The last show

There's a combination of exhaustion and a sense of loss as a tour draws to it's end. No matter how many problems there were and how difficult things were as the last show approaches one becomes nostalgic sad elated and tired all at once. I can't wait to go home but I don't want it to end. I played a last minute show in Paris tonight thanks to Mika. Getting there was a serious adventure. The night before was the last group show with the fellas in Le mans. I think though we were all exhausted it was easily the best show. I felt like steve and Kamil were actually listening to each other and were finally somewhat in synch. I still think we never quite worked out a whole set but such is life. The next day we woke late and Mika confirmed the show in Paris. We left around two and as per usual Kamil avoided the toll roads and consequently we arrived during late rush hour traffic. It was determined that if we tried to take the van to the center of Paris we'd be stuck in traffic all night. Roco, Vanessa, and I ended up getting out at the outermost subway stop and shlepping all my stuff on the train. I almost got stuck with my tuba on my back in the turnstile and it was pretty crowded in the train but we manages to both get to my hotel room and avoided clobbering anyone with my tuba case. After checking in we hopped back on the subway for a few stops to get to the club. At the last second I realized that I would need Kamil's power converter to plug my equipment in. Fortunately he was still dropping steve off at his hotel so he was able to get to the venue in plenty of time to make the show happen. The show almost fell apart due to equipment problems but I took a break and solved the sound issues and it ended up being really fun. After We hung out for a while and one by one said goodbye. I hugged roco and mike and Kamil and realized I would miss them all very much. We all struggled together and battled our way through five weeks and that'll either turn you into enemies or friends and I can gladly say it was the latter. The question of whether I would tour together again is a whole other issue that is more about how I like to do things than how much I like all these people. I know we'll all be friends for life even if we never get in to a van together again. I will miss Europe very much and I can't wait to get cracking on booking another absurd over the top adventure of a tour. Now we'll see if I make it home tomorrow as it was snowing after the show. The subway had stopped running and it was impossible to get a cab so that meant a 3.5k walk in the snow and rain. I'm totally exhausted but awake and wired at the same time...

A moment of some kind

So we pull over at a tiny gas station in the middle of nowhere between Bordeaux and Britagne. It's Sunday and it's pretty dead and not much is open so we decide to eat there. It reminds me of a trucker stop in Texas. There's a small tv in the corner and it's showing a really absurd shakira video. We order some sketchy food that's edible but far from French standard fare. Truck stop food. We finish our meal and on the tv an Iggy Pop video comes on and there, briefly on tv, for 3 truckers and the two old ladies who work at the cafe to see, is Steve Mackay. I look over at Steve and he's discreetly throwing up his beef goulash back on to his plate and covering it with napkins. About fifteen minutes later after we're back on the road driving Steve receives a phone call. Who is it? Iggy Pop of course...

Good will

Kamil is a great guy. He means really well and in many ways we are very similar. He tends towards a dark negativity with which I can relate but I do think it's important to fight that tendency and see good in people and the world around us. Otherwise what's the point. I do think our vastly different upbringings influence this difference though. He grew up under communist rule and spent a couple years in prison for political reasons. Though we have different ways of doing and seeing things it's mostly that we're both stubborn in our ways which makes things difficult. I think the responsibilities of taking care and worrying for steve have also accentuated all the trials and tribulations of the tour. Steve too is an amazing person. He's pretty straight forward about the drinking and he's certainly experienced everything under the sun. At this point I'm not sure this tour was the best idea for him. I hope that if he does this again he makes sure there is a certain level of comfort involved. I've felt like at certain moments there was just not nearly enough planning on Kamil's part in relation to how certain situations would effect steve. It's a serious responsibility and I think Kamil dropped the ball a bit. It's different for me and Roco and Mika. I can deal and adapt to any situation. I'm not sure Kamil fully understood before the tour what physical and mental condition steve was at. Also, musically Kamil obvious wants something specific and I think steve is not necessarily on the same wavelength and in the same place. I kind of wish they'd discussed what they wanted to do more before the tour but I don't think that's Kamil's style. He's a force of nature and he just plows forward without always thinking through repercussions and consequences and such. In any case there's not much that can be done now. There are three shows left and they should be pretty good and I've learned invaluable lessons and had some truly amazing experiences. I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna practice a lot and write new songs and I'm gonna learn some French and some Italian and I can't wait to book another tour...

Bread and cheese

It's crazy how much better the bread is in France. Incredibly tasty and rich. Italy as well. Most of my meals have consisted of bread cheese and occasionally sausage. I think that's pretty much my favorite meal in the world at this point. I guess it's kind of like barbecue in Texas or fried fish in new Orleans or burritos in California. Who knows exactly why but the bread here is an entirely different meal unto itself

The good soldier

I'm playing the good soldier. I'm good at putting my head down and doing the job that needs to be done but I can clearly say that I will never be the cog on someone else's wheel again. Im fully capable of following orders I don't agree with but it's a little soul sapping. This tour has explained quite clearly to me why I chose to do a solo act. I prefer living life on my own terms...

For example

A good barometer of how I will do things different when I come back to Europe on my own is the way we've done hotels. We've only gotten two on the trip. One was a youth hostel type thing in Berlin and the other was tonight in Bordeaux. I initially found a good three star place online for 42 euros. Everyone else wanted to stay at a formula 1. Little box rooms with shared showers and bathrooms. I sucked it up but it really makes a difference if you spend a tiny bit more bit experience serious luxury

Quintessential moment of the tour

Steve has a horrible hacking cough that makes me cringe when I listen to it. It's like listening to nails on a chalkboard. As we're leaving Claremont ferrond he's doing his basic disoriented thing and he's mumbling about how he needs a pharmacy but he's pulling the old martyr thing of how it'll probably be too difficult to stop but he really needs to get to the pharmacy. I try to calm him down and I tell him that we're definitely gonna hit a pharmacy on the way out of town.
After playing my song the night before we went back to the house of the promoters which was not that bad and crashed. Mika and Roco drove with a friend to saint ettienne after the show so that Mika could spend the day with his daughter who he misses very much. In the morning I got to talk to marlin one of the promoters for a while and it turns out she's very nice. I think the show exhausted her a bit because since they do the shows in different spaces there's a lot of equipment and food and drinks to move and set up. I forced myself to chat her up and get info about doing a show in the spring which changes my whole perspective on the evening. Turns out she's not nearly as indifferent as she appeared and I was impressed by some of her ideas and aspirations. Basically I figure all the absurdity of this tour is ok as long as I get something out of it that I can use. At a certain point in the afternoon we decide to head to saint ettienne and as it's only an hour and a half away I figure we're in no rush so I keep my eyes peeled to a pharmacy. Steve is chain smoking away as per usual and catching up a storm when I find a place. He's goes in and comes out with a successful impression on his face. A loud hacking coughing fit later and we diacover that no, he did not bother to pick up any cough medicine but he did renew his supply of over the counter codeine. Priorities people. Besides which he claims it's great for his cough.
The hour and a half drive to saint ettienne turns in to a 4 hour plus extravaganza as Kamil recommends taking the scenic route which involves crawling up mountains at 15 kilometers an hour. I do have to give it to him because I saw some of the most beautiful unreal serene scenery of my live. Incredible drooping expanses of trees blanketed in grey frost. My biggest regret is that I was driving and I didn't take any pictures. I feel like given the timing I'll never see something quite so perfectly peaceful again. My second regret is that of course made us late to the show and Mika was a little bit panicked. The bar where we played was not really a music venue so setting up sound was definitely going to be an issue. He really wanted his hometown show to go well. Kamil let me go first this time because he felt bad about the previous night which was nice of him. I did a good job of keeping the volume down and easing in to the set as I could tell that noise was gonna be an issue when I stood outside the bar during sound check. Chantel Morte went on after me and the hometown crowd lives it. Saint ettienne in the house! Afterwards I crashed at Ives place. He had let us crash there at the beginning of the tour and we had done a bit of recording. It's a shame we didn't really know the tunes at that point. If we'd done the opposite and left time to record this time through we might have gotten something worth using. He's a great guy and has the perfect temperament for a recording engineer.
The next day we drive to Marseilles and had a great show. We played in a little dive of a punk rock club in feint if a super enthusiastic audience packed in like sardines. It reminded me of playing in Austin way back in the early days of drums and tuba. I got to play first again and thus time I just went for it and blasted away. What's ironic is that this night was the most fun I'd had since Bourges and it turned out that a big group of people from there had moved to Marseilles and it was they who put on the show. Thanks to Jerome and the Bourges crew for a great night of food and music...
The next morning it was off to Bordeaux (not ideal routing) where we arrived to find a squat with a strong smell of piss and a performance space in the shape of a 50 foot narrow stone tunnel. Only at the highest point point could I stand comfortably without fear of banging my head. Two in a row was clearly too much to ask for. I had to get away from the others as steve was starting to freak out. He had done that on me the night before but he was completely wasted so it was easier for me to lack sympathy. Tonight I can totally relate and that makes it much worse to have to deal with the the 62 year old child thing. He's clearly afraid of having to sleep in a cold cat infested piss smelling stone squat. I'm pretty sure that if we don't get him a real place to sleep he's gonna lose it. Although I have been constantly impressed by his ability to recover from drug and alcohol induced states that would destroy a weaker person like me. Just when I think he's lost it he rallies at continues on.
One more week left. I can't figure out if that makes a night like tonight easier or harder. On the one hand you can smell the end so things should be more bearable with the end in sight but since the end is so close the prospect of freedom and release makes the lack of it so much more bitter. It's like when you're on your way home and you have to piss. I'm usually fine until I hit the long walk up five flights of stairs. The need to go multiplies incrementally the closer I get to my toilet...

One week left...

I got three hours of sleep and drove 800 kilometers to play one song that I actually cut short in the hope I could cram one more in before the club shut down. I'm pretty sure this is the least I've played since I picked up the tuba about 16 or so years ago. I do play on Kamil's set. Not a whole lot though. I really only know half a set of songs. We get through those and then he plays a bunch of tunes he never really taught me. He still hasn't given me a copy of any of the songs to listen to. Each night I end up with a song about having sex with an an under age girl stuck in my head. At this point it's all fine because there's only a week left! Six more shows. Probably the only good one left is the show in Paris that got rescheduled for after my flight home. Ca va...

Following the bad weather

At times on this tour it feels like we are following the bad weather around. I can't really remember a day that didn't involve some form of precipitation. We had a few hours of actual sunlight leaving Berlin on our way to Amsterdam. Possibly for the first time all tour we were running on time if not ahead of time when we got pulled over by the German police. They pull in front of you and never really put a siren on but they flash an LED message. I was driving at the time and Kamil had to explain to me that they wanted me to follow them to the next rest stop where the police station was located. They asked to look in back. It never hurts to have the tuba the first thing an authority figure sees. It's my theory that Drums And Tuba never had any boarder troubles for that reason. What's more innocuous than the tuba? Once the cop saw the equipment he told me to shut the door. I was afraid of a real search but I think it just looked like too much work. Next they took all our passports and the papers to the van and my drivers license to the station and presumably ran our identities. After a while they gave everybody but me their stuff back and they told us to follow them back a few exits to a weigh station because we looked overweight to them and they wanted to check out how we tipped the scales. We drove onto a large platform and then waited for calculations to be made as the policeman scribbled furiously on a pad. It turned out we were a little over a hundred kilos over what they said was our allotted weight. The young blond policeman smiled and put one hand over one eye and said,"I think we look z other way." We were now running late, exacerbated by the snow storm that hit us just as we were leaving Germany and lasted all the way to Amsterdam. It was slushy flakes all night long which wasn't great for the audience size. Of course there's always a viable excuse for why a show is sparsely attended. Excuses can always be manufactured...

Not so bad

It has come to my attention that I'm painting a pretty dark picture of the tour and the people I'm touring with. Everything I've written is true but it only tells part of the story. The people I'm touring with are wonderful people. Steve is incredibly sweet and kind hearted. He has a wonderful tone on the saxophone. Kamil is a really good person and very smart and he get's shit done and im really thankful to him for having gotten me over here. I've learned Tons about how things work in these parts. He's a very good guitar player and he can really sing and his songs really get stuck in my head. The melodies are strong and memorable. Mika's voice is astounding and I really like all his crazy samples and he never ceases to crack me up. His stage presence is great and i like the way he challenges an audience. Rocco is the newest member of the trip. He just joined us in Berlin. He seems like a good guy though I dont know him yet. I'm looking forward to hearing him play his crazy percussion. We could definitely use some rhythm.
The shows have been a roller coaster ride but there have been some wonderful moments. Can't think of any specific ones off hand but I know there have been! The point is that all the stuff that goes wrong is the juiciest stuff to write about and it doesn't paint the while picture. I've met some incredible people and seen some amazing things and life is a wonderful thing.
Having said all that, stay tuned for more crazy stories. This next week is gonna be a wild ride...

Try to enjoy yourself sometime

Endless negativity really drives me nuts. Don't get me wrong. I'm a dark guy and quite often I have the tendency to see the negatives in things and people but these last few weeks take things to a whole 'nother level. I think the worst part about it is always seeing people's worst intentions. Kamil assumes the worst of people and I think it comes from making the assumption that they assume the worst of him. I think he constantly feels judged. I'm sure it stems from his relationship with his parents. On our way from Prague to Berlin we stopped at his folks house for lunch and dinner. Kamil cut out with Steve to change the tires on the van and Mika and I hung with his parents all day. We went on a long walk through town with his dad down to the lake and to the golf course where apparently the president comes to play. His dad told us, or really I should say gestured us because he spoke very little English, that Kamil used to wind surf on the lake and that during the summer it goes from very few people to very many people. It's more or less a little lake resort town. Kamil's dad did describe a little too graphically holding an imaginary binoculars in one hand and jacking off with the other hand to the ladies at the nude beach. Perhaps more information than I needed. Otherwise it was a peaceful walk and I saw a couple cozy little cabins from which I could smell and see the smoke from burning wood stoves rising up in to the sky and I definitely remember thinking it's be nice to be alone curled up by a fire without any of the hassles of the tour. For a brief moment I imagined how nice it would be to live in a little town before I let the reality that I would quickly go crazy sink in. I could definitely sense that Kamil's dad loves him very much but also that he could be a little harsh or critical. He conveyed at one point, when I got worried that perhaps the tires were done and we needed to get back to the house to start our drive, that we could call Kamil's mom because Kamil's phone is never working. At that moment I could sense how Kamil might find them hard on him but I really think most of the criticism is in his head. He claims he gets sick every time he eats his mother's food but I found it tasty and not nearly as heavy as I was led to believe. I think it's more the stress of visiting that makes Kamil become sick. In his nature is a bit of constantly freaking out about things which isn't to say he's not good at getting things done and that he doesn't have things to freak out about. He's got a young daughter and he's very concerned about providing for her given the lifestyle he leads. Life ain't easy. I just think the constant conspiracy theories and always seeing the absolute worst intentions in the people around you just aren't healthy. The world can't possibly be that fucked up and if it is what's the point of dwelling on it that morosely. Try to enjoy yourself some time and even occasionally try to seeing some good in people...

WARNING!!!! Stop Reading If You're Squeamish

Once upon a time if I had to take a dump I'd wait until I got home. Public bathrooms really weirded me out. I couldn't stand the thought of taking a shit with someone else in the stall next to me and I couldn't cope with the idea of sitting somewhere unclean. Eventually when I started touring I had two choices: I could get over it or I could die. I chose the former. Now I just plug my nose and do the deed as quickly as possible. Some of the places on this tour have really tested my metal. At a few of the squats I have chosen to simply hold it in a few days rather than go. At some point though there's no choice in the matter. Life on the road...

The last espresso

After Italy coffee just doesn't taste as good. Even the espresso in the gas stations puts what I'm used to to shame...

The stupidest show of my life becomes three straight nights

Kamil has a friend who played tuba on his record and who suggested that he could get us a gig in Rosenheim in between Vicenza and Prague. On the drive to meet his friend in Oberaudorf which is about 30 kilometers south of Rosenheim in a little old Bavarian village I said to Kamil "we're not playing outside today are we?" I was only half kidding. Somehow I had this sneaking suspicion that something was a little off. The show was supposed to start at 4pm and it was suddenly being suggested that it was a Christmas party at which the people there might be expecting, or at least hoping for, traditional Bavarian folk songs. It was starting to get really cold and there was plenty of snow on the ground and there was an ominous feeling that there might be more to come. We had just made it over the alps (not very pleasant driving in an old van full of heavy equipment) when I had my prescient thought about having to play outdoors. Some part of me knew what we were about to get ourselves in to.
Kamil's friend Lance told us to meet him by the church in Oberaudorf. We didn't have directions but we simply entered town and looked for the steeple, clearly visible as the tallest structure in town.
I had a very strong first impression of Kamil's friend lance. He seemed like one of those nice, aloof, well off, good looking people to whom fucked up shit never happens. We drove up an absurd hill to get to his family's farmhouse. We then sat around in a quaint wooden house drinking coffee. Prior to having the coffee I brought up the fact that we were already running late and that we still had a 80k drive to get to the gig. At this point only an instantaneous transporter would have gotten us there in time to begin setting up at the time the gig was supposed to start. Lance just shrugged and said it would be no problem.
The road we turned on to get to the gig reminded me of a show I did many years ago with drums and tuba in Canada at what was supposed to be a spring festival. We traveled for ages on dark winding roads until we came to what we thought was the right road for the show. It was barely a road at all and would have been muddy except for the fact that it was freezing cold out. We paused for a moment before driving on. There wasn't a soul in sight and we assumed we must have taken a wring turn somewhere. All of a sudden, materializing seemingly out of nothing a guy in a wheel chair road up to us. "follow me," he cried as he bumped along in to the darkness. The show that night was pure hell. The cold made it painful to play and made the guitar and the tuba painfully out of tune. Some hippy later told asked us whether we wanted a copy of the show and I was seriously tempted to murder him in order to insure that it would never be heard by another soul.
The road we turned on to reminded me of that one but even snowier and colder. We drove along and I couldn't see anywhere we could possibly be playing. After a few minutes we came upon a decapitated wood barn. The stage was located in a small snow-free patch of dirt under the overhang of the roof. We lay down a couple of dirty worn swathes of astro-turf like material and tried to decide what to do. At first I felt like it would be completely stupid to play. If Kamil insisted I would go along but I would play acoustic. It's be insane to chance unpacking my equipment for a few Bavarian families hoping to hear some traditional Bavarian music. After thinking I figured fuck it. We're here already and we're gonna do something and I might as well go for it and see how people react to what I do. I would never again in my live have a chance to play for people so completely removed from what I do. I set up and got two songs in when I was basically shut down. Ironically it was a young blond Bavarian teenage girl who complained incessantly that I was too loud that got me shut down and not the plethora of octagenarions eating sausages and mulled wine. Since I could sense the beginning of a bad snowfall I was happy to comply with the suggestion that I was too loud and inappropriate for the party. One older Bavarian gentleman did thank me for playing and told me that he liked what I did very much and that I reminded him of "the New York underground." He became overjoyed when he found out that I had indeed travelled from the New York underground to Bavaria to play for him. Later, when it became time to join Kamil for his set, I discovered that my valves had become frozen shut. I packed the tuba away and called it a night. We finished the gig and of course it was left to me to pack up the van as everyone else either was wasted (steve/Mika) or exhausted (steve/Mika/Kamil). We had to stick around for a while while lance played traditional Bavarian songs on the squeeze box and later tuba ( he had his own in much better condition than my clunker so it functioned even in the extreme weather. He handed his accordion to an older gentleman while he played the tuba). By this time the snow flurries had become a full blown snow storm. We were trying to figure out how we were gonna tuen around on the icy dirt road when lance came up with a really bad idea. Just keep on going deeper into the woods he told us. This road eventually wraps back to where we entered. Kamil thought this was a great idea. He felt we would get stuck if we turned around where we were. I didn't agree but went along. We wrapped around a couple bends and Kamil took a turn which I knew couldn't lead anywhere. He has a tendency to panic when driving and make some strange directional choices. In this case he drove us into a deep patch of muddy wet snow in which we bece stuck. We had to hop out of the van. Now keep in mind when you have a 62 year old junkie and a 38 year old Frenchman who weighs under a hundred pounds helping you push a van out of a muddy snow trap you're pretty much on your own. Eventually we got the van turned around and going back where we came from but not without Kamil making some panicked tactical decisions which drove me a little crazy and not without me getting thoroughly covered with mud buried beneath slushy snow.
The ride back to lance's place was pretty much terrifying. Had there been another option we would not have driven those 80 kilometers. The highway was covered with snow and German drivers zipped by like they were simply having fun fun fun on the autobahn. When we got back to lance's tiny village we had to park at the hospital at the foot of the hill where he lived. There was absolutely no way in the world our van was gonna make it up that thing in that weather. Lance walked to his house to go get his "jeep" which turned out to be a vehicle so small that we were able to fit only by pretending to be clowns. Tuba accordion bags and five people made for an uncomfortable ride up a winding road. It didn't help that lance took the turns like he was driving a formula one race car on a dry sunny track. A couple times I thought for sure we would plunge off into the snowy abyss. I think for lance it was a funny lark that we played that party. Sort of a f you to the traditionalists. He never really considered explaining what exactly we were in for a Kamil never really thought to ask. Easily the stupidest gig of my life and believe me I've done some stupid ones.
The next day we drove to Prague in the heavy snow only to discover that Kamil's friend had sold the club a week before we got there and it had subsequently been shut down. We got rooms and a hostil nearby and went to a bar nearby that would be the oldest rock club in Prague (vaklav Havel hung there) except they no longer actually did shows there. We got really wasted and met some very drunk and very strange Czechs. 2 for 2 crap gigs. The next night in Dresden was at a squat. The space was tiny but we managed to set up and fit. Shortly in to playing the cops showed up and shut us down. 3 for 3!