We’ve got atheists, we’ve got christians. We build bridges. You are welcome.

Travelling with the truth crew is tiresome. I am just so fucking tired. I work, I travel, I work, I travel, and these assholes mess things up. Last night we’re having dinner and someone orders a tall Wild Turkey. They don’t have it. The same person then orders a tall Long Island Ice-tea. ”Easy on the soda” he says. He drinks it. He walks out. He badgers everybody to join him for a smoke. No one does. I do though. We go out. He needs to pee. He looks at a poster and laughs at the poster ”Troll tits and the seven truckfighters”. Then pisses. Someone screams. A cellar window is open and he pisses straight down to some sorry Belgian’s living room. He walks away. I’m confused and don’t know if I leave or if I go down and help clean up. I hear a car, I hear a siren, I see a cop. I run. I run til’ my legs can’t carry me anymore. I pass out and I wake up without my wallet or phone with my pants down in a hobo camp in the outskirts of Dortmund.

—

Hi. I’m Conrad Haifa and I’m a truth called nothing’s trumpet player. I’ve been playing with the band on-and-off for most of their career. At least I believe so, it’s hard to ge a grip of when they actually started. It’s been a hard couple years of service. Playing my trumpet from Hammerfest to Gibraltar, from Lisbon to Moscow. Well, I’m not gonna lie to you, there’s not a lot of trumpet in a lot of songs. So there’s mostly awkard dancing to their bastard groovy heavy metal beats. I stand there observering the particulars of the a truth called nothing surrealist po-mo sermons.

—

So this night, the music was as intense as ever. The band is sweating as intense as Lillebror in Lars von Trier’s Riget. Starting off with Never Like The Films. The band is going into an intense frenzy. Banging hands against instruments. Screaming into the microphone producing the beautiful noise. I feel a little displaced but at the same time I know I’m at the right spot. That I won first place.

Sometimes fueled by booze and other intoxicants (British ADHD medicine – Cambridge style – has a special place here). Sometimes the only high provided is the high of night life. Or possibly Jesus if you’re bent that way (as certain members of this band are).

 

So I’m taking a break during the second song, Fear. No trumpet in that fucker either. I’m just backstage lighting up on a bong of some of the finest homegrown healthy smoke you can imagine. The strange roadie guy is in the corner, probably sleeping, or just tuned-out. I’m hoping that Adam or Sam or Marty will yell for me. That will mean that we’re about to play A Lone Human’s Bible and I get my few seconds in the spot light. I smoke and I start thinking about the next concert and the one after that. I listen to the music coming through the wall and it seems like it’s the music from those upcoming shows, playing from the future. I’m having a real little moment, you dig?

 

So someone of course interrupts, yelling from the stage, where’s the trumpet fucker. Guess it’s time for the next song. The singer is in the middle of some spiel about life on the road.He’s telling the audience about me and having a right good time. Look at the idiot with the wrong kinda instrument for this music. Look at him never getting to play. Getting the worst seat in the tour van. Falling over in a puddle with his pants down. Look at this idiot. Anyway here’s an old song. Lone human’s bible. It’s a weird song but I don’t question these things. I’m just about to play when I get the sense that something’s going on behind me. I look towards the back of the stage, and the roadie is ambling towards me. The look in his eye is somewhere between ”pants-shitting panic” and ”happy birthday!” As he reaches me the vomit begins to come out of the sides of his mouth. Sticking to his beard. He bends forward and hits me in the chest with his head and we go down. The audiences at these truth shows are attentive and energetic, but they don’t usually sign up for a close encounter with a vomit-soaked brass player and some bizarre hobbit. So they part like Moses split the Red Sea. When I get back on stage the solo is a far memory. Better luck next time champ. Time to see who put hallucinogenics in the roadie’s chewing tobacco. Again and again.

 

 

Stay tuned and listen to the trumpet!

Your friend, Conrad.