Introducing: Justin Rowand, Stefan, Tom Chapman, Carsten, Judith and various Turks, maniacs and your humble narrator.
3-8-06, 4pm
Kool G Rap and Big L (herein identified by K.G.R. as "hazardous" and well within his means to "hold it di-down.") passing through East Orange
5pm
Justin's dad is rippin down 22 on the way to the airport. "Continental," I remind. "Conne-nennal," he acknowledges. A prince among north Jerseyans.
Me- Johnny Walker Red & Coke. Justin- flattest Ginger Ale in Newark. We're gonna be a loony pair by the time we get on board. Me, lit on J.W.R. and Pain Belt Mc Gee Quasimoting forth like the rock biter from Neverending Story. My man's keeping his humor up positing names for future bands (combining bands we've both been in (i.e. Automataste.) Boarding in 5 minutes and there is NO WAY Pain Belt Barbie over here isn't on at least 4 medications right now.
3-9-06
This poor college age girl was squeezed between (a mumbling and squirmy) JRo and I for 8 hours of both of us girl-kidney-ing out (getting up to number 1 it non-stop) and reading each other Sopranos trivia cards on level 5 difficulty.
Tom and Stefan picked us up at the airport and Justin and I exchanged $s for Euros. I slept for 10-15 minutes out of 8 hours on the plane, so it was all surreal. Stefan painted out the airport that Hitler commissioned. Tom's flat is rad and heated with a small wood burning stove, which I, of course, made a beeline for. I wasn't cold; just a mild to medium pyro who loves that cozy shit. We rolled to the rec. store (Core Tex) where Tom works, stopping at a Turkish coffee shop/bakery for some brutal Turkish brews. The store was 100% punk/HC and despite the fact that they carried no metal, the custom-made steel shelves looked like they were cut from a submarine hull.
I lasted about 45 minutes there (including the time I took to track down this falafel place, which I never found- instead spotting a vegan place close by, where I picked up a huge order of pommes and a double chicken sandwich. Then, it was a solo trek back to Tom's to crash for a few hours. I woke up at 6:30pm to Justin moaning and talking in his sleep. His back is continuing to cause him tremendous pain. Tom was making seitan from scratch so I fixed myself some tea and cleaned his kitchen- clearing an area for me to help him prep dinner. Stefan, Judith, Tom (Judith's boy) and Sarah (Stefan's girl) were arriving in a couple hours for dinner. While Tom was draining the gluten, I was seasoning and roasting potatoes. Stefan showed first and made some red cabbage and apples. Justin was loaded up on meds and experiencing enough of a dulling (while loopy as hell) to go on a comedic rampage. The Germans loved him up.
After various Becks and assorted Germanic Pilsners we hit the snowy streets and took a cab to the bar (Feuermerder, meaning "fire station") that Carsten works at. Broetry was in the air and Jager shots, mehr Becks, whiskey and cokes were on the bar.
There was a serious billiards game in the other wing of the bar- serious aside from the crust-dog that kept jumping up on the table.
Some dude rolled on us offering "space cookies." I may or may not have bought 2. Our mutual friend Annette showed shortly after the space cookie shuttle took off. Back @ Tom's I made some toast w/Tartex and for some "spacey" reason and it was begging to abandon my belly within approximately 53 seconds. I held the fort.
3-10-06 (weekend Battle Royale tour)
We rose @ about noon and tea'd it up until Tom had to go to work @ Core Tex. I followed after a shower and hit Yellow Sunshine for the dbl. chicken and brutally good pommes. 2 stops on the train had us near the Battle Royale practice space, but the several block walk from the train stop
to the space was too much for JRo, so I waited with him at the stop, taking photos of sculpture along the North Canal, which ran parallel to the tracks.
The ride to Greifswald
took at least a few hours, as we hit an accident and had to pull over in a blizzard for Justin to show Dresden his Wurst.
The youth center the show was at was a pretty cool set-up: PA (of course the kid behind the board was totally clueless) bar/café', bedrooms and kitchen upstairs, etc...
We stayed up til 2 or so drinking Polish vodka (Greifswald being close to the border) with and without apfel juice.
(Here we see Stefan and Tom frozen in mid-face-shake with bizarre syncronicity)
I made an enemy quickly in an uncomfortably friendly and generic white, dreadlocked crusty kid named "Ekey" or "Icky" when I asked why Germans consider mixing their Mary Jane with Tobacco [in a fuckin 5% weed ratio] superior. Plus, I limited myself to 4 shots of vodka, which did not curry and favor with our crust-afarian.
3-11-06
Bad dreams all night and woke up pissy and down. Justin was already up and talking a mile a minute. The Germans are silly for a numbers game I was ignorant of (Sudoko.) Tom was soon shirtless with Suduko lust.
The chain-smoking at breakfast ruined my roll-swallowing, but Carsten made me espresso from the set-up he brings with him everywhere. I find this highly endearing in 38 year old grindcore fellows. As we prepped to head out to see a local dude's boat [at a small harbor off the Baltic Sea]
Justin was discovered to have konked out out again. He was out for the morning /afternoon, it seemed. We headed in to town and had a nice, cold walk.
I tried to unsuccessfully break into an abandoned barn on the harbor and played with a stray dog before we headed back. The snowball fighting began at this point and it wasn't long until Judith was entirely hidden behind a fence- fearing my vicious Oral Hershiser snow-arm. Stopping back, before heading out to "the real harbor" (a better view of the Baltic) we got JRo up and out. I was hoping he would be able to keep up with us, but his condition seemed to be degenerating and debilitating him more and more every day. We drove a few miles away and Justin limped directly into one of the few fish restaurants nearby for a coffee and some wurst. No wurst to be found there, but he elected to stay, sit, and smoke. At this point, I felt absolutely terrible for him and in awe of how selfless he was being in not wanting to hold us back.
Tom, Judith, Stefan, Carsten, and some kid involved with the Greifswald youth center walked to the end of the pier. Tom and I took time out to find new and innovative ways to be brutal while standing on a small, overturned rowboat.
Also, Tom charged the pier topless in his own particular idiom.
Regenerated by metallion and Tom Chapmanarian antics,
I was amped on the cold and the exercise. I took some photos of ice sheets on the Baltic and the characters I was with.
As we headed back to the van, Justin was just getting his food at a harbor seafood restaurant. I tried for 10 minutes to explain to an irate northern German waitress that we needed to get his food put into a to-go container. (While we explored earlier, I kept running in to check on Justin and try to get him to join us, so Frau Pissy Pisserkrauten took a disliking to me prob. Somewhere around my 5th barreling in to report that Tom and I reenacted a Dark Throne cover outside a "delightful little fish café." On the ride back to the youth center, Tom and Carsten wrassled and we turned Judith crimson with laughter at the photos taken the night before.
The show in Neubrandenburg was rough to find in the dark, as it was held in a converted ski lodge in the mountains that, for a few years, has been an alternative youth center (i.e. punk shows and radical left organizing funded by the government.)
Up off the road and obscured by snow-covered forest, it was an impressive space but the hill up to the stairs was steep and icy, and Justin was in agony by now. (He would later load up on pain meds and pass out for 90% of the show.) Also, we wouldn't eat until 9-10 pm so it wasn't all foosball and Dark Throne references. The kids at the youth center didn't want to start the show til 11:30pm at least because of the severe weather/travel conditions, so we had 4 or so hours to kill. The PA was on, so I got on stage and rapped some NWA and Public Enemy songs while Carsten got dumb on the drum. Tom videotaped it. Total blast. Kids were starting to poke their heads in, so the main organizer shut me down, as he didn't want anyone to think the show was starting. I hopped down and got Tom revved with a proposal that "mehr Becks" be our guide until the full mosh rises.
Axt (described as "relaxed HC" on the flyer, tho they were a really fast and growly (albeit mediocre- Disrupt rip-off) had the kids staring blankly. BR were fucking sick and pulled off the best set out of the several I've been witness to.
Just Went Black followed and ripped.
I rapped with Ole (guitar) before their set, who seemed thoroughly annoyed with me- especially after I accidentally called him 'Sven' and found myself on the receiving end of, "No, I'm the other German guy." I tried to intercept with a diffusive, "Yeah, you all look the same to me," but his glare didn't acknowledge the well-intentioned sarcasm. … and just when I thought hairline solidarity would prevail.
There was no dancing/off-going to be had during the show at all, except when I picked up Stefan and ran with him though the crowd. I gotta say- in a New Brunswick basement or w/the right crowd @ ABC, that would have gotten at least a handful of kids riled enough for things to snowball, but no such mosh, here.
(FOOSBALL LAMENTATION PORTION OF THE JOURNAL)--
Having been foos-troyed by local Germans- clearly foos-netically predisposed to smoke us mercilessly- I made no attempt to approach the table. Instead, I elected to knock out some mehr Becks and check on our West Orange cripple bastard, who was still passed out on heavy painkillers.
(FAILED FLIRTATION LAMENTATION PORTION OF THE JOURNAL)--
At this juncture, I struck up conversation with the blonde, dreadlocked woman depicted an above photo of Just Went Black. As is often the case with your humble narrator, the dialogue took off in an inspiringly flirt-astic fashion only to quickly fizzle when Tom refused to translate for me on the grounds that "she's too dumb anyway." Somehow erroneously riding the wave of my dork- tasterous venture into the mention that, "... my cat's name is Simone, too!" I was initially disappointed and gave him an F+ in bro-nometry, but I soon discovered how right he was and thanked him later.
Another beer and another trip upstairs, I found JRo packing up. He informed me that we were leaving in a few minutes rather than staying overnight. A blizzard was in full effect and we slid off the road 100 feet out from our parking spot @ the show space- or as Justin put it, "The Communist party house." The ride back to Berlin was harrowing and characterized by next to 0% visibility and less traction. I was drinking a liter bottle of lemon-flavored Bavarian pilsner (its consumption being met with a Chapmanian disapproval that would make my disapproval of all things Tim Allen and factory farming look like Glen Benton's disapproval of inverted crosses burned into foreheads) and trying to sleep, as the only alternative to watching the road. Predictably, every time I opened my eyes from any of several naps, they darted alternately from the speedometer to the road. Stefan was averaging 80 KPH and I averaged 3 minutes per escapist nap in the course of the 3 hour drive. It was 6am when we rolled into the BR practice space and unloaded their equiptment. Ultimately, I crashed out at Tom's by 8 or 9.
3-12-06
Tom woke me up at 4pm- 3 hours after the vegan brunch at the café' Judith works at ended. I wasn't happy. Tom had awesomely picked up some rolls and I squeezed in some mushroom tartex along w/my tea and Tom and I headed out to Checkpoint Charlie- the Berlin Wall museum.
We spent a good deal of time here and I was dehydrated and starving by the time we got done. We trekked for quite a ways to a vegan Chinese/Thai buffet place, which Tom wasn't even certain was open. I was hurtin for veg. Asian really bad and probably would have done enough kicking and screaming to make Eric Stoltz proud if it was geschlossen. Once in, Tom and I committed to the "neither noodles nor rice" rule, whereupon the first round would be relatively starch-free, opening the gorge-gates for criminal swallowing thereafter. Tom sold-out and I jovially returned the critical vibe he took with me and my dainty "girl beer" ways. A bit later, Wiebke (flickr.com friend of mine who is an accomplished vegan chef, whom I had never previously met, but was enthused to befriend based on cooking nerd unity.) Tom had known her for a bit and we all had a nice time eating and talking about cooking and being older in punk.
We went from the restaurant to a show @ Wild At Heart (a Berlin club I had played @ with The Cable Car Theory in 2000 and had crappy experiences with) to catch I Walk The Line- a Finnish band who I'd most closely compare to Murder City Devils with some Elvis Costello flavor and, at times, Perter Murphy vocals.
Tom thought the singer sounded a bit like Gary Neuman. He bought me a "girl-Becks" that was almost clear to fuck with me and I later tipped a bartender 3 Euros for 3 Becks, which totaled 6 Euros. She beamed as if I had pulled her from a car fire. I recalled hearing that they don't tip much here, if at all…
3-13-06
The next afternoon I met up with Wiebke, who was a great tour guide (and great listener, as I prattled on about feeling unsettled leaving behind projects on my house, even temporarily.)
We walked back to Tom's flat, where Tom and I began prepping for a 2-prongedfeast of rice w/a choice of peanut/coconut curry (w/zucchini, tofu, chopped ginger, and carrot) or a mushroom, onion, TVP black bean sauce. Judith and Urte- who used to visit Simone and Amanda T. in the early/mid 90s and who I haven't seen in 12 years- came over. Full and espresso'd, Tom and I left (my double bass pedal in tow) to the practice space to write some thrash metal. I asked JRo for the tra-dillionth time if he could make it off the couch, as he had written some songs and one of the main reasons we flew over was to do a project with Tom. He could barely move at all; totally debilitated.
The 2 of us messed about w/Neurosis-y stuff for a little while until I asked Tom to go "whee-deeewww-nyeeww-nyeeww!" (I make the speed metal riffs wit my mouf) and the butchery commenced. Soon enough, we had recorded (on what looked to be a My Little Pony boombox) 2 tracks that had elements of: Cryptic Slaughter, Crossed Out, Nihilist, and a little Dissection.
We played the tape for Couchin Rowand, and watched a documentary on skinhead culture- wherein, between the 3 of us, we knew 5-7 of those interviewed- and bullshitted til 4am, only to wake up just after 6 to call a cab to take us to Berlin Tegal Airport. I arose miserable and gross- no time for a shower and Justin's back pain had reached new heights. Negotiating even short walks in the small airport was devastating for him and the flight was the most turbulent I've ever been on. We flew over Greenland, which was gorgeous, but not the best view when combined with a gauging of the probability that one or both of the wings- flapping hard in the turbulence- would snap off.
Justin thanked me profusely for all I did for him in his disabled state and made a special point to offer up his body for my consumption if we went down in the tundra. I promised myself that I would hum Taste of Fear while I gnawed on his tendons.
