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Foxes! in France - French Tour December 2007
Our first excursion outside of the UK and Kayla's first time in France, the two dates in Paris and Bordeaux were always going to be an epic undertaking. Weeks of anxiety and chaos surrounding ferry bookings, passports, car insurance and accommodation crises had almost been resolved as we left Brighton in high spirits, despite the legacy of the mystic curse that something was going to go terribly wrong for us, as previous experiences had demonstrated, hanging loosely in the corner of our minds.
The first hints were already there, designated driver and hero Max and I's trip to the local cafe to pick up some breakfast had concluded with a missing vegetarian order that went overlooked by all parties and caused an early argument with a hungry lead singer who had to rush off, in a panic, to a doctor's appointment.
Six compilation CD burnings later, our upgraded Espace was filled with useful items like musical instruments or maps and we were racing to Dover to make our Channel crossing.
We came prepared with easing tablets to combat the anger of the sea, Kayla having sensitivity to such things, and ingested them two hours prior to setting sail, only to discover waters calm enough to settle the most wayward stomach.
Now in France, and blindly speeding towards Paris, Kayla turned up the volume on the stereo with the help of Max's amazing motion sensor. Wave upwards for more sound and earthwards for softer moments. Marvellous technology.
The driving in Paris is not simple, roads intertwine and have two names, signposts demonstrate magnificent ambiguity. Max threw us all with great confidence onto the Parisian ringroad. Alan took brave control of the map reading. Teamwork abounded and after just one wrong turn, the Foxes! cruising machine pulled up in the Bercy district in south east Paris. This particular area of the city does not come highly recommended. Currently under development, big buildings with little personality surrounded us.
We were there to fulfill an arrangement to meet at The Frog and British Library Pub. The car needed somewhere to rest and we took it down into a strange underground car park that offered a staircase that led to a brick wall; scattered lifts and some odd lights. We found our way back to the British-loving pub and it was almost like we hadn't left, apart from one important difference. We could smoke.
Don't even pretend we don't look cool. Alan is thinking about smoking.
The time was about eight and we were meeting our hosts, the band Henley-On-Todd, at midnight. Over the next few hours we mused on the likelihood that we had been led here on false pretences, none of us had actually seen any photographs of this Henley-On-Todd, there was no hard proof that they existed. Perhaps the landlord of this pub had lured us across the sea to make the place seem more British. What kind of a name is Henley-On-Todd anyway?
This could have been Henley-On-Todd
At ten past midnight we saw three figures approach the door equiped with guitars. They were Brendan, Bert and Guileume, three quarters of Henley-On-Todd, fresh out of the rehearsal room. Paranoia subsided and we left the pub, H-O-T waited in their Vauxwagon outside the car park for us.
To get out of the car park, we had to go through a special lift that opened at street level. We went round to the back of the building to find that same lift. It turned out, as a security precaution, that you need your ticket to call the lift back. We'd left ours in the car. We went back round to the front of the building and walked down the car entry road. We noticed that one of the entry barriers was broken and fixed permanently up with bollards in front of it. Alan kicked the bollards to one side. We got the car and Alan thought it would be a good idea to drive out of the front entrance to avoid paying. The next few minutes involved a security man shouting through the little speakers where you take your ticket (Alan insisted it was just the usual message), us not quite knowing what to do, a security man shaking his fists and a sharp accelerated exit. We're not sure if H-O-T noticed the guard chasing us down the street but they did notice we had our lights switched off and we suspected that they suspected we had nabbed the car and were wrecklessly out of control.
We stayed at the kind Brendan's house, dropped off our stuff and hit the Boulevard section of Paris. Our first experience of Parisian life was a man being chased down the street by two other men who proceeded to jump on him and beat him up. I grabbed Kayla and we hid in the nearby bar. Alan almost got involved but luckily restrained himself from being involved in a nasty incident. That was more violence in 20 minutes in France than we had seen in many years in our own country.
Drink consumed, a couple, and then definitely time to sleep.
The day of the gig and our only chance to see Paris. Jim Morrison was living close by so we decided to moseley down to see him. A belated dream come true for young Kayla, finally reunited with a lost love.
Kayla and Jim
An early soundcheck and inadequent sense of direction had left us with little time. We might have walked past Oscar Wilde's grave around this point. Despite being on the opposite end of the city, we decided to race across to see Le Tour Eiffel. On our way down to the underground, Kayla demonstrated her newly found cultural connection with France in the local supermarche where she complained "There's nothing vegetarian," before attempting to leave through the fire exit and setting off an ear piercing alarm that went on for six minutes of embarrassment. The Metro driver was slow. When we arrived at our stop we considered taking a few of these bikes.
The bikes that we considered taking
The bikes were not taken but the tower was in sight and with much brevity we approached this great metallic manifestation of the dawn of the modernist era. Alan bought a can of Coke for like 10 Euros and then I got one just a few minutes later for 1.5 Euros, I felt really smug about that.
And that was all the site-seeing we had time for, the next few hours were spent heading back to Brendan's house and then out to the venue. La Gambetta had a great backstreet, smoky cafe vibe. We were reliably informed by the resident eccentic that we are at the venue where Manu Chao started out which made us feel that bit more excited. This fellow seemed to take a liking to Kayla.
Foxes! Fan
The gig went without a hitch, to a rowdy Parisian crowd and a few random scousers. We got up with H-O-T to do a cover of Stockholm Syndrome by Yo La Tengo which was the highlight, I especially enjoyed doing an improvised noise solo in the middle section.
Henley-On-Todd at La Gambetta, Paris, 22/12/07
Then it was off to a free cool indie nightclub next door which turned out to be not so cool and very expensive. Still, Kayla and Alan seemed to have fun.
Then we were off to a lock-in pub where we sat on a rug and talked about how "Austin, Texas" was the next "Seattle" or the next "New York" although "New York" was always the next "New York". It all got very complicated. Again we had reached the point where sleep was required.
Day three and time to leave Paris behind us. Trailing H-O-T we headed out of central Paris and into a three-hour long traffic jam. Paris to Bordeaux is a long way and despite being in a much larger vehicle and driving at unreasonably fast speeds, H-O-T disappointingly managed to arrive there before us. Kayla started to get ill on the way down. And then so did Alan. Max and I still felt fantastic. We discovered how Max's motion sensor volume control worked. Max had duped all of us. He was secretly changing the volume himself using the manual stick and reacting to Kayla's arm gestures. None of us had suspected a thing. Max had even done the motioning himself and Kayla had picked up signalling techniques from him. We all laughed jovially to ourselves at Max's little trick.
Trickster
The geography of Bordeaux out-foxed all of us, H-O-T included and Max had to do a series of impressive U-Turns down narrow roads often with streams of cars tooting away all around us. The city looked stunningly beautiful with intricate Christmas decorations adorning the medieval side streets and squares.
The venue, El Inca, is a little pub tucked away just off one of the main shopping streets. The landlord welcomed us with some delicious piping hot chicken and rice which we all tucked into with uncapped ferocity, apart from Vegetarian Kayla, of course, who had to make do with rice on crackers. She was pretty miserable by this point.
If you know Kayla, you may know her trick of being ill right up until when she plays, and then recovering the moment she gets onstage. That was exactly what happened tonight. Although Sunday 23rd December was never going to be a the busiest night of the year, we got a fair few people in, including a lovely couple who discovered us on MySpace. The sound was as clear as crystal is and we all enjoyed playing a relaxed set to an attentive audience.
Foxes! at El Inca, Bordeaux 23/12/07
Karen Pop got us to sign her Foxes! CD after the show, I think she quite likes us. Special thanks to Karen for donating the only photographs of us playing!
Foxes! Fan
We didn't hang around too long after the show, with feelings of unwellness creeping up our bodies and made a quick retirement to Ben's house. Ben was a friend of Brendan's who had kindly agreed to put us up as well. Ben's apartment was a dream come true, perfectly organised with everything you could need within arm's reach. Ben displayed staggering generosity towards us and taught us a lesson in hospitality that we won't forget! A night's drinking ended the musical leg of our trip.
Well I wouldn't dare bore you with the details of our Christmas in France, suffice to say that we got lost on fog-drenched country roads, redirected away from large-scale fires, admired Leonard Cohen's finger-picking skills, argued over the word "exube" at Scrabble (Alan said it existed, Max said it didn't, Max was right) all got increasingly ill, until finally pushing ourselves to breaking point on the last day's odessey back to Brighton.
It was a fantastic trip, and wouldn't have been possible without the help of our new friends Henley-On-Todd who really did the hard work to make the gigs happen. So here's a tremendously big "thank you" to H-O-T who we hope to bring over here in 2008. I can only hope they have as memorable a time as Foxes! did in France.
Our hats must also be raised to Mr Max Pozzoni who has driven an estimated 1039 miles to further the Foxes! cause. The carbon footprint might be dire, but Max's legendary driving skills must be appreciated. Thanks Max!