dear America

Dear America,

I'm sorry if I was a little hard on you the other day.

Was I?

I don't even know,
but I think I may have
said something about
everything going better for me
over here in England.

I didn't mean it,
their showers pretty
much suck ass.

And I miss you.

America,
I miss you,
and I'm looking
forward to coming
back and playing
for you again.

I think I'm going to add
one show in Chicago in November
before I hit the road, indefinitely.

what do you think?

and,
I have a present for you,
just so you can see what
it's like for me over here.

I have a recording of the first
half of a concert in Bideford, England.

It's a small town on the southwest coast.

The recording is one big file,
43 Megs, it might take a second to download.

but you can find it here:
http://www.nicepeter.com/nicepeter_liveinbideford.mp3

much love,

-p

Nice Peter in London, 22 Oct

Nice Peter in London on Wed, 22 Oct

I don't know why I'm writing a blog to post this, 

but Ed says it's a good idea. He's my manager, 

maybe I'll tell you more about him and touring 

in general, to make this a more legitimate blog, 

and not just a post about a gig in London. 

But let's get that out of the way first.

I'm playing a gig in London.

On Wednesday, the 22 of October.

It's at 229, aka Club Fandango.

229 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5PN

(very close to Euston Station)

admission is 6 pounds, steep, but hey, it's London.

Music starts at 8 pm, I go onstage at 10 pm.

If you're in London, or feel like making a trip,

I'd love to see you there.

In other news,

I am halfway through the calendar dates

of this UK tour,

but I have 21 shows left to go.

This weekend, I play two double headers,

on Friday and Saturday.

Luckily, our friend Liam,

from Sheffield, is driving us around.

He drives fast.

This will help me in several ways,

first, and perhaps most important,

allowing me to drink during shows.

Beer, pints, shots, and bottles

have become an integral

part of the Nice Peter show,

especially here in England.

I don't know if that's sad,

or awesome, right now,

it feels pretty awesome.

It gives me just a little

more confidence onstage,

false confidence, perhaps,

but it allows me to take the risks

and say the things that usually

end up being the most memorable

part of the show.

What can I say?

It's fun.

the shows in the UK,

on a whole, have been fantastic.

Weston Super Mare is the strangest

place I have ever been in my life.

We got weed from a crack head,

I'm sorry, a former crack head,

and, well... that's really weird.

The gig was a circus,

any comedy in any of

my songs was completely outshined

by the characters and the comedy

of the audience itself.

This was one show,

especially, where what

I had written before

was essentially thrown

out the window.

All I had to do was strum

a few chords and point

out the simple ridiculousness

of the people in the room.

It works, sometimes.

I made a return trip to

West Kirby, which is outside

of Liverpool.

It ended up being even

better than the first,

but again, due to the

enhancing effects of

San Miguel Lager

and one shot of Vodka,

I ended up picking on the one

guy in the room who had absolutely

no sense of humor.

I found out later that his

wife had also left him...

that day.

Oops.

well,

it wasn't my fault.

I'm more than willing

to work with any member

of the audience,

I can feel when they are pissed off,

and I can feel when they have had enough.

but,

for fuck's sake,

it is a comedy show.

You knew that when you walked in,

and it's not going to stop for another hour,

so if its really bothering you,

there's the door.

everyone else is laughing,

except for you,

grumpy sweater guy

who's wife had just left him.

I'm sorry your wife left you,

maybe it was because you

have no sense of humor.

I didn't even ever say anything

mean to the guy.

I was just busting his chops about his

sweater, and I think I said something

about the "lady standing next to him

maybe being his girlfriend,

or maybe that other guys girlfriend,

or maybe both... "

In retrospect, that might be what

set him off. Some young punk

suggesting that the cute woman

standing next to him was his girlfriend,

when he was in fact newly single,

and then going on to point out

that he was wearing a funny jumper.

Anyhow,

he stood there at the very front,

fuming at me.

I'm talking fuming,

like a Puerto Rican guy

moving his lips furiously

before he punches you in the face.

I tried to ignore it,

but how the hell could I?

You don't not notice

a guy standing three feet

in front of your face,

ready to punch it.

Hell, he could have reached

me with a step.

So I tried to diffuse,

while still keeping some humor,

it had no effect.

Have you ever tried

to reason with a Volcano?

It doesn't work,

if it starts to grumble,

it will go off, no matter

how funny you are.

He left.

finally,

to get more fucking

money to come back

and drink at the bar!

you're kidding me.

fine, whatever,

I left him alone,

he minded his own,

and stopped paying attention

business, at a very fun show,

which seems stupid to me,

but, whatever.

I apologized to him,

very sincerely, during a break.

I really did.

No jokes,

I said,

"I'm really sorry,

things got carried away,

I didn't realize you were actually

getting so upset, and I've tried

to leave you alone from then on."

He kinda just stood there.

So I figured,

problem solved,

Volcano, diverted.

But as he left,

during a pause between songs,

he came up to me onstage and said...

"I'll give you a tip...."

okay!

here it comes,

some funny one liner

from an edgy British guy...

he'll wrap it all up,

get a huge laugh,

and every will love everyone

again.

I expected something about the sweater.

what he actually said was,

"stay in your own fucking country"

wow.

what a dick.

-p

Good morning

Good morning,
I'm in Plymouth, England,
on the ocean, overlooking
the coast, and the sun is shining,
which is weird for this country.

I got up last night in front
of approximately 300 English
people who have never heard of me,
at 1:30 in the morning.

I was playing at the White Rabbit,
and the guy who runs it is named Dan,
and he wants me to tell you more stories
about it.

so here's some stories.

I got up,
and there were two girls dancing
to the song that the very serious DJ
was playing before I went on.

I say very serious,
because she had a table
and everything.

DJs crack me up,
they get really into it.

A laptop plugged into
a stereo system is just
a guy playing music,

but a laptop on a stage,
on a big table, is a DJ, baby.

But the music was good,
I'll give her that,
and the girls were dancing,
they were the only ones
near the stage.

Everyone else was spread out
into this huge club, and drinking,
heavily, and cheaply.

It was "pound a pint" night.

Which means,
essentially,
two dollar drafts.

Not bad for a Friday.

The special started at midnight,
and ran until two am,
and the bar was open...

until 5.

I stayed until six.

I played at one thirty,
to the two girls in the front,
and I started singing about
"pound a pint" night.

I put it on the loop pedal,
"a pound a pint, a pound for jager,
it's a fucking cheap night for drinking"

It had a catchy little tune,
I looped it over and over,
and the girls kept dancing,
and started singing,
and seven lonely guys on the wall
took notice, and one smiled,
and some cool guys in the back
noticed that something interesting
was going on, and a guy named Ricky
jumped onstage with the tambourine,
and next thing you know,
I'm playing to a big crowd
right at the front of the stage,
laughing and dancing along.

It was that easy,
and it was awesome.

that might be my favorite
thing to do, convince a big,
fun group of people that I'm
worth listening to.

It doesn't work everytime,
especially in America.

I'm sorry, America,
it just doesn't.

I'm afraid I might rag on
the American's a lot.

But you know what I mean,
you must have felt it.

Like the Matrix,
there is something
you can tell isn't right
about the way we go out,
and the way we appreciate things,
and you are smart,
but that guy next to you
sure is a fucking dumbass.

Maybe I'm crazy,
but I just seem to go over
differently over here.

I had the bulk of the crowd
interested and listening by the end.

I'm not bragging,
I'm just proud and happy about it.

It feels good.

Ricky, on the tambourine,
he stayed up for most of the set.

He just did a good job,
just kept the beat going
and gave me something to play off.

He said to me afterwards,
"man... that was a rush"

yeah, it really is.

..
So then,
I smoked a joint with
a cool English guy
and talked philosophically.

then I smoked another joint
with a girl named Cat,
and her friend who's name
I didn't catch.

They were an interesting pair,
I'm pretty sure by the end of the night,
I told them, "look, I'd love to have sex with
both of you, but I can't have sex with either of you"

I had quite a bit to drink, and smoked two joints,
and I'm pretty certain that's exactly what I said.

I was completely unprompted,
and in retrospect,
pretty hilarious.

So now,
I'm awake,
surprisingly
unhungover...
and I'm on the coast,
and I get to do it all again tonight.

-p

-p

UK Tour Diary Again

It's been fun.

I played last night
in Blackburn.

a small town in the northwest of England.

I took a walk,
to a shop,
to buy some
cigarettes for Ed.

I needed a walk.

Five blocks from the venue,
I saw two heroin addicts,
one prostitute,
and one guy in a phone booth,
who wasn't using the phone.

I don't know what,
in the hell,
he was doing.

But it was a weird place.

The gig went well,
really well.

I played with the
Whiskey Bastards.

A four piece
pirate punk band.

They were outside
drinking a bottle of
vodka and doing poppers
with their relatively hot
entourage of suicide girls.

Lot's of poppers.

Poppers,
if you don't know,
are amyl nitrate,
kind of like sniffing glue.

It's a small bottle
of liquid that smells
like paint thinner.

You open it,
hold it to your nose,
and inhale the toxic fumes.

It makes you giggle
your head off,
like a bong hit
of nitrous.

In the States,
they are used mostly
by gay men.

Apparently it eases
the moment of anal
penetration,
and makes orgasms
feel like you're getting
a blowjob on a roller coaster.

Over here,
they're used
by pirate punk bands
and their ladies,
out on the dance floor,
during my set.

Blackburn was hilarious.

..

I think I mentioned something
about the Giant's Causeway.

It's in Ireland,
and it's a big,
completely unexplainable,
collection of stacked up
hexagonal rocks.

There's no way to
get it across without
seeing it.

you should google
Giant's Causeway,
when you have a second.

Ireland is solid,
but I was glad to get back
to England.

I played a gig in Preston,
kind of my home town over here.

It was awesome,
you should have seen
the girl on the tambourine,
she played in Porn Star,
and no one in the audience
was watching me a bit.

My battery is dying,
and I'm coming down
off the joint I smoked
this morning before
I went to watch the BMX races.

Tonight is another gig,
this makes eight so far
since last Sunday,
with twenty six more to go.

Then it's back home,
two days off,
and off to Buffalo,
and down the East Coast
to Florida.

Ah.......

-p

UK Tour Journal Part I

Dear Diary,

I'm in Ireland.

Southern, Ireland.

I am at a hostel in Galway,
waiting to see if the gig that
got cancelled will get moved to
a different bar.

I'm clean shaven, showered,
full, sober... and I'm wearing
clean underwear.

Those are all a first
for this tour so far.

I landed on Sunday,
but first my plane got held
up in Chicago, with a stopover
in New York City.

Upon landing,
I had to sprint,
literally sprint,
from one terminal,
about a mile to the next,
to make my plane,
the last of the night,
as they were closing the gate.

phew.

I landed in Manchester, England, on time,
only to find that my work permit had not
gone through, the permit office was closed,
and UK immigration didn't think they could
let me into the country....
until Wednesday.

It was Sunday morning,
and I had a gig that night.

Eventually, they decided
to let me in on a temporary Visa,
but not until they held my passport,
held me waiting for two hours,
took my picture,
and finger printed me.

"we just have to run your prints
through Interpol"

wow.
I felt like Jason Bourne.

"it will only take ten minutes
to run the prints,
you can wait on that bench in the hallway"

Almost exactly ten minutes later,
two heavily armed policemen
rounded the corner and started walking
purposefully towards my bench.

Oh...
shit.

My mind quickly
riffled through any and
all experiences that may
have landed my fingerprints
on some database somewhere.

The only thing I could think of,
was three years ago,
I was in Amsterdam with Pauly and Donehoo,
and I was so high on mushrooms that I
flipped out, tried to walk to the hotel,
got lost, found myself, talked to god,
got back to the hotel, and folded my underwear
for two hours while I talked to myself in
a British accent.

What if I did something stupid along the way?
There is a good chunk of a time I don't remember at all.

I was getting ready to explain myself,
and call Ed to tell him I was going to jail,
when the policemen very purposefully...
walked right past me.

Phew.

So they let me in,
but with no passport,
and I had to be back in Manchester
airport by Wednesday, with my permit,
or they would deport me.

Also,
with no passport,
I could not rent a car.

The gig that night got cancelled.

phew.

I took a train to Preston,
met Ed,
and we picked up where
we left off last tour.

In a pub.

I sat and drank with
strange locals, some guy
shared his joint, I played
my harmonica for some drunks,
and I was happy at my home
away from home.

Still..
there was tomorrow's gig,
Monday night,
three hours across England,
with no way to rent a car.

We called our faithful driver,
a four foot gentleman named Adam.

He is my personal hero.

Adam drives as fast as anyone
I've ever seen,
and we were off.

105 mph down the motorway,
to our first gig, in Sunderland.

Sunderland used to be one of
my favorite gigs in England.

It's still cool,
and I got to see Westy,
who took all my new promo pictures,
but it hasn't been the same
without Big Irish Hobo,
aka,
Scotty.

Scotty moved to Limavady,
in Northern Ireland.

That was our home for gig number 4.

I'll tell you more stories later,
about the private VIP booth at the movie theater,
the trip to the cliff in Ireland,
the Giant's Causeway,
the wrestling fans,
the tiniest rental car in the world,
and the dirtiest hotel, I have ever fucking seen.

This marks day seven,
with thirty five more days,
and 27 more gigs,
to go.

-p