plastic parties with real people

i guess there was a lot of left over purple and orange plastic material from someone's christo project at the stockholm airport so this guy had a party last night and he wrapped all of his belongings in plastic. at first, it was subtle....sitting on a orangle plastic covered table. then i noticed a painting that had been wrapped too... then i looked around the room and noticed everything had been covered. even the remote control to the plastic wrapped tv. he had kj play songs on his purple covered piano in candlelight. met this jewelry maker that was really a breath of air- red plaid and black satin- she was a character but so into it all and happy to meet me. i love when people are happy to meet me. it makes me happier to meet the next person and so on and so on. tonite i play ugglan.

hunting and gatherings

yesterday:

was woken up by strange men that felt free to walk on through my room at 730am. they continued to carry some kind of community meeting downstairs for hours, drinking coffee and talking at peak volume. kinda funny but kinda not. but sleeping in a communal house, that's what happens. the part that stuck with me all day was when i opened my eyes there was this old dude just standing there in my room speaking swedish to me and all i could do was say "uh... hi? hello?"- and he continued to speak in swedish and then bailed. wierd. same thing happened this morning. same dude. yuck.

emmy, who i met last year, was in town and called early yesterday- so we spent the day together.
looked for chanterelle mushrooms, got stung by nettles, walked though parks, farms, and around lakes. took buses to markets, bought tons of chanterelle and trumpet mushrooms (emmy kept speaking of these creamy mushroom toasts so we had to make them), talked about people, places, music, and got on a ferry, felt the air bounce off of the water and onto me, got sore feet, was happy about it, felt like a feeling, and got tired.

marten cooked the mushrooms with emmy, and a roast with garlic and herbs, potatoes with dill, and good beer. the mushrooms were sauteed, then flour, cream, butter, s & p- and then put on toast. dude. was so good. some folks came over for the dinner at "my place" which has a huge kitchen and dining room table. it was awesome. was trying to blow some minds with the dinner cd mix i made. karl-jonas cared. (thanks to the sorcerer for the rubies tour road jams)

i am gonna just list things on this entry.
saw marcus in his uniform with kj.
thought about my last few jobs. and my first one at that bakery. i liked it.

saw maria dj. she glows. thinking a lot about what i'm going to different at the show this saturday at ugglan. i want to stand on something and i want yellow balloons.

i set up a recording studio-ish zone in my room.
i used the wooden beams to hang 2 shure mics with rope.
one for the room/guitar and one for vocals. recorded 2 songs of marcus and whoa they sound really good. i've been learning a lot about recording this month. the right EQ's the right reverbs the right compression. i want to be a producer.

had a total meltdown last night though.
it can all be too much sometimes
missing family and friends
feeling alone and wondering why why why all the time
but i know that life is good
and i am healthy
but sometimes i can't help but feel it all
like a child i think - it doesn't hide itself- it is just all right there in front of me- why am i singing this songs? what am i singing about? and it's hard to not have a home. but t reminded me of how beautiful it all is, and that i am making it happen and not having a home, and travelling is rare, but being home doing the day to day things will always be there so i should get into all of this. i am into it. i am lonely and miss people understanding me. i guess in the end we just want to be loved. sometimes i feel like i am the last person without it...but i know it is rare and unique and i just have to be patient. i am a lot. i give a lot. i stopped giving last night for an hour. i had to just be still and wonder. hugs are powerful when you remember that you are holding another person and all of what they are, in your arms.

sleeping under hearts

this is the bed that i sleep in here in stockholm. it is in a barn type attic space. it get's cold at night but a little whiskey never hurt anyone. played songs in the attic last night with my dear friends. andreas used an old speaker as the most insane percussion instrument you've ever hurt. kj and i are writing a song called "this is not a beautiful house" and it's going to be a hit and sweep the country and we will be billionaires. m is still a mystery and liz is rad. we had a good chat that brought my heart back to center.

warm

bikes and battles

i love riding bikes through towns with cobblestones. the rhythms that are made are rad. the speed is just perfect too. slow enough to have thoughts (unlike driving on highways) and fast enough to make you feel stoked on getting home at night. e lent me ina's "veteran bike" which was this great 50's black bike. the pedals were solid, the one speed a bit clunky, but i was diggin it. on my last day in bergen yesterday, i was able to watch the sunrise which was incredible. i rode out to this lookout spot near the flat and hung out with a bunch of fisherman.

i am in stockholm now. staying at a "festlocal" at my friend liz and marten's place. it is a studio apartment in a building that folks that own flats in the same building can sign up to use for friends. so i've got it for the week and it feels great to be in the center of it all. rumour is that it was used to store dead bodies back in the day though. i had some creepy imagery and make believe scents this morning (mourning) as i thought too much about it. but then i watched 'when harry met sally' at 3 am and the spirits became friendly new yorkers instead of faceless diseased swedes in corsets and leather. hah.

i have to say
billy crystal is funny. dude. really funny. rewatch that movie! there is a lot of those split screen shots where harry and sally are both in bed talking on the phone. there is a scene where harry says, "i'm gonna go now and lie here and moan for a while". Sally says "good night" and hangs up the phone. Her side of the screen goes black and on harry's side, the camera stays on him for about 20 seconds while he is obviously ad-libbing and he just lies there and moans for a while. really funny.

maybe i was just nostalgic for american new york humour that had me laughing out loud. not sure. oh dag, now i'm a little embarrassed for even mentioning that film. whatever.

days are turning into a series of symbols, metaphors, math, longing, and melodies.
been listening to the bergen songs and i am loving them. e's voice is like velvet.

doing vocal recording tomorrow.... 6 songs. hope to get it done in one day. we'll see.
i'm definitely going back to bergen to record for more songs. i miss those guys already. had such a fun night with davide on the last night. talking intently about sound. recording that last kings record. the "moments" that they had compared to the moments we shared. i guess "the build-up" was his favorite moment. it felt completely alive in the studio during that recording. i got chills when he described the sound in that studio during that day.

during day 2 of our studio sessions
eirik said right before the take that ended up being the final take, "i feel like i am in the best chapter of the book of music."

they are feeling it. so am i.

homes and houses

took a walk and found some neat doors, more postboxes, homes on water, black and white birds, 13th century roads, and open fields. i am starting to wonder if there is such a thing as travelling too much. were we meant to constantly overload our minds? i've experienced the addiction to the "new" but i've also overcome the need to stay there. it's so hard! i can feel the shift of excitment when i think about going "back" somewhere. like the beginnings of things are the addiction. exploring cities or people, learning how to speak again, seeing their eyes open and close, then going to a new place, seeing the same things, but they are different because you have changed, you have become a product of the town before, and before, and before that... so you bring that to the next place or person. eirik spoke of a thread that holds everything together- there is that thread that continues to connect every moment and every thought. a thought only comes from a previous thought, so if we really spent some time (that would be a luxury!) we could trace our conversations back for days and weeks- and we could find the thread, the thought that started the next and the next...

somehow thoughts don't have the room to complete themselves unless there is a sense of home. having e's apartment for these days has given me a sense of home... which brings along habits and the need for ritual. walk in, go down the corridor, put the key on the table, look around the main room, then go to the bedroom to have personal space thoughts... then think about what to eat...what to drink...what to say....

today it's blue again. there were 3 rainy days here.... walking home from the studio at 3am in the rain was a bit rough but really beautiful too. found myself exploring this old wedding chapel from 1240 at 4 am 2 nights ago. my heart filled up, and had a mini explosion (i really felt my heart speed up and it felt wierd in my throat). feeling it all.

i hope these sessions don't sound to different from the stockholm sessions. i'm thinking of coming back here and recording 4 more songs so then there would be a "side a" and "side b" feeling. unless someplace or someone convinces me otherwise over the next few weeks. i go to stockholm on sunday.

take 6

had to rethink a song we recorded monday night.
eirik suggested we start over from scratch. which was hard... but in the end it made a world of difference. we recorded in a circle. live. oystein on piano, eirik on drums, davide on stand up bass, and me on guitar/vocals. take 6 was the one. it brought tears which felt incredible. we are using these shoeps microphones for vocals and drums....and some neumann microphones for the room. it sounds rad.

doing the thing

recording started today. we did the basics for 2 songs. i am super happy with the change in arrangement and tone. eirik has a great ear for changes and oystein and anders are really feeling the music. yes! my plan has worked! on the way home from the studio, at 3am, i had this thought... about another thought. a thought that entered my brain so long ago, the idea to make an album on my own- with help from people i really care about and whose music has inspired me. it's really hard to do things all alone- so the help has really taught me new ways to play, new ways to listen, and new ways to feel. also, working with these new engineers, gets me closer to knowing what to listen for and how to work with others. whoa, this is sounding like a cover letter for a resume. but you get the idea. the main thing, is that there were really really good snacks there. and oystein was making us all laugh....especially when he started imitating dudes from radiohead on the cover of mojo, like in this photo.

post boxes

i'm into all the different post boxes here.
i'm gonna get some polaroids of them.

they all have different writing. i like that

i almost died

from an exlosion made by fireworks!
bergen boys and me were lying on the roof of the rehearsal space watching the stars.
fireworks came shooting out of nowhere
stuff flying down at us
still on fire
then racing to get back into the building but were locked out
yelling for someone to let us in
and finally got in
10 seconds later
an explosion on the roof from one for the big fireworks
and a shooting ball of fire came straight at us at the glass

if we had been there for 10 more seconds...something horrible would have happened.
it was crazy
but i have to say
pretty awesome
it felt like 6th grade shenanigans.

on another note
i am way into this one cafe på høyden
local and organic
yummy stuff.
here is the saffron bread/red currant/gouda sandwich
pumpkin and red beet soup
aoili on all the bread here!

a lot of these pancakes
which are like in between a crepe and our pancakes
i had one with spinach, bacon, and chevre that was pretty tasty

one thing i really dig
is when they make an ice coffee, they put some sugar in with the espresso when it's hot
before pouring it over ice

now you may think that is the obvious and logical way so that the sugar melts
but how come we don't do this at home? every cafe at home hands you the ice coffee and never asks if you would like it to be sweet so they can do that for you...

ahhhh.

i painted a room where i will sleep

from beach to bergen

ok.
chapter 5.
bergen.
after a wonderful week home in california (see beach above) playing shows with feist...
and on stage with my homies terri and dan

i am here in norway.
it took 24 hours of travelling from la to here. dude.

put to walk along these cobblestone street and taste the saffron in the bread
brings me back to exactly one year ago
when d and i were here climbing hills, playing music, and learning words.


i painted a room today in eiriks new apartment. it will be the room where i sleep.
his mom and i made it happen...
and it was so so so warm too. such a california day here. rode bikes (i have a bike!) and ate strange organic concoctions (pumpin and beet root soup, ham and scrambled egg sandwiches and red currant rolls) with eirik in his hometown. jammed with kommode which was great! oystein, anders, eirik and i jamming some elevator funk. totally digging his new songs and teaching them one of mine. sounding good.

"it's not enough" i think is the title of this one.