A Letter to Pig Meat

Dear Pig Meat,

Prague was crazy and scary. I went into the country (almost) and smoked pot for a couple of days with US students and crazy Czech stoner dudes. Beer in Czech is real cheap - 80c a pint! I smuggled a little pot into Heathrow, but that's another story.

I'm going to stay in London until Glastonbury in June, then it's off to chase bulls in Spain. What's going down in the Perth scene of glamness? Does Guy (Blackman) miss me? I've got a bull ring through my nose and I can dance like a retarded chicken.

Heres a story you can use in Pig Meat, if you so fancy:

A TALE OF ACID THAT BLURS MY GIRLS AND MAKES THEM BOYS.

Jack Nicholson was on the wall and he told me it was all right to dance on the floor. It didn't take long after munching the acid before I felt the tingling sensation creep through my body and explode inside my cranium.

I had promised Michelle we'd go for a drink at the Good Mixer, before I went to the Garage to see those Girls Against Boys. As we entered the pub, we unknowingly stepped into a bar room brawl in the making. Apparently a Scottish man was screaming abuse at an English girl over a game of pool. It was like we had entered a B grade movie, where everyone was in black and white, but I was glowing in colour. After a few minutes of tense deliberation the tension was over.

It was now that I began to giggle and talk continuously about god knows what. I spotted a friend in Nadia, a French Cubeque girl who trapped me in a booth between herself and her sister. After asking them the time a dozen times, I finally grazed the idea that it was nine o'clock and time to split.

Trying to buy a ticket for the Underground was a problem as I couldn't read anything. There were too many fly screen patterns and melting words to make it possible to get to where I wanted to go. A guardian Angel seemed to appear from nowhere and helped me purchase a ticket, but that's where the help ended. I was now tripping off my dial and was trapped like a rat on the Underground. After a slight panic attack I managed to change trains and get to where I wanted to go. I had freaked out getting lost on the Underground, but I was on a mission, I had to get to the Garage and the Garage is where I would go. Trying to ask directions it seemed like everyone was speaking French, or maybe I was just hearing the language of love echo in the chambers the drug had created.

I spotted a group of people who might be going where I was. So I followed them and their American accents in the venue. When I got inside Kepone were playing, but that didn't really matter. Between songs all I could hear were American accents. This was some freaky acid. After about an hour of walking around in a daze, trying to figure out what I was doing there and what day it was, I realised Girls Against Boys were on stage and about to play. Needless to say my sense of reality came back and I tried my best to have a good time. The five piece from New York sounded better then their records and had everyone up and grooving. The two bass attack was very impressive, as were the keyboards.

It wasn't until leaving and getting out into the freezing outside air that my thoughts became clearer and my body was able to function again. I felt that the acid was kind of wasted, due to the fact that the bands were really good. So there is a lesson to be learn; you don't always need drugs to have a good time, but it does make it more of a challenge.

By Gareth Ashmore (on the road).