Category: Music

When you wake up in a beautiful European apartment with a god damned 300 year old fresco in the living room, and you enjoy an espresso and cigarette on a balcony overlooking a historic Italian neighborhood, you have to ask: what have I done right, OR what have I done wrong with my life?

That’d be my entry into the amateur General Foods International Cafe model contest. What was the name of that waiter? JEAN LUC!

We woke up at Filipo and Allesandro’s apartment in Turino. These are two super cool guys who not only had amazing gorgonzola cheese and bread awaiting our late night arrival, but also had mattresses out and ready in their living room. They are supporters of the arts, evidenced by their immense rock poster collection all signed by former guests, and also very astute activists in Italian political actions. They had this amazing apartment, full of antiques, refurbished wood furniture, and a shit-you-not 300 year old fresco just chilling out. Sean was ready to move in.

We had kept our gear in the club. It was nice of them to allow it, in order for us to feel safe leaving the van in the street with no one having to take the hit and sleep in it. A leisurely afternoon load out preceded our journey to a show we had been added to just days earlier in Padua. There were some folks skeptical about the show. I was one of them. What were our chances with two to three days promotion on what I was told was a stoner rock show?

We pulled into Padua and met with Brandy the promoter (a dude) and he was wearing an Impetigo shirt. Okay, this show could be good. The headliners, whose show we had jumped on, were Karma to Burn. I imagine the cold stares we got from them might have been because of this flyer:

Ai yi yi. I felt kinda bad about that. This was THEIR show we jumped on, and one where we might’ve expected an epic fail. To add to it, Canadian punkers Hard Charger had also shown up after they had a show cancelled in Bologna and were also added to the bill. Karma to Burn must’ve been getting annoyed.

Hard Charger was quite good post-millenial crust punk, though they had a rough time as the crowd just wasn’t there yet. Then the crowd did show up, bedecked in Napalm Death, Hirax, and other death metal shirts. All of a sudden, I felt better about our upcoming set.

Local band Volcano Heat, sounding kinda like White Stripes, played next on this odd bill. We headed up and found we were doing our own sound on a four channel mixer with only two working microphones. Luckily, Raul had his goofy mixer set up and was able to output some drums to the board. I got the task of doing Jason’s vocals. And we sounded fucking GOOD. Weird, sometimes the more punk the set up, the better we sound. The tigers who’d shown up, a decent amount, danced and headbanged and screamed loudly when I yelled, “Porko Dio!” We gave our propers to Karma to Burn and they had a good set, too. Everyone ended up having a decent time. The warm beer flowed.

We were told we would sleep in the club, which was fine, they had mattresses ready for us. Problem was, they were open until seven am. Have you ever tried to sleep while a Wasp promotional video is playing and the music is cranked through a PA? It’s not so easy. Me and Conny opted to sleep on the sidewalk across the parking lot, where we could still hear Wasp, but at a reasonable volume. Jason, Raul, and Sean “slept” in the club… until seven am. Tiku Tiku Music was closed for business and kicked them the fuck out. After a lovely three hours sleep, we were on our way to Croatia via Slovenia, where the festive border crossing sings to you “la la dee la la RAPE.”

Croatia is not part of the European Union yet, so we had some papers to deal with. The worry was about the backline and getting it in and out with an official stamped list. We stopped on the Slovenian border and tried to ask the Policja what to do. They pointed us towards a building with a bunch of doors marked only in Slovenian. Conny and I entered one door to find a bank. Then another door didn’t open. The next door we entered had a huge group of older Eastern Europeans staring at us with dead eyes, looking like something out of an old Polanski film. One of the pair of dead eyes stared into my soul and then just pointed me to my right. Ooookay. That led to the exit, and so we tried another door that held the policja inside, and they kept telling us, “not our job” and pointed us back to the other door. Kafka, much? We finally saw a customs official and followed him in the formerly locked door, which we weren’t supposed to do. Back to the Polanski room, which was now empty. We waited 15 minutes or so, and finally a customs guy comes up and looks at our paper and says “nyet official, I cannot stamp. Just go aend maybe you having loock tomorrow coming beck.” Sweet. Into Croatia with fingers crossed and thumbs pressed.

We arrived at Autonomni Kulturi Center in Zagreb. It sounds real official right? With a nice letter head and logo and everything.

It’s a squat. It’s located in an old pharmaceutical factory, so our health was in check. Just like all European squats, it was replete with all the psychic vaccumming of overbearing urban style graffitti. Hip hop and ya don’t stop.

The club in the squat was called Attack! (the exclamation point is part of the name) They’d asked us to arrive nice and early around four because they were so concerned about the drum set only partially being shared and time constraints. Good thing they showed up two hours later around six and took about two hours to set up cables. I was falling asleep standing up with none of the local currency to buy a coffee by the time we finally sound checked around eight. With all that concern about time, you’d think they’d skip a full sound check for the other three bands playing, but no. Full sound checks for all, and a show that’s starting one and one half hour late! Come on in!

That said, Igor (not making fun, that was his name) and crew did great sound for all the bands. So much as they were worth listening to. I did quite enjoy the band right before us, Krlja, grinding death metal in an old school tradition.

We had been warned about the Korn concert in Zagreb interferring with ours, because you know Impaled and Korn has a real crossover listenership. A ton of people showed up, some just to hang out drinking at the place, and a healthy amount of crusties and metal heads. The metal heads were surprised we would play this place for such cheap entrance and that our merch prices were so low. The crusties wanted to haggle over our cheap prices like a middle east bazaar, as crusties are wont to do. Of course, the cheap entrance ended up fucking us, as apparently the gig organizer wasn’t there, and we had one email telling us one guarantee price, and the people working had another one that had a significantly lower guarantee. We are not the types to drive people to their ATMs, however. Sucks for our pocketbooks.

We still had a very fun show, though it seemed evident the crowd was a little wiped out after the late start and the numerous bands. We got to hang out late afterwards drinking and partying with some cool Croatians. According to one, “In America, you have Fourth of July. Now I have June Twenty-Seven, the day Impaled play Croatia!” Hell, even our resident tetotaler, Dr. Kocol, joined in the libations.

The next morning we loaded our gear out after sleeping in the squat. Back to the border between Croatia and Slovenia on our way to Austria, and back to some official bullshit. Slovenian customs decided, as offical heavy metal emmisaries of California, we HAD to have some weed. The guard sniffed pouches of tobacco personally, before he brought out the dog. I was expecting a gnarly German Shepherd, but the dog they had was super cute! No photos of course, I wanted this to be easy going. The dog hopped in the van, sniffed to his satisfaction, and got out. Apparently the guard didn’t trust the dogs nose, which is 100x better at smelling than his, and kept forcing the dog back inside and around the van. He even sniffed stuff after the dog. He opened bags, took stuff outta the back… I mean, really, did he expect some drug smugglers shipping bricks of hashish would use mules that look like us? How about them old folks that you just waved through with their giant caravan? All he might’ve found in a band van would’ve been a couple joints, and the drug war could be won to his satisfaction. As it was, he was visibly disappointed that he pulled over Impaled, the squarest death metal band around, and found nothing. At least he brushed off the seats and table.

Onto brüderchen, Austria!

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

I’m fairly certain that getting my last post up cost me upwards of $90. I was trying to buy wifi time at a rest stop, and first hit a button to buy the time, which didn’t go through, oddly I thought. So I did it again and then my credit card company called me about an odd charge that they blocked. Presumably, they thought it odd I was suddenly in Germany. Thanks, BofA, your due diligence in monitoring my card activities cost me 60 irretrievable dollars, because I never got a chance to get my login password. After talking with a machine, I finally made a third charge and got online. Fuck my life. Travel tip: call your bank and credit card companies in advance of traveling and remind them not to fuck you in the ass.

Impaled had two days of travel ahead of us to make the show in Torino. We stopped for supplies late in the night in Germany on our way to camp out in Switzerland.

At Kaufsland, the German version of Wal-Mart and every bit as classy, they sell soup made of Smurfs. We arrived to the checkout counter at 10:02 pm. They stopped selling alcohol in this county at 10:00 pm. Fuck my life. Camping with no drink? Conny sturmed out, and after she calmed down, I asked her to sturm back in and ask someone about this. Well, apparently gas stations get around this law by having a bistro license. Basically, they have table inside no one uses nestled in next to porn DVDs and stickers of Calvin peeing on something. The evening was saved! Never give up, never stay dry.

We drove into Switzerland with no passport checks. Odd, but great. We drove in the night to camp put in a parking lot next to the village of Gruyères. The village is famous for fine dairy products, evidenced by the cow bells we heard all night long, and penis collage artwork. Yes. It just happened to be on our path, a checklist for my bucket list that I’ve missed out on time and time again: the H.R. Giger museum and bar. Hells. Yes.

In the morning we awoke after some hard drinking and found a bunch of rich people parking next to our sloppy asses in fancy antique cars and sweaters tied around their necks. I guess these Swiss organized a fancy car show with money from the gold fillings they collected.

A short walk up a beautiful hillside from our campsite in the parking lot, and I entered the castle gates into the most quaint village full of lively people and totally overpriced coffee. I walked about a quarter of a mile, and then staring me in the face was a Giger baby bullett, totally out of place amongst the serenity. Like I was, if the stares were any indication.

The museum and bar are right across the path from one another. I highly recommend sitting in a Harkonen chair at the bar and getting the Alien Coffee, which includes the coffee, some thick, genuine Gruyères cream, a few merengues, and a shot of Grand Gruyères, a delicious green local liquor that is like a spicier Schnappes. Sköl!

After that coffee, and waking up in a parking lot, you’re probably ready to poop. The WC is across the way next to the museum behind an unassuming black door. Make sure to have a porcelain visitation, because hidden in there is this:

The Giger Bar… A great place for kids… hung up on walls.

Actually, good for people of all ages.

It really was an amazing museum: two stories filled with Giger originals, like Alien production paintings, huge triptychs for his Necronomicon, the Species Ghost Train, and the full Harkonen table and chair set. I was like a little kid again, sleeping with my Kenner Alien doll from the ’70s. Yeah, I was a weird kid.

On our way out of Switzerland, we got to see another landmark: Montreux and Lake Lèman, where there was Smoke on the Water. Frank Zappa and the Mothers weren’t there anymore, and the lake was more beautiful than smokey. A nice bit of rock ‘n’ roll history to note nonetheless.

We finally arrived in Torino around 6pm. I was hoping for a Gran Torino, but Clint Eastwood masterpieces aside, this is a… city. We had time enough today to finally check out all our gear and dial it in, and it sounds pretty good. Of course we had time, the show was to START at 11pm. Ah, Italia, where there’s never a rush. Anyway, I’m particularly pleased with my bass tone, considering I really didn’t enjoy these same Ashdown bass cabs a scant two months ago. Maybe it’s the different head and pedal, I dunno.

You know what stinks reeeeal bad? A room full of Italians on a muggy summer day. My people, we Italians have an amazing ability for stench. Porko dio.

The crowd airs out their olive pits.

We had two tragedies today… Jason threw out his back and the food dye we bought here sucks. So we are still very clean doktors in our surgical gowns. Conny say she misses our uniforms. Of course she does, she’s German. As for Jason, now he gets my vicodins that were a present for a “good time.” Le sigh.

A curious thing that a lot of Americans are surprised at here is backline sharing. In Europe, the headlining band, who has rented all the gear, is expected to share it with the opening bands. I first encountered this with Wolves, and later with Ludicra. Raul was especially none too pleased, but we talked him into it, so long as it’s just toms and kick. Those stands are not to be touched, and understandably as they take too long to adjust later. Really though, Europeans probably need to know this is a foreign practice to Americans, and springing the news after the tour is started is no good. Any Americans reading this, consider yourselves warned. The trade off is all the awesome food, better pay, and free accommodations.

We had a good show with Infected and Bribe from Italy. I was really impressed with Bribe’s ability to throw 15 artificial harmonics into each riff. We played an incredibly long set, rife with the technical foul ups, bleeps and blunders we should be famous for by now. The tigers danced the night away, though i think we tired ’em out towards the end. Considerations of shortening the set may be needed. And now it’s time for me to start drinking some beer. If there’s any left.

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

It seems like I never left. I guess that’s the fun of playing in multiple bands… once in awhile, when one tour ends, I can say to a bunch of lfriends in a foreign land, “bis bald (see you soon auf Deutsch)” and actually mean it. After leaving Europa with Ludicra a scant month and a half ago, I have returned with Impaled. Hell, I haven’t seen some of my friends in Oakland as much recently as some of my friends over here.

We have already started this tour six feet deep in the hole. We’ve nothing new to promote, but the invite to finally play Obscene Extreme in Czech Republic was too enticing to resist.

Never mind that we are flying during summer travel months and the price of oil is skyrocketing faster than Libyan anti-aircraft missiles towards a NATO bomber. We went ahead and took the ass raping sans lubicrant from the airline. Delta, I have doubts about their love of flying when they nickel and dime you to death.

From the safety video I took a picture of when my iPhone clearly should have been off, endangering the flight:

Big Sister Stewardess will eat you alive with her giant, collagen lips. That still didn’t stop me from being a dick and opting out of the full body scan at the airport. Sure, some big dude cupped my balls and was obviously upset at having to do so, but I think it’s worth it to upset a dude and make him cup my balls.

After a relatively uneventful flight, we arrived in Prague and picked up our luggage. The rest of Impaled started lining up behind some people waiting to have their luggage checked by customs, while I made a beeline for the door that said, “Nothing to Declare.” They quickly followed. I love continental Europe, where you’re not treated like a criminal just because you want to visit the country. I’m sure coming back, some disgruntled, mustachioed fella representing “Homeland Security” will be sure to grill me about the possibility of having some wacky tobaccy hidden up my keister. As if I couldn’t just get it in Oaksterdam.

Outside the airport in Prague came a familiar site; the red Iveco tour van that has been my home so many times before on this side of the Atlantic.

Our driver and friend, Conny, was replaced temporarily by our other friends from Dresden, Tony and Chris. We were to be on our way to Dresden after a stop at Nomads of Prague to pick up a some amps. Again. Seems like I just saw Tschepitz and his sunshiney face.

After that, we met up at a Beer “Garden” that consisted of some umbrellas over tables in the back alley of an apartment building. Curby, our benevolent benefactor for setting up this tour and the man behind Obscene Extreme, came with our merchandise and to watch us eat and drink a bit.

We headed to Dresden and finally met up with Conny for a peek at the art space she’d been working on and a BBQ with a bunch of good friends from Dresden. Super cool. We took it “easy” in that we only drank until 1 or 2 am, and not until the sun rose. Hey, our first show at Death Feast was tomorrow.

The next day we headed west and made our way to Death Feast. In the town of Hünxe, population nada, we drove around for about half an hour until we saw one tiny piece of paper taped to a pole with an arrow on it that said “death feast.”

Several hundred people were in attendance at this open-air festival. That meant several hundred pairs of cut-off camo shorts were in attendance as well. The Germans have a propensity for dressing uniformly. Go figure. We didn’t have much time to start enjoying the fest as we had to get cracking organizing our garbage to sell and tuning up guitars.

It seemed like we had just arrived and we were already on stage. Nothing says death metal like surgical scrubs bereft of blood because there was no time to get any. We turned out an energetic performance, but nothing I’d call tight. Despite all the intricate melodies and harmonies, we are still basically a bunch of three-chord punks. Leon del Muerte was here with Exhumed and managed to grace our stage with his farty presence. I managed to practice up a bit of my German and squeaked out, “Eure Väter schupsen Kinder vom Fahrrad und riechen den Amsaddle.” Your fathers push kids off their bikes and sniff the seat. I’m told this is a grave insult here, though I might have been lied to.

After us was Exhumed who I joined on stage at Matt’s request to sing one song. It was the first time I’ve sung an Exhumed song in twelve years, and about as long since I’d listened to “Gore Metal” in order to re-learn the words. A good time was had by all, though I’m sure a bunch of Exhumed fans were wondering why I didn’t puke. Sorry, yeah, I’m the guy before that guy and I’m the one you never saw play live outside the Bay Area. I’m also a full head taller and I’m terribly handsome.

The rest of the festival was fun, and we were all excited to get to see Dismember for the first time. They turned it out quite well and we were satisfied. Unfortunately, all nights must end, and we had a 2 day drive to get to our next show in Italy.

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

If my tour ramblings are not enough for you, a photo is worth one-thousand blogs. By my calculations, if you want to look at our tour photos, that’s 311,000 blogs you can read by checking the links below. If you just like looking at people other than yourself having a good time in strange lands, there’s that too.

Facebook is our venue of choice to display photos, because we are lazy web surfers. More like web waders. So many photos, Facebook made us put it into 2 albums. Enjoy.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150234424533338.368462.81741018337&l;=e614525d66
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150235615843338.368893.81741018337&l;=40720caad5

I’ve never understood anyone saying during a tour, “I’m ready to go home.” I never am. I may have plenty of loved ones left behind, but there’s an exhileration of being on the road that’s intoxicating to the extreme. Despite regular blacking out, bad shows, depression and frequent nervous breakdowns, it’s like nothing else in my life. A tiny little time bubble where I am moving at 186,000 miles an hour and the rest of the world slows down.

Because of this wanderlust, as the Germans call it, I always try and stay a bit longer. Hell, I’m so poor, playing music is the only way I can get a plane ticket to anywhere. As Aesop says, limited talent taking us infinite places. Besides, what better way to wind down than continuing to eat and drink in strange lands.

I was happy that Chirsty and Aesop could make the time to also stay with me this time. My usual travel partner has usually been Raul, both of us having post-tour excursions in Europe, Japan, and Mexico.

We tried to have one last group breakfast with some traditional food before dropping off John and Christy, but it was Easter Sunday. Oh, and the Bavarian dick wads in the tiny shit burg we stopped in were only willing to give us hard looks and told us their kitchens were closed. At 2pm. After the fourth inquiry at a restaurant we got the hint and instead ate some kebobs and pizza with Italians and Turks. So much for the hard-working German stereotype. The xenophobic stereotype, at least for these Bavarians, was still intact.

We dropped off Laurie and John at the airport with much sadness and hugging. Then we were on our way. I had a discussion comparing German and American inventions. Then we found the greatest German invention ever. Move over, jet engine, the time of the German travel pussy is now. Available at many German truck stops, the travel pussy is essentially a ballon with a gash. Maybe that’s why German truck drivers are so happy. I picked one up for Aesop. Because he’s gross.

We headed to Nürnberg and stopped off at the Reichsparteitagsgelände, the sight of the famous speech by Adolph Hitler documented in the movie Triumph of the Will.

We climbed the steps up to where the giant swastika was blown up as a symbol of the end of the Nazi regime. Nearby, there was a football game in a stadium full of chanting Germans. The ghostly echoes reverberated through the stands and provided a bone chilling soundtrack to this rotting memorial of totalitarianism.

We finally got our traditional German meal provided by a pretty fräulein in the city center underneath a castle once occupied by Barbarossa. I had the equivalent of mac and cheese, and it was amazing. There used to be a cheap box meal I had here the first time I visited with Exhumed called Hüten Snack, cheese noodles, and never could find it again. Now I was having the adult version. Age. It keeps happening. Fuck.

We headed towards Prague and camped somewhere outside Pilsn, the birthplace of Pilsener beer. Many people laud the Belglians for their fine ales, but for my money, the Czech do beer best. Refreshing, crisp, and it doesn’t make you feel like you’re going to regret having so many.

We had camped on the side of the road because we couldn’t find any of the campsites that were listed in our atlas. The next day we finally found it on the way to Prague, by one sign, listing the “town,” Camping. What the fuck? We czeched it out and found a beautiful campground with an open cafe. For about twenty-five bucks total, we each had a three course, amazing breakfast with my favorite meal, smazeny syr and kroketys. Basically, fried cheese and fried potato balls. I don’t recommend this when you come to Czech Republic, I demand it.

We went straight past Prague to see the birthplace of our favorite grind core 7″ covers at the ossuarry in Kutná Hora. In this tiny chapel lay 40,000 skeletons rearranged into fantastic art. This was my second time there, and it was still amazing.

We met up in Prague with our friends we made in the Turbojugend who put our show on a couple weeks previous, Vladimir, Stanislav, Jan, and Clint Eastwood. At least he was a dead ringer.

We had a traditional Czech dinner, which meant more fried cheese for me. Fuck yeah! We walked to the city square, one of the prettiest in all Prague, walked into some shoegaze show, drank and drank, and ended up at a bar near Vlad’s. I fell asleep, and everyone took funeral memorial pictures with me as the deceased (on Christy’s camera). It was all fun and games until the bar owner wanted to take one and woke me up with his cold, clammy hands all over me. Creepy.

Me and Christy stayed with Vlad and apparently Aesop witnessed Jan and Conny mosh till 8 in the morning. The Turbo Jugend of Praha are the most congenial and generous annihilators of my health yet. Great guys who partied us near to death. Awesome!

The next day, after some recovery, we headed to the Prague castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, where we did the St. Vitus Dance. First you groove to the sound like your legs was broken, it’s supposed to look like a fit or a convulsion. Golden Lane apparently is broken, so no tiny houses and golem gewgaws for us. Then we headed to the Wallenstein palace and gardens, where there is the most Dan Seagrave inspired monument ever, the dripstone wall. I can’t find any real info on it, but suffice to say, it’s BAD ASS.

We met up with Vlad again, and I made a last minute decision to stay with Christy and Vlad in Prague and go see the Macabre / Rompeprop / Birdflesh show. Aesop and Conny left, and we jumped on the tram, because Vlad, a Czech television repoter by trade, refuses to pay for tram and says, “no problem.” Problem. The inspector is on this tram.

At first when he came up, Vlad tried to sound American. It was not a good impression. Then the guy talked to me and I went into the mode an old friend from my youth would go into anytime he had trouble with the law: slack-jawed idiot. In Europe it’s even better, because you’re an idiotic American. This worked in Finland, too, when I forgot to check my Leatherman and tried to get it through security. The guy led us off the tram and after dealing with Vlad and looking at me and Christy acting the fool and saying we thought trams were free, he just let us go out of frustration. Score one for the morons of the world!

We made it to the show, which was awesome. Birdflesh and Rompeprop nailed it. It was fun to freak out my friends who didn’t expect my face to be showing up at their show in this place. The best is listening to Adde from Birdflesh yelling, “I can not believe!” Like the Swedish Chef. After the show, some folks got it into their heads to go to a strip joint they were told about to get a few more beers. From a previous experience in Prague 15 years ago, I was thinking there are no strip joints in Prague. When someone tells you they’ll take you to a strip joint, you’re gonna end up someplace more sinister. Still, Prague has been very westernized, so maybe – nope, it was a whore house. Note: there are STILL no strip joints in Prague.

Then nothing notable happened.

The next day, Christy, Vlad, and I did some more sightseeing watching the famous astrological clock tower in the center of Prague. Vlad saw us onto a bus, and we went off to Dresden to meet up with Conny and Aesop. Conny runs a tiny gallery there called Knark Art Gallery, and I had a piece in the current show, my Swans poster from a few months back. We drank then headed to the awesome punk club in the neighborhood, Chemie Fabrik. They have an excellent drink called Rattenhirn which looks like a rat brain floating in blood.

We checked out La Casa Fantom from Norway, a two-piece playing Man is the Bastard style power violence, almost. Later around the fire outside, I got into a bit of verbal tussle with the drummer. He started getting into it with me about American inventions, or something, and it was amazing how patriotic I could get when I knew I was dealing with some punk who was likely getting social welfare and healthcare from one of the nicest countries on Earth. You’re gonna try and compare your lazy no life sentencing fjord asses to my awesome failing empire prison-filled homeland? Nuh-uh.

The next day, our friend Maike took me and Aesop to get Zimmerman hosen. Basically, German cargo pants. It used to be these were the traditional pants of the German carpenter, but now that no one in Germany works more than 10 hours a week or gets up before noon, these are the Carharts for the hip German punk. Of course Aesop and I bought a pair each. It’s probably like going to Portland and buying a Pabst shirt. Fuck it, they’re awesome, with two zips in the front for a flap so you can comfortably get at your junk with your pants still buttoned at the waist. Let the uses for such a contrivance run wild in your imagination.

We headed to Berlin later on and took in the Jewish memorial, some Berlin wall, and the Brandenburg gate and made it to the Weedeater show in town to meet up with some friends we were staying with. “Oh mein Gott!” The next day, it was off to Tegel airport and – schade – home.

I thought we were back in Prague, becaue the airport experience in Berlin was Kafka-esque. First, we are in the normal line. But then we are shuffled to the self-help line by Christy. I hate these machines, because it always ends up you have to get help because their programming sucks. So, sure enough, lady sends us to another line, and that lady gets into it with us because it’s the wrong line. Then, only my name comes up, but Christy’s name doesn’t match her passport and they threaten to make us buy a new ticket. Then we get into it about carry ons being too heavy, which always pisses me off because I make up for that weight by being skinny, unlike this Fat Frau at the counter. Okay, so then I have to take our guitars downstairs, and THEN pay for the luggage somewhere else. I’m running and find the place, and Herr Dude says I have to pay for four pieces over my limit because Frau Fucknut has put all the luggage on MY ticket only. He makes a call and that gets cleared up, so we enter the security area for our gate. Of course, me and Aesop’s pedals get flagged, and we have to wait or something. So I put back on my metal stuff while this lady is watching, wristwatch, necklace, etc. at which point the lady leads us OUT of security. We go to a separate room, and the lady monitors us and takes us back to security, where we AGAIN have to take off all our shit, rescan the bags, despite being surveiled the entire time. AUGH! I finally get on the plane and my seat is next to a Jephova’s Witness preacher from New York, living in Germany to preach, and he wants to ask what I think of the bible. I knew I had to stay awake or I would wake up as a cockroach.

We transferred at Frankfurt, and because we were flying to America, there had to be two more lines with more beauracracy asking us more inane questions that were already answered on our fucking tickets. On the plane, United sucks, no more free booze on International flights, the cheap fucks. Lufthansa gave me a free beer for a CONNECTING flight. I tried to go Lufthansa the whole way, and thought I succeeded… ya gotta read the fine print about air partners online though, and see who is “operating” whom’s flight. I would complain more about United, but what’s the point. They’re gobbling up every other airline with the government’s help so pretty soon they’ll own all air travel and we’ll accept it like so many communist cattle. You become what you fear most.

That got deep. Shit. I watched a bunch of movies and got home. The end.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
dispatched from Die Struwwelpetra Ludicra 2011 European Tour

Is there some reason we have to spell København as “Copenhagen” in English? Even phonetically, without knowing any Danish, I can look at the real Danish spelling and sound out the name of the city way closer to the actual pronunciation than the Anglicized version. Of course every language does this to a certain respect, but I’m calling bullshit. It’s offical: Merriam, Webster, you’re on my shit list.

I’ve played København twice before this, and I have to say, it made me hate Denmark. Both times at club Lopen, on the edge of Christiana. Christiana, the hippy paradise outside the laws of the kingdom, where you can noodle dance all day, smoke hashish, and ignore the fact that it’s actually run by motorcycle gangs dealing meth and heroin. Impaled had an epic fail at Lopen, totally hated by the crowd who couldn’t understand our schtick. When I returned with Wolves, me and Aaron were totally sick, asked for peace in the band room, and instead woke up to the opening band and their little sluts and dick head friends sitting on top of us, smoking, and they drank all the beer.

I came into København with a sneer… and left with a smile. Third time’s the charm.

We played a club called Stengade, with local hiking metal punks Solbrud, and friendly French froggy band Alcest. We felt bad, because Dornenreich were on tour with Alcest, but not invited to play this show. We didn’t know that until 2 days before, and Aesop is friends with the band. It was awkward, all we could do is say sorry at that point to the somewhat miffed members.

The place filled up pretty quickly. Super organizer Martin paid us up in advance and provided a delicious meal. Turns out, this place was a culture house, fully subsidized by the kingdom. That meant tons of food, drink, good pay, accomodations, all paid for by the governmeny to bring the art and culture of heavy metal to the Danish masses. Yeah, fuck you America.

The bands all did well, and our set went fantastic, with a good amount of Danish and Swedish dredlocked masses sticking around for our headlining gig. The only bummer was that Aesop had to reset up his drums, because the opening band got the message from someone in the venue that it was okay to use our drum set, despite us not being asked. It seems fairly common that the headlining band is asked to share their rented gear with locals who must clearly have their own equipment near by, or they wouldn’t be locals. I guess this is the other side of the socialist coin that we enjoy so much while touring in Europe. You get all that stuff and treated like a real artist, and then you are expected to give some back for the good of the show. Still, it’s just so freaking annoying for drummers to have to reset their entire kit. God damn engineering feat. So, we didn’t make a federal case out of it, because everything else was so rad and we were treated so well. A long night of drinking followed the set, hanging out with Martin and the lovely staff and some new friends from the show.

We went to the hotel, and boy oh boy what a neighborhood. Hookers everywhere. Driver Conny opted to stay in the van, and good thing as some hoodlums ended up trying the doors some time in the night. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

In the morn, walking around, I realized this really was the most Americanized European city I had seen yet. Every corner had a 7-11 (never forget) and Burger King, KFC, and McDonald’s. Any Floridian death metal band would’ve been chuffed for a taste of such fine American cuisine they missed so much, but I was a tad disappointed. I got a waffle with Nutella. Yum.

Onto our second 2 day drive we went. We would’ve had a great show in Rendsburg tonight, but for the fascist and cowardly Interweb troll fucktards I’ve mentioned before. Sigh…

Instead, we drove into the Höbichengrund forest area to seek camping. This is a small part of the area made famous in Goethe’s “Faust” as the gathering place of the witches, so witch statues abounded. Not creepy at all. It’s almost Easter and all proper shops close on Good Friday. We were left with the pickings at a gas station, which in Germany, aren’t so bad. They baked us some fresh bread, we bought wine, beer, and sandwich fixins, and we boosted some TP from the bathroom.

We got to a camping site, the kind where you pay to park next to a bunch of RVs, and opted instead to park for free directly across the road and set up. Christy is a master tent builder and did it in the dark. We drank and drank and looked at the awesome night sky.

I woke up early in the morning, as I’m want to do, and decided on a hike through these haunted forests supposedly full of witches. About an hour in, I felt nature calling. Like, REALLY calling. The TP felt about a million miles away. John had told me about similar situation he was in and cleaning himself in rocky mountain streams, but all I could find was puddles. I hiked off the path to find seclusion, and luckily, found some moss on a dry, old branch. It actually made good paper, soft yet scrubby. But watch your step if you walk these woods, because now it’s haunted by much more than witches… look out for Moss Sewage.

We moved on to the last show in Hot Karlsruhe. Dude-icra was playing Dude Fest, which kind of felt like a smaller, German version of Roadburn. Except the people were different. Promoter Chris and his staff were excellent and friendly, but the crowd just seemed… weird. Lots of myspace haircuts. Good thing our friend Dirk from Belgium came to his fourth Ludicra show and actually chatted with us. Whatta guy!

I usually am really nice to the sound person in any club. I wish I hadn’t been in Karlsruhe. Right off the bat as we were loading in, this fat turd of a German tells us to move our asses, which is impossible as we were holding heavy gear and people were in our way. This was the sound guy, and it was already going bad. When it was our turn on stage, he was a prick, but again I was trying to be nice, because he was doing our sound. I guess it didn’t help, by all accounts, but we still had a good show… right to the end. This Colonel Klink came on the monitors during the last twenty seconds of our song to tell us we had to stop. Aesop flipped him the bird. I checked my watch: we were a meager two minutes over our set time. When he came up after and said he tried to stop us four times (not true) Aesop flipped again, that is to say, out on him. It was kind of awesome, but I’m not so confrontational, I just got to the business of moving around him and getting our stuff the hell ou of there cause I was pissed. I apologized to the guys from Julie Christmas, and they didn’t seem to think it was any kind of problem. Till THEY dealt with the sound guy. He also yelled at Master Musicians of Bukkake and turned off all their lights when they went precisely one minute over their set time. I guess this guy’s raison d’être was just to piss off bands. It’s a shame no one kicked his ass, but I suppose everyone just wants to do their best on stage for the tigers, then just be done with the stress. Fuck that guy.

Still, I’ll always attempt to be nice to the sound person as much as possible. Always introducing myself, and trying to be personable. Even if I hate their guts, I’m relying on then a great deal, at least, until we make it to the big time and have our own sound guy. Keep dreaming, kiddo.

We got a pleasant surprise from the group we rented our heads from, Nomad of Prague. I keep giving them ups for their great service. They had an employee in attendance with another band there, and he took our heads when we were done and we got to save a few bucks because they only charged us for up to this fest. That, and we are no longer worrying about the gear in the van and we don’t have to go to Prague to return anything. Of course, we are still going!! It’s fucking Prague!!! Woo hoo!!!

I guess everyone had kind of a weird night with the folks attending the show, but it was a pretty friendly eve amongst the bands, maybe more so because of this strange vibe. We had a good time hanging with the folks of Sabbath Assembly, Liturgy, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Junius, Julie Christmas, and Corrosion of Confirmity, amongst the rest. Sometimes that’s hard to make happen. Maybe it’s the penchant the Dude-icrans have for making constant penis and fart jokes backstage. Hell, in front of the stage. In the van. At breakfast. I can imagine we are hard to take seriously.

One last thing about Dude Fest: I was finally getting to see Earth, having missed them at Roadburn. I was super in the moment, gently swaying, feeling the pain and beauty of their music. Then I heard in the middle of their set, of course in an American accent, “Freebird!” Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! How old are you? Pretty old, it turns out, to try and heckle with that old gem. Then, “Sweet Home Alabama!” I saw who it was, and was pretty bummed after we’d had some decent conversation earlier in the day. To Earth’s credit, they busted few licks from the latter mentioned song and took it in stride. But I was removed from a special moment, on my last day of tour, at an already awkward event. I let it get to me too much, sure, but dammit, artists should be able to respect another player enough that if they aren’t into it, leave the room. Or come up with something better than Freebird. Ultra lame, and that was the unfortunate feeling I left with.

We kicked it for awhile in the streets drinking, then at the hotel drinking. There’s that kind of sad undercurrent that this Band of Brothers (and Sisters) is parting ways and the last tour for Ludicra for the forseeable future is dunzo. Laurie articulated this look well.

Bye bye to Laurie and John as we take them to the airport, and the curtain closes on Ludicra’s Die Struwwelpetra Tour. Thanks for having us, Europe.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
dispatched from Die Struwwelpetra Ludicra 2011 European Tour