Driving To California: Thursday March 23rd.

The bus is full and rowdy and I feel like I've spent a week in Vegas although we were there for only 48 hours. I like that we are driving towards San Francisco. Some places you connect with. I always feel at home in San Francisco, much as I do in Beijing or Berlin or Venice. I used to try to understand this resonance, this recognition I have with certain places I've been lucky enough to visit but I can't, not definitively. Now I don't try; I just enjoy the feeling of being somewhere that feels like it could be home - in another life. So few things are definitive - that's one of the joys of life, dui ma?

I have taken to lying in my bunk and listening to music. Space is a premium on tour. After weeks of being surrounded by people - even people you love and care deeply for - a feeling of privacy is something to cherish. Sometimes, a tiny beige curtain on your bunk is what keeps you together. Something that's hard to convey about touring is how the small, mundane things become the most important things. A little peace and quiet in your bunk, some clean laundry, a regular meal that doesn't cost $50, a phone call from a friend about a TV show you both watch....these are the anchors of normalcy that help to keep you centered on tour. All the glamourous crap - and most of it isn't so glamourous, turth be told - is much overrated. I'm not saying it's not fun, but it's a sugar high. And too much of it leaves you cranky and overtired; a five-year-old who missed their nap at a big birthday party.

However, when you feel disconnected sometimes the only thing to do is to feel disconnected. Sometimes the only company you can keep are the sad feelings in songs. Last night in my bunk I listened to Emiliana singing Fisherman's Woman over and over and over. I was glad to hear all the sadness in that song, all the loneliness. Sad feelings aren't any worse than glad feelings, they're just different. It's pointless to ignore them--and any feeling beats the alternative.

In the morning, when we drive into the city, the South Bay looks green and lush after the baked browns of Vegas; the ocean pours into the bay with a fresh tide running under the bridges; the skyline is an excited cardiograph against the crisp, blue sky and I feel optimistic again. I check my i-pod and hear Emiliana singing her lonesome song and in this glorious morning the song feels out of place and I can't quite recognise what I felt the night before. I feel duplicitous coiling the headphones and putting the music away; a penitent equivocating after absolution. Remembering how much I'd disappeared into the music I'm almost embarrased, as though I'd shared an intimacy the night before when I should have stayed quiet. I sit at the front of the bus, feeling, as countless thousands have before, that somehow, in someway, California will deliver on the promise of it's blue skies, green hills, and golden sun. There is everything to look forward to now.

By 5PM there is torrential rain.

I always forget that California is the bitchslap state.

Las Vegas - Wednesday March 22nd


You see Vegas long before you reach it; splinters of its trail scattered along the desert road from Arizona. Towns like Laughlin sit like shiny detritus strewn along the highway. Las Vegas itself sits in the desert like a crashed comet, radiating around the clock. Its hard not to stare at it when you crest the basin it lies in, it's hard not to think that there's something going on there that you want to be a part of.

We pull up outside the hotel after a long drive from Phoenix, everyone excited to be back. You know, you just know that something's going to happen in Vegas. It always does. Inside the casino it's no longer three-thirty in the morning, it's no time--casino time. There's still a few blackjack tables running and the Craps tables have dropped back down to their five dollar minimum from their ten-dollar minimum bet during the peak hours. I sleep for a while and then I go back down to the casino floor. There's so much going on there - it's not that I feel rested but I sure as hell don't feel tired anymore. There's a Starbucks and gift shops and you can eat at the Pink Taco, which is a mad name for somewhere, geddit? Pink taco - man, that's funny: the Pink Taco.

The floor is buzzing. Everyone's on, I mean ON, like the neon on the strip. I can't wait to get in amongst all of it. I throw my cash down onto the craps table and get $300 in chips back. I watch for a few throws to get used to the betting--the odds are crazy to figure out at first, but when you do it's the best. I start betting and the three years since I last played craps disappear. I love watching the dice tumble and bounce across the table, skip over the chips, collide with the felt and settle. A six, a nine, hard six, four and a seven and then we go again. A new shooter, a fresh chance. I'm a few dollars down but I don't care, I'll get it back. You know what it's like when you get a run on craps; everything changes so suddenly. You've got to come to this table thinking of the long game. Leave your blackjack for them that want a quick hit.

Everyone around the table is excited. The next shooter up is a woman. the only woman there. The guy bunched in next to me, he's fucking amazing man, he's been hollering at each shooter all night and giving out some crazy-wild vibes, anyway he shouts, "Give them to the babe with the boob tube," and everyone cheers. Under his breath he says--to our end of the table-- "C'mon, show us those titties, baby." She didn't hear and we all cackle and nudge each other because it's fucking funny. This is Vegas.

The boob tube rolls and craps out soon enough and she has this sour look on her face and we all kind of sigh because bitch if you can't be hot then at least look like you like it, y'know? The guy next to me, he's been cheering her all night, he mutters "Fuckin' A. If you ain't gonna' be cute then you coulda least made me some fucking money." I nod back at him. He's in a suit but he's got this wild tight-cropped hair and I think this must be one bad fucker. He's betting double the minimum.

Soon it's my throw. I love this. I've been trying not to bet too hard too early so that I've got enough cash left for my own throw. I pick two out of five dice. I know the whole table's watching me, so are the dealers, and I am damn sure that up in the sky there's someone in a control room checking me out.

Straight out I throw a seven. Everyone cheers and the pass line bettors get their cash back and I go again and then we're on. Somewhere along the line a waitress asks if i want drink and I order a cocktail and she's hot in her black tight shorts wth her tits sticking up in the tight leopardskin waistcoat. I think I should get her number because I am sure she was checking me out. Some other guy calls her baby and I make a point of remembering to tip her good so I get first crack at her but then I roll again and crap-out with a loaded table.

Later, I walk through the casino and check out the display cases, fingers tapping the room key in my pocket. The hotel has all this cool shit. They've got, like, Curt Cobain's guitar with all this hand-written shit on it. They've got Pete Townsend's guitar which is smashed up but it still looks rad. There's a guitar behind reception signed by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and there's all these drum kits set up everywhere. There's clothes too: Elton John's pink spotted suit, Kid Rock's shiny red suit and there's Christina Aguilera's leather chaps and tight little Stars and Stripes bra from the Dirty video (even though everyone knows Britney's got the rack - you can compare them because just next to it they've got that hot schoolgirl outfit Brittney wore in her video). They've even got a Paul McCartney guitar on the wall, which my brothers will be pyshced about - they like all that old shit like the Beatles.

On the way back to my room I see this lingerie store and I think it could be fun to hit on one of those watiresses and to pick up something from the store. I wake up in the morning with my pants unbuttoned and the TV blaring. From the feel of my sour tongue I'm sure I was wasted but it doesn't matter because I can go to the ATM again. I just don't give a rat's-ass about shit while I'm here. Not my job or my faggot boss, not my girlfriend, not fucking anything. I am going to rock and roll and I want to party and I'm going to get a fucking marguerita for breakfast and get back to the tables.



OR:

Las Vegas:

After a six hour drive through the desert we arrive to find our rooms aren't ready and the arrogant little muncher on reception speaks to me as though this were my fault and he's doing me a favour by not calling security. If it weren't for the cameras I would jump over the counter like I did that time in Paris all those years ago. But I'm older and wiser now and instead I wait impotently to get my rooms and swallow the bile. I content myself with wishing him a slow death in a truck-stop restroom. I go lie in the lounge of the bus and sleep fitfully for a few hours; waiting in increments of twenty minute periods for the rooms to become ready, feeling the sun heat up the lounge, last night's suit sticking to my back.

I'm the last to get inside at Noon. A nine hour delay. Not one fucking sorry from anyone. I get the feeling that I've just been given a demonstration between being a guest and being a mark.

After the show we go to gamble a little. I play craps and lose a little. I like the dealers at Craps Tables. I like how they're always trying to get you to increase your bets, max-out your odds. I know what they're doing but because I know, I think I am immune. I am not. I tip them every so often and they watch out for me--it was the first thing I learnt when I started playing craps. When the table is busy it helps to have someone watching out for you. Not that it stops you losing.

The waitress comes around and all these guys one after another call her honey and babe, it feels as though they're trying to sound bigger and more worldy than the poorly-dressed, crew-cutted ignorant jocks that they are. I wonder, not for the last time, how the waitresses here don't end up glassing the fuckers in the face for their condescension. Later a friend tells me he tried to be polite and he got the same vacant response the lairy jocks got. I guess waitresses last here by taking themselves out of the transaction. That, or you rust from the inside-out over time.

The only woman playing at our table throws and craps-out quickly. She looks pained to be there and I wonder if it's really that much fun for her; being at a table full of adolescent men all muttering about her breasts just the wrong side of audible. Luck wasn't a lady for me tonight, luck was a small round grandfather who looked like he taught classics or applied Math. This guy rolled for about fifteen minutes. I made back some of what I'd lost. No one is going to write a song about an elderly man being lucky. The pained woman in the tight black top got more attention and a lot less respect. Still, we all only function as extras to everyone else's Vegas fantasy when we're here. Any woman is available; every guy is the sucker you'll clean-out later on.

When a waitress walks past I check her shape out briefly--the uniform is tight and revealing and it works. For a moment I think dating a showgirl might be fun. I look up at the waitress's set face as she serves the drunks their cocktails, all I see is someone trying to pay their rent, not some hot minx who secretly wants slip back to my room with me for a private party. From the way everyone speaks to her I am certain I am in the minority.

In my room there's an advert for a store in the hotel called Love Jones. It sells lingerie. It's a business. The pictures were kind of hot from a distance but up close all the models looked dead like porn stars. I think they represent the sex in Vegas perfectly.

Walking back to my room after breakfast at 11:30AM the next morning I see a guy walking with a diagonal tilt because he's so drunk. He's trying to high-five all the old people he passes. He's about six-feet tall and dressed for the beach. The fucker should get out more. I mean, is that it? Is that the zenith of a trip to vegas? Staggering drunk through a casino trying to intimidate senior citizens to prove you don't give a fuck about The Man?

Peasant.

Vegas is too easy to ridicule. It serves a purpose, like the adult movies in business-class hotels do. It doesn't bear over-analysis.

In the Hard Rock Hotel they have glass cases displaying guitars and rock and roll memorabilia. There's a lot of crap that Elton John didn't want any more. There's a pair of trousers Sarah Mcglaughlin wore somewhere, a sock Gwen Stefani tried-on at The Gap one time. It's not memorabilia, it's detritus. There's the/a version of the schoolgirl outfit that Britney Spears wore in the "Oops! I Did It Again" video and Christine Aguilera's cowboy-whore costume from the soft-core Dirty video (Two of the first two images inside the casino are of borederline-underage girls being available for sex...).

There's a large display of Kurt Cobain's guitars and photos. It's anodyne, there's no rock and roll in any of it. There's a kind of fake martyred reverance attached to the display. A kind of corporate blessing over him - he's dead now and safe to stare at. The dead don't speak back. (But they can tell us about ourselves, although not here, there's too much static for reflection). This place is corporate rock n' roll for weekend Harley riders. Behind the reception desk there's a fender stratocaster signed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers - it's a mexican copy strat' worth about $150 and signed, no doubt, in a dressing room at the Joint because the management asked the band. If anyone out of the band touched it outside of signing it then my cock's a kipper. There's an acoustic guitar with a plaque saying Paul McCartney next to it. It's a right-handed guitar. There's a broken guitar from Pete Townsend to epitomise what Rock n Roll is really about (Pete hasn't smashed a guitar since the late 1960's that wasn't Pete himself in a pastiche of Pete himself...).

John Entwistle died upstairs here after taking Cocaine. He was found by the hooker/dancer/escort/special-friend he was with. I didn't see a plaque for him. It's not out of respect - Vegas doesn't do respect. It's because John Entwistle, dying a fifty year-old man in a such a desperate way, is too real, too rock and roll. And Vegas doesn't do real, Not while it's pimping it's children or picking the pockets of drunk conventioneers who think that for one fucking weekend they are living on the edge.

Sometimes Lord, I think you've left us alone for much too long.

When's that rain coming again?

Phoenix, AZ - Tuesday March 21st:


We’ve not long ago left the Phoenix show. The band left from the stage; when they finished the last song of the set they climbed into the bus and we set off for Las Vegas, wheels turning before the outro music had finished.

Sprint have loaned us a prototype wireless internet router which means we can get online as we drive, so I’m updating the blog from my bunk. In the back lounge Danny and Julian are discussing the new baseball game Julian got for the X-Box; in the front lounge Fab, Albert and Nick are watching Armageddon on TV. Nikolai’s bunk is opposite mine on the top floor and he’s ridiculing me for being such a sap by suggesting entries (“Fab’s opening a beer, Nick’s changing Channel with the remote—no! Wait! Albert’s standing up again…”) Maybe he’s got a point…?

We had a man-feast on In-N-Out Burgers when we got on the bus. We bought a bunch of them for the after-show food. In fact, since Dallas, we’ve been on an In-N-Out Burger countdown (officiated by Albert). So much so that when we landed today in Phoenix the very first thing we did was stop for Double Double burgers on the way to the show. They're so more-ish that Fab and Nick think there might be skag in the burgers. I’m pretty sure there’s crack cocaine in the chocolate shakes.

There’s eight of us on the bus and there were only 7 shakes. I’ll be honest: I did bad things to get mine.

In fact, I did bad things twice. It’s the night we shall never speak of again.

But really, you forget everything when that icy, frothy chocolate bubbles up through that straw and into your mouth.

Well, nearly everything…

So, to recap: we’ve been in AZ for a total of 6 hours and we’ve been to In-N-Out twice already. Gluttons we are.

Full of burgers and shamefully replete with solicited chocolate shakes I’m going to read Peggy Archer’s and Gong Li’s blogs in my bunk and go to sleep. Maybe that way Nikolai will stop heckling me although I somehow doubt it. He's in a mean mood, I know the signs. It's only a matter of time before he'll want to pull over at a truck stop to see if there's any bare-knuckle action going on. Then there'll be trouble.

Houston, TX - March 15th




We arrived at our Houston hotel about 4AM. The night was clear and balmy, the moon full and clean. The hotel was in a removed complex a few miles away from downtown. The surrounding foliage and landscaped forestry looked very dark and yet, in the shadows a new building behind ours, I could see the magnesium flare of someone welding together its iron skeleton. It was beautiful in a way, secret almost. I felt like the last person awake in Houston (at least, if not all of Texas). I felt quite alone. I was thinking that this seems to be a big part of touring life, going from the sweaty extremes of being at a crowded frantic rock show to being in the silence of a hotel in the hours before dawn, and alone.

Touring’s also about living an hour ahead, or a week ahead. Everything on tour is just about to happen, life is lived ahead of time – and for me, especially, I work in an environment where I’m planning weeks ahead of the event. So much so that when we do play shows they seem almost over before they’ve begun, and I’m thinking about the next thing to do, the next tour on the horizon. It’s such a transient world too: today’s guest list, today’s set list, today’s car times as insistent and essential as they are right now have no historical relevance (maybe the set lists do serve as souvenirs). Once the moment has passed, it has passed. I quite like that aspect to things – and it certainly makes time pass quickly – but it’s an unreal existence. It’s like never being able to enjoy a meal because you never stop planning the next one. For example: I’m typing this in Denver, Colorado. I’m on the 17th floor of our hotel. It’s snowing outside. I’m rewriting my notes from Houston last week where the air was warm and where I sonambulantly checked-into a hotel on the 4th floor in the silent pre-dawn; I’m also thinking about the scheduling I have to do for the band’s promotion later this week in Las Vegas and San Francisco and the routing issues I have to address for hotels and travel for tour dates in the summer in Europe; I am texting Albert who is on the band’s bus with Julian two hours outside of Phoenix, AZ where the sun is shining (they didn’t want to fly). I am actually anywhere but the 17th floor of a hotel in blizzard in Denver, Colorado. I think for those that tour, this dislocation can be part of its attraction.)


The band have played the Verizon Wireless Theate before. The audience felt loud but somehow static. Maybe the room was somehow restrictive. It wasn't bad, just a strange juxtaposition. Everyone enjoyed the show on stage.

On the way out of the Houston show Nick slid down a banister (it was a long banister and begged to be slid down). Half way down he lost his balance and slow-flipped backwards, landing painfully and loudly on his head, then on his knees and his feet. The stairs were concrete and steep and he kept rolling when he landed. To his credit he eventually sat up
And said, “Thankfully, I am all right.”
Then he went out to sign autographs.
Albert took the Eagles of Death Metal Bus to Austin to spend the day of at south By Southwest.
People were so nice in Houston but everyone kept calling me Gordon (much to Danny's amusement).

I think I need a new haircut. I can’t think of another way to nip this in the bud.



Dallas, TX – March 16th & 17th.

Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere. It was a very nice hotel but it was a very remote hotel too surrounded by reclaimed prairie, land pegged and stringed for the development of a business park, and interstate junctions. I rented a car first thing in the morning. The reception said that Avis was a couple of minutes away. It was about 7 miles. In New York terms that’s another state.

Fab and I took Nick to the hospital to get his toe x-rayed as he thought he’d broken it. The hospital wasn’t busy but it took 3 1/2 hours to get processed. While sitting restlessly in one of several waiting areas Nick and Fab decided to form a new band. They found the name of the band on a portable X-ray machine: kiloVolt. (kV).
In the next waiting / examination room it took so long for the doctor to arrive that Nick and Fab started to examine each others ears and eyes with the medical equipment in the room - those little lights that doctors use to check-out your ears? The arm-band for blood pressure (Fab inflated it so much that Nick’s hand started to go blue before the Velcro strap gave out and the armband popped off Nick’s arm.)
When the doctor finally arrived—-about two minutes ahead of all of us experimenting with the pure oxygen feed line—-she seemed puzzled as to how all of her examination equipment seemed to be set incorrectly.
Nick was fine, he’d just bruised his foot badly. It took a long time to find out but it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?

Later that night, Fab, Nick, Matt, Nikolai and I went to go see V for Vendetta at the local I-Max. We stopped by Taco Cabana on the way and had the best Mexican fast-food ever. (we got lost looking for a proper Mexican restaurant although we did see—-and resist—-the neon glow of Zone d’ Erotica store by the interstate. We also passed a store called Janitor’s World. It’s a sad indictment that everyone was more vocal about Janitor’s World. I have to be honest though – Zone d’ Erotica could have been called Zone D’Skank and it would have seemed more appropriate.)

We stood in line for the movie, all excited and quite literally full of beans. Once seated Fab and Matt went to get candy and then we settled in. Two minutes before the movie started Nick spat out a milk dud and held it in his palm. “It’s not my day,” he said quietly. Sitting in the middle of the milk dud was Nick’s gold tooth.

The movie was excellent. Really well scripted, very very timely, and I think we all found it inspiring and chilling. It’s strange to think that in England we still celebrate burning Catholic dissenters every year. The movie resonated with all of us over the next couple of days. Every time there was a mention of something fearful on the news we’d all exchange knowing glances. Sadly, I don’t think any of us felt that we were being paranoid or even subscribing to wild conspiracy theories. Just watch the news. In my mind they all blink too much.

We spent the morning of the show getting Nick’s tooth repaired at a Moroccan styled-dentist’s office. It felt like an East Village coffee shop. He and I picked-up brochures for taking care of bad breath to leave on the bus. We’re all getting paranoid about personal hygiene. As the brochure said: There’s Nothing Funny About Bad Breath.

Storms hit Dallas just before the show. Fab played drums for the last song of the Eagles of Death Metal with Sam and Josh: three drummers, and they even swapped kits halfway through. Sam's leaving the Eagles tour now Josh is joining it. We'll all miss her as she's such a presence and an amazing drummer. It took us a long time to get back to the hotel in the rain afterwards. When we did I stayed up late listening to Neko Case and Fiona Apple. Like Jessie from the Eagles says, let’s hear it for the Ladies.



Denver, CO – March 18th-20th

Flying to Denver was slow slow slow after we check-in with a nice lady from American Airlines. The flight was delayed some and the TSA staff arbitrarily sent people through these strange air blowing machines as part of the security check. Nikolai found out later--when he protested about the process--that the TSA employees are obliged to ask you to remove your footwear and if you don’t they can blast you with something (air, probably?). When Nikolai said he didn’t want to get sprayed by whatever it was all the TSA people came down heavily on him until one guy ascertained that Nikolai hadn’t been given the choice of removing his footwear. No one else tried to follow this procedure, they all just got aggressive and confrontational straight away. Like I said before, there’s been a loss of dignity somewhere along the way. Had there not been just one vigilant TSA Supervisor (and credit where it’s due, the guy who figured out what was going on was a real gent) then would Nikolai have been banned from boarding a flight because no one gave him the courtesy of an explanation, or taken a minute to find out what the problem was (or acknowledged that the TSA Staff had fucked-up)? Would this have had other repercussions for him? I realize this maybe sounds alarmist and that I might be making a mountain out of a molehill but sometimes I don’t really understand how process of accountability works in these situations and it makes me nervous.


We sat under a TV monitor and watched the CNN News bulletins. We jooked that they sounded uncannily like the news bulletins in V for Vendetta. And then there was a trailer for Nancy Grace's vicious show and it wasn’t funny to make jokes about it any more. She reminds me of the two minutes hate from 1984.


Arriving in Denver Nick, Nikolai and I sat together on the Monorail that took us to baggage claim. It felt like we were in the future. The blank announcements when the doors opened and closed, the vague sense that we didn’t quite know where we were going and yet the knowledge that the benign airport authorities would tell us what to do.
In the future you will always feel like you don’t quite know what’s going on and because of this you will be permanently confused. But it’s okay, because you won’t be allowed to make a wrong decision.

The drive from the airport into Denver was strange. The airport is on a high plain and it feels like you’re on the moon. In fact when the plane landed it was easy to imagine herds of buffalo running to get out of the way, so remote and undeveloped did it feel (erm, Lunar Buffalo?). It felt like Iceland in some ways; remote and lunar and eerily beautiful.

Denver itself was gauzed in low cloud. The buildings looked both gothic and futuristic. It was easy to imagine small jet craft whizzing around between them like in the Fifth Element or somesuch. By the time we arrived at the hotel we were all tripping on some low-level paranoia. Albert asked, “Is Denver like Tulsa and Dallas? You know, where some people look at you as though you’ve done something wrong because of your haircut? I’ve felt like I was just about to be arrested for the past week in Texas and Tulsa.”

(Side note: Austin doesn’t feel like this (and nor did it feel like this when we met people at/after the shows who were all unfailingly cool to hang out with), however two things did come up in Austin: A) Ryan had to go to the emergency room because one of his teeth became unbearably painful with some heinous infection just before the Stubbs show. He waited for hours and then the doctor treated him with undisguised contempt, as though Ryan were faking the agony to score pharmaceutical level painkillers. He wasn’t. He had to stay in Austin for a week after because he couldn’t fly and risk the cabin pressure on the tooth, as per the instructions of his NYC dentist over the phone. The Doctor simply made a call on the way Ryan was dressed and hung him first. B) Julian and I got a ride with the show runner back to our hotel. We were chatting with the guy about living in Austin and how cool we thought the town seemed. It’s a cultural centre, there’s a lot going on and it seems to welcome art and artists. Julian said to the guy, “This place sounds amazing. Like the perfect place to vacation or something. What’s the downside to living here? There’s got to be some downside, right?”
The guy answered. “Yep. There’s all these pockets of liberalism….”)

The Denver show took place ahead of a blizzard, it sounded bad and the bus and truck drivers all got worried about the darkening skies outside. Inside The Fillmore is a great venue and aside from some shortness of breath because of the altitude everyone had a good time on stage. The blizzard came and went and looked to me like the gayest storm of the season. Still, if you’d listened to the news you’d have killed your fattest neighbour by now in case your tinned food supplies were to run out. I know I did. And I’m f***ed if I know how I’ll manage to finish all of him before I have to leave for the flight to Phoenix tomorrow morning.

The Late Show With David Letterman - Mon Feb 27th

Monday morning – we got back from the UK tour on Friday afternoon so there’s no breathing space between the two tours. Better still, because Letterman doesn’t tape on Friday, they now record two shows on Monday which means our call time is 5AM as we’re the first of the two shows. It was the coldest New York night in February and it’s the first time ever that the studio at The Late Show has felt warmer than outside. “That’s because the A/C has been off all weekend,” announces one crew member, heading to turn on the A/C. Sure enough, later that afternoon the studio is down to 48 Degrees (no one knows why: is it to avoid sweating? Do people really laugh more easily when they are cold? It’s mystery….) Still, temperature aside, it’s good to do this show as the staff and crew are always unbelievably on top of their stuff and the day runs smoothly.

Julian, Nikolai and Albert met Bruce Willis backstage who was also a guest on the show. In fact, while the band were playing, Bruce and one of the cast (a man dressed as an elderly lady – I don’t know why either) were standing next to each other nodding along to the track. Bruce digs The Strokes. He said so, it’s official.

I was the last to leave the studio and on the way out I met (read: harangued) Ricky Gervais coming in to record the second show of the day. I invited him to the New York shows but he couldn’t come because he was flying back to England the next day. It’s a shame that no one got to meet him as the band are all big fans of the Office and his live stand-up DVDs. Nick enjoys the Monkey News on his podcasts too.


New York City- March 1st, 3rd & 4th

Playing New York again was exciting if a little stressful. Everyone’s friends and families were there and we had no time to rehearse the production (normally before the start of a tour we build the show somewhere and run through the set list with the band to make sure everything works – we didn’t have time at the start of the US tour s the first day was slow and stressful for the crew). At the first show in New York everyone was excited backstage and a little edgy. The setlist was written, and rewritten, and rewritten and Nikolai relaxed by throwing knives in the dressing room. It’s a form of relaxation he picked-up in Belfast where he discovered a zen calm by trying to spear a plate full of lemons and limes and where we’d stuck the dressing room setlist to the wall using a meat knife. In New York the only thing he came close to spearing was Albert. (Later in the week Julian came down to the venue earlier to relax by playing baseball inside Hammerstein Ballroom – you’ve got to make use of a space like that in New York, right?).

The New York shows were so social it was ridiculous. Each night it was physically impossible to get any more people into the dressing room (that didn’t stop everyone trying, though…). After the first show we had a party in a pool hall for the band and about 200 of their closest friends. It was good for everyone to relax together after a manic week of the NME awards, Letterman and then a New York show.


Nashville - Mon 6th March

Albert and Julian flew ahead to Nashville the day before the show so they could hang out with the Kings of Leon. Also, on the first showday of the tour proper, they could lie in bed in the morning and relax rather than travel. The rest of us flew at lunchtime on the day of the show and checked into our hotel before heading down to the venue.

The Ryman is a beautiful building. I think it’s a national monument(?). During the day they run tours where you can pose for a photo on stage holding a guitar and singing into an old-fashioned mic. I’m not quite sure how this worked out but I think a group of tourists from Shreveport, LA have themselves some photo’s with Brian and Matt and Jamie posing in the background.

In some ways Nashville felt like the first night of the tour, now that we were out of New York. I think the band were surprised by the reaction of the audience a little as they were so overwhelmingly warm….

After the show we threw a surprise birthday party for Juliet at the hotel. I got the Kings of Leon to help blow up balloons and hang decorations. Everybody loves a party, right? Especially with balloons.

On Tuesday we played baseball with the Kings of Leon. It took a while to decide on teams but in the end we rejected The Strokes VS The Kings and euphemistically chose Nashville vs New York. The Kings had some tasty looking baseball caps – they were definitely the better attired team, although The Strokes have all their own catcher’s mitts. Our friend, T R Lewis, arranged for us to use a baseball diamond at David Lipscombe University (Thanks again Andy!) where they even turned on the lights for us at dusk.

Fab tore his pants and his knee sliding for a base. Julian and I collided trying to catch the same ball (I never understood how this happened when I saw it on TV. Now I know…). Ryan and Nathan respectively pitched for each team until Julian pitched for New York during the eighth. Caleb hit hard but was caught out each time by T R Lewis. Nick Valensi played some good third base and Fab covered the outfield while Julian fielded at second base. It was (mostly) even-stevens until the eighth innings when the Kings caught a break and tore ahead to win the game. I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with final scores here, do we? I mean, who cares….? Although history may be written by the victors you’re reading this on the a blog written by The Strokes TM so no thank you very much; we shan’t be vulgar and discuss scores here. Not until we beat them next time, in the new branded apparel we’re going to get ourselves.

Thanks to TR Lewis, to Andy and everyone at David Lipscombe University for allowing us onto your diamond. And thanks to the guys who joined us to make up the numbers early on before all the Kings of Leon team had got themselves out of bed.

And Christ did we creak the next day.



Atlanta - Weds 8th March.

On the way to Atlanta we watched Kill Bill 2 on direct TV on the bus. You have to love it when Darryl Hannah gets hers. And not because it’s Darryl Hannah, I’m sure she’s very nice in real life and I wouldn’t really wish her an agonizing blind death in a skeevy trailer. Not unless she messed with me with a snake, of course. In that case a good blinding would seem almost hospitable. That’s fair enough, right?

I’ve needed a new computer since Bristol on the UK tour when my PC got infected with some spiteful virus from an online casino. In Atlanta we stayed near the Apple store and the morning after the show both Fab and I bought one. We then spent the rest of the day calling each other to check on how they worked. When my keyboard lit up automatically at night I nearly called Fab to tell him ("Dude, guess what?! Close your curtains and keep the light off, it's wicked!"). Then I realized I needed to get out of my room and speak to some people, preferably adults.

Albert, Fab, Nikolai, Danny, Rob and I went to Bones steakhouse for dinner. The food was excellent and we all gorged on meat and all manner of deliciousness. Plump and pink and feeling warm with a post-prandial glow we stepped out into the rain to look for a cab. Danny pointed out we were only yards from the scene of a shooting the night before; suddenly we were all sober and clear eyed and making jokes about dying in a ditch. Just like we always do after the crème brulees.


Kansas City- Friday 10th March.

For years I’ve only had one absolute rule. (You really don’t want to know it, honest...). But now I’ve got two. the second is: Never fly Delta, not if there's the option of crawling to your destination through a river of broken glass first. Every time I have this year it’s been an arduous, discourteous experience.

This is the second time that I’ve had nothing but grief from the moment we arrived at the airport. Coupled with the fact that the woman who checked us in didn’t seem to know what she was doing and was the single most pointlessly officious person I’ve met in years, checking-in was an Olympian test of patience. And I hate people with bad manners. It’s interesting, in some ways, to watch angry people act out their rage, although admittedly not always when they’re messing with your day. There is the pyhrric consolation in that if you look closely you can see them get smaller in front of you.

It seems that since the security has tightened at airports the airlines have used this as an excuse to grind their services down so much so that unless you're traveling up the front you no longer can expect service or courtesy. Maybe it's the subtle change in power that airline staff now have. Before 2001 staff were probably less stressed and I feel there was a focus on some semblance of customer service. Now it seems that staff are solely there for safety and procedural enforcement (Unless you've paid a lot of money for your ticket) and under these auspices some staffers often treat the customers with a thinly veiled disdain because maybe they're no longer accountable to the customer? Is it just me who feels that walking through an airport from check-in to getting on the aircraft has taken on some kind of Orwellian timbre that wasn't there five years ago? I feel that an awful lot more people now have some arbitrary power over one's ability to go about one's business and, judging by the tone I've had used on me, and that I've heard used on others, it feels to me that some level of respect has been eroded in the process of ensuring safety. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive? And God knows I think the security measures should be stringent and rigourously enforced, but it feels like we lost some dignity along the way and I don't know that we needed to. Or maybe this is just how things are and I'm just an over-privileged white git who resents having to explain himself to anyone as he goes about his business? Especially when they don't ask nicely....


Still, what do I really care about this tedious witch who no longer bothers with good manners or hiding her bitterness? She’s doubtless still resentfully checking-in people she hates every day and I’m not. The flight wasn’t much better – both Nikolai and I were silently mouthing “Let me off” to each other as the plane slew through the queasy turbulence for the first 40 minutes of the flight. Two words, Delta. Staff Training.

After the grim purgatory that was flying Delta things got better when we arrived at the venue in Kansas City. Dave from Sprint came down and hooked us up with a prototype Wireless Router that means we can go online while on the bus and traveling. I was so grateful a small, sparkling tear escaped my eye. That hasn’t happened since Albert took me to Rocco’s in Melbourne in 2003 and I saw all those rows of hand-made ankle-boots.

We loaded up the bus with the entire dressing room rider and just before the band came off stage the after-show BBQ food arrived. As we headed off for Tulsa after the show the bus was all sweaty rock-stars and BBQ ribs and sausage (which Nick appreciated dipped in the sauw-cah, please; dip it in the sauw-cah). I another world, the scene would be a spread for Hombre Magazine. I had to go to my bunk in the end. It was too much for me, really it was.

Tulsa, OK - Sat 11th March

We arrived in Tulsa around 4:30AM. It was deserted. I find so many American cities are like that and they’re spooky and kind of thrilling. I put on some Neko Case from my Ipod to stop the room feeling so empty and I watched the city from the window. Only a few cars were passing on the interstate and the lights at the intersections were changing for no one. The city seemed abandoned. Neko sang about Deep Red Bells and Tulsa felt very, very isolated to me. I felt a long way from anywhere I knew.

In the morning I discovered there was still no one around, except some fans who were also staying at the hotel. The girl at reception couldn’t tell me where to find anything to eat beyond the hotel restaurant (which looked pretty bleak). Outside, the city looked like somewhere you’d see in an episode of COPS. The few people I saw were in cars and there seemed to be lots of blank concrete comprising downtown that hadn’t even been personalized by graffiti. I come from a small empty City so I felt some sense of connection but I couldn’t help wondering what you’d have to do here to keep yourself together if your ambitions stretched beyond what the City had to offer. I felt like there must be a level of despair rusting the foundations of so many aspirations.


After a manic show in Tulsa we hung out at the venue before driving overnight to Austin. It was one of the few times that we’ve been able to hang out with the Eagles of Death Metal. Aside from being a great band they’re boss people to hang out with. We love them so hard. And so should you. They do love everyone back harder. (It’s looks like the last days of Rome on out on tour with them).

We ran back to the hotel to get the last of our belongings and as I left I was accosted by a guy I’d seen at the venue who was waving a multi-colored light sabre around. Seeing the earpiece to my walkie-talkie as I walked through the lobby he ran alongside me, Albert and Nikolai saying, “Oh man, FBI. You’re the fucking FBI man. I ain’t scared of you, FBI man. Ain’t scared at all.”
When we got in the elevator he tried to join us but there wasn’t really room, so he dived into the opposite elevator and said “I’ll see you downstairs. FBI man.”
Sure enough he did, muttering curses about the FBI following him all the way to the door.

Outside, three Police cruisers had stopped a car containing four girls who were headed to the hotel after going to the R Kelly concert. That’s six po-lice for four women. It was time to get out of dodge.


Matt came with us on the band bus. I typed letters to friends in the back lounge while Albert played guitar and Julian hooked-up the Xbox 360 and did a quick survey of the games he’d been sent. The front lounge was full of everyone else. They were watching Airplane.

Austin, TX - March 12th-14th

When I woke up we were driving into Austin on Sunday morning. Nikolai and I were the only people awake. The hotel rooms weren’t ready so we went for breakfast at a restaurant called Iron Cactus, which coincidentally was the first place The Strokes played in Austin at their first South by SouthWest. We had the Mexican breakfast buffet, by the way.

Austin was warm and sunny and we felt like we’d finally arrived in Spring. It was good to be back in Austin. The only downer – and it’s no small thing – is that Neko Case plays on Friday when I’ll be in Dallas. If there is a God, she’s got a vicious sense of humour.


Because the South By Southwest takes over Austin and there aren’t any hotel rooms available for late check-outs we had to check-out of our hotel early on show-day. We went to the venue to hang out – Julian played catch with Matt to keep his baseball eye in. Fab, Albert and Nikolai went to do a radio interview. Sean Na Na played on the bill as a special guest. The evening was manic with Sean coming onstage to sing Under Control again, like he did in New York. After the show we hung out for a while before taking the bus to the next hotel in Houston. No one wanted to leave Austin, we’d had a good visit.

On the bus after the show Albert made his specialty signature dish: Toasted Sombreros. Nick and Fab ate those bad boys right up, too. Everyone watched episode after episode of the David Chapelle show which the band’s agent had sent out to the band as part of a DVD care package for the bus. It was a three hour drive and I fell asleep in my bunk. When I woke up at the hotel in Houston Nick and Fab were sleeping contentedly – Nick on the sofa in the front lounge, Fab on the floor. Like full cats.