Europe tour, episode 3 - Picture Book

In Berlin wearing my friend Cindy Wonderful's robe.

I've played three shows in Berlin with almost entirely 

different audiences. I love this city. Last night I played at

 Madame Claude's with a band called Nadine And The Prussians.

They were so good.

One more Berlin show left and its tomorrow night! Then off to Portugal!

Last week:

Lily... my Dutch distant cousin.

Noah, Lily's brother. I sang him a bedtime song that night.

A boat called Kim at the harbor in Rotterdam.

Scary red eyed geese with little goslings!

I speak Dutch!!!

I thought my last name was cool until...

Slagroom (whipped cream) with Jasmine after her 

beautiful dance show in Amsterdam.

This man gave me a piece of candy on the u-bahn in Berlin. 

I tried to refuse, but he insisted.

This falafel was so delicious. Like holy shit. 

I might go get some for linner (dunch) right now.

Its right down the street from where I am staying. 

I effing love Berlin.

Its All Relative

Rotterdam is where my grandfather is from. Its where he met my grandmother, the most beautiful woman in Rotterdam. Its where they worked in a department store together, he as a decorator, and she at the cosmetics counter. Its where he told her, the day he met her, that he would marry her. Its where she laughed at him when he said this. Its where, six months later, he proved himself right.

I have learned a lot about my family history today, my first time to Rotterdam. Before today, I had never met any of my relatives on my grandfather's side. I spent the day with my grandfather's second cousin (his first cousin's daughter... is that a second cousin?) and her daughters and their kids... there were a lot of generations represented. Tomorrow I'm going to meet my great aunt... or great second cousin... I don't understand these things. She is the only living relative, other than my grandfather, who knew my great grandmother, Eva Boekbinder. Eva died in the war. My grandfather says she was a very unhappy woman, but I can't help but see her as stoic, and a hero. One of the many stories my grandfather has told me, that sticks in my mind, is one of his mother when he was in concentration camp with her and his little brother. Eva used to bring them food, Bobby (my Opa) and Tommy, and tell them she had found it or snuck it from somewhere. What my Opa later realized was that it was her food all along and she lied because she knew they wouldn't eat it if they knew she was starving herself. You see why she is a hero in my mind.

When I was younger, the war didn't seem like an unusually tragic thing to me. In concept sure, but it had been something I heard about for as long as I could remember and never felt very emotional for me. As I get older, I find it harder to read about, or watch movies based on the Holocaust. Even just being in Rotterdam and noticing that there is almost no old architecture because of the bombing is really difficult. Just now on the phone, my Opa asked if I'd visited City Hall. I asked if was still standing, and he said "Thank God, because I was sitting on the steps when they started bombing."

My cousins here are related through my grandfather's cousin, Bob. Both he and my grandfather were called Barend, but went by Bob and Bobby. My grandfather by Bobby because he was smaller, as he explains it. They were very close as kids. They ended up in Bergen Belsen together. Today I heard a story that I had not heard before. Apparently Bob never talked about the war, because it was too difficult for him, but there is one story that he did tell, and it was one of Bobby. My grandfather's family had all died and Bob was all he had left. Bob had typhus and dysentery and was covered in flees and weighed 83 pounds (as a fully grown man) and was ready to die. He wanted to die. My Opa begged him to live. He said that he needed him because he was all he had left. He gave him the little food he was rationed and got into bed with him to warm his body. Bob and Bobby were two of very few in our family who survived the war, and Bob credits my grandfather for saving his life. It makes sense that my Opa never told me this story. He only tells stories of the clever ways he found to get extra food or the people who helped him survive, or the amazing people he met in the camp who used to be doctors or scientists or great artists. He told me once that he traded a diamond ring for a piece of brown bread. He has many stories like that, and he is very good at telling them.

When I heard this story, I couldn't hold back the tears that had been building all day. I felt a little silly crying in front of these people I had just met... these, suddenly very close, distant relatives.

One conversation that I had today was with my cousin, Chiara. Neither of us are Jewish, technically. Neither of us were raised in the Jewish faith. In fact, both of us were told by our grandfathers never to tell anyone that we were Jewish. My grandfather told me this when I was in sixth grade. He said it quite seriously, I was almost scared of him in that moment. I saw that fear in my cousin today... Bob's daughter Bess. The people who were old enough, during the war, to remember what happened, are almost all gone. My grandfather will be 91 this year and his cousin Bob died some years ago. For Bob, those memories died with him. This fear of who we are, though, lives on through the generations.

My mother is not Jewish, and neither is my grandmother, and so I am not Jewish. Technically speaking... this is true. I don't know any of the traditions and I didn't attend my first passover until this year. I've never rested on sabbath or lit a menorah. I've never worried about eating kosher or memorizing hebrew prayers. But when I hear these stories of my family, it feels very close. It feels closer than what I did for my thirteenth birthday or any Christmas I've ever celebrated.

Songs on Trains (and about them)

Well, I'm in Holland. My home land, I suppose... or my grandparents' home land. I have been to Amsterdam once on a really long layover... I remember a lot of bicycles. BUT I want to start earlier in this story, so lets go back to the night before I left. I was packing, very lightly, and leaving room in my enormous duffle bag for all the CDs I sent in advance. I heard rumors about long customs lines at Heathrow, where I was flying into to the next day, so I was checking how long my connection was to my Berlin flight to be sure I had time. This is when I realized that I bought my Berlin ticket from the wrong airport. Apparently this is a classic mistake that foreigners make in London. Crap. So I tried calling priceline.com and the airline to change the ticket. In fact, I called them each, respectively, three times. They kept telling me to call the other one because they couldn't help me. In the end, I bought a new ticket leaving from a different airport entirely that left the next day.

I posted on twitter that I needed a place to sleep and a ride to the airport at 4 am. A lovely person named Tiffany offered to help. She has cute dogs, and a boyfriend named Haemish, and made me delicious food, and bought me gluten free cookies, and showed me the woods near her house. It was bloody lovely.

I arrived in Berlin the morning of my first show. The first thing I did was eat falafel. The second thing I did was take a nap. The third thing I did was soundcheck for my show. No one warned me about European outlets! They output twice the voltage and this caused two of my three power cables to fry. All the lights went out and the plugs were quite literally smoking. Angie, the sound person, and I ran to a nearby music store which was already closed. So, I played an acoustic show. The audience was so lovely and attentive though. The room was super full and made me feel pretty damn loved. Apparently people in Berlin go to shows even when they don't know the band playing. Rad. I love Berlin.

Jet lag made it hard to sleep that night. I finally fell asleep at 4 am and didn't wake until 4 pm and was greeted by giant, polka-dotted tonsils.

(As a side note, the other band is sound checking with "Folsom Prison Blues" right now, I bet they don't know how funny that is.)

So I woke up at 4 pm and jumped out of bed because I had to find a music store to buy new power chords before sound check for my second Berlin show. No time to shower... still hadn't showered since Oakland. 5, 600 miles (give or take) of grime. I found one of the cables for 25 euros but the other one was too specific so I had to replace the piece of gear (ugh). All in all 75 euros, just because I didn't have some special voltage converter. Fuck me.

My next show was weird. I was feeling a little crazy after 12 hours of sleep and felt like I was singing past tennis balls in my throat. Also, three interesting characters arrived right on time and at first they were the only people in the room. One was especially eager to help(?) me. One was giving me advice about my career... wait, didn't we just meet each other? Didn't you say you just discovered my music earlier today? Did I ASK YOU what you thought? A few more people filtered in but it was a sparce crowd for sure. Not a super awesome show but at least I got some really valuable advice, right? AND a really helpful tip about not trying to sound like Antony or Coco Rosie when I sing, because "your voice is really good but would be better if you sang like yourself". Cool, thanks. The best part if that these characters were headed to the same neighborhood as me and really wanted to take the train with me, even though they hate how I sing and think I suck at my career. Also two of them were being racist on the ride back and I was trying not to scream (the swollen tonsils helped control the urge).

I didn't sleep that night. I tried. I laid there for a while. But while laying there I realized that my euro rail pass was supposed to have arrived that day. I was leaving for Mannheim the next morning and really needed the pass... like real bad. So I got on the phone with DHL in the US who could not help me and since it was 3 am in Germany, the local office was closed. I set my alarm (which I didn't need because I didn't ever fall asleep) for 7 am so I could call DHL as soon as they opened. Unfortunately, the person who answered spoke no English. So I called someone I had yet to meet in person, at 7 am, to ask if he could call on my behalf. He was up, thankfully, and was happy to help. Turns out I had to take the metro across town to pick it up. I had to get my Mannheim train at 10 am so I lugged my guitar and luggage with me to DHL. Good thing Berlin transit is so kick ass.

I took the train with my friend Josepha (http://soundcloud.com/susie-asado) and we had awkwardly personal conversations about heart break, family drama, and sex. Only awkward because of the other passengers on the train, who were sharing a small cabin with us.  I got to Mannheim to meet Bernd, who helped with DHL (and helped me set up a lot of my shows... he is awesome). He drove me to my hotel where I tried to nap... and failed. Then we headed to the show and the booker was super great and friendly and the bar was western themed. The bartender was wearing a black cowboy hat over his long hair. He looked properly badass and at the end of the show, he bought both my albums. The show was really great altogether.

I ate ice cream before bed, which must have helped finally beat the jet lag. Also I'd been awake for about 30 hours so I slept so well. Today I woke up and took a train to Rotterdam... where I am now. On the train I worked on some songs by inmates at New Folsom. Taking trains to shows is so much better than driving because I can do all sorts of things when I'm not confined to a car seat.

I am playing a cafe called RAAF tonight. Paleo played here a few weeks ago. Our tours aren't overlapping at all... silly. If you have not heard him, do so now. www.paleo.bandcamp.com

That pretty much fills you in.

BITCH Magazine Review of Darling Specimens!

Zoe is a real person with human parents, but it's tempting to imagine her springing from the pen of Astrid Lindgren. From a childhood spent vagabonding between the United States and Canada with her family (sporting red galoshes regardless of the weather) to the resourceful use of feedback loops when musical collaborators aren't in town, she has carved out an entirely unique space and sound, and may be Oakland's answer to Bjork. Like the former Sugarcube, Boekbinder is an unusual first listen, but let the sound warm in your headphones and you'll find some perfectly caramelized pop nudgers.

At first listen, Darling Specimens' eclecticism threatens to take over: I kept expecting Tiny Tim to leap out of the closet. But Boekbinder's lyrics are witty, and some of the arrangements are little feats of architecture. The looped vocals, finger-snap percussion, and cash-register dings of "Seven Times" are cushioned and undergirded with keyboards.

Boekbinder's inventive production made me lose my own personal game of "Stop--hey! What's that sound?" again and again. The theremin-like "oohs" and "woos" backing Boekbinder singing about stretching intestines into strings to wrap around "Hollow Bones"? Turns out it was a saw. The oom'pahs and beeps that sounded like synthesizers? A brassy trio of trumpet, trombone, and tuba. Add Boekbinder's triply vibrato vocals and clever lyrical slant, and you've got a mighty rich gumbo to digest.

DON'T LISTEN IN BED - Your action figures will throw a dance party and you'll step on them in the morning. You've been warned.

- Heather Seggel - BITCH Magazine

Bears for life!

A list because I'm not sure how to tie these things together:

-I was out with a friend last night. He was treating me to belated birthday sushi. As we were waiting for our food we discussed our likeness to bears. We both eat a lot of salmon and spend a lot of time alone. One of the sushi rolls he ordered tasted like being wrapped in a fire-warmed, handmade quilt. In conclusion, I'm quite the fan of salmon and quilts and salmon that reminds me of quilts. Any salmon-fishing-quilters out there?

-I spent much of the day cutting, pasting, letter writing, and addressing (and eating salmon and not talking to anyone).

-I've started drinking decaf coffee because caffeine makes me crazy but I love the taste of coffee and I miss the routine more than the buzz anyway. I feel lame ordering it though.

-The same friend who wrapped me in the sushi quilt also gifted me some vintage Billie Holiday records that I'm really excited about. I had to get rid of my broken record player though... so I'm on the hunt for a new one.

-I'm completely in love with this song I've been playing. It was written by one of the inmates at New Folsom Prison. His name is Ken. He has white hair that shows a little under his white cap with the sweat stained brim. His face looks as though it might be made out of the thin outside layer of a head of garlic, ground up with a mortar and pestle and then made into clay and molded into the face of an old man whose seen years inside a cell. His hands won't hold steady but he still manages to play blues guitar better than I ever will.

-I haven't been able to shake the outrage I felt when I found out that the black inmates (70% of the entire pop.) in C Facility (general population) at New Folsom Prison is on lock down after some racially driven violence between white and black inmates. Its predicted they will be on lockdown for a year. I've been trying to rationalize why that would be the solution... so that I can at least understand the inhumanity. What this means is they will spend 24 hours a day in their cells with no yard time at all. Twice a week they are allowed to go to the showers. What if you don't get along with your cell mate? What if you like sunlight? What if looking at the same cement walls for twelve months tests your sanity? What if you're human? I guess that last one hasn't occurred to the people in charge.

Sorry to end on this sad note...

Persuasion

This was written by the lovely Sarah Alyse Shay in order to persuade me to post the picture of Neil Gaiman as a teenager, in which he bears is a certain likeness to me.

Works of this sort are most certainly welcome. Perhaps eventually I'll fold and post it so you all can see. For now, here is Sarah's for you all to enjoy.

An Ode to Zoe
*ahem*

Eyes that twinkle like chocolate chips
A face t'would launch a thousand ships
Skin as tender as turtledove's wings
Has the lady of whom I sing

Should she ask, I'd fly to the moon
Scoop up the stars from the sky with a spoon
And turn them into brooches and rings
For the lady of whom I sing

O, that she would but favor me
With a smile as secret as New Orleans
I would give most anything
To the lady of whom I sing

Reduced to beg, implore and plead
My will is hers inexorably
Awaiting that which she may bring
O, my lady of whom I sing

Spring... what the %&#* just happened?

Somehow its Summer already. I swear this year just started.

Where time went:

Three months booking and preparing for tour.

Two and half months on tour and living in New Orleans.

One month being home or in Seattle working on the new album.

... and here we are.

Things I did:

Went to a crawfish boil.

Played Neil Gaiman's Bay Area book signing.

Fell in love with Alex Thompson's music.

Fell in love with New Orleans all over again.

Experienced the Goodwill bins in Seattle.

Toured with Shenandoah Davis.

Visited New Folsom Prison for the fourth time.

Learned songs by inmates at New Folsom Prison.

Raised over $10,000 for my new album!

Nearly finished a music video for Chocolate Chips which is now held up in post production.

Offended a few of people.

Charmed a few of people.

Wrote some songs about it.

Made plans to write more.

Made lists... lots and lots of lists.