Jeff from We Versus The Shark is blogging his band's UK experiences on the road with Pulled Apart By Horses for Athens Georgia online arts magazine Flagpole. Thanks to both for allowing Jeff's tour diary to be carried on the STA blog and here's chapter 1.
First Installment: Jetlagged in Newcastle (22/03/09)
Flagpole readership is about as interested in that as we were in experiencing it. So we'll skip the awful terrible and get to Day 2: as of Tuesday, things were generally looking up for We Versus the Shark in our first bout of international touring!
We flew into London, via Washington DC, via Charlotte, via Atlanta. After crashing super-hard at our booking agent Dawnie's Bethnal Green apartment, we roused ourselves for a tube ride (THAT'S WHAT THEY CALL THE SUBWAY HERE, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES, ETC.) to a bar called the Mucky Pup. Each pint of Guinness came with a free shot of Jameson and the gratis jukebox was stacked with all the American classics: the Melvins, the Jesus Lizard, and the Stooges. Then, on four hours of sleep, we drove, via bus and van, the eight hours from London to Glasgow.
And these are the two themes of our journey thus far, officially four days in: long bouts of travel followed by blitzkrieg spurts of revelry. And I'm about as far from complaining as you can get, but as of yet, I've reached few concrete revelations about the differences between Yanks and Brits. Everyone's generally very nice, and beyond that, I'm too jet-lagged to really expound further. The West is the West is the West, I guess; I have to admit, however, that I sporadically wake up from naps in the van briefly terrified that we're about to have a head-on collision.
One thing I have thought about a bit is the subject of the Athenian doppelgangers of our lovely tourmates, the Leeds, UK-based band Pulled Apart By Horses. To wit:
PABH's Robert Lee = Gasmasks & Matchsticks' Tom Brandow
PABH's Tom Hudson (he's less bearded these days) = The Empties' Ben Wills
PABH's James Brown = Mouser's Colby Carter
and finally:
PABH's Lee Vincent = Reno 911's Ben Garant
Okay, minor cheating employed. Anyway: last night was our first show, we were fed tons of free vegan meals, and no one came. More to come!
Jeff Tobias
First Installment: Jetlagged in Newcastle (22/03/09)
Flagpole readership is about as interested in that as we were in experiencing it. So we'll skip the awful terrible and get to Day 2: as of Tuesday, things were generally looking up for We Versus the Shark in our first bout of international touring!
We flew into London, via Washington DC, via Charlotte, via Atlanta. After crashing super-hard at our booking agent Dawnie's Bethnal Green apartment, we roused ourselves for a tube ride (THAT'S WHAT THEY CALL THE SUBWAY HERE, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES, ETC.) to a bar called the Mucky Pup. Each pint of Guinness came with a free shot of Jameson and the gratis jukebox was stacked with all the American classics: the Melvins, the Jesus Lizard, and the Stooges. Then, on four hours of sleep, we drove, via bus and van, the eight hours from London to Glasgow.
And these are the two themes of our journey thus far, officially four days in: long bouts of travel followed by blitzkrieg spurts of revelry. And I'm about as far from complaining as you can get, but as of yet, I've reached few concrete revelations about the differences between Yanks and Brits. Everyone's generally very nice, and beyond that, I'm too jet-lagged to really expound further. The West is the West is the West, I guess; I have to admit, however, that I sporadically wake up from naps in the van briefly terrified that we're about to have a head-on collision.
One thing I have thought about a bit is the subject of the Athenian doppelgangers of our lovely tourmates, the Leeds, UK-based band Pulled Apart By Horses. To wit:
PABH's Robert Lee = Gasmasks & Matchsticks' Tom Brandow
PABH's Tom Hudson (he's less bearded these days) = The Empties' Ben Wills
PABH's James Brown = Mouser's Colby Carter
and finally:
PABH's Lee Vincent = Reno 911's Ben Garant
Okay, minor cheating employed. Anyway: last night was our first show, we were fed tons of free vegan meals, and no one came. More to come!
Jeff Tobias
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