gradual companion piece
-
Tour Diary 5/16/12
We awake at Maté’s artist flat in Zagreb at about 8am for a large drive to Dornbirn, Austria.
After yesterday’s little run in with the border guys, I’m a little freaked about going through the EU border into Austria today. I thought about flushing our stash of grappa from the old man last night, but it’s good stuff so it hides in a water bottle under the passenger seat.
Our drive takes us through the Alps, and we catch some snow in the pass area. I wasn’t really prepared for this, so I try to stay in the car on stops. Passes are much more pleasant here in Europe because instead of taking a road over the mountain, they have conveniently made tunnels through these large mountains. The downside is that we are paying a bunch in tolls to get through the alps.
When we arrive at the venue, we are greeted by a nice staff and good facilities. Upstairs they have left us with plenty of fruit, candy bars, beers and uninterrupted wifi, which is crucial. Dima and I rush for coffees as the drive was long, windy, cold and wet. We hang in the backstage area and take advantage of the wifi. I’ve got business to tend to.
So rewind to a few months ago… the Tera Melos guys had invited me to come to Europe with them and I had happily accepted. I had to get a ticket to Berlin for April 23rd to meet them, but I came home sorta drunk one night in March and bought myself a ticket for May 23rd. I didn’t even notice my mistake until I got to the airport on April 23rd and there was no Airberlin flight on that evening. So I immediately bought a ticket to Warsaw and then took the train to Berlin. Long day. Anyways, the May 23rd flight is still in existence and I’ve gotta cancel it soon to get my money back. Won’t be doing that again.
So I’m using google voice to call Airberlin. Google Voice is cool in a pinch, but it sucks for anything important. I call Airberlin and I am relieved to find that I am the 32nd in line. Oh joy. To make matters worse, I’m pretty sure I’m talking to a very nice lady in India. There is a bit of a dialect discrepancy along with our connection problems. Eventually we get it sorted out and my blunder costs me $200. Better than nothing I guess.
I run downstairs and watch the guys play to a good sized room and an encore after. This guy named Mike comes upstairs to visit with us and turns out he’s in a band called The Theremin Brothers, which is super weird. We talk for awhile about The Monks and The Residents for awhile. Eventually, we have to get going.
We get to the hotel and there is no wifi, so Nate and I (we’re sharing a room) set out to find some strange TV. Austria does not let us down. We’ve got the show like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but it’s only cats and dogs doing funny stuff and the host looks like Golddust from the WWF. In the midst of all the funny clips, there’s just a clip of a lady throwing a cat in a garbage can. Deutch humor. Then we have the fireplace station that just plays a loop of an actual fireplace with crackling, and of course, some weirdo porn hotlines complete with topless call girls. Any 15 year old boys dream. Themes include Mother and daughter tendem, the librarian, and of course the plump jugs hotline. It’s time to go to sleep.
-
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Cardigans - “Heartbreaker” (1996)
-
Girl, Bike, Castle, Gat, Cat.
Bolzano, Italy.
May, 2012. -
Tour Diary 5/15/12
We awake at Peter’s place and all take our respective showers and head out the door around noon to get on our way to Zagreb, Croatia. We say goodbye to Peter and his roommates, take in the last sights of Budapest and get on the highway.
About two hours into the drive, we stop at the border with passports in hand. What ends up happening is that we are not let into Croatia because we do not have paperwork for our back line (amps and shit)… which is a thing here I guess. So we turn it around and are almost not let back into Hungary because they want the same paperwork. Which is weird because we just left Hungary. We almost got stuck a border nexus. After some pleading, we get back in. So we head over to a Slovenian-Croation border which is about a half an hour away and it’s pretty much the same thing. Dima is pleading “but it’s only one day!” but the guard basically tells him he doesn’t care how long it is.
So now we drive an hour to a third border in Slovenia. What ensues is this: Guard walks out of the checkpoint and opens our doors. Asks us who smokes, to which Dima and I raise our hands. Immediately he asks us where the weed is at. The irony is, for all of the people that recreationally smoke weed in the world, none of us do. He has us all get outside and takes Dima inside a building. Dima comes out 5 minutes later and we all go in. He has Nick go in first and strip searches him. He then told Nick that he found weed on Dima, which is hilarious. I haven’t even seen Dima drink a beer on tour. Obviously he finds nothing on Nick. He brings John in and checks his money belt and wallet. He brings Nathan in and basically sends him right back out after 10 seconds. Then he brings me in and I’m feeling good because he sent Nate out so quickly, but it turns out that I have to do the full monty. My hair is bleached, so he probably wants to see if the carpet matches the drapes. Same goes for Nick.
After all of this, we all go out to the van and we watch as he tosses the van. We’re all having a laugh, because this guy wants to find drugs or anything and we’re about as clean as it gets. He goes through John’s bag and VIOLA! He finds the mother load. A ziplock bag of chia seeds.* As he’s running back and forth from chatting with his cronies about the mysterious seeds to asking us over and over what they are, we are laughing at John, because we’ve been talking about how suspect these seeds are for awhile now. After about 10 minutes, I’m guessing he figured out how to use Google and walked back and gave John his seeds. He let us go into Croatia, and, after it’s all said and done, didn’t even ask us for our back line paperwork. All we had to do was strip for him. What a deal!
After an hour, we get to Zagreb and the promoter there, Maté, is awesome. He takes us out to dinner and we all got great meals. His dad makes wine and grapa at his vineyard on the Croatian coast. We got two bottles of wine and a water bottle full of grapa. I had all the dudes try the grapa, which is basically rocket fuel made from grapes. Nate makes the best face, as he’s not much for booze.
The show goes really well as there are a bunch of people there. Afterwards, we pack up pretty quickly and get to the flat due to an 8 hour drive to Dornbirn, Austria tomorrow.
*For those who don’t know, chia seeds are a natural dietary supplement of fiber and protein that are the same seed found in everybody’s favorite novelty gift: the Chia Pet.
-
-
Tour Diary 5/14/12
So our concert for today in Graz has been cancelled, but we have some friends nice enough to have us jump on a bill in Budapest.
Get get up in Vienna and head over to the music shop to fix Nate’s amp, which keeps cutting out. The music store is at a weird mall thing. After hanging out at the store for awhile we start walking around. John and I get a coffee. We find the David Hasselhoff star on the mall’s walk of fame. Handprint inlays and everything. They love this guy. We all run downstairs to grab some food and Dima tells us that the amp is done. Time to go.
The drive from Vienna to Budapest is a bit of a nonevent, spanning about three hours of country. When we do arrive in Budapest, I am taken aback by how beautiful the city is. There are large cliffs on the river, Large roman architecture everywhere and it’s got a nice feel.
When we get to the venue we go grab some wifi at the bar, load out and then Nick and I go for a walk to check out the city. On our walk we get lost in a maze of tiny streets and churches that all look very similar. We visit with some doggies, look inside of toy stores and eventually find our way back.
Meanwhile inside of the basement venue a ska punk band ala’ ‘95 is playing, the lights are broken in the bathroom, the sound guy doesn’t speak english, he’s hammered and taking all of his clothes off over a game of foosball, smacking the bartenders ass and not mixing or mic’ing anything really. It’s a hilarious shit show.
Thankfully for our friends in mutiny on bounty, they have their own sound tech. We are not so lucky. I should probably learn how t do it, but then I am just committing my brain to touring a whole bunch for awhile, which isn’t in my personal master plan. So the guys set up on stage and rip through about 20 minutes of what amounts to a noise set. People that are there are totally into it and want more but the rest of the set would require a mic and some samples. No can do.
We load out and head over to Peter’s house. He’s a friend of the promoter that has put us up for the night. We all step out to get some falafel, try to sneak a peak of Hungarian Simpsons and pass out.
-
Dedicated Fireplace on Channel Thirteen.
Dornbirn, Austria.
May, 2012 -
-
5/13/12
I awake in a hostel in Postojna, Slovenia and run downstairs for some breakfast. What I’m really looking for is coffee, but I am sorry to say that there is now. I settle for water, cereal with yogurt and an apple. Back upstair everyone is packing and we eventually get on the road to Vienna.
Our drive to Vienna is without event, just a 4 hour jaunt up to Austria through some mountainous farmland.
When we get to Vienna, Nick, Nate and I set out for some falafel and schwarma. We struggle to order our meals but are pleased to find each item is around 3€. We walk a little and have a small peek at Vienna. Pretty city, but a little sterile.
Back at the venue we meet up with the Mutiny on the Bounty guys, and later This Town Needs Guns and Guillame, Tera Melos’ booking agent. The venue tonight is a cool little place in a small brick building directly under the elevated train.
We find out that our show for tomorrow in Graz, Austria has been cancelled. Mutiny on the Bounty has a show tomorrow in Budapest tomorrow and are checking to see if we can hop on the show.
Tera Melos plays second to a sizable and enthusiastic crown of Vieners. The rest of the night is spent watching label mates This Town Needs Guns and trying to get Nate to get drunk. No luck with Nate. We’ve been trying to get him drunk all tour but he’s none the wiser.
After show we grab a little bite to eat, find out that we are confirmed for Budapest tomorrow and pass out at a flat arranged for us.
