Pictures on this page

Well.. I thought myself that the page beside this BLOG is merely dead. But because I had to fix a lot of things on Bobo's page and still have to get new cows on the Derboven page so that I mingled some small fixes on my page in between: Finally the pics of last year's Summer Breeze which are on the server for a looong time but which I didn't implement for the whole year are online. Shame on me, really. Well, back to some interviews. For Metal-Inside.de. Dunno if I'll post the link here as well.

Vice - ice - baby - inside the Hate Crew pt. 2

Well, I love squat parties. Normally. With some nostalgic memories of parties in the mid-nineties in Berlin/Marienstrasse or Hamburg/Wendenstrasse, as well as old Rote Flora parties in Hamburg I was pretty much looking forward to the concert/party this evening.

Well, actually not this much. Because Bea told me before which hazzles she has had with the organisers of the Vice Launch Party - they didn't really have a clue what kind of technical equipment they'll have to have if they wanna have a concert with Children Of Bodom and/or Babyshambles. But - they didn't have a clue either how to handle people coming in or running out of the building as well, and this developed to be a pain in the ass.

Well, at least we had no problem coming in... But you could only get to the "custom made*" dressing rooms through a plunge of people, stuck with no possibillity to go here or there. Well, this unfortunately had some system: To the best dancefloor you only got through the same stairs. In the "VIP lounge" you were supposed to get some free drinks, so all the filthy pseudo-hipsters of this fuckin capital were tryin to get there. Egoism first. Funny enough that all of the reviews rated the party from "boring" (Spiegel online) to "a desaster" (Dorfdisco Berlin). Funny the rumours aside, that the organizers of the Rio Club got kind of a wild card to get this building running as a half-legal location for "scientifical purposes", even though they seemed to be not competent enough to run the original Rio in "Mitte". Strange that there was no magazine lying around even though it was the lounch party. A desaster the dvd interview team (oh, where's my camera man!? eyes wide open...). Typical brazen Brits were Clor - who came to late in the afternoon, but wanted to play 30 minutes longer in the evening...
The nicest incident was the energy break down, when I learned to know the organizer of the HipHop project Shok Muzik

Gorgeous Bea, who fought a way for the band out of this. And, the Roope of the day: "Down in the lobby I spoke to a plant."

** Custom made dressing room:

all apologies...

Dear reader! Now I'm back - back not only physically but mentally as well. Back from an overdose of Finland. Nah, not really. First a trip to Tuska Metal Fest in Helsinki, then two days at home doing laundry while it's raining cats and dogs outside. In the end I was so frustrated I visited the filthiest launderette of Hamburg St. Pauli to get my clothes dry again! Subsequently I joined another Finnish travel party named Children of Bodom on their tour de force. I'll post the funny sidestories of that here during the next days, but in the correct chronology. So don't look back in anger and view the archive during the next days...

Host, Hostage and Hospitality - inside the Hate Crew pt. 1

Preface. Maybe the most important: Don't go to Geiselwind. Until you really have to. Maybe for a p. For example if you're travelling on the Autobahn from Würzburg to Bayreuth. Ok than. Stop at the Autobahnraststätte. Which other reason should someone sane have to stop in the nowhere in Mittelfranken???

Well, maybe I wasn't sane either, because I went there to drive Children Of Bodom to the Earthshaker Festival and back again.

Already getting there is trouble: I looked on the map and Markt Bibart seemed to be the closest railway station to out hotel, even the ICE is stopping there - but you won't get a cab there after 8 p.m. So I was stopping in Kitzingen, and - nice surprise: The cab driver was a very nice lady!

Next surprise: There weren't enough rooms in the hotel next to the festival area, so they booked one "small hotel" with "just 14 rooms" only for the band and crew. I think I wasn't the only one expecting the worst - last time we had such a hotel with Zyklon in eastern Germany there was no bar and even the mini-bars were borne away.
This time the Hotel Ziegelmühle was the complete opposite: A glittering party was already going on in a huge common room with a self-service bar. Everything was decorated in a style of typical German "Gemütlichkeit" - but it fits neatly to the place. The rooms were a blast, all except two were huge apartments and we wasted the space in splendour as "single rooms". The service was friendly, no one lost a syllable on the party's remains the other day - perfect! If you're looking for accomodation in the nature of northern Bavaria - go there!

Unfortunately the local traffic regulator spoiled most of this warm hospitality the next day: The short-cut to the festival area was blocked because of a lack of planning, several other streets were blocked because of road buildings as well - we needed about half an hour from the hotel to the festival site and even longer back again. The place in front of the festival area was a dis-organised desaster, people were running everywhere, there was not even a short cut for the working staff.

And the dis-organisation went on: The only toilets near to the dressing rooms were in the same hall as the event stage, so the artists had to wait in the long queue with the public (hello? did anybody think about the last minutes before stage time?). But really hilarious was the VIP tent: There was extra security in front of the VIP tent even though the entrance was exactly in the backstage, so artists had to stay our if they left their proper passes f.e. in the dressing room. But it was pretty easy to get inside from the festival area, so that lots of fans where in. The one-hour-signing session got a extra-time when the musicians entered the VIP tent to hang around with fellow musicians because people who couldn't get an autograph in the queue got a second chance right now. Running the gauntlet if you had to get to your shuttle or to an interview appointment - sorry to Tom Rune, I think I owe you a beer, but I had to get Roope out in time...

How hilarious that

Beer for breakfast

Just back from a warm and sunny trip to Hellsinki/Finland. Warm - yes! It' was a bit warmer than in Hamburg and much warmer than we expected. We already started with a shock in Hamburg in the early morning: Our friendly driver didn't know by then that Gluecifer have split up. So we were pretty close to an accident even before we got on the plane. The Finnair flight was nice and normal - and announcing 1168 km to go.
How could I forget that those few kilometers sometimes mean a change in culture? *grin*

So we were warmly (again) welcomed by our host for the next few days with an ice cold Lapin Kulta. And it was close to impossible to become sober on the whole thursday... So being in Helsinki started to feel like a smooth hangover without being drunk the day before - almost surreal. We stayed in Tikkurila, or, as Pekka Kasari (see below) told me "the place where the most (in) famous night club of Finland is". Well, the suburban kids running around on the streets at night didn't look like they're old enough to enjoy it themselves...

We spend most of the thursday in Kallio at Janne's new job - em, bar. At "Saloon Arizona" we learned to know nice people like "Space Pekka. actually we're four Pekkas here who come to the saloon regularly". Nice, weird alcoholism.

Well, I have my theory on drinking alcohol & Finland, but I doubt I have enough time for that right now.

There at Saloon Arizona the next funny thing happened on the tv screen while we were drinking and talking: A kind of TV reality soap (well, literally) cleaned up the CCPC studio of good old mate Sande. Hahahaha! First I wasn't sure if it really was Sande on the screen, maybe because of the huge guy standing beside him. Two days on I was introduced to him - hey Pasi. Nico marvelously managed to stay outside of this tv thing.

The friday the famous Tuska Metal Fest started, and I skip the review of all the bands and most of the circumstances here, go to the Web magazine if you wanna read who played how. 'kay, it's in German, I know...

Well, it was too much fun, all in all!

London Calling

Not much to add to the recent events. All my sympathy goes to London, of course. Keep the stiff upper lip and go on!

And, as terrible as it is - I'm quite - well, relieved is the wrong verb but I can find no better as a non-native speaker - because I think that the London police and the fire fighters and the paramedics and the public all reacted in a very good, very calm and sober and very efficient way. Everything seemed to be in place, it doesn't look like there was something like a delay in the help, some missing capacities in hospitals or additional shit like that. And I think that's a big point to help people state We’re not Afraid!

The best German blog entry concerning the recent events: Cynx Cynical World

On the campaign trail 2005

Unless you didn't notice by now - the election campaign in Germany has started this weekend. It still isn't 100 percent clear IF there'll be an election for the German parliament, but everybody is pretty sure there will be, so the pre-election frenzy already started. The Young Greens started already in the middle of the last week to reach the students as long as they aren't in summer holidays or workcamps abroad.
And we couldn't leave them alone on it, so my green students organization joined in:

If you didn't notice...

... by now...

... the election campaign has started...

... those handsome faces will tell you:

Olympic games 2012 in London - and not Paris

Well, I don't know about the concept of the London olympic games in 2012 - but I didn't like the concept for Paris 2012 at all. At least not my first impression I got on the very recent trip. Hey, I felt like a moving target for the traffic on the Place de la Concorde, everything was closed because of the olympic shit. So, well, let them be in London, I'm fine with it.

First three days of Tour de France

... yes, the first three days were really exciting - full of suspense and some nitty-gritty sideshow. For me as a Jan Ulrich-devotee this year's issue of The Tour de France of course started with two major downers: The hero hurt by an incident with his own team car. Resulting from that a really bad start in which Lance Armstrong showed all his arrogance and strength. A reconciliatoring second day, where Jan is in the first group of the sprinters arriving. And on the same day Tom Boonen scored once, and he scored again on the third day. Did I already mention that I already started to become a fan back in april when he won the classics? So yes. Two days already won, how nice. But still: I favour Ullrich to win the Tour this year. My favourite team is CSC, because Bjarne is developing a better team leader every year (and possible every dime the sponsors give him to get Ivan Basso, Bobby Julich, Jakob Piil, Carlos Sastre or - Jens Voigt. I'm already keen on the days where the route is excellent for some kamikaze-alike solo trips. But I doubt that Discovery Channel will let him go, now, that he is so pretty close to the guy in yellow... About today - silence for the first. I want to see the replay in the late-night tv first...

Beauty in Verden

I love public arts. Call them graffitti. This one is painted on a wall near the backside of the train station in Verden/Aller in Lower-Saxony. Unfortunately I was too stupid to write down the link which is hardly read-able neither the poem. F**k. So if you might come across Verden/Aller the next time feel free to mail me the link or the poem. THANX!!!

Noch mal auf deutsch: Wer gerade zufällig in Verden von der Lindhooper Straße aus durch die Unterführung zum Bahnhof schleicht: Bitte schreibt mir doch die URL ab, die auf dem Bild unten links in der Ecke steht. Danke!!

Yeeha! Whinny! Canter and jump!

Hehe. Not exactly. Today I attended the "World Championships of Young Dressage Horses" in Verden/Aller. And at the same time the German Championships in Dressage and Jumping. New "Deutscher Meister" is Rene Tebbel/Emsbüren - well deserved. After so many years on horseback he finally scored the national title. And - I don't know if I should call it an insult or a funny coincidence - his winning horse and partner was the Belgian gelding "Quel Homme" from a breeder in Evergem. Ok - funny that he is riding a horse from my favourite hideout. But an insult of course that a non-Hanoverian was winning in the heart of the area of the Hanoverian breeding association.

At least in the Dressage competition the Hanoverians were first, five of six winning horses were out of the area.

Back to Jumping, some of the rider's I favoured as always were Ludger Beerbaum, who seemed to try to get his young and nervous stallion Couleur Rubin used to the big circus, and Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum.

Two of the highlights were non-competition - the Reiterverband Weser-Aller did a furious Jumping Quadrille with stripping off the jackets while jumping and putting it on again on the next jump. And, heyho, they stripped off the saddles in the end and jumped the last row with the saddles high above their heads. Wow!

One of the low-lights was the newcomer competition in dressage. A young girl in a mix between smug and too nervous was drilled by her trainer with a headphone till the last minute. Well, maybe it's a good idea to adapt some training methods from football, racing or whatever. But the picture was not fitting here at all - this is looking weird, if you can hear that this young dressage rider can only breath in and out if somebody is telling her...

A more delicious view on Paris

Well, this should be my last record about Paris, I think. To spice it up and make you reading it once more I added some of the pics I took - because I finally found time to edit them on PaintShopPro...

First of all, I think the Tuileries Gardens are commonly underestimated. Yes I know, you've heard about them already in school, enough about that. But that's not true. For me as an asthmatic the dusty, smelly air and the traffic pollution was maybe the worst in Paris from a to z. So the Tuileries was the best place to be, the only place for recreation and the only place where the air was really fresh and filtered in the 1st arrondissement. Well, we didn't try out the banks of the Seine, even though there ought to be some kind of beach party like it is popular in Hamburg and London already for a couple of summers.

And, even though you can nurse a baby for a day in the rest of Europe with the price of just one beer we tried out several restaurants, brasseries and bistros. The brasserie "Le Royal" directly opposite the Louvre on the Place Malreaux fulfilled all prejudices in the twinkling of an eye: the breakfast was ok, the assortement of cheese gorgeous, the clientele a mix of tourists and strange business people, the waiters - unfriendly, what else? - and it was not very clean compared to the price niveau. Very much more nice was a cafe close to the Place de la Madelaine on the backside of the Rue de l'Arcade: working people from the shops left and right, only a few tourists, lots of expensive clothes to admire - that was state of the art.

One of the excellent restaurants I can highly recommend was the Au pied de Chameau. Hey, all the colonializm and imperializm has to have at least one good side - that you can at least have one kitchen even better than a french one in Paris.

And for the great final: Opposite the "Le Royal" still at the Place Malreaux there is the "Cafe Ruc" - double the expensive, but much neater. And here I say bye, bye to my Napoleon:

Fini.

In the 1st line of the tourist trap - visit Paris

Isn't it funny - the Frenchies successfully defied the Americans to take over their "culture". But they didn't fight off the Brits. Now the Brits managed to take over where the Americans (and the Germans, of course) failed, and they are more then present in any angle you might view in the middle of the 1st Arrondissement of Paris. And they conquered really the heart of it, it was so much fun to go shopping in the Virgin megastore in the basement of Le Louvre. Ha! ;-)

So, we basically stayed in the 1st arrondissement anyway - or, as it's called in the Time Out Guide (another very friendly take-over by the Brits): The Louvre & Les Halles. Our hotel was the Hotel Saint James & Albany - which is charging a ridiculous amound of money for using their "business center" called internet room. Don't miss the flagstores of all the famous labels in the Rue St. Honore if you're already close to this area. At least it was an experience that the staff of the store said they're sorry that I didn't fit into one single piece of their expensive fashion. Wow. Never experienced that before, others would blame it on the customer to be too fat. But next time I'm gonna get me this little helper before I try to fit into some Gucci: Where to wear should be showing some shops for taller women as well, I've been told.

I thought I already suffered enough of bad jazz bands when I was in St. Petersburg/Russia, but Ed proved me wrong and guided me to Le Duc des Lombards. Ok., it was interesting to learn to know about the wild and exciting history of Jazz of the city, but those guys were far from that. Maybe we'll first check out what's the program and who's playing in before here or at CitizenJazz.com.

On our way back from this rather "interesting" than good gig we went into the opposite world of experience. If you - as a metal head like we both are - ever want to experience the narrow minds of the scene go to a metal club in a different town in cloth which would fit to some different occasions like your hotel or an expensive dinner and which don't show that you're metal as well on the first glance. It took me some 10 minutes to get some expensive beer, and Ed in his very new Gucci shirts was not better off. Haha. What a pathetic attitude. I was even dressed in Scandinavian leather, but obviously that wasn't rough enough for the strict dresscode of the rather gothic style waiters and their friends. Haha!

Finally, to give an end to a legend: I was disappointed a bit when travelling with the TGV - I was always told that the TGV is so much more comfortable than the ICE. That's simply not true. Taller people like me have much more space in the ICE. So much for the 3-day-plan!

Paris was a woman? This bitch!

... back from Paris, still in a train... and everything's different. Not everything. But a lot of things. No, I didn't fall in love with this bitch blasé. While I was the one and responsible person on the bus during the four previous days, the mature female mate in Düsseldorf and still the good-looking girl to go out with in Belgium I felt like an awkward child in Paris. Of course my cloth weren't expensive enough for our 5-star-hotel, but did they have to call me fillè? On the other hand – hey, I'm gonna be 30 in a few weeks and those professionally trained eyes adress me still as underage. Hihi. Compliment? Dunno. But not this bad.

I started reading "A Year In The Merde" by Steven Clarke, and it seems to me like the motto to my trip. Well, I didn't get this far - I am not an sexual frustrated male brit abroad, so I don't get the humour in all of his flirting accidents, but the rest seems right to fit to my situation in this strange metropolis as well.