Bit of a Blur by Alex James Page A

ordered six Bloody Marys and he wrote that down as well. I knew he would. It seemed easy, being in the paper. I launched into a kind of acceptance speech, thanking the Canadian people for everything and said a big hello to my relations, the Vines, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That didn’t seem to get to him, though. He was getting bored. He was probably off to talk to the Prime Minister next. It seemed to be quite a serious newspaper. I was on my fourth Bloody Mary and showing him my handstand when the Glitz n Bitz lady came in. Graham and I had been doing a lot of handstands.
    Justine was in another world a long, long way away. The Glitz n Bitz lady was attractive and intelligent. We lay on the bed. She had a Bloody Mary, and reached inside my trousers and gave me a handjob. My moral cloth was degenerating further. That definitely was my biggest crime so far. But, good God, I was enjoying myself.
    There was a jam of people clamouring outside the radio station when we arrived, and at the gig for soundcheck. They were much more enthusiastic than people had been at home. They were crazy about the record, and some of them started to get hysterical. Things were already well past weird when Glenn Tilbrook from the band Squeeze appeared in the dressing room. He was quite drunk, and very happy. Graham was beside himself. Some men with natty suits appeared and said hi they were from our American record company and that they’d flown up from New York wasn’t everything in -credible and grinned and gave pumping handshakes. One of them had a penetrating stare and a breath-freshener atomiser that he kept dosing himself with. Graham and Glenn were drinking a bottle of brandy and doing handstands and knocking everything over. Squirt-squirt went the atomiser. The Glitz n Bitz lady came in and started snogging me. Squirt. No one could find Dave or the lighting guy. Squirt-stare-squirt.
    Dave finally arrived in great spirits. The show was raucous and the man from the American record company’s eyes were popping by the time we’d finished. He shook his head and said it was too loud.
    We drove around the shores of Lake Ontario, stopping at Niagara Falls for lunch on our way to the USA. On the road the same things repeat themselves every day - the travelling, service stations, interviews, soundchecks and shows. We launched ourselves at everything with missionary zeal, but there is a steady rhythm beneath the apparent total chaos, although the barometer was still rising all the time. Things were getting more spectacular and happening faster.
    Touring had changed a bit from the days of playing to thirty people in York and driving back in the middle of the night in Jason’s VW, taking it in turns to sit next to him and pinch him when he looked sleepy. Being on tour is a hard feeling to explain or even remember, a gale of constant accelerations and stimulations and no time to dwell on anything.
    All our petty wishes were granted - sex on tap, bars that never closed and where we didn’t have to worry too much about the bill. It was a constantly unfolding escapade. I loved it, but I felt crap the majority of the time. The part of my brain that makes sense of everything was having a great time, but the part of me on the ground was having trouble functioning on not enough sleep, excess alcohol intake and travel fatigue.
    There was more friction on tour than in the studio, naturally. We couldn’t escape each other’s irritating behaviour. Damon and his stupid love beads, Graham and his stupid skateboard collection, Dave’s overall lack of panache and my own annoying habit of pointing these things out to them; but disputes were short-lived. We were brought back together nightly, in the rapture of playing loud music.
    By now we had a road crew and these were the people we spent our days with. The road crew live on a bus and wear free T-shirts and smelly jeans. They are men of vast experience. They do tend to be quite nice people, despite appearances