Last month, our favourite Edinburgh post punk two piece Black International hit the road for a UK tour. They have very kindly scribed the whole event for your reading pleasure.
Tuesday 18th September – Overnight journey southwards:
Due to the fact we’re starting the tour somewhat eccentrically at the rump of the country and working our way (kind of) up, we have to leave on Tuesday night to avoid extreme tiredness on the first date. But there’s lots to see! Places of interest passed on the motorway: Shilbottle, which has about 20 signs advertising the turnoff to the place, at least 2 of which some wag has altered to read: Shitbottle. For some reason this never gets old. There’s a village called Rock (how apt!), a place named Low Cocklaw (which sounds like a hyper-distilled blurb for a Frankie Goes to Hollywood video), and Rothbury, scene of killer Raoul Moat’s rampage where coincidentally there seemed to be lots of police cars zooming around. Perhaps the ghost of Gazza had been sighted with a fishing rod and a chicken? HAHAHAAA GAZZA HAD A FISHING ROD AND CHICKEN ETC.
Author’s notes, 10pm: Constant smell of animal slurry. Also, a place called Hebron? Thought that was in the Middle East? Had we taken a wrong turning?? Where are we going?! Tupperware box of homemade apple pies courtesy of Craig’s mum. Keep the blood sugar levels up. My god, that woman can bake. Ended up in sodding Bamburgh due to almighty traffic diversion. Nice castle, although hard to make out details in the dark. Onward, Scotch Corner motorway services and sweet slumber. Is this a dream?
Carpe Jugulum
Wednesday 19th September – Colchester:
Not for the first time we pass Ye Olde Roadside Sex Shoppe on the A1. Desperately searching for a vibrating rubber vagina on the motorway? This shop’s the place for you. Otherwise, drive on!
Colchester is a lovely place, a jumble of architecture from all periods. We had a wander through the back streets, past some churches and a giant Victorian water tower, and settled in a pub called the Hole in the Wall, so called because its foundations consist of the old Roman town wall, with the gate still visible. To toast the Romans of 2000 years ago we supped Amstel and played a few games of pool. That’s the way they’d have wanted it.
The show that night was a nice, easy entry to the tour, with only some mild string breakage to throw a brief spanner in the works. Not to worry, dear audience! We have a spare guitar, because we’re PRO AS FUCK.
Once again we get to sample the delights of a Travelodge on the motorway, and had a good half hour of fun trying to sort our booking out. This incident shall now be known as The Incredible Disappearing £10-off Voucher Mystery In The Night. Actually, it won’t be, as we decide never to speak of it again.
Thursday 20th September – Lincoln
Lincoln has a charming traffic system. A trip round the place trying to find a packet of guitar strings soon turned into a damn nightmare, as we were sucked out of the town centre and thrown back towards the motorway in panic. Well, nightmare might be too strong a word, now I have a chance to reflect. Slightly uncomfortable snooze is probably more like it. Guitar strings were not forthcoming, although we did stumble across a lovely Italian restaurant for an extremely good value dinner. Can’t remember the name of it, but it wasn’t a chain. Near an NCP car park and some estate agents. Anyway.
The gig was great fun, and the bands were excellent. Headliners Shapes ripped the arse out of it; they were completely mesmerising, if the aural equivalent of being bludgeoned repeatedly by a bare fist is mesmerising (it most certainly is). Bill-sharers Blind Wives, Some Skeletons and Crossings are also all worthy of your attention if you have the time; something for everyone there. We met up with our pals Bear Makes Ninja, who were kind enough to let us sleep in their communal Monkees-style house in nearby Sleaford.
Day 3, food supplies running low. Resorting to desperate measures.
Friday 21st September – Norwich
Our third Roman settlement in a row (well, almost)! Norwich is a crazy old place, and the venue was pretty damn cool. Promoters James and Josh made us feel most welcome, and even bought us pizza! Local boy Liam ‘Robots’ Roberts started off the gig proceedings with a set of dark, glitchy electronica laced with swirling guitar before we went on and sweated all over the damn place. Midlands champs Alright the Captain got there at nonsense o’ clock after a breakneck drive and proceeded to shake the very walls with waves of pulverising math rock. Amazing. We spent the next morning (and a fair wedge of precious food money) at a record fair. Never mind, I’m sure vinyl is edible. The cardboard sleeves make a hearty soup, so I’m told.
The Houdini House
Saturday 22nd September – Sheffield
A fairly ordinary drive through yet more sewage-strewn countryside leads us to Sheffield. It quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to have time for our ritual visit to Nando’s on West Street, and genuine heartbreak ensued. This gig would have to be something pretty special to make up for THAT, let me tell you. Just as well it was an absolute fucking belter, in that case. The Redhouse is a lovely place, the locals were friendly, and we played with some ruddy excellent bands. Simon from Kimmy Yeah was kind enough to let us crash in his living room, which was in a house where Harry Houdini had once stayed in 1920 (there’s a letter on the wall to prove it). Luckily we didn’t get stuck in the bathroom, else we’d have been forced to channel his ghost and break the lock. Either that or shouted for help until someone stumbled blearily along the corridor to let us out. Not that we’d be in the bathroom together anyway, that would be a bit weird, even for us.
One of these mammals is plotting world domination. The other is enjoying a cup of tea.
Sunday 23rd September – Bristol
The drive to Bristol was marred by the fact that it pissed with rain the whole way, and indeed, didn’t stop bucketing down for the next 24 hours. Still, undeterred we set up at the Mother’s Ruin, a cool wee pub near the river. Turns out that a sodden Sunday night when Brisfest is on is perhaps not the busiest evening for an out of town band to ply their wares, but we made the most of it, and the handful of other band members, friends and a few sundry mad bastards were duly given ‘the treatment’. Our friends Mike and Amy kindly put us up for the evening and gave us a glass of red wine and some apple pie for supper while their kitten WALTER attacked my stockinged feet with needle sharp teeth and claws. Good times.
Squeezing every last drop out of this crap joke.
Monday 24th September – Nottingham
No sign of Robin Hood, but we did pass a sign for Gotham, which is where Batman lives. Nottingham, I am certain, is the UK’s biggest consumer of yellow paint, judging by the miles and miles of it that cover every road surface in the damn city. Parking spaces are non-existent, no stopping, no loading, don’t do that, that’ll be £12 please, now get out, and don’t come back. A wheel clamper’s paradise. Just as well we were booked to play at a grungy little venue run by a mad old guy with some excellent bands then, eh? The Chameleon; an oasis of eccentricity in a grey one-way pedestrian shopping precinct. Nottingham’s own Fresh Eyes for the Dead Guy and Leeds-based space-riff monsters Khuda were our noise buddies for the evening, and they all played as if their lives depended on it. Or maybe they were just terrified by the large semi-abstract vaginal paintings adorning the walls. I know we were. I haven’t seen anything like that since a frankly hellish evening spent in Prague in 2006. We rounded off the night with Aidan from the band Some Skeletons, discussing the intricacies of Super Mario Brothers 3 and the world of disappointment that was the Nintendo Powerglove. Rock and roll.
Hell’s Angel is round the corner
Tuesday 25th September – Gateshead
Just as well we weren’t driving into northern England during the worst floods of the year, eh? OH. WAIT. We managed to avoid motorgeddon on the A1 and took a diversion through Durham, half expecting to see Noah’s Ark floating down the high street. Instead we saw some severely flooded office buildings and a submerged car. Almost as good as a huge fictional boat laden with animals miraculously not trying to kill each other, I’m sure you’ll agree. Anyway. Entering the Three Tuns in Gateshead is a bit like walking into a biker bar from 1968, and the sound engineer had a definite lysergic look to him, as if he was seeing things we couldn’t comprehend; shimmering, pulsating drum microphones dancing foxtrots in the atmosphere of Saturn… DI boxes turning impossibly through four dimensions, fractals made of infinite loops of copper shielded cable, vomiting shards of sound across the crow on the stove is Thursday, so heavy. Like, FUCK. The good citizens of Gateshead know how to have fun on a wet Tuesday night, we’ll say that much, even with us trying our damnedest to ruin their evening. Our friends Emma and Jorden let us stay at their tumbledown mansion, and I for one don’t mind admitting that I found the atmosphere extremely conducive to getting lashed on red wine, dear readers. Don’t tell my old mother, she thinks I only enjoy the occasional glass for medicinal purposes.
Thursday 27th September – Glasgow
After a day off on Wednesday we headed to Bloc in Glasgow for the final date of the tour. If you haven’t been there before, I have two words to say: Bolognese Calzone. Oh, sweet baby Jesus. Anyway, Bloc is popular with people who want to have a few drinks, eat some pizza, and maybe take in a band. This was perhaps the wrong choice for a few casual punters tonight, who found themselves brutalised by a barrage of unrelenting noise from Rollor. They used to be such sweet boys, now they’ve taken to unleashing merry hell with gay abandon, punishing the passer-by with looped screeching and grinding, metallic bass. Not for the faint-hearted. After they’d sorted the wheat from the chaff with a suffocating smog of feedback (bye bye group of drunken, obnoxious American tourists) I think people were somewhat relieved to hear our (by comparison) breezy pop songs. Everyone’s a winner! We had some post-gig fun times with our favourite blog merchants Jim “On It Like” Connick and Halina “I’m Too Frightened Of Her To Think Of Something Funny To Put Here” Rifai & pals, then it was off back to Edinburgh for us.
Tour over. Finished. Done. Night night.
