Jefferson of the Antarctic

Jefferson brings his stumps together around the whiskey glass. He raises the vessel to his lips and gulps. Half the stuff runs straight down his face. The whiskey flows into the network of scars on his chin, looking like a polluted river seen from space.

 "This is the last time I'm going through this shit," he says with a flick of his head. The long blond strands of hair sway boyishly, just as they did when he was onstage with the band. Back when there was a band. "Told this story too many fucking times as it is," he goes on, grimacing as the whiskey finds its mark. "Been trying to forget it 'cept you people keep asking me about it. Well no more after this, missy. Make sure you get it all down, y'hear me?"

 In October last year, Boston-based act The Electric Antlers became the first band to record an album in the Antarctic. The trip was the brainchild of maverick producer and showman Palmer Lynch (the man who made a family of illegal immigrants mime to Sammy Davis Jnr tracks for 72 hours solid at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas in 1992, before having them deported). In addition to the publicity Lynch expected recording in Antarctica would generate, he also convinced the band that the low temperature, isolation and pristine Antarctic air would help The Electric Antlers produce a truly unique record.

 "He really fucking sold it to us, that bastard," says Jefferson, hurriedly reaching for the whisky bottle again with his gnarled fingerless hands. I offer to pour it for him but he glowers and tells me to get the hell away. "First record album made at the South Pole! Said we'd go down in history. We fucking did too. But for all the wrong reasons, man."

 On October 15th, the band (comprising Paul Tiggs on bass and vocals, Tommy Kowalski on guitars and harmonica, and Jefferson Gort on drums) met up with Lynch in Punta Arenas on the southernmost tip of Chile, loaded their equipment into a small private plane and flew to the Antarctic Peninsula.

 "I shoulda known something was up from the start. Antarctica's a protected place. It's the last wilderness on earth or somesuch shit. You need all kinds of permissions and stuff to go there. We had none of that. Lynch just paid some Chilean guy two hundred dollars to fly us there and told him to keep real low to avoid being picked up on radar. I thought he was trying to save money. Truth was, he didn't want anyone to know we were there."

 Upon arrival, Lynch made the band trek over twenty miles inland pulling their equipment on sleds improvised from bin liners.

 "I was so up for it to begin with," says Jefferson. "'Course it was fucking freezing but we were like, shit! We're actually here, y'know? I even saw a coupla fucking penguins. It was awesome. Lynch was strolling ahead of us. He was the only one who'd remembered to bring warm clothing. He wouldn't pull any of the gear because he said physical exertion interrupted the melodies in his head and we respected that. Bunch of idiot pricks that we were."

 October in the Antarctic is the start of summer and the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches out beyond the Antarctic circle, is the warmest part of the continent. While cold, the climate is perfectly habitable for humans while the sun is shining. However, as night falls, the temperate plummets dramatically.

 "We've been trekking for a fucking age and we're all bushed and needing some zees so we ask Lynch how far it is to the shelter and the guy just sorta laughs and says there ain't no shelter - we're camping right out in the fucking open. 'So where's the fucking tents?' we ask and Lynch says we don't need no tents. Says we can bury ourselves in snow like a polar bear does. We didn't know shit from Shinola back then, so that's what we did. Buried ourselves in the fucking snow. Me and the other two guys huddled together for warmth. Felt a bit faggy but what else could we do? Lynch didn't join us in the hole. He had on this big fucking warm coat. It was like a tent you could wear. I found out much later that he had a fucking heating element in it."

 The next morning Lynch woke up the band early and told them they were about to start recording their album.

 "Christ knows what time it was but none of us wanted to get up. My arms and legs could barely frigging bend. Lynch starts rushing around, telling us to get our instruments set up and in tune. He starts miking us up to a mini recording console he's got inside his coat. Tells us to start rehearsing. Man, it was so cold it took me a coupla hours just to remember how the songs went. Got into it after a while, though. Drumming's good exercise and I warmed up fast. Paul was having trouble though. The bass strings were really hurting his fingers. Lynch just shrugged and said either get used to it or get a plectrum."

 The recording session lasted all day. None of the band had brought food and soon they began to weaken.

 "Lynch was fine, of course. Bastard had an endless supply of beef jerky and pork rinds inside that fucking coat. Wouldn't give any to us three, though. Said the hunger would induce a euphoric trance state that would help us perform. Fucking shyster. When Lynch took off round some hill to take a piss, me and the other guys ate some snow but it wasn't very filling. I was starting to feel woozy. When Lynch came back he told us he'd just smashed a penguin's egg right in front of its parents, just to see what would happen. Sick fuck was laughing."

 After ten hours of recording, night began to fall and the band begged Lynch to let them stop playing.

 "He'd always have some fucking excuse like he'd accidentally erased the best take of any song or there was an albatross squawk on the track that obscured the vocals. He just kept pushing and pushing. Me and the guys were getting groggier and groggier. Our hands were fucking useless. After we finish one song, I tried to put down the drumsticks but I couldn't. They were fucking frozen to my hands. I tell Lynch about it and he goes 'Yes! That's it. Finally you're getting it! Keep playing!' So we kept playing. Christ what a night that was. The three of us were off our fucking heads with the cold. Then all these weird lights appear in the sky. Flickering and dancing and shit. The Aurora Australis. Southern lights, yeah? Pretty as fuck but it just made everything seem even more like some bad fucked-up dream. We're playing what must be the thousandth take of one song and then it happened. Tommy's face froze onto his harmonica. He tried to pull it off and took half his fucking lip with it. He's screaming and shit and then Paul's yelling that his fingers are frozen to his bass. Lynch yells at him to keep playing but when he does it's like the bass strings are fucking razor wire and they start shredding his fucking fingers like they was tinned tuna. Then it started snowing. And things got worse. Paul just keeled over in the snow and stopped moving. Tommy scratches his nose and when he takes his hand away, the whole fucking skin of his face come with it, like a frozen pancake or something. Man, that was some bad shit. And all the time this fucking horror's taking place, Lynch is dancing around like a fucking leprechaun and now it seems he's got a hot coffee machine inside his coat too. The blizzard closes in and everything goes white. White-out they call it. Except what I was doing was blacking out. Just as I'm losing it, I see all these fucking penguins marching towards Lynch. Lynch looks at them and laughs but those birds had real mean looks on their faces. Suddenly they all start pecking at him and making this hollering noise. Man, it was so loud. Soon Lynch is down on the ground and an army of fucking penguins is chewing on him like piranhas. When I woke up the next day, all that was left of him was that coat. I dragged myself over to it and looked inside. Fucker had everything in there. It was like a branch of Radio Shack. I found a cell phone but my hands wouldn't work. They were like two frozen legs of lamb. Had to text for help using my fucking chin. You every tried texting with your chin, missy? It ain't fucking easy, let me tell you. I was lucky, though. Scientists at this nearby research centre picked up the signal and rescued me. "

 Jefferson pushes the whiskey bottle away with a sneer. His Antarctic ordeal has transformed him from a happy-go-lucky twentysomething musician into a bitter husk of his previous self.

 "So," he says, "the album's out next Tuesday. I hope you'll pick up a copy. I think it's my best work."

 I thank him for his time and leave to go to my next interview.

THE END

WINDYPOPS SAYS: P-P-Pick up a penguin? Not after hearing THAT!