HOT HOT HEAT- EUROPE- FALL 2005

August 17th, Newark Int. Airport

Sitting here in the international terminal waiting for my atlantic flight which will take me to Amsterdam for a quick stop and then off to my final destination of Salzburg, Austria. I am heading back out on tour for a short little festival run in Europe. I think the whole thing total is around 19 days which is amazing. Ill be gone a little over 2 weeks. Yey!!!
Then added on top of that it seems like this tour is going to be a pretty easy tour for myself. Due to us playing mostly festivals I wont be stuck behind a table most of the time which is always nice. This doesn’t mean I wont be working I will just be doing another kind of work. And once our set is done it usually means the stage work is done at which time I plan on just cruising around watching music. Bands I am really excited to see are Queens on the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Weezer, Pixies, Oasis and some others.
On top of that this is all going to be taken in over seas which is always nice. I may not be able to cruise around the cities that much due to most fests. Being located in parks, parking lots, fields etc etc however it is going to be nice to be surrounded by the people and the culture.
I had a nice little cab ride to the airport this morning. Most cab drivers I have come across are foreigners and its always nice to talk about their country. Today my cab drivers name was olaolu who has been living in Richmond, VA for the last 20 years and before that was living in Nigeria for about 30 some years. As soon as he said Nigeria i brought up the kuti family. Olaolu said that he would go to the shrine every Thursday and watch fela kuti and his band do their thing. WOW! That’s cool. He said he was more of a fela fan then femi which is understandable due to his age. When I asked the question about who he likes he referred to is as “ its like asking someone from the 70s who they like. Bob Marley or Ziggy Marley. Bob of course”. Ha Ha Ha.
I had a nice little stay in Richmond. I was only home for about 13 days which isn’t long enough but knowing that I was leaving again shortly I will take what I can get these days. I didn’t do much so all the days seemed to be blurred into one big one. It was hot as hell so I spent most afternoons indoors until it cooled down and then usually started my day. My hours seemed to represent my tour hours in the sense of going to bed pretty late and waking up later in the morning.
OH YEAH!!! totally forgot to mention this one. As I was passing through security here in Newark Mr. Funkadelic himself George Clinton was cruising around solo with his different neon colored dread locks just checking things out. A little funny. I debated if I should run up to him and get a picture with him. I have been around people in the past who would make good pictures with however I have enver really cared to put in the effort/ or go out of my way to make it happen. People are just people really. However sometimes I wonder if I should document things more then I do currently. Who knows, Maybe its something I think about for a long time and never really figure out. Maybe it will be to late then or maybe I just still wont care.

August 18th, Salzburg, Austria

So after about 10 hours of flying and 5 hours of lay overs I have finally arrived at my destination. I did arrive however without my luggage but they managed to find it and deliver it to my hotel this evening. Thankfully I didn’t need anything out of it. I came to this hotel, checked in, and crashed out hard until around 5 this evening when my luggage arrived. I had some frightful thoughts about me not getting my luggage. I thought with my schedule in the next 2 weeks and go from one place to another plus the language barriers I thought I would be using the same undies and socks for 2 weeks. Ouch.
I have been to Salzburg a couple times but have never walked around the city. The first time I was here was when I was touring with flogging molly. I missed a flight so caught a flight here and was picked up at a hotel near the airport. I also think maybe the deconstruction tour came through here but it would have been in a parking lot somewhere. Salzburg is a small little town/ city located in the alps. You fly into the airport which is located in the middle of the mountains. I have never been to Hawaii, certain parts of Africa, or even certain parts of asia but for some reason flying into this airport had that feel. Clear blue skies, green, jagged, rockie mountains on all sides and there was a slight haze which gave it a misty feel. I guess its something you have to be here so you don’t think im nuts. Ha Ha.
There aren’t to many places in western Europe I would return to however there are still a coulpe. Austria is one of them.
There is some big festival here this month which may be one reason for the music fest tomorrow. The streets were completely packed with people while I was driving to my hotel. I wish I hadn’t had such a brutal day or I would have joined them.
Another good thing about this trip. NO HUMIDITY. NO THICK AIR. This evening there was a slight chill so if you wanted to walk around with a t shirt you could but you could also wear a long sleeve t as well. The air is fresh.

August 19th, driving from Salzburg, AS to somewhere in Belgium.

So today was my first show of this tour. We played the frequency festival here in Austria. Actually there in Austria seeing how we are about 3 hours away now.
We woke up this morning to get picked up at our hotel by our new home for the next couple weeks. This bus is the nicest bus I have been on in Europe which will be fun. The upstairs lounge is separated from the sleeping area with a door which is a first. The downstairs area is very spacious as well. Its always nice to having a nice bus because that’s all we have for the next couple weeks.
Once picked up we headed about 10 kms to the fest site where there were tons and tons of kids camping all over the hills to watch the 3 day fest. Todays show we were on the mainstage with Danko Jones, Flogging Molly, QOTSA, and the almighty Foos.Unfortunately we weren’t able to stay for the whole show due to this 14 hour drive we are currently conquering. I did manage to watch Danko Jones for a little bit. A good Canadian rock band. Ha ha ha. Nothing great but nothing bad. Reminded me of gluecifer a little. Also I watched about 1/2 of flogging mollys set which was nice. That band is a very good tight band and they are always super fun to watch. What else made it great was seeing 10s of thousands of kids going completely crazy. Good times. Also its always nice seeing them due to them being old tour mates of mine or actually me being a tour mate of theirs.
Last nigt was quite fun. I slept for a little in the evening and then decided to downstairs for some water. Baehlor, Taze, Dustin, and Paul were all downstairs at the bar so I decided to just hang out with them. Turned into a good night. The bartender didn’t really care and was never there so all night we just would walk behind the bar and help ourselves to unlimited Austrian beer. A good way to get my sleep back on track was to catch a little buzz before trying to actually fall asleep for the night.

Aug 21st, Erfurt, Deutchland

Playing the Highfield fest today on a shitty shitty bill. We got screwed on this one. All the bands playing today I have never ever heard of except the Pixies and Social Distortion which I will be watching both bands. Seeing the fests line up from yesterday and the day before it’s a bummer we couldn’t play one of those days. The Hives, Foo Fighters, Alkaline Trio, The Futureheads, QOTSA, Weezer. Today theres nothing except the 2 mentioned above and then on top of that the weather is very wet and muggy.

Yesterday was a pretty crazy day. We played a side stage which was in a tent with about 8000 kids. I did stage for the show which was fun. Running back and forth relaying messages from Paul(drummer) to Baehlor(monitors). I walked around the fest and checked shit out. Managed to watch the Dropkick Murphys who I am not a big fan of at all however the kids were. They played mainstage and people were loosing their minds. It was fun to watch. Other bands I checked out were Morcheeba and Juliette Lewis and the Licks. Korn played and I would have checked them out not because I am a fan but because there wouldn’t have been anything else to do.
Lil Nathan, and Inge would be a little stoked. I walked by Nick Cave last night which was neat. For some reason that dude has good style. Lil Nathan I wanted to take his picture for you but again its not something I really do. I wanted to see him however we had to leave.
Some major shit went down later in the evening last night. MAJOR. Well first of all our drummer paul totally got beat up BIG TIME. I wasn’t there and didn’t see it however dustin was and from everything I heard it wasn’t called for at all. I guess Paul was wrestling with someone he knew on the ground. They were both drunk, Another band who knew the person paul was wrestling with saw the dude on the ground with Paul on top of him and thought that dude was getting beat up. This band (who were a bunch of fucking douche bags. Their name was tower of London and looked they were straight from the 80s glam scene) or one of the guys from the band then hops on Paul and proceeds to seriously beat him up. Again after talking about it all night this situation was uncalled for. Yes you want to protect your friends but if you see a friend getting beat up you don’t just run in and beat the other guy up. You FIRST need to figure out whats going on etc etc. Paul and this dude were friends and totally being drunk and messing around. Paul was pretty brutalized and seeing him this morning I feel for the dude. Swollen face, Black eye. So last night there was tons of drama as to what to do to these dudes who did this. They were no where in sight however some actions were taken to “screw them” which I don’t really want to mention. If you all ever want to know then ask me. Its not that bad I just don’t want to write it down. Ya Dig. I have never seen anything like what I saw last night on tour. Bum deal.

Aug. 23, 2005 Basel, Switzerland
Sitting here downstairs inside a boat we are playing tonight. I am assuming by the sounds coming from the walls that we are actually underwater at the moment. The show almost didn’t happen today due to the flooding that is taking place here in certain parts of Switzerland. However since being here for the last 4 hours we have seen the water recede about 1 ft which is good. The river outside is seriously moving fast and is very wide. Havent walked around today at all and am feeling pretty tired for some reason which is probably why I am not walking around. Its quite funny because when you look across the river you see a section with chain link fence and a section with out. The section with fence is Switzerland, and the section with out is France. Then about 20 meters from the side of the river we are on there is actually a pole you can walk around 360 degrees. When you walk around it you walk through France, Germany and here in Switzerland. Pretty cool.
Last night was our first club show of this tour which was pretty fun actually. We played in Frankfurt, Germany to a sold out crowd. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay afterwards due to our swiss border crossing. NO HANG OUT TOUR 2005. ha ha ha.
Tomorrow we have a day off in Paris which should be fun but expensive which im not looking forward to. Also looking forward to the day after our day off because we play a fest in paris and are playing with alkaline trio. Should be fun fun fun and hopefully its in the sun sun sun.

Aug. 26, 2005 koln, Deutchland

“Human heads are so small and whats inside them is so small yet what the head is capable of you cannot describe.”

Its about 8:40 in the evening and we are now leaving koln towards the uk where we play reading fest tomorrow. “NO HANG OUT TOUR 2005”. Ha ha. Just kidding. We are leaving early to make the ferry to the uk and now due to the recent bombings “madness” there the security has tightened up a lot.
Today we played a small fest here in koln with around 6000 people. Tonight dinosaur jr. is playing but I will miss them due to this bus ride. I did manage to catch the arcade fire who I also saw some of yesterday. They all switch up instruments a couple times through out their set. Pretty interesting seeing how you don’t see this done often. I saw them play one of their singles “neighborhood” while walking to our bus tonight which stoked me out. That’s really been it for today. Driving to the UK.

The last couple days before today have been interesting and fun.
We had a day off in Paris which ruled. Some others and I had to do some laundry so that was the days chore. We walked to try and find some laundry in the afternoon. We were just going to drop it off at some place so we could cruise around. After walking into 2 self serve places with no attendants we decided to give up search and do it ourselves later that evening. We had things to do and see.
The first place we went to were the catacombs which taze wanted to see and was talking about for the last couple days. I had never heard of them before and was interested. WOW!
Heres the story of what I heard of them.
In the late 1700s there were all these underground tunnels, caves discovered in Paris. Once discovered the rock that was found inside turned out to be very high/ stong quality rock. They were sooned caved and the rock was dug out to make buildings etc etc. This then made the caves HUGE and very very wide.
Well then in the 1800s or so the plague hit paris and due to it the cemeteries were over filling quick. Because of this and also due to the bodies having the plague they un-buried them and started putting all the bobies underground in these caves, tunnels.
It has now been turned into a tour.
You walk about 190 steps underground which is insane because the stairs go in a spiral inside this cave. Straight down. So once you get to the bottom your stomach is already a little twisted from the trip down. You walk through these caves for a good 5 minutes until you come one of the many tunnels, caves, rooms where the bodies were put. Millions upon Millions of bones. All you can see is what is directly in front of you. A wall built with leg bones and skulls. Every wall is built the same way. With skulls and a certain leg, arm bone. I don’t think they were originally built like so. However I am not sure of that. Either was that’s all you can see. THEN most of the caves you couldn’t see the wall. Who knows how far back the bones went. PILES upon PILES of em. Room after room. Cave after cave. They are just sitting there. The caves are very moist as well. The roofs (which lie directly above you arms reach) are all wet and dripping. Its seriously the craziest thing. All you see for a good 30 mins on this under-paris trip are human bones. While under the city you see tons of other caves which have been gated up. Like I was saying we saw only 1/ 7 of the place. There are so many more caves which are all filled with the exact same thing. BONES! Its crazy looking into human skull after human skull and thinking about why used to lie behind the skull and eye socket. Human heads are so small and whats inside them is so small yet what the head is capable of you cannot describe. It’s a very weird thought to think while looking inside of a skull. What a trip this thing was however it was also very very interesting.
So after you are done following the tunnels you come to the exit where you then have to walk up what seems to be an even smaller spiral cement staircase. This staircase is only about 100 steps however it seems so much longer and with the thing feeling smaller and the recent thoughts, visuals all of that together will re-twist the stomach.
When you come out you are in a completely different part of the city. Insane.
So after we did the catacombs we headed towards the effiel tower. Hung out there for a quick second and then decided to head back to the hotel to do our laundry.
Pick up our laundry and head to this laundry place. Put it in and for some reason my machine seemed to be going very very slow. We head to a pub to get a beer. Head back to the laundry and find that taze and baehlors laundry is done and mine only half way there. DAMN! Its was quite a scene. I had no clue what to do. I talked to some guy who seemed like he worked there however there was a major language barrier and he ended up just leaving. Classic. The dude just bailed or maybe he just told me in French “hey dude the machines slow so youll have to wait” who knows. Either was it was crazy that I had to figure it out. Tried to open the machine and the things locked. Mean while the other 2 are already drying their clothes. DAMN! Ha ha ha ha. So what happens is those 2 went to a store and bought 3 40oz beers and we just sat there, drank and waited for the thing to finish. CLASSIC. Thankfully for my dryer being super super stong my laundry was dried by the taze turned his off. Socks and Undies take no time. YEAH!
Drop off the laundry and taze, baehlor decide to come with me to maoz falafel. YUM! Stoked. Incredible falafels. Maoz is located in the latin quarter of paris and the place was packed with people. We ate and decided to dip into a place to grab another beer. This is where the night becomes crazy. Ill spare the details.

Yesterday I thought was going to be completely horrible due to the events the night before. Im sure that 2 hours of sleep didn’t help out as well. We played the rock en seine fest yesterday. Alkaline trio played who I was so excited about due to them being a great band and then also my friendship with some of them. So the first person I saw once I got there was heather. I had planned on sleeping most of the day but then I also wanted to hang out. My tiredness ended up disappearing and the day ruled. Walked around that part of paris with heather just checking out all the crazy buildings, statues. It was a good time. Its nice to run into people you somewhat know and can hang out with while traveling. Always a good time. I asked taze, baehlor, and ian if I could dip out of load out and catch the trio. They agreed which I figured they would due to some of them dipping out in the past for reasons of their own. Alkaline Trio seriously rocked. Every one however was watching Queens instead which sucked but they still ruled. Their drummer Derrick is by far the best drummer I have ever seen with my eyes. I came to this conclusion last night. Absolutely amazing. Words cant decribe what he does. Its not what he does but it’s the style that he does it with. Incredbile. I have never seen drumming like it. And on top of that is the different sounds he gets out of one instrument. Crazy.
So yes they rocked and I was in a complete trance watching the drumming.
I did get to catch about a song of the queens while walking for dinner. Good as always. Later in the evening I also saw a little of Jurassic 5 and then watched about 40 mins of the pixies which was fun. That was it really. Hanging out with friends and cruising around.

August 28th, 2005 1:22 am about to leave reading fest towards leeds fest

Damn! About 1 hour ago I had the best seat in the house out of around 100 000 people to watch the foo fighters. First I am not saying this to brag etc etc its just pretty crazy. You see at all these big shows most of the time the headlines usually keep the stage closed etc etc which means if your not supposed to be up there you wont be. The last couple shows we played with the pixies if you were to try and get on stage they wouldn’t let you on. Same thing tonight. However due to HHH getting on the foos/ weezer tour and carlos knowing some of their crew we were all invited on stage tonight. An offer I would not decline. Its sometimes interesting to be on stage when a band is playing because you have a whole different angle on things and you see the musicianship of the musicians themselves. Not sure if this makes any sense but ill keep writing. So yeah it was a night I will never forget. Like I said there was around 100 000 people there and seeing a sea of people and hearing them over the PA is amazing.
What also stoked me out is I was reminded of some close friends tonight as well. My friend Nick plays bass almost exactly like the bass player of the foo fighters. They don’t go off too much but totally get into the groove. Eyes closed and feeling it. Even the way the foos dude moves while playing reminded me of my homeboy back home. Ha ha ha. Nick I thought of you all night.
Foo Fighters played for 1 1/2 hours and it was non stop. This band is what stokes me out on music and its bands like such which keep me part of this whole little culture.
Okay enough of that.
Today also ruled due to a lot of other bands and friends. I saw my friends and old employers in anti-flag which was nice. I spent 2 whole months with all of them last year so when you have that bond its always fun to visit and hang out with those people.
Ealrier in the day I watched the explosion due their thang which was nice. Some good old fashioned punk rock. Speaking of old punk rock. Right before we headed towards the foos stage I watched about 15 mins of bad religion who also brought it.
HA HA HA! so speaking now of bringing it.
The Arcade Fire. This was the first time I watched most of their set and wow they are so amazing. I definitely plan on trying to catch them tomorrow. I suggest checking them out. Their album is amazing and they pull it off live.
OH YEAH! so headling bands who play readings and leeds fest (which are the biggest outdoor music fests in the world) get payed about 1 million dollars from what I heard last night. INSANE!
Alright enough blabbering. Im off to bed to get some sleep before the leeds fest tomorrow. Should be another fun day seeing how ALL the bands that played today are playing the same show tomorrow.
Rock on.

Aug, 29, 2005. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Sitting here listening to Change is a Sound by the one and only strike anywhere. Havent listened to this album in a long long time and what a classic it is. Brings back a lot of memories of tour, late night bike rides solo in santa cruz, and just good times. I would not be where I am right now if it was not for that band and the fine gentleman in that band. YEAH!

So we played Leeds festival yesterday with the same line up as the day before. I think with the 3 days of this festival there is a good 150 bands or so that play. Yesterday was pretty much the same as any other fest. I had my friend Simone come to the show which I was looking forward to. In the end however we didn’t get to hang out much at all which sucked. Oh well.
I didi watch the Arcade Fire again and they blew me off my feet. Their live show is absolutely outstanding. They have 2 violin players, a bass player, 2 guitar players, a keyboard player, some dude who seriously just runs around the whole stage with drum sticks hitting anything he can BANG, and a drummer. There is one part of their set when one of them puts on a helmet and just totally gets hit over the head with drum sticks. Amazing. I have never seen a band as such and they have kinda choir sing along type parts in their songs so hearing a good 8000 people just screaming again will do something to you. I think for a lot of people at these fests the new band to watch is the arcade fire. A must see and an album that must be bought. A very controlled chaos.
I watched the Foo Fighters again tonight from the very front side of the crowd. Couldn’t really see the whole stage but I could see the TV screen that was right above me so that’s where I would look. It was nice being in the crowd, dancing and singing along. They played the same set as the night before and played it just as well. The last song of the night was “monkey wrench” which is incredible song to end with. They extend it a lot by doing some jam before the final part of the song. Great!

I have 4 shows left after tonight. EXCITED! Back home for another little stay however probably the longest time I have been home this whole year. A good 4 weeks or so. SWEEET! The only shitty thing is I have a lot of major flying to get back. BOOO! Fly from italy to Amsterdam, layover, Amsterdam to new jersey, 4 hour layover, and hopefully finally home where I will get right off a plane and head over to the nanci raygun where I will watch engine downs last show. Long long day.


August 31, 2005 bielefel, Deutchland.

So all I have been thinking about is getting home. I love going home. This is show #4 left and in about 6 hours there will be 3 left. STOKED!
Yesterday sucked big time. We were seriously in the bus for around 24 hours total. Bum beal. All you could really do it sit around. NO!! I layed in my bunch for hours just dozing off and on. Its not fun when you are completely trapped.
The weather today has been clear blue skies and pretty hot.
OH. I forgot to talk about Edinburgh, Scotland. Such an amazing stone covered city. The buildings is what youd expect to come from such a place. Castle, stone like. While I was walking through the hotel I looked out the window and the mountains range in the distance was amazing. Very cavernous/ canyon like minus the other side. Again when you see pictures of something as such or actually see you right away you know where you are.

I was just talking to someone about the Arcade Fire. WHOA!! I was talking about not being home and missing certain events etc etc. Then I think about what I witnessed the past couple days at reading and leeds with them. HOLY. First I may see them again at a venue or fest however I don’t think I will ever see what I saw during those 2 days. Just the crowd and the whole anticipation and then finally their show which was so so incredible. This band needs to be seen. Its unreal, super amazing, very pretty and will send goose bumps up and down your body. It’s the singalongs.

Sept 1, 2005 Karlsruhe, Deutchland

Today was a great great day here in karlsruhe. I basically walked around the town. It was a first because I went shopping. I purposely went out today to by a nice shirt. Why? I don’t know. It’s the second shirt I have purchased in about 4 years. The last shirt before this being bought in europe but with INC. Classic. All the shirts I have ive owned or collected over the years I have just gotten on tour etc etc or from friends.