Inside Nokia Music

Right, you lot. You’ll be glad to know that this is the final blog posting. I’ve got to find some way to condense all these posts into a manageable 600 words for Venue magazine now. Yeesh.

Have:

Friday 4th February

Last night was one of the quietest gigs we’ve done so far. The actual place was lovely, but there was a big gig in a club just 200 metres or so down the road, so it was pretty empty. Still, they had a piano, so I got to vary my set a little. Thomas also asked me to play piano on his song “Razorblades”, which I did. Was worried that I was doing too much over what should have been a beautiful, sparse, looped song, but Thomas reassured me that it was all good. I seem to be flitting between arrogant over-confidence and crippling under-confidence at the moment. Welcome to my brain.

I don’t know how Tom managed it, but he sounded great last night, despite the hole in his mouth.

I sell one CD, which I’m OK with, given the paucity of the crowd, then get in the car for the long drive back to Hamburg.

Today, we woke up, had a delicious breakfast at Thomas’s studio, then wandered around town while Thomas got his face filled in at the dentist. We go into a cowboy boot shop – Geoff’s been thinking about getting a pair for ages apparently. The guy in the shop is a German, but is dressed like an American. Well, he’s dressed like the idea of an American, anyway. But he does speak very good English. He shows us lots of boots that are WAY out of Geoff’s price range. Then Eddy picks up a pair of beautifully crafted, but frankly hideous boots. He taps the soles and says, almost to himself, “is that a wooden sole?”. The salesman instantly bursts out laughing. He mercilessly mocks Eddy for the next five minutes: “Oh, ahahahaaa! Is it wood?! A wooden-soled boot! HAHAHAHahahaha!”. Apparently it’s HILARIOUS to him. And it soon becomes pretty hilarious to me and Geoff too. All of a sudden, I can’t stop laughing. The shop owner thinks I’m laughing at Eddy with him, so it just encourages him. “Wood! Haha. He’s gone quiet now hasn’t he? Hahahahaha. Wood!”. My face hurts from laughing so much. I find it odd that something so niche could be so funny to him. It’s the equivalent of me getting all hysterical at someone thinking my Boss Rc-20 loop machine was a Boss Rc-50 loop machine. “Ahahahha! He thought it was the Rc-50! Hahaha! But it has no midi functionality! Hahahah. He’s an idiot.”

Weird.

When Thomas comes out of the dentist, he looks like he’s in agony. There’s only a few days left of the tour now. I hope he can hold out for it. It would be really weird if he couldn’t play, even for one night. . .

He seems to be OK for driving though, so we head over to Bremerhaven. We’ve got a gig in a cinema tonight, apparently.

Saturday 5th February

Ahhhh, last night was good. It was a proper functioning cinema, which I wasn’t expecting. I assumed it would be an old, dilapidated ex-cinema, but no. That’ll teach me for thinking. When we got there, we were treated to a brilliant Chinese meal, then led into a beautiful cinema with a stage at the front, just under the screen, onto which was projected the tour logo and our band names. It looked good. Really good. And Heiko was doing the sound, so it sounded great too. More people should play in cinemas. They are good places for music. The place filled up much more than I was expecting. It seems that the Songs and Whispers tour is gaining a bit of a reputation over here. That’s a good sign. There’s a local support act again tonight, in the form of a singer/songwriter/guitarist and a percussionist. The percussionist has a big box of shakers, sticks, maracas and all sorts, as well as a cajon. His name is Andreas and he’s good. He makes three shakers and a cajon sound like a full kit. So obviously, I ask him to do some stuff on my song Your Own Death And How To Cope With It. It’s not the best version I’ve ever done, but with both Eddy and Andreas on stage with me, it’s definitely more for my enjoyment than the audience’s. I let the audience know that too. I think they’re OK with it. I close with Walk/Don’t Walk and everyone, including Heiko, joins me on stage. This is my favourite bit of each show and with every gig – as the final gig comes ever closer – it gets more poignant for me. It’s a song about letting go of the past and moving on, and I can’t help smiling ruefully all the way through the choir bit. Not only is it the best song to end my set on, I also think it’s quite good for CD sales. It’s a really memorable ending, and hopefully it lets people forget any mistakes I made during the set, and just remember the pretty closing seconds. Either way, I sell quite a few CDs again. A lovely lady comes up to me afterwards and says that the reason she came there tonight was specifically to see me play. I’m not used to people specifically going out of their way just to see me, and it makes me feel really strange, in a good way. Both Outroads and Thomas put on brilliant sounding shows tonight. During Outroads’ set, I have to get up and go the back of the cinema for a bit of a dance on my own. I get some strange looks, but who cares? I’m never going to see most of these people again anyway.

Thomas sounds great tonight. I don’t know how he does it. He’s had surgery on his face two days in a row and he still sounds great. He cuts his set a bit short, so I think he probably doesn’t feel great, but that isn’t coming across in his music. He looks pretty rough though. Really dishevelled. Actually, for a musician it’s a popular look, but you would be forgiven for thinking he was a heroin addict based on tonight’s appearance.

We don’t really drink that much at the venue, so we pack stuff away and ask Heiko if he wants to come out for a drink somewhere. He says yes, and takes us to a club near his office. It’s a surprising choice for a tee-total, mild-mannered tour promoter. UV decor, proper intense clubber types and the hardest of hard acid-techno beats. I love it instantly, and I think Geoff quite likes it too, but for a bunch of indie/guitar kids, it’s a really odd choice. We go to the chill out room for a drink and a chat. It’s a really nice atmosphere. . .we’re almost at the end of the tour and we all feel relaxed with each other. Heiko no longer feels like the guy in charge. He’s definitely one of us. We’ve all divulged things about us on this tour that we certainly normally wouldn’t have divulged to anyone else that we’d known for less than three weeks. But that’s the thing. I feel like I’ve known these guys for years now. I’m really comfortable with them. After Kate left, she started looking into creating a tour in the UK so we can all have a reunion later on this year. I’m already looking forward to that.

In the car on the way back to the flat, I start to feel really ill. I have a sneezing fit and instantly feel like I’ve got the flu. Not now. Just a few more days. I just need to hold out a little while longer. Just two more gigs.

I wake up feeling awful. Sweaty and clammy and cold. Good. My body seems to have rebelled. Balls. Just two more gigs. I drink tea all day and eat well, just trying to ignore it. My throat hurts. Decide to drink straight spirits tonight in an effort to soothe it. Last but one gig now. A place called Wunderbar in Luneburg. Well, it’s got a pun in its name. . .how bad can it be?

Sunday 6th February

Wunderbar is a really nice little place. Two stages, a lovely outside area. Really nice. Another piano, so I do an acoustic set with added keys. There’s an odd feeling initially, as we were told they’d be providing us with food, but they seem adamant that they aren’t. We were also told that we’d be passing around a hat for money, but they seem to think that it’s an entrance fee deal (which won’t make us as much petrol money). Thomas, as the only native German speaker, unfortunately has to deal with all this himself. He talks them into going with a hat instead. He seems really annoyed with the club owners, and there’s a definite atmosphere in the place, but we leave it and all go out to a nearby takeaway to have some decent food, paid for out of the kitty. Before I go on stage for my soundcheck, I go to get us all a drink at the bar. There’s a guy sitting there who overhears my drinks order and says in a London accent “Haha. Go on, son”. We chat for a while as my drinks are being sorted. Turns out, his Mum is Indian and his Dad is English. Now. . .my Dad is Indian and my Mum is English/Irish, so obviously, we must be best friends. We start talking about Indian food (well, he starts talking about Indian food. I just want to get back to my actual friends) and he says some slightly dodgy things about the number of Turkish people in Germany and how they open Indian restaurants but can’t cook properly. I feel uncomfortable with the direction this conversation’s taking, as I have nothing against Turkish people as a rule, and am unable to comment reductively on their culinary skills as a nation, so I leave and head towards the stage. He follows me and, during my soundcheck, talks to me from the front of the stage. I don’t want him to talk to me. He’s loud and getting progressively more drunk. I still feel all fluey and frankly don’t know if I can take this. As he gets more drunk, his vocabulary shrinks. By the time I start my set (I’m on first tonight), his vocabulary has shrunk to one single word. That word is “Poppadom”. It’s all he can say. However, he valiantly attempts to redress the balance by substituting breadth of word-knowledge for sheer volume. I tell him at the start of my set, when it’s clear he thinks that he and the word “poppadom” deserve to be a part of the show, that his constant side-dish shouting will soon get distracting for me. It has no effect, so I just try to ignore him. The first idiot in three weeks and he’s from England. Perfect. My set goes down well and I sell another record number of CDs.

Thomas seems really quiet tonight, but I assume it’s just because of his face pain. Outroads, however, play one of the best sets I’ve ever seen them play.

When they first start playing, Mr Poppadom is joined by his wife at the front of the stage. She seems really nice (I was talking to her when she bought a CD off me), but he doesn’t seem to like her that much. In fact, all I can hear is him really viciously swearing at her. I catch Eddy’s eye onstage. We’re both furious with this guy, but what can we do? Luckily, he shuts up before it gets to the stage where anyone has to do anything. We all join Outroads for their last song “Gravey”. Then they are called back for three encores. It’s great. The audience is brilliant here. Apart from Senor Side-Dish, who comes up to me afterwards and tells me drunkenly that he runs a music school down the road and makes albums and goes on tours that are much bigger and better than ours, then asks me to play some piano and sing with him on his next record, for “big bucks, yeah? Big bucks”. He needs a pen to give me his details so he kindly asks his wife for one, with the phrase “I need a %$!*%$! pen. $!%& off and get me one then!”. I’m audibly grinding my teeth as I give him my details. My myspace address was one of the things I gave him. This blog has been posted there too. If you’re reading this, Mr Poppadom (I won’t use your real name), then thank you for your kind offer. I feel, however, that I must decline it, as I fundamentally despise everything about you as a person, you aggressive, self aggrandising, arrogant, pathetic little bully of a man.

Thomas comes up to us and says “let’s get out of here”, so we shake the owners’ hands (they give us a big hug as we go in for the shake) and pack up the car. Then Thomas tells us why he’s been a bit weird all night. The owners and bar staff have been really snarky about us apparently. From the moment we arrived they have been complaining to Thomas that we won’t make them any money and that we’re nowhere near famous enough to fill out the place. Then they told him that they weren’t going to give us the hat money, but forward it directly on to Heiko. They won’t even tell us what was in the hat. We know it’s at the very, very least 100 euros, just from the amount of people there and the fact that they were clearly putting notes in, but we have no way of knowing. That, combined with the fact that they have been sarcastic and rude to Thomas all night doesn’t really fill us with hope about getting all of the money back. Looks like we might just have done this gig for free (apart from CD sales). It’s weird because they seem to have been really nice to us English-speakers all night. There’s definitely been a weird feeling, but none of us realised it was this bad. It’s a good thing Thomas didn’t tell us, because it really would have ruined our sets. No wonder he’s been a bit off all night. Feel bad that he’s had to shoulder the burden of that while we had great fun. We head back home, weirded out and slightly despondent. Only one more gig left. I really want it to be great.

Woke up this morning, not feeling as ill as I did yesterday. I dose myself up with everything I have, then get up to meet the others. Strange, slightly low feeling pervades us all. We drive to the area of the gig in Bremen and decide to spend almost all of our remaining kitty money on a slap-up farewell meal. The food is good, as is the wine. We don’t over-indulge though. Not yet. My flight is at 6am tomorrow morning, so we’ve decided that we’re going to stay up all night until they see me into a taxi at 4.30am.

Tonight is a venue called Club Moments. We’re playing with Lena again, which seems fitting. I’m wearing the second-hand jumper that I bought in Hamburg. It’s bright red and yellow. I look like a character from Sesame Street, but I feel pretty ruddy good in it. Soundcheck in ten minutes’ time.

Monday 7th February

Urgh. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I haven’t slept yet and I can feel the hangover gripping my brain like a wet slug. It’s 9am and I’m in Bristol. I don’t fully remember the airport last night, but I know that I tried to explain what all the electrical equipment in my bag was by describing the intricacies of live looping to the poor security lady. I also know that I went through at least one door I shouldn’t have gone through. A nice police lady told me that.

I feel sick.

Last night was good. It was the right way to end.

I was worried that it wouldn’t go well. There was a real downer of an atmosphere for a while there. When we got to the club, Heiko had set up and Lena was already soundchecking. She sounded amazing, as usual. We set up our kit. . .I was doing half acoustic, looped stuff and two full on dance songs. I figured it was the last night, I should do a bit of everything. Even though it wasn’t my turn to headline, the others decided that it would be a good idea if I did. My electronica set is louder than anything else they do and I could end with everyone on stage for Walk/Don’t Walk, which would be a perfect tour closer. That’s one of the reasons I think these guys are great. There’s no ego at all. As if to prove this, Thomas asks Lena to go on after him rather than just be our support. She agrees and the line-up is finalised: Outroads, Astrid’s Farm, Lena, Cajita.

Then Heiko tells us that drinks aren’t free tonight. They are half price. Which would be OK, except we’ve just spent all of our money on a big farewell meal, and don’t have any more cash. It sends Geoff into a bit of a spin and he gets annoyed at Heiko during his soundcheck. There’s feedback on one note of his guitar, and he’s waiting for Heiko to sort it out. Heiko says he can’t and things get a bit fractious. I can tell Geoff’s annoyed, and I want to see if he’s OK, but I have to soundcheck my stuff. Heiko’s clearly annoyed too, and a little snappy. I don’t want this. Not on the last night. After soundcheck, we sit in the backstage area together. Geoff’s calmed down, Lena’s there and Andreas the percussionist from the other night has also turned up. The atmosphere lightens a bit. Heiko gives us 50 euros to buy some booze. We resolve to sell enough CDs and make enough in the hat to pay him back straight after the gig. Then Tom and I go out and buy a couple of bottles of red wine from down the road and bring them backstage.

Thomas has a bottle of really nice champagne that someone gave him for Christmas. We crack it open before Outroads go on. It’s a party atmosphere now. Everyone knows that’s it’s the last chance we get to play with each other for a while, so everyone wants to make it go off smoothly. There’s an air of melancholy, but we’re determined to cover it up with alcohol and giggles.

Halfway through Outroads’ set, they stop, unplug their guitars and sit at the front of the stage. Lena joins them and they sing a song that they haven’t done on this tour before. It’s beautiful and heartfelt and sad and I find myself crying into the sleeve of my Sesame Street jumper. Damn them.

We all join them for “Gravey” and it’s one of the most fun renditions we’ve ever done. Then they finish and that’s it for them. They’re done.

Thomas’ set goes by in a flash. I join him on piano for “Razorblades” and everyone gets up for his closing song again. He says something in German about my jumper which gets laughs and whistles in equal measure. I forget to ask him what he said, but I’m happy with laughs and whistles. Then, suddenly, Thomas is done too. This is weird.

Lena is amazing. She jokes with the crowd between songs, stuns everyone with her voice and generally is great. She also tells everyone that I’m up next and that I’m really cool and she’ll kill any of her friends who leave before I’m on. It’s really sweet of her and I thank her for it.

Then it’s my turn. Just as I’m about to start singing my opening vocal loop, Thomas, Geoff and Eddy come to the front of the stage. They’ve got tequilas. I have to do a tequila shot in front of everyone. . .14 year old girls, their parents, and the general public. I get the opening four part harmony loop going, then the shot hits me. Yowser. I hear audible giggles from around the sizable crowd. I think I might have just staggered like a punched cow. I do four songs acoustically, then move over to my computers and do a couple of dancey ones. I don’t know if they really work for this crowd, but I look over and see Outroads and Astrid’s Farm dancing away. That makes it all worthwhile in my opinion. Then, all too quickly, it’s time for my last song. Everyone comes up on stage: Thomas, Eddy, Geoff, Heiko, Lena and Andreas. Everyone has a shaker and we launch into it together. It makes me want to burst out laughing with joy and weep like a child when everyone joins in at the end. We hold the last note longer than ever before, not wanting it to end. But it does. And we hug like idiots on stage for ages. The audience asks for another song, so after we’ve hugged it all out, I go into the crowd with Geoff’s acoustic and do “Monster”. Just before I sing what passes for the chorus in that song, I look up and see Eddy. He’s selling a CD to someone. He stops and smiles at me. I almost cry again. God. I’m a mess. I blame it on the lack of sleep and all the booze.

Yeah, that’s it.

All my remaining CDs go and the hat gets stuffed with cash. We’re able to pay Heiko back and take a decent amount of cash each.

I pack away my stuff for the last time and Lena gives us all a present each, made up of specialties of the Bremen area. The biggest of which is a big bottle of Beck’s beer. Yum.

Stop at a petrol station on the way back to the flat and get a bottle of Jack Daniels. Yum also.

We’ve got 4 hours of drinking to do before my taxi turns up. We go at it.

4 hours flies by.

In the taxi to the airport I’m bombarded with texts from the guys, ranging from the funny (Thomas: “Get the $%^* out of my country”) to the touching, to the downright obscene (I won’t show you the photo Geoff sent me. Disgusting). My balance is off already after all that booze, but with these bags it’s murder. I look through some photos on the plane. They make me smile to myself wistfully, but contentedly. This has been one of the best experiences of my life. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to do it.

Bring on the UK tour.