Honk 2012 – Boston and Providence

It’s Thanksgiving already and I am finally beginning to post about everything I’ve been doing since the beginning of October. In fact, I’ve ducked into a candlelit bar near my second orphan Thanksgiving dinner of the day in order to finish this one. I’m watching Charlie Brown Thanksgiving over a mug of hot buttered rum, wearing a rockabilly polka dot dress and combat boots, huddled against the cool brick wall at the far end of the bar. So much has happened since I came back from Europe. Most recently, a hurricane devastated parts of the East Coast, then a metaphorical storm laid waste to my vague life plans. I have already fallen five posts behind in the last month or two, but rest assured that updates on my life after Europe are slowly on their way. Before all of the unexpected chaos of late, I fell off the blogging wagon after a straight month of daily chronicles had made it feel all too routine. In the meantime, a lot has transpired, including my first return to Honk Fest after missing not only the previous year’s festivities in Somerville, but the two consecutive festivals in both Seattle and Austin. I was thrilled to be back in the thick of my community again, so of course adventure has once again gotten in the way of writing. As a result, here is a quite long account of the various Honk events in Boston and Providence.

Day 1 – HONK!

Just forty-eight hours after my flight from Europe landed at O’Hare, I was back at the airport waiting for my plane to Boston. Just as I was just about to board, I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard “What band are you in?” Turning to see a punky girl slightly younger than myself, I instantly assumed she meant World/Inferno. I realized soon enough that she had seen my sax case and was probably just on her way to Honk as well. “It’s complicated.” Sure enough, we had played together with Environmental Encroachment during a steampunk event at Reggie’s a while back. It’s always fun to accidentally take a plane with someone you know, and I was pleased to realize I wouldn’t be navigating my way to the venue alone.

We arrived at the airport in Boston and worked on my flask while waiting for the city bus, which was free and dropped us off inside the subway station – major points for Boston transport. It was, however, a long and drizzling walk to the square where the pre-Honk show was happening. It felt good to be once again wandering unfamiliar streets, following the distant sounds of a brass band. Despite the light rain, there was a decent crowd gathered to see the bands. We arrived in the middle of Church Marching Band’s set. They had a broad repertoire and contagious energy, so of course I fell for them instantly. I decided not to sit in with anyone that night, just relax and watch. Normally, I play with Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band, but I have yet to learn most of the new songs they’ve written. During their set, I picked a dancing partner out of the crowd. He had a classic old vaudeville outfit with a face to match and generally looked like someone who should know how to swing dance. Sure enough, I had found my dance partner for the next solid week. It turned out that he was the trumpet player from Church Marching Band. Why is it always the trumpet player?

As the event was winding down, a few of us straggled behind. I was trying to decide whether to take a ride with a friend from Boston or go on a less predictable adventure with an old friend from California. If you’ve read any of my other posts in the past, you can surely guess. In the meantime, still in the square, one sax player began insistently playing the bass line from “Sat” until finally I couldn’t resist anymore and grabbed the closest woodwind at hand and joined him with the melody. Brass band musicians are so easy, and soon everyone had joined in. I handed the instrument back to its owner and pulled out my sopranino… then we all boarded the public bus. The seats were full of blaring musicians and a few confused passengers. My phone was having issues, so I took no photos or videos that night, which made the memories all the more special and surreal. We finally got out at Davis Square and most of our company headed to continue drinking and playing music at a nearby church. My friend and I headed to where he was staying and immediately ran into the Brass Messengers, who had just gotten into town.

DAY 2

I awoke as I always do at Honk, in a strange but cozy home belonging to an incredibly tolerant person. My friend and I had a lovely chat with our host in the morning about how Honk Fest is better than Burning Man and feels more like home than anywhere else. I hung around the house for a while, sorting out tech issues and finally deleting all of the old texts in my phone as a cathartic cleanse. After a bit of breakfast, I set out into the world with all of the belongings I would be traveling with until Christmas. Within minutes, I had managed to rip holes in a coat I hadn’t even worn yet, dragging it under my rolling bag. I became increasingly disgruntled until I walked past a man with a sign which read “SMILE!” – which I obeyed, until I realized I had just walked a half mile in the wrong direction. On my absurd move to my next sleeping place, I ran into a member of Environmental Encroachment who gave me the rest of his cup of coffee, then encountered all of Brass Liberation Orchestra at the train station. Gradually, I also ran into members of Rome’s Pink Puffers, who I had not seen in years, yet they looked just the same. Finally, I arrived at my friend’s friend’s apartment on the other end of Somerville and met my new host. She was charming and we hung out while I fixed my jacket with some duct tape and used some bungee cords to fashion a double-barreled case for my saxes. I then walked over to see Church Marching Band, getting more coffee from a random EE member on the way. True to the shape of my day, I had just missed their set. We jumped on a bus and headed back to the other side of Somerville.

On the way in, I discovered that my new dancing partner was way younger than he looked, and that most of his band hovered around the age of twenty-one. He then laughingly pointed out that the band dinner was happening in a room labeled Somerville Senior Center. Thanks, kid. A couple of them played some old songs on the piano while the guys from Young Fellaz Brass Band looked on and I did some writing on my computer. Dinner was excellent as always and I hugged a lot of long-lost friends and acquaintances. One musician who was sitting on the floor recognized me and we realized that we had both been checking each other out on a bus in Brooklyn a couple of months earlier; how strange and awkward.

After dinner, I headed out to join ENSMB for the lantern parade, just making it in time. I also cut out of the parade slightly early in order to make it to Johnny D’s for Brass Messengers’ set. They had asked me to play with them that weekend, so I suggested I join them for that show, since tickets were expensive and I would otherwise not be going. It worked out well, especially considering that I hadn’t played with them in years and they had clearly meanwhile written new songs. I followed their sax and clarinet players as well as I could, plus took solos. Afterwards, it was bizarre to receive compliments for a band I’m not even in. During other sets, I made sure to take some time for myself in a corner, listening to the music while I caught up on some writing, still reeling from my time in Europe. The club was packed, so there wasn’t a lot of room for dancing, although I was right up front for Pink Puffers. It was pretty much just like old times, except I had a better haircut and wasn’t dancing on a table. After the show ended, it didn’t take long for a jam session to break out and head for the square. The organizers quickly diffused it, choosing my dancing partner out of everyone else, asking him to talk everyone else into stopping the music. I felt good about my judge of character.

Back where I was staying, my instrument chameleon friend from Barrage Band and our host had already made a crater-sized dent in the rye and bourbon, into which I quickly crawled to join them. We soon got into a lengthy discussion about a certain cabaret punk performer who recently asked for local volunteers to play in her large band, claiming that she could not afford to tour and pay the musicians. The three of us had significantly different perspectives and opinions on the matter – myself a broke horn player, my friend a professional-ish horn player with a day job (who had indeed done one of these shows), and his friend who was trying hard to remain impartial. We never came to any conclusion, just ruffled each others feathers somewhat constructively.

It took me until the next morning to put words to my frustrations about the topic. Having spent the past eight years paring down my lifestyle in order to make artistic pursuits my focus, I have strong opinions on how musicians are treated and paid. What really gets to me about this attitude, which is exemplified in this gesture but has become obvious through her various online pleas for fans to send her donations, is that it says to the world at large that making a living as a professional musician is not an option. Sure, plenty of musicians have day jobs to support their music careers, but when someone who is relatively “famous” (and married to someone even more “famous” than herself on top of it) cries wolf about being poor, it sends a very bad message indeed to the public at large… especially to those who might one day be paying their own backing band. As a horn player, I find this particularly threatening, as it labels us as a group less deserving of income than the lead singer.

I grew up in a family of professional musicians, so I know that it is indeed possible to make a living in music. At least, it was. Personally, due in part to my own ethics about what sort of work I am willing to do, there have been times when I don’t have money for food and either dumpster dive or don’t eat. I also haven’t paid rent in five years. This doesn’t mean that I am entitled to go on the internet and declare that people should send me money because I refuse to find other work to supplement my career. I’m not even that proud of how many friends I have allowed to do me favours so that I can retain my independence. Like the person in question, I also made a large part of my money busking (mostly with puppet shows, though) for a number of years, so I understand the source of her instincts. In fact, this is probably part of why I am so quick to criticize, because these same sorts of thoughts have surely run through my head at some point. Hustlers know their own kind. Even so, do we bind together as impoverished artists and try to change the system, or do we single ourselves out as more deserving than the rest and let the less aggressive ones struggle below for scraps?

So, there we all were at Honk Fest, an event where the musicians are not paid and the bands are doing well if they don’t lose money after their travel stipend. However, it is a free festival and not-for-profit, which is a whole different matter from a rock tour. My general belief is that if someone is getting paid, then everyone should be getting paid. I’m more than willing to play for free, if it’s for a good cause and not just so someone else can make more money at the expense of my efforts. I believe in payment according to need and, pardon me, but I don’t think she is particularly needy. I couldn’t help but rant.

DAY 3

The next morning, I awoke a bit hung over and wrote out much of the thoughts immediately above, then began to put together my outfit and bag for the day. I had learned my lesson the day before about trying to carry both saxes. It was impossible to get into my alto case without dismantling the whole setup, plus everyone was so curious about the sopranino that it was a shame to play anything else. My new craft project was finding a way to carry all of the tiny slivo bottles I had brought back from my stops in Eastern European gas stations. The ones in my belt pockets were especially amusing. It was a lot of fun taking small groups of people on tasting flights out of my various pockets. I had an easy time with my sax, which I keep in a case I made out of irrigation tubing and carried in the “Anarchy is for Lovers” tote bag I had brought back from Germany.

Even though I had missed Honk last year, it was easy to get back into the regular routine, including grabbing breakfast at the Dilboy and then eating it on our way to Seven Hills Park. Everything was just as I remembered it, with all of the bands gathered in the park behind the train station. It was an easy chance to say hi to as many people as possible in one fell swoop. I managed to help a friend from Barrage Band Orchestra climb into a tree with his sousaphone. The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society did their usual song and dance about the definition of Honk, urging the instruments to wail as they were called. The rest of the day was bound to be exhausting, considering I had made no solid commitments to any of the bands. I planned to see pieces of as many sets as possible and managed to see almost every one of the dozens who were playing that day. My friends laughed when I said I wasn’t playing with anyone, and sure enough I fit in a couple of renegade sets with Barrage Band Orchestra, who wasn’t technically playing but had enough members to crash the festival. I also happened upon an impromptu set later in the day, where the bass drummer from ENSMB was trying to kill time until the next band. Several people joined us for a hurried rendition of Odessa, which I had already played when I sat in with Church Marching Band that day, and he did a fantastic version of a song from Animaniacs. I then ran into a friend from Minor Mishap who bought a drink at the adjacent BBQ place, so that wander down the street was definitely a win.

I also spent some time hanging out around the Detroit Party Marching Band’s awesome school bus. Their mascot was a golden chicken on a stick, which their bus driver dances with during their entire set. That is his only role at shows, which is incredibly brilliant. Years ago, I had given the chicken in its original form to one of my friends from Detroit, randomly insisting that she put it on a stick and make it their mascot. When I came on the bus, she announced “She’s the one who gave us the chicken!” and I was showered with praise. Later, when I knew they were playing elsewhere, I used their trailer as a viewing platform. I was pleased to have a Honk companion this year who was stronger than myself, and we climbed anything we could to watch bands, including a massive solar-powered garbage can in Davis Square and then the DPMB’s trailer for What Cheer? Brigade’s Set, which might have been my favourite one all week. They had made up an absurd dance on a whim when they played in Denmark or Iceland, I forget which, and had the entire crowd dancing along in the palm of their hands during that song out front of the Dilboy.

Eventually, it began to rain just as I again found my companion and we headed to see a band play in a covered parking garage, where I finally got some hula hooping in with their dancers. Eventually, I caught up with ENSMB and played half of their set along with members of Church Marching Band. So much for me claiming not to be playing with them. After this, we caught Detroit Party Marching Band playing in the entrance to the subway on their way to their set, and I had a stunning view through the windows inside the station. I remember hearing about the band as an idea years ago when I met its founders while busking in New Orleans and smiled to see how incredible they’ve become in such a short time. I managed to catch part of both sets by Lungs Face Feet, who were my other new favourite band and they renewed my faith in Pittsburgh as a potential place to move someday. One of them recognized me from the Eris parade band two years ago, even though we had never met, which made me feel pretty special.

As the bands finished up for the evening, we all found our way to the Dilboy. I smiled at the familiar sight of instruments strewn everywhere and the sounds of mediocre jam session at the hands of exhausted and possibly already drunk musicians. We all eventually piled into vans and headed for the afterparty, which was held again at a large hall on the other side of Somerville. There was certainly a slight conflict between our idea of fun and that of the venue. We all had delicious free barbecue and beer, lots of conversation, and eventually jamming. I wound up onstage with members of Church Marching Band, all of us constantly trying to derail the jam from Carnival Band and turn it towards Klezmer and Balkan. The trombone choir had been rehearsing downstairs, so for a while the jam was quite high-pitched without the low-end. Eventually, Veveritse struck up a small set in the stairwell and was eventually moved into the basement, where we all tried to follow along to their relatively complex songs. Finally, the management made it clear that the party was over by turning off the lights. No matter; my companion and I headed to a house nearby where my host and our friend were enjoying a very nerdy party. The night ended quite late after a long walk and I woke up on a porch next to a warm boy.

DAY 4

I posted the previous entry quite a while ago. Here’s a combination of what I wrote months ago and what I remember of the rest of Honk…

The morning began as they always do on the last day of Honk, with a hurried buffet breakfast at the Dilboy hall, negotiating the giant table of jam and puddles of brass band saliva. Fortunately, since we were staying around the corner, the commute to coffee was relatively painless. As happens every year I was running late, so by the time I reached the meet-up, the parade groups were all assembled. I had a few options to choose from, but played yet again with Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band. I didn’t really know enough of their new material to play a show, but a parade is a whole different animal – the more the merrier. After a year away from Honk festivals, it was a fantastic feeling to be marching down the street again with a brass band, wedged between gigantic puppets and costumed activists. May Day in NYC had been the closest I had come in a while. It felt very much the same as other years, although this time I treasured a chance to play with other horn players more than ever.

We poured out into the same little park in Harvard Square where we always end. ENSMB had been at the rear of the parade, so the grass was full of instruments and tired musicians. I took up my usual post across the street and greeted old friends and spent a while hanging out and talking. I ran into a couple of adorable members of Speaker for the Dead, who further urged me to join their January tour. The afternoon then unfolded into a scavenger hunt of marching bands. I continued my attempts to see all of the bands, meanwhile meeting up with local friends and dragging them along. This year, Pink Puffers had the mainstage spot, which made it feel as though nothing had changed in the years since their previous visit to the US. Harvard Square Octoberfest is always odd in that it doesn’t feel terribly German and nobody is drinking in the streets. In some ways, the brass bands are one of the more logical aspects of the day.

Eventually, the music finished and we all headed to the dinner and evening show nearby. DPMB got stuck in a construction site while trying to take a shortcut, so we laughed our way through helping them get over the fence with their instruments. We wandered into a building which looked spot-on like the dining hall at Hogwarts. So, I thought to myself, this is Harvard. Of course, we were not to be dining in the grand hall, but in a basement area which was nonetheless architecturally charming. The band storage area consisted of two classrooms – one full of drums and sousaphones and the other full of everything else. It was a beautiful sight. I ate dinner with members of bands I barely knew, making new friends and learning about unfamiliar cities. Soon enough, it was time for the show to start. I had opted not to play with anyone that night, determined to simply enjoy the show. Each band was allotted exactly eight minutes to play, so no doubt I would have missed several bands while waiting in the wings or trying to navigate back upstairs.

I highly enjoyed the ease of not playing with any band, although it was a bit odd to see ENSMB up there without me. It was a musically diverse lineup and an awesome show. The trombone choir, a project open to all trombonists at the festival, was huge and included sousaphones and a bass drum. Some of my favourite moments came towards the end of the show, including a member of Pink Puffers walking across the tops of the seats while the other tried to climb the statues, the dudes in Environmental Encroachment stripping to their underpants as they played, and Rude Mechanical Orchestra ending the show with a chant of “Education should be free.” Harvard had no idea what to do with us. Meanwhile, I spent the end of the show being chastised for dancing in the aisles. Dang kids and their crazy swing dancing. A large part of the audience ignored the restriction on dancing, so I wouldn’t be shocked if we weren’t asked back, but it was a beautiful hall and a fantastic concert.

The night had ended with a weird tuba-related beauty contest (I forget what exactly) in the back alley, a lot of lingering around the venue trying to find an afterparty with my long-lost friend from Extra Action Marching Band, and then a long but fun walk back to Somerville to where I had been staying. We  caught up with members of Carnival Band, breaking out into a wonderful little jam along the way. I somehow wound up carrying the helicon for part of the journey and had a lot of fun playing it. We eventually made a stop at the supermarket and somehow managed not to get kicked out of the store. It was a long walk and a late night, especially considering our flasks had run dry at the show. Our host was out of town, though, and I lucked into having a bedroom for the night.

DAY 5 – PRONK!

 

The next morning, I packed my stuff and headed to the Honk panels over at the college. There were two halves, the first of which broke into a few different discussion groups, then ended with a workshop led by Members of Young Fellaz Brass Band, who led a second line over to the park for lunch. In a classic move of cultural misunderstanding despite good intentions, the folks organizing the panels had provided a very hippy vegan lunch which included a bbq sandwich option. Needless to say, the brass players from New Orleans were not amused by the fake meat. I managed to catch a bit of one of the later panels before getting picked up by my trumpet friend from ENSMB. We went back to grab my bags, then headed across town to pick up another friend, but didn’t leave until I had a tour of her incredibly awesome new home. The drive to Providence was a lot of fun, although we inevitably arrived slightly late. On the way, we saw a van full of Minor Mishap members, but nobody in our car would honk the horn. WTF, Honk Fest?

The scene in the park was much as I’d remembered it – beautiful waterfront Providence, band playing inside a circle of calm revelry, musicians napping in the grass. I found my dancing partner again and we started up a group of pairs around one of the bands. Eventually, during a band who I had seen multiple times, my friend and I escaped to grab some food at the boat house. I don’t know why she trusted me to push her wheelchair, other than it is difficult to do it herself through the grass, but we still made it their safely somehow. At the boat house, we found the only real bathroom around, a ravaged cheese and cracker table, and most of Minor Mishap as well as their trademark moonshine. We made it back to the park just in time to assemble for the parade. The skies had begun to darken, which made the fire spinners at the top of the stairs look all the more foreboding as the brass filed past.

We then embarked on a somewhat eerie march through the streets of Providence. I had never quite seen skies like this. I was again playing with Emperor Norton’s, which was a lot of fun. Our numbers were smaller than the day before, so I even felt pretty useful. We ended the parade at another spot on the waterfront, same as previous years, at which point more performances commenced. I headed for the indoor toilet, running into a friend from Detroit Party Marching Band in the parking lot and having some bonding time about our old saxophones (which were a year apart but otherwise identical). Another sax player walked past and I drew him into our obnoxious shop talk. He said that his old band would have a fit about him and the other sax player because they would never shut up about their mouthpieces. It was awful but also one of the hilarious highlights of the day.

The night continued on in the same vein as the weekend in Boston, with bands playing overlapping sets in different areas of the street, mostly outside. Church Marching Band got half naked during their indoor set, as they usually do. In fact, I got teased quite a bit by my friends for hanging out with a bunch of shirtless twenty-two year old boys… not that anyone was really shocked by it. At one point, a brave new friend and I climbed to a high point under the bridge to watch Loyd Family Player. From there, we saw Lungs Face Feet arrive on a boat and play a stunning set, which we soon headed back down to the water to see better. Again, I enjoyed a night without gig responsibilities.

The last set was What Cheer? Brigade playing in a parking garage, which might just be the ideal way to see them. Somebody had taken the PRONK sign, which consisted of five separate letters on long poles, and ripped off the top of the O so that it said PRUNK. Inevitably, the R disappeared and the word PUNK made its way through the crowd, circling us at a run. It was like some sort of bizarro Bread and Puppet skit as the brash music bounced around the cement walls. The weekend had been full of incredibly vivid moments, but this one might have surpassed them all. I launched into the crowd, dancing into a frenzy with various friends.

After the chaos fizzled out, I managed to find my ride to the afterparty, into whose car I had already loaded my bags earlier that night. It was quite an effort for everyone to navigate both themselves and their unwieldy luggage towards the party across town. Apparently there was a different one happening at a building where some bands were staying, somewhat tied into a WC?B space, but I opted for the same afterparty as always. I have many fond memories of these warehouse parties, eventually falling asleep for a handful of hours on his floor. One year a friend and I lucked into the kitchen couch, at which point I had a lost a bra which didn’t resurface until the next year’s afterparty, when someone found it in a filing cabinet. We entered the building to find the lady trumpet player from Extraordinary Rendition Band singing in front of a full band. Soon enough, she launched into “Superstitious” and a half-dozen of us grabbed our horns and played spot-on backing lines. Every horn player in the US is required to know the horn line to “Superstitious.” The gents from Church Marching Band and I eventually switched to forcing Balkan tunes on the jam, at which point the look on the guitarist’s face was priceless.

The afterparty was pretty awesome, especially due to the spontaneous funk band. It was awesome to be partying yet again with the Pink Puffers as well. At one point, my dance partner and I got a very good lesson from one of the other musicians, who showed us this incredibly difficult dip that is mostly used in salsa. I also had an interesting talk with another stranger where I listed my general issues with jazz, complaining particularly about its scattered reaction to the popularity of rock and the general lack of women despite their inclusion when it began. The party continued on well after my companion and I had grown weary from dancing. We eventually curled up on the floor among several other people, woke up surrounded by more, and headed blearily towards the nearby bus station. I had walked over with only Church Marching Band, but we found all of Environmental Encroachment waiting for the bus as well. Fortunately for everyone else on the bus, it was barely dawn and we slept the whole way to New York.

Show 25: Schlafthoff; Wiesbaden, Germany

The name of the venue basically means “slaughterhouse” – the building’s original use many years ago. It is, understandably, a pretty creepy place. Come to think of it, the name of the city has the word “bad” in it as well. Despite stories about fights breaking out at the last show there (before I joined the band!), the evening turned out pretty well. What was really odd was playing a huge squat festival, a reunion-style private party, and yet ending our tour with a very ordinary show in a smaller German city. In many ways, it was anticlimactic and confusing. Barring any of that, it was a generally good show.

Since the band had last played there, a new building went up, making parking rather confusing. We finally settled on a spot and found our way inside the building. The stage and room were surprisingly small compared to the massive complex. Load in was pretty bizarre, since we had to pull everything through the main slaughterhouse building, with its giant arches and cavernous reaches. On the other side of the doors, though, was a cozy shotgun backstage, with several rooms leading into the next and the usual German club hospitality. Through the band’s friend whom we had celebrated the night before, we wound up with an American opening band. It was really strange and sweet to be twenty-five shows into a tour and sharing a greenroom with a band who had just started out on the road, some of whom had never toured Europe before. I taught the girls how to text using wifi on their smartphones and they were thrilled beyond belief.

It was difficult to enter the audience from backstage, so I couldn’t actually see most of the opening set, although I heard it. It was cool to be sharing the stage with a band which was all girls except for one boy. We went out to a decently-sized crowd. For once, the Germans had an excuse for not dancing, since the floor in front of the stage was made of flat metal sheeting. As I said, no show could have lived up to our experiences the past two days, as well as a week of non-German audiences (for better and for worse), so while it was a good show with a happy audience, it was strange in a way. The set list was quite good, although it was a shame we didn’t get to do a second encore and play the song about Germany.

Some fun friends of the band who I had met previously were there for the show, as well as the awesome ladies who had put on our show in Heidelberg. After we finished, I joined all of them out in the garden, along with the sound guy from Berlin, who had driven all the way there to see the band and whisk me away to France. Our accordionist knew people in town, so we joined them out at the picnic tables for drinks afterward. It still didn’t quite feel like the last night of tour, except for the fact that I was very tired. Last year’s final show had been so epic, full of old friends and weird intoxication and a wild afterparty, that there was no way a normal show could come close to matching it. Then again, it might have been a clever tactical move, considering everyone was a sleepless drunken mess on the flight home last year. Load out was very slow and we took our time saying goodbyes.

After hanging out on that day off in Berlin, the sound guy and I had tried to figure out a way to hang out again before tour ended. It turned out that his friend owns a quaint hostel on a donkey farm on the way to Paris from Weisbaden, so we planned a silly road trip. The more worn out I felt as tour wrapped up, the better a few leisurely days in the French countryside sounded. I also really enjoyed telling everyone I was going to a French donkey farm instead of the Frankfurt airport. After the show, I gradually moved my stuff from backstage into my friend’s car, finally getting around to saying farewells. I saw them all sitting in the van without me and felt a kind of loss. “This feels like… what is it called when you leave the womb?” What I meant was some sort of separation anxiety, but they shot back “Living!” Well, actually, the accordionist yelled “birth” and then slapped me like a newborn baby. Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t miss them quite as much as I thought…

Show 24: Surprise Party; Hafenklang; Hamburg, Germany

I gradually fell asleep in my haze of nostalgia after Zoro Fest and woke up to a double rainbow over circus tents in Hamburg. We were making another stop at the music shop, but this time our van driver would not be abandoning one-third of the band there. It was a short stop for some bits of drum hardware which had gone missing the night before, and we were soon on our way to the venue. This show was a strange one. In reality, it was the reason we had come to Europe – a surprise birthday party for the man who had originally been responsible for the band touring Europe in the first place, so many years ago. We would be playing a small set during the party, which was being held – strangely enough – in the upstairs of the venue where we had played in Hamburg not so long ago.

We were all a bit worse for the wear at this point on tour, as well as looking – understandably – like we had been napping in a van all day. Our arrival at the party was therefore pretty low-key, but it was still before the surprise part. I awkwardly ate some chips and had some coffee, trying to wake up. Once the man of honor arrived, I headed off for a bit of a walk before the sun set. For a change, I headed along the waterfront for a while, admiring the harbour.

I inevitably wound up at the Kogge (Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel), where I found myself having the inevitable conversation about gentrification in the neighborhood with a charming drunk couple who had been sitting with my friend when I arrived. The way the guy described the rich kids coming in from other cities, adopting the local habits which suited them and trying to banish the rest, bringing in their fiercer laws and foreign morals (along with an unsympathetic police force), made gentrification sound a whole lot like colonialism – a thought which had never occurred to me. If you haven’t already noticed, I have a life-long obsession with class systems and self-imposed cultural identities, so this was an overwhelming realization. Granted, although gentrification often starts out with a mixture of artists moving into largely non-white neighborhoods, gentrification comes nowhere near the racial and religious oppression involved in colonialism. However, if you look at it in terms of class and economic status, it is still a case of self-appointed imperial powers slumming it in the savage lands in order to benefit from their resources – abundant land, exotic items, fetishizeable culture. Just look at St. Pauli. It was disgusting to me when I experienced it first-hand as a small child and it only gets more abhorrent the older I get. I walked back to the club, watching the moon over the harbour and getting Three Penny Opera songs stuck in my head.

When I arrived back at the party, things were much more drunk and festive. I laughed at the record number of thick-framed glasses in the room. I had sadly missed the first act, with whom I would later make friends, but arrived just in time for our frontman’s acoustic set. It was quite good. I hung out with a lot of familiar faces from our various shows, including the promoter from Aalborg and his awesome girlfriend, who had traveled quite a ways to be there. The band had planned to play a few songs and of course it turned into a small set. There were a few locals who had somehow made it in and were so happy to see us play, having missed the previous Hamburg show. Because the sound board didn’t have phantom power, I couldn’t use my sax mic, so I had to use a microphone on a stand. During the song where the violinist and I usually do a backbend, the singer tried to help me out with his mic and I simply fell over; classy. Otherwise, it was a very fun show and made a lot of people happy.

A highlight of the night was finally making friends with a notable Chicago zinester/musician, who then fed my inner teenage ego in a variety of ways throughout the night. I had always known him by reputation, but never by face, even though we apparently ran in the same circles with all of the same people back at the turn of the century in Chicago. Although I missed his acoustic set during the party, I pieced together who he was by the time our frontman had finished his own, and awkwardly introduced myself. We talked about Chicago and he mentioned that he had worked at Quimby’s bookstore. I already knew this, of course. “Do you remember a zine called Pirate Riot?” I asked. He actually did remember my humble one-off which I had written about ten years ago, which I’d sold on consignment at Quimby’s and a couple other places. He was likewise impressed that I knew him by his writing reputation and had no clue about his music career. At this point, my teenage self had completely lost it, but adult Leslie was trying to play it cool. After we played our set, I felt like the cosmos had evened out the playing field and we were on mutual turf. It was past teenage Leslie’s bedtime, and I could carry on socializing with my peers.

I stayed longer than the rest of the band, finally losing a key piece of my new favourite pair of earrings in the woods, missing out on a few goodbyes, but having a pretty fun almost-the-end-of-tour party. Several of us stayed with one of the folks who threw the party, having comfy beds and delicious breakfast in the morning, then picking up the rest of the band at the Chicago crew’s apartment. I hung out with so many awesome people that night and the next morning, it felt like the last night of tour. However, we had one more show to go. On the drive out of town, we all reminisced about the terrible compliments people have given us on this tour, and there were some pretty good ones. The men in Eastern Europe managed to outdo even the worst “German compliments” when it came to talking to the women in the band, but now we could laugh about it.

Show 23: Zoro Fest; Leipzig, Germany

(Here is my post about Zoro Fest, where I had originally posted a placeholder after tour ended. I know some of you are already curious about my “off-the-grid French donkey farm” excuse, but there are three more posts left about the Inferno tour before I get to that. Those four will be followed up by some reflections on the whole experience.)

Our entry into Leipzig felt somehow magical. One minute, we were passing a stone lion on the side of the woodland highway which simply read “Leipzig” and the next we were driving down the street towards Zoro. I was happy to be returning to both the city, although I had seen little of it on the previous trip but had been hearing called “new Berlin” ever since, and to be playing again at Zoro. We had prepared ourselves for the worst kinds of chaos, given the scuffle during our previous visit as well as the reputation of a largely crusty punk festival versus our current weakened state of tour weariness. However, I was so eager to see a variety of old friends that a mixture of joy and nervousness made it difficult to sleep in the van on the way there.

The scene at Zoro was exactly how I remembered it. We drove into a courtyard full of punks and dogs, everyone either quite busy or drinking beers at picnic tables. We had clearly arrived early enough to load in without much hassle, and there was quite a bit of leisure time to be had. I anxiously awaited the influx of old friends and lovers which was sure to continue throughout the evening. In the meantime, I was happy to see a number of other familiar faces, including the English/Russian couple who I had also run into in Berlin last year. He let me ride his tall bike around the courtyard, which was a huge nostalgic treat for me.

Since tour was winding down, I decided it was time to drag out some clean clothes. I was also happy to wear the vest I had gotten in Berlin and the skirt I’d bought in the Czech Republic, since I was growing tired of the same few outfits. The band never wears street clothes on stage, so my suitcase essentially contained outfits for two separate people, making laundry necessary and combinations fairly finite. I thought I looked very cute, with my knee-length purple plaid crepe skirt, ruffled white blouse, clashing plaid grey vest, tattered grey-blue socks, and matching slipper shoes. The punks, however, thought my outfit was pretty funny, but kindly told me so. One French girl gave me the most flattering German compliment. She said I was wearing “anti street wear” like what it said on the side of our van – that I was dressed strangely but not like all the other kids there, which made me punker than the punks. I was totally rocking my made-up “barricade punk” French revolution orphan look, so I’m glad it made an impression in the land of bile-pallet clothes and studded jackets.

If I wasn’t in love with Zoro the last time we played there, then it surely happened this time. Granted, if you read that old blog post, you can see that the night ended in a near-fist fight and a lot of chaos, but on the whole I left impressed with the space. On a side note, the sound guy told me that every time he sees the dude I almost got in a fight with, he still winces a bit as though to show he won’t start any trouble. I suppose angering an entire band, two warrior princess Germans, and the sound guy would leave a lasting impression. Apparently, he’s a nice guy, it was just “the wrong drugs at the wrong time.”

As for the romance which lingered on across Germany, a look at last year’s posts on Leipzig, Gottingen, and Berlin might lend some insight into the significance of my main companion for the night. Traveling all the time can make one lose faith in anything ever lasting, but once in a while there are people who are still just where you left them and are happier than ever to take you back into their arms, even if you both know it will only last a day. While my romantic life is more complicated than ever, it was good to find a moment of consistency in a world of fantastic new friends. No matter how happy I was to pick up right where we had left off at the train station in Berlin last year, I knew I would be just as sad once I was back on the road the next day.

Our experience with Zoro was similar and in fact better than the last time, despite all of the frenzy of a giant festival. Over the course of several days, a variety of bands would play in the large performance space, the basement, and even the “bike cemetary” room beside the record shop. There was even a stage set up outside, but since we were playing on the first day, it wound up serving mostly as a hang out space and eventual rain shelter. The inside of the building was much how I remembered it and the food blew away my expectations. If I recall correctly, it was veggie meatballs, “chicken of the woods” mushroom schnitzel, gravy, fancy salad, mashed potatoes, and a variety of other good stuff – all vegan of course. The kitchen staff was awesome as usual, full of sassy Swedish ladies, and I enjoyed eating with the other bands who were performing that night. This was our only festival of the tour, and we shared the bill with folks from Austria, France, Sweden, and other places.

I spent much of the evening misplacing and finding the aforementioned lover-friend, and otherwise hanging out with the sound guy from last year, some of the usual suspects who frequent our shows and their charming Swiss friend, my bartender friend from Nuremberg and his roommate who had kindly made the trip out, the Zoro folks, and a number of people I had just met. I was thrilled to reconnect with a lady who had been at our show last year in New Orleans and now lives in Barcelona. We both wondered where our Croatian friend was, considering how much he likes both the band and Zoro. I bought some radical stickers and a silly tote bag as souvenirs at the various vendors, as well as some coffee with homemade liquor from some French folks.

I had such a good time at the festival that I almost forgot to mention the show itself. Although there were enough mixes, I had to go without a monitor because of the small stage. I’m starting to get used to it, although it is clearly not ideal. The room was packed with people, even all the way out into the hallway, which was a lot of fun. Of course, it made dancing or moshing pretty difficult for the audience, but they seemed to have a lot of fun anyway. It was incredibly smoky in there and made it a bit difficult to play, what with needing to breath and all, but everything went pretty well. It was hot and loud and fun, but by the end I was quite worn out. We loaded out a few things, crawling through a window in a stone wall to get to the van, just as it was beginning to rain. I managed to find my friend again and held on tight so as not to lose him again in the crowds, which were getting denser and drunker by the minute.

I was rewarded for my resolution to stay relatively sober by a night which was surreal regardless, but also calm. I felt a bit old for leaving the festival so early, although it was already well past 3am. My friend and I walked back to the “wagenplatz” where he lives. Wagenplatz is the much cooler German word for trailer park. Having been to a number of counter-culture trailer parks and boat yards, I knew about what to expect and was not disappointed. Refreshingly, this one seemed to be populated mostly with punks rather than hippies. We stopped first at our friend’s house to pick up the dog, then walked a while longer until we came upon a large wrought iron fence. We entered and all around were the shadows of trees, industrial buildings, and oddly shaped trailers. I knew that nothing would look the same in the morning, so I soaked in the eerie new surroundings.

It’s possible I have never slept in such a comfortable vehicle, although in fact it doesn’t actually run, so it’s more of a tiny house. The insides were wood on all sides, sloping slightly so that it had the look of an old horse wagon. Starting from the back, there was a small bed, a sink, a closet, and a wood-burning stove. It wasn’t too cold, but we lit a fire anyway because we could. His dog was having a slumber party that night, so the two canines slept underneath the bed in their own little room. I feel very at home in these sorts of cozy surroundings, so this might have been the most comfortably I’ve slept all tour. In the morning, it was quite liberating to wander back from the shower, which was gas-heated and in a building a small walk away, wearing nothing but a towel. I could live happily there, I’m sure. I had missed my chance to visit the vegan Tex-Mex truck the night before, but saw one of its welded bicycle billboards on our walk and our bass player was kind enough to share a bit of her jalapeno poppers with me in the van later.

Soon, it was over to another squat (Liwi) for a breakfast which included more types of spread than I have ever seen, including homemade ones in jars. I am always happy to be somewhere that has soymilk for my coffee too. Back at the venue, we met somebody from Cumbia Queers, a band whose colorful posters have graced the walls of several venues where we have played, who had seen our show the night before. Alas, we were not able to see them play, but talked of future opportunities. As we slowly loaded out, my friend from Nuremberg happened to be walking past and we had another chance for farewells.

The drive out of Leipzig was a real eye-opener. Somehow all I remembered from the previous visit was the squat and a variety of similar-looking buildings. We left the city via the center, which contained a wide variety of gorgeously massive buildings. One was definitely the train station, but I’m not sure about the rest. I think I had underestimated how big of a city it was, which only increased my desire to come back and visit. Full of joy about the festival, my old and new friends, and a very comfortable night in awesome spaces, I felt the sadness of separation sinking in as we left town.

 

Show 22: Yacht Club; Brno, Czech Republic

Even with our leisurely time in the last city, we still were able to stop at the hotel for an hour before heading to the venue. This was quite a nice surprise, and some of us were even able to get Thai food from the restaurant downstairs. I enjoyed a chance to wash out some underpants, lay out a selection of my smoke-filled show clothes, and stretch out my bed for a little while. The hotel was relatively fancy, although it had the usual daunting staircase and fairly non-existent elevator. Soon, it was off on another confusing drive.

It seemed that we would be playing a much larger city, although the venue turned out to be on the edge of town, near the university. The show poster took a lot of liberties, turning the wineglass logo from years ago into the balloon for the cover art from the last album, as well as claiming that the band included former members of Leftover Crack, the Dresden Dolls, Citizen Fish, and Against Me! Everything on the poster had some basis in fact, but it was all a bit fabricated for the sake of hype – not that anyone could blame them. Also, the poster did look pretty awesome.

It was a bit difficult to find the venue, although it was predictably bunker-like and somewhat covered in graffiti. The sign outside was somewhat exploitative of women, but then again I had seen more signs for strip clubs on our drive to the venue than anywhere else on the tour so far. In the greenroom, we had an amenity I have never seen before – an anatomically correct blow up doll. Talk about catering? Gross. Otherwise, they took care of us pretty well, even ordering hot and tasty vegan catering. Besides this, we had the crunchy vegan sandwiches which the local Food Not Bombs gave us at the end of the night, which I continued eating for days after the show. Needless to say, I was very happy to see them at the show, tabling right beside the bar. It should always be this way. All night, to the side of the band, was a projected photo montage of “Protest Fest” – a radical festival which has been going on for years in Brno. I was very happy indeed to see such an activist presence at our show, not just outside but actually during the show. Like I said, this is how things should be, period. I remember PETA tabling outside of Morrissey’s concert at a small town show years ago. It’s as though a majority of musicians don’t care enough to have a political or ethical agenda anymore, or the recording industry has them too scared and castrated to form their own opinions. I am thankful every day to be in a non-mainstream band which sings about radical politics.

It was strange to arrive to the show so refreshed and prepared. We already knew where we were sleeping, had even already prepared our beds for the night, and I myself arrived at the venue dressed for the show. Like the night before, there really wasn’t anywhere to explore, so I was stuck at the venue until we played. Some people spend a half hour warming up, some turn to substances, I personally need a brisk walk and some alone time. Ah well, not this night. I found my solace in the upstairs bar, which was remarkably lacking in character. The bartender was very handsome and lying about his age, but I got a free shot in my coffee for being honest about mine. They had the creepiest foosball table I have ever seen, with human-looking figures chipping away with age. Prohibition was still in effect and I was getting really sick of light beer.

The show was good, although the large room dissipated some of the condensed energy we had felt from the Czech people the night before. I had more fun dancing around on stage than I have at many of the shows so far. I think it could be because I’ve finally gotten to a point in the band where I am comfortable on a variety of levels, so the show is nothing but pure fun at this point. It’s one thing to enjoy playing shows on tour, it’s another to eagerly look forward to them as though nothing else that day could possibly make you happier. The crowd was, in my opinion, the perfect mix of attentive and fun. Sometimes, the audiences back in the states get so involved in the pit that it can feel like nobody is actually watching the performance. Knowing full well that there were thoughtful eyes fixed upon me gave all the more reason to dance around. A third of the way into the set, I had already pulled a muscle in one of my thighs, so I must’ve been giving it more than I usually do… maybe too much, I had to switch to favoring the other leg on lunges. The metal beam beside us which held up the ceiling was a tremendous help in coming up with new stage antics, although I was conscious of how easily it could look like a stripper pole if used too much. There was no wall within my reach this time, but I made use of the line of gear beside me, at one point deepening my standing backbend by reaching my non-playing hand over my head and climbing it downwards. I also came up with a new way to hold my sax,which was moreso due to the stretching I’d been doing than the layout of the stage. It took me this long, but I finally realized I can reach my left hand behind my back and hold my sax from the other side. I am getting so attached to this back harness saxophone strap that I use. I can’t wait to get my wireless mic back and quit being tethered by the leg.

Despite spilling most of my lemonade/beer during a song where we all jump up and down, I still had to pee by the middle of the set. So, it was a race to the bathroom, which was fortunately right outside of the greenroom, unlike in Vienna where I had to go back inside the bar from the outside. I made it back to the band in plenty of time. This was yet another show where I danced around a whole lot and then really needed to run to the toilet; I’m noticing a theme here. It’s a tricky balance, much like riding in the tour van, of staying hydrated while trying to be respectful of your bladder’s fickle internal clock. This is why drinking pale beer on stage is always my last choice, but sometimes in Europe this is easier to come by than bottled water. I made use of the various flasks the folks outside had, although it dawned on me that this wasn’t the wisest decision considering there was some poisoned liquor floating around in the country.

Much of the crowd stayed around to thank us after the show. I’ve explained what a “punisher” is and I think I’ve described “German compliments” – where they are trying to engage you and be friendly but actually say something really insulting. Well, the folks after this show had their own special hybrid of these two phenomenon. I was actually quite looking forward to talking to the audience, as they all seemed quite fun and cute before the show. Well, the guy who had spent the whole concert staring at me said, in less eloquent English of course, that he was intrigued by the onstage discrepancy between my self-esteem and my talent/beauty. I found this psychoanalysis interesting for a little while, but finally excused myself from the draining conversation. I then spoke to a guy who called us a “poor man’s Chumbawumba” but complained that we had no hits. I put up with this line of discussion for a bit until he told me what a good drummer I was. She has pink hair, come on! Some people were quite kind, however, and I talked to several who were shocked we would be play such a small city. I told them they should have seen where we played the night before. Somebody in the band was told that this had been the “show of the year” for sure, since no better bands were scheduled to play in Brno until next year.

We were staying at a well-kept hotel near a theatre which does a lot of musicals, not too far from the city center. In the morning, I woke up just early enough to take a shower, load my stuff into the van, and go exploring for about ten minutes. I had intended to have longer and see the larger historical landmarks, but my head had not wanted to leave the pillow. I felt satisfied enough, though, and of course had plenty of time for coffee and internet while waiting for the stragglers in the lobby.

I napped heavily in the van until we reached our first gas station stop. In the distance, we could see Prague, the drive through which I intended not to miss. The routing through Prague was a pleasant surprise. Last tour, I had woken up while we were passing through the most beautiful parts and over the river, but assumed we would see more of it before we left the next day. Alas, our show was on the outskirts of town in a Soviet-style basement venue, and we never returned to the beautiful downtown. Since we weren’t playing there this time, I assumed it was out of the way. I marveled at the stunning architecture and still would like to return and see it some day in the future. As we drove on, I enjoyed our last sightings of the Czech countryside, even the part where we got lost in small, hilly villages. The border of Germany passed us without much notice and soon we were driving past Dresden.

Show 21: Vrah; Rosnov pod Radhostem, Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is another country I had never visited before this tour, and our drive was satisfyingly eerie. We drove ever deeper into the winding countryside, staring out of foggy, rain-streaked windows at the damp hillsides. It was the perfect weather for our haphazard journey into places unknown. Not only was the town where we were headed very tiny, but we weren’t even playing in the city center. The van slowed down as we reached a group of houses at the base of a small industrial complex. Sure enough, there was a squat concrete building covered in graffiti. Even in the middle of post-Soviet nowhere, we play the same venues. It was so cold outside that a few of us stayed in the van until further notice, at which point I crawled up into the loft and hid under the blankets.

Eventually, the venue was opened and I joined everyone inside for a tour of the building. It was the usual scene of ratty couches, spare bicycles, makeshift kitchen, haphazard infoshop, questionable toilets, and a small stage, all held in by sticker-encrusted walls. It was familiar and therefore comfortable, even in the middle of the countryside where few spoke much English. I was happy to see Citizen Fish flyers and posters everywhere, though. After we loaded in, I went for a walk around the area and enjoyed sunset views of grazing sheep.

From what I gathered, this space has existed for more than a decade and is the hub of alternative culture in that part of the world. I considered it a big honor to play somewhere so special and secluded, as well as psyched that so many people who might not otherwise make it to big cities for shows would be able to see us. However, on the other side of the coin, we were met with another difficult sound check. The sound guys didn’t speak a lot of English, so it unfolded like a game of charades. It was no surprise that we didn’t have monitors and the gear was a bit worse for the wear, but expecting anything more than this would have been foolish. What small DIY venues like this lack in sound quality is almost always made up for in audience enthusiasm. Nobody is coming to a show like that expecting studio-quality sound.

Once it was dark outside, my usual pre-show routine of exploring the neighborhood was out of the question. Beyond the door to the club lay an abyss of dark countryside. Our dressing room was a tiny bedroom into which we all somehow managed to fit. While getting ready, several of us got into a political discussion about the definition of homelessness as it relates to the traveler and squatter culture in America, which made me very happy. A number of both friends at home and people at our previous show had warned us about the prohibition which had just begun in the Czech Republic, due to a number of deaths caused by poisoned liquor. Somehow, though, we wound up with a bottle of American bourbon backstage and otherwise made do. Prohibition, bah.

It was already a full room when the opening solo act was playing. By the time we went on, the enthusiasm in the room was palpable, even over all of the cigarette smoke. The space was spilling out into the hallway and everyone was psyched for the show, especially the sound crew and bartenders, who were even singing along. I really enjoy when we play small towns instead of the nearby big cities. A number of locals came up and thanked us for coming there instead of Prague. Others told me that they had traveled hundreds of kilometers just to see us, but it was worth the trip. We hung out afterward for a while before going to sleep at a cute little chalet further up the mountain.

In the morning, I awoke from a very disturbing nightmare. This was the first time all tour that I had gotten more than eight straight hours of sleep, so I suppose my mind didn’t know how to handle it. I ate some bread and spread and went for a small walk. I found a bar next door and a rather small pumpkin patch full of boulder-sized pumpkins. We headed out eventually, and the van ride began with a lengthy book discussion, focusing on science fiction authors, as we headed to the main town.

There wasn’t much to choose from, but I immediately spotted a second-hand shop and headed straight for it. Half of the band came in soon afterward, but I stayed the longest. I could have happily spent an hour in there, but tried to be as quick as I could. I found several items, all about three euros in price, which I adored but didn’t quite fit me right. In the end, I found a gorgeous purple and black old-fashioned skirt which could be useful for a variety of costumes. It wasn’t hard to find the rest of the band, who were at the only open restaurant in town, and I got to finish everyone’s lunches. Our tour manager said to take a good look around, because this was the last pretty scenery we would be seeing for the rest of our trip together. We all walked back to the van via the coffee shop, where I bought a terrible-looking but incredible dessert. We went into the tourist information center to say goodbye to our host.

One of the funniest moments of tour happened just before we left the town. We realized that a gaggle of teenage girls were image-searching us at the internet kiosk while we were talking to the promoter. He must have tipped them off. They were all pointing at our pictures on the computer, finding the matching person, then giggling and whispering. I’m pretty sure none of them spoke English. Back at the van, we decided to give them one of our postcards and I volunteered to deliver it. I walked over and calmly held out the card, at which point I was swarmed by screaming girls. It was like feeding ducks, but with only one small piece of bread. I escaped back to the van and the girls continued fighting over the card. We had lost our accordion player to a wifi connection, so when I went out to find him, I came armed with two more postcards which I had somehow dug out of a bag. As I walked past, they asked in broken English if I had any more. I pulled two out of my pocket and smiled, held them at arms length, and again ran from the screaming frenzy back to the safety of the van. They ignored the accordion player, though, since he wasn’t on the postcard and we were allowed to leave their small town.

Show 20: Chelsea; Vienna, Austria

After we entered the Czech Republic, we stopped for lunch at – big surprise! – a gas station. This one at least had a restaurant, and I ate a delicious and cheap omelet with a shredded cabbage salad. After a general lack of vegetables other than cucumbers and tomatoes (which are of course better than none at all), even a lousy salad was extremely exciting. I also grabbed an espresso, a bag of those complex “chakalaka” flavoured chips, and of course a small bottle of weird liquor for a souvenir. When I get back to the states, I’m either going to have an awesome exotic liquor tasting party or a bunch of clothes which are covered in broken glass and smell like schnapps.

I very vividly remember our visit to Vienna last summer, when we played a popular show and I then spent the night wandering the town with local musicians. We arrived at the same venue as last time, and the staff was entirely the same. I was happy to see the sound guy, who I remembered as being one of my favourites on the last tour, and hoped he could help fix the problems I had been having with my mic cable at the previous show. Even so, it was another tense sound check, but this time due to stage placement. I’ve begun to feel like a sound leper, since nobody wants to be next to my monitor. Not only does most of this band’s sound fall into my range, but everyone is very loud on stage, so I need my monitor unreasonably loud as well or I might as well not have one. The guitarist had the sound guy put me on the opposite side of the stage, which of course displeased the keys player. I knew it wasn’t personal, but it’s still never fun to feel unwanted or banished. I wound up playing on the stairs, separated from the rest of the band by the accordionist’s keyboard and pedal setup. The sound guy did a thorough job of checking us and, despite my own stress, I enjoyed the group vocal check where everyone used “Funky Town” to test their mics as a group.

After we were done, the band followed the spread of snacks upstairs through a dense crowd of people. I wondered why all of these relatively mainstream locals were there to see our show. I thought that maybe the punk scene in Vienna is much more diverse than I remembered… then I realized it was just a football game in the other room. Fortunately, it was over by the time our show started. I felt satisfied enough with my exploration of the city on the previous trip, so I spent my small bit of free time having a picnic dinner with some iced cider at a bistro table outside, where I still managed to get wifi. I soon realized that I had sat beside the door to the club, casually eating a banana and looking like a weirdo while people showed up for the show. I didn’t mind much, as the awesome older punk door lady from last year was there and fun to chat with. Eventually, I headed up to the green room and managed to get my blog posted while doing my makeup. The frontman and I, who are often the last ones to get out of the dressing room, kept getting startled by the trains rumbling beneath us, which sounded an awful lot like the drums which always open the set. We’ve both had to rush to the stage when the band starts without us, so it was an entirely unfounded paranoia.

Since the dressing room was quite small and a tight squeeze to access, I had brought up my clothing for the show in a small bag. What I had forgotten was shorts, which I usually wear due to all of the stage antics and short skirts, especially on nights such as these when I am wearing particularly sparse fishnets. I have two pairs, one is a longer set of black bloomer shorts and the other is the short polka dot ones I picked up (thankfully) at a second-hand store before all of the crowd surfing at Golden Fest last winter. The van wasn’t parked directly outside, so I decided to just wing it with my tights and leopard print and lace underpants. Vienna – I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

Despite my protests about being so separate from the violinist, who was all the way at the other end of a very long and shallow stage, I actually enjoyed my new position quite a bit. I felt like I made the most of a frustrating situation, but my sound wasn’t really so bad considering how loud the room was. I think our keys player wasn’t so fortunate, though. Having what felt like a wall between me and the rest of the band forced me to come up with more shtick, as well as to overcompensate for my peripheral position. (Thank you, Uta Hagen.) There have been a few comparable situations on this tour, and each time I gladly dig back into my bag of tricks from the years I spent doing clowning. I never thought that all of my physical theatre and mime training, which arguably dates back about as far as my musical training, would come in so handy in a punk band. A juggler friend of mine always used to say “Write it down, or you’ll always be a birthday clown” – and so here it is. My favourite beat from the show was finding myself crouching, as I often do during certain songs, this time with my hand against the wall beside me. I then brought myself to standing by walking my hand slowly up the wall like a spider. I’m not even sure anyone noticed, but I made the note for myself to try this again the next time I play beside a wall. Some folks who had seen us last year complained to me that I wasn’t in the middle this time and said I looked cut off, but I had a lot of fun and everyone in the band agreed that it was a really good performance on the whole. The Vienna crowd is always nothing short of spectacular, so it was bound to be a fantastic show.

On a less glamorous note, I had made a deliberate effort to stay hydrated after soundcheck, which of course meant I was stuck on stage needing to pee. I looked down at the set list and saw a lengthy encore, so as soon as we went outside I bolted for the toilet, knowing that the first song up had a long bass intro. Even so, I missed the beginning of the horn part, but I felt a whole lot better! I suppose it also made my solo all the more theatrical, since I had been missing when the encore started. I climbed out onto the railing part of the stage, as I had done every time I needed to interact with the violinist during the show. At a couple of points where I play the same line as the guitarist and the bass player, they made a point of coming over to my corner of the stage, which really warmed my heart. After a couple of years, I suppose I am grateful for having to change things up a bit, however much I might want to fight it.

Last year, I had made several new friends after the show, mostly Slovenians. My guides for the night became two guys from the band Roy de Roy and their radical friend from Graz. Last year, the band had arrived to the venue with only time enough to sound check, get ready, and play. After the show, everyone was eager to head for sleep at the nice hotel. I, however, wanted to take advantage of my first chance to see Vienna, or Austria for that matter. This whole saga can be read on my Vienna post from last year, but basically I had stayed up the whole night with my new friends, wandering around Vienna with tiny bottles of Jager and flasks of Slivo, ending with a drunken sunrise Klezmer jam session. I was up for another wild night this time, and yet nothing is ever as good as it once was. I still wanted some hint of my previous Vienna adventure, and my band grew short on patience and left me at the club. Via email, I figured out where the hotel was and how to get into my room, in case I ever made it home before morning. The guys from the local band had shown up, but one had to work the next morning, so in the end it was the Slovenian accordion player and I (they are often the most fun one in any band, if not at least the last one standing, true story) getting locked in with the bartenders. We agreed to ditch the two guys behind the bar who had been flirting with me all night and instead run off to hang out with the lady bartender, who was far more fun. The three of us found a food stand and ate weird Austrian cheese sausage with brown bread while we shared a lemon beer and people-watched. We had picked a good bench, privy to strange old men, a strip club, a car crash, and discouraged young pickpockets. It wasn’t a wild night, but I was just as happy for the good company. The bartender had to rush off to rescue her friend from the bat which had gotten into her apartment, so my friend walked me to the hotel, where I was relieved to find the concierge expecting me. I crawled into bed quite late, but also rather grateful.

I enjoyed a very rare treat the next morning – getting up and out of the room, but then going back to bed anyway. As I understood it, we were leaving at 11am, so there I was in the breakfast room shortly beforehand, at which point I was informed that we were actually leaving at noon. I turned around on my heels and was soon back under the covers. I haven’t woken up so blissful all tour. It’s one thing to hit the snooze alarm, but it’s another to be showered and dressed but still give up and go back to sleep. This couldn’t have happened in a more beautiful hotel either. I felt a sort of domestic comfort which I haven’t felt all tour, and all it took was a half hour nap.

I headed down to the breakfast room, which I remembered from the last trip, as well as the gorgeous lobby full of celebrity pictures. It has been a little while since I was back in a place where my computer remembered the wifi password. I was psyched for the fantastic breakfast, with its brown eggs, fresh yoghurt, and feta cheese cubes. It was a bit odd to be plopped right back in the lap of luxury after our tour of Poland and the Balkans. Still feeling lavish, I was deliberately unproductive on the internet, checking the buzz about the band amid watching music videos from my new friends in Finland. I totally forgot about the hippy store downstairs, which was probably a good thing for my pocketbook in the end. We drove out of Vienna and I nodded off slightly in the van to music in my headphones. Some days there is a specific feeling I want, and listening to ska is the only way to get it. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, there is little pang of joy that I can feel all the way back to my teenage years.

Show 19: Club Place; Rijeka, Croatia

So, somehow I did not realize that there might not be wifi in rural Czech Republic. If I wasn’t surprised not to find any at the squat where we played in the middle of nowhere, I certainly couldn’t expect there to be a connection at the chalet where we slept, which was even further up in the mountains. Here’s the post about our last Croatia show, before we headed to Austria and then the Czech Republic.

It was the middle of the afternoon before we were headed for the next city. I knew I probably needed sleep in both directions, having gotten still too little already and hoping that I would have better things to do on our last night in Croatia than go to bed early. However, I felt so full of life, intrigued by the mystery of the previous night, that I wanted nothing more than to try to make sense of it on my keyboard. I was glad I stayed awake, though, as the drive towards our next Croatian city was beautiful, with stunning mountains unlike any I could recall seeing before in Europe.

It appeared that we were playing in a particularly beautiful part of the city, with winding hills of cobblestone streets and old buildings. We were on the edge of the Adriatic Sea and even without seeing the water, it was apparent. Our club, however, fit the usual dive mold. We loaded in and I had a bit of time to walk to the end of the road, where a fantastic assortment of abandoned factory buildings (I assume anyway, the windows were all smashed) which sat beside a stream. I couldn’t tell if it was squatted or just re-purposed and not kept up, but I saw what appeared to be sculptures looming deep inside. I explored for a little while before hurrying back to the venue, unsure if I was actually trespassing. I am an odd kind of tourist and I’m really surprised it doesn’t get me into trouble more often.

Soundcheck was frustrating, as the club’s system was not terribly complete and a number of the cables had issues. We have been having a problem throughout Eastern Europe with the microphones not being grounded properly and the vocal mics shocking their users, so this situation was no different. We also had no monitors, so the violinist and I flanked the stage on either side. I was essentially playing in the hallway to the bathroom, so I was actually hoping the club wouldn’t fill up, otherwise it would be another battle for my front teeth. We tried to hurry through soundcheck, since we needed to get to the hostel to change and eat dinner. The moment we stepped onto the front patio, a voice out of the darkness uttered “World Inferno.” This is getting to be an unsettling trend. I mean, it’s flattering, but somehow the Croatian accents make it sound ominous. This guy happened to be hanging out at the hostel and had seen the band a number of times previously, but couldn’t make it to the show that night.

We headed into the dining room of the hostel, where we had a very starch-centered dinner of bread, rice, and pasta. It’s moments like these where the lack of protein and vegetables is even disappointing for the one third of the band whose dietary restrictions cause these sorts of meals to happen in meat-heavy countries. Just as it had been strange to miss sleeping in a squat when we played in Serbia, it was also odd to find myself yearning for vegan slop. The food was tasty enough, I just personally don’t like too many carbohydrates in general, so it was a bit underwhelming.

Speaking of which, the show in Zagreb had been so incredible, it was almost guaranteed that we would be disappointed the next day. Not only were we playing a smaller room in a smaller city, but the vibe of a club is not that of a radical squat. The folks hosting us and running the show, as well as the bar and sound staff, were very friendly and helpful. It wasn’t their fault that the weekday crowd in that city was pretty bland. It wasn’t as seemingly punk of an audience as I’d expected from the previous night and the tattoo shop which whirred behind the stage, although it was a happy crowd on the whole. We were all also at a slight disadvantage due to the lack of a stage, with lights only at the very back behind the drummer. The nonexistence of a fourth wall was clearly a bit unnerving for the moderately-sized crowd. Eventually, a couple of ladies danced, and I found someone to waltz with during the violin solo. There were several photographers, so I’m looking forward to finding evidence of this show online. Afterward, I had a fun time drinking weird Croatian schnapps with the promoter. Someone from the audience likened us to Oingo Boingo, which is not an uncommon comparison. I think the evening went well, but it’s hard for me to paint an accurate picture of the show, since the crowd in Zagreb had seemed so much more engaged.

After we returned to the hostel, I stayed awake for a little while using the internet, since they hadn’t had any at the club. I was up early enough to grab breakfast, which was pretty much just white bread and liver paste with coffee out of a machine and sugary juices. Wow, it has been three weeks on tour, I usually don’t complain about our comfort this much, but then again the lack of nutrition was beginning to get to me. I headed out to the beach, but wasn’t sure if I would go swimming. As it turned out, I spent so much time admiring the fancy villas and stunning views during my walk that I didn’t really have enough time to make getting wet worthwhile. Besides, the two option were pebble beach and cement. I had already swam in the Adriatic once before, back in 2009 when I caught a ride out of Ljubljana with some Irish guys who were headed to exhibit at the Biennale in Venice. We had been unable to find rooms in Trieste, but had been able to convince the bar where we had been drinking all night to let us pass out on the patio couches, which sheltered us slightly from the rain. We woke up to empty bottles of prosecco and angry waiters. We simply walked out, went across the street, and jumped straight into the Adriatic for our shower. So, if I didn’t get a lonesome swim on this visit, I wasn’t going to feel too disappointed.

Back at the hostel, I met a friendly Russian woman from the states who said she would come see our show in DC. Just as we were leaving, she mentioned how much she likes Gogol Bordello; of course. The drive out of Rijeka was very pretty, as was our route through the Croatian countryside. Soon enough, we reached the border of Slovenia and had another border entry as we returned to the EU. In tribute, I began listening to Roy de Roy, enjoying our drive past its quaint hilly villages. The scenery on this tour has been a welcome change from our Western European drives last summer.

Show 18: Club Attack; Zagreb, Croatia

Once we left the Croatian countryside and entered Zagreb, it was only a matter of minutes before we were at the venue. I had been sleeping in the loft, but by now my body knows the pull of a highway exit, and I had already poked my head out to watch the scenery. We pulled up to the usual sight – concrete walls covered in graffiti, a gravel parking lot, maybe a dog. After a harrowing week of sleeping in too many odd places, everybody bristled a bit at the sight. I got over my weariness as soon as I saw the infoshop, which I bounded into immediately. The lady there spoke perfect English and was so nice. She let our accordionist use the computer and made us both delicious coffee. We were also fed homemade savory cheese pastries. The infoshop was supposed to have hosted a people’s dinner that night, but everyone had gotten too drunk the night before and now they were only interested in playing Yatzee! Seriously, there was always a table of punks rolling dice the entire time I was there, even once it got dark and they had to move the game inside. Throughout the night, the infoshop was my second home, and I smiled to see all the familiar works on their shelves and my friends’ stickers on their refrigerator.

We loaded into a venue which, while full of character, also smelled a bit of piss. As the night wore on, this either solved itself or I got used to it. The room was a long black box, so sound was going to be an adventure. While the band set up, I went for a quick walk around the block. I ran into a couple of our crew, who had triumphantly stolen a role of toilet paper from the nearby corporate hotel. By the end of the night, in reaction to the lack of paper of any sort at our venue, our backstage toilet had three roles of varying quality. I was pleased to find both a sparklingly clean toilet and a wifi connection at the hotel, after which I headed back to the venue. Things were still going slow at soundcheck, so I talked someone into giving me a tour of the squat. Alas, the juggling room was closed. He left me on the top floor, where he had to tend to a film screening, but I made a friend immediately in the kitchen. He was going to be cooking there for the next 24 hours to raise money for a couple of causes. We had a nice chat and I played with his puppy and assured him I would be back to visit.

Once sound check was finally finished, we had a very tasty meal of gnocchi and salad backstage. I then went to visit my new friend upstairs, who insisted I eat some of the vegetables he was cooking. Then, the infoshop convinced me to eat some of their leftover pasta. It was a good day for food indeed. I hung out there for a little while while I waited for the show to start, trying on things in their free box and flipping through fan zines and pamphlets. I saw a poster for my friend from Portland’s Bike Smut festival hanging proudly on their door, which warmed my heart considerably. The same lady from earlier was still there and we had a very frank conversation about being over 30 and single in the radical scene. She said that, for all of the activism, there was still a lot of misogyny, homophobia, and chauvinism in the scene there. I can believe it.

I caught some of the opening band, which was three very sweet guys who cited their influence as Leftover Crack, hence getting the nickname “Croatian Crack” from us backstage. Soon, it was time to get onstage and the crowd in the courtyard gradually met us there. This was one of our most fantastic audiences on this tour. The room was packed and everyone was full of excitement. I had been delighted to see all of the moshing in Poland, but wondered if the milder atmosphere in Serbia was a sign of calmer crowds to come. The Croatians proved me wrong. Not only was there all sorts of activity on the dance floor, including crowd surfing, but there was even nearly a circle pit to our second-most played new song. During a number where our frontman plays his acoustic, he was kneeling on the front platform and a bunch of Infernites managed to take a photo with him while giving him bunny ears. I knew this would reach the internet before the morning, and it certainly did.

I was located on far stage left again, where I had all sorts of props to play with. On one hand, I was essentially located behind the hanging PA, but on the other I had the chain to swing from, a platform to step down to, as well as direct contact with the audience. The leader of the opening band hung out with his friends on my side of the stage, which came in handy when I needed my beer opened, plus they were all super cute and shared their drinks with me. We of course played an encore, and as I walked through the audience, some cute punk girl went to hug me. Saxophones make this tricky, so I offered my cheek and wound up with a mouth kiss. Well, alright then. During the first song of the encore, I was able to sneak out onto the front platform for my solo, which was a lot of fun.

After the show, friends from the infoshop and the opening band came to tell us good job at the green room, although after the mess of visitors the previous night, we locked the door so that we could actually change. I didn’t bother to change and instead went out to socialize. The drinks added up, I suppose, but I was still in good spirits and more tired than drunk. I didn’t make it back upstairs to visit the chef, although I saw him and his charming friends downstairs for a moment. I was hesitant to get locked into the labyrinth of the squat when it came time for the band to leave. Touring without cell phones is a whole different exercise in responsibility and self-reliance, although I suppose that’s how touring has always been until the last decade or so. I wandered around the courtyard having conversations about who knows what. I do remember having the same frustrating dialogue which happens at least once on every tour. “You know what you look like?”… “Oh no, not this again.”… “What?”… “Never mind, go ahead.”… “You look like a prettier Amanda Palmer.” Sigh. I don’t get it. Overall, I had a really fun time hanging out with the folks from the show, at least what I can recall of it.

Remember what I said in the last post about throwing bottles? Well, the sound of smashing glass echoed behind me as I followed my band to the van. I think the conversation in the infoshop about gender fascism had gotten me in the mood already, so when a guy who had been a jerk all night came at me and the lady I was hanging out with, calling us whores and brandishing a broken bottle, my beer went straight for his head. Fortunately, I was on my way out at the time, although my companion apologized for that guy behaving so badly and crawled halfway into the van for one last goodbye. I was sad to leave her behind, but too drunk and tired to take any responsibility for myself beyond the safety of my band. My arm still hurt the next day from whatever went down between me and that misogynist. Like in Serbia, I didn’t start throwing things until the guy insulted the woman standing next to me. In short, though, it was another awesome show at a squat with an infoshop where I eventually got too drunk to talk politics.

That night, we were supposed to stay on floors at a couple of people’s apartments, but the tour manager made the wise call of getting us rooms at a somewhat fancy hotel. Then again, all luxury is relative when you live in the world of squats and sleeping on stages. The band was getting to the point where it needed a little pampering. I probably have the lowest comfort standards of any of us and even I was psyched to get a shower and a clean blanket. Foolishly, the accordionist and I went out in search of food, returning empty handed and then drunkenly using the internet in the lobby until I got my blog posted. We also managed to get up earlier than anyone else, buying espresso and burek at a few local places. It’s been really wonderful having someone else in the band who keeps the same schedule as me and prioritizes food and internet like I do. I’ve spent a lot less time alone on this tour than I usually do. That said, I split off from him soon enough for some solo adventure time.

I walked to the closest historic monument on my map, which turned out not to be terribly close, finding myself in a square of gorgeous buildings. I slowly formed a plan in my mind and decided to find a taxi and get them to drive me back to the hotel as scenically as possible. As the cab raced through the town, I had a small idea of how it might feel to be a wealthy rockstar. Of course, I am nothing of the sort, but in Croatia both my money and my band seem to be a bit more valuable than in other places, so it was an easy daydream to have. Historic buildings breezed past the cab as the wind swept through my hair. On the seat, pinned beneath my sunglasses, sat two crumpled five dollar bills. For ten American dollars, I was able to feel this decadent – impressive. I arrived at the hotel just in time to check out, bubbling over with victorious joy about my sightseeing, as though for a few dollars I had somehow gotten away with something. Sometimes it as though there is a secret level of travel, a place where time lasts twice as long. I try to find this in every city. A day on tour will pass and I look at the people around me and feel as though I have spent three times as long in the same city.

I had secured everyone a later checkout time on my way out of the hotel, but I still had to get my stuff out before 1pm. We then sat in the lobby with our bags for a while, taking advantage of the wifi which didn’t exist in the rooms anyway. Slowly, we made our way to the van and headed to a music store in town. Our drive to the next city was only a couple of hours, so we had tons of time. The shop looked very modest from the outside, but turned out to be quite impressive. It is called MD Partner and I would highly recommend it. As soon as we walked into the alleyway, a man walked out of an office and said plainly “World Inferno” as though he was a character in a film who had been awaiting our visit through some work of fate. It’s always strange to be recognized, though. I contemplated buying a wireless in-ear system, since the price was very good, but eventually decided it was too much of a risk to buy a European wireless system when I would be using it mostly in America. I did, however, buy a house-made XLR cable, which was an incredible bargain and very high quality. While our violinist waited for her cables to get fixed, the rest of us got lost in the van on a very scenic detour to get lunch. The guys selling street corn spoke French, plus I got some tourism, so I was happy.

 

Show 17: Pantheir Club; Backa Topola, Serbia

Once we reached the Balkans, my experience with the internet, as might have been expected, was a series of near-misses. In Serbia, I got just enough to check emails quickly on my phone, but ran out of time before I could even post an excuse about why I was behind on my self-appointed deadline. Wifi appeared the next day at a rest stop, but again I was soon rushed off. Fortunately, a number of adventures have filled the time which might have otherwise been spent online. Sometimes, lack of technology is a blessing.

We had such a long drive out of Poland that I was fully caught up on my blog and well into the present day’s post before we even hit the Serbian border. The drive through Slovakia was incredibly beautiful, although the relative lack of other people on the streets was a bit disconcerting. We passed a huge castle on a craggy hill, probably the most impressive I have ever seen, juxtaposed with massive industry on the other side of our highway. The passage across the Hungarian border was quite easy, although I was sad to leave behind the beautiful and easy drive through Slovakia. Before the border, we had seen a massive carnival and street market in a beautiful little town, and shortly after we entered Hungary there was a parade of children in traditional folk costumes marching through another village.

Hungary was a lot less green than Slovakia, and I was a bit sad I had napped so early, although my dreams had reflected our gorgeous surroundings. We made one gas station stop in Slovakia and two stops in Hungary; each time was like visiting a museum of foreign snack foods. The border of Serbia involved two checkpoints, our first notable border crossing on this tour. The first was very simple and we all enjoyed hearing our names called out in a Hungarian accent and I always laugh when I hear people’s real names who otherwise exclusively use punk names. Crossing into Serbia came soon after, and we amused the border guard immensely by telling him we were going to Backa Topola. “Why?” he laughed. In fact, he was still laughing as we drove off. Customs were not so friendly, though, but let us pass after a quick look into the back of the van.

I listened to Balkan music the whole way, getting myself psyched for Serbia. In fact, in the morning I had at first put on my Hungry March Band shirt, but switched it for the absurd Chuck Norris profanity shirt from Guca which one of the band’s friends, a very jolly man who likes to be called Evil, had given me in Germany. I had already thematically worn my March Fourth Marching Band shirt the day before; I am such a nerd. I was excessively psyched to be visiting a Serbia, a country whose culture has captivated my imagination ever since I started playing Balkan brass band music about six years ago. I had always imagined that if I visited Serbia it would to go to Guca, but I was still glad to be seeing the country finally.

My nutritional choices for the day were road trip quality. I was especially indulgent because of the cheap prices and weird items at the Eastern European gas stations. My diet for the day consisted of improbably flavoured potato chips, herbal vodka, and absurd candy. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I will gain a few pounds on this trip, so now I’m just enjoying that reality… like I enjoyed the Hungarian goulash at the Marche rest stop. Seriously, I’ve never had this much fun ignoring calories since I was a very little girl, and so far (knock wood) I still like what I see in the mirror. I also liked that I got a bit of Hungarian currency back when I paid to use the toilet, adding to my already substantial foreign coin collection.

We finally arrived in Serbia, nearly ten hours after leaving Poland, and found our way to Barka Topola. Not only did the city not show up on our GPS, but we had no address for the venue. The van drove into the center of town, where we hit a dead-end at a street festival. Balloons! It wasn’t long before we climbed out of the van like a collapsing box full of puppies. Our poor tour manager. I almost immediately found the only four circus people in the entire park, a fire spinning troupe from Novi Sad, and invite them to our show. Our tour manager had meanwhile found an old punk who then took him to a bar where they found a drunk local who knew where the club was. We squeezed him into the van and headed back out of downtown.

We arrived at the most interesting building I had seen so far on this trip, a sort of castle-chalet on a corner of a residential neighborhood. We waited for the promoter to show up on his bicycle. This wasn’t exactly how I had always imagined my first day in Serbia, but I was still pretty satisfied with it. The owner of the club was a very interesting man, with a handsome beard and gray ponytail, a small black dog which perched on him like a bird, and an old wooden tobacco pipe. He explained that the name of the club meant something beautiful about change, which was way cooler than panther, which is what I assumed it meant. I have never been so enamoured of a venue before. It was everything I had ever wanted – an outsider architecture castle with excessive nooks and whimsically gothic details. The stairs were made of all manner of wood and stone and the arched windows let in light strategically and sparingly. I bonded considerably with his dog, who took to sitting on my lap, leaning all of her weight against my heart. I needed some puppy love. Load in eventually happened, although we did not soundcheck.

It soon became clear that we had a bit of time between dinner (a tasty vegan stew) and anything else which might happen. Just as I was getting ready to go exploring, the fireworks at the street festival downtown began. The night couldn’t have been more surreal and perfect at this point. I was itching to stretch my legs, get some air, and see a bit of our only Serbian city on this tour. Four folks had showed up early for the show, so I asked if I might tag along on their walk into town. They weren’t local to the city, but at least they spoke the language and were good company.

I must say that Belgrade Infernites are awesome. They were some of my favourite new audience friends from this tour. Our accordionist and I, eager for a change of scenery and company, had set out with four, but their numbers soon more than doubled by the time we had found some food. One of them was dressed so much like me that I had to smile, with goggles and a tutu-like dress and everything. My fondness for our fans was doubled by my general belief that Serbians are both sweet and know how to party. We never really found the wifi we were searching, but it was no matter because the company was so good. We ate massive amounts of cheap greasy food and drank beers out on the sidewalk, meanwhile an ABBA tribute band played on the big stage. Bottles of vodka, cheap wine, and homemade rakija were passed around liberally as well. Soon, the tour van drove up with the rest of our group, who had come along to support our lead singer as he played a few songs on the big stage to promote the show, which was beginning rather soon. We were set to go on at midnight, so the whole night was going to be a long one.

The show itself was a bit of an odd one. We had no monitors, which was beginning to become less shocking, plus the stage was an odd shape. The keyboardist had to play standing on a platform slightly lower than the stage and his rig. There were no working XLR cables, so I had to play directly plugged into the board, which made me feel a bit like a dog on a leash. I was placed between the keyboard and bass, which is a spot I am starting to like, as I can still move to the middle of the stage to interact with the violin. The kids from Belgrade were enthusiastic and fun, while the rest of the crowd didn’t seem quite sure how to react. I had a good show in spite of it all, enjoying hearing myself acoustically for a change. I’m pretty sure we played an encore…

I had wondered why everything didn’t quite seem like the Serbia I had imagined, which was based on the cultural events I have attended in the states and my Serbian-American friends. Somebody eventually explained to me that we were in a part of Serbia which was culturally Hungarian, quite unlike the Southern parts. As for the people in the town, that discrepancy with the Serbians I know back home was due to it being a Saturday night in a small town bar. The club was full of what our tour manager likes to call “punishers” – people who have only good things to say but won’t leave you alone. It was particularly difficult for me, who for some reason captured the imagination of an unreasonably large portion of the room. I was called “the most beautiful girl in Serbia,” told I had an “energy which could not be explained,” and generally got followed around the room all night after the show. I checked in with the other girls the next day, who are gorgeous and so I’d imagined they had similar problems, but it appears I was the chief quarry of the night for the drunkards who were out hunting the bars. It was flattering at first, but then when I found myself backed into a corner by two gigantic fawning men who kept blowing cigarette smoke at me until I was almost choking, I had enough. I told them they were making me uncomfortable and that I did not like being backed into a corner and went to find the people I actually wanted to hang out with. Once I had broken free and could clear my head, I felt like a gazelle who had been systematically chased by two lions who were waiting to tire her out so that one of them had a chance at her; it was awful. One of them would not take the hint and I finally resorted to telling him to leave me alone, then shouting, then throwing the rest of my food at him. I wasn’t even drunk. I’m too polite for my own good, which only leads to a point where I totally snap. My band intervened like heroes, which was fortunate because the only things left to throw were bottles or punches.

A number of the kids there were actually very cool, but most of them were from Belgrade. I even got to sign some really sweet kid’s arm who told me I was his favourite part and that he had watched me the whole show. He used to play saxophone, so if he was hitting on me at all, at least it was from some place of respect for my craft. I would have much rather talked to him than those macho dudes who kept stealing my attention. At one point, all four of the ladies in the band were upstairs avoiding the punishers in the club, who nevertheless kept barging into our greenroom. One of them pointed out the Saturday night local bar factor, and I felt a whole lot better about the punk scene in Serbia.

After staking out my bed upstairs, I wandered back down to the club to say goodnight. I felt like a character in a fairy tale, a wayward princess in a magical cottage. For the first time all night, I felt a peacefulness and sense of home. I had battled the dragons who called themselves men and banished them from my fortress. Now I was free to roam the halls again without worry. While we were all rather in need of real beds and showers, especially after the cigarette smoke-heavy show, it was awfully nice to fall asleep in the attic room amid all of the weird decor and lingering punk show vibe. I was also happy to have another chance to talk with the owner in the morning. Between the work I do for people in New York who single-handedly run venues and my longtime obsession with outsider architecture, I had a lot of respect for this man, who has been building and rebuilding this place for about a decade.

He told me about his next project, which will be a temple for animals. One of our new friends from Belgrade, an anthropologist studying animals, had explained that most zoos come out of colonial exploration, but then there are places like Serbia who have no colonies but maintain a zoo regardless. I had already been thinking of the social implications of caging animals, and he deepened this discussion by pointing out that domestication of animals is the one thing that changed us from being wild. So, just as zoos express a country’s ownership of a “savage” foreign place, the simple act of “owning” an animal makes us somehow civilized as well. This explains why so many traveler kids have dogs, I think. His plan is to build something which hearkens back to the animal-worship origins of religion, and of humanity itself.

I asked the inevitable question which always came up in my visits to strange houses during my post-college fellowship, and yes he of course has to deal with ignorance and negativity from conservative townspeople. He explained very eloquently something which I never put into words when I was researching outsider architecture – that most buildings are the work of many people, but something like this which is built by one person alone, that building has a soul. Overall, I had a strange but fulfilling first day in Serbia.