds on several songs. A Cort 12 string acoustic. And a green Airliner guitar that I play thru a multi-distortion pedal and a Boss analog delay thru a modified Fender Blues Junior amp, controlling feedback swells in the song “Heart of Oak” with a volume pedal. And I do backing vox, including some seriously high ooooo’s in “Something Funny”. There you go. Lot’s to do.

AMSTERDAM, 4/24

The big one. On the way back from Groningen after the show, Carice suggested we add a beautiful song, “Over Our Head” by Jon Brion, a song so gorgeous and of-the-spheres musical, it woke me up from my nap in the back seat. OK, that’s a piano tune. Got up and started rehearsing and then JB suggested we transpose it up to C. Luckily I had a piano where I was staying. So even tho I needed some sleep to be fresh for the day, after getting home at 1.30, and even tho get in at the Paradiso is 2.30, I managed to fit that, and lunch, and getting ready, and organizing my notes, etc. I was on time, and in fact when I arrived my stuff was well set up by our stage tech, Pattu, so, hey, more time to listen to Jon Brion and organize myself. Soundcheck was long isn, but I was already feeling the hair stand up on my neck from nerves….this was different than the last two nights, I felt like we owned those venues…but this was a sold out Paradiso, a whole ‘nuther thing. We went out for sushi, and I was judicious with my sake, and less so with espresso. I should have erred on the side of cutting the nerves. Meanwhile, backstage, I was still working out fingerings for the Jon Brion tune, on the horrifically out of tune piano backstage. Hard to tell what key you’re in or even near on that thing.

Showtime. It wasn’t long before I regretted ever so slightly the wool pinstripe suits we’d been given to wear for the shows. I was way too sober to face this, and I was feeling the pressure and the excitement, we all were. Maybe me more so…I have more places to be in a way, with all the instrument and program jumping .There’s a jazz song on the album written by Mark Ribot, “End of the World” that’s lovely, we arranged it live, at my suggestion, as less of 1950s jazz standard than a jazz-inspired bit of Lynch-ian menace, and made it much shorter. Really good call, but challenging.

Song #2, just before the first vocal, Carice’s cable fell out of her mic and landed with an impotent lack of flair on the ground. We had to stop the tune, and to break the ice I took the risk to unplug my acoustic and re-set the strap…w/o pushing my tuner to cut the signal. Made a big pop in the PA, but it took the heat off Carice. Meanwhile, I was painfully aware all night of every eyeball in the house, all 4000 of them, and in my suit I was sweating like a leaky tap. My suit and shirt was soaked afterwards. I never really settled in and truly felt at home on the stage, I felt like I was riding the lightning the whole time, compared to the previous nights which were so relaxed and calm. I play better calm–here I was too nervous about being precise to have much fun with it, I was so stiff in my improvisations, w clunky, rude hands. And all thru the show I was thinking about that Jon Brion piano tune, which is not so complex but it hadn’t had time to sink in…I was so focused on that I didn’t even notice the audience or their applause or why we were doing two encores. The good news is that Carice’s audience should give no reason for being nervous, they are excited to see her, and very much behind her all the way. Well, we did it. Even the Jon Brion song had only one momentary stumble but I didn’t hit any bad notes, just had to simplify the rhythm at one point.

OMG. After the show…wow. I was so relieved. Carice was really happy, jumping for joy, as opposed to the previous nights she was more concerned with parts of her performance she felt needed improvement. Yes, wijntje please!

I will say that I was impressed with Carice’s audience. You know how if you go to, say, a Motorhead concert, everyone looks like Lemmy. Cure fans look like the Cure, and so on. Carice’s audience was marvelously diverse. Young, old, hip, square, and far more cosmopolitan than the average indie show. I saw a teenage girl singing along with every word. I saw a woman in Middle Eastern garb up in the first row of the balcony having a great time. They looked, much more than any audience I’ve played to here, like Holland.

The next morning I slept straight thru my alarm and woke up at 7.10, with a train at 7.59 to catch. I packed in a hurry, and opened up my iPad to use the new taxi booking app. Which would not accept my phone number in the field for love nor money, I tried typing it a thousand different ways. Shit. So…run, with my huge suitcase, guitar, backpack. Got the tram at like 7.40. 7.55 at the station. Made it. Now, once on board, I saw this train, despite what the sign on the platform said (destination: Vlissingen, my destination), this train seemed to be bound for Roosendaal. Looking online showed I was surely on the right train. So…as we approached Roosendaal, I looked for someone to ask. I was in first class, so…empty. Who rides first class on a local train? No one, apparently, but me. Finally found a young lady who spoke a little English and who said at Roosendaal I should move forward, this train was actually two trains coupled and only one was going into Zeeland.

So, I grabbed all my crap, jumped off, ran forward jumped on, dragged all my shit thru the tiny aisle to the first class compartment, and went back to work, not even noticing that we’d been sitting in the Vlissingen station for a couple minutes…oh, shit! Again, grabbed all my shit, hauled it up the aisle, and got off the train. Well, I’d worked up quite a sweat.

The rest of the days were exceedingly chill, but productive. Working with Eva Auad on her album. Just dove in on new tunes, working only on my laptop, and in fact my upgrade had killed the compatibility with my Apogee interface just like that, so in fact we didn’t do any vocals or bass, that’s for next time. But we had a lot to do with programming. I was a little worried about the sonics of such an arrangement, some of the stuff was so ghetto, from an audiophile POV–importing the occasional item from Eva’s Garageband demos…but in the end…sounded really good. We worked on 5 songs and they are really smashing. Kinda of scary that what could work, actually does–in theory, a studio is needed only for recording live drums and I programmed live-sounding drums that will do the job.

Now on my way back to Amsterdam, the sun is out, and there’s music to be made.

On a side note, last night I learned of the death of Bob Brozman, the slide/Hawaiian/blues guitar virtuoso whom I had the pleasure of interacting with at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop back in the 80s, where Jon Auer & I in many ways took another step in the direction of the Posies, after experimenting with various kinds of music in our prior bands. Bob, a wiry, fiery, hairy whip of a man— the perfect cross of Groucho Marx and Django Reinhardt, thought to be the world’s greatest busker, a world traveller and catalogue-maker of all the permutations the guitar has undergone from culture to culture, took his own life, after a car accident had shattered his body and his ability to play guitar was slowly leaving him, at age 59. Perhaps there’s more to the story. Perhaps not. Either way, he’s gone.

*****

Didn’t get this posted last week. Had a great couple of days in the studio with Staton working on two new songs, then….

AMERSFOORT, 5/3

It was only on the train platform, tho, that I realized I’d left my train ticket…and more…elsewhere…that’s a crap feeling. Nothing to do but sit on the train and panic. Got to Amersfoort and Eva Auad picked me up and drove us to the venue, a boat on a canal, lovely little spot for a few dozen people. I was still frazzled from wracking my brain as to where I could have mislaid my belongings. I changed my crusty old guitar strings, but everything was falling apart, it was like a bad dream. Then I had an inshore at Velvet Records, and I got lost trying to find it, but I got there, did it, got back to the venue, had some food, found that my stuff had been located, and then went in to play the show with a lighter heart. There were other things like this, symptoms of a busy life–like the fact I had to reset my iPhone cuz I’d changed the PIN code so Aden wouldn’t be able to hijack my phone and play Temple Run for 14 hours. She’d read my code over my shoulder. But I couldn’t remember the new one. Duh. All that’s fixed now, and as soon as I can get it so that I have my calendars unmerged, I’m golden. I have two of everything right now…uh oh. But enough about that. I was so happy to not be in a panic, and I could just watch and enjoy Eva’s set. We had just a little space with a digital piano and an amp, and then in front of that 25-30 chairs, and then some space with chest-high tables to lean on. The concerts are for like 40 people, generally. That’s what we had tonight, so they were happy, and that was with the great An Pierlé playing in town and a beautiful sunny evening as further competition. Wonderful audience, too. Music can really save the day.

THE HAGUE, 5/4

After the Amersfoort show there was all kinds of silliness and running around to get my misplaced documents. Thank god that was over, and by late afternoon I was in the Hague having tapas with Eva and Jeroen, who own Basta Music, Eva’s label. Then we played this teeny tiny theatre, with a teeny tiny audience. More than surreal. Sweet tho. Now it’s early Sunday morning and I’m on my way home, after three weeks away. Phew.

Love
KS
train to Paris

We did a lot of swimming, even tho it was often stormy. When we could see lightning, we’d exit the pool. Our continued discoveries of man-o-war on the beach discouraged us from braving the Atlantic, plus it was rough and Aden would be thrown around…in the pool she could swim, for hours. The mood of Monday’s mood was serious in light of the Boston Marathon bombings. Just grateful to be together, a little concerned at that moment if there were more actions in store, and we would be vulnerable traveling the next day.

That morning we were up early, very American breakfast at Jerry’s–Aden discovered pancakes and French toast on this trip. With some effort, we got the rental car back. Our layover in Washington was extended by a few hours due to a mechanical problem with the plane, Dom & I got inebriated and Aden was allowed to play a game with my iPhone (normally this is verboten).

We landed in Paris closer to noon than the 7am original arrival time, and there was so much for me to do–not the least of which was unpack and pack. Install software on my new laptop, do some mixing for Victory Lap from Seattle, upload some files for Bob Wilcox, and do dumb stuff like go the post office, etc. And the next morning, before 6am, I was gone.

Multitasker that I am, even the travel was useful–on the way up, as the train stopped in Rotterdam, my tech guy was on the platform to receive my new laptop so he could clean up the install of all my software, I passed it thru the door and went on. I’m in Amsterdam to rehearse with Carice van Houten, for our shows this week, learning a bunch of new stuff to round out our set.

After hours I’ve been working on the Victory Lap song I started Wednesday, adding some guitar and keys (on the new laptop which I picked up yesterday, light years ahead of my 2008 studio brain), and doing backing vocals and guitar for Minky Starshine. Plus doing the charts (writing out the chords, not doing a horoscope) for the Carice stuff we have to learn, and trying to keep up with the more challenging pieces. After hours there’s music listening and cheese tasting with my host, Pim. I might even get out for a social outing with friends, something I rarely allow myself.

Love

KS
Amsterdam

When we woke up in Munster it was snowing, 30F. We dropped Laury at the train station and Simon and I drove on to Berlin. My home base was Simon’s flat in Kreuzberg, which was freezing, since he’d been gone all week, and it was patently  frigid in Germany this week. The sun was out, it was beautiful to look at, but absolutely bone chilling. The venue, BiNuu, is built into a metro station, it’s quite a nice space, and has a fairly extensive backstage and administrative…uh, it’s probably not nice to compare anything in Berlin to a bunker, let alone saying it’s a cozy one, but there you go. It’s cheery and snug…and a kind of bunker.

I spent the afternoon with Claudia Rorarius, filmmaker, shooting photos around the neighborhood, including along the canal where we find a little water rat community, like some kind of arty floating favela. There’s a disco that segues the same four-on-the-floor beat from Thursday evening til Monday morning without pause…as we were on Sunday afternoon, it was surprising to see how coherent the people coming in and out of the club apparently were.

Showtime–in this big echoey hall in this small train station, people gathered, sat on the floor, mostly, and we had a great show. The end of the tour, whether it’s a weekend or a year, is emotional, but this was a happy occasion, loose but as always when unsure of how things will go (and we can never be sure) I gave extra effort to the occasion. For the duet I reached out to an old colleague, eSin, who I know as a bass player, but I had an inkling she could probably pull of the duet as a vocalist, and she was really good–her singing debut. The show came to a peaceful conclusion, ending with Simon’s birthday at the stroke of midnite, and we celebrated in a nearby bar.

Two and a half hours of sleep later, I was in a cab heading to Tegel, was in my front door by 8.30. This week I was working on a few different projects; overdubs on the latest album by Minky Starshine; a bit of last minute programming for Bastian Baker; and former Seattle-ite Melodie Knight came to sing, vocals for an album by Benjamin Verdoes.

On Wednesday, Dominique, Aden & I headed to Miami, a place none of us had been; I’d only passed thru the airport on my way to and from South America on a few occasions…travel took a long time, with a pretty long layover in Newark (hey, how about free, or at least functioning, wifi, EWR?) but we finally rolled into our hotel around midnite. Since then we’ve been enjoying walks on the beach, time at the pool, and the company of family and friends. Aden is easily carsick, and we’re all busy all the time, so we kept our agenda refreshingly simple and unambitious. Worked like a charm. The beach always offers up things to contemplate–the synthetic look of a Portuguese Man-o-War’s floating bladder; the precise swoop of a pelican, skimming over the head of a swimmer just offshore; corals, shells. There were lizards, colored so and nervously repositioning and with globular, black shiny eyes, as to basically be wolf spiders.

MIAMI BEACH, 4/13

It looked like this outdoor wedding was in grave peril. Aden & I fled the pool midafternoon as white strands of lightning twisted down from ominous clouds. What followed was two hours of monsoon-grade downpour. But, by the time we rolled up the Raleigh, the sun was out again, and all could proceed without incident. My half brother, Scott, married his long-time girlfriend Samantha in the back garden. My stepmom’s family came from Norway; the three black sheep came from Paris; neighbors, college buddies–it was a big old party. Scott & Sam had asked me if I’d be willing to perform a song, and of course I readily agreed, just a short little number from ‘The Wedding Singer’. I’d never seen the film, but the song was easy to play. I took it seriously–I probably rehearsed this song over a hundred times to learn the words just right. I wasn’t sure where it was to be inserted in the program but as it turns out, it was for Samantha’s walk down the aisle–woah! Pressure. After the ring bearer and flower girl came up the aisle, I, decked out in a suit that would not be out of place on late-Replacements-era Tommy Stinson, bought in South Beach for the occasion, snuck to center stage past the bridesmaids and did the tune. Timing was crucial–I wanted Sam to hear the song, but didn’t want to hold up the show, so I timed it pretty good, the last stanza she and her dad waited a bit, but not awkwardly. It was sweet. Phew! The toughest audience to play for is one comprised entirely of friends and relatives–you can’t be objective, it’s better to have a little bit of a blank slate in terms of rapport with an audience, upon which you drape your performance. But I was able to find it here, just took serious concentration, I was sure I’d fumble the words but in the end I did not.

This morning, like every morning, we’re up early, to take breakfast at an outdoor cafe, watch the dog walkers, shame walkers, speed walkers, etc. We’ll do more poolside lounging, look for a manatee to kiss. Take in the sun, our bodies, especially the girls’, starved for vitamin D after the tenacious European winter (which may not even be over–I’ve been afraid to look).

Love
KS
South Beach

Driving all day into the frozen north of Germany (every part of Germany is frozen, in this spring that never was. It’s currently -2C as we leave Münster). We got to Kiel, and were greeted by WIlly, at his club Prinz Willy–site of a very nice KS/Subterfuge show in 2007. Willy walked us over to our hostel accommodations, taking about 750 meters to walk the 250 meters to the club, wrong turn after wrong turn on foot, all the while it was absolutely frigid. Along the way a gypsy band was attacking the neighborhood, two couples, armed with a trumpet, and accordion, and tambourine and doing the most aggressive busking I’ve ever seen.

Willy was pretty doubtful we’d have a good show–saying Easter Monday is a pretty poor day to put on a choice. Yes, but….note to promoters everywhere: once you agree on booking the show, your right to complain ends there. Stay positive, and having ups and downs is part of the job. Anyway, the shows are free and we were playing for a pass of the hat. I kid you not. So, the worst he would do is not have a great bar turnover enough to pay the cost of the hostel (which had to be pretty cheap, one room, no breakfast, etc). At one point he mentioned that if we could make a break that would be nice, but we certainly didn’t have to. It was put just like that. So, I decided a different strategy, to make an announcement that time was short (we had a hard curfew at ten due to neighbor noise complaints, which probably wouldn’t matter in our show, but, you know, rules are rules). Prinz Willy is lovely, homey cafe, a great place for a KS solo show. The show was wonderful, I thought. And people were getting up to go to the bar or go out to smoke or get up and go to the toilet, or whatever. So, normally how our show works is that for the first 30 minutes, Sir Simon’s songs are played, with me accompanying on piano and guitaret and harmony vocals, then it just switches and I am playing my songs, with Simon and Laury mostly hanging out on stage or nearby and occasionally playing guitar & bass for me. There’s no break, and most of the shows had 90 minutes scheduled for the whole shebang, which is like half of a normal KS headlining set. So, we were doing this gapless transition between the two sets and making one long set. I told the audience I was doing just that, and to please act naturally, go to the bar when they want etc. Before the show the bartender was discouraging us from eating dinner (which was to be provided as per our deal) but I insisted as I was starving. A hot baguette with vegetables and cheese was served, delicious. But the other guys said they were fine with eating after the show.

Show was played, hat was passed and we ended up with quite a bit of cash. Now, it was a Monday night, so I should say here that nobody in the audience was in the mood to get plowed. I think if we’d made a break the bar take would be exactly the same. But evidently, Willy & co really gave Simon & Laury a hard time about not making a definitive break, and in the end they didn’t even get their sandwiches! Well, all have to compromise, but the thing is it was presented as a ‘no big deal’ option before the show, and then a matter of life & death after the show. Me, I just don’t get it.

WIESBADEN, 4/2

Well, on to the good vibes. Absolutely gorgeous old belle époque theatre, huge chandelier whose cable and moorings emanated from a cosmic explosion in gold and white, set in a blue sky trompe l’oeil. Definitely the best acoustics of the tour, and cozy with tables and chairs and again a piano–oddly enough, the brand on the piano was “Gebr. Schwarz’ or something to that effect but on the back there was a plaque proclaiming it a Farfisa made in Italy. I can’t say we had scores of people in there on a Tuesday night but we had a nice gathering of folks and the room was just wonderful to perform in. So, I played a long, long set. The people running the place were lovely and there was a fine hotel so sleep in w/in walking distance. Perfection!

STUTTGART, 4/3

Totally weird and wonderful show. We were playing in the basement bar of the Schocken, where the Posies had put on a monster afterparty in 2005 when we played upstairs. The place filled up, with a lot of really young people but also a handful of much older fellas. So, you had one side of the club with guys in their 50s & 60s, and then the other side a bunch of kids who were like 22, and then like, empty space in between; the space in front of the stage. The kids were so shy, that they retreated when I jumped down to sing in the audience. There were also a bunch of folks more my age or in the middle of all that who were in front of the stage…anyway, I had my back to someone at some point all the time. Then, these three guys came in, who sort of looked like a well groomed version of a gang…they were really out of place and they knew it, but were polite enough to stick it out, and listen to what I was doing, which I thought was sweet. And when I called out for requests, someone called out for “Too True” one of the darkest of all KS solo songs. I really put that audience thru a workout. Just a strange vibe all around but we all remarked how fun it was. I didn’t have a duet partner that night so I actually convinced the girl doing the door to do it, she was mortified but she did it, having never heard the song, we just did a run thru before the show. She ended up really enjoying it and wanted to have a chance to do it again for real next time I was in time.

HAMBURG, 4/4

Now, here was a classy joint. The Nachtasyl is the bar in the upper decks of the Thalia Theatre, right in the heart of Hamburg. A gorgeous mix of 50s Scandinavian clean lines and an almost deco look, with the blue of a classical atlas ocean and dark wood. The ceiling has dozens of hanging bulbs, and the disco ball is lit in such a way that it projects a crescent moon  as its shadow. low benches and wooden coffee tables are arranged to taste, and again we had a real piano. And the staff here are just incredible. I got to town, and ran out to buy a Thunderbolt-ethernet adapter at the Apple Store, which is always such a big project. The sheer amount of customers in an Apple Store is always frightening, and the non-linearity of the shopping experience is freaky–I just want to give someone some money and leave. I had to pee, and so on the way I went into a cafe and bought a coffee only to find they had no restrooms due to remodeling. So, the fact I needed to get the the Apple errand in order to pee also added to the urgency of the matter. But it all worked out, I actually found out that if you go way in the back of an Apple Store there is a cashier, it’s not all just waving iPhones like magic money sucking wands.

Got back to the theatre, and at some point after soundcheck, they did something fun: Backstage, leftover from some production, was a massive, 2m high “N” made with carousel lights. It looked ancient but was actually a prop made with ‘distressed’ traits like peeled and cracked paint. They wheeled that out and put it next to the stage, then cut out a small “K” and “E” and tucked that into the space between bars of the “N” and lit that with a red circle of light. Awesome.

This show just went on and on…I was having such a great time. My duet partner, Mimi Schell, was really good, too–she dressed the part, did a little acting. She has an EP out, “Bring Everyone You Know” that’s very good. Just a warm feeling all around that night.

GöTTINGEN, 4/5

Well, I hadn’t been here since Lagwagon’s show in 1997, which ended in wrecked hotel rooms, a short stay in a German jail for me, and an unspecified number of hospitalizations. Not my brightest moment, shall we say (tho I acted in self defense and I will end the story there!). The good news is that Göttingen is a student town, and none of the people that were part of the fracas in 1997 are likely to live there still. It certainly wasn’t an issue today. Probably the tiniest stage in the tiniest basement bar you could imagine. There are seats made by attaching cushions to beer crates, so there was room for a few people to sit, and then people standing were consigned to the back or to the stairs. Awkward. But fun. Right after the show, I was at the mercy table for just a few seconds when a girl coming down from the upper floor lounge in boots fell forward from about 4-5 steps up and went face down at the foot of the stairs. It looked horrible, EMTs came, in the end she was OK with a couple of stitches in her chin. Seems Göttingen shows can’t end peacefully no matter what. Our responsible, Helena, was also my duet partner. Much fun was had with her ironic band name, Daughters of Doom, who utilize ukelele, glockenspiel and other non-gloomy forms of instrumentation. After the show we were all out for some bad wine somewhere, and discovered that the Uni here in Göttingen has an exchange program with none other than WWU in Bellingham, met a girl who had just lived there for a semester. Woah!

MüNSTER, 4/6

This was freakishly hilarious. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love owls, and the club today is called Eule, or ‘owl’ in German. Well, this led to an endless stream of jokes…the set list: “Owl by Myself” “Owl Owl-long the Watcht-Owl-er”, “Bridge Over Troub-Owl-ed Water” usw. I was PeliKen Stringfellowl. I said making the national bird of the USA sick was ill-eagle. Yep. There were as many surreal avian riffs as there were songs. The venue is a basement student bar, rickety wooden floor and black painted walls with hand drawn white cartoons of animals; the main floor has wallpaper collage of various figures with cat heads. There’s a mural size technicolor photo of a lake in Canada where you can pick out a couple of cat-headed owls…it’s all too much fun. The show was like that. And I didn’t even do 4am Birds…it was too obvious!!

We were sent to Vapiano for dinner, which was basically like being in the place that will later be “Papa Songs” in Cloud Atlas. You get an RFID card when you enter, you wait in lines and your food is prepared in front of you, card swiped, you take your tray back to your table, etc. All jolly good if efficiency was even what I remotely wanted from my Italian restaurant experience. They will be making clones and recycling them into protein shakes in like ten years.

Almost done with the tour, it’s been superb…300km to Berlin!

Love

KS

autobahn

Not only will I be doing shows with Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub and Jad Fair of Half Japanese (expect the world live debut of our 2010 collaboration ’36 Perfect Ways/I Ching of Love’) but I have the incredible honor to be backed by Shonen Knife for my Osaka show!

Here’s all the details

5/10 (Fri) TOKYO Shibuya O-nest

http://shibuya-o.com/nest/2013/05

w/ Jad Fair(Half Japanese), Norman Blake(Teenage Fanclub), Hotshots

open 7:00pm start 19:30pm

3,800yen (adv), 4,300yen (door) plus drink fee

5/11 (Sat) TOKYO Shibuya Last Waltz

http://lastwaltz.info/

w/ Masahiro Naoe(Carnation) ,Skirt, Satoko Shibata

open 6:30pm start 19:00pm

4,000yen (adv), 4,500yen (door) plus drink fee

5/12 (Sun) TOKYO Ogikubo Doctor

http://3rushmusic.com/ogikubo_club_doctor.html

w/ Rockbottom, Beat Caravan

open 6:30pm start 19:00pm

3,000yen (adv), 3,500yen (door) plus drink fee

5/14 (Tue) TOKYO Shimokitazawa Poor Cow

http://poorcow.net/article/101438272.html

open 7:00pm start 8:00pm

w/ HEY Takahashi

2,000yen (door)

5/15 (Wed) TOKYO Shimokitazawa Three

http://www.toos.co.jp/3/

w/ ,ayU tokiO, Å

DJ & Organizer :Succhiri(YIW / Rhyming Slang), Sumire (Twee Grrrls Club)

Guest DJ: ＊ysk_Antoine_GoBoy＊,Mexico

open / start 7:00pm

2,500yen (door) plus drink fee

http://theebootparty.tumblr.com

5/16 (Thu) NAGOYA Tokuzo

http://www.tokuzo.com/

w/ Jad Fair (Half Japanese), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), Tenniscoats

open 6:00pm start 7:00pm

3,500yen (adv), 4,000yen (door) plus drink fee

5/17 (Fri) OSAKA Namba Mele

http://namba-mele.com/

w/ Shonen Knife, Rockbottom, Boys Order

DJ: Yurumacho Sensei

open 6:30pm start 19:00pm

3,000yen (adv), 3,500yen (door) plus drink fee

5/18 (Sat) Sally’s Guitar, Seoul SOUTH KOREA

this will be a FREE show at 10pm. Details at the Facebook event link below.

http://www.facebook.com/events/153143318187107/

BELLINGHAM, 1/30
Spent the day doing family things, had an early dinner at the Fork, the fine dining restaurant that’s out on the lakeside drive on the way to my parents’ house. Met up with the Maldives fresh off their 16 hour drive from Fresno. New space to me, the Shakedown. I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t the former AeroMarine Ice Cream shop where the Genetic Defects played c.1984.
Sarah Goodin was my singing partner and the opening act tonite, she is stunning. What a voice. The Maldives have a strong following here and kicked ass. My parents came in during their last song, my stepdad, 87, clutching his ears even after putting earplugs in. In fact, they left a couple songs into my set, since I started out with the Maldives backing, it was too much for ‘em! Great show tho. Attendees included: Chip Westerfield, with whom I formed my first band in 1980!! that Jon Auer later joined. Chip is recording engineer and recently mixed the Jackson 5 outtakes box, since Motown producer Deke Richards (RIP) moved to Bellingham and was looking for a good man–Chip hit the jackpot there, more power to him! And Cathy Diaz, who was my choir teacher in 7th and 8th grade–my first singing instructor! She’s still teaching, 30 years later. Wow. It’s mind-blowing to see all these folks. Deanna Vitt, who was my girlfriend in my last year of high school and first year of college. Killer show, and I drove the Subaru, now loaded up with all the merch that we weren’t going to take to Canada, back to my folks’ house on the lake.
VANCOUVER, 1/31
Met the Maldives at the Co-op, and then we went to Canada, and had a pretty smooth border crossing. We could have brought all the merch! Haha. And in fact, I sold all the vinyl I brought that night, and could have sold more. The Biltmore Cabaret is managed by Posies drummer Darius, and he took great care of us. We had a great sushi dinner, almost all the Maldives and Darius and his gal Danielle (I’d just seen D & D in Mexico). Capital 6 opened and had this wicked sound with this ominous organ. Nice crowd. Maldives were received in such a way that guarantees their return. And our show was ass kicking too. My duet partner Colleen Rennison is known for her singing and her acting, she’s done tons of big movies going back to when she was a kid. She was just awesome . I can’t remember all the twists and turns my show took but it was a huge show, powerful and supported by a great audience with a lot of friends. And Darius kept the hospitality going–I think he and I finally stumbled out of there at 6.
SEATTLE, 2/1
I felt not too terrible, Darius sent me on the road with some Emergen-C and we met the Maldives at the club, loaded  up the van and hit the road. As is normal, we essentially received a lecture coming back to the states for not doing something which is explicitly not required by law nor indicated anywhere in any literature to be necessary, having to do with registering our equipment on the way out. To prevent us from coming back with gear we bought in Canada–which is absurd, since everything in Canada is generally 10-15% more expensive due to economies of scale. But we were admitted, popped by my mom’s office to pick up the merch from the back of the Subaru, and I popped up say bye to my mom, and was introduced to one of the most genius programmers who works for her company, who is a metalhead guitar player, he was really excited to meet me–he’s super hyper and covered from head to toe in gang tattoos–he was an L.A. gang member who got out of it, graduated top of his class in computer science and is working for the company my mom is employee #2 at. My mom, by the way, is almost 72, and runs a company. Let’s give the applause now!
We got back to Seattle and did our soundcheck at the Tractor, which was followed by dinner with Brian and Ian Moore up the street.
I’ll have trouble describing the Seattle shows. I am going to sum it up as best I can. With 300+ in the house Friday, and sold out on Saturday, even tho we can credit the Maldives with a lot of the heavy lifting there, I would say that these were a triumphant pair of hometown shows, certainly the best solo shows I’ve ever had in Seattle. The company, social and musical, of the Maldives was simply joyous. We had fun, and there was definitely a feeling of teamwork in the enterprise at all times. So warm, and so musically sound. In fact, I can’t say I’ve enjoyed a tour more than those ten days with the Maldives. Our payoff were these shows–packed houses, with people ready to devour both bands, and a super manic high energy each night. I listened to an audience recording of the Friday show and it’s so over the top. We had the band, myself, Matt and Mike from Curtains for You (who I got up and sang with, impromptu) and the first-time-ever live re-creation of the duet between myself and Charity Rose Thielen which was was done on the floor in the midst of the audience, very intense. The shows were tequila-fueled, exuberant. I did most of the set with the Maldives and a few songs on my own.
SEATTLE, 2/2
Just as brilliant. I played before the Maldives, and did a set 100% full band. Note I also had both nites Barbara Hunter Antonio on cello, and the Curtains for You guys. Tonite’s duet was Star Anna, who is always intense. We closed with Maldives + Ken (Jason from Maldives would join and so would Katie the merch seller) showstopping performance of Neil Young’s “Bite the Bullet”…in fact, this tour became the ‘Bite the Bullet’ tour and Faustine, Jason, Katie and Jesse all got tattoos of a bullet in honor of the tour…! After the show there was tequila consumed at the Maldives house, it’s blurry but certain it was fun.
During the day I did a video live session at Seattle’s Crackle & Pop studios, then did an instore at Seattle’s greatest record store, Easy Street. About 2 minutes into my performance, tho, my amp blew up, catastrophically. In fact, for the next 2 weeks something broke every day. So, I finished the instore with Mark Pickerel’s acoustic guitar, and we rushed the amp over to Jeff Stone. Meanwhile, I was still using my big amp for the Maldives show; this was my small Deluxe Reverb. Jeff, bless him, worked on it all night, and delivered it to the Maldives house at about 3am while we were still partying.
WALLA WALLA, 2/3
Super Bowl Sunday. Originally I was booked to play in Spokane, but the club went tits up and I immediately reached out to my contacts in Walla Walla and despite the fact that most people would be home, too drunk to drive, watching the game, we all went for it so kudos to Alisa Gilbert who is now the leading cultural leader in town, and Spencer from El Corazon winery. They took great care of me and we had a great show. Today was day one of my rental car, solo-across-North-America odyssey, getting to know the Chevy Equinox. It wasn’t long before I perfected the pack and got load in and load out down to a science.
The next day I drove to Boise and spent the afternoon and evening, and even some of the next day, working on the record by Seattle’s Nouveau Riche, both in a studio in town and on my laptop at my accommodations.
BOISE, 2/5
As I set up at Radio Boise, I was astonished to find that the power cable for my amp was severed. No Michael, the singer for Nouveau Riche, who was along for the ride, is also an expert handyman so he ran to the nearest electrical supply store, and made a new plug. Unf, now my cable is only like one foot long! But it works, and I thank him for that. The show in Boise itself was fun, weird, and I was feeling a little ragged. Ashley the bartender was bringing me tea every 5 minutes. But I sang well and entertained.
SALT LAKE CITY, 2/6
And woke up with no voice. I couldn’t even talk! Uh oh. I started the drive to Salt Lake, and was going thru the strangest fog I’d seen–I called it ‘Glog’ as it was fog that still permitted the full glare of the sun to penetrate–so you had blinding white all around you on the highway, not fun. Got to Salt Lake and went to an urgent care clinic. The doctor who saw me asked straight away, ‘was there a lot of fog in Boise?’. I told him about the Glog. He said, that’s not fog, it’s pollution–courtesy of the inversion effect. Boise rests in a bowl surrounded by mountains, and the air blowing in off the mountains pushes the air in the bowl downward, meaning, it never escapes. Meaning, the pollution of the city is trapped there and concentrates over time. SLC has the same problem–he said that a pollution index of 50 means they send warnings out to elderly, people with respiratory problems, etc–and he said this week it was at 90. Now, I’d had this same reaction to pollution in another city that suffers from the inversion, Santiago de Chile. In Santiago the doctor gave me a cortisone shot but US doctors are much more hesitant to that, in fact, this doctor told me flat out he wouldn’t do that. Just hydrate, and decide if maybe canceling a show is worth it in the bigger picture. No way! He didn’t charge me of course, and I hoped he was right, that I would be fine in a day or two. Meanwhile, I went to the hotel and slept all evening, headed down to the show, and squeaked out a whisper of a show. I even sang off the mic, just so quiet you could barely hear. It made the show very intense, very beautiful and very unique.
ENGLEWOOD, 2/7
Pretty long drive. Moe’s is where we had dinner when the Posies played the Gothic Theatre in 2010, same owners. Now Moe’s has a stage on one end of its very long room, and a bowling alley next door. I was so happy to have some barbecue. I could kind of sing today. The reverb on my amp stopped working, tho. Kinda sad. Tammy from Dressy Bessy was my duet partner, she and her husband John Fuzz (who plays with Apples in Stereo) were also my hosts for the night. Fun and vibrant characters, with a house that serves as a pop culture museum, studio, and HQ of vintage sparkles, she was great to sing with. I spent the night feeling the icy fingers of winter trying to creep in the house and grab me, as I tried to wrap myself around the space heater…it was cold out there! Occasionally the dog checked in on me and gave me a gummed up chew toy, placing it on my face so I would be sure to find it, so I would feel better.
DES MOINES, 2/8
This was the most intense drive on a show day of the tour. With my health already in question, and the fact that I didn’t even get offstage til something like 1am, I sms’d the promoter to say that I would skip soundcheck and be there by showtime. ten hours + a one hour time change. I was living off the supply of power bars that I’d picked up in Boise. At some point when I pulled into a rest stop, my car bottomed out and dislodged a piece of plastic that occasionally flipped down and scraped the roadway when I was going slowly, or taking a curve. With the icy roads in the midwest, it was bottoming out constantly. Made for quite a scene when I pulled into town. Unloading in that ice covered back patio that led to the stage door, I was grateful for the help I received from the opening acts. The first act on, Jordan Mayland, god damn, he was good. I set up for my show, and thought my problems were solved when one of the guys had a reverb pedal I could attach to my amp, but I set up my amp it was basically no longer working, but there was an amp I could use. The bar was also noisy, Friday night with lots of regulars including the guy that was clearly the town drug dealer. I went to everyone at the front bar and said I was about to play and to please be a little quiet so the folks who wanted to hear could do so. Of course, there’s always drunk dudes who take everything as an aggression and get all in my face. So, anyway, I just went to the stage, announced the start of the show, and walked all the way to the bar, hopped up on it, sitting, and played from there. Totally weird vibe. Most folks kinda came to, the people actually into the show (which to be fair was most people) were loving it, and then there were some people so drunk they actually didn’t even notice. Like from a cartoon, guy at a table all perplexed, head bobbing in that liquid, motor-control-going-soon kind of way. At one point, a girl sitting alone at a table burst into tears, sobbing, and put her head in her crossed arms, face down on the table. Nothing to do with me, but it was like 2 feet away.

CHICAGO, 2/9
For starters, my dad’s 72nd birthday. Gave him a call. my half bros & sis were to gather at the house today, but the big east coast storm shut down all modes of transportation, which worked out in one sense in that everyone came the next weekend, which is when I was in town. And my dad is not really one to give a hoot about birthdays, he loves having everyone together, so he was cool. Meanwhile, I had a session to do. In Rock Island, Illinois, I stopped by the Daytrotter Sessions studio, and recorded this live session. While that was happening, someone from the studio took my amp over to an electronic repair shop so when the session was done I could pretty much go straight over and pick it up. Then, went to get lunch, my GPS took me to the wrong place, obviously the ‘hood, but the Khmer hood, me trying to be all discreet but my dangling plastic bit going SCRRUUUUUNCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHH the entire time I’m trying to turn around.
Got to Chicago, and set up. Good hang in Chicago, Beth and Ed, my annual visitors in Ile de Re, came, and managed to sneak in their son, Soren. My sustain pedal decided not to work in the middle of the show but switched out with the spare I bring and it was fine. Schuba’s is a great venue for what I do…proved to be so here. My show was early and as tempting as it was to listen to Retribution Gospel Choir I decided to beat it to my accom’s, my friend Vince’s place, grabbing a bottle of wine on the way, and got a decent night’s sleep to boot.
CINCINNATI, 2/10
This was a free show, and with free you get egg roll. I mean, you get some jerk with a laugh like a braying horse guffawing thru one of my quietest songs, even after I left the stage and was like…come on…you’re that unaware? Or just that rude? The openers Young Heirlooms were wonderful, and I enjoyed this night. Yes, they actually make their own heirlooms to sell at the merch table. There was a trio of folks in their 60s (at least) looking all beardy and down home, and they LOVED the show. Lotta cool people here, and I was taken in by Steve, who took me out, after we parked at his mom’s place way out in the nice suburbs, to his funky local bar, we got hammered, I got some sleep. Now, Steve lives in South Korea and is helping me put together my first ever show there in May.
INDIANAPOLIS, 2/11
Cool upstairs room and Laura K Balke, my opener and duet partner, was just phenomenal. A gorgeous voice, and one of the most ingenious artworks to accompany a CD (and there was a large format version for the LP, sold out)–she shaped the lyrics into artworks, i.e., the song about a bicycle has a page in the (hand bound) book that surrounds the CD where the words are laid out in the shape of a bicycle. There are more abstract ones than that…you have to see it to get the full effect. A lot of care and ingenuity went into her album, I highly recommend it I was taken in by a lovely couple who have a brand new house out in the burbs…gotta love that. Remember, I have to safely park a car full of gear that I really don’t want to load in and out of where I’m staying.

CLEVELAND, 2/12
When I got to the gig, I found that my keyboard stand had fallen apart. I don’t know if this thing was even mine, or if it was how long I’d had it, but I didn’t like it, anyway. I used one from the club that night and bought one, the kind with a trigger that I’d wanted all along,  at Guitar Center the next morning. This show was really, really good. I played for almost three hours. Just working the room. Dolfish who opened for me has some really great songs, incl a new one he played where he expresses sympathy for the trials of his love at her workplace, brilliant lyrics. I stayed with friends at their big house with lots of dogs and car parts, again had some nice wine, and got some decent rest.
PITTSBURGH, 2/13
When I rolled into town, it was really starting to snow. There was horrible traffic everywhere, and ramps and bridges closed for construction, so getting to the club was hard but I made it. When I went across the street for a coffee after soundcheck, the barista was listening to Big Star. “Uh, did you know I played in this band, and I’m playing across the street tonight?!”. “No, you don’t”. “No, really, I did! Look it up”.
Tonite I had two great musicians, Megan Williams on violin and Emily Rogers (who sang with the Posies in 2010 when we came to town) on vocals, which made for a multi dimensional show. This one was really good, too. Lasted a long time.
There were these two brothers, clearly the super smart and cool nerdy types, who were there, one of them took me in. He’s an app developer. Good guy to know! They had all kinds of supergeek questions about the Posies etc, it was fun.
BALTIMORE, 2/14
Cool show in this art gallery in the theatre district. Decent tapas across the street and a great crowd on Valentine’s day. My host Greg & his missus, he a photographer for the local papers and does his own thing of course. They have a wicked house, looks very much like a great Los Feliz kind of L.A. style design, slightly retro. Greg makes a MEAN cocktail, with rye, rye is coming back into fashion and rightly so, it’s spicy and rich and much more interesting than, say, bourbon. Haha, I also attacked his leftovers the next day before hitting the road, and he made the ultimate oatmeal breakfast, too.
BROOKLYN, 2/15
Now, I’d been concerned about the New York area shows, as my agent said–if we fuck up here, we won’t get asked back. I made sure that a lot of media dropped that weekend. Brooklyn Vegan premiered my video for “Doesn’t It Remind You of Something” today, and the Daytrotter Session went online. REM tweeted and FB’d the video (when their Facebook post went online, we sold 70 CDs via my website in 15 minutes). Ted Leo bought my album as a download! That’s a New York welcome like none other. So, in the end…the shows were absolutely brilliant. My best NY shows solo, and among my best shows in the region ever, very much like the Seattle shows. Union Pool is a wonderful little jewel box theatre and I had it packed. A lot of friends in the house. Louis, whom we met when the Posies and Polyphonic Spree played together in 2005, brought the solo version of his band Sky White Tiger to open, playing a laptop, keyboards, and wearing all white so that he became the screen for his video projections. Has to be seen to be understood. Phenomenal.
Bird of Youth are a great band as well, perfect for the evening. A little punky, guitar driven. I made the singer, Beth, do an impromptu version of “Thirteen” with me and she’s been hating me ever since! And I did the duet with Bridget St. John, and then in a very intense, could have been awkward but wasn’t, turn, I sang her song “Ask Me No Questions”, to her, more or less. Full on, fun, intense night. After the show I hightailed it to my dad’s place. NY has the A-for effort awards in terms of people coming from the furthest distance to see my shows, one Jonathan Taylor and his missus came from England to be at this one.
NEW YORK, 2/16
Hung out at my dad’s that day, then headed into the city and actually found metered parking for like 2 dollars for the duration of my show on the block, as long as I left by midnite for the street cleaning. This show was also phenomenal, read a nice review of it here, had that Mercury Lounge right there with me, as I was down in the crowd (and we had a full house), delivering. I was the early show and thus I had about an hour to play. Darling Cait was my duet partner, and she was wonderful. Chris Mills opened, he’s absolutely smashing. We also had dinner at Katz’ Deli before the show–me, my friend Tony, Cait, a bunch of pals, Linda Pitmon. 8 people at a four top. Again, after the show, I shot back up to New Canaan.

Kind of a tragic A for effort here in that an entire family, Mom, Dad, kids, and friend of one of the kids came from Buenos Aires, to see New York but had planned to see my show as a bonus, but the kids were 18 & 20. No budging. We tried. The law’s the law.
SOMERVILLE, 2/17
Got to spend most of Sunday afternoon at my dad’s place, then headed up to Boston. Nightmare parking situation, plus many possible spots were filled in my snow, but I finally got my rig squared away about 12 blocks from the gig. Another great show, quite a good crowd too, we went into points in fact. I sang with opener Corin Ashley, his album “New Lion Terrace” is absolutely stunning. I sing vocals on one song (the song we did tonite, “Badfinger Bridge”) which was recorded at Abbey Road’s Studio 2. He had none other than Dave Mattacks playing percussion with him, wow. Well, it was a great show tonite. Again, many friends in the house. I stayed with Richie Parsons and his family, I think it was like 9 F when I pulled up to his place.
MONTREAL, 2/18
Had to be on the road early for this one. Border was pretty calm. My first stop was a radio session where I ended up being taken by the GPS to the wrong end of town but I made it, and then to the show. A very intense show.
TORONTO, 2/19
Got a parking ticket and a moving violation (illegal left turn), my only tickets of the tour. Ow, tho. And then, got on the road to Toronto, and we got hit by a pretty intense snow storm. My rental car has a kind of traction control, it does a little shimmy when it loses its footing, and rights itself, not 100% taking over the wheel but augmenting driving with moves that would be too quick and precise to do by hand. Well, at a certain point this was happening non stop, the shimmy, meaning that we were in constant danger of skidding on the slush. So, there were bound to be accidents, and at one point, the traffic just stopped. For three hours. I didn’t have enough gas to run the car the whole time, but I was bundled up, and read the NY Times, and got to the show in time to play. I was thrilled to have Kevin Kane opening, great to see him again. In fact, the only Canadian solo show I had before this, in 2002, was with Kevin in Vancouver. I moved the furniture and put some benches on stage, and got people to sit there. Now, the revelation of the tour: Carleigh Aikins. Not only was she a great duet partner, but I had an inkling about her, and got her to send me her demos. Fuckin A! Among the 50+ songs she sent me is the basis of an amazing album. There’s something very Fleet Foxes about it, with the hipster Appalachain vibe. There’s something very spiritual about it. There’s something very otherworldly, Cocteau-Twins about it. I don’t know what the project will be called but she’s got something, something you don’t see every day. In fact, in all the years people have been handing me demos, this is the single most exciting thing I’ve come across.I don’t have a link to share but look for more news on this soon.
WATERLOO, 2.20
Good show. Single most amusing thing was the girl that appeared to be with the older guy who was a real Posies etc. fan, and this woman kept conversing with me mid show. And then walked up and adjusted my wardrobe, and then gave the opening band (Internatinal Zombies of Love) a kind of small box that would normally hold a small bottle of some kind of make up, but in this case had a bunch of weed and cocaine. Yikes! They wanted to frame it, it was so ridiculous.
LONDON, 2/21
This was one of the main sleepers of the tour, just a fabulous audience and a great show. Biggest merch night of the tour, doing the math every person there bought something like 1.5 items on average. Lovely dusty old place that the Posies played back in the 90s. My duet partner and support, Samantha Hooey was also brilliant, I’ve since come into possession of her upcoming album, it’s wonderful.

HAMILTON, 2/22
This was more like being in the wilderness. The deepest snow, the sparsest crowd. A lot of pretty hardcore regulars. Really felt like we were playing in the Yukon. But, the guys from the opening band, Lo Heels, whose former band opened for the Posies in Winnipeg back in the 90s, were great and they learned “Jesus Was an Only Child” and “Drop Your Pride” which made for a rather smashing finale.
ALBANY, 2/23
Back in the USA, it’s such an interesting bit of terrain around Niagra Falls. Border was friendly, I changed all my Canadian money at the crossing point Bureau de Change, and drove to Albany, stopping at Indian Falls for lunch with a view of the canoe-crushing rapids. Valentine’s is a fine little bar, and I enjoyed the show tonite very much.
PHILADELPHIA, 2/24
Certainly the tallest stage of the tour, my word! Got to meet up with the former bandmates of Tristan Egolf, who still have the same band, with a new singer. The band, Doomed to Obscurity, is super punk. Got to hear a few good stories about Tristan. My competition tonite was the Oscars, which held about as much interest for me as getting my measles shot up to date, but it clearly, mixed with snow, kept people off the streets. Philly is that mystery city where it seems to never get the memo that New York got…it’s always been a tricky market.
RICHMOND, 2/25
Richmond, however, on a Monday night, was amazing. I hadn’t been here since the Posies supported Redd Kross in our very first US tour, 1990. The town has been enjoying a major arts renaissance since, and is blossoming big time. The venue, Gallery 5, I played, is one of the oldest fire/police stations in the US. The remnants of the tiny jail are still visible in the green room, and the hose drying chute doubled as a gallows. Absolutely delightful show, great crowd. I dined at “Comfort” which serves food that the name implies, I had meatloaf and it was truly wondrous. All the musicians on board tonite were stellar.Had a great afterparty with Gregg from Horsehead, playing Loverboy records and goofing around.
CHAPEL HILL, 2/26
As I traveled further south, it really felt like getting back to civilization, out of the snow, into the land of smiles. I joined openers Spooky Woods, which had Big Star ‘Third” alums Skylar Gudasz and Jeff Crawford, for a song on guitar, and then did my set, really good night all around.
ASHEVILLE, 2/27
Never been here before. The land of beer and stink bugs. Yes, stink bugs. The town is undergoing an invasion of the ostensibly harmless creatures, but they do stink when mishandled. And they do get everywhere, crawling slowly in their search for plant juice. They do occasionally bite people, not in aggression, but just not being able to tell the difference between succulent stalk and succulent limb. With some of the people I know, not being able to tell the difference between a human and a cabbage is a common problem. Tonite’s highlight was a grand piano, however rickety, it added a lot.
BIRMINGHAM, 2/28
You know you’ll be well taken care of at the Bottle Tree. We’ve known Brian Teasley, the owner, since he was drumming for Shannonwright when she toured with the Posies in 2000. Now he has this fantastic cafe/venue, famous for its vintage Airstream trailers that serve as backstage and accommodations. I was very happy to spend the night there, drinking boxed wine and enjoying functioning wifi at will. And the show was great, too…the stage was high and this time I put the piano on the floor, no mics were used, marvelous. Gotta give a shout out to Ana Walters, who was my last minute, and excellent, duet partner.
ATLANTA, 3/1
People love the Star Bar, and I did too. I will say when I pulled up to drop my gear off that I thought the “Wars” had somehow been left off the name in the itinerary. Spiderweb neck tattoos, the whole deal. It filled up with civilians tho, and we had a really fine show. I got both Ruthie and Linda from Magnapop out, and Linda joined me for the duet. Linda also has a very cute house with a tidy little guest room. Got to sleep in there. Ahh.

NASHVILLE, 3/2
Even tho I know the owner, Bruce, and have played across the street at Exit/In many times, somehow I’d never noticed The End. It’s tucked away, a tiny little cabin there on that short strip. You wouldn’t believe who’s played there–White Stripes, Cat Power, you name it. Luckily, Bruce has made a gallery of posters on the wall, as without proof, you’d scoff. Amy Stroup, my duet partner, is probably the most professional of them all…she’s a Nashville singer/songwriter, right? So she has to be top notch. She and my friends had a previously-unknown to me Nashville specialty, hot chicken. It’s fried chicken, but with considerable spice wallop packed in. There is no ‘mild’ but it ranges from hot to the highest, “Shut the Cluck Up”. I took ‘spicy’ and it was like being kicked in the lip by a Tabasco-covered boot. Delicious!
Great show, a looooong one. I was down in the crowd when I went to look back at the stage and saw a little tiny winter cockroach going about its business. Awwwww.
LITTLE ROCK, 3/3
I don’t know what happened to my audience after my triumphant 2010 solo show here, which was on a Monday night no less, but I played tonite to 6 people and their dog. My duet parter, Annalisa, however, was wonderful, and I even got her to improvise a couple numbers with me, she’s got a real gift. The chicken, I might add, was superb.
And there it was — 27 shows in 27 days. In the morning I was up early, having stayed at Bryan from the Alpha Ray‘s house, to check in my rental car at the airport, as it had been out for 30 days, and then hit the road to New Orleans. I have been staying with my friend Heidi and her boyfriend Steve on several occasions, they have a super safe, security-parking, home in Metairie. Having a crime-free spot with a car full of gear in New Orleans is a godsend. And a guest room! And they agreed to drive to dinner so I could drink without worry. And the bottle we ordered at Serendipity was a monster, Bricco Babelico petite syrah,  which boasts 17.14% alcohol…didn’t think that was possible in a non-fortified wine. It is.
NEW ORLEANS, 3/5
Naturally you can’t open up your stomach with a New Orleans meal like that and leave it hanging so we lunched at Drago’s, famous for charbroiled oysters. I spent the day rehearsing for my upcoming performance with Michael Des Barres at SXSW, and then headed to the venue that evening. After soundcheck I went back to Metairie for more rehearsing, really needed that–had precious little time not in motion that I could learn the various songs I needed to learn for people. But, I missed Julie Odell opening for me, and when people told me how good she was I insisted, after the show, that she play two more songs for me on my guitar, and after humming and hawing with modesty, sang for me….mind-blowing. The breadth and depth of her songs and subject matter, just riveting. Meanwhile, Colleen, who had sang with me in Vancouver, was in town. She and her boyfriend were on a motorcycle journey around Texas and neighboring states, and timed themselves to be in New Orleans (they did miss dinner the night before tho). My half brother, Scott, was also in town. It was a cool mix of people, and another 2.5 hour epic show.
HOUSTON, 3/6
What was interesting to find out was how each civic planner in each of Texas’ major cities that I visited on this trip each came up with a different way to royally fuck up traffic in their cities for years to come. Houston relies on that old solution: square the circle. That Houston’s sprawl extends for hundreds of miles puts an unbearable strain on this geometry. But I made it. The folks running Fitzgerald’s couldn’t be nicer; I don’t have any solo touring history here, so I can’t see we got a big crowd tonite, and at times the show was in danger of being drowned out by the open mic night upstairs–no, grannies, open mic nights are not for Dan Fogelberg wannabes anymore. Open mic 2013 = hip hop. LOUD beats, huge bass…it was comical, and it did end eventually, and my show continued on.
AUSTIN, 3/7
Get outta Dodge. Get thru the sprawl. Crawl into Austin. The genius who planned Austin’s traffic assumed that a city of nearly 1,000,000 could easily be served by ONE road in and ONE road out. When that proved to be a farce, they just built a copy of that road on top of the old one, so now you have two traffic jams on top of each other. It took a long time to get in to town, but finally I pulled up to the venue…already Austin was a-tremble with SXSW-oriented clusterfuck deluxe. Covered meters all around the venue, reserved for SXSW….but the actual no parking restriction didn’t begin til 2am. Everyone else was afraid to park at a covered meter, but I can read fine print, thank you. Line around the block at the club–a band called Starfucker was playing the big outdoor stage. I heard a song of theirs on the radio that was quite good, but what I could see of their live show was more or less electro disco and the obligatory person dancing onstage in an animal costume. Basically, the EDM revolution is trying to turn music into sports, I think. I loaded in my stuff, and then hauled my big suitcase up the stairs to the shared dressing room. Starfucker and their opening act Crow Crow or Raven Raven or Blackbird Blackbird or whatever it was gave me a few suspicious looks but didn’t physically obstruct me from entering. I just wanted to brush my teeth, put my contacts in…so there were two bathrooms and their entrances were blocked by a non-load-bearing wall from the rest of the room so I could sort of sneak in there. Big mistake. Here it was, like 5pm, and the first bathroom had a sink filled to the rim with highly colorful vomit, and the other…equally filthy with liquids of questionable origin on every surface. I was tipped off that a bar nearby had clean bathrooms etc., which  turned out to be true thank god.
Of course, with the sold out show next door the club was total chaos, which worked to my advantage. I merely tweeted that inside, the two shows were served by one ticket, thus, people who couldn’t get in door one at $20 could still get in mine at $15. So I picked up all my ticket sales and probably 50-75 of Starfuckers. And my show was busy, and the other show was pretty much over when I went on, and this all worked out really well. My duet partner was there at soundcheck, tho I didn’t do a soundcheck so we didn’t rehearse, and then in the middle of the show someone told me that she was ill and went home. So, I played both parts, jumping from side to side and character to character and between melody and harmony, sometimes in the same line several times.
DALLAS, 3/8
Lots of traffic getting out of town, it was spring break weekend and Austin was evacuating. Horrible. Finally got to Deep Ellum and it was totally nuts, deep in the party zone. Tho this was a much more low key show than the previous night, there were some great things about it– I really enjoyed Salim Nourallah’s opening set. My friend McKenzie, who drums for many artists but is most known as part of the band Midlake, came down with his wife and my duet partner, Kaela Bratcher, whose album he’s producing. We had a great time. At midnite, McKenzie’s wife Felicia’s birthday arrived, and she actually cried when I played “Here’s to the Future” to her by request, very sweet.
That night I stayed with friends of my dad’s, in a very nice house, indeed, also very kind, took great care of me, and sent me off with goodies the next morning.
And I drove all day to Birmingham, where my duet partner from the previous week had set me up with accommodations. My hosts greeted me upon arrival, the neighborhood, out by the airport, full of pimp rims and me feeling very conspicuous. As I brought in my gear to protect it, finding my way around various animals in various states of pregnancy, my hosts announced they were going to a strip club. The door was broken so they had to lock me in (said they’d leave a key but forgot to do so) and I meekly asked if I could use their keyboard to rehearse some Chris Stamey piano parts, setting up my sheet music like a real character from a novel where things go very bad for him. Just before they left, they handed me something they thought I might need…a Colt .38. Uh…..
No need to say I didn’t sleep very well…snuck out of town as early as it was safe…only to find that I’d parked on the street with driver side (street side!) window rolled down all night, and nothing bad came from it.
ATHENS, 3/10
Super fun show in a new venue, the World Famous. Tiny bar, and a tiny theatre space. The bar serves food, and I went for it: chicken and waffles, never had it before, for many good and longevity-related reasons. This was a hipster version, so just a little more refined, but we’re only able to be as refined as our ingredients here–fried chicken, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiched between to Eggo waffles, with maple syrup as a sauce. My body was able to croak out a hyperglycemic ‘thanks dude” before I went into shock.
Beautiful show, lots of friends in the house. I don’t want to overstate the obvious but my former REM (and future SXSW KS band) bandmate Mike was there til the end, and even helped with the load out, that’s mensch with a capital M (or two).
The next day was a drive to New Orleans, and another epic meal with my friends, at the most famous of NOLA’s old school restaurants, Commander’s Palace. Had a beautiful drive over the smaller causeway on Lake Pontchartrain, coming for a landing in the boggy outskirts of the city, a feral pig or boar was the first roadkill I saw and I really was in Beasts of the Southern Wild for a bit.

AUSTIN, 3/12
A super long drive. There’s a lot of Texas, no matter how you slice it, and I hadn’t seen the half of it. I rolled into town and pulled behind the Continental, to my delight there was the entire space behind the load in door open, and the club OK’d me. Phew. I shook the road off my shoulders and was just glad to be there. I had a great band for the night: the Silos. Konrad, the drummer, has really gotten into the album, and he’s a great musician. Randy, who owns the yard dog gallery, was on guitar. Their regular bass player wasn’t able to make it to Austin this year, but the substitute, Scott, is a fantastic musician. Always plays drop D bass, great idea–gonna steal that. The show tonite, the ‘Swollen Circus’ is a long running tradition that the Silos and friends started, on what used to be a quiet night on the eve of SXSW, but now the festival/conference has grown so much that Tuesday is well in the thick of things. But it’s good–the place was packed, and playing with the Silos in Austin at this show is like dancing with the homecoming queen. And speaking of queens of the scene, my duet partner was none other than Susan Cowsill, fabulous. Three songs–You’re the Gold, Drop Your Pride and the duet, but people loved it….I actually sold merch tonite, even tho it was set up on the pool table in the back bar, far out of sight of most of the people in the house. Good stuff! Went back to Matt from the Posies family homestead, and had a beer. Bed.
AUSTIN, 3/13
Two gigs today. First order of business was a rehearsal with Michael Des Barres, star of stage and screen. The band was Matt on bass, myself on keys; L.A. based guitarist “Scrote” who actually opened for me at that weird show in Little Rock; Branden, former Seattle-ite now living in Austin who now plays with Ian Moore, former Austin-ite who know lives near Seattle. Ruby the backing vocalist, and a hotshot guitarist guested on a couple songs. Michael is like me in many ways–talented handsome bloke,  hehe, who’s been around success all his life, and had a lot of projects with great musicians, but isn’t a household name. But might as well be one, lives the dream nonetheless. He has written some hit songs for other artists, and he’s done some acting and screenwriting, and has lived the dream to the fullest. He’s in his 60s, I presume, but fit as a fiddle, thin as a rail. I’d seen him as frontman for the Power Station when I was in high school, and I think he’s lost weight from that time, and he could fit in one leather pant leg back then. We learned his set of trashy glam rock that afternoon in a studio way out of town. I was really prepared–I’d charted out the songs, and listened in the car to all the songs in the set like a hundred times, so I knew the backing vocals, too. My bandmates were much less prepared, so it took awhile to get things together. Michael also has a truly random access memory so he wasn’t always a stable guide for knowing the original arrangement, but what’s great about performers like him is that they are in the moment and know where to take the song–even if that involves turning on a dime. Think James Brown. You gotta watch, and listen. I’m good at that kinda stuff!
After rehearsal we went back to Matt’s pad for a short rest then to the gig itself, at a bar called Molotov, and like any SXSW show, we had just a little time to get our stuff on stage and set up, and dive in. I was trying to keep the boat straight, I was really confident and sold, the rest of the band….er….they fell apart at a few crucial moments and Michael threw his share of curve balls too. I will say that at the show he prob. had sang too much by that point in the day, his voice was a bit beaten up, it had been fantastic in the rehearsals, and also his stage banter had more attitude and was colder, I preferred him warmer and more down to earth like he was in rehearsal. But, again, I did my job more or less perfectly, and it was fun. On to the next.
I drove to the home of Sara from the Tosca String Quartet, was pleased to be reunited with much of the cast of last year’s amazing Big Star Third performance to rehearse for Chris Stamey‘s set. Again, I’d worked hard on preparation, so I felt good about my parts. Chris had sent me score for one song, which rather than sight read on stage, it was better that I just worked it out and memorized it. The rest I’d learned by ear, and then we added some backing vocals on various songs. We rehearsed for a couple of hours, then I rode over to the venue, St. David’s Church, with Chris and our conductor/pianist on one of the songs, Brent Baldwin (Big Star Third alumnus). Backstage, worked out backing vocals with Star & Micey, and then we set up in the gorgeous performance hall, complete with grand piano. This performance was very intense, Chris’ beautiful songs (I highly recommend his new album ‘Lovesick Blues’ for any fan of Big Star, for example), the string players and flute, percussion from beat commando Dale Baker, and vocals from Star & Micey, myself, and Aoife O’Donovan. Stunning. After the gig I was hanging with Jody for a bit, and then to bed, more big days ahead.
AUSTIN, 3/14
Today I was in Branden’s studio working on overdubs for Robert Wilcox’ upcoming album. Bob lives in London Ontario, we spent time listening to his album in progress when I was there a month earlier so I had a long laundry list of things to do — I played bass, drums, keys, percussion, guitar, backing vocals, programming, just hanging by myself at this great studio space. At one point I needed something I’d forgotten at the hotel so I drove back into town and realized that it was almost time for Robyn Hitchcock’s set at the Continental, which was really close by. so I said, OK, I don’t have much time, but hey, if there’s a parking spot, I’ll stop by. And of course, even tho it was the heart of SXSW and the chances of getting a parking spot were one in a million, there it was–people were too afraid to park near a hydrant even tho there was a clearly marked red curb in the forbidden zone, the rest was legal. Parked, walked in to the club, saw so many friends–and it wasn’t long before I was onstage with Robyn, Linda Pitmon, Scott McCaughey and imagine this trio of backing vocalists–myself, Jody Stephens and Amanda Palmer. Woah.
Then I hopped offstage, and went back to the studio and worked til 2am.
AUSTIN, 3/15
Another studio day, and at dinner time I took a break, drove to Maria’s Tacos Express, and played a set for my supper — I played keys and did backing vocals for Ian Moore, and in turn Ian and band backed me up for “You’re the Gold” and “Doesn’t It Remind You” and my duet partner was none other than Oscar-nominated actress and singer Ronee Blakely. We kicked off the set with her doing a long and intense Hank Williams song a cappella, then we did the duet, then my song, then Ian’s set proper started. He almost killed the little kids dancing in front when he sent his mic stand flying…
this was the Sin City Social Club party, same as I played last year, and I was really pleased to find people remembered me from the year before, people in the audience who were there.
Then back to the studio, and again, worked til 2am!

AUSTIN, 3/16
The last day of the tour, musically speaking, and it was epic.
show #1 — keys and backing vocals with Ian Moore band, at the Yard Dog Gallery. I had better sound this time, the PA at Maria’s was kind of blowing up the night before, but this was super intense…I was amped, I knew the stuff and we sounded amazing.
show #2 — Branden left the stage and Linda Pitmon got on drums and we did my set, Linda really is one of my favorite drummers that I’ve ever played with. She’s technically precise but puts that in the background when one is onstage–the passion in her playing comes to the fore, it’s really awesome to behold. Again, people remembered me from the year before, and the reaction to this full band set was just great. The duet her was with Lisa LeBlanc, another artist I can’t recommend enough–I caught her live this week too, imagine Lucinda Williams backed by the White Stripes, with occasional screams that would make Courtney Love hang up her tiara. She learned the song on banjo, and was so perfect.
show #3 — hightailed it to the Ginger Man pub, and played piano and backing vocals for Chris Stamey–this set was not quite as pristine sonically as Wednesday nite’s set, but it was excellent,  I assure you.
show #4  — my set at the Ginger Man. The perfect moment at the perfect venue, onset of the evening, everybody buzzed but still listening, and comfortable in this venue not wanting to move, so packed house. I played my set backed by Linda, with either Mike Mills or local bassist Drew Schlegel on the low end, and occasional piano from Scott McCaughey. Lisa sang and played banjo on the duet again. Here’s a video of “Drop Your Pride” that sums up the intensity of it; I had to carry the chord content with the piano, and the pressure was good for me. During my set, my son arrived from Seattle, so he got to see this, and then
show #5 — Robyn Hitchcock’s 60th birthday show,  Linda and Bill Rieflin were the beat providers; Scott McCaughey on bass, Kurt Bloch on guitar, and myself on keys and backing vocals. Robyn ended up playing my Gretsch. I did backing vocals on “Madonna of the Wasps”. And, personal highlight, I led a piano-driven arrangement of “Airscape”, the song of Robyn’s I find the most touching.
show #6 — after grabbing some tacos with Kenny, my son now almost 27 years old, we headed over to the Brass House for my official showcase. The official showcases have an air of being less exciting than the parties but this was a good one. Another great band — Konrad from the Silos on drums, Drew on bass, Robert Harrison from Cotton Mather on guitar, and Phil Ajjarapu on pedal steel. I’ll be working with Phil on his album this summer, he’s music teacher here in town, and writes classic pop nuggets. My duet partner was the lovely Kendall Meade. We did all the stuff the band knew, then I closed with a solo version of “Pray”. Killed it.
Dropped my car at the hotel and pedicabbed back into town, so I could let my hair down, so we had time for
show #7 — not so much a show, but some rosé champagne (‘lady petrol” as Robyn calls it) an acoustic guitar, and Robyn, Mike & I entertaining the gathered celebrants with side 2 of Abbey Road in our own inimitable, inebriated style, and a few Robyn songs. I think we stumbled back to our hotel at like 4.
Then my man Kenny & I spent three days driving back to Seattle, across the plains of central Texas, the gorgeous red rock candy twists of Utah, the Navajo desert. Robert fr Cotton Mather cooked us migas on our way out of town. The drive was smooth, I was pulled over for speeding and got off with a warning. But on Tuesday night, exhausted after 2000 miles of driving, we had the biggest challenge–blizzard as we went over Snoqualmie pass. At one point I couldn’t see the road, the lane dividers, the shoulder. We crawled over the pass, no other vehicles in sight, at 20 miles an hour, me sure we’d fly off the road or spin in circles any second. Finally, a truck ahead hauling construction equipment acted as a guide if not a plow. We got off the mountain and drove into Seattle to Brian’s house, my usual address, and got the road out of our brains with a few bottles of wine from El Corazon, that I’d stashed in Boise. Oh, while in Boise, where we stopped for lunch on the last day, I actually shot footage for a video for my upcoming split single with the Maldives, which will be released on record store day.
The next day we drove up to Bellingham, had early dinner with my folks, my aunt & uncle, Kenny, and my first ever bandmate, Chip, who has been working for the late Deke Richards, who just passed away this week.
Thursday I was in my home-away-from-home set up in Seattle at Brian’s house working on the Robert Wilcox album, then had a late night dinner with Brian, Ian Moore, Faustine from the Maldives, Barbara Antonio who played cello for me at the Seattle shows, and more friends. Goodbye Seattle.
Flew to London, found out that the handful of flakes that weren’t even sticking were enough to cancel almost all the flights out of Heathrow, which is, frankly, too sad to laugh about. Went up to check out the rebooking line, about 2000 people waiting, so, fuck that, went into London and caught the Eurostar home.
Home after 2 and half months. My god. I had a LOT of presents for Aden. And a lot of work to do. Working so much, getting up to take Aden for school, and on the go ever since, I can’t say I’ve rested, I feel behind, just need one good night. Mixed two songs for Seattle’s Victory Lap, two songs for Seattle’s Nouveau Riche, and did a day’s worth of overdubs for Robert Wilcox. Then Eurostarred back to London on Thursday, and spent two fun days doing overdubs on the new Bastian Baker album, at a remote studio up in the farmland, Jamiroquai-funded Aston Martins parked in the garage. I did guitar, keys, guitaret, programming and other bits and bobs, it’s a great album in the making. When I first started working with him a couple of years ago, he was really young, and he’s grown heaps as a writer, a singer, and an artist. Fascinating to watch and an honor to be a part of it.
KöLN, 3/30
We worked late on the last stuff and we were on the road to Heathrow at 7. I did sleep on the flight to Cologne but it’s a short flight. Soon we were at King Georg, hippest venue in town. I’d worked hard to get here. It was totally worth it, as you’ll see. Meanwhile, we set up, guitars, keys, guitaret. This was the kickoff date on a German run of shows with me headlining and Munich-Berlin duo Sir Simon opening. Lovely guys, Simon and Laury. We ran thru their tunes and mine, so we could make a contiguous set where they predominated over the first 30 minutes, and me over the hour to follow, but there is no break between the two sets, people come and go as needed. There’s no stage at King Georg so it’s perfect for what I do. And we had hotel rooms upstairs in the same building, basically. When we came down from there after dinner etc and went inside the club, which is a glorious former…brothel, we assume? It’s incredibly dark and decadent inside, all red and plush and gaudy light fixtures. fantastic. With the performance area being vaguely placed, near a circle of gold metal tiles, the patrons can sit, stand, or sit in booths surrounding the performer. In other words, like what I’m constantly trying to arrange for my shows anyway. When we arrived, the place was packed and let me add that Cologne still allows smoking so by the end of my set my eyes were crying but it felt like the good old days. It was a brilliant night. As I have said before, and will say again, the German audiences are the best around for my kind of music, when you can get ‘em in the place. The challenge is that Germany is such a big country and has so much going on that to get some attention for your project is really hard. But being in the right venue is much more than half the battle and here we nailed it. The merch table reflected patrons clearly pleased with the performance as well. I went way over the allotted time, with at least two encores. Absolutely stunning.
Perhaps the highlight for me was the duet, with Hannah Fearns, who sings in a local country band. Instead of making a big showbiz introduction, we did a theatre piece. The Simons and I just started to play the song, and I sang the first verse as per usual, and for the second verse, Hannah merely stood up in her booth nearby the performance area and started to sing. No mics, and she worked her way over to me, so we finished the song singing to each other up close. Totally shocking and weird for the audience, and they loved it.
REES-HALDERN, 3/31
I’m still not sure if we were in Rees, or Haldern, or both. The Haldern Pop Bar is where we played. Run by the same folks who put together an extremely tasty, well curated festival in summer, the idea for this venue started as a way to give bands on off days–mondays, midsummer weekdays–a place to play, with food and accommodations, and to get the inhabitants of what is a small town or village out, the shows are free and bands are paid by passing the hat.
The day started with brunch, Easter brunch, with Sir Simon, myself and Catu, Spanish-American jack of all trades living in Cologne for the last ten years. It was Catu who was able to get us in to King Georg, as I’d tried the conventional approaches with agent and direct emailing etc to no avail. And Catu (Miguel, actually) did sound for us and generally took care of us the whole night. We were looking for a place near the venue that was merely open but I spotted a traditional German place, all dark wood and gothic lettering, that was open. We had our morning coffee and our midday rabbit in remoulade. Then we hit the road for Rees. Or Haldern. Or whatever it was.
We got to town early, the miserable traffic that ensnarled the guys when they went to get me at the airport was evaporated for the holiday, so we were in town quite early, no sign of life at the venue so we went to our little country inn, a paddock of deer grazing out front. Then, after an hour’s rest, back to the venue, loaded in. To my delight there was a real piano which the four of us, musicians and sound guy, hoisted on to the stage. I would have preferred to put it in harm’s way in the audience but it would have been pretty awkward, and this way everyone could see, tho it kept me a bit far from the audience for my liking. But I could play guitar and get into the crowd.
One glorious serving of schnitzel later, and we were napping at the hotel. I was tired from all the travel, the late nights in the studio, the early mornings getting Aden to school, the two and a half months of touring non stop…and the smoke from the night before. My voice had an edge to it, a potential danger sign. But it was fine for the show. Oh, as we left from the pre show nap, I was able to witness a German village tradition, at (precisely, I might at, as we are in Germany after all) 8pm a massive pile of former Christmas trees was set on fire in the field behind the inn (the inn is clearly adapted from a working farm). The whole town coming out to watch. Ah, pagans…
Being a free show, and being a holiday, I think there were even more people in town than usual, so the place was packed. I think people were a little skeptical of the unusual nature of my show at first and I too had to make sure my voice functioned but by the end of my allotted hour and 15 minutes we had all warmed up to each other and hit a groove. Turned out that Hannah’s in laws were just up the road so we repeated out situationist theatre piece for the duet. And I was in bed by midnite, ten hours of glorious sleep, to get me right for the rest of the tour.
So, now, Easter Monday, the sun is out. It’s been a tenacious winter here–in England there was snow and ice on the ground around the studio, and a few flakes were even falling as we left our rabbit lunch yesterday. I don’t know if it’s actually warm outside yet, but it’s not snowing. Cologne experienced only 100 hours of sunlight between November and March, the darkest winter in 40 years.
And I and my cohorts arrive to bring a little radiance or at least use the theatre of the seasons to make our arrival portentously coincidental to the harbingers of spring.

Love
KS
Rees. Haldern. Rees-Haldern. One of the three. It’s in GERMANY, near the Dutch border.

YARD DOG GALLERY 1510 S. Congress Ave. — Free, All ages. No SXSW credentials required

2.30 pm KS sits in with Ian Moore & Lossy Coils

3pm KS solo backed by Ian Moore, Matt Harris (Posies), Josh Kantor, Linda Pitmon and a duet with Lisa Leblanc.

GINGER MAN PUB  301 Lavaca St. — Free, 21+. No SXSW credentials required.

4.45pm KS sits in with Chris Stamey

6.15 KS solo backed by Linda Pitmon, Drew Schlegel, Scott  McCaughey, and…special guests (you’ll have to come to find out). Lisa Leblanc too.

7pm KS joins Robyn Hitchcock‘s 60th birthday celebration.

BRASS HOUSE 115 San Jacinto — you’ll need your SXSW badge or wristband for this one, probably. 21+

11pm Nine Mile Records Showcase backed by Drew Schlegel, Phil Ajjarapu, Robert Harrison (Cotton Mather), Konrad Meissner and a duet with Kendall Meade (Mascott, Helium, etc)

Then party like a filled out 1099.

Love

KS
Austin

Wednesday 13th

First, I will play keys for Michael Des Barres at Molotov W 6th at 5.30. FB event page for the show The show is FREE, ALL AGES and has Chris Stamey and Shoes on the bill!

Second, I will play keys for Chris Stamey at St. David’s Bethell Hall This is an official SXSW showcase, so credentials needed. It is all ages, tho!

Friday 15th

I will make sit in with the Ian Moore band at the Sin City Party at Maria’s Tacos Express at 6.30 pm. Free, all ages, and good tacos. We will also do “Doesn’t It Remind You of Something” and my duet partner will be star of stage and screen, Ronee Blakely!

Saturday 16th

First, I will play the Yard Dog Gallery party at 3pm sharp. Backed by Linda Pitmon, Ian Moore, Matt Harris and Josh Kantor! Lisa LeBlanc is my duet partner. Free, all ages. I’ll sit in with Ian’s set on keys at 2.30 too.

Secondly, I will play the Blurt/Dogfish Head party at Gingerman Pub at 6pm. Linda Pitmon, Scott McCaughey and Lisa LeBlanc (and VERY special guests)  will be joining me for this one! Following my set immediately I will be part of Robyn Hitchcock’s 60th birthday celebration, on various instruments! Free show, but gets crowded so get in there!

Thirdly I will play the Nine Mile Records/Burnside official showcase at the Brass House. This is an official SXSW showcase so credentials needed. I will be backed by Konrad from the Silos, Robert from Cotton Mather, and more great local musicians. And my duet partner is Kendall Meade from Mascott etc.!

So no excuses. See you there!

Love

KS
Austin

Meantime we released a GREAT new video for “Doesn’t It Remind You of Something” feat. Margaret Cho and a burning house.

here’s a blog review of Chicago’s show: http://ow.ly/hNucO

And last nite’s NYC show: http://ow.ly/hNuo8

I also recommend checking out my Daytrotter session

Love

KS
Somerville MA

PORTLAND, 1/23

That morning I had a ton of interviews and some errands to run — converting leftover pesos, buying gaffer tape. My gear had been left at The Maldives house, so it was loaded into the trailer. I put a few things in Brian’s car and we hit the road. Brian’s Prius has much modern gadgetry, including a sensor that tells you of change in tire pressure, such as might occur when you drive over a nail, which is exactly what happened. So, we went to a Les Schwab in Longview, and they fixed it for free–Brian had purchased his tires there and they were under a full service warranty. So we weren’t even that late. That Seattle-Portland drive is pretty boring, and it always is pouring rain on that Longview-Kelso etc stretch. We listened to the new band that Mike and Matt Gervais from Curtains For You have, amazing album.

We got to the venue, set up and did our first soundcheck, prob we would have liked to do some more run thrus but I had to go to Music Millennium for an instore, and my singer, Crystal Anoushiravani, who was a last minute replacement for an ailing Rebecca Gates, and whom I had never met, was ordered into Brian’s car and to come with me and help out at the instore. Rolled up, set up, and did a few songs, perched up there on Music Millenium’s balcony, to ten or so people…most of whom owned the album already but Crystal bought one, bless her. She dresses like a Gibson Girl, hair all pinned up. Had the song pretty down for about a day’s practice.

Back to the venue, and already the Maldives were soon on–I had the first day’s merch count in, with a ton of different types of merch, Brian helped with that. Maldives were on. Mississippi Studios has a great balcony for watching the show, I was bit concerned that people would default to sitting way up there tho. They didn’t. I started acoustic, and got people to gather round, and brought the Maldives up and played most of the songs we knew. I was pretty impressed with this audience–they were dancing to the full band stuff, kind of hippy dancing I thought had died out with the original lineup of Blues Traveller. And it was a hipster crowd. So, they were in no hurry, drunk and happy as they were, so I played a long show, fun.

SAN FRANCISCO, 1/24

The Maldives actually loaded up and drove to San Francisco immediately after the show. That takes some balls. Kevin, their Tres Hombres-bearded accordionist/banjo player, is a force of nature behind the wheel–he’s pretty much up for doing it all. Super impressive. I stayed with friends and flew out early the next morning, getting to SFO about ten a.m., and met by Scott Gagner, solo artist on whose music I’ve been working, as a player and singer mostly tho I engineered the sessions we did in Seattle last year. We went to Decibelle Studios, which used to be Mobius, which I know from all the Dead Kennedys albums done there. Really nice place with an API board. We worked on a cover of “Set the World On Fire” as made famous by the Ink Spots, with me playing guitar, piano, vibes, bass and doing backing vocals. Really fun and a cool version, I was just hitting my stride when it was time to head to the venue. Brick and Mortar is relatively new, tucked under a freeway overpass more or less, in a shall we say up and coming area by Valencia and oh, 14th or 13th or so. Nice space, big open concrete/exposed beam bar. After soundcheck I had dinner with my cousin and friends and we walked back to the venue, meanwhile–I needed to brush my teeth and all that, so I had to go to the dressing room. Was handed a key and shown the door–around the corner from the venue. You unlock the door from the street, and mount stairs–halfway up the stairs there’s a door just suspended there on the left, obi not lining up with the stairs, etc. You work your way to the back, thru generic storage and office space and find there’s a little green room there with a few chairs and an empty dorm fridge. And then upstairs, at the top of the flight that continues past this level, you get to a dark open office space, no one working at this time of night, and with some effort, you’ll find a coffee/kitchen area, and a couple of bathrooms. All this was negotiated in the dark, with no one around, and the light switches in weird places. Totally scary. Don’t know what it is about Bay Area buildings, but they have this certain smell–the studio’s basement had it, this office area had it–the exact same smell of my Grampa’s basement in Berkeley, the house my mom grew up in, we used to visit it in the 70s, he died in about 1980. The basement there was unfinished, and full of the 20th century–mysterious furniture, and items. I found the case to a glass eye (who had one?) and opened it and it was full of Mexican silver coins from the 1800s, tiny ones, that I was allowed to keep. I associate that smell with the magical properties of the Bay Area itself–mists and eucalypts, acid and modern tribals.

Will from the band the Mumlers was onstage when I finally was ready to hang out in the venue. On the way back from dinner we’d gotten to Four Barrels coffee too late, they were closed–so I ended up going to bar for coffee. Good news: bar coffee is free. Bad news–it’s what you’d expect for free coffee to be. It came in a pint glass and I drank almost all of it. So…pretty alert. Got to meet my booking agent, Todd, for the first time. A lot of friends in the house…and Scott and Kristine Miller, Kristine always gives me socks and cookies. A LOT of each. Maldives kicked butt, and I started tonite’s set with them onstage, tearing into 4am Birds and its instrumental section of total 7/4 chaos. Kylee Swenson from Loquat was my guest singer, she’d sung with me at SXSW last year, and she joined me not only for the duet but “Superwise” as well. She’s awesome. We had a great crowd, unfortunately by about 11.30, it started to thin out, so, the last 50 people got the full show….which was a good one. But the main crowd caught the first ten songs–evidently its a problem to keep Californians out on a school night. Still, great show.

SANTA BARBARA, 1/25

The day *started* good. Four Barrels’ wonderful macchiato. Not a very long drive, and a very pretty one for much of it. The load in to the Soho is a little awkward, it’s on the second floor but there is an elevator. They had nice food, and nice staff. Our collective thought was that the Santa Barbara film festival, which was in progress, would have a lot of people out and looking for how to keep their Friday night going. Uh, nope. When I went out for a walk, I saw and heard the screams of 2000 people (at least) hanging out in front of the main cinema of the festival hoping for a glimpse of Ben Affleck. That about sums up culture in SB, and in a way, the US at large…my complaints are: spoiled for choice, and most of that being online, we have too much interest in celebrity culture, short attention spans and we’re scared of real art. Even the indie world, kids wait til bands get a seal of approval and *then* show off being ahead of the curve. That we had just 30 or so payers is not an issue. I’ve had great shows in tiny bars with that many people. Where I have an issue is that only about a dozen of those folks watched either show. Many paid the cover, went to the bar in the back of the room and never looked up. Most of the rest stayed at the tables that were way in the back. I could not get anyone to come up front, just 3-4 people. Two dudes even came up in the middle of the duet, with Australian transplant Natalie D-Napoleon, who did a wonderful job, spent half the song looking at their iPhones and then walked up before the song it over. That’s just rude. And, America….get off the phone. The internet will be waiting for you after the musicians are done playing their hearts out for you.

So, I played about 45 minutes, solo, and called it. It wasn’t fun. We’d hit the road at 7 for this. Like, no thank you. Again, the staff and the people who did come couldn’t have been nicer. But sheesh I didn’t have the energy to rise above the indifference this one time. I’ve been lucky on this tour. Here I was just tired. And then, when I was getting paid, a clean cut young guy came up to the promoter demanding his money back, because ‘they’ only played 45 minutes. And I was standing right there, so obviously he didn’t pay enough attention to even know I was the artist, not a ‘they’ but a ‘he’. He just wanted an extra $12 worth of drinking money. He was a douche, and he didn’t get shit. He did make me question why I tour in the US, a night like this makes even the worst EU show more appealing.

I was taken in from my ‘need a place to stay’ cry from the stage by a Spaniard named Antonio, who had his birthday begin at the stroke of midnight. We went to his local bar, which was crowded and fun, and he had nice and interesting friends, so I had a nice evening out, then crashed on his couch.

LOS ANGELES, 1/26

And his neighbor’s avocado tree dropped fruit on his driveway. I had one, and when Antonio got up, he made pan ab tomat, just like in Catalunya. Dropped me at the Maldives’ hotel, before heading off to buy rabbit for the birthday paella he was making. We hit the road and drove to L.A., dropping me at KXLU. I had a great session there, did 8 songs which will air this week. The station is run by a lovely young guy from Seattle, Domenico, who was a fan and did a great interview. I did 4 songs on Jason from the Maldives acoustic Gibson, and 4 on the Yamaha upright in the studio. And, I was joined by Nicole Simone, my singer. We’d never met (typical of my guest singers) and she was so lovely, a delicate waif of very sweet temperament. She did the duet all breathy and spooky (she’s recently been tapped by David Lynch to play some of his events). Meanwhile, out in the halls, sorority rush was in progress–the halls of the building on Loyola Marymount campus that houses KXLU had been lined with the purses of dozens of girls, who knows what they were up to in the closed door proceedings of the rush event. All that trouble to get water boarded or whatever they do for hazing these days. A bunch of ‘em were out in the hall chattering away which I was worried would bleed onto the session but my fears were unfounded.

With traffic, the drive from Marina del Rey to Silver Lake was almost an hour, so Nicole and I had time to share practically our whole life stories, again, she’s very gentle…I was yakking her ear off at one point, about France and my life there.

We got to the venue and soundcheck commenced immediately. The guys doing sound, Alex and Stuart, were super cool and the stage was nice and big. Soundcheck took awhile but we really had it dialed, it was worth doing. I was hungry, and headed up to the L & E Oyster Bar up the street–no question that raw seafood before the show was the perfect solution. It’s so good there–everything is expensive, but the quality is undeniable. Oysters are flown in from Washington, Alaska, the East Coast too, and there are California ones too. Excellent wine selection. I hadn’t been turned onto Santa Ynez Grenache Blanc, but it was wonderful, some of Sauv Blanc’s citrus with the metallic ping of Chablis. I ended up joining Nicole’s party.

Back to the venue, I’d missed openers Nervous Wreckords, but saw the Maldives captivate the decently sized audience. After the show, a little conference was had…seems Faustine was a little tipsier than they felt comfortable with. I told ‘em to load her up with bar coffee and we’ll be fine. I do the first 30-40 minutes of the set solo. I guess she had three coffees and a Red Bull, bless her. And she never drinks coffee. Well. I gathered the audience around and got into my set. People were *really* hesitant to get into the area directly in front of the stage (the club opens up to the left where the bar is, separated by a semi-wall with tables against it; of course there’s also the smoke friendly bubble in the back where the merch and pool tables are). “This is L.A., man–you don’t tell an L.A. audience what to do!”. I did. And it worked. Last guy trying to slink behind the post that ends the separator wall, and I was calling him out. He reluctantly agreed.

Started to play, and the audience was really into it. Great vibe. I did some songs with the Maldives, and it was true…Faustine spaced a few endings, but in general, the groove was great. I thought we did a great show, and those details that were ‘incorrect’ were not anything that was going to show up on our permanent record. Did some solo songs in there, including singing with Nicole, down in the crowd, with a mic, tho. It was gorgeous.

We did some more full band, and I believe we finished the night with me solo, doing “GIrl Don’t Tell Me” by the Beach Boys, “Pray”, and finally “Moon River”.

Lotta friends in the house. A lotto friends outta town, too–the normal go to folks for people to stay with were not in so I did a shout out from the stage, and a real fan named Michele took me in, to her lovely apartment in Brentwood. I had my own room with a fold down couch and its own bathroom. Yay!

SAN DIEGO, 1/27

The band came and picked me up and we went to brunch at the house of friends from Seattle. One of our hosts was Matt who owns Light in the Attic Records, the best reissues label going at this moment. A lot of bacon was consumed. Then we hit the road and got to M Theory Music, a very good record store in San Diego, where I had an inshore. I was sleeping off my bacon-induced coma in the van so my first stop was a nearby coffee hut, the Meshuggah Shack. Barista Nathan was friendly–he ended up not only coming to the show, but buying a CD from me….in quarters from the tip jar! Hehe. Those got spent on Starbucks for me and my host the next morning.

The in-store was a success–we sold thru the store’s stock of vinyl and they bought some more from me. About 30 people there–LOTS of people with kids were there who weren’t going to be able to make it to the 21+ show on a Sunday night. A nice guy from Tijuana, German, came up with his family–I thought he was going to the show too but, yes, he had his family with him so prob had to go back. He did bring me some high end Valle de Guadalupe wine, a red and a white, looking forward to trying that.

We headed to the club, but first, a stop for tacos…then to the club, pretty low key. THere was a guy playing jazz guitar thru an amp on stage when we got there. Not like a show, the bar was more or less empty, and he wasn’t facing the front of the stage. Just, uh, practicing. Everyone was friendly there but the bar had a kind of end of the earth, abandoned feel. Thank The Flying Spaghetti Monster for warm bodies. As the night went on it went from feeling like a dive to feeling like a show. Split audience tho–the bar is in the middle, and there’s a pole further on–so you have to choose not only which side to watch from, but which side to play towards. I went back and forth. Killer Maldives set, and my favorite KS set of the tour so far. We just felt it. My speech, which the Maldives seemed to appreciate: “I’m 44 years old, a touring musician, and also a father and husband, and I can sum up my lifestyle in two words: tacos and whiskey!” Blistering versions of “Spanish Waltz” and a jammed out “Lover’s Hymn” and a pretty frenetic “Jesus Was an Only Child”. I had a blast, everyone did. And my duet partner Arabella Makalani, was just excellent.

My stage shout out got me invited to the home of Lora, who’s been coming to my shows for years, but we’d never really spoken much. Had a cozy pile of blankets on the couch, and her cat stayed hidden in her room so I never had any allergies.

Today we’re on the road to Fresno, after loading up on tacos/burritos for lunch. Passing Buck Owens Blvd as we drive past Bakersfield, listening to the Louvin Brothers. I’ve got a good bunch here. Don’t know if we’re going to draw flies on a Monday in Fresno, but the company is so worth keeping. And let’s not forget the good nature not only of the band, but also Katie the merch seller–who has been called at times “Merch Succubus”. “Merch She-Devil” etc…I have yet to see her even remotely contemplate a frown.

Love
KS
Hwy 99