as the miami vice scoring sessions rolled to a close, i flew to rome with ursula rucker to play le labbra nude festival there at the prestigious auditorium.
flight in– missed our connecting flight in de gualle airport in paris…upon going thru security i here my name being called…strange…i turn, and it’s josh abrahms (chicago bassist w/ prefuse73, sam prekop, on and on)…he’ll be at the same fest playing with ernest dawkins chicago 12 and black earth ensemble.   our show at the fest was broadcast live on rai radio…so our set was only 1 hour…sound was very ruff…monitor mixer was reading a book during our performance…some nice moments and some ghosts in the machine…disconnects…didn’t really feel like we got there from my perspective, but as usual, it must’ve sounded good outfront…met jeff parker (tortoise), mike ladd, roy campbell, guiremo brown, ernest dawkins…really had a nice time there…festivals are the best…it was really great to hang out with so many of the chicago music community that i’ve admired for so many years. great food as always in rome,,,,next morning off to sweden– after having the porter unlock gintas’ room, he was deep sleeping…didn’t hear his alarm, my 6 calls, or my incessant pounding on his door…haha…luckily we made the airport in time for flight to stockholm.
3 hour flight. arrived at 3pm to hotel, 45 min. nap, then to sound check. gintas has to rebuild drum kit…i’m good all my gear made it…show is nice with a very reserved audience…it felt good to run the entire show…afterwards sold some discs…the people loved it…gear back to hotel…out for some winddowns until 3am…no sleep tonite…off to airport at 330am back to rome…arrived in rome at 11am…thouroughly spaced.
sleep until 4. out for lunch and wine…so good. then off to festival with ursula and jeff parker. see mike ladd, and meshell ndegochello…wisdom intersects and i stay in my room afterwards to rest before the travel day tomorrow…flight out of rome to paris…miss connecting flight again!!!! it was f***ing ridiculous…terrible…stressful…re-book flight. now thru to montreal where we will have to then take jet to philadelphia…our flight is late there…all in all 24 hours of travel on mothers day…what a mother. our baggage and gear is lost as well, for another 2 days. when i arrive king britt calls to tell me we have another miami vice scene to do…so next morning up early, and we work on it all day. michael manns assistant likes it…so we send parts to la…looks like we’ll have some music in miami vice the movie…next day…doing final mixes with jeff chestek for upcoming secret voices…it’s something else. cheers. see you friday at the whitney in nyc…7pm…free admission. whitney live.