Bomb the Music Industry! are finishing up their first tour of the UK this week and are back for their fifth episode of Dispatches. For the last two dates of the tour, click here.
BLOG FIVE: NU BRUISES
Over the past week or so, I havenât really been writing much. Iâve been spending my time on trains, buses and boats taking in some enormous pink skies and wondering pondering important questions like "Why did my piss smell like bacon this morning?" and "Are Fatlip, Pras or Fife Dog still rapping?" The amount of land Iâve covered at this point has been puzzling as Iâm still not sure whether Iâm going north, south, west? East? I know Iâve been to a restaurant that was on Ramsayâs Kitchen Nightmares (tasty!) and a club that had LED light patterns going off in the floor (funky!)
Something that has been blowing my mind over the past week or so is the concept of "club nights" in the UK. Unless you are from downstate New York, youâve probably dealt with blue laws, being unable to buy alcohol at a certain point in the evening. Here however, there is also a time in the night when you cannot serve alcohol at your bar unless motherfuckers are dancing. So if you like drinking âtil the wee hours of the morning like me, you better be ready for some loud shitty music. I donât think that bouncers are too picky as Iâve gotten into every club Iâve gone to -- a twenty-six year old American with thick glasses and loaded with winterwear, whiskey breath and weeks and weeksâ worth of clothes. Everywhere generally has a "punk night" where they play sweet tunes by Allister, Avril Lavigne and Panic! at the Disco. I requested The Clash and it was as if I was crazy. Come on, you can dance to the Clash.
I think the best one Iâve been to was in Dublin. After a day and a half of experiencing the daunting beauty of Irish beaches, the best all ages show Iâve played since I was under 21 and the comforting friendship of Chewing on Tin Foil, Demented Promotions and their buddies it was time to say "see ya" to one of my new favorite places. I had been put up in a hotel by the university, the one at which I was giving a lecture. This proved to be a very easy way to make myself seem professional no matter what I was saying to the person at the front desk.
"Excuse me, Iâm lecturing at the college tomorrow and I was wondering if I can borrow a pen."
"Excuse me, do you think you could make me another key. Iâm going to be a guest speaker at the university tomorrow, but I seem to have misplaced mine."
"Excuse me, but are you going to be around to let me in at 4 in the morning? Iâd like to get a couple of drinks in to relax before my lecture tomorrow at Trinity."
"Oh, Iâm sorry. The school told me they were paying for that. You see, Iâm lecturing there."
One thing that being a guest lecturer did not make up for was when me and a dozen or so Dubliners walked through the tiny lobby of the hotel and straight into the dance club, bypassing the annoyingness of annoying bouncers (fuck them! punk!!) We naturally got caught, all but myself had to go around to the front door as I apologized "Oh, Iâm sorry. I spoke at the university today." We got in, piled all of our coats and bags in a corner in front of the overpriced coat check and drank some whiskey. As a shitty dancer, I vowed only to dance if "Paper Planes" or "All the Single Ladies" had come on. Naturally, the first song played after I said that was "All the Single Ladies." We all spazzed out on the dance floor atop futuristic patterns of neon lights and I thought about how much less fun Iâd be having if we were listening to The Maine instead.
The next morning I woke up at 6 AM and went to the ferry that would bring me away. My cab driver talked too much about the Illuminati (Freemasons, Stonecutters, whatever) to make me feel like I wasnât being set up somehow. Thankfully, I made it to the Ferryport without uncovering too many political feelings, and walked on a ferry which felt so much like a cruise ship that I literally asked the people at the main counter if I had walked onto a boat or a hotel. They looked at me like Iâm an idiot, because I am an idiot. Upon docking, I felt a throbbing pain in my foot and upon further inspection noticed that I had an enormous swollen bruise going from my big toe to my opposite ankle.
Amazing new friends like Sos, Claire, Ben, Iain, Kev and Pepe have made it very managable to take in mindcrushingly beautiful and massive new things like sunsets over fjords, 16th century architecture and bodies of water that Iâve never even heard of. Itâs fun to underscore it with shitty chip shops, pints of Guinness and having a bit of companionship on searches for spraypaint and scalpels.
As Iâve only got four days left on this thing, Iâm not sure what Iâm supposed to be thinking about. The feeling that Iâve gotten while people were singing keyboard lines? The sense of community I feel when I see someone wearing a Bridge and Tunnel shirt? Who farted on my train? What Iâm gonna do when I come home and how happy Iâll be to cut my hair? Why didnât I get a real hair cut when there were free haircuts at the show in Nottingham? Will I ever play a show again out of a tiny tiny practice amp in front of a hundred people who are cool with it?
I guess Iâm mostly wondering when Iâm gonna be able to walk like a normal person again, after all the mysterious yet irresponsibly self-inflected wounds that my body has sustained over the past two and a half weeks heal. Or mainly how much fun Iâm going to showing my friends and family what Iâve done with myself.