#sweden

28 Aug 2009
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Day 9 – 2 August 2009 : Copenhagen

I wake up early–because I just feel like I’m missing out if i wake up past 9:30, no matter how late I go to bed. Plus, the hotel has free breakfast. Free food is usually not worth it, in my opinion, except for free hotel breakfast. It’s not even the freeness that’s so great; it’s the not having to go anywhere. Just being handed a cup of complementary coffee feels like a miracle to me.

I harangue Nick into accompanying me to breakfast, and the spread is completely incredible. (I had also hoped that this particular perk would give me some insight into Swedish food, and indeed it does). There are eggs, 3 kinds of sausage, liver pate, 5 kinds of hard cheese, 4 kinds of soft cheese, pickles, fruit, muesli, swedish pancakes with 4 kinds of jam, 4 kinds of toast, Nutella, cereal, pastries, odd milky concoctions, and a whole bunch of stuff I can’t even remember now.

We then return to our room to enjoy our last hour of plentiful towels, great water pressure, clean sheets, and CABLE.

Yoshi and Jaime knock on the door and we’re off, lugging all of our stuff once again to the train station. We’re going to Copenhagen to hang out for the next 30 hours, until we head to Germany for more shows.

We have a night of amusement planned: First we’ll hit the Tivoli Gardens and then we’ll go see the Pains of Being Pure at Heart play.

We rendezvous at the entrance to Tivoli Gardens (I actually love that we have to make plans like this–due to no phones) and spend a couple of hours wandering in the amusement park, while we wait for darkness and the magical lights to come on. Close to the entrance, there is a stage show involving gigantic puppets, people running around in black suits, and an enormous “boom box”. It is truly confusing.

Heather + Boom Box @ Tivoli

Time to go on some rides. Yoshi, Jamie and I ride a roller coaster called the Demon. Next, Jamie sets his sights on the ride that is the centerpiece of the park. It involves a gigantic pole and some swings that are not much sturdier than those of your average kindergarten. The concept is, you’re suspended way up high over the city and then spun around so fast that the swings go nearly horizontal.

Tivoli Gardens

I volunteer to go with. Traveling has made my mind entirely too flexible.

Right as we’re being hoisted up the pole like some flag of the apocalypse, I have a moment of clarity: What in the holy fuck am I doing? I HATE heights and spinning and death by freefall. About 50 feet off the ground, I realize that I have a much bigger problem than my personal preference for low-elevation, non-deadly forms of entertainment. My problem is, I am in serious danger of losing consciousness and/or pissing myself. If I lose consciousness, I might slip out of the seat and fall a million feet and then Jamie will be scarred forever, which is totally no fair–and if I pee my pants, then I will spray the entire park like a crop duster once we start spinning fast. I have too much dignity to go down this way.

Cruelly, we get hoisted up much, much further. Then the satanic machine starts to spin. As the wind begins whipping my face , I know I must convince myself that none of this is actually happening. I squeeze my eyes shut and start counting: “One thousand one, one thousand two…” I realize I’m saying this out loud, not just in my head–no wait, I’m screaming it. Jamie is laughing in that giddy way that only a person who knows he is about to die can.

Heather's nightmare

Back on terra firma, once I can make my legs function again, we head to the show. The Pains are absolutely great, and the crowd is so, so into them. It’s one of those great traveling moments–how did I come to be at this show of a Brooklyn band, with these friends I love, so many miles from home?

We hit a few bars afterwards. At some point, I get burned by a girl’s cigarette–I just sort of lean into it somehow. The incident leaves an interesting-looking welt on my arm, sort of like a fingerprint, with intricate swirls and striations. My lone souvenir from Denmark, other than some black licorice from Tivoli.

We eat late-night shwarma and then retire, having had a day filled to the brim with all of the best life has to offer: music, togetherness, aimless wandering, mortal terror, muesli. Done and done’r.

Stuffed money at Tivolo

24 Aug 2009
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Day 8 – 1 August 2009 – Malmo

We sleep like the dead, having stayed awake for 40+ hours. But we wake up much later than we hoped, and it’s stress from the get-go. I have to figure out how we’re going to get to our next show, I have no idea when the trains or buses leave, and I realize that it’s possible we have made a serious error by not taking care of this sooner. We also are supposed to get to the club by 11AM, which is when we’re meeting everyone to liberate the equipment that we left there overnight. Leaving stuff at clubs makes me nervous. There’s the obvious question of theft, but I find that “club time” is extremely nebulous time. 11 AM could mean 2 PM, which would make us miss sound check for tonight’s show.

We get lucky and everyone’s there. We load up, schlep all of our shit to the train station, find a train, and depart for the fair city of Malmo.

We somehow also don’t know where we’re staying in Malmo, but Love is All has told us that when ever they play the Debaser club, they stay at the same hotel. We’re going to just show up at this hotel and hope that we have reservations there. Otherwise, we’ll have to go to the club, find someone who knows what’s going on, blah blah. I just want a shower.

Yoshi and Heather with bags

This is our second day of traveling without a car, and lugging all of our stuff around is getting to all of us. On the walk from the train station to the hotel that we may or may not be staying at, we have to keep stopping to rest. Luckily, Yoshi has played Debaser before, and has also stayed at the hotel that we may or may not be staying at, so Nick and I can just go on auto-pilot and focus on putting one foot in front of the other while Yoshi navigates. When you’re never, ever alone, auto-pilot is the closest you can get to solitude.

Miraculously, the beautiful woman at the front desk has a reservation for 2 rooms in Yoshi’s name. We haven’t slept more than a foot away from each other for a week. Now, Yoshi gets his own room. We’re high rollers here in Malmo!

Nick and I go to our room and watch a terrifying movie called Quarantine while we wait for sound check.

At the club we meet friends that we hung out with last night in G-burg–Ake and Marcus, who is one of those people whose every facial expression throws me into fits of laughter. Like many great characters, Marcus has a catchphrase: “Dude, come ON!” This isn’t some affected bit of personal branding but rather a spontaneous expression of his joie de vivre, an interjection affirming that, indeed, the world is fucking awesome. Yoshi’s bandmate Jamie has also come to the show from Copenhagen, where he’s decompressing from what sounded like a very crazy Still Flyin tour (are there any other kinds of Still Flyin tours?). The presence of these people is a perfect testament to the incredible small-worldness that accompanies band-dom. I’ve never been to Malmo, Sweden, yet we have a little gang of friends to hang out with backstage. Who’d have thought?

Tonight is a club night, meaning we’re the only band. This may mean that a good chunk of the crowd is just waiting for us to finish so that they get on with dancing to the DJ. However, once we start playing, it’s clear that the crowd is in the mood to dance to us as well. They’re actually going a bit apeshit, screaming and jumping around. Nick and I can’t stop laughing. Hey, come to think of it, Nick seems kind of drunk. Plus Yoshi’s kick drum pedal broke 20 seconds into the first song and he keeps stopping the set to duct tape it, forcing Nick to tell jokes. And then there’s the smoke machine at the rear of the stage–it’s relentlessly pumping out humungous clouds that envelop us; it’s like being stuck in a Cheech and Chong movie. After our last song, the crowd chants, “Ex ah-TRAYS! Ex ah-TRAYS!” The whole thing is a glorious mess. So fucking fun.

We dance and drink and laugh, and soak up the Swedish lust for life. Finally, we retire to our Palace of Separate Rooms. About an hour later, I’m awakened by a gang of gleefully-singing drunks on the street. I can hear Nick laughing on the other side of the room. “They know how to have fun here,” I say. “Yep,” Nick says, and we fall back asleep.

21 Aug 2009
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Day 7: 31 July 2009 – Gothenburg

As soon as we leave the stage, a headache hits me, the likes of which I’ve rarely experienced. The room is spinning. I ask the first person who I meet if he has any painkillers. He probably thinks I’m trolling for Oxycontin. And come to think of it, Oxycontin might improve tomorrow’s multi-nation commute.

I take two aspirin. I go sit down and try to breathe. Lawrence sits with me and I feel stupid because I can barely speak, but it’s very kind that he’s keeping me company.

We leave the show with our friend Alice and head to her apartment. She has promised Nick and Yoshi a private screening of Revenge of the Nerds. I fall almost instantly asleep.

They wake me an hour later when the cab has arrived and our epic journey begins. We’re on Ryan Air which is like the Greyhound Bus in the sky. Very strict luggage policy, horrible lines. We manage to muscle through it and several hours later, we’ve landed in Oslo. Now we take a bus from the rural Oslo airport into the Oslo bus terminal.

From there, we must take a bus to Sweden. While we wait we decide which Norwegian concessions to sample. I buy a delicious waffle with strawberry jam. Nick gets a sausage. Yoshi gets…pizza.

We have no working phones and are trying to communicate to Wyatt, Yoshi’s bandmate from the Aislers Set, that we’ve missed the first bus to Gothenburg and will be 2 hours late. Yoshi roams around the station holding his iPod Touch in front of him like a crucifix, scanning for wi-fi signals. [If Yoshi were an action figure, he would come in four versions–Sleeping-While-Sitting-Up Yoshi, Destroying-the-Drums Yoshi, Cracking-Everyone-Up Yoshi, and Wi-fi-Seeking Yoshi.]

We send Wyatt the message and hope for the best.

The music coming through the speakers on the bus is hilarious. Late era Kiss prevails, such as the gem, “Heaven’s On Fire.”

Deboarding the bus, I see two metalheads who are paradoxically, totally over the top, yet totally authentic looking. They are filthy, carrying a case of beer each, in tattered denim vests and paper-thin Iron Maiden tshirts. They look like Vikings from Hell. “Wow!” I gasp. Yoshi explains that these kinds of fellows are a dime-a-dozen here in Sweden. I want to meet them all, right now.

Miraculously, Wyatt is waiting for us and he leads us on yet another bus to his lovely apartment high above Gothenburg.

Tonight we will be playing with his wife Josephine’s band, Love is All.

U2 is in town and once we arrive at the club, we realize it’s been booked for both a U2 pre-party and a U2 afterparty, with Love is All and Eux Autres in the middle like a couple of slices of bologna. The club is packed with people who are just bursting with excitement to see U2. The playlist is all U2. The projector screens show U2 videos. Everyone’s wearing U2 tshirts. “Don’t worry, they’ll all clear out,” the sound man tells us.

Uhhhhh.awesome?

The show is great. Love is All are absolutely riveting. Plenty of the citizens of Gothenburg blow off U2 in favor of some authentic Swedish rock with an American aperitif.

We hang out with tons of people after the show, winding through the streets of Gothenburg, and closing the night at a crepe stand at 3:30 AM.

It has been a long, long, beautiful day.

Heather and Yoshi @ Parken

14 Jul 2009
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European tour dates

We’re heading over to Europe at the end of next week to play some shows in England, Sweden, and Germany. We’re very excited to see some new places, and melt some new faces. If we’re in your neighborhood, come out and see us! As usual, we’ll be firing up the old tour blog, so get ready to read about some things you never wanted to know, written about in more detail than you ever thought possible. Watch this space for updates.

Here’s the full list of European gigs:
July 26 : Derbyshire, ENGLAND @ Indietracks Festival
July 28 : Sheffield, ENGLAND @ Red House
July 29 : Chelmsford, ENGLAND @ Bitterscene
July 30 : London, ENGLAND @ Bardens Boudoir
July 31 : Göteborg, SWEDEN @ Parken
August 1 : Malmö, SWEDEN @ Debaser
August 5 : Berlin, GERMANY @ Bang Bang Club
August 7 : Munich, GERMANY @ Astro Cafe
August 8 : Dresden, GERMANY @ Wimp Club