A day can be a very long time when you're travelling. Emotionally and physically. As I write I find myself in the famous and rather marvellous Astoria Hotel. A two minute stroll from Copenhagen Central Station in one of the most interesting and certainly thoughtful. cities in the world right now I'd say.. London? You must be joking mate ! Yesterday morning I woke up in a slightly corporate hotel off Sauciehall Street in Glasgow. Sunday was pretty full on and I saw a sensational gig at the end of it. So let's start there.
Sunday I actually woke up in another hotel further down Sauciehall Street. Glasgow's a pretty incredible place, it's 'steeped' in something intanguble, a set of values and it's nice just to regain consciousness there propped on plump pillows knowing you're not obliged to work and there's a prized event at its close to look forward to. But first you might as well make the best of the hotel you find yourself in.
So I get up yesterday, shower and shave. Go down in the lift. to the lobby. Pay at the reception desk and make my way to the dining area through a warren of darkened and confusing corridors..Dystopic labyrinth. I heap myself a plate of sausages, eggs and mushrooms, pass a table of babbling Chinese students and make my way to an empty table in front of a large screen television.
An orange man in a loud tie, devoid momentarily from his customary large and ridiculous baseball hat is making vacuous pronouncements upon the screen for the Industrial Military Complex which he momentarily acts as frontman for. About the bombs that he or others have dropped on Iran.
A country far far far away, of which he knows nothing of. .I hear the expression 'Make Iran Great Again' and am momentarily taken aback. But nothing shocks you for long these days. Dylan's Masters of War comes to mind. I exchange words with a couple of fellow diners who are preparing to wolf down their own breakfasts in a state of numb shock.
All of our mouths are agape which makes it easuer to shovel our breakfasts into them I suspect..Horror is served up for breakfast on a regular basis these days. Whenever I make the mistake of watching the news it seems. Then I'm back to my room and I pack my bags. Go down to the lobby once more and call a taxi by pressing a button on the bar. . I'm out in the street and presently the taxi arroves to take me to another hotel further along Sauciehall near Pitt Street. Don't ask !
The chat with the taxi driver as he gets me there is worth the fare in itself. You cannot beat Glasgow people I'm deciding. They are what they are. Reality. The older I get the more I appreciate reality. After a great chat about what makes Glasgow what it is he wishes me a good day in thick but plain brogue and I'm in a corporate lobby with a smart bespectcled lady at the desk. It's all very corporate but she's clearly a human being and a nice one which is a great bonus. I give it five years !!!.I get a ticket for my luggage which I can redeem and get acces to my hotel room by three.
I'm back off out into Sauciehall and it's raining. Not men. And not Casablanca type end of the world global torrents which I've already experienced yesterday afternoon on the way to the hotel when I arrived in 'The Dear Green Place.'. yesterday afternoon I find myself in Watertsone's to avoid another downpour and momentarily I'm in heaven and my heart beats so that I can barely speak.
Sauciehall Street Waterstone's is utterly fabulous. Several floors, Books, Books, books of every dimension and description and ample sofas and cafe areas. You feel like you're off for an extended tour of Mr Wonka's chocolate factory but you won't get far and might learn lots instead.
I grab Luke Haines latest extended moan about the perceived telling of what happened to Rock & Roll and who the Heroes & Villains actually are. Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison, The Fall, The Velvets and Television and aparently he never cared for Blondie much. .I suspect he might not be much of a feminist. Anywhow, reader, I bought it, and will get round to it on It Starts in due time. I bet you can't wait.
I head onwards shrugging off more rain and make my way into The Willow Tree Cafe half way down Buchanan Street. Willow Sreet Cafe has all you need. momentary shelter from the downpours whuch punctuate most days here regardless of the time of year. Attentive Glaswegian waitresses who give as good as they get. Rennie Mackintosh wherever you look. Scottish Rarebit for less than a tenner. A sieve for your China Rose Petal.
I text my Polish friend who I'm remaking a great friendship with after not seeing her for the best part of twenty years. She has been in Poland for a week with her younger daughter. It all sounded heavenly and she was in bliss. Sending photos of everybody down coal mines in fetching yellow helmets. Wining and dining in Katowice where we'd first met and attempted to drink dry on a regular basis. We're both taking things a bit more sensibly and soberly these days.
Now she's at Krakow Airport and feels like crying so she's got herself a beer. I console her with pictures of cake and advise her to plan the next holuday. We resolve to do just that and I head back to Pitt Street to get my room and freshen up. I call mum and say I won't be in touch for a week. Then I'm back into the fray. I ask directions for Argyll at reception and I'm off again. Into the late afternoon.
Argyll Street is nt the easiest destination today clearly. A JJ Abrams Samuel L. Jackson film is being shot in Glasgow this summer and many main thoroughfares are closed for filming purposes at no little expense and no little inconvenience for pedestrians and tourists. Glasgow is a street of long thoroughfares and reminds me of New York which its standing in for in this fulm because it's cheaper. I feel like I'm in a movie myself as I inch my way downtown. Past the taxi rank outside Glasgow King Street.This is a place that I find I fall in love with just by walking its streets. Like the best cities.
I'm not sure I trust my Google Map skills to get me to the Mono Club in King. Fortunately I'm in Glasgow which I'm beginning to suspect may be the friendliest city on earth. I go into another Waterstone's this one not so much like Willie Wonka's Nine to Five and an assistant in cool Pinz Nez gives me detailed directions. I'm clearly in my way from misery to happiness today.
But I've got a bit of time to kill. So when I get to King Street, between Merchant City and Trongate if yu're taking notes which I imagine you are, I duck into a bar. Avant Garde. It's full of elderly well dressed Glaswegians. They're playing Gang of Four and Specials in here and the main attraction hasn't even arrived .
He soon does. An elderly fella in a dapper suit that you could cut your loaf of bread with, should you wish. And a line of patter to match. 'My kind of town Chicago is....' I get momentarily confused but he's damned good. A Nightingale Sang in Berkely Square. By the time he gets on to his Tom Jones and Cliff numbers the couples are bobbing and weaving on the dncefloor in front of him and a fine time is being had by one and all.
But I'm not here for The GoodFellas Experience. I'm here to see Horsegirl. I get further directions form more cool and laidback Glaswegians and I'm at Mono, just up the rad. It's immediately the kind of venue I feel most at home in. Another spiritual home.
It's a beautifully spaced venue. Comfortable tables. A well stocked bar . A low stage placed at the front of the venue. A relaxed air . A terrace out front where the Glasgow Indie Groovers are beginning to gather .Cool looking, relaxed people. The kind of place where people like me feel relaxed because we're in our element and with our people. I'm immediately enchanted.
I have a look through the ineffably cool record shop at the back of the venue. Monorail Music. It was apparently set up by Stephen Pastel has row upon row of rare classics I would love to buy immediately. I don't have anything by Sebadoh or The Field Mice on vinyl. These issues probably need to be addressed. Immediately.
I resist and move back into the venue and wait for the music. I text to my Polish friend but my flesh is weakening. I'm tired. It happens at my age. It's been a longday. My legs are tired. Will I last the course of the evening. Thankfully help is at hand. The support group, an impossible assured looking group of young men and women I heard doing a soundcheck for earlier have climbed back onstage and started to play. My ears prick up. If you've been listening to this kind of music as long as I have you know what you're going to like and I know I'm going to like this. A lot. I get up and start to make my way through the crowd looking for a better vantage point.
They announce themselves as Nightshift. That figures. I've long liked Nightshift and appreciated their records on It Starts for some time. They're the kind of band that appreciates the essence of the Underground. Park their charabang in the vacant lot between The Velvet Underground, Au Pairs, Girls at Our Best and Young Marble Giants and would have done John Peel Sessions and sold precisely no records at all back in the day. They're playing to a set of people they've played to any number of times and will love them unconditionally every time. Not because the audience lacks discretion. But because they have it.
They're energetic, kinetic, laugh a lot between themselves between tracks and have no fear of showing commitment to the Palestinian cause, and what I conclude is wrong with that. I thank the singer after the set for speaking out. I think it's important to speak out, She's excited when I do and keeps babbling effusively. I think she and they are great. They've been on tour with Horsegirl and clearly bonded as the best double bills do. They make this kind of lifestyle feel like a calling. I'm glad it still is for so many. It allows the rest of us to follow more conventional lives but still wiggle our toes in more bohemian ponds.Of an evening !!!
Half an hour more and we get Horsegirl. It's darkening outside but there's something ripe about the night. It belongs to lovers. This is why I still do this. the venue's sold out but sensibly it doesn't feel cramped. There's consideration from the venue in that repsect. I've learned through a lifetime of experience that these are the best venues and the best nights. It speaks of values. Of a lifestyle where genuine respect for others is the common currency and people go hiome happy with a sense they've got their money's worth.
Horsegirl play the best set I've seen any band play for many years. They have a brittle but inspiring edge and actual swagger. The band is clearly a democratic colective but I realise tonight that if they have a lead rit's probably Pemelope Lowenstein when previously I'd thought it might be Nora Cheng.. Lowenstein has cut her hair and she speaks a lot tonight and I get the sense if the group are following anyone's lead it might be hers.
Anyway Horsegirl strike me as having that cerain ineffable and difficult to quantify essence that marks the great bands out from the merely good ones. They don't hold back. They're riding their wave. Their first record was good but this is a huge march onwards from that. Ive seen a handful of bands at the time when I felt it was just the time to see them. R.E.M., The Go Betweens and The Triffids at the time of their imperial albums. Pixies and My Bloody Valentine later in the decade. There are more but I wom't bore you.
Anyway they have an elliptical quality tonight.. .Sure they take a lead from The Raincoats and The Feelies. But if you're going to steal, steal from the best. .A few songs in a set of pretty young girls slide past me at the lip of the stage and it's a wonderful moment. Something I'll remember . It's inspiring. The true meaning of girlpower not a marketing exercise. It's been a wonderful night and I'll ride on its wave of positive energy for some time.
