10/9 – Innsbruck
Green mountains surrounded us with
cotton clouds clinging to their wet faces as we rolled into
Innsbruck, Austria. We found our promoter Eric's house who greeted us
with a goulash and drinks. We headed down to the venue, Cafe Ararat,
which seemed the most inappropriate place ever for a punk show – a
tiny jazz bar accented with romantic candle equipped two-seaters and
a glazed mahogany bar. An eccentric olive-complexed bartender with a
brilliant Turkish hair mustache combo seemed as surprised to see us
at his bar as we were to see him. He told us the show was double
booked for the night but the first act, which we found out was a
going to be a play, would be done in good time.
We walked in to find the production was
composed of five or six beautiful French women. We guided our timid
goofy smile ridden bodies through the tight maze of tables and old
people. Trying to find refuge in the mahogany oasis we hoped not to
feel so remarkably out of place in our stale beer attire contrasting
with the soft rose complexions of what would soon be the performance.
Drinks in hand we squeezed into the audience to find some seats.
The play began with a girl sitting in a
lone chair face in hands toward the audience. She began repeating
something in German, speaking louder and louder while slowly raising
wide electric blue eyes. Turning and falling to her knees she
screamed into the floor transferring her weight into her curl tangled
forehead and the fat of her fists. She threw herself onto her arched
back balancing between her rigid tail bone and the crown of her
cocked back head rocking side to side with kicking feet. Undoing one
button at a time she exposed soft white breasts while running hands
along her protruding ribs that rose up and down with the repetitive
frantic words. From a mysterious hand above the stage poured a yellow
ooze (which we later found out was egg) splashing across and covering
the naked body. She stood up with her wide electric blue eyes buzzing
through strands of yellow matted hair into the audience. Exhaling the
German words with her last bit of breath she dumped an entire pot of
this ooze over her head and disappeared into the back.
I'm not sure what I (Garrett) was doing
while this was going on. I think I blacked out from emotional
overload, but I bet most of us looked something like a deer in
headlights right between the flash back montage and meeting Dear God
in the white tunnel of light. A sort of paralyzing euphoric feeling
where you don't know what the fuck is going on but the cacophony of
worries and wondering is briefly muted and for a moment everything is
alright.
Afterward the contrast ensued in punk
acoustic fashion and Tim even managed to get all the uninterested old
people to shut the fuck up. It was really neat to see people from
completely different backgrounds, completely different musical
tastes, and completely different cultures being respectful and
perhaps even enjoying our music. We actually felt like artists
bringing our pallet to people who might never have considered such
sounds and experiences.
After that we got high school drunk at
a guy Phillip's apartment. Weird liquors in skinny bottles fueled
cover songs and tin foil lasagna we scraped out with our fingers. A
few Youtube videos and fart jokes later we were knocked out on our
ass crumpled up in various places across the flat.
10/10 – Solothurn
Kofmehl is a gigantic warehouse style
venue in Switzerland that has set stage for names like Europe,
Sepultura, and Drowning Pool. It was now Elway's turn to grace
Solothurn with our impressive rock prestige. We began with an
extensive sound check taking advantage of the stacks of monitors to
make sure our levels were exactly to our tastes. We were then handed
our custom printed laminates over a stocked bar lined with various
vegetables, fruits, breads, and spreads. All Aboard checked in to our
reserved downtown hostel that the venue had paid for while we were
guided to our green room which took up half the second floor complete
with television, pinball machine, and it's own bar. Showering up and
kicking back for a bit while nibbling on a dessert loaf loaded with
rich Swiss chocolate we were called down for dinner. A long set table
lined with 20 seats made room for our delicious falafel, sauce, and
salad meal. Finishing we began warming up for the show backstage
hydrating with sparkling waters and dabbing our quenched mouths with
clean white towels.
It was finally time to rock. With a
crack from a snare drum we rung out to an entire fifteen people in
the audience that of which included All Aboard and the six paid
bartending, door, sound, and photography staff. We played so hard we
managed to get through our set in 30 minutes. The crowd, so stunned
and in awe of our technical prowess, hardly could remember to cheer
as we exited.
Okay sorry for being an asshole. The
few people who came and the staff were really sweet. They apologized
for the low attendance and paid us 100 Euro on top of our guarantee
because they felt bad. We hung out and drank with them for a while
after and celebrated the door girl Lena's birthdays at midnight with
a dozen shots of Jaeger balanced on a lined of glasses of lemon
tonic. At midnight the first shot was knocked into the first glass
and the rest (semi-)seamlessly fell like dominoes into the glasses.
We walked downtown to a bar who gave the Americans free drinks (as we
deserve, dammit) and passed out in our hostel next door.
10/11 – Ulm
After dragging ass in
attempt to get out of the womb-like snare of Swiss hostel bed bliss,
we treated ourselves to the standard euro-hostel breakfast fare
(shitty cornflakes and toast with jam). I wandered the streets of
Solothurn to try to find a place to exchange my techno-chic Swiss
francs (look them up, they look like money that should only be used
at raves) into normal Euros and then we split for Ulm. We arrived
well ahead of our load in and set out about checking out the sights.
Ulm is home to the tallest cathedral steeple in the world, and sure
enough, it was massive. Too big to instagram even. After realizing
that the cathedral wasn't impressive enough to hold our attention for
longer than 20 minutes, we took off for Tanke, which is quickly
becoming one of my favorite places to play in Europe.
One of the best recurring
themes when touring Europe in a punk band is the large network of
totally rad squats, clubs and government-sponsored venues that exist
in random locations (abandoned slaughterhouses, schools, train
stations, etc...) because there is no way that such a thing could
exist in the United States. Sure, you come across plenty of
fantastic DIY venues and show spaces in the US, but it seems that
either the government is more conducive to these things being
accomplished with more efficiency and zeal or people are just much
more motivated in Europe. One of the finest examples of
venue-creating wherewithal in Germany is the Tanke, just outside of
Ulm. The venue exists inside of the convenience store of an
abandoned gas station right off the autobahn. Thanks to the efforts
of a couple of rad people, including our promoter Jo, the once
useless concrete lot and building are now home to the occasional
dance party or punk show. The intimate and unique nature of the
venue basically made the show. All Aboard opened up and got the
crowd of 35 or so stoked. We played and it was fun. On of the most
special things about the show was an appearance from the Rock Twins,
who drove from an hour away to watch the show and brighten the former
truckstop lobby with their smiles and singing along. We left the
venue for a night out at the local bars. I don't remember much after
this point other than chasing a shot of vodka with mustard, Joe
slapping Art from All Aboard in the face upon hearing that he hates
Scotch whiskey, and eating the last chocolate piece out of an advent
calendar I found in the gutter. Smooth move.
10/12 – Trier
Just when we thought it just can't get
any better than a punk venue built into an abandoned gas station, we
rolled up to Ex-haus in Trier. The venue is a massive complex with 3
indoor stages and 1 outdoor stage. It is an after-school hangout
center by day, where children frenetically run about playing soccer
or tag in the heavily graffiti'd courtyard. By night, the complex
fills up with local punk, indie, or hardcore kids to see a show. All
that, and the venue is complete with sleeping quarters and catering
fit for bands much better than Elway. We were served snacks and a
delicious vegan chili dinner in a room packed with crates of beer.
All in all there were 8 crates, or 160 beers in total. Our promoter
Flo informed us that yes, all this beer was for us to drink. It was
with the same breath that he also mentioned that he fulfilled our
catering rider pipe dream and sprung for the bottle of vodka. With
2+ hours left until the show was to start, we began what was sure to
be one gigantic collective mistake by polishing off the whole bottle
of vodka and about 6 beers a piece before the doors even opened.
As one might imagine, the show was
fucking rad. The crowd all seemed to know and love Elway songs,
which still hasn't stopped being totally weird. People sang along
and danced like crazy, crowd surfed and fell ass-first onto the floor
in an overly-excited Three Stooges-style banana peel (spilled beer)
slip. After our set, we invited some 25 lingering locals up to the
gymnasium upstairs for the most reverb-addled acoustic singalong sesh
ever while All Aboard dinguses Nils and Marius wrestled gaily in the
background. Post-show, I (Tim) watched members of All Aboard and
Elway alike lumber off to bed drunkenly, defeated by the 8-case beer
mountain (we finished 6.5/8). I soldiered on and wound up going with
Flo to a club in downtown Ulm that played a mix of music spanning
from Fall Out Boy all the way across the musical spectrum to Panic!
At The Disco. Yuckers. We returned to the Ex-haus and promptly fell
into a grave-like slumber.
10/13 – Muenster
Saddled between university buildings
Baracke stands as a small venue/bar amongst the local campus
buildings. Unlike your typical university owned bar/venue that may
be accessorized with sports colored foam hands beside a stuffed team
mascot, Baracke proudly flies a flag of red and black. A non-to-shyly
decated anarchist space partially funded by the university still
bewilders me (Garrett), but then again I guess we've seen weirder
stuff since we've been on this side of the sea.
We were immediately greeted with drinks
and snacks (which also still bewilders me) before loading in in our
newly patented Elway/All Aboard German efficient assembly line load
in. A dinner soon served of pasta with a heavy satanic pasta sauce
set us in a 30 minute coma. Luckily we were revived by the 150 people
or so who made there way in before we went on.
The show totally ripped. A posse of a
dozen German's went bazonkers to a point where they woah'd our opener
A Song for Eric Solomon to Sing a good 8 measures into 3/4 Eleanor.
The maddened crowd continued its debauchery dancing Baracke into a
gross whirlpool of a sauna leaving our exit drenched and steaming in
the light Muenster rain. Cooling off we were lead to a club where
most of the staff of the venue worked afterward.
The club was not of the usual college
downtown caliber. A dance floor stepped not to a regatonic kick and
snare or the bass lined shrieks of dubstep but rather to the likes of
The Bronx and The Menzingers. A room compiling of most of the same
kids at the show flailed wildly as they tried to mash up an
adrenaline riddled punk show and the thrusts of a mainstream club. We
grabbed some drinks and tried to imitate our booty shaking slam
dancing peers.
Later on in the night most people who
still had an inkling of cognitive capacity went home while I stayed
at the club and let loose some dance moves I learned from my rave
days (which consists of only one move I learned from My Brother and
Me). I grew a bit disenchanted finding the last twelve dudes circled
around the last three girls (what did I expect I guess) and tried ton
find my way home. I fancy walked my way out the door and down a
street I must have circled the blocks of for 45 minutes before I
realized I had gone the opposite direction when I left the club.
Finally finding the apartment and it turning out to be locked I sat
on the doorstep phoneless and drunk hoping some tenant would come
home at 4:30am and not assume I was some creepy serial killing drunk.
Eventually I met back up with the promoter/DJ-guru Flo back at the
club walked home with my DJ savior and passed out.
10/14 – Heerlen
After parting with the
darling Munster promoter Flo, we drove across the west-German
countryside bound for Heerlen and our first ever show in Holland.
The show was at a place called De Plu, which is an enormous
office-building-turned-squat near to the city center. We loaded up 4
flights of stairs into the show space and set about drinking some
cheep beer called Beer bier, eating delicious vegan chili, and
exploring the bowels of the immense building. A handful of the
buildings 20-something residents were hanging out in the venue along
with 2 paying guests and the other bands, one of which was the
fantastic Low Derive from Italy, who rock in a Copyrights kind of
way. The crowd was a little sparse (totally sparse) and the show was
a bit of a bummer, and it ended at 6:30pm or something crazy, so we
used the remainder of the day to relish in the Netherlands' legendary
soft-drug fare, throw empty beer bottles through the ceiling tiles of
one of the more wrecked rooms of the squat, and wander around the
random carnival set up in the square across the street from the
venue. We ended the evening passing out on random filthy mattresses
scattered about the freezing cold back room of the venue.
10/15 – Mainz
The show in Mainz was on the university
campus, was extremely well attended for a Monday, and was pretty
fantastic. Being that the show's budget was on the university dime,
we were able to partake in some pretty clutch dinner at the on-campus
restaurant. A real classy place that was no place for two fucking
gross punk bands. Promoter buddy Cornelius made the mistake of
getting us the bottle of vodka from our rider, which we mixed
promptly with some weird fizzy powder shit that tasted pretty great
actually. We got proper wrecked before opener Ghost of a Chance (who
also rocked with us in Wiesbaden) even played. All Aboard played a
rad set and them we ambled our way through one of the most shamefully
wasted sets of tour. We repeatedly took vodka breaks in between
songs, wherein we passed the bottle around the energetic crowd until
it was emptied and cast on the stage mid-song. The audience was
pretty stoked and awesome, due largely in part to the presence of
familiar buddies German Dave and Mike Kelly, who motivated the people
up front by swaying belligerently into them. After the show we made
our way to the swank downtown hotel we were staying in (also paid for
by the university) and tried to get weird on some mushroom chocolates
given to us by one of the Dutch squatters in Heerlen. Our hearts
sank in despair as we slowly realized that these chocolates were
pretty tame and nobody would be getting any sort of weird. We went
about having another couple beers at a nearby bar and retreating to
the plush hotel room and the comfort of expensive French linen-lined
beds. I (Tim) Brian and Joe decided to make a copious amount of
marijuana we were given in Holland our nightcap. None of us ever
really smoke pot, but a good man once told me that you should never
refuse free drugs, so there we were: getting stoned in a random
German hotel room on super-strong Dutch pot. I decided that I would
take a shower before bed, which turned into a 45 minute endeavor that
involved my being utterly confounded by the seeming complexity of the
shower. There were hot and cold water knobs outside the shower
across the bathroom. To me this seemed to mean that you had to chose
your temperature before getting into the shower. Seemed pretty
fucked to me. It took about 20 minutes of high-out-of-my-gourd
fucking around to realize that you just turn both knobs all the way
up and then you can adjust the temperature with a knob in the shower.
I felt like the biggest idiot alive. I proceeded to take a half
hour long shame-cry shower and sauntered off to bed to the sound of
Joe and Brian laughing hysterically at a German sitcom on the TV that
they didn't understand a single word of.
10/16 – Heemskerk
Holland, it seems, is a nation of stark
contrasts, because no other show of our entire tour could have been
more opposite the Heerlen show than our outing in Heemskerk. Rather
than pulling up to a huge trash-filled squat, we arrived at a huge,
beautiful anti-squat that used to be a school house. An anti-squat
is a building that is renovated by the local university and rented
out to students for extraordinarily cheap prices to prevent the
building from being squatted and thereafter trashed. We were treated
to delicious beer and soup that must have contained god tears or
something, because it fucking ruled. We hung out for a bit and
listened to the new Crazy Arm record before heading to the venue.
The Venue was called Cafe Lokaal, and was a small pub in a large
school building. Before we knew it, the building was stuffed full of
people watching the rad local openers Translated play their set. All
Aboard took the stage and ruled and from there on out, the show was
just crazy fucking awesome. During our set, people danced around and
crowd surfed, built 10-person human pyramids (the wonderful and
charming Irene from Amsterdam, who we met randomly at our San Diego
show with Teenage Bottlerocket, was on top of said pyramid). Both
Brian Van Proyen and I (Tim) were crowd surfed while playing guitar,
which was a first for both of us I believe. The bar kept feeding us
fancy and delicious Belgian beers with ABV's ranging from 9.0% to
9.5%. During the build-up in It's Alive!, we got the crowd to get
down low on the floor and jump up in unison when the song kicked back
in. It was one of the most fun sets we've ever played. The dudes
from Sweet Empire deserve a trillion kudos for helping foster such an
enthusiastic scene in their hometown. After the show, we wound up at
the delightful Jort's place, where we drank a few more beers,
compared Dave March impressions and fell asleep with gigantic smiles
on our faces. It was nice to not have a repeat of the show in
Heerlen, but rather have a show that can compete with the best we've
ever played.
10/17 – Aachen
The next two days of tour were both to
be acoustic outings, where the only people who have to do any
semblance of work are All Aboard's David and I (Tim). This of course
meant that for all other involved parties, the prime directive was
rampant alcoholism. We arrived in Aachen and tried to quell our
gut-wrenching burrito withdrawals but had to settle for veggie
burgers and vegan schnitzel with massive piles of French fries.
Pretty much the exact moment we finished stuffing our faces, we got
word from our promoter Lukas that vegan pizza was being made (from
scratch!) at his flat. We wandered over with full bellies and fought
our way through a few slices before gathering our shit and heading to
the record store down the street for the show. The show was pretty
well attended and had a very laid-back vibe. Locals Sink Franatra
opened and played a charming set, complete with adorable covers of
Danzig and the Weakerthans. David and I played and then it was off
to bed with a feeling of impending doom, as we were set to play Kiel,
home of booking agent Benny, the next night.
10/18 – Kiel
The perfect storm of reasons to seek
oblivion through relentless partying was churning somewhere off shore
over the Baltic sea as we arrived in Kiel. We arrived at Benny and
his lovely fiancé Maria's flat and were treated to from-scratch
tomato soup with noodles and homemade bread dressing deliciousness.
We had a few beers and set out for the club where we would be playing
that night. The venue was called Subrosa, which is a living contrast
between anarcho-graffiti bathrooms and $10 salads on the menu. We
set up the PA in relative sobriety, but somehow between that point
and the point where David and I played our sets, I managed to put
away so much liquor that it probably made Bon Scott tremble and toss
about in his early grave. The dudes from Nothington showed up to
spend their day off from touring with The Donots in Kiel getting
tanked. They brought German bestie Heike with them, which had me
stoked as hell. Nothington, Elway, and All Aboard are like the
triforce of alcoholic punk rock bands. Together we can dominate
Hyrule through our reign of blacked out terror. There weren't many
people into the set (apparently, I don't really remember) but I am
told that I played a hilariously off-key cover of Basket Case and
repeatedly solicited the patrons of the restaurant for their money,
insisting “if you can afford a ten euro salad, you can afford to
buy a fucking shirt.” What is certain is that Benny and I drank a
bunch of Korn liquor and I had 2 whiskeys on stage. We went back to
the flat, where we made piss poor drunken decisions ranging from
moving a parked sub-compact car into some random hedges right outside
Benny's apartment (a collaborative effort between Elway, Nothington
and All Aboard), playing Banner Pilot records as loud as possible out
the window of the flat while the cops are moving said sub-compact
back into the parking space (Benny), pushing Heike through a thorny
shrub (Me) or pissing in Benny's cat Meowzers' litter box (Ryan
Donovan of Nothington). I'm pretty sure I made out with Benny at one
point and he used way too much tongue. I barely slept an hour when
Nothington had to depart for some city all the way across Germany. I
spent the entire next day with a perplexed “what the fuck have I
done?” face. Glory!
10/19 – Hanover
After burning away the majority of our
hang over at another fantastic American emigrated burrito spot in
Hamburg we set way to Hanover – a city known by the world for their
delicious little honey mustard Snyder's pretzels. We showed up late
to an acoustic pre-show to find there was no acoustic guitar and that
we needed to unload everything to get to an amp. Lucky for me
(Garrett) I completely avoided the situation and the entire show
getting lost down the banks of a foliage strewn river, one who's
dense leaves skimmed the surface and whose reflection lit it on fire.
I heard the show was okay.
We packed everything up and headed to
the our venue the Rehearsal Room, which as you might imagine, was a
rehearsal room. What you might not imagine however is that this
practice space was underneath a massive graffiti caked apartment
complex complete with living spaces, art studios, some sort of
library, bar, theater, steel sculptures (including a skull Statue of
Liberty – Awesome), and a half pipe. The practice room itself was
down a long wheat pasted corridor of practice rooms (in which people
were playing everything from Big Band to drop C tuned metal –
Awesome) and hosted a small stage, recording studio, couch, and a ton
of delicious little fake meatball things.
We played our set to a rather unphased
50 people packed in a 25'x25' room who asked politely for an encore
by gently clapping for like 2 full minutes when we finished our last
song. Loading out and driving back to the flat we were staying at we
were stopped at a DUI checkpoint to which we passed with flying
colors thanks to our hero and saint Dave Aboard while the rest of us
cheered drunkenly. Most laid out their sleeping stuff while others of
us were threatened with more drinking. Tim and I took a shot of 190
proof vodka, which fueled the good decision of me taking another one
that was on fire. I explained a story of once lighting a full shot of
Everclear on fire in a friends kitchen, spilling a little bit on my
hand, freaking out because my hand was on fire, and spilling it all
over the counter setting the kitchen on fire. As soon I was done
explaining the flammable properties of 95% alcohol one of the friends
of the house dropped his shot and caught the kitchen on fire. We put
out the fire and chased the shots with a half glass of 140 proof
Czech absinthe. More good decisions followed by going to a friend of
a friends birthday party of which the birthday girl was less than
stoked to see a random drunk American at her door. About 15 minutes
of socializing went down before I puked in a snack bowl and again
while running toward the door. Outside I failed to stand up straight
and ran backwards into a car. Thanks to our gracious host, Glenn, I
was led home and fell asleep promptly on the floor without sheet or
pillow. All pro.
10/20 - Giessen
Arriving in Giessen we met up with
friends Anni and her adorable watermelon-headed bulldog Gizmo at
their uber nice “wow I'm so jealous you can be so into punk rock
but afford this” home. After quizzing each other on coffee table
tourist facts of NYC we headed to our venue – a hastily graffitied
squat/infoshop nestled in an upper-middle class residential community
that surely lowered the overall real estate value within 100 meters.
The food was a delicious (note: Tim thought they went too heavy in
the ginger and cardamom – a true telling of how spoiled this tour
has made us) and the free beers came with a side of a dangerously
smooth bottle of vodka. Rounds of kicker and drinks were partaken
while I spent the hour and a half trying to tune a caved in headed
snare drum.
Dudes Turbostaat had next to sold out
the venue bringing a solid 350 to the show. Fearing that everyone was
there for them and the show would bring staggered rows of blank open
mouthed faces for us we were stoked to get some interest and thanks.
The bringers of dance Turbostaat went on with full fog machine and
laser light back drop - think The Killers meets Alkaline Trio meets
Bloc Party with German lyrics. I hopped into the audience and
celebrated the last band we would see in Europe with heavy flailing
and pretending to sing along while digging my face into the sweaty
backs of the beloved German people.
And with great pleasure – Thank you
sweaty German people. And the rest of you European and Eurasian and
British people. You all took amazing care of us and are very
attractive. We had the best tour we've ever had without a doubt.
Thank you miles-for-breakfast-eating Frank for staying sober and
driving our annoying 14-year-old mouths all over the continent (sorry
we destroyed your van). Thank you Leagues Apart for taking us around
the UK and Adam Bilboa for sacrificing 5 days of his life to drive us
after the van broke down. Thank you all pro All Aboard for letting us
fuck up your gear for six weeks, your van for two weeks, and your
band forever. Thank you to every promoter and promoter friends who
fed us, got us drunk, watched us butcher your show, and then put us
to bed after we got too drunk to find it. Thank you everyone who
helped us deal with whatever problems it indirectly/directly brought
about (ie lost/stolen stick bag, being detained, stolen merch, van
broken down, getting a new van, that van getting fucked up, etc). SEE
YOU ALL AGAIN SOON!
