Now, for me to quote Phil Collins i either must be losing my mind or in a rush to catch a plane. but as it sits i am kinda in a rush..but i wanted to get on about the boston and new york shows.

well, the drive from virginia to boston was long but what i found interesting is that boston was damn cold. we go to the venue about 3pm and kinda kicked back. me and some of the ensemble memebers went to get coffee at fivebucks. and funny but now, no matter where you go there’s a fivebucks everywhere, huh?

so then we went and soundchecked and it was cool and stuff. we had all our stuff with so i don’t think anyone went to the hotel in that time. now the show was the best of that short tour and ranks up there as far as LOVE shows go. the crowd were tremendous and even Frank was there..if you hear the show you’ll hear Frank yelling in between songs and the Singer yelling back, ‘be quiet Frank.’ FRank is the super-fan i’ve spoken of before. He’s even nuttier than Martyn Samuels (in a good way) but not quite as nutty as that French guy who flys everywhere with his wife to see us. He’s great! (the French guy is the one who got hit with the towel in Utrect (Holland) last year! If anyone remembers that…well..THAT was funny!

(ok, recap: we are playing the show and….hey, Freedom Man was there too….ok, and the French guy keeps on with “Arthur…you are the king…you are the master…we love you!!!!! Orange Skies!!!! Your mind and we!!!!!” so finally the Singer says, “Dude, would you please chill the f*ck out already!” and the guy kept on till finally the Singer threw a wet towel and got the guy dead smack in the face!!!! And the guy turns to the crowd and yells, ” THE MASTER HAS GIVEN ME HIS TOWEL!!!!!! or something like that…hey, why let the truth get in the way of a good story?

So after the show we watched the Yanks lose in extra innings to the marlins and well that was the pivital game really. So the funky music comes on and people are dancing and drinking and there are cool New England Nurses drinking who happened to be BIG love fans and these football players who were love fans and well that was a good way to remember Boston. So we were all having a blast and then the vans left and whups they forgot me! But some fans said they’d drive me back but even they got lost and we were in the ghetto for a minute there. But then we found it and i was very grateful (i was cursing the whole time…felt like a schmuck!) as they had to drive to new hampshire!!! great wicked awesome people. It’s hard to beat Boston when they’re on. And that night they were on.

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and so an early morning drive back down to New York…getting away from the nutty night manager at the Boston hotel who had (by the time i got there) shut down the party. and he was a real dick. but hey no biggie. so we drove to manhattan (pronounced, “Man’Had’en” by the locals) and checked in our hotel and then did a decent soundcheck….then came back and rusty, ana, carrie and rusty and i (and one of ana’s friends) went to John’s pizza on 43rd & 8th ave.. yep..it was the bomb…after that went over back to the show and ran into some old friends like Mike Shelley (who’d signed SHONEN KNIFE to his new label and gave us copies of the CD) and drank some old freindly beer like Zweic. Went onstage about 10:30 and played what i thought was a pretty good show. Local knucklehead, Edgar, passed out after the 4th song right next to my monitor…this after stealing beers from both our dressing room and teh Chesterfield Kings’. Saw Rolling Stone rock critic, David Fricke, backstage…he seemed like a cool guy.

So everyone drank and were merry and then we all wound up back at the hotel about 3am. Dan decided to go look for Birdland and rusty, chapple, ana, heather, paula and i went up to my room and drank some beers and just laughed our asses off for no reason at all. it was new york and we’d just played 4 shows in 5 days…

the next morning a bunch of us (Pete included) went out for breakfast in Times Square then we did the tourist thing before hopping that plane home. Daddyo, carrie, Paula and I grabbed Phillycheese steaks at the Newark airport and brought them on board. other passengers were either jealous or disgusted. didn’t matter though. we were going home.

ok. off we go (again!) to jolly old england…

Mike Randle