uk trip part 1: getting there, tv smith ruining my life, etc.

i'm going to do this in nice, small(ish) installments, otherwise i will get overwhelmed and jump out of my window. one day at a time.

earlier this year i got a nice chunk of cash from working at my side job (no, not as a prostitute) and i decided that i was going to use it to get to england and see the stranglers, hopefully with jet black drumming. they're my favorite, you know.

and then i met this dude at the robyn hitchcock show, we started talking, blah blah blah, we decided to go to england together. this was a scary thing for me because last time i went to england with a dude i ended up wanting to either kill him or myself. i warned this guy of everything that happened during that last trip, and after the fact, i can say that he did a fine job of putting up with my shit. anyway, so he only kind of knew the stranglers going into this but ended up becoming a fan after seeing them, so that's cool. enough of that shit. let me tell you about my trip. we flew into manchester, rented a car, and went on a crazy punk rock road trip all over the country.

pale blue champion. this car took us all over the fucking place. thank you enterprise!

the first night we were there, we were going to see tv smith at some pub in mexborough. when we got there, though, there was no mention of him anywhere, and after asking someone who worked there it was obvious that something had gone amiss. tv's website said the show was canceled due to "problems with the venue." the problem being that no one there had evidently ever heard of him...so we left, sad and deflated, and wandered around looking for some other place to hang out. that ended up being the boy & barrel. i walked in and saw this:

any place where i am greeted by marc bolan and debbie harry is ok by me.

so i decided this would be a cool place to sit and have a drink. basically i sat there and bitched about the canceled gig for an hour. ha. just kidding, kind of.

so, the first night was a bust. but the next night promised to be better, because we were going to the first of several stranglers gigs!

knif in mexborough!