thejoncohenexperimental

Bietels…

I want to apologize for the little absence over the past six days. I have been out creating content, soaking in a very adventurous spell on this tour. One that has taught me many things about the countries I visited. SO, without rushing I though I’d let the dust settle, and now on my way to Brussels then Hamburg then Chemnitz, Amsterdam and Finally Berlin to finish February, I can write with a bit more detachment and interest.

I left Bordeaux very very early in the morning, walked onto a full bus, which remained a full bus to the very end. I’m actually quite lucky I booked my ticket in advance; otherwise I wouldn’t have made it. I make a not to always book in advance here in Europe, as it’s not the same situation as in UK.  A long ride back to Paris, on a sleepless night, then from Paris through Reims, Strasbourg, Manheim Dusseldorf, then into the Czech Republic, then Prague (Praha in Czech) at 5am.

I’m not a fan of arriving in new cities in the middle of the night or early morning because, its hard to get bearings and also nothing is open. I had to wait until 6:30am at the bus station in order to buy my ticket to the next town and to exchange my Euros into Czech Korunas, the national currency (even though they are part of the EU, they still retain their own currency somehow, not sure how it all works, consult your nearest Wikipedia).  Once I exchanged currency I took the Metro from Florenc to Narodni Trina station, which is only a few stations away and as central as it gets in Prague.  The metro system in Praha is on the honor system, so there is no one there manning the tills, you can come and go as you please. I have to admit I didn’t buy a ticket not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t understand the ticket machine!! I had no idea which ticket to buy and it was all in Czech, it looked like a weird video game to me, so I chanced it.

The sidewalks and walking paths of Prague are quite beautiful, and made of separate stones or small little square mosaic stone, but very difficult to roll my suitcase onto these streets, quite a frustrating experience.  I arrived and was greeted by Julie Vostaslov, she had been partying all night until 7am and was waiting for me with some giant man she picked up in a bar who followed her home, and his shoe was the size of my torso. Welcome to Prague! Home of the all night party!

First thing she does? Sends her friend home and offers me Slivovitsa, an alcoholic concoction from her hometown which her parents make that would put even the strongest absinth to shame. Apparently it turns dreams into reality if you drink too much, (her words).  We drank some, and then she proceeded to tell me about the different traditions of the 2 types of places in Czech Bohemia and Moravia. Bohemia is the left side of the country and is basically Prague; the people of the region are bohemians. She is from the second biggest city in the southeast of Czech Republic called Brno (roll that r!) and Moravian. Apparently Moravian girls are much more beautiful and I can attest to that having a bonafied one in front of me. But also the Moravians are a little deeper, more intelligent and much cooler people introspective bunch. I had yet to experience the differences but took her word for it, as I was tired and now essentially drunk at 7am.

Julie then proceeded to tell me about an interesting tradition her town does over Easter (can’t remember how we got onto that topic). Apparently it is a must for all girls to answer the doorbell when it rings on Easter day, and who is ringing? A bunch of young boys if she is lucky, a bunch of dirty old men if she isn’t. The idea is that when she answers the door she asks them what they want and they say, “you know what”. To this by tradition’s rule the young girl must turn around and expose her backside for them to slap at will with these little wooden sticks! I must move to Brno!

The idea behind the tradition Julie tells me “is that the mothers put the daughters up to it every year because apparently according to lore, if the young girls don’t do this once a year on Easter, they will dry up”. That means they wont have any eggs, meaning no children.

By this point I thought I was dreaming, I think it was the Slivovitsa doing its spell on me. I got up excused myself and went to lie down for just a minute, exhausted, tired and a little overwhelmed even for me, I drifted off into La La Land.

I had very strange dreams of being this farmer on a hill and having 2 sheepdogs with me. It was cloudy and I was trying to follow the trail of one animal, what animal I wasn’t sure but It brought me to a cave with a giant mirror in the deep ernd of it. I walked in and I looked at myself in a giant mirror in this cave and saw I was old, so old! I had a long white beard and long bushy white eyebrows. Then I woke up, it was about 12:30pm. I noticed Julie was sleeping as well, she hadn’t slept all night either. I must have passed out. I took a shower, collected myself and made a tea.

Julie and I explored the city in the afternoon. She is one cool and knowledgable cat. We found a park with Peacocks hanging out everywhere! She told me a bit about the different attractions in Prague as we walked by them. Prague castle which the Disney castle is apparently modeled after, The hanging froyd statue which many thought were real, the old square, The John Lennon Wall, which is basically graffiti, Charles Bridge, the royal conservatory, the Astronomical clock (last one on earth still functioning), the old synagogue dating 1275 or something like that (there was a huge Jewish culture in Prague) Franz Kafka’s home in the old Jewish quarter. Apparently according to Lore, the Jewish mythical story of the Golem is set in Prague and that the golem is still somewhere in or around Prague.  I set out to find him! Then changed my mind.

We went to a bunch of pubs where we could get beer. Julie wanted to get an early start so we went for a pint at 2pm during which she once again felt ill and had to leave to go home and sleep. I continued exploring on my own. Prague is bar none one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to. Its not a hard sell, it just is, I mean, it has about 4 million tourists every year (I noticed many Americans actually and weirdly enough, many Thai Massage places). Tourists just come to soak in the nightlife, the culture and the insanely beautiful architecture, which was the result of so many occupations of the Czech people, form the Roman, the Ottomans, the Germans, the Austro Hungarians and finally the Russians.  This is a city that has sampled ruler ship by almost every empire in Europe and maybe even Eurasia. So its no surprise that it has such a rich history and rich architecture from all this ruler ship although the Czech people are the ones to have suffered for it from millennia after millennia. But the testament is grand and beautiful and it’s a gift to humanity that Prague has survived the madness and violence of the 20^th century world wars when so many other neighboring cities were utterly decimated.

I walked alone up to Prague Castle where the crown jewels are, didn’t grab any this time! But what a view, the city is vibrant. The old communist styles are still prevalent and hints of the iron curtain still whisper in some places, like the metro or some neighborhoods. During our earlier walk Julie was telling me about how communist life was here in Czech in the 80′, it was impossible to leave the country and every one was being spied on. It was all about collecting information. Kind of like what is happening all over the world today with information, cameras and the like.  They turned family members into spies against their own families. There was no rock music, no music or influence from outside, there was no freedom of speech, but everyone was still relatively comfortable and had jobs weirdly enough.

I returned to the apartment around 5pm, tired again and lied down, waited for my sound check at the Red Room where I was playing that night, very close by actually a five minute walk away. But on those sidewalks man, it was brutal on my suitcase wheels! At 8pm I walked into the Red Room. It’s bar for people from outside Prague (expats) living in Prague and there are tons. So the owner Matt plays all kinds of American and British rock music.  I set up my gear and started to play to the nicely filled room.

It was a weird show. I’m not sure how to describe it but it really turned on some and really turned off others. Prague is a weird mix bag that way. I was approached by Matt afterwards who told me he would only pay me half what he had promised because I only played one set. But I had never been told to play two sets! There was a whole lot of back and forth about it because I had already put all my gear away but had I known I would’ve played a second set. I went back to check my emails the next day and there had been no mention of two sets although he told me the night before that he checked on his email thread and there was, what a Sheister.

Julie and her friend met up with me at the bar and that was the saving grace of this otherwise pretty weird night.  We grabbed late night pizza at 3am and headed back to her place.

The next day we watched a few documentaries. Julie is big on movies and docs; she does translation and is kind of a culture junkie. This movie was a documentary on the reforming of the city of Bogota in Columbia. This is an amazing story actually.  It begins in 1992 with a city so crime ridden, so polluted and traffic ridden that everyone was living in perpetual fear and life expectancy was rather low with poverty at an all time high. Crime was the number one business and drug cartels were the number one form of justice. Then along came a university principal Antanas Mockus, mother was a radical Lithuanian sculpter and artist. He was famous for mooning an audience at an international rally. This outrageous act of dissent against the status quo in Bogota instead of shaming him, made him very popular with the youth and majority of the population dissatisfied with the politics of their city. Within a year the radical Mockus had won by popular vote the mayoral candidacy and was now mayor of Bogota. He was not a politician, he was not a skilled city planner, just a man with radical ideas on how to change things and most importantly his heart in the right place, to help and improve the lives of the people of Bogotá.

And he did just that. First he employed over 400 mimes (yes mimes) to teach bogotans about traffic laws on the streets, he even turned the brutal police force into mimes (mayors back then could do anything they saw fit without any interference form the higher powers), he instilled a traffic card system, built libraries, took a shower on national tv to demonstrate how to conserve water, educated criminals, and even went as far as picking up the trash on the streets himself and rebuilding the city. Within 2 terms he had done exactly and everything he had promised to do in his campaign including a public transport system.

Along came Enrique Penalosa, another blessing force, a visionary who took up the helm and radically transformed all the shanty housing, all the desolate lands, all the crime ridden areas of Bogota into beautiful parks, libraries, completely new roads and infrastructures, hospitals and homes for everyone, amidst lots of criticism and almost losing the mayoral race because of a vote of non confidence, he too achieved for Bogota all that he has promised. Where are these men today? We need more men and women like that to take over the dark age of politics we are living now.  We need true leaders, who will not just do what is right but do what seems wrong at first, to undo the deep shit we’ve dug for ourselves.

Julie has a great expression, which I’ve adopted and even written a song about “living in the deep shit”. (With a Czech accent, it sounds amazing). The other doc we watched is called Paskvil. It’s a doc I Czech about 80’s pop music in Czechoslovakia in the grip of communism. All the music shows and released on national TV or albums sold HAD to be “approved” for content by the ministry of Culture. It’s safe to say any lyrical or musical content deemed to be a “threat” to nationalistic identity or the ideals of communism or too “American” never saw the light of day. What remained was a weird pseudo-void in music that was filled with drab songs about how to drive cars, about why the hot water and cold water sinks were separate, about, how great Russia is, and about the most tedious and safe aspects of love and sex. But despite that watching this and having Julie translate the meanings for me, I was still really into this Czech music, its somehow really simplistic but totally new wave in a naïve kind of way, like it was completely not influenced by anything from the outside. It’s really stupid at times, really weird others, but a lot of it is really proggy, and they have some really cool sounds and hooks too. I was blown away by some of the music, which sounds like stuff we might have ripped off from the Czech. ! They were masters of synth sounds! Im totally going to get into Eastern European pop music from now on, an untapped world of untainted, uninfluenced pop awaits me! You can see the doc here and judge for yourself, it’s a six part series on you tube and although it is all in Czech and not subbed or subtitled, just watching the performances alone is really entertaining. Thanks for turning me onto this Julie!

We had a really late start on our Sunday and headed out to a local new bar that had just opened up which Julie had been to a few times. It was an old cavernous antique shop converted into a pub. Really cool candle lit place, with an old working piano and weird items like tricycles hanging from the ceiling.  We got some pints and sauerkraut-y things (big in Praha) chatted and played some piano. You can still smoke in bars and restaurants in Prague berlin and all these other places so the room was so Smokey and id forgotten what that is like and how it sticks to your clothes.  At one point we were serenaded by this big guy who sat at he piano and played every song by every tradition in every style and beat. A bass player was accompanying him and sporadically a big Czech woman would get up and dance and sing old Czech songs.  She was cheerful and it was all too surreal. Home at 4am again and in bed at 6. Crazy Prague nights.

Day 3 and 4 were a bit of a mesh of 1 and two except I switched couch surfers because Julie’s parents were staying with her one night. The other Csers were ok nice people they lived in a building on the very top floor and we went out together one night, with a bunch of other people. We ended up in the same bar as Julie and I had been the night before.  I also visited the fort of Vysherad the second settlement built in 973 or so which is also a church. The owner of the red room had suggested I take a walk there and I did, it was such a peaceful walk in nature, a cemetery a church, a beautiful view of the Vltava (the beautiful river that runs through Prague that Dvorak and Smetana, two of my favorite composers of classical  and even people  I once did a thesis on, had adored and composed several pieces for this beautiful river (also the longest one in Czechoslovakia. It is a peaceful and beautiful river, reminds me of the Ganges although I wouldn’t swim in either for fear of getting a buffet of diseases. Welcome to the holy rivers of the 21^st century! After that I canceled all my pseudo plans and just lounged around. I forgot how great that could be. I miss that being constantly on the move.

Speaking of being on the move, here I go again,

Here are a couple of more articles for shows coming up and retrospect…

Nightshift (Cambridge, page 27 pdf)

Proti šedi (Prague)

Rock&Pop (Prague)

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Neutral Milk Hotel… 

And what a hotel it was. Bordeaux, A bordello of fun, surprises and good times. I got to the border town between Basque country and France, a town called Hendaye. Cute little place, not much going on here except it’s the only place from Spain where one can catch a train to Anywhere in France. I took the train to Bordeaux, 2.5 hours of vistas outside my window. First unadulterated ocean side villages, followed by little hill towns of thatched red roofed homes, then Finally Bordeaux. Anais, the fiery redhead I met on the train who lived there but was studying in Biarritz offered to walk me to the Venue where I was playing that night. It was only five minutes walk from the train station but I was grateful to not have to look at maps and try to figure out relatively simple directions.

El Chicho is one of the coolest venues I’ve played so far. It’s set up as a Chilean restaurant on the main floor, but then you go down these spiral aluminum stairs to this big cavernous pizza oven style room (think Zoobizzare in Montreal) where you are greeted by a stage with a large stencil of El chi Cho himself. The kid, Salvador Allende, the Ché of Chile. He was traditionally considered left wing in politics, but he was left wing, fighting for the people, to have them own the rights to their own land, to their crops, to their country’s resources. Ge was staunchly against American interests which compromised the values of the Chilean people. He was also friends with Ché Guevara. Eventually he was overthrown by brutal Chilean dictator Pinochet, who eventually went on to oppress the Chilean people for over 30 years. Another south American fairy tale of C.I.A backed blood, murder, slavery and oppression and corruption, yay for economic progress!!

Allende gave his last speech vowing not to resign but eventually was found dead in his home. They say it was suicide but there is much speculation he was murdered by opposing forces who feared popular opinion would give him too much favor among the citizens of Chile. I remember in Cegep, having this amazing teacher whose name I forget. He was in Santiago during the revolution and the overthrow in the 70’s, he was my hero because he fought the good fight and talked about it. He was Canadian, he turned us onto people like Pablo Neruda, Claudio Bravo, Chi Cho and many more who were trailblazers in the south American uphill fight for human rights.

I set up for sound check with Jean, the soundman, and the opening act called Eyyes did the same; I met the singer Jimmy, very very nice guy. Also amazing staff at the El Chicho, I was fed empanadas, coca cola, beer, and anything else I wanted.  There was a door person working the door and in general everything was right on time, god I love European venues! The show was packed at 50 people +. Eyyes was really good too, a band from Bordeaux, he even played songs by Daniel Johnston and Beck. Closed the night and played a good set. People really are getting into it these days. And I feel really comfortable with the way it’s being performed. I think I’ve hit some sort of plateau, however I still feel somewhat limited as to how good my sound can be. Biggest order of business when I return is to nail that sound quality thing in the bud; it’s the last piece of the puzzle for a great show.

I was pseudo interviewed after the show by a drunk who was convinced I was the next R.E.M (wtf??) he spoke French really slowly and just kept saying “intensité paradoxale sur la scene”.  I had no clue what it meant but just kept nodding and slowly backing away! People really dug it though and it was quite a young audience (between 19-25 for the most part).

Julien Deverre is an awesome Frenchman.  There I said it.  I contacted him initially because his blog in France called  “Des Oreilles Dans Babylone” has a very wide readership in all of French Europe, with over 3000 hits a day. He is a real voice in European indie music.  As the main Editor I approached him about doing a piece on the Jon Cohen Experimental. He got excited and one-uped me by asking if I wanted to play a second show in Bordeaux in his loft apartment. I had the next day off so I agreed. The piece went up and got a lot of press, so it helped lots with the turnouts for both shows, which were really well attended, and with a very captive audience.

Julien and I left the Chi Cho at 1am and walked back to his place on Pessac Road only 10 minutes away. It was my first glimpse of Bordeaux as a city. Well it has very much the same architecture style stone buildings that say Paris has. But its very rare to see anything over 2 stories high, unless it’s a church or a hotel or government building. There is very very little green space in Bordeaux. I saw almost zero trees or green anywhere, it’s all roman like, stone and paved, like being inside a giant fortress, but what a beeeeaaaauuuuutifullllll fortress! I mean the sheer craftsmanship of these 700-1000 year old edifices leaves much to the imagination. Most older than our oldest known family tree, these buildings are still standing tall and strong, no damage whatsoever, unlike the crap they make today in 3 months or less, which wont last 20 years, these homes, shops, churches, apartments, residences of all kinds will be around long after we’re gone. There’s something very comforting in that I find.

We walked through the general square, there were late night drunken owls getting a kebab at one of the million upon million kebab houses you find here in Europe (its unbelievable to think how many there are).  We got to Julien’s place, he lives with his girlfriend Maude in this gorgeous beige stone apartment, with a closed in yard. The walls are over 500 years old! And if you think brick walls in Montreal are cool, you should feast your eyes on these!

We chatted and smoked a late night joint and just relaxed. Only my second on this tour. He played me all kinds of amazing music. You see Julien is a real music lover. He’s also a music promoter in town and has a huge record collection nooked away on the corner by a shag carpet where he can sit and escape reality. He’s a big fan of Bands like Beta Band, Other Lives, Django Django, Lone Pigeon, Neutral Milk Hotel etc etc. We heard it all. He is constantly discovering new music, and made me hear this amazing artist from New Zealand who record his entire one man band show for his mother in a tent outside in the forest. Food for thought for the next record maybe!?

Much like many people in Bordeaux, they are not from Bordeaux. It’s a transient town with people coming staying a few years and going, people tired of Paris life. It’s got that montreal easy come easy go vibe to it. I met so few “Bordelais” people actually born here, it’s a strange phenomena. Julien and Maude are planning to go on a huge Australian journey for six months in a van, which I think Is amazing, when they return, Julien plans on opening a record store in Paris. With his amazing taste in music and his ambitious attitude, I have no doubt it will be a success.  I have a tentative booking date to play in his new record store in Paris on the inaugural opening date, whenever that is.

The next day, I was woken up by good news, I got featured in one of UK and Europe’s biggest indie mags called the Stool Pigeon, a 950 word piece based on a conversation I had with a Hugh Langley, music journalist extraordinaire based out of London who loves what I’m doing and wanted to cover the story. It was shuffled back and forth for a while but finally the editor published it so I was super happy about that, even more happy because the piece is so well written and insightful and has wide readership all over uk, europe and Scandnavia. Thanks Hugh, you are quite the scribe! Hugh came to one of My London shows and we hit it off. Good Chap.  He has his own website which he is putting together called Music Broke My Bones, checkitt, its worth a gander.

Julien made this amazing hot vegetable pie. Man he isn’t doing any favors for the stereotype of French cuisine, cause it was out of this world. The French really are better eaters, this ain’t false! My stomach is living proof! And you don’t need to eat meat either to enjoy it!  Then Jules and I walked around the city, which is very walk able, through the main squares and boulevards of stone and brick, down to the Garonne, the large river that flanks the city (Bordeaux= bord de l’eau). We watched some long boarders and bmx=ers doing their thing on the square, then took a tramcar to the train station to buy me a ticket to Prague the next morning (5am yuk!)

That night at Julien’s was a full house as well, a different crowd, a bit older, some families too, I played to my first 2 year old and what an experience that was. Before the show went on, his mom brought him over to the area where I was going to play and he was almost shaking with excitement at all the neat toys I had on display. I was also sporting a Melodica, compliments of Julien for the night. He saw my bass and said “Guitare!” to which his mom replied “non cheri, ca c’est une Basse!” the child looked perplexed, then in disbelief he just looked up at me, pointed to the bass and said “GUITARE!!!” to which we laughed and said, “oui!”. Can’t burst his bubble like that! The child approached the instruments, and his mom told him not to touch, it looked like he would’ve had a breakdown but he obeyed! When I started playing, there was a speaker behind the audience too so when I started playing to the dead quiet room, sounds were coming from behind as well. I could see the child kept looking behind him wondering where that sound was coming from. He just couldn’t understand but he was so enthralled! I think I found my target audience, I’m gonna start playing to the 0-4 year old category from now on, what an attentive bunch!

The show went off without a stitch, I did a whole experimental segment with the harmonica and various percussive elements. I crooned, begged and pleaded in song with the audience, I prostrated and pro-created in song! It was lovely, a captive audience. And after the show I spoke with everyone, heard their experience of watching the show, engaged in great conversation. I even took some constructive criticism as well, which I love because it sheds some light on what the audience sees from their standpoint, which helps me to perfect my show. I love house shows, they are the best, the audience is there for you, it’s a cozy beautiful environment, not like a bar, there is no rush to move your stuff because you are staying there that night, and after the show it becomes like a regular party, which is the payoff. After playing I love to let go and relax, meet talk and dance with people and just have fun and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Maude, Julien and I were the last ones standing and we made Pasta at 3am then they went to bed, I stayed up and took a cab to the station.

I was invited out to continue partying by a group of people at 1am at this bar called “The Blarney Stone” which is an awesome reference to one of my favorite Bands called Ween. Against my desire I didn’t go because I had a taxi to catch at 4am to the bus station for a 24-hour jaunt to Prague. Apparently I have to go back to Paris and from Paris , east bound to Strasbourg, through Germany and then to Prague at 5:30 am.  Im on the bus writing this, on almost no sleep, getting ready to greet the Czech (Re) Public!

Here are a few new articles on the band, the tour and a show review in Oxford as well. B Tw I have hit the exact halfway point of this tour. I’m happy t say, Im in good spirits  Im having a ball, the shows have been a great success, and for the first time, I’m actually making a little dough, not a bad gig! Not too shabbs for a February in Europe.

The Stool Pigeon (UK/Europe -wide)

Music in Oxford Show review (Oxford)

Des Oreilles Dans Babylone (Bordeaux and France)

Musicquando (Madrid)

Music News Television (Madrid and Spain)

See you in Prague!

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The Clash…

Paris, Saturday afternoon, I made my way to the Galienni bus station. It was crowded. Stupidly, I hadn’t reserved my bus ticket in advance. I never had trouble getting a seat before so I didn’t think twice about it. When I asked for a ticket, however, the guy told me they were sold-out, what???

Oh shit! That was not good news. The trip from Paris to Madrid, Spain is a long one, an overnight. If I didn’t get on that bus, my only other option would be to schlepp across to the other side of Paris at Austerlitz station to grab a very expensive train down. The ticket agent told me I might get on a waiting list if I waited to the last minute and tried to go stand-by as some reservations sometimes get cancelled. I decided to try, to risk it. Come six o’clock there were actually a few seats left on that red-eye to Madrid! I was on, I got to the bus and the driver spoke in a high-speed Spanish I could not even begin to understand.

“Me español no Buenos!” I said, to which he continued to speak to me at light speed. I eventually realized he was trying to ask me where I was going! I’m such a dumbass sometimes!

And off we were, southbound, through, Fleuri, Nantes, Biarritz, Bordeaux, San Sebastian and Finally Madrid. The bus ride was long and tiresome even for me. Some 16 hours or so. Off the bus, on the bus, several times until we finally arrived after a last frenzied bus switch in a small town in Spain. Most of the small towns in Spain seem completely desolate. Where are the people?

Driving through the spanish countryside, I am reminded a lot of California, mixed in with the rocky mountains and barren wasteland of Arizona. You can maybe conceive of ii if you replayed the Ennio Morrecone soundtracks of Spaghetti western, like The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Really it all depends where in the country you go.  In Andalusia, apprently its completely different. There are rolling hills some mountains, plains, and little bushy trees. It’s a similar landscape as west coast USA but definitely not as lush or green, not as soil rich, stillbeautiful in its own way however. The haciendas, Iglesias and tatted roves of the houses  harken an era of donkey carts, ponchos and Alamos. The snow-capped mountains, long intertwining hills and large peaks as magnificent as any you would find in the Alps or the Rockies. Grandiose vistas and red roof hospedajes which point to a bi-gone era that fuels dreams. These are dreams which the euro has ravaged and outright destroyed in the name of economic unity in less than ten years. Spain is in dire economic straights.

Spain is now one of the poorest countries in the EU after Greece and Italy. It’s a sad state of affairs, because no there are no jobs and everything costs five times more than it did only ten years ago due to the Euro. It seems to me most people in Europe agree the Euro has completely eroded these countries financial independence and made life very difficult and expensive for everyone. Once again the banks are the winners and the people, the losers. It’s the same ol’ script only in a different setting.

The road to Madrid in the daytime was nonetheless beautiful and the weather was a balmy 9 degrees Celsius. I arrived in this great city smack in the center of Spain at exactly 1pm. It was Sunday and everyone was out. I emerged from Stacion Sol, into this amazing city.

What was awaiting me outside was the main center square of Madrid was amazing. There ewas a Mariachi band playing. There tons of people dressed up in clown costumes, tree constumes, fake statuettes, there was a demonstration, a square bustling with people where every drama in the world took place. There is this  weird phenomenon that is just relegated to this place I believe, and that is that of these old men dressed up as babies with high pitched voices beckoning passerby’s to give them money, its the strangest thing (see pics below).

Here more people spoke English than anywhere else in Spain. I walked up to the venue in the downtown center of this gorgeous colonialist city, met up with Lisa at the hotel and we wandered off into the town just for a laugh. It’s a beautiful city, with a palace, many museums, and gorgeous white clean architecture. I would like to live in Madrid; it’s a babe of a city. I mean the place is so neat and well designed, and the whitewashed edifices harken back to a time that was unspoiled.  There is much history here although I did not delve into any of it I was only there for a short time and these are all general impressions and I soaked in the atmosphere.

The notion of commonality is blurred between the people of Madrid and those of Barcelona. Unlike Barcelona, the people of Madrid are very warm, friendly and helpful. Madrid has a real bustling music scene. The place where we played, the Wurlitzer is an example of that. I met tons of great people who were genuinely into what I was doing and literally blown away by the show. When I arrived I had no bearings. I was going to meet my friend from London Lisa Baum here. She booked a hotel near the venue and met up with me for her little weeklong vacation.

Oh yes another thing is that my good friend Isabelle Picard from Montreal generously came all the way from Seville Spain to meet me and see the show. We met up with her in the evening and went for dinner near the venue. It was amazing to see her, she looks great and she is full of life! We had a gorgeous supper the three of us and were even given a complimentary bottle of champagne on the house! But Isabelle had to catch a bus back to Seville that night and missed the show sadly.

Everything in Spain, including dinner does not kick doff until very late at night, like 9-10pm. It’s weird but people here only start eating around 10pm!  They also have Siesta in the afternoon. So the show itself did not even begin until 11. It’s more on par with Montreal time but I got used to the British and Paris times of early shows starting at 9pm and forgot about late starts. So unfortunately Isabelle could not catch the show, she only caught the opening band. The opening band only went on at 11 and she had a bus to catch back, sorry Isabelle! It was so good to see you and have dinner with you!

I went on at midnight and by then there were many more people, I think I really connected with the audience and Madrid peeps really loved it! I love it when people let go during my shows; the entire thing becomes a hundred times more fun for everyone. I dedicated a song to Lisa, to Isabelle, to the occupy movements, it was one long musical dedication. I even spoke in Spanish between songs (rather a retarded version of it). Oh and the staff of the Wurlitzer were angels! There was a great soundman, there was a great treatment of artists, a bucket of beer and drinks and a dressing room, door man provided, it was just perfect. After the show I we met an American named garreth who is originally from Ohio sand is living as video editor in Madrid. He edits for this online music magazine and wants to do something with the jcex video-wise. We talked about how detroit is such a crazy city and covered lots more, interesting guy. We walked out of the club at 2pm and headed to the hotel down the street.

The next day Lisa and I had planed to go to Bilbao, a city in the North of spain, in the Basque country. As I have 2 days off we thought wed go wander around . So off we went to Bilbao in the north by the water. The Basque are different from the Spanish in their culture, their dress, history and finally their food. Here you can get “Pinchos” an amazing array of these little finger foods they make and serve just about everywhere. We fell in love with pinchos and ate as many as we could but as I don’t eat meat and Lisa doesn’t eat pig products or seafood except for fish, we were quite limited in our choices. We still ate lots though!

We arrived in Bilbao Monday evening and it was raining. Bilbao is set amidst many large hills and by the river. It’s a lovely and quite large and modern city. It has this wird mixture cachet of old Spain with modern art and many people here wear the Basque berets. We settled into the hotel and wandered the streets looking for food as we were famished from a whole day of travel. We found the mother load of all Pinchos in this weird mariner themed restaurant. At 1 euro 50 per pinchos, we ordered everything we could and wolfed down like hungry..well wolves!

What a great way to be introduced to the delicacy in Bilbao! The entire Bill was like 15 Euros for 2 people. We were hooked. The next day we had some free breakfast at the hotel (great breakfast!) and headed down to see the famous Guggenheim Museum, the heart shaped museum, here in Bilbao. There is another one in New York but nowhere near as nice as this one made of Glass and Titanium. According to what Lisa learned, it was shaped like a heart in order to pump people in and out of the main arteries and into the different exhibitions much like a heart would with b lood cells. Some amazing exhibitions like the circular echo chambers where you are forced to walk along the mammoth walls in concentric circles, or the light bulb portrait chamber, or the giant dog (which Lisa was able to pick up!) and finally the bubbles! Aah the bubbles!

The Guggenheim is a wonderful museum and a marvel of architecture. I’m glad we went. Famished and tired we walked the streets of Bilbao marveling at the wonderful array of umbrellas people here were sporting, (it rains a lot here)and snapping shots of them. We bought some more pinchos and looking to buy me a train ticket to Bordeaux. We found the old city across the bridge (reminded me a lot of Old Montreal) and sauntered in. Here we went from bar to barrio, restaurant to pub and drank beer and ate more pinchos.  Pinchos ranged from these potato omelets, to cod on bread with green slime (not the tastiest green slime I ever had!) and strange spreads with sardines on top. It was all a taste explosion and a sort of “eat at your own risk” attitude propelled us to become more and more adventurous with these pinchos.

We walked and walked the old city, found a long narrow little shop full of people but all they seemed to sell here were costumes, masks and penis paraphernalia, (yes I said penis paraphernalia ) all manner of rubber penis dolls, penis whistles, penis Sherriff stars, penis soap, penis, penis!!!! Why was everyone here? We thought it was the funnies and most surreal thing ever! Look out for a picture with a donkey toy that says “Be Prepared for the wildest donkey ride ever!” in my pics below! Although it rained al day it was one of the most fun days I’ve had in a while. We ended the night with a little nondescript Valentines Day dinner at a pizzeria nearby; I think the dinner made me a little ill though. We had tried to find this so-called vegetarian restaurant in town but to none of our surprise, it was either no longer existent or never was. I don’t think people here get the concept of “no meat”. It’s ham with everything and bacon on everything! Welcome to Spanish cuisine!

It was pure pleasure hanging out with Lisa in Spain, like a dream. It’s nice having someone to be a companion while travelling. We made a plan to meet up again at the end of my trip in London and I gave her the entire collection of My cousin Samy Goz cds (my cousin who does lounge music) to pick up upon my return so she can keep it as collateral that we will see each other again! Thank you for your amazing companionship your generosity and your humor Lisa, have fun in Zaragoza! ps: she came up with the title for this blog even though we are not in Andalousia

Now on my way by train To Bordeaux for two back-to-back shows, one tonight and one tomorrow night, I think these are going to kill!

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