Geoff Farina

Compared to my spring solo tour, Glorytellers’ casual outing with Joe Lally felt like a vacation. Short drives, great venues and a good hang with Joe and his crew made for a fun couple weeks. Unfortunately the “Pens” playoff game kept people away from our first show at the Brillobox in Pittsburgh, but things started to pick up after that. We had a blast playing in the wonderful sounding Southgate House Parlor in Newport KY, caught Eugene Chadbourne’s set right down the street from our venue in St. Louis, caught up with old friends in the Beat Kitchen in Chicago, and played with a great band called Alan James and the Cold Wave in Pontiac MI. Our Canada shows were also a blast, especially because we had Helen Money on board. Her solo cello tunes grew on me more with each performance, and it was sad to part ways after our show at the Suoni per il Popolo festival in Montreal. The next night in Boston we shared the stage with my pals The Soft Drugs, who rocked with fervor. Unfortunately, by the time we hit, the crowd was too loud for us to do our thing, but we pulled out the Glorytellers rock version and it seemed to go over quite well. We finished up with a couple of NY shows and the obligatory Black Cat Backstage appearance in DC. By then the set was flowing effortlessly and it turned out to be one of the best shows of the tour.

Joe’s generosity and hospitality also made us feel right at home: night after night he gave us long sound checks, drink tickets, and even gave us his hotel rooms in Montreal! Joe’s band mates, Nick and Ricardo, laid it down with zeal night after night, and were truly road-worthy companions. Thanks for the great tour fellas!

• • Categories [Tour Reports]

“Where’s my passport? Don’t forget to loosen the guitars strings and pad the headstock with socks before the flight. I’ll have to put the preamp in my suitcase then. Don’t forget to take the preamp from the suitcase before leaving it at the hotel tonight before the gig! Do I have a spare battery for the pre-amp? Does the cab to the airport really cost 40 Euro? Is this guy ripping me off? Don’t forget to switch on my phone when I land so Dorian can text me the address of the club. Did I remember to enter into my spreadsheet the CDs I sold last night at 2AM? Did I backup the spreadsheet recently? Forgot to tell the agent I took his percentage from the promoter in Madrid. Wire him 50 Euro. Maybe Dorian will do it for me? Does my throat feel worse today than it did yesterday? I wonder if Dorian will remember to bring the CDs to the club? Does my phone have enough battery power to make it to the rental car? Do I land in the same terminal as the Avis counter? Will my GPS take me to the correct Rue de Champs? There is probably more than one in Paris. Will my guitar fit in the trunk of the tiny rental car? Is my Dop Kit still in the hotel bathroom? Don’t forget the tax forms for Belgium! How long will it take me to drive to the club? It’ll be rush hour…didn’t think of that. Isn’t tonight an early set time? Don’t forget the preamp! I need to buy razors. Remember to email Christin and ask for directions to the club in Berlin. How will I get back to the airport next morning? Is the club in Berlin close to the airport? Do I have a hotel in Berlin or can I stay with Christin? Forgot to buy my train ticket from Berlin to Hannover! Need a Wifi connection to do that. What songs will I record in Hannover? I should definitely change strings and tweak the saddle before the show tonight; can’t stand that fret buzz anymore. Do I have enough cash to get by before I get paid tonight, or will I need to break some traveler’s checks? Where’s my wallet? Where are the Euro I took out of my wallet because they didn’t fit? I haven’t seen my driver’s license for weeks. Did I even bring it? I desperately need to do laundry. Where do I play tomorrow? Is this the key to the last rental car?? No, just my house keys. Maybe I should put them in my suitcase. Don’t forget to get a receipt for the cab ride. Do I leave the car at Dorian’s or at the club? If I leave it at the club do I have to lug all my stuff on the train, including the suitcase and the boxes of CDs? Maybe he’ll forget them anyway. How late do the trains run in Paris?”

Sometimes my mind goes so fast that I can think all these thoughts in about 30 seconds, as I did in the cab to the Madrid airport. For all the tour stories I type, the most difficult parts are the most difficult to describe, like the constant worrying that is necessary to get from point A to point B on time with everything intact. There are so many details required to make just one day run smoothly that I can never keep them in my mind at one time, and once in a while I inevitably leave my guitar 500 KM away at last night’s venue, leave my passport under the hood of a Xerox machine, travel to the wrong city of the same name, book an expensive flight on the right date in the wrong month, physically misplace 1000 Euro in cash that I owe to someone else, or miss a train that causes me to miss a plane that causes me to miss a gig. Having experienced all these things and more over the years, these incessant thoughts bear down on me harder with each tour.

So when I arrived at the club in Paris and met up with my friends Dorian and Mary Lou who were promoting my French shows, I was a nut case. I was still on the verge of illness and basically running on adrenalin, feeling every bit of tour stress. I hadn’t seen Dorian in a year, but I could barely have a conversation with him over a pastice because my mind was racing so fast. But once again, all the stress and adrenalin somehow channeled into my playing, and my songs were like little release valves, each one relieving more pressure. The crowd was silent when I played, and then zealous with warm applause. By the end of the set I felt alive again. My old friend Eamonn Vitt had showed up at the show, and we went with Dorian and Mary Lou across the street for a tasty Moroccan dinner. Eamonn and I caught up on some gossip and Eamonn spoke sophomoric French to Dorian and Mary Lou with comic enthusiasm. Music and friends had changed a bad day into a great evening once again.

After 10+ restful hours of sleep at Dorian’s, I was on the road again. A new rental car, new countries, new venues, new folks to meet, new shows to play, new adventures to be had. In fact, that very night at the club in Luxembourg, I came across what is, at least in my line of work, one of the rarest and most valuable artifacts: a working laundry machine! Wearing clean clothes put me in such a good mood that I told the crowd that it was a very special night: they were getting the clean Geoff Farina, a rarity in Europe, and I told them they were welcome to smell me after the show (for a small fee of course). They all laughed at my dumb jokes and I played a smooth, laid back set. It was my 19th show in 20 days, and the songs had melted into one long epic. The old John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotton songs flowed seamlessly into my own.

I woke up the next morning feeling even more rested, and I felt for the first time I could beat the ensuing sickness if I could keep sleeping and eating well. “Hardcore OJ and veggies,” I thought. “That’ll do it.” It also occurred to me that I was supposed to teach a class in Belgium one day on this leg of the tour, and as I checked my itinerary I realized it was TODAY!! Fortunately everyone in Belgium drives like my Grandma, so I sped 200KM to Hasselt and arrived with 5 minutes to spare. I got on stage in front of 30 college kids, talked about my career, my songwriting and guitar inspirations, and also about the business and logistical sides of being a touring musician. “Who’s this grey-haired relic talking about Buddy Guy and D. Boone?” they seemed to be thinking, in Flemish of course. I had thought this was going to be a talking gig, so when they asked me to play some songs cold, I could barely pick the guitar. I stumbled through a few tunes with some embarrassment. “Warm up before you play. That’s the best advice I can give you,” I tried to joke. But they did seemed to warm up to me after some Q&A, and before I knew it I was off to Liege for my first Belgian show.

Liege began a string of what were certainly the best shows on the tour, if not some of the best solo shows of my career. A unique musician who looked much like Freddie Mercury (complete with cheesy moustache), and who goes by the moniker V/O, kicked off the show in Liege. V/O played guitar and sang, and every melodic turn went in some unexpected direction. Some of his music reminded me of Andrew Hill or Henry Threadgill in the sense that any part of it could go in any direction at any time; his vocal melody would morph into a driving bassline as the low strings of his guitar would sing a strange, enchanting melody. V/O took my mind off of all the long days that had passed, and made me desire nothing more than to get on stage and pick the hell out of my guitar, which I proceeded to do with great fervor. The stage sound was perfect, music poured out, and the best part was the reaction from the crowd. “Farina,” someone screamed in broken English, “We love you!” I love you too Liege! After the show a young woman thanked me for my “great modesty,” another guy told me that I was “wise,” and yet another that I was “a kind of hero in Liege.” Man, I felt like the mayor of Liege!

In Bremen at least 100 folks were absolutely silent when I picked duets with the trains passing a few yards away outside the club, Fahey style. Folks seemed to love every minute of the show, and gave me many props and bought me drinks afterwards. In Diksmuide at the wonderful 4AD, I played for my good friends Jeff, Sara, and Greet and at least 100 others. The stage sound was pristine, and people treated me like a king! In Liepzig when my preamp battery finally died, (I had forgotten to buy a spare of course), I howled out 3 or 4 tunes juke-joint style, totally acoustic, and played encore after encore for the packed room until I ran out of songs. In Antwerpen I played at Roma, a gorgeous Art Nouveau theater that was built in the 20s and recently restored by local volunteers. The stage sound was once again perfect, the place was completely packed, and I laid it down with authority. Folks were cheering before I even played a song! “You haven’t heard anything yet. What if I suck?” I also had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Jason Merritt (aka Whip) who played his Blind Willie Johnson-inspired tunes to great acclaim. The next day I barely made it to Orleans in time after spending 8 hours driving through Paris traffic, but the locals seemed to dig my performance even though most had clearly never heard my music. I completed the circle as I returned to Paris and played at La Bellevilloise, where I managed to win over a dinner crowed of at least 150, with plenty of time after the show to relax over mojitos with Dorian and his girlfriend Karima.

The only blemish on the Northern itinerary had been Cologne, which at first seemed like it would be a good night. The club was beautiful, the promoter and sound engineer were friendly and helpful, and every seat was filled by set time. But for some reason I completely dropped the ball and stumbled through the entire set. The music sounded labored and strained, and the reaction from the house was polite at best. After a few songs I turned to my usual strategies to try and turn things around: I told a story to try to get a cheap laugh, and I played a few rudimentary songs that almost always sound good, but this night nothing seemed to be working. Cologne reminded me that no matter how much I practice, no matter how much I try to control my sound, and no matter how good things seem to be going, performing is always a crap shoot.

But on a rare day off in Paris near the end of the tour, I felt great. Most of the shows had been absolutely wonderful, the tour was in the black, I had caught up with old friends and made some new ones, and most importantly I had played the hell out of my songs for a month. I even managed to avoid getting sick, thanks to Dorian and Karima, who fed me healthy meals of elaborate salads and freshly-squeezed OJ.

And it’s a good thing, because the last three days of the tour required all the constitution I could muster. I had left the rental car at CDG airport near Paris, and the logistics were to be as follows: Take a train from Dorian’s apartment to Orly Airport. Take an Easyjet flight to Shoenfeld airport in Berlin. Take a train from Shoenfeld to the club that is apparently located right under the train station. Pick up train ticket to Hannover from Mark at the show. The next day, take the train to Hannover. Take another train to the studio. Record, eat, sleep. Train to Hannover airport. Fly from Hannover to Zurich, and from Zurich to Boston. Kiss my wife, sleep for 3 days.

Like many plans it looked good on paper, but in reality it required the best possible circumstances to go smoothly: Promoters know actual trains schedules, trains run the same every day, train tickets can be bought in cash at the station, I can interpret train and bus schedules in other languages, “right under the train station” in German actually means under the train station, etc. These are assumptions I usually don’t like to make, but I did in this case because I did not have a cost-effective alternative that would allow me to play in Paris one day, Berlin the next, record in Hannover the next, and fly home from Zurich the next.

So actual turn of events unfolded as follows: Lug all my stuff 1KM from Dorian’s apartment to the station. Realize it’s Sunday and trains are running irregularly. Take a different train to the center of Paris. Lug my stuff .5KM to another train line, wait for 45 minutes, take another train to yet another station. Take shuttle from the station to Orly. Wait in line for hours, fly to Shoenfeld. Lug my stuff .5KM to the nearest train station, which is under construction, and at which busses have replaced trains. Try to interpret bus schedule from signs written in German and attendants who don’t speak English. Buy the wrong bus ticket, get on the right bus. Explain to another attendant who doesn’t speak English why I have the wrong ticket, narrowly avoid getting kicked off bus. Lug my stuff .5KM to another train station. Take train to center of Berlin, take another train one stop to club. Lug my stuff in circles for city blocks looking for the club that is supposed to be “right under the station.” Meet the promoter Christin for the first time who turns out to be a total sweetheart. Play a great show with my buddy Fabian from Brokof. Mark forgets to bring to the show the ticket he bought me to Hannover, must retrieve next morning. Take an expensive cab to Christin’s apartment after show. (Christine arrives 10 minutes later. Why didn’t I just travel with her?)

Next morning: wait impatiently for Christin retrieve ticket to Hannover from Mark’s apartment. Lug my stuff 4 blocks to bus stop. Take bus to other bus stop. Take other bus to train station. Consume fresh tofu, vegetables, and green tea in train station. (I love Berlin!) Take three-hour train to Hanover. Inadvertently get on car #10, sit down and relax, as attendant tells me my seat is actually in car #2. Lug all my stuff through 8 crowded cars after arguing with attendant. Arrive in Hannover, call Johannes at studio in desperation. “Can you PLEASE come and get me?” I beg. “I just can’t get on another bus or train!” Wait for Johannes to pick me up in borrowed pizza delivery wagon and drive me to studio. Meet Maxi Priest at studio. Record 5 songs, eat great meal cooked by Johannes, talk about recording into the night. Try to sleep but wake up in a panic every couple ours after dreaming that I missed my flight.

Next morning: Convince Johannes to walk me to the train station, despite his insistence that the airport is on the same line as the studio. Lug my stuff .5KM through the rain to the station with Johanne’s help. Realize that the ticket machine doesn’t take cash, and that the airport is actually on a different line. Get on train to center of Hannover without ticket, stand in line to buy another ticket for another train after deliberation on which line actually goes to the airport. Say goodbye to Johannes who turned out to be a great engineer and a wonderful host. Take train to airport. Fly Hannover > Zurich, Zurich > Boston. Sleep 5 hours and awake to jackhammering outside my window at 7AM. Sleep on the floor of my studio for 2 nights to avoid said jackhammering.

Home sweet home.

• • Categories [Tour Reports]

Flying from Italy to Spain was certainly easier than driving, but my Ryanair flight from Rome to Barcelona was no vacation. Heavy traffic on the way to the airport, long lines of pushy American tourists, debates with the check in attendant about the length of my guitar case vs. the length of the overhead compartments, a delay at the gate of a half hour, then and hour, and then two, a completely packed, turbulent flight, and a mad rush from the airport to the venue made for a stressful day. When I got behind the mic in San Feliux an hour after landing, feeling dirty, exhausted, and out of breath, I just let it all pour out. The small bar was packed with maybe 40 folks; half seemed to know my music and half probably never heard of indie rock. I stomped my feet as hard as I could as I picked the hell out of Trouble in Mind, Spike Driver Blues, and Last Kind Words Blues along with a handful of my own songs, and even improvised a few tunes. Even the most skeptical bar rats gave me a hearty “Whooo!” and a nice loud hand, and it turned out to be a cathartic, high-energy show. I was finished by sundown and spent the evening drinking beer, eating fresh tapas, and catching up with my friends Tule and Berta who had organized the Spain leg of the tour.

That night every tiny noise reverberated against the cement walls and floor of the hotel, and I probably slept 4 hours before being awoken at 8AM by maids slamming doors, flushing toilets, and dragging cots across the floor as they cleaned and rearranged the furniture in adjacent rooms. Staying in a Southern European hotel during the off-season is usually asking for trouble. Most of the rooms are empty and nobody knows you’re there, and there is almost always either construction, extensive cleaning, or raging alcoholic students on spring break, 6 or 8 to a room. A few days of this can make the drives feel longer and the days drag on and on, but at this point I hadn’t had 8-hours of uninterrupted sleep for over two weeks. I felt exhausted in Italy but now I was feeling downright weary. My skin was jaundiced and pale, and morose brown circles hung under my bloodshot eyes. As I looked in the mirror I imagined I was a heroin addict or a hard drinkin’ troubadour, but the diet of greens, bananas, yogurt and OJ that I had adopted by that time belied the image. I was a complete wreck by the time I caught the train to Zaragoza, and the show ended up being so smokey that I began coughing and feeling something growing in the back of my throat. I had memories of the Karate tour in Spain when I developed a lung infection from the combination of exhaustion and singing in smoke filled rooms. I only finished that tour thanks to my mates treating me like an invalid, and I was laid up for almost a month afterwards. This time there was no band or tour managers to take care of me, and it gradually dawned on me that sickness was a real show-stopping possibility.

That night at Helioglobal in Barcelona, I could barely make it through the set. Every time I opened my mouth to sing I had no idea what sound (or fluid) might come out, and my performance felt tense and labored despite about 40 or 50 attentive fans. Fortunately my friend Artur whipped up a healthy, home-cooked meal and put me in a quiet bedroom, which gave me the energy to forge ahead. The next night in Tarragona was smokier still, but the club was completely packed. After my tentative performance at Helioglobal, I was determined not to let the adverse conditions get the best of me. It was another skeptical bar crowd, so I kicked off the set with some more old-timey blues to great effect. Nothing like a loud, droning E chord and a stomping size-13 leather boot to get a folks going! I quickly won them over and the show ended up being a total blast.

Afterwards, Ivan, the promoter, took me to a restaurant that specialized in local Catalonian cuisine. I had only eaten a croissant and a banana the entire day, so I was quite excited to see the waitress approaching with what appeared to be a couple of huge steaks. But when she came closer I realized she was serving us each a large piece of toasted bread and a small over-ripe tomato. Ivan told me Catalonian shepherds used to rub this special kind of tomato on stale bread to soften it up, a tradition that continues to this day. So we dined on beer, tomato-softened bread, and savory jamon, as Ivan told me about his recent trip to Paris, where I was heading in a week. After a good conversation, a few beers, an unexpectedly tasty meal, and a walk back to the hotel in the salty sea breeze, I felt refreshed and started to relax for the first time in a few days.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my hotel was clean, comfortable, and absolutely silent. I was out for a solid 12 hours that night and barely missed my train back to Barcelona, but I was reticent to leave the seaside anyway, and content to feel human for the first time in many days. That night I opened for the Japanese hippy/improv/jam band Mono at a great club called the Apollo where Karate had played a few years back. The best way to describe Mono is predictable, but not in a pejorative sense. As are most Japanese bands I’ve met, Mono were predictably sweet and friendly, and they were predictably good musicians who cared a lot about their sound. They also predictably traveled with twice as much gear as they needed (including a gong that may or may not have been used in one song), and predictably played 20-minute long bombastic epics that started quietly and slowly got louder and louder, and just when you thought they were finished, they got louder still. I can’t say I heard much difference between Mono and the Godspeed-inspired bands that have been floating around for the past decade, but they put their hearts into their music, and that counts for a lot.

Sara Lov is a singer/songwriter from LA who happened to be playing upstairs that night, and was neighborly enough to come down and introducer herself and her entourage during Mono’s set. I wasn’t familiar with her music, so I didn’t think much about the CDs we traded. But when I did get a chance to listen, I was blown away. “Seasoned Eyes Were Beaming” is a collection of 10 pop gems, and every second of every perfectly crafted song is engaging and charming. The lyrics are distilled down to concise, powerful images: “Fountain, fountain, we are the same / You with the water, me with the pain / Turning it over and over again / Don’t you wish you could throw their pennies back at them?” Sara’s CD became the soundtrack of my week in Spain, and I still think of the Catalonian countryside every time I hear her wonderful songs.

Speaking of wonderful songs, everyone I met in Spain loves Ainara Legardon, the musician that I was slated to play with in Madrid. Everywhere I went in Spain, folks said that she wrote inspired songs, played a mean guitar, and was quite a sweatheart, all of which I can now verify. Ainara and I shared beers, Bacalao, and tour stories at a Basque club before returning to the Circulo de Bellas Artes, the gorgeous theater in the center of Madrid where we were to perform. Ainara stepped on the huge stage with only her Fender Coronado and an old German tube PA amp, and proceeded to hypnotize me and 100 other fans for the next 45 minutes. She picked droning, distorted bass lines with her thumb and abstract melodies with her fingers, as her brooding lyrics reverberated through the Baroque hall. Her songs simmered and smoldered like the darkest Robert Pete Williams or John Lee Hooker, building up so much intensity but never quite reaching catharsis. When a song would finally explode it was for only a moment, and it would only hint at the underlying power of her music. I was entranced by the her performance and couldn’t wait to step on stage, and I ended up stomping and strumming as hard as I could and playing one of my best sets of the tour. People seemed to react to everything I played, and the event felt like some otherworldly conversation between the audience and myself. It had been the best show in a long time both for Ainara and for me, and her performance was an inspiration that would propel me through the coming weeks.

After the show we found each other backstage, and both seemed to recognize what we had exchanged: that rare feeling of working on something so weird, specific, and ineffable at home alone for many years, and then finding someone else halfway across the world who was also working on that same weird, specific, ineffable thing. But all we could do was smile and tell each other how inspired we were by each other’s performance. She also talked about some recent health problems that put her music on hold, and she thanked me for giving her the opportunity to get on stage again. She even told me how much she had loved Karate, which made me feel quite proud.

But it wasn’t the first time that I managed to spoil the moment with some social foible: When I asked Ainara if we could trade records, she said, “Didn’t I already give you this when I opened for Karate in Madrid?” Huh? How did I miss that? We had played together before and I couldn’t even remember meeting her! I figured out days later that said meeting had been during the aforementioned Karate tour of Spain, when the rest of the band had poured my ailing bones onto the stage and then into my hotel bed after the show. But I still had to confirm the truth: “I’m an asshole,” I replied. We both laughed and all was forgiven.

• • Categories [Tour Reports]

After 2 weeks home my head is still spinning from what turned out to be one of the best trains I’ve ever ridden. Great turnouts every night, talented and inspired opening acts, beautiful clubs and theaters, promoters and agents who put their heart into every show, mouthwatering food, and much satisfaction pickin’ my songs for folks all over the continent. Logistically the tour ran like a well-oiled machine, although there was the little matter of a major earthquake. But what’s a 5-week tour without a disaster or two?

I barely averted a smaller disaster before I left home. After spending months organizing the tour, I managed to leave my passport and driver’s license under the hood of a Xerox machine at Kinko’s two days before the tour. 24 hours later when I figured out what I had done, I called Kinko’s in a panic, only to be assured multiple times by multiple employees that the documents were not found. (“Look, I’ve worked here 10 years and we find stuff every night. I think I would know if someone left a passport and license in one of our machines!”) After some frantic Google-ing, I learned that it’s impossible to get a new US passport in less than 2 weeks unless you are stuck in a foreign country. I sprouted a few more gray hairs as I realized that I was over $10K in debt for an ensuing European tour when I couldn’t leave the country. Miraculously, after a couple more frantic phone calls to Kinko’s, my documents showed up in their safe, and I was free to travel. Fortunately this turned out to be my biggest logistical error on the entire tour, and things ran relatively smoothly after I showed up in Italy.

It usually takes me a few shows to warm up, but I felt right at home on my first stage in Trieste. 40+ fans showed and made things feel right, as did the pristine tone of my new/used Collings OM-2H that I christened that night. And things got better from there; Verona was a blast, more than 200 folks showed up for the Florence show, and even the always-fickle Bologna crowd gave me a good vibe. Unfortunately in Forli someone decided they wanted a souvenir from the show, and they took $40 worth of Read Bear flatpicks, along with a set of steel fingerpicks that were perfectly molded to my fingers after years of daily use. But I forged on to the beautiful cities of Anghiari and Bari for two more great shows.

By the time I got to Pescara the only thing on everyone’s mind was the tragic earthquake that struck 100KM away in L’Aquilla, a rural city where my great grandparents are from. Pescara was silent and dour when I arrived, and my friend Paolo’s house was crowded with refugees from the earthquake. It turned out that just about everyone in town was hosting refugees, and I met people who had lost their homes, family, and friends to the disaster. Needless to say folks weren’t too interested in hearing music that night, and the show felt tense and inappropriate. Pescara certainly put things in perspective; When aftershocks turned Paolo’s 4th floor apartment into rubber at 3AM and people started running into the streets, we got a small taste of the terror that thousands must have felt in L’Aquila. You can watch natural disasters on CNN all day, but being close to one is a completely different story, and hanging out with folks who have lost friends and family is quite sobering.

Speaking of disasters, every time I start organizing an Italian tour I tell myself I am not going back to Napoli. The shows are always packed with the sweetest, most excited fans, but the tense, frantic drive in and out of the city is just too much for my old bones. But every time I organize an Italian tour some friendly promoter invites me to a nice new club at the last minute, and I just can’t say no. So there I was, once again stuck in the pure chaos that is Neapolitan traffic, swearing and sweating after almost being run off the road, my knuckles white and my shoulders feeling like a couple bricks. According to my GPS I was 1KM from the club, yet unable to reach it after an hour driving in circles. And as I had at every other Neapolitan show, I arrived at the club tardy, grumpy and exhausted, and left the club 8 hours later content and inspired by the wonderful folks who screamed for 2 separate encores, bought me drinks, and took the time to tell me how much they appreciated my music. Yeah, I’ll be back.

By that time I had recruited my good friend/booking agent Gianluca to travel with me in the south, which definitely took the edge off the drives and made the travel a lot more fun. But on our way to Cosenza, Gianluca decided to recite stories of the Ndrangheta (the Calabrian mafia, known to be the cruelest and most violent in all of Italy) as we drove deep into the isolated mountains of Calabria on lonely, half-paved highways that have apparently been “under construction” by corrupted construction companies for 20 years. Gianluca recounted in great detail stories of kidnappings, torture, and murders that had taken place in those very mountains as we drove through the region where the Ndrangheta touches the lives of every citizen.

But Cosenza turned out to be one of the best shows of the entire tour. I played in a beautiful old theater to a crowd of folks who were demonstratively thankful that we had made the trek, and a lot of them told me after the show that there haven’t been many concerts down there for the past few years. Apparently southern Italy is having a tough time these days. Berlusconi is marginalizing the middle class and poor just as Thatcher and Reagan had done to their less fortunate constituents, the bum economy is hitting the south harder, and crime is getting worse. As a result there is a “cultural crisis” in the south, as more than one local told me. This gave meaning to our southward voyage (as did the sublime cuisine and the mesmerizing Mediterranean women). When we awoke to the warm sun coming through the window of our medieval villa the next morning, we were reticent to head north again.

Thanks to a Roma/Lazio partita (soccer match), the highways were all but abandoned that Sunday. I somehow made it from Cosenza to Rome in about 7 hours, just in time to return the rental car without having to sport another 40 Euro for an extra day. A train, bus, and cab ride later, Gianluca and I stumbled into Init, a club run by our friend Gianpaolo Felici of Ardecore, the Roman folk band that I play with once or twice a year. Even more folks showed up for this Init show than for the Glorytellers show last year, but somehow the night felt a bit cold and sterile. Maybe I was tired from the 9 hours of travel, maybe I was still digesting the amazing steak dinner (complete with roasted potatoes, tira misu, red wine and grappa) to which I was treated an hour earlier, or maybe it was just time to learn a couple new songs to freshen things up. But folks seemed to dig it anyway as I sold out of CDs and signed quite a few autographs, and before I knew it the Italian leg of the tour was over.

I was sad to see my pal Gianluca head back to his hometown of Forli the next morning. We had been together for almost a week of intense touring, and we smiled and said we’d do it again soon. It was Easter Sunday, and I spent the rest of it in the studio recording three songs for the upcoming Ardecore record. The session was a bit unorganized as things in Rome usually are, but Gianpaolo is such a talent that it was worth it just to hear him sing rough takes of his majestic new songs. Around midnight on the way back to the hotel, Gianpaolo’s car broke down somewhere in the industrial outskirts of Rome. As we poked around under the hood in the dark streets, we talked about Ardecore, our lives as musicians, and his struggles trying to keep Init open in the oppressive local bureaucracy. We finally made it back to the hotel and had one last grappa in the bar together before saying goodbye. After one last night of fitful sleep in a noisy Italian hotel, I was at Ciampino awaiting my Ryanair flight to Barcelona. Italy had been as exhilarating, stressful, frightening, inspiring, and beautiful as it ever was, and I’m counting the days until I can step on an Italian stage once again.

• • Categories [Tour Reports]

We’re back from what turned out to be a truly fantastic European tour! We played the hell out of our songs for great crowds almost every night, shared the stage with really interesting bands (Mick Turner, The Enablers, Brokof, and an amazing Klezmer group called Bakad Kapelye), saw some of the most beautiful cities in the world (Getarea and Ubeda Spain, Anghiari Italy), had wonderfully scenic drives (through the Czech countryside, the Swiss Alps, and the Basque Mountains), and met tons of sweet folks and made new friends every day. And we ate like kings! Each evening brought new gustatory pleasure; tender Basque steak and calamari, savory Bordeax and warm Camembert in France, fresh Bavarian pastries, diaphanous Bolognese lasagna, the bitterest Friulian radicchio, delicate Roman pizza, and Emelia Romagna’s famous pumpkin tortellini are just a few of the succulent pleasures that graced our pallets.

And the tour ran like a well-oiled machine: no gear was stolen or smashed, nobody got sick, no shows were canceled, no vans broke down, no gory highway accidents were witnessed, no shots were fired during soundcheck, no flakey promoters or obnoxious sound engineers ruined our day, the long drives were relatively bearable, and we even left the continent with some money in our pockets. Of course the constant driving; the endless logistics of getting all of us and our gear in and out of a different city, club, restaurant and hotel every day; the ridiculous micro-accounting of every highway toll, tank of gas, parking fee, and cup of coffee; and the obligatory $10K debt that I brought to Europe were all as utterly stressful as those things always are, but the privilege of stepping on stage each night and sounding off to a room full of smiling and shouting fans was well worth the effort.

I didn’t didn’t get to post news from the road because I was in work mode just about every waking hour, but when I shake off this jet lag I’ll post some more details about the tour. For now I will offer my sincerest thanks to my booking agents, to all the great clubs and promoters, and most of all to all of you who came to listen!

• • Categories [Tour Reports]