'Clone' Alone November 28, 2002 - Minnesota Star Tribune by Jon Bream Leo Kottke is solo again after CD, tour with Phish bassist There was no pain on his face or in his voice. But Leo Kottke obviously was experiencing withdrawal. The day before, the Minnesota guitarist had finished the first non-solo tour in his 35-year career, and his 12 performances with bassist Mike Gordon of Phish had been exhilarating beyond expectations. Now Kottke had one day to get ready to return to solo mode with concerts in Fargo and Bismarck, N.D. And he was feeling . . . "Like I lost a leg," he said over lunch last week in downtown Minneapolis. Then he reconsidered. "It's more like exile. It was one of those things that's so self-contained and self-generating and completely absorbing -- and then it's gone." He and Gordon made a CD, "Clone," that preceded the tour. Kottke said the concerts were "better than we expected, and it was more fun than either of us expected." Still, he will be solo for his annual post-Thanksgiving concert Sunday at Ordway Center in St. Paul. He was going to invite Gordon to join him, but the bassist is "buried under a ton of Phish" because that band, which had been on hiatus for nearly three years, has a new CD coming out Dec. 10. Kottke was still aglow about his duet shows. "There were times when I was hearing stuff and playing stuff and getting to a place that I've never experienced before," he said. "And I've gotten to play with some wonderful musicians. There just seems to be a sympathy between us. It was a ball." Kottke didn't have a problem performing in front of Phish phans who worship Gordon and his three bandmates. (The further west the "Clone" duo traveled, the more Kottke fans showed up.) He didn't have a problem using amplifiers or stage monitors -- which he never uses solo. He didn't have a problem singing harmony or enunciating more clearly while he sang. He didn't have a problem starting songs over after the duo had messed up (which happened three or four times on the tour). What the guitarist had trouble with was speaking to the audience. Usually, he's talkative and humorous, in his endearingly oblique way. But Gordon "doesn't speak much at all," his partner said, "and I'd feel like a total road hog if I said four or five words." Halfway through the tour, they figured it out: Kottke asked Gordon to introduce the songs on which he sings lead, and then Kottke loosened up, too. The guitarist and the bassist, who is 20 years his junior, did disagree on one thing. "I'm a better driver than he is," said Kottke, the father of two adult children. "That I can say without hesitation. He would disagree with that, of course." Word connection At 57, Kottke found it "mind-boggling" that he could do something so radically different after all these years. "I know things are supposed to be possible in that manner, but I suppose I didn't really believe it," he said. "You don't plan it or work it out. You just follow your appetite and wait. It takes a lot of patience and no judgment." He thought the risk was greater for Gordon, 37, who had approached Kottke at one of his concerts in 1999. A longtime fan, Gordon made a recording that added bass to an early Kottke track, "The Driving of the Year Nail." Correspondence ensued, and Kottke's interest perked up when he noticed that Gordon had used an obscure word -- eleemosynary, which means charitable -- in a Phish newsletter he had sent to Kottke. So they decided to get together musically. However, their partnership almost was stillborn. "He thought we were supposed to be in New York, and I thought that we were supposed to be in Burlington (Vt.)," said Kottke, adding that this kind of miscommunication and travel faux pas might stop some potential collaborators. Weeks later, they did hook up in Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio's Vermont barn. The jamming proved unproductive for several hours until they finally connected on one two-bar fragment that later evolved into a tune called "June." Kottke and Gordon agreed to try to make an album without any prepared material, at their own expense. Partway through the recording in Los Angeles, they pitched the project to their respective labels. RCA, with which Kottke is affiliated, bought the project. "Clone" is selling better than Kottke's albums, he reports. But he's unsure what kind of impact the collaboration will have on his career, other than drawing a few Phish faithful to his shows. Kottke never has seen Phish in concert, but has "experienced" some CDs and concert videos. The band is about "unalloyed glee," he says. He plans to attend Phish's comeback concert on New Year's Eve in New York City's Madison Square Garden, his first time at an arena concert in more than two decades. Meanwhile, Kottke and Gordon have three more performances together next month, all for radio programs -- "A Prairie Home Companion" Dec. 7 from New York, "World Cafe" in New York and "Mountain Stage" in West Virginia. The guitarist and bassist already have begun working on material for a second recording project. They have no plans to record, but they do have the desire. Said Kottke: "Our appetite was bigger when we were finishing [the CD] than when we started. And we want to do some more touring. That's all we know. We're adamant at leaving it at that, and we'll see what happens." Copyright © 2002 Star Tribune