TCH & Mytrip Spring Tour - Days 1 & 2 (London & Leeds)

31/03 A free improv night in London

So a not so early start of the day is always welcome and gotta be at the airport about 10 is perfect. I get there, go through a fast check and surrounded by a good number of English accents (Bulgarian being one of the best ones) I wait for the gate to open. Almost no delays and we're up in the air flying. As with all other means of transportation I sleep on this one as dead. And some hours later we land in London. After playing a bit of human snake before the passport control (Britain is great at queueing indeed) I meet Tim and we're on our way to his place. London is too huge for my taste, thankfully I gotta guide cus otherwise I'd sure be popping in the suburbs end up among the wrong football crowd.

So we reach Tim and Didi's house where I have the chance to meet its guard - the awesome Rab, who sadly won't be allowed dog coffee as he's 12 but so energetic. After a quick coffee spill on me and we're best pals, something the mailman will never experience as Rab is quite an anti-post office guard.

Anyhow we're in for a nice homemade pizza, a tasty salad, then after the coffee it's some ginger tea and we're ready to hit the train to St. Clement's Church for a free improv night and a warm-up for our tour. After a bit of circling in the small streets of big London we're there. Even my friend Jeff Cloke who we've tried to book twice to play Bulgaria but there always were some issues is here with his wife. Georgi is here too. Great times.

And the place is lovely. With great acoustics, such a fat reverb that you want to hug it and we started playing, I play the laptop a bit, Tim plays the guitar then the piano, his friend Andy makes a neat circuit of effect pedals and other peculiar gear all through a tiny Orange amp. There's also Tom playing a flute (if I remember correct) and Pete Yelding playing a very cool cello. Then I play a bit with Tim's guitar, Duncan who we met some hours before is on the piano (and snoring later) and happy and refreshed we get back to Tim's so we get some sleep.

01/04 First proper gig in Leeds

Sunny Leeds from Dave's door

Leeds is not super far from London so we leave at about 12 after Tim cooks us tasty toasts, scrambled eggs and some cheese. All this with an immense cup of awesome coffee and we're ready to go. We pack his beast of a pedal board and everything else is easy. The second I'm in the car I'm asleep, even Duncan is not able to wake me up for several hours haha. At Leeds we leave him at his place and go to Dave's who's setting up the show. Then more coffee, a nice veggie cream soup with cheese sandwiches, then even more coffee and we go to Fenton. It's a cool place over the ordinary part of a bar, we set up, soundcheck a bit and wait for some folks to show up. 

Our neat stage

About 20:40 I start playing cus that's how I like it - play first, then enjoy the rest of the show. Not so many people show up but it's fun, the sets are awesome, and Now Wash Your Hands is hell of a project - "the cleanest power electronics act" really stands for something. I'll show you a video. A great surprise is that the whole Aetheric Records crew join the show so I finally meet Alistair who did great job releasing the mother spit debut 'carve', and who knows we may have cool new plans now! This time arranged in real life hehe.

After the show we head for Duncan's place to sleep, yea sleep is good. It's about twelve now and time for coffee, breakfast and then York, which is actually pretty close.