EAT 'EM AND SMILE, OR "SOUND BITES: EATING ON TOUR WITH FRANZ FERDINAND" BY ALEX KAPRANOS

I love tour diaries. If it's a band I like I want them to mention the city I would have seen them in (even better, mention me: "I couldn't help but notice one guy in the crowd in St. Pete. 'He really gets it,' I thought.'") but even if it's a band I don't know about, I like reading about the struggles of traveling through the country with a mix of different personalities, enduring poorly-attended shows for little money, bad food, and the only real plan being making the next night's show. Or if it's a famous band, reading about all the groupies and drugs and booze that normal people don't have access to.

I've done a couple baby tours, where I served as a driver who with no sense of direction, and a roadie/merch salesman with no math or mechanical skills. I was mostly along for the ride. None lasted more than a few weeks, but they were still adventures and even the bad parts (I was in a van with 8 or 9 people that didn't say a word from Mississippi to Gainesville, Florida after a fight the night before) were kinda fun.

So when I saw that a dude from Franz Ferdinand wrote a tour diary about all the food he ate on tour, I was sold! Shit, I'll bet those guys had all sorts of fancy meals!

And they did. Apparently, this is a collection of columns he wrote for a newspaper, and it reads like that - short, quick entries that are well-written and give a sketch of a certain city or cuisine. 

Kapranos is a good writer, and has a gift for describing food. Shit, he made me rethink some stuff I didn't think I liked before. He's also good at recalling his childhood and early days. There's a passage about a bully boss that I think everyone who's worked a shitty job can recognize: "I hate this guy. I hate this job. My weekly wage is less than he'd spend on a garish tie. ...I imagine one more week. That's all I need: one more week and I can pay the rent I owe."

The best meals are in America (he's really astounded by the size of everything. Is our food that big? I don't remember food in Europe being tiny) and Japan, where the descriptions of sushi and sashimi will make you curse this dumb pandemic for no other reason than it's effect on eating out. He even tries the fabled fugu - that pufferfish that can kill you. "It tastes good, but not as exceptional as it should, considering the supposed risk in eating it."

Kapranos can occasionally come off as jaded and above it all, but his enthusiasm for food shows through, and even though a lot of the entries just seem to end without a closer, it's an entertaining and quick read.

Sex/Drugs/Bad Behavior
Unless you count the sin of gluttony, nothing. There's booze throughout, but nothing scandalous.

Percentage of Music in the Bio
Not much. Apart from a few mentions of festivals or pre and post-show meals, you wouldn't know the dude was in a band, and would just think he was a guy traveling around with some friends eating a whole bunch of food.

Buy, Borrow from the Library, or Pass
Keeping my tightwad streak here - pick it up at the library, unless you find it crazy cheap. You can read it in one sitting