Welcome
to the Continental Breakfast Tour; a weeklong whirlwind dash across Northern
Europe. Five gigs in five days in three countries. No road crew, no drivers,
no hotels, and very little money. Just four bands, the vision of our French
friend, J-C Baroche who runs Active Suspension Records, and the distant endorsement
of Dominic from Earworm Records back in London.
J-C had made friends with Avrocar and Magnetophone during his stay in Birmingham; he'd wanted to set up such a jaunt for ages. Did he realise what he'd got himself into?
We were joined by Tank from Brest, France and Garage favourites, Ma Cherie for Painting from Stuttgart. Ma Cherie looked quite professional in comparison to the rest of the bands with a van and a soundman (to whom they'd promised a "bit of a holiday" - how little he knew!)
I'd actually taken a tape recorder with me intending to record 10-15 minutes with one band member each day. To be honest I think that this might have been the straw that broke the creative camel's back so that was quickly abandoned. What follows is my day-by-day recollection of those six days together with a few of the pictures that I took.
Arrived in St. Malo at 8am after a reasonable crossing from Portsmouth to be greeted by freezing sleet and the news that the train to Brest was not for 2 hours - time for petit dejeuner. The bands had travelled across the day before to fit in a good night's sleep.
At 10 o'clock St. Malo still did not look like it had woken up but at least the weather was brighter. Four hours later, after a train ride to put British Rail to shame, I was in Brest in bright spring sunshine. J-C, Celine and Claire and Perry from Avrocar met me and with only enough time to collect the others from the beach we were off to the venue.
It transpired that they had not been so lucky with their crossing. The sea had been a lot choppier, with some of them not having good sea legs. Retreating to their cabin for some solace they discovered that there was some sort of orgy going on next door!
The JukeBox Theatre is in the middle of a light industrial estate. Luckily, someone had decided to build a hypermarket within spitting distance so a feast was in order. It was now gone 4 o'clock and the prospect of setting up and sound checking four very different bands by 8 o'clock suddenly dawned on people. Avrocar ended up sound checking in front of the early arrivals to discover that the drum machine was not working! In stepped Nico, the drummer from Ma Cherie, who offered to fill in despite only having heard a few of the ir songs - the end result was amazing. Next up were hometown boys Tank. The core of the band is Christophe and Yann who are joined live by Yannick (the man responsible for Osaka and Ursa fanzine) and another guitarist from local band Scopa. You really get the impression that there's a really exciting music scene in the far north west of France. The live sound is spectacular and the band must be tempted over to these shores before long. Those of you who have their stuff on record will know to expect a Neu/Faust bombardment. With Stereolab you would have to wait until the end of the set for this sort of stuff but this band launch straight into it. "Gunnar" was an exhausting experience!
Ma Cherie for Painting are no less an experience - they will play a different set every night from an extensive back catalogue and reams of unreleased material. Claire and Vickie from Avrocar returned the favour from earlier that night and sing backing vocals on "Salut, Salut". You already got the impression that boundaries were going to get a little blurred on this tour. John and Matthew needed no help. Magnetophone provided the perfect backdrop for the after midnight survivors. The audience was divided into the sitters and the swayers with the Birmingham contingent taking up their traditional cross-legged poses at the front.
After a quick load out into car and vans we set off at gone 2 o'clock to our local hosts for the night and a good night's sleep.
Alarms
had been set for 6 o'clock with a strict 7 o'clock rendezvous at J-C's house.
"Every car must have a French person," he told us. I ended up in a
car with three of them - we were not going to get lost! Mobile phones were used
to synchronise lunch and coffee stops with military precision and all went well
until the outskirts of Paris. The description that the venue is on the banks
of the Seine next to the Bibliotheque Nationalle seemed so straight forward
in Brest but in Paris that was not quite good enough! Everybody congregated
in a parking lot whilst J-C made frantic phone calls. Eventually we found it
behind a building site that we'd driven past an hour or so earlier.
The venue was built into a railway arch with a cafe bar in the adjacent space. A great idea and I'm sure it will look great when it is finished! The outside toilets had no roof and few walls. As for any plumbing - well I'll leave that to your imagination.
John's brother turned up a little later and rather flustered. He'd been on holiday that week in Paris and on the way to the venue he had been stopped by the gendarmes, searched and given a lot of grief when they found his Swiss-army knife - how little they know of our English boy-scout, "be prepared" mentality.
The previous night we'd set up a record/tape/fanzine stall, it'd not done too badly. Paris was a completely different matter. The Rough Trade had closed a couple of weeks before and people fell upon us like hungry wolves to buy up anything we had (where was a box of Bearos singles when I needed them!)
Tank kicked off with a disappointing set they later admitted hadn't "rocked". Magnetophone fared even worse with no sound on stage, a disaster when you do all your own live mixing. Ma Cherie cheered a few of us up with a great set and Avrocar gave one of the ir best performances ever; the only problem being that a lot of people had already left to catch the last Metro. To cap off the evening the rain had returned and a few of the people who were going to put us up had not turned up to the gig! Frantic phone calls followed and a shuttle service began across Paris to get the equipment somewhere safe and the rest of us somewhere to get some long overdue sleep. Mission accomplished, but not before 5 o'clock in the morning!
This
was as close as we were going to get to a day of rest with only a few km drive
and the promise of a well organised venue at the end of the journey that would
feed us with their legendary cous-cous! Early risers had the chance for a wander
around Paris (we'd ended up staying quite centrally, packed like sardines in
a small but welcoming flat). We had sight of the top of the Seine and the top
of the Eiffel Tower above the houses before it was time to meet the others.
Ma Cherie were discovered having their traditional steak and chips breakfast
in a local cafe and soon we were off.
MJC Claudel is a youth centre on the outskirts of Reims. It boasted musical nights as diverse as Dogbowl who are described as "acid folk pop core" to Migal's "home made oriental traditional folk". Tonight was going to be a night of "pop electronique et atmospherique"
I can't quite remember what Ma Cherie were celebrating but they arrived with a few bottles of champagne to share. Spirits were even further lifted by the arrival of the cous-cous - the bands were even persuaded to raise a glass to J-C's organisational skills.
Magnetophone opened. They wanted to soundcheck last, play first to try and avoid the technical difficulties of the night before. They played amazingly and went down so well that their confidence was restored. Avrocar maintained the high standard followed by Ma Cherie, who produced a wonderfully mellow performance. Perry had been experimenting with some of Tank's keyboards and ended up on stage wit h them. The encore saw the first performance by the Continental Breakfast Band with Nico joining Tank on drums, leaving Christophe to concentrate on the trumpet. Other members of Ma Cherie played with J-C and Steve and Claire from Avrocar providing "free-form vocals". I'm sure Magnetophone were in there twiddling some knobs as well. The whole thing flexed its combined musical muscle for a full ten minutes to riotous applause at the end. A fantastic night and Tank's last night on the tour (but it didn't stop a couple of them coming along further - they were hooked!
After another night packed like sardines the next long drive awaited. On the way out of town we caught a quick glimpse of Reims cathedral - so much for culture! The direction was clearly north-east but with no direct roads the choice was a detour through Luxembourg or Belgium. Luxembourg won, we were sampling the delights of Belgium the following day.
"Everybody needs a German in their car," said J-C so Ma Cherie were duly distributed and a couple of us got to ride in their van. There was the danger of blinking and missing Luxembourg so we decided to stop there for lunch. It's the first time I've ever seen Euros changing hands; but then again you could pay in a whole variety of currencies with all the different prices displayed.
We
arrived at the venue, loaded in and the bands started what was regularly clocking
in as a three-hour soundcheck. Even though it was pouring with rain I had to
get out. A twenty-minute walk across the river brought me to the centre of Koln
(are all European venue so remote?) in the shadow of the most gothic-looking
cathedral I had ever seen. From the other side of the river it dominates the
skyline in a city where nothin g else seems more that four stories tall. Well
worth a soaking with a wonderful stew being served up by the venue's resident
cook when I got back!
Another great gig passed without memorable hitches. They'd pulled a sizeable audience, despite the flyer for the gig describing Avrocar as "Die ABBA des Space-Pop"! The fifteen-minute encore after Ma Cherie's set was another great jam session. Joining Ma Cherie were John from Magnetophone on drums, Yannick on guitar, Christophe and Matthew on keyboards. Steve from Avrocar was there as well. We could have had our own "Providence" style record if someone had a mini-disc to plug into the mixing desk. I heard someone's Walkman tape of it afterwards - it didn't do it justice but the cheering at the end was amazing.
As a special treat the bands got the morning off and we all met up in the cathedral square, now bathed in bright, if rather chilly sunshine. No one believed me that it looked twice as impressive in a torrential rainstorm.
We were told that the police in Belgium were very fussy about overcrowding in cars and vans. Out went the chance to lie on top of Ma Cherie's equipment in the back of the van and I found myself at Koln train station. If I hadn't missed my train I would have got to Brussels a full hour before the bands, with this delay it was an hour afterwards.
Another
great venue and the first that was actually in the town centre. It was quite
strange wandering out and being surrounded by restaurants and tourists. Avrocar
went on first and thought they sounded dreadful and wondered why the audience
was so appreciative. It was only after their set that the sound man found out
that there was a separate desk for the on-stage sound and that the band's unmixed
sound had been completely awful! Ma Cherie were yet again in celebratory mode
and the chain-smoking Germans had treated themselves to huge cigars for the
evening's performance. It was up to Magnetophone to close the show and the tour.
After a great gig they encored with "You should write music", seldom
heard these days. Matthew played guitar and John played bass with Ma Cherie
filling in with keyboards and live drums. The best version I have ever heard
- possibly a taster for the Magnetophone "big band sound"?
A fitting musical end and the night was yet young with everybody up for a quick midnight tour of the city's sites. Just time for another group photo in the main square before many a fond farewell and a dash back to Ostend for the first ferry of Sunday morning.
An amazing week, thanks to everyone involved and thanks for inviting me along; I hope this personal account does you all justice. Next time I'll bring the mini-disc and capture more than just the memories!