Returning to work tomorrow. The maelstrom begins again. I’m in the hole. I need to raise a couple of grand really quickly. The winter will be spent in joyless toil, working all the time and trying to catch my breath and keep my head. Patience will require focus. Sleep will be a commodity. The few days of rest I’ve had have been severely compromised by my preoccupations. I need focus. I need to tread more lightly. I need to conduct my affairs more cautiously. I need to forget about females for a while. I need to write like a madman…music and words. I have been commissioned to write a 10 minute accordion and string quartet piece and it is slated to be performed in February. I haven’t started it yet, but I tend to work fast and feverish when there is a deadline. Despite (or perhaps because of) my status as a card-carrying fuckup, I know how to work under pressure.
I received word a few days ago that the tour blog will be published. Joan d’Arc of Paranoia Magazine is putting out a coffee table book of Conspiracy, Supernatural and experimental literature. It will also feature some more straightforward fiction. My piece will be in it alongside writings by Paul Laffoley and Tracy Twyman, among others. My good friend Guy Benoit is going to help me clean up some of my lousy grammar. It’s pretty exciting, but I can’t help but feel a bit guilty. I have writer friends who have toiled for years and have been unable to find a home for their work. The tour journal is the first piece of prose I’ve ever written and it’s already found a home. I’m not used to things falling into my lap. I spent years writing music before I could generate any label interest. I guess I’m more accustomed to struggle.
The writing has been a great processing tool. I’m considering writing an autobiography. There’s a lot of material there. My entire existence has bordered on the absurd. I imagine that it will be entertaining, but I’m worried. I spent many years drunk, on drugs or so deeply preoccupied that I lost awareness of my surroundings, so I’m not sure how much I’ll remember. The traumatic moments certainly register, but the rest is foggy and dim. I’ll need to have some conversations with people to help piece it all together. I will probably have to go on the lam after it’s release. It’s bound to upset some people.
I played a show at my house tonight. I didn’t play particularly well. I’m exhausted and I have nothing left to give. I need some new tunes. I’ve got a couple brewing, but they need a lot of work. I’ve had a really hard time talking to people since I got back, so it was difficult to have so many people in the house. I probably should have waited a few weeks to play again. I’m out of that mode right now. I’m in repair mode. Things need to change.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
LAST EXIT
AIRPORT
I’m in the Athens Airport. In about half an hour I will fly to Brussels and tomorrow I will fly back to the states. It’s the end of the line. I hate this part. I wish I could be put into suspended animation and automatically awaken in my apartment with a joint in one hand and a coffee in the other, but we live in an imperfect world. I have 4 flights and they all have extensive layovers. I’m already completely pissed off and exhausted and I have only been waiting for a few hours. I think I’ve spent close to 50 euros on cabs and beverages. Airports are loathsome vacuous gas chambers of consumerism at it‘s worst. They always fleece the fuck out of you here. There’s too many people and they seem to have lost track of their manners. I’m starting to lose it. Perhaps I’ve had one too many 4 dollar cappuccinos, but I want to incinerate everyone here and I feel completely justified in my thinking. I just want everyone to stop cutting in front of me in line and bumping into me. It’s not all that much to ask, but I guess it’s still an unreasonable request. The most well mannered people turn into hyenas in this sort of environment. I can’t imagine what they’d be like if there was a fire or flood.
I had my own hotel room in Athens, so I was able to catch up on my jerking off and stumbling around in my underwear. It was a nice little taste of solitude, but it was cocktease at best. I slept until 3pm yesterday and then spent another hour in bed chain-smoking and watching Greek music videos. Then I stumbled blindly into the streets beneath the Acropolis trying to find a coffee and trying to get my phone card to work. I went to the convenience store and got a cheap strudel-type thing and a Snickers bar for lunch. Then I met up with Micah at his friend Elisa’s apartment. We rocked out to some Rembetica CDs and ate a delicious home-cooked meal and found our way to the venue.
We played at a place called Small Music Theatre. It was a fantastic show, definitely one of the best of the tour. The sound was impeccable, the audience was fully engaged and the owners were really cool. We got called back for several encores and I sold the rest of my merch. It was nice to go out on a high note. If the tour ended after my tepid performance in Skopje, I would have left in a much worse mood.
It’s strange to be going home, but I’m ready for this to be over. Touring is really a younger man’s game. I just don’t have the stamina or the tolerance for discomfort that I used to. I really love it and I really hate it. Ultimately, I am a settler, not a vagabond. I need quiet. I need creature comforts. I need routine. I am a creature of habit. But... I also need adventure. It’s a paradoxical mindset, and I’m not sure that I have been successful in striking a balance. One day I’ll get it, but I’ll probably drop dead as soon as do. That’s generally how my luck works. At least I’ll die content.
HOME
I’m home. I’ve been in transit for 3 days. I shared a hotel room with my parents last night and we drove back in the morning. Christmas music is everywhere and I’m not ready to hear it. Laura cleaned the apartment while I was gone and it smells like sage. It was nice to come home to a clean apartment. I’m listening to Flipper and feeling like Hell. I’m trying to deal with the fallout of a sticky situation that I got involved in in Europe. It gets worse by the day and it’s followed me home. I bought 3 packs of Drum and they’re stale and dried out and they taste like shit. The airline sent my luggage to St. Louis. I went to pick up my car from where it has sat for 5 weeks sinking into the grass and looking like a beached whale. The clicker that opens the doors didn’t work. I changed the tiny battery inside, but it still didn’t work. I called the dealer and they told me to call AAA. I don’t have AAA. I’m stranded. It’s cold. I’ve been sitting in my kitchen for hours, staring off into space. I haven’t even taken my coat off yet. Annapurna is coming over in a few minutes to listen to me complain. I’m going to eat a Big Mac. It’s a little American ritual that I go through periodically. I’m looking forward to it.
It’s good to be here, though. The coffee is brewing and the nihilistic vinyl is crackling away in my bedroom. I’m back in the USA and the hate has returned. I want to disappear. I want oblivion. I want to feel something else right now. The coffee is done. I will continue this blog. The subject will become everyday life. I can’t promise that it will be entertaining, but I’ll give it a whirl. Goodnight.
I’m in the Athens Airport. In about half an hour I will fly to Brussels and tomorrow I will fly back to the states. It’s the end of the line. I hate this part. I wish I could be put into suspended animation and automatically awaken in my apartment with a joint in one hand and a coffee in the other, but we live in an imperfect world. I have 4 flights and they all have extensive layovers. I’m already completely pissed off and exhausted and I have only been waiting for a few hours. I think I’ve spent close to 50 euros on cabs and beverages. Airports are loathsome vacuous gas chambers of consumerism at it‘s worst. They always fleece the fuck out of you here. There’s too many people and they seem to have lost track of their manners. I’m starting to lose it. Perhaps I’ve had one too many 4 dollar cappuccinos, but I want to incinerate everyone here and I feel completely justified in my thinking. I just want everyone to stop cutting in front of me in line and bumping into me. It’s not all that much to ask, but I guess it’s still an unreasonable request. The most well mannered people turn into hyenas in this sort of environment. I can’t imagine what they’d be like if there was a fire or flood.
I had my own hotel room in Athens, so I was able to catch up on my jerking off and stumbling around in my underwear. It was a nice little taste of solitude, but it was cocktease at best. I slept until 3pm yesterday and then spent another hour in bed chain-smoking and watching Greek music videos. Then I stumbled blindly into the streets beneath the Acropolis trying to find a coffee and trying to get my phone card to work. I went to the convenience store and got a cheap strudel-type thing and a Snickers bar for lunch. Then I met up with Micah at his friend Elisa’s apartment. We rocked out to some Rembetica CDs and ate a delicious home-cooked meal and found our way to the venue.
We played at a place called Small Music Theatre. It was a fantastic show, definitely one of the best of the tour. The sound was impeccable, the audience was fully engaged and the owners were really cool. We got called back for several encores and I sold the rest of my merch. It was nice to go out on a high note. If the tour ended after my tepid performance in Skopje, I would have left in a much worse mood.
It’s strange to be going home, but I’m ready for this to be over. Touring is really a younger man’s game. I just don’t have the stamina or the tolerance for discomfort that I used to. I really love it and I really hate it. Ultimately, I am a settler, not a vagabond. I need quiet. I need creature comforts. I need routine. I am a creature of habit. But... I also need adventure. It’s a paradoxical mindset, and I’m not sure that I have been successful in striking a balance. One day I’ll get it, but I’ll probably drop dead as soon as do. That’s generally how my luck works. At least I’ll die content.
HOME
I’m home. I’ve been in transit for 3 days. I shared a hotel room with my parents last night and we drove back in the morning. Christmas music is everywhere and I’m not ready to hear it. Laura cleaned the apartment while I was gone and it smells like sage. It was nice to come home to a clean apartment. I’m listening to Flipper and feeling like Hell. I’m trying to deal with the fallout of a sticky situation that I got involved in in Europe. It gets worse by the day and it’s followed me home. I bought 3 packs of Drum and they’re stale and dried out and they taste like shit. The airline sent my luggage to St. Louis. I went to pick up my car from where it has sat for 5 weeks sinking into the grass and looking like a beached whale. The clicker that opens the doors didn’t work. I changed the tiny battery inside, but it still didn’t work. I called the dealer and they told me to call AAA. I don’t have AAA. I’m stranded. It’s cold. I’ve been sitting in my kitchen for hours, staring off into space. I haven’t even taken my coat off yet. Annapurna is coming over in a few minutes to listen to me complain. I’m going to eat a Big Mac. It’s a little American ritual that I go through periodically. I’m looking forward to it.
It’s good to be here, though. The coffee is brewing and the nihilistic vinyl is crackling away in my bedroom. I’m back in the USA and the hate has returned. I want to disappear. I want oblivion. I want to feel something else right now. The coffee is done. I will continue this blog. The subject will become everyday life. I can’t promise that it will be entertaining, but I’ll give it a whirl. Goodnight.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
BLACK COFFEE
I’m in a hostel in Macedonia. It’s 4am. I slept on the train all day so I’m wide awake. I’ve been online for a while and after I grew bored with my email, I made the mistake of doing a Google search to see if there were any new reviews of “The Blind Spot“. Whenever I do this I inevitably stumble across something that pisses me off. This time it was some dipshit irony-rocker’s music blog. He trashed a performance Sadlers and I did in Worcester last fall in a truly idiotic and uninformed manner. Some people just don't fucking get it. I wanted to send him a response, but I decided that it wasn’t worth it. The problem with the internet is that it has convinced every ignorant hipster jerk-off out there in cyber-land that he is Lester Bangs. Music criticism has reached it’s absolute nadir in the electronic age. The legit publications and websites aren’t really much better. It seems like every review I read these days consists of a couple of glib sentences that either paraphrase the band’s press release or dismiss the music outright with a few snarky and usually way off the mark comments. Ignorance is bliss in the world of rock journalism these days. So, to my friend out there in cyberspace, I say this: I hope you go blind jerking off to your Cat Power records and I hope you rot in Hell. Fuck you, pal.
The show in Belgrade was great. When we first got to the bar where we would be playing and we were informed that there was no PA, I assumed that we didn’t stand a chance. The drunken chatter would surely bury us again. I got really discouraged and sunk into terrible reveries. Much to my surprise, the audience was very respectful and enthusiastic. A couple of women began adding strange vocal harmonies from the crowd. It was especially interesting during “The Way of All Flesh” when they added a harmonic bent to the piece that I hadn’t previously thought of. It came off a bit like those Bulgarian vocal duo pieces. It was one of those rare and spontaneous moments that I need to document before my brain finishes disintegrating.
I stayed up all night at the hostel because we had a 6am train to Skopje. I was gloriously alone until this gang of kids who were in town for a “future leaders conference”, or some shit, arrived and started talking loud and blasting the same trashy dance hit over and over again. It’s a full 24 hours later and that fucking piece of shit song is still hammering away in my brain. Micah woke and stumbled in while that idiot dance party was still roaring at 5:30am and we packed up and left.
We found a cab and loaded up. I noticed that there was no way to open the doors from the inside of the cab. We had been warned that the cabbies might try to rip us off, so I was wary, but we got to the station without a hitch. The station was filled with crusty and vicious looking people. Everyone looked worn out, dirty and destroyed. I found a café, drank a coffee and walked out, forgetting to pay. One of the counter people chased me out and yelled at me. I paid him and he left me alone.
The train was old and decrepit and there was nowhere to sit. Micah and I crouched miserably in between cars wondering what to do. It was going to be an 8 hour train ride. We had to figure something out. Micah did some hunting around and he figured out that if we shelled out an extra 10 euro, we could get a sleeper car. We paid and I sank into oblivion. I woke with an hour left to go and surveyed the landscape out the window of the car. We were far from civilization. Tiny dilapidated shacks whizzed by. We took note of a small creek that was literally hot pink.
We arrived at the station in Skopje and I almost got knocked over by the barrage of people trying to get onto the train first so they could get a decent seat. A cab driver met us as we walked off the train and followed us out all the way out to the street, repeatedly offering us rides, cheap hotels, etc.. We made many attempts to get rid of him, but he was incredibly persistent. He didn‘t give up until we were practically yelling at him. No sooner was he gone before another cabby took his place, hounding us and not taking no for an answer.
Eventually our promoter picked us up and whisked us away from the vultures. He brought us to the hostel where we would be staying and introduced us to his friend Alexander, who would be helping us and showing us around. I’m not entirely sure that I describe Alexander effectively. He was short and stocky and had a an enormous head of frizzy hair and a thick beard. He incredibly wired and constantly in motion. I had a difficult time understanding his English, so I did a lot of smiling and nodding. He eagerly dealt with all of my Primadonna needs. He was just the man for the job.
After soundcheck, Alexander, Micah and I went to look for food. Alex argued with the waiters at a restaurant that was filled to capacity, but made no headway. We eventually found a small place with table full of men who were shouting in cackling like madmen. It was a surreal scene, but I’m not sure that I can effectively describe it. It was just the vibe. There was one woman there who functioned as both a waitress and a cook Alexander must have had a 20 minute conversation with her about what we were ordering. I have no idea what they possibly could have been talking about, because the food we got was fairly simple (I had a piece of chicken with a small pile of raw onions and Micah had a salad.) Throughout our rushed meal, the roaring laughter seemed to be rising in pitch to the point of pure insanity. We finished eating and literally had to sprint back to the club so that I could jump on stage and play. The gig was OK, but the audience seemed a bit reserved. They were polite, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t into it.
The next day Alexander brought be out to look for a pack of Drum, but there was none to be found at little kiosks in the city. We ended up having to go the market place to the black market cigarette dealers. It was a crazy scene: vendors hawking cellphones, furniture, CDs, instruments and everything else you could think of. Several different Turkish pop songs blared out of sets of huge speakers creating a Charles Ives kind of vibe. Cars were driving down the narrow paths between the booths. There was much honking and cursing. We found a a group of cigarette vendors and Alexander spoke with them. They didn’t have Drum, but they said that they could get me some loose tobacco. A rapid exchange in Macedonian took place and one of the cigarette vendors ran into the bowels of the market place. Alexander told me that he was getting my tobacco. The vendor returned with a shopping bag. It was a fucking kilo. It was the most tobacco I have ever seen at once. Micah and I burst out laughing. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I laughed. “YOU SMOKE THIS FOR 3 MONTHS!” Alexander shouted, beaming like a madman. Too bad it will be stale in a week, I thought.
We bid Alex farewell. The train to Thessaloníki was 3 hours late. We waited in the cold and dirty station in Skopje with a mob of irritated commuters. The tobacco from the market was among the worst that I have ever smoked. I took two drags and felt like I had smoked ten packs of unfiltered Galloise. I threw the whole mess in the garbage and rolled the dried up shake from the few spent packets of Drum that I had neglected to dispose of.
We met a girl from Sweden named Molly Summer on the platform. She had been traveling around for a few years busking and crashing on various strangers couches. She was funny and very sweet. While we were talking, two filthy beggar kids high on glue started asking us for money. One of them couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8. He worked me while his friend stuck his face in a bag full of rubber cement. I was rolling a cigarette while he made a series of gestures. I handed him the cigarette. I’ve just given a cigarette to an 7 year old child. What the hell am I doing? I thought, as he eyed it quizzically. He handed it back to me and continued gesturing, this time more urgently. I gave him some of my Macedonian money, but it only made him more persistent. By this point the other kid, who was a few years older, started in on me as well. The 7 year old dropped to his knees and started kissing my shoes. I was getting a bit nervous about these kids. They were hovering a bit too close to my wallet and passport. I gave them the rest of my Macedonian money, a huge stack of bills probably barely worth ten bucks total, to get rid of them. It didn‘t work. The more I gave them, the more they hung on me. I physically pushed them off to keep them out of my pockets, but they just kept coming, passing the glue back in forth and frantically gesturing for more money. Finally, an angry dude in a red leather jacket chased them away.
We got a room on the train with Molly, a journalist and a law student. The conversation veered towards politics at first, but after the first hour we had digressed to trying tell the filthiest jokes we could think of. It was one of the more entertaining train rides of the trip and the 4 hours went by fairly quickly.
We landed in Thessalonica at about 10pm. After dicking around for a half hour, we finally found our bus and met up with some of Micah’s punk rock buddies that he had met while touring with Out Cold.
Micah’s friends brought us to a show at the university. We caught one set. The band was a five piece who was fronted by a very fetching young lady in a miniskirt and black leather boots. I had to hand it her- she looked pretty glamorous in the midst of a sea of crusty-punks. The band was great. They had a late 70s/early 80’s LA punk kind of feel, reminiscent of X or the Gun Club. I dug it, but I ended up sitting in this weird hallway for most of the set. These sort of punk scenes always leave me feeling alienated. Despite my punk roots, I’m pretty far from that world at this point.
The next day we got the train to Athens. Last stop. The end is near.
The show in Belgrade was great. When we first got to the bar where we would be playing and we were informed that there was no PA, I assumed that we didn’t stand a chance. The drunken chatter would surely bury us again. I got really discouraged and sunk into terrible reveries. Much to my surprise, the audience was very respectful and enthusiastic. A couple of women began adding strange vocal harmonies from the crowd. It was especially interesting during “The Way of All Flesh” when they added a harmonic bent to the piece that I hadn’t previously thought of. It came off a bit like those Bulgarian vocal duo pieces. It was one of those rare and spontaneous moments that I need to document before my brain finishes disintegrating.
I stayed up all night at the hostel because we had a 6am train to Skopje. I was gloriously alone until this gang of kids who were in town for a “future leaders conference”, or some shit, arrived and started talking loud and blasting the same trashy dance hit over and over again. It’s a full 24 hours later and that fucking piece of shit song is still hammering away in my brain. Micah woke and stumbled in while that idiot dance party was still roaring at 5:30am and we packed up and left.
We found a cab and loaded up. I noticed that there was no way to open the doors from the inside of the cab. We had been warned that the cabbies might try to rip us off, so I was wary, but we got to the station without a hitch. The station was filled with crusty and vicious looking people. Everyone looked worn out, dirty and destroyed. I found a café, drank a coffee and walked out, forgetting to pay. One of the counter people chased me out and yelled at me. I paid him and he left me alone.
The train was old and decrepit and there was nowhere to sit. Micah and I crouched miserably in between cars wondering what to do. It was going to be an 8 hour train ride. We had to figure something out. Micah did some hunting around and he figured out that if we shelled out an extra 10 euro, we could get a sleeper car. We paid and I sank into oblivion. I woke with an hour left to go and surveyed the landscape out the window of the car. We were far from civilization. Tiny dilapidated shacks whizzed by. We took note of a small creek that was literally hot pink.
We arrived at the station in Skopje and I almost got knocked over by the barrage of people trying to get onto the train first so they could get a decent seat. A cab driver met us as we walked off the train and followed us out all the way out to the street, repeatedly offering us rides, cheap hotels, etc.. We made many attempts to get rid of him, but he was incredibly persistent. He didn‘t give up until we were practically yelling at him. No sooner was he gone before another cabby took his place, hounding us and not taking no for an answer.
Eventually our promoter picked us up and whisked us away from the vultures. He brought us to the hostel where we would be staying and introduced us to his friend Alexander, who would be helping us and showing us around. I’m not entirely sure that I describe Alexander effectively. He was short and stocky and had a an enormous head of frizzy hair and a thick beard. He incredibly wired and constantly in motion. I had a difficult time understanding his English, so I did a lot of smiling and nodding. He eagerly dealt with all of my Primadonna needs. He was just the man for the job.
After soundcheck, Alexander, Micah and I went to look for food. Alex argued with the waiters at a restaurant that was filled to capacity, but made no headway. We eventually found a small place with table full of men who were shouting in cackling like madmen. It was a surreal scene, but I’m not sure that I can effectively describe it. It was just the vibe. There was one woman there who functioned as both a waitress and a cook Alexander must have had a 20 minute conversation with her about what we were ordering. I have no idea what they possibly could have been talking about, because the food we got was fairly simple (I had a piece of chicken with a small pile of raw onions and Micah had a salad.) Throughout our rushed meal, the roaring laughter seemed to be rising in pitch to the point of pure insanity. We finished eating and literally had to sprint back to the club so that I could jump on stage and play. The gig was OK, but the audience seemed a bit reserved. They were polite, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t into it.
The next day Alexander brought be out to look for a pack of Drum, but there was none to be found at little kiosks in the city. We ended up having to go the market place to the black market cigarette dealers. It was a crazy scene: vendors hawking cellphones, furniture, CDs, instruments and everything else you could think of. Several different Turkish pop songs blared out of sets of huge speakers creating a Charles Ives kind of vibe. Cars were driving down the narrow paths between the booths. There was much honking and cursing. We found a a group of cigarette vendors and Alexander spoke with them. They didn’t have Drum, but they said that they could get me some loose tobacco. A rapid exchange in Macedonian took place and one of the cigarette vendors ran into the bowels of the market place. Alexander told me that he was getting my tobacco. The vendor returned with a shopping bag. It was a fucking kilo. It was the most tobacco I have ever seen at once. Micah and I burst out laughing. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I laughed. “YOU SMOKE THIS FOR 3 MONTHS!” Alexander shouted, beaming like a madman. Too bad it will be stale in a week, I thought.
We bid Alex farewell. The train to Thessaloníki was 3 hours late. We waited in the cold and dirty station in Skopje with a mob of irritated commuters. The tobacco from the market was among the worst that I have ever smoked. I took two drags and felt like I had smoked ten packs of unfiltered Galloise. I threw the whole mess in the garbage and rolled the dried up shake from the few spent packets of Drum that I had neglected to dispose of.
We met a girl from Sweden named Molly Summer on the platform. She had been traveling around for a few years busking and crashing on various strangers couches. She was funny and very sweet. While we were talking, two filthy beggar kids high on glue started asking us for money. One of them couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8. He worked me while his friend stuck his face in a bag full of rubber cement. I was rolling a cigarette while he made a series of gestures. I handed him the cigarette. I’ve just given a cigarette to an 7 year old child. What the hell am I doing? I thought, as he eyed it quizzically. He handed it back to me and continued gesturing, this time more urgently. I gave him some of my Macedonian money, but it only made him more persistent. By this point the other kid, who was a few years older, started in on me as well. The 7 year old dropped to his knees and started kissing my shoes. I was getting a bit nervous about these kids. They were hovering a bit too close to my wallet and passport. I gave them the rest of my Macedonian money, a huge stack of bills probably barely worth ten bucks total, to get rid of them. It didn‘t work. The more I gave them, the more they hung on me. I physically pushed them off to keep them out of my pockets, but they just kept coming, passing the glue back in forth and frantically gesturing for more money. Finally, an angry dude in a red leather jacket chased them away.
We got a room on the train with Molly, a journalist and a law student. The conversation veered towards politics at first, but after the first hour we had digressed to trying tell the filthiest jokes we could think of. It was one of the more entertaining train rides of the trip and the 4 hours went by fairly quickly.
We landed in Thessalonica at about 10pm. After dicking around for a half hour, we finally found our bus and met up with some of Micah’s punk rock buddies that he had met while touring with Out Cold.
Micah’s friends brought us to a show at the university. We caught one set. The band was a five piece who was fronted by a very fetching young lady in a miniskirt and black leather boots. I had to hand it her- she looked pretty glamorous in the midst of a sea of crusty-punks. The band was great. They had a late 70s/early 80’s LA punk kind of feel, reminiscent of X or the Gun Club. I dug it, but I ended up sitting in this weird hallway for most of the set. These sort of punk scenes always leave me feeling alienated. Despite my punk roots, I’m pretty far from that world at this point.
The next day we got the train to Athens. Last stop. The end is near.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
DEAD CITIES
I’m sitting in a small café in Mostar, It’s part of small complex of buildings along with a bar, a theater and a live music venue. Surrounding it all sides are buildings that were bombed into rubble during the 90s. It’s a little oasis in the midst of a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Mostar has been a hotbed of religious and ethnic tension for more than 500 years and it got hit really fucking hard during the war. It makes the Detroit Ruins look like the Hollywood Hills. I wandered through several blocks of it. Old stone buildings shattered by bombs and tank fire. Carcasses of crumbling Tito era apartment buildings sprouting like broken teeth from the sidewalk. Bullet holes in the cracked concrete. Abandoned storefronts full of trash and empty beer cans. Trees growing out of the broken windows. Whole neighborhoods left to rot. Terrible shit went down here a scant few years ago. Unfathomable atrocities. Death and torture. Intolerance followed through to terrifying ends. It’s everything you could possibly imagine and worse.
A few blocks later and I was back among the cobblestone streets and Muslim-run restaurants. Historic mosques and Cathedrals surrounded by vast mountains that stretch as far the eye can see. There so much beauty and so much destruction here. The rebirth of the city seems to be in gear. It’s pretty exciting to see. The Balkans seem to be slowly crawling back. So far all my fears of corrupt police and crumbling infrastructure have been for naught. The trains run on time and we haven‘t had to bribe any crooked officials. We were supposed to play at a venue down the street from here, but we got stuck in traffic in Dubrovnik and missed the only available bus. It was bummer because this was the most highly promoted of all the Balkan gigs. We continue to kick ourselves over this.
I’ve gotten a second wind and I’m really enjoying myself again, but I’m eager to get home and start writing some new music. This has been an incredible tour but my mind is on home now. There’s only a few days left. I stayed up all night last night so that I would be sure to sleep on the 12 hour bus ride to Belgrade, Serbia which we’ll be taking in a few short hours. Dragan, who booked the Balkan leg of the tour has asked me to be less ironic on the blog, so I’m going to try to be less of an asshole and keep this entry on the positive tip.
We played at a small pub in Split, Croatia 3 nights ago. It had a large terrace that was enclosed by palm trees and other plant life that I am too ignorant to identify. There were several cats, a dog and 3 large peacocks roaming about in the yard and terrace. The owners are from Sydney and the inside of the bar is decorated to the hilt with various paraphernalia from Australia. We ate an incredible home cooked meal that was prepared by our more than gracious host, Jaika. Jaika had several pictures of herself hanging out backstage with The Stranglers (she gained some punk-cred points for that). She and her roommate Helinka were most kind. They helped us deal with a huge problem that I can’t discuss at this time*. It was way above and beyond the call of duty, and we are incredibly lucky to have met them.
The show was a lot of fun. There was a small appreciative crowd and I got some great feedback. A crusty old rocker kept offering me cocaine, despite the fact that I explained my complicated history with hard drugs to him several times. I think he just kept forgetting …cocaine ain‘t so good for the memory. We left the next day and took a train to Dubrovnik.
In Dubrovnik, we played at a place called the Orlando. It’s the only rock club in town and it’s fairly new. It was the first really punk rock venue of the tour. Micah remarked that it was comforting to play on a sticky stage again. There were a lot of metalheads there and I felt right at home, arguing the merits of old vs. nu metal. We ended up spending two days there due to the fact that we missed the bus to Mostar. One of the guys who worked there was a great cook. He rolled the largest joints I have ever seen and prepared a couple delicious meals for us. He told us a great story about giving his friend Mandrake root as a joke. Mandrake root apparently grows wild in in Dubrovnik and is a very potent naturally occurring psychedelic. His friend ended up tripping for days and he stole and crashed the car of some government official while he was high. He ended up having to flee and stay out of the country for a while…good stuff. The people there are young and the excitement is palpable. It was a good energy for my tired brain to absorb.
We went into the old city to check out the castle and cathedrals. The place was swarming with American tourists. We were among our own, for better or worse. It was incredibly beautiful in the old city. Mountains on one side and the Adriatic sea on the other. We stumbled over the cobblestones with all the other American clowns gawking at the old cathedrals and watching for pickpockets. Micah and I sang in the chapels. I felt like a tourist and I suppose that I am a tourist. The bus is leaving...onward to Belgrade.
A few blocks later and I was back among the cobblestone streets and Muslim-run restaurants. Historic mosques and Cathedrals surrounded by vast mountains that stretch as far the eye can see. There so much beauty and so much destruction here. The rebirth of the city seems to be in gear. It’s pretty exciting to see. The Balkans seem to be slowly crawling back. So far all my fears of corrupt police and crumbling infrastructure have been for naught. The trains run on time and we haven‘t had to bribe any crooked officials. We were supposed to play at a venue down the street from here, but we got stuck in traffic in Dubrovnik and missed the only available bus. It was bummer because this was the most highly promoted of all the Balkan gigs. We continue to kick ourselves over this.
I’ve gotten a second wind and I’m really enjoying myself again, but I’m eager to get home and start writing some new music. This has been an incredible tour but my mind is on home now. There’s only a few days left. I stayed up all night last night so that I would be sure to sleep on the 12 hour bus ride to Belgrade, Serbia which we’ll be taking in a few short hours. Dragan, who booked the Balkan leg of the tour has asked me to be less ironic on the blog, so I’m going to try to be less of an asshole and keep this entry on the positive tip.
We played at a small pub in Split, Croatia 3 nights ago. It had a large terrace that was enclosed by palm trees and other plant life that I am too ignorant to identify. There were several cats, a dog and 3 large peacocks roaming about in the yard and terrace. The owners are from Sydney and the inside of the bar is decorated to the hilt with various paraphernalia from Australia. We ate an incredible home cooked meal that was prepared by our more than gracious host, Jaika. Jaika had several pictures of herself hanging out backstage with The Stranglers (she gained some punk-cred points for that). She and her roommate Helinka were most kind. They helped us deal with a huge problem that I can’t discuss at this time*. It was way above and beyond the call of duty, and we are incredibly lucky to have met them.
The show was a lot of fun. There was a small appreciative crowd and I got some great feedback. A crusty old rocker kept offering me cocaine, despite the fact that I explained my complicated history with hard drugs to him several times. I think he just kept forgetting …cocaine ain‘t so good for the memory. We left the next day and took a train to Dubrovnik.
In Dubrovnik, we played at a place called the Orlando. It’s the only rock club in town and it’s fairly new. It was the first really punk rock venue of the tour. Micah remarked that it was comforting to play on a sticky stage again. There were a lot of metalheads there and I felt right at home, arguing the merits of old vs. nu metal. We ended up spending two days there due to the fact that we missed the bus to Mostar. One of the guys who worked there was a great cook. He rolled the largest joints I have ever seen and prepared a couple delicious meals for us. He told us a great story about giving his friend Mandrake root as a joke. Mandrake root apparently grows wild in in Dubrovnik and is a very potent naturally occurring psychedelic. His friend ended up tripping for days and he stole and crashed the car of some government official while he was high. He ended up having to flee and stay out of the country for a while…good stuff. The people there are young and the excitement is palpable. It was a good energy for my tired brain to absorb.
We went into the old city to check out the castle and cathedrals. The place was swarming with American tourists. We were among our own, for better or worse. It was incredibly beautiful in the old city. Mountains on one side and the Adriatic sea on the other. We stumbled over the cobblestones with all the other American clowns gawking at the old cathedrals and watching for pickpockets. Micah and I sang in the chapels. I felt like a tourist and I suppose that I am a tourist. The bus is leaving...onward to Belgrade.
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