America, June 2005
Dear The Internet
I'm sorry I haven't written for a while. You will have been worried. I apologise.
I am on tour once again with the band called Aqualung. We have discovered this year that for Americans, calling your band Aqualung is equivalent to calling it "Stairway to Heaven", or "The Dark Side of the Moon", or "Night Flight to Venus". It's tantamount to me introducing myself as "Lord Ben of Guitar". Essentially it's unEnglish. You'd have thought they'd appreciate that. But Matt didn't know, and now he has to live with it.
I hope I have made it abundantly clear among these cyber-pages who I am and what this is, but I'm still concerned that some lost youngling will find themselves here and not know why and end up wetting themselves, so:
I AM BEN HALES I PLAY GUITAR WITH AQUALUNG (SEE ABOVE) WHO IS ALSO MY BROTHER BECAUSE HE IS ILLITERATE I HAVE TO DO THE WRITING I TELL OUR STORY WHEN WE ARE ON TOUR ON HIS WEBSITE AQUALUNG.NET
But there is a problem. I have nothing more to say. June's tour is extremely similar in format to April's, which for some reason is still a little hazy.
So this time I decided to chronicle what we have learned from being on tour in the form of Declarative Statements. This will, I hope, bring you a flavour of the touring experience.
Some of these flavours will be very specific to this tour, and others will have been tasted by everyone who has ever forgone civilisation to live in the halflight of 'The Road'.
I could not have conducted this research without the support and encouragement of the following people, who also made vital contributions to the list:
Matthew Hales, BSc aka 'The Aqualung', David W Price, who played drums for the first half of the tour, Daniel Tuite, who plays keyboards, Marco Meneghin, who played drums for the second half of the tour, Roberto Pieroni, PhD, who was Tour Manager/Soundman, Claire Rosenbaum, who was in charge of press and merchandise, and Cary Brothers and Jason Kanakis who comprised the opening act on the tour and who have never done me any serious physical harm.*
I warmly recommend to you my lords, ladies and gentlemen, The Commandments of The Road.
Yours faithfully
Ben Hales
*apart from the time they kidnapped and brainwashed us. Of course, we can laugh about it now, but there are times when I'm packing the bay and I sense someone behind me. There is no one there, but I find my mind awash with strange memories. When I look down my hands are trembling.
Annotated by Ben Hales
1. NOTHING IN THE TOILET EXCEPT URINE AND WATER
Everyone knows this one (apart from someone who visited the bus in Atlanta, we believe). For some reason, the toilets they fit in tour buses are 'liquid only'. I don't know what happens to the liquid, and I don't want to know. All I can say is that after a couple of weeks, the tap water goes yellow.
As you may spend much of your time on the tourbus, this rule has a surprisingly large influence on your life. As you will see, touring life places a lot of emphasis on the basic elements of existence. Restricting the right to shit is the just the most obvious compromise upon your humanity.
2. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WEAR WHITE
There is a reason why Crew wear black. It's extraordinary what effluvia black fabric can disguise. This is not true of white clothing.
Wearing white on stage is a status symbol, as it speaks of some distant minion whose life has been reduced to boil-washing, dry cleaning and stain-removal.
Imagine the state of Elvis's jumpsuit after the show, or Loretta Lynn's rhinestone bridal gown.
3. THE 'RIDER' IS FOR THE USE OF THE 'HEADLINING ARTISTE'
Although status among bands is a vague business, the one thing you can be sure about is that if you are the Headlining Act, ie. the one the Kids are coming to see, you get the big dressing room ["Bigger than the puppets?" - see 17] and the long soundcheck. Getting to headline is an important milestone in the life of any band; it means you are more successful than another band. At some point you may negotiate a 'Rider', which is your choice of refreshments in your big dressing room. Having scaled this greasy pole, there is no taboo-breaking more ghastly than the support act poncing your rider.
In this particular instance, it all ends up on the bus anyway, where it is consumed by the hardcore insomniacs and bon-viveurs, by which I mean Cary and Jason [see 4], which demonstrates that your headlining status evaporates the moment the bus pulls away from the venue.
In my experience, there is always someone on the bus who is a compulsive cleaner. Before he gave it all up to become a teacher, that person was Tony Perretta. In this case it is Cary's guitar player, Jason Kanakis. In Jason's case, it seems to be linked to alcohol; the more he drinks, the more he must clean.
Linked to this process is 'the chiller', which is a big ice-bucket built into the front lounge, which you are meant to put beer in and thereby free up valuable fridge space for last night's dried-up salad. It is regarded as uncivilised for the beer not to be on ice, and Jason has made it his obsessive-compulsive mission to replace the ice whenever he can.
But ice will melt. Kanakis, the Sysiphus of The Road, will bring more.
I am beginning to understand the American relationship to Hot Tea, which assumes that milk will not be involved. We were in a diner in Birmingham, Alabama, and Dave requested some milk to go with his Hot Tea. The waitress was unable to comprehend. It was as if he had asked her to thread a necklace of stars.
To get a good, stolid, English cup of tea, using the kettle that Ash kindly left on the bus for us, bring your own bags from home and for God's sake, don't run out.
6. THIS IS A "NON-SMOKING BUS"
We need all the air we can get.
It is dangerous to share your beloved music with other people, much as it is dangerous to show them your genitals. They may laugh. Their faces may twist in revulsion. A tangy scent may waft through the room.
Dave, for whom music has more in common with air than entertainment, often reaches a level of Enthusiasm [see 6] for a particular track at a particular time that overcomes normal inhibitions, and he'll wobble to the CD player. Very often what he'll play is the most motherfucking, jerky-dry, loose-booting FUNK from the mothership which will validate every cell of your body. But sometimes it will be, in plain terms, jazz. Occasionally he'll have his dick out.
In fact, you can exercise. The thing you must not do is say you're going to exercise, because it has a very, very hollow ring to it.
10. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO INSTIGATE YOUR OWN NICKNAME
So you're hanging out on The Road together, like a little gang, and you're thinking, "to really give a sense of fellowship and belonging, of blokeish familiarity, we ought to have nicknames", and you say "Hey guys, from now on you can call me 'Captain Chin', and I'll call you 'Quintessence', 'Jabby' and 'Cakehole', how about it yo?"
It won't catch on. Nicknames can only be conferred by others. You're not as popular as you think you are [see 11]
Roberto has a nickname. It is 'Fun Bobby'.
11. THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS
12. TRY TO SIGN THE NIPPLE AREA
13. ALWAYS SPEAK COURTEOUSLY TO THE DRIVER
He is probably armed.
15. DO NOT LEAP FROM YOUR BUNK YELLING "SHIT, FUCK, NO NO NO!"
Dan contributed this, so I'm sure he wouldn't mind me explaining that he occasionally suffers from night terrors, or vivid nightmares of impending doom.
This is exacerbated by the coffin-ish environment of the bunk, leading to awesome displays of in-dream heroism, which in real life manifest themselves as unprompted screaming attacks and full-throttle leaping down the hallway.
16. AS ABOVE, ESPECIALLY DURING BORDER CROSSINGS
17. THERE IS ALWAYS AN APPROPRIATE QUOTE FROM SPINAL TAP. HELLO CLEVELAND.
Spinal Tap is so true that it is no longer funny to watch. We even have a replacement drummer.
18. YOU DO NOT HAVE A SPIRITUAL CONNECTION WITH A BARMAID
It is her job to serve you drinks. She may be of a friendly disposition. You shouldn't read more into it than that.
19. MERELY HAVING A BRITISH ACCENT DOES NOT CONFER 'WIT' UPON EVERYTHING YOU SAY
This doesn't apply to me of course. Everything I say is hilarious, regardless of my accent [see 58]
20. YOU ARE RARELY TRYING YOUR BEST
Claire is from Canada.
22. YOU CAN FIX IT WITH GAFFER TAPE
Whether you have hit a deer with your bus, the knobs are loose on your amplifier, or you have run out of socks, a solution can be improvised using gaffer tape. It only has to last till the end of the tour [see 20].
23. THEY CALL IT DUCK TAPE HERE. OR IS IT DUCT TAPE?
It's thick, it has a fabric-y back, you can tear it easily and it's very sticky. And you can write on it with a Sharpie. It hardly matters what it's called, it's essential.
24. YOU CAN GET HIGH USING A SHARPIE
The Sharpie - another essential piece of Crew-ware. It is a permanent marker which releases potent fumes. You can use it to write 'AQUALUNG' upon a venue's extension lead to facilitate its theft; you can scrawl amendments to the setlist with it; it helps you to draw upon the faces of drunken collegues. You can hang it from your lanyard with your twenty-thousand laminates and your mini-maglite. You must keep your Leatherman in one of the many pockets of your cargo pants, or hang it from your belt with your phone, which is held together with gaffer tape.
I'm using one now... mmmn.
David Price is prone to sudden Enthusiasms. Often, an Enthusiasm has taken him away from the place you thought he was, or the place where you had agreed to be. This is the point at which someone will say "where's Dave?". It became such a regular refrain that we'd end up asking it by default, even when Dave was standing in front of you. Which was rare.
More recently it has taken on a melancholy edge, because Dave has gone to Russia, so "where's Dave?" has become a kind of tour epitaph to be invoked wistfully, because you miss him, or when you hear jazz.
26. YOU ARE MORE AMUSING WHEN YOU'RE DRUNK
27. YOU ARE MORE AMUSING WHEN THEY'RE STONED
Technically.
[29 & 30] The Cary Brothers Diet.
Coke seems to be a much much bigger thing over here, related to the Constitutional Right to bear a Beverage.
No American should be without a beverage at any time, in case their blood sugar level should fall below 'paranoid'. You can find beverage-holders in previously undreamt-of places; there is a beverage-holder on the moon. Jason's guitar has a built-in beverage-holder. The beverage-holders on the bus are not large enough to contain today's standard beverage-size. Nor are human hands.
And as for the 'Big Gulp', I've had baths with less in.
We all have urges. Try to keep it to the back lounge. Or find a willing receptacle.
32. BEING IN A GROUP OF MEN IN CLOSE PROXIMITY PROMOTES HOMOEROTIC HUMOUR
This is an interesting one. I tended to assume this was just to do with the type of men I hang out with, but this Commandment was one that Marco pointed out shortly after he arrived, confirming that it is more widespread than I thought.
It may surprise you to learn that none of us are gay. Of course, none of us are screamingly homophobic either, and under normal circumstances we do not find it necessary to do gay voices or make gags about fisting each other.
But there's something about the intimacy of sharing the tiny bus and spending every day together that provokes childish quasi-gay remarks. Perhaps it is a strategy to earth any embarrassment we may feel about being physically close all the time, or maybe it's a very coy way of expressing that we're fond of each other.
It's intriguing, because no matter how sophisticated and open-minded we might be, there's an element of unreconstructed male confusion that can apparently not be avoided. I imagine this is rampant among groups of straight men (football teams, submarine crews), and I suspect the only way it could be discouraged is if there was someone around who was actually gay. At the very least it would be more factual.
33. YOU WILL OCCASIONALLY BE SICK
34. YOU WILL OCCASIONALLY BE SICK IN A TAXI
35. CARY BROTHERS IS *INTENTIONALLY DELETED*
36. A PREOCCUPATION WITH SHITTING (SEE 1)
See also 50, 60. It seems like the fewer opportunities you have to shit, the more you have to think about it. Plus, even after all these years, poo poo is still funny.
It is not uncommon to walk onto the bus and find everyone sitting with their laptops out. Laptops are extremely popular among Tourists, especially with the growth of wireless internet access, which attracts the largest amount of screen-flipping. The only sound you hear is muttered comments about signal and the marching of fingers on keyboards.
The laptop becomes a small portal to the rest of the world and allows you to escape momentarily from the restricted world of the bus and the venue and the cunts you have to spend your life with.
I wish I had one.
The mp3 revolution has changed touring life. Our current bus has no CD player - you have to use the inconvenient Playstation. Everyone has their entire music collection on shuffle and everybody's bags are much lighter because there are no CDs in them. The consumption of music is completely different. These are interesting times [see 7]
39. STARBUCKS MEANS NEW LIFE (SEE 1,36,37)
You inexorably become attached to familiar things in unfamiliar places.
The proliferation of Starbucks, which in real life is a dubious enterprise, becomes something of Pavlovian joy as it fulfills all your first-thing-when-you-wake-up requirements: plumbing, beverage, pastry, internet.
This is not an advert for Starbucks. I should really go somewhere else. It's just there's always one within waddling distance of the bus...
40. TAKE CARE WHEN OPENING THE OVERHEAD BINS AS CONTENTS MAY HAVE SHIFTED DURING THE FLIGHT
There is not much room in the aisles so you should put your shoes in the little cupboard they have under the seats. It's common courtesy.
The only drawback is the smell that emanates from the shoe cupboard, and one time when I was reaching in I accidentally put my hand inside Cary's sheepskin moccasins that he likes to wear without socks. It was like delving into a rhino's ear.
42. "PULL MY FINGER" AND RUN LIKE HELL (SEE 60)
43. IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE BAND NEVER EXPRESS AN OPINION ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
This is especially for people who have to work with the band, and therefore live with them for the rest of the tour (although it is useful to point it out to passing record company folk). As with parents, partners and pets it's perfectly OK for you to trash the band if it's yours, but as soon as someone else ventures an opinion, everything suddenly gets very chilly.
As with testicles, egos are sensitive things, easily bruised, and any injury is not soon forgotten. So if you want to live a happy life on your bus with your musical collegues, never ever come backstage going "what's wrong with you, you were awful?". You should also restrict yourself to making soothing noises while the band complains bitterly about the monitors. This is their way of acknowledging that they played like shit.
Bands, for their part, will never ask your opinion either, for fear that you might give it.
44. IT'S 'DUCT TAPE', APPARENTLY
45. YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUB LOTION INTO ANYONE'S TATTOO, EVEN IF THEY HAVE BOUGHT A TICKET
This actually happened to Jason Kanakis. I try to avoid any kind of contact with the audience for this reason.
Never mind, eh? We're leaving town tonight.
47. EVERYTHING THAT DID GO WRONG, COULD GO WRONG
If you've ever wondered how to make an omelette without breaking eggs, go to Waffle House.
Denny's, on the other hand, is the finest exponent the joyous American art of Gratification. If you want it, by god you shall have it, in huge quantities at a low price with free refills. The British equivalent is Little Chef [Little Shit], which probably tells you all you need to know about the differences between our nations.
("Two nations separated by enormous girths" - George Bernard Shaw)
49. CARY BROTHERS IS *INTENTIONALLY DELETED*
50. YOU ARE AT THE MERCY OF YOUR BASEST URGES
No one is allowed to tell you to stop, apart from:
51. YOU ARE AT THE MERCY OF YOUR BASSIST'S URGES
It's a small environment. It doesn't take much to pollute the emosystem.
While you're setting up, say, at an instore, where people will be milling around freely nearby, you may bend down and unwittingly reveal a large portion of your arse. Just thought you ought to know.
53. NOW IS THE TIME TO EXPERIMENT WITH FACIAL HAIR
I grew a beard.
We seem to be chasing the summer around. In Britain, the longest recorded heatwave was probably one afternoon in 1987. Where we've been it's been summer every single day, all day long. I don't have enough shorts for this kind of existence.
56. IT IS EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO PASS THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE THAN FOR EIGHT ADULTS TO BE READY TO LEAVE AT THE SAME TIME
At least groups of children don't suddenly decide they need to change their shoes/ watch the end of Seinfeld/ climax. Plus you can shout at children and this can have an effect.
57. FLY THE FLAGS AT HALF-ASSED
Fuck, it's hard, when you're on tour, to do anyghin propoghleee.
58. BEN HALES IS *INTENTIONALLY DELETED*
59. WEEK 5: INCREASED RISK OF SCURVEY
If you discover that your teeth are rotting out of your head and your skin is a maggoty mass of lesions, one solution is to switch to Mexican beer, which is served with a slice of lime.
60. FARTING IS A VIABLE FORM OF COMMUNICATION (SEE 42)
Try it for yourself. A particularly effective way of saying "No".