Thank You Sporty Much!

Inowroclaw...

....after a six hour drive through dense fog from Berlin:

Danny's very nice Carl Martin distortion pedal has died on us, as has the power supply for his Line 6 delay (thankfully this one runs on batteries).
A member of one of the support bands took a swig of coke, not realising there was a wasp hiding in the can. The little bugger stung him on the tongue (!!!) and he's been rushed to hospital with an anaphylactic reaction.

Anyway, off to dinner with Ozric Tentacles in a bit.

Laptop stolen from venue in Oslo. Gutted. Normal service will resume presently.

Krakow

It's been a few gigs since my last post as I couldn't muster the required effort after having my laptop stolen in Oslo. Still, one mustn't dwell on such things. I have most of my stuff backed up and there were no bank details or other sensitive info on there. Enjoy your new computer dick head.

So, we've been to Arhus, Berlin and Warsaw since the last post and it's been pretty much sleep, load in, gig, load out, sleep, load in, etc, etc. There's been a bit of time for post-gig merriment on the bus but my merry-making has been of the quick night cap and straight to bunk variety. Nevertheless, it always seems to be four in the morning before I get there. Luckily I have a few series of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show on my phone to listen to so all is not lost entertainment-wise.

I found a good answer for the occasions when the tour manager asks if you have any more names for the guest list. Simply reply, "Yes, sometimes I call it the friends register." Guaranteed to raise a titter. The more you say it the more the TM will love it.

We have a day off tomorrow and it looks like we'll be having a look around Auschwitz.

Budapest

Day seventeen of this leg and the crew have been hit by a spate of falling over. Matt toppled twice in the crappy Viper Room in Vienna yesterday and Mark blacked out in the bus bog (after a healthy dose of Jim Beam though I blame the overpowering stench myself) leaving him with a nasty bump on the back of his head. So far I've managed to remain vertical but I'm having to be extra careful just in case.

The Viper Room has quite a bit of history it seems. It's deep underground in an ancient tunnel system where in the twelfth century the bodies of some eight hundred unfortunates were found buried during the second Ottoman siege. After that it was both an orphanage and a convent, finally becoming a shitty dive of a club in more recent times.

In marked contrast today's venue is superb - we're in the lap of luxury backstage with the legendary Sandra looking after all our culinary and towelling needs.

The Leader of the Starry Skies

In 2008 the genius behind the greatest band there's ever likely to be, Tim Smith, suffered a serious debilitating stroke and he's been in hospital ever since. In a noble and moving effort to raise funds to help with Tim's ongoing care many who owe a debt of gratitude to Cardiacs for their inspiration and influence have contributed cover versions of their songs for an album to be released in early December. The album is "The Leader of the Starry Skies" and is available for pre-order here. It features, among others, Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, Andy Partridge of XTC, Oceansize, The North Sea Radio Orchestra and Julianne Regan of All About Eve.

If you pre-order you also get a bonus cd containing even more tracks for free. If you're unfamiliar with the music of Cardiacs then do yourself a favour and check them out on iTunes. "Sing To God" part 1 is as good a starting point as any, but don't expect it to be an easy listen. Perseverance will reap rich rewards though.

Here is an amazing performance from their 1992 "Mare's Nest" video. Enjoy.

Sofia

As mentioned in a previous post the venue for the Bulgaria show had to be switched due to a roof collapse, and what this meant in reality was that Anathema became the first rock band ever to play the prestigious Sofia Philharmonic Hall, a grand old room that was the perfect setting for a great show in front of some nine hundred-odd very loud and eager punters. Later a good few of us tucked in to some top grub at a local restaurant while others bopped along to "Shakey and the Blood Rain" at an after-show party, Shakey being a fat greebo with a builder's cleavage. We then set off on the punishing journey to Bratislava, a trip which would take us through much of the terrain already endured over the past few days. So I retired to my bunk, drifting off to Doug Stanhope on the iPod.

I don't know how much later it was but I woke to the sound of Les screaming,

"Everybody get up and get off the bus now!"

So we did, quickly. The bus was filled with the kind of foul smelling smoke which comes from burning plastic. Not good at all. We stood in the road in the dark as Tim explained that the brakes were overheating as we'd just come down a particularly steep mountain road. Indeed, smoke was billowing out from the wheel arches (where you could warm your hands if you so wished) and some of this had found its way into our quarters, leading us to think quite understandably that the bus was on fire. We stood in the night for a while to let the brakes cool and to let a bit of air in, stepping out of the way for the odd passing car and the even odder old man on two horses.

The next time I woke was the next morning around ten o'clock. I wandered downstairs to make a cup of tea and found several fellow transportees still drinking heroically. Les was sporting comedy Fu Manchu eyebrows fashioned from gaffer tape and was spouting gibberish between blowing raspberries at people. He decided he needed to be off the bus for some reason, taking advantage of the fact we were parked up in the middle of ugly nowhere. Just as he stepped off the bus pulled away forcing him to run like hell to get back on board. In a scene reminiscent of the opening credits to "The Little House on the Prairie" he fell head first into a ditch. Most amusing.

A short while later we were required to show our faces for the cops at the border with Romania (these particular public servants not requiring several hundred euros in bribes unlike their fat, lazy counterparts in the traffic service) and it then became apparent we were taking a shortcut - hundreds of kilometres shaved off the journey by taking a ropey little ferry across the Danube - a good idea in theory though the reality was somewhat different. First of all the bus got stuck for a good twenty minutes trying to get on the thing, the entire vessel having to move to level the ramp and free us. A short hop across the river later and we were ready to disembark, though this time the trailer hit a kink in the ramp and the tow bar was ripped clean off the back of the bus. Not good news at all. A kindly soul hooked the stranded trailer to his truck and pulled it off the ferry for us while we drove a hundred yards or so down the road to a staggeringly dreary yet extremely handy garage for a spot of emergency welding. Thankfully we weren't stuck there for as long as expected. While the welder welded, a two litre bottle of cheap lager always by his side, we fed pressed ham to stray dogs and then scared them off with weird chords, watched two massive cranes do their work and marvelled at the sheer depressing ugliness of this Romanian border outpost.

After two more bored coppers relieved us of another hundred euros for no good reason and then ordered us out of town (we were leaving anyway, thanks) we drove through interminable nothingness for hours until we finally set up camp at a weird roadside truck stop where we ate undercooked sausages while soft porn played on the television in the background. We then drank sickly local wine at a bar across the way, arriving just as the house band were packing up for the night - a lucky escape I think. We're currently making our way to Bratislava where we hope to arrive at around six pm so it'll be another mad dash to get set up. Crazy times. 

Ireland

We sail tonight from Holyhead, travelling there on the blue bus with the dark and menacing rear lounge and upstairs kitchen, our preferred means of conveyance currently stuck in a garage with brake trouble. Whether the weather will hamper our progress to and around the emerald isle is a matter of much speculation - snow and ice storms are arriving from the arctic north as I write this. It's probably a good thing that Tim is used to such conditions as he makes his home in Sweden. This inclemency may also make it difficult for me to fly back to the UK for the laying to rest of a dear friend on the 20th, meaning I'll miss the Belfast show the night before. I really, really hope there's a break in the weather.

London

Sat in the Blackbird ale and pie house in Earls Court, immensely satisfied after scoffing one of their delicious speciality pies. The sold out show at the Scala last night marked the end of a hugely successful UK tour which saw audiences swelling (in the nicest possible way) and new territories conquered. Highlights included the backstage facilities at the Assembly in Leamington - Tammy Wynette's ornate sixties touring caravan and an even older fairground dodgem among the artefacts thoughtfully provided for our amusement. A couple of days earlier in Nottingham I missed out on a late night seance in caves under an old pub due to tour fatigue - the landlady of said establishment reportedly able to summon ghosts at will (yeah, right - why's it not the focal point of some serious scientific research then?) by getting gullible punters to hold hands in a circle in the dark. What she hadn't banked on was Anathema turning the pointless spectacle into an impromptu round of hokey-cokey. I'm sure the dead (had they turned up) would have found it most amusing. Another highlight for me was being able to watch North Atlantic Oscillation play their set every night. Shame they're not staying with us.

We set off tonight for Lille and the first of nine shows in France.

Merch spiv Brian Moss in the Noddy car in Leamington. Below is Tammy Wynette's caravan.

And for the record, I don't believe for one minute that Danny got his shiner by walking into a tree in Sheffield. I reckon he most likely bumped heads with Ken Clark.

Lyon

Day thirteen of the tour and I'm starting to feel the first twinges of bus-trophobia, there being no nice little front lounge on this one in which to hide away. Another down side is that, while we can see perfectly well where we've been and where we currently are (on a moment by moment basis), we can't actually see where we're going. I miss that.

In a recent attempt to alleviate boredom I watched the sci-fi movie "Skyline" which I shall review as follows:

People you don't care about dying unheroically for no good reason.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Maybe...

...this blog will be resurrected in the autumn. I might just have a tour with a band not entirely unconnected to the Anathema family. Watch this space (if you can be bothered).

Hamburg

I never thought I'd write these words but I really wish there was a Formule 1 hotel nearby we could check into for a couple of nights - anything other than the unsettlingly weird Wira Guesthouse we've just dumped our bags in and fled to the nearest bar from. It seems an ageing gentleman found himself with a few redundant rooms in quite a large council flat, presumably after his children grew and fled the nest and his missus either left him or died - or perhaps both. One assumes at which point he thought, "Hang on, what if I put six beds in each room, name each after a continent (or a country for ante-rooms), and then charge people to stay there, all the while providing the absolute bare minimum in terms of facilities. Yes, that will work." And it does, kind of. We had to pay extra for "bedding" - our foam mattresses bend upwards at the corners because the elasticated sheets are too tight, the cases to cover our malformed, inadequate pillows are far too large and completely the wrong shape for their lumpy contents, and we find ourselves having to tip-toe past six sleeping strangers to get to our dingy quarters - quite arbitrarily named "Sweden". The room puts me in mind of Sweden in much the same way Idi Amin does, ie not in the slightest. It costs a euro to hire a towel should you wish to bathe - Chris circumventing this charge by drying himself off with a bath mat. There's that ingenuity again. Paul has decided he's keeping his, reasoning that one euro is a fair price to be paid for a second hand towel. The place is clean though, and right opposite a handy U-bahn station so I suppose things could be a lot worse. We're here for two nights so there's plenty of time to see if indeed they can be.

A report on our eventful evening meal will follow in due course.

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