Week 3: Germany Continues

9/10/13 – Keller, Stuttgart, GER / Spice Girls Karaoke

Wake up. Burger King WiFi. Rolls, cheese, hot sauce. Depart. Arrive in Stuttgart. Good Riddance show. We play first. No dancing. No sweating. Everyone pressed against bars/walls to be as far away as possible from us. Get off. Talk to friend Annie on the interwebs for a while. She's never lived in one place for more than a year. Year is almost up. Not sure if she wants to move but as with every new city she could be happier. To stick it out or to start over. Something about opening a black room in Mexico. Something about joining a farm in Oregon. Or going anywhere else in the world. How do you stay in one place when there's still so many things left. I sigh.

Good Riddance closes show. Hangs. Karaoke next door. Guy offers to buy us entire handle of Jack if we sing Spice Girls. We kill Spice Girls. We kill handle of Jack. Another bar. I talk to some lady who left her friends for over an hour about skiing or something. Depart to hostel. Drink beers we definitely didn't need because they were only a Euro. Pass out.

9/11/13 – Schaubude, Kiel, GER / Snoop Lion

Wake up. Three hours sleep. Leave super early for ten hour drive. Thinking about conversation with Annie. Driving. Drinking. Playing. Drinking. Sleeping a minute. Driving. Can't keep a job. Can't keep a girlfriend. Dreams of friends, small house, porch, projects, garden, fire pit, a hammock. I'm balding. 

Arrive in Kiel. Schaubude's a quaint bar. One million delicious sandwich halves. Beers. We play. Dancing. Sweat. Mid street shenanigans with Benny our booking guy, myself, and trying to shove another into cars. Head to promoters house who we are staying with. He's pissed because we were supposed to leave hours ago. Get to apartment. Get really high, which I don't do. Listen to Snoop Lion (Snoop Dogs new name after he found Jah and a mango or something. Great stuff). Pass out. 

9/12/13 – Casiopeia, Berlin, GER

Wake up. Three and a half hours sleep. Still high. Lock bag inside apartment. Promoter's at work. Spend twenty minutes with credit card, clothes hanger, riding crop trying to break in. Leave to van. Call promoter. Turns out he's home (somehow he didn't hear the twenty minutes of pounding and yelling of the word “fuck!” - he hates us). Depart. Go to pick up our Chicago friend Lauren who's going to do merch for us for a while. Get to Berlin airport. Turns out she's not coming until tomorrow. Leave Berlin airport. Arrive Berlin.

Casiopeia. East German abandoned warehouse complex. Multiple venues, cafes, restaurant, outdoor/indoor skate park, climbing wall (cool!). Upstairs green room with too many shots. Illicit substance. We play. Dancing. Sweat. Hilarious strobe lights/fog machine. Snoop Lion outro. Pack into little cab. Load stuff into Steffi's. Some punk bar. Girl named Mari everyone is trying to keep upright. Something about eating babies. Something about Sarte. Not keeping her shoes on. Very intense fooze ball game. Drunk drama. Side walk bro talks. Some people leave to find clubs (turns out no one would let them in). I pass out.

9/13/13 – Ramones Museum, Berlin, GER / More Karaoke

Wake up. Urge to dance and keep drinking. I play shitty rap out of my phone, finish half drank beers, and dance around the house. Turns out the speed is still working. A few of us find half bottle of Vodka at noon. Finish vodka by noon-thirty. More dancing. Go out to buy some beers. More dancing. Four PM comes. Lauren Chicago friend arrives. We go to old airport that is now park. Attempt to play mini art golf but all we are capable of is laying in the middle of the course drinking beers from the bar. The idea of Falafel arrives. Nothing can stop us. Walk/take train across town to the best falafel joint in the world called Alli Baba. Giant plate of falafel with every color of vegetable imaginable. Food massacre. Finally sober. Head to Ramones Museum for acoustic show. Open bar. Totally exhausted. Tim plays. Drunken sing alongs. Show ends. Take train to Karaoke bar we have password to so we don't have to pay. Tim sings total eclipse of the heart. I take my shirt off for a shot. Homeless guy on a bike mini speaker dance party outside club. Fastest taxi ever. Pass out.

9/14/13 – AJZ “Back to the Roots Festival,” Leisnig, GER / It works!

Wake up. Drive toward Leisnig. Bring Steffi to drop off in Leipzig. Wrong way. Leave Steffi to hitchhike (she gets picked up by Pastor because he said she looks “desperate”). Arrive at festival. Place is called AJZ. A community center with indoor/outdoor stage, half pipe, bars, kitchen, and some sort of pool run by anarchists (cool!). City pays for most of it but doesn't know what actually happens. Hardcore bands. We totally don't fit in. Drink tent. Mexicana shots. Food tent. Delicious vegan Goulash. Kill bottle of Fefe (think mouth wash) and something cherry. Sound check. Nothings really working. We play. Monitors go off after first song. Dancing. Sweat. Crowd surfing. Someone jumps off PA on stage. Load out. Dance party. Weird 90's songs redone to be German (fun fact: a lot of western music couldn't be played in East Germany so they would redo the songs with different lyrics). 5 am picnic table talking. Climb into loft bunk thing nine feet tall and almost die. Pass out.

9/15/13 - Black Label Pub, Leipzig, GER

Wake up. Almost die again climbing out of bunk. Stumble around. Tons of people help cleaning. Find breakfast. Spreads, cheeses, breads, coffee. Talk to promoter people for a while. Everyone is a volunteer. No one paid. Place has existed for eleven years. Concert was a benefit for a guy who killed himself from the stress of organizing the same festival in year past. Turns out guy is promoter girls sister. I sigh. Depart. 

Arrive in Leipzig. Rad promoter's house. Internet and showers. Gigantic monument dedicated to the defeat of Napoleon. Black Label Pub. Old warm bar. Dim wooden stage. In neighborhood totally covered in graffiti. Atacolypse outside. Best burritos in Germany made by sweet Texan lady. All vegan. Eat too much. Beers and really nice scotch. Cool park full of punks with giant slides and trampoline spider web thing. Play lazy show. Eighty people packed in tiny room. Sweat. Run into friend from last year Nadine. Central heating, politics, and helicopter cats. A relatively sober walk. Pass out.

9/16/13 - Emil, Zittau, GER

Wake up. Spreads, cheeses, breads, coffee. Walk to protest. Extremist right wing German pride group protesting in front of squat. So many armored cops couldn't even see extremist group. Opposition just sort of standing there. Overall: two and a half stars. Depart. Drive down tiny roads through staggered colorful neighborhoods. Arrive in very East German town of Zittau (we were told we could walk to Poland). Acoustic show at skate shop. Also sells spray paint and bongs. Walk down narrow winding streets. Some houses in rubble.  Black plague plaque still hung.

Emil is a three story venue with a kitchen and bunks. Delicious stuffed white pepper stew meal made by four star chef. Nap. Wake up moments before show. Slam a few shots of hairspray vodka. Play show. Dancing. Sweat. Everyone else in band but me is totally wasted. Shit talk that didn't translate. Get off stage. More hairspray vodka. Ping-pong person talk. Henny's (German beer-mosas). Late conversation about I don't remember. Fancy step night walk down river. Pass out.