I GET SCHOOLED BY A FRENCH SELF CHECKOUT

                I woke up still sick in Montpellier.  We went to the French grocery store around the corner from our hotel for lunch/breakfast.  It was really crowded and all the lines were long.  I got some food including a couple of apples and got in line for the self checkout.

                Now, somehow I managed to butcher the use of this self checkout machine in every way possible.  The scanner didn’t work and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, but then someone pointed out a second bar code scanner on the side that thankfully worked.  Then, when I tried to buy the apples the damn machine switched over to French, which (even after all our time here) is still next to impossible for me to read.  I finally just pushed some buttons and I’m pretty sure I grossly overpaid for those apples.  Then I forgot to put them on the “paid for” part so the screen locked up.  After that I couldn’t figure out how to use the credit card machine, so I finally just paid in cash.  By this point, I was beet red and the line was out of control and full of angry French people with the exception of two pretty girls directly in line behind me who thought the whole thing was hysterical.  I looked like the biggest idiot ever. 

                The drive to Barberaz that day was really pretty and quickly made me forget my embarrassment.  We drove through the French Alps which was quite a sight.  When we finally arrived at the club it was in an industrial section of town at the foot of a mountain.  The beer selection was really extensive and they had a wide variety of Belgian ales of tap, none of which were under 8% alcohol.  We started drinking early and we had several hours to go before our set, so by the time dinner was served we were all pretty wrecked.  The show was ok, but relatively uneventful.  We kept forgetting that we were no longer in Spain and would often slip into speaking Spanish with people.  For the record French people do not like it when you speak anything other than French to them. 

After our set we drove up the mountain to stay with the promoter at their giant old home at the top of a mountain.  Now… we were following a woman who had been drinking since we got to the venue (a solid 8 hours ago), AND we were driving a giant van, AND Marco is a pretty bad driver, AND these mountain roads were very steep and narrow.  All this added up to a very irritated Marco yelling at this woman in Italian.  Thankfully she didn’t understand and took it very well, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.  I was able to catch some of it on video and posted it to my facebook page, but sadly I didn’t get all of it.

                When we got there we were shown to the guest house we would be staying in and then invited to the main house for drinks.  We all sat around the kitchen table drinking and smoking and communicating what little we could.  We were there with four people.  They were all a bit weird.  Nice, but weird nonetheless.  The one woman seemed straight out of the Addams Family or a Tim Burton movie.  She reminded me of a very unattractive Helena Bonham Carter. 

                The view was amazing when we woke up the next morning.  We were on the top of a mountain, surrounded by farmland, with more of the Alps in the distance.  It was a great way to start the day.  We piled into the Sprinter and made our way to Strasbourg for a night off before Holland.  Our evening was uneventful and the next day we walked around the downtown area taking pictures and exploring the Notre Dame Cathedral there, which was really beautiful but was probably the most commercialized and touristy of all the ones we’ve have been to so far.  Afterwards we got back in the van and headed back to Germany for a show in Miltenburg.

                

THE HOME STRETCH

Well, we have hit the stretch of tour where everyone is ready to get home.  This certainly isn’t unusual or a bad thing.  It’s not that we aren’t having lots of fun still; it just seems to be the natural cycle of tours.  When they start it’s always too much fun. Late nights and drunken shenanigans are most common when a tour starts because everyone is excited about leaving home and getting out on the road.  Then, after a while you settle into a routine and it becomes sort of mechanical.  There are still late night shenanigans, but they are usually milder and tend to be reserved for weekend shows.  This lasts until the final week of tour when everyone gets antsy.  We won’t be as friendly and talkative with people at shows; opting instead for more antisocial activities or at least ones that only include familiar faces.  This is especially the case with me right now, but I think that’s exacerbated by my current state of sickness and the frustration that can come with not speaking the language of the audience.  People start missing everyone back home and conversations in the van start more and more with “Man, when I get home I can’t wait to…..” 

Touring can be extremely isolating.  As anyone who has read this blog knows, tours are repetitive and boring.  Eating, sleeping, and riding in a car take up the vast majority of your time.  The only guaranteed interruption from the tedium is the 45-90 minutes that we get to be onstage.  You can only hope that cool people show up and that you get to have some interesting conversation, or that an opportunity for a cool new experience will present itself.  This does happen quite often, which is one of the many reasons I love touring.  I have gotten to do some cool shit in my life that many people only get to read about.  No one can take that away from me.  The problem is that so much goes on, and so much of it is hard to explain, that it becomes difficult to share these experiences with family and friends. 

Relating tour to others back home is hard to do, so when I am asked broad questions like “How was tour?” I almost always reply with “It was a lot of fun.” Or “It was really good.”  It almost seems like an answer you would get from someone trying to blow you off, right? The problem is that I don’t know where to start.  How do you sum up a month spent on another continent playing music?  I mean, I LOVE talking and specifically telling stories (especially over beer or coffee), but that takes a whole evening and even then you’re only getting tiny snippets of the larger picture.  Plus, I want to hear what I missed while I was gone.

The fact is that it’s often months of your life going by without the most important people in your life. No matter how hard you try, you can never relate that period as well as if it had been a shared experience.  This was a big problem for me and Jessica when we were together.  As I got to experience more and more, she slowly came to see it as something that she had been left out of and eventually it was a struggle for her to be happy for me.  I was trying to share my experiences with her the best I could, but she started to become less and less interested.  In her eyes I was living a life that she had no part in.  As time went on, this turned into bitterness and a rift that would help lead to our divorce. 

Thankfully, I have wonderful friends and family who have helped me out all these years in every way imaginable.  My parents and sister have been unbelievably supportive and have always seemed genuinely thrilled to hear about anything cool that I’ve gotten to see or do on the road. They are always interested in what progress the band is making or what recording session stuff I’ve worked on. The same goes for my friends really.  I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by amazing people in my life.  They are the reason why I’m even writing this blog.  I figured it might help me describe such a unique experience to them.  It will be easier to elaborate in person at the kitchen table guzzling coffee the way that we Corbins love to do, but at the very least this has been my honest attempt at keeping them involved in my day to day life.  I don’t ever want to be regarded as an absentee son, brother, friend, or significant other again.

As for my list of stuff I want to do when I get back home, I personally can’t wait to see all my friends and spend at least one week night drinking with them at Big Boss.  Most of my friends are musicians so Mondays and Tuesdays seem to be the nights to get together since no one has gigs.  Of course, I want to see my family and have some of my mothers cooking.  I’m looking forward to tormenting their cats and watching some Food Network in the living room.  I want to go out drinking with my sister and be obnoxious enough to be an embarrassment to the family (we have this down to a science when we get together). This can be combined with getting ridiculous with Rachel Mills, followed by late night nachos at The Raleigh Times.  If Alternate George (George’s alter ego when inebriated) and Danny Johnson show up there will be a 3 am Cookout stop as well on the way home. The list of people I want to see is entirely too long to even list in all actuality. 

I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed or at least sleep in American hotel beds which are WAY bigger and better than the ones here in Europe.  The same goes for the showers. I’m looking forward to big, clean American showers with good soap, shampoo, AND conditioner.  I’d also like a haircut.  I can’t wait to do some cooking and get back on a healthy eating routine.  I can’t wait to get back into the gym.  These thirty days have been the longest break from exercise I’ve had in over three years and it’s slowly driving me insane.  I’ll have to make a conscience effort to not over do it my first week back and injure myself. 

I’m looking forward to practicing bass also.  This might sound weird, since I’m specifically over here to play bass, but on tour I don’t get to actually get in some good practice time.  I want to work on my fretless and upright chops.  The band has been throwing around ideas for a two week tour of small listening rooms and performing an all acoustic set, which I would really look forward to if it happens.  It would be nice for people to see us in another light and it would certainly keep things interesting for us. 

I realize that this post didn’t really inform anyone of the day to day activities of tour, but maybe it provides some insight to the internal aspects of touring.  Maybe I’m just homesick and needed to vent a little?  Either way I’m excited about the last few days of touring AND getting home.  One thing I’ve learned about being on the road is that this lifestyle will make you miserable if you lose the ability to appreciate both. 

WHO SAYS BEER ISN'T GOOD FOR YOU WHEN YOU HAVE THE FLU?

                Because of our frolic on the beach in the morning we were late getting to our show in Orihuela that night.  Marco assures us that it will be fine though.  He has worked with the promoter before and says he is a cool guy.  When we arrive I almost think we are at the wrong place. It’s a beautiful theater located in the heart of downtown.  Its big backstage area allowed for several Spinal Tap moments with each of us clamoring to find our way to the bathrooms, the stage, or the bar. 

                We played with a Spanish band called Logan who were very nice, played very Spanish music, and spoke very little English.  They sounded good in sound check and I wanted to stick around to see their set, but we had to go get dinner.  It was another tapas place with lots of wine and the only notable thing I ate that I really enjoyed was the main course of cuddlefish.  I had never had it before and it was excellent.

                We went back to the auditorium, caught a bit of the openers set, drank some pre show beers, and played a really good set to a lot of people. They were seated people though, which is always weird for me unless I’m playing background music at a restaurant.  Afterwards, we talked with the band a little and took a really awkward group photo with them while trying to convey that we were going to the promoters bar afterwards if they wanted to join us.

                Now, our hotel is walking distance to both the auditorium and the bar and I’m very, very sick.  I should go back and go to bed, right? I didn’t get any sleep the night before, so that would be the smart thing to do, but I don’t do it. I go out with Kevin and we stay out talking to a group of people our age who were at the show and recognized us.  The bartender kept giving us free beer and the night just flew by.  As the hours passed I talked so much Spanglish that by four thirty in the morning my voice was gone and I could barely stand up.  Kevin wasn’t in much better shape.  We stumbled back to the hotel. 

                Why did I do this?  Because I’m stubborn, that’s why.  I had already made up my mind that it was Friday night in a foreign country and I was going to have a good time come hell or high water.  It’s a character flaw really, and one that my ex-wife hated in particular.  Once I make up my mind that I’m doing something almost nothing can dissuade me.  That’s what I hate about being sick. It’s not the discomfort, (although that sucks) but it’s that it makes me alter my plans and keeps me from doing what I want to do.  I’ve always ignored illness because I would just rather brush it aside as if I just can’t be bothered with it.  One time I had ingrown toenails as a kid for over a year because I wouldn’t tell my mom about it since I knew this would result in a trip to the doctor.  I’m not scared of doctors, it just irks me to HAVE to go see one.  She finally asked why all my socks had blood on them and almost fainted when I showed her my feet. 

                So, I woke up feeling like absolute death on Saturday.  Not so much from a hangover, but mostly from party rocking too hard while sick.  The whole ride to Barcelona Kevin and I were miserable.

Barcelona itself was beautiful.  Driving through it you could see lots of cool art and architecture. We played a typical rock club and the crowd was a lot of fun.  The best part of the evening for me was getting to see some familiar faces.  Whit’s girlfriend and her family were in town on vacation and it just so happened to be her birthday.  I know Whit had been looking forward to exploring Barcelona with her since we left America and I was really happy for him.  Bj and I also had a friend of ours named Mikey from Raleigh come to the show that had been living here for several weeks.  He is a super cool dude and always a lot of fun.

It was great to see everyone even though I was feeling like crap.  Mikey invited us to go out with some Finnish friends that he had, and as much as I wanted to go; I just couldn’t.  We were all beat, but at this point I’m starting to think I have the flu.  We drove to our hotel which was about twenty minutes outside of town and crashed. 

                I slept until two in the afternoon.  When I say that I “slept” I mean that I tossed, turned, coughed, and got up to blow my nose for twelve hours.  I’m sure I was a joy to room with. We got up and went to a Chinese buffet that had some awesome seafood.  Then I went back to bed for six hours, got up, walked to McDonalds, and went right back to bed. That was my Sunday in Barcelona. Sad.

                Today I woke up fully convinced that I have the flu and that I may be dying.  On our way out of town we stopped to get lunch and I popped into a pharmacy to get some meds.  I must have picked some weird holistic medicine place because all they had was stupid natural stuff. I tried to convey to the woman that I had the flu and she gave me all sorts of root extracts and other bullshit. I need something that will make me trip my balls off if I take too much of it.  I want something synthesized in a lab.  I want something heavy duty.  I want some Tussin. 

                We take a detour after crossing into France to see another Cathedral.  At this point I am too sick to give a shit about any cathedral, but I do think it’s very funny that in the brief time we were there Bj got shushed by one old lady and Ryan got told to take off his hat by another.  We are American Tourist D-bags.  On the bright side, while I was there I found another pharmacy and got some legit meds.  I’m hoping they work. 

                We made it to our stopping point in Montpellier for the night and I pumped myself full of my new medicine.  I’ve basically wasted two days of being in Europe because I got sidelined by the flu.  Not cool. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and feel better for our show in France.

GOODBYE SPAIN, HELLO FLU

                Because of our frolic on the beach in the morning we were late getting to our show in Orihuela that night.  Marco assures us that it will be fine though.  He has worked with the promoter before and says he is a cool guy.  When we arrive I almost think we are at the wrong place. It’s a beautiful theater located in the heart of downtown.  Its big backstage area allowed for several Spinal Tap moments with each of us clamoring to find our way to the bathrooms, the stage, or the bar. 

                We played with a Spanish band called Logan who were very nice, played very Spanish music, and spoke very little English.  They sounded good in sound check and I wanted to stick around to see their set, but we had to go get dinner.  It was another tapas place with lots of wine and the only notable thing I ate that I really enjoyed was the main course of cuddlefish.  I had never had it before and it was excellent.

                We went back to the auditorium, caught a bit of the openers set, drank some pre show beers, and played a really good set to a lot of people. They were seated people though, which is always weird for me unless I’m playing background music at a restaurant.  Afterwards, we talked with the band a little and took a really awkward group photo with them while trying to convey that we were going to the promoters bar afterwards if they wanted to join us.

                Now, our hotel is walking distance to both the auditorium and the bar and I’m very, very sick.  I should go back and go to bed, right? I didn’t get any sleep the night before, so that would be the smart thing to do, but I don’t do it. I go out with Kevin and we stay out talking to a group of people our age who were at the show and recognized us.  The bartender kept giving us free beer and the night just flew by.  As the hours passed I talked so much Spanglish that by four thirty in the morning my voice was gone and I could barely stand up.  Kevin wasn’t in much better shape.  We stumbled back to the hotel. 

                Why did I do this?  Because I’m stubborn, that’s why.  I had already made up my mind that it was Friday night in a foreign country and I was going to have a good time come hell or high water.  It’s a character flaw really, and one that my ex-wife hated in particular.  Once I make up my mind that I’m doing something almost nothing can dissuade me.  That’s what I hate about being sick. It’s not the discomfort, (although that sucks) but it’s that it makes me alter my plans and keeps me from doing what I want to do.  I’ve always ignored illness because I would just rather brush it aside as if I just can’t be bothered with it.  One time I had ingrown toenails as a kid for over a year because I wouldn’t tell my mom about it since I knew this would result in a trip to the doctor.  I’m not scared of doctors, it just irks me to HAVE to go see one.  She finally asked why all my socks had blood on them and almost fainted when I showed her my feet. 

                So, I woke up feeling like absolute death on Saturday.  Not so much from a hangover, but mostly from party rocking too hard while sick.  The whole ride to Barcelona Kevin and I were miserable.

Barcelona itself was beautiful.  Driving through it you could see lots of cool art and architecture. We played a typical rock club and the crowd was a lot of fun.  The best part of the evening for me was getting to see some familiar faces.  Whit’s girlfriend and her family were in town on vacation and it just so happened to be her birthday.  I know Whit had been looking forward to exploring Barcelona with her since we left America and I was really happy for him.  Bj and I also had a friend of ours named Mikey from Raleigh come to the show that had been living here for several weeks.  He is a super cool dude and always a lot of fun.

It was great to see everyone even though I was feeling like crap.  Mickey invited us to go out with some Finnish friends that he had, and as much as I wanted to go; I just couldn’t.  We were all beat, but at this point I’m starting to think I have the flu.  We drove to our hotel which was about twenty minutes outside of town and crashed. 

                I slept until two in the afternoon.  When I say that I “slept” I mean that I tossed, turned, coughed, and got up to blow my nose for twelve hours.  I’m sure I was a joy to room with. We got up and went to a Chinese buffet that had some awesome seafood.  Then I went back to bed for six hours, got up, walked to McDonalds, and went right back to bed. That was my Sunday in Barcelona. Sad.

                Today I woke up fully convinced that I have the flu and that I may be dying.  On our way out of town we stopped to get lunch and I popped into a pharmacy to get some meds.  I must have picked some weird holistic medicine place because all they had was stupid natural stuff. I tried to convey to the woman that I had the flu and she gave me all sorts of root extracts and other bullshit. I need something that will make me trip my balls off if I take too much of it.  I want something synthesized in a lab.  I want something heavy duty.  I want some Tussin. 

                We take a detour after crossing into France to see another Cathedral.  At this point I am too sick to give a shit about any cathedral, but I do think it’s very funny that in the brief time we were there Bj got shushed by one old lady and Ryan got told to take off his hat by another.  We are American Tourist D-bags.  On the bright side, while I was there I found another pharmacy and got some legit meds.  I’m hoping they work. 

                We made it to our stopping point in Montpellier for the night and I pumped myself full of my new medicine.  I’ve basically wasted two days of being in Europe because I got sidelined by the flu.  Not cool. Hopefully I wake up tomorrow and feel better for our show in France.

TOPLESS BEACHES: NOT AS COOL AS ONE WOULD HOPE

                I had noticed the day before that if I walked down tranny hooker alley and took a right on the corner of Rape and Stab that there was a Starbucks.  That’s right. Good old American Starbucks.  Now to anyone who is poo pooing me right now, let me tell you that I have had a ton of good and pretentious espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, and French press coffee to boot.  Sometimes you just want to go get a quad venti cappuccino and face fuck yourself with it.  Try walking into any European coffee shop and tell them you want a cappuccino with four shots of espresso in it.  First of all, they won’t even have a big enough cup to put it in.  Secondly, they will immediately think you are a total douche bag (which is pretty much the case).  Marco gave me grief one time for ordering my coffee with dinner as opposed to afterwards for the love of god!  Only at Starbucks is this order totally acceptable and not (openly at least) frowned upon. 

                After my caffeine fix Marco picked us up and we all left for Estepona.  It’s a beautiful town right on the Mediterranean where many German and English people retire to.  I noticed lot of beautiful hillside condos overlooking giant golf courses on the way in.  It’s the first time that any of us have seen the Mediterranean and we actually got pretty excited about it.  This tour stop is as close as we will be to Africa and I was hoping to go see the rock of Gibraltar, but Marco says it’s too far. I’ll have to settle for hanging out on the beautiful beach instead.

                The venue was an over the top American style rock and roll bar named Louie Louie.  It had paintings of cartoonish looking hot rods all over the front of it.  The drivers all looked like various takes on a skinny Guy Fieri and the passengers were either other rockers playing guitars or big boobied ladies straight off a Big Johnson t shirt.  It was small, but had lots of character and was completely out of place in this resort town. It honestly would have fit in better in Myrtle Beach. 

                They fed us at a tapas bar right across the pedestrian-only street.  The first courses were potato salad and Russian salad.  I had never had Russian salad before.  It looked like potato salad, but was covered in roasted red and green peppers and had tuna in it too.  Then he brought out Paella! I was excited because not only was that the one thing I wanted to eat here, but I didn’t even have to pay for it.  It was really good.  I’m sure it would have been much better if I had it somewhere other than a tapas bar, but I can’t complain.  The next course was fried potatoes and pork chops.  We stuff ourselves and then went to the bars flat where bands stay.  It was a small apartment on top of the club that overlooked the pedestrian walk way and the tapas bar.  The exit was on the other side of the building and it opened right to their “boardwalk” and then onto the beach.  We couldn’t ask for better accommodations.

                The show was PACKED with lots of people! They sent shots to the stage, they were loud and drunk, and it reminded us of home.  There was even someone from Bristol there so we got to hear a southern accent for once.  As much fun as it was, I was really starting to feel bad so I went up to the flat.  I tried to fall asleep to the sounds of people hanging out in the street below, but I couldn’t.  It felt like a horse was sitting on my chest.  I just kept weezing and gurgling every time I tried to breathe.  I felt bad for the other guys because I was constantly coughing up a lung in the bathroom.  I think I finally fell asleep around five.

                I woke up still horribly sick.  Because it was so beautiful out I tried to go for a run on the beach.  After a half mile I gave up and turned around to walk back.  It was hot, I felt like shit, I couldn’t breath, and I had already seen way too many disgusting old women sunbathing topless in such a short distance.  We had seen some topless French sunbathers when we almost killed ourselves climbing over that dune, but this was different.  It was like a retirement community had broken out of their low security homes and were waiting for death on the beach or something.  I tried to go back to bed, but images of golf balls in tube socks haunted me.  When the rest of the guys woke up we went down to the beach and a couple of us got in the cold water.  I stuck my feet in which officially marks “swim in the Mediterranean” off of my bucket list. Score. We then packed up and got breakfast at the tapas place from the night before. I got octopus.  I’ve never had tentacles for breakfast so now I get to check two things off the bucket list in one day.  We say our goodbyes and leave for Orihuela.

APPARENTLY "RAPEY" ISN'T A WORD. #ITSHOULDBE

                Being sick on tour absolutely sucks.  When you tour as much as I do then it’s bound to happen.  We have all had our bouts of illness while on the road and it’s never fun.  One time Ryan developed some kind of cist on his tail bone that made him look like he was growing a tail.  It was the size of an egg and was excruciatingly painful for him.  He could barely walk and certainly couldn’t sit down.  None of us had health insurance at the time and when it just kept getting worse he was really close to letting me lance it open with a razor blade.   Thankfully his family doctor agreed to see him “on the down low” so to speak and removed it for him free of charge.  I was kind of disappointed that I wasn’t going to get to try my hand at third world surgery, but I knew it was for the best.

                I woke up in A Coruña feeling tried and lazy.  I just figured it was the coffee moonshine in combination with late nights, three weeks of no exercise, and my horrible diet here in Europe.  We had a long drive to Madrid that day so I said “fuck it” and made every gas station candy isle my bitch that day.  We stopped at a lot of gas stations…

                Madrid is a beautiful city.  The downtown area reminded me a little of New York, but certainly not as big.  There were lots of lights, ads, and a general hustle and bustle to it that I really enjoy.  We also noticed an abundance of beautiful Spanish women.  We enjoyed that too.  At least we were relatively sure they were pretty. You can lose your bearings on that sort of thing after three weeks of being cooped up in a van with five other smelly guys.

                The club was the Wurlitzer ballroom.  They really were being overly gracious when they tacked on the whole “ballroom” thing.  It was a dirty rock club that was perfect for us.  The promoter was a gregarious guy with a really unique accent.  I had noticed a place that had Paella across the street.  One of the things I wanted to do in Spain was to eat some really authentic Paella.  I’ve had it once or twice, but I really wanted to try authentic Paella in Spain.  He tells me never to get it at a place that says PAELLA anywhere out front, and he says I should probably get it when I get back to the shore.  I was expecting that answer.  I thanked him and we had our old stand by (the Gyro) for dinner.

                We stayed at the Hostel Tokio, which was walking distance from the club.  I for one was hoping that it would be in the Asian part of town based on the name; however that was not the case.  The entrance was a discreet iron-clad door on a side street that should have been named the Spanish translation of “tranny hooker alley,” because that’s what it was.  As we walked in to this creepy old building I was sure that this was it… We had met our doom.  This had to be the point where all along we find out this tour is a sham and Marco is selling us into sexual slavery.  We trudged up some stairs to what I’m convinced is going to be some sort of rapey sex dungeon.  Surprisingly, when the door opened there was a sweet old Spanish lady sitting behind a desk in a well lit, clean, and nicely furnished lobby.  Inside the Hostel wasn’t sketchy at all.  Appearances can be deceiving here in Madrid. 

                The show was similar to the past few nights.  Small club, small but really enthusiastic crowd, and genuinely great people...  I continued to feel worse and worse though.  My stomach hurt from all the shit I ate, my chest was starting to become congested, sinus pressure, headache, and oh yeah my eye starts hurting.  Needless to say, after the show I made the trek back to tranny hooker alley and went to bed early.

                When I work up I knew for a fact I was sick.  All the symptoms of the prior night were compounded and there is no denying that I have an eye infection. Awesome.  Today is gonna rule.

AA GOES TO CHURCH.

                Our Monday night was spent in the port city of Vigo, Spain.  It reminds me a little of San Francisco.  The narrow streets, extremely steep hills, and confusing traffic patterns are not only part of the resemblance, but they are also a huge source of frustration for Marco as he tries to navigate them with our Sprinter.  Marco finally just parks it on a curb (this seems to be a common practice in Europe) between the club and our hotel, which are conveniently only a block away from each other. 

                The bed and breakfast that we are staying at isn’t open when we get there and neither is the club.  In fact, nothing is open.  The whole block seems to be shut down.  Most spaces are occupied by bars that won’t open until later in the evening.  I’ve learned that Spaniards are even more of night owls than I had always thought.  The cities really don’t come alive until well into the evening.  I walked around a little bit, trying to get to higher ground for better views of the harbor until the club opened.

                Load in was gruesome.  Due to the narrow street situation we had to carry our gear up a steep hill for a city block and then up a flight of stairs into the club.  My speaker cabinet is the size of a refrigerator and the handle placement makes it twice as awkward than one.  It’s like wrestling with a grizzly bear every night.  We setup, sound checked, had a few beers, had some dinner, and then I walked down to the bed and breakfast to relax for a bit.

                When it was time for the show I walked back to the club and saw that we were going to be playing to what was probably the smallest group of the tour.  It was about as many people as we played to in Bilbao, but the room was much smaller so it at least felt better.  I looked around and guys had on shirts of bands that we liked on them.  I saw shirts from Drive by Truckers, Marah, and a few others.  It ended up being such a fun night!  The people that were there were so much fun.  They sang along, they danced, they requested songs, and overall just had such a great energy about them.  After the show I think almost every person bought a shirt and got us to sign it.  We took pictures and hung out.  It was so much fun.  I would rather play to small groups that really appreciate what we are doing than play to a larger group that doesn’t care.

                The next day we only had a two hour drive to A Coruña so we stopped on the way in Santiago de Compostela.  It’s a college town that also happens to have a giant cathedral that is said to house the remains of St. James (brother of Jesus/noted Muslim killer).  It was beautiful.  I took a lot of really bad pictures like a typical tourist as we walked all around the grounds and went into the cathedral.  The surrounding area had a lot of small seafood restaurants that had tank brimming with shellfish of all kinds.  Is it culturally insensitive to say that this interested me far more than the church? We killed about two hours and no one burst into flames upon entering the church.  I found some scaffolding and did some pull ups.  Not too shabby I suppose. Church was never my thing.

                After getting our culture for the day we finished our drive to A Coruña.  It’s a beautiful town that forms a semi circle around a bay.  In the center is a sandy beach and as you get closer to the open ocean the shoreline becomes more rocky and steep.  Our hotel is right on the bay by the western side of the sandy beach.  Even with our detour to see good old St. James we still had about two hours to kill before going to the club.  I should have gone running, but I just relaxed instead.

                A scary looking dude in a Johnny Cash shirt greeted us when we arrived.  His English is relatively good and he asks if we want something to drink.  When I ask for a coffee he starts laughing and giving me shit saying “This is rock and roll club, man.  No coffee… no chips…. No candy….  Hahaha” Well fuck it then; I guess I’ll have a beer.  After sound check he says if I like coffee then he has something for us.  He pulls out this big corked glass bottle with a thick black liquid in it that was obviously not bought in a store.  He tells us “This is some illegal shit man….”  What it turned out to be was a type of moonshine made from coffee.  He says it’s best to sip it and that it’s the worst hangover you can ever imagine.  I believe it.  The one tiny glass was not only sweet enough to make you want to immediately brush your teeth, but it was enough to make you instantly buzzed and warm all over.

                The promoter took us to dinner at a hamburger place.  I was excited to get some burgers over here since every night we have been in Spain chorizo has been on the menu.  I ordered the combination that read: hamberguesas, huevos, patatas, y ensalada.  I figured it would be two regular hamburgers, two eggs, French fries and a salad.  What I got was two hamburger patties (no bun), with two eggs, French fries, and lettuce, onion, and tomato on the side.  It was an odd combination, but it was good.  Afterwards, the promoter took us to a place that was definitely a gay bar for coffee.  No one in American Aquarium is homophobic at all so we had a good time, but you can only imagine how badly we stood out and some of the looks we got.  I know enough Spanish to know that we were the topic of conversation for everyone at the bar.

                The show was similar to the night before.  Small crowd, great people, and this was the second night in a row that people were singing along to new songs that you can only find on youtube.  One thing lots of people don’t realize is how good the bands view of is the crowd from onstage.  We can see a lot depending on the lighting and the size of the place.  Often times we are watching the crowd just as much as the crowd is watching us.  For whatever reason sometimes people will try to sing along when they obviously don’t know the words or will try to pick up on the chorus by the end of the song, but that was not the case this time.  Many of these people were actually singing songs that won’t be released until later this year.  It’s a good feeling.

                After the show I had some more of the coffee moonshine and beer until we went back to our hotel and went to bed.  I planned on getting up early and going for a run on the beach, but I stayed up too late and decided to sleep in instead.  So much for the beautiful scenery…  Next Blog post: Dear God I’m Getting Fat.

AMERICAN AQUARIUM "ROCKS" SPAIN

            I got up, goofed off in the gym, and then went to eat more gyros like a fat ass the next day.  I’ve just kind of mentally committed myself to not working out in order to give my body a rest and just enjoy Europe rather than killing myself trying to work out all the time.  I managed to wear myself out enough to sleep fairly well on the ride to Santa Maria de Param. 

            This tiny little village is in the middle of nowhere about three hours outside of Bilbao.  It’s surrounded by beautiful farmland and as we get closer there are houses built into the hills.  It looks like what I would imagine the Shire looks like in The Hobbit.  Cute little cottages built right into the hills.  It was crazy to see.  Our hotel is pretty nice, but not necessarily the cleanest place I’ve stayed at.  There is mold on the ceiling and in the bathroom which seems to be kind of normal in a lot of places here.  I’ve definitely noticed that American standards of both cleanliness and personal hygiene are different than they are in Europe.  Deodorant doesn’t seem to be popular here (especially with Marco).

            We had about an hour and a half before we had to go to the club so Kevin and I decided to go on a run.  It was a nice day for it.  The weather was sunny and warm with a cool breeze.  Along the way we stopped at a creek where we saw a snake swimming around.  We threw rocks in the water which the snake was very interested in.  He kept darting over to each one we tossed in.  I guess he was hoping it was a frog or something to eat.  When we got bored playing with the snake we ran back to the hotel. 

            The club was super small.  Marco has been to this place several times and says that everyone here is really cool.  He was right. They welcomed us with open arms and seemed really excited that we were there.  They gave us plenty of beer and coffee which made me very happy.  The first thing you see when you walk in is a glass display case with a collection of rocks that have eyes painted on them.  Apparently there is a local artist who walks the foothills looking for rocks that speak to her. Then she paints eyes on them.  It’s nice to know they have crazies in Spain too. 

            At this point in tour I’m getting increasingly frustrated with my equipment.  The gear rental company sent me the speaker cabinet that I requested in a giant road case which makes it infinitely heavier and more awkward to move.  In addition the low notes rattle the handles and the latches on the case and it’s annoying the shit out of me.  I try stuffing koozies under the handles and duct taping the latches down, but nothing is totally solving the problem. Tonight I try taking it out of the road case and I realized that in order to fit the cab in the case they removed all the handles and casters making it almost impossible to move.  I’m not pleased. I put it back in it’s case while cursing it in Italian.

            Gear issues aside the show was amazing.  There were plenty of people and some of them were young!  It was really fun and the crowd was pretty lively.  We got called up for a couple of encores and then went to sell merch and sign cds.  One young kid wants Kevin to sign a drum stick.  Kevin decides that he is now officially moving to Spain.  As a gift, the local “rock artist” gives us a bag with six painted rocks (one is for Marco). We all pick numbers to see who draws first.  Bj won and picks one that I think looks like Luigi.  I went next and Bj was nice enough to swap with me so that I can have the one that reminds me of my dog.  By this point it’s pretty late and we haven’t eaten dinner.  We go over to the owner of the clubs house where she has made a late dinner for us.  It was gazpacho, cured meats and cheeses, and pork chops.  Bj and I eat so much that we have to go lay down in the Sprinter.  We went back to the hotel and crashed for the evening.  It has been one of our favorite nights of the tour so far.

PORKO DIO!!!

            The fact that I woke up without a hangover is a full blown miracle.  We checked out of the hotel and went to find some food.  We got some sandwiches and went over the previous night’s events and how much fun we had.  We then hit the road to Bilbao.  I still haven’t gotten tired of hearing Marco’s cursing while driving.  I think I’ve decided on my favorite.  “Porko Dio.”  Its literal translation is “pig god.”  It makes me laugh every time.  I’ve adopted it and will be bringing it back to the states with me.

            Our accommodations for the night in Bilbao was a four star hotel right next to a beautiful cathedral.  I was very excited to find out the hotel even had a fitness center.  It’s the first one I’ve found in Europe.  I celebrate with a run on the treadmill before sound check.  The city itself seems to be lively with a cool vibe to it, and the same could be said for the club which is probably one of the largest places we have played here so far.  We finished sound check and walked around trying to find gyros (in Spain they put a tomato sauce they call “ketchup” on them and it’s delicious) for dinner.  Everywhere we walked people were hanging out in the streets eating and drinking.  Everyone seems so relaxed here in Spain. 

            We got back to the club around ten and there is no one there.  Seriously, it was us and the bartenders so we just went backstage to drink before having to play our first show to no one in Europe.  The club gave us a bottle of Jack and a few cases of Heineken which was nice of them.  By the time we went on at ten thirty people had actually shown up.  Not many, maybe only twenty, but I’m still amazed twenty people have heard of us this far from home.  We sounded really good even though Ryan broke a string early on and realized he didn’t have a replacement.  Whit picked up his slack on some of the solos and it honestly wasn’t that bad.  A group of English guys were hell bent on hearing us play Hurricane which was one song Ryan really couldn’t play with only five strings so we invited them backstage, gave them a few of our beers, and Bj played it acoustic for them.  They were ecstatic about the whole scene and really seemed to appreciate the gesture.  It was a really fun evening.  The night was not a financial success though.  Even with the high ticket prices over here we didn’t meet production costs, but thankfully we sold some merchandise to offset the loss.  You win some, you lose some.  I’m honestly surprised that we haven’t had more money losing nights.  Whit and I walked back to our hotel leaving the other guys to drink and socialize at the bar.  Whit wants to get up and walk around to explore the city the next morning while I have to get up early for a date with the hotel’s gym.

SPANISH ACCENT OR SPEECH IMPEDIMENT? DISCUSS.

                Mr. DouGall sent us on our way with a box full of bottling “mistakes” or “over/unders” as they call them back home.  It’s whenever the manual bottler either over fills or under fills a bottle they usually just get set aside to give away or for employees to drink.  We hit the road, thankfully that we have a tour manager who gets paid to drive us around.  As we head to Zaragoza the landscape changes to more of what I expect Spain to look like.  It’s half wine country and half high elevation desert similar to eastern Washington state.  It’s different but still beautiful.

                Zaragoza is a stark contrast to Lierganes.  It’s a fairly large city and our hotel is an extremely nice one downtown with the biggest beds that we have had on tour.  The club itself is really nice.  It’s definitely a rock and roll club/bar that is dark with pictures of rock bands and guitar players all over.  The stage was very small and we were cramped but the sound was awesome.  The promoter is named Alex and he takes us to a tapas restaurant.  I knew I would love it when we got there.  The place looked like shit on the outside, but the interior was very warm and welcoming.  Wood paneling and white table clothes would occupy the interior while a bar stood in front of a line of hanging Chorizo sausages and other cured or dried meat. 

            This meal was my favorite so far and not just because of the food.  The whole Spanish attitude towards food is so different than what we are used to.  For Alex it was as much about the socializing as it was about the food.  There was no menu.  Food was just brought out in courses for everyone to share.  The pacing was very slow and relaxed allowing for time to talk and get to know each other.  From start to finish we were there for well over two hours.  They brought out several bottles of good Spanish red wine first, then a salad with endive, olives, tuna fish, carrots, egg, and cabbage. The next course was a selection of various sausages and chorizo with cheese and bread.  Then more wine.  The main course was a traditional Spanish dish of rice mixed with pig’s blood, fried potato slices, and fried egg.  I think it was call Murcilla.  As horrible as it sounds I thoroughly enjoyed it. We all did, except for Marco.  Growing up in Italy, pig’s blood is somewhat common and he was forced to eat it as a child so he hates it.  It just means that there is more to go around for the rest of us.  We follow this with more wine and then dessert.  Dessert was like tiny little Klondike bars covered with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.  By this point we are pretty drunk and absolutely stuffed so they bring out a “digestive” shot.  It turns out to be shots of a very sweet and somewhat thick white wine.  After some coffee we finally stumbled out with only twenty minutes to go before we have to hit the stage.  Once again I’m wishing I could play lying down.

            The show was really great.  It was a small room that was packed with a lively crowd.  We played well considering all the rich food and wine we had ingested at dinner.  After our set we sold merch and started hanging out with the locals.  We met a girl named Shelan and her boyfriend Alex.  They were super cool and spoke English fairly well.  We took the opportunity to practice our horrible Spanish and had a really fun drunken conversation.  I’ve heard about how people from Spain have a lisp when they talk, but I had no idea how pronounced it would be.  The letters c, s, and z are all pronounced as a “th” sound here.  Imagine a Spanish speaking Sylvester the cat.  After a while, Shelan and Alex said they wanted to take us to another bar where they had some friends, so we packed up our gear and started walking with those two, Alex (the promoter), and some other people from the show.  We dropped Whit and Bj off at the hotel because they didn’t want to go out and then the rest of our group went to a cool local bar. 

            It was a small spot, but it had a cool atmosphere and a Dj.  Shelan seemed to know lots of people at the bar and she also knew the Dj so she told him a bunch of Americans were with her and to play American music.  Marco tells us that Americans are kind of exotic in this area and that’s why there was such a fuss about us being there.  I remember thinking his music selection was funny, but by the next morning none of us can remember what he played.  We were too busy talking to everyone who knew any English at all.  I met a girl named Reyes who was very excited to practice speaking English. I was embarrassed because her name is pronounced with a rolling “r” and for the life of me I can’t make that sound.  I sound like an old cat purring while having a stroke.  We decide to go by her nickname of “queen” which works much better for me.  Shelan thinks it’s funny that I can’t make that sound so she keeps yelling “Ryan” with the most exaggerated rolling “r” that I’ve ever heard.  Reyes tells me she just got a job in Detroit that she starts in a few weeks.  I reassure her that her English is great and that she will love it.  I decide not to tell her Detroit is a shithole.  The whole night is basically stupid conversations like this, half of it lost in translation, but we are happy for the new company.  It’s what I love about touring: meeting strangers at the beginning of the night and saying goodbye to what feels like old friends at the end.  This particular night ended at four thirty when we finally decided we had enough so we said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel.  I slept like a baby.

MCDONALDS, DUNES, AND DAY DRINKING

We woke up on Wednesday morning in France and packed up to hit the road to Bordeaux, our stopping point for the long trip to Spain.  We went downstairs at the hotel because they offered a complimentary breakfast buffet that we were grossly underdressed for.  Everyone looked well put together and proper, almost to the point of looking uptight.  Meanwhile, here we were looking exactly like what we were: a scruffy bunch of band dudes who just woke up for free food.  They had Nutella and fresh croissants so I didn’t give a shit.

                It was a really long drive. I got some reading done, but I mostly tried to sleep in the van.  The Sprinter we have is great for short drives where you are wide awake, however if it’s a long drive and you are hoping to get some sleep there is in fact not one single comfortable position.  The seats are hard and don’t recline, the headrests are awkward, and the air conditioning doesn’t circulate well in the back so it can get kind of stuffy.  I realize I am totally bitching about some first world problems and shit, but when you spend as much time traveling as we do, being able to sleep in the van is important. 

                We finally arrive in Bordeaux that night and check into a hotel called the Quick Palace.  Now that sounds sketchy as hell, but it wasn’t that bad.  No hourly rates here.  The rooms were very small and had very few amenities.  In fact, the bathrooms were comical.  The toilet and sink were in the shower.  That’s right.  They were IN the shower.  The whole bathroom was a tiny closet that had a waterproof seal on the door, a drain on the floor, and a shower head that just sprayed everything.  It was really odd to use.

                After check in we went to a grocery store to get some wine since it’s so cheap here.  Besides, how often can I say I get to drink Bordeaux in Bordeaux?  I don’t know if it’s because it’s local or because everyone drinks wine all the time, but wine is ridiculously cheap here!  Whit and I bought some bottles that averaged about 4 euros, but the most expensive we saw at the shop were still only 8.  After stocking up on drinks we split up to find cheap food.  Marco really wanted KFC because they don’t have that in Italy.  Ryan went with him and the rest of us went to McDonald’s because all the good places to eat had already closed.  On a side note, it’s easy to lose track of time here. It doesn’t get dark until ten at night, so when it feels like five or six it’s usually nine.  I actually really like it.  One of my favorite parts of summer back home is the extra hours of daylight.  Anyway, at McDonald’s they have one menu item specifically for France and it’s the McBaguette.  It is two oval hamburger patties with Swiss cheese, lettuce, and course mustard on a baguette.  It was surprisingly good.  Bj ate his Le Big Mac and then went over to KFC to get a bag of fried chicken because he was still hungry.  Afterwards, we all went back to the hotel to drink and relax after a long day of being cooped up in the van.

                The next morning we all met downstairs to finish the trip to Spain.  Bj was still snacking on cold chicken from the night before.  Marco suggested we go to the Dune du Pyla, which is the largest sand dune in Europe and it wasn’t too far out of the way.  Now I’ve seen some sand dunes before. But this thing was no joke.  You can see it towering over the tree line from miles away.  One side is so steep that they have plastic stairs and ropes to get you to the top and then the dune STILL keeps going up from there.  We make it to the top (which sucked in jeans and cowboy boots) and then someone had the bright idea to go all the way down to the other side where the ocean was.  I knew it was going to end badly but I went figuring that I could use the exercise.  I didn’t think the other guys really knew what they were in for on the walk back up.  We finally made it to the bottom where the beach looks out over the Bay of Biscay.  Most tourists don’t come down to the shore and now I know why.  I turned around to look at the dune and you couldn’t even see the top.

                We started back up to the top.  For every step up you took, you would slide down about half of that making progress extremely slow growing and frustrating.  My back hurt, my legs hurt, and I was sweating profusely. It was a really good workout I have to say.  Marco told me I should take off my boots so it would be easier.  I would be less bogged down by the sand.  I told him that I was an American and would never accept defeat and surrender my boots to a French sand dune.  Plus I didn’t want to spend the rest of the days drive with sand between my toes.  When we got two thirds of the way up I looked back and saw Bj sitting in the sand.  He had taken off his shirt and was obviously struggling. We waited and he finally made it up the dune, but we are all pretty sure now that he had some sort of heart attack.  Ryan was with him and said that Bj started to panic when his heart began beating oddly and his left arm started to shake and go numb.  He did survive though and probably won’t have fried chicken for breakfast again anytime soon.  It’s probably for the best.

                The hike up the dune wore me out so I was able to get some sleep in the van that day.  As we drove into Spain the scenery was unreal.  Marco assured us that this was not typical of the rest of Spain.  The mountainous northwest region looks more like Austria or Switzerland according to him and I have to say it was amazing, especially looking out and seeing rocky cliffs jut out over the ocean.

                The little town we played was called Lierganes and it was an old touristy Spanish town with beautiful architecture and mountainous scenery.  We were playing a place called Los Picos Whisky Bar and it was a cool spot.  It was a small dark hole in the wall with a great stage and PA system.  We had some beers, sound checked, and then the promoter and his friend took us to an Italian place around the corner.  I had a caffeine headache all day (which was a lot of fun while climbing that dune) so I got an espresso.  We had more beers and I got a caprese salad that kind of sucked.  I should have ordered the pizza.  The guy waiting on us was the owner I think and he talked shit to us and joked around the whole time.  He didn’t speak any English, but he was hysterical and took great enjoyment from fucking with us.  I’m always am really amazing by anyone who has personality to still be funny even with a language barrier in the way.  After dinner he brought some really delicious gelato.  The tiramisu was the biggest hit at the table, but I think his plain vanilla was my favorite.

                We took pictures with the owner and headed back to the club.  Out front was a bunch of people waiting for the show and the inside was packed too.  We played great and the crowd was still older than us, but not as old as previous nights.  Most people were in the 30 to 40 range and they seemed less uptight than the German crowds we had seen. They were livelier and danced more.  It was a really great feeling.  We like playing for the more enthusiastic crowds since that’s what we are more used to back home.

                Afterwards we stuck around and made new friends.  I made friends with an English guy named Andrew DouGall who owns the microbrewery in town.  He was really cool and bought me some of his beers to try.  He then gave me his card and said to come by the next morning for a brewery tour if we wanted. 

                Our hotel was in the next town over or maybe a separate part of town, but still just as beautiful.  I got up early and walked around the picturesque village and did some running whenever some good stretches of sidewalk became present and periodically took pictures.  Hotels here have actual keys instead of key cards like I’m used to so I of course forgot it when I left and locked myself out.  The lady at the desk let me in, but it was awkward because she hadn’t seen me leave and neither of us could understand the other. 

                The rest of the guys finally woke up and we stopped by the brewery on our way out of town.  All the employees in this tiny brewery were super cool and they immediately started pouring us beers.  Then they made the mistake of telling us we could just pour what we wanted.  They had a Pale ale that I really liked so I helped myself to quite a bit of it.  I haven’t had any Pale ale since I’ve been here to Europe.  It is a very English and American thing.  Apparently this part of the world doesn’t care for such hoppy beers.             

                By noon we were pretty well wrecked.  It’s times like these when I realize how different my life is.  Here it is lunch time on a Friday when most everyone I know in America would be hard at work and here I am drinking for free on a private brew tour in Spain while getting paid to play music.  I am very thankful things have turned out this way and that I am as fortunate as I am.  I may not be worthy of it, but I certainly appreciate it. 

               

Germany, France, and Flannery O’Connor

                It’s Tuesday afternoon and we are about to cross the border into France on our way to Ensisheim.   I haven’t written since Saturday so I will do my best to catch up.

                Saturday night was a lot of fun and I enjoyed hanging out with another American band.  They weren’t uptight like some bands can be and they kept up with our incessant use of foul language, offensive statements, and bad humor.  They seemed relieved that we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, and we all shared amps and drums to make the night go by more smoothly. 

                There really wasn’t anything cool going on after the show so both bands just hung out in the large green room of the club drinking Krombacher and hanging out with the German owner wearing the snakeskin boots and cowboy hat.  He gave us all t-shirts and I scored one from the other band as well.  When the club shut down we all went to the bed and breakfast where we were staying and I went to bed. 

                I slept in until breakfast time and went downstairs to the “Fruhstruck” room.  One of the first words that I made sure I knew in German was the word for breakfast.  I generally eat two big breakfasts back home.  I eat one before I go to the gym and another one afterwards, so I’m used to eating a lot of calories in the morning and I usually wake up starving.  It was the typical German breakfast spread: several types of bread, butter, jam, honey, cheeses, cured meats, boiled eggs, coffee and orange juice.  The other bands tour manager was eating by himself. When we asked where his band was he said that he could almost never get them up for breakfast.  He wouldn’t have that problem with me.

                We had Sunday night off and our six hour drive quickly became eight due to traffic and detours.  One particularly long detour had us driving through all sorts of tiny German villages that would pop up between beautiful expanses of farmland.  We passed one monastery in particular that I really liked.  The buildings looked very old and traditional, which reminded me of something an Englishman named James had told me back in Eppstein.  He referred to many of these traditionally designed buildings as fake architecture because they were rebuilt to look like what we flattened during the war.  I don’t know for sure which these were, but it doesn’t matter to me.  I liked watching the unfamiliar scenery go by.

                I also got some reading done on the drive.  My friend Liz had given me a book called Clan of the Cave Bear, which I will admit took me longer to get into than I like.  It was slow to start, but it’s moving at a quicker pace now and I’m really enjoying it.  I also read some Flannery O’Conner short stories from a collection that Whit had.  I didn’t like them.  Let me try my best to explain why: I love movies.  I can enjoy some movies that are just sheer entertainment. You know… the ones that are simply a medium to covey a narrative.  However, I really enjoy movies as an art form as well.  Movies that make the viewer think, and feel things they may not want to, and that push the envelope.  I love movies that are meant to be discussed, and that aren’t clear cut or one dimensional.  For whatever reason I love this sort of thing on film, but I really struggle with it in literature.  Maybe I’m just not imaginative enough?  Maybe I rely too much on visually observing nonverbal communication to read into a situation? I don’t know, but either way I didn’t like the authors’ work.  It’s not to say I don’t like literature that has some depth to it.  I just didn’t connect with any of the stories.  Maybe I will revisit it in a couple of years and see if I like it better then.  In the meantime I like Ray Carver’s work WAY better and am regretting not bringing my collection of his short stories.

We finally got to Koln that evening where we would be staying with the club owner for two nights.  It was a giant house in an obviously expensive neighborhood.  The décor was really funky and you immediately got the impression that the house belonged to rich European hippies.    The house was set up to host bands often so everyone had their own bed and they even had a rehearsal room.  In typical American Aquarium fashion we found no use for the latter.  They had three dogs that loved to bark and the biggest one (whose name was Guta) was especially cute.  The wife of the owner greeted us and showed us around. She apologized for her husbands’ absence, but he was at the club for that evenings show and she informed us that we were more than welcome to attend.  We politely declined and opted to walk to find dinner on a stretch of road not far from the house that had a few restaurants. 

                We stopped at an Italian place much to Marco’s delight.  Most everyone got pizza, but I tried a salad with onions, tuna fish, and white beans.  It sounds gross, but it was pretty good. And to be fair, I couldn’t read the menu so I’m lucky I got something even remotely edible. 

We went back to the house and Whit, Kevin, and I hung outside with Marco while he smoked.  We talked about his experiences in America and what he liked about American bands.  He says that they are always the best because they have an attitude of “we can do this.”  He was basically saying that the idea of being able to “make it” is very much an American thing.  He thinks this is why American bands put on better shows and are better musicians than your average band over here.  Most European bands just kind of do it to seem cool and don’t take it seriously. 

When we finished our conversation we went upstairs and watched a really interesting English film called “This is England,” which is about a young boy getting involved in a skinhead gang.  I really enjoyed it and fell asleep immediately after it was over.

The next morning I went for a long run and explored Koln a bit.  I found a cool downtown area, a park with trails, soccer fields, and a coliseum where Bruce Springsteen is playing next week.  After I got back and showered the other guys started to wake up and we had the typical German breakfast that I am quickly falling in love with.  I keep eating too damn much though!  My weakness is bread and covering it in butter and honey is just so hard to refuse.  I’m going to have a lot of work to do when I get home to get back in shape.

I went back to bed and slept some more after breakfast and then went for another walk when I got back up.  We went to the club to load in around four.  The owner, Marcus, is very nice and shows us around.  He looks like an old rocker from the seventies or eighties and has bright red hair.  Not naturally red though.  It is the kind of red that you would find in a Crayola box of crayons.  It looked like he died it with Kool-Aid.  The stage is nice and the sound guy is definitely the best we have had so far.  Ryan had been having some issues with his pedals since his adapter fried the first night, but we finally got it under control.  Sound check ended up sounding awesome.

The green room was catered with chicken marsala, green beans, and potatoes.  It was really good, but at this point I’m wondering if there is any food I don’t like.  What I loved though was this tin of assorted cookies on the table.  They were hard buttery little cookies of different shapes and sizes.  Some were with chocolate and some were without.  They were the kind I would expect to accompany an English tea time.  The tin didn’t last us very long.

After a while, a guy named Jeremy came into the green room.  We had met him in Eppstein.  He was from NC.  He is currently stationed at Rammstein and had come to see us play again.  This time he brought a three liter bottle of Crown Royal.  It was really nice of him.  After having some drinks we went out and played.  There was a good little crowd especially for a Monday!    Afterwards I found this even more remarkable because the ticket price for the show was fifteen euros, which is about twenty American dollars.  Again it was lots of bearded old men wearing Neil Young shirts and stuff like that which is totally cool with us.  I am not complaining, I am simply stating what the crowd demographic was. It is still mind boggling that anyone over here gives two shits about us. The crowd is super attentive during each song and very enthusiastic in between them.  We played really well and afterwards we sold and signed a whole lot of merch.  One guy even knew all of our individual names and was hunting us down one by one for our autographs.  “Where is Kevin? I need Kevin to sign,” he would say in a thick German accent.

Afterwards, a group of us including Jeremy and a friend of Marco’s named Stephanie came back to the green room with us to have some more drinks and hang out while the club owner closed up shop.  Stephanie brought Marco a bag of Pretzels, which I of course pillaged.  My Dad would be pleased to know that the pretzels in Atlantic City are better.  When the owner was done we took pictures with our new friends and said goodbye.  I think a few of the guys stayed up pretty late drinking and talking with our hosts when we got back, but I went to bed. I wanted to run in the morning.

I woke up early after sleeping like a rock.  We have been very fortunate so far.  I don’t think anywhere we have slept has had air conditioning, but the weather has been so nice that we haven’t needed it.  I am positive that I just jinxed myself and the weather will be sweltering in Spain now that I said anything.  I walked down to the park and ran sprints and did pushups. Afterwards I ate breakfast and didn’t over eat.  We got in the car and drove back to Frankfurt to pick up some cds that got held up in customs, but when we arrived they couldn’t locate our package so we pretty much wasted a couple of hours and left empty handed.

We arrived in Ensisheim about an hour late and no one at the club speaks very much English which is already very different than our experience in Germany where everyone seemed to speak a fair amount of English.  The stage at the club was something straight out of a Poison or Ratt video from the eighties.  It was a series of platforms or tiers at various heights.  Kevin and I shared a riser that was probably six feet off the ground and I had about a foot and a half of room between getting hit with a cymbal and falling off the edge of the stage.  In spite of its dumbass layout it sounded pretty good. 

One thing I won’t get used to is the fact that everywhere in Europe feeds you, and I mean they feed you well.  It’s not like they just send out for pizza.  They pull out all the stops.  Not only does everyone want to feed you, but they want to sit down and eat with you even if we can barely communicate with each other.  They sit down with strangers and make us feel like we are family that has been coming over every Sunday for as long as anyone can remember.  They are so warm and welcoming in this regard.   This little French Grandmother made a giant pot of pasta with a sort of chicken stew to put on top of it, and then an apple torte for dessert. Her grandson was very happy to make sure everyone had enough food and wine saying only that “this food is good as fuck.” 

As great as I think this is I really hate playing on a full stomach, but I don’t have a choice here.  They feed you usually an hour before your show so I really just want to play laying down every night.  Tonight was no different.  We played well and sounded good even thought the crowd was the smallest yet.  There were some big French biker looking guys up front who were really attentive and would yell “good job” after every fast song, but would step outside to smoke during every slow song which made us all laugh.  They might have heckled us, but I seriously think they only knew how to say “good job.”  Our European booking agent was at tonight’s show too which was cool. She was very nice and seemed to really enjoy it. 

The show is long since over and now I’m finishing this blog entry at the hotel which does not offer free wifi much to my dissatisfaction.  I guess I’ll post this tomorrow at some point.  It’s our day off and we have a very long drive.  I think we are going to drive for eight hours, stay the night in Bordeaux, and then finish the drive the following day.  Maybe I’ll get to try some good wine while I’m there.

-May 23^rd, (2:06a.m.) Ensisheim, France