Red Cheeks In Rouen

 

Renaissance spanking in oils, in the window of an antique shoppe near the venue. Prophetic shit.

Both the Baaron and I are mixed bags, and we leave most people cold.

We both have very strong nerd genes, and alot of our behavior, humor and general outlook is pretty nerdy. But we're also travelled, jaded musician types, so we have plenty of experience with sickening hedonism, destructive one-upmanship and massive egos detonating in crowded places.

What I'm saying is that we're sort of no-fun and rad-fun at the same time.

Every so often one of us will disappear after a show and end up on some smeary, goofy booze trip with the locals that ends up costing dear over the following week.

Usually that's me. I'm pretty frosty and irritable most of the time, but when I've got a skin-full (which is more often then I would like to admit) I can be a very social animal.

Occasionally I get absolutely top shelf results from one of these binges, and when that happens I usually feel the need to give credit to whatever pack of inbreds/wierdos delivered the goods. So let me tell you about the crew in Rouen.

We located the venue on a tiny side-street in the historic olde towne, bracketed by glitzy antique dealers and bespoke toy shops and other bourgeoisie holes. 

 

On the right, cat fanciers knick-knack shoppe. Ewww.

On the left, bespoke toy racing cars ect. Andyinglis got very excited about this stuff. He´s a bespoke kind of guy.

After about ten minutes of beating on the door we managed to summon a dim, grumpy giant who was in fact the owner of the place. But he refused to let us inside until the promoters arrived, complaining that it wasn't his responsibility to "greet the talent". We tried to explain that all we wanted was to bring our equipment inside so we could find somewhere legal to park the car, but he was having none of it and slammed the door.

The Baaron and Almond stand back while Andyinglis beams hatred through the closed door.

So we hung around and threw rocks at local children until a small knot of evil looking misfits turned up and introduced themselves as the organisers. They smelled of booze and were badly dressed, but seemed friendly and relaxed, especially their leader, a fine young lady by the name of Marie Claire (really) who extended a warm welcome and apologised for the giants poor manners. The group also came armed with salted snacks and a case of beer, so I couldn't fault them on any level.

Our hostess, Marie Claire. A model of decorum and the various graces.

Once inside the venue we found it was a tiny, rotting cave that reeked of mould. The owner continued to be surly and the sound-system was in a state of advanced decay, but there was a very cool psychedelic LED projector pointed at the tiny stage which really brought out the flower-child in Von Cuddles during soundcheck.

The Baaron going all Jason Spaceman on your ass.

Before the gig we dined at the home of one of the organisers (an enigmatic Serbian emigree who I think was called Marco*) and held an impromptu photo-shoot. 

The result was this, in which I look like a senile Vietnam vet, ranting about the gooks hiding in his attic while The Baaron looks like my long-suffering gay pimp nephew wheeling me to the Bingo hall before work. This is actually painfully close to the truth.

The gig was pretty fucking fun, when the time came to lay the noise on the locals. The tiny, stinky space was packed with goofy losers who heckled us mercilessly and booed at top volume at the end of every song. It was a true pleasure to damage these peoples ears, and I looked forward to drinking and hobnobbing post-gig.


But the grumpy giant managed to put a downer on the whole thing by closing the bar and kicking everyone out about ten minutes after our set.

Which is one of the reasons that I felt dissatisfied enough to leave The Baaron, Almond and Andy to go back to the hotel while I made my way over to Marco´s (?*) house for a few post-gig drinks with the gang.

Marie Claire administers the honk to young Marco (?*), with great results.

Which ended up turning into many, many drinks, followed by really, really bad dancing, big shnorts on a bottle of "Blue Boy" and a no-holds-barred, pants-round-your-ankles spanking competition. 

I gave as good as I got, but the evil creep who delivered the hot palm to my cheek was not fucking around. Even through the mist of booze and amyl the pain of the blow dropped my to my knees, and I wore the resulting brand for many tender days.

The brand, two days after delivery. Yep, that shiz was painfull.

Anyway, in terms of post-show entertainment it was definitely a high-point of the tour and thinking about it makes me want to go back and kiss all those wonky fuckers. They knew exactly how to deal with a Sunday night in a quiet town. Harshly and loudly.

They even picked us up at our hotel the following afternoon for some brunch and sightseeing, which was pretty rewarding. Rouen is not an ugly place.

The crew, trudgeing around on the hunt for bread and coffee.

Marco (?*) explains William The Conquerer´s role in the founding of Rouen.

To sum up, I love these people and everything they stand for, and if you're in the neighbourhood you should definitely look them up.


Tell them the Civies sent you.

 *Or maybe Nico. Something like that. My sincere apologies, guy. My head for names is completely fucked (see previous post).