Boston
As always we get lost and find Mass Ave. by accident, this time because we are looking for a guitar shop in a different part of town. This is the first city on the American tour I'm familiar with, and as we drive over the Charles river to Cambridge I'm almost nostalgic. The air is cool, but the snow hasn't reached this far yet. Walgreens for a phone card, Mary Chungs for dinner. I feel almost relaxed. The whole of the North East is in bloom with gorgeous crimson leaves. And the show, disastrously, is empty. No one knows why.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Montreal
Drving back from Montreal's fantastic Cheap Thrills record and book shop, we listen to "the Women of Rembetica CD", which our city guide, Jeff M bought. The singers include Roza Eskenazi and Marika Papagike, the songs are beautiful, supposedly a bit risque, but a gorgeous blend of arabic scales and impassioned, soulful singing. Apparently this music was banned in Greece in the early 20th century. I got all three volumes of The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, for 13$ Canadian. It's very dark and raining solidly, the winter cold really coming in. Jeff and Astra have a lightbox in their appartment to stave off s.a.d., and I don't blame them. The night before, post-show, we laboured through the cold to eat some poutine with Annie Hayden and her band, and Ted from Destroyer, who is visiting Montreal for a while. It was here that the first signs of tour debauchery took place with certain un-named people falling into drunken comas at the table, giggling teenage girls burning their earlobes with bic lighters.
Out of Montreal in the dark, streams of headlights and a sinking feeling, a sense of dread is coming back to me, asleep since Porto. I'm not cut out for this lifestyle.
The rain turns to sleet as we approach the border, and once we're over a snowstorm is howling around us. The freeway is reduced to a few tyre tracks in a blank, black wilderness. No towns or civilisation for miles. Eventually, we stop in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, at a place called the Fireside Inn, complete with gazebo and water feature with terrapins. It's eerie, with the wind howling around the windows, Sleepy Hollow style, this is deeper culture shock for me than desert villages in southern Spain or the Christiana commune in Copenhagen.
Drving back from Montreal's fantastic Cheap Thrills record and book shop, we listen to "the Women of Rembetica CD", which our city guide, Jeff M bought. The singers include Roza Eskenazi and Marika Papagike, the songs are beautiful, supposedly a bit risque, but a gorgeous blend of arabic scales and impassioned, soulful singing. Apparently this music was banned in Greece in the early 20th century. I got all three volumes of The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, for 13$ Canadian. It's very dark and raining solidly, the winter cold really coming in. Jeff and Astra have a lightbox in their appartment to stave off s.a.d., and I don't blame them. The night before, post-show, we laboured through the cold to eat some poutine with Annie Hayden and her band, and Ted from Destroyer, who is visiting Montreal for a while. It was here that the first signs of tour debauchery took place with certain un-named people falling into drunken comas at the table, giggling teenage girls burning their earlobes with bic lighters.
Out of Montreal in the dark, streams of headlights and a sinking feeling, a sense of dread is coming back to me, asleep since Porto. I'm not cut out for this lifestyle.
The rain turns to sleet as we approach the border, and once we're over a snowstorm is howling around us. The freeway is reduced to a few tyre tracks in a blank, black wilderness. No towns or civilisation for miles. Eventually, we stop in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, at a place called the Fireside Inn, complete with gazebo and water feature with terrapins. It's eerie, with the wind howling around the windows, Sleepy Hollow style, this is deeper culture shock for me than desert villages in southern Spain or the Christiana commune in Copenhagen.
Toronto
15 minutes out of the airport and we are already lost, driving in the dark through what looks like an industrial estate. Over the brow of a hill, on the other side of the freeway, we spot the illuminated sign of a Best Western, and decide that there is as good as anywhere. This hotel turns out to be right next to a racetrack, full of gamblers anticipating a big meeting the next day. We retire to the bar, where an old lady is singing "the shadow of your smile" to a tearful group of waltzing geriatric couples, accompanied on bontempi organ, saxophone and bass. The barmaid explains that she has sung at this bar for 40 years, and tonight is her farewell performance. It's as if they've been expecting us. We try not to stand out, and just listen to these lovely old songs, unfamiliar polkas and waltzes.
There is an enormous alpine horn welded to the ceiling, prompting James and Mark to tell the story of something they claim to have seen earlier in the tour, in the hotel car park in Tourcoing, France: a suspicious looking van unloads two 8 foot long horns in the foggy darkness, and a couple of men sit down to them, lovingly warming them up, and eventually blowing long notes together. Their girlfriends lounge a few metres away, gossiping and smoking. James and Mark lean out of the window and applaud, the men look alarmed and immediately pack the horns into the van, which disappears back into the gallic mists. I'm not sure whether I believe this story, but I want to. The barmaid tells us the last band who passed through were Nazareth. Unlike them, we have no promo photographs with us. We really have no idea where we are, Mark makes some money on the horses the next day though. All in all the best possible start to the tour.
15 minutes out of the airport and we are already lost, driving in the dark through what looks like an industrial estate. Over the brow of a hill, on the other side of the freeway, we spot the illuminated sign of a Best Western, and decide that there is as good as anywhere. This hotel turns out to be right next to a racetrack, full of gamblers anticipating a big meeting the next day. We retire to the bar, where an old lady is singing "the shadow of your smile" to a tearful group of waltzing geriatric couples, accompanied on bontempi organ, saxophone and bass. The barmaid explains that she has sung at this bar for 40 years, and tonight is her farewell performance. It's as if they've been expecting us. We try not to stand out, and just listen to these lovely old songs, unfamiliar polkas and waltzes.
There is an enormous alpine horn welded to the ceiling, prompting James and Mark to tell the story of something they claim to have seen earlier in the tour, in the hotel car park in Tourcoing, France: a suspicious looking van unloads two 8 foot long horns in the foggy darkness, and a couple of men sit down to them, lovingly warming them up, and eventually blowing long notes together. Their girlfriends lounge a few metres away, gossiping and smoking. James and Mark lean out of the window and applaud, the men look alarmed and immediately pack the horns into the van, which disappears back into the gallic mists. I'm not sure whether I believe this story, but I want to. The barmaid tells us the last band who passed through were Nazareth. Unlike them, we have no promo photographs with us. We really have no idea where we are, Mark makes some money on the horses the next day though. All in all the best possible start to the tour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)