Notes from the Boneyard: Home away from home

by Mark McCausland

Mission accomplished.

In the past couple of days I’ve had the honour of being stabbed and beaten to death with a frying pan.

Luckily the stunt man was there to take the brunt of it, while all I merely had to do was watch my grizzly demise on a monitor before playing dead on the floor for my close up. Lots of waiting around in-between.

I filled that time by leaving the film set along with the designer to fetch props and refreshments. After the shoot we all went to the local pub, where a ping pong tournament was taking place and the Guinness was surprisingly good.

The next day I met with my record label buddy who is releasing an upcoming record I made with two friends from Tucson and Portland, collectively calling ourselves The Geckøs. He brought along a test pressing of the Geckøs vinyl for me, and we parted ways at the train station before I hopped on a train to Liverpool, my old home.

As usual I took an evening walk around the city, visiting some old haunts: My old rehearsal room, an apartment I once lived in, and Ye Crack pub – where John Lennon used to frequently skip school.

Walking up Bold Street I heard The Kinks come blaring out from a bar jukebox, and for a few moments I wished I was 20 again. For some reason music always sounds way better in Liverpool.

Back in the hotel room I was trying to get some sleep, but The Adelphi walls are cheap. The people in the next room were going at it all night long.

Luckily I was exhausted enough to find slumber through the racket, and woke up refreshed, in time for a couple of mid-morning coffee meetings. Then as the day proceeded and the people changed, the drinks also changed from coffee to beer.

By evening I had assembled a crew of compadres.

We got invited to the Jac, where The Farm were doing a secret gig.

Twenty or more years ago, when I first moved to Liverpool, The Jac is where we played every Thursday at the open mic night. That’s where we were noticed, and got introduced to Alan Wills, who immediately signed us to his record label, commenting that we were either the best thing he’d ever heard in his life, or the worst thing he’d ever heard in his life.

It was a funny moment to be back in the same room all these years later, with some of the same people.

The line between dreams and reality was becoming blurry as the night wore on. We eventually found ourselves in Woodys, a dive bar we used to attend due to their late hours and cheap drinks. It was still very much the same, but also extremely different.

The Tom Waits covers band we used to jam with until 4am was now replaced with a karaoke machine.

The musicians and down-and-outs were replaced with fresh-faced students, posing for selfies for their Instagram posts.

The music was being drowned out by lots of loud talking and yelling, but nobody was actually saying anything.

The drinks, thankfully, were still the exact same price as they were 20 years ago.

Someone grabbed my hat, placed it on their head and took a selfie before giving it back and dancing into the crowd. That did it. It was time to go. Slumber was waiting for me back at The Adelphi.

A few hours later, the morning attacked me without a warning. The fun was over. Time to haul myself outta there to catch my flight home, where I will now roost for the next month, and prepare for an upcoming tour, in Spain, with The Geckøs.