USA
TOUR October/November 2009
Honarary Englishmen
abroad, hormone optimisation & other deep fried
baloney biscuits.
11th
– 15th October
This autumn we are to sneak into America through
the English portal, with a few shows in Old
Blighty: appearances at the Banbury Canalside
Festival, Huntingdon Hall in Worcester (including
an obligatory visit to the fabulous Plough
Inn), and finally a show at the the Gulbenkian
theatre in Canterbury. |
|
a
re-heated feast,
served up by our very own
scholar and gentleman:
Mike Katz
|
|
This sojourn South means an unfamiliar departure from
Heathrow rather than Edinburgh and the first thing
one notices when flying as an Englishman is that the
plane is bigger and equipped with a larger choice
of films than we are normally given. Even CEO Larry’s
teeth are visibly larger and perhaps even whiter than
on the Scottish flights.
 "This
photo is not enhanced in any way”
|
They
say that travel broadens your horizons and
it is definitely the case here: where we normally
take our little plane from Edinburgh equipped
with our Presbyterian cynicism and negativity,
our newfound positivism makes us think twice
about our normal dismissal of the items on
offer in the in-flight magazines. So, as time
is rolling on for all of us, it is time we
take the plunge and give in to the charms
of Dr. Jeffrey Life (real name I am assured)
and sign up Alan for the
Cenegenics
Medical Institute.
We
were especially drawn to the “Hormone
Optimization” aspect of this revolutionary
approach to reversing the signs and symptoms
of aging. And yes ladies and gentleman, we
at Battlefield band heartily endorse this
programme for after one call on the band mobile
phone and one transatlantic flight, Alan now
too has the body of a thirty-year old.
|
To celebrate
our temporary status as honourary Englishmen, we choose
as our first destination, New Britain in Connecticut.
This town is notable as having the largest Polish
community in Connecticut, being the birthplace of
the Coat hanger in 1869 and also for the introduction
of dribbling to the game of Basketball in 1895. I
for one am a fan of this particular sport and can
only imagine what it was like before this innovation.
The
weather’s chilly so a fine Puerto Rican goat
stew, with rice and beans at Negrita’s
helps keep out the cold. Lovely Jubbly.
|
Friday
16th October
Our first concert is at the University of Hartford
which is a great series which has been run for
15 years by Steve Dieterich. I know this because
Steve reminds me that Davy Steele & I played
with Ceol Beg at the very first concert he put
on in 1994. This was a great start to the tour
but we must leave as we are flying early tomorrow
morning to get to North Carolina and the Leaf
festival.
Saturday
17th- Sunday 18th October
The Lake Eden Arts Festival is a great event
held at what is now a sort of holiday camp outside
Black Mountain, North Carolina but was initially,
I am informed, a sort of retreat set up by former
Bauhaus artists who had come over from Germany.
The festival is brilliant and we are ably looked
after by all the folk there, most notably Steve
Thompson, but also all of the WNCW 88.9 boys
and the Pisgah
organic brewery . There was an abundance
of excellent music at this festival and it was
great to see Soulfeather - an all-star band
from the Mardi gras Indian tribes of New Orleans.
|
|
Monday 19th October
The boys are really getting into the English thing
so we decide to hire five scooters to take ourselves
mod-like across the country to our next appointment
which is the Woodsongs
Old Time Radio Hour in Lexington, Kentucky. This
is a live music show which is broadcast, not only
as a radio show but also ‘streamed’ as
some kind of moving pictures & sound shenanigans
on the world wide inter-banana (never let it be said
that the batties aren’t up on all this hi-tech
stuff).
The
programme is hosted by Michael Johnathon and you can
find it here
in the Woodsongs archives (show no. 550), but there's
load of other great material too: definitely worth
a perusal.
|
we are the
mods etc. |
| This
afternoon we are sharing the bill with Australian
one-man-band Pauly
Zarb of Penrith, New South Wales who is currently
residing in Kentucky, and who is well worth checking
out. It is also great to catch up with Al Mann, (surely
Brechin’s tallest and healthiest looking son)
and his family, who are over from Scotland to visit
him.
After
the show we opt for a bourbon tasting: it makes a
welcome change to bourbon creams which, for the benefit
of our non-U.K. readers, are the norm in the travelodgeandbreakfastphere
and furnish the nightmares of every musician who tours
in old Britain.
|
|
|
|
