... after over a week without proper internet access and an inability to log onto the blogger, we're back!!! Today was a day off (we could say finally to that too...) it's very exhausting to play every day (15 shows in 16 days) but super satisfying. Lorraine's voice has been holding up amazingly - Christian (tour manager) is invaluable, the amount of stress and responsibility he takes from Lorraine (merch, driving, tour managing) has been a main reason for her keeping her voice, not to mention being much more fun to be around! And the band has been getting tighter and better every night. We work on arrangements whenever we find a moment (mostly soundchecks). The crowd last night in Dresden was unbelieveable! The Groove Station was packed to the hilt and we got them into a frenzy by the end of the set! Stefan who runs the place is really a cool guy and we're staying at his place. East Germans often seem to be very sarcastic people (in a funny way)... We are also welcomed very warmly here. Our day off was spent sleeping! We're all pretty burnt out, but that didn't stop us from coming back to Groove Station tonight to play some more fussball and pool and have some drinks!
The Leipzig show with The Skatalites was a lot of fun. We played after they did at 2AM and the packed crowd stayed and danced and made our night! There were over a thousand people in attendance and the previous bands had all been mostly trad, so when he took it over, it was a big change - and they welcomed it eagerly. The other bands that played were The Loveboats and The Rudementaries). Apparently there is a good review of our set in the main Leipzig paper today, we'll have to get a copy and post it up (with translation) as soon as we can! We're playing with them again in Munich on Nov 30th in a 1200 capacity venue (www.muffathalle.de), but we've been unable to find a computer with the right software to do the update on our calendar page!!!!
What can we say about Gutersloh that we don't say every time... They did us in completely!!! The "Happy Happy" started flowing even before the set... This made Leipzig a bit of a challenge!!!! It was really great to be back there (G-sloh) and see Jurg and Vasser (spelling?) again - he is in our minds the "bringer of Happy Happy"... If you're wondering what that is, it's a shot made of Jagermeister and Pernod... Pretty special... Dan "imported" the shot to the Cafe Chaos in Montreal, so if you're ever there you can order one to try it out!!!! Just don't have a dozen like we did, cause the next day will be more like "Crappy Crappy"... (haha) We played with a band from Venezuela: Palmeras Kanibales...
In Koblenz we played with a really great Dutch Rock n Roll band called the Stilettos!!! They're really good, if you ever get a chance to see them live, we recommend it! I'm not sure how far back the last blog goes, but stay tuned for some "filling in the gaps" by different band members as the tour progresses...
Other calendar changes:
Dec 2nd will be in Slovenia "Illirska Bistrica" at MKNZ
Dec 3rd - possibly back in Altenmarkt with The Hotknives.
Bye for now from Dresden, Germany
we were going to try and write my blogs in order, but i realize now that with only a few minutes of internet access every few days, it will be futile, and you would get NO new blogs from us...
Therefore, in bits and pieces, completely disorganised will come little snippits of our tour!!! (The Flogging Molly show on Nov 13th in Muenster was packed and in an indoor skate park.) Lorraine shipped some of the gear by air and it was supposed to take only 2-3 days. Unfortunately, for a reason as yet unknown, the gear never left Canada until the 11th so wouldn't arrive on time for the first show in Mainz.
The gig went well despite the fact we didn't have the synth module, the spare guitar, the sax wireless and Lorraine's sax (not to mention the T-shirts & stickers). The crowd at Reduit really enjoyed it and Hermann, the promoter, as usual took good care of us. We picked up some cymbals at Grover on this day, they are Millenium brand... If you ever speak to a drummer who has used these, he might just break into laughter... heh heh heh... no offense to anyone that uses them, but there's more plastic than metal in those things...!
The next day, Sunday the 14th, we drove to the airport to pick up the gear and merch. We got stuck in customs for 4 hours filling out papers, etc. At first they told us we couldn't get our gear on a Sunday, then they told us it would cost 25% of the cargo value in duties, they said they couldn't help us fill out the paperwork, etc. Anyway, after a while of playing this game of theirs, we finally filled out the papers ourselves and the duties ended up being less than 100 Euros!!!! Christian (tour manager) took care of it all as none of us speak German well enough. We drove on to Hengelo in the Netherlands where no soundman was available for the show.... They found a sub, but he gave up after a half hour and disappeared. Then another guy came in and he was great and quick! Finally it actually sounded quite good. Some of Lorraine's family showed up for the gig bearing gifts (Spekulaas cookies... yum...) and the evening ended up being quite fun! In the van, we listened to "Nouvelle Vague" which was pretty cool. The next show in Fulda (Germany) was in the cellar of a museum. A beautiful venue. Dan was ready with his synths, having worked on his sounds a bit with Mike's laptop. Right into the first song, his stand got knocked over and down went the beautiful Nord right before our eyes... We were all stunned but kept playing. It didn't work for the rest of the set!!! Fortunately, Dan is a whiz with that stuff and he fixed the broken connection... That was a tense moment though! Prague really is as beautiful as everyone says!!! We all really want to go back when we have more than 40 minutes to walk around town! The show was fantastic, we played a ska festival and Fred Skarface was there! They had played the night before in Club 007 and had a day off. Perry, the DJ gave Lorraine the biggest compliment! He called her "The last great woman of ska... I've met Pauline Black, Doreen Shaffer and now you" WOW!!
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!!!!
Friday (Nov. 5th), we're playing our last Canadian show (before the Euro-Tour) in Sherbrooke at the KudSak
Welcome.... to our NEW SITE... allow us to introduce our DEBUT ALBUM... A Part. It hit Canadian stores on November 16, 2004.
We are now on a major European tour (see calendar) to support its release on Grover Records
We're also working on a video for Pull it all Apart.
Some things that will be coming to the site in the near future: audio files, photos, and a newsletter to keep you all posted directly about our happenings.
Feel free to browse around and get in touch with us!
Oh... and ENJOY the CD!!!!
Lo