25th April, 2022
I sleep till one thirty and head out to meet a friend at the Hall of Fame. There’s a Get Back exhibition showing and we’re both big Beatleheads so it seems like a good way to kill time on a Sunday in Cleveland. My route is blocked by a footbridge closure and I’m forced to make a long detour to get across the Ohio river from the Flats to the city. It’s hot with a dry, dust-infused wind mocking my progress across one of the big high road bridges. I get to the R&RHoF exhausted and in no mood for the tawdry, dreary, tatty, uninspiring exhibits. If you’ve seen one old guitar and moth-eaten stage costume in a dimly lit case you’ve seen them all. I have fun peering at an original Mellotron (purportedly used on Strawberry Fields Forever) but the rest of it is so much…—More Tales
24th April, 2022
I’m sitting outside a pizza place situated at an oblique X-shaped intersection and gazing over heavy traffic to a 7-Eleven somewhere north of wonderful Pittsburg. I could be treading softly through the Andy Warhol museum but instead I’m scoffing a floppy chicken parmigiana washed down with weak black coffee pretty far from anywhere. The sun is beaming down through a light warm breeze. There’s a strong smell of gasoline. Boy racers zoom through in purple muscle cars, bikers on flashy machines race one another from stop lights. It’s Saturday in rural western Pennsylvania. I long for the city but longers can be losers so I decide to make the best of it. I watch the traffic. People round here must have “weekend” vehicles. There are all sorts of wildly impractical throbbing monstrosities chugging by. Where do they go? Do they just drive around until somebody vaguely attractive yells, “Nice…—More Tales
22nd April, 2022
Burly workmen carry me from my station to a high wall where, in a horrifying initiation ceremony, they mount me onto metal brackets, my back facing out to a grinning crowd. I crane my neck to see the first nail getting hammered into my left hand and am awoken by my fists pounding the roof of my bunk in an attempt to escape. It’s 11AM in Nowhere, west of Somewhere and I peer out of the front lounge windows to see low wooded hills, a highway embankment and a big garden centre car park full of pick-up trucks. Presumably (and this is a novelty) picking up stuff you need a pick-up truck for — like earth or a bush. I head out in the warm sunshine, meeting Andy coming down the slope. He’s seen a snake. I gingerly pick my way up the highway verge amongst the detritus of…—More Tales
We have a food poisoning casualty in the shape of Iain, who only barely makes it back on for the encore. He’s parked in a hotel room to recover in Atlanta after resting in the back lounge overnight from North Carolina while I meet former A&M fixer Al Marks for a catch up lunch. It’s warm and sunny in Little Five Points, the boutique-y neighbourhood that’s grown in size and diversity since it began to be gentrified in the nineties. I saunter off for coffee after soundcheck and just as I sit at a sidewalk table an unlikely married couple approach. Unlikely because they don’t look like Del Amitri fans (whatever that means). But they have flown from Honduras to see us. I’m quite bowled over and am overjoyed to be able to have a picture taken with them. An ancient biker farts his massive bike onto the pavement…—More Tales
21st April, 2022
I stir at sunrise and sit in the front lounge as the bus pulls into the leafy campus of Carrboro-Chapel Hill. The sun is a pale gold orb above the horizon. Suddenly there is foliage. We pass through neighbourhoods of those charming southern houses – all whitewashed wood, pillars and porches. Miniature grandeur among the trees. After more sleep I go off in search of the Target I spotted on the way in. I’m a man in search of underwear. Many old and ugly things have gone down the garbage chute on this tour. I need replenishment of the smalls. En route I drop into the Ackland Art Museum, a building devoted to exhibiting the cream of the wide-ranging collection of English actor, Josh Ackland, star of White Mischief. It’s very mixed-up, the ancient world rubbing up against the medieval but there’s a gorgeous little Degas sculpture in the…—More Tales
Before we leave for Alexandria at 3AM we drop into the Red Lion opposite the gig where a five piece are performing full throttle on a low stage to an empty room. We line up at the bar and lend encouragement as they motor through their tried and tested versions of Blondie, The B52’s and a song from the Rocky Fucking Horror Show. Their finale is a note for note rendition of the godawful Whole Lotta Love. I sense a meeting of minds over shots impending so make a quick dart for the door. My $7 Heineken Zero has not imbued me with the spirit of bonhomie.
Early afternoon and I’m off to Waffle Shop, an old diner offering limitless waffle experiences. I order corned beef hash and eggs over easy but I’m sternly encouraged to order house potatoes. This is all served up with a side plate…—More Tales
19th April, 2022
I cannot muster the enthusiasm to emerge from my cotton sheet cocoon until late afternoon. I make out for the ferry crossing that lies north of the hotel but getting there I decide to avoid Manhattan for today and head west on a pedestrian bridge over the waterfront highway and railway taking a metal staircase up the cliffs to explore Weehawken. I hear some rustling in the undergrowth and spot an opossum grubbing around. I cut through a beautiful neighbourhood of wooden houses and at a main road am beckoned into a Mexican bar by a young guy who’s taking out the trash. I explain that I can’t scan the QR code he points at so he shows me the menu on his phone. I get him to recommend something as the worst band in the world strikes up in the back room. After I order I take a…—More Tales
18th April, 2022
The dreaded day off, day of the dead. I open the curtains of my room on the 16th floor to an extraordinary panorama, the CN tower within throwing range with the huge railway station below, open water and islands in the distance. It’s an astonishing vista and I draw the curtains closed on all of it and languish in my vast white bed. The venue the next day is the Horseshoe Tavern where we last played perhaps in 1990. It’s a loud, grotty joint with a basement dressing room so grim it resembles a set from a slasher movie. But the audience kindly stick with us all the way. Through thick and thin you might say and boy are my efforts thin. We overnight back across the border on a long drive to Philadelphia and after squeezing every last drop from the dubious sanctuary of my bunk I take…—More Tales
12th April, 2022
In Milwaukee I spend a few hours catching up with Bobby T, an original eighty-sixer and friend. We have wraps wrapped up on the waterfront of the inland sea of Lake Michigan. We have two shows today, one at 4PM and another at 9. Kris thinks the first show was better than the second and who am I to disagree?
I take an early bath and wake up late the following afternoon in Minnesota where I am kindly driven off to lunch with flower lady Jodi, who’s been gracing us with her gorgeous company and stunning bouquets since the nineties. It’s nice to get off the boat for a few hours. Nice to hang with a sister.
Back at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul I go for a wander along the Mississippi and around town, Florence and her Machine glowing flashily from an electric billboard…—More Tales
In Milwaukee I spend a few hours catching up with Bobby T, an original eighty-sixer and friend. We have wraps wrapped up on the waterfront of the inland sea of Lake Michigan. We have two shows today, one at 4PM and another at 9. Kris thinks the first show was better than the second and who am I to disagree?
I take an early bath and wake up late the following afternoon in Minnesota where I am kindly driven off to lunch with flower lady Jodi, who’s been gracing us with her gorgeous company and stunning bouquets since the nineties. It’s nice to get off the boat for a few hours. Back at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul I go for a wander along the Mississippi and around town, Florence and her Machine glowing flashily from an electric billboard bolted onto…—More Tales
In Milwaukee I spend a few hours catching up with Bobby T, an original eighty-sixer and friend. We have wraps wrapped up on the waterfront of the inland sea of Lake Michigan. We have two shows today, one at 4PM and another at 9. Kris thinks the first show was better than the second and who am I to disagree?
I take an early bath and wake up late the following afternoon in Minnesota where I am kindly driven off to lunch with flower lady Jodi, who’s been gracing us with her gorgeous company and stunning bouquets since the nineties. It’s nice to get off the boat for a few hours. Back at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul I go for a wander along the Mississippi and around town, Florence and her Machine glowing flashily from an electric billboard bolted onto the Enormodome. St. Paul has a…—More Tales
11th April, 2022
I drop down from my bunk around 6AM, rosy-fingered dawn spreading across the plains. Gary the bus driver pulls into a vast shed where several men with angled hoses spray us down like a pit stop in an episode of Wacky Races. I crawl back into bed till 1:30PM when we are scheduled to go on a tour of the Acoustic Sounds high quality vinyl pressing plant in Salina. The tour proves fascinating. Having visited a CD factory in the zeroes, the contrast is striking. The manufacturing of vinyl records is a far more hands-on thing. For a start, here humans are key in every step of the process while CD factories are devoid of people on the floor and are essentially run by robots. It doesn’t look like a bad place to work at all; from the making of the mother mould and her stampers, through to the…—More Tales
8th April, 2022
I have a rough night of it on the bus. Sleep will not swaddle me, it just claws me down into its shallows intermittently. The bus feels like it’s one minute skidding across train tracks, the next floating on pillows of cloud. I wake in a sour mood, go marching off for breakfast which I find (like all the others of our party) within a few blocks in a traditional American diner. The Huevos Rancheros are delicious but come with an enormous slice of melon, which along with fucking strawberries is a 1980s Californian affectation that should NEVER have been adopted across this great nation. Eggs and fruit on the same plate are like biker jackets and neckties — they should never be seen together. Why would I want egg yolk on a pice of melon? In god’s name why?
One of those circular ceiling loudspeakers drizzles pop…—More Tales
We’re off at 9AM to Utah and after a brief stint in my coffin I make bus coffee and gaze out at the dry West, dust bowl farmsteads and snow-capped peaks on the horizon. A few spindly trees mark property boundaries, some showing a fuzz of fresh green leaf. We hear news that Spiritualized, also playing tonight in SLC, have broken down, losing a tyre on the way from Denver. There’s a picture online. They’re stuck in a mountain pass and it looks cold and gloomy. We will be on that route later tonight (or tomorrow morning if you want to be a prick about it). The mountains loom to our left, on the right are grain silos, truck and trailer graveyards, processing plants. We pass through Ogden, its grid mapped out on the valley floor like a plaid tablecloth. As we near Salt Lake the icing dusted mountains…—More Tales
5th April, 2022
BOY-see not BOY-zee says Wikipedia. Well, the streets are immaculately clean and everyone exudes that rural hospitality so typical of the US beyond the megacities. There’s blossom on the trees and snow on the hills and probably a fair bit of Trumpism in the wings. I breakfast at Bacon, a disgustingly porcine themed place a few blocks from the hotel. They’re playing country music and all the bacon tastes of Coke. They serve a little board of five different grades of crispy rasher in shot glasses. It’s a dreich day but not too chilly so it’s time for another bout of aimless walking. Presently I find myself glaring into the void of a window in the Egyptian Theatre when a man swims up from the dark interior and waves at me. I wave back uncertainly. I stare at a weird poster for a Joe Jackson show. He looks like…—More Tales
3rd April, 2022
Today we drive by day for the first time and I stretch out on the leather upholstery of the back lounge gazing across the fertile valley of the Willamette river to forested hills. White puffs of cloud hang temptingly overhead ripe to be hooked into a daydream. The landscape reminds me of Stirlingshire but, as with everything here, on a grander scale. You feel like you could feed most of Scotland from these fields alone, mapped out to the far ridges on the horizon.
We de-bus in Seattle around sixteen hundred and after a few desultory turns round some used clothes stores I go looking for sustenance choosing a balls basic Vietnamese gaff where a dandy of a waiter serves me a delicious bowl of noodle broth which I slurp with enthusiasm. The area around the gig is gentrified hip, if that means anything at all anymore. If…—More Tales
1st April, 2022
I drop down from my bunk around 10am. There’s a foul odour in the air. Gary, our trusty driver, informs us “we got bad water” and goes off to find some bleach. It’s so fetid aboard I abandon ship and hike up a hill to a student café on a corner of the vast university campus. As I shovel in the victuals the street beyond comes alive with a swarm of scholars. The weather is cloudy and cool, the scene civilised and serene; we ain’t in So-Cal no more. I begin to contemplate what the hell I’m going to do for the next five hours once I’ve dabbed these few letters into my demonic device. Wandering about aimlessly seems to be the best option. I’m not too keen to be back on swamp bus any time soon. Descending through leafy college departments I’m treated to a glimpse of San…—More Tales
