We've finished the tour. At times I thought it might go on forever and sometimes I thought it had ended without us and left us defending our position like a lost Japanese patrol still fighting World War II on a forgotten Pacific island.
But here we are holed up in the downtown Cleveland Holiday Inn. I ache all over and Amy's nursing a broken toe which she sustained in London, Ontario, by dropping a guitar case on her foot.
I could go through all the dates I failed to ever mention and write a memory for each one. I could also compile a roll of honour and that might go some way to thanking the people who have helped us along the way. And then I could spoil the effect (but redress the balance) by finishing off with a shit list of some of the cunts we've had to put up with.
I'd better get on with it:

10 St Louis
11th September, The Hi Tone, Memphis - seems like a year ago. We were shagged out when we got there and the first stop was a radio station where we had to perform four songs into two microphones while the DJ mixed us live through an antique mixing desk comprising four huge dials. There was no soundcheck but it worked out fine. Amy played completely acoustic and I played guitar and bass through a small guitar amp. Apparently it sounded great and we used the same method for a WXPN World Cafe session a couple of weeks later. We played Another Drive-In Saturday, Men In Sandals, The Ballad Of Easy Rider and Please Be Nice To Her.
Afterwards we went to see a friend of Amys, Ilene Markell, who plays the bass. We got talking about bass guitars as you do and when I mentioned that my dream was to own an Ampeg Portaflex bass amp she announced that she had one in the garage that was being eaten by racoons and it was mine for the taking if it was any use to me. So I swapped it for the small Ampeg bass amp I'd bought in desperation Cleveland a few days earlier. She said the small amp was perfect for playing through in the house which is all she does these days, so we were both very happy.
The soundman at the Hi Tone was good - they're all good at the Hi Tone but unfortunately it's in Memphis where half the audience think they know all about music already. So they don't need to listen, they just get on with talking about stuff. It's like playing in a municipal swimming baths during the school holidays.

12th September, The Alll Good Cafe, Dallas, Texas - we were really tired by the time we got to Dallas. The All Good Cafe is a corner cafe in a neighbourhood. It opens for breakfast and stays open till late at night. I was a bit sceptical about this one when we got there, especially as there was a happy hour country band on before us sso there was no soundcheck. But the food was great, Mike the owner was a delight, the audience rolled up and we had a great show.

13th September, Emo's, Austin, Texas - in Dallas several people advised us not to drive down to Austin because of Hurricane Ike. CNN announced that anyone venturing south was risking certain death. The risking coupled with the certainty would indicate that they didn't know what they were on about which it became clear they didn't.
We drove through some fairly heavy rain and arrived in Austin in full sunshine, just in time for lunch.
We were a bit worried that the opening act, The Box Set, wouldn't show up because they come from Beaumont and Beaumont was being evacuated. But as luck would have it they'd left a couple of days earlier so we were honoured to have Hurricane Ike evacuees opening for us, especially as they covered my old Len Bright Combo song, A Shirt Without A Heart. (I missed it because we were next door getting ready but I heard about it!)
The show was good - there were a lot of young people - in fact it was mostly young people with just a few of the elderly (by which I mean people our own age and a bit younger) dotted about. And there were loads of girls!!!
Afterwards we had breakfast at an all night diner with Robbie and Janey, the now back at home Box Set. Then we drove to Shreveport because the hotels were full of evacuees.

14th September, Houston - obviously Houston was cancelled. The promoter called us on a cellphone on the day to tell us the power was off. As far as I know it still is. Next time I hope!

16th September, The Nick, Birmingham, Alabama - at this point I started to feel quite homesick. I was wondering if I could apply John Sebastian quotes to every stop on the tour, the Birmingham one being I feel about as local as a fish in a tree. Birmingham is a dump from what I can make out. I'm sure it's got its university and other centres of er...culture, but it's out on a limb stuck in the middle of nowhere in particular and it shows.
The billboard outside the club said Eric & Amy Rigby. I know we got married but we aren't a team of dentists. I sort of like Eric Rigby - it's disturbing dependable - Eric Rigby, he's your man... But at the same time it gives me the creeps. And so did Birmingham.



The show was fine though even though people kept leaving. The handful that stayed assured us afterwards that this is absolutely normal for Birmingham, or at least for the Nick.
Earlier on, before we played, I met a creepy woman in a white suede dress who told me I talked funny - I told her I was English. 'Not my problem honey' she said and sashayed off into the bowels of the club. I ran into her again at the side of the stage just before we played. I said we couldn't possibly communicate because there was a language barrier. She took my hand and didn't seem to want to give it back. She said after a couple more tequillas we'd definitely have no trouble communicating. I retreated to the relative safety of the stage. She left after a couple of songs.
The soundman was very good though and we hung out with Adam and Tom who made a refreshing change - we even talked about In C by Terry Riley amongst other things.

17th September, The Star Bar, Atlanta GA - I always enjoy being in Atlanta. We stayed with our good friend Clay Harper. The bass amp had started to play up and Clay spent large parts of the day convincing me that it was OK, not malfunctioning in any way, it was just a one off thing in Alabama. Basically Clay doesn't like the repair man. And after I'd talked to him on the phone neither did I. As we unloaded the amp from the back of the van I almost dropped my end when Clay said in a southern hick voice 'hmmm...this looks like raccoon damage to me.'
Gentleman Jesse was supposed to play with us but he was beaten up and mugged in Little Five Points a couple of nights before. He came to the show even though he was having reconstructive surgery for a broken nose the next morning. They hit him across the face with a board - any harder and they would have killed him. I hope he's better now. He's got a new album out and he had to cancel a load of shows.
The set went well and during Men In Sandals Clay's brother Mark was moved to take off his shoes and clap them abother his head. He remains unrepentant about his terrible lapses in the dress code area but he's Mark so we'll forgive him.
The bass amp kept cutting out of course - it behaved perfectly during the soundcheck but as soon as there were people it fucked up. I saw Jim Johnson in the audience, he's always wanted to play in a band with me so he became the Celebrity Bass Amp Whacker for the night. After two bass songs someone bought him a chair and he sat behind the amp all night, whacking it every time it cut out. By the end he was getting quite good at it.

18th September Grimey's Record Store, Nashville - Grimey himself told us we were the loudest band they've ever had do an in store there. They had Metallica a couple of weeks previously so we're very proud of ourselves. It was a good turn out and refreshing for a place like Nashville because people actually came to hear us so we rocked out for them between the racks of vinyl. Probably the best sort of show we could have done in Nashville.
We saw Joe Ely do a solo set later that night. He was fantastic - powerful and moving. Most of the audience talked all the way through it of course because it was Nashville so everyone's making contacts and talking themselves up. Like in Memphis - they don't know about music because they never listen to it.
Anyway, we were in a slightly removed position to the side of the stage so we were able to blot out the chatterers. Joe Ely made us cry.

I'm just going to post this as it is for now or I never will. Hopefully I'll follow it up with some sort of account of the rest of the tour - assuming that anyone's interested that is. We're home now, very tired and sick of seeing You Tube clips of ourselves. But more about that later.

I don’t want to hear that stuff - a band should always strive to give the impression that they arrived in a space craft. Unless they’re a blues band, and then I want to know that they arrived in a Bedford van having spent the night in a lay-by, sleeping in ex-army sleeping bags on top of the amplifiers. The only band I've ever witnessed transgressing rule number three was a Brighton band called The Electric Soft Parade. Their frontman said yeah cheers so often I lost count. The Electric Soft Parade weren't very good. The Dykeenies were but the singer said cheers after the first three numbers so I gave up. Actually that’s not quite true - I was getting cold and I had to go and get organised for my cameo appearance.

I don't know what to say about The Proclaimers shows without sounding corny, trite or bland. Someone who isn't reading this carefully might leave under the impression that I'm using those adjectives to describe The Proclaimers but I'm not - they could never be any of those. So I have to resort to fabulous, fantastic, they went out with a bang etc...
I've probably said it all already anyway. Erika Nockalls played the violin on Sunshine On Leith wearing a green satin frock. I played my green Microfret guitar on Whole Wide World. So there was a bit of colour co-ordination - a matching his 'n' hers Eric section.
Anyway, they were talking about getting together to record a new album beginning next March. I can hardly wait.

There's loads more to talk about but if I start on that I'll get bogged down in it so I think I'll stop now and put this on the site without finishing it off...