Ok, so we've just spent the night at a Croatian roadhouse/truckstop…. 18 hours and 600 euros later we're on the road again….not such a good day, but I digress from the chronology of our travels of late…
We eventually got emergency passports for Steve and Ryan, involving a major detour to Madrid to get them….then we had to take another detour of 500 kms or so to retrieve Todd's passport from a hotel where he'd left it in in Basque Country….so armed up again with our paperwork, we attempted the 2500 km slog to the Balkans, figuring it would take under 48 hours to do this…oh, how we were wrong…
Having shuffled around a show to make a bit more time, we finally copped some karma for all the ground we'd been covering (about 5000 kms in Spain in 10 days, totalling some 12000 kms by the time we'd left there) as the rear tyres of the Ape Module started slowly sinking, first the left, then the right….this started in Madrid and has been haunting us since. We got about halfway through the big drive when it became abundantly clear that we could go no further, the tyres were seriously leaking and we had no choice but to find solace in the central north Italian town of Brescia (incidentally, this is where Alex's 100 year-old violin comes from, he made a pilgrimage to the (closed) workshop….). What we were quick to discover is that Italians don't like working on Sundays… in fact, everything in this town, bar a couple of cafes, was shut, "It's Domenico, no working"…. so, negotiating our position by phone with Aleks, our Serbian promoter, we were forced to find a hostel and see the night out in Brescia. First thing in the morning we're at the Gomme (tyre) repairers, the dude there checks both tyres under pressure and tells us he can't find anything wrong - they are tubeless car tyres on a large van, there's already something wrong, as far as we're concerned. Shrugging, unsure, we elect to proceed on this moron's advice and make it about another 200 kms when we are forced to pull off the expressway again and limp it a couple of kms to the nearest mechanic in some little bumfuck town. They can help us by putting a tube in the problem tyre, but, oh, it's just turned 12pm, hence its lunchtime, and of course, this requires 3 hours, so see you at 3pm and we'll sort you out, was pretty much the gist of it. So we hit the restaurant across the road and spend the usual time on Iphones and laptops, generally ignoring each other as much as possible and sampling the dodgy pizza and excellent gnocchi. We conclude that we are now extremely unlikely to make it to the show in Belgrade, though Aleks insists that if we get there by 11pm it's still on; we grumble about his optimism….
So, tyred up, we hit the road again, this time making it as far as some little town in mid-Slovenia, where the other rear tyre gives out and we are forced to tube it up too (which should have happened days before); on the other hand, the guy at the auto shop knew our band well, which came as something of a pleasant surprise considering we'd just pulled into some random Slovenian village; we stuck him on the guest list for the Slovenian show later that week…
A small tangent - as i sit writing this missive in the Ape Module, we've just hit the first stretch of snow for the trip, hilltops iced over, the incredibly beautiful ambers and browns of the Croatian forest lining the road, we all want to go and play snowballs etc, but its pretty chilly outside…. ok, back to the complaining…
So, to cut a long story short, we belted across Croatia in the black of night, thru 2 borders, to finally get to Belgrade (too late for that night's show) to meet Aleks and his large long-haired sidekick, Filip (who is a ring-dinger for our ex-mando/banjo player, Gurr) in the carpark of some large 24-hour megamart. We had our first shots of rakia (Serbian grapa, sort of like fruit-tinged metho) in the supermarket cafe at about 1am, enthusiastically met by our 2 new Serbian men on the ground…
So, we'd finally made it the 2500 kms to Belgrade, effectively the eastern-most point of our tour…. and it had taken some considerable effort and stress, but hey, fuck it, what else are we here for? Got to see a bit more of Italy in the process, though we are now very suspicious of their dubious mechanics and work ethic…
5 nights in Belgrade (2 shows in the city, 2 in some towns about 100kms away) was something of a relief in that we could finally stop moving for a bit. We also quickly established that Belgrade also is home to probably (collectively) the hottest women in any city we'd been to at this point (Berlin and Paris now hold 2nd and 3rd spots, respectively), which certainly doesn't hurt, only kind of...
We played the first 2 nights in a small illegal bar called Zica (pronounced jheecha), run by the wonderful Tomo ( a long-time promoter/raconteur of the Serbian scene who resembles Alejandro Jodorowsky i reckon)….it also has zero ventilation and probably the most dense smoke/cubic metre anywhere in Europe, it was fucking impossible to breathe, and was a distinct trait of all Serbian shows, we all (smokers in the band included) gained a death-rattle in our chests from this omnipresent fog, not nice … a reminder to appreciate anti-smoking regulations elsewhere. I smoke, though not heavily, and i also sing, this was fuckin hard work, believe me… the rakia (moonshine) helped as usual…. the Serbs have a playful variation upon the 'Nokia - Connecting People' tag - 'Rakia - Correcting People'.
We also had the pleasure of some incredibly scrumptious Serbian restaurants, dining with Aleks and his girlfriend, Milica…we were embarrassed to be totally unable to consume even half the massive array of entrees in one place, and they're not generally that fat, a mystery… Aleks suggests the rakia is at the heart of the dietary regime.
Great shows in weird little places, great people…. including the travelling trio we picked up/adopted from our hostel to be an opening act for 3 shows (Rob, an Irishman, Will, an American, and Anja, a Belarussian/American), who are travelling around being musical gypsies, we befriended each other and they became our road-companions for a few nights, lovely folk, Will assisting us in correcting our rather fried version of Texas Hold 'Em poker rules, and a refreshing change from having to talk to each other… Slovenian weed also deserves a mention, thanks to Filip and his ready supply of 'Adult Contemporary', a relaxing and mellow strain.
Filip's band (Rough Bull..?) with Ivan the guitarist (and owner of a magnificent Guild 64 Starfire … very sexy guitar, immediately co-opted by Alex) and drummer Bane became our support band for 3 shows too, incredibly good guys (Todd was their drummer for the last show, fine job) and a rocking act, who we hope make it Australia one day. Thanks guys… Serbia was quite fascinating to us, it's definitely very different to 'Western' Europe…wilder, rawer, poorer, and very real…its a country (among many) that has suffered much, and the scars are quite visible, but some of the strongest, proudest people you could hope to meet.
We finally said our good byes to Aleks (my friend Predrag's older brother), who we concluded to be a wonderful madman, and Filip and trotted off to our our next show in Velenje, Slovenia. The countryside on the way to the smallish town in the hills was absolutely stunning - you just don't see the autumnal colours like this anywhere in Australia, a million shades of brown, yellow, orange, amber, stunning and gentle to the eyes, makes me wanna paint again. Now its just boring white, with the snow, much prefer the leaves…
Velenje was cool, playing at an ex-Communist-era youth centre, attended by a couple of hundred tanked-up young locals…made very welcome by the lovely and slightly pickled Sinisha(a Graham Chapman (Monty Python) lookalike) and the house production guy, Sasha, who took us the next day to visit a youth workshop in electric-guitar making being run by a local luthier called Sever (he made a guitar or two for U2 apparently), lovely people, young folk from all over Europe madly grinding out various models of electric bodies, they welcomed us like we were the Beatles or something, wanting photos and autographs, shooting video, quite mad and very warming to our fragile little egos….
Next stop, Zagreb. The Croatian border let us through unhassled ("Weapons?" "No", "Cigarettes? Alcohol?" "No, of course not sir" etc etc) and we cruised into the very chilled out city of Zagreb to a cruisy, funky little bar called Spunk. In spite of the somewhat dodgy PA system (rendered highly workable after an hour or two by our genius soundie, Rendang) we belted out a cracker of a set to a full room (they're starved for music here, largely cos it's not EU yet, a pain in the arse for touring bands in general) and were then generously put up for the night by some local women/friends of Aleks: Sandra and Velna, who were super cool and fun to hang out with, thanks ladies!
Electing to make for the coast, with a couple of days off, we made it as far the next day (i.e. yesterday) as 50 kms to a roadhouse, where the tyre finally blew its last breath - a cracked rim, no less. Rendered completely immobile, we were at the mercy of an efficient (though pricey) roadside assistance service, who came back with a somewhat dodgy looking rim and tyre this morning (not much choice really), took 600 euros (almost AU$1000) from us and now we're gleefully on the road again….we''ve just stopped for a cup of tea and to throw snowballs at each other (this is what Aussies do in this shitty, arctic weather right?) - that lasted for all of 2 minutes and now everyone's complaining about the cold…
Italy's next on our hit-list, 2 shows there and we're back into France for the final leg of the tour…. only 11 days to go and we're done….oh la la…
Operative me sign off for momentary.
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