Tour-Report ´93

When my friends who were in bands who toured Germany and came back with all kinds of strange stories, they would say: „You just gotta go!" To understand what they meant, so after two years of trying, we finally made it. Now keep in mind, for a band to go from L.A. to Germany is a big honor. You're pretty lucky if you get the chance. Well, everything they said was more than true. And it was something I won't ever forget.

Our first couple of days in Germany were pretty strange. We didn't know where we were or what was going on. Me and Brian were staying in the Au in Frankfurt, the others stayed at friends in town. The „In der Au" we found out was the place Fat Mike told me about that. When they played there on the first NO FX tour, people were throwing bottles at them because of the song „On the rag"! Our first shows were Siegen, Limburg and a place called Schwerte. They were great, but we all had the flu, so it wasn't the best way to start off. From there we went to Rostock and played without any problem. The place we played was bombed by fascists a week before. We got there, but our show was OK. Anyway, off to Berlin, we played at the Marchstr. in West Berlin and Linienstr. in the East. That was really cool. We played with a really good band called CHILLI CONFETTI and fun to hang out with as well. The next nite we played in Leipzig with SHEER TERROR. It was one of my favorite shows. We had confetti thrown at us all nite, very strange. After doing Köln and leper (Belgium) we partied in Amsterdam and went to Karlsruhe and played at the Steffi. By far the biggest squat we saw on tour. We made many friends there. From there we did München, Lörrach, Peine and wound up in Bremerhaven where me and George left the show and went to some party in the middle of nowhere, lost our ride and since we didn't speak German, it made for quite an evening. Next we played in Flensburg where I saw a guy throw out his girlfriend out of the 5th floor of their flat. One thing I would like to make perfectly clear: Thee Slayer Hippy does not play in the band. So, next year, if you see that we are playing with him in the band, do not believe it. We love him, but he has his own band to deal with. From there we went to Hamburg and played the Marquee Club. It would have been a lot of fun, if our genius booking agent didn't book us there the same nite as LEATHERFACE up the street. We then went to Hannover, Goslar and Berlin (again) to Prague. It was unlike any thing we saw on tour. We played with two American straight-edge bands (who will remain nameless), lost their edge and got more loaded than we ever did and acted like fools and fucked up the club. In Wien we played one of the last shows at the Flex (thanks guys). Steyer was great, Nenus was almost arrested at the German border. They thought he was a terrorist. Bamberg was one of our favorites. We stayed with Thomas of Do It!/ Ox, had an American-style barbecue. Our last show was in Giessen with ALLOY and the ZERO BOYS. We were glad the tour was over, but we were sad to leave all our new friends. We will see you in April 94. Thanks to Thomas, Goli, Vince, Marcus, all the places we played