OK. At the bottom of this blog is my euro tour journal. i wanted to submit a more comprehensive account for the band blog but we are still editing the footage. so this is what you get for now.

Heres our update for right now. We are writing writing writing. Basically nothing makes us happy and we've resolved to write until we are happy. This is truly some Buddhist or Ecclesiastes-type shit here. Nothing seems to fulfill. Every time we write a song we like, we resolve it could be better. As Sting said, "There's a hole in my life."

Because we are writing, we are not touring. We are doing a number of day-drive shows this fall, including it seems Brooklyn and Philadelphia. We are also playing with some good bands. We had planned on going out this fall for at least a couple weeks but we got a weird writing bug that has consumed us. So instead, come hell or highwater, we are going out this winter. likely in Jan, we are headed across the nation, though likely keeping it to the spots that are above 34f. I think we will even see Florida this time out, which we've avoided so far because we fear the heat.

In recording news, we have a strange idea. Unless something changes we think we are going to release a number of splits and singles this year. The album we've been writing has been themed from the start and splits work perfectly with the theme. This is some high-art, high-concept stuff for a band that yells about being broke. So we're talking to some labels and some bands about doing some splits. Rev doesnt like splits and I really want a 7" on Rev so that may be the single. All details are subject to change at this point. The gist of it is this: we are putting out alot of music this year.

After our US trip we will likely be doing another trip to Europe. We've been getting these great offers from places we didn't see the last time and we would like go see what they are about.

And after that, who knows? Probably a summer of writing more songs, some shows, and then another tour in fall. I would like to go someplace outside the US. But thats a year away and we'll have to see.

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OK, the long-awaited euro-log, unedited. i have no idea why it stops at leeds. we played some shows after that were also great. Vera is the best venue and we were treated wonderfully, but I didnt mention it for some reason. Also, i didnt go on at enough length about how awesome Kids Explode were on this tour. they made us look stupid on a couple occasions they were so tight. anyway, here it is, glaring omissions and all:


Quick notes here. No editing for spelling or grammer and some key points are omitted until I have more time to get into this.

Euro Log

5.26.07 Arrival.
I landed first and tried hard to organize things so it would be smooth going when the other guys arrived, but I couldn't even figure out their Hello Kitty candy colored payphones over here so mostly I rode the Air Train and used the demo computers at the Samsung kiosk to check my email.

We arrived in Germany two days earlier than anyone expected us to, so we were a band without a show or a place to sleep. Amazingly, things fell into place immediately and we ended up at a festival in Mannheim. A gentleman named Ralph (Rolf) took us into his insanely clean and ordered home and gave us a quick primer on how to conduct ourselves in Germany.

I cannot tell if my chain is being yanked here or not. Apparently it is polite to sit down when you pee. Germany came just short of continental domination, I wouldn't have imagined they pee sitting down. Although it does make sense in the context of them being the most awesomely ordered and precise people on Earth. I still think they are playing a joke on me.



5.27.07 Mannheim
Litty, the dude putting on the fest we lounged around on the 26th was kind enough to find us a spot on the festival. The first day had been mostly crust and power violence bands but the second day was more varied and we were met with a warm reception. We got to know the band we're touring with, Kids Explode, and watched them perform. They are much better live than I would've imagined from their recordings. Much more garage sounding than I expected.

In the US, we'd rather drive all night than sleep someplace we think will give us lice. We've all done our time in punk houses and have chosen at this point in our lives to be discerning about where we lay our heads. Strict no headlice, no scabies, no rats policy. So when the venue opened it's sleeping room to us we were hesitant. But things are a little different in Germany we learned and found their mattresses cleaner than the ones we sleep on at home. The basement we slept in is used for war-gaming and I fell asleep gazing at a Battletech poster.

5.28.07 Wurzburg
Imagine yourself in the womb. You are warm and comfortable and you feel as though there is no place else you are supposed to be. That's Wurzburg. We were fed when we arrived and the guys that drink were given free booze. Being fed on tour in the US is a supreme privilege and rare at best. In Europe they see it as a right and take pride in providing a delicious meal. We played foos-ball for a while and soundchecked. Then we sat and wondered if anyone would come to see us. We've never been to Europe and I haven't even checked to see how many records we've sold there. To our surprise, people came. And they were good people. We played foosball, I looked at girls, we talked and met new people. Apparently people in Europe don't care for sleep. Shows start at 10pm and after the two bands play lengthy sets, everyone sticks around for a party. My foot was screaming with pain from aggravating the injury I received the week we left, but otherwise it was truly the best show experience I could imagine.



5. 29.07 Munich
Our plans to visit Dachau were squashed on account of weather, though if there was ever an atmospheric-emotional compliment to visiting a concentration camp I would think cold rain would be it. We instead arrived early to Munich and after some quick site-seeing went to the venue- a former army barracks outside of town. We had such a great time in Wurzburg we were sort of expecting the other foot to drop and have a less well-attended show in Munich. Instead, our streak continued and the show was great. Even when people like us, they don't buy an incredible amount of our records or shirts. But in Munich they did. It was reaffirming. Also, in this country they clap until you play another song. It's a very polite way of asking for an encore. No one yells "Ay! Play one more!" actually no one yells at all, they just clap. And when you attempt to pack up they clap more. And when you tell them you have no other songs they continue to clap. Basically they clap you into attempting another song. We were clapped into two encores this night.

Something we haven't gotten used to yet is the idea of each show having an afterparty. In the US, afterparties are for R. Kelly. In Europe they see you as a asocial weirdo if you aren't dancing to the Pointer Sisters until 4am after every show. Our German tourmates don't sleep, so the afterparty format fits them well. In Munich they got hammered and talked about music for hours. I found the sleeping room (another idea alien to the US- venues with rooms set aside for the band to sleep) and did what the room commanded.

5.30.07 Dresden
I had been listening to the audiobook version of Slaughterhouse Five before we left for Germany. Of all the places we are hitting on this tour, this is the one that interests me most. Germans are more history-minded than any people I've ever met and I was curious how that would translate in a town famous for being victimized.

We visited the old part of the city and it made me resent war more than I already did. It seems silly that I should care more for the architecture and city-planning than I do for the lives lost, but I can't see the remnants of families as readily as I was hit with the centuries old buildings and bridges. If the other half of the city looked at one time as the old part looks today, the world was denied a beautiful place. Stone saints overlook everything and gold crosses sit on the tops of many buildings. We are used to buildings no more than a hundred years old and the difference in scale and opulence between what we know at home and what we saw in Dresden is staggering. In my research leading up to my trip I found conventional wisdom now says Dresden was no more remarkable in its suffering than any other German city targeted for carpet bombing. I don't know how that makes me feel.

We are now in the eastern part of the country (pardon my shift in tense, I'm not editing my work) and the differences between Europe and the US as much more evident here. The "new" buildings are still very much unlike most buildings in the US. Cold War-era block housing and cobblestone streets provide a decidedly "eastern" feel to the place. I suppose the still-standing socialist mural art contributes to that gestalt as well. Also, the women here dye their hair blonde and wear fashions I hadn't noticed in Frankfurt.

The show itself was great. My voice has fallen to pieces on account of being constantly surrounded by smoke (everyone here smokes. It's overwhelming. Babies smoke.) and we broke two strings, but people danced and it was overall a great time. After the show we joined Marcel and Oliver, the show's promoters, for a taste of Dresden nightlife. I mostly displayed my ignorance by asking iron curtain questions and pretending I was in a spy novel, but some of the other guys got fall down drunk and chatted up women. We slept in the best arched bedroom this side of summer camp and played table tennis over breakfast.

More than anything, Dresden made me want to head east. Prague and further. When we began receiving the routing of this tour, I was excited as I am excited to play any new place, but I wasn't thrilled. Mostly because I have this notion that Europe is very much like the area known as New England in the United States. I assumed it would be very familiar and for that reason not terribly compelling. I was very much wrong in that thinking. In Dresden we felt like we were in the Golgo 13 game for the NES, an experience you can't get in Massachusetts.



5.31.07 Berlin
Throughout the day, I reflected on how I never thought I'd be saying "Thank you, Berlin." There is nothing big about what we are doing over here, at least on a macro level. We aren't a big band and at the end of the day a handful of people care; we're just lucky enough that some of those people are in places we would like to see. So, for us, its a very big thing.

Berlin was the closest to New York City I've felt outside of the US. It is bigger and feels bigger than any of the places we've seen. Their trams are well-vandalized and drunks lay in doorways. It felt more like home in many ways.

We spent half the day lounging around a record store (a really great record store actually) and met someone from CA who plays in a band I'm familiar with. Small world.

The venue we played was interesting. We are used to playing basements and halls, so any time I spy a lighting guy working alongside the soundman, I feel a little out of place. The room was in a complex which featured burnt out cars and a cafe adjacent to a rock wall crawling with yuppies. Weird place. We were blown away by how many people came out to the show. We felt like we were part of a scam of some kind. Back home we struggle to create footholds in places we play repeatedly. Here we arrive and some people already want to see us. It was really something else. And to a degree I think we cracked under the pressure. We were tense. Getting on a stage higher than a few inches always makes me bristle. Compound that with knowledge that I'd be under strobes and within the reach of a smoke machine, and I was at least a little frazzled.

I couldn't see the audience because of the lights and couldn't make heads or tails out of the mix coming through the monitors so after a few songs I just said fuck it and attempted to make it as fun for myself as I could. I yelled at the audience like I was a drunk homeless guy being kicked out of a department store. I told everyone I was going to cut their faces. Andrew compared it to a Polanski film. It all got a little weird. But I suppose people were into it, because they danced. A nice mix of pretty girls dancing in that short-haired indie rock irregular gesticulation and drunk punks pounding the stage with their hands. I suppose this was as close as we get to a "rock show."

After the show a girl told me my face was beautiful. She was beautiful, so this seemed doubly complimentary. My mood was up. Then I'm confronted by some drunk asshole being kicked out of the venue. He yells at me in German and I tell him I don't speak his language. Five minutes later we find our van has been tagged with the German for "sons of bitches." Drag. Mood is down.

But then the girl comes back. We are formally introduced, Patrick meet "Ah! Net!" We make plans and my mood is way up. She has a gem in one of her teeth. Don't ask me how it works. She is covered in a fine layer of sparkles. Don't ask me how that works either. But she was very attractive, and paired with her limited command of English, I was smitten. She actually spoke like a hot exchange student fantasy. Halting, but with inexplicably drawn out syllables and the occasional "vu know?" or "how you say?"

The club she asked me to meet her at was universally shit on by the punks I asked for directions. They told me it was for young posers and I should bring a skinny tie. They weren't kidding. My goal on this trip was to see a sleazy Berlin disco, and I climbed that mountain. It was Brit-pop night and I watched drunk 19 year olds in V-neck sweaters dance like medicated geriatrics to remixes of Blur songs. I finally found my date for the night and proceeded to have one of the strangest exchanges I've managed in my life of almost exclusively strange exchanges. This girl, looking prettier than ever, seemed both deeply engaged with me as a novelty and weirdly repelled by me as a man. She pointed out that my hair was abominable and my clothes were embarrassing. But she couldn't say enough kind things about my face. I'm a pretty blunt man, so I just took her barbs as possible truisms and focused on her compliments. Actually, I focused more on how nice her hair looked. She danced and I watched. I'm rock, not disco.

When the sun came up, I took it as nature telling me this wasn't going to happen and I took off after kissing a little. As a band we are inefficient at being with women on tour.

Somehow I forgot to mention that I was sieg heiled by a Turkish 16 year old.

6.1.07 Braunschweig
This is more like it. A small show where the audience seems to hate us for the first 15 minutes of our set. It's just like being at home. This was a nice wake-up for us after playing in front of so many people in Berlin. And the people mostly came around by the end of our set and asked that we play more songs. That clapping thing again. We've experienced that clapping thing every place we've played, which either means people like us a great deal or they are just very serious about getting their money's worth in this country. People bought a good amount of stuff from us, so I take it that they liked it.

I got very serious in Foosball and was laughed off the table by the locals who played with an intensity rarely seen outside of the Worldcup or tribal wars. One of the girls playing was a total knockout but I think she is with the dude who runs the place so I didn't mention how attractive she is. I did tell her she was pretty good at foosball however.

I checked the band's myspace page tonight and found that Annette had written, saying it was a mistake to let me go and asking if we could hang out again before I leave.

Life is funny.

6.2.07 Munster
Today we received our 7"s. They look great. We finally formally met the dude who put the thing out, Niko. He is the first German I've met who is capable of joking about Hitler. He has a very American sense of humor. The show was the first (besides the fest) that featured local bands. Up to this point it has been Kids Explode and us each night. Very different than the US, where shows often have 5 or more bands on a bill. We played well, I think, and people seemed to like us. Though when I asked my new local friend, Tomas, he said perhaps some of the more hardcore inclined in the audience were non-plused.

After the show we had the most European experience imaginable. It met all our stereotypes and furthered all our ignorant notions. WE WENT TO AN ALTERNATIVE DISCO. It was the crowning jewel in a disco complex featuring many variety of disco funtimes. This was the most awful and awfully funny place I've been in my life. The music video channel FUSE was projected onto a wall, acting as the backdrop to kids wearing Hatebreed shirts dancing like adorable pixies to Pixies songs. It was altogether "alternative".

We went with our new friends, Tomas, Claudia, and Anna. Tomas is a solid square straightedge dude and he and I spent our night glued to the wall making fun of basically every person who entered our field of vision. Claudia (pronounced Cloud-e-Ah), was the goodtime girl of the evening, showing us how to dance and enjoy ourselves. Anna reminded me of my ex-girlfriend in that she was tall and quiet but incisive and smart as hell. Our conversations would come to a dead stop and she would stare at me for inordinate lengths of time. I thought she was sweet on me, but it was very much not the case. She has been with the same man for 7 years and was just staring at me because she had no idea what the fuck I was saying.

Our walk home was delayed by a drunk girl, pardon, WILDLY drunk girl, cruising us for sex. She offered the most high school party pitch to hang out, "Come have beers and smoke a joint with me!" We declined her offer to party, but she was attractive so we did walk with her a minute. At some point the guys dipped into a falafel place in which drunk British army dudes told us they like Texas because they "don't like blacks."

6.3.07 Hamburg
This town is a headtrip. It feels dirtier than anyplace we've been, but I'm told it's actually quite nice and I'm just spending time in the stripclub/pickpocket/hooker/drunk part. We played with Ben Davis & the Jetts and Fin Fang Foom tonight. Really great. Something we probably wouldn't have a chance to do in the US.
All the bands connected and it made for a great show. This venue apparently has a very open-hearted approach to the homeless problem of Hamburg, because there was a small collection of hobos heckling me during our set. I love being heckled because I have the microphone and the idea of anyone else dominating an exchange when I'm being run through the PA at deafening volume is funny. I was provided an excuse to yell at a 50 year old man.

I was woken from near-sleep by new friends wanting to go to the red light district. Stayed in the sleazy (but legal) part of town until 7am. Learned a lot. Met a prostitute with the same name as my sister.



6.4.07 Kiel
This show was a lot of fun but I remember the foosball most vividly. We slept at the place we played which allowed us to use their foosball table until the sun came up. I have gotten better as a player but am still no sort of contender. I'm told that the turkish kids run the tables in Germany.

6.5.07 Bremen
BEST BREAKFAST EVER. I can't describe what a good meal does for you on tour.

6.6.07 Utrecht
I've been told that the higher the parallel you find yourself on, the better looking the people become. That notion was tested and, if not proven, at least given some credibility by what I saw in the Netherlands. Everyone is tall and attractive here. Almost eerily so. The women look like Kate Bosworth and the men look like soccer stars who model for fun. I have never been so confident of my choice to be a starving artist as I was when I was standing in the center of town in Utrecht surrounded by good looking women. Everyone here rides bikes. We saw a bike crash. Everyone everyone everyone. Also everyone here smokes. Everyone everyone everyone. Bad trade. They stay thin by biking but it's not like they are any healthier.

Sean Doody and I had a conversation with a dude after the show who we are pretty confident was in Larm. He may've just been being polite when he said he enjoyed the show, but either way I was happy to take a compliment from him.

6.7.07 Arnsburg
Apparently this is a very small town. But like many small towns in the US, it provides a better place to play than most major cities. The place we played was in a rehearsal space fashioned from former low-income housing and it looked almost exactly like the climax of Children of Men. It was next to a brothel I'm told has a nice selection of fat women. It was insanely hot. Afterwards we went to the promoters house and took the most beautiful and magical shower I've ever experienced.



6.8.07 Eslingen
One of the nicest complexes for shows ive seen. There was some rave thing going on next door. some of us danced. Sleeping arrangements reminded me of the movie with the witches at that witch school because of the shape of the windows. The show itself was awesome. Super sweaty and gross, but awesome nonetheless. I am starting to resent the once-flattering notion of an encore. I am really fucking tired by the time we get to second encores.



HELLO

6.9.07 Frieburg
This shit was bananas. Friburg is Kids Explode hometown and we played to a packed house. The venue we played had a live-in puppy named Attila who looked like a strange Muppet made to scare Eskimos. We played well in intense heat and people seemed to like us. My clothes are still wet with sweat. Which is gross.



photos by rob p.



6.10.07 Rieseingen or something that sounds like it
Played a basement in a beautiful neighborhood. I heard, after, there was a guest list which makes sense because the house was so lovely and it certainly would've been destroyed if it was opened to the public. The livingroom looked like the old Magnovox ads with the guy being blown away by his stereo equipment. I spoke to a beautiful girl who I assumed was attached and was later told is not. The bummer of being a legitimate band and not typical rock pussy hounds is that I'm often in a position where I would like to get cuter with women but can't for fear that I'll be perceived as the dude trolling Europe for ass. The show took place in a basement with covered windows so the walls were wet throughout the show and the floor was slick with sweat. My options were slam into my guitarists, knocking them out of tune, or slam into the audience, making them want to puke when confronted with my disgusting body slime. Weirdly, Eric, a dude in a band from Vancouver who we've stayed with on tour, was at this show. Small world.


ENTER ENGLAND
Took SeaFrance across the Channel. The ferry was crawling with hot French teens and their negligent tour leaders. Before getting on the ferry we had to traverse the gauntlet of customs officials. Without thinking, I approached the desk looking like I run a peyote farm. My hair is long, my jeans are shredded, and I'm wearing a black bandana. The official grilled me hard. I listed myself as a student on the customs form just for simplicity's sake. When asked what I study, I answered honestly and said "religion." Another bad move. At this point every red flag possible has been waved and we're stuck there for another few minutes as the customs official becomes increasingly irate. There is a red button behind him labeled "Aggression" which I assume was a safeguard against violent passengers, but just as soon could've been an early intervention for when he felt himself becoming aggressive. This dude was aggressive. Nothing I said made him happy.

"Oi then 'ow lonhg ev yew noon eech ovr?"

"Ten years, sir."

"En ers, eh? So wut's is? Som ort ov Bo-heem-e-n vacaten then?"

"Sort of?"

His mood changed a little, he told us he was just concerned we didn't have enough money to navigate England, and he let us through.

6.11.07 London
A little girl, like real little, like 8 years old, called me gay and when I asked if that was a problem for her she said "yes." I commented to someone watching the exchange that they have tough little girls in these parts and he said "Ey, welcome to London."

I learned how to effectively use the word "cunt" tonight. Before now I had always thought it was reserved for exwives and step-moms. The British cheerfully submit that you can use it properly at anytime and in any company. "Oi, you're a proper cunt you." If I had known, I woulve called that little girl a cunt.




6.12.07 Manchester
Dirt town. Played in a bar full of old barfly weirdos, including but not limited to woman wearing sports bra and union jack antennae and headbanging old lady with soccer hooligan boyfriend who spoke so closely to my face that his lower lip touched my nose. The setup in the place was such that to reach the women's room you had to walk through the band playing. I kept waiting for the barflys to be alienated by the loud, abrasive music pouring out of the back room, but they stayed on, seemingly oblivious to it. The headbanger told us not to go to Dundee unless we brought body armor. Can't wait.



6.13.07 Dundee
My lifes goal has been met. I've played someplace with chicken-wire to protect the band from being hit with bottles or trash. Granted it was laced around the balcony and not placed directly in front of the band, but it was likely as close to The Country Bunker from the Blues Brothers as I'll get.

When exploring the town I came across a stripclub. I asked the doorman, clad in an all-black four-piece suit, what the difference was between a US stripclub and what he was insisting was a Scottish Gentlemen's Club.

"El, ther's no touchen."

I asked how the girls look.

"Epends un yur tayse. Sum men lyk fat bitchis. I dot. But me missus es a fat bitch."

Hard to tell if I was supposed to laugh or offer my condolences for being wed to a fat bitch, so I just thanked him and pushed on.

I cannot understand a word these people are saying. Not a word. Supposedly it's English they're speaking, but there is almost no telling where one word starts and the previous word ends. I think maybe the whole nation is drunk. During our set I asked audience members to give me their best drunken threat. It all sounded like this to me:

"Ov.der.eel eact yur oye." etc.

We were invited to go out to a club and hopefully meet some "tidy birds." I slept, but those that went reported that there was only dirty birds to be found.




6.14.07 Leeds
Played Battleship at the venue, which seemed something between a local coffee shop and local bar but with a fully functioning venue placed upstairs. I woke up with a headache that wasn't cured by the time we took the stage so I was expecting the worst experience of my life. Then the bass cab stopped working. We were primed for an awful night. Weirdly, everything came up roses. My headache subsided and the bass was plugged in directly to the PA. The kids who traveled from Manchester told us the show was good, which is what I needed to hear because they had seen us play a couple days earlier with no technical difficulties or migraines.