JULY 21, 2010 / SAN SEBASTIEN, SPAIN

With all of our shows outdoors on this go-round (London was under a tent, but still in a park), it's amazing that we haven't seen rain. Not so in San Sebastien, high on the Atlantic coast. In fact, the stage is set up on the beach, overlooking sand and ocean. It's to be a free concert, the first of a five day "jazz" festival (hey, I play a flat five occasionally). But the last time we were here, in 2007, it poured, and today seems no exception. There are rumors that the show will be postponed till the following day, which would be fine with me since our hotel is only a five minutes stroll from surfers riding the waves. Fortunately for the occasion, the sky somewhat clears, the stage is dried, and by nightfall, over 25,000 people have come to the San Sebastien shore to be jazzed. It'll start raining somewhere during the set for a couple of songs—we see umbrellas go up briefly—but the precipitation stays away until after we're done.

Before we go on we take a commemorative band portrait. From left to right: Jack, Jay Dee, our Noble Leader, Tony, Tour Guide.



July 20, 2010 / MADRID, SPAIN

The prospect of una lavenderia is exciting everyone. Just past the midpoint of the tour, I've gone through every article of clothing, some twice. Around the corner from the hotel, on the Calle de Leon, we engage in the blessed mundanity of doing wash; across from the laundromat is a building sign saying that Miguel de Cervantes vivio y murio here. I wonder if this is where Sancho Panza brought the Quixote armor to be scrubbed.



There is a real sense of neighborhood in our vicinity, with tapas bars and cafes in which to while away the rinse cycle, though by the time I finish folding my socks, with the de rigueur one missing, it's the heat of the afternoon and everything shuts for four hours of siesta. When the shops reopen, I successfully locate the classical/flamenco guitar stores I discovered our last time here a couple of years ago. I play a selection of the guitars on hand, and purchase a couple more of the capos that only seem to be made here in Madrid, tiny art objects as functional as they are beautiful.

July 15-18 2010 / HUELVA/CARTAGENA/VIGO, SPAIN



We zig and zag and zip across Spain, three shows in four nights. We begin in Huelva, on the southern coast right next to Portugal, travel 400 miles due east to Cartagena, then diagonally northwest across the country 65l miles to Vigo, picking up stray geographic factoids about each of these port cities as we go. Huelva is where Columbus recruited sailors for his trip across the Atlantic, and stayed in the local monastery while he raised funds for his journey; Cartagena was a Mediterranean gateway into Spain for the Romans, named for the ancient North African city of Carthage, and many like-minded invaders with territorial eyes for the Iberian peninsula followed; and Vigo, on the Atlantic, is a shipbuilding city along a river estuary that is now filled with sailboats and summer frolickers. In honor of the water's proximity in each of these cities, I eat only fish: sardines, anchovies, monkfish, sea bass, dorado, squid, oysters. You can taste the water in which they grow.



All these shows are fervent, especially in places where we do not expect to be known. Traversing the country, much of it arid and reminiscent of scenes in Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, which were locationed here, I can't help but reflect on the Civil War that took place in Spain in the 1930s, a testing ground for the battle of world powers that would result in World War II, a microcosm of carnage and conflicting ideologies and the repressive dictatorship that would follow. This war broke out on July 17, 1936, and in Vigo, on the weekend of its anniversary, we send up a flare to those who gave their lives, including the poet Lorca. There is a word that I am taught in the local dialect of Galician that implies a longing for that which is lost, saudade, and as we memorialize "People Who Died," we feel this sense of ineffable missing, and of Espana now restored.



July 12, 2010 / MALLORCA, SPAIN

The World Cup soccer championship is being played tonight as we arrive in Spain. I have visions of a giant-screen television in a square filled with thousands of cheering fans, but our hotel is in the mountains of this beautiful island, and the nearest town is Deia, whose main street measures a hundred meters, just long enough for a few restaurants and a couple of bars. I find a seat at the tiny Sa Font Fresca next to a guy dressed in red and yellow banging a bass drum, get a cold San Miguel, and cheer on the home country, playing Los Paises Bajos. The announcer is rapid-firing Spanish but the oohs-and-ahhhs of the forty or so patrons allows me to follow the subtleties of the action. And when Espana scores in the final moments, the town erupts in fireworks and pride. ¡Campeones!



We open the show the next night with "Till Victory." It's the first time for this venue, on the grounds of an abandoned estate taken over by the municipal authorities after the previous aristocratic owners couldn't keep up the sumptious gardens and labyrinthine rooms, and before the show we wander the empty floors with peeling wallpaper and phantasms that seem to still inhabit the space.



There is another spirit hovering over Mallorca, that of the writer Robert Graves, who moved here with the poet Laura Riding in the early thirties, left for the ten years of the Spanish Civil War and WW II, and then returned for the remainder of his days with his last wife, Beryl. On our day off, their youngest son, Tomas, takes us around the family home, now a museum, in Deia. It is here that Graves wrote his "potboiler," as he liked to refer to I, Claudius, and his beautiful poetry; and tended his gardens and swam in the warm salt of the Mediterranean, as I soon blissfully will.

July 10, 2010 / ST. CYPRIEN, FRANCE

Tonight is a double bill worthy of the Grande Ballroom, us and the Stooges at a festival on the grounds of a huge winery, with the Mediterranean hovering in the background. When we reach our hotel after the few hour drive from Albi, our promoter, Alain, tells us that the Stooges' show last night was highlighted by Iggy cracking heads with an audience member after a swan dive into the crowd, resulting in ten stitches on the Pop browline.

This is the Raw Power Mk. II Stooge line-up, with James Williamson wielding his Les Paul after many years leading a vastly different life as a computer programmer, Mike Watt holding down Ron Asheton's controversial switch to bass, Scott Asheton rock-actioning the traps, and ex-Carnal Kitchen sax player Steve Mackay doing his Funhouse thing.



The Stooges have always been near and dear to me, from the first time I saw them opening the MC5 at the World's Fair Grounds in Queens in 1969, through Iggy on the floor in silver gloves at Ungano's, scraping his chest with a broken bottle at Max's, King's Cross Cinema in London and the Palladium in New York and on and on and on until most recently, the stage of Carnegie Hall for the Tibet House benefit, where I got to play the salute-to-Ron solo in "I Wanna Be Your Dog."

They put on one mortarforker of a show. Watching from the side of the stage as Scott and Mike lock the rhythm section, James negotiating the twists and turns of "Search and Destroy" and "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell," Iggy tossing and twisting himself with reckless abandon, the ultimate showman, I praise the rock gods that the Stooges are...well, Are. "Outta my mind on Saturday night..." they sang in "1970", and four decades later, amazingly enough, those same words are still ringing ever truer, on this humidity drenched night in the south of France before ten thousand screaming souls.

July 9, 2010 / ALBI, FRANCE

We step out of the bus about noon after the long overnight drive from Switzerland to be greeted by a blast of hundred degree heat. Ah, southern Europa. Me and P. repair to a nearby café for a coffee. Three afternoon inebriates are singing along to a medley of Queen songs, the waitress sits at our table to take our order of chicken tagine and steak frites. The Terminus. Our kind of joint.



Albi is the birthplace of Toulouse-Lautrec, and the historian in me connects the dots to deduce that it is also the namesake for the Albigensian Heresy, for which the Cathars were nearly wiped out in the early thirteenth century. They believed in the primacy of the spiritual over the authority of the Church, which made them no friends among the Papacy, and a crusade was mounted to teach them a lesson, resulting in such enlightening inquisitional practices as unearthing the Cathar dead to burn them. I spend time in the Toulouse-Lautrec musée, studying his portraits of the Paris demimonde of the Moulin Rouge era, and gaze at the magnificent fortress-like cathedral that overlooks the town square, where we play this evening on a bill with French chanteur Jacques Higelin.

In the early 1970s, on my first trip to Paris, I came upon an album titled Higelin et Areski, which offered a minimal folkish song cycle in importuning French that became one of my late night favorites. I met and became friendly with Jacques a few years later, and often remember a moment where he visited me in New York in 1979 just after we recorded Wave. When I played him "Broken Flag," our bittersweet anthem centered about the Battle of Algiers (see the Pontecorvo film of the same name for cinematic docu-drama), he kissed me on both cheeks and said, in that self-same voice I remembered from Higelin et Areski, "Magnifique!" Now I am about to further closure the circle by meeting Areski Belkacem, who is backstage with Brigitte Fontaine, about to go on after us.

She had been delayed in the traffic of a motor accident on the way to Albi, and so we take her slot in the Pause Guitare festival. It's still light when we go on, but I don't mind, since seeing the crowd and their mirror-imaging Patti's shake-out during "Ghost Dance" makes the huge square a communal party. It's my Dad's birthday today - he would've been 104, bless his soul - and during "People Have The Power" I imagine him on the rooftop opposite, watching over me, proud that I am carrying on the musical traditions of the Kusikoff family. I am a third generation member of Local 802, Musician's Union, my grandfather (born in Russia) a drummer, and my Dad a piano/accordion player. Thanks, Pop.

July 7, 2010 / ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Respect must be paid. When we discover that James Joyce lived intermittently in this city, wrote a good deal of Ulysses here, and is buried in a hilltop cemetery overlooking the lake of Zurich, a pilgrimage is arranged. He is—in my mind—the most important and influential wordsmith of the twentieth century, taking the English language as far as it might go in Finnegan's Wake; and despite its complexities, Ulysses is surprisingly and eminently readable. As Molly Bloom would say, "Yes."



We played tonight's venue, the Rote Fabrik, many years ago, back in the seventies, standing out in memory not so much because of the show as a tear gas bomb was unleashed shortly before we went on. Politricks. What I didn't realize then, and see now since the stage has been moved outdoors for this beautiful midsummer night, is that the theater is beside the lake, and as we soundcheck, me and the boys trying to medley Nuggets like "Psychotic Reaction" and "We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet" and "I'm A Man" and "Tobacco Road" (all we seem to know is an opening verse and chorus), sailboats and swimmers splash by.

For us, it's a strange one onstage, the PA system having to blast to cover the crowd, and its positioning makes everything seem louder than humanly possible. But Patti's tales of fireflies in the forest and Hans mounting Gretel and a beautiful "Wing," with Jack's solo fluttering in the evening air, bring us on home. After, Neil Sugarman of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, who has family here, engages me in talk of analog vs. digital and classic soul in the twenty first century. We resolve that instead of crossing paths in Switzerland, we might have a sausage (Nathan's) and a beer (Brooklyn Pilsener) on our home turf.

July 4-5, 2010 / BONN/BERLIN, GERMANY

On the bus, at last. Our last flight for a while, thank the Wright Brothers, with all the attendant security herdings and mall-like shopping zones and mis-directed luggage. The JumboCruiser which will be our home for the next three or so weeks awaits, and I claim my usual bunk, left side upper, toward the rear, just long enough to accommodate my prone six feet. With a window, which makes all the difference.

I hardly see Bonn, but Andrew Burns, road manager and guitar tech for us in the past and future, is there to greet us as we arrive. He's working for Corinne Bailey Rae, a lovely thrush, and has a fortuitous day off so he can come see us play. Also there is Karen and Kim, front row fans that seem to show up wherever we show down in America and Europe; their presence makes even the abstract tent we're playing in seem familiar.

We drive overnight to Berlin, and I stretch out in my bunk watching the opening episode of Sons of Anarchy on DVD. I came into the show—kind of like The Sopranos on V-twin engines—midway through the second season and was instantly pulled into the motorcycle mayhem. Now starting from the beginning, plot details that remained blurry come into focus, and I ready to embark on this saga of iron horses and the outlaws who duo-glide them.



In Berlin we're playing the Zitadelle Spandau, on the outskirts of the city within the grounds of an old castle, complete with moat. We were here in 2007 and it's a good venue, outdoors and with a carnival feel. The edifice was used as an army barracks for a while and now serves as a modern art museum. REM is in town, working on their new record, and the whole band, with families in tow, visits. Peter joins us on "People Who Died," playing some note-perfect Chuck Berry licks during the solo; and then everybody—Michaels Stipe and Mills, Scott, Bill, even Daniel Kahn, the accordion player from the opening klezmeresque act—overflows the stage for "People Have The Power" and the closing noisefest medley of our favorite three chord anthems. We all crash into the final E together, a divine clang, and one that sends any lingering ghosts into the hereafter.

July 3, 2010 / COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Four hours sleep, no wake-up call, leap into startled wakefulness. At least we're already at Stockholm airport. Returning to the Roskilde festival is somewhat of a déjà vu, though I know the lay of the land. We have an afternoon show at 4:30 on the main Orange stage, and a quick cruise of the grounds reveals the festivities in full sybaritic swing, a good time being had by all. I meet Torsten from Copenhagen-based T. Rex effects pedals in the media tent, and he gifts me a couple of their extremely well made products (shameless endorsement), a reverb stompbox called the Roommate with a genuine 12AX7 tube in it, and a delay called the Replica. Since the bag with my effects has been lost in transit since Thursday's flight from London, he couldn't be more welcome.



The strong wind during the show sends frequencies swirling, and by the time we reach a closing "Rock and Roll Nigger," we throw caution to those very breezes and medley it with snatches of "Radio Ethiopia" and "Gloria," guitar howls set on stun level, the beast language chatter of wrenched sway bars and the feed of back. It's messy, but in this age of perfectly calibrated theatrical shows (not ours, surely), it feels like a reaffirmation of our "outside society" anarchistic roots.

Which, leaving the festival grounds around eight, we decide to indulge on the way back to our hotel. We stop in Christiana, a once Danish hippy encampment inside Copenhagen where—despite the right wing government's periodic attempts to shut it down and build condominiums—still maintains an air of free-for-all. We admire a particularly nice display of blocks of hashish, complete with stamped inlaid seals; a price twice nice for a slice suffice. I-ce.

July 2, 2010 / BORLANGE, SWEDEN

When Patti and I first played the Love and Peace Festival in 2006 as an acoustic duo, fortuitously helped out by Peter Buck who happened to be there as well, it was a small idealistic event whose stage was set up on the main street of the town. Now it's become the second largest festival in Scandinavia, next to Roskilde, and the two giant prosceniums set up side by side, along with several satellite venues, testify to its explosive growth. It's been a long travel day from Copenhagen, two flights and a connection at the Stockholm airport that seems as if we've walked halfway to Borlange, the second plane a prop aircraft that rides the air currents like a roller coaster. Whooeee...! When we get to the festive site, L&P is in full swing, Lily Allen bouncing around on the adjacent stage and our equipment set up and ready to launch. We add "Love Train" to the set at the last moment, and sing-a-long's commence.



Aftershow I have a brief few moments to see who's playing. In the early eighties Kim Wilde and her producer-brother Ricky made some of the best pop records of the late vinyl era, and I hop on a convenient shuttle to catch a few numbers. Though I don't have time to hear "Kids In America," Kim is winning and I have my mental photo of her in performance. I make it back to our encampment with enough moments to see the Hives, for whom this is a local gig, celebrating those garage verities we all know and love, though hardly peace.

Then we're back in motion mode, a three hour van trip to Stockholm airport so we can catch a too-early flight. It never really gets dark, more twilight or pre-dawn, the rising of the moon at midnight ghostly and spectral, as if we are phantasms caught between worlds, which in a way we are. The between of here and there.


July 1, 2010 / COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
I read out the names, one by one, the tolling of nine: three Danes, three Swedes, a German, an Australian, a Dutch, all young men, lost in their prime. Ten years ago, at the Roskilde Festival outside Copenhagen, during a set by Pearl Jam, they had the misfortune to be crushed as the crowd pressed forward, overwhelming them. A year later, after a symbolic planting of nine trees near the stage, our band unfurled a version of "I'm Still Alive" to honor their memory. Those trees are now grown, and in commemorative invocation to open the festival, Patti throws nine roses to the crowd for each life foreshortened. We then pick up our acoustic guitars and play "Southern Cross" and "Blakean Year," affirming the life force within music, and our duty to appreciate each day of this exis-dance.



Traveling to Denmark on an early flight out of Heathrow we had run into the Gorillaz, who now contain within their considerable ranks two old friends, ex-and-always Clashers Paul Simenon and Mick Jones. Backstage, like veteran warriors, we trade reminiscences and renewals. We can't stay to see the show, which looks to be an amazing vaudeville-like extravaganza, replete with an Arabic string section, animated projections, and even the venerable Bobby Womack, since we have a pair of early flights tomorrow to get to Sweden and meet the rest of the band; but the Gorillaz will be in America in September. See you then.

June 29, 2010 / LONDON, ENGLAND

There is an art to getting out of town for six weeks. Tying together the loose ends of a scattered life, paying ahead bills, finishing last minute writings, fixscreendoorcleanturtletankfindblackjacketchoosebooksgathergadgetsguitarspassport...why is it one always finishes five minutes before jumping into the car to the airport?

This year it's complicated by the due date of a track for a Nolan Strong and the Diablos tribute album. One of my favorite Detroit doowop groups, recording for the legendary Fortune label, the project was initiated by Norton Records' Billy Miller and producer-enthusiast Rich Tupica. My choice is "I Wanna Know," and I decide to do it all in my basement, soup to nuts, drums to bass to organ to guitars to vocals, including four part harmony, which of course takes far more weeks than I could've imagined. I have never gone the distance on my ProTools LE setup, and the learning curve is steep (luckily for my percussion skills, I figure out how to move the bass drum to land somewhere near the downbeat); but by early on the morning of my leavetaking, I press play on the final mixage, bounce to disk, and send the "files" to Billy and Rich.

I meet the band at Newark airport, everyone slightly bedraggled from their own efforts to get life in order. Joining with Tony and Jay Dee on this voyage is Jack Petruzelli, stage right guitar, and our noble crew of Barre (tour and stage left manager, and my caustic guitar conscience), Futz (taking care of the other side of the stage), Darryl (monitors), and Pablo doing front-of-house sound, much as he did fifteen years ago when we set off on the road, before taking a long detour working for Bob Dylan, among others.



It's beautiful weather when we land in Blighty, the papers full of shock-horror about the English soccer team's ignominious flame-out in the World Cup. We usually stay near the Seven Dials in Covent Garden, named for the seven streets that meet at its obelisk, and though there are elements of touristic Times Square in adjacent Piccadilly, I have my rounds: English breakfast at a trad cafe, lamb madras at Punjab, the bookshops on Cecil Court, the guitar shops along Denmark Street, and a pint or six of London Pride at the Crown across the street.

The first show is always fraught with uncertainty, and we're playing in a big tent in Hyde Park. Normally you don't want to open in a major capital, working out the rough spots and grey areas in somewhere a bit less on-the-spot, but the crowd's roar galvanizes us and we spin through our set triumphant, buoyed by backstage visitors like Morrissey (who once covered "Redondo Beach") and Kevin Shields (who inspires me to play louder). The curfew of 10 p.m. cuts us off just about when we begin to spell G-L-O-R-I-A. By then we've cracked open the bottle on this tour.

The next day is a rest before we go to Europe proper. Aaron Budnick, a rare book dealer of long acquaintance, gifts me a copy of Alan Lomax's Jelly Roll Morton autobiographical transcriptions, and treats me to a high-end lunch at Brown's Hotel, where we feast upon potted shrimp and aged porterhouse. Begun.

SXSW Diary
Austin, Texas
March 17 - 21, 2010

Wednesday. The pinball begins immediately. Within minutes of checking into the hotel, on my way to pick up registration and laminate, I start running into random friends and acquaintances, negotiating streets not only packed with bands caterwauling on every corner, but throngs of partygoers who are celebrating St. Patrick's day of inebriation.

It's been ten years since I attended the annual music business/art clusterfuck known as South by Southwest. Then, celebrating the release of Gung Ho, Patti and Her Band played a set under the stars in the local park, opened by Ray Price (of all gentlemen) and Alejandro Escovedo (another gentle man), and highlighted by a helicopter apocalyptically landing near us during "Gung Ho." In the decade since, it appears that the conference has grown exponentially, now amounting to nearly two thousand musical attractions buttressed by an unknown number of more would-be's, wanna-be's and truly-are's just coming to join in the party. With the downtown streets blocked off, and every available venue hosting bands from noon until pass-out, it resembles Mardi Gras at its most whoop-de-doo. And I'm a-whoopin' along, make no doubt about it.

I don't have too many duties, just to appear on a couple of easy-going panels, and the rest of the time let loose. I don't even know what or who's happening, since I never advance checked the scheduling. I've learned not to make too many plans at these things, as it's more fun to go with the flow, prepare for the unexpected, and be surprised, emphasis on the prize.

The first person I run into is Joe Keyes, my editor at eMusic, and a fellow metal fan who alerts me to the High on Fire show later that night at Mohawk. Then Sandy Pearlman tips me to some bbq joint I have to try. Jim Fouratt lets me know he's there to be our collective conscience. Dr. Ike, of the Ponderosa Stomp, recommends Rocky Erickson at La Zona Rosa. But before I have a chance to put any of them into play, a chance run-in with disc jockey B.P. Fallon tells me where to start the eve, at his show where he'll be singing/chanting and will be backed by Clem Burke and Nigel Harrison of Blonder fame, and Aaron from the Madison Square Gardeners, old friends all. When I find the venue, which actually is in a parking lot somewhere north of 4th St., he's singing "Gloria" and is his usual ebullient self. Spliffs are rolled and then it's off into the night.

I hop on the Bob Gruen express, a familiar shuttle since we've been doing the Rock Scene stroll ever since the seventies. We arrive at somewhere-or-other in time to see the last five minutes of Wanda Jackson, walk a few blocks to the Austin Music Hall to catch the encore of Michael Monroe's high powered set, where he's aided and abetted by Sami Yaffa and Steve Conte.



Word reaches me that Suzanne Vega is playing across town in a church. It is a beautiful setting for one who has gifted such a memorable presence in my life, and I surprise her happily backstage. Flanked by Gerry Leonard on interstellar guitar and Mike Visceglia on bedrock bass, framed by a beautiful and beatific religious painting, she is as wondrous as always, her songs indelible, her voice pure and untremeloed.

Then I lose myself in the crowds on Sixth Street. The color green is everywhere, but Red 7 is where the metal bands roost and I have a hankering for the loud and pummeling. I know not whom I see, but sometimes it doesn't matter. Finally, taking Joe Keyes' advice, I go to High on Fire, who are righteously unhinged, tossing off stage divers with a smile and a shrug, the guitarist's ten-string (!!!) emitting howls that might make Beezlebub wince. Up for nearly twenty hours, and with ears a-pealing, I soon totter off for the nearest prone position.

Thursday. I have been sent down here by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to speak on their panel, "Does Rock and Roll Belong In A Museum?," along with head curator Jim Henke, journalist Ann Powers and Miles from the Akron Family. As a long time supporter of the Hall, especially their newfound Library, I am happy to make the case that though such artifact enshrinement often means something is caged and neutered, that the several thousand musicians howling at this conference shows that the form is alive and well, thank you, and yes, I do hope they let me play John Cippolina's amplifier someday.

Next door is a fascinating panel on the fortieth anniversary of Miles Davis' Bitches' Brew, with drummer Lenny White telling behind-the-scenes tales, and reissue producer Steve Berkowitz guiding us through the Davis archives. I then accomplish my main mission in Austin, which is to have some baby back ribs and Lone Star beer. Around the corner from the Convention Center is Ironworks, where I lunch it up. Sated, on my way back to the hotel to take a much-needed nap, I happen on the Vivian Girls playing in the Mohawk courtyard. I'd heard of them, and yes, they live up to their Darger-like name, being both Amazonian-warrior, incredibly tuneful, and somewhat perverse.

After siesta, I head over to La Zona Rosa where Nicole Atkins is showcasing. I produced more than half an album with her in 2006 before an executive turnover at her record company at the time changed our direction; but it forged a bond that we both nurture and celebrate. Backed by a great Austin band, Future Clouds and Radar, she plays a set of all new awe-inspiring material and delivers it with passion and intensity. She is followed by John Hiatt, and as I pass him backstage, I lean over and sing the first few lines of "What Do We Do Now," a song of his from a few years back that is among my personal hit paraders, and that I've even gone so far as to cover live. A circle fulfilled, and though he doesn't play it or another fave, "Perfectly Good Guitar," he is resonant and earthy, with a burnished stage manner that reminds me of a well-worn Martin.



I should stick around to see Ray Davies and then Rocky now that I'm at La Zona Rosa, but I've witnessed both of them recently, and I have a lot of pals in town. Cheetah Chrome and Syl Sylvain call themselves the Batusis, and over at Prague, the atmosphere is like a rock dive of the seventies. I feel right at home, especially since my posse (Bob G., Steve Greenberg, Diane Birch, B.P., and Dana from the Delancey Bar) are surrounding, and the night is devolving into the whirl of encounter. A stop at the Dirty Dog, XX at the Mohawk, and dreamland, blessed dreamland.

Friday. I meet Hits mover-and-shaker Karen Glauber at the Four Seasons for breakfast. She's moderating a panel called "What Becomes A Legend Most?" with Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop; Leslie Fram, program director of WRXP, New York's contribution to an expansive sense of classic rock; and the irrepressible Andrew WK. The topic concerns the care and feeding of legends, whether oneself (I am described in the press as a "minor key legend," which is about as good as it gets!) or those we all know and love. A grand bunch, and talk is lively. I find out what legendary truly means, however, at my book signing scheduled for right after. I arrive at the SXSW bookstore to find they were unable to procure any copies of You Call It Madness, and thus no auto in the graph.

I do get to see Diane Birch play at the Conference Center, a beautiful thrush whose debut album I am proud to have been a part of. Bob Gruen texts me that there is a premiere screening of Don Letts' new film about Joe Strummer, "Strummerville," that evening. Surrounded by Joe's family and friends, I get a chance to watch this heartfelt tribute to a great human-I-tarian, and his legacy founding an organization helping skint musicians to play and record. Lots of heart-tugging footage of Joe live and at home. Great to see Don as well, who was there when punk was just becoming, and used to send me beat-down-Babyon reggae mix tapes in the seventies that provided a touring soundtrack for many an overnight haul. Jah lives!

I have an excellent Japanese dinner with Bob, one of our rituals whenever we find ourselves in a strange city, and thus sake fortified, head off to Japan Night at Elysium. I walk in on a femme trio called Red Bacteria Vacuum, about as infectious and joyful and enervating as anyone could wish, prompting me to buy their CD and get their autographs. Continuing the international bent of the eve, I wait on line for Balkan Beat Box at Spill. Their "Shushan" is an iPod favorite of mine, and I've never seen them live. Da shit, plain and simple.

Upping the ante, however, at Red 7, is Thurston Moore helming a hardcore thrash band. Giving over guitar duties to Don Fleming, he's lead-singer-exhorter, reading lyrics from paper (I believe this is a tribute to a particular band, Minor Threat perhaps?) and the distortion factor is immense and intense. It can't get any louder.

Saturday. Alright, I admit it. I need a break. And what better way to unwind then to go to the adjacent guitar flea market/record fair held alongside SXSW. I happily geek out for a couple of hours, wandering amidst the rarities and the oddball (I almost plunk for a Hagstrom bass). Though I firmly resolve not to add any rekkids to my quite out-of-control collection, I am unable to resist: an Art Tatum 10" featuring a jaw dropping version of "Humoresque"; an LP of Buck Owens live at Carnegie Hall; a Ventures pre-Mosrite 45 picture sleeve of "Perfidia"; and most amazing of all, a girl group 45 by the Juliettes on Chattahoochie that I abstractly pick out to hear because I love "Popsicles and Icicles," and find to be one of my favorite little-known doowop songs in disguise ( "I'll Be Forever Loving You," originally by the El Dorados, though known to me by Jordan and the Fascinations).

I visit a panel featuring Texas garage rockers - there's a Kenny and the Kasuals!, a Zakary Thaks!, a Green Fuzz!, a Souls! - and listen in on Nuggets come to life. Then I escape the SXSW cauldron and take a taxi to the outskirts of town, where Alejandro Escovedo is hosting an outdoor barbeque at a joint called Maria's Taco Express. The weather, previously in the seventies, has dropped at least thirty five degrees, and so most of the action - including starting on the margaritas at 6 and a great enchilada - takes place inside the restaurant. The chairs and tables are cleared away for Mad Juana's gypsy rock encampment, and then the stage is set for Alejandro and his band. He is, simply, one of the most soulful performers I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing, an inspiration who has walked a long path in his career, not so much singing his songs as experiencing and letting his songs sing him. He asks me to sit in for the Stones' "Beast of Burden," and I leave off dancing with Maria and her beautiful five year old daughter to tickle a string or three.

It's fitting that my last official show at SXSW will be the Big Star tribute at Antone's. Alex Chilton's unexpected passing has hung over the conference like a reminder of mortality in the never-say-die universe of live performance and partying. Originally scheduled to salute the new Big Star box set, with Alex in the lineup, the show has become a memorial to a great musician, and the group, with Jody Stephens astride the drum stool, aided /abetted by Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, with many guest appearances (Mike Mills of REM), is not so much a weeper as it is a commemoration of a great, wild card talent. There is no more fitting tribute to the Bigness of Star that will always be Alex.

Sunday. When I walk into the Continental Club for Alejandro's traditional post-SXSW show, and see Grady in full-bore volume on stage, I'm glad that Alejandro's band came up to my hotel room earlier in the day to go over a few songs. This is a gathering of friends and family - there are several Escovedo siblings and children in attendance - and I'm proud to be asked to partake in the proceedings. Grady mashes Texas boogie with metal riffings, my kind o' band, and are followed by Ivan Julian, a guitar brother from New York who I've known and appreciated since the Voidoid days. When it's my turn to take the stage, I borrow a Fender Jaguar and start out solo with "Goin' Local" and "Jealousy", and then call up Alejandro's band to welcomingly back me up. We gallop through "Luke The Drifter," slow it for "Naked As The Day," ruminate with "Things You Leave Behind," and then close out with a rompin' version of a song that's been on my mind ever since I heard of Alex's ascension: "The Letter," in which I imagine the "baby sent me a letter" being an angel, and his ticket to an airplane getting him a heavenly ride.



At the end of the night, Alejandro serenades the Continental backed by an eleven piece band, complete with horn section and vocal chorus, singing songs from his newest album, Street Songs of Love, and old favorites. A heart as big as Tejas.




July 29, 2009 / HOME

Where the heart is.

Turning up Creedence's "Looking Out My Back Door".....


July 26, 2009 / INCHEON, KOREA

Twelve hours of journeying, bus to plane to bus, arrives us in Seoul late on Saturday night, not much time to explore a city that sprawls for miles in any direction, and of which I know very little. In fact, it occurs to me I have never eaten Korean cuisine, but given the tip-off that their spicy barbecue is the way to go, I set off from our towering hotel in search of a friendly establishment. About six blocks away I get to an actual neighborhood, find a welcoming haven, sit at a table with a broiling fire-pit in the middle, and, with the help of a waitress who understands I know not what to do, start a-grilling and a-tasting and a-tingling. Happy carnivore am I!

The next day is to be our final show of this go-round. The Jisan Valley Rock Festival is about an hour from Seoul in Incheon, not far from the borderline that separates South and North in this once war-torn and still global hotspot. There are two alternating stages, and alongside many local groups, there is the same rotating cast of international characters as Fujirock, spread over three days. Oasis headlines our night, and others featured are Jimmy Eat World, Fall Out Boy, and Basement Jaxx. The mood seems ebullient at each stage, local heroes excitedly cheered, and I watch a rapturous reception greet Chang Ki Ha and the Faces, complete with female back-up duo and chanting hooks that make me want to sing along even if I don't know a word of Korean.

Our set begins on a disconcerting note, as my amplifier blows at the first chord, and a second, hastily set up, also fails to put out full power. But the third proves the charm, and since the crowd makes you feel you can do no wrong, by the time I get a working sound they're in full cheer, clapping along (in time no less!) and joining us on the choruses and letting us know they're with us all the way. It can't help but rouse one's performance, and during "Peaceable Kingdom," a song that has especial meaning in this particular setting, I take a personal moment to look around and appreciate the journey on which rock and roll has taken me, an around-the-world odyssey that keeps on circumnavigating, amazingly enough.

Hot and sweaty and slightly enflamed, we leave the stage, where Tony and I are greeted by the spicy barbeque of the twin singing girls of Chang Ki Ha. Jay Dee and I will make a bee-line for another grill-'em and fill-'em when we get back to Seoul. You never know when we'll be back.


July 24, 2009 / NAEBA, JAPAN

We auspiciously land in Japan just as a full solar eclipse begins over Asia. The cloud cover means the sun's cosmic moonshadow is felt rather than seen, and mixing with the drenching Tokyo humidity and jet lag that comes with having lost a day somewhere along the journey, I do feel on the other side of Alice's looking glass.

Our hotel is near the American Embassy, in a neighborhood that seems more office structures than tourist attractions. A short walk down a hill leads to me what I'm craving, though, the traditional workingman's lunch of rice with beef curry sauce, a cheap and filling favored staple that I pick out of the food pictured on the wall, hoping for the best. I then call my friend Gaku Torii, a music journalist who I've known since 1989, when I made my first trip here; and a well-versed punk and garage-rock fan who seems to know everything about everyone.

He tells me he's now managing a club in the Shibuya district called Aoi-Heya, or the Blue Room. It's owned by a woman named Masako Togawa, a crime novelist and singer in the chanson mode who made her reputation in the 1950s, and whose VIP room - decorated with Edith Piaf posters - was once frequented by none other than the great and controversial writer Yukio Mishima. How could I resist? We agree to meet outside Shibuya Station by the statue of the dog Hachi-koh, reputedly so devoted that when his master died, Hachi-koh refused to be fed by anyone else and expired by his side. Accompanied by a mournful koto melody, no doubt. Since the overwhelm of Shibuya makes Times Square look positively provincial, I wait for him there.

I'm expecting garage punk in the Johnny Thunders mode, but the Blue Room is having a cabaret night this evening, with be-gowned female singers crooning Kurt Weill standards, adding to my overall sense of surreality. Another old friend, Marc Zermati from Paris, joins us, in town as I am for the Fujirock festival. In the seventies he ran Open Market, championing and promoting concerts by bands like the Police (when they were the backing group for Warhol chanteuse Cherry Vanilla), Generation X, and other punk purveyors, including moiself. Later we go to Gas Panic, a basement hip-hop club off the main thoroughfare where the music seems taken off the soundtrack from The Wire. I finally find my way back to the metro and the Ginza Line, get off at what I think is my stop, realize I don't know which direction my hotel is, and proceed to get well lost. In Translation.


The Fujirock Festival is a four hour bus ride from Tokyo, a world away from urban overkill, in the mountains. It's our third time doing the festival, a true smattering of global talent assembled by promoter Masa, and I look forward to wandering its far reaches. But the rain that has been held in check by the gathering atmospheric pressure starts to seep through as we ascend the heights. It stays dry for our set, but as I set out to explore the festival grounds, the mud starts to rise above my ankles. I head back to the artist's catering area, where, relaxing after their regular shows, I get to watch a few unexpected performances by some steel guitar favorites: Jeff Lang, from Australia, on the lap steel, swiping the bar and combining Hawaiian, the blues, and Indian modes; and Robert Randolph of the Family Band, who is literally rolling on the floor with laughter cutting up with his musicians.

Around midnight I venture out, the rain having diminished to a drizzle. Guitarist Wilko Johnson, once of the seventies' pub-rock band Dr. Feelgood, is playing in the nearby Crystal Tent, and I haven't seen him in, well, thirty years or more. He puts on a dazzling show, clawing at his Telecaster and breaking into the semi-deranged zig-zag strut that is his stage trademark, his tone clean and piercing, his rhythm section steaming along with each blueswailing excursion. He plays without a pick, and when I visit backstage and mention this, he shows me his right hand, the bloody string slice on his thumb, and we share the type-O brotherhood of the guitarist's secret handshake.


July 20, 2009 / FRANKFURT, GERMANY

There's laundry hanging in my room after a much-needed wash in the sink, and the television alternates between a black and white Arabic movie musical and the German motorcycle Grand Prix. The latter is my favorite thrill sport, only broadcast in America on the odd cable channel, so even if the announcer is raising his voice in Deutsch, it's a treat for me to root along with my hero Valentino Rossi as he goes for his 101st win. Which he does in typical fashion, slithering around corners at an impossible lean angle, avoiding the dreaded high-side, lifting the front wheel off the ground when he crosses the finish line, accompanied by the raucous sounds of a Gay Pride celebration a couple of blocks from the hotel. A day off, not much to do, and I intend to do much of it.

It's our last Euro stop, in a city that I learned of as a young'n reading Johanna Spyri's Heidi. Little of Heidi's Frankfurt seems to remain, with postcards of how the bombed-out city looked in the aftermath of World War II on sale at the local souvenir stand; but with the booming sounds of techno-disco echoing and same-sex couples strolling happily amidst bratwurst-and-beer tents, this is a Germany far removed from its past. We are playing the Jahrhunderthalle, on the outskirts of the city, a seated venue in which the lights seem to black out the audience from us, and a dry stage where the instruments sound separate from each other. My amp - I've been renting Fender DeVille's on this tour, and have found them to be generally consistent - is being extremely recalcitrant, at times overbearing, at others lost in sludge, an uphill battle. But the rare inclusion of "Radio Ethiopia" in our set seems to gather our collective and improvisational energies, and when the crowd floods down to the stage lip after "Dancing Barefoot," the night mood-swings dramatically.

On the long flight the next day to Tokyo, ten plus hours, I watch Anvil: The Story of Anvil, a documentary about a heavy metal band from Canada continually trying to re-light the Olympic flame of its apex a quarter century before. I had heard of the movie, thought it was a mock-umentary in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap, but instead found it to be a sympathetic and moving tale of living the rock dream as it refuses to die. The members of Anvil struggle with their day jobs (Lips, the lead singer, delivers meals to schools - shades of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler), undertake a grueling five week tour of the Euro-metallic provinces for which they ultimately make no money - there's Zagreb! - and in the end, live for those moments on stage that bring them back to why they picked up their instruments in the first place.

The lottery that is rock and roll. Sometimes your number comes up, and sometimes you just keep on playing. I can relate to this ever renewing commitment and sacrifice and dedication that comes with being in a band, and getting a chance to perform one's music the world over, and the gratitude I feel whenever I walk to the stage to see what the amp will sound like that night.


July 18, 2009 / WELS, AUSTRIA

The wet weather that has been trailing us - word comes that Graz flooded yesterday - finally catches up. It is chill and raining steadily in Wels when we pull in after an overnight drive, and we all catch some sleep and rest. I awake to find 2009 EastEnders episodes on the BBC channel of the telly, my favorite English soap, though in America we're only up to 2003 or so. The plot lines are "similar," this one sleeping with that one who fancies the other next one, though the cast of characters has evolved. I'm happy to see (spoiler alert!) old faces like Phil, Ian, Gary, and surprisingly, Janine, and some of the new families that have moved into Albert Square; and, of course, lift an operatic pint at ye olde Queen Vic.

The gods of weather smile upon the Alter Schlachtof, a large club of twenty four years standing that has moved their show outdoors for the occasion. The rain ceases in time for soundtrack and show, even if the temperature remains dropped. The venue reminds me very much of the Arena in Vienna, one of our favorite haunts; and though it's cold, especially compared to what we've been used to, the warmth of the crowd gives off its own reflective heat.

As we get back on the bus for another nine hour haul, the rain starts again. Into the night, into the bunk, into sleep.



July 17, 2009 / TRENCIN, SLOVAKIA

"Pohoda" means "the state of cool," and in the "new nation, old country" that is Slovakia, that counts for more than mere entertainment. It is hard for me to imagine what decades of Soviet occupation meant for this country, though the rapturous ovation given Marta Kubisova on the Arena stage of a festival located on a former military airport on the outskirts of Trencin is an indication. Not your usual hard rockin' fare, from 1965 to 1970 she was the leading Czechoslovak pop singer until banned from public performance for twenty years. An entire generation was forced to take their music underground, and the nineties signaled an eruption of creative energy long suppressed.

Walking around the festival in the hot summer afternoon before our set, there is a sense of youth and positive energy. A puppet show tent is set up for children, ecological booths abound, and a tent city surrounds the several stages. By a synchronous coincidence, the only band I know at Pohoda, the mysteriously appellated Fujiya and Miyagi, managed by my friend Martine, is on show when I get out of the van, and I hurry over to their tent, slither my way to the front of the stage, and give David, Steve, and Matt the devil's horn salute. They've just added a drummer to their synth-bass-guitar lineup, hardening their sound, and the considerable crowd dances along.

Local Slovakian talent abounds. Billy Barman & Orchester is just that, a bouncy guitar band with an eight piece string-and-horn section. Obviously the crowd knows their work because they delightedly sing along, just like over on our Main Stage, where the act before us, Richard Muller from Bratislavia, hardly has to do any of his own vocals, the crowd echoing all his lyrics, 40,000 strong.

And when it's our turn, and "People Have The Power" is hoisted aloft, the words take on ever more resonance. The Pohoda Festival has fought hard for their right to sing, and we salute them.



July 16, 2009 / PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

I raise my glass. More Slivovitz! The waitress gives me a refill of the classic plum brandy that my grandfather Ben's musician "cronies" used to sit around and kvell over, smooth and soothing even with its kick of grain alcohol, accompanied by a small glass of Pilsener Urquell, here the local brew, my Czech variant on the classic Pennsyltucky shot-and-a-beer "VFW." Accompanied by marinated chicken wings in hot garlic sauce. Yum. I'm in a restaurant called the Koala at an aftershow dinner with our promoter and our booking agent Andy, flown in from London, feeling increasingly warm and cuddly.

We arrived in Prague in the pouring rain, actually the first we've seen on this trip, though by afternoon the sun illuminated this astoundingly beautiful city. We never came here in the seventies because Ivan, my guitar compatriot in the PSG, was a refugee from the Communist takeover in 1968. Now it appears as if the country - or at least this bustling city - is a major tourist stopover, with every third person seeming to carry a map and a digital camera. I'm happy to join their throngs during our subsequent day off, on walkabout with Patti, stopping at the ornate clock tower, the Franz Kafka sites (he lived for a time just off the main square), the numerous churches, and of course, antiquariat book shops. My score for the day has an Edgar theme: two tattered Edgar Wallace mystery paperbacks in German with exceptionally expressionistic covers (no, I don't read Deutsch, and only know Wallace as a name, though he wrote 175 novels! as well as the preliminary screenplay of King Kong); and a 1920s English hardcover edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan The Untamed complete with dust jacket and J. Allen St. John illustrations.

Oh, yes...a kitty cat followed me home from a local musical instrument shop. Her name is Margarita. Can I keep her? Pleeeaaase?



July 14, 2009 / GRAZ, AUSTRIA

I take a walk with Tom V. to look for a schallplatten shop. Graz is a smallish city with a fast-moving river running in front of our hotel, and a seedy erotische street in back. The best of both worlds. At In-Out Records (we do not make this up) we find a large vinyl assortment, including a live album from 1979 by San Francisco's punk standard-bearers the Avengers that attracts me; but with far too many discs awaiting listening at home, and the prospect of carrying a 12-inch record unscathed through the next four countries, I opt to browse more than purchase, the equivalent of "I like to watch." And the elusive Sensitive Touch album of Nicky Roberts and his Magic Guitar, which is our musical obsession of the day, is nowhere to be found.

The show is high on a hill overlooking Graz, and I'm told that we played here in 2003 at the same venue. I have no memory of it, and think I might've remembered the giant clock tower which stands guard over the city. There is a sense of experimentation in the air, and "Are You Experienced" has distinctly Stockhausenesque overtones, courtesy of Tom and his own Magic Guitar.



July 13, 2009 / ZAGREB, CROATIA

A day off is a wonderful thing, especially after five shows and the constant in-motion of the past week, and Zagreb on a Sunday seems to be particularly amenable to downshifting. Our hotel is the Esplanade, built in 1925 and located near the train station, one of the stopovers of the famed Orient Express. Best of all, my luggage has made its way from Rome, and I am reunited with socks and guitar.

Croatia, like its Balkan neighbors, is in a shadowland between achieving long sought independence and hopes for joining the EU. While there are pluses for the country in becoming an official part of the Euro block - the ease of a common currency, border regulations and citizenships that might make travel easier - our promoter tells us at dinner that there are surely downsides, especially since - in a fashion reminiscent of America's House of Representatives - they would only have four votes to, say, England's 50 in the European parliament. Still, in this city where outdoor cafes seem the mode of leisure on a perfect summer Sunday, and green space abounds amidst flea and flower markets, I sit in a park near enough to a church where I can hear the sound of the organ, and for a brief moment, catch my breath and revel in the immediacy of unwind.

The next night's show is a sweat box, an over-capacity audience packed into every conceivable corner of Tvornica Kulture, spilling out into the halls of the auditorium, temperatures well into what the Celsius might describe as the mid-forties. Jay Dee calls it one of our top three sauna performances, on a par with New Orleans in 1978 and the Elysee Montmarte in Paris in 2002, though I remember a particularly steamy schvitz in New York at Hurrah's in August of 1979. I like the let-it-loose drenching humidity, however, and with the crowd howling away, reach inside and find my inner animal.



JULY 11, 2009 / NOVI SAD, SERBIA

The Exit Festival was begun in 2000 as a spontaneous student uprising against the government of Slobodan Milosevic, hoping to serve as a rallying point to "exit" out of ten years "of madness," as the festival booklet points out. From madness to insanity, it seems. Located in the ancient stone fortress of Petrovaradin, built by the Czechs in the 13th century, it has grown to encompass all forms of music on a hydra-headed variety of stages, close to four hundred acts spread over four days, and a true paean to musical freedom of choice.

After our well-received set, flanked by a glorious sunset, I take the couple of hours I have left before our bus embarks for an overnight jaunt to roam the festival grounds, sampling the musics on offer, a somewhat random way to particle collide with an unexpected epiphany. As I'm leaving our stage, Kraftwerk begins their melding of Man and Machine, the dehumanizing underlying theme of their highly influential music that set new standards of sequencing. While video screens and robotic presentation make for a spectacular extravaganza, and I do enjoy "Trans Europe Express" on the replicant dance floor, there seems to be little chance of performance surprise. I like the hit-or-miss, the chances taken, the reach and grasp.

I head toward the Explosive Stage, where the metal bands rule. Earlier in the day I'd caught Monument from Bosnia-Herzegovina, though the BIH acronym next to their name denoting country of origin might also stand for Burn In Hell, the opposite of Rest in Peace, and a metaphor this brand of Death Metal loves to embrace. When I return at night, I'm on time for Serbia's homegrown Amon Din, who instantly bottom out my right eardrum with a bass frequency positively subhuman. The schedule is running behind so I miss Swedish purveyors Sabaton, whom I'd hoped to see, since the Scandinavian brand of this metallic is the most depraved. Instead, I hop over to the Fusion Stage where the Stalingrad Cowgirls from Finland show out to be spunky black-eyeliner rockers in the Joan Jett mode; pay a quick visit to the reggae stage (Black Ark Crew); and then witness the strange apparition of the Silent Disco, where dancers wear headphones as they groove to whatever it is they may be listening. I can't hear, partially because of Amon Din, and because the blended sound of all this music converging makes for the greatest Din of all.



July 10, 2009 / SKOPJE, MACEDONIA

The joys of traveling. Yesterday, after a four aftershow drive in the night from Sogliano Al Rubicone to a Rome airport hotel, getting two hours sleep, going through the rigamarole of getting on the plane and arriving in Thessaoniki, Greece, where the rest of the Her Band will be meeting us for the electric portion of the tour, our luggage is nowhere to be found. Nor is it on the next flight, as promised, though we spend six hours in this Grecian airport awaiting. Finally, about nine, we set off for Macedonia, without Collings guitar and any other clothing but what I have on. I will grow to love this grey t-shirt, I'm sure.

It's good be reunited with the band on a bus, a familiarity that is all the more intimate for our enclosure. Along with the stalwart rhythm section of Tony Shanahan and Jay Dee Daugherty, we are joined this trip by the irrepressible Tom Verlaine, and our noble crew of Emery (front of house sound), Darryl (monitors), Laurence (right stage tech) and Futz (left stage tech and tour manager). Family.

After a lengthy border crossing from Greece into Macedonia, we leave the EU for a republic that - like the others of the next few countries we will now enter - were once grouped under the post World War II heading of Yugoslavia, and previous to that subject to whatever regimes held sway in the regime. Skopje has a distinct Ottoman flavor, and when we are taken to the old town, there is a Turkish air of bazaar. Or is that bizarre?

There is some concern that with Santana in town, booked by a rival promoter, our attendance will suffer, but as the instantaneous you-are-there of the ubiquitous Tube shows, the place is full and rockin'. As usual, I am amazed and gratified that our music travels to such distant and exotic climes, that the crowd sings and hollers the words of our foreign lingual, and that those three chords (E, D and A for those who care to play along) crosses borders without need of strip-search, visa, or passport.



July 7 - 8, 2009 PARMA / SOGLIANO AL RUBICONE

The duel Parmas of ham and cheese live up to their name, as does the beautiful Duomo we come on unawares, with celestial frescoes by Corregio. That all has not been as peaceful as it now seems in this northern Italian town is shown by the evidence of World War II bombing on the facade of the legislative building in which our stage is set up in a square courtyard; but next door at an opera house with bas-reliefs of famous composers and poets, the immortality of Italian appreciation for their culturati is once again affirmed.

And so for us as well. On the following day after Parma, Patti travels to Florence to announce a conceived-and-confirmed thirtieth anniversary concert to commemorate the Patti Smith Group's final show, which took place on September 10, 1979. That original moment in time was a much-storied event, resounding throughout a country which had seen little international rock and roll up till then, as evidenced by the 70,000 plus music fans that packed the soccer stadium that day, a moment I will always treasure and remember. Now, three decades later, we will be performing in a piazza where stands Dante's statue, where there is a church in which Michelangelo and Galileo found their final resting place. History will be served.

I travel with the rest of our acoustic band - Jesse Smith and Mike Campbell and accompanying Del Flor - by van to a beautiful town in the hills near the Adriatic. The town square is named after Giacomo Matteotti, a noted fighter against fascism who was murdered in 1924, one more resonance of the past as it echoes into the future, much like we can hear the sound ricocheting off the surrounding walls. After the show, we catch our breath in the dressing room, located in a children's school, and trace our travels on a giant map of Italy, amazed at where we've been, knowing the journey is hardly over.



July 6, 2009 / ROMA

In college, I thought briefly of majoring in Roman History, having a fairly rumpled and obsessed Rutgers classics professor (Dr. Lenaghan) and an excellent scholar of Byzantine history (Dr. Peter Charanis) as mentor. Though I never could've embraced the Greek and Latin needed to continue my studies, and the inescapable fact that my "minor" at school, playing in bands (The Zoo!) eventually became the best vocational education I could've received, I've always had a fascination with the Empire as it transformed our cultural historiography. In Rome, turning a corner to be confronted with the archeological rubble of two millennia past, whether it be Trajan's magnificent column, or the pagan and Christian mixage that is the Pantheon, one feels the weight of centuries and centurions.

St. Peter's in the Vatican, though I am of Jesus' original religious persuasion and hardly the rock upon which his church is edificed, is awe-inspiring, even to me who has visited on other occasions. To come upon the Pieta unawares and see Michelangelo's glory in all its three sculpted dimensions, or to hear a pipe organ echoing within its magnificent space of the basilica, is to feel the magnificence of the art the essence of the Christ inspires, in a setting of overwhelming grandiosity. I am most moved, however, by the simple tomb of John Paul I, in the basement under St. Peter's, the modest pope who became the symbol of our album, Wave, and whose spirit seems to me to embody the true essence of Christianity, even if his reign only lasted thirty three days.

Our show is in a park, under a night sky lit by a full moon. Backstage we are visited by Roberto Saviano, the journalist whose expose of the "other" Mafia in Naples, the Camorra, in his groundbreaking book Gomorrah, has endangered him to where he must continually be accompanied by a police escort. We dedicate "Wing" to his courage and desire to still stand defiant, remaining free.



July 4, 2009 / ALBEROBELLO

Traveling east across Italia to the top of the boot-heel, Alberobello is in sun-drenched country with abundant olive trees and oil to match, with a town square that looks like an Antonioni movie, and distinctive houses with cone-shaped stone roofs known as Trulli. One local legend has it that these cupola constructs originated from the eastern Mediterranean on a route favored by traders and seafarers, so fashioned as to be quickly collapsed should the taxman come around, and easily rebuilt. Wherever their coming-from, looking at this town in Puglia on Independence Day is as far from hot dogs and fireworks as might be.

After the show, we wander the town square in search of the perfect gelato, surrounded by concert-goers who follow like the children of Hamlin. When we get our cones (mine is strachitella, made from a fresh and light cream that seems just delivered from the cow), I note that it is topped with a small second cone. Truly.



July 3, 2009 / CAPRI

Ah, Mediterraneo... To swim in the sea, to stub one's toe on the rocks, mingling one's blood with the sweet salt of the water, and then to climb the rocks to sleep in the lulling shade, or feel the sun on unforgiving skin, as one chooses.

Capri, a hydrofoil's jaunt from Naples, is a breathtakingly beautiful isle, home of expensive designer stores, winding romantique lanes and Those Pants, and surely a respite from the road. The occasion is a literary festival devoted to the seven deadly sins, with each writer assigned a different venal. Patti's evening is devoted to the disguised angel of Lust, more question-and-answer than song, and there is not much for her accompanying musicians to do but enjoy the fabled locale where the waters of the Blue Grotto reflect all shades of translucence, and the emperor Tiberius spent the later years of his life in sybaritic pleasure, at least according to Suetonious, who may or may not be believed.

We dine in a restaurant supposedly frequented by Graham Greene. I sit across from George Saunders, whose work I am not familiar with though will investigate since our discussion ranges from the trickiness of literary "autobiography" a la Waylon to Gogol's residence in Rome. Next to me is an impish David Sedaris, my daughter Anna's favorite author, who - with his companion Hugh - reveals he is a fan of the Shams, the East Village femme trio I produced in the early 90s, and discourses on Spokane's marmet population. Tete a tete.



July 1, 2009 / AREZZO

For a sense of temporal awe, there is little to compare with playing venues in Europe during the summer. Stages are set up in ancient fortresses and castles, in town squares that have seen centuries of generations gather, and as tonight's show will, in the shadows of grand cathedrals.

Arezzo is in Italia, about a half hour from Florence in the Tuscan hills. Born in nearby Sansepolcro, Piero della Francesca understood this landscape well, and you can see in his frescoes and panel paintings his geographic surroundings as backdrop to his scenes of revelation and divine illumination. The town and its narrow medieval streets contain two repositories of Francesca's fifteenth century art. The Basilica of San Francesco houses Piero's magnificent Legend of the True Cross, its sumptuous colors and amazing battle scenes contrasting with the modest church in which it resides; and the magnificent Duomo a few short blocks away paradoxically contains a simple unaffected depiction of St. Mary Magdalene, all too human in her direct gaze, hidden away behind a column.

Standing on stage, gazing up at the Cathedral, singing the resurrection hymn of "Ghost Dance" and the anthem of "Gloria" as the crowd follows along in their Horses hymnal, is to realize the blessings of true faith and the baptismal font that is rock and roll.



June 30, 2009 / LYON

It was the Beatific generation that provided my barely adolescent self with a rite-of-passage, gifting me a way of seeing the zen world and the ecstatic universe surrounding, a way of aligning poetry and the avant-en-garde with a bohemian lifestyle and a sense of inner consciousness that I can say truly changed my being. Reading Kerouac's On The Road, Ginsberg's Howl, Burrough's Naked Lunch, Corso and Snyder and Ferlinghetti and their flights of confrontational musical language and phantasmagoric worlds placed me within a cultural continuum that I embraced, and have been lucky enough to continue to live within, idealistically and inspirationally.

Tonight, in this city split by two rivers, the Seine and the Rhone, we are performing a tribute show to Allen Ginsberg with Philip Glass. The roots of this celebration go back to the first Tibet House benefit I participated in at Carnegie Hall, which Philip curated with Allen. I had known the great poet peripherally, been introduced at a literary fete in the seventies, and had seen him intermittently around our shared neighborhood of New York's lower east side. One night in the eighties, letting my dog run free down the ghostly streets of lower Broadway after midnight, I came upon him at a telephone booth. He seemed revved up, somewhat agitated, and we spoke of nothing much, but it remains my fond memory of his human approachability.

At the Tibet House show, Allen drafted me to play bass behind his epic "Ballad of the Skeletons" urging me to get ever wilder as the poem reached its crescendo. In the audience was Danny Goldberg, helming Mercury Records at the time, and he suggested to Allen that he record a single of the work. So it was that I found myself producing Allen in 1997, accompanied by Marc Ribot and David Mansfield on guitars, and via the miracle of transatlantic technology, sending the tapes to England where Paul McCartney added drums and organ. Me, playing bass to Paul's drumming; you could not invent such a scenario, nor could I have ever imagined sitting in a control room with Allen, comparing line-by-line readings and dropping in the occasional vocal tweak.

At that session he taught the assembled musicians the Buddhist Walk, hands folded one atop the other, carefully and deliberately stepping to follow the curvature of the earth. Space and time. Now, within the ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre constructed by the emperor Claudius in the first century a.d., Patti reads Allen's poetry as well as her own, and Philip swirls and arpeggiates his piano to shade and highlight each imagistic line and phrase. They ride with Allen through the cruise control of "Wichita Vortex Sutra" and the notice-must-be-paid of "On Cremation," which Allen wrote in commemoration of his spiritual teacher. At the end I join them for "Footnote to Howl," to commemorate our spiritual teacher, to light a candle and continue his dance.



June 28, 2009 / PARIS

The songs on the sound system are familiar - Screamin' Jay Hawkins doing "I Put A Spell On You," Sam and Dave's "Soul Man" with those great Steve Cropper licks, "Let's Twist Again" and the immortal "Louie Louie"; but the surroundings are not.

I'm at a bar on the Rue de Lappe, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, just a few short steps from the Place de la Bastille. Not twenty four hours ago, as the jet lag flies, I was having a beer (Yuengling) at a joint on Bleecker Street, riding out a summer rain storm and readying to get in a car to go to Newark airport. Now I'm inside the dark confines of the incongruously named Que Pasa?, drinking a Leffe and thinking about going to have a tagine at an Moroccan restaurant around the corner. The street, more narrow alley than thoroughfare, has been around for centuries, with an old Parisian feel haunted by memories of dance halls where "apaches" and "gigolettes" once roamed, where such as Francis Carco and Marlene Dietrich partied on into the night. Hakim, the oud player with Rachid Taha, brought me here a couple of years ago. Even though the locals say it's not what Paris used to be, it's close enough for me.

The acoustic part of our tour starts in a couple of days, in Lyon, but right now the only daze I seem to be partaking of is the need for body-clock adjustment and the unwind from the frenzy of getting ready to get out of town for a month. My Collings guitar is still somewhere in transit from London. The next month holds the promise of ain't-it-stranger countries (the tour sheet takes us through Macedonia and Serbia and much of the former Yugoslavia, through Austria and Slovakia and Frankfort to festivals in Japan and Korea). But at the moment, I'm content to be at the starting gate, the present tense of being on the road, neither there nor here, but in transit. Today.

The newspapers are full of Michael Jackson tribute and speculation, but strangely, it's the same-day passing of Sky Saxon of the Seeds that touches me the most. Especially after performing "Pushin' Too Hard" on our 2007 go-round, seeing the galvanizing effect it had on our audience, not to mention my garage-rockin' self, who bought said single at a department store in New Brunswick when my hair wasn't much shorter than Sky's, I was a true Seedling. I am so glad that I got to see them at the Knitting Factory a few years ago, close to the original lineup with Jan Savage on guitar playing That Solo. On me, on meeee....