New York City:

It's taken a few days but I'm starting-slowly-to feel civilized again. Despite my ceaseless desire to be going somewhere else I love New York City and can't imagine I'd feel any better anywhere else. ('cept of course, if I was maybe getting on a plane). I was trying to work out what's behind the wanderlust and I can only conclude-sappy as it sounds-that it's a form a romanticism; always thinking what we lack in ourselves is to be found somewhere else. Keen grammarians will note the sophisticated switch of personal pronoun in that last sentence). I'm only glad that this afternoon I didn't succumb to the urge to go to the airport and fly to the UK because of the fog and delays at Heathrow.

I fasted for two days to try to expedite the recovery from trans-fats and sugar--dietary staples for the past month on tour. It worked some, I'm feeling better than I was and my blood doesn't feel like a slurry of badness. A few other things have gone well too: I got my nice watch back from servicing which was free even though it was out of guarantee (that never happens in NYC). Also, I was about to go to buy a new I-pod and just for luck I tried my old one one more time as I was on my way out of the door and it started working again (why it couldnt' do this on tour when I had hours rattling around in a bunk, I don't know...my god is a smartarse god). Thinking I'd just saved $250 I celebrated by spending all that on Beatles CDs.

Which leads me to...and forgive me for stating the obvious but I forget from time to time...how good were the Beatles? Even now, 40 years on, the records still sound fresh and exciting. Admittedly they trigger a certain nostalgia for me (I can still remember riding my bike around with my friends near the local shops and singing Beatles songs when I was about 7. We used to do that for fun, me and my mate Paul). Paul McCartney is one of the most underrated bassists of all time. His playing is genius. And John Lennon's lyrics are so deliciously nasty. I think being working class and English adds some poignancy to what they achieved because in a way The Beatles, although pop stars beyond compare, were kind of like us. I certainly thought that music was a way out when I was growing up largely becuase I was listening to my big brother's Beatles records from ever since I can remember. I felt so much better just getting into these songs again--I hardly listen to them anymore. I'm always awed by how emotive and evocative music can be. Even now, listening to The Beatles, I can experience my first rock and roll thrill. If I listen to The Jam I can get that teenage sense of defiance and frustration. Music is a such an emotional shorthand - it can always go straight to the heart of things. Unless of course it's a support band soundchecking their drums. Then it's the slow screech of fingernails down an endless chalkboard in the ninth circle of hell. I guess I haven't quite got over being on tour yet.


I'm enjoying the pre-Christmas New York too. All those Christmas lights around Europe has me appreciating the lights in New York so much more. Both the tree at Lincoln Centre and the lights at the Time Warner Centre look great. Not too garish like the old tart of a tree at Rockefeller Centre. I've even walked through Times Square twice and not cursed once. The photo's don't really do them justice but this is the tree at Lincoln Centre...



And these are the colour-changing lights inside the TW Centre at Columbus Circle.



One other small detail about one of the statues in the TW Centre. Take a look at this picture...anything stand out?



If you look closely you can see that its willy has been polished to a different shade of bronze than the rest of the statue (and that's the correct proportion for size vs height by the way...I don't care what anyone else says). It cheers me to think that all the Upper West-Siders doing their shopping in the Time Warner Centre can't help but touch the statue's todger. That's some serious polishing to have changed the shade of bronze. I salute my prurient neighbours! You messy mobsters....

Tour Manager slight geek side-note follows: I've just submitted the tour accounts. Only a month of touring and two currencies so not so much cash changing hands--excepting the merch money (and what is it about local merch' sellers? Out of a month of touring only two could fill in the childproof inventory form and manage the cash easily...kind of shocking really). It was fun getting the merch money every night though. It felt old-school, back to the days of cash every night instead of fees being paid as wire transfers. I remember picking up $50K at a festival one year and carrying it around with me all night while I celebrated...ah, happy days. (There was another festival in Finland where I got chased by security off the scaffolding during Bon Jovi's set--they were being such pissy bitches backstage they deserved someone dancing on the PA during their set, I say. I was good too-groovy as fuck. Then I left the float on the bus...but that's another post). I'm so happy with the Euro. It used to suck having to do accounts for every currency in Europe. I was cursing the Swiss this summer when we visited for a day and I had to open a new sheet to account for about $20 worth of coffee receipts for the band. Poor me, eh?


Anyway, the tour accounts are done and it feels like I've handed in my homework and school's out for the Holidays. I've tidied my apartment, nearly done my laundry, a new Gong Li movie is released tomorrow and I am writing endlessly on my blog as a way of avoiding any "real" writing or studying. I guess I can only put it off for so long. Funny, now I've finally got the time to do exactly what I've wanted to do all year long the first thing I do is procrastinate...well, except about going to see Gong Li.



Keeping me smiling through the Times Square Christmas Tourist Crowds: Oldies but Goldies.

The Beatles - Here There And Everywhere.
The Beatles - The Word - even groovier than my dancing to Bon Jovi.
The Beatles - Girl. Still kills me everytime.
The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping
The Beatles - Help. What a single--it doesn't stop.
The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love. Pete Shelly has one of those classic British whiney voices. I don't think anyone else could have sung this song so well.
Neko Case - That Teenage Feeling. Because it's good to be reminded not to settle for things.

And I got this link on a email blast today. The video is well worth a look. It made me laugh because he does actually drive like this. Not that he'll admit it.

Jarvis Single Micro Site

Emptying My Camera:

So before I close the book on this year's touring I found these photo's on the Camera.

These are the Christmas lights in Barcelona.



Hmm, yes, I know. After London and Paris they seem a little, Leeds-esque don't they?

And this the Christmas Tree in the centre of Madrid. I think it sits on Km 0, the point from which all distances in Spain are measured and I think, with the Ayuntamiento in the background, the administrative centre of Spain. Unfortunately there was a ton of construction so it was hard to go look properly. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to be working too...





These are the lights in one of the shopping precincts in Madrid. Note the mental-busy crowds at the bottom. I ate by myself at the top of this street in a sandwich shop in a break between soundcheck and the show. As I chewed on bread so crunchy it cut my mouth I saw a sign for a FunFurter. They looked dreadful but I wished I'd ordered one of those instead. I would have looked a lot more exciting hunched over a FunFurter instead of the not-very-spicey chicken thingy I was fish-hooking my soft-palatte with.

It seemed an anticlimatic way to spend the last night in Europe. I felt sad to be leaving. Much as I want to go home and not be on tour I do love the travel and romance that comes with it (unlikely as that sounds for a tour bus; but there's something to be said for going to sleep after leaving Paris, waking up in Milan, and watching the Swiss Alps rise in silhouette in the night as you fall asleep). I'll miss the people I'm traveling with too-they're warm and funny and bright and good friends. I've spent much of the past year with some of them so there's a kind of shorthand, I think, that exists between us that feels like home. A certain critical mass of shared experience. If only we could get weekends off so one could have a life too...





This is a friend (pictured on top of our gear at JFK when we got home) that someone acquired on the way to Italy, late at night, at a truck stop. To be honest it makes a change from the usual giant water pistols and monster truck videos everyone normally ends up buying. It's the size of a small child and has one leg sewn on backwards so it was instantly easy to warm to. His owner grew very attached to it and who could blame them? We all secretly wanted one and to compensate we discussed ways to vilify our little green friend. One idea was for everyone else on the bus to be photographed one at a time in a different compromising position with our furry friend and the photo's emailed to the owner after the tour. Another idea was to buy an oversized sex-toy for the little green loveball and leave it inappropriately dressed in its owner's bunk. In Barcelona I went as far as to go look at oversized sex-toys in a shop on The Ramblas. The girl in the sex-shop was very helpful. She looked like a Lit. Major and her breath smelled of garlic. She showed me a full range of strap-ons. In the end I didn't buy a strap-on. Buying a strap-on is a commitment, especially for a joke. They cost a lot of money, even the cheap ones. You've really got to want a strap-on, I reckon. And I didn't.

In the sex-shop I felt another piece of rusted tin crumble from the wall of my heart. Exactly a year ago I'd learned I'd passed my exam in Basic Mandarin from the Chinese Government. Now I'm looking at strap-on's in a naff sex shop in a touristy part of Barcelona. It's not even that funny a joke. Time to get off the road for a while. At least until my knuckles are no longer dragging on the ground.

Köln:


We have a day off on the outskirts of town where I sleep all afternoon and into the evening. I feel stupid for wasting a day off like this but what are you going to do. There was a good sauna in the hotel that I visited to compensate... It’s our last day and show in Germany and I’m sad to be leaving. It’s a boss country. This is not a popular view. Kind of English without all the English (and English is a dialect of German…linguistically speaking. But of course you knew that already…). However, the venue in Köln was one of the worst on the tour. For some reason, certain clubs achieve the basest of standards in terms of equipment and décor and facilities and stop there. I can only guess it’s because the owners don’t care and in some way view a grotty, run-down club as having some kind of rock and roll bona fides or something. This place looked like interrogations took place there.



And upstairs, in the production/office dressing rooms, it looked like the kind of place that interrogees were forced to sleep – as Brian and Steve are demonstrating after dinner.



The hotel where our day rooms were (for showers) had a vending machine in the lobby that dispensed miniatures of Whiskey, Vodka and this tour’s favourite, Jaegermeister. Supply always meets demand so in a suburb of Köln in a deserted two-star hotel people evidently like to get mullered on Jaeger…


Paris:

Another overnight drive and we get to Paris in good time and prepare ourselves to leap off a moving bus with all our luggage because the traffic is so bad and we can’t stop on the Blvd de Clichy for longer than the turn of a light. Like L.A., Paris is one of those Cities I always look forward to getting to, but when I do I invariably get bitchslapped as soon as I step off the bus.


… in the hotel I ask for the keys and the woman behind reception gives me an attitude. She complains that there are three rooms but nine people; these rooms are for one person each. I say c’mon, stop pissing about, we're only here for showers, here are the reservation numbers, give me the keys and we'll be gone as soon as we came. She boots-off and refuses to give me even one key even if I relent and promise that only one person is going into the room. She speaks no English at all and then only speaks French with a sneer. I give up on diplomacy and while Marc, our French speaking guitarists remonstrates with her in French, she complains that the hotel is only used to professional clients (it’s a toilet on the Blvd de Clichy – hard to appreciate the joke without seeing the crap hotel. There were no shower curtains in the bathrooms, for example..) I call the label who arranged the rooms to sort it out. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to start a day pissy to get even the basics taken care of. It's a long time since I've tried to check in to a hotel on the Blvd De Clichy. Last time I remember I ended up jumping over the counter and giving out the keys myself...

The quality hotel frontage....



Which is across the street from this...



Which looks old and tired in the grey daylight, doesn't it? Whatever, Montmartre has an enduring charm.

Sure enough in time it’s all sorted out. There’s a lot of Gallic shoulder shrugging and indignant conversations but finally we all get to shower ahead of a day spent doing press, radio and TV. Marc is by now enjoying himself with the woman behind the counter who is warming to us now she realizes that we’re not trying to rip her off. She even tells him that had we not been musicians (we’ve got three guitars with us for the day’s promo) she’d have thrown us out on the street, as though this is a consolation. While ten minutes previously she couldn’t understand my request for “An Extra towel, s’il vous plait.” She now regales me, in perfect English, with the difference between Berbers (what she is) and Arabs and how the Moors (her ancestors) colonized southern Europe. I guess she’s studied the chapter on “Introducing Oneself” in English but not got to the chapter about staying at a hotel. Or the one about not being a miserable, incompetent, acidic sow.

Paris is an amazing city. Despite the traditional rivalry between the French and the English I can’t help but respect their bolshie no-shit attitude (however frequently misplaced) and the fact that the French built Paris (and to be fair Rennes, where we also visited for a weird festival, was similarly beautiful). Even after all these years visiting it’s still breathtaking. While Albert and Matt did press I got to see some favourite sights – even if a little briefly.

Paris form Sacre Couer...



One of the funicular cars at Sacre Couer had crashed in the Place Suzanne Valadon. A ring of Gendarmes hung around while I and all the other tourists took photos. It didn’t look like anyone had been hurt.



I even had time to have a Chinese Movie buying accident in FNAC and Virgin and to wander around the Marais – something I haven’t done in over 10 years. There's a boss tea shop in the Marais called Mariage Frere's that's been around since 1854. On a recommendation I went for tea and cake - both were excellent. The kind of place where the service justifies the prices. It was packed...and one of the most polite places in Paris, for sure.



And the Champs Elysee looked amazing (well, maybe it loses something in translation here but...).



And so did Notre Dame...the great thing about Central Paris is that you can get around it so easily.




Even the chore of working in Paris (Like New York, London, L.A. blah, blah...) was easily overlooked because of the beauty of the place and the show was one of the best of the tour despite having to load-in up a hill and through construction. The night of the show I dreamt I was going out with Bjork. It was great, she was all into me. Then when I woke up and I realized that I wasn’t going out with Bjork I felt like I’d been dumped. By Bjork. I left the band at the label to do their last day’s promo at their label and wandered around the Marais and Pont Neuf alone and in the rain singing Paris Match by the Style Council to myself. I didn’t even have an I-pod to mope around with. Woe is moi.

This is the view from/of Pont Neuf where lovers go to hang out. As I'd been chucked by Bjork it seemed fitting that I sulk here by myself. Note the young lovers snogging next to the Seine. I'm in the City of Love and everyone is at it but me. I consoled myself by thinking they were about to throw themselves into the water.





The drive to Milan from Paris is about 1000KM. I slept for most of it. We were in Milan for about 12 hours. I like Italy for my vacations and nothing else. Oh, and the guy on reception was a dick here too--I’m going to start photographing them from now on….. I couldn’t get on the bus fast enough at the end of the night – except that our trailer with all the gear in wouldn’t hitch correctly so we spent 20 minutes trying to nudge a 1-ton trailer 1/8” to get the pin in it. Class. One hasn’t lived until one’s been covered in crap from a trailer that’s been dragged around the autobahns and autoroutes of Europe. Yum. I don't know what it was that made being in Milan so anticlimatic - Italy and the Italians are all so boss. Maybe it's just tour fatigue?

Outside of Barcelona I woke up on the bus and Brian, our lucozade swigging, cadbury’s button chomping, 20 benson smoking guitar tech’ was watching Supersize Me. I breakfasted on strawberry jam filled smiley face biscuits and cadbury’s buttons and joined him in watching the movie. By the end I was feeling suitably nauseous and it occurred to me that touring is very much like Supersize Me. We’ve eaten crap for nearly 30 days – everyone’s tired and lacklustre and there's a vague malaise floating around but spectrally, just out of the corners of our eyes. Intellectually I know we’re all hanging out with friends and getting paid for it and doing what we love but I am convinced the fatigue is partly because our diet is so bad. I feel like crap around the clock and am hoping for a bodyectomy when I get home.


In Madrid the band left the stage at 11:55 PM. By 7:45AM we were back at Barcelona airport for the flight back to New York unwashed, bleary-eyed and exhausted. 15 hours later, including many I missed thanks to vicodin and tylenol PM, I was home.

Back a day and I can’t quite remember how only 36 hours ago I was baked and falling asleep in my bunk, watching the Spanish service stations pass outside my window. It’s strange to come to the end of a tour and to feel the forward motion desist. Even while sleeping we’ve been traveling at 60 mph all week. Coming home to a quiet apartment feels a little like coming down from a sugar high. Wandering around the city it takes a while to feel grounded. When I got back I had an urge (I always do) to get a change of clothes and go back to the airport to get on another plane to somewhere. I think it's a sickness.
It took me 36 hours to book my next flight.

Berlin: Journey to the East.


We left Amsterdam around 2AM and drove overnight to Berlin. Everyone was in an ebullient mood, for obvious reasons. I watched Grey’s anatomy and fell asleep. I wasn’t alone in doing this. We ate Olliebollen, a heavy, raisin-filled sugared dough-ball my friend had bought for me as a sample of Amsterdam's finest food stuffs....they are delicious, and just the thing after a few hours in a coffee shop. Which is why there are so many cake stalls open around the Leidesplein in the evening I'd imagine.

Berlin is one of my happy places. I love the city. I can’t really explain why but when we arrived I breathed a sigh of relief. It’s such a cool place full of art and culture(s) and smart people. The city looks great and is steeped in history. Walking around doing nothing here is better than doing most things elsewhere. (I feel the same in Beijing too….go figure). Our hotel was on Wallstrasse and even the cheesy US Wall Street themed hotel with Stock Market figures as the corridor carpet design and a hundred dollar bill as the bedroom carpet design didn’t dampen my mood (Note also the chocolate Euros left as a welcome gift on the bed and the packet of tissues printed as dollar bills in the bottom left corner…). It was so naff I couldn't help but enjoy it and the room’s décor was Germanic in its pragmatism with kettles hidden in closets and doors with warped wood as handles. It's in a quiet corner of the city right next to a U-Bahn station so getting around the city was a doddle. I went outto dinner with friends for a while before finding myself so tired I had to come home to sleep. I did learn that there’s a German verb from the name of my home town: Coventrieren. It means to eradicate a city (Which is what the Luftwaffe did to Coventry during the Blitz in WW11). I felt vaguely pleased to know we’d been immortalized in language, even with such a negative connotation (I guess the UK version would be to Dresdenize…?). Sadly, given a day off in one of my favorite places it was all I could do not to sack out before 10PM. Shameful.



The band’s promo the next day was in Potsdam, about 40 minutes outside of Berlin. The radio station was along the street from the Potsdam film set where Marlene Deitrich used to make movies. The fake streets were still there and reminded me of the sets in California at Universal. There were some (genuine) mansions along the block that looked just like these movie-set facades and the film sets were set apart from the public suburban street only by a fence – they were very open and visible. Although judging by the state of the Streetcar on this set it’s not like the local kids seem to hold the perimeter fence in very high esteem.



Later in the day, after soundcheck, we took a walk along the East Side Gallerie. This is a section of the wall that was left in place and is now used by muralists. Behind this section of the wall is the river (Pictured from the other side—The former West—below). To escape the East one would have to scale two walls, then clear a section of barren no-mans-land under the watch of the guardtowers, and then swim across the river. I can’t imagine the desperation people must have lived with to try that. One of the saddest sights in Berlin for me is near the Reichstag. There are small crucifixes on the walls as memorials to those who died trying to cross over: they were shot, they drowned. Some of them were so young, and some of them died only a few weeks before the wall came down.









I love the architecture in Berlin. There’s such a mix of old and new and the old has such a presence and sometimes a fantastic monolithic feel in the former east. How can you not love a city where the U-Bahn stations look like this? Next door to my friend’s apartment building in Prenzlauer they are redeveloping a former mechanic’s garage that was a previously a bathhouse used exclusively by Stasi Officers. Although that’s a dreadful kind of history, how can you not be fascinated by the fact that this still exists? Maybe it’s just me but that the façade of our hotel was bullet-scarred from WWII did nothing but add to the experience of being there. The city breathes its history.



Tonight everyone’s gone to the same bar we visited in the summer when we played here before. It’s good to know places you like in cities abroad. It makes a place feel like home – which Berlin may well become one day. Certainly it has got to be one of the top places to live in Europe.

Got to Hamburg after a hazy night in Das Bus (it feels like a submarine as it’s a double-decker and all the ceilings are low. Low enough for me to keep cracking my head on) and on my way form the shower rooms at the hotel to the venue I passed a Gallery showing a Casper David Friedrich exhibition (German Romantic school). I’d tried to see his work before in Berlin but the wing of the gallery had been closed. This morning I snuck off while everyone was sleeping but got to the Gallery only to find it closed on Mondays. Same with the Chinese exhibit in the gallery across the square. Bobbins that, innit?

Tchoo Late and Tchoo Schmelly!


I think I can say my Anti-Amsterdam phase is over now. I’m just anti-scuzzers. And who could have a problem with that? We’ve just had a night-off in Amsterdam--the first quiet time I’ve had since the start of the tour. It’s taken nearly 12 hours of mooching around and doing nothing special to start to feel anything like normal again. Tonight I ate falafels and talked about nothing much with a friend. It felt so normal a small grateful tear rolled down my cheek at the end of the night. Or maybe that was because the falafels achieved a legendary spiciness. Either way, it was pure, unadulterated gratitude.



I wandered around the city a little at night. I was hoping for a little more by way of pagan lights but the lights here were very understated. Aside from the obvious red ones, that is. Understated but apt, I thought. See for yourself. When your City looks as cool as Amsterdam what do you care for Christmas lights?



The area was busy, not just with men in raincoats or gangs of men out drinking (although it was mostly this), but with couples and tourists safely enjoying the edginess. Walking past all the prostitute’s windows my second thought was that it’s got to be a hard, hard job. The men (not me of course, I'm different to every other man on the planet) really do view them as chattel. The whole red light area is steeped in a kind of workaday seediness – there are the dealers, the women, the storekeepers and the skeevy pimps all making a living by selling an assortment of fantasies. Then there are the punters (many of whom are so tightly coiled they almost flinch if you look at them) all slightly breathless with anticipation and eager to believe even the most exhausted hooker’s smile or the shadiest dealer’s spiel about his drug’s potency.



North African dealers hang around on the middle of the bridges hissing the names of the drugs they can sell to you. Along one street three people spoke to me, and I heard in order (I’ve tried to get the Dutch accent down phonetically, I really like the accent here…):

“You chlike any cocaine?”
“Porno! Come in before it gets tchoo late and tchoo schmelly!”
“Psst! Charlie. Chou want shome?”

This seemed so absurd and open it made me laugh. Then I saw five English guys pushing their friend into a hooker’s doorway and cheering and it all seemed less absurd and more obscene. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a sordid fascination with all of this (I will go to my grave believing you can gauge a nations psyche by looking at its advertising and its pornography) but I felt like I was slumming it in the end, going to look at the poor people scratching a living by ruining themselves before going back to my schmancy hotel to blog about how delightfully vulgar it all is. Voyuer would be a generous description, I think.



I was thinking it might be a chuckle to go for a smoke in a coffee shop (and it’s been a long, long time since I did that) but that would only be good in the right company and the only person I want to do that with isn’t here. Probably a good thing too. Or not. Seeing all that broken humanity somehow makes me want to steep myself in feelings altogether more aspirational and to foster those sensibilities that come from tenderness and not self-loathing. After wasting so much time I’ve a desire to make more of life instead of less. Watching people attend their own wakes is ultimately depressing; it’s always easier to say no to life. Which is ironic, isn't it?

Get out of London!

We’ve finished the first leg of the tour around the UK. The shows went well but the schedule was exhausting – there was no down time at all. I can’t remember van tours being this tiring before, (maybe it’s an age thing!) but that we haven’t had a day off in over a week and have often been doing shows and multiple radio shows and promo etc, every day has proven a little too much. Everyone looks completely shagged.

Our tour bus arrived tonight which means I won’t be driving any more. I didn’t mind the driving as much as I didn’t like the navigating city centres with a pony map and looking for somewhere to park for an hour or so each night. Bombing along the M1 at 90mph is fine—although it was better before my ipod died. Still, now I have a new nest in the tour bus – slightly smaller than the ones we had in America but it does have a window, which is really good--it’s like a little porthole. I’m in one of the front bunks above the driver so it’s close to being a suicide bunk. But it is one of the quietest, which, as anyone who’s spent any time on a tour bus will attest, is one of the most important things—early death notwithstanding. I’ve already filled it with my gadgets – if I could concentrate for longer than the length of time it takes to type up a day-sheet I’d add some books to the mix but I’m simple of mind on this tour already and can't form full sentences today so book learning is out of the window.


We took a cross channel ferry to
Calais (This is the view from the skylight at the back of the bus as we boarded. The glamour of a ferry terminal... actually, geek that I am, I like places like this--all sodium lights and freight vehicles). This was the 4:30am sailing. Stayed awake for the ride and we docked at 6:50AM . I liked the ferry ride – the English Channel (Q: How did we get naming rights to it?) was black and I could see other boats out there heading to and from the North Sea. It felt isolated and almost secret in the way that late-night travel can feel. Boats are a good way to travel--they’re very tangible. There’s a romance to sea travel. For a time I had the south coast of England to myself with just the dark waves for company. I have to say I couldn’t understand why there was a harpoon on the ferry. That must be why one never sees any whales in the English Channel.


I slept until Amsterdam, which was a relief. I have a night off tonight and as long as I avoid all the peasants (thank god none of my party are gagging to mong' themselves out…) celebrating their bohemian tendencies by smoking themselves insensate then I’m looking forward to a night off here and going to dinner. I like Amsterdam except for all the plebs. Maybe if I get bored I can let off a little steam pushing drunks into the canals…?

A chap has got to have some fun, right?



On the MacPod tonight.
Thieves – Unworthy
Pulp – Common People
Cat Power – Where is my Love? / Love and Communication
Placebo – Special K
Neko Case – Hold On, Hold On
The Cure – Why Can’t I Be You?

Heading Home:


On the drive into Scotland one sees road signs that say: Carlisle & Scotland. On the drive back south one doesn't see signs that say: Carlisle & England. I can't think why--unless the English think you're already in England and it's redundant to singpost it? I would imagine the Scot's would welcome the opportunity to higlight the border one more time....



We left Glasgow and its paltry Pagan Winter Lights ( I guess the Scottish aren't too superstitious about the dark, judging by this meagre display) to spend a night in Carlisle en route to Nottingham. We stayed in a well-hidden hotel in the centre of town that reminded everyone of England Circa 1941 when they woke in the morning and the sun was shining on the market square. It did have a market town feel to it - and we were staying in the main square, the kind of place where everyone would have got together for a good hanging a couple of hundred years ago.





However, biggest surprise for me was how much they'd pimped out the market square for the pagan light festival (Hard to see here in daylight). They had the three wise men with faces so scary you'd never let them in to see a baby, especially if one of them was carrying some death oil. And the rest of the square was similarly decked-out. I guess Carlisle people like to ward of the darkness. They also had an Ann Summers store on the market square so I guess we can all deduce from that that people in Carlisle like christmas time and are always at it in saucy underwear.....to be fair to them though, there didn't seem to be much else to do there, not now we've stopped hanging people anyways.


We drove past Newcastle and passed the Angel of The North, a giant steel (?) sculpture next to the A1 that you can see for miles and that gave me the willies a bit like a giant Wicker Man might.



When we got to Nottingham I was cheered to see that the ghost of Christmas Future (for me anyway) Steven Seagal is playing at Rock City in Nottingham in February. I'm tempted to fly back to see this show. Really. And that scares me now that I've said it because I might.




After the show during load out I collided with an inch thick piece of plywood that some spazzy roadie made ages ago for Steve in Albert's band (f***king thing weighs a ton and could be used as a roll-on / roll-off car ferry if need be). Net result was that I saw stars and nearly threw up while Brian, who was carrying the pedal board felt dreadful with guilt. It was a silly accident and apparently my head made a good noise when we collided-i really can't remember as I was on my hands and knees trying not to cry. However, 20 minutes later once the drugs had kicked in (and I never knew so many people on this tour were carrying painkillers....I was impressed) I was entertained by how big the bump got. It turned into a real cartoon bump. I could have done without having to drive back to London but it wasn't so bad until someone put on the hippy music and the bump started throbbing in protest.

Here's Brian being wracked with guilt.




Anyway, three hours to sleep in now before tomorrow's promo begins. Last night in a hotel for 48 hours too so I should make use of a bed that doesn't shake.

Not that a shaking bed is a bad thing. Don't put words into my mouth.

My Night With The Pussycat Dolls:

Our Glasgow hotel was across the street from the S.E.C.C. (I think I’ve put on shows there in the past, but it’s a bad sign when you can’t remember the venues from outside. I‘d know if I went backstage…). When we got back from the radio station where the band had been recording a session we ran into the crowd for the Pussycat Dolls as they were leaving the S.E.C.C. (we asked some kids holding poster who’d they’d been to see – which in itself is a bit creepy—40 year-old men cruising teenage girls outside a gig in their big white van with blacked-out windows…). Giddy on the news we were only a few hundred yards from the Dolls we all started singing Don’t Cha’. Everyone knew the lyric (respect to Cee-Lo, even though my friend says he was a bit of a dick when she met him checking into a European hotel once). I took a guess at what hotel they’d be in but in the end we decided against going around to hang out in the bar (this wasn’t a unanimous decision, btw). Aside from the fact that an unkind judge might label this as ‘incredibly f***king sad behaviour’ there’s also the matter of who needs more restraining orders? One or two my be considered fashionable—even rakishly becoming in a certain light--but when you’ve got more than a couple then I don’t think girls like it so much…no matter how much explaining you do about what a mix-up it was and how you weren’t sleeping outside her house in a car all week with a camera and some rope. Anyway, I digress.



Our hotel is in a dead part of town on the river. I quite like it, for all its deadness. There is some interesting architecture around, new buildings mixed with remnants from the city’s history. The giant crane above was next to our hotel and was no longer in service. They did right to leave it where it was - it looked great. Apparently the shipbuilding yards were bombed heavily in WWII and along rows of nearby tenement’s you can see where a building was destroyed by bombs and a newer one erected in its place in the middle of a row. I like the gritty, pragmatic parts of cities. Tangentially, I also realized yesterday how much I like Motorway Service Stations. They’re like little oases on the road. I saw a couple yesterday nestled into woods at the side of the M6 / M74. And while intellectually I know they sell the same crap as each other, part of me can’t help thinking they’re like little local grottos where you might find something cool and unique; even at Toddington or Leicester Forest East.

Okay, now you’re looking at me strangely…

The Scottish Play:


I’ve got a cold. I think I got it in that damp, stinky club in Leeds. Did I mention the dressing rooms reeked of damp paint fumes? Class. It’s just about to take me out for a day or so – I can tell. I’m cranky, runny nosed, very tired…actually apart from the runny nose that’s pretty much business as usual for me.

After the Leeds show we drove to Sheffield for the night. Our hotel overlooked the Wicker and the Holiday Inn. This is the river Jarvis sang about in the Wickerman. Because of my friends in the city I have an affection for Sheffield and always like being here, even when the view is less than stellar. Brian, our guitar tech’, was telling me about the time he slept in the bar of this Holiday Inn after a session on a Wet Wet Wet tour. I used to work for Pulp. When Pulp played Top of the Pops (1994?) and Wet Wet Wet had been Number 1 for about three years with Love Is All Around Jarvis hid a sign in his coat that he flashed to the camera. It said I HATE WET WET WET and went out live. I’d completely forgotten about that until now. Happy Days.




Yesterday we drove across the moors to Manchester. Amazing bleak countryside that this photo, taken while I was driving along at 70mph doesn't really do it justice. Manchester was a good show but the thing that cheered me up the most was seeing The Holy Name Church opposite the venue. I may be mistaken (there might be several Churches so named in Manchester) but it made me think this was the Church named in The Smith’s Vicar in a Tutu. (“I was minding my business, lifting some lead off the roof of the Holy Name Church. It was worthwhile living a laughable life, to set my eyes on the blistering sight, of a Vicar in a tutu….”). It’s the little things that make me happy.





My I-pod died today. It just stopped working. It’s about 2 1/2 years old so I suppose the little fucker was due (my last one lasted about the same amount of time). Apple must be building them with some kind of spacc’ed out power supply so that they die sooner rather than later. Fortunately at home in New York I’d just backed everything up onto a hard drive via Ipod Rip so I’m a very happy boy – not counting the fact I’ve got another 3 weeks to go without and Ipod. Oh, God. I’ll have to talk to people. Oh sweet Jesus, please: make it stop…..

We drove through the border country today between England and Scotland. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the country. The mountains were covered with black clouds, heavy with rain. The sun stayed at 45 degrees all day (it rarely gets higher in the winter here). This meant the light was clear and sharp if not very warm. The contrast was never better seen than when a flock of about thirty birds swooped and dived in a circle. One minute their dark backs were almost lost against the black clouds, the next minute their silver underbellies glinted like new blades in the sunlight before they wheeled around again. The mountains were covered in patchy brown gorse and autumnal heather, the grass was a vivid green. It was breathtaking. It made me want to move here to write and get healthy in the fresh air.

We passed Penrith. This was the setting for Withnail and I, one of the best British Movies ever made, ever. If you haven’t seen it go buy a copy on DVD. Then watch it, and try not to quote it all the time. I wanted to stop off and go to the tea-rooms, but we didn’t have time. In fact, I was going to buy them and fire everyone....

In Glasgow we all got bought fish and chips from a place called McMonagle’s in Clydebank. It was without a shadow of a doubt the best Fish and Chips I’ve had since I was a boy on holiday in Devon. Outstanding. It’s hard to get good stuff like that now as production of almost all fast food is so homogenized and has little to do with quality. Did I ever mention the McLibel trial and the documentary about the two people ( a postman and a gardener) who wouldn't apologise to McDonalds for saying their food is crap, btw? That’s another good movie – albeit a documentary. McLibel. I hate McDonalds and that f***ing clown with a vengance. This story made me realise what an insidious influence they really are.

See? Cranky.....

Tonight is off (we got back from the radio at 11PM so some night off). I’m staying in to feel tired and coldy and to get some sleep. Don’t let anyone tell you we’re not living the dream.

It's Grim Up North:


Or wet, at the very least. We're in Leeds, Yorkshire today. I haven't been here in maybe a decade so I'm enjoying the visit. I'm much more of a tourist than I'd like to admit; while everything feels English and familiar I'm also thinking that everyone's accents sound quaint - someone called me "me flower" in a shop today - and isn't it funny that people go out of an evening in the freezing rain without coats? Then again, I used to do the same thing 20 years ago ( mainly because I was skint and didn't want to waste a quid on the cloakroom in a club - not when I could be spending it on lager or cider & black instead). I've got all fancy pants now and I'd get too cold waiting in line for a club even if I were wearing my Brooks Bros. overcoat. Actaully, I'd never wait in line for a club. Not even if the baby jesus was onstage and there was a drink special on snakebite and black.

These are the Christmas lights in Leeds. I like Xmas lights, they make me hopeful that I'll have an xmas worthy of a Wham! video--although I should have learnt by now. There's something primitive about having light fesitvals in the winter, I think. I heard So Here It Is Merry Xmas by Slade today in Leeds Market for the first time this season. I miss hearing that in the USA. It made me feel festive.




On to something grumbly: What's happened to the telly in the UK? When I moved to the USA I remember thinking that British telly was so much better than US telly. I don't know that it's true anymore. With the exception of the occasional show like Vincent, Wire In The Blood and the like, most of the shows are wank over here now. There's even a naff thing late at night on ITV that's like a call in quiz show and that looks like a cheap commercial all the way through. Absolute bollocks. What happened? Was it always so crap and I just didn't notice or has it changed now that there's 24 hour broadcasting as standard everywhere and they have to fill up the time with some guff or other? It's hard to find something to watch. (Unlesss one's bought $200 of DVDs, that is....)

One thing I had forgotten was the level of public drunkeness in provincial England of a night. The streets are busy with drunks coming home & shouting on the way. You don't hear this so much in New York (at least not where I live, I suppose) nor in London (except in Leicester Square at 11PM). Going out to get wankered with the getting wankered as important a part of the evening as maybe enjoying a gig, show, dance or whatever. I think it's a very English attitude to having fun - like we have to gorge ourselves on it when its available for some reason; there's less urbane sipping of red wine at dinner than there is guzzling lager until one's swearing at roadsigns and throwing up in a taxi. It's in me too, to this day, although I don't drink anymore--partly for that reason. I think some Europeans are similar, but the British are world-leaders. It's a strange way of going about things - trying to numb oneself whenever possible. I wonder if its a throwback to feeling a kind of institutuionalised powerlessness from the good old days (Before the 1970's recession) when the poor and working class laboured in factories and mills and when vacations were the whitsun bankholiday weekend charabang to North Wales or Skegness? (I can't speak to posho' drunkeness as I work for a living, just like me mum and dad). Or maybe it's just a symptom of a buried rage that the British carry around inside after centuries of emotional stoicism.



I went to the hardware store in Leeds to buy some tools to use to hang our new backdrop. The hardware store was in a deserted old market in Leeds. Inside the market there is a Stamp Collectors store. It was empty too, apart from the proprieter. But there was something great about the empty market with its anachronistic stores; I like that about places in the provinces (anywhere). And of course I'm being condescending as I don't live in a small provincial town anymore and can enjoy the (apparent) lack of facilities. When I did live in a small town my skin itched in frustration thinking that life was going on elsewhere. I was sure that all the good things in life, all the golden opportunities, all the fun bypassed my home town on the M1 and the M5. Anyway, I hope Mr. Studley has a good weekend selling all the stamps he needs to and gets to have all the fun he can eat.


On a chipper note I've been feasting on the following - all are worthy of your attention.

Joan Didion - Play It As It Lays - genius writing - perfect style. LA in a book. What I'd give to do one thing half as good as this ever.
Jarvis - Fat Children. Jarv', innit? It's Hugo Boss.
David Essex - Rock On
Reeves and Mortimer - DVD Complete Series. Classic English Comedy and probably an aquired taste...
The Mighty Boosh - I've just got the Live version of the show which is like the TV show but as Panto. Again, classic English comedy. Probably best to start off with the TV series. I want to hang out with Vince and Howard.
Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want / Vicar In A Tutu / Frankly Mr Shankly - The Smiths
When The Sun Goes Down - Artic Monkeys
Vetiver - I Know No Pardon / Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat
David Bowie - Stay

London in the Wintertime.


Sunny, damp and chilly and London looks amazing. We landed, checked-in, then went straight to work. For the first time ever I'm not buying books and CD's before I do anything else. That will come though, I'm sure of it.

Went to Sunday Lunch in Borough Market at a boss restuarant called Roast, who, not surprisingly, serve Roast Dinners. It's been a long time since I've had a proper Sunday dinner. Roast beef, yorkshire pudding--the full monty. Class. South of the water is turning into my new favourite area of London now what with the Tate Modern, Borough Market, Bermondsey Street..the band were rehearsing down there so this makes it my second trip to London where I've mostly hung out in London Bridge / Borough. I'll be wearing a pearl covered jacket next, me old cocksparra'...

We (read: I) picked-up a van to carry the band and the gear around in. I haven't driven around in London like for a long long time. It's good fun and I can remember all the routes across town (mostly), but parking is a chore. Even on my old steeet in Kentish Town - which used to be a great sneaky spot for parking splitter vans - is now all permit only parking. Everywhere is, in fact; which made me realise I've been gone for ten years. Coincidentally, it took nearly 10 years to find parking only to have to move the van again after 2 hours. Why do people drive in London again? I know the tube is crap but driving, luv a duck - what a bleedin' palaver...

The Christmas Lights are up and on along Oxford Street and Regent Street; the city looks exciting and festive. It's one of my favourite times of year in Europe because it looks like Christmas. I managed to drop into HMV and came out in a daze with $200 worth of DVDs--some Chinese movies, and some old British TV shows (The Edge of Darkness, Top of the Pops compilation feat. Slade, T-Rex, The Jam, Ian Dury amongst others. The Jam look so young doing Down In the Tube Station At Midnight, and their miming sucks but it's great to see old performances like that.) I got some old episodes of Reeves and Mortimer and I'd forgotten how funny they are, and how English and original. I'm looking forward to checking out the Mighty Boosh Live DVD my friend gave me for my birthday. I'm glad to be back where people can make me belly-laugh.

Still, we go to Birmingham tomorrow so it could all change....c'mon luvver.

All the Turkey you can eat...

This is the Asian shore of Istanbul, a place called Uskudar. It was noticably poorer-looking than the new city or the old town but it was very busy with people going to sit on the waterfront to look across the river looking towards Europe.



We were there during the last three days of Ramadan, and everyone was out on the streets celebrating. In Uskudar some street vendors had floated some balloons on the river and were charging to let people (mainly young boys) shoot at the balloons with pellet guns. I don't know what the prizes were but to be honest, after firing a gun myself in Hawaii, i don't think winning a teddy bear as a prize is the motivating factor here...



At the mouth of the Bosphorous there was an endless line of ships waiting to navigate the river or collect their cargo. I have a thing about boats, and seeing so many huge tankers (not that this photo does them so much justice) made my simple heart glad. I am similarly amused by bubble wrap.



We went to see a performance of the Whirling Dervishes. It's more like a folk-dance display now in an exhibition hall at the station, but nonetheless the music was hypnotic and so was the dance. Originally the Dervishes spun and spun to put themselves in a state of religious ecstasy, one hand face up towards God, one facing down to earth so they could channel the love. They refer to themselves as the Lovers because of their devotion to God.



Spices in the Egyptian Spice Market. There was an awful amount of crap on sale too but the spices and Lokum (Turkish Delight) looked amazing. However the Turkish Delight does tend to mess up your stomach if you eat too much. Say if you maybe buy some to take home but gorge on it in your hotel room while you're reading of an evening and finish the lot in one sitting. Then it doesn't sit well at all. So I'm told.





And of course, Turkish Viagra. A walnut stuck inside a fig. I couldn't tell if it was a metaphor or not....

Northern Europe:

Back in Blighty I spent a weekend catching up with friends. Living overseas makes me miss everyone so much. On this visit I got to go to the Tate Modern for the first time ever and saw some great pieces, my favourite being the Fischli and Weiss exhibit. Mad Swiss artists. The film of the Bear and the Rat is genius. The Tate Modern is such a good building too. When I left London a decade agothis part of the City was a dead area; it made me happy to see the City develop so much. In America I miss the sense of history and culture that’s evident in all the major European cities. I miss Europe a lot these days.

I went to visit my hometown to spend time with my family. Although the city has come on a lot since I lived there and feels cleaner and more welcoming than it did fifteen years ago or so it’s still very quiet and closes up completely at night. I went out at 11PM to try to buy a Mars Bar (well, that was a pretext…) but couldn't find anything open – not even a petrol station. Weird.

Late night Coventry. This used to be a Wimpy Cafe in the 70's, now it's a listed building as an example of post-war architecture. Class.



And this is the Devil on the side of Coventry Cathedral. When we were kids on school trips we'd giggle at his willy as it looked like a milk bottle (and we know it's not after doing the corporate gig in October. We know exactly what the Devil's Willy looks like now: it's a Hennessy Bottle). Thirty years later and I'm still giggling at the Devil's Willy. And don't pretend you're not going to click on the photo to look...



Coventry finally has it's own food specialty to crow about. The noble Pork-Batch. At last, a cuisine I can call my own. Cooked pork on a roll with stuffing. Simple, classic, and unhealthy. This cart is a recent addition to the precinct but you've got to love the captioning. Coventry, where crap jokes are given pride of place. Truly makes me proud, and explains a lot too.



From the Midlands I flew to Amsterdam. One of my oldest and bestest friends is playing guitar for George Michael and I didn’t want to miss the chance to see him (However I missed seeing Neko Case and Cat Power to see George Michael - I'm either on the turn or an exceptionally good friend). The show was exactly as you’d expect – professional, slick, packed with hits and very good. I have to say more power to George as he gets to throw in a few barbed comments during the set with the visuals, as this picture of an inflatable George Bush getting blown by a British Bulldog shows. Wonder if he’ll use this on the US Tour? Or at Earls Court, for that matter.



I had my final day in Europe in Amsterdam. It was a rare treat to be in the city without an entourage of stoners all gagging about numbing themselves into comas. (to be fair last time it was only a couple of people, but it was enough to have me spitting bile for the entire visit) The air was crisp, the light amazing and I get off on hearing all the different languages spoken. The Dutch have a great way of saying English slang expressions and sounding more English than the English. The guy in a record store where I bought a Burt Bacharach compilation managed to say, “Mind ‘ow you go.” to me when I paid for the CD. Like he came from Deptford.

I had a great time wandering around and my friend took me to a load of commercial art galleries. There were prints of Dali and Picasso on sale for Euro 3000. I was tempted. Maybe when I go back at the end of the month…

Flying home, the nice lady at KLM check-in let me off my overweight baggage fee, which was kind of her and means I’ll try to fly KLM when I can from now on. Nice people.

Sadly, during my 5 hour layover at Heathrow I had to start hearing idiots in American’s Business Class lounge. Why is it stupid, opinionated people can’t help being loud? On the flight I was sat next to a man who was reading Bill O’ Reilly’s book in Hardback. Why would you want to buy that guff in hardback? (The Book is Called Culture Warrior and outlines his battle to prevent someone turning the US into an image of Western Europe. The preface is as self-serving and self-aggrandizing as I could stomach, but people buy this – in hardback. That’s just plain weird.) The guy also never said please and thank you to the attendants as they served him drinks. That’s piggish. And you know how I hate bad manners….

To take my mind of the violence that I felt towards the fascist ‘muncher sat next to me I made a list of all the good books I’ve just read this past two weeks, and the genius playlist on my I-pod that I’ve been listening to for the past few days and that I’d recommend to you all. Buying 10-hole Doc Martens from Holts in Camden and listening to Madness on the tube home is still one of the best London feelings a kid from the Midlands can get. Listening to Metal Guru while walking along the canal on Prinsen Gracht on the way to meet your date is another legendary feeling; a way to feel invincible with super-powers. How can you not feel invincible with that guitar sound blowing through your head? How can you not?


MADNESS – EMBARRASSMENT
IAN DURY – HIT ME WITH YOUR RHYTHM STICK / WHAT A WASTE
XTC - MAKING PLANS FOR NIGEL / MAYOR OF SIMPLETON
FLEETWOOD MAC – BIG LOVE / TUSK
T REX – METAL GURU
THE SMITHS – THIS CHARMING MAN
ROXY MUSIC - LOVE IS THE DRUG
JACKIE TRENT - MAKE IT EASY ON YOURSELF ( i think this is better than Scott Walker's version...)
DIONNE WARWICK – I’LL NEVER FALL IN LOVE AGAIN
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD – THE LOOK OF LOVE
OK GO – A MILLIONS WAYS
SHAKIRA – WHENEVER, WHATEVER
EDDIE FLOYD – BIG BIRD
THE THE – SLOW TRAIN TO DAWN
THE SMITHS – I STARTED SOMETHING I COULDN’T FINISH
THE SPECIALS – GANGSTERS
BRITNEY SPEARS - TOXIC
THE WONDERSTUFF - IT'S YER MONEY I'M AFTER, BABY
NICK CAVE – SUPERNATURALLY
PAUL WELLER – INTO TOMORROW / YOU DO SOMETHING TO ME
DAVID BOWIE – I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU / PABLO PICASSO
GRANDADDY – ALBUM OF THE YEAR

BOOKS:
Alan Bennett – 3 Stories
M J Hyland – Carry Me Down / How The Light Gets In
Henry Green – Loving / Living (Living is the only book I've ever read written entirely in a Birmingham accent - It's bloody boss, it am).
Paul Bowles – Collected Stories
Issac Babel - Collected Stories