петък, 4 април 2014 г.

TCH & Mytrip Spring Tour - Days 3 & 4 (York & Brighton)

It's again a London morning as I write this, but let me take you back some time to see how we got back here.

02/03 The shortest drive of the tour - York

So we wake up at Duncan's place and we go for a breakfast, English style. Even though it's already 2 pm and the cafe we got in don't really serve that anymore, we explain there's a Bulgarian here and some minutes later two times full veggie breakfast is on the table with two big mugs of great black coffee. Everything is so tasty, even for the non-eater that I usually I am. Anyhow we sadly gotta go. We pack and jump in the car for what is known as the shortest tour drive ever. About thirty kilometres later we're in York where it's quite coldish. The venue is not open yet so we go for a walk. The place is great, exactly the way I picture England - small, tidy houses, huge cathedrals, tiny shops, nothing like the glass rape monolithic buildings in London. While wandering around we see a guy playing the guitar, Tim approaches him to drop some money in his guitar case, we agree he sounds really nice then we are about to walk away Tim stops and goes back to listen, cus it actually sounds way better than just nice. Later on we learn his name is David Ward Maclean, definitely not your ordinary busker, but a man with so much stories soaked in his guitar, voice and songs.

Doing the tourist thing - making photos of churches.
So at some point we get back to the Woolpack Inn which is now open. It's a very cosy venue and it has started building a nice local scene with music from acoustic singer-songwriter stuff to experimental thingies like ours. Paul and Sid are awesome dudes and do their best to make our night as great as possible. We meet Tom who's also playing the night as ssiitabbag, then a quick soundcheck and we're ready to go. ssiitabbag plays something between electroacoustic-music, ambient, and a bit of music concrete maybe, has several really nice tunes with interesting lows. After his set a huge part of the audience bails on the show and leaves, good stuff mates, support your local scene, fuck the guests hahah England to the English. Anyhow, It's my turn to play and sadly the adapter I've borrowed from Tim dies and I'm left with about 80 per cent battery to make the show tomorrow, when hopefully somebody will help out. I get some old visuals going on and with the awesome PA the set sounds rad. I even overplay a bit, sorry folks, this never happens haha. Then Tim jumps on the stage, plays three songs, the second being an improvisation piece inspired by our day in York and for the third one Duncan joins him with his acoustic guitar and they sound great! After that we're in for a quick tea and of course sleep.

Fake York cats, gotta get some, they seem to be pooping less.
03/04 The longest drive of the tour - Brighton

The next day starts a bit earlier because ahead of us is the longest drive on the tour. Tim has to drive us all the way from the North to the Southern city of Brighton, which he does in exactly 5 hours. Nothing special is usually happening when you're travelling except for spotting a place for fish & chips called Frying Nemo... Not cool, people, not cool. Soo, back in Brighton we reach the venue which looks awesome. Stephen O'Malley, Pure Love posters on the walls... it looks like a place with history and tonight me and Tim are doing a collab piece. We soundcheck then we go for chips. And this is extreme, just looking at the amount of salt the guy is putting on our hardcore fried potatoes makes me lose my sight slightly. While eating I can hear my stomach crying for help, but when in England you gotta do it as the English. After we hang out a bit with the free improvisation duo Baby that's playing the night and Geoff who's putting the show and the whole Spirit of Gravity gig series we go to see the sea. We wander around the city and without a doubt this one is my total favourite of the tour, a place that I'd come back for sure - hip people on the streets, nice venues, small and cosy houses, seaside what else do you need?

Brighton wall cats saying stuff. Carved in ancient times.
We're back in the venue and Pale Graphs is just about to begin. It's a local act I guess, playing very interesting and intense techno live set, quite Detroitish, but quite abstract at some points as well. After him Baby are on the stage - a free improv duo with a vibraphone, drums, guitar and flute. They play around with overtones, dynamics, human breath and very avant-garde melodies and phrases which all combined results in a very tight and yet very spacey performance. Totally a highlight of the tour. And then we go. We set up, and we play, and damn it's good, no matter it's our first ever collab, on the stage it sounds so blended and structured it's totally worth the drive. After the set people seem happy, they come and greet us for the piece and yeah, I guess me and Tim gotta do that again some time. Hopefully in Bulgaria! One of the finest things about the show was the crash machine, a bunch of toy synths, a tiny guitar and effects that the audience can play in between the bands instead of some DJ mumbo-jumbo irrelevant shit. Great idea, great!

After the gig we jump in the car, me excited from the gig (and that can of Red Bull) and an hour later Tim drops us at his place where we shut down. Next one is a gig in London, then a day-off and last show in the UK - in Bristol.

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