Rain again. Rain every day so far we've been here...except today, so far. We actually arrived to the venue early for once, and were able to chill for a while. The show was in a giant old SFT speaker factory. The venue was on the 1st floor (or for the Europeans, that's the ground floor), we setup mercy on the 2nd (euro - 1st), and we slept on the 3rd (you get the idea). On the floor where we slept, there was also a kitchen, and the dining table they had there was apparently made for Norse gods. You had to step up to get onto the seats, after that you were sitting a good 4 feet off the ground.
All the tags around the rooms continued our search for the most outrageous band name. So far I think, the winner is 'human jail.'
Everyone was smoking. We couldn't even stand in the room to watch city of ships because we could barely breath. When we finally got up to play, Armine actually had to announce and ask if people could stop smoking for the duration of our set, or we were going to end up dying of asphyxiation. Whether it was because of his announcement, or just the German enthusiasm, no one seemed to actually be into the set, except for a few people, though we still got raging applause, and sold a bunch of merch.
Incredible dinner though, as well as an incredible, though simple, breakfast.
Off to Berlin today, and we're told it'll be a good show.
I have a sudden urge to move here. Currently, it's paired with an urge to learn German, but I would rather live anywhere in Europe than anywhere in the US really. The turnout so far isn't that great, but I'm assuming as mote bands play, the room will fill out. I guess that's the advantage of having five bands on the bill, but still, five bands is a lot, especially when all of them are touring (3 from the US, 1 from Russia, and 1 from the UK). Waiting to see how the sleeping situation is going to turn out, but that's more something to worry about after the show.
6.26.2011
6.24.2011
Ljubljana and the road to Munich
I apologize in advance for never knowing where I am at any given time. Sometimes I'll be able to know. In the case of last night in Ljubljana, I only remember cause I thought it was a really funny sounding name for a city. The 'J's are actually pronounced like 'Y's, so it's 'Lyublyana' (pronounced 'lee-ub-lee-ay-na'. The last couple of shows have been pretty crazy. Nice turnouts on all of them. This mornings breakfast consisted of bread, pesto, tomatoes, cheese, salami, jelly, and the Slovenian equivalent of nutella.
We made sandwiches with the pesto, cheese, bread and tomatoes, and then a snack later with the 'nutella' and jelly. Twas quite good.
We're on our way to Munich, Germany now. The weather has been pretty sucky the last couple of days, lots of rain. It's cleared up a bit now, but we had to load out in the rain last night, which is always incredibly fun.
Feeling really good, a little sore, but stretching more will help. Doing exercises in the mornings, and pushups and stuff.
So...three hours, €10, and a nice gash in my right calf later, we're finally on our smooth way to Munich. The traffic was horrendous. There were times when we shut the van off and just hung out. There were people peeing on the side of the road (women included), and Andrew from city of ships put on some jap-pop that he had on his iPod, blasted it, and we had a dance party. Some van filled with some c ute German girls were highly amused with us.
For a while a bunch of us were walking/jogging along side the van as we slowly progressed, but we got to a point where we were getting a move on, and I was the only one left outside the van. I had to do a full on sprint to catch up, and when i couldn't run anymore, tried to jump into the open door of the van. That didn't work very well. My left foot was secure, but my right leg got thrown back and slammed into the corner of the door. Because of adrenaline (and i have calves of steel) it didn't tear my leg apart. It left a nice little dent though, and a small abrasion that bled for a little bit. Stupid summer road construction.
Now that we're through that jam, I'm hoping it's smooth sailing to Munich. The adrenaline from running has settled down, and now my leg is starting to hurt a tiny bit (more just pressure than anything). I'm sure I'll be fine to play tonight.
The show was really sweet. The local opener was pretty rad. Being dudes on tour, of course, I instantly noticed the attractive female drummer, and was extra excited when she was really good. The sound coulda been better fir them though. The only part of the drum set that shone through clearly was the floor tom.
The digs for the night are pretty sweet. We were fed a really spectacular vegan chili dinner with rolls. I also made coffee, and we were happy. The people at the show were insane, and really went wild, and in turn, made me go wilder. I'm getting more comfortable playing now, nit as many sore muscles (though, still a few). My calf as well was pretty okay. Every once in a while I'd feel a little pressure, but overall, okay.
We're off to Leipzig tomorrow, only a 4hr drive, should be fun.
We made sandwiches with the pesto, cheese, bread and tomatoes, and then a snack later with the 'nutella' and jelly. Twas quite good.
We're on our way to Munich, Germany now. The weather has been pretty sucky the last couple of days, lots of rain. It's cleared up a bit now, but we had to load out in the rain last night, which is always incredibly fun.
Feeling really good, a little sore, but stretching more will help. Doing exercises in the mornings, and pushups and stuff.
So...three hours, €10, and a nice gash in my right calf later, we're finally on our smooth way to Munich. The traffic was horrendous. There were times when we shut the van off and just hung out. There were people peeing on the side of the road (women included), and Andrew from city of ships put on some jap-pop that he had on his iPod, blasted it, and we had a dance party. Some van filled with some c ute German girls were highly amused with us.
For a while a bunch of us were walking/jogging along side the van as we slowly progressed, but we got to a point where we were getting a move on, and I was the only one left outside the van. I had to do a full on sprint to catch up, and when i couldn't run anymore, tried to jump into the open door of the van. That didn't work very well. My left foot was secure, but my right leg got thrown back and slammed into the corner of the door. Because of adrenaline (and i have calves of steel) it didn't tear my leg apart. It left a nice little dent though, and a small abrasion that bled for a little bit. Stupid summer road construction.
Now that we're through that jam, I'm hoping it's smooth sailing to Munich. The adrenaline from running has settled down, and now my leg is starting to hurt a tiny bit (more just pressure than anything). I'm sure I'll be fine to play tonight.
The show was really sweet. The local opener was pretty rad. Being dudes on tour, of course, I instantly noticed the attractive female drummer, and was extra excited when she was really good. The sound coulda been better fir them though. The only part of the drum set that shone through clearly was the floor tom.
The digs for the night are pretty sweet. We were fed a really spectacular vegan chili dinner with rolls. I also made coffee, and we were happy. The people at the show were insane, and really went wild, and in turn, made me go wilder. I'm getting more comfortable playing now, nit as many sore muscles (though, still a few). My calf as well was pretty okay. Every once in a while I'd feel a little pressure, but overall, okay.
We're off to Leipzig tomorrow, only a 4hr drive, should be fun.
6.23.2011
Frankfurt ünd Mannheim
First day flights were unremarkable. Philly to Toronto, and Toronto to Frankfurt. We were picked up at the airport and immediately driven to the place where we were renting the gear for tour. We had to exchange some stuff cause it had already broken (city of ships has already been on tour for a couple weeks now) and we had to pick up a double kick pedal for me to play. Then it was a 2nd drive from there to Mannheim for the show. The van is quite comfy, though it was probably more so for city of ships before we joined in.
We arrived at the venue, we were late, but we expect that from ourselves all the time. We had to setup immediately, which bummed me out, because I was hoping to play the gear before we had to play a show (ie: soundcheck), but we were just thrown into the fire straight out. Matt barely had enough time to reconstruct his head before we played. He was still biasing it as we were setting up.
Everything seemed to be fine, though, I had not setup the kick pedal correctly, and the beaters kept flying back and knocking the top of my foot, so it was all red and swollen by the end of the show. We played well despite the fact that I desperately needed a fan or some sort of air movement while we played, because the sweat just rained off me, and the resulting smell was none too pleasing either.
The beds available to us were awesome. Simple, comfy, and clean, which is all you can ask for when on tour, I even got to take a shower in the morning. The breakfast they made us was exquisite as well. The show promoter made us toast, and German pancakes. They weren't much different from American pancakes, but they were still amazing. He went on to tell us that most of the food that he was giving us was stolen from a local supermarket, and he then even showed us his foolproof method of thievery. It was genius. After that, it started to rain, and we had to hurry up getting the rest of the gear and merch in the van. We said our goodbyes and were on our way.
We're now on the road to the next city, of which is extremely hard to pronounce.
We arrived at the venue, we were late, but we expect that from ourselves all the time. We had to setup immediately, which bummed me out, because I was hoping to play the gear before we had to play a show (ie: soundcheck), but we were just thrown into the fire straight out. Matt barely had enough time to reconstruct his head before we played. He was still biasing it as we were setting up.
Everything seemed to be fine, though, I had not setup the kick pedal correctly, and the beaters kept flying back and knocking the top of my foot, so it was all red and swollen by the end of the show. We played well despite the fact that I desperately needed a fan or some sort of air movement while we played, because the sweat just rained off me, and the resulting smell was none too pleasing either.
The beds available to us were awesome. Simple, comfy, and clean, which is all you can ask for when on tour, I even got to take a shower in the morning. The breakfast they made us was exquisite as well. The show promoter made us toast, and German pancakes. They weren't much different from American pancakes, but they were still amazing. He went on to tell us that most of the food that he was giving us was stolen from a local supermarket, and he then even showed us his foolproof method of thievery. It was genius. After that, it started to rain, and we had to hurry up getting the rest of the gear and merch in the van. We said our goodbyes and were on our way.
We're now on the road to the next city, of which is extremely hard to pronounce.
6.12.2011
Philly and beyond.
So I just got ahold of a blogger editor on the iPad, and so far it looks fantastic. This will be what I'll post through the while in Europe. It's got picture, HTML, and video support built right into the posting, no need for me to write any code, pretty rad. I'm at the Barbary in Philly at the moment, our last show before the European tour. Starting to get stoked. I usually don't get stoked for tour till a couple weeks before we leave. We missed last nights snow in NY, which blew, but our van sorta crapped out on us once again. We stopped for gas (not even out of Philadelphia yet) and we started to smell something funky. Turns out, the brakes on the front passenger side were extremely hot, and smoking as well. Yay! So we cancelled. Today's show, we had to borrow vehicles from family and friends to get all the gear here. It worked out alright. Now I'm sitting on the floor near the gear waiting to play. One week left, practice tomorrow (Monday), and gotta start doing laundry and packing. More to come.
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