On the road again. Today we're crossing into the central time zone, making our way to Nashville. The scenery is beautiful, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains.
We met up with Jason for breakfast in the city today before we left. He took us to this great vegetarian café. Really cool place. The food was superb although the coffee was shite, but we drink so much coffee on tour that one bad mug here and there has to be expected. After we ate and said goodbye to Jason, we took a quick trip to the local record store, Static Age, which is a great little shop. I picked up a few lp's and we sold a few Victims records in return. Nice, relaxing start to the day, despite the nagging ache in my head from last nights ale...
Matt just told us that there is a hurricane heading towards the east coast this weekend. We're playing New York on Sunday, which is when it's supposed to hit. Thankfully Jen is flying in on the Friday, so her flight should be fine. It's going to be a right kick in the balls if our few days together in New York at the end of this tour are fucked by a hurricane, but as long as she gets here I don't care.
Only a few minutes after we got the call about the hurricane Matt's phone rings again. Johan turns the music on the stereo off when we hear the tone in Matt's voice, “What?!”. When he hangs up he tells us there has been a pretty big earthquake in Richmond. It takes him a while to get through to anyone, and Sarah's phone doesn't seem to be working. Eventually he gets through to Mike, one of the guys from Direct Control who lives at his house, and then Chris, who works with Sarah and it seems everybody is ok. Apparently it was pretty fucking hairy though. Mike had been sitting by his drum kit in the basement when all of a sudden the whole house started shaking. We heard later that there have been quakes in New York and Colorado to. Weird. Matt says it first, although Jon is right behind him in his thoughts, 2012 is fucking coming. Matt says he's ready for it. Jon agrees. Jon just bought a knife at a gas station this morning, maybe he feels more comfortable now that he's got something to put in his concealed weapons pockets in that leather vest of his...
We're only an hour away from Nashville now. Making good time.
Later:
Today has been the epitome of life on the road. It's a late show in Nashville tonight and even though we got here for load in time around six pm, the club closed again until eight thirty. All we've done is wait around. Before we started out on tour I was really looking forward to coming to Nashville. For a start, my friend Mary, who I tour managed for a few shows a while back, lives here. I was hoping to meet up with her and get some coffee, hang out, see the Grand Ole Opry amongst other things. In actual fact all we've seen is a plate of shite Chinese food at a strip mall somewhere and the inside of a bar across the road. All these cities you travel to and you get to see fuck all. At one point we retreated back to the van and waited for the club to re-open. We just sat there in silence with that air conditioning on. I get how it must look to people back home when they see the places you're travelling to, but if they understood what it was really like they might not be so jealous. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just saying that it's not exactly like going on holiday. At least I've got a decent book to read in the new Hank Williams biography.
We did have the pleasure of meeting the in-house sound engineer when we arrived here earlier. I thought he said his name was Rat at first, but it turns out it was Brad. Brad is a big old boy and quite a character. The whole time we loaded in, he sat in his sound booth cracking bad jokes, such as when Andy carried in the fan he has behind him on stage in an attempt to keep him from passing out, “What's this? You brought your biggest fan with you?”. I like him a lot.
Now I'm sat in a room at the side of the stage, charging my computer and checking up the latest on the hurricane hitting this weekend. If the reports are correct then it will hit New York City around eight pm. on Sunday night, right about the time the final show of this tour should be starting. At least Jen's flight shouldn't be affected. It's still over thirty degrees outside, and inside this club it must be even hotter. Tonight's show should be good by all accounts anyway, although a little late, which kind of sucks since we have an eight hour drive to Chicago tomorrow. I think we're taking a roadside motel tonight. This dressing absolutely stinks of body odour, I have to get out of here.
The first band just finished. They only played for around fifteen minutes. Brad, shocked by the length of their set just shouted down the monitor mic, “Is that it?!” to which one of the guys in the band replied, “Yeah that's it, what more do you need?”. “Fuck!” was all Brad had to say in reply to that.
Later still:
At the motel now. Luckily for us Matt gets a good discount on roadside motels through his van insurance. The Road Warrior always comes up trumps! Even though it's boring for us sitting in a van all day, at least we have Matt driving. He's like a machine. Hopefully when we tour the west coast next year, he'll fly out and do the tour with us.
Nice to lie in a bed as always, even if it's a bed I have to share with Johan. The kids at the show tonight were hounding Matt about us staying in town to party at someone's house, they were actually on his case about it. It might have been fun but with an eight hour drive to Chicago tomorrow nobody was really in the mood. We must be getting old.
The show tonight was fun, although there was only about fifty people there, including other bands, and we didn't really get paid all that much. It really is hard for us to make good money out here, but then I guess it's the same for American bands touring Europe. All the same, I enjoyed the show. The venue was a really good spot with a decent stage and the people that were there were really into the show. A lot of them hung out afterwards to chat and buy merch.
The second band of the night tonight were really great. A young band called Dawn who played a discordant, noise mixed now again with some d-beat stuff. We got a couple of their vinyl after the show that I'll gladly take home with me. I think I'm up to around forty records on this tour now, with over a week to go that number will most likely increase. I'll have to book another item of luggage on the flight back to bring them all home.
It's two thirty am. Some funny Will Ferrel movie is on the tv, Matt has gone to sleep in his van outside. Nashville wasn't all I hoped it would be, but tomorrow is another day. I'm looking forward to Chicago tomorrow.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Asheville
After a nine hour sleep at Matt's place I felt as good as new. I felt almost sad saying goodbye to Matt's house and his family. Hanging out with his two dogs made me feel a little homesick. It kind of fucks you up a little when you're in the middle of a tour and you camp at a base for a few days. You get used to a certain kind of home life again. Matt was saying that three nights in his own bed has sent him completely off kilter, since he's so used to sleeping in his van with the edge of the bench seat in his back.
The six hour drive in the van didn't feel too bad to be honest. We have longer drives ahead over the next few days, so we may as well get used to it anyhow. Asheville is set pretty high in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the climb up to the city along the highway offered some beautiful scenery. We arrived at Jason, the promoter's house around six thirty pm. We hung out there for a while on his front porch, drinking PBR and watching the sun go down. Jason, a really good guy that the rest of the band have met on previous tours, made us all an incredible pot of vegan curry. As usual, the hospitality of friends on the road blew me away. There were another couple of guys there, friends of Jason's, who were practising downstairs in the basement. Seems like most people we meet out here have bands practising in their basements. At Matt's place, as well as his band Parasytic rehearsing there, both Vulture and Direct Control used the space too. That simply would not be able to happen in Stockholm..
We drove down to the venue around nine, Asheville being a late town apparently. When we arrived the first thing we saw was a marquee with Victims Tonight on it. It's not every day on tour you see that. We stood in front whilst Matt took band photos, of course. When we'd jumped out of the van in front of the club, we got to small talking with a lady who was stood there with her young infant daughter for a couple of minutes. Before they left the cute little girl gave Jon a hug around the waist. It really touched Jon. He had tears welling up in his eyes for a moment there.
The venue itself was a great little bar with a floor space and a low stage off to the corner. There was a small beer garden out back, where Jon and I retreated to with a pint. I had a good feeling about the night ahead as we sat there in the warm night air, watching a steady stream of people paying in to the club.
We'd been sitting there a while when a scruffy looking guy in a top hot approaches the guy working the door, who is sat at a small table with an old lamp on it in front of the entrance. I hear Top Hat asking something about getting hooked up with some power for a couple of spot lamps, whilst also mentioning something about a side show... As I'm wondering who the fuck this guy is, Jon spots an old school bus parked over in the lot. Jon wants to go check it, so I follow with him.
Top Hat is there along with another guy, who is your more typical crust punker. We ask if we can have a look around there bus, which they're more than happy to oblige. Top Hat introduces himself to us as Mux, his friend as Chris. They tell us they're a travelling side show, that live in this bus of theirs that they bought for three hundred bucks. They've been out on the road, living in this thing for over three months now. Apparently they've arranged to perform out in the beer garden between each of the bands tonight, doing all sorts of nonsense like hammering nails into their nostrils, all for nothing but tips. The night just took an interesting and unexpected turn, I thought to myself. Mux and Chris turned out to be really nice guys and it was really cool of them to let us see their travelling home.
The guys were really interested in Victims and were asking us a lot of questions about what it's like touring overseas. They told us that they'd never even been out to the west coast of the States, nevermind abroad. It makes you realised how privileged we are to be doing what we're doing, even when the going is tough at times, we're still out here at the end of the day, thousands of miles from home, playing our music to punk kids. I know people who would give anything to do what we do. I'm grateful to be here.
Jason's band, Otark, were first up tonight and by the time they went on there was a good crowd in the place. They've only been playing for five months and haven’t' recorded yet, but they sounded great. They played a real epic, dark style of hardcore, kind of mixing up the sounds of bands like Fall of Efrafa and Tragedy. I stood down front with Matt and enjoyed every minute of it. Great to have such a good crowd in on a Monday night too. Matt had insured us that Jason always put on great shows and it seemed like tonight would be no exception.
Right on cue, Mux starts his side show out in the garden. I had to check it out. Sure enough, he's there hammering a nail into his nostril with a bean can. There has to be easier fucking ways of making a living! There were a good load of people gathered round, watching him as he entertained the punks with this madness. Earlier on, Mux had mentioned something about having a pig's head in a jar for his final act of the night. That was something I could happily skip looking at, thanks all the same Mux.
The second band of the night were called Just Die. Really nice guys it seemed. At one point during their set they mentioned that they had a record for sale at their merch table, but then urged the crowd to buy our merch ahead of anyone else's. “If you're going to buy anything tonight, buy Victims merch. Do you know where those guys come from? Sweden! Can you drive here from there? No you fucking can't!”. I thought this was a superb gesture. It is a lot harder for us to make money from shows here in the States, compared to how it is in Europe, we come to the States mainly because it's fun and it's a privilege that we're lucky enough to have. It's amazing to get that sort of support from local bands here, just as the other night with the Furnace guys. In Europe, you make good money from shows, but the downside there is that the local bands are notorious for playing way over their allotted stage time, often playing encore after encore. Local heroes I call them. To be honest, it's not so common in the hardcore scene, but I've witnessed some bullshit whilst out on tour with other bands.
There was another local band, called Megahurz, who shared a guitarist with Just Die, that were going to play after us tonight. It made sense for us, since they're a renowned local party metal band and a lot of people where in all probability in attendance to see them as well as us. So we went on ahead of them to a packed room. It turned out that we had a big support from the crowd anyway, the show was an absolute blast!
We belted through the set and the crowd kicked off from the get go. Even old Mux was down front, seemingly having a great time! I belted a guy in the elbow with the head of my guitar, but thankfully both guitar and elbow were fine. The crowd constantly surged back and forth, now and again spilling onto the stage, so it was hard to avoid keeping people out of the firing line. At one point near the middle of the set, the girl working behind the bar appeared on stage with shots of whiskey for us. It was a real party atmosphere. The barmaid and another friend then stood side stage, over on Jon's side, chanting something about Sweden. Before the set was over, she came once again with another round, as well as another at the end of the set, although by then she was just filling the whole glass straight from the bottle. In that heat it actually tasted pretty foul and I had to put it aside, I was gasping for water not bourbon. Appreciated it all the same though. We played the Avail cover again, since it had been requested (news travels fast on the net it seems) and when we were done there were long shouts for more. The barmaid and her friend, both of who were by then pretty boats, were chanting “Take us with you to Sweden!”. At one point during the set, such was the party atmosphere, Jon asked the crowd if this was really Monday night. Needless to say, we were all buzzing from the show as we cooled off in the car park outside before loading the van.
Megahurz were indeed a party!. And something I totally had not got, until they went on stage, was that the pissed up barmaid was actually their bass player. They brought a real fun end to a great show. Afterwards we hung out by the merch, refilling pitcher after pitcher of complimentary beer from the bar. It was really good ale too. What more could you ask for? At one point I spilled Andy's whiskey all over the merch table since he was a fool enough to leave it there. Only minutes after clearing it up pissed barmaid girl comes over with another pitcher. She's pretty grabby by now and looking for hugs. She plonks the pitcher on our merch table, goes to hug Johan and in doing so knocks the pitcher over our merch table again, this time Johan's trucker cap taking most of the hit. Johan looked pretty gutted but I thought it was hilarious! I guess I was feeling pretty tipsy myself by that point...
Before we left Matt proved to us that he actually does like pickled eggs. I don't know how we got to talking about them the other day but it turns out Matt is the only person I know who likes them. And of course, they had them in a glass jar behind the bar. We all stood around and watched him eat one, as if he himself was performing in a touring side show. If only Mux knew it was this easy! Jon was the only one of us who dared try one of the disgusting little bastards, but after one solitary chew, he walked calmly to the toilet, albeit with a look of horror on his face, and spat the thing out. Credit to him for trying it, all for the cause of our amusement.
We ended up getting back to Jason's place around two am. There was more beer on offer on the porch and we had some Sam Adams in the cooler in the van, but I could barely manage one before I had to go to bed. One of the last things I remember before hitting the hay was Jon coming out of the shower and the rest of us looking at each other in amazement. It's not something he does that often on tour...
Jason had a few dogs around the house, all of which were really cute, and I remember trying to get one to lie on the mattress with me where Johan was going to sleep later, but the little pooch was having none of it. He lay there for a while but when Johan came stumbling towards the back bedroom where I'd crashed a little while before, he hopped up and left. So as usual, it was Johan and I sharing a bed. Seems to be a common occurrence on this trip.
The six hour drive in the van didn't feel too bad to be honest. We have longer drives ahead over the next few days, so we may as well get used to it anyhow. Asheville is set pretty high in the Blue Ridge Mountains and the climb up to the city along the highway offered some beautiful scenery. We arrived at Jason, the promoter's house around six thirty pm. We hung out there for a while on his front porch, drinking PBR and watching the sun go down. Jason, a really good guy that the rest of the band have met on previous tours, made us all an incredible pot of vegan curry. As usual, the hospitality of friends on the road blew me away. There were another couple of guys there, friends of Jason's, who were practising downstairs in the basement. Seems like most people we meet out here have bands practising in their basements. At Matt's place, as well as his band Parasytic rehearsing there, both Vulture and Direct Control used the space too. That simply would not be able to happen in Stockholm..
We drove down to the venue around nine, Asheville being a late town apparently. When we arrived the first thing we saw was a marquee with Victims Tonight on it. It's not every day on tour you see that. We stood in front whilst Matt took band photos, of course. When we'd jumped out of the van in front of the club, we got to small talking with a lady who was stood there with her young infant daughter for a couple of minutes. Before they left the cute little girl gave Jon a hug around the waist. It really touched Jon. He had tears welling up in his eyes for a moment there.
The venue itself was a great little bar with a floor space and a low stage off to the corner. There was a small beer garden out back, where Jon and I retreated to with a pint. I had a good feeling about the night ahead as we sat there in the warm night air, watching a steady stream of people paying in to the club.
We'd been sitting there a while when a scruffy looking guy in a top hot approaches the guy working the door, who is sat at a small table with an old lamp on it in front of the entrance. I hear Top Hat asking something about getting hooked up with some power for a couple of spot lamps, whilst also mentioning something about a side show... As I'm wondering who the fuck this guy is, Jon spots an old school bus parked over in the lot. Jon wants to go check it, so I follow with him.
Top Hat is there along with another guy, who is your more typical crust punker. We ask if we can have a look around there bus, which they're more than happy to oblige. Top Hat introduces himself to us as Mux, his friend as Chris. They tell us they're a travelling side show, that live in this bus of theirs that they bought for three hundred bucks. They've been out on the road, living in this thing for over three months now. Apparently they've arranged to perform out in the beer garden between each of the bands tonight, doing all sorts of nonsense like hammering nails into their nostrils, all for nothing but tips. The night just took an interesting and unexpected turn, I thought to myself. Mux and Chris turned out to be really nice guys and it was really cool of them to let us see their travelling home.
The guys were really interested in Victims and were asking us a lot of questions about what it's like touring overseas. They told us that they'd never even been out to the west coast of the States, nevermind abroad. It makes you realised how privileged we are to be doing what we're doing, even when the going is tough at times, we're still out here at the end of the day, thousands of miles from home, playing our music to punk kids. I know people who would give anything to do what we do. I'm grateful to be here.
Jason's band, Otark, were first up tonight and by the time they went on there was a good crowd in the place. They've only been playing for five months and haven’t' recorded yet, but they sounded great. They played a real epic, dark style of hardcore, kind of mixing up the sounds of bands like Fall of Efrafa and Tragedy. I stood down front with Matt and enjoyed every minute of it. Great to have such a good crowd in on a Monday night too. Matt had insured us that Jason always put on great shows and it seemed like tonight would be no exception.
Right on cue, Mux starts his side show out in the garden. I had to check it out. Sure enough, he's there hammering a nail into his nostril with a bean can. There has to be easier fucking ways of making a living! There were a good load of people gathered round, watching him as he entertained the punks with this madness. Earlier on, Mux had mentioned something about having a pig's head in a jar for his final act of the night. That was something I could happily skip looking at, thanks all the same Mux.
The second band of the night were called Just Die. Really nice guys it seemed. At one point during their set they mentioned that they had a record for sale at their merch table, but then urged the crowd to buy our merch ahead of anyone else's. “If you're going to buy anything tonight, buy Victims merch. Do you know where those guys come from? Sweden! Can you drive here from there? No you fucking can't!”. I thought this was a superb gesture. It is a lot harder for us to make money from shows here in the States, compared to how it is in Europe, we come to the States mainly because it's fun and it's a privilege that we're lucky enough to have. It's amazing to get that sort of support from local bands here, just as the other night with the Furnace guys. In Europe, you make good money from shows, but the downside there is that the local bands are notorious for playing way over their allotted stage time, often playing encore after encore. Local heroes I call them. To be honest, it's not so common in the hardcore scene, but I've witnessed some bullshit whilst out on tour with other bands.
There was another local band, called Megahurz, who shared a guitarist with Just Die, that were going to play after us tonight. It made sense for us, since they're a renowned local party metal band and a lot of people where in all probability in attendance to see them as well as us. So we went on ahead of them to a packed room. It turned out that we had a big support from the crowd anyway, the show was an absolute blast!
We belted through the set and the crowd kicked off from the get go. Even old Mux was down front, seemingly having a great time! I belted a guy in the elbow with the head of my guitar, but thankfully both guitar and elbow were fine. The crowd constantly surged back and forth, now and again spilling onto the stage, so it was hard to avoid keeping people out of the firing line. At one point near the middle of the set, the girl working behind the bar appeared on stage with shots of whiskey for us. It was a real party atmosphere. The barmaid and another friend then stood side stage, over on Jon's side, chanting something about Sweden. Before the set was over, she came once again with another round, as well as another at the end of the set, although by then she was just filling the whole glass straight from the bottle. In that heat it actually tasted pretty foul and I had to put it aside, I was gasping for water not bourbon. Appreciated it all the same though. We played the Avail cover again, since it had been requested (news travels fast on the net it seems) and when we were done there were long shouts for more. The barmaid and her friend, both of who were by then pretty boats, were chanting “Take us with you to Sweden!”. At one point during the set, such was the party atmosphere, Jon asked the crowd if this was really Monday night. Needless to say, we were all buzzing from the show as we cooled off in the car park outside before loading the van.
Megahurz were indeed a party!. And something I totally had not got, until they went on stage, was that the pissed up barmaid was actually their bass player. They brought a real fun end to a great show. Afterwards we hung out by the merch, refilling pitcher after pitcher of complimentary beer from the bar. It was really good ale too. What more could you ask for? At one point I spilled Andy's whiskey all over the merch table since he was a fool enough to leave it there. Only minutes after clearing it up pissed barmaid girl comes over with another pitcher. She's pretty grabby by now and looking for hugs. She plonks the pitcher on our merch table, goes to hug Johan and in doing so knocks the pitcher over our merch table again, this time Johan's trucker cap taking most of the hit. Johan looked pretty gutted but I thought it was hilarious! I guess I was feeling pretty tipsy myself by that point...
Before we left Matt proved to us that he actually does like pickled eggs. I don't know how we got to talking about them the other day but it turns out Matt is the only person I know who likes them. And of course, they had them in a glass jar behind the bar. We all stood around and watched him eat one, as if he himself was performing in a touring side show. If only Mux knew it was this easy! Jon was the only one of us who dared try one of the disgusting little bastards, but after one solitary chew, he walked calmly to the toilet, albeit with a look of horror on his face, and spat the thing out. Credit to him for trying it, all for the cause of our amusement.
We ended up getting back to Jason's place around two am. There was more beer on offer on the porch and we had some Sam Adams in the cooler in the van, but I could barely manage one before I had to go to bed. One of the last things I remember before hitting the hay was Jon coming out of the shower and the rest of us looking at each other in amazement. It's not something he does that often on tour...
Jason had a few dogs around the house, all of which were really cute, and I remember trying to get one to lie on the mattress with me where Johan was going to sleep later, but the little pooch was having none of it. He lay there for a while but when Johan came stumbling towards the back bedroom where I'd crashed a little while before, he hopped up and left. So as usual, it was Johan and I sharing a bed. Seems to be a common occurrence on this trip.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Richmond
We just left Richmond. We've been staying there for the last couple of days. I was a little sad to leave the place. We have a lot of friends there and it's almost felt like home this weekend. We had breakfast with Dave Witte and China this morning before leaving, which was a nice way to end our short hiatus in Richmond. We're now on the road to Asheville in North Carolina, which is about a six hour drive. The last couple of days have been a lot of fun...
We had the day off on Saturday. We woke up at Matt's place, where there are a bunch of other friends staying, people like Mark and Christina who made the trip down from Boston, amongst others. Matt's wife, Sarah, made us all breakfast in the morning and we sat on the sofa in front of the tv, eating scrambled eggs, drinking coffee and watching Liverpool beat Arsenal. Superb start to the day.
We headed over to the Best Friends Day Fest in the van around two pm. What can I say about this event? Simply put, it's absolutely insane! The festival is staged over four days at different venues around the city of Richmond. On Saturday, the event was held at a water park, a very basic water park I must add, with a stage set up next to the pool. We arrived at around two-thirty pm, by which time most people there were steamboats. It's basically like spring break for punks. The pool was were most of the action was at. Hundreds of pissed punk guys and girls, half naked, some completely naked, diving off boards, jumping off rope swings, drinking all sorts of booze. It was pretty chaotic and probably slightly dangerous. They'd actually dyed the colour of the water in the pool a deep blue, the rumours being the reason for that was to hide all the hard-ons, but in reality the more likely reason being an overdose of chlorine. I can only imagine how much drunken piss was in that pool. When the bands were playing there were girls stage diving wearing nothing but bikinis, some wearing less than that. It was quite a sight. And it was hot. Very fucking hot.
It must have been around thirty five degrees Celsius. At times it was unbearable, standing around in the heat. I drank a couple of beers when we arrived, but it just made me feel weird so I switched to water. Jon, being Jon, spent the entire day wearing his leather waistcoat vest over a hooded top, bandanna and sunglasses, hood pulled up over his head. How the fuck he could stand it I'll never know!
It was great seeing everyone. There are so many people who we know here. It reminds me of Stockholm in the sense that it's a small musical community where everyone plays in bands. We hung out with Witte and the Municipal guys, Tony Waste being one of the main guys behind the festival, the Baroness people as well as our old friend Erik Larson and his wife Chris. Best Friends Day really is the perfect name for this festival since that's exactly what it is.
There were some great shows during the day, 7 Seconds were great as well as Against Me, although Baroness completely stole the show. What an amazing group of musicians they are. I spotted Jon from the side of the stage, stood in the crowd in the blazing hot sunshine, hood still pulled up over his head, leather vest still on, fist passionately clenched, punching the air. He'd been looking forward to this show for ages. He told me later that he “only” cried three times during their set...
When we'd arrived in the van, we'd been forced into leaving our cooler box with the security people, since there was no glass allowed into the water park. We had a lengthy discussion about it, but the security people weren't budging. Fair enough, rules are rules, but we were pretty pissed off when we collected our cooler box at the end of the day, only to find that the cunts had drunk a load of our beer.
Another weird thing I saw when we arrived was a group of hobo punks, hanging around outside the festival entrance. I don't get these fucking guys. We're waiting to drive into the festival whilst discussing the cooler box problem with the security, when one of these dirty punk guys walks up to Matt's open window and says, “Give me some money”. Matt curtly informs him that he's not giving him shit. The cunt just stands there staring at him like he's been wronged in some way. Matt politely tells him to fuck off. These guys apparently are quite a common sight in the US. And they're always trouble, starting fights and robbing people and the like. Matt tells us you just have to be firm with them and they'll piss off. Only a few minutes later, whilst we're still trying to resolve the cooler issue, one comes around to my side where the door is open and starts demanding something from us. He asks me what band we're in, to which I tell him we're in no band. He stands there calling us liars for a few seconds before mooching off to where he came from. Seriously, what the fuck is the deal with these people?
The day was over by about eight pm, right after the Against Me show was finished. We were about to leave in the van when a big scuffle kicked off on the road right outside the main gate. Within seconds there were a load or police cars and ambulances and everything was dispersed. Apparently what had happened was that an old guy had come driving along the road in his jeep and had been confronted by a herd of punk kids, refusing to get out of his way. Eventually the old boy just puts his foot on the gas and runs over some girls foot. I don't think the old boy really meant to hurt anyone, I think he was most likely just scared. Anyway, as soon as this happens everyone goes crazy and starts attacking the poor old guy in his car. Real angry mob stuff. The police soon broke it all up, but the old guy was really shaken. I felt bad for him. The police then had to divert us and everybody else towards the other exit. Weird end to the day. Tony told me the day after that they'd actually found a body in the river, right next to the festival site, although the police thought it had nothing to do with the festival. As nice a place as Richmond is, it is still America at the end of the day, and in that, such a very different place to where we come from.
I know horrible stuff happens back home now and again, but here a body in the river is just an everyday occurrence. For instance, when we drive back to Matt's place, we stop at at a garage to pick up some beer and snacks. There is an armed sheriff guy guarding the place. Matt tells us that only a few weeks ago, he'd came in here in the middle of the day and walked right into an ongoing armed robbery. They put a gun to his head, robbed him of the seventeen dollars he had in his wallet, and told him to leave. Since then they've had the sheriff guarding the place. If that happened to me I'd most likely be scarred for fucking life, to Matt, it's just life. I don't get it. I don't really want to get it.
Anyway, we ended the night sat on Matt's porch drinking beer. A fine way to end the night. John and the Baroness guys as well as the No Tomorrow people were hanging out too. Jon had John showing him Baroness guitar riffs at one point. I've never seen Jon so happy. Apparently he also got to hear a couple of demos from the new Baroness record, which John played for him upstairs in secret. They had played a couple of new songs during their set and they sounded great. Really looking forward to hearing the new album.
One by one, everybody flaked off, leaving Johan, Andy, Matt and myself left on the porch. It was one of those nights where every beer we opened was the “last beer”. I love the whole porch thing. I wish we had that back home. By the time it really was the “last beer” we were all pretty drunk. Andy was at the point where he was slurring his words, his English getting less and less decipherable and he kept stumbling down the steps to the yard. We've all been taking it relatively easy on this tour though, except Jon, so we were due a late night and a few drinks.
The next day, yesterday, it was our turn to play.
If Saturday was the party day, then Sunday was definitely the hangover day. That was the overall feeling submerging the entire day. I didn't feel to sharp myself, although one look at Andy in the morning made me feel a lot better.
The venue for our show was at a biker's lot, or in English, a row of garages in an industrial estate on the south side of Richmond. All of our friends were there again, the likes of Witte and Erik, as well as the Waste guys. Tony had a bit of a go at us when we arrived since we were a bit late. We had to load in through the already building crowd at the front gates. It's not so usual to see Tony stressed out. The same security guards, the fuckers who drunk our beer, were there again. Matt had a go at them later on in the day, they didn't deny an charges thrown at them either.
We set up our merch alongside the Jesuit and COC guys, underneath a small tent near the entrance. It was nice to good Nate again, he's such a chilled out, humble guy and always fun to be around. It was the last ever Jesuit show yesterday, so it was fun to be a part of that. They, by all accounts, didn't enjoy the best of shows though. The sound out front was pretty bad, as it was for every band. It's hard to get a decent sound from an outdoor stage though, you just have to make the most of it.
We hung out for the afternoon with the Jesuit guys, sharing beers and having a laugh. Their bass player is a real character. He's a big, strong looking fucker who constantly takes the piss out of everybody around him. I didn't know what the fuck to make of him at first but within a short while realised that I really liked the guy.
I thought Saturday was hot, but yesterday was something else. It was all you could do to find a slither of shade somewhere in that parking lot. At one point during the afternoon, Woody from COC was standing next to our merch and we were indulging in a bit of small talk, when this geeky looking metaller walks up to Woody with a notepad and pen and asks him he minds answering a few questions. Sure enough, he starts firing all these real train spotter type questions at him, going into minute detail about certain solos from COC records and so on. I've truly never heard anything like it. The guy goes on for a good fifteen minutes, the whole time, Woody, in an admirable show of patience and understanding, doing his best to answer the guy. Respect to you for that Woody.
One of the highlights of the day was undoubtedly the second band of the day, Little Ozzy. Yes, they were exactly what it sounds like. A band of rocker guys with a dwarf/midget/little person (I'm not sure what the term is), dressed as Ozzy singing Ozzy songs. Fucking brilliant! Matt thought it was the best thing he'd ever seen. He loved every second of it. I had to go down the front to check it out, it's not every day you see something like that. I passed Jon who was stood near the back of the lot, with his jaw hanging in amazement. I asked him if he was coming down the front to check it out properly, to which he replied, “I'm not taking one fucking step closer!”. I forgot he's scared of dwarves/midgets/little people...
As Jesuit took to the stage the sky was turning a menacing shade of black. Tony was starting to worry since there wasn't even a marquee covering the stage. There was rumour that if it started pissing down they'd have to move the show to a club in town but in actual fact there was no such Plan B, such is the relaxed atmosphere of this event. Indeed, as Jesuit finished their set and Iron Lung were setting up to go on, the heavens opened up and it started to piss down! Jon and I were at the merch stand, the tent covering it not being rain proof in the slightest, packing up the gear as quickly as possible and hiding it under the table. Johan and Matt were on stage with a few others, doing their best to cover the stage with a tarpaulin, Andy covering up our gear that was out in the open backstage. A thunder and lighting storm broke out right above us and everyone at the show ran for the cover of their cars, the place emptying out in minutes. Jon and I stood at the merch stand, soaked to the fucking bone. Jon was panicking about his leather vest being damaged due to it being wet.
Luckily the storm soon passed, although not before a couple of huge thunder claps. I got quite nervous when the Jesuit guitarist noted that we were in fact stood under what was principally a lightning rod. If anyone was really in danger though, it was Matt, who was stood on the middle of the stage, holding a metal bar which the tarpaulin was hanging from, doing his best to save the stage and it's gear. He laughed about it later, wondering what the fuck he was doing. Surely, your dedication to the cause has to have some sort of limit.
When the rain stopped, the place was bone dry again within fifteen minutes such was the heat. Iron Lung got up and played and they were fucking great! For a two piece, they are a hell of a grind band. The singer has a bit of Paul Bearer about him, taking the piss out of certain members of the crowd. It was great fun watching them.
And then it was our turn. I could sense the guys were a little nervous. We'd been planning to play an Avail cover in Erik Larson's honour. Of course, Avail were a classic Richmond band and it was a little nerve racking playing one of their songs on their home turf. There had been rumours that Avail would perform a special one off reunion for this show, but it wasn't to be, so instead we'd represent on their behalf.
The sound on stage was surprisingly good, but I knew fine well the sound out front, at least anything past the first ten meters, would be dogshit. Something Matt was sad to confirm after the show. I think we played really well though. I really enjoyed the set and the crowd were very receptive. The only thing that pissed me off was this one big, stupid twat who was throwing beer cans at the stage for the entirety of the set. I'd noticed him earlier in the day, hard not to really since he'd been loudly making his presence known to everyone around him, just shouting his mouth off all the time. A boring twat basically.
Apart from him, the show went down a storm though. We had some friends side stage who seemed to be really enjoying the show, which as always, makes me play all the harder. It was a fun time up there. And the Avail song went better than we could have hoped for. Jon gave a really nice speech beforehand, explaining what an influence Avail had been on Victims, and dedicated the song to Erik. It was a hell of a buzz playing that song as the crowd went nuts. I caught a glimpse of Erik who looked quite moved, according to Jon,his wife Chris was down the front taking photos with a tear in her eye. I'm glad it came off so well.
After we played we had to wait around until COC were finished up with their set before we could load out. I felt bad in a sense because Jen is a huge COC fan and she was really disappointed that she couldn't make it out here for these shows. I felt obliged to watch them in her honour. I'd heard the rumours that they weren't that great live any more and I'm afraid those rumours proved to be true. Not even when they played Kiss of Death did it arise much of a stir within me. It was cool to see that classic, original line-up playing together again, and it was nice to see how happy Reed Mullin looked when I told him Blind is one of my wife's favourite records, but the live show just seemed to drag on and on. It was like the party was over but they were refusing to accept it. By the time they were done I was dying to get out of there. I have a huge amount of respect for COC and their records, but if they'd played a half hour instead of their marathon set I probably would have enjoyed it a little more. Quite sad really. They really were a good bunch of guys too.
We had the day off on Saturday. We woke up at Matt's place, where there are a bunch of other friends staying, people like Mark and Christina who made the trip down from Boston, amongst others. Matt's wife, Sarah, made us all breakfast in the morning and we sat on the sofa in front of the tv, eating scrambled eggs, drinking coffee and watching Liverpool beat Arsenal. Superb start to the day.
We headed over to the Best Friends Day Fest in the van around two pm. What can I say about this event? Simply put, it's absolutely insane! The festival is staged over four days at different venues around the city of Richmond. On Saturday, the event was held at a water park, a very basic water park I must add, with a stage set up next to the pool. We arrived at around two-thirty pm, by which time most people there were steamboats. It's basically like spring break for punks. The pool was were most of the action was at. Hundreds of pissed punk guys and girls, half naked, some completely naked, diving off boards, jumping off rope swings, drinking all sorts of booze. It was pretty chaotic and probably slightly dangerous. They'd actually dyed the colour of the water in the pool a deep blue, the rumours being the reason for that was to hide all the hard-ons, but in reality the more likely reason being an overdose of chlorine. I can only imagine how much drunken piss was in that pool. When the bands were playing there were girls stage diving wearing nothing but bikinis, some wearing less than that. It was quite a sight. And it was hot. Very fucking hot.
It must have been around thirty five degrees Celsius. At times it was unbearable, standing around in the heat. I drank a couple of beers when we arrived, but it just made me feel weird so I switched to water. Jon, being Jon, spent the entire day wearing his leather waistcoat vest over a hooded top, bandanna and sunglasses, hood pulled up over his head. How the fuck he could stand it I'll never know!
It was great seeing everyone. There are so many people who we know here. It reminds me of Stockholm in the sense that it's a small musical community where everyone plays in bands. We hung out with Witte and the Municipal guys, Tony Waste being one of the main guys behind the festival, the Baroness people as well as our old friend Erik Larson and his wife Chris. Best Friends Day really is the perfect name for this festival since that's exactly what it is.
There were some great shows during the day, 7 Seconds were great as well as Against Me, although Baroness completely stole the show. What an amazing group of musicians they are. I spotted Jon from the side of the stage, stood in the crowd in the blazing hot sunshine, hood still pulled up over his head, leather vest still on, fist passionately clenched, punching the air. He'd been looking forward to this show for ages. He told me later that he “only” cried three times during their set...
When we'd arrived in the van, we'd been forced into leaving our cooler box with the security people, since there was no glass allowed into the water park. We had a lengthy discussion about it, but the security people weren't budging. Fair enough, rules are rules, but we were pretty pissed off when we collected our cooler box at the end of the day, only to find that the cunts had drunk a load of our beer.
Another weird thing I saw when we arrived was a group of hobo punks, hanging around outside the festival entrance. I don't get these fucking guys. We're waiting to drive into the festival whilst discussing the cooler box problem with the security, when one of these dirty punk guys walks up to Matt's open window and says, “Give me some money”. Matt curtly informs him that he's not giving him shit. The cunt just stands there staring at him like he's been wronged in some way. Matt politely tells him to fuck off. These guys apparently are quite a common sight in the US. And they're always trouble, starting fights and robbing people and the like. Matt tells us you just have to be firm with them and they'll piss off. Only a few minutes later, whilst we're still trying to resolve the cooler issue, one comes around to my side where the door is open and starts demanding something from us. He asks me what band we're in, to which I tell him we're in no band. He stands there calling us liars for a few seconds before mooching off to where he came from. Seriously, what the fuck is the deal with these people?
The day was over by about eight pm, right after the Against Me show was finished. We were about to leave in the van when a big scuffle kicked off on the road right outside the main gate. Within seconds there were a load or police cars and ambulances and everything was dispersed. Apparently what had happened was that an old guy had come driving along the road in his jeep and had been confronted by a herd of punk kids, refusing to get out of his way. Eventually the old boy just puts his foot on the gas and runs over some girls foot. I don't think the old boy really meant to hurt anyone, I think he was most likely just scared. Anyway, as soon as this happens everyone goes crazy and starts attacking the poor old guy in his car. Real angry mob stuff. The police soon broke it all up, but the old guy was really shaken. I felt bad for him. The police then had to divert us and everybody else towards the other exit. Weird end to the day. Tony told me the day after that they'd actually found a body in the river, right next to the festival site, although the police thought it had nothing to do with the festival. As nice a place as Richmond is, it is still America at the end of the day, and in that, such a very different place to where we come from.
I know horrible stuff happens back home now and again, but here a body in the river is just an everyday occurrence. For instance, when we drive back to Matt's place, we stop at at a garage to pick up some beer and snacks. There is an armed sheriff guy guarding the place. Matt tells us that only a few weeks ago, he'd came in here in the middle of the day and walked right into an ongoing armed robbery. They put a gun to his head, robbed him of the seventeen dollars he had in his wallet, and told him to leave. Since then they've had the sheriff guarding the place. If that happened to me I'd most likely be scarred for fucking life, to Matt, it's just life. I don't get it. I don't really want to get it.
Anyway, we ended the night sat on Matt's porch drinking beer. A fine way to end the night. John and the Baroness guys as well as the No Tomorrow people were hanging out too. Jon had John showing him Baroness guitar riffs at one point. I've never seen Jon so happy. Apparently he also got to hear a couple of demos from the new Baroness record, which John played for him upstairs in secret. They had played a couple of new songs during their set and they sounded great. Really looking forward to hearing the new album.
One by one, everybody flaked off, leaving Johan, Andy, Matt and myself left on the porch. It was one of those nights where every beer we opened was the “last beer”. I love the whole porch thing. I wish we had that back home. By the time it really was the “last beer” we were all pretty drunk. Andy was at the point where he was slurring his words, his English getting less and less decipherable and he kept stumbling down the steps to the yard. We've all been taking it relatively easy on this tour though, except Jon, so we were due a late night and a few drinks.
The next day, yesterday, it was our turn to play.
If Saturday was the party day, then Sunday was definitely the hangover day. That was the overall feeling submerging the entire day. I didn't feel to sharp myself, although one look at Andy in the morning made me feel a lot better.
The venue for our show was at a biker's lot, or in English, a row of garages in an industrial estate on the south side of Richmond. All of our friends were there again, the likes of Witte and Erik, as well as the Waste guys. Tony had a bit of a go at us when we arrived since we were a bit late. We had to load in through the already building crowd at the front gates. It's not so usual to see Tony stressed out. The same security guards, the fuckers who drunk our beer, were there again. Matt had a go at them later on in the day, they didn't deny an charges thrown at them either.
We set up our merch alongside the Jesuit and COC guys, underneath a small tent near the entrance. It was nice to good Nate again, he's such a chilled out, humble guy and always fun to be around. It was the last ever Jesuit show yesterday, so it was fun to be a part of that. They, by all accounts, didn't enjoy the best of shows though. The sound out front was pretty bad, as it was for every band. It's hard to get a decent sound from an outdoor stage though, you just have to make the most of it.
We hung out for the afternoon with the Jesuit guys, sharing beers and having a laugh. Their bass player is a real character. He's a big, strong looking fucker who constantly takes the piss out of everybody around him. I didn't know what the fuck to make of him at first but within a short while realised that I really liked the guy.
I thought Saturday was hot, but yesterday was something else. It was all you could do to find a slither of shade somewhere in that parking lot. At one point during the afternoon, Woody from COC was standing next to our merch and we were indulging in a bit of small talk, when this geeky looking metaller walks up to Woody with a notepad and pen and asks him he minds answering a few questions. Sure enough, he starts firing all these real train spotter type questions at him, going into minute detail about certain solos from COC records and so on. I've truly never heard anything like it. The guy goes on for a good fifteen minutes, the whole time, Woody, in an admirable show of patience and understanding, doing his best to answer the guy. Respect to you for that Woody.
One of the highlights of the day was undoubtedly the second band of the day, Little Ozzy. Yes, they were exactly what it sounds like. A band of rocker guys with a dwarf/midget/little person (I'm not sure what the term is), dressed as Ozzy singing Ozzy songs. Fucking brilliant! Matt thought it was the best thing he'd ever seen. He loved every second of it. I had to go down the front to check it out, it's not every day you see something like that. I passed Jon who was stood near the back of the lot, with his jaw hanging in amazement. I asked him if he was coming down the front to check it out properly, to which he replied, “I'm not taking one fucking step closer!”. I forgot he's scared of dwarves/midgets/little people...
As Jesuit took to the stage the sky was turning a menacing shade of black. Tony was starting to worry since there wasn't even a marquee covering the stage. There was rumour that if it started pissing down they'd have to move the show to a club in town but in actual fact there was no such Plan B, such is the relaxed atmosphere of this event. Indeed, as Jesuit finished their set and Iron Lung were setting up to go on, the heavens opened up and it started to piss down! Jon and I were at the merch stand, the tent covering it not being rain proof in the slightest, packing up the gear as quickly as possible and hiding it under the table. Johan and Matt were on stage with a few others, doing their best to cover the stage with a tarpaulin, Andy covering up our gear that was out in the open backstage. A thunder and lighting storm broke out right above us and everyone at the show ran for the cover of their cars, the place emptying out in minutes. Jon and I stood at the merch stand, soaked to the fucking bone. Jon was panicking about his leather vest being damaged due to it being wet.
Luckily the storm soon passed, although not before a couple of huge thunder claps. I got quite nervous when the Jesuit guitarist noted that we were in fact stood under what was principally a lightning rod. If anyone was really in danger though, it was Matt, who was stood on the middle of the stage, holding a metal bar which the tarpaulin was hanging from, doing his best to save the stage and it's gear. He laughed about it later, wondering what the fuck he was doing. Surely, your dedication to the cause has to have some sort of limit.
When the rain stopped, the place was bone dry again within fifteen minutes such was the heat. Iron Lung got up and played and they were fucking great! For a two piece, they are a hell of a grind band. The singer has a bit of Paul Bearer about him, taking the piss out of certain members of the crowd. It was great fun watching them.
And then it was our turn. I could sense the guys were a little nervous. We'd been planning to play an Avail cover in Erik Larson's honour. Of course, Avail were a classic Richmond band and it was a little nerve racking playing one of their songs on their home turf. There had been rumours that Avail would perform a special one off reunion for this show, but it wasn't to be, so instead we'd represent on their behalf.
The sound on stage was surprisingly good, but I knew fine well the sound out front, at least anything past the first ten meters, would be dogshit. Something Matt was sad to confirm after the show. I think we played really well though. I really enjoyed the set and the crowd were very receptive. The only thing that pissed me off was this one big, stupid twat who was throwing beer cans at the stage for the entirety of the set. I'd noticed him earlier in the day, hard not to really since he'd been loudly making his presence known to everyone around him, just shouting his mouth off all the time. A boring twat basically.
Apart from him, the show went down a storm though. We had some friends side stage who seemed to be really enjoying the show, which as always, makes me play all the harder. It was a fun time up there. And the Avail song went better than we could have hoped for. Jon gave a really nice speech beforehand, explaining what an influence Avail had been on Victims, and dedicated the song to Erik. It was a hell of a buzz playing that song as the crowd went nuts. I caught a glimpse of Erik who looked quite moved, according to Jon,his wife Chris was down the front taking photos with a tear in her eye. I'm glad it came off so well.
After we played we had to wait around until COC were finished up with their set before we could load out. I felt bad in a sense because Jen is a huge COC fan and she was really disappointed that she couldn't make it out here for these shows. I felt obliged to watch them in her honour. I'd heard the rumours that they weren't that great live any more and I'm afraid those rumours proved to be true. Not even when they played Kiss of Death did it arise much of a stir within me. It was cool to see that classic, original line-up playing together again, and it was nice to see how happy Reed Mullin looked when I told him Blind is one of my wife's favourite records, but the live show just seemed to drag on and on. It was like the party was over but they were refusing to accept it. By the time they were done I was dying to get out of there. I have a huge amount of respect for COC and their records, but if they'd played a half hour instead of their marathon set I probably would have enjoyed it a little more. Quite sad really. They really were a good bunch of guys too.
We loaded out in super quick time and made our way into the city, to stop by one of the clubs still with shows going on, the last bastion of Best Friends Day weekend. Matt had friends he wanted to say hello to so we made a quick stop and had a pint, the first real beer of the day, a great pint of a local IPA. We bumped into Witte again. It's always great to hang out with him, one of the nicest guys you could meet. He was hoping to make it up to New York next week for our final show of the tour but he now has some other music commitments. Not surprising really, the guy is constantly doing something with his drums. It was good to see him this morning for breakfast anyhow. I think I'll come over here for a holiday with Jen sometime in the future and spend some real time with our friends here. On tour, time is always fleeting.
On the way back to Matt's we'd got the news that a Swedish hard line right wing organisation has used the Victims skull logo on their website. This is fucked up! I don't know what the fuck they think they're doing, they've just taken our logo direct from our website for their own use. WE had a look at their web page and sure enough, there was the logo, slap bang in the middle. Sickening. Andy mailed them immediately, letting them know that we wished the logo to be removed immediately and that we don't wish to be associated with their organisation. In fairness, they mailed back this morning and apologised, telling us that they would remove the logo and didn't realise that it belonged to us. Weird.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Baltimore
Been on the road for a little while now. Been listening to the last Roky Erickson and Coliseums records. We're in no rush today. Not really much to do in Baltimore before we load in. Not sure how tonight's show is going to be. We're back in a major city but Best Friend's Day starts tonight, just down the road in Richmond. We knew it could be tricky planning shows around and so close to a big festival. We'll see. I know one thing, and that's that I wish Pg. 99 were playing their reunion show tomorrow when we're there on our day off, and not tonight.
We had a really good breakfast with Meghan this morning at this cool corner café we'd been to the last time we were over. They do all ecological bagels and baguettes and a great mug of coffee. We hung out there for a while, enjoying a perfectly relaxed start to the day. As we were planning the day ahead with Matt, Meghan mentioned there was a pretty cool used record store a few blocks away...
I bought seven lp's for fifty five dollars, including a vinyl copy of a Jesus Lizard album I've been looking for for a while. I also picked up Crucial Section and Direct Control albums amongst others. Very productive start to the day.
We're now about a half hour from Baltimore. We're going to pull of the highway and take a visit to Guitar Centre. We don't have to be at the venue for another few hours. Jon's foot is still pretty swollen. I think Matt is going to take him to the hospital tomorrow since we have the day free. Liverpool – Arsenal tomorrow. We're heading back to Matt's tonight and we're taping the game and watching it when we get up in the morning. Looking forward to our day off tomorrow.
Later:
Sitting outside the venue in the van. The place is an oblong room with a stage at the back wall. And that's about it. Fifty kids here will be enough to make it a good night. We got here a few hours ago and have been killing time doing pretty much nothing. Johan, Andy and I took a walk a few blocks and got some coffee at a Barned & Noble book store, took care of about an hour. I took advantage of the pristine toilets they had there since Jon had blocked the bog at the venue earlier. He actually had to go and ask the promoter kid help him flush his turd away!
Earlier when we arrived I witnessed Matt reverse park the van into the tightest space I've ever seen. We're talking millimetres here, although there was the odd little nudge here and there. “That's why they call it a bumper!”, Matt says, looking pretty chuffed with himself.
I'm now in the van with Jon and Matt, Jon is resting up his foot which is still pretty swollen, sipping a bottle of whiskey from a brown paper bag. I had a couple of sips, although purely for medicinal purposes of course. We just watched a “The Wire” style drug deal go down, just a few yards ahead of us. I can't honestly say I saw that much, but Jon is completely convinced. Baltimore really is a rough city though. Matt told us earlier to keep ourselves within a three block radius of the venue since it gets pretty bad around here. The third band of five are about to go on. The band Full of Hell are on right before us. I seen those guys in Stockholm a while ago at Kafe 44. Nice guys and a good band.
Later still:
Sitting in the dark in the back of the van, listening to Baroness' The Red Album, getting geared up for our day off tomorrow. I've never seen Baroness play live before. Looking forward to that. It's been a pretty hectic week that started in Belgium seven days ago.
We packed up super quick after the show and got on the road to Richmond, back to Matt's house. Jon's foot looks pretty bad and he's saying he wants to be dropped off at the emergency room when we get to Richmond but it's hard to know how much of what he's saying is coming from him and how much is coming from the bottle of bourbon he's been supping on all night. We'll have to see how it looks in the morning.
Even later:
We just got back to Matt's new house. The place is amazing! It's one of those classic southern houses that is over one hundred years old, with the wrap around porch and the big yard out back. I slept most of the way between Baltimore and Richmond but got a second wind from somewhere when we got here, but after one beer I'm done and now going to bed in one of the many rooms in this huge house.
We had a really good breakfast with Meghan this morning at this cool corner café we'd been to the last time we were over. They do all ecological bagels and baguettes and a great mug of coffee. We hung out there for a while, enjoying a perfectly relaxed start to the day. As we were planning the day ahead with Matt, Meghan mentioned there was a pretty cool used record store a few blocks away...
I bought seven lp's for fifty five dollars, including a vinyl copy of a Jesus Lizard album I've been looking for for a while. I also picked up Crucial Section and Direct Control albums amongst others. Very productive start to the day.
We're now about a half hour from Baltimore. We're going to pull of the highway and take a visit to Guitar Centre. We don't have to be at the venue for another few hours. Jon's foot is still pretty swollen. I think Matt is going to take him to the hospital tomorrow since we have the day free. Liverpool – Arsenal tomorrow. We're heading back to Matt's tonight and we're taping the game and watching it when we get up in the morning. Looking forward to our day off tomorrow.
Later:
Sitting outside the venue in the van. The place is an oblong room with a stage at the back wall. And that's about it. Fifty kids here will be enough to make it a good night. We got here a few hours ago and have been killing time doing pretty much nothing. Johan, Andy and I took a walk a few blocks and got some coffee at a Barned & Noble book store, took care of about an hour. I took advantage of the pristine toilets they had there since Jon had blocked the bog at the venue earlier. He actually had to go and ask the promoter kid help him flush his turd away!
Earlier when we arrived I witnessed Matt reverse park the van into the tightest space I've ever seen. We're talking millimetres here, although there was the odd little nudge here and there. “That's why they call it a bumper!”, Matt says, looking pretty chuffed with himself.
I'm now in the van with Jon and Matt, Jon is resting up his foot which is still pretty swollen, sipping a bottle of whiskey from a brown paper bag. I had a couple of sips, although purely for medicinal purposes of course. We just watched a “The Wire” style drug deal go down, just a few yards ahead of us. I can't honestly say I saw that much, but Jon is completely convinced. Baltimore really is a rough city though. Matt told us earlier to keep ourselves within a three block radius of the venue since it gets pretty bad around here. The third band of five are about to go on. The band Full of Hell are on right before us. I seen those guys in Stockholm a while ago at Kafe 44. Nice guys and a good band.
Later still:
Sitting in the dark in the back of the van, listening to Baroness' The Red Album, getting geared up for our day off tomorrow. I've never seen Baroness play live before. Looking forward to that. It's been a pretty hectic week that started in Belgium seven days ago.
The show tonight felt like hard work. There weren't that many kids in, maybe around twenty at most, with members of the other four bands making up the numbers. It looked ok in the room but for the bright lights been on throughout the show. There was a good response to the set though. It was the playing itself that was hard going. Theft almost fell apart at one point when Andy dropped a stick and pulled up a wrapped pair together instead of a stand alone stick. He almost came to a stand still as he stood there looking at his double stick all confused.
It didn't make things easier for us either that Jon's foot is now the size of a balloon and I had a face full of snot again. It was hard to breathe at some points, especially with the place being as hot as a boiler room, the industrial size fan at the back of the stage blowing nothing but a warm fart around the stage. By the time we reached the end of the set, finishing with Broken Bones and skipping Scars, I was more than done.
We packed up super quick after the show and got on the road to Richmond, back to Matt's house. Jon's foot looks pretty bad and he's saying he wants to be dropped off at the emergency room when we get to Richmond but it's hard to know how much of what he's saying is coming from him and how much is coming from the bottle of bourbon he's been supping on all night. We'll have to see how it looks in the morning.
Even later:
We just got back to Matt's new house. The place is amazing! It's one of those classic southern houses that is over one hundred years old, with the wrap around porch and the big yard out back. I slept most of the way between Baltimore and Richmond but got a second wind from somewhere when we got here, but after one beer I'm done and now going to bed in one of the many rooms in this huge house.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Brick
We've had a pretty easy today. The drive was only a couple of hours. Felt good sleeping in a real bed last night, even if me and Johan were pretty much ass to ass.
The weather is starting to resemble the summer as you'd expect it. Blue skies, hot in the shade. We picked up some breakfast from a local diner in Milford this morning. Two eggs, sunny side up please. The lady who served us was a pretty sweet woman. It's always embarrassing going through the motions when they clock you're a band, not that hard I guess, and then they start asking you what kind of music you play and what the name is and all that crap. It's the same expression on the face every time when you tell them...vacant.
We've been listening to some good stuff in the van these last few days. Tom Petty, Maiden, Roky Erickson, The Police...who the fuck needs to listen to hardcore in the van all day when it's all you here all night? Not me. Funny though, for the most part Andy sits in the back with his headphones on.
We've only got a couple of hours drive today, so of course, we're going to an outlet centre. Johan and Andy really like to shop! After that we'll head on over to the venue for around six pm. We're right on the coast tonight and there is talk of crashing at one of Matt's friends places near here tonight and then spending a few hours at the beach of the Jersey Shore tomorrow. I'm hoping this is going to happen.
Matt has just let it slip that he has to take his shirt off when he takes a shit, no matter where he is. I almost just coughed up a lung when he let that one go! Upon obvious further enquiries he told us that the reason for this strange behaviour is that when he was a kid growing up with his sisters, he used to wear their long night-shirts around the house a lot since he didn't have much of his own stuff. Once when he went to do a shit the night-shirt he was wearing dropped down into the toilet and he shat all over it, although he didn't realise this until he'd walked out of the bog. Since then he's had a mental barrier when it comes to dropping his guts that means he has to take his shirt off. Superb.
Later:
We went to the outlet store. We were there for a few hours shopping. No, let me correct that. Johan and Andy were. I picked up a pair of Vans within ten minutes, looked at a pair of jeans, decided I would save my money on tour for records and leave the shopping until Jenny comes over at the end of this tour when we have a few days in New York, got some fish and chips from a cheesy food court, took a couple of turns on a rather brutal massage chair, and then headed back to the van with Matt, Jon and Meghan forty minutes later. We sat around on the tarmac by the van in the half empty parking lot for an hour or so. It was actually really relaxing. I restrung my guitar and then we lay around, using bags as pillows, chatting away about everything and nothing.
We've just turned up at the venue. Strange place. The sign at the side of the country highway the venue is just off of says The Loyal Order of the Moose. It is decorated with numerous American flags and there are two old bearded guys loitering around on the porch, looking over at the van. Fuck knows what this gig is going to be like.. Never played a veterans lodge before. It's not that uncommon though, according to Matt. Matt knows the promoter tonight and tells us he always puts on good shows. That is definitely reassuring! If we didn't know anything about the promoter tonight I'd be worried.
Since we're a bit early, Johan has suggested we go do some shopping at the Target that we passed just down the road. There actually is fuck all to do so we may as well. I think I saw a liquor store somewhere too...
Later:
This show was how last night's show could have been, should have been maybe. The promoter, Mark was a really funny guy, looked like he could have been in Annihilation Time. He must be one of the few people on this planet that has a moustache that Matt actually trusts. There were a few other people involved in the setting up the show who were all really enthusiastic, doing their best to give the kids here some shows to go to. It's so good to see young people involved in keeping the scene going in these remote parts of the world.
The show was set up in the back room of the bar in the lodge, just a square room with bare walls, kinda looked like an empty classroom. There was probably around forty to fifty kids at the show, which was more than enough to make fill the room out nicely. Not bad for Brick, New Jersey. Anyone here tonight would have had to have got here by car since it's in the middle of nowhere.
Out the back of the venue was a parking lot and some beer garden type area. We spent most of the night either hanging out by the van, drinking a some pre-show beer or in the bar playing what I can only describe as table-top curling. Above it was a huge mounted moose head which was a bit strange. The game was good fun, although the bar was a bit shady. The bartender was a large, jock looking guy who barely registered my presence when I ordered a couple of Yeungling's for me and Johan. Ignorant cunt. Do you still really have to tip for that in this country? Even when the service is that piss poor? I left him a couple of dollars tip and immediately hated myself for doing so when he just snatched them up from the bar and threw them in his jar, not a thank you in sight. This guy either hates us punk kids or maybe he doesn't like foreigners. Mark the promoter told me that the people at the lodge are always really cool with them putting shows on here but this bartender guy isn't convincing me.
There was another weird jock guy who was stoating about the room all night bothering people. He was either pissed drunk or a couple of sarnies short of a lunch box but either way he was getting on my tits. He obviously wasn't here for the show, I think he belonged to the lodge... He'd helped put up a tarpaulin over the veranda out back since the constant lightning flashing in the sky out over the ocean was threatening to bring a shit load of rain our way. Apparently whilst he was doing this he'd split his shorts right up the crack. He spent the entire night explaining this to anyone who would listen, and then when he was done he would ask for a safety pin. He was shocked that not one person there had a safety pin to loan him, since we were all punks and all. He must have asked me for a safety pin on at least six different occasions during the evening...
I only really saw the first band tonight, who were called Teen Wolves. They were pretty cool too. They had this girl screaming down the mic over some really fast, japcore/scando style punk rock. Good times. The other bands I heard from the parking lot out back. The third band did a lot of covers, one of which being a pretty good version of Police Story. Jon started giving me his usual bullshit about having no respect for Black Flag. Of course I bit. Of course he continued to bait until it got as far as him saying he actually hates Black Flag. He is so full of shit sometimes you just have to laugh at him.
Our show was a lot of fun. I love floor shows. We had all the kids crowded close in around us in a semi-circle and we blasted through the set. Before we started the set though, we had to wait for Jon who was posing for a picture Meghan was taking of him, licking his pick and doing his best metal pose. I look over at Andy who is just sat there shaking his head, “Fucking circus...” he grumbles. It was pretty fucking hot in there and my cold is still holding firm, meaning I had a steady mix of sweat and snot streaming from me the entire set. Didn't really bother me that much at the time though.
At one point during the set, I almost hit some young kid in the face with my guitar by accident. I just caught him out of the corner of my eye backing off mouthing, “Whoooaa!” I felt bad and whilst playing grabbed his hand to let him know it was an accident and I was sorry. He just held onto my hand, pulled his camera out with other and took a photo of us, both rocking out. It was a nice moment.
A couple of times during the show I noticed Andy kind of pointing one of his drum sticks in the air mid beat, almost like he was dancing whilst playing. Fucking hell, I thought to myself, he's having a good time! It was only when I belted the headstock of my guitar on the low ceiling of the room that I understood he was actually trying to warn me. My stomach balls jumped into my throat for a split second, but luckily the guitar was unscathed. That would have been a shitter!
After the show we chilled out for a while on the back porch/veranda area. It had just started to rain as we were thinking about loading the van. Big fucking balls of rain too. We decided to wait a while and instead hung out with Mark and some of the other kids at the show. I got chatting to a guy called Wes for a while who was really friendly. We hung out for a good twenty minutes talking about music and the scene. He was really interested in Europe, which I tend to find a lot of the people I meet on these tours are.
When the rain shower had subsided we decided to pack the and head back to Meghan's place in Philly. She needs to get home anyway and Philly is pretty much exactly half way to tomorrow's show in Baltimore, so it makes sense. We had toyed with the idea of staying around here and going to the beach tomorrow, which would have been nice but we'll have a day of in Richmond on Saturday and there will be plenty of opportunity to go swimming then since we'll be hanging out at the Best Friends Day Fest which on Saturday is at the lake.
As we were packing the van, the young kid who'd I'd almost hit with my guitar came up and asked for another photo. He introduced himself to me as Nishad. He told me he thought I was a really good guitar player, to which Matt and I laughed out loud. We got some more photos and stood around chatting for a while. Nishad was a funny kid, he just stood there firing questions at us as we packed the van. At one point Jon comes over, dressed in his new leather vest complete with side-laces that he purchased a couple of days ago, and Nishad just breaks off from whatever he was asking me at the time and tells Jon, “You look just like my dad, but skinnier and with better hair!” Matt and I almost fall over laughing.
As if just to piss on our onions, the miserable bartender comes over to us wearing a face like a smacked arse and moans at us, “Seriously guys, are you just leaving your garbage behind you?” referring to the two empty merch boxes still in the room. Matt curtly informs him that we're not done packing yet and that he should chill out. He just walks off, just as miserable as when he came. Andy walks into the venue, picks up the two empty merch boxes that are on the floor about one foot away from the rubbish bin and places them in said bin. As if that miserable bartender cunt couldn't have just done that himself! He'd rather take an extra two minutes out of his night just to come and complain. Some people have miserable lives.
Later still:
The weather is starting to resemble the summer as you'd expect it. Blue skies, hot in the shade. We picked up some breakfast from a local diner in Milford this morning. Two eggs, sunny side up please. The lady who served us was a pretty sweet woman. It's always embarrassing going through the motions when they clock you're a band, not that hard I guess, and then they start asking you what kind of music you play and what the name is and all that crap. It's the same expression on the face every time when you tell them...vacant.
We've been listening to some good stuff in the van these last few days. Tom Petty, Maiden, Roky Erickson, The Police...who the fuck needs to listen to hardcore in the van all day when it's all you here all night? Not me. Funny though, for the most part Andy sits in the back with his headphones on.
We've only got a couple of hours drive today, so of course, we're going to an outlet centre. Johan and Andy really like to shop! After that we'll head on over to the venue for around six pm. We're right on the coast tonight and there is talk of crashing at one of Matt's friends places near here tonight and then spending a few hours at the beach of the Jersey Shore tomorrow. I'm hoping this is going to happen.
Matt has just let it slip that he has to take his shirt off when he takes a shit, no matter where he is. I almost just coughed up a lung when he let that one go! Upon obvious further enquiries he told us that the reason for this strange behaviour is that when he was a kid growing up with his sisters, he used to wear their long night-shirts around the house a lot since he didn't have much of his own stuff. Once when he went to do a shit the night-shirt he was wearing dropped down into the toilet and he shat all over it, although he didn't realise this until he'd walked out of the bog. Since then he's had a mental barrier when it comes to dropping his guts that means he has to take his shirt off. Superb.
Later:
We went to the outlet store. We were there for a few hours shopping. No, let me correct that. Johan and Andy were. I picked up a pair of Vans within ten minutes, looked at a pair of jeans, decided I would save my money on tour for records and leave the shopping until Jenny comes over at the end of this tour when we have a few days in New York, got some fish and chips from a cheesy food court, took a couple of turns on a rather brutal massage chair, and then headed back to the van with Matt, Jon and Meghan forty minutes later. We sat around on the tarmac by the van in the half empty parking lot for an hour or so. It was actually really relaxing. I restrung my guitar and then we lay around, using bags as pillows, chatting away about everything and nothing.
We've just turned up at the venue. Strange place. The sign at the side of the country highway the venue is just off of says The Loyal Order of the Moose. It is decorated with numerous American flags and there are two old bearded guys loitering around on the porch, looking over at the van. Fuck knows what this gig is going to be like.. Never played a veterans lodge before. It's not that uncommon though, according to Matt. Matt knows the promoter tonight and tells us he always puts on good shows. That is definitely reassuring! If we didn't know anything about the promoter tonight I'd be worried.
Since we're a bit early, Johan has suggested we go do some shopping at the Target that we passed just down the road. There actually is fuck all to do so we may as well. I think I saw a liquor store somewhere too...
Later:
This show was how last night's show could have been, should have been maybe. The promoter, Mark was a really funny guy, looked like he could have been in Annihilation Time. He must be one of the few people on this planet that has a moustache that Matt actually trusts. There were a few other people involved in the setting up the show who were all really enthusiastic, doing their best to give the kids here some shows to go to. It's so good to see young people involved in keeping the scene going in these remote parts of the world.
The show was set up in the back room of the bar in the lodge, just a square room with bare walls, kinda looked like an empty classroom. There was probably around forty to fifty kids at the show, which was more than enough to make fill the room out nicely. Not bad for Brick, New Jersey. Anyone here tonight would have had to have got here by car since it's in the middle of nowhere.
Out the back of the venue was a parking lot and some beer garden type area. We spent most of the night either hanging out by the van, drinking a some pre-show beer or in the bar playing what I can only describe as table-top curling. Above it was a huge mounted moose head which was a bit strange. The game was good fun, although the bar was a bit shady. The bartender was a large, jock looking guy who barely registered my presence when I ordered a couple of Yeungling's for me and Johan. Ignorant cunt. Do you still really have to tip for that in this country? Even when the service is that piss poor? I left him a couple of dollars tip and immediately hated myself for doing so when he just snatched them up from the bar and threw them in his jar, not a thank you in sight. This guy either hates us punk kids or maybe he doesn't like foreigners. Mark the promoter told me that the people at the lodge are always really cool with them putting shows on here but this bartender guy isn't convincing me.
There was another weird jock guy who was stoating about the room all night bothering people. He was either pissed drunk or a couple of sarnies short of a lunch box but either way he was getting on my tits. He obviously wasn't here for the show, I think he belonged to the lodge... He'd helped put up a tarpaulin over the veranda out back since the constant lightning flashing in the sky out over the ocean was threatening to bring a shit load of rain our way. Apparently whilst he was doing this he'd split his shorts right up the crack. He spent the entire night explaining this to anyone who would listen, and then when he was done he would ask for a safety pin. He was shocked that not one person there had a safety pin to loan him, since we were all punks and all. He must have asked me for a safety pin on at least six different occasions during the evening...
I only really saw the first band tonight, who were called Teen Wolves. They were pretty cool too. They had this girl screaming down the mic over some really fast, japcore/scando style punk rock. Good times. The other bands I heard from the parking lot out back. The third band did a lot of covers, one of which being a pretty good version of Police Story. Jon started giving me his usual bullshit about having no respect for Black Flag. Of course I bit. Of course he continued to bait until it got as far as him saying he actually hates Black Flag. He is so full of shit sometimes you just have to laugh at him.
Our show was a lot of fun. I love floor shows. We had all the kids crowded close in around us in a semi-circle and we blasted through the set. Before we started the set though, we had to wait for Jon who was posing for a picture Meghan was taking of him, licking his pick and doing his best metal pose. I look over at Andy who is just sat there shaking his head, “Fucking circus...” he grumbles. It was pretty fucking hot in there and my cold is still holding firm, meaning I had a steady mix of sweat and snot streaming from me the entire set. Didn't really bother me that much at the time though.
At one point during the set, I almost hit some young kid in the face with my guitar by accident. I just caught him out of the corner of my eye backing off mouthing, “Whoooaa!” I felt bad and whilst playing grabbed his hand to let him know it was an accident and I was sorry. He just held onto my hand, pulled his camera out with other and took a photo of us, both rocking out. It was a nice moment.
A couple of times during the show I noticed Andy kind of pointing one of his drum sticks in the air mid beat, almost like he was dancing whilst playing. Fucking hell, I thought to myself, he's having a good time! It was only when I belted the headstock of my guitar on the low ceiling of the room that I understood he was actually trying to warn me. My stomach balls jumped into my throat for a split second, but luckily the guitar was unscathed. That would have been a shitter!
After the show we chilled out for a while on the back porch/veranda area. It had just started to rain as we were thinking about loading the van. Big fucking balls of rain too. We decided to wait a while and instead hung out with Mark and some of the other kids at the show. I got chatting to a guy called Wes for a while who was really friendly. We hung out for a good twenty minutes talking about music and the scene. He was really interested in Europe, which I tend to find a lot of the people I meet on these tours are.
When the rain shower had subsided we decided to pack the and head back to Meghan's place in Philly. She needs to get home anyway and Philly is pretty much exactly half way to tomorrow's show in Baltimore, so it makes sense. We had toyed with the idea of staying around here and going to the beach tomorrow, which would have been nice but we'll have a day of in Richmond on Saturday and there will be plenty of opportunity to go swimming then since we'll be hanging out at the Best Friends Day Fest which on Saturday is at the lake.
As we were packing the van, the young kid who'd I'd almost hit with my guitar came up and asked for another photo. He introduced himself to me as Nishad. He told me he thought I was a really good guitar player, to which Matt and I laughed out loud. We got some more photos and stood around chatting for a while. Nishad was a funny kid, he just stood there firing questions at us as we packed the van. At one point Jon comes over, dressed in his new leather vest complete with side-laces that he purchased a couple of days ago, and Nishad just breaks off from whatever he was asking me at the time and tells Jon, “You look just like my dad, but skinnier and with better hair!” Matt and I almost fall over laughing.
As if just to piss on our onions, the miserable bartender comes over to us wearing a face like a smacked arse and moans at us, “Seriously guys, are you just leaving your garbage behind you?” referring to the two empty merch boxes still in the room. Matt curtly informs him that we're not done packing yet and that he should chill out. He just walks off, just as miserable as when he came. Andy walks into the venue, picks up the two empty merch boxes that are on the floor about one foot away from the rubbish bin and places them in said bin. As if that miserable bartender cunt couldn't have just done that himself! He'd rather take an extra two minutes out of his night just to come and complain. Some people have miserable lives.
Later still:
We just got back to Philly. Greg had been playing records at a bar tonight and we picked him up on the way home. If it had been earlier I would have been up for going in for a drink, but as it was I'd been sleeping on the back seat of the van and felt pretty groggy when we'd arrived. Nice to be in a bed again tonight. We got back to the house and a friend of the Greghans, a big guy called Chubbs, had turned up. Quite a fellow. Pretty fucking steamboats! Nice guy but my tired, groggy head couldn't handle it. I sipped on a glass of red wine that I really didn't need before sneaking off to bed. The air conditioning is in full effect tonight and it's wonderfully cold in this room. Three thirty am. Alarm set for ten. Looking forward to a good nights sleep.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Wallingford
In the van driving towards Wallingford via New Haven to pick up our friend Meghan, who is going to hang out for another couple of days. Jon is currently proclaiming that he's never heard Ride The Lightning that is blasting out of the stereo. He's full of shit!
I woke up this morning with my head adjacent to Johan's and Andy's feet in my face and the sun shining through the window. It was only seven thirty am. Four hours sleep. That sofa was so comfortable though that I didn't even mind. I just lay there for the next hour and a half needing a piss but not having the want or will to get up to relieve myself. Funny how sleep is way less significant in the scheme of what my body needs when it's on tour. A mere four hours of sleep at home would leave me fucked but today I feel fine. Feel bad for Matt sleeping out in his van, when I finally do give in and get up for a piss I happen to notice the van out in the driveway, the sun blasting in on Matt's face. Looks hot in there. He's been sleeping in that van of his for so many years now though that it's second nature to him.
I woke up this morning with my head adjacent to Johan's and Andy's feet in my face and the sun shining through the window. It was only seven thirty am. Four hours sleep. That sofa was so comfortable though that I didn't even mind. I just lay there for the next hour and a half needing a piss but not having the want or will to get up to relieve myself. Funny how sleep is way less significant in the scheme of what my body needs when it's on tour. A mere four hours of sleep at home would leave me fucked but today I feel fine. Feel bad for Matt sleeping out in his van, when I finally do give in and get up for a piss I happen to notice the van out in the driveway, the sun blasting in on Matt's face. Looks hot in there. He's been sleeping in that van of his for so many years now though that it's second nature to him.
We all slowly grumbled into life and sat around watching classic American tv comedy shows like Cheers and Frasier. Andy and Johan were in that mood this morning where they thought it was really fun to annoy me. Poking and prodding me just to get a reaction. And I react every time as well they know it. Twats! I was therefore totally chuffed that I was the only one out of the lot of us this morning to figure out how to get hot water from the shower. Andy had taken an ice cold shower before me, Johan had washed himself down by the sink, again with cold water and I spent a relaxing fifteen minutes enjoying my steaming hot shower. As I said, chuffed!
We sat around in the kitchen for a while drinking coffee with Christina before getting in the Mattmobile for another day of touring the US of A. The sun is shining brightly in a bright blue sky. My throat is still sore but I'll try and get some pills for that today.
Matt is currently on a cheeky mission, taking calls from Erik Larsson on how to continue to annoy Milosz over his haircut... It really is like listening to two mischievous kids in the school yard. I love it.
Later:
At the club now. Last time we were here we played with Kylesa. It was a good show although there weren't that many people. Always fun watching Kylesa though. The venue is an old train station that is now a punk venue. It's pretty small and it's carpeted throughout making the place incredibly hot. Andy is also starting to feel pretty bad with the cold now, so that's two of us and counting. I'm sure it's coming to us all. Tried to beat if off with both hot Mexican food and a couple of games of bowling but it hasn't really worked...Jon was happy with his new ball though. He was pretty happy with his blur margarita too! I am absolutely terrible at bowling! Pool was always my thing when I was a kid. Jon looks like he should terrible, he has a fascinating style of throwing that fucking ball of his, he's actually pretty good though. Andy is a fascinating one though, he claims he doesn't like sport yet he's really fucking good at it! Annoys me.
Earlier on we took a trip to New Haven to pick up Meghan from the train station. We were there a little early so we took a look at Yale University and went to a record shop, as well as all the old haunts that Matt and his friends used to go to punk shows when they were kids growing up here. It's a very picturesque place, although there is a definite whiff of snobbery in the air. Not so strange I suppose since the city is based around a university that costs two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to attend!
I felt like a right are earlier. We were walking around the record shop and I found a copy of the Steve Miller and lo I've been looking for. Upon reaching the counter where the old lady who ran the store was stood it occurred to me that I was wearing the Furnace t-shirt I acquired yesterday. It's a quite a snazzy blue t-shirt, just my colour, but it has a line drawing of a dude with his cock out, taking a piss, the piss spelling Furnace. I became very conscious of this in front of this old woman, mainly since she was looking at me like a was a piece of filth, and not too subtly folded my arms across my chest, trying to cover up what I could of the image.
This show tonight is going to be a tough one. Do not feel good at all. Even load in, which isn't very much, was a struggle. The first band has a synth guitar keyboard thing that is pretty wacky. Should be interesting...
Interesting fact: Wallingford is the official home of the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Connecticut.
Later still:
What a difference twenty four hours makes. Last night we played to around one hundred and fifty people, tonight we had twenty paying customers and some members of the other bands that played before us. It was always one of the more doubtful dates on this tour though, even when we played here supporting Kylesa there were only around forty through the door. Most of the people here tonight were actually friends, Meghan, the guys from Oil Tanker, Jim who runs Vex Records with Matt and our old friend Grizzly. The room was small enough though, and it was a fun show all the same.
Grizzly turned up just as we were about to play, which brought a big smile to my face. We met the last time we were here. Grizzly used to live next door to Matt in Waterbury, and at the start of the last tour we stayed there for a few days. After the Kylesa show, we had a Victims/Kylesa party at Matt's place and me and Grizzly had “the night”. You know, the one where if you're a guy and a girl you stay up talking all night and fall in love. Well, my wife was sleeping in the spare room, and me and the Griz didn't get it on, but we sat up until six am, long after everyone else had gone to bed, drinking whisky and talking about life, love and loss, putting the world to rights. We've stayed in touch ever since. I gave him a big wet kiss on the forehead and then we blasted into the start of the set.
We played pretty well, and despite the germs dripping out of every orifice, I managed to gain some energy from somewhere. It wasn't the tightest show we've ever played but it was ok. I broke a string right at the end, just as we were playing the encore of Scars that we would not have bothered with in all honesty, had it not been for Grizzly shouting about the fact that he'd rushed here from work thirty minutes in his car to see us. It would have been preposterous to stand there changing a string for a minute though, so I just ploughed through without. It sounded shite to be fair, but neither Grizzly or any of the other twenty audience members seemed to care as they were bashing into one another.
We sat around after the show, drinking a couple of good beers and chilling out, the sweat and grime pissing out of me for a while. Jon's foot seems to be in a bad way, it's swollen up like a fucking tennis ball. Bowling ball maybe? He said it's not causing him pain which is weird. It doesn't look good. The only possible explanation for it can be the fall that he and China took the other night in Philly during the From Ashes show. Still crack up thinking about that! Well have to get Jon some medicine for that tomorrow though.
The band that played right before us tonight, Northless from Wisconsin, were really great. Really heavy, slow discordant stuff. I stood there watching them without about fifteen other people and they fucking tore the place up. I love seeing bands play that well to small crowds. I love being part of that crowd too. They were a terrific bunch of lads too, I hope the rest of their tour goes well for them.
When we turned up tonight, a young kid in the first band came up to us as we were loading in and told us he was really “pumped” to be playing with us tonight. Poor bastard was my first thought. He was a really friendly looking young kid. I just wanted to give him a hug. We must have looked like a right bunch of rock star cunts to them, because when they played their show at seven thirty, the first of five bands, most of us where sat out in the beer garden drinking cold, draught Anchor Steam, (amazing how just one beer can take the fight to the cold bug raging through the system), and didn't even they were playing their set. Andy told me later than when they started playing their set, Johan was spread out with his feet up on the sofa at the back of the small room where our merch was, and that Andy himself was the only person watching their set. The problem is Andy thought they were just sound checking and walked out after a couple of songs, leaving the room empty. Sorry guys.
We were actually sat around in the beer garden making our own entertainment at the time. As we were sat at one of the wooden tables out in the yard, Matt noticed some weird stick insect thing, creeping across the table. I asked Matt what it was. He thought it was a cricket but decided to take a closer inspection. He's bent over the table looking at this fucking thing and it starts creeping across the table towards him. Literally a split second after Matt says, “Whatever it is, it likes me”, the insect jumps into flight and straight into the hole in the crotch of his tight jeans, right in Biffins Bridge! He jumps up, shitting himself as we all piss ourselves laughing. I almost spit my beer out as Matt struggles to get this thing out of his kecks, “Whoa, there's my balls...”
Even though there were only twenty paying through the door tonight, we still sold an ok amount of merchandise. Johan had been concerned before the show that we were going to beat our friends Nine's record. Apparently they'd played a show once with Disfear and Entombed, somewhere in northern Spain, where they lugged all of their merchandise into the venue, only to sell a solitary pin badge the entire night and lug it all back out again. In Johan's words, “Fucking humiliating! I'd rather sell nothing at all than just one single pin!”
We decided to check ourselves into a roadside motel tonight. We had offers from our friends in Oil Tanker and also Big Jim, but with most of starting to come down with the cold, we decided we could afford it and the rest would be worth it. Matt of course, slept in his van, but not before he'd snuck the six of us into the one twin room. We took it in turns to head up to the room with our bags, all very hush hush in the middle of the night. Thanks Road Warrior!
Now in bed with Johan's snoring ass beside me. Heaven...
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Boston
Sat in the van driving towards Boston, listening to Somewhere In Time. Everyone is in good spirits. It has stopped raining although there are clouds looming in the sky. It's still hot though. We should make the most of it really, by the time we get down to Richmond this weekend it's going to be in the thirties.
Jon is like a kid on Christmas Day today. He's been carrying his new balling ball around with him on this tour, the hole-less one he bought online. Today we went to something the bowling geeks I believe call a Pro-Shop to get his ball costumed drilled to fit his fingers. The old guy who ran this specialist store, in a town just outside of Albany called Latham, was a Hall of Famer, and quite a character as well. He was seventy seven years old and in fine form, despite having had a stroke a few years back. Jon had been looking forward to this since he'd looked him up last night on-line. As we were getting ready to go this morning when Matt, who always sleeps in his van, had come into the house to move us along, Jon had been fretting over what shirt to wear. He wanted to be at his smartest for this old bowling pro. He was asking Matt for advice on what shirt to wear, which Matt thought was great. Matt really loves Jon.
Anyway, we walked into this store with Jon to see what it was all about. The old guy, Bob, was an absolute classic. Watching him and Jon interact was like watching two old men converse. Old Bob was quite the master with the drill, he really knew his shit. Apparently he's had articles published nationally on this stuff. Jon was in absolute heaven. At one point, Matt and I were stood hovering nearby as Bob went about his job, Jon bouncing all over the shop like an overexcited kid. Bob looks up at me and Matt whilst talking to Jon, confused to find that Jon is longer standing where he had been just seconds before and barks at me and Matt, “Where did he go?! I want to talk to him”. Jon was behind him, carrying on talking to Bob obliviously. Bob refuses to turn around though and jut continues to bark at Matt and me, “I want to talk to him but I can't see him!” If you've ever seen Twin Peaks and you know the character that David Lynch plays, the deaf cop, then you'd know what I mean when I say Bob spoke just like that character, accent and all. Anyway, me and Matt apologisingly beg his pardon, before walking away to another part of the shop in order to conceal the fact the fact we're wheezing with laughter. Great old guy.
The whole process took a little over an hour, Jon quickly becoming best friends with old Bob as the rest of us went and picked up some Starbucks coffee/tea. Before we left we took some pictures with Jon and a now broadly smiling Bob. Jon looked close to tears. As we got back in the van Jon was so grateful for us taking the time to do this. The smile on his face was more than worth the time out of our day.
I slept really soundly last night, a real proper nights sleep. Jay had provided us with the materials to make ourselves a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and his room mate, another really sweet guy, made us all coffee. Johan told me that he got up during the night for a piss and found Jon sleeping on the bog. When Johan woke him up, Jon just stares up and proclaims he's taking a piss. Haha brilliant! This morning Jon claims that he must have been sleep walking...Andy tells me later that when he'd been up himself in the middle of the night to relive himself, he found Jon sat upright, asleep on the couch, a Corrosion of Conformity video blasting out of the tv...
Today we're dropping in to the Deathwish offices to say hello to Jake and the guys and pick up some records and other Victims stuff. After that we're going by Armageddon, the record shop that Ben Drop Dead owns. My mission this tour is that fucking Heresy/Concrete Sox split! Still can't believe I passed that up at Ieper Fest...
The show tonight should be a lot of fun. We played here on the Trap Them/Black Breath tour a couple of years back and it was great. Our good friends Another Breath played the show that night too and they were awesome. We're going to be playing with them on this tour in their home town of Syracuse for what will be their final show ever. It will be an honour to play with them on that night. Tonight Morne are playing with us. I'm looking forward to seeing them. Their main man, Miloz, one of Matt's old friends, is one of the most comically grumpy men you could ever meet. Should be a fun night.
Later:
The show tonight was an absolute blast! The venue is a pretty big bar venue with a long wing heading down to where the stage is located, at the back wall by the bogs. It's a decent sized stage with a good PA. The place was pretty filled out when we played, despite it being eleven thirty on a Tuesday night. I've had a cold coming on all day so I didn't have quite the same energy as last night. My throat has been hurting pretty bad all day and my ribs are aching a little for some reason. Must be getting old... I think we pulled off a good show though and we played tight. It was a receptive crowd too that made us feel very welcome, in this one of the hardcore capitals of the world. I really like Boston.
We had some good bands playing with us tonight. I thought the second band, Furnace, were especially good. They played a discordant style screamo/blast/d-beat style of music, really interesting mix. Two big bearded guys singing and playing bass and guitar respectively. They were unbelievably humble in their ethics too, maybe even over the top. They didn't sell any merch in the venue, they just promoted us and our merch, telling the crowd that we were on tour and that people should buy our merch to help us out. I hung out with the guys after the show and they were very genuine people. I told them that they didn't have to say what they'd said and that I actually wanted some of their merch, that I hadn't been able to find it earlier on in the night, Will, their bass player was just like, “Argh we have some stuff in the van, I can get some stuff for you.” At that, their guitar player went to the van and got me a t-shirt and a split 7” and refused to take any of my money, that I should save my money for food. Amazing people.
It was funny as hell when we turned up to the venue today. We'd been and loaded in and then went to a local bar for some dinner, by the way, I tried one of the Anchor brewery's other beers at this place called Anchor Humming Ale, which was beautiful, anyway, when we got back Milosz and the Morne guys were outside the venue. Matt, who hasn't seen him in a while, goes up to say hello when Miloz takes the trucker cap he's wearing off to unveil a newly clipped hairstyle. Milosz has had really long dreadlocks for as long as anyone has know him and now he's all smart and shit. I thought he looked good, Matt looked horrified! He just stood there staring at him is shock. Great sight to behold.
I didn't really get to hear much of Morne since our merch board was by the entrance and back there the sound didn't carry to well so I couldn't really hear much and it was my turn on the merch. Apparently right before they were about to start, Matt had gone up to Milosz and heckled him about his hair, Milosz just grunted, “Fuck you Matt! Fuck you!” and grumpily got on with the set. From what I could hear, they sounded good. Milosz is definitely a presence on stage.
Milosz was so pissed off with Matt that at the end of the night, when outside saying goodbye to Mark, Matt's old room mate and long time friend, whilst giving Mark a hug and bidding him a friendly farewell, just turns to Matt and says, “Matt, I'm leaving.” in his broad Polish accent and at that just turns away and leaves. You have to love those two, they get pissed at each other the way only two close friends can.
Earlier in the day we'd been made the trip over to the Deathwish offices, about a half hour past Boston from where we'd come. They were all really nice people, and we stuck around for a good while talking with Jake and Trey and the guys. Trey had a really beautiful looking pit-bull called Alabama, who I spent most of my time with whilst I was there, she was so friendly and docile. Made me homesick for Bonzo. We picked up a some Victims merch as well as some other records, nothing like wandering around shelves full of vinyl.
Jake and a couple of the other guys came down to the show tonight too. Always appreciate that kind of support from the people putting your records out. It was funny but directly after the show, Jake came up on stage and gave me a hug and said that he thought we were great and just to say goodbye really, that if there was anything we needed for the rest of the tour just to call him. What was funny was that the young sound engineer who had did our sound for the show was stood picking up leads with his jaw hanging. After Jake had left the kid comes up to me and asks if I was aware of who that was and what an amazing compliment he'd just given us. I guess Jake really is an icon of the scene and rightly so, he's also a genuinely nice guy.
We're now back at Mark's place. It took about a forty minute drive to get here, just about the length of Badmotorfinger. I was the only one who stayed awake for the short trip. I sat in the back, in my usual position in the seat behind the passenger seat where Johan sits, playing air drums to the record watching Johan's head bobbing up, down and all around as he slept. Mark lives in a huge house out in a town called Dracut which is absolutely stunning, that he shares with a few other people, one of them being Christina who sang in Matt and Mark's old band Man The Conveyors. Great people. I'm pretty fucking tired though so I'm getting my head down. They have a huge L-shaped sofa in the living room which is big enough to accommodate myself, Johan and Andy. Jon is taking the floor when he's done drinking beer with Matt and Christina in the kitchen.
Jon is like a kid on Christmas Day today. He's been carrying his new balling ball around with him on this tour, the hole-less one he bought online. Today we went to something the bowling geeks I believe call a Pro-Shop to get his ball costumed drilled to fit his fingers. The old guy who ran this specialist store, in a town just outside of Albany called Latham, was a Hall of Famer, and quite a character as well. He was seventy seven years old and in fine form, despite having had a stroke a few years back. Jon had been looking forward to this since he'd looked him up last night on-line. As we were getting ready to go this morning when Matt, who always sleeps in his van, had come into the house to move us along, Jon had been fretting over what shirt to wear. He wanted to be at his smartest for this old bowling pro. He was asking Matt for advice on what shirt to wear, which Matt thought was great. Matt really loves Jon.
Anyway, we walked into this store with Jon to see what it was all about. The old guy, Bob, was an absolute classic. Watching him and Jon interact was like watching two old men converse. Old Bob was quite the master with the drill, he really knew his shit. Apparently he's had articles published nationally on this stuff. Jon was in absolute heaven. At one point, Matt and I were stood hovering nearby as Bob went about his job, Jon bouncing all over the shop like an overexcited kid. Bob looks up at me and Matt whilst talking to Jon, confused to find that Jon is longer standing where he had been just seconds before and barks at me and Matt, “Where did he go?! I want to talk to him”. Jon was behind him, carrying on talking to Bob obliviously. Bob refuses to turn around though and jut continues to bark at Matt and me, “I want to talk to him but I can't see him!” If you've ever seen Twin Peaks and you know the character that David Lynch plays, the deaf cop, then you'd know what I mean when I say Bob spoke just like that character, accent and all. Anyway, me and Matt apologisingly beg his pardon, before walking away to another part of the shop in order to conceal the fact the fact we're wheezing with laughter. Great old guy.
The whole process took a little over an hour, Jon quickly becoming best friends with old Bob as the rest of us went and picked up some Starbucks coffee/tea. Before we left we took some pictures with Jon and a now broadly smiling Bob. Jon looked close to tears. As we got back in the van Jon was so grateful for us taking the time to do this. The smile on his face was more than worth the time out of our day.
I slept really soundly last night, a real proper nights sleep. Jay had provided us with the materials to make ourselves a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast and his room mate, another really sweet guy, made us all coffee. Johan told me that he got up during the night for a piss and found Jon sleeping on the bog. When Johan woke him up, Jon just stares up and proclaims he's taking a piss. Haha brilliant! This morning Jon claims that he must have been sleep walking...Andy tells me later that when he'd been up himself in the middle of the night to relive himself, he found Jon sat upright, asleep on the couch, a Corrosion of Conformity video blasting out of the tv...
Today we're dropping in to the Deathwish offices to say hello to Jake and the guys and pick up some records and other Victims stuff. After that we're going by Armageddon, the record shop that Ben Drop Dead owns. My mission this tour is that fucking Heresy/Concrete Sox split! Still can't believe I passed that up at Ieper Fest...
The show tonight should be a lot of fun. We played here on the Trap Them/Black Breath tour a couple of years back and it was great. Our good friends Another Breath played the show that night too and they were awesome. We're going to be playing with them on this tour in their home town of Syracuse for what will be their final show ever. It will be an honour to play with them on that night. Tonight Morne are playing with us. I'm looking forward to seeing them. Their main man, Miloz, one of Matt's old friends, is one of the most comically grumpy men you could ever meet. Should be a fun night.
Later:
The show tonight was an absolute blast! The venue is a pretty big bar venue with a long wing heading down to where the stage is located, at the back wall by the bogs. It's a decent sized stage with a good PA. The place was pretty filled out when we played, despite it being eleven thirty on a Tuesday night. I've had a cold coming on all day so I didn't have quite the same energy as last night. My throat has been hurting pretty bad all day and my ribs are aching a little for some reason. Must be getting old... I think we pulled off a good show though and we played tight. It was a receptive crowd too that made us feel very welcome, in this one of the hardcore capitals of the world. I really like Boston.
We had some good bands playing with us tonight. I thought the second band, Furnace, were especially good. They played a discordant style screamo/blast/d-beat style of music, really interesting mix. Two big bearded guys singing and playing bass and guitar respectively. They were unbelievably humble in their ethics too, maybe even over the top. They didn't sell any merch in the venue, they just promoted us and our merch, telling the crowd that we were on tour and that people should buy our merch to help us out. I hung out with the guys after the show and they were very genuine people. I told them that they didn't have to say what they'd said and that I actually wanted some of their merch, that I hadn't been able to find it earlier on in the night, Will, their bass player was just like, “Argh we have some stuff in the van, I can get some stuff for you.” At that, their guitar player went to the van and got me a t-shirt and a split 7” and refused to take any of my money, that I should save my money for food. Amazing people.
It was funny as hell when we turned up to the venue today. We'd been and loaded in and then went to a local bar for some dinner, by the way, I tried one of the Anchor brewery's other beers at this place called Anchor Humming Ale, which was beautiful, anyway, when we got back Milosz and the Morne guys were outside the venue. Matt, who hasn't seen him in a while, goes up to say hello when Miloz takes the trucker cap he's wearing off to unveil a newly clipped hairstyle. Milosz has had really long dreadlocks for as long as anyone has know him and now he's all smart and shit. I thought he looked good, Matt looked horrified! He just stood there staring at him is shock. Great sight to behold.
I didn't really get to hear much of Morne since our merch board was by the entrance and back there the sound didn't carry to well so I couldn't really hear much and it was my turn on the merch. Apparently right before they were about to start, Matt had gone up to Milosz and heckled him about his hair, Milosz just grunted, “Fuck you Matt! Fuck you!” and grumpily got on with the set. From what I could hear, they sounded good. Milosz is definitely a presence on stage.
Milosz was so pissed off with Matt that at the end of the night, when outside saying goodbye to Mark, Matt's old room mate and long time friend, whilst giving Mark a hug and bidding him a friendly farewell, just turns to Matt and says, “Matt, I'm leaving.” in his broad Polish accent and at that just turns away and leaves. You have to love those two, they get pissed at each other the way only two close friends can.
Earlier in the day we'd been made the trip over to the Deathwish offices, about a half hour past Boston from where we'd come. They were all really nice people, and we stuck around for a good while talking with Jake and Trey and the guys. Trey had a really beautiful looking pit-bull called Alabama, who I spent most of my time with whilst I was there, she was so friendly and docile. Made me homesick for Bonzo. We picked up a some Victims merch as well as some other records, nothing like wandering around shelves full of vinyl.
Jake and a couple of the other guys came down to the show tonight too. Always appreciate that kind of support from the people putting your records out. It was funny but directly after the show, Jake came up on stage and gave me a hug and said that he thought we were great and just to say goodbye really, that if there was anything we needed for the rest of the tour just to call him. What was funny was that the young sound engineer who had did our sound for the show was stood picking up leads with his jaw hanging. After Jake had left the kid comes up to me and asks if I was aware of who that was and what an amazing compliment he'd just given us. I guess Jake really is an icon of the scene and rightly so, he's also a genuinely nice guy.
We're now back at Mark's place. It took about a forty minute drive to get here, just about the length of Badmotorfinger. I was the only one who stayed awake for the short trip. I sat in the back, in my usual position in the seat behind the passenger seat where Johan sits, playing air drums to the record watching Johan's head bobbing up, down and all around as he slept. Mark lives in a huge house out in a town called Dracut which is absolutely stunning, that he shares with a few other people, one of them being Christina who sang in Matt and Mark's old band Man The Conveyors. Great people. I'm pretty fucking tired though so I'm getting my head down. They have a huge L-shaped sofa in the living room which is big enough to accommodate myself, Johan and Andy. Jon is taking the floor when he's done drinking beer with Matt and Christina in the kitchen.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Albany
It's absolutely pissing down. Torrential stuff. We can barely see more than ten meters ahead on the road. I've barely ever seen rain like this! And I'm a fucking Englishman! We're literally just passing New York City on the way to Albany. Lightning flashing and thunder overhead, Ghost on the stereo. It's quite cosy really. We just passed the Manhattan skyline to our right a while ago. Looked pretty cool against the gloomy, dark grey sky. Johan is taking photos with his Iphone, trying to capture a picture for our next album cover.
We're still a couple of hours normal driving away from Albany, but it's going to take a lot longer than that in this downpour. It's a later show in a bar tonight though so I don't think there is any real stress. This will be the first show of the tour that is our own. I've never been to Albany before. I have no idea what to expect, although Matt is in optimistic mood. Despite the rain...
We've been listening to Johan's new band that he has together with Uffe and Marcus from Disfear, called Svält. They've recorded four songs at Stefan Henry Fiat's studio in Stockholm. I'd previously only heard them without vocals a while back when we were at Stachel's place. It's now mixed and mastered and the vocals are all done. It sounds stunning. Heavy as fuck. Looking forward to getting the vinyl of that when it comes out.
A while back we passed a flash warning sign on the motorway. It read SILVER WARNING and then on the line below had the model of a car and a registration number. Matt told us that this is a warning to other motorists to look out for the car on the road and call it into the police if sighted. A silver warning is apparently code for a kidnapping, meaning that car has a kidnapped child on board. What does that say when something that horrible happens so often that they have a specific warning code on motorways for it? It's a weird country that's for sure.
Fuck this rain really is something else. Looking forward to getting to Albany.
Later:
We're going to get to this show pretty late tonight. We're hitting storm after storm. We turned west off the New Jersey Turnpike and away from the storm we were in there, only to drive head on into another. Matt just said that he drove with a band through a tropical storm in Louisiana last year and this rain right now is worse than then...I'm guessing that's not good.
We called ahead to the club and they didn't seem too stressed. They told us they'll have food waiting for us when we get there, and weed if we want it, which we don't. I appreciate their relaxed attitude all the same though.
Later still:
We got to the show just around eight pm. The bar, Valentines, was a little drinking hole with an area at the back end with a small stage. There were a few people hanging around outside when we pulled up. The rain had finally stopped, although it was evident that Albany had seen it's fair share today. We loaded in through the front door, set up merchandise and tucked into the vegan stew the promoter had made for us. The promoter, Jay, a really big, tough looking guy, although really friendly in nature, seemed to be hoping we'd smoke weed with him. No thanks man. They did have some really nice beers on tap though and the barmaid was super friendly. I bought myself and Johan a pint of the local IPA. What else?
As we had been driving around the venue looking for a place to park, Matt told us a pretty funny story about Andy from Sista Sekunden, who he'd driven on tour over here a while ago. Apparently they were pulling out of Chicago one early morning, the guys all in the back sitting quietly, Andy up front with Matt. The silence in the van was eventually broken when Andy raised the question, “Hey Map,” as Andy always called Matt, “What do you think the people will be doing today?”. As Matt looked at Andy in total confusion, pondering how to tackle this question, Andy then turns his attention back to the side of the road and then exclaims, “Ahh! I see two ducks!”. With this Andy just goes back to silently staring out of the window. The guys in the back all pissed themselves laughing whilst Matt, who is a pretty straight up guy, looked on bemused. Fuck knows what Andy was on that day? As far as I know he's straight...
The turnout for the show tonight wasn't huge, but it was ok for a wet Monday night in Albany. I've heard that Albany has a small but tight-knit scene. We had about fifty kids here tonight. There were four bands on the bill, the first being Jay's own band, the second were a female fronted band who were pretty full on, she had a piercing shrill voice. I thought they were pretty cool. The third band on the bill were guys we'd played with before, albeit in their old band Iron Hand. This band is called Oil Tanker and they play crusty d-beat, very full on. Their guitarist, Upton, is this black kid with dreadlocks who destroys on the guitar. Awesome. They're all old friends of Matt's from Connecticut. I stood in the crowd with Matt and really enjoyed the show. They even threw in a cover of a song by one of Matt's old band, The Total End. Matt looked pretty stoked.
And then it was our turn. As Oil Tanker did, we also set up on the floor in front of the low stage. It was around eleven by the time we started. The fifty or so people who were there were gathered around us in semi circle, but keeping their distance. The thing with me is that the more room you give me, the more I'm going to throw my guitar around like a tit. I went fucking crazy during this show and somehow kept it up during the entire set. There is a certain atmosphere from shows like this that bring out these performances in me. It's almost like, the less the crowd moves, the more I do. At one point I clipped Johan headstock with the headstock on my new Gibson SG and I think I put it into the PA speaker grill a short while later. As soon as I did that I thought to myself that I should calm the fuck down. Acting like this probably isn't the best idea since the crowd just moved further and further back, although at points they did start moving and then I left the space to them. I don't mean to act this way, it's just a reaction. Anyway, all in all, the show was good fun. It was pretty stuffy in there, and I was dripping with sweat by the time we were done.
After the show was over, I went and sat behind the stage by the entrance to the toilets. A guy, who introduced himself to me as John, told me that I hit him in the balls with my guitar. I told him that I was very sorry about that but he told me it was no problem at all. We then sat there for a while talking afterwards. Really nice guy.
After the show I hung out with Paul, the Oil Tanker bass player, drinking a beer by the merch stall. Pretty slow night for merch tonight and the pay wasn't huge from the door, but that's the way it is over here sometimes. Matt said the other day it's getting harder and harder. Anyway, Paul is a really good guy and it was fun hanging out for a while. He gesticulates a lot when he talks and at one point he knocked his beer over, spilling onto our records, although there was no really damage. He felt bad but it wasn't a problem.
You could tell it was Monday night since as soon as we were done the place just emptied. After we loaded out we sat around and drank a beer with the staff at the bar who were all really friendly. Jay the promoter was asking me about what's being going on the UK with the riots, he was genuinely interested. I didn't really have that much to tell him although the more we spoke about it the more wound up I was getting. I guess it's been big news everywhere since John from From Ashes was asking me the same thing yesterday.
We are sleeping at Jay's place tonight. We've been sitting around watching an old Sheer Terror video from 89' or something. The need for sleep is hitting me pretty hard now. I felt drunk after three beers tonight. I guess I haven't really eaten a whole lot today and I only slept for four hours last night. I feel really bad because Jay is such a nice guy offering us this hospitality, but he has a couple of really long haired cats and I'm super allergic. I go to bed down in the large room at the front of the house, which has a full size pool table in it. Jay has lent me a sleeping bag, and I've doubled that over to cushion my back from the hard floor beneath. There is a huge ball of cat hair under the pool table. Andy and I debate asking Jay if we may hoover the floor but decide that would be rude.
It's surprisingly comfortable on this hard floor. Jon is in the sitting room, playing that Sheer Terror video stupidly loud and drinking whiskey with Jay and his friend Pete. Johan has joined us in this room now and has just told Jon to turn it down. Thanks for that pappa. Just what I was thinking. Going to sleep now.
We're still a couple of hours normal driving away from Albany, but it's going to take a lot longer than that in this downpour. It's a later show in a bar tonight though so I don't think there is any real stress. This will be the first show of the tour that is our own. I've never been to Albany before. I have no idea what to expect, although Matt is in optimistic mood. Despite the rain...
We've been listening to Johan's new band that he has together with Uffe and Marcus from Disfear, called Svält. They've recorded four songs at Stefan Henry Fiat's studio in Stockholm. I'd previously only heard them without vocals a while back when we were at Stachel's place. It's now mixed and mastered and the vocals are all done. It sounds stunning. Heavy as fuck. Looking forward to getting the vinyl of that when it comes out.
A while back we passed a flash warning sign on the motorway. It read SILVER WARNING and then on the line below had the model of a car and a registration number. Matt told us that this is a warning to other motorists to look out for the car on the road and call it into the police if sighted. A silver warning is apparently code for a kidnapping, meaning that car has a kidnapped child on board. What does that say when something that horrible happens so often that they have a specific warning code on motorways for it? It's a weird country that's for sure.
Fuck this rain really is something else. Looking forward to getting to Albany.
Later:
We're going to get to this show pretty late tonight. We're hitting storm after storm. We turned west off the New Jersey Turnpike and away from the storm we were in there, only to drive head on into another. Matt just said that he drove with a band through a tropical storm in Louisiana last year and this rain right now is worse than then...I'm guessing that's not good.
We called ahead to the club and they didn't seem too stressed. They told us they'll have food waiting for us when we get there, and weed if we want it, which we don't. I appreciate their relaxed attitude all the same though.
Later still:
We got to the show just around eight pm. The bar, Valentines, was a little drinking hole with an area at the back end with a small stage. There were a few people hanging around outside when we pulled up. The rain had finally stopped, although it was evident that Albany had seen it's fair share today. We loaded in through the front door, set up merchandise and tucked into the vegan stew the promoter had made for us. The promoter, Jay, a really big, tough looking guy, although really friendly in nature, seemed to be hoping we'd smoke weed with him. No thanks man. They did have some really nice beers on tap though and the barmaid was super friendly. I bought myself and Johan a pint of the local IPA. What else?
As we had been driving around the venue looking for a place to park, Matt told us a pretty funny story about Andy from Sista Sekunden, who he'd driven on tour over here a while ago. Apparently they were pulling out of Chicago one early morning, the guys all in the back sitting quietly, Andy up front with Matt. The silence in the van was eventually broken when Andy raised the question, “Hey Map,” as Andy always called Matt, “What do you think the people will be doing today?”. As Matt looked at Andy in total confusion, pondering how to tackle this question, Andy then turns his attention back to the side of the road and then exclaims, “Ahh! I see two ducks!”. With this Andy just goes back to silently staring out of the window. The guys in the back all pissed themselves laughing whilst Matt, who is a pretty straight up guy, looked on bemused. Fuck knows what Andy was on that day? As far as I know he's straight...
The turnout for the show tonight wasn't huge, but it was ok for a wet Monday night in Albany. I've heard that Albany has a small but tight-knit scene. We had about fifty kids here tonight. There were four bands on the bill, the first being Jay's own band, the second were a female fronted band who were pretty full on, she had a piercing shrill voice. I thought they were pretty cool. The third band on the bill were guys we'd played with before, albeit in their old band Iron Hand. This band is called Oil Tanker and they play crusty d-beat, very full on. Their guitarist, Upton, is this black kid with dreadlocks who destroys on the guitar. Awesome. They're all old friends of Matt's from Connecticut. I stood in the crowd with Matt and really enjoyed the show. They even threw in a cover of a song by one of Matt's old band, The Total End. Matt looked pretty stoked.
And then it was our turn. As Oil Tanker did, we also set up on the floor in front of the low stage. It was around eleven by the time we started. The fifty or so people who were there were gathered around us in semi circle, but keeping their distance. The thing with me is that the more room you give me, the more I'm going to throw my guitar around like a tit. I went fucking crazy during this show and somehow kept it up during the entire set. There is a certain atmosphere from shows like this that bring out these performances in me. It's almost like, the less the crowd moves, the more I do. At one point I clipped Johan headstock with the headstock on my new Gibson SG and I think I put it into the PA speaker grill a short while later. As soon as I did that I thought to myself that I should calm the fuck down. Acting like this probably isn't the best idea since the crowd just moved further and further back, although at points they did start moving and then I left the space to them. I don't mean to act this way, it's just a reaction. Anyway, all in all, the show was good fun. It was pretty stuffy in there, and I was dripping with sweat by the time we were done.
After the show was over, I went and sat behind the stage by the entrance to the toilets. A guy, who introduced himself to me as John, told me that I hit him in the balls with my guitar. I told him that I was very sorry about that but he told me it was no problem at all. We then sat there for a while talking afterwards. Really nice guy.
After the show I hung out with Paul, the Oil Tanker bass player, drinking a beer by the merch stall. Pretty slow night for merch tonight and the pay wasn't huge from the door, but that's the way it is over here sometimes. Matt said the other day it's getting harder and harder. Anyway, Paul is a really good guy and it was fun hanging out for a while. He gesticulates a lot when he talks and at one point he knocked his beer over, spilling onto our records, although there was no really damage. He felt bad but it wasn't a problem.
You could tell it was Monday night since as soon as we were done the place just emptied. After we loaded out we sat around and drank a beer with the staff at the bar who were all really friendly. Jay the promoter was asking me about what's being going on the UK with the riots, he was genuinely interested. I didn't really have that much to tell him although the more we spoke about it the more wound up I was getting. I guess it's been big news everywhere since John from From Ashes was asking me the same thing yesterday.
We are sleeping at Jay's place tonight. We've been sitting around watching an old Sheer Terror video from 89' or something. The need for sleep is hitting me pretty hard now. I felt drunk after three beers tonight. I guess I haven't really eaten a whole lot today and I only slept for four hours last night. I feel really bad because Jay is such a nice guy offering us this hospitality, but he has a couple of really long haired cats and I'm super allergic. I go to bed down in the large room at the front of the house, which has a full size pool table in it. Jay has lent me a sleeping bag, and I've doubled that over to cushion my back from the hard floor beneath. There is a huge ball of cat hair under the pool table. Andy and I debate asking Jay if we may hoover the floor but decide that would be rude.
It's surprisingly comfortable on this hard floor. Jon is in the sitting room, playing that Sheer Terror video stupidly loud and drinking whiskey with Jay and his friend Pete. Johan has joined us in this room now and has just told Jon to turn it down. Thanks for that pappa. Just what I was thinking. Going to sleep now.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Philadelphia
We're in the van heading towards Albany in up-state New York. We've just been doing some shopping in a Wall Mart somewhere just outside of Philadelphia. Shopping with Victims is like shopping with a gang of old ladies. After a while Matt gave up and went and sat in the van, and we still took another forty five minutes... The journey today should take around four hours but now the chances of getting stuck in New York City traffic have significantly increased. We were only supposed to be buying socks and pillows for Christ sakes!
Quote of the day, Jon: "If I buy these shorts am I a sell out?"
Yesterday was a really good day. It was a long day but it was a lot of fun. Two very different kind of shows.
I got a good sleep at the Greghans as they are collectively known. We had breakfast together at a diner somewhere in south Philly. Classic American. I ordered eggs on toast in a cheese mustard sauce with a side salad and a large cup of coffee. The “side” salad was insanely big and I was hardly able to make a dent in it. I love the coffee in the States. It's as weak as piss and you can drink bucket loads of it without getting the shakes and it tastes good. Old Joe. Whoever he was I salute him.
As were driving around looking for the diner we passed a restaurant that Meghan called the racist diner. Apparently they have a sign on the door saying, “This is America, order in English”. The funny thing is, Greg adds, is that the guys who work there who speak English sound like Rocky and even though they're speaking English, nobody can understand a fucking word they're saying. Cunts.
Isn't like thirty percent of the population of the USA Spanish speaking anyway?
So we headed into the city for the first of the two shows. First up was one of the two festivals we're playing on this tour. Today it was This Is Hardcore Fest. As I've experienced in the past, Hardcore isn't really the same thing in this country as it is on the other side of the pond. The crowd at this festival isn't really what you would call a normal Victims crowd. All the same, it's fun to play these shows now and again. And yesterday we weren't alone either, our dear friends From Ashes Rise were with us, playing both shows. Good times indeed! We hadn't seen those guys since Punk Illegal Fest in Göteborg last year.
I met up with the Touche Amore guys again. They'd also made the Trans Atlantic trip to be here, along with Strife. The Amore guys are a really sweet bunch of young guys. We hung out chatting for a good time and they're guitarist Eric was kind enough to lend me his guitar as a spare. I ended up not needing it thankfully, since the only string I broke during the set was the high E, which I don't need either...
The festival was set up in a really big concert venue, easily able to hold over a thousand people. It was sold out too. There was a big indoor parking garage across the road where we had our merch set up, along with FAR. It was pissing down all day, so we had to run across the road with an umbrella trying to protect the uncased amp heads. When it rains in this country it really fucking rains! It hardly let up all afternoon. It was even raining in the side stage dressing room that we were given for the half hour before our three pm.set! There was a crack somewhere in the ceiling and the rain was gushing in. Somebody had put a bucket on the seat directly below the leak but it was deflecting of the backboard of the benched sofa and just splashing everything in the room. I had to dry my amp off with a towel before Matt came in to take it to the stage.
The show itself was really good. The stage was huge and carpeted and had a great monitor sound all over. It was an absolute pleasure to play on. I didn't really see much of the crowd response in the big hall since the stage lights were so bright you couldn't see much beyond the first row. It felt good though. I guess there must have been some confused macho types around but those I couldn't give a fuck about anyway. I had a great time. We had our good friend Greg Daly, who booked our tour and is helping out with this festival, the FAR guys, Matt, Greg and Meghan and a bunch of other people, all gathered to my side of the stage, all of them smiling and having a good time, which is all the energy I need to have a really good show. And a good show it was. I played really hard and could have carried on for a lot longer than the ten songs we played. And this time, as opposed to the Ieper Fest, we all really enjoyed the show.
Matt just shouted to the back, “Tea Break”, as he always calls me, “Time for the first tea break of the tour!”. We just pulled into a service station somewhere. The clouds are pulling in again and apparently there are thunder storms up north where we're heading...I need tea.
Back on the road, sorted for tea...
So yeah, the first show went really well. We hung out across the road in the parking house for a few hours afterwards, the rain constantly coming down outside. We mainly just around with the FAR guys catching up over a couple of beers. The main guy running this fest is a guy called Joe Hardcore, I don't think that's his real name haha, but that's the title he goes by. He looks about as Hardcore as any person I've ever seen. He would intimidate most people. Tattoos on his face, the odd scar here and there and built like a brick shit house. He's a true gentleman though, despite the gruff exterior and he really looked after us. Thanks Joe.
We headed over to the second show for the day around six pm. I'd felt pretty fucked directly after our set, as we were carrying the amps back across the road in the pouring rain, but by now I was feeling good again. The venue for the second show was a bar called the Barbary. It's a fixture on the punk scene in Philly and a really nice place. It's actually a cop bar, although you wouldn't have really guessed that if you didn't know. Yesterday it was full of punk kids. The stage room downstairs has a smallish stage and the room itself could hold around one hundred people comfortably. My sort of place. Above the stage room was a cool bar area with some really good beer on tap. The Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale being my favourite.
Greg and Meghan hung with us in the van between the two shows, their comedy duo act keeping my laughing pretty much the entirety of the short journey. I was also introduced to another old friend of the band at the Barbary show, a really cool girl called China, who sings in the band Soma from Richmond. She's a really fun, larger than life girl with a really contagious laugh. We hung out all night and for the most part we were laughing at different stuff. Just her laugh is enough to get you going. I asked Jon when they'd first met, to which he told me the following. Now China is quite a broad girl. Apparently the first time she and Jon had met was at a Victims show in Philly in 2004, during their first tour. China had walked into the bar, making quite an entrance, and when Jon caught sight of her, shouted, “I love fat girls!”, and since then the two have them have been great friends! Only Jon could get away with that...
There were five bands playing this evening show. I still seem to be escaping the jet-lag but even so, I couldn't really be bothered watching five bands, even if they were all good. The first band I watched with Jon though, and they were actually fucking amazing! They were a three piece from Philly called Sickoids, and they played a really raging, almost power-violence style hardcore at times. What really made them for me though was the guitarist/vocalist. He was phenomenal and amidst all the craziness came the odd riff hook now and again, really clever stuff. Me and Jon stood there watching them with our jaws literally dropping. We tried hanging out with them after the show, but I think we came across as a pair of over impressed idiots and I think the praise we were languishing upon them started getting on their tits in the end! Oh well, I bought a t-shirt anyway and I await their first album with baited breath.
For most of the second and third bands, I hung outside on the street by the van with the guys. It was another hot and humid night and the rain had stopped by then, leaving not a trace of fresh air behind it. I kind of wish I'd gone in and checked out a little of the other bands because from the street, it sounded pretty decent too. But there is only so much you can take and it had been a long day.
I'd been worried about this show beforehand, assuming I was going to feel pretty beat after the first show, we're not puppies any more after all. But in actual fact I felt really good going on stage. And the energy stayed with all of us for the entire set. It was good fun too, since we changed it up from the earlier show. Since we'd only gotten about half way through the set at the festival, we decided to start from the back and make our up from the bottom. So we ended up in fact playing two totally different sets. We even started tonight's set with We're Dead, which isn't normally part of the set. We threw that one in for China since it's her favourite Victims song. It went well. The only song that appeared at both sets was This Is The End, which is funnily enough the song Andy had been complaining about all day. It's the Victims hit song, if such a thing exists, but he's sick of it. He's been grumbling all day that the set should be fun for us first and foremost, and fuck the crowd. I agree with him in actual fact, but as it is, as Jon said in response, I still think it's fun even playing the song in the rehearsal space. Sorry Andy.
Jon was pretty chuffed after the show when John Bazely from Baroness came up to him to talk and tell him he thought it was a great show. Looking forward to seeing them on our day off at Best Friends Day next weekend.
The FAR guys turned up to the venue when we had about four songs left of our set. They were playing right after us as last on the bill. I thought we had it bad but those guys only had about forty minutes between sets. It seemed like they didn't have the best time at the festival either. They were all grumbling about it upon arrival. I don't know whether they were just being modest or what, but at the Barbary they tore it up. They really are one of the best live bands I've ever seen and I get the same buzz every time I see them.
As it had been for us, the place was pretty packed when they played, although there was the usual gaping hole in the middle of the dance floor, left by the moshers beating the fuck out of each other. It's kind of a shame I think when the place is packed, but half of the crowd are pressed up against the back wall and spend more time watching out for flying fists rather than the band on stage. There was one incident though that had me bent over double, pissing myself laughing. I'd been standing behind Jon and China, enjoying the show when From Ashes kicked into one of their classic songs and the whole place erupted, taking Jon and China with it. The pair of them got a moment of excitement, and with an one arm around each, and the other pumping the air, ran forward towards the stage. They lasted all of two seconds before they were batted back out like a fucking home run. The pair of them went down and hit the ground hard, Jon landing on China and taking a large looking macho hardcore guy with them! As soon as I realised they were both ok, I pissed myself laughing. Because that's the kind of friend I am...
From Ashes really did put on a great show and they seemed far happier with their second performance of the day. Afterwards we hung out with them and Grey upstairs in the bar. It was Greg's birthday and we all had a beer or two in his honour, the old Yards going down a treat. After we'd loaded out we went back into the stage room which had by then been converted into a karaoke club. Most of the people there were young, hip alternative types, doing sickeningly serious versions of middle of the road piss. But then up steps Derek, the FAR bass player. For being a supposedly shy guy, he did an amazing version of Creedence's classic, Have You Ever Seen The Rain? He was brilliant. Brad FAR and Jon signed up immediately!
We waited around for ages for their turns. As tired as I was becoming there was not a fucking chance I was gonna miss a drunk Jon doing karaoke! So taking the bull by the horns, Johan and I switched to booze and ordered some Captain Morgan sours, something I'd first drank in Texas when a bartender refused to serve me the Captain any other way! In time honoured tradition when I'm State side, that's just how I drank it. It was good too. Brad's turn eventually came around and he did ZZ's brilliant, Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. Brad, although not possessing the same natural sweet pipes that Derek has, gave a hearty performance. He was all energy and his rendition kept veering into FAR territory. He was pretty damn drunk and it was great fun to watch. His dance moves were quite something too.
We hung around for the best part of two hours and somehow, Jon's turn never came around. Gutted! I think there must have been some confusion between him and the girl running the karaoke running order. He's hard to understand at the best of times...Despite not getting to see Jon, we had a great night with our friends. At one point Andy and I decided we were starting a band with Bloody Kev and Mucky Marcus called Lynyrd Skinhead. We thought it was a great idea and I texted Kev immediately to let him know. Despite the fact that it must have been six am. in London, Kev texted back within a minute to let me know he was in! I love Kev.
They actually picked out some finalists and scandalously enough, Derek's performance was overlooked. Instead the five finalists were made up of the other poseurs in the club. Derek was gutted, walking around shaking his head informing all of us of his total disbelief.
As an end of night bonus, China sang a Pat Benetar song. I mean, she belted it out! She was great and we all cheered her on. Apparently she used to sing in a PB tribute band in college. We ended up saying goodbye to the FAR guys around two am. and we headed back to the Greghans with China in tow, picking up some gigantic pizzas on the way back. It was four before I had a shower and went to bed with a belly full of cheese pizza.
Quote of the day, Jon: "If I buy these shorts am I a sell out?"
Yesterday was a really good day. It was a long day but it was a lot of fun. Two very different kind of shows.
I got a good sleep at the Greghans as they are collectively known. We had breakfast together at a diner somewhere in south Philly. Classic American. I ordered eggs on toast in a cheese mustard sauce with a side salad and a large cup of coffee. The “side” salad was insanely big and I was hardly able to make a dent in it. I love the coffee in the States. It's as weak as piss and you can drink bucket loads of it without getting the shakes and it tastes good. Old Joe. Whoever he was I salute him.
As were driving around looking for the diner we passed a restaurant that Meghan called the racist diner. Apparently they have a sign on the door saying, “This is America, order in English”. The funny thing is, Greg adds, is that the guys who work there who speak English sound like Rocky and even though they're speaking English, nobody can understand a fucking word they're saying. Cunts.
Isn't like thirty percent of the population of the USA Spanish speaking anyway?
So we headed into the city for the first of the two shows. First up was one of the two festivals we're playing on this tour. Today it was This Is Hardcore Fest. As I've experienced in the past, Hardcore isn't really the same thing in this country as it is on the other side of the pond. The crowd at this festival isn't really what you would call a normal Victims crowd. All the same, it's fun to play these shows now and again. And yesterday we weren't alone either, our dear friends From Ashes Rise were with us, playing both shows. Good times indeed! We hadn't seen those guys since Punk Illegal Fest in Göteborg last year.
I met up with the Touche Amore guys again. They'd also made the Trans Atlantic trip to be here, along with Strife. The Amore guys are a really sweet bunch of young guys. We hung out chatting for a good time and they're guitarist Eric was kind enough to lend me his guitar as a spare. I ended up not needing it thankfully, since the only string I broke during the set was the high E, which I don't need either...
The festival was set up in a really big concert venue, easily able to hold over a thousand people. It was sold out too. There was a big indoor parking garage across the road where we had our merch set up, along with FAR. It was pissing down all day, so we had to run across the road with an umbrella trying to protect the uncased amp heads. When it rains in this country it really fucking rains! It hardly let up all afternoon. It was even raining in the side stage dressing room that we were given for the half hour before our three pm.set! There was a crack somewhere in the ceiling and the rain was gushing in. Somebody had put a bucket on the seat directly below the leak but it was deflecting of the backboard of the benched sofa and just splashing everything in the room. I had to dry my amp off with a towel before Matt came in to take it to the stage.
The show itself was really good. The stage was huge and carpeted and had a great monitor sound all over. It was an absolute pleasure to play on. I didn't really see much of the crowd response in the big hall since the stage lights were so bright you couldn't see much beyond the first row. It felt good though. I guess there must have been some confused macho types around but those I couldn't give a fuck about anyway. I had a great time. We had our good friend Greg Daly, who booked our tour and is helping out with this festival, the FAR guys, Matt, Greg and Meghan and a bunch of other people, all gathered to my side of the stage, all of them smiling and having a good time, which is all the energy I need to have a really good show. And a good show it was. I played really hard and could have carried on for a lot longer than the ten songs we played. And this time, as opposed to the Ieper Fest, we all really enjoyed the show.
Matt just shouted to the back, “Tea Break”, as he always calls me, “Time for the first tea break of the tour!”. We just pulled into a service station somewhere. The clouds are pulling in again and apparently there are thunder storms up north where we're heading...I need tea.
Back on the road, sorted for tea...
So yeah, the first show went really well. We hung out across the road in the parking house for a few hours afterwards, the rain constantly coming down outside. We mainly just around with the FAR guys catching up over a couple of beers. The main guy running this fest is a guy called Joe Hardcore, I don't think that's his real name haha, but that's the title he goes by. He looks about as Hardcore as any person I've ever seen. He would intimidate most people. Tattoos on his face, the odd scar here and there and built like a brick shit house. He's a true gentleman though, despite the gruff exterior and he really looked after us. Thanks Joe.
We headed over to the second show for the day around six pm. I'd felt pretty fucked directly after our set, as we were carrying the amps back across the road in the pouring rain, but by now I was feeling good again. The venue for the second show was a bar called the Barbary. It's a fixture on the punk scene in Philly and a really nice place. It's actually a cop bar, although you wouldn't have really guessed that if you didn't know. Yesterday it was full of punk kids. The stage room downstairs has a smallish stage and the room itself could hold around one hundred people comfortably. My sort of place. Above the stage room was a cool bar area with some really good beer on tap. The Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale being my favourite.
Greg and Meghan hung with us in the van between the two shows, their comedy duo act keeping my laughing pretty much the entirety of the short journey. I was also introduced to another old friend of the band at the Barbary show, a really cool girl called China, who sings in the band Soma from Richmond. She's a really fun, larger than life girl with a really contagious laugh. We hung out all night and for the most part we were laughing at different stuff. Just her laugh is enough to get you going. I asked Jon when they'd first met, to which he told me the following. Now China is quite a broad girl. Apparently the first time she and Jon had met was at a Victims show in Philly in 2004, during their first tour. China had walked into the bar, making quite an entrance, and when Jon caught sight of her, shouted, “I love fat girls!”, and since then the two have them have been great friends! Only Jon could get away with that...
There were five bands playing this evening show. I still seem to be escaping the jet-lag but even so, I couldn't really be bothered watching five bands, even if they were all good. The first band I watched with Jon though, and they were actually fucking amazing! They were a three piece from Philly called Sickoids, and they played a really raging, almost power-violence style hardcore at times. What really made them for me though was the guitarist/vocalist. He was phenomenal and amidst all the craziness came the odd riff hook now and again, really clever stuff. Me and Jon stood there watching them with our jaws literally dropping. We tried hanging out with them after the show, but I think we came across as a pair of over impressed idiots and I think the praise we were languishing upon them started getting on their tits in the end! Oh well, I bought a t-shirt anyway and I await their first album with baited breath.
For most of the second and third bands, I hung outside on the street by the van with the guys. It was another hot and humid night and the rain had stopped by then, leaving not a trace of fresh air behind it. I kind of wish I'd gone in and checked out a little of the other bands because from the street, it sounded pretty decent too. But there is only so much you can take and it had been a long day.
I'd been worried about this show beforehand, assuming I was going to feel pretty beat after the first show, we're not puppies any more after all. But in actual fact I felt really good going on stage. And the energy stayed with all of us for the entire set. It was good fun too, since we changed it up from the earlier show. Since we'd only gotten about half way through the set at the festival, we decided to start from the back and make our up from the bottom. So we ended up in fact playing two totally different sets. We even started tonight's set with We're Dead, which isn't normally part of the set. We threw that one in for China since it's her favourite Victims song. It went well. The only song that appeared at both sets was This Is The End, which is funnily enough the song Andy had been complaining about all day. It's the Victims hit song, if such a thing exists, but he's sick of it. He's been grumbling all day that the set should be fun for us first and foremost, and fuck the crowd. I agree with him in actual fact, but as it is, as Jon said in response, I still think it's fun even playing the song in the rehearsal space. Sorry Andy.
Jon was pretty chuffed after the show when John Bazely from Baroness came up to him to talk and tell him he thought it was a great show. Looking forward to seeing them on our day off at Best Friends Day next weekend.
The FAR guys turned up to the venue when we had about four songs left of our set. They were playing right after us as last on the bill. I thought we had it bad but those guys only had about forty minutes between sets. It seemed like they didn't have the best time at the festival either. They were all grumbling about it upon arrival. I don't know whether they were just being modest or what, but at the Barbary they tore it up. They really are one of the best live bands I've ever seen and I get the same buzz every time I see them.
As it had been for us, the place was pretty packed when they played, although there was the usual gaping hole in the middle of the dance floor, left by the moshers beating the fuck out of each other. It's kind of a shame I think when the place is packed, but half of the crowd are pressed up against the back wall and spend more time watching out for flying fists rather than the band on stage. There was one incident though that had me bent over double, pissing myself laughing. I'd been standing behind Jon and China, enjoying the show when From Ashes kicked into one of their classic songs and the whole place erupted, taking Jon and China with it. The pair of them got a moment of excitement, and with an one arm around each, and the other pumping the air, ran forward towards the stage. They lasted all of two seconds before they were batted back out like a fucking home run. The pair of them went down and hit the ground hard, Jon landing on China and taking a large looking macho hardcore guy with them! As soon as I realised they were both ok, I pissed myself laughing. Because that's the kind of friend I am...
From Ashes really did put on a great show and they seemed far happier with their second performance of the day. Afterwards we hung out with them and Grey upstairs in the bar. It was Greg's birthday and we all had a beer or two in his honour, the old Yards going down a treat. After we'd loaded out we went back into the stage room which had by then been converted into a karaoke club. Most of the people there were young, hip alternative types, doing sickeningly serious versions of middle of the road piss. But then up steps Derek, the FAR bass player. For being a supposedly shy guy, he did an amazing version of Creedence's classic, Have You Ever Seen The Rain? He was brilliant. Brad FAR and Jon signed up immediately!
We waited around for ages for their turns. As tired as I was becoming there was not a fucking chance I was gonna miss a drunk Jon doing karaoke! So taking the bull by the horns, Johan and I switched to booze and ordered some Captain Morgan sours, something I'd first drank in Texas when a bartender refused to serve me the Captain any other way! In time honoured tradition when I'm State side, that's just how I drank it. It was good too. Brad's turn eventually came around and he did ZZ's brilliant, Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. Brad, although not possessing the same natural sweet pipes that Derek has, gave a hearty performance. He was all energy and his rendition kept veering into FAR territory. He was pretty damn drunk and it was great fun to watch. His dance moves were quite something too.
We hung around for the best part of two hours and somehow, Jon's turn never came around. Gutted! I think there must have been some confusion between him and the girl running the karaoke running order. He's hard to understand at the best of times...Despite not getting to see Jon, we had a great night with our friends. At one point Andy and I decided we were starting a band with Bloody Kev and Mucky Marcus called Lynyrd Skinhead. We thought it was a great idea and I texted Kev immediately to let him know. Despite the fact that it must have been six am. in London, Kev texted back within a minute to let me know he was in! I love Kev.
They actually picked out some finalists and scandalously enough, Derek's performance was overlooked. Instead the five finalists were made up of the other poseurs in the club. Derek was gutted, walking around shaking his head informing all of us of his total disbelief.
As an end of night bonus, China sang a Pat Benetar song. I mean, she belted it out! She was great and we all cheered her on. Apparently she used to sing in a PB tribute band in college. We ended up saying goodbye to the FAR guys around two am. and we headed back to the Greghans with China in tow, picking up some gigantic pizzas on the way back. It was four before I had a shower and went to bed with a belly full of cheese pizza.
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