So my parents now officially know the address of my website. Scary. I guess this is like the first time Marilyn Manson’s parents went to see him perform live…hmmm do i wear the black crotchless corset or the red one… Still i’d rather be Marilyn Manson’s parents than say the Pussycat sluts or Christina Aguilera or some other vacuous husk.

Mr Manson: Not counting the millions of dollars he has, my son (sic) believes he’s the antichrist, but is reasonably intelligent and has multiple degrees.
Mr Pussycat Slut: Oh we’re a….we’re not counting the money then? ah….ok….well….My daughter’s a ah….no….talent….trollop….

Not that i would ever try to justify the ‘acquiring’ of music in any way shape or form or by any means other than purchasing it at your local music store or through the iTunes that these kids are playing with today…but i kind of had a thought today that regular concert-goers are far more beneficial to the artists themselves than their loyal catalogue-hungry fan base. I have no viable statistics whatsoever here and Phil may need to back me up/contradict me but the more biographies and autobiographies that i read of people in the ’scene’ it seems like the percentage from each record sale actually lining the pocket of the artist is miniscule at best. Yet when i think about it – particularly after me and Silk were trying to work out how much Mudhoney were pulling from their recent tour – it seems the best way to show appreciation both physically and fiscally is to show up at the gig. I don’t know if the old songwriters breakdown happens when performing live in terms of splitting up the kitty, but once the venue and promo people are paid the rest must go to the band and roadies right? That’s got to be a bigger percentage than off a CD and playing to a packed venue is more easily assessed as to the progress of the band than a top 250 charting single in Denmark…

If that is the case then i can rest a hell of a lot easier.

I have tried to change my ways but the simple fact is i will only buy copious amounts of CD’s when i get back to Oz. It’s not something you can easily travel with. I have been fairly selective in purchasing cd’s while abroad and still have a good 100 or so to lug around with me. I set myself a goal where i was going to spend 50€ a month in this cd store in Sachsenhausen thinking i was contributing something back. It’s a fucking second-hand store! The artist gets nothing from me anyway. Last time i went in i came out with 3 Bob Dylan CD’s, Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and the best of the Small Faces. I don’t think any of these people are seeing a dime of my 30 odd euros. Is it better to line the pockets of some re-sellers or keep my money to buy the proper cd’s at a later date? Ponderous.

I’m wondering how long i can maintain this facade and not talk about poo…

I’ve been noticing that German women, or should i say women in Germany, seem to have no qualms at all about wearing fur. There is not even the slightest bit of embarrassment or uncertainty about how they will be received…no it is with utmost pride that they bandy about their minks and ferret(?) coats (please note i have no idea what furs are made of and can only guess here). I don’t really have a problem with this either, it’s just curious to me. It’s like that whole PETA furore never happened over here.

You’d probably get lynched for wearing real fur in the UK or the US i’d imagine. At least drenched in paint by a plastic punk. This woman sat next to me on the train and absolutely reeked of perfume like she had been swimming in it. I couldn’t breathe properly. As i was feeling feint and slowly passing out i caught a glimpse of her fur coat out of the corner of my eye and for some reason all i could imagine was that she was the old woman from 101 Dalmatians. I wasn’t sure if i should look at her on my way out and ruin my dream or just duck her and keep the dream alive…

Today i sat next to the old woman from 101 Dalmatians on the train…and she stank…

I think i am the only person in the bank wearing rubber-soled hush-puppies…i.e. the only person not wearing proper leather shoes. I only realise this when i have to go to the bathroom. There are these two corridors i must walk down which are quite narrow so everything reverberates. You can hear my shoes squelching away and then the clippity-clop of leather soles behind me that sounds like even the guys are wearing high heels. To compensate i drag my shoes a little bit and slide…cue internal monologue “i don’t even walk i slide motherfucker!”

(note my use of onomatopoeia in the previous paragraph. There is not enough onomatopoeia used today. I think three mentions of onomatopoeia justifies me tagging the word right?)

While i’m at it, i really fucking hate the phrase “Pick up your feet”. It’s just idiotic. How can one even do that? It’s not like it’s the total opposite of what you want, a la “Break a leg”…it’s pretty fucking directional.

I digress. I don’t think i have them fooled though. Probably the fact that my trousers are baggy and not tailored at all doesn’t lend itself to my decreasing professional image. I’m never going to be one of them.

I’m not going to lose too much sleep over that either just quietly.

I haven’t had a chance to sit down recently and put my thoughts into a more coherent verse, so here are a collection of random tidbits.

A conversation with a German colleague recently:

GC: I’m bored, can you hire me as your secretary
Me: ummm I’m going to go with no.
GC: Please, i can get a miniskirt?
Me: ummm, no. It’s just that you don’t float my boat.

Which then turned into a discussion about what that actually means. I mean i’m not really using it in the most orthodox way, but then again when have i ever spoken in orthodox terms?

So i threw it into leo online translator and got nothing except for a link to urbandictionary.com:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whatever+floats+your+boat

If you can’t be bothered going to the site, here are what i would call my highlghts:

3. whatever floats your boat

A term used to say, “I’m glad that makes you happy, even though I don’t get it myself.”

Comes from the term “man in the boat” referring to the clitoris and the female genitalia. So, if your boat is floating, you are quite happy.

For example:
1: I love eating pigs feet, they sure are tasty.
2: That sounds nasty, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

This is possibly the worst derivation-analogy i have ever come across… Man in a boat…Clitoris. No wonder blokes can’t fucking find it if they are looking for the old man of the sea!

4. whatever floats your boat

(Idiom) What you do is your choice

You can go for the hot chick, or you can try and get a new car from that fat chick by eating her out, whatever floats your boat.

Simply stunning.

5. whatever floats your boat

WATER!!!
thats what floats my boat at least.

also used as an expression which means “you can do whatever your preference is.”
i dont see how that has anything to do with water, though…

Jeremy:Hey Chad want to go to Mcdonalds or Taco Bell across the street?
Chad:Whatever floats your boat.
Jeremy:uh, water?…
Chad:no, asshat.its an expression.

I had no idea you could add ass and hat together to make it an insult. However i will endeavour to use my new found knowledge in the not too distant future.

Why do they make cotton buds the same size and shape as the ear canal if they don’t want us to put them in there?

16:00 Westwood, Matthew this fella in the jacks just went for the handtowels…and THEN the blowdryer
16:04 Murphy, Alan you have dryers? fancy
16:04 Murphy, Alan are they those cool dyson dryers?
16:05 Westwood, Matthew didnt know there were different types of dryers :P
16:05 Murphy, Alan the dyson dryers are in the class of their own ;)
16:05 Westwood, Matthew are they the ones u sort of put your hands inside this thing
16:05 Murphy, Alan yeah
16:05 Westwood, Matthew and it blows really hard and hot from both sides?
16:06 Murphy, Alan that’s the one
16:06 Westwood, Matthew oh yeah ive seen them
16:06 Westwood, Matthew nah we dont have them
16:06 Westwood, Matthew just bog standard ones…excuse the pun

I think i use smiley faces in my texts and emails too frequently…Does this annoy people? It’s all Silk’s fault.

The IT Helpdesk at work appear to know where the g spot is and can seemingly activate it at will.

I find Michael Moore’s appearance to be personally offensive.

Perhaps the adding of vowels to the ends of words should be left to the Italians and Australian nick-namers – otherwise the results can sometimes be misinterpreted…

11:09 Red sorry…was in London for a while,, but I think I told you that! Hmmm…just really been working as usual, and between here and my boyfriend’s house in Duesseldorf…he just moved there from Mainz while I was in London Town! Mel said you went homo! How was it? Sounded like you had a rock and fabbo time!

Saturday

A decent nights rest and very little to drink the previous night meant we were feeling fine. We set off to enjoy Prague during the daytime. not phased by the seemingly ineffectiveness of the ‘Slavic plan’ it was decided that if we were to run into any nefarious creatures on the trams or in the streets silk would address me in Serbian – though sadly not on the Serbian finger phone – and i would respond with ‘Da’. What could possibly go wrong? I actually do know some Czech. My old boss taught me some. It goes something like this (ignore spelling):

Me: Ahoj (hey there)

Czech Person: Ahoj (hey there yourself!)

Me: Jak se mas? (how’s tricks?)

Czech Person: <insert random Czech sentence here>

Me irrespective of what the Czech person has just said: Velmi Zaji Mavi (Very Interesting)

Colt 45…

I try to pick up useless bits of other languages when i meet people. My Swedish friend Jon taught me a very handy sentence in….Swedish coincidentally…and made me use it at the Nordic bar to some chick with an enormous Welsh rugb playing boyfriend:

Jon: Say it!

Swedish Chick: Go on tell me.

Me with a wary eye on aforementioned Welsh Goliath: Du oer soert (i think you’re cute…to the chick not the goliath!)

Swedish Chick: awww

Me preparing to duck: Skavi hongla? (Can we snog?)

Swedish chick: *giggles*

Welsh Goliath who apparently doesn’t speak a lot of Swedish: What did he say?

Swedish chick: He thinks i’m cute…

Pretty sure i was in there. Goliath was just cramping my style.

I used to have a cheat sheet in Spanish written by my New Zealand mate’s Portuguese wife in preparation for my trip to Andorra for those non-French speakers… still with me? It’s like a story by Tolkien…How many fucking characters did that book really need? Anyway at that stage i just assumed Portuguese and Spanish were the same thing just with a different accent. So when i finally got around to using them it went something like this:

Me: Tu tienes ojos mui belos (it is important to note here that i lost said cheat sheet some time ago and these are words that i remembered but could quite possible be a combination of all three sentences. They were something like ‘You have nice eyes’, ‘you have nice hair’, ‘would you like to throw shapes on the dancefloor’).

Spanish girl laughing: You speak old…like the bible.

I dated a French Canadian girl for a little while and when she went back to Canada she wanted me to call her, but her Mum generally answered the phone and didn’t speak any English so i had to ask in French Canadian…it’s not French no matter how much they claim it is. Cypress Hill don’t speak Spanish, they speak Mexican.

Me: Puige parlais a Manon sil vous plait? (Not as bad as Brad Pitts Inglorious Italian but pretty fucking close to it)

French Canadian mum: <insert some 15 minute rant in unintelligible French words that i don’t know, but i assume mean she’s not there>

Me: *click*

Guess i probably should have had a backup plan ready for if she was not available. I don’t know why she went back to her ex either…

So we were walking around Prague weren’t we…anyway it turns out that Jaywalking is a crime there. I know it probably is a crime everywhere but they seem to enforce it there. Seriously this copper stopped these tourists and asked for their passports saying the light was red. We fled the scene. Tourists got to stick together right? Da!

Silk stops to check out the TGIF’s they have there. For 4 years living in London i have avoided TGIF’s and mocked people for travelling to the other side of the world (i’m looking in your direction Americans) to eat the same thing as at home so i was not looking forward to breaking with my traditions here.

We head across the bridge – you know, ‘the’ bridge – to look for Silk’s cousin. Hey if you want real place names go read a travel blog. This is a place for ranting free of all bridles of spelling and facts. I used to give tours to friends visiting me in London starting in Greenwich and taking in the old pirate docks:

Friend pointing to Tower bridge: What’s that?

Me: A bridge over the Thames. Come on the next pub is just over there….

We meet Boban, Silk’s cousin who sells watercolours on ‘the’ bridge. I really liked one of them but was a bit out of my price range. I believe my excuse was that i was worried about taking it home on the plane….we’re driving…smooth…

Next stop was some more Mexican at a place called Azteca. Apparently it’s another chain but as i hadn’t heard of it i felt at ease that it wasn’t in the same vain as TGIF’s. Was a little disappointed when Silk said Mexicans would never go there. :( It was really, really nice though, easily the best Mexican i have eaten. It is number 1 out of 4. The order goes something like this:

1. Azteca, Prague
2. El Pacifico, Frankfurt
3. Mexican who’s name i can’t remember in Dresden, Dresden
4. Mexican who’s name i can’t remember in Maastricht, Maastricht

The Maastricht one takes number 4 by default as i can’t really remember it…at all…and can only remember Squires being disappointed with it so i will have to trust his judgement on this one. It was about the same time that i told Silk i only eat to avoid getting headaches and don’t really enjoy food. He is yet to forgive me.

Following the Mexican and a few beers, we split up to go our separate ways for a few hours. I’m trying to find an Irish pub that will show the United match and Silk was determined to give his winnings back to the Casino cause he felt a bit bad for them.

I go to the first pub offering me a free beer to go in. A classy establishment. Rocky O’Paddy O’Shannaheys or something to that effect…you know, traditional type place. I get there for the end of the Chelski match if i’m not mistaken, which i may well be as the beers were flowing down quite smoothly. I remember they had a live webcam in the bar and texting Squires to look for me on the webcam. I’ve had this before in Amsterdam in my one and only visit, while having a lemonade downstairs at a cafe and boychild asking me if i was the one in the wheelchair. (This post is making me seem really international isn’t it…) To clarify it for Squires i had to let him know that I wasn’t the fat bald bloke in the Giggs jersey…for once.

I remember United got up and the Waitresses were hot.

Silk texts to let me know he’s running late so i will stay put. I’ve already had 5 beers and have moved on to ciders. Would be 8 by the time Silk showed up…i want to go to sleep…oh right…Mudhoney.

Some Random Irish guy starts chatting to me on the way back from having a jimmy in the jacks. I have a bit of banter with him. After my next return he leans in and says “i’ve just given these English lads a bit off stick about their crap football side. You might have to have me back here in a minute…”

You fucking what? I AM NOT IRISH! Falls on deaf ears with him as he beckons me to start singing about the green fields of wherever the fuck he was from. I try changing the subject and ask him what he was doing in Prague. He said something. I may have said Velmi Zaji Mavi. I said i was here for the Mudhoney show and did he know them?

Irish twat: Yeah man, Every Good Boy Deserved Fudge! *Cue air guitar playing*

I’m sure the air-guitar playing fraternity are exactly who Mudhoney are targeting with their power ballads…

It does occur to me though that the saying (moniker?) Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge – on this occasion a Mudhoney album though generally a way to remember the notes on the treble clef E G B D F is different back in Australia, well at least in my music class it was. We were taught Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit. America – Fudge. Australia – Fruit. You do the math…

A quick stop at Masturbation and it was time for Mudhoney. Masturbation is KFC kiddies. You always go back to it, it’s always the same, and when you are finished you swear you’ll never do it again.

So 8 beers under my belt and i’m feeling dandy. We meet up with Boban again and head straight to the gig. I was facing a T-shirt dilemma however. I would ordinarily buy a t-shirt, but i have already been quite vocal about people wearing the shirts of the band who’s gig they are at (Greenday fans i’m looking in your direction)…and i definitely didn’t want to walk backstage wearing one of their shirts. A quick change and now it was hidden beneath my other two shirts….I’m so grunge.

We were a little late getting to the gig, so we missed the support band but just in time to grab beers before Mudhoney took the stage. No backstage before this gig. Made a few film clips from where we were, and it goes without saying they were great again. Bit different crowd – well at least from where we were standing – but the band had so much energy considering they drove straight to the gig from Warsaw. The stage divers appeared to be a bit more knowledgeable at least.

I go to make some comment to Silk during the set and was shot down. I had forgotten the rule. The most valued of all rules as well so i was chastising myself for the next song or two. There should be no talking during songs, unless it is super super important. This rule hasn’t made it to Australia yet but needs to. Australians are perennial threats in concerts. Normally i am an avid supporter of this rule, mainly cause i am deaf and can’t hear anything anyway. Flip is a habitual song-interrupter. The Australian influence might have spread to the Philippines. I’m used to it now so i end up nodding and smiling a lot. Backfired once at a Modest Mouse show. Flip leans in to say something. I give him the ear but can’t hear anything as per usual. I make out something like “blah blah blah Johnny Marr”. I look back up to the stage and say yeah he does kind of look like Johnny Marr. About another 4 or 5 occasions during the gig flip shakes my arm and i hear variations of “blah blah blah Johnny Marr dude!” at varying levels of excitement. After the show we go outside to smoke and finish beers and whatnot and the band makes an appearance at the window. Flip starts screaming like a banshee “Johhny Marr! Johnny Marr!” I’m like fuck Phil, yeah he kind of looks like him but i don’t think he’s going to get the joke….turns out Johnny Marr plays with Modest Mouse now…

We move a little closer during the encore to take some more movies and Guy spots us during one of the songs and nods. Recognition from the band! As soon as the set is finished Dan is at the side door beckoning us backstage. Did i mention i love these guys?

This time there is hardly any record company folk backstage, just us and the band. Whilst the 10 or so beers by now has given me confidence i’m still unsure how to approach the subject of a photo with them. Cue Boban. Bless his little cotton socks.

Boban: You are big rock band from Seattle yes? We take photo.

And promptly throws himself into the mix. Well if Boban can i’m not missing out.

Now the ice is broken there is more chit chat. i introduce myself to Mark and Steve finally, Silk still hasn’t redeemed himself as an introducer…if only his awesomeness could spread to other areas… Mark and Steve think my accent is Scottish, Guy thinks it’s Irish. I’m still coming to terms with Mudhoney having a discussion about me.

Boban is deep in conversation with Mark and Steve so i join silk and Dan over by the couch. We have a good laugh about the Serbian finger phone. Dan is awesome, a really top bloke. Apparently i can’t hang out with Silk if i ever go to Seattle – something to do with the awesomeness level i think – so i’m going to annoy his sister and her husband, but i really hope to run into these guys again one day, especially Dan and Guy, they are just champions! Dan played in Nirvana for fuck’s sake and you’d think he’s more interested to hear a couple of drunk guys explaining talking Serbian into their hands to a Czech cab driver…

We can tell they’re tired but when we asked Dan if he was enjoying it his answer sums it up:

“Look at me man, I’ve just finished playing music i love, i’m backstage having a beer in Prague, of course i’m having fun!”

Substitute “playing” for “watching” and you could have taken the words right out of my mouth. Meat Loaf pun unavoidable.

Unfortunately we inevitably have to leave the guys so we part ways. Full of courage now i’m shaking hands with them all. I don’t know if we were on handshaking terms but we are now. Boban takes us to a local bar where his Serbian mates have congregated. Like Silk put it, it certainly brought a different and great element to the weekend. Completed it in a way. We had done the mega touristy stuff, stuff people wish they could do, and now stuff that hardly any tourists do and locals take for granted. Most of the chat is in Serbian so i just listen and nod and smile…bit like being at a gig really. One guy in the group is Czech and says he can only speak Czech and German. We try to shoot the shit in German but i am really unsure who knew less German between the two of us. It was a dismal effort.

We head in to town when the bar shut. Nothing happened outside the bar did it Silk? Apparently some Japanese company has paid to close of the main square – you know, ‘the’ square…the one with ‘the’ clock – and have giant smoke machines filling the air with…smoke. Looked really eerie. Have a few great photos but now i wish i took more. One last beer and then it was off to bed. A few hours sleep, a long drive and we would be back in Frankfurt and unfortunately reality.

That ending is supposed to have been poetical but on second reading looks like the blog equivalent of finishing an essay with “and then i woke up and it was all a dream…”

It did all happen, it just felt surreal. Part 4 will be pictures and Video evidence if i ever get around to putting them on youtube. Stay tuned!

Friday

Up early and both a little worse for wear. Pringle crumbs everywhere. Is Pringle the singular? No dinner + free beer = this feeling. We figure out that tom tom doesn’t have the Czech Republic. Not a good start but we should be alright…We’re both reasonably intelligent adults…as long as it doesn’t involve technology, we don’t know how to drive that. Shining examples of the IT world we are. Apparently Yoda i am.

Tom Tom does at least get us to Dresden which is a great surprise it’s a very picturesque town, even masked under heavy rainclouds. I was very glad we stopped there, as was Silk once we discovered the Mexican restaurant. Too hot for some Pete? Eye’s bigger than your stomach ay wolfie! This also marked the start of the endless quest and amalgamation of toothpicks. They were like liquid gold…Small wooden stick like representations of liquid gold…not very liquidy at all really…

My personal highlight of Dresden was a video of Silk in some square that we came across, featuring a brief history lesson of the area… “It was fucking annihilated!”

So we continued onto Prague sans tom tom. Up into the hills and we encounter some Snow across the border. Did we have snow tires? Who knows? See the previous day’s discussion on cars. Like we would know?

The effects of the night before were wearing off, however the conversation had been dented somewhat and was more subdued. I did learn about Silk’s awesomeness though. It is apparently effortless and unbridled. He has never been beaten by anyone ever in the history of tennis. I offered to play a few sets with him but was met with bemusement as i paled in comparison to his awesomeness, deemed not at all worthy of the challenge.

I remember hearing something similar about his basketball skills…we don’t talk about that anymore…

20 minutes inside of Prague, busily chatting away – no doubt still about Silk’s unfathomable awesomeness – and i remember it probably would have been an idea to follow the directions we had printed out, considering tom tom now had us driving into the great unknown…like the depths of silk awesomeness. In fact it is between Silk and Ashton Kutcher for the Awesome crown.

Seeing as we were no longer on the right road, thereby nullifying all printed instructions, we had to wing it. About an hour later we arrived at our hotel determined never to have to wing anything ever again. Our hotel was actually a proper hotel this time round and was quite nice. We take the tram into town and try to find a cafe that silk remembers. It turn’s out it had been about 6 years since either me or Silk had been to Prague last, and unfortunately Silk’s awesomeness seemed to be limited to Tennis – sadly not encompassing directions. A few beers, followed by a ‘dance’ and a ‘chat’ and we were ready for the Casino. Some parts just don’t require detailed descriptions i feel.

So ordinarily i would never encourage people to gamble, specially having had a problem with it while i was younger. You try earning $1000 a week and having no expenses and see where your money goes. Well that was me at Uni. I had a full time job while studying full time and living at home, so i had no time to spend my money and nothing to spend it on. Bring on 24 hour licensing and there was always somewhere on my way home to ride the pokies (slots for our American audience). So whilst i didn’t want to encourage Silk by exchanging more money for him, i was not about to let us be intimidated and railroaded off the table. You see the one poker table had a ‘regulars’ feel about it so as soon as silk placed a bet, all other bets were removed and the uncomfortable staring and sniggering ensued. It was 2:30 in the morning when we left, but we were in front, and the punters knew who they were dealing with.

Now we had heard about the Prague taxi drivers, so we had a plan. Apparently they would favour us if we were Slavic. Silk gets on his phone (as opposed to the Serbian finger phone i described to Dan Peters during the post mortem) and speaks Serbian with a lot of ‘Da’ thown in there. Plural of Da? So i ask the taxi driver to take us to the hotel, in my best “i’m so lost while my ‘local’ friend is on the telephone” voice. Silk gets off the phone and says to me, it’s a shame we’ll never know if this worked or not…i have a fair idea.

We’ve gone about two blocks and Silk is pointing to the meter ticking over. I could see it ticking over at 100 crowns a go, roughly €4, but i didn’t seem too concerned. Apparently in my head it was still 6 years ago and i was travelling on the pound where a man could get a beer for 25 pence, unless it was happy hour when it was somewhere closer to 20p. A time when you could beckon a waiter over in a horrible display oh Johnny Western Tourist, then try to buy back his affection by offering him a year’s salary. No. This was extortionate Prague, where a 2.3km taxi ride costs €20. Not bad for a night’s work if you can get it.

Lesson learned, talking into a Serbian finger phone does not work.

Without further ado, i bring you – The Road Trip.

Thursday

I don’t do early mornings that well, so it’s normally got to be something special to make me get to work by 7. Finding out that Silk’s name was on the door and i was his ‘+1′ was enough for me. I had spent most evenings that week cleaning my flat, however the last two nights were about picking the right outfit, nay, t-shirt. See I don’t normally give a a flying proverbial about what i wear, but everything i know about the Seattle scene is that it is full of cliques. If there was even the slightest, remotest possibility of meeting the band i was going to be the Switzerland of music. I’d finished reading Grunge is Dead a few month’s ago and was well aware of the possible divides – Punk vs. Grunge, Rock vs. Metal, Punk vs. Metal, punk vs. Hair Rock. What happens when you are like me and like Pearl Jam and Nirvana? Throw in a healthy affection for Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and where does that leave me? No i was playing Switzerland alright and not entering into that debate. I went with the ‘Living End’ shirt. Aussie Punk Rockabilly…work’s every time…just like colt 45 init Billy Dee…

So Silk picks up the car and i meet him. It was some sort of Mercedes mini-people mover thing. We’re not what you would call auto-aficionado’s. Put it this way i had never driven it on Gran Tourismo on Playstation so the chances of me knowing it were slim to none. The following day the conversation would go something like this:

Silk: What kind of car is this?
Me: I dunno. Some sort of Mercedes.
Silk: It’s a golf right?
Me: Nah some sort of Mercedes.
Silk: But it’s a golf right?
Me: Nah Golf’s are VW’s. This is some sort of Mercedes.
Silk: Nah, we chose a Golf.
Me pointing to 3 inch Mercedes symbol horn on steering wheel: Nah it’s some sort of Mercedes.

I have been getting worried about my hearing and what sort of damage i am doing going to shows all the time. I give Flip crap for putting tissues in his ears at gigs but i probably should be doing the same. I was contemplating bringing some for the Mudhoney sets cause i had heard they were loud…turns out I should have brought them for the car trip. My lord that boy can talk! I think that is easily the most conversation i have had over a 5 hour period ever. I’m sorry Mudhoney, can you play into this ear please…i’m deaf in that one! All jokes aside, luckily Silk held the floor for most of the conversation…i would have run out of things to say before leaving Frankfurt and had to have started reciting the alphabet. I’m not the most talkative of people.

So we make it to our hotel without too much of a fuss, it’s two U-bahn stops from the gig, perfect.

I realise that i have no idea whatsoever of the procedure involved in having your name on the door. I can only remember one other time when my name was on the door of a gig. One time at Uni i was roped into group work in Psychology with this guy Anthony and this girl Kira. Both seemed fairly cool. Our task was to test how long it took for a rat to work out a skinner box under the effects of alcohol. We were supplied with warm flat, low alcohol beer… Tooheys Blue if my memory serves me correctly. You wouldn’t give this shit to your worst enemy. Not wishing to subject our little rat to this torture, we nipped off to the Uni bar for some ice cold Bourbon & Coke. Well didn’t little Splinter like that. He figured that box out like it was yesterdays news and we got a half hour early mark. As only a teenage sitcom would have it, we walked out of class thinking we were all mighty cool and needed to instantly find out more about our cool selves. Turns out they were both Guitarists. Isn’t everybody i thought? Kira’s band was playing that weekend and she asked if we wanted to go. Of course! Mainly cause she was devilishly fit. A quick scout on the internet and it turned out she was in an all-girl metal band called Nitocris. I was well chuffed to be on the door of a proper band. They were supported by Pre-shrunk another Aussie band who had two bass players and a drummer. Nitocris finished off with a heavy cover of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls which was pretty funny to hear sung by 4 hot chicks. After the gig Kira made her way through the crowd to say hi to us. I offered to buy her a drink, using the entirety of my smoothness…

Me: Can i get you something to drink?
Kira: No it’s cool, they have a tab for us to drink for free.
Me: Ok then.
Kira after returning from the bar: Actually, the tab has been closed…is that offer still available?
Me thinking she’ll say a beer: Sure
Kira: Cool, a double Vodka and pineapple juice please.

wtf?!? Who orders a double off someone you’ve met once? Did i mention she was crazy hot? She got her drink…

So what was i saying that story for? Oh yeah…past experience of being on the door and what the procedure was…

I forget.

So we enter the venue. It’s pretty packed. The support band is playing. First impression, i would have to go with the lovechildren of Joey Ramone and Courtney love. The lead singer with black hair over half of his face, with black sunglasses on, black leather jacket, screaming non-sensically into the microphone. The female drummer belting away like Meg White only wishes she could in some sort of white wedding dress you’d expect to see Courtney Love throwing up over in some tabloid picture from a few years ago. The bass-player, a transvestite Sandra Bernhardt looking creature of Amazonian proportions was accompanied by a slight-framed, porn-moustached Borat on second guitar. Despite only Squires being intrigued by that description they were actually very good and a lot of fun. We would later find out they were from Israel. Charlie Megira & The Modern Dance Club (http://www.myspace.com/themoderndanceclub) if you feel like checking them out.

So Silk sends a text to Dan Peters, Mudhoney’s drummer. All of a sudden there is Dan waving to us and motioning for us to come back stage. Well i wouldn’t like to have been rude to the man so it was the least we could do.

Now i don’t have any hilarious stories representing a backstage precedence…except maybe the school band which doesn’t count. So on the way in im thinking…ok just try not to act like a muppet. We walk in and it’s just the band, me, Silk and three women from some German record label. Silk does one of the worst introduction sequences ever…introducing me to Dan before saying hi to Mark Arm and Steve Turner, leaving me to stand awkwardly just inside the door as they look over to see who the guy in the living end shirt is. Cue smiling nervously. Silk hands out the beers, which was another of the procedures i was totally unaware of. I was planning on not touching anything and speaking when spoken to.

At one point, a double live vinyl album is passed around for the band to look at…presumably it is the pride and joy of the 3 German record chicks. They ask the question, how many live albums do you have? Steve and Mark start reminiscing and mention one about the same time of Piece of Cake. I’m about to blurt out ‘the BBC sessions one’ when it sinks in – i’m not really sure if it’s a real album or not. Perhaps it’s some bootleg i downloaded unknowingly, and i could expose myself for having illegally downloaded their stuff. Here I am, backstage for free and i haven’t even bought their cd’s…i should be ashamed…oh look free beer!

I promise i will buy the actual cd’s when i have a fixed residence…there is only so much i can cart around Europe with me.

So it’s about the time where I am supposed to tell you how normal the band are and they are all regular people etc. Well Fuck that. They’re not. They are really really really cool people! Regular people are poo. These guys were easy to talk to, friendly, and just great knockaround guys who you’d love to have a beer with and talk shit until the cows come home. They looked like they felt awkward when i was feeling awkward when the Drummer of the modern dance club started fishing through her bag for gypsy trinkets – fair play to Steve for wearing the good luck arm bracelet throughout the entire gig. Apparently it’s bad luck if it doesn’t break…im sure that was arranged at some point. It was not like watching Ozzy Osbourne going through Christina Aguilera vocal gymnastic warm-ups, or talks over long instrumentals or planned cover songs. It was just four lads sitting around having a wine or vodka cranberry and chewing the fat. When the stage director or whatever his role was, came and said, well the stage is ready if you want to go on, it was almost like they had forgotten they were doing a show tonight and were fine to just sit and chat for a few more hours. I’m glad they went on stage though, they were awesome!

Now i must say i wasn’t a huge fan of Mudhoney before this trip. I had their cd’s, knew a few of their songs and could appreciate the music, but i wouldn’t have called myself a fan at all. I can blame my sister for that. When i was listening to Boyz II Men and Arrested Development, she was sending away for obscure bands that i’d never heard of, because our record stores in Sydney had never heard of them either. Green River? Soundgarden? Mother Love Bone? Who? No i don’t want to go to see Jeff Buckley. (oh my god i will never live that one down). Of course we had all the Pearl Jam bootlegs before they started releasing them, and all the Nirvana stuff…but she kind of missed the boat there with Mudhoney. Nice one Carly. :P

But you can now call me a fan. In fact i’ll tell you i’m a fan.

The show was great. In terms of a complete contrast to the backstage atmosphere, it was as if Mark Arm has a chemical reaction to the crowd which makes him spasm about the stage screaming out venomous track after track with barely an acknowledgement that he is on our plane of existence. Dan Peters marauds through songs, building up to the final crescendo of rolls leaving you intensely waiting for the final symbol crash and kick of the bass drum to signify applause, which never comes. Guy Maddison attacks the songs with almost a boyish sense of having been deprived of this experience prior to joining the band so he is going to enjoy it twice as much now to play catch-up. Steve Turner’s guitar seems to be wanting to feedback at will, a la Jimi Hendrix, where unless he keeps actively playing it is going to spiral away into uncharted chasms of noise. Perhaps that’s a feature of all Seattle guitarists…

Even with my head right next to the PA the sound and timing was great. Such a tight unit. The crowd seemed up for it as well, even if some of them weren’t too up to speed on stage diving etiquette – “The idea is to get up and get back into the crowd as quick as you can before security drags you offstage” Guy instructed.

I distinctly remember wishing i had a Dictaphone to remember the phrases i was creating to describe what i was seeing…sadly you get the descriptions of my memories.

At the end of the first set we headed back stage on the premise that there wasn’t going to be an encore. Nice one Silk. We bust through the door to the band standing in the corner discussing whether or not to go back on. Cue annoyed security band dude staring poignantly at us.

Silk: It’s ok, we’re with Mudhoney. I’m from Seattle.
Security dude: Funny. I’m with Mudhoney and i have no idea who you are?
Silk: Oh. Hi, I’m Pete *shakes hand*

Class silk! ;)

A small moment where some of the band weren’t completely seeing eye to eye and all i could think of was how much the ’serious’ Steve Turner now reminded me of Matt Stone in BASEketball – i kept waiting for him to pull Brittany’s mum’s pube from his mouth.

We watched the encore from side/back stage, including a cool video from behind Steve and Mark facing out towards the crowd. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people out there could see me and were thinking “i wish i was that guy”, like i have done so many times at so many gigs.

Backstage again after the show and all was rosy with the band as we all resumed chatting albeit with several more folk about the place. In the end, Silk and I might have played the game too well…while everyone else was schmoozing etc, me and Pete were in the corner talking about our weight…Über Rock n Roll.

We say goodnight to the guys – they are on their way to Warsaw in the morning. We will meet them again in Prague in two days time.