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NEWS-2011
Well, apparently we have a new keyboardist: a fellow from Greece by the name of Evmenios Poulias. We’ve had a couple of extremely fun, energetic rehearsals, and he’ll be making his debut LIVE in Milwaukee July 30th of this year. I think you’re gonna like this guy–pretty ballsy, aggressive player…
We gain a keyboardist, we lose a keyboardist: Bill Fowler, a keyboardist who played on our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th albums and was a member of our live band in the early 90’s, passed away in his sleep June 7th [as of this writing, I haven’t learned the cause of death, although it appears it may have been an aneurysm of some sort. He was in good health].
Bill was barely out of high school when I first met him, at the insistence of founding FTV members Fenner Castner and Artie Bratton, who attended Ballard High with him. I remember being astonished at his casually knocking out ELP’s “Karn Evil 9” and “Tarkus” for me, so having him cut some tracks for the cds I mentioned earlier seemed an obvious choice. Once he returned to Louisville after graduation for the University of Kentucky, I managed to rope him into the live band for a couple of years. That particular configuration of French TV [Jeff Mullen on drums and Tony Hall on guitar, in addition to Bill and I] was an odd duck, in that we only did 4 FTV tunes, with the rest being [mostly] progressive rock covers–the other players didn’t share my “**** THE AUDIENCE!!!” viewpoint. I eventually dis-banded that line-up when I was even being outvoted on the choice of covers! But Bill still remained a good friend, even after moving to Seattle for a few years. A year or so ago, I recently attempted talking him into yet another round of negotiating our baffling compositions, but he wisely said no.
Bill was a gentle, self-effacing guy with an excellent ear and a dogged determination to master any piece of music he chose. Sadly, I don’t think he realized how good he was.
I’ll miss you, Bill-I can’t believe I won’t be able to explain to you why re-joining FTV one more time would be a terrific career move anymore.
Other news: I NOW HAVE the new MALS RECORDS deluxe 2-cd version of FTV10 “I Forgive You For All My Unhappiness”. The 2nd cd is a professionally recorded and mixed recording of our ProgDay 2009 concert. I don’t plan to have other vendors carry this, as it’s a limited edition-if you like, you can order it from me for the low, low price of $15.00! You KNOW you want it…
Earlier this year, a band from Le Mans, France, called MENTAT ROUTAGE, had contacted me about touring the US in October. I had discovered them through MySpace [back when it was useful and user-friendly], and found their music delightful, and also was very impressed by their live videos-they seemed to put a lot of thought and effort into their stage show, which made them unique to most current prog bands. Anyway, they had secured an arts council grant that covered airfare and various other expenses, so I agreed to be their point man/tour manager/bassist. I spent HUGE amounts of my waking hours from August – September scrounging gigs [wish I had started sooner], with the result being gigs in St. Louis; Louisville; Columbia, South Carolina; Atlanta; and Lexington, KY. What follows is a blow-by-blow account of the festivities:
PRE-TOUR: LOUISVILLE
THURSDAY, 10/20th:
I picked up the band from the airport: Ludo Fabre [AKA Zörn Behagh]: violin, composition, arrangements, and diverse objects; his brother Nicolas, who plays keyboards and co-writes; Karl Ledus: saxophones, flute, and samples; Sylvie Daguet: xylophone, percussion, and tap dancing [I’M SERIOUS!]; Piéric Le Teissier: drums; Didier Ledus [Karl’s brother]: multimedia; and Paco Berthault: sound engineer. After initial greetings and pleasantries, I herded them into my van, and we headed to my house, minus 2 bags/luggage the airport promised they’d deliver soon. After hanging out and getting to know them, I helped them get settled and eventually herded them towards the dinner I prepared; some chile verde-ish concoction, which went over nicely.
I picked up the band from the airport: Ludo Fabre [AKA Zörn Behagh]: violin, composition, arrangements, and diverse objects; his brother Nicolas, who plays keyboards and co-writes; Karl Ledus: saxophones, flute, and samples; Sylvie Daguet: xylophone, percussion, and tap dancing [I’M SERIOUS!]; Piéric Le Teissier: drums; Didier Ledus [Karl’s brother]: multimedia; and Paco Berthault: sound engineer. After initial greetings and pleasantries, I herded them into my van, and we headed to my house, minus 2 bags/luggage the airport promised they’d deliver soon. After hanging out and getting to know them, I helped them get settled and eventually herded them towards the dinner I prepared; some chile verde-ish concoction, which went over nicely.
FRIDAY, 10/21st:
Spent a good chunk of the day at The Doo Wop Shop, a local musical equipment rental place. Don’t know what we’d have done without it and their friendly and helpful staff-they were a life-saver! After lunch, most of the rest of the day was spent setting up equipment in my basement for rehearsals-it was quite an operation, seeing them in action-quite the well-oiled machine. The rehearsals began in earnest that evening, but unfortunately, out of respect to my neighbors, didn’t continue for long. What we played sounded promising, and I seemed to fit in nicely, as I somehow managed to avoid having to play the tricky tunes I hadn’t figured out yet!
SATURDAY, 10/22:
As this was tricky day for me, work-wise, I didn’t get to work with the band as much as I would’ve liked. However, we DID get to do some practicing together. I wandered downstairs to the basement that afternoon to find Ludo, Paco, and Nini armed with soldering irons and wire-cutters repairing the equipment that the airport thoughtfully brought to my house after the obligatory mauling by the baggage handlers throughout their flights.
The prospect of working on “Tritonite”, the one tune on which I had absolutely NO CLUE how to decode the bass part, reared its ugly head at last. The notes are simple enough [only 4 of them, basically], but the duration of the notes is quite another matter. The band were terrifically supportive as I bluffed my way through it, but found it hard not to shake the image of a very large dunce cap sitting on my head. The band was pretty obsessed with me learning it, but I insisted it was cutting into the run-throughs for the other tunes and did not want to de-rail the rehearsal. So we eventually postponed it for tomorrow. It was pretty amusing [except for my inability to grasp the section]: they would huddle together arguing [all in French] with each other how to count the section out for 10-15 minutes; they would explain as best they could to the bass-playing block-head, who would promptly blow it on the next run-though, followed by another 10-15 minutes of frantic French arguing; English explanation; bassist crashes; repeat sequence of events.
Other frightening news: Nicholas walks into our glass door and puts a serious dent in his nose-it was rather, uh, COLORFUL, and was the subject of much derision once we realized a hospital wouldn’t be involved.
SUNDAY, 10/23 & MONDAY, 10/24:
I honestly can’t remember much about these two days; mostly a flurry of last-minute preparations and rounding up of needed equipment for Tuesday’s trip to St. Louis. Finally tracked down an inexpensive projector rental, after a morning of dead-ends – from DOO WOP! THEY HAVE EVERYTHING! Other happenings: Didier artfully fixing our sagging shower curtain rods; a couple of artfully-executed dinners by yours truly; watching Paco and Pieric intently studying NFL football [yeah, redundant] on Sunday during rehearsal breaks; Nichol and Piéric breaking down the “Tritonite” section that’s been giving me fits–3-5; 3-5; 3-5; 4-4-4-5-3-3-3-5-3-5-4-2; repeat sequence 1 more time. Simple, huh?
ME NOT UNDERSTAND 3-5; 3-5; 3-5; 4-4-4-5-3-3-3-5-3-5-4-2 SEQUENCE
TUESDAY, 10/25: ST. LOUIS:
Left town early afternoon utilizing both my Astrovan & VW Jetta. Cool, overcast, and drizzly. After about 1/2 hour of 70mph driving, realized I should’ve given the van a front-end alignment, as there was definitely a feeling of “floating” throughout the entire trip, and not in an enjoyable way. Arrived in St. Louis amid much “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” at the Arch & the Mississippi River around 5:30, and found the venue Fubar [appropriately named, as I’ll relate later]. Despite our constant door-pounding, for some reason, the staff wouldn’t let us in until 6 (strike one). Once granted entrance, we spent the next hour setting up, with little help from the surly 22-ish year old soundman (strike two). Around 7pm, we were informed that not only were we not headlining, but our set would only 30 minutes (aaaaand yer out)! After confirming this with the owner, who mumbled something about thinking he was doing us a favor by booking us, I broke the news to the band, who though disappointed, seemed to take it in stride. Jumped into our eviscerated set before the handful of patrons, then quickly broke down for the likes of Johnny Something-Or-Other, whose claim to fame was being a guy who karaoke’d to 80-hair metal power ballads. But he DID dig our set…
OPEN THE DOOR, SCUMBAGS!!!
After loading up, chit-chatted outside with Roy and Rhea, our local contacts who would be putting us up overnight, and discussed dinner options. No real consensus, so we went back in to see the (new) headliner, whom I’d been warned would be a “noise” band. Well, they painfully were, but in a fascinating way. Most bands I’ve heard do this approach tend to sit on static, boring riffs that don’t develop. Not these guys! Themes mutated nicely, accompanied by weird films projected nearby. And the owner must’ve felt guilty about hosing us, because he gave away some freebie bourbon shots, which we downed with gusto while absorbing the wall of noise before us.
After the band finished, we hung out for a bit exchanging compliments, with the upshot being that the bassist wanted to explore the possibility of arranging for us a 2nd St. Louis gig for the next day! Our original plans were to remain in St. Louis an extra day to catch the Adrian Belew Power Trio/Tony Levin’s Stick Men concert, but as I told the others, I’d rather entertain than BE entertained, and they agreed. We wouldn’t know til the next day if the gig was on or not, so much crossed fingers in the meantime.
We then went to the legendary Blueberry Hill nightspot [INCREDIBLE rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia from end to end, if you’re into that sort of thing], where the staff gave us a nice tour of the place-it’s VERY big-and we had some needed bar food. We then went to Roy & Rhea’s where I made a startling discovery: Roy is as much a comic head/old newspaper comics nut as I am! Quite a collection; and we could’ve yakked all night about the subject. Not to be outdone, Didier made a beeline to Roy’s “Kung Fu” dvds, where he [Didier] did an impressive rendition of the famed Kung Fu intro [“Time for you to leave…”]. Crashed shortly thereafter.
WEDNESDAY, 10/26: St. LOUIS, DAY TWO
We wake up to a pleasant surprise: Rhea thoughtfully provides bagels and a jug of hot coffee courtesy of the local Panera Bread outlet. Nice! Around 1pm or so, we say our goodbyes to Roy & Rhea and invade the rainy streets of their neighborhood for some window shopping. Sylvia finds some florescent lime-green go-go boots, and Karl goes American with some impressive cowboy boots. We also spend time at a nearby musical equipment shop, a FANTASTIC record store called Vintage Vinyl [I pick up an Eberhard Weber ECM cd and a Three Stooges dvd collection], a comic shop, and eat at a noodle place, where we receive confirmation about tonight’s gig. YAY!! Details are very sketchy, but we’ll be there regardless. With time to kill, the group votes to go downtown and see the Arch & waterfront up close, despite the now drizzly weather. After this round of sightseeing, we huddle together in a nearby sports bar, 2 minute’s walk from Busch Stadium, home of tonight’s now-rained-out World Series. Of course, I introduce them to their 1st American experience with Nachos Grande, which they initially pick at dubiously until plunging in with gusto.
On to the gig: after numerous wrong turns and dead ends, we arrive at the venue, imaginatively named CBGB’s. Very narrow set-up; our section of it couldn’t have been more than 10 ft across. We soldier on with load-in and set-up, despite a minimal 6 channel mixer. Peculiar gig-the bar was sort of split down the middle with a rail instead of a wall. The bar area was pretty full; maybe 30-40 people, some of who would occasionally peak in at us during lulls in their important conversations-perhaps 7-8 attendees actually seemed interested in us beyond merely being background music. Ah, well; you do the show anyway. Yet another stupid freebie gig [except for generic pizza-a step down from last night’s bourbon offering], but such is the status of original music [as opposed to “original-music-that sounds-like-everyone-else”] these days. Our contact apologized for the indifferent crowd and offered accommodations for the evening, but getting the hell out of Dodge seemed more appropriate. Kinda wish I’d took his offer in retrospect, as it was all I could do to keep my eyes open for the grueling trip back to Louisville-had to stop once or twice every hour to clear my head, and at this point didn’t feel comfortable letting anyone else drive the van [Sylvie made a short-lived attempt, but the front end’s shaking made her nervous].
Arrived near Louisville around 7am, and was greeted by an ENORMOUS traffic jam on the way to the bridge, which delayed us for another hour. Arrived home and collapsed quickly.
THURSDAY, 10/27: LOUISVILLE
Got up early afternoon, cleaned up, and if I remember correctly, there were miscellaneous items that needed to be rounded up for the remainder of the tour. Around 5pm, we packed up and went to the University of Louisville’s Bird Hall, a recital hall arranged by one of the members of local world/RIO/whatever-leader-Joee-Conroy-calls-it ensemble Ut Gret, who had the opening honors for us tonight. Took about 30 minutes just to track down the hall, and then find someone to give us access. managed to haul everything down a steep set of steps [this was our training for the upcoming Atlanta gig, as it turns out]. The venue itself was gorgeous; quite a step up from our previous 2 dives! The sound system was terrific as well. Plus, lots of friendly faces in the audience this time.
HOW TO OBTAIN A PARKING TICKET
After Ut Gret put on their fab performance, we took the stage. LOVELY GIG. The performance was tight [well, except for my getting the order of the sections of “Mentat Swing” mixed up, depriving Sylvie of one of her dance routines-OOPS!], and I have to say we proudly put on quite a show. The audience was great-even our DOO WOP staffer/friends were there-I only wish I could’ve seen their faces when Karl ran his “DOO WOP SOUND” vocal samples. This time, everybody wore their costumes and did the full concert production-this was the way Mentat Routage were meant to be experienced! Lots of compliments and hanging out afterwards, with everyone being fascinated with Didier’s visuals.
UT GRET WHIPS IT OUT
After load-out, during which we discovered U of L parking tickets affixed to BOTH vehicle’s windshields, members of Ut Gret, Mentat, and French TV recording ace Howie Gano adjourned to Ramsi’s restaurant, which we closed down. The best part was seeing both Paco and Piéric’s faces when the HUGE plate of ribs they unwittingly ordered arrived at the table. All in excellent spirits!
FRIDAY, 10/28: COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA
This was to be the big grinder part of the tour-an 8-or-so hour marathon, not counting pit stops. Yesterday, Sylvie make inquiries into renting a large van to accommodate everyone, instead of using my 2 questionable vehicles. Couldn’t get a confirmation until today, and so we wasted an hour-and-change hitting dead ends: being told either we had invalid driver’s permits, no available vans, or “we MIGHT have one, but we don’t know what size, and you’d have to drive to the other end of town to check it out”. ARRGH! So we gave up and finally hit the road with what we had, with Nicholas taking a turn behind the wheel. That is, until he was relieved of his duties just outside of the Louisville city limits, when it was determined we needed someone capable of driving faster than 50mph. Bad weather dogged us yet again, with it raining sheets for most of the trip. In Nashville, I serenaded my fellow passengers with my Johnny Cash impression, which they apparently found delightful enough to record for a future Mentat Routage cd–promises, promises…
This was the 1st time I’d passed through the Smoky Mountains in the fall, and it was gorgeous. Wish we had pictures to post here. Didn’t dig the ever-tightening rain-drenched spirals the route consisted of, though!
Are your drums set up yet, Piéric?
Eventually arrived at Columbia’s CONUNDRUM, about an hour behind schedule. But the Mentat Commandos were on the case once again, and were set up in record time, aided by Conundrum owner Tom Law and his helpful staff. This was easily the BEST show of the tour, surprising, as we were pretty frazzled from the trip. But we performed the tunes with great gusto, and the crowd was terrific, giving us a standing “O”. They really appreciated the visual part of the show, judging by the ones who hung out afterwards with Didier–lots of “How does that work?”-type questions. The lovely ladies who stayed later than everyone else were apparently too much for the Good Doctor, as Didier promptly collapsed after they walked out the door. Poor fellow!
PACO SURVEYS THE DAMAGE
After loading everything up, it was off to, uh, Uncle Tom’s cabin for the night. Tom has a rustic 2 story cabin off in the woods, where we spent time admiring his cd collection until it was time to devour his delicious homemade chili and guzzle his beer & wine-what a host! We found ourselves considering blowing off the rest of the tour and just vacationing here for the duration. Tom and I also found ourselves in a competition to see who could parrot the most French sentences proposed by the Mentats. I won–but then I had a week’s head start! All in all, a delightful evening [except for the part where I unknowingly pilfered the bed Piéric had staked his claim on].
Got up around 9am, spent a decent amount of time taking in our beauteous surroundings [quite different in the light of day], said goodbye to our genial host Tom, and hit the road around 11am. Uneventful and relaxing trip; a lazy 4-5 hours, with no sign of the dreaded Atlanta traffic jams I’d experienced during my last FTV tour in 2002. Tonight’s gig in Atlanta was interesting, in that it would be an outdoor show-wondered how the logistics & visual part of our performance would pan out. After confirming directions from our contact Alan, we arrived at a lovely city park, set deep in a sort of valley with a natural amphitheater, water falls, a large pond – fairly breathtaking. Lots of difficulty meeting up with Alan, as the park was so big!
DESCENT INTO THE UNDERWORLD
As you turn your attention to the tableau before you, you can imagine the horror we felt as we gazed down the equivalent of 3 story’s worth of steps we’d have to lug our equipment up and down. Alan joked that he could stand at the top step waving our $$$ as motivation. Luckily, there was enough people involved between the Mentats and Alan’s staff that we made a mere (?) 5 trips apiece.
Got off to a later-than-desired start to our set-up: a)Alan had some P.A. equipment shortages which had to be rounded up at the last minute, and b)the prima-donna space music duo opening for us insisted they needed the performance area clear for their uh, table and two chairs. If I’d known what this was going to cause later, I’d have hurled their laptops into the waiting pond below.
After the Parks Department finally managed to set up electricity, and it got dark enough for the Space Douchbags’ light show to function properly, the show began. It was mildly interesting for 15 minutes or so, then it got pretty repetitious, which I suppose was the point. It also didn’t help that the temperature dropped considerably once the sun went down. Ironically, our foreign friends knew to bring the appropriate clothing, while Mr. Native only had a light jacket on hand. Funny to see an audience bundled in blankets like it was a Packers game.
Just when I was debating whether it’d be intrusive to muscle in on one of the blanket-wearers, the Space Jerks finished, and now we had to quickly set up and sound-check.
While everyone was setting levels, one of Alan’s staff kept pestering us with occasional “will you be starting soon”‘s, and after about the 4th one, she let fly the bombshell: the Parks Department was pulling the plug at 9:30, leaving us about 1/2 hour of playing time! We leaped into action [after all, we should be getting used to this kind of treatment], knocked out 30 minutes of music [including one spectacular train-wreck during “Mentat Swing”], and quit. Good thing this was the only real money-maker gig of the tour, otherwise I’d REALLY have been steamed.
Amid occasional compliments from the largely subdued [and frozen] crowd, we staggered back up the 3 stories carrying our gear. It was hard not to envision the builders of the pyramids during this grueling slog.
Alan and his staff [roughly about 4 people] also had to haul their P.A. up the flights of steps, and there was a bit of controversy from the Mentats over whether to help after being treated so poorly. In the end, they pitched in.
Alan’s friend and soundman Aaron had offered to put us up at their band house [a bit on the gamey side, but loaded with tons of semi-vintage recording gear and keyboards], so we followed him out there and got settled in. It was still early, and we still wanted to eat and check out the nightlife, so Aaron offered us a few ideas. Don’t know if it was the wrong end of town or the lateness of the hour, but we tried half a dozen places before eventually finding a glitzy ’50’s diner with overpriced food. It was worth it if you were looking for bizarreness, though, as there must have been numerous Halloween parties in the area: costumed reveler after costumed reveler strolled in, each wearing something more outrageous than the next! I guess the prizewinner was the woman who dressed as a giant pair of boobs [sorry, no photo]!
After eating, we went back to the band house, looked for the least moist carpet area, and crashed for the night.
WHERE HUNGRY FRENCH MUSICIANS GO AT 1 AM IN ATLANTA
OCTOBER 10/31: (ALMOST) LEXINGTON- DISASTER STRIKES!
AFTER BREAKFAST, BLISSFULLY UNAWARE OF THE HEARTBREAK TO COME
Had a 6-hour trip ahead of us, so we wanted to hit the road by 9. Had an overly-leisure breakfast at a nearly coffee shop, then piled into our vehicles. Took it easy for much of the trip; I’d begun sharing driving shifts with Didier [a former truck driver, as it turns out] a few cities ago, so I got to peruse the Atlanta Sunday paper for a couple hours. We stopped at a veggie stand hoping to bring some genuine Georgia peaches, but they looked to have seen better days.
MENTAT ROUTAGE ARE ESCORTED OUT OF ATLANTA
For lunch, we stopped in Knoxville, Tennessee at yet another sports-type bar for pizza & subs. We were surrounded by large flat-screens no matter where you turned, all tuned to various NFL games. HEAVEN. Explained some of the intricacies of American football to Paco & Piéric, who seemed to be developing a keen interest in this phenomenon.
Hit the road once again, with me beginning to understand why the Mentats usually added a couple hours to every milage estimate. About 30 or so minutes after lunch, we in the van got an emergency call from those in the car-the VW was overheating! We pulled over at the nearest gas station and waited for them to let the car cool down and catch up. When they arrived, it was like watching an Indy pit crew in action-they attacked the engine, and determined the fan wasn’t triggering, so they ingeniously wired a direct line from the battery to the fan. This turned it on, but to turn it off involved breaking the connection. We got on the highway once again, and pulled over once again 15 minutes later when it was still overheating.
A VOLKSWAGON LIES BLEEDING…
The pit crew took apart the hose line up to the thermostat, but didn’t have the tools to open it up any further. During all this, I’d been in contact with the people from tonight’s venue, NATASHA’S, to let them know we were having problems. Once we realized this was a job for an auto repair shop, I called to pull the plug on tonight’s gig. Groan…
The next step was figuring out how to get the band back to Louisville, as their flight was due to depart around 4pm tomorrow. Initially, everyone tried to talk me into leaving the car behind and coming back to Louisville with them, but I didn’t relish the idea of making two 4-hour trips dealing with retrieving the VW. So we sadly agreed they would take the van, plus all the equipment that wouldn’t fit into the VW, back to Louisville.
After being shook down by a local cop for drinking opening in the parking lot [Karl was forced to empty the contents of his Tall Boy-and thanks for offering to help, Officer], we walked to a nearby Japanese restaurant, where we had a nice meal and toasted each other for such an amazing tour.
After the restaurant, we went back to the cars and we had individual goodbyes for each other-it was a very emotional scene, not knowing when we would see each other again. There are DEFINITELY plans for French TV to tour Europe again, and as of this writing Nicholas has agreed to play keys for us—but that’s another story.
Sadly, yet with a sense of triumph, watched them drive away, with much waving and yelling. I remember at the end of French TV’s 2002 tour, telling Warren Dale after it was over how it felt like we had just pulled a heist. Similar feelings here, but on a somewhat grander scale: who puts together a reasonably successful US tour and plays bass for an unknown French band, and has a lot of fab memories in the process? ME, THAT’S WHO!
