writing

We’re outside Tucson this morning (a nice, little, shitty motel in Willcox, Arizona…no place like home!), watching trains go by, thinking about Howe Gelb. Howe’s not even here, he’s in Europe, but this landscape is infused with Howe-ness to us. And Howe-ness is good: monochromatic, essentially American, rough hewn yet comfortingly smooth.

I’m on my way from LA to Nashville, where my beloved Trina Shoemaker, late of Kingsway Studio in New Orleans, is going to mix the new acoustic record. Steve Rizzo patiently rough-mixed with me over the phone, sending us MP3’s of the tracks while we caught up with 50FootWave and its associated Los Angeles pals: Peter Mansinne (guitar genie), Orrin Anderson (videographer) and Lisa Fletcher (photographer/videographer). I get a serious group high in that wacky city because of that wacky band.

At Pasadena Rehearsal Studios before our Siverlake Lounge show last Thursday, Bernie turned to Rob and said, “Sometimes I think 50FootWave is my real life and everything else is a dream.” 50Foot is definitely a nice place to be…I miss it.

But for now, we’ll turn off Sesame Street, load the babies into the car and head towards Austin, Texas, another nice place to be.

Love,
Kristin

The gay and laughing McCarricks are back in London now, which is too bad, ’cause I was starting to get used to having them here. They play a mighty beautiful string and their porn names are easily the best this side of Bernie’s**.

Now Steve, Billy, the dogs and I will finish the record alone but, I gotta say, it’s sounding e-freakin’-normous. I don’t often make big records, especially not solo ones, but this record is size large. Size chest-thumpingly large. A husky boy. 6X.

I’m weak and wacky right now, having only barely survived a downright funky 24 hour flu bug (which we were sure was a touch of food poisoning when Bodhi had it a few days ago – until Wyatt and I got the exact same food poisoning 3 days later). Billy and Ryder are still holding their breath.

I gotta put down a few vocals and guitar overdubs today, so I’ll keep this short. I’m having trouble spelling…um…whaddyacallem…words, anyway.

Love,
Kristin

** Porn Names of the Studio Crowd: Bernie – “Joe Le Gros”; Martin – “Shandy Charleton”; Kim – “Boscoe Aquarius”; Billy – “Duckie Bennett”; Rizzo – “Woody Penbroke”; Me – “Honkey Bear Kay”

California is long gone; today I’m in Rhode Island where it is raining or snowing or sleeting or…”slushing” I guess is what it’s doing. Slushing like a bitch’s son. Weather only a dog could love.

But I’m watching Dave Narcizo play drums and it is good. In fact, we’re playing together again, just not at the same time. Science marches on.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Dave do anything but draw pictures. Really good pictures, mind you, but I can’t hear them and hearing is my favorite sense (I fell in love with my husband over the phone). Dave drumming is very easy on the ears — a happy sound.

If you disappoint my baby son, Bodhi, he looks at you intently and calmly says, “I don’t love you when you do that”. It is a crumpling experience, to say the least, so, of course, Billy and I have adopted this expression. It comes in awful handy when you want to lay waste to someone’s ego and make them chuckle at the same time.

Conversely, when one is stunned and impressed, it works to say, “I love you when you do that”. You gotta save it for special people, special occasions and motive-free moments of grace. Anyway, I love Dave when he does this:

Love,
Kristin

I’m writing from Japantown in San Francisco where it is, of course, another perfect day. We had to stay on a bit after Saturday night’s show to see if it is ALWAYS perfect here (it is) and to do a buttload of laundry at Dave Triebwasser’s house in the East Bay. Dave was the drummer for Portland based Pond, one of the best bands I’ve ever heard. They opened for Throwing Muses on the Red Heaven tour and just played their last show in September. Billy and I watched a fan recorded video of that show yesterday (we missed the actual show, as it was the same night 50FootWave played the KEXP Crocodile Cafe show in Seattle).

What I wouldn’t give to see Pond play just one more time — though sharing Thai food with Dave and his beautiful wife Erika while our kids colored on their kitchen floor was pretty good, too. And we scored a CD of Dave’s garage jazz band, Vrbata. Now Billy wants to play it as lead-in music at solo shows before I go on…it’s a very cool, off-kilter sound.

Billy and I were also thrilled to meet the amazing Moore Brothers on this trip. Paula Frazer invited them to sing with her at the Swedish American Hall — as if Paula’s voice wasn’t gorgeous enough on it’s own. We’ve been huge fans of the Moore Brothers ever since Dave Triebwasser turned us on to them 3 years ago on the 2003 Throwing Muses tour and, like most quality musicians, they turned out to be lovely people.

Lauren Shera, the 17 year old songstress who opened the first night at Tangier in LA and played before Paula in San Francisco was an impressive surprise. So many women sing like little girls and this little girl (well, 17-year-old anyway) sings like a woman — a woman with a story. I’m really intigued to hear what she does in the future. The Good Listeners, who played the 2nd night at Tangier, were also a treat-2 guys who sound like 10. I have their CD ready to go when I get into the van in a few minutes.

The love fest that was the LA shows warmed my heart enough to head back into the northeast winter and included Wavers Bernie and Rob; our producers, Ethan Allen and Mudrock; our videographer, Orrin Anderson and photographer/videographer Lisa Fletcher. What a crew!

Leaving California is never a good thing, but I have a teen aged (for a couple of months more at least) son and a half finished record waiting for me in snowy Rhode Island and I seem to have crammed a lifetime of perfect days into a few weeks, so I’m good.

And now we drive…

Love,
Kristin

Taking off this morning. We have packed 5 suitcases, 4 grocery bags full of, like, 20th century pemmican, 3 children, 2 dogs and some guitars. We are ready for every season and every possible occurrence. If there is a heat wave, we will be un-dressed appropriately. If we find ourselves in a blizzard, we will appear to blend with the locals. Frankly, we’re scared not to. Appearance seems to be a big deal when it comes to locals.

We drove across the country one summer when we all had shaved heads (August in New Orleans’ll make anybody reach for the razor) and people seemed to think we were a tiny cult. The kids wanted to play this up by only referring to each other as “Brother” and “Sister” but that’s because they’re not scared of anything (they say they got the idea from the Berenstain Bears — which they always thought was a little creepy). That whole trip, waitresses would drop our pancakes on the table and skitter away before we…I don’t know, recruited them I guess, and this worried us. We much prefer the safety of invisibility.

So we carry everything in the hope of nobody noticing us. Our enormous suitcases don’t seem to raise any eyebrows.

And we all have hair.

Love,
Kristin