Thursday June 8

This will prove to be a day of abject madness. Up at 7.00 a.m. to catch 9.00 a.m. flight to Madrid for TV show. Only: the flight is delayed for a couple of hours. At Madrid airport (after a couple of Lufthansa bloody marys) they are expecting big ‘Poz” Macartney, but accept us anyway. They (M’s record company) whisk us into town (gee let me tell you what Spain looks like … uh kinda like Italy) and the hotel is “hot shit’. But to get the feel of Madrid life, Teddy, Daubney and I adjourn to a slimy neighbourhood bar, dining on a stream of beers and a platter of pork crackling. Very agreeable – until interview-time beckons. Oh well. This continues (including hilarious TV interview) until dinner – a sleepy, stuffy, creamy affair. By this time I’m ready for a meaningful relationship with Club Fartsack, and I retire. The bedsheets feel awfully nice and I turn the air conditioning up full … beautiful …’BRROOING! goes the wake up call. It’s 11or I2 a.m. unfortunately time to Brock oneself up for the TV show, due about I.00 a.m. Shit. Shamble into crushed stage clothes, stumble downstairs. Kip out for five minutes in the foyer. Lie on the floor of the van (driven by Alphonso) taking us to the tacky club named Oh! Madrid! and try and sleep some more. The club is brocked up MTV style. Fine Young Cannibals are miming. What a load of tossers. Everything a bit on the surreal side. Looking out from white balcony to poolside disco the night-time scene reminds me of Freshwater Bay Yacht Club, no less.

Brace myself with V&T or 22. Golly – given the opportunity of INTERNATIONAL MEGASTARDOM, at times like these I’d choose CLUB FARTSACK no worries – or what!! Sensing impending avalanche of ZZZZ’s the angelic Shaz Collins convinces two ageing TV technicians to “chop out” a couple for Daubney and your humble scribe; Ok I’ll no longer fall asleep in the first chorus of “Trick of the Light’ – but will the Triffids pull off a dynamite, tight, professional, convincing performance? BOLLOCKS THEY WILL!! Hey Daubney! Hey Ted! You make Guns’an’Roses look like the Moscow fuckin’ Ballet Company – OR WHAT? Jill and Alsy perform well. I’m not the best, but not unbearable! The rest do a facsimile of a deaf, dumb and blind retarded paraplegic “thespian” class’s impression of the Beastie Boys on a wee “bit” of Ecstasy and fookin’ truckload of mogadon thickshakes. Oh let’s forget this sorry scene shall we? Just between you and me dear reader, let’s pretend this “Night in Madrid” was just the hazy punchline in a bad scriptwriter’s deathbed “gag”.

Friday June 9

And by the airport it’s clear that Sally wasn’t exactly a BIG fan of Ted and Daubney last night. And – hey, big surprise! – nobody LOOKS VERY WELL! The queue for CLUB SICK-UP lengthens. And guess what? Yeah – 2 1/2hour flight delay on account of French air traffic controller’s unofficial ‘bugnerisation’. LAUGH? I nearly joined the Spanish army – or what??

Hey Amsters!! It’s good to see you, you miserable platter of ham and cheese – Hit the Feebo outlet – mine’s a sate croquette. Hit the streets – a Dutch hippy! The Quentin Hotel never looked more Schnookie, nor the Paradiso. Hello Pam (delivering highly important Keyboard thingy OR WHAT). Hello Doug, Justin, Rox, Tim, hello Helena (UK FAN – OR WHAT), hello Putzie twins – Evi and Kirsten, hello Liz – merchandise the fuck out of these cheesebreath-heads! <i>(again let me assure you Mr McComb has a very high regard for the Dutch.)</i>Hello Peter – Mr. nice intellectual Dutch journalist with whom I have a conversation concerning the duty or lack thereof that ART owes to REALITY (hmm the Newcastle Times and the Daily News won’t be quite the same after this spate of no-holds-barred shameless arty European intelligence and sophistication OR WHAT). We dine in the old faithful Italian restaurant. The show is very good, Ted and Daub on good behaviour bonds, the capacity audience only unbridled towards the end SO WHAT’S NEW? Nothing’s changed since the Stoned Crow.

Saturday June 10

Thanks Philip- or was it Frank, for the wake up call. After breakfast (ham and cheese WE ACCEPT NOTHING LESS, GUV) Pamela and I proceed to the American Discount Bookstore (best Bookstore in the world, no contest) and proceed to blow at least £30 each on spurious books – Brodsky’s collection of C 19th Russian poetry, Kundera’s “Art of the Novel”, biog of Fassbinder, “Death in Venice” G. Greene’s “End of the Affair”, Warsh’s “Methods of Birth Controls”, the Eighth Edition of the Paris Review’s “Writers at Work” series. Then off to Utrecht. The Tivoli again. Sold out. Silly German interview. Soundcheck. Procrastinated, but tasty, Thai meal in canalside eaterie. Obscene UK support group. Weird motherfuckin’ hotel. No beds in Marty and Liz’s room. I have no key and have to be escorted to room by receptionist. Rooms aren’t ready until 4.00 p.m. Weird.

Good show of course. Bit of an aspro Ted disco in Pam’s room with “Paul’s Boutique” and “Avalon Sunset” but I say one too many stupid Ted jokes and Graham gets fed up and I feel like a right twat. Sometimes it’s wise to grow up, no?

Sunday June 11

Breakfast en masse in Utrecht Central train station where we are dropping off Pam and Helena (at this point the entourage is the biggest ever in Triffids’ history: Justin, Tim, Dugald, Sal, Liz, Goon, Evi, Kirsten, Pam, Helena, Roxy, Jill, Alsy, Bob, Ted, Daub, Your Scribe). Then two Dutch cuties give me a pink rose whilst ensconced in brekkie -glamour of rockn’roll OR WHAT? Difficult to be blasé. Joy of joys – English Sunday press (Observer and Sunday Times) at newsagent makes for a highly enjoyable drive to Belgium. Hey, Ghent you’re my kinda city, and Vooruit is my kinda venue. Meet up with good old Jacky (Belgium journo), immediately plunge into stimulating (seriously) triad of simultaneous interviews. The hotel is 40km away so we “shower” at the venue. Highlight of the day – Belgian geezers BROCK the backstage area up with 2/3 of a South American tropical rainforest, NO SHIT. Leafery blocks all eye to eye contact over dinner. Chimps swing from vines, anacondas twist around branches, parakeets chatter in the foliage (but I ordered eucalypts you Belgie incompetents!) and half the Triffids fill up the northern hemisphere with … dope smoke. Bevvies on board at conclusion. Drive to hotel whilst watching ELVIS ALOHA HAWAII on the video and, yes, it’s just a teensy bit pertinent to the spirit of the occasion OR WHAT.

Monday June I2

Let’s go to France for something completely new and different. Most likely it will be the same as Belgium only more so. In a fit of abject spontaneity I ask to travel in the Putziemobile, a tiny buglike creature that transports Goon, the Putzies and (usually) Roxy. Roxy gracefully concedes to a trip in the bus of molecular disintegration. I knew the Putziemobile would be cramped but I didn’t know my kneecaps would hammer my Adam’s Apple L.A.M.F. for the next three hours. Kirsty plays the Deutsch equivalent of John Peel on her tape player – lots of slimy gtr bands (where’s the motherfartsackin’s Tyree, homie??). I am enthralled in C19th Russian poetry and Kundera’s egotistical self-exposing espousals on the theory of the novel. Goon and Evi canoodle like two sleepy little stuffed koalas in the back seat. Kirsty jabs the tape player with her fist when it refuses to act in a civilised manner. Well, it’s nice enough – didn’t that Mr. V.V.Gogh motherfartsacker once preach to potato-eaters around here (North Belgium) before he got into some serious aspro Arles mindfucking and body flagellation? – but, lo and behold (here’s the rub) I sort of miss that old tourbus, with its myriad stenches of impregnated spleggy, anchovy, Smirnoff, beer-sickup, sweat, athlete’s foot, leukemia, gangrene, ham, cheese, tomato skins, scabies, fartbreath, coffinguts, eyelid secretions, decrepit fruit, demoralised lettuce, tubercular mustard, urine and poor morale. The tourbus has that – how can I put it? – atmosphere.

Getting into Paris is of course a poor Benny Hill joke. The trick to driving in Paris is in re-viewing “Apocalypse Now” and complying with its logic. My only regret is missing that cyclist when we were barrelling down the wrong side of the road near Gare du Nord. Above par navigating lands us swiftly on the Rue de Petit Epicuries – we find the hotel is not named “Carousel” but “Caravelle”. I find Gavin Friday in the foyer, and Man Seezer his instrumentalist (who profusely bursts into praise of Les Triffids, to my amazement). Gavin says,”The hotel is shit. Good luck”.

The others in the tourbus aren’t so schnookie. They have difficulty changing money at the border, embark on a wild-red-herring-turkey-chase through a few towns AND WHAT! (Aust. equiv. of ‘OR WHAT) it’s a “Phew, wot a scorcher’ day in Paris and they arrive sweaty and flustered.

Then – WOT IF THEY GAVE A RECORD SIGNING AND NOBODY CAME? It happens to us right now in the Paris Virgin Megastore. Y’just had to laugh, otherwise you’d be a little on the embarrassed side. We are holed up in a glorious waiting room above the Champs Elysees for an embarrassing but quaint thirty minutes, then wander befuddled through the megastore shaking’ `hands’ with important employees. This store sells 5% of France’s records OR WHAT!? Then … fuckin’ record company cafe drinks on the Pigalle and the prospect of din-dins at a hopelessly expensive restaurant near our hotel. All well and good until I decide for once that I can’t endure a total translation of every second word of the menu for 13 people. I walk out, storm up to Rue de Poissonieres, buy a little pizza thingy, fume and ferment, and wait till I stop hating certain people. (Ne’ertheless Brune (record company) spouts of “Goodbye Little Boy” – ‘EEs a hit, deefinaately, ees a hit’). I buy a couple of beers from a grimy delicatessen, drink them in my room, walk up to Montmartre, think of revisiting the Rue de Martyrs just for old time’s sake; but alas the Dwyer family won’t be there anymore. Back in the Caravelle I chance upon Room 502 to find my cavalry – Goon, Roxy and the Schnookie twins. We merrily go on a cafe-crawl, sitting on the boulevard pavements with Ricard et grenadine avec whiskey KNOW-WA-A-MEAN? End up in slimy dog cafe near Gare du Nord on our fourth round. I’ve always been impressed with how much yellow light there is on the streets around Gare du Nord. There’s a good post cartinvest shop around here too. The Putzie’s, Roxy and G. Hall get looser as the evening progresses. HIGHLIGHT OF THE MATCH (CORRESPONDENCE ENTERED INTO) Evi: ‘What wine shall we drink, Goon?’ ‘Ah, I think perhaps a bottle of Chateau Legopener’. PAUSE, somewhere we hear the strains of La Marseillaise … Evi: “… er, … Vat ees ‘LEGOPENER’?” Perhaps you just had to be there, but we laughed until we stopped. Our jaws and cheeks ached. Paris may well be a schnookie city but by then it was time to put one’s name on the guestlist for Le Club de Fartsack. OR WHAT?

Tuesday June I3

Yes and bollocks to you too dear reader. Of a Parisian morning I like nothing better than a bracing round of interviews over coffee. The first, Stephan, was actually clued up and he was a cutie to boot. The full range of Euro-absurdity was only reached in the third interview, for a French technical “Guitar and Keyboard” magazine. After telling us we were an ecologically-minded band (Ted’s jaw hits table) he demands that we write out one of our musical passages (i.e. score it) on a sheet of notation paper he produces. This monsieur refuses to believe that Ted and I can’t score music. He storms off incredulously into the heat of the afternoon. For Stephan’s magazine we go to the Vincent de Paul cathedral for a photo session but – hey Catherina! – no photographer shows up. Through the afternoon the entourage disperses on shopping expeditions etc. I make it to Galleries Lafayette but just buy some antique postcards.

We are playing in a jazz club called New Morning. Soundcheck. Eat fruit. Think for a while I’ve lost all my note books. Panic. Decide to leave panic till after show when I’ve got more time to panic effectively. Although we hardly get a huge crowd, the performance is a lot better than last year’s (not a difficult achievement). Find note books in Kirsty’s car. We are given our food money and Goon, the Putzies and I retire to a brasserie to liquidate ours.

Wednesday June I4

At last, the tour has ended. But not yet. I am taken back to St. Vincent de Paul Cathedral by mad French motorcycling photographer. How romantic! He’s quite a Gallic DISH too I might add, so I propose marriage, he accepts and we honeymoon in Tahiti. AND THEN WHAT!?

© David McComb