New Album, Big Shows, Tom T. Hall, David Olney, Joyce Cook

So, what's been happening around here? Glad you asked.

1) I've been working to sequence a very special (to me, at least) album that will likely come out next year. We've recorded it, mixed it and mastered the songs. Now, if I can ever figure out a proper order for the things then we can start working on artwork, liner notes and other pesky little details. In any case, I'm really happy with the music that has been recorded, and can't wait to share it with the loving public.

2) I've been playing some really fun shows. Returning to IOTA in Arlington, Virginia was a blast, and I broke out my brand new, 100-year-old guitar for the occasion. It's a tiny parlor guitar that says "Badger State" on the inside, and I love the way it sounds. No one knows who made it, or exactly when, but, after luthier Joe Glaser spent some significant time with it, it's a real dream instrument. Look for it in an upcoming issue of Vintage Guitar. Other fun gigs included my folka (polka plus folk equals...) show with Polka Queen LynnMarie in beautiful Hartford, Wisconsin and a remarkable time at Spruce Street Studios in Columbus, Ohio.

3) I've been getting set for the big Alaska tour in July and for a rare Nashville date with full band in July at Norm's River Roadhouse.

4) I've been celebrating the induction of Tom T. Hall into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Put that one in the "Way Overdue" category, but better late than not at all.

5) I've been planning what I think will be an interesting album, details TBA. I'm starting to feel like Jim Lauderdale here, with all this recording going on. I wish I was starting to SOUND like Jim Lauderdale. Maybe that'll come in time.

6) I've been listening to David Olney & Sergio Webb's Live At Norm's River Roadhouse album. It's only available online at this point, over at www.davidolney.com. Tremendous piece of work. Frightful intensity, unebelievable poetry, etc. 

7) I've been mourning the loss of Joyce Cook, who many of you will know as the mother of frequent Grand Ole Opry performer Elizabeth Cook. Joyce was one of the sweetest and toughest people I knew.

Hope all is well in your world.

-Peter Cooper

Currently listening : Storyteller, Poet, Philosopher By Tom T. Hall Release date: 1995-11-14

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The Missing Years Go Missing

Two days after our formation, The Missing Years are facing some fundamental problems. Essentially, we are rocking SO hard that we are afraid of hurting the audience, and we need a little time to be sure that we don't do any damage when all we really want to do is play rock 'n' roll versions of John Prine songs. Thus, we are sad to announce that our barely-scheduled gig at The 5 Spot next Tuesday has been postponed indefinitely. We reserve the right, however, to put on a big show sometime this summer or fall. Apologies to anyone who made travel plans.

All best,
Peter Cooper, on behalf of The Missing Years (yours truly, Elmo Buzz, Jen Gunderman, Tim Carroll and Mark Horn)

Currently listening : John Prine By John Prine Release date: 1990-01-24

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Allow me to introduce... The Missing Years, a John Prine Tribute Band

I was over at a friend's house the other day, and we were talking about John Prine. And then we got to singing some John Prine songs. And then we got so excited that we called up The 5 Spot in Nashville and said, "We want to do a John Prine Tribute Show on Tuesday, June 17." And since the folks at The 5 Spot love John Prine (and also since they're keen for my high-profile friend, whom we shall call "Elmo Buzz" in order to keep up with contractual obligations, to do a show), they said, "Great." So on that night, at The 5 Spot in Nashville (www.myspace.com/the5spotnashville) we're going to be Prining and shining at about 9 p.m. What's more, it won't just be musicians trying to sound just like Prine. I mean, Prine lives in town, so that'd be silly. What we're going to do is do all Prine rock 'n' roll. Chuck 'n' Duck. Like, "What if the Stones were playing all Prine songs?" And to that end Elmo and I have recruited Mark Horn (the Derailers, Amazing Rhythm Aces) on drums, Jen Gunderman (The Jayhawks) ..s and Tim Carroll (Tim Freakin' Carroll!) on the electrified guitar. Prine actually recorded one of Tim's songs once, so Tim gets to sing that one and call it a Prine song.

So, if you like me, John Prine, Elmo Buzz, The Derailers, the Rhythm Aces, The Jayhawks, Tim Carroll, beer and/or America, I think you should really consider heading to The 5 Spot on that Tuesday evening.  

Currently listening : Great Days: The John Prine Anthology By John Prine Release date: 1993-08-17

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If you only have five minutes of public radio time to spend tomorrow...

Then how 'bout tuning in to Nashville's WPLN 90.3 FM on Tuesday, June 3 at either 6:45 a.m. (Central time) or 8:34 a.m. (also in the Central)? That's when they'll be running a segment about the Mission Door album, featuring interviews with yours truly (and falsely on occasion), and with Tom T. Hall and Lloyd Green. This is also available for live streaming at www.wpln.org.

After a fun and exhausting May, I'm back at home for a couple of weeks before heading up to the DC area to play on June 14 at IOTA and to Wisconsin and Ohio for shows later in the month.

Thanks to those who have mentioned enjoying the European tour diaries. I'll try to get on the ball about posting non-European blogs with more regularity and in English.

What else is going on? Mostly, I'm working on some songs, booking gigs and attempting to sequence the NEXT album. More details as they become available.

Currently listening : Early By Fayssoux McLean Release date: 2008-03-10

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Final three days of the European tour... it’s a wrap

Monday, May 13, 2008

Began the day with a nice walk around Den Haag – perhaps The Hague to you – where promoter Joanna Serraris lives. It's a lovely city, particularly down by the water. Today is a holiday in Holland (don't ask me the details, but it's something to do with Jesus), so a lot of the shops were closed and the beach was full of lounging Dutch folks. The weather is perfect, as it has been since we got here, and people I meet are quick to tell me how lucky I am to be here in nice weather. Gotcha.

The show tonight was in Bergen op Zoom, which Eric Brace and I mispronounced several times to apparently comedic effect. Don't say it like it's spelled, unless you want people to laugh. Bergen op Zoom is south of Den Haag by about 100 kilometers, and the concert will be broadcast on BRTO radio and other indie radio programs. Because of this, they work to get the sound right, and that helps the whole thing. After some dodgy situations at a few of the German shows, it looks like each Holland performance will be in a really good, listening room environment with excellent sound. Tonight's concert was for the Crossroads series, and we got a nice crowd out (big props to hosts Jos and Bert, and booker Joanna).

So… we had a blast. I'm afraid that his little tour diary may suffer from this point forward because of too much ease, support and good will. From this point forward, we aren't going to have to reinvent ballads as line-danceable shuffles, and we aren't going to have to drive crazy distances from gig to gig. That may be less interesting to read about, but it's going to be more fun to play. We're on a roll.

Tuesday, May 14, 2008

We hung around Den Haag most of the day, and I spent some time with Joanna Serraris' collection of music DVDs. Joanna has videos of many of the shows she has promoted, so I watched concert footage of concerts from Eric Taylor, David Olney and R.B. Morris. Driver/tour manager and newlywed (all in conjunction with Eric Brace) Mary Ann saw me staring at the television and joked, "What are you doing? Watching porn?" I said, "Sort of."

Having watched video performances commanding enough to make me ponder throwing my Martin D-28 into the nearby North Sea, I gathered my wits and jumped in the car that took us to Lage Vuursche for our show at the In The Woods concert series. Some nights, everything comes together perfectly, and this was one of them. The only crud part was that we didn't get to meet the queen, whose new residence is being built on the property adjacent to the In The Woods concert hall. Perhaps next time. Everything else, though, was right on the money. Lage Vuursche is a resort-ish community, with old trees hanging over the pretty roads and pretty, well-moneyed people hanging over other pretty, well-moneyed people. Kind of reminded me of Hilton Head, South Carolina, in a good way. The In The Woods series itself draws serious music fans, and it is put on by people who know what they're doing. They have a fine sound system. They have kind and reasonable sound engineers. They have a guy there who has the biggest collection of Bob Dylan records in The Netherlands. They have beer, and meatballs, and good humor.

Eric Brace and I played what might have been the sharpest show of the tour. I could attribute that to our growing understanding of each other's phrasing and harmony spacings, but most likely it was the meatballs. We encored with a finger-picked, slowed-down, benediction-style version of Paul Kennerley's "Let It Shine On Me."

In The Woods is a big-deal series: They do about a show per month, and everyone I saw on the schedule was someone I have paid money to hear. This is where John Gorka, Olney, Taylor and many others play. When we were done, the promoter walked backstage and said, "This was in the Top 5 of all our shows, ever." I resisted the self-punishing urge to ask which ones in particular were better than ours, and instead reveled in what seemed a kind, significant and genuine compliment. I was interviewed by the nice-guy editor of Heaven magazine (a very good roots music publication that favorably reviewed my album) after the show. Then it was two more meatballs and an evening-ending glass of well-aged apple brandy.

All for a song.

Wednesday, May 15, 2008

Rose early today, played some quiet, early morning guitar on Joanna Serraris' back porch and then took the train into Amsterdam with Eric and Mary Ann. Having toured over here since May 1 and having been highly ranked on the Euro-Americana chart (yes, Virginia, there really is a Euro-Americana chart), I was concerned that I might be hassled in the big city by the Dutch paparazzi. Maybe they were out covering Stephen Simmons or Chris Richards, though, because we were able to walk unimpeded through the streets of that unbelievable town.

What's Amsterdam like? Flowers. Canals. Old buildings. The not-faint smell of legalized drugs (And, no, I did not. We had a show to play in the evening, and I couldn't imagine doing anything to further rasp a voice that is a little road-worn at this point). On a sunny day, the entire city was full of people who seemed to have nothing to do except sit and chat, or meander on a town square, or slowly ride a bicycle around. It was like being at Wrigley Field during a weekday game, where you sit and think, "There are 35,000 people here, and none of them are working."

Also, this: The biggest Victoria's Secret photo shoot ever was apparently interrupted by a fire alarm or a skunk in the building or something, leaving perhaps one thousand winsome supermodels with nothing to do but to (barely) cover up and ride their bicycles aimlessly through the streets of the fair city. There is no other plausible explanation.

Bored by the cycling supermodels, we trained it on back to Den Haag for the final show of the tour. This one was at Societelt Transvaria, and it draws a regular audience of folk and Americana music lovers. Once again, I was privileged to play a very nice room with good sound and a great audience. I love Holland. It's the only place I've journeyed outside of the US where I've thought, "Sure, I could live here." That said, I miss my wife and my dog and baseball on television, and I'm ready to fly on home. We ended the night with many goodbyes that would have been more poignant if I wasn't pretty sure I'll be coming back to see these folks again. I'll pilfer a line from Lloyd Green's favorite movie, Casablanca, here: This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

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weekend update - Hoorn and Den Haag

Saturday, May 11, 2008

We woke early-ish and had breakfast with Wolfgang and Andrea, and then hit the road bound for Hoorn in The Netherlands. It was a more than five-hour drive, but that's the last of the big drives for this tour. Tomorrow, we have an off-day – save for an early afternoon radio interview – so there'll probably be time to see Amsterdam. But, as I write this from the porch of our venue in Hoorn, I'm thinking it's going to be tough to get me out of this place. The weather is amazing, as it has been this whole trip. And Hoorn bustles like something much more than a suburb of Amsterdam. When we showed up this evening for sound check, the promoter, Peter, asked if we would be okay with playing outside on the porch, rather than in the 400 year old building. Easy decision: Outside is perfect. Feels so good out here.

We had a fine show, bolstered by our sound guy, Tim, who plays in a couple of area bands. Tim is a young guy, but he seems to know every Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt song ever written. He came up and sang lead on "Sin City," while Eric and I provided some stacked-up vocal harmonies. Very fun. The whole night was fun. Appreciative audience, good catering, refreshing pilsner, and an easy walk to the hotel at night's end.

Sunday, May 12, 2008

Slept okay in Hoorn, though Europe's position on air conditioning – "No, never heard of it. Is not possible." – is a little problematic on the sleep front. I favor the American position on air conditioning: "Yes, please, more." I also come down on the Yankee Doodle side of other creature comfort issues, including (but not limited to) king sized beds, hot water at the sink and the right to access service station restrooms at no charge. USA! USA! USA!

We drove several hours to a live performance at Omroep Brabant radio, and it was well worth the drive. Along the way, we saw cows, sheep and tulip farms. The tulips are breathtaking, though it should be noted that such beauty cannot be produced without significant suffering. Many of the workers in the tulip fields suffer from sprained feet, because the flower bosses insist that the field hands tiptoe. Oh, the damage. I blame Tiny Tim, for this and other things.

At the station, we had a good interview, and they had Neumann microphones to capture the musical performance. Excellent. I'm told that this will be up on a podcast, but I didn't get the details on how to access that podcast. I'm guessing some Googling of Omroep Brabant might do the trick. We played "Wine," a new song of Eric's called "I Know A Bird" and a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "If I Needed You."

Some more driving led us to the home of Joanna, our able promoter in Holland. We had dinner at her house in Den Haag, with Malcolm Holcombe. I have had the pleasure of writing about Malcolm in No Depression magazine, but have never met him in person until tonight. Great guy, which did not surprise me, given his empathetic, smart, soulful songs.

Malcolm leaves in the morning for the States, but we're hanging here for more gigs, through Wednesday night. Goodnight.

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Thursday and Friday on the Euro Tour... Hamburg, Norstedt, Lotto King Carl, etc.

Thursday, May 9, 2008

I tried to deal with this morning's 6:45 a.m. wakeup call by pretending I was in Nashville, where it was 11:45 p.m. and I would normally still be awake. It's an eight-hour drive from Muhlheim to Hamburg, site of tonight's gig. Traffic was rough early this morning due to road construction on the autobahn, but then the road opened up and we had a smooth but long ride to the big city. On the way, I read a disturbing but very well-written article from GQ (readers, you may insert joke about the stuff I normally wear HERE) about the current political situation in Pakistan. Then I read from a baseball book on my new little Amazon Kindle (love that thing: www.amazon.com).

Once in Hamburg, we retreated to a little hotel and found Wi-Fi for the first time in days. Went online and checked out the political news and ball scores, and then found a few minutes to nap. Then sound check, a great outdoor dinner at an Italian place.

The show itself was ill-attended, but the venue, called Consortium, is a comfortable place, and the people who were there bolstered our spirits. Eric and Mary Ann have a saying that comes in handy: "Look where we are!" Wake at dawn, put in a full day's work of driving so you can sing for 20 people? Well, the singing's fun, anyway, and look where we are. Hamburg.

At about midnight, we drove into the central part of Hamburg to see what all the fuss is about. I was not aware how huge and vibrant Hamburg is now. I guess most of my information has come from Beatles biographies, in which the Fabs play dingy clubs in a city depicted as kind of drab, like a German Liverpool (come to think of it, I've never been to Liverpool either, so maybe that town is hopping, too). We drove through the red light district, which was certainly hopping, in a sinister kind of way. Then we headed to the harbor and I saw the two biggest ships I've seen in my life. There's all kind of new construction down by the harbor, with one building jutting out over the water in a way that makes it look like a disaster waiting to happen. I hope not, 'cause it sure is pretty down there right now.

I'm quite tired at present, but today was the last of the exhausting drives. Tomorrow is Norderstedt, and a club called MusicStar that is owned by a friend of a friend. Plus, I'm staying tomorrow night at an actual residence rather than a hotel, so there may be a chance to get laundry done. Such are the concerns of the modern-day international Americana troubadour.

Friday, May 9, 2008

A golden day, from top to bottom.

Because Nordestredt was only an hour's drive, we had most of the day to be tourists in Hamburg. Eric Brace was hell-bent on finding a Portuguese restaurant called Lusitano, because he'd eaten there on a previous tour and loved it. He Google-mapped the place, but we still wound up getting fairly lost. Sure that Lusitano was near the water, he drove us to the massive harbor. Still no Lusitano, and we were all getting pretty hungry. In a parking lot, we spotted a suit-wearing, briefcase-holding man walking to a place of business. Eric rolled down the window and said, "Bitte, English?" The man said, "Of course," and so Eric asked him if he knew how to find the restaurant. Turns out, the man had a GPS in his car, and he plugged the address into the GPS. "It's only four minutes from here," he told us upon returning, and he pointed us in a general direction. Thankful, Eric handed him a Last Train Home CD, saying, "We make music. This is me." The guy then said, "In return for this CD, I will drive you to the restaurant." And so we took off, following the business guy we'd never met before. Within a few minutes, the guy was giving us a big thumbs up and motioning to his CD player: he liked the music.

Perhaps the Last Train Home CD messed up the guy's GPS, though, as four minutes became twenty and we kept taking odd turns in central Hamburg. But finally the man said something to a policeman when we were at a traffic light, and the policeman pointed us the rest of the way. We parked in a garage and walked out into the sunshine. The restaurant is near the water, and there was either some kind of fair/festival going on or the harbor in Hamburg is party town all the time. Not sure, but there were all sorts of shops set up, and rides (Ferris Wheel, etc.). A week ago, I pictured Hamburg as a bleak business center, but what I saw on Friday was a city of beer, accordions and sundresses. Oh, and food: We finally found the restaurant, and it was, as Eric had promised, magnificent. I had the Gambas James Brown, which was shrimp done up in a sauce that included lots of butter and spicy goodness. Not sure what it had to do with James Brown, and the language barrier prevented us from determining the cause for the name-checking. But… wow. "It tastes good," I said. "I knew that it would, yeah," Eric said. Mary Ann rolled her eyes and had another sip of sparkling wine. Touring is a lonely and dour endeavor.

After lunch, we took a boat tour of the harbor. The tour was in German, so I'm light on details. But the gist of the deal is that there are huge boats in the harbor, and they everything from cars to toilet paper as cargo, and they go all over the world dropping stuff off and picking stuff up. Anyway, it was a lovely boat ride, and I even got a little sun.

Now, time for work. Which meant we drove to Norderstedt, to the MusicStar. After last night's slug-it-out bar gig, I was most pleased to find a great sound system, helpful staff and a green room that had signed posters of tremendous musicians who had played there (Eric Taylor, The Silos, etc.), plenty of beer and wine and water and even fresh towels. I nearly cried when I saw the towels. Such a small thing for a club to supply, and yet the last couple of night's we were towel-less. They're quite handy. If you get hot, you can wipe your brow with one. You can also wipe your guitar neck with one. Towels. They're great. In Norderstedt, we had them. As many as we wanted. Glory be.

The show itself was my favorite thus far on the tour. I think we played and sang well, and the response we got was heartening. Lots of songs, lots of harmonies, a crowded house of folks who listened, laughed, clapped and called for two encores. As had been promised to me by several musician friends who had been to the club before, owner Wolfgang Sedlatschek is a great guy and he runs a best-of-all-possible-worlds listening room. He also has a record store upstairs, though he closed it because he could not stand selling bad music to people. It's not that he doesn't have great CDs, it's that people would often come in asking for stuff Wolfgang doesn't like, and it burdened him to fulfill their orders. The final straw came with the ascendance of an act called Lotto King Carl. I have not heard Lotto King Carl, but he is apparently very popular in Hamburg, and Wolfgang thinks he makes terrible music. And so, Wolfgang refused to sell Lotto King Carl albums to people, choosing instead to just close up shop. That's walking the walk, folks.

After the show, we had a late dinner at a Turkish restaurant, and then I stayed up for a couple of hours, talking with Wolfgang and his wife, Andrea. Out of the people I met in Germany, Andrea was by far the wittiest and funniest. Oh, and she was so kind as to do a load of laundry for me. Sweet, clean laundry. In the morning, I shall don fresh garb. My denim Packers shirt will smell floral and righteous. No luckier man will wake in all of Germany, save maybe for Lotto King Carl.

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More From The European Tour... Monday through Wednesday... The adventure continues

Monday, May 5, 2008

After breakfast with Michael and Ulricha, we re-loaded the station wagon for the six hour trip to a town called Leipheim. We stopped for lunch in Kassel, and ate in the central square. This square looks to have been almost entirely reconstructed, maybe after after World War II. Only one wall remained that was there before, and the rest of the square is rebuilt in a rather unappealing, drab, institutional manner. Pity. But the baguettes were quite good.

Eric rode shotgun and Mary Ann drove, and finally the autobahn proved a little interesting. There are speed limits, but Mary Ann found a way to circumvent such tyranny: She sped. At one point, she had the station wagon up to 200 kilometers per hour, which is something like 322 mph, I think. Not real great at math, but that's what it felt like. Thrilling, then! And then we finally hit some stretches of the Autobahn with no speed limit at all. Finally, Mary Ann was able to put the pedal down and really make the station wagon hum. Sweet freedom.

The lush, rolling farmland reminded me of Wisconsin. The occasional castles reminded me of… not Wisconsin. We fought traffic, hoping to get to a 4 p.m. radio show at 102.6 FM in Ulm. Due to some traffic delays, we wound up at the station at 4:30, but we were able to hear the first half hour of the show in our car. Disc jockey Friedrich devoted the entire hour to Last Train Home (Eric Brace's band) and myself, so in those forty minutes I was able to hear "Boy Genius," "Wine," "All The Way To Heaven," "Take Care" and "715" on the radio. I've heard songwriters talk about the thrill of being in some gas station in Tuscson or something and hearing their big hit song come on the radio, and I'm sure that's all well and cool. But I'm not sure that's any more heartening than being halfway across the world, in a place I'd never been before, and hearing my songs. Friedrich would speak in German, and every now and then you'd hear him say an English name: mine, or "Eric Brace" or "Lloyd Green" or "Jen Gunderman" or "Todd Snider."

We arrived at the station in time to talk a bit, in English, and to sing three songs. That went well, and then Friedrich let us follow him along the back way to Leiphsheim. There, we were to meet Peter, who runs a group called Country & Western Friends, for sound check at a place called Zehnstadel. The booking agent had sent a small JPEG photo so we could recognize the venue in Leipheim, but we were unprepared for the enormity and beauty of the place. Turns out Zehnstadel is a burgher hall, more than 400 years old. There are wooden beams throughout the room, and they're so interesting that the temptation is to sit right behind one, so the show doesn't block your view of the beams. With help from our new friends, Eric and I set the sound, and then we went with Mary Ann to check into the hotel and grab a little dinner: traditional German food, and delicious.

The show itself was a highlight for me. I think we played and sang well, and the audience was there to listen. The beauty of the building and the warmth of the people… those are things that will stick with me. The people there had a big tent notion of country music. They come to see contemporary country acts, they see bluegrass music and they seemed like they were happy to see and hear us. After the show, we signed some CDs, chatted and made friends we never would have met if we didn't like to play guitars and sing songs.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Hated to leave Leipsheim, a magical little place. But we left in the morning and poked along on an easy drive to Neustadt an der Aisch, a bucolic place that would have been just two hours from Leipsheim had we not been inclined to stop along the way, lunch and take pictures. Well, I didn't bring my camera. Eric Brace took pictures. He'll wind up posting some of the photos on the www.lasttrainhome.com website at some point. So, stayed tuned. A lot of the photos are of the castles and walled cities that are still prevalent in Germany. One such walled city is Dinkelsbuhl, where we had lunch. On one level, I suppose this is a tourist town: there are postcards and souvenir shops and that sort of thing. But what draws the tourists is a charming, historical city full of great food and even better beer. Eric, Mary Ann and I had lunch outside, on a patio, and toodled around for awhile. Then it was back to the car and on to Neustadt.

In Neustadt, we found our venue. The Stockacker Muhle is located on many acres of land in what appears to be the middle of nowhere but is actually Country Music Central. Owner Thomas Jacob has built a haven for country line dancers. Thomas is a line dancer himself, and he runs a fine hotel adjacent to the music venue. Both the music hall and the hotel are decorated with American cowboy trinkets, though my room (very nice, very clean and restful) was done up in a Japanese style. I dunno. I just know this: I will never forget the show.

We loaded in, and then met Last Train Home percussionist Martin Lynds and his wife, Stacia, for dinner at the hotel. Marty and Stacia are over here on vacation, and they decided to join us in Neustadt an der Aisch. Marty brought his brush sticks, and at sound check we placed Eric's guitar case over a couple of chairs, so Marty could "play drums" on the case. It actually made a very cool sound.

Nonetheless, I was worried about this gig. As show time neared, Germans kept arriving dressed in cowboy and cowgirl garb. It was obvious that there had been a terrible mistake. Because Eric and I lived in Nashville, the club booker figured that we play danceable, contemporary country music. Oh, boy. At sound check, we asked Thomas to move the tables from their usual place – midway back along the floor – up near the stage, so that people could sit and listen. "We'll just have two guitars and a little percussion," Eric told Thomas. It's kind of like a folk music show."

As Eric was shifting a table, Thomas came up to me and asked, "So, this is not for dancing?"

I said, "Uh, probably not. Is that okay."

"Oh, of course," he said, meaning, "Oh, this'll be a disaster."

With no time for Thomas to call his patrons and inform them of the terrible mistake, the Teutonic Two Step crew filed in. The men wore cowboy hats. The women wore cowboy hats. The sound system blasted "Redneck Woman," and everyone took to the line dance floor, which was now rather inconveniently relocated. Eric drank a beer. Marty drank a beer. I drank a beer. Mary Ann took up Euros at the door from people we were about to deeply disappoint.

The great songwriter Eric Taylor once told me to never, ever be tentative. And I've heard Flava Flav exclaim, "Operation Nothing I Can Do About It Now is now in effect." Put these two things together and you can arrive at a workable life philosophy. I walked to my room, put on my sparkliest rhinestone shirt and tried to remember the words to "Boot Scootin' Boogie." Dang, couldn't get the second verse. So Eric, Marty and I decided to just go up there and pretend to have fun. We opened with Dylan's "Tonight, I'll Be Staying Here With You," and from the stage we could actually see people smiling. Then some of them were clapping, in rhythm. Then Eric's big, sonorous voice blessed us with Haggard's "Tonight, The Bottle Let Me Down," as I harmonized and played rhythm and lead guitar and Marty supplied a steady, shuffling beat. Glory be, now they were up dancing. Things were going well. Alas, we were almost out of songs that began with "Tonight." I then sang "Wine," a country weeper about… yeah, about wine… and now a bunch of people were dancing. And many more were smiling.

All well and good, then. But now there was no way we could make a sit-down folk show out of this thing, and we knew, at best, about an hour's worth of classic country covers (Haggard, Buck Owens, etc.). What would we do when we ran out of material?

What we did, was to take originals and turn them into country shuffles. "Andalusia?" Country shuffle. "Sheboygan?" Country shuffle. On this tour, Eric and I have been doing a slow, finger-picked, harmony-laden take on a sea shanty called "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still." At Stockacker Muhle, it was a country shuffle. Voila. And they danced all night. They clapped. They stomped. They bought CDs. We signed autographs, posters and t-shirts (not tour t-shirts, just random shirts worn by German girls who wanted to remember their experience at a real live country music show played by country musicians from Country Music, USA.

And Eric, Marty and I didn't have to pretend to have a good time. We had a great time, reinventing songs on the fly, singing three-part harmonies and performing in front of the only 50 people in the entire world who would line dance to our music.

After the show, a country-loving firefighter who didn't really speak English struggled to find words. "Your… music… was… perfucht," he said, hugging me.

Well, technically not. We made plenty of mistakes, and I'm not sure I would want to hear a bootleg. As Sam Phillips once said of a Billy Bob Thornton record, it was "not only unusual, it was unusually unusual." But I wouldn't trade this night for a lifetime supply of crab cakes. It was perfucht.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

This didn't have to be a driving day, but we made one out of it. The highway from Neustadt to Tuttlingen can be driven in a couple of hours, but we took the back roads, through little German towns, each of which had a beer hall and a deli and a bunch of white houses with exposed wood beams. Many the towns also had their own castles. The neatest one of those that we found was Rothenburg, an old walled city that has been lovingly (and profitably) restored. There are stone ramparts there, and I began to storm them before realizing that it's all for public use now. So Eric, Mary and I walked on the ramparts, looked at the castle and generally poked around. Then we did some more driving, some more stopping, and some more poking around. Several souvenir shops sported t-shirts and other items adorned with the image of Knute, the Polar Bear who was recently born at the Berlin zoo.

"This is home of Knute, the Ice Bear Baby," said our promoter, Michael, when he was leading us through Berlin a few days ago. Michael pronounced it "ka-noot." "He was very small and cute, but now he is already big."

Eric Brace then said, "Yes, in Washington, DC, we have the panda bears at the zoo."

Michael said, "No, Knute is better. Knute brought in two million Euros to Berlin."

So, take that, pandas.

We had lunch in Sigmaringen, along a river where ducks and swans played and swam. It's just like they always say: the life of a touring musician is lonely, and filled with desperation and hardship.

In Ravensburg, we came to a place Eric knew from a previous tour and stocked up on some highbrow liquor. This store has whiskey, liqueur, absinthe and other wonderments, all stored in casks or glass containers. No bottles, save for the wine. The lady there will give you taste samples of whatever you like, and then you tell her how much you want and in what kind of container. It's like Baskin-Robbins, except with apple brandy instead of clown cones.

The rest of the road was just beautiful. The sun shone, the Austrian alps were in the distance, and after a time we came upon Lake Konstanz, which separates Germany from Switzerland. The Germans are adamant about this, while the Swiss are… fairly neutral. Ain't it that way? Anyway, I haven't been to Switzerland or Austria, but I saw them today from the passenger seat of an Opal station wagon. The only thing that could have made the ride better would have been the ability to use the air conditioner without stinking up the car. For some reason, the Opal's air conditioner smells very much like unwashed feet. We have moved from the cheese car (see Sunday, May 4 entry) to the feet car. So we spent most of the time with the windows cracked.

We left Neustadt just after 8 a.m. and didn't get to our destination of Tuttlingen until 5:30 p.m., on account of all our time-taking tourist activities. We headed straight to the club, a great dining/listening room called The Riggergarten. The sound system was already set up and ready, so it was a plug-and-play scenario: Very nice, after several nights straight of hauling speakers around.  Then it was over to the hotel, to work on the guitar a bit, as I had broken a string on the final, line-danceable version of "If I Needed You" at the Stockacker Muhle on Tuesday night.

Wait, did I say "hotel?" Because I really mean "castle." The Rittergarten folks literally gave us the keys to the castle. We drove 10 km or so down the road to the walled city of Muhlheim, drove through the gate and then parked in front of the castle. A man was there to meet us and show us to our rooms. Our rooms at the castle. The four flights of stairs were a little rough, but the view from the top was worth it. From the windows, there was rolling farmland and Packers-colored hills (plenty of green, and lots of gold from the rapeseed. Rapeseed is a bright golden color, and Eric says you may also know it as Broccoli Rabe from an Italian restaurant menu. I don't know, 'cause I usually order the scampi). Anyway, never before had I sat in a castle and changed strings. Didn't the royals have guitar techs for this sort of thing?

You two can stay in these surroundings if you're in southern Germany. The place is called the Schloss 8, in Muhlheim. Highly recommended.

Strings changed and luggage hauled up the stairs and stored in the rooms, we went back into Tuttlingen, back to the Rittergarten. Charming Andrea took great care of us, serving us dinner and even watching the show. This was a much more subdued affair than the previous night's concert, and I'll have to say I missed the line dancers a little. During the first set, a highly inebriated fellow lurched near the stage and asked for "Will The Circle Be Unbroken." We claimed ignorance, which probably rightly struck him as a crime against music: "These guys are from Nashville and they don't know 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" Of course, I do know it, but I know the actual national anthem, too, and I don't normally sing it at a listening room concert. At the set break, in the interest of international relations and in an attempt to head off any future acts of aggression and/or heckling, I brought my guitar over to the guy's table, sat down two feet from him (cowabunga, this dude had been drinking way too hard to make time for bathing or teeth-brushing) and played him an acoustic version of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" This seemed to please him, and others, but the end result was that we were now best friends, and being best friends meant he would try to clap and holler "Yee Haw" at inappropriate places throughout the second set.

We encored with John Prine's "Souvenirs" (one of the saddest, truest songs I know) and "Is Anybody Going To San Antone," and then packed up to head back to our castle. Drunk German guy spent some time telling us – slowly, loudly and at close distance – about a club he knows in Hamburg (site of Thursday's gig) that is right in the middle of the red light district, and he swore if we give the owner his name that we can get anything we want. This differs substantially from the other places in the red light district, where all you can get is sex, drugs and booze. As for what I want, I'll take a car air conditioning unit that doesn't smell like Brad Schmitt's feet (www.wkrn.com).  Other than that, I'm pretty well covered. I've got sunshine, great friends with which to explore an unfamiliar country and the promise of a couple of hours of picking and singing each night. Come to think of it, I could probably use a prostitute or two to haul all of this luggage and music stuff down the four sets of castle stairs for me. But the prostitutes are in Hamburg, and I am here in Muhlheim. Dang the luck. Goodnight.

7:27 AM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

First Days of the European Tour

Thursday, May 1 and Friday, May 2

My songwriter pal Chris Richards, who is finishing up production work on what is going to be a fine country album for Dawn McCoy, drove me to the Nashville airport, two-and-a-half hours before departure time for Memphis. With much trepidation, I checked my guitar. This is not something I ever do on trips in the continental US, as I have heard to one too many smashed guitar horror stories. One option is to travel with a "beater" guitar, but this has always seemed like a bad way to go: Why have nice guitars and then not play them for people? So the Martin D-28 went into a borrowed, heavy-duty case (thanks, Jim), which was tagged and whisked away. I cleared security (yes!!) and sat down to finish up an article for The Tennessean. Once that was done, I browsed around the much-improved Nashville airport, grabbed a brew and read some papers until it was time to board a tiny little plane for Memphis. Note to the little bitty guy in front of me who leaned his seat all the way back into my knee, causing an initial explosion of pain followed by a dull ache followed by a nearly panicky, hemmed-in feeling for the remainder of the flight: I dislike you, immensely, and I hope you fall off whatever horse you surely ride for a living.

When the plane finally got to Memphis (longest short flight ever, thanks to the aforementioned little bitty guy), I stepped off the plane and walked into a new favorite airport. The Memphis airport is fantastic. Tons of shops, at least one full-on bookstore, and a great barbecue joint in Interstate Barbecue. I had enough time for a nice sandwich. Then I walked to the gate and talked to the Northwest guy about my still-throbbing knee. He changed my seat location for the Amsterdam flight to an exit row, whereupon I teared up, thanked him profusely and promised, "You won't regret this. I'll make you proud."

Once the plane was in the air, I stretched my legs and read a book written by Alexandra Pelosi about the ridiculousness that is presidential campaign coverage. During my few weeks covering the George W. Bush campaign in 2000 (not a joke: I rode the campaign plane and covered him during the brief D.U.I Revelation Fiasco and the-election night-that-turned-into-not-the-election-night thing), I hung out a little with Alexandra. After that, I went back to writing about music, and she parlayed her coverage experience into a movie about the campaign process and now a book. I enjoyed the movie, and the book. Kudos. My enjoyment of the book was hindered at times by the children across the aisle. Why do small children speak with such volume and shrillness? On the plus side, I'm now working on a children's song called "I Like To Speak In A Calm, Quiet Voice." Those voices fell away from my consciousness, though, due to a nice, nice sleeping aid that was suggested by a friend. With a groovy sleep mask on, I slumbered for nearly six hours of the nine-hour flight. Glory be. Shortest long flight ever.

Landing in Amsterdam at 11:15 a.m., there was no customs hassle (just a quick passport stamp), and no problem getting my luggage. I opened the guitar case with trepidation, but my Martin was in great shape. Then it was out to meet Corazong Records honcho Bert de Ruiter, who greeted me, helped me with a bag and took me to the pickup area, where touring partner Eric Brace and good pal/temporary road manager Mary Ann Werner picked me up in the Official Peter Cooper/Eric Brace Tour Vehicle: an Opal something or another. Lousy little car, to tell you true. The back hatch didn't work well, but we fit both guitars in there, and all the bags, and we drove to a town called Gouda. It's the cheese city! But it's not pronounced "gouda." It's pronounced "Howda." Almost like a New Englander would say "Chowda." In any case, we stopped there for lunch at Zalme, which means "salmon." Well, probably salmon. Some kind of fish high in Omega 3s. On the "When in Gouda" plan, I ordered cheese soup, slurping away as we talked with Bert about the ins and outs of the European record business. At least I think that's what we talked about. I was a little fried from the trip.

The next stop was the little hamlet of Niewendijk, which means "Niewendijk." We arrived in the late afternoon, and stopped in an eetcafe for a beer. I walked to the counter and, in terrible Dutch, purchased some Amstel. A guy at the bar said, "Where are you from?" I said, "Nashville, Tennessee." He said, "USA!" I said, "Yes." He said, "Obama!!!" Swear to God, this happened.

We played that night at a club called Xinix. Fabulous sound system, nice green room, great people. Promoter Wim Colihhjn is super-friendly, and a big music fan. He loves the music of Eric Taylor, so he's okay by me. Eric Brace and I began the show around 9:45 p.m., singing together and playing on each other's songs. The audience was quite appreciative, and they were attentive enough for me to tell some stories before the songs.  Eric and I were invited to take part in a post-show jam, but we had to make the four hour drive to Stadthagen, Germany, as we were slated to stay at the home of promoter Michael Mellesine. Right, so the routing was: Nashville to Memphis on the 4:20 plane. Memphis to Amsterdam, overnight, arriving late morning. Then Amsterdam to Niewendijk, then the gig. Then Niewendijk to Stadthagen by car, arriving at 4:30 a.m. Hoo boy. All in a day's work. Music is glamour.

Everyone was pretty sleepy by the time we crossed the border into Germany, but Mary Ann drove with speed, certainty and no small amount of finesse. While we were heartened to find that each German exit is labeled "ausfahrt" – this sounds funny to people who are American and really, really punchy – I experienced a major bummer while riding on the Autobahn. When I was very small, I heard about the Autobahn, a magical highway where you can drive as fast as you can possibly go. I awaited the day when I could drive a fast car (and, since I was 8, I'm talking here about a Trans-Am convertible) on the Autobahn. Well, here we were on the Autobahhn, at 3 a.m., wanting very much to go fast and get to our destination, and we were slowed by… SPEED LIMITS. Unbelievable. Turns out that much of the Autobahn now is regulated, making it no different than taking I-95 through Richmond or something. Boo.

Michael met us at the Burger King parking lot in Lauenau, and we followed him back to the house. Nice place, WAY out in the country. Looked really restful. Only trouble was that the station wagon latch that had given us problems earlier was now completely broken. We couldn't close the back hatch at all. So we took all of our stuff inside, and Eric and Michael resolved to wake up early and see about this before the three-hour Saturday drive to Berlin.

Saturday, May 3

The station wagon latch was broken. "Gaffer tape, perfect!" Michael said. So gaffer tape it was. With Michael's car leading the way, we drove north to the Hannover airport to exchange the car for something that wouldn't spill guitars at every bump. The gaffer tape held, and we parked at the airport. Big surprise as we headed to the rental car counter: there's a sex shop in the airport. No time to check all that out, though. Eric and Michael sweet-talked the EuropeCar people into giving us a different, and bigger station wagon. I did have time to drink down a smoothie-type deal made of orange and basil – unbelievably delicious – while the rental car folks brought the new car around. We removed the gaffer tape from the old car, freed our guitars and luggage from bondage (no, they weren't at the sex shop, they were stuck in the car), put all the stuff in the new car and followed Michael north to Berlin, passing many ausfahrts along the way.

Entering Berlin, we drove and turned and stopped and drove and turned some more. For an hour or so. Berlin is a big city. Who knew? At every turn, there seemed to be a bus stop. And at every bus stop, there was a big advertisement. And that advertisement – every time – was for C&A, which I believe is some kind of clothing store. For sure, it is a store that sells underwear. Because each C&A ad featured the same, panty-and-bra-clad woman. A lovely lass she is, though a bit intimidating. She is no St. Pauli Girl, with come-hither smile and the frothy beers in hand. This C&A woman looks like a brunette Steffi Graff, with more of a killer instinct. And she is everywhere in Berlin, as recognizable in her own way as the Brandenberg Gate. Plus, there's only one Brandenberg Gate. True, there's only one C&A Woman, but she is in many, many locations. Just trying to give you a feel for this fair city.

Finally, we found a nice hotel and I took a 20 minute nap before we headed to the gig at the American Western Saloon, which is, yep, Germany's number one spot for American food and country and western dancing. There was a sign outside that said "Home of Chicken." There was a sign inside that said, "Cowboys, Leave Your Guns At The Bar." There was another sign inside that said "Our Beer Is As Cold As Your Ex-Wife." Over the sound system, Trace Adkins was singing of a "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk." From Nashville to Berlin, I had traveled. Luckily, the American Western Saloon has actual German beer. Suddenly, "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" sounded like a symphony.

Eric and I played two sets, with lots of harmony singing and some choice country covers thrown in. Not exactly a listening room, this one. Darned if we didn't have a great time, though. Owner Frank Lange is a great fellow, and sound man/disc jockey Lars was friendly and eager to talk about music. Turns out that Frank knows fellow Nashville act The Thompson Brothers quite well, and he told us to say "hello' to the Thompsons. Consider it done, friend. We were also glad to have a chance to meet Manfred, a promotions man who has been helping spread the word about my album and out Last Train Home's Last Good Kiss album. For a night, the Home of Chicken was a good home to us. We drove back to the hotel, getting lost a few times along the way but never straying more than a block or so from the ubiquitous C&A Woman.

Sunday, May 4

We all rose early in the morning so that Michael, a former Berlin resident, could give us a tour of the city before the gig in Hannover. Michael has quite a history in the city, and he has amazing stories about the changes in Germany since World War II. He was a part of the skiffle, folk and rock scenes of the 1960s. Most incredibly, he was a child in the immediate aftermath of the big war. Some of his earliest memories are of a brother who often stood up in bed, expecting more bombings. And while Michael was born just after the war, the destruction and rubble all around him caused him to have childhood nightmares about what had happened. He had these frightening dreams until he was 12-years-old. All this to say that what can seem like the distant past to someone who grew up a generation and an ocean removed is very personal and immediate to someone like Michael.

So, Mary Ann, Eric and I piled into Michael's car ("It's Three Liter," he said. "Very good car.") and took the guided tour of Berlin.

"The car smells of cheese," he said, and he was correct. Michael has a beautiful home way out in the country, and he has his own cows. Which means he has his own milk. One day in the not-too-distance past, Michael was taking some of that milk to a local cheese maker. And a large portion of the milk spilled on the car's floorboard. No need to cry over spilt milk, of course, but if you don't do a pretty good scrub-down of the floorboard then the milk tends to… shall we say "transform itself" under the German spring sun. Yowzer. Luckily for us, Sunday in Berlin the weather was sunny and beautiful. So we could open the windows. So we got some relief. The only down side: the entirety of Berlin now smells faintly of Michael's milk. And, as I told you yesterday, it's a very, very large city.

We got downtown to the Brandenberg Gate in time to see the leaders of a big marathon coming through. Those dudes out in front did not look particularly German. They did, however, look fast. I took off sprinting down the sidewalk in my cowboy boots but, alas, I was unable to keep up. So we decided not to join the marathon and instead took in more history. Our guide, Michael, was invaluable, as he was able to personalize so much of what we were seeing. The souvenir shops carried postcards with photos of what the area looked like before World War II, after the bombings and during the cold war when the Berlin Wall stood next to the Gate. We walked from the old West Germany into the old East Germany, passing a Starbucks and some cafes and an entirely rebuilt area that used to belong to royals and now belongs to everyone. Hitler's old headquarters was in there somewhere, though Michael said that no one knows exactly where it is and that the location will remain unknown because they do not want the locale to become a gathering spot for neo-Nazis.

We walked through a Holocaust memorial, where 2,711 concrete composite blocks are laid out. The design is such that the visitor walks through and gets a kind of "No way out" sense. This is hard to describe in writing. You can Google it up, I suppose. But it was a powerful thing to be in the heart of what was Hitler's Germany and see somber people contemplating past atrocities. I wonder if the United States would ever place such a prominent reminder of those that we have wrongfully killed, imprisoned and tortured.

There's a place in the middle of the memorial where the slabs of concrete are taller than a person, where shadows block sunlight and where a visitor can feel a little enclosed and frantic. But if you turn and look to your hard left, and if you have pretty good eyesight, you can just make out a bus stop in the distance. And if you walk a few paces towards that bus stop, you can see her, a beacon of hope and sex and progress: The C&A Bra-And-Panty Lady. She glowers from a massive advertisement, shunning anyone who would disapprove of her state of undress.

As for us, we left the memorial and got back in the three-liter cheesemobile, stopping for lunch at a lovely restaurant in a "green" section of Berlin, where children played and water rippled and trees swayed in the breeze. I had some fish. The menu translation said "grilled," but this fish had known a frying pan and some oil. No matter. Delicious. Some days, things happen and they move by so fast that it's hard to appreciate the genius of a particular moment. Not so with this lunch in Berlin.

After lunch, Eric and Mary Ann and I got back in our own station wagon and drove south, behind Michael's car, to Hannover. We had a gig there at the Celtic Tiger. In this case, "Celtic" is pronounced not with a hard "K" but with the soft "S" sound, like the Boston Celtic. Just thought you'd want to know. The Celtic Tiger is an Irish pub, and a good one. Thankfully, they also have German beer. Germans get pretty intense about how good their beer is as compared to American beer. "It's crap," Michael said of US brew. "They serve it so cold because that's the only way you can get it down." Well, I wouldn't go that far. But I will say that German beer is much, much better than what I recall of American beer. So, go Germany!

The Celtic Tiger is run by a nice man named Yogi (By the way, if your name is "Yogi" there is just no way you aren't nice: ever met a jerk named Yogi? Didn't think so.), and he took great care of us. Before the show, we did a radio interview with a fellow named Peter. He apologized for his poor English, though his poor English beat the heck out of my nonexistent German. Another highlight of the Celtic Tiger pre-show experience was talking with Steffi, the waitress and bartender. Steffi used to be a jockey, and she won a ton of races. After having a child, though, she stopped the racing circuit and settled in to life in Hannover. To keep herself around horses, she teaches youngsters how to ride. All that, and she's quick with a brew or a baguette. We loved Steffi.

Not usually opened on Sundays, the Celtic Tiger opened its doors to us. Michael had seen to it that there was some promotion on the radio and in local papers, and a very appreciative crowd of Germans showed up at an Irish pub to see two fellows from Nashville who sang songs about Andalusia, Alabama and a cabin in Virginia. Go figure. A great night, though. One lady, Heike, took the train from near Poland. She had heard my music on MySpace, and she sought the show out because she loves country and folk songs. This year, she's seen James Taylor ("Great," she said), Steve Earle ("Good") and our Celtic Tiger show ("Great," again. Yes!).

When the show was over, we drove back to Michael's house in Stadthagen. Michael sat up with us for a little bit, and we sampled some very special drinks that his wife, Ulricha, had prepared. By that, I mean she grew the berries, heated the still, and, with time and patience, produced some of the best stuff I've ever tasted. Being from the south, I know a thing or two about moonshine. Mary Ann said this stuff transported her to… Deutschtucky!!! Ah, off to bed.

3:33 PM - 7 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Letter From A Chattanooga Parking Lot

Sitting here in the maxi-van, outside Charles & Myrtle's Coffeehouse, having driven from Johnson City. Life on the road is hard and tough. I had to drive through the beautiful Tennessee spring on Friday, arriving in scenic Johnson City just in time to sound check and eat some good food at The Down Home. Then Fayssoux and I had to sing and play some songs, accompanied by the fabulous Brandon Turner. Then I had to sit there and watch Last Train Home tear the roof off the place, putting on two wonderful sets of music and even inviting me up to sing girly harmonies on Tom T. Hall's "I Flew Over Our House Last Night." Then it was hotel time, followed by wakeup time, followed by another beautiful drive to Chattanooga. I listened to the satellite radio stations (I have both XM and Sirius) the whole way, except when I was listening to "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart." Now, through the miracle of technology, I am typing this while listening to Robert Earl Keen do "Walkin' Cane" on XM12. The Cowboy Jack Clement show just ended on Sirius

As I know some folks have yet to join up with a satellite radio provider, I should tell you that my recent appearance on The Bob Edwards show on XM is available for free download at www.bobedwardsradio.com. Bob was also nice enough to blog about the show on that same site, calling my album and Fayssoux's album (hers is called Early, and I produced it and sang on it a bunch) "splendid." Very cool.

Tomorrow, I'm taking a trip up to Louisville to hear Robert Plant and Alison Krauss play. Again, hard life. But first, there's this little matter of a Chattanooga show. It's the last stateside concert before heading to Germany and The Netherlands, so I'll plan on pulling out all the stops. Maybe dancing girls, and certainly a Kristofferson cover. I'll stop blogging now, as it's set list time.

2:58 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment