Day one...
Mike (drums) and Lorraine (vocals) landed at Frankfurt early in
the morning Thursday. The plane ride was great. Is it just me, or
does everything taste better 11,000 meters (39,000 feet) above the
surface of the planet? A scenic 4-hour train ride from Frankfurt
to Muenster (home of Grover Records) along the Rhein on a
beautiful day! Had breakfast on the train which makes me think
perhaps it wasn't the altitude as much as the ground speed...
Could (relative) horizontal velocity also be a factor in taste?
Our hotel is only a 10-minute walk from the train station. Jet lag
and road-grunge called for a shower and a big snooze.
Thursday night, meet Oswald (owner of Grover) for the first time
at a nearby (and really cool) 60's lounge called the Watusi. The
owner of the bar is spinning great 60's lounge music reminiscent
of those compilations that came out a few years back with titles
like Saxophobia... Instead of wrestling or hockey on the screen,
it's 1960's and 1970's porn... Mondo Topless and Love Teens USA to
name only two. Anyway, who walks in 15 minutes later? Dan
(sax/keys) and Chris (guitar) - who've just flown in through the
UK - with our driver... Oh yes, did I mention we got a
driver/merch guy for this tour? Quite a luxury (and a necessity we
realized after the last tour). His name is also Chris. From now
on, our own Chris will be referred to as RAZ. Chris is taller than
Dan if you can believe it. They are pretty happy to talk about us
dwarves! Dan is 6'7" (2.2 meters) so you can see why we were
surprised!
After several cocktails, in walks Dr. Ring Ding who remembers me
from when we played together in a Narbonne (France) Festival in
2001 with the Kingpins version 2001 (Eric, Bruno, Josh, Jonathan
and Lorraine).
Lorraine went to the Grover office early Friday morning to get
some stuff done (including writing this blog) and meet the whole
crew. Everyone is nice and the office is chock full of merchandise
for mailorder and paperwork. A nice vibe indeed. It hits me that
we are label mates with some great bands. My friends Eastern
Standard Time from Washington DC, the classy Rude Rich and the
High Notes from the Netherlands, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra to
name only a few!
Friday we get some bad news that our t-shirts and some of our gear
will NOT be arriving today as we had been told, but only Sunday.
This means our first two shows (if not three) might be a bit
different sounding... Lorraine won't have her sax and Dan won't
have his synth, and no back-up guitar. Thank goodness everyone
else brought their own main instruments with them! On the upside,
we're rehearsing tonight which should give us (well, Dan) a chance
to explore the sounds of a synth we're going to rent, and later
tonight we're going to see Flogging Molly!
Until next time.
Lo and the Magnetics thank you!!!!