22:08 - jena - well i got the shaft tonight on the food front. the beans and spinach dishes has cheese and other animal product in them so i chowed down on penne noodles, margerine and basil and some salad. i headed off to find an internet cafe and here i am. here's a recap of the last few days if i can hold out from joining in on a network game of Doom. here we go...
10.26.01 - braunschweig - we have the day off so we drive back into "west germany" to stay with our pal Chrisian who put on the show a few nights ago in Wolfenbuettel. we find an internet cafe and check mail. i linger as usual and the other guys go for food. i meet up with them an hour later as they are finishing up. i opt to fend for myself later with stuff i picked up at a turkish market. the restaurant has a porcelain sink around four feet off the ground with a big hole in the bottom that perplexes the guys. matias asks the bartender and he explains that it's a puke sink. we debate whether matias is pulling our leg and judge him to be truthful as puking in a specially designed sink seems a lot smarter than a toilet or a regular sink. atom and i do laundry around the corner from the restaurant and i start reading Let It Blurt.
we meet up with Christian later and attend a party hosted in his attic. seventies disco beats pump as we take in a few free drinks and head back downstairs to play pictionary. it was pretty fun, though i found it kindof hard to translate "12-inch-cock" into a diagram. Christian does a good job at drawing Alf and Mike excels with the pen drawing a near perfect Operation Ivy logo. the germans don't know who the Hamburgler is however...
after the game we put our earplugs in to drown out the disco above and the snoring all around.
city of the day
braunschweig, germany
sounds of the day
bad disco lulling us to sleep
book of the day
Let It Blurt - Lester Bangs autobiography by Jim DeRogatis
food of the day
eggplant and red pepper in a jar w/ pita, tomato and avacado
roadside wildlife of the day
phive phesants
10.26.01 - tangermunde - the show tonight is on a cruise ship. not really the Love Boat, more a two level tourist boat that would cruise up and down the Rideau River or Canal. apparently sometimes when there is a big crowd they actually disembark and go up and down the river while the show is on.
Tangermunde is an amazing little town in the area formerly known as East Germany. the streets are all cobblestone and there are lots of towers and turrets and old buildings. i guess it's a bit of a tourist trap as there are a hell of a lot of hotels and restaurants in the area. i manage to find a store that sells video game stuff, music, books etc. they have a stack of five atari games but none worth shelling out 5 DM for. they also had a bunch of Sega Master System/Mega Drive and NES stuff. i almost pick up cassette copies of The Runaways Greatest Hits and Talking Heads Stop Making Sense as a public service to my fellow van dwellers but pass at the 4 DM price tag. if there was one more cool cassette it would have dropped the price to a three for 10 DM price and i probably would have shelled out the cash.
when we get back to the boat dusk has set and a half-moon shines brightly in the fog hazed sky. a hundred crows circle around an ominous tower peering over the boat reminiscent of a Hitchcock or horror movie. the sound of a two hundred wings flapping overhead is quite impressive.
dinner is okay, but atom doesn't eat fruit at all or many vegetables so he ends up dining on plain rice. sorry pal.
local DJ outfit Sima Beatz kick off the late start rapping (in german!!) over american hip-hop bsides. they sound okay, but german is not a poetic language when it comes to rapping. the flop miserably on the turntablism and beat box fronts as well. Combat Floppy Project from Berlin play next and look promising as they set up a tonne of keys and pedals including a mini casio keyboard. they come across sounding like John Lydon fronting New Order -- trashy euro disco -- but even more annoying than Lydon could be. the drunken crowd goes off nonetheless. i don't get it.
five nazi looking dudes board the ship during the night and everyone on the boat seems to feel the chill. they weren't wearing docs or braces tho, just bombers, close cropped hair and jeans. the promoter says they weren't neo-nazis but weighlifters. whatever. most of them eventually leave, but at the end of the night some drunks won't and the boat staff have to chase and push the obnoxiously impaired crew off the boat only to be berated and watch the drunx piss off the bow.
the crowd thinned during the night but those who stayed went apeshit for atom. despite the pleas from the dozen diehards atom didn't do an encore.
city of the day
tangermunde, germany
sounds of the day
embrace
book of the day
Ghost Pine #6
food of the day
rice w/ zuccini, orange/red/green peppers, tomatoe sauce
roadside wildlife of the day
two eagles, a hen, five deer and some swans
10.25.01 - wolfenbuettel - we get to the show early and i bail immediately tired of sitting around in venues until showtime being bored or reading, even though there was a foosball (or kicker) game at the youth club called Mumpitz. i wander around and head into town. there is a cool clocktower in the centre square. i follow my nose and find an internet cafe, but it is closed at 6pm. what the heck. most of the other stores are closed too, but i walk down a cobblestone mall and check out the used cameras in a store window and keep on wandering. i find a vegetarian restaurant, but hold off knowing we are getting fed at the venue. i stumble on a small skate store and check out the shoes. they seem a little overpriced with the conversion, and most are leather. they have a record bin in the back but only stock hip-hop and techno, yet the turntables in the front of the store are pumping out No Fx and Zen Arcade is in on deck. i ask them if they know about the show and they don't. i try explain what atom is about but can't remember the name of the venue. note to self: carry fliers for the show when i wander around before the show. i totally get lost, but somehow manage to find my way back to the venue using the clocktower as a map point. i get there just in time for yet another great dinner.
the 20x30 foot club is packed (and hot and smokey, grrr) and i end up stuck at the merch table for most of the night, including an hour after the show while the crowd filtered out and atom and the gang played kicker in the band room. (i mentioned this to atom and he and the others have been good at relieving me periodically (from the merch table) ever since). as usual we sell a tonne of stickers and an okay amount of vinyl and t-shirts. europeans have hardly bought any CDs so far.
locals Die Gratenkinder opened. they are a five piece with keyboards playing in a psychadelic/indie/slacker vein, though one members' Int'l Noise Conspiracy puts one of their influences on his sleeve. they sing in german! there is hope for rock and roll.
during the show i spot a totally cute grrrl who looks like my girlfriend sarah, with a dash of carrie brownstein thrown in, dancing to atom. i start feeling homesick, as well as cold sick as a sore throat starts kicking in, enhanced by the smog in the club i am sure. atom rocks the house the kids singing along and totally going off.
this club reminds me of 5 Arlington in ottawa right down to the wooden risers they use to plug the windows and act as sound proofing. if only the drinking age in ontario was 16 and the authorities were euro-lax the 5 would probably still be in business.
city of the day
wolfenbuettel, germany
sounds of the day
die gratenkinder
book of the day
HeartattaCk #31
food of the day
shell pasta with broccoli, fried pasta and vegan cheese
apple strudel with vegan vanilla sauce
roadside wildlife of the day
woken up at 2am by Trusty the german sheppard/doberman mix
a spotted hawk later on the drive
10.24.01 - essen - tonight's show was in a basement youth centre called Emo Keller. keller = basement. emo is a short form for the church which owns the space. feeling a cold coming on i asked for directions to a store where i can by some ginger (imbre in german). i am told that there is one store but it closed in 10 minutes and we should bike there. chris is my guide and i borrow a bike and we fly thru the windy streets trying to make it to the store before it closes. a couple stressed pedestrians later (it's been a month since i rode my bike) we make it to teh shop just in time. i buy three clumps of ginger and some eccinecia tincture to boot. mike is just getting over a hard hitting flu/cold and atom has one coming on and i want to do whatever i can to fight this off. the bike ride made today. being in such bike friendly places as belgium, netherlands and germany is torture.
the opening band were locals Dean Dirg. they were an energetic bunch kicking out the jams in a fast garage-y hardcore hybrid. a little bit of MC5 with a little bit of Black Flag, though i am probably just saying that as every chours sounded like they were screaming "rise above". they sang in german! finally someone not wanting to kiss commercial or north american ass.
there was some weirdness at the end of the show. atom asks the kids who we met on the way in about money. he is directed to a bearded guy at the bar who i don't recall meeting on the way in. he informs atom that they took in 400 DM and asks atom how much he wants, putting him in a position to be branded a "dick". i pipe in "how much do bands usually get paid?" and get a reply of 150 DM. the money man explains that "the money goes to a political..." and then trails off. over a barrel, atom asks for 200 DM explaining that our van costs 100 DM a day and we just filled up the tank with another 100 DM. we get that, but come accross as dicks nonetheless. i suggest we ask about money at the beginning of each night if we don't have the info in our tour book, but i guess we'd end up looking like dicks before the show rather than after.
city of the day
essen, germany
sounds of the day
dean dirg
book of the day
soul on ice by elridge cleaver
food of the day
fuseli pasta w/ spinach, onions, tomatoes and crushed peanuts
roadside wildlife of the day
two deer
10.23.01 - kiel - i was a little bummed out to find out that one of my few german friends (who lives in kiel) was away at school. oh well. we drove to hamburg first to drop off our driver stefan, meet up with ingo (tour booker) and drop off our stuff at his place. stefan and mike go skateboarding and will meet us in kiel later on. on our way to kiel we pick up our new driver matias.
the best part of the night was the food. the menu was amazing at subrosa. the show went off pretty well even though we were told to keep the sound down so as not to annoy the neighbours living upstairs.
the worst part of the night was my first encounter with a "shelf toilet". atom had been bitching about them since i joined the tour but this was my first use of one where i would realize why he was griping. basically whatever you expell into the toilet sits on a level shelf in the back half of the toilet and when you flush the water comes from above and washes the shelf clean. i guess flushing immediately and repeatedly can make the experience a bit less unpleasant.
city of the day
kiel, germany
sounds of the day
soulside's soon come happy greeted us as we loaded in
book of the day
soul on ice by elridge cleaver
food of the day
three huge spinach/mushroom/tofu burgers w/ garlic sauce and a salad
(choosing off the amaying menu was quite the task)
roadside wildlife of the day
nothing remarkable
10.22.01 - munster - this show was at a univeristy in a rundown portable-type building called the Baracke (which i assume means barracks) it's run by the student government and they allow various students and organisations to use it for shows. when we arrive we find out the show is a benefit for a local squat which got evicted. that bugs atom a bit, that he is playing a benefit without knowing what the cause is ahead of time.
the opening act is a solo accoustic guitarist from a nearby city. he intros his songs in german but sings in near perfect english, which i find really irritating. i wish non english bands would sing in their own tongue more often. he introed a song and the only words i could make out were "palastine" and "gaza". i told atom this and his ears pricked up. the chorus was "rise up palastine" or something like that. atom booed at the end of the song. the highlight of accoustic dude's set was a weakerthans cover. atom used the palastine situation as an example of bandwagon jumping in his set to into a song -- "anarchy means i litter" i think. after the show dude came up to explain his german intro saying how in his intro he was saying the same thing as atom. still the song was pro-palastine.
as with most of the venues we have played it was filled with smoke and lacking air circulation. by the end of the night i was pretty burned out. i looked with an exasperated look and inadvertently made eye contact with a woman standing at the bar. she gave me a smile seeming to acknowledge my frustration, instantaneously wiping it away.
city of the day
munster, germany
sounds of the day
an illegal mixed CD the promoters were selling as a benefit for the squatters incl.
fugayi, pixies, sonic youth, le tigre, stereolab, catpower etc.
book of the day
soul on ice by elridge cleaver
food of the day
vegetable medley with cous cous & vegan chocolate covered marzipan (dinner)
four pepper tofu spread, red pepper eggplant spread (brekfast the next day)
roadside wildlife of the day
three huge pigs
posted by shawn scallen 7:55 PM
