Nick Cave Never Did This

I’m off to do some “promo” for my latest opus Soap and Water.

First stop Hamburg. Cooking Vinyl sweetheart Colete booked me into the Europpaisdcher Hotel directly across from the train station. Think: totally urban. You recovering addicts out there know how train stations are.

It was a stupid hot night at the end of a stupid hot day. Everyone is in the sidewalk cafes until 2, 3 in the AM sucking up every last minute of it.

On first glance the Hotel struck me as the kind of place Fidel Castro might feel comfortable. But it displayed more than two stars and it certainly didn’t smell like piss.

After a not so long day of answering questions about the new record and what it all means, I was relaxing in the bar all by my lonesome, where I enjoyed the great service and hospitality along with more than one cappuccino, and the thought that this is perhaps one of the last places- if not THE last place on earth someone might come up to your table and offer to twist some balloons into the shape of a poodle for you and your date.

Oh yes, I was chilling alright, (note to self: this might have been a good time to take up a Cuban cigar habit). Still, I couldn’t help thinking there was something unsettling, something ulterior, something JUST NOT RIGHT about the joint. The Lite-Brite room numbers were one thing, the 70’s era Lego-like color scheme another. (Dig the inset photo of the booth with the red Bat Phone). What really messed my mind up were the photo’s in the lobby. You see, upon checking in I thought I noticed a photo of what looked a like a replica of the Manteca Waterslides. And for that brief second before I put it out of my mind, I was like, what’s THAT?

I got bored. I got restless. It was late. I was wide awake. I wandered around. I found an indoor pool on 2/3 floor with a little pool that had a circular light at one end. Turns out that light is the opening of this tube contraption. In a 10th of a second the night can turn around on you. What I just stumbled upon, was an indoor water-slide that starts on the 6th floor and winds around between the corridor of the hotel and dumps into a baby pool just off the main pool.

There’s a kind of reception area with a woman at the counter. After I plop down 19 Euro’s of my hard earned merch cash and purchased a swimsuit in the conveniently located gift shop, she gives me my own robe, a towel and a locker key and points toward the locker room as if it’s all perfectly normal.

There was no one around.

Rocked that slide too many times to count. Back and forth. You shoot through the thing like a canon. Then you get right back on an elevator. Dripping. Back up to the 6th floor and climb feet first into a tube.

And WHOOOSH!

And coulnd’t help but thinking this must be illegal.

Topped the slide off with a sauna. Thank god I was alone in there or I might have gotten some odd looks. Germans love to get naked and I’m like, no thanks I’ll keep my suit on. I just bought it an hour ago, I’ll probably never wear it again.

I’ll tell you one thing: Nick Cave never did this.

I Don’t Think Frank Done it this Way

For the last night of our all too brief run with Mofro we find ourselves working the room at the Crystal Palace. A gig adjacent to the world famous Cal Neva Lodge.

We’re booked overnight into the Cal Neva. Single rooms! Yee haw! The Cal Neva has survived Joseph Kennedy, Frank Sinatra and his raving ratters, Marilyn, a fire, and now Chuck Prophet and band.

Not sure what Frank would have thought of the piped in 80’s music. Although I thought Tainted Love was right on the money spilling out onto the casino floor in all it’s homo erotic glory. I also enjoyed hearing Million Miles Away by the Plimsouls. Hep-cats, all around.

Not much has changed since Frank Sinatra became owner and shelled out for the renovations back in 1960. He built the Indian Room (see Moosehead) and installed a helicopter pad on the roof. I tried to get up there to scope it out but I’m told it hasn’t been used since the Chairman pulled up stakes after some shenanigans with big name entertainers and questionable gambling brought him to the attention of “the commission”.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board revoked Sinatra’s license on October 22, 1963. On Labor Day, September 1963 Frank Sinatra closed the Cal Neva Lodge signaling the end of his colorful reign there.

Stephie tells me that there are more bodies at the bottom of the lake than any other body of water on earth. The legend is that this is where the Mafia killers dumped bodies after executions. Some fishermen even call Lake Tahoe “The Grave”. Okay, but why?

I did a little research and yeah, I guess it all makes perfect sense. Tahoe is a lake that does not give up its dead. That is because the lake is so deep, with an average depth of 989 feet, and so cold, with the temperature hovering just above freezing. You’ll need some heat to get those gassy bodies to rise up. Bullet holes in the forehead or not. I file this little bit of info away.

DAY 12: A FIELD IN NORWAY

DOWN ON THE FARM.

More strange light.

A festival in the middle of an oat field in Norway.

The night before the gig, we head up to the site -– a tradition—at the very least, we’ll need to check out the catering. Mercury Rev is on the big stage, huffing and puffing away.

The catering on the other hand, ain’t bad.

Later that night in the barn, it’s a psycho sock hop and the villagers are going nuts. The Tuborg must be kicking in. It’s the Others at the Down On the Farm Barn Dance.

The “Others” are the alter ego of the legendary Finnish band 22 Pieskeperto.

We’re well inspired. This gig makes me wish I was still drinking. Insanely good.

We hitch a ride back with the Finnish band to the hotel. In the dark van ride, we hold a discourse analysis on the finer points of Bo Diddley. It gets involved. It goes deep.

We make the connection.

Now fast friends, we decide to hang out until the sun comes up – which, being the land of the midnight sun and all, is really right about now. When Kai, our old friend and promoter, promises to take us out on his new boat for some water-sports on a Fjord.

We take up his offer, and find a deserted cove near the Swedish border to swim in. We anchor outside about 100 feet.

We dock in an all but deserted village for ice cream. We make a sight for the locals. Disheveled but unarmed Americans.

We strip to our skivvies and dive into the breathtakingly beautiful briny—or what our Finnish friends call “Dirty water”. Where the fresh water meets the salt water.

We get to the gig by boat Might be a first Call me Captain Willard Danny I’ll call you Coronal Kurtz

Love that dirty water

FUN FACTS ON 22 Pistepirkko:

They were formed in a small village in Finland in 1980.

They recently did fifty gigs in fifty days and a film crew dragged along. They released a DVD documentary. There are well captured explosions musically and personally. They might be my new favorite band. A band that in many ways, succeeded where GOR failed, in surviving and chasing their elusive muse across decades. We claim to be brothers. They actually are brothers.

They make their own art. They make their own meals. Finland is the land of the Dark Rye, mushrooms, wild berries and Salmon. Salmon raw. Salmon smoked. Salmon salted. They’re northerners. They got the Northern Soul. Artic circle northern. Throw a rock you’ll hit Russia northern.

Green On Red play later tonight. After a set by new friend Shannon McNally and her comrades. More unarmed Americans we were glad to meet.

First there’s a band from Texas playing the blues. I can’t help but thinking that if you shook a tree in Austin, five of these guitar players would fall out… But they play this shit good, those Texans. Even if they’re probably packing heat.

We play the gig and close the festival. We get weird. All goof ball grins. All merchandise shrapnel.  All pants with sagging pockets.

Visions of Peets coffee, the lower Haight, and Mission Burritos in my head. Miz Finch in my heart.

Almost home.

It can’t be over already.

What did Faulkner say? “The past isn’t gone.  It isn’t even past.”

*********THE END********************