Glastonbury

Today we arrived in London to get ready for our first run of European festivals this summer (excluding of course the raucous start we had in Barcelona):

We’re warming up tonight with a show at Proud Galleries in Camden. There’s currently a Sid Vicious photo exhibit here, so as a tribute I will be getting fucked up and miming all my bass parts while Mat our sound engineer does the real work from behind my amp. Has the makings of the best Holy Fuck show of all time.

Tomorrow we head to the Glastonbury Festival where we’re playing the John Peel Stage. Hopefully the hippies are kinder to Jay-Z than they were to Kanye. And hopefully we don’t drown in the mud as it’s already been raining and continues to do so today. Brian is set as he has his Canadian-branded wellies:

We’re on tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 and you can tune-in to our set on the BBC. After we play I plan on hitting the treadmill with Amy Winehouse for a bit and then watching CSS before we head for Poland at 4 am.

More from the mud tomorrow!

Holy Fuck vs. The Porta Urinal

We played Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Spain a little over a week ago. For more than one reason it was the craziest festival experience of our collective life. Thankfully we had a professional basketball player on hand to put everything into perspective. More from us later, but for now, here’s Paul Shirley…

—

I watched Holy Fuck play at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona on Friday night. Their set was great. Unfortunately, they were almost outshined by a toilet.

I wasn’t familiar with the Fuckers before receiving an email from bassist Matt McQuaid last fall. Before ordering me to check out his band, he told me of his affinity for my writing. (I wrote a book relating my experiences in professional basketball.) Since I’m a sucker for musicians, I found their webpage and then, on a whim, bought the eponymous album.

I liked what I heard and the record soon found itself in moderately heavy rotation as I drank my way through a season on the island of Menorca.

This spring, as it became clear that the Barcelonan I was dating wasn’t joking and actually did like me, I started to plan for summer in that city. While making a routine check of pollstar.com, I eye-scrolled down and noticed a festival chock-full of the sorts of semi-obscure but wonderful bands that give me a reason to get up in the morning. Among them: none other than the employers of my new cyber-friend Matt.

I raced to my computer to send him an email. Or rather, it only took me six days to get around to sending him an email. Strangely enough, the very day I sat down to write, I found an email from him:

“Paul, quit stalking me. I’m not interested in hearing the remaining 25 on your list of 101 ways to prepare a cucumber using only an Exacto knife.”

Wait, that was the guy from Animal Collective.

Matt asked if I would be interested in a guest pass when they played in Barcelona. I asked him if the pope shits in the forest. A few weeks later, I found myself happily in attendance at Spain’s best music festival.

Matt was kind enough to secure a pass for the aforementioned Barcelonan, so I didn’t have to pull my “tall dude wandering a concert alone and creepily” schtick. We arrived in time to watch one good Autolux song and three bad Autolux songs. When they finished, I realized that the plan Matt and I had made—to “meet somewhere in front of the stage where Autolux is playing”—had been a poorly-conceived one. When we had talked, I hadn’t realized the scope of the festival. I had assumed that the Spanish wouldn’t be able to pull together anything more than a few tents and a keg of shitty beer. I was wrong. About the tents. The shitty beer part was correct: the festival was sponsored by Estrella Damm, which ranks somewhere around number 78 out of the 79 or so beers I’ve tried in my life.

When the Autolux crowd cleared out, my girlfriend and I hiked across the grounds to see Man Man, about whom I’d heard a great deal, but from whom I’d heard nothing. There, my new favorite member of Holy Fuck tracked me down. In between Man Man’s hysterics, we chatted about…well, mostly about his band.

Like most of humankind, I have a few unreasonable wishes. I’ve always wanted to ride on a galloping horse, for example. And I still hold out hope that I might get to go to Space Camp some day. But my A-1, most pressing desire is to be in a rock band.

That’s never going to happen, of course. My musical ability peaked in fifth grade at the piano recital I didn’t completely fuck up.

That being a rock star is my greatest secret wish probably explains why I go a little gaga around musicians. To me, good musicians are what Karl Rove is to Southern Baptists. They’re my deities.

Matt was warm and friendly and Canadian, and he answered all my dumb questions without making fun of me. Most interestingly, he said that he doesn’t get nervous before shows. As he said that, all hopes that he is not seven times cooler than I am flew right into the Mediterranean Sea.

We parted ways with Matt soon after Man Man. He had to get back to the hotel, and we had to go watch Cat Power. We walked toward the entrance.

And then I saw them.

Lined up behind the normal Port-a-Potties, like a dream from the future, were the most amazing toilets I’d ever seen.

These masterpieces brought together everything I like about Spain: a simplistic view of life and a relaxed take on pissing in public. Each square unit had four receptacles, divided by walls to keep neighbors’ eyes at bay. No doors, no flushing mechanism. The user steps up onto his corner of the square, does his business, and steps off. No fuss, no worries. Unless, of course, the user happens to be afraid of having people see a rear view of him whilst peeing.

The genius is in the simplicity. Guys don’t really care about doors and walls when it comes to urinating. In fact, most of us like to pee outside. The only problem: the general public doesn’t like random penises flailing about. But the four-sided design solves all that. Non-users don’t see any naked anatomy. And users get a no-strings-attached outdoor piss. Everyone wins.

When I laid eyes on the Stonehenge of toilets, I knew I had to try one. Unfortunately, I could only force down so much Estrella. (Insert beer/urine joke here.) It didn’t look my bladder was going to be in need anytime soon.

I resolved to concentrate on needing to pee.

But then, Cat Power had to go and be terrible. I forgot about the toilets for a while, as I cursed her under my breath. I had three reasons to be mad: 1. I love her album The Greatest and so had high hopes. 2. I had sold my girlfriend on attendance by playing Cat Power for her. 3. I had picked watching her over watching A Place To Bury Strangers and could see and hear their show—which appeared to be a real rock show—in the distance. It was like eating a hot dog next to a Ruth’s Chris.

The next distraction was The Go! Team. The good news: They were distracting because they were wonderful.

I had some time to think about peeing before Holy Fuck. Still, nothing. I wasn’t even that distracted by The Rumble Strips. I just didn’t need to pee. It seemed that my new-favorite urinals were going to go unused, at least by me.

When Holy Fuck took the stage at the un-Holy hour of 4:30 in the morning, any chance that I would concentrate on anything other than music took an hour off.

They were, quite simply, amazing.

I rate my live music experiences by the number of times I get chills on the back of my neck. Holy Fuck, just before sunrise in Barcelona, caused multiple chills.

I realize that what I just wrote seems a little over-the-top, especially since I’m writing this only because one of the members of the band I’m writing about got me in. But I don’t have any reason to be so nice; they’re not paying me and, short of me becoming a Holy Fuck roadie, I can’t imagine I’ll see them again anytime soon.

So trust me when I write that it was one of the best live shows I’ve seen in years. I would compare their show most closely with that of Mogwai, another loud, mostly-instrumental band that’s not from the US.

Most of all, I appreciated that it looked like the band was having fun on stage. Matt and I had spoken early in the night about our distaste for musicians who play it too cool, who are afraid to look like they’re trying. That was not a problem for Holy Fuck. They bounced around like teenagers, playing their instruments with glee.

When my hour of bliss was over, Matt came out and we talked about their show. He seemed tired, but happy. After 10 minutes, I bade him a fond farewell and started up the stairs and began the long walk out.

As I made the same trek I had made earlier in the night, the pre-dawn light glanced off the urinals in the distance. I thought about how long it had been since I’d been on this side—the wrong side—of sunrise and then, wham, my bladder was full.

Holy Fuck was forgotten. The hour of musical near-perfection faded from my memory. I was finally saddled up on the toilet of my dreams.

But then, disaster. The receptacle was full of pee. No matter, I thought. Whoever had designed such a beautiful thing must have surely taken this into account. This is probably normal.

It wasn’t. As I added to the pool of stale urine, a line of pee dribbled down the side of the bowl. It was overflowing…onto my shoes.

I walked away in disgust. I had had such high hopes.

I’ve gotten over the disappointment. Anyway, I didn’t really want to say that the highlight of the Primavera Music Festival was a toilet.

When, really, the highlight was Holy Fuck.

Juno

That blog title ought to insure some mis-directed visits to our lonely little corner of the internet. Now to get down to business…

Last night the Juno Awards were handed out in Calgary and we lost. L-O-S-T. Talk about a good way to ruin a European tour! And as anyone who knows us will tell you, we’re one competitive bunch, so we were frothing at the mouth. However, the results of today’s globeandmail.com online poll have served as salve for our wounds. Because if you can’t trust an unscientific poll on a newspaper’s website then what can you trust?

The Juno Awards weren’t all sorrow and bitter disappointment for Holy Fuck as our friends, labelmates and bandmates Wintersleep walked away with the Juno for Best New Artist! And deservedly so as their record is fantastic. However, when an eight year-old band with three records wins Best New Artist it suggests to me that the possibility of Ryan Malcolm winning Best Female Artist is not so far-fetched.

Tonight we’re in Brighton, one of my favourite stops in the UK. Unfortunately, Snooper’s Paradise, the junk shop that is the source of about half our set list, was closed and we couldn’t procure any more hit machines. Free Blood is currently playing but I’m caught in a bass trap as I write this so I’m going to move and watch them coax and cajole the crowd with their hot soul and dance concoctions.

The Neverending Story

Oh, hi there… Sorry, I didn’t see you, I was flossing. Um, we just played Manchester and it was fantastic.

It seems that the last time we spoke we were on our way to see Aimee Mann film a live concert DVD in Los Angeles. Well, the sound was bunk (weird venue), but it was still a trip just to see her and to top if all off we got thrashed on free Grey Goose vodka. As a result Brad was pretty vocal about her lack of drummer, but I was just glad he didn’t yell “Play Magnolia!”

(P.S. If you haven’t seen the Aimee Mann Christmas Trilogy, do it now.)

Anyway, a few days after we played Los Angeles we flew to Mexico where I immediately proceeded to lose my wallet. Thankfully I found the wallet in short order, only to have my computer totally go bonkers. Which is the excuse that I’m going to use to explain the complete lack of blogging and posting of photos in the interim. Sort of a dog-ate-my-homework kind of excuse, but one becomes pretty dependent on their laptop when they don’t live at home for long periods.

However!, the computer is back up and running now (albeit not as fast as it once was) and we are back on the road after having a well-deserved week off. So, many untold stories from the last tour and upcoming adventures from this tour will soon be appearing. In the meantime, entertain yourself with this little remix we did one morning in L.A. a few weeks back (Brian’s got a great story about that coming down the pipe), seems someone went and entered it in a contest for us…

M.I.A. No Longer M.I.A.

In my estimation the goal of a truly great music blog is to be as far ahead of the curve as possible. Well, there’s ahead of the curve and there’s Gorilla vs. Bear. They posted our remix of M.I.A.’s ‘Paper Planes’ before we knew they’d even heard it. Hell, I didn’t even know we’d finished mixing it! Anyway, we think it’s pretty cool, pay the gorilla and bear a visit and take a listen.

We’re on our way to Los Angeles today and we play Echoplex tomorrow. The highlights of our trip to L.A., however, are the following:

1. Tonight we’re going to see Aimee Mann (!). Jesus Christ I’m excited.
2. Tomorrow there is a Speedcabling competition. Speedcabling! If there was ever a sport created specifically for us - and there was not - this is it. Speedcabling is, simply, “[…] a competitive sport in which contestants race to unravel a bundle of wires.” Tomorrow’s event conflicts with our show so we might just have to blow that off. I’m sure Gruff can do a solo set or something…

Dust in the Wind

Everyone in the band is sick with the flu but me. So this morning I took it upon myself to do a little research on my favourite bodily humour and yours: phlegm. My most important discovery was that clear or healthy phlegm (or what I would refer to as “snot”, ie. ‘Buddy, pipe down or I’m gonna kick the effin’ snot out a ya!’) can signify the most infectious period. This is important information considering the close quarters we share.

More on snot: according to Wikipedia it’s slang for nasal mucus and not phlegm. (Up for debate if you ask me, but I’m no immunologist.) Regardless, our snot got a real workout yesterday as we were in the midst of a dust storm here in El Paso, TX. Take a look at the skyline of Juarez, Mexico, obscured not by pollution, but dust:

Next stop on the Driving-Through-a-Country-and-Western-Song Tour 2008 takes us to Tucson, AZ tonight. And if Super Tuesday lives up to its name for a certain “conservative” candidate we might be partying well into the night with the locals.

Tar Heels

Much to my delight, but much to the chagrin of the rest of the band, we stayed at University of North Carolina Tar Heel-themed hotel in Chapel Hill last night. Unfortunately, my room was in the soccer wing. Not to knock Tar Heel soccer, but Michael Jordan didn’t haunt the pitch at UNC, he hit the hardwood.

We hit the hardwood in our own special way at the Cat’s Cradle, by blowing the subs midway through our set. The smell of burning plastic is never good when surrounded by van-loads of electric musical equipment, let alone when it means you’re destroying the club’s PA system.

This morning we went to the kind of grocery store/coffee shop/good karma complex that can exist in a university college town like Chapel Hill. I’m certain that I could have paid for my organic chocolate and Tom’s toothpaste with a haiku or well-executed downward-facing dog, but it was early and it was easier to use Benjamins. (Let’s be realistic though, I don’t make enough to pay anyone for anything in Benjamins, it’s strictly Washingtons with the odd Lincoln.)

Onward through South Carolina to Georgia and “The City Too Busy to Hate” tomorrow. (I wish I lived somewhere with a nickname like that.) Hopes are high for a chance encounter with Izzy.

The Wright Stuff

The National Mall may not have an Orange Julius, but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless. And with a day off to bum around in Washington, DC before heading to North Carolina, we decided to pay it a visit.

Since we’re ginormous nerds, the musuems of the Smithsonian Institution were our target, particularly the National Air and Space Museum. As expected, we saw tons of great stuff, but I’m not ashamed to admit that the highlight was Kermit the Frog. Sorry, sliver of Moon rock and Apollo 11 command module.

Apparently you can’t buy scalp tickets for the State of the Union, so we were relegated to spending the night at our hotel. Rather unfortunate since we were going to wire the chamber with a Clapper.

Freedom of ‘76

Boyz II Men still keepin’ up the beat, yeah
Freedom of ‘76.

Well, I put Charles Barkley on the guestlist last night, but he didn’t show. Thankfully it was the first all-ages show of the tour and the young’uns more than made up for the Round Mound of Rebound’s conspicuous absence. Judging by the first comment on this post, it seems they knew how awesome they were.

We’ll be back in Philly on March 20 as we wrap up our tour with A Place to Bury Strangers. That will be our 48th show in 58 days so we’ll probably feel like walking cheese steaks, but I discovered joe Coffee Bar this time around so I should be fine.

Speaking of coffee… Brian rightly observed as we left Toronto last week that simply “going for coffee” now makes one a hipster. And it’s true! I guess the only recourse is Sanka and Triscuits or something… but then that could be misconstrued as post-modern irony. The next day my friend Kieran, who knows his fair share about being hip, pointed out this BoingBoing post which really sealed the deal for me.

But that wasn’t Kieran’s point, nor is it the the point of my long-winded rant, the point is this comment which refers to this song by Murray McLauchlan. It’s a great song, introduced to me by Steve Ketchen, who does a way cooler version and who you should go see play in Toronto whenever possible. He’ll always be there if you put him on the guestlist.

Homeless……..for now.

Being on tour is a lot like going to camp. Day 1, you’re a little nervous, and you meet a bunch of new people. These new people, you’ll be spending a lot of time with over the coming weeks. Gradually as the days go on, you get closer. You bond maybe, and your friendships grow. You find out who’s really nice (those who like being on tour), and who’s grumpy (those who don’t like being on tour). Finally, at the end, you don’t want to go home!

Last night was our 1st show on this, our latest tour of North America. This leg of the tour has us opening for the Super Furry Animals. Show number one was at Maxwells’ in Hoboken, NJ. In case you’ve never heard of the venue (or just haven’t seen it), the place holds about 150 people MAX, and has a killer sound system. The staff are great, and unlike most rock venues, they’ll feed the bands a great meal! Seeing the Super Furry Animals at a venue like that is a real treat. Definately one of the smallest and most intimate venue you’ll see that band in. I remember seeing them at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto (cap. 1500) a few years ago. An amazing show.

Our set last night was pretty good. We’ve managed to fine tune a set list that we’re happy with, and thanks to Craig, the sound guy, our sound on stage was really great. Despite some gear malfunctions on stage, I think we managed to pull it all off. It also didn’t help our nerves when we found out that Yo La Tengo, and Steve Shelly (drummer from Sonic Youth), were there. SonicBoom (from Spaceman3) was there too (he was selling merch at one point)!