m i t t e n m a k e r

BellJar's Gold Rush Marketplace opening Friday, Nov. 11

2011-11-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to be participating in BellJar's Gold Rush Marketplace!
It's an artist "pop-up shop" in the back gallery featuring lots of local, handmade goodies.
The opening will be Friday, November 11th. See below for all the details:

Thanksgiving Weekend Craft Sale

2011-10-27T18:54:00.000-07:00

This year, why not choose to buy local, handmade, sustainable crafts by local artisans?

A Celebration of Craft is a craft fair on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2011. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Here’s an opportunity to buy from the artisan, getting to know them and talk about their craft.
A broad variety of local artisans will gather to sell their crafts, just in time for the Holiday Season. There will be craftspeople with the following offerings: jewelry, felted & crocheted items, photography, candles, calendars and note cards, decorative bird houses, ornaments, scarves and clothing, among other things. There will also be a bake sale!! Buy Local, Sustainable, Recycled, Repurposed, Handmade Crafts.at: St. John’s United Church of Christ, San Francisco, CA

501 Laguna Honda Blvd, at the corner of Laguna Honda and Woodside, easy car & bicycle parking.

We are located one block from Forest Hill MUNI station which serves the K, L, M, and T trains and the 36, 43, 44, and 52 buses. BART is also accessible via the MUNI Metro. Free admission.

Here's some links to the event:

http://www.yelp.com/events/san-francisco-celebration-of-craft-in-san-francisco

http://events.sfgate.com/san-francisco-ca/events/show/221489284-a-celebration-of-craft-fair

Indie Designers vs. Urban Outfitters

2011-05-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

One woman's tweet explodes on the internet, resulting in UO removing the piece in question. How one Tweet really made a difference. Such an interesting article.

Needles & Pens

2011-05-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

I just dropped off a brand new batch of Tennis Card Holders to Needles & Pens on 16th St. in the Mission. Ironically, this location used to house Otsu, the very first store I ever sold my tennis wallets. Please visit Breezy & Andrew at Needles & Pens - it's a great shop where you can browse through zines, books, jewelry, handmade clothes, and art. Shop local!

On the Town

2010-04-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

A list of some of my favorite places in San Francisco for the SF Chronicle! Here I am at Adobe Books:

Photo by Noah Berger

Amoeba Interview - Parts 1 & 2

2010-04-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

I am super honored that Sarah from Amoeba's awesome music blog asked me to answer a bounty of questions about my photography work. Miss Sarah was not only incredibly thorough in her interview topics but was also a superb editor, picking some unexpected shots from my archives.
I hope you enjoy the stories behind some of the images.

Amoeba Interview: Part 1

Amoeba Interview: Part 2

INTERVIEW

2009-06-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

The brand new website MYTENNISFASHION.COM just interviewed m i t t e n m a k e r...check it out! Find out how/why I started making these lil' tennis wallets in the first place.

MITTENMAKER INTERVIEW

Verhext

2009-03-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Tamera Ferro of Verhext wearing a {{{ m i t t e n m a k e r }}} vintage tie headband:

Fashionist

2009-01-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

My favorite San Francisco street fashion blog, Fashionist, recently featured my friend Evie wearing a m i t t e n m a k e r necklace made from a vintage chandelier crystal. How exciting! m i t t e n m a k e r wearable art currently available at CandyStore Collective in the Mission (16th Street between Guerrero & Valencia) and Parklife on Clement Street (between 3rd & 4th) in the Inner Richmond.

Partisan Gallery Show/Zine

2009-01-20T23:47:00.000-08:00

ONE TO MANY gathers twenty artists from New York and San Francisco for a collaborative photo project that looks at the nature of artistic reproduction, using the cheapest method available to the layman: the photocopier. To illustrate this, twenty artists from New York and San Francisco have made individual books which will be packaged together as a boxed set. This is the primary artifact for the exhibition, and we encourage you to buy one to take with you. Limited edition of 50 copies. Organized by Chris Fallon and Sean McFarland.

Opening reception: February 19, 2009 7 - 10 p.m.

ARTISTS
Tauba Auerbach / Daren Wilson / Jasmin Lim
Leslie Shows / Julia Leonard / Whitney Hubbs
Lindsey White / Sean McFarland / Emily Prince
Keegan McHargue / Jack Sears / Alissa Anderson
Sarah McMinemen / Matthew Kennedy / Jordan Stein
Paul Wackers / Jake Longstreth / Chris Fallon
Noah Wilson / Andrew McKinley

Partisan Gallery | 112 Guerrero St. | SF, CA 94103

Indie Mart - SF Weekly Article & Photos

2008-10-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

Indie Mart was great, thanks to everyone for coming out and supporting! It gotten written up in the SF Weekly and m i t t e n m a k e r made the slideshow.

Photo by Mekuria Getinet

Tennis Wallet Featured on Tennis Blog

2008-09-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Erwin for recently featuring my Tennis Snap Wallet on his "Tennis Served Fresh" blog!

http://cornedbeefhash.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/4577/

Devetiver 2

2006-05-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

So I am on French computer with a funny keyboard and am not sure where I left off, ATP I believe? Im not sure I can fully express how amazing it was!!! Seeing Bert and Vashti live for the first time, hanging out with friends from around the country like Kyp Malone, COMETS, Will, zACH cOWIES amazing final night dance party, improv jam with Brooke and Helena, too too much fun!!! Vetiver got great feedback from just about everybody and we sold a ton of copies of the new record, at least more than usual for us.
France has been pretty cool. We got a night off to wander around the beautiful city of Strasbourg. The show there was pretty awesome, the chef at the venue was so rad, what ã funny guy, Michel. The sound onstage was probably some of the best we`ve ever had and I think we played pretty well. The venue was completely packed, maybe 600 people or so?
Next up: Lyon. Unfortunately the venue was sort of in the middle of nowhere so I just kinda hung out there all day, didn`t get to see much of the city. For dinner we had amazing lamb, some of the best I`ve ever had, mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Again, the venue was packed that night. Both bands played pretty well.
Toulouse was GREAT!! We walked around the center city all afternoon, which was really cute. The venue, Le Ramier Discotheque, was kinda fancy and 60s and there was a ballroom dancing class there in the afternoon.The sound onstqge was pretty horrible but we plqyed a great show, one of our best, Dev joined us for Down at El Rio. The crowd was really into it, they even asked for an encore from US, so Andy went out and gave them Farther On. They totally ate up Devendra`s set, just couldn`t get enough, and kept making Hairy Fairy go back out. The last encore was SHAME, which Sanders and I ran out and played percussion on. I ca`nt not bounce around and play on that one, that`s a Family Jam for sure!!!
So now we are in Paris, we have a day off and I`m not quite sure what to do with myself. I`m so sad Andy has to do press all day, oh well. I think I might wander to Notre Dame, I don`t think it`s too far and I haven`t seen much of Paris aside from where we played last year, the Pirate Boat and Montmartre. Off I go!

De-Vetiver Banhart Tour UK/France 2006

2006-05-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

So it seems I have been requested to continue my tour blog. This one's going out to the parents! (Hi Mr. Cabic) We've already played a bunch of shows and are now in Lyon, FraNCE. After a couple of days of rehearsals in New York, thanks to Rich at Social Registry and Paul & Jen for their kind, generous hospitality, we took an overnight flight to London. Virgin Airlines is pretty sweet, but I still couldn't get any sleep on the plane. Perhaps I was too excited! Marcus at Fat Cat kindly picked us up from the airport in a mini-van that we proceeded to cram all our suitcases and gear in, just barely. We drove to the hotel, then drove to the venue, had a sound-check and a photo shoot for Uncut magazine. London show was pretty fun, although very rock-club vibe and an extremely chatty audience. Todd and Dema showed up and it was nice to see friends like James Hindle. I think our first show wasn't quite bad considering our crazy day!
Our next show was wonderful, but that's not surprising since we ALWAYS have a great time in Bristol at the Trinity Center, taken care of by Chiz and his great family. Another photo shoot for Mojo magazine by a former Photoworks customer of mine, Becky Miller. Had the pleasure of seeing/meeting Howe Gelb and the Canadian gospel singers. What a show. Howe traded a CD for one of my wallets! Onstage sound was great as usual for Bristol and the crowd was fantastic and a little older than our usual crowd. Chiz' wife Esther made some fabulous food for the bands. We stayed at their cute house that night, and were woken up in the morning by little Dot. Such a cutie! Then we went to a great market, I think the Bristol Sweetmart, to stock up on groceries for ATP, and got some snacks from the market we went to last time with the Carribean food and smoothies.
The drive to ATP was long and traffic-ridden on the M25 loop, so we missed some of the first ATP bands like Country Teasers. ATP was located at a really funny British vacation "resort" right near a beautiful beach with majestic sand dunes, where lots of band photos got shot that weekend, including ours, and some I took of Ben Chasny for SOMA magazine. It really felt like some kind of indie rock summer camp.
OK, gotta sound check! More later...

Lisbon/Benicassim/Cardiff

2005-08-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well, what an adventure those two festivals were! The drive to the festival in Portugal was annoyingly long. We brought our friend Pedro, who played electric guitar onstage for some of Dev's new songs. And Dev's Dad came, too. We also met 2 guys there who managed to talk therir way into the festival by saying they were playing with Dev. One of them was named Randy. I thought he was Portuguese at first, but it turned out he was from Baltimore and had been living there so long he had a Poretuguese accent. He's a private chef for some artists and a really nice guy. His friend was nice, too. We were invited to stay with them whenever we want and hang out at the beach!
The show was so much fun: I played percussion and sang, Pedro played on some songs, and Randy's friend did, too. It was so much fun to play because I was basically doing what I was doing offstage: singing along and clapping and stuff, only onstage! I hung out a bit with Paul and Lucas from Maximo Park. It's so funny,their band is all over British magazines and festivals and stuff, they are so ROCK! I like Paul a lot, though, he's really cool. Unfortunately I wasn't that into his band when they were playing...just not my thing, really.
So guess who else was playing that festival: O A S I S! We tried to get backstage and hang out with them but security was SUPER tight. I watched them later but they were so far away it looked like they were lip-synching. They were OK.
The next day was BRUTAL for travelling. After getting back to the hotel super late because of the drive, we had to leave at 7:15 a.m.!! It wasn't even a direct flight from Lisbon to Spain, we had a layover. When we got there, we even had an hour drive to the hotel and an half hour drive to the Benicassim festival, and then the show was early. The good part about that was that we had the rest of the night off. I played percussion and sang again, but honestly it was not a very good show for everyone, especially Andy, who got his cord knocked out by the cameraman. It was so pro that there were 3 cameramen onstage but they were getting in the way! After the show Dev convinced one of the festival drivers to drive us to the beach, which was only about 10 minutes away, and we got to jump in the beautiful, warm Mediterranean again. We rinsed ourselves off at the showers there and headed back to the festival for dinner. I saw J Mascis at dinner and made the mistake of going up and trying to say hello to him. He was not having it and I felt like an idiot. Then after dinner Jona and I went to go see !!! and ran into his French friend Marie, who is super cool. We danced to !!! together, who were awesome, and them headed for...yes...the VIP POOL! Benicassim is know for having a POOL backstage for the artists, and a free bar! So we got to splash around in the pool while listening to the Lemonheads from the stage about 100 feet away and see Ladytron (on the other stage) on TV's next to the pool. It was crazy, I really felt like I was living the rock star lifestyle! We were also swimming with this nice girl Carolee, who plays with Jamie in Xiu Xiu. I hadn't seen him in years. After swimming I hung around a bit longer and talked to Paul from MP a bit and some of the guys in !!!, who were all pretty nice. Then back to the hotel. I gotta say, Benicassim is pretty amazing to play!
Another flight the next day and we were back in the UK. Fortunately it was actually sunny for once here. We drove to Cardiff, Wales, to stay at the Future Inn (?). After a restful sleep in their extremely comfy beds, Andy & I went for a walk around downtown Cardiff. The Welsh language is weird, all the words look like this:

gylllmp ar whrghllp mrthlpth

How the heck do you even pronounce that?!

We got awesome vegetarian Quorn sandwiches, Andy went record shopping and bought shoes, and we went to Cardiff Castle.
The gig was at this amazing venue called The Point that used to be a church. Josephine Foster played first...her voice is SO beautiful, I had never seen her play live before. She's a trained opera singer, so she's doing all this crazy stuff with her voice but makes it look SO easy. Then Espers, who played and sounded great. Then Hairy Fairy! Greg Weeks (from Espers) hung out with me at the merch table during their set. He rules!
So today we're in Brighton, which is a lovely, cute beach town in Southern England. The beach is about 20 feet from the venue. I think I'm going to go back there to lay in the sun a bit more!

Dublin/Belfast/Edinburgh/Manchester/Leeds/Lisbon

2005-08-05T04:35:00.000-07:00

Well, we have all over the map the past few days. The show in Dublin was quite fun, the place was packed and, being Ireland, a little unruly with Guiness-drinking folks. I know it's a stereotype, but it holds true: people in Ireland LIKE DRINKING. Especially at shows. It was also raining the entire time we were in Dublin. A nice change in some ways, and not that different from "summers" in SF. We spent most of the time in our hotel room watching TV, although Andy and I got soaked trying to venture out for record shopping and lunch. By the way, Colm is a SUPERSTAR in his homeland! I evenmet someone that knows his brother, Ronan, who's a local DJ.
After Dublin we drove to Belfast. N. Ireland is a very intense place, especially with the recent events of the disarming of the IRA. We arrived in the middle of a parade, which seemed fun and boisterous at first. However, people were drinking a LOT and being frighteningly rowdy for a normal parade. The promoter told us later that it's an annual event where the Protestants basially show off to the Catholics and it's not very joyous at all. The ambiance definitely carried over into the evening: Jona even taped some girl getting a strip tease in the middle of the sidewalk! The show was at a beautiful music hall that was over 100 years old and had posters in the lobby from the late 1800's. The people were very sweet and it was obviously the local custom to thank people in the form of pints of Guinness. The band kept getting so many brought to the stage they couldn't even drink them all. Someone even brought one to me in the loby to thank me for letting them in when the door person wasn't there! During the part of the show where Devendra invites someone to play onstage, these 2 VERY drunk and aggressive brothers came up and played a surprisingly good rock song that the band joined in on. We could not predict that they would end up following us to the hotel after the show trying to party with us. They were SO annoying and kept asking Jona, "Do you want us to f### off?" And he was like, "No, we just want to go to bed." Finally Jan had to tell security that they were NOT with us!
After watching bad late-night TV with Jona and Luckey, one of my favorite tour activites, and a wonderful night sleep (nice hotel rooms with comfy beds), we left in the morning for yet another ferry ride. Fortunately, it was practucally lavish compared to the France-Ireland ferry and you could barely even feel the water. And then, a beautiful drive thorugh Scotland to Edinburgh! Scotland is definitely one of the most beautiful, peaceful countries we've been to on tour. Gorgeous green rolling hills covered in cute sheep. Our hotel was far from the city center, but across from a nature area complete with breathtaking views and a magical forest filled with hopping bunnies and foxes.
Upon travelling to the city for dinner at a great Thai restaurant, we were all amazed at the beauty of the city. The streets are wide and the majestic buildings are mostly made from beautiful beige stone that blackens over time into a repeating patina covering the landscape. Edinburgh Castle is right in the middle of the city way up on a hill. The following day I took a five-minute walk fro the venue up to the Castle, but it was so touristy and expensive I didn't go in. On the way down I spotted a white van in front of the venue to find...ESPERS! I gave them all a big hug. Andy and I found a relly classy restaurant right across from the venue that had an early bird "pre-theatre" special: two courses for about £10. It was amazing. I had to try the fried haggis balls! Actually kind of yummy!
The show that night was great, except for the sound. We met Sir Richard Bishop's girlfriend, too. I sold plenty of merch and many people recognized me from the Vetiver gig in Glasgow back in June. After the show we went to the bar next door. Vashti came to the show with her husband Al! It was so nice to see her and we'll hopefully hang out with her when she comes to California in September. Also, I spotted Mike Herron from the Incredible String Band outside after the show and talked to him briefly and gave him a Vetiver CD. Then we walked up to a fish and chip shop for horrible late night pizza. We hung out with this guy who had a really funny fake American accent and Noah was dishing it out back to him with his funny Scottish one!
Before departing the next morning, Andy and I took another walk up to the forest. A beautiful start to an otherwise bad day. The show at the Comedy Store was fine. We saw lots of nice folks there, including James Wiliam Hindle and crew and Chris Corsano and his lady. We went back to the hotel to crash and Noah and Devendra went to get something to eat. I was woken up a couple hours late by a phone call from Noah asking me if I had seen his computer. Someone had broken into his room while we were at the gig and stolen Devendra's and Noah's laptops, including the bags they were in which contained their PASSPORTS! A day before we had to fly to Portugal! What a nightmare. We couldn't believe it. They have SO much irreplacable information on their computers, especially music. The went to London very early the next day to get new Passports while we went to Leeds. While in Leeds Johan got an email that the Passports and the contents of their bags (minus computers) had been returned to the Manchester Police. Noah and Dev finally arrived during the last song of Espers' set and I told them the news. They ran backstage and started playing about 10 minutes after that! Since the gig was cut short because of the curfew, Jona yelled, "We'll see everybody outside!" and the band hightailed it to the alley outside the club. Unfortunately Ihad to sell merch and missed it, but them and Richard and Espers all played 2 more Devendra songs in the alley to about 500 crazed people. Devendra ended up giving his nylon string guitar away to this really nice long-haired dude named Ian. Ian was so proud of his kids and so into Devendra that Devendra told him it was for Lily, his baby. It might seem sort of crazy, but it's actually a typically Devendra thing to to, the spontaneous and generous guy that he is. Especially when it involves kids! That guitar sounded like crap onstage anyways!
So, at least we were all able to get here yesterday...barely. During our stopover in Mallorca, some idiot at the airport drove a van into the wing of the plane and we all had to get off the plane and get onto a new one! Flying into Lisbon, I saw a horrible sight: 2 fires in the distance. Lisbon has been hit with a horrible drought and fires. The sky is now totally filled with smoke. Pedro, our Portuguese friend, said that many of them are arson, where companies that want to build on those properties pay poor people to set them. I was shocked.
Another surprise at the airport awaited us: Devendra's dad, Loring! He took us to an amazing restaurant, a former convent up on a hill. The food was incredible. I had a fish called "John Dory" that was probably one of the most amazing, delicious pieces of food I have ever eaten. Scrumptious. I was so tired and hot I was practically falling asleep through the meal, but I made it!
Well, today is another festival. It's about 2 1/2 hours away and it's going to be scorchingly hot. Oasis is playing tonight! The boys are very excited about it, especially Dev and Luckey. I think I'll play percussion with them since I don't have to sell merch.

Cork, Galway, Dublin

2005-07-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

Man, oh, man, Ireland sure had been fun so far!
The first day we got to Cork we had a day off to relax after the horrible ferry ride, so we went to a great African place for dinner and did some internet. On the way home I ran into Jona and we ended up going to see War of the Worlds, which was a really fun movie with a really questionable ending. The following day I spent leisurely walking around Cork, a really lovely little city.
Well, the show that night was something I'll never forget. First of all, we met Sir Richard Bishop, who is now travelling with us for a bit playing shows. His band is the Sun City Girls, who are quite legendary in some circles. He's a great guitar player, kind of like Fahey but faster and more flamenco, and a really nice guy. As the show was getting underway, Noah told me that DONOVAN was there. I was like, "No..." and sure enough, I look over in the corner and there he is! Noah said he was pretty loaded and he kept walking by me so I figured I should say hello. Well, I did, and he immediately grabbed my hand, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and started his night-long ramble-fest of his philosophies on life. While Devendra was playing he was just loving the band said they were "channeling Charlie Watts" and commenting on their "attitude" and stuff. He was talking a lot about fate and the role of us as musicians as the "elite" in the "center of the universe". He was like, "YOU know, and I know, and Devendra know, and The Beatles know, and The Rolling Stones know..." Man, I really wish I wrote down more of the stuff he was saying, it was really brilliant. He did say he was writing a book! He was definitely loaded and definitely flirting with me, but hey, it's DONOVAN! After the show I packed up the merch as quickly as possible as people were filing out, and went upstairs to the backstage as a full-on jam was underway: Donovan was singing and playing guitar to "Love Potion No. 9" with Sir Richard backing up up on these insane guitar licks! It was unbelievable. Richard actually had a camera set up across the room and was taping all of it, so it's recorded. I also took a bunch of photos and Jona recorded audio onto his computer and took some video. He even emailed his Mom while it was going on, who was so excited. He played some other songs, like "Hit the Road Jack" and kept saying, "Ladies, this is for the ladies!" and was trying to get all 2 of us to sing. Unfortunately I'm a terrible singer and the only other girl there was totally lame and definitely not even going to try. But it was funny. He even dropped Noah's guitar on the floor at one point. He and Noah had this whole episode where Donovan was trying to create some bizarre tuning and Noah was attempting to keep up, and once he was there, he just sort of laughed. He was just doing it for fun and didn't have a song to play or anything! We all cracked up. Then Noah tuned it back and started to play "Season of the Witch". Richard played guitar as well, and Donovan spent the song with his arm around Devendra and singing it with him.
As if that wasn't enough, we had to leave, and Donovan was going to drive home. Now, we wouldn't let any of our friends drive home in the state that he was in! He didn't even know where his car was! So Noah and I walked around trying to find it with him. I finally asked him, "What does your car look like?" and he said "It's a black Benz," and there it was. We went over to it and he was dumping out all the stuff in his bag onto the hood trying to find his keys. I was like, "Let me try," and they were in the first pocket I looked in. I was like, "I'm keeping these!" We managed to convince him to leave his car there and come back to the hotel with us, where we would give him one of our rooms. So Noah went back to the van and I stayed with him at his car. He went off for a "walk" and ended up just taking a piss between a couple of parked cars. He kept thanking me and us for taking care of him! Man, I was like, "Dude, we are honored and would do this for any of our friends, it's no problem." Finally the van came along and he sat up in the front with me and began to nod off. We put him in Noah's room (there were extra beds anyways). I knocked on the door to check on him and he already had his pants off. At least he was wearing a long shirt! And in the morning, he was gone before any of us even got up. What a night!
The next day we were all just in shock that it even happened. Today Dev said he called him and Donovan has some "projects" he wants to involve him in. What a life, huh?
So, onto Galway. Galway was very cool as well, the owner/promoter of the bar we played in was totally sweet and ended up DJing the dance party after the show. The stage was so crowded and the audience was sitting at tables, but the sound was great and the show was a bit more subdued. We ended up drinking way, way too much, especially me, but we had a great time dancing and talking to the locals. The bar put us up in an apartment next door to the venue.
Yesterday we fortunately had the day off to recover and drove to Dublin. It's been raining ever since, the weather is absolutely miserable! Sort of like San Francisco in July! We've mostly stayed in the hotel watching TV and stuff. The show tonight in Dublin is starting soon, so I should go set up merch.
DONOVAN! I still can't believe it! What a guy.

Italy/France/Ireland

2005-07-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Internet access has been terrible the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of posts! I believe the last was right before Italy. We drove from Belgium to Milan and stayed at a hotel near the airport with a cute hotel cat and a great Italian restaurant next door, the first of many geat meals in Italy. I had homemade raviolis! We woke up the next day with a new temporary tourmate...Entrance! Guy is awesome and a good friend and it was such a nice surprise to travel with him and hang out and play music. The airport situation is a little insane in Italy. We flew Alitalia to Sicily. I was so, so excited the whole plane ride and especially when I could finally see the mountains from the plane! It looked a little like the Southwest actually, kind of barren and dry and very hot, but right on the Mediterranean. We learned about the crazy Italian drivers on the way to the hotel. It was a little scary! People don't really observe lanes! The area around the hotel was interesting, it didn't look like much at first, but then if you walk a half a block up the street there's an amazing inetrsection with inceribly beautiful statues and fountains in a circle all the way around it. There were punk rockers sleeping and stray dogs lingering about. The streets had archways of lights all up and down them, like I'd seen only in the North End in Boston and in Little Italy in New York around the holidays. At night they were lit up and so beautiful, some multi-colored and some just white. The venue that evening was outdoors, just like all the shows in Italy, and free. It was in front of a convent (I wondered if the nuns liked the music?!) and in a bombed-out neighborhood that one of the locals said the US bombed during WWII. Some of the shells of old buildings had beautiful designs that almost looked Mayan. There was even a huge tree that was entirely covered with lights! (Jona has a picture on his blog: www.teamyacht.com)It was a Sunday night and rather late, but so, so many different people came out: older folks, families, younger kids running around, dogs, and fans of Devendra's. It was very community-based and even had lots of carts selling things like toys, beer, animal-shaped balloons, and cotton candy. The vibe of the show was really wonderful and I was so glad to have had that experience in Palermo!
The next show was in Rome. Kelly picked us up at the airport and drove us past The Coliseum and Circus Maximus on the way to the hotel. I was so glad he did or else it would have been like Paris: I've gone there twice and never even seen the Eiffel Tower in person! It was really mind-blowing, you could almost feel the ancient vibes of Rome. The show was at a park that used to be the grounds of the palace of the Royal Family before they got deposed in WWII. Tons of people came to the show! We met some nice girls, Laura and Laura, that worked at the venue, which even had a store that sold books, records, and DVD's. It was actually the only place where I've seen Vetiver CD's in Europe. Like Palermo and Faenza, we sold lots of merch that night. It was one of those nights I felt like a bartender where people were just waving money in my face and I could barely keep up.
The drive to Faenza was so insane, we took a route through the mountains that we weren't really aware was so curvy. It was sort of like driving on the 1 up the coast of California. We had to stop and fall out of the car because we were so dizzy! But is was very beautiful and every so often on the side of the road there'd be a shrie to the Virgin Mary. Faenza was really cool, the venue was basically in a courtyard right in the town square. There was a flea market going on when we arrived and they even had soy gelato, which was sooooo delicious. The show also went really well, but the best part was after the show. Carlo, the promoter of the Italian shows, took us to this "restaurant" in the middle of the country up a dirt road that was open just for us!!! It was about 2 in the morning and they made us incredible food that was all grown right there. Even the meat was from the farm! It was probably some of the best food I've ever eaten, and we got to eat it outdoors by candlelight overlooking the fields and a lake. It was the perfect ending to our wonderful time in Italy.
Moving onto France. Fortunately the next place on our journey was Nice. I couldn't believe I was actually on the legendary French Riviera! Our hotel was right on the beach, which was covered in stones. As soon as we got there we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, put our bathing suits on, and ran across the street. The water was so warm and we made it in right before the sun went down. That night we walked to a Mexican restaurant that turned out to be surprisingly good. Our waiter, who had lived in San Diego for years, was really friendly and at the end of the meal put a bottle of Mezcal on the table for us! One shot was more than enough, that stuff was strong!
The next day we got up early to have breakfast, as the breakfast at Radisson's are not to be missed. Guess who was sitting next to us: Van Morrison, whose show we had missed the night before. Probably one of the strangest celebrity sightings of the trip. He looked kind of frumpy (hey, it was breakfast!) and clearly did not want to be bothered, so we didn't talk to him. Then we spent the rest of the day tanning on the beach and swimming. What a life! I even took off my top as that is the norm in France and I hate tan lines. It was a little weird to do that in front of the guys, but I have to look at THEIR hairy nipples all the time, don't I?!
The show that night was pretty bizarre, it was actually for the Nice Jazz Festival. The venue was in the middle of an orchard and there were trees right in front of the stage. It was definitely not as organized as Montreax or Roskilde. I hung out with my new friend Leslie Feist, who I met on the beach and is in Broken Social Scene. She was there seeing her friend Gonzales, who played right before Dev. We went back to the hotel for a nice dinner overlooking the full moon and the water. Later I hung out with Leslie, Gonzales, and his dad at the hotel and the beach after the show, which was really nice.
After Nice was a show on the grounds of a 16th century castle near Clergoux, France. It was a nice change from huge festivals: it was sort of in the middle of nowhere and only about 100 people saw the show. I think most of them had never even heard of Devendra before.
Then: another huge festival! This one, in Carhaix, was more like a Roskilde-type event. The dressing room area was amazing, they had showers and free massages and internet (it only worked for a little while) and even did our laundry for us. Unfortunately it was raining - mud everywhere. The performance was incredible because of the huge amount of people. I think someone at the festival estimated that 20,000 people were watching the band
when they played! Twenty thousand!!! Afterwards they shuttled us off to a "press conference", which was hilarious because Noah, Dev, and Jona basically turned it into comedy hour and even had the interviewer, this old dude, singing along with R. Kelly by the end. It was such a surreal thing to do, to have all these photographers and reporters in a tent while some guy asks them a bunch of questions, that they just basically had as much fun with it as possible. It was great. We then got whisked off to dinner, which was some of the best festival food I've had on tour. They brought us giant plates of seafood that looked like baby lobsters that even I was a little freaked out by eating, although the tails were delicious. I just couldn't bear to eat the insides of their heads, even if it was the best part.
Afterwards, we stayed at this weird "institute" in the woods that was more like the place we stayed in Denmark: no receptionist, phones, very minimal. Peaceful, but definitely weird.
Since then, we haven't had any shows, only lots of driving and an almost intolerable 18-hour overnight ferry ride from France to Ireland. The food was HORRIBLE and there were tons of kids running around everywhere. We had tiny cabins with bunkbeds. It wouldn't have been so bad but there was a storm and the boat was rocking so hard I couldn't believe it. The result: piles of puke in the hallway!!! Pretty gross. We watched Batman Begins, which took our mind off the rocking for awhile, especially Jona and Andy, who were looking pretty green.
So now we're in Cork, Ireland. It's nice to be in a place with a city center, internet, etc. We had dinner at an amazing African restarant that had some weird Nigerian malted Gunness drink that tasted like liquid cereal.
Now I'll be off to the hotel!

Mons, Belgium

2005-07-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Back in the land of amazing beers. I have had limited email access lately, hence the lack of regular posts. I left off in Norway. Overall, Norway was beautiful, expensive, and kind of strange. The show was sort of bad - not the guys' playing, but it was the last show of the last day of the festival there and I think everyone (in the audience) was sort of burnt out on shows and way too drunk. I got harrassed on the street multiple times by drunk Norwegian dudes and I saw a guy get thrown out of the show. But Jona and I had an awesome time hanging out with 2 Norwegian girls after the show who were really nice.
We've had a lot of annoying travelling lately. After Norway, we had to drive back to Goteburg, Sweden, fly the next day to Geneva with a stop in Amsterdam, which we almost missed because of passport checks at the airport, and then get driven to the Montreax Jazz Fest. Montreax is breathtakingly beatiful, it sits on Lake Geneva and is surrounded by mountains. The Festival was so professional! The stage was so fancy and they filmed it with TV cameras and did on the spot editing and gave Dev DVD's after the performance. It looked like some kind of MTV production! I thought it was pretty special to have something like that filmed so well. Joanna and Bonnie Prince Billy and Cocorosie also played. After the show, Jona and Luckey and I went down to the lake and went for a dip at 2 in the morning. Just like Norway - cold but refreshing! The lake water was so clean!
The festival drove us in 2 cars to Zurich the next day, where we met back up with Kelly. He had to drive all the way there from Norway while we flew and played at Montreax. The venue there was amazing, it was a huge cafe and outdoor performance space on another beautiful, clean lake in Switzerland. They fed us the most amazing, gourmet organic meals and really took care of us. It was fun hanging out with Bianca and Sierra and Spleen again (Cocorosie), they played the Zurich show as well. There were a ton of people there and the band played for a long time. I sold lots of merch.
The hotel we stayed at in Zurich was really cool, it was in a really old section of town. There was no lobby, just a bar, so the bartender was also the hotel receptionist! The next day we had off and Andy and I had a lovely time walking around Zurich.
Yesterday was another festival in Belgium. We played with Fantomas and Laibach, and Electrelane came to Devendra's show and we got to hang out with those girls a bit, which the guys were very happy about, heh heh.
Oops, I have to go now, we have to drive to Milan and fly to SICILY tomorrow! I am SO EXCITED!

Kristiansand, Norway

2005-07-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

The Accelerator Festival went better than I ever thought possible! It felt like being on tour for 3 days with all those awesome bands, especially being able to see certain bands more than once and seeing the same people every day. Sonic Youth was AMAZING! I haven't seen them since Jim O'Rourke started playing guitar for them and completely understand why he should be an official fifth member. Also, he's a really cool guy, super friendly. I enjoyed hanging out with him a bunch. The first day I watched Joanna's set from the back with him and Jim White. Jim W. plays drums for Smog and is also in the Dirty Three. I had met him a few times before but it was nice to talk with him for longer. The guys from the Magnolia Electric Co. were also playing, and they're super nice as well. Everyone was nice, actually! I talked to Lee Ranaldo for a while about photography and we took photos of each other. The music was really great, Sonic Youth played old stuff like Expressway to Yr Skull, Bull in the Heather, Teenage Riot, and some new stuff that was really good. I felt honored to not only see them play 3 nights in a row but to come down to an amazing hotel breakfast and see them there, too. It was just really surreal. Driving through Sweden was beautiful, all the cities were lovely, and the sun never fully set the whole time. Even now, in Norway, it stays light until way after midnight and starts getting brighter around 3 or 4! I liked Malmo a lot and the area there was neat, kind of smaller and more intimate with a carnival in the background. Goteburg was fancier and in a gorgeous park very close to the hotel with a giant greenhouse next door similar to the Conservatory of Flowers in SF. And Wyatt from Aislers Set and his lady Josephine came!Hairy Fairy (Dev's band's official name) played while it was still light out and the clouds were backlit from the sun going down. I tried to take some pictures of them playing with the clouds in the background. The venue in Stockholm was a little more awkwardly set up, but the view over the river was stunning.
I think we're all a little sad that Accelerator is over. It's a wonderful festival, very organized and very focused on the artists having a good time. We had a l-o-o-o-o-ng drive to Kristiansand, including a lovely ferry ride, and got in really late last night. I realized the Earlies were in the lobby and got to hang out with Nathan from Micah's band. I love that guy! He made me go wake up Andy and get Dev out of the shower so he could say hi to them and they didn't mind at all. Today we didn't have to be at soundcheck 'til 3:30 so Andy, Dev, Jona and I went down to the beach here. It was really crowded and not really a beach, more like a concrete swimming spot, but Dev and I actually got in the water and it was cold but refreshing. I haven't been in the ocean in a long time. There were swans swimming past us!
So after tonight's show at the festival here, we have a lot of travelling and the next show is the Montreaux Jazz Festival!
Be sure to check Jona's blog for his stories and photos (and video!): www.teamyacht.com

Mälmo

2005-07-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

Hellö from Sweden! Umlauts galöre!
The last day of Roskilde was so much fun. Devendra didn't end up having to really do a collaboration with Joanna, but we did all sing Ämöur Föu together. We were able to see so many bands. Andy was stoked about Konono No. 1, they're from Congo. They had about 9 people, including a dancer, and 3 of the guys played these homemade kalimbas. They were really fun to dance to and it was amazing that they played Roskilde. I normally would never have a chance to see anything like that. We missed The Game to see them but Noah and Dev and Lucky said it was pretty crazy. We also saw bits of The Futureheads, the Go Team, and Bloc Party. We couldn't wealk around without tons of people coming up to us and wanting their picture taken with Devendra. Back at our stage we watched all of Rahzel's set, which was comepletely mindblowing! He's in The Roots and beatboxes, but he is extremely talented at it. He was able to make these incredible bass sounds with just his mouth and a microphone that were shaking the whole stage. He even gave a little history lesson on beatboxing and hip hop. Later backstage we talked to him for a bit and took some pictures with him. He was really sweet. And finally...BRIAN WILSON! It was kind of sad, actually, he was obviously very out of it and lip synching to some of the songs. It was fun to hear all those Beach Boys songs and watch Jo and Jamie dance around but we left after a while. Overall, Roskilde was a very strange experience! There's definitely nothing of that caliber in the States. And I'm glad to be in the normal world where there aren't boys peeing on fences everywhere you look. That was the grossest part.
On the way to Mälmo yesterday we stopped at an amazing anarchist "island" in the middle of Copenhagen called Christiania. I highly recommend checking it out in the internet somehow, there is simply too much to mention about it here so quickly! Tonight is the Accelerator Festival with great bands like Sonic Youth, Smog, Joanna, Wolf Eyes, etc. Should be a lot of fun, and I don't have to sell merch because the festival does it for you, so I get to enjoy all the shows. Maybe I'll play the maracas again!

Brussels/Cologne/Hamburg/Roskilde

2005-07-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

Whew, it's been awhile! Brussels was also a crazy, sold-out show. I sat on the side of the stage with our Tuscan veggie chef friend, Giacomo, who was going crazy! Many other friends came to the show, including Kuhn and Crystal from Hasselt, Mark from LA (who's living in Belgium for awhile), and Mike, the guy who's following Dev's tour. Right before the song "I Feel Like a Child" someone threw a huge teddy bear up to Dev...so appropriate. Oh yeah, and we got to stay at my favorite hotel again, the Sheraton Brussels. So sweet. Great beakfast.
The show in Cologne was the first not ridiculously crowded show - the venue was only about 1/3 full. Germans just aren't into Dev as much as the rest of Europe, there are many different theories about that. But the show was still fun and the band got to be more experimental than usual. The venue was more of an Oakland warehouse type space. We met Andrea, from the XL office in Germany, who is a sweetheart and knit me a neckwarmer/headband thingy. She came to the show the next day in Hamburg, too. Also not sold out, but fun. After the show Noah and Lucky and I went to a local bar with 2 German girls and discussed, among other things, why Adam Green is so huge in Germany! He's a superstar! It's the David Hasselhoff thing. Andrea thinks it's because his songs sound like old German folk songs.
After Hamburg we had a day off to to laundry and then drive to Roskilde. We even took a ferry from Germany to Denmark. Denmark is BEAUTIFUL, so green and undeveloped. Roskilde is definitely the biggest festival I've ever been to. Here's some stats: 150 bands, 20 full-time year round employees, 18,000 unpaid volunteers, and over 100,000 people. And all quite well-organized! Yesterday we saw this awesome kora player from West Africa, who invited 2 other kora players, a guitarist, and a drummer onstage. It was amazing! Also Andy and I saw Roots Manuva (UK hip hop), part of a Gamelan troop, and...the Foo Fighters. The audience LOVED Devendra, I have never seen anything like it, people were holding up signs for their favorite songs and singing along. Dev even went down into the crowd and girls were grabbing him and touching him. What a rockstar! They were even screaming for an encore. I played maracas and sang during "Shame" with Jona's friend Luke. And the whole time we were being filmed by a camera crew, which was funny because Dev (and Jona) were totally goofing off, pretending to be on MTV Cribs and stuff. The camera guy was like, "I have never seen anybody get so close to the camera before, I had it on macro!" because Dev was sticking his face right in it!
Gotta go, we have to be there early again today because Dev is playing with Joanna! More fun times at Roskilde!

Paris

2005-06-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

Paris ended up being really fun. We had a day off on Sunday and nothing was open so we did a lot of that - NOTHING! It was nice to relax. We actually went to a photo shoot with Devendra for this big French music magazine called Les Inrockuptibles. The photographer was pretty pro and had a studio with a beautiful garden. He shot a bunch of 4x5 Polaroids and 4x5's and then had a whole Hasselblad system. Yes, of course I was checking out his gear! He took some shots of Dev by himself, some of the whole band, and then some of individual band members. In Andy's I'm giving him a kiss! Then we went back to the hotel and Andy, Lucky, Noah, Jona and I went out for dinner. Dev and Bianca had some much needed time alone. We passed through the neighborhood that had the venue, La Cigale, and apparently also had the Moulin Rouge, but we didn't see it. We climbed higher up the hill to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur Cathedral. There were tons of people on the steps just taking in the view of Paris. Unfortunately there was so much smog you could barely see anything. Gross. We ended up at a cheap Indian place that was OK. The waitress was nice but the service was terrible and the food wasn't really spicy at all.
The day of the show, Andy and I woke up and did an errand at the Beggars' office (Dev's label in France) and had some coffee and chocolate croissants. We met back up with everyone at the hotel and went over to the venue, La Cigale. That afternoon it was so hot outside I just stayed in the theater where it was cooler. And where there was internet! Dev had a couple of interviews. One was televised for a French TV show and he had me and Andy and Jona stand behind him. During the interview Andy and I made out and Jona had on his fake beard and pretended to chain smoke. It was pretty funny, especially knowing that people who watch it are gonna be like, "What the heck is going on behind Devendra?!" I had to set up merch in the lobby before doors opened, and there were people lined up outside way before the show. It had sold out 2 weeks before. I didn't get to watch very much of the show, but the parts I did watch were awesome. The sound was really good and they played really well. The audience was going NUTS. It was probably about 100 degrees in that room (no air conditioning) and totally packed with people, some of whom were even smoking, and they were dancing and screaming. At the end of the show, during "White Reggae Troll/Africa", Devendra invited the audience onstage and about 40 people took him up on it!
After the show everyone was amped and it was only midnight so we wanted to hang out a bit more. Devendra's friend Amy Sue invited us up to her garden to hang out. We passed some cafes on the street and when the people saw us they started cheering and clapping! It was so sweet! Dev and Bianca went back to the hotel but the rest of us went up to Amy Sue's, which was right up near Sacre Coeur, and had some drinks on the grass in the private garden area of her residence. It was a really nice ending to the evening.

Evereux/Paris

2005-06-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

Bonjour from Paris! Paris is weird. I'm not sure if i really like it or not. It feels very claustrophobic.
So we sadly said goodbye to Amsterdam. No more bikes and canals and coffeeshops. We had a long drive to Evereux, which is about 2 hours from Paris, for the festival called "Rock dans sous Les Etats" or something like that. It was a pretty big festival but not nearly as spread out as Primavera. The dressing room area was pretty funny, the bands' rooms were little wooden cabins all in a row. The lineup was pretty bizarre: CocoRosie was playing when we got there, which was nice. The Bravery played right after them, which was pretty funny. They are so lame! They used to be a ska band called Skabba the Hut! There were actually quite a few ska bands I've never heard of there, like Ska-P, and also Blonde Redhead (who Dev knows), Black Mountain (super nice people from Vancouver), and GARBAGE! The crown was mostly young, there were lots of kids accompanied by their parents. I was prepared to not sell a lot of merch, because that's what I'd been told about festivals, but merch sales were pretty terrible and I could barely see or hear Devendra's band. But I had a great time! After they payed, I waited about an hour, then Andy and Jonah came over to help me bring stuff back to the dressing rooms. Jonah really wanted to get a picture with Butch Vig of Garbage so we waited around until we thought it was the right time, then they all started to leave and Shirley Manson walked out of her dressing room. So we hustled over there and asked her for a picture. Not only did she let us take a picture, but she was SUPER nice and we ended up talking to her for a while! Andy came over, and then the other guys. Shirley was really sweet and friendly and asked us about touring and all our bands. Jonah told her I was in Vetiver and she was like, "I've heard of you guys!" I must have laughed or something because she was like, "No, I have! I just read about you somewhere!" So I gave her a Vetiver CD and 2 Dev CD's and Jona gave her his. She said she would come see us in Edinburgh if she was there when we played. SHIRLEY MANSON RULES!

Amsterdam - Part 3

2005-06-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

The video! We just completed Devendra's video about 10 minutes ago. Galen flew out from Providence to make it. We're in the Bimhaus, the venue where the band played last night and will play again tonight. It's unusual for Dev to be playing here because it's usually a jazz venue, and it's brand new and right on the water near Central Station. After a couple of days of confusion and rescheduling, the video finally happened. There were quite a few crew people and they even had a rolling camera on a huge track. Dev was only wearing these tiny shorts and sandals. Andy and Noah and Lucky had these caftan-like black robes on a Dev did a great job on their black eyeliner! And Jona had on a multicolor pyschedelic-looking shirt. Daylen and I took pictures and danced a little at the end.
The show was really good last night, the music came together after all those rehearsals. It wasn't very crowded, but there was a good number of people there. Daylen helped me out selling merch. One more show tonight, and then GOODBYE AMSTERDAM! I will definitely miss it.

Amsterdam - Part 2

2005-06-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

Right now we have free WI-FI which is really exciting! The practice space is about a 10 or 15 minute bike ride from the hotel. There's a basketball court right next door, which is insanely awesome since Noah had said he wanted to play as much as possible and everybody seems to love it! I'm really bad and also a lot of those guys are 6-10 inches taller than me, but it's really fun. I'm so out of shape that after about 10 minutes I felt like I was having a heart attack. It's also been really hot the past couple of days - 28-30 degrees C. (?)
The band is sounding great...Jona didn't arrive until the 2nd day becauase he was coming from Brussels and there was a train strike! Also, Galen arrived this morning to shoot a video on Wednesday for Dev. It's his first time out of the country!
Well, time to eat dinner. We're going to a Surninamese place on a tip...

Amsterdam

2005-06-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

Here I am in Amsterdam getting my germy fingers all over a public computer keyboard! I got a bad cold on tour (thanks, KEV!) but now I have a few days in Amsterdam to get over it.
The last 3 shows of the Vetiver tour - Manchester, Birmingham, and Reading - were fabulous. The venue we played in Manchester was called Academy 3 (at the University) and was basically a rock club, but the vibes were good and there were tons of people there. I met Chris Corsano, who just moved there to live with his girlfriend. He's friends with Andy, Kev, Otto, and Dev and is a really nice dude and an amazing drummer. We let Micah headline because he lives in Manchester and 3 extra people played with him: a guitarist, the harmonica player,and this rad girl who plays cello standing up and whose brother is in Ladytron. We went to a party at her house after the show, which turned out to be directly across the street from Chris' place!
On the way to Birmingham the next day we ate at this amazing vegatarian restaurant called Earth Cafe. Kev bought a vegetarian guide to the UK and it has led us to some great (and not so great) places. Birmingham was INSANE! Home to Black Sabbath! We played a small room of this enormous, corporate, Clear Channel-run rock club. But the folks who came out were great. Right after we played a whole bunch of girls swarmed around Dev, it was pretty funny. Not unusual, but funny. The hotel we stayed at was right in the middle of what was apparently party central. All these wasted, scantily clad people stumbling around and dancing to bad techno until the wee hours. Totally weird and unexpected...Birmingham?! We played the Dave Chapelle show for Jason and Nathan in Micah's band and they loved it. Those guys rule.
We stopped in Oxford for lunch the next day. Oxford was a really nice university town, but the restaurant we ate at was terrible. The Reading show was great, except for the rude sound guy. The promoter was the best and treated us to awesome Indian food down the street for dinner. We played well and people were dancing up front. It was very bittersweet and a nice last show. Nathan even sat in with Currituck Co. for the Charlie Daniels cover!
Wedrove back to London, dropped off everyone at the hotel, and I tried to sleep in the back of the van as Kelly drove to Amsterdam. It was pretty nice, actually, crossing the English Channel on the ferry at dawn. It was even so clear you could see France!
Now I'm in Amsterdam, where I'll be for the next week and a half or so. I'm glad to be in one place for a while. I'll miss Kev and Otto so much! I'll see Otto in August, at least, when Espers come over to play some shows with Dev.

Glasgow

2005-06-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

Oh, I'm so pissed! I just spent about 20 minutes typing and lost it all because the time ran out of the computer. How annoying!
The show in Bristol was REAlly fun! It was the last show as part of this festival and was held in a church basement. It was sold out (over 400 people!) and totally packed and sweaty. People were being really loud and drunk, but in a good way. Some girl inthe front kept yelling out, "AMOUR FOU!!!!" and Andy was like, "It's coming!" There was this guy hanging out backstage the whole time and after awhile we figured out it was Mark Stewart from the Pop Group, who played two nights before. He was so funny and was totally cracking us up. One of his funniest quotes: "You know what they say in Ibiza, 'Every hole's a goal.'" The next day was the ONLY day off of the whole tour! Andy and Dev unfortunately had to do a radio show in Cardiff, Wales, but Kevin and Otto and I got to go shopping. They bought some records (of course), I bought some clothes (of course) and we just had a really nice day.
The next day was definitely the strangest show of tour. It was at this 150 year old music hall in Leeds. At first, we thought it was really cool: 2 balconies, a sloped and really high stage, and beautiful red velvet wallpaper everywhere. But the stage had really weird vibes. The monitors sounded terrible, the sound just died, and there was this huge separation between the audience and us. We couldn't tell if it was the venue or the people or what. After the show I asked ont of the soundguys, "Have you heard if this place is haunted at all?" and he was like, Actullly, yes, people have said that they've heard things." I told Devendra, and his eyes got all watery and he said that there was a woman talking to him as he was playing onstage! FREAKY!!!
We were pretty glad to leave Leeds, although the hotel was CUSHY.
The next day we played Gateshead, right across the river from Newcastle. The place we played was stunning: only 6 months old, it resembled the Guggenheim, and Kevn described the concert hall as right out of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The sound was incredible: the acoustics were superb and the room was so live. The people were super nice and we even got a gourmet meal from the restaurant there! It was a greta show. We all played really well, too.
Driving through the UK countryside has been really nice, everything is so lush and green and there are hedges and cows and sheep everywhere. Dev bought some vegetarian haggis at a rest stop in Scotland. It was kind of gross.
Last night's show was so funny, the venue was called "Glasgow's Grand Ole Opry" and was comepletely Western themed, with American flags everywhere and murals of the West! It was strangely comforting. There were TONS of people there, and the promoters were even expecting more! Guess who else was there: Vashti! I finally got to meet her after all these years! She was really sweet and shy. I took some pictures of her and Dev. The love each other so much. We played really well and it sort of felt like home with this junkie doing her little junkie dance up front. I asked one of the promoters about her and she said that she was a notrious local who heard Vetiver on the radio that day, spare changed all day for money for the show, and came down with all the change. The door people just let her in! How crazy is that? There were a few more people dancing, too! We even saw Lorna, who used to live in SF. Kevin and Otto left after the show with some cute Scottish girls. Andy and Dev and I ended up at a sketchy Chinese place across the street.
Well, back to England again! The drives haven't been that long, at least. We nap in the the car and read cheesy magazines at gas stations. I'm so sad the Vetiver tour will be over soon! We're playing really well and I love all these guys so much, we're like a travelling musical family. We're very lucky!

Bristol

2005-06-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

So here we are in gray England! Feels just like summer in San Francisco. Drizzly and damp.
I think I left off with Brussels. We played this HUGE very professional venue called Ancienne Belgique where Pat Metheny was playing in the larger room that same night. The sound and stage was great. The audience was pretty large, probably 150-200 people or so, and they were really receptive. Giacomo, our Tuscan vegetarian chef-friend, came and brought us more fabulous food: calzones, asparagus spread, and vegan strawberry tarts. I think Kevin was stoked.
After sound check there I went off wandering up to the bottom of a beautiful steeple I saw a couple of blocks away and at the base was one of the most breathtaking, stunning sights I have ever seen. I think it was called the Grand Square or something generic like that, but it was GORGEOUS!!! I couldn't believe it. It was an enormous cobblestone rectangle with all these buildings from the late 16th century. Unbelievably beautiful. I mentioned it to the guy at the venue later and we was like, "Well, it's not quite real." Apparently it was renovated in the 19th century, but it was still amazing. I think the boys went record shopping instead, although Otto did say he stopped up there.
After the show we stayed at the Sheraton. We had a funny encounter with one of the dudes in Pat Metheny's band on the elevator. Our rooms were GREAT, completely the opposite of the crappy Paris hotel! Comfy beds, nice sheets, beautiful view, and free breakfast! I love Sheratons!
The next morning we had to get up really early to drive to London. We had to take the ferry over to bring our van and all our stuff. That was kind of weird and exciting. Lots of families on holiday giving us funny looks. We were all exhausted, too. It was nice to go up to the deck for awhile, though.
We got to the venue in London, The Hammersmith Theater, just in time for sound check. The Theater was beautiful, it had red velvet seats, 2 balconies, and held 540 people. The first night, the bill with M. Ward, was sold out far in advance. There were way too many sound people on stage for soundcheck and I don't think many of them had any idea what they were doing. Too many cooks in the kitchen. But it sounded OK, and actually live, later, it sounded awesome. It was definitely one of the best shows we've ever played. The audience was polite. Not crazy, but how crazy can you really get in a venue like that?! We played really well, especially on "You May Be Blue", which is now probably our favorite song to play. I play bass on it.
We all rocked out to R. Kelly in the van on the way back to our hotel. Our driver, Kelly, is this total punk-rock Dutch dude with a shaved head and a lip ring, and we've taken to calling him "Kells" after R. Kelly's nickname! I think he's amused by our love of hip hop, The Grateful Dead, old folk music, Crime, etc. Quite the variety of music in the van.
Yesterday I woke up early to meet Mariah, from Smith, and we had a great afternoon of the best shopping ever! She took me to Portabello Road, which is basically a flea market with great clothes, accessories, vintage stuff, everything. I finally managed to get some money from my temporary ATM card and bought some pants from a local Japanese designer, some wooden jewelry, a dress, and some huge 70's rockstar sunglasses. Mariah ended up hanging out with us all night. We went to the venue to soundcheck again. Christa Bosch and Ellen Lindner were also there and we had a mini Smith reunion in the dressing rooms. I think we played pretty well, although we all seemed to think the first night there was better. We met all kinds of people there. Oh yeah, we had a photo shoot, too, for this British magazine called "Comes With a Smile" which I'm really excited about because it has great writing and photography.
After the show we took all the beers from the fridge, rocked out to R. Kelly again in the van on the way back to the hotel, and stayed in the hotel lounge for another couple of hours. It was super fun. Our hotel, the Columbia, is apparently notorious for hosting rock bands. Sure enough, there was some punk band from England there with a film crew because they were in the finals of some MTV Battle of the Bands. They tried to come over to talk to us and we told them we were Kings of Leon. It was hilarious.
So now...Bristol. We're playing some festival here tonight with a band called Tunng, who we are excited to see. Andy and Dev are drinking mead in the other room, and I have to sign off the computer!

Brussels

2005-06-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

Ahhh...post breakfast at the Sheraton!
So far our show in Geneva was the best one of our tour. The sound onstage was excellent and we all played SO well I think we surprised ourselves! L'Usine was a great venue, a little too big for us, really, but everyone there was so nice. We even had dinner along the banks of the river outside the venue. The hotel in Geneva was really nice, too. It had the largest mechanical clock in the world in the lobby and was the setting for some cartoon with a dog whose name I can't remember now! Andy and I had breakfast on one of the top floors with a panoramic view of the city. Geneva was gorgeous, really classy and beautiful and right smack in the middle of the Alps.
The drive to Schorndorf was long. We arrived at the club, Manufaktur, so see all this anti-American graffiti on the wall, which wasn't that surprising, but a little ironic considering that Werner, the promoter at the venue, was extremely welcoming to us. They gave us some pasta, bread and cheese (of course), and lots of beverages. The sound at Manufaktur was really good. We signed a bunch of CD's and stuff and got out picture taken for "the Rolling Stone of German". Which is funny because in Barcelona we got our picture taken for "the Rolling Stone of Spain". Some high school girls invited us to party with them after the show in Stuttgart (which is the city Schorndorf is closest to). We were amused by their offer! The next morning Devendra need to go to an art store so we went to the town center, which was just about the cutest little town ever. It looked right out of Epcot Center! SO cute! Then we went to a music store and made our way to Hasselt.
The autobahn was exactly how I thought it would be - we were going maybe 100 km an hour, but there were tons of BMW's and Audi's flying by at least twice the speed like it was no big deal at all! We stopped to eat at this wonderful rest stop that had great food. They prided themselves on the fact that they were Swiss! We ate sandwiched and grilled vegetables.
Hasselt was great, although I expected it to be because Andy had been to the venue twice before, once with Tussle and once with Dev. Koen, who runs it, is great and came to our show in Brussels last night, too. It sort of reminded me of an SF warehouse. We had a vegan meal cooked for us by some anarchist kids. The sounds was pretty good there, too. That night we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express.
So next...Paris! We played La Guinguette Pirate (The Pirate Ship) which was actually an old Chinese junk converted into a restaurant and show space. We were rocking back and forth during soundcheck! It was actually one of the first places Dev ever played, when he used to live in Paris. It was a really neat experience. Todd, our booker, and his wife and mother-in-law met us there. There were also a bunch of kids from Arizona State, too. Quite a few people knew about us beforehand and made a point to see us in Paris or even plan their trips around the show!
Although the show itself was really cool, there was no backstage and the soundguy didn't really speak English, which was a little problematic. He was great though, this really happy African guy who traded a bunch of African music with Andy! And I must say, the hotel we stayed at was GHETTO. It was the crappiest hotel I have ever been in. There was only a sink in our room and a toilet across the hall. I had to carry my suitcase up 5 floors (with a little help) - no elevator! And we had no time to explore Paris at all. No Tour Eiffel! My card is running out so Brussels will be later....
I'm having a great time and all that French I took in school is coming in handy!

Geneva

2005-05-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

so i,m hoping i,m doing this correctly since the website is now in french. we just arrived in geneva after the most beautiful (stunning, actually) drive i have ever experienced.

oh, man. gotta soundcheck. it,s so hard to get a free moment. so far, a few words: barcelona= ANTONY, ERASE ERRATA ladies. mediterranean sea. turino: amazing food, warm welcome, good show. the drive from italy to here was incredible: medieval casles on the side of the road, hang gliders, Mont Blanc, gas station panini.

whew.
it,s hot.

Portugal

2005-05-26T02:29:00.000-07:00

So here I am blogging in Portugal. At least trying! I havenºt tested this out yet. Our hotel is insane, Arturo, the promoter, is putting us up with our OWN ROOMS at the Sheraton. I feel spoiled. Portugal is beautiful, is actually reminds me a bit of Portland, OR, ironically. Beautiful tree-lined promenades. Only hre there are beautiful tile collages everywhere.

We walked around yesterday and had many caiperinhas. Delicious. As we were walking home last night I tried to take a picture of cool sign for the Hippopotamus nightclub and the bouncer came up and threatened to take my film away for taking a picture of "him". What a jerk. Kevin and Otto said they would have taken out the guy if he tried to do that. Aww.

3 TIMES yesterday we were cat-called "hippies"!!!!!! 2 people flashe us the pece sign and beeped and then someone yelled out "HEE-PEES! HEE-PEES! Peace and love! Peace and love!"