Bonkers 'On Tour' again - The Scent of The Underground II

Readers may recall that back in April 2012, I went 'on tour' in Germany with my favourite - and recently reformed - band, The Monochrome Set.  I had the job of singlehandedly selling the merchandise (including their newly released album, Platinum Coils) in German, and in the sepulchral gloom of the various eclectic and grungy venues on our circuit: an old hospital, an Art Nouveau villa, a Lost & Found bureau under a railway arch - you get the picture. This year saw a UK tour to mark the launch of The Monochrome Set's latest album, Super Plastic City, and I decided to catch as many gigs as was practical in the week I shoehorned in between the end of one work project and the start of the next.  For as I always say: 'No fan went to their grave regretting that they had been to too many Monochrome Set gigs'.  In fact I wasn't sure if ANY fan had gone to their grave yet, as all of us who have grown up with the band since they emerged from the 'ridiculously nutritious ooze of the post-punk milieu' are still in our mid-50s like them.

In the end, I made it to a borderline embarrassing seven(!) gigs - an itinerary of some 1050 miles - and managed to combine the concerts with seeing another of my top bands, The Would-Be-Goods, and meeting fellow fans from as far away as Ireland and Denmark, several of whom came to multiple gigs.  I also visited four(!) sets of cousins on Teesside and caught up with a fumehead friend, Anna from Edinburgh.

I wasn't involved with the merchandise this time, as a husband and wife team of equally diehard fans was doing the honours.  They did sometimes press me into service at the end of the night as a 'part-time Blu-tack removal operative', helping out with the very important task of taking down posters and collecting the Blu-tack and White-tack - it was by no means straightforward! - and squidging it all back into two large blobs. For the record, the wife was wearing Lush Gorilla Flower's Barrow for much of the tour, an oddly herbal, fruity scent with geranium and a cosy, powdery, almost Playdoh aspect.

On the perfume front, I took a little pouch of vials with me, carefully selecting my scent of the day/evening with the deliberate aim of imprinting the good times that lay ahead with perfume memories, each relating to a different town or city.  This is the reverse of the more random - and retrospectively - associative way in which scent memories are often formed, ie where you happen to be wearing Perfume A on a day which turns out to be enjoyable. Here I was making a conscious or 'concerted' effort if you will, to stick with our musical theme ;-), to elevate a perfume I already liked to an even higher status by wearing it on an occasion I knew in advance would be memorable.  I suppose that is true of holiday perfumes in general, however the changing locations on this trip arguably made the associations for each perfume more distinctive than they might have been on a beachy holiday spent in the same spot, say.

So, without further ado I will endeavour to combine a 'mini-scentalogue' with an abbreviated travelogue, featuring some of the more noteworthy and amusing events of the week, including a surprisingly varied assortment of ailments and mishaps on my part, which really do deserve their own sub-headings.

Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh

EDINBURGH

Ailments: Headache, then later cut my finger on the spoke of my umbrella and sought first aid in a nearby pizza restaurant.

Mishaps: Forgot my styling mousse, necessitating a breathtakingly brazen bit of parking in George Street and a lightning dash into a Tony & Guy salon moments before closing time. Hotel bed sloped at a funny angle, leading to a sleepless night.

Scent of the evening: Shalimar Parfum Initial.  When this first came out, I found the patchouli loud and overpowering, but have gradually bonded with it after many wearings, culminating the other day in the purchase of a boxed set for just £25 in my local mall.  A friendly more than foxy rose-patchouli-vanilla number.  I think of it as a poor woman's JHAG Lady Vengeance, now that my sample of that is drained.

Highlights: The Voodoo Rooms was the nightspot where I spotted the towering Taueralike last year, but he was not in evidence this time, and goodness knows you wouldn't have missed his lofty physique if he had been there.  A high point of the night (apart from the gig, obviously) was sniffing two friends who were wearing FM Carnal Flower and Lolita Lempicka (both supplied by me ;-) ).  Another highlight was the shortbread in the hotel room, a welcome touch that adds value well in excess of the nominal cost involved.

What Mr Bonkers used to refer to generically as 'Peruvian fishing cats' (with or without rod)

The next morning I met up with Anna from Edinburgh, resisting the urge to say 'Cheerio' until the end of our meeting. We had tea in a Fairtrade cafe just off Princes Street, after browsing in the adjacent shop while waiting for them to open up.  We did the usual 'tipping stuff up on the table' trick - Anna had brought some Lush / Gorilla scents with her with which I was not familiar, while I had the contents of my travel bag to proffer, plus the gift of a bar of soap.  ('No one ever went to their grave regretting that they had accumulated too much soap', I also say, with possibly less justification.) Unfortunately, this turned out to be a bit of a thoughtless present, as Anna's neighbourhood had just had its water cut off due to a burst main, with no indication of when supplies would be resumed.

STOCKTON-ON-TEES

Ailments: Headache, involuntary consumption of raw onion, nocturnal hunger pangs so bad it felt like dozens of tiny men with forks gouging the tines against my stomach wall.  I should just have got up and braved the driving rain to retrieve a cereal bar from the boot of my car.

Mishaps: Persistent distrust of the satnav added some 10-15 miles to the journey, compounded by gridlock in Gateshead and ongoing lashing rain.  On arrival in Stockton the satnav was completely foxed by the one way system to the point of emitting staccato gibberish for minutes at a time.  Later stopped by the police for driving without lights in an area reserved for taxis.  (They were nice about it, mind!)

Scent of the evening: En Voyage Perfumes Zelda.  A tender magnolia centre in a crisp shell of galbanum. Felt a bit blowsy and Southern Belle-ish, which was somewhat at odds with my conspicuous lack of flouncy underskirts. Or any skirts indeed.  Could still smell it on my sheets the next morning.  Was tempted to take them with me, but Housekeeping might have noticed.

Highlights: The fact that there were as many as 50 people there on a wet, windy Sunday night in Stockton, including a woman in tight humbug-striped jeggings in a shiny fabric.  My first thought was: 'That's not Natalie either.'  Owing to exceptional logistical issues I shan't trouble you with, another highlight was playing that well known game of 'How many musicians can you cram into a Mini?'  I managed 3 out of 4, though the drummer's head was entangled with my in-car hanging wardrobe, while the bass player was obliged to hold the satnav box, a bag of rhubarb and custard sweets and my tatty old driving cardigan.  The lead singer sat up front and teased me about my oversized rev counter (which in fairness had been fitted by the previous owner) and the fact that I had named my car Maurice.

A family interlude in the Stockton area ensues...

Bass player looking suitably monochrome and perfectly bissected by the mike stand 

PRESTON

Ailments: Headache, chronic indecision at the salad counter of Marks & Spencer.

Mishaps: Flies accidentally came undone at an unknown point in the evening.

Scent of the evening: Diptyque Volutes edt (Sample courtesy of Tamsin) A cosy, sensual, snuffed out kind of scent with honey, iris, tobacco and incense.  A bit like Dior's Bois d'Argent, but with more powder and less vanilla.

Highlights: Afternoon walk with The Would-Be-Goods around the architectural gems of Preston.  We spotted a former Turkish Baths!  I told them about Preston's Harris museum being home to Britain's largest collection of perfume bottles...  (No takers, though in fairness it was coming up to closing time, and you do need a good couple of hours to take them all in...;-) ) The other highlight was the double bill featuring The Would-Be-Goods and The Monochrome Set - the bass player (who is in both bands) thoughtfully changed his shirt in between.

Here is Too old - possibly my favourite track of The Would-Be-Goods and another contender for the 'beautiful' UK music category in Lavanya's interview on Purple Paper Planes.  I am not sure why there is a man holding a broken guitar in this video, but I hope the curious visual doesn't impair your listening pleasure.

LIVERPOOL

Ailments: Blisters from walking too far on aggregate in inappropriate party shoes.

Mishaps: Putting my dress on backwards - I think I got away with it! - these places are always on the dark side.

Scent of the evening: Ormonde Jayne Ta'if - haunting, dusty, desert rose.

Highlights: Finding a large selection of Annick Goutal in T K Maxx that afternoon, albeit mostly priced between £50-£60, so no bargains to be had.  Fondled and replaced Musc Nomade several times.  Venue was bang next door to the Cavern Club!

BIRMINGHAM

Ailments: See mishaps.

Mishaps: Slipped on the way out and fell hard, spraining my hand which I used to break my fall.  Waiting for the results of some X-rays to see if I have fractured anything.  Many simple tasks have been proving challenging since, from changing gear to tucking in bedding to squeezing ketchup and doing up buttons.  You just wouldn't credit how useful a thumb can be till it's limp and useless.

Scent of the evening: Puredistance Black - review here.

Highlights: My friend Gillie came along! She enjoyed the set much more than I expected, even saying she'd go another time.  Bit of banter with the band at the end, involving thinking of British place names that are also breakfast items. Bass player won hands down with 'Towcester' (pronounced 'toaster').

OXFORD

Ailments: Ongoing sore hand - conventional clapping eluded me, so had to hit the inside of my arm instead, which attracted one or two odd looks.

Mishaps: Ordered a very, very dry piece of chicken at a motorway services and failed to gauge the correct amount of school dinner gravy to go with it.  Later made the grave error of trying to recce the venue in daylight at the height of Oxford's rush hour.  Satnav was totally thrown by the 'dreaming spires', and sent me into a pedestrian zone where I nearly came a cropper against some bollards outside the iconic Blackwell's bookshop. It took all my concentration not to mow down several dozen cyclists during the tricky process of extricating myself from the town centre.

Scent of the evening: Dior Ambre Nuit - softly spicy, ambery rose scent - mini-review here.

Highlights: The Would-Be-Goods were in the audience this time!, leading to bonus chat.  Fry up breakfast of the finest calibre at my B & B.  You know you are in Oxford when there is both ground black pepper AND ground sea salt at the table - the height of sophistication in condiment terms.

The ne plus ultra of full fry ups

BRISTOL

Ailments: Ongoing sore hand, insufficient dinner of cashew nuts and shortbread (snaffled from the Edinburgh hotel).

Mishaps: Cheery bloke from Essex kicked over my glass of cranberry and soda before I had time to drink it. It was admittedly in a silly spot on the floor by my feet.  He was good enough to buy me another, while I promised to use the bar or other serviceable ledge next time.

Scent of the evening: L'Arte di Gucci - bombastic dark rose chypre with a retro twist.

Highlights: Crabtree & Evelyn toiletries in my hotel room, plus an unexpected chaise longue in grey corduroy!  Without batting an eyelid, the lead singer forged the drummer's signature on my copy of the album. The breakfast item word game had by now segued into one about renaming models of Fender guitars - the bass player set the bar high with 'Fender Doncaster'.  I decided to branch out into basses and came up with the 'Fender Derision' (to reflect the backlash in some quarters about the brand's overexposure / ubiquity).


So, to reprise my opening theme, I would be interested to know whether you also do this deliberate imprinting of a particular perfume with anticipated happy memories?  

NB Since my last post, in which I mentioned that Susanna Pellinen - aka Tigrushka on Basenotes - is also a fan of the band, I have discovered that Valerie Sperrer of Australianperfumejunkies - aka Cookie Queen - is one too!  If any more of you come to light, it may be worth drawing a Venn diagram of perfumistas, Monochrome Set fans and 'The Intersecting Set'. ;-)





PS I just realised that Bonkers turned FOUR on 29th October, but as I have already celebrated my 3.6th anniversary back in the summer, I don't feel it warrants too much of a 'song and dance' so soon afterwards. Maybe I'll mark my 5th anniversary in more style, if Bonkers is still going then!

Bonkers "On Tour" in Germany: The Scent Of The Underground

I am sure I have written posts in the past featuring the word "tour" before - as in "A Bonkers Grand Tour", to name one example. But last week I guess you could describe me as being "on tour". I wasn't doing my usual work, which has been quite scarce of late, though ironically I had several job inquiries just as I was packing to go away(!), ranging from phone interviews with van dealerships in the UK to so-called "intercept interviews" with German tourists on car ferries. But like a large ocean-going vessel myself, I cannot turn myself around that quickly, and ended up going over to Germany on the original mission. I guess you could call it a sort of "VSO work", the voluntary services in question being the manning of a merchandise stall at a series of gigs, which in turn explains the aptness of the phrase "on tour".

Yes, over the course of four nights, I single-handedly clocked up quite a respectable sales total, selling to about 25% of the audience each time, which Mr Bonkers tells me is a very good ratio. I have known this particular group for 30+ years: the music critic of the German broadsheet, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, last year dubbed them "the best unknown band in the world". I suppose I inhabit a comfortable no-man's land somewhere between fan, friend - and now "crew". : - )

As it happens, I have had two prior stints of retail experience in my life, in a cheese and a fruit & veg shop respectively, also some 30 years ago. However, this was a whole new category of merchandise to me - one bearing that very name indeed - though it was typically shortened to "merch". I basked in my newly-coined job title of "Head of Merch etc, Germany", the "etc" referring to ad hoc assistance with the provision of maps, in-train snacks, and deciphering the more arcane paragraphs in the Terms & Conditions of the Deutsche Bahn website.

As well as honing my retail skills, I learnt a new set of vocabulary unrelated to my usual business milieu. This included such up-to-the-minute German terms as the splendid "bemannen" ("to man!"), "Album", "CD", "Song", "T-shirt", "Drummer", "Backstage", "Download" and "Vinyl" (for which there are currently no plans, in case you were about to ask). Yes, I fielded so many requests for old-style vinyl in fact, that if I had had a euro for every one, I could almost afford to press the blessed things myself. While speaking German, I don't think I fooled anyone as to my real nationality, though one lady complimented me on my "good endings".

As time went by I started getting quite creative with my sales techniques, positioning the silver-coloured CD as a "handy emergency compact mirror". To some people I mentioned that if you bought nine of the CDs and arranged them in a rectangle you would have a pretty sizeable bathroom mirror. It would cost you an arm and a leg, mind, and the actual CDs might warp in the condensation, but you won't find anything like it in IKEA.

Then the album lyrics were printed on a folded pocket version of the band poster, tucked inside the sleeve, and I lost no time in pointing out how the CD - especially factoring in its reflective characteristics - was tantamount to a complete "activity pack", perfect for long car journeys - assuming you aren't driving, that is.

Then when the small T-shirt size sold out, I began to extol the versatility of the M and L sizes to the more petite customers, explaining how they would make a first rate nightie or even a mini-dress if you teamed them with a stylishly low slung belt.

"Bemanning" the merch table gave me an opportunity to meet and chat to fans from all over Germany and further afield, including a man from Nuneaton who was thrilled to find himself in Frankfurt on business on the day his favourite band happened to be playing down the road.

In terms of my "Scent Of The Gig" choices, I wore just two all week: Orris Noir, as it seemed suitably dark for the unrelenting gloom of my working environment, and Guerlain Plus Que Jamais, which struck me as an amusingly ironic choice for the grungy outfits I had taken to wearing. Well, my best efforts in a grungewardly direction - I may not have been layering perfumes, but I was layering T-shirts like a pro!)

Now I was only dimly aware of other scents - ambient or otherwise - over the course of the week. I do recall the burning smell of brake fluid on Berlin trains, and the smell of crusty egg rolls, but that is about it. I guess the trip was more about sounds than scents, and maybe it is good to switch sensory track sometimes...

Well, I say that...the band did half-jokingly wonder if they should have a perfume of their own, which could be another potential merch idea. They have already come up with its name: "The Monochrome Scent", a rather nifty play on "The Monochrome Set".

Well, I was instantly reminded of Tarleisio and The Devil Scent project, though in that case the scents being created are for an individual band member who is a character in Tarleisio's book, Quantum Demonology, albeit one based on a real musician of her acquaintance.

So on the long train rides - I was travelling independently of the band - I gave the idea of The Monochrome Scent some more thought. It occurred to me that whilst it might well be overcomplicating this hypothetical creation to do so, it could be fun to have top, heart and base notes in the perfume that not only characterised the traits of each musician but also correlated with the role of their respective instruments in the overall musical composition. That way, the notes associated with the bass player would be base notes (of course!), ditto the drummer, and so on.

Or if that was too tricky and restrictive (and it almost certainly would be!), one could just ensure that the scent included at least one note that was strongly
associated with each band member. So the drummer asked for something to denote curry and sweat - cumin? : - ) ), then the guitarist (who is from Quebec) requested maple syrup and pipe tobacco...and I am thinking some kind of Canadian lumber might also hit the spot? The singer is half-Indian so he could be Mysore sandalwood (not least because he complained about his feet a lot!). Then the female violinist likes magnolia and citrus notes, while to represent the bass player it would not be beyond the realms of possibility (Christopher Brosius-style!) to replicate the odour of his signature mac...

Or - the simplest of all routes - one could just stick in a load of notes
that the band members collectively associate with being on tour: after a quick brainstorm, curry and sweat predictably topped the list! Now...even if The Monochrome Scent ever saw the light of day - or the gloom of night on a merch table, rather - I shan't promise to sell it to one in four punters unless this madcap, olfactory "camel designed by a committee" ends up smelling half-way decent...

And finally, here are some more "tour snaps": Germany does a nice line in eclectic venues (an Art Nouveau villa, a former hospital, a Lost Property Office, a punk squat) - actually, most of them look like a punk squat on the inside, which in the case of the Art Nouveau villa was particularly unexpected.

EXTERIOR!

INTERIOR!


And no round up of tour photos would be complete without an example of one of the doors, for finding your way into an alternative music venue is the ultimate initiative test.

For anyone who may be curious, here is a review by John Robb (formerly of The Membranes) of a recent UK gig, which also looks back at the history and influence of the band.

And thanks to one of those surprise Google coincidences, I have just learnt that Tigrushka, known to many as one of the moderators on Basenotes, is also a fan. I stumbled upon this review on her blog (in Finnish!) and the following tweet of hers:

"Listening to the new Monochrome Set album Platinum Coils for the first time. It's stunningly good."

And this unexpected collision of two fumeheads' musical and fragrance interests is - you might think - further strengthened by a mention of perfume in the opening lines of "On My Balcony", one of my favourite tracks on the new album:

"Through the perfume of sweet velvet sleep
I glide into the afternoon"

Except that the singer tells me the use of the word perfume is quite gratuitous, and he probably just liked the sound of the word without any reference to what it meant. Ah well, you can't have it all. : - )

BACKSTAGE SIGN IN DARMSTADT

OBLIGATORY BACK-OF-TOILET-DOOR GRAFFITI

UNCHARACTERISTICALLY COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF TOILET PAPER FOR A MUSIC VENUE


Now I did hope to meet up with a couple of perfumistas on my travels, but sadly it didn't work out in the end due to illness and a job move. A round up of my solo sniffing experiences follows in the next posts!






Photo of villa from fotocommunity.de, other photos my own