Amerikaland #4

The long drive back to the coast is slower because of gigs.

2am, Deming, New Mexico, a dying town, although they have the largest statue of a roadrunner in the United States. Or was that Fort Stockton? We ask the Super 8 receptionist where’s good to eat. She laughs. “There’s only one place open, where I had dinner last night… Denny’s.”

In the diner, two comically rotund local cops eat massive late dinners, like Simpsons characters. Denny’s has a rock band sponsored night-time menu with such gems as – deep breath – Plain White Ts Vanilla Shake. Cock-ends, where the fuck do you put the apostrophe in that mess? Deming used to be on the border with Mexico, the second place where the great railroads met in 1881. A thriving bordertown hub til someone bought a huge tract of land just south, moved the border 20 miles and rendered Deming essentially pointless. Cue the long, slow decay.

Throughout the trip, I can’t get my head around these internal USA police ‘border’ crossing points that aren’t actually on a border. Everyone’s blasé about it but it’s surely a key myth-fucker about that word ‘freedom’, when your movement even within your country is restricted. Really, they’re after illegals from Mexico and we always get waved on uninspected because we’re white men driving a nice hybrid. I can’t imagine what it must be like driving around the south-west right now if you’re Hispanic, in a dusty pick-up – you probably get stopped and searched every time you want to go anywhere west of El Paso or north of San Diego.

In Phoenix they have a scorpion problem. Shake out your boots in the morning, we’re told in all seriousness. Fuck that, we’re driving to the next town tonight. God, how I miss the Isle Of Man.

I play an in-store at little indie shop Stinkweeds, on the patio out back. It’s beautiful, fewer than 20 people but they’re all really nice and buy CDs and the two women who run the shop are great. Later I’m down one end of a busy, long, goth sports bar up the road – where they turn the TV sound down but not off. Nasty start and (for the first time ever in the USA) they DO NOT like my politics, but I win in the end by belting out ‘Beer’ and ‘Eminem’. Stomp off to decent cheers, ashamed for playing to the dumbasses. Turns out the headliner is a Christian metaller-gone-country.

In Tucson, Sarge’s publisher friend Dan takes us for very good Mexican brunch, totally different to Cali- or Tex-Mex (but they STILL won’t put molé on my veggie quesedillas! Bastardos!). The waitress hugs us all goodbye in an Ama-like spiritual way. Then out to show us some real desert. My parents would adore this: extraordinary flora&fauna as well as the intense cowboy vibe. Keeping an eye out for rattlers, for real.

Tucson’s Dry River co-op has a young, quietly anarchic crowd and a really fun, appropriate bill. One guy does melancholy beats’n'acoustic emo pop, Get Cape-ish, but when his laptop crashes and he reboots, he has a big pic of Katy Perry on the desktop, for which he takes severe ribbing. On the chalkboard listing the month’s events, I’m between community self-defence and the mens’ group.

Cassie, lovely singer/pianist from Seashell Radio (lush, Tucson-based, though I gigged with them in SF) turns up offering accommodation, which is super-generous but Sarge already scored a decent hotel on the cheap. We almost got kicked out though, after he smoked a joint out by the pool this morning and the maintenance crew smelled it . He always saves himself/us from these crazy scrapes with friendly good cheer. 

Out of Tucson we visit the boneyard: an aeroplane graveyard on immense scale. Can’t describe it but hundreds, maybe thousands of dead planes being gradually decommissioned or just rotting. And that evening we actually make it back to L.A. ahead of schedule, there by 7pm-ish, which gives us a whole evening to recover.

Not telling you about L.A. – same things I always do. Back at Muddy Waters in Santa Barbara, remember Bill is a great guy to talk with, a proper music fan. And there’s sunset on an empty Santa Barbara beach.

Quality time with Sarge and Jane. Interesting debate about fiscal libertarianism, as separate from conservatism, inspired by S&J’s reaction to me calling FT a right-wing bastard. Needs more time though. I interview Radio 1’s punk specialist Mike Davies for my doc about Frank. He ain’t complainin’ but they’ve reduced his Maida Vale session time from 1 slot a week to 1 slot a month, which seems totally fucking mental to me, giving the quality of upcoming stuff he has access to. Sunburn.

Also one sweet night out getting gently trashed with Countessian and somehow make it back from Echo Park to Eagle Rock via Downtown on the early morning public transport, while barely able to walk or speak. 

Sarge and me try the best coffee I’ve had in the USA at Funnel Mill, where a heroic barista, using what looks like meth-lab gear – all bunsen burners and glass funnels – sniffs and even throws out one of our coffees, starting from scratch because he didn’t like it. 

The plane ride home should be spent asleep but involves a 10 hour conversation with Bojana, the 17-year-old highschool volleyball ace sat next to me. She’s on her way to Belgrade to visit Serbian family but no hint of an accent, on a sports scholarship to UCLA. She’s very bright and we talk religion and morals. She’s also very tall, I doubt we’d've been able to have a comfortable conversation, had we met standing up! I’m exaggerating but not much.

And, well, so it goes. Arriving finally in Brighton that afternoon, it’s warmer and sunnier than when I left L.A. though that won’t last.

Amerikaland #3: South By Southwest

“Stephen, you’re the Hunter S Thompson of legal highs”
– @vgan

Vivian Girls are the first band we see. They aren’t great this time round (doing a ton of gigs here) but they’re zippy, will be better later in the weekend and the bassist’s auburn winnie-fringe stretches one’s patience into the fourth song. Just what all-girl bands appreciate: being judged on their looks.

Queue for ages to score a wristband, then queue again round the corner to access a party run by a famous clothes store. A recurring motif on the first day, til we’ve aquired enough wristbands to get everywhere fun. Party involves a free bar serving Southern Comfort with obscure fizzy-pop mixers, so despite the early hour and lack of food I’m well disposed towards Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head from Seattle, a keys and drums quintet doing bouncy disco-pop where Ting Tings meet Shy Child or even Scissor Sisters. Lily Allen’s US tour support. Sarge dances loon enough to earn a shout-out. It’s fascinating how the US west coast picks up these ‘edgy’ Brit pop fads (like nu rave or 60s chic) and softens them for their own, more controlled and ‘talent’-driven musicians.

We can’t sneak into the rammed 4AD bash, though Annette from 4AD is our housemate. She’s at a label dinner in their hotel when we go say hi. We stand around chatting at a table containing Mr Coxon and various Future Of The Left members, none of whom I notice until Sarge tells me off afterwards for not saying hello. I’m still a shit networker after all these years.

Annette is super lovely (ah Christ I’ve picked up the American use of ’super’) but she’s running around like crazy all weekend and we’ll hardly see her. I hope she’s comfy, I suspect Frank’s bunch of local guests on the final night will keep her awake. Annette also officially has the best haircut of the whole weekend, her fringe at a slight angle is intense.  

I’m more excited about Decemberists playing Hazards Of Love than anything. In the end, they’re brave and the music is great, an elaborate, beautifully realised folk-prog-metal concept piece about a love triangle (I think). The weakness is hesitancy or even nervousness in performance. Broadcast live on NPR too, to add pressure, yet still terrific. Guest singers Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond) and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) playing the protagonists almost steal the show and ‘I Was Meant For The Stage’ as second encore is fucking perfect.

Frank Turner with Steve Soto’s band backing him sets me thinking as well: last night Frank showed up at the condo at 2am after a nightmare journey and was then out before 9am to go rehearse with this bunch of much older, American bar band musicians he’d never met. At the British Music Embassy (wtf!?) it’s fun but not brilliant, they have the chops but not (yet) the love, though the tour should fix that: to play half a set after a few hours rehearsing was damn good. I miss Nigel though. Positives: St Francis is on fantastic vocal form, I suspect he’s stepped his singing up a level through the Gaslight tour. New song ‘Try This At Home’ gets the best audience reaction – always a good sign when your new material competes with your best-known stuff.

Catch up with Oliver at the Six Shooter Hootenanny, where the heroically good-looking Luke Doucet (pronounced, I’m told, Doo-set, rather than my choice Douche) is storming this little alt-country bar. I already loved some of his darkly self-abusive country-rock songs (especially heroin one sung by Oliver at his 60th birthday a few months ago) but I wasn’t prepared for this ferocious, quiffy guitar work, the guy is brilliant.

Hold Steady play a bunch of times, so we catch a celebratory singalong at an afternoon outside party. Kicks total arse, damn right. I steal a poster off the wall which is on thick card and beautifully printed, frameworthy. If FT hadn’t already got a Hold Steady tattoo I’d be considering it as part of my current “5 tats before I’m 40″ obsession.

The @Vgan Cvar shows up and instantly fixes our condo’s wifi. He’s out with us sometimes but spends a chunk of time working. Afterwards we’ll almost convince him to join our roadtrip back to the coast, instead of flying home. He makes the right decision though, because he pulls as soon as we leave on Sunday. Maybe we’d jinxed him up til then.

Also catch up with D and N from SF who have special cookies, herbal E and big smiles. Yup, lovely to see them! We won’t cross paths often over the weekend because they’ve got a whole big groovy agenda of their own – but it’s nice when we do see them. Same deal with Countessian really, she’s out and about snapping bands and living too hard, as per. Sally too – but none of those LA girls’ scenester barriers come down: face-time is rationed according to whether our pool is heated and sadly it isn’t.

By day two-and-a-half we still haven’t hit a market for breakfast supplies, we’re still eating almost nothing of value, consuming far too many naughties, beginning to get a little crazed. I think SXSW is the weekend I ate least for a long, long time.

To a Canadian showcase for Sarge’s friend Trevor’s band Wet Secrets who dress as a marching band, with two women at the front playing trombone and trumpet. It’s great fun and they have songs too. Cleverly they walk around in costume all day inviting people to the show.

They’ll also be at the Six Shooter hootenanny where we’ll catch Luke Doucet… oh, so that happened later? Sorry, linear time is a victim to the mix, the weekend slides towards Jeff Noon territory and I can’t remember when I saw what but it doesn’t matter. Everyone is tweeting like crazy, til you find yourself tugged this way and that by different enticing tweet opportunities.

A moment of peace and sanity: Oliver hosts a dinner for us. Cast includes his friend Paul who hated Decemberists, John Parish and his band, minus Polly, plus me. We’re in a lovely Mexican place opposite Stubbs, where Paul talks us past the maitre d and makes a friend for life in the process. I’ve not met EDF before, sitting next to me. He’s bass and keys in John’s band and amazing company, really cool but I’m a bit overawed.

Thankyou Jay Jay Pistolet for solving my plectrum-loss problem on Saturday evening. I only caught a couple of songs of one of his sets but his singing was superb. And Beans On Toast has cut his hair! Looks quite attractive.

At some point during the morning I actually make it up and out to see Little Steven Van Zandt speak at the convention. He’s a charming, funny speaker but I disagree so vehemently with 95% of what he says, I’m working on a rebuttal blog entry. Be warned, it is coming.

…donate so we can buy the next keg…

The finest small band I’ll see is when Sarge drives us out to a suburban party in back of a bike shop where Local Natives are playing. 90% of the audience don’t have wristbands or owt to do with SXSW beyond hitting the edges and getting fucked up. Kids in the backyard pump beer into plastics from kegs and get off with eachother. Local Natives are a superb, duo frontman proggy outfit with unbelievable harmonies (especially given the crummy gear). Frantic keys, violin, electric lead lines. Hints of British Sea Power (especially in the two frontblokes) but more choruses. Fucking superb, basically. 

PJ Harvey & John Parish Utterly staggering. Beyond any expectations (and they were high) the show is all new album and the previous Dancehall… collaboration. Yet the songs and band are so impossibly good, PJ on such unbelievable vocal form, that the audience reaction is ecstatic to every track as if it’s a ‘hits’ set. So calmly they steal your breath. This is in my top 10 shows of all time, and I’m going to see them at least twice more

Stand through most of (post-Andy) Razorlight to make sure we get into the JP&PJ show. I’m prepared to give them a sincere go with an open mind, because Borrell still has a voice I enjoy… but it’s no good, a demoralising half-hour. No energy, which always sprang from the man behind the kit. No personality, ditto, and JB doesn’t give a fuck. They go off after 35 without playing America or a couple of the other biggies. Were they expecting an encore? 

In other circumstances Alessi’s Ark – who I know vaguely from doing songwriting workshops in schools – would be a real highlight, she’s developing into a classy songwriter and is shaking off the Newsom-isms to find her own voice. But it’s mere minutes since PJ&JP (oh, I’ve got my linear timeline back) so I’m too dazed to let her sink in. She makes me smile though.

I chased around all weekend but missed (every time) both Bearsuit and Graham Coxon. Can’t believe I didn’t even see the Bearsuiters in some social way. When I discover they have no more sets to play I really start thinking I’ve been at one SXSW and there’s been 100 others around the corner to have experienced and you’ll never know if yours was the right one.

Me After loving the beautiful woodeny old upstairs hotel bar venue and being treated well since I arrived, my 1am showcase set starts in a mess and struggles for a hellish 20 minutes of bad tuning, tinny sound and distracting street-noise spilling through open balcony doors around me. I’m wishing quite hard that I’d never been born.

I wonder how you recover, once you start to be embarrassed with yourself as a performer.

Thank fuck something clicks and it’s, well, it’s, I guess, not bad. A patient late-night audience which grows throughout, til luckily it’s really busy just as I improve – so at least more people see the better bits. Far too much American bourbon in the small hours with the charming organisers (a thousand thanks Chris and Wendy if you ever get near reading this). 

You know, I’d had a vivid pre-gig fantasy of destroying the room, then piedpipering the crowd out to the foyer to play a last song on the hotel’s delicious baby grand piano. In reality, I smiled, said “thankyou” and snuck tiredly into the backroom for more booze and contemplated getting a job and moving to the Isle Of Man. Like Piglet when he realised the Heffalump was Pooh.

Then we went and partied as hard as we could.

So, an un-fucking-believable few days – sublime and ridiculous. And it’s not done, I’ve got five more shows between here and the Pacific coast on this tour, before flying home at the end of the month…

I’ll post photos on Facebook.

Northern Ireland

Got in last night and caught up on the news – immediately feeling sad about the murders in northern Ireland because we were just there. Onstage in Derry and Belfast, Thursday and Friday, I paired up ‘This Gun’ and ‘Box To Hide In’ halfway through, introducing them with some nervous self-justification, for singing songs about terrorism to people who’ve got far more first-hand experience of it than me.

But that triggered a powerful internal repositioning and rethinking of the lyrics in my brain as I sang them. Always a rare treat because it takes you away from the danger-zone of singing the song over and over again, without real feeling. Songs written about the middle-east are suddenly brought much closer to home.

Actually in Derry I gave up on ‘Box’ – didn’t make it out of the first verse even. Nothing to do with vibe or content, just a technical problem:

The northern Irish crowd is enjoyably odd, in that they talk all the way through your stuff as if they’re not listening, but between songs cheer like madmen as if you’re a hero. I think they have a more balanced relationship with musicians, associating us (especially acoustic acts) with the old fella singing in the corner of the pub that they’re more familiar with than most parts of the UK, so it’s more equal, less inately respectful. A Good Thing but a bit exhausting. It’s only a problem if you’re concussed, haven’t got enough bottom-end in your monitors and therefore can’t hear to pitch yourself over the bar chatter.

I didn’t want to honk at the soundman for more foldback at the same moment as abandoning a song. So I came offstage and did ‘Tin Man’ unmiced on the floor, then went back on, did ‘M1′ and only after that, got the soundman to rebuild the mix, so the sound out front was quieter, and I had more monitors and a brighter mix. The rest of the set was fine but I wish I’d gone back and given ‘Box’ another go, because I felt the lack of an anti-violent counterpoint to ‘This Gun’. Especially this morning, when it felt retrospectively uncomfortably like rabble-rousing.

After the show I even got told off (in a nice way) by a couple of people who’d been chatting by the bar, because once I was on the floor, they couldn’t hear that song. A good night though and one of the cheapest breakfasts ever, in a Wetherspoons-type pub.

Belfast was more pro and we had a half-decent keyboard, thanks to Oppenheimer, so I was able to be Turner’s bitch for a duo show. Izzy did merch and was a star. The soundman at Auntie Annie’s had bodged a broken keyboard-stand, fixing it with gaffer and nails but by the end I was holding it up on one knee, shoving it against a speaker at the other end, using the wrong foot on the pedal and desperately trying to keep going. For encore, the keyboard went high up on top of a monitor speaker. Maybe a rock’n'roll end but we did ‘English Earth’ and it was probably the weakest moment of Frank’s set because I couldn’t hear myself.

I found it reassuring that – despite rapidly impending international superstardom – Frank had the same challenge both nights with the background talking, so it wasn’t personal to me.

I was supposed to drive these Irish shows but missed my flight to Dublin, after some kid twatted me on his bike on Tuesday night and ever since I’ve got scary concussion in the corners of my eyes. Anyway, the back-up plan (much cheaper in the end) was travelling by taxi, so I was forgiven for letting the side down. Main arsehole was I missed Gaslight Anthem’s end-of-tour party, which was probably epic and perhaps even an opening slot.

After saying goodbye to Frank and Izzy the night before, I had an early breakfast and took the smallest, shortest flight I’ve ever endured, full of shame about the carbon.

…and I’ll tell you about the Isle Of Man another time, if you’re fucking lucky.

euro tour diary #3 – gone tits

ST GALLEN (calm before the storm)
I forgot to tell you how boss our dinner was, back in Lucerne, in the Fuckhaus, where I had breaded aubergine and polenta – discovering against expectations that I love polenta. Here in St Gallen it’s also delicious: potato-cake things with a rich sauce and vegetables, plus incongruous unsauced pasta on the side, which I ignore. No more pasta til Italy. Switzerland has provided some of the best posh veggie food I’ve tried. 

The hotel is also nice but the shower is in the corner of the bedroom with not even a curtain, so we take turns to sit outside the room while the other jumps in the shower. Would be fun for lovers but a bit annoying today.

Grabenhalle is ace fun. A slightly older, folkier crowd. During the time it takes for Frank and me play our sets, standing in front of a big circular window (hence tonight’s ‘Porthole Concert’ event name), almost two feet of snow falls, totally burying the town. I’ve got lush footage of the sets with fat flakes falling behind us.

The night unfolds messily. Half the audience sticks around and Frank jams tipsy NoFX covers sat on the edge of the stage. We’re alternating appenzeller with whisky thanks to a(nother) forthright bar manager who won’t see us empty-glassed and at the very end I do three uberdrunk extra songs, including a Swiss-German-ised Hedgehog Song. Then we all pile outside, build a massive snowman called Steve in the carpark and have a vicious snowball fight. Frank falls down and cuts his elbow quite badly. That night he’ll leave a disturbing amount of blood on his bedsheets, leading to an embarrassed check-out.

In the morning, covered in snow, St Gallen is an opulent Catholic town but bits of the old town were ruined when a bank bought it all, tore it down and build a ‘red square’ precinct, painting several streets bright red and commissioning a former socialist artist to sell her soul, building massive red-painted installations. It’s gross.

We’ve had a fantastic morning. Then we drive four hours through driving rain and heavy traffic to Geneva and at some point during the journey our karma goes to shit…

GENEVA


The airport straddles France and Switzerland. We need to drop the car off at Avis on the French side of the border, to avoid a massive international surcharge. It’s only half a mile away from the main Swiss airport but somehow SatNav can’t find it and Avis have no address for it. We drive around a bit getting frustrated, then go to the Swiss branch of Avis to ask for help and they kindly give us a hand-drawn map. It’s getting late so we phone the promoter, who will come to the French side to drive us to the venue.

But the Swiss map proves to be utter shit. We drive around Geneva Airport 11 times (I shit you not) adding an hour and 70km to our journey. Meanwhile our promoter Luc got there just by walking through the airport.

We finally find it. At which point Avis stick us for an extra day because apparently we should’ve dropped the car off by 11am. First I’ve heard of it. Also, we slipped over the mileage limit driving round in circles. After a fight, they relent on the mileage and fuel at least. Here’s the beef: according to French staff, the Swiss map we were given is deliberately inaccurate, because the two Avis branches hate each-other and the Swiss side loses money when punters drop cars off on the French side. Or something like that. Anyway, utter smackable fucktards in my book.

So finally shot of the car, we head across town to the venue, at which point we discover we left Frank’s laptop in the hire car. Aaargh! Luc, who is a prince, drives back to the airport while we soundcheck. Tiki’s is a sexy Hawaiian-themed retro bar run by hardcore punkers. It’s fantastic but we’re super-late (and knackered as shit) so just check and play. Luckily it doesn’t affect either show but afterwards I feel so self-consciously stinky and tired, it’s hard to talk to anyone properly.

And then, the worst conclusion to the day possible. Because we’re up at 5am, Luc has just put us up in a Youthhostel and – fuckfuckfuck – we’re in a shared room with strangers! If I’d known even an hour earlier I would’ve happily paid the difference for a private room. We walk into a space the size of my own bedroom at home, but it’s crammed with bunkbeds full of smelly, drunk, snoring and farting Eurofucks. Utterly dismayed but tiredness defeats disgust and I collapse fully-clothed onto an odourous bottom bunk. 

GENEVA – ZURICH – VIENNA
Four hours later, we’re up, unshowered, legging it through dark frozen streets to catch the 6.30am train from Geneva to Vienna, via Zurich: 3 hours to Zurich, 12 minutes to change trains, 8-9 hours to Vienna. Croissant and coffee. Guardian.

What follows, despite kinked circumstance, is the most jaw-droppingly beautiful journey I’ve ever taken. We sleep at first. Then after leaving Zurich we head high into the Alps and cross above a series of snowbound, forested valleys like nothing I’ve ever seen.

We’re in an old-fashioned private compartment of six seats. We have our laptops linked via Bluetooth, so we can talk shit about the various people who come into ‘our’ compartment during the journey. Eventually we get rumbled by two haughty women from Liechtenstein who were offensively blasé about the scenery and don’t react well to being mocked by two scruffy English musicians.

There’s even a reasonable restaurant car, although we have to take turns to go eat because all our luggage is in the compartment. 

VIENNA


We get to Vienna four minutes late, after eight hours traveling, and other passengers are moaning. I wish them all a long British train ride for healthy perspective.

Flying Pig bar owner Paul picks us up. Paul and me lived together for a year at college in the mid-90s but I haven’t seen him since and we’ve only had contact on Myspace. He’s different from how I remember: a quirky bar owner, complete with full-on Austrian accent, married to a Korean action movie star. The bar and gig and whole night are eccentric. The sound is almost impossibly quiet because the speakers are spread through the Flying Pig and there’s no monitoring. Sounds like a truly unplugged show. It’s also very busy with a heavy hardcore contingent but the crowd is weird and can’t decide whether to talk through us or get into it. We both win them over and I begin to think Vienna might have a happy ending.

…btw at this point I realise I accidentally smuggled a (very small) helping of something naughty through seven countries. Moron! Was forgotten in a coat pocket – must be a really common thing to do and I’m just lucky it wasn’t the kind of stuff that a sniffer dog might notice. I’ll leave it behind in Vienna – there were too many armed cops on the train and at the Swiss border… nasty thoughts…

The most interesting people in Vienna are two Stoke guys and an Australian girl living in Budapest offering open house to anyone who strays by (and through couchsurfing.com), making their living by online gambling. They are scarily young, only just out of teens, yet like something out of a hip movie and their leader is one of the brightest, almost eerily composed guys I’ve ever met. I suggest they watch Grifters because they’d make a stunning scam team and they’re currently locked out of half the gambling sites. We would love to party late with these dudes but we’re just too flaked. Pause to add Budapest to the next EU tour city list. 

We stay in Paul’s flat, while he sleeps in the backroom of his bar. Oddly, his flat has a shower in the kitchen. He says he’ll pick us up at 7am the next morning from the flat, to get his keys back and pay us.

We wake up at 6.30am. A second day operating on 4 hours’ sleep. 

At 7.15am there’s no sign of Paul. We phone him and leave messages. At 7.30 we phone again and pack our gear in a panic. By 7.40am we’re wandering the streets desperately seeking a taxi. Forty minutes and €50 later, we’re at the airport. More phone messages: we still have Paul’s keys and he still has all our money! Come on, where are you man!? Fuck! 

We check in and just make the flight, mainly because it’s been delayed by 30 minutes. It’s a tiny prop plane with 20 other people onboard. Coffee and croissant. Financial Times. Flying low over more Alps and across the Adriatic, south-west into Italy, towards Bologna Airport. And as the Italian booker’s assistant Laura meets us at Bologna, Paul is waking up and leaving messages. But we’ll leave him to our agent now to get our money and I’ll tell you about the last three days in Italy when I’m safely home.  

eurotour diary #2

I’m typing this on a ten-hour train ride through the Alps, from Zurich to Vienna and it’s utterly fucking immense, by far the most beautiful train journey I’ve ever taken – but I’ll get to that later. So for now, rewind five days…

KÖLN
After Eindhoven we drive into Germany to the outskirts of Köln to stay in a Formule 1 motel. Formule 1 is a chain of automatic hotels with no human check-in staff or cleaners. It’s all done automatically (which means, um, self-cleaning showers) and it’s one step down in comfort and cleanliness from a Travelodge, if you know what I mean.

Actually I’m gutted to be so near to Köln without seeing it, it feels like an unfulfilled psychic conneciton.

Getting used to the inside-out driving, so the next day I manage to touch 110mph on the autobahn down through the German borders and the Black Forest towards Switzerland. Very proud.

The SatNav is Irish so we’re calling her Shannon.

LUZERNE
This Swiss town is absolutely bloody stunning, high-up, built on a large lake, with an ancient wooden covered bridge and the most beautiful city walls I’ve seen in northern Europe. It’s inevitably touristy but has a laid-back feel.

Tonight we play with cutesy Swiss folk-pop star Heidi Happy, who is launching her second album. Her first album was called Get Back Together and was – I’m told – entirely aimed at persuading her ex-boyfriend to come home. Apparently it worked for a short while.

She’s charming but it’ll be tough to break through in the UK any time soon (if they care about that) because she doesn’t look like Heidi and she’s not very happy. Funnily enough, the ‘cutesy’ thing is entirely an act and when we all go for pre-show dinner (in a place called the FuckHaus or something) with her nine-piece band, she’s a sophisticated bookish type with a dangerous sense of humour, just acting the quirksome thing onstage. Swiss indie label Little Jig, who get some money for each release from the government. This government support will become a recurring theme in Schweiss.

 Venue manager Gisé is determined to get us drunk and, almost aggressively, brings me glass after glass of scotch. Meanwhile Frank is fed some kind of hot-spiced spirit drink, which fucks him up badly.

 When it gets messy we escape to our four-star hotel down the road.

 Increasingly, Switzerland is about driving giddily through gorgeous mountain snow scenes listening to vicious hardcore. I’ve written an MS column about this but touring in Europe is so much easier, logistically, than the UK that it makes me want to do it constantly. Several shows in a row on this tour, we’ll park at the venue without any problems and then walk less than 100m to a hotel supplied by the promoter. Or they’ll drive us everywhere. We get breakfast as well as dinner and the one time we got a parking ticket, the venue guy instantly takes it to ‘deal with’.

BASEL
My joke falls flat: “in England we say Basel like this…” (does dreadful impression of Cybil Faulty).

A bigger city. We’re at a long-running collective-owned anarcho punk venue called the Herschenbeck. It’s in a slightly downbeat gay area a few streets back from the Rhine and not only has the venue existed for 30 years but the building is over 700 years old and survived the Great Fire Of Basel in the 14^th century. Nice place to screw up with intense band graffiti. They’ve set up a series of attic bedrooms for visitors, including touring acts.

By which I mean we’re sleeping in a room covered with sharpie pictures of penises.

We play to 70 or 80 people crammed into their basement. It’s all very anarchist and exciting, although I’m a bit disappointed to see that – despite lots of ranting everywhere on various political themes – they serve meat in the café. At least they have the decency to be embarrased. Other acts are: A.J. Shanti, an NYC queercore singer who used to be a truck driver but now wanders the Euro hinterlands – having eloped with Dora, her Croatian girlfriend, playing impressive angry acoustic girl-on-girl songs. And Tilia a local Basel singer who is just starting out, with a cellist assisting. She has a lush voice, looks like Nora Zehetner and just needs to build confidence.

Don’t know why I’m going on about the other acts, don’t normally, I just was in the mood for exactly the music they provided I think.  

 

Got to stop to write a setlist but more very soon – because after another brilliant night in St Gallen in the snow, it’s all about to go excitingly pear-shaped…

 

eurotour diary #1

I fucking did it again: rubbed huge blobs of shampoo into my eyes mid-shower. I have no idea what I’m suddenly doing wrong in my 30s to be unable to wash my hair without oracular self-harm. The third time in a week and it’s become a psychic burden whereby I’m convinced it will trigger a difficult day, so of course it does. Packed. Repacked in a different case. And again. Decided fuck it I’m not going on tour. Then left for the train. 

SOUTHAMPTON 

I’m here to open for – but much more importantly see – Carter USM’s secret show, because I’ll be in Europe for their two larger reunion gigs. Plus Marc is back in the UK. Except that in the repacking panic I left my acoustic guitar pick-up, some cables and several other vital bits at home and I’m supposed to be on the Eurostar tomorrow morning. So I play a short set using a hi-hat mic on my acoustic (clarity but no balls), which goes surprisingly well – quite upbeat and jokey – then instead of sticking around I have to jump on a train back to Brighton to pick up the stuff. Missing Carter. And I carried all my stuff for the Europe trip all the way to Southampton then home again.

PARIS

In the French bakery at St Pancras, I’m waiting for Frank when an elderly couple wander over. He wants a croissant but she wants a crepe from the café next door. Their solution is to each go into the adjacent café and sit and order separately, but sit right next to each-other separated only by the glass window dividing the two cafés. They seem quite content.

Anyway, I’ve got to say Eurostar is lush, I’m sure we accidentally booked First Class because we get a gorgeous meal, much better than airline food, with dessert and wine if we want it (I have apple juice). On my mind is my key task for today: to pick up the hire car in central Paris just before rush-hour and drive it across town to the venue, over that infamous lethal roundabout that doesn’t count on anyone’s insurance, when I’ve only ever driven a tiny bit of right-hand drive in L.A.

So I’m nervous. But what transpires is worse: at Gard du Nord absolute muttons at Europcar won’t let us have the car we’ve booked. Frank has the credit card to pay – but no driving license. I have the license to drive – but no credit card. Despite us both being there and it being totally sound, because if I crash Frank pays, obviously, somehow they won’t let us take the car – the name has to be the same. And it doesn’t say anything about this on their shoddy excuse for a website, they deliberately gave Frank the impression when he originally booked that this wouldn’t be a problem.

None of the other car hire companies sat in a line can help because all their cars are booked.

We leave carless (and late) but hold the booking, hoping to resolve it over the phone. No such luck, in fact they attempt to charge us a €1,400 cancellation fee for not taking the car and the customer services woman is almost impossibly rude to Frank on the phone. They only relent on the fee after a shouting match – I’ve not seen Frank so angry. God, we’re stranded! Might as well get on with the gig.

Dinner at La Fleche D’or is delicious despite it seeming like quite a grimy club. It’s set above a railway bridge looking out over a set of railway lines. Seedy glamour abounds but the other musical acts are utter shite. I learn a harmonica solo for a smart new FT tune (quite a short, quick one) with a working title of Dan’s Song. 

Drinking heavily now (mixed emotions at not having to drive) I chat to this nut-job singer Cosmo Jarvis at the venue. He’s not playing tonight, his band are touring supporting Gabriella Cilmi around Europe and the TM knows Frank. The band are charming guys but Cosmo is filth: just one of his stories is about drinking some bloke’s piss, catching thrush from it, then giving it to his own band-member by snogging him. They’re good company but I find myself edging away in case I pick up something nasty.

Next morning, after struggling to work out train routes and fare budgets, leaving us aghast, we are rescued by Frank’s Parisian punkrock friend Cham from Jedethan, who used to work at Avis and scores us a Cleo. We’ll have to drop off in Geneva, leaving a gap in our transport plan between there and Vienna, but the deal is much, much better. A blessing in disguise. The icing on the cake is, the pick-up is in the north-west of Paris so we take a hefty Metro ride and I won’t have to drive through the city, just out onto the motorway north.

AMSTERDAM

Traffic, traffic traffic. Amsterdam rush-hour but I’m not scared of right-hand drive anymore, even when I turn right onto the tramline. SatNav takes us down several narrow alleys to the wrong Paradiso, so we’re scarily late.

Italian dinner. Hotel room on the fourth floor, with no lift and steep stairs but an amazing balcony looking out over the rooftops. Despite being on the edge of the red light district, which I’ve never seen, we decide to kick back in the room / on the balcony and go to bed pretty soon after that. Therefore apologies – I won’t be able to tell you about stoned late-night debauchery in the ‘Dam because there wasn’t any.

I’ve just discovered my new-ish mobile phone has a golf game on it. That’s what I was doing at 1am before faling asleep.

wherewithal and I

Ups and downs.

In the shower I got gallons of shampoo in both eyes at once and was in blind agony moderate pain for 15 minutes. Rinsed and rinsed but I was in a hurry. Decided the “I’ve been crying insanely” look was good to go.

Then I stumbled out of the house and went to Union Chapel to play piano for Turner, with Biffy Clyro and Friendly Fires for Jo Whiley’s Little Noise Sessions (for Mencap). Jo wasn’t there, she’s just had a baby (her 96th I believe) but I got to meet Mathew Horne (warning: his myspace currently has Keane playing, in case you want to switch your sound off before clicking through) from Gavin & Stacey. Normally Horne would be enough celeb for any event – he was lovely and better looking in real life – but he got out-A-listed by rock superstar Mr Bryan Adams, who’d come especially for Frank and came backstage to the vip bar with his gorgeous missus for a chat. Didn’t miss out the humble pianist either – was supremely down-to-earth and genuinely very interesting. I went on wiki today and now wish I’d been more up-to-speed because he’s a veggie and has done important work for animal rights causes that I’m down with – but of course we didn’t touch on any of that stuff.

I wish we had, cos I could’ve wound Frank up about his recent abandonment of vegetarianism in favour of getting vicious food poisoning from dodgy chicken. Korma or karma?

Later I became dreadfully seedily drunk on bourbon, ran away before everyone got the drugs out, found myself stuck on a broken tube train without the wherewithal to get out and walk, so missed my last Brighton service from Victoria, spending the rest of the night at Costa Coffee, Gatwick Airport.

You’re right of course, I should’ve hoovered indie-scene charidee cocaine, punched out the guy I hate, done the sex with the blonde and wound up frying comedown eggs in a TV star’s kitchen. One day they’ll get me but not yet, dear reader, not yet. 

[edited for content]

In other news, I can’t get any music made fo shit but I’ve just made sublime artichoke and sweet onion chutney of my own damn recipe. Maybe Anjum Anand’s sitting at home writing songs.

The Gathering Storm

I’m no anti-American, seriously, not in a million years. I don’t subscribe to any of the Brit crap about USA stupidity or the lack-of-irony myth, when my own experience has been almost exclusively that of open-minded, open-hearted people. They’ve maintained welcoming curiosity and in many cases good manners that have long gone in many parts of Drunk UK.

But it’s worth really thinking about some of the raw aggression and open racism that has surfaced in the crowds at the increasingly desperate McCain/Palin rallies recently. The heckles need to be tied to the possible defeat of the conservative ticket, the economic problems and the slow decay of the American Empire: and I think they, as much as anything, signal the truly dreadful possibilities ahead in that land.

I love the USA so much. A month doesn’t go by when we don’t sit at home seriously weighing up the possibilities of moving to southern California and, when the boys from Entourage went out to Joshua Tree last week to take shrooms, I felt a physical longing for that place. No, it doesn’t conflict with my politics, obviously you can love a land, people, culture, counter-culture, even streets and buildings, without loving its government or systems. And anyway, if I was to move somewhere purely for politics, I’d be in Cuba or Venezuela right now, so that makes no sense.

However, I think there’s a truly epic gathering storm, as the great empire of the 20th century makes way for the great empires of the 21st, in the far east. You can see it in Simon Schama’s exploration of the water problems in the Colorado basin and even hints of it in Stephen Fry’s lighter-in-tone but equally perceptive jaunt.

They are used to opulence and it’s running out. They are used to freedom and – in order to maintain control as resources thin – it will be reigned in. Some are used to tying morally regressive patriarchy to isolationist elegy, when now, both are seeping away. Some are used to ignoring the Other America, the underbelly of The Wire and Hurricane Katrina and no health insurance, yet now that underbelly is rising. They are used to cheap gas (it’s still half the price of ours) but that’s ebbing fast and relies on their enemies.

They are used to being winners and deifying the concept of victory, yet they are headed – in so many ways – for defeat. There’s still no bigger insult than ‘loser’ in the USA.

They are armed. 

By the way, I’ve just boshed off a complaint to the BBC about last night’s execrable Panorama, which, despite touting itself as a balanced look at the US election, turned out to be a strangely Fox News-esque and unBeeblike hatchet job, moulding scarcely any real content into a negative picture of Obama’s rise, while avoiding any similar study of his two rivals and ignoring his running-mate completely.

Simply: to bring up the Reverend Wright connection as an argument undermining Obama (in an emotive way, juxtaposing the worst soundclip over a photo of them together), yet not mention a single issue about Palin (such as her exorcism by a far more extreme religious nut, who has run people out of their homes for being witches, or her links to Alaskan Independence movements, or the bridge to nowhere, or McCain’s Keating scandal, or – for god’s sake – her rampant creationist extremism), instead letting the ‘hockey mom’ myth stand and presenting her as a mainstream populist alternative, was beyond biased, it was dangerously irresponsible and misleading for the UK public about what is really going on inside the USA.

While there is definitely some space for questions about Obama’s lack of legislative substance and fast rise through Chicago’s political scene, it was despicable that they let McCain and Palin off similar (any!) scrutiny.

saving the economy in one go / last night

Yesterday I realised the ultimate right-wing dream: a one-step solution to the global economic crisis that doesn’t involve scary socialism. Just make a big (cost-free) ethical shift instead of these crazy-expensive fiscal shifts… here we go: let’s legalise the black markets. Drugs, the sex trade, the movement of labour and suddenly some of the world’s biggest, most stable and profit-making trades become a sizeable chunk of the ‘official’ economy. All the resources currently spent fighting them can be channelled into their development and the deregulators get to crow victory. A shot in the arm, if you like.

Really enjoyed yesterday’s Manchester jaunt. Marc Riley is a total gent, his team are lovely and we rocked it. It’s dangerous having a bar so near the studio though – especially with gaps between each performance – because the band has a swift one after get-in, another swift one after soundcheck and then one between each song.

Not me, I was driving.

Only bummer was, we adjourned to a highly recommended curry house, where everyone else had a delicious meal but I had a shite one. My floridly-described main course was just sag aloo with an onion. Asked for it mild, got it medium-strong. The tarka dal was viciously hot as well and even the pilau wasn’t much cop. And they forgot my mango lassi (though it was the nicest bit when it came). So I don’t care that the rest of the party was raving, I was gutted. Then three hours down the motorway I nearly lost my rag in Welcome Break, where it took thee different attempts to score a pathetic excuse for a coffee. Both Coffee Nation machines in WHSmith were bust and the staff were a bit ‘confused’. Especially once the milk started running and running. So I was forced into Coffee Primo, Welcome Break’s pretend café brand. It’s the worst! The staff can’t make hot drinks for shit, you get a filthy lukewarm milk’n'dirt mess and you don’t realise it’s undrinkable until you’re back on the road, doing 80 miles an hour with nowhere to throw it. The canteen was full of flies as well. God I hope their IT department tracks back!

trouser-free near miss

I must be going mad. I’ve spent most of the morning sat in front of the laptop with my guitar, just in a t-shirt and pants, trying to tape a new song. Then I decided to go for a walk around the park, so I put my hat, jacket and boots on, opened the door and stepped outside. I was about to shut the door when I realised I wasn’t wearing any trousers! If I hadn’t clocked in the nick of time, I’d've been locked out without phone or cash because my house key is in my trouser pocket.

I’d even gone upstairs to get a pair of socks.