PART THREE
Jolene, as it turns out, are the guinea pigs. The lab rats. The little white mice being injected with ebola. That is, the Jolene UK Tour '99 is the first for our promoters, the Cosmic American Music Club. Hmmm. I hear crickets. And the clinking sounds of spilled pint glasses echoing cruelly off the walls of empty clubs from London to Glasgow. But then again my finely tuned rational approach to life and the world sometimes shows a dark edge bordering on pessimism. John, on the other hand, isn't nervous at all. He hears the raucous applause of sold-out rooms filled with adoring fans we never even knew we had. But then again John's finely tuned positivistic approach to life and the world sometimes shows a rose-tinted perspective bordering on delusion.
The reality of the matter usually falls somewhere in between. It's a relationship that works. Usually.
Friday:
We all fly into London a few days before our first show at the Camden Underworld. I am coming from L.A., John and Rodney from Charlotte, Chris from New Orleans, and James from New York, so we decide on a rendezvous at one of our favorite Central London pubs, the Angel.
We trickle in one by one, grab our pints (Guinness for me - it's better over there) and gather around an outside table. It's chilly and kind of rainy but somehow it is what one expects (living in L.A. I find myself embracing terrible weather just for the novelty of it) so we huddle around our warming pints of beer and wait for the entourage to be complete. Nic West has joined us and we now wait for the man of the hour, Mick Spencer. None of us have met him so we are anxious to discover what this visionary is all about (aboot).
Chris begins to wax irritated about all the trials and tribulations he is experiencing as a member of the platinum band SNZ and has worked himself up into a "I hate this business and the people involved" lather. Understandable considering all the management problems they've had as well as the label-wankers for whom they toil. Chris has envisioned Mick as a slick, sunglasses-at-night-wearing, velvet and leather covered, puddin'-bowl-haircut, London hipster. Which Mick most definitely is not. But the minute Mick walks in Chris begins to playfully, but vehemently, berate him for being an exploiter of musicians (one of Chris' theses is that efficiency and profit in the music business is based on how effectively one exploits the musician - I'll let him go into the details at some other time). Mick doesn't know quite what to make of this raucous, red-haired, stick insect and seems to be getting a little perturbed. Chris is speaking in a loud, exaggerated redneck accent and talking about how excited he is to be in 'London, Europes' but how Mick better not "fuck with us country boys unless he wants to get fucked" etc., etc… I whisk Chris and his girlfriend Brooke out of the Angel and into Soho to The French House. It seemed like the thing to do before there was a fight. Brooke and I would calm Chris down, ply him with lager and convince him that his little act was probably not the best thing for the first meeting with our promoter. He could hone the finer points of his performance art piece some other time.
I chose the French House for a couple of reasons. One, it is one of the great bars in the world. It is in the heart of Soho on Dean Street and for the better part of this century has attracted all kinds of actors, writers, and musicians. The likes of Edith Piaf, T.S. Eliot and Richard Burton (and me) have all crowded into this tiny, marvelous little place and thrown down massive quantities of booze. Two, as it is so small and convivial, one is forced into a good-spirited communion with whomever one might spill beer on. It is simply one of those places that has an almost magical quality about it where stress and irritability simply aren't acceptable. I felt certain that when Mick and the others eventually joined up with us, Chris would be transformed and the tension would dissipate. Wrong.
We settle into the best corner of the place around a little table and are joined by an unknown lawyer who simply gets Chris even more riled up. He starts asking questions about the biz and Chris relates to him some typical horror stories. The lawyer is aghast saying that that sort of behavior simply would not wash in other industries and goes against the immutable grain of professional ethics etc. We simply say "Yeah, we know." The lawyer leaves and Mick and the rest of the guys show up. Chris starts in again. We strategically maneuver our positions so that Chris can't really get near enough to Mick to keep badgering him. The bar closes (at 11:00 - which is a good thing in this case - anymore booze might have just thrown gasoline on the fire) and the party dissipates. Having made friends with the three ladies seated next to us (you always make new friends at the French), I wander off with them to a late-night club in Euston and hear Mick declaring that if Chris keeps it up he'll "kick him". Yippee.
Saturday - London:
We gather where I am staying in Hampsted, pop out for a nice lunch at the Spaniard's Inn (former haunt of Dickens, Shelley and Dick Turpin), a brisk walk on the Heath, and then return for an acoustic rehearsal. This is the first time that all five of us have played together and it goes great. We figure that with the four hours we'll get on Sunday at the club before soundcheck we'll be in the house. No worries.
It is Bonfire Night (celebrating Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up parliament) so we head out to Primrose Hill to watch the fireworks and then meet up with my friend Ben (from Agnes and the Cocteau Twins) at the Holly Bush pub in Hampsted. Ben is letting us borrow a couple of guitars. Bless his little heart. Between begging (Peavey for amps, Ludwig for drums) borrowing (guitars from everyone) and stealing (drummer Chris from the Zippers) we're gonna be able to do this thing WITHOUT going into debt to a record company. If that's the way it has to happen, then that's the way it has to happen. We ain't proud.
Sunday - London:
The show tonight is at the Camden Underworld. We are looking forward to the performance, getting to see some of our London buddies who we haven't met up with yet, and watching the fireworks that will come with Chris and Mick's first meeting since Friday.
We get there early so we can get in a good rehearsal before soundcheck. A few snafus have surfaced (do 'snafus' surface?). Ludwig's supplier in London won't give Chris the drumkit that the American rep had arranged so Chris has had to rent a kit from another company. This is no bueno. We simply can't afford to rent a kit for the whole tour. We scramble and finally manage to contact Mike Chylynski from the band Drugstore who says we can borrow one of his kits for the rest of the tour. Pshew. Thanks Mike. You're a saint.
The next snafu is worse. They let us into the club early but they don't turn on the stage power so we can't rehearse full volume. Great. The show where there will be the most important industry people and all our friends and we have to do it un-rehearsed. But we are, as I've said before, highly adaptable and experts at making silk purses out of sow's ears. It'll be spontaneous, improvisational and great. In the dressing room we are running through the songs and Chris is playing on this big wooden box that had been used for shipping Scotch I think. It is sounding pretty cool and adding this sort of skiffle, busking, Celtic bodhran feel to the material. We think this would be great for in-store performances or if we have to go to the nearest town-square to busk for lunch money. We finish soundcheck and things are a little shaky but not worrisome. At least for me. Chris and John seem a little antsy as I run upstairs to sort out our guest list.
When I get back the drum kit has been replaced by the box. Chris has decided he wants to play the box rather than the drums. He feels it will give him a more favorable margin of error while he is still familiarizing himself with the songs. It seems like a drastic step but in the interest of adaptability and the creative experimental spirit we go with it.
The show is spontaneous, improvisational, and great. I felt a little art-faggy with the box, the cello and the turtleneck sweaters we all had to wear because the club was freezing but the audience response was enthusiastic and enlivening. They didn't seem to notice how art-rock we were. Or at least they were polite enough not to heckle us or throw fruit. And Chris and Mick didn't even get into a fight. I think the box went a long way into explaining Chris' rather peculiar character to Mick. And one conversation with Mick is all one needs to realize he's doing this because HE LOVES MUSIC.
Mick, Nic West and Bob, the London
promoter and Mick's partner in the Cosmic American Music Club, all loved
the show. And perhaps most important of all we sold a bunch of CD's. At
least we won't have to busk tomorrow for lunch money.