Kiss My Brass: Episode 1: Liverpool

Kiss My Brass / Subversion Liverpool Gig

This morning at 5am I got back from Liverpool, but I think the rest of the band are in Nottingham staying at Baron von Ledwidge's estate.
We all left Harpenden on Friday night, except I was in Alex from Subversion's Car and we waited an hour longer than everyone else so Baron von Ledgenstein and his driver, Pog, could follow us to Liverpool.
It was all going well, until we left our directions at a Welcome Break. No matter, the Baron whipped out his diablos and we had a skate in the car park while Aelx tried to find the directions. With the directions still lost, but our spirits high, we set off again in the general direction of "north" and I put on my French ska CD. So it was that, several hours later and many times more familiar with France's influence on the ska scene, we arrived in Liverpool.
The only problem was, we couldn't find the place we were meant to be sleeping. So, once again, we just headed in the general direction. We saw the round Cathedral, it was lit up at night and it looked amazing, and we also tuned in to Liverpool FM (96.7) and got down to some funky house. We were staying at Helen's house and there was gated parking around the back so at least no one could nick our cars in the night. We managed to find her house in the end, and by "in the end" i mean after driving straight past it six or seven times.
So anyway, we got to her house and we all started to party hearty, at one point I whipped out my bone and blew a few notes whilst Joe improvised on the trumpet and everyone else beat a latin rhythm with beer bottles and Helen's personal belongings. Not long after, Helen went out and left us alone, so we took the opportunity to crowd surf Alex, do stage dives out of the boiler closet, drink more beer, eat more crisps, rearrange her room so everything was the opposite way round and break her laptop (it's ok cos Baron von Legend fixed in the next day, as well as fixing the key so we could get our cars out). Then someone broke her mirror and got seven years bad luck. Helen came back, and instead of shouting at us, said she'd been to a "ket party" and then fell over. Shane and Alex carried her into bed, and somehow convinced her that she had both broken her mirror and moved her room around. Then she got out of bed and started destroying her own furniture, because it was from Argos. Or something.
That night we all slept on the floor, there was hardly any space, and I told everyone to shut up so I could get my beauty sleep but they didn't listen, so that's why I look like I've been hit in the face with a fridge. Regardless, we got about 5 hours sleep, then went to Bee Bee's cafe for the BIGGEST beakfast I have ever eaten (2 sausages, 2 slices of bacon, mushrooms, beans, black pudding, tomato, fried egg, four slices of toast and a cup of tea £3.25) and then we went back to the flat for a bit and watched Ferris Beuller's day off whislt some of us played football outside.
A little bit later, a security guard told us to move our cars or he'd shoot us with his taser so Baron von Ledgenstein lifted each car out of the car park and threw it on to the road. After that, we all got in to the cars and headed in the general direction of Birkenhead.
To get to Birkenhead you have to go through a tunnel. Matt and Shane had done this the night before when they were meant to be driving to Helen's house, and of course now we were supposed to find it, we couldn't. So we drove around a lot and went round the same part of Liverpool docks about 30, 000 times until finally we managed to get into the tunnel and drove on through to sunny Birkenhead. On the way we drove through the industrial area where massive piles of scrap metal and wood shavings lined the water and massive machines worked among them. Also, there were about 600 cranes in Liverpool because they're building so much stuff. It was good.
In Birkenhead we got lost yet again but somehow managed to make it to the venue. We had lunch in Mc. Donalds, which was alright but I would have preferred another big breakfast (2 sausages, 2 slices of bacon, mushrooms, beans, black pudding, tomato, fried egg, four slices of toast and a cup of tea £3.25). The venue was right next to it we parked up and waited until someone came and opened the doors so we could set up. It was called Hotel California and it was like a cross between The Horn in St. Albans and Club 85 in Hitchin. If you've never been to either of those places, you won't know what I'm talking about.
We were a bit scared, because we heard that it was "egg run day" and someone said that meant that bikers were going to throw eggs at us. The prospect of playing to a pub full of angry, drunken bikers armed with eggs wasn't extremely reassuring. I asked the manager (also called Helen) if we were in grave danger of an egging, and she said that "egg run day" is a day when bikers ride round the Wirral delivering easter eggs to sick children! Needless to say, we were far less afraid afterwards. We jammed for a bit and practised a song or two until the sound man showed up. When he did we had our soundchecks and then waited for the doors to open and the show to start.
There was some quality reggae, ska and punk over the sound system and the locals were really warm and friendly. We played a couple of games of pool and set up our merch stall. Finally, 10:30 rolled round and we could go on!
The crowd was so good for our set, there was energy by the bucketload, and loads of people even bought T-Shirts and CDs! I think it was one of the best show's we've done, and the people of Liverpool were crazy for Ska! After our set, I went outside and talked to a local couple about music and Liverpool, and loads of people said we'd played a good show. Next up were Subversion and we were all singing along and one (large) girl with red hair was going pretty mental.
After the gig, the promoter asked us to come back in August and we said "yes! yes! we love you! yes!".
So anyway, it was wildly successful. I got in Pog's car for the journey back and we listened to Rage Against The Machine and cruised down the motorway. I fell asleep numerous times and finally ended up back at my house! What a great way to spend a Sunday!

Many thanks and much love to:

Helen (sorry we fucked your house up!)
Subversion
Donna (especially for the hand cream and face wipes)
Pog
Baron von Ledgewenstein
Pinder
The nice people at Hotel California
Bee Bee's cafe (2 sausages, 2 slices of bacon, mushrooms, beans, black pudding, tomato, fried egg, four slices of toast and a cup of tea £3.25)
The good people of Liverpool!

Zyggy of KMB xx

2nd April 2007