English in Berlin
8 January 2010
Sometimes only the queens will do…
My Neighbours
7 January 2010
We are lucky to have brilliant neighbours. The boys next door are some of the most talented and applied kids I ever met. Brothers Carl and Nader (14 and 12). As well as making stopmotion movies of socks coming alive, and playing basketball and cookery, they are in a band. So when I got my desk installed I asked them to come and record a demo one afternoon. They chose to record a cover of Molly’s Chambers by The Kings Of Leon. None of your Sex On Fire, no no no…
They brought their pal to play drums. He was very talented too, telling me the snare wasn’t sounding quite right, the seat wasn’t right, you know… a perfectionist. So I fixed the seat and took my lucky newspaper off the snare. He nodded approval. (“That snare is older than your dad weeman”)
Anyways I worked them hard but hey were so well rehearsed, we pretty much nailed it in very few takes. Check it peeps. MOLLYSCHAMBERSBYLCN
Kinderladen
6 January 2010
You have kindergarden, you have pre school, you have nursery but Germany is the Icelandic horse, having an extra gait. That of the kinderladen. Kinderladen is much like kindrgarden but is more relaxed, with more emphasis on playing. Kinderladen’s began popping up in the late 60′s and 70′s in germany and from what I am told were anti establishment for the time but they have slowly gained in popularity to the point where now modern german kindergarden has taken on alot of the kinderladen philosophy. Anyways Clay started kinderladen this week. He started on Monday. I don’t remember this happening when I was at nursery, but for the first week or so the parent/s stay with the kid until he or she has settled in and is ready to let go. It’s very gentle and makes the kids really feel safe as they move into their new chapter. So this week I have mostly been in the company of 2-5 year olds. These people are the coolest. They are so natural and don’t hide their emotions. I feel quite at home. The kinderladen day starts with breakfast around a table with all the other kids, then some play, then go outside in the snow for some outside play, ( I was relentlessly ambushed by 6 toddlers yesterday).
Then back for some inside play, then it’s lunch, then they can choose to sleep or storytime… what happens in the afternoon I can’t say because we go home after lunch. There are 3 women and a guy who work there. They are all very cool and deal really well with the kids. They also feed them organic food. Apparently organic food has the same amount of nutrients as normal food but has non of the chemicals or toxins associated with the mass food industry, insecticides etc which probably contributes to many ills cancer blah. Nora has leaned toward organic for some time and, although sceptical at the beginning, I have to say I, don’t get ill as much as I did before. Oh and the kinderladen is german speaking. Clay speaks english but understands german. He speaks more german when I am on tour. There is one other little boy who speaks a bit of english but it’s of no consequence as most kids at that age operate outside of language. They all have their wee trays which are stacked up, containing their vital shit. Anyways, I was happy to see The King was in the building.
Second Session 15th -29th November Part 1
4 January 2010
The second session began the day after I returned from our US tour… I get jet lagged quite fiercely on west to east transatlantic trips so the first few days were a blur. Emery arrived on the Sunday, we hung out and chatted about what we had to do, made a list, and then began on the Monday. Some still niggling technical issues were ironed out over the first couple of days. My friend Michael Ilbert, who works out of Hansa studios, let us borrow some essential leads until we had some of our own made up. I noted that they had timpanis in there. We would return to Hansa at the end of the 2 weeks to track these big drums and get some other things done.
We began with the song we abandoned at the end of the previous session. This would eventually be a duet with Neko Case. As I said before and will saaaaaay again, Neko is an american female singer songwriter. I met her in Berlin earlier in the year at her show. I asked if she would like to do a duet. She said “Ja” so I wrote this specifically. We sped it up a little… I re recorded my acoustic guitar, an old 1940′s Martin.
We double tracked it and then made a rhythm track of harmonic strumming, where you strum the strings while moving your finger up and down the fretboard. Then I played and arpeggio guitar over the top
The next song we recorded would end up being the first song on the record. It’s piano led. I called around for a tuner who turned up 40 minutes later and tuned the piano. Here is the piano. It’s a Yamaha. According to the tuning man, it’s a very good one. Nice. Oh yeah and I think Nigel used this alot on early episodes of From The Basement.
This piano line was very difficult. There were alot of subtle changes and I was in black key territory which, as a non piano player, made it impossible. I played it for 2 hours and then we went out for a drink to get away from it. When we got back I managed to nail it. Then I fell asleep on the couch upstairs.
Emery took my drum line and transformed it while I slept. The next morning I listened and it was like hearing a new song. Cool. We had our opening track.
Sledgehammer
3 January 2010
The park had about 300 people sledging. Don’t think I ever saw so many people sledging in one place. Before we left the house we had a discussion about head gear. I was thinking how nobody wears a helmet when they sledge. Clay wore a helmet. We went down the hill 6 times. On the 6th, we hit the bottom of the hill at top speed. Usually people at the bottom of the hill quickly get off their sledge and move out of the way but some little kid in front of us stopped very suddenly and just sat there. I had no time to steer out of the way and ran straight into her sledge at full speed as she was getting off. I smashed my left shin to bits. CLay went flying. He was fine. The kid was fine. My shin is fucked though. Will wear football shin pads the next time.
Missed 01.01.10 01:01:01
1 January 2010
And missed 01.01.10 10:10:10.
Looking forward to 10.10.10 10:10:10
The snow is still thick on the ground. Tomorrow we sledge.
Wild Beasts
1 January 2010
Wild Beasts have played me into the new decade. Emery gushed. They soundtracked our return from Vermont. I am in love. Here they are on Later.
Please buy their record. On Domino.
