Letting The Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death [by Joe Wilson]
	North America, Winter 2002 [by David Westlake]
	Huddled Masses [by David Westlake] U.S.Customs Officials. We're trying to get in to America. It's always the same. You fly for six hours, get a little drunk and bleary, restless and bored, queue for endless hours at U.S. Immigration Control and then, when you think you are safe, you think the ordeal is at an end they descend on you like podgy vultures, eyeing you up and down in their sleek black uniforms. The alpha male comes over first. We are stuck in no man's land, our tour manager occupied at the customs desk with all our cases of equipment. Sitting targets. " Hey, are you guys a band?" We murmur sleepily as he circles us, observing our movements for clues. The others, the rest of the pack, have looked up and are surveying us with interest. He glances back at them. "You guys a band?" He repeats. "What's the band called?" "Sneaker Pimps" "Snookie what?" "SNEAKER PIMPS" "They're a band," he's shouting over to his colleagues, who are slowly approaching, "say they're called Snicker Peaks" "SNEAKER PIMPS. Sneakers, like shoes, y'know, sneakers." We all, as one, point at our feet. " And pimps, like, ummm, pimps." "THEY SAY THEY'RE PIMPS. You coming over here to do your pimpin' huh? Say, you coming here to do your pimpin'? heh heh heh" We smile. These guys are scary. They have the power to strip and humiliate us. They could probe us with rubber gloved hands. They could hold us here for hours sorting through every last case of equipment, checking serial numbers, weighing things, opening delicate electrical boxes with their meaty fists. "What is it? Heavy metal?" I attempt a drunken response. "No, it's sort of Electronic, umm" "Hey, you're Simon Le Bon. Heh heh. Pimps huh? So, you're the singer, right?" "No, I'm the drummer" "You should be the singer, you look like Simon Le Bon. I had those guys come through here, yeah, those guys know me. We get 'em all through here." His colleagues are with us now, but standing slightly removed from us. Their manner has changed. Where seconds before they had looked threatening they now look nervy and reticent, as if queuing up to ask questions. We start to realise the U.S. Customs and Agriculture officers are not going to strip search us, they're actually excited by us. Questions start flying from all directions. "What's the band called?" "Sneaker Pimps." "I haven't heard of you. Are you famous? Have I heard of you?" "Well, I guess not." "Do you like Starship?" "Not especially,no, not really." "Hall and Oates?" "Mmmm, not really." "The Smithereens?" "No." "What's the music like? Do you have CDs?" "Yeah, in the shops, but not with us." "I'm going to phone Rosie. She'll know you. If you're worth knowing Rosie will know you." The leader is punching numbers into his mobile. The menace has left him. He's become life and soul of the airport party. His expression is pure New York. A wide, dumb, emphatic smile that says 'Hey, You guys are alright. I like you guys.' That welcoming smile that will always contain molecules of threat right down there in the grain if you look close enough. While waiting for Rosie to answer her phone he turns to Joe. "So big fella, you like Jethro Tull? You look like the bass player from Jethro Tull. You know that band? Jethro Tull? You look like the bass player." Joe growls silently to himself. Joe doesn't like looking like anyone. "Yeah, Rosie. You got any CDs by Sneaker Pimps? A slight pause. "You do? What's it called? Bloodsport. Okay, I'll be right up. You got two?" He terminates his call abruptly and turns to us, businesslike. "I'm going up to Rosie's store. I'm gonna buy two of your CDs. You are gonna sign 'em for me. Okay guys?" This is said in the tone normally used for "You have the right to remain silent, although anything you do say may be used in evidence against you" then he's off, jumping onto a baggage conveyer belt, up into the roof of the airport. We wait and wait and wait but he doesn't return. Without their leader the others scatter and disperse. There is nothing more frustrating than the short trip between an airport and your destination. The top three worst journeys are: 1. The drive from Dover to London, invariably taken drunk and at some ungodly hour. It takes you through the very darkest parts of South East London and always makes you wonder why you are coming home at all. 2. The two-hour traffic jam that is the M4 heading into London from Heathrow. Usually drunk, usually at about 9 am. Body clock says it's bed time and yet the people are just going to work. 3. The drive from JFK to Manhattan. Yup, always drunk I'm afraid (complimentary drinks on plane). Again, a body clock confusion which makes you snappy and impatient. "Take me to Manhattan, dammit, take me to a bar." We are met by an excitable puppy who turns out to be our new tour manager, Geoff. I think he actually skateboarded to the airport, high-fiving everyone en route. Our tour mangers always have nice, big soft eyes, I think this must be one of the basic criteria our manager, Caroline (who is also here, done up like a Christmas cracker) requires. There's the usual confusion as we are herded about like a kindergarten on photo day until we are stuffed into a yellow cab. As we pull away there is a loud thump on the back of the cab and the driver brakes jerkily. He's back, it's the U.S. Customs guy clutching two copies of Bloodsport. "Guys," he seems genuinely hurt, "Guys, where are you going? You didn't wait for me. You said you'd wait. Can you sign these for me?" We are in the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Which is very nice, except they don't have our rooms ready yet, so we sit in the bar catching up on things with Gaz, our roadie who we haven't seen since the Placebo tour hundreds of years ago. It's about 11pm in our heads but it's actually 6pm NY time. We are off to a party tonight and we are beginning to fade a little. We had had our first drink at Heathrow at about noon and hadn't really stopped since. Time for a disco-nap before heading out. After a snooze that has made me feel decidedly strange we head out to a party hosted by Bruce, an old friend of the band. The cab pulls up at our destination and we realise to a mixture of horror and gruesome fascination that the massive vacuum we have arrived at is Ground Zero. Bruce lives in an apartment overlooking it. We went inside hypnotised by a hole in the ground. Bruce is the epitome of cool Manhattan living. His life is perhaps everything you wish yours might one day be. He oozes an effortless charisma, his apartment is furnished just so. You look around wondering where he puts all his stuff, or more accurately if I were to live here where would I put my stuff, my piles of books and boxes of detritus that are all I have to show for my time. He serves us champagne when we arrive, and then makes us perfect vodka martinis, never losing his thread in whatever anecdote he might be telling as he mixes the gin and vodka with scientific precision. If you came to my place you could sit on a pile of CDs while I fumble with an Ikea tumbler of gin and tonic and maybe, if you were really lucky I might have found the time to put some olives in a bowl, though crisps are more likely. Our sound engineer "Whispering Dave Cooper" is all Armani-ed up, the most suave engineer we've ever had the pleasure of working with. He suggests going for a cigarette and having a look at Ground Zero. Chris and I need the air so we accompany him. Two minutes later and we're there in a crowd of people staring sombrely at a void. It's such a difficult thing to fathom, especially at the tail end of a very long and drunken day, this hole in the ground and what it stands for. There was no way of connecting this huge redundant space with the footage we have all seen repeated and repeated and stamped on our memories, the explosions, the clouds of smoke and dust, the horror, the panic, the people, the twisted girders in the aftermath. All reduced to nothing, a hole in the ground, as if the earth sucked it all in, like the film had run backwards to nothing. There are people here crying and there are people selling souvenir picture books and trinkets and there are people having their photos taken in front of it and then there¹s people like us just speechless with it all, looking up at the nothingness trying to picture where the towers would have topped out. In the centre of the space a crucifix has been erected and we feel uneasy about this unbalanced symbolism. It just doesn't seem right but, drunk as we are, we lack the vocabulary to say why. You would have thought...oh, you know... We head back to Bruce's apartment for another drink. We've made it this far. From London to here. The world really isn't that big. Time for bed. The next day is hot as hell and there is a dense mist obscuring the sun, making a perfect orange disc. We are off to rehearse as it's been weeks since we last played our set and we are using hired equipment which will take a bit of getting used to. I'm afraid the least interesting thing we do is play music. I'm not going to bore you (who are you anyway? Who reads this? You should be out meeting people, turn the damn computer off, come on already.) with the details. The grubby minutiae of the rehearsal room. More importantly we went for a great lunch. Big American food. The first gig is a private party on a rusty old boat, the Frying Pan, moored on the Hudson. It spent a few years on the ocean floor before being raised and turned into a party venue/death trap. The interior was rusted out, the erosion exposing razor sharp edges on every surface. Wherever you sat or walked there was a danger of slicing yourself up or snagging your clothes or falling twenty feet into a hole, never to be found. What's more it swayed dramatically with the tide, creaking and groaning and sending equipment toppling. Also creaking and groaning was Joe who had had an unfortunate encounter with some dodgy chicken the night before and was barely capable of standing without throwing up. We had been warned in advance about the logistical difficulties of this gig and they were by no means underestimated. The PA had to be brought in specifically on this, the hottest day of a heatwave, and the crew where sweating like whores in church. The ship's bilge pumps kicked in intermittently with a loud growl that came through the (pretty lousy) PA, there was no monitor desk, not enough room for us to set up, what¹s more the boat appeared to be full of useless middle aged stoners who just kept shouting "DUDE!!" as if they were at a frat party. When we arrived our crew looked at us with undiluted hatred. They wore faces that cried "Why are you doing this to us?" As if to compound their annoyance we are whisked off from sound check to have a swanky dinner with the Musicmatch folks who are sponsoring this tour. I think now is as good a time as any to thank Dennis and Pam Mudd, Jonathan Gear, and Meredith Merkin for enabling us to make this trip. Hopefully this won't sound too much like an Oscar acceptance speech but we really couldn't have done the tour without them. Now I feel like bloody Paltrow. So the gig was fine. Not brilliant of course but okay. Joe managed to avoid throwing up on the audience so it was a victory of sorts. Afterwards Chris and I sat on the roof of the boat tossing Geoff dog biscuits and looking across the river to Jersey. It was a balmy night and we could relax now. There was a party going on below decks but where we were it was peaceful. Oh no, spoke too soon, Caroline has spotted us. No, oh no, she's bringing them all up here. They're all nutters. They're out of their minds. What are they on? Don't make me do any. Maybe a little... The next day we're in Cambridge, Ma. Geoff had driven us up here and the heatwave had finally become a storm. Waiting outside the gig is Fernando who we hadn't met before but loyally followed us to every gig on the tour and deserves a shout for his efforts. Inside, the gig was actually no better technically than the previous night. The crew were running around rewiring the PA, trying to get it to make sense. At one point it looked like we would have to pull the show but eventually we managed to get a short sound check by pushing the doors back half an hour. Only when we went to our hotel did we realise there had been a queue around the block getting drenched in the rain. Apologies to all. The drive to the hotel was perhaps Geoff's finest hour. The trip should have taken fifteen minutes but we found ourselves on the freeway, then back in Boston, then on the freeway again, then in Cambridge, freeway again, confusion and frustration rising in the car, Geoff trying to keep a professional sheen on things, making smalltalk about bands native to Boston, all the while the torrential rain and the tropical heat, and us thinking "Are we ever gonna get a freakin' shower here?! We're on stage in half an hour..." On the way back to the gig, the route is no clearer. At one junction Geoff fails to notice a red light and puts us in the path of a monstrously huge truck, which looms up at us from the left like it was designed specifically to kill us, to mash us into the road. We all see it and are breathlessly trying to put the right words into a sentence ("RED! TRUCK! DEATH!") but Geoff, regardless of those massive puppy eyes, is blind to it. The gig is good, very good, the people dance and shout. We do what is required of us and they reciprocate by doing what is required of them. We eat pizza and give thanks. We are driving to Philadelphia and Geoff's navigation is as erratic as ever. We have loaded up on food in preparation for a seven-hour drive. Apparently Americans don't think twice about covering such distances, it's a walk in the park to them, but to the English this is an epic voyage, for which provisions are crucial. Joe spends ages trying to find a decent radio station to help us pass the time or even, God forbid, educate us with what's new and exciting in American music. Well, that turned out to be a thankless task. All we could find was 'Classic Rock.' Station after station of classic rock: REO Speedwagon, The Eagles, Heart. God help us. Geoff does two things on this journey that earn sidelong looks from all of us. Firstly he decides to take his T-shirt off while driving in the fast lane of a six lane freeway, allowing the car to veer dangerously to the right as he tries to disentangle his head. Secondly, he pisses in a bottle while at the wheel. He'd tried to jump out of the car while it was in stationary traffic, obviously under the misapprehension that he could piss and be back in the driver's seat before the traffic started moving again but no. Now he's here with a plastic bottle. We are not normally a squeamish bunch but we were a little uneasy when, in the rear view mirror, his eyes glazed over and his shoulders slumped in relief while the world flashed by at five hundred miles per hour. Joe, who was riding shotgun, noted with some distaste the "fine mist on the steering wheel." The show is a little better set up than the previous two but has a stage so high up you need to be physically thrown up on to the stage by Gaz and Dan (our monitor engineer). When we take the stage for our encore they throw me a little too enthusiastically and I crack my head on the speaker stack that is suspended above me. For a moment I think I'm going to faint. (It's something Joe and I talk about actually, just how humiliating it would be to incur some injury on stage that necessitated the use of a stretcher or paramedics.) I thought for the briefest moment that I was done for, that I would topple, dazed, into the audience. But as it was I remained conscious and played whatever song it was with my head humming and eyesight blurry. Good show, Goodnight Philadelphia. We leave Philadelphia in the morning and head back to NYC where we are expected for a photo shoot. We have skipped breakfast to get there in time but still manage to get there late. I'm never particularly happy with photo shoots. It's the whole styling thing that does my head in. Some guy turns up with a few bits and pieces he's picked up from Diesel and suggests you wear them. He doesn't know the first thing about us and we never particularly like what he's got to offer. I always find myself trying to like his stuff out of some misplaced politeness, so I'm there putting on jackets in front of a mirror going "Mmmm, I suppose I could wear this..." And he's going "Oh my God, that's great on you." So I end up in fancy dress, which seems okay for a while and then, a few weeks later, the photos are published and I go white with shame. The guys today are quite sweet. They are fun to get along with and they let us wear our own clothes for a few shots. Caroline turns up at about 5pm and we finally eat something, nine hours after we got up. We play a gig at a club called Shine, which is practically next door to our hotel. The gig is great and Chris invites the audience to an after show party at our hotel bar. Next morning is rough. I went to bed at about 7.30, a little worse for wear having spent the night sitting up with Chris and 'Whispering Dave Cooper' drinking and talking endless nonsense. I am woken by Joe who barks "You're supposed to be downstairs now, we've got a plane to catch." I fall out of bed, all co-ordination lost and throw what I can see into my suitcase. I'm on auto-pilot and am quietly chuffed with myself when I get to the lobby and I'm told I am half an hour early. What I fail to realise as I dozily wander the streets looking for food is that I have left behind a pair of shoes, a jacket, a shirt, countless socks, assorted underwear and the band laptop which had been my responsibility last night. The day is otherwise smooth. I survive the flight to San Francisco and soon enough we are sitting around the pool of the Phoenix Hotel, an old haunt from many years ago. A place with too many memories attached to it. It is renowned as a 'Rock n' Roll' hotel. Every band who ever tours the U.S. will stay there at some point, will get drunk there, will have ill-advised encounters there, will throw an unwilling tour manager or roadie into its pool. Where New York had been unbearably hot, San Francisco was chilly and we sat like true British people with our jackets on, shivering by the pool clutching plastic cups of Californian 'Champagne'. Time for the only argument of the tour, but it's not worth going in to, except to say that I was right and everyone else was wrong. (Which is, strangely, always the case). Joe and I get unapologetically pissed. Next day we go down to Fisherman's Wharf and get involved with some shellfish. We feel like proper tourists, with Joe itching to take the trip over to Alcatraz but the queues preventing us. Instead we go to the aquarium to look at the sharks and rays, and shoals of anchovies, the sea bass, skates, catfish and dogfish swimming over and around us as we are transported on a moving belt through a glass tunnel. We move on to the section entitled "Touch the Bay." Here we can touch fish. I push my way through the crowds of children and touch a ray and a tiger shark. Joe's not so sure, it's a bit interactive for him. We play at Bimbo's, a gig we played a long time ago in our previous incarnation. It hasn't changed a bit, still the model of cabaret chintz. The show is fine, if a little quiet (there is a limiter on the front sound desk preventing us from playing too loud). Afterwards we return to the hotel where they have installed a nightclub. More drunkenness and shame but who wants to hear about that...all that matters is that we escaped with our reputations untarnished. We are getting better at avoiding trouble these days. When we started doing this we would run headlong into trouble like it was a bouncy castle, leaping into it like kids at a party. We have learnt to be self censoring, self regulating, almost entirely convincing human beings. Another flight. San Diego. The gig is the best of the tour, the people here being nuts. It's as if we have been waiting to play in San Diego since we finished a long eighteen months of touring with Kelli back in 1997/8. The whole experience drove us to the very edge and culminated in Chris trying to swim home to Middlesborough across the Pacific. Anyone with a basic grasp of geography will understand the flaw in his plan but there he was, in his little suit, giving himself to the waves. Liam ran after him and fished him out and then they wrote a song about the whole thing called 'Low Five'. Tonight is the first time we get to perform it in its hometown. Everyone sings along and it feels like one of those moments. Afterwards, drenched in sweat and booze we meet our fans out in some sordid back alley for a photo session, the resulting shots looking like publicity material for Alcoholics Anonymous. But it's genuinely heartening to meet all these people from so far away, who've bought our records as imports, made their own t-shirts and even know our names. Then, all too soon, we find ourselves in L.A. This place has so many terrible memories for us from years past. It was always the place that saw us at our most debauched or unhappy or psychotic. Maybe it's the simple fact that most tours we do end in L.A. that we get so trashed or we argue so much there. One of our abiding memories of past tours is approaching L.A. by plane, Chris and I shuddering as the pilot calmly tells us "we are about to DESCEND..." We are determined not to make the same mistakes all over again so we settle into the hotel and relax by the pool, playing backgammon and talking about cookery. There's no danger of debauchery if we busy ourselves with such respectable pursuits. Whispering Dave Cooper is an obsessive chef so, today being his birthday, we present him with the culinary bible, Escoffier. As we laze about in the sun the afternoon is punctuated by Cooper murmuring "Ooh, you blanche the tarragon..." and smiling knowingly to himself. The gig is fine. It takes place at the Roxy, and we are quietly impressed by the fact that it appears to be like a normal gig for a change and the building isn't falling down, the PA isn't buzzing like a geiger counter and the rider is edible. What's more, we're feeling like human beings again, having visited earlier a (slightly belligerent) dry cleaner. We take to the stage clean and fragrant and play songs. Afterwards we experiment further with drunkenness at an aftershow party. Nothing much to report there. Old friends, new friends, the idea that feeling drunk is a novelty. We successfully avoid some of the more suspect chemicals and people and are each presented with a bouquet of flowers, the first time this has happened at a show. And then, before we know it we are off, flying out, leaving the new world and Geoff, the pup, behind. This is to be one of those awful journeys that make your eyes bleed. We are flying ten hours to Heathrow, then taking a two hour bus to Dover, then an hour long ferry crossing, then a six hour drive to Wiessen, Germany. We are last on to the plane and are all seated separately, the films are identical to the ones we already watched on the way out, and the food is grim. Hooray. At Heathrow we are met by the suave, sophisticated Giles, our new tour manager. He instantly brings a sense of decorum to proceedings. While he doesn't appear to have the regulation puppy-dog eyes this is more than made up for by his smooth, effortless, old-school Englishness. We are in a state of auto-pilot. Without really knowing it we play a gig in Wiessen, (a jazz festival!) and then we find ourselves in checking in to a hotel in Trencin, Slovakia. It is 2 am and we're really beginning to wonder where the hell we are. Jet lag is still with us along with day after day of compounded hangovers, each one built on the last. We are turned away from the bar. The next day is very humid and we are feeling decidedly strange as we embark on a session of press. Our bodies are rebelling and we are drenched in sweat, feeling as if we are about to collapse. As we are driven through the festival we see the crowds of mud people, walking smudges from whom smiles suddenly appear. Our hosts tell us just how much these people have been looking forward to this festival, how important it is to them, how grateful they are that all the bands came. We stare out at the people partying and it looks like war. The interviewers eye us with a degree of suspicion, our hair all mangled and dripping with sweat. Why did we decide to come to Slovakia? Is it just for the money? It feels like an accusation. It's a difficult one to answer. We don't really decide to go anywhere. We just go wherever we can. As we answer they can hear us clunking and grating and failing to get into gear. It feels like we've finally made all the answers we can. There's nothing left to say. Later, the gig works. But speaking doesn't. We have exhausted our supplies of energy and we're on a twenty-four hour drive back home, staring into space. As I drift in and out of sleep on my bunk there hovers above me a vast map with a red laser dot moving slowly along its route back to London. As I focus in on it I realise the dot is perfectly still and it's the map that's moving, small towns and villages we'll never visit silently passing by. The place names are all the same size, villages are the same as capital cities. Geography falls apart and New York suddenly appears next to Berlin, Lausanne is near San Francisco. The map is meaningless. We're just here in the glow of the red dot, the sound of the road putting us to sleep. This is what we do, we travel around and play songs. Travelling this much depersonalises every town we see. Whether it's Los Angeles, Glasgow or Paris the streets and the buildings are indistinguishable. Joe and I tend to try out the metro or subway in every city we visit, to take in a bit of the atmosphere, get an idea of the civic umm...vibe. You know what? It's the same EVERYWHERE. The shops are the same, maybe not the same names but the same stuff for sale, same clothes, same records, same, same, same. Forget travel, it will teach you nothing and it will make you tired and grumpy.
	Joe's German Diary [by Joe Wilson]
	The Germ of Panic [by David Westlake]
	Clothes That Make You Cry [by Joe Wilson]
	Placebo Tour Diary [by Liam Howe]
	Shame [by David Westlake]
	Diary Abajo del Pueblos [by Joe Wilson]
	The Hum of Plastic [by Joe Wilson]
	What We Do [by David Westlake]