Chicken Scratch Notes

On Random City Adjacent Thoughts Through Time, Tourism & Tours

Sydney 2005

Lets get on the turps darlin, he said

So I turned off the water boiling on the stove

And said, alright.

After one glass of white wine

I fell asleep

He painted the town red

Or so he said

Paris 2006

Waiting on a slow Paris dawn

Awoke and reading Billy the Kid

Hair lit and long by lamp and shadow

White leather pressed against my foot

Trouble breathing

Tightness in the chest

Streetlights streaming through

False promise of new morning

House heavy with sleep

My pen scratches like chickens in a yard

First Paris show last night. One of those clean-cut generic funk club clubs that you suspect/know will never really take off. Good sound though and nice enough people. We got a good free meal, omelette and legumes, carafe of wine…the whole bit. Felt like a real band with Delphine and Dimi, I think we immediately could all tell we could play together. Rehearsed the day after we arrived and it all just clicked in. Funny French rehearsal studio with super cool world music dudes standing around smoking hash and nodding enigmatically. Really enjoyed turning the amp up LOUD and leading the band – just doing those few NY shows with Jim has given me a new confidence with the guitar that I’m enjoying. I’m starting to feel like I have my own weird cool sound and I know how to work it, rather than feeling that I can’t play like everybody else. Playing with Jim was so great, felt like riding a wave of drums, being lifted and thrown then floating, sometimes going under…it was fantastic. And really allowed me to lose my self-consciousness about my crappy guitar sound, cos our sounds kinda washed into each other and blended. That happened last night too, and when Warren got up and played with us it sounded particularly incredible. It was already tight and fluid and atmospheric between us but Warren took it into a whole other realm. Felt like we were a world class band, a good feeling. The show wasn’t particularly well attended but the audience seemed so focussed and appreciative. Sold 5 CDs, 2 Tshirts and art book and a badge. Pretty damn good, but it could’ve just been Holly’s charm on the merch desk. And she manned the video camera – I half really want to see it and half want to wait ten years. Dimi really wants to see it – he sung backing vox on ‘Nashville High’ with his great French accent – I’ve been hearing it in my head all day – hope that’s a hit indicator. Just saw on the net I missed out on a songwriters grant for $10,000 that I was desperately hoping I’d get. I’m tired of being scary broke. Gotta change my flight to Berlin so we can do Beasts of Bourbon support in Nimes! And send posters to Berlin. And drop CD to radio station. Just feel like staying in bed actually – my face has swollen up and hurts and I’ve lost my voice, feel like hell. Going to sleep…

Paris 2006

Feeling better. But bad. Its late. We just woke Warren up cos we couldn’t make the key work in the gate. Went to see teen sensations Les Shades et Les Brats at Fleche d’or where I’m playing in a couple of weeks. Huge beautiful venue. So smoky we could hardly breathe – and surging with drunken teenagers taking each other’s pictures and looking Eurotrashy and beautiful. Holly said she’d never seen more beautiful people together at once. Bumped into Hubert and his wife there and they gave us a lift to the Metro so we didn’t have to transfer. Lots of creepy Euro homeboys hanging around the exit in Ivry but it still felt pretty ok walking home at 1am. I dig the way Les Shades dress all in white. I want matching outfits too.

Not my pic, random image found online

THINGS I LEARNT TODAY:

1. When a song is stuck in your head and it’s driving you crazy and everything you replace it with drives you crazier, sing a verse of Karma Chameleon and your head will clear.

2. The Fall are really good and everybody copied them. They sound like all those slacker 90’s bands but they did it years before.

3. Delphine’s wah wah pedal is the only one Jimi Hendrix ever used and Prince uses. A good thing to know indeed. Must find out what it’s called again, I forget already.

4. A baritone guitar is tuned beadgf# … or something like that.

5. Holiday plays great piano on my songs.

6. Ronnie Spector is putting out a new record. At one point, Phil Spector had her legs put in plaster casts and kept her in a wheelchair for 2 months so he could control her.

Still trying to confirm dates for Berlin. Still haven’t got confirmations from promoter.

Still haven’t managed to change my ticket for Berlin or found my lost itinerary or colour copied posters. Or sent them.

Had a really nice rehearsal here with Delphine today, sounded sinewy and a bit psychedelic but delicate… she’s so great.

My throat is nearly better though I coughed a lot last night and felt horrible hoping I wasn’t waking the house up. I hate being a noisy guest. I hope I sleep tonight.

MORE: IMPORTANT

If you turn the MASTER VOLUME down and VOLUME up on the amp you make your own OVERDRIVE.

Bob Dylan says metaphor is the key to songwriting. I never thought about it like that but now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Paris 2006

Saw three dogs who look like my Hockey dog today and each of them kind of paused and looked directly at us. Holiday took it as a foreboding sign of something bad and got worried but I refuse to be superstitious. We traipsed around all day. I hate being a tourist. I’m such a grinch. We went to Notre Dame and I just enjoyed thinking blasphemous thoughts and about tripping little children up and the like – churches really bring out the devil in me. I can’t stand being in a crowd of hideous tourists with their cameras and videos and mobile phones, really seems to render the whole experience meaningless. Hol and I went to the mosque for the full Turkish bath experience then saw all the ladies had swimsuits on, which we didn’t have, so we just drunk tea de menthe and watched guys trying to suck their hookahs while looking reflective. Then we wandered around the Musee de Natural Histoire but I was cold and had aching legs and was coughing so let Hol go in while I hung around the bookshop. She came out and said it was the most boring museum she’s ever been to. So much for culture. Noah arrived from London so we went to meet him at his sweet little hotel in Bastille. He brought over an incredible screen print of a poster he’s had an artist he knows make for me, fresh off the press, ten of them, so beautiful, all gold and teal with a big 60’s style eye and lashes with a tear spilling from the eye – it says ‘Oh lord, its Loene Carmen bringing you her rock’n’roll tears’. Wow, first artwork I haven’t designed myself, what a joy. Actually, Noah did me a great flyer ten years ago. He took us out for a nice dinner at the Blue Elephant, fancy Thai jungle setting, orchids everywhere, carved radish roses, that sorta jazz stuff, warm and lovely – compared our fairly divergent opinions and ideas about music mainly and giggled a lot. Me and Hol metro-ed it home and now I want a good night’s sleep before tomorrow night’s show so I can ROCK!

Yesterday I learnt:

1. Angus Young doesn’t use any pedals.

2. Hendrix’s favourite guitarist was Billy Gibbons, ZZ Top.

Last night we played a fairly incredible show at Le Palais Bar, in the dark heart of Paris. A rather inviting Turkish looking little bar, with chandeliers, a flaming lamp, cosy tables and chairs, a surly bartendress, nervous young Russian waitress and seemingly genial jolly Russian owner, who apparently came downstairs where we were playing and harangued customers about whether or not they had bought a drink…

London

Wee hours of the morning. Fighting jetlag. Trying to remember through bluish haze. LONDON, HEATHROW, check in: family ahead of me, typical British, more luggage than humanly possible, shaggy dough-faced dishwater blonde in expensive logo tracksuit who is obviously not into any kind of exercise, 8 year old daughter with inappropriate glitter slogan top and a nasty little ponytail, popping gum, practising weird stripper like moves whilst simultaneously whining, peremptorially, constantly, Mum! Mum! Dad looking harried, bored, bored teenage son with iPod trying desperately to pretend he’s not with him, not anywhere, 120 quid excess baggage and a sad knowledge that all that expensive overload is worthless, full of more polyester slogan comfort wear than they could ever wear, on their Aussie holiday that you just know will be full of boring tourist traps and disappointment and bad food choices … my heart hurts for their awfulness.

Roma

Blue hotel, we can’t stop singing blue hotel, its like a holiday inn on the outskirts of town, no one knows the rest of the song, blue hotel, over and over til we’re all hysterical and slightly mad with it…tonight we play at a famous jazz club…

Thessaloniki

On the way to the show in a 30 seater bus that we had to get in order to transport the double bass, six of us, driving through wasteland, little kids sitting on front steps of houses with half a roof and tangled weed patch of garden, our hotel a few blocks away, fancy, clean and plush…. poverty everywhere, lots of 4 story houses, open, exposed to the elements on one side, literally half built, like the money ran out halfway, with suspended laundry blowing in the breeze… our driver, sweating copiously in his leather jacket in the 30 degree spring heat but refusing to take it off even while he lugs and loads gear… we drop suitcases at hotel, the lobby absolutely swarming with heavily made up teenagers celebrating end of exams, 20 minute lie down then back on the bus, to the venue, a huge community centre with various bars, restaurants, a burnt out art gallery, an open air stage, buzzing with people, long long soundcheck, I’m reading Peter Guralnick’s Elvis biography and get to the end, I’m choked up bad, Rosie comes rushing to me from stage, oh Lo what’s wrong… Elvis just died I manage to tell her through unexpected tears and have to take a walk… it takes a while to regain equilibrium…

Athens 2006

Soundcheck, reading Elvis again, transfixed, gorgeous Maria (the best teeth in Greek rock) tells me to stop, its bad luck to read about dying musician before a show… I agree… sensational Greek dinner, cats winding in and out of tables, abundant food, croquettes of eggplant, spinach, haloumi, tomato, salads with pomegranite seeds, white wine in little square bottles... band goes back to hotel and I continue on to venue with Maria, slip into my 5 euro silver mini from the Paris flea market and try to transform myself inside… a long walk from dressing room across narrow passage looking down on stage, an old theatre, holds 1000, about 40 people waiting for the show, why is empty scarier than full… that step, that hard first step towards my gear I have to push myself to take each night, walk across large stage, plug things, bang out a chord, yassou, hi, and I’m off….Thomas tells me at soundcheck, turn it up Loene, play loud tonight, they are Greek, they like it like that … my amp is nicely loud and buzzing, my voice strangely distant and hard to hear… I do what I can with regard to rocking alone, bang the songs out hard and proud, the crowd are encouraging, lots of flashes going off, a few whoops, I sing the one about the bee that transports me back to a haphazard picnic in the still afternoon sunlight, my head on my darling’s thigh, a bee on my finger, so still… sometimes songs seem so strange, that you can couch experience in melody and dress it up with words that blissfully interact, almost scientifically, to produce the same chemistry you felt that inspired the song… my guitar sounds like a tree trunk falling, hard and wide and long… I sing the one about stumbling on, singing my song and loading up cars and feel no truer word was ever spoke… after, for the first time, I am shaking, I sit alone above the stage and listen to the sounds of Mick’s show wafting in, they sound so good, so vibrant, like all the colours of the rainbow but at night, I drink Greek white wine made by priests on a mountain where no woman may go and wonder idly if they are allowed to drink the wine ... only one show left then home, to a home my darling managed to tell me in fraught phone call seconds before boarding the plane, that we have been evicted from…. I wonder what I am doing, again, on a fantasy tour, I have no money, no prospects, an album in the can I can’t pay for, a record label that resolutely ignores me and now a home no longer ours, filled of ten years worth of junk… my songs feel like treasures that no one else can see, then I wonder, are they the emperor’s new clothes… we sit drinking in the hotel lobby, clean and Greek and white, another band stumbles in, really stumbling, so drunk they can barely stand, arms around each other, supporting, bare chested, stage pants, hilarious…we find out the next morning they are the Finnish or Norwegian or something monster band that just won Eurovision… I manage to snap a picture of their backs as they disappear into the mawing hole of the lift then discover later they have sworn never to reveal their faces behind the monster masks… if I’d snapped seconds earlier I could have sold my picture for a small Euro fortune maybe…

Hobart 2010

When on tour alone, the transmutable quality of time becomes rather fascinating.

Yesterday, first day of the tour, was a 24 hour day for me.

Tuesday night I mastered the dark and delicate art of snuggling loop pedals and highly breakable merchandise in with my flannelette pjs, stockings and stage gear. I retired around midnight to arise at 5am to make it to the airport for my super cheap and thus super early Hobart flight. Quarter to three my little Dutchie awoke and insisted on fussing, fidgeting and generally fucking around until finally giving into sleep again 5.15am, leaving me just enough time for a quick cup of joe before the taxi arrived.

Arriving in Hobart was a breeze, got the city bus and easily located the suburban bus route to Lutana where the Kill Devil Hills had sensibly rented a house. A kindly bus driver told me where to get off and what direction to walk in.

I found the house, and evidence of some serious partying in the shattered expressions of the men inside. Though beer lingered in the air, someone had made the homely gesture of stuffing a large bunch of jasmine in a jug. I thought this boded well. We reacquainted ourselves after only meeting briefly at the Annandale show a couple of nights before and headed off to do a rather pleasant university radio interview.

Four days earlier I had a rather nasty fall and had developed an evil looking black bruising across one entire bottom cheek. The bruise had begun to pulse and developed a kind of angry red egg. I thought I better get it seen to before it turned into a blood infection or something and so parted ways with the fellas as they set off to pick up amplifiers and drumkits for the impending soundcheck. Then the rain came down. I made a bedraggled and probably slightly wild eyed appearance at the local medical centre who in no uncertain terms told me they had no appointments available AT ALL and didn’t know of any other doctors. At all. I got the feeling the snooty little receptionist thought I looked like a weirdo and was after drugs. I was tempted to show her my ass but resisted. I walked the unfamiliar streets, feeling like Elvis in the Kentucky Rain, until I came across a pharmacy where I explained my predicamant. ‘Mmm, arnica is probably helpful’ was the unhelpful advice I received. I was again tempted to drop my pants and give them an eyeful of my scary cheek but thought it probably wasn’t prudent. I went to call Brendon from the band to ask them to pick me up and realised I’d lost my telephone.

Georgia 2014

‘Y’all GOTTA go to Stone Mountain, it’s a real special place, Atlanta’s finest attraction, a natural wonderland…’ Thus spake the hillbilly dude at Sweetie’s Flea Market, and all his people lounging around the stall nodded and murmured in agreement. ‘Oh yes, the young uns’ll just lurve it’. So I looked it up, and discovered it had a Scenic Railroad that travelled around the mountain and being that Master D, five years old, was a Southern steam train enthusiast, I was sold. When next Saturday afternoon rolled around, we set off around 2pm for the long journey, a good hour or so, armed with edible distractions and much excitement for an afternoon of nature trails and playgrounds and real old rattlers. On the way we listen to what passes for country music these days.

We arrive in the relentlessly vicious heat, buy our family twilight adventure tickets and head on in. “Y’all got 4 minutes before the next train departs, you’ll make it if you walk brisk” a helpful worker advises. It is quickly apparent that this is more along the lines of theme park Thoreau than actual nature immersion. The worst of clichéd Americana is parading by, hokey fake Southern restaurants, glass blowing demonstrations on the hour, behind glass, giant globulous drips of pump action ketchup in the soulless fast food cafeteria, gawping sweaty unhealthy looking children and multiple family groups dressed alike in matching logo T-shirts of one variety or another; Ingalls Family ReUnion 2012; Harvest Church Graduates; all converged in a fake ye olden street scene with signs pointing to ‘Shopping Adventure’ or ‘Food Adventure’. We make a beeline for the train. A evil looking man ambles past with the Confederate flag proudly visible on his hat, his mate brazenly sporting a Swastika tattoo. We look around at passing handsome black families and kids and feel sick and horrified. Why weren’t these messed up right wingers arrested at birth? How can this be real? After dragging Dutch at a cracking pace we make it in the allotted four minutes and are told the train is full and to be sure to come back within twenty minutes to queue for the train that will leave forty five minutes later. My heart sinks. I heartily hate queues and trying to kill long stretches of time waiting for lame tourist attractions with a fidgety kid and a hot baby that has already been trapped in a car seat far too long for anyone’s comfort is definitely not my idea of fun in any accent.

Georgia 2015

There is perhaps no more unbridled joy than driving down Georgia backroads, scent of magnolia in the air, trees bending under the weight of pink, red and white blossoms and blasting the first mixes of one’s new album through splendid car speakers, bathing in its potential greatness, free to imagine adding cool handclaps and sweet backing vocals and completely unburdened by a single soul’s opinion or the pointless, nervous mental negotiations of release plans. Simply getting high on your own supply. This is why we do it. Praise the Lord and pass the mescaline!

Georgia 2016

Once you’re out of the city, the deafening roar of hopelessness is unavoidable.

Stretching as far as the eye can see is a society that has turned its back on the idea of individualism and embraced the promise of homogenized franchised culture that has given back nothing but an illusion of convenience and a pervasive sense of desperation.

It is so ingrained the possibility of change doesn’t even seem plausible.

When there’s nothing in sight for miles and miles of highway but a relentless procession of pawn stores, Waffle Houses and Walmarts, you can’t help the feeling sometimes that people’s hopes and dreams got sold down the river. Human billboards dot the landscape, trying to assuage their humiliation with humour, performing funny little dances, wearing masks and crazy costumes, blasting music from a boom box, some just stand there, still and dead eyed, wearing their sign advertising something terribly inconsequential that could just as easily be propped against a wall. I have to avert my eyes. Boarded up former restaurants and the occasional thrift store or street stall selling peaches or boiled peanuts provide the only flash of color or momentary break in the ever-repeated franchises.

Los Angeles 2017

I woke up dreaming of a cheese and lettuce sandwich, the kind you can only get driving through an Australian country town; road trip lunch. Slightly stale white bread, lots of butter, thinly sliced swiss cheese with cold iceberg lettuce, the sweet pique of salt and pepper, a dash of mayo. I got up and walked to fridge and whipped one up in a trance. It was perfect. I could almost go back to sleep it was so satisfying.

Last night I had a night on the town in Los Angeles. We started with a Hollywood producer’s Christmas party, at his home in mid-Wilshire. After a tour of his pristine office, where we admired the neatly stacked Hollywood magazines and framed movie posters, conveniently next to the glowing fairy lit pool, I ended up talking about absolutely nothing to another producer, an elegant, pregnant woman. Although the food and libations were plentiful there was a strange slightly desperate glassiness in the eyes of every person I met, everyone hopelessly hoping for a meaningful encounter. I was beset by an uncomfortable urge to assuage everyone’s nerves, their loneliness and neediness. It was an impossible task.