3 October - Los Angeles

October 6th, 2006 by Billyb | Posted in Road Blog |

Flying over the Hollywood Hills into Los Angeles, what better music to be listening to than that of local boys Little Feat? Lowell George’s classic road ballad Willin’ is playing on my headphones as we swoop low over a sprawling city the colour of the desert sand it is built upon. Just a few days ago, I had sung this song in Vancouver, inspired by the fact that we were driving directly from the gig to the Canadian/US border crossing used by truckers at Blaine. The show, at the Commodore Ballroom was a corker, the Friday night audience giving me a great response.

We reached the border at 2am and, after getting our work permits stamped and discussing the finer points of American guitars with the late night border guards, we drove the 150 miles to Seattle arriving at around 5am.

The next day’s gig was a little strange. Firstly it was in a lecture hall at the university. Secondly, there was no alcohol on sale – a bit odd for a Saturday night. The audience were closer to me than usual with no bar to distract them, so I took the opportunity to do a more intimate set, using the acoustic guitar for the first half of the set before picking up the electric from Old Clash Fan Fight Song onwards

On Sunday, I did a 45 minute afternoon show for local radio station KEXP who invited their listener-supporters to the gig at the Triple Door a small club downtown. Once the show has been broadcast it should be available for listening to via the station website.

Portland, Oregon, 3 hours south of Seattle, is the town were books go to die. It has a massive new/used bookstore called Powell’s and lots of great vinyl stores too.
I only discovered Portland about 10 years ago, never having been there in the 1980s for some reason. It’s a great town, lots of activism and alt. culture.

Despite this, I felt a little empty when we arrived. Maybe it was the fact that it was Monday, or that I was so far away from the people I love or that on the next day we were going to LA, I dunno. There is always one day on tour when you feel a bit lost and this was it.
Fortunately, the audience at the Aladdin Theatre didn’t know it was Monday night – they seemed to be under the impression that it was still Saturday because they were cheering and shouting me on from the start.

Several people called out for tracks from Spy Vs Spy so I repaid their enthusiasm by playing the whole album as the final encore. Again. : )

It was a great way to prepare for LA.

Los Angeles is always a tough stop as it is the most music biz town in the world. My feet never seem to touch the ground there as I dash between tv and radio spots. Add to that the fact that, unlike everywhere else we’ve been on this tour, LA has no discernable centre, no place where you can just walk around and lose yourself in the locale. I feel sure that such places exist in LA but I’ve never found them.

They say the closer you get to the Hollywood sign, the madder things become and we were right under it at the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Last time I stayed there, in 2002, it was a slightly frayed 1920 deco palace where rock bands took cheap rooms by the pool. Now it has been mercilessly ‘boutiqued’. As we were checking in, Paris Hilton arrived for a photo shoot.

Welcome to Lala-land.