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...