USA Part 1
Right, it's Sam here, we're back from the States. It was an incredible experience. Whilst out there I tried to keep a diary. I wasn't too disciplined at doing this so a lot of this is going on memory. After about 8pm each night, memory comes from photographs and people reminding you of what an idiot you were. Enjoy...
Friday 25th
Me and Giles flew out to the States on a different flight to Steve, Laurie and James. It's long story why this was and I wont bore you with it. The contrast to our separate journeys is funny. It sounds like I'm gloating now. I am. Me and Giles flew out with Virgin on a virtually empty plane so we had our pick of seats. Despite the winks and suggestive looks to the male air stewards, we couldn't blag First Class but sitting in the Fire Exit seats is as good as. Endless leg room. Before we took off we were told we had special duties sitting in these seats. If we crash we'd have to shout 'Open your seatbelts and get out!'
The 11 hour flight seemed quick and went by with no worries. Watched a few films: Control, Family Guy- Blue Harvest, Kite Runner. Watched a few more Family Guys too.
The other boys had a mission getting to LA. They had to go via Minneapolis and their flight was anything but empty.
Me and Giles got to LAX and then headed to our Sunset Blvd home, The Days Inn Hotel. We dumped our stuff walked out to get a bite and to stock our fridge with some beers. The other boys turned up about 2 hours later minus Steve's luggage. He was expected to live out of an LAX courtesy bag for the foreseeable.
home
Anyway we laughed about our contrasting journeys over a few beers. Stevie Wyatt joined us. Stevie is a good friend and has done our sound at the halfmoon in Putney for about 10 years and also helped us out at The London Eye show earlier this year. He'd been on The Passport Approved tour around the West Coast with Bassboosa for a couple of weeks. It was good to see a familiar face on our first night in town.
Sat 26th
We were all up early as we had to get to The House of Blues on Sunset Blvd for 8:30am. It wasn't the weather for tight jeans let me tell you. At that time of the morning it must have been hitting 80 F.
We were at The House of Blues to do a live interview with Sat Bisla on his radio show Passport Approved on Indie 103.1FM. It was all set up on the main stage in the main hall of the venue and alongside Sat Bisla were some industry pundits including Seymour Stein. He signed Madonna.
On stage @ The House of Blues
We got on stage at about 10am and did the interview. I think it went pretty well. We were asked questions about the songs we'd recorded and about how it feels to be out playing in LA. General stuff like. You can fuck up answering even the easiest questions you know. Especially when you know half a million people could be listening. In fact, one of the other bands said the F word. Transmission was cut for a few seconds.
After our interview we played an acoustic version of 'First Move'. It felt like it sounded good. Then I got texts from around the world: 'Hey, that sounded brilliant, well done!', 'wow, the industry panel sounded very impressed with you lot, well done', 'nice one!' and my personal favourite 'Swans won 4-1'.
Stevie Wyatt in Carney's
We left the House of Blues in search of a beer and some food. We stopped at a place called 'Carney's' on Sunset. It's meant to be a famous old place. Famous for having the best Hot Dogs in town. It's an old train carriage converted in to a restaurant. If that was the best Hot Dog in town then I don't know…The rest of the day was spent back at the hotel by the pool. In the evening we walked round the corner to The Roosevelt Hotel to sit by another pool and drink watermelon mojitos. This is the hotel that held the first Oscars back in 1462 or something. Before America was discovered. It's wise to keep your sunglasses on when sitting by this pool. There were some views to behold. Surgically augmented views.
We hit the town later that night with our first port of call being The Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset strip where we had dinner. This is another famous place where rock and roll's hall of fame have scranned out. Add us to the list. Only we couldn't actually eat a thing. After we paid up we headed next door to a bar above the Roxy called 'On The Rox' and had a few vodkas before jumping in a taxi and going to bar I can't remember the name of. Drank a bit too much. Got a bit rowdy. Goodnight.
Sun 27th
We all woke up with sore heads. Maybe it was just me.
Sunday was the first day of Musexpo so we had to register for the event at the Hyatt Hotel on (you guessed it) Sunset Strip. Back in the 70s, The Hyatt had the nickname of 'The Riot House' due to touring bands staying there and throwing TVs out the window and stuff. These days it's lights out by 11pm please.
After we registered, we packed all our gear in to the van and drove to Swing House Rehearsal studio to a) make sure all our pedals and electricals functioned and b) rehearse.
Sunday night we went out to the Musexpo launch cocktail party on the roof of the Hyatt. Free food and free drinks. Dangerous. We did a lot of meeting and talking and drinking. All very productive. When the cocktail party ended everyone was ushered over to the House of Blues, opposite the Hyatt, where the first night's showcases kicked off.
Steve and Laurie with Monique @ The Hyatt rooftop party
The fucking Jay walking law means that crossing the road to get to the House of Blues takes 10 minutes. There's old bill there just waiting to book you. L.A. the capital of crime.
The stand out bands from the night were The Red Paintings, because they wore outrageous costumes and had body painting going on at the side of the stage, and Rotating Leslie. This band are from just outside London and to our ears sound fucking brilliant. We loved their song about saving the lions and bears. Had a few beers with these boys over the festival and we'll be sure to catch up in London soon.
None of us have any recollection of what happened for the rest of the night.
Pardon? Sort of. Oh!
Mon 28th
Monday is the day of our Musexpo showcase at The House of Blues.
We go to venue early to watch an industry panel. Can't remember what it was about but it was good to see Harvey Goldsmith ranting away about the state of the industry. After the panel we went a couple of doors down to eat some pizza before we had to go back to the House of Blues to soundcheck.
We turn up at the venue to soundcheck at 2:30pm. That is pretty early seeing as we're on stage at 11:55pm. Nearly ten hours of waiting around. We'd like to say we weren't nervous about this gig but when you're playing to a concentrated pool of industry who could throw you that ticket, it plays on your mind ever so slightly. The worst part is trying to stay sober for that long. We were all shattered too. I think the jet lag had kicked in. We kept nipping off to the green room upstairs to grab some sleep. The green rooms were quite busy so sleeping wasn't easy.
Leave Giles alone. Can't you see he's praying
We finally met Krystal! Krystal won tickets to see this show through Indie 103.1FM and got in touch with us about 6 weeks before we were due to fly out offering to help us out. She was a massive help to us and ended up getting a bit of a tour together!
Didn't take much notice of any other acts this night as we were concentrating on our own show. We were the last to go on and eventually our stage time was 12:30am.
So the time came. We drank a couple of cans of red bull, had a group hug, said a prayer, closed our eyes and waited for the curtains to be opened.
Jimmy on form
The curtains opened and the place had cleared. Everyone must have gone home. But as soon as we started the first song, people started filing back in. Panic over.
The gig went pretty smoothly. We played well. It was all tight and in tune. Don't know what else to say about it! We opened on 'Terrify'. We hadn't played this song for ages but it's a bit of a favourite of our friends in LA so we did it. We ended on 'First Move'. This song is being played on a few radio stations in the US at the moment.
So the gig ended, we pack up and we're gagging for a drink. The city shuts down at 2am. Everything: Bars, Clubs, Liquor stores. We can't get a fucking drink. So we go back to the hotel to sleep.
Tues 29th
Tuesday was nice because we woke up without a hangover. We had a lazy morning wandering around Hollywood, buying breakfast, sim cards, cigarettes, coffee.
After lunch we headed to another hotel (I think it was The Grafton) to do an interview with Dennis 'The Menace' Scheyer who is a DJ on KUSF, a San Francisco radio station. We talked with him for about an hour and a half about all sorts of things. The best part of the interview was having to create a song sandwich. Two of our songs had to make the bread. All the filling, salami, pickle etc are the songs that have influenced us and pointed us in the directions we've gone. Some great ingredients in that sarnie, I tell thee: Talking Heads, The Cure, Bowie, Springsteen and of course, Gogol Bordello.
That night was pretty much more of the same: Music, booze, meeting, greeting.
We ended up back at the Hyatt after the House of Blues ended. Local band 'Capra' had a party in their hotel room. We turned up and the room was rammed. You couldn't move in there. So we did what anyone would do, stole some booze and walked out.
Wed 30th
The last day of Musexpo
We actually made it to one of the industry breakfasts! The truth is we weren't too far away from the Hyatt to begin with so it was pretty hard to avoid. We did a bit of a photoshoot holding pink logs. I need to see these photos. I expect they look as stupid as it sounds.
We headed back to the hotel and had a power nap. Important things power naps.
Bassboosa played a lunchtime set at The Saddle Ranch. The Saddle Ranch is a real Wild West style bar/restaurant where you can even ride the bull. No one was riding the bull this lunch time. Half an eye was on Bassboosa and half an eye was on Chelsea v Liverpool in the Champions League Semi Final.
Wednesday night was spent at The House of Blues watching aussie rockers and good blokes, The Skybombers and then back at Swing House Rehearsal Studios where we drunkenly jammed with LA band, Capra, til 5am. At the time it was the best music we'd ever made. Looking back…..nah. If only people went back to rehearsal studios after pubs and clubs kick out in Blighty.
MORE TO COME!!!!
Friday 25th
Me and Giles flew out to the States on a different flight to Steve, Laurie and James. It's long story why this was and I wont bore you with it. The contrast to our separate journeys is funny. It sounds like I'm gloating now. I am. Me and Giles flew out with Virgin on a virtually empty plane so we had our pick of seats. Despite the winks and suggestive looks to the male air stewards, we couldn't blag First Class but sitting in the Fire Exit seats is as good as. Endless leg room. Before we took off we were told we had special duties sitting in these seats. If we crash we'd have to shout 'Open your seatbelts and get out!'
The 11 hour flight seemed quick and went by with no worries. Watched a few films: Control, Family Guy- Blue Harvest, Kite Runner. Watched a few more Family Guys too.
The other boys had a mission getting to LA. They had to go via Minneapolis and their flight was anything but empty.
Me and Giles got to LAX and then headed to our Sunset Blvd home, The Days Inn Hotel. We dumped our stuff walked out to get a bite and to stock our fridge with some beers. The other boys turned up about 2 hours later minus Steve's luggage. He was expected to live out of an LAX courtesy bag for the foreseeable.
home
Anyway we laughed about our contrasting journeys over a few beers. Stevie Wyatt joined us. Stevie is a good friend and has done our sound at the halfmoon in Putney for about 10 years and also helped us out at The London Eye show earlier this year. He'd been on The Passport Approved tour around the West Coast with Bassboosa for a couple of weeks. It was good to see a familiar face on our first night in town.
Sat 26th
We were all up early as we had to get to The House of Blues on Sunset Blvd for 8:30am. It wasn't the weather for tight jeans let me tell you. At that time of the morning it must have been hitting 80 F.
We were at The House of Blues to do a live interview with Sat Bisla on his radio show Passport Approved on Indie 103.1FM. It was all set up on the main stage in the main hall of the venue and alongside Sat Bisla were some industry pundits including Seymour Stein. He signed Madonna.
On stage @ The House of Blues
We got on stage at about 10am and did the interview. I think it went pretty well. We were asked questions about the songs we'd recorded and about how it feels to be out playing in LA. General stuff like. You can fuck up answering even the easiest questions you know. Especially when you know half a million people could be listening. In fact, one of the other bands said the F word. Transmission was cut for a few seconds.
After our interview we played an acoustic version of 'First Move'. It felt like it sounded good. Then I got texts from around the world: 'Hey, that sounded brilliant, well done!', 'wow, the industry panel sounded very impressed with you lot, well done', 'nice one!' and my personal favourite 'Swans won 4-1'.
Stevie Wyatt in Carney's
We left the House of Blues in search of a beer and some food. We stopped at a place called 'Carney's' on Sunset. It's meant to be a famous old place. Famous for having the best Hot Dogs in town. It's an old train carriage converted in to a restaurant. If that was the best Hot Dog in town then I don't know…The rest of the day was spent back at the hotel by the pool. In the evening we walked round the corner to The Roosevelt Hotel to sit by another pool and drink watermelon mojitos. This is the hotel that held the first Oscars back in 1462 or something. Before America was discovered. It's wise to keep your sunglasses on when sitting by this pool. There were some views to behold. Surgically augmented views.
We hit the town later that night with our first port of call being The Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset strip where we had dinner. This is another famous place where rock and roll's hall of fame have scranned out. Add us to the list. Only we couldn't actually eat a thing. After we paid up we headed next door to a bar above the Roxy called 'On The Rox' and had a few vodkas before jumping in a taxi and going to bar I can't remember the name of. Drank a bit too much. Got a bit rowdy. Goodnight.
Sun 27th
We all woke up with sore heads. Maybe it was just me.
Sunday was the first day of Musexpo so we had to register for the event at the Hyatt Hotel on (you guessed it) Sunset Strip. Back in the 70s, The Hyatt had the nickname of 'The Riot House' due to touring bands staying there and throwing TVs out the window and stuff. These days it's lights out by 11pm please.
After we registered, we packed all our gear in to the van and drove to Swing House Rehearsal studio to a) make sure all our pedals and electricals functioned and b) rehearse.
Sunday night we went out to the Musexpo launch cocktail party on the roof of the Hyatt. Free food and free drinks. Dangerous. We did a lot of meeting and talking and drinking. All very productive. When the cocktail party ended everyone was ushered over to the House of Blues, opposite the Hyatt, where the first night's showcases kicked off.
Steve and Laurie with Monique @ The Hyatt rooftop party
The fucking Jay walking law means that crossing the road to get to the House of Blues takes 10 minutes. There's old bill there just waiting to book you. L.A. the capital of crime.
The stand out bands from the night were The Red Paintings, because they wore outrageous costumes and had body painting going on at the side of the stage, and Rotating Leslie. This band are from just outside London and to our ears sound fucking brilliant. We loved their song about saving the lions and bears. Had a few beers with these boys over the festival and we'll be sure to catch up in London soon.
None of us have any recollection of what happened for the rest of the night.
Pardon? Sort of. Oh!
Mon 28th
Monday is the day of our Musexpo showcase at The House of Blues.
We go to venue early to watch an industry panel. Can't remember what it was about but it was good to see Harvey Goldsmith ranting away about the state of the industry. After the panel we went a couple of doors down to eat some pizza before we had to go back to the House of Blues to soundcheck.
We turn up at the venue to soundcheck at 2:30pm. That is pretty early seeing as we're on stage at 11:55pm. Nearly ten hours of waiting around. We'd like to say we weren't nervous about this gig but when you're playing to a concentrated pool of industry who could throw you that ticket, it plays on your mind ever so slightly. The worst part is trying to stay sober for that long. We were all shattered too. I think the jet lag had kicked in. We kept nipping off to the green room upstairs to grab some sleep. The green rooms were quite busy so sleeping wasn't easy.
Leave Giles alone. Can't you see he's praying
We finally met Krystal! Krystal won tickets to see this show through Indie 103.1FM and got in touch with us about 6 weeks before we were due to fly out offering to help us out. She was a massive help to us and ended up getting a bit of a tour together!
Didn't take much notice of any other acts this night as we were concentrating on our own show. We were the last to go on and eventually our stage time was 12:30am.
So the time came. We drank a couple of cans of red bull, had a group hug, said a prayer, closed our eyes and waited for the curtains to be opened.
Jimmy on form
The curtains opened and the place had cleared. Everyone must have gone home. But as soon as we started the first song, people started filing back in. Panic over.
The gig went pretty smoothly. We played well. It was all tight and in tune. Don't know what else to say about it! We opened on 'Terrify'. We hadn't played this song for ages but it's a bit of a favourite of our friends in LA so we did it. We ended on 'First Move'. This song is being played on a few radio stations in the US at the moment.
So the gig ended, we pack up and we're gagging for a drink. The city shuts down at 2am. Everything: Bars, Clubs, Liquor stores. We can't get a fucking drink. So we go back to the hotel to sleep.
Tues 29th
Tuesday was nice because we woke up without a hangover. We had a lazy morning wandering around Hollywood, buying breakfast, sim cards, cigarettes, coffee.
After lunch we headed to another hotel (I think it was The Grafton) to do an interview with Dennis 'The Menace' Scheyer who is a DJ on KUSF, a San Francisco radio station. We talked with him for about an hour and a half about all sorts of things. The best part of the interview was having to create a song sandwich. Two of our songs had to make the bread. All the filling, salami, pickle etc are the songs that have influenced us and pointed us in the directions we've gone. Some great ingredients in that sarnie, I tell thee: Talking Heads, The Cure, Bowie, Springsteen and of course, Gogol Bordello.
That night was pretty much more of the same: Music, booze, meeting, greeting.
We ended up back at the Hyatt after the House of Blues ended. Local band 'Capra' had a party in their hotel room. We turned up and the room was rammed. You couldn't move in there. So we did what anyone would do, stole some booze and walked out.
Wed 30th
The last day of Musexpo
We actually made it to one of the industry breakfasts! The truth is we weren't too far away from the Hyatt to begin with so it was pretty hard to avoid. We did a bit of a photoshoot holding pink logs. I need to see these photos. I expect they look as stupid as it sounds.
We headed back to the hotel and had a power nap. Important things power naps.
Bassboosa played a lunchtime set at The Saddle Ranch. The Saddle Ranch is a real Wild West style bar/restaurant where you can even ride the bull. No one was riding the bull this lunch time. Half an eye was on Bassboosa and half an eye was on Chelsea v Liverpool in the Champions League Semi Final.
Wednesday night was spent at The House of Blues watching aussie rockers and good blokes, The Skybombers and then back at Swing House Rehearsal Studios where we drunkenly jammed with LA band, Capra, til 5am. At the time it was the best music we'd ever made. Looking back…..nah. If only people went back to rehearsal studios after pubs and clubs kick out in Blighty.
MORE TO COME!!!!
posted by Sam at
9/05/2008 10:42:00 AM
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