watch and listen, but mostly listen:

http://www.myspace.com/theinvisiblemovie

according to spin.com, dan sings one of our songs!  i guess this proves once and for all that they know more about music than i do.

http://www.spin.com/features/band_of_the_day/2006/12/061226_citizenshereabroad/

 

We try to make people happy here at CHAA central, and it seems like what will make you happy is to put 'Microphone' up on this page.  How can we refuse during this season of giving?  Happy holidays everyone.

xo

citizens here and abroad

p.s. you already know this, but 'microphone' can also be heard in the trailer for The Invisible.

Chris:

 

Hopped on the road from Manchester today for Newcastle, which is in the northernmost reaches of England.  We had a fun time when we were there last year, with the possible exception of when, in a "when in rome" spirit, I decided to order a Newcastle Brown from the bar and was practically laughed away by the bartender.  I guess it's similar to if people expected me to eat clam chowder out of a sourdough bowl everyday, or take the cable car to work.

 

In any case, we head up the motorway, stopping for some caffeine and food on the way (I sample an interesting item called the "sausage roll").  The drive, as most of our drives so far, is overcast and gloomy. A big metal angel greets you from the side of the road as you head towards Newcastle, wings outspread.  The weather makes her all the more ominous.

 

We take the wrong turn getting into Newcastle, which makes us a little late, but gives us the chance to go across the beautiful Tyne Bridge.  We are immediately greeted upon arrival by Michael, the promoter for the night (and talented bassist of Kubichek), who helps us unload and immediately puts us at ease.  We're playing in the same club that we played last year, the Head of Steam.  It's in a subterranean room, with a low stage and a PA that's exactly like the one we use in our rehearsal studio.  More often than not, I'd gladly trade a high stage and fancy sound equipment for a place like this. 

 

The first band to take the stage is Spraydog, with whom we had the pleasure of playing last year.  They are all terribly nice people, and better yet, they'll also be playing with us on Friday in London.  Their music is immediate and good, with a singer who makes you believe.  Adrienne and I are watching their set, and a woman comes up brandishing a paper envelope.  Pictures from our show last year!  In the world of near misses, I notice that the shirt I was wearing was the same shirt that I wore yesterday.  I breathe a huge sigh of relief.   

 

Sefelt are the next band up, who are also great.  My auditory bias makes me notice the basslines in particular, which are interesting in a good, Carlos D kind of way, not in a slap/pop-i-test-all-the-amps-really-loud-at-guitar-center-so-you-can-hear-me-mad-skillz way.  Around this time, I also notice Martin and Colin in the crowd, who put on our show the year before.  Because no day would be complete otherwise, I put my foot in my mouth by switching their names.  Thanks.

 

Our show is great.  The crowd seems really into it, and the aforementioned "tour lock-in" has indeed taken effect.  We even get asked to play an encore!  Thing is, we've already gone through all of our rehearsed songs.  A lovely girl in the front who had been singing along to Appearances (?!) asks us to play In Flight Movie, but sadly we are unable to oblige due to our technical deficiencies.  But we do manage to play "They Stay" and call it a night.  

 

After the show, we chat with people for awhile, then get directions to the Travelodge where we're staying for the night.  It's located right near the side of the Tyne River, and you can see the Tyne Bridge from our window.  Tonight is why I do this.

Chris:

 

After a day off in Wrexham, Wales, where we successfully answered more than half of the questions correctly at a pub quiz, we made our way to Manchester for a show.  On the way, we stopped into Chester to get some breakfast and check email.  Chester is an old town founded by the Romans, and it has this big ancient wall that I told was meant to keep the welsh out of england.  There are lots of tudor buildings in the town center, or centre as they call it here.  Our tour van is much taller this year than the one we used last year, which has been a very limiting in terms of finding places to park.  We circle around town until we found a lot next to this store called Iceland.  As the name might suggest, they sell frozen food.  In order to get an hour's free parking, we were required to purchase 5 pounds worth of stuff, so we loaded up on water and chewing gum.  Once caffeine was fully coarsing through our systems, we headed off to Manchester.

 

Our venue for the night was called the Night and Day.  It's in a neat area of downtown Manchester that's filled with record shops and vintage clothes.  And cheap indian food, to which we are guided by our friend Mike and his friend Tara.  The club itself is really nice, with a good sound system and nice sound guys.  I, of course, proceed to immediately make a fool out of myself by letting a pint glass fall off my table and shatter, which the deathrock bartendress begrudgingly sweeps up. 

 

The bill for the night has expanded to five bands, which is crazy for a Monday.  At the last minute, we are also made the headlining act, but since we are borrowing equipment there is little room to argue.  At least the last slot in Britain starts at 11:30, not 1am.    

 

The guitarist from another band Laeka, whose guitar amp Dan borrows for soundcheck, leaves early, but luckily Dan is able to get an amp from the band before us Reemer.  We have everything almost ready to go on stage, and then the bassist from Laeka, whose amp I was borrowing, says he has to leave.  Great.  Thankfully, Reemer comes through with that as well.  Thanks, Reemer!

 

Set-wise, we played a short but great set.  I think we finally reached "tour lock-in" tonight, meaning that the songs have all tightened up and there are no surprises.  That's one of the best parts of tour, I think.  It's like forced practice for three weeks, which definitely has its benefits.

 

At the end of the show, I'm surprised by a visit from a friend that I haven't seen in years. Marie visited Berkeley once to see my friend Holly, who had spent the previous year in York, and introduced me to the English wonder the "chip buddy". I sit with her and her husband, talking about music stuff and catching up until we have to go. Didn't get a chance to eat a chip buddy, but hopefully will be able to find one when we come back through town.

Adrienne-Day Off, Wrexham Wales

There's no direct way from South Wales to Wrexham, so we took the road leading to Heresford and then to Shrewsbury and got into Wrexham around 3 pm. Matt undoubtedly heard our diesel engine make its way up his street.

We watched a Darts championship on the BBC and ate the tasty pasta dinner Matt cooked up. There was a small debate as to whether we should take the van into Chester for Matt's guided tour or his car - G decided Matt's car was best. In Chester we walked along the Roman wall and saw the River Dee below. The streets were almost completely empty.

We returned to Wrexham and walked down the street to particpate in a pub quiz. Our party was too large for one team, so we split in two. What is a group of bears called? A sleuth. Who knew? Not us. Our two teams tied with 21 points each. We were asked by the young man who's writing next week's questions if we'd be back, as he said he'd include more American knowledge, but by next Monday we'll be in London.

Chris:

One thing's for sure – the weather this time around is much more "typically English" than when we were here in May.  The past several days have been overcast and gloomy, muting all of the colors of buildings and landscape.  It wasn't until I moved to San Francisco that I realized how dependent I was on the sunshine.  Growing up in Southern California, I cursed the hot summer weather and the fact that my mom's car had no air conditioning.  Now, I live for the few days of the year when it's hot enough to wear just a tshirt at night.  We've seen several tanning salons here.  If I lived in the UK, would I feel compelled to visit one of them for an occasional vitamin D dose?

 

We had the day off yesterday, and once we'd enjoyed a great breakfast with Gareth, the promoter of our show in Bath, we got on the road and headed to Cardiff.  We tooled around town a little bit, checked email and stuff, then made our way to an inn that Dan had found online for a good price.  The pictures on the website was of this nice old country manor, but the price was so low that I was sure we'd arrive to find a dilapidated barn with some straw cots.  Instead, we arrived to find a very ritzy-looking place and well-dressed people filing into a reception.  The room for me and CW was decorated in a kind of jungle theme, complete with elephant wallpaper and pictures of wild animals.  Outside, a tent with balloons and multi-colored lights was playing a techno version of "Axel F" for partygoers.  Friday the 13^th indeed.

 

At our show in Bath, I realized that I hadn't thought to bring an electrical converter for my keyboard.  Last year, I was using a battery-powered Casio, so it hadn't occurred to me that I'd need a new piece of technology.  CW visited a music store in Cardiff, and someone there was nice enough to point us to an electronics store just outside of town.  Arriving at Le Pub in Newport, we are greeted outside by Sam, the manager of the bar.  She points me to the ginormous 8-speaker bass cabinet that I'll be using for the evening.  Unfortunately, it's still at the bottom of the stairs, and needs to be carried up, which I can accomplish only with the brawn of our drummer.  Once that's upstairs, and I've stopped sweating, I look around to see that the entire club has been turned around.  The stage, which was once a small triangle in an area of the room with very little headroom, has now been moved to a much larger area previously inhabited by the bar.  We can only think that this was the work of the soundguy from last year, who is very tall and must have lobbied heavily for a working area that wouldn't give him a permanent hunchback.  But it's his night off, so we aren't able to confirm our suspicions.  Instead, David (Sam's husband, and the owner of the aforementioned speaker cabinet) has kindly stepped in to do sound, even though it's the day after his birthday.

 

Slowdance are the first band up.  I'm surprised to hear that it's only their second show.  They play enthusiastically and earnestly, the singer's voice somehow reminding me a little of Neil Young, even though the music is more emo-esque.  After them is Half Weight.  They are very tight, and keep the crowd engaged through the quiet moments.  You know, when a song drops in volume, maybe some instruments drop out, tempo slows down.  I bring it up because those are the hardest moments for me on stage.  When things are loud and fast, you can't think too much.  Time moves differently on stage.  For those 30 or 40 minutes, you travel faster than normal.  Consequently, my mind starts to wander during slower/quieter songs, ultimately leading me complete distraction and flubbing a note.  But back to Half Weight.  Their singer had a really nice voice.  She played a lot with the break between her head and chest voice, which I'm a total sucker for.  Also, their cellist made very skilled use of her instrument.  Strings and brass are tricky instruments to incorporate in rock music, and more often than not they are used for the powers of evil rather than good.  This was good.

 

Our set started off a little shaky.  Dan's guitar amp was being sent to my monitor, consequently causing him to feedback everytime he moved an inch, and causing me some nice tinnitus.  But by the third song, things had settled.

 

Later, we were packing up the van and talking to Owain, the promoter of the show.  We hadn't seen CW in awhile.  When he arrived, he explained that he had been distracted by a human pyramid inside.  I said "bullshit", to which he replied with a photo on his phone of people toppled over one another in the bar.  We all went back inside to find a couple dozen indie kids screaming their heads off to Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody".  Guys with long hair and communist caps were onstage singing and dancing, as girls with wide belts and skinny jeans watched.  I thought that was the pinnacle, until the DJ started playing Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone", at which point everyone went completely crazy.  Including me.  I mean come on, who can resist that song?

 

Adrienne-Newport, Wales

Owain made us a pasta & pizza dinner and then we went downstairs for drinks. W got the 'rocktail' special: 2 white russians for two pounds fifty. They came with paper umbrellas. I drank Castlemain XXXX, not the local Brains beer whose brewery we parked near in Cardiff.


Le Pub is unique in that it's not exactly unlike Long Beach, California inside. It is unlikely that anyone inside Le Pub ate tacos for lunch, but until people start speaking, they look simiar to Americans.


During our set the amp Dan used spit out a million shards of guitar feedback for the first two songs in our set. It sounded like some of the tracks off of 'Pyschocandy,' and strangely enough the Jesus & Mary Chain album cover was framed on the wall only about 5 feet from Dan's head.

We stayed in Bristol at Gareth's after the show at Moles, W in the living room with the horses and G, Dan and I upstairs. Around 11 we woke up and went to 'Tasty Stop' for a £4 English Breakfast. Where I sat I could see giant goldfish and an Angelfish swimming in a big aquarium. It was too much food for any of us to finish, and we swore we'd never eat again.

The drive to Wales didn't take long, and we found a car park in Cardiff near an amusement ride that was set up right in the high street between buildings. The ride held 4 people on of two arms of a giant rotating piece of steel. The people were turned upside down and flew backwards and forwards. W wanted to go on the ride but he was alone in that desire.

No luck finding a power converter in Cardiff, though some employees of Marks & Spencer suggested going to Currys on Newport Road and a young man working one of those island stores in the mall told us to do a makeshift conversion with a ballpoint pen in the third prong of the UK outlet. I don't think so.

It took about 2 hours to find our hotel, even though it's only 6 miles from Cardiff. A series of roundabouts led us astray and we checked in at 8, ordered room service, and downed wine G had chosen two hours earlier at Marks & Spencer.

There are three rows of seats in the van we have this time around. I sat in the first row behind the driver on the way out to Bath, fading in and out of consciousness. Right outside the car park we left the van in was the 'Catherine Public Convenience,' which translated to 'Coin-operated self-cleaning public toilet.' Each of us used it except for W.

Moles was one of our favorite venues from last year's tour, with the backstage cavern, drums tucked into a pocket on the stage, and the dancing crowd. It being our first UK show on the tour, there were power conversion issues. I went to Sainsbury's Local after the soundcheck to buy batteries for one of Dan's pedals, but they didn't work. The theory is that they're back-up for storing settings, not for powering the pedal. Dan lent G his power converter for his keyboard, and the extra power converter didn't do a thing. We switched around the set-list and planned shopping for Friday.Steveless went on first, their keyboard propped up by a stack of beer crates.

We played next and included Joy Division's 'Disorder' in our set for the John Peel tribute. After The Sugars' set Gareth Dj'd to the dancing crowd and we joined them. A man named Ollie who I spoke to at our Mezzanine show in San Francisco last year was at the show - he lives here and had been on a work trip in San Francisco. El mundo es un panuelo.