first show=BRISTOL- venue was once called fleece AND firkin, now it’s just “fleece”.  jetlag=fierce, but mightily we seasicked with the stage buckling ‘neath us like a watery grave. wicked head-cold, and tore thru 2.5 hour set like worried automatons.  BIRMINGHAM- awful dive, big-hearted people.  carpeted stage, concrete floor= a bright-white squall, and us in it like exploded atoms in an infernal pinball machine.  we did not rise, nor did we succumb. and sweet crowd carried us almost home. post-show= bad vibrations outside, and the sky like a death-threat or a whispered curse.  rats in the bushes and a half-finished skyrise complex 1/2-mile south, jutting out from all of it like a dirty tooth.  night-time highway-ride outta town was like a prettiest reverie, all of mt. zion as silent as ghosts with the dirty yellow road-lights splashing across our faces.   DUBLIN- 7AM ferry.  high seas and we are pummeled.  rock-joint= was once temple bar music centre, now it’s called the button factory.  carpeted stage and dead ceilings/walls.  like playing in a congested lung.  a tough slog but we plant a flag on top of it and rest our heads on the crowd’s shoulders for awhile.  too many kids on terrible drugs.  the modern human condition in full-bloom.  load-out is through 4.5 blocks of cobblestoned temple bar debauchery.  rivers of puke and piss and misery.  thierry’s pain continues unabated.  the rain falls in thin lazy sheets across all our horizons.  GLASGOW- 6AM ferry.  the sun rises across flat water.  we play at the art school.  wood floors, wood ceilings and wood walls finally.  first order harmonic reflections thrumming like salve on our torn, wounded ears.  we love glasgow even when she is inhospitable, so tonight’s earnest mercy is doubly golden.  opener is r.m. hubbert, old-school flatpicker of the new-school of gentle strumming bearmanship.  lovely.  post-show drinking on olde sauchiehall,  the folly of drink wedded to anger on full flagrant display, and we flee.  baby ezra wakes mid-night with high fever, wheezing  and screams.  early-morning visit to hospital= ear-infection and chest congestion. sweet scottish nurse, sweet scottish doctor, sweet scottish pharmacist.  no sleep.  no rest.  and onwards, grasping at the light as we tumble, together.

MANCHESTER- lucifer’s sweatbox=manchester academy.  god’s pee played this joint eleven years ago, yesterday’s fresh paint has faded and stained.  pop-idol talent show one floor beneath us like a hallucination.  their clean lines and rosy faces vs. our anxious angles and mottled facades. carpeted stage, concrete floor.  no ventilation, our and their breath condenses as droplets on our arms- we respire like morning’s pale fauna!  sound is clatter, sound is holler, sound is tiny knives aimed imprecisely.  thick air+humidity=we drop heavy anvils that barely make it off of the stage.   audience is golden/loud/sustaining.  sweet hospitality from bernie.  night’s sleep finally.  morning’s rising is gentle finally.  light rain, coffee & cigarette in the garden. amen.   LEEDS-  not the brudnell social club, but a larger joint, gussied like a cruise-ship.  everyone’s a sweetheart. the weather continues to deride us.  uneven ceiling-height means that the p.a.’s speaker stacks have to be mis-aimed.  null spot in centre of room where phase runs amok with it its ruthless cancellation schemes.  carpeted stage, tiled floor.  glassed-in smoking room at the front where the regulars smoke morosely.  audience is clever, bemused.  we flail a little, fall over just to get up again, as if our fuel-lines our fouled, we sputter and dive in fits and starts, and distinguish ourselves by the poetry of our clumsy recoveries (we hope).   LONDON-  we roll in early AM, and just like that we’re in the thick of it.  camden town like a theme park of dead subcultures, dreadful costa coffee/nero coffee/pret-a-manger on every corner, the bustle, the hustle, and we’re all like jon voigt at the beginning of midnight cowboy.  gate-watcher at the rock-joint is fifty-something teddy-boy with a boombox hung from the wall and treble-stomps tumbling out joyously.  wood stage, wood floor, wood balconies, and it thrums like a daydream.  baby ezra’s health has much improved.  thierry’s pain is still chronic.  london-town rock-crowd is generous with us, tho our clamor is a little thin this eve.  nighttime we loiter on the corner, sipping and muttering, incognito and knee-deep in glorious mud, we’re the kings and queens of saturday night.

NOTTINGHAM- a sad joint called “the rescue rooms” and we’ve played here too often.  the filth is evidence of their rip-off tactics.  every surface as sticky and stained as a spent rubber.  pack ‘em in, rob ‘em blind, and kick ‘em out= customer as fattened sheep.  fuck this place.  BUTBUTBUT sweet workers inside who are also oppressed thusly i guess, but kind to us and we are grateful.  and a sweet crowd also.  open-faced, open-armed, curious and bright.  also, the openers totally slay.  and red roses for sophie from a dashing young fan.  us, we stumble and rise again, lift off just to fall. and fall we do.  and thierry’s pain is too severe to encore.  load-out is uphill through two niteclubs worth of mid-week drunken student discoteque grotesquerie.  and a focused rain dumps buckets across all of that engorged flesh.   a wednesday night culture war, and though our rusty muskets and sabres do not suffice, perhaps our resilience will triumph in the end.   SHEFFIELD-  last time we “rocked” “this” joint”, our set was followed by dismal disco-dancing/mixed-drink social, so we approach the venue with apprehension, sniffing at the corners like spooked dogs.  stage is carpeted and sticky with muck.  a reek like childhood fever, cough syrup gone rancid, stains the heart and closes it to joy.  our set is a cacophony of breakage and malfunction.  we buzz and hiss and bark like an impotent tantrum.  captain stubing is in the crowd, and when they turn the disco ball on, a bundle of dust pours from its northern pole like sad confetti.  post-show is drinks ’round the corner, where the d.j. does no wrong until he plays motherfucking con-man bruce “the boss” springsteen.  fuck.   OXFORD- early roll-in.  weird greek coffee like a psychotic episode.  cavernous theater-gig.  sounds magnificent.  second opener is a ten-piece choir singing arvo part.  lovely.  during our gig, there’s a sound like chains being dragged across a long corridor.  dressing room is littered with champagne corks from previous dubious occupant(s).  post-show is another student discoteque and an all-night  keystone kop routine between the security guards and kids trying to sneak in through the back for free. the moon is like a gentle reminder, and the hole in the clouds too, blue and black and blue.

BRIGHTON-  church again, same as the last time.  display cases full of chalices and vestements.  AA meetings and gymnastic classes in the basement, and a picture of jesus hung dangled above the stage, blood from his wrists pouring out on us.  too much.  brighton is lovely. we are fans of the place and its people.  we could have done better by them i think, but church-gigs are an awkward thing- uncomfortable as those fucking pews.  sweet matthew hosts us in his perfect bar.  the sea is a shining thing as the sun falls.  clocks jump forward and we do not sleep.  england is done, and france is next and then italy beyond.  god bless our mess.  road-worn, we bang through like a homemade locomotive, and we are lucky.  outside nighttime.  and stars through cigarette smoke.  it’s like camping this time around.  and an uncertain slumber.  thank you everybody, you were kind to us and we appreciate it, and goodnight everybody, goodnight everybody, and goodnight everybody.  and amen…

]]> http://www.tra-la-la-band.com/mantoiletrope-a-summary-de-briefng-of-our-uk-travails/feed/ http://www.tra-la-la-band.com/thee-r3scue-r00ms-of-nottinghamengland-other-sweet-peoplebad-scenarios/ http://www.tra-la-la-band.com/thee-r3scue-r00ms-of-nottinghamengland-other-sweet-peoplebad-scenarios/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:12:23 +0000 efrim http://www.tra-la-la-band.com/?p=428

a feeling like the police are always watching you, and then you realise that yes they are always watching you here.

and a heaviness in the sky, and in the hearts of all her lost children.  and a simmering violence too, just under the surface, and the stink of stale beer and deodorant.  and concrete rooms that do not forgive, but amplify treble above all, like playing music inside an enormous snare-drum, wound too tight to not ever explode, snap or cave-in…

thierry is broken almost= herniated disc in his neck.  but soldiering on.  first show was first show was 1st show.  a little too shy to hammer the throttle, but steady as she goes up yonder hill and over the other side.  seven more weeks to go- the blur, as always, will be profound.  like reading underwater, the ink melting from the pages into the churning brine.  say howdy to us if you see us on the road, tell us the ship isn’t sinking ok? tell us it’s just the water rising is all, and that soon it’ll ebb, and soon it’ll be dawn, and the light’ll shine down on all of us worried creatures under the one true sun…

soon we load, roll, unload. soon we panic-attack at random toll-plazas. soon we glory in empty carbohydrates, fuel additives and sticky carpeted monitors. soon we bring it to the kids and marvel at the myriad ways that parents break their children.  soon we strum, pluck, smash, scrape and holler.  soon we sleep like the dead in airtight sarcophagi, next to the interstate where the air-brakes growl…

beneath february and its awful bluster, we gussied up the jamspace and played the song through.

while howard tracked it to 8-track reel-to-reel, nadia made a red-hand mobile out of twigs and cellophane and sweet li’l nina disco-danced with yellow earmuffs on.

invited attendees= hrair, matana, mischa, j.d., wilke, juliet, glen, heistek, corri-lynn, peter.  everybody looks be-gloomed ’cause it’s mid-winter, and sometimes in montreal we just roll that way naturally.

bird on the t.v. is a cockatiel in a wind tunnel.  poor fella.

march 16     bristol, GB  the fleece

march 17   birmingham, GB   asylum

march 18   dublin, ireland   the button factory

march 19   glasgow, scotland   the arts school

march 21   manchester, GB   academy3

march 22   leeds, GB   tj’s woodhouse social club

march 23   london, GB   electric ballroom

march 24   nottingham, GB   rescue rooms

march 25   sheffield, GB   corporation

march 26   oxford, GB   the regal

march 27   brighton, GB   st. george’s church

march 30   rennes, FR   ubu

march 31   paris, FR   alhambra

april 1        reims, FR   cartonnerie

april 2        bruxelles, BE   botanique

april 3        zottegem, BE   dunkfestival

april 4        munich, DE   feierwerk

april 6        padova, IT   unwound

april 7        roma, IT   circolo degli artisti

april 8        bologna, IT   locomotive

april 9        turino, IT   spazio 211

april 10      arezzo, IT   karemaski

april 11       varese, IT   twiggy

april 13       toulouse, FR   le bikini

april 14       marseille, FR   espace julien

april 15        nice, FR   theatre lino ventura

april 16        montpelier   la taf

april 17         lousanne, CH   impetus festival

april 18         luzern, CH   schurr

april 20        zurich, CH   rotefabrik

april 21         lyon, FR   grrnd zero

april 23         lille, FR   le splendid

april 24         groningen, NL   vera

april 25         amsterdam, NL   paradiso

and sorry, but no thing to say for awhile, just grief and fever, and a snowsqualling wind blowing through the streets like wolves let loose and running…

did a bunch of interviews last week, shipwrecked in bed with pneumonia, like trying to wrestle goldfish in a bathtub full of motor oil, the words kept slipping out of reach and into the fog, blinking forlornly…

good news= tours are starting to take shape.  will post all the dates once they’re confirmed.

right now europe is march/april= france, UK, ireland, belgium, switzerland, italy, holland.  (germany’s looking bleak, but maybe munich.)

we’re trying to book another tour in august/september= eastern europe, and russia if we can.

U!S!A! U!S!A! U!S!A!———> (short one for now, but more in the fall.)  this is us in may= boston, nyc, philadelphia, baltimore, d.c., asheville, chapel hill, atlanta, nashville, louisville, chicago, detroit.

that’s all for now.  but a lot more later…

no words.

———>pert’nent infos here…

.

.

.

(share or embed as you please:)

there’s a haitian church across the road, where they abandoned a dismantled organ just before snowfall.  pastor’s name= “wilfrid estimable”.  on weekends they tear the roof off with joyous noise, and i linger in the alley with my ear to the window like a perv.

last night i dreamt that i dragged their abandoned organ into the basement and put it back together again. except when i went to go play it there was honey all over the keys and a smell like rotting bees.

]]> http://www.tra-la-la-band.com/297/feed/