Saturday 28th December 2002
Resistance
The Big Joint, Glasgow, Scotland

New Years Eve
Together As One
Los Angles Sports Arena, Los Angeles, USA

First of all, a Happy Nude Year to one and all and to everyone, a Happy New Year.

Christmas was such a wonderful event this year readers, especially for the missus's little fella.

I dressed up as Santa and woke the 3 1/2 yr old tinker up at 5:30am Xmas morning.

Sitting on his bed and putting his little lamp on, he awoke and rubbed his eye's and looked in shock as he saw Santa sitting on his bed. Exchanged a few words, Merry Xmas, a kiss and gave him a stocking with little sweeties in, awww. His face was a picture.

Xmas Day was spent constructing wrestling rings, Star Wars spaceships, a minature snooker table, racing car things and playing with Star Wars toys and wrestling figures, whilst little Tom played with his toys, ha ha.

I also got a paper shredding machine and 2 pot noodles.

Party Time:
Resistance - The Big Joint, Glasgow, Scotland

Saturday 28th was the final Resistance in Glasgow, Scotland. Hired a little mini-bus and 12 of us trundled up, merrily drinking all the way.

Cant remember what time we arrived at The Big Joint. Haston & Bouncemaster were playing a squeaky new style set, and the main room was already jam packed, loud, hot & smokey! Ratchet (the missus) had a poopy bottom and we spent a lot of time outside the ladies toilet so she didn't have far to go to release the hounds. Says hello's etc to the regular zillions of faces.

It was far too hot in the main room so we spent most of the time in the bar or upstairs in the oldskool room. Small quaint room, with a nice array of candles in front of the decks. Disaster struck as Primal-T was playing as the amps blew up, probably due to the condensation from the roof dripping on them. This was sorted out fairly quickly and the party continued.

I played next after Primal T, think it was 9:40 - 10:40 (yeah, an hour set at last !!). I don't really play too fast & industrial at Resistance as it is a mixed crowd of techno/new style/gabber/hardcore heads so as to keep the Dancefloor full. Started with the Smurf Song with the Bass D/RTC Lost Zehn kick drum track over the top and played a set of mostly mid tempo (200 - 220 BPM) French hardcore, Radium, Micropoint sort of style & Deathchants Technological Terror Crew's Swearcore for good measure, getting faster towards the end with Shatter etc. Scott Brown & Neophyte emerged around 15 minutes before the end of my set. Scott shaking his head at the tempo, ha ha. Mr Brown played next (in place of the incredible missing man, Loftgroover), an oldskool Rez bouncy techno set.

I wasn't drinking too much, coz Im professional don't you know, and by this time I was really sweating with all the head banging, jumping around and the heat of the main room, and had to drag ma record bag upstairs to play an oldskool techno set. Another hour set (whoopee). Played hard oldskool techno, sort of style that Joey Beltram/CJ Bolland/Dave Angel used to play in 1992-94. May of been a bit too hard as the rest were playing the usual oldskool sets of SMD, Edge 1 etc & Scottish Hardcore. Some mad Irish lad dancing in front of the decks, getting wax drippings from the candle's and trying to put them on the records?!

Proceeded to drink lots now and dotted around the place before playing a back 2 back set with Boony at the end in the oldskool room, playing all his prime cheese records. Don't remember much about this. Think I was MCing aswell.

Excellent night, really busy. Nice cross-section of hard clubbers out for a PARTY, no people moaning about not being hard enough, too hard etc.

Slept all the way back and went home for a couple of hours sleep before packing my bags for Los Angels and going over to the miss's.

Los Angeles Report:

Monday morning came to quick and headed to the airport for the 12:50 flight to Amsterdam. Got my money changed, checked in, had some lunch and said my goodbyes to the wife & family and boarded the bat.

50 minute flight to Amsterdam wasn't too bad. Clocks go forward 1 hour. 2 hour wait for the next flight to Minniapolis, so downed a few beers, had a weasel and a poozar. Usual questions at US customs when leaving, where you going? whats your name? Wher you from? What you on? Who you staying with? Have you farted? How long you there for? Why are foreheads called foreheads when you only have one? Have you been near any farms recently etc

Onto the plane and off we go on the 8hr 30 flight to Minneapolis. Checking the video screen and the flight goes back over the North Sea and almost over Newcastle again, bahh, missing the wife already.

In-flight movie was Scooby Doo, some documentary about Jennifer Anistoat, and a behind the scene's look at Baseball or Homo Rugby (American Football). Couldn't find the socket to put me headphones in, so just drank and eat with a little sleep, banging me head occasionally on the window when nodding off.

Arrived in Minneapolis, re-check in me bags. Clocks go backwards 6 hours I think, so now its evening in the US and late night/early morning in the UK. 3 hours or so to wait, so done a bit shopping and found a seat in a nice little bar in the airport near the departure lounge. Forget the name of it. Befriend the bartender, Dale and a couple of travellers. One being a soldier on his way to Stuttgart, who was already quite drunk. Ordered a nice pint of Bud, and got taught some local sayings, "You betcha" and others I cant remember, whilst I taught a few people to say "Whey aye man". Nice pint of some red lager next, forget the name, but nice. Noticed all around the bar there were different currencies (bank notes). Plenty of Scottish 5'ers & Pound Notes, but no English cash, so I gave Dale a 10'er and he stuck it on the wall. Exchanged a few jokes about the Queen and Royal Family. Glancing at the spirit bottles I notice a whiskey called 'Knob Creek'. I ask if its OK to take a photo. "Whey Aye man" said the bar-lady.

The soldier said he would buy me a shot of it, which he did, quite nice like, drank it slowly to savour the taste. More beers. Various drunk & weird people came and went, while people stayed and watched some college homo rugby. Asked Dale to put some wrestling on and he said to go to Iowa because they all like it there.

Canny drunk now and it was soon time for the next flight to Los Angels, wasn't sure how to tip the bartender, so I said I was going to the toilet and didn't come back, naughty. But hey, I gave him a 10'er for his wall!

4 hour flight to Los Angeles (clocks go back 2 hours), arriving shortly before midnight LA time. Walked up to the baggage area, greeted by Boony who had arrived earlier in the day. As usual, my bags were among the last out.

Outside to meet up with Dimitri (Demigod - our tour guide), Jappo & Marco (guitar played from Lethal Insanity PA) and drove to the hotel. Quite fascinating see big American cars and street signs. One which caught our eye, Exposition (Exposure) Blvd, ha ha. The Kings of Exposure had arrived!

Gets to our Hotel, which is very posh.

Rooms sorted, excellent, with a suite, and big bedroom, 2 bathrooms, mini-bar (3 dollars for a Marathon bar of chocolate, 6 dollars for a small packet of Pringles. Beer was very expensive, (but still drank it), Televisions with video & internet. Nice view out of the window of the hotel swimming pool, nice. This is the life eh?

Bed time, and I gets the king-size double bed, while Boony sleeps on the sofa bed in the living room suite, and Jappo & Marco have there own smaller room down the hall. Couldn't really sleep as the air conditioning machine was loud, then just as I got off the daft alarm clock went of at 4am, then again at 4:20. Unplugged the forker.

9am and Jappo bursts through the door and we go and wake up the Boon and start preparing for the day, by having a beer from the mini-bar. I have a poo poo.

By the time we are up, bags emptied etc we've missed breakfast, so Me & the Boon and decide to go for a walk outside to get some food, we;re I strangely become fascinted with one of those water hydrants...

Nice wheather, around 20 degrees. Down from the hotel and around the corner, we come to a massive street full of shops (Downtown LA). Nice we think. As we walk along we notice that everyone on the street are Spanish/Mexican. Most of the shops are clothes shops, not bad, and lots of fast food places. We find a place and have a couple of hotdogs. Very nice, much nicer than the crappy UK hotdogs! Don't taste nowt like them at all. Down some red bull's to wake us up a bit for the long day ahead and walk back to the hotel.

Few more beers from the mini-bar, must be costing us a small fortune now. Dimitri (the man who sleeps when he's awake) arrives mid afternoon and we take a taxi to the venue for the party to set up Jappo's Lethal Insanity live show.

PARTY TIME 2:
Together As One - Los Angeles Sports Arena - Los Angeles, USA

Together Arena
Armand Van Helden (US), Marco Carola (It), DJ Funk (US), Steve Loria (US), DJ Reza & Lenny V (US), Dave Colman & Sensi (US), Raul Campos (US)

Jungle & Hip Hop Arena
Adam F (UK), Reid Speed (US), Deacon (US), Machette (US), DJ Tao (US), SDF-I (US)

Hardcore Arena
Lethal Insanity (PA) (It), Jappo (It), Smurf (UK), Omar Santana (US), Ron D Core (US), Nico & Tetta (It), Demigod (US), Dutchboy (US), Lost Boy (US), Diehard (US), Eon (US)

Megaclub
Irene, Grant Plant, Thomas Micheal, Swedish Egil, DJ Ruff, Thee-O, Cristos, Beetlejuice

Website

The party (Together As One) is in a huge Sports Arena about 10 minutes from the hotel. We get in, people are setting up. I check out the toilets so I know where to go if I get a poopy botty. The main arena is huge, with pretty visuals & lights being tested. Lots of little stalls dotted around the place. Various clothes stalls, glow rods for sale and a mad massage place with a vibrating foot massager too.

The hardcore room is alongside the main room, quite big, with a small H2OH records stall/hut set up in the middle, and a mad keyhole thing between 2 pillars. Sound engineer is setting up and the sound system sounds pretty loud & clear.

The mixer, CD deck & turntable haven't arrived to set up the live show, so we sort some things out with the promoter while he finds the necessary bits & bobs while we go back to the hotel.

Couple of beers and James & Maggie arrive, our guides for the evening. Nice people.

The party kicks off at 5:30, finishing at 4:30, se we leave around 7:30 as Im due to play at 8:30. The cue outside is huge, must be around 2,000 people there. Luckily we have to go through a separate VIP entrance, sort our wristbands out etc and try to get in quickly as possible as we are running a bit late. More delays as various security guards are fascinated with Me & Boony's accents and kept asking us to say things, ha ha, not that they could understand much what we were saying anyways!

Its around 8:15 now so I dash in. The main arena is already quite busy and I dodge past scantily clad oriental girls, cyberkids with silver egg boxes stuck to them, an array of glow-sticks & boys with Angel wings on there backs.

Te hardcore is pretty full too, with people jumping around to DJ Dutchboy who was playing some pounding new-style, not to squeaky, but nice Dancefloor tunes, with filtered kicks. Met the stage manager (forget name) who asked if I was from Newcastle, coz that's his favourite drink (Newcastle Brown Ale), whey aye man, never knew you could get it in LA. No backstage beers so I grabbed a bottle of water, plonked my record bag down and changed into my 'KISS YOUR FUCKIN EARS GOODBYE' T-shirt, stood up and the front rows of the crowd gave out a cheer and a few whistles. Informed by the Dutchboy that things were running 15 minutes late, which I was pleased about coz it gave me time to settle down after all the dashing about.

Jappo & the Boonster arrived a few minutes later. I told Jappo to watch the people's faces when I dropped my first track. Dutchboy finished with a cheesy female vocal track. Crossfader didn't work, which I find really annoying along with 45 minute sets, and the channel faders were quite long, so chopping & things were pretty difficult, especially for me small hands (but don't let that put you off ladies, and small hands get into tight knickers).

Kicked off with Goat of Mendez on Praxis, the heavy metal inside track. Some shocked confused looks as people slowly got into it and nodding there heads. I played a lot of UK hardcore (Hammer Damage, Matt Green, Deathchant(!) etc) as I do when playing out of the UK, and Radium style French hardcore, more noisier & faster stuff towards the end, finishing of with Shitter and the customary pretend poo'ing antics. Monitors were loud and could be volume could be adjusted by the mixer. They were well bassy and sounded distorted once the tempo increased. I played for 1hr 30 mins as Nico & Tetta (Traxtorm) didn't make it, and James (driver from before) took over for 30 minutes, with his friend (who was excellent at scratching). I didn't catch much of them as I went in search of beers, but what I did here sounded cool, some classic gabba including 'AEIOU'.

The hardcore crowd

Went off in search of beer. The beer vendor was in the main room, so queued for about 10 minutes for 2 pints of Miller (5 dollars each). The music was pretty poor, sounded like 2 step garage/house, dunno who was playing. Found Jappo who tells me there are beer tokens at the gate for me. MINT.

Found the Boon and went back outside to get the tokens. Had trouble getting out coz my photo wasn't on some list (the photo I gave them was of me in my girlfriends thong). The wife couldn't understand what I was saying anyway so let us out! I go up to the little hut, ask a wifey for the tokens. "Oh my god, say that again, you gotta keep talking", ha. Another accent addict. They didn't have them so we had to go up to another gate where we got the wristbands. This guy didn't have them and told me to go see the stage manager for the room I was in, bahh. Found him, and he told me to go to the gate again, bahh. So in the end, didn't have any free beer tokens, Whelks.

I needed a poo but the queue's for the bogs were long, so kept it in.

It was around 10:45 now so we only had 1hr 15 minutes to get drunk before New Year. Queued for more booze, 2 pints each and a Jack Daniels & cola (15 dollars). Downed them, more booze, back into the hardcore room. Jappo was playing and this is the first time I'd heard him play without being drunk, haha. I must say he was really good, mixing was spot on and scratching superb. Playing 200 - 250 BPM, finishing off with the likes of DOA, Extreme Terror etc. Nice. Crowd loved the classics.

Dimitri arrived with his missus Sandra, who had been at a New Year party in Orson Wells's old house.

The stage manager gave me a huge bottle of champagne to open at midnight. At around 11:50 I couldn't hold in my poo poo no more and decided to go to the toilet now, as it was sure to be empty. No toilet roll, so I skipped along to the other side of the arena and found a cleaner toilet with toilet roll. As I sat down, I head the countdown outside, 5-4-3-2-1 and I let off a massive pump and severely released the hounds at Midnight. Incedently, I done the same thing last New Years, on the toilet again at Fantasy Island. I was all wiped and freshened up by 12:10 and went back to the hardcore room. Boony had opened the champagne, which went all over the wall and floor, so I had to down the dregs in the bottom. Said Happy New Years to all the folk around and went for more beers. We spent the rest of the night walking round, drinking, doing silly dancing in the main room, stepping over sleeping people and dodging the boys wearing Angel wings.

Caught a bit of Ron D Core who was playing some nice pacey hardcore

and a bit of Omar Santana who was playing Ruffneck sounding hardcore, with a microphone on accompanied by an MC.

Boony managed to scare away to girls who he was talking too by downing a shot of Jack Daniels "I'll show you how we drink in Scotland by the way". Saw a lad in a Newcastle Utd away football top, nice.

Jappo couldn't do the Lethal Insanity PA coz there were problems with the mixer. Shame really, especially for Marco (guitar played) who had come all this way for nothing

No matter how much we drunk we couldn't really get pissed, dunno why. On our travels we ended up outside where the drum & bass room was. This looked good, big tree's and a big stage, didn't stay out there to long.

Found a small VIP room with crisps & things. Munched on them and amused the big old black guy on the door for a while before going for another poo. Apparently there was another big VIP room behind the main stage, which we never found.

The bar closed at 2, so we were bored after that and left around 2:45. We left via an escalator which took us upstairs and there were some other rooms up there.

Found out later the Armand Van Helden got paid 16,000 dollars ! Apparently he smelt and he couldn't mix.

Back in bed for 3:30am ! The earliest on a New Years Eve for many many years. I enjoyed the party (despite no free beer <8-) ) and had a good laugh. Respects to all the people I talked to who enjoyed my set - see you all in March hopefully.

New Years day and we all wake up without a hangover. Watched the Jackass movie on the TV, very good, especially the bit where they stick a toy car up there bum, ha ha. Nice day outside so we go out for some food. Had a couple of jumbo hot dogs next to an outdoor ice skating ring. Watched kids & adults fall down for a bit before venturing into Downtown LA again to find a shop that sold beer. All 7-11 & liquor stores were closed, but all the clothes shops were open. I did purchase a canny top from one place. We must of walked round this huge & scary area fro about an hour, past crazy beggars with no legs, mad people shouting stuff at invisible people in the street, some guy lying on the ground with a sing saying 'Ive Got Aids, please give me some money'. 100s of weirdo's!

By this time I was in need of a poo poo. Found a McDonalds, which had no toilets, so we walked back to the hotel. On they way it got too much as I had a turtle's head popping out and was seriously touching cloth. I emptied the plastic bag my new top was in and gave it to Jappo and had to shte into a little corner in the street. Jappo was creased up laughing, haha. What a relief. It felt so nice, ahhh. Had to wipe ma bot on a piece of magazine paper that was lying on the ground. Back at the hotel I finished of wiping my bum and had a nice shower.

Dimitri was asleep, so we were stuck with nowt to do and watched Red Dragon, the new Hannibal movie. The TV had a bad picture so we called the repair man, Ray, who said it must be the tape and we wouldn't be charged for the film, nice. 10 minutes after he left, the movie went off, right near the end. Whelk.

Still no Dimitri so we watched about 3 hours of the US version of Blind Date. They just get 2 people together and send them on a date. A 35 yr old woman was on, false wabs and more plastic than a life size Barbie doll. She was having a meal with a bloke and after a few minutes said "you know your not going home tonight", right tart like. Then there swapping spit and almost humping in a hot tub, ha ha.

Dimitri - The man who sleeps when he's awake

Eventually Dimitri arrives and takes us up into Hollywood. By this time its dark so we cant really see much. Park up and go along Hollywood & Sunset Boulevards, along the street with the stars and handprints.

Glenn Miller (who Im named after, another great musician, ha ha)

Stan Laurel (My Hero and role model)

Peter Sellers (Inspector Crusoe in the The Pink Panter films)
  

Marillon Munroe's handprints

We wanted to see the Hollywood sign, but the floor of the mall with the view of it was closed form some reason, bahh.

Me & Charlie Chaplin....

Had a look round a few shops and a fancy shopping mall with bonny lights.

Back in the jeep and we head into Beverly Hills to see all the mad mansions where the stars live. Not much to see as its dark, but we did go past the entrance to the Playboy mansion, which was up some long driveway. Tried to find Britney's house to knock on her door to see if she wanted to have a party.

Went passed a few more sightseeing spots including the Viper Rooms where River Phoenix was it died and I think we passed the toilet where George Michael tried to bot a Policeman.

Hunger kicked in and we stopped off at a hamburger joint called Fatburger.

Had a lush burger, lots of fillings, nice. The need for beer was now apparent, so we headed off to an Irish bar, but we couldn't get in coz I had no ID, bahh.

Found another bar round the corner, no bouncer on the door, straight to the bar and notice they have Newcastle Brown Ale on the menu. I say Im from Newcastle and its my local drink, but they don't have it. The bartender tells me to send some over when I get home. We were in desperate need of cider for snakebites, but that also was off. Cant remember what we ordered, but had a fair few !

Smurf, Boony, Dimitri, Elsie, Jappo, Marco in the bar.

Stopped at a garage on the way back to the hotel and bought a crate of Bud Ice.

Passed out at some point in the hotel on a chair.

Next morning was my last full day in LA, so we had planned to leave the hotel early and go to Universal Studio's to watch a live TV show, if anything was on, or go round the studio's theme park area.

Around 11am we headed down to the hotel pool. really hot day, so got in a bit sunbathing.

Placed some cans of bud in the pool to keep them cool.

Sunny Smurf

Boony was sunbathing in his jeans, Caterpillar boots & black T-shirt, ha ha. Eventually he took his top off to reveal 3 ginger hairs on his chest and underarm hair resembling Scott Browns pony tail.

AVI file of Boony sunbathing

Realsied my toes looked like they were dancing when I moved them.

AVI of my incredible dancing toes

Placed the beers in some ice and chilled in and around the pool before the sun disappeared behind a long building around 2pm.

Jappo says hello by the pool

Dimitri was in bed again, so we didn't get out till mid afternoon. We headed for Santa Monica/Venice on the coast. We got dropped off at McDonalds and went up this long promenade of canny shops, Done a bit shopping for the wife, knickers, top & matching woolly hats and got a canny Goonies "Hey You Guys" T-shirt for meself.

Poo time again.

I think there's something wrong with my guts.

Walking up the street of shops, there was this crazy fat tramp sitting on a seat with a walkman on, He was going mad listening to something swaying around. I burst out laughing and had to sit down, crying, haha, it was so funny.

A mad dinosaur statue in the street

Back to meet Dimitri and we go have a walk down onto the pier, where there's a big fairground, but no pubs, but a strange SMURRF sign..

More beer is in order so we get back in the motor to find a bar. On the way we pass Hooters, and we must visit there. Park up and head towards it. It was really busy with some homo rugby match on, but luckily there is a British bar called Brittany opposite. We go in on a snakebite mission, and whay hey, they have Strongbow.

Several snakebites & blackcurrant all round and even a minature bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale.

We even get talking to someone from Glasgow as we sat outside the bar.

Dimitri has a wee wee (Dimtwee) "Its OK, I do it all the time in England"

We're all pretty drunk now and Jappo reaches out and grabs a passing traffic cone...

Slept the rest of the way back to the hotel and crashed out for the night, as I had to be up at 6:30 for my flight back home.

The 6:30 wakeup call came to early and I clattered around the room, getting my things together, said goodbye to the sleeping monsters in the room and took a cab to the airport. The driver was a crazy Chinese man who told me to ignore the meter because it was free to me. Dunno why like.

Luggage check in and an hour or so to wait so started reading Mr Nice, Howard Marks' book (big international drug smuggler), not really appropriate for air travel like if I was spotted reading it!

AVI file of leaving LAX Airport   and Another

Another 4 hour flight to Minneapolis. Looking out the window noticed all the snow and lakes that were ice'd over. Read for a while, had brekkie and slept.

Clock forward 2 hours which is nice as it was getting closer to UK time of 10am when I will be back and with the wife & little'un again, yeah !

Went to the bar to see if Dale was in, but he wasn't. 1 hour in Minneapolis before the 9 hour flight back to Amsterdam. Slept most of the way so it went over pretty quick. Clocks forward 9 hours, getting close now!. Done a bit more shopping, chocolates, jumper, toy aeroplane for little Tom. Read some more before boarding the flight to the Toon at last.

Sat on the place an hour before it took off while frost was cleared of the wings and another time slot allocated. Eventually arriving back in Newcastle around 11:15 am on Saturday 4th, to be greeted by my lovely patch & her little one, Tom. Nice.

I had a great time in LA, but it was nice to be back. Not nice to be back to snow, ice & cold, brrrrr!

Many thanks to Dimitri for looking after us (when he was awake!), Sandra, James & Maggie, the hotel staff, Dale, all the bartenders, everyone I spoke to at the party.

SMURF