Part 13 (1/2)
”I'M AFRAID WE can't offer you gentlemen a full menu this morning.”
We left Vancouver earlier than we probably needed to, and got across the border with no trouble, mostly because, when the guard asked if we were carrying any concealed weapons, we resisted the temptation to ask, ”Why, what do you need?”
”The chef is late, you see.”
We've stopped for breakfast somewhere just inside Was.h.i.+ngton State.
”But I can cook eggs, hash browns, sausages, that kind of thing.”
Whatever.
She brings the food, and it smells great, and we eat it, and it tastes better. When we go to pay for it, one of those things happens that only happens in America.
”Oh no,” she says, waving our money away. ”The chef will be buying your breakfasts when he gets here.”
We don't want to cause any trouble. Maybe the guy's car broke down. Perhaps he's ill. The food was delicious anyway. We're on expenses. It doesn't matter.
”Look,” she says. ”It's the only way he'll learn. You fellers have a good day.”
True to our established form, Westenberg and I are late for the festival again. While the pine trees around the Was.h.i.+ngton State town of Bremerton are lovely, Kitsap County Fairground seems an otherwise uninspired choice of venue. Access to the site involves negotiating erratic ferries from Seattle, useless access roads, endless traffic jams and utterly incomprehensible road signs. After hours of blundering about what we believe to be the general vicinity of the venue, we find an important-looking gate.
”Artists only,” says the guard.
Well, it's all a question of perspective. We wave every item of Lollapalooza accreditation we can find and affect the most convincing English accents an Australian and an American can muster. Amazingly, we are ushered through. We have managed to park ourselves directly backstage. We have missed Lush, again.
”Just make it up,” says Emma Anderson, one of Lush's singer-guitarists. ”You usually do.”
Trying to gain journalistic access to bands who are not Lush at an American festival is not easy. At British festivals, it is perfectly possible, once you've got backstage, to find yourself queueing for lentil stew alongside Tom Jones and Blur. American bands, in contrast, surround themselves with people whose job consists largely of stopping other people from doing theirs. They say things like ”We cannot comply with your request for an interview at this time” and have lots of keys hanging off their belts.
I ask someone with lots of keys hanging off his belt about the possibility of speaking to one or more members of Pearl Jam. ”We cannot comply with your request for an interview at this time,” he says. We are arguing next to Pearl Jam's astonis.h.i.+ng tour bus, which is painted from front to rear in a mural replicating the cover art for The Eagles' Hotel California Hotel California alb.u.m. ”It used to belong to Gene Simmons from Kiss,” explains Mr. Keys, sounding suddenly less commanding. On cue, Eddie Vedder climbs off the bus. To the evident irritation of Mr Keys, Eddie recognises me and gives every indication of remembering me fondly. alb.u.m. ”It used to belong to Gene Simmons from Kiss,” explains Mr. Keys, sounding suddenly less commanding. On cue, Eddie Vedder climbs off the bus. To the evident irritation of Mr Keys, Eddie recognises me and gives every indication of remembering me fondly.
Eddie looks a wreck even by his standards, but we have a bit of a chat about what we've both been up to since I'd accompanied Pearl Jam on a memorably mayhemic Scandinavian tour six months previously (me: editing a music paper reviews section; him: rapidly becoming one of the most famous rock stars on earth). He says he hadn't realised till he'd read my piece that he'd had the same surname as me at one point in his multi-family childhood, and we agree that it's nonetheless unlikely that we're related. This is as far as we get, before Mr. Keys comes back with someone with even more keys, who hustles Eddie back onto the bus and gives me a look that could curdle milk.
”I'll talk to you later, when everyone's gone home,” says Eddie. ”Nice to see you, anyway.”
There are, of course, official channels through which all media requests for access should be directed. Lollapalooza includes in its retinue a Minister for Information, whose job includes deciding who can talk to who, and when, and for how long. Happily, this almighty personage was, until a few months ago, a colleague at Melody Maker Melody Maker.
”Have you seen my golfcart?” asks Ted.
The production office have brought along a fleet of these nippy little vehicles for getting around Lollapalooza's vast venues. They are already proving an irresistible temptation to bored musicians. Last time I saw Ted's, Emma was chasing a cow in it.
”f.u.c.k.”
I was wondering if there was any chance of talking to the Mary Chain.
”What? Oh, yeah, they're in that dressing room over there, just go and knock, though I think they're in a bit of a strop. Did you see which way she went?”
It's not been the best of days to be in The Jesus & Mary Chain. At what is effectively the Seattle date on the tour, they've been little more than a convenient portaloo break between local heroes Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. I knock on the door just as Soundgarden are starting. Jim answers, lets me in, and apologises for the mess.
”Um . . . yeah. William knocked a few things over and then went off somewhere. I'm a bit p.i.s.sed, Andrew. Actually, I'm quite a lot p.i.s.sed. You'd better have a beer as well.”
Jim's laconic East Kilbride drawl sounds like someone tw.a.n.ging a loose rubber band; it would make Martin Luther King's ”I Have A Dream” speech sound witheringly deadpan. Jim's really not happy.
”The thing that's wrong with this,” he begins, ”is that musically, at least, there's not enough variation. They ought to have had Nirvana headlining. And more than just a token rap band. There's too much heavy metal ideals and rap tokenism, man . . . it should have been more 50-50, with Public Enemy and De La Soul or whoever. And if that would have meant there was no room for us, so be it.”
I don't know. I've been enjoying myself.
”Why, for f.u.c.k's sake? You can't call this alternative, surely? The headliners have been Number One for about five thousand f.u.c.king years. No, I'm not enjoying myself. I enjoy it when we're out there, playing, but all the rest of the bulls.h.i.+t, all this . . . this f.u.c.king vegetarian food backstage . . . there's something too organised about this, too pinstripe-suity, too un-rock'n'roll.”
I am genuinely saddened that I have to decline Jim's kind offer to ”stick around and get bladdered,” as I have go and find out why Ice Cube hasn't arrived yet. By the time I get outside, just as Soundgarden's finale is shaking the Mary Chain's trailer, he has.
”s.h.i.+t, man,” Ice Cube says. I've figured that if he didn't throttle that ghastly twerp in Vancouver when he had the opportunity and every excuse, he can't be that scary. ”They found a little f.u.c.kin' residue from one motherf.u.c.kin' joint and busted us, the motherf.u.c.kers. f.u.c.k 'em, man. They jack off to that s.h.i.+t.”
No Christmas card for United States Customs & Excise from Ice Cube this year, I fear. Ice glowers impressively from the lounge of his bus. Someone, somewhere, is working on a short-notice lineup compromise that will involve Ministry going on early and Ice doing a shortened appearance by way of ushering on the Chili Peppers.
”Aw, s.h.i.+t,” he continues. ”It p.i.s.ses me off, man, because I got fans out there that have never seen me before, fans who've been buying my records for years but wouldn't come to a rap concert because of all the bad press rap concerts get.”
It must be a hard thing for the kind of kid who buys Ice Cube records to admit, that he's scared to go to a gig.
”s.h.i.+t, man,” says Ice, suddenly cheering up. ”Did you see them down the front last night? These kids don't seem like they'd be scared to go anywhere, man. They're crazy! Never seen anything like it. But that's what this is about, you know? These kids are down with me, just like they're down with Ministry, and Soundgarden and Lush, you know what I'm saying? Music has a way of doing that. If musicians were politicians, we'd have no problems.”
No different problems, anyway.
”This kind of stuff can change things, if only a bit, you know? A bit. It's a small dent. But it's a dent worth making.”
Around some trucks and up a hill and across the catering tent and picking gingerly at broccoli that smells like it has been boiled in roadies' socks, Paul Barker of Ministry isn't so sure.
”Politically,” he says, ”to join this kind of thing rubs us up the wrong way. There are too many compromises we have to make, as a touring band. But, four days in, so far so good, I have to say.”
Barker, half the creative core of Ministry, is a funny bloke. He leaps like a schoolteacher on any loose arguments or doubtful propositions, can't be bothered about projecting a united front and is refres.h.i.+ngly honest about his band's motivations.
”Money,” he smiles. ”Basically, six weeks of this pays for a studio for us. And we want a studio so bad. That's not entirely it, but it is 90 percent of it. We're not in this for Lollapalooza's benefit. That is, we are because we deigned to do it, but it's not the kind of thing we like doing.”
Nor is Barker taken with Lollapalooza's ideological subtext, offering the admirably arrogant argument that people enlightened enough to like Ministry are already enlightened enough to be aware of the festival's pet causes.
”The next generation of politicians,” he says, ”are going to have grown up on punk rock. What does that tell you?”
That America is in real trouble. Americans think punk rock happened in 1989 and had something to do with The Sisters of Mercy. And besides which, the next generation of politicians is married to a woman who believes that rock'n'roll is turning our children into serial killers.
”Well, that's the only good that's going to come out of this. Tipper Gore is going to have a f.u.c.kin' muzzle put on her, because she can't be allowed to embara.s.s the presidency.”
Two words: Dan Quayle.
”Well, Jesus. Who runs that White House? I think it's . . . what's the name of the dog who writes the books? Millie. She's making all the money.”