My fifteen minutes of fame

We dock in Germany at around 1.25pm and hit the road for Berlin. I have to say I have no recollection of the journey from the port until we were on the outskirts of Berlin itself.

To me, all these new places are fascinating, but I guess to the seasoned travellers in the band it is just another city to them. But Berlin has a rich history and is somewhere I had been looking forward to for ages, not least because Valerie would be here somewhere!

We are playing at a club called “Knaack” which is situated in the eastern part of the city. The difference between east and west Berlin is still marked, the western part clearly affluent and thriving, the eastern part to a fairly large degree, still stuck in a time warp with the streets having a run down sort of feel to them and I am somehow drawn to this place as we drive down the streets towards the venue.

Just prior to this there was a frantic series of phone calls between the hotel, the venue and us. Ade phones the hotel who say they have no knowledge of us coming; Ade phones the promoters to tell them this and they say no, the hotel has got it wrong and get Ade to phone the hotel back, the hotel still deny any knowledge and Ade is forced to phone the promoters again, who still insist it is the hotels fault! Ade makes it very clear to them that they had better sort this out and sort it out quickly! He leaves it up to them and unsurprisingly, it’s sorted!

Nick then makes a call and tells us he is going to do an interview for a local radio station and will be picked up outside the venue.

We arrive and back the van into the loading area, to begin the unloading. Nick’s lift arrives and he disappears for an hour, while the rest of us finish unloading and then set up the equipment. I put up my stall and the band, minus Nick, complete the sound-check. Sound-check over, I am up on stage admiring Paul’s Flying V guitar, it is a guitar I have never played and have always wanted one,

“Have a go, Al,” he says to me, and plugs it in and I stand there in embarrassed silence for a moment or two.

“Don’t worry about it mate, just give it some welly!” Paul reassures me and so I do. Using his effects, I crank out a poor version of “Silver Machine” and “Pretty Vacant” It was a cool moment for me, but I could just imagine Ade’s face in the band room as he heard the song he probably hates more than anything else, he never played on it but always gets asked if he did, He once told me that one time he got so fed up with being asked about playing on it that he said “yes” and introduced himself as Lemmy!    

The best gig of the tour so far

My moment of glory over, I climb down off of the stage, check the stall and then go outside and phone Valerie. She is in Berlin and has, she tells me, spent a fun couple of hours wandering around the old Stasi building, which is where the secret police had their torture/interrogation rooms. Sounds like a barrel of laughs to me! She is on the same road as I am and eventually after a further 10 minutes or so of guidance we at last find each other. Yay!

Later on, we all go to the restaurant at the front of the venue, which is a restaurant, and are given a tasty meal, however… As is so often happening to me on this tour I am about to eat when it becomes apparent that the doors have opened and the crowd are coming in, which inevitably means I have to go and take care of the stall to avoid the disappearance of the CDs! So I take my plate of chicken and rice with me and return to my stall. It is just as well I did as there is a huge crowd milling around the stall checking out the CDs. I go behind the table, put down my meal and that is the last I see of it for nearly an hour! I am so busy I don’t have time to think even, I field all sorts of questions, give info about the latest CD’s, recommend CDs to people and take a large amount of money. Valerie wanders in eventually and together we are kept on our toes until it is time for the support band to go on stage. Liquid Visions take the stage and they prove to be quiet popular, very spacey music with a girl who is completely covered in body paint à la Stacia, though not as statuesque! The place is absolutely packed, smoke fills the air from a million and one cigarettes; beer is flowing; you can hardly move; the merch table occasionally lurches backwards as people struggle to get through the throng, genuine excitement builds until at last the Bevis Frond take the stage to a roar of cheering! This crowd is by far the best of the tour so far and in fact is only surpassed (possibly) by Köln at the end of the tour.          

I, as usual, am recording the gig on minidisk but the crowd is so good I get the video camera out and film the last part of the show, and because it is impossible to get a good view, I just leave it recording from the side of the stage. The resulting footage is okay, but not really a true representation of what happened that night. The band, buoyed by the crowd played an absolute blinder.

After the gig, we have to pack away early because the venue becomes a disco later on, so I am prevented from taking a record amount on the stall only because of time, still, Valerie and I did very well indeed. We load everything back into the van and Nick, Ade, Valerie and I climb aboard to go back to the hotel, Paul and Jules go for the lads night out option and disappear off towards the bars.

We drive back through Berlin and find the hotel; it is right in front of what is left of the Berlin Wall, on the eastern side.

Drinks are in Nick and Ades room and we chill out for a while before retiring for the night.

17/03/02 

Berlin to Dresden, Germany.

The matter of the sticky sock and porno film

In the morning it is time to say goodbye to Valerie and we walk along the road towards the Ostbahnhof and we take the opportunity to look at the remains of the Berlin wall. It is a very strange experience, the killing area is still there and you wonder how on earth anyone can do that to other human beings, It seems inconceivable but then again, so much of what happened  in the past both here and elsewhere in Germany is beyond me! It is a very odd feeling indeed…                                                                                                                               

Valerie heads off on the train back to Heidelberg and I return to the Hotel where Nick and Ade are just sitting down to breakfast, I join them and as we are chatting a taxi pulls up and out of it climb Paul and Jules looking like they haven’t slept in two days, which actually is pretty accurate! They were out drinking in a bar until 6:20 am! I can only admire their stamina.

We load up the van in readiness for the fairly short trip to Dresden. Nick has been having problems with his shoe, it was literally coming apart and so he superglues the bottom sole to the rest of the shoe, which works, but rather too well! The glue seeps through to his sock and then to his foot, resulting in them all sticking together, We all fall about laughing as Nick vainly tries to free himself from his predicament, he manages to get his shoe off, but his sock is firmly attached to his foot, Nick is hopping about the car park with a sock hanging from his foot, while we laugh, making Nick swear strongly at us, making us of course laugh even louder! Eventually I get out to help him and try to pull the offending sock off gently…

I tug on the sock and am rewarded with, “Arrrrgh! Fucking bastard fucking thing!” (or words of a similar nature!), he wants me to do it but it is too painful for him and our laughter is not improving matters in the slightest! Eventually Nick has to grit his teeth and rip the errant sock from his foot,  “ARRRRGGGGHHH!! FUCKING, PISSING, BASTARD; ARRGGHH!!!” etc etc, I defy any of you not to react in the same way, it must have been very painful (and was certainly very funny!) He hobbles for a while but is otherwise okay!

However there is a down side to all this: Nick is also starting to develop a sore throat, which is potentially not so funny. As we turn to leave, the hotel receptionist stops Paul and Jules and demands an extra payment from them. They are puzzled by this, especially when you consider they were in the room for all of one hour! The receptionist explains that one of them has watched a porno movie and as it was charged to their room they had to pay! Jules accuses Paul and Paul accuses Jules but in the end they have to pay for it nonetheless. Ade raising his eyebrows in schoolmasterly fashion at them!

The journey to Dresden is uneventful and we check in at the Hotel Mercure at 2.45pm. It is Sod’s Law that the room I have in this hotel is a big one with two huge double beds and yet, when Valerie is with me in Berlin we have the worlds smallest bed to share! I guess you can’t win them all…

Paul and Jules for some reason decide they need to catch up on some sleep and so Nick, Ade and I go for a stroll along the riverfront…        

A brief stroll through the past

We check out an old cobbled walkway which leads us around the back of some old properties. It is a sad fact that Dresden has very little in the way of “old” buildings and what there is, is sadly in a poor state. Nick and Ade reminisce wistfully on another line of work they might have gone into, that of old doors, furniture, architraves etc from old houses, restoring them and then selling them on to willing punters. The image of these two musicians working on old buildings is a strange and oddly haunting one, but I can understand it when I begin to look at what remains of these old houses and streets; they are from an era now sadly past and all that remains are scattered ghosts that seem to be fading with each passing year, soon, no doubt, they will crumble into dust and be gone forever, their voices finally silenced by the loud thunder of progress, yet for the moment they still call out with muted voices, enticing you to imagine them when they stood tall and proud!

The building next to the hotel is partly boarded up, it’s window frames looking disturbingly like hollowed out eye sockets, staring vacantly across the river, yet despite this, I can almost see the lines of rowing boats, the deck chairs laid out neatly across the immaculate lawn, the ladies in long dresses carrying parasols, strolling as if they had not a care in the world! The house cries out to be recognised for what it once was and for a brief sad, bittersweet moment I do… then we move on.

The “Star club” in Dresden is the venue for tonight and it is another fascinating old building, this time an old cinema. We arrive in good time and unload, and the venue staff come to help because it is a bugger to carry all the gear up the stairs and into the hall. The band set up on stage while I am halfway back on the right hand side, which will allow me to film from a fairly good spot and so I decide to film an hours worth of the gig tonight. I am faced with the unfortunate problem of which gigs to film as I do not have enough video film for much more, so I hit upon the idea after this gig of doing a sort of “road movie”, i.e. clips from on the road mixed with footage from the rest of the gigs, because it is doubtful I will ever have time to find somewhere that sells film.

The mystery of the disappearing box of CDs

After I set up the stall the support band arrives and introduce themselves; they are called “Division of Laura Lee” they seem nice enough guys. Their Merch man sets up on the table I have left for him. I go into the band room to eat and it is one of the few times I actually get to finish my meal without having to go and watch the stall as the doors will not be opening until 8:00pm. However, when I wander back to the stall I notice that an entire box of Bevis Frond CDs have vanished! I search everywhere to be sure I hadn’t moved them and since forgotten, but gradually the truth becomes clear; they have been nicked!

I am mortified and mightily pissed off, because I have been really careful throughout the tour, making sure I had everything I needed, where I needed it, helped every single customer, advised them, guided and recommended things to them and suddenly some bastard has legged it with 25 fucking CD’s!!!!

I was not having it! I stomped angrily around, checking everything twice and then finally turned to the other Merch man and I asked him if he had seen or noticed anything, he said no and I just stare at him for a second, he shrugs his shoulders, so I had to go back to the band-room and tell Ade what had happened, he was not best pleased about it, pissed off, not so much with me as with the fact that it is lost revenue for them (especially as they were Bevis Frond CD’s!

I storm back to the stall and check everything again, Nick comes out and asks me about it and I tell him my suspicions and how I intend to deal with it, he nods and leaves me to it.

I turn again to the “Divisions of Laura Lee” Merch man and point out that the CDs interestingly enough were there when I left him at the stall and when I come back, with him still there, but the CDs are now gone! I am seething with anger and I guess it must have shown a little, those that know me, know I am not a violent man, but this guy didn’t and I played on that fact. I said I was going for a walk around the hall and when I come back the CD’s had better be back on the table! I left the threat open ended because in reality there was fuck all else I could do!

So I walked off down to the stage, made a show of looking at the band equipment on stage and when I returned, lo and behold, there were the missing CD’s! I nod at him and that is the end of the matter!

Nothing more is said about it and as a postscript, one of the band members later came up to me and apologised for the “misunderstanding”

During the sound-check Nick has real problems with his voice, it is very raw and raspy and he cannot reach the high notes, I go into the kitchen and explain the problem and they mix up some hot milk and honey for him which was very kind. I guess Nick must have thought I was trying to be some kind of nursemaid or something!

It is Showtime and the support band go onstage all wearing the same outfit; black trousers, red shirts and looking like rejects from that old Kraftwerk LP “Man Machine!” They are very energetic and well choreographed but somehow do nothing for me.

The Bevis frond take to the stage with a small crowd of around 30-40 people and begin their set, “Hole Song” is played well but Nick’s voice dies on the high notes, from where I am standing it doesn’t sound too bad but Nick is  clearly feeling unwell, wincing many times through the first number. He apologises for his poor voice but the band carry on to give a very good, solid performance. The “crowd” seem very happy but because there were so few people at the gig, the stall does very badly, which is disappointing. Oh well, you can’t win them all! 

18/03/02

Dresden to Frankfurt.

Gay bars, nose plugs, full sex and violin concertos

In the morning we all congregate in the restaurant for a buffet breakfast which is very nice, “Divisions of Laura Lee” are in the same hotel as us and join us for a good chat as we eat, but it is soon time to move on to Frankfurt.

The journey is uneventful and we arrive at the hotel in plenty of time. It is a fairly run down, shabby affair, but is decent enough. We unload our bags and head off for the venue which is a night club running under the name of “Cookies” There are two other “artists” on the bill and we are unsure as to whether or not the Bevis Frond are headlining or not. We unload the van and descend into the nightclub down some narrow stairs, past a tiny cloakroom and along a narrow corridor into the club and spot the stage which is absolutely tiny! We meet one of the Artists, a certain Franz Dobbler who is very polite and says hello, we shake hands and greet each other. We are given drinks and then the cooked food arrives, so far so good.

I read the flyer for the club and from the little German I understand work out that Franz, a Johnny Cash fanatic is on first and is going to be reading from his book on Cash as well as playing relevant tracks from albums, sounds different to the usual support bands. How many bands have had an opening act of a lecture on Johnny Cash?

The other artist is a young man called St Thomas, he has brought his own soundman called Ajay who, during the course of the evening becomes a bit of a pain, acting like this is all beneath him and that he’s used to working in bigger venues with bigger artists, I am sure you know the type! Thomas himself is actually a nice person to talk to, quite quiet and unassuming. His band St Thomas are a trio, Thomas on guitar, a guy on violin and a drummer who uses a single backward drum and a snare. No bass player, he apparently quit the band last week after only two weeks on tour with them, and they face the prospect of having over two months still to go on the tour! So they are stuck as a trio with a somewhat diminished sound, all problems for them, but their biggest problem had to be that they were crap! (At least on this night!)

The sound-check is…interesting and is slightly featured on my “road video” Ajay the soundman is telling us that St Thomas is going on to play the Albert Hall in London as support to Lambchop, he wants us to be impressed but after the sound-check the impression we are left with is that there is simply no justice in the world, however, when the Frond sound-check it is decided that The Bevis Frond will go on last and St Thomas will support. I am then shown where my stall will be. “Remember the tiny cloak room you saw as you came in Al?”, I nod mournfully and carry the boxes of CD’s over to my little cubby hole for the night, I have no view of the band, I am not even in the same room but down the other end of the corridor.

Paul and Jules go out for a drink, Ade and Nick wander off elsewhere and I have to stay with the stall as people are milling around even at this early time. Thomas and his band come up to me in my microscopic kingdom and ask if I would kindly also sell their CDs and t-shirts? They are really nice and polite and I agree to help them out as much as I can.

As I’ve already mentioned, I have been suffering from “the squits” throughout the tour and I go to the chemist to buy something for it, but can’t for the life of me figure out how to explain my ailment to the chemist without losing every scrap of dignity, but luck was on my side for at that very moment my phone rings and it is Valerie! “Quick!” I say desperately, “What’s the German for diarrhoea?” She tells me and I repeat it to them, pointing to myself, the chemist walks over to some shelves to select the correct medicine. Valerie rings off and I suddenly realise I need to know how often I should take the pills, so I try and ask the chemist myself and she seems to understand because she responds by saying “Every time you..” and points to her backside, squats and gives me sound effects as well! We both laugh hysterically and I nearly demonstrate my problem on the spot!

I return to my shoebox of a stall and having nothing else to do, I have a look around the cloakroom and find some magazines. I knew I wouldn’t be able to read them as they would probably be in German but at least I could flick through them, it turns out they are pornographic but not the type I might have a look at, these were all gay, and s & m magazines! I hurriedly put them back but am spotted by a member of staff who explains that all the clubs around this part are gay.

Paul and Jules come back with slightly puzzled looks on their faces and tell me they had gone into this bar over the road for a quiet drink and couldn’t work out why they were being stared at! I point to Paul’s leather trousers, show them the magazines and it finally dawns on them both they have been in a gay bar, being checked out by the local talent!

While they were in the bar, Franz Dobbler had gone on stage and read from his book, it was most unusual, delivered in a really deadpan voice and the amazing thing was the club was packed for it! People were cramming into every available space to hear! He got a tremendous round of applause at the end, after which the crowd departed and was replaced by another for St Thomas. A TV crew also turned up, “We want to film St Thomas and the Bervis Font bitte!”, I whispered to him that it was the Bevis Frond and at that moment Nick walked past, I called to him to introduce him to the TV crew, but, at exactly that precise moment Nick he had been stuffing tissue up his nose to stop it from running, and as he turned round he completely threw the TV reporter by greeting him with paper tissue hanging from his nostril! I could almost hear the reporter say, “What the fuck?” I had to turn away as it was really funny! As far as I know they did film the Bevis Frond, but have never found out where exactly it was broadcast with or whether it was with or without extra tissue!

St Thomas go on and seem very well appreciated despite their, in my opinion, limitations. This is not being bitchy, I liked them as people but they were pretty awful musically or at least when I heard them.

Finally the Bevis Frond step onto the stage, I film the first part of the show and the band begins to play a blinder, “Superseeder” is particularly good this night!  

St Thomas leave early and pack their gear into their van, they are just pulling away when I run out and remind them that I have their CD’s downstairs! They park, come down, take their CD’s and are about to drive off again when I have to run out again with all their t-shirts which they had forgotten as well! This band are anything but organised!

The Bevis Frond are well into their set when I have trouble with a woman who needs the toilet, She is getting really angry with me for not knowing where the toilet is.

“I don’t work here, I am with the band!” I protest, but she is having none of it.

“Toilets!” she snarls, “I need to piss now!”,

“Well I can’t help you, I am afraid I don’t work here!” I reply,

“Where are the fucking toilets!” she screams at me,

“I have no idea!!” I reply again,

“Why don’t you fucking know?” she slams her handbag down on the counter, “I need them NOW!!!” she shouts rather desperately, I take a deep breath and say slowly,

“Because I don’t work here!!” I repeat, She glares at me and then goes quiet for a moment before saying,

“Oh never mind, it doesn’t matter now!” she turns and walks into the club, leaving my mind in a confused state and an imagination that can all too clearly picture what just happened! (All this is faithfully recorded on minidisk!) I decide not to walk across the carpet for at least fifteen minutes!

The woman pushes past a couple that are all but having full on sex in the corridor and disappears into the main room, There really isn’t much else to do and deciding that they obviously don’t care, I watch the couple with mild/perverted interest!

He is approaching his 60’s and she is clearly in her early twenties, if that! I look at the walls; nice bit of paint peeling going on there, He has her blouse open; I look at the ceiling and spy three spiders busily doing whatever it is spiders do busily, He has her tit out and is nuzzling it; someone pushes past him and says something to her, She smiles and laughs whilst fondling her partner; I look below the desk and count the number of CD’s I have in my little empire, He has lifted her skirt and has his hand where most men like them to be at this point, Twenty three…twenty four…twenty five… she whispers something to him and they walk together past my broom cupboard and up the stairs, his hand inside her knickers all the way! I shake my head and finish my count of CD’s, ignoring the banging sound coming from up the stairs!

The band finish their main set with “Downtime” and play “Undertaker” as their encore. They have dropped “God speed you to earth” in order to preserve Nicks voice. There is a hell of a lot of feedback coming from the speakers and the soundman rather ineffectually pushes various slides that probably aren’t even connected to the P.A!

After the gig it is nice to get out into the fresh air, the club is incredibly smoky by the end of the concert and I need to reassure my lungs there is still such a thing as oxygen!

We begin to load the van and while clearing the equipment we discover St Thomas have also left their violin behind! Unbelievable! We decide to take it with us as we think they are staying in the same hotel as us.

We load up and a drunk staggers up to us to help, We carefully steer him away from the equipment and he keeps asking for a light, so Ade obliges him and we all climb aboard.

The drunk decides he is now a traffic cop and staggers out into the middle of the road, holds up his hand to stop the oncoming traffic and waves us out onto the road, we thank him and wave goodbye.

Inside the van, Paul opens the violin case and brings out the violin, begins to play it and serenades us all the way back to the hotel. The only problem with this is that unlike on the guitar, Paul is no virtuoso on the violin! In fact it screeches and scrapes as badly as you could ever imagine! It is truly horrible and Paul gleefully gives it his all despite our pleas for him to stop!

We arrive back at the hotel and have big problems with the night doorman, who won’t allow us to bring in our beer. He is being very officious and obstructive, but we eventually pacify him and also get St Thomas’s room phone number from him. Amazing what a few free bottles of beer will do to some-ones attitude! Nick gives their room number a call and asks innocently, “Hello, this is Nick from the Bevis Frond, you supported us tonight, erm, Are you missing anything?” hurried whispers in the background, “No?” comes the puzzled reply so Nick asks, “Are you sure?” and gives them a clearly much-needed clue, “Say a violin or something?” five minutes later a sheepish violinist comes down and reclaims his instrument. We all retire to one of our rooms for a small party and then go to bad. All in all, an interesting night in Frankfurt...