reubens (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} reubens) wrote,@ 2005-10-18 10:54:00 |
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This Shit's Bananas
"Ryan, we don't want you to be that guy in the PG-13 rated movie that we're all really rooting for...we want you to be that guy in the R rated movie that we're really not too sure about." Sound advice, but still no luck. We'll keep trying...
Again, sorry for the delay in reports. I'll try to be quick, but know I won't be. We hung out in Wales for a few days, where we played a show in Cardiff, the capital...it was awesome. A really cool club...similar to the Knitting Factory back home in NY, with three separate floors for music...treated us really well, and we had the band Half Light open the show. This was the girl who opened for us in Kingston, and it was awesome...that much better with a band. The day after the show we had a day off that we spent in Caerphilly, checking out their massive castle (complete with moat), drinking in the local pubs (cask ales are delicious), getting our golf fix in at the driving range (Jeff and Chris are golfers...anyone know that? Weird, right?) and meeting up with the entire Dopamine crew, complete with girlfriends and wives, for a delicious "curry" at Dopamine's favorite Indian restaurant. Caerphilly is pretty rad...it was fun.
The next day we played in Oxford. The show was fine...a pretty good turnout, but the club itself was nothing too special. What was fun about it though was getting to witness the England vs. Poland football (soccer) match in the front part of the club. We were walking around town, checking out the schools and churches (which were all pretty awesome) and at about 8pm we noticed the streets just emptied, as everyone filtered into pubs to watch the game. England came out ahead by 1, which I'm told means their going to the World Cup. Go team! I guess Wales (Dopamine's favorite) was also playing that night to avoid being absolute last in the league and they won, so that was good news too. Oxford itself was pretty awesome. This is where Einstein went to school for a while, dudes. Also Oscar Wilde, a hero of ours, and we all know that Radiohead is from Oxford. It was pretty cool checking out the town...it was raining, but we got a feel for it. Very old, majestic buildings, but pretty typical college town vibe. I don't know if I expected all the students walking around to be clad in tweed suits and sweaters, carrying their books bound in a leather strap, but somehow I was surprised to find them like normal, kinda dumb, drunk and horny students. This almost worked in Ryan's favor, but alas.....
That night was a little rough. We drove about an hour north to Coventry to stay with Dopamine's friend Pete. Pete is a big drinker and though he received the text message about us staying with him and responded to it, it somehow didn't quite make it all the way and we found him naked, plastered, and passed out with his flat mates unaware of our plans to stay. Luckily their next door neighbors helped out and let some of the 12 of us crash with them. We all slept, which is all that really matters and Pete eventually got up, put on some clothes and took us to a great greasy spoon kinda place for breakfast. Sam ate something called the Belly Buster that was just out of control. I think I saw him ingest three sausages.
From Coventry we drove to Lincoln, near where Robin Hood was from. It was a really cool town...the old part of it up on this big hill, with a MASSIVE cathedral on top. Seriously, this thing was out of control...it's the third largest in England and built in the 13th century. Chris and I walked up the very steep and winding cobblestone street to it and were just blown away. It's bells just began to peal as we got up there too, so it was pretty awesome. There was a castle up there too, and this was the site that the Romans started an outpost in like, 70 A.D. or something. It's kinda surreal all the history these places are steeped in. So, the show was pretty fun...it was promoted, run, and amplified by a guy named Steven Hawkings (not the crazy scientist dude, but maybe just as brilliant) who used to manage, tour manage and amplify Dinosaur Jr. Jeff, Chris and Ryan are huge Dinosaur Jr. (and Sebadoh, Lou Barlow's other band) fans, so this was fun for them to meet this guy and talk about them. I just thought he was amazing...just a really cool guy with lots of stories and boundless energy. I think he ran everywhere he went...hurtling guitar cases and bouncing off walls. The show was really fun...maybe the most fun so far for me. We also managed to find a place to stay with the opening band. They lived in a little house not far from the club and had a raging party that night in our honor...we were skeptical at first, but it ended up being fun. Jeff, James and I slept in a room with a small black bunny named Murray. It was a good night.
From here we drove to Newcastle upon Tyne, where Chris started to salivate because he loves their Brown Ale. We drank some. We played a show (just us and Dopamine for this one). We saw a bunch of bridges. We saw a monument to Earl Grey. We went to H&M and bought long underwear. We saw countless half naked women in high heels (how do they walk on this cobblestone?). We saw masses of insanely drunk people, partying with an "epic irresponsibility" (this is what my Lonely Planet tour guide had to say) as if tomorrow might never happen, then sloppily making fools of themselves on the streets and in line for McDonalds at 1am. Seriously, this place was OUT OF CONTROL. Drunk people everywhere, stumbling about and punching each other...it was a little bit scary...we had some Euro-preppy dude come up and pester us about hanging around in the garage next to the club...he was so drunk, he didn't know what was going on. A pack of chavs were yelping like rabid coyotes as they knocked a huge garbage bin into the road. Think of any party frenzied college town you've been to and amplify it by 11 and you'll get the idea. The show was fine, though the club was crazy smokey. We've gotten used to most places in the States where smoking has been banned in bars, so this place really hurt. While we were playing, I felt like someone was sitting in my lap, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke up my nose. Yuk. Everyone played well though.
You know, I can't believe it, but I don't think I've mentioned Jeff's brother Mark yet. Mark lives in Barcelona, Spain and met us in London at the start of the trip. He's been traveling with us all the while and sells and sets up merch for us at the shows. It's been nice having him around...he's a bit more of a world traveller than we are and is helpful in that respect. He also seems pretty tough and if we ever got into a hairy situation, I feel he'd be an asset. He's also super cool. Anyway, Mark had a couple of friends who came to the show, one of which lives just outside Newcastle, so we stayed with her. We left the Dopamine crew to their own devices...they ended up at a club until about 4 and then crashed with some Geordies (Newcastle's locals) only to be woken up at 7:30am and kicked out. We fared much better, with two lovely and gracious hosts, soft cushions to lie upon and tea, toast and showers in the morning. Sometimes I don't know how we do it...rolling into some foreign town without a place to stay and somehow making it work. We'll see how we do tonight...we're now on our way to Edinburgh, Scotland. In fact, I'm going to stop writing because I wanna check out the scenery. We'll try to report again soon... Ta ra...
"Ryan, we don't want you to be that guy in the PG-13 rated movie that we're all really rooting for...we want you to be that guy in the R rated movie that we're really not too sure about." Sound advice, but still no luck. We'll keep trying...
Again, sorry for the delay in reports. I'll try to be quick, but know I won't be. We hung out in Wales for a few days, where we played a show in Cardiff, the capital...it was awesome. A really cool club...similar to the Knitting Factory back home in NY, with three separate floors for music...treated us really well, and we had the band Half Light open the show. This was the girl who opened for us in Kingston, and it was awesome...that much better with a band. The day after the show we had a day off that we spent in Caerphilly, checking out their massive castle (complete with moat), drinking in the local pubs (cask ales are delicious), getting our golf fix in at the driving range (Jeff and Chris are golfers...anyone know that? Weird, right?) and meeting up with the entire Dopamine crew, complete with girlfriends and wives, for a delicious "curry" at Dopamine's favorite Indian restaurant. Caerphilly is pretty rad...it was fun.
The next day we played in Oxford. The show was fine...a pretty good turnout, but the club itself was nothing too special. What was fun about it though was getting to witness the England vs. Poland football (soccer) match in the front part of the club. We were walking around town, checking out the schools and churches (which were all pretty awesome) and at about 8pm we noticed the streets just emptied, as everyone filtered into pubs to watch the game. England came out ahead by 1, which I'm told means their going to the World Cup. Go team! I guess Wales (Dopamine's favorite) was also playing that night to avoid being absolute last in the league and they won, so that was good news too. Oxford itself was pretty awesome. This is where Einstein went to school for a while, dudes. Also Oscar Wilde, a hero of ours, and we all know that Radiohead is from Oxford. It was pretty cool checking out the town...it was raining, but we got a feel for it. Very old, majestic buildings, but pretty typical college town vibe. I don't know if I expected all the students walking around to be clad in tweed suits and sweaters, carrying their books bound in a leather strap, but somehow I was surprised to find them like normal, kinda dumb, drunk and horny students. This almost worked in Ryan's favor, but alas.....
That night was a little rough. We drove about an hour north to Coventry to stay with Dopamine's friend Pete. Pete is a big drinker and though he received the text message about us staying with him and responded to it, it somehow didn't quite make it all the way and we found him naked, plastered, and passed out with his flat mates unaware of our plans to stay. Luckily their next door neighbors helped out and let some of the 12 of us crash with them. We all slept, which is all that really matters and Pete eventually got up, put on some clothes and took us to a great greasy spoon kinda place for breakfast. Sam ate something called the Belly Buster that was just out of control. I think I saw him ingest three sausages.
From Coventry we drove to Lincoln, near where Robin Hood was from. It was a really cool town...the old part of it up on this big hill, with a MASSIVE cathedral on top. Seriously, this thing was out of control...it's the third largest in England and built in the 13th century. Chris and I walked up the very steep and winding cobblestone street to it and were just blown away. It's bells just began to peal as we got up there too, so it was pretty awesome. There was a castle up there too, and this was the site that the Romans started an outpost in like, 70 A.D. or something. It's kinda surreal all the history these places are steeped in. So, the show was pretty fun...it was promoted, run, and amplified by a guy named Steven Hawkings (not the crazy scientist dude, but maybe just as brilliant) who used to manage, tour manage and amplify Dinosaur Jr. Jeff, Chris and Ryan are huge Dinosaur Jr. (and Sebadoh, Lou Barlow's other band) fans, so this was fun for them to meet this guy and talk about them. I just thought he was amazing...just a really cool guy with lots of stories and boundless energy. I think he ran everywhere he went...hurtling guitar cases and bouncing off walls. The show was really fun...maybe the most fun so far for me. We also managed to find a place to stay with the opening band. They lived in a little house not far from the club and had a raging party that night in our honor...we were skeptical at first, but it ended up being fun. Jeff, James and I slept in a room with a small black bunny named Murray. It was a good night.
From here we drove to Newcastle upon Tyne, where Chris started to salivate because he loves their Brown Ale. We drank some. We played a show (just us and Dopamine for this one). We saw a bunch of bridges. We saw a monument to Earl Grey. We went to H&M and bought long underwear. We saw countless half naked women in high heels (how do they walk on this cobblestone?). We saw masses of insanely drunk people, partying with an "epic irresponsibility" (this is what my Lonely Planet tour guide had to say) as if tomorrow might never happen, then sloppily making fools of themselves on the streets and in line for McDonalds at 1am. Seriously, this place was OUT OF CONTROL. Drunk people everywhere, stumbling about and punching each other...it was a little bit scary...we had some Euro-preppy dude come up and pester us about hanging around in the garage next to the club...he was so drunk, he didn't know what was going on. A pack of chavs were yelping like rabid coyotes as they knocked a huge garbage bin into the road. Think of any party frenzied college town you've been to and amplify it by 11 and you'll get the idea. The show was fine, though the club was crazy smokey. We've gotten used to most places in the States where smoking has been banned in bars, so this place really hurt. While we were playing, I felt like someone was sitting in my lap, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke up my nose. Yuk. Everyone played well though.
You know, I can't believe it, but I don't think I've mentioned Jeff's brother Mark yet. Mark lives in Barcelona, Spain and met us in London at the start of the trip. He's been traveling with us all the while and sells and sets up merch for us at the shows. It's been nice having him around...he's a bit more of a world traveller than we are and is helpful in that respect. He also seems pretty tough and if we ever got into a hairy situation, I feel he'd be an asset. He's also super cool. Anyway, Mark had a couple of friends who came to the show, one of which lives just outside Newcastle, so we stayed with her. We left the Dopamine crew to their own devices...they ended up at a club until about 4 and then crashed with some Geordies (Newcastle's locals) only to be woken up at 7:30am and kicked out. We fared much better, with two lovely and gracious hosts, soft cushions to lie upon and tea, toast and showers in the morning. Sometimes I don't know how we do it...rolling into some foreign town without a place to stay and somehow making it work. We'll see how we do tonight...we're now on our way to Edinburgh, Scotland. In fact, I'm going to stop writing because I wanna check out the scenery. We'll try to report again soon... Ta ra...
