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maekkelae · 10 months

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Spring 2023 - a short summary

21 June 2023

This is midsummer now. I mean the shortest night of the year. They're all going to go nuts up in Finland next weekend, you know, bonfires and all. Plus a yet to be defined figure of people drowning while having a piss in the lake dead drunk. There are statistics on that. Might go out for a couple of pints later, just to show my solidarity, but got to take it easy as tomorrow morning theatre rehearsals will go on 10 am. Premiere evening just around the corner. Eight days to go to be more precise. But that's not what I was about to write. Not yet.

It's most notably half a year I survived, half a year of playing, half a year of travelling, of doing what I'm doing but maybe, or rather most certainly on a level that's way up from what I'm used to. And trust me, my tolerance got quite high over the years.

January was, as always, that big black hole I inevitably drop into after ending a months long tour. No shows, a period of recovery you've been looking forward to, which never seems to bring the rest you’ve been hoping for. A period that always turns out to push you into a mood of doubt, despair and something like "oh gosh, this is the end I haven't got the power to go on like this". Just too much time to think about things. But you'll get over it. Of course you will, because there's no choice.

Gigs started again with a few warm-ups in February and from mid-March on it was all back in full swing. Started with some nice ones with my Folk's Worst Nightmare pal The Black Elephant Band, before hitting the road for the long one. Real long. 28 March a magic night sharing stage with the incredible Boucan at Kofferfabrik in Fürth, to move on just the next morning to pick up Nightbird for our ambitious challenge, playing 19 shows in 20 days. It worked out. Magic moments. A few desperate ones too but that’s part of the game. Glad and grateful for this fantastic, dreamy trip with a dear friend, amazing songwriter and singer and not least great tour companion.

Dropped Anna-Stina at Munich airport mid-April to dive right into the next one. Heading for my beloved Poland, Wroclav, Krakow, Warsaw, over to celebrate 6 years of Hajovna in Zilina with a bunch of fantastic fellow artists. Thanks Dasa! You made me fall for Slovakia years ago and thanks for that night in Zilina with Chorobopop and Exorcizphobia was a fucking blast! Again. Banska Bystrica. The Bosorka. It kinda became my home away from home. Lempi and Zuzana you're ace! Moved on to Prochot. Heard of Prochot? Or in other words: how would you feel staying at friends place in the backwoods of Slovakia. Friends who would feed you with a stew of their own goat herd's ram. Their own grown veggies. That tiny little farmhouse on top of the hillside overlooking the amazing landscape of this beautiful part of Slovakia. Playing to those friends and their family. Being fed by grandma after the show. Home cooking. See, it's a world you're not very likely to ever encounter. Moments that make up for a lot of shit you have to take living this life of a travelling songwriter/performer. Special. Heartwarming.

Got one on super short notice in Brno. Cafe Pameti Naroda. One of the nicest I ever played in that town and definitely the best time of the year to visit Brno. Can't remember seeing the city in full bloom. Everything flowering and me, fortunate enough to have an off-day, just by chance stumbled into a gig of Zabit Frantiska at the Tri Opice the next evening. Off to Ljubljana in the early morning. Another home town en route. The Jalla Jalla in Metelkova. After that it became a surreal fever dream...

Zoka messages me: you better make sure you're in Zagreb latest seven in the morning. We've got to leave for Split around eight to catch a boat for that first gig in Korčula. Whatever that Korčula was, I didn't know. Apparently on the coast, obviously an island.

So it's back into the car right after the show, taking the road to Zagreb to meet Zoka at the new Kulturni Centar Mesnicka. A good place to arrive, a place with a spirit. Hit the place around 1.00am, chatting with the waiter, good little talk with the painter who's exhibition started there today. A quick lesson in Macedonian history. My head is spinning with all the impressions. Where am I?

A short night's sleep at Zoka's place and back on the road, this time his car. Picking up Mieska the guy who'll be playing with me the next two shows. Good five hours down to Split. A new place to me, never been up this neck of the woods. For a first on this tour I'll see the mediterranean sea. That's something.

We're on time. It's hot down here, it's summer. Dragging our gear to the pier. I'm watching our pile of guitars, cases and amps, observing wealthy, fat, ugly tourists strolling the promenade of Split harbour while the other guys dump the car. I'm soaking up all the images. Some guy on a bicycle asks me if I need a ride, pointing at the instruments. Thanks man, might be a bit too much for your bike.

Still time for a coffee in the old town. Coffee. It's the thing here. Everything is discussed with coffee. Negotiations, arguments, plans. Business, family, weather. Coffee here is the glue of society. The black liquid that keeps it all running.

Embarked the shuttle boat to Hlav and Korcula that spits us out three hours later. We're picked up by two young lads, our tonight's hosts and promoters, who are taking us to their parents house where we're going to stay tonight. Amazing people. It turns out Zoran and his wife spent a decade in New York where he played with his band all those places... the CBGBS, Elbow Room, all of it. Anyone for coffee? Rakija? Sure. Any time.

The show is a blinder. Fantastic audience, great sound, incredible hospitality. Need to revisit. Split can't be better, how can they? After the first long sleep in a while we're heading back to Split. The Basket Bar. Man, what a terrible name. That's gonna be shite. But. It's not. The small bar turns out to be the hang out of all the musicians they've got in Split. At least that's how it seems. Another stonking show in a packed place and nice after show talks with the guys of the New Gondoliers. Check them out. Gorgeous stuff.

From here it's back to Zagreb. To Maribor and Vienna. Two more Czech shows in Ostrava and Milevsko, both of them awesome. Ending that spring tour with a late slot at the first ever Frankonian Anarcho Folk Festival and a matinee in Straubing wre just the right things to do before starting theatre rehearsals just the next day...

#blog mäkkelä #road blog #tour diary

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freakingoutthesquares · 1 year

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Russell's Japan Tour Diary (Part One) (Part two is here) Words: Russell Senior, Photographer: Richard Priest Taken from the New Musical Express, 24 February 1996

Tales of debauched saké-fuelled revelry, Yakuza baiting, sexually perverted roadies and scantily-clad schoolgirls kicking giraffes - yup, it's Pulp, of course, on tour in Japan as seen through the hi-tech shades of guitarist/violinist extraordinaire Russell Senior. Russ takes us on a trip through the neon-lit cartoon ultraworld where Shampoo are huge and the 'fans' come bearing gifts...

Arriving at Osaka airport, the overwhelming impression is of having arrived on another planet sometime in the future. Everyone waits in silent order for a silver machine to take them to an antiseptically clean lounge where perfect chrome dustbins with colour-coded liners are each filled with perfect rubbish. A vending machine dispenses a bilious looking green fluid which is probably the most refreshing drink on earth. Our host arrives bowing, and instinctively we bow back. Our bags disappear without our noticing, only to reappear later in our rooms.

It's a very cold day, but huge heaters warm the air outside the hotel. I order a green tea and put sugar in it. Our host gasps and sits back in amazement. "What's wrong?" I say. "Is it rude to do this?" "Oh no," he says, laughing, "just... unusual." Diplomatic incident over - respect shown. I think it's like putting milk and sugar in beer.

Awaking very early in the morning, I take a walk outside and realise that I'm being followed at a distance by a group of girls. After politely asking for autographs. They then pump me for information on our movements. There's obviously some kind of network here because during the course of our stay, the groups become crowds, very polite and apologetic but nonetheless, there, the whole time.

I despise the hard style of English malls, but here they seem more relaxing, 'soft' even. And although you look different, nobody seems to hate you for it. In the video games arcade, a disgruntled teenager spends a small fortune trying to get a very realistic image of a nubile schoolgirl to shed her clothes. Rover, one of the more hairy arsed roadies, regards touring Japan as something akin to a well-paid prison sentence, presumably, because he's heard that you can't get Watney's Red Barrel and chips here.

"This channel is pay TV. If you wish to continue viewing this programme, please press the button marked 'pay'," says the telly. I don't think I'll bother, the free clip involved a scantily-clad schoolgirl in a bar, kicking a giraffe. On the cartoon channel all the heroes have wide eyes. Perhaps we'll do well here. I think everything here is intensely symbolic in a way that will remain forever mysterious.

However, by accident, it may be possible to do things which key in with this symbolism and have some resonance. I don't think you should try too hard at this - it has to be something you are. Shampoo are huge here - apparently the colour pink is associated with Lolitas and, what with their gumchewing punkiness, they look like Manga cartoon heroines. It works... by accident.

As we arrive at the venue the entire street is lined with girls waving, screaming and pointing cameras into the van. I've always had a problem with the word 'fan', but here it seems apt; they really won't let us bow lower than them. An elevator takes us to the dressing room. Westerners have been here before, so every inch of wall space is covered in graffiti - something almost entirely absent from the rest of Japan. There is, uniquely, no obscene graffiti, that will have been removed. They have, however, respected the Western custom of no-hoper bands to forge a spurious immortality in this enclave - I wish they hadn't.

Due to technical problems we keep the fans waiting one-and-a-half hours in sub-zero temperatures. During the concert Jarvis apologises for this - no response. He apologises later, saying, "We meant no disrespect" - huge applause, by accident. I try on some new sunglasses which have beams of light at the sides to help me see the violin - very hi-tech, very popular.

Candida, with her love of plastic jewellery and ballet, seems to make more sense here than Courtney Love. Jarvis receives a huge electric-shock during the concert. I've seen him throw a fit for much less than-that, but tonight he shows... endurance. The one thing I really regret about getting big in England is that you don't really get to meet as many people.

They're either too in awe or too shy or too pushy. Here, despite the mayhem, it seems more comfortable. Apparently you get Americans, working with bands, coming here giving lots of attitude and generally laying down the law. This is counter-productive. If, by contradicting the Japanese, you cause loss of face on their part, this will not be to your advantage. So we play it their way and they seem to appreciate it. Not, I think, because they have won, but because we haven't embarrassed them.

I can see why the Yanks might get bolshy. The Japanese are even more efficient and give even better service and it all functions perfectly in a totally non-Western way. So what can we possibly have that they might want? I have a theory and it is based on very little knowledge: innovation is not something they excel at. Individualism is not a big deal here... Ergo they would perfect the best way of dragging things around but would not invent the wheel.

Musically this is evident, crap copyist bands abound. If a Western band could accidentally do something that made sense to them, it would probably seem intensely original - and exciting. With our wide-eyed love of the future and junk and style and toys and teendom and funfairs and pop and just-so-ness and colour and space and modernity in general, perhaps we can set a few little patterns off in their strange minds.

8am. Moved by the spirit to embrace all things Japanese, I decided to go for a traditional breakfast. I do not regret this, nor do I wish to repeat it. It entailed a formal ceremony conducted in silence. The most yummy thing by quite a long chalk was raw eel. I will draw a veil over the contents of the rest of the meal, other than to say that I dare not eat anything else the rest of the day lest the things I had eaten at breakfast gorge themselves and burst, Alien-like, out of my stomach. Nonetheless, I felt I had passed the kind of initiation ceremony which would entitle one to join a particularly sadistic religious cult. The Japanese will eat almost anything for breakfast, it seems, as long as it isn't food.

The scene at Osaka train station resembled the evacuation of Hanoi. Huge crowds bearing gifts, which we ended up carrying in our teeth, accompanied us to the bullet train which we entered as the whistle blew. We have our own carriage but are hemmed in at either end. One intrepid girl gets on at the next station to give us a gift, only to be ejected, without her bag. I think everyone feels a little shaky, it's rolling like a snowball now.

In Nagoya the venue is actually in the hotel, so it's pretty clear where we're going to be staying. Fans have to be ejected from the lifts so we can get to our rooms. I can't remember much about the concert, I think we gave a good show. I don't know what they made of the music, they seem to be equally enthusiastic about everything we do. What they make of the lyrics is anybody's guess. You sometimes see comical re-translations of the lyrics from the Japanese. I don't think it's so much that the words don't translate, it's the concepts.

After the concert we go to the hotel bar to have a drink with Rover and our host. The hotel has been cleared of fans. About ten girls, however, have taken the precaution of booking rooms in the hotel so they can't very well be cobbed out. Personally, I think any fan has the right to pester a pop star to a small extent. As long as they are being pleasant, it seems part of the deal that you sign autographs, have pictures taken and answer the odd question. Cumulatively, this can be very wearing, but then if you don't like it you can always go and work in a bank.

Some of the girls in the foyer gradually pluck up the courage to come into the bar and sit across the way, not making any nuisance of themselves at all. The women who work with us here instinctively seem to sit back from the tables to let the men get on with business. Earlier in the day someone had seen women asked to leave a table so men could talk business and - shock horror - it had been implied to Candida that she might be bored or offended at a meeting (You'll be glad to know she told them where to get off).

Meanwhile, the table next to us has become vacant and some of the fans come and sit at it. They aren't taking photos, they aren't giggling, they aren't being a nuisance. This seems to make our host very uncomfortable. They get shouted at to go away. This is very difficult. It appears to me that if they were male they wouldn't be treated this way. It seems rude and, well, disrespectful.

However, our host is treating us very well and it's not our country, we don't want to get into a row with him, and, worst of all, confront him and cause loss of face. We try to politely explain that we don't understand why this is necessary, that we don't need protecting and that, ultimately, it's the fans that pay all our wages. The worst thing is that the fans accept it meekly with a slight tear.

One of the hotel staff is now hovering around and looking concerned. It transpires that he is concerned that they may be underage drinkers. Those without ID are asked to leave. I must confess to being quite relieved by this; that they were being harassed because they were underage in a bar, not because they were women - fair enough.

So now, there are three or four left, over-age hotel residents. Our host, however, still seems very uncomfortable and the hotel employee even more so. It's all very odd. We're fair game at stations, hotel foyers, venues, where we get pestered to death, but here, where fans have been no trouble at all, they're made to feel like dirt... And it's just faintly possible, is it not, that they aren't even fans or that maybe they were staying here anyway and happen to know who we are - should they get sent to their rooms just because we arrived?

Well, obviously, they can't be, so we still have some kind of diplomatic incident here. Although it's almost midnight, our host suddenly decides that he's very hungry and wants to take us out for a meal. The hotel employee also thinks this is an excellent idea and will personally escort us to a place that we will like very much. We, who have not previously expressed any desire to eat a second evening meal, are encouraged to find ourselves hungry too!

With many smiles and gestures we are shepherded out of the bar into the bitter cold and through a labyrinth of winding streets. Our host is much happier now; little does he know that we know that he knows there's some kind of subtext going on.

Part two: Here.

#russell senior #pulp #japan #90s #britpop #printed article #NME #tour diary

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