Adventures in Europa

And we’re off. 

Our third European Tour kicks off tonight at The Solomon Browne Hall in the theme park of Mousehole. I say theme park because sadly that is what the quaint fishing village has become, as summer’s kiss brings tones of tourists to the harbours edge crammed in likes sardines with camera’s clicking at the famous ‘mouse hole’. Giant family cars try to drive along the narrow streets and end up stuck in a fug of fumes as they honk there way to catering cottages and holiday homes. “When is the mouse hole open?” ask eager Americans, and “are the Christmas lights on all year round?”.

But to us, those that know the rabbit routes and wiggles, the little alcoves and hidden spots, the village still offers a sanctuary, in the close season, when the hum of traffic is on the horizon and not the doorstep. And so here we are,

using the village as a working/living place instead of a tourist trap, we begin our long journey that will take us 3000km to the far east of Germany and back. 

Of course, all the usual mishaps are firmly in place, I am on my way to pick up the bus, an old Mercedes called Doug, that we are borrowing off a fiend who assured me that despite his list of ailments the old boy will see us good. I am to expect a fair few idiosyncrasies but my friend is confident we’ll make it. 

We are totally skint, indeed we are rather in debt as I write and we’re kicking off procedures tonight in Mousehole tactically in order to actually leave Cornwall. 

We haven’t been in the same room since Christmas let alone played any music, the piano player has only just arrived back from Portugal penniless but purring from his recent new relationship. The guitar player is still absent, I wonder how long I can keep this up without admitting that he isn’t in the band anymore. His replacement is Louis Gulliver King who from now on will be known as ‘the accordion player’ to keep with tradition. This is a massive generalisation as he plays 4 other instruments for us but it seems better than ‘the multi player’ which sounds like a games console. 

The drummer isn’t coming to the launch party tonight because we can’t afford to pay for him to come down, that goes without saying if we can’t afford to leave!

We have a few new songs that are at best ideas without structure and lyrics and have never been played live but in time and as the days fall about they will find there way into our repertoire. I hope. Otherwise we are taking 4 year old material while trying to ‘re sell’ people CD’s that they bought on the last two tours.

We are playing a few new venues at least, a castle in Nümbrecht is one that sticks out and on a farm somewhere near Bremen. 

We have new t-shirts too that we borrowed money to make and need to sell 38 in order to breakeven, otherwise more debt occurs. 

The train is approaching Par now, where I will meet my friend and get introduced to Doug and hope that his symptoms aren’t too problematic. Surely he’ll be in better shape than dear old Walter from the last tour; the old motorhome without windscreen wipers who needed a pint of antifreeze in order to even entertain starting. 

A friend of mine recently asked me why I keep running this ship, at least in such a haphazard manner. I thought about this a lot and yes we could run a tighter ship. We could buckle up and get serious but somehow much of the magic would be lost. And it’s not that we go out of our way to flirt with disaster but you try borrowing a big enough van off a friend with only a pot of homemade marmalade in exchange. You take what you are given. We are just a bunch of Cornish friends trying the best we can with what we have and what we’ve learnt. We travel miles and miles to bring our music to as many of you as we can, not for money, but for the love of the story and sweetness of sharing.

So here we go again.

Looking forward :)