Rock And Hard Places Part 17

"And that wasn't the point either. The record definitely enters a dark place in the middle, but it isn't the whole thing. When we were doing Kid A Kid A and and Amnesiac Amnesiac, I had this thing that we were entering a very dark phase. I mean, you know me, I've made a career out of saying things like that. But it did strike me that things were going to kick off one way or another, and at the same time there was a rise, politically anyway, in ignorance and stupidity, and all that lovely euphoria after the Berlin Wall came down had disintegrated into this global political and economic anarchy."

I'd wondered about the alternative t.i.tles also given to the songs on Hail to the Thief Hail to the Thief. They suggest a much gloomier record-the Hail to the Thief Hail to the Thief tracks "Backdrifts," "Go to Sleep," Where I End and You Begin," "We Suck Young Blood," "Scatterbrain" and "A Punchup at a Wedding" become, respectively, "Honeymoon Is Over," "Little Man Being Erased," "The Sky Is Falling In," "Your Time Is Up," "As Dead as Leaves" and "No No No No No No No." tracks "Backdrifts," "Go to Sleep," Where I End and You Begin," "We Suck Young Blood," "Scatterbrain" and "A Punchup at a Wedding" become, respectively, "Honeymoon Is Over," "Little Man Being Erased," "The Sky Is Falling In," "Your Time Is Up," "As Dead as Leaves" and "No No No No No No No."

"I like that one. That would have been a good name for the record. Here it is, the new alb.u.m by-guess who-Radiohead, and it's called No No No No No No No No No No No No No No."

Little Man Being Erased would have been a very Radiohead t.i.tle, as well. would have been a very Radiohead t.i.tle, as well.

"That," beams Thom, "is my absolute favourite."

THE SLEEVE ARTWORK of Hail to the Thief Hail to the Thief, created by Stanley Donwood, is a series of maps of major cities in which the streets have been replaced by coloured blocks, emblazoned with malevolent phrases. London, for example, has districts renamed Spiked, Take You Down, Quango, Skinned Alive and Shareholders. It could be an aerial view of the London of George Orwell's 1984 1984: the dystopian capital of Airstrip One, with Thom Yorke, his voice a lonely cry of aggrieved, affronted humanity, in the role of Winston Smith. "2+2=5," the t.i.tle of the opening track on Hail to the Thief Hail to the Thief, was the formula with which Orwell's party invigilator O'Brien demonstrated to Winston his utter powerlessness before the malign forces that ran his life.

Now, stop me if I'm trying too hard, but . . .

"I did re-read 1984 1984 a while before we did this record," confirms Thom, "but I'd forgotten where 2+2=5 came from. The other bit in the book I thought about a lot was the fake war-we're at war with Eurasia, we've always been at war with Eurasia." a while before we did this record," confirms Thom, "but I'd forgotten where 2+2=5 came from. The other bit in the book I thought about a lot was the fake war-we're at war with Eurasia, we've always been at war with Eurasia."

Did that hopelessness of Winston's position strike a chord with you? There's a line in "Scatterbrain"-"A moving target on a firing range"-that seems to sum up your view of most of humanity.

"It goes back to the Jubilee 2000 thing for me," says Thom. Thom was, for a while, involved with Jubilee's lobbying to get first world governments to write off the crippling, unrepayable debts owed them by third world governments. "I realised how out of control the disintegration was. When I started with Jubilee 2000, I thought it was the most exciting thing I'd ever got involved with. Potentially, we could show what's been going on for what it is. But it never happened, because the G8 were very smart, and they and the IMF and the World Bank kept pa.s.sing it to each other, and eventually I found myself thinking, 'Now I get it. It's never going to happen.'"

Did it put you off trying to accomplish anything outside music?

"No. I'd like to be involved, but it's difficult to know where to go with it. There were so many disheartening things about it, the fact that so much lip service was given, and you still end up with the reality that the IMF and the World Bank are there to keep everyone under their thumb, as they have in Argentina. They affect millions of people, yet they're completely unaccountable. I'd like to get involved again, but I find it difficult not to say that we should disband the IMF and the World Bank, to put it politely. Because that's what I believe. Some people say you have to work within the structures, which is fair enough, because they're the ones with the money. But if you do that, they're just going to spin you a line. You get some money, but it's money to make you go away."

Was that experience reflected in the songs on Hail to the Thief Hail to the Thief?

"Oh, completely. I guess the whole record was a response to those experiences. Becoming a dad amplified it as well, because you start thinking not only am I powerless, but there's an extremely dangerous set of things being set up for my son's future that I can't sort out for him. That's quite a simple thing that's very, very difficult to deal with."

In "Sail To The Moon," there's that line "Maybe you'll be president/ But know right from wrong/Or in the flood you'll build an ark/And sail us to the moon." Feel free to tell me it's none of my business, but seeing as your son is called Noah . . .

"It wasn't intended," Thom smiles, "but it ended up being a song for him, yeah."

While we're up this way, why Noah?

"That's what he looked like. That's what you do. b.u.g.g.e.r the consequences."

I suppose he'll get used to the ark jokes. And the "It's up to you, Noah Yorke," ones.

"Oh, yeah," grins his father, who has lived down worse taunts. "He'll be fine."

IN THOM'S LIST of thank-yous on the sleeve of Hail to the Thief Hail to the Thief, after friends and family, there's a nod to Spike Milligan. Radiohead dedicated The Bends The Bends to the late American comedian Bill Hicks, another funny, outraged iconoclast. Hicks and Radiohead seem a congruent fit. Both are intelligent, informed, acutely sensitive to hypocrisy-as Thom says, "Bill Hicks was able to make things that were incredibly frightening funny, and by doing that make them seem okay." Milligan, whose best-known work was hyperactively absurd, seems a less obvious choice of hero for Thom. to the late American comedian Bill Hicks, another funny, outraged iconoclast. Hicks and Radiohead seem a congruent fit. Both are intelligent, informed, acutely sensitive to hypocrisy-as Thom says, "Bill Hicks was able to make things that were incredibly frightening funny, and by doing that make them seem okay." Milligan, whose best-known work was hyperactively absurd, seems a less obvious choice of hero for Thom.

Why him?

"He did a TV series called Q Q, which someone bought for me at a car boot sale, and I watched that a few times. There's this one about a dalek coming home for its tea . . ."

The Pakistani dalek?

"Yeah. The Pakistani dalek family. And every time I watched it, I thought, f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, this is a person on the edge. There was another one where they wheeled in a staircase, and he just walked up and down it wearing costumes. He was so inconsistent, so incredibly spontaneous, and at the same time really fragile. There was also this book, Depression and How to Survive It Depression and How to Survive It, which he wrote with Anthony Clare. That had a really big effect on me."

In what way?

"There's one amazing bit where they're talking to people about whether there's a positive side to depression. These aren't people who are chronic, where it's really out of control, but a lot of them say yes, there are positive sides. You see things in a way that other people don't, and you feel things a lot harder than other people, and that's good, it's almost okay. It was good to hear people say it like that."

Has this been a constant thing with you, or has there been one particular period when it got really bad?

"On the OK Computer OK Computer tour, we were in a situation where people were trying to persuade us to carry on touring for another six months, we should have said no but we didn't and I went bonkers." tour, we were in a situation where people were trying to persuade us to carry on touring for another six months, we should have said no but we didn't and I went bonkers."

When you say bonkers . . .

"Oh, bonkers. Not violent, but . . . enormously, uncontrollably depressed, delusional."

In what way?

"All sorts. Seeing things."

That's usually a sign that you should take some time off . . .

"No, actually. It was quite interesting. Sort of everywhere. Corner of the eye stuff."

Would it be cra.s.s to suggest that this is similar to what you're getting at with the idea of "The Gloaming"? You know, this twilight netherworld that you can't quite see, but which you know is out there somewhere?

"No, I guess not. I guess not. You know that film Ghost Ghost? Terrible film, but there's this bit where all these shadows come down and take that kid away who gets. .h.i.t by a car. That's what it was like. We lost contact with reality, and got to feel like everything that wasn't related to what we were doing was annoying or irrelevant. We'll never do that again."

Have you read Spike Milligan's World War II memoirs? They're very good on people being yanked about by forces they can't control. And they're incredibly funny.

"No, I haven't."

Jonny had one in his suitcase at the Edinburgh show the other month. Borrow it from him.

"I will. You know, I think the appeal of Milligan is that he didn't suffer fools, at all. Some people really hated him for that. But why should anyone bother? Life is short, and people are stupid. That's definitely a depressive thing. You see the holes in things very quickly. Too quickly."

THE COSTES HOTEL in Paris is everything Thom promised. The price of a room would leave some change from the Earth, but not much. The food is great, and all the better if you derive some perverse thrill from paying twenty quid for scrambled eggs. As for the staff, it is possible that at least eight of the dozen most beautiful women alive are currently waiting the Costes's tables.

Those of us who came by bus park ourselves in the bar with a bottle of champagne. A woman in a peculiar dress comes over to tell Thom how much she liked the new alb.u.m; Thom accepts the compliment graciously, and tells her, correctly, that she looks like Alice in Wonderland, and this goes over well. Neil Tennant drops briefly by the table, and when Colin Greenwood shows up-the only member of Radiohead who dresses at all like a millionaire rock star, or indeed at all like anything other than a dishevelled student-he's disappointed to learn that he missed Yves St. Laurent. It's that kind of hotel.

Thom's one of the last to retire. He's an even better talker with a few gla.s.ses of fizz inside him, and he's funny, very funny, with his own failings the punchline to most of his anecdotes. Of Radiohead's legendary appearance at Glas...o...b..ry in 1997, he remembers, "That show was a disaster. Everything that could have gone wrong did. I thundered off stage, really ready to kill, and my girlfriend grabbed me, made me stop, and said, 'Listen.' And the crowd were just going wild. It was amazing."

A few hours earlier on the bus, Thom and Ed had sat down to write the setlists for their festival appearances, and for the performance for French television that Thom and Jonny would be recording in Paris. In between lobbying as forcefully as I dared on behalf of my favourites-I believe I may have saved "Exit Music" for some lucky festival-goers-I'd asked Thom if his position made it more or less difficult to articulate Radiohead's hymns to humanity's impotence. He's a millionaire rock star, after all, and gets to run his life more on his own terms than most of us.

"It's easier," he decides. "It's easier, because you have more time to think about these things, more time to listen to Radio 4 and worry. But it's sort of my job. Just like you've got your job, mine is to be the Ides of March type person, and some poor f.u.c.ker has to do it. Somebody has to put the jester's hat on and make a t.i.t of himself. 'We're all f.u.c.king doomed.' It might as well be me."

23.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR ROUBLE Ambulance chasing with Highway Patrol Highway Patrol, Moscow MARCH 1996.

THIS DISPATCH DATES from a distant-yet startlingly recent-age in which foreign television was a novelty, rather than something you could ingest about as much of as you could stand whenever you felt like it. Indeed, I only happened across this story, about a Russian show called Highway Patrol Highway Patrol, because I saw something about it on a British television programme about how weird and remote and exotic foreign television was. My preparations for the story were quaintly pre-internet. I made a note of the production company as the British programme's credits rolled, got their number out of the Yellow Pages, called and asked them for details of their contacts in Moscow-which they happily gave up, as journalists always should to a fellow hack-and sent some faxes to the pertinent numbers. I was planning to visit Moscow anyway, under my own steam, and thought that if I could sell this story somewhere, it would at least cover the hotel bills.

This was my first visit to Russia, which itself seemed a fairly otherwordly proposition at that time. Less than five years previously, Russia had been the princ.i.p.al const.i.tuent of a seemingly invincible leviathan called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. By 1996, it was the Wild West, with the horses, Colt revolvers and ten-gallons swapped for black Mercedes-Benzes, AK-47s and furry hats, and that's what Highway Patrol Highway Patrol had been established to report on and profit from. Lurid and ratings-worthy though the content of had been established to report on and profit from. Lurid and ratings-worthy though the content of Highway Patrol Highway Patrol certainly was, the real story was being missed. While the attention of most Russians was consumed by the relatively petty crime running rampant on the streets and television screens, arguably the greatest theft in human history was taking place elsewhere, as a small clique of instant billionaires made off with the former superpower's awesome natural resources. I've been back to Russia a few times since and have always been struck by the acutely personal disappointment and grief expressed by many Russians-that the unspeakable horror show that was their twentieth century should have no redeeming climax, that the whole ghastly grand guignol only ended, in effect, with someone stealing the set. certainly was, the real story was being missed. While the attention of most Russians was consumed by the relatively petty crime running rampant on the streets and television screens, arguably the greatest theft in human history was taking place elsewhere, as a small clique of instant billionaires made off with the former superpower's awesome natural resources. I've been back to Russia a few times since and have always been struck by the acutely personal disappointment and grief expressed by many Russians-that the unspeakable horror show that was their twentieth century should have no redeeming climax, that the whole ghastly grand guignol only ended, in effect, with someone stealing the set.

An infinitesimal proportion of Russia's twentieth-century agony is chronicled below, and I should issue the caveat that readers especially sensitive to the suffering of children in particular should probably avoid the next few pages. I'm sure that I'd wondered, as all young reporters must, how I'd feel when I first saw death up close. This was when I found out, and what I discovered was an indifference that, initially at least, surprised me. I mean, I didn't enjoy the spectacle, and I turned away as soon as I felt I'd seen enough to get the idea, but neither of the violently deceased corpses I encountered here-nor any of the (really not that many) others I've seen since-have since troubled my sleep or my waking hours. It took me a while to figure that out, but what it came down to, I think, was that it was already too late for them: there was simply nothing to be done. If-okay, when-the recollections rear up and start clawing, the ones that leave a mark are always those memories of living people, the outwardly unremarkable but essentially decent and kind ones, whose ambitions and hopes have been needlessly curtailed by avoidably stupid and cruel political or economic circ.u.mstances. For most of Russia's history, that would serve as a description of most Russians.

IN MOSCOW AS everywhere else, midnight is where bad television goes to die. Freezing on a spring night in a cheap hotel, I'm keeping warm by getting up every few minutes and walking across the room to change channels. On channel one, capitalist p.o.r.nography-a low-rent game show tottering on a set that wobbles perceptibly every time one of the contestants leans on their buzzer. On channel two, a dismal doc.u.mentary involving a surely unnecessary number of pictures of tractors. On channels three and four, music videos in a proportion of roughly four parts b.a.l.l.sachingly awful Russian ballad singers to one part the only thing worse: Phil Collins. On channel five, grainy highlights of an ice hockey game, apparently filmed on an ageing Super-8 camera by someone who had one or two drinks before reporting to work.

And over on channel six, a ghostly pale face leers from the screen, its bloodshot eyes divided by a ragged gash running from forehead to nose. A trickle of dark blood dribbles from the cut into a froth-encrusted, furiously yammering mouth which emits a frantic, babbled commentary as the camera pans dispa.s.sionately around the room in which this apparition is sitting, amid the detritus of a quiet night in that has clearly gone badly, badly wrong: pizza crusts of various vintages in cardboard trays, empty bottles strewn across the mildewed carpet, two spent syringes in a vase full of dirty water and, slumped in the far corner, the scene's other protagonist. His left eye has been neatly replaced by a bullethole, and the contents of his head splashed across the wallpaper behind him.

The camera dwells on the corpse just that little bit too long, the way you do when you can't quite believe what you're seeing, then pulls suddenly away, just like a human eye flinching from something unsightly. It rests again on the hysterical narrator, as he's handcuffed by police and hustled from view. A date-today's-appears along the bottom of the screen in type, followed by a time, about six hours ago. The picture fades to a shot of a sponsor-spangled white BMW estate leaving the site, and credits roll. So ends another episode of Highway Patrol Highway Patrol, the most popular television programme in Russia, and one of the most watched in the world.

HIGHWAY PATROL IS a bona fide broadcasting phenomenon, boasting seventy million viewers in Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and, through some unfathomable miracle of syndication, Israel. The idea is hardly unique: most countries with sufficient noteworthy crime entertain and appall themselves with footage retrieved by ambulance-chasing camera crews ( IS a bona fide broadcasting phenomenon, boasting seventy million viewers in Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and, through some unfathomable miracle of syndication, Israel. The idea is hardly unique: most countries with sufficient noteworthy crime entertain and appall themselves with footage retrieved by ambulance-chasing camera crews (Cops in America, in America, Blues and Twos Blues and Twos in Britain). in Britain).

Highway Patrol is different, however. It has an inescapable frequency, producing a daily fifteen-minute show which is shown at midnight every night and repeated twice the following day, as well an irregular round-up of mafia activity-all too literally, a Greatest Hits. is different, however. It has an inescapable frequency, producing a daily fifteen-minute show which is shown at midnight every night and repeated twice the following day, as well an irregular round-up of mafia activity-all too literally, a Greatest Hits. Highway Patrol Highway Patrol also has a pitiless att.i.tude to broadcasting the grisliest of material, though they do have their limits, as I eventually find out the hard way. also has a pitiless att.i.tude to broadcasting the grisliest of material, though they do have their limits, as I eventually find out the hard way.

Most importantly, Highway Patrol Highway Patrol has a firm grip on the pulse of its home city. Post-communist Moscow is a 1990s production of Al Capone's Chicago-a city where the gangsters don't bother to conceal their weapons, and where the police don't bother to change out of uniform when they go to their other jobs as doormen at Moscow's mafia-controlled nightclubs. Muscovites talk about crime the way Londoners talk about weather, muttering and nodding wearily to each other that it's bad, it's going to get worse and n.o.body's doing anything about it. has a firm grip on the pulse of its home city. Post-communist Moscow is a 1990s production of Al Capone's Chicago-a city where the gangsters don't bother to conceal their weapons, and where the police don't bother to change out of uniform when they go to their other jobs as doormen at Moscow's mafia-controlled nightclubs. Muscovites talk about crime the way Londoners talk about weather, muttering and nodding wearily to each other that it's bad, it's going to get worse and n.o.body's doing anything about it.

Highway Patrol began broadcasting in January 1995, the bright idea of television producer Kirill Legat and businessman Dmitri Koriavov. Koriavov, an amiable sort somewhere in his late thirties, is the essence of what is often sneeringly referred to as a New Russian, one who has been clever and/or cunning enough to ride out the uncertainties of the post-communist years, to manufacture cash from chaos. When Mikhail Gorbachev started talking about glasnost and perestroika in 1985, Koriavov was a mathematician at a Soviet scientific inst.i.tute, where his job was constructing climactic models intended to predict the effects of nuclear winter. In one sense or another, he knew which way the wind was blowing-by 1989, he'd gone into private business, selling computers and importing luxury cars, before branching into television. His production company, Aladdin, makes began broadcasting in January 1995, the bright idea of television producer Kirill Legat and businessman Dmitri Koriavov. Koriavov, an amiable sort somewhere in his late thirties, is the essence of what is often sneeringly referred to as a New Russian, one who has been clever and/or cunning enough to ride out the uncertainties of the post-communist years, to manufacture cash from chaos. When Mikhail Gorbachev started talking about glasnost and perestroika in 1985, Koriavov was a mathematician at a Soviet scientific inst.i.tute, where his job was constructing climactic models intended to predict the effects of nuclear winter. In one sense or another, he knew which way the wind was blowing-by 1989, he'd gone into private business, selling computers and importing luxury cars, before branching into television. His production company, Aladdin, makes Highway Patrol Highway Patrol.

When I meet Koriavov at Aladdin's offices, he is predictably unrepentant about the view his programme presents of Moscow ("A city of opportunity," he calls it) and the relentless frequency with which it does it-it's not like he's making this stuff up, after all.

"This is real information about our lives in this city," he says. "It does good, as well, for sure. Two years ago, I used to, you know, drive home after I'd been drinking. But now, never. Because, three times a day, five times a week, I see what results when people do that."

Koriavov recalls that the first few weeks of Highway Patrol Highway Patrol were characterised by mutual antipathy and suspicion between his film crews and Moscow's emergency services, but says relations have improved: Aladdin's offices are abundantly decorated with certificates and awards presented by the city's police and fire departments in recognition of the ill.u.s.trations that were characterised by mutual antipathy and suspicion between his film crews and Moscow's emergency services, but says relations have improved: Aladdin's offices are abundantly decorated with certificates and awards presented by the city's police and fire departments in recognition of the ill.u.s.trations that Highway Patrol Highway Patrol has provided of the dangers of smoking while drunk in bed, its stark depictions of the consequences of drunk driving and its role in provoking public response to police enquiries. The relationship is now so close that a lot of the programme's information about new crimes comes from contacts within the police force. Otherwise, has provided of the dangers of smoking while drunk in bed, its stark depictions of the consequences of drunk driving and its role in provoking public response to police enquiries. The relationship is now so close that a lot of the programme's information about new crimes comes from contacts within the police force. Otherwise, Highway Patrol Highway Patrol relies on calls from viewers or their own monitoring of police radio frequencies. relies on calls from viewers or their own monitoring of police radio frequencies.

"We don't judge," says Koriavov. "We don't criticise. We don't praise. We just show what happens."

Koriavov leads me out of his office and up the hall to meet the crew who've agreed to take me out for the night. The three of them sit around a table in a small, smoke-filled room, pouring the occasional slug from an unlabelled vodka bottle into shot-sized paper cups. This is what they do until something interesting comes in on the radio or telephone. I'm extended the welcome usually granted to the itinerant angler or visiting surfer: "You should have been here yesterday."

It had been, at least from the journalistic point of view, a good one-a black Volvo, driving up a busy road around the corner from the American emba.s.sy, had been cut off by a Jeep charging out of a side alley. According to a street full of eyewitnesses, the occupants of the Jeep had fired thirty or forty shots from two automatic rifles into the windscreen of the Volvo, killing both occupants, before driving off and disappearing into the traffic. A cla.s.sic mafia hit.

I'm shown the unedited footage by the crew's reporter/presenter, Vladimir Yemelyanov, a ruddy-cheeked twenty-five-year-old.

"I wonder who did it," he muses, to n.o.body in particular.

Without thinking, I suggest that it won't be too hard for the police to find the perpetrators of a murder carried out in broad daylight on a busy street in rush hour. Vladimir laughs a mirthless laugh, and I try to cover my tracks by smiling the sort of smile you smile when you've just said something idiotic and you're trying to make it look like you were joking. The average Moscow police officer gets paid about 100 a month. Moscow is not much cheaper a place to live than most European capitals. So Moscow policemen have to find other work, and a moonlighting cop will find the easiest and steadiest employment from the kind of person who not only wants armed muscle, but a reasonable guarantee that n.o.body's going to look too closely at his own day job. A month before I arrived in Russia, a Scottish lawyer was killed by crossfire in a St. Petersburg cafe when two balaclava-clad hitmen attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate a local crime boss. Two other men died in the attack, both St. Petersburg policemen working at their after-hours gig-bodyguards to the gangster.

I talk more to Vladimir while we sit and await the call to action. He gets one of Aladdin's receptionists to help his halting English through the more complicated questions. He happily confirms that he gets paid considerably better than any of the police officers, firemen and paramedics he follows around, and says he enjoys his job, though he gets rattled and "has some trouble sleeping" on nights after they've done a story in which a child has been on the receiving end. He wears a pistol on his belt, and I wonder if that's because Highway Patrol Highway Patrol crews often arrive at crime scenes before the police-their new BMW is quicker than a rusty Lada patrol car. crews often arrive at crime scenes before the police-their new BMW is quicker than a rusty Lada patrol car.

"No, the job is not dangerous," Vladimir says. "But none of us have our own cars, and sometimes we have to walk home late at night."

I run a few standard knee-jerk reactions to his job past Vladimir: that he's a vulture with a camera crew, that he's making gruesome violence look like an acceptable part of everyday life, that he's encouraging the weak-willed to emulate what they see on the screen, that he's profiting from the misfortune of others. I don't believe much of this myself-Highway Patrol, like other such amoral cultural signifiers as tabloid newspapers, slasher films, gangsta rap and heavy metal, exists because people like it and are willing to pay for it-except maybe for the part about profiting from the misfortune of others, but as that's a fair, if cynical, definition of journalism, I'm in no position to criticise.

Vladimir's heard it all before, anyway.

"Our programme doesn't do any of that," he says. "There are lots of stupid action movies shown on television every day that are much, much worse. It's just that whenever people see death-I mean, real death, of real people-they are surprised. Nothing more than that. Death happens every day, but people are surprised when they see it. I was surprised the first time I saw Lenin in the mausoleum."

THE CREW'S DRIVER, Sacha, puts down his mobile phone and announces that we're off-he's heard something from one of his contacts. Vladimir throws me a spare Highway Patrol Highway Patrol parka jacket, and while I struggle into it, he draws his pistol from its holster and points it at the temple of Leon, the cameraman. Leon looks up, briefly, finishes his coffee with exaggerated serenity and walks down to the carpark with us. parka jacket, and while I struggle into it, he draws his pistol from its holster and points it at the temple of Leon, the cameraman. Leon looks up, briefly, finishes his coffee with exaggerated serenity and walks down to the carpark with us.

Sacha weaves the BMW through Moscow's comically potholed streets with the bravado of one who believes that the rules of the road were written for lesser mortals. Perhaps they were-policemen on point duty wave as the famous car pa.s.ses, and one holds up traffic at an intersection to allow us through against the lights. We fetch up at a police station amid the crumbling tower blocks of Moscow's southern suburbs. Like every other public building I've visited in Moscow, including the office block that houses Aladdin, the cop shop is a dank, musty shambles that gives the impression of having been recently abandoned by a previous owner and hurriedly occupied by squatters.

The police trot out a singularly gormless-looking youth who has, they explain, been apprehended at the unpromising beginning of his criminal career-he was caught burgling a flat on the same block where his family lives. Vladimir interviews the kid, and then the station chief, but his heart's obviously not really in it, and his thoughts easy to read on his face: this is no big deal, a dull little morality play, strictly filler stuff, of use only if this turns out to be an especially desperate shift. Whether his disappointment is normal, or whether he was hoping for something a bit more hair-raising to show the visitor, Vladimir descends into a gale force sulk, fidgeting irritably with the car radio all the way back to base. He only cheers up when a motorcycle policeman, evidently no fan of Highway Patrol Highway Patrol, pulls us over in front of the White House-the former home of the Russian parliament, which was shattered during the attempted coup of 1991-and books Sacha for speeding.

The next day means a new shift, and a renewed optimism among the crew that they'll come up with something really horrible to show me. They explain that they average one call to a proper underworld execution every day, so it's only going to be a matter of time. Nevertheless, we have to start somewhere, and so we start in what remains of the flat above a Hyundai spares shop, not far from the Aladdin offices. The resident of the flat obviously wasn't watching last time Highway Patrol Highway Patrol warned of the perils of falling asleep drunk while smoking-he's fallen asleep drunk while smoking and incinerated himself. It looks bad, and smells worse, but there's a strange calm about proceedings. Firemen quietly lay down planks so that we can walk through the water they've sprayed into the place without getting our shoes muddy. A policeman pours me coffee from a thermos while Leon and Vladimir set up for Vladimir's piece-to-camera. Sacha tuts at me for getting paint on the warned of the perils of falling asleep drunk while smoking-he's fallen asleep drunk while smoking and incinerated himself. It looks bad, and smells worse, but there's a strange calm about proceedings. Firemen quietly lay down planks so that we can walk through the water they've sprayed into the place without getting our shoes muddy. A policeman pours me coffee from a thermos while Leon and Vladimir set up for Vladimir's piece-to-camera. Sacha tuts at me for getting paint on the Highway Patrol Highway Patrol jacket I'm wearing, and wipes me down with turpentine-a scene which will baffle Moscow's viewing public later this evening. jacket I'm wearing, and wipes me down with turpentine-a scene which will baffle Moscow's viewing public later this evening.

AS IT TURNS out, this shift yields no decapitated hitmen, kneecapped stool pigeons, cement-flippered informers or horse's heads in anyone's beds. There aren't even any more workaday domestic catastrophes-no road smashes, clumsy drinkers, metro-jumpers or overdoses. We only get called to one more story, and it's something much worse than any of these, at least insofar as one fatal tragedy can be said to be much worse than any other.

In a courtyard between three dung-coloured tower blocks, in the snow next to a rubbish skip, somebody has left a baby boy. I get close enough to see how blue the naked form is, and how purple the vestige of umbilical cord trailing from its midriff, before I work out exactly what it is I'm looking at, and then I don't believe it, and then when I do believe it I don't want to. The Highway Patrol Highway Patrol crew and a forensic scientist in a white fur coat hunch over the dead child; the scene looks like some grotesque parody of the Nativity. crew and a forensic scientist in a white fur coat hunch over the dead child; the scene looks like some grotesque parody of the Nativity.

Vladimir shoots me a look; he's not enjoying this one, and neither am I: I wander off and stare very determinedly at anything else at all. He and I seem to be the only people here who are remotely perturbed. Leon and Sacha fiddle about with the camera cables. The scientist discusses with someone else whether or not the boy was alive when he was left here, or if perhaps he was thrown from one of the balconies overlooking the square. There's one policeman in attendance, and he sits in his car, reading a paper, smoking, keeping warm, doing nothing to shy away pa.s.sers-by-but this is exactly what they do: they pa.s.s by. This is a busy pedestrian route, and though people look over, and raise an eyebrow or two beneath their fur hats, they don't seem any more startled than I might be if someone parked an expensive sports car in my street. Despite what Vladimir had said about death being a surprise, these people are behaving as if a dead child on the footpath is about as surprising as the sun coming up. n.o.body weeps or wails. No teeth are gnashed, no garments rent.

That said, I don't know the neighbourhood. Maybe people leave dead kids lying around here every day of the week; maybe it isn't that interesting. Or maybe it's just that Russia has never been an easy place to live, and maybe Muscovites have an att.i.tude to death hardened by centuries of proximity to it.

"Don't know," says Vladimir, as we drive off. In the end, it doesn't matter anyway. Tomorrow is Women's Day, the Russian equivalent of Mother's Day, and a story like this is hardly going to make for suitable family holiday viewing. So Sacha drives us to a nearby flower market and we take some pictures of that, instead.

24.

MID-LIFE STRAIN TO GEORGIA.

Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady on the Rock'n'Roll Means Well tour tour NOVEMBER 2008.

WHEN UNCUT UNCUT MAGAZINE called and asked if I fancied this one, I was initially hesitant. It wasn't because I had any reservations about either of the groups I'd be spending time with. I admire The Hold Steady hugely, and as for Drive-By Truckers, well, sometimes, when a cut from "Decoration Day," "The Dirty South" or "Brighter than Creation's Dark" pops up on my iPod at an apposite moment, I think they might well be the best band in the world. It wasn't even because I already had a trip to the US planned at around this time-to Philadelphia, to write an afterword for another book amid (or so I antic.i.p.ated and hoped) the first days of the Obama era (I'd chosen Philadelphia partly because of its stature as the birthplace of America's glorious democratic experiment, mostly just because I like the place). What gave me pause was the prospect of being, for the first time in years, properly on tour-as in sleeping on the bus, ma.s.saging throbbing and hungover temples while someone's drummer soundchecks-even if only for a couple of days. MAGAZINE called and asked if I fancied this one, I was initially hesitant. It wasn't because I had any reservations about either of the groups I'd be spending time with. I admire The Hold Steady hugely, and as for Drive-By Truckers, well, sometimes, when a cut from "Decoration Day," "The Dirty South" or "Brighter than Creation's Dark" pops up on my iPod at an apposite moment, I think they might well be the best band in the world. It wasn't even because I already had a trip to the US planned at around this time-to Philadelphia, to write an afterword for another book amid (or so I antic.i.p.ated and hoped) the first days of the Obama era (I'd chosen Philadelphia partly because of its stature as the birthplace of America's glorious democratic experiment, mostly just because I like the place). What gave me pause was the prospect of being, for the first time in years, properly on tour-as in sleeping on the bus, ma.s.saging throbbing and hungover temples while someone's drummer soundchecks-even if only for a couple of days.

Because it's awful, it really is. Even the bits which aren't awful-the laughter, the in-jokes, the camaraderie, the odd surreal surprises that touring scatters in your path-only seem like they're not awful because they represent a fleeting respite from the awfulness of it all. Touring is-well, okay, was-not such a bad way to spend one's early twenties, when the average male human, certainly, is barely distinguishable from the average male baboon, and is therefore abundantly pleased by the trivial, mindless gratifications offered by this way of life. For grownups, however-for people, that is, like Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady, who have hinterlands, families, friends, lives, interests, the habit of reading unill.u.s.trated books-it's a wretched, detached, deranging and lonely vocation.

These are, of course, the views of the author, not necessarily of Drive-By Truckers or The Hold Steady, hardcore road monsters all-people absolutely driven to be driven, and a good thing too, as the more people get to see both groups live, the happier our world will be. The fact remains, however, that the piece that follows amounts to a snapshot of intelligent and sensitive adults voluntarily submitting themselves to weeks at a time of a daily regime of twenty-three hours of boredom, irritation, humiliation, drunkenness and fitful sleep erratically redeemed by a sixty-minute (give or take the encores) hit of adrenalised excitement. To which the obvious retort is that it still beats working, and I'm sure that's true, but not by as comprehensive a knockout as the uninitiated might imagine. It requires truly extraordinary commitment, and an acceptance of ennui verging on the Zen, to resign yourself to a day waiting in a car park to play to a half-full venue.

All that said-or, rather, all that whined-I'm glad I went (for one reason or another, whatever the story, wherever the location, I'm always glad I went). I got to go to two cities I'd never been to before. In Atlanta, I saw the Coca-Cola museum, which is as brilliant as it is strange. In Tallaha.s.see, I met the single fattest person I've ever encountered, the driver of a taxi I hailed (his girth was such that the lower third of the steering wheel was completely enfolded by his surfeit of stomach, and he wasn't wearing a seatbelt because he couldn't, though as he was essentially his own airbag, I don't suppose it mattered, much). And I saw two great shows by two great bands, which works out at four great shows.

"THIS s.h.i.t IS so good," declares Patterson Hood, brandishing the bottle meaningfully, "that they . . . they put a cork in it."

One senses that this is praise indeed for whiskey, where Hood is concerned. He waves dismissively at the lesser screw-capped bourbons huddled on the tour bus kitchenette, and pa.s.ses the eight-year-old Basil Hayden's across the aisle. One swig confirms his judgement: high octane honey. Hood, a man gripped by ungovernable enthusiasms even at his most relaxed, has not long ago taken his last bows after a triumphant, riotous performance by Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady at Atlanta's Tabernacle, and is somewhat amped. Meet the wife (h.e.l.lo). Here's a picture of my daughter (she's lovely). You gotta hear the new Jenny Lewis (I have, but carry on). Next to Hood, Drive-By Truckers' tour manager, Matt DeFelippis, demonstrates the importance of modern communications technology in coordinating the modern rock tour. The Truckers' other primary songwriter, Mike Cooley, has phoned in lost while attempting to return from a post-show drink. He's muttering menacing imprecations about the tramp he paid four dollars for erroneous directions, and going so far as to suggest that General Sherman had the right idea when he burnt Atlanta to the ground in 1864: a spectacular heresy from a son of Alabama. Matt sighs, flips open his laptop, calls up Google Maps, and talks the guitarist in. It's already nearly 3:00 AM, and we still have a six-hour drive to Florida ahead of us, just as soon as all are aboard.