][[][][][][][][][][][ YEAR OF THE DOG ][][[][][][][][][][][
NEW YEAR’S EVE 2005 / 2006
The danes are in town. Giant Sand lives again.
I agreed to do a new year’s eve show because they were coming in to town anyway then. Calexico were doing their show the night before. The danes in giant sand like to hang with the germans in calexico.
The stage was outside. There were snow machines splurting out flakes too. it was a good set I think. Marie frank started off the evening doing songs from her new record, which is named after the song “leather”. The danes backed her. Then we took the stage dressed in our dusseldorf suits. Thøger in his snake skin. Me in my new black 3-d lizard skin. It finally made sense to have this suit. This is the suit I got off the train for on the way to that mysterious show in hamburg. I think it was worth it after all.
The evening was more fun then work. I was signaled wrong near midnight though, and brought up the bag piper who was supposed to play out the last few minutes before the clock struck 12. Instead he played almost 15 minutes of solo bag pipes. This was an interesting execution of excruciation. It almost made sense, seemingly symbolizing the crinkles of the year that had come to pass, and our endurance surviving it as a species. Plus, it made the band sound incredibly better after all that pipe work. So… happy new year.
JANUARY 5, 7, 8, 9 2006
We headed into the studio to finish the new giant sand record we started in århus last summer. We did some basic tracking in wavelab for just the one day. Then we took the recordings up stairs to another studio that “crackles” (what I call craig from wave lab) had helped set up. It was run by a young fellow who had been flooded out of new Orleans. His name is mike.
We continued there for the next few days. the unusual thing about this session for me is that it will be my first record intentionally recorded on pro tools. I want to see how much it matters. My feelings are that most folks out there now do not know, or care, about the difference in such sound recordings. This may prove something one way or the other, but it is a good time to try it out. Converters are a bit (no pun untended) better these days, so we’ll give it a shot.
JANUARY 10, 11 2006
I figured it might make sense to attempt some form of video recording whilst the danes are in town. Something live for a possible tour dvd. The house has been happily over run my visitation from denmark for the last month or so. It is a fine cluster here in clutter land.
So we give it a shot. We would just play a live set in an adobe room and have a camera rotating in the middle of us, slowly turning to capture everyone playing in a circle. The odds of it not working out were foreseeable. The sound recording would have to be clear enough and with proper dynamics. The circular motion of the camera was bound to make viewers somewhat sea sick and we would have to play well that day too. its always a gamble anyway.
If we were lucky, maybe there would be a full set there. If not, at least a few songs maybe. I figured on it taking a few hours, and I knew I was already lying to myself to get the job done. It took 2 days.
JANUARY 12 2006
We were flying up to Portland to do a show as giant sand. There was a film festival there that was showing the Tucson music film “high and dry”, and this will be the second time we get invited to help tie the film together with a live performance.
But it serves also as a good idea to utilize the proximity of the danes here. And Portland is always a good idea. Last time we were there it was a year ago november, election night. The big sport screen tv illuminating the train wreck re-election. And also the night anders almost put his eye out opening a guiness beer bottle with his “slide”, which is how it usually gets done, but the guiness people now put an extra widgit of gas in every bottle. So the bottle cap fired up with a shot gun blast hitting himself right in the eye and throwing his head back like he just took in the wallup of a 12 gauge.
This time, the setting was much healthier. We stayed and played at the doug fir. They have a motel right there, and a good restaurant and a great venue downstairs. We got there the night before, to help eliminate another ‘hamburg’ scenario, and rested up. Took in the night with matt ward and scout niblett hanging. It was a perfect evening. Rain too, just for good luck.
FRIDAY the 13th 2006
The day was slow and lazy. I have been having a few months of pain with something called a rotator cuff, so I was also able to have some good work done around the effected area there at the hotel that fooled me into thinking it was not so bad really. Back at the club, the crowd was the largest we ever had in Portland in all these years. About 325. That was a relief considering the show was set up only a month in advance.
We took the stage after scout niblett. She was dressed in her new skeleton suit, and we in our lizard skins. We played most of the new songs we were recording, which all rang true and sounded good to me. Then we brought up old scout for a screaming “remote control”, made all the more charming in her skeletal demeaner. After this we brought up matt ward, but he looked like things were getting a bit excessive back stage with the opening band, the quags. There was a distinctive wobble to the set from that point, but at its worst, only transgressed into something of a jam band, with all of our guitar riffs firing off each other. Which, if you are ever going to have to slip into such a context, I think Portland has a good history of such delve, and thus, unless you over indulge the gods of such display, it will all turn out better then expected. And it did. Big fun too. And then we came back for the encore and shoved an amazingly tight “nyc of time” into the night.
Yip. Another good night sleep at the doug fir.
JANUARY 14 2006
Ok then.
The plan was to pick up the rental car back at the Portland airport and drive it up to seattle for the show there tonight. Then drop it off at the seattle airport tomorrow and fly back to Tucson, for the final show there of giant sand for 2006.
So. Ok. We do. Everything has been simple and ridiculously on schedule. We fly outa Tucson the day after we complete 2 days of filming, which came after 4 days of recording, which came after the new year’s eve show and a couple days of gathering the new songs.
Then we get up the night before the show in protland and get fetched from the airport by old Tucsonian friend miranda. Then we get off a good show and leave the next day to pick up a rental to drive up to seattle. There we will be staying at the crowne plaza down town which will end up costing as much as a ratty motel room because of a little secret I now know about price line dot com. (note to touring bands; you have to go to biddingfortravel.com first, and you can then figure out what to bid for on priceline.com for hotels of 3 and 4 star caliber, instead of paying the same price on the road for ‘texas’ hotel ….or what we refer to as “lone” star hotels.)
On the way up to seattle we like to stop and get some pie at the old fire side café nestled in a hidden exit beside the high way on the kalama fishing camp grounds.
Then we hit the road again. Rain again once we hit the seattle perimeter. They are working on beating the record for rainy days in a row. That record is 33 and they are on day 27. I accidently get off on the correct exit which ends right in front of our hotel. Check in, but have no luggage, and then find the club which happens to only be about 10 blocks away. Neumos. We unload, parking spot right by the door, and set up. Its cold and rainy and making me sleepy. Unloading is a blast when you have no amps or drums. We set out the guitars and I open up my 30-06 rifle case, which houses my newly invented “pedal plank”… a step up from the usual pedal board.
Then ali the agent meets us with her new associate mary and sean from Montana, who helped me last year find the site of my future truck-stop there in livingston: the triple 2 truck stop, located at exit 333.
Tim seely opened the show, who was the fellow who opened up for us last year and turned me on to my new [and final] effects pedal, which is kind of a string thing.
We had a good show, although I fell asleep just before it. very sleepy from the rain. We donned the suits, and took the stage. The borrowed amps always have a different personality each night, and it is a professional puzzle accommodating their individual peculiarities there at the moment of impact. Tonight was a model called “ fender vibra-lux”. Not bad. But still slightly unconvincing for my usual display of sonic trapezoids.
It seemed we played a steady solid set. The kind of night that offered a second set hidden there in the encore too. and there was a fine crowd there too. About 255. I tell them the rain is going to end. this is something I have noticed over the years. The most common utterence from places we’ve played at over the years is: “hey… you brought the sun with you…thanks.”….but I also remember the opposite, that we have brought the storm too. We just have ended up being there when some climate change occurs. Not like we ever actually cause the change of course, we just signify it like a mile post marker. So it was a safe bet to notify the crowd there this night that their 27 days of rain in a row were about to end. They would not break their record of 33 days, which they were not thrilled about anyway. They had been tormented from the constant down pour. [And, earlier that evening, for a brief moment, we witnessed it turn to snow for a few minutes, then the rain remembered where it was and changed back to water.] so it was a fun splinter of entertainment to go ahead and play the odds and predict the rain was about to end the following day. Ok then. Punch the clock out, and get that day-is-done beer. The crowne plaza room beckons. Sleepy. Its now past 1:30. which is 2:30 back in Tucson. We load up what little we have and head to our current home for the night. Its warm and comfy. We just leave the car at the curb and it gets taken care of by invisible forces. Just take the guitars and pedal plank up to the room and crash.
JANUARY 15 2006
We get up. Head out to the airport. A good night sleep. 61 bucks for the room. 76 bucks for the rental car up from Portland. You can see how it works. We get to the airport at the exact time the car is due back. The plane leaves at 2:30. tonight’s problem looms back in Tucson. When I set up the show here, I just figured new year’s eve was still not a real complete giant sand set, and so I wanted to offer up a normal full on set that we usually deliver on the road for the home town since we have never played there with this new line-up. But I didn’t realize at the time when we set up the early set (we are supposed to start playing at 9:00) that the plane didn’t arrive from seattle until 8:00. That in itself could be a problem. But maybe if our man back in Tucson, doug, picks up and delivers all our gear there at the club, we would have a chance to just make it on time. Get off the plane, and get to the club for the show.
Unfortuneately, when I called to double check things, he happened to be in san diego. This could be a problem.
But that is part of the curse for me and my Tucson shows over the last 25 years. I have gotten kind of used to ‘em. Something always goes wrong, ever since I can remember, to toink with my shows there. I usually end up trying something completely new there and then that I never have tried before. It is usually a new piece of equipment or some kind of new idea of how to wire it all up differently. For some reason I get these overwhelming impulses to try these new ideas only when I am on my home turf. Plus, I am always over ridden with family duties and responsibilities, so I never have the “tour” mentality and focus that occurs on the road. I am a home town scatter brain with some new wires to clutter up my wear-with-all.
Ok then. We are on the plane in phoenix at this moment. It has been a stunning flight with mount ranier and saint Helens and the Columbia river and the sierra madres and the eventual mesas of black rock. Tons of snow down there. The light was an amazing slant of yippity.
Ok then. Here we go.
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we land in Tucson. Its 8:00. the luggage takes too long to get out, almost supposing it is lost in transit. But no. we head to the club.
We get there just when marie has started to cover for us being late.
We unload. And fortuneately, doug had called his friend shawn who has managed to deliver all our amps and drums and piano to the stage. Meanwhile 30 danes visiting Tucson on some kind of gymnastic tour have gotten wind that marie frank is performing tonight. They are shocked by the Danish connection here in the desert. They are all arriving as marie sings.
We then take the stage and do up a quick like check. So far so good.
Then we apply the suits they way mechanics slip into their over-alls.
We turn up and we are off and running. It is all and all a pretty fierce and full giant sand set, except there is a shrilling loud spoink every time I step on my “delay” vocal effect pedal. It is sad to see it cause such pain. Eventually I just do without it. but then the guitar is gearing up to just get mightier and mightier. I am trying out a new set-up. 2 amps. The sound is overwhelmingly big and loud and lovely. Until something starts crapping out. I will not figure out that it is the new pedal that tim seely turned me on to, until near the end of the set. This means the set could have been much mightier. But when I finally figure out the by-pass switch is not engaged, “space available” takes on a zepplin like massiveness unsurpassed. It is just huge.
Ok then. It looks like way more people showed up then expected here too. That’s lucky. So we finished up with the new quiet song “ out there”. And the first and last 2006 giant sand US tour is over.
Folks seem happy enough. But it is still a bit sad to see the dried crusted blood streams that have trickled there on their lobes.
Ok then. What next ?
howe on 01.18.06 @ 05:32 PM GMT [link]
