Into The Valley

Landed in L.A., drove some, ate properly, established that I have no inherent skill at guitar hero, didn't lose any sleep over it, in fact slept log-like, awoke feeling trunk-headed for an hour or so, drove to the desert, drove past some outlet stores - accidently spent $250 on clothes I don't need but would have been foolish to not buy - drove again, ended up here.






***k me! What a place.

I've only ever seen places like this in Westerns or that bit at the end of Thelma and Louise. Above is the view from Keyes Point (although it looks like that place in Morocco in Babel, doesn't it? Where the kids were shooting their rifle from). Looking down on Indio (and therefore the Coachella site somewhere--hmmm, maybe the rifle shooting thing would have been a good idea). Breathtaking. I love that in America you can drive up to the top of the mountains near LA. In England a) the land doesn't really go this high--not often & b) if it did the only way up would be on foot, grumbling all the bloody way.

The view was breathtaking.

In the Joshua Tree National Park (below) I felt like I was in a theme park - I didn't really think it would look so much like it did on TV. Sad, isn't it? ( I remember my ex-nephew once, upon being shown a photo of the castle in Spain that was the model for the Disney Castle, complaining that the Disney castle look more realistic). There was hardly anyone around and the space was amazing. I felt very alone. But it wasn't spooky, as much as it was calm. I wanted to camp out there.

We visited the rock where Gram Parsons was semi-cremated by his friend. I don't know that I'd do that for my friends. Apart from the fact that it's a long drive there's a $15 charge to get into the park these days. If I'm taking you there for a good secret cremating it's not as though you'd be able to pay the $15 back later, is it? So if we are close, don't be expecting me to do a Gram Parsons on you when go (unless you leave me the money in an envelope or something. If you want to be left by the side of the freeway, which could be a romantic gesture, or cobbed brusquely into a canal, I'd definitely be up for that. Assuming you didn't want me to drive too far, not with the cost of petrol these days).

In the spot where the attempted burning took place there was, I'm told, once, a lot of graffiti. I was glad there wasn't any there really. If you've been to see Jim Morrisson's grave in Paris it's obvious why. All those tossers writing pointless garbage over all the surrounding graves and for what? For Jim Morrisson? No. For themselves. Who cares? No respect for the other families. Simpering wankers. And don't get me started on The Doors; the Lizard King, my todger!

The small pile of rocks in the picture below is about sixty feet high. The rocks and boulders in the valley look like they were dropped there in prehistoric times, which doesn't make any sense as everyone knows that dinosaurs only had little arms and would not have been able to move them. Some rocks' positions kind of defied comprehending.



The joshua trees went on for miles and miles. I felt for U2, poor buggers, trying to pick some good ones to stand next to. Each one had it's own charm; much like U2, one would imagine.



We drove back into LA without hitting any traffic. That was a first and, I suspect, a last.

Life's A Gas


Quite literally, at my dentist's office. Went in to get a sharp random pain checked-out. Turns out I had a fracture way down in the tooth. Have to get a cap (I'm going for Gold, btw).

I am very clean living now so when I got the laughing gas I sucked that stuff up and tried to breath deeply, like you're supposed to. I was high as a kite in seconds. Then I got the Novocaine, which is such a specific feeling it made me laugh out loud. How do you explain to your dentist that the reason you're laughing is because the injection he just gave you reminds you of a night out in London in 1996? Or that your tongue is so numb it feels like someone else's and you're kind of french-kissing yourself (it was the gas...it made giggly sense at the time)? You don't, not if you want to get any more of the good stuff out of him. I have to compliment his needle skills. I recently went for a blood test at another clinic and the girl taking the samples had all the finesse of a thumbless elephant prodding my arm with a staple-gun, but with my dentist I barely noticed.

But oh, the drill, the smell of burning tooth....the pressure on the nerve as he found the fracture (which felt exactly like the original pain that had sent me in there in the first place). He gave me more novocaine. I was still guzzling the nitrous oxide and smiling, too.
"You like that gas, don't you Richard?" he said.
I giggled. Hell yeah. What's not to like?

When he really got into it, and he and the nurse had their hands in my mouth and were hollowing-out my molar, my entire head felt numb. It was pretty good actually. I was so drugged I was able to let my mind wander in exactly the same manner as it does when I'm drowsy in my bunk on a bus, or when I'm not quite asleep on a plane: I ended up thinking about sex. Quelle surprise.

Then I started to wonder, if going to the dentist and having someone carving up my teeth has me thinking about sex, am I creating a monster? Will I develop a fetish? Could I find myself saying in the small hours, "I'm sorry love, this just isn't working. How about you shine that flashlight into my eyes and dig around on lower-right-seven with a fork?" just to be able to get it on in the future?

I'll be sure to let you know...

Absolutely Nothing At All:

That's a line from one of my friend's band songs from about 1986. It has no bearing to anything other than it makes me happy to think of them. They were good, but they were from Coventry so they kept pulling the rug out from under their own feet; that and the singer, who copied Bowie shamelessly but made it a taboo subject to mention, went a bit barmy, which is a shame. There but for the grace of God... I saw some friends from the UK last weekend at gig. What a difference an hour or so of belly-laughing with your mates makes to your week.

I've been at home. There is so little to blog about when I'm at home it's pitiful. The things I like to do at home (don't get ahead of yourselves here...) aren't so interesting for me to write about, never mind for anyone else to read about. But I have this blog and it keeps pouting at me from the internets while I'm surfing travel websites.

I did read this interesting article on the disappearance of comedy from the modern novel. Flawed but interesting, if you like reading about novels.

I also saw an inspiring interview with Geoffry Canada, whom I think is one of the most important and inspiring New Yorkers I've ever encountered. He runs an organization called Harlem Children's Zone, which is an initiative to develop educational opportunituies in Harlem; addressing the families and the children's needs from an early age to give them an alternative to the less aspirational routes that the kids would be exposed to in Harlem. They do amazing work and it's a relief to hear a positive black voice that isn't running some tired faux-gansta' bullshit or working a solely political agenda (Which I'm always sceptical of, whether from a white, black or 'other' standpoint). There's not a lot of airtime given to straight-edged, pragmatic, hard-working black leaders in the media talking about strengthening their communities one child at a time - I guess it's not such a compelling subject (as far as I can see; I'll admit, it's not something I'm policing closely, I'd be hapy to be wrong) - and I imagine the squeaky wheels get all the oil, right? But it's inspiring to know that while there are duplicitous bastards like Reverend Ike syphoning cash out of the community and Snoops pontificating on misogyny in every media outlet after the Imus incident while making as much money as they can from pimping the people they claim to represent; there are also people doing the right thing, quietly, without fanfare, and trying to have a positive effect on the next generation, and one that isn't based on getting their disposable income from them at some indeterminate point. Check out the Harlem Children's Zone and give them some tax-deductible money if you're so inclined.

Aside from this, I've been writing non-stop (but not on the blog). I'm on page 295 out of 353 of a rewrite today. Got a deadline to meet before I go away but I'm not kidding myself. I'm taking an old laptop to Asia (one I don't care if I lose) so that I can work out there too. Like I can't write for three weeks; who am I kidding?

Recommended Reads:
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lional Shriver. Astute, affecting and horribly timely.
The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene - Simply a master writer.

Thanks to St. Hubbins...

....For favours received.

I got the upgrades to and from Hong Kong when booking today. Thank you, St. Hubbins, patron saint of airline upgrades.

Off on my travels again in a few weeks: Hong Kong, Guangzhou / Guilin, Hanoi, Halong and Ho Chi Minh City and not one pop concert in any of them.

That's May done, then. Have to figure out June now....

It's quiet; almost too quiet...


I love Couch:


A week off tour. I feel normal, or as normal as I ever get to feel (I'm still talking to myself and spitting like a pissy camel behind slow-walking people on Broadway but, hey....). I've written a lot and am feeling faintly encouraged on that count and, quelle surprise, I'm close to booking a vacation in Hong Kong and Vietnam because that's just what I like doing on my off-time. But I've a few things to take care of here first, the least of which is figuring out how I'm paying the bills over the summer.

Small moments of happiness this week included seeing Elvis Costello crossing Broadway with his family (gots to love New York for random understated celeb' sightings) and finally getting my legs to run 5 miles continuously (on Tuesday they argued at doing 2. A month of 5 mile runs and I won't be considering amputating a limb as a way of getting rid of the excess tour weight). I've seen tons of movies, read continuously, and have been eating heathily. It's the simple things I'm loving right now. It's amazing how few of them being on tour allows.

The only bummer in the past week (apart from the nausea at mile 2 last Tuesday...)* is that The Jam / Paul Weller allowed Start! to be used in a car commercial. A part of my youth shrivelled when I saw it, but I guess it's how things are now. I'm sure Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler can use the money and I wouldn't begrudge them that, although Weller's got to be minted already....

So, as hoped for, being at home is mellow and relaxing. I miss the travel (and the laughs) but not the relentless responsibility of touring. At the rate I'm going I'll be in South East Asia again by the middle of next month. Who knows, I might even move there...? But for now I'm happy tour managing my own vacation. It's like a busman's holiday; tour managing is such a particular skill-set, it's a strange feeling to be able to use it outside of work. And it's a pleasant surprise too, to find booking and researching a vacation so much fun and such a breeze to do (Thank you the internets...and a shout-out to St. Hubbins too - I'll be calling on you soon....). Once I decide the route it will be booked inside 30 minutes. All I have to decide now is how long I stay in Ho Chi Minh City and where I'm going to eat in Kowloon....Bummer, eh?

*Kurt Vonnegut dying is obviously in a class of global bummerdom, and not to be trivialised with my petty complaints.

The End Has No End.


Not true.

The tour finished yesterday when Albert played on Late Night With Conan O' Brien. Ironically for a show that airs at 12:30AM we loaded in at 7AM. JOy of the deepest kind. Brian and I (who'd both had about 1 hour's sleep the night before after getting back from DC) both loaded in and then fell asleep on the sofas in the dressing room for a couple of hours. Like two crispy, grizzled bears.



After the show all the gear went back to various rehearsal studios / houses and we all met up to watch Conan air at 12:30AM. It was a fitting way to finish the tour.

Then I slept like a drugged pig. Mmmmmmm.

Today I'm finalising the tour accounts, which is easy enough even if it's boring. But trying to deal with this:




Isn't so easy when this





is on TV.

I've really got into Walker, Texas Ranger. Or rather, compared to processing piles of receipts, I've really got into Walker, Texas Ranger. It's the very best of crappy TV. TV you can watch without watching. And there are seemingly hundreds of episodes on TV all the time.


Back home and my apartment is clean, which is a small blessing. And I can eat properly again, rather than feeding on crap like this:



This is a Philly cheese steak. I ate two on Tuesday. Wrongness in a sandwich. They taste as good as they look bad.

Thursday, when we were in DC, would have been my 10th Wedding Anniversary, had we not divorced. Today the tour finishes. It's a strangely timed week. The phone isn't ringing with minutae anymore, and the email questions and arrangements have stopped, and personally I have nothing at all planned for the rest of my life and no one to plan it with. I feel kind of light. It's a strange feeling. Not a bad one, but strange. It's quite exciting to feel that the future is so open. And not a little scary.

It will pass. Everything does. That's what's great about being alive.

Waiting At The Lights, Know What I Mean?

I rented a van to get everyone to and from the United Palace show with Bloc Party. This is the traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel at 11:10PM on Friday. It was taking over 10 minutes to go forward one block at one point. Like a good, snotty Manhattanite, I blamed all the Bridge and Tunnel traffic but I was told later that a bus had crashed over in Jersey so I guess one can't entirely blame all the B&T people.




And then this was Saturday afternoon near the same location.





I didn't really care, I'm so glad to be back here. I love New York. It's home and it's one of the most amazing cities in the world. And the women are so beautiful, like few other places on the planet. I spent most of the weekend sighing wistfully and feeling like I'd been punched in the chest.

Thing is, once I've got rid of Chazz Michael Michael's body (which I acquired on tour) and been here a couple of weeks I'll be itchy to travel again. I've already been looking at the Cathay Pacific website - 23 Asian cities in 21 days.....hmmm.....

And how can you not love a city where you can buy a life-size figurine of an adolescent wizard balancing on a broomstick that looks strangely like a flat-ended tail?



Spent Sunday morning on the phone with my mate Mick from London. He told me about a reissued version of Young Americans with a bonus DVD. After a (typical for us) couple of hours talking about Bowie in the 70's trans-atlantically I had to go to Virgin to buy a load of CDs & DVDs. Spent the rest of the day watching them. Even when he's being a ponce Bowie's still Dave and the Greatest Living Englishman as far as I'm concerned (And I'm happy to admit that he gets it wrong often but to my mind he's still trying and he made all those LPs from Man Who Sold The World through to Scary Monsters {and okay, Let's Dance} so like McCartney he should be allowed to make any records he likes forever. He's earned it). Like Lennon he's from the (maybe extinct?) strain of working class English who aspire to something better both intellectually and artistically. Maybe Jarv's the last one in that line that I can think of..? I'd love to be wrong here.

One week of shows left. It's a gentle re-entry into life doing shows while being at home. Maybe by Saturday (when we finish properly) I'll have adjusted to being back and I won't sit in my apartment wondering why my phone doesn't ring and buzz with incoming emails. Maybe...

Still, if I feel weird I can always walk around and look at girls for a bit. That usually helps.

Uptown Top Ranking


Once our very clean bus dropped us on 4th Ave & 13th Street we all piled off with our luggage (I had seven bags and an old printer to get home) and took cabs home.

Waking up in my apartment felt luxurious. So did going to Whole Foods to spend $90 on fruit and salads. I've f***ed my back up somehow so I'm limping around like Charles Laughton in the Hunchback of Notre Dame but I'm home so it doesn't matter really. But I'm a gimp, that's for sure.

The two shows this weekend were way uptown near the George Washington Bridge. At the end of the street the venue is on you could see the sunset over Jersey and the river.



...and the GWB itself. Normally I only ever see its faint, strung lights from 6 miles downriver or so.



The shows were at the United Palace Theatre on 175th St and Broadway. It's an amazing place, one of the 5 "Wonder Loews" that Loews Movie Theatres built, one in each borough of New York City. It opened in 1930 and it's garish in its opulence inside.



Here's the foyer. It would have been an amazing movie theatre in its heyday, and could make one now...



This was the first rock show at the venue. The building is used as a church by Reverend Ike who, as far as I can see, offers to pray for poor people if they send him money. (Quote: "Make sure that you enclose your Faith Offering for the Church Ministry, whe you write. Don't ask for "something for nothing." That could bring "bad luck." Let me Pray for YOU, and YOURS, for Good Health, Healing, Joy, Love, Success, Prosperity, Good Fortune, and More Money." In his 16 page full color magazine he asks for money for prayerts on each page and also promises prosperity in return. Reminds me of the old Popes and thier long held practice of simony.... And as anyone who's read the New Testament knows, Jesus was always about the money... I'd go as far as to say the Reverened Ike is a thieving charlatan. Reverend my cock. Didn't Jesus throw the money-lenders out of the temple about this time of year...?)

I think being raised a Catholic and then growing out of that faith has made me sensitive to this kind of tartuffery and bullshit. Click on the photo below to read the "letters" in the parish magazine. I can't do them justice.

Check out the standard advertising 'call to action' underneath the letter "signed" P.W. The whole magazine is full of these faux-handwritten-font asides reminding you to pay....



The whole magazine is full of this shit. Titles like "Even her DOG became a millionaire!" Why would a spiritual organisation have to hard sell the cash benefits of faith? Isn't the reward supposed to be in the afterlife? Isn't living a good life reward enough?

It pisses me off to see people exploited so callously. And while a cold judge could say anyone who buys into this bollocks gets what they deserve maybe isn't appreciating the desparation that people live with and the faith that people hang on to to get them through hard and otherwise hopeless lives. Being middle class makes me forget that not everyone has the choices I have. Shame there isn't a hell for Reverened Ike to rot in. I wouldn't have his thoughts.

We're definitely back in New York. Even God is a graft.

Coming Home.


If you look under your seat at the Spectrum Theatre in Montreal this is what you'll see. This is the route under the venue. It looks like a set out of Doctor Who? Note the TV buried into the earth. I felt like the venue and 2000 Canadians were going to crash onto my head when I walked through. Of course, it's always all about me...



Marc watches the bus get washed at 1:30AM. We should have been nearly home. We weren't. We didn't get back to Manhattan until 4:30AM, even crossing the north of the Island at 4AM to go around and enter the West Side via the Lincoln Tunnel. I remember watching midtown rise on the horizon and then I realised we were on the George Washington Bridge heading towards Jersey with Manhattan slipping away behind us. If I'd got out and taken a cab I'd have been home in 15 minutes, instead it took another hour. I was so wired when I got back that I spent another hour on the phone calling friends overseas until I'd simmered down some.

Of course, I can laugh about it now....



Ha. Ha Ha.

Bus Stop, Waiting.....


We are still at the fucking bus wash. Been here for 40 minutes and can't get in and can't get out. I am tempted to hitch to New York with all the money. Please baby jesus, get me off this fucking tour bus and into my apartment.....


Aaaargh! Aaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaargh! Aaaaaaaaaargh!

Bostonia:

So on the way into Canada I was given a hard time by the Canadian Immigration person for basically not phoning ahead to let the Canadian border know that a whopping 10 people were to be crossing into Canadia at Port Huron in the small hours of Saturday morning. The alcoholic (and if it takes one to know one then it similarly takes one to spot another at 50 paces) old crone was annoyed we'd distrubed her cushy graveyard shift and she had to get off her lazy ass to type-in some passport numbers. Kind of ridiculous to think that we were given a hard time because of this. I mean, isn't processing passports as people come through her job? Best line she said to me was, "Because I don't care how long it takes. I'm getting paid to be here."
Yes, I thought, but definitely not as much as I am.
Anyway, that aside, I liked being in Canada.

When we came to the US Border somewhere between Montreal and Boston we were again stopped, quelle surprise. This time the very polite immigration police asked us into the room and then searched the bus. Oh, how we laughed when they came back with someone's toiletries smelling of the kind of herbs used in baking rather than cooking. We all had to empty our pockets in turn (my most incriminating posession was an Ouef Fondant or Cadbury's Cream Egg and some Jurlique hand cream. And no, they're not related items...); everyone's prescription medicines were emptied out onto the counter (said herbacious person also had a couple of pill bottles that looked like they were full of smarties, such was the range of pills that poured out of them. Grave as the situation could have been, it was hard not to laugh seeing fifteen different types of sedative poured out on the counter). In the end they confiscated the controlled prescription medicines people had without prescriptions and gave a certain someone a warning. They were very nice about it and they could have been so much meaner.

Today's show in Boston is the last day we'll be on the bus. From now on we'll be sleeping at home every night and commuting to shows. I've been counting down the hours... Sure enough, everything that could be slow and awkward today was slow and awkward, parking, taxis, etc, etc. And then suddenly the band were offstage and somehow we're on our way home to New York. I'm too tired to be very excited but I am very excited. In six hours I'll be in my own bed.

Update - our driver stopped to wash the bus on the way home along the i-95. We are driving home after being away for four weeks and he choses now of all times to wash the bus. I couldn't care right now if the bus was covered in baby parts and vomit. I just want to go home, to my bed, and get off this fucking bus that keeps attacking me with every sharp corner it has whenever it can.

Fell In Love With A Girl.


This rarely happens on tour. I never have the time for one thing, but at the start of the tour I threw a bunch of novels in my bag in a brief, optimistic spasm. I never thought I'd get to read any of them, never mind most of them. I read "Alligator" by a Canadian writer, Lisa Moore. It's amazing. Her writing is so good, so precise, so specific. I finished the book quickly (which has an alligator on the cover too, which is never a bad thing in my book) and tried to find other titles by her, of which there are only two. I couldn't find them in the USA, but in Toronto yesterday I found a collection of short stories called Open and these are also wonderfully written. The first two I finished over an omlette late last night; I couldn't put the book down and ate a whole meal groping for the plate, not taking my eyes off the page. I love it when this happens. Cynical and jaded as I always sound I'm always really waiting eternally to be inspired and amazed; and when it happens it's always the best feeling. Like being in love.

I also read Pat Barker's Blow Your House Down which evokes a certain time in Northern English history. One of those books I fell into - it's a grim world she describes, but compelling and vivid enough for me to smell the damp viaduct arches and the cold northern winter evenings. The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert is excellent too.

We're in Montreal today. The venue is in a sleazy part of town. The Quebeconians (?) are brusque and dour. It's like being in a crappy part of Paris. I love it. Love. It. And sulky/sultry French-Canadian girls are great, like pouty Parisian women; cute if you don't take them too seriously. Imagine a five year-old giving you evils and attitude while stomping around in her mum's oversized shoes...

Oh and Canada = Cadburys. Thank you Jesus.

Toronto:



We left the kids on a bench in Royal Oak, Michigan. We tried throwing them into a tree but stopped when we saw we were being filmed by at least 3 CCTV cameras. This being America, we envisioned being pulled over by cops later for littering a tree with bears, which might almost have been worth it. As it was, a passerby asked Duct-tape guy if the bears were ours (it was 1AM) and then suggested they looked like bombs. Frankly, anyone dumb enough to think that someone would bomb the arse-end of Detriot by leaving four bombs disguised as valentine's bears on a bench at 1AM is either a scriptwriter or too stupid to be anything other than an donor for nice bright people with failing organs and terminal illnesses. Cute though, aren't they?

The view from the afternoon. I've noticed a disturbing trend - all over the USA and now Canadia it seems you can go to Meet Donald. Why would anyone want to? He always strikes me as a bit of a tosser. I guess people would like to meet his money--if indeed, he really has any. Me included, as long as I didn't have to touch him.





Now the tour is winding down (12 days left), the days off are actually like days off. Albert and Matt have an afternoon of promotion in Toronto while the rest of us hang around the one hotel room we've kept on for us to hang around in. I went out for breakfast at a place called Eggspectations which had one notable feature - a bilingual bottle of brown sauce.





Brown sauce (delcious, fruity and spicy) is a staple of the english diet, and it is rarely seen outside of the Sceptred Isle (which can only be due to the fact that it's an acquired sophisticated taste and all the other countries in the world are peopled by natives with vulgar palates), that I was happy to see it here. And, as an added bonus, it was labeled in English and French. Despite the centuries old animosity between the two countries there is, I think, a grudging affection between the British and the French. We're both beligerent, haughty, and have a strong sense of independence. Certainly looking at Europe from the viewpoint of spending 10 years in America it seems that Germany, England, France, and Holland all have so much in common that it's almost funny that they view themselves as separate from each other.

And Canadian maple syrup tastes more of maples than American maple syrup. When I toured with Pulp during 1995 I could tell the diffence between different champagnes just by taste (Moet and Chandon was very much considered cooking champagne). 10 years in America and now I'm an authority on syrup. Quality.



Yonge Street, Tronto.

Today's the kind of lazy day where you call friends or email all your ex's because you have time to wonder how all the people you've known are doing. Toronto is rushing through its Monday afternoon outside, everyone looking forward to six pm, or whatever time they knock-off. Our day is more nebulous, check-out at 2PM, bus call at 11PM to go to Montreal.

Time is always so relative, especially on tour, and it never seems more so when you're hanging around in a foreign city watching everyone else's world flash past. Like being in Tokyo, or Xi'an, or Berlin or Perth you see that all over the planet people have similar schedules, similar concerns, similar lives; lives that not only mirror your own but at the same time are completely independent of your world. We're none of us so special nor so unimportant. I think that's one of the things I like most about travel. It makes you get over yourself. Despite language and social status, we are all so alike.

Working in an environment where there's always someone to meet you at the airport, always a rooming list of the the best rooms at the hotel, always a crush of people trying to hang out in your world (not always, I admit, but more often than not. What's a bit of poetic licence, eh?) it's easy to get used to a certain amount of attention - however disparaging I might be about said attention. It's good to be reminded that you're not only not all that, but you're not even any of that in the scheme of things. When I was younger and needier I used to think that Aleister Crowley's quote "Every man and woman is a star" meant that I was (allowed to be) special too (where I come from one was never encouraged in such thinking). And maybe it did, then, but nowadays I think the emphasis for me is on the every man and woman.

Columbus, OH


Let us not talk about Indianapolis, IN. Let us not dwell on its endless suburban highways and it's "nearby" Staples that was a 3 mile walk and didn't have any replacement printers in it when I got there. (My printer died for breakfast. And I can't write with hands anymore. It's a kind of devolution. Soon I won't be able to read from paper....). In fact the only interesting thing about Indianapolis, as far as I could tell, was that the promoter's rep came from Hawaii so I got to talk about Hawaii for half an hour at the end of the night. Which was nice.


But Columbus, Ohio, who knew? I took it as a sign that when the very pretty girl went into the North Market that I too should see what food stalls they had in there for me to eat lunch at ( I didn't ever claim to having a sophisticated decision making process) . I found a great vietnamese food counter and got a chicken soup (Pho Ga). After weeks of white bread and potato chips the hot, spicy broth with beansprouts and cilantro tasted amazing and I felt healthy for the rest of the day - I didn't eat a M&M until 7PM. It felt like the first day of spring yesterday, warm and sunny. And just to make us all smile a little more Marc got a ticket for jaywalking. I couldn't get any closer for the photo without risking annoying the cop some more. It cost him $86.00 to cross the road. Actually, crossing the road was free, it was giving the cop some lip that cost $86.

Today we have a day off in Chicago. The rooms were ready early, the sun is shining, the pretty girls are out on the street (There's always a day, every spring, especially in New York, when the weather changes and the girls come out. It's usually an unspoken thing, but every bloke I know knows about it when I've brought it up. Another reason to look forward to going home). I went to the diner I like to visit on Chestnut and read a ton of emails from friends. I felt normal walking around the city--no empty suburban highways here. There's a DVD player in my room too, so $60 later, after a snout around in Virgin's sale bins, and I'm watching Snatch and rewinding to translate Brad Pitt's genius Pikey accent. Life is ok, today. I'll be home in New York in less than a week. And I'm thinking about my friends, which is like spending time with them.

McJob:

McDonalds is objecting (again) to the use of the term "McJob" being used in dictionaries. They object to the definition which is more or less:

"an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector". (Oxford English Dictionary).

McD claims this term is "an inaccurate description of restaurant employment" and "a slap in the face to the 12 million men and women" who work in the restaurant industry.

Oh, do fuck off.

I hate McDonalds. Never mind that they sell crappy food and ruthlessly target children with their heinous clown; never mind that their marketing is insidious and duplicitous. They are trying to protect and perpetuate their lie (we care, we sell good food. we are your friend, we are kind people concerned with you and the welfare of your children) by silencing any criticism of their practices in any form. I fundamentally oppose any coporation that tries to silence free speech and that is prepared to bully people who object to their vulgar business practices. While it's impractical, I know, to avoid all the companies who do this (as I'm sure most do/would) I have chosen McDonalds to boycott. I haven't eaten in one for years, and will not give them any money. In n' Out manage to sell burgers of a certain quality; why not McDonalds?

And if there is any doubt about their rapacious, greedy corporate nature, take a look at the McLibel Trial (Below). It's reason enough to not give this company any more money. And I know there's a Quixotic element to boycotting one of a million nasty companies; however, one can but try.

McLibel Case

Picture This

Random photos...




On my way back from the Porn Warehouse in Austin (you'll have to read the previous entries for an explanation. It wasn't for me, it was for a friend. Honest) I saw this guy at an off-ramp to the I-35. He's photogrpahed in the side-mirror to the van I was driving. He was begging at a stop light. On his backpack (which you can't really see clearly) was a sign that said Free Hugs. I felt very guilty that this man was begging while I'd just been entertaining thoughts of buying expensive sex-toys as a throwaway joke. Even though I was sitting in the car with the money and he was begging I felt right then that he had all the dignity in the world compared to me.




'nuff said already. Nashville, who knew you were into this?




This was a sign in the elevator in the hotel in Nashville (which was staffed, incidentally, by the nicest, most polite people in the world. And you know I'm an authority on politeness....). I wondered what prompted the elevator manufacturer to install a sign like this? Lack of confidence? And to be honest, if you got in an elevator and it had an in-built giant sign that said (effectively) "Dont' Panic" wouldn't that kind of undermine the message?




This soldier standing next to a printing press was on a platform about 12 feet in the air outside a printers. At first I thought it was touching how someone had dressed him up as a soldier - this is the heartland after all and they were probably missing someone sent over to invade Iraq - but when I thought about it some more it scared me. Someone had bought a uniform and dressed a mannequin as a soldier then managed to position him on a platform twelve feet up in the air. It didn't strike me as a yellow ribbon tied round an old oak tree as much as it struck me as a big fuck-you. One would have to be quite angry to go to those lengths.

South By Southwest (Absolutely the last time I say anything about Texas)

Where do I begin? Shall I count the ways?

You are a wanker if:

1> You refer to South By Southwest as "South By"

2> You wear your credential (let's not call it a laminate because it's not) around your neck while you're walking around the streets of Austin. These are not cool, and even if it's an all access laminate for God's gig in heaven, it's still wanky to wear your pass outside of the venue. At SBS more than anywhere they don't infer any coolness on you or really give you any special rights, as the guy found out when he refused to move from the side of the stage when it was time for the band to come off. Silly boy. That pass had no effect, did it? More to the point, it didn't give you any special powers or make you invincible either, did it? Wanker.

3> You work at a record company and you try to get extra wristbands off the band you're there to see. You earn more than they do, stop leeching.

4> You work at a record company. *

5> You insist on trying to inch your way backstage to hang out near the band; slow-creeping down the bar, chatting to the arrogant tosser of a barman--who, for one solitary week in March has more than ten customers and finally gets some attention--sliding your way towards the Mexican bus-boys, over to the fire escape and exactly in the way of anyone who's trying to do a 45 minute changeover in 10 minutes. If you were wanted backstage you'd be backstage already. That's how a tiered pass system works. It's not an oversight; you don't have the right pass because you're not wanted there. There's no point trying to ignore this obvious fact while slurping a piss-weak beer and getting slammed in the legs by flight-cases and looking pissy. Apologies if I bruised your sorry-ass with a high speed Fender 2 x 12 Hot Rod Deville; silly me, I was trying to put the gig on. That noisy music stuff? Yeah, that was us. I know, I know--terrid roadies. Don't they know that you've come to South By because you're in the "Music Business"? Don't they know that you're talking to some fucking troll at the bar and it's IMPORTANT? Don't they know that, that, that.....that you've got wristbands, goddammit?!

6> You went to South By Southwest and you didn't need to.**

7> You had anything to do with organising the music programming /production side of this fucking festival. It has so little regard for the music, it's painful to see it billed as such. Only a few years ago it was a destination for indie-minded people to go to see bands that were under the radar and hadn't broken yet, or couldn't get anywhere. Now it's a huge corporate venture with the music coming a sad last to everything else. I felt like the music and the performances were almost annoyances as they're given so little attention compared to say, the cocksuck that's pass allocation or something really significant. And it's not that I don't get that there's a lot going on but really....

For example:

Our soundcheck clashed with an instore performance. Fair enough. I set our arrival time at the gig to 11:30PM as there was no point getting to the venue directly from the instore (at 7PM) to unload our cases and do nothing but wait for 6 hours. This was a big No-No apparently and the day before I got several calls from people wigging out that basically we were being inconvenient (it was such a big problem that no one had thought to call me about it until 24 hours before the show). Bit of bad luck that. Anyway, even on the night I get calls from people asking me to bring the bus in three hours earlier for no reason other than they're fucking clueless. So we turn up at 11:30PM (even though the guy from the label told me the wrong load-in address. Luckily I ignored him, but see note # 4), unload the bus and wait with our gear by the dumpsters out back as there is no room in the club to store gear. if we hadn't been so "inconvenient" then we'd have been sitting outside by the dumpsters for 6 hours, instead of one. Had someone known what they were talking about they would have worried more about managing the stage than whining about us coming in late with a bus that caused no problems whatsoever. And even if it was difficult, so what? Isn't it about the gig? Or am I missing something..?

During our show the stage manager is absent from the stage and Albert's set runs over. The venue starts threatening to pull the power - the stage manager is nowhere to be seen - hiding, no doubt. Had he done his job earlier there'd have been no problem. But why the fuck would he do that? It's South By.... I later heard the venue got fined because we went over curfew. Good. They should have. They were ignorant. But it's nice to see the City Of Austin taking another cut from the festival by way of fining venues for excess noise at 2AM on 6th Street. BFD.

The Stage Manager's advance consisted of telling me what time we had to be there for soundcheck (too early) and then asking us to share gear. When the Mooney Suzuki shared gear as per the Stage Manager's request the following night they had two other bands (after the fact) ask them for money for the privilege (The HooDoo Guru's wanted $75 for use of their bass rig...). We didn't share gear, except when the band before us forgot all their drum parts and a guitar and Albert's band helped them out for free (as you would). We managed the stage during the change-over to hustle everyone out of the way. The Stage Manager wasn't present. A ton of liggers were however, all trying to be special by proving they didn't really need to move out of the way of the crew moving flight-cases. Those fuckers hurt when they clip you, don't they? Sorry about that.

You can only collect your passes in person. What a joke that is - seven people need to go line-up for up to two hours to get credentials because the tour manager can't collect them all. We didn't bother and went credential-less for the whole festival. The writstbands guarantee nothing anyway and for any cool shows the only way you get in is to know someone.

Ironically, Albert played at the Blender Party on Friday night and it was the best-run event I've ever been to at South By Southwest. Someone had invested in proper gear and a realistic schedule. I almost enjoyed doing the show. (Similarly, there was an instore at Waterloo Records and although they had very limited facilities they were at least welcoming and helpful. I didn't feel like an inconvenience at Waterloo, either). Strange how the corporate party got it right but the music festival treats all the bands like shit. At SBS there are limited facilities, limited production, no riders, nothing much of anything. It's like the emporer's new clothes of festivals. Why is that? And if I sound churlish and ungrateful consider that I've been putting on gigs for 20 years in one way or another and I completely understand the problems of managing large groups of uncoordinated people. But if the focus of the festival is as it's pitched, the music; then it needs to be the focus of the festival. Not some aside to a load of wankers getting loaded and jerking each other off; or included in the festival as a barely tolerated inconvenience. I know most bands are crap at dealing with practical matters but treating all bands like they should be grateful for being treated like cattle belies the advertising somewhat, if you ask me. Kind of forgetting the point of it all.

The best thing for me was the SBS staff tee-shirts. They had a stick-man holding up the world as a design. Yeah, that's right, you pompous fuckers; you're really carrying a burden there, saving indieland, keeping the world of music alive. For fuck's sake....get over yourselves. Go to Glastonbury or Virgin (UK) or Roskilde or Hurricane or Big Day Out to see how a proper festival works for a ton of bands. That Texan hippy bullshit vibe is bogus and hypocritical.

However, I loved seeing my friends there. I love my friends and my friends who were there were also feeling sidelined by the whole thing. We hung out a little and giggled at the two most common looks: a> Black skinny jeans and jacket (band person) or b) Jeans & untucked checked shirt (label person). I even have friends from Texas there, although they don't live in Texas anymore. It's something we don't bring up. Like a prison sentence that's been served or something.


For the record, I don't know how the band felt about their visit to South By Southwest. Just because I think it's a bag of sick doesn't mean they do too.

* With the exception of Rough Trade Records or if you're one of my friends and you work at a record company. Being my friend trumps being a wanker from the label - remember this on my birthday. It's november ninth.

** Not strictly true, but it sounds good.

The Last Thing I'll Ever Say About Texas, Here*.

So the week in Texas passed more quickly than I expected it to. I think a large part of that was because SBS (to give it its proper acronym) was such a blur of activity that time flew there.

At the Dallas show we encountered our first torrential downpour just after we loaded-in. The sky before the storm was green, it's something I've never seen before. It was a biblical amount of rain, which is fitting for this tour. On this tour since January we've / they've endured fires (x 2), stabbed wheels, thefts, a collision with a runaway villain, and now floods ( in Houston the rain was so heavy the slide-out lounge flooded - a full-on water everywhere flood, not just a drip here and there). I think we're working our way through the ten plagues of Egypt which means, by my reckoning, we've got at least Lice, Rivers of Blood and Unhealable Boils to look forward to.

Erm, actually, I might have two of those covered already.



Under the weight of the approaching storm Josh and Marc played a little wiffle ball in an abandoned lot, laughing in the face of an angry god with their underarm serves and wild, effete swings. They reminded me of a young Hall & Oates playing on the streets of Philly, honing their harmonising chops, before they were swept up up in the yacht rock phenomenom. Just two kids, believing in a dream, hanging out with poor black children and stealing their music, cutting off its balls, and selling it to white people. Hall and Oates that is, not Josh and Marc; Josh and Marc were just bored.

Or maybe I read the Hall & Oates bio' incorrectly?



The venue where we played in Dallas is about to be converted into a Starbucks. It's the first time I think I can say without reservation that it is definitely an improvement. People get very sentimental about all these nasty old club venues, I suspect because they don't know any better. I guess I'm not the sentimental type as I think it would be better to burn them all down and to replace them with a parking lot or a Pottery Barn. Not that I like Pottery Barn per se, but you get my point. Why a venue that caters to live music has to smell of piss and beer and have no facilities (even for a live gig, a flat, safe, workable stage would be nice sometimes, as would a PA system that wasn't wank or a local tech who didn't know everything because he was once a stagehand at a Cradle of Filth gig and still has the sticky pass to prove it) is beyond me. Or rather, it's not (no one invests in the venues and the audience accepts them), but why anyone gets attached to these kinds of toilets I cannot imagine. Maybe these are the Unhealable Boils we're supposed to suffer on this tour (the other ones, not the ones I alluded to above....)? But Yay!- a Deep Ellum Starbucks! Finally something to look forward to in Dallas, besides having a picnic where a president was assassinated through the face in front of his wife.

When I woke up in Houston our bus was parked at the back of the venue. The venue was a converted box / warehouse on the edge of Chinatown. It was an Unhealable Boil. There was no one on the streets except beggars. Across the street was the modeling agency, pictured below. I didn't realise that there was such a demand for a 24/7 modeling agency in Houston. Are people there always putting on surprise catwalk shows round the clock and need models? I am confused and not a little cheered. Who doesn't like a fashion show? Lots of pretty girls walking up and down like giraffes with broken pelvises in clothes.... To think that one could pop up at any moment excited me, even though it didn't happen. Go models of Houston! Go with your crazy surprise Fashion Shows!

The people we met in Houston were very nice though. Except the taxi drivers, who were all wankers or weird. I've traveled in taxis all over the world and these were the worst I've ever encountered. Still, what do I care? They're driving taxis in Houston and I'm....oh yeah. I'm on a bus in Tennessee. That'll show them, won't it?




* Except for South By Southwest, of course.

Deaddy Bears Picnic.


A tour bus is a very masculine place, even with a bunch of fey lightweights like us on it. (Jamie pointed out this morning that our obsession with watching Grey's Anatomy and eating at Whole Foods makes us the most un-rock and roll touring party ever...). That said - and I have to be quick as I've just downloaded a new episode and I'm hoping to watch it by stage time; I mean, wtf is going on with Meredith these days?! - with 8 men living in close quarters with one another it can't help but get a bit blokey on the bus. (I bet even Japan's tour bus did the same). So, as if to counteract this, teddy bears started appearing at truck stops - I guess flowers aren't a good option as a humanising touch on a tour bus. We have 5 bears now littering the seats, and in some cases, and I'm naming no names, bunks.




Then one morning in Houston - and it had to be Texas, too, didn't it? - I woke up to find one of the bears stabbed through the heart. This brought out the creative streak in the murderer because later jam was smeared over its chest like blood and the following morning the bear had a skull head. Later still, one of it's brothers was found hanging from the roof.



I don't know whether to be upset that we can't leave anything nice alone, or relieved that we haven't all softened so much that we're no longer men enough to murder a poncy teddy bear when it sits in our seat.

I will say this however, if anyone touches the teal bunny I will fucking maim them.

Texas:

Oh Jesus Christ. And they do it all in your name, mate.

Every evening I get to see corridors like the one below as I walk around and deliver my day-sheets (sheets outlining the following day's activities that I type up for everyone so they know what time to get up and be ready to leave, etc. etc. No one reads them and then they spend the next day asking me what was on the sheet). Sometimes walking around a hotel at night can be spooky. This hotel was very quiet.





I can only assume everyone was in their rooms watching the Christian DAYSTAR TV CHANNEL. Almost all of the men on the channel have very trimmed and dyed beards, and weird starey eyes. When I saw a few moments of it (and that was all I could take; my dead black soul unable to bear the presence of such pure Christian love for any longer) I saw a segment in which a man was talking about his wife's 14 year-long battle with depression; depression eventually cured by a dream of Jesus coming down and telling her (I'm paraphrasing) "enough with the depression already." The woman was then able to put 14 years of depression behind her because of her faith. I thought it was interesting that her husband didn't seem to examine why his wife had been depressed for 14 years... to be honest, and I'm taking a wild guess, but being married to a man with an unnatural beard, starey eyes, who couches everything in divine a self-aggrandising context might depress me for 14 years too. But what do I know? I have no soul. Not anymore. I watch everything with blank glassy eyes and try to remember what it was like to feel moved by something. However, I've just come back from South By Southwest so that might have something to do with it.

Seeing as it's such a Christian state, and people take their god very seriously here, if not their adherence to all that tedious religious doctrine, I was surprised to find that the devil had won out on the hotel Movie Channels. There were 49 different channels of full penetration pornography on my TV. Maybe that's why the corridors were so quiet at night?





Tangentally, while shopping for stage props (dont' ask) a few days later in Austin, I had the fortune to visit this fine emporium. Next to the I-35 interstate a few miles outside of town, it is a huge shed full of smut. It has a discreet parking lot around the back and inside it's like a blockbuster video store full of scut. I had to look in the "toy" section and I have to be honest and say I obviously come from a very small town. There were appendages there longer than my limbs, and thicker too. Nothing makes me realise how pedestrian I am than seeing the range of toys, gadgets, titilaters and plain old flesh-wreckers on sale in a porn store. That, and seeing who is buying all this stuff. That's more interesting, to be honest. Especially if you can follow them home and then, later on, back to work where you'll be able to blackmail them, or maybe date them. Or both. Which would be like Christmas and your birthday all at the same time.