Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Tuesday 4 April 2006

Houston, Texas : the first city I ever visited in the USA. 10 years ago when "Donkey" toured. Our label was based in Houston and that was our starting point. So it was fine to return to a city that seems to get flak from other Americans on a regular basis. Met old compadres who took us to a fine Mexican eaterie....ah those Mexicans again..ay caramba! None of the restauranters/ waiters / waitresses spoke English, just Spanish. Brilliant. Put that in yr Homeland Security pipe and smoke it. Definitely a Friday night feeling at the gig where the cowboys and cowgirls yeehawed well into the night and pogo-ed. Got to hear some Houston hip-hop....fresh flavas from the south.


New Orleans, Louisiana : boy this town sure took a beating from that hurricane. Some might even say that this city needed a clean up anyway, but I will resist from such suggestions. Canal Street is still a mess. Shops and buildings are all boarded up. Looking through the windows of stores, you can still see everything has remained untouched from that fateful week. Chairs and tables strewn everywhere, wallpaper dripping from the walls, and a general stank that hangs over the area. Meanwhile the French Quarter is doing its best to live it up. There were tourists aplenty in for the weekend and at night, Bourbon Street was jumping. Party animals with those gaudy Mardi Gras beads falling over their drunken, slurred chat up lines, yo-boys shouting "nigger" at any opportunity at each other, oldies who were trying to keep apace with the young 'uns in the party stakes. And all those girls gone wild! Snoop will surely be making an appearance down in these neck of the woods again to help the ailing economy with his schnizzle videos.
Cracking show.....punk rock a go-go.



Tallahassee, Florida : this is the state capital of Florida. the home of Governor Jeb Bush, brother of the incumbent. This is where the first W election was rigged! Enough said.

Jacksonville, Florida : down by the beach. Florida is a giant graveyard. The oldies come to retire down here and spend the last remaining years of their life. Beach bums with surf boards clash for space on the seafront with the pensioners. We had a big stopover at a truck stop due to our driver Tal having to fix a hose in the motor. This gave us the chance to observe hick life at a truckstop in the middle of nowhere for a couple of hours. Most of these people must eat out of a bucket judging by the large appearances of most of them. Truck drivers wired on coffee and ephedrine load up on gurly mags and country tapes for the road. Locals who live in the area use the truckstop as a meeting place and shopping stop, driving through in their huge trucks and hummers. Stetsons, cowboy boots and mirrored sunglasses are for the good ol' boys. The black guys are the ones cleaning up the forcourt of the station. Alot of them just stared at me and wondered which planet this brown looking guy had come from....or did they have ter****st running through their head?

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina : playing at House of Blues. HOB is a chain of venues in the USA, started by a fellow who is a devotee of Sai Baba (an Indian guru / saint / living God with millions of followers around the world). His photo hangs above every stage which is always strange to see I think in a rock'n'roll environment. There is an alligator farm behind the venue and we witnessed the feeding of the thousands at 5pm! Gnashing teeth and then back to sleep for the 'gators. These animals don't eat for 4-5 months through the winter period. They store all their energy from the food they eat in the summer months and use that sparingly in the winter. there have been reports of alligators roaming many neighbourhoods in South Carolina and Louisiana, where they will visit homes to knock over trash bins and eat the contents within. How long before a human gets to be plat du jour? Managed to hit the beach but way too cold for any dipping.