KT Tunstall Diary

22nd May, 2006

May 22nd, London

The dot of our travelling show crawling across the huge continent of America; intensity of sunshine as we’ve never known, starter portions as big as your head, condiments spicy enough to be registered as weapons, a man who didn’t move his teeth when he talked, Kenny threatening to throw his telephone in the hotel swimming pool due to it’s incessant beeping, only to be told there wasn’t a swimming pool (he said he’d use the bath), Arnie hiring a convertable in LA and then being scared by predatory women trying to get in it, a racoon the size of a dog, a dog the size of a rat, it’s a big place.

This band of mine. It amazes me how we’re still changing, but then i think of bands that have played together for years and the metamorphoses that occurs. Each time we do a run of gigs it seems we go up a rung on some ladder. Ye canny buy time. Another thing is finding the walls; sometimes we couldn’t, and it felt as if we had to play harder. Now it feels like we’re knocking through them without having to think about it.

Talking of walls, hilarity in Dallas; an artist spray-paints an image of whoever is playing, and managed to write ‘KT Tunstell’ in enormous letters, whilst apparently using Picasso as a reference. My left eye was about 7 inches lower than my right, and i had an enormous, roman nose. Interesting.

We played under the Bay Bridge in San Fransisco (for a great radio station called KFOG who have basically made SF our second home) to about 200k people, and the fireworks were the best any of us had ever seen. There were CUBES! The outline of cubes as fireworks. And smiley faces, and hearts. We saw old hippies playing bongos and rattling tins in Golden Gate Park, and went trawling through second hand shops in Haight & Ashbury. I found One of the Best Gold Tops the World Has Ever Seen. And the World only charged me about six quid for it.

Thankfully, my strange collagen-injection-esque lip allergy has given up the ghost, so no more allegations of ‘days off’ in a plastic surgeons chair in LA. I just wrote a song about my ritual of walking up to the Hollywood Sign to look over the valley where i lived for a year in kiddy, orange-tree bliss. It’s a beautiful walk; up and up and up the winding dusty roads, little lizards staying still to hide, and looking very obviously like motionless lizards. This time, i discovered you can walk through a horse ranch, and it was so tranquil & simple. I thought, if it all goes tits up, i’ll work here, in the Hollywood Hills, brushing down brown horses in the evening sun.

Getting waaaay over excited about the next album. The songs are amassing, the idea is solidifying, and the artist i’ll be working with for the cover will be offering some tasters at the june gigs! Mwah ha ha! You’ll just have to wait and see…

So, the Ivor Novellos on Thursday. It’s a bit like the Mercury’s this one; bloody great to get a mention. I’m up against the Arctic Monkeys & Coldplay, so not really expecting nowt, but always up for a bit of lunch and a knees up. Then, straight after what i hope will be a stunning dessert, I’m flying to Romania to make a video for the Americans with a travelling circus! I may not come back…their going to teach me how to be a trapeze artist…Who needs Jimmy bloody Saville anyway.

Over n oot xx

Posted by KT on the 22nd May, 2006

KT Tunstall Diary

22nd May, 2006

May 22nd, London

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