Gigantic.44

New World Order

In the States, band life had been shifting, but in stages, one step at a time. In Europe, the change was more tectonic than we’d thought. The whole world was moving.

Mercury Rev had often made a sport of “breaking” tour managers. A tour that wasn’t going off the rails by the third show wouldn’t have been a Mercury Rev tour.

The new record company was not putting up with this bullshit, they handpicked Caron Malcolm as the person to get the job done. Some in the band bristled at being expected to behave. For me, finally having someone who could run the show backwards-and-in-heels was a godsend. I couldn’t have made it through the next two-plus years without her.

Caron, along with roadie/tech Slouch, made up Millsea Productions (they were fans of two different teams, Millwall + Chelsea = Millsea.) Slouch was a BSA-riding giant with missing teeth and an indecipherable South London accent. There was no piece of equipment he couldn’t lift and/or fix when necessary.

First night in the pub, Slouch told the story of his shortly-lived punk band in the seventies. Practicing above his mother’s garage, to dampen the sound of his drums, they’d thrown a blanket over his whole kit, him included, eye holes cut in the blanket so he could see. A young Billy Idol came round and decided he wanted their guitar player.

“Forget this lot, come with me,” he’d said, “I’m going to be famous.”

So, the guitar player went off with Billy Idol, formed Generation X, and the rest is history. But they didn’t leave Slouch totally in the dust. He became Generation X’s roadie, and he’d been a roadie ever since.

Paddy also came with the Millsea package, bringing our light show to the next level. So, our whole crew was new and British (except for Squid, our sound guy from San Francisco, dubbed in part for his squid-like hairstyle, but more because you’d need eight arms to mix as many channels simultaneously as he was able to do.)

After a few days practicing in South London, we boarded a double-decker tour bus, made a beeline for a ferry across the Irish Sea, and woke up in Belfast where I was able to see Ian and his parents before our first show.

The morning after that, Caron woke me in Dublin fifteen minutes before my interview schedule began. There were suddenly so many interviews they had to split us up. The enthusiasm was off the charts. What did these people know that we didn’t?

Friends from London flew over for the show which was at The Mean Fiddler. The crowd went absolutely mental. I couldn’t hear myself that night, but I could hear the notes in my head, so I went for it anyway and trusted I was hitting the right keys.

Sophie from V2 Records also came over from London and was pretty ecstatic. Plenty of people at the label worked their butts off to help this band and would become friends, but it was Sophie whose steadfast belief from the start that seemed to make the difference.

We were staying at the Handel, built on the site of the music hall where the Messiah had premiered in 1742. Nice hotel, but I couldn’t sleep. It was still dark outside when I hit the streets and walked the city by myself. This was my mystical introduction to Dublin, and to Ireland in general.

Crossing the Liffey, I had a little conversation with James Joyce and the river herself. It started getting light outside, a bicyclist approached wearing a traditional cap and a cable-knit sweater.

“Here comes a real Irishman,” I said.

He peddled closer so I could see his face. He was Chinese.

I found a coffee place, treated myself to breakfast, wrote a little in my journal.

Soon we’d re-board the bus and re-cross the water. Photographer Steve Gullick came on the bus. We stopped in Snowdonia, Wales. It was here, three years before, that I’d come to the end of my rope. It was redemptive to be back under better circumstances. The sepia-toned photos from that shoot would forever be associated with the Deserter’s Songs period.

From here began our UK tour as support for Bob Mould who’d just put out a solo album. I remembered a lot of these venues from previous tours, beginning with Manchester, where the interviews continued, there was a buzz here like there was in Ireland.

In Wolverhampton there was a vintage store I always liked to go to. It was owned by a woman named Trisha, who would fly to the States to buy vintage clothes, bring them back to the UK, where she would sell them to me to bring back to the States again.

In Sheffield someone called out:

“Where’s Suzanne?”

This was funny, because it had been in Sheffield three years earlier that Sue and I had been walking along the high street, as we’d passed a few young people I’d heard them whisper to each other:

“That’s Suzanne Thorpe.”

Maybe Suzanne has a fan club in Sheffield that she doesn’t know about. I myself was used to being recognized in a semi-anonymous, that-guy’s-in-the-band way. I figured things would continue more-or-less like that.

The next night in Cambridge, someone approached me, pen and cd cover in hand.

“You’re Adam Snyder, aren’t you?”

So much for anonymity.

It was maybe in Norwich that I heard Goddess on the Highway playing on the radio. It was a familiar feeling, reminded me of that time I’d heard our song on KCMU in Seattle. Except this wasn’t a college station playing a demo, this was Radio One, and our song had just hit the charts.

Bob Mould had been friendly the whole tour, but when I was talking with him in London, he smiled genuinely.

“Congratulations,” he said.

Across the UK, everyone seemed to know that something was happening with our band that I hadn’t quite figured out yet. Now Bob seemed to know it.

When the lead singer from Hüsker Dü shook my hand and congratulated me, I guess I knew it too.

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