Yes – back on the road – feels strangely like home not having any routine and a limited supply of shoes to choose from… writing this from a trendy, graffiti’d section of Oslo in Norway, waiting to get the load-in together for tonight’s gig… finally a second to write a blog… I was in Phoenix and Los Angeles for most of March and early April – working with a few up-and-comers, as well as a few legends… well – one in particular – Lamont Dozier – the Motown genius himself… he very graciously invited me into his home to write for a few days… originally for some TV pop horror – but we quickly established a rapport around the fact that we were just gonna do whatever we wanted… his pianos had mountains of old cassettes on them – recording every note and word… I guess you need to be an idea hoarder when you’re simultaneously writing 3 musicals and innumerable requests to write songs, as the Amy/Duffy/CeeLo fallout creates the usual insatiable corporate appetite for the same thing, only safer, and uptempo – while I was out there I kinda got addicted to Car Auctions on TV – it reminded me of a lot of these songwriting missions – they make Retro-Mod cars – so – the original car only with abs, power steering, airbags etc… kinda like how I feel when the brief is: write something like Amy Winehouse, only without all the talent and aggression for an artist whose only pain is where to house all the Jimmy Choos and a back story that consists of born cute, got signed, everything’s great… American Idol is the new A&R – at least it’s honest… luckily – I get to work with a few of the outsider artists who have chosen not to go down that route… my Phoenix mission was like that… big studio, a week with an incredible talent… the LA mission was the usual LA thing – the ying and the yang of “this place sucks/this place is amazing” often felt by the working tourist… you want to run away fast while also working out how to get back there…

Europe was a delight to return to… the final leg of the PD tour… first off – a return to a venue that has been part of the Fink fabric for a long time, ever since I DJ’d there at Ninja Tune’s 10th anniversary back in the day with Mixmaster Morris, Scruff and J Swinscoe…

(Photo – end of “Sort of Revolution” by B Romain)

AB Brussels is a great place to play – apparently Brussels is split along very firm party lines – with the Botanique catering to the French kinda Belgium side, and AB catering to the other side – so – although we had nailed Brussels in the first part of the PD tour last year, we still had to nail the other half… what a pleasure… a delightful way to start the run – back on the bus – the team back together, sold-out venue… love it… on the board outside was a list of gigs that month with many of our friends having sold it out, and a few of our not-so-friends having not… felt good in a bad way… next up was one of our favourite euro festies – Motel Mozaique in Rotterdam – again – another festie we did back in ’06 – only at the very very very bottom of the bill (we played to about 20 people in an art gallery) – this time they booked us with the full 59 Productions show – projections and lights and everything – we were like, how the hell are we gonna set that up in a 30 minute changeover? to which they presented us with stage-sized rolling risers – literally – we built the whole set up on a giant rolling stage – and then just kinda rolled it on… it was awesome – deciding what to play was just about the only tricky thing of this mission – you can actually see the gig here – as it was aired on TV the following night – it starts off pretty dark – but it’s pretty rad… filmed and recorded by our friends at 3voor12 and Vpro…

We loved it… even down to finding our old haunt Rotown and being given free coffees just because… loved that… Of Montreal, who we watched from the wings after we had secretly packed down our kit behind the curtain, doing the noisy stuff while they were cranking it out, were incredibly insane… a packed stage with costumes, contemporary art installations masquerading as people in funny outfits, and just kinda madness… kinda liked it actually… we love Rotterdam more and more every time we go there – this was out third MM festival – and all of them were great – but this one was special… big thanks to everyone who chose us from an amazing line up to see that night…

(after Pretty Little Thing at Motel Mozaique festival, Rotterdam – by Tommy N Lance)

We hit Luxembourg for the first time not knowing what to expect… it was lovely – I trudged into town in the rain to find a coffee only to discover that the reward for my labours was being allowed to smoke inside… what a pleasure… so I did, for ages… the backstage was immense, like enormous, and all the crew and staff were lovely, as was the support band, Monophona… really cool local act – kinda like a cross between early Lamb and Little Dragon – really liked their show… we had a really nice painless time there before hitting the bus and heading back to Holland for Zwolle…

However – we didn’t wake up in Zwolle, we woke up by the side of the motorway… you know when you wake up and Mystery Ritch the TM’s bunk is empty that it can only mean one thing….. Bus Fuckri… and it was… the accelerator had broken off… on the day when the bus had to take us to Zwolle, then head back like 700 miles after the show back to the UK with most of the crew and all of our light rig… aaarrrrggghhhhh!… the locals got it together real fast and bussed us and our gear to Zwolle – seeing the bus pull up at the end of the night really put us in a great place for the gig… what an unexpected pleasure that was – we were reunited with our PD tour “first part” Rachel Sermanni who was in fine form… and Zwolle – I mean – have you ever heard of Zwolle… us neither – but it was awesome – the venue, Hedon, was like a miniature Shepherds Bush Empire – the volunteer staff were so so nice – and after the day we had had, to put on the show was a real triumph – so big thanks to all the locals who made it happen…

We even managed to squeeze in a quick session – it’s here – with Rachel and Sian joining us for a rendition of “Hush Now” from the Biscuits album…

Listen – soz – I gotta go and set up the stage for this gig in Oslo – the following week of the tour is so immensely immense that it requires it’s own blog really… it involved a giant orchestra, so union rules dictate I must have a 20 minute break in between blogs… so I’ll get on with that from the back of the van tomorrow… until then…

F