Words: Andy Pemberton
Originally published in Mixmag December 1995

Chicago. At least that was the view you glimpsed from the hotel window earlier this afternoon. Middle of a five-week tour and now you’re in post gig limbo. It’s something unspeakable in the AM, and you’re too wired from the gig to go to bed, but you’re shagged from days spent on the road. Your body clock is fucked – wound forward and then back again by transatlantic flights and cross continent jetting. Time has never felt so relative. Feeling this weird has begun to be a way of life. Better start drinking beer, and maybe enjoying the other recreational substances always made available to a visiting popular music band. Maybe that way you can inject some colour into the grey grind of touring.

A guy walks into the dressing room. Freaky looking geezer smoking Salem brand cigarettes. He starts talking to you in a deeply southern, flatbed truck drawl. The words creep out of his disgusting fucking mouth so slow, he’s obviously not used to being interrupted. He says he’s a Southern rock fan, whatever the hell that is, but he reeks of bad vibes – American, but evil fuckers smell the same anywhere. Has to be a drug dealer. This sonovabitch is mumbling away and fumbling in his pocket and, hey big surprise, he pulls out the biggest stash of cocaine. He cuts himself a line longer and wider than the Hudson river. And schniffs the whole lot in one go. Jesus H Christ.
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