I have a major in philosophy and I am working on getting a doctoral degree.
I go to a lot of punkrock/rock/hardcore/indie concerts and I take a lot of live photos. I've done this in 13 European countries and half a dozen American states. I love it.
Here’s a list of shows I plan on attending. But No liability assumed! Sometimes I’ll have something better to do and sometimes my lazy ass will stay in bed. If you think you know some other show I need to go to, please tell me about it!
07.06. Social Circkle / Riot Reiser – Bla, Bonn
11./12.06. Ruhrpott Rodeo
14.06. The Headlines – Bla, Bonn
18.06. An Horse – Bla, Bonn
22.06. Radare / Corova – Bla, Bonn
23.06. Punch / Trainwreck – AZ, Köln
26.06. Punch – AZ, Aachen
01.07. Dumbell – Bla, Bonn
02.07. Rheinkultur – Bonn
12.07. Flying Over + The X-Rated Toons – Bla, Bonn
28.07. Lemuria – Zwischenfall, Bochum
11.08. Insubordination Festival – Baltimore
12.08. Insubordination Festival – Baltimore
13.08. Insubordination Festival – Baltimore
14.08. Dopamines – Rochester,NY @ Monty’s Krown
15.08. Dopamines – Portsmouth,NH @ Ezra’s House
16.08. Dopamines – Boston,MA @ Starlab
17.08. Dopamines – Brooklyn,NY @ lulus
18.08. Dopamines – Philadelphia,PA @ The Fire
19.08. Best Friends Day – Richmond – Converge/Strike Anywhere/OWTH/Dead to Me…
20.08. Best Friends Day – Richmond
21.08. Best Friends Day – Richmond
23.08. Not on Tour / Slates – Bla, Bonn
24.08. Descendents – O2 Brixton Arena, London UK
Last Friday Dean Dirg played KAW in Leverkusen at the opening of the new renovated hall. Unfortunately it was very dark and the sound wasn’t the best either. Didn’t stop me from recording though:
full color | 18×24 inches | 12pt uncoated paper | 250 copies
Photo by yours truly
Artwork Mike Welch
- These will be on sale at Insub Fest for 7$ each. Poster tubes will be available (as long as supplies last.)
- If you are not going to Insub Fest or prefer to have it mailed to you: You can pre-order a copy now for 8.00$ + 5.50$ priority mail (US). Shipped in a tube. Click here to order.
- If you are from outside the US:
Shipping to Canada is 20$. Sorry, there is nothing I can do about it. I can offer to send a poster folded. That might save some money, ruin the poster though.
Europe: Shipping from the US would be 28$. I will bring some home with me to Germany, shipping from here should be a little cheaper. Contact me for pre-order!
Note: All mail orders will ship out after Insub Fest. Approximately Monday June 28th. Or when I’m back in Europe. Approximately July 2nd.
If these don’t sell out (I highly doubt they do) they will continue to be available until they are all gone. Price and ordering details might change though. If you are scared not to get one, email me for pre-order and Ill reserve you one.
Hey remember when I went out to shoot empty roads at night? Have you ever asked yourself what this was all about? Well probably not, but here’s the story anyhow. Ulrich from The 20 Belows asked me for these night shots to use them for the release of the bands new album. I couldn’t turn this down, cause I had heard the recordings and they totally rule! So the record is coming out this months on Monster Zero Records and here is the cover art:
The back side uses another image from that night. I totally love the artwork! And congrats to whoever did the editing / photoshopping: great job! Anyway the band is streaming 8 new songs on their Myspace, go check them out. Also they come on tour and are gonna play Bonn on the 27th! See you there!
The Queensday Festival is an extremely nice event that takes place annually in Venlo, The Netherlands, just a few kilometers behind the German border. This year they celebrate the 10th anniversary and on this occasion they invited a big headliner: The Bouncing Souls. Beyond the conveniently located town the festival also has a great venue and a great atmosphere. Theres always a few hundred people mixed from all scenes of rock/punk/hardcore, theres three stages (one open air) and an interesting line-up each year. Tickets were a ridiculous 6€! A real insiders tip!
First I made a detour through the Ruhr area to get Berni. In the face of the the fact that its a Friday before a holiday this wasn’t a good idea. The whole region is a giant traffic jam, I even took a completely different route in order to avoid the worst traffic. As we arrive at the parking lot I meet the first friend already. And it continues like that. A lot of hands to shake.
First band I got to see were the Real Danger, melodic pop-punk that not only reminds of the Descendents musically, the singer has quite some optic features of Milo. They also do a Screeching Weasel cover and the audience really enjoys them. A real good start of the night.
After that the Dead Elvis the playing outside. It’s one guy in an Elvis costume with a zombie mask who is doing some one-man-band rockabilly and blues. The trash factor here is really high, but doesn’t enthuse me. Especially cause its open air in sunlight. Inside the next band are Banner Pilot. The four guys from Minneapolis have recently released their second album on Fat Wreck and are now touring Europe for the first time. A little bit of Dillinger 4 and Lawrence arms with ruff vocals and melancholy lyrics. I like them. The Italian guy (whose name I forgot but I’ve met him on the recent tour) standing in the front row is singing along to every song! Respect! Meanwhile on the open air stage the Accelerators are getting ready to play the final show of their two month long tour. Today all people that went on tour with them are here. (1 bass player, 1 drummer, 3 guitar players, 4 drivers), and without the technical difficulties this would have even been more fun. At the end of the night we took a photo with all 10 of us. In front of the Bouncing Souls Nightliner…
I was smart enough to forget to bring money with me. I could buy three drink tickets and loose one of them. I’m lucky cause they offer you give you a new drink if you return 20 empty cups. I do that twice. And Paul bought me a drink too. Thanks!
Only from afar I hear a little of Shaking Godspeed. A trio with drums, guitar and organ. At times the guitar sound reminds me of the White Stripes, but its getting too hippie over time. Relatively early at about 21:30 the Bouncing Souls enter the stage and the hall is packed! With some luck I get a place on the side elevated on a box so I can see everything just fine. The first song is the opening track of the new album and the hall starts dancing immediately, the hands are up in the air and the first crowd surfers start flying. It pretty much stays like this for the entire show. Every once in a while Greg gets the audience to help him singing. It doesn’t take long and it’s getting really hot in the room. Lots of fun!
Final act for me was the Kepi & Friends set on the small stage upstairs. His backing band consists of Greg of the Bouncing Souls on guitar and Gregs wife Shanti on bass. Both switch to the ukulele in between. Kepi is a born entertainer and his little rocknroll songs about monsters and zombies are unplugged as great as amplified. The audience is singing along, Ivo of the Apers fame, is playing the ‘drums’ (some eggshakers), and its a great time. Shanti gets to sing two songs as well. A worthy end of the night. Can’t wait for next year! The only downside of the near border location is that you get checked by German police searching for drugs. Not that we had any. But the officers were nice. And since our story was “we went to Venlo to some punkrockfestival” – I would have searched us too. Ha!
I’m so far behind with updating the site. Not to mention the missing translations. So there is about one month missing, but Ill just stick with the present for now.
Over the Brenner pass were going to Innsbruck. First we meet up with Kevin Aper, who traded in the flat Netherlands for the Alps not too long ago. Were playing Mario Kart and listen to Metal. After that we drive to PMK, which is located right under the railroad tracks. Its a professional club. Setup, Sound Check. With Kevin and Ox I drop off our bags at the apartment we’re gonna stay at. Back at PMK theres pasta (I eat multiple dishes) and Championsleague on a big screen. In order not to compete with Football the show starts after the matches are over.
Todays support band are the Zero Heads. Its a very young band, playing some mid-90′s skatepunk. Think of Sum41. There is a girl singing, she can actually sing and is cute, but listening to the band of Avril Lavignes little sister is not all that interesting. Plus they behave weird on stage. All the talk is done in English and they wear stupid things. We don’t get that. They cover Rihanna (Umbrella) and Bryan Adams (Summer of 69). But nothing stops their five hardcore fans from jumping and pogoing right in front of the stage. They know no boundaries. At times I wonder if this is still dancing or suicide by pogo. The audience also enjoys the Accelerators, so there are more songs in the encore today. People enjoy the covers and especially the girls are dancing in the front.
Afterwards there is a long and interesting after show party. Kevin is DJing and he is playing all sorts of stuff. From Thrashmetal to Punk to Disco classics. Its a wild party until late that night. One of the best nights of tour for sure!
The next day we stay in Innsbruck. As expected not much is going on. Erik and me are doing even less than the others who go out for some beers in the evening. I prefer to watch the new South Park episodes and go to sleep early. On easter Friday no show is happening as well (as there is a dance ban in Germany). So we directly go to the Netherlands instead, to Eriks parents. The drive from Austria to Germany is something I am so used to anyway. Kevin is with us. We only do a short stop in Burscheid for me to drop off some stuff. But after 20 minutes we hit the road again. We meet and greet Eriks family, get some fast food and thats it. Two off days feel really good.
The tourplan listed Turino for today. But that show got canceled the day before! (who does something like that?) But we hoped on a show of the Fake Problems (US) and The Real Danger (Holland) tour that was also happening. Hey – finally playing with some good bands! So we went to Catiglione della Stiviere, near Brescia and the Lago del Gado, where we were the day before. As the drive was really short again we got there way too early – even though some one way roads forced us to reroute a couple of times. The venue is an old building right in the middle of the town, with a big square outside with some statues and a fountain. We’re also sleeping here. For everybody who ever played Counter Strike: Everything just looks like the Italy map!
Eventually the vans from the Fake Problems and the Real Danger show up so all the parking spaces next to the square are taken by tour busses and weird punkrockers run around. We’re setting up, and with the merch from three bands plus a distro we get our own Hot Topic in the corner. Everybody is getting pasta in a big room upstairs. I didn’t really understand what the venue was about. There was a room for the concert, a bar, a courtyard with a tent and a container for the toilet, upstairs were large rooms, including a dancing room, with mirrored walls. So its a bar and a community-youth-center all together. The entrance was kinda high, but you didn’t just pay for the night, you became a club member for a year. So there were also a bunch of people there not for the show but just because they were club members.
Show was fine. The concert room is small, with an arched ceiling. 5 people in the first row are enough to block the view and make the room looking crowded. All three bands rock out and were having fun. Afterwards we actually sleep in the dancing room. We’re the last ones to get up the next day. Well, the Real Danger / Fake Problems tour is just going on for a few days, they still have energy left. Pretty much everybody gets breakfast at the Cafe across the street. Then we get on our way to Austria.
I know it must suck for a band to play in front of five people, but seeing the owner of the pizzeria dancing frenetically with the bartender was my favorite moment of the tour.
Maybe the best thing about the hotel in Vicenza was the shower. It had pressure, the water was hot and it was quite big, so you could move around a little. Perfect! We did our daily routine by checking out a supermarket and decided to spent the day at Lago del Gado, as the drive to the next city was only about 2 hours. While the lake is a touristical center, pretty much everything is shut down by this time of the year. We ended up at some rocky beach, doing nothing for a couple hours. Throwing stones into the water was the biggest action we got. Somebody found an old slingshot but it was in bad shape, you could actually throw rocks further than using it. After some time we were lucky and the sun came out, so it was a very relaxed afternoon.
The show was supposed to happen in Piacenza, but that didn’t work out so this night we went to a small village names Pianello Val Tidone, that is near Piacenza, but not even really close. Well there is a surprise waiting for us: The venue turns out to be nothing but an actual pizzeria! The stage is a wooden annex to the building. We are greeted by the owner Alfredo who will reveal himself as a fucking great host! We set up, we meet the other band playing that night, and then we get food. So everybody sits down at a table, there is lots of food (not really a surprise since this is a restaurant), beers and local wine, even I get fries and cola! We talk and this feels like you imagine Italy to feel like. Maybe this was the most Italian moment of the entire week. Its a good time.
Well so this is a Monday, we are in a small village, so at this point we don’t even expect anybody to show up. There are a few locals, and even two cars with punkrockers show up! We need to sit through the other band, who are nice guys, but their music is boring at best. One guy buys like 3 things off the merch stand at once, so at least we have some sales. When the Accelerators start there are a few people watching. But for the most of the time its 10 people max. Towards the end its like five. But still the atmosphere is good. Alfredo really enjoys the band (and by that time he was quite drunk too). He and the bartender start dancing. He looks just soooo happy, its contagious. I love watching him. The other two guys who show real interest are the punkrockers from Piacenza. They even request a song for the encore. That was something we didn’t had at the other shows. The scene is equally really bad and really great at once.
After the show the drinking goes on, at some point we load the gear into the van and are good to go. Yet we stay a little longer. We get another drink. And another. And instead of leaving things turn into one of these nights again. It ends when people start drinking a full bottle of booze, Alfredo telling us what he thinks about the South of Italy and tries to explain Italian politics to us. Its just hilarious. He also keeps giving us chips and snacks from the sales rack. This was a fucking lot of fun!
I think we finally leave at around 4 a.m. to get to the hotel that is a couple towns away. That turns into some sort of disaster, we have the address, we have keys. But those don’t work on the hotel door. And even with ringing the bell, they don’t open. We call the promoter who tells us we are not in the hotel but in some other room, but he is not able to describe where to go. Finally he comes to the hotel to show us. That whole thing took about an hour and sucked pretty bad. I’m pretty tired and go to sleep right away.
The next day we get up late, only to go back to the pizzeria for lunch. Again there is great food. And we get to talk to the local promoter who tries to explain to us why the Italian youth sucks. He says even if there is a band playing, they all just want to be posers and play in front of their friends like rockstars, but nobody cares about the other bands playing. So they leave early and pay no respect to the other people. That was exactly what we saw a couple times. Makes sense now. Sucks too.
Vicenza up next. Another venue I had been to with the Dopamines Tour in October. Another rather fancy rock bar type of venue. But the guy actually remembered me, and he even remembered I liked my pasta without sauce! I gotta give him a lot of credit for that! Setting up and sound checking went smothly and again there was some time to hit the hotel before the show. Doing soundcheck first, going to the hotel and coming back for the show definitely has a lot of rock star feeling to it!
Its a Sunday, so again expectations were low. But the opening band, a bunch of young locals, brings in the crowd of their friends, plus there are some regulars hanging around. But, history repeats itself, the majority leaves with the band. Not even the guys themselves stay. Theres a few punk rockers watching anyway. Its okay. The biggest surprise happens right after the Accelerators are done. I have been to a lot of shows over the years, but I never ever seen a club shut down operations so fast after a concert like that night. Basically two minutes after the band is done there is a barrier built up in the middle of the room, somebody is brooming the floor and the sound guy started dismanteling the PA. I mean I get that people want to close, but this was almost rude!
Easy to guess, we went to the hotel quickly finding us in the unknown position of being home at midnight. Check out was at 11, so there was a lot of time. I talked to Erik for some time. Read another chapter of the book. Then sleep. That was okay for a Sunday I’d argue.
Luckily the tour hit its bottom when I hit the bottom caused by the deflating air mattress. The next morning I woke up, and it was cold inside the rehearsal room. But through the windows I could see that the sun was shining outside and so I decided to get up and get the fuck out of that shitty room. There were no showers or anything anyhow, so why stay? I went into the van, that was parked in the sun on a parking lot right across the street. Thanks to the sunlight it was really warm and cosy in there. I loved it. I could see the surrounding mountains, the tops still snow covered. Beautiful landscape! I didn’t even realize we were on an altitude that allowed snow the night before. Makes sense that it got cold at night. We had agreed to start the day early in order to be able to fix the tire problem. I woke up the other guys and we informed Alex that we were leaving, so they could close up the room again. Instead of Alex one of his frieds (or bandmates?) came and he turned out to be a real blessing. We told him about the problem with the wheel and he had a friend who owned a tire place. We went there, got the tire fixed, when we tried to put some more air into the spare tire we found out that the valve of that was not working properly too, so we got that fixed as well. And it only cost us 10€! Its good to have somebody with you who knows people!
Next we went to a mall to buy some food. Thats when I found out that the lines at Italian registers work quite similar to Italian traffic: Just stand somewhere, create a big crowd, make up new lanes as you please, and eventually all will just flow somehow. Also we must have missed some catastrophic warning cause it seemed that they bought everything they had in the store. After some food in the parking lot we hit the road all the way up north again to La Spezia.
Quite some drive. After a bunch of hours Marlon took over at the wheel, right afterwards a storm started, but by that time I had already fallen asleep in the backseat. Finally I got some reading done also. I bought Steven Kings “It” to read it on tour. Basically bought it cause it is a BIG book and was only 8€! So far I’ve made it through about 1/4 and its okay. We got to La Skaletta, a legendary rock club, set up, soundchecked, got pizzas and then the guy showed us where we were staying that night, and we had about 2 hours to relax and refresh ourselves. The opening band was not able to play due to a family emergency, so the show started late anyways. I dropped the guys off at the club and then went to a McDonalds to get some fries. These did a good job to brighten my mood that got ruined by a call earlier.
Tonight finally had a good crowd, that did not leave the room when the band played. A few familiar faces showed up. Even some people knew a song or two. And this finally felt like a good show! After the show the Italians started a little dance party. There was quite a number of surprising songs played, some Disco etc.. but also a lot of punkrock. Once Andrea Manges took over the DJing every second song was Screeching Weasel anyways. And all the poppier Ramones too. When everybody was singing along to “Hey Surburbia” I thought I should film this and send the video to Ben Weasel to show him was he has done! The night went on like this. More beer, more songs. We were the last ones to leave the club. Good night. Some even wanted to keep going. But Ox, Simon and me went home first, laid down and tried to ignore the other peoples businesses.
