Sunday, February 03, 2008

This weekend...

Just got back from Heathrow a couple of hours ago - had a pretty heavy weekend, but a good one. I'm only on 4 hours sleep right now, was in Linz (Austria) last night, and flew back via Frankfurt, with a pretty mega early start. I woke up at 830am Austrian time to my iphone blasting out A-Ha 'Take On Me' - my current ploy to start my day off as painlessly as possible, and put me into a positive state. I developed an almost reverse pavlovian response to my old nokia built in alarm tone thing, some lovely happy pan pipes tune, that now is just the sound of pure evil to me, so I can only hope having A-Ha as my ring tone doesn't destroy my Norwegian pop Love. If it does I'll just have to switch it to some Merzbow or something... ;-)

Manchester on Friday night turned out to be great, despite the monster 3.5 hr drive up there, then back home an hour later. Everyone was calling me up saying the snow was terrible and we'd get stranded and the world would end etc etc, AND Hayley suddenly got ill half way up there (we contemplated leaving her on the M40 services until the way back, but were nice and kept her. Hah!) so things didn't look good - but respect to the mighty Steve and the Banana Fiesta we made it in time, had a great set and really cool response at the club (Jabez Clegg I think) and made it back in one piece. Steve thanks Pro Plus for their assistance. Oh, and the wikkid Benga essential mix that was on the radio on the way back too...

OH, and gotta say respect to the mighty Leicester Kru for showing up yet again - and commiserations to Mr. Longa on getting chucked out (again!) but waiting outside in the snow anyway. True Soldiers. WHERE'S THE CHESTERFIELD KRU?! THE LEICESTER KRU ARE PULLING AHEAD!

Did my usual Heathrow trundling on Saturday afternoon, Frankfurt managed not to lose my bag en route, and I had a rather nice glass of reisling by gate B2. The lady surveying people's flying habits ignored me and got a confused japanese man to do it instead. I like doing those things and telling them honestly, yes, I do in fact fly about 150 times a year, and no, I don't buy duty free. Not sure if I'm proud of that or not though...

Painted my nails in the hotel in Linz, always a mistake as I don't leave enough time, so the 2 coats of posh chanel got squished again - but it's not like anyone notices... My purple stuff was flaking bigtime, and black is more manly. About as manly as nail polish on a man can be. Had a great gig, played all the new stuff and they loved it. Opened with 'When the Time Comes' & "Dancing in the Dark' again (realised they're in the same key so mix really well. Quality. Was nice to play 2 hours as opposed to the UK-style 1 hr rush in Manchester on Friday, but man it was SUPERHOT in there. I took a photo of my hair and smudged make-up to post up here, but looking at its horrificness today have since deleted it, so tough... An amazing gig though, and really nice people involved and in the crowd - it's totally electric when everyone is on the same vibe and genuinely partying together like that. Sounds cliched I know, but BOH. Mighty indeed.

Did a couple of video interviews before I played too, I've found one here at partyreporter.at
where I look particularly FaT, so presumably will on the other one too... It was for Resident Magazine so I guess it'll eventually show up on their site at some point, those guys were filming a bit while I was playing so it should turn up pretty good...

Today's just been travelling, airport sandwiches and espresso, and trying to find somewhere to sit in Frankfurt Airport, which is easier said than done. Watched about 4 episodes of the Mighty Boosh on my iPhone which did save me indeed. Resisted the free wine in favour of Tomato Juice too. 

Oh, haha, just remembered-  as I was sat there on the secret bench with the other road-warrior-businessmen-types that had also hunted it down, a couple of random Russian fans ran up and totally freaked out wanting to take photos with me - total rockstar moment, that puzzled the businessmen. I had a conversation with them that literally was just "pizdetz!" - "ahhh, hahaha, PIZDETZ!". (Some Russian swear word/exclamation I still don't fully know the translation of, but its supposed to be really cool... Try it next time you meet someone Russian, I guarantee they'll crack up). Then I went back to watching The Mighty Boosh on my phone. 

Planning on watching some Dexter Series 2 later, digesting my Pizza Hut Meat Feast, then sorting out what I'm doing with all the new tracks and sending them off for mastering in the morning... 

Oh, also been send some MORE photos from the Kiev gig a couple of weeks ago, you can see them here.

At Knutsford Services near Manchester - last time I was there I was probably 10 years old visiting my Grannie! 


On the way back from Manchester, Hayley, no longer ill, awaiting the many wonderous pastry delights of BP.


Another bad photo taken in a club on a cameraphone... Linz. Very Hot. And Smoky!


Heathrow. Terminal 2. Gate 8. The gate agent recognised my hair from last week...


The luxury of the hotel ibis in Linz... That bed was dead comfy actually, I think it was one of those memory foam ones. Or maybe just accidentally ace.


M6/M40. LOOK AT ALL THE TERRIBLE SNOW EVERYBODY! 


As usual you can see all the random iphone camera photos I took on my .mac gallery page here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

big up john! gig in linz was small and hot but a really good party! respect john. the sound quality was shit when deadly viperz played, but you made it sound good. did you turn down the volume?

John B said...

Yeah I talked to the soundman and turned it down a little bit so he could get the amps louder - also I think CDs sound better in those sorts of situations too so that probably helped. Boooooyahhhh!

Anonymous said...

Really enjoyed your set in Manchester, albeit a bit short (like you've already mentioned) but thats not your fault. Cheers for stopping for me to get a photo with ya afterwards as well - meant alot! An sorry my cameraphone was so slow to react haha
Legend.

Anonymous said...

:D
nice interview!

you've been to linz before! you played with andy c then. it was an amazing gig back then. there's a recording of your set here:

http://www.zorg.at/evy/Playaz.Universe.081005-john.b.mp3
i googled so hard for that because it was soooo good.

plus there's a video from that gig on your old site:
http://www.ilovejohnb.com/JohnB_Linz8Oct2005web.mov

so come back soon! wicked!