THE 400 BLOOZ
Cologne, 12/16
hellish flight itinerary--leave hotel at 7.50am, fly to Oslo, pick up and recheck bags, fly miniature Lufthansa jet to Hamburg, fall asleep in waiting area, fly last leg to Cologne...no way to sleep more than 40 minutes in a row...all of that was completley forgotten by the end of the night (and not just because of the free shots). I loved the 1960s basement vibe of the MTC club...many friends in attendance, incl. Chris F. who picked me up and put me up (thank you!!), Hammi who took me to the local weasel bar, etc. etc. Cristina Dona back in the pack tonight, we love that! Also, thanks to Ullrich for lending me his keyboard and enduring Yanni jokes....
Berlin, 12/17
Cristina and I flew in to Tegel, and were picked up by Heike from the club, who, as it turns out, didn't know squat about driving. But a really nice person, anyway! There were some shenanigans in that I forgot to follow up on a loaner keyboard, and thus didn't really, uh, have one when it was time to soundcheck. Oh sheissse. Amazingly, Cristina Dona's intrepid traveling companion, Roberta, had 'met someone once who lives in Berlin that plays piano'. Really helpful, Roberta, I thought. But, incredible as it may sound, the said pianist is Sonia Brex, an Italienne musicienne living just 5 minutes from the Bastard, that being the venue of the night. So, Heike and I zipped over there after Sonia agreed to part with her rig for the evening, and loaded all 80 kilos of it incl. flight case down 6 flights of stairs, and into the car Heike had *borrowed*...the keyboard being so enormous that we couldn't close the back door. Which was OK, but when we pulled into Bastard's driveway, the door flung itself open and hit a bollard. Luckily, Heike was such a shit driver that she could never get the Opel out of first gear so we were never going more than 8 miles an hour. Furthermore, the traffic in Berlin is also so shit you can never go more than 7 miles an hour. Dirk, the sound eng., and I set up the keyboard, and found out, lo and behold, the sustain pedal didn't work...Dirk got out some very Dead Ringers-looking tools and managed to solder some things around that made it work...after a couple of tries...Dirk had to take several approaches as the solution was pretty obscure...but he managed, and for that I thank him! Also, I thank Gwendolin from Mondo Fumatore (who, being German, have supported the Posies and Saltine in Spain, natürlich) for lending me her amp, which worked with no electronic re-engineering! Other than that--show great, many drinks were had, and everybody who bought a shot was invited up on the metal stage...incl. Dieter and his friend who came 1000 km from Nuremburg...and appeared the next day in frankfurt!! After the show saw some punk band that wears rubber ducks and shit playing in some building that hadn't been cleaned since Prussia was a separate country. Thanks to Dani for accoms!
Frankfurt, 12/18
My friend Carsten, who has been invaluable for all things happening in and around Germany, came to Dani's and we hopped a cab to the train station, grabbing the train with all my crap as the doors were closing...as we had boarded the car closest to the stairs leading to the platform, we had to drag my guitar, giant suitcase, computer bag, and Carsten's bag thru 6 cars full of folks. We were in a reserved compartment with 3 other people, so basically I didn't fit. So I went to the restaurant car, and had a miserable croissant...which took 20 minutes for them to have ready! Got to the very drafty Frankfurt station, and made our way to the Nachtleben. Initially finding the coolheaded Micha a bit, well, cool, we thought maybe we were unwelcome or that my pathetic show ws going to be to 2 people (me and Micha), but things warmed up. There were sandwich makings in the fridge, wifi in the house, and great sound onstage. In fact, it was another fun night, great crowd (once I separated the two chatty gals in the front). Hard to find a restaurant that could take me and my friends on a saturday night at 7 with no res., but we managed. My voice had some real killer Rod Stewart rasp going, which made me sound even more Eemoe. Thanks to Claudia, who I have been friends with since 1993 when she came to see the Posies support Teenage Fanclub in Frankfurt, for taking me in to her home in Heidelberg (sweet little mountain village, that a very cheap and noxious beer is named after, used to be the cheapest beer in Bellingham) *and* taking me to the airport the next day...above and beyond!! And a big Fork Yü to Lufthansa, who charged me 102 Euros for my overweight bag for the (empty) flight to Geneva, when they charged me nothing for it when I flew Oslo-Hamburg-Cologne. So, the necessity for taking 100 Euros out of my family's hands was what exactly? I will not be flying them again anytime soon, and I urge my readers to avoid them if possible....til they friendly up the act a bit.
On a lighter note, things look fine tonight in Geneva, see you Belgians, Finns and Italian folk soon.
Love
KS
Geneva CH
