USA Part 3

Sat 10th May

We got offered a gig at the Ramada Hotel in Hollywood and decided to take it after Chris Roman (Scene Bar, Glendale) told us how the night turns in to chaos. We liked the sound of that.

I can't mention anything that happened during Saturday day as I have no notes or anything. I must have just slept or wandered around doing nothing in particular.

Anyway, we turned up to the Ramada and had a beer, watched the other acts.

The night was called Club Carousel and it was set in the basement of the hotel. There was an acoustic stage in the bar area and just round the corner there was another stage for amped stuff.



Again, we went on stage really late. That doesn't seem to matter in LA. There was this smoke machine going off and it was difficult to see anything in the room. It was a strange gig. There seemed to be a vibe in the air that made everyone go a bit mental. By the end of the set there were more audience members on the stage than off it.



Also, whilst we were playing out the last number, I looked round at jimmy on the drums and he was going for it, I looked away for a bit, turned to look at him again and he'd gone. The drummer from the band .. us, Lumavox, had taken over. Seamlessly. Quality! This was a one off show.



Tues 13th

We got back to work after a few days of much needed rest and relaxation in Rancho Cucamonga.

We were doing a gig in Long Beach at the Prospector Bar with Syndicate. We rocked up the venue at around 8:30pm and it was straight out of a western film. I was surprised there weren't spittoons and sawdust on the floor. We loaded the gear in and ordered a beer and chatted to the locals. One thing I noticed about California is that they love Newcastle Brown Ale. In fact, it's a trendy drink. In UK, does anyone drink it outside Newcastle?



We went .. Syndicate and it was nice to see an old school friend, Chris, turn up to see us. He's been living in the states for some time now. The show was pretty difficult as there was absolutely no monitoring. You had to just hope you were singing in tune.

So the show was done and I forgot to mention that musicians had a free bar all night. James goes to the bar and orders a shot of Hallucination. This shot was absinthe based. It made him go mental. He hijacked Syndicate's gig. He got up on stage and danced around hitting a beer bottle with a drum stick. When we called up to him to say "oh mush, enough is enough" he turns round looking totally possessed going "why don't you SHUT UP". Hilarious as it's totally out of character.

We ended up in a diner in Glendale at about 3 in the morning


Weds 14th

Woke up to the sound of breakfast being made. We stayed at Krystal's and she cooked for us.

We didn't have a gig or any work to do today so we decided to go the beach and get some sun.



It was a proper Baywatch style beach with those lifeguard towers, volley ball nets etc.

Me, James and Steve got a bit bored of just lying out in the sun so we decided to go for a run. It wasn't a long run. Santa Monica pier and back. Steve lasted 2 minutes ?
When me and James got about 10 feet away from the pier we could see there was a glamour shoot going on. We immediately turned back and ran away. What were we thinking? Idiots

After we had enough sun we wandered along Venice looking for beer and food. That night we went back out to Boardners. Got a bit messy. Steve and James ended up throwing some shapes on the stage.

Thurs 15th

Thursday was another lazy one. Spent the day going for Mexican food and the by the pool at the Days Inn. It was 100 degrees that day. It was like a furnace.

That night we played at The Cat Club in West Hollywood. The place where the Starfuckers play. (See blog part1)

We turn up to do the show and there's a Japanese band soundchecking. I have no idea what the band is called or anything. They all had brand new instruments. I knew they were brand new because all the boxes and packaging was thrown around the venue floor. The band had a girl singer and it was impossible to listen to. The tone of her voice made my head explode. Not in a good way.

They had a decent crowd down to watch them, as did we. We went on at around 9pm. A nice early one. I was on stage left, next to the entrance so it was quite off putting seeing people you know walk in and say 'hello' while you're mid song.

The gig was a good one. I think we all stayed pretty sober after the gig too. Money had run out.


Fri 16th

We thought we'd drive to San Diego nice and early so we could have a look around. We barely had 2 minutes there earlier in the trip. Turn up-gig-sleep-wake up-on to the next town.
Our good intentions didn't work out. Friday traffic in LA is worse than London. It took us 2 and half ours to get out of LA and on to Freeway 5 down to San Diego. In London you can find little short cuts and rat runs and beat traffic if you have a little knowledge. If you try and beat the traffic in LA, you land up in deeper shit. The idea is you just sit in it. Don't try and fight it. It's like quicksand.

We finally get to San Diego at 6pm and check in to a hotel in Hotel Circle, order a shitty pizza and then head to the Kensington Club which is the venue for our final gig of the tour!

The Ken club is a nice big venue with a bar in one half and a music hall in the other. This was the last time we'd be playing with Syndicate to so leading on from James's example in Long beach, all of us got on stage with them at the end and danced, smashed beer bottles, crashed cymbals, jumped around. Chaotic scenes and lots of broken glass. It was a night to remember and perfect for ending our little excursion around the state. It was good to see Gary and Stephanie who we first met because of this Blog!! They made the journey down from OC to San Diego to watch the show. We signed a few things and took some photos. Fun times!!

Well, that was that! Tour over. We had a day or two left in LA before we flew back to London. Can't say we did much in those days. On the Saturday night we had a leaving party at this place opposite Chateau Marmont called 'Libertine' where a load of people we met came along, had a drink, said good riddance and all that.

Earlier that night we were having a few bottles of wine by our pool, reminiscing and chatting shit when this girl comes over to ask for a light. She's talking to us about this band she's going to see and then mentions that she's a cook and makes good 'edibles'. She shows us an example; a muffin. It looks pretty innocent and quite tasty. She lets us have it. None of us eat it and we head out to The Libertine.

Anyway, Steve, James and Laurie fly back to London in the early hours of Sunday morning. Laurie, like a good boy, gets an early night while Steve and James stay out and get pissed up. They get back to the hotel, wake Laurie up, order a cab to the airport and then Steve and James share the muffin. Bad move! It was a space cake. Laced with acid or something. Laurie had to look after them both as neither of them could function. Hilarious. Wish I was there to see that.

Me and Giles had it pretty easy again. No muffins. We had the whole of Sunday by the pool and rolled up to the airport in good time. We had a slight problem with Customs and Immigration deciding that Giles looked a tad on the Islamic side so they searched him for about 10 minutes. Full Cavity.

On the plane we get the same deal as last time – Fire exit seats. Plane takes off and I'm looking forward to watching a few movies. On the fire exit seats the TV screens have to be pulled up from under the seat. My TV was a bit stiff and wouldn't budge. I've been in situations like this before and pulled or pushed to hard and it's ended in tears. So Giles has a go and rips the thing to pieces. We're sitting there with this Screen hanging by bits of wire. We tried to fix it with masking tape but it didn't work.

Our time in USA was one of the best experiences we've had. We met some great people and would go back there tomorrow. If we weren't so skint.

Now on to Toronto for NXNE…

xx