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Wednesday, aug13 2008:
We meet at Düsseldorf Airport and
drink one last german beer.
Brasilian beer tastes good, too, but you drink it much colder than at
home. The madness starts right here, ‘cause we decide not to
buy the gift our brasilian friends wanted here in Germany, but to buy
it in Madrid (Spain), where we will have two hours waiting for the
connecting flight. What a great idea to buy the German
Jägermeister-Schnaps in Spain – of course they
didn’t have it. Thank God we are tourists, so we’re
allowed to make some typical tourist mistakes, haha. The flight is
pretty boring, although we have to complain about Iberia –
what a shitty airline is that! The captain only said a few words during
the whole flight (“Fasten your seat belts”)
– well, he was not a man of many words, that’s for
sure. And that plane was pretty old. But –hey!- the spanish
gave us free coffee during the hole flight – during a red eye
flight, where you just wanna sleep – you need that coffee,
dude… next time we pay some more and fly with Lufthansa.
Thursday, aug14 2008:
Our friend Edu (drummer from Nitrominds)
picks us up at the airport, where he already waited for 1 ½
hours for our delayed plane (Iberia – again!). We pack our
stuff into the van and go to Santo André, where our friend
André lives. Our first impression is: it’s not
that warm here, as we thought it would be (well, it’s winter
in Brasil, although 15‘C is not as cold as german winters
could be…) We see the first favella on the side of the
freeway, but the landscape and city does not look as bad as some
European media makes us believe about South America. As we arrive at
André’s place, we’re all very happy to
meet again. André’s flat is gonna be our home base
for the next 2 ½ weeks and we’re happy that he
lets us live here. André is Nitrominds’ singer,
who booked the tour for us. We are very thankful, that he did. First of
all, we go to sleep and try to get rid of the jet lag. In the afternoon
we try again to get some Jägermeister in a Sao Paulo
supermarket – you guess: we couldn’t find it! We
eat rice & beans with salad & fries, which was cooked
by André’s mother and tasted very good (many thanx
to Andrè’s mother go out for this and also for the
other great meals she cooked for us). In the evening we drink some
beers at our friends’local pub, the
“garage”. We try the local schnaps – the
pinga – and past midnight we stumble out of the bar
– for us it really feels like in the morning –
seems that our bodies are still in the wrong time zone.
Friday, aug15 2008:
Sao Bernado, Skate Park & Sao Paulo, Kazebre
So, the tour starts today. After spending
half a day in bed, we go to
the Skate Park, where we’ll have our first show on brasilian
ground ever. That skate park is really big – much bigger,
than in Germany and it is brand new. There are a lot of kids, who
really know how to skate. We (at least Marteang and Chriskaeng) tried
to skate 15 years ago, but we were not really good at it, so we kept
playing bass and drums – we are much better in doing that.
Some kids stay to watch our show and afterwards we give some
autographs. This was a really nice show to warm up. After it, we go to
Kazebre and are psyched about that place: a big venue, which is open
air. We never saw something like that in Germany. We open the concert
at midnight and about 1000 people watch and listen and they really like
it. Thanx so much to all you headbanging, stagediving, screaming people
– you’re great! After us Nitrominds and Dead Fish
play and a lot more bands and we keep partying at the venue until the
morning. On the way back we realize, that in Sao Paulo it seems to be
traffic jam all the time, even on Saturday morning (in Germany
it’s not there on Saturdays…). What a great
beginning of the tour!
Saturday, aug16 2008:
Sao Caetano, Cid Do Mundo
Cid Do Mundo is a really nice, small bar
with a nice owner, who gave us a lot of beer and a small stage.
We’re headliner today and before we play the local bands
Ästerdon and Aqua Pesada really rocked. We think, Aqua Pesada
are much more Stoner Rock than we are! We are playing a good show and
we think, people really liked it. After it we have an aftershow party
at the “Garage” again, whose owner is the drummer
of Musica Diablo, too – a great new project with
Nitrominds-singer André on guitar and Derrick from Sepultura
on vocals. It was a great night!
Sunday, aug17 2008:
São Jose dos Campos, Hoccus Pocus
Not too many people of the 1.5 million, who
live in Sao Jose Dos Campos, came to our show, but the ones who were
there, really enjoyed it. The local bands really rocked, also of course
the Nitrominds, who are headliner on this show. Musically, this is
definitely the highlight of the tour for us so far. Also, we keep
communicating with the people with our cardboard signs, that we hold in
our hands: “Nos somos kaeng!”,
“Sáude!”, “Yeah!”
and “Valeu obrigado!” – well, we
don’t really speak Portuguese, so this is our only chance to
“talk”. But we’re workin’ on
our Portuguese – some people already taught us some bad
words, haha… At the end of the show we play
Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” and
Nitrominds joined us to sing the chorus. Great show, great night, big
fun. Thanx to everyone.
Monday,aug18 and Tuesday aug19
2008:
Off days in Sao Paulo
Well, we hang around a lot, sleep or watch
“My name is
Earl” most of the time. On Monday we joined Musica Diablo on
their rehearsal an on Tuesday went to the beach. Eating some shrimps,
having a Rodizio-bbq (how great is that, at least for the two meat
eaters in the band – Martaeng is willing to definitely learn
some Portuguese to know better, which meals are without meat
– poor vegetarian in a meat loving country…). From
Monday on we are on the first page of myspace brasil –
that’s great! Everybody can listen to our whole album there,
so feel free to visit. We are eager to play and waiting for the next
shows – Wednesday we will “let the games
begin” again!
!
Tuesday, aug19. 2008:
Heaven & Hell
Carnivore’s
heaven is the Vegetarian’s hell: today
we go eat out at a typical brazilian restaurant. Rodizio-BBQ is like
that:
almost every minute the waiters come to the table and bring all kinds
of
grilled meat, which they cut from big spits. Combined with caipirinhas
and for
an all-you-can-eat-fixed price. The meat eaters in the bands are happy,
while
the Vegetarians go for the big salad and pasta buffet. We go to bed,
our
stomaches more than full, and dream of grilled meat or of mountains
made of
vegetables and salad.
Wednesday, aug20 2008:
Santo André, Canja Com Canja
Going to the venue today is just a short trip:
Canja Com Canja is the City Hall of Santo André
and it’s
about 10 minutes away from our home base. After watching “My
Name Is Earl”
almost the whole day (what a great serial!), we get there in the
evening. And
two hours later the venue is packed. The concept here is, that bands of
all
kinds of music can play here. So, we play after a HipHop-band and a DJ
with MC,
and after us “Zeemer”, a cool local rock band.
After that we go for another
aftershow party at the “Garage”-bar, which is kind
of our second home base.
Allthough, the van and the 24h-bakery are fighting to be called
“second home
base”, too. Martin and Chris go to the bakery at night and
have a last burger
and beer.
Thursday, aug21 2008:
Promotion & Politics
First half of the day is Earl’s
– right now we
already watch the second season. Not too much happening today. On the
way to
the “Manifesto Club”, where we have a spontaneous
gig for the music magazine
“revista77”, we realize, how politics and promotion
in Brasil work out. More
than once we see cars with big HiFi-Boxes and promotion boards on the
roofs and
they play loud music. In Germany
the police would stop these cars immediately, because you’re
not allowed to
make big noise on the streets – poor Germany!
And we don’t have dancing
girls on a truck to do promotion for the local politicians –
but we definitely
want them!
Friday, aug22 2008:
Sao
Paulo, Club Belfiori
Belfiori is a big venue. At 2.00 am, when we
start playing, there are far more than 100 people in. We are the only
band of
the night, before and after us a DJ is playing records and making
people dance.
We have a short interview for Crash TV, just before we enter the stage.
Nothing
to complain here – great venue and a good show. People dig
it. Pretty soon
after the show, we go back to the home base, ‘cause we have
to leave for Rio
the next day and that’s a long trip. Before we leave,
ChrisKaeng realizes, why it is better to order Coke than Coca Cola.
When he
entered the venue, he wanted to have just a Coke, so ordered a Coca
Cola. But
the music was obviously so loud, that the bar keeper understood
“Vodka Cola”.
So, he brought a can of Coke and a glass with – at least
Chris thought – just
ice cubes. Chris didn’t want the ice, so he put the glass
with the – now we
know! – Vodka away. Then we had some trouble finding out who
ordered, drank and
who’s gonna pay that Vodka… oh, oh: next time
we’ll order Coke to get things
right. We go for some more beers to the bakery and learn some more
things about
brasil. We try Cuchina (hope, it is really written like that), a fried
mixture
of mashed potatoes and chicken, also chicken pie (NEVER heard of
something like
that in Germany
– GREAT!). Vegetarian Maetis tries to convince the bar
keeper, that chicken and
fish are definitely meat, too and that he wants a
real vegetarian sandwich. Also, we find out, that beer can
only be
sold in cans during night time, not in bottles as during the days.
That’s
brasilian law – we try to figure out, what that law is good
for, but we cannot
find any good reason for it. Also, we convince our brasilian friends,
that we
Germans do actually NOT drink warm beer – that’s a
myth here and people were
asking us several times about it. We don’t drink it as cold
as the Brasilians
do it (we got some frozen beers served here several times), but
it’s not hot.
We drink it with a few degrees more than you guys… so,
forget about that myth.
So, now we are ready to go to Rio!
Saturday, aug23 2008:
Sao Goncalo (Rio de Janeiro
state), Bar Do Blues
We get up later as planned and we drive a long
time. When we arrive at about 7pm, the promoter is not there and we
have to
wait. Finally, we find out, that our hotel is not booked by the
promoter yet.
We play at midnight, after us the Nitrominds and we thought, they were
headliners, but –no!- there’s at least three more
bands, so the concert
probably ended at 8 in the morning. Wow – really different
timing here! The
show is great, people love it. So, Rio
seems
to be a little chaotic, but a good place. We finally arrive at the
motel and
find out, that motels are kind of different here, as what we know it
from home.
We order some sandwiches and a lot of beer and we could have ordered
something
else, too (in Germany
you would order a “second pillow” and you might get
a whore), but we are good
boys.
Sunday, aug24 2008:
Rio
de Janeiro, Audio Rebel
We enter Rio de Janeiro City
at about noon and try to find that Jesus-monument. Most of the time it
is
covered behind clouds, but then we finally see it. We give the video
camera to
Nitrominds-drummer Edu, because he’s sitting in the front of
the van and so has
the best position for filming. Well, our mistake – we forgot
Edu is a drummer
and drummers and technical Instruments seem to not like each other. Edu
films
the statue, but forgets to push the record-button. Well, at least we
didn’t
give the camera to our own drummer
–
he probably would not even be able to switch it on. Well, these
drummers…
A little later we are hanging out on the beach
and watching the ocean in front of us and the sugar point in the back.
We drink
coconut water out of a coconut, then beer – life could be
much worse! Today we
should be at the venue pretty early – Audio Rebel’s
got a curfew of 10pm – that
makes us feel kind of at home. The club is a nice, small venue,
including a
record shop and some rehearsal rooms. The concert room is in the total
back and
the first band plays at 8. The show is not sold out, but the people who
are
there, really like us. We play “Ace of Spades”
together with the Nitrominds
again (and after 9 shows drummer Chris now knows all the lyrics
– he is singing
the song). Bass player Martin forgets to raise the “Valeo
obrigado”-sign in the
end (arrgh, these bass players… next time he’ll
just get the “Saúde”- and
“Yeah”-signs…). Frontman Froonk wants to
drink another beer after the show, but
realizes that there is no more beer in the venue. Anyway, we have to
get in the
van quick, ‘cause we’re driving back to Santo
André that night. Frank gets his
beer, but we all fall asleep during the first minutes of “Big
Lebowski”, which
we wanted to watch in the van. A big “Thank you”
goes out to Daisy, the
promoter of the show. That was a very good organised concert
– you see: we
Germans like it organised, haha. So, let’s call it a day,
dudes!
Tuesday, sep02 2008:
Going back home
No, we are not confused, we just changed the
chronological order of the diary entries… After another ten
hours of flying with our favourite airline Iberia (again with
“great” service from very
“friendly” flight attendants and breakfast which
makes you wanna stop eating breakfast at all), we are now at Madrid
Airport to wait for our connecting flight to Düsseldorf, which
is – could you imagine? – two hours delayed. Well,
so we have more time to look back on the last days of the tour. Here we
go…
Monday, aug25 2008:
UpTV
Today we got no gig, but an appearance in a
TV show. After we were
telling ourselves several times to have a break on alcohol today, we
drive to the local TV station “Up TV” in the
evening, where we are waiting an hour in front of the studio. Several
times we are told, that the interview is gonna start “in ten
minutes”. But that must “brazilian” ten
minutes… whatever, the show is very nice – one
hour long we answer a lot of questions, some of them provided by
viewers via e-mail. Nitriminds-André is translating our
English answers into Portuguese. Really a cool show! So, after that we
have to take a beer, also later a whiskey. The truth is:
we’re sitting in the kitchen of the homebase until 5
o’clock in the morning and we have a lot of fun with
André and his girlfriend Bianca, who has no problems with us
destroying flat for 2 ½ weeks – it’s
vice versa: she has a lot of fun, making us and herself drunk
– thank you for that, Bianca! (btw: you can see Bianca on the
starting page of this homepage).
Tuesday, aug26 2008
Day off in Sao Paulo
We are really good tourists today. We drive to Sao Paulo for shopping.
Driving there takes a little longer: whoever thought, they’ve
seen a traffic jam or rush hour in Germany – well, sorry: you
don’t! We don’t have traffic jams like that at
home. Also, we don’t have people who sell you drinks, snacks
or ashtrays hand-made of beer cans, while you’re waiting on
the crossing to wait for the red light to become green – we
should have that. Also, we want these Volkswagen-T2-vans back
– they’re not building these in Germany anymore,
but they do in the huge VW-factory in Sao Paulo. After arriving in Sao
Paulo, we buy so many vinyl records and T-Shirts, that we are scared of
our credit card invoice already – there are definitely too
many cool shops in that city. And we decide, not to open any letters
from credit card companies, when we’ll be back home. On the
way back to the car, we get to know a very cool drink: sugar cane
juice, freshly made and with a lemon in it. Perfect – at
least drummer Chris has to drink this all the time from now. We wonder,
when show time will be tonight, but –oh oh!- it’s a
day off. Well, there’s still that guy named
“Earl” waiting for us and André and
Bianca at the homebase.
Wednesday, aug27 2008:
Day Off
Another day off. We decide, to fry an
icecream today. That’s
a german saying and means: not doing too much. We have a short walk to
the Santo André-Skate Shop and the Metal Shop, then we go to
a Japanese restaurant in the evening. But, hey: they really fry ice
cream here – it’s a kind of dessert. Allthough,
after that really good Sushi-All-You-Can Eat we are so stuffed, that we
couldn’t even eat frozen ice cream. So, fried ice cream stays
a mystery for us. But we definitely have to drink one last beer (haha
– one…) at the „Garage Bar“,
‘cause that’s the last chance to drink there with
our friends, as we’ll be on the road tomorrow and will leave
after that last part of the tour. Marcao, owner of the
“Garage” wants us to play there on the next tour.
Well, why not – we wanna do it…
Thursday aug28 2008:
Day Off, Travel Day
That day ends with some glasses of
champagne, as we have to say good bye to Bianca and drive to Curritiba
tonight, where we arrive Friday morning. Well, it’s
definitely time to leave for more shows now –
that’s what we’re here for. On the way to the
south, our roadie Piuih is puking out of the window, while the van is
driving and that adds a whole new “design” to the
van. We almost name the tour “Pukie Tour” (a few
days later, Nitrominds-drummer Edu pukes, too), but we
don’t…
Friday, aug29 2008:
Curitiba, 92º
Stayed the whole day at the hotel. Then had
a burger in Curritiba, which is a nice city – with a college,
an award-winning public transportation system and a shopping street,
which reminds us of our home town Düsseldorf. Also, they have
a “Schwarzwald Haus” here, a restaurant, where we
could eat german food like Sauerkraut and leg of pork and listen to
German Volksmusik – well, we decide, not to do that, as we
can eat German food in Germany and don’t like the Volksmusik
at all (it’s kind of the german version of Samba –
totally different, of course, but everybody listens to it during German
Carnival). Also, our vegetarian minority in the band doesn’t
like the leg of pork, too. We go to the venue: the 92º is a
really nice club, where bands like Fugazi, Seaweed and Sick of it all
already have played – we’re psyched! Three local
bands support us that night. “Strotz” are the
coolest one – they play a funny mix of Sonic Youth-Sound with
German lyrics. We like it and they tell us afterwards (in German), that
they are living in a German “colony” in Brasil.
Really cool! It looks like the south of Brazil is very german-oriented,
anyway – we saw freeway exits called “New
Freiburg” and “New Hamburg” and
can’t believe, that there is a city calle Blumenau in Brazil.
That’s weird to us. The food at the venue was very tasty and
it was a lot – thanks to the really nice promote and the
owners of the club! Really a cool night, that ends in the van for
another night drive to Criciuma.
Saturday, aug30 2008:
Circiuma, Let’s Go Bar
Along the ocean we drive more south. When we
exit the van at the venue, some people realize pretty quick, that
we’re kaeng. So, the promotion at myspace, MTV, UpTV etc.
worked out well. Today there’s again nothing to complain.
It’s a very nice venue, the audience likes us and even our
driver Joel is standing on stage and smiles. That wouldn’t so
special, if Joel wasn’t probably 60 years old. He’s
a really cool guy! Also, the promoter is very nice and he looks a bit
like Zack de la Rocka. We definitely play one of the best shows on this
tour and afterwards we go to a gas station, where a kind of party is
going on. Drummer Chris can hardly remember it (allthogh, he only drank
that “one” beer, he always drinks, haha).
There’s only one bad thing tonight: one guy in the audience
“welcomed” us with the words “Heil
Hitler”, when we entered the stage. Fuck that, man
– never do that again, ‘cause we hate all kinds of
Nazi stuff! Will you never learn?
Sunday, aug31 2008:
Guaramirim, Curupira Rock Club
We almost cannot say the name of that city
right – too complicated for the German tongue. Guaramirim is
kind of, what German people think of, when they think of brazilian
landscape. We wouldn’t have thought, that there is a rock
club that nice in this town in the middle of mountains and woods. We
play a really good gig, unfortunately we have some heavy feedback
problems in the beginning. Also, we are really surprised, when a guy
enters the stage during our song “Decision” to
perform hand stands etc. during the whole tune. He later introduces
himself as the “banana man” – funny, very
funny. We enter the van and now realize, that this is the last trip of
the tour. We kill the last beers on the long way back to the home base,
where we arrive at 6 in the morning. We say “Do
Caralho” to the Nitrominds and their crew (‘cause
that’s, what this tour was: “Caralho”
means “really good” (at least, when you say it
right – in other contexts it might also mean
“shit”, but definitely not for that tour!). We have
to say good-bye, but we’ll definitely meet again –
either in Germany or Brazil or –even better!- both!
Tuesday, sep2 2008:
Going back
There we are again – sep2, back in
Europe. After travelling half the Monday and the whole night,
we’re at Madrid Airport. Our bones and asses hurt from
sitting in the plane and we’re really serious this time with
our plan not to drink any beer today. But, it was definitely worth it
and we could have added some more weeks. Oh, now the plane to
Düsseldorf is ready boarding (without the delay it should have
had two hours ago, by the way…) – we have to go.
See you all next time…
„OBRIGADO“ –
the Thanx-List:
André aka
„Nitroala“ aka „mother of the
tour“ – Booking, Tourmanaging, taking care of all
business… without him, nothing would have worked out!
Lalo & Edu (Nitrominds) –
for driving, partying, everything
Bianca – for flat, bed and party
André’s Mutter – fort he tasty food
Mutra (merchandise), Piuih (Tech), Alex & Joel (driving)
– the funniest crew ever
Helena – for lots of good photos
Zonapunk.com.br, Punknet.com.br,
myspace.com.br, MTV.com.br, UPTV.com.br, CrashTV and all other media,
that supported us
All Bands, we played with.
All promoters, who let us play
All people, who came out to watch us play
Metal Shop Santo André &
Rattus Skate Shop Santo André
Marcao & “Garage Bar”
Alyand Mielle (3’ Mundo & Dead Fish)
Daisy
Reh V
& everyone, we forgot.
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