My Blog: North America with Teenage Fanclub

...with alternating solo support slots from Sweet Baboo and Euros Childs.

Atlanta. We buy some amps and a bass guitar. I buy a load of mango from Lidl/Aldi and scoff the lot. (Note to self: write a diary and get an agent. This stuff is dynamite.)

Saxapahaw. A walk by the river. Basking turtles and uninhibited squirrels.

Washington DC. Driving into town we reckon the president's helicopter passes above us, flying towards the White House. The 9:30 Club is a great, artist-friendly venue.

Jersey City. Catch up with family and pals including Michael Shelley (his album Half Empty is still GREAT)

Brooklyn. Post soundcheck dinner in Williamsburg with the wonderful Laura Cantrell and her man Jeremy Tepper.

A wee Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in NYC:

(not by Leonardo Da Vinci)

Boston - Stiff Little Fingers are playing the same venue as us tomorrow so I leave Jake Burns a note (I saw them twice at the Glasgow Apollo when I was a nipper).

Montreal - no backwards baseball caps. The students look French. I buy an A4 Carta Pura pad in a shop that seems to sell nothing but paper and sketch a young Benjamin Britten in the cafe next door.

Belleville (travel day)...

Toronto...

Ferndale...

Chicago - Lou Malnati's deep dish gets the thumbs up from me.

Seattle...

A browse in a glassblowing museum:

Nice to get a blether with Calvin Johnson. My first trip to the US/Canada was with The Pastels for a tour based around the K Records International Pop Overthrow in 1991. Fairly overwhelming.

Talking of Olympia...

Portland. Pity you can't get a decent cup of coffee here. Just kidding. Scott McCaughey turns me on to Music Man by Layng Martine Jr., produced by his son Tucker. Summertime Loving is a current favourite. (A propos of nothing another album I have been listening to on this tour is Mile 77 by Jody Stecher.)

I bought this in Powell's:

Tich Miller breaks my heart.

A young bespectacled, septum-pierced server in a (not very) fast Mexican restaurant somewhere between Portland and San Franciso says, "I like your jacket". It's a green corduroy affair purchased on-line (in memory of a long lost, lamented green corduroy jacket, bought in Shimokitazawa. I *really* liked that one). I respond with my oven-ready quip, employed whenever someone compliments my dog; "Do you want to buy it?"

San Francisco - I rode the cable car with an old pal and wandered around Fisherman's Wharf and on to City Lights bookstore. I picked this up (anyone who works with the public for a decent length time must have some kind of book in them):

LA - Huevos A la Rancheros in the Grand Central Market.

I rode the Angels Flight. Lady in the ticket booth: "What a stylish scarf!" ~~And we ran off hand-in-hand together into the sunset.~~

A visit to MOCA:

Caught up with Alfonso Rodenas (who engineered the album I recorded several moons ago in Valencia "Nice Man And The Bad Boys - The Art Of Hanging Out"), his good lady Victoria and the mighty Ben Vaughn.

* * *

A great trip. On the way I finally watched "Give My Regards Top Broadstreet" (two thumbs up from me), composed music for a documentary about Jackie Kay, listened to some This Cultural Life podcasts and kept drawing.

See if you can spot Ricky Fataar or Daniel Barenboim...