Hello!

We have just returned from an amazing whirlwind grabbag tour in Europe. We danced under an iron dragon that shot out flames in Berlin, rode a suitcase down a hill in Brighton, played to the most people we ever have in our sweet lives when we opened for the Notwist in Brussels, left a girl in Kassel (sorry Dani), and a bunch of other things I'll let you imagine.

We also met our two new favorite bands...

1. Asa from Finland. We saw them play in Hamburg, Germany at the Golden Pony. Live traditional instruments and singing, soul samples, thick beats, impassioned dancing, a unique sense of humor, and conscious rhymes (I only know this because they would sometimes explain the jist of the songs before they performed them, all the songs are in Finnish). I can't find much about them on the internet, but they told us they've been around for five years now, and apparently there is a huge Finnish hip hop scene. This song (Varaanmaa) isnt nearly as good as anything on their latest, "Luppuasukas", but it's still really good. The video starts out corny, but it gets good at the end.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=5816205

Trusty wikipedia info about Finnish Hip Hop...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_hip_hop

2. Trash Kit from London. We played with them in London at The Old Blue Last. Garagey, Punky, Twee-y, Lo-Fi. Awesome. They have only been playing for a few months, but have already been approached by awesome show promotion/record label team Upset the Rhythm (http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/), to record and release an album. Trash Kit apparently writes 17 sweet songs per day. Upset the Rhythm has a bunch of tight releases.

http://www.myspace.com/trashkit

Some selected Euro-pics...

Brosin' in Italy



Paris Catacombs



Eating Octopus in Faenza, Italy



Ostry in the graveyard above the Hell-Fire caves



Brosin' in Italy again



One of a billion amazing cathedrals



Some Arc



Some tower



Some glass pyramid in the middle of some giant building



Little Ernest's first vinyl is "Ropechain"!



Ostry was always either drunk or asleep



Our insane driver, Matyas (from Prague)



Corpse on display in a cathedral in Anghiari, Italy



Bus bar in Hull, UK



Mandatory "smoking weed in Amsterdam" picture



Matyas enjoying the senior citizens playground at A.R.M in Hull, UK



Playing on a truck in Rouen, France



We also played on a boat (the Treue, in Bremen, Germany)

...and a crane...

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/speler/ondemand/41837818

More videos and stuff from awesome NL radio, 3 voor 12...

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/artiesten/artiest/40228062

We are lucky! We are trying to sort out the culture overload in our small Hoosier brains. It's not going very well. I guess we'll just have to go back.

Love,

Moose & Ostry