Oslo

Matt and I had a discussion about our experience in Oslo. Should we tell the truth? Should we be selective in the truths we tell so as to lead readers into getting a skewed idea of what happened? I'll be pretty truthful.


This was our official gig in Oslo. It was a really nice small venue. We played some songs and finished quickly then left, because.. unfortunately, there were only about 2 people and all the people who would have been at our gig were at this one:

Frode Fivel and other bands. We stayed with Frode Fivel, and he was a really great host. We enjoyed his band too. We ended up playing 2 other gigs with them and some of the songs got stuck in my head many days later.

At this gig, in the breaks between bands, Elak Bingo performed. They were awesome! Who they are will become more clear in the next entry about Fredrikstad, hopefully, but they had 3 different costumes, and performed with dancing and props to their own pre-recorded silly/awesome tunes.

And then the night after, Frode's band was set to play at this other gig, which was apparently a party for someome, but I never discovered who it was. They said Matt and I could play too. There were some fantastic acts that night, including a bosnian folk/prog rock band that got the whole place pumping, I think. The funniest one was called the great gods of power. I needn't explain their music. I don't think its worth it. It was all very Oslo. In Oslo, people like rock, and they aren't really into quiet sophisticated pop. So Matt and I played last, when there were about 4 people left in the place. They liked it though.

But really, Oslo wasn't the best place for us. I had to explain to Matt that all the things I told him about Scandinavian people being into sophisticated pop music are true for Sweden, but not so much Norway. Except maybe for Fredrikstad.. (up next)

Wales

After Nottingham, I went back to Wales with the Hepburns for a few days. It felt kind of strange because it was like a new country for me, but to the others it was completely normal.

There's Mike explaining something to William and Molly, his 2 crazy kids, in sign language (they're both deaf)

That's somewhere around the bay south of Swansea, when Matt's parents took me on a nice little excursion.

This is apparently the second best icecream in the world. I'd believe it.

Apparently this is where Matt writes most of the songs for the Hepburns.

..and this is the shed in Mike's backyard where they have been rehearsing all these years.

gosh, wales, eh? Who would've thought?
and what does that even mean?
next up, Oslo!

Nottingham

The next morning, after breakfasting with Gareth's wife and children in Leeds, I got 3 trains to Nottingham. Trains in the UK are pretty good, but a little expensive and sometimes late. When I got to Nottingham, I had lots of time to kill until the gig because the Hepburns (who were travelling from Wales to play there) weren't arriving until the evening.

Gosh this is a boring blog. Why should I say everything that happened, its not even very interesting. I'm also feeling frustrated about the space bar on this keyboard that I'm using (typing from here in Llanelli, Wales). Lets cut out the boring bits.

Nottingham has a bad reputation for crime but to me it looked beautiful. That doesn't rule out the possibility of it being dangerous. I guess if I'm going to get robbed, I'd rather have it done in a beautiful city. Like how Pat wishes he could have got mugged in New York. Or not..

Everyone had a hard time getting around nottingham and finding the venue, but in the end, we played a gig and it was good. My set went over well, and the Hepburns set was plagued with technical problems. Matt's guitar was falling apart, then he fixed it with blu-tack, and the amp was buzzing really badly and sometimes not working, then he broke a string, so I lent him mine (it's happened a couple of times before), so I borrowed a guitar from the band rudolf rocker when I joined the Hepburns. Then it was funny cos my guitar (or the lead) wasn't working, so Matt abandoned it and I was playing guitar and he was just the lead singer, which was funny. See below.

This picture taken by my parents, who were in attendance, and enjoyed the gig. (They live in the UK these days, near Cambridge).
Gosh, this blog is still boring.
Anyway, next up is my visit in Wales.

Leeds

After I spent 2 weeks in and around Toronto (which was very nice and I had a good time, except that it was really cold), I went to England, on another aeroplane. Aeroplanes are not that fun, but this journey was 6 hours of sitting in a chair, not 12 or anything. I've also got used to emptying my mind of all thought, it makes the time pass quicker. It also makes me a more dull person, which is an unwelcome side-effect of doing boring things.


I stayed with my parents just outside Cambridge for a night, and I slept from about 7pm until noon the next day. partly because of jetlag and that travelling makes you feel tired, but also because the sun in England in the winter doesn't rise high enough for you to really realise that it is daytime.


Then I caught a train or 2 to get to Leeds. I found my way to the venue called the Packhorse, and met Gareth Cavill there, who is a very lovely guy. His musical project is called Cavil (with one 'l') which is a word that means to raise petty objections. Cavil and the other local group called 'at swim two birds' both play music which is both miserable and beautiful, which is not too surprising, since Leeds is the home of goth. It was a really nice gig. There weren't too many people, but the people that were there were very friendly and were really into the music.
During my set, a couple of drunken girls, drunkenly shouting how fabulous I am, tried to get in the room, but the door man didn't let them in, but I was saying that they could come in if they payed the 4 pounds door fee.
I really enjoyed Gareth's set because I knew (almost) all the songs really well, because I mixed his forthcoming album. But it was great to hear them stripped back to their essentials.

There's Gareth a.k.a. Cavil, playing and singing a nice song.

There's at swim two birds.

During their set, a guy dressed as santa claus opened the door, with a look on his face as if to ask if we want him to come in and spread some christmas cheer. The guy on the door shook his head significantly, as if to say that no, we're not really into your christmas cheer in here..

toronto

I took a train that went from New York to Toronto. It took a long time to get there. Sometimes the train stopped for a while and then kept going. I was sitting in it for something like 13 hours. Its a lot nicer than being in an aeroplane though, because there's plenty of leg room and you can see scenery such as this:

In Toronto I've been hanging out with Helen, and she's awesome. She's a bit shy with cameras. Here's a picture I managed to take when she was trying to hide from the camera:


ok this is not much of a blog entry but you'll find out more if you're in my privelidged circle of privelidge. Did I even spell privelidge right?

New York

We went to New York. We got rid of the rental van because it would be too much hassle in new york. We all stayed in different places because everyone in new york lives in tiny apartments, eh. I stayed at a couple of different places - Stephen from Poundsign, who was good, and Angelique Clark, who was also good.

oh look, there's the brooklyn bridge

look, there's Pat trying to use chopsticks for the first time.

Look, its a cat in a record store! There were several cats living in this record store,

and Alexander and Lucy were dismayed at how well they were kept.

I went to the museum of modern art. This picture is from the architecture/design part, which was pretty cool.

There's a good painting.
That's by Andy Warhol, eh.

Oh look at Matt with his rock star sunglasses. Next to him is Simon Wright, who kind of manages the Hepburns. He came to New York with his wife too, to meet us all and hang out for a few days.

Look at the stretch hummer, near central park.

I went up the Empire State Building. Its quite tall. It was actually snowing a bit on the top.

I knew that the thing to do in New York is to eat a bagel. I accidently got a pretzel instead. I wasn't very nice. All the white stuff is salt, which makes it too salty.

Check out the fashion. Looks like these cats stepped straight out of 1985. Except using the internet.

I have no photos of our gig in New York but it was really good. Alexander called all his New York friends to get them to come, and with an expanded Welsh contingent as well, it was a good crowd. The venue, Galapagos was really fabulous. Unfortunately time was a bit limited and the Hepburns had to shorten their set.

I was in New York for about 5 days, and a lot of that time was spent walking around getting sore feet. New York is very big. People's personalities seem bigger too. I personally would not like to live there.

Boston

Matt Jones: West coast cowboy in Boston, thinking of his horse.
Happy now!

Alexander Bailey likes used record stores

There's the Hepburns playing a song in Boston. There were not so many people there because of Boston is no good. And the drivers are impolite. And we got lost many times because they don't know how to make street signs there either. But the guys from the band Windy Smiles were awesome and nice and they let me use their fender rodes piano, which was good. Oh and that night Matt and I made a live appearance on a local radio station and played a few songs with acoustic guitar and it was good.

Dmitry let us stay at his place and it was great and he and his wife (not pictured) were excellent hosts and made us feel like celebrities.

Seattle

There's me with stripy shirt, shiny tie and sparkly guitar in Seattle. I liked Seattle, even though I didn't get to spend hardly any time there because of the trip up to Vancouver.



Seattle was a nice show. The people that helped us out (Saundrah, Steve & Nancy) were great. The Birthdays (local support) were cool. Above you can see Alexander behind the merch table, looking like the proprietor of a dodgy hotel. Even though there was not a huge crowd of people, they were really into all the music, I think.



There's Matt playing a song on an acoustic guitar. He enjoyed the night.

The trip from Seattle to Boston was not without hitches and dramas. Its easy to forget little things like passports and boarding passes in random houses or aeroplanes. We didn't sleep that night but we went to a 24 hr bowling alley, and I got beaten by Pat Grover.

Olympia

This blog is a bit out of sequence (Olympia happened before Vancouver), and I'm going to struggle to do justice to the Olympia experience. It was the most bizarre and interesting place so far. Olympia has a great music scene, but it is very much more DIY style than anywhere else. All the music venues pretty much closed down because of constant legal stuff - their excuses are about fire regulations or something. So all the good gigs are house shows in basements and stuff. So that's where we played. In Portland we found that everyone seems to have a huge basement with musical gear in it, so we thought maybe it'd be like that and it'd be cool. but we got to this basement venue in Olympia and it was tiny and bare concrete with rubbish everywhere and hardly any space. There was a dodgy PA system that we couldn't get to work. Everything including vocals were through little guitar amps. We thought it'd be the most terrible gig that you could imagine.

But as the place started to fill with local people who were all really nice and friendly and very much into music, the vibe was awesome and nice and stuff. The people were so into the music, they danced and sang along - it turned out to be by far the best gig yet. The place was packed and there was no border between stage and audience. The Hepburns were awesome with a great audience, and their 90 second songs turned into 4 minute songs, with the crowd of people making up new harmonies etc. Local band L.A.K.E. were awesome. Genious songs and beautiful coherent sound, interesting instruments, sensitive playing.
The people in Olympia were nice.
I have no photos unfortunately. A guy videoed the gig and said he'd put some bits on youtube, so i'll search for that later on, eh.

Vancouver

So since we were up on the pacific northwest, I wanted to drive up to Vancouver to have a look, because I (having lived there for 2 years) hadn't been back for about 10 years. It was really nice to drive around where I used to live, it was a little surreal, even. Matt and Mike came with me and enjoyed it immensely.



We walked down a little trail to the rocky beach at west point grey, by UBC.


There's Matt jumping in the air at Canada place.


There's Matt and Mike taking pictures of swimming seals. One of the seals is swimming past quite quickly.


There's me crouching down at Stanley park with the Vancouver skyline in the background. I opted not to post the photo where I got Matt and Mike to hold hands..


There's my old friend Phil (Matt kept referring to him as Rob because he thought he looked more like a Rob than a Phil), eh.


There's Mike and Matt trying to pose like rock stars in Vancouver.

Portland 2

Someone suggested taking a photo of me during my set in Portland, so I said I'd go and get my camera, and I just did it myself, which people found funny.


The audience in Portland was great and very responsive. It was very low key and informal with a bit of friendly heckling, so I enjoyed it. I took the above photo from the stage in the middle of my set.


The Hepburns, Hepburning it up.

american speak

in America, I hear people talk like this:

Instead of saying "I reckon that.." or "I think that..", they say "I feel like..".

Also, instead of saying "Its probably...", they say "I wanna say...".

And they also use the word "whatever" excessively, and in places where it doesn't even make sense.

I've also learned that Welsh people say "is it" in the same way that English people like Ali G say "innit".

Portland 1

In the van as we set off from Berkeley/San Francisco to Portland. Our planned 6am departure turned out to be more like 11am, but we discovered the journey was only 630 miles instead of the 1000 we had previously been told, so it was fine. Alexander (he's taken up the role of tour manager), Mike, Pat and Sue.


Its a mountain we passed on the way to Portland.


I drove most of the way because I like being active and useful rather than bored sitting in a seat.


Elvis impersonator in the street in Portland. He wasn't very good.



Portland is pretty nice.


In the basement at Shelflife records HQ in Portland, the Hepburns and I rehearsing some songs together. Looking forward to joining them onstage tonight for some rad guitar strumming.


Jens Lekman in Portland last night. It was Super-Tastic! With his all-girl band including both horns and strings, all white costumes and sweet moves.