Such meterological phenomena aside, I'm back from the first week of my tour with...oh, I'm on my own this time aren't I, so it's a tour with Spotify Premium, a week's restful bank holiday boozing already playing havok with my liver, and my album waiting in the wings for its chance to wrestle its way into people's homes.
This leg of the tour had some interesting clashes with Real Life, a variety of attendence levels, and a serious amount of mileage - sorry carbon footprint.
DAY 1: Birmingham
Started with an activity even more rock & roll than installing a washing machine** - going to my gran's 83rd birthday lunch. I love my gran, she's ace.
My Gran, and my sister; see if you can guess which is which.
Some familial catching up, a tiny glass of champers, and far too much food later we're heading back to Bristol & then I'm Birmingham-bound on the M5 for tonight's first gig at The Adam & Eve. Arriving far too early, I settle in for the evening as the pub slowly starts to populate itself with punters weary from the prolonged bank holiday festivities, yet still keen to witness this evening's lineup of acoustic music.
I've been to the A&E a few times - once for some cable-tv showcase thing which I never ended up seeing (probably a good thing really) - and they've always been a hospitable and fun bunch to play for. I greet a few familiar faces, make a weird piece of modern art broach type thing out of a Pringles can (see below) and get myself ready.
Yours for just £2,999,995, and a tube of Pringles.
Annoyingly the opening 3 acts all over run, leading to a bit of a rush for me to get my full set in before the curfew...but luckily the bar staff urge me to play on, so probably end up going over my set time in the end but wtf. A fun opening night & then back to an old pal's place for Easter egg, G&T, toffee vodka and sleep.
Day 2: Oxford
Despite having a week off, my bodyclock is still firmly set to "dayjob" mode, so I wake up far too early & set off for Oxford - my first visit in January was a bit of a rushed affair so I was determined to make the most of a day out in this historic city, sitting in posh places scribbling in my awesome Dr Who notebook...and so I do; strolling around the grounds of the Bodleian while groups of Japanese and American tourists do battle to see who can fulfil the greatest quota of national stereotypes, not to be outdone by the outstandingly posh English tour guides; I also get myself some picnic material and sit in the grounds of Christ Church marvelling at just how much like living in a postcard this feels, I mean just look at this:
Nowhere should look this awesome on a photo taken by a fucking telephone...
amazing advances in technology or not.
amazing advances in technology or not.
I also stumbled upon The Oxford Museum, which for a suggested £1 donation (I gave 5 x 20p coins) you could witness such delights as; a map showing where some Roman settlements were found near, but not in, Oxford; some marmalade; and a 15 minute video narrated by Tony Robinson in which culminated in rejoicing in the city's vibrant music scene "spearheaded by Supergrass and Radiohead". I'll type that again, "Supergrass and Radiohead". The only reason I can think of for their being ordered that way is that the museum is curated by Gaz Coombes' dad. Supergrass and Radiohead, honestly. And that wasn't the only tragedy - I scoured the whole museum and didn't find even one reference to Lewis, or his sidekick Hathaway. Hell, they didn't even mention the seminal detective series' little known pilot outing "Morse". Mental.
Reeling from this shock omission I made my wa y back to Café Tarifa via a quick pint and a phone charge in the Rusty Bicycle wherein I overheard the most overbearing self-important cuntversation of all time between a group of guys that wanted everyone in the pub to know that they were musicians, and how brilliant that made them, and how they knew people who were signed and everything. I honestly wanted to punch my balls off just for the association of having something in common with these pricks - I would have left earlier, but my phone hadn't charged enough & I wouldn't be able to get into the venue for another hour so endured it as my blood pressure rose.
Now the venue was lovely and the staff were all uber friendly, but unfortunately it just didn't quite happen tonight - there was a reasonable crowd for the first act on, but they were more of a "let's have a chat while some music happens" group of people, so pretty much all got up and went to the other end of the bar as soon as I started playing, leaving me with an audience of about 4. That combined with the fact that I drank one of their enormous bottles of beer before going onstage meant that it was a bit of a self conscious set which I didn't fully enjoy.........still, made a few friends, met up with a couple of old ones, and had a fun day so can't complain.
AND I GOT GIVEN GIANT BEER:
I <3 my giant beer.
Day 3: Bristol
Another relatively early morning tour-wise, stupid bodyclock, so made it back to Bristol in time to have a spot of lunch with @mrsthief and spend the afternoon generally lazing around, getting to The Mother's Ruin in plenty of time to soundcheck, pop out for supplies, and greet the twin loveliness of Jim Lockey and Benny J. Hayes.
Both organising and playing a gig can be a bit of a weird experience as you end up sitting on the door instead of watching the other acts properly (though snatched a couple of looks). Couple that with the fact that you're playing your album in its entirety for the first time ever and there's the potential for a massive nervebomb funfail. Thankfully lots of people came along, were very generous with the pay-what-you-want arrangement (extra bonus points to Stan The Man for putting an entire tenner in) and my voice coped fine with the utter live unfriendliness of the running order (Terry Nutkins Salute third on the tracklist? Ouch) so I had a lot of fun, chatted a lot between songs, and ended up with a rousing outing for Gold (with my first ever self-centred "when I say X, you reply Y") and !@*# track There Can Be Only One for good measure.
Day 4: Brighton
With Jodie Live-Music-Scene on board as co-driver we set off down the scenic route to Brighton, arriving in time to spend £6 on a parking meter and explore the Laines a bit - managing to find a whole new row of shops, including what I can only describe as a vintage clothing and bric-a-brac hypermarket that I'm going to visit again sometime after winning the lottery to stock up on the humungous amount of kitsch brilliance contained therin.
Resisting the call of seaside fish & chips, thinking we'd probably find something healthier***, but Jodie being unable to
I've only played Brighton twice; the first time on a bill with Oasis wannabees in a Wetherspoons-esque venue playing to disinterested friends of the other bands, the second time in a sweaty room above an awesome rock bar, so was looking forward to my 3rd visit to the area. The venue is more a section of the pub, and it seemed to be a focus point for the unusual; a beer garden crammed with people smoking...but weirdly not seeming to visit the bar. Ever. A small dog (Adam Boucher christened her "Wakima") stage invading. And most brilliantly, a small ginger girl placing a helium "I'm Sorry" balloon at the merch table...then SCREAMING at her brother when he tried to retrieve it, insisting it was left in its new position.
I mean, people call all sorts of situations surreal ("Oh my god I went to buy some cheese and they'd run out; it was so surreal") when they actually mean "unusual", "strange", or in most cases..."slightly outside their normal parameters of experience" but I feel this was a turn of events worthy of the label for once - just consider the facts:
a) why did this child have the balloon in the first place?
b) why did the child decide to leave it at the merch table?****
c) what possible offence could you commit that would be serious enough to require some kind of action beyond a verbal apology, to which the purchase of an inflatable "I'm Sorry" balloon would be an adequate, and acceptable gesture?
The mind boggles.
Oh yeah, it also had this amended sign next to the Dyson Airblade
I <3 Dyson Airblades, want one in my downstairs loo sooooooo bad.
Still, it was a fun gig and we managed to incorporate the balloon, and the dog, into proceedings pretty well. Honorable mentions to the fantastic Hollywood Assassins for rock & rolling pretty hard, Adam Boucher for road testing his new backing band, and Adam Bennett for making it all happen.
There was only the small matter of having to drive back to Bristol post-gig as I had to attend a new dayjob interview at 9.50am the next morning - luckily Jodie LMS was up to the task and admirably got me home in time for about 5 hours pre-interview sleep. Hardcore or what?
Day 5: Banquet Records Instore. aka "The Day I Did Everything"
Bed at 3am, awake just after 7am, with a not insignificant amount of disturbance from our cat Monty to contend with during the night. Feeling weirdly awake and not at all mentally deranged I went through the usual interview routines, drank an enormous cup of tea, and went off to wow all and sundry. Feeling pretty positive***** I returned home to have a couple of hours kip before heading back on the road for my Banquet Records instore....well, that was the plan - in reality I led down for about 2 minutes, couldn't get to sleep, so watched Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle and then went to bash 7 shades of shite out of my drums instead. Revitalising.
One intensely rock & roll journey later (listening mainly to Radio 4) I arrive at the majestic Banquet Records, starting point for one hell of a lot of cds/records I've bought in the last few years, and get down to some serious browsing. It's been said many times before, but this place is just brilliant; a well stocked, well informed, well intentioned shop that truly seems concerned with the love of music above all else. After a bracing cup of tea courtesy of JT, I get my gig on - initially feeling a little bit starstruck by the building itself, and feeling a little bit self conscious about playing fully unplugged and shouting directly into the faces of the amassed dozen-strong audience, but I thoroughly enjoy the whole thing and stunned to see so many of the attendees buying copies of the album & asking me to sign them. Buy my album from them now, hell - buy all your music from them in future: www.banquetrecords.com/btr9.
This = Ace.
After a quick catch up with the soon to be Dr Pendrey, I set off for Reading to meet up with Broken Tail Records overlord Ben Marwood and [edit] Radio's Kev Lawson to celebrate the former's milestone 30th year of being alive. First stop is at a fellow celebrant's festival-themed party, where I almost fall straight asleep as the day's activities catch up with me. But after some cake, inappropriate gaffa tape artwork, and a few pints of life giving water, I'm back in a party mood and it's off to the After Dark for double Jack Daniels + Red Bulls and a lengthy conversation about the heavy-metal-covers-of-advert-jingles band that I dearly want to start one day.
Happy Birthday Mr Marwood!
All together now *double bass drum battery* AUTOGLASS REPAIRRRRR, AUTOGLASS RE-PLACE! *chugga chugga widdle-widdle-woooooooo*
Day 6: Day off
And after two nights in a row of staying up till 3 or 4am it's going to be a good lie-in right? WRONG. Firstly I have to wake up at 8am to move my car as it's parked on a single yellow. So back to sleep right? WRONG. The only other spaces in walking distance are 2 hours only, so it's back to sleep for a bit; move the car again.Fun. After a hearty birthday sausage and egg breakfast celebration I head off to pick Mrs Thief up from the station and power towards Stevenage for an old buddy's wedding and a well needed massive amount of drinking ;)
Day 7: CheltenhamAnother night of inadequate sleep and it's time to drive to Cheltenham, via Bristol, for the inaugural Trees On Fire all dayer - a collaboration between the 2000 Trees Festival organisers, and the lovely folk at Istartedthefire Records featuring a stunning lineup. And Caves ;) I think it's safe to say that I might not have been firing on all cylinders for my set, but I had a decent stab at it & managed to enjoy all the other bands, particularly &u&i who provided me with enough of an energy boost to get back in the car and drive home to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Day 8: Album release day.
No gig to play today, but I had the whole day off to recover - so spent it catching up with Sky+, playing drums, and generally chilling out. Before drinking a bottle of champagne with Mrs Thief to celebrate the album being out, and then going to watch Fight Like Apes at The Academy and drinking a few more beers, stumbling home with ears ringing and liver throbbing. I will never learn.
Jeff & I <3 Fight Like Apes.
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Debut album Destroy It Yourself available now from:
www.banquetrecords.com/btr9 - £9.99, limited signed copies available.
www.amazon.co.uk - £6.99
Play.com Mp3 - £5.99
iTunes - £7.99
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*they lie.
**callbacks ftw.
***Papajohn's Pizza is healthy right?
****unless she was sorry not to be sticking around for the gig
*****I'm certain I wore all my clothes to the interview, and didn't answer all of their questions with the word "wibble"
