I am presently en route from Hamburg to Cologne with my trusty side-kick Témy. You’ve heard of Batman, yes? Témy is like my Robin. He’s been invaluable as a driver, roadie, lackey, and general yes-man. I mean, the guy just bought 4 cartons of chocolate milk – it’s like he thinks of everything.
Now I am three shows into my own tour, and we sadly just parted ways with Nadja (Binoculers) who organized the concerts (and shared the stage as well) in Hamburg, Göttingen and Kiel. All 3 shows were small and great. Our musics went together well, and the crowds were warm and quite patient with my stream-of-consciousness-mind-parade banter. We will miss Nadja greatly – her hospitality and music and her general heart and soul. We played a few songs together as well, and I do believe we have planted the seed for more future collaboration. If you ever get a chance to see Binoculers, do yourself the favour of checking it out.
Let’s rewind a bit: this whole adventure started over 2 weeks ago when The Luyas (in which I play lap steel) began their tour of France, as part of the festival Les Femmes s’en Mêlent. I felt free of blogging duties through that portion of the journey, satisfying myself with the rationalization that it might confuse people if I blog about touring with another band. Suffice to say that it was amazing. France showed us its cold weather and warm food; its old churches and its new sound systems. It was easy and fun, due in no small part to our tour manager/sound tech/driver/soul-guide, Remco. Remco is a superhero with his own side-kick built in; a bon-vivant authoritarian with the full spectrum of skills to babysit a bunch of Canadian wankers while letting them still feel they are in charge. We were blessed by great shows and great company.
Anyhow, since my own tour started a few days ago, the blog-pressure has been building to get in touch with you all.
It feels really good to be singing and playing my songs again. This new record has not been preformed very much (it’s not even out yet), and so everything is feeling very fresh and new on the stage. It’s a whole new challenge. I am approaching a new level of presence and interpretation with the songs. When the show is done right, I get an exhausted satisfaction of a good day of hard work. Something new has developed and worked it’s way into the experience, and I’m into it.
In a few hours, I’ll be playing in the early evening in a vintage clothing store in Cologne. I’d better get back to making mixed CDs to keep Témy happy (no iPod hook-up). Santo and Johnny to calm us down, and Betty Davis to shake us up.
Adios duders, chat soon.
xo MF