Monday, November 10, 2003

Rephlex Tour November 2003

Astrobotnia & Bogdan Raczynski Tour, 1-15 November 2003

Well, I never thought living in England would ever actually make me English, but I fear that day is near at hand. Not only have I become, over the years, very able to converse in depth about The Weather and Public Transport, but I am now also able to participate, with much warmth, in conversations about Traffic. Yes, I am now a veteran of the M25, the much maligned M6, the M4, the M1, the M11 and very many A roads. In fact, I have (after a mere 9 years) finally toured the length and breadth of this island, and been paid for it, to boot!

I have been On Tour. With no less than a variety of Rephlex artists (www.rephlex.com) visiting 14 cities in 15 days, and driving over 2,200 miles. The tour was centered around Bogdan Raczynski and Astrobotnia, with other artists dropping in along the way, including Cylob, the Aphex Twin, Ovuca, D’Arcangelo, Nick and Marcus (2 more Rephlex people whose stage names I don’t know). Now, before setting off, I was not entirely sure what I was letting myself in for. Having spent the last several years actively avoiding the dance scene (you know how I can get when I make up my mind to close my mind) I accepted the job (sound engineer and driver) being fully prepared to be indifferent to a lot of the music, steeling myself to grin, bear it and to be as nice as possible about music I didn’t expect to enjoy. How wrong was I!!!! The tale shall unfold…

First stop - Cardiff

Picked up the 7 seater people carrier at Tower Bridge around midday on Saturday 1 November, chuckling all the while at how 5 of us plus all our bags and equipment really were going to fit into this vehicle – no drum kits! No guitars! No bass amps! Merely 5 people and the artists’ gear – a laptop each and Cylob’s records! I am now a firm believer in the laptop as musical instrument. It’s light, small and very, very easy to lug in and out of a venue… Left Tower Bridge around 12.30, then picked up the spare monitor I wanted to take with in case any venues had rubbish monitoring (a wise decision, it turned out) in Stoke Newington, then straight out to Arnos Grove to Rephlex HQ (Grant and Nick’s front room) to pick up the boys: Astrobotnia (Alexei), Bogdan and Cylob (Chris Jeffs). A brief farewell and then we were On The Road! Driving west, mid afternoon, in autumn, in England. Now I had always known, in theory, (thanks to Miss Turpin, Geography Teacher) that the sun doesn’t really reach the top of the sky in winter in northern climes. In practice, 1 November 2003 was the first time I ever really realized what an oblique sun angle is. It simply means that the sun shines directly in your eyes from the time you head west, till the time it sets. It never really gets off the ground in the first place, and just hangs around slightly above the horizon, then sets far earlier than you think is decent, leaving you with a bazillion on-coming headlights to contend with instead (er.. why not grow big evergreen bushes in the middle of the road instead? But NO! just some barriers that are at the perfect height to NOT block oncoming lights.) And for those who’ve never been on an English motorway, they are BUSY. VERY BUSY. CONSTANTLY. Think the Ben Schoeman in morning rush hour, double it and then add some more. At any given moment you have another vehicle (more often than not a huge gigantic lorry transporting god-knows-what to who-cares-where) in front of you, behind you, to your left, to your right and the diagonal front left, front right, rear left and rear right. The traffic is constant, you have to be on full concentration alert all the bloody time. It’s pretty tiring… And led me to some half-philosophical thoughts about the human need for SO MUCH STUFF!!!

Anyways… So we check into our nice Holiday Inn and head venue-wards, to Clwb Ifor Bach. It’s quite a nice venue, three floors, all doing different things. We were on the top floor, there was a kind of chill-out room with quietish-but-not-bad music on the middle floor and the first was occupied by Welsh Night (you had to say a sentence in Welsh to be allowed in) which was playing the worst selection of 80’s and 90’s pop imaginable. I made one effort to explore the other rooms then retreated back our room. Dark, smokey, loud. Already my prejudices, that I worked long and hard to develop over my two years at 93, were beginning to fade. Cylob played a fine set, followed by Astrobotnia and then the mighty Bogdan Raczynski. My defenses, weakened by the first two, were blown away completely by Bogdan, and I knew I was going to love all two weeks of this!

Night One over, my expectations overthrown, and my enthusiasm mounting by the minute. Until the M4 the next day… But before then we spent the day in Cardiff Bay, an odd little harbour development, reached by driving through an industrial no-man’s-land, which claimed to have the world’s best vanilla ice cream (it wasn’t) but did live up to it’s claims of having a pretty little Norwegian church (now a coffee shop, arts center and potentially the next venue to be used in Cardiff) and we went on a harbour boat tour to the Barrage, a massive structure separating the sea from the river, effectively creating a fresh water lake on the inland side. To keep the water fresh, they pump air through it in big bursts, like a giant farting in the bath. Many cheesy anti-English/pro-Welsh jokes later we were deposited back on dry land and headed for…

Reading
Another great M4 experience. This time we had no sun to contend with, but were given a hard time by the Phantom Roadworks. For those not resident in the UK, Phantom Roadworks are the invisible roadworks that are preceded by huge “roadworks ahead” signs, suitably massive speed restrictions (40mph ON THE MOTORWAY!!! AAArghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!), enforced by many a speed camera (getting bust is not merely a huge fine, but also three points on your license – lose 11 and you lose the license completely), causing MASSIVE back-ups, that last for HOURS. And then when the speed restrictions end, and the traffic speeds up, you are left wondering exactly where these great roadworks were! Not a road worker to be seen. AND everyone’s heading back to London late on a Sunday afternoon, on the same road to Reading. Needless to say we were late, and the very stoned promoter waiting for us was completely unable to give us directions over the phone. Once we finally made it to Reading, we asked 2 cool looking dudes for directions, and they started sending us to the other side of the country when we were saved by a much-blessed-by-us little old lady who gave us very simple directions to the venue (only about 4 blocks away) which was in directly the opposite direction to where the cool boys sent us. Thanks little old lady!

Reading was immediately a favourite gig. The venue was an old squat that the squatters occupied for so long the council gave them the option to buy it. This they did and turned it into The Rising Sun Arts Centre. Very small, with cutesy little café area that sold tea and coffee as well as beer (a god-send for driver-me) and a whole lot of kids sitting around on cushions smoking massive amounts of weed. It did not look the kind of gig anyone would actually get off their butts and dance at, but 5 minutes into Astrobotnia’s set and the cushions were out the door and the kids were going ape-shit. Superb! Not much for me to do in the way of sound as there was only a small system with not many options, so I settled in to enjoy the tunes.

Being hungry after the show, we stopped at a chippy called Mr. Cod (which we discovered is actually a franchise enterprise as there was a Mr. Cod in just about every city we came to). Now this shouldn’t have been worth noting at all, except the process of buying four fish & chips and one portion of chips was one of the more difficult transactions of the whole 2 week period! Four of us went into the shop while Cylob stayed in the car. Mr. Cod’s confusion started here. Joana ordered her simple portion of chips and paid for it. So far so good. Alexei and I followed suit with a portion of fish and chips each. No problem. Then Bogdan enters the scene with his mad, unthinkable, very unusual order for… TWO portions of fish & chips. Hold on a minute! Stop the world! This was just one too many for Mr. Cod and Bogdan ended up, after several minutes trying to explain that yes, he wanted TWO portions, even explaining that there was someone waiting in the car for the extra portion, having to place the order in two completely separate transactions, ordered and paid for individually, change for the first purchase even being handed over in between the two transactions. I feel Mr. Cod is not going to make it into the running for Businessman of the Year… Anyway, at last we made it to our Travelodge somewhere along a motorway.

Manchester
By the time we left in the morning, the boys had made a good start on the beer. This was in no way a problem until poor Bogdan asked politely ‘can we stop at the next services, please, I really need a pee’. By this time we were on the M25 (hateful road that more or less delineates the outer reaches of London) and all service stops were behind us and the road was far to busy to stop on the hard shoulder. Poor Bogdan! He was pleading helplessly for us to stop when we made it onto the M1 and took the next exit. I’ve never seen three men jump out of a car so quick! The other two were also desperate but left poor Bogdan to do the begging… The place we stopped was absolutely gorgeous! We couldn’t have been more than 100m away from the motorway and we were on a cutesy country lane and I really noticed for the first time how absolutely BEAUTIFUL the autumn was! Red, yellow, orange EVERYWHERE! Red berries on almost every second bush and that lovely country smell of plants beginning to decompose. I made up my mind to be a bit more observant from then on, and was not disappointed. Autumn is a beautiful time in this country!

Hit Manchester and straight to Michelle’s house, where the blessed angel cooked for us all. Then on to Sub-Space, the venue for the evening, and face to face with the sound-guy-from-hell. He was dressed in combats and tight vest top, armed with walkie-talkie and headset, and a stance that - if I were a drunken 18 year old boy in-the-mood-for-a-fight - would make him the first target of my alcoholic rage. What a twat. And he very deliberately locked the door to the amps, grinned at me and said, “you’re not to touch that”. Great! So no control at all over the sound. He was smiling a few hours later, however, when his bar was completely rammed with over 250 mental dancers, on a Monday night. A good night in the end, if somewhat spoiled by Mr. Military’s attitude and some heavy-handed security action, and the last night Cylob was with us for a while.

After another Travelodge night, we moved on quite early to Leeds. To our Posh Hotel experience. Said Posh Hotel (Wood Hall) is a lovely stone building perched atop an oh-so-English hill, overlooking several oh-so-English fields (crammed full of Magic Mushrooms) and a view over an oh-so-English little forest which had it’s very own river along which we went for a long walk – Manchester and Leeds are close enough that we had plenty of time to sample the country delights of Wood Hall before retiring to the hotel drawing room, its fire and comfy, comfy sofas. Curled up with a good book…Aaaaahhhh. Also had the best cup of Earl Grey tea ever in my whole life (I should hope so, at £3 a pot) – beautifully blended, with all the good bits of the taste of Earl Grey, without that soapiness which characterizes Twinings. Yum yum… Served by an old career waiter, order taken by the snooty gay receptionist/concierge bloke, with silver tea strainers in pretty china… I could get used to this! (And the really huge comfy bed with the bazillion puffy feather pillows and the DVD player in each room and the giant flatscreen TV and the posh proper coffee and cafetiere instead of the usual Nescafe sachet…)

Richard (Aphex Twin) and Grant were meant to be driving up from London together and meeting us at the hotel. They were running late so we met them at the venue: the Brudenell Working Men’s Social Club. For those unfamiliar with the British Working Men’s Social Club, allow me to describe. The décor dates from somewhere in the early 70’s, with ne’er a penny spent on’t since. The drinks cost next to nothing and they are usually furnished with red or brown 70’s melamine tables and chairs, threadbare carpets (with fag burns) and mirrors on pillars. This one included washable wallpaper and light fittings straight out of Brooklyn Methodist Church’s church hall. South Africans, imagine the quaint look of a West Coast local in the apartheid years. Non South Africans, imagine that bar in Priscilla Queen of the Desert where the old drag drinks the butch local under the table, shot for shot. The wall to the rear of the stage is dark brown face brick and is the backdrop for the ‘Welcome to the Brudenell’ logo: done in multi-coloured glitter, accompanied by a bright shiny-smiley glitter-sun, a sweet smiling glitter-moon, various (expressionless) glitter-planets and a nice big glittery Christmas star! All of this wonderment was finished off with a number of those airbrush prints so beloved by teenage girls in the 80’s, including the plastic gold frames; and commemorative plates (royal weddings etc) on display above the bar. There was even had a hand scribbled sign up:

TAP WATER
10P HALF PINT
20P PINT
The Brudenell also has to pay water rates!


And this is claimed to be one of the best venues in Leeds… Hmmmm…

Nevertheless, this was to be a night to remember – especially as I had my first sound dramas to deal with. The house guy, who owned the rig, was fabulous and between us we managed to rewire enough stuff to make the gig happen – although ideally this should have been done way before we arrived, at least he was very co-operative, if somewhat under-informed about his own rig.

After the sound was sorted out and the two boys played their sets, Grant hit the decks and what was already a near frenzy turned into a full force hardcore techno rave. On a Tuesday night. In the Brudenell Social Club. In Leeds. Absolutely superb! Quote of the Day (courteousy Grant) “kids today have so much pent-up aggression, they listen to really fucked up music”. And Rephlex definitely cater for them….

Back to Wood Hall for a round of drinks in the posh bar, and a spliff in a posh room. When the non-occupants of the spliff room headed to our own rooms, we decided to stop outdoors, atop the stairs that lead to the magic mushie fields, to finish off the last bifta. Suddenly I find myself mid-air, with the lowest step heading very fast towards my face. Thank god for adrenaline! Somehow I managed to get my left leg out to break may fall and ended with a neat somersault onto the perfectly kept lawn. And a very, very sore knee. The night was spent sitting upright (on many fluffy, posh cushions) with an ice-pack on my knee, watching re-runs of Stargate- 5 (luckily for me I never saw the original runs – what a crap TV show!) on the posh many-inch flatscreen TV. In the morning I could just about limp my way round, and was suddenly very grateful for the automatic car – there was no way I could have dealt with a clutch!

Had an awesome breakfast of much posh-ness and then, the best treat of all, had a full-body salt and aromatherapy oils scrub and an aromatherapy back massage. Yum yum yum yum yum yum….. Highly recommended! The really lovely salon lady also put some oils on my knee. A light lunch at the hotel (which really did have the world’s best vanilla ice-cream, even though it made no claims to) and off we went to…

Newcastle. Another short drive, with detour via one of my favourite things: the Angel of the North. This is a giant iron sculpture by Anthony Gormley with the body of a man and the wings of a Boeing 747. Absolutely beautiful! (see http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/angel/pics2.htm for pics).

The contrast in hotels could not have been more pronounced! The Osbourne had completely tasteless pub-style carpets (mismatching ones in the bathroom), an old motel-style radio fixed into the wall, some really rough characters in the downstairs pub and we were generously given exactly 2 teabags. Nevermind – I got to see friend Nathan and had a decent rig for the first time. The gig was in the Students Union, which is a funny ol’ place, but we had Richard playing as well and it was properly loud. Once again the kids were crazy for it and I had the best time messing with the sound, although dancing was severely limited by injured knee (damn damn damn damn damn!). We finished off the night with a fabulous sit-down Chinese meal, while Alexei slept off the poison-weed they’d all been smoking, in the car…

We left Newcastle quite early (woke up with knee back to it’s normal state of usefulness, YAY!) and headed for Glasgow. This was the prettiest drive of them all – half an hour out of Newcastle and the roads emptied, began to get hilly and the abundance of trees bursting out in magnificent autumn colours was breathtaking. Along the way we stopped at a lovely road-side farm stall and coffee shop for breakfast which was truly delicious and a good break from Little Chef fare. Arriving in Glasgow, we drove past the venue (a deconsecrated sandstone church) and I started to get excited. Checked into our hotel, the long-named Kelvin Park Lorne Hotel (half-way between a Holiday Inn and the Osbourne from the previous night, with pokey rooms but recently refurbished bathrooms, which were lovely except for the brown gunk coming out of the bath-taps. I showered and hoped for the best) and went to see the venue: it was huge, cavernous and generally fabulous and I was very happy to meet the PA crew – they were the same guys who used to bring down extra rig for Mish Mash at 93! We’d always got on and it was great to see them again and knew I was in good hands when it comes to sound. Went for lunch at the (apparently) legendary Air Organic (the food is definitely worthy of legend status) and I went for a desperately needed snooze before soundcheck. Soundcheck over, some of the boys were due in town for a radio interview, so I adopted the first unoccupied person to go and have dinner with me. Going by the name of Robert, he is friend of Joana’s who’d come up from London for the gig, and never have I laughed so much with someone I’d met two minutes before. I officially declare Robert Surname-Unknown one of the funniest human beings alive and probably all the dead ones dead too. An absolutely brilliant dinner which was only improved by the sticky pork and mango salad (again at Air – do not miss this restaurant if you’re in Glasgow – but you’ll have to do it without the company I had).

Then the gig – walking in from the punter’s entrance was enough to give me goosebumps and take me back many years – it was a massive dark cave inside a gothic-feeling church with the highest of high ceilings and the music pumping out at you from the darkness, giving you chills up your spine at the moment you walk through the doors and it hits you full force. There were about 6 lights only, each a scanner with strong narrow beams that change colour and swing through the smoke-filled cave like helicopter search-lights. Oh my god – if I’d been a punter who’d arrived determined not to take any drugs, I would have changed my mind in about thirty seconds flat! Luckily I was working… And again, hundreds of kids going out of their minds screaming ‘HARDER! HARDER! HARDER!’

I loved it… And if Alexei was Newcastle’s super-skunk tragedy, Glasgow was Grant’s nemesis – he spent the last past of the night comatose in a chair in the corner of the secondary room. Bless!

A quick and easy drive the next day to Edinburgh, where we checked into the Jury Inn, and had a bit of a break before a late 10PM soundcheck, during which I went for a long walk (I love Edinburgh! So pretty!), a quick email check and a fabulous slice of carrot cake. The venue was The Bongo Club, and it turned into an excellent gig, but one fraught with sound hassles. Having hung around and checked that all was ok for ages, I thought it safe (and by this time necessary) to pop to the loo. Not to be! While happily ensconced, I hear the music go very, very quiet! Horrible moment! I’m stuck! Rushing back out (and fighting through the massively over-filled dance-floor) I can’t figure out what the hell’s going on! The music is there, just very quiet! House sound-man nowhere to be seen we suffer through about ten minutes of this (Richard and Grant are playing back to back) eventually Richard finds a really obscure ‘talkover’ switch on the mixer which, when switched on, dims the music so the DJ can speak over it – but this stupid little switch is not only very difficult to see in a dark room, it is right next to a really useful knob on the mixer and is very easily switched on by mistake. Mixer designers take note! Phew. This problem now sorted, I am paranoid and go hang out next to the front of house mixer determined not to be caught out again. How wrong! How very wrong! By this time the house guy had returned from wherever he’d been hiding, and he’s in the sound booth with two girls. I assume they are with him. He goes off somewhere, leaving them behind. I find them annoying, but they seem pretty harmless and if they’re his friends, who am I to argue? A few minutes later, they pretend to mess with the sound desk. I look disapprovingly at them and suddenly they look each other in the eye and actually do it! They grabbed every fader and knob they could reach, totally moved everything up and down and switched things on and off until I screamed so hard at them they realized their lives were in danger and ran off giggling! Oh my god was I angry! When the house guy turned up again it turned out he didn’t know them, and had thought they were with me…

Even more paranoid now, I glare at anyone coming anywhere near and exude don’t-come-anywhere-near-this-desk vibes. Hah! The system was still not inviolable! There is a ladder that goes up to the area where the lighting desk lives. Bogdan and the rest wanted it dark in the room, as dark as possible. This had been sorted out before opening. All of a sudden a big bright light goes on, aimed straight at Richard. I leave my precious sound desk and eventually find the ladder, scale it and find ANOTHER punter up there trying to operate the lights! Not being a lighting person I couldn’t get the damn things to go off again and had to go find security to call the house guy to get them off again! Ridiculous! But it was nevertheless a totally brilliant gig (SO SWEATY!) and I fell into bed at 5AM, only to be woken by Joana at 8 to get the car keys to put money in the parking meter. I was still asleep at 11 when I was woken by a phone call saying they were all waiting for me in reception, ready to go…

We had a very long (5 _ hours), but very pleasant (no traffic to speak of and an almost complete lack of roadworks, phantom or otherwise – always travel the M6 on a Saturday if possible) drive to Birmingham. The boys had been in Grant’s car (with GPS – they’d been boasting about it for days) and we got a desperate call as they arrived in Birmingham “ the GPS doesn’t recognize the street address! We don’t know where to go!” Now luckily I had my own personal GPS (with a far pleasanter voice, and available for much more interesting forms of conversation as well) in the form of Joana (she’s an AWESOME navigator) and she gave the panicky dudes directions. Their short-term memories were slightly impaired by that time and it took some patient repeating to get them to understand the ‘go straight until you reach the second roundabout, take the first left and you’re there’ directions, but we caught up with them just at the difficult bit (first left) and we got there together. It was getting late, and we were meeting The Bug (who was playing as well the night) at the venue, and he has quite a big set-up so there was not much in the way of hanging out in our lovely Holiday Inn before setting off for The Custard Factory.

This was an awesome, awesome gig for me. I loved it! Everything was fabulous (except for the lack of anything remotely resembling a house sound person) and I got to do some real engineering – Kevin (The Bug)’s set-up includes four vocals – and Alexei brought me a beer and a shot of whiskey at the PERFECT moment. Sometimes, engineering, you just need that little bit of alcohol at the right time and you get RIGHT IN there with the gig and sink away into the world created by the artist. It’s a favourite feeling of mine, and one that keeps me doing live stuff. Doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it’s magnificent, and as the techy you get to participate so much closer than an audience member. I was so high after Kevin’s set I wanted to explode. All the other sets were outstanding too and we were all so completely fucking knackered by 3AM that no-one even suggested a late night spliff/beer back at the hotel. Grant and Richard (who was too ill to play) left early next morning back to London.

Next morning was a short (rainy) drive to Nottingham, where we fell into the luxury of a retro-decorated pub with the BEST Sunday roast. Nick (who was to DJ that night) and his wife Hana met us there and we were allowed to use the owner’s facilities upstairs and watched ‘Short Circuit’ completely stoned all afternoon. Which was EXACTLY what we all needed by this day, 9, of the tour. This was a tiny venue (perfect Sunday spot) and there was no driving to be done that night (Alexei and Joana stayed at the pub, Bogdan and I stayed at the owner’s friend’s place) so I had a few beers once the gig got going and got a bit off it and had an excellent dance to Bogdan’s set (I am now officially a fan). I was finally very glad to have brought my own Mackie speaker with, as one of the venue’s had blown and the three that were working kind of needed a helping hand.

Post gig we walked to where Bogdan and I were staying and the host and I sat smoking the last of the weed mixed with green tea as we were out of tobacco. Perfect end to a really good day.

Next day we got up late and headed home to London. By the time we’d dropped Alexei and Bogdan at Rephlex HQ, had a cuppa, met D’Arcangelo (who was to play the last night in Leicester) and finally got into central London, it was already dark and I was pretty glad we had the night off. Sam, bless her cotton socks, cooked and Darren arrived with a big bag of weed and I got a good night’s much-needed sleep.

Tuesday morning was hectic with preparation for the night’s show at Neighbourhood (where I am one of the house engineers normally). Firstly I needed a strobe, which I thought to borrow from 93. Of course it was completely inadequate for the size of the venue, but I did enjoy a scene, much later that night, of the Aphex Twin on his knees on stage, blowing the front row of kids’ minds, hand-operating that little strobe right in their faces! FX was late delivering all the Bug’s hire gear (Kevin was to play this night too, as were Richard (Smojphace), Astrobotnia, Bogdan, Cylob and Sound Murderer). Almost no vocal soundcheck on the Bug’s stuff, a panicky moment trying to adapt Sound Murderer’s US equipment to UK voltage and the doors were open. What a mental night! SO LOUD! I really gave that sound system a run for it’s money and it was SO up for the challenge! We don’t normally even tickle the potential of that beautiful, lovely, gorgeous system, but when Bogdan came on (last on the list, after a fucking SUPERB set from Sound Murderer – I hadn’t heard him say more than two sentences the whole night, then he just took the stage and blew the dancefloor away, me included) and asked “ is that all you can get out of the system?” I accepted the challenge, let him distort it as much as he liked, and spent the last 15 minutes sitting in the amp room babying each of the 12 or so amps individually so that there was maximum level with no damage to anything other than them crazy kids’ ears (myself, I didn’t take out my earplugs for a second)! It was fucking brilliant, but experienced for the first time the conflict of interest between the house engineer and the tour engineer. House protects the system, Tour pushes it to it’s limit. I was both on this night and it was a real divided-loyalties situation!

Other drama for the night was the death of Astrobotnia’s laptop. It demised sadly in the dressing room, but luckily luckily Grant had a bunch of Alexei’s CD’s that he could DJ with.

I took absolute AGES tidying up that night, SO tired! A little bit stoned! And was very, very sad to hear all the comments from bar staff and managers – every single one of them HATED the night, from beginning to end. I was sad, but shouldn’t have been surprised really, as Neighbourhood is normally a scene-to-be-seen, cocktail-drinking, inoffensive-house-music kinda place. There was not a single regular amongst the crowds of raving mad-for-it kids. Oh well, their loss! Grant reckoned it was a party that would go known in Rephlex history, and his is the opinion I care about!

Next day was a potentially nightmare drive to Norwich (some of the roads are one lane only in each direction) which wasn’t too bad, to a funny little venue called Kafe Da – themed on Russian historical figures, complete with some very inaccurate ‘quotes’ from the likes of Rasputin & Lenin and selling many vodka’s. The PA was inadequate again, so out came my Mackie for use as a monitor this time, and we had a good gig. I was just too tired to really enjoy it, but the kids, once again, were so happy. They don’t get much in the way of good gigs in Norwich and the place was absolutely jam packed with very happy punters! What was even more enjoyable, however, was the fabulous rack of lamb at a restaurant called Cinema City (next door a cinema, hence it’s silly name). Norwich is absolutely beautiful, if a little too middle class for my liking, and on our way out of town to our Travelodge (quite a nice one, by Travelodge standards!) we got lost for ages in a really complex one-way system, that eventually took us in a complete circle of the town. Lucky we had JPS (Joana Positioning System) and we got where we needed to be eventually.

Next day saw us heading west again, to Bristol. More dreaded M25 (this one was particularly terrifying, with about 4 near-accidents happening really close to us) and the nasty M4 for the third time. Had to pull over for a cuppa after the M25 just to give my nerves a break! Met Nick and Marcus (who were Djing the night) at our hotel (Holiday Inn Express) after a series of weirdnesses that would continue all night.

Bristol Traffic Weirdnesses:
• An especially butch (and scarey) woman pulled off the pavement on a motorway exit, just behind us and started making frantic, indecipherable hand-gestures. Thinking this was road rage we tried to ignore her till she had the chance to pull up next to us – seems she’d been pushed off the road by the bus just in front of us and was trying to get it’s registration number
• A car had been left in the centre lane of a three lane road with it’s hazards on, causing a huge traffic jam

Bristol Later Weirdnesses:
• A hen-party insisting on getting into the club, even after they were told they would HATE it (they did, and left quite soon)
• A group of kids insisting that Autechre were playing, which was blatantly not the case (they left too)
• A punter who was so disappointed that Aphex Twin wasn’t playing, but came back to find me an hour or so later saying he was having the time of his life and did I have any pills! (I didn’t)
• One guy, whose 21st birthday it was, got into the band room (very drunk, but very harmless) insisting “I know one of you is Bogdan! Which one is it!” And refusing to leave until he’d found out which one Bogdan was. Of course we never told him, and Joana did a brilliant getting-rid maneouver by taking him out to dance

The traffic weirdnesses and proximity of the venue persuaded us all it was wise to walk there, which we did. The venue (called Thekla) is a huge old coal barge, with the best Turbosound sound system, and an excellent house engineer, and the wickedest local promoters and this was, in the end, my favourite night. The sound was awesome, I’d got my energy back and there was one particular square foot of space I adopted as my very own which was the sweetest of stereo sweet spots. Absolute heaven! Definitely the best night of the tour for me, followed closely by Birmingham.

Again the blasted M4 next day, and M25, almost all the way back to Norwich, but stopping in Cambridge. Fabulous Holiday Inn where we just chilled for several hours, and then off to the Boat Race. This is a teensy pub venue with only one room and a fairly OK-ish sound system, and a house engineer who was so jealous I’d been on tour with these guys he kept saying it over and over again! Bless. He had a good night, I think! Even though it was a Friday the venue only had a pub license so we were home and drinking beer in Cylob’s room by 12.30 (Cylob had come up by train to play this one). Unfortunately for Cylob, who was up for a party, the rest of us were knackered and left him to it pretty early.

An easy drive to Leicester next day and more time to hang out in nice enough Holiday Inn rooms doing very little. I don’t think I’ve ever watched as much daytime telly as over the last few days on this tour. Mind-numbing it certainly is, and a great way to switch off for a while. The venue was the Sumo club, which has three floors. We were in the basement and there was the normal Saturday night stuff going on the other two floors – scene-to-be-seen cocktail drinking with mainstream average shit being played by bored DJs who’d lose their job if they played anything different. And then there was the Room of Doom downstairs, which was potentially amazing, but only two of the four Turbosound speakers were working, and there were no subs. Still, it was a great gig – no DJ sets, just four live ones: D’Arcangelo and Sound Murderer in addition to Astrobotnia and Bogdan. The only nastiness was the over-zealous security who very, very unnecessarily rudely told us not to smoke in the very hidden away, far from punters band room, but to make up for it, the gratitude from the punters for some decent music was really quite touching! One does get spoiled in London….

And then it was time to head HOME, and to break up the little family circle… But what a absolutely superb experience! And what a convert I have become! I should write a long paragraph in conclusion, but I’m tired and it’s taken nearly a month to write this much, so that’s all folks!