Here are some pictures from the first two weeks of the tour.
Passau, The missing entry.
On Friday April 2nd, we played in Passau. The venue was called Winterhaus, and it was set up by Josh who is an old friend of Mark Edwards. The venue, people, town, and our show were a high-light so far on this tour. The vibe was especially great for our music. The place was packed, with attentive folks, and they seem to like the eclectic collection of music. Josh and his fiance’ invited us over to stay at their lovely flat, which is part of an renovated school, located across the Danube river. They are set to be married at the local cathedral that happens to house the largest pipe organ in the world.Nice times, nice places.
Speaking of Josh, and … of Passau they both came with their friend who is one of the owners of Winterhaus , to our show in Regensburg which is located a couple of hours Northwest of Passau, and is also on the Danube river. The town, which can also be described as a small city is also very beautiful gothic churches, mixed in with very modern clean buildings. It is known as one of the technology centers of Germany. The venue was particularly interesting with two floors of music, a café, and recording, art, practice, studios upstairs along with youth hostel like accomidations for the visiting musicians. Why we don’t have something like this in San Francisco I do not understand. We played in the basement which was decorated in a submarine motif, and the upstairs was occupied by a German folk singer who curiously was dressed up in Native American garb. Apparently there is a great interest in the Native Americans that include full on faux Cowboy and Indian battles throughout local parks in Germany. Bizarre fetishes are everywhere.
A note on an earlier experience. The difference between the borders of Czech Republic and Germany is like night and day. The Czech side is a bit chaotic and disorganized, with prostitiutes lining the side roads to service the truckers who sometimes have to wait months to get through the border. The German side is so organized even the cords of wood are neatly stacked on the side of the perfectly coifed farm house, with it’s finely divided rows and patches of farmland. Here is a perfect quote from the Polish zine, Plotki, (www.plotki.net), which Christian picked up at The Globe café and bookstore, that, even though it describes the difference between Portugal and Europe ,the effect is the same.
The text is by Jolanta Kossakowska from Warsawa, and the title of the article is Sweet Disorder.
“A friend of mine used to say that our equateness ÷ Portugal and Poland – have many things in common. These are not only the very first letters of the names; both Portugal and Poland are two unimportant wild lands, situated at the edges of the great cvilised Europe. As you fly to Lisbon, you can notice the exact moment you pass the border between Europe and Portugal. Harmonious vies from the window, so organsed and full of symmetry are suddenly replaced by the chaotic abstract picture of colourful fields, industrial sites and settlements. This is my country, he said, Portugal,”
We played Munich last night. Much fun!
Here is a note from Radius's Mark Edwards...
Just a quick update from the road. We're in Schoenndorf, Germany, which is a tiny little village near Munich. We are staying in a small country house, which is over a hundred years old, and has been restored nicely.
We're playing a gig tonight in the house, which has a large brick-floored room where the instruments and the PA will be set up. 75 or 100 guests from the village have been invited, and I'm pretty sure we're the only show in town so there should be a good turnout.
Ropi, the father of the house, has a habit of traveling around Europe and collecting bottles of wine that winemakers make for themselves, without any of the preservatives or processing that wine made for sale has to have. He picks up a bottle here, a bottle there. We drank three of them upon arrival last night, two from Tuscany and one from Venice. I imagine we will dip back into the collection before tonight is over. They are also planning to make Caipirinha, which is some concoction of limes, sugar, and Brasilian firewater.
Needless to say, I don't expect to get much sleep tonight. We went to bed at 5:30am this morning, and that was just the arrival party. Life on the road is hard.
The gigs are going quite well. We played Munich last night, and it was very well attended, especially for a Monday night. We got about half-capacity at what Christopher and Benji said is the hippest rock club in Munich. Josh and some of his friends made the trip to Regensburg for that show, so we're getting some repeat fans which is nice. Some people from the Munich show last night said they would come to the show tonight.
We had a crowd from Kinderdorf last night as well. Kinderdorf is a town of orphans in Germany, which we hope to play on the way back down. They were a very sweet bunch of teenagers that came to the gig, and they roadied for us as well when we packed up. Its really great to play for people who appreciate it so much.
Tomorrow we drive five hours to Frankfurt for another show, and Hamburg the day after that. I'll try to check in soon....
After surviving Mark losing his plane tickets in the San Francisco Airport, a few moments before we boarded the plane, we finally were headed off to Budapest. We arrived in Budapest and even though the skies where grey and rainy, and there was a pretty cutting chill in the air, our spirits rose when Christopher picked us up at the airport. He was in his usual cheery manner.
He took us through the industrial section of Budapest, a throw back form the Communist years, odd stoic buildings with pipes sticking out of them, to the flat that his family owns in the Octagon/Embassy section of Budapest. The building was built in the late 19th century and its ornate ness, of peeling paint, wrought iron gates, and thick graying concrete exuded history as well as the rest of the buildings in the block. Some interesting facts; The Torture museum which is in a building we walked by on the main Boulevard, has a basement that runs underneath the entire block that was once used to torture people, Jews, Gypsies, etc. during the wars. A horrible place that has since been turned into a museum that memorializes those who have lost their lives in these vast torture chambers.
We explored beautiful Budapest a bit, checking out the venue, Sark, (Proundounced Shark), that we would be playing, in, a nice cave like place, with good drinks and warm atmosphere. We ate some comfort food down the street at a Hungarian restaurant, then we went back to flat, watched some Jackass on Hungarian MTV, and waited for Benjii to arrive with the van. He had spent the last couple of weeks picking up the van in France, and getting it ready for tour, he was about three days late. We almost gave up waiting and started heading out to the clubs for the evening when Benjii pulled up in a pumpkin colored Mercedes van, towing along their wonderful vibrant mother, Neven du Mont. She had a van full of moving boxes, and she was moving in that night to her new flat across the hall from Benjii and Christopher’s. She was psyched to see a crew of men ready to help her move in. Her new place was on the top floor of a 7 story building and it was hard work but it was the least we could do for the famous matriarchal figure not famous for just for raising a family of talented musicians and artists but is also a celebrated documentary film maker, who made The Big Pink (which just showed at the Roxie), and is about the gypsy like life that her and her family, and hippie friends led traveling through the world. The film won the Adolph Grimme award, the most prestigious in Germany.
Some interesting facts: Her newest documentary that she is working is about the struggling film makers and writers at the Cannes Film Festival that reside in the campsights during the festival. She gets a candid look into their world by being in such a raw and personal location.
We picked our dear friend from Sweden, Christian Pallin, at the airport. He is also the noise artists, Pallindrone who will be opening up for us with his ambient noise projects that incorporate sounds of the city or town that we are playing in. Before the shows he will record the street sounds and mix in local radio broadcasts and then treat them during the performances. Due to the time change and a broken plane, Christian arrived about 2 hours late. While waiting for Christian. Benjii, Mark and I, (Jeff) swapped stories about music, shows, and the people that inspire us. Benjii’s story about playing Kosovo a few months ago, in a UN peace effort, to bring the Serbs and Albanians together for a concert. Very timely discussion considering the recent news of disruption and the burning of Serb villages by a group of Albanian youths. The bridge that Chrisopher and Benjii (in their band A Drastic Measure), had been blown up in the raid.
The next couple of days before the show we had a run of the city. We visited the Buda section of Budapest which is over the Danube bridge, checked out the Labyrinths, (an underground lair of sorts, but a bit on the Disney cheesy side, not really recommended,) but Buda was incredible, lovely buildings, view of the rest of Budapest, including the huge Pariliament building. Interesting fact: Nate held a Falcon, from a Hungarian street performer. The falcom looked fierce ready to rip a pidgeon or Nate’s arm to shreds, but… luckily the wild bird did not get spooked and maintained it’s domesticity.
(enter Lord Denver) The street performer was actually a falconer and he was wearing a camo jacket. The falcon killed two pigeons, which the falconer had stored in his canvas computer bag, earlier in the day. The falcon did not annihilate my face or brains. The falcon is the fastest bird. There are bald eagles on the Hudson River in New York right now. To kill an eel you have to slam its tail on the ground because that is where the nerve center is. If you slam it’s head, it won’t die. It will jump into your mouth.
Interesting fact:Nearby up on the hill was a statue of an Eagle… The Hungarian mythology behind the Eagle is that it raped the first princess of Hungary and started the Hungarian blood line. It has been adopted by the Hungarian skin heads as their sign.
Our favorite field trip was to the bath house, Szenchenyi (sp?). It was rumored the famous and difficult champion chess player would be there, Bobby Fischer. We did not spot him but we did spot a collection of mostly local folks enjoying the hot spring bath outside in their trunks, a few surrounded by floating chess boards. The buildings were grand, the ceilings in a Romanesque dome, and the pools outside and inside had a chamomile like smell, mixed with sulfur. We challenged ourselves and our respiterory system by submerging ourselves in the dreamlike world of the steam room. The figures inside look like ghosts, and one of the only objects that you can see is the emergency calling system which is a pull chord and red button. It was rumored that the local mafia men, and their mistresses often meet in the steam rooms and dance classic dances with each other.
The is both suffocating and invigorating at the same time, and a cold bath afterwards is highly recommended to shock back the system and body to a more comfortable temperature.
Our first show at Sark, was great. It was packed with some good folks. Allot of them friends of Benjii’s, some of them we met during the first couple of days in town. A big hello to my friend Lotti, a reporter who lives in Budapest, and she w wrote a great piece about the show. I miss her already.
{Hello of the lazarus sorts. Driving in a van right now across countries I do not know,which could never be a bad thing.this trip thus far has been an interesting one to say the least. Budapest as a city becomes somewhat itself a labyrinth, tall brooding darkened buildings leaning always inward towards your path upon them, they feel like old brothers and sisters whose stories unfold in silence.I have spent far to much time trying to figure out the telephones here. They finally startred to cooperate. Took the best bath I could recall in awhile,have been doing the five Tibetans, always thinking of Kathryn.trying to find that quiet space with which lazarus exists for me. All of the statues here look as if they are going to kick your ass, the fearof god! The huns! Wishing everyone all the love that I could possibly muster.}
It is April 4th, we just played Prague last night at a lovely café’, The Globe. It was a last minute addition to our roster so the turn out was not the best but the music food, and drinks flowed. We all played an intimate and loose set for the crowd. Some of our crew went and checked out the Castle across the Charles bridge. Today we go to Regensburg.