5 track album
Hey there! Long time no update, we’re still not a band anymore but MJ and I made this record. Check it out and cop one if you feel like it. :)
Stranger Things
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Mike Driver
No title available

Janaina Medeiros
cherry valley forever
sheepfilms

roma★

Origami Around

titsay
h
will byers stan first human second
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

JBB: An Artblog!
art blog(derogatory)
Xuebing Du
Peter Solarz
d e v o n
Misplaced Lens Cap
KIROKAZE

seen from Vietnam
seen from Germany

seen from China

seen from Norway

seen from United States
seen from Switzerland

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Türkiye

seen from Canada
seen from Singapore
seen from United States

seen from United States
@vexxolympia
5 track album
Hey there! Long time no update, we’re still not a band anymore but MJ and I made this record. Check it out and cop one if you feel like it. :)
CC Dust final show :'(
Rik and the Pigs with mike on guitar
MaryJane and Ian's new project
What's been up
Hey everyone, checking in to update you on what’s been new. Thanks for everyone who was patient in getting their records and everyone who supported us. We are officially on hiatus, who knows what we’ll do in the future but right now we’re all working on our new projects.
Maryjane has been doing CC Dust parallel to vexx for a while. It's amazing. She and I (Ian) play in a band called gen pop that just released a demo and have a 7" coming out on Upset the Rhythm this year.
Mike our guitarist has been playing guitar in Rik and the Pigs and bass in soft cheek over the past year or so, check out the new Soft Cheek 7" put on Lumpy Records and the Rik and the Pigs records out on lumpy and total punk records.
Corey and I are working on a new band and she is currently working on a solo electronic project that is fire if u ask me, keep an eye out for it.
I also finished the vexx 2015 tour blog and am releasing it as a photo/ illustrated zine this summer.
Well that’s all folks, I’ll be posting links of our new/newish projects I’ve mentioned above to cut down on any more clicking and typing. It’s been good. We love you, vexx ala mode.
We uploaded our new EP “The Wild Hunt” to bandcamp for all to hear. Give it a spin, see how it feels, do what you wanna when you want to.
The cover art of our new record, The Wild Hunt, painted by our very own Maryjane Dunphe. It is up for pre-order from Upset the Rhythm and M’lady’s records. We’ll have some new tracks for you soon. If you feel so inspired to trust fall into our arms based on our previous material pre-order the record at
http://www.mladysrecords.com/
and in Europe at
http://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/product/vexx-wild-hunt-pre-order
The Wild Hunt: Idle Hands
Day 11
Gydnia, Poland 07/10/2015
Mike and I spent the morning walking around the roof and soaking up the mild Berlin weather, a welcome change from the sweltering weather of the past 10 days. Being six stories up without a gate or a fence holding me in felt dangerous. I laid down and thought about body betrayal. I thought about a friend of mine describing riding her bike across a bridge every day to school strapped to the feeling of not knowing whether today would be the day she’d fling herself off the side of the bridge to experience the fetish of free-fall. You’ll pay for thrills, in actuality, but in conscious fantasy, only sensation. I wondered if this compulsion was about control, the presence of or lack there of. Inarticulate desire for a new body, for a new consciousness, the space between agency and reiteration. A stinky mood sunk over my being as we headed north to Gdynia, “ You’ll be playing the Gdynia DIY punk music festival with Swordweilder and Massgrav”, Chris informed us with Charlie’s Angels execution. “Sounds like we’ll fit in,” Corey said, one headphone in. Corey’s headphone van cocoon was dedication I’d never seen before, I swear she could check out anywhere anyhow, she had the tracks to support the time alone, I envied her resolve.
I took over driving as we entered as we entered Poland. The forest and agrarian landscape expanded. Sunflower fields stretching beyond the eye could see articulated themselves. Forests thick with conifer trees and small growth underbrush stood in rows between farmland. Driving in Poland required new intuition. The two lane highway allowed fast driving, slower cars would pull into the wide shoulder and fast cars would straddle the median. It took the confidence to know where to speed and when to let another car coming from the other direction take priority. “ This is well fucked”, Chris toothed, grasping the door handle. The game was intuitive, once I figured it out I loved the sport of it. As I looked back at the sleeping babes in the back of the sprinter my body was the key to safety, from point a to point b. Sleep well friends, your life is in my hands. Intersecting the highway were roads leading to smaller towns, vigil at the mouth of were gaudily dressed sex workers. Standing close to the highway, tucked between velvety grain, defined hedging, they smoked, looked at their phones, or waved/stared at the cars as they drove by. One of them I saw was walking on the shoulder of the road, her skirt beaten about by the wind that was turning the endless sheets of grain. It was all very beautiful and dramatic.
Getting closer to Gdynia I looked over at Chris and pointed at the forest that sprawled on either side of us, “You know what makes those forest’s so scary looking? Is the low foliage and how its all been replanted in rows. Walk in far enough, you won’t be able to see the path you’ve cleared and everything is in rows so it’ll all look the same.” “ They look sinister, like they’d devour you” Chris said. I put my eyes back on the road and we floated off into the future. Chris took over driving inner city, I was still nervous about quick changes and transitions, they scared me. We drove past a furniture store called FART, which we all found very amusing. The closer we got to the club the city scape turned from dusty vaulted Communist high rises to boxy port storage facilities. Grey, austere, the iron curtain had drawn back and behind it was a cinder block.
As we loaded into the venue large bouncers screened us to see whether we were in a band or not, one with a very large neck tattoo stared deep into my eyes as he choked my hand with a wrist band. I smiled and mouth hi, he just stared at me. We set our gear down and posted up in the green room, got some pierogis from the food tent and gulped them down before working out before our set. We had a long drive that day. It is important to get the blood flowing. We did push ups, sit ups, squats, leans, grimaces, a long hair tapped on a drum pad in the middle of the room glancing at one of us every few moments. I got up, sweating, cracked open the seal of a water bottle and nodded at him. He tapped on his drum pad and nodded back, “ Do you guys do this before every show?” he inquired. “All of us? Generally after long drives” I replied. “ Gotta stay ready baby, gotta be ready for anything, “ Mike huffed as he fell like a 2x4 towards the ground into a push up position, pumping up diagonal limbs in a dance like fashion. “ Maybe my band should do this, but I think we are too lazy,” he said. Puttering around we made small talk with people, met and set up march next to some chillers from Brazil, Anti-Corpos, who were making their European rounds the same we were. We got up to play, our friend from the green room said hi on our way on and wished us luck.
The show was in a giant venue with what seemed like pro sound, the crowd didn’t fill out the room but there was a fist full of teenagers that got sweaty while we played. One of them got too close to MJ while she was playing and caught her fade, he stood in tears staring at her wondering why she’d done that. I felt like taking him aside telling him it wouldn’t be the last time that’ll happen to him. There’s something Calvinistic to those who are publicly humiliated, some of us are just destined to having terrible humiliating things happen to us, the more we exit the hanged man and enter the fool the quicker we lean into our destiny, salient humiliation. MJ was under the drummers stage by the end of the show, I felt really good about our performance.
We camped out at the merch booth, I nervously walked in and out of the venue trying to find someone interesting to approach. I had recently decided to break up with my partner at the time and was desperate to talk to someone beautiful. The language barrier would prove this difficult. I mustered a, “ Do you speak english” to someone I found attractive and got a two hand shake with, “ sorry don’t english” on the other end of the conversation. Damn. I went upstairs and noticed a guy hawking the merch table, swooping in back and forth, he came up to me when I ordered another drink from the bar and started talking to me. He did all of the classic things that made me not want to talk to people, told me that no one understood my band like him, asked me how old Corey and MJ were, told me again that no one understood us. I walked outside again, people people everywhere, no one to talk to. Mike and Chris had both peeled off into the city to explore, which I was generally down to do, but this place creeped me out and I attract public humiliation, something was in the air and it didn’t suit me walking around a craggy port. I went upstairs again and saw that the hawk was doling out coffee to MJ and Corey. MJ passed me a coffee, “ He bought these for us, he kept on asking if we wanted a drink and I kept on saying no, but he insisted so I asked for coffee,” she said. “This guy gives me the fucking creeps, he has pleated pants.” I said. “I wear pleated pants, “ MJ said, I could tell I had hurt her feelings. “ You know what I mean, chinos and polo, at a grind festival,” I backtracked. I left it alone and we sipped on our coffee, I had a few sips and felt like if i had anymore I’d probably be up all night, I decided to continue pacing, hoping I could socialize somehow, I don’t know why I was so desperate. I smoked and leaned, trying to look interesting, or disinterested, kind of a mix of both.
I looked at the vendors at the DIY fest, 40 dollar shirts of bands that weren’t playing and had quit a long time ago. DIY being reduced to some nomenclature completely meaningless, but thats what value exchange and exponentiation does to everything, right? Makes it the sun bleached bloated corpse of youth idealism, in a tent, images in paint, ready to wear. I still love it and shit, but it just sucks to know what garbage really means as you get older. I waddled back inside and found that MJ and Corey had abandoned post. I asked one of the members of anti corpos where they had went and they said MJ and Corey had both got up and left without saying anything. Overwhelmed with the fear of abandonment, I scanned the room for them. “ Do you think they went to the van” I asked one of the Anti-Corpos people. “Yes, you should check”. I ran out of the building and made my way to the van, Chris was sitting in the van with MJ and Corey in the back, he asked to talk to me outside of the van. “MJ and Corey are saying that they’ve been drugged”, Chris said, “ They pulled me aside and asked me to take them to the van.” “Oh shit” “I want to go home, what time do you think we’ll be home”, Corey asked. “What?” “What time am I going to be home” Corey asked again. “ Like your house, like home? We’re in Poland, you can’t go home. “ I looked at MJ and she was staring off into the middle distance, “ I feel really fucking high right now.” “I am going to pack up the merch and get Mike,” I said to Chris, he nodded.
I made it to venue at a criminal pace, I walked up to the merch balcony, I was feeling pretty loopy. I went up to the merch table and started packing up feverishly. One of the Anti-Corpos people tapped my arm and I turned around, wild eye’d and I would hear later looking pretty drug crazed. “Where have they gone?” they yelled into my ear. “ They got fucking drugged, watch your back, there’s a slime ball that drugged our coffee.” Screaming I see our coffee distributor leaning against the railing. I go over to him, grab his polo shirt and get as close as I can to his face. “Stay the FUCK away from me and my friends or I’ll fucking end you, does that make sense?” “What are you talking?” “You know what you fucking did, now stay the fuck away from us or I’ll end your life. Does that make sense to you?” “You’re crazy” “ You bet I am and I’ll end you stupid existence.” I remember the words escaping my mouth like rubber. I felt feverish and like my eyeballs were shaking in their sockets. Mike showed up and grabbed more merch and calmed me down. “ Ian what happened,” I rambled off incoherently, we looked around for the guy but he was nowhere to be found. I finally spotted him at the edge of the stairs. The band stopped playing, we found security and I proceeded to start yelling at him to give back the merch he bought. People looked really uncomfortable, an older woman implored me to stop yelling at him, drug crazed I continued to scream at him. “ Ian, you’re gonna get fucked up, go to the van” I came to my senses and realized I had attracted a lot of attention. Mike was pointing at the guy saying “ Don’t trust this guy he’s a sketchy fool, he drugged our band, fuck him”. I walked away while Mike talked to security, who came out to the van with a very nice lady we would be staying with. “ Do you want to go to the hospital to get a blood test so we can prosecute?” “Fuck no, we want to go and sleep.” They shrugged to each other and our host, who I’ll call Mary, got in the van with us and directed us 30 minutes outside of the city.
I was apparently talking to her about the smell of whale’s breath on the way back, I really can’t remember. I spent the rest of the drive thinking about being preyed on. The determination of the predator, the acceptance of the prey. Lock step, behind stuttering naivety, where awareness and vigilance rest behind repose. The predatory instinct to know where to place yourself to get advantage. What a fucking horrible thing to be, what a sickening sad lonely existence, vigilant for weakness. I remember taking a selfie with her dolphin toilet seat. Everyone else went to bed and I sat up and talked with our host, her husband, and his friends who filled me in on watching the surveillance videos of the man getting us coffee. “He went into a place with the coffee where the cameras cannot show so we don’t know what he did” Michael, our hosts husband, told me. “ Still blood tests would have proved more conclusively” he reiterated. I asked if I could try every tincture he had created and that distracted the conversation from unpleasant drugging to the joy of picking elderberries and making a home made liquor. We finished out the night laughing and discussing the differences in Polish and American culture. One of the up sides to being drugged is I slept very well that night.
The Wild Hunt: Homemade hash
Day 10
Berlin, Germany 07/09/2015
Hafiz crammed into the sprinter van with us to go to Berlin, we chatted him up about punk and politics, it was good to have some new blood in the van to spice up chatter and get us out of our patterns for a little bit. Also Hafiz is the funniest person I know, so that was good for splitting the drive up. Arriving at the venue we parked outside of a huge district park that was filled with car body shops. A truck driver chattered at us in german, with my rudimentary understanding of german i had no idea what he was saying, but I knew he meant that we had to move out of where we were parked. We pulled into a narrow alleyway that snaked through the body shops and pulled up to the number that correlated to the information we had on the writer as to where we were playing. The club was called Bei Ruth and the load in was insane. You have to load all of your gear up 5 flights of stairs, but an amazing meal and more drinks than I could stomach were offered to us. A gluten free oreo parfait was offered to me upon hearing that I try to stay away from gluten (yeah laugh it up). Christinana, who had offered it to me, would be our host for the evening, running sound with one other person and coordinating the food, I think there was other people helping but I found her very beautiful so I think I only remember her. We ate, MJ, Hafiz and I conversed and talked lightly about punk, race, politics, and trying to get to know people. Turns out, no matter who you are, feeling like you are truly accepted is a pot shot, or maybe its not, I don’t know.
After the food settled, Chris and I peeled out to ask around the body shops if they had a right side view mirror for a Volkswagen sprinter. Every place we went to directed us to a shop in which we couldn’t see anyone. Timid to enter, we walked in to find a pepper haired, wise looking mechanic sitting behind a work bench wearing spectacles, inspecting something complicated. He took off the spectacles, “Halo, was gehts?” very informal, “Sprechen sie English?”Chris asked him, “Ein bisschen, what do you need?”; “We need a right rear view mirror, for the right side of the vehicle, we need it for a 2012 volkswagen sprinter” Chris said, very slowly and enunciated, “Rückspiegel” ; “Pardon?” Chris said, “ Rückspiegel “ the man said again, “ Whats that?” Chris said again, “ Rückspiegel is what you’re looking for?”, “Is that a mirror on the side of the vehicle? Because that is what we are looking for…” “Rückspiegel, Rückspiegel” he said, slowly moving his mouth like he had peanut butter on his gums. “Rückspiegel” Chris and I said in unison. “Rückspiegel” the man corrected us, enunciating each syllable as taught as humanly possible. “Rückspiegel” Chris and I chanted, staring at the man while he pointed at his mouth and said “Rückspiegel” again. “So we need a right “Rückspiegel” for our 2012 VW sprinter” the man paused after Chris said this to him and said, “Rückspiegel, I don’t carry Rückspiegel, I’m sorry.” I saw a flash of rage fly across Chris’s eyes. “Thanks for your time.” We later discovered that we needed some other Spiegel but decided it would just be better to order them and send that back to London.
It was around that time that Chris decided he would go for a sabbatical, I went up stairs and shot the shit with MJ and Hafiz, lounging next to a wall that had a unicorn doodle and text that said “Herpes, Sluts Rule!”. I’m not sure what it meant, but it was sure saying something. Mike suggested that we go walk around and look for cigarettes, I was bored so I decided I’d follow. I hadn’t changed my clothes other than my underwear in a few days and I looked pretty disheveled. Walking past a supermarket a lady approached me yelling, “ Why do you dress homeless even though you aren’t? Give me money for beer”, I told her I couldn’t understand her, an excuse that comes in handy. When Hafiz and I got back to the Venue people had started filling out the space and the first band was setting up.
People were smoking inside, getting sweaty, drinking. Femme Krawall was straight forward punk, I liked the bass lines and locked grooves that the bassist and the drummer would get into. Our set was so much fun, I can’t think of a better crowd and energy on the whole tour. It was definitely my favorite show of tour. It was one of those shows where I could feel the band taught around my fingers, my mind and body in the same space, nothing between them. It was also crazy how many people I had met in the Pacific Northwest and friends from Singapore were there. A very drunken man gave me some homemade hash and tried to kiss me, some guy threw peanuts at Corey then jumped through a wall. Berliners have a strange way of showing their affection.
Christiana guided us back to her spot, an apartment that wrapped around the corner of a complex, it was massive. She had cleared out what I believed to be her room so we could sleep there, the hospitality is still unparalleled. Once we got settled in she asked if we wanted to go check out the roof, guided us up a staircase to the top of the apartment building we entered into an attic that had a queen mattress, a mirror, a side table with a french press, and a punching bag. I wondered who occupied this zone. A lean citizen, waking up, eating muesli and skim milk, shaving their head in the mirror, destroying a punching bag before they spend a full day asking people “what can i get you?”. Popping out of a hole from the attic the roof spanned the whole apartment complex, a maze that spanned around 5 square blocks. “Can you climb that chimney?” I asked Christiana, a little drunk from enjoying the wealth of booze dolled out at German shows. “Yes, but its very scary, its higher than it is looking.” “Ian don’t climb that I don’t want to watch you die.” MJ said, I could tell the idea of my climbing a close to 200 foot chimney on a ladder with no safety backing was getting to MJ’s anxiety. “Oh I’ll be fine” I walked up to the Chimney and started to climb the ladder. Mid way up was wild, the only thing keeping my from a 400 foot plummet were my hands, Christiana was climbing below me. I got to the top of the Chimney and started to get vertigo from standing up on a small square space with a flimsy railing protecting me from my body betraying me. Trying not to seem like I was scared of my body betraying me and flinging myself to my death I made small talk with Christiana. “Are you scared? Are you afraid of heights?” she asked. “Nah “ I said, breathing short, my eyes probably telling a different story, I looked at her and felt like I wanted to ask to kiss this beautiful woman. I dismissed the idea to adrenaline and liquid courage, realizing it was a bad idea and was probably would creep out our host. I wanted to stay out on the roof alone for a while, which I did, staring up at the stars, smoking cigarettes. I fell asleep for a while before I went downstairs and went to bed.
The Wild Hunt: Wieso Nicht.
Day 9
Bremen, Germany 07/08/2015
We stopped in Ghent, Belgium to look around and recover after a rough night. Wandering around a cathedral after a light breakfast was a great way to spend the morning. The cathedral was full of lounging popes and ancient art depicting the great acts of saints, angels, and the like. I was unable to snap a photo of it, but there was the sassiest angel I’d ever seen in my life in the chapel. It was sculpted to look as if it was saying “uh uh, demon you are not gonna do that this time” wagging its finger and pursing its lips. Also there was a sculpture outside with the smuggest law making papacy fools, all the smug catholic imagery seemingly flew in the face of the seat of European liberalism, Antwerp, which was just a few miles north.
“I don’t think I can hold it till a gas station”, I said feeling the liter of Belgian chocolate milk I had consumed pressing against my belt buckle. Chris pulled out into what looked like a rest stop, it was pissing rain and we had just entered Holland from Belgium. “Are there bathrooms?” Corey asked, “I don’t see any” Mj said. “I think I’ll just go in the woods real quick n we’ll be out of here, what a weird rest stop.” Mike and I peeled out of the car and ran into a forest on the left of the rest stop. As we descended into the forest in torrential downpour Mike and I stumbled upon something terrible, tip toeing through a mine field of pile of shit after pile of used condoms after pile of shit. “Here we are in the traditional dutch shitty sex forest.” I said, mike and I both had our sweat shirts over our faces, the stench unbearable.
“Somethings going on in there” we said unanimously, the residual of what we’d found struck on our faces. “What? what is IN there?” MJ pried. Poo, MJ, condoms and poo, its where dutch dreams go to die or get dumped i don’t know. Bremen appeared from the condense autobahn we’d been on. So many trees, it was quite the relief from the tree barren low brick zone we’d seen in Belgium. We pulled up to the venue parallel to the venue, my beautiful stoppable lemonade bottle I had stolen fell on the ground and smashed. I flipped off the person who was honking at us from behind, who was a very small woman who looked upset when i threw her a west coast hello, i pressed my hands together and mouthed I’m sorry. Probably useless because we were in Germany. The venue, Sielwallhaus, was an old looking 5 story town house/building that sported a small stage and a bar. I was on the look out for my friend Hafiz who I had grown up with in Singapore. I remember meeting him, bell bottoms wearing and glass jaw shirted him covered from head to toe with Totalitar gear. It was at a ska show. We definitely didn’t become friends instantly, probably cause i looked like a doofus and was a little bit confused about what was good. Age and time drifted us together, I asked around to see if anyone knew where he was. They said he wasn’t around.
I decided to go walk around for a bit and see if i could get some Donar, a piece of bread stuffed with turkish cured meat and cabbage that I had obsessed over ever since we had gotten to Europe. I chewed on one and walked around, there was a beautiful pond I found to sit and eat by when it started to pour again. I sat under trees thick enough to shield me from the rain, ate my food and fielded my goosebumps. I think I am still in love with Bremen, it seemed so tucked away, just big enough. On my way back I found the clincher, a mural of Kurt Cobain with Spaghetti hair. The Spaghetti Hair Kurt Cobain of Bremen was the sigil that I needed to see to remember, I was safe and Kurt was always there, smirking, yawning, holding a baby.
I went back to the squat/venue and found Hafiz, I felt like a pilgrimage to the Spaghetti Cobain of Bremen was a good way to catch up after not seeing each other for a few years. The other band that played was their first show, I believe they were called Spring and were one of the only good German bands we saw on tour. The show was hot as hell, it felt good to lose about a pound every time we performed, I felt like I could play longer and longer. Some Spanish travelers were talking to me, congratulating me on a good show, Hafiz swooped in and pointed at me, hitting a beat in the conversation and said, “ It sounded like shit!” The travelers looked at me bewildered. It felt so good to be around Hafiz again, it had been too long.
I talked with Hafiz and our host late into the evening about having children, punk, and how much I’d like to be blown apart right above the ground after skydiving from 10,000 feet and 100 feet before I hit the ground just kaboom, blown away. We ate some sausages, smoked a bunch of cigarettes and went to bed.
some photos from @asian_primate instagram
The Wild Hunt: Chaka Deluge.
Day 7
Norwich 07/06/2015
We started out the morning eating at a famous london breakfast spot, we were only going to Norwich for the day so we there wasn’t a rush to get anywhere too quickly. The guy running the joint congratulated us on our tour and sent us with his blessings, which was very nice after seeing how many famous people he had fed and rightly so, the food was delicious. Piling in the van we scooted down the defined and cultivated British highway towards Norwich, our last British date before mainland Europe.
Van talk had consisted of us figuring out how to mock each other’s accents, political missives, and goofball music nerd arguments that would escalate to silence. I sat up front most of the time as co-pilot to support Chris in driving and navigation when necessary. “This is one of England’s brand new rest stops, it's fully integrated with the landscape, it is built into the side of a knoll and has a cafeteria and grocery store in it.” We wandered in dazed and sweaty, it was another blistering day in England, I perused the selection in the grocery store, the cafeteria smelled rich with meats cooked in gravy and vegetables steamed in butter. It was quite the rest stop heaven, a far cry from a stucco box on the side of an American interstate with 3 different colors of gatorade and sweaty ground game rolled into a synthetic tube made of chicken necks.
After being in the grocery for 5 minutes I came to realize no one was watching me, the lanes were extremely busy and I couldn’t see a restocker in sight. I grabbed a beautiful latch top container of sparkling lemonade, a chicken salad sandwich, and a bag of crisps and walked out the front door.
Sometimes you have to treat yourself, especially when that would have run me 20 usd. Chris handed me a sausage roll, which was a roll, filled with sausage. A far cry from the skimpy postmodern snacks that bear the names of foods that composite marginal amounts of the ingredients they tout. We both chowed down and observed how beautiful it was outside. This calm, the passage of time in which I feel at peace is a personal binge. Moments where I am in my body and pleased with it are exceedingly rare and I cherish them.
Rolling into Norwich I could already tell it was going to be my favorite English city. The only thing I knew about it was that one of the more well known semi-current English comedy characters, Alan Partridge, was a radio dj there and monkeyed around the city confusing himself. It's cluster of winding roads confused itself, echoing the topography that it was built on. Loading into the venue we checked out the space, Biohazard had headlined the night before and I secretly wished we had opened for them, just so I could have spin kicked during the first breakdown in Punishment. “I question not me, it only happens to others, I can’t deny reality, as life gets SMOTHERRRRED” I yelled at the sound guy who gave me a confused look and asked how many mics we’d need on stage. “One” I said.
Norwich had a lot of Roman architecture and secured nook stores that made me feel very cozy, great coffee and wonderful fish and chips. I bought a copy of Alexander Dumas’s travels through Switzerland, since I had never been there and had a strong aversion to it as it holds the world’s largest deposit of stolen colonial gold. He talked about learning to fish with a metal hook and a glass bowl with a candle in it floating at the surface of the water, I hoped I might have a similar experience, little did I know what I would actually learn in Switzerland. MJ and Mike came back from their exploration of the city, Mike had met some trippers in the park that scuttled him some narco and MJ had been put off by their M hippy vibes. Corey and I had sat in the venue checking email and setting up merch, I didn’t feel like wandering too far, I was honestly a little tour weary and ready to sit behind the merch table and do nothing. Jack, our promoter and singer in the two bands opening for us, both with two singers, had made a delicious curry. “ I guess you don’t owe me another 50 for vegan chili” Chris said serving up a plate of curry. “I always agree with you that its going to be vegan chili I…” Chris walked away glibly, I got the joke but didn’t actually know if I’d be hit up for hundreds of pounds of chili money at the end of tour.
I took a selfie with a caricature of Walter White from Breaking Bad riding a skateboard eating a slice of pizza that said “Breaking Rad” on it. Tropes of cool culture remind me of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza shooting amored personal vehicle toy and the smell it acquired when left in a sandbox for a month. Moldy cats shit. “Its like they’ve never seen the show, nor do they give a shit that it reduces the drama to kitsch, complete garbage.” Chris testified. Amen Chris, Amen.
Holding onto the ideas and imagery of western youth culture, pizza, skateboarding, offers an escape from the harshness of immediate adulthood. Walter White, a character representing the reality of non venture capitalist labor/ value exchange within America, reduced to a skateboard riding pizza eater is actually quite the artistic statement. A character who finds power and lucre in his expertise being valued outside of the law and system, and under valued within it, is then put through a further humiliation by becoming a trope of cowabunga pizza beer party baby burger art. Genius if you ask me.
The show was mellow, Jackals and the other band sounded like cursed, mid tempo crusted d beaty hardcore. While we played, a guy who Mike referred to as "the spirit of ’77" put his stuffed cat who Chris later told us was a character called “Bagpuss” on the stage next to Mike. Mike picked it up and threw it in the middle of the stage and proceeded to stab it with the headstock of his guitar. MJ then picked it up and smashed it on the stage a few times and threw it back at the spirit who looked pretty distressed that his kitty was being worked over by the band. “I don’t like it when they touch my cat” he said, picking it up and petting it. He might have been a bit drunk, bit of a casualty. He bought Mike and I the strongest most disgusting high gravity cider that he was drinking. I could barely stomach it, maybe if I drank that I’d have a pet plush kitty. We packed up, said our goodbyes and went back to London to sleep.
live photos by Jack Pitt
http://riotintheinfirmary.tumblr.com/
The Wild Hunt: Whats the code?
Day 6
Manchester 07/05/2015
Scrambling into a cab we hustled to the venue to have breakfast with Sauna Youth, Chris, and Kimberly. The restaurant looked like a vintage ikea, each seating area with its own couture dressers, shelves, tables, and light fixtures. English breakfast hits home with how salty I like everything, bliss. We left Sauna Youth and headed out to Carlisle to check out the castle there. The first thing I stumbled upon while wandering around Carlisle was the Carlisle Cathedral. The church had paintings of some Anglican saint that pissed off the Papacy and got scalped. I figure thats why Anglican monks shave the backs of their bowl cuts. Also I can’t remember what I saw and this probably isn’t true but I like it so I’m gonna say it happened.
I paced around the small brick city for an hour, I read the outside of the Carlisle Cursing stone that has a Saxon poem inscribed on its entirety cursing the Reiver border families that raided the borders of the Saxon-Anglo-Scottish lands. The Scottish Archbishop cursed the border raider’s leggis, thair handis, thair feit. Apparently when it was put in that tunnel it brought a lot of bad luck onto the city, I wonder if one of those bad luck things was having a McDonalds in what looked to be a 300-400 year old building.
Coming into Manchester I remember being impressed with how incredibly flat the city was, you could look out and see mid sized brown buildings sprawling across the horizon. We arrived at Gulliver’s, the bar we were set to play, and started loading upstairs into a beautiful sunny room stocked with cider and beer. The door to the room had a code on it, which is pretty cool i guess but no one could remember it so everyone was getting up and opening the door ever 2 or 3 minutes. I couldn’t have asked for a more peaceful place to chill and stretch out and warm up. Feeling restless before the show, I headed downstairs and outside for a smoke. Looking up and down the street, it was covered in sand or maybe just a light dust that almost had a glow to it.
I talked to a very drunk poet who told me that he wrote punk poetry when punk was just starting up. He recited a very long poem about sitting under a willow tree that wasn’t very punk but was very beautiful and touching. He then invited me over to talk to his crew, two middle aged baldies. I could barely understand what they were asking me, but I got by. “Wot chu fink bout been in a band wit a girl most bee roff init” the bald one with a soul patch asked me after telling them I played in a band with two women. “…no not really, i don’t know, its not different than being in a band with anyone else”. He looked me up and down, “ you’re not into sodding are you?” “what?” “sod” “oh sod” “like Freddy Mercury” “ whats it to you?” “noffing i guess” “ guess you’ll never know now will you.” I winked, watching his chubby rectangular fingers wrapped around his pint glass. Smiling big, waiting for him to react. His friend saw the stand off from across the table, “come on now that’s just fockin rood” He had figured from my mustache and tie dye singlet that I must be a homosexual.
I mean he was right but still, pretty rude. I closed out my conversation with drunk sketchy and the poets, went upstairs and checked out Sex Hands, whose song “in the garden” was captivating. “In the garden, your bum in the air, do you want to do it, in the garden”. The band was great, they had a skunky olympia vibe to them that I liked, amateur musicianship with a lot of style. We drank and chatted after we played, Mike smashed a guitar Liam had given him in the alleyway outside the venue. We parted ways with Sauna Youth and drove back to stay in London for the evening before moving onto Norwich the next day.
The Wild Hunt: No Commonwealth
Day 5
Glasgow 07/04/2015
I had swore to Chris that I would drive part of the way to Glasgow, which I instantly regretted once my body felt the two hours of sleep to which I had subjected it. I piloted the canister of sleeping babes north. Chris took over before city driving started and navigated us to a narrow alleyway in downtown Glasgow where the venue, The Old Hairdressers, was located. Downtown Glasgow sported an impressive vertical reach. The only sky one can see is directly above you, the horizon is all city. Each building an addition to fit within the blocks lined out by Victorian and Edwardian city planners. I loved it because each building has a blocked structure but sports their own design and ornate additions. Time to kill so Mike went to scout for a new guitar and to get the one he had left fixed.
Chris and and his partner Kimberly went off to crate dig and the rest of the crew hunkered down in a cafe across from the venue to answer emails, collect ourselves and get some food. It was here I encountered the Glaswegian quesadilla. It was two toasted tortillas with lukewarm refried beans between them and unmelted rectangled mozzarella cheese. Corey and MJ sipped their delicious looking soup and crunched their crisp salads while I powered through the derelict quesadilla. As I said previously, I’m not taking these two experiences as being indicative of Mexican food in the UK, but it was indicative of something, what that thing is still escapes me, but please, quesadillas are about low heat and time. Also this thing wasn’t even a quesadilla, it was a papusa, just saying.
Anyway, we arrived early and had a lot of time to kill. Corey, the only one who had gotten roaming on their phone, maxed, texting away, MJ read and sipped a latte. I was feeling antsy and if I sat around that I would fall asleep and there’s nothing worse than waking up in a strange place amongst strange people looking at you thinking, “ look at lil sleepy over there”. I took a walk around and explored some of Glasgow’s city-scape. Walking fast and nervous, weaving in and out of the Saturday crowd one thing that caught my eye were a lot of roaming packs of boot cut jeans adorned shrink wrap t shirt wearing Glaswegian men. It triggered a memory of my Dad’s friends talking about getting into a fight in Glasgow on a Saturday night. I am not one to tempt fate so I decided I’d do the neurotic cowardly thing and avoid them at all cost.
I happened upon a busker who I thought was Mike dressed like Mark Bolen on the cover of T-Rex’s the slider, but it was just a Slash impersonator. It kind of bummed me out that it wasn’t Mike. I was waiting for him to glare at me under the brim of his top hat and shoot me an icy wink while ripping a solo. I continued on my way and made a loop back to the main road that led to the venue. Walking down the street I saw a pack of men with a very orange man at their lead. He was yoked and walking a few paces ahead of his pack. He was talking with his head forward, loud enough for his pack to hear him, they’d laugh and respond. I literally ran across the road, I chose to avoid the Orange Man.
When I got to the other side of the street there was a group of men five strong walking shoulder to shoulder, blocking the sidewalk. I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked around them. I heard them all start to chatter to each other while I was passing them on the street, “Tight pants” and “thinks he’s better than us” were the only two things I could decipher from the deluge of cackles and chatter. I thought I could leg it in front of them and make it across the next intersection before the pack caught up to me. It was not to be, there I stood hands sweating in my pockets waiting for the crew to roll up behind me.
They kept on, I still couldn’t make out what they were saying, I could somehow decipher tight pants so I figured they were talking about me. The leader stood next to me. I felt him stare at the side of my head. My eyes moved up his body, a white t tucked into stone washed boot cut jeans draped over leather, business casual boots. At the top of his body were sharp brown eyes dangled from a crew cut. I nodded at him when our eyes locked and he stepped into traffic. Two lanes of relatively busy rush hour traffic halted, honked and congested, he never broke eye contact with me. The closest lane moved on, the first driver threw up a gesture and yelled something degrading, it didn’t break his concentration at all.
The loudness of his eye contacted at drown out the men behind me, the green man illuminated and I crossed, I nodded at the man. He nodded back, they ignored me and I went back to the venue.
Antique Pony kicked things off with a youthful melting pot of distractibility and talent, Chump was really good, reminded me of everything I like about mid tempo singer songwriter come band music, Sauna Youth’s performance that night was amazing, so present and full, they had figured out a very unique wall of sound. The Arndales though, delivered cut and dry perfectly played staggered rock music. I was so glad that I got to see them in action.
I had balked at doing a special 4th of July performance i had though up before tour. It consisted of MJ dressing like the queen of England and us performing “My Town” by Slade; reminding the Scots that Glasgow is the queens town, not theirs. Instead when we reminded the crowd that it was American independence day some know it all cheetoh dread peace punk informed us that the fourth of July is a tragic holiday in England or blah blah blah. We tore ass through our set, it felt good to let some energy out after stirring all day being grumpy with each other. I found a digital camera while cleaning up that I decided would be the tour camera, if you lost your red canon camera at the show hmu i’ll send it back ;0.
The night closed out, we were all tired as but we muscled the energy to go hang with people, which was good, I loved shooting the shit with UK people, lighting fast wit. After MJ got punished by the know it all guy that looked like the alien “Predator” we decided to walk to where we were staying. We slept in a very nice lad’s 400 year old apartment that had beautiful victorian moulding on the ceiling. I stared at it illuminated by the streetlight in the window of the room, counted my blessing and fell the fuck asleep.
The Wild Hunt: I see you
Day 4
Leeds 07/03/2015
Getting to know Chris was easy, humor is the great equalizer. He kept on trying to convince us that everyone in Leeds said the city name as if they were a mouse in a disney movie. He was so persistent that I almost believed him in some pavlovian trigger capacity. The landscape between English cities is mostly uniform so I don’t have much of a memory of coming in and out of any city we visited. That day though, would be the first time I took over for Chris driving. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was the only other person who could drive a right hand drive car. At first it was really strange, but after six or seven times of killing the car I got into a groove of floating through roundabouts in neutral until i could figure out how to not shift to first gear instead of third. Arriving in Leeds, we met our English tour buddies from Sauna Youth. I was feeling shy so I didn’t talk much and just laughed at their jokes
Chris kept on asking me to bet on whether there would be vegan chili for dinner. I kept on agreeing with him that there would be vegan chili for dinner. But he kept on betting as though I didn’t agree. So when the vegan chili was served up I apparently owed him 50 pounds. The vegan chili was good but I stayed away from the squeeze bottles of salsa, guacamole, and sour cream. This coupled with the Mexican food I would experience in Glasgow turned me off from ever trusting a UK Mexican mix up again. Corey and I went off on a nice bathroom-to-crap-in adventure, which is generally a good way to kill time. Basically you walk around until you find a nice bathroom that isn’t the (sometimes) shitty one in the venue you’re playing. I think we ended up crapping in some wine bar down the street, mmmmm tapas. Time passed, bands sound checked, the bill seemed pretty diverse. I walked into the bar section of the venue and saw a hand painted United Mutation logo on a leather vest that I had seen a few months before in Portland, ah Liam Fox, Antony and the Johnsons loving acid warrior, tuff man, sweet guy. I started hanging with him and eased into getting messed up, things got fucking loud. By the time it was time for us to go on I had a steady buzz and felt like my scalp had come loose.
My memory is hazy from it being a lit night, but I remember everything being very loud and close. The bands had a semblance of who they were instead of what they were doing. Which in hindsight, especially after some shows on this tour I look back on and smile at, thank you for caring, thank you Leeds bands. Like I said, my memory is Mush but I remember that band name (Mush) and Sauna Youth playing.
Things just kept getting louder and louder, I was ready to jump out of my fucking skin, I could see it in Mike and Corey’s eyes also, it was time to go. Watching the video of us playing seems strange to me because in my head I remember feeling like we were burning through the set. Ten minutes goes by and MJ is rolling around the crowd getting buck. Out of the corner of my eye I see her clutching her head still doing vocals, My heart started to sink a little but I kept on playing. I figured she had head butted someone again, comes with the territory I guess, head butting people. Then she came into my view in the stage lights. Dark threads of blood were streaming down her face and she was wincing pretty hard. All the blood left my hands and I prayed that her eye cavity wasn’t caved in or something terrible. Blood doesn’t make me weak in the knees but the idea of a close friend of mine being seriously injured the third day of our 31 day tour scared the shit outta me. We quit playing and everyone hustled MJ to the bathroom. I started crying and freaking the fuck out, collected myself and went to go face a probably angry crowd and seriously injured MJ.
The cut wasn’t that bad and MJ got some glue and a butterfly stitch, luckily we were in Leeds on a Friday Night, which has fight night fun huts where you can get your head stitched up for free. Let the demons out. Corey, Mike, and I, or maybe just me, addressed a few angry people. “I don’t know why she does it, sorry, but only she got hurt so whats the problem?” I remember saying to two older gentlemen who were rife with indignation that something so violent might happen at a hardcore show. “Just a show of direct aggression” one of them said, I guess its direct. Sometimes it makes me angry to think about, but I also don’t know what MJ goes through when she performs. The music we play isn’t always pretty, isn’t always fun, its not docile, its volatile and its mean, it’s not up to me to explain away someone else’s performance. I am glad no one else wanted to talk about it.
The night was winding down and we all felt like striking out and hanging, It was hard to hang with both camps, the Leeds punks and the Sauna Youth, Mush or whatever crowd because the bouncers wouldn’t let the leather jacket having butterfly stitch needing skateboard wielding crowd that I had wandered around with into the bars. Lindsey, the guitarist from Sauna Youth tried to talk us into a club but it was a fools errand, we cabbed over to Liam’s place and kicked it with some chillers until I started to feel really ill. Corey and Mike opted to stay at the house while MJ and I got a cab to crash for a few hours before going to Glasgow the next day.
On the way home I knew I was in for a full on horrible prostate attack. This is probably the only true misery I go through when I tour: the fear of stress and anxiety can induce a physical attack on my prostate. Some doctors have said it is candida, some say it is a homeostatic infection that will never leave my body and lives in the under studied prostate that hides inside me and attacks when I least expect it. We get back and I basically piss needles for one of the three hours we would have gotten to sleep. I come back to the room MJ and I are sleeping in and lay down on the couch. “What’s wrong?” “I am having an attack” “didn’t you say if you cried it just goes away” “yeah” “ Then cry, come here” .
MJ crossed her legs on the side of the bed running parallel to the couch I was on. She put my forehead on her ankles, I started bawling. Its a strange sensation to not feel sad, scared, upset, but maybe just stressed, and the urgent need to cry to relieve some alien, completely confusing disease in your body. I have to do it at least once a month when the misery of an attack overtakes me.
Something strange started to happen though, my vision went from being black with my eyes closed to bright red. While MJ rubbed the back of my head and my back, comforting me while I blubbered like a confused seal, a loud hum overtook my hearing, louder than anything I’ve ever experienced, I can only akin it to an airplane landing. I could feel MJ’s body seize up and become tense as the noise became the only thing I could sense. I lost the ability to move my body but at the same time didn’t lose the strange posture I had suspended between couch and fold out bed. while MJ rubbed my back she lightly pulled her hand away from my spine and I felt something draw out of my chest. An thick and horrible weight running from the middle of my throat to the bottom of my sternum, like I had a giant kettle bell attached to elastic bands suspending it in the middle of my torso. She lifted and lifted, I could feel her struggle with whatever it was until she released it and put it back down into my body.
“ What the fuck was that”, MJ laughed nervously, “ I don’t know!” I felt amazing, I felt as if something had been shook out of me, like MJ had dusted off a 4 foot thick rug that was my midsection. I fell asleep and dreamt about having the weight lifted out of my being, and woke up feeling pretty good considering the heavy partying. As we dragged ourselves awake after 2 hours of sleep I asked MJ, “what do you think that was?”. “I don’t know, but it was too heavy for me to lift out of you” “do you think its like grief or something?” “whatever it is, its really heavy.“
We packed our shit and made our way out to the van in a thick misty fog that had surrounded the wet brick townhouses, threw our suitcases in, and picked up Corey and Mike. Chris could tell we had ran ourselves into the ground and teased us for being ridiculous. Just 27 more of these nights huh? We all uuuuuuuhhhhhed our party weary bodies in unison and skipped off towards Glasgow.
The Wild Hunt: Nobody knew who they were or... what they were doin
Day 3
Bristol 07/02/2015
We woke up to a muggy London morning and started our preparations to ensure we had everything needed for the next 30 days on the road. I packed up my suitcase which Chris, our illustrious driver/tour manager/ cultural and spiritual guide, said looked like it could contain gold bullion. In fact, it held a weeks worth of clothes and a few knick knacks totaling to maybe $50. The van had been dropped off the day before and had been parked on the street adjacent to Chris’s flat. Someone had side swiped the passenger side view mirror, cracking it, but it still functioned. This would be a first in a duo of window mishaps that would happen on the tour. Nothing to do about it right then. We milled around the flat for a bit before we charged west towards Bristol. Piling into the van, we all entered our van hive mentality. Mp3 players and other devices were brought out to disorient us from the hours of our lives that tour inevitably takes from you. The English countryside reminded me a lot of Singapore, the foliage thick and tangled, piled alongside farmland and stretches of highway. Chris told us that we were going to make a stop at the Avebury Henge between London and Bristol. We pulled off the highway and started our way on a stretch of narrow pastoral roads. We trekked into a small village with the other tourists and made our way to a path struck between giant stones that had been resurrected when the henge was deemed a national heritage site and reconstructed from the destruction that the middle ages had brought upon it. It was very humbling to be surrounded by something built with such intention almost 6000 years ago. The experience of consciousness manifested into structure, alignment, and design is a daily experience. Everything in which we travel, live, and occupy is constructed by the history of collective human intention. Being around something that old and steeped in abstract ceremony makes me think about the first levels of documenting consciousness and intention. It was pretty overwhelming to be around.
There is nothing indicating why the henge was built or its function but it did have a cool wishing tree that I tore off part of the insert in my leather jacket to be able to tie it around the tree. I tied the piece around a branch and wished that we’d get through the tour ok. When I opened my eyes Mike was on an opposing hill looking majestic and I took his picture. We went back to the van and were chattered at by a swarm of teenagers on a field trip, “you american?” “yeah we’re in a band” “you ever had a cheeky nando?” “speak english”. The kids laughed and waived as we drove away, what a pleasant place this must be to grow up in. Nearing Bristol, Chris filled us in on its vibe, “Its a University City”, is how he finished his description. The cynical side of me instantly drifted towards white dreads and drum circles, manifestos obfuscated by resin smoke and interpersonal conflict. Of course it was far from the case when we pulled up to a bike shop/vegan cafe called Roll for the Soul. We parked around the corner and waited to load in until the cafe closed and had some wander-round time to see the city and move our bodies. I opted to stay at the cafe and gorge myself on a mezza and tried to drink enough coffee to function. It’d been a minute since I’d had jet lag and it was hitting me like a ton of bricks. England is a trip; I feel as though I looked English enough, at least my features do, so no one was the wiser that I was actually an American trying to get a feel for the average Bristolite. I saw crowds of dressed up young professionals getting dinner, drinking coffee, women in flowing cotton body suits everywhere I turned. My love for feeling alien in a space captivated me again and kept me from straying too far from the cafe. After a while of wandering and enjoying the cold rainy weather I met with the crew and we unloaded the van, Chris showed me a strange harmonica accordion that he had acquired, this in relation to the other artifacts he had in his apartment led me to believe he had been a very worldly antiques dealer in a past life or possibly would be one in the near future. All of us in a sleep daze, "my tummy hurts from coffee” I remember Corey saying as we unloaded our gear into the street, we hustled our gear out and put it in the venue. It was at this time that the cursed guitar, a modern looking red epiphone with a bigsby jimmy rigged onto it, IF YOU SEE IT EMAIL ME [email protected], was swiped from the street. It was later argued that it might have been left at the Montague Arms in London, but that information is in the ethers at this point. While loading in and setting up we encountered the first punisher of tour, a local poet who took it upon himself to show up wasted and make bird noises whenever someone female bodied would bend over to pick something up. A majority of the people working the show/playing the show were female bodied and so this happened every 5 minutes or so, punishing. The staff asked him to leave so he pissed in front of the venue in rebellion. He showed them. Mike would take to calling him bird man and made seagull noises while flapping his arms at the him, if you can’t beat em, make them feel strange. Lower Slaughter played first, they sounded a lot like the Jesus Lizard and had a warbling vocalist that could be heard over the big amps they were playing through. Up next was Artefact, they played cold chorus soaked post punk.
We got up to play and Mike asked if he could use the first band’s guitar head, which I protested instantly because using other people’s gear is generally a nightmare. We got through two songs before the very expensive Ampeg head started smoking and we were left to play the set at half the volume with half our amps, it still sounded tight. I chatted up our hosts for the evening, our friend Sarah from Olympia’s parents had retired there and had offered us a place to stay. We were invited to go dance with our new friend Shona and company. We dropped our stuff off and headed to the pub. We rocked in and bought drinks, MJ and I descended onto the dance floor and slow wined while Chris, Mike, and Corey chilled n drank with the locals. Corey had been given free weed by some starry eye’d boy, which was another pleasant reoccurring theme on tour. There was a live trumpet player and a DJ playing some deep dub cuts that captivated everyone so well that no one cares when he took massive pauses to flip over 45s. We were left standing in an ancient cellar chatting about the violin player that had been pushed all the way back towards the bathrooms. It was apparent that people couldn’t appreciate live violin over dub, sorry. We crashed in our friend’s parents massive nautical themed (or at least that is how i interpreted it) flat, I instantly acquired a choice position on the couch: fuck the world its now or never gotta get your quality of life locked down. Corey got the booty end of the couch, sorry Corey that’s life, although she eventually pinned my feet to my chin in my sleep and won the battle, but this wouldn’t be the end of the war. Our hosts made us a smashing breakfast and I chatted with Marsha (one of our hosts) about growing up catholic, understanding the enjoyment of corporal punishment and perpetual guilt, we both agreed that growing up with dads raised catholics were the key.
live photographs by Hannah Saunders
group photo by Christopher Tipton
The Wild Hunt: A Confederacy of Vexes
Day 1 and 2
London 06/30/1987 & 07/01/2015
We touched down in Birmingham, England around 9 am on my birthday, June 30th 1987. Tired from the transatlantic rubberneck, there was no looking back now. I always enjoy the first glimpses of foliage from an airplane window if there is any to be seen. I like how the cabin window frames the trees and the architecture and upkeep of the airport, gives you an idea of what the country is like and how the people who populate it think and feel, at least thats how i feel about it. We rocked around the airport for two hours, got coffee, lost mike’s cursed guitar for a bit, muscled it back from security after mike convinced them it wasn’t a bomb. We then missed our bus, caught a cab into Birmingham and caught our bus to London. Running up to the bus we chattered at the bus driver that we had made it just in time, he flashed a big smile and said something indecipherably pleasant in Scottish, nodding and smiling we boarded. A few winks and a puke (mike) later we arrived in muggy London town. We lumbered into the bus terminal where our gracious host soon to be spiritual guide Christopher Tipton was waiting for us.
“ Great to meet you! I puked so much on the bus, like a ton of puke” I remember Mike saying to Chris while we were walking to his car. It was rough, we were rough, Mike seemed to be doing ok seeing as he was in a state of puke and disorientation. It was stupid fucking hot, like 100 degrees or like 42c in british heat measurements. We crammed into Chris’s sedan with our guitars and gear, my bass had to go across our laps essentially disabling everyone from having use of their arms.
“Don’t fuckin push the case that way it is digging into my knee” mj said to me while i tried to get my arms above to case to take a picture of big ben.
“But MJ look its big ben and buckingham palace”, said a sleep deprived tourist, i continued to jimmy my arm out from under the case and took some blurry photos of big ben.
We cleaned up, ate, had some drinks and went to bed after hanging with Chris’s friends from Australia. I felt bad because I had gotten into the habit of laying down my bedding and falling asleep whenever i wanted to with no concern to what was going on, but thats tour life i guess, no one is going to advocate for you, so you gotta self advocate as much as you can.
After the best breakfast of my life at this Italian spot my memory goes blank from jet lag and it being the hottest day in the recorded history of London. I have no idea what we did but i am sure it involved drinking coffee and smiling a lot. I for one was so happy to be outside of the US again and feeling alien in a space, nothing parallels it. There is a certainty that you acquire, about who you are in relation to other people that gets lost in the fold of being where you’re from. Growing up overseas, its my natural state, who I am in relation to your society, not who I am in relation to society, I get to be a comfortable other. This has since been crushed by 8 years of living in the US but I still get to enjoy it every once in a while when I leave this godforsaken place i love.
We showed up at the Montague arms in the afternoon, I ate half a chicken, MJ had a moment with God, alls well that ends well because the place was packed and hotter than fuck. Like I said earlier it was the hottest day in the recorded history of London. I remember feeling like i had just gotten out of a pool after we played, my socks were soggy, my eyes stinging from sweat.
We played with Vertical Slump and Human Form. I liked Vertical Slumps rhythm section a lot, pocketed bass and locked grooves shoot straight at my sensibilities.
We loaded out and I felt a small wave of accomplishment slip over me as we packed up the tour van and thought about the performance, “ I think we’re gonna be ok” I thought while saying goodbye to my friend Aska who had come out to the show. We pulled up to Chris’s place and I felt energized and restless, I wanted food and drink. Mike and I hit the streets and rapped about the evening. I stupidly bought doner without a pita and tried to scarf it down but it was gross. We walked along a house boat canal and bought what would come to be my most drank, yet most hated to order drink in the world.
“What’d you got there?” I asked Mike.
Mike with a glint in his eye looked at me square, “A Scccccrrrumpy Jack my good lad”
My teeth burned, my throat sank into my collarbones and I felt the contents of my stomach about to spill. S-C-R vowel is a vile ASMR for me. Scrumpy Jack? The fuck? is a Scrumpy? Jack? Whats a Scrumpy? I felt confused, mostly, i felt betrayed, betrayed by the fact that acquiring this beverage was the key to having a cheap and healthy drink for me (try to stay away from beer cause of the farts, you see, for the others in the van, you see). The cheapest econo cider we could get was a scrumpy jack, I had to say that dreadfuld phrase every time I wanted one and it seemed to take a little from me each time. We sat in a playground near Chris’s drank our ADULT CIDERS saw some urban foxes and were ignored by some East Enders while we drank and talked loudly about shit happening thousands of miles away. Things still important to our past selves, no longer relevant to our new lives as a unit.
The last thing I gotta take aim at England on and be like, look, what in the fuck is up with your tobacco game. Its like you want people to get horrible tumors and die cause all you got for sale is the shittiest toxic shit. You’re not going to end tobacco use, get over it, give people good tobacco goddamnit. Now Germany, that place had its tobacco game on point but England, sort it out will you?
Page 2 from my Seattle Weekly feature on this year’s Olympia Hardcore Festival, featuring Olympia punx Vexx and Slouch. You can read the full comic in a nice, web-friendly format on The Seattle Weekly’s site.
Very stoked about this comic thanks Taylor!