05Oct02 -- Swansea (Patti Pavilion)
This is the part where I talk about the band's obsession with making bodily noises. It's inescapable, but these freaks relish it. It's a contest to see who can make the loudest belch or who can trumpet the definitive fart. I'm awakened by a chorus of farts -- as is the case every morning on the Shed. Someone, who will remain nameless, personally enjoys getting out of their coffin in the AM and ripping a few loose ones as they walk down the aisle. You nasty bastard -- g'morning to you, too. I've witnessed someone (who again shall remain nameless) climb up onto a row of chairs on hands and knees, drop their trousers and let loose an atomic roar, with another person (again, nameless) exclaiming, "Jesus Christ! I saw his ass quiver from the force of it!" Oh, the joy. Stilly I will name by person, however, because he wins the belch contest hands down. You can literally hear them from rooms away -- on different floors, even. His belches sound like the battle cry of the Hun army coming over the hillside. A trumpet heralding an arriving doom. Come to think of it, they sound amazingly like the roar of the Tuscan raiders from Star Wars. Exactly like it, matter of fact. I tell him so. It's a sincere compliment and he should know. He laughs and says thanks. "And accepting the award for most authentic Tuscan raider-sounding belch: Stilly!" "Thank you! I'd like to thank the academy, my fans... and most especially, my mum." From now on I refer to him as Stilly the Tuscan.

Now awake but anesthetized from the gas, I stumble out of the Shed. Mark is across the street on a wall overlooking the beach, which itself is overlooking the ocean. It's an absolutely beautiful morning. Sun, sand, water... it doesn't get much better. Mark, Jase, Jon and myself walk into town to find food. Along the way we stop in a tiny record shop whose owner has glasses thicker than Coke bottles, and hair so stringy and greasy that it looks like he hasn't bathed in years -- probably was the last time he saw a woman, too, by the looks of it. All of this is a sure sign that the store is going to have some precious good finds in it. And it does. A coupla more Killing Joke vinyl pieces (one a vinyl promo), and a 12-inch Cop Shoot Cop EP. Excellent! In the afternoon Dan, Jase, Dave the Driver and myself kick the soccer ball around, later on heading down to the beach for some frisbee tossing.

There's a good turnout tonight and I spend the first bit watching This Girl's set. Taproot left the tour after Cambridge, with the Kennedys moving up a slot and This Girl coming on as openers. Their emo sound is a nice change from the rest, and they're quite impressive. The guitarist seems to have a thing for wearing some different classic rock t-shirt every night. Whatever works. Tonight's is a Pink Floyd one. There are no working showers at the venue, so after the show everyone gets bussed over to the local university for a shower at one buildings. Somewhat inconvenient, but the showers rock all around, especially with the long-legged goth girl who is hanging around trying to figure out why some sweaty punker guys are on her hall using the showers.

Patti Pavilion shower rating: 0 out of 5 stars. Fix your showers ya cheap bastards!

06Oct02 -- Portsmouth (The Pyramids)
I am bored. Bored with waiting. Bored inside the Shed. Bored outside the Shed. Bored with myself. Bored with the sandwich products on the rider. Bored with alcohol. Bored of being bored. As Jim so eloquently put it last night in Swansea, "I'm seriously fucking bored."

But anyway...

This is the venue everyone in the band has been waiting for. The Pyramids... with several indoor swimming pools and slides where you can swim for free all day by just flashing your laminate. My problem: no one told me so I didn't bring any swim trunks. Bastards. After spending the morning walking along the pier, Jon and Jase head off for the pools. It's a madhouse of kids but you can make the pair out because they are the ones with the biggest grins on their faces as they queue up to ride the slides alongside dozens of kids. There's a World War II museum nearby and Jim, Dan and I plunk down the five quid for the tour. You gotta do what you gotta do to kill time. I'm starting to feel the onset of a cold. It was only a matter of time before it caught up to me. After the gig and before we roll out I sit on the sea wall and listen to the ocean roll in and out. There's a million fist-sized rocks below and after the waves come crashing in you can hear the tide pulling the rocks out to sea. The chorus of clatter is an interesting sound... very calm and relaxing. I spend a good half hour just listening to the sounds roll in and out.

Pyramids venue shower rating: 2 out of 5 stars. No showers in the main dressing room, you had to use either the Kennedys' or This Girl's showers.

07Oct02 -- Newquay (day off)
We're in the southwestern tip of England in Cornwall. The band have not played down here at all, but a few are familiar with the area and recommend Newquay as the ideal venue for a day off. It's a surf town -- touristy, but this is the off-season so there's no hordes of families wandering about with their cracker spawn. We all pitch in on motel rooms 'cuz we all need a break from the Shed for the night. The cold is coming full-on, but Dan keeps talking about the surfing here so we're on a quest to see if we can rent some boards. The math goes something like: surfing = no cold. It sounds logical at the time. So we walk up and down the tourist strip looking in the surf shops. The afternoon drags on but the plan for surfing never moves beyond the planning stages. I do, however, pick up a pair of trunks, 'cause back at the motel is a pool and a jacuzzi, which Mark, Jase, Jon and I make full use of. Only problem: the jacuzzi water temperature is hovering somewhere around tepid. Oh well. It's nice to swim, at least. Jon and I are bunking in the same room and somehow he was given the motel master key by the lady at the front desk. Go figure -- it would be Jon. That night we rendezvous with This Girl at a local pub and drink until curfew... which is at 11pm and is something I do not get. Apparently a hold-over from WWII when they wanted to make sure everyone got to bed at a decent hour so they could be up to press bomb casings at the factory in the morning. 50 years later it still hasn't been abolished... I guess. There are some places who can serve until later and so after we get booted out we find one a few blocks down the road. Inside there's a big decibel meter on the wall across from the bar. I suppose the reason for it is to keep a lid on the noise inside, but all it does for us is become a means to see who can scream the loudest to peak the fucker out. It's like the carnival "strong man" game where you hit the pad with a mallet to see if you can ring the bell at the top of the slide and impress the ladies. After much drinking to loosen the pipes up, we all give it ago. Jason wins hands down. Good god, I've never anybody scream that loud. The man has pipes! I'm surprised mirrors weren't broken and glasses shattered. I stumble blearily back to the motel, trying to remember which one was ours, deftly slipping the key quietly into the door and stumbling headfirst into my bed. I've replaced the stale, fart-filled air of the Shed for a motel room, but in doing so I also had to pony up a cold and what looks like is going to be another head-pounding hangover come morning.

Motel shower rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
Jacuzzi rating: 0 out of 5 stars. Get the heater fixed, bastards.

08Oct02 -- Truro (Hall for Cornwall)
I wake to what sounds like the rocks rolling out with the surf from back in Portsmouth. Wait... focus. It sounds like the clack-clack-clacking of dozens of insects. Wait... focus. I roll over to see that Jon has pulled out the nightstand between our beds to set up his laptop and is frantically tapping away on the keyboard. "Wake up you fucking Yank!" I flip him off, roll back over and pull the sheets over my head. After some head-pounding contemplation, I realize that sleep is not going to come, and so rub my eyes and have a look around. Jon has turned the room into a private studio and there's crates of recording gear strewn about everywhere in here. He's been formatting tapes to record the next four shows, as well as for work on other audio stuff he has been masterminding as part of some big hush-hush plan that I can only allude to but not spill the beans on. (That's the digs when you're part of a conspiracy, kids. Plus, it keeps you guys in rumors.) I cough and it rattles around the massive headache I have. Great, sick and hungover. "You look like you've been fucked by a rhino, Young." "Fuck off. That was Jim back in Wolverhampton." After realizing that the dwarves were not going to let up on the furious hammering they were giving my brain I get up, shower, and we head out for some breakfast before bus call. There's a tiny cabin down the cliff side and on the beach that the lady at the motel (the same one who gave Jon the master key) recommends. Joined by Liz, Dan, Jase and Mark, we head for it. A Greek salad eases the pain and before heading back up steps I fill a small plastic bag with some sand and a few shells. It's the thing I do when I travel, or ask of friends when they travel. I'm not one for postcards, but I love it when people bring back a bit of nature from where they've been. So whenever a friend travels I ask them to bring back some sand, an interesting rock or twig, a decent story at least.

On the short drive from Newquay to Truro I sit up in the back lounge watching the scenery roll by. Jon throws me some headphones and I put on the demos he's been working on for his LA-based music project, Doheny. It's a big departure from Pitchshifter's sound, but Jon wanted to take a different writing approach with the music. It's still really good stuff and makes for a good soundtrack to back the scenery. When we arrive at the Hall for Cornwall there's nowhere to park at the venue, so we hump the gear off and the bus parks several blocks away. It's only going to get worse over the next few gigs. Instead of the bus next to the venue and having to walk into town, the venue is in town and we're having to walk to the bus. Annoying, to say the least. Everyone splits to reconnoiter the area, and I end up several blocks away wandering through Truro's huge cathedral. There's some amazing artwork and architecture. I'm struck by how massive it is and the tools they had to work with at the time, and the irony that in today's "technologically advanced" world so many of the buildings that get built lack both style and craftsmanship, and we call it what... progress?

Before the show I help Dean the new merch man out for a bit. Darryl has split and he's been replaced by Dean -- one short, bald, stout little man/boy. Before the show Mark, Dan and Jase sign autographs and pose for some pics with several handicapped fans who are in wheelchairs. They're stoked to be spending backstage time with their idols, and it's one of those uber cool moments that will long be treasured. As mentioned previously, the band have never played here and the 1000-plus crowd are absolutely pumped. Up in the balcony filming I'm seated next to an older couple who look like someone's grandparents and who you would think should be watching the Glenn Miller Orchestra or some such thing, but definitely not here. They quickly prove me wrong. "I loved Black Sabbath back in the day," the lady tells me. "Always been a big metal fan." They love their Pitchshifter, too, and are ecstatic the band are finally playing Truro. I'm instantly enamored to the two and ask if they'll adopt me as their grandson -- I always wanted grandparents who rocked out to Sabbath.

Hall for Cornwall shower rating: N/A. Didn't use -- was still happily clean from a morning shower in Newquay.