Friday, February 28
2003: Shanghai
We arrive in Shanghai at about lunchtime after a long, boring flight
- despite sleeping tablets I could not rest. I was, however, lucky
enough to win the tombola massage on the plane and enjoyed a brief
backrub. Maybe it was because I was the only person still awake in upper
class.
The flight seemed to drag on forever and after about seven hours I
fell off the wagon by drinking a bottle of annoyingly chilled red wine
and complaining to the poor steward about it continually. You see, I
hate flying. I am not scared of dying, it's just that I tend to get
bored, drink too much and make a show of myself.
Recently, on the way back from Toronto, I washed down Valium with
three bottles of Margaux and half a bottle of XO, and passed out
watching Twenty-Four Hour Party People. When I awoke, breakfastless, I
was told by an embarrassed "trolley dolly" that I had exposed
myself. I had Peter Bucked it. Luckily, they didn't handcuff me to the
chair and I was free to go home and punish myself for the next few days.
I had no preconceptions about China when we were asked by the British
Council to do the tour. At this stage in our career we have seen a lot
of the western world and had made repeated requests to our booking
agent, Peter, to send us to some of the places we never get to go. In
most cases we soon realise why we have never been sent. Shanghai is
different. What a super city, mixing Soviet-style buildings, huge
skyscrapers and colonial architecture. It's full of Volkswagen Santanas
from the local factory and the place reminds me of Mexico City - it's
probably the taxi drivers and the smog. We spend a few hours in bed at
the Westin Hotel, which is close to the centre of all things modern and
commercial. Across the river Huangpu, you can see a space needle and the
new "Special Economic Zone". On this side of the river are
many shops and fast-food chains, with a statue of Mao the only visible
reminder of Shanghai's Communist lost weekend.
Our evening is spent well. We are invited to enjoy a
"casual" Shanghainese buffet with Jim, the British Council's
boss in the city, and after a delicious meal venture to a Blade
Runner-style cocktail bar across the street. To get in, I have to stick
my fist into various illuminated tubes until I have the right code and
the big steel door slides open, allowing access to what looks like a
dimly lit underground car park. We sit at low tables enjoying cold
beverages until we need to use the tricky toilets which have knobs on
the hinged side of the door. We can't open them and assume they are
locked. We stand around confused until a customer comes and reveals the
sneaky setup.
We sit and chat for a while with some local creatives and discover
that Morcheeba, translated into Chinese means "touch the
dick". This appeals and we sit around repeating it until we walk up
the street to the ex-pat pubs. We are out most of the night,
experiencing the joys of Village People, cigarette lighters in every
guise, lecherous old divorcees and prostitutes trying to shag-haggle.
Saturday, March 1: Shanghai
This morning is shopping time, so we catch an 80p taxi to a mall full
of micro-sized computer retailers and don't buy anything. We then get a
taxi to a road we call Pepsi Street because of advertising banners for
the drink that flutter from every post. We discover an amazing market
where, after the most melodramatic bargaining, we walk away with the
mandatory fake bags, watches and sportswear which is so well made, it
looks just as bad as the real thing.
In the evening I decide it is time to head to the Uigar quarter,
where I have read in my guidebook that it may be possible to score some
hash. The biggest hurdle is asking directions from the concierge without
referring to the ganja. The Uigar (pronounced Weeg-Yur) are from
north-west China and members of the Turkic people, who speak a form of
Turkish. A few of us finally manage to get a taxi to a kebab stand
behind a cheap hotel in the middle of nowhere and try our luck. If
arrested, we will claim we were after "has shish" kebabs. The
man with the meat has the funniest high-pitched voice I have ever heard
and could easily have been a Peter Sellers character; he introduces
himself as Georgy Bush and asks us for our address and phone number
which we obviously refuse to disclose.
After scouting the area we return to the same spot and strike green!
I ask a shady-looking man if he has any hashish and he starts to haggle.
Eventually I score some and we jump in a cab and get the hell out of
Dodge. Paranoia strikes all the way back to the hotel but it is worth
the worry, because the adrenaline and the weed give me a distinctive
buzz.
Tomorrow we fly to Chongqing where we will play our first show.
Monday, April 3: Chongqing
At the risk of upsetting 39 million Chinese and about 20 Europeans, I
find Chongqing awful. It is a fast-growing city on the Yangtze and
Jialing rivers where people seem to eat anything if it has enough chilli
on it. It smells and feels very dirty. It is strange to be stared at
continually and given the fact their English matches our Chinese, it is
difficult to find anything more fulfilling to do but sit in my hotel
room and make music on my laptop.
We take the British Council up on its offer of a trip to some hot
springs in the mountains where we take a dip in strange swimming pools
full of warm water. It is very pleasant and after our swim we ask for a
massage. What we don't know is that the massage girls are hookers and we
all receive bad, brisk back rubs. Still it is good to be in the
mountains, to get a feel of rural China and witness some Buddhist monks
chanting and playing drums in a nearby temple.
Tuesday, April 4: Chongquing
Our second day in Chongquing begins with a press conference. We have
no fans in China as yet and are clearly not appearing due to public
demand. We [the band] are asked only a few questions "What do we
think of the little girl who won eight Grammys?" [Norah Jones];
"If we are one of Britain's funkiest bands (as the press release
says), how come we have never won any funky awards?" We giggle our
way through the experience, as they are more interested in the Spice
Girls and David Beckham.
It will be good when we actually get to play some music and
communicate in the only way we can manage. After the show I am to
perform a DJ set at a local bar.
We have just played our first show in China. There was a crowd of
about 8,000 and they bloody loved it. It took place at the local
university "in a light drizzle". Things seemed to be going
well until Skye [Edwards, the singer] asked the crowd to move forward.
They were being kept at a distance by a strong police presence who had
made their power felt earlier by pulling the plug on ours. I thought we
were going to get crushed when the audience surged forward and raced the
stage.
After the show we are taken to the club where I am due to DJ. We are
ushered into one bar where we are told to wait while the manager of the
club prepares. The first bar is interesting. There are girls wearing
leather underwear and matching second-world-war flying goggles dancing
provocatively on a stage. Then I am told that the manager is ready and I
am marched by the local DJ into a tacky nightclub, through a sea of
businessmen and sexy young girls. I am given the royal treatment, the
staff lined up all the way to the turntables - although they aren't
turntables but CD players. After sussing out that there is no way I will
be playing my backbreakingly heavy box of records, I walk to my hotel
and listen to some Kate and Anna [McGarrigle]. I am not having a good
time in Chongqing and I don't care how politically correct you are, I
wouldn't come back if it meant a lifetime supply of free insurance
cover.
Friday, March 7: Beijing
We are met by cameramen and reporters at the airport and we are
treated like superstars. At the hotel they have rolled out the red
carpet and present us with flowers. The largest Holiday Inn in the
world, the Lido comes with its own Starbucks, a supermarket and five
restaurants. My favourite eatery is the Tex-Mex place where they have
Chinese cowboys and a supervisor with a sheriff's badge.
On day two, we venture to the Great Wall, which is the one trip I
have been waiting for. It does not disappoint. Standing on top of a
mountain with the wall running as far as I can see in either direction
is far out. It's narrower than I imagined. Surrounded by snowcapped
peaks, it's the perfect antidote to the dirty cities we have been
trapped in recently. Unfortunately, we are harassed continually by
"village people" selling postcards and beer. They are so small
it is tempting to pick them up and throw them over the wall to get some
peace.
We got up to the wall by cable car but have to go down again by
toboggan. There is a large bobsleigh run with small black steel trolleys
equipped with handbrakes and some safety rules. We all take turns and
shoot down the chute, screaming all the way to the base.
Saturday, March 8: Beijing
Today we regroup and go to a sunny Tiananmen Square full of tourists.
It seems so peaceful that it is hard to imagine the bloodshed it has
seen. For some reason, the authorities soon clear us out, so we enter
the Forbidden City. After a couple of massive crowded courtyards I get
bored, jump in a cab and go to Hongqaio market where I have fun
haggling.
We perform our first Beijing show that night at nine. It is a success
and afterwards we go and get drunk. Later, walking up the strip by our
hotel, a couple of us decide to window-shop for women. There are many
guises for brothels here and hairdressers have beds in the back of their
shops and stay open until 2am. The streetwalkers are pretty ugly, so we
enter a massage parlour and inquire about the girls on offer. With a
puzzled look the madam calls them out and they all come jogging to
reception in matching old-school Adidas tracksuits with name badges. It
is a legitimate treatment centre and we run out laughing, drunken tails
between our legs.
When I get in I am pretty out of it and call home to speak to my
lovely wife. She is waiting for the doctor to call back; she is feeling
terrible and has passed some blood and mysterious matter. I fall into
bed and pass out.
Sunday, March 9: Beijing
Waking up, I am filled with a sense of doom. I should jack in this
rock'n'roll touring for good and spend more time with my kids and their
mum. Missing them gets harder every day and the short-term highs
available don't cut it anymore. After running away and joining the
circus I am sick of the travelling and performing and the worst thing
is, I'm always stuck with myself when I arrive.
Sitting in my room indulging in self-pity, I get a phone call from my
wife to tell me that she has had a miscarriage. We had no idea that she
could have been pregnant as I have not really been home that often. I
was even on tour when her waters broke last September, prior to our
daughter's birth. Tomorrow we fly back to Shanghai then on to Guangzhou
and Shenzen and then a journey to Hong Kong by car before I fly to Perth
in Australia where I meet my family for a brief holiday before the
Australasian tour commences.
It's not all glamour.
Morcheeba play Somerset House, London, on August 6 (sold
out) and appear at the V2003 festival on August 16th/17th. The album
Parts of the Process is out on Warner Music.
