2005-07-03

The Friday, July 1 show worked out pretty well. It was the first show of the tour, and the promoter did a good job of getting people there. Posters with my name on them were on every wall in town, it seemed. (Of course, that would only be useful if people in the town actually knew who I was AND wanted to go see me.)

Norrk�ping is a beautiful post�industrial city. You'd never think there was such a thing, but there is. Factories have been converted into art galleries and symphony halls along the long�since�polluted river.

There's a new law in Sweden that forbids smoking inside any place where people are employed. So, even though maybe 100 people had paid to get into the gig, they were all sitting outside drinking beers and smoking. The music area was completely empty.

I was a little concerned that maybe people wouldn't come in when I started. But, they did. I played and sang better than ever before. Christian Mellstr�m backed me up on acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies�and he made everything sound so much better than when I play alone. People started to lose interest in my set about halfway through�the gravity of smoking and drinking at the same time drew about half the audience back outside.

But, it was OK. Nobody bought any CDs, though. I hope this show is not indicative of how my CD sales will be the rest of the summer.

A piece of stencil graffiti on the wall near my favorite record store in town�Vaxkupan.

Luckily the coolest record store in town�Vaxkupan�bought five copies. And, unlike American stores, they bought them straight away and paid me in cash on the spot. And, thanks to the fact that the American dollar isn't worth anything anymore, they paid me almost double American wholesale for them.


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