The Crew: American George

The first few years of Speedhorn's existence were the most hectic of my life. It started off slowly enough, with a few one off shows and a demo recording, but from the moment we went out on our first UK tour, things just spiralled out of control. Before I knew what was going on we found ourselves practically living in the back of a van. One tour followed another, followed another. We'd sold over a thousand copies of the first two demo tapes and were planning to record the first album. Actually, we weren't planning to record any album, but the label told us that if we wanted to keep going out on tour, getting pissed up and acting like non-educated-delinquents then we'd have to have an album to promote. The whole time we were pretty much living like dogs and loving it. In hindsight though, we were probably ill prepared for the pace our lives were suddenly moving along at.

When you're twenty two years old you don't think too much about the future though, I didn't anyway. I was just living day to day in the back of van. Today Brighton, tomorrow Gravesend, in the van, play the show, get pissed. That was all I needed to worry about. I didn't need to think further ahead than what town we'd be in the next day. Every day revolved around sorting out food, finding cheap or even better, free booze, playing the show and finding an alternative to sleeping in the van. Life was simple, and for a short while I thought it would last forever. Or.. I didn't, but I couldn't be bothered thinking about what would come next.

The bigger and more successful the band became, the greater the amount of people became involved with the band. If there is one thing that used to freak me out more than anything else, it was when some stranger would approach me at a show, introduce themselves and tell me they worked for our band. Some radio plugger here, an office assistant at the label there.. I could never comprehend the fact our band had become involved in this world. It seems to be that the more successful you become, in any walk of life, the more hangers on become attached to you. These people are disingenuous and only want to know you as long as you've got something to offer them. That's just the way it is and you have to take these people with a pinch of salt, knowing they'll soon be gone.

When your life becomes one constant tour you do meet plenty of real people though and I'm thankful for the many, many friends I've made all over the world that I would never have known if it wasn't for Raging Speedhorn. In an obscure kind of way my wife is one of them.

Some of the friends you make along the way stick with you for the rest of your life, no matter how seldom your paths cross later on, others come and later disappear into the hubbub of the past, having shared some intense experiences and leaving you with some great memories. One such person is American George, or 8 Pint as he was also known. George was one of the many friends that we chose to surround ourselves with, one of the trusted members of The Crew, which was a gang of friends that we had chosen to surround ourselves with.

George was an old friend of our manager Dave and our roadie, Roddy. I remember George sitting at the door of the old Channel 2 club in Corby, where we played our first shows with our first bands. He had this straight, waist length hair at the time and looked constantly stoned. We knew each other only to talk to at the club but I always thought of him as a good guy. A few years later he had a skinhead and was driving the van and selling shirts for us on tour. He loved a drink and a spliff and we had some amazing times together, pissed out of our minds and travelling the continent. We practically lived together for the best part of two years and George, like Roddy, felt like a part of the band. The sad thing is when the band started getting serious George just couldn't keep it together enough and eventually our paths separated, something I always felt bad about. The thing is though, George wasn't all that happy with his life in Corby and ended up moving back to the States where his dad lived. We only have sporadic contact these days but it's always great to hear from him via the powers of social media and I'm happy to know that he seems to be doing pretty well.

A couple of my favourite memories of George involve the police and weed. There was this one time when we were driving down to Hastings for the first show of a tour with Ninth Circle from Scotland. George was driving our van, which was this old yellow Sherpa that had previously filled the role of a Telecom works van. It was constantly breaking down but what was great about it was that it had a loft space at the back that acted as a bunk for a couple of people as well as a little kitchen space that had a stove and a kettle. In theory it was ace but as I say, it was constantly breaking down. Anyway, we're flying down the M2, nearing the show when we spot what must be another band van ahead of us. We figure it has to be the Ninth Circle guys, although we've never met and have no idea what they look like. We all start egging George on to speed up and overtake them and of course as we do just that, we beep and flip them off and one of us moons them, arse flat up against the window. It is indeed the Ninth Circle guys and they enthusiastically toot back whilst a couple of them hang out the windows cheering and jeering us, giving the obligatory “horns”. We overtake them and speed off into the distance. Ten minutes later we're broke down on the hard shoulder, engine fucking smoking as usual and the Ninth Circle guys drive past, honking the horn and pissing themselves laughing, not stopping, of course. I remember Tony looking at Frank and George under the bonnet and sighing, “I fucking hate our van.”

Luckily for us, we had Frank in the band, who was a car mechanic. Lucky in that every van we ever had, normally purchased through a channel of Frank's, constantly broke down. Before Frank can get the van going this time though, a cop car pulls up behind us on the hard shoulder. A friendly enough looking guy gets out of the car and walks over to us, asking if we need assistance. I remember thinking what a pleasant change it was to meet a friendly pig as he was bent over the bonnet with Frank talking to him about engines. What I had also noticed is that a pale looking George was shifting from foot to foot on the other side of the van, keeping as far away from the cop as possible. The cop was with us for about five minutes and inspected the van a couple of rounds, and each time he moved, George shifted to the other side of the van, doing his very best to look like he was inspecting something and that he had a fucking clue what he was looking at. The thing is, George stank of weed! Not surprising considering the amount he had on him. The cop finally pulled off once assured Frank had the situation under control and George let out a huge sigh of relief. We all pissed ourselves laughing at him as we continued our journey to Hastings.

Later on during the same tour, this time in Edinburgh, another incident occurred involving George, the van and weed. We'd played a show at the Attic and had a good time. Afterwards we hung out in the bar downstairs and got hastily pissed up on cheap lager, hanging out with our new Jock friends Ninth Circle and their gang. When the time come to leave, Roddy went off to fetch the van and pulled up outside the bar on the busy, city centre street. The van was parked up outside, facing upwards on a hill as we loaded in the gear from the venue. When the van was packed we headed back into the bar for one last drink before leaving. George and few others stayed in the van to get stoned. When we later leave the bar there is a big fight kicking off with some chavs and there is a heavy police presence about. We make the smart decision to get into the van fuck off as quick as we can. Of course, the fucking van refuses to start. Most of us get out and start to push the van up this fucking hill amidst the chaos and the sirens. Fucking ridiculous scene. George the swine, has stayed in the van though. We're pushing this yellow van up this hill and the next thing the sliding side door flies open, just as we pull up beside these cops who are busy arresting some chavs. The van stops at a halt as we stop pushing and there sits George, hash pipe in mouth taking a big puff. The cops and George stare at each other in amazement/fright for a split second. George hurriedly slides the door back closed and we continue to push until Roddy finally gets the engine to kick into action. Somehow the cops decide to do nothing, thankfully busy with the small riot going on around us, and we speed off back to Ninth Circle' border towns where we're sleeping that night.

One of the few towns we never actually played in the UK was Torquay, but we visited the place a few times since George had an uncle who lived there, and he let us crash at his place. We'd normally head down to Torquay after playing a show in Exeter. Seems daft now really considering it was a bit of a way in the wrong direction, but it was a choice between that and sleeping in the van. And besides, Torquay is pretty nice. But going there meant that we'd drive through the early hours and arrive sometime around six am. And this meant that one or two would have to sit up front with the driver whilst the rest of the lads were in the back, blasting music and partying. This one occasion we were heading down there we had a bit of a hairy time of it. It was me, George and I think Gordon up front, the rest of them in the back. There was this curtain behind the front seats that separated the back of the van, which meant they could have the lights on in the back without blinding us up front. We were winding around the narrow country lanes that lead from the motorway into Torquay, which at five am seem to go on forever, and the guys in the back were having the time of their lives, blasting AC/DC's Back in Black album loud as fuck, and drinking filthy, cheap booze. Completely oblivious to what was going on up front.

What was going on was a fucking nightmare! The headlights kept failing all the time, every minute or so they'd just go out for a few seconds. It was pitch black out in these back roads and they were windier than the Nile. The roar from the back completely drowned out our screams of “Shiiiiiit!” every time the lights went out. They had absolutely no idea what was going on. Fuck knows why we didn't pull the van over and inspect the problem? I guess that would have just caused more commotion as there wasn't a brain cell left in the back of the van. For a while there I was genuinely terrified. We made it though, somehow. I remember as we pulled into Torquay the sun was starting to rise and I thought at the time that I'd never seen a place so beautiful. When we arrived at Uncle Harry's place, he was on his way out to work. The rest of the guys crashed pretty much straight away, but George and I sat up until around eight am, shooting the breeze and just enjoying being alive.

When I think of George now, it's always one lasting image that sticks with me though. On our first tours, when we'd play from to anywhere between five and thirty people a night, George would go on stage and introduce us before we came on. Proper over the top American style. This one night in Chelmsford, in front of about fifteen bemused onlookers, George takes to the stage wearing nothing but boxer shorts, gaffer tape on his nipples and a newly styled Hulk Hogan haircut, courtesy of a set of clippers we had in the van, and screams into the microphone, “Alright you fuckers, here we go! You wanted the best, you got the fucking worst! Raging Speedhorn!!!” We thought it was hilarious, the fifteen people in the “crowd” didn't know what the fuck was going on. Pretty much sums up the band right there...

I haven't seen George in years, I think he's still living in North Dakota. Sad how life sends you in different directions sometimes. For a while I felt like George was my brother, so close were we. But that's the intensity of touring for you. You live together, scrap together, survive together. It's like this weird bubble you're in and when you're out things are completely different. But the memories last forever. And when I think of George I think of him with a Hulk Hogan haircut with gaffer tape on his nipples. 

Good Coffee/Bad Coffee

The location of a coffee shop is often crucial to it's success and long term future. I'm sad to say that what was for a period Sundbyberg's finest coffee shop, Café Caldo, has now closed down.

For a while it served Sumpan's best coffee and had an array of quite exquisite sandwiches. It then changed ownership, which I guess was a smart move on behalf of the seller because not long after said ownership changed hands the builders moved in, tearing Sundbyberg's high street apart quite literally to make way for the new tram line. Cafe Caldo has for the past year been hidden away behind mounds of concrete and construction site fences. Although the new owners never really reached the same high standards as the originals set in place, it was still a decent coffee shop, and it's a sorry sight to see the “CLOSED” signs now plastered all over the windows.

So it fucks me off all the more when a coffee shop with a quite idyllic location and charming locale, serves me an absolute cup of piss. Gröna Stugan, located on the shore of Lötsjön, is a place I frequently pass whilst out walking Bonzo along one of my favourite routes. The coffee shop itself is a charming old wooden building with a large outside garden and veranda, looking out over the lake and the flock of Canadian Geese that fly in here every summer. On a serene summer's day Gröna Stugan laps up business. Even in the winter months we're presently enduring business is good, the frozen lake still a picturesque setting to enjoy a cup of java by. Unfortunately the people who run the place seem to take the beauty of their setting for granted, as well as my custom..

My first bad experience here was sometime last winter when Jen and I were out walking Bonzo around the frozen lake and decided to pop in to pick up some hot coffee to warm us as we went along. Although the sign on the door said that they were indeed open for another ten minutes, upon walking in to the establishment I was rudely shouted at and informed in no uncertain terms that they were closed. I apologised and grumbled under my breath as a true Englishman is prone to do, said something about it being ten minutes before their supposed closing time, and exited under the rabid stare of the for some reason livid owner.

I've given them a few chances since, but today was the final straw.

I was out walking Bonzo around the lake on this beautiful day and having had no breakfast yet, despite it already being mid afternoon, fancied a caffe latte and a piece of apple pie. I know, healthy lifestyle I lead.. Anyway, there were a couple of tables set up outside and despite there still being snow on the ground it was handsomely warm in the sun, and I felt a quick five minutes with a slice of pie and a coffee overlooking the lake would be just the job. I tied Bonzo up to the fence just outside the door and told him I'd be back in a jiffy. He seems to understand this.. I walk in and there is quite a bit of hustle and bustle with the lunch crowd in the building and a longish queue at the counter. “No dogs allowed!” I look around for a second, confused as to who is talking to who, wondering for a second if someone has come in behind me with a dog. Then I realise that some sour looking cunt clearing tables is talking to me. What? I state the somewhat fucking obvious and inform him that my dog is indeed sat outside and not actually in the building. He just grunts at me, “Just in case you were going to ask..” The miserable bastard shuffles off. Fuck sakes, what is with this place?

I decide to fuck the apple pie off and order my coffee to go. I wasn't happy about it but at the same time I was in need of some caffeine and stranded out here. The nearest alternative is a good twenty minute walk away and I couldn't wait. I resignedly place myself in the queue and shuffle along as the dithering old people in front of me take an age ordering. When it's finally my turn the young girl taking the orders simply walks off into the kitchen for a few minutes. No explanation, no apologies, just fucks off. When she comes back I order a latte to go, shuffling irritably hoping she catches my drift.

Now I'm no fucking barista but through running the bar I know how to make a half decent cup of coffee. This girl either doesn't know, doesn't care or for some unknown reason hates me. She bleeds the espresso coffee into a cup, puts the milk into the foaming jug, turns the steaming arm to full and places it into the milk. And then she pisses off again, leaving the milk to steam unattended for a good two minutes. I'm exasperated by the sheer lack of love she's giving the coffee she's about to charge me four quid for! She finally returns, turns the steam off and commences to pour what is by now a jug of white foam into my coffee. It looks like a shot of coffee with a head of fucking candy floss on top! Without so much as a hint of shame on her mug she slides the beverage over to me and holds out her hand to collect. Slack jawed and amazed I hand over the money and leave shaking my head. The latte of course tastes how I imagine a piping hot cup of pigeon shit would.

Do I complain? Of course not, I'm English. Would it be different if I was Swedish? Nope, they're as cack at complaining as we are. I merely collect Bonzo and continue our walk, tossing the coffee in the first bin. What a waste of a potentially great café.. Next time I'll just bring a Thermos and park myself on one of their benches. And I'm sure when one of the staff comes out and tells me that I can't sit on their premises and drink my own coffee I'll simply apologise and walk off, cursing them under my breath...

God

As well as Victims and Diagnosis? Bastard!, I also play in a band called Battle of Santiago. I say "play" as if it's a regular thing, but in reality we play about once a year.

Battle of Santiago was actually the first band I was involved in forming after moving to Sweden, having previously joined the guys in a band called Rowdy Ramblers, that with the addition of Patrik would eventually become Santiago. The guys in B.O.S. are some of my oldest Swedish friends but for one reason or another we don't find the time to do much with the band. I see Patrik and Olle more for dog walking dates than in the practice room. I guess one reason we're not so productive is that some of us are in other bands, Erik in Mary's Kids and Patrik in The Worthy, but the main reason is that Olle owns, manages and is the head chef at the wonderful Parkliv restaurant, which is just down the road from where I live, and where you can find me and the family on many an afternoon. The fact that you can also find Olle there about two hundred hours a month makes it pretty hard for the band to rehearse and write, never mind tour.

Saying that, we have managed to produce a couple of records in our time. We released a split seven inch with A Thousand Arrows and there is an unreleased album's worth of songs we recorded a couple of years ago at Silence Studio, although fuck knows if or when that will ever see the light of day... One recording that will see the light of day though is a ten inch we recorded about eighteen months ago, with the poet and author Stig Larsson. I'd only ever known Stig as one of the regular old boys at Erik's local watering hole, Rosa Drömmar on Lilla Essingen, but it turns out he's a pretty respected figure in Swedish art culture. It's funny to me, because I rarely have any check on such matters of celebrity in Sweden. It means less to you when you haven't grown up with it I guess.. I always liked Stig though, without ever really knowing much about him. To me he is just one of the old boys at Drömmar who likes the sauce and likes to entertain with his tales. And he's not adverse to taking this piss or winding people up, something that resonates strongly with me... 

Anyway, the record is a collaboration between the two of us, Santiago's music interspersed with Stig's poetry, although not overlapping.. The whole thing is recorded live in one take, with Stig reciting from memory alone. It's one of those things we did just did at the time without any real plans for it. We actually played a show with Stig a couple of years ago, not long after we'd made the recording. As it is next week, the venue then was Rönnels antique book store. Now that was a first for me. It was pretty cool playing to a mixture of young hipsters and older art types. And in an antique book store to boot. Not something I do every day. My favourite memory of the whole episode of that show though was the rehearsal we had with Stig at our practice room a few days before. I was thinking we'd just play through the music portions of the set and that would be that, but Stig wanted to do the whole thing, which meant for the most part the five of us standing around in a circle about Stig whilst he recited his poetry, eyes closed, in the zone, whilst me, Tompa and Erik stood looking on, awkwardly grinning. It's not completely our scene you might say. Patrik and Olle were well into it though, the pair of them having shared a spliff or two with Stig beforehand. Patrik ended up stoned off his tits and, completely taken away with the moment, collapsed into Tompa's drum kit. Fucking ridiculous! Stig was unimpressed at the interruption, Patrik fumbling around attempting to pick himself up out of a distressed looking Tompa's kit, the rest of us howling with laughter.

Anyway, whether we release anything else in the future is unknown right now, whether that album we recorded will see the light of day or whether we take a few songs from it for another seven inch remains to be seen, but we are at last releasing the Stig record and we'll once again be performing it at Rönnels to mark the occasion. If you can't make it along then no stress, I'm sure we'll play a show at some point in 2014...

Diagnosis? Bastard! by Diagnosis? Bastard!

First Show

First show with Diagnosis? Bastard! It had hit me a few days earlier that this would be the first time I've played a “first show” with a brand new band since 1998. My first show with Victims a few years ago didn't really count because although it was a first for me, Victims had been around since 1997. I was a little nervous that night because it felt like I was on trial in front of the Stockholm punk rock elite, but today was a whole other kettle of fish. I was fucking shitting myself! Although I did my best to hide it from the rest of the guys.. I rarely get nervous before shows and it was pissing me off that I was nervous now.

Hometown shows are always a little special, but add to that playing with a brand new band, playing songs most people have never heard before, with the crowd containing a fair contingent of friends and band mates and you've got a recipe that will make your ring-piece quiver. By the time the night came around I was just looking forward to having it over and done with. I tried to shake the nerves from my system, telling myself to get a grip, that this isn't like me, but it was no good. The butterflies continued to flutter...

I started this band with Viktor the day after Andy told me that he and Kristin were having another baby and Victims would have to scratch plans for a west coast States tour we had in the pipeline. As happy as I was for Andy and Kristin, I had an overwhelming feeling of panic, a panic that was screaming my touring days were numbered. Of course, sense would soon prevail and I'd realise I was being stupid, that Andy would still want to tour when things had settled down, albeit with a smidge more planning, but at that time I knew I had to get in touch with Viktor and ask him to play in a band with me. Besides, playing in bands with good friends is far too much fun to restrict yourself to just the one.

I'd been thinking about asking Viktor to start a band with me for a while anyway, since he'd become a good friend and is a great drummer. Of course he was still playing in Nitad as well as Pig Eyes, but I had a feeling he might be up for starting a straight up hardcore band with me anyway. When Viktor told me he was in, I then thought of Bloody Kev, since we'd promised ourselves upon leaving Raging Speedhorn that we'd get another band together one day. Although he still lived in London and practising would take some organising, I knew he was just looking for an excuse to visit Stockholm on a more regular basis. So a simple text message back and forth and Kev was in too. With the three of us sorted, all we needed was a bassist. I had a couple of ideas but Viktor had already made his mind up. Our Brazilian friend Lucas was living here and hadn't been in a band since Avalanche back home had split up. He'd always been a guitarist but Viktor knew he'd jump at the chance to play, bass or whatever it was, it wouldn't matter. Weirdly enough, Lucas told us later on that he'd actually been thinking of asking me and Viktor about a band but we'd beaten him to it. So Lucas was in too..

When I started writing songs I was just wanting to come up with some simple, straight up hardcore somewhere along the lines of Totalitär mixed with a bit of old UKHC stuff, thinking that when Lucas began to write we'd get a good mix of things. So I wrote a couple of songs along that line but Viktor had other ideas. From the start he began playing the songs about three times as fast as I'd planned and it kind of stuck. When Kev turned up and started screaming on them we'd become something completely different to what I'd first thought we'd be.. but I was chuffed all the same.

From that first practice things moved along pretty quickly and within four months we'd recorded our first seven inch with a couple of labels in place to release it and we'd booked our first show, with P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. and Kvoteringen. Ironically, Jen was now expecting our baby and all of a sudden my life was going at two hundred miles an hour... Still, Jen plays in Black Whitesnake and although we're both delighted about having a kid, neither of us intend to stop playing music. So now, I'm in three bands with a baby on the way. Funny the left turns life continues to take.

So before we head to the gig, we squeeze in a quick run through of the set at the practice room. The set is only twelve minutes so it's not a problem. We turn up at Kafe 44 and hang out with Bengtsson who is at his usual piss taking best. He puts me at immediate ease with his gibing. Sikas is with us, who's decided he's selling our merch at every single show we play. He's up for selling some “blouses” as he puts it and partying with us. He's travelled up from Göteborg just for tonight, the crazy bastard. Another friend, Grind Ove who works at Trash Palace record shop, is also hanging out. Sikas and Ove are discussing the haul of records Sikas purchased at Trash Palace earlier, a usual occurrence when Sikas is in town. It's said that Sikas owns something like sixteen different versions of Scum by Napalm Death...And that he owns nothing by them after From Enslavement...

We sit down at one of the tables in the café and ease ourselves into the night with a couple of medium strength beers, mellanöl as it's called in Sweden. I don't dare get too drunk before the show... Another friend hanging out is Christoffer, who used to play in Sonic Ritual with Viktor and now plays in AC4. Of course, the punk scene being the incestuous merry-go-round it is, Christoffer also played in a band with Kelly from P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. and Andy from Victims, but those guys haven't seen Kelly for a long time since he moved back to Portland from Germany. Unfortunately, Christoffer's in a bit of a sorry state since he's broken his toe, or foot or something and won't be able to hang around for the show tonight. Good to see him all the same. It's funny, I remember the first time that Kev set eyes on Christoffer was at Punk Illegal a few years ago. He was wearing this black pin striped suit and some ridiculous Kim Jong Il/Paris Hilton sunglasses. I have to say, I've always admired the cut of Christoffer's jib, he's not afraid to “go there” if you know what I mean... I could see the look on Kev's face though and I knew he was thinking, “Who's this posing cunt?”. But before he could express his thoughts Christoffer had turned around and there, sitting proudly, covering the entire back of his suit jacket was a Gauze patch. Gauze being Kev's all time favourite band, the look on his face was priceless. They seem to have gotten on well ever since.

It's only an hour until doors and there is no sign of either Kvoteringen or P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. so it's up to us to sound check. I was only too happy for the chance since I was hoping it would settle my stomach. It didn't start well though. At Kafé 44 you never know who you're going to have doing the in-house sound for you since it's a DIY schooling ground for young people finding their way around a sound board. I know a few people who worked here early on in their sound-engineer careers, Johan Victims being a prime example. It really is a great thing that the institution that is the Kafé exists and young punks get the chance at a self supervised apprenticeship, doing sound for all types of DIY bands that come through. That said, I don't know if it was this particular guy's first punk gig or what, but when Viktor started checking his snare drum and the guy asked, “Are you really going to hit it that hard during the gig?” I had a sinking feeling we were in for a rough time...

Not like I'm a fucking expert or anything... The Kafé's guitar cab I was using had no ohm indicator by the speaker input. Now I couldn't even tell to you what a fucking ohm is, it doesn't matter how many times Johan has tried to explain it to me..so I asked the sound guy if he knew how many ohms the cab was at, but he told me he had no clue about such things. Well that makes two of us.. I actually had to call Johan whilst bent over the fucking thing, contorting my torso into the slither of space between the back of the amp and the wall, hoping he could help me out. He told me that if the cab doesn't have a marker on it then sixteen ohms from the amp is always safe. He went through the whole explanation of how ohms work, again, but he may as well have been talking Chinese to me. I thought to myself that the next time I get a tattoo done I'll get a 16 written on my arm somewhere...

We eventually went through a couple of songs. Sikas, and another friend; Jamie, who plays in I LIKE BUGS with Kev and had flown in from London to hang out for the show, listened in while we played. The sound guy had been having a bit of a struggle with the P.A. but things seemed to be progressing ... I guess it didn't really help that the speakers in the P.A. were pretty shagged.. He asked us to play through a song once we'd eventually got the different sounds up. He was pretty thrown though when the song was done after thirty seconds.. After pissing about with another couple of songs we finally arrived at what Sikas and Jamie though was a decent enough sound. We packed down the gear and went off to meet Jen and grab some food at La Neta.

It was Saturday night and it was one of Kafé 44's party nights, meaning they had beer for sale. It's usually an all-ages place where they sell coffee, soda and vegan food. There are both positives and negatives to them selling booze on these occasions. Obviously, they're selling beer and the atmosphere is in that case a lot looser and people tend to hang out at the venue and party a lot more, but of course they can only do this by making it over eighteens, which is a shame. The problem being when they don't sell booze all the older punks fuck off to the pubs around the block between bands, leaving the place desolate for long periods of time which kills the atmosphere completely. And it usually means that you start playing to nobody and hope that the room slowly filters in people as you play through the set. Still, without doubt, Kafé 44 is still my favourite place to play in Stockholm. When you play a packed show here there is no beating it.

Anyway, when we get back, having filled ourselves on great Mexican food, the Kafé is indeed starting to fill out. Sikas is sat at the merch table where we're selling all of one t-shirt design and a badge, with a huge grin on his face. He's surrounded by a gang on young, blonde girls and he's lapping it up, sat there looking like a right slick bastard! “What the fuck is going on ére!?” exasperates Kev, “Fuck bringing Sikas along to every show if this is the crack!” Me and Viktor piss ourselves laughing.

There are a large amount of friends here tonight and I'm beginning to feel more settled, the nerves finally starting to subside. There are some work mates that have come along to the show too, which is always fun because they come from a completely different scene and it's always interesting to see their reaction to this music we play. There are even a couple of old boys who regularly hang out at Snotty who no doubt tagged along when they heard that the beer was only twenty kronors here...

Before I know it the clock says eight-fifteen and the time for the first DB set has arrived. On in fifteen minutes. It's time to play the first “first show” in a long time. I'm now back to shitting myself! So nervous my legs are like fucking jelly. I fucking hate this. I haven't felt like this since I was a kid treading the stage for the first time at Channel 2 in Corby with Sect. I forgot.. It is so much worse when you're playing to a room full or friends. As soon as I'm on stage and plugged in the feeling subsides again though. Well almost. I can tell Lucas is nervous as well since he's pacing back and forth across the stage checking that everything is in place. The room slowly begins to fill. Here they come.. Ok, let's get this thing going. Just twelve minutes and then we're out of here.

We're all set, ready to go. But... No sound from Lucas' amp. My amp actually, my Marshall JMP . Got Lucas going Lemmy style. I see him on the other side of Kev, banging away at his strings, confused as to the lack of sound coming from the amp, a look of mild panic on his coupon. I have a feeling I know what's up though. I walk over to him and my suspicions are confirmed. I turn the standby switch to “on” and voilà. We give each other a nervous laugh. Ok, let's fucking do this!

Fuck me, the songs feel fast. The first block of three are all connected so that there is no pause in between them and by the time we get to the end of it my forearms are cramping with tension. There was one little sloppy exchange between the first and second song, something we all notice but hopefully nobody watching could tell. How could they? They've never heard any of this shit before. I look down at Jen, who is stood at the front, protecting her pregnant belly by hiding away in the doorway to the corridor that runs along the other side of the wall from the gig room, smiling away as we play, but I can tell she can't really make out much of what is going on. She's heard me jangling about with some of these riffs at home but now everything is all going so fast that it's a bit of a blurrrrrrr. It hits me then that, to the rest of the crowd this must sound like utter chaos. Of course, that's kind of what it's supposed to sound like, but maybe the choice we made of linking the songs together when no one has ever heard them before wasn't the best idea.. The idea was that since most of the songs are less than fifty seconds it would be better to do it that way, so the set wouldn't just be a load of gaps filled out with some noisy music, but now I just see a look of total confusion on most people's faces.. Thankfully there are some smiles around too.. Thankfully they're not of the piss taking kind either..

Fuck it. By about half way through, around about six minutes later, I feel myself truly beginning to loosen up and I'm even starting to enjoy it. The couple of breaks there are in the set are met with generous applause and cheering and the songs are tight enough, despite the nervous strain on my muscles. Everything is still way fast, but it always is live. I learnt that pretty quick when I joined Victims. Record speed. Practice room speed. Live speed. Three completely different things..

And then it's over. Thank fuck for that. First show done. I think it actually went pretty well. Lucas seemed to have a great time, he'd really been going for it the whole time. It was his first show with any band for three years and he'd been missing it. It was Kev's first show actually singing for a while as well, since he's been mainly “playing bass” for the last year or so with I LIKE BUGS and Shit Filter. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd utter. I'm drenched in sweat and relieved that it all went well enough. The other three seem pretty chuffed and if they're happy then I'm happy. I pack up my gear as soon as I can and chill out. The guitar player from P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. grabs me in the corridor, “That was fucking brutal man!” Cheers, I gasp between breaths. I can tell the sound wasn't so great, something confirmed to me by a couple of honest friends shortly afterwards, but fuck it. What pleases me most is that Johan Victims is smiling broadly, chuffed. He recorded a couple of demo songs that would later be on the first seven inch, so he recognised some riffs amidst the chaos. He has a beaming smile when I see him afterwards and he's waxing lyrical about his admiration for Kev and the energy he still manages to display in his golden years. Not everyone is of the same opinion though. Another friend of ours, Jenny, is a bit drunk and shouting in Lucas' ear that he should do all the singing and not Kev, that Kev is just screaming all the time and Lucas' voice is much better. Lucas just laughs. We're fully aware that this band is not something everybody is going to understand.

On the other side of things there is a guy who is talking to Kev out in the café, somewhat in awe of the fact that Kev was the Hard To Swallow vocalist. He actually can't believe it for a while and stands there looking at Kev, jaw dropped in amazement. Sikas joins in, being that he's also a fan of HTS. It's all going well until the guy makes the mistake of labelling Hard To Swallow as an Iron Monkey side project.. Kev hastily puts him straight.

I see Viktor hanging out with our buddy Modde, the Nitad singer and Jenny's girlfriend, who's steamboats and telling Vic that he loved the show, slurring into his ear a couple of bands who he thought we sounded like a mixture of. Vic is chuffed with the assessment what ever it is. It's always like that when you start a new band, people try and work out who you are a mixture of, which of course is there to be worked out because every new band is a mixture of some older stuff. There is nothing new under the sun, as they say. Someone else tells me that they thought we sounded like D-Clone covering Totalitär songs, and that was just fine by me.

A little while later one of the old boys that usually hangs out at the bar I manage approaches me. Jorma, a chuffed, Finnish pisshead. I can't quite believe he's tagged along tonight. He grabs a hold of me with a huge smile on his face and gives me a bottle of beer. I thank him gratefully. “I used to work at a steel plant back in the day, I recognised that melody from that place on stage!” He then pisses himself laughing and then gives me another hug. Good old boy.

It's a relief to finally be able to relax and enjoy the night. I watch parts of the Kvoteringen and P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. sets but spend most of the night chatting to different friends and acquaintances, as you always do on these occasions. The beer soon runs dry in the bar though, which of course coincides with a large chunk of the public disappearing. No beer, no punks. By the time P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. are done the place has emptied considerably and Bengtsson wants to close the place as quick as he can. I get chatting to the guitarist from P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. for a while who seems to be a really nice guy. He tells me about how their tour has been going and how their show in Oslo the night before had been a bust since there had been a big ruckus between some punks and Nazi skinheads in town and when the punks at their show got word of what was going on they'd all fled to aid their comrades. What are you supposed to do? The punks had to go and stand up to those assholes but the band went from playing a packed little show to playing to pretty much no one. Tough break. Fucking Nazi's...

Bengtsson eventually clears the last stragglers out and it's time to head off. Andy Victims, Kev and I end up taking the train over to Brooklyn Bar and meeting the rest crew there who had taken a cab. The place is packed when we arrive but Sikas has procured a table so we park ourselves. There is beer a plenty and no one goes parched for the rest of the night. My old work mate Frasse is stood behind the bar taking care of us. Lucas is buzzing from playing his first show in a long time and seems to be well on the road to inebriation. Viktor is sat beside him with a broad smile on his face, looking like he's on the same journey. Andy's got that look I know that tells me he's half pissed as well and Kev is cosying down into one of the big armchairs, gently nodding off into the land of sleep, something that happens all the time with that fucker. The first time I saw Kev in this state was at an impromptu party that Speedhorn played in the basement of the King George by the Astoria in London, long before he joined the band. I clocked him from the stage, stood propped up against the bar, full pint in hand, stupid grin on his face, fast asleep. I've witnessed it many times since, tonight being just another such occasion.

There are a shit load of friends hanging out and the atmosphere is buzzing. Now that the first show is done and we survived it, I find myself wishing we were on tour and that we were heading off to another show somewhere else tomorrow... It seems that everyone sat around our table is pretty pissed up, everyone except myself and Jamie, but that's fine with me. I'm having a great time anyway. I had a pretty rough ride a few weeks ago, and I have no need to experience that again any time soon.. It was the previous time Kev was over and D-Clone were playing 44. The day after I suffered the worst hangover I'd experienced since I was a teenager. Total sprawled out on the bog floor, cuddling the pan and praying to God for mercy stuff. Fuck that crack! I don't do hangovers very well.. Thankfully I don't do them very often nowadays..

Andy heads off after the one beer, he's got a new baby at home and I guess it's not really the time to be getting fucked up. The rest of us shuffle out when the lights in the bar come on a little after three. Lucas is shouting “After party”, and doing some sort of tropical dance. He only lives around the corner so we head there. Fuck it, it's not often I'm out this late and I'm sober. The band and Jamie end up sat around at Lucas' place passing a bottle of cachaca around whilst Lucas runs around his flat hysterically, playing air guitar to the Crazy Spirit album spinning on the turntable. Like a kid, I put the bottle to my mouth but don't take in any of the spirit, fooling the others in to thinking I'm drinking. Ridiculous really, don't know why I don't just tell them I don't want any. Jamie has a few drops as does Kev, who is now falling asleep on Lucas' couch.

Lucas is in great form though. Between running around and drinking cachaca, he makes us some grub. I get him to put the kettle on. So at the “after party” I'm sat drinking tea and eating cheese on toast like an old man. All I'm missing is the tartan slippers and the cardigan. Jamie is vegan, so Lucas makes him a bit of toast with a carrot on it. I find this hilarious but Jamie seems chuffed enough. We end up staying an hour or so until I feel the sudden urge to go home. Kev, Jamie and I depart leaving Lucas dancing about the place and Viktor taking good care of the cachaca. We jump in a cab back to my place, getting home sometime around four thirty.

Funny thing is, now I'm actually in the mood for a night cap and offer the boys a drop of whiskey. I make the sofa bed up and then the three of us sit there watching some inane late night tv, nursing a glass of eighteen year old Talisker. Me and Jamie are chatting away, enjoying the peppery taste of one of my favourite Scotch whiskeys whilst Kev is slumped with his glass resting on his chest. When he eventually takes a sip he shunts the glass in my direction, “Fucking minging!”. Cheeky bastard. Me and Jamie share the rest of Kev's and leave him to sleep, before eventually calling it a night ourselves.

When I climb into bed beside Jen, I'm now glad that we're not on tour, because if I was then I'd most likely be getting up again in a few hours to drive all day and right now I couldn't be fucked with that. Right now, crawling into bed with my pregnant wife will do just fine. And besides, there will be plenty of tours in the future...   

It's All About the Hype

I've been waiting for the new Neurosis album to be released on vinyl. It was released on cd at the end of last year, surely there can't be that many people buying cd's anymore?, but for some reason it has taken a few extra months to see the light of day on vinyl format.

The fact is it's not that great a record. Sorry for being an utter snob and claiming my personal opinion as fact but it's the truth, youth. The thing is, I own all of the Neurosis records on vinyl, all of them up to but not including their previous album Given To The Rising. Ironically, I only have that on cd. And that grates me a tad. I don't really think that record is all that amazing either to be honest, but since I own all of their other albums on vinyl, I kind of wish I had that one of vinyl too. I actually picked up that cd from a distro at a show we played in Warsaw with Speedhorn, around the time it came out. The fact is, it was cheap and the guy who had the distro didn't have the album on lp. I thought, fuck it, I'll get it on cd now so I can listen to it on tour and then I'll pick it up on vinyl when I get home.

The problem was that when I got home the vinyl had long since sold out, despite the fact it was released on a major-indie like Relapse. I've never gotten around to buying it since. I love all the Neurosis records up to and including A Sun That Never Sets and even the album after that, The Eye of Every Storm is a perfectly OK Neurosis record, and I needed Given To The Rising purely to complete my Neurosis collection. Of course, now it's sold out and for some fucking reason another pressing was never made, the only place you can find it is in second hand record shops or online. And of course, it costs up to thirty quid, which it simply is not worth. And therefore I've never bought it, although I've been saying to myself for years that one day I'll just bite the bullet and fork out for it. One day when I have a lot of spare money for some reason..

I just don't get why a label, upon selling out of a pressing of a vinyl, simply doesn't press more. Of course, I understand if it's a small DIY label that has barely shifted a seven inch over the course of a couple of years, but when it's a big label like Relapse putting out a big fucking band like Neurosis, why limit the copies?

So the new record.. I'd heard it a few times and the truth is this. There are good moments in pretty much every song on the album, but there isn't one song that is great all the way through, and being that most of the songs are at least six minutes long, there is a fair amount of average Neurosis on the album. Of course, it's still enough to justify buying the record. The album does have it's moments after all. So, I've been pestering my mate Tim at Sound Pollution record shop to let me know when the album arrives. I wanted to make sure I got a copy of it upon release since it would most likely sell out pretty quick and probably not be re-pressed, meaning that if I missed it when it came out then it would be forever lost to the over the top prices of the second hand market.

Tim messaged me yesterday, telling me the record had arrived. “Cool, I'll be over tomorrow to pick it up if you can save me a copy?” I replied. No problem. But.... “Just so you know... it costs 339 kronors!” What. The. Fuck? That's about thirty quid! I'm sorry, but fuck that! I'm sure it's got a nice, shiny, gate-fold cover and I'm sure the vinyl weighs about five hundred grams or whatever, but that is nonetheless daylight fucking robbery. I've got a kid on the way and nappies to buy for fuck sakes!

So I guess, unless the record appears on Ebay or Discogs in a few years time at a knock down price because whoever owns it realises it's not that good, not likely I guess since quality doesn't really have anything to do with value, then for the first time in my life, I'll be making the decision not to buy a new Neurosis album. It looks like my Neurosis vinyl collection is doomed to in-completion. And since Given To The Rising was probably the last time I bought an album on cd, I won't be obtaining it on that format either...

I know people are buying less and less records these days, even if vinyl sales are on the up again, they alone can not compensate for the vast decline in cd sales since the only people who buy vinyl these days are record collectors like myself, but be that as it may, surely hiking the prices up to insane heights is not the way to make things better? I came close to a similar decision a while ago when Godspeed! You Black Emperor! released their long awaited follow up to Yanqui U.X.O. and was a little taken aback by the steep price of that, which itself came in at two hundred and fifty kronors, but I went for it anyway. It was the first GYBE record for years, and it was really fucking good. The price did sting a bit though...

The sad thing is I really want to support my local record store, because horrifyingly the record store is becoming a dying breed, and I understand fully that the price of an album in the store is merely a reflection of the cost of it coming in, but I'll be fucked if I'm spending over thirty quid on a brand new lp.

On the other side of the coin, there are still a lot of great mail-order distros out there, selling punk and hardcore records at punk prices. But there lies another problem. A lot of labels these days are hyping their releases by only doing one pressing of a stupid amount, like one hundred copies or something. There have been albums recently that I've been after that have come and gone through distros before they could even make it to the catalogue list, never to be seen again. Two weeks later they're on Ebay for four times the original price. What's the problem with doing a release of five hundred and then if it sells out in a decent amount of time, pressing some more? I have nothing against labels putting out a limited edition of a record, be it coloured vinyl or a special edition cover or something, as long as they press a normal run at the same time. But all of a sudden it seems like it's more important for a label to have loads of collectable records on their roster than just having loads of copies of good records. Of course, the reality these days is that a band selling five hundred copies of a seven inch is good going, more than a thousand and it's a big release. My friend Stachel recently put out the final Herätys seven and that sold out straight away. The nice thing is that he immediately made an order for a second pressing. If only every label was the same. I've literally come across labels recently who have releases of seventy five copies. What the fuck is that?

Ironically, it seems the frenzy of record collecting is running in tandem with the decline of record sales in general. Myself, I've never been arsed about all that collectable shit though. I don't care if a record I buy is a first pressing, tenth pressing or a re-release on another label years later. As long as it has the original cover artwork and it's not some shite re-working with a new cover and extra songs like, sorry to be picking on Neurosis again, the re-releases of Enemy of the Sun and Souls at Zero, then I don't care. As an example, I was at Trash Palace record store a while back, a great second hand shop, and found two copies of the first SS Decontrol record. One was a first pressing that cost five hundred kronors, the other was a re-press on another label that cost one hundred and fifty. Same artwork, same everything. No fucking discussion.

It's all about the hype I guess, whether it's a trendy scene like early 80's US Hardcore, late 80's UKHC or Fucked Up releasing a stupidly limited edition of a seven inch, hype costs money if you're not quick enough or old enough to pick it up first or only time around..

There have been happy discoveries of late though. As always when reading documentary books on music scenes you discover a whole host of albums you'd never heard of, forgotten about or just never got around to buying. If you're reading a book like American Hardcore then getting turned on to a lot of those more obscure records is going to cost you an arm and a leg. I speak from experience.. Recently though I read the final instalment of Ian Glasper's books on the UK punk and hardcore scene, Armed With Anger, which concentrates on the diverse underground hardcore scene of the Nineties, and discovered and rediscovered a load of records that I'd never bought or never even knew I needed.

Imagine my delight when I tentatively scanned Discogs for the one and only Kito lp, expecting to find it at anywhere between twenty and eighty quid, and actually finding it sitting there waiting for someone to give it a home for the sorry sum of just four pounds! I can guarantee you the Teen Idles Minor Disturbance ep would set you back a bit more than that. And the best part, the person selling the record was Atko from Voorhees so we had a good catch up to boot. From there it was green light ahead! Voorhees/Stalingrad split, three quid, John Holmes lp, four quid, first Bob Tilton seven inch, six quid, followed by quite a few more. The thing with the scene from this period is although there was a lot of great music, not many people outside of the UK really gave a fuck about it. In fact, the most expensive record I found was the re-press of the Hard to Swallow lp, and Kev assures me that Lil from Household Name Records who put it out still has about two hundred copies of that at his house.

That scene was summed up completely by a guy we know who came to a Diagnosis? Bastard! gig and was blown away when Sikas told him Bloody Kev was the singer from Hard To Swallow. He was chuffed and almost a little star struck by Kev, which is in itself hilarious. This guy even had a HTS patch on his denim, so understandably Kev was chuffed too...Until the guy said something about Hard To Swallow being a side project of Iron Monkey... “”Were we fuck! We started about five years before the guys started Monkey!” Typical. Of course, nobody really gave a shit about Monkey until they split up..

It's all about the hype...

Latte Pappa

I've never been a morning person. Ever. For as long as I remember I've embraced the stillness of the late, lonely hours hours of night. When I was a kid I loved the feeling of being awake past midnight whilst the rest of the household slept. There was something so very comforting about it. Even when I got older and school at eight-thirty became work at six did I have a hard time getting my head down before midnight, even if it meant sacrificing a few hours sleep.

I guess the reason I've never been a morning person is that I'm always fucking knackered in the a.m, which is obviously my own fault. That may change in a couple of months time when our baby arrives, and then again it may not. Let me make it clear though, I don't have a problem getting out of bed after a few measly winks, I'm just a grumpy bastard for the first hour or so.

On this particular occasion I had an early rise for my six-forty five train to Heathrow from Corby and all I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep through the journey. After five days of Christmas eating and boozing with my family and friends in the UK I was fucking beat. I was looking forward to getting home to my wife, her big belly and my dog. The thing is, even though my exchange at St. Pancras was the final stop for the train I was on, I still felt a little nervous about sleeping through so I forced myself to stay awake. I'd have to settle for a nap on the plane later. I sat down in my reserved seat by the window in the empty carriage and dosily gazed at the scenery between Corby and Kettering.

At Kettering it all went wrong...

A guy who looked to be about my age alights the train carrying his baby boy in one of those chest harness things and shifts along the aisle to my table. I shoot him a friendly glance and then return my gaze to the window. Fucking typical! The only other people on this carriage and they're sharing a table with me. The guy makes a bit of a fuss unharnessing his son and sorting his bags out before plonking down in the seat opposite me. The whole while I can feel him trying to make eye contact with me. I shoot him another quick look, give a compulsory smile to his son and then in what turns out to be a mistake, let out a slightly over the top yawn and return my eyes once again to the window.

“Tough morning?” he asks. Fuck. That was not supposed to be a conversation starter. Quite the opposite in fact. “Nah, just a bit early” I reply, “I've got a long journey ahead”.

“I'm going to Norway” he immediately replies, with just a slight tone of competitiveness in his voice. “I'm going to Sweden” I reply with more than a hint of pathetic, one-upmanship about it. “Fair enough, you win”, he says without even a hint of a smile on his face. I know then that the quiet journey I'd longed for is doomed.

If I'd been worried about how I'd manage to churn out small talk for the next hour or so, I needn't have bothered, my fellow passenger, Asa, did most of the talking. I certainly started the ball rolling though, and what a fucking ball it turned out to be. It was more like that boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Note for the future: Don't comment on anyone else's kid if you're not prepared to get into a dialogue about it and don't mention that you are expecting a kid yourself.. If only I'd known then what I know now..

“He seems like a happy little chap” I say, unable to deflect the weight of Asa's gaze any longer. I don't know where that came from, it doesn't even sound like me, although the kid was undeniably cute and he was sat across the table smiling at me, making him nigh on impossible to ignore. I felt I had to say something. “He certainly doesn't get that from his mother” comes Asa's reply, a look of untamed misery on his face. I knew then that things had just gotten a whole lot worse for me...

For the next hour or so I'm battered with an onslaught of Asa's sob story, with tips about how to bring up a small child and advice on how to keep my relationship with Jen together under the duress of parenthood. Asa is brutally bitter about how things have turned out between himself and his girlfriend since he moved to Oslo and they had their kid. Ironically this barrage started with the question, “Can I give you one bit of advice?” cue pause, although he's clearly not expecting an answer from me. “Take ten seconds... Before you react, take ten seconds..” he says it like he's just hit me with some radical new relationship technique he'd discovered whilst trekking through the mystical mountains of life experience... I nod solemnly. “Of course, she never took ten seconds, no no..” And from there it rolled.

He told me that he was joining the Royal Navy and mapped out the plan he had for his life and his son's upbringing for the next ten years. The whole while I keep glancing out the window, praying for the train to hurry along.. Wellingborough...Bedford..forty minutes to go. The verbal dissecting of his ex continued.. He had to work nights, she had no job yet still couldn't manage to take care of the kid in the mornings.. She was supposed to study. Study? Yeah that went well...

And then it was the turn of Norwegian society as a whole to hear what for. People are very closed. They say they're happy to speak English but unless you can speak Norwegian you have no chance of a job. Your education in England counts for fuck all. You have to start from scratch again and you will never, ever be accepted in the long run anyway. His job sucked. He was a bar manager apparently, and yet he was never given any hours.

My head is seriously being done in by this point. He seems to be completely undeterred by my lack of interaction. The boy starts to shift around and fuss, now waking from the sleep that his dad's ranting had no doubt induced. He really is cute, I have to say. Blond hair, huge blue eyes. Scando prototype. Asa stands up and starts to bounce on his heels a little, to settle the boy down. He then tells me that he'll need to walk up and down the aisle for a while, which by the way is something I'll have to get used to in the future. Taking a train and reading a book, fucking forget it! Won't be doing that again until I've retired apparently.. “At last!” I gasp inwardly, as Asa starts up the aisle. “If I'm talking too much, just let me know” he says. Why? Why can't I just fucking say to him, “You know what mate, you really are. Can you please just shut the fuck up for a while?”

“No mate, it's fine”. I hate myself...

He continues to ramble on as he walks up and down the aisle. There are other passengers in the carriage now, but it seems it's only me that's aware of them. Up and down, up and down, all the while giving me tips on how to get my kid to sleep whilst in transit. The funny thing is, the kid seems to be having none of it. He's attached to Asa's chest in that harness thing, pawing him in the face and gargling in that cute way they do. Eventually Asa stops back at our table. There is a woman sat directly behind him, opposite me, looking on with the slightest of smirks on her face. She can obviously see the torture that's being set upon me. “Gareth, do you have any friends back home that you can talk to? I mean, really talk to?”

“Err, yeah I guess I do..” Asa nods his head, his eyes closing as he does so, as if he's genuinely relieved to hear me say so. “Good, because you should warn them that there are going to be times when you need to talk to them. And you know what? There are going to be times when you need to cry, and when that happens, you just have to let it out.” His eyes are actually welling up as he says this to me. I'm actually starting to wonder if some fucker is filming me. I wouldn't be surprised if Beadle pops up with a ticket collector's uniform on and prods a microphone in my face announcing I'm on Candid Camera!

But Beadle never arrives, and Asa is seemingly on the verge of emotional collapse.

I hurriedly change tack. I ask him how long he'd been in the UK for Christmas and if he'd had a nice time. “A week. It was ok..” Ok, next question. I realise now that it's up to me to steer this sinking ship. I ask him how often his parents come to visit. “Once! They came when the boy was born and that's it. And they have the nerve to say that I don't stay in touch! I mean, my sister moved to Australia and yet I'm the one who has turned my back on the family?!” Balls...

We were nearing Luton now. Only another twenty minutes to go. Thankfully Asa is travelling to Gatwick, so I'm nearing the end of this agony. But Asa is still not quite done.. He asks me if we've thought of any names yet. I give him the standard answer, that we have a few ideas but you never know do you? I mean, until the baby actually arrives. “We had agreed that she would get to choose the name if it was a girl, and I would get to choose if it was a boy. Well, that didn't happen!” Asa, you are killing me here! I can't actually remember what the boy's first name was, so numb was my head by this point, but I do remember that his middle name was Attila. “Yeah, I got that one in at least. She hates it!”.

The train finally pulls in to London St. Pancras. I shake Asa's hand and wish him good luck for the future. I wonder how on earth he's going to stand the Royal Navy, or how indeed they're going to stand him. I can just imagine the fucker cracking one day and walking around the ship at night stabbing his fellow sailors in their sleep.

It's about six weeks until our baby arrives. I have no idea how it's going to feel to hold my kid in my arms for the first time, how overwhelming it's going to be to bring it home from the hospital and realise that for the rest of my life I'm going to be a dad. Adulthood has finally arrived. It's scary as fuck, but it's also unbelievably exciting. It's going to be weird doing all those parent/kid things again, this time with me taking on the parent roll. I do know one thing. If I can do half the job my parents did for me, then we'll be ok. I hope Asa will be as well. He was a boring bastard no doubt, but I did feel sorry for him. Thankfully though, instead of being scared to death by his tales of parenting woe, I find myself reassured that we're good.

A couple of days earlier I'd met my old friend Mike and his new baby boy, Colt. Mike hasn't had the easiest life, but despite being dealt a shit hand a lot of the time, he's remained incredibly strong. Not many would have coped with the shite he's had to go through. When I knocked on the door, it was the first time I'd met him since Colt arrived. I've never seen Mike so happy, he literally had tears of pride and joy welling up in his eyes. His pride in his new baby son filled me with a feeling of comfort because I knew I'd be feeling exactly the same way in about six weeks time...

The Long Road Home...

The tour continued, a few more days.. It felt like we should have flown home from New York, it felt like that would have been the natural end to to things. Instead, we found ourselves still with a mammoth journey back to the middle of the country, Texas. Houston to be exact. And there were still a few remaining shows to play.

It was hard to get the momentum going again after what had been a little holiday in New York City. I'd almost forgotten that there was still work to be done. The atmosphere on the bus was heavy. Dutch, by this point, was barely talking to any of us and severely missing his wife. He'd told us as much. We'd joked with him on the way down to Virginia, asking him what was the worst, as in most mental, band he'd ever had on his bus. “You are fucking taking the piss right?! You guys are by far the craziest bunch of idiots I've ever met. No question.” We laughed. He didn't.

As if to punctuate the slow, winding down of this latter stage of the tour, Dutch told us that we'd unequivocally have to cancel the last two shows, which were in Florida. I don't know if he'd simply had enough of us and wanted to get back to his wife or what. To be honest though, the last date of the tour was in Ft. Lauderdale and if we played that show, we'd have about twenty four hours to make it back to Houston and catch our flight. Sense prevailing, we'd have to cancel the shows. It still felt like a welcome convenience for Dutch though. I hate cancelling shows for any other reason than a force majeure, it goes against everything I stand for. I did my best to explore all the options with Dutch, but he was having none of it. To be fair, he was right. And it wasn't his fault. We'd make a fuck up when booking the flights, if the truth is told.

So, we were heading down to Virginia for a couple of nights and then we'd play our final gig in Atlanta. In hindsight it would have been pretty insane to then head back to Florida only to race all the way back again over to Houston for our flight. We'd never have made it. Hopping off in Atlanta and driving back to Texas from there made far more sense. I was still pretty gutted though, it would have been fun to play Florida.

The drive down to Springfield, Virginia didn't take long. I wonder if this is the Springfield where the Simpsons live? It's funny how fast you get back in to the flow of the tour anyway. By the time we'd loaded the gear in and hooked up with the SG guys it felt like we'd never had a day off. It was a warm, sunny day in Virginia. Real t-shirt weather. My sagging spirits were immediately lifted and thoughts of home were once again put on the back burner. I've always had a hard time dealing with the last few days of tour, once the thoughts of home and your own bed, your wife and family start creeping in, it's hard to shake. There have been a few long tours where I've been completely miserable by the last few dates, more likely down to exhaustion than anything else I guess. I'd gotten over that by this point in time though, you have to realise there is no point dwelling on it, that it doesn't make time go any faster, that's for sure.

The venue in Springfield was a large hall with one of those big, high stages. There was just the one large, communal dressing room for all of the bands. It was nice seeing our touring friends again. The relationships you form on tour really are like no other. It gets to be this intense friendship and then when you part ways, it's over. Very few do you stay in regular contact with afterwards, even if you've felt like best friends having hung out every day for the preceding four or five weeks. Still, the great thing is that those friendships can usually be picked up immediately next time you see each other again. I had the feeling that the SG guys wouldn't be staying in touch with Nile after this tour though. There was still a lot of bad feeling about the whole merch situation. We told the guys that we were forced to pull the Florida shows, they told us they were considering doing the same.

We'd become pretty good chums with the Hypocrisy guys by now too. Pete, who is a bit of deal in the metal production world, had been talking to us about recording Speedhorn sometime. Fun as that was to hear, and flattering too, I couldn't see it happening. But you never knew what might be around the corner. It's just one of those things I'd heard so many times, and whether due to us not following it up or it just being bullshit in the first place, it never happened. Still, it was good to be hanging out with everyone in the big dressing room sharing a beer or two. Ironic really that with only three shows to go, I finally felt like we'd broken the ice with the majority of the touring party. The SG guys apart, we were probably completely out of place with everyone, but it felt like we'd been accepted if nothing else.

I don't really remember the show. It was just another one of those big, characterless halls. I don't think it was the worst gig though, since we actually had some girls hitting on us afterwards. We were in good spirits and most likely a little drunk and there was a party atmosphere in the dressing room. There was a fussball table and ping pong, and we were all taking part, even the Nile guys, which as much as they'd been pretty alien to everyone else on this tour, still felt nice that they were getting involved. Maybe like us, they were just a little misunderstood and out there on their own a bit..

Anyway, me and Kev are sat on this sofa and all of a sudden there are these two young girls, they must be twins since they looked very alike, unashamedly hitting on us. Fuck knows how they'd gotten in here. Anyway, they're giving it all the classic stuff like, “Ooh I love your accent!” and then mimicking everything I say and giggling. To be fair, it was quite cute and I didn't really feel the need to create any polite distance between us until one of them started gently rubbing my back. Daz, being single, rightly so cottoned on to what was happening and moved his way in. The girls seemed to have their sights on me and Kev though. “Are you guys brothers? You look really alike..” I cracked up at that. Me and Kev? Funny thing is, we do share the same birthday.. I thought this was an interesting fact that deserved sharing. “It's funny because, we do have the same birthday and we're exactly ten years apart.” I hadn't really thought about what I was saying, I was just babbling on in my married guy, haven't got a clue I'm being hit on and just warbling on with some nonsense routine. I was therefore a little shocked when Kev roughly dug his elbow into my ribs, “Five years!!!” I almost spat my beer out when I saw the distressed look on his face.

I hadn't really realised that Daz was pissed up, not like that was unusual in any way, but his patter and the slightly wonky left eye soon gave him away. He was making his move on the girls. “You know it's funny, because he's Gareth Smith, and I'm Darren Smith! But we're not brothers either, although a lot of people ask us if we are..” It's total Homer Simpson stuff, fitting I suppose considering the name of the town we're in. Not long after this, the girls leave, either unimpressed or realising it's not going to happen. After that we get back to hanging out with the rest of the guys. It's one of those drunk photo session nights that normally happen somewhere near the end of a tour. I got a great picture of Brian and Kev. Now they did look like brothers. It was fun listening to them talk, being a similar age and having grown up listening to the same bands, I could have listened to them reminisce the whole night.

The next day we were in Norfolk, Virginia, another short drive. The Springfield show would turn out to be the last big party night for us and the other bands. Also another common occurrence.. We knew we'd be leaving straight after the Atlanta show, so it was best to do all the contact exchanging and pics a day or two before. I remember next to nothing of the Norfolk show, except that it was another big venue with one of those classic billboards you only seem to see in the States. It's always a buzz seeing your band's name outside a venue. The place held about fifteen hundred people and there were a lot attending. I do remember feeling pretty satisfied with both the Virginia shows and thinking that we'd had a pretty good run since the New York gig. As said earlier, by now the standard of what made a good show had substantially lowered. Not getting spat on was considered somewhat a success.

There was still that overhanging feeling of being ready to go home though. We'd been out a long time and a lot of shite had come our way since leaving Heathrow for these shores in what seemed like a lifetime before. We'd all pretty much had enough of other for now. Just the small things were getting on my tits, like Lasse sitting for hours on end on the bus playing this acoustic guitar he'd picked up somewhere along the line. Lasse is an insane guitarist and it is genuinely inspiring to watch him play, his fingers contorted in all sorts of mad shapes over the fretboard, but after a few weeks it was tapping on my nerves. As was Dutch's constant moaning. I personally couldn't wait for Dutch to meet his wife again, something he would do on the penultimate day of our trip. The guy needed to seriously fuck away some pent up tension.. When I come to think of it, even the Meshuggah album, the admittedly superb 33, was now seriously getting on my tits. We'd played it to death on this tour..

Yes. It was certainly time to go home.. In hindsight I wish I'd taken the time to have a look around the city of Norfolk. We were there early with nothing to do and it seemed like a nice enough place with a river running through it. Like I say though, thoughts were mainly on staving off exhaustion, both mental and physical, and getting home.

And so on to the last show we drove. Atlanta, Georgia... No matter how you're feeling at the end of a tour, no matter how tired you are and how desperate you are to see your family and lie in your own bed again, to be able to wake up in the morning and jump straight into a shower, it's always tough saying goodbye to friends you've been hanging out with every day for a month. So it felt today saying farewell to the Soilent Green crew. Even John, the Nile stage manager. I kind of felt empty all day, a mix of emotions..

We were playing a place called The Masquerade. It was a huge old, decrepit building. I guess it was once a factory or warehouse.. It was all crumbling grey concrete and dust. As usual, we were in a run down area, so even though it was a brilliantly sunny day, perfect walking conditions, I dared not venture too far. Mostly heeding advice from Dutch if I'm honest.

I walked a couple of blocks up a hill away from the venue and then back again. The surrounding area did indeed look pretty poor and just a little sketchy. As much as I love exploring big cities, this was just one I'd have to leave. I simply didn't have the energy. Maybe I'd be back in Atlanta another day in more preferable circumstances.

The big venue must have been capable of taking in a couple of thousand at full tilt, but the show tonight was maybe a third full. We had a very average gig. There were large gaps down the front of the crowd, something all too apparent from the high stage we were stood on. The sound on stage was pretty crap, as is usually the case on these big set-ups, especially when you're not the headlining band. Brian got up and played $30 Bag one last time with us though, which was fun as always, although it didn't quite have the same buzz as that first time in the considerably smaller venue in Rochester..

It was one of those nights when all of the bands seemed a little fazed. I guess everyone was feeling the burn. It felt like everyone was going through the motions.. As had often been the case, a large portion of the crowd left after Hypocrisy's set. I remember walking through the venue whilst they were playing and taking note of the large number of Hypocrisy t-shirts being worn. One guy struck me in particular. It was this mean looking black guy, who had a Darth Maul thing going on, with the yellow cat-like contact lenses and small horns sticking out of his forehead. He looked like a right knob but I obviously didn't feel the need to tell him that. He was going crazy for Hypocrisy anyway. I remember thinking to myself that he'd most likely be straight out of the door after their set..

The Mastodon guys were mingling around backstage and John seemed to be hanging out with them. We'd played with them in London a while before but hadn't really spoken to them then, although they'd stood side stage and watched our set They seemed like nice enough guys, although I didn't really understand quite why they'd become immersed in this huge hype. I like the first couple of albums but after that it got a bit boring in my opinion. It's funny because whenever a band starts to get big like that there's this presence that seems to come with it, and everyone around them is fussing and buzzing. I could almost tell that someone “famous” was hanging around backstage before I'd even seen them, just by the way people in the vicinity seemed to be acting. Weird.

I knew that Dutch would be itching to leave as soon as possible after this show and true enough he was. He was asking if we could pack up the merch early and head off, since we never sold anything anyway. It was a fair enough point, but it fucked me off all the same, and for that reason I told him no. The anxiety on his face was plain to see. His balls must have been the size of watermelons.

Of course, we sold a grand total of two t-shirts and then packed up when the house lights came on. And that was that. Dutch had us pack the van in lightning quick time. We said goodbye to the other bands and left the tour. Soilent Green were playing Florida after all. That night on the bus was a bit subdued to say the least. A couple of beers, a film and it was time for bed. Dutch had his foot down up front. I had the feeling he wasn't going to stop until we got to his place in Austin.

We arrived early the next afternoon. We'd spend the night here and then we'd be driving to Houston in the morning to make our flight home. Lasse had been in touch with that cute emo girl he'd hooked up with in San Antonio. They were going to meet up for the night, so he was off. He promised he'd be back in plenty of time in the morning. I joked with him that I had no problem leaving him here. The van was parked up by the time we'd awoken. Dutch had already gone, he'd left a note on the steering wheel saying he'd be back in a couple of hours and then he'd take us somewhere for dinner. Lasse was just heading off to meet emo girl. I waved him off and wished him happy times. The rest of us had the day in Austin, which suited me fine since it's one of my favourite cities in the States.

Dutch turned up a while later with his wife, who seemed to be a really nice lady. They took us to a Mexican restaurant just off the strip, around the corner from Emo's. It was a beautiful day and we sat out in the beer garden noshing on great food. Dutch was without any exaggeration, a completely new man! He had a smile cracking the sides of his face. I felt really happy for him. At the same time, sad, since I knew he was heading off on another tour with another bunch of idiots in five days time. I don't know if I could hack that.

After lunch Dutch headed home with his wife for some well deserved quality time together. The rest of us went to a bar and played pool for a couple of hours before heading back to the bus to watch a couple of films. It was a perfect final day off before we headed home. I went to bed wondering how Lasse was getting on...

I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see Lasse back early the next day, I was expecting a bit of drama if I'm honest. I asked him how it had went with Emo Girl. Not good apparently... She'd taken him for dinner with her family, something Lasse wasn't exactly expecting. What's worse, they were all strict Christians, something Lasse most certainly is not. It must have been uncomfortable to say the least. The girl seemed to be this whole other person from the one he'd met in San Antonio a month earlier. He'd gotten out of there as quick as he could.

Unlike Chicago airport on the way in, the customs officers at Houston couldn't give a fuck. They barely looked at us as we went through the checks. It's obviously a different matter when you're leaving their country. We flew a few hours to Chicago and then changed there. All very relaxed. We didn't even have to pick up the gear at the lay over this time around. We just had to get off and wait for the next flight which would take us to Heathrow.

We had about an hour at Chicago O' Hare. It's a huge airport. Fucking colossal! We'd been sat by our gate for about fifty minutes when Lasse decides he's heading off in search of a sandwich. I ask him if he thinks he'll have enough time, my tone clearly stating my doubt. The food court was a good fifteen minute walk away, and that would be for someone with two working legs.. “Yeah no problem..” he assures me. The fucker literally hobbles around the corner way down at the end of the hall, his broken leg weighed down by the plaster cast, when the lady by our gate announces we're boarding. Lasse doesn't come back..

I wait for a while and then decide I'm not missing my plane for him. I take his guitar on board with me and leave it with on of the stewardesses at the front of the plane. He eventually turns up, last one on the plane, with a chuffed grin on his face and a sandwich in his hand. It's not only us lot that are fucked off with him, “You must fucking love a drama, you!” I bark at him. “What's up?” he innocently enquires. You can't help but love the cunt...

Before we take off from Chicago, a steward asks me if I could consider swapping my seat with some guy so that he can sit with his pregnant wife. I'm only to happy to oblige, of course. I move my gear and I'm filled with a warm feeling when I see how grateful the guy is. I end up sitting next to some older guy, businessman by the look of him, who is instantly chatty. He turns out to be this really nice guy, who is deeply into blues and jazz music. He has some great old live music clips on his laptop that he's happy to share with me. The flight literally whizzes by as we talk to each other about everything music.

Until we get to up and above Iceland... The pilot comes on the intercom and like something out of a film, asks if there is a doctor on board. It turns out some guy at the back of the plane has had a heart attack. We make an emergency stop in Reykjavik. Well, it's not like we nose dive down to the runway or anything, but it's an unscheduled stop. It's all pretty sombre on board as the ambulance crew rush on to the plane and try and save the guy. I can't see what's happening but we're on the ground for a good hour and a half. I wonder what ever happened to him.. And then without word, we're lifting off again. Five hours later we're back in London.

And that was that, a weird end to a pretty weird tour.