Ajay Saggar Tourmanager / Soundman

Stevie Mc Dougall Merchandiser / Driver

Our posse for this trip consists of Ajay Saggar and a very quiet Scotsman named Stevie, who among other wonderful things was once upon a time in a band called The StretchHeads. And, all of us are tucked snugly inside a Black van very similar to the Black van that we got the last time we were here. We are getting rid of the fucker tomorrow because there is just too much merchandise and equipment in this freaky little van. It is such a tight squeeze to get as much stuff as possible into the back of the little bastard that it typically takes 20 extra minutes to load the stuff back into the van at the end of the night. Even then, we are cramming all kinds of shit into the back row of seats. For a six week tour with five guys, we really need as much space as we can get. I dont know what the other van will be like, but it is reportedly bigger and faster. I dont necessarily think those two things should go together...

speed + size = danger!

From this

To This!

The show in Glasgow was pretty good. A tiny bit stiff, but only based on the limberness of the U.S. jaunt that we just got done doing. A woman named April who is a writer for the NME, and a photographer that we have met before named Andy followed us around for the afternoon, and were too tired and sweet to be annoying at all. I really dont know what she will really have to write about though...
Last night was Newcastle. What a depressing burg that is. I have to consider the folks that live there when I say it, but its not really about anyone personally...Newcastle seems like a tense, depressing, violent, lonely, alchoholic slice of heaven. They just need to knock it all down and start the town over again. Remember, of course that this is all based on the three block radius around the club that I got to see. The folks at the club were pretty nice though, except for when they turned on all the lights in the club while we were playing, trying to tell us that it was time to stop I guess. We played another song and then split. Russell was pissed about them turning on the lights like that, and I dont blame him.
El Hombre Trajedo were with us as well. I thought that they were a bit more soulful than the original Louisville/Chicago sound they are up to. I enjoyed it alot.
Today we are on to Wolverhampton, where I have never been before. Supposedly Prolapse will be 'supporting' tonight. Mick sent me a message via his young cousin last night, I am looking forward to tonights festivities.

...riding back to London from Wolverhampton....
Its getting boring saying that we had 'another good gig', and i'd hate to be the one to jinx our successful run, but i'd say that we just played another good show (knock on wood or whatever). It was a weird, way too big room too. Fugazi had played there the night before.

I think we are finally getting the knack for doing our best with the bigger rooms... We finally learned to turn down. The room itself holds all the cards in that situation, with the sound bouncing all around, and off the high celings and everything. You just have to turn down and beg for mercy.
Prolapse were good too, but seemed frustrated with the stage sound at times (assumption), the sound onstage was definately challenging. The demeanor of Scottish Mick and Linda onstage is always interesting to me. Mick telling weird stories and jokes, and Linda, drumming on her belly and holding a wrinkled piece of paper with what I assume were freshly written lyrics in her hand. I love playing with those folks.

All night long the two Micks are working on their American accents, which were horrible. I really cant get into doing Scottish accents with Scots when I can hear how their version of ours sounds to me. I guess I must admit that their accents were getting pretty good at the end of the night.

We packed and headed out, stopping at a mobile kiosk and all got veggie burgers. A few minutes after we devoured them we began to question whether they were really veggie or not. I got a stomach ache just thinking about it.

Sunday the 2nd, London
We went back to London the night before, to be a bit closer to the ferries over to the continent, as we had a really really long drive to make today. I Woke up to Stevie, giving me a wake-up call at 10:00am. I rubbed the sandbags out of my eyes and saw that Ajay's bags were still sitting there in the room, but there was no sign of him. I feared that he had missed his plane. He has season tickets for Amsterdam's football team, AJAX and he was on his way back to Amsterdam to catch a football game between two Dutch teams.

I found out that Ajay indeed did make his flight, then we went over and picked up the new van. It is simply glorious. It is a Mercedes van called a Sprinter, it is considerably longer than the Black Mercedes and its got alot more room than the other bastard.
The midsection, where all the seats are is two rows of seats like the other one, but the extra length of the van = lots more legroom. The front row is two large 1st class style airlines seats that recline like crazy and have footrests, the back row is the standard row of three econo-sized airline seats. This is going to be a much nicer ride. Neccesito.

The journey to Amsterdam is 11 hours and involves either a ferry, a hovercraft, or a high speed underground train. Some time to spend on the deck of the hoverboat, or just looking out a window to the water for awhile will be a good thing. I hope that we dont take the channel tunnel.
Stevie went to return the other van, we decided to scrap the idea that one of us yanks would drive the right hand drive stickshift van through London, following the new van across town. That seemed like too much. Lou doesnt drive stick, and Russ didnt seem to feel up to it either. Now, in hindsight, I am kind of bummed that I didnt at least try it.

In the meantime we are just sitting here in the van waiting for Stevie to return. We went and had some breakfast around the corner, and had to walk by this dingy place across from a prison where there seemed to be a rave going on. The building was rumbling with three different pounding beats and white noize, with alot of tired and dazed people stumbling around smoking cigarettes in a heavily peirced sort of way. This side of London is one I have not seen before.

English and European drivers use their e-brakes alot. They are always grabing them for really minor hill starts and long waits at the redlight. Its weird. I never ue my ebrake.
Its for emergencies.

We've made it to the shores of Calais. The ferry ride was uneventful. Somewhere between calm and peaceful, and grey and boring. I couldnt go into the duty free shop without a valid ticket for the ferry, so I just milled around the deck of the boat, taking photos and pacing.

Sunday, 3rd Amsterdam

We got in to Amsterdam ahead of the schedule that I thought we were on. I checked the routefinder when we were about 1/2 way here last night and realized that the journey wasnt really nine hours from Calais, as I had been told, but probably was 9 hours from London. It still put us there at 2:00AM. Stevie had to go and look for parking after driving all that way. He doesnt complain about anything. He drove all day yesterday after a really small amount of sleep, felling sick. Coughing and blowing his nose all the way. He's a trouper.

I went for a long walk, all the way to the red light, right when we got there I took off. It was great, but it was so late that everything was pretty much winding down to the people who really LIVE down there. It was an interesting side of it too see, and kind of intimidating too. There were some desperate sort of people lurking about, and then there were all the drunk Englishmen.

I got up today, put on my shoes, grabbed my bags and went downstairs, half asleep and grumpy, thinking that i was late for shipping out. It turns out I wasnt, and after a few minor communication problems (on my end) with the hotel clerk, I decided to go with Russell and Stevie to get the van which was parked a few blocks away. What I hadnt really thought about was something that I couldnt know anyway, which was that we were going to have to walk for 15 minutes before we got to the van, and I was carrying all of my bags...DUH!

After we collected everyone, we went to Ajay's fiancee Yoke's apartment, which was in the attic of a Brownstone-type place in the city. There were like 1000 windows, and wood floors, and a woodstove and lots of plants and things. It was a real neat place. Yoke had laid out this beautiful spread of bread and cheese and yogurt and coffee and everything. It was exactly what we needed.

Then...we went to 'de konk', our dutch distributors office, where we have spent many many hours interviewing in their kitchen over the last few years. The folks who work there were a sight for sore eyes. It was 2PM and I had been joking with Ajay on the ride over about how the guys at 'De Konk' were always drinking by about 4PM. Pretty much the first thing I did was ask Aldo and Ab why they werent drinking yet.

"You want to have a beer!?" Asked Aldo
"Sure." I said,
but before I could say it, Aldo had already removed two beers from the fridge.

He handed them to Ab and I, and then poured himself a big glass of wine. We toasted, and I marvelled at their enthusiasm for having a midday beer.
We then split for 'The Villa' which is a 20 some-odd year old squat where Ajay is living. It's a really nice house on a 1/2 acre or so of land right next to a small canaal and bikepath. The villa is just 12 miles from Amsterdam, and there were plenty of other houses out there, but it was so beautiful and peaceful out there. I got the distinct impression that the folks who live there in the Villa really care about it and are constantly working on it.

Ajay is a great driver, but was driving like a motherfucker down these narrow little roads where the lines are painted on the sides, but there is no line down the middle. Ajay was FLYING, very comfortable with the width of the roads. Americans are so spoiled with our big, wide-ass highways.

The Sprinter is the finest van that we have ever had. Its not swank or anything, just a huge fuel efficient diesel-engined beast with power steeering and alot more under the hood thaan the black van. It goes so fast that Ajay is really scaring me though. I guess things look alot scarier from here in the back row of seats where I am sitting, I can really feel the lurching of the van in the wind and it sometimes seems like I am looking down a piece of pipeline that is rolling down a hill.

We drove up to Gronigen across this strip of land that divides the absoloutely emormous, man-made fresh water "lake" from the ocean. They control water levels for much of the country by controling the balance between the sea water and the "lake" that feeds into millions of canaals. The water on the ocean side is lower than on the lakeside by a little bit.

We stopped at a rest area and climbed to the top of this lookout point in the middle, where you could see a long way down the huge man made dam. I went to the gift shop and bought 12 Guilder worth of poorly shot postcard pictures. The view from the tower was quite amazing though. They certainly moved alot of earth to make this little wall, and to try and control the elements of nature to such a degree seems a bit overconfident. Pretty cool while it lasts though.
A nuclear bomb would blast a huge hole in this fucker, and then what?

Special Feature: Dutch toilets You can call it what you want, I like to call it "the shelf". Dutch toilets are quite unlike the toilets elsewhere. Instead of a pool of water in the bottom there is a little porcelain plateau that has no water, when you go #2, the #2 just falls on the shelf, soon making you realize that water in the bottom of the toilet is a good idea because your #2 is immediately submerged and therefore are harder to smell. With Dutch toilets you get to know what you're made of. When you finally flush, the water comes from the back wall of the toilet and washes your offering down the hole in the front.

Tues 4th, Lund, Sweden
The Swedes seem to have the same lack of patience with their own smell when to comes to toilets because they like a little water in the bottom of their toilets as well, to which I am a bit relieved.
Its overcast here in Lund, and I havent seen much of it, but this part of town is kind of nice if only for its green parts. the little strips of green between the post-WWII achetecture providing the illusion of beauty underneath the grey clouds.

Our friends in Gronigen hadn't seen us play in a long time, and seemed pleased with the gig. I was glad. These people had always been more than nice to us, and I wanted to do right by them. I had a blast there. They had completely leveled the rear of the building that the Vera has always occupied and started over from scratch, building the floor of the concerthall on top of rubber pieces, so that the floor and walls of the room were not physically connected to the foundation or walls of the rest of the structure by anything but rubber. This is "the right way to do things" and made the place absoloutely soundproof. They had these modest and plain looking, yet heavy doors set up in the back and front hallways that COMPLETELY drowned out the sound of the concert that was happening right on the other side of the doors. It really was amazing. AND, as part of the reconstruction, they built four or five amazingly nice rooms in the back of the building for the bands to stay in. Each room had a theme, the most memorable theme being a sort of a catholic convelesant (sp?) hospital room where everything in the room was extremely white, in a room that got lots of sun. The effect was really scary. The only thing in the room beside the beds was a Mother Mary statuette hovering on the wall above the beds.

It was great to see Peter, who runs the Vera and Hedwig, who we have known for a long time. The Vera has been around since 1956, and is funded by the government and run mostly by volunteers. It is a very unsusal scene (outside of Holland).

We had to start driving to Sweden right after the gig, because it was another ass-kicker of a trip. I slept all the way to Sweden, through two ferries, a border crossing and a couple of fuel stops.

We got to the hotel in Lund at about 1PM, took a nap for about an hour and went over to the Mejeriet, the same place that we had played the last time that we were in this part of the world. "Mejeriet" means 'Dairy' or 'farm' or something. The building used to be a farm, and some nice Swedish lady left 8 million Kroners to the place, "So that young people can see live music" is what the clerk at the hotel said. Pretty nice gesture. I wish that I had known her name so I could have kept mentioning it to the staff of the place all night, when they were pretending that they owned the place, and that everything sucked.

Last time we were at the Mejeriet, there was much public homo-play going on between the men in the audience, although there are some of the worlds most beautiful women here. The guys would jump up on the stage and dance, french kiss eachother, give eachother mock-blowjobs and leap back into the crowd.

Wed 5th, leaving Lund
Well, all that homo-play and debauchery was absoloutely absent from the show last night. In fact I thought maybe that much of the audience had passed away. Absoloutely the opposite of the time before. I guess it WAS a tuesday night and everything. The club staff couldn't have given a shit about having a show, and were hard to find, and when you could find one, they had the shittiest, most contemptuous attitudes.

We played our butts off anyway. Nothing is stopping us from doing as good a job as we are capable of these days. The locals complained about Stockholm, because it was overrated and all the local bands move there. I think in just one night of being here I have figured out why they all split!
Many thanks to the few people who actually let themselves have a good time.

God, I am in quite a mood today. I need some serious privacy and to see Kelli. I think everyone is a peckerhead moron right now.

...case in point:
Swedish National Radio wants to record the show tonight in Stockholm, for which they will pay us $1000.00 for the privelege of broadcasting it twice. The thing is, if we want to use some of the recording for our own purposes (a live record), we would have to buy back the whole thing at a cost of $3000.00. Not a bargain in my world, especially when its our music in the first place.

Wed, 5th Stockholm

I got up at the hotel in Lund, and went down and had breakfast with everyone downstairs...BREAD & CHEEZE again, maybe a hardboiled egg...Jesus.

Then we split to town to change some money at a bank, and head to Stockholm. While we were waiting for Ajay to return from the bank, Lou and I wandered into a huge, beautiful cathedral, and then quickly wandered out. It was surreal to just wander across the street and into this enormous, and beautiful place, and then just walk back out onto the street again. I know it sounds simple, but it was really weird.

We stopped to put some air in our leaky tire and Ajay laid booby-traps in front of the door of the service station with 'fun snaps'. I was a sucker over and over again, and stepped on several. I found a copy of "Pro Pinball" in the gas station for 100KR, which was cheap and strange to find at a gas station in the middle of nowhere in Sweden I thought.
We listened to the new Pavement record as we motored on across the land of Hansel and Gretel, which is alot like Maine, with a bunch of blondehaired wire-rimmed glasses wearing cloghoppers running around umlauting their asses off.
Sweden is a beautiful place.

The show had been relocated to another club called Studion, which is again that same place that we had played the last time we were here. When we got there the Swedish radio truck was already sitting there with cables running along the sidewalk and into the club. Soonly, the In Out showed up, having looked around for a long time for the wrong club.

There were these ultra cool guys there to help us load in and set up the stuff, and they honestly seemed like that wanted to do a good job and make things easier for us. Even though this is the basic reason for having 'loaders', most of the time they are really sick of just about everything and act real lazy and pissy. These guys didnt, and were really cool cats to boot.

The Studion is a pretty small place, and sounds really nice, if a bit loud. The In Out played a great show, and then we rode their energy and played a really aggro set for a bunch of people who actually seemed happy to have us. It was really really nice, especially after last nights mostly comatose audience. Now, I dont expect people to yell and scream and jump on their neighbors heads about our concert, but... for christs sake, keep breathing at least!

I did an interview, and then had a long conversation with Jonas Bergstroem, a fella that I met when Russell and I went to Stockholm earlier this year on our 'Press tour'. His name is Jonas Bergstroem, and his name definately deserves an umlaut that I sadly cannot deliver. Very nice guy who works for the 'Student Radio', who came with another cool fella named Erich, who was unobtrusively taking photos.

After the gig, those amazing guys who helped us load in packed up all of the gear and brought it up to the van, they refused to let us help, and were actually cheery about the whole thing. I was amazed. I was also amazed to meet a really neat older guy who claimed that it was his 48th birthday, and was trying to bum cigarettes, claiming that he had been tothe hospital and that someone at the hospital had stolen his tobacco. I asked him what had happened to the ear he kept pointing to when he mentioned being at the hospital. He said that he didnt know what was wrong with his ear, and then showed me an envelope from the hospital that he claimed contained 6 Valiums.

"They gave you Valium for your ear?" I asked, and as I said it, I smiled, finally realizing what was going on with his ear...

"Now you see why my ear is hurting." He said.

I had a long conversation with him, and he eventually invited me to go to his place and listen to music and talk some more. I felt honored by his request, and thought that is was sad that he was so lonely, but at the same time so full of life. His eyes were absoloutely full of possibility and happiness. I politely and regretfully declined his offer, and he bid us farewell. A Swedish fellow named Frank who was in on the whole conversation with the Valium man said that people like the Valium man are just simply ignored by most Swedes.

"If you do not fit into the system, you are swept away." Frank said.

I got in the van, and we went to look for the hotel, which turned out to be a hotel on a boat in the harbor, in this absoloutely ancient part of downtown Stockholm with all these amazing buildings and cobblestone streets surrounding. Everyone in the van was exstatic.

Tomorrow, Gothenburg....