Steve Wynn Blog/Diary

Flight 105 to Newark

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I didn't watch much TV on this trip and I'm not going to start now, despite the seemingly impossible 11-hour duration of this flight (Robert will fairly point out that he has another six hours ahead of him as he heads home to LA). I had a look at the in-flight magazine and found a bunch of movies I'd never heard of before and a bunch of shows I wouldn't watch at home. On the other hand, there are certain shows I only watch on airplanes. I've never seen an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond while on the ground but somehow it amuses me at high altitudes. Can somebody please explain this phenomenon?

We played our last show of the tour at Tiki in Athens and it turns out that it was indeed a tiki bar, the only one in Athens according to our host Dimitri. Now, if you're a native Los Angeleno of a certain age (me and Robert, for example), you grew up with Tiki bars and Polynesian early-60's kitsch. I have fond memories of flaming bowl drinks, sugarcane shrimp and wood-carved totems that took on increasingly threatening stares sometime after the third or fourth Mai Tai. This made our 35th and final show a nice way to ease back into our return to the US. I've been fortunate enough to have a strong and enthusiastic following in Greece for many years (I would wager that I've played more shows in the country than any touring American rock musician in history-go ahead and prove me wrong!) and the warmth I felt from the audience mixed with the warmth I felt from the rum-laden drink that Dimitri placed on stage for me made for a joyous lowering of the curtain.

I've enjoyed this tour and the chance to reunite with Robert (and Erik) and explore my inner folkie. Reinterpreting my back catalog for acoustic instruments on a nightly basis has given me the chance to climb inside the material and see how the parts connect and how and why various things work and don't work. And that's the kind of thing that makes touring fun and interesting after all these years (not to mention the abundance of calamari but that's another story). I'll be doing more of this kind of remaking and remodeling when I hit the road in the Fall to support Crossing Dragon Bridge with a seven-piece band featuring two violinists.

And there's more to tell but I see that Alvin & the Chipmunks is starting in 3 minutes. Oh, the things I'll watch on a plane. Glad to have you all along on this tour. See you on the next journey.

The road to Thessaloniki

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

You just never know what's going to happen. Robert's tired of hearing me say it. He's right. I say it all the time but that's the joy of touring especially when you veer from the beaten path. You just don't know. We woke up in Belgrade at 5:30am on Thursday, the exhilaration of a wild sold-out show still buzzing in our ears and caught an early flight to Athens. Gotta give credit to our promoter and good friend Ivan for getting us to the plane on time. He had to be more tired than us and had to get to his regular gig of writing sports just a few hours of sending us on our way. We tend to leave a trail of disorientation and exhaustion in our wake. And then we move on. Who were those masked men? I don't know but they left us very tired.

We got our bags in Athens and had been instructed to look for a guy holding a sign with my name. Bingo. There he was. The guy didn't speak a word of English which more or less matches my conversational Greek. No problem. We got into his taxi and along with a mysterious older woman in the front seat (his mother? A bonus fare?) began a five-hour, 300 euro ride up to Preveza where we would be having a much-needed night off.

We stopped for coffee, we stopped for potato chips, we stopped for spanikopita. The roads bent, the roads narrowed, the sheep got fatter and fatter. We had no idea where we were going or when we would get there, GPS Jane long since retired to her Deventer home. Around 6pm we arrived at the home of our promoter Photini and her partner Yiorgos. Their apartment overlooked the sea, their entire basement had been converted to their own personal dream playhouse-a fully stocked bar and possibly the largest record collection and best stereo I'd ever seen. They met us with the magic words: are you hungry? Things were looking up.

And thus began 36 hours of tourism-both historical and edible. Ancient ruins and freshly caught cod and calamari blending together, uniting the old and new. The show in Arta was sold-out, packed, supposedly the event of the season which may have been true since as far as I could tell it was the only such event of the season. (I'm not sure if any other touring American artist had played Arta any time recently). Turns out that most of the locals had usually made the same five-hour drive to see us play in Athens and were quite grateful to not have to make the drive this time. Such gratitude spun itself into enthusiasm which we soaked up and gave back in the form of a lively and very long set.

Each evening ended with record-spinning, beer sipping, cheese-eating and tale-telling back at Yiorgos and Photini's. It was hard to leave today. But the Lone Ranger and Tonto are not permitted to stand still. It just wouldn't make sense.

Belgrade

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I'm killing three hours here at the Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport in the middle of the afternoon while I wait for Robert to arrive and meet me from Rome where he has spent the last three days. I guess I could have caught a ride into town and told him to find his own way when he arrived but it's his first time here and I wanted to show some solidarity, an important commodity while on tour. Besides, I love hanging out in airports. I'm not kidding. I can read, listen to music, catch up on email, be alone with my thoughts and engage in some very interesting people-watching. Look! There's a guy in aviator shades and some kind of racing jacket. Maybe he's a Formula One racing star. There's a kid with a little stuffed animal that she's tossing left and right and smashing to the ground. Remind me not to come back as a stuffed animal in my next life.

Being at the airport with some time to kill also means a chance to catch up on this very road report. The last few days have been a hodgepodge of sorts, mixing purpose and modes of travel and musical company and, of course, food. In the space of 5 days I have gone from performing as a duo with Robert in Norway to returning to the Power Folk Trio format for two warm days in Italy before leaving Robert and turning into the Willard Wynn Conspiracy Syndicate in Dortmund where I played with Robert Fisher, Erik and Yuko, concluding with a fierce and fuzzy version of All Along The Watchtower (Mr Fisher releasing some serious demons as he channeled an afterlife Jimi to my tour-beaten Zimmy). And then it was off to Berlin where I turned into a hybrid of solo acoustic troubadour (at Berlin Guitars-the German counterpart to LA's McCabe's) and interview-spewing hype machine (interviews with Berlin's Radio Eins and the German edition of Rolling Stone).

Okay, if that last paragraph made you tired, imagine how I'm feeling right now. Tired? You imagine wrong. I'm into my third shot of espresso at this airport café and eyeing #4. I hope they don't cut me off.

The road to Dortmund

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Impossible Travel Week continues today as we are in the midst of a 12-hour, 600 mile drive from Reggio Emilia to Dortmund where I'll be playing tonight at the Subrosa club. Robert has been left behind for three days of rest, recuperation and sightseeing and epicurean delights in Rome as this is primarily a promo trip for my new album. Erik and his sister Astrid have been handling all of the driving since we left at 7am. I keep volunteering to drive and they keep laughing. Really, guys, I used to drive. LA born and raised. Car culture, grew up on the Santa Monica Freeway-all that stuff. Buy, hey, I'm happy to play DJ (Them, Jayhawks, new Spiritualized record) and sit here and to be your very own GPS system from the back seat.

I could tell you about last night's show near Reggio Emilia. Big rock club packed with enthusiastic fans and the last show for our touring trio (Robert and I will be a duo for the last shows in Serbia and Greece). But I think it's time for.TOUR FOOD UPDATE.

Rajkot Indian Tapas (Bedford, UK)-our promoter Mike took us to this local joint promising us that it was the most authentic Indian restaurant in the city. We were not disappointed. Along with our guest violinist Josh Hillman we sat down and put together our order only to be seriously lectured and edited by the proprietor who plunked himself in a chair right next to me and told me why I shouldn't order Saag Aloo (you can get that anywherer-it's not even Indian-it's Bengalese) or Garlic Nan (it disguises the taste of what you're eating) and proceeded to pretty much order for us. I knew we were in good hands and that the Rajkot Daal was one of the best things I've had on this tour. (www.rajkot-tapas.co.uk)

Di Paolo (Rome)-This is a regular stop for us on tour as it's just around the corner from Big Mama where I am practically the house band. Another place where they pretty much tell you what you're going to eat. Maybe you get a choice of two pastas or two main dishes but that's about it. Very simple, very great. We were all pretty excited about the ravioli (with spinach) and the scalopine. Oh, and the proprietor is a bit of a joker. Erik ordered a grappa at the end of the dinner and the guy brought a shot glass of water just to see our reaction. Erik, of course, threw the shot glass in his face and a riot ensued. Just kidding! Really. I'm not serious. Can we bail Erik out of jail now?

The Place I Can't Remember Last Night in Tanneto Di Gattatico (near Reggio Emilia)-I have to remember to get a menu or business card when I leave these places. One of the best things I ever ate in my life was a Fileto di aceto di balsemico in Reggio Emilia years ago. It was a steak marinated for seemingly centuries in the best balsamic vinegar in the universe. I have tried to find that dish many times since then and it was right there on the menu last night. Okay, not the revelatory experience of the first time but pretty close. Add an antipasto of fresh seafood to the mix and you have one happy band. Ordered grappa and got.grappa! Will wonders never cease.

And that's it for now. There was a goulash at the truck stop today but I'd really rather not talk about it. Should have ordered what the other truckers were eating (schnitzel and beer). Always a good rule. Okay, let's check in with Jane the Queen of the GPS-how much longer Jane? Three hours? Wow. Is it still 2008?

The road to Reggio Emilia

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Well, I was going to write more about food. And music. And Highways. And GPS systems. But then I realized that I am blessed to here with a Professional Writer, a legend of journalistic skills, the King of TV analysis (for the Los Angeles Times). Ladies and Gentlemen.ROBERT LLOYD! Robert, what are your thoughts as we leave Rome?

Leaving Rome. The Romans invented graffiti (I think) so it's not surprising that the city is heavily scribbled upon, but it's mostly American style tagging; trains that might have been rolling through Manhattan in 1980 back in the days of wild style, South Centralesque curlicue autographs, bored teenager stuff. Then there were people n horseback, and some sheep, and now we're in the country, where nothing is written upon. This is not on the American model. Big Mama, where we played last night, is on the American model, but an older version of it. They play the blues there. (We played some blues, too, but we are blues tourists as much as anyone.) There go some goats. Well, actually, the goats were standing still, we're moving. There are leaves on the trees here, and flowers in the fields, which is not the only thing that sets Southern Italy apart from, say, northern Germany, on the Ides of March, which it is today. We were in Rome on the Ides of March, though I didn't see anyone celebrating the day, not that we around long to see it. There is a marathon tomorrow, and of course, Marc Antony was in a race around the city on the day that the soothsayer told Caesar to beware the Ides of March, so maybe that's related somehow. Caesar was stabbed in the Forum and several other places. The mountains in the distance are a kind of pale blue. We are going to Reggio Emilia which is probably famous for something. Last night we played a good version of Merrtitville, which is not a name you'll find attached to anywhere here. It was the moment in the night where I thought okay we're playing some music now, where we were listening properly to one another and hit some interesting unsought for mood and groove. Sometimes you're just filling the air with what you hope will at least be appropriate noise, but you're not necessarily playing music in a way that's satisfying to you. That might be imperceptible to the audience, or shouldn't be if you're doing your job right. Anyway, that was a good moment. Tonight is the last show with Erik which makes me sad, because I have no obvious prospect of playing with him again after this. There are a lot of nice greens outside, with yellow in them. Erik and his sister Astrud (Astrid?) are speaking Dutch in front. Nick Cave is on the car stereo. I like Nick Cave but I don't love him as much as some other people in this vehicle. I know he's good, but I never put him on for fun. We've got some nice altitude here now, over Italian valleys. The funny thing about the world is that it really looks like where you are. Italy looks exactly like Italy, there's no mistaking it. As far as Australians go, I'd be more likely to listen to Paul Kelly than Nick Cave. But that is just me. Today is a day I don't have to be on an airplane, which is good, that is no fun at all, but there still a lot of them to come before I get to go home. Oh look there are some cows, and some steers, or all they bulls, or is it all the same thing? Emily would know. She was flipped by a cow once. She was giving it a haircut. You wouldn't think a cow needed a haircut, but some cows get them, if they're, like, show cows. Those hillside fields we're passing feel exceptionally Italian, to my Southern California mind. Italians come to Southern California and find things exceptionally Southern Californian, I would think. Venice Beach (notwithstanding the Italian name), visitors quite like that. There goes a river. Again, the river was standing still, but we are all at the still point of the moving world. (Well, actually, the river is moving, but in its own riverly direction.) T.S,. Eiot wrote something like that. I mean, he used some of those words, possibly in a similiar order, I would need the poem in front of me to work out if we were making a similar point. Steve is punching his Blackberry, he suffers from that modern disease. There are some young folk playing soccer in a field. There are some unblooming grape vines. I hear Italy is known for its wine. That's what they say. There goes an SUV that says Let's Get Lost n the side, which is probably not meant as a reference to Chet Baker. There is a sign that says Firenze, which is Italian for Florence. Italy has its own names for cities, I don't why they just don't use ours. They're already copying our graffiti and playing our blues and wearing our jeans. Of course they look better in them than we do.

It's Steve. I'm back again. But what else is there to say? Yes, the Blackberry thing. I was typing out a response to a Greek interview request. An affliction? Nay, an obligation, Roberto. [Not everything is a response to a Greek interview request - the accusation stands - Robert.] Reggio Emilia is famous for the evening we're going to have tonight. At least that's the fame that it will have in our lives tonight. Someone told me last night to expect good wine and good food and a good audience. That's enough for me. And Robert, too, I assume.

Rome

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

All roads lead to Rome? Well, we are certainly proving that today. Robert and I woke up at 4am in our Bergen hotel (after finishing last night's gig just after midnight) and made our way to the airport for our 6am flight to Oslo, connecting to an 8:30am flight to Rome. Sometimes this touring stuff is a matter of will, riding the adrenaline of the night before to the anticipation of the night that will follow. In the meantime, Erik and his sister Astrid have driven down 1000 miles from Deventer to meet us with the van and the equipment. Not all days are this crazy or this challenging but these are certainly the days you remember and talk about when you are in some bar and boring all of your friends with hoary old road stories.

Not only is today a stretch of distance but also one of environment and culture as well. Last night Robert and I were walking through cold, rainy Bergen streets (38 degrees outside), holding our coats tightly to stay warm and ending up in a café near the club, eating monkfish that had been caught hours earlier off the Western Norwegian coast. Now it's 2pm and we're just coming back from lunch down the street from our Rome hotel. It's 70 degrees outside, I'm dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and fresh fish has given way to a plate of gnocchi with clams and mushrooms with only 18 hours separating the two experiences. Erik and Astrid are in the center of town checking out the sites (it is her first visit to Italy, after all) but I think I'll just explore the inside of my eyelids and get ready for tonight's show. It's been a long day.

Rica Travel Hotel, Bergen

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

A lot of people ask how I find the time to write these diary entries on the road. It's easy. Just put yourself in the back of a van for an average of six hours a day and you end having plenty of time for reading, listening to music, napping, staring out the window and, possibly, documenting your life outside of the van. But I haven't seen the inside of a van for the last week as we spent a few days in London and then began this Norwegian leg of the tour that has involved flying from town to town. Really, it's the best way to go. I've nearly had a few gigs cancelled by trying to navigate the windy, two-lane mountain roads from Bergen to Oslo.

So, it's the daily routine of taxis, shoes-on, shoes-off, laptop-out-of-bag, laptop-back-in-bag, buy water, drink water, hunt for newspaper, seek out local promoter after baggage retrieval. And look! I just shared a bulk of what has happened in the last 48 hours.

But that's not all.

We had really fun shows in both Oslo and Trondheim, fielding requests for songs both old and new with the deftness of a left-fielder taking caroms off the Green Monster in Fenway Park (ask your baseball fan friends). Fortunately, Robert knows many of my songs and, on a good day, so do I. We played many songs we hadn't played together before and the tightwire thrill of getting from the start to the finish without too many missteps added a nice adrenaline to the evening.

And did you think you were going to get off without some talk about food. Forget it, bub. The Credo club in Trondheim is a touring musicians dream. Upstairs is an intimate venue with great sound, a great bar and friendly people. The audience is close to the stage and it almost feels like a house concert-providing, of course, that your house has several beer taps and a full PA. But downstairs! Well, that's what makes this club unlike any other. The dive bar/rock club gives way to a five-star restaurant. No menu. You walk in and get a five-course, paired-wine, tasting meal that lasts 3 hours. Fortunately we had just about that amount of time and I won't bother cataloguing each and every dish but suffice to say that Robert and I were very happy. And happy musicians play good music (despite any rumors to the contrary). I recommend that all of you plan your next vacation for Trondheim merely to visit the Credo club and restaurant.

But that's all for now. Sound check beckons and then a gig here at the Garage before we catch a 6:30am flight to Rome. And then? Get in the van, as Henry Rollins would say.

Flight 669 to Oslo

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Well, that was a rough takeoff. Robert and I are flying out of Heathrow one day after a storm that had been labeled a hurricane and had stopped most travel yesterday. Erik was meant to catch a ferry back to Holland with the van and our gear (he'll be joining us in Italy on Friday) and ended up stranded in London when all the ferries were canceled. His loss in more ways than one since he used the big-city reprieve as a chance to take the tube down to Sounds of the Universe in the West End where he bought a stack of soul, jazz and reggae CDs as well as a copy of the new Nick Cave as a belated birthday gift for me. What a guy!

So, now it's just me and Robert, the Dynamic Folk Duo for the next 3 days in Norway. I have a feeling that the sets will change quite a bit from the trio shows we've been performing. Then again, it couldn't be much more of a radical departure than our London show at the Borderline where we had a cavalcade of guest stars. Willard Grant Conspiracy violinist Josh Hillman joined us for a backwoods version of See That My Grave Is Kept Clean and Punching Holes In the Sky. Chris Eckman was in town one day earlier to catch the Neil Young show and stuck around to revisit two songs he produced last Fall-Love Me Anyway and Manhattan Fault Line, the latter which found us adding Yuko Murata once again to the mix on keyboards. Yep, the ensemble kept growing. I figured that eventually the whole audience would be on stage and I could just sneak out the back door for a curry down the road. The band ebbed and flowed for the rest of the evening until I called my old touring and recording partner Chris Brokaw (in town to work on a documentary on Storm Thorgeson) to the stage to add guitar to a very free-jazz version of The Days of Wine and Roses. What a night! You certainly needed a scorecard for this one.

This is one of the many things I love about being on tour. You end up seeing old and new friends in all kinds of places. And the great things about having musicians for friends is that you can call them up on stage and catch up in the form of notes and grooves and dynamic shifts right on stage. Why ask questions about health and work and weather when a well-placed A-sharp minor will do?

But all of that seems like a distant memory now as I look at a packaged snack of a coronation chicken sandwich and a Breakaway candy bar. Why was the chicken coronated? My spell-check tells me that coronated isn't even a word. Does the chicken know that? Is a Breakaway candy bar different from a breakaway nation and can it be responsible for a Civil Snack War? Couldn't we just cut out the middleman and have a Breakaway Chicken and skip the coronation altogether? These are the things you wonder when you're high in the air, shaken by turbulence and heading north north north north. (MARCH 11)

The road to York

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

One man's heaven is another man's hell. Right now we are driving through the Northern England countryside and listening to a Grateful Dead board tape from 1972. Heaven? Hell? Please, don't all speak at once. Robert actually took me to my first and only Dead show in 1988 and was the one who made me appreciate a band that I had previously associated with the kinds of people that a punk rocker like me was trying to avoid during my college years. I wouldn't say that I'm anything approaching an actual Deadhead but I do like selected albums (American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Jerry Garcia's first, bits and pieces of others) and also some of their live stuff. Robert's a bigger fan. Erik is gamely giving it all a chance. Let me see if he's digging it-pause-uh, he says I'm digging it. I like it. Uh oh, watch out. Get ready for some long jams over the rest of the tour.

I have not been blessed by the Lords of Wifi recently and that's why this diary/blog/gonzo news reporting has slowed down to a crawl. But it's not for any shortage of activity. How shall I bring you up to speed? At length? No, my friends-you have things you have to do and my fingers are worn to the bone by a long show last night in Newcastle. So, instead, here are the highlights.

--Sharing a bill last night with Peter Case. He and I have been pals since the early 80's when I was a fan who became a friend. We meet up for gigs in the oddest places and it's always a chance to swap stories. He's quite the storyteller. And he taught me how to use my new DI (direct input box for acoustic guitars). And he's such a great guitarist and entertainer. I always try to learn a few tricks from the masters. This morning we traded horror stories of theft on the road over a big heart-clogging English Breakfast (do you really need sausage AND bacon?) I wish we were doing more shows with him.

--Sold out show in Antwerp and the longest show of the tour (longest being a relative term while listening to a Dead show. I think our longest set was still shorter than some versions of Dark Star.) Great show, great meal and an interview with a journalist from the daily paper De Standaard who told me that he had interviewed Paul Weller a few weeks earlier and was told by the former Jam leader that he though I was one of the most important American songwriters of the last 25 years and that he used tickticktick to vibe himself up for shows each night. I'm not kidding. As someone who loved the Jam as a teenager, I was very touched and Erik and I celebrated all of the above with some fine Trappist Beer in the center of the old town at 1am while listening to blasting disco versions of the Chattenooga Choo Choo. Really, you can't make this stuff up

--Playing Lester Young in Leicester. Get it? Clue: check the pronunciation of Leicester. I will happily derail any set for a good pun

--Staring at the new Nick Cave in Sainsbury's and debating whether or not to buy it. Robert said I should. He's right. I'm a huge fan and his last solo album (The Lyre of Orpheus/Abattoir Blues) is one of my favorites of this young century). I just can't get over the weak dollar. The CD was 12 pounds and that works out to about 673 dollars right now. Still, I wish I would have bought it.

--Typing an email to my baseball co-conspirator Scott McCaughey in my hotel room after the show in Leicester and then turning on the TV and seeing him on the screen playing a show in Dublin with REM. The world keeps shrinking.

Well, I would tell you more but I have to check out this guitar solo. Go Captain Trips go!

The road to Leceister

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Time warps in strange ways on a long travel day. Yesterday we spent 11 hours on the road traveling from Deventer to Calias (5 hours) where we waited for a ferry (2 1/2 hours) that took us to Dover (90 minutes) before we hit the UK and began our drive to London (2 hours). That would end up being four countries, several modes of transportation and finally an arrival in London at the home of Barry Everitt where we recorded a five-song session for his radio program (times and links soon to follow). Was it still March? Was it still the same tour? Hard to say after a while but I was grateful to gain the hour as we crossed to the UK. You save up those hours whenever you can even if you have to give them back eventually.

And now the tour of the UK begins. Our green van moves to the other side of the road but our GPS voice-of-reason-navigator Jane is on home turf, her calm British tones confidently instructing us through roads I must assume she knows and warns us of police cameras and other speed traps. Thank goodness. I don't know how people find their away around London. New York is much easier. How do you get from 96th Street to 110th Street? Drive 14 blocks, you fool!

And on we go. With a much shorter drive today.

The road to Antwerpen

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Short drive today. Do you hear me complaining? Oh no no no (they tried to make me go to Antwerp I said 'no no no') you do not hear me complaining. Three straight days of 6 hour drives has made us all a little road weary-burnt, crispy, baked to a crackly crunch, much like the pita chips that have been in the van for the entire week and which will most likely survive the end of time along with cockroaches and Keith Richards.

Yesterday was only my second gig ever in Luxembourg and it was a really good one, much better than the first. That show was in 1999 on a bill with Rich Hopkins. It was a strong double bill and we were all stunned to find a really bad turnout. But last night was another story. We played at the new cultural center-a classy gig. A grown up gig. A theater with nice seats and great sounds and flashy lights and lots of people. I thought I was an 85-year old jazz legend or something. Or maybe Garrison Keiler. I'll think about it and let you know.

Oh, and there was a great meal after the show. I love eating after the show. You can sit and relax and eat all of the things that would make you sluggish or vocal-challenged. Me, I was all over the escargot. Hey, I love the little snails but am mostly in the game for the garlic butter. Tastes great, keeps the vampires away and I swear all that garlic will keep you healthy. That, and the cognac that ended the evening. Vampires hate cognac.

Speaking of healthy, Robert continues to fight his tour-long bout of fevers, sore throats, coughing and laryngitis. Poor guy. He plays great every night but he's playing in pain. He's like Sandy Koufax, he's like Willis Reed, he's like-well, you can insert your favorite sports star here. But after the show someone stole his antibiotics from the dressing room. No kidding. Somewhere in Luxembourg, some thief is really, really healthy. Street value of 20 euros. The black market thrives.

Is that it? Are we almost there? Looks that way and Erik is hunting for some Belgian fries in a big way. Over and out.

The road to Luxembourg

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Now, there's a title I haven't typed often. Tonight will be my second-ever gig in the country of Luxembourg, a country that mystifies me. Been asking Erik a lot of questions about it but he doesn't seem to know much so it's a good night for research. To paraphrase Nigel Tufnel, the people of Luxembourg-nobody knows who they were. Or what they were doing. I'm on a fact-finding mission.

In fact, today has been a good tourist day. We played the Panorama Museum last night in Bad Frankenhausen (a former East German city whose name almost combine the titles of two Andy Warhol films!) Really fun gig with lots of people in the foyer of the museum whose main feature is a 360-degree mural that is about 40 feet high and 350 feet around (13m by 130m for the European readers) and covers a 16th Century peasant uprising in the region, the invention of the printing press, the influence of Martin Luther, various other battles, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel. Sadly, we got to the venue too late to check it out last night but we made a beeline this morning to get there in time for the opening. Amazing. It looks a lot like a less lysergic version of Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights and 30 minutes of checking it out just began to scratch the surface (well, we didn't actually scratch the surface-the guard would not have liked that). You can check it out and find out more info (it was painted in the 1980s and completed a month before the wall came down) at www.panorama-museum.de.

Okay, kids, stop looking at your watches. Class is almost dismissed. But first I wanted to give a shout-out to Dietmar, Marion and Johanna who invited us (along with our pals Jaap, Corrie and Yuko) into their home after the Essen show for a night of great food, cocktails, Lucinda Williams records, chatting and a good night's sleep. Hotels are wonderful but sometimes a few hours of actual Home Life can be a wonderful thing. Happy Leap Year.

The road to Essen

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Nothing like a nice hotel. When I saw that we were staying at the Renaissance Hotel in Karlsruhe I thought, wow, the hotel here has the same name as that swanky chain of hotels back home. Well, it was more than coincidence. This WAS the swanky joint back home. Now, let me tell you, dear readers, I'm not one of those rock stars who can only stay in 5-star hotels. We do our share of pensions, roadside convenience establishments and club accommodations. But every now and then on a six-week tour with days off few and far between, you give thanks to the heavens when you get a top-notch hotel rooms. The skies part and the angels sing when you see a full-size bed, a deep tub and a few channels in English. The breakfast was voted Breakfast Of The Tour by the Current Touring Combo (the CTC board being on par with the Michelin Guide) with highlights like smoked salmon, horseradish spread, baby Bonbel cheeses (I'm a freak for those) and both herring and sardines. Please please, don't you all cringe at once or I'll be forced to tell you about my love of ham/cheese/nutella sandwiches.

Did I say that there's nothing like a nice hotel? Well, there are some things just as good including a club with a friendly staff, great meal and impeccable full-bodied sound. And that's what we got last night at the Jubez in Karlsruhe. It was so much fun to play and Robert and I responded with some long psychedelic jams (Mr Lloyd morphing into Captain Trips) and the tour debuts of Layer By Layer and She Came (from Crossing Dragon Bridge.) And the set got even more exciting when we were joined by local musician Chris Cacavas (he lives 20 minutes down the road) who added his excitement to the last 7 or 8 songs. We had fun hanging out with Rose Cacavas, Edgar Heckman, Peter Weber and other new friends as well.

Can you tell I'm in a good mood? I've only played Karlsruhe once before but I'm hoping this isn't the last time. Please keep room 207 made up for me.

The road to Halle

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Erik asked a couple of days ago how I would like to get from Vienna to Halle. We could either take the motorway all the way there and get there in six hours or drive the back roads through the Czech Republic and get there in eight. Hey, it's his van, he's the driver, I'm just hanging out in the backseat. It's up to you, Erik, I said. Great, he answered, because I thought it would be more fun to take the longer route. Not the answer I expected. Knock yourself out, big guy

So, here we are looking at the Czech countryside, stopping off at road stops and searching for absinthe and goulash (don't combine 'em, kids!) The border of Austria and the Czech Republic looks like Tijuana as imagined by a Las Vegas developer. Or maybe it's the other way around. The buildings are a mix of old world Czech dilapidation and modern-world post-Communist disposability. I recently saw Rock And Roll, Tom Stoppard's fantastic play about life in Prague under communist rule. I keep flashing back on the play and hearing Syd Barrett (a major touchstone of the play) in my head as I marvel over how things have changed.

Nothing but good times in Vienna. You want music stories? Packed show at the Chelsea club, our first actual punk rock club of the tour. No problem. Our gypsy renegade folk worked there just fine and it was one of the best shows yet. I hope someone was taping it. You want food? Let's talk about the marzipan cake at the Mozart Café or the apple srudel the night before. Let's not talk about the Wienerschnitzel (always eat local!) the night before. Oh well, You win some, you lose some.

Or maybe you just want to know why I'm so tired today (I really swear I heard someone ask). Well, it might have been that I stayed awake all night on Sunday, watching the Oscars in my room at the Hotel Furtenhof. The European broadcast lasted from 2 until 6 and I sipped shots of Johnny Walker Black (a gift from Edgar Heckmann) while taking advantage of a wifi connection to eavesdrop via Skype on a party in New York that my friend Brigid was throwing with Linda and others in attendance. I felt like Charlie (he, of the Angels) talking to them via the tiny speakers on a computer while they frolicked and ate tapas back home. The world just gets better and weirder. Oh, and the European broadcast eschewed the lily-livered 7-second delay of the US so I was able to dazzle them with my clairvoyant ability to predict not only winners but also all of the best jokes.

Yes, life has changed since I began touring Europe in 1984. But one thing remains the same. We're in the van, bringing ourselves to another town to play some music. You've got to stick with the fundamental.

The road to Vienna

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Wow, I closed my eyes for 10 seconds and the tour turned into a Woody Allen movie. I guess it's because DJ Robert has Django Reinhardt on the stereo and the pastoral German fields are reminding me of a scene from-oh, I don't know-Sweet and Lowdown or something. Or maybe it's because I'm just thinking about New York City where it's MUCH colder and the city is covered with snow. But not here. In Southern Germany it feels like springtime and the heavy coat and sweater has given way to a black t-shirt and sunglasses.

I could tell you about the last two shows in Wendelstein and Roding. Both were fun gigs in small towns with friendly promoters and many new additions to the ever-growing song pool (Out of the Grey, Something To Remember Me By, If My Life Was An Open Book_-all played for the first time in years. I even remembered most of the words). But I know why you're really here and what you've really been waiting for.

FOOD AND BEVERAGES!

This diary has been accused of being more a Food Diary than Tour Diary in the past and I plead guilty. There are many obvious reasons for touring but checking out interesting cuisine in different parts of the world ranks right up there. To paraphrase Ronnie Hawkins when he hired an embryonic version of The Band (and this is a VERY loose paraphrasing as some of you might know), I could easily hire my band members by saying Boys, you won't make a ton of money but I guarantee that you'll get more (schnitzel) than Frank Sinatra. You catch my drift.

Two nights ago in Wendelstein I was faced with a dinner menu containing many German items I didn't know. I figured most of them were specific to the Franconia region where we were playing. Rather than search for one of the few familiar items I borrowed a tactic Linda's sister's husband (aka my future brother-in-law), the honorable Vermont judge Mark Keller and told the waiter that I eat everything and he should bring me something good and local. Mark usually doesn't even want to know what it is until it arrives but I chose to get the full lowdown ahead of time. It turns out that` the local specialty is something called Schaeufele (apply umlauts where you'd like. My laptop won't do it). It's a pork shoulder dish, nasty and good, covered in juice and accompanied by a giant potato ball. Okay, not the kind of thing you normally want to eat before you play but it was great and talking about it on stage endeared me to the locals So all was good.

Last night's dinner in Roding was more conventional but equally delicious. Erik and I went to an Italian restaurant (Robert has been sick for most of the tour and chose to sleep it off before the gig). I had a really good Spaghetti di Mare while Erik went for the Pizza Diavalo. A salad the side of Rhode Island and a Weizenbier only slightly smaller rounded out the meal. The end of the evening featured a nightcap at the club while we listened to the CD of a German entertainer named Mambo Kurt who plays cover versions of the likes of Nirvana and the Strokes on a Hammond Organ and drum machine, German accent intact. Hey, things get pretty surreal on a small-town German Saturday night.

Yeah, I'm willing to dive off the epicurean deep end but when I looked across the breakfast room of the hotel at 11am this morning and saw the locals already diving into more potato balls, slabs of meat and GIGANTIC beers, well, I quietly downed my coffee and bread and cheese. I had certainly met my match.

The road to Wendelstein

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Things that happened on my 48th Birthday in Stuttgart

1) Erik Van Loo broke the only bow he'd had since 1988 while playing Amphetamine

2) Chris Cacavas drove in from Ludwigsberg where he's making his new record to join us for about a dozen songs and much merriment.

3) We shot a video for Manhattan Fault Line between the two sets, making use of the audience, the bar staff, Cacavas and the entire grounds of the Laboratorium for the shoot. Keep checking the website, myspace and youtube. It should be up soon

4) Robert wore dark glasses for the video shoot. He looked cool

5) Did two lip-synch versions of MFL and then the second fade-out morphed into a spontaneous live version that began the second set. It was unplanned and one of those magic moments. Chris had never heard the song but played it perfectly on piano

6) Edgar Heckman brought out his Heilbronn posse and filmed not only the video but much of the two sets. The Weizenbier on his table in front of me looked very appetizing and felt like a carrot at the end of the proverbial stick taking me to the celebratory moments after the show

7) I was given not one but TWO birthday cakes-one by Annette who runs the Laboratorium and the other by Edgar, presenting a fine cheesecake made by Sabine at Blue Rose. Thanks, Sabine.

8) Robert and Erik had Indian food for dinner. I had Schweinschnitzel. They came from the same restaurant (which also had Chinese, Italian and Thai food on the menu) Somehow it was all really good

9) We played When We Talk About Forever, a song I wrote for my upcoming wedding to Linda Pitmon, for the first time. It felt regal. I felt like stepping on a wine glass.

10) All of this and somehow we were out of the club by 1am. At 48 years old I have learned to bend time. It was a fine birthday.

The road to Stuttgart

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

How many birthdays have I had on the road. Your trusty website founder and Managing Director Thomas Mejer Hansen tells me that it has been more than a few. Let's see. There was that first Dream Syndicate tour in 1983 where pizza and beer in a cheap motel outside of Boston felt like a luxurious 23rd birthday party. Since then I remember spending my 38th birthday crossing over to Sweden on a ferry from Denmark. Oh, there was my 34th birthday in Madrid where some fans from Mallorca gave me a cake in the shape of a fish (I'm a Pisces). In 2001 I spent my entire 41st birthday in airports on my own (you can stop crying now) as I traveled from Milan to Brussels to Copenhagen. It ended with a tasty Danish beer near the train station with a record label representative who I had never met before and haven't seen since but on that night he was my birthday buddy.

And that, Thomas, might be that. But you can add today to that list. I began my 48th birthday over a fine breakfast with Erik and Robert (who had hand-drawn a card for me-I'll have to take a picture for your viewing pleasure.). Now we're on the highway on our way to the Laboratorium in Stuttgart. Blue Rose majordomo Edgar Heckmann will be there. Chris Cacavas will be there. We'll be shooting a homemade video clip for Manhattan Fault Line with the involvement of the whole crowd. There will be beer. There will be music. There will be chocolate. Hopefully no blood.

I took over from Robert as DJ today (something I haven't had the inclination to do since he's been playing such great stuff in the van). And I handed off the DJ duties to my buddy Bob Dylan who is here with us today in the form of his Theme Time Radio Hour. So far we've listened to an hour of songs about the bible and another hour of songs about cars. Bob says he's busy tonight so he won't be joining us at the show. He didn't give me a gift but he once gave my cousin 5 eggs. Really. It's true. And I'd love to tell you the rest of the story but I've got some birthday cake that I need to eat-my first slice of birthday cake on the autobahn, at least as far as I know.

The road to Solingen

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

It was a little after midnight and Erik and I were in the van on our way to the Knust club in Hamburg with GPS Jane leading the way. We had just played two sets and then hung out with friends in Norderstedt and were on our way to the second phase of our evening. Our good friends Chris And Carla (aka Chris Eckman, who produced my latest, and Carla Torgensen) had just played 30 miles down the road at the Knust and it was just too nearby to not meet them for a few drinks and some swapping of stories.

Chris and I raised a toast to our excitement over the final results of Crossing Dragon Bridge and he told tales of his recent festival gig in the Mali desert with his band Dirt Music. He said it was a life-changing experience, jamming with local musicians (such as the incredible Tinariwen) from sunrise to sunset and then watching the same musicians perform on stage until the sun rose again. I've got to check it out someday. Carla's jet-lag was overshadowed by the dazzling blue highlights in her hair, Knust promoter Norbert was his usual loquacious self (I always think of him as the German Oscar Wilde) and we were back on the road by 2am.

All of this went down after two sets of madcap and adventure at the Music Star, which is essentially a basement rec room of sorts beneath a record store. It holds about 70 people, beers are in a fridge and you're on the honor system to drop some euros into a bucket. It's usually a fill-in gig to break up the mileage between shows but I've grown to really look forward to the shows (and judging by the high caliber of performers who have played there, I'm not alone).

We used the intimate and forgiving party setting as an excuse to bring in a lot of songs we hadn't played before (I think we're up to 60 songs performed in the first 7 shows, says your local statistician). Here's what went down last night:

First set (me and Robert)

ANTHEM
TUESDAY
WAIT UNTIL YOU GET TO KNOW ME
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LINE
WHATEVER YOU PLEASE
MAYBE TOMORROW
I'M JUST BEGINNING TO LIVE (a cover of a song I've never heard--request)
KILLING TIME

Second set (me, Robert and Erik)

TELL ME WHEN IT'S OVER
LOVE ME ANYWAY
PUNCHING HOLES IN THE SKY
MANHATTAN FAULT LINE
WIRED
WILD MERCURY
CANDY MACHINE
THIS TIME TOMORROW (Kinks song by request)
THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
AMPHETAMINE

Encore

THE DEEP END
BRUISES
WHEN YOU SMILE

The road to Kiel

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

It's always strange to start a show before the sun goes down (unless you're playing in Norway in the summer in which case you have no choice). On the heels of a Saturday night gig and much post-show chatting with pals in Haarlem, we were up early for a drive to Ottersum for a noon arrival and 4pm show at the Roepan, one of my favorite and more unusual shows of the past few tours. The building is in a small Dutch town near the German border and houses a variety of cultural events. Upstairs in the chapel there was a classical performance, down the hall opera singers were practicing scales. And we were dusting off the cobwebs of an early morning in the club downstairs.

I've had the chance to see some really good shows on this tour since we've had more opening acts than usual. I usually avoid opening acts so that we can play longer sets but lifted that restriction on this tour which has allowed me to enjoy the bands I've mentioned on previous nights. And I was rewarded again with a spellbinding set by Tiny Vipers, a one-woman band from Seattle. I guess you could compare her to a mix of Judee Sill, early Sinead O'Connor and Catpower but that wouldn't really do her justice. I'm looking forward to checking out her CDs. And then it was old pal Jaap Boots (not to be confused with Jaap Bos) who sang a bunch of his catchy tunes in Dutch. Yes, they were catchy even though I didn't know what he was saying. I found myself singing along in my head to words that just felt like phonetics. But that's the way I hear a lot of my favorite music anyway. He did a fine translated version of When You Smile. I may have to cover his version.

And then we had our set which I hear will be up on some of the live archived music websites later this week. It sure sounded good on stage as we bypassed the usual amplified and wired guitar and bass sounds, going instead for a more natural all-micing approach which fit perfectly in the room's fine acoustics (some of you may find your eyes glazing over right now. Sorry). We were joined for a few songs (as we were in Haarlem) by our pal Yuko Murata on keyboards (including an appropriately Sunday gospel version of There Will Come a Day) and then by Jaap Boots for 500 Girl Mornings.

By 7:30 we were finishing dinner and getting ready to pack up the van. Hey, we could have still played another show last night, a true double-header. But an easy night in Deventer seemed to make more sense with much road to cover in the coming days. On to Germany.

The road to Haarlem

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Or as Bobby Womack would say, we're on the road that will take us across 110th Street. You see, I actually live about ten blocks from Harlem (New York) but tonight we'll be playing in Haarlem (Holland). That one a makes all the difference in the world. Fried chicken and waffles drowned in gravy give way to fries and mayonnaise. Either way your arteries are going to be yelling at you provided they can open their little artery mouths wide open enough to emit any kind of sound.

There was certainly a New York invasion in Diksmuide last night as our opening act was Trixie Whitley (daughter of Chris Whitley) who divides her time between Brooklyn and Belgium. And her guitarist Greg McMullen also lives in Brooklyn so there was lots of talk about clubs and studios and things like that. But there was no nostalgia for NYC last night as it seemed the Club 4AD was the place to be. Big crowd, attentive, appreciated and we played for a long, long time. Continued to drag out forgotten tunes like Here On Earth As Well, Under the Weather and One By One while squeezing and taming the others into the sound of this tour which someone compared last night to Twin Peaks. That's all right by me.

We finished the night with some members of the club staff, talking about the merits of manual vs automatic driving and comparing the best beers of Belgium. We even ended up tasting a few, the easy winner being something called Trappist Rochefort that tasted incredible and allowed me to sleep off the last bits of jet lag. Yes, there has been a lot of beer talk in the last few diary entries but, hey, that's one of the things you can't help doing when you're in Belgium.

It's really a pleasure to play with Robert again after all of these years. Not only have we been good friends for 25 years but he was also there for almost every acoustic show I played between 1986 and 1994 (and plenty of electric shows as well) so we find that we have a lot of songs that we know together and that lends itself to spontaneity and desire to perform without a net. And without Annette for that matter. Oh, and he's a great van DJ-today's treat is a bootleg of a Neil Young show from around 1974 that he's got going in the front seat.

Oh, now he's playing Carla Bruni's first album. Wow, pretty good. Best album by a First Lady I've ever heard. I just handed up some waffles to Erik and Robert. They seem happy and ready to sink into a good sugar buzz enhanced by sweet French Pop music. Speaking of music-you know that aggravating thing where you hear a song everywhere and really dig it and never find out what it was? That's happened to me for the last few tours with this very groovy, dark, foreboding song that I kept hearing. Drove me nuts-no lyrical hook to Google, nothing. Well, I finally found out. It's a song by The Roots called The Seed-I've already ponied up my 99 cents on iTunes. If you live in Europe you probably have already heard it a million times. Otherwise, check it out.

Ah, Haarlem approaches. I can see bill Clinton's office from here.