There was a long gap between the Station to Station event in St. Paul, Minnesota and the Happening planned for Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the rumors started circulating around the train. No one I talked to knew anything concrete, but word was that Doug Aitken was putting together a surprise, pop-up event during our train stop in Kansas City, Missouri. Even Eleanor Friedberger, one of the few musicians traveling with us during the stretch south from the Twin Cities, wouldn’t tell me what Doug was planning. And she was rumored to be playing at the pop-up. It was going to be a surprise for everybody—even me.
On our way to Kansas City, Eleanor spent most of her time in the recording car, playing around with a guitar and a row of delay pedals. Doug walked through the car at one point, heard what she was playing, and walked over to Justin Stanley, the recording car engineer.
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“Are you recording Eleanor right now?” Doug asked. Justin said he was.
“Can I use it to score a video clip we’re working on? The music has a lot of motion to it. It would go well with the train footage.”
That’s another example of the organic collaborations springing up around the train. Nothing is forced. These things just happen naturally. Eleanor Friedberger picked up a guitar, Doug Aitken passed by and heard her, and all of a sudden they’re working together on a video. A little later, Tim Koh, from Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, grabbed a bass and started jamming with Eleanor. Justin hit record, and another collaboration came together. When Eleanor took the stage at the surprise event in Kansas City, Tim was up there, playing next to her.
The event took place on September 15th. It was smaller and more intimate than the scheduled Happenings I have been covering. It consisted of a small stage right in front of our train down by the tracks in the Kansas City Union Station. There were no yurts or marching bands or technicolor smoke bombs this time. Just a few local bands from Kansas City that Doug liked, playing to a crowd in the parking lot of an Amtrak station. The LED lights that line the train blinked in the background.
The first two bands, Bloodbirds and the Conquerors, were local Kansas City bands. Once they finished their sets, Eleanor Friedberger closed out the night. One audience member was so inspired by the Station to Station pop-up that he decided to bring his own performance to the party. He spent most of the evening in front of a spotlight, casting giant shadows across the concrete wall of an Amtrak parking garage. After the show, The Conquerors headed into the train with the rest of us, working late into the night on a spur-of-the-moment recording session with Justin.
Things like this are the essence of Station to Station. Doug Aitken’s vision of Station to Station didn’t include Eleanor Friedberger collaborating with Ariel Pink’s bassist. It didn’t involve a Kansas City band staying up all night to record with an engineer who’s worked with Beck and Prince and Eric Clapton. Station to Station is, on the surface, a train trip across the country. But the spirit of Station to Station is about the connections people make, and everything that comes of these connections later on. What this whole thing Is will continue to grow organically way after the train hits Oakland. That’s the real art that Doug and Levi’s® are making.
To check out the rest of the collaborations and contributors, go to http://levi.com/makeourmark
