Heyo!

So I'm writing to you all from a beautiful and sometimes rainy day in Stockholm, Sweden. We're in the midst of our first European and UK promo tour and it is going splendid. This crew on this tour consists of all of the usual suspects, the four D's and I, but this time we also brought along our sometimes violinist (or as we call her now our cryolinist bc her playing is so pretty it makes us cry) ms. Gillian Rivers. Gillian also brought along her "guest," (ahem...fiance) mr. Russell Simmons, who you guys might know as the drummer for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. We now know him as the Sea's new tambourinist! hahah jk russell. And finally we have an English tour manager/soundguy named Gus. Gus is a friendly old codger that used to do sound for Marvin Gaye and currently goes out with the Happy Mondays. We must all seem like a bunch of nuns compared to those guys. Anyways, Gus is a sweet guy whose vocabulary consists mostly of "Faaantaaastic!" and "Maaahvaolous!" And he's really great with the one liners and dissing Derek and Dan with the bass player and drummer jokes. Put them in their place eh gus?!

So we started out in Paris. We met up with a nice woman named Delphine who showed us around and helped us translate menus. thank goodness for her. We played our show at a place called La Cigale that is a gorgeous old theatre right by the Moulan Rouge (which was so much smaller than i'd imagined) The show was great and the french audience was very gracious. It was a bit unnerving at first bc the french audience really listens. You could hear a pin drop. It made me a little nervous at first but i got over it.

We also did a radio session at Europe 1. It was the first time i ever had to do an interview with a translator. It takes a ton of concentration but it was actually kinda fun. I swear the translator must have two seperate brains to be able to switch back and forth between two languages and two seperate conversations that she's hearing for the first time. Blew my mind. Oh BTW, I got this little video camera called a Flip. I'm posting little videos of the band and I up on our Youtube Channel. If you are interested you can check them out here- http://youtube.com/user/nicoleatkins

The next day, after what seemed like a hundred interviews, we all went back to La Cigale to see the Breeders! I love the Breeders! The show was amazing and the crowd gave me such nostalgia. There was a huge moshpit in the front. Oh to be young again...or at least not such a pussy. hahaha! So Russell knew the band and got us backstage. They were all so nice and funny. Seriously, Kelly Deal, friendliest woman in rock n roll.
The rest of the Paris trip was filled with more interviews, lots of galleries, rude waiters, wine swilling painter gals, bars with sewing machines in them!, and a last meal on top of the Pompedue (sp?) with the Eiffle Tower lit up like a billion diamonds.