British singer-songwriter Mike Scott recently toured with Kevin Seconds. Mike has been kind enough to provide us with a series of Dispatches from the tour, the first of which we bring you tonight.
A trip to a garage in Holland on a Saturday later to fix our lovely broken vehicle (and garages donât work weekends - itâs socially unacceptable apparently) we headed south of the border to the beautiful land of Belgium. Home of Soulwax andâ¦.erâ¦.we spent a while thinking of Belgian legendary bands. We came up with Too Many DJs. Technically, it counts, but we came to the conclusion we need to brush up on Belgian music. Suggestions on a postcard.
We played with Fake Problems again, at a music college called Trix. Attendance was a little sparse, but shit happens. The place was cool, we got treated amazingly and I got my first coffee and soya milk of the tour. Simple things, simple minds. Fake Problems played a blinder of a set. I guess a month of solid touring meant they were on autopilot - and it was their last night of the tour too. I didnât envy their âup at 6am, drive to Dusseldorf and fly homeâ schedule. I slept soundly until slightly after we were meant to be kicked out of the hotel. Before that, we had headed out to a Belgian bar for one of those beers that they make so well - the ones that give you the most brutal headache. One became two. You get the idea. Quiet day, but a 1 day whistlestop trip to Belgium was a good choice.
Day 4 - Cologne
A short, hungover drive to Cologne meant we arrived at the venue fucking stupidly early. Despite being called the Sonic Ballroom, itâs a real old-school, very cool, German squat dive thing. The accomodation upstairs was cool if not a little on the dirty side (Kev found a used tampon in the bin the next morning - and I really donât think it was ours) and it was one of those places where you could stare at the graffitti left by bands for a few hours. We couldnât think of anything witty to add, like a good paedophile joke or anything, so we just went old school with names and a date. Very down the line, us two.
Sounchecks donât take long when youâre two guys each playing one guitar and one vocal (most nights the soundman has made a joke about it - the smile and laughter each time hides the biting sorrow and indifference), so we minced round what I think was the Turkish quarter of Cologne for a while. Those of us who enjoy a tipple around Christmas time sank a few drinks and we killed time until a very late starting show began. The show was real fun - intimate, everything seemingly drunk and loud. Matt, our merch guy, demanded Kevin play âMotherfuckersâ, from his Matt Skiba split. Got very excited, then missed it by being outside smoking the remnants of his souvenirs from Amsterdam.
Despite being Sunday night, the Germans enjoy a good drink, so even those who said they had to be up at 6am stayed drinking with us till 2 in the bar, plying me with sketchy home made schnapps and dodgy, mincey cocktails. A surprizing amount of Weird Al Yankovic youtube videos got played. I passed out on a bunk bed upstairs, happy in the haze of a drunken hour.
Day 5 - Geneva
I forgot, of course, that we had an 8 hour drive this morning. So mixing German drinks the night before was a little foolish. The drive was obscene. Long drives in a van are one thing - long ones in a Ford Mondeo another. Deep vein thrombosis and numb joints all around. The less I talk about the better. Just worth noting the final insult to injury - being stuck in traffic 2miles from the venue for an hour, with locals swearing at us a lot.
The show was cool - in a bar called Tikis, a 50s style diner that had been graced by Chuck Ragan a couple of weeks previously. There were some hardcore 7Seconds fans there. This was, amazingly, my first ever Swiss show - I never did one with Phinius Gage. Really enjoyed playing. Alas, due to a fuck up with the reservations at the hostel afterwards, and the rude guy at reception being on the end of my verbal tirade (he was one too many miserable, impolite people that day to give me shit) we had our first accomodation drama. In the end, we bit the bullet and rang Fab (thanks again man! Legendâ¦), the promoter, at 2am to stay at his. I donât think his mum was best pleased.
Day 6 - Zurich
Desperate for a shower and various other of lifeâs little comforts (food, for example) we rinsed it to Zurich to check into the hotel Iâm currently frequenting. The place is nice, although the room kind of reminds me of an airplane bathroom - and with no locks on the toilet or shower, only men such as ourselves who are utterly at home with our masculinity could stomach squeezing in there. But by the time I went to bed last night I probably could have slept on the table at reception.
Let me set the scene. Switzerland is ridiculously expensive. They charge for everything. And they charge a lot. The exchange rate being what it is I had to get a small mortgage to get some falafel. So we were pretty much confined to the hotel until it was time to go to the gig, at a venue called Hafenkniepe. Surprize surprize, theyâd recently been graced by the presence of Chuck Ragan. (I think the tour theme has been set.) They took real good care of us - got us vegan dinner, cooked by an outrageously moustached man next door, and the show was kind of serious. The lighting was austere, everyone was seated - like a comedy club or something. Shame Iâm not very funny. Fun though, real nice.
A few weiss biers at the venue was enough to make me sleep soundly when we got back to the hotel. Today, back to Germany for the first of four dates there. Iâll keep you posted on them when theyâre doneâ¦.
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