Yes, I am going out on tour in the USA again. Maybe that's unimaginative, and I know there are other countries in the world, but whatever. Here I am again anyway. Which means I am resurrecting this blog for you, my lucky readers.
Right now I am in Denton, Texas, which some of you will know is the gateway to The Promised Land. For those of you who weren't aware of this ("Don't you boys know nothin'? The USA is the centre of JerUSAlem..."), I suggest you find out before it's too late, maybe starting here:
OK. Here's what's happened so far:
I set out from Peckham at 5am on Friday morning, feeling confident that I was forgetting something super important and feeling sick with excitement and apprehension. I rode the bus up to Holborn, listening to the mixes for my new record and hoping that I wouldn't hear any terrible mistakes, since I had just finished making it the day before and arranged for 100 copies to be sent to Houston. There are plenty of mistakes on there, but none I can't live with. If anybody wants to hear it, they can do so at http://hughjohnnoble.bandcamp.com/album/from-the-quill-of-hugh-john-noble
My flight out of Heathrow was delayed by an hour, which meant I missed my connecting flight from Toronto to Dallas Fort Worth by ten minutes. That gave me six hours to kill in Toronto airport; a place with about seven minutes' worth of entertainment to be had. Then THAT flight was also delayed by an hour, meaning I had bonus time in Toronto and I got in to DFW at about ten PM, leaving me with no choice but to take a taxi all the way up to Denton if I was going to have any chance of making it in time for my show at Rubber Gloves. It was expensive, but I made it.
The show was fun. I was feeling surprisingly sprightly on the back of a 26 hour journey, and the kids setting up the show, Evan and Matt, were really friendly, as were the guys from the Austin TX bands Knifights & Moving Castles whom I hung out with. My set was a little rocky, since I have a bunch of new songs I haven't practiced and a bunch of old songs I've forgotten, but I mostly got through without too much trouble and it was a lot of fun chatting with the crowd, something I probably did a little too much of. My Phil Collins joke bombed, but no matter. There weren't many people at the show, but they were all really friendly and appreciative that I'd come out to play for them. This is a shot that Evan took, just before I broke a string on the guitar I borrowed and promised not to damage:
After the show I went back to the house of this guy Brad Dougher who kindly agreed to host me through the 'Couchsurfing' website. I got really lucky on this front, because Brad has turned out to be an excellent host and a great guy to hang out with. He is something that many British people would struggle to imagine: a very proud truck-driving Texan who loves Lynrd Skynrd and shooting guns, who is also very broad minded and liberal and terrified of Mitt Romney. In short, he's wonderful. We stayed up drinking bad beer and listening to great records and then he was kind enough to give up his bed to me, which I entered gratefully.
The next day I met Brad's lovely house-mate, Micky, and we all went to watch a roller derby bout! This may seem like an odd thing to do, and it certainly felt like it, but the pull of the free beer and live music was what sucked is in. Roller derby is weird and confusing, but it felt great to be in Texas with good people, enjoying free (terrible) beer in the sunshine. I also got to eat a creme brulee flavoured almond. America! It was rancid. We drove back in to Denton and went for a stroll around town. Denton is a lovely place and almost as magical as I imagined it would be after ten years of obsessively listening to Lift To Experience and fantasising about the place. We went to a bar and drank some (much better) beer, looked in a great bookstore, then I went over to the venue for the show, J & J's Pizza. This was another sparsely attended show, but also another fun one. I got some free pizza and some free (terrible!) beer, which I enjoyed while the kids who set up the show, Death In The West, played a cool set. Hunter and Chris from this band, joined me for most of my set, which was a little more shambolic than the previous night's one and a whole lot louder, but was enjoyable. There was more drinking after the show and then another night in Brad's bed, since he passed out on the sofa and was impervious to my attempts to get him to wake up and sleep in his own room.
Today! It is Sunday and I've been trying to organise some places to stay in other towns that I am visiting. If my future hosts are as welcoming and entertaining as Brad and Micky, it's going to be a great tour. I don't have another show until Tuesday, in Austin TX, and it feels nice to have a couple of days to relax and get things organised, because I have been so busy the past few weeks, getting my album finished and trying to frantically fill out the dates for the tour. It feels great to be here and I am really excited about the rest of this trip.
Here is what's coming up:
Tue 13
Austin, TX
Trailerspace
w/ Quin Galvais & Bitter Birds
Wed 14
Houston, TX
Super Happy
Fun Land
w/Branagan, Jim & The Toms, Kara Melton, Maddy Adeleye
Thu 15 New
Orleans/Baton Rouge, LA
The Big Top
(w/ Ebro + Pancake)
Fri 16
Birmingham, AL
Spring
Street Firehouse
Sat 17
Atlanta, GA
Wonderroot w/ Jebediah Springfield, Awkward Age, Spray Tan
Sun 18
Jacksonville, Fl
Burro Bar
Mon 19 Macon GA, Savannah GA
Help!
Tue 20
Greenville,
SC
Something
through Daniel McCord
Wed 21
Greensboro, NC
The Flatiron
Thu 22 Greensboro, NC (Thanksgiving?)
Thanksgiving – day off
Fri 23
Richmond, VA
Bauhaus Haus
Sat 24 Annapolis,
MD
200 Year Old
Barn w. Koala Tea Time
Sun 25 Philadelphia, PA
Jake Baseball's basement
Mon 26 New
York, NY
Some open mic
thing through Dina
Tue 27 Boston, MA
TBC/Help!
Wed 28 Providence, RI
Thu 29 New
York
Goodbye Blue
Monday w/ Churchill Downs, Sam James (The Wowz)
Fri 30 New
York
Brooklyn
Fire Proof w/ Brook Pridemore, Dan & Rachel, American Opera
Sat 1 New
York, NY
Left Field in the Lower east side w/ Rare Books, Mobile Wash Unit, Goodbye Ivan
Sun 2
Pittsburgh, PA
Dylan ‘Wolf’
Bahney’s basement
Mon 3
Cleveland, OH
Help!
Tue 4 Detroit, MI
TBC/Help!
Wed 5 Ann Arbor, MI
TBC/Help!
Thu 6 Chicago, IL
TBC/Help!
Fri 7
Milwaukee, WI
Riverwest
Public House
Sat 8
Minneapolis
Fuck
Mountain
Sun 9 Seattle, WA
something with Zach Burba
Mon 10
Bellingham, WA
Girl Guts
House!
Tue 11
Vancouver, BC
House show w/ Rose Melberg, Bleating Hearts
Wed 12
Olympia, WA
The Northern
Thu 13
Salem, OR
Possum
House
Fri 14 Medford, OR
Something with The Seasons hopefully
Sat 15
Davis, CA
Robot Rocket
Residence
Sun 16 Half Moon Bay, CA
Hangout with Adam Lipman, maybe play a show
Mon 17 San Francisco, CA
Something w/ A Girl Named T, hopefully
Tue 18 San
Luis Obispo, CA
Rodi’s
friend’s house or one of the cafes, hopefully
Wed 19 Los
Angeles, CA
The Smell w/
Brannigans Law
Tin Can Alehouse w/ The Dirty Legs, Mandarin Dynasty, International Dipshit
Alright, that will do for now. Thanks for reading. Please all keep in touch to let me know how you're doing. And I will try to update this in a few days with some more exciting news.
Much love,
Hugh
x
No comments:
Post a Comment