City of Ships European Summer Vacation, pt.1

June 2009

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After spending the morning frantically stuffing every square inch of our luggage, instrument cases and personal bags with t-shirts, records and cds we headed to JFK for our 6pm flight. Our US tour mates Liquid Limbs were kind enough to give us a lift, easing the trauma our bodies would soon endure hauling around 200+ kilos of equipment and merchandise. We got on the plane after paying some ridiculous baggage fees only to sit on the runway for over two hours. Great start to the trip, right? This was a bummer until we found out Virgin Atlantic sets no limit on the number of free drinks available to passengers.

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Since the sun never set during our transatlantic flight, we were feeling kinda fried by the time we changed planes in London. Andrew and I watched the Anvil documentary on the plane, which was perfect since it candidly depicts a struggling band’s miserable failure of a European tour. Because of our runway chill session at JFK we missed our connection and sat at the ticketing counter for an hour awaiting reassignment. Upon arrival in Poland we were greeted by our tour manager/driver, Mojo. Though we had no idea what each other looked like, we immediately recognized him (maybe it was the Eyehategod shirt?) and loaded into his van. This was the first of several such meetings, and during all of them we had complete confidence – without even discussing it amongst ourselves or between the bands and the other party – that the stranger’s car we were getting into would eventually take us to the show.

Mojo stopped at the first fueling station and bought us each two Polish beers as a welcome gesture. He taught us “Nostrovia!,” (the Polish equivalent of “cheers,” as best as I remember) which we started practicing immediately and abused, much to the chagrin of the locals we encountered, I’m sure. We also found out how to pronounce the name of the city where the tour began: Wroclaw = frotswoff, more or less.

He took us to our hotel to eat and shower and told us he’d be back in an hour to take us to the city center to meet Rosetta and Blindead. I was more tired than I remembered being at any point in the last five years, but I felt it my duty to go out and have a crazy jet-lag-delirium-fuelled night on the town. Half a dozen shots of bison grass vodka later Andrew Weiss (tour photographer extraordinaire) and the guys from Blindead (the Polish band we toured with for two weeks), were like old friends of mine. Andrew, Andrew Weiss, Dave from Rosetta and I stayed up until sunrise drinking in the stairwell of the hotel and speculating about the amazing trip ahead of us.



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We got to the club around 10am and found the other two bands had demolished the breakfast, which wasn’t a big deal considering how hungover we were. We immediately set to work trying to track down our guitars, which through some airline buffoonery didn’t make it to Poland. Since we were clueless and don’t speak Polish, the staff at Firlej Club went to extraordinary lengths to locate our wayward instruments and confirmed before we left Poland that they’d be waiting for us at the airport in Prague. Amazing. The dudes in Blindead stepped up and called around trying to find a guitar for me, but unfortunately the only instrument they could come up with for me to play was their backup 7-string guitar, minus one string and one pick-up. We spent the rest of the afternoon in pursuit of various power converters, did our sound checks, and eventually set to work on the cases of Polish beer the club provided.

It was absolutely surreal to step on stage, lights and fog in full effect, look out at a packed house pushed against the barricade, and realize I was about to play our first international show on what was, to me anyway, the most awkward instrument ever created. It only added to the dream-like atmosphere, and since we’d already established a tour motto (“fuck the crisis”), I silently repeated the new mantra and we ripped the club apart as best we knew how. In the end I was grateful to have anything to play at all. The audience seemed enthralled despite our apprehension, and the tour was officially on.

Poland humbled us, man. In 48 hours there I picked up on a true awareness among its inhabitants, both culturally and historically, that was inspiring and simultaneously bewildering. I couldn’t help but wonder why many Americans are content with cable television while kids half way around the world (in a former Nazi-occupied / Soviet country, no less) are tuned into art, music, literature, and a deep appreciation of history that seems to fuel a sincere desire for a better future. This hit me time and again as we rolled through various countries and I’m still trying to make sense of it.

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I woke up with some serious chest pains that I still can’t account for, but they stuck around for the next 3 days, generally fucking up my good time. I did what I could to ignore them and played the shows and stayed up too late wandering the streets, because after all, I wasn’t about to miss out on some of the best cities we were scheduled to play on account of something so trivial as health. I guess it was a culmination of immense stress as we prepared to fly out combined with sleep deprivation and insane quantities of alcohol. Whatever, they subsided eventually.

After resolving a huge snafu involving too little room in the vans booked for the tour, we set off for the Czech Republic. I rode as the lone American with the Blindead/Polish crew, which was cool except that the van was getting hot as hell and they were all sleeping with me riding in the middle, so I felt like I was slowly suffocating until we climbed into the mountains and the air began to cool.



Just before we stopped to change money at the border, weaving in and out of traffic at uncomfortable speeds along a sketchy two-lane road, a monstrous semi truck came within inches of sending us plummeting to our deaths down a nameless Polish mountain. Brutal.


Prague is a huge city. When we finally arrived the first thing I saw was a gaudy billboard advertising a Limp Bizkit show at an arena that night. So much for European cultural superiority, I guess. We all joked that our show would suck as a result, but of course it didn’t. Despite arriving two or three hours late, we loaded in and played, me fumbling my way through another set on a 7-string guitar. The crowd was thick and enthusiastic and Klub 007 was outstanding, just as nearly everyone I spoke to said it would be. After the show a bunch of us did absinthe shots at the bar next door, which I believe to be a rite of passage for band dudes visiting Eastern Europe. We stayed up late with the Polish guys and tempted fate with our own bottle of absinthe, purchased from the Czech equivalent of 7-11 down the street from our hotel. Awesome.

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The wake up call came way too early. With the grey light of morning filtering through the window we gathered our wits and belongings and prepared to leave for the airport for our flight to Athens, Greece. Before we split BJ from Rosetta told us that the night before a crazy-eyed, non-English speaking man threatened him using sign language. The message seemed to be that if our party disturbed his sleep he’d slit our throats. Yow!

The promoters in Athens were so into the idea of doing the show that they agreed to fly in the entire tour, minus the drivers. The guys in Rosetta and myself remarked again and again about the absurdity of this situation: Two American DIY bands boarding a plane in Prague, holding tickets we didn’t pay a cent for, to do a one-off show in Greece. How incredible is that? Armine and I pinched each other as a reality check as we walked down the jet way. I could tell immediately when we began flying over Greece: The water deep blues and greens washing against endless numbers of small islands; lush mountains cascading into what I’m sure are some of the most beautiful beaches on Earth. I couldn’t wait to get off the plane and soak it up.

John, the promoter for the show, met us at the baggage claim and once again, we knew him as soon as we saw him. Great conversation ensued as he drove City of Ships to the show in the neighborhood of Exarchia, where last year’s highly under-reported riots began with the police shooting of a 15 year old kid. I followed the events to an extent through underground media, but after gaining perspective from my new friends, even these outlets were ill informed. They were shocked to learn that Americans were largely unaware of this earth-shattering period in their city’s history. The aftermath seems to weigh heavily on the hearts and minds of young people there, so I did what I could to suppress my inquiring mind for fear of turning our short visit into a somber experience.

After sound check we walked a mile through ancient alleyways and began the ascent to the Acropolis. A group of old men sitting on a bench shouted as we walked by, “Are you heavy metal? From Finland?” We affirmed their suspicion and continued our quest to the top. This was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. The view of the city from the top of the hill was breathtaking, both in terms of its visual beauty and the weight this magnificent city holds throughout human history. The ruins were closed for the evening, so we resigned ourselves to a spot among hordes of tourists and watched the sunset over distant mountains.

The show itself was a great time, made better by the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking to myself, “Holy shit, you’re playing in Greece!” John graciously loaned me his sweet Rickenbacker to offer a reprieve from 7-string hell, which was a cool move considering we’d just met a few hours earlier. A couple of dudes at the show made their way backstage after Rosetta finished and smoked with us. They were cool dudes, but insisted we join them at some dance clubs in the neighborhood, which none of us were feeling considering the lack of sleep both behind and ahead of us. We had to catch a flight in three hours and instead opted to walk the streets with Greek pizza and beer. It was here that Dave from Rosetta first explained the term “punisher,” which refers to show-goers who corner unwitting band dudes and subject them to endless boring “conversation,” most of which deals with their own fledgling band or a plethora of other drunk-guy topics no one gives a shit about. If you’re wondering whether you’re a punisher, fear not. Only people who don’t understand that such tactless behavior is off-putting are punishers.

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Eventually it became tomorrow and we piled into a couple of vans in the pre-dawn hours and made for the airport. The dudes in Blindead were pulled over at the entrance to the airport and held at gunpoint by the police, whose suspicion of our Polish friends was so intense that it warranted a sniper positioned on a nearby hill. Because of the language barrier I’m not sure anyone ever figured out what the hell the problem was, but after a thorough search they were let go without any further problems. We got on the plane, endured the worst layover of all time in Budapest (where it seemed everyone dozed off except for me), and finally landed in Prague around noon, where our faithful tour manager was waiting with our gear.



Andrew and I finally located our guitars (our friends at the club in Wroclaw really came through!), so that huge bummer cloud finally lifted. We spent the afternoon eating a meal fit for kings, drinking much Pilsner Urquell, and thoroughly digging Old Town Prague. A couple of hours only provided a small taste of the city’s majesty, but every crack in the sidewalk seemed to tell a story. The weather sucked, but it didn’t matter. The Vltava River flowed and we meandered along with it, dipping into the Ave Maria Cathedral and scoping out the Astronomical Clock in the city center.

We were graced with a short drive to Brno, CZ where we played the Yacht Club, which is part of a university campus. The place was trashed when we showed up (we were early), but the dudes got right to work cleaning it up and before long hooked up some great food, garnished with cases of beer and several bottles of vodka. Both Blindead and Rosetta blew the power at the club, but somehow we made it through our set with no trouble at all. It was here that I began to see a pattern in the distances many Europeans were traveling to see our shows: From Latvia to Wroclaw, from Moscow to Prague, from Thessaloniki and Bulgaria to Athens, and now from Eastern Slovakia to Brno. These people rule.



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Per usual, I got out of bed last after thoroughly enjoying a much needed night’s sleep. Everyone was already gathered around the vans and I immediately sensed there was trouble afoot. As it turned out 1,000 Euros of tour money had either been stolen or misplaced during the night and no one had any idea what to do about it. We had enough money to get to Budapest, so we hit the road and dealt with the financial blow. Lots of dudes were bummed and understandably so, but rather than join that stress-fest I sat back and took in the scenery through Slovakia and Western Hungary.


We played a club called Durer Kert, and while it’s hard to say which of the venues on the tour ripped most, this one comes really close. The staff prepared a traditional Hungarian meal of epic proportion that everyone raved about. They were so incredibly attentive to our needs that it was kind of embarrassing. At one point when the beer refrigerator was empty the promoter hurried off to refill the supply and later apologized to our drummer Daniel for, “having to wait so long for the cold beer.” The décor of the place was magnificent and the courtyard was one of the most relaxing spots I’ve ever hung out.

The weather was still shitty, so that put the kibosh on serious exploration of the town, but it didn’t stop kids from coming out to the show in droves. I think it was the biggest of the tour. We drank much in celebration and mixed it up with a lot of cool locals. I met some guys from a band who invited me to the courtyard for a smoke session. Immediately a dude who’d traveled from Croatia invited/introduced himself into the fold, and we had a great time discussing the differences among our respective nations.



Virtually every time we walked by the bar someone offered to buy us shots of a Hungarian liquor known as palinka. Lucky for us it’s pretty good and comes in a variety of subtle fruit flavors. Later that night Weiss, Daniel, Dave, Andrew and myself left the hotel to get beer and were pointed from one gas station to another, with one attendant pointing across the street and saying “Agglepop.” Curiously, the sign clearly read “Agip.” Weird. Inside we found a great variety of beer in refrigerators, but were greeted by blasts of warm air upon opening the doors. This was the first of many “hot fridge” encounters yet to come.

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We stayed up drinking warm beer until sunrise, so three hours of sleep later we piled in for the trip to Vienna. Pouring rain and straight up cold temperatures were the order of the day. And I was quickly learning that sparkling water (a favorite among Eastern Europeans, apparently – it’s everywhere) does nothing to prevent or quell hangovers. The drive was uneventful and as with Budapest, I have little to say about the sights of the town on account of the inclement weather. However, another stellar show at an amazing club known as Arena made up for Mother Nature’s bad vibes. This place has four or five stages and hosts everyone from One Eyed Willie’s acoustic project in the small room to Nine Inch Nails on the outdoor stage.

The sound at the show was great and we finally settled into our set and adjusted to the borrowed gear. A hole in the ceiling above the side of the stage left a few pieces of equipment wet, but I think we caught it in time and everything made it out unscathed. A couple of awesome guys from Italy came up for the show and hung with us all night. I also got in some good conversation with Elvis, the organizer of the show. This man has tons of great insight about the development of the punk scene over the last 15 years or so. Hope to speak more with that totally sweet dude next time we head back.

After the mid-sized room that hosted our show shut down for the evening, we went across the compound to a smaller bar and imbibed over many games of foosball. As the night wore on members of the tour were dropping like flies and even the locals began to filter out, but my Polish comrades and I weren’t having it. We raised hell at the bar shouting along to Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin songs until the bartender kicked us out at some unholy hour. It was a glorious evening that cemented those guys as true friends.

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The drive to Leipzig, Germany was supposed to be around seven hours. Load-in was scheduled for 7pm but we didn’t show up until 10:30. This was due in part to our being pulled over twice by German customs agents who, noticing we were in a Polish vehicle, naturally assumed we were either hauling illegal aliens or drugs. The first encounter was relatively smooth: We gave our passports, they checked them, and we went on our way. The second time an official vehicle pulled ahead of us, slowed down, and flashed a message on the back of its siren reading, “Follow Me.” They made all ten of us get out of the van and answer tons of ridiculous questions, detaining us for over half an hour. Assholes.

The show ruled. We played a basement at a spot called Atari. The dudes who hosted went to extraordinary lengths to take care of us and they had tons of interesting information to share about that area. A few weeks before our show Nazis threw a brick through the main window of the venue. This was just one example of countless dickhead moves pulled by these fuckers. Unsurprisingly, we played tons of spots with freely available Anti-Fascist Action literature and posters around. At first it was shocking to realize that these bigots still have strongholds all over Europe, but after further reflection I realized it’s not all that different from the situation in America. Racism is just masked -- literally and figuratively -- better here in the States, presumably making it harder for people to rally against it.

Another all-night session ensued post show, this time on a rooftop across the street from the club. I was involved in several stimulating conversations and I had to stop and ask myself where I was from time to time. I sat on a rooftop in a former Soviet and Nazi-occupied province thousands of miles from home discussing with excellent German dudes things like education reform and international perspectives. Perfect.




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Again we left early for an all day drive to Antwerp. About the time we got into Belgium a strong smell overtook us. It was something terribly similar to petrol, but for sanity’s sake we all agreed the Low Countries must just smell bad. Upon arrival at the venue we found the trailer and the back of the van were literally dripping with our fuel reserves. Nauseated as we were, we had to load in and play immediately. The venue seemed like an overhauled gymnasium, so the sound was kinda weird. It sucked to play right after driving ten hours, but the crowd was welcoming and we got our first taste of true Belgian beer thanks to the dudes from Maudlin, who set up the show. Their band rules and they are some of the coolest guys we’ve met in all our time on tour. We got to hang out with them a lot during the next six weeks and each time it was a blast.

Because of a noise curfew Rosetta only got to play one song, so people were pretty bummed out. Nevertheless, we made the best of it and hung out doing some improvised a capella grind jams:



We drank staggering amounts of Jupiler, as well as a few Duvels and Westmalle Doubles for good measure. I wasn’t ready for bed by the time most of the sleeping spots were being claimed, so I sat up answering some interview questions and responding to emails I’d ignored since we’d been gone. I went downstairs and found all the mattresses were spoken for, so I fumbled around in the dark and located a piece of canvas that I think was meant to be used as a curtain for the stage. I curled up with that on top of a slab of wood and called it a night. Mmm sleep.

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A bunch of people woke up with mosquito bites, but I guess my makeshift blanket kept me safe. Loading out that morning involved navigating equipment through a carnival at the venue’s front doorstep, but eventually we set off for Knokke-Heist, a seaside town about an hour and a half from Antwerp. Davy from Maudlin organized a mini-festival that ran most of the day and did a great job. He convinced the city to pay for a top-notch light and sound company, as well as dozens of cases of beer and water for the event. His folks even cooked an incredible spread of fresh seafood for those of us on tour and put us up at their insanely cool house for two nights. Best of all, their spot was within walking distance of the beach, so we took full advantage of that.

After the show we helped tear down the stage and continued to lay waste to the supply of Jupiler, courtesy of the Knokke city council. Just as we were about to head to our sleeping quarters Matt from Blindead came over and dropped news of Michael Jackson’s death. I’ll always remember where I was when I heard about 9/11 and now too will I always remember MJ’s passing. Just kidding, no one gave a shit. Metal rules!

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Just before sunrise our companion Andrew Weiss stood up to take a piss and wound up slamming his back into some unknown metal object. He tried to shrug it off before realizing that he was seriously fucked up. Davy took him to a local hospital and they confirmed that he’d collapsed a lung. This happened to him a couple of years ago and the Belgian doctors were confounded at the knowledge that the Americans hadn’t performed a simple surgical procedure to ensure Weiss didn’t have to continue to deal with this problem. So while the rest of us went to the beach and ate Belgian waffles on our day off, our bro went under the knife. Obviously we were all bummed and confused about what would happen from there, but if it had to go down we couldn’t have been with a better dude to entrust with Weiss’ care. Thanks for everything, Davy.

We spent our night off in the city of Brugge (one of the most beautiful in Belgium, I’m told) with the Maudlin crew and drank the best beer on earth at one of their favorite bars. A couple of incredibly wasted randos approached us later in the evening and in some twisted Jack Ass-inspired reality asked Dave from Rosetta to kick the shit out of them. Of course he obliged and we all laughed hysterically, but it was really uncomfortable in retrospect. BJ from Rosetta also ran into one of his coworkers from Philadelphia, having no prior knowledge that this guy would even be in Europe, let alone the same city or the same bar. I think that takes the cake in terms of all time unbelievable coincidences.

To be continued, hopefully.