The Devil Dances in An Empty Pocket

Fantasy................

2006-02-12T06:59:00.000-08:00

Right, I've concocted a few fantasy scenarios. They'll never happen but I wish they would.

1) In the last celeb Big Brother when they had a massive argument (in which Preston was shouting "WANKER!" repeatedly at Galloway) it would have been heart warming if Preston had gone up to Barrymore and said "you soft cunt" quietly yet forcefully down his ear 'ole. At which point Rodman would have started crying & wanking & swearing.

2) If, when the argument had petered out, Preston had uttered "WANKER!" again and the whole thing had been revived.

Here's a fantasy fight:

Lieutenant Worf (from Star Trek next gen)

vs.

Tyson.

This is SO close. Me and John spent all night arriving at a conclusion, but I have finally decided that...........Tyson would win. Think about it. "Warf is trained to kill" I hear you say, to which I agree, but Warf is SLOW. Tyson was a fast mutha at his peak, and I reckon those fast fists could put Warf on his arse before you could say 'dishonour'. I'd love to see it though.

Here's another fantasy fight:

Lenny 'The Guvnor' McLean

vs.

Geoff Capes

Fuck me, I just don't know what to make of this. McLean is obviously much faster, but all Capes would have to do is get him in a bear hug and it would be game over. And if you throw tools into the mix I wager that Capes would 'get handy' with things that normal humans cannot lift. I think Capes can take a dig as well, but I just don't know. On the other hand, Capes is not a fighting man (that I know of) but Lenny is an old hand on the cobbles. It'd be so brutal. The verdict............stalemate. Lenny wouldn't be able to put down Capes but Capes wouldn't be able to make contect with Big Len.

Here's another:

Henry Rollins

vs.

George Hurley

Again, this is a tough call. And as with the last it comes down to background. Both are well built men - although I think Rollins is fitter and Hurley bigger - but all Rollins has had to deal with are those cream puff SoCal punks, whereas Hurley is noted for his pugilistic skills on the mean streets of San Pedro. This ain't no picnic. I pick Hurley. Let's be honest - these two SST veterans would have too much respect to step up to each other. But I definately think Hurley.

2006-02-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

I'd forgotten about this Fandango tidbit...........

"We're not sure we should be promoting this but we got sent a CD upon which this lot performed autopsy style carnage on The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Charles (no, not the deathwish one, the bald bearded nutter one) Bronson's autobiography. We understand that some things are morally wrong and are essentially morally indefensible and...no let's not beat around the bush are just wrong. It's piss funny though and we haven't got a clue what they'll do on a stage so we'll be there playing with our rosaries and leave it to our readers to decide".

Of course this is the opinion of Sandman magazine. They made the classic mistake of mixing up the Fandango Boys and the Fandango BROTHERS, a Sheffield-based ZZ Top covers band. So basically the Fandango Brothers have been branded 'morally indefensible' for playing a charity gig with the aim of sending a spoffed girl to Eurodisney. Stupid bastards.

It's been said.

2006-02-10T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm going to have to think deeply about whether I want to carry on doing this. I was engaging my usual rant about how much I hate Myspace when someone pointed out that having a web log is perhaps even sadder and MORE EGOTISTICAL than having a Myspace page.

They're right.

The thing that bugs me most about Myspace is that nobody I have spoken to knows why they have one! I use this Blog as a form of venting, to jettison to the things that irritate me and grind me down. So it DOES have a function.

Why do people put their photos up there? For fuck's sake. Maybe I'm lucky in that don't consider myself so insecure that I need an advert for myself!

The whole idea of Myspace makes me feel sick. and I will dedicate the rest of my cyber-life to destroying it.

It's there lad. Next to your fucking box.

2005-12-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

Kinnings. Gary Barlow.

Gary Barlow comes from Frodsham, and was actually quite close friends with my sister. He's been in our house and seen me as a little kid, the filthy bastard.

When I first passed my driving test we used to travel to his luxury home in Cuddington (about five miles from Frodsham) and terrorise him by dumping things outside his gate. These acts of mischief became known simply as 'kinnings', owing to the first object left on his property being a pumpkin. Things we left included:

A lovingly created and tasty packed lunch.
A fire extinguisher (I hurled this from a moving car, it made sparks).
A prosphetic leg inscribed with "make a wish brother".
A hockey mask.
Clothing.
A photocopier.
Home recorded tapes featuring bizarre four-part harmonies.

It was great fun, but after an entire summer of this I drove past his house to see someone stood guard talking into a walkie-talkie. Then I decided to doing it.

But someone else got the blame.

We'd recorded the aforementioned tapes in the Honeyshop Screamers old practice room, and many of the harmonies were accompanied by the manic thrashing of drums and discordant guitar. Barlow knew of a band in the local area, but not us. He made the assumption it was them that had made the tapes, and told them in no uncertain terms that he wanted the kinnings to stop!

------------------------------------------------------------------

I've got a penchant for throwing stuff from moving cars, and encoraging my friends to do the same. I highly recomend it.

Best one I've done was to throw a drum cymbal out of the drvers' window on the M62. When it caught the wind it acted like a sail and nearly snapped my wrist. I've also littered the M62 with coconut husks.

------------------------------------------------------------------

It would appear Tyson is going off the rails again. A few weeks ago he was arrested for some sort of violent disturbance, and now he's in the papers for going mental after getting dumped by his girlfriend.

I feel sorry for Tyson, he's been a victim of money.

He grew up in impoverished surroundings. Is it any wonder that as soon as he made any real money (and it was a lot of money at a very young age) he went completely mental. I mean, he was world champion and a millionaire at the age of eighteen.

At the height of his fame despite being a millionaire he STILL used to mug people.

He was destined to fuck up.

It would seem that he's one of those people who is continually accompanied by trouble, and the only thing that acted as a release from it was boxing. But his four years in prison fucked his boxing career, so now his one calling in life is over with. He simply cannot box any more. And he really needs to box because he's millions in debt and continually getting sued.

He's fucked.

And he's got nowhere to go but down.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I recently won a copy of Sting's docu-film, Bring On The Night. Oh my God.

Has anyone else seen it? I'm hooked.

What a planet-sized prick Sting was at this point in his career. I don't know how or why his backing band managed to put up with him. I certainly hope he was paying them well for their efforts.

I mean, we're dealing with an ego of epic proportion here. He comes across like some sort of evil genius, or a Bond villain. It's sick, but I can't stop watching it.

It's like he gears every moment of his life towards coming across as an ultra-serious, ultra-intelligent and ultra-cultured musical prodigy. But it makes him look so painfully fake.

I'm keen on the bit in which his band is playing full pelt in one of the numerous hallways in his Whiltshire mansion, and a guided tour is ushered through the room. And I defy anyone to see Sting don on a pair of sunglasses which feature one lense approximately fifty percent larger than the other one and not describe it as mental.

It's simultaneously the best and worst thing I have ever seen.

Definately the WORST thing I have ever seen (there's not one jot of goodness in it) is footage of the concert that Cream did at the start of the year. Clapton, Bruce and Baker reformed to play three nights at the Royal Albert Hall. It's as if they intentionally set out to make every single aspect of the gig as crap as possible. Nothing was left out. Ginger Baker reminds me of Steptoe more and more every time I see him, Jack Bruce looks like he's about it die and Clapton will always be a chopper no matter what he does.

Everything about the venture was awful, from the choice of instruments to the clothes they're wearing to the audience. I know it's a cliche to talk about dinosaurs of rock looking ridiculous as they get older, but it really is a sad spectacle.

For this concert Jack Bruce donned a frilly white shirt combined with leather trousers, and used some kind of solid-bodied viola bass that should never have even been designed. And the whole band sounded terrible.

I do feel sorry for Jack Bruce though. He is (was?) a seriously talented musician, it must have been heart breaking to see Clapton go on to be a massive star.

I've also gained a copy of Grant Hart's seminal solo album, Intolerance. Grant Hart has been cruelly short changed by the record industry. After playing in the Huskers - a very important band in the history of underground music - he also has gone on to have very little in the way of a career. But he's good. This album will take a long time to sink in as it's very weird, but I already approve of what I've heard. It sort of country influenced psychadelic pop, not at all like Huskers. Fergotron has been hounding me to buy this for ages so I'll have to gather a thorough appraisal for him.

Also been listing to Drama Of Alienation by J Church. J Church are an American indie rock band with a bit of a cult following, and somehow ended up on Honest Dons (sister label to Fat Wreck - but don't let this put you off) in the late nineties. Jesus, this album is good. I can't yet tell whether it's got any staying power but inital listenings are very encouraging.

The question is: are J Church still together?

The new Green Day DVD is a bit of a let down. Haven't really learnt anything that I didn't already know. APART FROM they recorded and released an album under the name The Network two years ago and STILL have not owned up to it! Cheeky bastards.

Speaking of let downs, I can't my head round Space Cadets. It should be good but it's not. But can't put my finger on what's missing. Maybe it would have been better if the whole thing had been compressed into one two hour long show, rather than hour long installments every night for two weeks. There's not much to keep one going to back to it every night.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Byrne's abilty to recall is ridiculous. He seems to remember every detail of every conversation we have ever had.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I heard a man bollocking another man in the gym today, it was great. I overheard the whole thing.

"8am I was knocking on your door, 8am. But you didn't answer. I'm sick of it."

By this time he has got his victim to stand in front of a mirror.

"Look at yourself, you look like a hobbit. No size and a massive stomach. Your triceps are pathetic and you've got no quads. You're a disgrace, I'm fucking sick of you."

God knows what relationship these two men have, I presume the one issuing the bollocking has taken it upon himself to turn the other into a pro bodybuilder. Maybe they're best friends but talk to each other like this all the time.

I'll never know.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Space Cadets is over. What a crock of shit! To think I went out and bought a booster ariel for the sole purpose of watching it.

I hoped that the contestants were going to go mental when confronted with the truth, but they seemed to take it in good humour. Maybe the twenty five grand each took the sting out of the whole experiement. The greedy bastards.

They must have been in terrible mental turmoil. They claim it was as if alarm bells were permanently ringing saying IT'S FAKE! IT'S FAKE! IT'S! FAKE! IT'S FAKE! but their rational minds were saying "calm down, you're in space". It must have been a continual battle between instinct and rational thought. It should imagine nobody wanted to say anything through fear of appearing stupid, and ironically the two dumbest muthafuckers of the lot were the first ones to suss it out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

When Lennon was told that the Maharishi was asking for one weeks wages in return for spiritual guidance he said "Fuck that! No ethnic bastard is gonna get no golden castles out of me." He never paid a penny. And when Lennon discovered that Maharishi had tried it on with one of the girls in the Beatles entourage he immediately got in a taxi and started writing a song. The first line was "You little cunt. Who do you think you are?"

Lennon is my favourite Beatle. He was just so mental. Being wired by nature to be a complete maniac and then having to deal with being one of the most famous people on Earth must have properly sent him under.

Is it any wonder he lost it in later life?

Is it any wonder he pissed on nuns heads?

I suppose it's testament to Paul McCartney that he's survived this long with no real evidence of head westernisation. It's quite remarkable how infrequently he crops up in the press, seeing as he's arguably the most important song writer of all time and super famous.

Someone who DOES turn up in the press more than you'd expect is Damon Albarn. When he's not busy rolling round the street with twigs in his mouth he's carrying trays of food hoping to get a free meal.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Grohl claims that during a typical Foo Fighters gig at least one member of the audience will shout "DAVE! HOW'S KURT?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Another mad one has started at HMV. This guy is called Anthony. I've only encountered him once so cannot summarise him fully, but today the following conversation occurred in the stock room:

(the conversation was started by Tony Winstanley, former stock room controller and long term HMV employee. A very funny man)

Tony: "Pleased to meet you mate, I'm Tony. What's your name?"

Anthony: "I'm....erm.....yes.....Anthony......if I've got all my Christmas shopping done by Thursday I'll introduce you to the family".
Jesus. First meeting!

There's another mad bastard working in the stock room called Guy. Guy suffers from a very unique illness, and it's almost possible to pinpoint what's wrong with him. Part of his illness has manifested itself as a fascination (bordering on obsession) with imported goods.
He's very unusual.

Here's a typical conversation with Guy:

Me : "Good morning Guy."

Guy : "Hi.....what's your name? I have trouble remembering names"

(we've been working together for months)

Me : "Paul."

Guy : "Paul?"

Me : "Yes"

(Guy now has a look of extreme ponderance on his face, as if he's thinking about this information so hard that he's had to shut down the rest of his thought processes to compensate)

Guy : "Did I tell you how much I got?"

Me : "How much what?"

Guy : "Vouchers for my birthday I got 300 pounds worth of vouchers, I haven't spent it all yet."

Me : "That's nice. You should buy an X-Box."

Guy : "I'm not allowed."

Me : "Right."

Guy : "Were you off last week?"

Me : "What? Off work?"

Guy : "Yes"

Me: "No"

Guy : "Yes?"

Me : "NO!"

Guy : "Did you hear that I found all those stickers?"

On so on.

A while ago the boss of the stock room was on holiday. Tony Winstanley, being a cruel bastard of a man who should know better, convinced Guy to go round telling everyone that when Eileen was due to return she was going to bend him over the bins and ram him from behind with a strap on. He then declared he was going to blow his load into his hand and throw it in her face.

The question is:

Is there some kind of quota that HMV must fill concerning the employment of mad bastards?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

What a day. What a fucking day. When I wasn't baby-sitting the temps on the fucking tills I was desperately trying to clear the massive back log of stock, whilst simultaneously getting every person in Liverpool a copy of Katy fucking Melua's latest fucking album. And it doesn't help that the mere sight of Graeme Murray is enough to start me laughing.

Seeing Graeme trying to cope with this job is marvellous.

I'm fond of the occasions in which his brain gets so mashed up that he ends up approaching customers on the shop floor and yelling "NEXT PLEASE!" as if he is still on the till. I'm also a fan of him getting abused by grime kids, especially because there is always at least four of them and they're physically massive yet still in their early teens.

The question is:

How much more can I take?

The answer is:

I don't know.

I'm trying to get through Chrissal by sheer force of will, a firm belief that I can cope with the stresses of the record buying public. But I don't think I can. Recently I've spent the days in some sort of catatonic state, almost like a trance in which I can control my actions yet am strangely detatched from what is going on. A sort of waking death.

I scared the shit out of someone by displaying more than a fleeting knowledge of Billy Cobham. Fuck me. It was pure luck, but it happened. If I was to walk into a record shop and find that the first member of staff I spoke to was conversant with the works of Baghiti Kumalo (bonus points to any readers who know who this is) I would definately shop there again. I'm so fucking good. I should be manager.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Two things of note that have happened this week:

1) Some lads thought I was on crack.
2) I tripped over a small fence.
3) Ben Jones mother said 'meteoroid'.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm currently reading a book entitled A Man On The Moon. It's a history of the golden era of space travel, from the first Atlas missions up to the last moon landing. Wowee, what an interesting book. I've just read a bit in which one of the last Apollo astronaughts recounts the story of a dream he had en route to the moon. Here's it is verbatim:

In a fever sleep , Duke saw himself and John Young on the moon, driving their Rover toward the North Ray crater. They came up over a ridge and suddenly Duke spotted something that made his heart race. A set of tracks crossed the ground ahead. Young stopped the Rover and they got off to investigate. The imprints in the dust looked like those from the Rover, but they were definately different. Duke asked mission control, "Can we follow the tracks?"

"Go ahead" was the reply from Earth. The twin trails stretched eastward, and Young and Deke turned to follow them. They drove onward for miles, over hills and across craters, until finally, topping another rise, they saw it: a vehicle, looking amazingly like the lunar Rover, stopped on the surface. Aboard were two figures in space suits. After calling Houston to announce their incredible discovery , Young and Deke climbed off the Rover and approached the two figures, motionless in their seats. When Deke reached the one in the right hand seat, he could not see into its helmet because of the opaque sun visor. He put out his hand and raised the visor and saw his own face. The one in the left seat was John Young's double. After taking pieces of the space suits and Rover at mission control's request, Young and Duke drove back to the LM and blasted off for home. The next thing Duke knew, he was on Earth, presenting the samples to the scientists. The test results: The craft was 100,000 years old. Then he awakened. The dream was so vivid - not scary, just REAL - that Duke remembered it from then on, and as he descended to the real moon inside Orion, he glanced out to his right at North Ray crater, and scanned the ground not only for boulders - "Looks like we're gonna make it, John; there's not too many blocks up there" -but for a set of tracks.

Can you imagine how much Duke was shitting it when he actually got to the moon?

I'd love to turn this theme into a song, but have no idea how. Maybe I should slip Morrissey a hundred quid and see what he can do. I'd be so good, a song about travelling to the moon and finding yourself already there. So chillingly Lynchian.

How the fuck are you supposed to write about space in a poetic way? It simply can't be done, and believe me I've tried.

The scientific connotations of space cannot be melded with the inherent humanity of poetic language. It really is like pushing a piano through an engine room.

Get the hell away from that thing.

2005-12-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

Today in work a fart so awful was released that upon smelling it a customer reacted as if they had been shot.

I heard a funny story. A lad called Dean (as of today no longer a HMV employee), possibly the most naturally funny person I have ever met, told a regular customer that he'd murdered someone! The regular (an old man who is profoundly deaf and consequently does not speak, only shouts) replied "What did you go and murder someone for? Was it an accident, an act of passion?" to which Dean responded "No. It was completely cold-blooded and unprovoked."

Within ten minutes of being told this story Dean entered the staff room, lowered his trousers and whilst spreading his shit-sleeve and emitted a gas so potent I almost vomited.

Dean is a very funny man. He's noted for having huge testicles. I've not seen them, but have been reliably informed that they are the size of kiwi fruits.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I've actually managed to LOSE weight. How can this be? This is the exact opposite of what I've been trying to do. I've taken to drinking milkshakes whenever I see them for sale, but it's having no effect. I just end up bloated from all the badness and severely dehydrated. Actually, every time I see an opportunity to eat something fattening I neck it. For example, today I'm having an entire pie (intended for four people) for dinner with salad. If I eat a pie for four every night I must get fat, mustn't it? Please Lord, please Lord, please Lord.

Maybe I should purchase some Crash Weight Gainer, as advertised in Powerlifting USA magazine. Hulk Hogan features in the advert so it must be good.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading a very informative book about space travel at the moment. The stuff about the early manned missions is boss, particularly the Atlas and Gemini eras of the space programme.

Did you know that the booster stage of the Atlas rockets was so flimsy that they would collapse when empty of fuel? They actually needed pressure inside them to stay turgid. Mental. It was possible to walk up to them and jab an umbrella through the hull with little effort.

The best stuff is when things went wrong. Like the time the Yanks launched a (thankfully) unmanned mission and it actually took off WITH THE LAUNCH TOWER ATTACHED. The launch tower was dragged up to three thousand feet before falling off, and NASA were shitting it about the thing landing in an inhabited area. Luckily it plunged into the Atlantic.

Or the time when the first human performed a space walk, a Russian named Titov (I think). Upon trying to get back into the ship from whence he had come he realised that his suit had expanded and he no longer fit through the porthole! Shit! He knew he was going to die anyway, so almost completely depressurised his suit to allow him to fit back onto the ship. Luckily for him it worked. Can you imagine anything worse? Just slowly suffocating in the vast vacuum of space.

I like the time that the first manned Yank mission splashed down and the entire collection of camera film from the mission was instantly destroyed. The whole lot. Gone. First ever manned space mission. Or when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Alrin managed to fry the mission video camera by pointing it directly at the sun. Bye-bye first ever video footage of the moon.

It's so weird that people have actually landed on the moon. Just stop and think about it for a moment. If I told you that there was areas of the Amazon that humans have never set foot in you'd correctly say "so what?", because it's completely possible for a human to go there. They just haven't got round to it yet. But visiting a different planet is a different kettle of fish. Before the moon landing if I heard that the Yanks were making a concerted effort to land a human on that distant ball of barren rock, I'd say codswallop. It's not possible. But they did it! To give you some scale of the distance we're talking here, picture the Earth as a basketball. To orbit the earth is to reach a point no more than an inch off the outer layer of the ball, and this is as far as humans got for years. But using the same scale the moon is the SIZE OF A TENNIE BALL AND TWENTY THREE FEET AWAY. When you imagine it like this it's quite a big thing to go to the moon, I think you'll agree.

I wonder what treasures Mars has got in store. I was thrilled when the British-sourced Mars rover failed a couple of years ago. It simply couldn't have gone wrong in a more infuriating way. After successfully landing an Mars the most hazardous and nerve-wracking part of the whole venture was over. But the relatively simple task of sending images back to Earth didn't happen. Imagine. Loads of pop stars and actors (Johnny Depp may even have got his dick in the stew) pumped money into it, there was a live TV show intended to show the first images of the Red Planet, it was all over the world's press and millions of pounds had been sunk into the mission. But there was simply nothing to be shown. Nothing. It didn't even have the glorious ending of burning up upon entry into Martian atmosphere or blowing up on the launch pad. And what's more a) they don't know what happened b) they can't exactly go up there and fix it c) there's nothing to stop it happening again d) it's fucked any future British space exploration e) it must have been very embarrassing for those at the helm, so to speak.

------------------------------------------------------------------

It would seem that as a result of the excellent documentary, the whole country is going Take That crazy. And it was a good documentary.

I've got wonderful stories of terrorising Gary Barlow, but that will have to wait till another time. Or maybe Joe can fill us in......

-----------------------------------------------------------------

When I lived on Dickenson Road in Manchester we spent an inordinate amount of time designing robots. Paul Rafferty's and Joe Tucker's were easily the best (they were the only ones who could draw), but there were some real humdingers. I distinctly remember designing one that was shaped like a hockey-puck that only had rotor blades as a means of locomotion. It had no means of moving other than flying vertically. It had a humans face, whips with hammers on the end, and despite only being created twenty minutes prior was already crying.

God we had some fun times in that house. It was one of those experiences that sticks with you for the rest of your life. A complete melting pot of mischief-prone hooligans tempered by an alarming creative streak. I have a memory of me and Tucker throwing a huge television from Cooley's window (it was a very high house, and we were at the top floor) and it sounding like a cannon firing upon hitting the floor. The next day Mr Berry (our landlord) paid a visit, saw the damage and immediately sent round his goons to clean up the mess! Miserable bastard.

On firework night we broke every rule in the book for how to handle bottle rockets. At one point we were putting rockets in closed containers, lighting the fuse, then running inside the house and watching the chaos through the window. The next day we discovered bits of glass embedded in the back door from a vase that had acted as a blast chamber for 'something really special' we had purchased from the Choudry earlier that day. Then we tied a teabag to a rocket, set it off, and watched in horror as it came to a stop on the neighbours roof (still trying to shunt itself into the ether).

I'm fond of the time Cooley and Ed snorted a load of anti-depressants. I'd left them to it and gone to bed, and upon coming downstairs in the morning found them still up. The Seroxat had really kicked in shortly after I'd bedded myself, giving them terrible visions, an almost uncontrollable urge to vomit and lock-jaw. This had gone on all night, and by the time I had found them they were on the verge of calling an ambulance. Happy days.

I'm also deeply proud of some of the japes I got up to in those days. Like the time I filled Ed's travel bag with dumbbell weights, making his train journey home much harder than it needed to be. Or the time I completely covered the aperture of Cooley's bedroom door with gaffa-tape thinking that he would be sealed inside, only to realise that he wasn't in the room. Or the time me and Joe tried to enrol Cooley in the army. Or the time me and Joe found a beaker in the back yard and immediately smashed it to bits, only to be told that Alison had put it there for a science experiment minutes before.

Me and Joe also phoned the Congo from a pay-as-you-go mobile, one of my proudest achievements to this day. I had just got a contract phone and had eight pounds worth of credit on my old PAYG so we got out the Yellow Pages, looked for interesting country codes and started dialling. I think we tried several different countries but had no joy. It was very difficult to get a connection with anywhere because we didn't know how many digits would be appropriate for a given country, but after several attempts we got through to a random number in the Congo. We kept phoning the same number over and over again, and the same fella kept answering. He sounded very tired when answering, so I reckon it must have been the middle of the night over there. I bet he didn't know what the hell was going on. After we'd got him to answer the phone for the fifth time in five minutes Joe started telling him that "I'm very British, and you must leave your country right now" or something similar. But by then the credit was gone. Gone.

It was later pointed out to me that One2One probably had to move a satellite to make that call happen, and I'd be amazed if anyone has phoned the Congo from Britain on a PAYG mobile before. It send me under when I realised that we'd got through eight pounds of credit in about sixty seconds.

Whilst living in that house I also had THE BEST argument with my girlfriend at the time. It was incredible, the single best slanging match I've ever had with a partner. It all started with me commenting that there's really no need to use butter in this day and age (which I think is true), and culminated with her throwing a cactus at me. My reaction was to smash a Lee Perry CD box set (it actually imbedded in the wall) and attempting to rip a huge radiator off. Luckily I lost heart when the thing actually started coming away from the plaster.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

As I predicted six months ago, the Futureheads have gone nowhere. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Fantasy band

-------------

Spoons: Chuck D

Drums: Freddie Mercury

Timpani: Billy Bragg

Piano: Jon Bon Jovi

Vocals: Ornette Coleman

Fantasy boxing matches:

---------------------

Fifty Cent

vs.

Johnny Cash (Cash would win)

Hulk Hogan

vs.

Flava Flav (Hogan would win)

Freddie Mercury

vs.

Greg Ginn

James Joyce

vs.

Jaco Pastorius (Jaco would win)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I once saw something that I simply cannot think of an explanation for. I must have been twelve years old, and was walking across the car park of the Asda near Halton Lea in Runcorn. I was with my Dad and it was snowing. We saw a man sheepishly packing snow into the boot of his car with his bare hands, but he was actually putting it into the area below the carpet where the spare wheel was (it was a red Peugeot 405). When he realised that he had been spotted he stopped what he was doing and just stood there twiddling his thumbs. Can anyone possibly explain what was going on, and why he was doing it? Why was he so worried about being seen?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I've busted up my bike real good. I was riding down some steps and the back wheel just buckled. I've spent all week walking to and from work, and I'm blatantly going to get mugged on Princess Road before too long.

But I am getting incredibly fit incredibly quickly.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Ash have had such a strange career. I suppose they've had a similar existence to Supergrass, i.e. they got really big at an incredibly young age and then crashed back down to Earth. The difference with Ash is that they managed to revive their career few years ago whereas Supergrass have got nowhere to go but down. I never know whether or not to feel sorry for bands of this type. It must be a dream come true for your first band to get really big, but inevitably the appeal that brought you success in the first place (i.e. a youthful exuberance and naive charm) withers and dies pretty sharpish. The comedown for bands that get massive at a young age must be pretty hard to cope with, and I think that the Arctic Monkeys are going to get it really, really bad. I simply cannot fathom the success of the Arctic Monkeys, and it makes me wonder whether meritocracy in music exists at all. It also makes me doubt whether I possess the ability to recognise the difference between good and not-so-good bands.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Today a customer said "Pax & Maddy" instead of "Max & Paddy".

------------------------------------------------------------------

I really like Eminem's first album. Many of the rhymes make me laugh out loud, especially the ones in Guilty Conscience. It's such a good idea to pitch a battle between one's nihilistic desire for hedonism and feelings of guilt, especially when the opposing forces are played by Eminem and Dre (respectively). I especially like the part where Dre admits defeat and instructs Eminem to shoot two people in cold blood.

I also like Billy Cobham's debut album, Spectrum. My word could that man play drums. This particular album has been sampled shit-loads in rap circles simply because the grooves are amazing. The whole album is a mish-mash of incredibly dated synth noises teamed with unlistenable arrangements, and certain sections are avante garde in the extreme. I love it.

It just makes me sad that I can enjoy an album as eclectic as Spectrum and yet find Jaco Patorius' albums completely awful. Yes, I know he pushed forward the frontiers of electric bass playing and all that but nearly everything he has recorded SOUNDS AWFUL. Especially the Weather Report stuff. It's aged so badly that it makes one cringe to listen to it. The only stuff he's done worth listening to was when he teamed up with Pat Metheny and some drummer and played as a three-piece, and that's because it was all improv. It's possible to download recordings or this particular trio, and I suggest you do it. Now.

------------------------------------------------------------------

What the hell was Sting thinking when he formed the Blue Turtles band? His first ensemble venture post-Police featured the crème de la crème of jazz musicians of that particular era. It's so weird. Here we have nothing more than a pop musician, a pop musician whose ego is inflated enough to actually recruit members of the Marsalis family as his touring band. It's like Chris Martin going solo and teaming up with Courtney Pine.

Post-Beatles Macca did the exact opposite. He could have had any session musicians in the world yet in forming Wings used a thoroughly workmanlike band and a novice keyboard player.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm currently being amused by the though of Johnny Cash committing a spoonerism on stage.

Imagine. He's playing the main stage at Glastonbury in the evening, and everybody is excited. It's a beautiful evening and everybody is there watching, because they all love the Cashmaster. Cash walks out onto the stage and the crowd roars. By this time he's picked up his guitar, strapped it on and is making his way over to the microphone.

Then it comes:

"Hi! My name's Conny Jash".

I'd need therapy if I witnessed this.

Or if I saw Mike Watt and he said "What's up all you gay bastards? This song's called the vinegar strokes". Thanks Beece.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Chopper has brought out another book, the sixth instalment of a convoluted autobiography. I'll definitely buy it, even though his literary efforts get worse with subsequent offering.

Chopper One is a stone cold classic. It's a crash course in a criminal subculture that you wouldn't believe existed, a who's who of the Australian underworld from the mid sixties to mid eighties. Right up my street in other words. Chopper Two is much the same, but the stories are not quite as good. Chopper Three is also worth a read but he was clearly running out of stories at this point. Four and five should be read accompanied by the sound of barrels being scraped, if you see what I mean.

What a man. What a waste of a life.

It boggles the mind that someone can end up in an area of crime so specialised that 95% of the hardest career criminals would not even dare dabble with. By his own admission, Choppers' criminal past makes even the toughest criminal lives seem tame. He's single-handily taken control of all the massage parlours in Melbourne, been a key part in one of the most long running and bloody prison wars that the modern penal system has ever seen, been a champion street fighter, knocked people for money, run his own kidnap & torture business, been the target of dozens of contracts on his life, spent four years inside Jika Jika prison, been stabbed, shot, run over and bashed, and cut his own ears off as a way out of prison. He's also murdered twenty people and been forced to dig his own grave.

And now he runs a farm.

Another crazy criminal is Mad Frank. Frank has done forty years in prison, and is now currently in his early eighties. Nothing seems to get to him. It's as if his entire psyche is constructed to deal with the rigours are criminal life, and he NEVER CHANGES despite the harrowing experiences he's been through. This guy was in prison at such an early age that capital punishment had only just been abolished, and corporal punishment was still in full swing. In the early days of his prison life one of his favourite punishments was to be left outside semi-naked with the task of bashing a huge lump of rock with a hammer, until it was powdery enough to pass through a sieve. Can you imagine if the prison service tried something like that now?

There it goes. Look at it.

2005-11-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this whilst listening to Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg on the headphones, so forgive me if I go ganster on yo' ass.

My favourite refrain is:

One of them dames is sexy as hell
She says "ooh, I like your style"
She says "my car has broken down and you sing real nice, would you let me ride?"
I got a car full of girls and it's going real well
The next stop is the east-side motel.

If I was writing a rap song it would go like this:

One of those girls is fit
She's says "I like your car"
She says "My bus isn't going to turn up and it's raining, can I have a lift?"
I've got a lass in the car and it's slightly awkward
The next stop is Ullet Road

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I have AT LAST got hold of Hulk Hogan's theme song, Real American. It's brilliant! I often spare a thought for the poor bastards who were hired to record this shit fifteen years ago. Imagine being expected to soulfully sing "I am a real American, fight for the rights of every man, I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight to unite!" many times over. It's the same for the people that record things for childrens toys, like teddy bears that speak when a cord is pulled. Have sympathy for the poor souls who have to pass the days recording processed voices for toy robots.

Whilst we're on the subject of wrestling, nobody ever believes me about the famous WWF match in which Hulk Hogan suffered a blazing erection mid-bout. I promise it's true.

I can't remember who he was fighting, but happened during the filming of a very important match. Upon seeing the broadcast viewers blatantly saw his prick pricking-up, and it was BIG. Children in the audience noticed and actually started crying. Hogan had to pretend he was injured and lie face down on the ring floor, whilst another wrestler was hurridly thrust into the Arena to interfere with the match and bring about a disqualification. Hogan was then stretchered out, again face down.

If you ask me it the steroids were to blame.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Tony Keenan correctly pointed out to me that unemployment shouldn't exist. Don't accuse me of stating the obvious YET, the thinking behind this statement is that ALMOST ANYWHERE YOU LOOK YOU WILL SEE SOMETHING THAT HAS BEEN CREATED/DONE BY A HUMAN AT SOME POINT. There are countless tasks which need doing. It's so true. If I glance at the walls of this room I see that not only has someone BUILT the house but has also PAINTED the wall. If I look down I see a carpet which has been manufactured and installed by men. When I look out of the window I see a street light that has been installed, a tree that has been planted and a bench that has been made and set in concrete. All by man.

Even when walking down the street the very tarmac on which which is supporting you weight has been laid by a worker many moons ago.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I was amused to read that a disgruntled Microsoft employee actually managed to include some pornography in the content of a free software CD that was shipped with thousands of computers across America. Words cannot express how much joy this brings me. Mischief on a grand, grand scale.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I tried to summarise the Fandango Lads to a work colleague today, but it's not possible to convey what the Boys are about without coming across as....I don't know.......it's just not possible full stop.

Things of interest about the Fandango Boys:

The Fandango Lads are two brothers, Pomp and Circumstance Fist. They grew up within a mile of each other but did not meet until the age of 20. Within minutes of their first meeting they agreed to unite and hatched out a game plan, and this has not been deviated from.

The Fandango Boys are fabulously wealthy.

They are keen promoters of racist boxing, as well as anti-aparteid crust gigs.

They are noble in the extreme.

They own most of the land in Bucks and Hampshire.

They absolutely hate each other, and each new record is a new battle of planted-sized egos.

They have recorded with Billy Bragg at the controls in Eminem's home studio.

They have been known to tour a circus round the country featuring animals, bare knuckle fights, football matches and the firing of cannons.

They can often be seen riding high-powered sports motorcycles incredibly fast down Harrow Road in London.

In their career they have worked with Tupac, Elton John, Jools Holland, William Orbit and Mike Tyson.

They are responsible for writing the following songs:

Take Five (performed by Dave Brubeck)
Yesterday (performed by Sir Paul McCartney)
Nothing Compares 2 U (performed by Sinead O'Connor)
California Love (performed by Dre and Tupac)

They insist on using a combination of the finest session musicians in the land and at least one complete novice, usually the drummer, so their band is continually stunted.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Changes I would make to the sort known as football:

A lion must be released onto the pitch for ten minutes in every match.

The pitch must be littered with dog turds. The first player to slip on a turd gets man of the match.

The matches must not be stopped.

Mike Tyson must play for one team.

Each and every player must wear a headset mic, and their collective voices broadcast to the venue.

Goalies must be forced to smoke.

One team must go skins.

Avril Lavigne must host all World Cup matches.

Linesmen must be dressed as WW2 pilots.

The captains must each carry a cane.

Sandals instead of boots for ten seconds out of every match.

Goldfinger by Ash must be broadcast at mind-warpingly high volume for the entire 90 minutes.

Managers must observe the match from an iced-cream van, whilst dishing out 99s to punters.

The fans must be terrorised by muggers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

A mate of mine claims that if you drive into the back of a police car the guns in the boot go off.

The same person described paedophiles as "under-rated".

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Isn't it sick how cheeky kids are? Today a little bastard as high as my waist told me to fuck off.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I love it when the seasonal staff start at HMV. We've got a couple of corkers already, and it's early days yet. One is now known as 'wanger sue' and colours his trainers in with highligther pen. My esteemed colleague Matt Baugh described as a "chopper". I'd say the singles counter has been blessed by getting Jimmy Fingers, so named because of his knarly till-skills. I'm also keen on Joanne because she doesn't know what the fuck is going on.

STOP PRESS - I have been informed that the A Man (like A-Team) is now manning the tills in Marks & Spencers. For those who don't know (and you probably don't) the A Man was a temp that started at HMV about a year ago, only to leave after being unceremoniously sacked in February. I've got a very, very funny memory of hearing this conversation between the A Man and a member of the security team:

A Man - "I've been sacked."

Kev - "Never mind Andy, just because you were too shit to be kept on."

It's not often a temp of that caliber passes through the hallowed halls of HMV. Me and Matt have spent an entire year reminiscing about the A Man and his current whereabouts, but NOW WE KNOW WHERE HE IS!!! This is great.

Expect more news as soon as I get it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

My new name is P-Dollar. Or possibly P-$, I'm not sure.

One Thousand Fists and Feet

2005-11-09T04:15:00.000-08:00

Being able the download music is frickin' boss. I seem to have got out of the habit of buying music over the past year, but downloading enables me to get whatever I want FOR FREE. I like this. And I couldn't give a hoot that the artists are getting fuck all in return for it. Not a hoot.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing Compares 2 U as performed by Sinead O'Connor is raw, unadulterated emotion. I cannot think of another song that conveys a sense of longing as effectively as this ditty. This begs the question, is the quality of the song the most important factor in creating a classic, or is it down to the performer and climate in which the song is created? Is it ANY of these things?
It’s very hard to say.

But I’m sure as shit that some songs have that ‘x’ factor, a perfect fusion of writing and performance. But I think it also has a lot to do with the era in which people are made aware of the song, or in which they were written/recorded/performed.
For example, if Macca was to write ‘Yesterday’ in 2005 would it have the same cultural impact that occurred when it was released in 1965? I don’t know.

But maybe that’s a bad example.

If many soul classics (I mean stuff that has become part of the wallpaper, like Stand By Me and The Sweetest Feeling) were recorded today using the same instruments, players and equipment as used years ago they would lack the spontaneously joyous quality that the oldies have. Does this say more about recording methods in the fifties or changing tastes of the current listener?
Take Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s almost impossible to properly listen to this song because it gets used on adverts, played on the radio, repeated on Top Of The Pops and featured on Best Songs Of All Time TV programs constantly. The listener is so familiar with it that the sense of familiarity takes over any sort of musical analysis, or any sort of genuine appreciation.

Fuck me.

I guess the moral of the story is that it’s not possible to fully understand the appeal of a song unless you were there when it first became popular. But that doesn’t mean oldies can’t be enjoyed. I listen to The Beatles, Queen, Led Zep, Beach Boys and Charlie Parker
because I think their songs are bloody brilliant. But I’m also aware my reasons for liking this music are different from my parents, but what does it matter?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things that irritate me about my job:

1) When people enter shops they seem to lose all ability to read. On an half-hourly basis I will be stopped by a member of the public with a CD in their hand, and they will ask "has this got (insert song here) on it?" In response I usually ask them if the track listing on the reverse states the song they require, to which they will scan the writing as if they are looking at an ancient text written in a long forgotten tongue. Would you not think to actually look at the back of the CD before bothering to ask for help?

2) People cannot think for themselves. Prior to working in a record shop if I was looking for, say, a copy of Parklife I would find the section of the shop that featured rock music. Fair enough, Blur are not strictly rock music but it's a reasonable place to start. I would then look in section of that area that dealt with artists whose name begins with the letter 'B'. I would find the letter 'B' by picking an area of the racking, then follow the alphabet accordingly until I had found what I was looking for. Only when I had tried for at least ten minutes to find what I was looking for would I consider asking a sales assistant. The way I see it we're here to assist people that need help, not able-bodied bastards that are too lazy to bother looking.

3) People pick the most inopportune moment to ask for assistance. If I saw a sales assistant struggling with a three foot pile of CDs or pushing a bicycle through the shop (i.e. clearly having finished their shift) I would not ask them to be show me where something is.

4) Certain members of the public just cannot get their heads round the idea of queuing. Picture a shop counter which features more than one till. Any number will do, as long as it's more than one. Now picture one solitary sales assistant manning the counter serving a queue of people. Remember, only ONE till is manned and a queue of four or five people extends backwards from the cashier. If you were approaching this particular counter wanting to purchase something, would you ignore the queue and stand at a till that is unmanned? And then when politely asked to join the queue would you get shirty with the sales assistant and kick off about how long you've been waiting?

5) People will stand in a queue for up to ten minutes and when asked for payment act is if this is the last thing they were expecting. ONLY WHEN IT IS TIME FOR MONEY TO CHANGE HANDS will they begin the search in their rucksack/handbag/pockets for a wallet/purse. Inevitably they will have neglected to bring their credit card. Did they not think to check they had their money/card before it was necessary to hand it over?

6) People tend to hand you their credit card as if it is valuable and liable to break.
7) Despite it being around for a while now, people cannot understand chip and pin. A few weeks ago Mr Tom Byrne recounted to me the story of a customer he had served minutes before. Here’s an approximation:

(the man has put his card in the card reader correctly, it is now displaying the following)
-- -- -- --
MAESTRO UK

4.99

PLEASE ENTER 4-DIGIT PIN CODE
-- -- -- --
(this is where the story begins)

Customer: "Shit, I’ll have to put these back. I’ve only got a fiver in my account"

Tom: "What?"

Customer: "It says here (pointing at card reader) that I’ve only got a fiver left."

Tom: "No, it’s fine. The amount you can see on there is the amount that you’re about to pay for your records. We haven’t got access to your bank balance!"

Customer: "Are you sure?"

Tom: "Yes. Type it in. It will be fine."

Mental.

8) People cannot perform simple mental arithmetic. If I was buying, say, four CDs I would perform a quick calculation to roughly estimate how much the whole lot would cost. I would not queue up, let the sales assistant ring the whole lot through and then decided that it’s too expensive.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m currently bang into the idea of pushing a fountain off a cliff. I'm certain this can be used as a simile, but I can't think of any circumstances in which it would apply. But I must find one. I also like comparing something unpleasant to the act of tearing your own ears off.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Possible songs to be played at my funeral:

Dad’s Army theme
2001: A Space Odyssey theme
Queen – Body Language
Kiss – Girls Girls Girls
Neil Young – Welfare Mothers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This time of year always puts me off going out. Something about the darkness in the evening wants me to spend the evenings curled up listening to Leatherface, in particular this song:
There was a time when things were evergreen
And seemingly ideal
Nights turned into day and we didn’t notice the change
No I didn’t think you were wrong
And I can still sing your favourite song
Not as simple as thanking for presents bought
Not a day goes by that I don’t spare you a thought
Not a day goes by.
Thanks Frankie.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My word, I’ve finally been furnished with a video copy of the infamous Bill Hicks gig in which he goes mental at a heckler. Amazing. It’s not often you see a performer of Hicks’ stature lose their rag on stage, but my God it’s funny to watch. I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone that could beat Hicks in a slanging match. If he directed his ire at you you simply WOULD NOT stand a chance.

Aside from the aforementioned incident, it cracks me up when he goes on about staring at Jackie Onasis’ ass as she is trying to catch bits of her dead husbands head as they roll off the back of the limo. So tasteless.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two funny things occurred in work today:

1) The Christmas rotas had just been handed out, and I was stood on the escalator contemplating the hellish hours I will be working over the next two months. I looked forward and noticed that the old lady stood facing directly away from me was wearing brand-new trainers that simply said "FREE TIME" on the back, in the place it would normally say Nike or New Balance. I’m not making this up, which worries me as I may actually be going insane.

2) A different old lady said ‘playboy’ instead of ‘playstation’.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’ll miss Aussie Steve, he’s a real swell guy. But I still despise every inch of his piss-sodden Australian body.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the request of Mr Tucker, I’m going to write about Bronson.

For those not in the know, Charles Bronson’s real name (not the actor) is Mickey Peterson. Mickey grew up in Ellesmere Port and quickly gained a reputation as a feared local hooligan, and eventually ended up in borstal. This is where his road to achieving the title of Britain’s longest serving category A prisoner began.

Bronson, is by my reckoning, the most disruptive prisoner ever to have graced the British prison system. By his own calculations he has assaulted over fifty prison guards (not actually that much when you’ve been in prison for nearly forty years, but still impressive) and is Britain’s most prolific hostage-taker. His solution to everything is to take a hostage, even if a) the hostage is in no way linked to his gripe b) it will only make things worse c) he’s too stupid too see it through to any useful conclusion. He once imprisoned four Iraqis single-handedly and would not release them until he was supplied with a machine gun, some iced cream, a cheese sandwich and a helicopter (with pilot). Needless to say his demands were not met and he only ended up with another five years added to his hopelessly long and continually increasing sentence.

His life is littered with acts of complete stupidity, and he is under the impression that his confinement is unjustified. Every time he is released he attempts to rob a bookies or hijack a car, instantly landing him with an automatic ten-stretch upon apprehension by the (now bored) police.

He has tried in vain to demonstrate that he is a changed man. In 2003 he married a Muslim and actually adopted the Muslim faith for a short while, before getting divorced and reverting to a life of self-pity and violent tantrums. He despises fat people, released a book of physical exercises which featured a legal disclaimer advising the reader not to partake in any of the exercises contained within, has broken world records for endurance and tried to establish himself as a boxer despite having a history of violent and unprovoked attacks. And fought a dog to the death. I mean, can a person sink any lower than to fight an animal for money? It shouldn’t happen in this day and age. It’s not possible for things to get that bad. Is it?

The sad thing is that if he ever was to leave the prison system he probably would crumble under the stresses of normal life. He is so woefully out-of-touch with modern conventions that the modern world would almost certainly confuse him. Even the modern prison system confuses him.

He seems to think that he has earned the respect of the crème de la crème of Britain’s criminal elite. He’s always wittering on about how much respect he’s got for the likes of Joe Pyle, Dave Courtney and the remaining Kray and Richardson twins. But in reality they think he is an idiot and don’t understand why/how he’s managed to make himself synonymous with the key players of the golden era of British crime (remember, he’s the epitome of the chronically unsuccessful career criminal). They obviously are slightly fearful of him so tolerate his name-dropping.

I like it when he snaps and goes on a rampage inside whichever prison he is residing at the time. It doesn’t seem to happen any more, but in the mid eighties he went on the warpath seemingly every few weeks. Nobody and nothing is safe when he gets upset, and he gets upset frequently. He is keen on gaining access to the roofs of prisons, where he has been known to stay for up to two weeks living on nothing more than moss, birds eggs and rainwater. The objective of these rooftop protests has yet to be fathomed by the authorities or Bronson himself. There was a good incident in Liverpool prison in which he stripped off, blacked himself up from head to toe with boot polish, donned sunglasses (where did he get them from?) and a prison staff issue hat (worn back-to-front) and stomped round the prison brandishing a home made spear uttering "it’s all over" whilst indiscriminately destroying whatever he came across. He also had a prison governor tethered to his person with a length of rope for the entire duration.

The total cost of his four decade spell in prisons must run into the millions.

Bronson was a real headache for the government for a long time. He was too dangerous to release but kept destroying prisons and staff whilst inside. Because of his unique behaviour and relatively victimless crimes (let’s be frank – taking a hostage isn’t a victimless crime, but he’s never murdered, mugged an old lady or nonced a child) he is seen as a loveable source of amusement to the public. Therefore the government can’t let him rot. All they can do is give him what he wants, within reason, and hope that he behaves himself. Luckily he seems to have kept his nose clean in recent years, although I bet that it is only a matter of time before he takes another hostage.

Watch this space.

Up and away

2005-11-02T05:20:00.000-08:00

Check it: for the first time in a year the Stearnebine is actually excited about doing music, and feeling good about the creative urge in general.

I don't want to turn this into an introspective rant (partly because that would be hellishly egotistical and more importantly because nobody would be interested), but let us think about the last twelve months. What the fuck happened?

I've known for ages that I'm completely sick of playing bass. She's a cruel, thankless instrument. Once you've lost the drive to try and do interesting stuff on it playing becomes a chore. I was shitting it about not wanting to play bass any more, but I've found the remedy to cure this guilt is NOT TO WORRY ABOUT IT. It's no big loss. Bass was a large part of my life for so long, but I feel now is the time to let it go. The only time I play bass now is for Tokyo (which is a pleasure just because I get to hang out with three of my best mates) but I will certainly not be playing bass in any more bands.

I'm bang into the stuff me and Keenan have been writing. This is the most gratifying music I have done for a long time, and I hope it sees the light of day at some point. It feels great not to be lashed to the slave stick of that four-stringed twat (the bass I mean, not Tony) and both sit facing each other with acoustic guitars singing our hearts out.

Jupiter: Beyond the infinite

2005-11-02T03:20:00.000-08:00

I've finally managed to download Toy Soldiers, a pop song from a lass called Martika. Eminem famously took samples from this song for his hit by the same title. Martika's voice is sickeningly good. Why is it that the right female voice can melt the coldest male heart?

I'm also currently rocking Pearly Dewdrops Drops, a song by the Cocteau Twins. I have become aware of this song from the newly-released John Peel compilation album, and my word it's good. Echoey femals vocals swooping and hollering over a smack-ridden backing track, kind of like the Jesus And Mary Chain with Courtney Love on vocals. But better.

2005-11-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

Update : Beaver has now been banned from the shop. It would appear management is sick of his indiscriminate verbal assaults on staff members and customers. And now I've got Alan in trouble because he didn't throw the Beaver out for swearing at me on the shop floor. Today I was sat on the steps outside and Beaver tried to make his entrance but Chesty scared him away!

"Commerciality Paul. Remember, commerciality!"

2005-11-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

My quest to get fat is proving very, very difficult. I’m currently trying to gain half and stone but it’s just not happening. I’ve been eating chocolate and various power-foods for the first time in ages but nothing is changing. I’m still stick-thin. How can this be? I’ve been lifting huge weights to try and get bulky but I’ve not put on one ounce. I’ll have to start loading up on carbs before bed.

Yesterday I watched a man leg-press six hundred pounds eighteen times. It wasn’t pleasant to watch. I should imagine he’s very unhappy.

Speaking of diet, has anyone else got this weird tummy bug that seems to be going round? I’ve been backed up with chod for about three weeks, yet sometimes I feel that I am in serious danger of soiling myself. Luckily I’ve managed to avoid it so far. It all started when I ate six boiled eggs for breakfast, but I feel this is not the root cause. At least I hope it isn’t.

I highly recommend the Husker Du album New Day Rising. I’ve resisted the temptation to buy it for a long, long time but I’ve finally got it. And it’s very, very good. The song Celebrated Summer, aside from having a classic title, is an achievement of epic proportions.

On the subject of music, the song Heartbreakers by the Cold Crush Brothers may be the best song ever committed to tape. It's up there with Strauss in my opinion.

About two months ago the managing director of HMV came to our store for a visit. This bloke is the head honcho of the whole company, numero uno. It’s not possible to meet anyone higher up the chain of command, so it was vital that everyone made a good impression. We had to close the door of our mini stockroom downstairs because amongst other graffiti someone had written TURDBANGER on the doorframe. Luckily he didn’t seem to notice.

Today some cunt blocked my car in. It was so unnecessary; the car park was virtually empty. I had to drive quarter of a mile along a playing field to get out, with an audience of parents and children watching. I considered leaving a note on the perpetrators’ windscreen but didn’t fancy wasting a page of my atlas on the twat. With hindsight I should have just marker-penned it onto his window, then kicked the shit out his face when he returned.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just made a cup of tea but actually forgot to add the milk AND teabag. I carried it all the way up my room before realising all I had in hand was a cup of hot water. I’m losing the plot badly.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things I want to do before I die

1) Drive up an empty car transporter at high speed.

Everyone has drives has been tempted to do this. Occasionally I see empty car transporters parked at the side of the road, I feel they’d make excellent ramps for a high-speed jump.

2) Do a lock-up on a full McDonalds.

Me and Tucker have already locked an entire audience into a cinema screen mid-film, but I want to repeat the stunt on a packed McDonalds. I would be so amazing. Imagine the instant panic.

3) Have a go in a digger.

I’ve heard rumours that a place called Digger World exists where members of the public can pay a fee then rag a digger round a field all day. This is my idea of the perfect afternoon. Just imagine it; being completely untrained and then attempting to pilot something as awesomely destructive and potentially dangerous as a JCB. And it’s legal.

4) Hug a bear.

I don’t care if it’s incredibly dangerous, I want to hug/wrestle a bear (preferably a polar) at some point in my life.

5) Throw a freshly prepared plate of dinner on the floor.

I mean, does anyone else get the urge to do this? Whenever I’m presented with a lovingly prepared meal I get a powerful lust to hurl it away.

6) Fire a machine gun.

Steve Carpenter has fired an AK47, the bastard. I’m jealous. The closest I’ve come is popping a few caps on a 12-bore shotgun. Take it from me, it nearly rips your bloody shoulder off.

7) Wire a plug up wrong.

I’ve heard that it blows the house up.

8) Pour a bottle of wine into an expensive piano.

I got this idea from Guy Stevens, legendary Clash producer.

9) Dump twenty quids worth of coppers into the coin receptacle at the entrance of the Birkenhead tunnel.

The beauty of this is that NO COPPER COINS is clearly stated on the booths. After dumping the change I would hopefully be challenged by the member of staff manning the toll gate, and would respond indignantly “it says there (pointing at sign) you can only use copper coins mate.”

10) Renovate and redecorate someone’s house whilst they are on holiday.

Imagine how confusing it would be if one returned from a holiday to find that their house had been tastefully and comprehensively messed with by an anonymous third party. If only I had the money…….

I’ve heard tales about a former HMV employee who was so desperate to get a HMV-issue fleece he used to wear a small sized girls one. Apparently it used to only cover half of his stomach, and he was unable to bend his arms. Mental.

Update: Ironically I myself am now being forced to wear a girl’s HMV fleece too. It looks better on Tom than me, let it be said. At least it’s a medium, not a small.

Mr Thomas Burne amused me the other night, as always. We were in the Kray and I instructed him to get me a drink. The conversation he had with the barman went as follows:

Tom - “Get me a double.”

Barman - “A double what?”

Tom - “A double.”

Barman – “What double do you want?”

Tom – “Just a double.”

(by this point the barman is walking along the bar pointing at each individual bottle of spirits awaiting a response)

Barman – “What double do you want mate?”

Tom – “Anything. Just get me a double”.

(by now the visibly annoyed barman has roughly jammed a glass under a bottle of whiskey and is filling it).

I heard a sad story about Mr Thurlow today, otherwise known as superman. Around a year ago he was found in the shop leant against a listening post sobbing uncontrollably. A member of staff approached him and asked what was wrong, and he explained that his mother had died and he couldn’t wait to get to heaven to see her again. Poor man, it must have really affected him.

Hi Katrina and Australian Steven.

Isn’t it funny the things you notice a regular journey? On my twice-daily trip down Princess Road I’ve been watching a car battery slowly deteriorate for the past six months. Someone has seen fit to leave it in the gutter, but nobody has bothered to remove it. I mean, it’s SO dangerous. They’re full of sulphuric acid. All it will take is for a child to find it and break it open and we’ll be looking at one very ill nipper. I should really remove the motherfucker myself but I can’t ACTUALLY be bothered.

Been lent a few wrestling DVDs, and it makes for very interesting viewing. If you were a fan of wrestling as a child – and I think most boys of my age were – the documentary portions answer many questions and provide the fix of nostalgia you probably need.

I’ve never been a fan of Cactus Jack Foley, but that man easily qualifies as THE definitive authority on sports-entertainment wrestling. He has been there and done it all. I was impressed with one sequence in which he talks about being completely sick of his career in the late nineties, and consequently giving up wresting. Of course WWF story writers had to fabricate a story line to explain the imminent departure of Cactus Jack. This was done was by shooting a sequence in which Vince invites Jack aboard his private plane and then unceremoniously sacks him. Jack claims his behind-the-scenes pitch for wanting out of the WWF was delivered to Vince MacMahon in no uncertain terms.

It would appear that this blog is spreading like fucking wildfire. I’ll have to be fucking careful what I fucking say from now on, I’ve no idea who is fucking reading it.

Stephen Fry claims there is a Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band song that features the following lyric (or something very similar):

With a tiddy-hop-scop we’re off to the seaside

How I hate my old mum

Could this actually be the most perfect two lines EVER written?

Joe Strummer is bloody good at thoroughly nonsensical lyrics too. There’s a terrible Clash song called Overpowered by Funk written about how awful funk music is, but he actually manages to slip the phrase “a phone box full of books” into the mire. How can a metaphor like this be applied to a distaste for funk music? I don’t understand.

Tony Keenan has drawn to my attention a Hall & Oates song in which Oates can clearly be heard yelling “YOU’RE RUINING MY LOVE-LIFE!” in the fade at the end. It’s probably from Man Eater, a damn fine song that I’ve just realised features a sadly rude title.

Whilst I’m on the subject of double-entendres, how did Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater ever reach the stage of being sold to the public? Fancy calling a computer game SNAKE EATER!!!!! And KIDS BUY IT!!!

Rule changes I would introduce to the sport known as boxing:

1) A lion in the ring. The lower part of the ropes is fenced off so that the lion cannot escape, and no digs must be thrown at the beast. The lion must NOT be stopped when having a go at the fighters, but MUST be interfered with sexually by the loser. No lion, no fight.

2) Bottomless pits in the ring. The pits extend deep into the core of the Earth.

3) Dog shit in the ring. If a fighter stands (or slips) on a deposit this is as good as suffering a TKO.

4) The entire fight comprises of one ten second round. But it still costs thirty quid to watch it on Sky.

5) High-heels.

6) Every professional fight must be refereed by Flava Flav, the cold lamper. No lamper, no fight.

7) Every third round must be fought wearing a monacle and carrying a cane.

Something amazing happened the other night. Mendez and I were getting a taxi to Croxteth Road after paying nine pounds for two plates of food, and as the taxi approached my house I said loudly “anywhere along here will be fine please”. No response. We sailed on past my house at full speed and this time Mr Mendezian shouted “STOP HERE PLEASE MATE” but there was still no response. After banging on the partition twixt driver and passenger he eventually opened his little window and was told to stop, but buy that time we were a good quarter mile beyond where I live. Upon coming to a halt he shut the glass again and just sat there with the engine running. This meant we actually had no way to pay him, until we again knocked on the window signaling him to open up and take a fiver off us. Imagine! A taxi driver with no intention of stopping or allowing himself to be paid!

Put this in yer filthy, awful diaries.

2005-10-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Don’t know if anyone else suffers from this problem, but I continually miss out entire words when I’m writing things down. I guarantee that I will do it once during the creation of this Blog update. It usually occurs when I’m writing in a hurry, but it baffles me how I can re-read things umpteen times and STILL not see that a word is missing. For example, one of the first things I posted on this Blog began with the sentence “the boy watched his father open window” or something along those lines. Of course, what I should have written was “the boy watched his father open THE window”. How could I miss out a key word in such an idiotic fashion? It’s happened before. I’m continually leaving notes for my work colleagues with key words missing, rendering them at best weird and at worst unreadable. Maybe it’s a form of dyslexia?

On the subject of writing, has anyone noticed how the end section of the Coldplay song Fix You is utter toss? I have.

The entire lyrics are:

Tears streaming down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Is it just me, or is this an example of a cheap-rhyming none-scanning and downright LAZY lyric? It’s just pathetic. Not only is the act of rhyming ‘face’ and ‘replace’ unimaginative at best but the whole second line DOESN’T SCAN. It just doesn’t fit! That’s ten syllables that Chris Martin (bastard) has the sing in response to a line of six.

Here’s another nonsensical lyric. You remember that Chemical Brothers song in which Noel Gallagher sang a section? One part of the song features the line “how does it feel like?” This just plain isn’t sensible English. The line should be “how does it feel” or “what does it feel like”.

The Stupidest Things I Have Ever Done

Part 1 – getting my Dad’s car completely stuck in mud on a school playing field.

I was seventeen. Driving past the school, bored, I decided to gatecrash the local parents evening and say hello to some of my old teachers. Upon driving the entire length of the school grounds in the pouring rain I changed my mind and swung the car round using a patch of grass. Without thinking I ploughed straight into the goal mouth (which also doubled up as a shot-putt area) on full lock and the car immediately sank up to its door sills in wet mud. I was so annoyed I could have spit. I tried EVERYTHING to try and get moving. I got out of the car and pushed, I wellied the throttle, I got out and pushed WHILST wellying the throttle, I even raided the CDT bins and jammed the area under the tires with bits of balsa wood and old exam papers. But nothing worked. After being stuck for half and hour (by this time I think it had gone dark) I had to walk the entire length of the school, bang on the door of the caretakers’ house and beg for him not to lock the school gates so that I could still get out. Eventually I rang Johnny Wallace and he came down in his Cavalier. After much clutch smoke and almost ripping the boot lid of his car John managed to haul me free and I almost wept with delight. I thought I was going to have to call the AA at one point. I didn’t tell my Dad what happened, but he DID start asking questions as to why there was so much mud under his car that it had become impossible to steer properly. The entire steering system had to be professionally scraped.

I love to image the look on Lever and Evans’ faces the next day when they found their lovely field destroyed by foot-deep furrows jammed with wood and exam papers.

Part 2 – gassing my family.

When I was a child I had a penchant for mucky mixes. A ‘mucky mix’, for those who don’t know, is defined as a combination of completely unrelated but easily obtainable substances thrown into a container and stirred. In typical Paul Stearne fashion, I took it to an extreme. Aged ten I made a mucky mix so unnatural that it actually put my family in bed for a week. My Dad, a man who would only called in sick on a handful of occasions during his thirty year career at ICI, actually had to take a week off. This particular mucky mix had everything in it. Soil, hairspray, washing-up liquid, grass, engine oil, flour, cooking oil, rice, bleach, tapioca, caustic soda and glue were contained within. You name it, I used it. Then I carefully poured the goo into a huge copper pot for making jam and heated it on the hob. The fumes were so vile that every window in the house had to be left open for days and my mother actually vomited.

Part 3 – almost getting my father arrested.

Ours was the first household I was aware of to have a photocopier. For some bizarre reason I decided to see how things such as fivers, birth certificates and other official documents copied. Then I remembered the tax disc in my Dad’s car. I distinctly recall taking his car keys and carefully removing the tax disc from the windscreen. After discovering that it was impossible to photocopy – it actually turned out a completely different colour to the original – for some unknown reason I put the original in my trouser pocket. Upon hearing the sound of the washing machine the next afternoon, I realised with horror that the tax disc was IN POCKET OF MY TROUSERS WHICH WERE BEING WASHED. I managed to retrieve the tax disc from the pocket of my now sodden trousers and discovered that it was now a mush about the size and shape of a piece of used bubble-gum. Panic set in. By this point I was freaking out. And I was young. Too young to know that it’s possible to get a replacement tax disc for a tenner from the post office. I actually thought that to replace the thing I would be looking down the barrel of a hundred quid. That’s a lot of money for a seventeen year old. Then I remembered; THE PHOTOCOPY WAS STILL IN THE POTOCOPIER. I got the fruit of my experimentation, carefully cut it out (I even made allowances for the perforations – just like a real tax disc) and put it back from the whence the original had come. It was the best I could do.

All was fine for a month.

We had made a trip to Halton College to try and record some Honey Shop Screamers songs, only to realise that we didn’t know how to use the studio in the slightest. This meant an early finish and an early trip back to Frodsham. It turns out that on the way over to collect us, my Dad had been stopped on the Runcorn Widnes bridge by a police patrol.

I can imagine the conversation:

“May I see your driving license please, Sir?”

(Dad, completely confused and bewildered having done nothing wrong rummages around for his driving license and eventually finds it).

“Are you aware you’re driving with a counterfeit tax disc sir?”

(He calls Dad round to the front of the car and shows him. My Dad examines it closely and realizes it is a photocopy, a very bad photocopy at that. It is also the WRONG COLOUR. By this point his brain is actually melting).

Dad claims he actually had to beg the police officer that he knew nothing about it. He blamed it all on his son (me) and would have words ASAP. Unluckily for me ASAP meant in a car and front of my friends approximately twenty minutes later.

Part 3 – temporarily paralyzing my mother.

I have a very, very vague memory of swinging a plastic bag containing a heavy hard back book at my mothers’ spine. We’re talking infant school age here. I don’t know why I did it. She had to be carried to bed by my father and remained there for the rest of the evening. Thankfully she recovered.

Part 4 – throwing all my fathers’ tools down the drain.

Aged five I managed to prise open the lid of a drain at the back of our house. God knows how I did it; it’s a slab of concrete two by four feet in size and two inches thick. It probably weighs as much as a large man, and is definitely more awkward to lift. I threw pretty much everything to hand down there. I have a memory of my poor mother lying face down reaching into the hole desperately trying to retrieve a hammer.

Part 5 – painting my fathers’ car with creosote.

I take no blame for this one. If a man leaves an open tin of thick, black creosote next to his brand new white car WITH a brush what does he think will happen? I think being aged two when the incident occurred absolves me of all responsibility.

Part 6 – breaking into a brand new sideboard.

At roughly the same age I painted the car I successfully forced my way into a locked sideboard with a screwdriver. I was a very destructive child. The marks are still there to this day, much to my entire family’s annoyance.

Part 7 – being sought by a Yugoslav army.

I like this one. When we were on holiday in Yugoslavia (the summer between infant and primary school I estimate) I ran off on my own, my parents trusting me to stay nearby and not leave the grounds of the hotel in which we were staying. But I decided to go on a little adventure. On returning four hours later covered in mud my fraught-with-worry-but-sobbing-with-relief father told me in no uncertain terms to vanish again. He informed me that when I didn’t return within the hour he had contacted the local authorities who feared that I had been kidnapped by these weird hillbilly-Yugoslavs that allegedly lived in the forest not too far away from our hotel. A platoon of Yugoslav soldiers had been dispatched to find me.

Part 8 – offending a gay.

Aged seventeen I was on my way home from college on the E47 bus. It was crowded as usual. For some reason I started singing the following ditty:

OH MR SOFT, WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME WHY THE WORLD IN WHICH YOU LIVE IS SO FUCKING GAY?

There was no way I could have known that the college gay was sat yards away from me and blatantly heard what I was broadcasting to the entire lower deck. With hindsight it occurs to me that he probably thought I was directing it AT HIM.

Part 9 – being branded a cult member by Interpol.

I also like this one.

Aged approximately seventeen me and Paul Rafferty had American pen-pals. We used to e-mail these girls all the time and I actually came to close to heading over there to meet up with them. We used to them gifts via. international mail and they used to send us things in return. It was, to all intents and purposes, harmless and very good fun.

For some reason we sent one of these poor girls some bacon rind in an envelope and wrote on the envelope ‘SATAN LOVES YOU’ in black marker pen. It may have also featured a drawing of an inverted crucifix. About a week later heard reports back that the recipient had opened the envelope, started badly freaking out and actually called the police. The police came round to investigate, and upon seeing a photograph of me declared “that guy sure looks like he could be in a cult”. But he said nothing about Paul Rafferty (who was also in the photo).

Luckily, nothing came of this. I fear that if we repeated the stunt in today’s terrorism-mad climate I would have been hunted down like a dog.

I find it very, very annoying when bands do not remove their equipment from the stage after sound checking. I mean, is it sensible to leave your guitar propped against an amp for the entire night whilst other bands are playing on the stage? For fuck’s sake, it’s not only ASKING for your guitar to be stood on/knocked over/have drinks spilt on it but it also shows a total lack of respect for other bands. And no doubt if their instruments did get damaged during someone else’s set they’d blame the band on stage at the time. Sometimes I feel like kicking their stuff in just to prove a point.

No doubt it will relieve you to learn that Rohan has fixed the boiler and it’s not waking me up any more.

Rohan made me laugh this morning. Last night Louie stayed over and insisted on having a lie-in after I’d left for work. When leaving the house with my bike it occurred to me that Louie would need a key to get out, the same key I would need to get back in that evening. Thinking on my feet I instructed her to leave it under a stone hedgehog at the back of the house ready for collection by me later. The perfect crime, of so I thought. Upon arriving home at the same time as Rohan later on that evening we said our hellos and then hit me with this:

“Do me a favour Paul, don’t leave your key outside the house. There’s baddies round here, and nobody wants to get their gear robbed.”

Of course he’s dead right, but how the hell did he know? Does he check the area round the front door for keys every day? And why was the key STILL where Louie had left it? If he knew it was there and it worried him why didn’t he move it?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Beatles’ version of Please Mr Postman is one of my favourite recordings of all time. It’s absolutely staggering. Lennon’s voice in the early Beatles rock ‘n’ roll stuff was just perfect.

Massive Bereavement

2005-10-12T08:46:00.001-07:00

Ha! Just realised the absurdly conflicting nature of my previous posts. So long ago. Let it be said that I change my mind like most people change their clothes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The boy watches his father open a window. The street outside immediately fills the room with the din of traffic, the hiss of rain and the sound of branches colliding in the wind. Night has drawn a cloak over the town he knows. The ghost of a ship yard towers over the tiny front room.

With the crash of the front door closing, his father is gone. His father will be away until the early hours of the morning, when his entrance will be denoted by the same crash of the front door being hurled shut. The boy sits silently in an old arm chair letting the night air and sounds of the world wash over him. The fire crackles and spits and the acrid smoke which filled the room is now filtering onto the street outside.

The boy sits deep in thought for some time. He is young. Too young to understand that one day he will have as own life, away from the town in which he grew up and the tiny wooden living room will seem like a distant memory. The painful longing for a place in time that can not be repeated will bring a tear to his eye.

The boy sits motionless. He is acutely aware that he wants his father to be with him, but also understands that his father needs to work. He too wants to work for the company, but is too young. He wants to be an important man. He wants a car, like his fathers. He wants the satisfaction of coming home from a day’s work to a house he has bought and a hot meal waiting on the kitchen table. He wants to knowledge that he is contributing to the great whole, propping up tradition and doing his bit. He wants his father to be proud of him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Has anyone stopped to wonder why cars British cars ALWAYS include ashtrays as a feature of the centre console? They’re on the left of the steering wheel. Which means that the hand most people toke with (assuming most people are right-handed and smoke on their strong side, like me) is on the opposite side of the steering wheel. It makes no sense. Do modern cars even have ashtrays?

Speaking of cars, I want to recount a story of purchasing my current wagon. I went to Rice Lane Motors (bastards) in Liverpool to have a look-see at their stock. After walking in off the street I approached a brute of a man (bastard) on their forecourt and enquired about a particular vehicle on their premises, to which he replied “you can test drive it if you guarantee to buy it. There are thirty cars on this forecourt; I’ll have to move ten of them to get yours out. It’ll take me twenty minutes. And as I’m the only one in the office I’ll have to shut up shop whilst we’re away, so I can’t afford to mess around with a none buyer. If it drives alright, do you guarantee to buy it?” I replied in the negative and made a mental note never to deal with anyone from the motor trade in my entire life again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In work the other day someone I didn’t recognize started talking to me about the band Victor FME. Oh dear. So many good and bad memories. I’d rather people didn’t ask me about that particular band for the simple reason that I have got absolutely nothing to say. We played a few gigs and then drifted apart. That’s it. I liken being in that band to what I imagine a stretch in the army would be like; despite the hard work you have some riotous laughs but wouldn’t ever want to repeat it. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing though.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bass guitar is such a curious and monotonous instrument. It’s almost impossible to put into words what makes one bass part correct, or even simply better than another. I’m certain that the ‘feel’ of how part is played has more importance than the tightness, or even the choice of notes. And, as with all instruments, I *think* it’s down to playing with confidence. I don’t mean confidence as in foot-on-the-monitor looking directly into the audience’ eyes type confidence, just the ability to play something very simple but broadcast the fact that you *know* what you’re doing. It’s very rare to have this ability, and don’t claim to possess it myself. Bass is such a boring instrument. There’s just so little can be done with it, I find it a chore to play now.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whilst staying with Joe and Ruth in Oxford I was thrilled to discover two Kingmaker 7” vinyls in their local Oxfam, which I have only recently listened to. I can’t explain why I love Kingmaker so much. I think it’s more to do with the era and politico-musical climate in which they existed, not to mention the deeply nostalgic undertones of British guitar music from that era in general. Gosh darn it; things just seemed so much sunnier then. There were so many British guitar bands at the time, all jostling for position on the covers of NME and Melody Maker. Yet only a few made it. Nearly all of these bands had a life-span of around three years, and now those involved have low-level jobs in the music industry and IT. The heady days of playing at Roskilde and the Heineken festival (does it still exist?) must seem like a lifetime ago.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Minutemen had it all. Nearly. And Mike Watt is a very powerful man, even though he doesn’t realise it. I find it thoroughly empowering that a band could be so individualistic in terms of both ideology and music, be lauded critically and generate a type of worship bordering on mania yet still not once let their political underpinnings waver or their egos swell. It isn’t unusual for bands to begin life punk in outlook and maintain this integrity through their entire career (look at Ian MacKaye for example), but who can blame bands for wanting to move onto bigger things? If I’d been slogging my guts out for five years gigging and touring I’d want something back. Either that or I’d stop. Has it ever crossed Mike Watt’s mind that he’s been working his arse off for fucking thirty years yet got very little to show for it, other than the knowledge he was in one of the most influential punk bands of all time? Unlikely as it sounds I think I’d rather suck Satan’s fat prick and get rich playing bass for Robbie Williams rather than ‘keep it real’ and do it for the memories. But this is what makes Mike Watt something that I could never aspire to be, and why he’s one of my idols. This is why I find it so hard to critiscise artists like Green Day and Henry Rollins. Don’t get me wrong, I know full well that unlike Green Day Mike Watt couldn’t do anything with any mainstream appeal even if he tried. The Minutemen tried to go commercial with their album Project: Mersh but how can a band with such a unique sound and political stance possibly succeed in the family entertainment stakes? For Christ sakes, the most poppy song on that album (Take Our Test – surely one of the finest tune ever done by the Minutemen) features a musical breakdown in which Watt speaks “when reality appears digital, when the big hankering cometh, I’ll vote yes for life in the big choice poll; I’ll be glad I did”. Blimey, kids and parents are probably not going to understand and care for that, are they?

This is why I’m so hesitant to be critical of people like Rollins. He’s done a 180 ideologically, but my God he’s earned the right to get something tangible back for the years spent in the van.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two pieces of soul-destroyingly beautiful and moving and music: Thus Spake Zarathustra by Strauss and Fanfare For The Common Man by Aaron Copland. Jesus. Where can I start with these full-blown miracles?

You probably know Fanfare for its intrinsically American overtones. Copland wrote it as part of his Appalachian Suite (if memory serves me correctly), single-handedly forging a distinctive “open-air” American style of music rooted in the mythology of the old West. It is frequently used to accompany footage of the NASA space program; such is its nature of its celebratory theme. But don’t let you put this off. Fanfare is a deeply moving piece of music. It’s built around rudimentary percussion and the intertwining of brass instruments playing a common theme, embellishing and meandering as the piece continues. It’s a master class in economy, from a man who turned his back on the avante garde and embraced ‘plain’ music with an open heart and mind.

Where can I start with Thus Spake? You’ve will almost undoubtedly know it as the theme to 2001: A Space Oddyssey. It is, without a doubt, the most moving and triumphant 1m 48s of music ever written, by anyone, ever. The entire piece is around 20 minutes long in total, and tootles along at a fairly low-level. But this opening theme makes my hairs stand on end, and I don’t even have to hear it to get very excited by it. I’ve never heard a piece of music so utterly captivating. From the opening low organ drone that denotes the first 10 seconds of the piece I am transported into another world. I simply cannot describe the feeling that listing to this piece of music gives me. The instrumentation is perfect. Not just the choice of notes, but the tone and choice of instruments. It makes me want to leap up and thrust my fist into the air as an affirmation of life itself. I mean, it puts everything into perspective doesn’t it? It’s a sure bet that whatever you or I do artistically will never measure up against heavyweights such as Strauss and Copland.

This leads me neatly onto 2001: A Space Odyssey. This is the best film ever made. I know lots of people that don’t like this particular sci-fi flick, but to me it’s off the scale in every aspect. It is, for want of a better word, perfect. I mean, have you seen the end bit in which Bowman ends up in an unfamiar hotel room as an old man, not knowing where he is or what’s happening? And then he seems to live the rest of his life out in this room, all condensed into about a minute of film. Then he is lying in bed about to die of old age and the monolith appears at the foot of the bed and he is reborn. Oh. My. God. I know Joe shares my sense of wonderment at particular sections of this film.

PS If anyone thinks of a decent manner in which an image of the monolith can be tattooed onto the human body, for God’s sake let me know.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Someone from the New York Times is on record describing the semi-colon (;) as an “ugly bastard”. I like this a lot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Possible names for a pet: The Operator
Bag ‘O’ Nails
Mr and Mrs Winstanley (for just one animal)
Dreamweaver
XP
The Full Works
Windows
Europe
Kraut
Choc

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I imagine life must be very, very weird for someone as famous as Paul McCartney. Can you imagine growing up in a very normal suburban environment, as part of a very normal family with very normal aspirations to end up so famous that forty years on coach loads of tourists from around the world flock to your home town? And the road sign denoting the street where you grew up as a child has to be removed because people keep stealing them as souvenirs? I think if he was to truly grasp the amount of influence he has had on the world his brain would actually melt. He himself says that “the Paul McCartney people think of doesn’t exist. It’s as if he’s separate entity to me”. It must be so weird to have had THAT MUCH influence on popular culture, and have the knowledge that you’ll be remembered forever as (arguably) the single most important songwriter of all time. I should imagine that there have been occasions in his life where the magnitude of what he has done has started to seep into his consciousness, and suddenly dawns on him “Shit! I’m Paul McCartney!”

I’m not into Myspace at all. It seems to me that all a Myspace is is an advert for oneself. It’s fair enough for bands, graphic designers etc. to have them but why do people who won’t benefit from self-promotion bother? Are they that insecure they need a kind of cyber-façade to make friends? Bah. Sorry if this offends any of my friends, the Stearnebine Harvester calls it as he sees it.

Am I on the only one who feels it would be fun to blow, like, 700 quid a month on a luxury 1-bedroomed flat in the centre of town? I’d have to really skimp on living expenses and my savings would be piss poor, but I’d be worth it I’m sure.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes I really love my job. Today for example I dealt with roughly a week’s worth of lunatics in one afternoon. It was incredible; a total cavalcade of damaged humans. At one point three of the loonies were stood yards away from each other, and I was salivating at the prospect of them actually engaging one another in conversation.

Our usual Monday lunatic is a man known simply as ‘Mad Mark’, a young man who has been visiting HMV every Monday for the past 10 years regular as clockwork. I don’t what his ailment is, but no matter what activity he is engaged in if he hears a banging club tune or anything with a harsh tasty beat he will go absolutely mental. As soon as we noticed him in the shop today someone put Firestarter on the CD player and he started dancing round the shop floor, gyrating wildly whilst shouting and violently clashing with anyone in his path. I suspect he is severely schizophrenic. Someone else who I am convinced is schizophrenic is Mr Thurlow. Mr Thurlow appears approximately once every fortnight, and although he visits are infrequent you bloody know about them. He dresses as Superman (I’m not making this up) although he hasn’t been wearing his cape recently, keeps his money in his sock and has no short term memory. Really. He is also obsessed with Gary Numan and Status Quo, but I can see a sort of twisted logic working here. When you catch Mr Thurlow’s eye you can kiss goodbye to the next hour of work, as is the incessant questioning and never ending unanswerable queries. He too is schizophrenic.

Beaver is a bit of a dark horse in that place. This fella has one huge dreadlock (it’s about as thick as a chunky man’s forearm) and just kind of walks round randomly alternating between fits of laughter and swearing. But my favourite loon in that place is simply known to me as The Pimp. His visits are few and far between, but are absolutely amazing. This man is a very tall black fella who wears very well tailored suits but no shoes or socks. He has hair almost a foot in height and carries a bright pink ghetto blaster continually broadcasting Crazy Frog at very high volume. I’ve heard reports of him on Smithdown Road terrorizing students. He’s very, very mental.

Update: Today I walked past Beaver and heard him muttering to himself whilst flicking through a stack of records. The volume of his voice increased at such a rapid rate that by the end of whatever he was saying he actually screamed “that’s impossible” so loud that the entire shop floor turned and looked at him. Then minutes later whilst walking away from where he was standing he shouted “Are you having a good day?” and before I could respond shouted “well fuck off then”. Again, the whole shop floor heard. He has also developed a habit of shaking his face and head very violently for no apparent reason. Do you know what? I’ve reported the bastard to security on several occasions but they NEVER DO ANYTHING. All I want is for Chesty John to come down and have it out with him, but he NEVER DOES.

Louie had a dream that she killed Hulk Hogan with a samurai sword. I love to think this a
common anxiety dream.

Today in work someone wanted a copy of I’ll Be Missing You, that awful single (was it P Diddy? – I really should know) from about 5 years ago. They wanted it for a funeral. A FUNERAL. I mean, has society really degenerated to such a level that people actually think it’s appropriate to play trite like that at an event for the mourning of deceased loved ones?

Why are scallies so fascinated with rap culture, and more specifically Tupac? I really don’t get it. HMV Liverpool has a larger than ordinary urban section to cope with the demand created by scallies. 10 years ago it was happy hardcore (which NOBODY now listens to) but now all you get is bastard kids asking for Biggie albums. It’s even reached the point where PARENTS are starting to buy it.

I’m starting to develop a real taste for brass band music. It excited me to discover that HMV stocks several recordings of the Grimesthorpe Colliery Brass Band. I’ve stashed all of the bastards away, can’t wait to buy them.

Boys Do Good Things

2005-04-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

16/4/05

D-Day is upon us. I awaken full of nervous anticipation about what lies ahead, but know deep in my heart that what will transpire over the course of the next two weeks will probably send me temporarily mental.

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

After an hour of frantic packing Steve (our drummer and general powerhouse) comes to pick me up. We’re already behind schedule, but nobody seems to care as it doesn’t really matter. We meet our driver Howard (who is a lovely man) and begin loading our weapons out to the street. Howard, drawing upon his infinite experience in such matters, crams the stuff in with aplomb and efficiency whilst we stand round eating pies. A quick stop at Steve’s house gathers us a keyboard (belonging to Mr Tucker of Vegetables fame) and other bits and bobs. Symbolically, the crate of Carling is transferred from Steve’s car to the fridge in the van and we’re off. We immediately realise that several bits of semi-important gear have been left in the practise room, but we’re beyond caring.

Motorways are curious places. Loads of people use them on a daily basis but nobody really understands them, or even likes them. A bit like prostitutes.

Half an hour out of Liverpool and I’m already bored. And I’m not terribly comfortable. All I can say is thank fuck those dirty bastards John and Paul Voo are not here; there simply wouldn’t have been room for them. At least I’ve got this little diary to pour my thoughts into to pass the time.

Gig proves to be a thoroughly bizarre affair, but comes good in the end. Upon arriving at what appears to be a disused furniture shop we double-check Howard’s sat-nav, which again delivers the news that we are at the correct address. How strange. We notice a pub next door and go and ask the foxy bar woman what the deal is. Turns out we are at the correct location, but we are playing in a room below. We wait on the pavement for the man in charge to let us in, who turns out to be a young Turkish man who refers to himself as ‘the gaffer’. Alarm bells begin to ring when he vanishes to ‘prepare’ the room and is gone for a full twenty minutes, yet still leaves six brand-new rolls of carpet on the floor.

The room we’re playing is kitted out like a function-suite; the kind you imagine would be on offer in Choristers. Luckily Joe and Ruth had the foresight to not book it under the name ‘the real IRA.’

Skip to end. Despite buggering up the start of ‘I Was Only Trying To Help’, gig goes well and a good night all in all. Due to past experience of London gigs (Paul & John know what I mean) I was concerned about attracting six foot five skins rattling with pills asking me to tighten their leather skirts. But none of that here. Turns out the audience are a friendly and receptive bunch, eager to listen and even more eager to stick round till late. At one point during the set it looked like a fracas was taking place in the audience, but it turns out Si Fuck was dancing so crazily that everyone had turned to watch him.

I really can’t speak highly enough of the Vegetables current incarnation. Joe and Ruth have really tapped into something unique, and pull it off with such aplomb that it is impossible not to be thrilled when watching them play. And Ruth is a very good drummer, novice or not. I cannot think of two people I’d rather share a tour with.

17/04/05

I’m thoroughly refreshed after sharing a very comfortable bed with Tony Keenan, courtesy of William ‘Fuck’ Dison. What a lovely guff that man has. Thanks Will, your kindness and hospitality will not be forgotten. And if you ever need somewhere to stay in Liverpool you know whom to ask.

The more time I spend in this van the more I feel like I’m part of Blur’s ‘Starshaped’ video. For those not in the know, Starshaped is a road movie that Blur made in the 1993 documenting their attack on European festivals. It’s a deeply nostalgic film for those who take an interest in British guitar pop. From travelling seven-up in a white Citroen van on the M25 in April 2005 it is very apparent that nothing has changed in the past fifteen years for small-time touring bands. You drive all day, stopping occasionally for eats. Then you arrive at the gig feeling completely mental. It really is a strange existence. I suppose there’s no real reason why life should be different for touring bands now, but it makes me warm inside to think that I’m now living the life that a band I idolised as a teenager once did, albeit in a very fleeting way. Sitting in this van today it would seem that John Major is still PM and we’re still lingering in the darkest days of the ERM. But thankfully he’s not and we’re not.

We get to the venue at about half two. Seems like a nice place, although I’m not expecting much of a turnout. Let’s face facts; we’re playing Leamington Spa on a rainy Sunday. Soundcheck goes smoothly although within thirty seconds of playing I am rendered deaf as a post. The stage on which we will be performing is so small that I’m crushed in between my bass amp, Steve’s cymbals and Sean’s guitar amp (which is pointed directly at my head). Looks like tonight will be an earplug only event.

By the time we hit the stage we are all truly done in. Getting up early, eating a stupidly large and unhealthy breakfast (afterward Graham complained that his heart was aching, and I don’t mean from lost love) and hanging round the venue all day tends to fuck one in. Relief from boredom is provided by Tucker drawing extremely evil images to a very high standard. Later one of these images is left in an Italian restaurant as a present for the staff. We can never go back there.

Despite the tiredness we pull off a decent set. All in all we seem more relaxed and focused than the previous night in London, and people from the local area appear to be well versed in our material. Today has gone more smoothly than yesterday and I think we’re settling down into ‘touring mode’. There have been times in which I have nearly vomited with frustration in the past twenty-four hours, but now feel that I can cope with life on the road. Possibly.

Update: we’ve been paid £60 for playing. How good is that? I would have been happy with £20 but £60 puts us right back on track money-wise.

I can feel my body hating me more and more by the day.

Graham apparently prefers taking PCP to mushrooms, and often batters tramps. He is also keen on deleting all the photos from our camera. On this note I bid you goodnight.

18/04/05

Last night was my first experience of sleeping in a van, or ‘Black Flagging it’ as some would say. Despite having to lie roughshod across guitars and Joe’s keyboard, Steve and me manage to get a full night of rest. The old man whose doorstep we were parked on got a bit of a shock I can tell you.

It would appear that last night Tony had to sleep on something akin to a wooden frame. The couch he chose was around one thousand years old, and had obviously been slightly more comfortable at its time of manufacture. This combined with various snores and groans during the night have driven Tony into some kind of permanent dream-like state, a kind of waking death.

I’ve just eaten noodles on toast and we’re watching a TV programme about fat kids. A man called Ian was kind enough to put us up in his house (well, everyone apart from me and Steve), so yet again I’m lucky enough to be able to shower before getting on with today’s fun. Sean and Howard are still asleep in the spare room, despite the rest of us being up for a good two hours.

I think I like Leamington Spa. It seems like one of those towns that treads a fine line between being large enough to have the facilities of a city, yet without attracting the mentalists. And it’s very pretty.

Graham has hurt his foot, and is convinced that the pain is caused by gout. I’m fairly sure that gout is caused by prolonged periods of living in extreme opulence, so on balance I think it’s more likely that he has simply bruised it.

The drive to Derby goes off without a hitch. In fact, I would wager that it’s been the most painless part of our little sojourn so far. On first view Derby appears to be a bit of a shit-tip, not dissimilar to Northwich. Again, the venue is pretty darn small. I really can’t stress this enough. I’m glad I didn’t opt for an ice cream from the Moto services on the M5, the flapjack I consumed has made me feel mental enough. I think that my body is starting to resent what I’m putting it through, even though it’s really not that tough going. We’re getting full sleep and not eating especially badly, nether the less I feel pummelled. C’est la vie.

The venue is a fairly normal place, despite being located in a fruitier part of town. Still, it can’t be any worse than East London so I’m not worried. Don’t know if I’m being paranoid, but it seems like I’m having much more difficulty than anyone else adjusting to this tour. I know I’ve said things are getting easier, which is true, but I’m still having feelings of being completely out of my depth. Maybe I’m just not sturdy enough for life on the road, maybe this will come in time.

Big thanks to….(insert name here)….for letting us use their equipment tonight. It really is saving us a lot of fannying around.

I’ve got mixed feelings about spending two nights in Liverpool. However there is no doubt that sleeping in my own bed without interruption will be welcome, and playing a gig in our hometown seems like a winner. But it feels like we’re taking a breather too early. I’d rather have a day at home towards the end of the tour, when we’re really lagging. We don’t need a break this early in the tour, and it will just serve as a reminder of how much more we’ve got to do gig-wise. But then again, if I had attempted to organise and book this tour it would be so shit that it doesn’t bear thinking about so I’m gonna quit flappin’ my dick-sucker.

It blows my mind how bands can tour for, like, months at a time. Black Flag travelled in conditions identical to this in six-month blocks, and often more. It really is ridiculous how many locations they’ve played, and the conditions that they’ve played in. They’re from California but have gigged it up in Colwyn Bay for fuck’s sake. And this is before you could fly from New York to London for a quid, so shut up.

20/04/05

Spending a day in Liverpool proves to be a good way of recharging our mental batteries. There’s nothing like waking up in your own bed.

Tony is convinced that God is conspiring against him. Last night I was awoken at 4am by the Keenanian Man knocking on my door looking for refuge from Howard’s massive snores. I duly oblige. Upon settling himself in my recliner chair he manages to catapult himself along the floor, where he stays until being awoken by a tweeting bird. Then the thunder begins.

In the afternoon we trawl Speke Retail Park looking for clothes, but none of us are really ‘feeling it’. Howard vanishes off to PC World, possibly to find a digital cure for his snoring, whilst Tony returns from Borders with a copy of ‘Ultimate Hard Bastards’

Gig is fun, easily the most enjoyable one we’ve done on this tour so far. Steve has a hard time with his drums, and I bastard up part of Raise Beers but all in all it’s an energetic and well-received performance. I feel that we’re doing it like we mean it on this tour. Playing with our backs against the wall (sometimes literally) has a tendency to bring the best out in us, and the unfamiliarity of new venues and faces forces us to pull out all the stops. It’s a shame that Dugong had to cancel, but with one of their members fucked with kidney stones it’s thoroughly understandable. Hope For Romeo are deeply fun to watch, and Graham wows us with his songs as always.

This laptop and me do not mix. Every few sentences that I write the cursor skips to a different part of the screen and fucks up what I’ve already written. I’m obviously pressing something I shouldn’t whilst typing, and it’s causing massive problems.

Paul and Natasha said nice things when I came off stage tonight. Thank you.

Today Tony told me several anecdotes that made me laugh. The first one involves Arena. Once he arrived at said location in his car, only to find a plastic bag full of hard-boiled eggs carefully left on the pavement. Tony is highly amused by the randomness of this occurrence and begins to imagine what sort of lunatic would dump a bag of hard-boiled eggs on the street. What incredible circumstances would have lead to this person possessing a bag of eggs and having the need to deposit them on Duke Street? The answer is typically Tokyo. For some reason these eggs had resided in the boot of Steve’s car for weeks, and he had deposited them on the street minutes before Tony arrived on the scene. The reason why Steve had a bag of hard-boiled eggs in his boot is lost in the mists of time.

The second anecdote again involves Mr Keenan. Upon returning from band practice one night, Tony was unloading his equipment from his car and but accidentally left his guitar amp on the street all night. This is a serious but completely understandable oversight. Tony’s Dad issues a stern warning and correctly points out that if it had rained the amp would be fucked. Which is true. Tony promises that it’s a genuine mistake and then proceeds to repeat the incident the next night, entirely accidentally.

Whilst explaining to Graham about a chap born with two faces (one at the front and one at the back) he points out that it would be possible to get off with two girls simultaneously. This cracks me up so much.

Tomorrow Hull.

21/04/05

Again I awake feeling rejuvenated, although I have managed to sleep through my alarm for the second day running. My body must be trying to make up for the early shifts I worked over Christmas. I reward my over-worked carcass with a salmon sandwich purchased last night.

Been getting a powerful urge to listen to the Futureheads since we left Liverpool last Saturday. They really are the best thing going at the moment. It’s been a long time since a British guitar band has made such original and exciting music, but I don’t predict a bright future for them. They’ve done bloody well to get as far as they have, but now the malfunctioning robotic claw of NME has grabbed them they’ll be stuck playing with fucking Bloc Party for the rest of their lives. They deserve so much more than to be lumped in along the likes of Kaiser Chiefs and The Bravery.

How curious. Upon returning home last night Howard commented on the ‘For Sale’ sign perched on our front driveway. I really wish the landlord had told us…..

En route to Hull we stop at a Welcome Break and for some reason purchase curries. I’m not a fan of spicy food but quickly relent to peer pressure and indulge. £8.50 for a curry and an apple! £8.50! Back on the road I have my first Costco experience, and am flummoxed by the amount of stuff they’ve got for sale. It really is ridiculous. You can get anything from a bouncy castle to an Oxo cube. We load up on beer and a crate of Tango and set sail.

In the last couple of days we’ve come to the realisation that the van is equipped with a tape player, so we’re no longer travelling in silence. The Jerky Boys had us howling with laughter but now we’re rocking Volcano! I’m Still Excited. I’m not a fan of Volcano. They were thoroughly disappointing when Victor played with them a few months back, although they had been on the road for ages at that point. Possibly I didn’t catch them at their best. I think of them in the same way I think about Mates Of State, i.e. a thoroughly good and original band that do nothing for me. Not a jot. I just can’t get excited about them. Apparently I am the only person in Liverpool who feels this way about Mates Of State, but I’m just calling it as I see it. They seem very much a one-trick pony, one that gets tedious very rapidly. Regardless, I wish them all the success in the world, baby and all.

Bad vibes ahoy upon arriving in Hull. In the car park we are greeted by a gang of young teenagers scuttling BMXs and wearing hoods, and the venue seems to be placed a stones throw away from some kind of children’s home. This does not bode well. We considering jibbing off the whole thing and escaping whilst we still can, but a brief chat with the organiser puts our minds at ease. Despite its location, the venue is a very nice gaff and the staff seem to be super friendly. One of the barmaids is a bit cheeky. Yet again it appears that Graham will have to battle against the sound of nearby metal bands rocking out in full flight, but I know the man will cope.

I’m going to have to stop writing this bloody thing whilst we’re ragging down the motorway. It’s making me terribly travelsick and the size of the keys makes it very hard to type with any degree of accuracy. I’m trying to think of a funny analogy for the problem, but the above description will have to suffice.

I can’t write about Hull without mentioning Kingmaker, a long-forgotten Brit Pop band that existed in the early-to-mid nineties. Kingmaker’s main honcho was a chap named Loz Hardy, who in my opinion is one of the finest lyricists Britain has produced since Morrissey. No one except me listens to this band any more, and I even doubt many people of their native Hull remember them. It’s a shame.

I am writing whilst on the move, so you’ll have to excuse the spelling errors. Gig is a bit of a none-starter; we play to an audience consisting of the bar staff and a couple of lonely drinkers. And I mean a couple. I tell thee, there’s some strange characters at this venue. An incredibly stocky man with no neck and very short arms seems to run the place, and the guy putting on the gig has blatantly jumped out of a Phoenix Nights sketch and come to life.

Owing to the nature of the gig, we decide to take the ‘fun’ option and do an impromptu set of covers and unrehearsed material. I don’t like playing gigs in this manner. I always feel like we come across as complete amateurs when we fuck up, which we invariably do. Consequently I feel slightly miffed when we come off stage, despite knowing full well that there’s no reason to. After all, we’re playing to nobody. No one paid money to see us so we haven’t really let anyone down. I bring some levity to my mood by pulling the VSX2000 Bass Cabinet logo off my bass amp and sticking it to the back of a boy-racer car parked outside. I fail to get a photo because the owner returns and opens his boot as I’m crouched in the shadows with Steve’s camera.

Current topic of conversation is the Monroe Exchange. This is a sexual practice that involves inserting a length of piping between two anuses, with the participants taking turns to defecate into each others’ rectal cavities. Hence the ‘exchange’ part of the title.

We’re bizzing it to Leicester now, so I’m going to sign off. I may write more later.

PS Tonight we witnessed Graham performing ‘Love & Lies’. It was amazing.

PPS We got paid thirty notes for playing. Rock on.

21/04/05

Last night we stayed over at Alison’s house, the sister of Mr Steve Carpenter. Despite having a lovely abode to sleep in I opt for the van and bitterly regret it. It’s my first stint on the ‘long’ seat, the one with an eight-inch gap half way down the length of it. Consequently I spend the whole night with my mid-section continually slipping down a precipice.

Despite a disturbed night of sleep I feel pretty good. The sunshine and clement weather raise my spirits, so we head to town giddy with hotness. My preconceived notion of Leicester was not a positive one until today. However, I can honestly say that Leicester has been the nicest place we’ve visited on this tour. We spend the afternoon eating sandwiches and buying clothes. I’m deeply smitten by a pair of
Dickies for sale in a skateboarding shop, but I just can’t justify spending £30 on keks that I don’t really need. I’m running to a budget of £10 per day, so I can’t afford to be frittering away money on luxuries. I later indulge in a pair of H&M slacks reduced to £10 because one of the pockets is sewn shut. Looking back, they’re really not that nice. I shouldn’t have bothered.

Update: I’ve decided I like them.

Despite being told that the venue is a shit-house, I’m pleasantly surprised upon arrival. I know we’re onto a winner because this is a proper gig venue with a PA and fairly decent auditorium, not just a pub with a licence. I’d like to never play a pub again, they’re just not worth the bother. They never have a PA and you usually end up playing to bored middle-aged drinkers.

A minor incident occurs outside the venue shortly before Graham is due to perform. I see a fairly respectfully dressed man lurching down the street in our direction, and am horrified when he heads towards the open door of our van. Upon reaching the back door of the van (with us sat inside) he starts begging for help, saying that he “feels like he’s going to pass out.” Sean promptly (and sensibly) boots him away and shuts the door, fearing that the man is drunk and going to steal our guitars. He then lingers outside the van for a few minutes and carries on walking down the street where he collapses. He is, as Sean puts it, “fucked on drugs.” Steve, showing more concern for the well being of his fellow man than the rest of us, calls the police and puts him in the recovery position. By this time Graham has started his set so most of us miss seeing the man flee upon the arrival of the filth. Don’t let this anecdote put you off Leicester.

The audiences at this venue are exceptionally rude. Graham plays very quiet songs, and when people talk loudly in front of the stage it’s very off-putting. Not to mention disrespectful. Graham gets his own back by quietening his playing right down then blasting his guitar, scaring the living daylights out of the young girls stood right next to the speakers. Rough justice.

Ironically, despite this venue being the classiest gaff we’ve played on the tour so far it’s the worst set we have yet played. It really is one of ‘those’ gigs. Steve has one of those awful moments where one’s mind goes blank, and he buggers up the start to Weekend three times in a row. But it’s really not his fault. I’ve had moments like this, and I’m sure everyone that has played in front of audiences for any extended period of time has had them too. I think he feels embarrassed because his sister has come to see us, and he would have liked to put on a good show. I feel bad for him, but being a consummate pro he pounds his way through the rest of the set like there’s no tomorrow. The exploding of Sean’s guitar amp in the middle of the set compounds our problems. Luckily someone is kind enough to lend us a Fender combo so we rock on with only minor interruption.

The rest of the bands on the bill are a mixed bag at best. One of them is a serious contender for the worst band I have ever seen, in every respect. Maybe I’m being harsh. They’ve obviously very young. The headliners are a kind poppy-rock outfit in the vain of…. I don’t know what. Placebo possibly. But they certainly do rock out. I don’t like watching people play full-pelt through my bass amp, it’s like lending someone your car and seeing them screech off into the distance at high speed.

I find it a tad ironic that as the number of gigs we’ve played has increased we’ve been getting more and more ragged musically. This is no reflection on the Tokyos, and I’m to blame as much as anyone. I think it’s just the nature of the beast when touring.

I’m chuckling at Tony’s fondness for service stations. He really loves them. Last night he declared North Doncaster services ‘technically perfect.’

22/04/05

I’m sat writing this in a pub on Aberystwyth sea front. Not much has happened today.

We left Leicester at around one PM, after making a brief journey to some guy’s house to get Sean’s amp repaired. He fixes it up real good, even if he does turn out to be a bit nuts. Yet again I am suffering from lack of sleep, this time because of Graham’s snoring. Lauren and I shout at him periodically in the vain hope of shutting him up, but it really is futile. I submit and slap in the earplugs. We are awoken by an important phone call from Graham’s job agency, and the ensuing conversation enters Lauren and mine’s dreams. It really was weird.

The journey to Aber was slightly taxing, probably the worst we’ve done so far. Howard does a sterling job driving us round those twisty roads but we arrive feeling a bit done in. I think we’re starting to get a little ratty with each other, I’ve been quite bad-tempered all day.

The venue seems quite classy. It’s actually a hotel cum bar cum gig venue, situated right on Aber beach. It’s just started raining so the town looks a little miserable, but Aber really doesn’t seem like a bad place. The fella that is putting on the gig assures us that on a sunny day Aber is a fantastic, and I believe him. Upon arrival we spend ten minutes lobbing rocks into the sea. They’re very good skimmers.

I feel sorry for Steve. He’s putting more work into these gigs than anyone else is, and I think he feels like he’s getting nothing back. He’s not only playing every night, but also acting as road manager and soundman. He’s got his work cut out and on occasions he has not received the gratitude he deserves. Thanks for everything Steve.

Gig is successful. Plenty of people turn up to watch us, the other bands are all right and we make a bit of money. We get £60 due to the amount of people that we got through the door plus another £40-odd coming in cheque form at a later date. And we made another £40 from merch sales. This is a step towards breaking even.

The staff at the venue are very nice and invite us back, but let it be said that bouncers in Aberystwyth are not in the same league as doormen in Liverpool.

23/04/05

We’re all road-weary. Yet again I got barely any sleep, this time because I spent three hours desperately trying to get comfortable in Howard’s bloody hammock. It was so hopeless. The length of the van dictates that only three-quarters of the hammock can be occupied, so I end up with my feet sticking out perpendicularly to my torso. I relent and curl up on the front seat, my face positioned right where Howard’s arse spends eight hours every day.

It really is quite amazing waking up in a van next to the sea. Despite looking bitterly cold, Aber was actually warm this morning.

I’ve got a sore arm from throwing stones into the sea yesterday.

I actually enjoy the drive from Aber to Sheffield. I opt to ride shotgun to avoid travel sickness and consequently am in a position to enjoy the ride.

The venue in Sheffield seems to be a very normal pub. Luckily we’re playing in the room upstairs so hopefully we won’t disturb anyone. I really can’t be bothered playing tonight, I feel thoroughly drained and I’ve not eaten a proper meal for two days. Howard is sleeping in a hotel, so he has dumped us at the venue with our equipment and is coming to get us when the gig is over. This means that there will be nowhere for me to hide. I’m getting really annoyed at things that wouldn’t normally bother me, and it’s getting harder and harder to button my lip.

Gig is a winner. Owing to the fantastic amount of people that turn up we make about £100 on the door, which puts us even closer to breaking even. At least Howard will get paid tonight.

Vegetables are phenomenal as always. It really is ridiculous. Joe and Ruth seem to have developed the kind of musical chemistry that usually takes years to develop, and they’re getting tighter and tighter the more gigs they play. I predict big things for them.

Post-gig we retire to Laura’s halls of residence and join in the party. Some of the ground floor residents have created a mock beach on their kitchen floor using bags of builders’ sand, and it fails dismally. For reasons unknown I end up staying at a house belonging to someone called Ollie.

24/04/05

Yet again I have slept very little. I didn’t get to bed till three, and was under the impression that I needed to be back with the van (at Laura’s place) by midday. I turn up at midday to find nobody out of bed, or even awake. I hit the town and enjoy the glorious sunshine.

I’ve spent time in Sheffield, so I know what to expect. But I can never make my mind up about this hilly city. It’s not a bad looking place but there’s always an undercurrent of violence.

As usual I call in FOPP, and the urge to buy is massive. I don’t know how shops like this operate. They’re so much cheaper than HMV and Virgin yet still have a massive variety of stuff available to be bought. Currently every Queen album is a fiver, not the crap digipack ones either. And they’ve got huge quantities of books, usually priced at £4.

Tonight we’re playing The Primrose; a music-orientated pub placed seemingly miles from any dwellings. Although technically we’re in Leeds, it would appear that this pub is in a dying corner. Or more accurately one that’s not been born yet. The venue is well equipped and comes with a friendly atmosphere. The man in charge of the sound seems like a bit of an oddball upon first encounter but after speaking to him I realise he’s actually quite normal, if a little terse.

It has to be said that I’m looking forward to the prospect of having no more gigs to play. After tonight we’re done, and the relief will wash over me in an awesome wave. I think I will look back on this little excursion fondly, although I’ve been close to tears at times. The mood amongst the group seems to have taken a turn for the better, probably because we partied up good last night and we all know that we shall sleep in our own beds tonight. I have no doubt that the comedown from playing away every night will be hard to deal with for a few days, and returning to work will be a killer. Luckily I’ve got a recovery period of five days before the grind begins again.

The gig turns out to be a very Phoenix Nights affair, replete with leather trouser-wearing compere. Nearly everyone we’re playing to is sat down and I suspect most of them are not here for the bands, but they’re a friendly bunch. Despite Tony’s voice being none-existent by the end of our set the compere attempts to keep us on stage to perform another song. With this being the last night of the tour there’s no fucking way we’re going to do it.

Graham caused much hilarity by announcing that John Wallace is dead to the audience, then adding that proceeds from the Voo single are going to his wife and children.

There is a strange experience on the way home. We stop at a Moto to find the building open but one member of staff to running the whole place single-handedly. And there’s almost nothing to for sale. The best I can find for dinner is a salmon baguette and a slice of very rich chocolate cake.

25/04/05

That’s it. The tour is over and I’m home. I am currently writing this perched in my bed having just slept for 12 hours. Shortly I’m going to make some breakfast, have a bath then head into town.

I feel relieved to be home, but I also feel like we’ve done something very worthwhile. It’s no joke organising a tour because there’s so much more to it than just booking gigs. I’ve never experienced anything like this before and don’t want to do it again any time soon, but feel that I’ve gained a slightly better understanding of how the world works for touring bands.

The people I’ve shared this tour with have been wonderful. There’s no way this thing could have come together without Steve and Tony putting so much effort in. Thanks guys. And I can’t speak highly enough of Howard. His consummate professionalism has made this tour a whole heap easier, and I can honestly say that there has not been one occasion in which I have feared for our safety on the road. Graham, Lauren, Sean, Joe and Ruth; I will miss you all.

Until next time.

Paul Tokyo