» Paul's Waffle

Support the Capuchin Day Centre

bellexwan — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:40:28 +0000

The Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin provides meals and food parcels for the homeless and poor every day.

Having lived across the road from the place for a few years, I’ve seen the work that they do. Please do support if you can.

The guy on the left in the photo on their website is Rocky, of Rocky Took a Lover fame.

Brought to mind his “blog” from a couple of years back…and that of his lover, Adrianna

If you go down to the woods today…

bellexwan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:41:23 +0000

Let me tell you of our night in Paris
The gig was on a boat on the Seine called Le Batofar, which used to be an Irish Lifeboat…you could feel the occasional undulation as you pranced and minced about the boards, if such was your way. It was very lovely, but then things got a bit weird…
We couldn’t park by the boat, even though there was loads of space on the Quay. Regulations. So we parked about a kilometer away. Dom went to get the van after the show, without the GPS, and got very lost in the one-ways and diversions due to road works and some kind of loads-of-people-on-rollerblades protest. Say what you like about you Frenchies, you give good protest.
Anyway, he had to get a taxi to lead him back to the boat, after a couple of hours in the Paris night. The rest of us were by the Seine with the gear, and it was actually a good time. Those grand bridges lit up, a club on the go on the boat, and best of all, a visit from the Whisky Fairies of Connemara…thank you girls, it was very sweet of you. When we finally got going the festivities continued in the van and there was the inevitable piss stop at a truck rest area. Darkness decends. Some boys went frolicking in the woods, stood in some shit and dragged it back into the van. Trucker shit or fox shit, the debate rages on, but it was foul. It was attacked with Fabrese, truck tyre cleaner… we even tried to cut the offending area of carpet out. Not good, spending so much time in a van that smells of shite. Bit of a buzz wrecker…

It seems OK now, though maybe we’ve become immune

Ich bin ein Frankfurter

bellexwan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:25:04 +0000

So here I am in Germany, in a fucking Starbucks…I know, I should be in some many-generations-of-family run artisan place that make their own lace doilies.
Breakfast in proper German places in great, they do a lovely meusli and yoghurt and nuts sort of vibration. Walnuts and honey, lovely lads. And Starbucks here doesn’t even do the fruit parfaits that save the day in the US and temper the inevitable ballooning that comes with all those sweet sweet pancakes…
But they do do a lovely salami and cream cheese bagel for €2.90, not to be sniffed at in these times. And free internet. Proper free, doesn’t require loyalty cards or the donating of a kidney or anything.
Plus, I’ve had, like, a total mare or a morning with that most persistant tour preoccupation, laundry. I’m at code red (clear and present danger of smalls being turned inside out, washing the trouser in the hotel bath, with cheap “hair and body” shit) so I set off to find a laundrette. We’re at a bit of a posh hotel for a change, so I wasn’t going to get it done there, and was directed to a laundrette in the main train station here, a couple of stops away. It’s not a laundrette as we know them, but a dry cleaners that will do a service wash (or a wash-and-fold, as our American friends more lovingly call it) There’s much to-do when I explain in germinglish that I need it in a couple of hours – can’t be done, there’s a dark wash and a mix wash in it, then there’s the drying time, can’t be done, can’t be done…I say she can lob it all in the one wash and I’ll take my chances (watch out for the pastels at upcoming shows)…and I wink and say I’ll make it worth her while. I don’t really, but she still says it’ll be €20. Fine, needs must…
Cos there ain’t nobody dope as me, I’m just so fresh so clean

Texas in the Rain

bellexwan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:31:55 +0000

Leaving the Austin City Limits festival yesterday, being pulled by one little tractor and pushed by another, the messiness of the day was all too evident in the muck being scraped from shoes with hotel room keys…ah, good times.

They don’t get much rain round these parts, and we’re told they really needed it, but they weren’t prepared for it on the festival site at all. We know how it can all turn to shit in the rain from festivals in Europe, but here there was nowhere to shelter from the rain. For a couple of hours before we went on, we were down at our stage, sheltering under a rocky overhang, like some kind of desperados. Radio stations and Music Magazines had tiny little tents in the media area, the roofs of which would gather water and have to be cleared with an ould mic stand or stick of some description periodically.
Still, we had a great gig during one of the brief dry spells of the day, and were made feel most welcome.
I saw Willie Rogers and the Soul Stirrers play earlier in the day. He sang A Change Gonna Come, and spoke about how he had sung it for Martin Luther King in the late 60s, and again for the first black president of the United States in 2009. Very moving…
Didn’t really see much else, heard Bon Iver from the other side of the fence as we played for one of the radio stations… and a little of The Levon Helm band as we struggled to get the van out of the muckfest of a car park, sliding it into one the lighting towers before the tractor boys pulled us out. Stayed in Palestine Texas last night, breakfast of the tour in Tyler Texas this morning. Still raining. We will not be messing with Texas

Bowling and Fuses in Lousville

bellexwan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:54:26 +0000

Played an open-air festival in Louisville Kentucky last night, right on the river there with the City Skyline in the foreground and stoned dudes in kayaks behind. Love those American city skylines. Disco balls were first made here, and Louisville is also where Muhammad Ali is from.

Cut myself somehow during the gig – a gent in the front kindly pointed out that there was blood coming from my head. Bowling afterwards in Vernon Lanes…the third oldest bowling alley in the country. Bowling is a big deal around here – the guys that organise Lebowski Fest are from here, and the first grand gathering was held at the same Vernon Lanes.

On the road to Nashville now, Bob Evan’s for breakfast (hollandaise on the side…). The fuse for the cigarette lighter that powers the GPS in the van kept blowing, and we went through 5 of them before realising that there was a coin stuck in it…Phil Hayes to the rescue

Planes, Trains and Automobiles on in the van now. Those are definately not pillows

2 legs good, 4 wheels bad

bellexwan — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:26:06 +0000

So we stayed in Kalamazoo Michigan last night, in a bit of a sprawl of hotels and eateries and highway. Rising at 11ish, I spotted a Perkins diner over yonder and made my way towards it as the crow flies. Hitting the highway, I walked the grass verge until I got to the flyover, at which point the verge ended and I stood there clueless as to how to cross…The Perkins and the pancakes were calling. I stumbled back down to the highway and ran accross the road to the centre dividing wall. It was too high to scale, so, feeling the onset of rage, like Michael Douglas in Falling Down (though I was just hangry really…) I went back up to the flyover and phoned Dave, who was already in Perkins, for advice.

He recommended walking along the little dividing strip in the middle of the road. So I did. Cars beeping, laughing at the gombeen in the middle of the road. Fuck y’all, I’m getting me some pancakes…
As I went into a rant about no-one walking anywhere in this fucking country, the lads tell me they went to a diner next door to the hotel

Americae Hooray

bellexwan — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:35:23 +0000

Day off in Philladelphia. Got in at 6am this morning from Woodstock. Watching NFL and NASCAR on the hotel tellys having a burger and tater tots…
Flying as a band with musical equipment has become such a fucking melt. Always a battle to get everything on without paying much monies for what used to be free. The Ryanairification of the creaky old school airlines is not pretty. You get the sense that thay find it an ugly necessity in order to stay alive, like a bet-down long time employee having to retrain in some modern bullshit that’s all loud and garish…
So we got to these United States last thursday and stayed right next to Northern State prison by Newark airport.
Bearsville Theatre last night. Hallowed turf. The shed where Janis Joplin used to keep her Porsche is now a store for a Chinese restaurant. And overhead the (almost) October sky of Van’s Moondance

They didn’t suit me…

bellexwan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:36:37 +0000

So there I was, in the DJ booth in the 2FM Roadcaster at Electric Picnic listening to Lady Gaga. I was about to do the Just a Minute Quiz with Larry Gogan, who was in Dublin, so I was on my own in said booth with headphones on.

Now Larry Gogan is a bit of a legend, and was the dude who used to do the Chart show on a sunday that I listened to with the tape recorder pressed up against the radio ready to record…

The Just a Minute Quiz has been around forever and has given us some comedy gold over the years – my favourite being “Where is the Taj Mahal?” ans: “Opposite the Dental Hospital!”, there being an Indian restaurant of that name opposite the dental hospital in Dublin

So, it was all a little heavy for me.

I told him I was more nervous about the quiz thatn about the gig, and he quickly moved to put me at ease, with the old “It’s only a bit of a laugh…”

He then lashed into it…

“The letters AD mean the number of years after the death of whom?”

Me: “Dominus…”

DOMINUS!!What the fuck???!!!

“How many balls in a pool game”

Me: “eh…15″

Larry: “No, one more, 16″

At this stage I was beginning to panic and was considering jumping through the window of the Roadcaster to flee screaming and bloody through the sniggering crowd outside, who could hear all these horrors.

I think they must jump to a list of more remedial questions if they smell a clueless gombeen, as the next question I got was “Where is Skibereen?”.

i did get another couple of “queer ones” as Larry called them afterwards -

“Does SuperTed wear boots?”

Me: “He….does!”

Larry “not…”

Now, I was picturing SuperTed unzipping his fur to reveal his red suit and cape, and I swore there were red boots in there too, but no. And may he get the mother of all thorns in his paw on his next outing…

The last one, as the gong went was “From what is a saddle made?” I said cow skin, but no, it’s pig skin

So I got a measly 7…there were a few “queer ones”, but this wasn’t helped by my slow ponderousness and there’s no excuses for that first one.

One of the Dark Room Notes boys got 18! …and I know NeoSuperVital got into double figures. Looking good too

The Road to Benicassim 09

bellexwan — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:36:43 +0000

In order to get to the sun-kissed good time that was Benicassim 2009, the band had to spend the night at Travelodge East Midlands Airport.
They had to steel themselves and think of what lay ahead when faced with finding a cab in the rain, dealing with arsey receptionist (“Computer says no….”) and, having arrived very late, the very real possibility of a Ginsters Pasty for dinner – a Room 101 experience for any travelling minstrel.
Thankfully, there was a M&S foodhall still open in the hanger-like services building that housed le Travelodge. So dinner was had in the otherwise empty foodcourt, the band bathed in the flashing lights and merry chimes of the also empty “Casino”. “Think of it as a midnight feast!”, said Mr Berlusconi.
The next morning we were back to the airport for Valencia. The previous night had seen a mad sandstorm on site, and the festival had ended early. Many bands had not played, including Kings of Leon. Much of the site was being rebuilt as we arrived, and people were emerging red and sandblasted.
It’s a great festival – beach by day, music and carousing by night, and we very much enjoyed our gig

The U2 Experience

bellexwan — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:10:49 +0000

After a while gawping at The Edge’s guitar Emporium, ducking into the belly of the Claw, feeding at the catering trough, striding the hallowed turf of Croke Park, (where The Bomber Liston, Henry Shefflin and Neil Diamond did tread), watching the ‘2 run through “I Will Follow”, we got to play in the sunshine for half an hour at half past six.

Gremlins out in force – acoustic guitar dead for the first 2 tunes, interference in the ears wrecking Rory’s buzz, flatuulent bass guitar…but we settled into it with 10 minutes to go…

Spanning a bit of the half-back line, we looked out onto the magnificence that is Croke Park, and kinda forgot to enjoy it, I think. I think I’m enjoying the memory of it more than the actual gig. Very surreal. They have umbrellas that cost $400000 that pop up out of the stage if it starts raining. The have 200 trucks between the 3 Claw stages that are bunnyhopping around the world.

And yet. Bono’s guitar was dead for most of “One”. Watching that from the start of the stage, him roaring at his tech to fetch him another…made me smile. Sure it happens the best of us.

“Unforgettable Fire”, “Streets”, “Ultra Violet Light”….glorious. Truly magical, as the sun went down and Croker was a sea of stars.

Special mention to U2’s crew, who were very helpful and interested, courteous and receptive to courtesy…

The band sent us a very sweet note, Guinness and champagne. Lovely lads, they’ll go far