ayrshire's most publicity-shy band of musicians recently returned from a 5 1/2 week tour of the usa, happy that they had gone down well with the audiences across the atlantic, but sad that their hectic schedule had drawn to an end all too soon.
they played dozens of shows in all sorts of venues, coast-to-coast, and only as the exhausting programme was coming to a close did they feel they were getting the hang of it.
"it was just getting better and better," said stephen douglas from irvine. "and we were playing really well and having a great time when it all finished."
guitarist brother john douglas agrees. he said: "we probably lost money from the tour but it was one great big beautiful advert for what we're about."
the ad is paying off already, with fan mail coming into the trash cans' shabby road studio in glencairn square, kilmarnock, from american music lovers who saw and lapped up some of the earlier tour dates in june.
says john: "for some reason our first album (cake) was seen by the americans as something of a cult classic, and at first they found the new one (i've seen everything) very different. but they seem to regard it as a grower now, and after several listens, enjoy it as much as cake.
many of the american shows were sell-outs, though the guys admit they bombed in nashville.
new york and los angeles were areas where the band scored particularly highly in the popularity stakes, but, for john and stephen, one of the most memorable performances was an unscheduled freebie...in pennsylvania station in philadelphia!
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it was in those impressive surroundings that early scenes for the film witness, starring harrison ford and kelly mcgillis, were shot, and the cavernous station concourse proved to be the ideal location for a trash cans' acoustic set.
john explains: "we were doing a show, strictly for the over-21s, in the city that night, so it was decided that our younger fans shouldn't miss out. we just set up the gear in the station and just played away - it was brilliant."
"there wasn't really much time for sightseeing." add stephen. "no," confirms john, "it was a case of a show one day, travel the next, then another show, and then travel on to the next town. it was shattering for all of us (themselves plus the rest of the band - frank, paul and davy) but we all had a great time."
the day after they returned home, the tired trash cans played the phoenix festival in stratford-upon-avon, and they've also agreed to do a festival in gloucester next week.
but there are no plans to play in kilmarnock, despite at least one local promoter being as keen as mustard to book the boy into the town's grand hall. the band feels there is 'no demand' for their very listenable brand of music locally, at least not live.
they do hope to fix up a european tour and there is also talk of an excursion to japan but, in john's words "it's all up in the air right now" until they settle down and recover from the successful american trip.
meanwhile you can see the trash can sinatras on bbc 2 tonight, thursday (11:15 pm), when the bbc scotland series no stilettos continues airing on the national network.
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