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10-1-04
We leave for Spain on Sunday. Right after the Packers game. Do check back for
updates!
10-4-05 Madrid, Spain. 7 p.m. local time (12 noon in Milwaukee)
Okay we made it. Uneventful flight, the best kind. Watched "The Day After Tomorrow"
on the plane, it was about as stupid as I expected it to be. They did warn us,
however, that "this movie contains scenes of an airliner in trouble." Being the
reckless soul that I am, I chose to watch it anyway. I believe the CGI effects
were just that much more realistic on the 5 inch screen on the back of the seat
in front of me. 3-hour layover at Heathrow, then another hour sitting on the
runway waiting to take off. Bottom line is we left Chicago at 8 p.m. Sunday night
and got to our hotel in Madrid, the Hostal Buenos Aires, at 4:30 p.m. today. Most
of us havenīt slept at all. I am drinking a Pascual Bio Frutas Tropical juice
drink out of a tinfoil carton. Tasty! It's pretty much pineapple juice. The
funniest thing so far is Mike forgot to pack underwear, so heīs off trying to
find some right now. (I only think that's funny because I went up north a couple
weeks ago and forgot to pack T-shirts, which is normally the only thing I wear,
which means that I forgot to pack shirts. Fortunately you can get away with wearing
the same T-shirt for four days on a fishing trip.) Tonight we are going to try
to revisit the scene of the Great Madrid Lost Evening of ī02, yes, Paul Collinsī
Manhattan Martini Bar. If we can find it. NOTE: Upon our return home, we got
an email from a very helpful fan from Madrid who was at our show, who said that
Paul Collins is no longer involved with the Manhattan Martini Bar, and that he
has a new band with all Spanish musicians and it putting out a new record. Cool!
Thanks to Jose Luis for the info, and for taking the pictures of the Moby Dick
show (see them at www.popandsoul.com).
10-5-04. Noonish
No luck on the MMB search last night, well actually we did find it, eventually,
using the services of a cab driver who wanted to talk American politics in Spanish,
but it was closed. No matter. We still went on a "tapeo", which essentially
means barhopping, or tapa-hopping, which was fun. And amazingly cheap, for the
most part. 4 cervesas, with tapas, usually averaged out to around 7 euros, which
due to the crappy value of the dollar against the Euro, is about $10. Still not
bad. Just donīt order a gin and tonic, those were a bit pricey. And the tapas
were dee-licious. Some sort of paella dish at one place, a plate of olives at
the next, a sardine and tomato on toast at the next, bacon stuffed mushroom caps
at the next, another plate of olives at the next, goat cheese on toast at the
next (the only thing Tom wouldnīt eat -- personally I was shocked, I didnīt think
there was anything he wouldnīt eat), yet another plate of olives at the next,
peanuts at the next. Ah. No wonder we are slightly hung over this morning.
Not too bad though. Remarkably, we all got a fairly decent nightīs sleep last
night, which I did not think would happen. Usually (and by "usually" I mean "the
one other time Iīve been to Europe") the jet lag is a killer for at least 3 or
4 days. Even Don slept, and he just does not sleep ever on band trips. Even
ones to such places as Indianapolis.
Mike got an email from Pacopepe Gil at Telemadrid Radio yesterday, inviting us
on to do an interview and play a few songs on the acoustical guitar systems, but
we couldnīt get it together in time. The show was at noon today, but with no cell
phones we couldnīt get a hold of him. Which led me to a genius idea that will
make me one billion dollars, but I can't tell you about it because somebody might
steal it. All I can tell you is that Christopher Walken will be the spokesperson.
First gig of the trip is tonight at Moby Dick (see England-Spain 2002 tour diary
for more on that), then off tomorrow to Barcelona, apparently a 7 hour trip.
Ouch. More later.
10-9-04 2 p.m. Valencia
Oh my. Sorry about neglecting my tour diary duties, weīve been super busy, and
travelling a lot, and surprisingly we had a hard time finding an internet cafe
in Barcelona. By the time we finally found one we were in the midst of an intense
one-day Barcelona sight-seeing blitz (among the sights we saw were the insides
of several bars) and didnīt have time to stop. Right now Iīm in an internet cafe
in Valencia, the Simpsons are on TV in Spanish (the episode with Barry White and
the snakes), and cannons are firing in the square outside because itīs some sort
of Valencian holiday. So, letīs backtrack to...
10-5-04 Madrid
The gig at Moby Dick went very well. We were somewhat surprised that we were
the only band on the bill, on a Monday night, with an 8 euro cover, so I guess
we were about to find out what kind of fan base we really had in Madrid. 2 people?
20? 200? No idea. Worrying unnecessary, there turned out to be a nice little
crowd there, probably 75-100 people or so. Took the stage to a nice round of
applause, played a rather long 1 1/2 hour set (weīd rehearsed about 50 minutes),
sold a few T-shirts. Pulled out a few covers, including the Jim Croce tune much
to the delight of an ecstatic gentleman in front. Good times. Our driver was
named Rafi, very funny and extremely helpful guy around our age (you know, 24
or so). Good English. As we did last time we were here, we went to hang out
at the Irish bar next door to eat and have a few pints before the show. Shane
at the bar took good care of us, buying us a couple rounds and offering us shots
before we went for sound check. We thought it best to hold off seeing as we still
had 3 hours til the gig, but promised we'd be back. "We'll get you fucked up
real good," said Shane. I get the feeling you can go to any country in the world and
find an Irish bar with English speaking people from Ireland running it. You could
be hiking the jungles of Papua New Guinea, or braving the frozen wastelands of
Antarctica, and probably find an Irish bar. This pleases me.
Afterward headed straight back to the hotel relatively early to prepare for the
long drive to Barcelona at 8 a.m.
10-6-04 8 a.m. Rafi picks our tired asses up five minutes late ("Sorry about the
five minutes," says Rafi), which is 45 minutes early in musician time, and we head
to the equipment rental place to return the backline. By the way, the bass rig
was an Ampeg SVT with an 8X10 cabinet (8 10-inch speakers, for you folks who don't know about such things) inside of a metal road
case. It weighed about as much as (and was about the size of) a medium sized
car. Ridiculous. And cool as hell. Anyway, the equipment rental place was on
the other side of Madrid I think, and we went there during rush hour, so when
we get there one hour later, Rafi says, after a fairly quiet drive, "Holy Fucking
Shit! One hour!" Rafi likes to swear in English, so we tought him some choice
new ones. We marvel that we didnīt see at least 68 fatal moped crashes in that
drive. In fact, we saw none. This place is, as most of Europe I imagine, lousy
with mopeds. Just lousy. And they drive like suicidal maniacs, with the weaving
and the driving on the lines in the middle of the lanes and what have you. It's
unbelievable, and yet we saw no more accidents than you'd see in the States.
Less, probably. In fact, I don't think we saw any at all. We return the gear,
and head out of town in a Citroen van that has seats with the backs affixed apparently
as close to a 90 degree angle to the floor as possible. Not comfy for a 6 hour
drive. Rafi was hauling some serious ass, at one point I glanced at the speedometer
and saw we were going 160 kilometers per hour, which converts to over 300 miles
per hour, if I'm not mistaken. About 4 hours in we figured out how to install
and operate the seat belts. We stopped at a freeway rest stop type place that
had many sandwiches, I had a ham omelette sandwich on a crusty baguette. Absolutely
delicious, and only about 2 Euros to boot. I'm going to make them at home.
Here's how: Make a ham omelette. Put it on a crusty baguette. Try it, very
tasty.
(Now incredibly loud cannons are firing outside, for about the 4th time today.
The first time was around 10 a.m. while I was in the shower at the hotel about a
block from the square where all this is happening, it was, and is, unbelievably
loud. Either that
or the city is being blitzkrieged, one of the two. The buiding is shaking. I should really go out and see this. I have never heard anything
like this before, not having ever been in a war. And with that, I apologize,
because itīs our last day in Spain and I really need to go see Valencia. Sorry,
fans, (and by "fans", I mean Nick, who was whining that the tour diary was boring,and
that I should spice it up, embellishing if necessary). So, for Nick: The gig
last night in Valencia was great, and afterwards we were invited to participate
in a huge orgy in a bullfighting ring with naked women and animals, and cocaine
and Nyquil and No-Doz and beer, and it was really fun. Okay?)
Alright, so anyway, the drive is not too bad, other than having the grim spectre
of death in a violent crash hovering over us the entire way. The Spanish countryside
looks a lot like Mexico actually. Pretty dry, with rolling hills, cool old missions
and farmhouses dotting the landscape. We drive past the International Date Line,
which is marked by an arch over the highway. Whee. We finally arrive in Barcelona,
which is another incredibly cool old European city. Surprise! We go first to
the Houston Party Records office (the Spanish distributor) so Rafi can take care
of some business, say hi to Carlos and Haime from HP, and naturally, straight
to a bar to kill some time. Then on to sound check, even though it's only 4 in
the afternoon. The gig is at the Sidecar, in what appears to be a very cool section
of town. We find out the next day that it's just off Las Ramblas ("the most
famous street in all of Spain," according to some book) which is a long rambling street with many cool
neighborhoods off of it and where we were planning on spending most of our day
off the next day. Didn't realize at the time how close the club was to it. Also,
it's right off of a square called the Placa Reial, another very cool square filled
with an assortment of tourists, criminals, and bohemian freaks. We finish sound
check (the soundman has a most excellent moustache) and head to the hotel, which
turns out to be kind of a two-bedroom apartment in the middle of an enormous neighborhood
of tiny streets. We have absolutely no idea where the hell we are. We'll figure
it out. Then back to the gig, and to wander around the square while we wait,
but not before Rafi gives us a warning about pickpockets. There are many semi-dangerous
looking street people around, much more than in Madrid. We have a cervesa in
the square, acrobats, musicians, beggars all over the place. The opening band
Amarillo is from Mallorca, an island near Ibeza, and are very nice folks, and
a very good band, kind of dreamy guitar pop. The gig itself goes well, nice crowd
but not quite as good as Madrid. I don't think we're as known in Barcelona as
we are in Madrid, or Valencia as we found out. It actually rained during the
gig, the only time it rained the whole trip. Generally, perfect weather, 80's
during the day and 70's at night, the whole time. Load out, then back home to
sleep....
10-7-04 Barcelona
...until 2 in the afternoon, including Don Moore, which as you know is very un-Don
Moore like. And we only have one day to see Barcelona, so we are off like a shot,
purchasing a map of the city and immediately cabbing it down to the Placa de Catalunya,
the starting point of Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas ("The Rambles," if my Espanolish
doesn't fail me) is a longish tree-lined boulevard that extends from the Placa
de Catalunya all the way to the port, really only about two miles or so, but if
you have only one day in town, it's the area to be in for maximum sightseeing
efficiency. The Barri Gotic (Barrio Gothic, or Gothic Quarter) is right there,
as well as the Barri Xines, or Chinatown, which naturally is not a Chinatown at
all, but a rather dangerous neighborhood with a history as a heavy drug and prostitute
area, with narrow streets and dark alleys, best avoided at night. Naturally,
without realizing it, we end up drinking at an Irish bar right in the middle of
it. But before that we start down Las Rambles, get about 30 feet in, and decide
to stop for some cervesas and tapas. We wander past numerous "human statues,"
most of which were extremely cool -- people painted up that would stand still like
statues and then move when you gave them money. As with most of this, describing
it doesn't do it justice. On to the Barri Gotic, some of the oldest buildings
in town are here, including an unbelievably ornate gothic cathedral, notated on
our map of Barcelona as "Catedral." From there we wander around to the aforementioned
Irish bar, then on to the end of Las Ramblas at the port. The first thing we
see is about one billion fish in the water. I don't know what kind of fish they
are, but they look like they could feed all of Spain for a year. They're everywhere,
wherever you look into the water, tons of fish. Also lots of cruise ships around,
and a gigantic yacht docked right in front of this restaurant we decide to eat
at. Wine, cava, the best and freshest Calamari I've ever had, mussels, and shrimp
Scampi, all enjoyed on a beautiful deck overlooking the harbor. Happy place.
Life is good.
Earlier in the day we passd the Museo de l'erotica, or Museum of Sex as you might
have gleaned, which the Frommer's guide said was worth a visit, and open until
midnight. We planned on checking it out just so we could say we went to the Museum
of Sex in Barcelona, but of course when we passed it on the way back at around
10, it was all closed up. So, one more stop for some Sangria, then back to the
hotel. Don crashed, and Mike, Tommy and I decided to go out for one more
in our neighborhood, where we were surprised to find quite a few bars and clubs
within two blocks of our hotel. Another fun night in Spain, and then to bed to
prepare for the 3 hour drive the Valencia the next day.
10-8-04 Barcelona
We're not getting picked up until noon which is nice, so we all sleep in fairly
late then grab some coffee. The van shows up with a new driver, Dee Dee. Or
DeDe, or Di Di, I have no idea, so we'll go with Dee Dee, as in Ramone. Dee Dee
is a rather quiet chap, quite the opposite of Rafi. We find out later that he
has two young babies at home that keep him up all night, is fighting a cold or
a flu or something, and has to make the 3 hour drive back to Barcelona after the
gig, which would get him back home sometime around 5 a.m., so we cut him some slack
for being quiet and glum, and stop calling him "Glummy Glummerton from Glumville"
and such behind his back. Actually a very nice guy, just quite a different vibe than
Rafi. The drive to Valencia generally follows a coastal highway, though we don't
get many glances of the Mediterranean. We do see one hell of a lot of mountains
though, many of which were quite impressive, and a few of which had castles on
top of them. One had a giant silhouette of a bull. I see many signs with city
names on them twice but spelled slightly differently, and ask Dee Dee about it,
where I learn about Catalan Spanish vs. Castillian Spanish. I was wondering why
we couldn't read any signs or menus in Barcelona, they were all in Catalan, which
is quite a different language. Not that you need a history/geography lesson,
but pay attention anyway. Spain has 3 main areas, and 3 major languages, Basque
being the third. All related, but probably in the way that Italian is related
to Spanish. Barcelona and Valencia are in Catalunya (or Cataluna in Castillian,
or maybe it's Catalonia, or maybe it's the other way around), and thus speak Catalan.
THE FOLLOWING, FROM A FRIEND OF MINE, PROVES ME WRONG IN ENTIRELY MORE DETAIL THAN YOU WILL CARE TO READ: Actually, Castillian and Catalan are probably more closely related than Spanish
and Italian, although Catalan is generally considered to be a distinct language,
rather than as a dialect of Spanish. It shares some characteristics with Spanish
and some with French. It's also known as Valencian. Spanish (Castillian or otherwise)
and Catalan are classified as "Romance" languages, which basically just means
that they are by and large directly descended from Latin, though of course with
some local twists -- Spanish was particularly influenced by Arabic due to Spain
having been Muslim territory for several hundred years. The Basque language, on the other hand, is another story. Most European languages,
including English, are classified as Indo-European. The "Indo-" part refers to
languages like Hindi which are descended from Sanskrit, which was spoken by the
particular group of Indo-Europeans that migrated south into northern
The only languages spoken in modern Europe (apart from immigrant communities)
that I am aware of as having non-Indo-European origins are Finnish, Hungarian
and Basque (There may be others, but I'm just doing this off the top of my head).
Finnish and Hungarian are related to each other-- part of the "Finno-Ugrian" group
or some such thing. When I was in
The Basques, on the other hand, may as well have come from outer space. Sometimes
comparative linguistics (as well as archaeological evidence, etc.) can shed some
light on the origins of given ethnic groups-- linguistic affinities being indicators
of previous geographical proximity, or at least cultural contacts-- but this doesn't
work with Basque because there is no other language in the world that is known
to be related to Basque. To my knowledge, that there is not really a consensus
among scholars as to the origins of either the language or, for that matter, the
Basque people themselves.
In closing, I should probably mention that while a non-Indo-European language,
Basque has of course been influenced by Spanish, French, etc. Most Basque speakers
speak one of these languages as well (the heart of the Basque country being situated
astride the Spanish-French border along the Atlantic coast). Of course, none of
the above is of the least interest to Americans abroad, as one can always order
a Big Mac and a Coke in English.
Fascinating, no? I gathered all of this from the 7 words Dee Dee said when I
asked him about it.
I'm totally kidding. That entire section on the origin of Spanish languages was courtesy
of my old dear friend Matthew Knuth, who is highly edumacated. Thank you, Matthew.
Anyhoo. We arrive in Valencia around 4:00. Valencia is the one town that we
didn't know anything about whatsoever beforehand, not having purchased any travel
books on it, so we didn't know what to expect, but we definitely weren't dissappointed.
Absolutely beautiful place, much cleaner than Barcelona (though not as interesting),
quite a bit of your standard Spanish spectacular breathtaking architecture, and
beautiful, and quite nice, people. The only thing was it kind of smelled a little
like poop, but you got used to that. We went first to our hotel, which was by
far the nicest accomodations we had. Comfy beds, full English speaking staff,
and the perfect location, about a block from the main square of the city, where
the aforementioned artillery was going off, which turned out to be fireworks,
by the way. Unbelievably loud fireworks. Nothing I have ever seen in America
would even begin to compare with these, volume wise. Ours LOOK a lot better,
but these were loud. Did I mention they were loud? Well, they were. Plus they
were setting them off like 10 feet from all the people. More on that later.
We have 10 minutes to check in and freshen up before heading out to soundcheck,
which is back in the direction we came. We decide on the way there that we like
Valencia. Many fountains and nice architecture, but almost a more laid back small
town vibe than Madrid and Barcelona, even though it's not a small town at all.
We arrive at the venue, Sala Matisse, which seems to be in a nice mellow part
of town. We are greeted by Miguel, who seems to be in charge, a hellaciously
nice and funny guy with the standard Spanish laid back charm we've gotten
to know fairly well. He brings us in, the interior of the club is almost ridiculously
colorful, and big. There are a few guys hanging around with TV cameras, within
minutes they are asking in Spanish to interview us. They don't seem to speak
English at all, so they give us a list of 10 questions in poorly translated English
to review before the interview. Good thing, because Mike and I, who did the interview,
would have never been able to figure out their phonetic pronunciations at all
if we hadn't seen the questions beforehand. The other bands start to show up,
4 in all (two from Spain and one, Farrah, from London), and suddenly the club
is fairly crowded. More later.
10-10-04 London Heathrow Airport
I have figured out, and I don't think a lot of people know this, that Heathrow
Airport was built on a strange plot of mystical and magical land. I know this
because no matter where you go within the airport, to walk from any given point
to any other point, you have to walk 10 miles. From the plane to the connection
desk, 10 miles. From the connection desk to baggage claim because they screwed
up in Valencia and didn't check our bags all the way through to Chicago, 10 miles.
From baggage claim where our guitars didn't show up, to the tube station where
we had to go because we originally had an hour and a half from when the plane
landed to when we had to get on our plane to Chicago, and because of the baggage
screwup we had to claim our bags, get on the underground, take a train back to a
different terminal, and check in as though we were just arriving to fly out of
London, 10 miles, running at full sprint with our bags, including our backpacks
full of wine from the duty free shop in Madrid. From the tube station to British
Airways check-in, 10 miles. From the British Airways check-in desk, where we
were with 10 minutes to go until the final gate call for our flight, to the security
checkpoint, 10 miles, running again. From the security checkpoint where Mike
and Tom were singled out for an extensive and very strange security check involving
some sort of X-ray machine that actually rendered on a computer screen a photo
of them both completely naked AND hairless, which actually sent them through the
line immediately, and where me and Don were standing with about a 10 minute wait
still in front of us when they called "Final boarding call for flight 299 to Chicago.
Gates are closing now", to our gate where I had the pleasure of sprinting through
the crowded, marble-floored Heathrow Terminal 4 in my socks, yep,10 miles. Somehow,
and I have absolutely no idea how, we made our flight. Unlike our guitars, which
are perhaps somewhere in London right now.
10-12-04 Milwaukee
The guitars showed up. My case is almost completely destroyed and it looks like
somebody tried to rub the Bun E. Carlos autograph off my bass. Son of a bitch
must pay.
Epilogue: Well, upon re-reading this again, obviously I never finished the story of the fireworks or of the last gig in Valencia. The fireworks were loud and it seems to be some sort of test of manhood to see if you could stand to listen to them without covering your ears. We did pass. The noise got your adrenaline going in a way I have not experienced before or since. The gig itself was a blast, totally crowded with a bunch of fans who knew our stuff (and knew a bunch of Blow Pops songs too, which they kept requesting). Everybody crowded up to the stage going nuts and singing along. It was one of those gigs where you say afterwards "Oh, yeah. THAT'S why I do this." |
