Category: Music

I needed just a small tour wrap up to get my head in order and remember the last week of my life in order.

After we finished up at OEF, we headed to Prague to the OEF after show and to where Jason and Sean’s flights would be leaving from. Before that, though, the Kostnice in Kootna Hora was luckily on the way. The Bone Church of Lore. Was I really going there a third time? My limited talent has really taken me to some cool places, and I finally got that band photo I’d wanted five years ago.

The OEF after show was cool, with some of the cool rock stars showing up for a laugh along with some good bands like Putrid Pile, Magrudergrind and Entrails. Entrails, with members of Birdflesh doing some sweet old school Swedish death metal. Actually, I’ve seen a lot of new bands doing old school Swedish death metal on the trip. Retro-retro thrash, look out.

Our friend Curby tool care of us again, wrapping up our business and making sure we didn’t have to lug home left over shirts. Thanks again, Curby! You rule. Curby had initially asked us to play the after show, but after a band vote we declined. I think we were afraid of running late and being tired and fucking up Jason and Sean’s flights. That was dumb, we should have played and had a good time. Sorry about that, Praha.

My friends Vlad and Stanislav of the Turbo Jugend Praha went out of their way to take care and lodge some wayward G.O.R.E. Corps soldiers. Always a pleasure to see them and share some Pilseners.

The next day we dropped off Jason and Sean and then Raul went with Brad, and me and Povey split off with Conny for some separate adventures. I’m still waiting to see Raul and regale in his tales. He can write his own fucking blog. For me, Dresden and my many cool friends there were calling.

There was a visit to a lake near the castle at Schloss Moritzburg, where I got to see more old German penises than I ever needed. There was the Dresden bombing and war remembrance memorial in Heidefriedhof cemetary, where some scheisskopf tagged “lie” in German on the column remembering the victims of Auschwitz. Never have I hated tagging more. There was good German food, a good grind core show at Chemie Fabrik along with their signature “ratte hirn” or “rat brain” drink.

The coolest was the Krautwald Fabrik art action that my friend and our driver was involved in.

This is an old, shut down factory in the Pieschen neighborhood of Dresden. I was here as they were starting to do the clean up, and now it’s a temporary gallery doing monthly shows. Tons of machinery was in here, and now it’s filled with art. To keep things cool with legal and insurance logistics, it’s been opened as a private club for art. No Feds allowed. How do you become a member? 1€ does it, you get a card, buy some cheap beer and look at amazing art.

Look out for the crab!

That’s how it’s done a lot of the time in Ost-Deutschland… they get an idea and improvise with whatever material is around. If you can make it here before they close in November, I highly recommend it.

Shortly thereafter, Povey left and I headed to Berlin. My father was here when they started the Berlin Wall in 1961, so of course I had to be a dumb tourist and pay 2€ to take a picture with a German posing as an American soldier.

Before that, I was having a lot of fun with my friend Fatima visiting the excellent Strychnin Gallery, which is like walking into an issue of Juxtapozed. This is another must in Berlin, they have great exhibitions, this one was robot related art. Meet Styrobot.

I also had a coffee and some grilled cheese in Cassiopeia, a huge squat in Berlin with a show spot, cafes, and rock climbing. I did not rock climb. I am not that kind of extreme. Then, I heard the thunder of techno and reggae rumble, and before you knew it, I was in a huge street protest against gentrification and Media Spree. It was a nice walking tour of the Kreuzberg neighborhood, courtesy of the police and Germans slathered in patchouli.

Back to Dresden using www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de, a super helpful website in German. It’s like the rideshare section of craigslist, but on steroids. I was a little afraid of my rideshare ending up as the doctor from Human Centipede, but it worked out and was way cheaper than a bus or train.

From Dresden to Prague, and another night with my friends in Turbo Jugend Praha, drinking the night away, trying to make us miss our flight so we could drink some more. They’ve excitedly told me how they are putting on the Prague show for my friends in YOB and Dark Castle September 25th. I’ll be curious to see who outdrinks whom when some real bourbon drinking Americans show up.

And that’s it. Back to real life again, making rock posters and paying the rent. Sometimes paying the rent. Mostly, I am not missing rent. Oh boy.

EDIT: and now I am missing planes. Rather, they are missing me. In what is becoming a regular occurence on my trips, my flight home has been cancelled. I am returning home a day later than I expected. Ah well, at least Raul and I got single rooms. I plan to lounge like a nudist and pretend I am rich while drinking cheap Branik beer. Rock star.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa

This is the point.

Here we are, and about fucking time! I’ve wanted to play the Obscene Extreme Festival for a damn long time, and we finally made it. Check out the lyrics of the love song “To Die For” on Mondo Medicale, because our lyrics are so cogent and relevant to a bunch of drunk headbangers. There’s a line about a gore hound (my lovely ex) being obsessed with the extreme and obscene. I’ve been making shout outs since 2002. It only took 9 years for it to all work out.

Obscene Extreme is a mostly grind core festival that’s been running since 1999 in Trutnov, Czech Republic. It’s steadily grown in size, but maintains the same ethos for a raging good time. Stage diving is actually encouraged here. There’s a good meter of the stage from the bands’ monitors to the front, dedicated for people to come up, dance a bit, and dive back into the crowd. There is security, but no barriers between the band and the tigers in the crowd.

Just a touch of history: the field that this fest has been held in all but one time (I think) is known as the Trutnov Battlefield. It was in 1866, during the Seven Weeks War between Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia, that the Austrians won a victory against overwhelming Prussian forces here that were in disarray after crossing the mountainous terrain. Prussia won the war eventually, though, which would lead to the confederation of the northern Germanic kingdoms into one. Austrians aren’t that good at winning wars, but they excel at body building and fighting Predators.

The actual town seems quite nice, though it is now beset by crusties and metal heads.

We arrived a bit late on the second day of the fest. The biggest bummer about that was for our friend Brad, who’d come using his many frequent flyer miles after working for Green Day the past few years. He came to hang and vacation after, and as a bonus, do our sound. Our plans had changed, though, so poor Brad arrived in Prague with no ride and no idea what to do. He bussed to Trutnov, and eventually via text we got him into the fest. He had no place to stay. There are campgrounds, but he had nothing. Curby, the main man behind Obscene Extreme, did his best dealing with everything else and then to help our poor friend. It was only after Brad stayed up all night drinking vodka with strange ozzies and poles that Curby could finally find him an open room at a hostel. Hopefully our ravaged friend would wake up in time for our set that night! Impaled, ruining lives since 1997.

When we finally arrived, we got sorted by our friend Curby as well. Passes, beer, vegan food, nice hotel… not to mention that this guy was dealing with the gazillion bands on this fest, but he had helped to set up our tour as well. It was the only way we could afford to be here at all. Hats off to you, buddy. We are happy to be in your operating theater.

The grounds are pretty enormous with lots of camping. That filled up, evidenced by crusties camping at the gas station across the way. We were able to nab a table on advice from Brutal Truth and just DIY our merch sales outside the main merch market. And, bully for me, the excellent Czech beer (my fave in Europe) flows like water and the food is all vegan!

I got to see a bit of the Varukers, some great punk rock, some of Skitsystem, and Rotten Sound. I watched Brujeria absolutely slaying the crowd from behind the stage as I practiced like a kid staying up all night before the S.A.T.s. They finally finished, and as I was walking up, they started up their version of “Macarena” over the PA, the entire crowd screaming “Marijuana.” About half the crowd joined them on stage and were dancing as I was setting up. Oi vey. It was funny, but now I knew we were more like a clean up crew for these guys. Oh well, we were still gonna rage it.

As I was setting up, the bassist from Brujeria says to me, “Good luck!” It sounded more ominous at the time than helpful. “Thanks, we’ll try,” I say. Hmm. This is Jeff Walker of Carcass playing bass for Brujeria. “Are you in Impaled?” he asks. “Yeah,” I reply, “and I guess I should thank you for all the riffs.”

Our set started kind of tame, frankly. At this point, I was hating that meter of space between us and the tigers, because it was empty. So we all just kept walking up to the crowd anyway between singing. I’d say about four songs in, we finally had them going. They started having a good time, really head banging and having fun again. I didn’t think it would be so hard for Impaled to win over a grind crowd, but I think we did okay.

Afterwards, I got to see some of Gronibard absolutely capturing the spirit of the fest by quite literally rocking out with their cocks out. The requisite dudes in banana suits at the fest danced wildly. I was particular to Interment who followed, however, who nailed the old school Swedish sound and jammed hard. Then it was my watch on the merch table, and we eventually packed it up to get some sleep for our next day at OEF.

A leisurely morning was had, followed by a stressful talk concerning finances. Summer touring in Europe during festival season is hard. There’s less shows to be had and the plane tickets are outrageous. We packed up our merchandise and headed to the fest in hopes of filling the hole a bit.

When we arrived, Mesrine was already on stage. We’d already missed 11 bands. This fest starts at 10 and ends at 3am… that’s a lot of grind. Mesrine rocked some good crust punk.

I walked through the non-band merchandise area to see what I could find. There was an antifa shirt with a pic of Schwarzenegger that they did not have in my friend Aesops’ size. Too bad. Then I saw the ugliest Dystopia bootleg I’ve ever seen. What the fuck. Was this an Illustrator trace of a 10k gif? Yipes. Get some pride, bootleggers.

Next was Visions of War, ultra leftist crust grind so far as I can tell. They called out a few other grind bands about them not being true enough. Factions against fascism. A break, and then I caught Instinct of Survival. I could imagine all my crusty friends in Oakland being super into this band back when drinking was more important than cocaine. The funniest part was when a dude mooned the crowd on stage and then back planted his ass crack on his friend’s head. Ah, the homoeroticism never ceases at OEF.

Inhumate is the kind of noisy, balls out, loose grind core that gets this crowd going. Everyone was on stage dancing. Funny the singer should complain that the crowd was not bleeding, but then gently warned them when they got on stage to look out for a bit that was broken so they should not hurt themselves. Hey, even anarchy can get TOO crazy.

For a bit more controlled anarchy, in the U.K. (see what I did there?) they have the Rotted (formerly Gorerotted). I guess they dropped the gore in their name because they were battered when Al and Tipper split. Now they deliver blistering grind core with a precise edge.

The rest of the night continued with the headliners like Lock Up and Brutal Truth, followed by some bad assery from Dropdead. Le Scrawl was a huge hit, getting folks dancing so late into the night. Then, I hit a god damned metaphorical wall after I was bought a shot of some local liquor that tasted like Christmas. I wish I could remember the name… or how I got back to the hotel.

Thanks, Obscene Extreme. And thanks to the Old World for once again hosting Impaled. Esprit de Corpse c’est fin.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa

The Battle of Nations was to commence again in Leipzig! Featuring Impaled comprised of Italian / German / Irish / Mexican / Polack members with a Brit in tow, Furnaze with Austrian / Belgian / Croat members, and the all Deutsch Death Embrace. Okay, the battlefield was much smaller, like WAY smaller. Metal Schuppen is a teensy tiny club in Leipzig nestled behind an apartment building. Just imagine your dettached garage as a venue, only it’s made of stone. No matter the actual attendance, this place would be packed! Fun!

The evening was smoking, in that this tiny bar was packed with Germans smoking. I’m surprised no neighbor called the Feuerwehr with all the smoke pouring out. Oh, there was also this cute fuzzy bottom kitty hanging out.

First up was Death Embrace from Leipzig, a solid metal act with tinges of modern hardcore.

Next was Furnaze, and let me say, I was blown the fuck away. The musicianship in this band was disgustingly good and made me feel the fool to have to follow it up. Matt, the Croatian drummer, was like a drum machine. Olivier the guitarist was shredding like an out of control lawn mower. And of course I had my eye on the bassist, Andie, a most unlikely candidate for major rager on the four string mother fucker, what with her kindly demeanor and gentle appearance. She is one of the few metal bassists I’ve ever seen really nailing sixteenth notes with her fingers, not to mention groovin’ bass lines. God damn talented people! They make me so mad!

The night before in Berlin, we had discovered that Sean’s 5150 had a blown tube. Furnaze lent us a Krank amp, model unknown (I shoulda gotten a photo). Too bad, because this goofy looking little amp was a powerhouse that impressed all of us. Light enough to have as carry on luggage, Olivier extolled us all the virtues of this as a travel amp like some kind of Krank salesman. Variable voltage from 110-240, two power tubes for 50 watts (plenty for almost any size venue Impaled would play), thick and creamy distortion, and a mic simulator DI out for easy board mixing. Jason and Sean have both put this amp on their Christmas lists, like some kind of salivating children looking at an XBox.

I was happy to lend Andie the SVT 3 pro I’ve been running, and she loved it. More credit to Ampeg, at least up to the SVT 3. I made peace with this model awhile ago at a fest in Mexico. It made me decide I could stop being a tube snob, at least abroad, and save myself lugging any of the SVT 3’s 80-100 lbs. older brothers around. My bandmates’ backs have thanked me. It really receives my modded-for-bass ProCo Rat2 I’ve been using well, with more of a tight, thrashy gain. Would that I could try the non-pro version, I’ve heard the preamp is a bit tastier. Maybe something is going on my Christmas list a well.

The next day after some raucous carousing, we decided check out the actual Battle of Nations. History ‘n’ shit. Here in Leipzig, in 1813, Napoleon and his Grand Armèe met a grand defeat when Prussia, Austria, Sweden, England, and Russia got sick of his short guy complex and teamed up against the little man with the big plan. It was the first really international battle in recorded history. The Völkerschlachtdenkmal is about as epicus doomicus metallicus a war memorial as one can ever see.

This memorial is ringed by burly, big stone warriors inside and out. You pass under a gigantic edifice featuring depictions of the dead and dying being overseen by St. Michael, the warrior angel, holding a sword. Horns the fuck up, bra!

I guess we got lucky, as they’ve only just removed the bulk of scaffolding around the building for the ongoing restoration. You can see the important stuff for free, the big statues inside and down into the crypt, but I opted for the 6€ ticket to see all floors, climb to the top, and see the adjacent museum.

It’s kind of hard to think about the people who died in this battle when jackhammers are pounding away still cleaning up. Plus, a battle so long ago and far removed from myself makes it hard to feel any kind of heaviness. But I can appreciate the strength and steadfastness of the soldiers that the builders tried to engineer into the art here.

We left Leipzig and headed for short drive to Reisa, still in Germany. We had a date with a ship.

Originally, we’d intended to attend all three days of Obscene Extreme festival in Czech Republic, but our driver extraordinaire, Conny, got us another opportunity to play the free pre-show for the In Flammen festival… on a boat traveling down the Elbe. Full of metal heads. Drunk, German, metal heads. Oh boy.

We were billed as a “surprise band,” to play after a local and a cover band. That way, we didn’t mess up our nearby show in Leipzig. Even the promoter from Leipzig, Niebe, was surprised to see us the next day when he boarded. We had a good laugh about that. The biggest surprise for the people, though, was that the majority had no idea who Impaled was. Surprise!

The boat quickly filled up, and we kind of took cover in the back. It quickly turned into a really fun experience, listening to metal, drinking, and waving and yelling at the people on the shore who all waved back. Even die Polizei gave us a shout out with their klaxons.

Every party needs a pooper, though, and that’s why one jack ass took a dare and jumped of the boat. Okay, I thought it was funny, at first, until the boat had to turn around and I found out the promoter, Tomas, would have to pay extra and do paperwork with die Polizei.

The show went on, though, and what a weird and awesome show it was. We eschewed the normal trappings of our now intolerably stinky costumes and just rocked the fuck out. Jason and I resurrected our characters of Captain Buttbeard and first mate Stinky (if you know what that’s about, you’re hard core G.O.R.E. Corps) and announced the entire set with pirate jargon. Avast ye, head bangarrrrrrrs! Maybe the bad jokes were why karma dictated Jason and I needed to get moshed into (on a boat) and knock over half of Raul’s kit. Fun!

The next day, we headed to another battlefield, that of Trutnov in the Czech Republic, where the obscene and extreme would test their metal.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa

We had such a lovely day in Venlo, heading to the city center and having some coffee and breakfast. Eveything was symmetrical with 4 coffees, 2 English teas, 2 tuna sandwiches, and 2 French onion soups. It’s a curious thing about the Netherlands, everything is symmetrical. Look in the windows. Lots of 2 vases or 2 lamps. Lots of square rooms. Hmm… a curious thing about the Dutch.

We headed toward Germany where things were more chaos and headbanging. We went to Wirmelskirchen, to club Bahndamm.

Tonight was supposed to be a good show, with a Mexican gore grind band (they cancelled), Afternoon Gentleman and Psycho again, and World Downfall. It WAS a good night, but there were lots of apologies about conflcting shows with Deicide and the “Big Four” of metal. Whatevs. Cool people came out, and we had a great time.

Afternoon Gentleman opened the show, and they turned out to be evening as well as morning Gentleman. A stellar punk band and great folks.

World Downfall was up next, and I must say I was blown away. They were amazing death grind, and vocalist Lohm had some very dynamic vocals. A true delight to witness this German delicacy.

The legends, Psycho, followed and then we had a really fun show. Now, a word from our sponsor: us.

Guitar gear. We got our backline in pieces, part from SkullCusher club in Dresden and part from Nomads of Prague, the backline rental place. For guitar, a couple good cabs and for both Sean and Jason, some Peavey 5150s, mark 1.

A handy tip, that I forgot for a couple days, is to put your half stack on top of the amp case after unpacking. You get a little lift on your sound, you dont have to find a space for that empty case, and you don’t look as much like a puss playing a half stack.

We tested both Peavey 5150 1 and 2s and the mark 1s definitely had better death metal tone. Supposedly, this was a problem for Mr. EVH, because the clean channel and distorted channel had the same pre amp, so they seperated them in the Mark 2 and lessened the distortion.

Problem: both heads are randomly dropping volume. This is corrected by quickly unplugging and plugging either the speaker cable (bad idea) or the preamp cable Raul is using for his in-ear monitors. Weird and unfortunate. Could be a bad design, or perhaps these are just road worn amps.

Jason is rockin on a Boss Super Shifter to add some octave harmonies to some lead parts, and a Wah Sewage, the Crybaby wah I modified. He also has a Boss Tuner and Noise Supressor (good enough for tight stops), same as Sean. Jason also has the SupaCharger pedal power brick, which is cool because you can swap the plug out and run at 240 volts or a trip to Europe. Voodoo Labs power brick lacks this one function, so even though it is supposedly better and made in the USA, it’s an epic fail for a touring musician. The power brick is good because it allows each pedal an isolated ground to hopefully eliminate electronic hum.

Jason also added some nice wheels to his guitar road case. I assume because he hates lifting things and he’s lazy. They work nicely.

Onto Rotterdam!

Baroeg is bad ass club that’s been going since 1981. I played here on my first trip to Europe waaaay back in 1997. I’m old. Good to be back!

This was a matinee show, typical of a Sunday here, I guess. We showed up directly before the first band was going on. Classy of us.

We met some mighty Ghoulunatics outside, but there’s no accounting for taste. Weird they should come to see Impaled, but I guess they have at least a little taste left. Alco, the crazy sexy Spaniard head of Ghoulunatics NL even gave me a nice gift for my tour-ture tool kit: a butane torch that’ll melt metal at 1300 degrees! Bad ass!

Sly from Fondlecorpse also came by! Good to see the little guy again for the first time in 5 years.

We had a fucking great show, enjoyed the hell outta Cliteater from Netherlands, and came that much closer to meeting our bills. Great success! Thanks Rotterdam, you rule!

After the show, we stayed at the weirdest hostel ever. Who fuckin builds something like this?

Great use of floor space, upending a cube. The “coffee” shops here in Rotterdam sure must have some kind buds.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa

Another day off… good for the neck, bad for the pocketbook.

We had a great time hanging out with Tomas and Lena in Vienna. These are two great Weiners. Alas, we had to leave their beautiful apartment and be on our way for a twelve hour drive to Nederland. Ugh.

On the way from Österreich to Nederland, we had to pass through Germany. Along the autobahn, there are always lots of signs indicating famous castles or other landmarks. Hmmm… this was a funny one: Walhalla. In the mountain beside we could see a giant classical style building beset with Greek style columns. Awesome! We didn’t have to die in battle, we could get into Walhalla with just a 3€ ticket! “Day off means mandatory sightseeing,” said our driver, Conny.

What was this building for? It’s a hall built in the 1800s to celebrate the glory of the Germanic speaking people. I’m sure the Kaiser’s words sounded a lot more patritotic and WAY less ominous before two world wars. Oopsy daisy, Deutschland!

Inside, I encountered a group of German soldiers. I guess they were doing history homework. Unfortunately, the place was slightly under reconstruction.

The room is full of busts of lauded German speaking folk, from old kings and queens, to generals (but not from THAT time period) to artists, writers, and philosophers. I found busts of Kant, Goethe, Beethoven, Bismark, on and on. That’s right, bitches, Wagner, Sewage, and Bach. Musical geniuses, all.

One odd thing… all these busts were done by master sculptors in the classical style. Except a very important German speaker, Albert Einstein. He looks more like a Simpsons cartoon.

Hmm… and he’s one of the only Jews present. I don’t wanna get all antifa and accusatory about it, but oi vey. The father of relativity deserves something better than what this lazy sculptor pooped out.

This was a nice mountainside attraction. We intended to camp out beside another, Drachensfel, an area that was famous for supposedly being the site where Siegfried slew the last dragon in the Ring of the Niebelung saga. I wanted to see this cave where the dragon lived where there was supposed to be a giant dragon sculpture.

If you’ve ever driven Interstate 10 in the U.S., you’ve probably seen the billboards asking, “What is the THING?” I stopped by the Thing once, paid entrance to see the Thing, and turned out the answer to the above question was “the Thing is a lame assed tourist trap.” This was the German version.

We hiked up the mountain, eschewing the 9€ fee for the train to an old castle tower. It had a nice view, but the castle was unimpressive, and there was a tourist area under construction. Where the fuck was this cave with the dragon?

We asked around and were told we’d actually passed the place. ? This was supposed to be some epical type history ‘n’ shit. Nope, it’s all in this one building, with a man made cave, some paintings, and a reptile museum.

Admitedly, the building looks kinda cool, but the lady running the place was a bitch and we weren’t about to pay her pfennig for this tourist trap. Ah well, the hike was nice.

Finally, we got to Düsseldorf and picked up our Merch King, Peter Povey. He’s joined us on several tours, and even though we can hardly understand his Brummie accent, we love our buddy from the English Isle.

Mr. Povey has accompanied Impaled and me and Sean on several tours. It was this night he found out he passed his entrance exam to university on his way to become a doctor. I had no idea he idolized Impaled THAT much.

We rolled into Vendloo, a Dutch town close to the German and Belgian borders. The club was Perron 55, and they were staffed by the nicest people who helped us load out, set up, got us fed… serious rock star treatment for some schlubs like us. A couple nights ago I had a dream where Mr. T, dressed in a red zoot suit, told me not to trust Dutch people. Surely, he must’ve been wrong. These people were ace.

Unfortunately, we also found out that one of their staff had just died, and they apologized to us if their smiles were not as normal. Give me a break! We felt so bad, they were apologizing to us for their grief. Really, too kind, and they were stellar all night. My hats off to them all, and my condolences. Did I mention they all worked for free in this club that was government subsidized? What. The. F.

I wish we could’ve returned the favor by attracting a huge crowd, but we managed some and they seemed to be pleased with us by the end of the night. And Dirk, ultra-friend on the last Ludicra tour who managed to see us four times on the first ever Ludicra Euro tour, showed up!

The first band of the night was Dictated, really excellent old-school brutal death metal. I liked them a lot. They also happened to have not one, but two amazingly beautiful young Dutch women on guitar. Of course that doesn’t matter, it was their playing that mattered, but knowing how labels work I imagine this band will be signed swiftly.

Next up was The Afternoon Gentleman, a grind band from England that I enjoyed immensely. Power violence meets His Hero is Gone with the snotty attitude of the Young Ones. Unfortunately, the low key and even keel crowd didn’t seem to take to grind all that well. Too bad for the crowd, this band was awesome.

Next was Collision, some fine local boys, then Psycho. Yes, the long running band Psycho from America. I have some old splits from these guys from when I was a teenager mail ordering 7″ records from Wild Rags Records. I never thought I’d ever see these guys, let alone play with ’em!

Finally, we went up, had a good time with the crowd, and an even better time hanging out after with the friendly staff and crowd afterwards. Our hotel was only a block away, so Conny had been able to drink and we were gifted an extra case of beer to round out our evening stroll to the hotel. Dank u, Perron 55!

I can’t say as much for the hotel we stayed at. Perfectly clean, but as soon as we touced the handle on the window, it came off, the window was hanging by a thread, the outlets were falling out of the wall, and when Conny touched the closet, the doors fell in.

The fire alarm blared in the morning and then went off (which I shrugged off in my laziness) and we were awoken by some kind of Dutch officials checking people’s I.D.s (looking for little girls hiding in attics, no doubt). Even though it was all falling apart when we got there, I’m gonna go ahead and say we partied like rock stars.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa

I’m gonna write this while totally drunk.

Okay, where did we leave off? Pulling into Wien on the 28th, aka Vienna. We met our friends Tomas and Lena at their apartment. Tomas had arranged our show in Wien to be opening for Malevolent Creation at the Viper Room. Very nice of the little guy.

We had a few beers at Tomas’ amazing apartment and then headed to the show. Dinner was of course some schnitzel and sausage, which Sean had cut for him by Tomas.

It was a pretty fun show, but Death Feast had just happened, Black Dahlia Murder was playing this night somewhere else in Austria, and Judas Priest’s farewell tour was the next night in Vienna. All this conspired against us, but we carried on as did the sparse but dilligent crowd. The Austrians who arrived were entertained to their fullest.

A good night was had with Malevolent Creation as well as with Martin of Pungent Stench and Hollenthon (a personal god and god damned HERO).

The next day was mostly spent sleeping, hard cheese for the bassist who invariably wakes up at 10am. About 4-5 hours later, once everybody was FINALLY ready to go, Tomas and Lena took us to the MQ of Vienna, or the Museum Quartier.

We saw a nice exhibit of Salvador Dali, but unfortunately our late waking asses had to get to… dun dun dun… Judas Priest’s last ever tour along with Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy. Time to get to grubbin’ before the show!

Dammit, we missed Falco and Beethoven’s grave. Which is more important? I can’t decide.

Outside the arena, we hunted for cheap tix. We kind of found them, although some decided at the last minute they didn’t want the tix already paid for by our hosts Tomas and Lena. I paid the difference as a sort of “don’t whine to me tax.” Fuck it… We are here, Rob Halford is queer, get used to it.

The show was great… Okay, I mean, Whitesnake is like the worst band ever, but Priest had pyrotechnics and shit and played a full range of material, so fuck it.

Tomorrrow, we head towards Vendloo, over 11 hours drive. There, we meet our Brummie Pove, the Merch King, the day after. Tonight, we contend with metal heads on the train. It’s totally verrückt!

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa