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Guitar hero Leo Kottke reflects on 20 years of
post-turkey Ordway shows
Jon Bream, Star Tribune
Leo Kottke is as much a Twin Cities holiday
tradition as Holidazzle and the Dayton's, oops
Marshall Field's, eighth-floor auditorium show.
Every Sunday after Thanksgiving since 1984, the
guitar god has graced the stage at St. Paul's
Ordway Center. Kottke, 59, says he can't remember
any favorite Ordway shows or even any highlights.
He says he's too lost in a zone during the concerts
to remember them.
"I
live so much without a sense of time that it's hard
to recall the actual shape of something I've done
20 years in a row," he said last week from the road
in Annapolis, Md. "It's sort of embarrassing. If I
ever get hit on the head and a medical technician
gives me that acuity test, I'll flunk it."
This has been a busy year
for Guitar Player magazine's long-time Hall of
Famer. The Ordway will be the 73rd of his 75
concerts scheduled this year. In June, he released
his 22nd studio album, "Try and Stop Me," an
all-instrumental collection except for a vocal
track featuring Los Lobos. Next month, he plans to
start work on his second duet album with bassist
Mike Gordon of Phish, rehearsing in Costa Rica and
recording in the Bahamas with Minneapolis-bred
producer David Z.
Although
Kottke's holiday hometown concerts have become a
ritual, they aren't routine to him. The Minneapolis
resident, who on tour typically drives alone from
gig to gig with his two guitars, discussed his
annual night at the Ordway.
The morning of
Sometimes I stay in town
[in a hotel]. This time I'll probably stay
at home. There is no routine. I lost my body clock
years and years ago. I never really know anymore
what day it is, what time it is. Home is a lot like
any other hotel in that sense. I wake up when I
wake up. The only time I set an alarm is when I'm
catching one of those planes designed for people
who get out of work at 5 p.m.
Stage wardrobe
Every time I'm in Australia,
they've sent a promoter out there as a tour
manager. After 25 years working together, he said,
"You're the only act I've ever worked with who goes
onstage with the same clothes you've worn all day
long." I've always done that. I feel silly if I put
on sort of a performance outfit. The attention I
pay to whatever I'm going to wear is no more than
any other day whether I'm working or not -- except
I do think where the sleeves are and how much
trouble they'll be.
And
I don't bring extra clothes. I'm wearing a shirt
tonight that got fan juice on it last night. He
handed me a pen to sign something with it, and I
shook it and ink decided it would merge with the
shirt.
Selecting
guitars
I take guitars I know I can
afford to lose. They're good guitars, but I know
they can be replaced.
Getting there
I drive myself. They have a
[parking] place for me by the loading dock.
Preshow meal
I remember asking Linda Ronstadt
when we were eating before a show, 'Doesn't this
interfere with singing?' She said, 'Yep.'
I do
try to not eat too close to the show. As my dad
always said, "I feel better when I'm
hungry."
The Ordway
The Ordway feels much better
than Carnegie Hall for me. In Carnegie Hall, you do
tend to feel a little disemboweled. There's
something about that room that sucks everything off
the stage. The Ordway has figured out their sound
system. You can tune the feel by moving the
[stage] walls.
Soundcheck
The unusual part of this
[Ordway] job is that the soundcheck has to
happen at 2 in the afternoon. We've tried to change
it [to a later time], but we haven't had
any luck. It's a union house, and I think it has
something to do with their [crew] break
times.
For
several years now, the engineer I've made the last
four records with comes out from Los Angeles to mix
the show. Frequently, we go through some kind of
new equipment. We're trying a new vocal mike this
year, possibly a new guitar pickup. The soundcheck
can take anywhere from half an hour to two hours,
depending on what we do -- little things that can
make a big difference.
Waiting...
I learned something from Leon
Redbone. He'd sit in the dressing room for as much
as two hours in total darkness. I first noticed it
when someone was looking for him and stuck their
head in his dressing room and decided to go look
elsewhere, and then this voice said from the bottom
of the darkness: "Hello." It scared the person to
death.
I've
tried that, and it's a great place to be before you
play -- sorta nowhere.
Sometimes
I just sit in the dressing room until showtime. The
Ordway has one of the best dressing rooms in the
United States, maybe the best. It's very humane. It
doesn't smell bad. There aren't things in the
corner that you'd have to hire a professional to
remove. It's quiet. You can deal with the lights.
At
the Vogue in Indianapolis, the dressing room is
sort of like a bomb shelter. It's windowless. It
was painted white maybe 80 years ago and covered
with graffiti since then. There is one bare bulb
hanging from the ceiling. If you're a band and with
some other people, it's not so hard to focus on
something else. But me, I sit in there and read the
walls. By the time I'm done, I wish I'd been
reading cereal boxes.
At
the Ordway, [the engineer] and I might sit
around and discuss some sort of microphonic trivia.
Or I'll frequently sit like a mushroom growing in
the dark. If not that, I wander. There's an antique
store near the Ordway. I went in there for a couple
of years to look at a gnome sitting on a coconut.
Why the hell I didn't buy it, I have no idea. That
was a big event for me. I'm not the
life-of-the-party animal.
Preparing a set
list
I never really do that. I do
think about what song I want to open with, and that
will inevitably set up a train. This year I want to
make sure I cover some of the songs I put on the
last record. If I think much beyond the first tune,
that can have a really deadening effect. I don't
know what I'm going to say, and sometimes you pay a
price for that. But that's better than knowing what
you're going to say. Then all of a sudden you're an
actor. And I'm not a good actor.
I
have [performer] friends who take
meticulous notes each night so they won't repeat
anything the next year, which is too much work for
me. That sounds so organized, it can't be much fun.
Intermission
I just sit and do nothing. I
might tune a little. Mainly nothing. The thing
about a break is you try to hold onto that feeling
you left with, so you can go back to it when you're
back on.
I
might have some water. But even water can be the
wrong way to go sometimes. If you've been doing
much singing, once your throat is going you kind of
don't want anything to do with it. Actually it's
not the throat; it's further down. It's doing its
job so don't mess with it.
I
usually don't go to the bathroom. You leave
yourself. You disappear. You can play when you're
really sick. You can do it in any circumstance. I
broke my foot in Oregon about six years ago, and I
was standing up then. I got into it. I played for
way too long, probably close to two hours, outdoors
in the heat. I wasn't aware of it. But when I
finished the last tune and turned to walk off, I
couldn't walk, it hurt so much. That's funny; I
like that part of it.
Choosing that second-half
opening song
You know that when you walk off
for break. It's pretty apparent to you. You know
from the feel of things what should come
next.
Knowing when to end the
Ordway set
I'm very good at that. It's
uncanny how I can nail that time thing. I don't
have a watch or a clock. There is a technique
involved, but it's not something you want to
divulge because it would be blowing your cover.
Encores
I prefer the "one and done." I
don't really know what I'll do for an encore. It
depends what direction the set was in.
After the show
You're still gone. It takes
awhile for you to come back. It can take as long as
the next day. You usually need an hour or two till
you can function again. Until then, I'm really
stupid. I can't string two words together very
well. And you have that grin you can't get rid of.
I just sit out that period.
Frequently
there are friends and family at the Ordway show and
I'll see them after a while, both in the dressing
room and backstage there. I'm never much good at it
because it's kind of a peculiar position to be in.
You want to talk to everybody, and you can't talk
to everybody. I've never figured it out.
Family
They still show up. I really did
think for my [two adult] kids, I'd be
Engelbert Humperdinck by now. It hasn't worked out
that way. That's really fortunate.
Driving home
You're vibrating. You're still
in tune with that frequency that happens in the
[Ordway], and it carries you along. And I'm
really aware that that frequency is shared by
everybody.
Because
you are a little bit out of it, I do make an effort
to pay closer attention [to driving]. The
rhythm you're in is the night that just happened,
and you're not in the driving rhythm. And that's
where you get in trouble. I rarely drive after the
gig [on tour], only after the
Ordway.
Leo Kottke
When: 7:30 p.m. Sun.
Where: Ordway Center, 5th & Washington Sts.,
St. Paul.
Tickets: $26-$33. 651-224-4222.
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