Day 7 – Giessen Show / On the way to Berlin

A window dedicated to the promotion of TEAM ROCKIT in Giessen...neat.

We picked up a hitchhiker on the way to Giessen yesterday. No joke. His name is Felix and he’s 19 years old. Franzy, our driver, tells this practice is common. Obviously we were a little freaked out considering hitch hiking in the states is a death wish for either party involved. He was coming back from Italy after a vacation of two month. The kid hitch hiked from the east of Germany all the way to Italy and back! And does this often! Franzy told us a lot of people used to do this in the 80’s but now it’s more uncommon because more kids are getting cards earlier in Germany. He stayed with us and now we’re dropping him off on the way to Berlin. Felix comes fro Erfurt which is on the way. I asked if he had any crazy stories and he mentioned once trying to get out of Croatia after having his passport stolen, they crossed the boarder in the forest…holy shit!

Our hitchhiker, Felix.

Upon making it to Giessen we had some time to blow before playing after sound check. We all split up and I was able to buy some gifts for people at home….and myself. For the most part, commerce is the same with big department stores. I also took 20 minutes to check my email at an Internet café.

Tobias was the promoter of the club called Ulenspiegel that we played. He explained after the gig that the building (which had a domed ceiling) was an army base of sorts at one point. The walls were apparently 3 meters thick! The building itself was 400 years old. I have to admit there was only a handful of people there last night, but we played 70 minutes by request of the club while throwing in more covers than normal. It was a Tuesdy so it was to be somewhat expected, but the “right” people were there tonight. Our label manager Tom from One and One Records was there in additional to Nina and her boyfriend (who I lived with for 4 months in New York 6 years ago – more on that later). We gave it our all as always, but it’s almost more of a test to see if you really have what it takes to keep the energy up even without a big audience. Dave truly helped up pass this test, so much so that he cracked his head open while jumping off of a speaker. It was a true rock moment as he was bleeding pretty heavily and just kept playing. I didn’t even know about this until the end of the show. Tobias, the promoter, said it was the first time that any one bled on his stage. NICE!! Again, I can’t stress enough that now that Dave is in this band, we can deliver without Joe and myself pulling the show. The kid goes fucking crazy. Again, the “right” people were there as we really wanted our distributor/label to see us just as our booking agent Matte did the first time around. People understand what we’re about after seeing us live. We rock.

Dave bleeding. It's a dangerous job to rock.

As mentioned I saw Nina after 6 years. She was a friend of a friend that I worked with at BMG in Munich. It was her first time in the states and that was a totally different time. She remember way more that me, but it was good to relive those roommate moments. She was a total party girl at that time and now she is totally (or it’s just me) domesticated. We’re the same age and she also has a job in the TV industry as a day job. Weird. Her boyfriend was name Heiko and they bother come from a place inside of Frankfurt. They drove an hour to come see us! There was also a group of kids there from Marburg. Six years ago seems like a million now, but for someone that had their best times in a foreign country for the first time, I’m sure it’s still like yesterday. I forgot how lucky I am to have all of this international traveling experience.

Nina, her boyfriend (Heiko), and some dude with a striped tie.

We actually had a hotel last night and a killer breakfast this morning – Sweet! We drank back in the room together (with Felix too!) and played the game where you put the name of someone famous on your head (written by someone else) and ask the other questions about who you are, until you guess what person you are. Frenzy came up with some good ones, such as Monica Lewinsky. In the background we actually had a TV that played American DVDs so we put on the Munsters and Dave’s horror DVS while laughing in to the night. I felt like it was an early evening going to bed at 3:30 am. Yikes, this is becoming normal.

    
TEAM ROCKIT and company's alter egos:
Dave as Joe, Joe as Jay Leno, Franzy as ???, Felix as Jimi Hendrix


In bed after Giessen Show

Every day is starting to seem like a week. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like with a band that didn’t party a bit after the shows.

We dropped off our hitchhiker friend, Felix, in Erfurt on the way to Berlin. Berlin is always a little tricky to find the club. You can imagine that a city with roughly 5.5 million people is close to the size of Chicago, and can be just as confusing to find places if your not from the city.

Dropping off Felix in Erfurt, on the way to Berlin.

Upon finding Wild at Heart, where we were playing, I felt like complete shit. After a week of being on the road it was like the energy had been sucked out of me. All of that changed when we hit the stage. It’s an unexplainable energy boost where nothing else matters and suddenly I’m whipping my head around wildly and Dave is flying off the stage a million times while Joe is just belting it out, playing guitar behind his head, etc. We can deliver!

Wild at Heart, as mentioned in previous tour diaries, Is like the CBGB’s of Berlin. Totally cool atmosphere. It’s a punk rock place littered with Mohawk kids and people dressed in the social D / Rockabilly style. Perfect for us. We ate at the Tiki Bar Restaurant next door that is attached to the club. The food is always great. Joe and Franzy ate a vegan mean and Dave and I had some awesome chicken-rice combo. They gave us a ton of drink tickets for the band. The beer of the evening was Haacke Beck, also associated with the Beck’s brewery apparently. We also played with another American band called Tattooed Millionaires. This was a little weird for us at first because you could definitely tell we were sniffing each other out. They had some thing to prove in a foreign country and so did we. It was their first time in Germany, but Johnny, Roxy and Justin turned out to be cool. Justin, their drummer was from Chicago. The band played glam rock and came from Hollywood, go figure. I was nervous about the crown that would come as we played with a German band last time at this club that brought a ton of people.

  
1. Joe outside of Wild at Heart
2. Trinkteufel - CLOSED!
3. Always sunset while we're drinking

(Side note: I just noticed that we’re always driving when the sun is going down as opposed to waking up early and being done with work at this time.)

In the end, we had a great crowd for a Wednesday, just like last time! The sound is so great there and I got to use the Tattooed Millionaires kick. I feel like our music fits perfect here and we can always get a good reaction. I think the “Beat on the Brat” cover helps a bit. After sweating through a killer set, we hung out and met some people. Franzy’s friends from Berlin, Suzie Janina, who also came last time and were featured in our last tour diary met us at the club. They’re these cute punk girls. Dave met someone who also is coming to the show today in Freiberg. The night out was just beginning when we loaded out at 12 am. We wanted to go to a bar that we really enjoyed called Trinkteufel, but this time it was Herberger or a.k.a. rock n’ roll hotel. This wonderful drink / shot called “Mexicaner” (essentially a harder shot of Bloody Mary) were had by all throughout the evening. A band that was staying with Suzi from Schweinfurt (INSERT SCHWEINEFICKER JOKE HERE) met up with us as well as they had played a show in Berlin last night as well. They were called The Ghost Rockets. Needless to say, the evening ended up with Franzy and me going to an internet café and 5 am. Joe, Franzy, and I all slept in the rain. It was cold, but I definitely feel super hard core on this tour. Dave had found a “blanket” else where for the evening.

  

1. Matt with the two hottest punk chicks in Berlin (Suzi and Janina)
2. The Ghost Rockets (Schweineficker aus Schweinfurt)
3. Franzy and Suzi
4. Driving out of Berlin

This morning we woke up. I went back to the Internet café. Joe was saved by Marie at Tiki Heart who let him in early to warm up with a free tea. We walked around a little and are now on our way to Freiberg, where the cool Jacob will be waiting for us. The place we played last time (underground illegal club) is now closed. I’ll be interested to see what the Hot Muffler Lounge is like.

I’m a little dumbfounded this morning. My initial reaction is “What the…?” concerning what has happened in the last 24 hours, but it’s sunny and we’re off to a new gig on Friday. That the thing about being on tour, every day is a new day with completely new conditions. Let me explain….

The last time we were in Freiberg we played at an underground illegal club napped Dipol. It had to be one of out most favorite gigs of the tour. There were ton dos kids freaking out and moshing up front when we played. There had to be 100+ kids there. This time around Dipol was shut down a few weeks before we arrived by the police. Jacob, the promoter here (more on him later) had to cancel all shows EXCEPT he wanted TEAM ROCKIT to be back so he (along with all his friends) created another location for bands to play at, calling it the “Hot Muffler Lounge.” Essentially, it was a garage in the middle of nowhere where they had built a stage. Outside they had two bonfires going, one to make goulash and one to make “gluwein” (hot wein that is served around Christmas time). The fires were actually in an old washing machine spin basin (i.e. an all metal cylinder that had holes on the sides and top while hallowed the fire to breathe). It seems like the people in East Germany are very resourceful. They have to be. I don’t want to say the show was “bad” last night as there were about 25+ people there on a Thursday in the middle of nowhere (I’m surprised those that came even found the place), but it was a bit weird playing in a garage, where the sound was bouncing off everything and the p.a. was barely loud enough to cut through the instruments. We racked the evening up as playing at a party in Germany. We still had a ton of food and drank a lot of beer. At the end of the evening they had to burn a lot of spare garbage that was around. There was a cool 10 minutes where the first get extremely huge and we were all starting at it while the hot embers got blown into the night sky. It looked pretty cool.

 
1. Hot Muffler Lounge(?)..before gig.
2. Makin' Goulash in Freiberg.

After that we went back to sleep at the promoters place, Jacob. We love Jacob. He’s the ultimate picture of what a true stoner rock fan and musician should be. Long hair, beard, killer weed, it’s all there. It seems like he has a good network of friends that help him out with his endeavors. He also knows his music. Before the gig he played us some killer stoner rock from a band called Unida. They had the best album title Joe and I had ever heard of “Coping with the Urban Coyote”. Joe and I promised to pick that record up so we can hang out and remind ourselves of how cool Germany was when we’re jonesing. This morning we were all hanging around where the mattresses were with random tools and literally a kitchen sink on the floor. Joe explained what the English word for hacksaw was and I said we should make a side / stoner rock project with this name. Killer!

Almost forgot to mention that Dave go so crazy last night while we were playing that he jumped on a car in the garage, then leaped over his whole amp. Ahhh…..to be young again. We’re now on our way to Hildesheim. Apparently, it’s a small town like Freiberg, but we were told that Thar is a great place to play there. Rock!