Sunday I wrapped the mixing of the Velvet Ants album, doing last minute adjustments to the mixes, so that by nighttime I could spend a little time with the family. Up early on Monday and out the door before the girls left for school, settled into my flight to Minneapolis and slept. It had a been an intense week, we really crammed in a lot of work into a short period on that record. Changed planes for the long flight to Seattle, arriving in the evening. I’d finished reading the excellent “The Rest Is Noise”, Alex Ross’ wonderfully detailed history of 20th Century Music, on the flight. This gave me license for a rare and wonderful activity, one that I always relish–the chance to buy a new book to read on tour. When my Seattle host and wine/tennis/music buddy Brian picked me up at SeaTac we beelined to Elliott Bay Books (conveniently now located next to Everyday Music where I sell unwanted CDs/DVDs). It was agonizing, in one way, to have so many good choices. I didn’t want to just buy something popular–I wanted something with intellectual heft, something from outside the mainstream. I finally settled upon Anthony Hall’s indictment of colonialism and modern capitalism, “Earth Into Property”, a massive tome, offering an alternative reading of cause and effect as relative to all the events of modern and contemporary history. It was published just last year so follows the extension of Hall’s hypotheses up thru and including the latest iterations of the global economic crisis.
Brian and I settled into our usual booth at the Palace Kitchen, and devoured some top shelf vino, and I pushed myself to keep my eyes open til midnite. The good news is with westbound jet lag I’m up at the crack of dawn, so I could power thru some mixing on my laptop for Cheap Star, staying at Brian’s house to work on it, and even taking some breaks for the occasional errand I had a full day of mixing wrapped by late evening, in time to catch the last song of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Neptune, so I could get a preview of the venue we were to play the following week, and still have time to get over to the Tractor Tavern to catch the encore of Shonen Knife, doing their Ramones covers tour. It was a real rock star moment after the show–the girls ran to the merch booth upon conclusion of the set, and there was soon a huge line of fans, many people getting their friends to take a picture of them with the girls. I sort of cut thru all that and presented myself (Atsuko, one of the original members was on this tour selling merch!) and the girls were soon in a frenzy–and all wanting their pictures taken with me! Amusing and flattering to say the least.
SAN FRANCISCO, 11/9
So what would end up being a pretty hardcore week of travel certainly started softly enough. With the amount of traveling I do, I am a very high level of frequent flyer status on Alaska Airlines (who accept travel on Air France, KLM, American, Delta…you get the picture–to credit miles to my account there) so I check in at first class, get my bags checked for free (which is good when you’re bringing not only a suitcase but bass in a metal flight case), go thru security in my own special line that’s about 1% as long as the regular one, and board before anyone else, in fact, I was in first class for this flight. Which meant a fruit and cheese plate lunch, and a very comfortable seating. Don’t get too soft, buddy–we have a big week ahead.
In fact I was the first to arrive in SFO, so I claimed my bags and directed Erik Morse, who was part of the tour, to meet me at the international terminal. This tour, which musically celebrates the release of the new album by Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, is also to celebrate the new release of a pair of books–released together in a limited edition hardcover in the UK and now released as separate paperbacks in the US–one volume by Tav and one by Erik. Erik divides his time between his native Texas, his girlfriend’s research post in Kenya, and whatever metropolis–New York, L.A., San Francisco–appeals to them. He made it clear that his experiences in San Francisco were not his favorite–he much prefers the other two, for example. He’d lived it–he wasn’t just talking about impressions. SF was a politically correct, aggressively yuppie, uptight cult of a city to him, as opposed to the melting pot openness of New York or L.A. We met up to say hello, Erik being a slim boyish fellow, but solid and wise. He headed into the city on his own. Meanwhile, Peter, our guitarist, had landed, flying in from Savannah, Georgia, where he just decamped to from New York. Peter and I had never met, he was a veteran of Panther Burns tours in the late 90s/early 2000s. I was pleasantly surprised to find a young, stylish gent–prone to leather spats and ostentatious silk scarves–I had assumed that by going way back with Tav he might be more of a, shall we say, vintage rocker. Peter is in the process of re-establishing his recording studio from Long Island to hopefully bigger, cheaper facilities in Savannah. Now, why was a guitarist I’d never met joining the tour? Tav’s band, up until my arrival this year, was an extension of his Paris residency in the early 2000s, with a Parisian guitarist and Parisian bass player, and the Roman drummer/bellydancer Giovanna. My inclusion you may recall extends from this spring, when THE DiSCiPLiNES supported Panther Burns in Berlin, and it turned out the Parisian bassist, who by then lived and continues to live in Valencia, Spain, didn’t make it. Evidently airfares from Valencia are nearly double what they are from Paris for European flights, which makes sense in terms of economies of scale, Valencia is a much smaller city and not a major airline hub, not even for Spain. So, his flight was so expensive that it was only economically feasible to do the Berlin gig as a 3 piece, bass-less (which is how Panther Burns began–with Tav and Alex Chilton playing squealing guitars over Ross Johnson’s primal drums). But, it was an experiment, somewhat improvised, and in the current climate, the band wasn’t really prepared for it, and hence I stepped up with Baard’s bass and went for it, to the band’s pleasant surprise, to say the least. I think we will never play again as well as we did when I was only capable of feeling the music, as opposed to ‘knowing’ where it was going to go. A little knowledge….so meanwhile, after a successful appearance at a Serbian festival this summer, my tenure was now secure, more or less (Laurent the bass player however was a participant in the Panther Burns UK dates this fall). The US tour was booked, travel was booked, and immediately afterwards Gregoire, Tav’s Parisian guitarist for the last decade, unceremoniously quit the band. Tav had emailed me in a panic and I instructed him to IMMEDIATELY cancel Gregoire’s ticket, since it was less than 24 hours after booking, and apply that money to something else. I suggested doing the tour as an economically viable three piece, but Tav said the band requires a 2 guitar interplay. And hence, he looked up Peter, who was available and up for the adventure, and as a bonus, coming from the same side of the Atlantic as the tour dates would be.
So, meanwhile, I told Peter to head to the BART terminal when he had collected his stuff (I basically stepped in to the role as tour manager, it comes to me naturally at this point, folks), and headed to the international terminal to await Tav and Giovanna, who had met in Paris from connecting flights and flown together to SFO (Tav lives in Vienna, and Gio still lives in Roma). I lent my iPhone to a woman just arrived from Israel (her cough and my germophobia on tour being almost, but not quite mutually exclusive when meeting in the presence of my sense of chivalry) and used heaps of free wifi–the tour already beginning with me in an email deficit that I have yet to fully recover from. My bandmates arrived, looking stylish. Tav and Gio retrieved some dollars, Tav got a SIM card for his phone (I do not believe we ever really got this phone to reliably function!–and Gio never seemed to want to give me her Italian number, prob. to avoid any costs whatsoever being rung up on it–so my ability to track and hunt my human quarry, one of the many tour manager jobs, was perpetually hampered), and we headed to the BART terminal on the airport shuttle train. Met up with Peter, and then Tav went to work on purchasing BART tickets, and we took the short ride to Balboa Park station, getting off and surfacing with all our stuff. Not following my advice, they wanted to go up the escalator to the surface, and I pointed out that the taxi drop off and pick up area was down a corridor and up stairs and we’d end up walking that distance anyway (and have to cross a very busy street with a very short light, but hey) and true to the perpetual plight of the tour manager and his/her gentle application of strategy and common sense in face of the impulsive passions of the artists, we did exactly what I cautioned to avoid. It wasn’t so bad. Now, the cab parts–cabs don’t come to this part of the city, only packed city buses, with what appear to be quite angry commuters. Basically we were looking at lower income folks who were basically sick of their station in life and definitely sick of seeing the cruel satire of the California edition of the American dream being rubbed in their face day in day out–you think the Occupy movement and their ilk has an agenda? Give the current malaise another 2 years and wait for the bottom ten of the 99%ers to give their polite humiliations a rest.
So, I called our host for the afternoon, the ever generous Joey Cape, for a bailout. His big blue van picked us up and took us a short climb up the nearest hill to his lovely little home, from which he and his family were moving–they were becoming homeowners and kissing this rental goodbye. But in the meantime, it was available for us to reconvene for a couple of hours and attempt an unplugged rehearsal. Gio played her drum sticks on a log from Joey’s firewood, and the three of us plucked unamplified instruments. With cell phones going off, Gio’s natural tendency to wander off (which increases in duration and un-find-a-bility the closer we get to final boarding calls) we didn’t get a hell of a lot of practicing done. Joey, ever the gentleman agreed to run Peter and Gio to the venue, while my friend Kristine, wife of the brilliant Scott Miller (Game Theory/Loud Family), had volunteered to do some driving–and this turned out to be *some* driving–more later. She seems to enjoy a bit of maternal care for my touring condition, usually contributing socks and baked goods to the mix. And presents for Aden…all of which were part of the mix today (Tav really enjoyed the cookies). She got Tav and I to City Lights bookstore, with me navigating. I used my impeccable sense for rock star parking to get us squared away just around the corner, and then Tav and Erik set into a reading, which I had scheduled one hour (with traffic being what it was, we were about ten minutes late), one generous, considering we needed to do the first soundcheck of our career together, which might double as a little bit of extra rehearsal, too. The unamplified plucking at Joey’s didn’t exactly fulfill the rehearsal obligation to the point of obviating further run thrus, helpful as it was. I was thrilled to be at City Lights tho–unlike Elliott Bay books, they had John Cage’s “Silence” on the shelf, and so many other great looking volumes, it was all I could do to remind myself whatever books I would purchase would be coming with me on the next half a dozen flights around the world, and I still wanted to purchase Tav’s book (I’m kicking myself to this day for not jumping on the limited edition hardback–I didn’t realize how limited the edition was–only 75 copies were made–JB bought one). So, I did that, and carefully browsed for any other essential items, as the reading progressed. Jello Biafra joined the fray with anecdotes about Memphis (this is what both Tav and Erik’s books concern themselves with–Memphian folklore, anecdotes, and musings) and the reading was mediated by Vane, the original creator of the 70s punk zine Search and Destroy (he gave me a copy of a 1978 issue featuring interviews with Exene, William S Burroughs, JG Ballard, Steve Jones…). Well, with that many storytellers, things weren’t gonna wrap in an hour. In fact, the reading lasted three hours, and that was only with me giving panicked looks from the sidelines. I loaded Tav’s CD stock, which had been shipped by the label to City Lights, into Kristine’s car. Oh, this is a good one–the factory had done the entire run of CDs, shrinkwrapped in jewel cases, with CD ROMs instead of CDs inside. Which don’t play in CD players. So, they had shipped spindles of audio CDs, meaning that every customer gets handed a sealed CD package and then a naked CD, and they can do their own substitution or not!
Finally we were under way to the venue, Thee Parkside Lounge, which is in a rather inauspicious locale, certainly it’s beside a park, but not much else. It’s a kind of semi-open space, with a bar/showroom, and then a kind of ambiguous patio area, that seems indoors but I think is outdoors, but inside the compound walls. It’s really something you might find in Austin. I got there, with all our stuff in the dressing room, soundcheck a distant fantasy at this point, the opening band was already going on. I ordered what would be the first of many band-menu burgers, and poured myself a generous glass of red, and started to sort my shit out. Merch, gear, etc, all being assembled from the jumble that is my luggage (and that’s after leaving a bunch of unneeded items at Brian’s house in Seattle). The band, Rock & Roll Adventure Kids, were punk and sloppy and fun, and they, like all the opening bands that were to come on this tour, had done the generous and somewhat thankless task of organizing and bringing all the backline (including allowing Gio to play the drummers cymbals and snare, which is the musician equivalent of allowing someone to stay at your house only to find that they were going to have to use your toothbrush, too). I then grabbed Tav’s guitar for my set. Thee Parkside is not what I would call the ideal Ken Stringfellow venue for the reason of its layout–the fact the terrace is its own thing means that it has its own music going, and its own conversation, and this is allowed to trickle in the door into the showroom–fine if a blaring garage rock band is playing, which is more typical fare for the venue–but my show needs a modicum of calm for it to prosper. So, also being that I was out of practice, it had been almost three weeks since I’d played a solo show, and I was a little ragged due to the intense running around of day one (I didn’t even tell you that the morning began with a preflight email check, to find that Peter’s ticket was declared invalid upon his arrival to the airport, and to make the tour he had to purchase it on the spot at last-minute prices, double what it had been originally booked for–so I was left wondering…were *all* the tickets Tav purchased somehow invalid? Was the tour going to go hundreds of dollars into the red? I had used my iPhone to check in for the L.A. flight the next day and it seemed to be fine. In fact, all the other flights were fine and this one incident seems to fully be an error on United Airlines’ part–Tav and his credit card provider are on the case). But, I got my point across to those who were there paying attention, including Scott Miller, and many friends that I could recognize. I had put Chuck Prophet on the list when I ran into him at the reading, not sure if he made my set or not. I jumped down and tried to get Joey to sing “Solar Sister” with me (see the magnificent cover of the song by his band Bad Astronaut) but he was too shy so I merely sang it as a duet, albeit with his part silent. But right next to him!
Then I was done, and we set up Panther Burns. The room filled up, and we delivered what could best be described as a slightly assaultive, chaotic set. Lots of midair collisions, note-wise, but certainly spirited. Shall we say that is was far from meticulous, but far from failing to entertain. We did our usual, nearly two-hour set, and I was at least looking the part–my investment in a new sharkskin suit, and its tailoring, and the ribbed women’s blouse Dom bought at our local supermarket (two of them, in fact), and my black skull bolo tie, and the fact that both Tav and I were playing late 60s Hofner violin-shaped guitars…man, this was a good looking crew. You have Gio who plays in her golden chiffon and bare feet, and Peter with his custom suits and a different silk scarf for every occasion, and Tav’s metallic gold stage gear (think 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong) and you have a seriously authentic garage rock cabaret.
After the gig–after I sold my merch (well, I gave Jello Posies and DiSCiPLiNES vinyls, he has been a big supporter of the D’s and ALWAYS trades–I know some records will come in the mail to Paris shortly) and after counting the money for myself and Tav, and getting all the guitars and luggage into the back of the Rock & Roll Adventure Kidz’ Volvo wagon that already held their entire backline, Kristine took Peter, Tav and I to the band’s house in Berkeley, so really quite a gesture–in fact I don’t know how her husband got to and from the gig…I of course completely collapsed on the way there, leaving Tav and Peter to debate the limits or lack thereof on how much Peter could throw shapes before it constituted ball hogging Tav’s frontman attention. We got to the house in Berkeley, the band being such dears as to layout mattresses and blankets for us in their front room, and I immediately went to bed…we had to be out the door at 8.30. Here the theme of get to bed late and get up super early would establish itself as the dominant motif of the tour.
LOS ANGELES, 11/10
We were up, the sun was out (it was quite cold when we got to Berkeley in the full moon). Cinnamon toast was prepared, and a breast-shaped mug from which you sip from the ceramic nipple was filled with coffee (it was a souvenir from Trinidad, too). We loaded up the Volvo and Mark, the singer of the band, took us to the nearest BART station. BART conveyed us to San Bruno, where we got off and waited ten minutes for the train that actually goes to the airport, where we transferred (Tav had accidentally bought 4 tickets in Berkeley, despite the fact that Gio didn’t stay with us, she had Italian friends at the show and they took her in, so we had to wait at SFO where Tav got the materials to pursue a refund) to the shuttle train, and I went to check in for the flight while Peter and Tav went to another terminal to yell at United Airlines, without immediate result, but at least to provide lungpower to get the ball rolling on a refund for the shenanigans of Peter’s travel). Now, most of the flights for this tour were on Southwest, part of Tav’s budget-saving measures, this was a tight tour money-wise, and every contribution to thrift allowed the tour to stay in the black, so we could actually be paid something for our trouble. I was skeptical–I hate fighting for seats with the masses, I find it demeaning. Hence I haven’t flown Southwest for almost a decade, so I was unaware of how well their system had developed to make open seating much more civilized. Each passenger has a number, and you line up in order, and board accordingly. The seats fill up in order of first come first served’s preference, but there’s no point pushing or jockeying. You’re going to get a choice from what’s left. There’s a few people who pay to have priority boarding, then people traveling with small kids, then it’s in order of checking in–and I checked in with my iPhone the day before. So, you get two bags for free, if each bag weighs less than 50 lbs, and the staff of Southwest are from my experience on this tour universally friendly and helpful. So, my view of the airline is totally transformed. The experiences were absolutely positive. So, I was checked in, then I awaited Gio, and sent the box of Tav’s CDs as her 2nd bag, then waited for Tav and Peter. I love that Tav is old school so rather than use gaffer tape from the venue to seal up the merch bag he actually brought luggage straps. Erik arrived, and we were a complete team so headed to the gate. The flight to L.A. is a short one. Upon arrival we gathered all our luggage and friends of Tav came to pick us up. There was Richard, Germanic accent and Austrian wheels, and there was Michael and Zoe, looking cute in their vintage threads. I distributed passengers and gear, assigning by logic and intuition to get us all stuffed into rides into town. Hollywood town–as we were meeting at Musso & Frank for lunch. Half of the restaurant–the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, open since 1919-used to be a bookstore, and the proximity of a bookstore to an eatery and backroom bar (prohibition era) made this the literary hangout of choice for much of the 20th century. Hemingway, Raymond Chandler…the list of verbose individuals who got hammered here is as long as you can imagine, and of course Hollywood royalty also lined their guts and battered their livers here. The bookstore was in fact owned by Michael’s granddad. We gathered around a big table, and they were excited to order Welsh rarebit, which is an orange lake of melted cheese and, uh, other stuff. Not rabbit. I had a cold smoked tongue sandwich. My host in L.A., Rachel, who’s been a dear friend for years and who has hosted various Posies and Disciplines over the last couple years, came to join us, and took Erik and I to coffee, while we killed time til the venue was going to be available, then got us there.
The Echo. We entered, and found the place devoid of gear Here begins another theme of the tour: arrangements are made with the promoter, to have an opening band supply the backline. We go over the times for the day, when we have to be there, and this includes me saying– now, you’ll make *sure* the support band and their gear will also be here by this time? “Oh, yes, of course. They know to be there by (insert mid afternoon load in time here)”. This was not true in one single case, unless it was true in San Fran since I wasn’t there to find out. It certainly wasn’t true here. We dragged some stuff out of the basement, got the drums and bass amp going, and waited for the guitar amps to show up. Tav of course, who announced to me, the guy making the daily schedule–in advance–at lunch that he had a radio interview right at soundcheck time and would go directly from there to his book reading–meant that once again, soundcheck was a pipe dream. In fact, we never did do a soundcheck on this entire tour.
The support band did arrive, and I got things in place, and then was free, after counting in the merch (mine, that is) to head out for some street tacos, tongue and tripe. Yes, 2 of my three meals today consisted largely of beef tongue. So?
Venue started to fill up, and there was a decent crowd by the time I went on. I found that the support band, the Jail Weddings, had a keyboard so asked to borrow it, basically when I walked onstage, and dragged it to the front of the stage and played my set. L.A. crowds, I have to say, are really good about listening. I think it has something to do with the fact that nobody drinks, since they all have to drive, so they stay more alert and conscious to the situation. Contrast that to New Orleans, where everyone is 24-7 hammered, and the din I had to rise above was extreme. So, this was a great show. Was able to really bring it down. Get down in the crowd and do what I do, and played mostly new songs. Voice was in good shape, guitar sounded good. Phew.
Tav’s show was a big improvement, too. Everything was great, in fact. We brought up onstage the son of former PB member on guitar at one point, and we were about a minute into our closing number, ‘Brazil’, when my bass amp gave out. Murphy’s law says that no matter what you do from that point on you will not be able to get sound out of any instrument you touch. So, when I picked up the extra guitar that our guest guitarist had left behind, nothing happened either. The bass amp overheated, being solid state it has a kill switch that won’t relax until the temperature drops, and of course that wasn’t going to happen for some time. So, game over. But rather than be bummed out at the musicus interruptus, I felt good that I had made the amp explode with my hot playing.
I had time to meet with Frankie from the production team the LAB before my set, and after, we’ll be working together next month. I saw old friends, and then after the set got packed up and assigned yet again everyone to a car and to accommodations. The next morning’s travel was a bit more severe so no funny stuff.
AUSTIN, 11/11
Well, here’s a numerical oddity, twice today it would be 11:11:11 on 11/11/11. Of course, when we all were on the road to the airport, we were deep in the single digits. Got everyone successfully to LAX, and checked in for the flight. When we arrived to the Southwest Airlines check in area, there was a line of humanity coming out the front door and snaking down the curb. Turns out this was security. And we still had to check in. Uh oh. And yet, it went by quickly. I had time to brave an equally long line at Starbucks, a yoghurt parfait being preferable to a Big Mac. There is a Mexican place out in the same terminal, but the lunch plates it serves at breakfast time were a little intimidating. Boarded and Tav and I sat together to go over finances. Gio sat with us, and amazingly enough, 5 minutes before landing in San Jose, she got up to go to the toilet. Flight attendants freaking out, they would have tased her if they could. Character that one.
Our flight to San Jose was late taking off, and late getting in. Our connection was tight to begin with, and we all assumed it was doomed but we discovered upon landing and running to the gate, which wasn’t far away, that they had held the flight for us and another passenger on our plane, so we made the flight to Austin. All except one–standby seats had been given away, so only Erik didn’t have a seat. There was a tussle for Tav’s precious Hofner, too–no bin space left and it’s just in a soft case, so he didn’t want to check it. They almost didn’t let him on. Finally they assured him it would be hand carried on and off, and treated with utmost care, and he relented, and the doors could close and we could proceed. I probably slept at this point. Got to Austin and it was time to wrangle again–first off, our luggage didn’t make the connection, so there was some tracking etc to do. Then, our pickup. I had the contact for a friend of Tav’s with whom he’d made arrangements. Amy, and she was in fact on site, and standing by while we sorted the lost luggage. Then she pulled up in a big old van with one Billy at the helm. Billy is a fun, friendly, loud and sweet guy, and Amy is perhaps a little more low key but equally friendly, and we felt very good in their care. We tried to head to the hotel, but it was too hard to get to, and we were hungry for lunch, so we headed to the reading (which Erik would now miss) and started to discuss possibilities. Possibilities that resembled tacos. The reading was not at a bookstore today, but at the End of an Ear record store, and unlike the previous two, there didn’t seem to be a big crowd–the store is a little off the beaten path. We made a taco run in the meantime, telling Tav we’d bring him back something but to get the reading underway–sooner it could start, sooner it could end and we could rest. So, we went to a typical Austin eatery–a trailer on a gravel lot, with outdoor picnic tables and an enclosed space with restaurant tables (but, like, cheap restaurant–plastic and such. Down home style). The tacos had exotic ingredients like Jamaican jerk chicken, and they were excellent. I thoroughly attacked the guacamole, too. Amy refused to let us pay. I really tried. Tav called in a panic (somehow his phone always worked when he needed to reach *me*) wondering where we were, having totally forgotten the ‘get the reading underway’ discussion, so we hightailed it back there and delivered his veg tacos, and the reading took place. I sat on a milk crate somewhere and checked mails. Then we were free. We visited the venue, found that the opening band was nowhere in sight, so no gear, elected to ditch soundcheck. Billy ran us all the way out to the venue and we all discussed the finer points of Austin barbecue–seemed obscene to discuss food after such a feast, but it would be an issue at some point. Amy paid attention…
Got to our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express within striking distance of the airport, complete with shuttle, which would be of great assistance for our morning departure. Having changed time zones, I was under obligation to not nap in order to adjust and avoid jet lag, so I did emails while Peter, my roommate today, got in a snooze. At one point, our gear/luggage made it and I relayed the news to a very confused jet lagged Tav and Giovanna, who promptly did nothing further by way of response. Around ten the van returned…packed with brisket and hot links! And a salad for Tav…now that’s the way to bounce back. Got to Emo’s and the Crackpipes were into their set with no signs of slowing down soon. Peter and I talked our way into the Chameleons UK (er, now called Chameleons Vox) show up the street, but it was clear that they weren’t going to go on any sooner than we were, so we headed back to the venue. I tried, again, to hand over the band’s entire food buyout to Amy for her picking up the tab for dinner, and was again refused! There was a pre show run thru a song that hadn’t gone as planned in the LA/SFO shows. It should be noted that Tav has a real bluesman’s sense of timing. It’s all intuitive for him, he’s not necessarily someone who has come to music from the point of view of a craftsman–his craft and his gift is dance, and theatre–music is a means to that end and thus it must also bend to his own sense of timing. Therefore, whereas in most rock, blues and other popular music, it’s typical to have 4 beats to a bar, in Tav’s rhythm we might encounter 3, 4 or 5 beats in any bar–and the next bar might be different still. So, the fact that we don’t line up all the time should come as no surprise, but there were times when I think Tav didn’t realize this. I did my best to point it out, and to point out why certain sections of songs were odd, as there were certain passages that seemed to always jump beats, we simply had to chose who would lead (like dancing), and generally, that should be Tav.
So, we went on. Rowdy Texan crowd, quite a few of them. Into it–guys that would be ahead of me in the chow line in your average state prison. We better’d play damn good! We did, tho. At one point this scrawny little kid did something baffling–he simply tossed his mostly empty drink up in the air–he was in the front row, probably hammered, and just…tossed the Solo cup into the rafters without even looking up. Some ice and a little liquid landed on Tav. He did not enjoy that–that’s the *suit*, man! Action ground to a halt, and Tav let this kid have it, the kid looking dejectedly at the leading edge of the stage, not really reacting, and still not reacting when Tav went and poured a beer on his head. And he stayed there the rest of the set!! I don’t envy the kid that hangover. The show went on, rather marvelously.
Billy and Amy dropped us off at the hotel, which again was not so close to town, and I tried to squeeze what rest I could out of the 3-4 hours sleep I had time for.
MEMPHIS, 11/12
We assembled in the lobby at 6.15, if memory serves me correctly. Piled into the hotel’s shuttle van and were dropped at Austin airport, and got ourselves on another Southwest flight, this time to Dallas Love Field (which I always associate with Elvis Costello). Nothing special was done on layover, and we got Little Rock by late morning. Why Little Rock? Because Southwest doesn’t fly to Memphis, and evidently it’s a pricey route. What can I say, I didn’t do the budget at this point–but Tav had the idea to rent an SUV and drive into Memphis, and use that rental for other errands in our visit to the city. I volunteered to drive, knowing that I would be the most consistently sober of the group. We had a nice chat with the guy checking us in, who was a cellist/violinist, and I wolfed down a sandwich for strength as last minute adjustments were made prior to departure. There was a pause at a truck stop so Tav could put more credit on his mysterious, never-seemed-to-be-working phone, and then we hightailed it thru the Arkansas landscape, cotton fields and spaces that look really like the kind of place you’d go looking to make a turkey shoot. Crossing the bridge into Memphis, and I always have the impression that Memphis, for a major American city, is far too modest in its appearance. The riverside area is so lo key, I know there’s that damn pyramid, but the rest of the city is almost bucolic. We went to an oasis of civilization, the Peabody Hotel, to have tea and cakes, and regroup. Fans of Tav’s came to join us, having flown in from somewhere, and Ross Johnson, the original Panther Burns drummer, also joined us, to help with transport and other issues. The original plan was to go to the downtown Avis rental car office and sign Ross on as an additional driver, so he could drop us off in the morning and return the car. But the office was closed by the time he showed up from rehearsal, and we moved on. I was following him in his Saturn as we drove onward to the next appointment, a radio interview, but decided not to follow the native Memphian in his bold choice of going the wrong way up a one way street, ending in a Mexican standoff with a tram. I sorta did the ‘I don’t know this guy’ thing and simply turned left, hoping I wasn’t going to get a ticket for just knowing a guy this loco. During the radio interview, I sat in the rig and did an interview of my own on the phone, and then we all drove to the venue–here Ross took Tav and Gio to our mysterious accommodations–evidently there’s a former punk rocker named Misty who has a B&B, and she was making vegan pasta. I don’t eat pasta, so I chose to stay on at the venue and get set up. Peter also stayed. Band menu burger #2 for those keeping score. The Hi-Tone is a classic venue for Memphis, meaning it’s weird and you can’t tell who’s working there and who’s using your dressing room to have a quasi-legal cigarette. Or more–by the end of the night there were all these people doing blow backstage, none of whom seemed to work there. I just wanted a safe place to brush my teeth…I know, not very rock & roll. Tav soon returned with a funny look on his face. Evidently Misty’s B&B had only one B. Even a thrifty fellow like Tav couldn’t subject us to a 5am departure *and* sleeping on a floor. So, we went to check us in to a hotel, Tav had called a place, and tho it wasn’t the first Motel 6 we found, it was just across the way. There was a walkthru with the teenager who was running the front desk, as if there was a question that there would be potential insect life in the rooms? I couldn’t tell if this was just a paranoia on Tav’s part or an accepted Memphis tradition. The place was weird tho…empty, it seemed. Like Memphis. Grungy, seemingly in the process of abandonment, usually drugs involved. I had to head back to the club for my gig, so I told Tav I’d send somebody for him, so he could get a nap in. Understand we were all pretty ragged from these early morning departures.
So, back at the club, there were people there now, Ross Johnson’s Problems on stage. There was Alex Chilton’s legendary album-immortalized ex, Elizabeth, aka Leesa Aldridge. Sort of an indie rock Carol Channing, and they do a kind of Half Japanese sort of riff on R&B, with Ross in the back on drums making commentary all the time on a mic, sort of an MC. Looks like Newt Gingrich in his blazer and tie. Elizabeth had a beautiful telecaster with flatwounds, and I begged to play that for my set. Talk about wading into the fire. I’d caught up with Jeff Powell, who recorded the final Big Star album, and Adam Hill, who assisted us, and Jody, Big Star’s surviving member. Now I was on my own. A roomful of rowdy, boozed and coked up Tav-loving retro rockers. And incredibly, I calmed them down, descending from the stage like a baptist wading into the river to do some head dunks. It worked remarkably well.
I had sent Ross to retrieve Tav, and we were all in place. The place was packed by now. We were all into it. Only one thing wrong: Tav is a human being, and he’d pushed himself awfully hard. So, his voice was going. He could sing, with great effort, and I know people appreciated the effort, but I also know what it feels like when you can’t deliver your maximum, and I know he was very sad not to raise the roof on his hometown gig. Still, people loved it.
After the show, after the guys behind the bar handed me all the money no questions asked, after dragging my loquacious bandmates away from all the teeth grinders backstage, I drove us to our humble abode. Again, another three hour sleep, maximum. Peter and I went and fueled up the rig before going to bed. Late night somewhat tense urban energy in that minimart.
NEW ORLEANS, 11/13
We were out the door at 5.30, loading up the SUV and I dropped everyone off at the train station, then scooted uptown to drop the rig at the still-closed Avis, leaving the keys and paperwork in the drop box. The hotel had called and booked a taxi to pick me up there at 6.10, and when they hadn’t showed by 6.15 (I didn’t have a hell of a lot faith they would), I started trucking towards any part of downtown (unlike where I was) that seemed to have some life. Homeless guy a few blocks later asked me what I was doing, and suggested heading to the Holiday Inn (and received a couple of bucks for his assistance). They called my cab, one pulled up, I got in, and heard as we pulled into the train station that I probably didn’t get in the one called for me…the radio was overheating with expletives between dispatcher and cabbies, and for his part my driver pretended to ignore it. So, there we were in the little waiting hall at the Amtrak station. The station is also weird: you’re on the upper level, where the trains come, and the street level is several flights of stairs down (and when I wandered down them, looking in vain for a machine that would sell me the Sunday New York Times, a woman with the biggest suitcase I’ve ever seen pulled up,and of course Tav & I ended up hauling it up all those stairs). For no apparent reason. The tracks I guess are on a massive levee. Must have been hell to build. The train was late, and finally all passengers were herded out onto the platform, and then lined up, and one guy sent you in the direction of all the different cars. There were two sleeper cars, one at the front right behind the locomotive, and one at the back, which was where we were, and the numbers and symbols on the tickets seemed to indicate…nothing. But were sent to the front, and dropped our stuff where we could (most of our luggage was checked, like on a plane) and headed to the dining car, just behind us (this was a good position to be in). Breakfast is gratis if you have a sleeper berth. The pullman meanwhile was making the beds. So, I had my oatmeal and we all went off to bed. Two little compartments, that astonishingly contain two beds, somehow, like those Transformers toys, they unfold from somewhere. I had a lower bunk, which meant my window’s light shone in, Tav in the upper bunk was in darkness. I was very happy with this arrangement. I fell asleep. I know, I would be way ahead on this blog if I hadn’t, it should have been written this day, but Jesus H., man, give it a rest.
I fell into blissful, if bumpy sleep. I will say that being behind the locomotive is maybe not the ideal position–you only think the train sounds its horn when it passes *you*–but in fact, that thing goes off every five seconds. Still, I was tired enough that it didn’t matter. Oddly, the one meal that Amtrak could make money off of, lunch, is barely a blip–we all missed it. Note to business folks: if you are charging 25 bucks for a steak, you might want to keep the window of opportunity open for more than 40 minutes. This is why luxury stores stay open all day.
I was slightly in a panic about when my next meal would be. The chef had picked up a massive red crab on one of the stops in Louisiana…maybe I could eat it raw? We all started to wake up, and we assembled in the observation car, that wonderful, gooey, Louisiana landscape all around. Birds and critters every which way. We caught up the finances to that point, and found that the train, despite leaving Memphis quite late, was getting in to New Orleans nearly two hours early.
Lefty, our man in the Big Easy, was soon there, who urged us to take a good look at the mural that wraps around the train station’s main hall’s upper reaches. A complete history of the city, including the the origins of the Acadians in France, all the way to something about the rapture and aliens. Worth a look. I hopped in a truck with a fella named Ted and we went and grabbed a keyboard from Dr. Ira, who helps fund a series of music events, and his wife, Schmoo, ‘s place, a museum of wonders. I have to tell you, my spirit opened up with the gentle light of New Orleans, the warm temperature, the pace slowing way down. We reunited the crew at a restaurant in the city center, and I tucked into a massive plate of oysters and a little appetizer made from trotters, feeling awfully thankful that I missed that Amtrak lunch. We parked ourselves at Tav’s reading, at a groovy record store, and then got ourselves over to the club in a series of cars–my friends Heidi and Laura had come to help. The club was punk dive, perfect for your NOLA visit–huge turkeys, taxidermically spectacular, were mounted on the wall above the bar. We got the sound together, more or less, and put my keyboard on a folding picnic table, and then jetted off to have dinner at the restaurant where Ted works, the Green Goddess, which is quite a gourmet place. Sondre Lerche was in town, and we hoped to dine together but between my soundcheck taking longer and longer and then getting lost trying to find the place, I was just able to say hi, and then join our table way in the back, the chef’s table. Discussing with the chef the finer points of Morgon, and drinking some, we got food to me in a hurry, the highlight being a dessert of a torchon of pancetta wrapped figs. Finally Lefty got me back to the venue, basically an hour after I was supposed to go on, and nobody even noticed. The set was, shall we say, interesting. When I played “You Drew” a lovely young lady jumped up and sang along–not that she knew the song, but she just wanted to sing, and faked her way thru it beautifully. I had people up on stage, etc. Mostly the place was full of drunken crazies, and they talked ever louder and louder, but there were people listening, too….actually, a good show, just difficult conditions, but I’m used to that. Of course the Tav set was killer. No longer having to drive, I took inspiration from the stuffed animals on the wall and had myself a Wild Turkey on the rocks.
After the show, I wanted to get some rest, I think the others were going for some kind of unhealthy sand-witch-ery. So, Heidi dropped my at our hotel, out by the airport in Metairie, she lived nearby, so easy enough for her. I showed up, gleaming sharkskin suit, bass, suitcase, the works. Get to the front desk: Hi, I’m part of the Tav Falco party. We have two double rooms here. “Yes, you do. May I see your ID?” Which of course didn’t say Tav Falco. Er…Tav Falco is a band name, tho…none of us are named Tav Falco. “Well, I can’t let you in. That’s hotel policy”. I tried logic: “So, what are the chances of someone showing up, to a hotel in Metairie, having the balls to try and check in as somebody else, knowing that the real person might show up at any time? How would I even know this reservation existed, so that I could take advantage of it?” (needless to say, calling Tav or Lefty was fruitless at this point…Nobody actually answers their phones, do they?) …” well, sir, you could have overheard about the reservation in a conversation”. “And then acted on it? Do I look like a guy who needs to steal free hotel rooms based on eavesdropping? Have you ever heard of such a thing happening in all your life?” He hadn’t, but I still wasn’t getting in. So, I went and sat down, hoping the others would be here soon. After about ten minutes of not going away, the guy relented and gave me the key. I was in bed by the time Tav came in, and I drifted off for another 4 hours of glorious sleep.
NEW HAVEN, 11/14
Hey, this wasn’t so bad, at least the sun was up for a change, by the time we left the hotel in the shuttle van. Was it in New Orleans airport that a drunk guy strong-armed me into selling him a copy of Soft Commands for like ten bucks? Anyway, my main concern was trying to get decent eats, not so easy, despite the wonderful food we’d encountered the previous night, not everything is gourmet…I finally managed to eat some kind of muffin, and then got on our flight to Charlotte. Of course, Giovanna disappeared right before the gate was about to close, Tav and Peter running all over in a panic. We all got on. Got to Charlotte, and the departure gate was right across from our arrival gate, always a bonus. Had lunch right there at the seafood joint, with time to spare. Short-ish flight to Philly, and then, since the line for the shuttle was several hundred people long and not moving one bit, we opted to walk out to terminal F, which takes about ten minutes and requires going thru security. There’s a photo exhibition showing life in 50s/60s black America in the passageway out to the terminal that is well worth the visit. The line at security at F was just a handful of people, so it wasn’t much of a burden (despite the bolo tie, cardigan, fat wallet that barely comes out of my back pocket, etc etc) and soon I was out at the end of the terminal at our gate–no wifi, no cell reception. Trying to get everything organized on the other end. We boarded our little prop job to New Haven’s Tweed airport–even my dad hadn’t heard of it, and he was an ultra frequent flyer living in Connecticut. The whole terminal could fit in the average garage. So, we had bags quickly, and we had a local musician pick us up in his sweet minivan. Now, New Haven is America’s 4th most violent city, so I was imagining a cross between Baghdad and the planetoid where the space marines land in “Aliens”, yet I never did see the truly hostile environment I was expecting. I remember playing New Haven in the 90s and seeing shambling crackheads on the common, but no evidence of that in the area around the club. We dropped our stuff here, and I was pleased to find a cozy little bar, with a warm and friendly owner, Paul, with whom I shared good natured exasperation at the rock stars in our company (typical tour manager attitude I was copping). My dream gig is to stay at the venue from load in to load out, and then some (if you’re at Vera in Groningen). The band wanted to check in to their hotel. I was starving, and I wasn’t staying with them, so Paul walked me over to the Indian restaurant where he suggested we take dinner. Left his Amex. I had a tea, and relaxed, at last. Very friendly joint, an upscale Indian place, young guys with big fanciful moustaches, speaking Hindi, while trance music softly wanders in from a speaker somewhere. Holding down the table til Tav (on his suddenly working cell phone) calls and says the band isn’t coming, I should be fine with my friends there–except my friends, Lauren Agnelli and her husband, had already shuffled off. So, I ate alone. That’s sometimes, on tour, OK. Got back to the venue and set up my stuff and did my set. There were people coming in at times, so I had to simmer everyone down at one point, but in general, a show with 40 people on a Monday night in New Haven is already quiet enough for my standards…meaning, that this was a great audience for me, and I think the show went over perfectly. I did the carny thing and pretended that Lauren was just some random audience member being pulled up to sing a number she happened to hold a lyric sheet for (I think some people actually bought it??) and then a young fellow who had contacted me on Facebook, Ant for Anthony, was submitted to the same sleight of hand for a drum-enhanced version of “Fireflies”. Good set, great rapport with the crowd. However, I could tell that Tav’s throat issues and the stress and brutal hours of travel on no sleep were starting to affect my voice. Uhoh.
During the band that played in the middle’s set I was down in Paul’s office which doubles as a green room, chatting with Holly George-Warren about Alex Chilton. The band was so freaking loud…there are limits, I think, with what you can ask an audience on a Monday night. But I guess if you live in New Haven and are used to stray rounds whizzing by your hatband I guess u can stand some loud band. Then we played, and I do believe we played quite well…we didn’t play til the cows came home, to save Tav’s voice for the big New York show, but we did more than a gesture, that’s for sure. Peeled out of there at 12.30. I’m sure everybody was pleased to see me load myself in a chauffeured Mercedes and tool off in the Connecticut night and fog. I was at my dad’s place by 2am. My half sister, Kate, was actually up, watching TV and hanging out.
NEW YORK, 11/15
I was up at about ten, feeling not too bad. I love my dad’s place as I can have a hot shower for like 90 minutes and not even put a dent in the hot water supply. My dad made clam chowder for lunch, and we got to hang out, and of course make the rounds of visiting the neighbors, my dad’s friends and all lovely folks. It was just a nice day at home. In the late afternoon we managed to fit my bass, suitcase, myself, my stepmom, and my dad into their Merc and we drove into Manhattan. We went to the Rodeo Bar, tonite’s venue, and dropped off my bass, then they dropped me at my hotel, and went on to meet up my half brother Scott who works just around the corner. I got settled in to my digs, which I surely wouldn’t be enjoying for much time, and headed back to the venue, just a couple of blocks away. Trying to outpace the drizzle. I was there long before my bandmates, helping set up and getting to know the support band–actually the band of Jack, who books the club, and was saving our ass by agreeing to play and bring their backline down. I had club menu burger #3, and our #1 fan Dan the Man brought me a killer bottle of Burgundy. Got things wrangled, and guest lists sorted, and made friends with the promoter and club folks, part of the tour manager’s job as you never know–you might be back here, or they might be booking the next place you play. People started to show, and I got my family sorted, and friends sorted, and the band and their guests sorted. And had a really nice Burgundy buzz by the time showtime came around. I’d worked out that the IT guy for the club was going to launch the file of our intro music, the music that Giovanna bellydances to–she came down dressed in her gear from the 3rd floor office, I sent him up, and by the time I gave her the thumbs up the music started. Then we took the stage. I looked out and saw the place was well and truly packed–there are picnic tables perpendicular to the stage, three of them, so people are kind of looking sideways to see us, that’s awkward but these are New Yorkers, they can deal with anything. Behind them there’s a walkway for servers then some bar stools along each wall (I had a “Stringfellow” section coned off!!) and then standing room between those two. All of that was full to burstin’. I got into the set, drinking a little more wine to get those juices flowing. Now, there’s no stage as I said–and the performance area is only about three feet deep, and of course, stage left suffers from the protrusion of an enormous stuffed bison head, which I was practically behind. But I played it up. Got out on the crowd, on the picnic tables…soon Tav, Peter and I were doing cakewalks up and down the damn things. It turned into a real rock and roll show, and I was squeezing that bass like a Valencia orange, totally out in space and totally loving it. The guys in front of me sharing a table were having a great time, cheering me on–turned out to be half of the Obits, that was great to meet them, what a great band. Beautiful people, and dusty old guys that probably have their own 10,000 page collage novel in their rent controlled walkup, what is it about New York that makes you admire such a dirty, eccentric, unsubtle place? I love it, I really do, every time I play there. And I will tell you that I would never in a thousand years live there, but I enjoy playing there ever so much. The show concluded, and I was very happy for Tav to kick ass…he needed to here, more than in Memphis. His missus was here to tango with him, kicking over mic stands, people loved it. I After the show I picked up the money, counted it, deducted my expenses, gave it and a breakdown to Tav, my work was done…I drank some more wine with my agent Ben, the Obits, my bandmates, and scampered off to my hotel for about an hour and 40 minutes of sleep. Of course…nice hotel = no time spent there. By 4.30 I was hailing a cab out front and waiting in the cold at Grand Central station for the Airport Express bus…surreal. Slept for the 45 minute ride to JFK. JFK is one of those airports you can never see all of the structure of it, you’re always dropped off at some anonymous place, it’s impossible to get your bearings. But, the good news it’s such an overkill place that every airline has practically its own terminal, so Delta had its own gates, it’s own security, and not only were there not that many people flying at that hour, but I could use my MVP status to jump the queue, and then sit around til we could board the flight to Seattle. Slept all five and half hours.
Got to Seattle, Brian was there, bless him, and got me to the studio. I spent the day getting to know the place, getting my mix together for Cheap Star–first I did some touch up work on the one I’d worked on the previous week, then I did some keyboards and vocals for the next tune, worked on that til I couldn’t…exhausted and we had an early day ahead. Darius had come by the studio, where I had my keyboard, amp, etc, and we loaded that into his truck. So i was set. Brian had swung by Trading Musician on another errand so he’d picked up a guitar case for me, for my Gretsch, they had a handsome used but new looking teardrop case for $70, the original case of my Gretsch was just a pulp held together by gaffer tape.
PORTLAND, 11/17
Jon Auer was at my door at 7.40, with the rental car he’d picked up the day before–he’d come home from France (yes, you read that right) to find he had a cracked radiator, that couldn’t be fixed the same day. So we had this nice American car to drive, he had his GPS, we loaded up my guitar, some merchandise, my effects. Off we went to Portland, one of the most boring drives on the planet. Southcenter, Fife, Tacoma, Olympia, Nisqually, Kelso, Longview, blinding rain, always. I know it so well. As a band, we’ve been doing it for 23 years. Sept. 11, 1988 was our first Portland show, supporting the Dharma Bums at an Amnesty Int’l awareness show at a park along the riverfront. I did a lengthy chat for the previously mentioned upcoming Alex Chilton project, and called home, and chatted with Jon. We got there. Got right up to the correct spot, the radio station, KINK. A commercial alternative station–hallelujah, they still exist. And they were really happy to see us. We hadn’t seen each other in 4 months–hadn’t played a note of this music since our last song at the festival in Finland we played in July. We started to set up in their small theatre there, with other Posies appearing from here and there, and our guest singer, Kelly, arriving. Parking downtown is always tricky, and today was the big day of Occupy Portland vs. the PPD. Evidently it was going to come right down the street, if the protesters could push the front line that way. One thing is true: the mere presence, the mere concept, of the Occupy movement makes everyone uncomfortable–they either try and quickly write it off, or make an uncomfortable joke, or say they sympathize, but–but for me, there’s no but. These are people taking personal risk to disrupt the everyday routine in a fashion that is as time honored as our country itself. The right to free assembly–and the right to dissent. They do have talking points, and they do have a kind of platform. The news media has been often guilty of blurring that–pointing out the freaks and weirdos that this kind of thing attracts, and making it look like a burning man style hedonistic display of apathy rather than the…well, protest, for lack of a better–that it is. Go read your history. Go read the battles against labor organizers during the Depression–yes, at the time we needed them most. Occupy means something, and when the average working class person realizes economics hits them in the nuts far more than gay marriage and abortion rights or wrongs, dissent is going to be the majority. In that sense, I saw a not-going-to-win Republican candidate who pointed out that the Occupy movement and the Tea Party were not as different as people think–they just express their rage in different ways. It’s possible to see a third party candidate connecting those two live wires and surging up a serious electrical storm. It’s impossible to imagine Obama or any Republican semi-front runner doing so.
Meanwhile, this good little entertainer monkey did just that. Strumming the barre chords, not storming the barricades. But, if you’re going do it, do it well. We set up with the house gear, and sort of line checked–seems like we had about ten minutes to do that. In an ideal world we would have had time to run through all the songs we were to play that afternoon, 4 songs in total, but we had just enough time to get Kelly on board, get a line check (with a real piano, always a treat) and then they let the lunchtime crowd in. We kicked into “So Caroline”, and we were loud, but everyone in the audience looked exhilarated, not assaulted. We could then catch our breath for an interview segment, the host well familiar with our work, and we had a good, humorous rapport. Then we did the rest of our set. I can say the energy and sound was superb, the vocals were spot on, there were a few moments that I just didn’t quite know where my hands were supposed to be on the guitar. But, I think it was a decent performance and hopefully listening to it on the radio was bearable.
After we loaded out Jon & I had mexican lunch (menudo!) and I visited an Apple store to get yet a bigger Time Machine for backup. Then we headed, early, to the venue. They were able to get us loaded in, and thus I could catch up on work in the dressing room, and have a real macchiato (ok, so between soy, rice and almond milk, evidently almond is the easiest to froth). The band started showing up, and the backline was coming in from the support bands, locals Derby and Seattle’s Curtains For You. For most of the afternoon and evening I was glued to my computer working, but was able to greet friends and even learn the chorus to Curtains’ ebullient anthem “Daisy”, so I could join them with that in their set. We, the Posies, had a decent soundcheck, the stage at Doug Fir is ample and extremely good sounding. We had several ‘Frosting’ items to play, since that was the program for the evening. Good news was coming from the box office, we’d already cleared over 200 tickets. Merch was counted in. There were potential undesirables, people I didn’t want to deal with, in the house, so I ordered food into the dressing room, Brian (who released both of Curtains’ albums) and I had our dinners there, not sure what my bandmates were up to, but I think at least three of them had naps.
So, I did indeed lend my airs to the Curtains for You song, which was so much fun…gave me a chance to see how the room was looking, too. Curtains For You are a real aggregate of talent, beautiful singing, expert playing, instrument switching galore…it was a joy to add to the mix. Trying to fit yet one more guy on that already crowded stage was a good opportunity for some get the band guy to the mic for the vocals I’m not singing-style slapstick.
Derby took the stage, I enjoyed watching them as well, and then it was time to start organizing how nervous to be for our set. I cleared the backstage of any non-essential personnel, got the changeover sorted, then appeared like a superhero, i.e. out of my daily costume and into short sleeves and jeans, and we tore into our 18-year-old album. One thing about playing Frosting: it’s a cakewalk. A burst of energy to get the blood moving, a workout with “Burn & Shine” and then a whole side of slow songs, culminating in a meditative turn at the piano on the current version of “Coming Right Along” (tho it’s true that the album version is simply two guitars, organ pedals, and vocals, we’ve been playing it as a piano/guitar duo for a few years now). People love it–it’s a rare show that ends on a long downward slide of energy, as opposed to building up to a high point, and yet the audience is always lifted up by the end of this set. Super weird, but I guess for those people, the album is really imprinted in people’s memories, certainly that’s a real compliment. Then we came back and did several more tunes, heavy on the new stuff, and to my bandmate’s chagrin I honored an audience shout out of “Farewell Typewriter” that they rolled with admirably. It was all said and done, there was a long line of greeting that took place at the merch table, we even sold a few things. At one point way late in the game a young lady I have known for years, who obviously doesn’t spend her time drinking at shows any more, came up and offered to ‘help’–more that she inserted herself at the merch table and started to knock things over, etc…I was ‘delighted’ to have her ‘help’ in this fashion…but she did manage to sell one item, by which point I’d ran off to pack up my gear. Got my big items packed up for Darius to take the next day, and my small items in Jon’s car, and I headed back with Brian. My throat, which was tickled by the punishing schedule of the Tav tour and rooming with Tav while he became ill, the 7.30 departure this morning, the November Pacific Northwest gloom, the two shows in one day…was holding up ok. I slept on the way back, that awful drive thru the blackness between Seattle and Portland. We were pulled over at one point as a taillight was out, surprise surprise. On the way down, Jon got a speeding ticket. So did Darius…it’s called ‘fill the depleted state coffers’. The revenue machine makes you the criminal.
The next day I was picked up at 10.30 by family members. I am not going to go into huge details here, this is something I’m saving for my book. But the story is, I have a family member in prison. After a bout with drug use that spiraled out of control, which led to crimes of desperation, culminating in a rather feeble but real armed robbery. The robbery was carried out with a knife. I don’t think this person in reality would have harmed anyone, but in the eyes of the victim and the law, the bluff works because of it at least looks authentic, and it’s a violent crime. No excuses here–the person chose to try drugs, knowing what it could get him into, and against any good advices. He was also vulnerable, and we didn’t read the signs correctly–but those signs were often well camouflaged. It’s a situation with many layers to unravel. But we’re here today, we all have an interest in his moving forward, and hopefully he can grow from this point. He certainly needs our love and support, and with this in mind we all went to visit him, all of us who are on his approved list, at the state facility in Shelton (is it Shelton or Forks where all the ‘Twilight’ movies take place? I know it’s some grey place with a high school sports team that always laid waste to the Sehome Mariners on whatever field of contest you could come up with, indoor or outdoor). One drives down from Seattle, heads west just past Olympia, and drives out into the kind of places where old folks shop at Target and use the internet to reinforce the same beliefs and habits they’ve had since 1975. Grandmaville. Depressing.
Then, after passing Shelton’s airport (must be for those easily hijacked ConAir flights) you turn up an access road, and there’s a huge, central-casting-ominous facility. The towers, the concertina wire. A big parking lot for staff and one for visitors. You can’t have someone bring you and wait for you in the lot. You can’t bring anything in with you–nothing in your pockets except a maximum of $15 in bills no larger than $5, and one key, your car key. Everything else is to be left in the car. I think you can be reasonably sure no one is doing any smash and grabs in the prison parking lot, although it has a kind of just-where-you-least-expect-it boldness that I’m sure has been considered. The scene inside, after checking your last items in a locker so you have just one key and a few bucks on your person, is rather like a high school cafeteria, with a little more order. Tables are in rows, and inmates always sit in the same orientation, with a maximum of three visitors, i.e., one on each side of a small square table. There are vending machines and you’re free to buy lunch or a snack for yourself or the person you’re visiting.
We spent an hour or so talking, and then time was up, and all the visitors shuffled out, waving back and shouting out last messages to their loved ones. A young girl visiting her man left flustered and upset, spilling change out of her pockets as she looked for the keys to her car, parked right next to us. She didn’t bother to pick it up.
We drove back to Seattle, sobered by the experience. I went to work–back to mixing Cheap Star, until late that night–I think I got back to Brian’s place at 4am.
SEATTLE, 11/19
I put my thoughts down about this show on the blog “The Vinyl District” and you can read all about it here: http://www.thevinyldistrict.com/seattle/2011/12/ken-stringfellow-from-the-posies-reviews-the-posies-at-the-neptune-theatre-1119/
Up early the next morning, exhausted and a little sore, good sign. Trying to keep my exhausted body from getting sick, the more I pushed myself and the less I slept the more vulnerable I was to getting a cold. Slept the entire flight to Minneapolis, and much of the flight to Paris. Landed a little ahead of schedule and got home in mid morning, to my delight. It was a short visit–I had lunch at home, got my act together, and was on the train to Brussels at 1pm. Yep–I dove immediately into the long-awaited sessions for my next solo album, at the fabled ICP studios in Brussels’ Ixelles neighborhood. We were doing something unique: I was going to share the time and talents of my dear esteemed colleague and musical partner in justice JB Meijers, who was working on his solo album as well. So, the cast: JB, myself;
drummer Joost Kroon whom I know from the Eva Auad sessions but who is most visible in the chair behind stadium rockers Kane and big band band modernes New Cool Collective.
keyboardist/accordionist Pim Kops, who plays with JB in De Dijk, sort of a chanson meets Leonard Cohen institution in Holland. Pim can work a Hammond like nobody this side of Memphis.
And our engineer, Michel “Shelle” Dierickx, who’s been at ICP for almost thirty years, modestly engineering some of the biggest albums in the UK, US, French and Benelux markets.
The studio itself–one of the inspiring places to make music on earth–run with care by the owner John Hastry, and his team–Bill Funk, who takes care of the technical side of things, and Paul, who takes care of the administrative details. And of course Gabriella and Joelle, who cook for everyone, and there’s more too. It’s a tight ship, but a loose, friendly vibe. The ultimate toy store–I’ve already waxed on about the immense amount of gear, instruments, microphones etc at your disposal here. This was a perfect storm–JB, myself and the others blasted out track after track, and it was readily apparent that the conditions were perfect. The results exceed my expectation a thousandfold. I’ve made an album whose variety, richness of tone, and sophistication in arrangement and accompaniment blows Soft Commands, an album I felt I had executed perfectly, out of the water. The people, the studio, the moment. It’s about choosing your weapons, as it were–if you build the right team, the results are going to be good. Everybody on the ball. It’s always worth it to pay for the best. You save time–the investment pays itself over and over again in terms of quality and efficiency. I can’t thank everyone involved enough. One of the reasons people have seen me working so hard, so many days in a row, for the last years is so that I could pull off these sessions with economic ease–I think for what we paid for these sessions it’s absolutely fair, but it’s still a substantial investment for me, the biggest single expense I will have this year. And due to my hard work and thrift, it’s affordable.
I had a gorgeous loft to sleep in, and take long baths in. The first week I also did a big upgrade and install on the laptop that powers my studio, so I ran up in the early morning hours to Rotterdam to drop it off and pick it up to minimize shipping related down time, with the techie doing the work. I’d bought quite a bit of new software–my computer is bursting with new instruments. So that cut down on my sleep a bit, but I caught up. But still–coming on the heels of the touring, and all the work I’d done in a row, and all the travel, and the immense outlay of energy in making a record of my own as well as helping JB make his–it caught up with me the second week, and I caught a cold. However, I was so ahead of the game, I’d done so much more than expected, tracking twelve gorgeous songs, and doing overdubs and vocals, that I wasn’t bummed out by the cold interfering with some of the more delicate vocals–I will get to those in the coming weeks when I feel my voice has fully recovered. It’s been just over a week since I caught the cold, and I still have a bit of a cough and feel my voice isn’t at its peak flexibility. I did have a doctor come to ICP and give me a cortisone shot and get me on antibiotics so my voice could bounce back enough to be useful for the last days. Some of the songs don’t have finished lyrics, anyway, and one of them was just too delicate to do in this condition, but I got most of the singing done, and it’s brilliant–not compromised one bit.
In addition to the main cast mentioned above, I also had visits from Eva Auad herself, who did spooky wordless vocalizing on one song and some harmonies on another. It turns out a friend I know from Finland, who lives in Brussels now, lives right around the corner, and her boyfriend, Mathieu, is a whizz of jazz pianist, so I had him come down and play some lightning hot keys on one song. Sonja van Hamel came for a day to sing harmonies and play guitaret and Omnichord on a few of the tracks as well, and then she rode up with me to Schagen, to EP Services, the brilliant plug your laptop in and play vintage keyboard museum. The ultimate place to do one stop shopping keyboard overdubs. Sonja was with me for the first day playing on some stuff, and I stayed on another day to work further. But that’s getting ahead of the fact that I had to leave ICP, all things end–I was sad to go but I’ll be back for another project in 2012, and I couldn’t be happier with the experience. Many thanks to the team and to my musicians. JB’s album is incredible too–a tour de force of guitar-driven songcraft.
Dom and Aden had also come up to visit for a day and night, it was wonderful to have them there, Aden of course charming everyone in sight. I wish they could have stayed more. So sweet. On the weekend nites the cooks don’t come in so we ordered in Thai and watched the big TV in my room when the sessions ended mercifully early so we could have some quality time together. On Sunday morning I got up early with them and we went to the Christmas market and the main square of Brussels’ old city, and of course paid homage to le mannequin pis.
My stay in Schagen was very productive as well, and Marcel and Yvonne are great hosts. When I first plugged in my laptop, however…oh my. The grey multilingual screen of death–and nothing seemed to help. I had to consult my tech resources and online forums and finally found that there’s yet another driver to install, since I’m now running Pro Tools 10 on the Lion OS, to be able to use the Mbox Pro that Marcel has as an interface between his mixer and your computer. Otherwise as soon as you connect the Mbox, wow…..the computer has a total meltdown, like I’d never seen before. Took awhile to get the kinks worked out, but we did and were able to work.
Sunday morning there was chocolate in my shoe–St. Niklas had visited the studio accommodations in the night…he comes from Spain on a boat, with Africans, according to the Dutch tradition (you hear tales like this in Scandinavia too). Christmas itself in Holland is just a family meal, like Thanksgiving, on the 24th. Presents are exchanged in early December on the St. Niklas holiday.
Sunday night I took one of the last trains to Amsterdam, so I could catch the first train back to Paris–the trains from Schagen don’t start early enough to get you in there in time, and I spent a short night at nice little hotel by the station.
Got home in the latter part of the morning–the train was delayed as there was a train stalled on the high speed tracks in Holland so we had to use the slower rails (this was also in effect on the way up to Amsterdam from Brussels when we were on our way to Schagen on Saturday), and then traffic was jammed all over Paris on my way home from Gare du Nord. But it was such a happy reunion–I arrived, and Dom and I went to have a cafe and reconnect. Then we went to lunch, indulging in os a moelle, the marrow bones that I love to eat in winter so much. One drunken night with JB, Pim & Joost in Brussels, I’d finally had enough of my very bug-laden Motorola Flipout phone, my French mobile. It had a lot of OS problems–jumping off the network constantly and requiring resets, resetting itself in mid text message composition, losing all your inputed data, etc. Dom was virtually never able to call me, since it jumped off the network so often. So, knowing I was too stubborn and cheap to change phones without a good reason before my five-year minimum use was up, I ‘accidentally’ threw it across the room, denting the chassis and making some of the tactile keys inoperable. It’s too bad, I thought the design of the phone was fun, it was a real conversation piece (I mean, people always talked about it, not just that i talked on it). But we went to Orange and I went back to Sony Ericsson, the brand I’d been working with for several years prior in Europe. Their phones are well made, reliable, sensible, logical…oh, hey, I’m singing a Supertramp song all of a sudden. The phone I have now, called an Xperia, has a tactile keyboard, wifi, a touch screen–just like the Flipout, but seems way more stable. Oh, the Flipout was prone to freezing, too–you’d try and go to the dialer or to your messaging, and it wouldn’t load, and you’d have to wait for the ‘force quit’ option to come up. I’d spend as much as 3-5 minutes trying to initiate a simple phone call. No such problems so far with the Sony. Likewise, I’ve never had any problems with my iPhone, and while Android is not as gee-whiz wonderful as the iPhone OS, getting another iPhone was not an option in Europe–on a pay as you go plan like I am, it would be almost a thousand dollars for me to get one. I can’t put my Orange sim in the US iPhone, either.
Shuttling back between the two Orange stores in my neighborhood–one that had the Sony in stock and one that had a free tech desk–I got all my data transferred from one phone to the other–contacts, archived texts, and photos (the latter was just switching out the data card from one phone to the other). I saw my therapist, stopped into one of the many mom and pop computer accessory shops in that neighborhood to buy a firewire 400 cable (only €5!). I spent a lot of time unpacking from Brussels and packing for the states. Had a lovely evening at home, going over Aden’s homework, watching a movie with Dom, just enjoying time at home.
Tuesday morning I was out the door before the girls went to school, and boarded my splurge–the direct flight to LAX from Paris on Air France. Man, is that worth the extra few hundred dollars–first of all, I can have 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and still have time to watch 2 movies. Leaving mid morning from Paris and arriving in LA in the early afternoon of the same day–so I could get in some work. I picked up my rental car and headed to Van Nuys, to the LAB.
The LAB is a studio and the duo that run it, Frankie and Jay (I hope it’s OK to say their real names). They contacted me about doing a collaboration with them–they are basically creating tracks and then having a different artist add their lyrics, vocals, or other input to the songs to complete them. It’s a really cool concept for an album. Well, I was struck right away by the uniqueness and excitement of the tracks they were creating. The music they make has a funky sound and feel that an electro fan would feel at home with–syncopated, complex rhythms that sound programmed–but they do almost all of it organically–they play the drum parts, often the two of them playing two drum kits at the same time–to get really tight, complex rhythms. The musicality and composition is contemporary– even futuristic, but its grounded by an analog soul. The photos on the studio wall are the giants whose shoulders we stand on–Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Bowie. Their studio is a cozy space, reminds me of a better equipped and better shaped version of the Hall of Justice, the space where I recorded the Long Winters album almost a decade ago, that at various times was owned by John Goodmanson, Death Cab For Cutie, and almost–me. They have drums, keys and amps always mic’d up and ready, and a great collection of outboard gear. And it’s their personalities too–patient and mellow, supportive and open. I was floored by the tracks they sent me to consider for my collaboration–in fact, from that moment I trusted them implicitly and we were soon talking about them mixing my album. And meeting them was a great confirmation of what I already knew. We were comfortable working together, and their ideas and techniques were sympathetic with mine. They are just starting out in a way, tho individually and as part of other projects together they have years of experience–but this idea of being a production team is a relatively recent evolution and I totally believe in them–I think in a few years they are going to be on a lot of people’s go to lists.
On the first day, we developed the ideas that I’d started on one of the tunes they’d sent me, I’d gotten some lyrical ideas together on the plane and then put myself in a corner with headphones to map out the rest, and by the end of the night I was working with them to develop the ideas and lay down a scratch vocal. We were on our way. I used the song as an opportunity to work in a new method, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, singing a challenging, high vocal. We got it close to finished, and wrapped–and I drove to my friend Rachel’s house, Rachel who has endless jokes and deep musical knowledge, and who has been putting up myself and various bandmates of mine for the last couple of years’ worth of LA visits.
On day two, we finished up most of the vocals on the song, and also they hooked me up with Hideki, a session horn player, who came and laid down different horn parts for one of the songs on my album.
On day three, we finished up the vocals on their song, and I did some guitaret, and then we started work on a song together, presumably for my album–we made a wicked jam of synth bass and their patented dual-drumming, and edited in these free-falling, spacey sections of minimal, soft drum fills over a tiny, distant drum machine loop, with me playing cascades of icy piano trills, Jay heading over and immediately filling in counterpoint on another piano. A mysterious new track, very different from the rest of the album, very experimental. Not what any of us were expecting, and what I love about these guys is they totally got how to sum up the references–I played them tracks by Devo, the Presets and even the musical interludes from Berg’s opera “Lulu” that I went to see not long ago in Paris–and synthesize something totally new from that and a few other abstract guidelines I suggested.
So, this morning, I am within striking distance of posting this blog!!! I’ll get to that tonite in Seattle. Wow. Thanks for your patience…I will pay you back with all that I’ve been up to in the last month since I posted a full blog!
Love
KS
Alaska Airlines flight 453 to Seattle
PS: Since I was writing this I had only time to proofread and post it now. I’ve spent the last couple of days working on the score to a short film, “Bunker”, with the writer/director, Kim Voynar. I think it’s been going extremely well–this is new territory for me, so, I’m a little insecure about it, but she’s been really encouraging. We have another day to work on it, so hoping I open up the sessions fresh tomorrow and it all makes sense and sounds right. The movie, with or without my contributions, is brilliant. Coming soon to a festival near you.
