Wolverhampton City. The Midlands. A Wildhearts stronghold. After a nifty three hour drive through the rain and fog we arrived in Wolverhampton. Everyone was sick by the time we got to Wolverhampton. And cranky. Ah, the 7 day itch. We pulled up to the venue and unloaded our bags and headed straight to the chemist. The big “drugstore” is called Boots. Yeah, Boots. Why not? Makes as much sense as Duane Reade. After loading up on cold medecine, flu medecine, vitamins, honey drops, throat lozenges, and a pack of smokes to balance it all out, it was back to the venue, where we heard they had laundry facilites. Surely some clean clothes would lift everybody’s spirits. Or it would have, had the laundry room not been in the bolier room off the venue’s loading dock and had it not resembled the toilet scene from Trainspotting where Ewan Mcgregor loses his dope. Still I would have been tempted to load my clothes into the deathtrap of a washer were it not for the piles of rust colored soiled towels laying around, on and INSIDE the washing machine. Americans 2- Brits 3. They got us good on that one.
So it was down to the cold, dank, basement dressing rooms to kill some time before sound check. When A started soundchecking at 4pm, I thought we might have a fighting chance of getting our first proper check of the tour. And when A finished their check at 5pm I knew we had a more than a fighting chance. And not only did we get a full check, but Andy, the Wildhearts drum tech, had taken pity on us and left plenty of room between Ritchie’s riser and the front of the stage, giving both A and Tragedy plenty of stage room to work with. A’s singer Jason and I joked around that we’d be able to do pirouettes with all the room we had. Only I wasnt joking. And Im pretty sure he knew that. To make sure he knew I wasnt fucking around, during the show I actually busted out some ballerina moves during You should Be Dancing when I saw him watching from the wings.
About two hours before showtime, we got the delightful treat of meeting Gav’s 10 year old daughter Liv. I’ve gotten to know Gav pretty well over the past year and change, spent plenty of time together including a total of 2-3 weeks of him sleeping at my house in NYC. So In October when we were in lovely New Jesery at the Crowne Plaza off Ext 8 for the Iron Sheik Celebrity Wrestler Roast, it was quite a shock when he calmly told me he needed to make a phone call to wish his daughter a happy 10th birthday. DAUGHTER?? 10 YEARS OLD?? This guy was just in NYC in April celberating his 30th birthday. And he doesn’t look a day over 20 as it is. That means 11 years ago, when he probably looked NINE, he found a chick to let him put it in her. No wonder she got pregnant. Who wuld think a 9 year old boy would be shooting swimmers.
Meeting Liv was quite a treat. There’s something that lives in the water in Wildheartsville that makes them unable to produce the normal sort of snot shooting monster spawn that most children are. The most notable thing about Liv when I saw her, was my she looks a lot like Gav, only CUTE. How bizarre. Within minutes of meeting her I asked if she liked Glitter and she chuckled and nodded. SO I hit her up with a nice dusting of Silver. Then I asked if she thought her dad would like Glitter. Gav had been staunchly anti-glitter the whole tour and got pretty upset when I managed to get him with a little bit in Oxford, but once his daughter called for it, there was nothing he could do, and he got a right straight sparkle shower. Ah the joy I took in that one.
Knowing it was the 2nd to last day of the tour, the glitter bombing continued at a furious pace. Ritch, the Wildhearts drummer, was having something of a homecoming show, and most of his family and friends managed to get glittered, except for the guy who looked like the villain from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I wasnt going anywhere near that nutter.
Finally, it was time to take the stage, and I used up all the glitter I had left in my bag on myself. This was a big room, and I wanted to make sure Id be sparkling even for the people in the back row! We took the stage, decimated the fucking house, and then prepared for another massive thrashing from the Wildhearts. They didnt disappoint, of course, and I used my fancy AA pass to get down into the pit and take some photos. Damn Im like a genius n shit.
After the show we made our way to the merch booth to sign autographs for our adoring masses. But in a weird twist of fate, we sold 90% of our stuff as soon as we were done playing, and once the Wildhearts show was over, we just stood behind the table and watched the crowd mostly filter past us, and a bunch stopped to get Wildhearts Merch. Its a super ego boost when we’re in full costume and someone says “Ay, mate, lemme see that Wildhearts shirt in a large, yeah?” These people must either be drunk or stupid to think that Ginger employs an 8 piece supremely-well-outfitted-disco-glam-metal-merchandise team. Or…. um…. BOTH! Yeah, Im going with both.
When the Wildhearts put out their covers album, Ginger was delighting in telling people, both in the liner notes and in interviews how “Battleship Chains” by the Georgia Satellites was such a genius song, because it only had 2 chords. TWO! ”Even the Ramones needed three” I heard him tell numerous people. Well, lemme tell you, I am now a certified genius. I wrote a song while I watched all the Wildhearts fans in Wolverhampton file out of the gig. It only has TWO CHORDS.
D and C. Strummed like this: DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD C DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD C DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD C DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD C.
The D chords stand for Dude and the C chords for Chicks. Thought I may not be the genius I thought I was. I think I need to add an F chord. Not to spice it up musically, but just to get a little more descriptive. The F of course, stands for FAT.