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04/02/2006: "feb 24 - mar 17 = 2006"

I went to france the other day. St. malo. They wanted giant sand for a festival there.
Ok. But I forgot it was a festival until I started to play the set. It is important not to play like you are in a small club to a festival crowd. They are not all your people, they have been getting high for hours if not days, and they will never be able to understand any gamble of the usual sonic endeavors steeped in the sensitivity of the improvisational moment of impact. You have to understand that to play to a festival crowd. So I should not have chosen a newly written piano ballad based on the state of affairs of the mucked up world at large. No sir. But zipping out of it with the piano to the tune of “shine on harvest moon” cracked me up enough to be able to then explode with a burst of tightly strung rockers for most of the set on guitar. When a woman came on stage and grabbed my hat to sashay up to the mic with lovely hip sway, I decided to keep it all business and yanked the hat back to my head without missing a beat in mid song. Thus, I am a yankee. The look on her face then was like she just woke up out of a spell, naked in front of a 1000 people. 10 years ago maybe we would have had a waltz instead, but not now. She ambled off the stage bewildered. Dang it.

Then rainer came on the big screen from our silent running video clips, and I had to stop everything and have them turn him way up. After that, I lost the thrust. When I began to engage severe guitar again, the rental amp blew up. I slid to piano and pounded out a rag while the stage crew switched out the amps.

Usually in europe, we always have a crew to help with things. Most times in the states we never do. The last time we had a serious roadie along, we turned him into the “friends of dean martinez”, which of course begat calexico. So sometimes it just seems like good luck to go out with no crew. Like there in france. Just 4 guys setting their own stuff up and playing some songs no matter what happens. And when something does go wrong, then that becomes part of the survival ethic. So, as I pummeled the piano, I peripherally kept an eye on the new amp that was being set up, and seamlessly switched then back to guitar to commence with the same song that was self edited so many triplets ago. We were mostly loudly coherent that night.
I hope.

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The next day I was off by myself. Train to paris. Nothing but a cold rain to greet me.
Same usual hotel there. Same favorite restaurant. Same soup de poisson. I am resembling that of an aging traveling salesman. I am living the so called good life as a character in “death of a salesmen”. My dad was a salesmen back in the day. I even allow myself the wearing of a turquoise bolo tie, albeit thrift store acquired, but still, one of the very things that we hated 25 years ago when we would get to open for X.

The next morning I met with the parisian business people, then another train to belgium to continue now to promote the next record. This is about when I think I began to get confused.

I was just in the thicket of all things giant sand, playing a lot of the new songs yesterday that will be on the next record, but now doing interviews in paris-brussels-amsterdam-london on the “ ‘sno angel” record coming out next week, but then landing directly back in new york for a solo tour that will still represent the last release from september, arizona amp and alternator, until I land a few days later back in ottawa to rehearse for the first time for the following month tour with the gospel choir, songs I recorded 2 years ago with them.

When I hit Ottawa, I was told of the 5 star review in mojo for ‘sno angel, and 4 more stars for AAAA. I could not rehearse very well that night thinking how much I did not sound like what I thought a 5 star recording artist should sound like and therefore, instead, how much I sucked.

Before all that, I babbled on about the record in brussels for 2 days.

Same thing in amsterdam. But apparently when the interviewer got done with me, he looked confused and then mumbled he was now late for his next appointment across town with joey burns. Meanwhile for me it was breakfast in brussels, lunch in amsterdam, and then the day would end with a late night dinner in london. Death of a salesmen style.

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New york was good once I got over my arm hurting from the day of travel getting there. I opted for dousing it with a medicinal vodka ace bandage applied from the inside, administered one bar at a time, there alone wandering the streets of brooklyn until a friend found me at the 5th bar. The night ended with me playing congas in a brazilian bar to a dj, and then getting in a cab and waking up at the hotel.
Death of a salesman maintenance again.

The show in Brooklyn was very good. Great crowd and great people running the south paw venue there. Great piano too. It was a pleasure not to drink at all. The arm seemed to behave. No pain. After the show the frigid winds turned against us humans.
I ambled off alone and found a car service back to the hotel. The room was large.
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Then up to canada. Montreal crowd was surprisingly full at the show and was also the first time me and drummer jeremy gara got to play again since we recorded ‘sno angel so long ago. Him and I were asked to open for a wilco stateside tour, but jeff tweedy opted to take the high road and head into rehab then. The tour emerged the following year with calexico opening, and jeremy had become the drummer in the arcade fire.

I headed to Ottawa next and during my solo show there, brought up the entire 14 piece band and choir for the last half of the set. It was a stunning sensation. I have never felt anything like this. Never had this feeling playing music before. If the idea was crazy to begin with, then what you have is a loco motive. And that is what it feels like when it all kicks in, choir and all, the train really starts tearing up those tracks.

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Then I was off again to a tiny town called kitchener at a sweet little soulful club there called the boathouse. It reminded me of pennsylvania. There I would meet the joan bissen who used to be married to that incredible piano player in the blasters, and herself a formidable player. 7 hour train ride there though had left me weary though.

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Next day I headed to toronto. I never do in-stores anymore, but since I have this cherished feeling that canada usually knows what it’s doing, I agreed to do 2. The one
in montreal was severely delightful and surprised me how many folks showed up, even though it was minus 20 outside. Now this one in torornto yielded my old buddy who shows up here when I play; mary margaret o hara. She is a hoot and a half and I adore her. She has a rare spirit that can stir the molecules in an entire room to a sizzle. Her sister looks just like her and used to be in a show called second city tv . Rainer and patty and i would never miss a show back in tucson when it was a ghosty tv town. So seeing her also reminds me of those best of times.

The other funny thing was a cd I discovered while there. They turned me on to this incredible gospel choir recording from 1971 doing only bob dylan songs.
A very good omen.

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So then finally I get to go home and wrap myself around the family.
The very next week is sxsw, and it always feels great not to go there anymore.
Not because I hate it, but because we had about a decade of great memories from doing it since 1989 when john and I were a 2 piece. After so many years there, they began to give us our own night to fill up with any bands we wanted to. We would have bands that no one heard of yet, but I knew were ‘lifers’; folks going to stick around and make a sonic difference. Medesky martin and wood, grandaddy, matt ward, vic chessnut and such.

And I also don’t go cause it’s my son’s birthday the weekend they have it.
But its good to have the bands roll through town here that are heading there. Good to see some old friends and check out some young bands without having to go anywhere.

So scout niblett came though town about then. Always love to see her. She alone is still is my favorite rock band. Had her and her new drummer stay here at the house. We went down and recorded a song at wavelab for good luck. A little bow wow wow cover mixed with the obvious bo diddley.

That same night she was set to play at solar culture. When we went down there, her set had been pushed back an hour and I was already restless and tired. I’m not good when bands go on late anymore. The moon was full and I opted to just head out alone for a bit before coming back to see her play. It was still bizarrely cold for the desert this time of year. I got in my truck and went to see where it would take me. I wanted to be alone for just a little while. I figured it was the moon.

That’s about when I realized I did not recognize the street I was driving on, which was impossible since it was down town tucson. I was driving up the wrong way on a one way street was why. Everything was turned around in a perspective you never see.
This was a shock. How did I do this ? I had not been drinking at all but I did feel a bit out of my mind. I blamed it on the moon.

So I yanked the car around and headed out of there. Drove up another block and then carefully chose the correct bar to head into. Figured maybe a single single malt might settle the restlessness. I picked the congress grill because maybe I needed a sandwich too. I got in there and tried to listen to the inner hunch to figure where to sit. I looked around and found the right seat to settle into.

Not a big deal. Sat down. Ordered up. And after a few minutes, the only table with people at it that were facing me, although clear down the other end of the restaurant began to stir and a woman started to walk toward me from it. I didn’t look at her at first. Kept just mulling over the newspaper in front of me, until she actually stopped at my table and said “excuse me, but I am the girl from the bottom of the canal”

[at this point it would behoove you, the reader, to scroll down here and go back and read my halloween story here in the diary section to get the full impact of this impossible moment]

She and her friends were headed to texas and only stopped in tucson for a moment, to take a break from the endless drive and get some food before continuing. And so it was at these precise few moments I happened into the same joint they randomly chose, and also just happened to actually sit in a seat that faced each other, just minutes after she told her friends the story of that fateful night at the bottom of the canal.

As we were dazzled by proximity, she recalled to me the very thing I said to her when she resurfaced from that torrid muck of canal dip, half frozen, half drowned;
“Now what’d you go and do that for ?” said i.
Apparently this has become something of a catch phrase now back at her local bar.



dang.

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