Greetings from... Soulard.

It's true - back from Europe. I didn't have any good opportunities the last few days of tour to write the last blog, so I am doing it now. Not quite as sexy, I know.. but there are stories to be accounted for yet.
After a very informative lunchtime meeting with General Jones @ Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, it was off to The Netherlands. Our plane landed in Brussels, Belgium, and we proceeded to get back into the comfortable confines of our tour bus and drive to Brunssum, Netherlands. We met with our contact Harvey, and settled into our rooms in the Eisenhower Hotel.. where we proceeded to get drunk in Frank's room before we all passed out. The next day, we had a few hours to kill before sound check, so we hopped on the bus and rode into a town called Heerlen. Heerlen is a really cool city with a lot of great clothing stores, shoe stores, record stores, and of course.. a proper coffee shop. More on that later.
It was really nice to break away from what was a pretty hectic tour schedule and just walk around town checking things out for a while. The coffee shop wasn't open yet, so we all just wandered about shopping for new gear, etc, but just being out and about in a foreign city was nice. Most of our time had been spent on military bases to this point.
We eventually returned to the Air Force base in Brunssum, a multi-national task force base, and set up for the show. The room we played in provided for what I consider to be the best sound we had all tour. It was called "Club 13", and was set up for this type of thing exactly. This show bared the smallest crowd of the whole tour, however.. and at first I was really bummed out about it. I even got into an argument with Nick (Fresh Heir's drummer) because he was trying to get me to look at the positive aspects of the situation and I wasn't trying to hear it. He, being an extremely positive person, was of course right.. and the show was probably the tightest one we played in the whole two weeks. What made it all worth it was the family sitting at the closest table to the stage. It was a father, his son, and two daughters. They loved the show.. you could tell his son was in his element - hat cocked sideways, nodding his head enthusiastically to every song).. he was probably 13 or 14 years old. After the show, they all wanted autographs and pictures.. It was very touching, knowing that we definitely had an effect on them, the son especially. We became myspace friends yesterday. Shouts to Dustin!
After the show... we went back to Capricorn - the coffee shop. This was fun. A couple of us took a cab and arrived before the rest of the group got there. Fresh Heir, not being big fans of coffee, went back to the hotel and drank two bottles of whiskey. The aftermath was hilarious. Back at the coffee shop.. Those of us who were first to arrive walked in the door, stopped and wondered what to do.. and then proceeded to the counter. There we found a menu of all the different types of coffee they boasted. It was an impressive list. While we were placing our order, the lady at the counter saw the stack of CDs in my hand and inquired about them. We told her where we were from, what we were doing in The Netherlands, and gave her a CD. She proceeded to give us free hats, a jacket, and didn't charge us for the abundance of coffee we had ordered. By the time the rest of the group arrived, Earthworms was bumping from the speakers and a newly outfitted friend and I were sitting at a table getting ready to enjoy some coffee with the use of a space age coffee receptacle.. a vaporizer. If you ever really want to enjoy coffee in its purest form, this is the way to do it. Yum.
So the rest of the gang joined us, where we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves for over an hour (they stayed open late for us) and met some really top notch people. The owner of the shop provided us with every vessel possible in which to enjoy our coffee, and hung out with us while he showed us the way of a master roaster.. pun intended. This was an important evening of letting loose. When we got back to the hotel, we found nothing but shenanigans. We jumped right in and stayed up too late. The next morning, we had to get up pretty early for breakfast with the staff before we hit the road to Mildenhall, UK.
The bus ride to Mildenhall took about 11 hours. The bus was more than comfortable, so we didn't have any issues with that. Fresh Heir had a band meeting in the front of the bus, while Earthworms were in the back writing a new song over a Splitface beat. It's called "Down By The River" - look for it on the new album. We watched a few skate videos, and eventually made a stop in Genk, Belgium to stretch and stock up on supplies. If you hang out with us, you know of course that "supplies" means "beer." There was a street market near where we stopped and some cool shops as well, so a few of us went for a stroll and checked it all out. When we got back to the bus, the group as a whole went on a bender for the ages on the way to Mildenhall. The first beer was popped open sometime around 1pm. It was 9% alcohol, as were many of the rest. I stuck to the 5% Jupilers, as I was the tour manager and had to keep my wits about me. We drove through Belgium and part of France on our way to England. In France, we went through Dunkerque.. a bigger city than I had expected. I am infatuated with WWII history, so it was cool to see a place where some historic shit went down.
When we finally got to the border, Armin drove the bus right onto the massive ferry and parked. The ferry ride was about two hours across the English Channel, and I ate some fish and chips that didn't sit all that well. I got through it unscathed though. The ferry ride ended at the cliffs of Dover, where all of the sudden we were driving on the left side of the road. We all knew it was coming, but it was still a trip. The Cliffs of Dover are beautiful, as is the English countryside we drove through on the way to the Royal Airforce Base in Mildenhall. By the time we got to the gate of the base where we had to all get out of the bus and check in, the group as a whole was a sloppy mess of drunken human flesh. Many had already passed out and had to be woken, and few were sober enough to contain themselves . The armed guards at the gate had a good laugh and admitted us.
The next day was the day of our last show. Everyone kind of did their own thing wandering around the base and reconvened for sound check. The Galaxy Club was a nice spot, and again provided for good sound. We had a really nice crowd turn out for this show, with more dancers than at any other performance as well. It was a nice way to go out.
The next morning was brutal.. Bus call was at 4:30am, as we had to make it to London in time to check in all of our equipment and get on a plane for Chicago, and eventually good ol' St. Lou. I saw none of London, as I slept the whole bus ride to Heathrow.

We had an unbelievable time in Europe. We played in places many of us never thought we'd even see. We saw some significanlty historical WWII sites (Garmisch, Graffenwoer, Schweinfurt, Dunkerque, etc), and learned what a professionally run tour is really like (as opposed to the seat of our pants style that we are used to). Hopefully we will get the opportunity to do this again and again. The troops we played for really appreciated us being there, and in turn we very much appreciate the relationships we have built through this experience. There are a lot of good people out there in uniform, and we were blessed to cross paths with them. I want to thank Armed Forces Entertainment for making this happen.. Frank Urtado at AKA Productions for being my tour mentor, CD Baby for hooking up the editor's pick, Annie Zaleski for giving me a platform in which to share our stories, and everyone who came out to a show while we were in Europe.

Come check out Earthworms May 21st in the Halo Bar for the official Atmosphere after party! Free show - 11pm w/ Mahf on the wheels of steel. Look for an Earthworms / Fresh Heir Euro tour documentary coming soon, and keep up with us at www.myspace.com/earthworms and www.freshheirnation.com..