Day 4 – Review of Chemnitz Show / on the way to MAINZ!!

I really like Chemnitz for some reason. It's sort of a sleepy town that still looks stuck in the DDR East German days, but for a Sunday it was the perfect gig. We played a small place called Subway to Peter. We'd played here on our first tour of Germany. It's down a flight of stars in a bunker or wine cellar of sorts. The place is great. There's no stage, the band sets up in the corner of the bar, but it's a great intimate setting. We received two out of the 6 pieces of luggage today that had Killian's bass and my cymbals. So we're SLOWLY getting back to normal as far as being comfortable with our performance (more on the luggage saga in a minute). We had to borrow a guitar amp, a guitar, chords, and a bass drum pedal. The guitar was given to us by Matte and the amp was loaned by the club. Both left a little to be desired, but it still sounded great down there. You could hear everything and it felt like we were performing in the basement back home. I sweat my balls off last night. I still only have two shirts to choose from to wear. Thank God I changed back into my original shirt as it was soaked at the end. It was weird because Joe felt sick for most of the day and then the second we started playing, he went bananas. He played right in the faces of people standing in front of us, climbed on anything he could find including my bass drum while also pulling out the "play the solo with the guitar behind your head" trick. Killian also gave his all and really seemed to be enjoying himself. That's the thing, we alway play like there's a million people watching us and people notice! We did play 3 "Zugaben" (enores), more for fun than anything else. It helped us work out some of the songs we haven't played that much with Killian.

The coolest part of the evening was meeting Lord Bishop. He's this huge black dude that Matte books as well. We heard great things about him and Matte even suggested us going on tour with him and there he was! He said he didn't even know that we were playing and just happened to be there as he's based out of Dresden. He bought a shirt and was very cool. I hope we get to hear him live some day or even tour with him. His business card said "The King of Sex Rock".

Some other notes of the evening included:
Chemnitz is in the area where "Pfeffi" schapps is made. It's green and really minty like mouthwash. Franzy even said that if you don't have a toothbrush on tour, a shot of Pfeffi in the morning can do the trip. It tasted sweet. I think we did 500 shots of the stuff...or at least it felt like it. We drank the local bier, Einsiedler, and I mixed it with Sprite for a more refreshing drink called "Radler". The mix of beer and sprite is called Radler in the south of Germany, but called "Alster" in the north. Apparently "Alster" is a river in the north of Hamburg.

And yes...about the luggage. Well, I'm so sick of living through this part that it's hard to bring myself to type about it. As mentioned, we got two pieces back, but STILL no CDs to sell. I still don't have my clothes, sticks, or pedal. Joe's still playing on borrowed stuff. Killian has his bass. We went to Nuernburg yesterday expecting to pick up 4 pieces, but like complete idiots, assholes, whatever, they already sent the stuff to Frankfurt as they thought we were already in Mainz yesterday. It's almost comical now. The lady at Lufthansa at the airport was really nice. She did give each of us 100 Euro for our troubles and for clothes, etc. It helped, but we still couldn't believe how long it took to sort everything out. Supposedly ALL of the bags have arrived in Frankfurt and will be delivered to us in Mainz today...We're not holding our breath.

  
1. Kids actually come to shows in Mainz at the University on a Monday!
2. Mr. Virgin and His Love Army open for us in Mainz.
3. "Snoop Doggy Joe" in Mainz.
4. Joe tears it up in Munich.

We played on a college campus in Mainz at a place called KulturCafe (Culture Cafe) last night. We had played there before on our second tour of Germany. It's really a great place to play on a Monday. It seemed like there were more people there this time than the last time we played there. The band Mr. Virgin and the Love Army opened for us and were nice enough to lend us their guitar and amp. Killian's bag and my bag with clothes in it FINALLY arrive. We were almost "whole" being able to sell CDs on top of the gear that we had received. The nightmare finally ended today when we picked up Joe's guitars and amp at the Frankfurt airport. We even received the money back for phone cards and some clothes that I bought. I feel like they should have paid us thousands of dollars for what we had to go through.

O.K. back to what happened at the show. We had 3 encores! Man, I must say that we're getting an incredible response this time around after sort of mixed response that last time we came. Maybe it's because Killian can actually play his instrument! We had a lot of people coming up to us afterwards saying that they've seen a lot of bands on the Monday concert series, but we were a step above. That's very cool to hear. Joe says we played for an hour and 36 minutes based on how long the recording was that he did. And sure enough, at the end of the show, there were drunken Germans, belting out songs and swaying back and forth while being locked arm and arm. They were shouting songs in English that they barely knew the words to which was even funnier. Sven was the promoter of the gig and he seemed like a super cool, mellow, rocker dude. He plays bass as well. The food was great that we were fed before the gig as well. When I say "great" I mean that it was stuff we knew that tasted close to home....burgers and salad. Franzy was in heaven with the Vegan food they had for her as well. They actually gave us two hotel rooms last night!! It was like heaven or sex or whatever when I finally got to jump in the shower this morning. I feel like I washed off a whole layer of myself. The first shower in 5 days. Last night in the hotel room we polished off the rest of the Jack Daniels and even resorted to bringing out the Garlic schnapps we received in Chemnitz. That stuff is digusting, but when you don't have anything left to drink, it's seems to do the trick. Yikes. No wonder I don't feel 100% today. We're on our way to a little town called Horb-Muhringen. I love these types of shows. As Joe mentioned, it's WAY better sometimes to play in the small towns where the kids have nothing to do, but check out bands. We'll see. We all seem like we're in a great mood right now singing with the radio and the CDs that Franzy brought.

  
1. Matt and drunken opening band.
2. Cool Sven, promoter in Mainz.
3. Joe and more drunken band members (notice the new Team Rockit shirt he's brandishing)

LOOK! We actually had a hotel to stay in after the gig in Mainz!

We played in the middle of nowhere yesterday, but sometimes those are the best gigs. The name of the place was Cafe AmErika in the tiny town of 1000 people called Muhringen. Upon walking into the bar, there's a statue of Liberty replica 5+ feet tall and a skyline from New York with the twin towers. Wild. Our food that night was hamburgers and fries with a little american flag sticking out of the burger. The craziest thing is that the owner had never been to the states before. The reason it was called Cafe AmErika was because it was originally called Cafe Erika after the owner's mom, but eventually morhped into AmErika.

The place we played was in the basement of this bar. You walked down the stairs and there was this cool, little stage with a killer P.A. system. They said 100 people could fit into the whole place with it being at capacity. It's always hard getting great gigs during this week, but this was perfect for a Tuesday. The people who put on the concert were a promotion company named Zak-Konzerte. They had sort of rented the bar or had some sort of deal with the place to put on shows. They seemed like extremely organized people. It was a whole team: Alex, Stefan, Natalie, and Tobi (PLEASE forgive if those weren't the exact names of everyone or I missed someone a I only have a business card from Alex). They had made these cool little flyers from our poster artwork and were excited about the prospect of people coming on a Tuesday. There was a support act called The Hanoise (clever name) that had a song called "Suck My Weiner". Now THAT is funny along with the fact that the singer dressed up like the guy from Clockwork Orange. The guitar player and bass player brandished the shirts of Audioslave and The Deftones. I guess the big rock acts have made their mark in Europe too. I liked their enthusiam and they had brought their friends to hang out to watch the show as well. We went on around 10pm. SIDE NOTE: It's stays light here all the way until 10 or 10:30! And per Joe (who didn't sleep a wink last night), the sun rises at 4:30am. Crazy. Apparently the winter is brutal though with darkness the majority of the time. I'd have to say that this was the best sound we had so far. You could hear everything, Joe had his guitars now. We were dressed in our TEAM ROCKIT garb (i.e. black shirts with the green and black ties). Sure, there were a handful of people there (how could there be more with the size of the place and the population of the town?), but we ripped through all the tunes like it was our last chance to play them on Earth. The people there seemed very appreciative of that. You could tell in our merch sales. It seems like everyone bought something that night. I just counted the t-shirts today and it looks like we're low! That's someting I could get used to, i.e. selling out of merch. Another side note: I'm typing this up in the "loft" of the van on the mattresses up here and the laptop is bouncing around from the road. The conditions are crazy compared to typing this in the quietness of my home at my own pace, but I'm glad to get it down. We have tons of time in the van today on the way to Berlin. Yes, I'm back tracking a couple days due to the laptop needing to be charged. Ever seen the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster? It feels exactly like that right now with the bed shaking, the laptop shaking, and me shouting out "If you can hear me, I'm good to go." O.K. enough of the side bars. In summary, we were very pleased with the reaction, professionalism, and performance that night in the cool, small Cafe AmErika. The promoters were talking about a festival in May next year that we should play. We'll see. Sounds interesting and they say 500-600 people show up at it.

Last night we were given one bed and breakfast room to sleep in. There were NO lights on the drive to the place. Truly in the middle of nowhere and I kept wondering why there wasn't even a light on in the window of a house due to someone watching TV that couldn't sleep. I slept in the van as there wasn't enough room with the two beds provided. There was also some garlic schnapps that came out again. Damn that garlic schnapps!! What was initially a sick joke, has turned into part of our boozing. We woke up to a pictureque scene atop a hill looking down at the town of Muhringen. Wow, I didn't realize how beautiful it was in the pitch black night yesterday! The room we stayed in also had window that led right out to the walkway. I knocked on the window as the door to the building was locked. After letting me in through the window, Joe said it was just like a scene from Happy Days. We had a ton of time upon waking up. Ulm was only an hour away so there was enough time to fit in: sightseeing of the famed Ulmer Muenster church, check our email at an internet cafe, buy postcards, shop for some gifts for people at home, and even eat at Subway!! I'm not a fan of eating at U.S. based chains in Europe or anywhere for that matter outside of the U.S., but a Subway sandwich sounded so go that we succame to the guilty pleasure. Joe's even eating today!

  
1. View from Cafe Amerika - complete with rainbow.
2. Joe leaning on removable World Trade Center.
3. Band that performs the hit "Suck My Weiner" (The Hannoise).
   
4. Zak Konzerte crew.
5. What else would they serve at Cafe AmErika? Burgers!
6. Muhringen Show "crew."

7. Same "crew" after many drinks.

8. "Crouching Joe, Hidden Gargoyle Boy" at Cafe AmErika.