The final installment of Adrian Crowley’s diary from his recent adventures on tour these past few weeks. This time out, we’re in London, Cardiff, Belfast and Birmingham via trains, taxis and flight 666.

Adrian will be playing dates during July at Dublin’s Crawdaddy (July 4, his first Irish show with Emma Smith on violin and Vince Siprell on viola), Cork’s Cyprus Avenue (16), Limerick’s Dolan’s (17), Galway’s Roisin Dubh (18), Dundalk’s Spirit Store (26 ). He also plays the Electric Picnic at the end of August.
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More from Mister Adrian Crowley as he travels the lenghth and breadth of the big island to the right of us supporting Silver Jews and Vetiver. In this installment, our hero takes a spin from Coventry to Cambridge, meets the coolest 12 year old in Manchester, has trouble finding his way out of the venue in Glasgo, hears a possible shaggy dog story of the tightrope-walking Chinese bull mastiffn and goes in search of the best single malt whisky in Aberdeen.

The Barfly, Cambridge with Vetiver

It’s an odd way to travel this. This silver bullet we’re in resembles a Delorean. A Delorean with normal doors, I tell myself, as we tear down the motorway from ‘Cov’ to Cambridge under a dark threatening sky. The wind is up and the trees are lashing back and forth.

It’s just Rich and I for the moment, Rich at the wheel and I. Vince is waiting at Cambridge train station, frowning slightly and staring into space. He’s listening to his iPod. The station is busy with a lot of children about, on some kind of day trip. He’s like a pillar of composure as the kids swirl around him. I hop from the silver bullet to run into the hallway to grab his attention and travel bag.Then it’s off to the venue with us.

Vetiver are loading in and the wind is still strong. Andy from the band is in rain gear as they all carry the gear up the fire escape. We follow suit with the AC amp and guitars.

There is another support billed and people refer to us as the “mystery act”. It seems they weren’t expecting us. Some rep chap tells me he’s been told the “square root of fuck all”, while his assistant nods silently. They remind me of that pair of guys with the weasel in The Big Lebowski. We sort it all out and start the soundcheck unhindered.

The gig goes well. Vince plays like a hero and Otto joins us for three songs at the end of the set. Despite the pillar in the middle of the stage, there is good communication between us.

We have to leave before the end of Vetiver’s set because of the drive back to Coventry. It’s Manchester tomorrow so we need to snap off a bit of the journey tonight.

As we’re loading out outside the venue, two student lads are watching me. One says in a Yorkshire accent: “Are you proper famous, like?” “Eh, no I wouldn’t say that” “Is that yours? You must be doing alright” (referring to the car) “No, it’s his dad’s” nodding at Rich.
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Lauren Murphy was in Brighton the other week for The Great Escape, the new-ish festival which likes to think of itself as SXSW-On-Sea. She saw many, many things including some cracking bands. Here’s the A&R report featuring her Top 7 acts from this year’s fest.
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We’re big fans of Adrian Crowley and his excellent “Long Distance Swimmer” album round these parts so we were delighted that he accepted the invitation to join our On The Road club. Adrian is currently doing UK shows supporting both Silver Jews, Devon Sproule and Vetiver so expect more posts from him in the weeks to come.
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Bell X1’s current tour of the United States has come to an end. Here’s Paul Noonan’s recollections of the last week in Portland, Vancouver and Seattle.
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The continuing tales of Bell X1 in America, as told by Paul Noonan. This week, retracing the footsteps of The Dude in LA, eating The Best Breakfast Ever in San Francisco and encountering the sex industry in Portland.
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Continuing the eventful story of Bell X1 on the road in the United States. This week, Paul Noonan salutes the firemen of Boston, meets Jeffrey Archer and gets to enjoy flying around the United States with his dirty laundry.
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Bell X1 are currently on a tour of the United States and Canada and Paul Noonan has kindly agreed to write a few posts from the road for On The Record. For once, what happens on the road does not stay on the road.
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Richard Brophy has an interesting piece (which is replicated after the jump) in today’s Ticket musing about rock’n'roll’s green credentials.

Richard looks at The Big Ask campaign from Friends of the Earth, which has been championed by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, and the report commissioned by Radiohead into how acts can reduce their carbon footprint and wonders if other bands will sign up for the programme. Are acts willing to forego planes and encourage their fans to travel to concerts using private transport? Or is the case that when bands do try to go green (see this list), they really get it completely wrong and are just paying lip service to the notion to appear all green and eco-friendly and cuddly?

An update to this piece: Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has clarified the band’s reasons for not playing Glastonbury. The Irish Times and other news outlets previously reported that Radiohead had refused to appear because the festival had poor public transport links, creating a large carbon footprint.

The misunderstanding arose after Yorke gave an interview to The Sun. In statement this week, Yorke says: “In the course of the interview I mentioned that we had a carbon footprint study commissioned and the biggest shock was the significance of the all travel to the show by the audience … I also mentioned that we were not playing Glastonbury this year … but not because of transport issues.”

Yorke has apologised to the Glastonbury organisers, and accepted that they are trying to minimise car use. The real reason for not playing, he says, is that “we had only just played there”.

As always, comments welcome below.
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The Ticket’s production supremo Anthea McTeirnan has an interesting piece in today’s paper about why music needs women-only awards. Given the success of past ventures like Ladyfest, it may - or, indeed, may not - be something worth considering. Anyway, we thought we’d put the piece in the blog as well to see what people thought. Over to Anthea….

They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said . . . wait a minute I’ll just finish the vacuuming, turn off the cooker and put the kids to bed. Rock’n’ roll enough for you boys? Obviously not.

So, big up to Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Mama Cass, Karen Carpenter and whole rockin’ girl crew who have proven that we ladies can turn it up to 11 in the self-abuse stakes as well as the next guy. Great. They have won the sneaking R-E-S-P-E-C-T of the boys who write the history of rock.

Those same boys are currently mid-climax over the emergence of the latest tranche of lady talent. I give you Kate Nash, Adele, Duffy, even Lily bloody Allen. Girls, we are told, are now “officially” on top.

In fact, double X chromosome carriers are so in the ascendant that, here’s an idea (thanks Mr Brian Boyd, writing in last week’s Ticket): there is no longer any need for separate awards for male and female artists at music industry love-ins.

“Female is not a genre” declared Ms Kate Nash at the recent Brit awards. You bet it’s not a genre, Kate. That’s what makes it so easy to ignore, which is what would happen if you dropped the distinction. And in case you didn’t notice, there were seven other Brit awards that weren’t gender-specific. None was won by women.

They gave out 20 gongs at last week’s NME awards. Four went to women. Kate “Germaine” Nash picked up best solo artist. I am so bitter. But the other three lady trophies went to Amy Winehouse (Worst Dressed), Britney Spears (Worst Album) and Kylie Minogue (Sexiest Woman). Case closed.

And feel the shame. This publication isn’t immune. Last week The Ticket offered up our top 40 Irish albums - ever! Guess what? Only one was by a female solo artist. Sinéad O’Connor, take a bow.

Very few women get a passport to that boys’-own world of rock’n’ roll. Those who do are the gals the male-driven music industry approves of. Kate, Amy, Adele et al are not in the vanguard of some sort of feminist revolution. There’s nothing new about the music business pushing a bunch of female solo singers. The industry loves a girl who can belt out a dirge. It’s less keen on women who wield a bass, smash a cymbal or display a penchant for crowd surfing. (Thanks, Beth Ditto, for putting yourself on the radar).

As for girl power, yes, The Spice Girls were a male-constructed sham. D’oh. We got that bit. So’s the whole industry. At least I was able to vote for the members of Girls Aloud on TV. They weren’t hand-picked from The Brit School by some beardy mogul.

Never mind the bollocks. Next year let’s have our own women-only awards ceremony. Oh, and Kate Nash . . . you’re not getting one.