SLOWSECRET

S L O W S E C R E T

NOVEMBER 09

TRESPASSERS WILLIAM TOUR DIARY

OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2009

After (it's going to take me while to work this one out) ???? km's, 96 loads/unloads and 31 cheese sandwiches, returning to the city of Leeds post 5 weeks of being on the road with Trespassers William and Glissando was a strange sensation. a heart and head full of memories, thoughts and experiences. This is some kind of tour diary. I opted to start the tour diary half way through the tour after Glissando had done it's share. I'm not sure why.

Day 20

Another goodbye to Leeds and we make for Dover in Tim's (Glissando) car after our van gave in two days ago. Glissando is shed and we are three. Matt is driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road - being American and all. We make the ferry by a minute and head out into the dark night on French roads in the rain. Today we are traveling to a F1 'hotel' en route to Vitoria in the north of Spain. Seeing as it's a 20 hour drive we figured we should sleep at some point.

Jessica - our GPS for the tour has developed a love for roundabouts that don't exist.

Day 21

It's still raining but it magically clears as we hit the Spanish desert. Weird. I've never ventured to Spain before so another new country is ticked off my list. Matt and Anna-Lynne can both speak reasonable Spanish so I'm in the hands of the Americans. Vitoria seems a reasonable place, we eventually find the seemingly invisible venue inside the University. People are friendly, the stage is huge and get taken for drinks/pumpkin after the show and put up in a band flat which is quite lovely.

Day 22

In Spain you can't buy cigarettes at service stations. However you can buy draught beer. Interesting.

More desert and open roads and Don Benito arrives like a Mexican town in the middle of nowhere. The first thing we see what looks like an 8 year old kid on a motorbike who seems to have taken a liking to me drinking a bottle of wine in the front of the car. He rides in front of us for 10 minutes looking back and laughing.

Vegetarians don't exist in Spain so the promoter for the eveing takes us across the road to a lovely restaurant where we eat a lot of veg and drink a lot of wine.

The show cool, if not a tad noisy from the other bar. I fall in love with a puppy. We retire to our hotel and can't find the bathroom which suddenly appeared from behind the door we had opened into our room. Idiots.

Day 23

We hit the road for Lisbon but barely get going before the Spanish police decide they are going to pull our pants down and give us an on the spot speeding ticket of 98 euros despite the fact we did the whole journey to that point behind a learner driver. Motherfuckers.

It seems in Spain that they don't like toilet seats. This is kind of annoying. We drive past many castles and cows and drive into Lisbon. Jessica seems to know the way before the road she wants us to take is closed and she loses her mind, plunging us into the heart of Lisbon for what is the worst moment of the tour. Cobbled streets, bus only lanes, people not understanding pavements, police guidance, stopping at a nice shop to check google maps on the computer, four times in a loop, big hills, trams, a smelly car clutch, Matt's red face, desperation... two hours later...and we finally ask a nice Policeman if we can take the bus lane as it's the only way we can possibly find the venue. He's takes pity on the American's and we finally arrive. Drained of any possible excitement and hope.

We do our own sound at soundcheck, Alana (Matt's girlfriend) and Ericka have traveled to see us and we eat some nice fish before heading back to the venue. En route there are kid's playing football in the street - one of them falls down like Fernando Torres faking an injury and I yell 'pussy' at him and tell him to get to his feet. Unbelievable. The venue is packed and we make some people cry. Some guy tells Anna-Lynne he had sex whilst listening to her Lotte Kestner solo record. She's happy.

Day 24

No such drama leaving Lisbon. We play chicken on the motorway with an ambulance that can't decide how fast it wants to go and after 600km arrive at the Moby Dick in Madrid exactly on time... to the actual minute in fact. I get to see Spurs lose in a pub next to the venue which is a bonus. One of my cymbal stands breaks unloading and my guitar bow is snapped too. Punk Rock.

The show is amazing, really big, enthusiastic crowd and we were looked after incredibly well by the promoters.... and we got a badass hotel.

Day 25

We have another day in Madrid to play in a bookshop and then a house show in the evening. Playing in a bookshop is a new one but a lot of fun and people from the show last night coming along. Our new friends Rafa and Sylvain take us for the most expensive meal I ever ate. It was so good Matt wanted to fight afterwards. We head into the unknown and a house show set up by the lovely Beatriz. We entertain the folks, drink a lot and I befriend another dog, Hippie.

Day 26

Before we leave we have to break open the donations jar from the house show. We all expect a small amount, as this is our nature, however the amount of money that spills out is insane and we leave feeling incredibly humble and happy. Today is a driving day as we head to Barcelona. The traffic is balls and it's impossible to park, but our hosts are warm and we watch American History X in Spanish while Matt cooks like a demon.

Day 27

Half a day off in Barcelona sounds like fun but we screw it up completely and go into the main part of the city which is exactly the same as every other major city. Fail. A Chad Kroeger (is that how you spell it? Well that dick from Nickelback anyway) impersonator ruins our coffee by singing and then wants money for it. More home cooking and the show is small but fun, drunk again while Matt makes me cry on stage with a sly 'that's what she said joke'.

Day 28

Lunch by the Mediterranean sea is welcome as we travel to Toulouse. By far the easiest parking space of the tour is also welcome at the venue. Our friend Cedric traveled most of the way across France for the show, we have big trouble with Chicken pizzas... no vegetarians in the south of France either it seems. The support band plays for at least a year and the sound is a shocker on stage but Kix the promoter shows us a magazine of shit after the show to cheer us all up and we head to his flat to sleep and hang out with his amazing pup Enola.

Day 29

Another travel day and not much to speak of other than a nice Italian meal and another F1 'hotel' with a door stop that is a cock replica.

Day 30

A lovely morning exploring the town of Bescancon, a surprising delight. We failed in finding a laundrette and Matt had a bigger fail in finding reasonably priced underwear. Anna-Lynne and I had good coffee during Matt's epic fail. German has the most expensive crisps in the history of crisps - the crisps of regret. We arrive in Offenbach at Hafen 2 after some horrendously bad motorway driving by the Germans. We meet John Vanderslice who we are playing with tonight, he's insanely nice and polite and we use most of his bands gear. We eat an amazing curry with the Vanderslice crew and I get behind a drum kit that makes me feel like Phil Collins. The sound is amazing on stage and we finish happy bunnies indeed. This is the only show we are supporting on so it's nice to watch John and his band play while we can drink lots as we are staying in the band apartment upstairs. Score.

Day 31

We have Burger King disappointment to break up the insane German driving. Two lanes of traffic, lane one where people drive at 50 and lane two where people drive 200... we are in the middle.... not easy.

On arrival in Leipzig we meet Patrick - the promoter for the evening, he's a tremendous guy and we bond immediately. The show is the best of the tour, it's sold out and we have to turn people away. We sell out of CD's with five shows to go. Lots of beer and wine is consumed and there is talk of Icelandic Troll institutions which blows my mind. We also realise the irrelevance of Halloween by the time we head for bed.

Day 32

A debut trip to Berlin is upon us after some lovely breakfast back at the venue. A steady drive and we are greeted by winter... soooo cold. Matt loses his entire personality which is compounded by a disturbing soundcheck and an angry sound engineer. My friend James is here and takes me to find wine. We share underwear jokes on stage which seems to lift a subdued crowd and due to having no CD's we sell a shit load of shirts instead. We investigate 0% of Berlin and climb a million stairs with our gear to the promoter Robert's apartment.

Day 33

We descend a million stairs to load the car and head off in search of new underwear. Success if found in H&M. It rains the entire journey to Prague and we find ourselves in some kind of Czech death drive where for the most part it feels like we are driving a submarine. The traffic entering Prague is pure shit and we are late. Tonight we play Chapeau Rouge which endears me on entry by the sounds of Mogwai. However the drug dealers in the toilets make it feel a little less special. Another traumatic soundcheck occurs, afterwards Matt and Anna-Lynne take in a small part of Prague while I drink with some Trespassers fans in the venue. There is a strange atmosphere while we play and the onstage sound is impossible. We have another stroll around Prague in the rain after the show and we unknowingly buy the most disgusting wine in the history of wine. Our hostel doesn't have any toilet paper which is handy.

Day 34

Vegetarian breakfast at the hostel = pizza and thus is kindly turned down and we resort to feeling violated by Ronald McDonald. Dark days. Today we drive to Vienna through some crazy snow storms and into the rain of the streets of Vienna. My boots have seen better days and my feet are soaked through... a change to Converse is needed. Somehow in search of a beer before we load in we find ourselves in a place called Blues Bar. It's hard to describe the actual scene in Blues Bar here but safe to say David Lynch would have been proud. The venue is under the Metro which makes for interesting train sounds and we are treated wonderfully by Andrei the promoter and Lars the splendid sound engineer. Finally we get good home cooked food and we're set for a good show. I do a spot of DJing afterwards while we all get hassled by some strange dude in the crowd.

Day 35

Stefan puts us up for the night - he's a big Melvins fan which is fine by me, we get a good breakfast and head out for more loading in the rain. today is another travel day en route to Zurich and we have no hotel booked - the plan is to find one on the way when we feel like sleeping. Not as easy as it sounds. A drive through the mountains with the sun setting, listening to Low is a keeper - we keep the hotel faith and get lucky in some small German town. I get to watch football and eat pizza and we all sleep forever.

Day 36/37

Possibly the best drive of all time through the alps and we fall in love with every corner turned. We even plan to build a studio here. Dreams. Jessica loses her mind once again and we struggle through the streets of Zurich. We're met at the Papiersaal by the wonderful Julia who makes us feel perfectly at home. Soundcheck is actually fun and we have a huge spread of food waiting for us and a fridge full of alcohol. Today feels the most relaxed any of us have been in days and we are treated so well. The show is great, we give away our last three t-shirts and hit the road straight after the show for the one we've been dreading.

We have to drive to London, with a three hour sleep stop at another F1 along the way. It's way harder than we anticipate. Matt and I drink coffee to the extreme while Anna-Lynne fails miserably in her attempt to sleep in the back. Somehow we manage to make it to Calais in time but boarder control decide to hold us up enough to miss the ferry.

Back on English soil and the final drive to London to play at a sold out Luminaire. Again we are magically on time. Tim comes down from Leeds to help with sound duties and it's a pleasure to see his hairy head again. The power cuts out during soundcheck so we get through it by means of a generator - another first. The show is amazing, enough said.... a perfect end to a perfect five weeks.

JASPER TX vs LEEDS