These Good Weeks (Tour Recap)

🚐🎸📣

That’s the end of our SummerLobes Scrample (a name just now bestowed), which over the last 2.4 weeks took us through the countries of England, Wales, and Ireland, via several cities whose walls we’d never before breached — looking at YOU, Birkenhead; talking behind YOUR back, Grimsby; passing notes to YOUR best friend, Bedford, hoping she tells you what’s on our mind.

Yes, it was a glory for all who partook, at least in our little camp. Each night was a genuinely excellent show, and we enjoyed getting up-close and personal in some of the smaller clubs, as well as peering out at people beneficently from a couple of large festival stages.

Coming up in November, as readers of this taco truck are keenly aware, is our long-awaited tour of North America. But before we power up our Giant Focus Laser (GFL) and train its mighty gaze on that string of dates, why don’t we take a look back ☺️ at the newly minted past…

[Photo credits: Lots of these were shot by Casey McAllister, and are marked “📷CM.” Three are by Kieren Frost, and say “📷KF.” The rest are by one of us, unless it says otherwise in the caption.]

[NB: There are a lot of pics in this post, and substack says gmail, for example, is going to “truncate” it, in which case, if you’re reading an email version and you sense truncation, just click “open in app or online” up at the top there.]

One of the most important functions of the green room is Cocktail Lab. This is a place where, without fear of reprisal or remonstration, we can try wild & dangerous ingredient combinations in the hopes of coming up with a new color we don’t already have. This marigold hue that KC achieved is lovely, and we were doing a lot of high-fiving and hollaring, till TM Johnny cleared his throat and pointed out that it’s just Lemon Beach Sunshine 😭. Oh, yes, it was delicious, but still, 😭. (📷CM)

Enclosed, limited space; finite ingredients for cocktails; and widespread pre-show nerves… it’s no wonder green room spats over any ol’ superficial disagreement aren’t rare. Here is Chris insisting that mice’s tails are more likely to curl a little left than right. (He backed down.) (📷CM)

Harmony is restored as we discuss the night’s setlist. Although we frequently disagree on precisely which songs should appear and in what order, the fact that no matter what happens we’ll be playing 90 minutes of W.A.S. tunes keeps everyone’s mood pretty bubbly. (📷CM)

A thing of rare beauty — an almost impossible symmetry. (And the setlist ain’t bad, neither!😂) Check out Keith M ripping the hell out of a weed bong in the reflection. (Just kidding, Tina, Keith’s mom: that’s a steam-based throat conditioner😉.) (📷CM)

And then it’s stage time. We charge out there, start a big song, run around in circles, do some toe taps and head-banging, unleash throat-curdling screams down the mic (rare), and generally try to put on a good show that’s safe for the whole family, yet hard to erase from the viewer’s mind. We have been told, to our considerable satisfaction, by people who caught the show 15 years ago, that to this day they dream of little else. (📷KF)

Here we are at Norwich Arts Centre. That eery amethyst glow is simply a spell that a misguided enemy band flung at us mid-song; it only enraged us and caused us to play better, with even more precision, power, and charismatic vulnerability. Moments after this shot was taken the crowd began spontaneously throwing 10 pound notes at the stage and howling their approval. Talk about “a spell that backfired”! (📷 Stephen Bornemann)

Keith is renowned for his mighty vocal, and it is indeed robust, but some of the whispered rumors we catch are frankly ridiculous. No, his mic is not a dummy mic made of chocolate and tin foil — he is amplified, just like most singers these days, even those working in the opera. No, he can’t kill a bird in mid-flight just by yelling at it. (He has tried many times!) And no, he can not sing lower than a Blue Whale and higher than a whistle. (Baby blue whales, yes, and sure, some whistles.) (📷Stephen Bornemann)

At the end of a show, at most venues, we’re allowed to order a one-piece or two-piece chicken dinner, depending on how hungry we are. (📷CM)

While the Keith Clump (Messrs. Murray & Carne) work with TM Johnny to disassemble the stage, Chris offers high quality merchandise at reasonable prices, often with a smile, a nod, and a wink. (📷CM)

Honestly, this crap is so damn good-looking and fresh, it sells itself. Chris just knows how to work the credit card machine. (Neither Keith is allowed by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission to operate a credit card machine, bank till, or cash register for the next few years, due to a series of misunderstandings.)

Always at the end of the night, after packing up the van, we pose exactly like this, usually looking down a dark alley behind the venue. On this occasion a person was standing there, and she snapped a photo.

Speaking of historic moments that will be reprinted in history books due to the presence of a canny and quick-fingered photographer: how bout this photo of us with Russell Leetch of the Editors band? This was backstage in the “artists’ village” at Indiependence Festival, in Cork. Have you ever seen three people holding this much alcohol? I guess yeah, you definitely have, unless you just subscribed today to this newsletter. 🥴

Oh, another backstage job we had — this one brand new on this tour — was fulfilling requests from our nascent Cameo account. We found that these are best handled with more beer than driving, but less beer than playing a show (see previous photo), and are actually pretty darn fun to make, since they combine several of our great loves: horsing around, a video camera, and those beers. (You can see a couple of the completed requests on our cameo page; we clearly have some work to do tightening these babies up 🫠)

This photo reminds me: we also sing backstage! And play our instruments! This is supposedly a means of “warming up” for the show, like getting ready for it or something, but we just think it’s fun, and we almost never get to play acoustic instruments in our band — or in Carne’s case, a chair — because we’re HMHR (heavy metal hard rock).

Carne also so, so rarely gets to play a cardboard box, so whenever we find one, it’s straight into acoustic rehearsals.

If you hit a pretty note, you’re offered an extra ration of rum.

This was taken in the “artists’ village” (they’re always called that) backstage at Kendall Calling. We thought it was clever of them to put a photo of famous Peeping Tom Audrey Hepburn on the wall right next to the urinals, so she could “look” at artists’ weiners while they pee — an all-consuming obsession in life, become harmless jest in death.

Speaking of gazing in awe at something inspiring and personal, here’s your man Keith watching Melanie C destroyyyyy the crowd at Kendall.

It is essential, when on tour, to get out into the outdoors, outside the buildings and pubs, among the green little post-it notes attached to the bark, and breathe the fresh air 🍃 and splash around downriver with the snakes. This is on the Ingleton Waterfalls trail in North Yorkshire, which has whisky colored water due to peat (source: google) and being made of chocolate (source: S.D.I.R.).

TM Johnny Haskett got right the fuck out on that rock island. The photo’s crop obscures the fact that he had to hop across half a dozen wet mossy rocks to get there. Other trail-walkers were well impressed, but we took it in stride, knowing Johnny to be a hard-charging brave sonofabitch.

Backdrop projection at The Docks, a very fine venue in Grimsby, England. Well-calibrated haze levels created these pleasing striations of light, recalling a film projector in an old-timey movie theater where smoking is still allowed, and people set little campfires in the aisles for warmth 🥹.

When the same striations appeared on the ceiling of our hotel room later that night, we sensed Crom’s hand at play, and knew that he looked favorably upon our journey, and the courage and tenacity with which we pursued it.

In the end, touring for us is just a several-few pals (3) wandering the countryside like minstrels of old, living by our wits from the land, although yes, entering the cities to plug our instruments into giant speakers and gorge at cafés and fine dining establishments, and then fly on a jumbo jet to the start of the next tour. If, in this endeavor, one skill is more valuable than others, it is the ability to make a home where you find it, be that on a worn, tan leather couch in a dressing room in Galway, or in the finest rooms of a five star wine resort nestled among the granite hills of central Portugal 🤗.

Where will we tour next?

Why, North America, of course. That tour runs November 6–December 15, and individual dates have been laid out along with ticket links here.

Coming tomorrow…

…Our first reader-requested cover song acoustic version thing, which yeah, we intimated was coming like a week ago, but… [good excuse]. It’s a doozie, boy howdy! (the excuse and the song!)

And it’s about time for another round of Reader Q&A, so if you’re a paid subscriber to this cable news network, please do submit a data petition (“question”) on the closed subscriber chat or by using this private google form. We’ll aim to get those answers out next week.

Now, nestle down into your straw-stuffed bedding if it’s nighttime when you read this, or do some jumping jacks if it’s day. Throw some water in your face (not at night). Sing to your pet. Kick a lizard (playfully!). It’s going to be a great next-couple-of-hours for you — we can feel that it’s true.

🫀,

Sci-squadron