From my old diary
LONDON, JUNE 25TH - "11 LONG DAYS IN THE LIFE OF YOURS TRULY"
So I'm back in London after a hectic week in America!
I promised to do an audio-diary but my problem right now is that I've got about 200 soundbites on my computer which were meant to turn into an action-packed documentary - "11 days in the life of, well, me"...
But A) I don't think I'm ever going to find the time to even listen to all the stuff I've recorded much less edit it into shape.
And B) I've got a feeling I sound like a sedated cow on most of it - talking to yourself into a dictaphone (and even worse: talking to yourself into a dictaphone in front of other people / walking in the street) is something you've gotta get used to and get comfortable with.
So the sleep-inducing audio-book from my ten manic and magic days in London, The Bavarian Alps and America will so far stay on my harddrive and in stead I'll give you a quick (yeah, right) run-down:
It all started on Wednesday the 13th:
(Street noise in the background) I was walking up Ladbroke Grove on the way to Kensal Town Studios talking about how this was my third day in the studio, mixing with George Tandero, 27-year-old Norwegian guy who has recently mixed for Travis and who some of you will know from his work on Teitur's last record which is how I heard of him and met him first...
On this Wednesday we were mixing the third track for my new album and so far everything was sounding great!
I arrived at the studio to find that on this day George had had his first ever article written about him in one of the biggest Norwegian papers, the headline in big capitals: "SOUND-GENIOUS FOR THE STARS" and I've never in my life seen anyone so painfully embarrased.
He had only agreed to give them the interview if they promised to keep it "low-key" - but instead got a two-piece spread with colour photos of various celebrities and a big shot of George smiling behind his desk with the text "You've got to screw to make it sound good..." :-D
But like I said, the track was sounding good (He IS a sound genious!) and we finished at about 2 in the morning.
The only problem was that I had a car picking me up at 5.30 that same morning to go to Germany. I got home at 2.30 - and when I got home (not that I want to rub the advantages of this job in your faces) there was a HUGE box sitting at my doorstep from a Danish clothing company full of their latest "styles" as I believe they call it. So how could I possibly go to bed? I had my own little catwalk-show in the middle of the night and ended up getting 90 minutes sleep before I had to get up and go to Stansted Airport.
Thursday: Flew out to Munich where I was picked up by an Audi 8 with my own private, be-suited driver who drove me to Königsdorf in The Bavarian "pre-alp landscape" - and checked me into a typical Tyrol hotel with flower boxes hanging from the carved railings and heavy wooden furniture. So here you would have heard a clip of me - almost completely drowned out by loud chirping of birds - slightly confused about suddenly standing on a sunny terrace with a view of green, mountainous fields.
I wasn't quite sure what I was doing there - hadn't really looked into the details properly - so I was quite surprised when I arrived at my soundcheck to find that I was playing at a golf club. Undoubtedly one of Germany's most beautiful courses with the mountains in the distance. It was such a lovely day and with the round tables, flowers and candlesticks everywhere, it looked more like the perfect wedding than an end-of-private-golf-tournament-jetset-playboy-dinner...
The next sound clip would have been me in a giant hot tub - yup, that's right. After soundcheck the receptionist at the hotel noticed I looked terribly run-down and miserable and she opened up the whole spa-section in the basement just for me and ran me a bath with oils and candles and fluffy towels. I was a very thankful and happy (if somewhat groggy) little girl in spa-heaven...
The evening was lovely. I played my 5 songs before dessert :-) but apart from that I was just a guest like everyone else. Good food and lots of nice people - mainly media and music people so lots to talk about. I shook hands with the guy that wrote the Axel F-theme from "Beverly Hills Cop", remember? How cool is that! (I'm not sure...)
My press agent in Germany - a lovely woman called Karin - takes me to quite a lot of these dinners / evenings / award ceremonies to meet as many of these influential people as possible and it may sound a bit nasty - it's certainly a different approach than what I'm used to - but I've meet so many nice and genuine people in Germany so far which is why I never hesitate to say yes when she invites...
Friday: Got picked up by my be-suited driver at 7 o'clock in the morning, straight back to London and straight back into the studio with George where we spent all day and night again.
I was back in my flat at 4 in the morning, the sun already starting to rise. My flat was a total mess after my fashion show the other night, dishes and general untidiness and I only had 4 hours before I was being picked up to go to the airport to fly out to America. And I hadn't even thought about packing yet...
So again not much more than 90 minutes sleep before another tiring round of "did-you-pack-your-bags-yourself?", "did-anyone-give-you-anything-to-carry?", "take-the-guitar-down-to-bulky-bagage-in-zone-G-please", "take-off-your-shoes-please", "may-I-see-your-boarding-pass-please", "is-that-a-bottle-of-water-in-your-bag-or-is-it-a-fluid-that-you're-going-to-use-to-make-a-bomb?" etc...
Saturday: I arrived in New York in the afternoon and went to my hotel down by Wall Street. Here you'd hear me talking about how happy I was to be back in New York and how it never ceases to amaze me. How the smallest things like the smell of the water suddenly reminded me of so many fantastic days and nights in the US and how I can't wait to come back on a longer tour next year...
(In the background you'd hear the humming of the tv - the new talent show "America's Got Talent" with Sharon Osborne and David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff on the judging panel... Oh, dear...)
You'd also hear the story of how I arrived at this very hotel one and a half years ago at the beginning of a tour. I wrote "Magic" pretty much in an afternoon in my room and set up my portable studio in the bathroom to avoid the noise from a dysfunctional air-con. I recorded a demo of the song, litterally sitting on the (closed, of course) toilet and went for a walk with my Ipod down to Pier 17 and sat there, looking at the river, the lit-up skyscrapers towering up behind me, listening to this new, slightly disturbing song...
The next day, Sunday, I met up with my manager, Jonathan, and his girlfriend, Sara. A bit of shopping which is quite unlike me - not a big shopper. Don't like to bring too much "stuff" into my life. I feel it weighs me down. Maybe because it's a bit of a waste as I travel so much and can't bring much with me.
The rest of my day-off in New York, would you believe it, I spent in my hotel room on Skype with George back in London who had kept on mixing without me to keep our deadline. So we sent mixes back and forth all evening with comments until we were both happy with the result. Thank God for Skype...
Monday morning Jonathan and I had a meeting with Michael from my American label. "Strategies" / "scenarios" and all that jazz... Once again I was reminded how much effort and time it takes to build a carreer in this country and I recorded a clip of me sitting in the window at the hotel pondering over my job; what it is that drives me, what the sacrifices are, what can be won and what I lose out on? But if I remember correctly the clip ended something like this: "But as I'm sitting here on 17th floor looking out onto New York on a sunny Monday in June I feel this intense excitement in my stomach and.... Yeah... I'm so up for it..."
In the evening I played my gig at Joe's Pub. Not a very classy name for a club but it's actually a very cool place - like Ronnie Scott's in London or Copenhagen Jazzhouse in, well, Copenhagen....
You'd hear clips of me backstage talking about how I sometimes have these intense surges of tiredness before a gig, where I almost can't speak, let alone stand up. I guess it's the body saving up for the explosion later...
An hour later a clip would go:
"Michael from the label has arrived and now him and Jonathan are talking boring music industry stuff while the singer from the support act is warming up her voice in the next room (the sound of all kinds of strange vocal exercises heard in the background) which is probably what I should be doing right now but... (said with the timing of a true comedian) I can't be bothered... (scattered laughter in the background).... No, actually (and this is said in an even funnier way, trust me) it's because I really don't need to, actually (LOUD laughters in the background) - I'm lucky like that... (...maybe you should've been there...?)
End of clip "No, actually I DO do a bit of this: ... (and then a series of strange gurgling and clicking noises from my throat follows)... See: action-packed...
Anyway, I came of stage and told the Ipod that it felt like one of the best solo-shows I'd ever done and that as a result I felt completely empty and weirded out, like I'd lost myself for a while and didn't know how to get back...
Next clip: me and Jonathan in taxi Tuesday morning on the way to La Guardia Airport, me biting quite violently on a celery stick, explaining how I'd woken up at 5, though I'm still nowhere near rested - bloody jetlag - and had taken a quick walk down to Pier 17 to reminisce and say goodbye to New York, sad to be leaving so soon.
Back to the airport to fly to Toronto.
Next clip: me and Jonathan in a limo from the airport in Toronto, me explaining that this is a very typical day of solo-touring: getting up early to go to airport, fly to new city, arrive at hotel with a couple of hours to shower and stare out the window before soundcheck, then dinner, then gig, then back to bed and then back to the airport in the morning. Party? Na-a... Neither the time, nor the energy... It's sooo draining to travel like that, with all the sitting around and standing in queues...
It makes playing kinda special, though, 'cause that's the one time of day you get to come out of your weird little bubble...
Next clip: standing in the window at the hotel, Canadian singer/songwriter Emily Haines playing on my computer in the background. I'm explaining that this is my 8th time in Toronto and how I'm really digging this city. It's very cosmopolitan - all kinds of people and it has a very interesting balance between clean-and-tidy and hippie-relaxed-and-free-spirited...
Later you hear me complaining, though, that the gig - in opposition to the night before - was probably one of the least focused and switched-on gigs I've ever done. At this point you really start to hear the tiredness in my voice. The lack of sleep, the jetlag and challenges of the past week are starting to get to me.
"I fucked up way too many times, I even forgot some lyrics which usually never happens to me! Where was my head...?"
Next clip, Wednesday: "I'm standing outside of Alamo Car Rentals at Los Angeles Airport, waiting for Jonathan to bring out the car we'll be driving this week. A Jeep, I think. I've been awake for 10 hours already but because of the time difference it's only 11.30 in LA. So we've got a long day ahead of us. It's a lovely, sunny day in LA, not too hot... (drowned out by the sound of a Boeng taking off right over my head)
We're gonna go to the hotel where I hope to get some sleep before the gig tonight. We always stay in the same hotel in LA so it's a bit like coming home. Familiar smells and faces; you know what's for breakfast; you know the Taco Bell across the street (you know it a little too well, actually - disgusting!... - but too tempting after a night out...)
Next clip: "I'm back in bed after the gig at Largo. You'd think I'd be out partying... I'm in Hollywood... And it was the last gig on this trip.... But I'm now... 100... percent.... run down... nothing more to give... Tonight was a good show... amazing crowd... and Largo is a lovely place... But again... I fucked up in a few places... And although I know it makes no difference to the... show... It's so unpleasant when... you feel like you're not... in control... Oh, the thoughts that run through my head... when I'm up there...
Sometimes everything you try... just works... And sometimes every note... kinda puts up fight.... It was a good night, though... A good night.... I've just got too much on my mind at the moment... I guess at times like these... with a new release on the way.... it's not easy being both the songwriter.... the singer... the record company... the bank...
The next morning, Thursday, Sara and I went shopping for the video shoot we were preparing for Friday. We had planned to go out to the desert in Joshua Tree National Park, 150 miles east of LA.
After hours of fruitless looking, me green-ish pale with the ol' shopping-fobia, I finally found a dress that made me look like a cross between Jesus and an institutionalized nutter - absolutely perfect!
In the evening we went and saw Kate Walsh play - she's another one of Jonathan's artists.
Next clip, Friday (don't worry, we're almost done now...): "I'm in the car with Jonathan and Sara, the LA skyline has disappeared behind us in a cloud of SMOG and we're now surrounded by big mountains, big trucks and of course big factory outlet stores... And tempting as it is (not) to go and see what a Gucci Factory Outlet might have to offer, we're going to persevere and drive to the desert where it's apparently on the unpleasant side of 45 degrees today..."
(Manic Mariachi music from the car radio...)
Next clip: We stopped at a petrol station 10 miles from the park for provisions and asked the woman behind the counter how far we'd have to drive into the park to find wilderness and solitude. "I don't know," she said. "I've lived here aaaaaaall my life but I've never been in there...." Wow!
Although so near to LA, the towns you drive through out there look like such strange and isolated places - I'd say the people out there are excused if they think Denmark is the capital of Sweden... They've got other things to worry about... Everybody probably know Denmark now, though - "the famous drawings" have put us on the big map... :-("
The shoot went really well, I think. We returned sunburnt and de-hydrated, of course, but with some beautiful footage. The desert played its part very well, (what an absolutely amazing place!!) the dress, too, did what it was meant to do - and me, I ran around looking like I was rather enjoying myself, apart from the one time when I thought I had run into a snake - which turned out to be a lizzard(-baby)...
Of course there was no phone signal out there and I could vividly imagine what it would be like to get lost out there - how long would you actually survive?
Hopefully you'll get to see the result of our endeavours before too long - along with an interview we shot in my hotel room the next day - about the new album, inspirations, the process and so on and so on...
After this interview, Saturday, I went to a studio in the Beverly Hills to record a quick duet with a friend of mine, AM, who's doing a film score at the moment. We did a very fragile version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which will be in an indie comedy that I'm probably not allowed to say any more about at this stage.
Back to the airport and - bam! - 16 hours later: back in my flat in London which still looks like an abandoned fashion show. And this concludes the "11 days in the life of..."
I'll continue to work on my talking-to-myself-skills so that the diary can at some point be served in a fresh audio-version with musical elements, nerve-and-depth and fun-and-laughter...
Til then - thanks for reading!
x Tina