Tuesday, November 08, 2005
European Tour Diary
Euro Tour Diary Day 1
Well, where to begin. After a nice flight over we land and after figuring out how to dial a damn
phone number we get the news……. Our driver Christiane got in a wreck with the van and gear.
Totalled everything and broke some ribs! Now that’s ROCK. We get a hotel near the airport and
go to the airport bowl for some beers. We’re promised the next day a driver will come get us for
our 1st gig in Southend. Well, check out time is 1pm and I have no messages and cannot get a
hold of our booking agent. We hop in a cab and go to our pals over at Photofit to hang out and
kill some time. Finally at 6pm our booking agent advises us no driver! The gig is several hours
away so we can’t go. We’re BUMMED! Still in flux about how we’re going to do the rest of the
tour we head over to Rafa’s cousins house in London to make some plans….. we read on
stonerrock.com that a lot of people showed up to the Southend show and we’re pissed off!! We
should have been there! Tomorrow AM we’re on a ferry over to Calais, France then over to
Zomergem, Belgium for our show that we will not miss no matter WHAT!! We have to drag all
our shite on that boat so wish us luck people!! More later…
Euro Tour Diary Day 2 -Zomergem, Belgium – Hopeful
A successful plan in tact! Rafa’s cousins, sisters, boyfriends ill fated father drove us 70 miles in
his CitroenPicaso to the Hoverspeed in Dover and we took the ferry over to Calais in France
where our driver Roman picked us up with a backline YEA!!!!!
1st sign of hope. It’s about a 2
hour drive to the gig in Zomergem and damn I’m car sick. Fooking 70 miles in the back seat of a
small packed car then an hour ferry ride. BARF! We pull in to this small town where we see the
HUGEST cows I’ve ever seen in my life. They must get fed steroids man they were like body
builders!! T’ou liefken is a small barn like house in the middle of nowhere. There were roosters
that looked like screaming jay Hawkins!! Jan the booker greeted us and we were just so happy to
be at a club and hey play some music ya know the reason why we came here! We unloaded and
said goodbye to Roman he will meet back up with us in Tilburg next Thursday. Soooooo, this
leads us to our next dilemma how do we get to our next 6 shows between here and Tilburg…….
Hmmmmm, our booking agent says he found a driver and van and a very cool local tour manager
Xavier helps us out as well. The 2 are to talk in the AM about this so I feel good and decide to
chill out. My stomach is still fucked up from all the stress, beer, traveling and lack of sleep so
I’m on the wagon tonight. We’re starving and the nice people at the club make us a meal
consisting of sausages, potatoes, cauliflower and salad with a jar of mayo!! These people in
Belgium are mayo happy. We’re headlining this show a local band featuring the drummer from
Thee League of Gentlemen play along with this French band Blutch then us. I’m kind of nervous
we have about 50 people in this really small town and we’re about to play on gear we’ve never
seen before. I end up with a marshall jcm 900 stack and a jcm 2000 head with so many knobs on
there I can barely find the damn volume. Rafa comes to the rescue and dials me in. Joey has what
looks to me like a miniature drum kit. He has a 22 inch bass drum HAHAHA!! Rafa has an
ampeg stack with a solid state head so we’re all working under a little bit of a rock n roll
handicap. We get up there and start busting it out. We played for an hour and besides a few small
clams we performed pretty well under the circumstances. I announced our last song and after we
got were done the crowd clapped then went silent. As we said our thank you’s to the nice peoples
a few yelled out what was a pretty lame encore attempt and although I was just so happy to make
it thru this set we did do one more in which I did manage to fuck up!! No one seemed to care we
sold a bunch of merch, Joey and Rafa got fucked up and I rested backstage until we were ready
to go. We stayed with this very nice guy Luke who totally set us up. Still not knowing how we’re
getting to the France shows in the AM we go to sleep! Finally a successful show.
Euro Tour Diary Day 3– Limoges, France Triumphant
We get to bed about 3am-3:30 the usual after the gig rock time and I do my best to sleep since
I’m sooooooo tired but it’s hard to sleep not knowing what will happen the next day and oh yea
and the beautiful sounds of snoring from one of the band members who will remain nameless at
this time! Alarm goes off at 9am I snooze it for a few times and then get up at 9:30am and start
hitting the cel phone to contact our booking agent about how we will get there. Xavier texts me
that we have a van and driver standing by but I have to make arrangements to pick this van up
like 50 kilometers away. I finally get a call from our booker that he was under the impression
that we were all taken care of you!! FUCK!!!! I have a small mini meltdown. All right now it’s
now 11am and we have to move fast. I call John the driver on stand by and the van place. Our pal
Luke whose house we stayed at is nice enough to pick up our driver and take us the van which is
50 kilometers away!! We fucking high gear it over get the van at around 1-1:30 cruise back to the
club load to load our gear and at 3pm we start heading to Limoges, France which is our gig
tonight at the Woodstock boogie bar. It’s 680 kilometers away so about 450 miles I’m guess or a
7 to 8 hour drive depending on traffic, Hmmmmmm, 3pm and we have an 8 hour drive and are
scheduled to play at 10:30pm…… FUCKING A – GO JOHNNY GO!! Our driver John is from
Ireland he’s fucking driving like hell fire.
We go 700 kilometers get stuck in fucking awful traffic
in Paris and make to the show at11pm!! The people come out clapping and help us load our gear
onto the stage!! After taking a pee and getting a warm beer we plug in and play. ROCK!! I feel
like I’ve conquered the world now. A band alone stranded in Europe pulls it together and makes
the shows!! We’re set from now on. We have a driver for the rest of the tour. Limoges is great
and we met some nice pals….. Next stop Gay Paree…….
Euro Tour Diary Day 4 – Paris, France – Le Batofar
All right now! I really don’t know where the rumor that French people are rude came from cause
I say au contrare. What hospitality our pals from Limoges lay on us. We have a nice place to stay,
a meal and of course the after the show friends. After hanging out with some of the people from
Versus magazine and eating some food everyone leaves at you guessed it 3:30am rock time!!
We’re beat! The next day our pals feed us again and escort us over to Mr.Brickolage which is the
home depot of France. Joey needs to make a drum rug so those 22 inches don’t go sliding off the
stage! Around 2pm we head towards Paris. I’ve been talking to Mary Stoneage the promoter of
the Paris show for months now. She’s a Man’s Ruin addict and I can’t wait to meet her. I knew
we were playing on a boat but god damn when we pulled into Paris and drove down to the
Seinne I could not believe my eyes. www.batofar.org.
Crazy a huge red rock n roll boat!! We meet Mary who has the Man’s Ruin cat tattooed on her
and she is so great. We love you Mary!! Je’taime!! She hands us an envelope with our guarantee
and keys to our hotel! Love that! We do a sound check, eat some food and the show is very early.
There’s a dance club starting at 11pm after we play. The opening band was a local called Super
Timor. Heavy rocking sludge. We go on at 9:15pm which is really early for us. I only drank 1
beer! The people in Europe expect a much longer set than we’re used to playing so we kick out
an hour long set. We’re getting better 4 sure but still some clams tonight. The sound is great
there but shut those damn disco lights off!! Those lights were killing me! This ain’t no party, this
ain’t no disco! After this set the packed boat demands an encore in which we carry on for another
15 minutes. I walk off after the last note cause we need to practice some more songs to be able to
play longer DAMN! A great night and finally we feel good. I meet a girl from Texas and some
guy drove all the way from Switzerland to see us along with this guy Patrick who I met in SF
from my friend Robin lives in Paris now. He helps us hail a taxi in which taxi driver ..1 tries to
rip off the tourists! John would have none of it and sends the guy on his way…
We finally make it to the hotel, and drink the left over beer from last night along with the bottle
of wine our pals from Limoges gave us. Another 3am evening but hey rock time, right? We wake
up eat and go to the Eiffel Tower to be tourists. Snap some photos than off to Gent to stay at our
Driver John’s house. Thanks to our UK booker that never followed up on a few of these gigs
until too late we end up not having a Den Helder or Berlin show SUX! To save money we come
here where him and his wife Alex hook us up! THANK YOU! Tomorrow we’re heading to
Amsterdam to hang out with pals and meet our Japanese label dude who is in town with another
band. We’re not playing again until Wednesday so see you then!
PS: Typing on european keyboard can prove to be quite challenging so forgive the typos,bad
grammar and well 3am low down!
Euro Tour Diary Day 5-6-7
Wasn’t going to write again until we played the next show but some stories cannot go
unwritten……
We arrive in Amsterdam on Monday night and find our way (although not very easily) to my
friends Tos and Eva’s place. Tos is leaving to go to the US tomorrow to play keyboards for the
Sunno)))/Thrones/Boris tour so I’m very happy to see him before he splits. We also need to give
these 2 some privacy since we’ve invaded their space so coincidently the head of our Japanese
Label Toreno from Leafhound records just happens to be in A’dam with the Church of Misery so
we meet up with them at the Minds Café. Circle of life as Rafa says. Here we are in A’dam
hanging out with people from Japan CRAZY! After several beers and the struggle of
communication we take off and cruise the “red light” district. Joey and Rafa never been to A’dam
before and wanted to see the ladies in the window. It was pretty gross for me late at night I was
the only girl amongst the various jock type dudes looking for some action. We head back and
pass out. Next day we do our shopping and Joey and I head back while Rafa and John stay in
town. We meet up with them later on and something very ummmmmmmm, strange happens to
Rafa just moments before. In A’dam they have these circular metal areas where guys can pee in a
hole in the ground so they don’t whip it out all over and pee where ever they want even though
they still do! Apparently there was this empty bottle sitting on the ground and Rafa was pretty
stoned after hanging out at one of the coffee shops so he decided to fill the bottle for fun. John is
also waiting to pee but there is a guy also waiting and he looks like he really has to go so after
Rafa he lets this guy go before him. Well this guy picks up the bottle of pee, gets on his bike
raises the bottle of pee to the boys says “cheers” and takes a drink of it!!!!!! WHAT THE
HELL!!!!!!! Rafa gets a picture of this and we walk back the house in disbelief!!
Grosses thing I
ever heard in my life! We head back the house to chill out with my friend Eva and Joey and Rafa
go to meet our pals from Japan. I scored a cool leather jacket from the market and we’re off to
Jena tomorrow YAHOOOOOO!
Euro Tour Diary Day 8– Jena, Germany – The Rosenkellar
We said our goodbyes to my pal Eva and took off to Jena. I for one 1 was ready to get back on
the road and play again. I’m here to rock not hang out so I was really anxious to play. Now this
show was almost cxld. Apparently our booking agent is notorious for not sending any
promotional things out and keeping them in his house!! When we first arrived I received and email
from the agent that was in charge of this show and he said he was going to cxl it due to lack
of promotion. I got on the internet and e-mail the booker, Tom directly to ask him please don’t
clx this and he said no worries the show was on YEA! 7 hours later we pull into what is a really
cool little town. A small medieval town with a huge college campus. We pull in meet Tom and
get directions to our hotel… Now check this out we go to unload the gear and this hands town
was the most painful process in my roc history. The Rosenkellar is several levels below the street
in what looks like an old castle or dungeon. Big brick walls with arches. Very cool BUT we had
to walk our gear from the street all the way down a cobblestone hallway passing over to different
stair cases with ramps and then we had to walk this shit down a big flight of stairs to get the
stage!! It was kinda scary like a great white incedent waiting to happen! We’re all totally
underground no windows, doors and a bunch of people smoking like fiends! We have a lot of
help unloading to this eases the pain. We set our stuff up do a sound check and the sound is
booming! A TOTAL rumble. After check Vic Dumonte the opening band walks in. These guys
are from socal the desert area near Palm Springs and I know the drummer Alfredo from Kyuss
and we say our hellos. The singer whose real name is Chris remember us from 1993 when Acid
King opened up for the Melvins and his band with Mike Desert at the Rhythm and Blues bar in
Indio. We laugh about the fact that here we are 12 years later playing together in a dungeon in
Germay!!! The nice peeps at the venue feed us and hey if it ain’t my favorite bread and cheese
with potatoes, boiled vegetables and a fried cheese croquette!! We start pounding down the local
beer we’re severed, Rosen and it’s damn good. Vic Dumont take the stage at around 10:30pm It’s
so smoky in there that I decide to hang out by the merch table….. We hit the stage at around
midnight and the place is PACKED! We reconnect with this guy Johannes that we met while he
was traveling in the U.S this summer. Him and his friend flew into New Jersey, rented a car and
drove all the way to SF to see Acid King play and he lives near the club!! Circle of life once
again! We play the best set of the tour so far. Kinda sloppy but the feel and vibe was there. Lots
of drunk fans!! After the show we hung out and talked to a lot of people whose names I couldn’t
pronounce and proceeded to get pretty drunk!! Everyone was hanging out back stage and getting
loaded, people were trying to chisel free merch from me and all was fun until the night took a
turn left…….. Well, lets just say ya know when you get really drunk and everyone is laughing
and then all of the sudden something happens and all of the sudden you’re not laughing
anymore? That’s all I can say what happens in Jena, stays in Jena!!! We head back to our hotel
and I pass out another 3am’er as per usual and we have a long drive to Tilburg. It’s our last night
with our new friend and driver John and we’re gonna miss him! He’s was born and raised in
Ireland and then moved to Belgium so he has several different types of vocabulary as it is and
now thanks to Rafa he has not taken on some American slang so if you travel here and bump into
a an Irish/Belgium guy that says, Dude and We’re so outta here it’s probably him!
Number of Times Rafa quoted a scene from the movie Chopper 2
Number of Times Joey said Rad 2
Number of Times Joey said Fucking Rad 4
Number of guys at the club that looked like Roger from Graves at Sea 2
Number of Times I ate Cheese and bread 3
Euro Tour Diary Day 9– Tilburg Holland –013
Fun fun fun on the autoban! Damn, these people drive fast in Germany. We wake up about 9am
hurting 4 certain after drinking the night before. We have to meet at the club to do the
painstaking job of loading our gear the way it went down but with less people. After eating a nice
breakfast of bread and cheese we head over and get the stuff and start heading towards Tilburg
about an 7 hour drive well 6 when you’re driving 100 miles an hour! We get to the club and I’m
burnt out and look like hell. Our new driver Roman is coming to meet us and we say our
goodbyes to John. THANK YOU JOHN! In a weird way even though this tour has been fucked
up we would have never met John and this weeks experience so I’m glad it happened and we
hope to cross paths with him in the future!! Club 013 is HUGE! 3 rooms with various size
venues and a rehearsal place. It’s total pro. We’re playing in the batcave the smaller room and
we have a dressing room stocked with beer and my favorite bread and cheese! We do our sound
check and meet Walter the head of Roadburn. Walter is a lover of music and has been an Acid
King fan for years. Him and his friend Richard set up a screen and made a background video of
really cool and obscure biker footage. He gave us a copy to take home so I’m hoping to be able
to use this in the future. It was an early show and Los Natas was there to open the night. Nice
guys and they were shocked to see Rafa!! They’re pals and they had no idea he was playing with
us. Lots of Espanol going on in Holland!! I rush to eat, get ready and watch Natas. After several
heinekin it’s our turn to rock. The place was packed and we played a good set. The crowd was
very still so it was hard to read if they liked us but they would clap and yell afterwards so I just
made up a story that they were totally rocking out in my head and I got thru it. A good night 4
sure, met a lot of nice people. Roman took us to our hotel the F1 or Formula 1 which is like the
motel 6 of Europe but you don’t even have your own toilet or shower in your bedroom but you
do have wirleless internet!! and we could not wait to pass the hell out. Next stop………
Aarschot!
Number of garbage cans in our dressing room 0
Number of Times I ate bread and Cheese 4
Number of Times Joey said Rad 2
Euro Tour Diary Day 10 – Aarschot Belgium – De Klinker
I wake up walk down the hall to pee and shower, eat my 1st bread and cheese sandwich of the
day and we check out. Check out at the F1 is noon so we head across the street to Mcdonald’s to
hang out cause Roman isn’t getting us til 2pm. There’s no smoking there and guess what they
have wifi!! Roman gets us and we head over to De Klinker. We pull up on time YEA! The place
is nice, it’s like a youth center of sorts but with a bar and a venue. We load in our gear and do
some business. Again left stranded by the UK booker. According to the itinerary we are to play in
Leicester on Saturday and Glasgow on Sunday. We never received any info from this booker. No
directions,load in times, contact info ANYTHING! We’re flying solo on this tour so I take charge
and ask my pals in the UK to check this shit out. I hear from a fan in Scotland that the place we
were supposed to play knew nothing about Acid King. I also receive a text message from the
club in Leicester that they no nothing of us playing there as well! EYEYEYEYEYEYEYE!!! I’m
furious and txt/e-mail and call our booker of course he never replies……. We decide to make a
game plan on what to do the next 2 days and now it’s time to sound check, chill and rock this
mutha! The place is getting crowded and a local band Hypnos 69 is opening the show. They have
all this state of the art gear, laney heads, hiwatt cabs, etc… and are sort of prog rock with a
grateful dead jam thrown in there! Seemed like most of the crowd was there to see them but au
contrare when we hopped on stage the people were totally rocking on. The sounds was amazing
and this was the best AK Show yet. We are now officially dialed in. Sarah and Benny of the
Orange Factory put this show on and what great people.
The night was a success we were totally
taken care of and we drove back to their house to crash out. I finally get a chance to call my
boyfriend who I totally miss LOVE YOU DAVE!! We wake up and Sarah and Benny serve us up
the old continental breakfast of bread,cheese and cold cuts!! We decide that we’re going to go to
Roman our drivers apt in Rotterdam for the night to save $$. H e also broke his hot rod mobile
phone that has a GPS system on it so it’s a 911 that he gets this replaced for the rest of the trip.
We know we have a show in Sheffield on Monday so we’re going to go to London tomorrow to
stay at Rafa’s cousins house. This wraps up the Euro end of the trip and the rest will be in the
UK…… we had a great time on this leg despite the stress of the bizarre way this entire tour has
gone. Met so many great people and ate a fuck load of bread and cheese!! I’m a little confused
about the garbage can situation in this part of the world. Seems like everywhere we went we
could not find a garbage can easily and when we did it would be this tiny container!! Get some
damn garbage cans people!! My pockets are full!!!
Number of Times I ate bread and Cheese 2
Number of Time Joey said Rad 2
Number of Times Joey said Fucking Rad 1
Number of guys that looked like Bryan from ATP 1
Number of Times “Circle of life” was said 3
Number of 10oz Stella Artois I had 6
(I Thought stella was from France (artois) DOH guess I never read the label!
On this rant let me just say that people here do not refrigerate their beverages. Everything is
room temperature!!
Euro Tour Diary Day 11 & 12 Day off – Rotterdam/London – Circle of Life
We wake up and our gracious hosts serve us the Euro continental breakfast of Bread and Cheese
YEA!! Nice good people and I’m sooooooo happy to know them and have some new pals. Off to
Rotterdam…….. Roman hooks us up at his place. He has a great apt. near the center of town and
the guys take off shopping while I hang out and do business. Ya see it seems as if many of these
shows that are booking agent told us about are not really shows and on top of that we have no
addresses, phone numbers or contact info for the shows we know we so have so it’s up to me to
get all info and check out what is real vs what is a load of shite!
I have a few peeps helping me scope out the situation and it looks like at least we have 5 shows
this upcoming week. We may call it a day after London and head home since it appears that all
but 1 show the 1st week of November is a load of shite but you’ll have to continue to read on to
find out! We go out for dinner and damn I am so ready for something that’s not bread and
cheese!! I’m beat and have been absorbed in self pity having to deal with this situation we’re in.
Rafa and Joey go out to party and me I don’t feel like, I just want to hang out with myself. The
next morning we’re supposed to leave at 10am to catch the ferry back to Dover and I wake up to
the sounds of a buzz saw and bunch of snorting pigs in the room! Everyone is passed out since
they didn’t get back til 5am. Everyone gets up and Roman’s girlfriend Doegka (sp) runs out to
get us some bread and cheese!! THANK YOU ROMAN!! I decided that it’s time to have a more
positive attitude and try to make this last week fun. Now that we know the score I don’t have any
more worries so now it’s time for me to have fun. We take off and Roman is driving fast trying to
catch the 2pm ferry so we can save some $$. We’re cruising through Belgium on our way from
Holland to France when I see a blue Highway Tiger van. Xavier the guy that helped us out
getting a driver and van for the 1st leg of the tour owns a few of these so I’m curious to see if
there’s a band in there. We get closer on god damn if it’s not Xavier himself HAHAHA!!
What are the freakng odds of running into him on the road?? Circle of life as Rafa says!! Rafa also
manages to snap a fine picture of our new pal. Damn, we didn’t make it but whatever it’s
expensive to take a van full of people cost us 120 euros. I think I can be a European tour manger
now? One hour later we’re back in Dover and I did feel a sense of accomplishment. It was just
12 days ago that we got a ride from Rafa’s, cousins, sisters boyfriends father Javier and we
managed to play 6 successful shows!! We cruise over to Tuti’s (Rafa’s Cousin’s house) and
Roman is the man! He’s the RO-MAN. He manages to get us there with only one wrong turn!
Hell the cab drivers couldn’t even find this place! We’re beat and just chilling out night, doing
laundry. Rafa has been wearing the same shirt for 4 days and hasn’t showered for days. Tuti
makes us dinner and it feels so good to be taken care of. Last time we were here 12 days ago I
couldn’t even sleep due to stress and now I will have no problems crashing out! Ends up we can
use her house as a home base for the next week and this will save our asses financialy since it’s
totally unaffordable to stay in London on a band budget which is NO BUDGET! Tomorrow a
show in Sheffield!
Number of Times I ate bread and cheese 1
Number of Days Rafa wore the same shirt 4
Number of Times we shit talked Greg Hemmings! 4
Euro Tour Diary Day 13 – Sheffield, England – The Corporation The Corporation
I slept in late today, 11AM and I needed it. For once I got to take my time getting ready. We split
and bravely drove over to Shellshock distributors to meet Dean and pick up more cds. Okay, 3
Americans and 1 Dutch person driving in London, I think you get the picture! After a few U
turns and many double decker bus sandwiches we arrive. Dean is great and I’m happy to meet
him. Sheffield isn’t too far away and I really had no idea what time to get there. It took us an
hour just to get out of London. We reach Sheffield bout 7PM with totally fucked directions. We
were totally lost. Now at home our shows are usually pretty late so I felt like it was cool. I really
wish we had the video cam on cause this could have been a reality TV show. We kept stopping
and asking directions and damn if the Ro Man could not understand anything anyone was saying.
We did drive past the Sheffield football stadium so that was pretty cool. I won’t bore you with the
details but we finally found the place about 8pm the guy was not happy and the 1st band just
finished……. I guess we were supposed to be there at 4pm HAHAHA! Not that our booking
agent ever told us this. We say our hellos to the guys in Future X Wife. I met a few of them at
SXSW last year amd it was very cool to be playing together. Pete totally took care of us and we
appreciate it!! THANKS! Ends up that the reason we even played this gig is cause our crack
smoking booking agent told me we were playing there. I guess the guys saw this on or site and
asked the club if they could get on the bill and the club said they didn’t have us on there, gee
what a shocker!! Another fateful moment for the king. The place is pretty packed for a Monday
night and we f’n rocked today. For no soundcheck we are totally dialed now and it’s very cool.
We get cut off after 45 minutes. This place turns into a massive dance club with the metal room,
techno room and hip hop room CRAZY! We hang have a few more beers and head to Pete`s
place. We drink some beers with the guys and the band and I get maybe an hours worth of sleep
due to snoring and other strange sounds of the night while lying in my sleeping bag on harwood
floors. We’re off to Manchester today and it’s also Joey’s b-day so make sure to send lots of my
space comments wishing him a happy one!
Number of Times someone said Circle of Life 5
Number of Time I had Bread and Cheese NONE!!! cept I had a veggie burger w/cheese!
Number of Times we got lost 5
Number of Times we shit talked Greg Hemmings 5 plus!!
Shout out to Wounded Marsupials……….. We missed them but I’m sure they rocked!! One of the
guys in the band looked like Slater from Dazed and Confused but Rafa was talking to him and
ends up he’s a bio chemist!!
Euro Tour Diary Day 14 – Manchester, England – Star & Garter
Well, I finally manage to get 1 or 2 hours of sleep from 7am til 9. Pete an James from Future X
Wife are up early and leaving for London. I feel like shite! Nick the other housemate cooks us of
an English breakfast off eggs toast and beans and that ruled! THANKS NICK! We hang out for a
little bit to do some AK business. It has been decided that we will end our tour after London.
There were several shows on Cornwall that our unbelievably lame booking agent told us we
were playing but after some internet searching I couldn’t even find an address for one of them! A
fan from Cornwall had e-mailed earlier to see if he could film us at the Cambourne show so I
asked him if he would be so kind as to investigate these shows to see if they even existed. He did
and found out that only the show in Cambourne at The Clipper was real and the others in Exeter,
Truro and Newquay were all a crock of shite! Thanks so much Jack for doing this. We’re so sorry
we won’t be able to come to Cambourne but we cannot afford to hang out in London with gear
and a driver for 4 days just to play one show in some small town 8 hours away!! We say our
goodbyes and head over to Manchester. It’s pouring out and we get there really early. One of the
owners that lives up stairs is nice enough to let us in early to unload our gear and David from
Future Noise who put the show on will be there in a few hours. The club is really old, the wood
floors smell really musty and the place where the band plays is on the 2nd floor. We get kicked
out for an hour or 2 cause the owner has to split and doesn’t want us hanging out in there so I go
to the van for a much needed nap. Dave knocks on the van and gets us up and we go back into
the club. At this point I’m trying to change our plane tickets to leave earlier and damn it’s hard to
conduct business on a payphone at a bar!! The light bulb goes off and I call my mom!! She takes
all our flight info and gets all our tickets changed THANKS MOM!! We feel better now as we
need to cut our loses at this point. We still were not able to get any seats until 11/4 and our last
show is 10/31 so we will spending a couple of days at the groovy London hostel called
Generations. Roman will take off back to Rotterdam on 11/1 and we can screw off for a few
days.We are all sharing gear and Joey is going to play on the Atavists’s drummers set who also
drums for Thor’s Hammer and Burning Witch. This thing is like a god damn jungle gym I tell ya!
Those kind of kits that have a huge silver bar that connect all the drums and
Cymbals and double bass drum as well! We check out the 1st band who I’m sorry to say I don’t
remember their name. Sorta sound like Nirvana and you could tell they are a relatively new band.
Up next Atavist. This band would be loved in SF! Total slow, cookie monster vocals. They had
the biggest crowd 4 sure. For a rainy Tuesday night it’s still well attended but not packed. We
take the stage and they only want us to play for 45 minutes. Fine with me!! We rocked the damn
place and the fans that did stay were very loyal and it made me feel good that they were so
psyched to see us! Afterwards I met a lot of nice people got some new contact info another and
I’m sure better booking agent in the UK signed a bunch of autographs with my 2nd grade
penmanship then we packed it up and went over to Paul’s house to spend the night. We’re all beat
due to lack of sleep from the nigh before and we pass the hell out! Thanks Dave, Paul and
everyone at the show we had a great time!
Euro Tour Diary Day 15 – Southend, England – Club Riga FISH N CHIPS YEA!
We get up shower hang out with Paul for a bit and head EARLY over to Southend. We’ve finally
figured out that 3 Americans and 1 Dutch dude need a lot of time to figure out where shit is
although the Ro-Man totally found his way to the Manchester gig with no probs. This show was
rescheduled as it was the 1st show we were supposed to play on 10/12 but of course our booking
agent never found us a ride and by the time he told us (6pm) it was too late for us to find one so
we had to cxl. Just as well since we’re much more dialed now. We most likely would have
sucked at that 10/12 show anyway!! We pull into to town and it’s called Southend by the Sea. We
pass by numerous fish n chips places and we know this it the town we need to eat this in!! We get
to the club a bit early and hang out. ! This local band K-BHR open for us. Jay is the lead singer
and I met him years ago in SF. He’s friends with and old pal Rochelle. Circle for life!! Here we
are in this small town in the UK and I know someone!! He takes us down the road to the Dolphin
for some authentic Fish N Chips!! We eat like damn pigs!! It was killer. We get back to the club
and George hooks us up with a bag of crumpets and chocolate!! Joey was going on and on about
Tea and Crumpets so next thing ya know George shows up with a bag of “UK” approved food
HAHA! Next sound check and this man Steve is in charge of the club and it was like having
someone’s dad run the show. This place usually has cover bands and white man blues playing
and is not used to bands such as ours. At sound check he tells me turn down my guitar but my
vocals are way too loud!! I tell him I want delay on my vocals which he does at sound check but
of course once I get on stage I have none K-BHR rocked the place and we’re ever so grateful!!
THANKS JAY and crew!! The place was pretty packed for a Wednesday night and we rocked.
Sound to me was crap but hey when my dad is doing sound what can you expect!! We head over
to Jay’s house and hang out with his twin bro Paul and the guitarist George. We shoot the shite
for a while and pass out.
Euro Tour Diary Day 16 – Day Off – Southend/Brighton England
We have a day off today and it’s 70 plus degrees today. Unseasonably warm!! Thank you global
warming! Whatever we’re at a resort town and it’s 70 in October so I’m happy. Jay is gonna take
us around town and it’s all good! We head over for some food and then to Rossi’s the famous ice
cream place in town that apparently is owned by the mafia but luckily no hassles for the King!!
No one got cement shoes and everyone ate a soft serve vanilla with a 99! We had over to the old
internet place, they know me by know to find a place to stay in Brighton. We’re heading over a
day early and I know no one there! I find a hostel called Christopher Street that seems pretty cool
and it’s near the pier in so off we go…… I’ve never stayed in a hostel, they’re not very popular
in the states and you can get a cheap Motel 6 so no reason really but everywhere in Europe it’s
very common and a good way to save some $$$. We find our way and hey the place is pretty
cool, they’re cranking Deep Purple and Sabbath!! The 4 of us share a room with 10 beds and
there’s only 2 other people in there so it’s all good. We hang out at the bar drink a few John
Smith’s and Roman buys us some tequila shots and then we pass out. The bars close at 11pm in
this town!!
Euro Tour Diary Day 17 – Brighton England – Freebutt W/ Obiat and Jecano
We get up for our free breakfast of cheap wonder bread and awful instant coffee and decide to
stay another night since it’s cheap and we don’t know anyone in town. They only have room for
4 people, 3 in one 10 bed room with a bunch of dudes and 1 in a 6 bed room with a bunch of
girls. Joey, Rafa and I were originally gonna stay together but than I get kind of wierded out
about staying in a room full of strange dudes so Roman was nice enough to swap rooms with me
and ohhhh man he will regret this action soon enough! We cruise thru the town. Nice place
Brighton is 4 sure and it’s another 70 degree day…… I go back to my room to shower where I
see only one persons suitcase so I’m the only one there. Roman is already annoyed at the bunk
mates. Some French dude is crashed out in his bed bunk and they’re sharing with what appears to
be a bunch of 20 something year old football hooligan dumb asses! We get to the show and I
guess we’re late! Of course what a shocker. We get there at 6pm and that’s late!! I guess not only
do the pubs close at 11pm but they also have a volume sensor installed on the wall so if the
music is too loud the PA automatically shuts off WTF!! We share some cabinets with the other
bands to save some time since all the bands only get a 1/2 each to play. I hate Matamps (sorry
people) and decide just to play out of a 1/2 stack marshall. The 10 year old sound guy keeps
insisting we turn down, turn down, turn down to the point where I was like fuck why even play I
don’t sound like myself! The nice guy that put on this show bought us a warm case of Stella
Artois so we didn’t have to spend money at the bar THANKS! I’m telling ya these people don’t
believe in refrigerated beverages!! I drank the hell out of that case and furthermore didn’t offer
any to the other bands! Obiat played 1 song longer than they should have so we had to speed set
up our gear so we could have at least a 1/2 hour to play which for us is ummmm 4 songs. I
turned up once I got on the stage and we cranked out the rock. Not a huge crowd by any means
but a quality crowd and they were digging it. We met a fan named Jules who was very nice and
he invited us back to his place for some food and a place to park. We decided to take him up on it
since the Ro-man already broke his antenna barely getting out the garage with the van. Jules had
a very large and obscure collection of Spanish punk rock so after we chowed down some pasta
Joey, Roman and I cabbed it back the hostel while Rafa hung out there. I went up to my room
and saw a few of the girls walking around in their underwear, Roman came with me and
pretended he had to do something with his wallet so he could check out the chix! Just like a
slumber party I tell ya! I was passed out in minutes…..
Euro Tour Diary Day 18 – Day off – Brighton/ London-England – Casa De Tuti!
I wake up with cramps DAMN I have my period!! Look out band members I could get mean!!
Roman knocks on my door at 9am. I get up and meet the guys downstairs. No bad cheap bread
and instant coffee for me today! Well, ends up the guys didn’t have quite the same slumber party
experience as I did. The guys passed out about 1am in their room and about an hour or so later
the other Brittish delinquents showed up drunk……. Without any regard for the rest of the
people in the room they started yelling shit out the window and harassing whoever was walking
by. Joey and French dude in the bunk up from him had asked these asswipes to SHUT THE
FUCK UP but with no satisfaction. Roman reached is limit after witnessing one of the guys
sitting in a bunk naked dry humping the air HE WAS OUTTA THERE! He went to the front desk
at 4am and demanded a hotel room free of charge where he managed to sleep for an hour. Joey
toughed it out til the AM and they both looked pretty haggard. Joey got a refund for his horrible
experience and they front desk said they would kick the guys out not that it mattered to us since
we were heading to London today! We cab it over to meet Rafa and Jules and get some real food.
I stop off at the drug store to score some pain relievers with codeine YEA! We say our good byes
to Jules and head back to Tuti’s house. We’re happy to be home HAHA!! Let me just say that the
Casa De Tuti is quite unbelievable! It’s like a 10 star hotel!! A 4 story house in London that we
have the lucky fortune to be staying at and Tuti WE THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!! I can’t
even imagine what this trip would be like if we didn’t have our home base mansion to live in
during these times. It reminds me that for the 1 asswipe “GREG HEMMGINGS OF CONCERTS
SOUTHWEST there is an entire world of great people out there and again WE THANK YOU for
taking care of the king!! Our next show is Monday on Halloween and it should be a good one or
so we hope. We really need to make about 500 more pounds to help cover the rest or most of the
expenses. We’re stranded here til 11/4 which is the next flight we could get home……….. We’ve
basically stopped even talking about Greg Hemmings now. I mean the entire situation is
something I’ll never understand in a million years and I feel pretty proud of myself for getting
thru this and making it pretty successful! If any of you reading this live in Cornwall let me know
and I’ll give ya his address you can go over to his house and pick up my promo posters and cd’s
that he NEVER send out to any club we played out!! L8
THE INFAMOUS ACID KING DRIVERS……
ROMAN
JOHN
Euro Tour Diary Day 19 – Day off – Casa De Tuti – London
Not much to report today…… I’m getting a cold and hey hey it’s pretty amazing after all this
traveling, beer drinking and cheese eating none of use have gotten sick yet! One small scare with
Rafa but after a good nights sleep he made a come back. We walked around Camden town today
and for those of you who don’t know what this is it’s a HUGE market with all kinds of shite for
sale…… Roman and I lost Joey and Rafa almost immediately!!
Ordered some pizza and I chilled out. Didn’t feel like socializing too much I mean people are not
meant to be together 24/7 for 3 weeks in a row partying ya know!
Euro Tour Diary Day 20 – London – Camden Underworld……….. The final frontier!
WOW! Well, hey now how about going out with a bang after all this tour has drug us thru the
past 20 days! Feels like I’ve been on tour for a year! We get to the club early for a change and it’s
the very historical camden underworld….. http://www.theunderworldcamden.co.uk/”>Camden
Underworld. Before I left SF I received and e-mail from the club regretting that they would have
to cxl the show!! This was one of the best attended gig of the tour!! Attendance with an energetic
crowd not just a bunch of zombies I might add so thanks Camden Underworld for not canceling
our show!! We do a sound check and everything sounds check. We’re playing tonight with Thee
Plague of Gentlemen, Obiat and Gunbunny. The doors open at 7pm and at 7:30pm there’s a
bunch of people there! We go on at 10pm. I still can’t get over the early time for shows here but I
have to say on a Mondy night it was perfect to go on at 10pm and be off by 11pm! Addmittedly I
was socializing most of the time with our pals from Southend and our t-shirt guy Alan from
Photofit, Dean from Shellshock, Christiane from total rock and I’m only caught maybe a few
songs from each band but everyone rocked!! We get on stage 5 or 6 beers later and damn I’m
buzzed! I plug in an total boner loss! My tone where is my tone?? Something was up with one of
my pedals probably a low battery but at this point we’re on stage and I have no choice to but
carry on with this craptacular tone!! I see a punk rock couple in front with a small pad and paper
and he’s flipping thru writing shit down. It’s totally distracting me as I keep thinking oh now he’s
writing every clam I just played!! On top of that they split after 3 songs so expect some bad
review somewhere!! Then James (Rafa’s cousins sisters boyyfriend as you may remember from
blog day 1) jumps on stage and decides to stage dive! WTF! No one stage dives for Acid King! I
guess he thought the crowd wasn’t energetic enough and decided to stir it up but he was left with
the parting of the Nile as he jumped and they let him fall on the ground! Nice thought James but
hey, please don’t do that again!!A sloppy but fun show for the king and the crowd didn’t seem to
care how many clams I played or that some other guitar players way to trebley tone was coming
out of that rented marshall stack! After a 45 minute set the crowd wanted more so we finished
with an encore of sunshine and sorrow. What a great ending to a crazy
adventure. As everyone loaded out I ate all the crap rider food in back and my ears were blown
away forever. We say our goodbyes to our rock pals.
FUCKING A WE DID IT YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Day 22 – Flying back to SF………… The Conclusion………
Well, I’m about 35000 Feet in the air and 1300 miles away from home. As I reflect on the past 3
weeks I’m met with bittersweet feelings on the entire experience due to the unfortunate
circumstances that we were dealt with. The shows that we did play were great, the people that
helped us along the way I will never forget and the feeling of accomplishment for making this
tour as successful as it could be has been very triumphant! Thanks so everyone we met along our
travels we could have never made it without you and you all made this trip better!!
Thanks to Joey and Rafa for dealing with all this shite and me the terror on the road! I love you
guys ! You rock and couldn’t have done it without you!!!
Thanks to all our pals on the other side of the Ocean………..
Alan Dickey – Photofit – T-shirt and poster maker extrodonaire
Dean Berry from Shellshock and also a plays in The Capricorns so go check those guys out!
Tutti and the Casa de Tutti! – Our home base in London in which we would have never survived
without her help, good food and killer crash pad!!
Javier – Our infamous driver of the Citroen Picasso who graciously drove us and all our shite to
the Dover Ferry!
Roman – Our Driver who picked us up from the ferry , got us gear and dropped us off in
Belgium and then met up with us on the 2nd leg of the tour! He took care of and let us hang out
at his place in Rockerdamn! If you ever want a great driver, person and pal to take care of you on
the road with you contact Plugg!
Jan, Luc and the gang at T’oud Liefken. Luc without you we would have never made it on the
rest of the tour! Thanks for the ride to van place, the chocolate and the place to crash!
Xavier – Without your calls to find us a van and John the driver we would have never made it out
of Zomergem! Check out his label Delboy records and he also books Euro tours as well. Next
time, if there is a next time YOU”RE BOOKING OUR TOUR!
John – Our driver for the 1st leg who Luc picked up on his way to help us get the van! A great
person! We had a lot of fun with John and he totally took care of us!!
Pals in Limoges! I’m so sorry but I don’t know your names but we appreciate the food, the place
to crash and the trip to Mr. Brikolage!
Mary Stoneage – A great promoter in Paris!! We had a blast in Gay Paree and Mary is a great
person so go to her shows mon amis!
Alexandra – John our 1st drivers wife who was nice enough to take in 3 strangers! She has a
great surf band in Gent called Speedball Jr. so check this shit out. Whodda thunk surf music was
so popular in Gent but it is!
Tos and Eef in Amsterdam! Thanks for letting us intrude on your lives for 2 days. It was great to
see you and hopefully next will be better planned and we will rent gear from you!
Tom in Jena, Germany for NOT canceling out show due to no promotion! We had a blast at the
Rosenkellar.
Walter from Roadburn . Thanks for the killer background video! I can’t wait t o figure out how to
project that and use it here. It was great to meet you finally.
Sara and Benny from Orange Factory in Belgium. You guys are great and we totally appreciate
the rocking gig, place to crash and the bread and cheese:)
Pete from Future X Wife who let us crash at this place and took care of us at the club and Nick
his roommate for cooking me my 1st English Breakfast!! The dude from Corporation in
Sheffield who thought we were a no show since we were so late but we kicked in some heads in
that night!
Dave and Paul from Manchester! You guys rock, please continue to put on more rocking shows!
Jay, Paul and George from Southend! You guys are the greatest! Thanks for taking care us and
buying us fish n chips and of course Crumpets!!
The promoter from the Freetbutt gig in Brighton, Hell I cannot remember your name but thanks
for the Stella!! We totally appreciate the gig!!
Jules our fan in Brighton! Thanks for the late night meal I needed it!
Christiane Richardson from Total Rock in London!
Spoose at the crew at Camden Underworld! Thanks for not cxling our show! It was a great show
and it felt good to beat the odds and pack the place! We had a blast.
Thanks to my cheap nokia phone (The real star of the show) for managing this tour with it’s total
generic text messaging features and alarm clock! Couldn’t of done it without ya little buddy!
Thanks to my mom for acting as our traveling agent and rearranging our tickets so we could get
home earlier!
Aplogies to Amplifeye Rich and our fans in Cornwall. We really did plan on playing there but
when we found out only 1 of the 5 supposed shows were real we just couldn’t afford to stay to
play 1 show 4 days later so please forgive us and know we appreciate you all!!!
Last but not least Greg Hemmings of Concerts Southwest. We will never understand in a million
years why you would have us come over, book us a 1/2 assed tour, not send out any promotion
and then lie to us about oh everything! The shows you actually did book were great and for that
we say thank you. For everything else we say FUCK YOU!
Until the next time friends, fans and fellow Rockers!
Lori S. – Acid King