The following morning finds me standing outside the hotel, with Styrofoam coffee in one hand, Marlboro in the other, both jackets buttoned and eyes squinting against the glare of the snow-covered swimming pool. From the experience of the last few days it seems almost laughable to have a swimming pool here at all, save for it being used as a skating rink, but I suppose this far inland you have to take the rough with the smooth – bitter winters, roasting summers. We had nothing to do but drive today, maybe twelve hours, maybe more. Doug had provisionally called Billings, Montana as the end of the road today. That is still a good 700 miles or so from here, boosting along I-94. Hang a slight left at Fargo (the Cohen Brothers Fargo…) and continue straight on through the entire of North Dakota…

A little east of Fargo we stop for sustenance, eating potentially the most unhealthy salad known to man (extra cheese, extra chicken), at a truck stop populated entirely by stereotypes. The Formica tops are gleaming, the slightly-older-than-she-feels waitress has a glint in her eye as she wanders round topping up coffees from a bottomless round-bottomed glass jug. The truckers plough grease into their cap-and-beard obscured faces with both hands, napkins tucked into their checked shirts at the neck. An old man waves a mop at the floor ineffectually, as he had clearly been doing for many years with diminishing results. For a moment I think that I don’t ever want to go home again.

We saddled up and drove straight on to Bismarck, capital of North Dakota, passing huddled buffalo and ethereally-drifting snow. Bismarck was a quick coffee, postcard, Hershey bar and cigarette stop, primarily to fuel up but serving the additional purpose of allowing those of us in “the back” to shake out the deep-vein thromboses that were gathering in our collective calves and buttocks. The sun was already getting low, but it was early yet and Doug was in the zone for another few hundred miles driving, mainly to either reduce tomorrow’s drive or make it all the way through to Seattle by late tomorrow night (Tuesday).

We rocked up to Billings late in the day and set about finding a hotel for the night. This was harder than it needed to be as the receptionist at the first one we tried (an internationally-known chain of fairly decent hotels who will remain nameless) was unable to check us in, despite them having available rooms and us having ready cash to pay for said rooms. The computer system being “too complicated”, we offered to take the rooms and pay in the morning when someone more competent was on hand, to no avail. This was the first (and indeed, the only) time that we witnessed Doug losing his cool for a second – “OK guys, just pack up the fucking van.” We drove down to the Best Western in the centre of town, which was remarkably David Lynch, including odd receptionist who thought he was a comedian and took somewhere in the region of half an hour to find some keys. Doug was by this point clearly at his wit’s end, but we finally got some rooms and, after a couple tins of Milwaukee Best Ice (“Beast”), of which we had acquired several crates en route, everyone slept soundly.

Tuesday morning found us heading unsurprisingly westward, to Bozeman, a town in the hills with an awesome health food co-op that Doug had been extolling the virtues of the previous day. After a massive salad, coffee, all manner of juices, a few packs of multivitamins and quinoa bars, a level of chipperness had returned to all. We were going to see how the driving went (crossing the Rockies could go either way dependent on the weather – which was looking like snow) and decide on the road whether we would make it all the way to Seattle tonight. We made good time, stopping once to try and buy a replacement headlamp for the van (with no luck), have a coffee, and watch another of those mile-long freight trains wind it’s way through the hills.

As dusk was starting to fall we stopped again, I have no idea where but it could have been Missoula, to get a new lamp and perform an excellent bit of parking-lot mechanics, and we were ready to head into the mountains proper. The higher we got, the darker it got, and the snowier it got. Around Lookout Pass we saw a massive truck ploughed into the bank at the side of the road, having clearly opted for stopping by whatever means in order to avoid the next stretch, where going over the side would mean not coming back. It was impossible to see the drops in the dark, but Doug assured us they were there, and his rather tense driving style hinted at it too. It was now a blizzard. I wondered how the US Royalty boys would get through here, as they were towing a trailer as well. Not a drive I would have liked to make.

We descended cautiously and the road started to level out a touch. We stopped at Spokane, I think, for Doug to take a break and to buy some hotdogs, in case this journey became less Lewis and Clark and more Donner Party. I floated the idea of hitting a hotel rather than pushing for Seattle, which Doug saw through immediately – “Look at you, anglin’ for the free breakfast!”. However, after another hour in the van of the damned it didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all and we headed on to the inappropriately-named Ritzville, Doug booking the hotel in advance on his phone to avoid any of the previous night’s shenanigans. We took the opportunity to do some laundry, I managed to sell the receptionist a CD, then it was a couple of tins of Beast from the seemingly never-depleting supply, and bed.

BR xxx

So what have we been up to recently? Those who attended any of the gigs will have noted a few new tunes in the set, getting their first test-drive in a live setting, and that pretty much answers the question – we’ve been holed up in “the office”, working on new material. With a bunch of hot-off-the-hard-drive demos in hand we are currently sorting out studio time to convert them into the finished article. A collection of newly recorded tunes you say? Wouldn’t that be called an album? Well, maybe it would. Watch this space…

In the meantime, I’ll be posting the final overdue instalments of our last blog, and any new developments as they happen. Studio Diary, anyone? Time for round three…

BR xxx

My mood is following small but regular orbits around the Venn intersection of the “manic”, “depressed” and “completely bananas” spheres, which I presume is some sort of hitherto undocumented post-New York effect coupled with a generous slab of hunger. I try listening to Graceland, Tom Petty, more Pixies. They just seem to exacerbate the situation. Eating a pizza helps, but only slightly. Ironing my shirt seems productive, so I do it. By the time US Royalty arrive in the dressing room, I am passed out on the couch with a jacket over my head and a half can of warm beer in my hand. We have so little time here, and as we are a little out of the city centre to the west, it seems ultimately pointless trying to do anything else.

The dressing room is directly behind and above the stage, with a little window to look out so we can watch US Royalty as we are getting changed (having a conversation is out of the question due to the volume of sound coming off the stage). US Royalty are sounding grand tonight, and their tunes are starting to become familiar now, this being the fifth night of hearing them live. They are pulling a crazy schedule tonight, driving through the night to play a gig in Indiana the following evening. We are taking the more relaxed option of having a day off tomorrow, so after playing a fun, solid set (which seems to eradicate my temporary mentalness), we head to a bar round the corner with some friends to grab a few beers from an extensive list of European specialities (including McEwans…). Doug sensibly calls a halt to proceedings around one, (“I’m quite happy to be that guy, guys…some of us have to drive in the morning…”), to a chorus of “Awwww boooo just five minutes man”, etc. And they say that being in a band is equivalent to not growing up…

We were staying about 40 or 50 miles west of Boston, just to get a wee bit of a jump start in the morning and avoid city traffic. Although I just described it as a day off, it was still a day in which we had to get as close to Chicago as we could. The morning was overcast, with threatening clouds. This felt a lot like the start of an adventure, as we were heading straight west, with a couple of gigs in the middle of the country, then straight on to Seattle. Driving clean across a continent, finishing up at the Pacific coast. It would involve resetting our watches three more times en route, and make the drive to Birmingham on the M6 seem like just a quick trip down to the shops. Within about half an hour of setting off, the snow had started to fall. About twenty minutes after that we started to drive past cars and trucks that had careered off the road and were stricken in the central reservation. I thought they were used to snow round these parts? The Bananamobile had no such issues with traction or driver skill and sailed on through upstate New York, with some short stops for coffee and bagels, until we reached Erie, Pennsylvania, a journey of maybe nine or ten hours given the conditions. By this time it was already dark, and once again extremely cold, and we stopped at another nondescript gas station for some food, and a couple of packs of cheap smokes (apparently they get cheaper towards the middle of the country). In order to wake everyone up a bit, as this was by no means the end of the days’ driving, Doug pulled out his trusty Grateful Dead Frisbee, and we had a game in the forecourt, under fluorescent strip lights, in the snow.

Fully laden with massive coffees, frostbitten fingers, and the biggest chocolate bars Hershey had to offer, we saddled up and made for Cleveland, Ohio, which was a mere couple of hours away. We made good time to Cleveland, and carried on through to the west for another forty minutes or so, finally calling it a day somewhere near Lorain (I think). We stopped at a Red Roof Inn, some sort of chain-motel, with a highly recommended free breakfast available in the garage across the street (motel manager: “I wouldn’t recommend the free breakfast at all, but there’s a Crackerbarrel up the road…”). I found myself again sharing with T and Kas, and again on the floor, as we were booking slightly fewer beds than were actually required in order to save a few dollars. The snow was piled up outside but the rooms were warm and by this stage of the day sleeping was my main priority.

The next morning we acted on the manager’s advice and headed along to the Crackerbarrel for the biggest breakfast they had on the menu, then made for Chicago. The trip was largely uneventful, the weather held and we covered the six hour drive in, well, about six hours. At one point we were 106 miles from Chicago, with a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes, it was light and Kas was wearing sunglasses with both the lenses fallen out, which I think counts as our Blues Brothers moment. Close enough for jazz, anyway.

We arrived in Chicago in crawling traffic and thick fog, with the Sears Tower (or Willis Tower or whatever it’s called now) vanishing up into the clouds along with most of the buildings downtown. Tonight was Schubas, in Lakeview. We got loaded in and settled down for a beer before heading for an in-store session at Reckless Records, which was a stripped down semi-acoustic affair, then back for tea, and a sold-out gig. Good times all round!

The next day (Sunday) saw us head on to Minneapolis. This was essentially the midway point of the tour, both in terms of days on the road and geographically. Indeed, Minneapolis sits pretty much bang in the middle of the entire continent of North America, around fifteen hundred miles from the sea in any direction. We arrived at the venue to find it obscured by snowdrifts, and with a sign on the door which read “NO FIREARMS ALLOWED ANYWHERE ON THE PREMISES!”. Well, that was one thing less to worry about. We ventured into the interior, which was populated by men in checked shirts and caps sitting at the bar, being served by a woman with an almost completely tattooed face, with some generic metal music playing at high volume through the corner speakers. We asked Doug to double check the day sheets, and yes, this was the right place.

So, feeling a bit like that scene in the Blues Brothers where they have to play behind the chicken wire (“Chicken wire?!”), we proclaimed ourselves to be the band for the night, and were led through the back to an unexpectedly large and awesome venue. Books should not be judged by their covers, as they say. Loading in was a doddle with a ramp from the rear parking lot directly onto the stage, and very helpful and friendly crew on hand. After soundcheck we popped out the back door for a smoke and a chat with the venue manager, who was in a good mood as it was, seemingly, springtime. “You shoulda been here a fortnight ago, it was minus 26! I’ll be getting the shorts out if it stays like this for another week.” Looking at the surrounds, with snow piled five or six feet deep at the back of the venue, and the temperature rapidly plummeting towards the night’s expected 18 below, I feared for the man’s sanity. But I guess everything is relative.

The gig was sparsely populated, but to be expected on a Sunday night, with the snow starting again. Those that were there had a good time, as did both ourselves and US Royalty. The local support played some crazy psychedelic type tunes, and asked us what the ocean was like, having never been to the coast. We all had a few beers and a laugh then made our way outside to load the van, which we ended up doing in shifts as it was much too cold to hang about out there for very long, inappropriately dressed as we were. Then it was back to the hotel to sleep and consider “part two” of the tour, making the long journey for the west coast and the Pacific…

The North Star had an interesting stage set up, with monitors suspended from a balcony which extended to about two metres in front of the stage. They also had cheap wings, and good pasta on the go, which was welcomed by everyone. We were informed by an old friend that this part of town was a little off the beaten track, and with the recent snows threatening to return later in the evening we weren’t expecting much by way of turnout – as mentioned previously, this tour was going to run much like our first time round England, or anywhere else for that matter: some highs, some lows, and some in between. It was really up to us to maintain the momentum for the next three weeks, and be able to pick it up every night, no excuses. We had two opening bands tonight, the first Gunfight!, followed by US Royalty, both of whom played good solid sets. I watched US Royalty from the balcony who were pulling all kinds of shapes up on the stage, and throwing in a bit of timpani as well. The crowd was small but enthusiastic, and there were more people here than I expected given the fact that it was now a certifiable blizzard outside. Indeed, at the end of the gig everyone left within about two minutes, and on opening the back door it became obvious why they were in such a hurry – a good five inches of snow had fallen whilst we had been playing, making loading out a bit more fun than really necessary…

We made our way at a snail’s pace, passing the “Rocky steps” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and on out of town in a single-file queue of traffic which was sticking to the middle lane of the snowbound freeway. It was at this point that our parting gift (“Take them away. Please…”) from Lauren and Susannah came into use – four “snuggies”, which for the uninitiated are essentially fleece blankets with sleeves attached, designed for people who spend way to much time in front of the television, the sleeves allowing sufficient mobility to pick up a remote control or handful of nachos. It was both freezing and uncomfortable in the van, as we had yet to work out the best seating arrangements in the back, and it didn’t bode well for the sixteen-hundred mile drive between Minneapolis and Seattle. However, tonight was just a short run to New York, and we arrived to the sight of the Manhattan skyline at about three in the morning. I was a little too hypothermic to fully appreciate the view, looking forward at this stage more to a warm bed than anything else. We finally got to our hotel in Brooklyn sometime after three.

The next morning we awoke to bright sunshine, the freezing wind had backed off a touch, and after a hearty breakfast of bagels, waffles, coffee and the like, we re-packed the van (which had changed in appearance from bright yellow to an off-grey, caked in salt and mud from last night’s drive) and made way to WNYC’s studio on Varick Street for our one live radio session of the tour (the others being pre-recorded). We were playing three songs on the Soundcheck show, starting directly after interviews with Pitchfork editor Ryan Schreiber discussing the new Radiohead album, and Valery Sergiev, principal conductor of the LSO. We played three tracks, starting with A Darkness Rises Up, followed by I Used To Dream and finishing with You Know You’re Not Dead, which all seemed to go pretty well – although it was hard to tell as there was a sizeable extra layer of nervousness added by the fact that every noise you make in the room is simultaneously being transmitted off the top of the Empire State Building…yikes!

We made for the Mercury Lounge, situated on East Houston Street, just along from Katz’s Deli and Ray’s Pizza, both of which we were to hit pretty hard over the next day or two. After setting up and soundchecking, we took a swing round to a great coffee and cake shop, the name of which escapes me but I get a funny feeling was simply called “Cake Shop”, for some exorbitantly (yet oddly quality-appropriate) priced carrot cake and coffee. Then it was to the drugstore to load up on extra-useful stuff like little tiny packets of hair gel and lip balm, the liquor store for a bottle of gin, and Ray’s for a hefty pizza-slice dinner. Healthy living does not come better than this…

The gig was sold out, which was a good start to the night to say the least, and we had a ball. As we had several friends both old and new in attendance, afterwards we opted to leave most of the gear in the venue and make for the biggest dive of a bar that we could find, playing pinball and drinking Maker’s on the rocks into the wee small hours, in a haze of flashing lights and genuine surprise at actually being in New York. We were staying in Brooklyn with Nellie, another brave friend-of-a-friend (soon to become friend of course!), who was willing to put up all of us, although may have neglected to tell the other residents of her apartment who looked a little surprised in morning. Having woken at about nine, to hear tales of the previous night’s shenanigans, such as my blaming Kas for what transpired to be a cat pawing at my arse in the night, and our general abuse of the communal basement area, we stumbled out into the morning sunshine blinking and bleary eyed to head to the Bronx.

We were playing a session for Fordham University’s WFUV radio, which went surprisingly well given the lack of sleep involved, then it was back to the Mercury Lounge to pick up the rest of the gear. Around this point some decided that a $20 pastrami sandwich from Katz’s was an appropriate expenditure. And on viewing the many pounds of meat crammed into it, it didn’t actually seem that ridiculous an outlay. We made tracks towards the Rock Shop in Brooklyn, which was a long, narrow venue with a particularly tight stage for six. Soundcheck was an hysterical affair, with Doug walking in at one point to find all six of us on stage, and Kas at the desk, laughing so much that we couldn’t actually play. There was something odd going on at the back which seemed to be focusing Craig’s electric guitar sound directly into my left ear at an impossibly high volume – it sounded absolutely mental. We decided that things weren’t going to get much better until there were some people in the room so headed round the corner for massive bowls of ramen, which was nearly the undoing of Craig who found himself standing outside the restaurant, clutching his stomach and proclaiming that he was going to die right there on the pavement – whilst the rest of us rather callously laughed…

The gig was full again, and the sound on stage had improved considerably (Kas discovering at the beginning that the guitar was turned all the way up to 10 in my monitor for no reason whatsoever). Everyone was on top of each other and there was very little room for manoeuvre on stage, but the gig seemed to go down very well regardless. We packed up and headed back to Nellie’s apartment, where, after a couple of drinks, everyone slept with the studious focus of people that hadn’t slept yesterday.

We rose in the morning and headed out onto the beyond-repair fire escape for coffee and cigarettes, then climbed back in the kitchen window and said our goodbyes. We were making for Boston today, and we left New York happy to have had a great couple of gigs, but sad that we didn’t have enough time to explore or take in even one percent of what the city has to offer. The place is just incredible. Around this point I promised to myself that this wouldn’t be my both my first and last time here, a promise I intend to keep one way or the other. Once we had left the amazing jumble of the Manhattan skyline behind us, it was foot-to-the-floor all the way to Boston, and time to start unloading the gear all over again…

BR xxx

It was at this point that we realised we had been in Paris just five days ago, and had undertaken a 14-hour drive back to Edinburgh, when we should have just stayed and drunk cheap red wine and munched on awesome food for the duration. But there was little time for such thoughts as it was a run between gates to make our connection. The joys of discount travel. We breezed through security, although I did have to dig a tambourine out of my ready-to-rupture bag in case it was some kind of ninja weaponry. Which it could be, in the right hands.

The flight was long and boring, and we were in the cheapest, lamest seats possible, but at least the plane was anatomically “correct”, big wheels and everything. Wings in the right place. Nae holes. Air France went above and beyond the call of duty in messing with my body clock, slamming some form of sparkling wine down at half ten, followed by a chicken curry, gin and tonic and stiff brandy combo at 11:00, then many hours later wrapping up with orange juice, coffee and breakfast at 11:30 Washington time, or the Parisian evening time. I didn’t appreciate their ruse, their cunning attempt to trick me, (bonus prize if you get that reference…) as I rarely sleep in transit regardless of the quantity of alcohol and diddy packs of peanuts I am plied with. Although I would have welcomed another brandy following our cross-wind landing, during which I was pretty sure the plane was going to flip over. Having painstakingly researched how to survive a fall from 38,000 feet (in a bizarre and misguided attempt to allay my dislike of flying), I would have been pretty annoyed to get this far and wipeout at sea level. As the other passengers applauded the pilot, Kas proclaimed “Don’t clap that, that was pish!” to no-one in particular as almost everyone else on the plane seemed to be French, and unlikely to get the Scottish colloquial “pish”, Auld Alliance or no…

Washington Dulles International is supposed to be some sort of “model” airport, and by that I mean that it has exemplary performance for things like speed of processing arrivals, not that it is really, really small and made of balsa wood. We got “let in” with the minimum of fuss, despite my best efforts (Visa-check person: “Do you work with Simon?”, me “Duuh…who’s Simon?”, followed up with “Well, if you can call it work haha! I just bum about hitting things to be honest.” etc., etc. Full-on Mr Smooth-In-The-Face-Of-Authority mode…it’s a wonder they didn’t just send me straight back.) Mr Smith even received an extension on his visa without asking, which he shouldn’t have told us, as we then all wanted one.

We were staying with a friend of Dave’s from Back In The Day, Lauren, who had impressively and undauntedly offered to put up all seven of us at her place in Georgetown, so we headed round there first off to introduce ourselves and drop off our bags. It was a gloriously sunny, albeit massively windy, day and we blew down the street to a place called Thunder Burger, which seemed an appropriate place to sit and wait for the arrival of Doug, specialising as it did in good beer, and good burgers. May as well start the tour as it will undoubtedly continue, namely unhealthily…

Doug was to be both Tour Manager and driver for the next three weeks, and his first task of the tour proper was to find Craig at Baltimore Airport, himself having taken a slightly different route to the rest of us, and make way to Washington. He arrived in a banana-yellow Chevrolet van, which looked worryingly small for the amount of gear that was crammed into it, but after a bit of discussion it was decided we could “Tetris-pack” the gear and make a bit of room for the extra six people who were still to get in. Having at this stage been up for quite a number of hours, we also decided it would be a good time to go and grab a few beers, come back to the house and try to stay awake for as long as possible, by way of cheating any jetlag effects the next morning. This proved harder than it looked with most flaking at about nine in the evening.

I awoke the next day rather predictably at about five in the morning, partly due to feeling like it was midday, but mainly due to Ian standing on my head. It was my own fault, as in the cold morning light I realised I had mistakenly positioned my bed on the floor directly between Ian’s bed and the bathroom. This was about as advisable as getting between a mother bear and her cub, and with a similar outcome. I tried to get back to sleep, but after a few hours the smell of cooking bacon and brewing coffee started wafting down the basement steps and further repose became an impossibility. Lauren and Susannah treated us to a ridiculous breakfast, after which we all felt the need to do some walking, for the benefit of our arteries if nothing else. As this was one of the few cities in which we would actually have a day to explore, we thought we would do the whole tourist thing and head firstly to Wee Barry O’Bama’s house, then the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. They obviously knew we were coming and had emptied all the water from the Reflecting Pool, just in case any of those pesky reflections got in the way of us taking a decent photograph, replacing it with sand and rubble. Lovely!

Having hooked up with Doug again in the afternoon, we headed for the Black Cat, our venue for the evening. Load in was nice and easy and the local crew were friendly, and I got to crack out Doug’s vintage Slingerland drums which were sweeee-eeet. US Royalty (who were to be our support for the whole tour) arrived and we had a little bit of a chat with them, they seemed to be nice guys and we were sure to get to know them a bit better over the next three weeks! The gig was full, which was to be expected here as it is also US Royalty’s home town, but it was a nice way to start off with a good crowd, bearing in mind every stop on this tour would be completely uncharted waters for ourselves. We returned to Lauren’s place happy to have got the ball rolling, and looking forward to what tomorrow would bring…

Next up: Philly, New York, Boston, Chicago…

BR xxx

The Freelance Whales were both great and very nice people, and we kicked about for a beer or two after Manchester Deaf Institute, and got the lowdown from their engineer/tour manager Jeff on things like long drives through the snow in North Dakota. The next couple of nights were Leeds then Brighton, then we headed to Dusseldorf, where we had a night off. We struggled to find the Old Town for a while, a couple of us abandoning ship and heading back to the hostel where we were unfortunately accosted by a bunch of drunk British stag-doers who were being all kinds of unnecessary in the downstairs bar. Hamburg couldn’t come quicker…

The gig in Hamburg had been moved to Molotow on the Reeperbahn, a smaller venue (with a dangerously low ceiling over the drums…), but one which was full and had a great atmosphere about it. We took the opportunity to have a “real” night out, as we only had the relatively short drive to Berlin the next day. Of course, a real night out on the Reeperbahn has been well documented by many, many bands before us, and followed the expected course. It appears I had the good sense to catch a bit of a nap, sat bolt upright at the bar at four in the morning, which did absolutely nothing to take the strain off my actual lack of sleep at the hostel.

We awoke to the sound of the hostel manager banging on the door telling us we were due out ten minutes ago, so had a quick run around to get all our stuff together. We also noted that Ian had already left, ostensibly to get the free breakfast of which we were all unaware. By means of retributive justice, Dave bumped into Ian outside and said, “Did you leave a shirt and trousers upstairs Ian?”, to which Ian replied in the affirmative, provoking the response, “Yeah, I left them up there. And I’ve just handed the keys in.” It’s a brave man who doesn’t tell Dave about breakfast…

Berlin was good but tough, with some weird effects going on onstage, resulting in Dave suggesting to myself and Craig during “Home” that he thought at one point that his electric piano had gone out of tune, prompting him to consider switching-it-off-and-back-on-again. This caused some hilarity amongst the rhythm section and made Slow Parade quite a laughter-filled tune. We then hid upstairs for a bit while a few of the guys went for a beer round the corner. I decided that eating a Thai curry and playing Sonic on the Master System provided backstage would be the more sensible option. When we finally arrived at the hostel for the night (a brief night as we had a long drive to Amsterdam the next day), the guy on the desk noticed that I had somehow managed to book it for the wrong night, but they were wonderfully helpful and found us some rooms at two in the morning, as I stood there aghast and feeling six pairs of eyes burning into the back of my head. Kas made me feel a bit better about it by telling me that on one tour he had been on, the hotels had been booked for the wrong year. Needless to say it all worked out fine, or I would have probably been abandoned in Berlin…

The drive the next day was marred by some very, very dodgy and fake looking (but realistically-armed) Polizei pulling us over off the autobahn, making us drive down to some field and then demanding “Documents. Documents!”. We had heard of a similar occurrence from another band who had had their passports taken and driven off with, so Ian (who was driving) held his ground and produced some completely non-descript documentation about the hire of the van, which received the response, “This, this is nothing!”. Hmmm. Finally, they decided that what with the linguistic barriers and all, we were free to go. Unfortunately, by this point we were running pretty late for soundcheck, but everything worked out alright, and the venue was great, the first time we had played at Melkweg. For the second night running, I had made a slight error with the accommodation, resulting in us having a random person in our room. This was obviously more of a problem for the randomer than for ourselves, as several of us came in late and clunked about in the dark etc. as you do. Needless to say, by the time we got up, the extra guy had left, and probably demanded some kind of discount for being sandwiched in with a rock band at the last minute, poor chap.

We headed on to Brussels to play at the Botanique, a gig we had played before and one which is particularly awesome for a small venue. It was a great night, and busy. We had a hairy drive to Lille afterwards, with much coffee consumed by Craig who was driving, and a stay in a shonky F1 hotel which had a broken front door and wouldn’t let anyone in. Luckily, a French couple in front of us had the same problem and phoned the helpline number on the ticket, argued in French for a while and finally got someone to page the manager and have him come out and open the door. They were rewarded for their efforts by some swigs of red wine out-the-bottle, an international language which transcends state boundaries, and we all got in and got to our beds after only a half-hour delay…

We drove on to Paris the next day, and checked in to our “ApartHotel” flat, which would be our base for the next two days. As we had a day off, and a comfortable place to stay with a wee garden, we decided to hit the shops, knock up a big pan of Coq-Au-Vin, a tonne of fresh bread and good wine, and relax for the evening. I even managed to get some laundry done. Awesome.

The next morning I made my way into central Paris to meet up with my sister, who had come up from the south for the weekend, then we headed to the venue to meet everyone else. This was our last gig in Europe, and last with the Freelance Whales, who we were most sorry to see the back of, having had a blast with them thusfar. The gig was full, and the promoter was pleased enough to bust out the champagne at the end of the night, so things finished up on a very positive note. All in all, the European leg of the tour had been well attended, and everyone got a really good reception without exception. As we made the long drive back to Edinburgh on the Sunday, we were all thinking of when we could head back. As is always the way coming back! However, we knew that we had just a few days at home then had to be ready to head for America at the end of the week, which is another story altogether…

BR xxx

So we played to a small but lovely audience in Birmingham, who bravely fought their way through the Magnetic Man crowd to get to our room upstairs. Up lots of stairs, as we found out whilst carrying the piano up there earlier in the day. Fuelled by our second curry in as many days we played a good, if spicy, set, marred only by the occasional drunk tube from next door who seemed to think the appropriate thing to do when you notice a backstage door open was to go through it and appear on the stage. Not cool people!

Bristol the next night was grand, playing in The Cooler which was a much more accessible venue to start with, and seemed to be a bit busier too, for a Sunday night. We played probably the best set so far on the tour, and everyone was noticeably starting to get more relaxed on stage and with the new songs which boded well for the rest of the tour. After the show we headed across the road to “Garibaldi’s MK III” (after the one in Utrecht, and of course the one and only original Edinburgh Garibaldi’s) to drink a prodigious amount of gin and request Bruce Springsteen songs from the DJ, who to his credit actually managed to dig some out. Our hotel was conveniently located beside a casino which seemed to be the only place open for a drink later on (if you could get in, which I unfortunately couldn’t. Boo).

Having somehow gotten lost on the way home (quite a challenge as you could see the hotel from the front door of the casino), I was both surprised and delighted to wake up under the table in our hotel room. To explain, it is a family room and that’s where I tend to put the pull-out bed as it offers superior legroom for the taller gent. I wasn’t just lying on the floor. We made our way out of Bristol at a snail’s pace, and headed to London to find the hotel recommended to us on Shepherd’s Bush Road (the flat at 4AD being “full of Spaniards” at the time). We were a little perturbed to find on our arrival that an ambulance and two police cars were sitting outside, and we were unable to obtain ingress to the reception area, instead being directed to a room in the hotel next door where we remained seated for about an hour with no updates as to what was going on. We finally got speaking to an officer outside who enigmatically suggested, “The owners aren’t going to come into your room and start wrecking the place, so…you can stay here…em…if you want to. But as you can see there are quite a lot of other hotels around here that you might like to try instead?”, a suggestion which we decided to take on board.

We awoke from our Wetherspoon’s Super Burger-induced comas the next morning in Battersea, early doors. We were heading to Great Portland Street for a session on the Huey Morgan Show at BBC 6 Music, and with Albert Bridge being closed this took substancially longer than Sat-Nav Jane seemed to be suggesting. We were kept amused by the bizarre Richard Madeley show on Radio 2, presumably sitting in for Chris Evans, and were quite surprised when we pulled up to the BBC to find the man himself standing at the front door as we attempted to load out a much larger selection of instruments than would usually be required for a “stripped-down” set.

We had a grand time on 6 Music, Huey being every bit as funny as I assumed he would be, and the songs coming across well in a more acoustic format. The session is still available online via the iPlayer, under the Lauren Laverne Show page, Mr Morgan standing in whilst she is on maternity leave. I may include a link later when I find it again. The day was not over however, indeed it had barely begun as we headed for Borderline off Tottenham Court Road (I think, still working on me Laaandan geography…) for the evening’s gigging. This was a great night, we really enjoyed ourselves on stage, and had a ball. There was more to come for some of us though with Jamie, Rory and Craig heading straight round to Xfm after the gig to play some songs for the John Kennedy Show. We all reconvened at the hotel afterwards for a beer and generally enjoy the productiveness of the day. Thanks to Versus The Circus who were supporting and to Sarah for being left in charge of hawking CDs unexpectedly!

The next day saw us round to the East Hill for lunch, a chat with Roger and then a very slow drive to Brighton. We were playing at The Hope, with an unusual stage configuration, drum riser up on stage right behind the PA, row of amps in the middle, Dave and T on stage right by the fire exit. Also much to Kas’ amusement, a 100dB noise limited imposed by the council. Before switching on the PA we tested the meter with some acoustic drums, which were coming in at around 101dB. Sooooo…

Where the gig was surprisingly good despite my initial misgivings, the drive home was not. The temperature seemed to drop at an exponential pace in relation to latitude and by the time we arrived in Edinburgh at 8 the next morning everybody was thoroughly miserable. Although we did get a day in our own beds (and some laundary done) which was pretty welcome.

Up next – Scottish leg of the tour!

Afterwards we took some time to catch up with some old friends, which is a rare occurrence without the usual interruptions of packing up and moving kit, which we had decided to leave on the stage for the time being. Of course, we were only delaying the inevitable and ended up loading out through the middle of an “Indie Disco”, which is almost impossible to do without dancing like a tool.

The next morning saw us heading to an undisclosed South London location (I say undisclosed, but what I really mean is that my London geography sucks) to film a session for 4ad in a disused chapel, which involved lots of cameras “all up in yer grill”, fancy lights, bacon rolls, numerous takes, unmanageably loud drums and more gingerbread men than you can shake a stick at. The space itself was basically a semi-derelict chapel with most of the interior stripped out, but still with intact stained glass windows and memorials around the walls. We got to see a little bit of the footage and it looks really great, watch this space for an announcement as soon as it goes live.

Having had a couple of pretty productive days, we decided to take a relaxed night back at the flat in Wandsworth, stopping off to get some beers on the way. This was more complicated than I initially expected, as I had the misfortune of only having the (genuinely dodgy-looking I’ll admit) Clydesdale Bank £10 note in my wallet. I managed to avoid the clichéd Scottish “It’s legal tender!” chat, as I am fully aware that these notes aren’t even strictly legal in Scotland, but I did point out that if it has “Sterling” on it, your bank will take it. To which I got the reply “What’s Sterling? What does it mean?”. This conversation went round in circles for a little while and finished with the bizarre question: “Have you not got any London Pounds?”.

No such thing mate, sorry.

Anyhoo, having presumably in the eyes of the shopkeeper stolen our carryout, we decided to treat ourselves to a fantastically good curry from the place on Alma Road, which was the undoing of Rory and Craig almost instantly, passing out fully clothed on completion of the last bit of naan. I regretted the decision to order both a starter and naan bread for myself on top of the Lamb Dhansak and rice, not on grounds of taste but of gluttony, and opted to stay awake for an extra hour or so to ensure that I wouldn’t die some bizarre curried death in my sleep…

The next morning saw us doing some filming for a soon-to-be-disclosed video (which I will go into a little more detail on in the coming few days), before driving “Thru-The-Nite” back to Edinburgh, with the Music Like A Vitamin night at the Picture House later that Friday.

The ferry journey was largely uneventful, barring the awful decision to opt for a “Gourmet Burger” in the cafeteria which can only be decribed as an affrontery to the word “gourmet”. And of course the massive group of Americans who had set up what appeared to be an illegal craps table in the bar and were gambling their Euros with the enthusiasm of people who weren’t entirely sure of the exchange rate.

Larne to Dublin was a much more straightforward journey than the last time we were here, as we didn’t have to brave any of the Irish non-motorway roads, and we made Dublin in grand time. We were due to play in a pub called the Brazen Head, purporting to be “Ireland’s Oldest Pub”, and upon our arrival it was absolutely jam-packed. The stage was by the front door under a corrugated plastic roof, with a covered “courtyard” type area in front and the main bar behind. As the whole Arthur’s Day event is something of an advertising extravaganza for Guinness, free pints of the black stuff were delivered promptly and the next hour or two was spent having a pint or two and eating plain crisps (“plain” in Ireland meaning cheese and onion).

We were under the impression the Special Mystery Guest for the evening was to be Snow Patrol but unless Gary Lightbody has started dropping some rapping into the set, it was in fact Plan B who hit the crowd along with his beatboxer and acoustic guitar player. By the time they had finished the rain was starting to come down pretty relentlessly and we had to load the gear out from the back of the van through the crowd and onto the crowded stage pretty quickly.

Having eventually got everything on, set up, and line checked, the arguably shonky roof arrangement finally gave up under the weight of water pouring down and proceeded to deluge the stage, soaking pianos and electrics in the process and generally making a real mess. Whilst we hurriedly moved as much as we could away from the leaking gutters the house staff started wrapping our pedal boards up with binbags and trying to dry as much as they could with tablecloths from the upstairs restaurant. A safety inspector was called on and the general concensus was that there was no way to safely continue with the gig, which was hugely disappointing particularly as we were about one minute from starting to play when it happened. There was nothing for it but to pack up and rather sheepishly leave the sodden stage having not played a single note.

The next morning started on a better note with a full Irish in the hostel, a session for Balcony TV in the centre of Dublin (filmed, unsurprisingly, on a balcony) and a leisurely drive back to Larne for some tea and a ferry home. Apologies to anyone who came to see us, we will hopefully be back soon and will insist on sunny weather and a fully-working roof next time…

Annnnyyyyyways, where I last left off was us making our way back from Utrecht, which was arguably the worst journey I have ever taken, anywhere. As I mentioned in the previous post we had no air conditioning in the van and no windows, and given the ferocious heat of one of the best days of summer weather on the continent this year so far, not to mention the perilous condition of most of us who had skipped breakfast in favour of coffee and a cry, it was a miracle that nobody just keeled over and died en route. As Jim put it, “I…I can’t tell if I’m falling asleep or slipping in and out of consciousness”. Both of which amount to roughly the same thing at this stage of the game.

Having hit that bit of motorway near Antwerp where it feels like all the traffic in Europe is trying to funnel down into just three lanes, and sat there for what seemed like an eternity, we were delighted to take a break at the next services, to load up on water, water, water, Pepsi, baguette, water, “Foxy” Magazine, crisps, water, WATER. After that it was a little better on the way to Calais as the van was moving at more than three miles an hour which facilitated a little more air movement. We managed it all the way without anyone throwing up either, even when reminded of last night’s “Potato Egg”, which requires more explaination than I can be bothered to give, suffice to say that in everyone’s meal there was a crusty egg disguised as a potato. Oh yes.

The sea air never felt so good and sitting out on deck with a coffee watching the world go by was the order of the day. We arrived in London just in time to get a bit of dinner out of the recently-renamed “Food Cottage” on the corner (presumably as the “chicken” contained so little chicken they had to take the word Chicken out of the title) then pop to the East Hill for a cheeky nightcap and home for a marathon sleep. I have never slept so fitfully and Dave complained of being woken several times by me shouting, groaning, screaming, and generally making all manner of unusual noises at whatever terrifying dreams I was having.

The next day was a relaxed one, with just the short drive to Brighton to do, and when we arrived at the Corn Exchange it seems we were early so we took a bit of time in the park at the pavilion and generally chilling about the venue. The National were running a bit late having driven through the night from Hamburg, and we ended up soundchecking just before doors opened, curtailing it after people started coming into the room as it was a bit awkward. The gig was great but very “in and out” as we had to throw all the gear out the back door straight away to make way back to Edinburgh, without getting to stay and watch The National this time which was a shame. But all in all it felt like a successful week, I for one am itching to get back on the road as you’re just getting in the mood for it after three or four gigs and then you have to go home again. Boooooo. Roll on the tour!