Monday 5 March 2007

Music trip in a Commune

I have encountered Hippies this week - and on my holiday - which has taken me to France this is one of my strangest adventures
Christ - it seems like I have lived through a whirlwind tornado. Me and Agnes have decamped from our posh hotel and have been living in a commune in the Cevenne. The hills in Provence at the back of Nimes somewhere I think - although I may as well have been blindfolded for all I knew about the journey - (too much Sloe Gin from Albert - but I'll tell you more about him in a moment). Agnes had got a phone call from a girlfriend (well a bit of an old biddy) called Janice - French woman with a lot of makeup - and she said she was coming over to take us to these great people out in the hills. It took hours in her little Renault 4 (about 30 years old I think) and we were squashed in with this Garlic heavy breather Albert who had this 1.5 litre bottle of Sloe Gin which I developed a very aquired taste for. He smoked French lung busters and I indulged at his expense as well - luckily Agnes said she liked the Gallic smells of Smoke and garlic - and Janice said that she had slept with Albert on and off for twentfive years and she had still not got used to it so Agnes is welcome. Agnes winced and then gave me a saucy wink - to say do not worry lover boy. So we rolled up a stoney lane past ruins of old cottages and beautiful streams - to a large stonehouse with lights on around 8pm - I think this was about 4 days ago. Janice banged on the front door and it was opened by a wide eyed hippy with a red silk scarf and baggy clothes, messy curly brown hair and a big joint in his mouth - this was my first sighting of Pig.

We entered in a heap into a room filled with kids, hippy women and two other skinny type guys rolling joints in kind of cowboy gear. We were immediately offered a toke or teo and then I staggered into the back mess of a kitchen and was sick in the sink.

Next day - I woke up next to Agnes with a thumping headache that was rythmically thumping to the beat of a loud jam session going on practically at the foot of my bed - two young artful dodger type boys in raggy clothes and filth (no more than eleven years old) were squeezing out some crazy lcks on electric guitars - Pig was laying some bone crushing Bass down with manic eyes and a joint in his mouth - while one of the more exhuberent chubby mothers was excitedly playing a full kit of drums that I had not noticed in the corner of this old ramshackle sloping room. I was awestruck and ill, gobsmacked and sick, a shambles of a man in a weird situation and running out of ideas on how to survive - I looked to my side and Agnes was'nt there and I managed to get up and tooter in a dance like way to the groove over to the door and peered roun - I was greeted with a lovely sight - Agnes with flowers in her hair (spring comes early round here) and a big cup of coffee. She immediately got up and handed me her cup - she knew I need it more than her - she smiled and I smiled and I wandered back into the room and started amssive (if a bit jerky) primal scream that went so well with the music that they played harder and louder (if that was possible - must have been volume 11) and I started to go primal and belted out in tongues what I think will be the makings of an albums worth of Hippy Nouveau musak a la Zappa and Beefheart - with tinges of the awesome Under Mother Bungalow and their Armchair Astronaut friends. The rest is history - I smoked a gallon of weed and tripped the light fantastic - saw what Pig could see with those crazy eyes and melted each night into the bosom of my Agnes - the tartan slapper with flowers in her hair and large mugs of caffeine. Loud music almost 24 hours a day with me on Primal vocals and a shifting band line up of whoever could hold an instrument and vaguely plug it in or hit it with a stick.

It was FFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!! Great - I was only sick twice more - and it was more like a small retch each time and not in the least bit unpleasant.

I did get kicked out in the end for fighting topo hard with Pig and rolling into one of the kids and disslocating the poor things shoulder. I did manage to squeeze it back into place but the kid was in a lot of pain. Pig got very showy and acted the main man bit which got on my tits. I called Agnes over and made a speech about how we had had a great time and the music had been inspiring but that I felt that Pig had misunderstood my boisterousness and that it was a shame - but one of the women spat at me (I think she was the boys mother) so we turned and left. Janice drove us to the nearest town and we said our goodbyes - she said she was going to stay there for a few months to see if she could work it through with Albert and we wished her luck.

We shacked up in a tiny Hotel d'Or and drank copius amounts of beer (Kronenbourg)

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