The last show

There's a combination of exhaustion and a sense of loss as a tour draws to it's end. No matter how many problems there were and how difficult things were as the last show approaches one becomes nostalgic sad elated and tired all at once. I can't wait to go home but I don't want it to end. I played a last minute show in Paris tonight thanks to Mika. Getting there was a serious adventure. The night before was the last group show with the fellas in Le mans. I think though we were all exhausted it was easily the best show. I felt like steve and Kamil were actually listening to each other and were finally somewhat in synch. I still think we never quite worked out a whole set but such is life. The next day we woke late and Mika confirmed the show in Paris. We left around two and as per usual Kamil avoided the toll roads and consequently we arrived during late rush hour traffic. It was determined that if we tried to take the van to the center of Paris we'd be stuck in traffic all night. Roco, Vanessa, and I ended up getting out at the outermost subway stop and shlepping all my stuff on the train. I almost got stuck with my tuba on my back in the turnstile and it was pretty crowded in the train but we manages to both get to my hotel room and avoided clobbering anyone with my tuba case. After checking in we hopped back on the subway for a few stops to get to the club. At the last second I realized that I would need Kamil's power converter to plug my equipment in. Fortunately he was still dropping steve off at his hotel so he was able to get to the venue in plenty of time to make the show happen. The show almost fell apart due to equipment problems but I took a break and solved the sound issues and it ended up being really fun. After We hung out for a while and one by one said goodbye. I hugged roco and mike and Kamil and realized I would miss them all very much. We all struggled together and battled our way through five weeks and that'll either turn you into enemies or friends and I can gladly say it was the latter. The question of whether I would tour together again is a whole other issue that is more about how I like to do things than how much I like all these people. I know we'll all be friends for life even if we never get in to a van together again. I will miss Europe very much and I can't wait to get cracking on booking another absurd over the top adventure of a tour. Now we'll see if I make it home tomorrow as it was snowing after the show. The subway had stopped running and it was impossible to get a cab so that meant a 3.5k walk in the snow and rain. I'm totally exhausted but awake and wired at the same time...

A moment of some kind

So we pull over at a tiny gas station in the middle of nowhere between Bordeaux and Britagne. It's Sunday and it's pretty dead and not much is open so we decide to eat there. It reminds me of a trucker stop in Texas. There's a small tv in the corner and it's showing a really absurd shakira video. We order some sketchy food that's edible but far from French standard fare. Truck stop food. We finish our meal and on the tv an Iggy Pop video comes on and there, briefly on tv, for 3 truckers and the two old ladies who work at the cafe to see, is Steve Mackay. I look over at Steve and he's discreetly throwing up his beef goulash back on to his plate and covering it with napkins. About fifteen minutes later after we're back on the road driving Steve receives a phone call. Who is it? Iggy Pop of course...

Good will

Kamil is a great guy. He means really well and in many ways we are very similar. He tends towards a dark negativity with which I can relate but I do think it's important to fight that tendency and see good in people and the world around us. Otherwise what's the point. I do think our vastly different upbringings influence this difference though. He grew up under communist rule and spent a couple years in prison for political reasons. Though we have different ways of doing and seeing things it's mostly that we're both stubborn in our ways which makes things difficult. I think the responsibilities of taking care and worrying for steve have also accentuated all the trials and tribulations of the tour. Steve too is an amazing person. He's pretty straight forward about the drinking and he's certainly experienced everything under the sun. At this point I'm not sure this tour was the best idea for him. I hope that if he does this again he makes sure there is a certain level of comfort involved. I've felt like at certain moments there was just not nearly enough planning on Kamil's part in relation to how certain situations would effect steve. It's a serious responsibility and I think Kamil dropped the ball a bit. It's different for me and Roco and Mika. I can deal and adapt to any situation. I'm not sure Kamil fully understood before the tour what physical and mental condition steve was at. Also, musically Kamil obvious wants something specific and I think steve is not necessarily on the same wavelength and in the same place. I kind of wish they'd discussed what they wanted to do more before the tour but I don't think that's Kamil's style. He's a force of nature and he just plows forward without always thinking through repercussions and consequences and such. In any case there's not much that can be done now. There are three shows left and they should be pretty good and I've learned invaluable lessons and had some truly amazing experiences. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna practice a lot and write new songs and I'm gonna learn some French and some Italian and I can't wait to book another tour...

Bread and cheese

It's crazy how much better the bread is in France. Incredibly tasty and rich. Italy as well. Most of my meals have consisted of bread cheese and occasionally sausage. I think that's pretty much my favorite meal in the world at this point. I guess it's kind of like barbecue in Texas or fried fish in new Orleans or burritos in California. Who knows exactly why but the bread here is an entirely different meal unto itself

The good soldier

I'm playing the good soldier. I'm good at putting my head down and doing the job that needs to be done but I can clearly say that I will never be the cog on someone else's wheel again. Im fully capable of following orders I don't agree with but it's a little soul sapping. This tour has explained quite clearly to me why I chose to do a solo act. I prefer living life on my own terms...

For example

A good barometer of how I will do things different when I come back to Europe on my own is the way we've done hotels. We've only gotten two on the trip. One was a youth hostel type thing in Berlin and the other was tonight in Bordeaux. I initially found a good three star place online for 42 euros. Everyone else wanted to stay at a formula 1. Little box rooms with shared showers and bathrooms. I sucked it up but it really makes a difference if you spend a tiny bit more bit experience serious luxury

Quintessential moment of the tour

Steve has a horrible hacking cough that makes me cringe when I listen to it. It's like listening to nails on a chalkboard. As we're leaving Claremont ferrond he's doing his basic disoriented thing and he's mumbling about how he needs a pharmacy but he's pulling the old martyr thing of how it'll probably be too difficult to stop but he really needs to get to the pharmacy. I try to calm him down and I tell him that we're definitely gonna hit a pharmacy on the way out of town.
After playing my song the night before we went back to the house of the promoters which was not that bad and crashed. Mika and Roco drove with a friend to saint ettienne after the show so that Mika could spend the day with his daughter who he misses very much. In the morning I got to talk to marlin one of the promoters for a while and it turns out she's very nice. I think the show exhausted her a bit because since they do the shows in different spaces there's a lot of equipment and food and drinks to move and set up. I forced myself to chat her up and get info about doing a show in the spring which changes my whole perspective on the evening. Turns out she's not nearly as indifferent as she appeared and I was impressed by some of her ideas and aspirations. Basically I figure all the absurdity of this tour is ok as long as I get something out of it that I can use. At a certain point in the afternoon we decide to head to saint ettienne and as it's only an hour and a half away I figure we're in no rush so I keep my eyes peeled to a pharmacy. Steve is chain smoking away as per usual and catching up a storm when I find a place. He's goes in and comes out with a successful impression on his face. A loud hacking coughing fit later and we diacover that no, he did not bother to pick up any cough medicine but he did renew his supply of over the counter codeine. Priorities people. Besides which he claims it's great for his cough.
The hour and a half drive to saint ettienne turns in to a 4 hour plus extravaganza as Kamil recommends taking the scenic route which involves crawling up mountains at 15 kilometers an hour. I do have to give it to him because I saw some of the most beautiful unreal serene scenery of my live. Incredible drooping expanses of trees blanketed in grey frost. My biggest regret is that I was driving and I didn't take any pictures. I feel like given the timing I'll never see something quite so perfectly peaceful again. My second regret is that of course made us late to the show and Mika was a little bit panicked. The bar where we played was not really a music venue so setting up sound was definitely going to be an issue. He really wanted his hometown show to go well. Kamil let me go first this time because he felt bad about the previous night which was nice of him. I did a good job of keeping the volume down and easing in to the set as I could tell that noise was gonna be an issue when I stood outside the bar during sound check. Chantel Morte went on after me and the hometown crowd lives it. Saint ettienne in the house! Afterwards I crashed at Ives place. He had let us crash there at the beginning of the tour and we had done a bit of recording. It's a shame we didn't really know the tunes at that point. If we'd done the opposite and left time to record this time through we might have gotten something worth using. He's a great guy and has the perfect temperament for a recording engineer.
The next day we drive to Marseilles and had a great show. We played in a little dive of a punk rock club in feint if a super enthusiastic audience packed in like sardines. It reminded me of playing in Austin way back in the early days of drums and tuba. I got to play first again and thus time I just went for it and blasted away. What's ironic is that this night was the most fun I'd had since Bourges and it turned out that a big group of people from there had moved to Marseilles and it was they who put on the show. Thanks to Jerome and the Bourges crew for a great night of food and music...
The next morning it was off to Bordeaux (not ideal routing) where we arrived to find a squat with a strong smell of piss and a performance space in the shape of a 50 foot narrow stone tunnel. Only at the highest point point could I stand comfortably without fear of banging my head. Two in a row was clearly too much to ask for. I had to get away from the others as steve was starting to freak out. He had done that on me the night before but he was completely wasted so it was easier for me to lack sympathy. Tonight I can totally relate and that makes it much worse to have to deal with the the 62 year old child thing. He's clearly afraid of having to sleep in a cold cat infested piss smelling stone squat. I'm pretty sure that if we don't get him a real place to sleep he's gonna lose it. Although I have been constantly impressed by his ability to recover from drug and alcohol induced states that would destroy a weaker person like me. Just when I think he's lost it he rallies at continues on.
One more week left. I can't figure out if that makes a night like tonight easier or harder. On the one hand you can smell the end so things should be more bearable with the end in sight but since the end is so close the prospect of freedom and release makes the lack of it so much more bitter. It's like when you're on your way home and you have to piss. I'm usually fine until I hit the long walk up five flights of stairs. The need to go multiplies incrementally the closer I get to my toilet...

One week left...

I got three hours of sleep and drove 800 kilometers to play one song that I actually cut short in the hope I could cram one more in before the club shut down. I'm pretty sure this is the least I've played since I picked up the tuba about 16 or so years ago. I do play on Kamil's set. Not a whole lot though. I really only know half a set of songs. We get through those and then he plays a bunch of tunes he never really taught me. He still hasn't given me a copy of any of the songs to listen to. Each night I end up with a song about having sex with an an under age girl stuck in my head. At this point it's all fine because there's only a week left! Six more shows. Probably the only good one left is the show in Paris that got rescheduled for after my flight home. Ca va...

Following the bad weather

At times on this tour it feels like we are following the bad weather around. I can't really remember a day that didn't involve some form of precipitation. We had a few hours of actual sunlight leaving Berlin on our way to Amsterdam. Possibly for the first time all tour we were running on time if not ahead of time when we got pulled over by the German police. They pull in front of you and never really put a siren on but they flash an LED message. I was driving at the time and Kamil had to explain to me that they wanted me to follow them to the next rest stop where the police station was located. They asked to look in back. It never hurts to have the tuba the first thing an authority figure sees. It's my theory that Drums And Tuba never had any boarder troubles for that reason. What's more innocuous than the tuba? Once the cop saw the equipment he told me to shut the door. I was afraid of a real search but I think it just looked like too much work. Next they took all our passports and the papers to the van and my drivers license to the station and presumably ran our identities. After a while they gave everybody but me their stuff back and they told us to follow them back a few exits to a weigh station because we looked overweight to them and they wanted to check out how we tipped the scales. We drove onto a large platform and then waited for calculations to be made as the policeman scribbled furiously on a pad. It turned out we were a little over a hundred kilos over what they said was our allotted weight. The young blond policeman smiled and put one hand over one eye and said,"I think we look z other way." We were now running late, exacerbated by the snow storm that hit us just as we were leaving Germany and lasted all the way to Amsterdam. It was slushy flakes all night long which wasn't great for the audience size. Of course there's always a viable excuse for why a show is sparsely attended. Excuses can always be manufactured...

Not so bad

It has come to my attention that I'm painting a pretty dark picture of the tour and the people I'm touring with. Everything I've written is true but it only tells part of the story. The people I'm touring with are wonderful people. Steve is incredibly sweet and kind hearted. He has a wonderful tone on the saxophone. Kamil is a really good person and very smart and he get's shit done and im really thankful to him for having gotten me over here. I've learned Tons about how things work in these parts. He's a very good guitar player and he can really sing and his songs really get stuck in my head. The melodies are strong and memorable. Mika's voice is astounding and I really like all his crazy samples and he never ceases to crack me up. His stage presence is great and i like the way he challenges an audience. Rocco is the newest member of the trip. He just joined us in Berlin. He seems like a good guy though I dont know him yet. I'm looking forward to hearing him play his crazy percussion. We could definitely use some rhythm.
The shows have been a roller coaster ride but there have been some wonderful moments. Can't think of any specific ones off hand but I know there have been! The point is that all the stuff that goes wrong is the juiciest stuff to write about and it doesn't paint the while picture. I've met some incredible people and seen some amazing things and life is a wonderful thing.
Having said all that, stay tuned for more crazy stories. This next week is gonna be a wild ride...

Try to enjoy yourself sometime

Endless negativity really drives me nuts. Don't get me wrong. I'm a dark guy and quite often I have the tendency to see the negatives in things and people but these last few weeks take things to a whole 'nother level. I think the worst part about it is always seeing people's worst intentions. Kamil assumes the worst of people and I think it comes from making the assumption that they assume the worst of him. I think he constantly feels judged. I'm sure it stems from his relationship with his parents. On our way from Prague to Berlin we stopped at his folks house for lunch and dinner. Kamil cut out with Steve to change the tires on the van and Mika and I hung with his parents all day. We went on a long walk through town with his dad down to the lake and to the golf course where apparently the president comes to play. His dad told us, or really I should say gestured us because he spoke very little English, that Kamil used to wind surf on the lake and that during the summer it goes from very few people to very many people. It's more or less a little lake resort town. Kamil's dad did describe a little too graphically holding an imaginary binoculars in one hand and jacking off with the other hand to the ladies at the nude beach. Perhaps more information than I needed. Otherwise it was a peaceful walk and I saw a couple cozy little cabins from which I could smell and see the smoke from burning wood stoves rising up in to the sky and I definitely remember thinking it's be nice to be alone curled up by a fire without any of the hassles of the tour. For a brief moment I imagined how nice it would be to live in a little town before I let the reality that I would quickly go crazy sink in. I could definitely sense that Kamil's dad loves him very much but also that he could be a little harsh or critical. He conveyed at one point, when I got worried that perhaps the tires were done and we needed to get back to the house to start our drive, that we could call Kamil's mom because Kamil's phone is never working. At that moment I could sense how Kamil might find them hard on him but I really think most of the criticism is in his head. He claims he gets sick every time he eats his mother's food but I found it tasty and not nearly as heavy as I was led to believe. I think it's more the stress of visiting that makes Kamil become sick. In his nature is a bit of constantly freaking out about things which isn't to say he's not good at getting things done and that he doesn't have things to freak out about. He's got a young daughter and he's very concerned about providing for her given the lifestyle he leads. Life ain't easy. I just think the constant conspiracy theories and always seeing the absolute worst intentions in the people around you just aren't healthy. The world can't possibly be that fucked up and if it is what's the point of dwelling on it that morosely. Try to enjoy yourself some time and even occasionally try to seeing some good in people...

WARNING!!!! Stop Reading If You're Squeamish

Once upon a time if I had to take a dump I'd wait until I got home. Public bathrooms really weirded me out. I couldn't stand the thought of taking a shit with someone else in the stall next to me and I couldn't cope with the idea of sitting somewhere unclean. Eventually when I started touring I had two choices: I could get over it or I could die. I chose the former. Now I just plug my nose and do the deed as quickly as possible. Some of the places on this tour have really tested my metal. At a few of the squats I have chosen to simply hold it in a few days rather than go. At some point though there's no choice in the matter. Life on the road...

The last espresso

After Italy coffee just doesn't taste as good. Even the espresso in the gas stations puts what I'm used to to shame...

The stupidest show of my life becomes three straight nights

Kamil has a friend who played tuba on his record and who suggested that he could get us a gig in Rosenheim in between Vicenza and Prague. On the drive to meet his friend in Oberaudorf which is about 30 kilometers south of Rosenheim in a little old Bavarian village I said to Kamil "we're not playing outside today are we?" I was only half kidding. Somehow I had this sneaking suspicion that something was a little off. The show was supposed to start at 4pm and it was suddenly being suggested that it was a Christmas party at which the people there might be expecting, or at least hoping for, traditional Bavarian folk songs. It was starting to get really cold and there was plenty of snow on the ground and there was an ominous feeling that there might be more to come. We had just made it over the alps (not very pleasant driving in an old van full of heavy equipment) when I had my prescient thought about having to play outdoors. Some part of me knew what we were about to get ourselves in to.
Kamil's friend Lance told us to meet him by the church in Oberaudorf. We didn't have directions but we simply entered town and looked for the steeple, clearly visible as the tallest structure in town.
I had a very strong first impression of Kamil's friend lance. He seemed like one of those nice, aloof, well off, good looking people to whom fucked up shit never happens. We drove up an absurd hill to get to his family's farmhouse. We then sat around in a quaint wooden house drinking coffee. Prior to having the coffee I brought up the fact that we were already running late and that we still had a 80k drive to get to the gig. At this point only an instantaneous transporter would have gotten us there in time to begin setting up at the time the gig was supposed to start. Lance just shrugged and said it would be no problem.
The road we turned on to get to the gig reminded me of a show I did many years ago with drums and tuba in Canada at what was supposed to be a spring festival. We traveled for ages on dark winding roads until we came to what we thought was the right road for the show. It was barely a road at all and would have been muddy except for the fact that it was freezing cold out. We paused for a moment before driving on. There wasn't a soul in sight and we assumed we must have taken a wring turn somewhere. All of a sudden, materializing seemingly out of nothing a guy in a wheel chair road up to us. "follow me," he cried as he bumped along in to the darkness. The show that night was pure hell. The cold made it painful to play and made the guitar and the tuba painfully out of tune. Some hippy later told asked us whether we wanted a copy of the show and I was seriously tempted to murder him in order to insure that it would never be heard by another soul.
The road we turned on to reminded me of that one but even snowier and colder. We drove along and I couldn't see anywhere we could possibly be playing. After a few minutes we came upon a decapitated wood barn. The stage was located in a small snow-free patch of dirt under the overhang of the roof. We lay down a couple of dirty worn swathes of astro-turf like material and tried to decide what to do. At first I felt like it would be completely stupid to play. If Kamil insisted I would go along but I would play acoustic. It's be insane to chance unpacking my equipment for a few Bavarian families hoping to hear some traditional Bavarian music. After thinking I figured fuck it. We're here already and we're gonna do something and I might as well go for it and see how people react to what I do. I would never again in my live have a chance to play for people so completely removed from what I do. I set up and got two songs in when I was basically shut down. Ironically it was a young blond Bavarian teenage girl who complained incessantly that I was too loud that got me shut down and not the plethora of octagenarions eating sausages and mulled wine. Since I could sense the beginning of a bad snowfall I was happy to comply with the suggestion that I was too loud and inappropriate for the party. One older Bavarian gentleman did thank me for playing and told me that he liked what I did very much and that I reminded him of "the New York underground." He became overjoyed when he found out that I had indeed travelled from the New York underground to Bavaria to play for him. Later, when it became time to join Kamil for his set, I discovered that my valves had become frozen shut. I packed the tuba away and called it a night. We finished the gig and of course it was left to me to pack up the van as everyone else either was wasted (steve/Mika) or exhausted (steve/Mika/Kamil). We had to stick around for a while while lance played traditional Bavarian songs on the squeeze box and later tuba ( he had his own in much better condition than my clunker so it functioned even in the extreme weather. He handed his accordion to an older gentleman while he played the tuba). By this time the snow flurries had become a full blown snow storm. We were trying to figure out how we were gonna tuen around on the icy dirt road when lance came up with a really bad idea. Just keep on going deeper into the woods he told us. This road eventually wraps back to where we entered. Kamil thought this was a great idea. He felt we would get stuck if we turned around where we were. I didn't agree but went along. We wrapped around a couple bends and Kamil took a turn which I knew couldn't lead anywhere. He has a tendency to panic when driving and make some strange directional choices. In this case he drove us into a deep patch of muddy wet snow in which we bece stuck. We had to hop out of the van. Now keep in mind when you have a 62 year old junkie and a 38 year old Frenchman who weighs under a hundred pounds helping you push a van out of a muddy snow trap you're pretty much on your own. Eventually we got the van turned around and going back where we came from but not without Kamil making some panicked tactical decisions which drove me a little crazy and not without me getting thoroughly covered with mud buried beneath slushy snow.
The ride back to lance's place was pretty much terrifying. Had there been another option we would not have driven those 80 kilometers. The highway was covered with snow and German drivers zipped by like they were simply having fun fun fun on the autobahn. When we got back to lance's tiny village we had to park at the hospital at the foot of the hill where he lived. There was absolutely no way in the world our van was gonna make it up that thing in that weather. Lance walked to his house to go get his "jeep" which turned out to be a vehicle so small that we were able to fit only by pretending to be clowns. Tuba accordion bags and five people made for an uncomfortable ride up a winding road. It didn't help that lance took the turns like he was driving a formula one race car on a dry sunny track. A couple times I thought for sure we would plunge off into the snowy abyss. I think for lance it was a funny lark that we played that party. Sort of a f you to the traditionalists. He never really considered explaining what exactly we were in for a Kamil never really thought to ask. Easily the stupidest gig of my life and believe me I've done some stupid ones.
The next day we drove to Prague in the heavy snow only to discover that Kamil's friend had sold the club a week before we got there and it had subsequently been shut down. We got rooms and a hostil nearby and went to a bar nearby that would be the oldest rock club in Prague (vaklav Havel hung there) except they no longer actually did shows there. We got really wasted and met some very drunk and very strange Czechs. 2 for 2 crap gigs. The next night in Dresden was at a squat. The space was tiny but we managed to set up and fit. Shortly in to playing the cops showed up and shut us down. 3 for 3!

Italian story II (the sequel)

We arrive at the show in Udine and we're pretty tired. Kamil had a lot of trouble with the sound at the last show so he was a bit stressed about wanting to get a real soundcheck and work on some songs. It makes me super in to the fact that I've made my sound and monitoring pretty fool proof either when I'm playing solo or when I'm playing as a duo with Mr. Garofano. Stereo line to the club and inner ears to monitor. It's hard to fuck it up. Even if the sound out front sucks I can always jam my inner ears in and it'll sound great for me.
I am not dying to work more on Kamil's songs but I do feel like I should do the job well (Playing somebody else's songs feels a bit like a job to me) and work on some stuff. Basically we have almost the 1st half of a good set and then the second half becomes embarrassingly sloppy to me.
The parking lot of the place has a very small entrance so we park in the street when we show up figuring it's not worth navigating the small entrance if we load in through a different place. Everybody gets out of the van and Kamil makes a comment about us being in the ghetto. I'm the last one to get out and everyone else has headed in to the building at this point so I lock up the van and head inside.
It turns out that Kamil has left his key in the ignition. As far as I can tell the keys are expensive and Kamil only had one before the tour so he made one copy and gave it to Steve because he's the most important of us. Of course, he's also the alcoholic who loses/misplaces stuff all the time. On this occasion he too has left his keys in the van. Kamil's first reaction is to yell at me about locking the van. My first reaction is to yell at him about what kind of a fucking idiot walks off with his keys in the ignition. I'm already feeling pretty sensitive about a lot of issues on this trip at this point and it is a fucking pain in the ass always having to track down somebody's help to get in to the van so instead of simply feeling like this is simply a problem to deal with I got really upset and took the go fuck yourself and deal with what could have been avoided had you given the spare key to me. Part of the problem breaking in to the van is that Kamil had made it very difficult to do so. Some futile attempts were made by the people who worked there but other than breaking a window which we didn't want to do people were stymied. Our host that night Jacamo knew a lock smith so we sat down to dinner and waited for him to arrive. Ages later he showed with a few crap tools and not a whole lot of know how. After an hour or so of deliberations and failed ideas he was able to get the front door cracked open by using a barely working pump and some wedges. The concept at this point was to push a rod through the crack at the top of the door and trigger the power locks to open. Unfortunately the protruding of the lock was very slight and it takes a significant amount of force to get the lock to move. Getting enough leverage and torque proved to be very difficult. The locksmiths tools were of very poor quality and the bendable bars kept snapping. At one point Kamil was getting close to opening the door and the locksmith was simply getting in his way and making things more difficult. Meanwhile it's getting later and later for the show. Finally after an agonizingly long time struggling with and against both the van and the locksmith Kamil was able to trigger the lock mechanism and open the door. We quickly unloaded and set up. The show sounded great for me but there were lots of equipment difficulties during the Steve Mackay set when we all played together. As per usual the first few songs went well and then things slid in to chaos. The guys at the club seemed happy to have me back so I was happy. Once again I was packed up 5 minutes after the show (a DJ started and people were dancing) and the rest of the band decided after a couple of hours to crash at the bed and breakfast and pack the next day...

An italian story

Mika and his band mate Rocco have a joke which involves the speed at which they pack up. When they pack up right after they are done that is referred to as American style. When they lounge around for a while and have some drinks before packing up that's French style. When they just leave their stuff and pick it up the next day that's Corsican style. That's pretty much how this crew operates. At the end of the show I pack up. Ages later the other guys start to deal with packing their stuff then just decide to make arrangements to pick it up the next day. Italian style is apparently somewhere out there beyond French style.
When we arrived in the early afternoon at Gabice Mare it seemed like a ghost town. It felt a bit like one of those post apocalyptic movies in which you're the only people left in the world. The town itself is a summer resort spot on the Adriatic. It has the feel of a cross between the village from The Prisoner and Atlantic City. The club was closed up when we got there so we headed down to the beach which was only a few blocks away. I'd never seen the Adriatic Sea before. It was cold and wet out but it was still cool to walk on the vast beach without a soul in sight. Eventually our host Roberto showed up at the club. Apparently we arrived during siesta time which explains why all the shops were closed and no one was around. We needed to change out one of the tires so later on in the early evening Roberto hopped in our van to show us the way to his buddy's shop. The plan was to run a few errands as well. Roberto owns a few bars and restaurants around town and is the perfect guy for a successful bar. He's gregarious and nice. The kind of guy you'll order extra drinks from just so you can hang out and talk to him at the bar.
Before we dealt with the tire we went to the Italian equivalent of costco. Roberto does all his shopping for the bar there. I thought of my dad as I walked around all the shelves full of bulk items. We picked up a case of non-alcoholic beer for Kamil and headed to the tire place. Roberto's buddy hooked us up big time changing out one of our tires and only charging 5 euros (he came to the show later and we hooked him up).
After that the real adventure began. Roberto told us that we just had to pick up the bass amp and then we could head back to the club. Next thing you know we take the highway to another town entirely and then we start driving up a mountain. At this point it's getting pretty late and we still have to get back to the club and set up (not to mention eat dinner). Roberto is very nonchalant about the whole thing. "No problem," he says, though when I do the math I don't see how things get done on time. Just roll with it, I tell myself as I take a deep breath.
So we're driving up this mountain and suddenly Roberto tells us to pull over in to the small parking lot of an apartment building. "Are we there?" we ask him. "Is this where we pick up the amp?" He doesn't answer and after about five minutes of waiting this young hipster looking guy appears out of nowhere and walks up to the van. Roberto let's him in and tells us to continue driving up the mountain. Ten minutes of climbing later we're in a little town at whose center is a castle. It's not the original castle according to Roberto. That was destroyed in the war and then they rebuilt it because "some people live there. Now we have some wine," says Roberto as he promptly disappears. We stand around for five minutes wondering where roberto went, talking to the young hipster guy who plays in a hardcore band. The mysterious practice space where the amp is located is further up the mountain and our van won't make it all the way there so someone is coming down the mountain to bring it to us. Roberto casually reappears with a chunk of roasted pork and bread. "Now we drink some wine," he tells us as he leads us to a bar nearby. The bar is occupied by a group of grizzled old Italian guys animatedly playing some mysterious card game whose name no one with us knows. The bar has an old men's club kind of feel and apparently on the weekends there are strippers who give lap dances on a chair in the corner of the room. Roberto buys a bottle of local wine which is very good. We drink and eat pork sandwiches. Gradually a few different people come and join us. At a certain point I'm no longer able to contain my overly American need to complete the task we are actually there to complete so I ask Roberto about the amp mentioning that we still have to get to the bar and set up. "I'll phone the club and tell them to have dinner ready for us," he says as we get up. Apparently one of the guys who was drinking with us at this point was the guy with the amp in his car. When we go out to his car to get the bass amp we discover that he only brought the speaker cabinet and not the actual amplifier. He gets in his car to go back up the mountain and get the amp and Roberto says, "let's go have another bottle of wine!" I check the time and decide it's time to get all anal American style and I explain that we gotta get going and we're gonna wait right there until the guy returns with the amp. Finally he does and we load it up and head back down the mountain to the club.
When we arrive at the club we furiously set up and eat dinner and the show starts acceptably late which in Italy is right on time. Kamil feels that the over all show is best if I play last because I'm the most danceable and loud of all the acts. He does have a point that it'd probably be a little strange going from the energy of my set to his but I suspect somewhere in there he just doesn't want to go on after me. Consequently, since everything in Italy starts so late and because Kamil and Mika are naturally slow to get going, by the time I play it is very late and lots of people have left. I'm used to that though as it just reminds me of playing our regular Friday night shows at Pianos. I kick it hard for whoever is left and I make it happen. Most of all though I figure I'm auditioning for the bookers, laying the groundwork for coming back on my own. Roberto is excited to do a show in the spring on my own and I figure this town will be really hopping when the weather gets nice (there was a really nice crowd of interesting friendly people who materialized).
After the show I pack up American style. Everybody else hangs out a drinks and finally decides to just meet up at 1:30pm the next day to pack up. I arrive promptly at 1:30 and wait around an hour for the rest of the crew to show. By the time we're packed and ready to go we're already running late to get to the next show. And that's before the obligatory getting lost. When we arrive in Udine that night at the club we lock the keys in the van and have to call a lock smith but that's a whole 'nother Italian story which needs it's own telling...

The first sick person

Well predictably Steve was the first one to get sick on tour. Mika and I are in the kitchen making coffee and tea respectively when Steve enters and announces his sick status. He says he knew it was going to happen after a week and a half living the we have. He's probably right but I diplomatically refrain from mentioning the possibility of endless chain smoking and consumption of pills and alcohol and marijuana until the wee hours of the night as having any connection to his body becoming tired and sick. At a certain point in his life a man deserves to live the way he wants to live without some self righteous prick telling him otherwise. Besides which he does have a point that Kamil said in front of all of us that we'd be staying in hotels. Not a big deal for me as I have not been expecting cushy accommodations but steve is used to traveling in comfort. Let me tell ya it's loud and smelly having four dudes sleeping at once in a room. Steve shouts talks coughs and farts in his sleep, Kamil snores, Mika is fairly quiet and I most likely snore or at least breath loudly. I generally put my headphones on in order to fall asleep. Last night I slept pretty well but was woken many times by steve's sleep yelling. Thank goodness I'm up early every day so that at the end of the night I fall asleep easily. Now the goal is to keep the sickness from spreading. Mind over matter...

I can see it coming

At this point I can see it coming on. We're waiting for dinner. The hand is shaking a bit. He's kind of quiet. It's a day off and we're in the middle of nowhere at a farm house 60k from Boligna waiting for our hosts to cook some pasta. Someone breaks out a bag of marijuana and rolls a joint which gets passed around. It's the calm before the storm. When one of our hosts cracks open a bottle of wine it begins. It gets evenly distributed and people start talking. The Mike Watt stories gently begin to materialize. It's when the home made wines get cracked that I can see where things are going. One bottle simply has a plain white piece of paper attached to it with scotch taped which reads in italian, "this may not taste like much but it's definitely alcoholic." It's a horribly sweet carbonated sparkling wine presumably made of something like apples. When tastes are offered he says, "why not. I am an alcoholic," and fills his glass. Other mysterious home made bottles appear and other joints get passed around and I notice his glass emptying faster and faster. It's when the rest of us are encouraged to consume more that I start to worry. In this race one never wants to leave ones competition far behind. It's too lonely traveling far ahead of the pack. The name dropping is really starting to take off and the kids are eating it up. "you know Mike Watt? He's my favorite," elicits a string of stories I've heard before. The Iggy Pop stories come out in an effort to really impress and a host of other incidental names and places meant to be recognized. He's talking faster and louder now though it takes a certain kind of effort to squeeze the words out like he's getting down to the bottom of a tube of paste and he squeezes and squeezes until suddenly something bursts out. The hand gestures are more wild and the sentiments and conspiracies become more heated and dark. Ever the entertainer he brings his crowd along with him but it's a second hand fascination. He's the square geek who figured out a way to hang with and be accepted by the cool kids. Finally when to smoke and stories become too much for me I wade through the haze of smoke and words and head upstairs to crash.
I wake up early in the morning with nothing to do. I take a jog along the endless rows of olive trees. It's been raining a bit every day so by the time I'm done mud cakes my cons. When I walk in to the kitchen he's already started with some rum he found on the top of the refrigerator. It's gonna be a long day. Way to much time alone with his thoughts and nothing else to do. The sound check for the show is early and the show starts very late so there's plenty of time to keep the buzz from crashing. During Mika's set I can hear him talking loudly to Kamil and I know it's gonna be a sloppy show. I don't really care but I am up there as well. Guilt by association I suppose. He forgets to play at times. At other times he starts up in the wrong key and can't hear the difference so he keeps chugging along. He yells really loudly between the songs playing the part of front man. People buy in though and those that don't are not noticed. It helps that he's foreign and has a history so that the crazy antics become quaint and even possibly exciting. I try to laugh it all off and play my songs afterwards, doing my best to joyfully exorcise all my darkest thoughts. At some point the next day, back out in the country house, Kamil sees him finishing off the bottle of rum and Kamil brings up the wild and loose play from the night before. Perhaps in an attempt to get him to focus better. There's a little double speak back and forth between the two of them in which neither is willing to really come out and say what they think. He knows that he can get lost in the haze but he doesn't wanna take it sitting down from Kamil so he tries to get Kamil to get specific. Kamil just wants to bring the situation to his attention without it coming to a head so he is unwilling to point out any specifics of where things went wrong. I get briefly dragged in to it when Steve tries to pull me in to it and tell him where he fucked up. I want no part of this confrontation. I know what was wrong but I don't care. The music isn't mine and doesn't really speak to me and I just wanna put my head down and get through it and remember to only selfishly play for myself in the future. He tells Kamil not to worry about the bottle of rum he found fridge and polished off. You'll know it's serious when he buys his own bottle of vodka and carries it around with him, he tells Kamil. Until then it is what it is...nothing to worry about.

My iPhone

I'm not sure if this makes me a dick or not but I love my iPhone. The power chord to my computer burned out so I'm basically using my phone for everything. Pictures. Movies. Games. Internet. Blogging. Email. Notes. I've been skyping all my calls which is super exciting to me. Calling anywhere in the world ( as long as I'm online) for next to nothing! I just wanted to put it out there that the shit is badass....

Roma

The place was literally an impenetrable fortress. We had driven all day and night from Saint Etienne to Roma. All together The drive ended up taking about 17 hours although that included a stop at an astounding recording studio in Lyon called perpetual wasteland where Mika (Chantel Morte) had to pick up a stack of 7" records. My first thought upon arriving at the studio was that I had died and gone to gear heaven. I wish Goat (my engineer and gear geek buddy extraordinaire) had been with us to experience an off the charts level of gear geekdom. I felt like I'd walked in to an analogue gear museum. There were ancient mixers and mics in perfectly pristine condition spread about like a 50s audio wonderland. I remember one of my strongest thoughts being that I was witnessing something incredible, like an American watching Italy win the world cup, but that I just didn't have the knowledge and tools and history and background to fully understand the magnitude of what my eyes beheld.
Back on the road at 'round midnight in Italy Kamil hit the wall and asked me to take over and drive. I knew this moment was coming but I was still nervous. Not only would it be my first time driving in another country (Canada doesn't count!), but I hadn't driven stick since I was living in Austin, Texas and I drove Cito's little Honda Civic around. That was more years ago than I care to ponder so let's leave the math out of it and suffice to say it was a long freakin' time ago. Long enough that I just wasn't sure I could pull it off. I'd been studying Kamil's driving (let me note here that thank god he's a very good driver because that might have been the back breaker...) trying to remember when to shift to what gear (maybe I should rename this a multi-gear post). Fortunately driving stick is a bit like riding a bike. I was rusty but generally had no problems (no grinding!). Right on the outskirts of Rome though the power cut and I had to do some side of the road shenanigans and I panicked a bit gear-wise having trouble finding 1st gear but other than that all went well. Kamil took over to do the city driving. I don't think I'm quite ready for Italian rush hour. As far as I can tell the only rule is that there are no rules. Late the next night we drove downtown on an errand for a couple of nice girls from Forte Prenestino and on the way back we parked by the Collesium and walked a circle around it. The moon was almost full and the sky clear above the walls. When we left Kamil pulled out of the parking lot making what we thought might be an illegal turn and there was a police car which promptly turned on its lights and pulled out in our direction. Kamil was worried they were gonna pull us over but I wasn't. At that point I couldn't imagine a traffic maneuver short of crashing in to something large that would result in a traffic ticket. Sure enough the
Police cruised right past us presumably on their way to get the Italian equivalent of a donut. Which reminds me that in the middle of the adventure we were upon for the forte ladies some home made tiramisu materialized that was out of this world deliscious. Kamil and I spent some time trying to find the short in the starter but it is elusive.
So there we were the morning of Friday the 19th (day of the show), after having driven all night to get to rome, parked on the bridge over the moat surrounding Forte Prenestino looking through a slit in a wrought iron fence trying to convince a man who spoke only limited English to open the gate and let us in. The battlements were about 40 feet high and there were plenty of places from which they could have shot us with arrows were they so inclined. Apparently we were too early and so the gates were still locked shut. We waited for someone to show up, and the vibe was slightly nervous as apparently Kamil had promised Steve both that there would be no over night drives and that we would be staying generally in hotels. Steve is probably used to such treatment in the world of the stooges where in I am sure there are people whose job it is to make sure he is comfortable. Instead we had just driven all night to arrive at another presumably dirty squat. Granted it was in an ancient fortress in an historic city so a little grime was acceptable from my stand point. Also, the place turned out to be well organized and there's obviously been a great deal of money sunk in to it. We waited for an hour or so but finally our siege bore fruit and we were able to breach the battlements. The place was a little deserted through the day but as evening wore on there were many rooms converted in to a variety of venues. Beneath the ground in the tunnels that stretched below the fortress was a fancy wine bar with live jazz. There was a juggling show in the main bar by the entrance. A dining hall near that where we had an amazing dinner of gnocci and some mysterious gamey meat. After eating I got some tea at the tea shop and then the show began. Chantel Morte played first and I got to really see him for the first time. I liked what he did. It was sort of a cabaret country with a dark French twist. He calls it "cat cave.". Like bat cave he explains but with cats. It was a tough crowd though and I dont think Mika had the best time playing. Kamil didn't want to go on after me as far as I can tell because he played next and did a bunch of songs and then brought us all to join him at a certain point. I suppose we would probably be called the Steve Mackay band if you had to give us a name but when we play all together it's really all about Kamil (his stage name is Koonda Hola which in Czech means "shaved pussy". It comes from a joke about a town that has a famous church with the bones of many dead people they preserved during the plague when there wasn't enough money to bury people. The name of the town and the words Koonda Hola which is the phonetic spelling have a really similar name. It's kind of a ten year old's joke and Kamil started calling himself that as a joke when he moved to the states to sort of remind himself that he was Czech. He'd play on the radio for instance and the guy would announce his name and it would make him laugh. Seems a little Frank Zappa puerile and sarcastic to me but that's a whole 'nother rant). One of my pet peeves is when a performer starts giving a crowd shit for not paying the right kind of attention to them. Like telling people to shut up or telling them to dance. In a good piece of literature for instance the author should describe things and allow people to make up their minds how to think rather than just telling them what they're trying to do and how they should think about it. The art should elicit the reaction you want and you shouldn't have to resort to telling people how to react. In these first two shows Kamil has sarcastically berated the audience for talking too much and not properly paying attention to him. It makes me uncomfortable being a part of this on stage. Look, if you want people's attention demand it by what you do. If you start yelling at people than how does that make the person who is enjoying the show feel? Either way, I feel you should do what you do and if people aren't responding how you want them to then maybe you need to look at yourself and reassess what you're doing. Trying to bring in the fringe viewers is challenging and fun to me. It's easy to entertain people who like you. The trick is sucking in the other people. Having said that there are whole histories of bands I love that take the opposite fuck you and everybody here attitude. I guess if you're upset be honest about it and straight forward and direct and don't hide behind sarcasm and indirect criticism. The music with Kamil is definitely getting better as we learn the songs although at the end of the set he plays two songs I've never heard before and I have to decide whether to noodle around or to simply not play. I wasn't in the mood to noodle so just like when he was berating the audience I simply turn my bell to the audience and hide completely behind my tuba and try and think about other things. When the set is finished it's close to 3am so I launch immediately in to Screaming Tuba before the guys in the band even make it off stage. I'm a little sloppy but I blow hard and clear the crap out of my system. I think the set goes over well but it's really late at this point and people don't have a ton of energy. Its all very pianos. Afterwards I have a few drinks and hang out telling jokes which I hopelessly try to explain until daylight creeps out of the darkness. One nice guy asked me if I had any guitar player jokes and I told him the one about getting a guitar player to turn down by putting sheet music in front of him and he seemed to instantly get a little offended as this wasn't true for him because he could read music. I'm fair though as I had already told him the one in which the difference between a tuba player driving in one direction and a frog driving in the other is that the frog might be going to a gig. Turns out a gig is a gig in Italian.
We're on our way to Pisa now running a bit late because I hung out all Sunday afternoon with Francesca, one of the woman from the night before at the market in Forte Presentino which happens once a month. The food was all mom and pop kinda stuff from local places and was unbelievably good. Everyone was happy and eager to share not because they wanted to sell you something but because they wanted to share the wealth of what they'd created or made or grown. I bought some incredible wine and cheese and bread and if you hovered around a stall for a bit the person whose stall it was would inevitably make you eat or drink something. The guy whose bread I bought (Rustic, mixed with olives and nuts) gave me some grappa like alcohol made from apples. It was amazingly both smooth and harsh at the same time. Francesca and I had about 3 or 4 different home made wines all of which were equally deliscious. As she pointed out things might be economically and politically fucked up but the Italians could still savor and appreciate the basic beauties of life including food and good company. At one point we bumped into a machinist named Mario who recognized me from the show and he bought us all a bottle of wine and told me that he never stayed up until 4am but that the emotion of the tuba spoke to him and he was very inspired. He was such an honest and good guy and probably the last person on earth I would have expected to enjoy weird tuba music so it meant a lot to me. Francesca liberally translated for the two of us and Mika came by and we all hung out together and drank wine until the last possible minute before we had to take off for Pisa. It's raining and dark out but I hear the people who are putting on the show tonight are great cooks...

The first show...

Upon our arrival in Bourges for the first show of the tour I had a bit of a WTF moment. It was a residence and not a club and we opened a gate and walked down a narrow alley and basically in to a backyard. We opened some doors and went down a short steep stairway which prompted me to make a vow not to crack my head over the course of the night as everyone had a story about doing so at some point (I did keep that vow. We flipped on the lights to reveal a small dark and dank basement. The entire thing was equally divided in to Four square rooms. At the bottom of the stairs was a little entry room. Strait on from there was a storage room mostly full of stuff. We turned left to the room in which we would play and my first thought was that there is no way that we will fit. The last square room contained a small makeshift bar. We set up so that I was crammed in to corner of the room as close as I could possibly get to the crumbling wall. As I set my stuff up water rushed loudly through the water pipe right by my head freaking me out.
I should note that I am totally paranoid about power over here in Europe. The one time I toured here was opening for the band cake about 8 years or so ago in the drums and tuba days. The first show of the tour there was a power surge that blew out a couple of my pedal power adaptors including the one to my whammy which is almost impossible to find. To this day I always carry an extra whammy adaptor with my equipment. Why they make those damn things so proprietary is a damn mystery but that's another rant entirely.
Almost predictably I'm setting up for the first show and one of my electrix repeaters starts to lose it. A bunch of the function buttons stop working. Including the record button an the undo button. It's possible that I could have dealt with this by setting up the foot switch to trigger record and by unplugging the machine after every song in order to erase the loops (there's no on off switch by the way which drives me nuts. Why build a complex machine which you have to unplug constantly?). We have a rehearsal as the full band which doesn't go very well (fortunately I don't need that repeater when I play with them. In fact I don't need most of my stuff. I just use a few simple fx). After the rehearsal while everybody else goes to work I try to fix the repeater. The record and undo buttons are in a separate chassis that I have never before been able to get open (another pet peeve of mine with equipment designed to never again be opened for repair). I discover a few tiny screws and next thing you know the innards of my repeater a strewn about all over the place. I did have an initial thought that I will be amazed if I put the thing back together and it works. What I discovered is that every button relies on a small strange looking rubber gasket and that some of them have mysterious expanded like they suddenly had thyroid problems. Maybe the pressure of the flight (although I've flown many times) or it got to hot at some point or the machines are just getting old and rubber is just not that reliable. The whole thing reminded me a bit of when Richard Feinman discovered the problem with the space shuttle explosion came down to some rubber o-rings which had frozen and broken in the cold. Even the most expensive and technological machines are only as reliable as their most cheap and simple parts.
So what the fuck was I gonna do? I figured out which buttons were absolutely essential and I swapped those out with the broken essential buttons. It was a serious balancing act getting the thing back together as each button just lightly sits in a small groove so that the slightest bump putting the face back on and the buttons spill out all over the place. Finally I got the repeater back together in one piece and miraculously it worked. I duck taped all the missing buttons so now it looks pretty ghetto. It was all a bit humpty dumpty. I had just enough time to eat some arigot and sausages prepared for us by our hosts. Arigot is a traditional French dish which is more or less super cheesy mashed potatoes. Deliscious. Unfortunately all the insanity of pre first show equipment failure had stolen my appetite because I wish I'd been able to eat more. After the meal Kamil comes up to me and says that they're thinking of not doing any openers and just having us all play together in his band. That wasn't gonna fly with me. I didn't shell out a ton of money and get my ass over here to play in his band. I was pretty desperate at this point to play my own songs and get my rocks off which I made clear and to which Kamil consented. I kicked a short good set and the place was packed and people were dancing and I felt much better! After that the whole band played and it was more or less a big sloppy mess. Kamil played a bunch of songs I had never heard before and i barely remembered the songs we practiced. Once again I got really frustrated that I did not receive recordings to learn prior to my arrival. The set seemed to go over well with crowd which just confirms by opinion that they're desperate for music here. Afterwards I was hanging out with some great folks (ah the French Wazoo's) and dancing to songs on the stereo when it occurred to me that I could probably play more if I wanted to. Chantel Morte concurred with this idea and he wanted to play and I wanted to hear him so I let him go first. He's a quiet guy and I have since found him to be the sanest person on the tour and probably the one with whom I have most in common. After he played I kicked another set and by the end I was feeling pretty well fulfilled. Let's just say it ended up being a lucky and wonderful night.
We were supposed to leave in the early afternoon but timing seems rather similar to a third world train. One pm departure is more like 5pm. Consequently after getting horribly lost due to gps craziness (we ended up in some serious backwoods parts of france. Red neck country franco style) we got to saint Ettiene too late to practice. We ate some sketchy kabobs (there are not many late night options in saint Ettiene) and crashed. The next day I woke up early and walked around. Its an old cool looking city. Noon rehearsal/ recording became more like 3:30ish. Once again trying to learn some songs I should know already. Too much time spent with music that's not mine as far as I'm concerned. Some of the stuff is gonna sound all right but it could sound a whole lot better. We took a break while kamilsky and I worked on fixing a short in the starter of the van and then hit a second session of practice. By this point steve mackay was pretty wasted on codeine and rum and hashish and was talking a non stop looping stream of intensity about every subject under the sun. The last song we played was one of his and he gave Kamil a hard time about not getting the lyrics right. By this point I was staring at my tuba wondering what the fuck I was doing with myself when I looked across the room and saw the same exact expression on mika's face. Mika offered to grab a drink afterwards on his way home (he lives here) and I gladly seized the opportunity to get away from steve's chatter for a minute. Mika bonded as we both have the same reservatiions and concerns. When I got back to Ives place (a super sweet man who let us stay and play at his place and even recorded us) steve was lying on the floor where my matters lay. Apparently he lost the keys to the apartment he was staying in and they couldn't locate the gentleman who lived there. He was still talking a mile a minute. Fortunately just as I was contemplating sleeping in the bathroom steve's host materialized and I was able to skype some calls and get some business done in quiet solitude. Thank goodness I got the new iPhone because the power adaptor of my computer burned out. That little thing is badass. I use it for everything now. It's truly amazing to call someone at their home while you are only operating on wifi. Tomorrow's gonna be a huge drive to as close to Rome as we can so I better call it...

Bands

I'm definitely remembering why I don't generally enjoy being in people's bands. I like doing my own thing. I'm fairly tasteful and I can usually more or less play what other people want me to but it's simply not that fulfilling for me. It seems like we're basically in Kamil's band as the main act on this tour. We furiously tried to learn as much music as possible in the very limited time we've had. I pretty much gave up on receiving recordings of the songs so at this point theyre all a jumble in my head. I think the attitude is we're good enough to pull it off. Tight isnt the aesthetic. My personal take is that its europe and everybody can play and has a thing going so it doesn't really matter (it frustrates me though not really having stuff down and tight. The dynamic between steve mackay and Kamil is pretty much emblematic of why I like to do my own thing. They'll bicker about how a song really goes, citing the recordings (which I have mysteriously been unable to get no matter how many times I ask) and I can tell it goes a little beyond just the music. Steve is basically in deep. I think the tour is longer than he had planned on and we're probably slumming it a little more than he's used to wish iggy and the stooges. We slept in a garage last night at a squat in Paris which was considerably nicer than the squat in Aimes we were in last night (think the pikey village from snatch). I had a little bit of a panic attack after the day's rehearsal. It was occurring to me that this was going to be a long tour and that I didn't know these people (when you don't know people it's hard to Gage the seriousness of their being upset and arguing with each other) and what if the shows suck and what if there are problems with my equipment (funny story here. I think I might have done real damage to one of my electrix repeaters during rehearsal yesterday. I was taking out my 4th valve slide to empty it of condensation (yes it's condensation and not spit steve garofano! Well mostly at least) and my hand jerked as the slide separated from the tuba and bumped in to the side of my electronics case. Condensation splashed onto my repeater and I didn't really think about it. Now the record Button is on the fritz. Hopefully it'll dry out and be fine. I rigged a pedal to trigger it from the foot switch but it's a bit of a pain in the ass. The show must go on though) and what if I don't sell any of my CDs and I lose tons of money and why didn't I rent out my room and why cant i speak any french and why didn't I just stay home! I think mackay has been thinking a few of the same thoughts (although he does speak french pretty well) only I'm a lit younger and healthier and I can just put my head down and get through the month a lot easier (I have to deal with a lot more equipment though. It does make me wish that I was just acoustic. I shoulda just stayed in new Orleans and played in brass bands!). I think we're both on the same wavelength about making contacts and having to start somewhere in Europe and I'm sure once the shows get going it'll all get a lot better. I sort of just wish I was simply responsible for playing my own music and that's it but I'm sure it'll all turn out well in the end. It really helped last night that after the rehearsal and my panic attack all the folks in the squat cooked a big communal dinner and they were really nice and some of them broke out instruments (cello, clarinet, etc...) and it was a really nice family type hang. Steve then told lots of good stories and it all reminded me that life is good. I writing this as I walk around the old city in Paris and it's early in the morning and people are going to work and the sun is finally threatening to come out (it's been all rain up to this point). Kamil's worked hard to put the whole tour together and it ain't easy booking. Bourges tonight. Hope it's a good show...

Follow up...

So everything made it and everything worked! First night of rehearsals. I'm trying to furiously learn all these songs. It's gonna work out and sound good but I really wish I had been given the songs ahead of time. I'm a quick learner but also a quick forgetter. Sometimes you lose track of lines when you're learning a ton of songs in a short time.

Flying...

Well I finally made it out of town. Every time I leave New York City I spend my last night wallowing in nostalgia. There's so much I take for granted there and for some reason it takes leaving (and coming back) to remember those things.
I'm flying over the Atlantic as I write this though obviously I'll be sending it later. I mention that because right now I'm having my traditional panic over my equipment. Did it make it onto the plane (I show up super early for my flights figuring that increases my chances)? Will it all function properly when I get there (this one freaks me out a bit. My setup is weird. If something breaks the entire tour is screwed. Some of my equipment is not easy to come by. One time I got my baggage and the guy who had checked my electronics case for bombs or whatever obviously couldn't figure out how to get the lid back on properly so it was barely shut. I got real lucky it didn't come off completely. My tuba case isn't so hot either but what's a few more dents in that thing. It's already banged to hell)? I'm really not sure what to expect on this tour. In addition to doing my solo thing I'll be playing in this guy Steve Mackay's band. I have no idea what the music will be. I'm not even sure of the instruments. Are we gonna get together and write stuff or are there already song ideas. There had been talk of receiving mp3's of music to learn but that never materialized. We shall see. For now I'm just hoping and praying all my stuff makes it to Paris intact and functional. Everything else after that is just icing...

Friday the 30th

This Friday's show was a pretty good one. The highlight was of course the appearance of steve's mom. She is what one might call a firecracker. My favorite part of the night was when we finished the first set and she had befriended two beautiful women who she prompltly introduced to her son as he got off stage. Nothin like you're mom pimpin for ya. At one point during the set I saw two women talking to each other and i could tell one was trying to explain to the other that the voice she was hearing was coming from the tuba. It cracked me up so I gave them a nod. I'm trying to be a little more aware of the audience and what's going on with them rather than just being completely caught up in my own world. The late Friday late night shows at pianos aren't really gonna get me anywhere as a musician long term. By which I mean anyone who goes to pianos late night on a Friday would probably never go to a real show and conversely anyone who might go to a regular show would never come to pianos late night on a Friday. So from an audience building career standpoint it's kind of a useless gig. But over the course of a night we can play to a lot of people and I really enjoy the challenging nature of the gig. I enjoy confronting someone who would never go see strange experimental tuba music. I like seeing their confusion and I enjoy the challenge of forcing them to enjoy something they never would have thought they'd like. This gig is all about that look of surprise on people's faces. Besides which you constantly read about people whining about the gentrification of the downtown scene and how's there's nothing experimental going on anymore and how you gotta go out to Brooklyn where everything is cool and hip and this is a little bit of my thumb in those people's eyes. Steve was working for Amy Arbus for a while and I remember him telling me about going to a party of a bunch of well off folks reminiscing about the old downtown days when crazy art went down and how those days are a thing of the past because nothing exciting or different goes down anymore. Well, as they say in new Orleans "fuck all y'all." you can say all you want about the dead end stupidity of playing electronic tuba rock music but I'll put it up against anything that went down at CBGBs back in the day creatively speaking. There's plenty of shit still going on out there people. You just have to make a reasonable effort to find it and if that effort involves squeezing your way through a sardeine can full of douchebag than so be it. Thanks pianos for keepin it weird in the face of normal

Everyone...

Everyone has a story to tell. I happen to have a particularly useless one...