King Creosote’s Brasil Blog

August 8th, 2007 Posted by King Creosote

Day 1

Arrived 5.30 am in Sao Paulo. OTF, with his innocent look and friendly disposition, was immediately whisked off for a thorough customs search. This happens every time we fly. Leo met and gret us explaining that 12′C was unusually cold for Brazil. We piled aboard a minibus and were driven through a mayhem of grey skyscrapers, favelas, traffic - a distance that was practically the breadth of Fife. We checked in at the Trans America Hotel in the Perdizes quarter. We’re assured that this student and arty zone is the safest part of Sao Paulo, but best take care on these 15th floor balconies of ours just in case, eh?

Rather than snatch a few hours sleep, I trawled through 50 odd channels of crap daytime TV. Over the afternoon and evening we learn many things whilst out and about - that there’s a fair number of Scots over here, that food is sold by weight, that beers come in 600ml bottles and are served in tiny glasses, that to wander aimlessly through urban sprawl does not result in finding the metro station.

Day 2

Oddly, we all make it down to breakfast, and recount our adventures of our first night. The only way to get around this city is to drive, or to fly. Seeing as we can do neither, it’s taxis for us, but we soon find out they kind of drive and fly at the same time. We hop out unscathed at the Avenue Paulista’s Fnac store. Of all the bands we know, only Fourtet seems to have his music for sale in Brazil, apart from a KC cover version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” that snuck onto the end of a Rob Da Bank compilation. £45 on import, so I bought 3 copies naturally.

Our pointman Bruno is superhuman. He sleeps for all of 40 minutes a day, spending the other 23 hours and 20 minutes practicing law, studying for an MA, and running around after us. Today we’ve asked him to find hammonds, hi-hats and extra leads. The enthusiasm in his unblinking eyes tires us out so we all go lie down until tea time.

Although we’re in the tropics, it is winter here, and for an aperitif, someone chooses an open sided bar to spend an hour in. It’s bad enough that there’s a constant cold draft and traffic noise mixed with loud indie music, but when i discover there’s no mug of tea to be had, I veto any notion of eating in a fish restaurant. It’s pizza tonight folks. Pizza. My revenge. Quite literally - eat it! Actually, the amount of cheese they use made these pizzas hard to finish, and the method of serving up one slice at a time created so many cheese strands between plates and trolleys that the restaurant looked like the set of a spiderman movie by the end of the meal. Fighting our way out didn’t warm me up any - a door closed here and there with a heater or two switched on would not go amiss. For the remainder of the week I will keep schtuum when it comes to eateries.

Fourtet and the Open Field Choir are playing tonight in Studio SP. Fourtet is well good.

Day 3

I wake early, eat early, and for some reason decide that the gym on the top floor is the way to spend a morning. Twenty minutes on a bike and I lose all of 200 calories. Jelly legged I return to my room and play my guitar to words along the lines of “I’d no idea that the creature Ikea would pick over our bones” - pish inspired by Fox news I’m sure of it. I give up on this and spend over a fiver on earl grey tea bags at the supermarket wondering if I’ll ever end up singing to the checkout queues like this old boy.

We pile our plates less high this buffet lunchtime making sure we all drink the same amount too then set off in many cabs to the market. The stalls start and end with cheeses - quelle surprise - but in between rinds Gav finds dried mango that looks like giant cold sores (especially when applied to the upper lip), cow hoof tankards, pigs’ snouts/trotters/balls, fruits so exotic that they might well have grown on the sea floor or in outer space, chocolate raisins, warm white chocolate with banana, and coconut water. The stall holders all had something to say about kilts and haggis, but by the time the chocolate overdose hit home I couldn’t stop laughing at “c’mon Gav let me hold yer coconut water” etc.

Tonight we meet Romulo (the ‘r’ pronounced like the scottish “ch” as in “loch”) and he takes us all to the football bar. My lager shandy turns out to be a glass of Brahma with a shot of pure lemon juice, and with my (face) cheeks still drawn in tight. Two hours pass, a Brazilian version of the Beastie Boys start up and invite all these old folk dudes up onto the stage. As good as they are, only Gav has the stamina to stay up late tonight, and anyway, he’s dancing right close behind his new ‘lady friend’.

Day 4

I couldn’t face the breakfast today and burned all of 700 calories up at the gym instead. This is our first day of rehearsals, and by two o’clock we’re looking blankly round the practice studio at our new combined band of two drummers, two bass players, two electric guitarists, two acoustic guitarists/vocalists and a keyboard player. Romulo suggests we play his favourite KC song, “Not One Bit Ashamed” and make a few alterations to the line up. We still have all the guitars, but his bass player Fabiosa is bowing a double bass, and his drummer has fired up some sort of sampler. It most definately is a good enough start, with “noe bom o bastange”(sp?) now in place of the lyric “it’s not good enough”. The Brazilians play one of their songs, and as diminished sevenths and minor ninths float round the room, the KC lot are looking defeated already. Realising this they switch to a three chord ballad, and we’re off. Check me out singing “nao me quem a quer assim ta facil” ‘n’ that.
The second KC song we attempt is “Homeboy”, and that’s us for today. Easy. A quick drink to watch the second half of the Brazil/England game and a ticking off from the barman when that Burnley roar lets rip. No complaints against the Sao Paulo roar a minute from the final whistle I notice.

What ain’t easy is being veggie here, so for me it’s another meal of overly cheesy pizza by the slice. LBH (Nathan) took badly to his main course being passed around the table as a shared starter, but by the time we took the lift up 40 floors to some swankie rooftop bar boasting a three-sided view of the city, he was back on form and charming our Times journalist into considering “Sophie Sudders” as her married name.

Romance is certainly in the air judging by the number of middle aged couples chewing their faces off around us, and some of our group even consider my idea of getting naked to greet our neighbours when they come up for air.

I avoided the pool room party at our hotel, but heard all about it soon enough …

Day 5

At breakfast time I heard that a certain tall, dark, quiet, “good bone structured” individual - probably one of our lot? - pushed a certain Times journalist fully clothed into the pool last night, and that the drying white jeans had blown off the balcony sometime in the early hours. When I met Sophie for my interview later she hinted that if ever an Onthefly CD arrived at her desk for review, it wouldn’t score highly at all!

During the photoshoot in glaring sunlight I had time to “reflect” on all the dumb things I say in interviews. Sorry, oh rock bands of Europe and South America, and apologies too to anyone with a second home in Crail.

OTF (Gavin), LBH (Nathan) and myself return to our local cafe for the four cheese omelette ‘n’ chips experience, but because we start every day with a 50 Reais note, every day we have to wait at kiosks for the locals to hand in what becomes our change. I foolishly stood by the bin waiting for the other two, and was chased up the road by a wasp. Even in a different hemisphere they know to hate me … anyway, it’s worthwhile braving the wasps to watch the cooks at work. Ask OTF (Gavin).

With Tommy and Dougal recording us for Radio Magnetic, our new nine piece band ran through the three songs of yesterday and added a new one of Romulo’s. We’ve renamed it “taxman” on account of LBH’s (Nathan’s) bass line. It rocks, especially now we’ve been taught the proper chords.

We catch the second half of the Brazil v England match and get told off for making too much Burnley noise when the lads in white score. No such ticking off for the Sao Paulo noise one minute from the final whistle I might add.

Day 6

We’re supposed to be rehearsing from 10am until 2pm today. I wake up at about 9.30am from a scary dream about how old 40 actually is - in a five-years-from-35, 15-from-25 sort of way. By 11.30am there’s still no sign of OTF (Gavin). We’re wondering why, on this trip, Gav is so lax with rendezvous times and the like, and it turns out his room clock is one hour 15 minutes slow. When we get to the studio and our four song set is filmed by Channel 4.

Today’s afternoon matinee is “The Abyss” starring Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Michael Caine. Don’t know what the others are up to today but I find these amazing yoghurt drinks in the supermarket that taste like those parmaviolet sweets? They don’t last long.

Despite being veggie, I shall describe the food on offer at this barbecue place we went to. First of all there’s a wee wheel on the table that you turn to indicate whether you want the waiters to stop by with their cuts of meat, or in my case, to stay clear. This system obviously doesn’t work for I was offered the lot - by the time it came to the skewers of chicken hearts described as “chewy” I was feeling slightly nauseous. It even affected my arithmetic skills, as shown in my miscalculations divvying up the bill. I was 7 Reais out for each person, and there were 16 of us!

It has rained off and on all day today, and it didn’t stop just because we had us a terrace table for our cuba libres.

Feeling guilty about missing out on the gym this morning I get out at the 13th floor with VS and walk up two flights of stairs.

Day 7

Our day doesn’t officially start until soundchecks at 5pm. I wake up in time to see a film starring Julie Andrews and Tony Curtis, but OTF knocks at the door having planned yet another effing shopping trip. He assures me this time it’s “for records” … three cab rides later and we’ve stumbled upon Sao Paulo’s infamous singing taxi driver. In between bursts of “Hey Jude”, “O Solo Mio” and “Quantanamera” we get some maniacal laughter. Maybe he knew all along that after a long ride Eric’s Disco’s Record Shop, it would be shut, as it was Sunday. More beers then?

I’ll skip to the week’s undoubted highlight - the Romulo Froes, KC, Tony and Gruff Rhys gig at Studio SP. The venue kind of reminds me of a small ferry boat. Romulo’s up first, and boy are that band tight. KC up next, and what we lack in tightness we make up for in .. um .. bad portugese (did i really say “obladee obladado”?). Thank you Sao Paulo for the encore. The collaboration of four songs with Romulo goes exceptionally well. Next up is Tony. Tony I’ve seen around all week - he looks like a smaller ageing Neil from the Young Ones - and I heard a lot of hype about this home made instrument of his. He’s basically built a drum machine (with flashing lights and an added sound or two) in the shape of a stick-like guitar. His set consists of one manifesto after another with the crowd egging him on at every single chorus. I spot OTF dancing, but everyone else is smiling, particularly when he can’t find the door to get off stage. The Gruff set is astonishingly good - by far the best use of a looping pedal I’ve ever seen. Undeterred by a broken guitar string he starts looping his voice, then a drone machine, then some sort of space toy … he too goes off stage but catches his shirt on Nathan’s bass amp only to return with a cigar to smoke whilst his creation plays on. Brilliant. What’s better is I get to join him and Tony for a song called “Gyrru”.

We toast our week and jump about alongside a Princess Diana look-a-like to some top tunes as provided by the deejay-brothers grimm. I laughed myself into a sore head when LBH related an exchange between himself and the lovely Sophie. As usual there were a few amourous couples necking here and there, so when LBH uttered “snoggers” in his dulcet Burnley tones he got the response “what, now?” from the belle. I realise it doesn’t read as funny as it sounded.

Our week in Brazil ended with a party up on the top floor of the hotel. Pictish was straight into the pool beers and all, with OTF needing very little encouragement to join him.

Day 8

Three hours sleep later and we’re all up, packed, and squeezed tight into a mini bus for the trip back out to the airport.

I’ve had a most enjoyable week, so thanks to the Trocabrahma team for inviting us out there.

Kenny.

You can read the full unedited version of this blog at www.myspace.com/kingcreosote and read all of KC’s blogs at www.fencerecords.com .

Entry Filed under: Artists