I go to the US 5-6 times per year. Career-wise it would be better to hit the States more often, but I'm rationed in the amount of pre-recorded Radio 1 shows I can do, and R1's my number 1 priority. With the limited amount of visits I've tried to focus on the larger American cities. Los Angeles (the #2 city population-wise) is well and truly cracked. New York has proved more difficult, because the police keep shutting down the leading dance clubs just as I've built a solid head of steam. Thankfully the legendary concert venue Webster Hall has now appeared on the horizon as a weekly dance location, and this was our first port of call as Amanda and I set off for NYC on Friday May 11th.
We wanted a whole day shopping in Manhattan, so booked ourselves onto the first BA flight out of Heathrow, at 8.55am. There was a choice of two departures, into JFK or Newark Airport. Although JFK is the more famous, Newark has much shorter immigration queues and a speedier journey time into NYC, plus a great Manhattan skyline view as you come in to land.
From touching down on the tarmac at Newark to plonking our bags on the bed in the Soho Grand Hotel took just 70 minutes. First port of call was the jewellery stores on Canal Street, near to our hotel (although it's spelled 'jewelry' in American English.) The stone recently fell out of of Amanda's engagement ring, nowhere to be found and probably hoovered up by our cleaner . The low Dollar-Pound exchange rate made buying a replacement in the US a sensible option. We found a new 1 carat ring, and then went to a backstreet Chinese jewellery workshop where they resized it, cutting and soldering the ring with a naked flame Bunson burner.
The rest of the day was spent hitting the stores on the Downtown section of Broadway, accompanied by my US music manager Mark Davenport. The pace of Manhattan is second to none. Even London seems quite slow by comparison.
Like all successful music venues, Webster Hall gets intensively used, and rock band Lincoln Park were playing there earlier same night. After a siesta to recover from the 5 hour time difference, Amanda and I set off for the venue, but when we arrived the roadies were still de-rigging from the Lincoln Park show. Webster Hall has a number of different rooms and dancefloors, but mine was still not open until the mass of speaker cabinets had been removed to the fleet of trucks outside.
Los Angeles and New York have the largest British ex-pat populations in the US, and we had a big group of friends on the guest list, some American and some British. One always feels so much more comfortable with a hint of 'home from home'. My US agent (Matt from Brooklyn based AM Only) was in the house, looking after the vodka requirements, and doing a very good job of it. The atmosphere was excellent, as I was followed by my AM Only stablemate Dj Irene, who's got a crazy Mohican hairstyle and tunes to match. Irene's from LA, and we asked her what she thought of Paris Hilton's forthcoming jail sentence for driving whilst banned and under the influence. Nobody in the US seems very sympathetic to Paris' plight.
After having lunch with some American friends who'd just become parents for the first time, we headed back to Newark Airport, for our flight to Dallas Texas. I've always got stuff to do on my laptop, so occupying myself on flights is never an issue. However those travelling on US domestic flights without something to occupy themselves need not worry. Enter 'Sky Mall', the inflight mail order shopping magazine that's in the seat-back pocket of all US carriers. It's laugh out loud hilarious, with some of the most unimagineable junk, all available for shipping to the 52 US states. Amanda was very tempted to order the 'World's smallest remote control helicopter' or the 'fully functioning life-size voice activated R2-D2'. If we had a pet we would surely have reserved the Greek antiquity style 'cat drinking fountain.'
It was my fourth visit to Dallas, and the Boutique Hotel phenomenon has set in right across the United States. Gone are the days of dull monolithic chain hotels with bland businessman appeal. We stayed in the extremely funky Zaza hotel, making a room service order from a list of dishes that would have graced the World's finest tables. In the US there seems to be a large chasm between brilliant high end dining and fast food, with very little in between, which might explain the American obesity crisis. Thankfully I'm able to afford to eat well in the States, and I've never been disappointed.
Sensibly feeling the need to pace herself, Amanda opted to stay back in the hotel during the gig, although her definition of 'pacing' is open to question- she watched $50 of in-room movie porn and drank the mini bar dry.
Meanwhile I dj'd at Venom in Dallas. The American custom is for guest dj's to play longer sets, generally in excess of 3 hours, but my musical style is very intense and goes straight for the jugular. So I requested two hours, and the atmosphere was off the hook (to use a US expression that I still don't understand the origin of.) Some US venues can be a little on the dark side, which doesn't work for showman dj's like me. Venom was perfectly lit, with the crowd up close and in yer face -the way it works best for my style of performance.
Smiling a lot I headed back to the hotel, and the following day we set off for Buffalo in upstate New York. When taking on the booking I'd imagined that there would be a direct flight. Dallas Fort Worth airport is one of American Airlines' two biggest hubs, but they seem to offer departures to just about everywhere else in mainland USA except Buffalo. There weren't even any convenient connecting flights. We had to change planes and airlines, re-checking in at Detroit. I love visiting America, the only downside being the debilitating time difference. After 6 or 7pm you're exhausted, and sleeping in advance of the gig becomes a necessity. Because of our two flights this wasn't possible in Buffalo, and the promoters took us to a great steak house before my set.
He'd already checked us into our room, and when we got up there and put our bags down I found that one window was missing curtains. Doing a late night job and constantly fighting body clock disorientation, this didn't work. If I was to list the hotel attributes that are most important to me, reliable blackout curtains would feature very prominently. We therefore changed our room straight way, asking the night receptionist to inform anyone who called of the room change.
Clearly they failed to do this, as after 2 hours we'd still had no communication from the club owner. I checked the club's website from our room, but the phone number wasn't working. Eventually it was all resolved and we found one another, leaving me playing at 1am, very late for a Sunday night. Of course Sunday isn't the biggest clubbing night going, and the venue had never opened before on a Sun. It was a small but very up-for-it crowd, as Amanda and I pranced around in the booth for the final instalment of my last US trip until after the summer.
The following day Amanda and I flew back to New York JFK with budget airline Jet Blue. To my knowledge they're the only airline in the world featuring seat-back live tv, a full 30 channels. Roughly a year ago one of their planes developed a technical fault over metropolitan Los Angeles which was covered on national tv, and the passengers were able to watch it from their seats, which must have been the most terrifying moment of their lives. Our flight was totally uneventful, and the novelty of live tv kept me off my laptop for once.
We checked our bags into a JFK airport hotel with the surliest receptionist I've ever encountered, and caught a cab back into Manhattan to do some further shopping, which necessitated buying a new suitcase from the Tumi store in Prince St Soho. When it comes to weather, late spring or early autumn are the best seasons to visit NYC. In the winter it's oppressively cold and windy, and mid summer has near 100% humidity. The Manhattan sunshine was glorious, as we popped back into the city for our two hour visit.
Then we flew back to London with BA, sampling their new business class seats for the first time. Although BA was the first airline to install flat beds across its fleet, previously the seats were way too narrow for a comfortable night's rest. Because of the relatively short flight time, BA allows business and first class passengers to dine in the airport before boarding, which maximises on rest. On board I tried to watch the excellent British movie 'Venus', but fell asleep midway through.
Tuesday 15th of May was a rest night back in London, and we all went to bed very early. One thing about having small children is that there's never a guaranteed good night's sleep, and as if to punish us for being away for three nights, both Jake and Phoebe woke repeatedly through the night. Then our house alarm went off at 3am due to a fault. I was running on empty anyway, and the single day's opportunity to catch up was lost, as I was playing in Hamburg Germany on Wednesday 16th.
I flew with BA to Germany around 6pm, and avoided drinking any alcohol on the plane for fear of tiring myself out. It wasn't til around 11pm at dinner when I had my first drink, which was the most sensible course of action. The following day was a German bank holiday to celebrate Ascension Day, and the club was located in the heart of the famous red light and clubbing district. The venue held roughly 500 and I'd been booked to play a house set, which went down well, as did the bottle of Grey Goose vodka supplied by the promoters. I'm lucky enough to travel extensively, but my visits to Germany have counted less than ten during roughly 20 years of dj'ing. This year I'll be playing Germany on three separate occasions, the next two being large festivals, so hopefully these will serve as a springboard for more Teutonic spinning. Apart from my Irish roots I'm quarter German, so it would be great to play there more often.
That's about it for this week… More to be covered in the next instalment.