On our way to Chemnitz today. It's going to be a 5 hour drive today. Last night was interesting again. I'm happy that we're in Europe and every gig so far has been great. We played to about 20 people at Djazz in Duisburg, but that was to be expected on a Monday night. We gave CDs to everyone that stayed until the very end. Why? This tour seems to be more about promotion than waiting to get paid for huge gigs. I was stoked because our press promoter, Keule, took a 2 hour train ride to the gig to meet with us and he LOVED the show. He brought our review in the Magazine "Noisy Neighbors" and we found a pretty good review in OX Magazine, a somewhat important magazine here in Germany. I'm glad we're getting some cool reviews here!

The opening band last night, Gatecrash was cool but maybe just a little bit too loud for the room. Djazz is a small but cool jazz club that sometimes hosts rock/punk shows. Gatecrash took some great pictures of us, thanks Patrick (drummer), Martin (singer), and Toby (bassist). Djazz's owner/manager John was a mellow guy from Kurdistan (northern Iraq). He definitely was a jazz dude and liked us somewhat, but not a lot...go figure. The promoter Jenny Kracht was VERY cool. She had snacks, fruit, and a nice dinner waiting for us as soon as we arrived - when our lodging plans fell through, she took us to her apartment and put us up for the night!

1. Photo by Martin from Gatecrash

Being on tour is truly living like a dog, but you meet so many awesome people. The small crowd loved us last night and there was even someone there that was born in Germany, but has family in Western Springs, IL (near us)! During the gig, disaster struck when Mark's bass amp died again in the middle of our set, which sucked (I hate that stupid gear we had to rent!!) Luckily, he was able to plug into Gatecrash's gear and we picked up right where we left off. I played with these thick brush-stick things so the vocals could be heard in this acoustically unfriendly little jazz club. We seem to be getting tighter though and it shows. If everyone could see us live, we'd be rockstars already. All in due time...

Day 6 - April 12th - review of TR's show in Chemnitz at Subway to Peter

Another day, another cool show! I feel like we're getting to be experts at this! Chemnitz is in the former East Germany, and boy does it show. Every other building looks like it hasn't been rebuilt since it was bombed in World War II. The gig at "Subway to Peter" was great and it was surprisingly well attended, especially for a Tuesday night. Subway to Peter is owned by a guy named Mario who you can tell has definitely earned his stripes in the rock/punk world. He also owns/books a place called "Bunker" in Chemnitz as well. Right from the get-go he knew how to treat bands. We were early (about one hour), but he opened up the club and brought out beers while we were waiting. Uwe was the guy who helped out with everything upon load in. It was a small basement club, but very well put together with a lot of English subway signs. A LOT of bands play there and an Italian punk band that played there the night before that also did really well.

 
 
1. Subway to Peter, Chemnitz, Germany.
2. Merch display.
3. The ruined building next door to the club.
4. Celebrating with local youngsters.

During soundcheck we discovered we left the AC plug to one of the amps in Duisburg. It was cool though as we found someone who had another one to bring to the club (a friend of Uwe's). That's what I'm noticing here more and more. People are just friendlier without a "you're fucked" attitude. And I'm still blown away that there was hot food for us AND unlimited BIER (salad, french fry-like potatoes and breaded mushrooms). Hearty German bar food!

At 10pm, the crowd started arriving. By the time we started there were about 15-20 kids standing practically right next to us in the small playing space at this club. I used the brush thingies again - I hate them now - to not be too loud in this boomy concrete basement of a club. During the show, Joe really got after it and even broke some ancient lamp off the wall in the middle of a ripping guitar solo - and kept going. I don't know if these kids had ever seen a band quite like ours, and they ooohed and aaahed the whole time. When Joe broke a string, Mark and I jammed our little "Gummi Bear" riff off-the-cuff which went over well...Joe changed his string, talking to the audience the whole time, and then we roared into the next song. We sold CDs and t-shirts as well and met a group of kids that looked very young, and were just starting a band. Joe said that after seeing us they would be a kick ass band. I bought them a round after the show and we took a group picture with them, the club owner, and club workers as part of their "ritual." This involved drinking homemade garlic schnapps, without knowing what it was. Nasty shit, but it cleans you out good! Mario even gave us a bottle to take with us of the stuff. We continue to make some great impressions wherever we go.