Jodie Ponto Photography

Flying – no longer just for birds & big ol’ jet airliners.

Here are some things that only ever happen in England.

1. Master thatchers.

(Photo of The Red Lion Pub in the village of Avebury which claims to be the only pub in the world enclosed by a stone circle … and Europe’s largest stone circle at that)

2, Gentlemen operating heavy equipment dressed in a classy suit-jacket & cap.

(Photo taken in Camden Town, London)

3. An eccentric gentlemen named Alistair who picks your colonial cousin accent out of the crowd and takes you on a random, whirlwind tour/pub-crawl of Exeter.

(Photos taken in front of Exeter‘s main square & cathedral)

4. Taking Copious amounts of self-timer portraits in churches & cathedrals.

(Photos taken in Avebury‘s St. James Church)

5. Hotels with revolving doors and elevators that are so hobbit-like you can hardly get your gear into the building, let alone up to your room.

(Photos from Hotel Britannia in London)

6. Befriending the infamous Pewsey Rugby Dance Troupe.

(To see a video taken last year of Pewsey’s  rugby dance troupe click here)

7. Blue Cider.

(Photos from The Coopers Arms in Pewsey)

I was just reminded today that I had some un-posted photos kicking around from last month when our pal Jon Wilson joined Miss Quincy & Tyler Toews onstage for an electric Uppingham reunion (at Don Paddy’s). Cheers Jon and here’s to next year’s electric reunion!

Holy Hamburg, where did you come from and when can I see you again!? We only spent 24 hours together, but they were probably the most random and surprisingly wonderful hours of the entire adventure in Euroland.

Evidence of this claim as shown by, but not limited to, the following 3 facts and 15 photos:

1. After putting out last-minute pleas through phones, Facebook, and Couchsurfing our homeless selves were welcomed into the home of a friend of a total stranger … who turned out to be a match made in random friend heaven.
2. We arrived in Hamburg to discover the city buzzing with its first spring day and randomly parked Sharan (our VW minivan) next to the inaugural outdoor dance-party of the year thrown in a squatted yard beneath a section of railway tracks in The Schanze.
3. The Quincy crew played at one of those rare I’ve-never-seen-anything-like-it-before! venues. The itsy bitsy teeny weeny Mobile Blues Club is a 12m x 2.5 m mobile cart that is parked on the edge of a busy street in the middle of the city and has been transformed into a warm hub of music by the wonderful Thorsten Fixemer.

Go-Go Space Porta-Loo!

I’ve touched on the glamour of touring with an independent band before, and the miraculous transformation from road nasty to stage hot, but I think it’s time to dig deeper into the depths of road nasty.

The road is not kind to clothes.

Dirty, crusty, holey, and smelly are all adjectives that come to mind when I think of the clothes currently in our suitcases. It’s not that we particularly enjoy toodling about in our own filth, it’s just that …. well, let’s observe the following exhibits:

The Pussy Pants

On the road your clothes often face obstacles like a to-go cup of coffee or a shedding kitten that decides the crotch of your pants would make a wonderful home.

The Dirt Dress

On the road it’s rare to find the time and place to launder what few clothes you have with you. With creative methods, such as wearing your clothes inside out & dousing them in random perfumes found in strangers’ bathrooms, you can usually postpone the arduous task (of finding a time & place to do laundry, that is) until your clothes are so filthy they make you itch.

Which upon second thought I realize is perhaps not a skill to be proud of. In any case, here is Miss Quincy‘s stage dress being washed for the first time in 9 months. And yes, that sink water is brown.

The Holy Holey Jacket

On the road it’s common to become very attached to one particular article of clothing and wear it to the very edge of its material limit, have some horrified seamstress patch it up for you, and then wear it to the very edge of its material limit all over again. Here is my favorite jacket … which I’ll admit I have worn most days for the past few years and is wearing through the elbows for the third time.

Yes, the rumours are true. It’s the eve of heading to Deutsch-land and the only time I took my camera out while in Dutch-land was during Miss Quincy‘s show at Dwaze Zaken in Amsterdam.

Not that I intended to deprive you all of living vicariously through my photos … it’s just that I was really, really busy drinking good coffee & eating stroopwafels & daydreaming about moving to Amsterdam.

And not that I think the world really needs another photo of Miss Quincy taken by me … it’s just that some red-faced young Dutch boy, upon (mis)reading our tour dates, informed us very embarrassed-like that we were playing at a place in Amsterdam whose name meant “Crazy Ball-Sack” … which I’m now positive was a complete mis-translation given the fact that we arrived to discover a giant “Jesus Loves You” above the cafe.

Given how much pleasure it gave me to read all the submissions to my first ever Caption That Photo! Contest, I’ve decided to hold another one.

The latest photo to be captioned is a glorious post-show portrait of Miss Quincy that I captured the other night at the ever-glamorous Travelodge.

Just like last time, leave your oh-so-clever caption as a comment at the bottom of this post. Whoever creates the best caption will win a wee prize in the form of a good ol’ fashioned postcard being sent to him/her from somewhere along our Euro adventure. This edition of Caption That Photo! will remain open for one week – until next Sunday, Feb 27th when the Grand Master Captioner will be crowned from Amsterdam.

Without further ado, here’s the photo in question:

Miss Quincy at The Ironworks in Oswestry, England.

Someone has a heart-on for their electric guitar.

Quincy boots in mid-kick.

Behold a small series of photos that upon first gaze may appear like your standard Brighton beach shots … but upon closer inspection may reveal such mysteries as a couple making out way over yonder in the rain dusk, a flock of feathered soldiers about to descend upon the ice cream licking pier-goers, or Mister Quincy and his right-hand lady Righty getting undressed and re-dressed during a hard day’s photoshoot (to learn more about Mister Quincy click here).

Little did Miss Quincy and her left-hand man Lefty know when they set out on their tour of the UK and Europe to promote Miss Quincy’s latest album Your Mama Don’t Like Me that they had a doppelganger duo hot on their tails hatching a villainous plan to upstage them.

The dastardly duo in question is Mister Quincy and his right-hand lady Righty who are currently on tour in the UK and Europe promoting Mister Quincy’s latest effort Your Daddy Don’t Like Me.