Wednesday 14/03/07
The morning was a very confusing series of queues or "lines" as we attempted to make people believe we were supposed to be there in order to get wristbands. What kind of wristband you had became incredibly important, but more of that later. We had a radio session to do.
While Richey Wolfe stuck "The Needles" in giant red letters to our hire car we walked into the grandest, most movie star-est hotel I have ever seen –glass elevators, the lot! My acoustic guitar case wouldn't fit into the car so we took it without case and I walked in with the thing round my neck. We announced ourselves.
About 5 years ago I bought a giant white Hank Williams-style guitar strap adorned with musical notes. Playing wee gigs in Scotland it had always seemed fairly ridiculous, but as the Bible of Rock states, for every ludicrous over-sized guitar strap there is a time and place. It wouldn't have seemed right just then with a plain black Ernie Ball number somehow. I hope the pictures came out.
The session was in a small room of the hotel, and we were told by the lovely people at XFM that they'd had complaints so to keep the noise down. I don't know if it was the by now superannuated lack of sleep and food or the Texan attitude seeping in but Hey! –We were the goddam Needles with goddam big truck that says Needles all over in big red letters with a goddam Hank Williams guitar strap in a goddam moviestar hotel playing our goddam songs on the goddam radio and if we say we gonna rock the house then we gonna goddam rock the house!
We only got to do one song and I can't begin to imagine what I said in the interview but Jim Gellatly continued to speak to us throughout the following days so I guess it must've gone OK. Or maybe he felt somehow responsible.
The rest of the day, as most of the days were, was a blur of Paul Needles and his Pepto-Bismol, Richey Wolfe and his incessant photographing and stickering {search and destroy!}, our manager Scott trying to push and pull us in a suitable direction while keeping mind, body and soul together{in an alternate universe where The Needles are extremely important, which does exist, Scott has a knighthood and our host Erin a genuine sheriff's badge} and John just being the dude. It has been proven under lab conditions that Johnny Wolfe can just be the dude in any place at any time in the world. A while back we were on a boat from the mainland of Shetland to the Isle of Unst, the most northerly point in the UK. We had not seen another soul in hours and we joked that John would know the only guy at the port. He did and had a 20 minute conversation with him about nothing very much. The same thing happened on a half hourly basis in Austin.
Musically I'm going to sound like one of these awful sunburned Brits who goes to Magaluf, dances to Chas'N'Dave and demands fish and chips. But it really wasn't like that. It's just that the best bands I saw on Wednesday were Scottish. Emma Pollock and her band played their awesome, heartfelt, spooky, tender, tragic, twangsome songs like it wasn't that big a deal. It was, of course, a big deal but Scottish people tend to do that. She's one of the best singers I've heard in a long time.
Pop Up, like us, have a manager tearing his hair out trying to get them the attention they deserve. I get the impression, though, that their singer and {I think} wordsmith Damien couldn't give a shit if he was on the cover of Rolling Stone or busking on Sauchiehall Street for fags, so long as he had his groove or whatever he calls it. He's a very cool guy and I'm a bit scared to ask him too many questions.
Wheras our thing is about misunderstanding great Americans like Buddy Holly and Brian Wilson then filtering it through our own nonsense, their thing comes more through a keen understanding of Scottish life and lunacy. A bit like if Michael Marra had to grow up during the techno era or Ivor Cutler sang doo-wop. You never know what the Yanks are going to get or not get but their songs are odd enough that it just might work. I also like the fact that half the band also want to be in Guns'n'Roses. The path of greatness is strewn with many contradictions.
Apart from these I remember a very cosmic bunch of Ozzie stoners with 2 drummers who managed to keep me rockin by playing the same riff for at least 20 minutes. I can't recall their name but I really should find out cause its not often that happens.
There were also several nonsenses by numerous groups of student fools with trombones, accordions and no songs. A lot of people were getting very excited by this kind of thing.
4 hours of flyer arranging, some much needed Breakfast Burrito, 3 hours of regularly interrupted sleep and its…
..Thursday 15/03/07
While Scott got me performing the vital task of colouring in Xeroxed flyers with pens Richey, Johnny and Paul all got free ice cream from the legendary Austin "Ice Cream Man". What you lose on the swings you make up on the roundabouts, however, and I would have my time. An ice cream would've been nice in that weather though.
But enough of these petty point scorings, there was work to be done. The Dirty Dog was the venue and Beavis and Butthead and a genuine man in a genuine cowboy hat were the audience. John was a truly brave fellow wearing a pink shirt playing the drums in that heat. Good on him. Hat man made facial grimaces at my every guitar move which I suppose is nearabouts the most sincere form of praise there is going.
The plan was then to take the once in a lifetime chance of seeing the Stax review show featuring Booker T and the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Isaac Hayes and pretty much everyone else left standing from that unspeakably glorious era of music making. Inevitably a large number of the many thousands attending SXSW also had the same idea, a lot of whom had better wristbands than us. So in spite of a two hour wait were told by a very harassed security guy to move along as the event was full, to the strains through the theatre walls of "Soul Limbo" –better known as the BBC cricket theme. I hate fucking cricket, but it sounded awesome.
Me and Paul Needles then caught a very grand group who we've been following for a number of years now called The Sights. A spot of head melting here and a fair slice of rockin psyche-soul there and any disappointments of the evening were soon forgotten.
We met up with the other guys and were dragged kicking and screaming to something called "The Vice Party" which sounded like a trendy arsed bunch of pustules to me but then I'm just some old hick pseudo-intellectual. When we got there a band called Panther were actually properly rocking. I know phoneys when I see them and these weren't them, these were proper beasts. There was another band on later called Chromeo who I think I liked but to be honest by then any critical faculties were well out the window. This was critical death and misdigestion was soon to follow.
As I staggered into the Needles-mobile and ZZ Top came on the Rock station I thought " this is cool, I'm pissed, had an excellent night, rockin out to the 'Top on my way home , I'll collapse in bed and tomorrow is a whole new day." That was what I foolishly assumed as we pulled up to those fateful traffic lights.
Now many people in the world know who Har Mar Superstar is, maybe not so many people have an in depth knowledge of what he actually does, but most people know him as a dude going about. Likewise with Johnny Wolfe, if the number of people in the world who know Johnny Wolfe as the dude going about rushed out and bought a Needles record neither me, Johnny Wolfe, Paul Needles, Richey Wolfe, Scott, the guys at our label and all of our extended families would have to work another day in our lives.
So you know Har Mar Superstar, right. And you probably know Johnny Wolfe as well. And you probably know how they pretty much look like the same guy. That fact has certainly not escaped us Needles over the last few years, much to Johnny's annoyance.
I've heard several accounts from various angles since as to what happened at those traffic lights but all I really know is that one minute I was rockin' to ZZ Top on my way home to collapse in a spinning room, the next Johnny and Har Mar were reunited as long lost brothers in the Needles-mobile, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, neither acknowledging that they were face to face with their exact double. Apart from the American/Scottish thing they even spoke the same.
So on to a Grade A showbiz party with Har Mar it was. Before I leave Thursday I will tell you that Har Mar, or "Sean" as we found out his real name is, got dressed up as "Har Mar" in our van before heading to the party by taking off his trackie top and going out naked from the waist up. "Put your top on Har Mar" they shouted as we barged our way past the queue.
That is really all I can tell you though.......
