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January 17th, Liverpool...
Our 'little tour' started about five days ago when we all flew
to NYC. We got in from the airport and checked in to the Gramercy
after the trip from Newark over into Manhattan. We were driven
by this guy from New Jersey, who showed his intellegence by driving
right into a traffic jam and getting into a semi-roadrage, and
then doing things like trying to slam the cellphone back into
is holder, and the phone just falling limply to the floor, and
just as we approached a toll-booth, having his electronic 'easy-pass'
toll gizmo fall off of its mounting on the dashboard. This guy
drives in the NYC area everyday, and he still gets mad. Its useless.
As soon as we checked in and put our bags down, the phone rang and we went and did interview stuff all day long, ending up at 'Mars Bar' at the end of the day for an interview with someone we knew named Danielle Dowling. Her interview style is to not really to interview at all, but to get really drunk and party, then just write whatever she wants. We sat down at the table in the back of the bar and said hello to Danielle and to Pam and also to this VERY DRUNK character that had aparrently wandered into the place several hours before with a full 5th of Southern Comfort. The bartender had taken sympathy on him and let him stay and drink there. This all had to be pieced together by the clues that we found scattered around the table. The bottle of SoCo had about two pulls left in it, which this guy wasnt even interested in anymore, or maybe he was just too blind drunk to see across the table anymore. The guy was eventually ejected from the bar and no real interview took place with Danielle. Pictures that Lou took of Mr. Drunk later revealed that he had wet his pants...
The next day we did more interview stuff at the 'Girly Action' offices until
about 5:00PM when we headed to JFK to fly to London.
The waiting area by the gate was like a refugee camp, with people having built
little property lines with their luggage and having picnics, huddled over computers,
sleeping, changing babies, talking on cellphones, and this one lady who seemed
to be doing a layout for a magazine ...
It was snowing pretty hard in the city and once we boarded
the plane, we spent two long hours waiting for the plane to be
de-iced and listening to this asshole in front of us saying stuff
to his family like:
'Ive got to have the most stupid family in the world, a bunch
of complete idiots. Look, if I look in the magazine and find out
how to turn the TV on im just going to strangle you. Im just going
to strangle you to death.'
When we finally were airborn, the capabilities of the impressive
control pads that popped out of the armrests were unveiled. Virgin
airlines has the most entertaining in-flight entertainment available.
We had our choice of movies and really outdated Nintendo games,
radio stations and the 'Sky map' which is really the least welcome
channel, being that it is a frustrating, never moving map of your
progress across the ocean.
We watched 'Buffalo 66', which I thought was a great way to spend a couple of hours, especially after watching 'Urban legends' earlier in the flight. Then I played a frustratingly easy game of hangman for about an hour.
We landed at Heathrow in London and were greeted by Ajay, who
was a sight for sore eyes, then loaded up the van and headed back
to London to check in to the Columbia Hotel. We went out and had
some breakfast, and upon return to the hotel, I really felt the
need for some sleep, and went undercover. I woke up in the room
a few hours later desperately needing to vomit, which I did. I
didnt really feel any better and stayed in bed for like 17 hours
feeling like fried shit and wished that I could see Kelli before
I died, which I was sure that I was soon to do. I stumbled to
the nearest drugstore, practically hallucinating and bought supplies,
then ate zinc lozenges and vitamin C by the handful, and felt
remarkably better, but Jesus, did I ever feel like shit.
The next day was the first show of the trip. We played Sheffield at a place
that we have been to before called 'The Leadmill.' I remember the place for
being the venue where I was witness to a really life-affirming performance by
Prolapse a couple of years ago. The place is insanely loud in general, and our
show had a curfew like in many other English clubs because after we play, the
DJ takes over, and they begin the latenight dance party which is advertised
as 'Shagfest' or something close... the volume of the music at this point in
the evening is absoloutely deafening. I have no idea how anyone could even order
a drink in there at that volume, never mind initiate some shagging. There were
some really 'sticky' Sebadoh fans there, wanting to go back to the hotel and
party or whatever. I got the impression that they were more fans of being obliterated
on booze/ect... then fans of music. I told them to forget it.
Which brings us to today, when we drove through to Liverpool
on a road that they call 'Snake Pass' which had some extremely
beautiful scenery. The rolling green hills traversed and dissected
by crooked propertylines demonstrated by ancint stone walls that
went on forever. The road brought us to an altitude where we eventually
saw lots of snow. At one point it seemed that we were right up
in the clouds, and the white of the snow melted into the white,
low cloudcover in such a way that it seemed we would be sucked
straight up into heaven. There were loads of people and sheep
roaming around up there hiking and enjoying the rare vision of
snow cover, carrying snowboards and sleds and throwing snowballs.
The Lomax, where we are playing tonight, is a tiny little place, and right around the corner from where 'The Cavern' used to stand, the place where the Beatles had apparrently paid their dues. It is said that it has long ago been leveled. Hopefully after soundcheck we can go and gawk.
Monday Jan 18th, Leaving Manchester...
Never got to see the Cavern, but had a really good show (with
exceptions) in the Lomax.
The dressing rooms were a few flights of stairs up from the level
that the stage was located, and right before we were supposed
to go on, Russ and I thought we were being smart by waiting for
Lou to come out of the bathroom so that we would go get ready
at the same time and all be ready to play at about the same time.
Like 10 minutes passed before we realized that he was not in the
bathroom at all and we had just been sitting there wasting time
and getting tense... 'man, where the hell is he?'
Duh.
The Lomax is a small club, which I really like. I really cant
give a shit sometimes for performing in a big place. I think that
rock and roll is meant to be more intimate. Because of the size
of the stage, I could really hear the bass and drums when I was
playing my guitar songs, which made it easy to get into.
After the set, we went offstage to have a talk about what the
encore would be, and pulled a complete spinal tap by saying
"OK, lets do it!"
and then proceeding to walk with determination all the way down
the stairs to the street level before realizing we had gone too
far.
Afterward, the dressing room took no time to become a madhouse
of aquaintances and hangers on, each one of them extremely hungry
and thirsty. I had to wrestle food away from hangers on to survive,
and it was just plain packed and uncomfortable in there. Who most
of these people were, and where they came from, I really dont
know, except for Mike from Manchester- who was a friend of Ajay's
that travelled with us for a couple of days on the trip we took
in December...
We drove to Manchester and dropped Mike off, and headed to a hotel
at the airport. We watched TV, and I tried unsuccessfully to use
this program called 'Painter 3' that came for free with an English
computer magazine, that claimed to be able to make your photos
into fake Renoir's. I couldnt get it to work quite that way, and
I was getting really tired... Russ found this station on the TV
that was off the air and the TV station had put up this screen
that was a really old looking TV test pattern, but with a picture
of cars in a traffic jam, with their taillights flashing. The
real kicker was the big, superimposed rooster, and the soundloop
of very dissonant carhorns honking infinately. The overall effect
was totally humorous.
Thursday the 21st, London...
Very hectic couple of days here...
We played in Liecester on Monday with Prolapse in another tiny little place
called the Princess Charlotte. We got into town and went to try and find a new
distortion pedal for Lou and ended up wandering into a more keyboard oriented
music store. Realizing that the place wasnt going to have anything for guitars,
we had a look around anyway, and Lou bought a really low-end casio sampling
keyboard. The shopkeeper put his own deep english voice on the machine saying
"Wanker" and "Bollocks", which was heard incessantly in
the van, dressingroom and onstage for the next three days.
The in club in Liecester had a new PA system and a new coat of paint since the
last time we were there (which was years and years 
ago),
but it still sounded like shit, in front of the stage or on it. Prolapse played
pretty great, and the place was HOT... I mean heat hot and I mean to say there
was alot of heat, it was probably over 100 degrees in there. Quite an achievement
to make it through that one I thought, we were all completely soaked when it
was over. I kept thingking of Scottish Mick from Prolapse up there wearing his
jacket onstage earlier in the evening, drinking an average of a beer per song
with his jacket zipped all the way up.
Then we drove back to London...a two hour drive with five extra people in the
van. We had Ajay driving, Elliot Smith, Linda from Prolapse, Sam from Quasi,
James and Jo from 9PR and me and Russ. It was long ride with all of us stuffed
into the back row of seats in the van.
The next day was the Astoria show, this big to do hosted by the NME magazine
people called the BRAT awards. The bill for the evening was Quasi, Hefner, Elliot
Smith and then Sebadoh. I was so absoloutely tired all day long from the late
arrival in London the night before, and anticipating the show which was at the
Astoria which holds 2000 some-odd people and was to be a pretty big audience
for us...
I had never heard Quasi before and thought they were really
something great. Really talented folks. And Elliot...we had done
some travelling with him the last time we were on tour in the
states for Harmacy. He drove himself around alone in a car and
played beautiful acustic shows. I had never heard him with a band
before and he was backed by the folks from Quasi, sounding tremendous.
I nearly cried at the end of the set. Not that the anything was
particularly sad, but actually things seemed so amazingly beautiful
to me for a couple of minutes there. It was really nice. Seeing
neat people do good things and be appriciated for them was a real
uplift. Really one of the best shows I have seen. He and they
are one bunch of talented M.F.'s.
Our show went pretty well I thought. We played there at the astoria
once before and it was really bewilderingly bad sounding and scary
onstage, but this time everything was really in place for great
sound and we played our butts off, regaining some lost ground
in regard to our reputation with regard to freaking out and playing
poorly at bigger gigs. I was really really happy and tired after
the show and was really spaced out. The Reverend Naughty Pencil
and his friend Dingo came up from Wales and there were just tons
of people in the dressingroom afterward. I followed everyone across
the street to this 'afterparty' thing at a really cool bohemian,
lowlight, expensive beer joint and everyone started dancing. Everyone
who was there already was just absoloutely WASTED and blasting
beerbreath into your ear about something unintelligable. Almost
everyone from the show was out there on the dance floor shaking
it. We got back to the hotel at like 4:30AM and decompressed for
awhile and then went to bed...
The next
day we got up and headed to the Maida Vale studios to do record some songs for
the BBC. We signed in at the desk and were instructed to go to Studio 4, which
we had been in before. We played four songs, and did everything almost entirely
live and were done tracking very quickly. Later in the day we did a live broadcast
from the studio and played Flame, with the radio station and announcer broadcasting
from somwhere across town and everything...it was pretty cool, and we were strangely
relaxed and competent.
We then packed it in and went exhaustedly back to the hotel, and then out to
eat some really good Indian food at a sort of popular and cheap place called
Khans that we walked to from the hotel with Deb Klein and Lawrence and Ajay.
Then finally a real nights sleep back at the Columbia Hotel.
Which brings us to today, which had been purely great and relaxing. A good nights sleep, and a slow paced morning with one interview and a quick photoshoot, then an hour off.
Later we went downstairs to meet a fellow named Richard Dawson
who was going to take photos. Getting off the elevator we bumped
into Will Oldham and some other fellows who were known to be in
the band Chavez. I said hello to Will and turned around and walked
awkwardly right into Lou. I felt a little embarrassed.
We got into Richard Dawson's '76 BMW 2002 and went off to a place
called 'Meanwhile Gardens' which was this little plot of land
that was landscaped and cultivated and kept up by volunteers.
It was beautiful and peaceful. Richard was a really kind fellow
and seemed like a pretty talented guy, and the people who were
working on the gardens showed us photos of what the park had looked
like before they began making it into a little paradise.
When we were done at Meanwhile, Richard took us to Abbey Road
studios just for fun and we got to stand outside the gates of
the place for a few minutes and walk across the famous crosswalk.
Lou and I bought cheezy Beatles shirts and everyone was jazzed.
I now at least partially understand the whole Graceland thing.
I really felt like I had gone to Mecca. We then got back into
the really cool 76' BMW 2002 and got rolling. Richard leaned over
and switched on the radio and Flame came on as if it was cued
up. I thought that richard was being weird and had put the tape
in or something, but Richard showed no signs of being up to anything.
We worked out that it indeed was in fact, really on the radio
legitimately and we all got exited. Richard told us that he didnt
know it was us, but actually recognized the song cause it had
been played alot lately. I started to think about what Lawrence
had said about 'Flame' being on the charts... What a great couple
of hours we had with Mr Dawson. He told us stories of doing mischief
in the area of the Columbia Hotel during his youth on the drive
back and then came up to the room to take some final shots in
the hotel room. Then this guy came from the Guardian and was being
really weird about wanting to interview Lou alone, so Russ and
I split back to my room and watched weird, impossible to answer,
English trivia shows on TV and lounged around for what seemed
like the first time in days. Then one more interview, and Ajay
turned up and wanted to go out to dinner and go to a kareoke bar.
I stayed in and worked on the site.
Tomorrow we are in Ireland!
22rd Going to Ireland:
We seem to have gotten a pretty big feature in todays Irish Times...
Stayed in to rest, but ended up going to bed extremely late anyway. Woke up,
brushed my tooth and went downstairs to load up the taxi with all our gear.
Russells hand got slammed in the passenger side door, and we were off on a nauseating,
herky-jerky ride to the airport. We found out while we were checking in that
the flight to cork was delayed two hours, to which I was delighted. I kind 
of like hanging out
in airports. I wandered around looking at expensive gadgets at Dixons duty-free
shop and went too far through the corridors and was stuck in a smoke-free waiting
area twice. I had to walk all the way back to where I started to try and get
to the lounge nearest the gate. When I finally got to the area where I could
sit and thing and smoke cigs, I went and had a seat next to this guy who was
reading the Irish Times. He informed me that the seat was taken by a woman who
was in the duty-free shop. I was bummed. There really wasnt enough of a seat-to-person
ratio going on for the allowance of 'reserved seating'. I didnt cause any trouble
though. I just resolved to not smoking at all, even though I had walked alot
for the privilege of sitting and smoking.
We have not boarded the plane, and the captain has announced
that due to the weather there has been a delay with the outgoing
flights as well and for us that probably meant another 45 minutes
wait. I am thinking that there will probably be no soundcheck
tonight, and that we will be playing on borrowed equipment, but
considering the scenarios that we have survived lately I am not
too bothered by it. We will do our best.
Well, we did get a soundcheck but it wasnt really worth the time...
the soundboard was severely crippled from neglect and the equipment
we borrowed from the opening band was pretty heavy metal. No transformers
for the pedals or sampler, and nothing could really be expected
to come through the beersoaked monitors. I still hold out hope
for the show, it could be pretty punk or something. Its totally
amazing that our last gig was at the astoria, and that we are
here now.
23rd...
I dont know if we could have persevered better, or looked at it differently
to make it a better gig for everybody, but last nights gig
was total shit.
The Nancy Spains in Cork was a nice place with a big jerryrigged piece of shit
for a soundsystem. I have played a few shows in my day, and have seen some really
1/2 asssed setups. The only one that I can say was worse than this was when
we played in Portland years ago, I thin it was at a place called the x-ray,
and we just sang through our amps. The board last night was missing channels
and there were many fucked up cables and nothing to speak of in terms of monitors.
Add that to playing through borrowed equipment...for instance the bass amp had
built it compression tthat couldnt be turned off, and the bass drum was outfitted
with this plastic disk called a flamslam, and was hit with a plactic sided beater,
which gives it this Lars Ulrich sort of sound that is good for things other
than Russells drumming style.
The show had alot of stops and starts, but more importantly had
a kind of frustrated mood to it. Im not sure that the people in
the place gave much of a shit about the bad sound because they
probably knew what they were in for, but we were just fucked over
by all of it. Ajay gave the promoter a huge, but unbelieveably
polite ration of shit, and the promoter denied all knowlege and
responsibility and then gave the house soundguy a ration of shit.
It was really stupid.
We jumped into a van, careened up to Dublin and checked into the
hotel. Today we did tons of interviews, including two for TV.
Considering the amount of interviews we did, the day went really
fast. We are all really pretty exhausted and I am looking forward
to a decent show, then some good, real sleep.
I am a little bummed about the website...I tried to upload some
stuff the other night and couldnt log in to the ftp site, and
after doing loads of work on it. Bummer. I might have to call
Chris my compu-guru about it.
sunday the 24th, Oslo...
The Dublin crowd was ready to go as usual. The people were letting
us know for sure that we were quite welcome there. And...we played
well for them. We just plain had to play as well as we could,
after the Cork show we needed redemption. Highlighs include: Hearing
'jason- you are gorgeous!' from some girls near the front of the
stage, and russell getting the crowd into a baseball style stomp
(ala 'we will rock you' by queen.) Every body was clapping along.
We also did some minorleague jamming for the first time at this
show...improv!
25th ajay tells us that weve hit #30 in britain and that we have been asked to do 'Top of the pops.'
The gig at 'So What' was good, thanks to the kind norweigan
audience and the great people who run the place. The hired gear
was pretty good and russell got a sort of undersized jazz type
drumkit. We have played about 18 or so shows so far on these two
trips, and have not broken a single string, but last night the
luck turned on us in the form of two strings breaking on the guitar
and one on the bass. Awkward momentum for sure, but the Norweigans
were really understanding of the situation. 'Its only human.'
said one of the lovely fellows.
We played two encores and met some really fine people. A girl
came up to me and indicated that she wanted to kiss me and I declined,
telling her that I was married, I only mention this because it
is so out of the ordinary...
We stayed up real late hanging out with Ajay, it being his last
night with us and all, which made it the fifth night in a row
of less than five hours sleep. The next morning at 10:00am the
interviews started, and they kept coming until all 13 of them
were done. Even with that amount of spiel, it was a pretty enjoyable
day. The Norweigans are a really fine bunch, and their country
seems to be running sensibly and is enviromentally conscious.
Not to mention the new airport, which is really a beautiful and
interesting piece of archetecture.
When we got to the airport tonight, russ and I went to the SAS
counter to check in, and when we were done we found lou in the
middle of the consourse with kath and the cart full of guitars
and bags, and him on his knees, frantically emptying everything
in his bag onto the floor of the concourse. He had apparrently
lost his passport. It all turned out when it was discovered by
the maid at the hotel, and it was sent over in a taxi. We said
goodbye to Ajay who was on his way back to good ol' Amsterdam-
and went to the gate to wait for our flight to Stockholm amidst
the gaggle of Swedes gathered to re-enter the atmosphere of their
homeland.
26th Stockholm
Russell and I got into Stockholm last night and looked for
our ride, who wasnt there yet. We didnt have any money or any
real idea how we were going to get to the hotel, and we were EXHAUSTED.
We made a couple of calls to the U.S. and then saw a guy hiding
behind a bunch of people with a placard that had ' mr. sebadoh'
scribbled on it. He brought us to a fantastic hipster jazz hotel
and we couldnt be happier to just have a bed, nevermind a tasteful
room and some roomservice. We ate and watched TV for awhile, there
were lots of trashy american shows.
When we woke up the lip trials began...10-15 interviews in a row
from 10:00am until 4:45 pm with a really quick break to eat some
lunch in the hipster restaraunt.
Our handler for the day was a fellow named Oscar, and he was the
only non-caucasian man or woman that we saw the whole time we
were in Stockholm, although we didnt even leave the hotel all
day. I asked him if there were many black people in Stockholm,
because I hadnt seen one apart from himself. He said that there
were black and turkish people, but they all were sort of forced
to live on the outside of the city because it was cheaper.
The day was pretty OK for being such non-stop lip service, we
met some really decent folks and didnt really burn out on it until
the very end, so it was about as perfict as you could really hope
for, apart from Russell completely losing his voice.
Anticipating the onslaught of 'lo-fi' and 'so, you are the new
drummer, how did you join the band?' questions is a little frustrating,
but I have to keep in mind that there are definately worse things
we could be doing.
We got to the airport a little late and they had to switch us
to a flight via Hamburg rather than the original plan of all meeting
up in copenhagen and going on to Koln together. So, up up and
away we go, into the sky on a really dirty and old looking Scandinavian
Airlines airplane.
27th Koln
Stefan picked us up at the airport last night, and we all jumped
in a cab and travelled at 140 Kph into town and checked into the
Chelsea Hotel.
Stefan and Russ and I went and had dinner at a place around the
corner called 'Maca-roni' which was a sort of mid-quality italian
restaraunt which featured live music by this piano player and
a young slightly homeboyish guy who sang with this weird elvis
thing. They had midi and a PA and there were photos all over the
walls of the piano player with various german celebritys, one
of which Stefan identifyed as someone who was presently in jail
on drug related charges. They played some funny ones including
'Hello' by Lionel Ritchie, in which the piano player would say
the first line of each verse in a kind of German Barry White way,
if it is possible to imagine that.
It was hard to keep them from seeing us laughing.
28th...koln airport
Got a call from Stefan at about10:00am to come down to start the
interviews. The day went quickly, because I have resolved myself
to expecting the worst as far as the duration and frustration
of interviewing. Yeasterdays load was light in quantity, but heavy
with tension as we fought the misunderstandings caused by the
German to English language barrier and trying to not take offense
to the often sharp criticism and mis-use of english.
We spoke to a real cool guy named Carsten who told me that the
guitarist from my favoirite German band, 'Brullen' was once in
a band called Kolossal jugend (colassal youth). I hope I can find
a record of theirs someplace.
I havent been able to get Kelli on the phone for the last couple
of days. Between the early starts for our interviews, and the
time difference and Kelli going to Lexington three times a week
to go to work, it has been frustrating. I havent even been able
to brag to her about our hitting the charts and playing on the
TV show. All I want to convey is the emo-drivel of the fact that
I am missing her immensely.
Germany is a real brain teaser to me. I have felt the most isolated
and freaked out in Germany, more than anywhere else. One thing
I have noticed this time is that as a tourist, or whatever you
want to call us (mono-lingual?) it is pretty easy to get by because
nobody ever talks to you. The Germans that I have seen dont just
strike up a conversation with the person next to them, which is
different than just about anywhere. Even in the biggest cities
in the US, where people typically adopt this mean-guy front to
help protect themselves, there sitll is way more random conversation
going on.
To compare it to someone who didnt speak English in Louisville,
trying to just avoid friendly conversation and get what you need,
you would be doomed.
People just want to talk in the south, and they give you the benefit
of the doubt as to whether or not you know what they are talking
about. I guess it wouldnt necessarily be all that bad for a German
in Louisville because if a taxidriveer struck up a conversation
with them, the cabbie might not stop talking long enough to realize
that they are making a one-way call...
After the interviewz we said goodbye to Stefan and walkd to the
cathedral/shopping area of Koln. We ate at McDonalds and then
split up Russ and I went looking for a specific type of Addias
sneaker that he wanted, and bought some killer chocolate. It started
raining freezing cold agua and the wind picked up and was spraying
us in the face with tiny little ice bullets the whole walk back
to the hotel. I tried to figure out how to dial the local Koln
Netcom access number using this special dialer, but could not
get it to happen for reasons that I dont understand to be my fault.
I resolved to calling the states directly and then I caught up
on some emailz and watched scooby-doo and listened to Russell
make up Operas and short plays, high on chocolate.
We pleaded with the front desk all night for news about the state
of our laundry, which we had dropped off earlier in the day.
Then we discovered by actually READING the fax that came to us
about the specifics of playing on 'Top ofthe Pops' that Busta
Rhymes and the Offspring are among the list of bands that are
appearing with us on the show.
Got up at 4:30am to get to the airport, and on our way to London
and the BBC studios. We had the opportunity to ask for rediculous
props and stuff but didnt really take advantage...they said that
the sky was the limit and mentioned elephants.
Now that we are sitting here on the morning of the day of the
show, we finally take inspiration from the late night fire channel.
The german networks put cool stuff on their channels overnight,
like a camera mounted on the front of a train that snakes through
the german countryside all night, and a camera pointing at a fire
in a fireplace. Something to fall asleep to I guess.
We could have had the 'top of the pops' people get a bunch of
VCRs with videos of various fires burning. Oh well.
I went to the bathroom and hung my jacket and backpack and was
getting ready to enjoy a few minutes of solitude before getting
on the plane when I heard all of our names come over the intercom...
Jesus.
7:30am-airborne.
Upon landing we realize that we must produce work permits, which
we dont have with us, so we get a taste of the disorganization
of the old days in the form of waiting on the couches at customs
for the agent to go and look foa a fax somewhere in the customs
office.
'Where are you meant to be playing tonight?'
'Top of the Pops.'
she looks a little surprised and smiles
'oh, I see.
29th....
got to london before the sun came up practically and drove back
to london in a hired car driven by some weirdo who smelled money
when we said what we were there in london to do. He arranged for
his car to wait for us in front of the hotel for the 2 hours between
our arrival and the ride to the BBC. It turn out that the whole
event cost Lawrence an extra 100 pounds to do, although he didnt
care I was rather dissapointed in the greed o the weird fellow.
Top of the pops was
much ado about nothing. Lawrence was so freaked out and nervous when we got
there, it was unbelieveable. Scottish Paul was running around being very helpful
and deflecting some of lawrences nerves by telling jokes and being a charming
gentleman. The 'pops' studio is smaller than I imagined, and absoloutely stale
and choreographed. The audience is herded from stage to stage and their enthusiasm
is absoloutely coached. Most of the audience is made up of dolled up, young
english girls who dont even know who is perfoming when they show up. After our
sound and camera checks we went out to eat and then to the pub, where it seemed
that the tension was resolving itself.
You would think that the BBC would try and make things comfortable
for their artists by putting some cold drinks or a kettle in the
room, but there was just a room with stickers on the walls warning
us about the asbestos in the walls, and a couch. We played a strange,
but live version of Flame and then all of our equipment was immediately
thrown out onto the curb outside. Russell was treated with much
disrespect by the stage manager types, and everything was just
lovely. Russell was going to kill somebody.
We hung around for a little bit and then said good bye to Lawrence,
Scottish Paul, and Russell Warby, our incredibly powerful booking
agent. Our cabdriver was a big music-head and told us about seeing
the who and the beatles in small clubs back in the day and wanting
to take a trip to Lubbock TX, where buddy holly is from. This
led us to a conversation about Joe Meek and his weirdness. Lou
was pretty impressive with his knowlege of bands that Meek was
involved in, but was dwarfed by the knowlege of the cabdriver,
who could name all the bands, album titles, songs, and offshoot
bands. It was quite a nice ride, especially after the anit-climactic
day at the top of the pops...
Being one of the longest days of our lives, and after a very small
amount of sleep, we went to bed immediately, which still meant
that we would only sleep about 6 hours before the cab arrived
to take us to the airport to head to Berlin to resume the grind
of doing interviews.
When we got to the airport, Russell realized that he didnt have
his ticket, so I told Lou and Kath to go ahead and check in and
we would go and deal with replacing the ticket.
The British Airways person sent us to the BA ticket counter,
who sent us to another terminal, giving Russell and I a chance
to see just how poorly planned Heathrow really is. We arrived
at the Lufthansa counter and were told that we would have to purchase
another ticket, and have our money refunded when we used it. I
thought that this was rediculous and decided to take the tact
of saying that we simply didnt have any money, and that we wouldnt
be going anywhere else.
'Im afraid that we are your problem.' I told the little German
twerp.
He said that there was no other way to do it, and I asked to speak
to the supervisor. He said that he was the supervisor. I asked
him to produce someone in authority to do something for us and
he brought us an englishman who really just wanted to deny any
responsibility to our situation. I told him the same thing that
I told the smug German guy, that we were going to stay right where
we were until we got our tickets, and I made note of their names.
They convinced us that we would need to go to the British Midlands
ticket counter, and we went all the way back through the maze
of hallways and ramps with our carts full of equipment. The British
Midlands desk sent us to another British Midlands desk, and there
we waited for them to try and make sense out of our situation.
We were on a British Airways flight, with a British Midlands ticket
issued by a Lufthansa agent in Koln. The lady slowly got things
together, and Russ had to pay 25 pounds to re-issue the ticket.
It was 2 hours since we arrived, and our plane had been gone for
40 minutes.
We took our new tickets to the British Airways check-in, hoping to get rid of the bags and equipment and eat and smoke cigarettes and window shop at the duty-free stores. The lady told us about a British Airways policy of not letting anyone check-in until 2 hours before their scheduled flight, and ours was four hours away now. So, now we were stuck in the main concourse for the next two hours with our overloaded carts. We were bummed, but had been so beaten down by the rigormorol of getting Russs ticket replaced that they could have told us we needed to have a tooth pulled before we could do anything and we would have obliged them numbly.
We went and set up camp in the dining area and had some 'breakfast'
and smoked cigarettes and stuff waiting 1 1/2 hours to check in
and go ahead to the intl. departures area where we would wait
another 2 hours to board the plane.
But wait...we are travelling 'Business class' which entitles us
to the 'Euro club' which we found out is a really posh waiting
area with a huge self service drink and snack bar, elegant, comfortable
seating and phones with little desks to make it easy for you to
spread out with yr. briefcase or computer of whatever... Pretty
cool. We are definately the youngest, most casually dressed people
in here. Quite a change from sitting around in the fucking Burgerking
diningroom...
I called Kieth at Cityslang to tell him that we would be arriving
late, and they arent even going to pick us up... we have to hail
a cab an get to their offices, and get up to the fourth floor
to get the Deutchmarks to pay the cab. This day is just heaven
and hell rolled into one inconsistent rolling mess.
We met a fellow named Garry Malone who was the 'cabin services
director' on our flight, who was excited to talk about music and
physical fitness with us. He was nice guy, and gave us these HUGE
'to-go' bags full of airline-sized bottles of booze and champagne.
I guess we must fit some kind of profile because he somehow knew
that we were musicians before we ever said anything....
31st, sunday- Berlin...
Upon arrival to Berlin on friday- Russ and I stumble around the
airport with our luggage, trying to figure out how to get a cab,
after being refused service by several drivers. We didnt know
what the hell was going on until we saw them pointing at a stationwagon.
We got there, said hellos to Gundela and Kieth, had a quick coffee
and then had to right away start doing what was left of the interviews.
After a million interviews, Gundela took us all out to a restaraunt
in the neighborhood called 'Foo Foo'. Where we had a great meal
and lou and kath had a debate about the nature of the German interview
vibe, and of the tendency of German people to hold music as a
second-class artform, with the visual arts on the top of the heap.
Then back to the hotel to check-in, and we find out that Russell
and I both have our own rooms. We are delighted.
The next day Russell and I are on our own again, as Lou and Kath
have gone on to Pisa, Italy. Keith picks us up and we head to
the office and do interviews until abot 6pm, and then go to Christof's
(King of City Slang records) house.
Victor is Christof's son, and he is like a walking ray of sunshine.
Just a beautiful three year old boy who is really into music,
playing his pint sized drumset and spinning Beatles CD's. He knows
all of the words. Christof said that he had developed an extreme
apprehension to Lou for some reason, but had been asking about
me! I had the honor of presenting Vic with a Sebadoh CD and a
poster, to which I was treated to the most illuminating smile.
Because of my lack of German language skills, and the frustration
that it was bringing me, I tried to get a jam session going...
It was more like a drum clinic, with russell and I taking turns
playing the tiny little drumset and finding out that Victor favors
very fast drumbeats with lots of long rolls around the tom-toms.
A very rewarding gig indeed, paid for in Victors smile. He was
such a cutie! Goddamn!
We ate a little pasta and Victor got very into calling Christof
and uncle Kieth 'Dumbkompf' and running away from them as the
two grown men tried to exact their revenge for this insult by
tickling him to death.
We hungout at the house until about 12:30 and went back to the
hotel in Keiths new car, which smelled like a wet dog.
Kieth seemed to be confused as to what the smell was, saying that
he thought it might be 'new car smell'. I dont think so.
Today, we are flying into Amsterdam...
Christof came to te hotel with Victor and we went out to a good
scottish restaraunt called McDonalds. Victor had a blast, and
consequently I did too. Then we went to Christof's and hungout
with Vic until he took a nap, then we listened to a test pressing
of the record, the first time we had heard it on good ol' vinyl.
It did indeed sound different...
Then Russ and I said goodbye and headed to the train discussing
the kindness of our captor, and all the good thigs about being
in Germany. We took the train back to the hotel, where kath had
a worried look on her face... and come to find out, she had left
her bags in Chistof's car, which had no way of returning in time
to make the fight to Amsterdam, and besides, we dont have his
number at home anyway.
February 1st, Amsterdam
We were met by Aldo and Ab from
De Koncurrant at the airport, or rather we found them at the bar. We all had
a beer and got on the train. We stayed at a different place than we usually
do, which really perplexed me beccaause i really wanted to understand where
I was.
We were right next to Central Station this time. In fact we were
right on top of it and could really feel the trains pull in. We
did an interview in the hotel bar and then Russell and I waited
to see Ajay. When he got there, we all hit the streets and walked
to the red light to have a look around and a drink. Russell had
never been over that way before and it was really cool to see
his reaction. It is a real weird thing to walk by the windows
with the women sitting there for the first time...the politics
of eye contact are rearrainged in a confusing way. It is not a
comfortable idea to me that you would give money for the company
of this woman who has alot of company.
The next day we were in Brussels there were about 150 interviews conducte in
a bar/cafe that was decked out in art neuvoux, back 
when it was indeed new.
A neat place full of good people, but still really tiring... The folks taking
care of us were excellent.
wed 3rd train to paris:
today I am in a ripe mood. this trip is starting to become quite
grueling. ten hour days of mostly pointless interviews, less than
six hours between getting to the hotel and leaving again to catch
a train. also we have bags. Which reminds me that we will have
guidelines for our next press trip...
considerations:
no longer than 7 hours ofinterviews per day
starting no sooner than noon
leaving to travel no sooner than 10:00am
receive der diems in local currency
adequate transportation for people and equipment
in a seven hour day receive two meals
Thursday 4th Paris.
yesterday was absoloutely
grueling as well. We got up at 6am after getting back to the hotel at 1am. Lou
decided to treat russ and i by getting another room so that we could all have
our own rooms, but we really didnt have any time to notice it or enjoy it, concidering
that we were only in the room for four hours at the end of the day. We piled
into a cab, all of us 1/2 asleep and got to the train station where we found
out that the cab had not been paid for, and luckily lou had some Belgian dough.
We found the train and got the stuff on, and sat down. We soon realized that the acomodations were definately a bit posh and began to wonder if we belonged there. Of course it turned out that we were in the wrong part of the train, with all of our stuff packed into the luggage racks... The 'stewardess' was really nice about it and looked after our stuff and we went to the second class car and dug out some money to buy bread and coffee.
Upon arrival in Paris, there was nobody waiting for us, so we
just hung out while Lou and Kath went to get us some carts. Kath
came back, and then Lou and JeanMark, who grabbed a cartfull of
our crap, and began walking briskly toward the taxi stand.
We got to the Distributors office and began the rigor. We did
interviews and photo shoots for 11 hours, then went and saw this
boring German 'band' (sample-based thing) and then went out for
some grub.
Today we play a live show for radio france to record...and then
go right to the airport and go to Madrid.
The 'white session' was weird. It took place in an empty auditorium,
where the 'black session' normally takes place. The sound that
the engineer was getting at first was absoloutely unbelieveably
bad. He didnt notice that there was an extremely short flange/delay
on the entire mix, and denied that it was even there at first.
He was using a very expensive box called a 'finalizer' which is
a mastering device that takes some skill, knowlege, and tinkering
to make it work for you at all. He was just pecking away at it,
trying to get it to do something. Why he was using it at all,
I really dont know. We haggled a little, and then resolved to
just ignore the awful sound in favor of not being incredibly frustrated,
and being able to just do the session, and not stay and fight
the language barrier for the next couple of hours. There is enough
miscommunication about sound when all parties speak the same language,
nevermind the rest. Its just an impossibility.
We said goodbye to Emanuelle and jumped into a traffic jam for
awhile on the way to the airport. Russell tried to change Guilder
for Pesetas at the airport and encountered great resistance in
his quest. The airplane is filled with French and Spanish...I
assume, and is as noizy as a crowded restaraunt on a friday night.
Friday 5th, Madrid
We arrive in Madrid and
meet our captors, George (hor-hay) and some english guy named Mark who runs
the label/distribution here in Madrid. I ride with George and the bags at 85mph,
listening to Sepultura style metal on the radio. The others arrive, crammed
into the back of a cab with Kath laying across the laps of the others. We went
out and had a really nice meal with like 150 starter dishes, and have totally
weird conversation with the English guy. He is acting like a total asshole,
which you can see from a distance. From across the table, it is possible to
see very clearly.
I became facinated with their eyes because they began to meet
ours less frequently, and when they did, seemed to fail to penetrate
the air in front of them. Enough conversation had gone by, with
illusions to drugs and such to figure out that they were practicing
alternative medicine of some sort.
The first interview of the day in Madrid starts with the exact
same questions as anywhere else in the world.
1. title = new beginning for the band?
2. Russ, how did you join the band?
3. there is more of a balance between the loud songs of jason
and the melidic songs of Lou.
4. how is this record different than the last one?
Saturday the 6th, Madrid aeropuerto...
Interviews until about 2pm, when we all went out to lunch, which lasted about 2 hours, three bottles of wine, and three courses. I promoted Mark, the Englishman from 'numero uno asshole' to just a 'fuckhead' during lunch because he didnt make sarcastic jokes about us in Spanish and conversed in his English with us for about 5 minutes of the 2 hours.
Interviews until 6pm when Russ and I went AWOL, throwing on
our coats and splitting through the warehouse and walking for
about three hours. First in the wrong direction, and then in the
right direction for about 4 miles or more to the hotel, picking
up a bottle of red wine on the way.
We got back to the hotel finally and poured a couple of glasses
and Kath came over and told us that she had been to a museum and
had seen Bosch's 'Garden of earthly delights' to which I became
slightly jealous. A couple of hours later, Lou and George and
Jesus from the distributor showed up. Apparrently they went looking
for us in the bars surrounding the office. Their 'workday was
over and now they were beginning a mission that had only one goal,
which was to drink alot of booze. Everyone went out, but I stayed
at the hotel to have some peace, and to call Kelli who wasn't
home, and to sort of anticipate our departure from the hotel to
the aeropuerto, which was to be at 7:30am, and it was 1:30am when
they all went out to get loaded.
Apparrently they were out until about 5am...Im glad that I was
not with them. We have a show tonight in Mallorca, and that will
require some energy.
Monday the 8th, in the air over canadia
Paella, Mallorca, and the mountain
Two days ago we landed in Mallorca and drove with our friend Miguel
to the town of C'an Picafort on the other side of the island from
Palma. We rang the buzzer on the apartment where we were supposed
to stay with Ajay and his girlfriend Yoke, but they were out someplace.
I mentioned to lou and kath that I heard that it was an apartment and not a hotel per se and immediately they made plans to get their own hotel room in Palma, so that they could go and see some things on our day off. They were getting exited to be making plans for their day off, until it was told that all tourist attractions and so forth are always closed on Sunday on the desert island of Mallorca.
In lieu of Ajay and Yoke, we headed out to eat at a place very near Miguel's place. They cooked us some Mallorcan style dishes with lots of fish involved, including escargot's and the like. I ordered some weird vegetable dish that was quite unlike what I imagined it would be, and ate it, congratulating myself for being so open minded. I have never eaten so many weird vgetables in one place in my life.
We then called Ajay and met him at the apartment, which was
roumored to be a very very cold place. And indeed it was. Built
with the express purpose of being inhabited by fat, wealthy german
tourists during the summer months, which are typically very hot,
there is no need for heat or insulation in the design of the building.
Also, the power had been going out a few times a day...
Whatever,
we didnt care. The place was in an amazing spot right on the beach and had three
bedrooms, a livingroom and a kitchen. It was VERY cold in there after awhile.
We drove back to Palma and fiddled with the PA system and the borrowed equipment for awhile, then went and ate dinner. Our show in Palma was definately one of the best performances the band has given ever, with ANY of the lineups that we've employed. The Mallorcans are fine bunch, and were very sweet to us.
We returned to the other side of the island and had a couple of drinks and went to bed. Next day, we went with Miguel and Adolpho to "take Paella", a spanish dish with lots of fish and calamari pieces thrown in a huge pan, then they put whole baby lobsters, prawns and mussells on top and bake it . I was really bummed at first with the idea of this dish, but there really wasnt anything else on the menu that was any more normal sounding that the Paella. I just ate the rice and the fish and calimari pieces that were hiding out in it, I gave the mussells and shrimp away. It was really quite good, but I was still a little weirded out, it being my first purely seafood dinner (breakfast) and everything.
Then we all got into the van for a drive up into the mountains, stopping at a lighthouse on this 900 ft tall cliff. And also at another insanely picturesque spot. We stayed and watched the sunset. and then drove down the insanely narrow roads. It was really pretty scary at times. No guard rails, sheer 500 ft. drops all over the place, you are really on yr. own out there.
If it had been the USA, the place would be either completely off limits to the general public, or cost money and be completely fenced in and sponsored by some megafuck company. We went back to the apartment and all began to freeze our butts off until we decided to go and forage for firewood, and we returned with four shipping pallates that we found at a construction site and stomped them to bits and threw them in the fireplace, where Yoke prepared an orderly, efficient, dutch fire and we sat around it all night while Kath and Lou went to dinner with Miguel and Adolpho.
About 3 1/2 hours of sleep later we were in the van on the
way to Palma again, to catch the flight to Madrid, then to London,
then to Newark, and then to Louisville.
Regular touring is going to be a walk in the park.