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!
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