These United Kingdom Tour Diaries: Part Two
Editors Note: We enjoyed the tour diaries J. Tom Hnatow wrote for us as part of These United States' last tour, so we asked him if he wouldn't mind doing it again as the band embark on their first ever intercontinental tour of the UK and Europe. He graciously agreed. Look for his dispatches from the road abroad over the next few weeks.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
We walk (and walk and walk) from Baker Street to Victoria station -- this tour is like combining backpacking with…the longest load-in ever. On the positive side, the hike is our longest of the tour. Once we finally disembark in Brighton, though, the tiredness fades and we immediately fall in love –- with the town, the people, the weather, everything. The venue is unbelievably kind to us. We're fed, beered, and have an amazing soundcheck. Miraculously, halfway through the show, the venue fills up, and so we have our second good show of the tour.
Post show, we have an informal jam session with the staff downstairs, drinking beer and passing the guitar around. It's as much, if not more fun than the actual show. Then a quick nighttime walking tour of Brighton, passing churches and Banksy graffiti in equal measures. Our host (and soundperson) Rhys, proves to be as good a tourguide as he is a soundperson. We end at his flat –- a huge, 6 bedroom house –- and pass out for the evening.
Wednesday October 17, 2007
We wake up to the sun shining through the windows and start out back to the club, who were kind enough to let us leave our gear there last night. Rhys takes us on the full (quick) walking tour of Brighton. We pass the shops, the Royal Pavilion, and head down to the beach. We've only got a few minutes, but we bask in the sun, staring across the ocean. I think we're all still amazed to be here, doing this tour. Then, back to the club where we're fed/coffeed/beered once again. The hospitality we've had on this tour so far, only 3 days in, has been unbelievable. Good guarantees, food, places to crash…why do we tour the States?
Back on the train, then a bus, then on the train to Newcastle. Planes, Tubes, Buses, Trains…touring this way is completely different. When we usually tour, our van/car is our "home," the place we leave things, the place that stays the same the whole time. This time, we have nothing of the sort. When we move, everything comes with us, and we're constantly surrounded by people. There are no moments where it's just us, the band, alone. At the moment, its exhilarating. We'll see how it feels come day 15.
The train rolls on through the lush countryside. Night falls, taking away the scenery. We're left with nothing to stare at except our own reflections.
The venue in Newcastle, called the Head of Steam, is, literally, right across the street from the station. Shortest hike of the trip. After soundcheck, Mark and I decide to go get the first fish & chips of the tour. We walk into the first place we find without looking at the name and are immediately confronted by…an American-style diner, right down to the Johnny Cash playing on the jukebox and images of Elvis on the napkins. We bravely bridge the cultural divide and order our fish & chips. We'd also assumed that the beer for our hospitality would be the local brew, but instead, we get a case of…Corona. Again, we bridge the divide and dive right in.
The show goes swimmingly -- we're now three for three. Dogtanian, the first band, had 2 DJs providing drumbeats for their set, and we invite them up to play with us for our last song, "Slow Crows." The experiment works brilliantly. One of the coolest parts about touring in this arrangement is the ability to re-arrange the pieces on the fly, and the openness of songs means we have plenty of room to do so.
The audience is also lively but appreciative, complete with a heckler, who (wittily) banters back and forth with us the entire show (and eventually buys both our CDs). Amazingly, we're inundated with offers for places to stay, and we end up crashing with Andrew and Luke from the label Ex Libris. They take out out for (more) drinks and drive us back to their house, adding "car" to the list of transpo for the tour.
We stay up late carousing, Andrew and Luke make us an awesome late-night dinner, and give us the nicest accommodations of the tour so far. I pass out in a large bed with a down comforter. It feels amazing.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A leisurely late morning hanging out with the Ex Libris crew, drinking coffee and talking. Luke eventually drives us back to the station. We bid our fond farewells, and we're off to Nottingham.
Another short walk from the station to the venue, the Bodega Social Club. It ends up being our best show of the tour -- the sound keeps getting better and better and we're settling into this arrangement of These United States more every night. Mark and I (as Vandaveer) debut a new song. There is a light and video show while we play, and a smoke machine. By the time our set is over, we've got a place to stay with an upcoming afterparty. We leave our gear at the venue and set off for our pad, case of beer on our shoulder. Mark (smartly) goes to bed early after the show. The rest of us stay up stupidly late, listening to the Replacements, Jesse reading Roald Dahl in the corner. Drinking, smoking, hanging out. I'm finally starting to be able to pick out the various accents of the places we've been, and recognize that our soundperson is a Geordie, which makes him quite pleased. Special thanks need to go to Joel, Liv, Ian and Lucia.
Friday-ish October 19, 2007 Quickly Becoming Saturday, October 20, 2007
(Tom's note: as a result of the aforementioned over-carousing, I was rendered incapable of writing for a bit. Doctor Vandaveer bravely offered to fill in…)
Howdy, folks… We're, uh, hmmm, five or so hours ahead of you this side o' the Atlantic, which means Tom's hangover is approximately, well, six hours ahead of yours, if you're the drinkin' sort. Something tells me you are indeed the drinkin' sort if you're actually reading this blog. Is this a blog? Look, ma! I'm blogging!
So, we played Nottingham last night, home to crooked cops and Britain's worst gun crime. The locals love answering questions about both. We met an engaging mix of Nottingham folk, chief among them a bloke (learn the lingo fast, we do) named Brent. Brent works the door at The Bodega Social Club. Brent rules. Royally. Not like the queen, mind you, but in a disarmingly genuine and altogether British sort of way. The kind of chap who cuts through the white noise and gets to the Matter of Things with grace and speed. Hi ho…
Nottingham ends with a bang, a whimper, and a thud, eventually followed by a proper English breakfast at a joint called Tasty Bites. Oh, how those bites were tasty.
The train ride from Nottingham to Liverpool looks easy on paper, but feels more like a madcap Double Dare obstacle course. Remember Double Dare? On Nickelodeon? One authentic, lukewarm pint o' Guinness (smuggled through Customs) to the first person who can tell me what Mark Summers is up to these days. Really, I should like to know.
We arrive at Liverpool Lime Street Station 'round dusk quite literally sitting on top of each other, friends and strangers alike. After disembarking, Jesse and Tom immediately fire off a barrage of Beatles jokes in my general direction. Funny boys, those two. See, I love the Beatles 'cause, well, they're the Greatest Band on (Planet) Earth. Ever. Tom (sorta) loathes them 'cause they're "chordal." Or maybe it's cordial. (Tom's note: I don't really remember this discussion. At all.) I can't really tell. When duly provoked, Tom also champions Eric "Wonderful Tonight" Clapton. Different strokes, I s'pose.
Our show in Liverpool is preceded by a spectacular meal at a cozy French bistro two doors down from the club, courtesy of the venue's club manager, Noel. Noel quarterbacks The Magnet with class. He takes care of his bands. He feeds them… well. He smiles. A lot. Big, genuine smiles that make you smile back. We swear off touring in the States (again) over free bottles of cheap red wine, make our way back to the club, play two unremarkable-ish sets, then set off on foot (leaving at approximately three, haha) with our new friends Fiona and Joey…
Take it away, Tom…
(Tom: I'm back…you'll most likely hear more from Doctor Vandaveer later…)
The story of Fiona and Joey: Before the show we had nowhere to stay in Liverpool. We made our usual request from the stage, and the band playing after us offered up their house. Sounds good, said we. They reassured us that they'd stick around until the end of the night. Sounds good, said we. About two hours later, we realized that said band had left for the evening, leaving three Americans stranded in a foreign town. Sounds less good, said we.
As we pondered our options/drank, I fortuitously called out something to Jesse as he walked across the room. Hearing my accent, a woman asked if we were from the States. We all started chatting, and, as luck would have it, the woman (Fiona) and her partner (Joey) were deeply involved with music – like me, Joey is another multi-instrumentalist. We talked a bit more, and Fiona finally said "If you need anything next time you're in Liverpool, just shoot us a line…". Mark moved in for the kill…"Actually…". And shortly thereafter, we set off for their flat. We spent a fantastic rest of the evening, sharing music and hanging out, looking off their balcony at one of the largest cathedrals in Europe. Stunning. The evening/morning finally ended when Jesse said "is that clock right? It says 6 a.m. ...". And off to bed we went.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
An early morning departure for Glasgow. On our last train, we end up in the "Quiet Zone" – no cellphones, talking, etc. It seems like the perfect time to take a nap, but as we get closer, the social constructs break down. By the time we get to Glasgow Central, there are children screaming, people chatting to each other and on phones. Jesse and I joke that the next step will be a piñata and pony rides in the aisles (in our sleep deprived state, this is a hilarious conceit).
Glasgow…is amazing. We go out to eat for a fantastic meal at a (surprisingly classy) place called Shineckis, named after Charles Bukowski's pseudoymn (Ed's note - We think he means Chinaski's). We're told that the audiences here are notoriously difficult, but Mark has them in his hand from the first note of his set. For the quiet sections, the room is dead silent. Both of us have great sets, best so far, for certain. I use the Attic Lights JC-120 amp, which makes me very happy. Also, apparently the banjo is uncommon enough here for people to visibly react every time I pick it up. The other bands on the bill, The Poems and Attic Lights, are fantastic as well. From start to finish, a fantastic night of music. And when the DJ sets start up after we're done, they play Teenage Fanclub, Blur, etc. Its fantastically surreal to watch disco balls and smoke machines pulsing to the sounds of "The Concept".
Laura, a friend of the Attic Lights, offers to put us up for the night – and off we go. I immediately know we're going to hit it off when we walk in and the Gram Parsons anthology is sitting out on the counter. We have a fantastic evening with Laura, drinking scotch and eating cheese. Laura also attempts (unsuccessfully) to teach me to play the flute. Knowing full well that we have to leave brutally early, we break out champagne and hang out into the wee hours – cheers!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A few hours of sleep. We bid a farewell to Laura and hike to the station under a foggy Glasgow dawn, our footsteps echoing off the buildings and cathedrals in the nearly empty streets. Today is our longest ride of the trip, all the way from Glasgow down to Bristol. As the mist is slowly burned away, and we gape at the landscape –- the rolling hills and waterlogged rocks. No matter how many hours we've spent staring, it is always just as breathtaking.
So we're one week into the tour now. The public transport/walking idea has thus far worked brilliantly. It is so much more unique and exhilarating than driving. It's also exhausting -- all three of us have to keep reminding ourselves that as of this morning we're only 6 shows – 33% - of the way done.
Our trip takes a turn for the better when we meet the train manager, Steve. Trying to figure out our route, we mention that we're on our way to Bristol for a show and strike up a friendly conversation about our music…and then he tells us to move ourselves up to first class. So we spend the entire trip in our own coach. Just the three of us and our gear. Free (sadly non-alcoholic) drinks, snacks, etc. Free to wander around and talk and sleep and revel in the moment. For at least one day, we're riding in style. It is completely awesome.
We got up with the sun, and as the sun gently sets, we arrive in Bristol. We're 10 minutes away from our set time, so Mark and I hop in a cab (our first of the tour) and Jesse sets off on foot for the club.
The Thekla might be the most unique venue ever – it's a full club (2 stages, multiple bars) on a docked boat. So as you play, you can feel the ship gently rocking back and forth. (After being on a gently rocking train all day, we initially thought it was just residual movement.) Despite our last second load in, both sets go amazingly, and the audience is with us from start to finish. Mark and I set off to find food post show, and we find a Chinese restaurant with a sign and plaque inside from "Rigby Steet" that provided the surname of Paul McCartney's famous Eleanor. We find a place to crash without much trouble, and head back and go to sleep.
Monday, October 22, 2007
A brutal walking morning –- we get up far too early and start off for the station. Since we left our gear at the club, we have to hike a mile or so, through the countryside, to get to a station, and then ride back to the club, walk from there back to the station, then ride back in the direction we came from. We're all starting to feel a little worn this morning -- Jesse is fighting off a cold, and one of my feet is seriously sore. Off to Manchester…
As we're walking from the station in Manchester, a young student comes up and starts talking to me about the guitar I'm carrying. He's a bass player trying to form a band. We assure him that it would have to be a short lived band as our work permits expire November 4. The student, Andy (age 19) , then walks with us to the club, where we sit around and talk to him about music for an hour or so before soundcheck. Andy heads off and promises to come back for the show.
The show is part of the "In the City" unsigned band music festival, started by Tony Wilson. So hundreds of bands in hundreds of venues in town. We play…an interesting venue. A sports bar. Autographed jerseys on the wall, rugby/football on every TV, etc. Not exactly our kind of venue, to say the least. We walk around a bit before the show, then do our best to get through it. The lights are very cool, at least.
All of the places we might stay turn out to be far away –- we'd have to cab it. But then our young friend Andy offers up his university flat, so there we go. Andy is a philosophy student at Manchester Metropolitan University and is one of the nicest people we've met so far. He's thrilled at the chance to hang out and talk to us about being in a band, and repeatedly points out to us that the venue, which we've dismissed out of hand, is great.
At this point in our careers, it is easy to get cynical about something like playing at a sports bar. We could always complain about the sound, of the audience, or general malaise. But Andy's attitude, one totally consumed by the wonder of putting notes in the air, is exactly what we need to keep reminding ourselves of. Playing music is a pretty cool job. And onward we roll...
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Previously:
These United Kingdom Tour Diaries: Part One