8th - 17th October 2003

Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band (Live)
Hint (live)
Pete Lawrence (DJ)
alucidnation (DJ)
Amukidi (VJ)
The Ombudsman (VJ)

This was another UK tour, this time to promote the new Big Chill compilation on Big Chill Recordings. This time, we had a couple of other bands along for the ride; Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band, an outfit from Norway, with a fantastic live show, and Jonathan James, aka Hint both playing live at each venue. Pete and I played records. It was a great experience, even though some of the dates weren't particularly well-attended!

This time, we had our own tour bus, which was a right crack! Here's my take on proceedings...

Date One : London

This was predictably busy. Touring with Ralph Myerz was always going to guarantee reasonable sized audiences; their reputation preceeded them. I hadn't caught their live act before, and was pretty blown away by it. Ralph himself (Erland) was pretty low key, situated right at the back, with the two drummers flanking him on either side of the smallish stage. It was an explosive gig, a great start to the tour proper. People went mad for them, understandably. The drummers added an almost theatrical element to the gig, standing on their kits and whipping the crowd into a frenzy!

Jonathan James (Hint) had kicked off the night with his soothing grooves and had gone down well, although a lot of the crowd hadn't arrived by that time. Pete Lawrence played some lovely tunage as usual; I was due on last. I found the decision as to what record to play first after Ralph Myerz pretty un-nerving, and I must have changed my mind numerous times. In the end, I decided on Prince's 'Uptown', which seemed to go down pretty well with the crowd.. As the audience thinned out as people started to leave to catch their last trains, I decided to play exclusively my own material, which everyone (including me) enjoyed!

A nice start to the tour, all in all.

Date Two : Nottingham Rescue Rooms

The start of the tour 'proper'. The tour bus wasn't booked until the following day, so Adam (the ombudsman) met me at my house and we travelled up to Nottingham together in his motor. John Rixon (Amukidi) got a train up there, which proved to be a rather stressful trip for him, poor lad. Pete turned up independently as did the RM Band with their entourage. Hint had decided to do the whole tour on his own, rather than brave the excesses of the tour bus. Probably a wise move in hindsight!

The gig itself was pretty well attended, I opted to take the first slot, and I must have DJ'd for about two hours playing a selection of mellow tunes mainly off my laptop, during which time the room started to fill up nicely. Hint came on after me, playing live tracks off his LP 'Portakabin Fever' on Ninja Tune. Then the RM Band came on to rapturous applause and again blew the roof off - the crowd loved them. I have to say that I never tired of watching them play - every night was different and it didn't seem to matter how large the audience was - they always gave it 110 percent. Last on was Pete, who rounded things off nicely with a selection of songs from his collection.

Adam and I were debating going on to a party, but I got cold feet - my mood was a little strange by the end of the night, so we ended up blatting down the M1 back home to Harrow for a decent (if short) nights sleep.

Date Three : Liverpool Academy

We met up at Golders Green bus station to board our TOUR BUS! It was an impressive affair - a two storey Volvo with two lounges, 12 berths and a kitchenette. Rock and Roll, man! Our driver was an enormous lad who was only going to be with us for the initial leg of the journey. Pete sat in the rear lounge reading the paper and being quietly contemplative. This time we had a tour/road manager in the shape of Jon Wilks, who proved to be a right scream throughout our time on the road, livening things up no end.

By the time we arrived in Liverpool, it was about seven in the evening and we had just enough time to set up and start playing. It was a rather relaxed affair - i can't actually remember the order in which we performed, but the thirty people (!!) who turned up to watch seemed to like what they saw. The reason for the low attendance? The gig hadn't been advertised at all, which we were a bit pissed off about, understandably.

By the time we'd packed up at the end of the night, I was the worse for wear due to alcohol consumption, but managed to play a nice selection of tunes as we were driven south for the Brighton leg of the tour. We were all looking forward to playing Brighton...

Date Four : Brighton Concorde 2

Upon arriving at Brighton mid morning, hunger got the better of us, so we wandered into the town centre to find the same cafe that I'd discovered the last time I was there on the previous tour. It took a bit of finding, but it was worth the wait. We enjoyed a traditional English fry up before heading down the the venue to set up all the equipment.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with Warren Smith from Breakin' Even, who I learned was now living in Brighton and had arranged to play live percussion with Pete later that night. We found a suitable hostelry and I enjoyed a few ales before heading back to the Concorde for more beers.

As we predicted, the Brighton date was probably the most enjoyable - certainly one of the highest attendances. Everyone played storming sets, including myself - mainly dancefloor friendly tracks to keep everyone moving. Jonathan didn't have far to travel to this gig, as he only lives up the road. The Hint fanclub was there in force, giving him some great support on the night.

It all ended up getting pretty messy - well it did for me anyway. Laura B had turned up from London to see us play, and we had a extended stay in Brighton that night, eating at a late-night cafe, and drinking yet more booze.. After that, we all boarded the bus which took us on our merry way to Warwick for the date up there.

Date Five : Warwick University

Not the finest night of the tour. Although the venue was really cool with the most efficient and friendly crew that I've ever had the pleasure of working with, the general feel of the night just wasn't 'doing it'. Before we'd even stepped foot in the place, Jon Wilks had made sure that we were all pretty spaced out - in fact, my recollections of the whole gig are a little sketchy..

After we'd set up the equipment on the spacious stage, we retired to the eatery where we ate our fill and drank copious quantities of the booze that they'd supplied. Of all the dates, the rider was adhered to, so we got more bottled beer than we needed, and also The Ralph Myerz Band got the Lego kit that they'd specified (!!), so everyone was more than happy!

However, the audience were a little subdued, and for some reason, a beat-heavy party had been programmed in the adjacent room, causing a fair amount of sound spill, which meant that an ambient set couldn't be played. Pete was pretty upset about this, as I was. What was irritating was that the room we were playing in provided a walkthrough to the other event, so people were walking through the room during our sets to get to what was going on next door -some kind of R&B night. Every time the door opened, you'd get this massive amount of soundspill, which was a shame.

I think we were all agreed that Warwick wasn't the highlight of the i-chill tour. That didn't stop us from enjoying the end of the night, whereby we all got horribly drunk and ended up doing an earth pipe (a hollow made in soft earth whereby dope-smoke is inhaled through the ground - see picture above) on the central reservation of the A34 of all places!

Date Six : Birmingham Medicine Bar

After a deep nights sleep on the bus, we emerged into bright October sunlight - it was a beautiful day in Birmingham. By this point, my body was so saturated with booze, that I hit the pub at 11am. Not good. It was a kind of a 'hair of the dog' scenario, but it seemed to do the job.. Tonight we were guesting at the Different Drummer night in the Medicine Bar, where we'd played earlier on in 2003 with the Bays.

It turned out to be a great night, although the stage was a little small. This meant that the DJ table had to be situated by the side wall, which wasn't ideal, but hey. We all rocked it, Pete playing a very dubby set early on, and then me playing a dance-floor friendly set at the end of the night. The RM Band were excellent - probably playing their best set of the tour. They ended up trashing their drum kits, which I'd been looking forward to all the tour.

All that needed to be done now was to get back down to London to unload the kit and get back to normality, which was just what my body needed after the excesses of this particular tour.

A cracker.

More information is here on the Big Chill website.

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