lyon, revisited

the cathedrial was full of old french people singing hymns, we pass a line of folks waiting for their turn at the confessional. The stairs leading to the crypt bears a sign saying “be quiet” in 4 different languages. We go down and see some folks trying to shush their baby who keeps chirping like a bird. Each little noise it makes echos off the stone walls. Babys are always being fussy at funerals. I remember how when my grandmother died these kids kept making noise and laughing during the service. An adult sushed them up at some point. I remember my mother saying how she liked it how kids made noise at things like that and how it made her remember that life was still gonig on. 
 
 
 

munich

The german government decomissioned an old WWII era military hospital after the war. Now they rent out the buildings to different groups like a montissori school and this collectively run cafe called Kafe Kult. Against Me! performs the same night as us. We know because this kid there talks about how they used to play at Kafe Kult before they signed onto a major label. Now all of their old fans can't afford to go to their shows anymore.  
 
 
 

strakonice and the velvet revolution

a communist govornment controled czechloslovokia until the "velvet revolution" on 1989. Petr lived in strakonice at the time, for him the revolution was something he witnessed on the television. day after day workers gathered in the city and stood oddly silent, occasionaly singing the national anthem or listening to a speach. One day it ended and suddenly for the first time in his life, petr could leave the country. "There used to be many beautiful buildings in strakonice but the communnists tore them down because they were innefficent." he tells us . Petr works in a library in a castle near the river. We walk there together and pend some time looking a books and using the internet.  
 
 
 

avenyeshka's apartment

avenyeshka works with a diy collective that promotes events in prague. She lives in a house with her twin borhter, mother, and grandmother in a placethat wasn't on our map. (aparently we got a crappy tourist map of prague.) we experienced nothing but wonderful hospatility the whole time we were in the czech republic.  

downtown prague = gothic disneyland

I first visited prague in 2001 at the age of 21. the month I spent living there stands out in my memory like an island surrounded by an ocean. Prague seemed like an island to me. I flew in on a plane and traveled around on foot and my subway my whole time there, experiencing a different culture for the first time in my life. Now as I drive in these memories collide with my knowledge of european highways and how everything is connected. When I first came to prague I was a tourist, fresh out of college. Now I am a musician, invited there to perform. Downtown prague is not for the czech anymore. they've been pushed out by capital, by tourists. We see thousands of them on the streets, gawking at mozarts clock or at the punk kids gathered around the horseman in wenseslas square. Prague is a city that is raing it's first generation of teenagers to live under capitalism, and a city where beer is cheaper then water and the ”authentic“ mexican restraunt uses exclusively canned vegetables from mexico. The czech republic is a land locked country and, I'm told, obsessed with the sea. I think about how we all want things we can't have, and how anything can become ordinary, tike these angles with golden wings staring down from the rooftops, or traveling to ancient cities day after day on a european tour. I think about the bitterness I hear in people's voices as they talk about how forginers have taken over the down town and how we're all losing our homes to wealthy people. That's how it is now. If you are wealthy you can just buy your way into any communnity, take it over and reshape it to your desires. 
 
 
 

weimar

I read "rise and fall of the third reich" the summer before I came to germany. All of the names of places keep jumping out at me. My grandfathers fought a war with the old men in these places. I think of fighter planes dropping bombs on the homes, on those beautiful buildings we saw in dresden, or the remnants of the wall that used to run through berlin. I had a conversation with josepha's father in leipzig after the show. He talks about how his family escaped the gdr with the help of a truck driver. They got dropped off by the side of the road with their things on a foggy day. The driver then crossed the border while they walked silent through the forest to the road on the other side of the border. Weimar is home to gouthe a famous german writer. The town is considered the cultural capital of germany. It's a collegetown and we happen to be playing on theday the college kids all get back from break. Zum Falken is a very old bar, with old insturments hanging all over the walls. By the time we start playing the bar is totally packed and quite loud. We play a bunch of our louder songs which was fine but they mostly talked over josepha which sucked. Even with the pa it was hard for her to compete with all the sound.  
 
 
 

leipzig

a tall vinal poster of a stream running through a forest covers the wall of the windowless hallway outside the bedroom where we sleep. Five of us slept there together last night, myself, danielle, micah, josepha, and her partner vincence. It feels good to sleep in a room with lots of people. We heat the space with our bodies like a hive of bees. 
 
 
 

dresden, susie asado

josepha conrad, also know as one half of crazy for jane, set up an amazing tour through germany for us. we traveled together for a couple of weeks and got to meet most of her family in the process. here are some pictures of her performing as susie asado in dresden.  
 
 

anatomy of a melodica

micah's melodica started acting funny so he bought a new one and took the old one apart to figure out how it works.  

berlin, dirk and cera

dirk and cera used to live in olympia. then last summer, a paid informant snuck into dirk's neighbor's yard and saw a few leaves of one of the 6 marijuana plants he was growing in a green house back there. A few days later a swat team busted into their house and made them sit on the couch while they tore through everything. They slashed open the greenhouse wall (there was an unlocked door) and took hundreds of dollars in cash that dirk had hidden in his room (money from his band's savings). He went to trial, and settled for some fines and communnity service. There was one other catch. Dirk was born in germany and even though he'd lived in the usa for most of his life, he'd never been properly naturalized. The lawyers informed him that he could be deported at anytime. So he and Cera decided to get married and move to berlin. We met up at their apartment, and drank tea while talking about their experiences moving so far from home. Later we walk to a children's park in the middle of a huge wooded area in berlin. On our way home we saw a car accident. 
 
 
 

merch tables

touring involves lots of administrative work. we divided our duties amongst the band members, micah was in charge of navigation which ment finding maps and addresses andprinting things our when need be. Danielle was in charge of merch and accounting, which meant keeping track of band money and money we had to pay to bicycle records for albums of theirs we sold on tour. I was in charge of booking the tour and forwarding the shows. Forwarding shows means to contact the person putting on the show in advance and confirming details such as, load in times, if there would be food, where we were sleeping that night, and how money was being handled.  
 
 
 

reeperbahn festivle, hamburg

We're in or near hamburg's red light district, a mixture of bars, sex shops, and fast food restraunts. a group of drunken men shout at each other. I can't understand what they are saying but it looks like it could get violent and when I open the automatic door, one of them tries to get in our car. danielle has to tell him to stop and I lock the door and we walk off, leaving the car. later we come back and to get our stuff out of the car, the street we're parked on is empty, but all around there are groups of drunk people yelling, someone smashes a bottle on the ground and broken glass skips along the stone road. Off to the side a see a man climbing up the construction scaffolding outside a building. 
 
 

utrect

we played a hostel in the town of utrect called strois where pot plants growing in the garden right by a pond filled with snails. I'm not much of a pot smoker but the plants smell so good. It feels really strange that the american govornment has such a big problem with this innocent plant. People's lives get ruined over this. The black building is a big squat, one of several in utrect. Trees and plantsline the canals here, we see a flock of ducks nibbling at the water. (by the way, does anyone know what you call a group of ducks? we couldn't decide but I micah suggested a waddle of ducks and I like that alot.)