Sept. 21, 2004 - 3:53
well we're back. ahhh home. gummo looks dapper. silky fur and a gentle demeanor which makes me think david dune put some voodoo on him. just like julie did the last time. bubblegum gangster!
think i will take another nap soon. i mean a kip.
i left you in dresden last time day before my birthday.
we did do some sightseeing that day and walked a lot and saw some historical sites and learned that dresden was a real mix of old and new---new since the crap was bombed out of it in WWII. colin, simon and richard all decided to roll down a huge hill. they tucked in their arms and rolled just like in the princess bride. they weren't even hurt.
that nite we went to matthias and his girlfriend catherine's flat. they cooked us a huge meal.
gourmet zuccini and tomato soup and meat loaf and vegitarian grilled mushroom things and salad and a peach kind of gelato creamy thing. they should open a restaurant. really! and then after midnite everyone sang happy birthday to me. little kinder chocolates and gumballs was my last minute bday cake. i loved it.
next day we left to play a show in munich. some of our german shows, specifically the munich, dusseldorf , and hamburg ones didn't come through but vermont, through their german music mafia connections hooked us up with a show in munich and in Rosswein for the open days. because they rule. mario, guitarist in vermont, is from munich and lots of his pals came out and his parents and grandparents. they were so nice. i gave sabine my earplugs to give to them. because sometimes we are loud. and
for the hundreth time i wished i spoke german. i know bitte and wasser.
our set was that nite was not technically spectacular but i have to say it was very exciting and memorable. matt jumped from an amp that was on top of speakers about 6 feet high. which is sort of high. i was worried he was going to break something but he landed on his feet like gummo and stood up to the mic in time for the chorus of Schwervon. people presented us with jagermeister shots. aww shit.
mais has been singing the "on" in schwervon and playing tambourine with us every nite on that song and it's going to be wierd to play that song without him now.
he always sings "on" like a question.
"ONN??????"
i wore my patriotic dress that nite in honor of my bday and also put the apron camilla made me around the rack tom.
matthias didn't even mind playing with a flower on the drumkit.
that nite we stayed with mario's parents in a very beautiful house in the country. slept like babies.
woke up to gourmet breakfast laid out for us! his dad showed us a "chi machine" which is this contraption that loosens up your spine and back muscles. you place your feet on it and it shakes your whole body (lying on the floor) and after a few minutes you feel totally different. well everyone had to try it but i made the mistake of doing it right after i ate and could feel my breakfast sloshing around.
i only did 2 minutes.
We drove to Rosswein that day which was sort of a long drive. have discovered the secret to riding in a van and being comfortable is to be very tired. if you are too well-rested you get jumpy and it takes forever.
luckily for us, we kept having late nites dancing so our van rides were full of kips.
i love that word kip.
and also MOPPET.
The Rosswein show was in a youth community center type building. Usually hardcore bands play there which explained the most excellent sound system. like really being able to hear the vocals extremely well as well as rock out guitar. usually you get one or the other it's challenging to get the mix exactly right....at least for how it feels to us on stage. but dani, mais' friend, ran sound and i think he is my favorite soundperson. he got it right. the promoters fed us pasta and salad before the show. the show itself felt good. we played more mellow songs like "sidesaddle" which we hadn't touched in months but it clicked and was my favorite of our set that nite. vermont was beautiful. such fullness of sound and all the little guitar parts i'm still discovering...there are these little simon guitar niblets and then the bass will come out for a second and matthias' snare hits and colin and sabine's interaction is fantastic.... her voice is beautiful and colin sometimes sings around her like carrie brownstein to corin tucker if you know what i mean. i have had their song holes in my head all day today
the lines
"hiding in the high grass
hoping not to grow"
after the show we talked in the backstage area for a while and matt started a foodfight with these chips called "peanut worms". they're not worms though. just peanut flavored cheetos. we met these two students who took the train from dresden to see the show. one of them looked like turner cody and the other like crispin glover.
went to bed in the upstairs of the venue and there was a room with like 20 mattresses with sheets on them. someone was snoring that nite like a machine gun. i think it was mais. but there was also a steady snore underneath it. it was two layers of percussive snoring.
and then matt was snoring next to me. that makes 3 snorers.
i should've recorded it and used it in a perf. art piece.
next morn they fed us rolls and meats and cheeses and nutella and cereal and coffee.
we drove to leipzig, which is a couple of hours from Rosswein.
Got there early and hung around downtown for a couple hours. I had a jacket potato.
we bought some souvenirs and then met daniel to go to the venue.
it was in a cave like building.
daniel did the sound and once again, it felt great sound-wise. i think if your name has "dan" in it it means you are a good soundperson. heh.
oh, i forgot to mention that walking into our leipzig venue, colin hurt his back. i mean like pulled a muscle can't walk type of hurt. he had to lie down for his soundcheck while playing perfect guitar riffs of course. he went to the hospital while the rest of us were eating Yent's amazing veggie meal of brown rice, veggies, and curry. we saved some for him though. colin came back with a clean bill of health and some painkillers about 10 minutes before they went on stage. he played most of the set lying down and the audience thought it was part of the act. I thought, despite the tragicness, that it was kind of funny and intriguing to see someone singing and playing while lying down. for the last couple songs, he tried to stand up. first he tried to sit up without rolling over onto his side and i shouted onto the stage to "ROLL OVER ON YOUR SIDE!".
i learned from yoga that it puts strain on your neck and spine to get up straight like that...you should roll over onto your side and use your arms to pick your body up.
well he got on his feet to a room of thunderous applause.
it was quite dramatic!
oh yeah i also forgot to mention that sabine's hand has been in a cast the whole tour....she fell off her bicycle the day before the tour. but she never favored that arm really and i guess i got used to seeing her with the cast.....hmmm knock on wood no one else got injured outside of a few bruises. i always get these bruises on my arm moving the cymbals while sitting on the drum stool. like duh, get up and go move the cymbal so you don't bang it on your arm.
after the leipzig show we all stayed with daniel in his flat. i don't think he knew that we would be 11 people. but he was a great sport and everyone stayed up talking while i crashed on the sofa bed. next morning we went to a grocery store to get bfast for everyone. warm rolls and cheese and potato salad and meats. then we drove to berlin.
berlin! the second we pulled up outside our venue we noticed there was an art show going on.
we peeked in the windows to miniature cars and cardboard houses and then went to to get something to eat. of course! i had broccoli buds, the first green i'd had in days.
then we took a walk around the historical city center part and lie down in the grass and it was the perfect temperature with sun shining but a breeze and we all fell asleep for an hour. we are like a circus. we get into town, load our stuff into the venue, set up, soundcheck, forage for food, relax, set up merch table, then showtime.
that nite was hot and crowded and jules showed up and took us for a quick walk around to an art party and then to his university and by the time we got back to Zosch (our venue) vermont took the stage. and made people dance! and dani did our sound again and it felt rockin'. one of those shows where you go, "i can do this for a long time i like this".
afterwards what do you think we did? DANCED! matt thinks we got a lot of exercise on this tour. in between all the chips and chocolate we ate.
around 4 we decided to go to our promoter leah's flat for bed. the rest of vermont wanted to rage all nite so we split up into two camps and all met the next morning. some of them hadn't slept but it just gets to that point on the tour where the people who haven't slept look the same as the people who have slept and the important questions are, "where are we going? what time is soundcheck? when do we eat?"
last show was in dresden that nite, at Madness, aka the vermont hang out lounge. sabine found out that morning that benjamin her rabbit had died. that was really sad. i don't know how long rabbits live but he had seemed fine the week before. he was a gray floppy eared snarf bean. damn.
Madness wasn't as big as Schoene the place we had played a week earlier, and so we thought we'd be doing an unplugged set, complete with all schwerve keyboard songs and some matt solo and me solo. we practiced a little for it, but once we got to the venue and saw vermont play a blistering rock set despite acoustic instruments we decided to rock out schwerve stylee, esp. since PA could handle it. even though i just played snare and floor tom and matt's guitar was a touch lower in volume than usual it felt smoking. and we did actually play a MMM songs w/ matthias on drums and me on keys. it was at that point that i was crouched in the corner by a window playing the keyboard when some people walked by and stared at me and pressed their face to the glass. i waved at them.
after the show we got falafel and had a last party with vermont. it was sad the tour was over. i
am listening to their cd right now and it is really freaking good. i mean, i knew it would be after hearing them play so many shows, but it's really great. i love that piano bit as the hidden track too.
here are some pics. i hope i linked them right.
big hugs and thank yous to lovely people.
emma rugg in hull
daniel from leipzig
paul at the adelphi
alun in edinburgh
camilla in bristol
lisa in london
anna, antony, didie in brighton
the entire staff of dr. drakes and all of aberdeen really
paul goldstein
jules in berlin
tom in dresden
i can still see simon telling me to read "doors of perception" and making funny cow "moo" faces and richard asleep at sabine's kitchen table and waking up speaking in a posh accent a la colin firth and mais saying "no worries about that" and tripping on matt's pedals while singing schwervon with us and sabine dancing with a neck pillow on her head and colin playing guitar on his knees and matthias setting up his drums in such a focused gentle way and mario smiling at me with the wink in his eyes and adey making jokes in the backseat while reaching one arm up to make sure the luggage didn't fall on our heads.
ahh i miss them.
i think this was the best summer camp i've ever been to.
