Friday the 25th - we flew to Dublin to start our 8 day Irish tour. Tim,
Lara and I flew from London City Airport, in the South East. We got to
the airport lateish (due to trying to sort out the various insanities of
London Transport) and checked in just in time. Our plane was then delayed
- typical. When we got to the airport Jordan's plane had been delayed even
more in any case, so we had to hang around.
After waiting for ages at the turnstiles it became obvious that Tim's
& my luggage had NOT arrived. This despite the fact that we told the
guy at City Airport that we were running late and the luggage had to go
as soon as possible.
The City Jet people at Dublin were like "Oh so you're the people on
this flight whose luggage is missing" - they managed to imply to my pissed
off mind at least that this is a perfectly ordinary occurence.
Well, it was 7pm before my cello and backpack arrived! Not that I needed
it before then, but it was still mightily irritating. Jordan's sleeping
bag was lost by his airline, and after many arduous phone calls he established
that he'll never get it back, so I guess we were lucky.
The first place we went to was a bookshop with cafe that Tim had found
in his time in Dublin, called the Winding Stair. They make the best sandwiches
in the northern hemisphere - beautiful wholegrain bread, yummy orange cheddar
cheese, salad, salami, whatever. After English food, this was bliss.
The weather in Dublin that first day was actually rather hot. [Don't
worry: it rained the rest of the time...] So my first impressions were
somewhat tainted by this (my relationship with hot weather being one of
distinct distaste). With hindsight I can say that the Irish are absolutely
delightful people, but Dublin and most of Ireland doesn't have a lot to
offer me.
On purely superficial grounds: Dublin has some nice bookstores, but
nothing much in the way of record stores or suchlike. It doesn't really
have many little streets with cool shops; almost all the music is Irish
folk music, some of which I like a lot, but some of which I don't really
care for; and Dublin is nice enough but as far as cities go I prefer Sydney
and Melbourne.
New York, London, Amsterdam, Nottingham and Antwerp even, all have
things to offer that Australia really doesn't, and things to truly amaze.
Edinburgh has amazing buildings... Dublin's just a nice-ish city, with
pubs where you can catch some excellent traditional Irish sessions, but
they're still pubs with smoke and alcohol.
Ah well. Still had an excellent time in Ireland.
The first night we had a gig at the Gaiety Theatre - one of the major
venues (perhaps) in Dublin. We were playing from 1am-2:30am! Having let
my strings down for the plane flight, I proceeded to snap TWO A-strings
in a row, and had to use an old used string. In the week-and-a-bit following,
I completely failed to find anywhere that stocked the type of string I
needed. Luckily I didn't need a spare.
The gig was fun, although some weirdnesses of the place were annoying:
We were soundchecked (both this and the next night) by a different person
from the one who did our sound later; Jordan wasn't allowed to do lights;
and the audience wasn't allowed to sit closer than about 10 rows back,
so we couldn't see any of them at all.
On Saturday the 26th we had 3 gigs! The first was in the square in Temple
Bar (this being a cool although a bit touristy area of Dublin, not a pub).
It was raining, but brought in a big umbrella for us, and we ended up playing
about half an hour, and selling lots of CDs.
Then at 4pm we played at a pub in Temple Bar called the Porterhouse.
The stage was so tiny that we had to all sit down, and we almost blew their
little speakers trying to get a decent sound. Nevertheless it was fun.
That evening we had another Gaiety Theatre gig. The sound in the soundcheck
was fantastic; then a different guy did the gig and it sounded shithouse
again (excuse the language). Apparently the front of house was great though,
which is what matters.
Fiona McVicar, an old viola/fiddle-playing friend of Tim's & mine
from SYO days was there. She's coming back to Australia soon. It was great
to see her; we've known her since she & I were about 10...
We got a great response from the crowd. Some people came along because
their band-mates were in the North and heard us on BBC Ulster, and rang
them to tell them they had to see us! Best quote: "I think you guys are
deadly!" [This is a big complement, and sounds fantastic with an Irish
accent.]
Standing outside afterwards I as approached by two girls, one Spanish
and one Potuguese, who got me to sign their CDs. They dictated the message
to me to write: something like "Con muchos besos" ("With many kisses"?
Probably an idomatic expression). Very cute.
When we got back to the hostel we were so hyped we didn't go to sleep
for another hour or more... The sun comes up at 4am or so, quite depressing
*chuckle*!
Consequently we didn't get up on Sunday the 27th till 1pm. Luckily it
was a free day. I rang Fiona, and Tim & I took the Dart (train) and
met her at Dun Laoghaire. From there we walked to the James Joyce museum,
which is in an old fort which he stayed in for a couple of days once. Very
interesting place. The walk to and from the museum was lovely, past the
ocean. On the way back we got crepes for lunch - delicious - and reminisced
about the past 15 years or so...
We went back into town and played 500 in the hostel room with Jordan.
Then in the evening Fiona took us to a real Irish pub (none of this touristy
nonsense) called Hughes, and we saw some great traditional session playing
that she was participating in. Basically a whole lot of musicians get together
in the pub and play music together, and other people sit around and listen
and drink stuff. Jordan and I had Baileys, one of the few things I'm willing
to drink.
On Monday the 28th we began driving around Ireland. Chris Teusner, one
of the two Aussie guys who'd organised the tour for us, drove us around
in his panel-van. First stop was Galway. We did a radio interview before
going to the hostel, which was remarkably similar to those we've done in
Australia. Then we had a little time to explore Galway. It's a very cute
place, a big town rather than a small city in my estimation (although it
calls itself a city). Nice streets going in odd directions, lovely people.
The venue we played in was amazing. It was a very old pub, with various
levels, and the venue bit was a separate higher level with two levels in
itself (confusing...) Once we FINALLY got our soundcheck (having been delayed,
and rescheduled to be the last act rather than the middle) the sound was
phenomenal - lots of bass, full and beautiful.
It was a real pleasure to play there... The band who played before
us were, amusingly, a rather standard bush-band type affair. It was very
weird to go on after them. But all things considered, for a Monday night
we had a great audience, and it was fun.
[Ha ha very funny - a note above this week in my diary says "Write another
Internet Diary Entry!" Try another couple of weeks... I've had NO time,
seriously.]
Tuesday the 29th: Another morning, another drive, another interview.
This time in Ennis. We played the Simpsons in the studio. The hostel we
were staying at had a laundry - BLISS! Mind you, it took hours (literally)
and I ended up going out before it finished. The drying also took a phenomenal
amount of time - I think they hadn't changed the machines since the place
was founded in 1257 or something.
Ennis is an even smaller town than Galway; the main streets are quite
cute in a quaint sort of a way, but I guess I'm really a city type...
The venue we played at was apparently the cool place to play. It was
a very nice bar, but we had to use our own sound system, which was a shame.
The audience started out very small, but by the end we had quite a
decent-sized crowd, and they loved us! We were told by one of the local
musicians that had we played another night or two we would have been packing
it out. We were told the same in a few other places in fact, including
Dublin. Anyway, amusingly, when we got to the end of the set someone shouted
out "Play the first one again! There were bugger all people in here when
you played it before!" He was right, so we did. Obliging people aren't
we?
We sold 18 CDs or so. This drunk French girl was telling me how amazing
it was afterwards, and desparately wanted a CD, but had no money. After
I tried to explain how to find us on the internet and order that way, a
friend of hers eventually lent her the money. All these crazy European
female fans, I dunno...
Wednesday the 30th: My diary entry begins "Bacon and egg roll for breakfast."
(A good start...) "Drove to Waterford, via stops along the way, boring."
(Oh well.) "Wandered around Waterford, also boringish, although quite nice."
What can I add to that? More of a city than the last two stops, but
nothing much of interest.
We played at the Garter Lane Arts Centre. Quite a different venue from
the last one, a central stage with seating going up a few rows on three
sides. We set up our speakers and got a good sound after a long soundcheck.
The gig was interesting, with the lights out and the audience sitting
and listening (! Yes listening!) It was actually a great audience, who
enjoyed it and bought 22CDs. Apologies for this but it's actually the best
way I can quantify the success of a gig.
When we got back to the hostel we were as usual too hyped to go to
sleep, and (Jordan, Lara, Tim and I) played 500 till all hours.
The next morning, Thursday the 1st of July, I as rudely woken at 9:45
or so to be told we had to do an interview for Friday live on a Northern
Ireland radio station. Well guess who got to get up, dress, and go downstairs
in no time flat to do the interview?
No not Tim, not Lara or Jordan... it was dear ol' Peteypie. Good interview
though, not that it got us an audience on Friday night. Ah well.
Thursday was in fact a free day. We drove back to Dublin, about half
way to our next destination, and stayed there. It was a lovely drive back
to Dublin, through rainy forests, very green and grey, very Ireland.
In fact, Ireland on the whole reminded my oddly of Australia. Perhaps
it was general homesickness, but I think also it was that it was another
English-speaking country where they drive on our side of the road, and
yet not UK. Somehow, the roads and the scenery seemed a bit like the scenery
we'd seen on the various FourPlay tours throughout summer. Perhaps it was
just doing a tour with FourPlay.
Speaking of which, it was immensely enjoyable to tour with everyone.
Jordan is great fun, and Lara and Tim are great company. We had a lot of
fun together, coming up with weird sayings and nicknames and playing silly
games.
We fully intended to go busking but it was raining slightly and we were
very tired. So Jordan, Tim, Lara and I went to the Winding Stair, where
I had yummy sandwiches and hot chocolate again, and we played 500. I found
one decent record store, called Freebird, and got one second-hand CD there.
Last time I had found the only other good store, called Road Records, with
a small but quite good electronic section downstairs called Big Brother
Records... That's all there is in Dublin I believe.
Then I found Hodges Figgis, a great multi-story bookshop, and had fun
there for a while, after which Lara and Jordan and I went and saw the incredibly
trashy not very scary but amusing enough movie The Mummy at the Ambassador
theatre.
That evening: you guessed it, played 500.
On Friday the 2nd, after internet at the hostel, we drove up into Northern
Ireland to Magherafelt, a town not far from Belfast. Considering the troubles
in Ireland at the moment, it was surprisingly uneventful. Indeed, tedious
would describe the drive quite adequately.
There was a rather "epiphanous" moment in the car drive up actually.
I was reading the July issue of Wire magazine (my fave music mag - see
comments in Part 1 of this entry) which I'd picked up the day before in
Dublin, and skimming the "in brief: classical" section my eye was caught
by something... Looked back to see what it was. A review of "FourPlay String
Quartet - Catgut Ya' Tongue?"
No kidding. I was completely floored. I hadn't sent them a copy as
we don't have UK distribution yet, but there was the revue, and all things
considered a very positive one too. Shame it was in the classical section
but there was nowhere more appropriate really. What's more they spelled
our name correctly, and in the label listings at the back they put my PO
Box and the FourPlay email address down for "Smart Pussy Records". I am
still now amazed by this...
The hostel we stayed in was incredibly new and the beds were extraordinarily
comfortable. In addition, there were strong showers whose heat could be
adjusted - I had a heavenly shower before the gig.
I haven't mentioned the showers in the Dublin hostel or the rest of
Ireland have I? Generally what you have to control the water is: A button.
Yep. A button. (It bears repeating). Like in some public bathroom sinks,
where you press it and get a flow of water for a minute or so. Only in
a shower, and in the hostel in Dublin you had to hold the damn thing down
to get the water to keep flowing at all in some of the shower booths. Insane.
In any case, the accomodation far outstripped the gig for me... The
venue was lovely, a very comfy homely pub. But the audience was extremely
scarce at the start and when it grew it was basically a bunch of very pissed
Irish people - similar in all respects to a bunch of pissed Australian
people. The sang along with gay abandon to the songs they recognized, and
were terribly enthusiastic. However, I'm convinced they weren't listening
to FourPlay as such at all, but rather to the songs in their heads. We
sold a big 5 CDs. I don't like drunk people, sorry...
Saturday the 3rd - back to Dublin. We got there just in time pretty
much to do another outside Temple Bar gig. Once again it was raining slightly
but we had an umbrella. The reception was tremendous. After the previous
night's low sales we were sure we'd have CDs left over. However, in half
an hour's set, with Jordan walking around with CDs in his hands, we sold
EVERY LAST ONE. That's about 55 CDs...
There were in fact 4 left after the first set, which we all signed
and then we sold them off one by one in the second set, with a "Guess that
tune" competition. It was quite sad to have turn people away who wanted
the CD. We probably could have gotten rid of another 20 or so. You just
can never tell what'll happen. But Ireland will be fantastic to tour again
next year.
After that gig, doing another gig at the Porterhouse was a bit of a
let-down. The audience was good though. Fiona McVicar, who I'd emailed
earlier, came during the second set, and after the gig, we all went out
to dinner in Temple Bar. After dinner, Fiona went home and the rest of
us went back to the hostel. Some of you may not know that Chris is staying
in England to live with his now wife, Rachel. Therefore the end of this
tour was pretty much the end of Chris's playing in FourPlay. Very sad,
but there's nothing we can do with one member in another country.
We shall have to work hard in the coming months to find someone new,
but I'm absolutely sure we will do so and by the summer we'll be up and
running with a strong new FourPlay, to tour Australia and go overseas again
next year.
Anyway, we had a meeting with Chris to talk about what we had planned
and all that. Afterwards, we went out to a couple of pubs with Chris Teusner
and Peter Baxter (yes, Chris & Peter) from Jimaru, who'd done an amazing
job organising this tour for us. They'd gone out of their way to help in
every way possible; we were very impressed.
After a little while in the second pub I got sick of the smoke and
alcoholic atmosphere and walked home. It was very beautiful to walk along
the river with a slight drizzle, listening to... you won't believe it,
but I can't remember what the music was on my discman! The horror!
Sunday the 4th was my last day in London. Thankfully they didn't lose
any of our luggage on the way back. However, what with all the London underground
trouble and the fact that it was a Sunday, it took ages to get home. I
went straight to my favourite Berwick St in Soho for a last visit to the
record stores there. Didn't get much.
Kirra had a hired car which had been paid for by someone for a gig
earlier that weekend, so she drove us around London a bit that evening.
I slept on the floor next to Tim & Willo again.
The next morning, Monday the 5th, I flew to New York, and here I still
am... The flight was 7 1/2 hours, fairly horrible but bearable. When I
got to New York the temperature was about 95F - that's something like 36
degrees Celcius. Quite a change! I managed to work out how to take the
subway to near Jacob's place and then walk from there.
Jacob is my oldest friend - I've known him since we started school
at age 5. It's very funny and quite cool to be staying with someone I've
known for 20 years, grown up with, but never lived with at all. He has
an apartment right in the middle of Greenwich Village - perfectly situated
so that one can walk anywhere in the downtown/midtown area. And guess what,
he has a computer connected to the net! It's still taken me a week to get
this diary entry done...
New York is an amazing place - enormous, built-up city for miles and
miles. With Jacob and his girlfriend I walked up Broadway and had a chocolate
milkshake, and went up the Empire State Building. Cliched though it is,
the view is spectacular from up there. It was a most enjoyable introduction
to the city, although the heat and pollution were truly suffocating.
The next day, Tuesday the 6th, was my first real day in New York. Just
for me, lover of hot weather that I am (BIG JOKE!), New York decided to
send the temperature way above 100, which in normal speak amounts to about
40 degrees Celcius. From the insane to the downright absurd. Nevertheless,
I bravely walked around downtown New York all day. I had a list of comics
shops to go to from Chris, and found St Mark's Place quite easily, with
St Mark's Comics. Great shop, although the shop assistants were intriguingly
in the dark about certain people and books.
St Mark's Place is a rather cool area, and I wandered around there
a bit more. In the evening we went out to dinner with some work friends
of Jacob's; Jacob went to his girlfriend's before getting home, and I walked
home listening to Coldcut's Journeys by DJ (so relieved to have remembered
that!)
Jacob didn't end up coming home *chuckle*, and I fortuitously met Lauren
on ICQ and had a long chat - most enjoyable.
On Wednesday the 7th I rang Lara in the morning, as she was in New York
for this first week as well - and Greta, pianist and singer/songwriter
in Lara & my other band Peccadillo, is living here for an indefinite
period of time. We arranged to meet at the Guggenheim in SoHo at 4pm.
In the meantime I discovered that right around the corner from where
I'm living is a fantastic record store called Kim's Video & Music Underground.
I spent some enjoyable time there with all the cool electronica and
"out-rock", and the guy there told me that they have an even better store
("Mondo Kim") in St Mark's Place. He also directed me to their main competition,
the fantastic Other Music, which is opposite the Broadway Tower Records,
on E.4th St.
(Yep, I can do New York speak if I want to...)
After visiting these stores I found, on E.5th St, a few blocks down
from St Mark's Place (which is actually E.8th St), the Downtown Record
Gallery. This is an absolutely amazing record store, stocking all of the
Tzadik-type "neo-klezmer" and so on that the Downtown New York scene is
full of. They actually handle the mail order for Tzadik (which is John
Zorn's label and the centre, perhaps, of the downtown "Radical Jewish Culture"
scene).
Behind the counter was this funny wiry 30-ish Jewish woman. I mentioned
some music I was interested in and she immediately started chatting to
me, about music, about being Jewish, anti-semitism, and whatever. On discovering
what I was interested in she declared that I had exquisite musical taste
and played me large amounts of extremely cool music.
Then at one point, the door opened and who walked in but... Mr John
Zorn himself! He picked up one of the shop's newsletters, said to Kat,
"You're Bruce's new help are you?", and walked out again! Damn, if only
he'd stayed I would've talked to him. What a legendary guy he is...
"My 20 seconds next to John Zorn". Nah, one day I'll get to meet him for sure. Anyway, I ended up buying 4 fantastic modern Jewish CDs.
When I met Lara and Greta at the Guggenheim, it turned out the SoHo
museum is shut on Wednesdays. Dang. So we went to a rather plush and up-market
cafe in SoHo (you should see the toilet, complete with couch and beautifully
framed mirror) and I had a great chocolate milkshake, which cost as much
as a car would in Sydney or thereabouts.
That evening I walked around Greenwich Village with Lara, following
the path described in my Lonely Planet guide, past various cool cafes,
the Blue Note club, and various other notable places. Whatever night it
is, The Village is alive and full of people, and many of the shops stay
open till 11pm or midnight. The upside of the hot weather is that you can
walk around all night in a t-shirt. Most pleasant.
In the evening I chatted to Lauren again for some hours. Noone else
was on ICQ but I've had some good email exchances with Chris... Contact
is good, as I'm starting to get rather homesick.
Thursday the 8th was spent with Lara again. We went to the Guggenheim
in SoHo (making sure it was open first) and saw an exhibition of Andy Warhol's
Last Supper paintings - endless variations and collages of the Last Supper,
some very clever and affecting, others very silly, but altogether quite
thought-provoking. Plus, the gallery was something of a peaceful haven
from the crowded, noisy streets.
We then walked up Broadway to Shakespeare & Co (great bookshop
related to the Paris one), Other Music, and Tower Records.
Lara went home and I went uptown to Jim Hanley's Universe, an enormous
very famous comics shop opposite the Empire State Building, where I spent
about an hour just browsing.
In the evening I saw The Phantom Menace in Union Square. A decent enough
addition to the Star Wars canon - the special effects are great, Natalie
Portman's very pretty and a good actor as well, as are Ewan MacGregor and
Liam Neeson. "The Fucking Jar-Jar" (as one reviewer astutely dubbed it)
is deeply irritating, and some of the script is absurdly bad, but all in
all who cares? It's a new Star Wars movie, hurrah!
Oh yes, and I had shawarma for dinner. As with Paris, it's about the
only
cheap half-decent food one can get. Jacob's kitchen is so small and non-equipped
(nothing to cook with at all) that take-away is essential.
Friday the 9th was a slow day. After waking up late and listening to
my new music, I met Lara at the original Guggenheim, and we saw a great
Surrealism exhibition there. The Guggenheim is an amazing spiral structure
inside, fun in itself, but seeing Dalis and Magrittes in person was pretty
fabulous.
I went back to Lara's cousin's flat on the upper east side for a while,
and then went home. Jacob had gone away to the mountains until Sunday,
but I wanted to see a gig the next night so I stayed.
Realising how little money I had left, and how damn tired I was starting
to become, I started getting more homesick and a bit depressed. I've almost
decided to come home a week earlier now; we'll see. New York is wonderful
but demands rather more energy and money than I have right now.
Saturday the 10th was, until the evening, a very slow day. Felt somewhat
lethargic and depressed, but eventually went out walking around. In the
evening I walked to the lower east side to a club called Tonic where Erik
Friedlander was playing, with Marty Ehrlich, a great Jewish jazz clarinettist.
Erik is an amazing cellist, who plays in Zorn's Masada String Trio. He's
a fantastic improvisor and I've wanted to see him perform for a long time.
The first set was with Marty Ehrlich's Dark Woods Ensemble, and was
basically Jewish chamber jazz - beautiful stuff. The second set was a much
weirder new work by Erik Friedlander, a kind of cross between avant-garde
jazz and contemporary classical, with the cello joined by Ikue Mori doing
amazing things with a sampling drum machine and delay effects, and a trumpet
and vibraphone as well.
A great introduction to New York's live music scene. I'll be seeing
lots more this coming week.
When I got back to Jacob's I rang home, pottered about on the computer
and then attempted to go to sleep, hindered by the loud drunk people outside
the various pubs and venues downstairs, and the fact that with the airconditioning
off it was suffocating and with it on it was too dry. I LURVE hot weather...
And that brings us, finally, after 5 weeks of travels this email, to
TODAY, Sunday the 11th. Feeling somewhat better, I went wandering around
the various record stores and comics shops again. St Mark's Place is a
great area, and warranted some good looking around.
I went back to Downtown Record Gallery, and the owner Bruce Gallanter
was there this time. He said "Didn't I see you at Tonic last night?" and
proceeded to play me amazing music for a couple of hours, and tell me about
his good mates Uri Caine, Erik Friedlander and so on... Pretty cool! I
managed not to buy a thing, but then rather ruined it by getting some great
new comics at St Mark's, and a second-hand CD at Mondo Kim's.
And on the way home I got a wonderful CD by the Tin Hat Trio at Tower
- they're a weird modern gypsy group from the West Coast, with violin/viola,
accordion and acoustic guitar. Very beautiful stuff which the sound engineer
was playing in between sets last night. All these purchases were cheap
even by US standards though... (CDs and books are MUCH MUCH cheaper here
than in Australia or Europe, by a factor of about 2/3 to 1).
Jacob was back and we went to a Thai restaurant next to the Blue Note
Jazz Club for dinner. I found a staple in the pork (no kidding! BEFORE
I had the mouthful though) and so we got one dish for free - the first
cheap meal I've had in New York *grin*
Lauren was on ICQ again, and so in between chatting with her, and exchanging emails with Julian from Monsieur Camembert, I have managed to finish this email in quite good spirits.
I'm still considering coming home early; either way you'll get the final
diary entry sometime in the next couple of weeks. Thanks everybody for
letting me write these enormous overly-detailed epistles. I hope that those
of you who read the damn things have enjoyed this one as much as the others.
I miss you all, and will be seeing some of you at least very soon.
Love,
Peter.
--
Also found at raven@fourplay.com.au
Peter: http://www.fourplay.com.au/me.html
FourPlay: http://www.fourplay.com.au/
Experimental Electronic: http://www.fourplay.com.au/sound.html