Picking up at the end of August, this life had an influx of sensations that made it intimidating to blog. So, after three weeks of effort, here is the recap of adventures in China, Switzerland, Holland and home.
Sunday afternoon was spent rehearsing with Sonja for the shows. It was much needed, I hadn’t had that much time or access to that many instruments during my time on Ile de Re. Drinks out on the town with JB and my friend Cristina from Brooklyn who was in town. Cristina sorted me out with an air mattress at her friend’s place where she (and yet another friend) were crashing.
Monday morning came, Cristina noticing I was awake and immediately offering me a vicodin. Did the trick–she walked me to Sonja’s and we caught up, dodged the rain (that’s all I can see it do in Amsterdam–correct me if there’s other kinds of weather there anymore?). Spent the afternoon rehearsing with Sonja and Annie, the fabulous cellist who plays on Sonja’s album. Sometime in the afternoon we piled into a cab and headed out to the Schiphol, and soon met up with Eddo, who is Sonja’s collaborator in executing her blend of images and music. Sonja has invented what she calls “Draw Clips”–which are cleverly conceived artworks that go with the songs. In each case, it’s things she’s drawn or painted, and Eddo films them and projects them on a screen–there’s artworks to go with many of her songs. In one case, there’s a rolling piece of paper that scrolls, turned by hand by Eddo in a machine made out of meccano parts, that rolls inside a frame that Sonja has made, so the moving images appear to be things passing by the window of a train that two silhouetted passengers are looking out upon. Another song, about car travel on a favorite highway of hers, is accompanied by a camera (with two ‘headlights’ affixed to it) moving over another long drawing of road, with images that pass by as well. There’s also a zoetrope that Eddo built as a teenager, that Sonja has made loops for. And so in. Very simple, but very brilliant. So, Eddo is, you could say, even more essential to the show than we musicians–the Draw Clips could easily accompany Sonja playing solo. But, add two world-class musicians such as Annie and myself…well, that’s a hellofa show.
We were all in a row on the 747 that took us to Beijing, conversations going in different directions. I barely slept, and not for lack of trying, but just couldn’t manage it, and that’s unusual for me.
We landed in Beijing early the next morning. Our presence there was part of a larger event hosted by the Dutch Foundation for literature, and this event itself was in orbit around the Beijing International Book Fair, where the Netherlands is the country of honor this year. Our gig was to perform the Draw Clips as a kind of palate cleanser during several nights of readings, lectures, discussions etc. that were being hosted in a space in the UCCA, the contemporary art gallery/space. Each night for four nights, different Dutch and Chinese writers and the like would be presenting different topics, pieces, etc, and Sonja and band would be part of the evening, opening and closing the session, and playing a kind of short intermission between presentations. So, many of Holland’s most esteemed writers were on our flight, and we gathered just off the plane, about 40 of us altogether, and were guided thru immigration and customs. I noticed one white haired fellow, who had a kind of Leslie Nielsen vibe–conservative looking but there’s something…unpredictable going on. He picked up a snare drum case off the belt. More on him later.
At last we we walked with all our stuff out to a waiting bus and made our way to the hotel, with a ten minute pause stuck waiting for a fender bender to be cleared from impeding morning traffic. Arriving at the Kempinski, a modern, oddly shaped (is is round? Square? I’m still in doubt) massive hotel complex, with its own mall, several restaurants (more on this later), the offices for Lufthansa and related airlines, a spa, pool, tennis courts. This was where Tarrantino stayed while filming parts of Kill Bill and evidently made quite an impression on the local purveyors of contraband and, uh, personal entertainment. So they say.
We checked in, and by the graciousness of the Dutch Lit Foundation, our rooms had been purchased for the preceding night, so we could access our rooms upon arrival. We cleaned up and met for a light lunch in the bar, and Sonja and I had an appointment: I’d already booked the tennis court, as a supreme cure for jet lag. This was done by emailing the concierge, and by promising Sonja I’d personally see to it that she’d get all her sightseeing needs attended too, by me personally, if needed. So, agreed. We were the two nutjobs playing tennis at 1 in the afternoon, in 85-degree heat. But you know what? It felt great. Too bad it didn’t do shit for our jet lag. Back in my room, I was showering up, in anticipation for the presentation that evening (we weren’t to perform at this one). Thinking we had over an hour, I was just out of the shower when Sonja called me and said “the bus is leaving in 5 minutes!” “Stall ‘em”, I replied, and got busy looking nice. Still in my Disciplines gear, but in a vintage KLM necktie, I made the departure and as we wound our way thru Beijing (my impression of Chinese cities, so far, is that the idea of having a city center with a concentration of steel and glass towers has been dismissed as way too linear. There are huge constructions in every direction–Beijing doesn’t so much have a skyline as it does a series of horizons, you’re penned in by somewhat oddly placed, often squat and wide, office buildings that are more boulder than tree. Unlike, say, Chicago, you can’t just head for the ‘downtown’. It’s all downtown. For miles and miles. Occasionally there are big towers, but mostly the buildings are built to look like unswayable forces of geology, rather than the swaying blades of steel and glass we associate with the modern skyline.
But many structures play with convention–some are hollow at the center, becoming a picture frame, but with humans in it. Some have massive mid-height detours. And certainly I was very interested in the building that tonites presentation was taking place in, The National Performing Arts Center, is an architectural highlight. It’s a silver dome, or pod, a compressed water droplet, resting itself on a small body of water. You enter the building by descending a grand public staircase and pass under the surrounding waters, which glimmer and swirl overhead, observable via glass panels. The passageway opens into the main hall, which was not in use this evening, but is barely fathomable in its enormousness. Bands of solid wood wrap the inner structure of the dome, and light continues to enter via the glass surface of the exterior, which is held together by a complex pattern of metal strips. We descended into the lower levels of the building, to the Multi Function Hall, where there was a ceremony to present several writers with awards for promoting the understanding of China to people abroad, etc. Most of the authors had ridiculously ill-fitting suits, and the speeches were long, doubly so with translation. Jet lag grabbed me and caused my head to bob. And I was starving.
Good thing the next step was a buffet. What few tables (standing only) there were filled up but no matter, we found a way to get that grub to its destination. I actually had a coffee afterwards, so I could make it thru the evening, jet lag really grabbing me now. The next presentation were Dutch authors reading pieces, in English, for the most part, interspersed with musical performances from Dutch players–Ivo, a pianist played Bach and Bill Evans; the highlight of the evening for me however was drummer Han Bennink, who does a free jazz inspired exploration of minimalist possibilities. He was the guy with the conservative college prof look that morning–short white hair, neatly combed, a blue button down shirt, expensive looking wingtips, and loose linen drawstring pants. Now he had on a headband and a T shirt with some Japanese looking imagery on it, and sandals. He did two pieces that evening–one playing just a snare drum (but also the stand, the floor, his chair, and modulating the sound of one stick hitting the other by holding one in his teeth and changing how much he opened his mouth); the second was done sitting on the floor, playing his shoes, again a chair (knocking it over perfectly on the beat at one point).He did some vocalizing too, shouting out words now and then, and at one point he appeared to reference Charlie Parker by holding a drum stick behind his head, Indian feather style, and saying in a bizarre falsetto ‘I don’t like Cherokeeeee”. His energy during the performance is that which we could call deranged. Finally declaring the performance over just by throwing his sticks down, bolting up on his feet, doing the hand on heart salute, and walking off.
With that the evening was complete so I started to collect volunteers for meeting up with Hanggai. We’d exchanged texts via our mutual friend Traci, who was instrumental in helping put together Sonja & my Beijing club show, and who had been our friend and translator during the Hanggai album sessions last year–Hanggai was leaving for Amsterdam early the next morning, they’d asked if we could move our post-event meeting up to 7.30, which was impossible, we were already at the venue, and it turned out we had front row seats for the event. So, we hoped to be there as soon as possible, and of course the even ran 30 minutes later than advertised. Exiting the building, we looked back over the dome now bathed in darkness, and marveled at tiny patterns of colored light hovering in the sky–how was it possible? It seems they were kites, and yet, I couldn’t see where they would be tethered, and they didn’t bob or sway in the breeze. I’m still not sure, despite suspecting kites. There was quite an adventure to find a cab. Working our way to a busy street, it seems like all the cabs were going the other way, and it would be sensible to cross the street to try and grab them, and of course, when we got there, we started seeing cabs going the other way. Some cabs in China have green or red lights to indicate whether they are occupied or not. Not all do, and it’s the custom of people to ride in the passenger seat more often than not; sometimes its hard to tell if a cab is available or not. Finally one pulled over and it was a race between us and two other people to get it, we were closer and faster, tho, so we emerged victorious. We flashed a text message in Chinese from Traci to the driver, and were at last on our way. It was now ten p.m. and we felt very bad that Hanggai was waiting for us. We soon found ourselves at the entrance to a hutong, Traci met us and led us down into ever quieter alleys. We met Li Dan, the drummer; Huricha, the singer; Bagen, the fiddle player/throat singer; and Illichi, bandleader and banjo/mandolin player, plus Traci, and Illichi’s wife Jennifer at a small restaurant serving cuisine from the region of Ningxia, similar to Inner Mongolian fare. Boiled mutton, and spiced grilled mutton, and so forth. We were drinking a bit of baijiu, the deadly clear grain alcohol popular in China (I noted at the time: “this makes grappa look like Kool-Aid”), and tons and tons of Chinese beer, extremely light. So light, I don’t think you can get drunk on it. You pee every 5 minutes and spend your time working your way thru the volume. I was conservative on the Chinese Everclear, and I managed to stay quite alert. We were watching a kind of battle of the bands, with the Idol-style judges etc–Hanggai were on the show, in a kind of live mashup with an Inner Mongolian hip hop group who’s tune was based on Hanggai’s self-titled anthem. When midnite rolled around, I had done my duty to beat jet lag, and mentioned since we had a show tomorrow we should take it easy. The Hanggai’s agreed, they had to be at the airport in 5 hours, after all. We agreed to finish our current beers and call it a night. Then Illichi turned to me and said, gently “you will have….one more….beer?” 2 hours later we were in bed. Still not drunk tho!
BEIJING, 8/31
I don’t know if I was lucky twice (i.e. with this year’s and last year’s visits) or it’s the local custom to overindulge the guests, perhaps it’s a competition to lure customers, or Chinese folks just expect a big breakfast spread, but the breakfast at the Kempinksi was a marvel to behold. I would estimate some 50-60 items, at least. Intimidating to even concoct a strategy for dealing with it. I narrowed it down after the first day to the following favorites–the dumplings, which varied between meat, greens, mushrooms, etc, steamed to juicy perfection in their round baskets; sushi, cucumber maki and a more complex roll that changed ever so slightly each day; fresh papaya, kiwi and pineapple; yoghurt with 0.01% fat; chinese vegetables that had been pickled and were soaking in hot pepper; and fresh squeezed carrot juice. This ignored a massive array of items–all the egg items which I don’t eat anyway; sausage and the like that are just too unhealthy to eat. All the cereals, and all the fish items. I’d tried the smoked salmon on the first day but the quality was not that good, and the quality of all the items mentioned above was excellent.
So, Eddo and Sonja had a mission — to go to the exhibition hall where the Beijing Book Fair was actually taking place in order to claim Sonja’s machines and Draw Clips material, which had been shipped that summer from Holland with the other convention materials the Dutch Lit Foundation had brought into China. I stayed behind and rehearsed with Annie in order to have her talents on some of my material for the shows. So, we hired a van and driver for the day, and Sonja & Eddo drove out to the Fair, and located the material, which had been approved by customs to enter China but not to leave the building. Meanwhile, Hu Jintao had decided to pay a visit to the site, and suddenly there was a huge panic as the building had to be emptied of several thousand conference attendees and participating vendors, deemed secure, etc. Essentially, they gave up, and Sonja headed back to pick us up, while Eddo continued to beg/negotiate. Annie and I had lunch in the meanwhile, in the hotel restaurant (there’s a “Restaurant” desk in the lobby, which I assumed would be a special concierge service for all things to do with dining in Beijing–turns out, it exists just to point me in the direction of the hotel restaurants–the regular generic grill where breakfast is served: the Japanese one, the Chinese one and the German one). I had spinach tofu with “superior store”. Which turned out to be a kind of brown gravy. We shared a plate of jellyfish, which are very resistant to being picked up by chopsticks, and Annie ordered Beijing duck. A small one. With that in mind–the large one must be one hell of a duck, as soon a rolling table appeared accompanied by three women, one who cut, one who took the cuttings and rolled them into pancakes with a little sauce, cucumber slices and green onion, and one who served. The pancakes started piling up in a relentless output, and we soon surrendered–we had a big box of takeaway, enough to feed Eddo and Sonja easily. The van came, and we headed to Yugong Yishan, where I opened for Hanggai last year. When we arrived and entered the club, the haze that drapes Beijing continually in summer, i.e., smog, was in the club–fingers of it curling around the rafters. We started to set up, with Chen our very helpful soundguy, patiently providing solutions to problems that arouse. And in fact, this was a first of its kind, me playing with Sonja this way, and I’d brought several things to make it work–my laptop, for one, running Kontakt for an organ sound and M-Tron pro for the mellotron flutes that Sonja tends to put on EVERY SINGLE THING SHE DOES. Can’t let those go down! There was a long time spent figuring out why the signal from my computer was distorted but essentially the stereo cable was plugged into a two-RCA-into-one-jack converter, and the resulting summed signal was too hot for anything to take. So, Chen substituted a different cable, and that worked fine. There was also a logistical problem to solve with my guitar, guitaret, etc going into one amp, with level differences between the two. Sonja had her gutiaret as well, and we play them both on her song “Hardly Justified”. Plus I was still learning things, too–the mellotron string chords at the end of that song, for example. I had pages of notes, and a lot to do, and there were tech problems. Sonja played electric piano (a Nord stage, and I won’t hide my dislike for the brand here), and Annie tried playing thru and amp but that sounded too distorted too so DI it was. In other words, hours of setup and we really needed to rehearse too, so, a long, long set up for this show. Eddo sms’d to let us know he’d been given the green light at last to let the stuff go, and various soldiers were now reengaging their safety and lowering their barrels. The van went to fetch him, and he arrived and started setting up Sonja’s visual gear, which would take up ‘the pit’ as it were–all the space in front of the stage. So…how was I going to get to the audience and do my thing? Was the presence of Sonja’s massive set up (in theory I was the headliner, after all!) going to limit the spontaneity of my always unrehearsed presentation? Would the presence of Annie and Sonja’s contributions also do so? What about the visuals? Would the fact that Sonja has this extra layer to her work make my ultra minimalist show boring by comparison? So, we looked for solutions, and came to these conclusions–by simply moving my longest cable out to the center of the stage, I would have enough length to descend the stairs in front of stage left and access the audience that way, so I could do my ‘with the people’ thing. Eddo would run the zoetrope and Sonja selected some loops that would run only in my set. We also decided to make a more democratic presentation, with Sonja playing 6 songs, me playing 6 songs, then Sonja 5, then me 6 and more if I wanted. I like these kind of trade off shows–this I did successfully on the Ken Stringfellow/Subterfuge shows in Germany/Austria/Switzerland 2007, and before that I encountered it at a Vic Chestnutt/Kristin Hersh show in Seattle a couple of years before that–they actually traded off every other song, sitting side by side on stage. Feeling better, we were ready–to eat. A fellow named “Huse” or “Beard” was there to take care of us, as Traci was working. He took us to a tiny place with cuisine of western china–more mutton, either boiled or barbecued. Quite good, and a vegetable, crunchy and sour like a radish, green on the outside and fig pink on the inside. Strips of tofu that becomes pasta like. A friend of Hanggai’s, Beard told me in between bites that he truly admired my work on Hanggai’s album, which was sweet.
Showtime–up onstage, after sitting backstage and fighting off jet lag, waiting for our 50-odd attendees to muster, we performed. I was pretty frantic with trying to keep up with Sonja’s lyrics and chords and percussion and melodies, and do all the instrument changes, etc. — please note that while singing I’m almost always replicating a part sung by Sonja or her sister, meaning, all falsetto, all the time. One one song, “The Roman Empire” I sing my part from the record, essentially the verses are all Sonja & I singing in harmony, while holding a clave between my knees and playing a 16th note pattern on it, hitting it with its partner, and using my right hand to play yet further syncopated chords and riffs.
The challenge of my set was met. I descended to the audience level, and far from being boring, the pruning away of the visual element, the extra player elements, etc., means the fruit of my song is all the more concentrated. Intense and strong. By my second set, people were really encouraging me to stay, and despite nervous chatter from a chinese girl right in front of me, that took a couple of jokes for me to quell, the mood was powerful and deep. When I brought Annie down to the floor with me to play on “Any Love”, it was just…swelling, bursting, exploding with all the longing that song means to express. Unamplified, it was the loudest thing you could imagine to those of us who heard it.
Mission accomplished, and then some–we packed up and headed back to the base. The artificial rain of Beijing–cloud seeding is done to periodically wash away the smog, albeit briefly–was in effect, drenching the city as we drove in the van back to the hotel.
BEIJING, 9/1
Today would be about getting to the venue for more rehearsal and set up, but we had by now a more practical grasp on what the show required, and we were only doing a few songs each night. The venue is the UCCA, a contemporary art space in the converted factory district in Beijing that’s become the arty farty zone. But, it’s an odd interpretation. UCCA is well curated (more on that in a minute) but the surroundings are a bit odd. Trying very hard to be western–seemingly harvesting elements from San Francisco and Melbourne, with espresso shops serving pasta and pizza and sandwiches…I couldn’t find but a handful of chinese dishes anywhere. As they weren’t able to have us make noise in the daytime, we had some time to kill after dropping our stuff at the UCCA. So, we had a coffee. Every building on the street is an espresso shop, and the ones serving food appear to have exactly the same menu as its neighbors—the same pizzas, the same kung pao chicken….weird. Like a simulacrum of a vibrant, spontaneous, gentrifying arts district. The Disney version, but who was the corporate master here? Across the street from the venue was a coffee shop that had a rooftop terrace,with a huge tree enveloping the space, very pleasant. I was also in the mood for lunch, and saw the Chinese people working in the place eating my dream meal–sauteed Chinese greens and a steamed bun. Getting up to the terrace, I asked about lunch, and since the kitchen was in a small enclosed space at the center of the terrace, I just poked my head in, and saw the chef cooking up my dream meal. I gestured to the server enthusiastically…that’s what I want! Only to find that, no…the options were pizza, and pizza. As if that’s what every arts-district person is dying to eat. You can’t begin to imagine my disappointment. I ordered an ice coffee. Soon, the cicadas started to buzz and whine overhead, I pointed out as such to my Dutch companions and was thoroughly voted down as an idiot—Ken, of course that’s the espresso machine. Really? In every tree within our line of site, there’s an espresso machine up there? I started to describe the life cycle of the 13 and 17 year cicadas, etc…and of course, that crazy Ken, he’s making this up just to mess with us. OK…I took Sonja over to the edge of the terrace so she could see the sound source was elsewhere, and it was multiple (tho of course every building within our line of sight had an espresso machine, it was clear this sound was arboreal in its location). She got the others to listen. Later, when we could get online at the venue, I showed everyone the Wikipedia entry…they were flabbergasted. That nature is weirder than the things I could come up with just being surreal…
I went off in search of lunch, and paused at yet another pizza-proffering cafe, reading the menu with a growing sense of dread, when I saw a large insect zip past my head and dash into the shrub behind the board that displayed today’s menu. I peered into the bush to find the creature, a praying mantis, hunting. Describing that to my friends proved that they don’t have them in Holland either…meanwhile I found my gung pao chicken, a ginger infusion, and a place to watch dragonflies, big orange ones, patrol.
We set up on a raised area that faced a small hall, with a bar along the side. Eddo’s contraptions were off to the side a bit, but one of the drawings–for the song “395”, a long painted road with scenic highlights referenced in the song, went from the lower level, up the steps and right thru where speakers would be speaking. Now, I can’t even remember who spoke about what on which night, but there were many, many interesting presentations over the course of the four evenings that “Cafe Amsterdam” was in effect. Leonard Busse is a professor at the university of Leiden who speaks perfect, expressive Chinese, and told a 300-word story, with anecdotes about the Chinese views of the Dutch traders who came to China and Formosa in the age of exploration. It was 300 words, because the master who taught him Chinese didn’t believe in textbooks, and wrote stories comprised of 300 characters as educational devices. Three times a week, young Leonard would spend a day with the master, and they would use one of these stories, reciting it over and over, until it was memorized. And by this process, Busse learned Chinese in 6 months. To present his stories about Dutch-Chinese interaction this way, he was also paying homage to his great teacher. His presentation in Chinese was translated in English on the screen onstage that was also where the Draw Clips video appeared. Many presentations were given in English, translated on the screen in Chinese; sometimes Chinese presentations were translated in Dutch, sometimes Dutch in Chinese. There were also discussions which were translated into Chinese or English depending on who was speaking, in real time by a translator (very often they would translate English into English, much to everyone’s general, but sympathetic amusement. There was a conversation between historical author Geert Mak and the mayor Amsterdam about the city’s history and future, and relationship with China. There was a series of pieces in which artists/poets/writers presented a short essay on an artwork that inspired them. Many, many enjoyable presentations, and I felt like I got that much closer to the culture I spend so much time with, in Holland.
Our first set here, was the result of a long and painful soundcheck, and the sound was definitely funky and disorientating onstage, even with a quiet show such as ours. Our soundguy, Kao, didn’t speak English and the venue staff weren’t really around when we needed them so it was decided to try and round up a soundguy that could be more responsive (some of the literary speakers were not used to microphones, and nobody seemed to respond when the vocals were not that audible. We managed, with Traci’s help, to get Mr. Wong, who would come for the other three shows. The performance wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t maximized, and it should be, for such a prestigious event.
So, about the UCCA management–a funny story. In the UCCA there is a design/art shop selling books, artworks, clothing, high concept design artifacts, etc. Also, CDs. I was shocked to see the most prominently displayed CD, with some 25 copies for sale in the quite small area set aside for music, an album by Liquid Architecture–aka the band in Paris that I played guitar for briefly. I knew Jerome Sanz, one of the singers (with his wife Audrey), had worked or was working for a museum in China, but I’d forgotten that fact, and it turns out he runs the UCCA. I would have enjoyed seeing him, but he was in Paris that week. Jerome is a prominent figure in the contemporary art world, having run the Palais de Tokio, etc. There’s a small world example for you.
BEIJING, 9/2
We had agreed on this excursion before we arrived in China and Traci gave us further suggestions. I wanted to see the Great Wall. So, we booked a taxi to take us to “JunQiao” (not spelled correctly, my apologies), which Traci said was nice hike in nature, to section of the wall that was absolutely undeveloped for tourists, and thus a respite from crowds and people pushing knickknacks in your face. Great–sign me up. The taxi came at 8 to the hotel, and we drove for an hour and 45 minutes out of Beijing. I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was because we were at the gate to the site. 20RMB to get in per head, so a couple of bucks each. Gate lifted and we drove in to a rough parking lot. There was a kind of village inside the grounds, in other words, the gate was an arbitrary place outside the village that sits next to the site. Corn was growing, insects buzzing, chickens sounding pissed off. It was hot, I’ll give it that. We bought more bottled water from a woman living in a concrete shack just beyond the parking lot. We told the driver we’d be back in 2 hours, which is a mix of what Traci said the trip would take and what we thought we could afford, time wise, since we did have a show that evening, and they started at 7.
We looked up on the mighty mountains that ringed us in, and there it was, a snaking rim of gleaming white stones, really looking like one of those wormlike Chinese dragons in repose, on its aerie perch. It was way, way up there…hmm.
We followed a concrete walkway thru the cornfields, and encountered signs: “This section of the Great Wall is closed for renovations”. Well, they took our money, so, they can’t be that serious. The concrete walkway gave way to a muddy trail–last nite’s rain hadn’t seemed to have affected this area much and now of course it was very sunny and hot. So, the mud was solid, maybe a little slick in spots but not soft. We marched. 15 minutes later, a mutiny. My flatlander Dutchfolk were freaking out, they weren’t prepared for a hike like this. Sonja herself surprised me, she’s an avid hiker and has a chalet in the mountains of Switzerland, but she was also intimidated by the incline, and said our unpreparedness could be fatal. I debated that we could starve to death in 2 hours, but, I also saw how fragile everyone’s state was, and Traci’s description wasn’t quite so vivid as to belie the intensely steep incline nor did we really now how long it would take to get to the top. My companions said the snatches of wall we were looking up at were four hours away by their estimation. No offense to Dutch navigation feats of yore, but that was poppycock and I knew it. Traci wasn’t *that* cruel. Eddo proposed we go for another 15 minutes, and if it looked like not much progress had been made, we’d turn back and go to an easier access somewhere–the touristy bits. OK, I had 15 minutes to prove we could do this. And so I literally ran up that mountain. Buzzing bugs in your face, the vegetation growing more dense and the trail ever steeper and smaller, and me in my Zara dress shoes, tight jeans and a polo shirt, bottle of water in my back pocket. What if they were right? As I’d done the recon, I felt responsible.
Exactly 15 minutes later, I broke thru and found myself alone, on top of a mountain, looking at the decaying, crumbling, marvelous ruins of a wonder without compare. *Now* I understood why this was not just a Wall, but a Great one. It wasn’t just like a fence rimming the emperor’s property–it was both a folly and a bluff–asking horse mounted invaders to first climb a brutal mountain, only to encounter fortifications and archers waiting for them. Better to just chicken scratch the village and begone. Brilliant concept—too bad it didn’t work. I head a voice from the bush below: “Ken, we’re heading back!”. Me: “OK, I’ll just sit here on the Great Wall and admire the view for a minute and join you!”. Dumbfounded silence from my comrades, and then they emerged and saw what I was seeing–the valley dropping away below me, the enigmatic towers, the mountains circling around so we could admire them and their garnish of white stone. Victory for KS. Cicadas are real, and the 4 hour hike took 30 minutes, and we didn’t die.
Me to Sonja: “remember when you called me a sissy for not wanting to play tennis in the rain….?” Water bottle shooting by my head after….
Soon, two Americans, a young hipster couple from (where else?) Portland, appeared, and we chatted, then they went clambering on. We had about an hour to explore the top, so we went in the direction from whence they came. What had been stairs were now dangerous strata of loose stone, an avalanche waiting to happen. But the vantage was…surreal. Like an imaginary landscape. We clambered up and over the ruins and explored. I picked up a huge millipede, big enough to be a walking hot dog, and set it back down. We were in a post-human landscape, the mighty works of empire reduced to aging stones, the only activity or sound being insect in origin (but not to be discounted–that race was extremely busy that afternoon). A breeze gave occasional relief, but mostly it was hot, glorious. After an hour of exploring, we came down from the mountain, met up with our driver. We’d requested to go to a kind of farmhouse, they have them along the way as traveler’s stops and you can eat there in someone’s home, but he seemed to have no idea of the concept even in my phonetic Chinese so he took us to an unpromising looking restaurant, dusty and concrete, not far from the village. The road crew eating there had obv paused in their daily task of painting the median lines on the road–they came to an end right in front of the restaurant itself! The guys were loud, in their orange jumpsuits, having a good time. Between the translations of food in Annie’s guidebook, the one or two words the driver knew in English, the fact that ‘tofu’ doesn’t need to be translated, we were able to get a feast sent our way that replenished us fully. Tofu, 7 spices pork that was dark brown and almost a confit, a fish straight from their tank that was beautifully butterflied and laid out in a tangy sauce. A bit of cabbage salad. We had tea and beers, and as we finished up, the family who ran the place were eating their lunch. They passed Eddo a large green pepper, and sat back, smiling. Eddo chickened out–he has a pretty sensitive stomach and can’t take spice. So, I volunteered, and they passed me a bowl of what looked like peanut sauce. I think it was a kind of soy concoction, but it was sweet so maybe peanuts too. The idea: dip the pepper, crisp and snappy, into the sauce. I avoided eating the seeds but ate the crunchy flesh and found the pepper wasn’t really hot, just a little, delicious tho, and upon my pleased reaction they passed the bowl over and a plate of the peppers. That was sweet.
The bathroom was upstairs, and it was clear the place was a kind of hotel, with concrete rooms like chicken coops, bare mattresses and spiderwebs. Toilet was merely a hole in the floor. Lunch was cheap, and we waved goodbye and said thank you in Chinese, and Annie found “delicious” in her guidebook and was shouting that out the door as we pulled away.
Full of food, with a beer under my belt and hot and sweaty from our climb, I (and everyone else) passed out for the drive back to the hotel. Arrived just in time to grab my gear and we headed to the venue. This time we had Mr. Wong, a young, English speaking engineer, who was more experienced than our man from the night before (tho he, as being attached to the PA company, was still there–hopefully not feeling too bad). It was quickly apparent that we would have a much easier go this time, and in practice it was true–the sound onstage and out front was much better, and the performance was uplifted considerably.
After the performance we were invited to a reception at the suite of the Dutch Princess,
HRH Princess Laurentien, catered with sushi and macaroons and wine. Far from being stuffy, it was nice mixer. I only met the princess herself at the end. She’s married to the royal scion, and treats her position without airs of privilege, very friendly and warm. She finally scooted us out the door at about 1am, a small core of us went on the lobby bar for a final round, and so to bed.
BEIJING, 9/3
I was enjoying the swimming pool’s 18th floor view each morning, and I usually had it to myself. On this day, Sonja & I also played another round of tennis, tho I have to say my legs were extremely sore from the previous day’s hike. But we all needed a non-sightseeing, leisurely day, and we were in good shape when we got to the venue. It was here that we discovered that the restaurant next door to UCCA actually delivered food to the space we were playing, decent beef pepper bowl and an innocuous looking curry that actually could sandblast your neurons. Good show tonite, now we had the music and singing down, and I think it really helped raise the spirit of what could be seen as a very academic evening, as fascinating as it was, this kept things lively.
After the show, back at the hotel, we went to the German bar that was part of our very German hotel (hence the extremely good looking, unaccompanied Chinese woman in the hotel bar that chirped up in perfect German if you came close). The German Brauhaus was behind the hotel. Chinese girls in Bavarian costume and Chinese boys in Lederhosen. Oh, what a mess. I ordered wine in perfect German and was met with befuddlement by the serveuse. Later, the cartoonist Hanco Kolk told me the band was worth checking out. And they sure were: DForce. A cover band from the Philippines, with two girls singing, one guy singing, a guitar player and a keyboard player, who also controlled the sequenced backing tracks. To be honest, I thought we were listening to records– we were out on the terrace and there was a set of double doors between us and the band deep in the interior of the pub. I heard from afar the full version of Another Brick in the Wall, complete with the “There were certain teachers” intro and the epic choral part that happens with big drums fills before the main body of the song and it’s familiar defiance kicks in. I heard it, and then when it got to the end of the intro and the big drum fills came, I thought “that Bob Ezrin drum sound sounds really dated now, doesn’t it?”…and then the singing kicked in and I thought “hey…that’s somebody else. Must be some cover version I’ve never heard.” And then I found out there was a band in there! Hanco dragged me in there and we watched them do their thing–no holds barred, they played Michael Jackson, a distinctly Bolton-ized “When A Man Loves A Woman”, various modern balladry…to nobody but we two. I mean, come on, it was summer, everyone was on the terrace, only the bar was manned here, and over the course of a given evening only people going to the bathroom (well, ok…this is a beerhall after all, so I guess pretty much everyone passes by three times a night, but still) would even know a band is there. We watched for awhile, and Hanco was egging me on to sing with them–but I was feeling unstable in terms of, uh, private matters involving the passage of spicy, exotic food passing thru my gullet and opted out, much to everyone’s disappointment. And so to bed.
BEIJING, 9/4
I had promised in return for being supplied a tennis partner, that I would accompany Sonja on some sightseeing, and my ticket was called this morning for a trip to the Forbidden City. I managed to miss breakfast doing some preparations, and she had saved me a pain au chocolat. Annie was with us as well. Off we went to the Forbidden City, which I had visited last year. There were details I could examine that I hadn’t had enough time with last time–the massive carved slabs that partition the stairs leading up to each of the official buildings on the premises, the odd procession of men and animals in glazed tile material that march out to each corner of each rooftop of each building, identically–the men mounted on what appear to be huge hens. There’s there stylized lions, or dogs, or…well, fierce creatures in brass–one of which is barely paying attention to the fact it’s crushing a much smaller one under its absurdly lethal-looking clawed paw. Sonja: “I think it’s playing with it! How sweet!”. Ken: “I’m not sure I agree with you here….I don’t think most medieval empires advertised how playful their seats of power were”.
We made it thru to the garden, my favorite part of the enclosure, and soon Eddo was with us, and we all cooled off with ginger lemon ice tea. And then it was decided to explore the “hutong” neighborhoods. We’d need a taxi, and we had a landmark in a very good area for exploring them, and we got the Chinese characters for it, The Drum Tower, from Annie’s guidebook. All eyes turned to girl who was top of her class in art school, to draw the characters, as Annie was going back to the hotel and needed the guidebook’s characters for the hotel, none of had the hotel’s card for some reason. As it turned out, Sonja’s reckoning of the tiny characters was quite accurate; the cab driver drove us to “Underwear Spasm Chicken”.
Hutongs are alleys, a block brachiating into ever more convoluted fractals of the greater whole, all perfectly in ratio, squares folding into smaller squares–a maze, but not to fool anyone, just to maximize the possible number of private entrances and divisions of a city block. At the center, it’s very hard to tell if you are on a continuing passage or already inside someone’s house. People use the passages to keep things in, as well–laundry hanging everywhere, caged birds, cleaning supplies. I can say that the vibe in Beijing is that casual theft is not as much of a certainty as it is in Paris–even park benches, barber shop poles–everything is hacked off and stolen in the city of light fingers. But I found Beijingers to operate in an air of relative safety–it’s not uncommon to see people napping in a park, with their briefcase or backpack at their side.
We explored the intricacies of the neighborhood, and we were getting hungry. But nothing looked quite right. Many eateries were just too minimalist–they just served chicken, it appeared, or soup; tiny places. But then, at long last we saw a place that was quite full, one table left, and thought, that’s a good sign. We entered. And, smiling to the girl waiting tables like the three mute idiots that we are, we did our best to indicate that we would like to eat. Pantomime. One thing I have noticed, there is a panic moment that happens often enough in China when the two parties are at linguistic odds. I had several encounters like this–I would encounter a Chinese person who speaks no English. and I would attempt to communicate by pointing, indicating–very simple things, or so it might be assumed, and the Chinese person would totally panic, and sort of not be able to see the intention of what I would have thought were very obvious gestures. Curious. In this case, too–despite we were in a restaurant and indicating we would like to sit down, she didn’t really respond, just sort of froze. Was the last table reserved? But then, 2 more opened up. We then assumed that perhaps it was expected that you just sit down and our that desire to be shown to a table that was plainly in sight and available was seen as rather ludicrous. Next up — ordering. All Chinese menu. We pointed at things at other tables we thought would be good, I’m sure this was probably rude, but eventually a customer, who also spoke no English, took charge. He yelled in the little service window that the orders leave the kitchen through, ending up on a little shelf there, and the cook stuck her head out the little window and yelled back and they discussed for a few minutes. Soon, a plate of mutton spine appeared. Thumbs up from us. This was a hot pot place, where you essentially cook your own meal–each table has a gas burner in the center, and a large black metal (not the musical kind) bowl full of spicy broth is placed on it, you choose your ingedients, and then you do the rest. Some greens were brought, and then a guy appeared, another server (I think the girl just ran away) who showed us a wooden plank with one slice each of several root vegetables, a mushroom, and a couple of mysterious balls. Now, was this a premade selection that everyone gets, or were we to choose? I pointed at the mushroom, we all agreed on that, and that’s what we got–lots of them. So, everything in the pot, and then it boiled. The helpful customer pointed to the clock on the wall, and then slid his finger about 15 minutes forward. At one point I got curious to taste one of the mushrooms in its natural state, we had left a couple out, and just before I nibbled on the crudité, the same customer shouted “NO!” and indicated the clock! OK, so, faux pas duly noted.
Of course it was excellent, boiled meat being something I love and eat very often at home (this was really a spicy pot au feu). And then it was time to get back and head to the show. This being the last nite, we performed perfectly, me still referring to notes but I think I could do without them, it’s just like training wheels.
After the show, we were back at the beer garden with everyone, including our friend and invaluable aide Traci, and Illichi’s wife Jennfier. They told me how much Hanggai had enjoyed working with me, and the results, and how the working methods we used were really both eyeopening and very comfortable and logical to them. It was a real compliment, and I received quite a few while in China for my work with Hanggai.
So this time I had a chance to chat with DForce, and find more about their story. They are 5 men and women, ranging in age from their early 20s to their mid 40s, who are one of many cover bands from Philippines put together and booked by a kind of Pinoy coverband generalissimo. They have a 2 year contract to play the Pauläner Bräuhaus at the Kempinski Lufthansa Center Beijing Hotel. Two years–I asked if they get to go home at all in the two years, and they said, maybe. I asked if their families missed them, was it worth it to be here for two years? Two years….playing to nobody, it sounded awful, I felt quite badly for them. They told me they made more money her than they would back home. But still. They were so excited to meet me, and now that I knew their story, I couldn’t help but want to bring a little sunshine into their lives, and hence, there will be a youtube soon of me singing “We Are the Champions” and quite well, actually–with DForce.
SHANGHAI, 9/5
Up at 5 that morning, and we were in two cabs–Annie and her cello and some of our suitcases in the trunk were enough to fill one cab, and then the rest of us and the smaller bags and my guitar/guitaret in the other. Stumbling around in the terminal as the sun came into its full glory, and we had a delicious Chinese breakfast–dumplings, some vegetable dishes, in a cafeteria in the terminal. Everyone slept the 2 hour flight to Shanghai’s smaller, domestic airport, and our man Abe was there to greet us at the airport, and get us to the hotel, again in two cabs. We each went to our rooms and freshened up and were quickly out and about, Abe took us to a local eatery that specialized in very, very hot food. I ordered a concoction, a stew, which featured congealed duck blood (grey, smooth, very biological lumps–looks like something you’d need to biopsy), strips of bull’s stomach, chunks of eel, and…other things. It was so hot, I was numb in the face, tingling, incredible, psychedelic amounts of endorphins wriggling out of my ears. Then we cabbed to the older part of the city, with people selling ducks in cages (or not–I don’t know what they did to keep them in the uncovered tubs all packed together, and I’m not sure I want to know), snoozing on chairs, offering services right there on the street–you might see a guy on the sidewalk with a sewing machine, ready to just do stuff right there. We had a tour of Abe’s place, a tiny flat in an very old building–perhaps its most unusual aspect were the fact that the bathroom and the kitchen were the same room, basically. That would take some getting used to. Eventually we ended up on the Bund, the long riverfront where the perspective on modern Shanghai is most notable–we looked across the river from the older side, now built up with luxury hotels (everyone who has a hotel brand is here–Waldorf-Astoria, Roosevelt, etc) across to the newer side, built on the side of the river that’s between old Shanghai and the East China Sea, some fifteen miles to the east. This was low lying industrial no man’s land and even rural just 20 years ago, and now…the skyline is a futuristic wonder, at the Blade Runner level, even during daylight. The sinuous shishkebab of the Oriental Pearl Tower, two spheres bulging from a silver needle, is the iconic work but there are many, many inventive and sometimes just plain big ol’ skyscrapers.
After that everyone needed a nap.
The venue wasn’t far from the hotel. It’s just a little thing, a tiny bar, tho it has two floors, but it’s compact and rather cozy. Out the back of the bar is a park, that the bar patrons essentially have to themselves. There’s an elevated train and an elevated highway, the city just engulfing the place, and there it is, Yu Yin Tang, an oasis of organic calm. We felt at home. We got our stage stuff set up and soundchecked, no draw clips tonite since they were too big to take with us, they were back in Beijing to be shipped to Holland. So Eddo was video-ing the shows. We did the same thing–a few songs by Sonja, a few songs by me, back and forth. Monday nite didn’t bring out throngs of people but a few came, and they were really into it. The Dutch consul and his lieutenant were there with their wives, and several musicians from the local scene, and one really shy Chinese fan of man, who had CDs to be signed etc, he came up after the show to get his “Touched” CD signed, which really impressed me, I took for granted that with no real releases in China that it was unlikely anyone would know my music but this was a great reminder that music travels. I asked him if he and his friends wanted to have a beer but they were both shy and needed to get up early. I think they were happy with the show, tho…I was happy, I played well, intensely, I felt very free, sort of anonymous (tho I was wrong). So, after the show, we sat out back with Morgan and Xiao from the Shanghai band Boys Climbing Ropes. They had just done a tour of Mongolia and I was eager to hear details. After a beer or so, we walked back to the hotel, about 15 minutes, always under a massive elevated hiway.
The next day Annie flew back to Amsterdam, she had a gig in Germany she needed to be at, but I had booked myself on the late flight, 11.30 pm, so I could spend a day enjoying Shanghai. Our day really began with lunch at a restaurant called “Southern Barbarian” which was Yunan cuisine, and also a massive selection of international beers–from Chimay to Brooklyn Lager–and of course we found ourselves eating a selection of deep fried honeybees, crickets, small worms and very, very large worms. Well, catepillars. Each item had its own flavor, despite being thoroughly deep fried. The bees had a lemony tang. The catepillars/grubs/whatever were vaguely nutty. The crickets were more like a straw-like flavor. Then we checked out the Tianzifang neighborhood, where Abe works at night as a bartender, it’s the hipster district. Arty gift shops, wine bars, it might remind you of a more whimsical Capitol Hill in Seattle, with a little Tokyo thrown in, but all distributed amongst winding alleys that make wandering even more fun. Dinner was not so much dinner as a few appetizers at the rooftop bar at the Roosevelt Hotel. We missed the sunset, as the first hotel we entered had an 18th floor bar, which the reception pointed us in the way of, neglecting to mention that the very bar they were inviting us to enjoy was closed for a private corporate function. Catching a cab in this neighborhood can be tricky, too–as it’s a rich man’s zone, be prepared for a cabbie to just take the risk and ask for ten times the normal fare if going from point to point within the barrio. We ended up arguing with the cabbie but also being stuck with less small change than that which would enable us to make a point. The language barrier also being a convenient bar to renegotiation.
But we ended up at the Roosevelt, looking out over the river on a corner table that had plexiglass shielding to keep the wind out, but you could see every detail, and you could go past the shielding to lean on the wall and look at all the next-century intricacies of the skyline. Boats plied the current as well, some were obviously floating nightclubs but some did the dull work of commerce, without colored strings of lights, just navigating, searching the sea. As we sipped our expensive cocktails and bar snacks, we couldn’t have been more content. Alas, I had to pull the plug on the event and get back to the hotel.
I’d checked out that morning and moved my stuff into the room Sonja & Eddo would be sharing for the next few days, as they stayed on to explore Shanghai and Nanjing. Much hilarity as checkout time was looming and I started rolling my suitcase, guitar, backpack, guitaret etc to their room, only to find my key card was set to time out exactly at noon–so I couldn’t get the last things out of my room–and of course, I went down to pay my room, and this was a whole new set of funny encounters, luckily one person on duty spoke a little English–I had to cancel the deposit on my credit card, pay in cash, get a key redone for my room, etc. So I got the stuff done, and then was stuck in the lobby–to get the elevator to work you need a key as well, so it was a matter of minutes before Eddo came down to rescue me so I could hang in their room a bit.
Well, now it was evening, and I collected my things and headed in a cab to the World’s Fastest Train. There’s a magnetic levitation train that runs from a random point that’s not really near anything that understood as a vital part of the city–not the old downtown, not the new, just a spot, across the river, that then travels the nineteen miles onward to the international airport on the coast in 8 minutes, attaining speeds of 430 km/h (267 mph). It’s worth doing. The train, which looks like a very determined beetle, slid into the station on its cushion of air, and what few passengers were going to the airport at that hour boarded. And we were off…I swear you can feel that the thing is hovering, but that could be my imagination. What you can see is great speed, as the cars on the adjacent highway traveling in the same direction fly by as if we were passing oncoming traffic, except they’re going backwards. I think even Einstein would have enjoyed that Buck Rodgers-esque perspective. In fact, the sensation, despite the fact it’s not overwhelmingly loud, is very much like riding a rocket, it wiggles just enough to feel a little dangerous.
I got to the airport at exactly 21.30. The train terminal is between the two terminals of the airport, which are long parallel halls about 100 yards apart, and probably 200 yards in length. I saw KLM was in T1, so I put my stuff on a cart and wheeled my way in. There was a short line for those who checked in online, which I had done, but having no way to print my boarding pass easily I merely had to retrieve it from a kiosk. The kiosks even had a way to input an Alaska Airlines mileage number, which I think might be the only place outside of North America where this is possible. I’d also paid for my guitar online as a second bag of no special distinction–when checking in in Amsterdam it was a one hundred Euro item. Online, it was a $44 item, so about 70% less, and this is duly noted for future trips. They didn’t mind it was special luggage, it went on no problem. The small duffel bag that I used to carry on items and make my suitcase lighter was unnecessary–My suitcase was not overweight by their standards, and the KLM ground staff was much more concerned about the weight limit of my carryons–the guitaret, and my backback, were just at the limit (I think it was 12kg or so). Which was fine, and I was really curious how much the girl who sat across the aisle from me got her carry on bag onboard–I had to help her lift it into the overhead bin, and it was not easy. So she either paid extra or there were some double standards at play. Of course the KLM flight staff had the biggest, heaviest suitcases I’d seen this side of Cornelius Vanderbilt, but hey.
I had timed my RMB to run out with the taxi and train etc, but I had a few left, not enough to change at the airport (I tried). So, I went to the duty free and did some complex calculations to figure out if I bought some cookies, some chocolates and another kind of confection, all shaped liked panda bear heads/bodies/etc., I ended up with just 3 RMB in coin left over, and I would give those to Aden. Actually, it *all* went to Aden. And me too–that’s where I was going. I boarded, and the Spanish teenagers next to me (I was the inside aisle, so the first on the lefthand side of the middle group of four seats on this 747) asked me if I would be willing to switch with their amigo who was in one of the middle seats in the row of four behind me. Uh, no. Not much later the flight attendant for our section sorted it out–I was moved to the bulkhead row at the front of this section, so another aisle seat, but with no one in front of me, and an empty seat next to me–brilliant. After a glass of wine, a rather good meal, helping the two Chinese girls in the other two seats of this row of four operate their little pop-out TVs, and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”, I was able to sleep.
Landing at 5am, I was quickly thru customs and immigration, using the five or so minutes extra it took my guitar to show up on the oversize belt to reconnect with Facebook for the first time in over a week, since I was unable to get it together to unblock it, the tools that worked last year as I mentioned didn’t work this year, and now it’s really difficult, almost impossible, to download the tools to circumvent the Chinese government’s blockage of Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Vimeo, etc. No need to say that there are more compliant companies doing business in China/Chinese that are making millions, nay, billions from having their competitors shut out of the world’s largest market. So it’s not just politics and erasing mentions of dissidents, it’s extremely protective economics–this is the heart of understanding what China is really about. They are in the game to win, and not experience 21st century colonization.
I got in a cab, and headed to the Backstage Hotel, where Dom and Aden were waiting in room for me. Lugging my crap up the tiny stairs (I left my guitar in the kitchen), I found the girls in the exact room (there aren’t many, anyway) that I stayed in during the making of the Dusty Stray album earlier this year, with three beds, two of which are more or less joined. Dom was awake, as she almost always is, and I joined her and conversed, and then begged for a little sleep time.
No breakfast for me, I’d had something, I believe, on the flight. I slept in til about noon, and Dom had arranged a two p.m. checkout. They were out shopping for clothes for Aden when I woke up, and it wasn’t long before a guy knocked on my door saying it was checkout time, and I had the pleasure of telling him (politely) that it wasn’t. I cleaned myself up and the girls came back, and Aden got her presents, and we checked out to have lunch. As I started to negotiate my downward travel with bags from the second floor, the Family Stone, playing the Paradiso that night, were checking in, and they weren’t having it as far as the stairs (a pessimist might call them a kind of ladder) were concerned. So, one of the staff was putting big suitcases on his shoulder and huffing them upwards. Even my man Marcel at the front desk was like…uh…don’t worry about paying for the room, come back after lunch, I’m overwhelmed with several unhappy American musicians here…
So, Dom, Aden & I went to the Bar American at the American Hotel. Now, I will say the highlight of our lunch was the very young waitress who was in charge of conveying drinks from the bar to the tables. A more experienced man took our orders, but it was servers further down the tier who actually brought things and took them away. So, when this girl brought Dom’s glass of Chardonnay, she tipped it–and poured the entire thing on Dom’s back. With a kind of Giaconda look on her face, not enough horror for our liking, she said by way of apology “it’s my first day”. Only when you know you are cute can you get away with that kind of bullshit. Dom, ever cool, said, “yes, I guessed as much”. The thing is, when the bill came, it was all on there. I went straight to the manager, who had come by with towels and such when the spill happened, to say…hey, that glass that replaced the spilled one, that’s free. He was embarrassed, to say the least, and said not only that but the coffees were on the house. And the bill came back, with the coffees gone but the wine still there, and thus, the tip was removed by way of compensation.
Then we went toy shopping, buying these little beetles that with the flick of a switch, vibrate, so their rearward curving legs and frontward weight distribution carry them forwards by way of guided momentum. No need to say that didn’t even survive the train trip home, and the one Aden bought for a birthday present for a friend is now also lost by said friend, so I went back this week and bought half a dozen of the things.
I got the girls in a cab, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with JB at his place, who cooked dinner for myself and Wanda. Why was I not on the train with the girls? Well. JB & I were supposed to meet up with a certain indie songwriter from the USA who was in town, to talk about writing for an album for certain high profile project we are involved in. No need to say, that it didn’t happen and tho I enjoyed going out with JB and getting plastered, at two different bars, hanging out with different friends, etc., I could have well done that at home, at least, gotten plastered with Dom.
I came back to Paris the next morning (remember folks, the Thalys must be reserved in advance so it’s not like I can just hop a train to Paris on a whim anyway). And this day was Dom & my eighth wedding anniversary. I hadn’t spent much time in Paris–remember, I came more or less directly from a month on Ile de Re to Holland and then China, and Paris was looking its best, especially after another stormy day in Amsterdam. I think the Woody Allen movie and the romantic nature of the day was just inspiring, and I gave Dominique a present, taking her to a wine tasting at Spring, arguably the hottest restaurant in Paris. Spring is the laboratory of the American Daniel Rose, who initially conquered Paris with a cavalier and brave kind of improv–each day, market ingredients, combined at whim and by intuition, to create a unique dining experience, in a tiny space that soon became so popular, the waiting list was already in the years in length, and the place had been open for less than a year. He thought this was unfair (and also seeing millions of potential dollars simply unable to walk into his bank account) and opened a larger establishment just off rue St. Honoré, and also an ‘epicerie fine’, a gourmet market selling wine and non refrigerated food items–sardines, olives, gourmet salt, this sort of thing. They do weekly wine tastings and this is what we were there for–it’s still pretty much impossible to get into the restaurant. In fact, we were booked that night at a highly rated, but less trendy, place across the street. So, we had our afternoon booked to be at the wine tasting given that afternoon, deep in the cave of Spring, with the restaurant’s sommelier, Josh. two other American couples were there, a couple from San Francisco who knew Josh somewhat from there and were prob. about thirty, and a couple from Michigan who were probably in their mid fifties. The tasting involved useful information about analyzing the acidity, tannins and other factors in wine, which had never really been codified for me, so I knew the sensations and I knew the lingo but not where they actually met, and Josh made it quite plain and simple. And there were unusual wines to taste, including a wine from the Jura region, which is left to oxidize and develop a flor yeast coating, much like fino sherry, but no alcohol is added so it is still ordinary wine, but with a very unusual, almost bitter, taste, a bite that I truly enjoy (being a fan of fino, this was a revelation). Of course there were some snacks to eat as well, saucisson, cheese, and perfect melon, which was a surprise because the colder summer had resulted a particularly uninspiring year for melon on Ile de Re…implying that this chef is at the top of the tier for vendors. Now, in casual chat with Josh at the epicerie, buying a fine bottle of vin jaune, mentioning it was Dom & my anniversary, he said…”Oh, I can’t let you have dinner across the street. You have to come to the restaurant. Let me see what I can do”. And he managed to find a table that was empty until 21.30, so if we went in when the restaurant opened at 19h, we were golden. Dom ran home to sort out the babysitting, I canceled the other table, bought Dom a rose, and waited for her return. A nailbiter with our neighbors, who said they’d watch Aden, being MIA at this crucial juncture but they rematerialized, and Dom was back in time for our seating. Upon entering, one of the cooks saw me (the whole kitchen is open and right there amongst the diner, it’s still quite intimate up top; there’s also seating and a walk-ins-welcome wine bar downstairs) and said–”Hey! I know you–you’re Ken!” Turns out Daniel, not the Daniel head honcho but a Spring kitchen Daniel still, used to work at NYCD, my friend Tony’s now defunct record store on the Upper East Side, site of many a KS/Posies/etc instore over the years. Ace in the hole, to have a friend in the kitchen of Paris’ hottest eatery.
The food, well. Tho it’s a weekly menu now, that doesn’t mean the man has lessened his creativity. Au contraire, this is a thoroughly imaginative, sensitive menu, and as Dom said, other than its devotion to the perfect ingredients, which is the French tradition, there’s no discernible cooking tradition apparent here. It’s neither French nor American. It’s not molecular. It’s not fusion. It’s just an original expression. Sometimes it was so complex–delicate peeled tomatoes, rare Pyrenees trout made three ways, the ashes of burnt leeks, tiny fragments of chopped mint, plus other things more obscure–all making a choreography when tasted, and a game to identify what was what–the ashes, we had to ask. But it could be simple, too–the dessert was just torched figs. And they were incredible. You won’t find a bigger fan of the fruit than me (see: the Posies album cover. Whose idea do you think that was?). Having had a very generously appointed wine pairing course, we were at our limit at the end, and jet lag was knocking me out. As we passed the kitchen to say goodnite, we were handed two glasses of champagne, that had been ordered in error. Goodnite indeed!
LAUSANNE, 9/9
Up early the next morning, and not feeling too badly, I walked to Gare de Lyon and caught my TGV to Lausanne, sleeping a bit on the way. Met at the station by Maxime, my friend who runs the Caprices Festival in Crans-Montana (I played solo in 2006 and with THE DiSCiPLiNES last year–oddly enough 48 hours after returning from China), and taken to the festival offices. I’d had a little time to rehearse the previous afternoon, but needed to figure out my guitaret part on one of the songs I was playing that evening. Yes, it was the record release showcase for Bastian Baker, on whose album I played guitar, keys and guitaret in sessions in May and June in Paris. Today’s agenda was a simple one–play 5 songs from the album for a gathering of media and friends, and also do a short presentation on the album, a PowerPoint slideshow, where I would speak about things like the Guitaret. The afternoon was free for me to things like buy a new DVD player for the house in Paris, since Switzerland still sells all region DVD players–France does not. You have to buy a Blu-Ray player, and it’s twice as expensive. I had a steak du cheval for lunch, something you find a lot in Francophone Switzerland, checked in to my hotel, and still had ample time to set up at the venue. The band was Bastian singing and playing acoustic guitar; myself playing guitar, baritone guitar, guitaret and a celesta part on a digital piano; and the drummer form the album, Fergus Gerrand, who came in from London for the gig. Fergus has played with many many stadium level acts such as Madonna, Take That, the Spice Girls, etc. Recently he’s been on tour with Martina Topley-Bird, who is very close to the Caprices organization, and thus Fergus was on the radar of Bastian’s management (one and the same as the Caprices organization). Fergus is a ninja with hand percussion, really knows how to get the most from what may appear to be simple tambourines, etc. He’s also a charming gent, humble for all his experience, and enthusiastic in all climes.
We ran thru the stuff in the basement bar of Blue Lezard (if you ever see a show here, check out the incredible cast iron columns that were discovered as half buried refuse now installed there). And then at six o’clock the press started to arrive, including the very kind photographer who had shot the D’s Caprices performance, Joseph Carlucci, who brought me a beautiful print from that show. First was the presentation. Now, all thru this day I was impressed with Bastian’s poise and modesty–his album was #1 in iTunes, he’d performed live on the twelve o’clock news, he was in all the celebrity rags. He really kept his head. He was well excited, that’s for sure, and it was fun to see him so eager to present the music. And he really did that–spending about 20 minutes talking in front of the slide show, with Fergus and I jumping up to demonstrate instruments that we brought that were part of the album. Then we performed–low volume, low pressure. It was great, and only the last 2 songs had real room for improv, so we of course were starting to cook by then…just warmed up, then it was done. People blah blah’d, I said hello to Claude Nobs, who oddly said he was negotiating with REM to bring them back in 2012 to Montreux…uh, I don’t think so knowing what we know now! — and eventually we were up in the restaurant having a big dinner with all the people connected to Bastian’s org. I managed to snag the last steak tartare, and refused to drink the band menu wine (Gato Negro! Like, promote Swiss wine, guys, please! not this bar swill) but all was right in the end. I was with Bastian’s agent, Seb from Takk booking with whom I’ve worked with REM, The D’s, and the Posies. Great guy. Fergus and Bastian were at my end too, and Sabrina, who does production for Caprices and thus for the show today. As dinner wound down, I started to droop from jet lag. Fergus and I had early onward travel so were happy to call it a nite, especially after a successful performance, and I was in my room by midnite.
Up the next morning at dawn, and walking to the train station for my 7am train home. Had my hair cut and colored, and decided to take the day off. After all, I was working the next 48 days straight, 12 hours a day + travel, so I earned it.
On Sunday I had Silja, a girl from Norway, come in and we did a remake of one of her favorite songs, “Pop!Ular” by Darren Hayes, the singer from Savage Garden. I recreated the drum machine parts, the synth parts, etc…cool challenge.
Monday morning I was on the early train to Amsterdam and was soon meeting Ian McGlynn, my old friend from New Jersey, to finish the album we’d started at his home this spring. In Somerville in May, we recorded and mixed 5 songs in his living room. My mixes from NJ held up when I ran them thru my gear at home this summer. So now we were to continue, recording six songs. I had just received his demos Saturday nite, and so the first day at KNSM Studios, where I’ve worked now almost 40 days this year. The first day we dug into the songs and did preproduction, laying down guide tracks, and setting up the drums. I took the chorus from one song and the verses from another to make a new song, and took a long piece from another song and added it to a short tune to make a new, epic outro–I put the song in 6/8 instead of 3/4, worked on some other arrangement bits. Not insignificant work, but it seemed meager to have so little recorded at the end of the day. The second day was about recording drums and starting to build up the tracks, mostly with virtual instruments.
Then we spent two days in Schagen at Electric Piano Services, the business of Marcel Groot and his wife Yvonne. Marcel is a mechanical engineer who was working mostly in agricultural applications, but had played organ and piano since he was a kid. He started fixing up old keyboards, and modifying them, and soon…well, now is the go-to guy for Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Clavinet, etc. He has a three-story building in Schagen, where the pianos are repaired on the ground floor, and he has a studio on the middle floor–a room full of vintage keyboards, many of which I’ve never seen. They’re all hooked up to mixers and patched and routed so I just had to bring my computer and hard drive, and hook into his interface (well, there was more to it than that, but it’s essentially true) and we could record at will. A real Mellotron, so much richer and more powerful than the software ones. A screaming Hammond A100, just like I used to own. Esoteric synths like the Kawai F100, and the Rhodes Chroma. Vintage groove machines like the Optigan and the Baldwin Fun Machine. A beautiful CP80 electric grand piano. Not only a favorite of Elton John’s, but…put it thru a Roland Chorus Echo as we did and you realize, wow, it was so easy to make 4AD records. It’s a sound you’ve heard a lot, trust me. So, Ian & I spent 2 glorious days here, layering mad keyboards all about, eating the holy trinity of Dutch snacks–Frikandel, kroketten, and bitterballen, plus other fare that Yvonne whips up in between soldering or gluing felts on hammers. We slept in the adjacent room, and showered up in the adjacent bathroom (piano lid-themed loo, natch). Meanwhiles, Marcel was on hand for jokes, keyboard trivia, tech troubleshooting, and gave my Guitaret a new instrument jack and also put back together the long guitar cable which had fallen apart minutes before Bastian’s Lausanne show, for no good reason.
Two days there, and then an early train back to Amsterdam and two more days of mad overdubbing at KNSM. I was staying with Annie, Sonja’s cellist, who has a lovely little flat on the west end of Central Amsterdam. I had my own little nook with sliding glass doors, and Annie’s pentalingual book collection (Annie reads and speaks Dutch and Norwegian, the languages of her parents, plus English, Russian and German). At the end of the night, after my 40 minute bus ride from KNSM’s front door to hers, via Centraal Station, we’d enjoy a crappy glass of wine, I made it my mission to open and consume the stuff that people had dropped off at potlucks, and chat for an hour or two.
Ian stayed on in Amsterdam while I spent three days in studio with Eva Auad and JB, we cut a new song for the album we’d been working on together since May, and added bits to the songs in progress. Drummer Joost Kroon was in again for the new tune, always a pleasure. There were daytime strategy meetings with the label of Sonja/Eva/Dusty Stray, I’m helping as I can get those albums heard outside of Holland.
Ian headed up to Paris the night before I did, I was up at 4am and taxiing to Centraal Station last Wednesday, and we spent three days at my place doing vocals and other overdubs, and as of yesterday I began mixing, Ian flew back to New Jersey yesterday morning. It’s nice to have a little routine again, getting up and getting Aden to school on weekdays and going to the market on weekends, taking breaks for family meals or a cuddle.
Bastian’s album entered the Swiss charts last week at #3, congrats! Check his website for more info
And now, I mix.
Love
KS
Paris
