Astral - Calla - Televise - 2002

Jesus...Televise, much like Half Smiles of the Decomposed seems to be like 90% composed of songs beginning with "A". Didn't I just write about Calla? It's like they did it on purpose. Anyway, more of the usual sluggish churn of Calla, though this one is a little better than most.

Anyway, this will be my last post on the now nearly two months old vacation...so, I hope you've enjoyed it all. I tried to make it as entertaining as the experience was.

After our adventures in Lord Nelson, we stopped in a deli to pick up some truly awful prepackaged sandwiches and then headed back to the hotel. Since I hadn't slept at all in the car, I was out shortly thereafter. I'd like to thank Anand and Rance for not drawing a fake moustache on me and taking compromising pictures of me.

The alarm clock went off at 700AM and I was not a happy camper. A week of partying had pretty much owed me a hangover, and here it was loud and screaming clear at 7AM. And I had to get to Heathrow for a 1030 flight.

Fortunately, the theory that you must get to the airport 2 hours before an international flight doesn't really hold that true on a winter Wednesday. I was through customs in a matter of minutes and had nearly two hours to kill with a raging hang over and about 5 pounds. I bought a bottle of water and some Internet time, but mostly I just sat in a corner and moaned.

My flight was largely uneventful. I sat next to an older British couple that I tried to be as inoffensive to as possible. I wanted to do my best to stay awake to avoid jetlag, so I only slept for maybe an hour and a half.

I watched quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. In The Name of the King. I mean, I'm all for a good D&D movie, but Jesus Christ...anytime you are involving Burt Reynolds in a fantasy movie...and don't even get me started on Ray Liotta. Or why everyone had a different accent. Not even LeeLee Sobieski's (sadly fully clothed) breasts could save this movie. Wow...just unbelievably bad. Now I understand why people were willing to box Ule Bowe. I chased it with the slightly saccerine but at least totally competant Walk the Line just to clense my pallate. Though it was remarkably hard to take seriously having seen "Walk Hard", but that's no fault of the movie itself.

And then I was home and that was it. I ate lots of fresh veggies that night and saw my girl, happy to be home, but sorry that it was over.

Asterick - M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us - 2005

Once the game had wrapped up, Anand and I headed back to the team gift store to buy my birthday present (a new jersey). I assured him that after the massive depression that not seeing the game brought on us, that this was really not neccesary...but he was insistant that he get SOMETHING right. I thought this was a bit harsh, but hey, if a dude wants to buy me jersey, who am I to stop him.

Anyway, after that trip we went to a pub called Lord Nelson's were we were supposed to meet Rance. He showed up about 15 minutes after us. He felt appropriately awful when we told him what had happened to us at the game, but at least our team had won and the liquor was flowing. It was our last night of the trip and we weren't going to let that douchebag limey cocksucker cop ruin our time. In the morning, Rance and I would be on sepearte planes back to NYC (Rance was actually leaving super early and going straight into work from the airport), and Anand would be heading of for some solo traveling in Belgium. So we sat about our mission to squeze the last little bit of life we could from this trip.

Shots and beers seemed to be pretty flowing. Anand ended up getting into a 45 minute discussion about US Foreign Policy with some of the smokers outside the pub, while Rance and I talked soccer. Eventually, the boys decided to sic a fat and horny british girl in an Arsenal jersey on me, a fact that I was in no way thankful for...though it did somehow end up with me demonstrating that I could moonwalk in the bar. Mostly she just walked by me a bunch of times, running her hand on my arm or chest saying things like "oy, we like...we like a lot"

We sweet talked the kindly Irish bartender into letting us stay for an hour past closing with talk of how as NYCers we were used to later nights in the bar, how we had been shut out of the game by a dickish cop, and how it was the last night of the trip. I made my typically snide comment that the nicest person we met in London was an Irishman. Finally, at 2...he had to give us the boot. We hoped in a cab and headed back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep before we'd finish The Great Escape.

M83 do their thing very well...xtra big Gaulic synthesizers and squelling guitars give this song the impression of a space launch circa 1986. That's a compliment.

Assisted Living - The Mendoza Line - We're All In This Alone - 2000

Anand and I made our way back to the first bar in the area, swimming our way against the stream of fans with appropriate tickets happily walking their way to the stadium. We came to the first bar, which had a sign that said "Home" supporters only. I flashed my Arsenal Jersey under my hoodie to prove that I came to support the good guys.

We actually told the bouncer at the door about what had happened with us and the cop, which actually won us the respect of the bar. The first round was on the house. And fortunately we got to watch an Arsenal victory, with Robin Van Persie converting a penalty to give us the lead.

We drank a lot...I mean, A. LOT. It was the only way to dull the pain of the experience.

The Mendoza Line continue their run of low-self esteem, mumblecore, alt-country/westerburg-esque rock here. You don't listen to this band expecting surprises, just a tasty kind of dissapointment.

Assessment - The Beta Band - Heroes to Zeros - 2004

So there we stood at our own temple of football, about to go in. Since Rance was a late addition to the trip, he hadn't gotten tickets with Anand and I. He had actually pulled some strings at work to get into one of the press boxes for the game. We shook hands and wished him luck, feeling bad for him that he'd have to spend the evening relatively sober with work people while we'd enjoy the game from our seats...

Now you have to understand the way it works...games at The Emirates are sold out, pretty much in perpetuity. The unused tickets are announced by the club 2 weeks before the game and then sold back to the populace at face value...but that would mean waiting two weeks before the trip to actually confirm your tickets. The other option, is to go through a website to buy someones season ticket for that game only at extremely marked up prices...which is what we did.

We walked around the stadium looking for our entrance, which was near the away section. The particular game was against Roma...an Italian team. Now as much stick as the stereotypical Brit soccer fan gets for being a hooligan, that's pretty much a passe image...particularly in London. Since the Hillsborough disaster in 89, British soccer games have been pretty tightly controlled. Beyond that, the game has simply become too expensive...working class fans can't afford the tickets anymore and in general this is the population that has nothing to lose by cracking a few heads at a match. Italian fans are another matter all together.

Italian games saw 7 fatal stabbings last year...with Roma being one of the worst offenders. A line of police blocked the entrance to make sure the Italian fans were well behaved...the problem was, we had to walk through this line of police with our illegally purchased tickets.

We were through and in the clear when he saw us. The one cop in the whole world who thought a couple of American tourists with scalped tickets were the biggest threat to security. He closed down on us fast, walking a good 15 feet away from his line of bobbies and stopping us cold and asking to see our tickets.

Anand assuming there was nothing out of the ordinary showed him the ticket...he immediately confiscated it and stated that he was under orders to do so with all scalped season passes. He asked me for mine as well, and I turned it over, while trying to reason with him...but he clearly had a giant stick up his ass. Two stadium attendants and a second cop all came over to him and asked him to just let us in...but he shock his head "I am under orders to confiscate these, I am going to report this to the club and the persons who sold these tickets will have their season passes revoked as well"

Every person who tried to help us was shot down and left shaking their head that anyone could be such a cock. Finally the cop relented enough to give us the two ID numbers so we could try to at least purchase these seats legally. He then gave us a patronizing lecture that began with "Now you two seem like intelligent gentlemen"

We went to the ticket stand and were told that the game was sold out. When I pointed out that we knew for a fact that there were two empty seats, the ticket seller simply said "The club has no comment on that". The fight was over...we were not going to see the game...except fucking last minute Rance. Anand slumped to the ground and it took me a good amount of convincing just to get him to go to a bar so we could at least SEE the game. Our prize at the end of the rainbow had been ripped from us by one gigantic asshole cop...we were pissed.

The Beta Band got most of it's acclaim after "Dry the Rain" made a stellar cameo in High Fidelity. Sadly, the Scots never did much past that...though there subsequent albums weren't bad. This song is actually pretty good...it just sounds like a faster Dry the Rain.

Assassination on X-Mas Eve - Archers of Loaf - All The Nations Airports - 1996

After dropping off the car, we had a fair bit of spare time, thanks to Anand's action star driving. We got back into London and into the hotel. After that, it was back to North London on the above-ground transit train to get ready for the game. At this point it was reality...we were going to see Arsenal play a Champions League match...live! At Emirates Stadium! It was no longer the prize at the end of our trip, it was now the reality of our evening and we were going to enjoy the hell out of it.

After briefly considering a few of the other restaurants we ended up back at The Famous Cock. We figured one more night of British Pub food wouldn't kill us. As Rance pointed out, the food in that country was like someone left a 12 year old in charge of the entire cuisine.

"What do you want for dinner little Allister?"

"I want sausages and mashed potatoes, all covered in gravy!!! I want everything in a pot pie. And I want french fries at every meal!"

After 3 beers and a shot, it was time to make our way to the stadium. We walked down the street with the throngs of people all feeling the same excitement as us. The big game was coming and we were going to be there.

All the Nation's Aiports is the only Archer's album that I owned during the life of the band, I came around to the rest of their catalog after their demise. Sadly, I never got to see them live...though I've seen Crooked Fingers many times and Bachman solo once, I will always feel as if I missed one of the great bands of my generation by not seeing these guys. This song rocks.

Asphyxiated Circle - Guided By Voices - Half Smiles of the Decomposed - 2004

Jesus, is every song on Half Smiles...in the A's? Such a glut of GBV. This is one of those mid-tempo rockers that crowded most of the later GBV albums, giving them the appearance of being more "even" but in reality they just replaced the weird tracks with boring, if competant tracks...I'm not sure that's a step up.

So we woke up early on the final morning in Scotland. Kick off was at 8PM and we wanted to make sure we could make it back to London with plenty of time to drop off the car, check into the hotel, pick up our tickets, and hopefully get some pregaming in before we had to be to the stadium. We were actually on the road by shortly before 9, which should have put us back at the car rental place by 4...

We cruised our way out of Glasgow, listening to Brits bitch on Talk Radio about how they were considering privitizing the royal mail, callers were calling in irate! Irate I tell you, that the government was considering taking away their rights as British Citizens. Now I'm all for greater government socialism in our country, but really, seriously...how gives a fuck about the mail? When was the last time anyone mailed anything? Privatize it, who cares?

Anyway, as soon as we were clear of Glasgow two things became apparent. The first was that Rance was going to sleep through most of the car ride in the front seat. The second was that Anand was going to drive like Batman. I sat in the back seat taking pictures of the Scottish/English country side and trying to pretend that I wasn't certain that we were going to die in a blaze of twisted metal.

The 7 hour drive from Glasgow to London was done in slightly less than 5 hours. I'm still not sure if Anand ever got a mountain of speeding tickets from the electric cameras, but he certainly broke every traffic law in Great Britain...but on the flipside, we got to London by 2PM.

Asphalt (Interlude) - Amusement Parks on Fire - Amusement Parks on Fire - 2004

After Anand had cleared his stomach of the offending peach whiskey liquor, (and all of his dinner unfortunately) we realized it was nearly 11 o'clock on a monday and that the odds of us finding a hopping bar on the west side were dwindling, so we started to make our way back to the general direction of the hotel.

Seeing as we had a 7 hour drive back to London the next day and then a soccer game to watch, I was fine with heading back to the Hotel, but the guys were insistant that we squeeze as much life out of Glasgow as we could...so back to the college bars on Sauchaugh St. we went.

Possibly because it was still (kinda) my birthday, the young crowd at the bar we ended up at made me feel desperately old and out of place. An absolutely hammered guy bummed a pound off Rance to buy a beer with and then spent the rest of the evening either thanking us profusely or apologizing for being so drunk. Couple made out desperately on couches while drinking liquors in combinations that only inexperience would allow (Cider with a shot of Jaggermeister in it, followed by White Russians?????). We watched one couple and placed bets on which one of them would throw up first...and whether or not it would actually be WHILE they were making out...sadly, we left before it happened, calling it a night and preparing for our long trip back to London.

All of Amusement Parks on Fire's songs sound exactly the same, like a band covering Swervedriver...the only difference is that this one is an instrumental.

Asobi Masho - Asobi Seksu - Asobi Seksu - 2004

The trip was definitely beginning to take it's toll. None of use were kids anymore and 5 days of drinking, traveling, and eating fried foods was wearing us down...so we came home for a late afternoon nap.

After a brief rest, we were back up again and looking for an evening plan. We decided to check out the north west part of town and see how that went. We stopped into a bar called Leibowski's, which amusingly enough had a complete "White Russian Menu". I'm not entirely sure how one makes a variation on the White Russian, but they had a full menu. The bar itself was fairly cool, and I would have liked to have seen it on a night that wasn't Monday. It seemed like the kind of bar that wouldn't be out of place in the less stroller-centric parts of Park Slope. I got some kind of Scotch that had a name that was something about monkeys. I love monkeys. Anand got suckered into doing a shot of Southern Comfort, as the earlier bet finally came around to haunt him...as this decision would also do.

Anyway, we went to a more traditional pub to watch most of the Tottenham v Hull game, to cheer less for Hull than against Tottenham. Sadly Tottenham won with last minute goal. The bar was filled with what we'd pretty much come to consider the standard issue Glasgow bar crowd (again, we were there on a Sunday and Monday, so we were probably not entirely fair on the city) - drunk old men and drunk teenagers. The bar tender however was lovely. I'm fairly sure I announced my intention to marry her.

By the time the game was over it was nearly 10 and our dreams of steak dinner had long since been given up on. We'd all reached our breaking point and were desperately seeking vegetables. We found an Indian restaurant and headed...they were closing in 20 minutes but that wouldn't be a problem as we were not the linger at the table type. We wolfed down our (quite tasty) vegetables quickly and were back out into the night air relatively quickly.

But we were all too full and to drink anymore and Anand was starting to feel queasy from the shot of SoCo on his stomach. You see Anand and I have very different ideas about vomiting. Me, I fight it off tooth and nail...I hate doing and will keep down absurd amounts of booze and spend hours waiting for the spins to stop so I can go to sleep. If I toss, my night is over. I won't drink again, sometimes for days....once for months. Anand on the other hand, will simply say "I'm going over here for a minute", throw up, and be ready to keep going.

It baffles me considerably that he considers throwing a cigarette butt out on the street is littering, but vomiting all over the sidewalk, totally fine.

Asobi Seksu is something of a bipolar band...they're NYC and Tokyo, they're My Bloody Valentine and Shonnen Knife, they're trendy with a hot Japanesse girl for a front woman, they're arty with a disdain for those that would come to see their hot lead singer, and yet they call their band the Japanesse phrase for great sex...I enjoy them when they are My Bloody Valentine, and less so when they are not. This song is one in which they are not.

Ask About Me - Girl Talk - Night Ripper - 2006

Following our Twin Peaks, Scotland lunch experience we went to a pub around the corner to try to drink away the weirdness...this was only to be replaced by more weirdness.

It was 430 in the afternoon and the bar was full of old men (As I said, most of Scotland was either drinking with old men or teenagers). There was a large main room and a smaller back room. The back room was full of old men singing Kareoke. The volume on the PA was so loud that the sound filled the whole larger room of the bar and the cracking and popping of an overdriven speaker could be heard.

We quietly stood in a corner, sipping our beers and watching the soccer news. If nothing else it was a nice treat to be able to watch soccer news on TV with the rest of the evening news...the same way we'd see sports highlights here...which of course is fairly obvious, but when you are used to having to use methods somewhat more obscure to find your soccer news, it's a refreshing change of pace.

Anyway, after we finished up our drinks, we decided we wanted to go see the Stadium were Celtic (A Scottish soccer team) play, even though there were no games currently going on. We asked a man sitting at a bus stop where it was. The man was clearly hammered and had easily the worst teeth I saw on my entire trip. He pointed us in a direction (away from our hotel) and told us it would be about a twenty minute walk, so we decided to brave it.

After walking for about 10 minutes, with absolutely no indication that we were walking towards the stadium, we stopped and asked another guy who told us the first guy had been drastically underestimating and that it would be easily another 45 minutes walking. We decided to scrap this plan and head back to the hotel, the sun was setting rapidly and soon we'd be ready for the evening portion.

This is Girl Talk doing their collage of nostalgia thing. It's fun and occasionally clever, but I still think wildly overpraised.

Ask - The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs - 1986

So uh, where was I? Oh right...so we went down to the Trongate area to check out our lunch options...by this point it was around 330 in the afternoon, and our plan currently involved us having a steak dinner that evening as a result of a bet I won. It was then that we hit the wall of bad Scottish food.

Our options were twofold, have either another meal of fried and breaded food, or go to a "healthier" looking option and get a wrap. Now we may have all wanted the wrap, but none of us were going to make the call in front of the others...wraps are unmanly. So we all stood there looking at both restaurants and wondering what to do. Finally, they threw it back on me with the "It's your birthday, dude" excuse and I caved to cult of American masculinity and decided that we all needed more fish and chips.

While the food itself sucked, the experience was more than worthwhile. The place was a little dinner, staffed by an older man and woman (possibly a couple). When we arrived, we were the only customers, but that did not last. A crowd of about 7-8 or older Scots came rolling in. The senior most of them, everyone kept referring to as "Elvis". Aside of his wardrobe, he did not bear much PHYSICAL resemblance to Elvis, but he did seem to be dressing (and doing his hair) for the part. Through out dinner he continued to occasionally croon out the random Elvis tune, in between attempts to talk to us.

He tried to get Anand to let him travel back to America with him in his briefcase...on top of this being an odd request, Anand had no idea what he was saying in his thick Glaswegian accent. He just smiled politely and went back to eating his grilled cheese sandwich...which they had conveniently forgotten to put cheese on.

And speaking of crooners with a pompadour, we have The Smiths. When I was younger and more naive, it was easy to conceive of Morrissey as a misunderstood youth, too sensitive to the world...certainly not GAY, just someone with feelings, just someone who didn't fit the mold of the above mentioned cult of masculinity. But now that I'm older and it's pretty clear that Morrissey just is gay...and that elicits a complicated response.

First of all, there is the now obligatory Seinfeldian retort of "Not that there's anything wrong with that". And there isn't. I respect a human being's right to individuality, and firmly and vehemently believe that the sexual conduct of two consenting adults is no one's business but those adults. But we are talking about music here...and music, pop music in particular, is about being able to relate...and that's the tricky thing. I now look at a song like "Ask" and can clearly see the subtext...should that bother me? Perhaps not...but do I relate to it less? Almost certainly. It's a tricky question...

Asia Minor - Guided By Voices - Half Smiles of the Decomposed - 2005

So we continue our glut of GBV songs with a slower, though not slow, little pop number. Like many of the songs on Half Smiles...it is more a case of "hey that's not so bad!" rather than a "This is F-ing awesome!" But after the catastrophe of blandness that was Earthquake Glue, it was better to see GBV go out with half way decent album than an almost totally forgettable one.

After we finished the tour of the Necropolis we made our way back down the hill and into town. We were walking down (and South) towards the Trongate area to see what was going on down there. Along the way we happened to find the oldest bar in Glasgow.

Unlike a city like Dublin, which prides itself on having several still functioning Medieval bars, Glasgow's bars were all more modern. The oldest they could come up with was The Olde Carriage House which dated from the mid-19th century and had many pictures of the original patrons to prove it. While it lacked the "bar from a Dungeons and Dragons Game" charm of say The Brazen Head in Dublin, it was quite interesting to see the pictures of the bar and to get a sense of what life may have been like in 19th century Glasgow.

As for the bar in modern day Glasgow, at 3 in the afternoon on a Monday...well, it was slow, as expected, and more than a bit surly. Four or five old men milled around the bar, and one middle aged dude with a pony tail and a distinctly Alan Moore vibe. We grabbed a pint each and sat quietly in the corner. The TV was playing a creaky World War II film from the fifties called The Frog Men...Richard Widmark was the only remotely familiar actor in the whole thing...but we got a considerable amount of pleasure quietly heckling the film with the Alan Moore dude. We finished up our pints and headed out looking for lunch.

Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) - 1980

For the record, my own St. Patrick's Day celebration went quite swimmingly and I woke up relatively hang over free...though I was hungry as a mofo.

So anyway, to get back to the trip (I can't believe this shit has taken me nearly a month to write, but hey...I got other things going on too...and I'm almost finished...and honestly, the end is the best part, so stick with me...if you're still here). We woke up the next day fairly late, as this was one of the few days that we didn't have to travel. By the time we were all cleaned up and ready to roll it was nearly 1PM.

Incidentally, it was also my birthday...despite my protestations that the trip itself was my birthday party and that as my birthday was on a Monday, no special treatment was required, the guys had already started throwing shots at me the night before. They insisted on "celebrating" my birthday from midnight Scotland time through to midnight of the following day NYC time...so I essentially had 29 hours of birthday shots. Ugh.

We took the day to do some touristy site seeing. We started off by heading up Buchannan St. which appears to be their mini-version of NYC's Broadway, or Grafton St. in Dublin...basically just a long street with lots of clothing stores and restaurants. We were there for coffee.

After getting appropriately caffeinated we headed over to Glasgow Cathedral and The Necropolis. As I stated earlier, I'm a history nerd and love old shit. The Cathedral was especially interesting for being a Roman Catholic church that had survived the pretty thorough reformation of Scotland. As such the basement level had at one point actually been converted into two protestant church until the late 19th century, leading to a large cathedral with two small churches in the basement.

The Necropolis was the real site though, a giant old cemetery built spiraling upwards on a tall hill. The highest grave at the top of the hill was reserved for the monument to the man who had brought the reformation to Scotland. From that high point you could see most of the city before you. It was one of the most touching sites I saw on the whole trip, and probably my favorite thing I saw that was not in Berlin.

Scary Monsters and Super Creeps more less marks the rather radical change between late 1970's ultra-arty, Berlin and Eno-loving Bowie and the white suited pop dork we all know and love from the "Dancing in the Streets" video. I will always have the utmost respect for Bowie, and I like the way he's managed to retain some dignity with age that his "Dancing in the Streets" co-star has not...but the 80's pretty much end my interest in his music.

The Ash Gray Proclamation - Robert Pollard - Not In My Airforce - 1996

Glasgow on a chilly February Sunday late night is not the most hoping place place in the world. We made our way up the street, trying to follow the bad directions the well intentioned woman at the desk had given us. The first place we found that was open was an old man bar on an empty block called The Avalon.

The old Scots still in attendance were nice enough and the beer was certainly tasty after spending all day in the car. We decided to sample the house scotch, which was on sale for 2 Pounds, but for some reason the scotch tasted like tequila. At first we thought that perhaps the glasses hadn't been well washed, but ultimately we determined that this scotch just finished like tequila...and I fucking hate tequila.

We struck up a conversation with a couple of older scots about bars in the neighborhood and where we could find a place that would serve drinks late. They pointed us in the direction of Sauchehaugh street (which is where our geographically challenged receptionist had been trying to send us in the first place) and gave us some tips about the city. In typical Scottish fashion, the tips were fairly doom laden.

Old Scot - "Can't see why you'd want to spend a vacation here, this is town's a shit hole. But you can go to some of the bars on Sauchhaugh St. They're open late, and they're safe?"

Us - "Are there not safe bars?"

Old Scot - Nods solemnly

So, we made our way down Sauchhaugh St. which is basically just a row of college bars like you'd find in any American city. The primary difference being that the drinking age is 18 rather than 21, so the population of the bar is even younger...or at least less in need of a good fake ID.

We found a booth in the back, and tried not to feel helplessly old as we watched Scottish kids get drunk and make out. We stayed out till nearly 3 before throwing in the towel, happy that we still managed to squeeze some life into our a day that had been mostly spent in transit.

Pollard shows his softer side on this one. A nice acoustic song, of the sort he'd try more and more as the years wore on. Not the best thing on Not In My Airforce, but certainly not the worst.

As We Go Up, We Go Down - Guided By Voices - Alien Lanes - 1995

The drive through England was not exactly what we planned. The sun set 2 hour into the drive, meaning the site of the English Country would have to wait until the return journey. Rance got car sick about 1/2 an hour in, and all three of us were hung over and tired.

Anand and Rance both napped when they weren't driving...as the non-driver, I stayed awake through both shifts. I've never been very good at sleeping in cars, and I felt like somebody needed to keep the driver company. Driving on right is odd for several reasons...the American driver tends to want to hug the left side. As such the car was constanly drifting left, sometimes into the lane or traffic that was over there. If you are in the passenger seat, you have the odd sensation that you should be driving. I can't tell you the number of times that Rance or Anand started to drift into the car to the left of them, only for me to reach for a wheel that wasn't there, or press down on non-existant pedals. It just feels wrong to be on the left hand front of a car and not be driving.

We drove through Birmingham, which is not that different than driving through St. Louis. Due to the lateness of the hour we debated spending the night in Manchester and finishing the drive to Glasgow in the morning, but we had no Intel on Manchester, no idea where we should stay or where we should go looking for a good time on a Sunday night. Ultimately, we decided to just tough out the drive and at least have one day in which we did not have to travel.

Incidentally, we made this decision in a Burger King rest stop thing about halfway between Manchester and Liverpool...I also had Burger King on my last trip to Europe, during a moment of desperation upon realizing that all the restaurants in Dublin were closed and I was starving. This means I've had Burger King TWICE in the UK within two years...which is less than the number of times I've had Burger King in the United States in the same time period. Very odd. Also, they don't put ice in their fountain cokes over there...which is just plain wrong!

The drive north of Manchester was increasingly dark, as the sun had well and truly set. No street lights or lights from cities were there to be seen either, and the low hanging clouds obscured any moon or starlight. It might have been the closest to total darkness I've ever seen in the out of doors. As our Saab barreled down the highway into the blackness, it was almost like driving through outer space. For some reason we played "Wanted Dead or Alive" on the iPod and it became the running joke for the remainder of the trip.

We finally arrived in Glasgow a little before 11 and checked into the sweet room at the Marriot that my buddy Shani had hooked us up with. The people at the desk were wonderfully friendly and let us know where we could expect to find a drink at that hour on a sunday and with that we were back off into the night.

As I'm fairly sure I've pointed out before, Robert Pollard, at his mid 90's best was all about crystalizing the great moment in a song. Why bother to have a 5 minute song that leads up to (or has in the middle of it) a great moment, when you can write a 1:37 song that uses that great moment and then gets out before you have a chance to get bored? In this case "I speak in monotone, leave my fucking life alone" will do just fine for a great moment.

As Ugly As I Seem - The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan - 2005

It had been our plan to wake up around 9ish and get on the road by 1030. We knew that it would take us about an hour and half to get out to Heathrow to pick up the rental car and then 7 hours to get to Glasgow, so we wanted to try to get there with enough time to have some of the evening left.

I was woken up by the sound of the cleaning people coming in at 1120 and realized that our plan was going to be a little off. We finally got ourselves up and packed and checked out by about 1230. We hustled our way to the subway station drinking the useless warm brown water that Londoners claim to be coffee and eating greasy and heavy sausage and cheese rolls from a kiosk.

It was nearly 3 by the time we got to Heathrow and we were already way behind schedule when we discovered that we had hit another hitch in our plan. Apparently, renting a car from the airport in London is not quite the same as here in the states. In the states (and in Mexico for that matter) they have a centralized area for all of the car rental shops. You land, you take the train to your car rental and you go. At Heathrow, all the car rental places were attatched to the airport hotels...this meant waiting for and taking yet another bus.

By the time we got to the hotel/rental car place and had filled out all of the paper work it was nearly 4 and we were all accepting that Sunday was pretty much going to be a wash...

The rare slow and gentle song from Jack White, though with his usual self depricating lyrical bent. Not bad.

As The Terror Dances Your Way - The Capitol Years - Dance Away The Terror - 2006

From there, things started to get ugly. After leaving the underground bar we went to a pub that was caticorner from where we parted ways with Matt. More drinks were had and that's when we told Rance about our adventures with SoCo in Berlin, and Rance had a bad, bad idea.

You see, Rance and I were both heading back to the states on Wed...but Anand was continuing on his trip until Saturday. He'd be heading to Belgium for a few days. Rance suggested that if he would personally pay for every single shot of SoCo that Anand did while abroad. Anand considered it, but ultimately decided that the benefit of drinking for the rest of the trip on Rance was outweighed by the thought of having to drink all of that SoCo.

It just got worse from there...it was 1230 by this time and most bars were closing. For a nation of boozers, the bars in London close absurdly early. I guess they just start at 5 and are passed out by midnight, but still...it's Saturday. We knew that there were a few after hours clubs that we could go to that would stay open till 2, so we went around trying to find these...but none of us really had a clue what we were doing. At one point we walked into a place called the White Horse Tavern. I realized that it was a strip club, but I don't think the other two did. We got about 2 feet into the door before the bouncer turned us back around as they were looking to close for the night. My quick glance towards the stage revealed sad, pale british flesh...I was not sad to see the back of this place.

We then tried to find our way back to the underground bar, but had no clue where it was anymore. We finally ended up in a TERRIBLE bar packed to the rafters with college aged kids drunkenly making out. We stayed there till last call, drunkenly talking about god knows what.

On the way back to the hotel, we all realized none of us had eaten since the terrible pies in The White Swan...we popped into a local convenience store and bought the sort of snacks that only drunk tourists would be at 2 in the morning in London...Oreos, Pringles (2 different kinds), Slim Jims...Rance made the odd decision of buying Gouda and crackers.

The rest of the evening was spent in the hotel eating junk food and taking ridiculous pictures. Rance was still adjusting to jet lag so he crashed first.

This is another one of those albums I downloaded and listened to once or twice and liked well enough before it disappeared into the ethos of my iPod. It's a decent song on a decent album, but I just have so much mid-tempo pleasant enough Indie-Rock. I want something with some energy, some fire dammit!

As Quick As It Comes/Carrera - Calla - Televise - 2002

We stayed at The White Swan for a couple of hours, eating the shitty British pub food and drinking beers. Our perspective was changed somewhat by the fact that Arsenal drew the match 0-0. On one hand, we didn't miss much by not going to the match or seeing it on TV...on the other hand, our team did not win.

We then headed back to the hotel to meet up with my friend Matt C. Matt, though originally from Yorkshire had spent a year in NYC on a work study program with a financial firm. When his program ended he looked high and low for ways to stay in the USA, but without luck. I felt bad for Matty, but on the flipside, it was nice to have a friend to show us around some of the cooler parts of London.

We started out at fancy cocktail place in Shoreditch called Lover's Lounge. Anand and I made the mistake of ordering martini's forgetting that the Europeans actually consider vermouth to be an ingrediant in a martini and not just a faint flavor. They were pretty nasty. Rance got a mint julep, which as a Kentuckian he approved of, though he was tempted to give the bar tender mixing tips.

From there we went to a standard issue British pub and had a few pints, before Matt took us to a rather cool (For London) underground bar where I had whiskey and discussed the failings of British women. To venture into sexist territory for a bit, with the rare exception (Kate Winslet) White British women are not attractive. It's really depressing going from the cornacopia of women that is NYC to the total dead end of London. The one thing they have going for them is their total willingness to make up for their short comings by totally slutting out in the wardrobe department. Doesn't matter the weather, low cut blouses and high skirts are always in abundance. But at the end of the day, it's still a bad toothed, bad skinned, bland and flat British girl in all the slut-wear.

When we finished up our drinks, Matt pointed us in a few directions for more bars and headed off to party of his own, leaving us with a few more hours to kill in London.

Calla...Calla is one of those bands that I want to like more than I do. There is just something so lethargic about this band that I can't quite get past. Every once in a while they'll play a song that has some real energy to it though...this is not one of those songs.

As Night Is Falling - The Clientele - Suburban Light - 2000

After catching up with Rance and getting settled in our room, we knew we needed to head over to Islington fast, kick off was a little less than an hour away. We determined there was no way we could get to the stadium in time to scalp tickets, so we were just going to try to watch the game at a bar in the area. We figured it would be not unlike going to the bar next to Yankee's stadium: jam packed full of rowdy and drunk fans.

We grabbed a cab and headed over to the Arsenal bar right outside of the Islington station. The bar has the unfortunate name of The Famous Cock, and is also possess the most disgusting bathroom I encountered in my entire trip, BUT...it's an Arsenal bar. When we arrived the place was mysteriously quiet and subdued.

We were informed by the Polish barmaid that the game was not on TV, but we could try a few of the other bars in the neighborhood and see if they were showing it.

Incidentally, the Polish in London seem to be a lot like the Mexicans in NYC. They work all the jobs nobody else wants. The men drive buses and cabs and do consturction and maintenance jobs, the women tend bar in tight tops.

After poking around in a few bars we soon learned that the game was simply not going to be seen on TV. We ended up in a bar called The White Swan where we grabbed a late lunch and grumbled. It was baffling that a soccer match we could have easily watched 4000 miles away was unviewable when we were less than a mile from where it was actually being played. I had been to London once before and hated it...and my opinion was not improving on this trip.

I have been listening to the Clientele quite a bit recently. They started off as a good band to listen to with a hangover, or when putting the moves on an indie-rock loving lady...but more and more I find their music speaking to my moods. This song from their hit and sorta-miss singles collection is one of the better tunes on the disc. It's mournful and heartfelt tone combine with the crisp, sad music to get the Scottish gloomy vibe that these guys are the masters of.

As I Rise - The Decemberist - Her Majesty The Decemberists - 2003

6:45 AM came very early that Saturday in Berlin. I groggily answered the wake up call and then threw myself in the shower. Didn't want to drink coffee as I hoped to catch at least a little bit of sleep on the plane. I knew that if I didn't get at least a little bit more, I was going to be useless for the evening in London.

We got ourselves to the airport without too much incident, though both of us felt awful. Our flight was via EasyJet.

If you aren't familiar with EasyJet, it is a low cost ZERO frills airline that flies to locations within Europe for ridiculously low prices (I think I paid 40 Euros for this flight). The downside, as I mentioned, is the zero frills part. You pay for your baggage, you don't get an assigned seat or beverage service. It didn't matter to me, I just wanted to sleep.

We were, of course, to the airport way too early and had to sit and wait for the flight to board. I was afraid to let myself sleep as I was certain I'd sleep right through boarding. When I finally got to a seat on the plane, I put my hood up and was out like a light...not waking up till I was on the ground in England.

"London" Luton airport is only in London by the most generous of definitions. It's about 45 minutes north east of the city and requires a bus ride to get into town. As such I decided to take care of some business at the airport (TMI, I know, but it becomes relevant). So, I'm in the bathroom and I can tell that there are a bunch of British Teenagers in the bathroom with me. All of the sudden, and hand darts underneath my stall and tries to snatch the strap of my shoulder bag. The bag moved quick, but fortunately I was quicker and grabbed the strap and yanked back. I had the mild thrill of hearing my would be bag snatcher smack his body against the stall. And that was the last I heard of that.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and was fortunately feeling a bit more stable than I had been in Germany. We got on the bus and finally headed into the city to meet up with Rance, but our trip would still not be that easy. As I mentioned it was about 45 mintues outside the city, and the trip ended up taking closer to an hour and a half because the door of the bus would not stay closed. Every 5 minutes or so, the driver would pull over to the shoulder to try to fix the problem only for the door to open up again a few minutes into driving. Eventually he just gave up and drove like that.

After missing our stop and taking the underground back, we finally arrived at the hotel ready for the next portion of our adventure to begin. Rance was sitting in the lobby working on his laptop, and our room was ready in a few minutes.

When people think of The Decemberists, they probably think of this album. The ridiculous period pieces, the homoerotic subtexts, the wry commentary in obsolete dialouge, the stories told from the point of view of antiquated genre characters were all solidified on this album rather than their somewhat more restrained debut, or their more ambitious later albums. Having said that, this is probably the least Decemberist-esque song on the album. A simple porch-swing anthem carries the day all the way through with nary a Harlequin nor Brick-bat to be seen.

Artists Only - Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food - 1978

I could niether tell you the name of the bar we were in, nor the exact location but it was pretty much what we were looking for. Despite our belief that we really owed it to ourselves to go to a Minimal House/Techno show while in the land of that sort of music, we both also realized that it wasn't really our scene and we'd have no idea where to even look.

The bar we did end up was all neighborhoody, with dark wood fixtures, low light and cheap beer. We settled in with a couple of tall ones and took in our surroundings.

Over the course of our trip, even starting as early as the airport, Anand had been talking about how he used to drink Southern Comfort all the time back in college and couldn't believe that he used to drink that shit. I agreed, though I had my own brief affair with SoCo all those years ago too. SoCo was running a Mardi Gras themed campaign over in Europe and we kept passing signs for it. As we sat down at our table, Anand looked over and pointed at a sign with prophetic certainty. It was an old metal sign for Soco...not even the promotion, but one that was clearly a fixture in the bar. This would lead to a series of Soco shots that would find their way in front of me everytime I came back from using the bathroom. Probably 4 in total. I was not pleased.

As the night turned into the early morning a young-ish German man came up to us and struck up a conversation with us. He said that he had taken his parents out to this, his neighborhood bar (keep in mind, it's 3 in the morning) and that he had been listening to our conversation for the past few hours and thought that we were really very interesting people. He told us his name was Patrick, which...as an Irish American with a German name, I was sort of amused by. Now the thing is, I wasn't sure if he was refering to conversations like our discussion of China's role in the global economic meltdown, the need for a greater embrace of government by the American people, or our mutual agreement that anal sex was over-rated. So I wasn't sure if he thought we were intellectual Americans, dirty Americans, or both...but whatever it was, he liked it.

To make matters more odd, he decided to introduce us to his non-English speaking and very drunk parents (again, 3 AM). Now, we had had several beers and at least 4 shots of whiskey, but by this point our livers were on vacation mode and we were able to make something of a decent impression of our country. At one point, Patrick's father tossled my hair. I'm 34 (Okay, at that point I was about 3 days shy of being 34, but still...) I thought I'd long since outgrown the moment when an old man tossled my hair...but then there it was.

Finally Patrick and his parents shuffled out the door, as the bar was closing shop. We settled up our stunningly small bill and headed for the hotel. A 645 wake up call and a flight to London was only a few hours away...

Some late 70's weirdness from David Byrne and company. Not their best work, but it's The Talking Heads, what else can you say?