The next morning in Vientiane, early, 8am, I had a visitor to the hotel. Amantha, a local filmmaker, had come by to take me around a bit. Amantha was born and raised in Paris but has been living in Laos now for a few years, his parents have also moved back here to their original homeland. He is helping kickstart Laotian cinema and bring it up to making world class features. With the relaxation of censorship controls, filmmakers are finally able to pursue their visions in the manner that they wish. Interestingly enough, the main restriction has been about violence, it has not been possible to display it. This is a country whose culture reveres the maintenance of not losing control of your emotions, so I can extrapolate the same logic that banned rock music as an unwanted foreign influence would ban violent imagery in film and TV–rock music’s indulgence in overt emotion would be very foreign indeed.
We stopped first for a local cafe, Lao style, with condensed milk at the bottom. Just a roadside place near the new broadcast center–this is where Amantha’s granddad had his rattan atelier, now closed down, no one in the next generations wanted to take it over. The neighborhood was low key, just local inhabitants and craftspeople, and now the big red colossus of the main TV/radio center dominates the area. No building has been allowed to be higher than the victory arch, but it remains to be seen if openness and prosperity will relax that standard as well. You can see it’s a special moment in Vientiane–growth and prosperity are going to be the goals, and more development, consumption, gadgets, cars etc will be the result. Enjoy the calm of Vientiane while it exists, as its unique and beautiful. Meanwhile, as we discussed all of this, there were some small pillow shaped cakes being made roadside. Minimum order seemed to be 6, for, well, nothing, essentially. They were some kind of crisp pastry shell, a little thinner and a little chewier of say, a fortune cookie shell. Inside was a delightful mix of sticky rice and coconut (as far as I could tell).
Next stop was the main market, I am not a handicrafts shopper so it was a little lost on me but it was cool to see the quotidian quality of it–it wasn’t just souvenirs, this is where people bought washing machines, PAs for karaoke bars (looking really vintage), cameras, whatever…and on the edge, there was subsection of extremely mysterious traditional remedies. For example–pythons have little spurs, two little claws if you will, which I do believe is part of how they uh, hold on while copulating, if I understand correctly. And these were for sale, a little rectangle of snake skin with the two spurs intact and attached. There were really mysterious little charms, I didn’t dare buy one, I believe it’s better not to dive in to deep mojo at the amateur level–they appeared to be stone, or even concrete, but small handlike shapes–something between a hand and a prehistoric crinoid–intertwined. There was something odd about intertwined severed alien hands, that gave me pause. Of course there were countless herbal, animal, and mineral charms, talismans, remedies. Old coins, little idols, dried lizards flattened and bound by rattan in groups of three. I was curious to take pictures, but again, mojo needs to be respected.
Then we went to another market–I had wanted to see a food market in action, purely local, and Amantha said that behind the airport is a particularly representative one. So we hopped his scooter that way. The airport is just ten minutes ride from the center of town, and nothing in Vientiane is big, far, or intimidating. It’s all on a wonderfully local scale. We parked the bike at Amantha’s dad’s place, he has a little house that backs on to a fish pond where I assume he participates in the aquaculture of various species. We walked into the market, which was divided into sections–fruit, meat, fish, spices, sauces, and there were also non-food items. Where’s the rice you ask? Good question. I think it has its own special depot. Our first stop was to buy Amantha’s favorite fruit, the mangosteen. Its thick purple peel has traditionally been used for making dye…watch your white shirt. The fruit inside is floral and delicate, the taste a little reminiscent of lychee. Its comprised of a few lobes each with a small stone. Another item to try–a stall selling a meal made from a ball of dried/fried what I believe is rice mixed with spices and herbs. This is crushed back to its component state and mixed with a slaw of chili-laden roughage. Absolutely delicious. Normally the balls are croquet ball-sized, but they happened to have a golf ball-sized example that was perfect for a snack. Like many foods and soft drinks to go, the meal was served in a plastic bag.
The fish for sale were generally live, either small catfish or fatter river fish, some of which were quite large (in fact, the Mekong is home to the world’s largest freshwater fish, the truly astonishing Mekong sting ray, and several other of the world’s largest freshwater fish species). Living in tubs that were aerated with a hose. Nothing could be more dead than the meat section tho–and nothing could bring that to life more than a total lack of refrigeration. Seemed to be mostly pig parts, but of course cow and chickens were also butchered. Goat is common in villages but didn’t seem to be on the menu here. All the guts and heads you can imagine, all giving off a…fleshy smell. Not yet rotten, by any means–this was all fresh, but in our prepackaged, oversanitized lives, we forget what eating meat really means–we eat a product that happens to be, if we choose to reflect upon it, derived from an animal. In France we revel in the biological origins of our cuisines. But the American fear of offal has meant that we get further and further away from having to contemplate the fact that our meal had a beating heart.
After our run thru the market, I needed to get back to the hotel to rendezvous with Sunny and Lay for another trip. This time, to the country, where relations of Sunny live, in a typical farming village. No tourists, and people doing just what they do naturally, which is what I’d wanted to see. Now, every four-wheeled vehicle I saw with a handful of exceptions in Lao was one of two models–the Toyota Hi Ace pickup or the Hyundai Starex minivan. I saw one brave soul with a clean white mercedes sport coupe. But you soon see why people have rugged rigs–due to heavy rains the roads wash out or at least decay rapidly. Many rural roads are unpaved and basically look like those giant canyons on Mars–the soil is red, the terrain like a carpet that’s been pushed by a door. And being that January is the dry season, extremely dusty–if we passed a truck coming the other way, it was fatal to have the windows open a crack. I was jostled like I was riding the back of a camel on Angel Dust. I don’t think we went more than twenty miles, but it took ninety minutes. Finally we arrived at the village. We drove onto a smaller road a short distance and entered the compound of Sunny’s family. A cousin, who actually road in from the city with us, a grandma, a man who must have been married to the cousin plus their children but it was hard to tell, not much of a couple vibe. I guess the man/husband had probably done the early morning part of farming and was now resting, he went to small thatched hut that was built just for that purpose. A nap shack. All the structures except the outhouse were raised off the ground–the nap shack just a foot or so, but the house itself was on posts and everything happened one floor up. The kitchen and the deck off the kitchen, where the dishes were washed, were a few steps lower than the main part of the house. So, you deposited your shoes at the base of the steps, and went up to the main sitting area, a deck to you and I. Only the sleeping area, i.e., the only room of the house, was enclosed and had doors. The house itself was wooden with a thatch roof and some wooden sides and mostly rattan walls. The kitchen was roofed and was not completely walled. The sitting area/deck was open on two sides, the long side parallel to the sleeping room, and the short side where the stairs came up. The other short side was where you stepped down to the kitchen. Cooking was done with wood/charcoal. There were not a ton of items in the house in total–a few cooking pots, a couple of knives, some plates etc. On a shelf in the open room was a plastic bag with some makeup. There was a small TV perched on a shelf, that was never turned on while I was there. While the food was prepared we walked to the main street of the village and there was a little shop to sell basic goods, we bought cukes and tomatoes, to make a version of the shredded papaya salad with these ingredients. We also went to a place where a woman sold cane juice. Her residence was also upstairs, but on the main floor there was some furniture, a fridge, and a kind of cushioned area where her little girl could crawl around. Most of the residential stuff was pushed way to the back, so despite the lack of walls there was clear demarcation of what was the business and what was the house. The business consisted of a mechanized press, just a small contraption where you feed whole lengths of sugar cane in and juice pours out the bottom into a tub for collection. After running a length thru she’d fold it in half, run it again and then another fold, another run. By then the cane was straw colored, and dry looking. It had been green before. She stored some juice in a pitcher in an Igloo cooler filled with ice (now there’s the business to have in this hot, dry hamlet! the iceman). We got a container of juice and went back to the house. Animals roamed the enclosure, mostly chickens and ducks, noisy roosters. Some of the neighbors had goats, and/or the occasional cow. As Lay had mentioned, every village no matter how small has a temple, and this one was no exception–they were building a rather magnificent one. I really was impressed with the ambitious constructions each village undertook for their places of worship. There’s temples in Vientiane every 500m or so, and I imagine that not too long ago these were individual hamlets on the outskirts of the town in the case of the temples between downtown and the airport, like the lovely one across the street from the hotel/venue. But in the city center there are easily ten, and that’s just the ones I saw.
I also took a walk solo, down a dirt track that led to other houses nearby. Other than raising a few animals, most of the actual farming was done elsewhere–there were irrigated lands on the other side of the village. Here it was hard packed red earth, not much nourishment looked like it would be available around here. I walked alone for not more than 100 yards, just to get the feel of the place. Here was a different kind of music, one that Harry Partch would enjoy–huge stands of bamboo that served as windbreaks, with plants 30-40 feet high, would sway in the breeze and knock against each other, generating different tones and pitches of soft clunks, like wind chimes, but richer. I came across an abandoned or incomplete concrete house (yes, this was also an option–a concrete home with a wooden roof, the building not elevated but on the ground level), quite small. The roof was not on, and one wall was either collapsed or unfinished–no one was around. The wall of the room visible had a remarkable decoration–by applying dabs of plaster or spackle, and then painting individual sections, there was a wall sized map of the world. I imagined it made for the kids to study and dream on. Lovely.
I wandered back and it was time to eat. The menu was barbecued beef, small tough chunks that had been cooked on another charcoal flame in the yard. All eating was done with the hands, esp. with sticky rice. In a basket, there was rice, cooked but maybe a day old–it keeps itself well–the top layer dries out and keeps the rice below it fresh. It was a drier than what you might be used to, but wonderful. with this you dip, grab, etc. whatever food you’re after. I do believe I had chopsticks too to grab the salad. There was also what they called a ‘soup’ tho it was really braised vegetables, mostly a spinach -like leaf, where the juice they simmered in was conserved in a bowl with the plant material. All of it was spicy–the meat was not but it was required to dip it into a small bowl of sauce they had prepared especially for this meal. This was a very hot chili sauce, a thin liquid, opaque, and absolutely gorgeous. It was mega hot, but it didn’t last long, it was just right. My face didn’t go numb, but I had plenty of chili sensation. I noticed that men and women were served separately, we each had our own portions to share, Lay and I had a lot of food to tuck into, there was no way to finish it. After the meal, an ice cream man passed–little bike with a fridge compartment. The ice cream bars purchased were more like popsicles, they were wrapped in plastic only on the edges, and pretty much fell apart when you removed that, so bowls were required. I was trying to pin down the flavor. The color was a faint blue-violet. The taste reminded me of the bean cakes ubiquitous in Japan. There was also a round of cane juice to drink, and then the full bellies and heat called for a nap. Without question, the grandma handed me a pillow, and I lay down right then and there. When I could move again, after 20-30 minutes of not really sleeping but enjoying the farm sounds, we headed off, I said in Lao thank you and ‘saep lai’ — ‘very delicious’ to my hosts and we drove off with the cousin to check out some of the farming activities. First we went to the rice paddies. I don’t know how many families own or work which, but generally we pulled over on the main road out of the village, walked between houses on a path, crossed a bridge over a small irrigation channel, walked down a dirt road that was more for carts than motor vehicles, and then went down to the level of the paddies. Walking on the ridges that separate each paddy, we went out 50 yards, tadpoles dancing in the water around us, to where a woman was planting rows of bunches of rice. The paddies are sown as densely as possible, but when the plants reach a certain size, they are carefully uprooted, bundled and replanted in another paddy, but with the bundles separated by, say ten inches in any direction. Evidently the plants have much greater yield when this is done. The woman doing the work was in her final weeks of pregnancy–bending over to plant stalks of rice in the mid-shin-deep water. Two boys, barely toddlers, played with each other in small rattan shelter, a small platform that they could crawl on, and adults could stand around. At this time, there was one girl, a teenager it appeared standing by. An urn of presumably drinking water was also on the platform. The platform was covered of course. Other fields were being worked the same way. The intense illuminated green of the rice on the dark water that modeled the sky and the walls of each paddy were hypnotic fields of color, a pattern, not entirely uniform, but a dense pattern. The eyes were magnetized to it. Looking at the plants I thought about mankind and our ancient relationship to chlorophyll. Birds made squawks, and every paddy had at least one clump that looked like a candy raspberry, but bigger. I could easily guess what they were–there were plenty of snail shells around, and here were their egg clumps. The shells were piled up. Evidently these snails are exotics, introduced for some reason at some point. They are called ‘apple snails’ and indeed are almost fist sized. Piles of shells indicated that they were killed in large numbers on a regular basis, but by what or whom or for what or whom it was hard to say. I asked if they ate them there, and the answer seemed to be yes but it was unclear how–there was nothing around to cook with, and we all know that eating raw snails is absolutely verboten, this is the main vector of the liver fluke. So, mystery there.
Next stop was the vegetable patch. Down the road a piece was a charming little potager of lettuce, tomatoes, herbs and more. At the end of the plot was a large irrigation reservoir with a thoughtfully placed lightbulb at the end of a stick planted in the ground, about eye height. Good to have on a steep-sided hole filled with water in the countryside.
Did I mention Lay’s cell phone that he brought with him? Which was a typical desktop handset phone (i.e. not cordless!), like you have in any office, but with an antenna out the back…totally weird and cool. A cell phone that’s not a portable. Good luck, France, finding a word for that!
We headed back to town, and I more or less headed straight to rehearsal with ULUVUS. Three Aussies, one Brit, and a Frenchman, walk into a country….and write pop punk songs in the local language. All work for various NGOs or in some cases, the big employer in the region–a mining company. Irwin, the keyboardist, is an epidemiologist, which means if you tell him where you had lunch or pretty much any other activity you did, he just winces and says nothing…scary! Well, I grabbed a guitar and learned a couple of their tunes and even learned the chorus of one of their songs, a few simple words in Lao, that with my delicate pronunciation, sounded rather like the Hollywood take on Navajo circa 1955. I felt like I was singing the name of a river in South Dakota. But at least I had it down and the context was explained…then the band did some more rehearsing, except that Irwin and I went on a beer run. Tiny two room rehearsal place in an otherwise residential (must be fun) compound, that also had an outdoor table that seemed like it was served by some restaurant, somewhere…just one table tho. On the other side of the alley was a magnificent manse, truly the palace of Scarface. No one knew anything about it…or would say.
So with rehearsal done, I was loaded into Jeremie’s car, he being the French guitarist, from the suburbs of Paris to the south. So we didn’t know the same neighborhoods but we had plenty to discuss. We ended up at a little place for a quick dim sum and a beer or two, singer Chris telling about his job which involves managing the reintroduction of captive-bred members of a species of rare crocodile which is native to the region. Then, Chris and Tim, one of the mining co guys, a gentle fellow, took me for some male bonding, at a tiny bar where we were the only customers. The barman/owner was a former Parisian (was he Lao? I can’t even remember…uhoh) and I had a delicious mango-y drink, then a mai tai…then suddenly it was ‘design your own shot and drink twelve of them’. I think it started with cachaca, but then a special rum from god knows where that’s like 120 proof or something like that was brandished, and consumed. Either the shots were glowing in the same blue as the Icelandic lagoon or my memories are suffering form the entoptic effects of the successive blows to the brain I took that evening. I know that Tim and I took in a brief, useless round of karaoke in one of the booths around the venue, which was of course attached to my hotel, so why not. I guess karaoke is a front for prostitution I found out later, but in my drunken naivete, I actually tried to sing, I believe something by the Scorpions, but it’s really not clear or even necessary to really go into it.
VIENTIANE, 1/11
I was asked at some point by my erstwhile bandmates how my morning was. What morning? I slept in til noon. I didn’t feel too bad, but…I would have had I made a move any sooner. The hotel seemed to offer no breakfast, thank god–I love a morning without obligations. Sometime around 2pm I was finally ready to venture out, meeting up with my friend Kurt who flew in to see the show from Kuala Lumpur, where he manages a luxury hotel. He was going to do a little vacation getaway in the south of Laos after that as well. Oh, I should mention here that the ‘s’ that completes the word ‘Laos’ is superfluous. You could make a rhyme of ‘How Now Brown Laos’ and it would work.
So, Kurt and I left, first mission being coffee. There’s a cafe across the street from the hotel. But, folks, across the street is not your grandad’s across the street. This is a six-lane behemoth made all the more confounding by the modern monument to the medieval king Fa Ngum that splits them in two to the immediate left of the hotel. So, the widening bow of the ship-shaped park means that traffic approaching us, 3 lanes of it, are arriving from a blind curve. There is a place for a U-turn here in front of the park, or perhaps for those with even less to live for to make a left turn into the Hotel Mercure’s driveway from the lanes approaching from out of town, then an open area of no-car’s land with diagonal stripes, before the boulevard takes conventional shape, and heads out of town, divided by a planted median. This I had to cross with what may have been a hangover–I was in no condition to judge what condition I was in. Somehow, gaps appeared in the program, and we made it. Coffee was very useful. Then we walked into town. We were on a mission to find some kind of lunch. Restaurants that we had been guided towards turned out to be closed, lunch was over. Now, I had experienced Laos as being generally laid-back and not particularly adhered to one structure or another, but here the French tradition of lunch stopping precisely at 2.30pm is perhaps the only colonial remnant I could detect. On our walk tho we passed a corner place that was coated in uniformed students from the polytechnic school across the street. Any place that full has to be OK and cheap to boot. They didn’t have much, just a noodle/shredded papaya salad, but it was very good, spicy, and well worth the price of admission: with the iced tea that we shared, it was the equivalent of a dollar for our lunch.
We walked to the riverfront. Now, the Laotian side of the Mekong (the other side is Thailand) is undergoing massive changes. Basically a more sturdy levee system is going in, which basically means all the charming little waterfront bars and business have been eradicated. Right now the work continues, so the riverfront is mostly dirt with various machines doing tasks on the project going here and there on the dirt. The river is also low at this time of year, in front of the city center there’s a good 75 yards of sand bank to walk across before you’re going to be in danger of getting a giant stingray spear in the sternum.
So, the walkway that tops the levee is pretty plain, and well, the riverfront is just ugly, sorry folks, there’s no other way to say it. It could be charming, but it’s not. On a paved area just inside the walkway they do a night market to bring some charm to the scene but during the day it’s grim, it looks like the DMZ without the sense of ceremony.
I wanted to find a particular temple whose staircase-guarding snake carvings were several times larger than its neighbors–I had a tantalizing view of them on my first day in town, but alas, I kept going to one temple, finding it to be the wrong one, and seeing another 50 yards up the road–oh, that must be it. Nope. Screw that. I need to get back to the base! We walked back, but first, as we came up the outbound side, we crossed the big boulevard again to check out the beautiful temple across from the hotel. You can’t enter the grounds of the active temples, at least, it sure didn’t seem like you should, so we looked in from the outside then risked death one more time.
I had an interview and photo shoot with the Vientiane Times, the local English paper, and then saw that things were getting under way for the show. A huge banner out front advertising me and ULUVUS (Tho it’s pronounced You Love Us, of course I called them the Uvulas.). A soundcheck was had, and much confusion was made about where to put the piano and all that, but it seemed to stabilize. They–the band, the club, everyone–convinced me that I should play last. I had my doubts–after all, you don’t follow rock with folk. But they said, a headliner is a headliner, and I should have a little more faith. We all know: faith and horse sense are not exactly fuck buddies.
Then, some feasting. At last, I got to try one version of Laab, which I was told in every guidebook I’d be sick of eating by the time I left Laos, and yet, it was like trying to find fricking unicorn fricassee. I guess the ultimate Laab is raw–fish that is limed to cook by acid a la ceviche, or raw beef that’s, uh…raw. Or partially. Or something–no one could explain it properly which probably means there as many variations of Laab as there are casseroles in Bemidjee. We had two kinds–fine little flakes of beef, and little bits of fish. I found them delicious even if they were not raw, and I love raw stuff. Other highlights were a kind of string bean dish very spicy, and deep fried tendons that belonged to something but were hard to identify thru the deep-fried ness. hmmm…maybe we could deep fry air force bombers to make them stealthier AND delicious. Again, the beer glass that could never be less than 75% full returned, I had to run away from there.
We let the set start time come and go, we were told that Lao take a special thrill in being fashionably late. I was surprised to find that our careful set up and soundcheck was more or less undone by the fact that the famous tag team cover band from the other night was *also* playing. And that female singer did double duty–when she wasn’t belting out Thai power ballads inside, she was on the outdoor stage at the patio, where we gathered and ate, singing Carpenters tunes with the acoustic trio there. What a little soldier.
ULUVUS began to play, and the place was absolutely throngin’. 200 plus in the house. That’s a big deal in Vientiane. I was a little worried about how to follow things–here were lazer lights, loud tunes, and Lao getting hammered on the blue water cooler drink and the Johnny Walker bottles. What had I got myself into?
I went up to my room to have a pee and a think. But the promoter was knocking on my door within seconds–”your turn now!”. What the? Seems my carefully orchestrated scheme of “OK, if you go first, let’s have me do a not too long set, then we do the songs we learned together as a grand finale” was officially on the cutting room floor. Fuuuuck. Well, I suited up, the next tune finished and they called me up and we had a three guitar attack on two of their originals and, I kid you not…er, should I even write this?–a nearly ten minute hard rock take on “My Humps”. That’s right. I have lawyers currently watching YouTube like NORAD to make sure that shit stays upcountry. It was fun tho…and rocking out with the guys was totally cool. Weird that the drum kit in this joint is permanently behind a plexiglass shield but hey. At least it’s not behind a plywood wall.
Then they were done, and the stage as I designed it was put back together–the piano, etc. And I came back out, again the packed house was pretty excited. I called some people up to the front knowing that Lao are really shy, and would prefer to stay at their tables and drink as a social activity–there’s a reason there’s almost no dance floor space at this joint–that’s WAY too intimate and expressive for the culture. The purpose of the band, usually the cover band, is not so much entertain perhaps as to just keep the noise level up so as to keep conversation, or its uncomfortable opposite, from being too conspicuous. I noticed the first nite when the cover band was playing that the music never stopped–each song segued to the next as seamlessly as a DJ would do. God forbid that there would be an obligation at any point to do something, say something….anyway, I truly digress. A few people, mostly expats but also including some young locals and one quite drunk REM fan, I guess he was Lao–he was definitely unintelligible, even to the locals. But it’s nice to have enthusiasm. True to form, I opened with pure whimper, playing a new song from my album called “You’re the Gold”, an energetic country number, but still pretty mellow. Uh, way to play a song you don’t know and they don’t know. Nice, but not exactly a showstopper. Better think quick. I kind of wised up, kept the patter going, and got more radical. I don’t remember exactly what I played, to be honest. I know there was much moving around the stage, working the extra vocal mic on stage right as a prob, by trying, unsuccessfully, to drag it up with me to walk out on the bass bins of the PA, but the cable was too short, it went into a hole in the stage, and wouldn’t budge as far as I wanted it to–perfect, that’s one of those ‘get the audience’s sympathy and show ‘em you’re not a quitter’ moves…heheh. I hopped from the lead vocal position, the stage extension in the center, to the stage left bass bin, singing w/no PA, all of that stuff. I remember doing “Some Kind of Sickness” by the DiSCiPLiNES. I don’t remember exactly what all else. I know I got in the crowd, and early on started to do “Any Love” but people were just babbling away and I felt it was too much to get into so I stopped before I started the verse. Oh, yes, there was an American guy there who was a big Lagwagon fan, loud, we can even say obnoxious but I think that’s his schtick, he’s definitely lovable. He, via the cover version from the Lagwagon side project Bad Astronaut, requested “Solar Sister” so he was really happy to get that. I know there was a particularly bombastic version of “Fucking Liar” on the piano. I also know that after about 40 minutes, most of the crowd was terrified–esp after one song I told one table, who were in the middle, facing away from the stage, and talking, to stop talking! That was enough to scare off most of the customers. Which is fine, because in the end, the show boiled down to people who wanted to hear. Oh, I keep remembering things. Like, in mid song, the girl (drunk? or not?), while I was down in the crowd, who came up to me and basically hung on me like a lamppost, then took the mic and started to sing nonsense…or the guys in mid song (like the REM fan) who were coming up and having their pictures taken with me in mid song! At one point, I was still down in the pit and Phed, the boss of the venue, started to unplug my piano (i.e. made a big noise when the cable was unplugged) and take it away! I was like–I’m not done with that! But I got the hint…wrapped it up in a few songs. I will say this. Not everyone could handle this show. It was very, very new for Laos. Maybe Dengue Fever was the only American or European band to come to Laos to perform, and they played to less people than I did. Sure, most of the people who stayed were either expats or Lao people who spend a lot of time with expats–remember the level of English comprehension in Laos is pretty low for the moment. The country is newly open. There is absolutely no culture for going to concerts as a listening experience. The cover bands have no stage banter whatsoever–they don’t acknowledge the audience, and the audience barely acknowledges them. An interactive, alternative, challenging original music show in English that’s not loud–that is truly radical for Laos, and everyone was glad this happened. And there were some really local people–somehow, I saw some folks in the crowd who were really Lao, and older–maybe someone’s chaperone? And they were intrigued, even, maybe…maybe….entertained. Something happened, and people were affected. And it wasn’t for everyone (not on purpose, but…). We had to meet in the middle and that was too far for some. But not all. And that’s how the world moves. Then I was done and the cover band started up again, ten minutes later, and played to no one.
Kurt was heading south early the next morning; I was heading to Bangladesh. We shared a cab for the ten minute ride to the airport, maybe even only eight minutes at that hour. I had a yoghurt and a cafe at the airport, said bye to Kurt as he headed to the domestic terminal. In line to check in I chatted with a young fellow, Bernie, from the Philippines who was headed home, and who had been at the show, and loved it. He was headed home, and I discussed my experiences playing in the Philippines two years before. Really nice guy.
Got into Bangkok, walked those miles and miles of gleaming new terminals. I’m not kidding, I think the distance from where I deplaned to where I boarded was no less than 1km. Got there tho. Flight to Dhaka.
Different vibe in Dhaka, hot & hazy. The immigration line took forever. What I didn’t know was that this week was a massive religious gatherings of Muslims from all over the world, the Bishwa Ijtema. So the airport was not well prepared for the extra influx of foreigners. Finally I was thru, and then looking around for the belt for my bag. One thing that struck me as a visual–if I went to the left after immigration, which were not the belts where my flight was coming in, there was a massive area in front of them with bundles, stuff people were bringing in. The floor was covered with fairly identical looking packages–lumpy collections of goods and belongings wrapped the kind of woven plastic that makes a rice sack in this day & age. Hundreds of them.
I exited, and found Waseq, part of the team organizing my shows here. They’d responded with a lot of excitement to my visit and really put together an incredible program. I now understand that Bangladesh is extremely musical, with a massive culture for rock, esp. hard rock, and they are really hungry for live shows. By comparison India is more blasé–they get more stuff passing thru but also rock is a much smaller slice of the picture compared to the behemoth that is Bollywood and its hit songs. Meanwhile, Bangladesh rocks.
We piled into a van, one that I would get to know well during my visit. The driver and I got to calling each other “ostad” or “boss”. This man was a virtuoso behind the wheel. In a city where traffic is like playing Frogger in hyperspace, he maneuvered without any apparent stress through the craziness. I would have a hard time describing the roads in and around Dhaka, it should be experienced, but the variety of vehicles and their attendant velocities, colors, exhaust outputs, scars, dents, horn timbres, trajectories…it’s like driving in a bird sanctuary, a garbage disposal, the asteroid belt. There were cars, and buses. Everything has been painted over in thick, what appears to be marine, paint. Buses tend to be bright red. Rickshaws–what you would call a tuktuk, are green. There were also plenty of motorbikes, bicycles, and lots of bike rickshaws, and bike rickshaw carts–goods hauling by pedal power. Rickshaws motorized and not are decorated with all kinds of insignia on the back, gods and tigers and rainbow paisleys. It’s all coming at you, and it’s all honking furiously. I never once saw an accident between vehicles there. Turning is an act of courage, and of will. It was impossible for me to understand the code of the road. Sometimes an upturned hand from a pedestrian could cause vehicles to pause. Sometimes we just pulled into a radical right turn (remember, we’re driving on the left here) with no signal. We would cruise up on the car in front of us at high speed, and only brake at the last second, but never was there a screech of tires. It looks to the untrained eye completely dysfunctional and dangerous. It might be, but not with Ostad at the helm. I had total confidence in his abilities. He didn’t speak much English, but he was upbeat, obviously had a good sense of humor and enjoyed a laugh, without being frivolous. He wore pinstripe dress shirts, and drove barefoot most of the time. He and the van are hired by Livesquared, the promoter, probably full time.
We got to the hotel, and I had time to freshen up, relax a bit. Then they came back and we went to a cafe, my first glimpse of urban, central Dhaka. The hotel was on a quiet sidestreet in the neighborhood of Banani. The center, where we found ourselves having coffee, was dominated by buildings encrusted with all manner of signage, everything looking beaten up by the constant swirl of motion and exhaust wafting up from below. As if the buildings were tired just from the thought of all they see each day. Inside the cafe tho, life was pleasant. I had a Thai soup for lunch, and we discussed music, and soon were joined by musicians and producers from town, a meeting of minds. Omer Nashaad and Palbasha Siddique who would be joining me on the bill that week were part of the gathering. Palbasha is an excellent singer who has been living in the USA now for some years, going to school. Omer is a DJ and electronic producer and coder. We spent a couple of hours getting to know each other, then it was time for the jam. Now, the idea of a jam session, I was a little skeptical but it ended up being a lot of fun. We went to a music school, and between Nafis, who had been my main contact at Livesquared, Palbasha, myself, and a teenage guitarist who is a Livesquared intern, Rakat, we had a grand old time. In a tiny room I played keys, guitar and drums. We did some of my songs, I ran them thru a couple of easy ones. Rakat was into “Reveal Love” but I had to disappoint in that I don’t even remember how to play it on guitar, the way I used to. It’s been years.
At last it was time for a meal–Palbasha, Rakat and I had a real Bangladeshi meal in a restaurant right by the coffee shop. The food was perfectly spicy, more or less we had a biryani, and some chicken…Pablasha ate with her hands as is custom. For a beverage I had borhani which is something like the lassi you find in Indian restaurants, but savory, salty and green. Definitely exotic to my palate.
Ostad was there to convey me to my hotel, and I looked forward to long nite’s rest.
DHAKA, 1/13
Or so I thought. First of all, it was *cold* in Bangladesh. Many commented that this is a serious problem. Hundreds are likely to die in a cold snap, esp in the country, people are just unprepared for it. It wasn’t generally cold enough for my coat, but generally I wore a cardigan, and, bless them, my hosts had given me a traditional shawl, basically a cotton wrap that could be worn as a cloak over the upper body. But on this night, I woke up freezing after an hour or so, and put on wool socks and the polar fleece pullover that Dom had picked up for me. Got back to sleep, for a decent chunk of the night.
Or so I thought. At regular intervals, a night watchman on patrol would make a whistle, one of those fingers-in-your-mouth whistles that I can’t do. But he knocked off eventually, and so I could finally drift off into deep slumber, for at least a little while.
Or so I thought. 5am, as the first cracks of light appear in the sky, there arose the morning bulletins of the kak, the local crows. Accusatory, choleric, and above all, LOUD. Mostly seemed to emanate from one individual, very close to my window. When I joked about the loud birds the next day, people told me: You need to take his picture, then he’ll go away.
I did manage to sleep a little here and there.
I went down for breakfast and my hosts were waiting for me, for our excursion of the day. Ostad at the tiller, of course. Our destination today was Sonargaon, which has the remains of elegant brick manses that housed ‘governors’ aka landowners, who esp under the British had shall we say supraconstitutional powers. In other words, they were lords, and they kept the fiefs in line for the colonial overlords. So, these homes would have been in use until mid century. Now, they are technically a kind of historical monument, or a preserved neighborhood. They mostly line one road that leads out from the Panam CIty village, very much alive and well. As soon as you enter the ruins, going down the sole street, the hectoring masses disappear and the streets are still. As historical monuments go, this is barely administered. The grandest palace is closer to the turn off, separate from the road of more modest structures (most of these are not terribly imposing, but very lovely brick buildings of two or three stories. This grand palace is now a museum, but with barely any explanation of what this place is all about. For the main drag of homes, there’s no signage, no administration whatsoever. It’s probably the most photographed place in the country–this is where budding camera buffs come to take aim and perfect their craft. So, there were a dozen or two Bangladeshi men and women with SLR Nikons prowling about. Some of the buildings are squatted, all are ostensibly with bricked up windows and other impediments to doing so. But people are slithering in and out the buildings here and there. The religious niches of the ancient village are there, caged off to protect the displays inside–various gods/goddesses that are made out maybe papier maché or crummy plaster, obv recently but not so recently that they weren’t falling apart and really scary…kinda headless, cannibalized.
We squeezed between buildings going down the lane, a quiet river ran behind the facade. A woman was harvesting some type of string bean, whose runners had settled up a tree, with a kind of long rake. Four guys were playing a kind a Bangla version of backgammon. Via my hosts translation, I asked them if they were playing for money. They all laughed and said, no, no, just to pass the time. On the riverbank I saw a flash of pure metallic blue–a kingfisher. I observed him as he paused on a branch for a few minutes.
Meanwhile a local kid had adopted us as a potential source of enrichment, he was prob. 18, and he said we should walk with him to see the Shiva temple we could see sticking up through some trees on the other side of the river. We crossed over on a low flat bridge, the river just below us mostly here choked with water lilies. The ancient bridge, whose roadway arcs steeply with the curve of the span, and has a big hole in it to boot, so the new bridge is the one of choice for guys like the man walking a cow over it I passed. Still, motor rickshaws were flying over the ancient bridge, basically a ski jump. We crossed, and then basically skirted the edge, technically in the action, of a local cricket match. There was a booth in the corner of the field with a small PA and a few guys calling the match. Maybe 40 people all along one side of the field watching. We walked on, and entered a small grove, and inside this was a gorgeous ancient pile. A moss covered mansion, elegant even its decay. And it was inhabited–the boy said that a teacher from the local school lived there. The main part of the building was two stories, and there were the walls of what had been perhaps a large reception hall or perhaps a ballroom, or? roof long gone. It looked out on a pond, peering from the trees. Still and full of mystery, even with the quotidian details of the current occupant barely visible here and there–the biggest evidence was a pit in the ballroom, rectangular and about five feet deep–a latrine under construction.
Meanwhile, just outside the structure, was a column, the temple of Shiva. A stone column, quite high, with a rocket nose like top, much like you’d see on a tower on Mad Ludwig’s place. Weather vane-like decorations on top of crescents and other astrological shapes. Niches at eye level with flowers, and in one case, a handful of straw baled together. In a line from the tower were several tombs, rectangles of marble with some lettering on them–these were graves of some of these local lords. The names were written on small squares of marble at the foot of each one; these grave stone markers were recent additions.
We walked back thru the cricket match, and evidently as I passed the announcer w/o skipping a beat said thru the PA “and here’s an Australian who’s just come in on a helicopter to kick all our asses!”. We went into the active village, and thru the museum, sort of. A carnival was being set up, families everywhere. A famous painter who painted large figures in a folk art style is from here, and there were reproductions of his work all over. Garlands were strung in the trees. Tents were set up selling gifts, candy, snacks, food and tea. There was one tent with yummy looking food–you might not agree and see a guy stirring slimy sludge, distressingly brown and green, in a giant metal bowl, but I saw that as a very good sign. I thought about ducking in here for lunch but my hosts went dark and said, no…evidently they had safety concerns. The idea of going into a tent where people couldn’t really see well what was happening inside was something they didn’t advise doing with a toubab like me, or even city kids like themselves. We ended up at a small restaurant, very unpromising looking, on the main drag. Our teenage guide had shadowed us all the way here, and Waseq snuck off at some point to give him some go away money. I should note here the extreme generosity of my hosts–I had no chance to change money, and asked about going to a money changer many times, and somehow the errand never happened. They ended up covering all my costs–my hotel, meals, even the things I bought–a postcard and stamp for Aden, and a musical instrument called an ektara, which we bought in Panam City. The instrument BTW, is a rhythmic drone–one string, and you squeeze two slats of pliable wood which relaxes the tension on the string, so the pitch drops away and you let go and it returns to the drone note. Anyway, lunch here was no exception, they invited me. Fish, chicken both slathered in curry gravy, and rice. The food looked a little dried out and not so good–but I’ve found that all it takes is one stir and everything looks nice again. So, don’t judge by first impressions, in other words.
Then the drive back. Like the drive out–just chaos on the road. They are building a huge flyover on this route, but it’s just getting started–there’s a few pylons in place and that’s it. Getting on and off the main road happens at a nexus, that’s roughly based on a roundabout, but there’s no center and no rules–go circular, go diametric, zig zag–whatever gets you thru the night. Let’s remember that in the mix there’s always, no matter how major the highway, pedestrians crossing. As Ostad pointed out, there are pedestrian stairways for crossing, but they take too much effort to use–people would rather take their chances getting run over than mount a bunch of stairs. This applies to the roundabout. The Blue Angels couldn’t orchestrate such wingtip-to-wingtip precision if the earth was held ransom and they had 1000 years to get it right. Everything seeming on collision or worse, extreme squish, course, and no incidents that I saw. I mean, all the vehicles are banged up, except ours wasn’t. So we fought this on the way out and even more so on the way in. I fell asleep (car, food, sun) on the way back, but I think we just stopped and turned off the engine at points. Oh, I should also mention that the dirt path that is in front of the countless tiny business that line the highway with desperate utility is of course an extra lane or two–a free for all to pass on the shoulder, even by massive buses technically wider than this dirt shoulder is.
After a freshen up at the hotel, we went to the Platinum Suites. Music venues for non-arena shows in Dhaka are hard to come by. The coffee shop we met at can be one. There are night spots but it’s a bit odd as alcohol is forbidden, though foreigners can buy it in hotels and the odd restaurant or two. So there’s no bars per se. We had looked at a night spot called the Bench for this show at some point which has an outdoor stage in the back patio (and thank god we changed it because Dhaka was so chilly) and there was a fight there the night before my show, to which I said….why? Who gets into fights without booze? There was also a fatal shooting in Banani this nite. I was never alone when I was there and I think I know why. Though I ended up meeting an American guitarist, Seth, who lives most of the year in Dhaka, he seemed to get around fine. But I didn’t see hardly any foreign faces in my visit. Which of course I love, it’s great to be feeling like a real local. Ah, digression. The Platinum Suites is a hotel, when I thought I was paying my own accom’s I chose to stay at the less expensive and more homey Rose Garden Hotel, and I would have made the same choice if I’d known I wasn’t to pay (I think it was their intention to pay if they could find the right sponsor, which in the end was Marlboro, but that wasn’t clear til shortly before my arrival–nor was the venue chosen til maybe a week before.) In their low ceilinged banquet hall, which had a (soft only) bar at the back, we were set up for two days of performances. The entrance smelled of durian, and the floor was covered in a weird astroturf green carpet. Low stage, just a few inches higher than the ground (good for my show). A few chairs were set up right in front of the stage, as I was to be one of the judges of a kind of battle of the bands, the winner of which would get to open for a prestigious gig coming up, a metal gig. Hard rock and metal really are the passion of the average young Bangladeshi. These bands had been selected from demos and other elimination processes. One problem: no earplugs. Ostad! Luckily we were just around the corner from the Rose Garden.
Now safely protected, the onslaught could begin. There were three judges, one I think was a record producer of some kind, and one was “Sufi Maverick”, the singer of hard rock band Arbovirus, and also a record producer. So, first band up, a three piece. Singing bass player, singing drummer. They did eclectic covers–Crossroads, an aborted version of Tush, a pretty rockin version of I Am the Walrus, which the drummer sang. They did their own original “Funk You” and then asked for an improv theme–”Jazz Clowns!” I yelled, and they honored my request, and to be honest, the singer’s extemporaneous lyrics were brilliant. The next band up, The Manager, played Pearl Jam and other covers, something Creed related, which everyone LOVED. They had a brilliant original song tho, that slowed things down a bit, I think it was the best original song of the night. The singer picked up an acoustic guitar and also played a small flute for one section. It was quite epic.
Next came up Revolotus. Medal gods. The singer lost points when he announced that they were going to be a bit heavier than what came before so far. When we did the critiques after each performance, I took him to task for that–saying heavy is in the emotions, not the volume. To me, the heaviest music I heard in Bangladesh was at the carnival in Panam City–a guy playing a kind of Bengali mandolin, 4 strings tuned to 2 notes, singing (as was translated) that he’d lost the love of his life, but it was OK, music was his great lover now. He was blind. *That’s* heavy. But these guys were the best players by a long shot, playing pure old fashioned metal. Not black metal, not nu metal. Metal. Like my high school classmates knew it. Except guitar solos have evolved since Randy Rhodes. These kids, one in particular, were ridiculous, two handed finger tapping solos that make a Bach fugue sound like the Volga boatmen’s song.
After that, my friend Rakat from the previous nite’s jam had thrown together a ragtag set of instrumentals, 12 bar blues and what not—with a last minute drummer. After my fine showing at the jam I was a little hurt he hadn’t called me, but I guess they take judicial conflict of interest seriously in this county. Their last song was a highlight as the only female to take the stage that day got up and sang. I praised this, and then said…the next time I do this I want to see something closer to 50 50 girls n boys onstage over the evening. Check out the Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and get back to me with the results! And finally, Heal. This ended up being the band that won the night. They weren’t the best players, their original song wasn’t as good as the one by The Manager. But they had that famous X factor. They were a little less pretentious overall, a little more personable, and just an interesting, likable group with several cool personalities that you instantly liked and remembered. And the bass player, Mohamed, had by far the best hair of the evening. His bass was way outta tune tho, in the first song, so I jumped up and got him a tuner before the second song. They had the best reaction from the crowd. To be honest all the bands had something. I tried to be strong on praise, but give each band something to work on–and my co-jurors were even more generous on praise.
After that, I did a short set, 4 songs, which was well received, and then my co-jurist’s band played their heavy set. Songs about aliens with metal grooves and dark vocals. I was exhausted. After enjoying their first few songs, I needed food, and I needed rest. We were just about to go when everyone said that this heavy band wanted to do “Losing My Religion” with me…I said, please…I am way too burnt…so sorry. So they let it drop. We went back to the hotel for some food, I begged of the “French cuisine” in favor of any curry they could muster. The hotel did have incredible lassi tho, the best I’ve encountered yet.
DHAKA, 1/14
A better night’s sleep, and a longer one. On this day we went via Ostad first to a monument, the Kella Lalbagh fort. Peaceful park where couples go to be in love, chastely. Old red brick fortress that was the local governor’s palace during the Mughal era. Then we went into the old town. Denser, windier streets, even more variety to the vehicular ecosystem here. We got in as far as we could, til we realized that getting more into it would be impossible, and getting out at this point wasn’t going to be easy. At a minuscule intersection, Ostad managed a three point turn to reverse his rig, with pedestrians, rickshaws, people with balanced loads on their heads or shoulders, everything going at once. Didn’t even break a sweat. We got out and he went off to park somewhere. We stopped first for a street snack–jhal muri. Guy on a street corner with a few items balanced on an oil drum. It’s roasted puffed rice, mixed in with a scoop of a pasty material that’s prob. chickpea based, then a kind of salsa of hot chilies red and green. Served in a paper bag, as the wet parts are in ratio with the dry rice, perfectly. Delicious. Most ingenious was the spoon–just a square of thin cardboard, like from a cereal box.
That was the appetizer, next up was lunch. Haji Biriyani a very famous place for Biriyani. It’s just a hole in the wall, coupla tables. I wish they would have allowed me to photograph the kitchen in back, it’s such a fascinating looking enterprise. Just a courtyard, with huge kettles going. Shirtless guys tending to this and that. Not a kitchen in the sense you’ve seen before. This was typical of the local eateries, i.e. not the downtown restaurants, we went to. Biryani was just that–chunks of mutton buried in rice. Absolutely yummy. Sympathy spoon for the whitey. Everyone else eats with their hands. Now, I know we had appetizer and lunch by this point, but there was a place that looked really good I wanted to try, I saw it on our abortive drive down the lane. It was just up the street a few doors and across. I was caught by the sight of two very yummy dishes–like so many places, the dishes are prepared en masse and live in big metal bowls, prominently displayed in lieu of a menu. This was something green, turned out to be an eggplant dish. We sat down in this tiny place, and it was pretty clear that not many foreigners had been there, if any. Everyone stopped and many came and sat down by me and watched me eat. I just wanted to try the eggplant, which was fishy and salty and extremely good, and then there was a kind of cake, a wet cake, I tried that too, a little bit of each. Again, everyone eats with their hands. The boys working the tables were no more than eleven, you can feel bad about that, I did. You see a lot of child labor, official or unofficial in the region. When I hesitated, it dawned upon all that a spoon was needed; one was washed and presented to me, a tea spoon. It did the trick. Then it was time for dessert–the cake, and…uh…they washed my spoon. As in: I had the only one they owned!
That being done, we shoved off, and met up with Ostad who had found a parking area in the courtyard of the veterinary school in the neighborhood. I went in for a pee. Oh my. We drove to the crafts store where my shawl came from, as being the only place they could imagine having postcards for sale, so I could send one to Aden. The post office was closed, being Saturday, but Waseq said he’d sort it out later. Then we headed to a music store where I was presented with many CDs from local bands and artists and a huge box set of tracks from the 70s, songs that were popularized by a radio station that became the soundtrack for the revolution that separated Bangladesh from Pakistan. On the way there I saw something very disturbing. Stopped at a long light, three tiny girls, prob. ages 3, 5 and 7, were begging. They were concentrating on a truck that was waiting, so they clambered on the taxi that was next to it and were banging on the guy’s window, hassling him for whatever they could get. They were on the wrong side tho–remember, right hand drive, and they were on the left of the truck. Then the light changed and the girls scattered—the two eldest to the left, i.e., to the side, and the tiny one went right, i.e. to the center lane and was clobbered by a car. The car braked at the moment of impact, she went flying. My mind went in a loop, asking itself it was really seeing this, frozen to act. She got up, went off to the left side and the girls looked her over. The car of course, drove on. Nothing to do there–these girls are essentially humans without value in that society. Nobody wanted to see her get run over–we all winced–but…unfortunately, it was ‘life goes on’ from there. I’m still shocked and think of that scene quite often, hard to get rid of an image like that.
Showtime. We assembled at the Platinum Suites, site of much chaos and frenzied activity, despite the fact that everything should be in place from yesterday. I did a kind of line check, not much to with my simple show so just making sure the keyboard worked, etc. I changed guitar strings on the strat I was to use that nite. Marlboro girls were in place, and soon the headliners for the evening, Miles, came in. Miles are a legendary band, having been in the business for over thirty years (and they look incredibly young considering they have to be in their 50s.) They had huge successes in the 80s when they started to sing rock in Bengali after doing a couple of albums in English that were also popular. But their Bangla rock transformation put them at the superstar level, and they managed to tour the world, playing to Bengali communities all over the globe, including an extensive tour of the USA in the 90s. I should mention that Bengali, the language of Bangladesh, is also the language of a major region of India, including Kolkata. So, it was thru Miles that this gig happened. As I was researching the music scene of Bangladesh, Miles’ name came up frequently, and I found that Shafin, the bass player, was on Facebook. We conversed online and he agreed to help me sort something out — which is really en indication of the generosity of the Bangladeshi people, and their hunger to have international music come in to the country. The contrast with the reception I’ve had in India, for example, is night and day. There’s no way such a major star in India as Shafin is in Bangladesh would take the time and trouble to accommodate my tour. It was Shafin who introduced me to Livesquared so I had a proper promoter on the case. And to top it off, Miles agreed to play a set at this show, in this tiny ballroom capacity 180. Now, to show you how cool that is, the band had played a headlining stadium gig in Chittagong (the 2nd largest city in Bangladesh) recently, with 65,000 attendees. But they wanted to meet and interact. I am humbled and honored by their graciousness.
First up was Omer, who had an interesting lineup with laptop stuff, and two metal guitarists jamming over the top, and I came and played guitar on a song too. Big beats, and heavy guitars, that’s a really cool concept. Pablasha and her band were up, she sang wonderfully, and looked gorgeous, in traditional, or shall we say typical, garb. I also joined her on guitar, on impromptu version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ “. I was thinking “wow, you really do live in the midwest!”. And I had a bon mot for the occasion: “hi all, I just wanted to mention the old Chinese proverb that says the journey of 10,000 miles begins with one step. So now, I take it one step further: I’ve come 10,000 miles to play…Journey.”
And then it was my turn. The place was packed, all the kids sitting on the floor up until the soundboard, then there were standing attendees. I was surprised how many kids were smoking–average age here was probably 24. But no matter. I did my thing–very emotional, great, listening audience and the nice thing is that English is widely spoken there so my humor and interaction was able to have its full impact. I was off on my improvised, uh, journey, out in the crowd with nothing but a guitar and my wits. We had a blast. There were a few flat screens around that cycled the graphics from the show advertisement, including the names of the artists performing, which changed every now and then. I had a great riff during “One Morning” when I reach the climax of the last chorus, where I say “so sad as me” a few times I started to look towards the nearest screen and play on the fact that it was clear I was trying to time the arrival of the word ‘me’ with my name appearing on the screen, and that it was taking more time so I had to humorously warp the timing and melody while I was in a holding pattern. It changed from Pablasha to Omer and I got indignant with the screen: “me!” holding ‘me’ out building up tension until finally it changed to my name and I could triumphantly deliver the completion of the line….to wild applause.
Now, there were a lot of technical problems during the show, including the fact that PA just didn’t work for most of my set, and occasionally in mid-song would put out a massive popping sound, almost like a gunshot–startling indeed! But the beauty of my show is that it can adapt to almost any terrain or conditions…and in fact my struggle against the odds gained much sympathy from the audience. Some might have been under the impression that my unamplified stroll thru the audience was an improvised response to the PA situation, and I did nothing to deter that conclusion. Don’t let the pesky details take the wind out of the myth, when it adds up to a story of beauty that inspires.
I brought Pablasha up onstage to sing “Doesn’t It Remind You” with me, which went wonderfully, but it wasn’t the only duet of my show. At the conclusion of the show, I was at the piano, and invited people onstage, only a few were able to overcome their shyness and do it. A few of the musicians. I sang “Here’s to the Future” with a semi circle of musicians and singers around me. As I got to the repeating coda, where I hope that the future “Holds more…holds more….holds more” the singers started to respond, answering my “holds more” with a “holds more” of their own…breaking into harmony, and soon the outro had an even more gospel-like feel. It was one of those magical, hoped for moments–that I’m not really a solo artist, the audience is my band, and it’s just magical when they join in. Truly chills-inducing moment. The singing was so beautiful and soulful.
Well, that was a wrap for me, a massively successful performance, but the nite was not yet over–Miles took the stage. They took their time to set up and their crew repaired the PA or routed around it or whatever. At the top of their set Shafin gave a long intro saying that they were here to welcome me, and also to say how sad it was that they had seen many local shows derailed by PA problems of this nature–more or less saying, the musicians always do their job, but if the sound engineers don’t do theirs properly, the performances won’t be heard, and gave me kudos for rising above. Then they launched into their set, first doing an instrumental jam so the sound engineers could get the balance. The band consists of Shafin, who is the main lead singer and a wicked bass player; Manam Ahmed on keyboards and some vocals; Hanim Ahmed andIqbal Asif Jewel on guitars, both wicked players and Hanim seems to also play the role of mischief maker. And an incredible, tasty drummer, Syed Ziaur Rahman Turjo. The band came to life in 1979, and certainly you can hear elements of prog in their music, I could imagine them listening to Yes, for example. But they also are big REM fans, they mentioned loving Santana and Osibisa, and obv hard rock is part of the mix too. They played, only after bowing graciously to overwhelming audience pressure, to play their biggest hit, which has anthemic chorus that could be a distant cousin of “Livin’ on a Prayer”—but even in Bengali, Miles’ song was even catchier and musically so much more meaty–Shafin’s bass line in the chorus is really moving a lot, but it all fits seamlessly. They have a Bengali rock version of a folk tune, which for me was a highlight. In all they presented some of their more obscure numbers for this set, having just done two stadium shows in Dhaka in recent memory. A new song was played, which I also loved. And, at last, they invited me onstage to jam with them, first I played over on Hanim’s guitar, which he was still wearing, reaching around him to do hammer ons and bends. Then I went over to keys and Manam & I traded electric piano solos.
The evening came to thunderous conclusion, really a massive night of music, and the audience definitely responded–I love that an audience who has been weaned on hard rock was so open to my minimalist performance. I got probably 50 friend requests on Facebook from people at the show, which is a great compliment too. This show has been the highlight of the tour, musically speaking, yet to be topped tho I have a few shows left.
After the show, we assembled in my hotel restaurant, most of Miles, and Waseq, Nafis, and a few more, incl Shafin’s lovely wife Nahin. We had a great time discussing everything from Bangladesh infrastructure to the trials and tribulations of touring by air. I was surprised to find that, without ordering it, we were poured whiskey. I didn’t drink it, I’m not a whiskey drinker and I just can’t bring myself to break local custom. Eventually, it was midnite, I had an early morning the next day–despite the fact my flight was at 1pm, it was the last day of Bishwa Itjema and tens of thousands of pilgrims would be leaving Bangladesh. So we planned to leave the hotel at 8. It was already after midnite, so I hoped for some untroubled sleep.
But trouble was in store. After days of eating local food, street food, you name it–the showstopper meal in the hotel did me in. I’d made a mental note that I should have heeded more–the food was not spicy, and that’s usually a problem. It’s the chili that kills off the bad guys, at least in my experience. I was, with many meals in Bangladesh or Laos, happily munching raw green chilies. But that defense was breached here. I woke up at 5am with the awful sensation of food coming up my throat. Not vomiting, but reflux. In other words, I was laying down, and my stomach had decided: ‘thou shalt not pass’. I was bloated like a pregnant lady and just feeling nauseous. The stomach calming powder I had didn’t do the trick. I knew that puking was inevitable. But I *hate* puking. I would rather stay in hospital for a month than puke once even if it meant instant relief. No choice in the matter here…I barfed. It wasn’t that bad. My eyes watered a bit. Everything went in the toilet. I took more stomach calming powder. And also, the back door started to purge as well. Not violently or uncontrollably, but nonetheless, I was emptying out. One thing I will say for my body is that when it rejects, it rejects, and it’s done with efficiently. But I had a flight today–no chances to be taken. No one wants to die a hero just for eating a curry. So, I broke into the Ciflox. Unfortunately round two, the round you’ve all been waiting for, came 20 minutes after. Vomit from a much deeper place–now I truly felt emptied. I didn’t have any Immodium but I’ve heard that the subcontinent’s brand of Montezuma’s Revenge doesn’t necessarily take that stuff seriously. Oh, and as luck would have it, I had a new outfit today–with white jeans!
I showered up, feeling weak and drained. About the time of puke number two, I had a moment of panic–what if this doesn’t stop? How serious is it? Hospital needed? But down in the lobby when I checked out and then lay down on the banquette in the TV room, I didn’t feel the urge to puke, or any other ejection, my stomach didn’t hurt as much. I just felt too weak to carry on. But carry on I must. Waseq arrived and loaded me into the hotel car–I was devastated that Ostad wasn’t making this run–no one told me and I didn’t really get to shake his hand goodbye when he dropped us at the hotel the night before. So, I loaded myself into the back seat of the car, and we started making our way to the airport. I don’t really know how long it took. Due to chaos on the roadway associated with the pilgrimage there were military checkpoints at a couple of points along the way, where i had to at least try to sit up, and flash my American passport, this was apparently sufficient, they didn’t even examine it. Just being a foreigner was distinctive enough to extinguish all suspicion. I have to admit, glimpses of foreigners were few and far between–I think there 4 or 5 at my show and on the street I saw none. Even the people in the crafts boutique, one of the major tourist stops of the city, were largely local or perhaps from next door in India.
Made it to the airport, Waseq made sure I was sorted before we said goodbye thru the glass that separates passengers from folks just picking up or dropping off. For some reason, I was pulled out of the check in line and moved to the front of the line. Weird. I’ll take it tho! But…the flight wasn’t for a couple hours and there was no gate yet assigned. So I passed out on a bench near the screen where the gate assignments came up. Mosquitoes bit my fingers and nose. Not much I could do. People stared. Whatevs. I was spent.
Finally the gate was assigned, I crawled over that direction. Security in Dhaka is pretty loose–no laptops out, belt on. Boarded the flight to Colombo, in the first row, window seat. I managed to get down a mango juice. The guy next to me, seemed to be a pilgrim, in his white regalia, offered me his juice as well, he’d selected from the cart but didn’t end up wanting it. I think he pitied me somewhat, as well. It was the juice of something called ‘Wood Apple’. The graphic on the box was of something that looks a little like more the hairy species of coconuts. It was bitter and a little chalky, maybe a bit adventurous for my state, but I was gracious and finished it.
We landed in Colombo, and I patiently waited. Free internet on kiosks but I didn’t really have the energy to face emails. Finally boarded the flight to Malé, again I was the first row of coach, window seat. Nothing to see as it was almost totally dark when we took off. On this flight I took my second antibiotic of the day and could actually face the snack served on board, a little pastry roll with some vegetarian stuff inside, the yellow potato flesh served in so many ways on the continent.
The flite from Colombo to Malé is less than an hour, we deplaned and I did my formalities, and got some local Ruffiah–the paper money of the Maldives is absolutely beautiful. I mused, however, they they don’t make it out of plastic, like the money of Australia, as the tropical heat and moisture made the smaller, more common bills brown and dog eared. Dhaka had been chilly–Malé was divine, even at night. So, I was met by my contacts in Maldives–brothers Munaz and Mooshan. Mooshan is a successful and talented local musician; Munaz looks like a kid but he’s already a proud dad with twin baby girls, and a career in IT, graphic design and more. Both extremely kind and generous of them sort me out with this gig in the midst of their busy lives. But things are loose on the islands–the gig wasn’t actually booked, and it was tomorrow. But no worries.
Our first journey was to board the boats that ferry passengers to the city. The airport takes up one island, and there’s ten minutes passage to “the Capital” as everyone says. A city of over 100,000 on an island just a mile or so in diameter. Every square inch is spoken for, and unfortunately, as needs have increased, older examples of architecture are constantly replaced by contemporary structures. Not that the new stuff isn’t cute–the high rises are often jolly pastel shades of pink, blue, yellow, green–each building a solid color different than its neighbors. It’s amazing how lost you can get on such a small island–tiny lanes weave between buildings, streets dog leg this way and that way. Nearly everyone has the same model of Honda scooter, cars are pretty impractical here (tho Munaz has a brand new shiny Mazda or something similar).
In addition to having no show, I had no hotel booked. Mooshan had said not to bother. He presented three hotels in three price ranges, and I said ‘let’s look at the cheap one.’ $50/night, with AC, wifi, etc. Worked for me. Cash only. I loved the name to: “Off Day Inn”. I think they meant it as in ‘day off’ but this was much funnier. ‘I’m having kind of an off day…can I stay here?” I stashed my stuff and we headed to the proposed venue: the Sea House. The Sea House is a prime location–on the water’s edge with a terrace that looks over the waters where the boats come in from the airport, and on out to the airport island itself. We took an outside table (it’s on the second floor of a building that also has the high speed airport ferry ticketing.) and enjoyed the warm breeze. I had a smoothie, that seemed harmless enough, while the boys had ‘chewing stuff’. This habit is seen in India, Bhutan, etc. as well, but this was my first encounter. A kind of nut, sliced thinly, so you see the beautiful patterns of brown and white inside. A betel leaf. And some spices–sometimes you take this from a can that’s tricked out graphically like an Indian dumptruck–shiny and all kinds of iconography that looks religious…in this case the stuff was just in a salt shaker. So, leaf, nut slices, and some of the red powder. I tried some of it, it was…extremely intense.
So, we had the big meeting to book the show. It went like this: the manager of the place came by our table, Mooshan got his attention and introduced me. “Can we do a show here tomorrow?” “Sure!”. OK. The deal was done. Time for bed, then!
MALÉ, 1/16
Well, we couldn’t be in the Maldives without a swim, could we? Munaz picked me up that morning and went to the ferry terminal on the other side of the Capital. Boarded a small ferry for Vilingilli, a small island near the capital, on the way out to the manmade island where Malé deposits its solid waste–it’s made its own garbage island. But Vilingili is lovely, it was made as a kind of resort/suburb of the capital. No cars. Just local houses, a few modern buildings, a restaurant or two. We wandered until we found a little local cafe, and sat ourselves down. Maldivian breakfast–various little pastries and dumplings, both sweet and savory, and tea. I did envy Munaz’s choice–a mix of diced tuna and some kind of leaf vegetable, but I just set my radar on that for later. Delicious, any way you slice it or dice it. We circled the island, and then swam in a quiet bay not far from the ferry terminal, so facing the capital. Warm, clear water. Being on the urban side, not a lot of life there, but hey. I still think the vastness of the ocean ensures a pretty clean swim. We rinsed in the public showers there, and headed back over to the Capital.
After a rest, I had lunch with Munaz in a very local place, again facing the airport side. Tuna (the staple here) and vegetables, somewhat curried. Then we went on a long mission to find a postcard for Aden, and mail it (I was actually allowed to mail it after the cutoff–you take a number, but when they realize the numbers will go past the 3pm closure of the office, they stop issuing them. Munaz negotiated that I could jump the queue and get my postcard sent off). Then I was on my own for awhile, so I walked for about two hours. Incredible how much walking you can do, and how lost you can get, in an island of only one square mile. Tho that square mile is virtually completely occupied by urban development. Tiny alleys wind this way and that–there are very few avenues that run straight–in fact, there’s only one, that I could find. But I even lost track of that, and managed to drift here and there. But, I did eventually find the Sultan Park, the grounds of the ancient palace of the former monarchy, which now houses the national everything–history, art, whatever–museum. And from there, you can see the charming and colorful presidential residence. Across the street from there is beautiful cemetery, I’m not sure a non-Moslem can enter–it’s certainly posted that we are not allowed to enter the lovely wooden mosque on the grounds, but out of respect for the dead I just admired the elegantly carved tombstones from outside.
So, eventually I met up with Mooshan, and with help from Munaz, who either has a shiny new car or has use of their sister’s shiny new car, I couldn’t quite grab it–tho it definitely seems to live in Munaz’s garage–perhaps he’s the only one of the kids who has a building w/parking, we went to sort the gear. For some reason, prob. to do the ‘car makes kids sleep’ trick, we had the two brothers, myself, Munaz’s wife and their twin baby girls, about a year old, with us–which didn’t leave a lot of room for gear! And the gear was all over town–a guitar here, a PA component here. We filled the trunk pretty fast and then left Mooshan on the corner to wait a special kind of taxi, rather unique to the island, I think–a very small flatbed truck you can hire to drive things around. Very handy. We headed to the gig to drop the gear, stopping by Munaz’s to drop the girls, who by this time were crawling all over the car, and driver!
The Sea House was ready to receive us, there’s a corner that’s kind of like a stage, and we set up–PA, keyboard, and guitar effects/pre amp thingy, in lieu of an actual amp. The show was free, Mooshan had tweeted and what not, but I think very few of his friends actually came–but not to worry, the Sea House is *the* place to hang out in Malé. So, there were quite a few people there, tho they were definitely unprepared for what I had to present. People were a bit mystified, but really appreciative–more applause happened the longer I played. Sometimes I would do some vocalizing, a little vamping, and some guys in the audience would hoot back. I played “Lover’s Hymn” with a long intro about prayer (remember this is a country which requires the embracing of Islam for residency or citizenship) and its universal appeal. And people dug it. Mooshan came up and we did two songs that he does in his cover sets–REM’s “Losing My Religion” and “The One I Love”, and we did his most popular song, “Gaimuba” , Mooshan on acoustic and singing, and me on electric and with harmonies where possible. Really nice. I played a few more songs, and called it an evening, having played about ninety minutes all told.
I should note that since my visit, the nation has undergone what appears to be a coup d’etat. There were rumblings of unrest while I was there, incl the assembly of a kind of protest that managed to block off streets while we were rounding up gear for the show. No one explained it to me, tho I asked, and the brothers didn’t appear to be concerned. Since then I know it’s been hairy, with massive confrontations in the streets, beatings and shootings.
The next day my flight didn’t leave til 1pm, so I had the morning to enjoy the sunshine–and the local flavor. Neither of the brothers responded to texts so I made my way, suitcase and all, to a local cafe I had spotted down the block. Dead on! I had the famous minced tuna and some kind of leaves item, with chapati, and tea. Then walked down, checking out the fanciful, teetering, multicolored homes along the way, to the ferry terminal, i.e., where the Sea House is. I went into a proper espresso joint, and Munaz met me there, and offered to come with me on the ferry to the airport, which was very nice. We got there, and I stood on a small stone dock, taking in the incredible colors of the Indian ocean, so many varieties of electric blue. As I looked into the harbor, a school of flying fish–tiny ones, no more than a couple inches long each, flitted out of the sea and skidded along the waves for a few feet. A nice flyby sendoff. I bade farewell to Munaz, and checked into my first flight of the day.
A long travel day. I should have read the fine print on this one. A few hours in Colombo, then, dark by this time, flying into Bangalore. Here’s where I discovered the whole print out thing. You have to, before entering the airport, either come with a printout of your ticket reservation, or go to the ticket counters of your airline, located on the exterior of the terminal, to get one. Imagine–millions and millions of printed papers, in a country that does not, at least by any way I can measure, recycle. You have to show this paper to get in the airport–no one can accompany you in the terminal. You can’t show the info from your laptop or iPhone.
India couldn’t be more different from the USA in terms of general feel–the colors, smells, flavors, language, of course are absolutely unique. And whereas the US was built from scratch as a kind of reset from the old world civilization it divorced, and then went on to pretty much annihilate the old old world civilization that was in place on the continent, India has grown from its ancient past in a direct line to now–and some elements, like extreme rural poverty, the caste system (illegal but still invoked abusively frequently) and so on are still there aside all the incredible wealth and modernity that continues to erupt all around the country. But, the US and India have some interesting things in common. India, despite its presumptively socialist electorate, is perhaps the ultimate free market laboratory–even more deregulated than the US (and the polluted air and water show that clearly), and in India, way more than in the US, *anything* can be had anywhere anytime, delivered. I’m talking about the cities here, in this exercise, as my experience of the country is limited to my visit to four of its major urban centers. A friend here told me that in the Mumbai neighborhood where her mom lives, the tiny market stall that sells various vegetables and such can be called via the owner’s cell phone, and he will make a delivery–even if the order is one egg. If you need your shoes shined, your motorbike fixed, your local parliamentary official bribed–there are multiples of choice on every block. Huge disparities in income means that, for starters, India has to have a currency with a lot of zeroes in it so it can serve the man who lives on ten rupees a day as well as the one who lives on a hundred thousand a day. ten rupees is twenty US Cents. Furthermore, it means that from the middle class on up, there is no motivation to cook, clean, etc–there will be someone available at a wage so low it’s cheaper to have them do everything than for you to do it yourself, considering your own hourly wage. It’s not just convenience, it’s the elimination of any kind of household hassle, and I guarantee you no one is filling out a W9 here.
The second area of vast similarity is that India suffered a massive, game-changing, eye-opening terrorist attack in its largest city, the center of its banking and media industries, that happens to not be its capital city. Sound familiar? And since then, a huge amount of paranoia looms over various quotidian actions, especially travel. But in India, if you use a net cafe, they have to record your ID. It’s even more extreme than the US. Screening is a bit more loose–you can keep your shoes, even your belt in some cases, but everyone gets a wand and a pat down. You need to get a bag tag for your carry on that’s stamped after screening, as is your boarding pass, and this is checked at the gate. Military do the job, of controlling entry and exit of the airport. Of course all vehicles approaching large hotels get the mirror search underneath.
Anyway, I was in, and I exited the international terminal and walked in the night air around the corner to the domestic terminal. Checked in and rose up to the departure level on an escalator. Now, I don’t know if this was a sound installation, an industrial coincidence or just a way of fucking with passengers heads on a long journey, but there was a massive throbbing drone, apparently in C major, and it appeared to be coming from the in house PA. It resembled the throb of a turboprop engine, but it seemed I could detect something jamming with it–or there was just a massive buzz in the PA and you could just barely hear the intended music coming thru. Just like in the movies, when the whitey gets lost and they cue up the ominous ‘foreign’ music–always a deep, ominous drone with mournful south Asian modes being improvised on the top.
On to Mumbai. Our flight was pushed back an hour, as were dozens of other flights (some much longer) so I caught up on mails, and texted my host in Mumbai that I would be late. Finally got on our way, and landed at Mumbai’s domestic terminal. Flying in I could see that Mumbai was a cross between India’s New York and India’s L.A. — you have the situation on foul, unswimmable water, a crowded sliver of land being the most valuable real estate in the country; and you have the hills that rise up and give to winding, intimate neighborhoods, some really reminding me of the Hollywood Hills, and of course let’s not forget Mumbai is the epicenter of Bollywood. It was fascinating to see in the night, not really knowing where I was looking.
Upon arrival I finally had a chance to change some money, and then walked out to the prepaid taxi desk. I displayed my host’s address in Bandra West (now the trendiest, and very L.A.-like, borough of Mumbai). My host is an old friend of Dominique’s, Delphine, who has been stationed in Mumbai for several years now, she works in the trade show biz, and has a position of major responsibility. She speaks very British English, and loves her adopted country and city. She had given me the instruction for the taxi ride to her place. I paid the fare, and was given a ticket with the general destination. I was hungry, so I bought some samosas and a water at a food stand out doors, and headed to what I hoped was the right taxi stand–evidently I was right, to get in the rank at the blue, air-conditioned (in name only) taxis that I first encountered. I was jumped on by shouting, swarming men all after my business–but I pressed on as told to the security running the queue, who couldn’t care less that I was there with such matters, despite the fact it was his job. As I tried to get his attention, he ignored me. Meanwhile, imagine I am trying to conduct this first-time transaction inside a rugby scrum of shouting men. Finally he deigned to look at the ticket and casually tossed it off to one of the men, who immediately disappeared. Uh oh. No tickee, no shirtee. Three men were gesturing wildly, ‘sir, sir!!’ and I demanded to see that it was my voucher they were holding, which they eventually agreed to produce, with much hesitancy. I didn’t like that it was three against one, and it was the also the first men that pounced on me as I approached the taxi area. It seemed like a hustle. And, for a moment, it was–the taxi needed gas, I was told, and the guy who had gotten in the front passenger seat was asking if I had change for a Rs1000 ($20 equiv, I have never seen one elsewhere so I don’t even know if they are issued. People give you a hard enough time if you produce a Rs500 note and need more than Rs100 change) note so they could buy some gas. That’s the stupidest scam I’ve ever heard. I refused, the guy got out, and we drove on. Now…what kind of guy was I with then? I texted Delphine to say I was sure to end up either in the slave market or in a kebab. She replied: “when in India, don’t judge a book by its cover, but rather by its efficiency!” Wise indeed. It took a long time to find her place once we got to her area, and the driver was stopping and asking all kinds of people. I found out that this is just how it’s done–neighborhoods in Indian cities are just too dense, to intricate–there’s no London cabbie, brain-altering memorization of the map. Who knows if any map would even show what’s currently there. Addresses are generally the names of buildings, potentially a house number, too, given in conjunction with a major landmark, usually a relative positioning of larger streets nearby. I had all that, but it still took several tries to get a pinpoint on Delphine’s building–in the end, a guy on a scooter saw the taxi driver doing what taxi drivers do, and offered to help, gratis–he led us to the place, which was not so far from where we were. We pulled up to the place, and there was the night watch-boy, who seemed to be almost mute, and certainly didn’t intervene as the driver began to shake me down, illegally, for more cash. At a certain point, he knew and I knew that, on top of a $6 fare that took 40 minutes of driving (what about be a €30-50 fare in France), he was hassling me for a dollar or two. Outrageous from the legal standpoint–and absolutely taboo for the locals–I just rewarded bad behavior that in its own tiny way will have repercussions for the next passenger. But, I was tired, he was pretty heavy, and I just wanted to go on. Now…where in this complex was Delphine’s flat? We crossed some anti car-bomb barriers and it soon became apparent that this boy didn’t know the word ‘thirteen’, the number of Delphine’s flat. His job wasn’t to know stuff. His job was to sit in this, well, lobby-like area of debris and no windows on the ground floor, wrapped in a blanket, all night. Not really sure what he’d be an effective deterrent for, but…we got in the rickety elevator. Much like my first impressions of the cozy flat that I live in were first gained by the fucked up staircase and entryway–to the point where I was sure I was moving into a total slum, not a trendy building where people pay a minimum of half a million dollars to have a flat, Delphine’s building gives a pretty Beirut-war-zone kind of intro at its ground floor, but her flat is really nice. Up on the fifth floor, but not the third, which is where the boy took me to. If we were to judge by efficiency and not appearances, he’d be getting an F minus. He knocked on a door, which I was pretty sure was the wrong one, and a disheveled older man appeared, obv straight out of bed, and bless him, he wasn’t even angry, just said “where are you trying to go?” at which point the elevator moved and we could hear Delphine: “It’s FIVE!” She came down and rescued me. “I’ve been telling him [the boy] that’s it’s five for weeks. He just doesn’t get it.” We got in the elevator, the three of us, and she pushed him out, firmly. “We’re going up. You wait.” His fuckup didn’t win him a lot of points, and the fact he didn’t have my back with the taxi driver didn’t earn any points with me either. Poor kid. I didn’t get the impression he was totally adult mentally, it’s not a fair fight but…I needed a lay down and bad.
Delphine was gracious and wonderfully accommodating, and certainly happy to have visitors from the homeland. She had a guest room with its own bath, and I set up kip shop in there straight away.
MUMBAI, 1/18
She was already off to sort some bureaucratic things with her work permit long before I rose and shone. I took my time to prepare for the day’s outing, wrestled with her cryptic net connection, did my ironing before her housekeeper could come and feel bad I was usurping one of her tasks. I packed a backback with the things I would need for the show, and then was met at my pad by journalist, Mae and her photographer Naman, for an interview and session for a local across-the-boards cultural webzine. We walked up the seafront, the sea here being a distant, muddy thing that tended to treat the shore with disdain, and leave an absolutely foul-smelling no man’s land, that in fact was regularly traversed by beachcombers, rock-hopping lovers, and such. Good for them–I wasn’t going anywhere near those rocks, they smelled like seal barf. We walked up the promenade, and they were intent on taking me to a Lebanese place, my heart internally sinking that I would be defrayed from some decent Indian grub. As luck would have it, the place was closed. And as we wandered from food of one ethnicity to another, I kept gently tugging them in the way of local cuisine–as much as they might be over it, I hadn’t even begun to fight…the buffet! And then it dawned upon them, in a mutual forehead slap in thought only moment, that we should go to Papa Pancho in Bandra. We hopped in a rickshaw and went off. So in India a rickshaw is what tourists in Thailand call a tuktuk–basically the guts of a Vespa built into an enclosed cab, so the driver still turns the central front wheel via handlebars, but he’s covered, and the passengers are on a seat behind him, separated by a partition, enclosed, and supported by two rear wheels. It’s a remarkably efficient little world inside–I saw some with speakers in the back. In Sri Lanka the distinction is clear–the motorized ones are called in local parlance a ‘trishaw’. I didn’t see much of the bicycle rickshaws in India–plenty in Bangladesh–but in Kolkata there are still human rickshaws. Men who will act as beasts of burden for the conveyance of another human. It’s astonishing, to me. It’s technically illegal but not even remotely enforced. And in India, there is no opportunity to make cash, no matter how asymmetrical the relation between labor and pay, left unexploited.
The system for metering is also completely fluid. Many drivers of both taxis and rickshaws will try and propose a fare and avoid the meter-but you have to know the going rates to benefit from this system, otherwise you’re screwed. You can always walk away, and lower the price. But even the meter in most of the vehicles relies on the honor system, unless you have the latest rate translation card. You see, rather than change the older, mechanical meters for newer digital ones, a great expense for all involved, the government simply did a big rate update, and published a translation calculator–a piece of laminated paper with the calculation for any fare from old rates to new. It’s roughly double plus twenty rupees. I was amazed that any drivers were honest–in many cases, fares were cheap, and roughly consistent. The meter ticks, we come to a stop, he pulls out the fare calculator and *doesn’t* rip you off. That’s a beautiful advert for humanity right there. Sometimes I paid too much, and sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I was in more of a hurry, or more of a jam. Again, it’s the ultimate free market experiment. US cabbies rarely have the right to adapt the fare to the circumstances of the moment. What we call floating market rates. You’re astonished to get that one lone cab in the rain in Manhattan at 6.30pm, and the meter is the meter. You might tip a couple extra.
Papa Pancho is a colorful place, with just a small terrace. The terrace was rustic in wood, and the bright bands of red and yellow and green on the walls made me think Mexican and once again the L.A. feel of the area, we were still in Bandra West, was hard to ignore. The place was neither hipster nor retro, unless the hipster vibe was so subtle that the place looked like it just evolved with the times and retained at every step a series of undeniably elegant, but simple qualities. Presentation was gorgeous–most restaurants will do the bronze and copper serving elements, and again here they looked sort of hipster rustic–perfectly chosen. I tried jal jeera for the first time–a blend of cumin and mint. I never again had one as good as this. We spoke, covering many topics, veering away from the interview into a real conversation, and of course I had many questions about the country. The photographer was a particularly well informed individual; Mae had spent a lot of time living abroad, and also her family was from the south, so she spoke basically no Hindi. Hindi is officially the national language, but I’ve been told that many in the south chafe against having to learn the language of the north. The region that Mumbai is in has its own language, and you might find your official document or task comes from a randomly selected array–one ministry or department might do everything in English, another Hindi, and many municipal things in Marathi.
We did a few more photos then I went off in a cab to the venue. The cabs in India are wonderfully retro, they look 60s but are probably much younger, but also they have many wonderfully shapby 70s details, esp burnt orange carpet fabric as interior lining. Black and yellow exterior, and mysteriously comfortable for how small they really are, it’s easily half the size of a Marathon.
The area that the Blue Frog is located in is recovering textile mill zone, now going bonkers with huge steel and glass skyscrapers (the tallest one underway right now has adverts around the site barriers that show the building to come, which will be residential, and has as a slogan: “everything else is beneath you”. My my! The Blue Frog is a low slung affaid down a network of back alleys, with all sorts of interesting stuff going on, little restaurants for workers, machine shops, who knows what else. The venue inside is extremely modern, with a clever way of making booths, all cut into a solid matrix that bends and curves like an ocean wave. The circular booths have slatted sides like a hot tub, and have inside a circular bench around a circular table. Not so great for taking a nap in, but the effect is that you have a very intimate and personal space for you and your friends in the middle of a nightclub. There’s plenty of open space on the floor and even a few free standing tables with bar stools. And in the back, a long bar that also allows you to watch progress in the kitchen. I discovered that the show was advertised later than the start of the actual music, and guess who was going on first? I think since the time we booked this event they added a third band in the middle. That band was actually a spinoff of the headlining band, the singer, Sidd, was in both. One was more rock, they said it was punk but it was more like Weezer, with a dose of Spin Doctors. They called themselves Punk Ass Orifus. Great players. Sidd is something of a wonder, evidently he has dozens of bands, and traditionally, tho tonite he was a frontman either with or without a guitar, he is a drummer. He did get behind the kit at some point tonite. So, this show was the debut of his new project, and thus they were doing a long run thru of all their set, and it meant that they hadn’t been able to learn any of the tunes I sent ahead. And there was more soundcheck to do — so, I’d sort of come down for nothing, but that was OK. So here’s where India really resembles the states–you can really detect a businesslike attitude that is somewhat blind to the enriching prospects of focusing on the artistic side. Properly utilized, properly advertised, I could have been a draw, but I was sort of thrown on to the bill without a lot of thought, very throw everything on the wall and something will stick. And oddly, for these Indian shows, I was paid, in some cases quite well. Which of course wasn’t the point at all. The point was to make an effective intro to the market, and here I think I could have organized this better. Or shall we say, the venues I was working with could have done a better job. In the end, this made India the least musically satisfying, or at least I felt the least special here, and I know it doesn’t have to be that way. Again, any band or artist going to the states can sympathize–the country is so huge, with decentralized media, and a vast array of entertainment choices, that you quickly just become a drop in the ocean of the entertainment world, thus your partnering–label, local artists, sponsors, venues–better be spot on. I can come in the back door of smaller countries because for their nascent entertainment industries, there *is* no front door. Just me opening the door is enough to get every head turn. But India is not an emerging country–it’s a fully fledged world superpower with an entertainment business set on global dominance–just like Hollywood and the military-entertainment complex (uh, did I lose you there? See: soft power). So there’s no way to sneak in and get results. So, my bad. I could have worked with a bigger promoter, my contact who gave me the venue contacts, had I chosen to come at a more strategic time. But when I was planning these shows, for January, last year, that promoter, OML, was in the midst of organizing a massive festival with a team of only seven people. The festival was in November, and was a huge success, I could have been a part of it possibly, but November was not when I was going to be in the region. So, India was still wonderful as an experience and worth doing, just the shows didn’t have the full impact but now I’ve made great contacts so…good exploration.
Since there was no soundcheck–the songs I was to play later with Tough on Tobacco were to be improvised–I set off, and took a cab to the Colaba neighborhood, prob, the touristic center of Mumbai but still…seemed like a place. There are some classic bars and hangouts there, of course they were all packed so no getting in there–and they had a kind of dingy, 50s vibe that was kinda nice but also kinda sad. One, Leopold Cafe, was attacked in the 2008 terrorist shootings. I wandered around, trying to be polite as possible while people shoved knick knacks in my face. At one point I realized I needed to send an email so I ducked into a net cafe. It was full, but the manager on duty said “no problem” and led me out onto that side street, up a few doors, into a kind of alley that led into the building. Past a little snack shop that fully lived within this alley, and then up stairs, into a hallway, getting more and more atmospheric, I couldn’t quite figure out which movie I was actually in, but it was a fascinating one. He opened a door to reveal: more stairs, but stairs that were more like a ladder. “After you”. I clambered up to find a net nook: an extension of the net cafe I had entered, a satellite, as it were–half a dozen more computers and users. I did my stuff, and climbed down. The hallway on that 2nd floor was so interesting…people were living all around me, I could hear kids and people and TVs. Someone had pissed on something. I went back down, stunned by the complexity of this environment. So much tiny commerce, so much stuff going on, so many stories.
I walked down the main drag, which was only kind of a drag due to stuff for sale and backpackers being all third world in the midst of one of the world’s major metropolis (a pet peeve of mine). I took a side street and saw this lovely building, an old colonial wedding cake of a manse, and walked up to it. Couldn’t quite tell if it was a hotel, a social club, or…doorman opened the door. “Uh, do you have a bar?”
Did they ever–and I had it all to myself. I had discovered the gourmet restaurant Indigo. All the diners were on the rooftop, where the tables were. The bar was empty. Perfect. I had a lovely time chatting with the bartenders, and was now able to start sampling Indian wine. Indian wine is starting to take off, and of course there’s a huge market regionally in potential. But, I was startled to find India towards the bottom of the list on alcohol consumption per capita ranged by country. Down there with all your various emirates and such, is India. Sure, India has the largest muslim population in the world. But, still, it has the second largest not-muslim population in the world. Digging a little deeper I was told that many Hindus avoid drinking, and I also encountered much resistance to that statistic. Some agreed; some said that the statistic is such because no one would tell the truth to any pollster, etc. I countered by saying–it would be easy to measure production, export and import of alcohol–and was told: no, it wouldn’t: many villages make their own, unofficially, even in villages where it is officially banned for religious reasons. In fact, there are reports of entire villages succumbing fatally to a bad batch of homebrew moonshine. One thing is for sure–there are many official days where Indians, all Indians, cannot buy alcohol. Certain holidays, esp. days associated with Independence and the birthdays of the heroes of the independence movement, are dry. Liquor stores close. Bars don’t serve; most simply shut. A top end luxury hotel that is frequented by foreigners may have the right to serve. Obviously, most cosmopolitan tipplers simply stock up beforehand. Interestingly, also out of respect to the process and fact of democracy, election days are also dry–and the ban continues until the votes are counted. In general, women are to be discouraged from drinking. Delphine was used to picking up her wine from Pinky’s Wine Shop around the corner, until the owner discreetly implored her to stop coming in–it was seen as a source of shame that he was serving the stuff to a woman. Wine is the gateway drug to prostitution, evidently. The solution, which works in her favor, really, is that she merely calls in her order and it gets delivered.
They only had Four Seasons cab and shiraz. Most of the wine made in India now is mass-market; at least, nowhere could I detect a boutique wine being sold. I am sure its going to happen, or may be happening, but in all places exclusive and proletarian, I only found the same brands. Sula is the cheapest. Most of the wine, even in this fine establishment where I found myself on this Wednesday night, tastes like it’s been too warm, a little oxidation has occurred. It may be the terroir, too, I was tasting, but I tasted a little pungent flavor that I associate with wine that’s not been kept in pristine conditions. Understandable–it gets beastly hot in summer in most of India. In January, temperatures in Mumbai were pleasantly warm, cool at night. Delhi was simply freezing 24-7, and Bangalore was tropical. It’s a big country, that descends from the world’s highest peaks like a ship’s prow pointed at the equator. Actually, I have this thing about countries fitting themselves to the national shape. France looks to me like the profile of a big nosed (Brittany) man registering his disgust with his downturned mouth (the Gironde). India is clearly the proportions of looking straight on at the head of an elephant, wearing a headdress (Kashmir) and one big ear flopping out to the east. The US is some kind of creature with a tiny head (Maine) crawling on an impotent flipper (Florida) and dragging it’s massively fat ass (everything west of the Rockies). Japan is an elegant seahorse shaped kite. Thailand is an ancient Elephant pelvis with one leg intact. And of course, Taiwan is an aubergine. French people refer to the mainland of France as ‘the hexagon’. I refer to it as ‘the complainer’. Belgium is melting croque monsieur, BTW.
I did manage to sample several of the Indian wines over the course of my visit. My favorite was offered by my hosts for an afternoon jam session in Bangalore, the wine for the event was La Reserve. In the meantime, I was here at the bar in Mumbai, chatting with the bartenders, and ordering a few pricey items from the bar menu. They were delicious of course, and just light enough stay out of the way for my performance. Speaking of which….time to get back.
I cabbed back to the venue, and got there as doors were opening. People trickling in. Tough on Tobacco, the headliners, have a decent draw. Now, the kicker being that the show had been advertised to start at 10, and Mumbaikars are known to be late anyway (and to be honest, outside of Japan, I don’t know a culture that’s known to be punctual about shows), but every city you go to, people always say: Oh, you know, no one shows up on time in Taipei/Santiago/Cairo/etc., and I was scheduled to go on at 9.30. I pushed that to 9.45, but…that was the best I could do. Still, compared to how the night would end, the venue was prob. 40% of what it would be by the end. This is the life of the support act, friends. Deal with it. So, I walked on, and began. Of course, you have everyone in their little nightclub hottub pods, and a few folks, very awkward, trying to be invisible in front. Indian audiences proved to be pretty shy, and even when the headliners were playing, I wouldn’t say that people totally cut loose, there’s definitely a reserve there, esp in Mumbai, which occupies the same place in the national Cool Index as New York. And, I have to remember, I’m unfamiliar, not playing any known songs (much to every promoter’s chagrin, I don’t do a medley of REM number ones!). So, I played my little heart out, did all the bits, singing off mic, I was funny (or so I thought), I tried to charm, be inviting. But the seated audience was far away, and even the ones in front were glued to their little bar tables as if there was a 50-foot drop around them. A smattering of applause–now, I understand–a smattering is a good thing from the Mumbai crowd–ToT got only a little more applause, and people were clearly enjoying the show. It’s just not the fashion here to go overboard with the clap rewards. But I didn’t know that, and it threw me, just a little. But then it was done, and Punk Ass O could do their thing. There was a really nice blog review. later so it’s clear people dug it–it’s just hard to tell from up there. By now Delphine was there with friends so I could hang out with them, I needed a wine by now.
Then ToT got into their set, before which I checked in with them and their bass player produced a flask with fenny, a kind of liquor made from the fruit of cashew trees, from Goa. Which just reminded me that I never tried the Arak, which is made from coconut, in Sri Lanka. Hmm. These little shots were useful tho. At the end of the set, I was called up, donned an electric, and we did a little stunt that Sidd and band are fond of doing–the audience calls out a topic and they make up a song. I led the charge on both tunes, coming up with a playable progression, it was fun, really fun. The improvised tune called “Crack Whore” which had elements of punk and reggae was really good. Then I stayed on and played third guitar for two of ToT’s songs, somewhat reggae influenced rock, I fit in seamlessly, I might add.
A little hanging out, some cash, a last wine, and I headed back to Delphine’s.
The next day I spent again in the Colaba area, just walking and walking. I had lunch at Moshe’s and I mailed Aden’s postcard. Eventually I headed way up to Andheri which took about an hour, to meet up with Reeky Dev, a musician and engineer, and his studio, which is small but extremely well designed. We had talked about a collaborative session, he had lamented about the conformity of the Indian music scene, all-Bollywood-all-the-time. I had imagined an impromptu session at his place when we spoke in the weeks leading up to my arrival, but this wasn’t to be, he informed me. In the end, I thought we might dig in and collaborate on a new tune, and we might, sometime–but it became clear he was really busy, on the treadmill of doing sessions for movies, and it was well paid, etc. I can’t blame him, it’s the same for me, often. I think he makes more than I do, tho! I played him some rough mixes from my album, and I’d discussed getting some players. Bingo, he produced, like a real magic trick, a charming young woman Tanishk, who spoke to me in a clearly North American twang, turns out she was from Vancouver, and had moved her to develop her skills in Indian classical singing. All of 23, she’s toured all over the world singing Indian classical music, and was now getting into the film world. All in all, she acted as business partner and translator. Then…woah! we discussed the prices. The players they suggested, and her vocal skills (formidable as they are) are expensive–I immediately thought…I should charge more! I was a little nervous, and said I was interested, but I had to think about it. I eventually scaled down my ambitions but still thought I’d hire 4 players, including her. At first I was shocked, and later, talking to other friends, found that indeed, the per song price for Bollywood players is really high. Not that I thought Reeky would be scamming me, even tho I don’t really know him, but I was expecting a more DIY thing, and I basically got into something pro, very pro. Well, my record deserves it.
After that, I met up with Delphine, even tho hers was the next neighborhood down it took 40 minutes in a rickshaw at that time of day. We went to a real local place, two levels, the back room a total fire trap–only one tiny staircase in or out. Somehow I didn’t think about it til now. Delphine was adamant that no one be assigned to join our table or that we hurry. We had a couple of beers, and some food that again was heavier than I hoped for, but so delicious, how can you resist. The rest of the night was passed at her flat, with wine, and conversation, with Luke Kenny and his gal Diveki. Luke has a long history in the region, he’s grown up in India and his family before that in Burma–he is of European descent but this is his culture. He’s an ambitious, multifaceted talent–one of the first VJs on local music television, he’s been into acting, producing for television and helping run the music television network, playing music, writing for Rolling Stone, you name it. He and Diveki are working on a feature film project now, among several interesting ventures that they are involved in, which I won’t spoil here.
GURGAON, 1/20
I had a cab come early in the morning to take me to the domestic terminal of Mumbai airport, which is on the other side of the airport complex, and much closer to Delphine’s than the international terminal. If you change from one to the other for a connection, there’s a twenty-minute bus ride involved. This morning, I had about the same length ride from her place to the terminal. The prebooked cab eventually arrived. I was marveling at the level of bird activity on this sunny early morning. A true cacophony, with carrion birds and raptors and all kinds of featherati around. Said my goodbyes, got to the airport, got my flight. Landed and looked for my guy with a sign. We drove off to my stylish hotel, the Manor. This is one of my favorite design hotels and I highly recommend it. I ended up having lunch in my room, from their excellent restaurant, modern renditions of Indian recipes, healthy and with non-traditional ingredients (like quinoa) in the mix. Eventually I set off to take a ride and see a little of the city. As Mumbai is India’s New York (and L.A.), Delhi is certainly analogous to Washington–both Capitals, both laid out in monumental style. As we drove into town from ‘Friends Colony’ the neighborhood of my hotel, with some very rich ‘friends’ indeed, judging from the size of the houses, we passed many of the more famous monuments in succession–old forts and castles from various ruling parties of the subcontinent from over the centuries. Yet another Gateway to India, like the one strategically located on Mumbai’s waterfront, except I’m not exactly sure what this one is a gateway to or from–it’s in the middle of the country, by Jove. Unless the aliens landed here when they used their space seed to grow the human race.
Connaught place is very much the eye of a storm. It’s a wheel shaped mall, more or less, but old. India’s symbol is the spinning wheel and perhaps they had this in mind. As the capitol, it’s the hub that all the country turns on. And it’s certainly greasy. An odd mix of high end fashion brands, mom and pop snack shops, books stores, cafes, and seedy looking moneychangers. It’s enormous, and most of it us under construction for the moment, there’s some big renovation project happening. There’s a steep looking metro entrance (just like in D.C.). The wheel surrounds a park on the inside, with fountains and other monumental googaws. Again, in the counter-interest of terrorism, the park entrances are fenced off but one–where you pass thru a metal detector. Then you are free to explore this big circular park which is mostly sitting on top of some submerged structure–it’s unclear to me what. After going around in circles inside and outside the park, and having a coffee, I was ready to move on and I realized I wouldn’t really have time to see any other sights. Oh well. Headed back in a rikshaw. Soon my driver was there to take me to the gig, which was outside Delhi. By the way New Delhi is not as separate as I grew up believing. I always thought that Delhi was an old place, and then they got tired of it and built some kind of franchise miles away. Sort of like Brasilia or something. But New Delhi is just the monumental stuff that the British built inside of Delhi, not a separate city at all.
But Gurgaon is certainly up for the title. It’s all new. About an hour’s drive away, at least in the evening when I went, it’s all high rises and malls. Lots of them. Delhi itself was extremely spread out–there’s tree lined avenues, even whole forests, inside the city, plus the usual sprawl of concrete hodgepodge. Not too many tall buildings, but a few tall office buildings. But Gurgaon—dozens of apartment towers, everywhere, and plenty more going up. Evidently a lot of farmers became millionaires at some point. I was booked to play a new place called Eurail, that like the name implies, takes you on a journey through the cuisines of Europe. I arrived to find things set up. It was hard to find the place (again, every address is a challenge in India, and of course my Delhi-based cabbie was now out of his zone) but we eventually pulled up to a very large and classy looking joint. A restaurant, and a nice one. Hmmm. I hope everyone knew (including me) what we were all in for.
There was a small PA, the mixer laying in a suitcase off to the side. An amp, a Stratocaster (this seems to be the guitar of choice in Asia) and a digital piano. Short soundcheck, and then I had dinner. Unfortunately, the place was so new they had yet to acquire their liquor license. I had tea with my Portuguese stew.
Welcome to one of the weirdest gigs I will ever play. The restaurant had yet to gain clientele. The kind of people who live in Gurgaon don’t go out. Hence, I played this gig to two tables of dining families, one dining couple (who mysteriously had wine even tho I kept asking and not getting anywhere–no license, you see. “But that table….”), and one friend of mine, who worked for the promoter who…were busy when I tried to book this tour, and thus… I end up playing here. Stranger still, this show was booked by the booker of the Living Room, the main live venue in Delhi, where I was originally scheduled to play. At one point, they threw a conniption because I didn’t have my visa in hand–tho the other clubs didn’t care about this at all. Part of the delay was that no one would write my invitation letter at first, so–any club I was working with only had themselves to blame at this point. My entreaties were for naught. The club manager said that a Jamaican artist who booked the tour w/o having his visa in hand had to cancel when the visa didn’t come thru. I was like “uh, dude…he’s *Jamaican*…of course it’s a different story, sorry to say, but…anyway, I’ve never been denied a visa in over 25 years of touring internationally and I don’t intend to start now”. No good. I was told that they had to announce their advertising now and that was that. Which was total bollocks. Two weeks later, their website wasn’t updated, and the band they advertised on their Facebook didn’t even end up playing–a different artist did. So, I don’t really know what it was all about, except that the booker contacted me later, offered me this gig in the middle of nowhere, which I believe he did out of kindness, not wanting to leave me hanging and not being able to work around his boss. I think. I had resigned myself to just enjoying my stylish hotel for the evening after sightseeing. I will say this–I was paid quite a bit for playing to eight people, only three of which were listening. One of the tables had some Europeans mixed in, and I could only think…if you only knew what you were ignoring right now…it was so absurd I had to enjoy it. I kinda knew it would be. So, really, my friend Anuj got a private show. Meanwhile, on the break, the very kind manager of the restaurant, sweating bullets that I was actually insane enough to play my own material, was trying to help me, pulling up a song on his phone he thought I should play…He was saying “Die, uh…Die you….” I didn’t take it personally. But I politely told him that “I Just Died in Your Arms Tonite” wasn’t in my repertoire. He really wanted me to play covers, and I mentioned that I already had–the Long Winters, Neil Young. So, at strategic parts of the evening I introduced “Known Diamond” as an “Elton John….(sounding) song” the ‘sounding’ about 20db quieter than the rest. And so on. I played whatever I wanted. Imagine the restaurant is enormous, with like 5 staff on duty, and soon the two tables of family-sized parties (like the one with the two 12 year olds who requested Bruno Mars) left, and it was just me, Anuj, and the table way across the room with a middle aged couple. When I was finally done, they came up and said they loved what I did, asked me all about my stuff. That was really cool. The guy in the couple had lived in the states at one point and we talked music, and then it was time to skedaddle.
Anuj spoke to my driver, and we stopped off on the main road at a liquor store, where you could find that Metallica has their own brand of vodka in India. This is because a liquor company sponsored their tour. The bands charge what they always do in terms of fee, but for the local population the ticket prices must remain low, so the actual ticket sales end up being a loss. The promoters make the money by getting sponsors to pay for sponsoring rights, and…a few steps later Metallica is on a vodka bottle. Interestingly enough, Metallica’s show in the area was in Gurgaon, and actually ended up not happening. The promoter had failed to respect Metallica’s production rider especially in terms of safety and the band refused to play. Yep, a riot ensued. The band went on to Bangalore, the hard rock capital of India, they say, and had a successful show. So far, the only successful engagement I’ve been able to see evidence of in Gurgaon is Dancing Matt.
Now, the liquor store and it’s next door neighbors were these trashy little stripmall buildings, absolutely dwarfed by the high rises around us, which were also far away–I guess the land around us was either still farmland or just not built upon yet. Weird scene. There was this super sketchy nightclub next to the liquor store that screamed ‘whorehouse’, I just had to take a peak inside, really scary, just like two dudes in there. I don’t know why but in some cases and empty bar can be the most sinister landscape on earth. We bought a bottle of Indian wine, and had to buy paper cups from the snackman outside, from his little cart, and we were off–walking up to my taxi, there was a shape in front of me, and I realized that I was looking at a hairy pig, not wild but somewhat feral I guess, rooting in the gutter. Weird.
We actually went to the venue I was originally supposed to play, the Living Room. A local artist had his CD release there this night, it was over when I arrived, and only a few people around. The place is cool, it’s a little coffeehouse vibe tucked up on the second floor of a building in a narrow little alley of hipness. I didn’t see why I couldn’t have opened this show but so much about the night is a mystery, and will remain so. Having left my taxi, Anuj negotiated with a rickshaw to drop me at my place, complete with the ‘just walk away’ tactic. It worked. One thing I should mention–Mumbai was hot in the daytime, Delhi was not. And at night…my lord. Remember, a rickshaw is basically open. I wasn’t sure I was going to survive that one. I did tho, and tho I was leaving early the next morning, I would get a few nice hours in this beautiful room. Obviously a wedding going on, and even late at night the set was being built. I was gone.
BANGALORE, 1/21
Up early, I had an incredible hotel breakfast. It’s like a hard crepe, rolled around goodies, and it’s called a dosa. And of course it was gourmet style here.
Near the doorway of the hotel as I left there was decoration for the wedding, millions of flower petals, in red and orange, arrayed in large squares, essentially a checkerboard. It was so pure that photographing it threw my camera into total confusion; zapped by the orange and red squares on the ground, it colored everything else in the frame blue.
With scads of incontrovertible rupees in my pockets, I was played for a sucker at Delhi airport. For a small amount, I could upgrade to business class and get use of a lounge with wifi. Oh, wonderful. Plus speedy boarding, inflight meal, and such. OK, why not. Total ripoff. DO NOT go for this, when you fly Go! Airways in India. The ‘lounge’ was merely a restaurant in the terminal that anyone could go in. I guess you would have to pay to enjoy the buffet, normally, and I didn’t. But I didn’t care, since I’d had breakfast. So I got free tea, and the wifi didn’t work, just being the airport wifi. The waiters couldn’t help me out. I paid like 200 times over the price for my cup of tea. Bullshit.
But, life goes on. Bangalore. Bangalore is, in our continuing analogy of cities, the Huntsville AL of India. Hot, southern and absolutely dependent on the military to keep the money coming in. There’s massive military infrastructure here, incl. a government-owned aerospace company that makes helicopters. The town is centered around the military parade grounds. Picturesque is not a word I would associate with Bangalore, the town oozes with new money and is growing in every direction at once, with not a lot of planning evident. The airport used to be where the aerospace co. HQ is now, very close in, and the new airport is so very far away….an hour’s drive. No one was waiting for me when I arrived, despite the fact that emails had been written to say otherwise. Lucky I could get online, find the number to the club, call it, get someone on the phone to tell me to get a cab and to where that cab should go. I’d have been well fucked otherwise. I was a little annoyed no one was there when they’d said they would be, but obv signals were crossed. So, started the long ride into town. Stopped at a light, I saw a guy throwing, one by one, bananas up into a tree, where a monkey was waiting to catch them, quickly eat them, and get in position to receive.
Finally got to my accommodations, a charming guest house called…something Haha.OK, can’t remember now, but really nice vibe. I loved my room, and the old staircase and common areas on each floor, and the dining room on the top floor. Only one electrical outlet worked but no big. The place had tons of charm and was not shabby in the least. At last the promoters came by and we figured out what the game plan was, for the most part. They were to come back later.
When it was time for me to head over to the venue, it was dark. I love bats, and the bats operating in the pool of light from the nearest streetlight were pretty big, and brown (little did I know I ain’t seen nothin’ yet). The promoters picked me and drove me, not far as the crow flies, but many neighborhood streets are not straight, and the main drag for this part of town, where the Kyra Theatre is located, has a divider that makes crossing it only possible at specific points separated by long intervals. We pulled into the underground parking of yet another generically sort of tall concrete boxy building and up we went, to the venue itself. Now, evidently the level below us is a full time restaurant with the same name, and evidently it’s closed for remodeling. The people I dealt with on email were not the people that took care of me today–in fact, the people I had on email never appeared. Hence the no show at the airport. Hence I almost cancelled this show when the woman who I’d been emailing with stopped emailing or responding to Facebook messages for over a month even tho I knew she had an iPhone. And hence no one mentioned that the restaurant was closed and that might confuse people into thinking the venue is closed. But, we were here, they were friendly, they served some truly delicious food, and they had wine. There was a nice stage, and lo and behold, a Fender Blues Junior just like I play, and a great telecaster. A decent digital piano. We prettied it up with a black dropcloth. People trickled in, and we eventually had most of the tables full–not the ones in front tho! Well, I worked that crowd like they’d never been worked–I gave it my all. I was funny, I improvised, I played the shit out of my songs. It was really like a one-man show, that’s when I realized my show is like indie cabaret. I was down in the audience, up on the stage, around the venue, shaking hands. People loved it, and I played for two and half hours. In the end, I spent time talking with the new fans I’d made, and finally the manager of the place gave me lift to my great little room on his scooter.
The next day I had somewhat of an agenda, that I intended to honor–the famous disappearing emailer had asked me to teach a master class, and then totally dropped the ball on organizing it. The day of the show the promoters asked me what I intended to do–and I said–what do *I* intend to do? What do you *want* me to do? There had been no provision to sign people up for it, so I just told people about it at the show, took a few emails and numbers. There was an American couple at the show, Darren and Sheri, who live in Bangalore, Darren works for the maker of mighty earthmoving machines Caterpillar. He’s a musician and said he had a room with instruments and would gladly host the get together at their place. Great! I had my breakfast up in the top floor (that would be third floor) of my hotel, such a nice place. Friendly people working, esp in the dining room. Up there, you could look across the treetops to the shining white dome of the temple across the street. Most of the religious structures in Bangalore that I saw are curious, brightly painted structures, with all manner of gods and other images carved in relief, looking very much like India itself–details and people and animals all jumbled and scrambled into one place. But this temple was white all around, elegant. It had a soothing effect on the eye.
Next up, hop a cab downtown. The center of town is hard to pinpoint, Bangalore has a lot of sprawl. And that sprawl has many aspects. Many areas are walled off and enclose the HQ for the local garrison or Air Force base, or the industries that support them. The center is said to be the area of MG (Mahatma Ghandi) road. There is a dense clump of business there, some tallish buildings, but also a lot of space. The road itself is straddled by the new elevated train that serves the city. Then on the other side of the road are parade grounds and parks and the city sort spreads out for a bit. It’s curious. I just started walking. I had a general idea of where I was and where I wanted to be. Very general. And in India especially, no one will fault you for asking questions. I made my way to Koshy’s, everyone’s favorite eatery, been there forever. Signage has a definite 50s vibe, reminded me very much of Canter’s. The place is split in half, one side being the more serious restaurant, which might remind you of a British pub in that it’s quite wooden and (ugh) carpeted. The other side is more of cafe, and this is where I went. One lassi and some chicken livers in a kind of curry, delicious and cheap. The place was packed and enjoyable in its bustling humanity.
Out the door. Coconut for dessert. Using a hacked off piece of the outside to act as utensil for the inside. Breaks the hygeine rule but so many things do. Next to Koshy’s is the Hard Rock Cafe, standing alone on its own little tiny block. I mention this not because I have such warm feelings for the Hard Rock, but because the bastards have an exquisite building, formerly the”Tract & Book Society”.
I walked down the street, got hustled by touts, ignored, and went into the metro station. Right now, the MG Road station is the terminus, but that’s only because the system is quite new and they’re still building it. I got on and rode the line to the opposite and then backtracked a few stops to my neighborhood. This was an excellent way to see the city, as you are quite high above the city, and can get a sense of the layout. Shanty slums and modern glass small towers, and all kinds of things in between. I could see that a lot of local citizens were doing a the same thing–a cheap way to go to an air conditioned place and get a sense of traveling, a Sunday drive.
Darren came around to pick me up, as like many overseas placements in India, you get a car and driver. The SUV took us to his housing development, gated community–we could easily have been in California. I wondered the ratio of expats to Indians inside the gates, but I will say there were lots of clearly Indian kids riding bikes and playing inside.
Their house is quite large, two floors with large bedrooms, a large open kitchen space, a cool kind of TV lounge, and what could have been an office is a music room, with guitars and memorabilia. Wine and cheese….cheese! were served. Here’s where I encountered the best Indian red wine of the trip “La Reserve”. Soon, the three interested parties in my mastery classery arrived, and we had what was really just a jam session, doing covers from Darren’s fakebook, or pulling stuff off the top of my head (which was getting more soaked with nice red wine), or listening to what my ‘students’ had to play and say. Lots of fun. Afterwards, dinner and more wine at Darren and Sheri’s favorite restaurant, and they dropped me off at my place with the remainder of a bottle to go. Their driver camped out in the SUV during the jam, they have two, actually, who work so many hours per week. They have a cook who cooks up a week’s worth of food on Mondays, and on the weekends they go out. She’s technically barred from working by the constraints of his visa, but she manages to shall we say, be involved in the publishing world, a small press back home. They were fun, and generous, and it was interesting that we meet here and have so many new things to share yet so many things in common.
The next morning I had my usual just under the roof breakfast, and had the long drive to the airport for my flight to Kolkata. Indigo, another budget airline, this time. They have the best packaging for their inflight for-purchase meals; my sandwich came in a box designed to look like an oversize box of Indian strike-anywhere matches.
Upon landing, there was a moment where it looked like my driver wasn’t there, but he appeared, coming out of the terminal after me, and we got into the car and drove into the city. Kolkata is known to be the intellectual epicenter of India. Satyajit Ray, etc come from here. It’s also known to be radical, and in fact, it seemed to me that the rough looking neighborhoods we passed on the way into the city center were subjected to very communist-sounding music from speakers mounted on telephone poles at regular intervals.
We got to my hotel, the Kenilworth, and I checked in. I didn’t have much to go on in terms of what to do or see in Kolkata, but as Luke Kenny hails from here he told me a few addresses. The reason I was in town was to catch my flight the next morning to Bhutan; there are very limited flights from very limited numbers of airports on limited days to the tiny kingdom in the sky. I tried to get a show here when I found out my travel itinerary but the fact it was a Monday was already difficult–but it was the birthday of one of the most famous Freedom Fighters for India’s Independence — Subhas Chandra Bose. And, being the birthday of a major hero, it was a dry day. So, the main venue for live music in town was shuttered. Which I was OK with–three shows in India will do, esp with the non-professional nature of my tour. I was free to enjoy the city. So I set out. Just two blocks from my hotel, the city was already fascinating. Gorgeous, old, stately buildings, stained and showing wear from generations of shifting priorities and uses. One seemed to be an airline flight attendant training facility, and a guy tried to wave me off when was taking a picture of the building (which was tall enough to be seen from another building, so I don’t see the point, I could have just shot it from my hotel). But mostly I just stared at architecture. Or tiny shops. A carpet shop where a guy sitting on the floor was winding some kind of twine, using his feet to steady one end. Electronic shops, Indo-Chinese restaurants, open to the street and just a thin counter and a stool or two inside). So many colors, always. A sweet shop, I tasted several items, not knowing what I was going to get. One was fabulous, flavored with rose, one of my favorite flavorings. All unique and so good to look at. And cheap. I disappeared down a side street, coming into a what appeared to be a muslim neighborhood–all the men greeted each other with salaam alikum, and after shaking hands touched their hearts. It was ridiculously busy, businesses of every stripe, barbers, who knows what. Jumping out of the way as trucks actually navigated this little alley. Goats and cows tethered to shopfronts. People in the symbiotic disarray of individual pursuits. The horror movie look of the butcher shops, eyeballs and spinal columns and parsed animals, noun and verb long separated. I poked into a tiny grocery–we’d have to call it pop since it was far too modest in size to accommodate being a mom *and* pop operation. For one rupee I bought an Indian cigarette and matches. I don’t know why. It looked cool. It was a section of tobacco leaf folded on itself, and secured by the tiniest stitching of red thread. I had asked what they were, as they were just laying off to the side of the guy, on a little counter he kept small change. “Indian cigarette! Very nice!”. Ok, one rupee. I lit the thing and it flared up and I kid you not, singed by eyelashes, sticking them together. haha! Smoking is indeed hazardous to your health! I kept up with the thing for a a hundred feet or so, but not wanting to get sick (I’m pretty sensitive to smoke) I let it go, probably after a grand total of two puffs, not inhaled (I never have been able to and I never will learn unless I start doing French Nouvelle Vague films).
It was getting dark. I circled back and ducked into an alley, a blind, tiny alley, using my super pigeon-like sense of navigation. I’d looked once on a map that was totally wrong, drawn by the concierge, at a place I’d never seen, in a city I’d never been in, in the falling dark, in a neighborhood of winding streets and choked alleys…and yet my unerring sense of direction led me to a shortcut. OK, even I’m impressed. Ducking into this alley, and zig zagging out of sight. Anyone could have stuffed me into a duffle bag no questions asked–ever. But I didn’t get that vibe. Not all of humanity is looking to stuff you in a duffle bag. You have to do that math when you travel.
I continued. A guy rinsed himself at a spigot. The call to prayer shot out and into every corner, like a substance shot into the bloodstream of the city and soon to be at every capillary. And I popped out on the main drag of Free School St. Neon and other guiding lights of commerce. I made my way. Here you can do some great record crate hunting–there are several stalls selling old vinyls. I had a lot of traveling ahead, and at Rs1500 each records were marked at like $30, tho I am pretty sure you could haggle if you were so inclined. Working my way further into the neighborhood and the streets were strung with Christmas lights, over your head, a canopy over the whole street. I was accosted by a tranny who urgently and persistently needed me to buy milk for ‘her baby’. I’d heard about the milk scam but even so this scam’s whole premise was so bizarre I couldn’t even consider getting into it. She/he gave me shit when I deferred with the hands together in prayer gesture after ignoring her for 3 minutes, saying why did all the tourists do that, when she/he asked for some help. “Because it’s more polite than kicking your balls up your throat”, I thought.
Time for a cure. The intensity of giving on that Bangalore show had seriously knocked my chakras for a loop. I could barely turn my head when I woke up Sunday. I’d head about Indian head massage, so I went for one. Found one for cheap, just a few bucks. The guy more or less beats your head with his fists, scrunches your hair, etc. I wouldn’t call it sensual. It’s definitely invigorating, as it appeals to your fight or flight mechanisms–which awaken to say–hey fuckface! There’s a guy beating on your head…DO something! I enjoyed it, tho, it was…weird.
Next up I took on a serious detour. I grabbed a cab and headed for the riverfront. It was about 7pm and already dark. I had envisioned, even from the map, that the riverfront walk would be en elegant promenade, but it’s something more interesting than that. I didn’t have a specific destination but the name of the park that runs alongside the river is also the name of the giant cricket stadium just outside the park, but I asked him to press on. Dropped me at a small monument to one dead brit or other, and I walked down the path towards the river. Totally in unknown territory. It was dark, but the street was lined with cars, and there were people about. It did have a ‘what am I doing?’ vibe tho. Especially as the riverfront walk was not like the broad, bland open space of the Mekong in Vientiane. This was a trail thru overhanging trees, a trail sometimes paved, sometimes not so much. There were couples around so my fear subsided. I walked up along the might Howgli River, boatmen having their small craft, which they appeared to live in, moored on the bank, each with a cozy glow of light coming from within the tent-like canopy that would house about one person. A few boats were out there, and these were powered merely by poles–the boatman pushes himself along, like a Venice Gondola. The river doesn’t look fast, but it’s wide enough to be pretty intimidating. *I* wouldn’t go out there just with a pole and what is essentially a live-aboard canoe. Walking further up the path, it eventually opened up into life–snack stands, tea huts, lots of people around. This path was separated from the road by railroad tracks, and a noisy commuter train went by. I took a tea to warm up. Life was all around. And death. As I came to a place where there were no longer trees making obscuring the river, and the bank was lower, a crowd was gathered. People chanted, and sang, quietly, and something human shaped and black was lowered into the water, and released. Drums were beaten. It appears that I was at someone’s funeral. I was mesmerized. And then it was done, guy walking out of the water and immediately taking a call on his cell.
The railings, stairs down the river, etc, all the infrastructure was new but already looked like a ruin. The little snack shacks were all tidy. But the park was a work in progress, it seemed. And there were some girls around that seemed a bit too alone, and some workers tents and sheds and things that I guess could easily become a quick brothel for the right tender. Further up there were small buildings that lined the riverbank, various police and other things, guys were living there…again, it’s hard to convey the level of intricately strewn life-ness around me, everywhere I went in India. But as a city dweller myself it’s nice to be in a place where you’re never lonely.
Now, I crossed the tracks and emerged onto the main road at a big roundabout, and I do believe my cab had taken this roundabout to turn and drop me at the start of the promenade. Buses going this way and that, and stuff going on, hard to tell what. No cabs tho. But eventually one came from where I’d been earlier and I hustled and flagged it. And we drove towards where I was in search of some chow. On the way we passed another roundabout where there was live music in progress, tablas and all. Folding chairs set up but not much audience. The main road we took along the major section of park was line with chairs and other parade material, Bose must’ve had a real send off today.
Kewpie’s was the place mentioned that served Bengali food and I was curious. Cab driver couldn’t find it. But I knew I was near it…I’d looked at it on Google maps like 4 hours ago and was in a strange city with no landmarks that I could recognize. Of course I was sure. You sound like a twat asking in the nighttime pharmacy where Kewpie’s is, and of course feel like one when everyone working there or coming by has no freaking clue. Was I that far off? I’d walked up and down the street about 200 yards in each direction looking for a clue. Finally, an older couple, Indian with British establishment accents, overheard me–”I say, there, suh–were you looking for Kewpie’s? Oh, how wonderful! It’s just up the road…you look for the house of Bose and you turn in a little alley and by jove you’ll be right on it! Have a lovely meal!”. So, I just needed to go 250 yards the other way, not the 200 I’d already been. Found the house of Bose. This was his day. It was all strangely perfect. The house is a museum now. First we see the car that was used in his escape from house arrest, and eventually, India. You see, Bose wanted to get rid of the British by any means necessary. He was ready to take up arms, and now. He thought Gandhi’s methods would take far too long, and it had been long enough. His ideas brought down the heel of the British on him, but weakly–his house arrest was easy enough to allude and he made his way to Afghanistan, to Moscow, and then to Berlin. The Nazis received him, and he said that he would help deliver a British defeat if they gave him India. He spent a couple of years there, during the war, and married a German girl, and had a daughter. Then….Germany invaded Russia, and things were different. He then took an incredible journey, in a German submarine, around the Cape of Good Hope, to meet up with a Japanese sub, which took him to Japan, and he made his way to the front, assembling a force of Indian men who had fought for the British and been taken prisoner by Japan, who would now fight against the British. This wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped. The British with the Allied forces won the war, his brigades were disassembled. At one point in his travels, his plane crashed. He died of severe burns in a hospital. Was cremated, and his remains put in a temple in Japan. Or so the story goes….the fog of war has prevented a truly definitive account of his death and what happened to his remains. Thus, on his birthday, i.e., today as I was in Kolkata, it’s celebrated as if he just might still be alive (abeit 115 years old).
Kewpie’s did not disappoint. This was presented as traditional Bengali food, prob some kitsch involved, with the clay drinking glasses. Oh, I should note here that clay is not a resource considered endangered at the moment so all the tea wallahs in this region serve tea from their carts in little clay cups that look very much like tiny flower pots. And these simply get crushed in gutter, where they become….clay. And I guess run off into the storm sewers, and into the rivers, and I guess you could get clay from a riverbank, couldn’t you.
I know that the menu placed in front of me meant nothing. It was not in written Bengali, but all the food names were in phonetic Bengali written with latin letters. So I had to go down the whole list because of course I wouldn’t want to miss something exotic. There was a strange beverage, much fish, some aubergine. Some tongue-splitting chilies. I had a set menu, just to give the guy a break. Kewpie’s is broken up into several small rooms, but in my room, another table had a couple that were absolutely American, going on in their unfunny way, you know how it is with young, vaguely progressive types–they just don’t laugh at anything. I harkened back to my many observations of American women shopping in the supermarket, always examining the whatever it is–pumpkin pie mix, frozen corn, Special K–as if they knew people were watching so were *really* *intently* staring at the package, so we all get the impression that this is shopper that won’t be fooled, and by the way, this is the most important batch of groceries they will ever by. Me I do this with a smile on my face. I might go up and down the deli meats a few times looking for what I want, but I don’t have this super serious look on my face. I feel like the current generation is just not funny at all, as when they do get something organized to show how funny they are, it’s a cultural nightmare like LMFAO.
My reverie on shopping, unfunny Americans (what are we becoming, *Canadians??*) was interrupted by more activity for the benefit of Mr. Bose: fireworks. I rushed outside and saw a little, but then thought…I should probably eat and not make them think I dined and dashed.
After dinner it was up to me to find my way home–now, folks, I’d been up down and all around town in taxis, and dropped here from an angle, via the white elephant of the Queen Victoria memorial, that I’d not previously surveyed. And yet one look on a map some 6 hours prior was enough to give me the sense that if I walked up that street there, I’d be at my hotel. And I was right, but it took like 25 minutes. And I couldn’t *see* the hotel from anywhere as I was walking. There were fucked up stretches where the sidewalk was torn up and the adjacent street was almost a freeway. But I knew that Park Street was a landmark and I knew that in order to have a Park Street you need a park. That came up and I turned inward, and finally, manouevered around the block and found my hotel, and went to bed.
And I was up bloody early. And chauffered to Kolkata airport, not a modern wonder by any means, pretty crusty and dusty. There were blood stains on the wall where I was waiting to catch my flight to Bhutan.
Bhutan begins were India ends. It’s plain to see. Essentially, Bhutan’s geography is a wall that goes straight up. Hard to see the topography of India so far below, as all of India is pretty much obscured by smog. Our plane took off, I had a decent seat to look out the window from, and a nice little in flight brekkie to boot. Soon I was looking at mountains that were actually above us. The white peaks of the Himalaya. Extraordinary. Humbling. Who says that mountains *aren’t* gods? And if you say, but we climb these? Examine what the relationship is like between gods and men, and find an example of another codependent relationship where you *didn’t* get walked on.
Soon the plane was on approach and yet taking evasive action to move in a kind of valley between small mountains. Pine trees, tiny hamlets. I was most interested when would pass a mountain that was covered in snow but not above the tree line, and you could see a home there on the crest. Like, who’s his postman? I guess he’s his own postman. But pity the guy that gets back home, slaps his forehead, and says….’light bulbs’ or ‘taco meat’ cuz he forgot to pick that up. Oh well, I’ll just drive 12,000 feet back down this MOUNTAIN and get the FUCKING TACO MEAT, then, shall I, darling?
OK, I never saw anyone in Bhutan eating a taco. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t do it.
We landed, and I was pleased to see that the whole area was bathed in sunshine. We walked across the tarmac into the terminal building. I was already impressed that every building was clearly built within the regulations that enforce traditional motifs–elegant and colorful carvings around the windows and on the eaves, whitewashed stone or brick. Some are plaster, usually painted a soft yellow. But, mostly gleaming white and then fancifully painted dark wood, that’s a description of almost every building you’ll see. I got my Visa sorted (it was pre-approved but I had to pay the $20 fee upon arrival) and changed some money (tied to the Indian rupee, it’s the same exchange rate, more or less). Right then and there I bought a postcard in the airport gift shop. There’s a post office too, but today was a holiday–Offering Day.
One thing that no one was offering me today was a ride. I was pretty sure I’d set up an airport pickup with the hotel, but no one was waiting for me. I gave it a few minutes. No airport wifi to check mails. A woman saw my plight and took pity on me, and called my hotel on her cell, I had the number handy. She said–you’ll have to get in a cab. And she sorted one out for me. It was only a few bucks. The driver and I walked to his car, and we drove out one end of the airport, then doubled back and headed towards the town of Paro, which is served by this airport. Well, the whole country is. There are two other airports in the country, but scheduled service has yet to begin. It will soon, tho. And that will change a lot. This tiny country is mostly accessible with great difficulty–winding mountain roads means that the opposite end of the country is hours and hours away by car. There are even villages on the Tibetan plateau that are inaccessible by road–you drive for a day to a small village, and you have several hours’ walk from there. Further on from there, there is a kind of society, no one is sure if they are Tibetan or Bhutanese (similar but different language). They live in caves on a kind of hillside, and mostly, when they don’t want to be visited, pull up the ladders and make themselves pretty much un-visitable. They only come in contact with the neighboring (and by neighboring I mean some hours walk away) when they feel like trading a few things, they raise Yak and and evidently they are able to find “Chinese caterpillar” which sell for hundreds of dollars a kilo. So called Chinese caterpillar are a larvae which has been infected with a particular fungus, which sucks the creature dry and then sprouts a kind of stalk out of its body. Supposed to have all kinds of magical powers, esp for Chinese, who I believe are the ones driving the price up by insatiable demand. Another locally eaten delicacy is a kind of hornet larvae, which is even more sought after if it has developed a nascent stinger…it’s extremely rare, because…only so many people are willing to go willfully digging into the nest of this vicious large Asian hornet.
We came upon Paro proper, which is a pretty small town by any measure, running along a valley and divided equilaterally into ‘old town’ and ‘new town’. They look quite similar, as there are laws in place to ensure that people build in the traditional style as I mentioned above. The old town has a few more ceremonial buildings and a little more patina. So most businesses have the same facade, everything looks…well, more or less the same. It’s lovely, of course. Lots of general stores, and I noticed that packets of potato chips might just be the most common staple item. We exited the town, at the end of which there’s a temple with quite large prayer wheels. Dynamos of karma, and perhaps a symbol that the lord helps those who help themselves. A large drum on a vertical axle, turned by hand (except those that are designed to be turned by water). Essentially the local Buddhist culture is absolutely mixed into every aspect of living. Rather than separate church and state, the government is essentially headed by the following: the head of state, the young king who was crowned just a few years ago and married just last year; a head of government, a PM who would be more or less serving the will of the king plus ratifying the decisions of the the MP; and head of religion–the highest ranking monk. And, with democracy a recent development, as this was very much a functional monarchy, now there is a second head of goverment: the “Head of the Opposition”. He heads the the first new party since one-party rule. He has in parliament, like 2 seats out of 100. But these are the people that are presented as the heads of government’s various functions. The government convenes, prays and the king resides all in one building–the Tashichoe Dzhong which is built in the style of the largest of monasteries. In fact, unlike Europe, where it’s pretty easy to tell a castle from a cathedral (Chateau de Vincennes has both, tho), I would be hard pressed to tell a castle from a monastery, and in fact, I am not sure there is a difference….I think there’s only one castle allowed in the kingdom, tho. But a monk lives there too. Are you with me?
We crossed dried out rice paddies gone fallow and started to climb a hill out of the valley. The Feng shui of where to put symbolic items is well practiced here…someone, a monk, etc, just knows where things are supposed to go, and it happens to always look beautiful. In any crevice or grotto or cave you will see what look like tons of little cupcakes, which are clay offerings, they also might hug a wall or be perched on the perimeter wall of a temple. These little items made me think each one is inhabited by some spirit…when I would see them along the road in a cave mouth I couldn’t help but think of the tiny forest spirits from Princess Mononoke. Meanwhile, other examples of aesthetic perfection were the use of prayer flags, either white ones that were suspended like sails on poles, you would see groups of these clustered on various hillsides; or multicolored ones strung sequentially like the plastic triangle-shaped tinsel that adorn the perimeters of a used car lot. But much prettier. Deep blue, yellow, green, etc…they might be strung monochromatically (there’s white ones too) or they might be mixed. Draped on trees, or sometimes strung across geography/geology that really make you wonder how in the hell they managed to do it, they are cloth, and they slowly, slowly, decay.
We arrived at my accommodation, the Gangtey Palace. This was the former governor’s residence, governor at this time, a century or so ago, being something like a feudal lord. The placement of the palace–looking over Paro, was no coincidence. But certainly a dandy place for a hotel. I got settled into my cozy room, tidy beds, and those mandalas on every window and door frame….well. I needed some lunch for sure. No internet, so…ah. It was down, and it was a holiday, so it wasn’t coming back soon. This could be good. The main building, where we enter and access reception, shields what would have been the residence behind it, which I guess also has guest rooms. And perpendicular to the main building there is now a low slung dining hall which ends in a circular room that offers about 250 deg. of view over the valley–the bar. Fantastic idea. All couches and comfort, and wood burning stove. I was really excited about this.
Lunch in the dining hall, I was the only one, more or less. There were a few other tourists in the hotel. Now, you know, that Bhutan has strictly regulated tourism. To come here, you must pay about $250 per day, which is arranged via an agency to cover your hotel, your food, and a guide. Someone is employed for every visitor. The high price keeps the bath a little unbeaten, too. As a musical guest of the country, this fee was waived…like, I’m on the guest list for a whole COUNTRY. But it was confusing in many situations that I had no guide. To get around and do my tourstic bits, I had to hire a driver for the day, which was relatively cheap. But then, as we’ll see, when I wanted to enter certain places, you need to be with a guide.
I went out this afternoon to see a temple called Kyichu Lhakang, the original construction of which dates back to the 7th century. It’s just down the road from Paro, so an easy excursion. Of course, in addition to this place, I was equally captivated by the local homes. The openness of the countryside gives the illusion of tidiness; but the closer inspection reveals all the clutter of daily life, reassuring as it is to me.
On the way back we stopped by the archery range nearest to my hotel; as it was a holiday today, this was an occasion for people to engage in the national sport. Basically the game is to get an arrow to the bullseye, but the bullseye is over 100 yards away. Most arrows didn’t even hit the target, but some did. Remembering my attempts at archery from summer camp, barely able to feebly impale the straw target from point blank range, made the efforts here impressive.
The rest of the evening was devoted to rest. As the sun went down, the temperature dropped to well below freezing, and the wind whipped up. Perfect. I spent the evening in that panoramic bar, with a few other guests, we had dinner: red rice, they call the local variety–you’d say brown rice–with slices of fatty pork, with a kind of local root vegetable and always chili. Despite the fattiness of the meat there’s a purity to it all that coupled with the rice makes it seem healthy. Certainly given the conditions of the area it’s perfect food. That and a finger of the local whiskey was the perfect way to celebrate not living in a tent out there. We watched a Bhutanese film called “Travellers & Magicians” which depicts a guy who wants to emigrate to the states getting a does of the richness of the life he has around him, via stories told by a monk he meets along the way during his frequently frustrated journey from a small village to Thimphu. The stories come to life as their own separate subplot.
So, 9pm was bedtime. Imagine wind beating on the roof, and my colorful little room, pulling blankets up and positioning the space heater.
The next day after a porridge breakfast my driver was there around 10, and we went to the bank so I could organize more cash, and the post office for Aden’s postcard franking (it still hasn’t arrived). Then, onward to the Tiger’s Nest. This is probably the most famous tourist destination in the country, and it’s no disappointment–it’s a stunning sight/site. A temple built on what mortal folks would call an inaccessible escarpment, hugging the rock face thousands of feet above the valley floor. The way up is a trail up an adjacent mountain, and eventually stairs that lead around past a waterfall that shoots out of the crack between the two mountains, and up to the temple itself. The temple was founded in the 17th century at the site of cave where one of the holiest holy men did find a good spot to meditate. The walk up the mountain took me one hour and twenty minutes, which is considered a very brisk pace. It’s a steep dirt trail, the dirt hard packed for the most part. Keep in mind that the valley floor is already up in the Himalaya, so this march is done in rarified air. I dressed in layers, too–hat, polar fleece, cardigan, flannel shirt, parka, and thick wool socks. And my shiny dress shoes, of course. No one believed that would be possible and yet I beat what I was told was the fastest time possible by ten minutes. I was sweating, tho, and it wasn’t warm–but hard work. Wonderful tho. To be in the trees alone, and watch the geography alter as I gained ever more perspective on it. A kid running donkeys down passed me, he was probably twelve, and scurrying down that trail with total confidence. Eventually, I reached the summit, and worked my way around to the stairways that clung to the rocks that led to the temple itself. The sun was out, and the pine forest reminded me very much of the land around Bellingham WA where I grew up, often exploring similar trails, just on a smaller scale.
But, none contained a monastery (that I ever found, anyway). Arriving to it, I found that actually to enter one needed either special government permission or a guide. I had neither. But, the guide accompanying two British tourists said I could join them no problem. Cameras and phones are to be surrendered here at the guard house, no photographs are allowed of the sacred spaces inside temples. Generally what you find inside are large golden representations of Buddha and other deities, with offerings of all kinds of things–from flowers to money to ordinary foodstuffs. One thing unique inside are special cakes offered. Evidently they are made of sculpted butter, and I guess sugar, and they are sculpted to elaborate shapes, usually a kind of towering blade. My erstwhile companions were two very friendly guys, both devotees of Buddhism from Exeter, Duncan and Chuck. I followed them and actually did my own prayers as they did theirs. I did my own twist on the body movements, prostrations of my own invention. After experiencing the spiritual heights, we started to descend from the topographical ones. Let it be said that this holy place has burned down twice, the last being quite recent, so it was only reconstructed in the last few years. In Bhutan, however, the skills to build in the ways in use since time immemorial are still maintained and still in practice, so, in fact, it was more or less impossible for me to tell that this place wasn’t the original structure.
We took lunch together at the restaurant about 1/3 of the way down from the Tiger’s Nest, a simple cabin serving Bhutan’s deceptively simple looking cuisine. Bhutanses food is extremely spicy, and doesn’t look it. So, you have to tread carefully…unless you’re like me, and like food as hot as possible. In that case, you’ll be far from disappointed. I had a tea for strength and Duncan had a flask of incredibly delicious whiskey, which he was happy to share. By now the sun was out, and since we were in our hiking clothing, we could sit outside on the terrace, which looked across at the Tiger’s Nest. I said my goodbyes as I planned to scurry down the hill quickly, as I had to be back at my hotel in time to meet my ride to Thimphu. And this is what I did–I shot down that mountain, and had something like an hour to sit in the bar, check mails since the wifi was working again, and then the cab driving me to the capital came, as night fell.
It takes about an hour or so, more in the dark, to go between Paro and Thimphu. I wish I could tell you what it looks like, but it was soon pitch black on the road. I arrived at my new accommodations, the Yeedzin guest house. It’s a hotel, don’t get me wrong, medium sized, friendly, and like everything here, it seems, coziness is part of the deal. I had a large corner room–Bhutanese dwellings, as I understand, are generously apportioned–as the country certainly has space. I had a front room, with TV and couch, a desk and chairs; a bedroom, and a bathroom with a bathtub. Space heaters in both rooms. I was due at dinner pretty soon so I had a few things to sort–send out my clothes for pressing, and get the power outlet to work, it was fried, somehow. They sent a tech up and replaced it straight away. We were just about to test it when the power went out for the whole building, this happens somewhat regularly. The power came back, we verified the outlet worked, I went downstairs, and was met by Gai, my initial contact here. Gai is originally from Australia, has lived all over the world, doing her work in the public health sector. She enjoys Bhutan immensely and plans to stay for some time. I know her via my contacts in Vietnam who organized my 2010 show there, as she used to work there and knew them well, she even hails from the same town as Nick, my main contact in Hanoi. Gai and I drove out looking for the restaurant where we were to meet Kinlei, the organizer of my show. Kinlei runs the venue, Mojo Park, which had just opened, and the radio station, Radio Valley, who were the media partner for the event. Our meeting tonite was to take place at a traditional Bhutanses restaurant that had also opened recently. I should note here that I was coming down with a cold. The radical change in temperature, plus, I believe, the intense pollution in India, had conspired to deliver your basic cold. I’d rested on that early night in Paro in the hopes of beating it, and the fresh air of my hike to Tiger’s Nest had suspended it temporarily, but it was closing in on me.
We eventually found the restaurant. Good glimpse of the palace, aka the Tashi Choe Dzhong, at night, which is lit up with red lights, kind of an ominous vibe, as we drove out. We had the place to ourselves, we were the only table being served. Great! Kinlei was very happy to have a rocker in the house, he’s a vibrant, mischievous, fellow, who loves his music. And his cigarettes, which is an expensive habit in Bhutan. In fact, they are quasi-illegal, you can pay a fine if you are stopped and found to be carrying more than the legal amount to posses, which is maybe one pack. We spoke over cups of butter tea, which is rather the national drink, and exactly as it sounds, it’s milk tea infused with butter. It’s said to be the local Chapstick, as it replenishes the oil lost on wind-whipped lips. I was enjoying it, but soon we were to switch to ara, which is the other national drink. Interestingly enough, this beverage is also more or less illegal, and yet, widely available. It’s a moonshine made from various grains–it could be made from rice, wheat, or, everyone says the best ara is made from millet. Like sake it can be served warm or cold. We were having it warm tonite. Its taste is like a slightly more astringent sake. I didn’t mind at all, I will gladly use the tea method of cold-fighting liquid intake, or the alcoholic one, and the smart money I say is on hedging your bet. Appetizers: first, bits of animal (unspecified) skin, dried. And some other what you could call variations on bar snacks. You have to chew that skin a lot. But it’s good–how can something 70% fat *not* be good? And then…main courses, which arrived to the table next to us, and we could go and pick at will. There was gorgeous array of foodstuffs. My photos don’t do it justice–they come out looking like the photos you see at kebab shops of the menu item. Has anyone told the kebab shop owners of the world that greenish images of dull-looking meat slightly out of focus and obscured by the light of the flash reflecting off the meat’s greasy exterior is far from appetizing? Of course not, because, everyone eating kebab is drunk enough that by that time of the night, the whole world is greenish, blurry, and greasy.
This food was colorful, and in the glazed earthenware pots and dishes it was served in added to the appeal. I focused on the meat items, esp. the blood sausage, made from yak blood. Looking every bit like boudin noir from Paris. However, this stuff is dried before it’s cooked–so, it looks like it should have been softened up in the cooking process, but it remains inert from any liquid that forms the rest of the dish, the supporting cast of vegetables. So it’s nearly impossible to even cut with a knife–I ended up picking the things and biting off a bit, chewing, chewing–everything here in Bhutan is out of the guidelines for longevity–walk a lot, chew your food 36 times, drink homebrew…uh…oops. Another classic dish is one that is made almost entirely from dried red chilies, which sounds like it would be inedibly conflagratory (I made that word up), but is rather perfectly piquant–I never experienced a moment of my face going numb or other gone-too-far-with-the-chili moments in Bhutan, but, the food was often designed to snuggle right up to that moment and stay there at the limit of comfort, linger there, and then recede. Either that or by the time I reached Bhutan after being in India and Laos especially, my nerve endings had partially been grilled into submission. But I like to think that Bhutanese cuisine is zen and healthful, and I don’t think that’s an illusion. ‘Red’ rice, fresh vegetables, dried meats, and chili sounds like a winning combo to me.
After dinner I so dearly wanted to sleep and get working on my cold, but it was required that we visit a local bar. I took a finger of K5 whiskey–if I’d been healthy I might have tried the local beer, even tho I don’t really like beer that’s usually trumped by my enjoyment of new flavors. But my mild disinterest in beer is upgraded to revulsion when I have a cold. I finished my drink, and hustled over to my lodgings. Now, I was told that this bar we were in was one of two or three bars in all of Thimphu, which was clearly not true–there were many small establishments advertising themselves as bars around. Almost all the businesses advertise themselves in the same way, much as all the buildings are built from the same short list of motifs–a small hand painted sign, blue letters in English on a white field. You get the impression that a country whose homogeneity and emphasis on tradition would be a real bitch for one a born maverick. In fact, I know it chafes the latest generation–just the fact that in my placeholder blog a couple of weeks ago I mentioned only the word ‘traditions’ when describing the things I was needing more time to describe from my travels drew groans from my Bhutanese readers eager to see what I had to say about my visit. Nobody said a bad word about their country while I was there, and in fact everyone seemed very proud to be Bhutanese, and yet…I am sure the country is on the verge of some radical changes, the changes of globalization that happen everywhere, where everywhere becomes everywhere. It’s understandable, and it’s too bad. I give globalization about another century, and then people around the world will be trying to recreate what was lost. In fact, I have an idea for a novel about this.
Meanwhile, back in Bhutan, I took the obviously incongruous stat of the number of bars in town to mean that there only a couple of bars that were more like American bars. I don’t know what these other, local bars are like at all–no one mentioned them, and no one offered to show me, and unfortunately, I didn’t have time to investigate it myself.
The next day, my cold had a pretty good grip on me. So, I decided to use this day as a day of rest, and hope that I could feel well enough on Friday to do a little sightseeing on the day of my show. I got up, had breakfast of porridge and tea, and went back to bed. Got up at midday, had lunch, again in th hotel, went to bed. Got up in the afternoon, took a long bath, and prepared myself for my interview and performance on Radio Valley, we had an hour scheduled from 6pm. This went much better than I feared it would–with the magic ancient power of France’s traditional cold remedy: Rhinadvil. This stuff is the bomb, it makes Sudafed look like barbiturates–you’re so wired, your cold can’t keep up. It’s not even available in fucking Belgium, as I found out much to my dismay during my album sessions. So now I carry Rhinadvil like Rambo carries live ammo. It did the trick. I was surprised to find that Kinlei was not my interviewer, but maybe he was just not quite confident enough in his spoken English? Even tho it was absolutely fine, he let the interview be carried out by the woman whom I guess is the regular DJ for the hour anyway. We chatted, and I played a few acoustic songs, and we tried to get the tracks I brought down to play on the air, but some were m4as, which didn’t fly in their system. What Mp3s I had did work, but there were some humorously awkward moments where we talked about a track by way of introducing it, cued it up and…silence.
But, mission accomplished, and I went back to the hotel, had a quiet dinner there in the restaurant again, and went to bed.
THIMPHU, 1/27
Via the various youngsters hanging around at the radio station, a young fellow was assigned to me to take me sightseeing. We headed out of town in the direction of a mountain pass that has a series of sacred buildings associated with it, and evidently, a magnificent view. The first thing we saw, however, was a traffic jam. This is a pretty common occurrence, I get the feeling–road work, tiny roads that hug mountains, so probably frequently subject to being covered by snow or debris. So, here it was simply road improvements going on, so they had alternating periods–no traffic, out of town traffic, incoming traffic. So, about 30 min for each side to wait at a time. People had their solutions–sleep, play cards, resign themselves to the futility of existence while maintaining effortless good cheer, etc.
Then we could move. We curved and curved in my host’s SUV, including some rather presumptuous passing slower trucks via the oncoming lane on a blind curve. I did see a yak looming up out of the forest in a place where the road was less of a drop off. We got to the viewpoint, and found that the view was to be of clouds—as in the clouds that we were inside of, and couldn’t see out of. Usually this burns off by midday, but today it just didn’t Thimphu had been sunny, by the way. But here it was snowy and chilly, and socked in. Still the monument is interesting. So, Bhutan had a war not too long ago. As I understand it, separatist elements from a region of India adjacent were staging their operations from inside Bhutan, and were supplying themselves via banditry. Enough was enough, and the king, i.e. the current monarch’s father, himself led the army to dislodge them from the country. People have also mentioned something about a putsch or pogrom against Nepalese immigrants, and this is also referred to when people describe the operation. In any case, this is what is memorialized here at the pass. There’s a collection of smaller buildings, little towers standing not unlike soldiers on a hill, and then further up a hill on the other side of the road is a larger temple. Pilgrims had arrived so the monk on duty opened the temple up, and I too entered. This temple is interesting in that it is of recent construction, so of course the building itself is done in a completely authentic style, but the paintings inside and outside are clearly modern, albeit referencing traditions. Well, not all of them. Outside we see a pantheon of the royals who were involved in saving Bhutan in this recent operation, painted realistically, albeit in a background that is stylized, hmm…think hyperrealist meets classical Buddhism, meets the eery psychedelia of the Teletubbies simplified alien landscape. Inside, there’s a wraparound mural that more or less depicts all of Bhutan past and present, painted in a classical style, so you have a kind of Bosch-like landscape of endless myriads of activity, people milking animals, or preparing foods, or, being devoured by a dragon, or cutting a dragon into bits, or becoming deities–you know, slices of life. Up on the balcony level you can see more realistic depictions of the last generation of royals, and some space age stuff to let you know this was done around the recent turn of the century. There was the main offering room, with the usual golden seated god, and the various offerings of cash, cakes and bags of potato chips. Then there was another room that my host gently discouraged me from entering that was the embodiment of the Bhutanese victory–not only were there more deities in gold, and more offerings, but there were numerous weapons hanging from the wall–not sure if they were offerings to the god of war or if they were attendant to it to what. But we’re talking AK47s and other rifles obviously not meant to bring down a goat.
After our visit I suggested lunch, and there’s a kind of lookout hotel nearby, we went there. It looked like it was not quite finished, construction evidence all around, but it was open, and we walked up the stairs to the place. Wow, did this ever look unpromising. We were the only customers, and the whole place just looked, well, not ready for business, but halfheartedly trying. Remember, don’t judge a book by its cover, but by its efficiency. I went to the bathroom to pee, and this wasn’t finished either–the sinks didn’t work, but there was a bucket of water, which happened to be hot, that you could ladle over your hands and wash. The gift shop was rather threadbare, but I stuck my head in as a courtesy. Then, food arrived. And you know what? It was incredibly good. I had wanted to try the local fish specialty, and they had it. Fish in this landlocked country are tiny little critters swiped from streams, and they are dried hard and then partially reconstituted when cooked with some vegetables. So good. You eat the entire creature, the bones just pulverize. Again the dish with dried red chilies, and the famous chili cheese (which is what you say when it’s time to snap a photo). Chili cheese are green chilies, which look more like large string beans, but don’t be fooled, they are hot; these bathe in a sauce of white cheese, but it’s very thin, this is not a dish that smothers or leaves you feeling bloated, but is just right, like so many things in Bhutan. And, the restaurant did get busy, we were just early. Tea was good for my cold. After this we headed back to town and I snoozed in the car. We visited a temple that is populated by thousands of pigeons, and a couple dozen large prayer wheels–whose motion is perpetuated by the elderly. This is something old folks like to do here, go down and spin the prayer wheels and build up karma. Some of them are regulars that my friend had been seeing there for years already. The other thing to do here is to walk around the temple clockwise three times. We did that.
Then we went for an aerial view of the national palace, since it was not easily accessible to us–it was not open at this time of day, a foreigner probably needs a kind of permit, and Bhutanese entering have to be in traditional dress. Three strikes. So we parked on a hill and surveyed the impressive structure from a good vantage point. Then we went to visit the taksin. The taksin is the national animal of Bhutan, and its distinctive appearance was a puzzle for naturalists and the source of much mythology. It’s somewhere along the route that a deer would take to become a buffalo. DNA analysis revealed that the animal arose from the sheep family at some point long ago, and specialized in life on the Tibetan plateau, the only place it can be found. They have a few caged up in a reserve, a very small one. Under normal circumstances, you can walk around the enclosure on a kind of trail and see them, but all that was blocked off. They were in the midst of building a new visitor center there, and obviously didn’t care about any visitors who might come in the meantime, we just walked onto the grounds, tried to see the animals, one was near enough to look at, and then I was sad to see the situation from there–the workers building the stuff live on site in shacks, and their kids were there too, the older ones kicking a ball against the cage of the animals repeatedly, typical obnoxious teen behavior, and nodoby gave a shit. Not about those kids, not about those animals, not about us. Zoos rarely reflect well on humanity, the idea is already like: we put the animals in a prison in order to save their lives. Ever checked out the Barcelona zoo? One of the most depressing places on earth. And this place, supposedly a refuge for the national animal, was pretty much a bummer.
Oh, we also took an excursion out to see a giant Buddha, probably a hundred or more feet high, being erected on a mountain overlooking the city. He sits in meditation posture, gazing out over what is currently an expanse of graded dirt, perfectly flat. In my mind I thought: “how lovely, imagine this will be beautiful park where you can sit on a field of grass and gaze up at the serene expression of the Buddha. Nope. I asked. It’s to be a parking lot, right up to the base of the statue. My vision of humanity was taking a serious beating? Even the Bhutanese were getting it wrong….heeeelp!
OK, let’s look to rock & roll to save the day. We went to the venue, which is in Thimphu’s first new shopping mall, one of the few buildings allowed to be built in a modern style. It’s a 5 story opaque glass affair that looks more or less like a nondescript office building. Inside there’s clothing stores, sporting goods, jewelry, a grocery store. There’s a video game arcade on top, and a shop for traditional items–prayer flags, and such. I bought some incense there, for Dom. There’s a music store, too–I paid them a visit. It’s very small, they sell a handful of guitars, and supplies, but mostly they order in what people want from suppliers in India. You pick from the catalogues of various brands and it can be ordered from a distributor in India in as few as ten days. Really nice guy running the place.
Mojo Park is down in the basement of the mall, along with a couple of establishments–a nightclub, and another bar. Being that the mall is just open as of a couple of months ago, so is the venue, and it’s the first of its kind in Bhutan. Here I have to say that I was told several times that I was the first western artist, the first artist to come further than India, ever in Bhutan, but evidently the Dutch band Bløf came here. OK, first American…..maybe?
So, there’s a house band that plays here, covers. They were to be my band, I sent some music ahead. It took some time to sort out gear for me. They had only one of those Boss multi-effect pedals that plug straight in. I said I’d need an amp of some kind. The guy from the music store brought down, very kind, but it in fact didn’t work. It had a broken input. I kept asking for a Fender amp and kept getting told that would be difficult if not impossible and yet…it happened. It showed up. I ran thru a few things with the band, including picking some songs from their extensive fakebook. With everything in place, the stage was set for the show. The venue is very much a nice little pub, very cozy and seemed to sound good. We went upstairs and had some food, and then back down…Kinlei was very concerned to get the show going but I calmed him down, saying…just wait. It’s early. There were only like 15 people in the place when it got to the (quite early) time that I was scheduled to go on. I held out, had a whiskey (for the fact I had a cold, only of course) and was delighted to find that there was Bhutanese wine being served, a white wine. It was a little earthy and occluded but interesting. Finally, I agreed to begin. There were like 50 people in the house, I guess we had about a hundred at the peak of the evening. I began and it was soon apparent that I had some talkers, some Bhutanese guys, I think they were gov’t officials, who were up front but talking a lot. So, I got them to quiet down. Quite a bit of panic when I left the stage and walked out on the long bar counter that cuts the venue in half. Not to be confused with the actual serving bar, this is just a place for people to sidle up to and rest their drinks. I was out there, singing my head off, Kinlei trying to talk me down. I told him it’s OK…it’s part of the show. Oh, I didn’t know this but evidently my red jeans were a kind of code, decipherable to Bhutanese as meaning queer. So, they all assumed I was gay and that I was really brave for boldly displaying it.Meanwhile, some Bhutanese young guys were having a birthday for a friend, they were HAMMERED. So, there was humor as they would try and participate or talk to me, or whatever, but couldn’t even formulate a sentence in any language. I had more whiskey, and kept playing. Eventually, I stopped. I guess I played a couple of hours. I got the house band up there and we ran thru “Fireflies”, a particularly impassioned “Lover’s Hymn”, and then songs from the fakebook–”Black Night” “Heart of Gold”. Then the actual guitarist of the house band got up, and I know we did more stuff…the whiskeys were getting me into a state of pure spontaneity, but I was playing well, but no where near as good as this guy. He could sing, play guitar, harmonica…like you wouldn’t believe. We did some Bhutanese pop songs, and some other classic rock stuff. Then I deferred and let the professionals take over. They did their incredibly well played covers stuff for another hour while hung at the bar. My show never really ended, and their never really began–the music just kept going. Everybody happy. Now, at some point, I couldn’t take it anymore and I got back onstage with them, and then they called it quits and I soldiered on and did yet another solo set, closing with a tender version of “Here’s to the Future”…just as the police arrived to shut the show down. Music began around 9.30pm–and here it was 1.30, some FOUR HOURS later and the music finally came to an end. The cops weren’t heavy–they just arrived. Male and female cops. I didn’t even take it seriously. At this point, between the cold meds, booze, and hours of music…how could I? I just left. That’s all the cops wanted. It was time for stuff to be over. I left, watching everyone try and get an SUV out of a deep drainage ditch, big enough to make one tire fall in, that edged the parking. Got to my hotel. Slept.
I was up just a couple of hours later, my taxi driver from two days before there to pick me up, and drive me in the predawn to Paro, where I caught my flight to Kolkata. I had planned ahead and booked a hotel for my layover which was to last nearly a whole day– one that was near the airport but looked pretty nice, online. I was dog tired when I claimed my bag and emerged, only to find no one holding a sign with my name on it, despite what I thought were solid arrangements. OK. I was pacing, wondering what to do, when I saw a guy chatting with someone else, this guy holding a folded piece of paper with what looked like “Ken” backwards soaking thru from the magic marker writing on the concealed side. Indeed, this was my guy, who couldn’t have cared less that my flight was long arrived. It felt good to say: “were you expecting a mind reader?” even tho he either didn’t understand or didn’t care, just smiled. The car, a white Ambassador, was parked in a nearby lot. A tiny old man wearing a blazer about 5 sizes too large appeared in time to roll my suitcase and load it in the cab, my host and the driver not paying him the slightest attention, just transferring the responsibility of my suitcase to him as if he was a conveyer belt. Nor did they concern themselves with whether or not the suitcase would make it in the vehicle, nor did they worry themselves that he might ask for a tip for this service. I gave him one, but it wasn’t much.
We drove out of the airport and got to the hotel. Uh….that’s it? What about the gleaming white rooms I saw on the website? Lobby was just a tiny office that had a lower ceiling than I have a scalp. And then we marched up several flights to a room that…wasn’t quite what I’d seen online. I had to laugh. The wifi never worked, so when I wanted to check mails I had to go down to the lobby and use a cable at the front desk (later found my iPhone could negotiate their wifi, tho my laptop could not). The shower was notional, just a kind of negative space that separated the edge of the sink from the edge of the toilet, so you could sort of stand there, while this hose sprayed you, and the water built up and threatened to flood the whole room, so I stopped. The water drained out, it seemed, at the base of the toilet. Eew. Does that mean….? I wasn’t yet tired enough to sleep so I headed out to lunch. The guy at the front desk, who met me at the airport, walked me next door to a small restaurant, a total movie set. Quiet as a library, but obviously a party place at night, chairs stacked everywhere, tinsel hanging here and there. One table with two guys having beers and one guy who looked uncannily like Danny Boyle (research for Slumdog 2? I thought…) having his lunch. I sat down, ordered my lassi, and a kind of kebab. It took freaking forever. I just surveyed the chaos of this shabby joint (also not efficient) and eventually the Danny B lookalike finished up and came by to say hello, two foreigners in a very foreign place. He worked for a Christian faith NGO doing various kinds of agricultural development. It was clear he spoke a language understood by the workers here, which he informed me was Nepali, he worked in Nepal a lot and you’ll find Nepali folks in Kolkata aplenty, including the folks who ran the hotel. Very nice guy, from Toronto, who had been working in the region for decades, spent about 1/3 of the year here and the rest in TO. We both agreed we got fooled majorly by the hotel website.
So, I went back to my room, napped for a couple of hours. Then, back to Kolkata airport, checked in, got my flight to Mumbai. There’s where the real fun began.
COLOMBO, 1/29
It was almost midnite when I arrived at Mumbai, got my bags, then waited in an interminably long queue for the bus to the international terminal. There was a metal detector and bag X-ray to go thru as you exited bag claim for the bus, but it didn’t explain why it snailed along for 40 minutes than all of a sudden took no time at all. The bus just had to drive around the airport, more or less, but exiting the secure area and working its way into traffic was quite a negotiation. Dropped me at the part of the terminal where Sri Lankan left from, total chaos with people crowding the sidewalk and cars and buses and soldiers and what not, but I was really used to it by now. Not taking anything personally, I worked my way over to where Sri Lankan would take off from, and first augmented my meager snack from Kolkata airport that served as dinner with a couple of samosas from a snack window right there on the exterior of the terminal. Then, inside. Got checked in, went thru all the steps. Meanwhile, there was passport control. The guy checking my passport was infuriated I didn’t have a Sri Lankan visa. I said: I *do* have one, it’s just one of the new electronic ones, the ETA. Surely you know about it? It’s new as of January 1. He wasn’t buying it. It should have been all the same to him, they wouldn’t be deporting me to back to India, would they, now. I’m not Indian. Anyway, he begrudgingly let me thru, quite pissed off that my knowledge of Sri Lankan visas was more current than his. zzzz.
We landed in Colombo in the predawn light. My visa in fact was sorted, no questions asked, I had my bag, and then headed out. Did I have an airport transfer booked? Pretty sure I did. But no sign. So, a guy asked me which hotel I was going to, and I said which one, and he offered to call them, which was nice but also to his benefit–he had a taxi company, so if I indeed had no ride, he’d be my guy. Which turned out to be the case. So, I got in the mini van and off we went. The sun was up now, and it was again fascinating to observe the quotidian details as we worked our way into the city, about an hour’s drive. I ‘got’ Colombo right away. So lovely, the feel, look and energy of the city. It’s big, but doesn’t feel big, and actually, after Mumbai, etc…it’s modest by comparison. Old colonial buildings and modern practical ones, not trying too hard, not too fucked up. My hotel was right at the epicenter of the city HQ, really–where the national bank and ‘world trade center’ and big brand name hotels were, except my hotel was a modest creature, older building, with a 5th floor rooftop terrace and restaurant. I’d been fed on the incoming flight, so I headed straight to my room and went to bed. Slept for couple-three hours, then went up to lunch upstairs. I had some kind of unique vegetable and spicy curry-like sauce and rice of course. And the juice of some green fruit, sour and refreshing. Freshened up. Sent my clothes out for pressing. And soon I had a ride to pick me up and get me to soundcheck.
It wasn’t far, the venue. The venue is called the Park Street Mews, and it is in fact an hold mews and carriage houses that are now occupied by a restaurant at the exterior, and as you work your way back there are the warehouse-like carriage houses, mostly empty unless an event needs one. So, this event had taken over the back one, spacious with an exposed brick feel, probably cavernous for a rock show but perfect for mine. Nice big stage, not too high, tho. I met the guys in Out of Time, who are a local band playing a mix of covers and originals, weekend warriors, mix of expats and locals. I also met Dr. Eugene Draw, an extraordinary musician by any stretch of the imagination. Violinist, venue owner, impresario. From Canada by way of Russia and Israel, he picked up the Doctorate not from a Uni but from his abilities to relieve and uplift via his presence and music (sound familiar?). He’s spending a month or so in Sri Lanka to absorb the music here. Lucky man!
The guys from Out of Time had found my material a bit too challenging so we rehearsed their covers of choice, Stones and what not. Easy. I had a coffee and dinner outside on the path leading to the mews where the restaurant keeps a couple of outdoor tables. The sun was setting, and I could hear Eugene jamming with the drum troupe…………that were part of the show, a dozen guys playing everything from plastic buckets to timbales, hand drums, snare, cymbals, etc. Sounded very exciting. Meanwhile, the bats emerged for their evening forage. Not the flitting insect catchers like I see on Ile de Re, these were absolutely enormous, stately creatures…leisurely embarking in solitary trajectories as they awoke, emanating from the park across from city hall, where they gather in some broad tree there. These guys are vulture sized, eagle sized, even. They fly with slow, deliberate wingbeats, all leaving from their roosts as the sun sets, but in individual pursuit of whatever free-based goodies they feed on. I enjoyed watching them so much, my table being on the edge of the flight path so I got a few relatively close glimpses of one just overhead, but the majority were off beyond the venue. After dinner I took a walk and headed towards the park where they come from–there was a kind of carnival set up there, with rides and what not. Seems like some of it cost money to enter, so I didn’t really investigate. Saw some kind of small insectivorous mammal darting around even with all the people and kids around, unnoticed. Tried to skirt the park on the inside but various stray dogs with unpleasant dispositions thwarted that notion. I headed back to the venue. Walking in Colombo is no big deal, at night, it’s generally safe. The general pace of the city is far calmer than the Indian cities, for example, that I visited. The island is a cultural treasure, with an ancient predominantly Buddhist, Sinhalese-speaking population covering most of the island. Then, a predominantly Hindu, Tamil-speaking minority in the north, who until recently as you all know were fighting a brutal civil war to separate the country. As mellow as Colombo is, it’s hard to believe that this war ended just a year or two ago. And, unlike India, you don’t see soldiers everywhere, the tension level is really much lower in general.
I hung with the musicians and had a glass of wine, and the venue filled up nicely, prob. 250 all told by the time I went on. All kinds of folks, older, younger, local, expat. I had my work cut out for me, sweating up there, to calm everyone down and get them to focus on my unknown tunes, but in the end, it was absolutely wonderful. Great audience, who totally loved it. I played a good 45 minute set. Then, Eugene did his thing–he normally plays his electrified violin with backing tracks, but those weren’t working, so after a frustrating start, he simplified, came down from the stage and just played, and then was joined by the drummers…now this was something far greater than even the sum of its many, many parts. The synergy and excitement between them all was riveting, and Eugene was pushed to even greater heights, as were the drummers. It was astonishing. Loud. Brilliant. One of the most exciting things I’ve seen in a long time. This was followed (yikes! tough spot.) But Out of Time playing their laid back originals and covers, and despite the fact that between my intensely quiet set and Eugene/drummers intensely intense set most of the available oxygen had been consumed. But, then I was called up to play the piano, on the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and we morphed into a big jam at the end–bring back the drummers and Eugene…and we just played…improv. It ended up being very jazzy with my free jazz piano chords, Eugene and I hit on some wavelengths and had some great interplay, and the drummers too, despite the fact they were on the floor facing away and I was on the stage, probably ten feet behind but they could hear me in the PA. Well, I am not doing it justice with my words here but in fact the experience was exhilarating. Highly! We bathed in the moment for just a bit, staying in the venue long after everyone else has gone, myself, Eugene, Samila from the local radio station, polished off the wine and then as they went off for late nite eats, I headed back to my hotel.
The next morning I was up early, had my breakfast and sorted out Aden’s postcard via the post office in the World Trade Center. I had hired a car & driver to take for a drive down to Galle, an old fortress on the coast, a couple hours’ drive south of Colombo. Along the way we stopped here and there, at a sea turtle conservation center (where a 5 foot long monitor lizard was shooed off lest he/she discover the cached reburied eggs), for a wonderful lunch at a fairly new little restaurant which served perfectly spiced local cuisine, buffet style, but as we were there at the stroke of noon, it was just arriving in the chafing dishes, fresh and delicious. The owner of the place was fairly young guy who was clearly proud of his operation. And he should be–splendid, inexpensive food made from fresh local ingredients–what’s not like?
We arrived at the fortress, and spent time on the ramparts, chasing monitor lizards and admiring the sea as it rolled in. Time to head back already. Stopped for a swim on the coast, and I was back by around 8pm, hitting the city in time to have the huge fruit bats as entertainment as we worked our way through evening rush hour traffic back to my hotel. That evening my promoter for the previous night’s show had arranged for dinner to be provided at one of the other restaurants he owned, in the newly converted ‘Dutch Hospital’, an 18th century structure that only recently had been rescued from dereliction and now was a smart little assemblage of shops, bars and eateries, with a central courtyard, where I sat at a table with the chef and Eugene. With dinner and wine concluding, I said my goodbyes and goodnights and went to bed.
DUBAI, 1/31
And was up just a couple hours later, to check out and head to the airport for my 4.30am flight. I had absolutely adored this city and country, and wished I could have seen more, and was amazed to be on the last step of the journey (now giving hope that I might post this blog, now, almost two months since I posted my last real entry!). We took off, and landed with the sunrise in Abu Dhabi. Collected myself and my belongings–I had arranged for my suitcase to only be checked to Abu Dhabi, despite the fact that technically, I was on a layover, albeit for 19 hours. I had already picked up a few dinars in Kolkata the night I headed to Sri Lanka, since India’s currency cannot be changed abroad, and I hadn’t been able to spend all of my rupees. For this short stay, I wouldn’t need much. The older German couple in front of me in passport control, guy having a heated conversation on his cell phone right there at the counter, and the woman checking them in wouldn’t back down–she sent them out of the line. Good! I proceeded and gave a ‘shukran’ for my passport stamp.
My host for this show, Alex, is an entrepreneur par excellence, owner of several businesses, and has also put on many events including a music conference and festival, in Dubai. He had, to my good fortune, just opened this month a new restaurant with the intention of having live music, but he was originally going to let the restaurant get up to speed (the main dining area wasn’t even yet open) and then introduce live music but as I was coming thru town, he thought…what the heck. So, the Stables Bar has three levels–the entry level, which is just that, on the ground floor. Next floor up has a spacious bar area with booths along the side, and open tables in the middle, bar along the wall. A raised area with couches is also the stage. The top level is a large dining room, white linen style. It’s got a decidedly British feel, in terms of menu, bar choices, etc. Alex hails from Wales, and indeed as I saw in Dubai the British have much more in terms of economic boots on the ground than the Americans. Which is funny, as I found Dubai to be sort like the ultimate expression of impulses generally originating in America–it reminds me of Las Vegas, Palm Beach….with the skyline of a Manhattan (at least). But a culture that likes driving big cars, shopping in big malls, etc…come on, what’s not to love here, if you’re a real American this should feel like home. Yes, it’s in the middle east and our relation with that part of the world has become warped and distorted, but, I’ll tell you, look for a better melting pot of international aspirants than Dubai. It’s what America used to be — ambitious, audacious, global and energetic. And yes, their economy tanked after a bubble too. It happens. For its fully capitalist, consumerist lifestyle, and a place where global warming can be denied/ignored (it’s already as hot here as it’s going to get, the rest of the world will just be playing catchup) I’m surprised more button-down shirt types from the states don’t live here….to be honest tho, I found Dubai just shinier and newer…and every business I passed on my walks around the neighborhood was operated by someone from a different ethnicity. The American dream of anyone can succeed is a little more likely to be the Emirican Dream. And soon.
My ride, who is also the Stables Bar’s resident DJ, picked me up in out front in a big SUV (again, remind you of anyplace in particular? I was almost getting homesick…where’s the Appleby’s?) and we drove to Dubai, about and hour and a quarter during the day. When the skyline appears, it’s a jaw dropper. The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest ballpoint pen, is there writing doodles on the sky. It’s a building with like 3% body fat. Just a spike, going ever higher. He dropped me off at my hotel, and I went up to my room, which was totally isolated from the outside world, windowless…cool, and overstuffed, in a 70s Waldorf Astoria kind of way. I admit, I had a bath. So unPC. But so helpful to bring me back to life from my all nite travel. I went out for a short walk, then had to be back for a radio interview that phoned in to my room, then I went on my errands, to Spinneys, a kind of mega supermarket (actually kind of small by Dubai standards)…again, any American who doesn’t feel totally at home here is…uh, lying. It wasn’t too hot, the January sun was forgiving, and in fact you might think of Santa Monica in December in these conditions (without the torrential downpour of my 2010 Christmas in LA, of course). There was a stationery store that had postcards, and sold stamps, so I could mail Aden’s postcard from the mailbox out in front (folks, I should note my postcard from Bhutan has yet to arrive over one month after being sent). Then it was time for a culinary mission. Camel milk. I’d been reading about it for years, and my love of all camel products had prepared me for loving this nutritious beverage. I looked for it in Israel, to no avail. I looked for it in the Arab groceries in Paris. No dice. And here it was, in this gleaming, straight out of an episode of Dallas megasupermarket, just a a precious few small bottles of Camelicious. They had the stuff flavored with chocolate or date juice, but I wanted the news straight from the horse’s, uh…anyway, I got my stuff, and went out on the front steps and inhaled it. A little hint of sourness, in a yoghurt kind of way, delicious. When was the last time I drank a glass of milk? When I was in high school, probably. Very satisfying.
By this time Alex was heading to pick me up, so I hoofed (do camels have hooves?) the quarter mile back to the hotel, picked up my already checked out bags, and got in the big SUV and we went to the venue, where I met Alex’s very British and very friendly gang of partners, staff and technical types. Instruments were in place. I did a little soundcheck, had lunch, which was a rib roast, like Sunday carvery back in jolly olde, and then found myself with some downtime before the show. Off to the mall! I walked out and then hopped Dubai’s stylish metro, which is an elongated x of two lines that run down the main drag together before diversifying slightly at each end. I headed to the Dubai Mall, with the intent of getting as close a look at the Burj as I could afford (this turned out to be really true: there are only so many allowed up at a time, and the day’s spaces were all booked, unless you wanted to pay something like $100 for a last minute booking. No thanks). The mall is a nation unto itself. You could be lost forever in here. It’s like the Noah’s Ark of commerce, one or two of everything you could possibly want in your shopping portfolio. Laduree didn’t have a cart selling macarons, they had an entire terrace. There was a Caribou Coffee, for Christ’s sake. I had a macchiato there. I was tempted to buy gourmet dates and other things, but I kept it real. Headed out to a terrace to see the dancing water show, very Disney this, all of a sudden a placid reflecting pool gets possessed, slithering undulating jets of water synchronize their movements with lights and music. Looking up from there, you can see the optical illusion of the Burj, too skinny to seem large, and yet….
I was met here by Lewis Philips, who had just flown in from Qatar, where he was working on a project at the time. Lewis and I were acquainted by email, and in fact we will be working on a recording together this month, his solo material. Each of us finding ourselves in the region was a stroke of strange and good fortune, and we got to know each other better just in this short visit, nice intro to our future endeavors. In fact it took both of our navigating and help-desk asking skills to get out the mall and find a taxi, so thank God he came along when he did. Got back to the venue, and there was some wine and food, and then I got up to do my thing. Great audience, some a bit mystified at first, as they weren’t expecting this, but most were with the program. And I delivered, and really, whether they were prepared or not, I really managed to capture the room and deliver an excellent show. I communicated with everyone in the room, including a rather too decent looking girl to be sitting at a table all alone to my left, realizing when I put her on the spot that she was an obvious prozzie working the expat zone. Now, miracle of miracles, I started to play a song and sort of invited people to join me, and how often does this get taken literally–within seconds a guy with a fiddle and a squeezebox were onstage with me, playing expertly! We did “Moon River” this way, too. They were great, it was just one of those things…totally magic and funny and unexpected. I closed with a couple more tunes, realizing I’d have to go soon. So, a last round of drinks, and then the chef, who is French, drove me back to Abu Dhabi. I just took jet set to a whole new level folks. Great night.
Flew back to Paris, eventually–my flight’s departure was several hours delayed. Great to be home, and spent the day just telling tales and being with the girls.
And then: time to get back to work! So, I spent almost two weeks finishing up the album with Liisa, mixing for the most part. We did a few vocal things and also had an oboist come over, doing a beautiful job of playing the parts I’d written for a song. My mixing skills, and Liisa’s musical vision really grew together over the year we’ve been working on this album. Tho we’ve reserved a day this spring for mix touch ups, it’s basically a fully realized album, and a great one at that. For most of the time Liisa was in town, Dom & Aden were in the alps, Aden learning to ski. My dad had a birthday and lo and behold joined Facebook! The last nite of Liisa’s project Dom & I headed out after the session to take in Howe Gelb’s show at the Maroquinerie, a brilliant realization of his Chet Atkins meets Harold Arlen meets Thelonious style. He was accompanied at times by three Spanish musicians, with whom he’d worked on an album, and of course one of them, Fernando, turned out to be a Posies fan. We’ve since met up for drinks as he stayed in Paris awhile and have plans to meet to do some recording in summer.
That day happened to be Valentine’s day, and Dom & I spent the daytime together realizing a big photo shoot for me, with Cecil Mathieu who took great portraits of me a few years ago. These turned out really great, and I will be glad to have the final results available soon. It was a big project, with a stylist, an assistant, Cecil, Dom & I all working on outdoor and indoor sets, with rented clothes (oh, that was a movie in itself, going to a company that rents clothing for films, and picking out threads and shoes from the 1930s to fit the theme of my current album). The artwork for my album is almost complete. The tracks are coming in from India, Seattle and Amsterdam. Mixes are coming together. It was a little hairy after not working and then going to Asia and also spending money on my album to come home to no cash flow (Liisa paid me last year for the sessions this month) but soon money started coming in, royalties from Lagwagon, rent from my new tenant, payments for my work.
I mixed two songs for Manila-based fashion designer Kate Torrabla, who opened for me there two years ago, really good, jazzy-based songs, Dom thinks could be a hit in France easily. I mixed several songs for Cheap Star, adding keyboards, backing vocals, etc. And then hightailed it up to Brussels, to work on an album at my favorite studio, the ICP. My album sessions there were quite recent, so it was very much coming back home. Working in Studio C, my favorite of the three. Keyboardist Pim Kops and drummer Joost Kroon, who were part of my album sessions were here, and of course the whole show is run by JB Meijers, who should be well familiar to readers of this blog by now. We also had Gert-Jan Blom in town to play bass (and give me some upright lessons so I can apply them in this spring’s Big Star IIIrd show). Without giving too much away, I have to say that where I anticipated this album going based on our demo sessions last year and where it ended up resemble each other not in the least–that is to say, this album has absolutely exploded my and I think everyone’s expectations. Where our focus had been on more folky, singer-songwriter stuff before, we got much more experimental in these sessions. It’s a rare combination of the fact that the album has a decent budget, the players are excellent, and the artist has an incredibly open and adaptable mind and voice, and is herself blessed with sophisticated tastes. No one, not even the suits at the label, are interested in a safe album. We still have more interesting chapters ahead. I’m really proud of my contributions to this…you’re going to be hearing a lot about this record. My job has been to hold the rudder in that direction of experimentalism, and make sure that the sophistication of the musicians involved doesn’t get too showy–we have to keep the edge on.
And during the sessions, I played two shows.
BREST, 2/24
Just hitting the groove with the current sessions, and I had to jet out for the weekend. Damn, what was I going to miss? Well, these shows were in place a long time ago. Up at 6, out the door at 7, and by 7.40 on my way to Paris. Not that I’d see my family–upon arrival to Gare du Nord, I hightailed it to the metro, took line 4 to Montparnasse metro, and then felt my way to the Gare proper–about 200 yards at least of tunnels, stairs, moving walkways, etc. Got there with time to spare, tho, then boarded my train to Quimper, which is several hours’ ride, and from there a local train to Brest. Nine hours of travel, and then picked up by our man Cedric from Frequence Mutine radio, who were celebrating their 30th birthday with a big show at La Carene, the main venue in town. We were one of the headliners, THE DiSCiPLiNES. I hadn’t seen my guys since August! Let alone thought how to play these songs…but I’d arranged time for soundcheck to be generous. The guys got in and we set up and played…not too shabby. Backstage I was finishing up Kate Torralba’s mixes and edits and then eating some food…waiting for the hammer to come down. Finally….11.40 at nit…we went on. The bar was in the lobby so between the end of UK Punk legends The Boys and our show, the hall was totally empty. Folks started to trickle back in and then there were like 300 people ready to rock. All drunk Bretons, huffed up on punk rock, so…they weren’t going to take anything less than full on. Guys, I’m out of shape. I was on a hard core diet for the two weeks between my arrival from Asia and my photo shoot (I lost 4 kilos–8 pounds–from the time of Christmas indulgence till that photo shoot (never had an afternoon gluhwein tasted so good afterwards). But ICP is not a place to shed pounds, with their gorgeous catering. More importantly, my pipes, and my body, to scream, jump, etc…that was all cold, like a car parked in a Wyoming tow lot in January. But I had to give. The crowd, to be honest, had its share of dickheads, but I had to like them in order to win. And so, I went full on, riding the audience’s shoulders, losing my shoes, breaking my wallet chain. And by the end, we had them. Fuck that was hard work.
Got back to my hotel and heard a noise in the next room, and soon the whole place reeked of pot. Agh!
LORIENT, 2/25
The next day we assembled for lunch, I had some oysters and fish soup and wasn’t feeling too bad. Cedric drove us snugly in a Ford Escort or whatever to Lorient, just an hour and half down the road. Why is it called Lorient when it’s in the west part of France? It’s an occident. Hahaha. No, ships left for trade in the far east from here. They have an old submarine base, built by the Kriegsmarine during the occupation, those German folks just loved their massive concrete edifices, did they not? The French used it for their own submarine purposes for some time. Now the harbor has peaceful intent–it’s a base for huge racing trimarans, which we went to admire.
The venue itself, Le Manége, is really charming. Built in the 18th century as a protestant chapel, it’s also been a cinema (only educational films tho) and a bathhouse. Wow. Now it’s venue. One exterior wall remains from the old church, the inside of the main hall is clearly fifties movie house. It’s not too big, you could probably stuff 300 or more in there, I guess we had 150 or so and it was pretty full. Now, folks, this was the show that justified the whole endeavor. Great crowd–lots of teenage girls wanting to rock out, which I prefer to the drunk dudes from the night before who just wanted to slam dance. And I was in much better shape with a show under my belt. I was worried at soundcheck that my voice had gone too hard into the Brest show from a cold start and would be trashed, but in fact by show time it was energized, and I was singing with even more power than the night before. And of course, without the nine hours of travel and no sleep of the previous day, my body had more to give. And instead of a big giant stage with a barricade, we had a modestly high stage, I could access the audience much more easily. And so… I did. My best moment was when in the breakdown of “I Got Tired” I ran out the fire doors, which were about midway back between the stage and the back bar, so, right out the side of the audience, and dragged them out with me….soon I was out on the lawn, in the street, yelling, shouting, singing, getting the audience to shout back…and soon neighbors were emerging out their windows…and I got them to sing too…then ran *around* the building, out of sight of the people I’d gotten outside the venue, and re-emerged behind them in the venue, mic in hand. And almost passed out, I’d just run a couple hundred meters at least…OK, this show was excellent, I have no critiques here.
After the show there was time before closing for one round at the Irish pub next to our hotel, we had a drink with the Magnetix, the guy/gal duo from Bordeaux who make killer garage rock. Then bed.
Then I was up at nine, trained back to Paris, metro back across Paris, where I met my wife and daughter in Gare du Nord, just to have a hello and a coffee; we had a little extra time as a fire in the Station of St. Denis, under which all the Gare du Nord trains have to go, delayed my departure for almost an hour. But soon I was back in Brussels working on the album, we had a great series of highly productive…LONG days. We’d work at times till 5am, or later. The last day everyone started leaving, so I was left with Pim to do keyboard overdubs and played a mean riff on a baritone guitar. Then had a quick dinner and got to the train station to head home. My night at home was short and sweet, of course I was excited to see Dom so in bed we ended up talking for like 2 hours. Got up the next morning and started finalizing mixes for Kate Torralba at 8am, and packing at the same time, and kissing Aden. We had enough time for a cafe and then I was off to the airport, flew to Atlanta, flew to Tucson. Met up with the album team at a local eatery as we all flew in- JB, myself, Howe Gelb, and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth’s drummer), plus a photographer who is a mutual friend of JB’s and Howe’s, Eva, from London. Woke up this morning regretting the tequila shot at the historic Congress Hotel’s historically lethal bar. But we got straight into tracking, without giving away too many details about the sessions I can say that Wavelab studios is very homey and albeit a different vibe than ICP it’s great, I feel comfortable and we’ve gotten into a groove–we didn’t really know Steve well so today was about establishing the musical rapport but that’s gone very well, and we tracked a song today, very cool.
I’ve borrowed a bike, bought an $8 pair of sunglasses, eaten a $5 sandwich. Life is CHEAP in Tucson, such a welcome change. I couldn’t buy time with $13 (€9) in Paris…and here it covered almost my whole existence.
The Plane of Existence.
This blog is DONE mofos. Going to print.
Sunday’s will be short!
Love
KS
Tucson
