Toby Keith: Maybe I'm Amazed....

His video was on TV in the gym in the hotel in Vancouver.

Will someone please stop this fatheaded muncher?

Please?

Have you seen the video? it's the one where a woman is tied to the chair and Toby bricks her up in a cellar, all the while keeping her quiet? There's no cute punchline, no clever "out", just a guy murdering his girlfriend, with the only joke seeming to be that it's of course what the bitch deserves, for, like, talking to much or something. Wouldn't you all want to do that, eh guys? (tangentally, British Sea Power had a song refused by MTV standards because it contained the line “Makes us wetter, wetter” mumbled in the outro, yet Keith can show a woman being bricked-up in a cellar…) He also had that song “I Wanna’ Talk About Me” a few years ago; the one where his girlfriend/wife etc. wouldn’t shut up and he’s complaining he’s not getting enough attention or something.

What’s the problem Toby?

F***wit.

London, Ontario: Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.


In London, ON it’s the last day on the tour for one of the crew. He is leaving us for a few days to get married. The rest of the crew decide to take him out to a strip club as a celebration. I stay out of the planning, chiefly because if I do it then it’s not like anyone really made any effort—it’s too easy to get the Tour Manager to arrange everything; and its good for everyone to make some kind of effort. Besides, I try to arrange as little as I can outside of work. It’s easy to get fucked-off with being the one who always makes all the arrangements.

In my life I’ve been to about three strip clubs and had exactly one lap dance. They’re just not my thing. I can’t deny that if there’s a woman nearby either wearing very little or removing her clothes then I’ll watch—even if (and I say this not to be coy) I don’t really want to. This place is no exception and while some of the women are good looking mostly the whole environment is cold and completely devoid of any erotic feeling. The pedestrian attempts at atmosphere, such as the low red and UV purple lighting, do not compensate for the lack of heart in the place. Women dance on the stage dressed as schoolgirls or as dominatrix. Sometimes they involve the audience in their dances—say, by grabbing some guy around the head with their knees and shaking him with their thighs while his friends cheer--sometimes they just strip. I feel an obligation to be aroused, but I’m not. I’m all for people having guilt-free fun and enjoying their bodies (even if I can't), and it’s not as if the women dancing in costumes or even—and get this for zany AND erotic--in a giant champagne glass offend me, but it’s just all a bit tired and tawdry. A schoolgirl? Null points for imagination. Still, we’re dealing with primitive urges here so maybe I’m overthinking things…its not as though someone dancing a scene out of a Rene Magritte painting would improve the quality of an erection, would it?

(Or would it?…..)

Cindy says hello to me, or rather to my money, and asks my money if I’d like a dance—she lets me know I’d better be quick as she’s finishing soon. She has a good sales patter; one hand is proffered to shake mine and establish rapport, the other drapes over my shoulder and all the time she stares me down. I wonder if this is how she overwhelms the nervous men who are afraid to initiate any contact. It probably works very well, I thank her kindly and decline. She totters off in her gold bikini and heels but tells me again not to wait too long.

Several patrons are getting private dances in the booths. The women are working hard – looking at the clientele you can’t think otherwise: imagine for a moment you are wearing only your underpants—got that? Now imagine you have to wave your bum in some fat bloke’s face for three minutes at a time, all night long. That’s hard work, however you slice it. I can’t imagine what tips might compensate for this kind of work; ones bodyweight in krugerands at the end of every shift maybe?

All the men in the club appear to think they are players. I can’t think why, they all, to a man, look like wankers--us included, I daresay. I hang around but leave after a polite half an hour. I was relieved to see that almost everyone who had come with our group looked as if they had stones in their shoes. No one looked comfortable or particularly excited to be there.

All that said, I can’t deny I felt a certain charge in the air—women were (technically) available and walking around in their underwear. One doesn’t have an intellectual reaction to that… However, the reality of someone writhing around in front of your face for money just lacks a certain….is it romance, for me? I know someone rented one of the women to go back to his hotel room. He didn’t sleep with her; he just wanted a trophy or maybe company. He got both, on the meter. She got paid and left after four hours. Doesn’t that strike you as abominably sad? And I understand it too, which is what spins me out the most. I think we hate it most when we see someone else’s weakness and it resonates within us. And no one wants to see even a sliver of their own loneliness and sexual insecurity shone back at them, not for a moment. In many ways I’m surprised the guy in question wasn’t burnt as a way of exorcising a certain collective shame…or maybe that’s a little over dramatic. It’s that Catholic spooky-ritual fixation rearing its head again, isn’t it?

My first strip club was in New Orleans at lunchtime. The sallow dancer looked exhausted as she wriggled around in front of us. My friend at the time was very excited and tipped well. I didn’t know where to look. I mean that. Certainly the bony groin in front of us wasn’t an option. Call me strange.

My one lap dance was a couple of years ago. It was embarrassing not only because it was at a stag-party and was therefore a very visible event—I think in some ways being seen by other men to have a lap dance is as much a part of the dance as the dance is, from what I can tell. You are supposed to emanate “I am enjoying this” vibes to the other men so they can admire your prowess. It was also embarrassing because the woman dancing was being very nice and chatty while simulating oral sex and swinging and shaking her breasts around inches from the tip of my nose. The dance may have looked like sex but it lacked any eroticism. Instead of being a public display of red-blooded masculinity it felt like a public charade that I wasn’t buying into. I waited for the song to stop and said thank you. Afterwards I felt stupid; stupid for sitting through it and stupid for not being more into it--I felt like I'd failed some male test: (Doesn't like lap-dances! Hah! What a sap!). The whole premise just felt absurd. It wasn’t foreplay. It wasn’t anything. I guess good dancers are the ones who can make you feel they like doing it for you (and maybe some do? What do I know? And maybe some men don’t care and are happy to be paying for it?). However, I don’t think I can suspend my disbelief that much. Or maybe I’m just so uptight about sex that I can’t deal with someone who’s comfortable with their body when they wave it around very much in my face? Maybe it’s a bit of harmless fun? After all, naked women look great. Who wouldn’t want one dancing only inches away? If I try to imagine when this would feel okay I can only think of somewhere very private with someone I knew was really into it…And even then I'm not sure…

Judging from the clientele at Solid Gold in London Ontario, I am in a minority. Plenty of people seem to enjoy such pleasures just fine. And good luck to them. It wouldn’t do for us all to be the same now.

Canadia:

After an overnight bus journey we cross the border at 9:30AM. Canadian immigration ask us to get off the bus and while they examine our passports and work visas three of the officers inspect the bus. They are always only looking for two things:

1. To see what kind of fancy bus we’re on.
2. To check for any drugs.

The only question I am asked when the three officers get off is. “What movie were you guys all watching?” (Coming back into the US once from Canada about 8 US INS officers got on the bus. Of course, it takes 8 people to inspect a bus. The only way we can get 8 people on our bus is by having people either sit down and watch TV or get into their bunks, so I’m fucked if I know how 8 immigration all fit…)

The guy stamping the passports is friendly and chatty (The Canadian borders have some of the most genteel immigration officers I’ve encountered) and he tells me about what it’s like at the border when the New York Yankees play in Toronto and all the Yankee’s fans cross over. “There’s always a few bad ones,” he says. “But it took me a while to realize that they’re not all trying to be rude. Most Americans say ‘Okay’ when they really mean ‘thank You’. You can’t get mad at them, they don’t know any better.”


After two late nights (which counts as after 3AM in my book) I am in a coma as soon as we leave Toronto. I wake at 7AM as we pull into the Montreal hotel feeling rested and full of beans.

Montreal is a glass of cool water after a few months in the US. The City feels like a town on the French / Swiss border. I love hearing French spoken, I love the variety of cuisines here, I love the clean air and the scenery—even for an isolated Northern City it feels good and actually not quite as creepy as places just as remote in the USA. Maybe it’s something to do with the specific character of the City; namely that it has some.


I spend a lazy afternoon eating lunch at an amazing French Café, wandering around the different neighbourhoods, and eventually running (it’s a very loose description) to the top of Mont Royal. Running along the wooded track felt amazing and even gulping for air wasn’t too bad because the air felt so clean. The view over Quebec and the St Lawrence River from the Mont was spectacular; the isolation of the city apparent in the flat flat landscape surrounding it—the three dark mountains on the Southeastern horizon and aside. There was nothing to see until the sky in every direction I looked.

At the top of the Mont is a cross. It’s about sixty feet high and at night it lights-up. It reminds me of the one in Rio De Janiero. Because it’s among the trees alongside the track it has a kind of spooky presence and somewhere in my reptile-Catholic brain I get a spooky thrill from it. Crosses in forests are pretty eerie. I run down the hill at sunset, amusing myself with a Hammer Horror narrative about escaping the forest before sunset. Later I feast (there is no other word for it) on legendary Portuguese food from a place called Ferreira on Peel Street. I eat for a solid hour. I feel like I’m on vacation. I feel stuffed. I get paid for this, at least today I do.

But the vacation doesn’t last for long – the next day we drive to Ottawa and resume to our tour of strip-malls and concrete stadiums.

Tucson: No time for anything but nothing.


I’ve never spent any time in the desert. I’d like to, it has a lot of romance about it. I think all places that have space have a lot of romance in them--I think the space allows us to fill them with what we'd like to find there. From my Tucson hotel room the city looks flat and dry but beyond the mountains rise up like every Western I saw as a child back in England. I might come back to visit the locale when I have some down time; maybe in February when the Northeastern winter is at its most suckingest.

I get a taste of the desert backstage by the trailers. The ground is mostly dust. It’s not really the place to be wearing a pinstripe suit and black leather ankle-boots from Jermyn Street but I have discovered a sartorial stubborn streak, usually only evidenced in teenagers and self-martyring Goths. Aside from the gig-in-a-dustbowl vibe, the stage is also a short stone's throw from a sewage treatment plant and depending upon the direction of the wind the atmosphere changes dramatically. Add in the fact that the sewage plant looms beind the stage and as the sun sets its industrial-scale sodium lighting acts a counterpoint to the stage light show and you have a smelly, dirty painfully orange example of Genius Show Planning. All of that desert out there and this is the best place for the gig? The heat and the dirt does give me pause for thought about what I’ll wear in place of suits at the summer festivals this year. I have such shallow concerns. I am very passionate about my shallow concerns. Is that irony?

We have to fly to Los Angeles the next day for the band to shoot a video. We barely get to see the city; we go from the airport to the shoot, from the shoot to the hotel at 1AM, and then back to the airport 12 hours later. Video and film shoots are all about waiting around in a kind of semi-on-call state. I don’t have the disposition for either, I’m too abrasive and impatient. Its strange how different entertainment professions are populated by fundamentally different people. Music people are abrasive and direct (read: crass). Movie people are smooth and positive, even when they’re not (read: oily). I used to think in "entertainment" it would be easy to flit between disciplines – I don’t think it really is. We're like cousins who can hang-out occasionally but end up bitching about each other when we go home to our mum's houses. I’m a music person. I have a music person’s sense of what’s appropriate. I tried other fields but they’re not me. I sense it when people from other areas come to our shows and don't quite get it or can't quite find a place to be without being in the way. I feel like that at shoots, even when I'm working. It's like I don't understand why it works the way it does or something, even though, on paper, I do understand completely.

The only quiet time I get this weekend is at breakfast before we leave. I order an cheesey-bacon omelet at Mel’s Drive-In on Sunset. I like the warm morning sun, I like being in California. I think I’ll move here for a while when we’ve got a break. I chew on the thought for hours on the flight home like it is juicy toffee. It is such a luxury to be able to decide to go live somewhere else for a few weeks. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I am already fantasizing about living in Beijing at the end of the tour for a couple of months. Maybe I’d be smarter to concentrate on that? Such worries. I am a lucky boy, there’s no doubt about it. And crass. Really fucking crass.

Tucson—A Long Days Journey Into Night:

We leave New York on a Friday and hit the rush-hour traffic into the Holland Tunnel. How people do this on a daily basis never ceases to amaze me, as does the lack of random homicides at the tunnel mouth every night. Everything today is late and I sit sullenly in the front seat of the van watching the traffic inch down Broome Street, quietly wishing slow, public deaths on every muncher blocking an intersection ahead of us. At one point I get so antsy that I get out and walk a block because sitting staring at the back of the immobile truck in front is driving me to distraction, and murder.

We make the airport with three minutes to spare in which to check-in. I pay the skycap the requisite two dollars per bag for the curbside check-in, then I tip him. I’m very English and I am frequently resentful when tipping. I understand tipping in a restaurant, and tipping someone who takes your coat, or tipping someone who delivers something to your house, but tipping someone to check-in your bags after you’ve paid? Or tipping someone to pour a two-dollar cup of coffee? I mean, what does the airline ticket pay for, or the subsequent curbside check-in fee? And the two dollars for the coffee? I feel guilty about feeling so cheap but at the same time I feel as though walking down the street can give you a nose-bleed in America. It’s not that I mind paying for things or rewarding service per se, but these are such quasi-obligatory tariffs for something that seems part of the initial service. Everyone’s working an angle. And I know that people don’t get paid what they should either. But couldn’t everything just cost what it costs to produce / provide—or am I being naïve? I half expect coffee houses to start charging for cups next—and I’ll wager they will slide it in as a discount for anyone using their own coffee mug first; within a few months the coffee will be cheaper but the cups will become more expensive (just like with headphones on planes—the movie is 'free' nowadays, but the headphones aren’t-altough that could have been a response to all the walkman headphones people have. Conspiracy theories...I love 'em).

Why only bring Scrooge out at Christmas, I say? Bah! Humbug to May, June and July too.

At Dallas/Fort Worth Airport (DFW) I learn our connection is delayed – at first by thirty minutes, and then by nearly two hours. Suddenly everyone becomes an expert on travel planning, on how we could have missed the rush hour, on better airports to fly into (because, like, storms in the southwest notoriously only affect DFW…. every other airport has clear skies and smooth landing 24/7/365—everyone knows that; except me, of course). Everyone is pissed-off, it is turning into a long journey. There’s not much open at any airport at 10pm at the best of times, at DFW there’s even less. Finally, settling into TGI Fridays with a leaden sense of resignation (TGI F***ing Fridays!) I order some food—although it seems half the menu isn’t available; between us we try several times before being able to order anything beyond an oversized maguerita.


Seated next to us are some new Army recruits. They're fresh out of basic training and en route to Tucson to start their training proper. They are all to a man and woman pleasant people. They are friendly and eager to chat—I think nine weeks cooped up on an Army base without any outside contact has given them a thirst for contact with anyone--and of course they get to meet a rock band at the airport. I am sure we are as curious to them as they are to us. (I’d think so if I ran into David Bowie at TGI Fridays in Dallas, or Beyonce at Sizzlers in Fort Lauderdale. I did run into Nick Cave in a coffee shop in Brussels once nearly a decade ago, and I can still remember it. I couldn’t think of anything cool to say so I said nothing, which was the right thing to do. It was an uncharacteristic response on my part. Normally, I’m a garrulous twonk in such situations.)

A couple of the soldiers seemed quite lost, as thought they’d be doing nothing if they weren’t in the army. I wonder how many recruits are in a similar position? I feel sad talking to them—aware that in a few months they might be killed in a car bomb outside Basra. The one thing that does strike me is how specific their vernacular is—they talk of "helping-out" and going “over there” to see what they can do. Certainly they don’t view themselves as anything but a positive presence over there. I’m ignorant, maybe they are going to be helping-out, but it’s the only time I’ve heard words like “helping” used in context with the conflict there. They certainly didn’t seem overly idealistic about the situation, but they viewed their role as a positive one. I’ve never encountered such an attitude elsewhere.

I hope they all get the education they seek in the Army, and find a sense of purpose, if that’s what they are looking for. Mostly I hope they get to grow old to enjoy a future with their families and all their limbs. Really I do. They seemed like good people.

I don’t recommend anyone arrives in Tucson at 2AM. When I finally get to my room--which I know is the last room available in the hotel—I discover that someone had indeed just been sleeping in my bed. The room hasn’t been cleaned since the last occupant left, the bed is unmade, the towels sop on the bathroom floor. My shoulders drooped to a curve and I hauled my luggage back to the elevator and down into reception where I politely, through the tighest whitest lips I could muster, requested someone Sort. This. Out. Now. As evidence of a God with a sense of irony, the hotel discovered they had double-booked one of my group and, proving that two negatives make a positive, I got a room.

The first show back after the break is in Atlantic City--Las Vegas on Sea. Fortunately, the casino we’re playing in is the nicest in town so it’s the only place I’d want to be in Atlantic City. The first night I stay up until 6AM catching up with everyone, well, as much as you can catch up with everyone in a casino. I pay for this for the whole weekend.

The next day is overcast. I’m feeling strangely comforted sitting looking out of the 31st floor into a fog. That‘s not right. I remember the feeling from tours past; the sense of only being settled somewhere on tour.

After the show I play blackjack for a while – mostly as a way of hanging out with my friends. I hate losing so much that I’m not a good gambler. (A good friend of mine last year looked at me like I was crazy when I was explaining that I was ready to gamble $400 of an evening and that was my limit. I told her I was going to win enough to go shopping – she looked at me and said “Why don’t you just go shopping in the first place?”) After I go to bed one of my friends plays $1000 and gets Blackjack--spawny get.

I was glad to leave everyone to it. New Jersey is in the house and drunk downstairs. However nice this Casino is—and at least it doesn’t pretend to be anything but a casino, unlike the Hard Rock in Vegas—it’s still a Casino and I find myself mildly resentful when I have to hand over any money, even for a coffee in Starbucks. To compensate I eat four meals in the employees canteen (to which we were given access as part of our stay) just to be sure I take away more than I came with. Pathetic really, especially when this casino has been very accommodating towards us. I have a small, black heart. There’s no denying it.

I sleep fitfully in my bunk when we leave Cleveland. Eventually I clamber out and sit in the back lounge with the windows open. The air is cold and damp and the outside the new New Jersey morning is lush and misty. I’m excited to be going home-however briefly-and I watch the countryside pass.

Nearly a week off. Driving down Ninth Avenue on Saturday morning and there’s no traffic and I haven’t seen New York for six weeks and it looks fantastic. Better still, with no traffic, I’m home in no time.

My friend has been watering my plants and collecting my mail so I’ve a pile of bills all ready to be dealt with. Ah, and then there’s the simple joy of taking my suitcase to the cleaners and asking for it back clean that evening. It cost a fortune but it was worth it. Sitting in my apartment that first night and I can’t settle. In some ways, it could be another hotel (It is a New York apartment, after all. Many of the rooms I’ve had on tour have been bigger…).

The following day I’m on a plane to San Francisco. It’s a busman’s holiday but you have to take the breaks when you get them. I get to advance the next leg of the tour from a friend’s apartment. I spend two days frantically calling promoters and trying to calculate the drive times between cities and when the band will sleep where for the next six weeks. It’s the part of my job that I like a lot even if every time I do it I’m always racing a deadline and trying to keep too many details in my mind at once. The band will never be able to commit to travel times, preferred locations, etc, etc this far ahead of a show so I make best guestimates as to routings and timings based on practicalities and when we have to be in certain places. I know for a fact that at least fifty to seventy five percent of everything I’m doing now will likely be changed as we go along. However, if we don’t have it to start with then we’d be in poor shape. (don’t get it right, get it written!) I’ve finally realized (Doh!) that I can’t plan the tour as I would do it (leaving in good time, planning to arrive early, etc) as that rarely happens, but I have to plan the tour as the band would have it from the get go. It seems obvious when I write it now, but for some reason it took a while for me to figure this out. Now it’s a way of entertaining myself, I give myself a small, discreet round of applause every time a flight isn’t changed, or a departure time is kept. My inner monologue oft resembles Billy Liar’s in many ways. (And if you haven’t seen that movie featuring Tom Courtney and Julie Christie then you should, it’s a pearler.)

It’s relaxing in the California sunshine and it’s good not to be responsible for anyone for a few days. I like San Francisco a lot. The first time I came to America I sat on the Dock of The Bay and had one of those “Fuck Me! I’m HERE!” moments while looking at the Golden Gate Bridge—which quickly turned into one of those “Fuck me, I’M here…” moments; which then led to many more months of drinking too much in an attempt to remove the me from all the cool places I was visiting at the time. It didn’t work, but you work with what you’ve got, right?


It’s the centennial of the San Francisco Earthquake which is a strange thing to celebrate, especially as the city is still sitting on a time bomb. Looking at the devastation that happened in 1906, and reading reports of what would happen to the whole of the Bay Area today if/when another large quake occurs, made me wonder quite what people are thinking by living here. It’s a beautiful place, for sure, and the City has a great feeling to it but it’s permanently poised to liquefy and sink into the bay. Maybe that’s where the atmosphere comes from? I mean, there’s nothing edgy about Tulsa or Tucson and maybe that’s because there’s nothing dangerous in the air (or underground) there?

Cleveland:

I'm on a high floor of our schmancy hotel staring through white net curtains bordered with faux Louis XIV style valances. I'm tweaky from lack of regular sleep. Tonight we'll drive home after the show. Part of me doesn't want to go back - there'll be mail and laundry and an apartment to clean and an unstructured life ready to swamp me. It's strange how touring can institutionalise you...

I'm listening to Neko sing Dirty Knives and Fox Confessor on I-pod paralysis. I feel autistic but I love more than anything 'getting' something - a song, a book, a painting. It's special when you feel you've caught the essence of a song and it resonates within you. God bless the repeat function on my i-pod. I thank the person who realised that somewhere, sometime in the future, there would be someone who wanted to endlessly wallow in a song or a mood, ad infinitum.

Huge, monolithic, ocean-going freighters navigate the sinewy Cuyahoga river narrows. The ships inch along at walking pace--slower even--past the coal and stone heaps piled high under the overpasses, past the deserted boatyards full of empty hulls waiting for the summer. The ships look too big for the river's twists and turns. Bridges rise in sequence to let them pass, a grinding steel ballet. This is not a beautiful place, unless the rusty mechanics of industry appeal to you. The water is a foul olive brown, untouchable. Birds swoop down to the freighter's wake, feeding on whatever slurry is stirred up by the huge propellors that rake the river bottom. This river hides bad secrets. I am sure there are bodies in the black ooze on the riverbed. Suicides and murder victims staring hollow-eyed through the corroded sunked car-wrecks and chemical silt, waiting to be found.

I've got that Friday feeling again, huh?

St Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis:

Cities at night in the American heartland feel like islands in the darkness. Driving out of St Louis on our bus and I think I’m in a submarine. Through the smoked windows I see the proud new Cardinals stadium glide past, then our hotel complex, and soon the city lights thin and recede into the darkness around us. The Springsteen song made more sense – in England, the darkness on the edge of town is a pause between the cities. In America, the cities punctuate the darkness. And there’s nothing, really nothing, for miles and miles. It’s spooky. The protestant paranoia makes more sense here.

In Milwaukee the lake was bare – no boats, no running lights in the distance, no rigs or refineries. The water was a cold crystal turquoise and it caught the light like hard polished gemstones. With my back to the sun the sky to the north looked cold and dark. From the 23rd floor of our hotel the land stretched on three sides, flat and featureless forever (looking West from our Chicago hotel was the same). I felt isolated and alone there. The city felt too quiet for me and because of the space around town the usual quiet Sunday feeling was amplified tenfold. It reminded me of being a teenager and feeling trapped in my hometown, knowing that life was taking place elsewhere and that here, the only thing to do was kill time. I wondered what despair you might feel living there day in and day out.

The venue was across the road from the hotel where Jeffrey Dahmer murdered one of his victims. I guess I answered my own question, from both points of view.

The venue (Eagles Ballroom) also had ghost stories of its own, and as the building was old with a nineteen twenties gothic feel to it. There were basements and sub-basements we all wound ourselves up, trying to find the empty swimming pool where supposedly there’d been sightings of a ghost and where someone had been beaten to death over a bad debt. (To get to it you have to go through the “Kid Rock” room – a dressing room specially created for Kid Rock when he played there. When anyone at the venue mentioned this room they chuckled, as if they had first-hand knowledge of some debauchery. One can only imagine what Kid Rock does in a basement in Milwaukee for kicks: Go on now, imagine it…see? Creepy, yes?)
We never saw the ghost – the door to the pool was locked, but either way we all felt thrilled to have tried. Part of me didn’t want to see the deserted pool with its flashes of mysterious light and its nebulous shadows. Part of me was genuinely scared.

Days pass on tour sometimes before you realize a week has gone by, then a month. I listen to songs on my I-pod like they’re friends. For this tour I have a soundtrack that I’ve condensed to one play-list that will forever remind me of lying in my bunk, rumbling through the night, trying to sleep and half-dreaming along to the songs. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed by an almost sappy urge to write to the artists and to say thank you. I like being a fan; it reminds me of what my job is about. I like remembering that the point of all this creation, all this effort isn’t about shifting units or tickets or tee shirts but about finding emotional connections through music. And with my playlists on repeat, it’s a comfort and a vindication to realize that despite the yawning black American night flooding all around me, and no matter what I am feeling, I am not alone.

Not completely.

Seattle:


Puget sound reflects a puff-white cloud blue sky and the Olympic Mountains rise snow-capped beyond. Ferries and frieghters score white wakes across the water. The shoreline is like frayed fabric with wharves and jettys. Onland, Seattle is busy, like all large American cities, with a constant stream of cars along the I-5 that winds through the center of town.

I take a walk from the hotel and visit Pike market. Most places are closing by the time I arrive but I find a restaurant. The sign on the walls boast “as featured in Sleepless In Seattle” with photos of Tom Hanks and Rob Reiner in scenes from the movie). The view over the Sound is beautiful, every window a picture. The water is a rich blue. The harbor is busy unloading a container ship stacked high with rusty Hanjin containers from China. I eat seafood by myself and eavesdrop on a nearby family as they talk about school projects and home. The city feels homey to me then, warm. An outpost on the edge of America, somewhere for people to camp and stay safe.

On the way back to the hotel I pass through a street full of destitute drunks. Suddenly the promenade doesn’t seem so benign. It’s pretty heavy; certainly more full-on than New York is these days. The faces don’t beg here, they demand--or at least threaten to. I’m six feet tall and rarely intimidated by things on the street (at least in broad daylight!) but for these two blocks I walk taller and straighter and remove any warmth in my eyes just in case; just like I learnt to back in the Midlands.

Northern cities have a strange feel to them. I think it’s to do with being on the edge of nature. There’s an atmosphere created by the cold northern horizon, a reminder in the dark distance that there be monsters, or nothing else at all. (It’s the same facing South below the equater – something to do with facing away from the sun, perhaps....some primitive trigger?). In New York, Los Angeles or Chicago you can feel in the midst of things. You can feel connected. And in some way there’s a sense that you’re in a controlled environment. Central Park in New York is man-made and framed by the city. In LA unless you drive up to the wilderness by Mount Wilson, every life is caught and lived in a net of roads (even the Wilderness behind Mount Wilson to some extent. It is beautiful and remote but at the same time you can drive there in easily less than an hour from Hollywood). In Chicago there are derricks out on the lake and the buildings tower above the shoreline – thousands of tons of steel that men have driven into the ground like tent-pegs to anchor the sky over the Loop and make it secular.

In Seattle you can see the snow-capped mountains, the freighters roll in through the sound from China and Japan, safe again in the tranquil waters after crossing the world’s largest ocean. The city feels like an encampment on the edge of Terra Firma. There’s something intimidating about it that I like, even fopping around in my soft-soled city loafers and my tailored suits. Somewhere I fancy I’m an outdoorsman: in another life I’d burn my books, sell my laptop, grow a set of balls and go live in a cabin. But not quite just yet. I’m content to watch Grizzly Man for now.

I am unsettled all the time in Seattle, permanently melancholy. Dark clouds roll in over the city: rain threatens but never arrives. Something in the air here makes me feel small and humble. I can’t tell if it’s the climate, or if it’s part of the post-Californian come-down (going to California always feels like going on vacation) but when we leave I am relieved. I like Seattle, and I want to like Seattle, but this time it feels like an exit to the fun part of my tour instead of an entrance. Time to head back inland…

Los Angeles: I could go on for hours, and I probably will.....


I come from a small city in the middle of England much like many other small cities in England. In my town people don’t talk about themselves much. If asked how they’re doing they’ll say, “Oh, fair to middling.” even if they’ve just had their legs taken off in a freak farming accident. When the boys in my town want to impress the girls, they start fights with the other boys and use glasses and bottles to emphasize a point. People in my town don’t talk too big, because that would be vulgar. Imagine, for example, you’ve found a cure for cancer and are a little excited and feel pleased with yourself; talking about it would be seen as having airs and graces; someone will say, “Stop going on about that bloody cancer. You’re not the first person to cure some incurable disease. Who do you think you are, Louis Pasteur?”. In fact, one of the only ways to big yourself up in my town--medical genius or not--is to denigrate everything else. This isn’t without merit or fun but it does give you a limited palette to work from. People from my town censor their aspirations; to try and to fail (and from such a background who isn’t predisposed to failing?) would be too shameful. Better to keep your head down. Seen from the outside my town is weird. I thought I’d qualify myself and ‘fess-up straight away. I don’t come from anywhere so special. I’ve got issues. I’m just saying…

I’ve given in. I love LA. For years I hated it – at least the work side of it. The lifestyle side of LA, once you’re away from the business, is amazing; beaches, mountains, sunshine – what’s not to like? But the business side of it seemed feral and undignified to me. And it is, but so is business everywhere else--one of the biggest shocks when I worked outside f the music business for a while was how many petty egos there were outside in the real world. And who am I to judge anyway? I come from a place where sophistication is gauged by what flavour Bacardi Breezer you drink or whether you buy kebabs or chips on the way home.

Because I am only ever a visitor in LA, I am completely fascinated by its rules and etiquette. While it is feral and vulgar and unscrupulous it’s participants aspire, sometimes ruthlessly, to a magical reality that informs everything they do. The rules of the city dictate you respect this. If you go to LA, much like going to Vegas, you can only expect to join in. Neither place will ever accommodate you or your ways. LA has a charm, a neediness that it scrambles to cover-up with faux-satin sheets and brave talk. It shakes its tail at you while biting its lip so as not to ask if you think it looks fat in this. It’s slutty and aloof. It has issues. It’s driven by fear and ambition at the same time. It feeds on hope and aspires to magic. Vegas is a pimp by comparison; a dealer in stepped-on coke and shop-worn virgins.

And have you ever met one of those you like?

Los Angeles – One last time. I can’t help it; I’m besotted….

One of my job’s primary functions is to provide a tangible link between our small comedic traveling circus and everyone else. My job affords me a certain level of reflected glory. My job gets perks and privileges that I am fortunate to enjoy: complimentary upgrades, proactive service, fast-track treatment and common courtesies that only seem to come when you drop a lot of coin these days. (And how sad is it that good manners are a optional extra? Thin end of the wedge, I say.) People sometimes try to befriend my job, which, of course, is impossible; so they have to befriend me, and that makes me suspicious. I am aware of the Celebrity Currency I am perceived to have at my disposal (I don’t have any, not really).

Occasionally it’s understandable that we get a lot of attention (we spend a tremendous amount of money in/on hotels, for example – 22 rooms a night for three nights…go figure) and in such cases I’m not at all ashamed to say I appreciate service bordering on the obsequious. It makes my life that much easier. (And of course, sometimes we get stiffed like everyone else--see Las Vegas). However in all instances I am, at heart, a bloke trying to decide whether I get a kebab or chips on the way home every night. I feel fraudulent receiving favor because of my job. Sitting on an exclusive, well appointed terrace in Hollywood looking out at the city below feels faintly ludicrous to me. It’s a long way from my dad’s first job as a coal miner. My mother raised my brothers and I by working in a factory. Neither of them would ever have been invited to where I now work, nor allowed in should they have turned up. And now I get to decide what’s what. How weird is that?


(Side note: I could be a real fucker about things, couldn’t I? Were I to have, say, a big working-class chip on my shoulder…btw, sorry about that guest list place last time we were here, Paris.)


I’m as gladly shallow as the next person, but even just standing close to the reflected limelight it’s easy to see how addictive and how pointless fame is. People call you sir when you don’t feel like a sir; people help with/put up with your shit when they want the tip or the tickets; you like the yesness of everyone but rarely respect the yessers; and strangely, the more you hear yes, the less it satisfies. Some people--and their God bless them-- just want a momento, (I still wish I’d had a photo taken with Beyonce backstage that time at Jones Beach. No, not like that. There were other people there, I was just hanging out (see below for definition) with Beyonce at a Radio Show). Others want to obligate you in exchanges of kindness; they want to do you a favour, just to help you guys out, man. Complete strangers smile at you all the time. The world is a door opening ahead of you, a car waiting outside at the kerbside. Fame seems to me to be the world being nice to you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, whenever-it-damn-well-wants; and wanting a hug or a handout in return. Do things for the money, I say; it's cleaner.


The man renting me audio equipment tried hard, Ill give hime that much. When he asked whom the gear was for he asked neutrally, like anyone would. When I told him it was for the band on Leno later that day he brightened.
“Oh dude, The Strokes man, I love you guys, here….c’mon.” He holds out his hand for me to shake. I think he thinks I’m in the band because I’m wearing a suit at 9:45AM in an audio rental warehouse. “That’s rad. Are you guys playing here? You just played, right?”
“No, they played Anaheim and San Diego already. They're playing the Universal this weekend.”
He looks like he’s working out the pronouns. “Yeah, yeah. That’s right. I wanted to get tickets for that.”
I nodded. Bummer.
“So, cool. You guys are doing Leno?” Or I guess not, with the pronouns, I mean.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I think I met you guys before. I’m sure I met you last time you were here, we met, right?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, man. I remember you.”
I’m still waiting to get the gear I need. I’ve never seen this man before in my life.
“But you guys rock. That LP. That LP is awesome man.”
“Glad you like it. Room On Fire?”
“Yeah, man. I dig it. That’s the new one right?”
“No.” I’m being a prick. “That’s the last one. The new one is called First Impressions Of Earth.”
“I haven’t heard that. I’d love to hear it man. I’m such a big fan of you guys. I hear bits, y'know, and people talk, and I know that it’s awesome.”
We don’t hide them. They are available in every record store around the country. Big fans tend to have heard it. “Yep. It is.”
“Cool, so you must know Andy [Something-or-other]? I know he’s worked with you a bunch of times.”
“No. Afraid not.”
“Sure? He definitely knows you guys. Done a lot of stuff with you. Did some dates....”
“Well, I didn’t do the last tour.” I can’t be bothered to ask what job this invented connection is supposed to do.
“Yeah, must have been the last tour.”
“Must have.”
There’s a pause here. In New York he would have given me the gear and taken my credit card by now. But he ain't thinking about the rental gear.
“And you guys, you’ve just moved out to New York, right? From LA.”
“Nope. The band are from New York.”
“Really?” For the first time his game-face slips. Not one good pitch so far.
I pick up the box. “Really. Do you need me to sign anything else or can I take this?”
“No. You’re good man.”
“Thank you.”
I leave and the guy looks crestfallen. He’d rented me a piece of equipment but he hadn’t got himself any celebrity juice. Maybe I’m being harsh but the guy didn’t know me or the band at all, but he did want to hit on us for a lig. I mean, I can understand doing it for someone you're really into but for someone you're clueless about...? It made me wonder if there’s a certain strain of communication here where people indulge each other’s bullshit (I could have pretended to know Andy, for example) just to smooth things along? If everyone’s hustling, maybe you’d never get anywhere if you didn’t join in?

At the car rental place I judiciously spend some Celebrity Currency. I've arranged rental cars for four of us; specific brands, rates, etc, etc…we’re in LA for a week and everyone wants to drive something different. So I get all but one taken care of and it’s the latest model Mustang, the one that looks like the model Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt. I’m trying to get it delivered to an address (private, not a hotel) within a certain window of time. The woman who’s been helping is getting tired of me now. I want too much and I’m being too specific. I can hear it in her voice; her tone has hardened and she doesn’t give a monkey’s about what I’m telling her. She’s just about to tell me that’s how it is when I say.
“I’m sorry about this ma’am. But the person who’s renting the car has to be at Jay Leno today today by a certain time, that’s why it’s so tricky.”
Suddenly, the thunder clouds disperse from her voice. “Oh...right.”
“Yes. I know it’s difficult but this is for one of the band and they can’t get the car another time…”
“Oh, I see. I didn’t….”
“That’s okay, just.”
“No. You hold on now. I’m going to just check on something.”
I wait. Only a moment.
“Sir, hello. My name is Jim. I'm the client manager here. I ‘m sorry about the confusion. The problem is that the previous renter is still in Las Vegas and hasn't returned with the car yet.”
I get what I asked for.
But it took some irrelevant name-dropping to have it change from me being told to fuck-off, to the car rental place admitting to me they had a problem and weren’t giving me the service I needed, and then apologizing. While I'm lucky to be able to do this it makes me realise how shoddily I'd be treated if I was just some regular Joe off the street. Which in my mind, I am.


In the after show party in LA there are four levels of access. The venue has this aspect of it very well organized.

1> Band Dressing Room
2> V VIP
3> VIP
4> Not inside at all.

Everyone wants to be in the dressing room. It signifies status. There’s a rider in there. There are famous people in there. The band flit between all four places in LA but mainly they stay in their (very nice and large) dressing room; for the same reasons as everyone else. Plus, it’s their house for the day and their friends are there.

The VIP area is for people who get to feel a bit special. In LA we don’t’ know the VIP people. They are guests of the venue and the promoter, mainly.

The VVIP area is for those who get to feel loved. People who end up in here are guests of the band and crew and people we know who we want to have a bar to hang out in. My friends are in here.

The band’s dressing room is reserved for a very few people at first – family, very close friends. It’s where the band get to chill so it has to be managed. If everyone who wants to hang in here gets in then there’d be nowhere for the band to go – we’d have to find another room and start the whole process over again. Even twenty people wanting to be nice to you can be a bit overwhelming at times. Anyway, the dressing room is the Holy Grail of all backstage hangs, and tonight, like many other nights, ends up as an oversold hang room. The plates of deli meat become gnarled and scarred with cigarettes, coolers are drained of alcohol in direct proportion to how much it cost; champagne, liquor, beer--in that order. People are either close enough to be there and feel comfortable; or they lurk in corners as though they’re going to be busted and asked to leave. It’s like a busy house party. I always feel if you’re not friends with the people there it’s pretty boring once you’ve got past the sight of a couple of famous people chatting and drinking warm beer from plastic cups.

Hanging in LA is a genius thing though, and so malleable too. It has it's own rules:

My version:
I was at the Jay Leno show. Giselle was a guest on the show too. She and her husband, Dave Navarro, were coming out of the green room as I was coming in to get some water for the band. We passed in the hallway. I wasn’t paying attention so I barely noticed them.
Jay Leno stuck his head in the door to wish the band luck during the afternoon. We were all draped sloth-like over the furniture waiting for our call-time. Later, after the taping, we saw Jay Leno drive away in one of his collectible cars. The Parking Security told us Jay Leno collects them and has a hanger full of them and he drives a different car onto the lot, every day.


The LA Version:
Yeah, man. I was at Leno all afternoon. We were doing the show. We hung out with Jay backstage. He always drops by to shoot the shit, every time I’m there. He’s a cool guy. He was showing us his car collection; he was driving this funny little hot-rod his friend made. He told us he keeps, like, 300 of them in a hanger. Giselle was there with Dave. We were hanging out in the green room before she was interviewed. She’s so hot, man. But they’re cool. They might be going to the show tonight.

In LA, to Hang Out means to have been in the same proximity with someone, however briefly. I heard it used time and time and time again about situations that bore little resemblance to anything I’d witnessed. I got the feeling that if you wanted to you could go to watch Breakfast At Tiffanys and the next day tell everyone how you were hanging out with Audrey Hepburn.

I’m not complaining about this. It’s the culture in LA. And I wouldn’t laugh at Bayaka pygmies and their forest-God rituals now, would I?

Not much, anyway….



I love the simmering failure and disappointment that threatens to tarnish the veneer of every exchange in LA. So much need, so much want – so few successes (proportionately). But here’s the best thing: no one will admit it or talk about it. Except those reclining on their parents money and then they fail as a kind of stylistic affectation.

I like LA. I like the machinery- its so shameless. You get to watch it grind and clank front of you. No east coast sophistry here. I applaud those who can live here – it must take enormous energy to just take part in it every day. A tremendous amount of will to stave off the ever encroaching despair. The sun always shines, tomorrow. When your tits have sagged and your face is lined around the mouth and your youthful charm has hardened like yesterday’s bread. You still look good but each conversation reveals you’ve been on the shelf too long.

If not today, then what if it’s never?

And all of this to get into the hills. To be seen to be seen. First you have to be noticed, and you have to be noticed being noticed.

From Mullholland Drive the city spreads as far as you can see in every direction –hundreds of square miles, a glittering grid. A fake town, watered from hundreds of miles away by stolen water, created by a force of will in the desert. Peopled by people who only exist when they’re being seen to exist; a city stocked with overipening dreams. There’s the lucky few who get to do as they want but to most they're as mythical as Bigfoot or Griffins. Hanging out in this heady world is as pleasant or as anxious as life is anywhere else, although the luxury of things is the most tangible difference. But nothing dramatic really changes; you've still got spots or are predisposed to eating too many cakes; you still worry if you said the wrong thing if you're that way inclined; you're still a boring, pompus muncher if you're that way inclined too. You'll still probably feel deep down you don't deserve it. But you’ll never believe that, will you? It kind of makes a mockery of all that ambition, doesn’t it? Imagine, all that success fixing nothing? You just get to worry about being unsuccessful again, but in a nice, fleecy robe.

LA sustains itself by collective deceipt. Everyone wants to believe in the magic so the magic exists. I stand in a dressing room packed with people wanting to believe they are special and having a special time and who am I to argue? They are and they are. That’s what’s great about LA. You only have to believe it and, with the right props – a restricted area, a few rock stars hanging around, you too can live the dream. You can get to script and produce your own myths. Reality is malleable, here. Ask the forty-year old starlet pouring your coffee. And I’m not looking down my nose on it either. I wish I could be so pleased. With my job it would be easy, n’est pas? But I’m not good at joining in. I don’t play so nice with the other kids.

But I do like to watch. There’s a name for people like that, isn’t there?

I go to lunch with a favorite friend. This is a treat not only because she picks me up and pays (and that never gets old, does it?) and she's good company, but also because she works in film production here. I dribble on and on about my impressions of LA and I hear her stories of working in the city. It's then I realise that I only ever see a thin sliver of the full spectrum of this city, because of my job. I've settled into a genralisation of LA based on the neediest and flakiest merchants I've encountered. The city is full of people trying to do their thing with as much dignity and artistic integrity as a New York Novelist or a Parisian Philospher (probably not good examples, but you'll get the point) - the celebrity bullshit is the dressing, and not necessairly the fabric of everything here. There's just so much of it; LA is so much more dressing than substance, some might say. Thousands of people make their livings working hard producing films and music without getting clammy-handed over a backstage pass or a shoulder brushed by a supermodel. But as ever, it's the dumbest who shout loudest. And it's usually the dumbest who've pushed to the front of the line.

And subtlety is not Los Angeles' strong point.

I can't wait to go back. I should be concerned.

Los Angeles: Saturday March 25th


We’re in San Francisco all of 14 hours. The weather rolled in during the afternoon and the spring morning gave way to a late fall afternoon. And even while the backstage route to the buses was almost unbearably damp I still didn’t mind too much. (Even the stage got rained-on in San Francisco, I mean inside the venue…there’s a story there for someone else to tell, I am sure. We killed the power to the upstage lighting to keep the band alive. You’d never have known if you were in the audience). I console myself with the knowledge that later that night we’re driving to Los Angeles: it never rains in Southern California.

While both the city and the people of San Francisco feel real and dignified in comparison to its Southern counterpart, I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’m excited by the slutty appeal of Los Angeles. Almost ashamed. Los Angeles is the girl you shouldn’t want, but do; the girl who never calls you back until she’s bored, and yet you rush to go meet her when she does. Which is a long way around of saying that LA fucks with your head. Like all the ex-girlfriends you can’t shake do.

Another night on the bus, another night of rattling around listening to Neko, Fiona and Emiliana and sleeping in fits and starts in my clothes. Strangely, waking up at a truck-stop only five miles from Magic Mountain, I feel rested. It’s a fitting locale. The evening’s show will be near Disneyland. I browse the trucker hats, compilation CDs and mud-flap decals while the bus is refueled and feel shamefully expectant, like the protagonist in Jacques Brel’s Mathilde.

As we near the north of The Valley our driver points out which overpasses were destroyed in a quake and which towns were used as locations for the original Dukes of Hazzard series. Something about the commentary reminds me of being on the Universal City tour. If he were to add that the bus couldn’t slow to below forty-five miles and hour and Keanu is underneath trying to dislodge a bomb I don’t think I’d be surprised. I’d probably go to see where Sandra Bullock was hanging out in the back lounge, truth be told… Instead I watch the strip malls increase in frequency alongside the freeway, I see the suburbs sprawl up the hillsides like sink stains and I wonder for the first of a dozen times: what on earth do all these people do here?


From my hotel room I can see the Hollywood sign on the hill behind Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The street in front of the Chinese Theatre is busy with tourists and character look-alikes posing for pictures in tired costumes with worn cuffs. On the other side of the hotel I can see a large parking-lot trawled by the hopheads, the homeless, hookers and their johns. I take it in turns to watch both. It’s ten-thirty a.m.

Downstairs in the lobby it feels like the whole hotel is trying to out-cool itself, from the guests to the guys valeting cars. The effort is understated but unmistakable. In LA everyone checks everyone else out all the time. Anyone could be a someone. Women glance at you twice, so do the men. For a moment it’s easy to mistake this as flirting, and I’m sure, if you are a someone, it is. For the modern day Sodom that LA is supposed to be, it’s a tepid broil of middle-class anxiety. No one truly exists in their own world – only in a perceived context with everyone else. You are either more or less hip than others, with two responses available to you: aloofness and/or shameless huckstering.

To really set yourself apart in LA I think you need to ignore everyone else. It’s the one thing that everyone at our hotel couldn’t bring themselves to do.

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.