Getting to Dresden was a long, dark day in the van. Traffic woes doubled the length of the trip—not so bad, all things considered, since we’re nearly three weeks deep now and that was the first of it we’ve seen. We were greeted by sound guys who were by turn ornery and mum. Which was more our fault: we were three hours late for soundcheck and so had fucked the schedule. Their English was as good as our German, which is to say not very good at all. Beatpol is an enormous room that was doomed to look empty once the modest crowd rolled in. Again, there was a palatial greenroom and a veritable feast. We are again relieved to be in a place where we are blessed with support acts, for in Holland there are none. The other group in Dresden was a punk band called Stalin Vs Band. They were unhinged—what a fun band to watch.
We were very lucky to stay with new friends named Dani, Sebastian and their dachshund Marta, who are, in spite of the formidable language barrier, clearly some of the nicest people on the planet. Dani is in a band called Malory, and they’ve toured America at least once. Sebastian is a “pharmacy man.” (Language barrier blocked out many other details.) They like Sonic Youth. They referred to each other as husband and wife but when asked insisted, “No, we are not married!” They were enthusiastic dog owners—Dani had a tattoo of a sausage dog in silhouette on her forearm. A feast for breakfast again, delicious mustard, bread and cheese, and we’re getting fat and looking forward to being fed nothing during the upcoming American tour.
On the way out the door, Patrick joked that Dani should send us some pictures of Marta the dog. Below are the pictures she actually did send.
LEIPZIG
We had been dreading the show in Leipzig, which was rumored to have sold a grand total of zero advance tickets. When it time to play the show there were some folks there, likely for the DJs after us. We sat backstage listening on repeat to track 8 on the Lou Bega album—I don’t have access to the names of the songs—getting psyched to play that would amount to practice with a soundman watching us. Lou Bega sounds at times like Tracy Morgan making fun of music, particularly here. The Lou Bega song has a key change, and it got me psyched to play the song “Titus Andronicus.”
A guy or two danced. I broke the toggle switch on my guitar doing a somersault and had to fart around while we played “Roadrunner.” Even the keyboard didn’t work when I wanted to play it. Everybody had fun. We are staying above a café in another artists’ loft. Home soon!
GLEN ROCK, NJ
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