Good Noise Bad Noise’s US Tour 2008 as summed up by Shaun

To hear audio from the tour visit Good Noise Bad Noise @ Myspace

Well, I’m sat in my flat on Baz Is and the deep South seems like a world away already - home to cold weather and broken cars.....mmm...where’s a porch when ya need one?

So where to start summing up the tour? What can I say? It was a long strange trip we’ve been on with many high points and not too many low points at all - wonderful people, wonderful music, wonderful venues - it really was...what’s the word I’m searching for....er WONDERFUL!!

It will take a very long time to sink in me thinks but initial impressions and memories.....

ATLANTA: picked up by Scott on arrival and thrilled to get my first peak at America on the car journey to Frank’s - Waffle Houses, strange Southern Churches and pulling up to Frank’s wooden house with porch attached - just the thing. Jamming on the front porch drinking cold beer then up to The Yacht Club, meeting Holly and Terra (Duet’s beautiful ladies) and Greg, our Official Tour Manager. Many pitchers of Bass and Neil showing the locals how not to play darts whilst catching up with our good friends of Duet For Theremin And Lap Steel. We’ve arrived....with just enough time to record The Elvis Shrine at Five Frank’s Studio on day 2 in tribute to The Star Bar, a local club that has the afore mentioned shrine to the King.....

GAINESVILLE: We pick up the RV and get really excited - it’s massive and the only way to tour the US of A - wow a big rig and a tour manager - we’ve landed on our feet here....head out on the road down to Gainesville in Florida for the first show - gawking at the road and the big trucks whilst getting over jetlag, culture shock and a rather big hangover and visit our first truckstop for Gatorade. Call into our host Dianne’s for a bit where accents prove a problem and Shaun is christened Chuck for the rest of the tour by Dianne.....

We pull up outside Tim and Terry’s in Gainesville - some real hillbilly looking types playing banjos and such jamming away on the porch - starts thoughts of Deliverance crossed with The Blues Brothers in our minds - we get out and are assailed by the good folks on the porch, so we do the only thing we can - throw Neil in with his fiddle and go for pizza...cowards to a man....well except Neil who seems to be excited about getting some fiddling done - our hero ’Ringo The Icebreaker’ as he will become known to one and all. By the time we come back Neil has pacified the locals and we get ready to do a late show - starting at 11:30. Scott couldn’t make the first show so Hal is depping for Duet and we meet Aaron, who will be playing also and Andrew the promoter. Tim & Terry’s is an excellent venue and we play well and go down fantastically with the crowd - minds are blown and we chat with some more cool people before getting in the RV and heading to Dianne’s for some more beer and more chat.

ST PETERSBURG: or St Pete as us in the know call it...After the first of many wonderfully huge American breakfasts courtesy of Dianne we head back on the road to St Pete where we will be playing the St Pete Institute of Noise at Cafe Bohemia. St Pete is Frank’s home turf and we are stopping at his friend’s - some with Suzanne and Sandy and some at Chris’s with Don with an A (more accent problems this time earning Dan a new name, which is lucky for him as he was being referred to as Fat Ankles for a while) and John stopping in the RV.

It’s been raining all day and we’re not sure whether the show will be going ahead as it is scheduled to be outside, so we eat a big grill and drink beer whilst waiting the outcome. Eventually we set off to the show which is being moved inside. Meet up with promoters and artists with some deciding to risk playing in the yard - great sets by all and we move in for the softies - that’s us and Duet who are scared of being electrocuted.....Duet as fabulous as ever with Scott back on Theremin....We’re pretty good despite my computer crashing during the set and not quite getting it back up and running so John and Neil carry the show whilst I see my arse a bit.....sorry guys....we sort it out after the show and head back to party at Suzanne and Sandy’s where we are told we will going to the beach the next day...we protest in a very English way but are told we’re going.....

So the next day Suzanne takes us all to Wal-Mart to buy beach wear as we’ve packed for British weather so need hawaiian shirts and shorts and flip flops.....well except John who is turning a bit local on us and becomes Jethro off The Bevely Hillbillies before our very eyes in a lovely plaid shirt, although the skinny white arms give him away a bit....then off to the beach which in all fairness wasn’t half as dangerous as our hosts would have us believe and none of us were attacked by stingrays, sharks, killer grass or giant wasps....had a nice laze in the sun and a few beers from the cooler.

MANATEE NATIONAL PARK: day off and Frank has booked us into Manatee National Park, home of the Manatee, a sort of a cow thing that swims about and alligators. We park up and go looking for manatees but don’t find any, but see plenty of vultures and trees with knees...we set up in the RV and have a jam with Duet - projections and everything a tight squeeze but endless fun and probably quite weird if you happened to walk past us, but no-one complained so refreshed from the jam we get a fire going to grill some food. During the course of grilling a loud crashing can be heard in the undergrowth...Frank helpfully tells us there’s bears round these parts as well as the alligators so we to a man charge into the forest to kill the beast and add it to the grill....well actually we shit ourselves and hide behind each other as the crashing sounds get louder, with one of the party, who shall remain a nameless fiddler, standing on the camping table....Frank is brave enough to go to the edges of the trees with his torch to scare the demon bear away, the crashing gets even nearer and a massive, demon....rather small armadillo comes out into the open...after much releived sighing we start concocting macho tales to tell everyone about how brave we were fighting the monster off....mmmmmm

PENSACOLA: Wow what a venue....The Belmont Arts Center is kind of a disused factory/warehouse being run as a community arts centre which we fall in love with straight away...just our kind of place, crumbling and industrial. Joseph the promoter and Rich the sound guy are really friendly and we play great sets buzzing off the backdrop of the venue - ending with a big jam at the end with GNBN, Duet and Joseph getting down to some rockin’ toons before we head out to Dustin and Ty’s place for some partying and Neil starting Pensacolas first Lancashire Folk outfit before he insists on sleeping in the music room between 2 drum kits....

ATLANTA: After getting some super sunset action at Big Lagoon National Park in Pensacola we head back to Atlanta for the gig at Eyedrum and Frank’s Birthday. First a chilled day off where we get to wander round the farmer’s market and visit a thrift shop to buy silly t-shirts that make us laugh...looked after by Scott and Terra and have a good night’s sleep, then next day onto the birthday bash. Eyedrum is a brilliant co-operative volunteer run arts venue in Atlanta and it was a real privilege to play there. Duet went on first as Frank thought he wouldn’t be able to see much past 9pm and they played a blinder, followed by The Shaking Ray Levis who are legends in these parts so with great trepidation and a few technical problems (mainly me not plugging stuff in properly) we take to the stage pretty late and the worse for wear. It looks like pretty much everyone has left so we cut loose with our version of happy birthday to an empty room, not really caring and having a lot of fun, only to realise at the end there’s loads of people out there when they cheer at the end... off to The Yacht Club to toast Frank’s birthday once more before bed.....

CHATTANOOGA: We never did find the choo-choo but found the venue JJ’s Bohemia, a funky little place with The Shaking Rays ready for us. They are promoting the show tonight and we all have fun playing and catching up and getting drunk - special shouts to LaDonna & Misha for a spectacular and inspiring performance. We stop at Ernie’s house and have a ball stopping up talking politics and general bollocks with some of The Shaking Rays and trying to decide who was the bigger fan of Montana Skies....I think Neil won that one though it was close and the dregs of the squad fall asleep watching The Rutles.

NASHVILLE: After Ernie treats us to yet another wonderful breakfast we head off over the mountains to Nashville, which we’re all very excited about - after many of the band playing country music over the years who’d have thought our first trip to Nashville would be to play experimental improv industrial noise...well we get parked up and hit the honkey tonks, getting name checked by the band we were watching, making us feel like stars. We meet up with Wright of d/a73 and 1000 Aeroplanes Crashing In The Night and have a walk about before finding the venue. Neil refuses to wear his newly bought cowboy hat and we all go to set up feeling very tired, having made the decision to travel straight back to Atlanta after we play. Dylan of The Most Amazing Century of Science very kindly let’s us do the opening sets which was much appreciated as Scott is really unwell and we’re all pretty knackered. Another couple of great sets before we catch up a bit with people before we set off back home to Atlanta. We get to Frank’s in the very early hours before we get up after a couple of hours sleep to clean out the RV and return it ready for a couple of days off in Atlanta

ATLANTA: so what do you do on your first day off after a few back to back gigs....go watch a darts match!! Frank tells us that himself and Greg are playing for The Yacht Dawgs in the final match of the season with only 10 points out of 21 needed for the league title....so off to East Atlanta for a few drinks and cheering from the sidelines as The Yacht Dawgs romp to the title before more celebrating at The Yacht Club, our new spiritual home. Next day, the last for Chuck B, Jethro and Ringo The Icebreaker, with Don with an A stopping for a few days more, we head downtown to look at lots of car parks....not intentionally, there doesn’t seem to be many shops there so we go for a drink and meet the first unpolite person during our travels - a waitress in an ’English’ pub...ah the irony....so we go home via Six Feet Under, another great bar that Frank recommended to us, before ending up at the local....yes The Yacht Club again....before ending the night dancing to disco music in the Star Bar before going home very tired...The journey home is all a bit of a blur with lots of sleeping involved, then a couple of days of getting used to being home and here we are.....

Many thanks to Scott, Frank, Terra, Holly, Greg, everyone at The Yacht Club, Andrew of Action Research, Aaron, Xiphiidae, Hal McGee, everyone at Tim & Terry’s, Dianne, St Pete Institute of Noise, M31, Microwave Windows, Insecticide Lobotomy, everyone at Cafe Bohemia, Suzanne & Sandy, Chris, Joseph, Rich, everyone at The Belmont Arts Center, Dustin, Ty, everyone at Eyedrum especially the sound crew, The Shaking Ray Levis, LaDonna Smith, Misha Feigin, Montana Skies, everyone at JJ’s Bohemia, Ernie, Dylan and The Most Amazing Century of Science, Dr Amimov, Wright, Ginger, The Yacht Dawgs and anyone who we’ve forgotten to mention.... we love y’all

Chuck B xx