Extract from : I play the drums in a band called okay

‘Wouldn’t the coolest thing now be to be Japanese, eh?’

We are in Rotterdam Europe lost in thick fog together.

‘A bridge over a river next to a church. Haven’t we walked past this once before?’

That’s me, name of Clap, dissecting the bridge-riverchurch interface. With me, Nippo-theorizing, is Syph.

We are from Canada. We are in a band called okay, lower case, italics. We are on our second European tour.

‘I mean, think about it. We can’t match those copycats for hipness. No way. You see, Clap, we’ve completely forgotten how to be ourselves. But they know how. They know that it’s about choosing who you want to be, not being destined to be anyone in particular. And they are better at choosing than we ever were.’

‘Can we sit down for a minute?’ I say. ‘I’m not feeling too great.’

‘When the Japanese are punks, they are the greatest punks ever; when they are rockabillies, not even Elvis can touch them.’

Twenty days in.

This is it – we have reached the point of self-annihilation. So much of what comprises who one is has been left behind. Jackson Browne found a phrase for it, Running On Empty. In this non-state you can go for two days without having a single real thought. How did I get here? – that is the thought that most intrudes. The non-thought is always – next, next, next. Next gig. Next girl. Next goodbye. Aspects of it I do sincerely appreciate – I love the sense of left-behindness. You never use a bar of hotel soap more than once – if at all. (And if you’re really sensible, you carry your own with you: so that’s not a very good example.) But if you don’t like something – a magazine containing a bad review, a tape that’s gone fucked in your Walkman – you just drop it. Within seconds, it is miles away. Another country. (As the lyrics to my favourite of our songs go: ‘I’ve reached out in the dark to touch/Things a thousand miles away.’) Similarly, if you freak out some girl and she has hysterics at you, she’s two towns behind before her slap even hits your face. You become impervious to pain – of a non-serious sort. Self-harm becomes a bit of a game. (Not that okay are great ones for stage-diving. It’s not part of our image.) You eat nothing but shit. You look like a piece of shit. And you talk shit a hundred per cent of the time.

Twenty days to go.

‘You see them,’ Syph continues to talk shit, ‘walking around downtown – children dressed like souvenir teddy-bears – groups of girls with their heads close together and their hands over their mouths – couples holding hands, each so cool you can’t decide between them – serious young men buying huge stacks of CDs – salarymen, who break into a sweat as they move from the pavement to the road – senior citizens in beige and fawn golfing clothing.’

I am the drummer. Syph is the lead vocalist. We have a bassist, Mono. We have a rhythm guitarist, Crab.

Our mothers did not call us by these names – though Syph’s is starting to. None of us knows if she knows what it means.

‘Do you remember when we were on tour in Tokyo?’

‘I feel bad. I’m sitting down. You can keep walking.’

I sit down on a low concrete wall with black railings stuck in it looking out across a street of cobblestones and grey-green walls.

‘Like, no-one gives blow-jobs like the Japanese. It’s the kind of thing they probably have instruction manuals about that are a thousand years old. Like the Karma Sutra.’

‘The Kama Sutra is Indian.’

I stand up, lean over the railings and puke into the hedge.

‘They do ancient things with their tongues and with the roofs of their mouths.’

I hear a whining sound.

‘Did you fart?’ I ask.

Syph looks shocked. He can’t remember.

‘I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘Was it in tune?’

I lean back over the railings and look beyond the hedge.

I see a paw, an ear – black and white.

I turn back to Syph. I say: ‘I think I just puked on someone’s dog.’

‘Are they Japanese?’ he says, and does ancient things with his tongue.

‘What are we going to do?’ I ask.

‘We need to score.’

Syph is right – we smoked the last of the grass before the border. Syph is superstitious about carrying grass over international divides. He says it has to do with Paul McCartney. But he is quite happy about having speed in his pocket while making passport control. Which means that, until we score some dope in each new city, he is unbearable. And because he is likely to speed his way into getting arrested, I always go with him to try and track something down. If we are lucky, there’s someone from the local fan club to help us connect. But okay aren’t very big in Rotterdam, as we are finding out.

‘I’m going to have a look at it.’

‘Whatever,’ says Syph, and plucks his Marlboros from his suit pocket.

Members of okay wear suits at all times. We play gigs in suits and we play hockey in suits. It’s part of our image. Our music is slow and formal with lyrics about love and guilt. We also sing about the sea.

We sound like the Velvet Underground on quarter-speed.

Climbing over the railings feels surprisingly easy. I haven’t eaten anything in two days. Maybe I am getting the better of gravity.

I fall into the hedge, branches digging into my legs through my suit.

With a flip of my arms I roll off onto a patch of grass.

‘Are you okay?’ says Syph.

‘Dollar,’ I reply, keeping very still.

Whenever one of us uses the name of our band in a context not relating specifically to our band, that person is required to put a dollar in the stash-pot. It is a band rule.