Inside Nokia Music

Tuesday 18th January

When I was about 9 years old, I made a remote control car. I used to dismantle electrical goods just to see what was inside. I had no intention of putting them back together or fixing some imagined problem. . .I just wanted to make low grade, and ultimately pretty shabby, toys out of them. To this end, I broke open two Walkmans (which I got in serious trouble for – my Mum rarely shared my radical ideas for product enhancement), took out their tiny motors and attached wheels to each one. Then I mounted them on a piece of balsa wood and ran tiny wires out of them – one to each hand, where I held an AA battery in each clammy, youthful paw. The resulting “car” would go forward when I touched the bare wires onto both batteries, and off to the side when I touched the wires to only one battery. It was great, and had only two major drawbacks. The wires were short, so I was often to be found running around the house after my bit of wood, bumping into furniture and generally making a nuisance of myself. They were also – as I mentioned – bare wires, which meant that every time I wanted the ‘car’ to move, I would burn my thumbs quite badly. 

Still, that piece of electrified balsa wood was at least 20% more ergonomically designed, and at least 50% safer than the flying coffin I am writing this in. 

There are 18 people on board this flight to Bremen, Germany. 18 businessmen. The sort of people who refer to each other only by their surnames and say things like “This is Hardacre from the Bristol office. People who upset him don’t stay alive for long”. I honestly, genuinely heard a man say this tonight. What with the turbulence, the single, seemingly overwhelmed steward, the businessmen and the tiny plane, I’ve been contemplating death over Europe quite a bit over the last couple of hours. 

The conclusion I’ve come to is this: if this plane should plunge into the ocean, at least I’ll die doing what I love. Hurtling towards the ground in a big metal tube, surrounded by dicks.

First gig tomorrow. Amsterdam. Let’s hope I make it.

Wednesday 19th January

Well, I made it. Got picked up at the airport by the guy who’s putting on this tour. He’s a man called Heiko, and without him, I (and the other musicians on this tour) would be lost. He’s booked the gigs and told us how to get there and what to expect. There are two other acts on the same circuit as me – a band called Outroads from Sheffield and a solo act called Astrid’s Farm from Hamburg. It looks like we’ll all get along, I think. 

Well, they didn’t seem instantly disgusted by my sarcasm and potty-mouth, anyway. That’s a good start.

Thomas (Astrid’s Farm) has a beaten up old Volvo, so we’ll be using that to get from gig to gig. First stop is Amsterdam.

I always thought it was just tourists that smoked themselves senseless in Amsterdam, and that regular Dutch folks kind of looked down on that sort of thing. Not so, apparently. The owner of the cafe/bar/bike rental shop that we are playing in tonight appears to be half-baked at 3.30pm, even managing to set fire to a tea-towel during our soundcheck. 

As it happens, the turn-out is pretty low tonight, which is no bad thing, as the three acts have a chance to suss each other out before the three week tour starts properly. I immediately get nervous. The other two acts are purely acoustic. Astrid’s Farm is a guy with a beautifully clear voice and a song-writing style that leans towards Paul McCartney. Outroads normally play as a six- or seven-piece, but for this tour they’re stripped down to two – a gravelly-voiced guitarist/singer named Geoff and a slide guitarist/harmonica player named Eddy. It’s a simple set-up, and they’re really very good. I, on the other hand, have an electric guitar, a synth, two midi-controllers, a laptop, three loopers and a sackful of cables. So. . .how is this going to work?

Thursday 20th January

Gig last night was OK, but not great. Think I need to rethink my approach to this tour before it starts properly. Resolve only to play the big electronica set when it’s appropriate. Need to come up with acoustic versions of some songs pretty cocking quickly. After the gig, as none of us particularly wanted to get wasted, we decided to head down to the red light district to see if we could make some quick money busking. Now. . .I’ve never busked. The idea scares me, frankly. Don’t particularly want to be that close to the people I’m playing to. . .what if they really don’t like it? Anyway, I was persuaded by Geoff and Eddy. They’ve done it before and are up for doing as much playing here as possible, which is a good attitude, so I think I’ll adopt it too. 

Turns out that busking is great fun. And a bit of a money-maker. We made more money in 40 minutes of busking to pot-heads than we did from the gig. We’ll be doing this again, I hope.

We were joined today by a lovely girl from Estonia called Katri. . .she’ll be documenting the tour for a blog, taking photos and filming us and generally capturing all of our disgusting habits for posterity. We should have lots of footage from this. Looking forward to making all my friends sit down and watch it interminably.

Today is a two gig day, both of which are in a beautiful Dutch city called Groningen. The one in a record shop in the daytime goes by pretty uneventfully. I try a couple of acoustic versions and a couple of semi-acoustic ones using two loop pedals. They seem to go down OK, so I’ll keep that in mind. Tonight’s show is in a club called Platformtheater. . .

Friday 21st January

Wake up late. Really late. We’ve got a gig in Germany tonight and we need to go back to the club and pick up our stuff. Dry mouth. Very dry mouth. Last night turned into a big party. We all played well I think. I did a full electronica set that seemed to go well. One small downer: after my normal set, they asked for another song (an ‘encore’, I believe it’s called). . .I wasn’t prepared, and did an ill-advised, just-guitar version of my song “Target”. Shouldn’t have, I don’t think. It wasn’t very good. Should have left them wanting more. Must remember that too. We all had a few tequilas after the show, then the owner asked for more music, so Outroads did another short set and I joined them onstage for a few. Sang the chorus of one of their songs – “Gravey” – with them. Brilliant fun. Sold a few CDs too. Then we sat up drinking until the small hours together. We all seem to get on really well. This tour’s shaping up nicely. 

In Schwanewede tonight. No idea where that is. I have no sense of direction, and I’m not about to start growing one now. Luckily, Eddy doesn’t seem to have one either, so I don’t feel so bad. Thomas and Geoff, on the other hand, seem to be able to find their way around without our help, so it’s fine. It also appears that Eddy and I share a love of bad puns and jokes that don’t really work. I think we’re going to start annoying the others soon. . .

Saturday 22nd January

Sweet. Baby. Jesus. I feel rough. I haven’t got out of bed all day and now it’s time to go to Hamburg for another gig. It’s 4.30pm. I feel like death. This tour is going to kill me. Last night was amazing. It was the first one that Heiko has been to, so he was quite keen to see how we were getting on (and whether he’d made a massive mistake booking us!). It was a strange venue. . .I think we’ll be playing a lot of strange venues on this tour. It seemed to be a high-class eating establishment, not too far from the flat that we’re staying in in Bremen. They’d put us in a beautiful room, and Heiko had made it look lovely with lights and decorations. I did a purely acoustic set this time, with lots of looping. I also managed to persuade Thomas to play guitar with me on one song (with no real rehearsal) and Eddy to play harmonica on another. They both did brilliantly, raising both songs to something much better than I could do on my own. Thomas and I both joined Outroads for “Gravey” again. We’re mixing and matching so much now that, by the end of the tour, we’re probably just going to be one big band.

Last night we all played the best gigs of the tour so far, and made a fair bit of money through CD sales and the hat that always seems to get passed around at gigs over here, so we decided to celebrate by getting a few beers and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. That was a mistake. I feel awful now. We stayed up til 4am drinking. Do not drink a quarter bottle of Johnnie Walker after a couple of beers and two big glasses of red wine. I cannot stress this enough. You will hurt inside. Tonight we play in Hamburg and I can barely move my head. Not sure about this. Not sure about this at all.