Freezin’ in Berlin

11 Nov

I had a bit of a restless night as I was afraid that someone was going to come in from the unlit, haunted, windswept and litter strewn compound and stab me 14-17 times in my sleep and have sex with my corpse. Of course, at that time I probably wouldn’t really care but still, my mundane worries kept me tossing and turning. My clothes are fully pressed now as I have been sleeping in them all night. Libor took one for the team as he had no blanket or rag to cover him; the rest of us lucked out with some old blankets and sleeping bags.
The promoter was very nice to provide us with a delicious breakfast and we sat around a laughed about how he washed a sleeping bag and so forgot it so Libor had to sleep just under a jacket. Ha hah hah! so great. Then after a nice conversation punctuated with “can you leave? I want to go to sleep.” we hit the road! Berlin here we come. And cold here we come too-the temperature has suddenly dropped however much it is that makes you miserable. That much.
We don’t have high hopes for this show since the last time we played in Berlin there were a whopping 1 people here, maybe less. I can’t remember, I drowned my sorrows in drink, something I do pretty much every night. Oh liver, I love you so, please don’t quit me.
Luckily our sprits are boosted because some old friends showed up and we had a nice time and actually quite a nice show. And the place upstairs where we are staying even has heat! Sadly, some of us are becoming quite sick and Blinky Midnight, our leader, decides that it would be best for us if every horizontal surface should be covered with damp snot rags. Yes, you are right. That is disgusting. I’m no doctor but food and snot rags should not share the same space. Just my opinion, though (non-doctor, sadly).

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Dresden ad nauseum

10 Nov

Another short drive and we cross the border into Germany. I’ve never been to Dresden and well, let’s just say it has a pretty turbulent history. There are actually still some old buildings standing but I can’t really gauge how the city is set up. It’s starting to get cold which, of course, pisses me off. Then again it is November so it’s to be expected. At least it’s not snowing like it did in New York in October. That’s just unacceptable.
So we arrive and the people are very nice though I’m getting a squat vibe here, but that can not be because there is a kindergarten on the top floor. We wander around the cold, cobblestone streets looking at H&M, the Gap and Marks and Spencer-typical examples of indigenous german culture and then make our way back to the venue.
There is what I can only describe as a profound lack of enthusiasm for this show. We take bets on the number of people who will show up with Libor being the least enthusiastic better with a wager of 8 people. Even he is too optimistic. In fact, the promoter was worried he was going to take a bath on this show and yet even he, nice as was, didn’t show up until the last song. He proclaimed that, while he was drinking outside so was able to only see the last song, it was very good. That’s a bit of what we call the old “back-handed compliment.”
Since we are on the subject and in Germany, home of the back-handed compliment and the offensively blunt comment, let me list a few of my favorites:
-I liked Soulside (our old band) better, your band (Girls Against Boys) is very boooorring.
-I drove very far to see this show because my girlfriend likes your band. I do not like your band. Can I have a beer from your back stage?
-I was looking very much forward to seeing you but I was very disappointed. You were very terrible and it looked like your singer was very sick. Why were you so bad tonight?
Ahh, but on to better things like the hovel sleeping conditions awaiting us. I look forward to delousing myself in the future. Optimism can only look up!

Good Morning!

Sanitarium/Hotel

Sanitarium/Hotel

Help me!

Cold War

Usti Downtown

Blinky takes a Break

Squat me?

Sculpture Garden

Cold and old

Horror Setting

Almost Perfect

Graffiti Eins

Graffiti Zwei

Vintage, maybe

Errmm...

X-mas en Route

Sweet

The Sorrow and the Pity

60s Design

Phil and Ludwig

Zu Laut!

Gentlemen, your manners.

Home Sweet Home

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Ústí nad Labem w/ Houpací Koně

9 Nov

The great thing about Europe is that many of the cities are very close and not many people seem to want to travel too far. So our drive was about one hour, except for the traffic which turned it into a 4 hour drive. But still… well, that was pretty long, I guess. The entire reason I play in a band is to be a perpetual tourist but this is not going well, since the two things I know about the Czech Republic are that they make the sun go down pretty early and their president likes to steal pens. So you sit in a dark, cold van with steamed up windows looking at huge dark objects pass by – could be an old factory, could be a fallen spaceship or could be some sort of unholy alliance between a grossly irradiated 50ft. wall of toxic sludge and Danzig. One remarkable thing is that we take a chance and stop at this roadside restaurant which features a stage with real alligators and turtles under it. I guess if you are a bad band they feed you to the alligators?
The club tonight is a cool place called Mumie and we are playing with a local band quite well known called Houpací Koně. I’ll be damned if these people and the promoters aren’t all super nice-what is it with all these nice people? Getting fucking sick of it.
Anyway, we have a great time, the audience seems very happy since they hit their hands together instead of hitting their hands on my face. And we are excited because, though a rare event, Blinky Midnight shows up and shows off his djing skills. The dance party has commenced. And a weird soviet style school hostel awaits us with paperwork and weirdness. But whatever, just one night.
PS-We hear in 3 days that there is a big fire in the club and it does a fair amount of damage.

Crocodiles and Turtles

Alligators and Turtles, oh my!

Beastie Boys

Sick of Sandwiches

Mumie

Do It!

Backstage

Screen time

Reel to Reel

Houpací Koně

Showtime!

Stealing the limelight

Trancey

Shoutdown

Blinky is watching

PreLaunch

Katka perpetrates

MidLaunch

Dance floor armeggedon

Petr scolds

Tools of the trade

Petr and Katka

Glamour

Where is the love?

The GLORY!!!

Hospital?

Cold War showdown

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České Budějovice-Nice to Meet Ya

8 Nov

After spending a nice morning/afternoon in one of our favorite cities in the entire world, Prague, we head to a town called České Budějovice. Tonight’s show is going to be interesting since we are following a showing of a film about stoning women in Iran. There will be a lot of long faces and a lot of beer drowning sorrows and then…uh…let’s…uh…rock? Do you mind?
Jaroslav and the entire crew at bar treat us like complete human beings! České Budějovice is the czech town which in german would be Budweis… you heard it right! Budweis-you might have heard about an american beer with that name. Well the Czech beer came first and I have no idea why we americans had a beer name that wasn’t original. I mean, couldn’t we call it CheeseburgerBeer or ApplePiePA or something?
The town is very pretty and I know because I saw it as we were driving out the next day after a pretty intense European vs. American Foosball game. Let’s just say we had the Europeans on the run by letting them win by only 15 points. To be fair, we walked through the beautiful town square at about 3 am-looked great and we got to stay in a cool little hostel in the old part of town. Can’t say I’m too proud of my touristic abilities these days.

Reliable

Prague Does Trains Right

Train Station

Communication

Tough Town

Vintage Chris

DisneyLand

Snow White

Breadcrumbs

Brno Attacks!!

Chief calls the shots

Typical view

Smoke break

Everything

Poster du jour

Life in the streets

Night in the city

City Center

City Center part 2

Hit the Streets

Chief says

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Drive. Drive. Drive.

7 Nov

We wake up after having being savagely attacked by a french bar and a man who hates canadians. We put one foot in front of the other, we insert croissants into our apparently open mouths, drain coffee cups of their coffee and take our places. Today is going to go like this:
drive.
drive.
drive.
stop. look at some stuff in a convenience store, taking utmost care to buy the best products-chips? chocolate bar? coffee? chips? chocolate bar? coffee? chips? chocolate bar? coffee?
drive.
drive.

Potato Famine

Sausage Nation

T-Mobile Frontier

Time Travel Gas Station

Somebody

Czech Choices

Hopper

Bored Board.

The FuelOMat!

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Too short in Audincourt

6 Nov

It’s a beautiful morning and the sun is shining through the vines into our castle in the sky, but we must leave for France today. It shouldn’t be too bad to leave the land of sausages for the land of bread, cheese and wine. Today we play a festival in Audincourt with Pneu, Jack and the Bearded Fishermen and Tractopelle in Versailles. Should be fun and it’s a good opportunity to pretend to speak french.
Little do we know that we are being set up for a massive ambush. The show progresses well with all the bands showing off their exceptional skills – for example, Pneu manages to play at 221 bpm for their entire set while we stand 40 cm from them. Impressive! We play and all goes as planned – there’s even a fight after the show! Paramount Styles and a fight between some drunk people is like yin and yang, like apple pie and ice cream, like Metallica and Lou Reed. Well that last one, maybe not so much. Speaking of which, if I may digress, there are 2 security guards here: one older, tall and thin, the other younger and not so tall but definitely not one with whom to pick a fight. So some drunk guy starts causing trouble and the tall thin one drops him like a sack of potatoes. Amazing and a lesson to learn-he is not the one I would have picked to win a fight.
Anyway, Jerome and his pals are actually on a mission to destroy us: we return to the backstage area and there is a fully stocked bar ready to attack. We are no match for the onslaught of beer, vodka and whiskey. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it coming but I had no idea of its ferocity. We really could have used that security guard for protection.

Tractopelle

Jack

Pneu

Back to Reality

Arts in the Woodshed

Ouch!

This

could

end

badly

Monster Cheese

Jerome, the big cheese

Scene of the Crime

Party Bus

Poster du Jour

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Ich bin ein Frankfurter

5 Nov

Oh so funny… well, what’s actually funny is that I flew in to the Frankfurt airport with a big stupid bag, took the train into the city, ate a wurst in the town square because I was trying to to be all local.. and then I walked to the venue with my big ass bag. Sounds fine right? except the walk was 7.5km so that just means I’m dumb. Big, dumb and stupid, that’s the way they grow us.
Today is the first day of our tour and we begin at the Hafen 2 in Offenbach am Main. It’s a cool club with bounteous amounts of coffee – perfect to fight jetlag. Everyone is happy to be reunited even though it seems like it was 2 days ago or something.
Robert tells us an interesting story about this club and it led me to devise a way to save the economy of the entire world. The city is going to tear down this club to make way for a new school. The demolition will take place next spring and if the club can raise enough money, the city will give (i.e. loan) them money so they can build a new club down the street. Never mind that maybe the city could build the school somewhere else, like, say, next door on the big vacant lot. Or next to the big vacant lot in the neighboring vacant lot. Let’s just say there are other places construction could take place but I realize I’m ignoring the bigger picture! So one thing that really gets the economy going is construction. If the government tells everyone that owns a house or a building that they must tear them down and build new ones and the city will loan them the money at, say, 5%… well, global meltdown fixed! Tons of new building, tons of new jobs, tons of loans-problem solved! You’re welcome, G20-feel free to call me if you have questions.

Billowy

Kubrick

Frankfurt am Main

Occupy Frankfurt

I don't know

My Story

No More Glory

Feed Me

Eames Heaven

Hafen 2

Seeking Glory

Poster du Jour

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Lyon Part Deux Dieu

3 Oct

Well, there it is. That wraps up this particular short little jaunt. Everyone spreads across to the far reaches of the continent to resume their otherwise fabulous and glorious lives. It was great to see a bunch of new towns in France and Spain and sample their differing types of gas, taxes and alcohol. It really seems like these products could catch on with a wider audience.
We will be back in November in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Slovenia and Croatia. We hope that these countries will be more than willing to allow us to sample their gasoline, taxes and alcohol as well. I hear that they have quite a supply.

Lyon Marie

Mad Max Citroen

Who took the Gerie

Party Boat

Recycle Egg

Lyon Cafe

Death Stare

Passing View

Ciao

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Grenoble-the Homecoming!

2 Oct

Ahhh, some of us are well rested in our zero star Premiere Class hotel but sadly, not Chris or Pierre since they don’t get back from the hospital until 5 am. Lesson to those who are willing to listen: don’t have any teeth. They will cause you pain someday. More sage advice later.
We have a short drive to Grenoble, the last stop on our Franco-Spano tour. Grenoble is located at the base of some serious mountains so it offers both a lot of snow and a whole lot of great outdoor activities. I shall do none of them today, except to walk over to see a park with another tower by our friend, August Perret, the man who designed a whole lot of stuff in Le Havre. I went to school in this town and I think I’ve seen more today than I saw the entire time I was there. I mean, there’s a church here from the 4th Century. The 4th Century! I mean, really. Europeans are all like, yeah, we see old stuff all the time-who cares. But even for Europeans, 4th Century? That’s some old shit. That’s like, I see your old busted, crumbling castles and raise you 600 years. So, I’m a little ashamed that I was so ignorant of the history of this town. I’m actually sad that I’m so ignorant, in general. I keep trying and I keep staying ignorant. And also, sadly, I learned that my former professor, a fantastic man, passed away this year, so this visit isn’t much of a homecoming – not that it should be. I spent most of my time skiing instead of hitting the books. Shame.
The folks at Le Ciel treat us marvelously, though we nervously eye the theater seating which often leads to some serious lethargy in the audience. It’s a beautiful place and a nice break from some tiny stages and unsecured backstage rooms. Le Ciel-istes offer us an incredible assortment of cheeses, meats and wines. We even have our own beer dispenser so there’s a lot of talking of moving in here and saving some money on rent. But no, we are kicked out, forced to eat a delicious dinner of duck and potatoes dauphinoise (This is the seat of the Dauphins, after all) and then condemned to our very nice, comfortable hotel room. It’s so nice it’s tragic. A very nice last show and thanks to This Is The Kit from the UK and all the people at Le Ciel.

City Center

Independence

Sweet Relief

Ye Olde Church

Church Detail

Vault

Tourettes

Olympics!

Scorcher

Driver! Drummer!

Katja Explodes

Holy Cow!

Mineral Water

Whaaa..?

This Is The Kit

Backstage Glory

Rock time

Chris takes a break

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Lyin’ in Lyon…errr…

1 Oct

Finally, after some nice rest, we get up, scrape the scum off our bodies, sprinkle our lithe, finely toned bodies with manly cologne, put flowers in our hair and get some coffee. Poor Chris has finally broken his calm, placid, even-keeled state to proclaim that the pain coming from his tooth is now unbearable. Poor guy: medical help is not going to be easy to come by, especially since it is saturday.
Today’s drive will take us through the mountains to Lyon. It promised to be a very beautiful drive but, strangely for the first time, all we can think about is not throwing up. We wind up and down, right and left, left and right, down and up through the hills and over the dales. Jane, stop this crazy ride! So we stop in a town called Puy en Levant, a pilgrimage stop on the way to St. Juan de Compostella. I suppose it’s a nice town-it has a bunch of old stuff, narrow streets, french stores, even an organ grinder with a monkey. Maybe I’m still too ill from the drive.
Stephan and Pierre and everyone at the Sonic in Lyon are very welcoming. Their boat is right on the river and we can sit on the deck, watch the sunset and make the same jokes over and over again. That’s what we do-repetition=funny. Golden rule of comedy, fyi. Tonight we play with Cotton Wood, a gentilhomme who comes from the nearby countryside.
After rudely devouring more than our share of all of the food made for everyone else, we test the limits of everyone’s patience 1. by being too quiet for some serious drunk fellows, 2. by being too loud for some other non-drunk people 3. by making Pierre take Chris to the hospital, saturday night, for some emergency medical treatment for his tooth. That is way beyond the call of duty and deserves both a statue and a monument in the Sonic’s honor, especially since it may be the last year of this venue’s existence.

Choky!

Puy-en-Velay

Le Maquis

Relax

Le Sonic

Calm Before the Storm

Name in Lights!

Gourmand

Testing

Backstage Glory

The Chief

Cotton Wood

Late Night

Monument à Pierre

Zero

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