Lets Blog! Royal Weekend Part 1

Let’s blog.
Ok, so I’ve not written a blog in almost 2 years – but I figure I want to use this lonely Friday night to get back into it. Things have changed a bit in the past 2 years – I have a real job and a girlfriend. Thats not what my blogs about(because that would be shit boring....) Usual crack – I’m Crusher and I’m a bit mad. I’m playing with The Marvels and Waverley at the moment and I do other entertaining things from time to time. I don’t know how this blog is going to pan out, maybe old age has got to me – i don’t care.
This weeks edition will focus on the royal weekend – Rather than do a weekly account of my boring life, i figure I should just try and pick out the bits which are a little bit interesting!

Thursday – Woke up at 7am for work – I was totally pumped for this weekend, and I already knew i was getting no sleep for at least the next 24 hours. I Double checked I had packed everything – then jumped into my car(I HAVE MY CAR BACK POOM!). work bla bla bla. Waverley were playing at the very first edition of Cav Live that night – zoomed across to cav, and discovered just how difficult it is to get to cav from the direction I was coming. Ended up parking on a fire emergency lane so I could go drop my gear(and weekend travel sack) in cav. Years since I’ve been in there. I stopped going because of the young girls. Went back to the car and luckily there had been no fires so my car was ok. Dropped it off at Jo’s and headed back to Cav.

Got in just in time for a soundcheck – I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the bass was THUMPING. Sloppy soundcheck, but thats what its for! Snowflake had promised us some food, but it wasn’t appearing, so I plugged in my ipod and went in search of some sustenance. A shan tescos ploughman did the job. Got back and after a while Snowflake made the best use of the R&B room at cav – brought in 20 pizzas for us to share. Boom. People started arriving for cav live – its a free gig on the last Thursday of every month – get involved. Sidelock went on first – I like them. It was pretty quiet for them and i think they were a bit sad. I have seen them play 20 times better than that! Loads of people started to arrive – people I’ve not seen in ages. Played the gig which was cool – I’m enjoying what we do with Waverley, but I cant help but feel we’re still looking to find our sound – as well as the confidence together on stage. Good fun anyway. Hashy had a baby on stage.

Now, just to put everyone in the picture – I had a megabus booked for 5am the next morning, going to London, which I had to get. Cavlive was on till 3am and vodka redbulls were £1.If I went home atall, I would fall asleep, so i had already decided to party all night long and walk to the bus station. This was the longest night of my life. No doubles, so I could stay on top of things. I basically spent the next 5 hours slowly drinking vodka, and dancing like there was no tomorrow. Most people left, and if i didn’t have my prior commitments I would have left around 130am. I danced until 3am. Picked up my guitar and walked to the bus station. So many fights. Some guy was trapped under a bus and the driver was just rolling backwards and forwards over him – then the police came. Raj. I ended up going to meet Mick at Ghillie Dhu – sat with him for a while then we got a taxi to bus station. Which wasn’t open. People were starting to que. Highlight being some Jakie rolling up in a taxi – gets out and asks “wheres the ticket boy?” i answer “its closed, we’re waiting” – he goes “fuck – i need tae get on that bus” and runs onto the road.

Friday - I guess this is what we class as Friday – although I must stress I had been up since 7am Thursday. Megabus is shite. We got some sustenance for the journey – but really it was a bottle of juice and a small box of Pringles. The driver didn’t stop for a break until the outskirts of London – 8 hours later. I was fucking hungry. I also discovered I cant sleep on buses, while Mick managed to sleep for about 98.7% of the journey. I was also still a bit drunk like. 2 black guys got on at Manchester and instead of listening to music through headphones like generally people do, they decided to play music through some portable speakers. They had a bit of a battle for a while, but the guy with the louder speakers won. So funny. My personal fave was Total Eclipse of the Heart, oh and also this raj saxophone/synth instrumental tune. I was tempted to whap out a bit of Death Magnetic.

So, into London and its pretty much pandemonium because of the royal wedding. My iphone was on its last legs, and it had our hostel reservations in it. Got a taxi across, it would normally have cost £6, but due to royal wedding it cost £30 – because all the roads were closed. Fuck it. Got in to the hostel. Went up to tescos and the first thing Mick bought was a Gillette sensor excel power fusion deluxe. We also bought some beer, cider, sandwiches and 7up. It was a glorious day so we went in sat in the park and caught some rays. Caught up with Jakil boys via cellular devices and decided we should go out with them in Camden. Went back to the Hostel – bought some towels and had some showers. Shower starts off cold but then gets nice. I’m never completely sure of hostel etiquette, but I like to think the more nakedness the better. We got ready and went up to the common room, expecting a youth hostel on a Friday night to be full of some people ready for a good time. Not 1 person was drinking! Young people on a Friday night drinking tea and shit...what the fuck.

Off to Camden. Got the subway along. So many steps. There was a pure domestic going on the whole way across. Boy just being a cunt. We got out of the subway and there was a guy giving out flyers arguing with this dreadlocked junkie guy with a dog who had knocked all the boys flyers out of his hands. Funniest bit was when the junkie slipped on all the flyers and fell on his ass. He went on arguing for a while, telling him he would ‘bury him’ and ‘fuck him up’. But he didn’t. We went along to the blues kitchen, where we were meeting Jakil to watch a blues band Vintage Trouble(and have serious discussions about Usher Hall...lol). It was at this point I realised how expensive London is - £5.90 for a shite pint of fosters. We also had plans to go see Amoriste at Barfly, but that didn’t come to fruition. At this point can I remind you I have not been to bed since Wednesday night – I have been awake at this point for about 39 hours with no sleep. Great seeing the Jakil boys – not seen them in so long. We went to get some Chinese – the woman fills this box with various foods for £3. Bargain like.

Got a couple of cans in and headed back to watch Vintage Trouble. All I can say is James Brown reincarnate. They were a very good blues band, but the singer – had so much presence, so much soul. They were unstoppable. They played for an hour, then said “this is our last song”. They then continued for the next 2 hours. I had had enough by that point. Blues bores me... The first hour was magic, but after that i couldn’t be arsed. Me and Mick wandered about for a while then went to Koko – about £9 to get in, and it was basically picturehouse but shit, and it was £10 for a double vodka lemonade. I wanted to drink double vodka so thats what I drunk. We got chatting to some girls from Goteburg – I pulled out some of my best Swedish lines(ie singing ‘Henrik Larsson’ at them), surprisingly they stopped talking to me and just started pulling each other. Shows the power I have on women. We decided to leave. Mick somehow faceplanted at the entrance right in front of the bouncers. Brilliant. He didn’t trip on anything, he just briefly forgot how to walk. We needed some sustenance so we went to a kebab shop and got a kebab. Literally the worst kebab ever-shite meat, shite sauce, shite salad, shite pitta. My score of 2/10 is being very generous. We walked back to Russell Square and went to bed. I SLEPT.

Thats where I’m going to wrap up this blog – I will aim to finish the rest of the weekend soon – It will include my gig with The Marvels supporting Johnny Foreigner and me and Micks night out in SOHO. Hope you guys enjoyed – keep watching the stars.