YOU'RE WRONG
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board
On April 14, 1912 the Titanic set out on her maiden voyage. On May 4, 1937, the German Zeppelin, Hindenburg, left Berlin on a trans-Atlantic trip to Lakehurst, New Jersey. On January 5, 1993, ARTLESS leaves New York and heads to Paris to begin our third European tour.
Hold on. You'll get the juicy details. The body counts. Some stories about limbs lost and torsos charred. More important, however, are the lessons learned. The lifeboats and fire extinguishers we didn't have, and will have next time.
Our third tour, we want to do it differently. Everybody plays in Germany-- not us. We're going to Spain, France, Italy and England. Everybody tours by van. Not us. We're going by train. No gas. No breakdowns. No parking problems. The train is the perfect way to get around Europe, right?
A week before we leave, a phonecall comes from Italy. Due to political problems, and the unpopularity of booking girl, every one of the Italian shows has been cancelled.
"You sure you still want to come?" asks my friend Helen.
I already bought the plane tickets. They cost almost $2000. They're non-refundable-- unless someone gets sick or injured. I ask Gavin to walk in front of a truck. He won't.
Helen scrambles and sets up two last minute shows-- one in Torino and one in Allessandria. I called former BGKer and friend Tony, to see if he could do something last minute. He scrapes together two shows in Holland, one in Amsterdam, one in Arnham. So, with the first four shows shuffled and unsure. We take off for Paris.
At the airport in New York, we buy five cartons of cigarettes: four Marlboros and one Harley Davidson. There's a strike in Italy, we hear. We'll get ten dollars a pack for these.
We land in Paris. Customs are a cinch. Once there, we pay another $500 for tickets to Holland.
After a ten hour train ride, we're in Amsterdam. The first show, is with Tony's a rock'n'roll bar band. They do mainly punk cover songs. It's heart-warming t to see Martin Ex, and Wauter also former BGKers. These guys are great friends of ARTLESS and among my best friends in Europe. It's our first European show in four years. Big Mike's first ever. Martin has us nicely lubricated on Dutch beer. We play a decent set. After the show, I go to Tony to get paid.
"The bar didn't pay you." he says.
"What?" I yell, "Nothing?!!!"
"Yup," said Tony, "They only paid us three hundred guilders (about $170). We asked for money for you and they laughed."
While we're discussing this, the club bouncer is behind us shuffling us out onto the street. It's raining. Hard.
Tony discusses the show with the other members of his band. He's trying to get them to give us some of the money they got. They won't.
"But they came all the way from America," says Tony, backed by Martin.
"We only got 300 guilders," they say. "We can't give any of that away."
They think I don't understand because they're speaking Dutch. They're wrong.
In the end, they pay us nothing. Tony gives us 100 guilders out of his own pocket. The next day, we play in Arnham. It costs us 190 guilders to get there. We're paid 200.
Dejected, we return to Amsterdam and stay up the rest of the night watching underground porno tapes at Tony's house. At six A.M. take the train to Torino, Italy, about eighteen hours and a thousand miles away.
Before I tell you about Italy, I should mention the problem with Big Mike, our bass player and vegan. I've railed against vegetarianism in all it's manifestations. Veganism is among the worst. Now, having observed this affliction up close, I can add pity to the other emotions I feel for its victims.
Vegans are the ugly Americans of the nineties. Americans of the fifties travelled the world-- and demanded their hamburgers and fries. No matter what the local cuisine, these tourists had to eat the way they were accustomed. They refused to participate completely in the local culture-- they couldn't. They wouldn't eat the food.
Vegans are the same as those Americans. They impose their own cuisine in the midst of cultural diversity. A meal prepared for everyone has to be specially tailored for the peculiar tastes of the vegan. They want it their way.
Prediction: some smart businessman will begin a franchise: MacVegans. With double green arches, these stores will pop up all over the world, offering tofu burgers and sea weed soup. Vegans can go from Cleveland to Tokyo to Paris and always eat the same food they eat at home. Just as MacDonalds standardized cuisine to meet the needs of the ugly Americans of the fifties, so MacVegans will standardize cuisine for the new uglies.
Until MacVegans becomes a reality, life with a vegan is not so easy. Imagine travelling when you can't just stop to eat. Instead, you have to go from restaurant to restaurant to find a place where a dietary cripple can satisfy his malady. It ain't easy.
Now where were we. Oh yeah, after eighteen hours on the train, we arrive in Torino, Italy. Helen meets us at the train station. We still have to get to Allessandria for our first show there. We have no lira and can't buy the train tickets with any other currency. I go off to look for a place to change some money. We only have an hour until we're supposed to play.
There are automatic money changing machines. None of them work. A friend of Helen's offers to loan us money for tickets. When we try to buy them, we're sent to six different ticket windows. The seventh is the first window we had tried. They sell us the tickets.
"Italy is broken." said Helen.
"You mean broke." I correct her. "You've been living in Europe too long."
"I mean broken," she said. "Nothing works."
She's right.
On the train, the windows don't open. My seat slides forward, coming off the brackets and falling on the floor. Italy is broken.
In Allessandria, we play the worst set since we opened for MINOR THREAT in 1984. All the hits: Punk Rock In Iraq, Jews With Tattoos, Beer is Better Than Girls Are, and Don't Tell Me Sisterhood is Powerful (The only thing powerful is the smell coming from between your legs.)
A bunch of attractive girls in front yell at us. Afterwards, some guy in a black leather jacket tells me he recorded the whole set for a bootleg. He asks me to write the liner notes. I write: the proud owner of this bootleg will hear the worst ARTLESS show in history. I hope you paid a lot for it. I sign it and ask the guy to send me a copy of the bootleg. I haven't gotten it yet.
One of the girls who had been yelling comes over to me. A beautiful red-headed BWC (Boy With A Cunt, as if you didn't know), she's slightly taller than me.
"Why do you hate women?" she asks.
"I don't hate women." I answer, leaning forward and puckering up my lips. "I love women."
Then her boyfriend joins her.
After my escape, I overhear Evans talking with another girl. "You're a great drummer." she tells him.
"That's nice," he says, "Will you sleep with me?"
Now that's direct. An amazing verbal frontal attack. I vow to be as brave at the next opportunity.
We stay that night in Allessandria. Our hosts feed us and put us up in a fine house in the suburbs-- in real beds! The next morning, their mom greets us and makes us breakfast. She's please that we're there.
Later Helen explains, "She's happy her kids come home at all. At least they're not lying overdosed in the gutter like the rest of the town. She thinks you're a good influence."
That's a first.
The next night we play in Torino. A squat called El Paso.
"Why are you playing on Sunday?" they ask us. "Nobody ever shows up on Sunday."
Fortunately, they're wrong. This is the best show of the tour. We sell all our Harley Davidson cigarettes. As for the Marlboro... didn't I tell you? The strike ended the day we got there.
After the Torino show, we disco dance till dawn. The DJ plays an amazing band called Mano Negro. One smooth-faced boy keeps asking me to dance. I decide to be bold.
"Are you a homosexual?" I ask.
He shakes his head and leaves quickly. Those direct approaches might not be the best, after all.
After a celibate night (they all were!) in Italy, we head for a day's rest with Helen in Nice and then on to Spain.
There, we were supposed to play Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, and Zaragoza. The last place, I had never heard of. We wound up playing in Llodio, Andoin, Alsasua, and Zaragoza. None of which I ever heard of.
All these cities were in the Basque country. Basque is a language and culture unrelated to Spanish-- or any other. The language has a lot of x's in it. Enserik Asko means thank you. Gastecxe means squat. All the shows in Spain (except Zaragoza), were in Gastecxes.
The problem in Arnham was that the crowd understood the lyrics. In Spain is that nobody understands anything. Arriving in a town, we ask where the squat was.
Donde esta el squat? I ask in Spanish. Two giggly schoolgirls give us directions. After carrying suitcases and instruments twenty minutes from the train station, we arrive at the squash courts.
Asking again, this time using Gastecxe, (pronounced gas-tet-che, I think), we find it. We had walked from one end of the town to the other-- in twenty minutes-- with heavy instruments and suitcases.
"Fuck!" I say, "towns can't get any smaller than this."
The next night, I found out I was wrong.
Ernesto, our host for most of the shows, is in a band that opens for us the second night. They're more cheerful and creative than the first night's death metallers. I expect they'll spice up the crowd. Nothing could spice up the crowd.
At the show, Gavin sells one of his guitars from the stage. They love the classic Fenders and Gibsons there. Gavin got a bunch more than he paid for it. He'd wind up needing that money more than he could have anticipated.
Selling guitars is ok, but the squat won't let us sell our remaining cigarettes. "Not Marlboro" they said, "American corporate capitalism."
"Great," I think, "they're concerned that Marlboro aren't PC. Wait till they hear us!"
Imagine playing punkrock to an undertaker's convention. The only applause comes when I say "Enserik Asko," after we're through. We make just enough on the Spanish leg to cover our train and boat fare to England. I did meet Paul Spence, though. He's from England, but he lives in the Basque country.
"You're going to England?" he says. "If you think things are bad here..." I don't want to hear any more.
Things are bad. We pin our hopes on England. Promoted by Aidan, an experienced guy with nipple rings, we know we're going to make up for the rest. He's even associated with Lookout UK. How much more reliability could we ask for?
As an added bonus, we're going to have work permits. I'd faxed our birthdays, passport numbers and sexual preferences to Aidan before we left. That's all we need for the permits. They'll be waiting for us when we get there.
We're going to play the biggest cities in perfect order. London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and others. No more of these long stupid trips for no money. Our last show is right near Dover. We'll leave from there the next day, refreshed and ready to end the tour in Paris.
As a triple bonus, I'm gonna meet the girl who's been writing drippingly sexual letters to me for the last year. She wants to know the shape of my penis, for God's sake. Well, she'll find out.
I call Aidan from Spain, the day after our last show there. We'll be in England in two and a half days.
"How'd the rest of the tour go?" he asks.
"Awful," I tell him, "nothing went right. We're counting on England to save us."
"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," he tells me.
He then explains how we would only be playing five shows instead of the seven original. Some of the shows were moved to smaller venues.
I'm disappointed. I tell him we'd counted on limey cash, but are sure he's doing the best he can.
Our first show in France should be the day after Spain. It's cancelled. It's also Gavin's birthday. We go to Paris and I take the band out to dinner to celebrate. We have fine chicken with smoked salmon and French creme sauce. Big Mike eats a salad and French fries.
The next day, I pay the $400 for the tickets from Calais to London. Then I call Aidan again.
"I think you'd better consider not coming," says Aidan. "We're down to two definite shows. Two more are maybes."
I don't even know what the guy looks like. But I'm picturing his head in a giant vice with me turning it ever tighter. I see his eyes bulge out. I hear the splintering sound as his skull sends bone slivers through his scalp right before his brain oozes out onto the floor.
"We're coming," I tell him between gritted teeth. "I bought the tickets. It's cheaper than remaining in France with no where to stay and not one show to play for a week. Now, what do I say at customs to get the work permits?"
"Work permits?" he asks. "What work permits?"
"One good thing, though," he says. "I'll be able to drive you around in my car."
"I hope you can drive with two broken arms," I tell him. He thinks it's funny.
Big Mike is delighted that he can get a veggie burger on the boat. The rest of us are not so happy. Evans has no money. He expected to live off the tour profits. Gavin still has the money from his guitar sale-- but he planned to use that to start an import business. Now he was using it on bad Southern Fried boat chicken.
On the ferry, we concoct a story for the British customs agents. We are a band just finished touring on the continent, we'll say. Now we're going to England to spend our leisure time. We won't play there, of course.
Privately, each of us worries that the story might be close to the truth. We spend the rest of the trip to London picturing how Aidan would look. After that, we described in detail what we are going to do to him when we finally get hold of him.
We decide he must be a hippy. Constantly stoned, forgetting how to tie his shoelaces, we're sure he'll reek of pot. We figure he's got long hair, maybe dreads, needs a shave, wears Converse high tops, and doesn't trim his nosehairs.
He comes to the train station to pick us up in his microcar. The four of us barely squeeze in with him. As it turns out, he's got short hair, neatly trimmed everything, and is rather good looking. He's got long fingers and is effeminate in that oh so sexy way.
He tells us that Larry Livermore already put him in a column. I don't remember it. Knowing Larry, I figure it must've been something to do with sensitive horniness. If I weren't so mad at the guy, I wouldn't mind fucking him, myself. As it is, the only kind of sex I'd consider with him, would be necrophilia.
After dinner and our meeting, Aidan explains how all the Brit shows got cancelled.
"Things just happened." he says. "It's been even worse for other bands." As if that would cheer us up.
As the shows were cancelled, he didn't replace them until the last minute. He had too many other things to do. By then there wasn't time for promotion, so no one will show up.
We leave Aidan's commune to stay with, Claire, my friend for the last 22 years. On the train to Claire's, Big Mike tells me he remembers Larry's column.
"I think Larry had a crush on him," says Big Mike, "but Aidan's a hetero."
Gavin shakes his head. "England's the only place in the world where you can look like that and be a hetero." he says.
The first show is in South End. South End is a resort town for London's lower working classes. It's active during June and July and dead the rest of the year. We're there on January 18-- in the rain.
The South End show is a disaster, of course. It's "rap night." The local DJ scratch-mixes records while a buncha white Brits make up rap tunes in bad imitations of American Negroes. Then we play. After it's over, we've made forty pounds-- about sixty dollars.
The next show is in London.
"Everyone will be at your London show on Saturday," says Aidan. "We've gotten a bunch of phone calls about that show."
"Yowzah!" I say, "at least we'll make some money."
"I don't think so," says Aidan. "You're playing Friday."
The show was originally set for Thursday, but something happened. They moved it to Saturday. Everybody who called was told about the move. The press was informed. Then something else happened. There were too many bands on the bill. One of the bands was bigger than us. They had more pull. A label. Friends in the right places. We got bumped.
"We called some people to tell them," says Aidan, "but most of the people who called had no phones. They won't know about the Friday show until Saturday."
By the time of the London show, we have so many problems, and are so poor, that anything any one of us does, infuriates the others. The band is in crisis. We need nightly discussions and pep talks just to make it through the next day. Evans is completely out of money, and nearly out of his mind. The others are close. I can't leave them for a minute. When my erotic pen pal shows up at the London show, I turn her down. Can you imagine? Me saying no to nookie? That's how bad things are.
And London? The club takes in more than 200 pounds at the door. That's over $300. At least we'll get paid. We do. 90 pounds. The club takes the first 110 "for expenses."
Our last stop in Britain is Edinburgh, Scotland. We assume they'll be impressed by our guitar player, Gavin McNett. Not as Scottish as MacDonalds, but up there. They aren't impressed. We are, however.
We're impressed by the castle on top of the hill that overlooks the city. We're more impressed by the guy with a machine gun, standing outside to ward off tourists.
We're also impressed by the opening band, RUB THE BUDDHA. It's the punkest thing we've see all tour. Drunk, staggering, funny, the band is just what we need to warm us in the cold Scottish night. (Turns out that Norri, the singer of that band, was the guy who wrote the bogus letter about printing 400 Free Mykel Board t-shirts.) SWINE FLU also played and were a pretty close second in punkitude. Another band, SUBLIME, topped the bill. None of those bands got paid. Only we got paid. They sacrificed to help us.
It's tough to piss off the Scots. In the beginning, it looks as if they're too drunk to heckle. I try telling them that we were from the colony that got away. They're too wimpy to throw off the leash, I say. It doesn't work. The only time we get a reaction is when I unintentionally call the place England.
Oh yeah, when we play SKREWDRIVER'S Back with a Bang, Norri throws a full pint of beer at me. (He must've been really mad to waste all that.)
"The most PC thing you can do is be un-PC." He yells, "but you can go too far!"
Drenched, I continue the song. I should have said, "no you can't."
Then we play Sisterhood Is Powerful.
"This one was written by our friend and tour manager, Aidan Tailor." Big Mike tells the now hostile crowd. En masse, they turn toward him. Unfortunately, they don't attack.
Due to Aidan's scheduling, the Scotland show comes the day before the Paris show. That's a 14 hour ride in Aidan's tiny car, with all our luggage. Then an hour and a half boat ride. Then a four hour train trip from Calais in France to Paris. Aidan times everything perfectly so we should get no sleep, and make the Ferry with ten minutes to spare.
During the first gas stop, we all get out of the car to piss and buy food. It's freezing. Aiden unlocks the gascap and hands it to me with the key still in it. I open the trunk to get my sleeping bag. (It's freezing in the car as well.) I set the gas cap and key in the trunk, get my sleeping bag and return to the car. Big Mike goes to the trunk and fishes something out. Then he closes the trunk. The gas tank key, the ignition key, and the door keys are now locked inside.
Aidan flips. He kicks the car, kicks the gas tank, kicks the car again. He screams at Big Mike and me pointing to the scuff mark made by his foot on the car.
"That should've been you." He says.
It takes us about three quarters of an hour to get the keys out. We're on the road again... for two hours. Then we run out of gas.
We get out of the car. I spit. It's ice by the time it hits the road. Shivering, I try to hail a speeding car.
"Forget it!" yells Aidan, "nobody will stop for a guy who's dressed like Dick Tracy in kneepads."
Aidan decides to walk the three miles to the nearest gas station. Then there's the three miles back to the car. He won't to do it alone, he says. Who'll come with him? There is no rush of volunteers.
While we're playing scissors, rock, paper, a good samaritan stops and siphons out gas from his own tank. It's enough to get us to the next station.
Aidan tries his best, driving up to 100 miles an hour. We miss the ferry by five minutes. Still, we make it to Paris, with no sleep, and play our final show.
What happened? Why did we loose $2000, get sick, and travel for days with no sleep? The scene that's why! Well meaning but flaky promoters, who hold down real jobs and can only do this in their spare time. Greedy club-owners who know they can get away with not paying bands because the bands have no power. It's not a conspiracy. It's incompetence. Sure the Germans can do it. Sure Fugazi can do it. But that's all.
You've read in these pages about Nirvanasation. You've seen the bands jump ship. Tons of 'em. Kerpow! From indie to major. Everybody from GREEN DAY to DANIEL JOHNSTON. From HENRY ROLLINS to DINOSAUR JR. The MC (Musically Correct) crew tells you it's greed and the desire for fame that makes the bands jump. I've even regaled you with the evils of major labels. But now I understand.
It's not the bands, but the labels themselves, and the promoters and the clubs. The whole incompetent alternative scene. The whole promising-and-not-delivering, screwed-up-dates, pay-to-play, club-cut-of-the-door, sleep-on-the-vomit-soaked-floor, alternative scene. That's why bands sign to majors. That's why they become professional. That's why they "sell out." As usual, people blame everyone else but themselves. As usual, people are wrong. See, you're the alternative scene. You go to the shows, pay your money and buy the records. You volunteer to book shows, not even knowing if you'll have a club. You fuck up.
So come on Warner Brothers and Polygram. Here we are, just show us the dotted line. Mercury? EMI? Send the contracts. Atlantic? Sony? My place or yours? While I'm waiting I'll probably ask Fat Mike to put out the next record, but for the next tour-- I'm going with a professional.
ENDNOTES:
--> John Wilcox keeps sending me informative articles about kid's liberation, as well as supportive mail. He's a bit shy in revealing his address, however. Ah well, thanks for your support, John.
--> One of John's last mailings was from Covington KY. A man is suing to have the state overturn the law that makes sex with a girl under the age of 14 illegal. Good luck! Anyway, 14's a lot better than in most states. If the lefties and righties in this country got their way, no sex would be allowed at all, unless you already have grandkids!
--> Word from Agnostic Omar in Holland is that AGNOSTIC FRONT has broken up "for good." I know these guys were never popular among the MC crowd in these pages, but they were one of the most important hardcore bands ever! And, I like Roger Miret, personally. They'll be missed. Good luck guys!
--> I finally DID get that porno video from Bloody Mess. A yum yum threesome with some surprises. Bloody also sent me his new single, with a sleeve NOT by GG Allin or John Wayne Gacey. I haven't listened to it yet, but you can beat me to it by writing to Bloody: PO Box 9021, Peoria IL 61612.
--> Back in New York for a week. ABC NO RIO boasts ABALIENATION the punkest band I've seen since Rub The Buddha. Drunk (and tall) as dutchmen, they were sloppy, funny, minimal and punkrock. The girl they brought along staggered around upstairs telling stories without a punchline. The bald bearded singer and hefty bass player were so stark they made me forget what the drummer looks like. You can get their tape from PO Box 512, Vestal NY 13851. Then you can listen to "Punk Til I Die." But you won't experience it until you see them.
--> It's too late to make Martin's Sabotage book, but it's a great story anyway. This comes from Peter J. Scott, forwarded through the punk list on Internet: A major Christian radio network is alerting its member stations to check their latest shipments of religious compact discs before airing them. It seems that some of the CDs were mislabelled at the factory and shipped along with the religious ones. The mislabeled CDs were by THE DEAD KENNEDYS and include such songs as "I Kill Children." The network says "some Christian listeners may not find these songs inspirational."
--> RUSSIAN LETTER (PO Box 30, St. Petersburg 192282, Russia) bills itself as "the first English language fanzine on Russian & ex-Soviet independent/alternative/punk music." I don't know about that claim, but they should be worth contacting. One of the world's greatest minds once asked "How Much Punk Rock Do You Hear In Russia?" Now you can find out.
--> Special ARTLESS thanks and kisses to Helen and Claire who nursed us back to health in our time of need.
--> BGK WAUTER, I lost your e-mail address. Can you please snail mail it to me? Of course, all you buckaroos are free to snail mail me too. My responses, though, are getting snailier and snailier. As usual I'm at: PO Box 137, Prince Street Station, New York NY 10012. E-mail me at: MQB8130@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU.
--> Greets and thanks to Kent Jolly who came down to see us play in London and who maintains her deserved reputation as a fine human being.
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