Some futtergrafs

 The first quaffing of a German lager, first nacht in Berlin

 The thrilling confines of the Mobile Ape Transportation Module

 The gleaming chrome expanse of a German autobahn

 Soundcheck in Frankfurt, really cool little bar

 A band moment

Todd worshipping at the elvis shrine

Alex prepares to empty the van's toilet module, not pretty.

 Picking mushrooms in a German wood

 James is starting to get lonely

Sex, Drugs and Satellite Navigation

Approximately 94% of our free time (i.e not driving, playing or drinking) is being spent in the noble 21st century pastime of assembling, upgrading, networking and getting incredibly irate with, our technology. We collectively possess 2 Macbooks, 4 IPhones, 6 various other lesser mobiles (or 'handys', as the Germans call them), about 13 power adaptors, about 20 chargers, USB cables and general tentacled riffraff ; in short, we're like a pack of Daleks, continually desperate for the nearest charge point, willing to exterminate all who may step across our path…. it's plain fuckin ridiculous, but hey, these are the times we live in. Steve actually, literally, spat at his Turk-phone-shop mobile trying to text his girlfriend back in Australia the other night. He's more a 19th century kinda chap, so it's all a little rough on the dude.

We left Germany yesterday after 6 shows, all in a wide variety of smallish clubs and private 'social collective' kinda joints, mostly dodgily equipped and invariably stinking of beer and smoke (yes,we relived the 90s playing in smoke-filled chambers, not good for the ol yodelling pipes), and also invariably run, booked and organised by some seriously lovely people…. Sabrina, Martin, Till, Florian, Joachim and Uschi are just some of the very kind and switched on folk that have helped us even make it to this centre of Western civilisation in the first place.

As we write this, we are driving our erstwhile Mobile Ape Transportation Module out of Rotterdam on our way to Gay Paris. So far there have been only two relatively minor car-related prangs because there have been only two relatively minor Joines-related pilotings of the M.A.T.M.  - Joines, well, in a few words, smashed into Frankfurt. The M.A.T.M. now has an Achilles Heel; A weakness in our armour in which Gypsies and cats can penetrate to thieve our fancy technological accoutrements.  He has been banished to the Grief Deprivation Chamber and forced to read Finnegan's  Wake in German.  So, gaffer-taped up, we charge valiantly toward Gaul like brave warriors of rock!  This is not a visit a plaisance Paris, you will be Rocked and you will be  Rocked Properly! (that sounds like tough tour talk, doesn't it?)

Joinesy, on punishment for his naughty and heinous auto crimes, isn't bestowed with the same privileges as the rest of the battle-ready rock warriors. He sits back there like a vanquished plankton in the belly of the massive M.A.T.M. whale.  

When he finishes his punitive sentence, he will be released and returned to his job

of contributing to the cause by keeping us in serious stitches berating all the 'foreign cunts' that we are, in his little Zambian brain (yes, Steve is an African, folks), unfortunately compelled to trust and, god forbid, talk to. Some male members of the Dutch audience last night took a particular shine to Steve and his 'uber Australian truckdriver chic', they love it, and he smiles at everything they say, nodding, deeply confused, but friendly. 

So, yesterday was also a landmark for our soundie, Rendang: being Dutch by birth he got very excitable as we crossed the border into Holland at a gentle150kph, teaching us various foul expressions (it is particularly common to slag someone hear as a 'Goat's dick' - bokker lull - go figure) and then forced us to listen to hideous Dutch nursery rhymes (he only has the mentality of a 5 year old in his mother tongue, having migrated to a semi-civilised place, New Zealand, at that age), a very happy day for the dude, especially as it was on the back of a 'romantic encounter' with a lovely German lass the night before. We are all incredibly jealous and demanding of 'details, details'. Bastard. He, of course,  has been sacked.

A major milestone in the life of Todd 'Snoop' Pickett was also reached last night. The rest of the band escorted him to the door of the "Sky High Coffee Shop' and tearily watched him walk inside, like a father seeing his son walk off with a scarlet woman for his first root. This was where Todd's lifelong ambition of picking from a delectable list of uber-grass was to be fulfilled. At 5 euro a gram, the choice was made to go for the Jamaican (a dark organic bushy strain, super nice I must say) and Bubblegum, a fairly mellow yellow hydro variety. The 'Amnesia' listed on the menu was carefully sidestepped in view of many shows ahead requiring at least partial brain function. You gotta keep the drummer happy. In his blissful little green bubble, he belted the skins like a motherfucker at the show. Rock.

We have a very large Mobile Ape Transportation Module  (6 metres long, 3 metres high); Paris has very narrow streets. Under guidance from James "C'est La Vie" Cruickshank we have adopted a siege mentality for our arrival into the fair land of snailmunching gypsy thieves. It's gonna be tricky but we have the world's greatest goat-track afficionado - Alex 'Zero Error' Archer is our inner-city wheel guy - the rest of us share the long stretches of expressway but we systematically defer to Alex when it comes to more complex elements of driving, like cornering, giving way to foreign cunts, or parking this beastly box (which is actually very comfy, we just like complaining about everything).

So I should say something perhaps of myself (your author, the Don) or Dux, but I can't be bothered. We're good, we're cool, we're happy. Ryan's basically on this tour so he can go boot shopping in Spain, we expect him to go a bit strange around that stretch of the trip. As for me, it's all about the chicks; so far, an abysmal response. Thankfully I bought a huge book of incredibly fucking difficult Sudoku puzzles at Perth airport so I'm content for now. Yep, rock n roll.

Paris beckons, au revoir.

Ausfahrts

We all fell for Berlin, kind of like a dodgy outmoded wall. First 2 shows were the polar edges of the band, one rowdy noisy punk extravaganza to a bunch of cool Berliners and ex-pat Aussie demanding Cold Chisel; the second in Niall and Deedee's lovely little cafe backroom, hushed and acoustic, shut down on a noise-basis by the old hag living upstairs, whose car Niall had scratched several months ago and now cunningly saw her opportunity for revenge. James and Brendo took a pilgrimage-of-sorts to a place called Treptower park, a gi-normous and incredibly solemn Soviet war memorial of some 7000 graves, erected in 1949. Ryan tested various local variations of the Berlin speciality, Currywurst, each case resulting in semi-nausea. Todd's pretty ready to move there, having assessed it as the seat of all girl-on-bicyle majesty in the known world. Niall, our Irish friend there, and whom we suspect works for some government secret service, attempted to draft Steve into dampproofing some dodgy basement in a flat he leases. The sheer amount of bricks and damp in this country could set him up for life, if he has der Wilt und der Way. Alex has been happily exploring various sizes of Jagermeister medicinals and embracing some sleep and workless days for the first time in several months. Rendang popped his ink cherry at a Berlin tattoo parlour, getting some giant colorful dragon on his sexily shaved leg, and is now obsessed with moisturisers and Gladwrap... how the pirates got around the Carribean without such things is a mystery to us.

So now, we're in Hamburg (even more bricks here, and damp), it's raining, grey, kind of what you'd expect from Germany. The need for lugubrious nicknames has passed us by, the world has too many passwords already for us to risk burdening you with more. We've been driving a 6 metre long, 3 metre high home-on-wheels around for about 48 hours now without any GPS system and things have felt a little testy to say the least, sorted for our navigation as of this afternoon so Alles is Gut....

We were very late for our gig at punk club, Hafenklang, last night after our first experience of German autobahns... as James so lucidly pointed out to last night's audience - we expected chromeplated frictionless hover-travel and got a 2 hour crawl, hundreds and hundreds of cars and people walking alongside at a much faster pace. Expecting a major accident up ahead or something similarly catastrophic we were bemused to discover it was simply a case of unmanned roadkworks causing a merge in lanes, fond memories of West Australian freeways ensuing.

Steve's German is getting fine-tuned - he now says "Nein sprechen zie deutsche" to people who speak excellent English. On getting met with a lovely meal at the venue last night Steve swaggered up to the lovely chef and goes " Can we tuck into this shit?", glares of horror opened in the poor man's eyes, we're unclear as to what he may have thought being said about his excellent culinary skills - w are representing Australia well. We are having a great time experimenting with our linguistic failings, Brendo 's pidgin Turkish is getting a good tryout, useful with the large Turkish and Kurdish population here. We eagerly await Alex's interview on French radio en francais, we won't know what the fuck he's saying but will have a translator handy.

Tjhe female population of Germany has been recieving high scores all round, especially from Hot Toddy. Steve finds the local dogs particularly well-groomed, some rather esoteric European species regularly on display.

So, besides the band and our soundguy Rendang, we should mention the zen-master Mr James Cruickshank, of Cruel Sea fame, who's been lulled into a false sense of security thinking that we actually like him, little knowing that we've set it up to sell him to a gypsy white slaver upon our arrival in Paris. Meanwhile, he spins and weaves his mini-Casio folky madness upon mystified punters, who for some reason seem to like it.

Oh, and the shows have been going well, we now have functioning equipment and a lack of source for complaint, what do we do instead? Schnitzel for dinner is a good start.

Das is Alles fur Now.

Ich bin ein Bee Sandwich

So, our erstwhile pack has arrived safely and gently in the tranquil streets of inner Berlin. Well met and welcomed by old friends from WA, Niall and Deedee (as well as the dapper zen-like presence of Creeping Jesus, who arrived a day earlier from Oztralia), the band quaffed its first fresh and frothy German bevvies (let us never forget that the Germans, in their genius, invented the stuff) and then eagerly lay their Qantas-weary heads to rest.
After washing travelstink from their ample girths, Ol Trout and the Scarlet Pimpernel began a cool new Berlin morning by opting to sample a local breakfast, largely through well-choreographed gesticulation at the pictures on the menu. The Scarlet one was intrigued to discover that he had ordered himself a local delicacy in the form of a live Bee Sandwich (though, in his astute way, he suspects that they may have been wasps), accompanied by swills of glittering, and cheap, Jagermeister.
Meanwhile, the band negotiates the interesting, and quite possibly grossly miscalculated, outcomes of international e-bay purchases as the tour's backline is assembled and tried out. Some adjustment to the band's customary grunts and squeals may be in order, tonight's first show at White Trash Fast Food (a striking looking ex-Chinese restaurant, guarded by huge golden lions, surely a good omen) will be the litmus test... bring it on.

An Introduction

For your sweetest benefit, we would like to introduce the cast of this here intrigue:

Ol’ Trout:

The Scarlet Pimpernel:

Drraaggo:


Rendang:

The Chief:

The Toad:

Creeping Jesus:

It is entirely under these here terms that you shall witness and suffer the endurances of this circus, and unto which you have just disclaimed your absolutes, fiendship, dear time, and final drink ticket.

Please follow and observe:

The First Post.