This Town Needs Guns

Belgium - Tronquoy

We arrived at Tronquoy and the first impression was that this place was no bigger than Stonesfield (Oxfordshire). In fact, I am quite sure that they are of similar size and ilk; one village hall, maybe a pub, maybe a school, several stray sheep – who knows? We were greeted at Guillaum’s house (where we were staying) with many smiles, “Hello’s”, and “Bonjour’s” and very quickly we were made to feel very welcome. Then we ate, very well in fact; Belgian meatballs and french fries were on offer and simply amazing. Belgium is known for great beer and chocolate and now we can safely add Guillaum’s Mother’s cooking to this menu of taste supremacy. The vegetable soup (potage) was a favourite of mine and it smelt great. We were met by Phillipe and a few others of the Luxembourg contingent, who have already watched This Town Needs Guns twice before. Going back to the food, it just kept coming and at this rate we’d all be settling down for an afternoon nap, but we had a task to complete in taking our equipment to the venue. The great meal and talking had meant that we didn’t get a soundcheck but that was okay as we had longer to just wander around and kick our new gaffer tape football around. Unfortunately we later left said ball at the aforementioned village hall. There seemed to be quite a few people here already though I am sure they were just bored and sitting in the car park.

The room filled up and the first band picked up their guitars.

Okay, we are fairly open minded guys, some of us like marmite, some like Tegan and Sara, but what came next was just the most inexplicable turn of events I have ever witnessed at a gig. The lights of the stage came on, the main hall lights dimmed and in a classic ‘flat-back-four’ formation Cabin Fever lined up, facing away from us, which was in itself not so strange, until Tim pointed out all of the band were each sporting radio-packs. Then came the Eurovision-esque electro beat, possibly even more contrived…which sounds impossible. The band then started jogging around the place like a group of jazzercise enthusiasts. They had choreographed their eurobeat-metal set with extreme precision. Legs akimbo, guitars pointing to the ceiling, but all still looking like a bunch of sixth-formers, they cantered around the place like a boy band, only with riffs and screaming; very German. The bass player was a stunt-double for our friend Matt, which made it almost impossible for us not to find it amusing. Running on the spot, really ‘forced’ guitar acrobatics helped them look less like they were rocking out and more like a goat milking apprentice at a Welsh farm hanging up christmas decorations in July.

I laughed so much. Nothing had prepared me for them. HOWEVER, they had somehow acquired a group of fans; a similar ilk of like minded guys fit to be on a gap year who had a very specific style of dancing to the band: roundhouse kicking the air, regardless of there being a crowd. One of their most potent fans had a black neckerchief over his face and a hood on and every now and again would look very angry indeed, curse the floor, curse the ceiling, curse himself, do a staggered chicken dance a few paces forward and release a mid air acrobatic reverse roundhouse, he also ran at a line of people and tried to push everone over as fast as he could. The guy also rolled a cigarette to look like a joint, which I watched, he only put tobacco in it…that also struck me as being very odd. There were other such things I’d never seen like a drum cameo for the band after, and a small blond chap after the set screaming for about 2 minutes.

Afterwards a post-rock style band played who were good, and loud, very loud, so I sought refuge outside and breathed in the Belgian air.

We played well and it was nice to be at ground level with people standing close by as we trundled through the set. It was nice to see people smiling still; something which had seemingly been going on since we first arrived in Tronquoy. Although we didn’t mic anything up, I think the sound was good and the vocals were loud, but maybe because the PA speakers were behind our amps as someone mentioned there was a lack of definition in the vocals. Well anyway, I felt that our playing tonight was good so we had few complaints.

There was a man sporting a t-shirt which read ‘Fuck You You Fucking Fuck’ – a bold statement.

We stayed at the venue for a while; there was a DJ and there was still beer to be drunk. Guillaume’s parents were helping organise this event; his mother was on the door his father was cooking food for people. Tim had been presented with a bottle of Picon a l’orange by Team Luxembourg for his birthday. It’s something you put in with your beer; it makes the beer taste good and apparently gives you a severe hangover. We had hoped to locate this vodka and apple drink we had last time we were with the Luxembourgish, in Köln. Sadly though they couldn’t figure out what this much enjoyed drink was and how to acquire it, I think it was just apple juice and vodka. We drank a little and then went to bed. The next day an equally impressive table of food was on offer and a lunch from Family Brevers. I think I may move in with them. We had a group photo and then set off for Luxembourg.

Wiesbaden

On arrival we were greeted by Denis, who was pretty darn funny. Tim asked to put Tony on the guestlist and the answer was: “What? TONY MAHONY?! TONY CALAMARI?!” which put us all in a strange place for several minutes. We took our time to digest what was said and then had a soundcheck. The venue was similar to Fibbers in York due to the strange cake slice shape of the stage. We had a great dinner comprised of nutty nut nut burgers, non-calendar dates, baby pork cylinders, ham deltoids, mince pies, MINI mince pies, and clown nose fruit. It was actually a fine feast; it was as if Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall himself had made us a five bird roast, but substituted four birds for pasta, salad, ham and a tiny ice trinket housing a small photo of Bob Geldof. I really liked the fact that the headline band appeared to have Jamie Hyatt of PMT fame as their singer and the bass player was a Kevin McCloud stunt double. I tried to figure out if any of the others looked like other people also, however the best I could do was the drummer looked like Josh from Drake and Josh. He didn’t. There was a children’s book we found named ‘Unser Schnuffi’, which made us laugh and we took it upon ourselves to say ‘Unser Schnuffi’ in distressed old lady Ukrainian voice. “Please, Unser Schnuffi”. The book hinted at the jejune love of a canine, possibly named Schnuffi.

I missed a note in Baboon as I started to think about Kenan and Kel Season 3 Episode 18: ‘He Got Job’ (1999) - where Kel gets a job in a doughnut shop and somehow makes a giant doughnut and gets doughtnut mix everywhere - the resulting melee was hilarious, especially when the boss came back. Kenan helped him I think, even though he was meant to be working at Rigby’s.

The set went well despite the fact that the soundman was under the misguided assumption that the only thing in our band is drums and that we were actually a WASP tribute band. It was pretty bad but then we were playing in the rather minatory sounding ‘Schlachthof’ meaning ’slaughter house’ in German, which would explain the pheasants, and the ghost of a pig which ran past during ‘And I’ll Tell You For Why’.

OH! I almost forgot, one of the first band looked like Hootie, only blonde and 60s styled, he was a very agreeable gentleman and he knew his scales. The first band were a fine bunch of chaps actually. There was some random guy who was eating the very phallic-shaped pear from the fruit bowl which we’d noted previously in the night, I couldn’t quite tell if he was doing it to be funny or if he was hungry. Anyway it was like he was stuffing a green, speckled cock into his mouth, very euro-homo-erotic and not much more needs to be said about this event. It took about two hours to get everyone ready to go for a drink in a bar and then Denis appeared with a bottle of Jägermeister, the onus of leadership had been tough on Denis. We got a taxi with ‘Boss’, I don’t think he was named Boss by his mother but he was talking about how his girlfriend lived in Croydon, which was pretty weird given how far we were from Croydon. He gave me his card and said if I ever need a taxi to Heathrow to call on The Boss. Then he wheelspan and jettisoned himself into the murky night, he was a good friend of Ghost Rider I am told, only his head was not on fire, but he made us aware that his girlfriend caused a fire in his loins… sick, and not a good sick, a very, very bad sick.

It was Tim’s birthday, the air was calm, the bar was open, the DJ was actually a German Meatloaf lookalike, the tunes were rolling; Kate Bush, Tiffany, Swing Out Sister, Beautiful South, Paula Abdul; we were bombarded with the 80s UBERHITZ but Meatlöaf was just getting started, his main course was the sexiest fatman dance my eyes have ever seen, thrusting in time to everything - he seldom skipped a beat. He was slick - like a seal’s coat, he was mean - like Earthquake & Typhoon (Natural Disaster), he knew his way around a DJ booth, but wait, the music has stopped, did his computer just crash? What a joker. There were boos, then on came some more tunes and we soon forgot his misdemeanour, letting him off with a caution. I asked for a classic German shout out for Tim Collis. I wanted something like “Hey, Tim, Happy Birthday Ja!!! LET THE ROCK ABSORB YOU” but the DJ just said to me “Lionel Richie?!”. That had to do, but as soon as it came, it was awesome ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!’ I went on a quest to the bar and 30 minutes later had my drinks poured, only to see them given to someone else and have the bar man vanish. We walked home with Denis leading the way. He took Tim to one side and asked us not to trash the place, which was funny as we respect the arena that is SCHLACHTHOF.

On arrival at the slaughter house, Blonde Hootie began passing around a ‘fat bifta’ which was lights out and we went to sleep in the triple bunk bed, the middle bunk was definitely the hardest to get into, given that we weren’t seven year olds. The morning arrived and we had a nice breakfast. I found a football made of gaffer tape so we bailed and drove through forests and over hills to Belgium. Will be ace to see the Luxembourg guys again, as I am told they are going to be there. So probably will stay awake until 8AM.

Leipzig

We have already been to this venue Café Mule once before so we know we are in store for some good food. We weren’t let down! On arrival it was espressos all round and a tea for Stu. The guy who was helping us with this evening, Ole, is pretty damn awesome. We had Internet access and there were nice fridges full of all types of nice tasting things. There was Afri-cola, which is awesome, so we had a few bottles of that, it has a sky high caffeine content for a domestic cola, and the slogan is “Everything is in Afri-Cola”. Great. I always wanted a drink which contains EVERYTHING; PCP, gerbil extract, Last of the Mohicans Special Edition 2-disc DVD, 12 onions, a signed Pete Waterman photograph, 5 grammes of talc, the entire back catalogue of Pearl Jam - what a drink, well with 250mg/L of caffeine, compared to Coca Cola which is about 95mg/L and Pepsi at 105/L that is a lot of caffeine.

The gig was great and although the venue is small, the sound I felt was good. We set our amps up in a kind of wall behind Chris, it looked pretty awesome. We signed lots of the European Tour posters and people were all very nice. Café Mule like a really nice version of the Port Mahon (Oxford) in a way. Sat Nav tells us we are about 5 miles from the centre of Leipzig so really we aren’t expecting too much from the show. There were more people than last time but apparently none of the people had seen us play before. That was pretty dry. The only one person who attended the last time we were in Leipzig was Ole, who works there! So he counts but not as much as if a superfan turned up with a tattoo of Stu’s face on his left deltoid.

We had pretty much a free beer tap, though all we managed was one beer each, but it was in a tall, tall glass with a handle - very German. I felt mildly patriotic whilst drinking, despite the fact that I am not actually German. I still wept with glee and murmured ‘Meine frau, ich möchte meine frau’. No one heard my plea.

Also we left our German phrase books at home so no more questions of the calibre ‘where is the nearest place I can get a crown on my bottom left molar’ - though there is something a bit unappealing about hanging out with a dentist in Germany. I am sure their dentists are very good, I just picture them being mildly cannibalistic and having a vast array of tiny serrated instruments. This is besides the point; last time in Leipzig I initiated phase eleven of the Morrison Language Conquest; asking for more butter, I wasn’t understood by the lady who seemed best fit to rectify my butter deficit. After a guffaw from outside and a dog with a piece of salami stuck to him we left Leipzig and set off for a 5 hour journey to Wiesbaden.

Germany

Berlin

We drove for 6 hours and after becoming extremely bored of our music collection, we arrived in Berlin at 2200hrs; 6 hours after we set off. We are staying at a friend’s house, which is awesome. The first thing
I drank was thyme tea. We ate and then went out into the mean streets of Berlin…or not so mean. Anyway, our first stop is in possibly the smokiest bar I have ever been in - we left pretty much straight away and went to an off-license. I bought some Capri-sonne (Capri Sun). Chris opted for the cherry ale, Tim the lime beer, Stu the Flensburger. Quote of the day is from the film Taken:

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

I wasn’t paying particular attention and fell asleep listening to Vashti Bunyan.

The following day we walked around Berlin, visiting the Berlin Wall and reading the thousands of words contained in the obtuse graffiti. There were some favourites like ‘Wigan boys woz ‘ere’ and ‘live your life as if it’s your last’ - deep, but incorrect. Before this, however we’d eaten at a place which sold orange coffee, which sounded pretty nice to me. Tim however found the idea vomit inducing. The amount of dog excrement on the streets of Berlin is something which far surpasses anything I have experienced since the legendary ‘dog-shit ally’ in the village where I grew up. This ally which was behind a row of grey houses and a shortcut to the local Londis, played host to excrement of every colour, shape, and consistency. There were also faded coke cans, empty discontinued crisp packets, stinging nettles, barbed wire and it was said that there was a secret cache of pornography hidden by older inhabitants of the village. Me and my friends never found the famed ’stash’, I believe it was a red-herring of sorts; a beard for the actual location of said two-dimensional eroticism.

I digress, we visited a music shop which on entry looked like a Weimaraner (a Germanic gun dog) was the shop keeper; I asked him in a deep voice if he had any flange pedals… I didn’t really, we bought a few things and then made it back to the flat we were staying. We arrived at the venue after a pretty hairy drive through down town Berlin, by which I don’t mean we had our van pulled by huskies, but it seems that every taxi driver in Berlin is completely destroyed on methamphetamines and in a terrible rush.

We were playing at a venue under a train track named Bang Bang Club. We were support to an American band who got paid about ten times what we were (despite us bringing most of the crowd). Oh well! We played pretty well up until someone requested ‘Belle and Sebastian’; we haven’t practiced this song much at all and I think it showed. Our set seemed really short even though we played 7 songs. It was a great show anyway with lots of people and a very kind crowd. I liked the venue and the sound was pretty awesome, we had a German sound lady named Mia (I think) and the American band had this middle-aged guy from the UK with a beard. WE WIN!!! We stayed for a drink afterwards and then our friend Britta, who had recently moved to Berlin took us to a bar which had glass cabinets full of aliens, which sounds like a wild fallacy, but I assure you that someone had taken the time to construct a variety of beings; horrid intergalactic mutants were everywhere; silver bodies, corrugated tube arms, one outlet for possibly several functions, and a head which resembled a rotten King Edward potato.

Tuesday came and we met the Collis’ parents and walked around various places of interest to tourists. We met at the Brandenburg Gate and went for some lunch at a nearby delicatessen. I found the service pretty unsound; the lady behind the till with a badge which read ‘Madam Blanc’ was extremely rude to a few of us. Perhaps she has a problem with English people. In any case, she can eat it! If you are reading this Madam Blanc, we all think you are a wizard wresting raven licker. Though the food was really quite good, no food is worth what happened next. An altercation ensued and Madam Blanc elbow dropped me and hurled me into the turnbuckle. The crowd crowed and coughed as she won the title and my career in the WCW was over. That last line didn’t happen.

We then went on a quest to find Hitler’s secret underground bunker ‘Führerbunker’, where Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide, oh and also where he shot his poor dog (an alsatian named ‘Blondi’). But we spent a while looking blankly at bins and bushes and other things beginning with the letter ‘b’. We gave up the ghost and hit the Holocaust museum which was a colossally sobering affair. The beginning of the museum was a history lesson on what exactly happened to the Jewish population of Europe during WW2. And it doesn’t make for pleasant reading in the least, I found myself with a lump in my throat reading at the atrocious and absurd treatment of Jews, the mentally disabled, homosexuals and anyone else seen ‘unworthy of living’ in the eyes of the Nazi Party’s very thorough and systematic cleansing of their territories in the war. People were shipped in their thousands daily from their homes and transported several hundred miles, thinking they were going to work somewhere else as prisoners, but on arrival at places such as Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, were murdered immediately. Men shot, women and children gassed with engine fumes in the back of vans. So it was a very sombre affair indeed reading letters to and from loved ones and then reading just how delusional the ideas behind the holocaust were, how sickeningly ruthless the genocide became and the gargantuan scale by which it was undertaken. Roman Polanski was a survivor of the Holocaust.

I left and sat in the sun with Chris, thinking how lucky I am, I also felt sorrowful.

We walked around the Reichstag building - this is a Government building which was built to house the Reichstag; the first parliament of the German Empire. It was colossal, but apparently had been a ruin until the reunification of Germany. We sat by a rather nice river. Some of the buildings in this city are breathtaking and make you feel like a field mouse in comparison. After sitting for a while we upped and left for a beer before Tim and Chris went one way for dinner, and Stu and myself the other. BUT! we saw Bill Nighy and the cast of the film “Radio Rock Revolution”, I only know this as there were posters up in the Berlin U-Bahn. One of the guys on the boat looked like Marc West, and that is fine by me! Stu was telling us that Nick Frost was in the film, none of us knew who he was.

The rest of the evening was the following:

Thai chicken and rice (it was AMAZING)
Berliner beer
Strange tea blends (lemongrass, cinnamon etc.)
An American with a ukulele
Helping someone with a broken thumb enter their flat
Avoided dog effluent

Stu and I went to watch a couple of bands. The first were good in places with a female drummer, I forget the name. The second band was two guys, one with a ukulele and they sang songs about women, bands and living in the US. He was named Dent May and the crowd were loving it; he couldn’t put a foot wrong. He had a song which went ‘HOWARRRRRD, HOOOOWWWARD, HOOOOWWWWAAAARRRRD’S GOT A ONE MAN SHOW.’ He reminded me of the singer from Saves The Day and there were a lot of ‘Ooooh la la la’s. They did a cover of the Prince song ‘When You Were Mine’; Cyndi Lauper also covered this and her version was better than both Prince’s and Dent’s versions put together (in my opinion, which doesn’t reflect the thoughts of the rest of This Town Needs Guns, it’s management, fans, booking agents, parents and all associated beings).

There was also a bar with a huge photocopy of a cat wearing a glass on it’s head. The inside was a Laawerence Lllewellyn-Bowen classic: furry pink and red walls, zebra seats, a black ‘mood wall’ - it had everything. It was a bit Pro-Tournament Lesbian Cyber Goth so we decided maybe it wasn’t for us. I mentioned it looked like the inside of a womb which cause a bit of anxiety in the ranks. After this we had a few drinks which included: milk and honey, more Berliner beer and a tequila sunrise. Then we had pizza from a place where the pizza chef had to ask our friend (the only German speaker amongst us), several times what the order was. When it finally surfaced it was very good. I opted for tuna and jalapeño. We went home to sleep after a pretty enjoyable evening.

We left for Leipzig, both Collis brothers were pretty wiped out and slept for the journey. Stu and I listened to I Was A Cub Scout. We fed some small birds chips and one flew off with a chip the size of his body, it looked like a tiny aeroplane going to a tiny Costa Del Sol.

Start Oxford 5:30
I awoke with a bruise on my elbow.
The first thing I can remember from sleep was being on the set of ‘Who’s The Boss’ starring Tony Danza.
We collected Stu at 6:30am.

Belgium
Keep left.
Stay in the left lane.
Stay in the left lane.
Keep left.
etc.

Holland - Groningen - Viadukt
I spent a majority of the evening weighing up the consequences of helping myself to a rather nice Trail of Dead poster, screen printed on a nice thick stock. It wasn’t really such an issue but the manager of the venue taped it to the wall and he had his keen eye on me, perhaps I have a shit poker face; it was as if we both knew we were martial arts experts and one was waiting for the other to throw the first dragon punch. I finally took the poster down, removed the aforementioned gaffer tape and put it down to being in the name of artwork. I used all of my beer tokens despite not actually wanting to drink; I am no fan Grolsch at the best of times but as I am unsure carbonated water exists in the flatlands, it was that or ride the waves of dehydration.

The venue was pretty much awesome. There is an arts council which fund venues and gigs, the venue itself was under a bypass, or the Dutch equivalent, hence the name. There was backlit-with-red-lights tree bark on the wall at the back of the stage.

The gig went well, although the bass guitar hit a symbol, went out of tune and started to sound like a wounded seagull mid Gibbon. The set was fun, however some witty, enterprising young gentleman shouted ‘gazelle’. Actually he didn’t shout ‘gazelle’; instead opting for something a little less creative, like ’spider’. Or he could’ve been making a reference to Van der Valk, episode 5 whereby a woman is slain with the poison of the bird eating spider. Anyway, he was a mere parody of a comedian. The manager of the bar reminded me of a dutch Keifer Sutherland, sans-attitude, sans-muscles, although he had a nice mature number hanging off of his arm, because he could. I imagine she was addicted to his musk.

Typical Dutch person: “Hey! Look! That van is yellow, I can’t believe what my eyes are seeing, maybe”. This provided Chris and I with something to laugh about. The windows of the back of the van are blacked out, therefore we can see Dutch drivers getting totally smoked out at our yellow van. I have started to hallucinate due to hunger; I had some toast this morning, I brought my own marmite - which sounds like a much applied euphemism at a Turkish orgy - but it isn’t.

We collected all of the amplifiers and other things synonymous with playing a gig and were greeted by a metal band drinking beer outside the venue at about 1400hrs. Rad one. We stopped, despite a distinct lack of the halting of our yellow van, at a services named ‘SCORE’ only to leave straight away.

I feel like I should tell the Dutch authorities that a number of their wind turbines are not actually turning. I think I saw a single one in about 53 which was functioning. Perhaps they rely on an aggressive man hooked up to a kinetic generator called Peit (the aggressive man I mean), to supply their ample cities with the power to rehearse heavy metal. I have shown a lack of knowledge about green energy, then again I know nothing of the innards of a combustion engine either.

Photo’s:

Another video of ‘Chinchilla’:

Royston!

So as you are hopefully aware, we have been busy the last couple of weeks whilst on tour in Europe. We’ve had a great time and enjoyed meeting so many new people. Thanks to all of you who came along

Jamie has volunteered to do the tour diary writing honours this time and I can tell you that the unedited version is great. Hopefully I can start putting stuff up over the next few days.

We’ve got a few unexpected gigs coming up in June with Joan of Arc. We’re obviously really excited to be playing with them, and we get to see some friends of ours at the shows in London, Oxford, Leeds and Sheffield. Bonus!

Last but not least. ‘Animals’ is now available to buy in the US and Canada for $5.99 from i-tunes. It’s only for a limited time, so be quick.

TTFN TTNG