September 4 - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds UK

The traditional English breakfast is growing on us.  John and I somehow scored the free hotel breakfast, forcing Greg, Esther, and Alan to get theirs at the unfortunately named Belchers.  Mike, still wet from last night's romp in the ocean, pulled a gull out of the air and ate it raw and screaming.

Greg took the wheel for the long, traffic-clogged drive from Brighton to Leeds.  Every now and then you’d look out the window and see Atom Heart Mother.  Eventually we passed along the Sherwood Forest, a place I had always thought was made up.  We didn’t see any klepto archers or fat antagonistic sheriffs, but we have seen many merry men.  Rest stop Brits have been very friendly and curious, offering insight into our engine light issues and asking about travels.  Our lootings of them have been plentiful!

With a floorpan out of Clue, The Brudenell Social Club is surrounded by red-bricked row houses topped by queues of rook-shaped chimneys.  It’s like pigeons have been playing a centuries old game of roof chess. 

The live room was cozy like a warm, worn armchair.  The lounge room was full of salted biker hippies, football hooligans, and black-legginged punk birds.  In the game room friends watched rugby and cricket on the telly, while couples on low pressure dates challenged each other to table tennis, foosball, or snooker. There seems less focus on image and more on the actual experience in Leeds.

The set was fun.  During “Vanilla Bean” our obligatory aged gay fan danced with Alan.  A heckler took issue when Mike poked fun at Leeds’ own Sisters of Mercy, prompting a man at the other end of the room to shush the heckler.  He actually shouted out “Shush!”  Another punter shouted that we needed to cheer up, to which Alan replied that we had been smiling all along.

The accent gets pretty thick the further north we get.  While washing his face in the bathroom someone told Mike:  

"Owl rye a fired shave a boat clean us babies."

Then asked:

"Are two the function off the soften it?"

Afterward, three local goons who missed our set crowded the merch table, inquiring about our shoplifting security.  They talked in jokey, diagonal New York accents and challenged my musical tastes, making lots of rape and manslaughter jokes in the process.  Kenny, Peter, and Ryan were removing the piss from me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We temporarily parted ways with Magnolia, who continue on to Ireland.  A local recording engineer, Daniel Skevington, put us up in his amazingly vertical flat, filled to the brim with excellent music, vintage musical instruments, and personally crafted electronics.

Eel lichen a bittle knife a loo and sippy cup ya!