“Oh no, love! You’re not alone.” – a little tour diary

“Oh no, love! You’re not alone.
No matter what or who you’ve been
No matter when or where you’ve seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain
You’re not alone.”
(D. Bowie, ‘Rock’n’Roll Suicide’)

Eve Massacre has been on tour for a couple of days, here’s a little tour diary: The drive to Cologne on Thursday was a grey mess: It took me ages cause it was foggy as hell. It didn’t matter too much cause when I arrived I still had time for a quick soundcheck and a little chat with the guys of Club Camouflage and Zaehlen sie die Dreiecke and a sip of beer before the latters’ project COMMANDO ZURUECK started playing. The played nice electro punk, think Alter Ego meets distorted vocals like MTK to give you a vague idea. Sadly there weren’t too many people at the show. I guess the wild dancing and destruction of a keyboard at the end of the show would have really rocked a bigger crowd. Poor little casio! It’s a nice little club with a great soundsystem (if my memory serves me right the Liquid Sky people had something to do with that) – almost too big and bassy for the size of the room. I was a bit excited but when I played the second song my nervousness had disappeared and it simply felt good to let go and the sound was great – I loved it. It’s weird, most of the times I know from the first song on how the rest of the set will turn out. After the show we talked more about music software than I’d ever have thought I would find interesting but I have this soft spot for dedicated nerds of all kinds, especially if they are as infectiously enthusiastic as these guys. I had a really nice time, thanks again Alex & Roman & Club Camouflage!
Sadly I didn’t have loaded the batteries for my wonderful new little digicam but at least I took a few pictures of the cute artist hotel in which I stayed that night, ‘Monte Christo’. We need such a place in Nuremberg. Hooray for silver plastic deer heads!

I slept almost scarily good and long and after a short walk in the city I packed my stuff, said goodbye and headed for Muehlheim which was only an hour drive. Okay, an hour and a half if you get lost like I did but this AZ club is really hard to find. I was to play with ALICIA LEDON (I think you can best find out about them and their releases via the MEUDIADEMORTE website which is worth checking out anyway, especially if you’re into noisier and weirder parts of music, e.g. John Wiese) and NAD MIKA at a GENDERTERROR party. Thanks to Svenja and Keywan and Stefan and all the other Genderterror and AZ people who made this a great night. It was good to meet Stefan of ALICIA LEDON again, and to finally see them live. They sound far less experimental than I had expected but more dancy and electro, or dark wave with the adequate dark and sometimes provocative lyrics in german. Here are some pictures (there are more on www.evemassacre.de):

After them NAD MIKA played. I had expected a one woman electro punk show and got a spectacle: she had a couple of gogo dancers, I think all songs were about fucking, and she was all animation. They threw sweets to the audience and there was aerosol whipped cream action and all that to really heavy electro techno tunes that got the crowd dancing. It was fun but when I saw that, I couldn’t imagine playing after that party monster of a live act and for a moment I wished I would either disappear or turn into Kylie Minogue for a while. Well, no magic happened, I stayed my chubby old self and then Nad Mika was done and they left the floor and crowd in a sugarcoated heated slippery mess. I put up my stuff and was so happy when I started playing and felt that it didn’t matter. The music made the audience disappear from my mind and it was great to play and when during some song I looked up and saw that the people enjoyed it too. Phew. Like passing a test of courage. Here’s some pictures to help you understand:

After that the GENDERTERROR ladies spun some lovely dance music (Soulwax, Chicken Lips, Tiga, you get the clue).

I enjoyed that for a while, chatted with some people, especially with a very drunk Uli, a friend from Bochum I hadn’t seen in a while. Felt good to share some thoughts. I went to bed at four in a kind of gym with a freeclimbing wall and fell asleep guessing the tracks from the party underneath by their pumping basslines. I had to leave rather early the next day cause I first drove to René, the other half of LOST IN THE SUPERMAKI, to drive to Esslingen together in his car. It was a bit like Saint Nicholas day when I opened the door and found a surprise breakfast package prepared by Keywan.

I hadn’t gotten enough sleep so after a three hours drive I took a little nap but it didn’t really help. Somehow I didn’t really get awake on that day. Maybe else I might have been a bit scared of René’s shaky driving skills, hehe: He hadn’t driven for a bazillion years before he had gotten that car to which we switched to drive to Esslingen. At the KOMMA Joerg first gave us a little sightseeing tour of the venue which is really nice and big and . There was a bar area and a huge hall for a drum & bass and jungle party and the smaller concert hall. We met the AN ALBATROSS sweethearts who also played that night and more and more people we knew turned up, from Wuerzburg, from Nuernberg, lots of familiar faces. FINN played first and were a bit boring. Boring in a professional way if you know what I mean. THE LOVEKILL played after them but I didn’t watch them cause the room was too crowded but I had enjoyed their show in Nuernberg a couple of weeks ago.

Sadly I didn’t get into the right mood for playing a really good show. Maybe the Jaegermeister would have helped. I felt a bit like standing next to me. Don’t know why but sometimes you simply can’t connect. It still was fun. And I promise the next LOST IN THE SUPERMAKI show will bring back strobe and drawings and fireworks and soap bubbles!

AN ALBATROSS were loud and drunk and lovely. They sound even more 70s rock now than they did last time and heavier, although I can’t really put a finger on what causes that. I don’t think it’s only the new drummer. The music seems to be less hectic playfulness but more powerful dominance. Less khol and painted fingernails, more muscles. I’m curious to see them again on Tuesday. Everyone should go see them, check their tourdates!

We didn’t stay very long afterwards because we both were rather tired and Joerg took us to his place were we could spend the rest of the short night with harmonic snores. At the morning we had a cozy breakfast at the venue and it was nice to stay a bit longer chatting with Joerg and Falte and some other KOMMA people before we drove back home.

I enjoyed those three days, all the nice people and nice moments. Making memories that make you feel fuzzy and warm that’s what it’s all about in the end.
Although it also felt good when I got home today got me a pizza and comfily watched TATORT tonight I already feel like going out on tour again.

P.S.: I’ll go back to answering mails tomorrow, promised! Sorry about leaving some of you waiting so long.