Hells Ditch

We arrive at The Pilgrim early for informal banter with Chris who’s promoting tonight’s Hell’s Ditch in Liverpool. The gig was rescheduled form early this year and it’s nice to be here after a couple of false starts. This is the first of a series of gigs I’ll be doing with Craig and we’ve had a couple of rehearsals since returning from Sweden. Chris’s band Rattlebus are first on and kick up some rowdy roots n roll, they sound like The Long Riders which is a complement. After the raffle [I love gigs with raffles] we play a 45 minute set and I’m not sure, to be honest, quite how well we were received [it was a very audience-talky gig] but we enjoy it and the all round feel of the club is cosy and mostly appreciative give or take a strange sense of indifference I seem to be picking up on. I do a few poems but I get the feeling people don’t want to hear such cock n bull stories, and that I am coming across all wrong. We play ‘Revolt into Style’ [title track of the next album] for the first time live as a duo and it feels like it means something…well it does to me in this the hottest gig I think I’ve ever played. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much and having the flu doesn’t help. My voice is not all there and my cough gets in the way of words. This time last week we were rocking the festival masses. Now I’m making excuses for what exactly I’m not sure. Sometimes the highs and lows of performing can engender much intense internal debate but this time I can’t put my finger on anything in particular other as I get a strange feeling of emptiness and futility that leaves me feeling less than satisfied with our little show; and all this despite several apparently genuine well wishing complements from the audience. That’s just how it is sometimes. Terry the Turnip understands, VPx................................................................

We just about make breakfast, well Marcus and I do. The others roll up a little later and do the pretty please grovelling for a few scraps before it’s all swept away routine. Ben is surprisingly hung over and Craig is not feeling himself. The taxis arrive at mid day and we’re off over the bridge to Sweden. We check in to the hotel and graze around in the foyer where we meet up with the C/Kristians, that is, Christian and Kristian from our Swedish agents HEADSTOMP. Then we’re off to eat more cheese and sample some of the local pear cider in a bar that positively oozes tranquillity. So far all is going to plan which is a nice feeling. The festival is a ten minute ride by taxi and we’re there in good time to mooch around, the rider is decent and we’re billeted in little caravan behind the alternative stage. The hire gear is present and correct and Ben is using a grand piano which is nice. We loiter by the euro reggae stage and await our stage call. After a line check we do an interview and then we’re on. It makes such a pleasant change to have great onstage sound and we rise to the occasion. Mid way through the set I’m stricken by hysteria as Marcus points out his mascot selection of cheeses prominently displayed on the drum riser. I guess this means we’re having fun which is always a bonus. The set flies by and the reception is great. Given the ups and downs of recent shows it’s a right old tonic to the troops; backstage I don’t think I’ve ever seen the band so happy. Marcus has settled in a treat. Then we’re off with our hosts to cruise the streets of Malmo, nice city, nice times, VPx..................................

Danish

We’re stood pondering as you do in the name of travel and light entertainment on the concourse at Manchester airport, our flight for Copenhagen is half an hour late which is good because we are too. I abandoned the spare guitar last minute so we’re bound to bak strings as I make a mental note to find someone kind enough to offer to change them in such an event. Craig never seems to break strings, probably because he plays with such finesse…on the other hand I tend to rag the life out of the telecaster and am more prone to breakages. Tonight’s Danish gig will be a first for Markus who, possessed by the spirit of the CHAV is currently playing darts and supping Guinness in the lounge bar. In WH Smith I buy the obligatory pulp fiction, pain killers and fisherman’s friends. We say a few prayers for the instruments survival and we’re off. 1 hour and 40 minutes later we are met by our amicable hosts Asbjorn and Christina and wizzed off to the hotel, then out to lunch on what turns out to be a gloriously sunny day via a main street that boasts such primal attractions as a mambo penetrator. Mike reminds us that Copenhagen is home to the Donkey Mag which is probably more information than you need to know. The lunch is strikingly huge and satisfying [which pretty much sums up the capabilities of the aforesaid device but I’ll stop there less you think I’m turning into some kind of fetish deviant]. It is all pretty fascinating none the less. I get the goats cheese deluxe and we sample the local bitter. The hospitality factor is A star plus and we end up rambling on about the corporate nonsense that is the music industry, a subject that brings out the soap box in all of us. We return to the hotel before getting a taxi to the gig. We’re in good time. All the hire gear is present and correct as I go into tour manager mode ticking off the specifications and double checking the rider which is ample and colourful and not without cheese. So much cheese. The sound check turns a little fraught as the engineer is a bit of a policeman, he is convinced we have effects problems when we know for sure the hire amp is buggered. We sort it out just seconds before Craig has a nervous breakdown and leave to eat in a Swedish –Indian restaurant where all the curries come topped off with grated cheese, the food is good but it’s not quite right, not with all that cheese, still we're not complaining, not in the least. Asbjorn and Michael our hosts are DJing at the venue after we play tonight, Michael tells of his love of The Editors who are from Brum apparently, as am I [sort of]. Their English is superb; as ever I feel shamed by my linguistic failings. We return to the gig and are onstage at 11.15 for an hour and fifteen minutes. It’s possibly the hottest gig I’ve ever known, I get drenched in sweat like Bruce Springsteen [not him again] and we’re made up with the reaction. Someone tries to rob my hat but I rob it back later. It’s been sometime since we did an upbeat enjoyable show, the last couple have been marred with technical hitches so we’re buzzing and carousing and cascading as we do a post gig interview with a music magazine whose name escapes me. Then we loiter intently selling cds and eating luxury chocolate in a dressing room that smells like a perfume factory before retiring to a corner of the club where you can hear yourself and the music and have a beer. Marcus takes the cheese, huge slabs of it unopened from the rider. At 4am we call it a day; it’s been a long one at that but a good one. Tomorrow we’re over the border in Malmo. VPx

Happy hearts and homeless minds

Sat here feeling all apologetic thanks to the people who reminded me that Bruce Springsteen is pretty good sometimes…so yeah I take some of it back, but not all of it. Especially not the Dancing in the Dark…I guess we all make mistakes. I spent yesterday with Craig rehearsing for our duo shows; the debate is how much technology to use. It’s not that we’re going to commission a truck and a crew more a laptop and some loops and so far so good. Though I kind of loathe the modern laptop as the accessory of now it has to be done, either that or hire a string quartet which is frankly beyond capacity and feasibility and…well of course that would be so much better, and some day, maybe. I love the way Divine Comedy work with strings and Hannon rhymes with Gannon which is something I’d not thought of before. In Blackburn last night I was planning side projections with Jamie and conjuring with Girl Hairdressers in a bar that was criminally empty given the superb music and ambience. Why is thus forever so tis beyond me. We waited for Joe who never did show [Joe does both tompaulin and VP s live sound]. He’s also worked with Beck and Sonic Youth so he knows all about the peaks and the compression. We [Jamie, Stacy, Craig and I] will be recording a few acoustic numbers that our respective bands have for no good reason rejected, this can happen to songwriters, you play a band a song and they just don’t get it [and of course it’s always the best song you’ve ever written] so here’s a chance to put the record straight or prove the band were right all along, we’ll see. I’m still booking duo shows with Craig in October so if anyone fancies putting us on do get in touch; we’re pretty cheap and superficially cheerful. A bit like this web site, VPx