head down, cork/dublin, head down, deadbeat.....like really



So a few days after the 1st qeh gig i get wind that the ether festival want
to book the show again (2 more shows!) surprising seeing as we were so
zombiefied from getting the show together i expected bruce cambell to take
us out with a shotgun.

We really thought we had blown it and it was a pile of stinky puke, but i
guess getting booked to do the show again lifted our spirits, and justified
our unflinching resolve in the project even though its road to that point had
been far removed from bunnies and flowers.

The only problem was that i all i really wanted to do was to play call of duty
in a dark room and eat cake, not look at the films that had been burning into
my skull for months. More skull burning was called for so off i went again
into the night to loiter in dark alleyways and moldy car parks at 4 in the morning, filling the holes that i had noticed in the work after the 1st gig.

Bout midway through the month we had 2 straight (non greedy baby)
av gigs in cork and dublin.
Downsides were the video being a 3rd off the screen in cork due to the ambulance “vj” resetting the projector so that he could play tron clips
whilst the band played (tim keep yer hands off the remote or i will cut them
off next time) and the dublin gig being in a wholly unsuitable venue
(the downstairs of a club where i could touch the ceiling with me hand)
Upsides were the irish crowds, who were exceptionally up for it as usual,
and we had a right ravey time.

Returning to england it was back to work on the show and i moved into ed
and andy's studio again so we could give the work a collective push.
Sleeping whist i rendered i stuffed loo paper into my ears to dull the should of ed editing snare hits late into the early hours.

Dead-beat rolled around and due to the qeh2 show being so close we
decided to do a commando raid.
rocking in, playing and rocking back to london again.

Mounting our customary hired black tinted window grand special ops voyager (favorite of mums on the school run) we gunned down to pontins in
hembsby and turned up about 30 mins before our slot.
Like the well oiled gigging machine we are, we set up in record time and
played to an audience that had been at the psychedelic concentration camp tuck shop with avengence.
Being on a swift one we packed up, stacked the gear by the stage and andy
went to fetch the car, jamie our sound man took my mac bag and the camera
bag to the motor and me and ed took the heavy stuff, once we dumped the
guff i went back to the stage to do the customary idiot check.

On my return the car was packed and we shot off into the night, 2 hours after we arrived, slick hu?

slick my arse

we dropped jamie off at his house and unloaded the car at the studio.
It was at this point i got a real sick feeling in the core of my being as i could
not see my camera bag any where in the motor.
Now i started to panic, as this bag had 2 dv cameras my passport, the show tapes, my lomo and my favorite detroit hat in it.

Thing was, jamie could not remember putting it in the car so it had either been left in the car park or someone had pinched it whist loading.(im a twat for not checking it was loaded)

A load of hurried phone calls later the car park was searched,
but nothing was found.

somebody had picked it up, decided against handing it in,even though it was
obvious whose it was from the passport, and that it was somebody's
livelihood, and kept it.

Now the qeh gig was monday and it was sunday morning so i had to put the
loss of my stuff in such lame a lame way to the back of my mind because
there was still a ton to do on the show.

The stuff was never found, and in a final twist of fate the insurance company
refused to pay out.

Around 4 grand's worth o stuff, pffft gone.

damn.

and i really loved that hat.
(and my lomo)