Bandwidth

Artwork by Will McConnell

Little known fact: my adventures are not written from memory.  I actually have a small team of reporters who follow me around and document the events of the night and I just embellish their notes with my winning prose.  This is so I don’t have to ruin my night by staying sober enough to recall specificities, and also to look after me in case something horrible happens.  They’re all trained in things like first aid, basic law, mixed martial arts, and advanced sandwich making, so that all of my basic needs can be taken care of at the drop of a hat.  Unfortunately, no one in my entourage knows Mark Lanegan and I couldn’t convince any of them to go to his gig in The Empire last week.  No problem, I thought, I’ll just call Johnny and have him arrange me a date.

‘Hey Johnny I need a date.  Wednesday.  8pm.  Mark Lanegan.  This one should be cool.’
‘Who the hell is Mark Lanegan?’
‘He’s a cool singer songwriter.  Used to be in Screaming Trees.  Real deep voice, like “uuurrrrggggghhhh….’

[Editor’s Note: I deleted four lines of ‘uurrrggghhh’.]

‘Jesus, enough.  Look I don’t think I’m gonna be able to set you up,’ said Johnny.
‘What?  Why not?’
‘Because your last date got trampled to death Ian.  Interest has kind of dropped off.’
‘Shit, yeah.  Michioku.  How was the funeral?’
‘It was a barrel of laughs Ian.  Singing, dancing, great food.  It was a fucking funeral, how do you think it was?’
‘No need to get snippy with my Johnny.’
‘Well you weren’t the one trying to fend off 23 Japanese schoolgirls, crying and asking “Why, why?”’
‘That sounds kinda hot actually.’
‘I’m hanging up Ian.’
‘Any of those schoolgirls still in town man?’  Dial tone.  Shit.

A couple of days later I went to see The Disappearance Of Alice Creed and I had a fucking great idea.  I should go home and look at nude pictures of Gemma Arterton online.  Three hours later I was spent, lying in bed with a cold beer, and I realised I still didn’t have anyone to go to the show with.  I decided fuck it, I would go alone.

I do this quite a lot, actually.  People think I’m weird, and they’re right, but my attitude is that if I want to see a show I’m gonna go regardless of whether or not anyone wants to come with me.  I don’t see why me having a good time should be dependent on other people, hence my oft-quoted catchphrase: ‘why compromise?’, which I hope someone inscribes on my grave stone.  Anyway, I go to the movies alone all the time and I quite often end up going to gigs alone too.  If you should ever be unfortunate enough to see me at a gig, standing off to one side with a surly look on my face, a beer in one hand and a whiskey in the other, come on over and say hello.  If you say something nice I promise I’ll buy you a drink.  Of course that’s an easy promise to make since probability-wise, this is very, very unlikely to happen.  I should also advise extreme caution – surly people who are drunk on whiskey are rarely friendly – I am the exception.

[Editor’s Note: Friendly?  Ha!]
[Ian: Shut the fuck up, Ed.  I’m the friendliest person I know.]

Anyway I know a lot of you expect certain formalities from these things, so I should really say something about the Mark Lanegan gig.

[Editor’s Note: Don’t let us put you to any trouble.]

Luckily it was just my little circle of friends and acquaintances who didn’t know Mark Lanegan and the Music Hall was totally sold out.  The first dude to come on was Duke Garwood, who was a cool character.  I couldn’t make out half of what he said but he kept referring to ‘death country’, which sounds like the greatest music genre of all time.  I liked his music – a sort of cut down, experimental sounding blues – and his songs often ended abruptly, without warning, which kept me alert despite the combined efforts of Stella and Jack.  Then Lanegan came on, launched right into the set list, and his voice blew a fucking Marshall stack deep down in my soul.  He must have the best voice I’ve ever had the privilege of hearing live – deep, deep grumbling tones but loud and almost impossibly strong – an all too uncommon combination.  I immediately regretted giving that busker a quid on my way to the show because all of a sudden, he just didn’t seem worthy.  Lanegan is a no nonsense kind of dude and he ploughed through the set list with a velocity I just couldn’t keep up with, drinks wise.  I guess either that’s just his style, or he had a hotel room, a bottle of whiskey and three groupies to get back to.  Either way, other than the occasional ‘thank you’ there wasn’t too much interaction with the audience, which would have been nice.  I like to savour a show, and my whiskey, which I couldn’t pour down fast enough.  It’s not a serious grievance though, and I was thoroughly enjoying the music, despite not knowing any of it.  He’s a great lyricist, as well as having a fucking awesome voice, and his dark, sparse brand of acoustic blues went down a treat, both with me and with everyone else in the place.  The applause after each song bled into the beginning of the next, and then everyone was quiet, listening very carefully and quietly, drinking in every word.  As Lanegan was taking the stage some crazed loon had screamed ‘Give us hell!’, and I feel fairly confident in saying that guy went home satisfied.  The show didn’t seem very long, but he got through a good number of songs and did a cool encore, and I guess what they say about how time flies is right, because when the lights went up I was still fairly sober, and didn’t even mind.  I went downstairs to continue my drinking thing, spurred on by Lanegan’s darkened croonings.

I decided to finish up the night in Annie’s, and I don’t remember much after getting there.  I remember that the barmaid was beautiful and I remember feeling like Tom Waits, sitting alone in a quiet bar at midnight, full on whiskey and the blues.  I can’t have been that drunk, though, because I also remember being painfully aware that I’m nothing like Tom Waits and I was probably creeping the barmaid out.  So, dear barmaid – I apologise if I was leering.  And dear readers, I apologise for boring the tits off you.  I didn’t quite do this thing justice.

Related Posts

• Born To Raise Hell I woke up on Monday with a strange kind of...
• Top Ten Gingers in Rock Some say we’re meant to be dyin out. Others say...
• Toilet Humour And Kick Ass Tunes Artwork by Will McConnell. Forgive the poor quality of this...
• I Have Found The Answer I’m not going to lie to you folks, I quit...
• The Etiquette Police Say Shut The Fuck Up Illustration by Kris Platt.  Check him out: http://krisplatt.blogspot.com/ Johnny is...