Ladies and Gentlemen…

FFR in Glasgow, Random Number in America

Tour Diary March 2002

Rob Hayler

Friday March 8^th

As I returned from lunch in the Horse and Trumpet my manager took a long look at me and said:

“You’re on tour already aren’t you?”

I had to agree.  Immediately after finishing work I adjourned to the pub with work colleagues and threw myself into the weekend.  Joined shortly by my head-turningly beautiful new girlfriend Verity and a little while later by the late shift and a few less dedicated drinkers who had insisted on going home, washing, eating that kind of thing.  The evening ended shortly after I realised I was dancing to Cyndi Lauper in Church of Pop (Leeds clubnight) and Verity and I crawled all over each other in the cab home.

Saturday March 9^th

Woke up in a mess, obviously.  After a struggle to untangle ourselves, Verity and I get it together and I get my bags.  Today a representative sample of Fencing Flatworm Recordings, my little label, travel to Glasgow for a night at The 13^th Note Bar/café.  It is unusual for me to be at all disorganised (heh, heh) but that’s love for you.  Anyhow, I ended up cursing the skinny bitch Matt (Random Number, our designated driver) because he was late.  We picked up Graham (no energy) and Jeremy (Straight Outta Mongolia) in town.  Our start was quiet because Matt, unhappy in love, made us listen to Low.  Following much protestation the music was changed and the journey proper began.

The drive to Glasgow was beautiful if a little harsh.  The countryside was obscured (or enhanced depending on your aesthetic) by filthy weather: first rain then, as we drove through the Cumbrian Mountains, snow.  This latter was ferocious.  Fat, clingy flakes falling seemingly left to right as the wind drove them across the motorway.  Matt is cool at driving though and we all felt safe.  We talked over the three topics that were going to dominate the weekend: Matt’s ex-partner and how unhappy he was, my current honey and how happy I was and, because we be electronical boys, the intricacies of beat science.

We arrived at The 13^th Note mid afternoon and had a groovy late lunch whilst waiting for John the promoter (Frog Pocket, head-honcho of Mouthmoth records).  The bar/café is great, the staff always friendly and helpful, and has been in some financial trouble recently so all readers in Glasgow go eat there.  John is a lovely guy but very quiet and unassuming which are traits an artist might find a little worrying in a promoter.  Soundcheck was four blokes in headphones nodding, the most boring part of touring.

Doors were at 8.45 and, unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a huge rush.  Quality replaced quantity, however, and those that did turn up were enthusiastic.  One girl said she had been waiting 18 months for us to come back since the last show we did there!  Amongst the others were the two guys who run Miso, another eclectica night in Glasgow.  They had come to check us out with a view to putting us on and were funny and bought us drinks so we got on just fine.  The total turnout was very disappointing, maybe 20 people, but we played a blinder anyhow.  Graham played no energy crouched on the floor and enfolded us with a series of ghost pianos.  Jeremy Mongolia hid behind a speaker stack.  I said to the Miso guys:

I was right.  Matt Random rocked the bells with a dry run of his set for America – excellent, clever, no filler and to the point.  He ditched his traditional set closer of ‘Leopold B’ and was all the better for it.  I finished the night as Midwich and did a big, juicy acid drone so that all the balloons that John had blown up and stuck to the back wall could be taken down and handed to the audience to pop and squeak.  I popped a load myself with a cigarette lighter.  The girl who was our fan took four home with her!

Packed up, we stumbled into the car and set off following John and his girlfriend back to his place in Ayr.  Matt was pissed off because we were all very drunk and he’d had to stay sober.  He was also narked at John for driving like an old lady.  I thought this was hilarious and laughed myself to sleep.

Back at John’s we found that his claim on the flyer that there would be jelly and ice-cream was not idle.  After our dessert we crashed and the other three snored like bastards.  Matt thrashed in his sleep like an alligator catching an antelope.

Sunday March 10^th

In the morning, not feeling too pretty I gulped damp air from the backdoor step and watched the rest eat breakfast.  Surprisingly, we’d made enough money to cover petrol so the evening was deemed a success.  We headed cross-country and an old Aphex tape soundtracked our Pirelli-advert road to the motorway.  Matt rally-drove around hairpin bends and aquaplaned through the impromptu fords that the rain had created in each dip.  The snow returned and the landscape felt even more gloriously desolate.  It made me breath hard.

The rest of the journey was pleasantly uneventful.  We baited Matt and laughed at Kool Keith’s sex rhymes as the tape player chewed on the minidisc-converter.  The evening with Verity was beautiful.

Monday March 11^th, Tuesday March 12^th, Wednesday March 13^th

Monday I had the day off and slept like a professional.  Tuesday and Wednesday I went to work apparently.  I was wholesale distracted by the need to spend as much time as possible being with Verity and being excited about the upcoming trip abroad.

Here’s the why: Matt had had some dealings (remixes, supports in the UK etc.) with Billy of Rocket Racer records in the past, Billy invited Matt to San Diego, where he lives, saying that if Matt got himself over he would arrange some shows and put him up.  I wondered aloud if I could tag along.  Billy says no problem so Matt lands himself a tour manager.  Sweet, dude!

Thursday March 14^th

Woke up early so Verity and I had time to say goodbye to each other properly.  Finally let her go and watched her run for the bus.  Started missing her as soon as she turned the corner.

I spent the day sorting out a month’s pile of hassle that I’d let build up then went into town to meet Matt.  We settled into a pleasant rail journey talking about the honeys, music and reading each other’s reviews in The Wire, DDDD etc.  What a pair of wankers, eh?  A suspicion confirmed when I realised the guy sitting next to us was reading and making notes on a classical music score.  We are frauds!

Once at that armpit of human emotion Kings Cross station we rang our host for the evening: Andy.  Now, this guy runs Irritant records, lives in Walthamstow and is a real funny geezer and one of the truly underground breed of hardcore raver.  A diamond, as they say.  We headed to a pub called The Village and all was going swimmingly until Matt trod on a dog.  The resultant yelping silenced the crowd.  Fortunately the funny side was seen and we escaped a leathering.  Retired to Andy’s at closing and continued drinking, laughing and swapping stories with him and his lovely/beautiful housemate Claire.  Bedtime was somewhat late, drunk as fucking heroes.

Andy, Claire and Rob in London

Friday March 15^th

Some tour manager I am.  Managed to sleep through the alarm and had to rely on Claire getting us up at fuck-off o’clock so we could travel to Gatwick in time for the plane.  Still pissed when we arrived but had no trouble getting there or getting checked in.  Our travel luck manifest itself when after a bit of finessing the cabin crew we got to sit together in some slightly better seats.  The flight was 11 hours long but not really a chore.  We chatted and I took the edge off with some paracetemol and codeine.  Staring out the window helped too.  The Isla Baffin (huge cock shaped land mass between Canada and Greenland) from 39,000 feet was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  Ditto the frozen Hudson Bay.

“Have you come here to chase women and drink beer?”

We said:

“yes,”

and all seemed to be in order.

Billy met as at the airport and first appearances told us we were in safe hands: big, friendly, laid-back guy.  Took us on a mini-tour of San Diego, which I didn’t take in at all, on the way back to his pad; a great little wooden building in a central suburb kitted out in fabulous 1970s décor.  Once Tana, Billy’s girlfriend turned up we went to a relaxed Mexican restaurant for dinner to chat, eat and acclimatise to the fact that we were in goddamn America!

Matt and Billy at home

On returning we found our long, long day beginning again as we got ready for that evening’s gig in Tijuana.  We assembled some specially packaged Rocket Racer Random Number CDs (I felt right at home) and around 7pm we headed for the border.  Mexico appears to be in the suburbs of San Diego as it only took about 20 minutes to get there.  Big queues of cars all fought one another and dodged from lane to lane.  Our luck held and there was no hassle getting into our third country of the day.

The venue, Don Loope, is in a huge building at the end of the main drag and after setting up we went for a wander in the madness that is Tijuana on a Friday night.  Not as busy as I thought it would be, maybe the rain that we’d brought with us (first in months apparently) had cleared the streets.  Hawkers tried to lure us into topless bars, offering food or taxis or other less wholesome services.  Every other store was a unregulated pharmacist and each was vying to be the cheapest.  According to Billy it is worse during the day when the market (“where you get all the gnarly shit”) is open and kids hang off your car trying to sell you stuffed donkey toys and other tourist stuff.

When it finally kicked off at the venue at about 10pm Matt and I were getting delirious with tiredness.  To misquote from Fight Club: we felt like photocopies of ourselves.  Fortunately all the music was excellent and Matt and I alternated between chatting and flirting with the beautiful people who turned up and dozing on some big leather sofas at the back of the venue.  Snodgrass did a collage/early Aphex groove and did it well until his monitor blew and ended the set prematurely.  Fax played a basic-channel style deep house set that bordered on dub.  Once woken, Matt and I were buzzing and he played a blinder.  It wasn’t a huge crowd, maybe a little more than Glasgow, but the atmosphere was superb – like a house-party – and lots of people danced.

Matt Onstage in TJ

Tana, Matt triumphant, Kat

No trouble at the border, despite having foreigners in the car and the drive back was funny with lots of loud drunken baiting.  I took to the couch, which became my bedroom for the week and missed Verity a lot.  It rained so hard that night that guys with beards were building huge boats all over town.  We felt right at home.

Saturday March 16^th

A day off to recover.  We had the chance to go to All Tomorrow’s Parties in Los Angeles but decided to sack it off because we didn’t really get up until lunchtime.  Matt and I had been up for over an entire day the day before and needed the rest.  In the afternoon we drove to La Jolla, a monied seafront suburb, to see the ocean.  We watched seals bask on the beach and I was quite moved by seeing the Pacific Ocean up close for the first time.  The coastline there is rocky and the choppy sea was breaking against it dramatically.

Matt and Rob contemplate the Pacific in La Jolla

Headed downtown for the first shopping of our trip – just reconnaissance.  In the evening we continued drinking and smoking and Scott, who we met just prior to the TJ show and spins as DJ Wank Chops, rolled up.  We were entertained by a Midwich CD I happened to have packed (heh, heh) and watched Billy and Tana’s two dogs fighting each other whilst stoned (us, not the dogs).

One thing that everyone who goes to America is almost contractually obliged to do is to see a film that hasn’t been released in the UK as yet then boast about it to their mates.  Unfortunately the one we picked, Time Machine, might be the worst film ever made, truly without redeeming feature.  Good job we were so toasted.  Still, the journey to the cinema was worth it because we stopped off at this crazy botanical park on the way full of massive cacti.  The setting got even more trippy when we crossed the road and walked down a deserted avenue of full scale replica houses, each representing some architectural style of the past.  On entering this scene from The Quiet Earth I thought that the place was a magical kingdom built for San Diego’s stoners.  A civilised place, obviously.

Sunday March 17^th

Today we started our tour within a tour.  We took an enormous breakfast at lunchtime at a cool restaurant called Hash House A-Go-Go and called on the record store where Billy works.  Mid-afternoon, stoned and joined by Scott, we slung the kit in the car and grooved on the freeway architecture as we drove to Los Angeles.  16 goddamn lanes!  We arrived a little early so we could visit Amoeba music, a record store that everyone was talking about.  We knew we were in trouble when we found out that it had its own underground car-park.  At the top of the stairs with the vast vista of shelves spread out in front of us all four comrades got this sick faraway look and we shared the same thought: shit, this could be expensive.  Shell-shocked, we all returned to the car with yellow carrier bags.

The venue, Spaceland, wasn’t hard to find.  Los Angeles is just a series of grids so as long as you get the right exit finding somewhere is just a matter of counting house numbers.  A nice, big bar/venue with a separate glassed off bar and pool room, I thought Spaceland was pretty good.  The sound was perfect too.  When we returned from dinner the first act, dntel, were already onstage.  Their set was beautiful and the girl who sings the gorgeous vocals on the album treated us to a guest appearance.  These boys should be more famous.  Matt was on next and I stopped all the cooler-than-thou LA conversations for a couple of minutes for a few seconds at least with a shouted introduction.  The new stuff that Matt had been working on that morning sounded good and went down well with the section of the audience that was paying attention.  Languis headlined and did a To Rocco Rot meets Labradford drone/tone beauty set.

I was nodding off during the last act and the hash and over-priced beer had taken an unwelcome toll.  In a dip, my eyes kept closing and I waited in the car getting increasingly sullen and impatient.  My attitude took a massive readjustment upwards when we arrived at the place where we were staying – the apartment shared by Steven from Tristeza and Jimmy from dntel.  Their pad was totally Hollywood-cocaine, at least it seemed that way to us cinema-addled Brits.  Split level, mirror-ball, turntables, playstation 2.  I sat on the couch and looked about as smug as anyone ever has.

Rob looking very pleased with himself, Billy, Steven in LA

A conversation destroying bong made an appearance, said ‘hi’ and shut me the fuck up.  From somewhere I found a couple of hours whilst Matt ‘rested’ in his chair.  Scott with his LA based friend Mike rolled up along with a load of other people from the gig.  Very nice atmosphere.  DJ Wank Chops treated us to an impromptu pre-crashing out set.  It rained again and the LA denizens panicked that they all might melt.

Wanking those chops in LA

Monday March 18^th

In the morning the rain had cleared the smog and the view over Silverlake, the area of LA we were staying in, was cool.  A gang of us ate a very late breakfast at a little Creole restaurant and later went to Griffith Park to visit the Observatory – where the final scenes of Rebel Without a Cause were filmed.  The place is spectacular.  The walkways around three domes housing telescopes afford views over the whole of Los Angeles.  Some of the streets on the grid literally stretch on as far as the eye can see.

Rob and Matt down with their boys

We chilled in the heat and took some photos, the iconic HOLLYWOOD sign right behind us, before trekking a little way into the hills for a smoke and some quality dude time.

Heading back to town to kill time we went shopping on Melrose and experienced LA’s legendary rudeness personified by the clerk in Atomic Garage, a skateshop.  In the UK I would have been furious, here it was like being on some kind of Universal Studios tour of cliché America.  Drive home was slow due to another cliché – the freeway traffic.  When we got back to San Diego we were weak with hunger and bolted down a delivery pizza alongside more hash pipes.  This was possibly a mistake.  I crashed as Matt and Tana had a Mac masterclass and woke up screaming due to a horrific dream.  This was a little embarrassing but all there were cool about it.  Matt’s new glitchtroniks lulled me back to sleep.

Tuesday March 19^th

Awake early this morning due to the dope-enforced early night and I caught up with the journal and chatted with Matt who was also up not quite about.  Billy not hungry so Tana, Matt and I return to the Hash House for another gargantuan breakfast.  I mention wanting to buy a present for Verity and this leads to an expedition downtown to visit a few places.  I fell in love with Urban Outfitters where I bought a t-shirt and a bag for Verity.  The clerk there seriously undercharged me and even insisted it was right after I pointed it out.  This made no sense until Tana explained the ‘hook up’ was big in San Diego and we realised that every store we had been in had taken money off the bill.  Being an out-of-towner must help.  Back home we chilled whilst Billy spray-painted more CD covers.  I felt at home again.  Running a small label must be the same the world over.  Scott came round to hang out and we all went out to a tiny Lebanese place for dinner.  On the way home Matt went crazy about wanting some do-nuts but got the fear about Tana’s driving and decided not to force the issue. 

On returning, Tana had to do some work for an upcoming exam do Billy got us baked and took us for a drive over Coronado bridge.  This impossibly tall, long structure spans a seemingly huge gap between San Diego mainland and the island of Coronado, a money-heavy concentration of beach and hotels.  The view of downtown San Diego at just-past dusk was something beyond.  The view the other side was of the coast stretching down to Tijuana – also incredible.  We parked and walked down the sand to the lapping ocean.  Matt pointed out this was the furthest west he had ever been, ditto for me.  Billy said something sweet about us being more fun to hang with than he’d feared.

We returned home in time to go down to the Whistle Stop, a cool little bar near where Scott and Billy live, to drink and listen to those two DJ.  Ariel, the bartender, is Scott’s girlfriend so we got hooked up again.  A party atmosphere developed and on the way home we stopped at the 7-11 for more booze, settling on this filthy alcopop-energy drink called liquid-crack (well, it wasn’t but it should have been).  Back at Tana and Billy’s we all got seriously mashed.  The talk turned dirty and although I don’t remember exactly what I said, it got a big laugh and whooping.  Scott was funny too.

Wednesday 20^th March

Hungover, not surprisingly.  In the afternoon me, Matt and Kat, Tana’s friend who had been hanging out with us, walked over to Scott’s place so that he and Matt could collaborate on some recording.  I managed to get us lost despite it being a five-minute straight line from one house to another.  Scott’s analog hardware set up versus Matt’s laptop glitch sounded pretty smart.  Later, Billy was doing a radio interview and Tana was working on her end of term project so Scott drove us downtown to that night’s venue.  The Juke Joint Café is a great place.  The front is a classy fairly-expensive jazz club (complete with band and diva fanning herself as we walked past) but down a corridor it opens up into a large one room venue with its own bar, dance floor and stage.  A good crowd gathered and Scott wanked those chops again as I spent much of the pre-show talking to Mike from LA who had driven down for the show with his friend Tom.  Snodgrass was first on and I was in a much better state to appreciate Jordan’s antics this time around.

It was Jordan who organised this show as part of his imputor series of gigs.  dntel were up next and almost as good as in Los Angeles, at least we got to see their whole set this time.  Very emotional but low-key with some very fine bowed guitar.

Finally Matt stepped up and I gave my longest, laughter-interrupted introduction of the tour:

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, what they taught you in school is wrong!  London is not the capital of England.  It is, in fact, the fine, fine City of Leeds.  From the Jewel of the North we have a TREAT for you this evening.  In association with the LEGENDARY Rocket Racer Records, we are proud to present THE (laughter) digital soul boy, the PIONEER of the northern wrongbeat sound.  It’s time honey to GIVE IT UP and FALL IN LOVE with Mr. Matthew Robson esquire A.K.A RANDOM FUCKING NUMBER.  YEAH!!!”

Well, following that he couldn’t help but play a blinder.  Theresa, the beautiful dancer who was at the Tijuana show, was there and we both grooved to ‘discontents’, Matt’s new anthem I think.  Mike and Tom used up our remaining photos documenting the patented Rob-H-industro-Dance.  I dragged Chops onto the floor for the last ever performance of ‘Leopold B’ and spazzing out to that was, given the circumstances, a little moving.  A fitting end to the musical endeavour.

Thursday March 21^st

Spent the morning and early afternoon shopping. Billy took us to an enormous thrift store where I bought a baseball shirt with ‘Cobras’ printed on it for 2 dollars and Matt bought a Herb Alpert LP for a dollar.  This was in stark contrast to the second leg of the expedition where Matt dropped some fat cash on some very baggy pants and I spent 100 dollars on some Vans and a Stussy hoody.  I know, I know, I've read No Logo too - but hey, this stuff was cheap!  Returned to find Tana just leaving for her exam even though it started in two minutes (apparently went pretty well though).  I napped whilst Kat, Matt and Billy went to the dog park.  About time to start feeling that rough mixture of dread and anticipation about the journey home.  I felt elated and deflated at the same time.  When everyone returned we watched celebrity boxing on the TV (Willis from Different Strokes kicked the ass of Vanilla Ice!) and Tana and Kat cooked a fantastic meal for us all.  The original plan of going to a drum and bass night in town went out the window as midnight rolled past unnoticed.  I crashed and was woken a little while later by Matt looming over me asking if he could borrow some CDs because he was going back to Kat’s to continue partying.  I said:

“Sure, be back at midday,”

because I am the tour manager, then rolled over.

Friday March 22^nd and, due to the time difference Saturday March 23^rd

Woke at 6am to say ‘good luck’ to Tana as she left (on time this time) for an 8am exam then back to more weird dreams until it was time to wake up and get the packing done.  I estimated 20 to 30 hours of waiting around and nearly 6000 miles in-between me and Verity.  Sat on the porch, waiting for Matt to return, listening to the birds and writing this journal.  I felt very clam and relaxed.

Mulled over the trip.  Our solid first impressions had turned out to be correct.  It felt like a hospitality amazing to us tight-arsed Brits and an unconditional generosity had spilled over into friendship.  Funny how quickly you can get to know a crowd if you just immerse yourself in it.

Tana returned fairly confident and was followed shortly by Matt and Kat and Scott who wanted to come say goodbye.  Went out for some lunch and I had my one and only burger in America – it was pretty good.  Picking up our stuff I was stressing about getting to the airport on time.  Tana drove us and Kat and Scott came along to see us off.  Sometimes, if a trip has gone well, saying goodbye is a satisfying experience.  It was like that this time, we left feeling that we’d made some friends.

Thus the queuing and waiting begun.  Matt got the treatment at the airport, kit inspection and the magic bomb-detecting wand waved over his skinny ass.  We couldn’t sit together on the plane but that was fine because it meant that I could stare out of the window, watch films and sleep without feeling the need to make conversation.  Flying into the night, I stared at the constellations of streets below us.  The conurbations lighting up the shores of Lake Michigan were particularly beautiful.

No hassle at the Gatwick end of our flight.  The mild fear that I’d felt on the plane that things might have changed between Verity and I whilst I was away was dispelled when I turned my phone on and found a load of messages all loving and longing.  Matt and I rode into on the train London, compared notes on the experience and complimented each other on our suitability as travelling companions.  A long wait at Kings Cross passed quickly and we spent the train ride home plotting our next projects.  Before I even knew it I was at her door.