The latest newsletter from our Canadian friend Geoff Berner:
Dear Everybody,
I'm on my way into England, playing London Tuesday night, at the Black Gardenia. At midnight, it's my birthday, and the next day I fly home home home! So for me, there's lots to celebrate.
I've been very happy with the tour. My German label 9pm tells me that the reviews have been great for the new album (I'll take their word for it), and I just played on national Dutch radio. The turnout has been great overall, with many shows actually selling out. It seems that now more than ever, people want to hear New Jewish Drinking Songs.
But I think that for the Canadian tour, in February/March, I'll be trying to bring back the idea of the "sliding scale" for admission cost, where guests can pay, maybe 5 bucks if they're unemployed or working for minimum wage, and 15 if they're doing okay. I always liked that system, and I've found that people rarely abuse it. I think that live music is really a human right. But that's just my opinion, of course.
The Canadian tour is pretty much booked, with only a few little holes here and there. In the East I'll be bringing the full album trio of me, Wayne Adams and Diona Davies along for that, and that means we're hoping for some fun, silly dancing and merriment.
I'm very pleased at the disproportionately large number of physicists coming to my shows lately. A whole bunch of them ("mass" of them? "quantum" of them?) came to the Berlin show, for instance. Then of course there's D and his crew of frighteningly thirsty nuclear physicists. Another 3 came to the Braunschweig show and one fellow informed me that, although they used to think that light had a dual nature, that's all over now and it's just a wave. So I think non-physicists can now take a break from talking about the dual nature of other stuff, like God. Whatever it is, it's just a wave, man. Keep up the good work, folks.
Tough economic times are breaking out all over. In Trier, (birthplace of Karl Marx) for instance, the Bank of Luxembourg phoned the Chat Noir, the venue I played, and said they'd like to cut the costs of their private Christmas party in half, starting by ditching the contracted musicians (oh dear). The Bank has just received a big bailout from the government, so they felt that having live musicians would be "unseemly".
Tom, the promoter, suggested that they just have a trio in black play funeral music, but apparently the Bank didn't find that very funny. When he then suggested that the Bank economize by ordering the 3rd class menu for the guests, the one without the caviar, the Bank didn't laugh at that either, apparently. I suggested a Grapes of Wrath, Depression-themed folk band playing old labour anthems like, for instance, "The Banks Are Made of Marble". Tom will get back to me.
Nov. 25 UK/London - The Black Gardenia, 93 Dean Street, Soho, near Tottenham Court Road Tube Station
LITTLE PACIFIC NORTHWEST JAUNT Dec. 12 USA/Seattle - The Tractor, opening for The Squirrels Christmas Show Dec. 13 USA/Portland - Mississippi Pizza Pub, EARLY SHOW, 6PM. Future Historians play early short opening set.
CANADA Feb. 6, 2009, TORONTO, ON - TRANZAC CLUB: CANADIAN RELEASE PARTY for "Klezmer Mongrels", with Forest City Lovers. Feb. 27, 2009, VANCOUVER - THE BILTMORE: VANCOUVER RELEASE PARTY for "Klezmer Mongrels".