13. NitkowskiStay In The Home You Love
B: We’re guilty of stupid mischief, and when we were working out our selections, we planned to give you a bunch of shit about bands like Nitkowski, Boxes, Pig Destroyer – any band without bass players to see how we could go. But if we’re allowed we’d like to include Nitkowski to complete the Baker’s Dozen. This album has a poetic and profound title but it’s taken from an advert for Stannah stairlifts. They’re a two-guitar band with drums and no bass, so they’re like an inversion of Palehorse. They used to run the guitars into a mixer and an octave pedal to give it the bass, and they’ve got these intricate sort of jazzy/mathy guitar parts. It’s almost like Radiohead unlearning how to play.
JA: We played the worst gig of our entire career with Nitkowski. It took place in Wrexham, which is the nearest big… settlement to where two of them live. The tour was shit but this hit new lows. We arrived at this pub, and the promoter was outside saying that nobody’s going to show up because there’s another gig on down the road which even he would prefer to be at.
JB: We could hear the other gig, and Nikolai’s roaring with the actual bar five feet away. One of these pubs with seven local old men who looked like they went there every day. The only other people were the promoter – he decided to stick around – one of Nitkowski’s friends, a friend of ours and both their dads. Mark had to apologise to them all every time he went up to get a drink. ‘Pint please, and sorry – sorry about the band’. JA: It’s on YouTube. It’s called ‘Palehorse rock Wrexham’.
