the summer that was

the essence,
the focus,
the purpose,
the moment...

f r e e s t y l e

48 hours

the time has come. a 48 hour countdown to my europa departure. i'm back in berlin now, after a great week in stockholm with my cousin oscar.

as i mentioned in one of my earlier posts, yours truly & cousin o. have started work on a collaborative musical project. first conceived at the fusion fest this summer when he came down to deutschland, we've embarked on a hip-hop inspired duo project. we are Error Flynn & Johnny Valentine. we are lovers of the good life. and we are making an album to provide the aural soundtrack to living it.

in the few days i was in stockholm, we began work on the music and so far, the sounds are 'soopa'! look out for a crazy mix of fat basslines, crazy samples, catchy lyrics and, most importantly....good good fun...

our working method is simple and direct:
1. morning swim
2. freshly brewed coffee
3. gourmand eats
4. morning, afternoon, evening, late night, early morning music listening sessions
5. cut samples
6. play instruments
7. pause
8. glad dansker
9. more music
10. converse
11. evening walk
11. well chilled drink

haha. sounds like i'm writing a personal ad. but seriously, these are some of the central ingredients for having productive, creative work days....and some of the most important elements of the good life.

well after a few days of staying inside o's hot top floor apartment, on wednesday night we finally made it out of the house to go and see a really fun, 15 piece party reggae band called the Club Killers down at the hip Debaser club near Slussen...it was a night of much dance partying, crazy expensive scotch & sodas, and Error Flynn working his smooth romantic magic. the band rocked the house with its 7 piece horn section & 2 fabulous guest vocalists, mostly doing covers of old reggae & ska tunes, but also throwing some great old soul tunes into the mix. the sun barely sleeps in the scandinavian summer, so when we left the club at 4:00am the light was a beautiful hybrid sunrise & sunset. then it was home to rest before our morning trip out of the city.

thursday midday was spent half slumbering on a bus out of town, to the Tilman fam's country residence in the Stockholm archipelago. in just over an hour's journey out of town, you can be nestled amidst the serenity of tiny islands, tiny picture perfect red scandinavian summer houses, and nearly complete summer silence (aside from the hum of crickets, birds, breezes, and far off motor boats). the tilman summer spot is a sprawling expanse of green, rock, wood, and red exteriors - all perfectly kept and beautifully peaceful. inkan, ulf, pernilla, ludvig & emma had been there for several weeks already and O & I arrived to enjoy an afternoon of rest & recuperation and an evening of veggie BBQ and apfel strudel...

before dinner, Flynn & Valentine made the short walk down to the water where we swam in the balmy summer sea and johnny v. practiced diving off the dock for the first time in many many moons. it had been 8 years since i was last in sweden and it was great to come back for even a short visit. the family all seem happy & relaxed and we had a great long evening meal til the sun descended.

o & i spent the last final hours of evening before sleep doing some rough mixes of our 'good life' tracks and woke early to get our bus back to town. i flew back to berlin last night and have until monday morning to enjoy my final fix of this great town before i return to my mile end casa in Mont Royal.

it's been a fabulous trip & an inspiring summer. tonight i'm off to do some vox recording with berlin producer Flo...and tomorrow night will be the final hurrah...hopefully gathering all the good folks i've spent time with this summer here in deutschland.

if you stumble across this page again in a few days, it will be complete with photos & video. even though it will be the end of the trip. ahem. next year i've got to get my own camera.

ok friends, gotta get some lyrics written! take care of yourselves.

love johnny

ps- song of the week: bo marley :: 'fleisch' - amazing danish dub/reggae band i discovered at the fusion fest this year...

M/S Stubnitz: where no-1 was into it

as promised, herewith...

The Tale of no-1 and the Sinking Ship of Disinterested Danish Revelers

no-1's final show was held upon a lovely summer evening,
where in the quiet town of copenhagen, everything was seeming
to be in good accord with stars and timing well aligned
when in fact perhaps the opposite was true, and he was blind
to this, but was he? could he possibly have truly been mistaken?
the evening turned to night, and from a sleep he did awaken
with hotel telly rolling k-pax credits in the background
he rubbed his sleep encrusted vision and looked around;
putting on his no-1 whites, red belt, & ultra rap persona
he stepped outside and found the bike he'd borrowed til tomorra
o'er cobbled stones he trundled past the gathered tourist traps
and went toward the water where the boat was getting packed
dodging drunken kids and slick club types he slid across the deck
and headed down below to find the stage and get all set.

but something was amiss this night, he couldn't put his finger
on it but it slowly percolated down into his mind and then it lingered;
was it the people or the place or both or no-1's own anxiety
or something wrong with everyone? (at least then he'd blame society)
well either way he felt it and wasn't sure that this would be
the supreme deluxe crowd killin' show that he had hoped it'd be...

the night went on, the boat filled up with kids of all descriptions:
all mostly young and mostly drunk and mostly hardly listening
to the music being played by all the DJs in the ship's hull
at no-1's stage the beats replayed damn loud & on some shit dull
tunes by The Strokes, Nelly Furtado, plus some other party music
it wasn't quite the spot he had imagined but the mood shifts
sometimes in the right direction if the kids are willing to let it
and no-1 still hoped he'd rock the party right (=hoped they'd get it).

well well, go figure, now you can tell where this is going
his whole damn set felt like a dream that was moving in slow motion:
the room was sort of packed at first and drunkards yelled & cheered
but then they realized, i think, they'd had too many beers
and didn't give a shit about this cancon kid's crazy lyrics
who they could not only not understand....they could hardly hear it!
yeah, the mix of beats to vocals wasn't exactly perfect
and as the crowds departed, no-1 wondered if it was worth it
to keep on rapping english puzzle poems to kids who'd rather be
partying to music that they already knew from EuroMTV;
suffice it to say, by the end of the set, no-1 rapped to no one else
it was funny actually, he thought, to freestyle for himself!
but he kicked a couple raps to kids who were walking down the hallway
and finished up his incredible (!) set thinking at least 'i did it my way...'
all sinatra references aside, he thought, at least i damn well tried,
and if they didn't get it, fuck it man, i guess that's just the ride
if you can't join 'em, beat 'em, like DJ Format said
you do it for yourself and hope you nod a couple heads,
when disillusioned folks don't want to think it ain't your problem
and there's only so much you can do with raps to try and solve 'em.


as told by no-1 to your faithful scribe,
johnny valentine, on this twenty fifth day of july
in the two thousand and fifth year of
our (dead & departed) lord

peace.

scandinavian adventures: stockholm

i'm skipping the boat show bit (for now) because i'm sitting in oscar's kitchen, being serenaded with some beautiful guitar playing. tack så mycket, kusin!

i had a bit of a down to the wire time making my way to the copenhagen airport for my flight here, but i made it, and arrived here in stockholm yesterday. oscar & i spent the afternoon in busy work mode: listening to records (i've officially been introduced to Daniel Johnston...wow), watching old warp records videos, and cookin' up some good good eats. pontus, o's good friend and drummer in their band Holiday for Strings, just flew in from NYC yesterday and came over later on for some dinner & captain morgan on the balcony. oscar lives in a top floor sunny flat just south of the hip hood Söder...it's a quiet spot close to the water (as much of the city is) & a good place to chill and work on creative projects...ahem. you know, that *is* the plan while i'm here...

so yesterday me & the o.t. kicked it and worked on our 1st song idea for a bit, but mostly just got the motors running and some prelim ideas going. once pontus arrived, we ate, hung out and let the evening float in.

i slept 12 hours on the comfiest sofa and woke today feeling sooooo rested. yes! finally! made a morning trip to the grocery store & had a gourmand tasty frukost start to the day. more music listening was had: bo hansson, jay dilla, curtis mayfield, craig mack, scienz of life, pughish, clint eastwood & alexander saint, looptroop, mcdonald & ...and an amazing old japanese pop rock version of otis reddings' sittin on the dock of the bay. great stuff.

took an afternoon stroll to the nearby lake and had a swim. enjoyed a couple of Glad Dansker 2.8%'s and talked some shop. mr oscar and mr me are soon to embark on a new joint musical adventure under our appropriate composing guises: Valentine & Flynn. more later.

we spent the late afternoon recording a fat handclapped stomp hiphopish tune...as the deutsch would say, it's the hammer.

well my friends, the sun's slipped below the horizon line here in sverige. it's good to be back here and good to have some more time with cousin o.

i will regale you with words about the no-1 danish disaster...tomorrow.

til then, sleep tight. i'm going to.

xo johnny

scandinavian adventures: copenhagen

i haven't left europa yet, but i have left berlin. i'm sitting in a hotel room in copenhagen right now, overlooking a small courtyard serving breakfast to all of us weary travelers. well, they don't look particularly weary, but i'm feeling pretty exhausted this morning.

yesterday was a beautiful day of traveling by train from berlin to denmark. i was up earlier to grab my train from the ultra sleek new hauptbahnhof station - a colossus of glass, wire and metal not unlike the sony centre near potsdamer platz - and set off from berlin at 7:14am on the dot.

the express train from berlin to hamburg, where i was to transfer to the copenhagen bound train, was a blur of green pastures and small towns on the outskirts of berlin. the express train clocks around 200+ km/h and feels like you're completely stationary, it's that smooth (god, if that kind of a train was offered from montreal to new york, i might actually consider traveling with amtrak again...but it isn't, so no thanks! it ain't worth the cramped 10 hour journey!). so, needless to say, i was in hamburg in the blink of an eye and made my connection to copenhagen. i have a vague recollection that the hamburg train station was the site of a crazy memory from traveling through europe with my mom back in '86...but that's another longer story for another time. the train to copenhagen was less swanky than the hamburg express but smooth enough for me to drift off to sleep with nina simone surround sounding my ears (i've been obsessively listening to uta's nina cd of hits&classics and really can't tire of it).

well, i woke up disoriented with the world tipping slightly side to side. it took me another ten minutes moving in and out of consciousness to realize i was on a boat or, rather, the entire train was now securely on a ferry. i was practically the only one left on the train so i tried to get the sleep out of my eyes and stagger to the upper decks. it was a short journey across the water to south denmark and the ferry was appropriately stocked with overpriced crappy food and the requisite duty free shop. i opted for an apple cake and picked up some AA's and a toblerone from duty free. that's why they call me mr. big spender! right, so above deck was all blue sky blue water and blue eyed nordic folks. enjoyed my apfel kuchen and returned to the train.

arrived in copenhagen on a gloriously sunny afternoon, with a nice cool breeze blowing to offset the heat. thankfully out of the consistent 37 degrees of Berlin city heat which has been great, but really intense. copenhagen is a stunning old city with amazing architecture and i haven't been here since 1998 when yours truly and one mr. p.m.r. orth made the rounds in this town...rambling randomly and roaming wide-eyed about the cobblestone streets...this visit, however, i was greeted warmly by my host (and the promoter of the show) mr rasmus shack - a very cool danish hombre who booked me to play a show here after a friend of his saw me play back in berlin at the ZR show w/ Jason Forrest. nice how it all works out. well, rasmus met me with an extra bike at the station and we piled my gear on the back of the bikes and set off for the hotel... in which i'm presently writing.

after i dropped my gear we hit the streets par bicyclette and made our way to a little lunch spot called, ahem, Pussy Galore's Flying Circus (holy mixed metaphors/references) where ras dropped me off & hooked me up with some lunch...i had a deelish meal there out on a patio in a small, fountain-bordered square over looking various cafes & park benches & assorted blonde/blue eyed beauties. i had forgotten how pretty the peeps up here are...both women & men...all clean lines, freshly cut, summer tannned H&M model types though...

well, now satiated & feeling good about being here i jotted a few notes of gratis down in me trusty ol' journal and zoomed off again on my bike. spent the afternoon cruising about the district checking out buildings & peeps and taking it all in....went down to soundcheck at 7pm and was feeling pretty damn good about life, i must say...probably too good.

the show was to take place on the M/S Stubnitz - an old German maybe fishing (?) boat that was converted into a multipurpose art/work space, venue, bar, & night club in the mid-90s. in fact, it is actually the same boat that i first visited in Stockholm way back in '98 while it was docked there for the summer. i fell in love with the concept as soon as i saw it and have been all gush gush gush about it pretty much ever since. haha. i even remember visiting victoria years later and seeing an old military ship docked in the harbour near the parliament buildings with a big 'for sale' sign on it...and yes i contemplated how to raise money to buy and convert it! silly johnny dreamer.

anyway, the ship is still rockin' and has been going strong ever since i saw it and makes its stay in various european ports throughout the spring/summer, often inviting local artists/musicians and promoters to organize events there while it's docked in the city. after copenhagen, Stubnitz sets off later this summer for Hamburg and then Amsterdam...

so, this brings me almost up to date, except for the details about the show. but it is now officially time for me to leave this city and this hotel and head straight to the airport to get my flight to stockholm. did i mention that i'm going to sweden today? didn't think so. ok, so i will recount the glorious post-boat show details when i get to sverige.

i hope life is good wherever you are. let the scandinavian adventures continue!

love johnny

the 1st day of supposed departure

today is donnerstag, 13 juli...the day i'm supposed to be back on a plane en route back to kanada. instead, i be chillin' up in the kreuzberg spot, at the local 'mac point' a breezy mac wireless spot that has me out of the hotstink of the rest of the internet cafes (ahem. see my previous post). i'm now even on my own powerbook, but just remembered that i transferred all the berlin photos to my external harddrive so you're going to have to wait til next time for some new uploads.

i didn't really give you the whole rundown on the fusion fest and everything that's happened, as there have been so many highlights but i'll try and recap...at least a little bit...

FUSION
arrived and set-up base camp in the artist area. the festival takes place outdoors at an old secret german airfield about an hour outside of berlin. all of the stages are converted hangars, enclosed and completely covered with grass, so as to be invisible from above! crazy. anyway, there must have been about 20 stages all around the festival site, some hidden away amidst trees and forested areas, and others set up right out in the open. one of the most relaxed was the dub station stage, near the artist area, which had lots of mellow music, a big bonfire (a recurring theme on this trip!), and some good imported sand and driftwood to relax on. there was plenty of raveyrave music for the flying high contingent, but also so good non-ravey electronic stuff, crazy bands, cabaret & theatre performances, political workshops, a cinema, and only veggie food stands. nice. there were lots of good moments throughout the fest, but the highlights were definitely: CocoRosie's amazing freakout set with two beatboxers, the sisters' mad vocals, and some live players...Senor Coconut (aka Atom Heart) and his big band orchestra doing electronic salsa/mambo covers of YMO, Kraftwerk, Michael Jackson, & 'smoke on the water'...Looptroop's party rockin set of hip-hop bangers - they're a swedish group with a sweatshop union kind of vibe, but some solid english lyrics and really catchy songs (wait, that's a lot like sweatshop)...there was a really amazing gypsy band that had at least 4 or 5 tuba players (!) and was an all brass band except for a snare drum player and a singer, and they absolutely tore the place apart...german rapper Jan Delay's set, just for it's ridiculous excessiveness: a stage filled with almost a dozen backing musicians, and the rapper himself pimped out in a baggy deutschland football jersey + the requisite tilted ballcap with the sticker still on the underside of the brim + big black shades + much strut & swagger & not so much actual rapping...he even had a conga set! haha. the music sounded pretty cheezy to me, until i learned that most of his lyrics had a deceptively dark perspective, ie. a really catchy chorus of: "everything is poisoned"....the no-1 set dropped at 4:30am on friday morning, to a random assortment of kids who didn't know what the hell we were doing, but that was fine by me, we still won 'em over as the sun came up...oh yeah, and i rocked a bunch of guestspots over the weekend with RicoLoop and then with the Ohrbooten band when the showed up on Saturday...freestyling has been a huge part of my musical experience this summer and each time i do it, things open up more, it's an exhilarating feeling. by Sunday my eardrums had been pounded enough and it was definitely the day to get home. we finished out the weekend with the CanCon kids' final theatre/fire/music performance as Nucleus, which was a truly bizarre, but perfectly messed up show for the fusion atmosphere...and then we bounced back to town with marley on the soundsystem.

Zentrale Randlage
the week went by in a blitz and a blur and already it was last friday night. got that? such is the way of the recap. right, well none of my kreuzberg friends knew about the ZR club in prenzlauer berg that i was playing at, but other folks seemed to know. i went into the Dense record shop up on danziger and mentioned the show to one of the guys working there and he already knew about it, but then again, he was also playing at it. haha. ok, so the space is a funny old rec room type spot on schönhauser allee, that attracts mad locals from the neighbourhood. things didn't get rolling til late late, as expected, and marius kicked it off with some great hip-hop selections (does anyone else remember The Goats??), i got up apres and did my thang which was sweaty heavy and fun, and then this really funny duo on laptop, electric guitar, scream/rap/sung vocals and fannypack rocked a wild set of noisy messy stuff similar to a fucked up deutsch version of Canned Hamm. yessss! jason forrest played a hyperhyperhyper bouncy trancey banging bunch of beats and mixed in old disco vocals and all types of insanity and oscar, tania, peter & johnny v. hung outside while the sun came up (also a recurring theme on this trip). i met some cool kids from copenhagen who said they might be into having me come through for a show. that'd be just fine, vielen danke.

103 Club
officially the 'last' show i have booked up til now. the morning post-ZR show was the one from my previous post...hung le over and trying to type...i spent the day roaming around somewhat aimlessly trying to recoup my energies and didn't even get to soundcheck at the club until midnight. it was bound to be a late night affair and, with the deutschland victory for WM bronze, and DJ Vadim in the house, the club was absolutely packed. i've played a lot of weird art spaces and small clubs and all that biz, but this was the first saturday club night show of the summer...and it can be really fun to play for amped up party kids...the DJ in the 2nd room where i was going to play set me up nicely with some great tunes, leading into my set with a heavy Jamie Lidell track that worked as a great transition. i was sweating at this gig before i even started. amewu was with me to drop a verse later in the set & we could barely stay standing because of how hot and packed it was. i kicked an accapella to start things off and then dropped in with the booming system....double yesss. the set was crazy fun and the vibe in the club was wicked. OneSelf had to start their set in the mainroom while i was doing mine, which was the only downside, but i managed to catch their last few songs and they rocked the crowd proper. big ups to good folks James & Yarah...catch y'all somewhere in virtual(my)space! haha. big ups also to daniel & maximilian from the 103, for having me down to the show...if any of you are coming to berlin, make sure you hit up this club...it's madness.

POST-
sunday night
downtime
much needed
mellowness
observed the WM final
from various cafes & restos
italian celebrations
mixed with france's defeat
and of course some
tasty mediterranean eats
and then sleep

& NOW...
this weekend: off to Austria to kick it w/ Ohrbooten at a festival & to check out the much heralded live hip-hop trio Lychee Lassi...

next week: into the studio with Ben & Amewu & producers Flo&Tilman to record rap vox for a new, as yet untitled, project...

the week after: scheduled departure date of july 31st...but futurus prospectus music/travel options to hit switzerland, sweden, & spain first. i'll let you know.

love from kreuzberg (36, not 61),
johnny

at the hotspot, but internetless

ok peoples, thanks for bearing with me...
so much hath happened
but not so much hath been blogged...
so:

1. went to fusion festival.
2. came back to berlin.
3. moved to beautiful huge new flat. love kreuzberg.
4. extended stay to end of july.
5. cousin oscar arrived from stockholm.
6. cancon kids departed back to the westcoast homeland.
7. hugs exchanged.
8. hot days: went to lake. swam. ate melon. felt good.
8. still 35+ degrees. ate rice cakes. had jam/recording session with ben, flo & tilman. good good niceness.
9. more cancon/nections arrived...(heya t & p)
10. thunderstormed. crazy rained on. still hothotheisse.
11. had dinner party. cooked up a storm mit oscar. finished with fruchtsalat.
12. played some no-1 songs at zentrale randlage avec jason forrest & other good folks (welcome back, rené!)
13. drank many becks.
14. woke up. oscar left for barcelona.
15. felt hungover.
16. went to internet cafe. no web access at new flat.
17. mini-realization: all photos from recent adventures are on powerbook. no wireless web = no blogged pics.
18. full realization: still hungover.
19. realization pt.2: internet cafes are hot and stinky.
20. realization pt. 3: um...shit. hung. o v e r .
21. excitement: going to play with DJ Vadim & OneSelf tonight.
22. have the flat to myself. perhaps need roommates. or more visitors.
23. deutschland plays for 3rd place tonight.
24. WM final mania tomorrow. avoid insanity by any means.
25. change tenses while blogging. realize: in present moment, no longer recounting past happenings.
26. remind self to find wireless access and post photos.
27. get out of internet cafe.
28. take nap.
29. rock the party.
30. s l e e p

love johnny