2/16/09 Robot speaks English!

     Good morning!!  I'm writing to you now from Manchester!  England has been awesome!  The kids at the shows have been very nice and welcoming!  I do, however, have one complaint...  I'm starving!!  Unlike the shows in EU there's not much food to be had at these shows. In Europe the catering was incredible!! 5 star incredible!  But now we might get a few pounds to grab some fish and chips... And don't get me wrong I like fish and chips but at some point your body starts to hate you for trying to survive on snack foods. In the end I'm sure I'll survive.
     Did I tell you about the chocolates out here?  Maybe I did already but I'm going to tell you once more!  There awesome!!!!  I can't eat enough!  I'm not sure what it is but the chocolate just tastes better out here!  I know your thinking no it's all the same, but your wrong!  Anyway, enough of that, let's talk about the shows.
     People can finally understand our jokes!!  They may not be funny... but they understand them :) over all the shows have been going really well maybe better then in EU!  The hard part is convincing people the suburban legends mean business!  For the most part the entire crowd has never seen us before but, unlike the shows in Europe, the kids have been dancing and responding very well!  But... just like any first timers, it takes some time to warm them up and let them know it's ok to have fun!  It's so hard for people to cut loose and have fun!!  That's  why it's our job to head out world wide and spread the message! It's ok to dance!!  Just dance!!  It will be ok!! Just dance!!  .........  Oh wait.... Lady Gaga has already done that.... Darn!!

Well hope your healthy!
Love you,
Robot


2/8/09 Robot in Amsterdam!!
     So today is the only day off on the entire tour!!  It just happens to be in Amsterdam!!  I know what your thinking, and yes we did go to the red light district.  Probably the most novel place I have ever been!!  It was like a mix between the Knotts Halloween Haunt, Bourbon street in New Orleans and the Vegas strip.  All and all it was a very wild experience!
    Amsterdam is a very interesting and beautiful city!  I had a Belgian waffle with chocolate sauce at about 2 in the morning!  All I can say is AWESOME!!  I also took in some culture as well. Vincent and I hit up the Van Gogh art museum!  Those art history classes finally payed off!
     The show in Utrecht was awesome!!  One of the best so far!  The kids seemed to have a great time and so did we!!  We now, however, need to say a fond farewell to Europe and as I write we are sitting on a ferryboat that is bringing us over the channel and into England!  It's going to be great to speak English to the audience and make jokes that people will understand!  :)
     Anyway, we really hope and pray that mother nature won't dump a bunch of snow on us as we try to drive to the shows!  Please don't snow, please don't snow, pleases don't snow!!!

Hope your doing well, and staying healthy!
Love you! ;)
Robot


2/3/09 Derek Lee Rock reports in from Germany!

Hello everybody, it’s Derek writing from our Europe tour!  We’re in the Sprinter van driving to Cologne, Germany.  We’ve been out here for about a week now and it’s been amazingly cool so far.  The plane flight was actually not as grueling as I thought it was going to be, quite nice!  We landed in London and Adam picked us up!  Adam is our tour manager/driver/gear renter/overall Obi-Wan Kenobi type guy for this tour.  Check out his band, Fandangle, they are cool!  So Europe....well, it’s really cold for starters.  In fact sometimes FREEZING.  I will usually wear my SL hoodie, with my leather jacket over it, and then a HUGE tan coat over it that Luis loaned my for the trip.  I’m so bundled up, I feel like a fire fighter walking around everywhere we go, woop woop!

The scenery is great.  I keep feeling like I’m in a James Bond movie whenever we walk around, if that makes sense.  The food is great!  When we show up at the venues there is usually a whole spread of sandwich/pastry/beverages/coffee etc.  BUT, an interesting thing is that when you go to buy coffee at a gas station or food at a restaurant, all of the portions are much much smaller than US ones.  Do we eat too much back at home?  I had a Happy Meal at McDonalds last night, classic!!!  Another thing that makes this trip awesome is that we are out with Reel Big Fish!!!  The set they’ve been playing is incredibly cool.  I’m really happy that they took us out with them!!!  The fans out here are very nice and are loving our music.

Here’s another crazy part about Europe....NO CELL PHONE!!!  Well sort of.  Basically you can’t use your phone as your normally would, browsing the internet, checking email all that stuff.  Not possible.  BUT when there’s WIFI you can!  So when there’s WIFI everyone rejoices and we do our usual nerd stuff like make calls to home over SKYPE  or check our sites.

We have a few more Germany/Belguim dates and then on to the UK gigs.  I am so excited about these because they are going to be huge shows.  We will be trading in the Sprinter van and riding around in Adam’s band’s bus, which looks like something out of Pimp My Ride, very cool!  That’s all for now.  I miss everyone back home and can’t wait to put some video together from our trip!

Love,

D.Rock

2/2/09 Robot in Germany!

So we are now 2 days into the Germany dates.  So far things are going well we played both Hamberg and Berlin, and both shows went well. We found out, however, that the kids don't really know what the heck we are talking about when we are on stage.  We decided we needed to change up the show a bit so now the only thing we are really saying on stage is "Hi, thank you, clap, jump and Reel Big Fish on next."  Trying to sell merch is a bit of a challenge as well!  First, the euro is like play money!  Not that it doesnt look like money, it's just so small!  The 5s are about the size of monopoly money, and like most places in the world the ones only come as coins!  Second, Germans do know English to an extent, but there is still a ton of lost in translation conversations happening.  Oh yea, and no one wants to pay full price for merch.  Everyone wants a deal!  So I'm thinking about raising the price of everything so I can cut a deal for everyone, hahahaha! ;)
     Well tonight we play in Nurenburg.  And for the past few nights we have had some awesome food!!  The venues have been feeding us and they have been providing local foods for us to eat! (Not just pizza).  It's been a great adventure in food!
     Anyway, we are at the venue now and we perform in about an hour so I'll say bye for now!

Hope to talk to you soon!
Love,
Robot


1/29/09 American Robot in a foreign land!

Plains! Vans! And boats!  Holly molly!! We have been doing nothing but moving for the past 24 hours!  10 hour plain ride from LA to the Uk, then a combination of vans and ferry boats for the next 12 hours!  But finally we arrived at the world famous Eindhoven of Holland!  Where we will be playing the first show here at Effenaar!!  Yea, your thinking I don't know what that means?  And I'm thinking the same thing. However, the good thing is most people out here speak English...  More or less. Oh yea, did I mention it's cold?  It's way cold!!  But I have a nice jacket and some thermals so I'm now at about 4 layers of clothing. It helps a little.
     The first show was a blast!!  We got the usual reaction from a crowd that is seeing us for the first time. Disbelief!  Most people don't know how to react to us, it takes about half the set for people to realize they can have a good time. :)  over all the people were very nice, and we had a good time.
     So we found a place to sleep at a local guys house. It was a student house which means it's cheap and a bit rundown. But really the house was cool. It was really old, it had been there before the war. And there's something to be said about that because most of the area was destroyed during the Nazi bombing of the war.
     Anyway, it's about 3 am now and I'm tucked into my sleeping bag here on the ground and it's freezing cold!!

Well hope all is well with you!
Love
Robot!