Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Damn You All To Hell!

Had one of those days recently.  Do you know how sometimes when you are dealing with a music promoter and you look at him/her in the eyes, and think that there must be a dyslexic guinea pig at the controls in his/her head. I have that experience with monotonous regularity.  Cut a long story short, don’t believe everything you read when it comes where and when we may or may not be playing.  To find out when we are playing check OUR website. That wasn’t, however, the worst thing that happened the other night.

I was in the back of Sam’s van, highly illegally I admit, with Murray’s digital Vox amp and one of my Schecter guitar cases when the back door comes flying open and the amp and guitar go flying out at twenty miles an hour, and hit the road with a crash and sparks. The guitar was fine thanks to the lovely gator flight case, but the amp is fucked. Its intact but bust. Could have been worse. There could have been a car behind us at the time. It could have been me that fell out at twenty miles an hour. That’s not all. Upon arriving at the venue I discovered something much, much worse. My digital Marshall anniversary, (that I had just spent £140, yes that’s one hundred and forty English pounds, on getting it repaired after it was dropped by a crane onto a truck after the Rum festival,) was broken before I even had a chance to use it. One of the support bands (can’t remember who, but it wasn’t their fault I guess) had loosened the input socket accidentally and it fell inside the amp. This was only hours after getting it out of the repair shop, rendering it useless. I admit Murray’s amp nearly being destroyed after falling out of the van is bad, but the input socket on my amp coming apart is infinitely worse. Mainly because its mine. And I'm a right selfish bastard. The upshot was that I had to be D.I’ed which sounds rubbish and I hate. Everyone else had an alright gig, but I didn’t, so I got pretty drunk and was pretty angry for most of the night and spent most of the time shouting at people. Luckily the promoter stayed out of the road after that. Highlights included catching up with Glaswegian Ska band, Esperanza, who we had never met before. They have quite a bit of pedigree featuring ex members of Capone and the Bullets. They played a good set including a cover of 54 46 Was My Number (where have I heard that before) which was excellent. We should be playing with them more in the future.

I had calmed down by Monday. Anger management, that’s the key. I also have a punch bag and boxing gloves at home now which helps. Our world tour of Scotland next; Dundee followed by Glasgow, Edinburgh and then Aberdeen, with Big Hand.  It's going to be exhausting.