Day 4 – Review of Munich Gig / Day Off

1. Driving out of Munich the next morning.

It’s weird to have a day off on a 10 day tour, but it’s Sunday. We slept in the van last night after playing in Munich at Prager Fruhling. We played this venue last time we were in Munich on our first tour, so it’s been about a year and a half since we’ve been back. Andy is the concert promoter for this venue. He’s very cool and knows his indie rock, punk, whatever. He mentioned liking The Young Knives. The venue is in the basement with a small sign and doorway at street level. I’m amazed how plugged in kids are to the scene to find a place like this. They have bands starting at 10 pm and it’s rock disco after the bands play. There’s a really cool 70’s vibe in the place with some disco lighting around the stage. It’s also an extremely small “u” shaped stage. It used to be a strip club way back when with polls on the far sides of the stage. A German band named TAXGAS opened up for us. They were actually pretty good and we met their manager, Domenica, who turned out to be very cool. Munich is always great and extra special for myself as I used to live and work there for a couple years. My friend Dennis from BMG came along with a former co-worker, Sabina, but it was extremely cool to see Jens. I played with him in a band in Munich when I lived here. He came with his girlfriend Heike. The guy is an amazing guitarist who now plays in a popular German band name Benuts. It always is an amazing feeling to know you have friends in another part of the world.

The show went well with decent sound for a club underground. I think we rocked, but we’ve already seen that we’re playing less “Zugaben” on this tour (encores). We always find a group of people that dig the show and hang with us for the remainder of the evening. I can feel us getting tighter musically and it’s only been 3 shows. Still, 6 more shows to go! It seems like a lot considering it will be Monday tomorrow and every one at home has to go back to work (ha!).

We’re off to our booking agents place in Aschaffenburg. We met Michael from Modern Noise in Geisenfeld on the way. We may work with him in the future. Definitely a lot more people to meet this time around. Last night we did an interview with Sebastian from O! Vision he had pics and a show review online the next day, today! He seemed very cool.

And, now we’re cruising along in the van as the sun goes down while talking about various types of farts. Ah, farting…..Does it get any better?

  

1. Andy plays hanger guitar
2. Franzy has other talents besides driving.
3. Jens (from Benuts) and Matt.
4. Joe tears it up in Munich.

Last night we stayed at Matte’s from Last Resort music, our booking agent. No real gig stories for today, but we did watch “School of Rock” in German, which was sort of amusing to see how they translated Jack Black's humor and voice. We also brought Matte a bottle of Grey Goose vodka that we killed by the end of this night. What is extremely weird to me (us) is that they never even heard of this higher quality vodka before. Shit, the stuff is supposedly made in France, right next to Germany. Weird what products are marketed in Europe and which ones are not. By the end of the night we had “let out the goose” laughing hysterically in a drunken stooper. We can never say enough about how cool Matte, Tina (Matte's girlfriend), and Devon (their kid) are. We’re all feeling refreshed today after a shower, good sleep, and a change to check our email.

 
1. Matte's house...in the middle of nowhere
2. On the road again.

Wow, I feel a lot happened yesterday for a Monday! We played for the first time in Cologne last night at a place called Blue Shell. It was a 50’s/diner theme inside and was actually quite cool. For a Monday it was packed in this small place. We played as the 2nd band of 3, which was a nice change. Aberrations was the opening band from Dusseldorf. They were very cool people and the singer was from Canada. Belica was the last band and it was their first gig ever. They all studied at a nearby University so there was a good crowd of kids hanging out. They had ½ liter of "biers" of Wickueler in the backstage fridge for the band. We had a good chuckle over the fact that the label was like the 3 Musketeers, or 3 guys like TEAM ROCKIT on tour. I think it was one of our better sets tonight. The sound was really good, although it was the first time I ever had to tape my cymbals to cut down on the high end (what the?). Robert, a recent intern from out German label, One and One Records came tonight. It’s always great to meet some one in person among all of the email contact today. Apparently, he lived in Altuna, Pennsylvania for a year for high school. His English was pretty good. He plays the oboe and likes all kinds of music, which I thought was pretty cool. He mentioned having to translate our contract with the help of his host family in PA (hilarious!). The other person I remembered meeting was named Esin. She was of Turkish decent and apparently lived not even 5-10 miles away from a Chicago suburb where we practice. Truly a global community now.

  
1. Sign to Cologne
2. Joe and Dave in front of the Dom (it's that big)
3. Top of Dom

Robert had delivered the keys to the One and One Studio. We didn’t know what to expect, but we found ourselves standing in the doorway of an ultra-plush studio. Leather couches, TV, pool table, kitchen, food and snacks already put out. Holy crap, who is this Tom guy (the label head)?! There was a computer to check email as well. It was heaven for a touring band.

There were two guys that were in the studio when we walked in, Rochus and Andreas. They were engineering the most wild, cool minimalist dance music for their company “Rotfenster Musik” (Red Window Music). This was truly a high quality studio. The beats were extremely “phat”. Drinking beer in this studio while having your head engulfed in sounds was pretty surreal. Standing there I couldn’t stop thinking that this is what touring is all about, meeting people that you would never normally meet. In these moments, I wish that we could tour for years on end. At around 3:30 am after laughing at the German infomercials on TV in additional to catching a few minutes of “Invasion” (ABC series that is already done in the states), we finally fell asleep. At 10am on the dot we were woken up by a group of musicians that came to practice for some AIDS benefit. It was a little awkward as the studio was coming to life with multiple people coming in and there we were on the couch...still sleeping.

  
 
1. All for one, and one for drinking this wacky Team Rockit themed beer.
2. Zooming by Blue Shell in the daytime.
3. Joe preparing to rock Cologne.
4. The killer One and One studio.
5. The phat beat makers, Rot Fenster Musik dudes.