Bear Claw European Tour Journal 4/2 – 4/27

4/2/08 – 4/3/08 – Chicago to Berlin - The 36 Hour Day – So the day has finally arrived and we are leaving for the airport. I arranged for transport to the airport so that we did not have to take the “L” with all the bags and luggage that we need to bring with us. Funny thing is that we ended up going with a limo, as the rate was only $10 more than taking a van. We get up at about 9 AM and run around Chicago to take care of some last minute stuff. So we’re waiting outside my condo and a white stretch limo pulls up. It was pretty funny to start off climbing into a stretch limo to begin the tour. Anyway, we take off for the airport. The limo driver drops us off at the wrong terminal so we ended up having to drag all of our crap through the airport to get over to the AA terminal, which kinda negates the whole point of paying for transportation to the airport but whatever. We make it through security with minimal trouble and proceed to the food court area. Shortly after this I realize that somehow I forgot any contacts lenses for the tour other than the ones that I have in at the time. After a brief moment of panic I get a hold of my girlfriend, and she hauls ass to the airport to drop off some spare lenses. Unbelievably, there is no traffic on 90 and she makes it in 20 minutes that gets me back to the gate in just the right time. What a sweetheart! We get on the plane and take off.

The plane ride is your standard 7 hr flight. Luckily we don’t have any issues with bringing the bass guitars and snare drum on the plane. After several movies we arrive in Brussels. With minimal issues we make it through the airport towards the connecting flight to Berlin. Rob, Duggan, and I get the biggest glass of Leffe that we’ve ever seen at 7:45 AM Brussels time. We head over to the gate and get ready to make another plane trip. Unfortunately we have to check the bass guitars on this flight, as the plane is much smaller. They gate check them and put it in a special cargo hold. I sleep through the whole 1-hour flight and wake up to the plane descending towards Berlin. My ears have been fucked up due to a head cold and the up and down deal with the flights. When we get to Berlin I can’t hear out my left side at all. They bring the bass guitars off the plane and we proceed to the baggage claim. The airport is very small with a lot of prop planes and has a really interesting look to it. Also, the airport is located in a very centrally populated area of Berlin. The landing was pretty interesting in how close it appears we are to houses and other buildings. The moment I’ve been worried about arrives. Will all the bags make it through from Chicago? Luckily they do and we proceed into the main area of the airport. After getting some cash from an ATM we walk outside to find 2 cabs waiting. We load up and head to the hostel by the name of Die Fabrik. I’ve been to Berlin before but the rest of the guys have not. The area we are in is the more Eastern part of the city and is covered in really cool interesting graffiti. The hostel is really nice. We check in and take a quick walk to find Rich a point to convert his money. We walk past a Donner stand that is like the European/Mediterrian equivalent to a Gyro. The rest of the guys look at this place like it is the last thing they would want to eat but when we walk back past it, we all decide to eat what is lunch by Berlin time but at this point we have no idea what meal this would actually qualify as. Everyone enjoys the meal quite a bit and we head back to the hostel to take a shower. Rich falls asleep but Duggan, Rob, and myself decide to head on out to the town. I take them to some of the touristy parts that I remember from my last time in the city: Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Monument, etc… We all really have a great time and end up finding a Brewpub restaurant. We all decide to order sausage with traditional German side dishes. Rob and Duggan end up with boiled Veal Sausage, which is very white in color. I got a sausage assortment, which is delicious; also the dark beer that they make at the place is excellent. We walk around a little after dinner by the TV tower and decide to head back to the area around the hostel as we saw some interesting bars in the area. We decide to check on Rich as it is now around 9pm. Rich is still asleep when we get back so we lock the door and head out. The bar is filled with an incredible amount of smoke. Just by chance 3 seats open up at the bar. We get some excellent beers and start talking with some local people. We meet a great guy by the name of Rolf at the bar. We originally think that we’re only going to get a drink or two but end up staying out till 1 am and do several shots with at least 5 to 6 beers apiece. This includes Rob! The bartender is a really beautiful woman by then name of Anais from Brazil. We take several pictures at the bar and have an excellent time. Rolf ends up hanging out with us the whole night and ends up staying in the hostel with us as his lodging arrangements are well outside of Berlin. We head back to the hostel and decide that after 36 hours it is time to get some sleep. When we get back we find Rich has been locked in the room, as you cannot unlock the door from the inside unless you have a key. Rich has had to piss for like 4 hours! Anyway, off to bed…

4/4/08 – Berlin, Germany - Red Rooster: I wake up at 7am to the sounds of Duggan’s ass, which I promptly respond with my own method of response. Rolf wakes up in disbelief to the sound and smell taking hold of the room. Duggan and Rolf head down for coffee and I decide to sleep some more. I get up around 9 am and get some breakfast with everyone else. Rolf takes off and the rest of us head out at about noon. We hit up some of the sights from yesterday so that Rich can see some of the city and so that Rob and Duggan can get some pictures. We head back to the hostel and wait for the van, equipment, and our driver Joseph to show up. Joseph shows up at around 5pm. He seems to be a very nice guy and is very talkative. The van is amazing: huge, clean, and very comfortable. We load up and decide to head over to the bar that we are playing that night. We load in and start tweaking the equipment. We all are nervous with the equipment but after a little bit of time we all feel as though everything will work out with the gear. We meet a lot of people including the promoter Dietmar who is a very nice guy. The bar puts on some familiar music such as Dianogah and Shellac. I feel like we are at a place that will be quite receptive, my only concern is that the bar is small and we are very loud and if people will be able to handle it. We are playing with a band by the name of “Call Me an Ambulance”. They play their set to a fairly full room. We get on stage and start our thing. After about 1 minute I feel totally at ease. The people are very into the music and headbanging and such, volume is no problem. We end up playing a little over an hour. Everyone really enjoys the set and we sell a bunch of merch. We pack up and head over to Dietmar’s apartment to stay the night. We drop our stuff off at Dietmar’s house, get some directions to some bars in the area and head out. Dietmar and Rich stay behind to get some extra sleep. We make our way over to a little punk rock bar that reminds us all of Deliah’s in Chicago. Duggan meets a local and strikes up conservation while Rob and I talk with Joseph. Joseph is a really nice guy and we have a great time talking with him about some of his past touring stories. We head out around 3 am and head back to Dietmar’s. We also meet Dietmar’s cat, which is the largest/fattest cat any of us have ever seen. The cat is almost circular when lying down. It’s quite a sight. We all pass out promptly at about 3:30 AM.

4/5/08 – Munich, Germany – Orange House: We all wake up around 11 am which is a little later than we planned being that we are supposed to be at the next show between 5 and 6 pm which is about a 6 hour drive. Dietmar makes some coffee and after a brief bout of panic in which I think that I’ve lost my wallet we gather our things, say goodbye to Dietmar and head back to the van. We make a stop at a gas station, which is our first experience with a gas station on the tour. Lots of interesting snacks and such are all over the place. We depart and get on the road. Rich, Duggan, and I decide to watch the Big Lebowski. A few of us take a nap and shortly thereafter we arrive in Munich. Munich looks to be a very modern city much like Berlin. Due to the time crunch we head directly to the club. We arrive at the Orange House around 6:30 pm. It is a very nice and swanky place. The sound system is very professional, the stage has plenty of room and the room itself is quite large. It could easily hold 250+ people. The staff is incredibly nice. The promoter meets me as soon as I walk in to greet me. We setup and sound check. The sound guy is very polite even though it appears to us that we’re not really his type of music. We do end up turning down just a little per his request. During the sound check he refers to Rob’s bass tone as awful but still takes the time to balance everything out and give us a good mix both on and off the stage. This venue has built in rooms for bands to stay so I get the key and paperwork that we have to fill out from the promoter and we head over to where the room is located. The paperwork is strange in that we are supposed to list the songs that we are going to play that night for the German equivalent of ASCAP.

We walk into the “room” and soon realize that it is not a “room” but a whole apartment including a room with 3 bunk beds for sleeping, bathroom with shower, and kitchen! Seconds later they drop off a case of beer, bottle of Jim Bean (for Duggan), and assorted other drinks such as water and apple juice. They inform us that dinner will be served shortly and ask us if there is anything else that we need. By this point we are all almost in disbelief on how courteous the workers have been. We get settled and eat dinner with the support band of the evening that is known as “Vaccine”. They are composed of 4 very nice gentlemen from Munich. They start early around 9pm. This is due to one of their members having to leave at 10:15. They play a very good set to a mostly empty room. They are very melodic and lyrically driven but still occasionally enter in to some very driving rock passages. They finish their set up at 10 pm. I’m a little nervous now as the room is still pretty empty. We decide after talking with the club to just go with it and play our set. We start around 10:20-ish. Luckily some more people have entered the club and its not looking quite as sparse. We play a very intense set and once again the people that are there really seem to like it. After the show, we end up selling several CD’s and t-shirts and meet some very nice people. I thank the promoter and during small talk find out that her husband’s brother lives in Murphysboro, IL. Murphysboro is about 15 minutes west of Carbondale, IL where Rob and I attended college at SIU. To say small world doesn’t even really seem to cover how odd that seems to me. One guy keeps asking us again and again if we’ll come back to his place to party and see the town. On one hand this sounds good but we’ve already checked into the club’s lodging and we don’t want to make it a super late night as we have a 7 hour drive to Hamburg for tomorrow. He keeps asking and asking and starts to weird Duggan and Rob out who after several odd remarks made by him are under the impression that he may be trying to “score” that night with one of us. We politely excuse ourselves and make a B-Line for the room. We end up closing the night down by watching “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade” while drinking some beers. A random guy walks into the room to get some food. He startles us a little at first but seems very nice. Duggan heads with him downstairs to a Reggae bar where some smoking of non-tobacco products is occurring. I pass out at about 3 am in the top bunk.

4/6/07 – Day Off Drive to Hamburg, Germany: We wake up at about 10 am and start taking showers and such. We head over back to the club where they have converted the club space into a restaurant that is serving a buffet style breakfast. This is free for us being that we played last night so we decide to take advantage of the food. The people enjoying the breakfast are all families with small children. During breakfast a group of 3 people come on to the stage and start to play what I think is the equivalent of German nursery rhymes for the breakfast crowd. We finish up and head back to the van to get on the road to Hamburg.

We are off this day but the promoter of the club in Hamburg is nice enough to allow us to stay in the club’s band lodging area for this night as well as the night we play the show. The drive up to Hamburg is nothing too special. We do get to see some nice countryside but it has been overcast since we have arrived and some sunshine would be great at this point. We make it into Hamburg around 7pm. The town is quite different than any other German towns that we’ve been to so far. It is much more German and not quite as much international like Berlin and Munich. There is plenty of graffiti like in Berlin, but it seems to be even more subculture-ish and very punk rock. Like Duggan said, “this town is way more gnarly than the others”. I couldn’t agree more.

We enter the club that we are going to be playing which is called “Hafenklang”. The entire outside of the club is covered in graffiti and appears to be an old converted mall. The promoter is not at the club yet so we head out to get some food at a local amusement park. We all get some wonderful meals such as bratwurst, currywurst, and other types of assorted sausages. We walk around the amusement park a little while more and then decide to head back to the club. We enter and meet the promoter Thomas who takes us back to the lodging area. The walk to the room is through several old rooms from the previous use of the building as a mall. All kinds of assorted “stuff” lies all over the floor such as duct work, shopping carts, old signs, etc… The room is nice but very dark with only a few lamps. There are several bunk beds. The bathroom is pretty “gnarly” to use the word of the day. We get settled in and head back to the bar. We have a couple of beers and then decide to head out on the town to check out the area as well as the infamous red light district of Hamburg. Duggan and I have been to Amsterdam but the others have not. It is a near carbon copy of Amsterdam’s red light district except that the “window shops” with the prostitutes have a little fence that prevents people from looking down the alley unless they choose to go around the fence and walk down the alley with the shops. We decide to check it out and immediately are attacked by prostitutes before we even make it into the alley. There are several women dressed in almost like winter ski gear outside of the fence that try to get your business before you even get into the alley with the window shops. I’m a little taken back with the aggressiveness of these women compared to my experience in Amsterdam. One of the women walks up to me and says “are you American”. I reply “yes”. She asks, “where are you from?” I respond that I’m from Chicago”. She then without hesitation asks, “do you want to go upstairs and have sex?” I decline and she just keeps asking, and asking, and then finally seems utterly confused that I do not want to. I laugh to myself and we all turn away and head down the alley. The alley is more like Amsterdam in that the women will knock on the window to try and get your attention but they do not come up to you and keep trying and trying. We make it out of the alley and decide to get some currywurst, which is now Duggan’s new favorite type of food. We hang around the area for a little bit more and then head back to the club. Rob, Duggan, and myself hang out for a few hours drinking at the bar and then head off to sleep.

4/7/08 – Hamburg, Germany – Hafenklang: We don’t wake up until almost 1pm. The room is very cold so the sleep was a little rough at first but once you got enough blankets and whatnot, you can get pretty comfortable hence sleeping until 1pm. We head out on the town to check out the main square area where the club is located. We walk around and see a few different shops, bars, and restaurants. One that catches our eye is a sports bar that serves Schnitzel. We head back to the van as I need to visit a music shop to get a replacement front bass drum head. I pick one up for 30 euros (lovely!) and then we head back to the club. We drop Joseph off and head back to the sports bar to get some food and drink. The meal is excellent and we also meet a nice waitress by the name of Sara. The band and why we are in Germany comes up and she seems very interested. She even says that she’ll make it down to the Hafenklang to check us out later that night which I take as a nice gesture but don’t think she’ll really be coming out to the show. We get back to the club and start the load in which is pretty rough in that you have to carry everything down about 25 stairs into the basement. We get all sound checked and have some dinner that the club provides. We meet the other bands which all seem to be composed of nice people. We head back upstairs and wait. No one is showing up and finally at near 10 pm and no one having had paid the promoter is getting ready to cancel the show. They decide to make it a free show and see what happens. A few people walk downstairs but most stay in the upstairs bar. We play to about 8 people mostly composed of Duggan and members of the other bands. After we are done playing we realize that Sara, the waitress, did end up coming. She only caught the last song but seemed to enjoy it. We head back upstairs and find that a huge ping-pong match has developed. We meet several very nice people and have a great time hanging out in the bar. Rob talks with Sara for quite awhile while Rich plays ping-pong with the locals. It looks like something may be developing until she mentions her boyfriend. So it goes. Somehow the bar still pays us 100 euros and gives us a ton of drink tickets. I’m amazed as how this would almost never happen in the US. We have to leave at 4 am in the morning to make it to the Eurotunnel for our scheduled time of 1:20 pm departure to the UK. We end up not going to bed and leaving right at 4 am.

4/8/08 – London, England – The Metro: I sleep for the first 5 hours of the trip. It is about 8 hours to the Eurotunnel entrance in Calasis, France. Then its about 2 hours to London from there. The ride on the Eurotunnel lasts about 35 minutes. I’ve been nervous about this part of the trip for months. Work permits are too expensive and too hard to get to justify playing the 3 shows we have in the UK. We have a story cooked up about recording in the UK and also have a letter from a guy in the UK saying that we’re going to record at his studio. We get to the boarder checkpoint with not a whole lot of time to spare about 20 minutes. We get through the French boarder control easily but the UK boarder patrol is next. This does not go smoothly. They are interrogating each one of us and trying there hardest to get us to screw up the story. After about 10 minutes of asking us 3 or 4 different questions a piece and having me show them our plane ticket reservations, the letter from the UK guy, and asking a bunch of other crap they finally decide to let us through. We grab are shit and get the hell out of there. We drive to the train and we drive the entire van onto the train. The train is utterly foreign to us. It’s just a wide-open room where cars pull into and once a carriage is full, they close the door. We park and the train departs in about 5 to 8 minutes. We just made it!

We get into the UK at about 1 pm; keep in mind that the UK is one hour behind mainland Europe. We stop at a gas station and quickly realize how the US dollar is worth absolute shit in the UK. I buy a gas station sandwich with a bag of chips and drink for what equates to 11 US dollars; this is going to be expensive. We had into London and get into the center about 4 pm. It is a very large city that has the same feel as New York City except that people are driving on the left and the streets are all very confusing and are composed of many curvy streets that are also one way. I’m glad Joseph is driving and the whole left had side the road thing is totally messing with me. We get to the club but no one is there yet so I head out to find a bathroom. I find a really nice old style English pub and get a cask-conditioned ale called “Olde Tyme” which is excellent. I quickly find Duggan and Rob back at the van and have them check out the pub. We have a few beers and then head back to the club to load in. The club is very nice and has an excellent sound system. It is a smaller room but it sounds good. The sound guy is from Italy and is very nice. He seems to be interested in the music as well. Which is always a good thing. We had out to a Greek place to get some dinner and have some excellent doner’s with some really good lamb. The fries or “chips” as they call them here leave a little to be desired I normally like to try local cuisine when in a new place but given the horror stories I’ve heard from others regarding English food and the names of the dishes such as “Steak and Kidney Pudding” I decide that the green place is the way to go. After dinner, we had back down stairs. Shortly there after, I meet Claire and Paul from “A Badge of Friendship” who are the local promoters that helped to organize the show. They are both very nice people and seem very interested in Bear Claw. We get a few beers and shortly thereafter the Jesus Knives take the stage. They are a noisier type of band and are quite good at what they do. They remind me of Table from Chicago back in the early 90’s. Next Gin Panic takes the stage. They are a very driving melodic type of package composed of 2 guitars, bass, and drums. Lots of swirly affects but the music still has a lot of energy while being melodic at the same time. We take the stage and play a very good set. The sound on stage is some of the best of the tour up to this point. We finish and everyone seems to really enjoy the set. I meet 3 or 4 guys from the EA board who are all very nice. It is very fulfilling to me to have met some people who I would have never been able to meet nor play in front of live had we not decided to do this tour. We have to immediately load out as the club converts to a dance club at 11pm promptly. Unfortunately the club takes more money that the promoters anticipated and we only end up with about 60% of our guarantee however; we do all right in merch sales so not ideal but not a total loss. Also, unfortunately we are not able to meet up with the gents from the EA board at a local pub, as we cannot find parking after loading. Also, given the long drive to Glasgow tomorrow we all need to get as much rest as possible. We end up staying with a guy by the name of Rob who is friends with Paul and Clarie. We get to his house have a few beers and then call it a night around 1 am. Before heading off to sleep I realize that this is going to be another cold night. Time to sleep in my jackets again.

4/9/08 – Glasgow, Scotland – The 13^th Note Café: We wake up freezing at about 9 am. Rob wakes up and makes us some Earl Grey tea and we head out at about 10 am. We are in a very Jewish neighborhood and before heading out we stop by a Jewish bakery that has some amazing pastries. We know the drive to Glasgow is going to be about 8 hours but what we didn’t know is that some of this consists of back roads. The drive ends up taking about 9 ½ hours. The scenery is amazing once we get up past Leeds and especially once we enter Scotland. Very large rolling hills with lots of little stonewalls and sheep dot the landscape. It really does kind of look like Braveheart at points. We arrive about 2 hours late for our sound check at the club. Everyone is nice and understanding but it still puts us in a position of hopping out of the van and hauling ass to get set up for a quickie sound check after being locked in the van for 9+ hours. The club is very small but also full of character. For the size of the room the PA is very ample. After sound check we head up to the upstairs that has a great vegetarian restaurant according to some of the folks in London. Unfortunately the kitchen is nearly closed so all they have is veggie burgers. We take what we can get. The burger ends up really not being too bad but not excellent either. I finally get my international phone card to work and am able to talk with my girlfriend for more than 3 minutes for once. After that I head downstairs to check out the first band of the evening who is known as Hyena. Derek from Hyena is the gentlemen who helped set up this show as well as put me in contact with the promoter of the show in Cardiff for the following day. Hyena plays a very good very energized set. Shortly thereafter the next band Ex-Wives take the stage. They are very similar to Rapeman and sport one of Kevin’s guitars from the Electrical Guitar Company. Prior to the show I was informed that they list Bear Claw as one of their influences. This is a new experience for me, as I tend to think that most people don’t even know who the hell we are let alone know our music to a point of listing it as an influence. They play a very amazing set with tons of energy. All components of the band are matched very well (bass, drums, and guitar). At this point the little room is heating more and more up and is starting to smell like a locker room. We take the stage and play a great set to a very enthusiastic crowd. The show is not packed but is not empty either. Overall it is a great time. We have to load out promptly as the bar closes at 12 am sharp. We head back to Derek’s house. He is very accommodating and ends up making us a pizza and dragging out all kinds of sleeping materials. His apartment is the first warm place we’ve slept yet on the tour other than the hostel in Germany and we are so excited for this at this point. We hang out with him for about an hour and then head off to bed around 1:30 am.

4/10/08 – Cardiff, Wales – Clwb Ifor Bach: We wake up at 7:30am sharp as we know the drive to Cardiff will take about 7 hours and we have to be there at 4:30pm. Derek wakes up with us and makes us tea as well as some sandwiches to take on the road with us. I really am so impressed with people’s hospitality up to this point. We hop in van and depart. One thing I haven’t mentioned is that we have had our share fare of gas station food up to this point. There are not any fast food restaurants right off of the hiway so gas station food is it. This isn’t really a problem in Germany for an example and you can get like the best bratwurst you’ve ever had at nearly any random gas station but up here it’s a different story. I get some kind of mozzarella and chicken pocket deal, which proves to be a horrible decision. Luckily Derek’s sandwiches are basic and good. The drive down to Cardiff lasts about 7 ½ hours; some nice looking forests but nothing too lavish. We arrive in Cardiff at about 3:30. The town looks like it has some older architecture including an old castle right in the middle of the town that is right around the corner from the club. We load in and get setup. The club is moderate in size and does not have a stage per say but has a designated area where bands setup and play. I personally like playing on the floor sometimes, as it’s a more intimate experience. The PA is massive for the room. Duggan, Rob, and Myself decide to take a stroll around the town. There is a lot of older architecture and nice shops. There also is an older church in them middle of the town. We all agree that out of the cities we’ve been too so far in the UK this is the most interesting as least visually. Another interesting this is that the language here is actually Welch that is a version of English but a separate language. For example the name of the club in is Welch. We walk back to the club to finish the soundcheck. After that we head over to a pub right around the corner that serves a local beer by the name of “Brains”. I get a pale version, which is quite good but is very English in taste and texture and doesn’t compare to US pale ales and the like. Also, the beers are quite weak around 3.7 ABV. A local guy back at the club tells me a story of how Brains was moved a while back from an older location to a new more modern location and how the locals claim that it doesn’t taste the same. The reason being that the old brew kettles were exposed to the outside and supposedly the occasional dead pigeon would fall into the kettle, which gave it, is “distinctive” taste. Whether its true or not he didn’t know but either way it made for a good story.

The show includes 3 other bands other than us: Theo, Areda, and Zail. Will of a promotion company called “Pedigree Falcon” put the bill together. Theo is a 1-man band. He has a guitar and a small drum kit. His basic deal is that he loops between 3 and 6 guitar parts and then plays drums over the loops. It’s very interesting and pretty amazing to watch live. The only criticism I have is that after about 30 minutes it gets a little repetitive but either way the music is very inventive and amazing to see live. Areda is a 2 guitar and drums band. They play a very complex mathy form of rock, which is very well played and quite enjoyable. Zail is a 2-piece band from Cardiff composed of drums and one guitar player. They have a very primal intense thing going on. The crowd at this point is very into the show. We take the stage around 11 pm. Our situation is unique as we are the only band of the evening to have bass guitar as well as vocals. We play a very good set to again a very receptive crowd. The stage is hot as hell but the show is still very fun. We meet 2 more guys from the EA board who came out to the show and indicate that they thoroughly enjoyed the show. We pack up and head back to Will’s for the night. Will lives in a very nice area of Cardiff and has an amazing apartment with an amazing dog. The dog looks like he could be easily incorporated as a Muppet’s character. We hang out entirely too late near 3 am watching Family Guy and hanging out with Will and one of his friends. Again it is so nice to sleep in a clean warm place.

4/11/08 – Namur, Belgium – Le Belevedere: We wake up at 7:30 am extremely tired. We gather our things and depart by 8:15 am. We have to make it to the Eurotunnel no later than 11:50 and its about 3 to 3 ½ hours from Cardiff to the tunnel. We haul ass and make it to the check in by 11:30 am. Customs glance at our passports and let us right in. Driving through Belgium is interesting in that it is very rural but still interesting to look at. The countryside is very green and slightly hilly and the farmhouses look very old. We arrive to Namur around 4:30. We’re following the GPS, which takes us right through the city center and up to a high hill surrounding the southern edge of the city. At this point we’re looking around wondering if we’re going the right way as that are a few fancy buildings surrounded by parks; not your usual area for a venue. We keep driving and eventually find the venue, which is at the very top of the hill near the Citadel. The Citadel is the place that the townspeople would retreat to in times where invaders would come to the city mostly because of this high location. This being the case, the area where the club is located has lots of old interesting buildings to look at. The whole area overlooks the city of Namur and the view is amazing.

We enter the club and are surprised by the setup. It’s an old building that has been converted into a venue. We meet the promoter Ben who gives the warmest welcome that we’ve had of the tour so far. He offers us some beer so we accept and talk with him for a few minutes about the venue. The stage is quite high for the room and is very shaky. During sound check I realize that my drums are going to be moving while I’m playing for the whole set. We finish sound check and head to the backstage area where they have put aside Belgium chocolates, Belgium Beer, other drinks, and some food for the bands to have. We decide to take a walk around the area. We see some very interesting sights. There are several interesting buildings and a tower all of which seem to be quite old. While walking back to the club we see a plastic mold or statue of a baby’s head sitting in some person’s back yard. It is huge, about 5 feet tall by about 5 feet wide. We have no idea what it could be for. We get back to the club and meet some of the other bands. There is an Italian 3-piece rock band up first by the name of Super Elastic Plastic Bubble. They are very tight and play a quick energized set but at this early point in the evening (8 pm) there are not too many people at the club. We wondering how many people will actually come to this place due to its pretty remote location. By the time the second band starts a nice crowd is beginning to form. The name of the other two bands escape me but one is a guitar and drums duo with a singer that does some very slow stoner rock deal with female vocals. The other band is incredibly weird. They are composed drums, saxophone, and guitar. The music is some of the most primal that I’ve ever heard. There are lots of effects on the saxophone and the guitar at points as well. The drummer is amazing and the music is very intense and noisy. We go on at about 11 pm and there is a very nice crowd. The set is decent considering the playing environment. The monitors are basically non-existent and I have to repeatedly move my 1^st floor tom off to the right as it keeps migrating into my bass drum leg. The crowd is the most receptive that we’ve played to at this point. The show is very fun and we actually do an encore as the crowd starting chanting for one after we finish. We play “832” and everyone really enjoys it.

We have a few more beers at the club and while doing so meet a couple who suggest that we come out to a local bar at the foot of the hill leading up to the Citadel. They are friends of the promoter Ben and several people at the club. Rob, Duggan, and myself decide to go while Rich and our driver Joseph go back to Ben’s apartment where we’ll be staying. Joseph and Rich leave with the van and Duggan and myself catch a ride with the couple that suggested going to the bar. The ride down the hill in the couple’s little car is entirely entertaining. I don’t know how to explain it but going down all the curves with the cities lights in the distant while talking to these two people is quite an experience. We arrive at the bar and about 15 people from the show are already seated. I find out that bars in Belgium do not close. They will stay open until no one is left. We sit down a huge table with the 15 people from the show and have a great time talking about all kinds of things. Politics comes up during almost every conservation that we’ve had with people so far on the tour but people are nice and luckily we agree with what most of the people have to say regarding the American political stance as of late. There is one interesting guy that is quite a character. He keeps saying fuck off and joking around with Duggan. It is quite an experience to hang out with all the local people. I have several wonderful Belgium beers that are quite reasonable compared to prices in the states. The beer is incredibly fresh as well. Rob ends up meeting a girl by the name of Sara who at first we think maybe there may be a little something between them but it doesn’t pan out. We end up staying out until 5 am and people are still going when we leave! I finally fall asleep at about 5:20 am at Ben’s house.

4/12/08 – Peer, Belgium – De Wissel: I wake up at 11:30 am and start to round the troops. Peer is only about 60 to 70 miles from Namur but we’d like to take some time and visit Brussels while in the area. We make it up to Brussels around 1:15 pm. I visited Brussels last year while on a business trip for my day job so I know the city a little bit. I take everyone to the main cathedral and to the main market area of the city. Brussels is a beautiful city and has a very late Renaissance feel to it. Duggan, Rob, and I get lunch at a little restaurant right in the compact market restaurant area while Rich and Joseph look for some other culinary delights. The area we are in is only accessible via walking. The streets are very narrow; no wider than 5 to 6 feet for walking and restaurants stretch for as far as you can see around you. We all get mussels with frites as well as some fried cheese appetizer and finish the meal off with a chocolate mousse dissert. One of the main reasons we wanted to come to Brussels was to go to the Delirium Café. Rob, Duggan, and myself are all big Belgium beer drinkers and this bar is the place for Belgium beer. It actually holds the Guinness book of world records for the most beers ever commercially available at 2004 different beers. We enter the bar and everyone loves the place. We have a few different beers apiece and share them so we can try some of the more rare ones that we cannot get in the US. 2 of these are beers made by the Fantome brewery. Both are wonderful. We also meet 2 guys from Brussels that live right around the corner from the bar. The tour and the band come up in conservation and it turns out that the one guy is a Shellac fanatic. When we tell him how we’ve worked with Steve Albini on both of our albums and that we’ve done two shows with Shellac he is in almost disbelief. We finish up our conservation, get an awesome cheese plate and head back to the van to get on the road to Peer.

We arrive in Peer a little later than planned but still make it in time for the show. The promoter Sven is a very nice guy. The club is decent sized and the PA looks to be quite nice. Peer is a very small town. I would say no bigger than Morris, IL or maybe a city like Glenview, IL or something like that. We drop our sleeping stuff off at Sven’s apartment, which is a 2-minute walk from the venue. We head back to the club to finish setting up and to get dinner, which the club is providing for us. The dinner is wonderful. There is some kind of squash soup that they serve with a lasagna composed of spinach and ricotta cheese. They also present us with a gift of Belgium chocolates. We thank them many times and head back to the club.

A very nice crowd gathers at the club. The first band Bronze goes on at about 10 pm. They are excellent and remind me kind of a scaled back Don Caballero. They play to a nearly packed room. We set up and play a great set to a packed room. I think that people are a little taken back at first just due to the higher intensity level that we usually play at but soon people are bobbing there heads and enjoying the music. We finish up and hang out at the bar and meet some interesting people. One guy is name “Bear” and let me just say that the name fits. He is a tall large man with shoulder length hair and a full beard. He’s fun as hell to talk to and at one point informs me that he once drank 11 Duvel’s in one sitting! The bar makes about 40 little sandwiches and starts passing them out to the bar! They are excellent and are made of some special local meat. Rich and Joseph head back to Sven’s apartment and Duggan, Rob, and I head over to the local bar that is open until ? to have some more Belgium beers with Sven. I had back to his apartment at around 2:30 to try and get some sort of rest.

4/13/08 – Le Havre, France - Le Cabaret Electric: I wake up at around 8:30 am in Sven’s apartment. We have to depart early as our load in time in Le Havre is at 2:30pm. I’m a little surprised by the early load in time but then see that we are scheduled to go on stage at 7:30 pm as the headliner. I wake up and see everyone but Rich is missing. Sven’s apartment is small but very nice and pretty clean. He also provided us with mattresses so sleeping was not bad at all. I take a shower and take a walk to the van to find Rich asleep in the van. Apparently our snoring was just too much to take. This has become an issue as Rich being a light sleeper is not getting very much rest. I’m looking forward to the hotel that we are supposed to stay at in Le Havre. I head back to the apartment and get everyone up to leave. We don’t get a chance to say goodbye to Sven in person as Duggan and him were out until daybreak at the bar the night before. I leave a note and we head out at about 9:30 am.

The drive to Le Havre from Peer is about 5 hours. Once we get into the France we quickly realize how bad the tolls are. After about 2 hours on French roads we’ve already spent almost 25 Euros. I’ll never bitch about Illinois tolls again. The French countryside is very beautiful with gentle rolling hills and lots of livestock composed mostly of cows with the occasional horse pasture. We’re running late again, and don’t arrive to Le Havre until 3:30 pm. Le Havre is a port city and is located in the upper northwest corner of France right on the Atlantic Ocean. We can see huge cruise ships docked at the various piers in the city. The city appears to be moderate in size and has some interesting architecture including some very odd white buildings with diamond shaped windows at the center of the town. The address for the club provided does not include a street number so when we arrive to the town we’re confused as to where to go. The promoter for the show gives me a call on my cell phone as its almost ten to 4 at this point, and helps us get to the club. It is located in a very odd spot, which is at the foot of the odd white buildings that I was just describing. It almost appears that vehicles are not permitted but there is one area to drive a vehicle into the courtyard area that is below street level at the base of the white buildings. We park the van and immediately upon exiting the van are greeted by an older couple (probably in their 50’s) who want all of our autographs in some autograph books that they have. Neither of them can speak almost any English at all so I’m totally confused as to what is going on. To make things even crazier the promoter walks over and is trying to get us to load in immediately due to the lateness of our arrival while we are all being hassled for autographs. I don’t know if these people even know who we are but they seem very excited after we complete the signing. We head into the club to check it out and are surprised to find that it is very decent in size with a nice stage and very professional PA system. There is a backstage area with food and materials for making little sandwiches, which looks almost identical to the backstage area from the movie Spinal Tap when Nigel is complaining about the small bread with the meat. Rob re-enacts the scene for our enjoyment and I snap a picture. In addition to the sandwiches there is beer, various other snacks, and sweets. After completing sound check we head back to this backstage area to eat what we assume is our dinner but soon find out that this spread is only for snacking as dinner will be served in about an hour from then. We decide to go check into our hotel that the club has provided for and find out that they’ve reserved 3 separate rooms for us. This is absolutely fantastic as we could use to sleep in beds with our own facilities without inconveniencing anyone for once. Plus it will avert the snoring situation that has been the topic of discussion as of late. The rooms are basic and small but very clean which is so much a relief at this point.

We return to the club and meet the other band that will be performing which is called Diabolo Electric. They are a two-piece and are composed of Cello player and a Diaboloist. The Diabolo is a French juggling style apparatus. The Diaboloist has added an electric pickup or microphone of sorts that he uses to make noises with the Diabolo and create rhythms along with the Cello playing. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like this before and it is both visually and sonically amazing. Dinner is served and is composed of a salad, cucumber salad mixture, and some little sandwiches. We dig in and then find out that this is only the appetizer! There is a main course that consists of potatoes and duck with some cheeses and spices! In addition, they provided French wine and cheeses with a Tiramisu dissert. The food is the best that we’ve had on the tour so far especially the duck dish that is outstanding. We are a little concerned with the show starting at 6 pm and it being a Sunday with exactly how many people will actually show up for this especially after the club has rolled out the red carpet so to speak to such a degree. We walk outside after dinner to find a line has formed prior to the doors even being opened. The crowd is one of the most diverse that we’ve ever had at a Bear Claw show composed of older people in their 70’s and children as young as toddlers! We actually starting to get a little nervous mainly because we know how loud we are and we’ve never played to children before. To add an even weirder vibe to the night, the club has removed and installed walls to reshape the venue area with respect to what was present at the time we sound checked. We all feel a little odd at this point but are all having a great time. Diabolo Electric takes the stage and play to a packed room. Everyone really enjoys the set and I have to say that there set is amazing. We speak to the Cello player after the show and ask if she could warn people as to our usual volume level especially for the sake of the small children. She does and we take the stage and decide to open up with Jigsaw. A few people leave during the set but most stick around. Then at one point a boy not more than 6 or 7 years old walks up right in front of the stage and stays to watch 3 to 4 full songs with his fingers in his ears but still bobbing his head and enjoying the music. Fucking incredible!

After the set we hang out with Diabolo Electric and discuss both French and American politics, which is a very interesting conservation to say the least. We end up making it back to the hotel by 11 pm which is a welcomed change to our usual arrival time of 3 to 4 am back to our sleeping spot. Rich and Joseph head off to bed right away while Rob, Duggan, and myself head down to the hotel bar to have a drink or two before heading off to bed. I make it back to my room by about 12:30 am and head off for a wonderful full 8 hours of sleep in my own bed.

4/14/08 – Nantes, France – Le Ferailleur: I wake up at 8:30 am feeling fully rested and much better overall. I meet Rob and Duggan for breakfast at about 9:30, which is included with the hotel. We get on the road by about 11am and start the trip to Nantes. Along the way we see some more of the beautiful French countryside. We get into Nantes around 3:30 pm. The city appears to be a little older and has some very interesting architecture and some very narrow streets. We have a little bit of trouble finding the club at first so we stop by another venue by the name of “Blockhouse” which is located inside an old French bunker from WWII to get directions. A very nice woman helps us out and points us in the direction of the club. The club is located in a newer building in what looks like the French equivalent of a mini-mall back in the US. You can only access it on the far side of the building, which borders the main river in Nantes. There is no way to access it with a vehicle. We take a walk and find the entrance of the club but it is a good football field’s length between the van and the entrance of the club. No one is there at our specified load in time of 4 pm so we walk around a bit and in about 20 minutes a guy appears at the door to let us in. The club has a small bar area in the front with the venue in the back separated by a wall. The club part is quite large and has a very large stage. It reminds me of a small Double Door maybe 2/3 as big. The club is equipped with a large rolling cart to help bring equipment from where the vehicles park back to the club. Thank goodness as carrying the amps and drums that far would have been a shitfest to say the least. We start loading in and setting up on stage and shortly thereafter Gatechien arrives. Gatechien is a band from France that all of us have heard before and like quite a bit. They are composed of a bass player and a drummer. The bass playing is astounding on the recordings that we’ve heard and we’ve all been very interested to see the songs performed live. We meet Flo and Laurent from Gatechien who seem like nice guys and then finish sound check. I stick around to see Gatechien’s sound check and am immediately blown away with their sound and specifically Laurent’s bass playing. He plays the equivalent of two bass lines at once for a large portion of their songs by using a lot of hammer ons and pull offs while also playing a 2^nd part with the use of a pick. Its quite astounding as he also sings while doing all of this.

We have a few beers and people start showing up. It’s a Monday night so we don’t know what to expect but by 9pm almost 100 people are in attendance. Gatechien takes the stage and plays an amazing energized set. I really enjoy their set and the crowd is very into the music. We take the stage to a still very full room. We decide to open up with “Repetition”. At the part where both bass guitars come in Rich un-mutes his tuner pedal but no sound is present as one of the jacks to the pedal is slightly unplugged. I catch Rich’s facial expression and think that he’s about to spit bullets but we get on track and end up playing a very nice set. Its incredibly hot on stage and I really feel fatigued at this show. After the show we meet two gentlemen by the name of Thomas and Philippe from a band ChooChooShoot. Thomas is going to put us up for the night. We have a nice conservation with them during which Thomas informs me that we’ll be staying at his place but that he won’t to make enough room for the 4 of us plus are driver. I ask him where he’ll be sleeping and he says he’ll be going to a friend’s house. Once again people’s kindness is unmatched in Europe. We load out say goodbye to Gatechien and head over to Thomas’s place. His place is very nice, clean, and comfortable. He provides beer, snacks and sleeping materials including the use of his own bed. While we are walking up to Thomas’s apartment we see a pair of small black panties in the hallway. We ask Thomas what the deal is an he laughs as says that he doesn’t know for sure but that he thinks they maybe one of his neighbors. We listen to some music and talk with Thomas and Philippe for a while. Thomas and Philippe head out around 1 am but the rest of us hang out until about 3:30 am shooting the shit and using the internet. I get a hold of my girlfriend with Instant Messenger and get to talk for about an hour, which is quite nice. I’m not naming names but a few members of the crew other than the typist of this journal venture out into the hall to retrieve the black panties that are still present in the hallway. These are saved as a souvenir and also provide for much laughter amongst all of us.

4/15/08 – Poitiers, France – Le Café du Clain: We wake up around 10 am to Philippe entering the apartment to bring us breakfast and wake us up. We don’t have to be in Poitiers until 6:30 pm so we have some time for once to take care of some stuff and check out Nantes a little bit. We decide that this being the middle point of the tour and given our current clean to dirty clothes ratio and increasing funkadellaness of the van that is festering that we better do some laundry. We have to hurry to get out of Thomas’s apartment by 12:30 as the misses will be home by then and we need to vacate the premises before then. We make it out with about 5 minutes to spare and hang out at the Laundromat for an hour to finish up the clothes. Exhilarating I know. We drop the crap back off at the van and then venture out with Philippe to get some lunch.

We meet Philippe’s wife and two children on the way to get lunch. We find a nice café, which is located by a city attraction, which is a huge mechanical wooden elephant about 2 to 3 stories tall. Philippe tells us that the elephant actually walks and takes children and parents for a ride around the square area. We get a nice lunch during which the elephant walks out and takes a crew of patrons for a ride. Its interesting to see that the French assume that people are not idiots and will not step in the way of the elephant’s path. The path that it takes is not roped off or separated at all from the crowd that has gathered to both ride and watch the elephant make its trips. As this huge machine walks around the square area, people simply get out of its way including bicyclists, walkers, and parents with children. In the US this would have lawsuit written all over it! We finish our meals and meet up with Thomas to say goodbye and thank him for his generous hospitality. We end up heading out for Poitiers around 3:30 pm.

We arrive in Poitiers around 6:30. Two hours on French highway and what is the price of the toll; 25 euros! Anyway, the Poitiers show was booked last minute by myself and Simmo who helped to setup the London show. Simmo put us in contact with a local promoter by the name of Arno who in turn organized the show at Le Café du Clain. I know that this show is going to be a little odd as I know the place is small and the show was setup last minute but I’m a little unprepared as to how small the place actually is. It is about 2/3 the size of the Circle A in Milwaukee, WI. To put it in more general terms, it is about the size of your average Subway restaurant. This is going to be interesting. We enter the café and meet the owner who cannot speak one word of English. I give Arno a call and he informs me that he’ll be there in about 15 minutes to translate. We plan on playing quitter and I drop one of my floor toms from my setup for the night. The PA is not up to the task at hand. It has a built in limiter that switches the amp offline if it decides that it’s peaked out too much. We try fiddling with the amp and trying to bypass the feature but it appears that is not possible to get around it. A good crowd for the size of the place shows up. The first band goes on and is composed of a solo acoustic act. The damn vocals are overloading the PA even for him! We get up to play and decide to open up with Jigsaw. The volume level that we are playing at is the most quite we ever attempted to play at. After about ½ of Jigsaw we realize that the vocals are non-existent and we decide to make it strictly an instrumental set. We play for about 45 minutes and people still seem to really enjoy it. We even sell some merch. People are very nice and we have some good conservation with people. The show ends up turning out not too bad at all.

Arno puts us up for the night so we head over to his house to sleep for the night. We end up staying in his garage! The garage has been converted into a downstairs area of sorts kind of. It warm and he has mattresses. Also, there is one bedroom so we can separate the snorers from the non-snorers; always a good thing! Arno informs us that he grows is own weed out in the middle of some French forest. A few of us partake and hang out with Arno for about an hour before heading off to bed.

4/16/08 – Paris, France – Mains d’ Oeuvres: We wake up at 9 am sharp, as we need to leave by 9:30 as Arno is heading off to work. Also, we want to try and make it Paris as soon as possible so that we check out the area around the club. We grab some coffee and hit the road. The drive is about 3 hours to Paris. We get in town around 1:30 pm. The area the venue is in is actually a suburb of the Paris right on the northern edge of Paris. It appears that the area is more Turkish in terms of the people living in the area. We decide to check out the venue and see what time we can load in. The venue is in a large building that is composed of several studio rental places that bands and artists rent out to rehearse or paint ect… There is also a restaurant along with the venue. We have to wait until 2:30 pm to load in so we decide to check out the area around the venue. We walk around a bit and get some lunch at a Turkish doner style restaurant that is quite good. We also locate the nearest entrance to the subway system. We head back to the venue and load in. We also meet the promoter Sebastian. The venue itself is fairly large, about the size of Schuba’s in Chicago, maybe 300 to 400 in capacity. We sound check and then decide to check into our hotel that the venue is providing. We are all very tired from the previous night and some rest and a shower would be most excellent at this point. The hotel they’ve arranged for us is a chain by the name of “ETAP” and is located 10 minutes walking distance from the venue. The rooms are very basic but they are equipped with everything you’d need. The shower and toilet is strange in that it kind of resembles a permanent port-a-potty in each room. The shower is a fully enclosed room rather than a bathtub toilet setup as commonly seen in the US. We get a couple of hours rest and head back to the venue to get dinner. On the way back we walk past a park and see a little Yorkshire terrier freaking out but not just in the manner that little yipper dogs like these normally flip out. This dog was only using 2 of its 4 legs and was pissing everywhere while walking in circles only using its two legs. It also did not appear to be a street dog per say as it looked somewhat groomed and if memory serves had a collar with tag.

We arrive at the venue and are ready for some dinner. The restaurant at the venue makes a wonderful Quiche that we all split along with the other band playing that evening. They are called “Warehouse”, are from Paris, and are a 4-piece indie rock band composed of 2 guitars, bass, and drums. People start showing up around 9 pm. They only have one type of beer at the venue that is called Kroenburg. In terms of taste, it is below average at best however we still use up our drink tickets, as we cannot let those go to waste. Warehouse takes the stage and plays a very good set to about a ½ filled room. The sound in the venue is very loud. It’s a very tall room and they have tried to dampen the sound by putting cloth on the walls and making the venue’s shape that other than a square or rectangle. We get on stage and within a minute of starting most of the people have trickled back into the venue. We play for about an hour and people really seem to enjoy it. Rich’s voice is starting to show a little bit of ware after playing for so many days in a row but we are still able to crank a set out no problem. After the show I meet several people from the Paris area. We leave the equipment at the club per the promoter’s request and head back to the hotel. We are all a little bit hungry but cannot find any food establishment open at this time of night. There are some elaborate vending machines in the lobby of the hotel that we decide to pursue. The first two are standard candy style vending machines but the last two have a variety of frozen meals that are composed of some odd things such as mussels, sausage, and a variety of other things. We think about it and then all decide against it and head back to our hotel rooms with some snacks. Duggan, Rob, and I are in one room and Rich and Joseph in the other, again separation per snoring vs. non-snoring. We fall asleep around 1 am.

4/17/08 – Lyon, France – Sonic: We wake up early at 7:30 am, as we want try to see as much of Paris as we can before having to leave for Lyon. We are supposed to be there by 6 pm so we need to try and leave by 2 or 2:30 pm. We get dressed and make it over to the subway after dropping our bags back off at the van by about 9:45 am. After spending a few minutes trying to figure out how to buy tickets from a machine only speaking French, we realize that there is a ticket agent who luckily speaks some English. We purchase our tickets and make way for the Eiffel Tower. The subway is pretty nice. One odd thing is that the trains have tires as well as your standard train wheels... weird. We make it over to the Eiffel Tower and walk around for a bit. It is a very interesting structure. It is very ornate and even though not as huge as some of the skyscrapers and such in the US still quite large and impressive. We take some touristy photos and then decide to just start walking around. We see a couple of large buildings and are on a quest to have some real French Crepes. After walking for about 45 minutes we eventually arrive in a large square area that Duggan informs me is a famous square called “Champs Elysees”. We get some crepes from a stand in the area but are a little disappointed that the pancake component of the crepe is not made fresh. We don’t care too much as we are all starving at this point. We all get ham and cheese crepes and eat them while standing in the square area. Joseph has some French bread that he is nearing completion. He holds out a little bit of the end of the bread and notices that some of the little wild birds in the area fly up to his hand and almost take the bread right out of his hand! While looking around the square area, I notice the famous Arch de Triumph off in the distance. We decide to take a walk over to it. On the way over we notice more crepe stands spaced about 300 to 400 feet apart. We decide that some dissert would be in order so Duggan, Rob and I split a Nutella and banana crepe. This stand makes the pancake fresh which adds to the fluffyness of the crepe... delicious! We continue our walk up to the Arch. The street area on the way over to the Arch is very similar to Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Lots of very expensive shops and cafes line the streets. Likewise, people fill the streets and the crowds are fairly massive. We finally arrive at the Arch de Triumph. It is very impressive and stands at least 5 to 6 stories tall. This structure was built by Napoleon back in the 1700’s to celebrate his victory in some famous battle when the French ruled most of the world. We look around for a little bit more and then decide that its time to head back to the van, load up the equipment, and get on the road to Lyon.

After packing up the gear we hit the road. It rains almost the whole time on the way down to Lyon. We arrive in Lyon about an hour late but it proves to not be a huge issue as there is only one other band on the bill. The venue in Lyon is known as “Sonic” and is the strangest structure for a rock show that I’ve ever been to. It is a boat! To be fair it is in between the size of a boat and a barge but it is still crazy! We have to load the gear across a pier and then down steps into the belly of the ship. There are little portholes through the long area of the ship that constitutes the venue. From this point of view you can see that you are below the water level. It reminds me of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney World that I rode back as a child. The venue is small and is longer and less wide. It is very red in color and has a fairly tall stage at the end of the room. The promoter Digo has prepared some very good food that we all partake in. He made a vegetarian stew with some potato dish using French cheese that is excellent. After dinner, I have to use the restroom and come to find that I have to head back up to the deck of the ship to use one of two small rooms that are the only bathrooms onboard. Digo’s band “Chickpeas” takes the stage at about 9:30 pm. They are also composed of two bass guitars and have a punk rock sound and are mostly instrumental. There is a small but respectable crowd. We play a good but short set as Rich’s voice is really worn at this point on the tour. We have a good time and after the show meet two girls that have immigrated from the US to live in Lyon. The one girl has lived in Lyon for almost 6 years and has developed an accent even though she’s originally American. The other girl Sierra lived in Chicago and then St. Louis for several years. We talk for bit with everyone and then decide to de-board and load up the van for the night. We head back to Digo’s house apartment in Lyon and make it to sleep by about 1:30 am.

4/18/08 – Padova, Italy – Stalker: We wake up at about 9 am at Digo’s house. We have a very long drive to Padova Italy, around 7 hours. We all get moving and ready to depart for the road. Before leaving Rob decides to use the bathroom for an above average job if you know what I saying. Unfortunately, the toilet has a water issue and is unable to be flushed after Rob is done with his “job”. Digo has to manually pour water into the tank in order to be able to flush. You had to be there but it was pretty damn funny at the time.

The drive to Padova takes us through some really interesting parts of Switzerland and northern Italy. The drive through the Alps is beautiful to say the least. The mountains are comparable to Colorado but the landscape is even more interesting as several castles and ancient farms dot the landscape. We pass through at least a dozen tunnels one being almost 18 Km long! Unfortunately the tolls for these roads are ridiculous. For example, the 18 Km tunnel cost 43 Euros! By the time we make it to Podova we’ve spent close to 80 Euros in tolls alone.

The venue is located outside of the center of Podova. It is a large building in the middle of a huge parking lot off of a local highway on what would be comparable to a frontage road for a standard US highway. The sign is worn and shows that the venue used to be a Coyote Ugly chain. The inside of the venue is large but is set up more like a restaurant bar rather than solely for live music. Shortly after we arrive we meet up with Ryan of Sickroom Records as he’s going to come with us for the Italian portion of the tour. Luckily we meet up with him at the venue with no hassles. The stage has plenty of room and the venue also has a hub of computers so everyone gets a chance to check their email for once. The other band from Podova that is playing with us is called Victor Young. They are instrumental and are composed of bass, guitar, and drums. The promoter for the show Sergio also plays bass in Victor Young. In classic Italian style dinner is not served until 10 pm. The dinner is great and consists of an abundance of red wine, pasta with some kind of very minimal sauce (which taste like it has a hint of bacon but there is no meat present), and some bean dish that is also excellent. We finish dinner by about 10:45 pm. At this point people are starting to show up but the venue is still pretty empty. By 11:30 pm Victor Young takes the stage and the crowd has grown to at least 90 to 100 people. Victor Young play a great set which sounds completely different from their sound check earlier in the night. We take the stage at about 12:30 and play a very intense set. People love it and once again we do an extra song at the end of the set. After the show, we hang out for quite a bit but quickly realize that we are not going to bed anytime soon. The crowd is ready to party until the sun comes up. After a little bit of pestering I get Sergio to take off with us for bed around 3:00 am. We split up for the night, as there are now 6 of us. Rich, Joseph, and myself stay at Sergio’s house while Duggan, Rob, and Ryan head over to a friend of Sergio’s. Joseph has to park the van in the smallest driveway I’ve ever seen. Somehow he just gets it in. I finally get to asleep at about 4 am.

4/19/08 – Pescara, Italy – Mono Spazio Bar: I wake up at about 10:30 am. I had to sleep on a 2-seat couch so my back is all fucked up from the get go. I take a shower and have some pastries with Sergio. Rich and Joseph get moving during which I leave with Sergio to pick up the other guys at the other house. While driving over to Sergio’s friends house I get a chance to see a little bit of Podova in the daylight. It is a very beautiful city and has an amazing church in the center of the city. The domes are huge and the architecture of the church is very ornate and elaborate. The city itself consists of a network of very narrow streets with old buildings and hundreds of people about on foot and bicycles. We arrive at Sergio’s friends house. Her house is very interesting and is on the 6^th floor of a building very close to the town center. We all make it back to Sergio’s car and then back to Sergio’s house to meet up with the rest of the guys and start the drive to Padova.

I’ve been looking forward to this show, as I will be able to meet Julien of 5 Roses Press who assisted with booking a majority of the tour as well as organizing all the press. He also is the one who originally got the ball rolling with Bear Claw coming to Europe. I will also get to meet Pavolo who booked the Italian portion of the tour. The drive down takes about 5 ½ hours. The highway borders the Adriatic Sea for a good portion of the drive. The landscape is beautiful. There are lots of rolling hills with vineyards and the sea within a quarter of a mile of the highway for hundreds of miles. We finally arrive in Pescara around 6:30 pm. Pescara is a port city and is a very young city. It is only about 80 years old where as other cities in Italy date back to the Roman Empire. The venue is right in a very central area of the city. We start to load in during which I get to meet Julien. We talk for a while about the tour and a variety of other things. It is very nice to finally put a face with a name and talk in person as hundreds of emails have been exchanged between Julien and Myself. Shortly thereafter Pavolo shows up too. I talk with him for a while and then leave to get all setup with our hotel. When we return, I meet the rest of the guys at a restaurant down the street where Pavolo has arranged for dinner. The food is fantastic. I’m not even sure exactly what all of it is but it is all damn good. There is a variety of bruschetta such as traditional with tomatoes and basil, a second garlic type, and finally a 3^rd with some eggplant. In addition there is some proscuitto and other appetizers that are brought out. The main course consists of a rigatoni dish with an olive oil type sauce with artichokes and a hot sauce, which is made up of olive oil and dried peppers. The dinner is wonderful and we finish is off with some espresso.

We all head back to the venue to get the night started. The show starts at about 11:30 pm. The support band is a local band by the name of Negative Trip. They have a very Nirvanaish type of sound and play a very good set. The bar is packed at this point. There is easily 100 to 150 people inside with an additional 50 to 70 people spilled out onto the street. We take the stage and play one of the best sets we have on all of tour. The crowd is up front and into the music for the whole set. It sounds wonderful in the club too out front. On stage it’s a little bit rougher but still manageable. Upon us completing our set the club converts into a rock themed dance party. No one really leaves and the party just continues. Even Rich gets in on the dancing which is a first for the tour. Duggan meets an Italian woman by the name of Sierra whom he hits it off with. Unfortunately we have to leave to get to the hotel so we ruin any chance he might have had (sorry Scott). We end up finally finishing up the load in back to the van at around 3:30 am. We make it back to the hotel and get all settled. Duggan, Ryan, and myself decide to take a walk around the city and finally make it back for bed around 5 am.

4/20/08 – Torino, Italy – United Club: We get a move on by 10:30 am as the drive to Torino from Pescara is about 7 hours. The drive up to Torino is scenic but we’re all so tired that we don’t pay too close of attention. We get into Torino around 6 pm. Torino is a city in the northwestern corner of Italy. Back in the 1400’s it used to be the capital of Italy before it was moved to Rome. We don’t get a chance to see a lot of the city but there are some interesting buildings and statues from the era back when it was the capital. It starts raining as soon as we get into Torino and continues throughout the night. The show is with our Italian label mates Kash. Bear Claw got a chance to play with Kash back in the summer of 2006 during a quick jaunt out to the east coast of the US during which Kash played 6 or 7 dates in the US. We are all looking forward to meet back up with Kash and play with them in their hometown. The venue is nice but the actual concert hall is located up a flight of stairs. We’ve had a good run of easy load ins so we kind of figure that we had it coming. We load in and then shortly thereafter Kash arrives. We catch up, have a few beers with Kash and the staff of the United Club and then have dinner with everyone around 8:30 pm. The food is fantastic and consists of red wine, pasta with a marinara sauce, creamy rice dish, French bread, and then espresso to finish things off. During dinner a local soccer game is on and a small crowd has gathered to watch the game. The vibe is comparable to local Chicagoans watching a Bears game against the Packers. There is an opening band besides Kash of which the name escapes me. They finish up and then Kash takes the stage and plays a short but very energetic set. Stefano is the lead singer of Kash and is always fun to watch perform. He is very animated and uses his voice as an instrument that works very well with the noise rock of Kash. He also plays harmonica and trumpet occasionally. He kind of reminds me of an Italian version of David Yow…kind of. We take the stage and play an ok set. We’re all starting to get very tired. I guess we are a little surprised at how tired we are but it makes sense as we’ve never played this many days in a row to date. Rich’s voice is cutting in an out at this point and I feel as though I end up playing sloppy but people still enjoy it and we still have a good time.

After the show we hang around the club for a bit and then take off to stay at Paridae’s (guitarist of Kash) house. Ryan from Sickroom Records had been talking about Paridae’s amazing house on the way up to the show in Torino so we are all looking forward to seeing it. The downside is that his house is located 45 minutes outside of Torino. We make the drive and are not disappointed. His house is located on top of a hill in a small rural Italian town. The hill is more like a modest mountain. The road on the way up is very narrow winding type of road with no guardrails and with turns greater than 90 degrees. There are cliffs on the side of the road that I am glad I cannot see at this point in the night. The road itself appears to have not been built for vehicles as large as our van. Thanks to Joseph’s excellent driving skills we make it to the top to Paridae’s house. It is amazing. Paridae and is wife have renovated the house. The upstairs is beautiful and is elaborately decorated. The downstairs is a work in progress, as it will serve as Paridae’s home studio. Paridae takes me around to show me the studio as well as an old custom mixing desk build by Studer back in the late 70’s. It is an amazing space and I can’t wait to see pictures once it is finished. We venture back up stairs where Paridae’s wife is preparing a “snack” for us. It ends up being more like a 4 course Italian dinner with salami, cheeses, other Italian meats, bread, and some wonderful red wine. We stay up and talk for a while and don’t make it to bed until 5 am. Paridae has to wake up at 7 am for work but stays up with us until we go to sleep. It turns out to me a wonderful night hosted by unbelievably nice people.

4/21/08 – Florence, Italy – Day Off: We wake up at Paridae’s at 8 am. Tired doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel. It is about 5 hours to Florence and we want to make it there as soon as possible so that we can check out the city. We all take showers and end up getting on the road by about 10 am. During this time I get a chance to check out Pariade’s house in the light of day. The view out his windows and his yard is unbelievable. His house sits atop the hill we drove up the night before with a bird’s eye view of the small rural Italian city below. There are low-lying clouds that seem almost close enough to touch. We have some wonderful breakfast curiosity of Paride’s wife and then head out.

We start the trip with a drive down from Paridae’s house. In the daylight it is just crazy. Hairpin turns with no guardrails and huge drops are present for the whole ride down. I sleep for a good portion of the trip down to Florence but do get to see some great scenery. We pass through a very mountainous region of Italy where we pass through more tunnels that I can count. The sea is next to the road as well for a good portion of the trip. We chose to go to Florence as Duggan spent a year in Florence studying abroad back in 2003. I took a weeklong trip back in 2003 to visit him along with my other good friend Pete who also was studying in Florence with Duggan. Needless to say both of us are excited to get back to the city. We get in to Florence around 3:30 pm. Florence is an amazing city with narrow cobblestone streets and as Duggan says is stuck in the Renaissance. We have an extremely hard time driving the van through the city and an even harder time finding a place to park our cartoonishly large vehicle for this city’s design. We finally find a place to park of all places on one of the 1000-year-old bridges spanning the Arno River. We take a walk to find the Hostel that we have reservations at. The walk is like a trip down memory lane for me and even more for Duggan. We check into the hostel with a little bit of confusion on the hostel’s part with the status of our reservations in question at first. Joseph decides to stay in and get some more rest but the rest of us head out to check out the city. Our first destination is Duggan’s old school to meet up with a friend of his and an acquaintance of Rob and mines by the of Carolina. We meet up with her and catch up, have a beer, check out Duggan’s old school, and then get another beer at a bar simply entitled the Sports Bar. This bar is of special importance to Duggan and me as this was Duggan and Pete’s favorite bar while they were studying in Florence. The first time any of us had a chance to try Belgium beer was at this bar. We take a trip down memory lane and get some Belgium beers with some amazing sausage soup that we used to have at the bar. It’s about 8:30 pm so we’re ready for dinner at this point. We head over to a restaurant that Carolina recommends we try. The dinner is at a place that is very traditional and serves Italian food in the style of Tuscany. We have several different types of cheese, salami, two types of pasta, a Florentine Steak, and Tiramisu and coffee. This is easily the best dinner of tour. We hang out for a bit and then head over to a local bar and meet Carolina’s boyfriend Valentino and their mutual roommate Mario. We have a couple of drinks and then head back to Carolina’s to hang out for a little bit more. We decide to head back to the hostel. We walk through the streets of Florence around 3 am and pass several different beautiful famous areas of the city. The city is silent at this time of the night. Duggan mentions that at this point of the night it is almost as if the city is yours to personally explore. I head back to bed while Duggan and Rob spend another hour walking around and enjoying the city. Then end up finding a backdoor bakery and get some chocolate croissants at 4 am right when the Italian bakers have just completed making them for the next morning. We all fall asleep between 3:30 and 5 am.

4/22/08 – Udine, Italy – No Fun: I wake up at 8:30 am before everyone else and get a shower. We have to checkout of the Hostel at 10 am so we need to get a move on early. I take a walk to get some coffee and breakfast while the rest of the guys are getting ready. We make it out by 10 am and take a walk to drop the bags off back at the van. Rich is starting to get pretty sick at this point. He opts to sleep in the van while the rest of us head out to check out the city for 3 or 4 hours before having to leave at 2 pm for Udine.

The first place we head to is the Duomo, which is the main cathedral of the city. It is a beautiful church and is the first building to be built with a dome that does not have any supporting beams. The ways in which the bricks are layered support one another and maintain the structure of the dome. There is a huge line to see the inside so we opt to not stand in line due to the short amount of time we have until having to leave. We decide to head over to a main market area where there are all kinds of street stands. Most of the stands sell nothing but cheap Italian leather, t-shirts, cheap jewelry, and other assorted cheap clothing. These stands line the streets for several blocks. We browse a little bit and then locate the main food market area. This market is 2 levels and serves as the main grocery store for all of Florence. The market contains fresh meat, spices, produce, another other assorted foodstuffs. We pick up some stuff as souvenirs. Duggan and me get some Sicilian green olives for a snack that are unbelievable. They are so damn good that we head the whole 100-gram bag in less than 10 minutes. We decide to walk around Florence for about another 45 minutes just taking in the sights and then decide to head over to a Panini shop by the name of Li Li’s that Duggan and Pete used to frequent all of the time back when they were in school. We are delighted to find that it is still open and get Panini’s and drinks for lunch. The cool thing about this place is that no one that works there speaks any English so both back in the past as well as now you cannot choose what type of sandwich you want, you simply get what they think is good which always proves to be a good decision. I get some amazing sandwich and a Heineken that is wonderful. We start the walk back to the van and make sure to stop and get some Gelato that of course is the famous Italian ice cream. It almost resembles butter more than ice cream at least in terms of how it appears visually however the taste is far from butter. Most shops have at least a dozen flavor is not more. I end up getting a ½ and ½ mixture of cream and strawberry, which is like eating pure sin. We all finish up and then head back to the van to get a move on to Udine.

The drive to Udine is about 4 hours from Florence. Udine is located in the upper northeast corner of Italy. This show was setup through the Electrical Audio forum by a fellow by the name of Gaetano. We arrive at the venue (No Fun) at about 6:30 pm. It is a modestly sized venue but is interesting as the ceiling consists of Roman type of arches with old bricks. We finish load in and sound check. At this point Rich is almost unable to talk and is weak with flu like symptoms. We take a walk to get some medicine and then head off to dinner. We get some wonderful local red wine along with a potato dish that almost resembles a potato type of pie. The main course is pasta with a sauce made from fresh nuts. None of us have had pasta that has had this type of sauce and we all agree that it is wonderful. We check into our hotel, which is located about 10 minutes walking distance from the club. We get a quick nap and then head back to the club at 10 pm. Udine is smaller city so we don’t know what to expect for turnout. In addition, there is no opening or local band so it’s just us. A modest crowd gathers and at the time we hit the stage there is probably 20 to 30 people. Somehow Rich ends up pulling a full set out. We do play all the songs that I sing the main part for but Rich also sings 3 or 4 full songs. We play a very good set and I can tell that even with the 1 day off we all are playing much better. We finish up and meet some really nice people. Gaetano is a wonderful host and I am so happy that he was able to see us play live as him and his friends seem to really enjoy it. Rich and Joseph head off to the hotel around midnight. Duggan, Rob, and I stick around for another hour talk with Gaetano about Chicago and touring Italy. We end up making it back for bed around 1:30 am excited for a full 8 hours of rest.

4/23/08 – Milan, Italy - Magnolia: We wake up at about 9:30 am and start getting ready. Before heading off to sleep for the night, I hung my sweaty shirt from the night before on a hanger in front of the window with my hat on top of the hangar as well. Duggan woke up in the early morning once the sun had just come up and got the shit scare out of him as he thought that someone was in the room. It was damn funny. After getting ready we head back to club to load up and get breakfast with Gaetano. We have some wonderful pastries and coffee, say goodbye to Gaetano and head off for Milan.

During the trip to Milan we get our 7^th watch of the Big Lebowski in. After than we pop in Sin City and before we know it were in Milan. The club we’re playing is called Magnolia and from what we’ve been told is one of if not the best place in the city to play. The interesting thing is that it is located outside of the center of Milan close to the airport in a park. It is a fairly large building with a lot of outside patio area that when the weather is nice, is opened up for patrons to hangout outside. We get there at about 5 pm. The staff is very nice and offers us drinks as soon as we come in the door. We can’t sound check, as there is some large gathering of older Italians that is hanging out in the park outside of the club. The promoter informs us that they will be coming to the club to have a dinner reception and that this will also serve as our dinner for the evening. Luckily the club has internet access so we all get a chance to check up on email. While checking email and awaiting dinner, the group of older people begins entering the club. A large component of the crowd consists of a marching band! People start walking through a rope door which is present at the entrance of the bar carrying trumpets, tubas, saxophones, flutes, cymbals, and other assorted marching band equipment. All toll about 60 people enter and the feast begins. The food is ok but is more along the line of appetizers than a full meal. The one thing that kind of sucks is that people descend like vultures upon the food spread which makes it very hard to get any food. We finish up dinner and shortly thereafter Instrumental Quarter arrives. They are the other band on the bill for the night. Instrumental Quarter is composed of one of the guys from Kash and they are also on Sickroom Records. Time passes and nearing 11 pm there is only about 15 people at the club. Instrumental Quarter take the stage and play a very good set. The people that are there are very into the music. They finish up and we take the stage around midnight. In the first song one of my floor tom legs loosens up and the whole drum falls into my bass drum playing leg. I kick it with my knee to move it aside during which I move my right cymbal stand almost out of reach and spill my full beer on stage. Not exactly the best start. The rest of the set goes ok and once again the people that are there are very into the music. We hang out with Instrumental Quarter and some of the people at the club and then around 2 am head to our hotel that is fairly close the center of Milan. We try to watch some TV but nothing is on so everyone falls asleep around 3 am.

4/24/08 – Geneva, Switzerland – L’Usine: We all wake up around 9:00 am at the hotel. Breakfast is ends at 10 am so we need to get upstairs right away if we want the food. We head upstairs and meet the hotel receptionist who also serves the breakfast. She is a very nice woman who is very talkative. We have the usual pastries and coffee and then I decide to ask her how hard it would be to go to the center of Milan to check it out. We find it is not hard at all so we head back to the room and get ready as soon as possible to head to the subway to check it out. Rich decides to stay behind, as he’s still feeling a little under the weather. We arrive in the main square of Milan with the Duomo at about 11:30 am. The church is not as tall as some of the other churches that we’ve seen in places like Florence but is very ornate with lots of steeples and possesses a very gothic style. Within minutes of arriving some of the local panhandlers approach us and we all get a multicolored piece of string tied around are wrists that is supposed to result in “long life”. They get us all for a few euros. Seconds later there are guys trying to sell a handful of corn kernels to feed the mass amount of pigeons that are present in the square. At this point I’m getting a little annoyed so we take some pictures and get the hell out of there. There is a large shopping structure with an exposed glass ceiling just to the left of the Duomo so we check it out next. It is very beautiful and hosts’ very expensive cafes as well as designer clothing stores like Prada and Louis Vuitton. We take some pictures and then head over to an old fort or castle that the clerk at the hotel suggested we visit. We eventually make it over there after getting turned around a few times. The streets are all crooked and change names several times so it’s hard to find your way around. The fort is quite large and impressive and is as old as the city itself. There is a large green gulley that surrounds the fort that used to serve as the moat that surrounded the fort. In addition, there are vines that cover the whole one side of the fort. After check this out we get some lunch at a pizza place that also serves pasta dishes. We’re running a little late at this point so we quickly get some Gelato one last time and then head back to the van to make the drive to Geneva.

I can easily say that in terms of natural beauty Switzerland is unmatched. It is like Colorado on steroids. The highways are extremely curvy with dozens of tunnels that stretch sometimes for near 20 Km. The only downside is that it is crazy expensive to go through some of the tunnels. The worst one we get hit for costs 43 euros! At this point I don’t even want to know what the price is US dollars. At one point we drive about 25 minutes through about a dozen tunnels. You’ll be in a tunnel for a few Km and then you exit to a beautiful landscape with snowy mountain peaks, large valleys with homes dotting the landscape, and small waterfalls cascading down the side of the mountains…for about 10 seconds and then back into another tunnel! Like I said this went on for 25 minutes so to say that it was impressive seems like an understatement. We also get the chance to see some people using hang gliders. From our point of view them are just floating up around the peaks of the snowy mountaintops.

We arrive in Geneva around 6:30 pm. The city is very modern looking and is positioned on the shore of a large lake. The club we are playing is massive, around the size of the Metro in Chicago. Upon arrival, we meet the promoter Alex who could not be a nicer guy. He informs me that due to the fact that there is no local support and that we are the only band playing, that he will have us play in the smaller bar upstairs. I turn to my right and see a very large two level staircase leading up stairs. Just about the time that I’m about to start preparing myself for the tiring load in Alex informs me that there is an elevator! Thank goodness.

We load in to the bar, which is about the size of your standard pub in Chicago. Maybe about the size of the Beat Kitchen’s live room. It could fit maybe 100 people. The bar is very punk rock. We walk into the bar and hear Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power album being blasted. Shortly thereafter, they play the entire Operation Ivy album. About 20 or 30 punk rockers occupy the bar. We load in and then Alex takes up into another room for dinner. The dinner is excellent and consists of a curry chicken dish with spaghetti noodles, carrots, and some other assorted veggies. Next we load in all of our bags and such into a hotel type room that is located on the 3^rd level of the club as this is where we’ll be sleeping for the night. We head down to the bar around 10 pm. At this point the bar has filled up pretty nicely. It is very hot and also very smoky, as the bar cannot open any windows due to past issues with noise complaints. We play probably the best set of the tour to probably the most enthusiastic crowds. Please go crazy during the set. We play close to an hour and consume almost a liter and a half a piece in water. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated that hard in my life playing but man was it fun. We finish up and meet a bunch of people. One guys tells me that he drove over 100 Km to see us simply because he had checked us out on myspace and really liked what he heard. There is one punk rock guy dressed in a black leather jacket, black and white checkered pants, with large Doc Martin boots, and studded accessories that is up front for almost the whole show. He actually toasts my bass drum in between songs. After the show Rob is talk with an older guy probably in his mid-fifties during which the punk rock guy is eyeballing Rob talk with this guy. All of the sudden the punk rock guy gets up, stomps his foot and throws his beer on the ground and walks back to the back of the bar. We’re a little confused and just pay no mind to it until he returns and motions for Rob to come over to him. We all keep an eye on Rob and stay close, as we don’t want another Pittsburgh incident to occur. The punk rock guy takes Rob aside and informs him that the older guy is a narc for the Swiss police and to be careful with what he says. Luckily we don’t have any illegals on us but interestingly enough not 10 minutes after the older guy starts talking with Rob again he brings up drugs and if he knows where he can get some and what not. We end up hanging out and drinking more that we should until about 2:30 am and then head off to bed.

4/25/08 – Berne, Switzerland – Dachstock: I wake up before the rest of the guys around 9: 30 am. We have some time before we have to leave as the drive Berne is only 2 hours. I take a quick shower and decide to head out to check out Geneva by myself. I can see a huge fountain in the distance. Alex from the club said that it shoots water 150 meters high. I decide to head for this as I imagine this is the center point of the town. The city is very modern in most respects and is situated on a large lake with some rivers that spawn from the lake. The city itself is located in a valley with mountains surrounding it in the distance. As expected there are many very expensive shops that line the streets along with several Swiss banks. I eventually make it over near the fountain. Atop the 150-meter high fountain stream rests a giant inflatable soccer ball secured in place with cables. I check out a few souvenir stands and then see a cathedral off in the distance, which I decide to walk over to. This area of the city is the older part of town and consists of many old buildings with the cathedral being the center of the older district. The streets have some very steep hills not unlike streets in San Francisco. I get some more pictures and pick up a few souvenirs and then decide to head back to the club.

We pack up the gear and head out at about 2 pm. 2 hours later we arrive in Berne at the Dachstock. The club is covered in graffiti from head to toe. It is an older looking building with an “A” frame style of construction. We park the van and then decide to venture inside. The venue is very large, about 1.5 times the size of the Double Door. We meet the sound guy and promoter and then take care of the usual load in and sound check necessities. The promoter informs me that the building is actually from 1897 and is now considered a historical landmark. You’d never guess it with the amount of graffiti present. Once is the sound check completed, we head to the town to get some food. If you had to guess what we opt to eat at this point you would probably have a good chance. Doners it is again. These Doners are a little different in that they serve them in a tortilla. They are quite good. We head back to club and come to find that the promoter has provided various cheeses, Swiss chocolates, bread, and other snacks to tie us over for the dinner to take place later that evening. We hang out for a little bit and then meet the guys from Three Second Kiss who are also playing with us this evening. We’ve all been looking forward to hearing them as we’ve good things. During their sound check we notice that both the guitarist and bassist play instruments made by the Electrical Guitar Company. We get a couple of foosball games in and then dinnertime comes. A restaurant that is located in the lower level of the building that houses the venue provides the food. We have our choice of a beef stroganoff dish or a vegetarian dish composed of feta cheese, chickpeas with a curry sauce, and various veggies. I opt for the veggie dish and do not regret my decision, as the food is excellent. During dinner one of the workers from the venue starts breaking weed up at the table and rolling a joint. In Switzerland, it is technically illegal to possess or smoke pot however it’s like J-walking in the US. Outside of the venue we see people snorting coke off of some large stones. From what we’re told the area in front of the club is know for this and apparently it is tolerated. After dinner people start coming in. Duggan and I notice that the air in the club smells strongly of weed, as it appears that at least half of the people are smoking joints, pretty interesting for a bunch of Chicago boys. The first band Flimmer takes the stage. They are composed of 2 bass guitars and play a very fast almost death metal style of music. What is interesting is that they play an encore per the crowd’s request, which is kind of odd for an opening band. Next, Three Second Kiss takes the stage. They play a very good type of mathy indie rock. I thoroughly enjoy their music and they prove to be excellent musicians as well as people in general. At the end of their set they are propositioned by the crowd for an encore as well. They oblige and play one more song. We take the stage around midnight and play to a good crowd that is very enthusiastic. We end up playing Rudimentary Understanding last during which Rich rips off his strings at the end. This usually is a clear signal to the crowd that the set is over however, minutes after leaving the stage people are still yelling and chanting for more music. The promoter comes over and urgently requests that we play some more. We usually are not into encores especially after Rich has ripped his strings off but we figure ah what the hell and re-take the stage to play 2 more songs. After the set I end up meeting 2 more people from the EA board, which is always a nice experience. I end up hanging out with Duggan until 4 am and then pass out upstairs in a room set aside by the venue for bands to sleep in.

4/26/08 – Freiburg, Germany – KTS: We wake up around 11 am. Three Second Kiss also stayed in the sleeping room with us. In addition to the 3 band members of Three Second Kiss there is also a guy that is their sound guy as well as a girl that helps with selling their merch. As such Duggan and I feel that we cannot have our usual call and response gas session as we’ve been partaking in each morning. We wake up, get showers and decide to head out and check out Berne as our drive to Freiburg is only 1 ½ hours. Rich is not feeling so well so he opts to stay behind at the venue. The rest of us head out. Our first stop is a sporting goods store so Rob can get Swiss army knives. I end up getting one myself but Rob is on a mission. We finish up and then head back to the same doner café that we frequented the day prior, so good. We then decide to just start walking around during which we end up coming to a market present in a older part of the town. Tents line the streets with all kinds of merchandise available including but not limited to spices, clothing, hats, jewelery, etc… One stand sells belt buckles and has a buckle of a bear’s claw holding an embelem of the Swiss cross which seems fairly amusing to us. Rob gets another two Swiss army knives to add to his collection. We venture further into the city and come upon a group of street musicians that are performing the song from the canteen bar in the first Star Wars movie. We walk around see some old buildings and other parts of Berne’s downtown area. We end up coming upon a protest gathering regarding the freedom status of Tibet. We look around a little bit more and then decide to head back to the venue to pack up and make way for Freiburg.

The drive to Freiburg is uneventful other than a quick stop at the German border to have a look at the contents of the van. We make it to the venue by about 5 pm. The venue is a DIY punk collective located in an old building that was once used by the German rail road as a school to teach employees. It has been converted over and has a small venue in the basement now. The rest of the rooms are used as computer rooms for web surfing, halls just to hang out in, and sleeping for bands and punk squatters. The overall vibe of the place is very rough around the edges and somewhat dark, dingy, and dirty but it is still a really cool place. The people are fantastic. We meet several and after checking email head outside for dinner. The collective prepares some type of veggie stew with some type of amazing rice. We all sit outside and have dinner as one large group. They have 2 types of hot sauce floating around one of which they warn us is very hot. We all ignore their warning and figure as Chicago boys who eat Mexican food it won’t be an issue. Wow we’re we wrong. All of us end up in a sweat after eating. We hang out for a bit longer and then head downstairs once the show starts getting underway. There are 3 bands on the bill, two hardcore bands and us. The first two bands play very fast punk rock with screaming but it is a little more melodic that what I expected. After they finish we take the stage really not knowing how people are going to react. They end up reacting very well. People thoroughly enjoy our set and we end up selling a good amount of merch and meeting several very nice people. We have to move fast after finishing as we have to start the drive from Freiburg to Berlin by 2 am in order to make it to the airport in time to catch our 12:20 pm flight. Keep in mind that it is about 8 hours from Freiburg to Berlin. We load up and stop for gas as well as get our last German sausage. We all pass out in the van around 2 am with Joseph at the helm.

4/27/08 – Trip back to Chicago: Most of the drive to Berlin is spent sleeping in the van. We end up making it to the Tegel airport in Berlin right at 10 am which gives us a good 2 and ½ hours to make our flight. We pack up and say goodbye to Joseph for all his hard work and tolerance for putting up with us for 23+ days straight. We head into the airport to start the long grueling journey back to Chicago. From the get go we run into a small problem as British Airways won’t let us check in yet because they say its too early. I’m puzzled by this as I’ve never been told that it’s too early to check in for a flight. Plus it’s only about 2 ½ hours before the flight leaves. To make matters worse, they won’t let us bring the bass guitars in any other fashion other than to check them as oversized luggage. We’re not happy about this but we do what we have to. They end up letting people check in for the flight about 20 minutes later but by this time a huge line has formed. Nice planning British Airways.

We arrive at Heathrow airport on time. We have 3 ½ hours till our next flight so we decide to get some lunch at an Irish bar in the airport. I play it safe with a chicken panini as does Rob and Duggan who get very basic sandwiches and fries but Rich orders a full English Breakfast. Man does the food such in the UK. My panini is the driest piece of crap ever, Duggan’s soup is ok but his sandwich is crap, and Rob’s chili cheese fries are lacking chili or cheese. I also do not know what the big deal is with English Chips or as I would call them steak fries. They are usually not crisp and kind of remind me of bad steak fries that have been left under a heat lamp for too long. We have a few beers and then head to the connecting flight.

The flight home is extra long with the whole jet stream thing and to me the never ending day thing sucks. This of course is due to you arriving in the early evening Chicago time but it being around 2 am Euro time. During the flight Duggan makes friends with a male stewardess who keeps hooking him up with plenty of drinks. He keeps giving him 2 beer and 2 shooters of Jack Daniels for 10 euros which by plane prices is not too bad at all. By the time we’re 3 hours outside of Chicago he’s pretty ripped. We land on time and de-board. No problems with customs and thank goodness the bass guitars made it through the oversized luggage deal and all the rest of our crap shows up shortly there after. We all walk to the exit doors at the international terminal at O’Hare and look around realizing that we actually made it back. Rich takes off for the “L” while Duggan, Rob, and I catch a Limo back to my place.

Overall I would say that this whole experience has been incredibly fun and exciting but also tiring and challenging at points. If we do it again I think we’ll do 2 weeks and take Mondays off. Playing 14 days in a row without a break and making some horrible drives like Hamburg to London put a lot of stress on us, but I am glad we did it once. The number one thing I enjoyed was meeting people from abroad that I never would have been able to meet other than via the internet. That was especially cool for me. Also just all the amazing random and not so random people that we bumped into during the trip is something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I really hope we can do it again someday. I feel very blessed that our little rock band that started in my college basement back in 2002 is still together let alone able to partake in something like this. Salute Europe, till the next time….