I’m currently in bed in a hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona. The last few days have been pretty extreme. The SXSW festival was great but predictably unhinged, given the personnel combination of local friends and an international selection of reprobate drinkers. The journey here was a total fuck-up thanks to the breath-taking incompetence of www.edreams.com (avoid at all costs), and I arrived on Wednesday night feeling shattered. After meeting up with my (excellent) new American band mates on Thursday morning for two hours’ rehearsal, we hammered out three shows, and one more on Friday. I also got to see The Hold Steady, The Van Pelt and Adam from Two Gallants – a pretty awesome haul, in my opinion.

Saturday was a day off for me, and so the party got started in earnest. In the end I really want to blame it all on Fake Problems, but that’d be duplicitous of me – I have only myself to blame. Safe to say after a full day’s drinking, Sunday morning dawned like this:

Yup, I got a tattoo of the state of Texas done on my arm. The work was done by the talented Mr Derek Martinez. All I can say is, don’t go drinking in tattoo shops…! Also I think I came off better than John Berna, FP’s guitar tech, who got some of my lyrics on his chest, including a few letters actually done (not very well) by me.

So, that’s the story of my sojourn in Texas. Actually I’m not overly repentant, this trip has been consistent with my other times in that state: chaotic but tons of fun. I can think of many worse states to have immortalized in this way. New Mexico, for example, haha.