In this podcast a live interview with ED KUEPPER recorded after his soundcheck at the Olympia at Paris June 9th for the last show of his European tour 2008 with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

 
Ed Kuepper just before the show; Ed at the show during Eternally yours

The interview is simultaneously translated in French by my friend Eric Tessier who hosts the rock show « Place aux fous musique » on the French Anarchist radio « Radio Libertaire » : a premiere on Meltingpod !! Eric couldn’t air the interview before the end of July, that’s why I waited.
I illustrated the interview with some excerpts of my live recordings at the soundcheck, specially when from the very first minutes both Bad Seeds Warren Ellis at the violin and Martyn Casey at the bass joined Ed Kuepper and Jeffrey Wegener to improvise together fot the first time on « Eternally yours » !!! A very nice surprise !

 
Jeffrey, Ed, Warren and Martyn at the soundcheck working on Eternally yours; Ed and Eric after the interview in the dressing room.

But the acoustic was very hard at the Olympia ( a new venue in fact, the old one has been destroyed a few years ago!!) and the sound engineer is working during my recording : not easy in that context to capture a correct sound but this recording was the unique memory of that interesting work; so I chose to keep some short moments like a very special noisy version from « Nights in Venice » at the end !! L’Olympia : a new punk venue ?

 
Ed’s sound engineer at the desk; The unique place to hear a sound which was not too much saturated in that prestigious venue !!

Ed announced in the interview his own label « Prince Melon records »‘ re-launching and his first live album’s release under this label. You could order on line his new production on the Prince Melon records page on myspace : Sir Alfonso will offer you for the visit a free downloading of a live bootleg recorded in November 2007 at Brisbane with the Kowalski Collective : don’t miss it and try to support his initiative if you believe in the independant music !!
You can as well support Meltingpod by clicking on my kangaroo logo on the right column of this blog and become an Happy Donator : even if it’s symbolic, it’s important to be present !

Prince Melon and Sir Alfonso’s three first bootlegs

Meltingpod Connections
Update August 11th : hey watch what I found on youtube today !!!! Ed Kuepper and Jeffrey Wegener joining Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on stage to play the encore…at the Olympia !!!! what a crazy end !!

I start this podcast with ED KUEPPER opening his show at l’Olympia June 9th at Paris with one my favorite song « the way I made you feel »!!

 
Ed Kuepper and Jeffrey Wegener during their show at l’Olympia

 
Martyn P.Casey from the Bad Seeds joining Ed and Jeffrey on stage

That concert closed his 3 weeks long european tour with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with some great moments : Martyn P. Casey and Warren Ellis (the violonist and bass guitarist from the Bad Seeds) joined Ed and Jeffrey on stage for an unforgettable version from Eternally yours (videos clips soon : stay connected !!).; at the end of Nick Cave’ s show Ed and Jeffrey joined the Bad Seeds…Paris was lucky and me too !!

 
For the last song a big jam : Ed Kuepper, Warren Ellis (violin) and Nick Cave (back on the piano); the three drummers together : Thomas Wydler, Jeffrey Wegener and Jim Sclavunos !!

We continued the interview (part 3) in a very quiet, peaceful and intimate garden with flowers we found out walking in the Tiergarten at Berlin without a precise idea of the North…in fact a place for confidences and Ed spoke about his temporary blockage to write any song or play live after producing 12 (or 15 ?) albums between 1990 and 1997 , how he started again and his new approach of the music now !!

In that podcast I played « Horse under water » recorded during the show at the Tempodrom, « Rainy night » and Everything I got belongs to you » recorded during the soundcheck at l’Olympia…Ed tested all the time new versions with Jeffrey and it’s really an endless pleasure…:)

 
Some relaxing moments with Jeffrey in the dressing room at l’Olympia, with the Bad Seeds in the street at Paris (Matt Crosby the sound engineer and Conway Savage the pianist) !!

There will be a part 4 proposing a new interview recorded with Ed at l’Olympia and my friend Eric Tessier who hosts the bi-weekly rock show « Place aux fous musique » from Radio Libertaire, a national French radio spread by the Anarchist Federation (simultaneously translated in French); the podcast will be published after he will air the show July 25th…here I just played an extract with some great news about Ed’s projects for the second part of 2008 !! We couldn’t wait to share that with you !!

Meltingpod Connections
Update June 25th : interesting interviews with Ed (in 2002 to 2005) on that site at « Tarentula! » by Christopher Hollow.

At least I met ED KUEPPER in person at Berlin and he offered me the possibility to record his both soundchecks and live shows May 21th and 22th…alone with him, his drummer Jeffrey Wegener and the sound engineer in the Tempodrom the biggest venue at Berlin and a few hours later packed with 3500 people : I really loved the intimacy of the soundchecks but the shows were very exciting too and good !!!

 
Alone in the Tempodrom at Berlin with Ed Kuepper and Jeffrey Wegener at the soundcheck

Ed and Jeffrey playing live in front of 3500 people
 
The crowd at the break in the Tempodrom; Jeffrey at the break in the dressing room ! (click to enlarge the pics)

The second day in the afternoon I recorded one hour interview with Ed Kuepper in the Tiergarten a wonderful park in the middle of Berlin : my idea was to approach his musical evolution during 35 years.
In this podcast part one we started at Brême-Germany where Ed was born, then his childhood in Australia and his beginning with the « second band » : « Kid Galahad and the Eternals aka the Saints »…be patient : a small ridiculous little wind wasted the five first minutes of the recording but fortunately I detected it. I illustrate the interview with some of my live recordings at the soundcheck with : « When I first came to this land, Rainy night, Honey steel’s gold, The way I made you feel » + an unexpected cover from Skip James « Cypress Grove Blues » by Ed and Jeffrey + a cover I chose from the Troggs « I want you » by the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs featuring Wayne Kramer to illustrate Ed’s talk about this first song they played with Chris and Ivor at their high school party…+ a short interview with Jeffrey at the end recorded after the second show : he even sang me a song…:)

Ed Kuepper’s European Tour’s last dates with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds :
May 30 2008 8:00P Villa Solaria Florence
May 31 2008 8:00P Vila Fidelia Perugia
Jun 1 2008 8:00P Tendastrisce Rome
Jun 3 2008 8:00P IN Music Festival Zagreb
Jun 4 2008 8:00P Arena Belgrade
Jun 6 2008 8:00P Moni Lazariston Salonika
Jun 7 2008 8:00P Lycabetus Theatre Athens
Jun 9 2008 8:00P Olympia Paris