Food German Kid
22
Nov0
Nov0
Safe at last in Dresden we unloaded the car and strode into the venue, Ostpol. Inside was LOVELY - they'd just redecorated but it looked like it was unchanged since the early 1970s. This was, apparently, because they'd taken all the decor FROM houses last decorated in the early 1970s. It looked very nice anyway, and we spent several minutes saying "ooh, we used to have those curtains."
We slipped into the back room which had also recently been re-done (previously bands had played in the main pub), this time to look like a Church Hall. We set up, whilst drinking EVEN MORE of the Free Beer which Germany appeared to be FULL of, soundchecked, and then stepped off stage ready to go and look at The Artists Apartment which we'd heard so much about. I was WAYLAID briefly by a young man called Sven who was ANOTHER person who'd had Matti's tape ages ago, and who was busily requesting "Post Jazz Prog-Rock Virgin." It was all very odd. That wasn't his first choice, however - what he REALLY wanted to hear was Family Wedding 2021, which I don't think I've played for about 10 years. I apologised profusely for the fact that I wouldn't be able to play it, as I didn't know the words, but he was so insistent that it was his favourite song that we ended up singing a DUET of it, with him starting each line and me saying "AHA! Of course!" and finishing it off. There is FILM of this occurring which will be part of the DOCUMENTARY we started talking about later that night... as you do.
While all this was going on I noticed Frankie and Tim EDGING towards the door. I KNEW what they were up to, they were trying to sneak off to the apartment to BAGSIE beds, DESPITE our agreement that, as I was on the foldout sofa in Berlin, i'd get first choice in Dresden! The rotters!
On the way there we'd been asking about The Apartment - Martin hadn't seen it as it'd been part of the refurbishments, but he assured us it was "new". I pictured something like the IBIS, but that wasn't quite accurate. I went upstairs to find what looked like, and WAS, a set of rehearsal rooms. Rehearsal rooms ALWAYS look the same, and there was the usual smell of surreptitious smoking, beer and SWEAT as well as piles of half broken amps and beer cans. We went into a room which looked like a rehearsal room but with the drum kit taken out, and a couple of chairs put in its place. This, apparently, was The Apartment.
How could this be? It was a really small room - maybe it was just the lobby? There were a couple of doors, both of which led to cupboards, one of which contained an unassembled, unplumbed shower unit tho little else. What was going on? Where were we sleeping?
Then we noticed a step ladder, looked up, and realised there was a second "floor" that had been put in. We went up the ladder and saw three mattresses - one double, two single - which filled the entire MEZZANINE, apart from a GAPING HOLE in one end. THIS was the Artists Apartment!
We decided the best bet was to get drunk. Luckily this was easy, as the Free Beer continued to flow! We also got FED - a strange sort of BROTH which came in two flavours, Normal (spinach, potato, spinach, carrot, spinach and sausage) and Vegan (no sausage). It was quite nice, especially with bread to dip into it (they also provided three different sorts of Worcester Sauce, i don't know why) but a group of girls sat on the next table seemed to find it HILARIOUS. They kept pointing and laughing at the bowls in front of us until, once Frankie had asked what was going on, they admitted that they were amused to think we'd believe this was German food.
They protested, but it's worth noting that, once Martin had sat down and WOLFED down his share, we gave the rest to them and they ate THE LOT. Germans, they LOVE Spinach!
Over the next couple of hours the room got fuller and fuller - LOADS of people turned up, although we weren't sure how many would be coming from the pub into the gig room. We were quite SANGUINE about it - there was plenty of Free Beer to see to this and we'd begun to slip into TOUR MOOD anyway, so it was getting on for eleven o'clock when we FINALLY took to the stage and did THIS:
The Gay Train
Never Going Back To Aldi's
My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once
If You're Too Turned On
Clubbing In The Week
Leave My Brother Alone
Fucking Hippy
Billy Jones Is Dead
We Are The Giant Robots
Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid
Payday Is The Best Day
Do The Indie Kid
The Lesson Of The Smiths
Easily Impressed
Hey Hey 16K
Boom Shake The Room
It was GRATE! Martin had told us on the way that the people of Dresden were DEAD enthusiastic and CRIKEY he wasn't wrong - there was DANCING! there was JOINING IN! there was even MORE of the KNOWING THE WORDS! It was a strange experience - i find it hard to believe at the best of times that people would know all the words to our songs, let alone in GERMANY. As with the night before I was conscious THROUGHOUT just how PAROCHIAL some of my subject matter is. I always think I'm writing about what i know, and what matters to me, but when I'm singing outside the UK (well, outside ENGLAND really) I become painfully aware of how LOCAL some of the references are.
Still, everyone seemed to DIG it and we had a FAB time - even my many and various REMARKS seemed to go over well, and the three of us sounded (NB to me anyway) like a TIGHT ROCKING OUTFIT. At the end Tim even threw his TOWEL into the crowd! Somebody picked it up and put it back on the stage for him, but still, it's the ROCK GESTURE that counts.
Afterwards there was more MINGLING and BEER before we settled in for the evening. We'd wondered where the toilets for The Apartment were and had been told there WERE none - once "the party" had ended ("the party" seems to mean "the opening hours" in Germany) they'd give us the keys to the whole pub, so we could get downstairs from the rehearsal rooms to have a wee. We also discovered at this point that a hardcore punk band were coming in to do some recording next day in the room next to ours. The drummer was arriving at 9am!
Anyway, we reckoned it'd all be over by 2am, 3am once all the stragglers were sorted, and it was suggested that, as we had the keys, we could probably sleep on the sofas in the pub itself. Sorted! Drink?
We got chatting to a few people, including one girl who said "I've always wondered what Martin Petersdorf looked like, I've listened to his radio shows for years". We realised at this point that Martin wasn't just a really nice bloke who'd decided to book us some gigs, he was actually a sort of East German Steve Lamacq who'd had various shows for nearly 20 years! AHA! THAT'S why his name was on all the posters as Special Guest DJ then!
We had a DELIGHTFUL time, including a Wonderful Announcement (details to follow another time) and LO! there was much hugging and laughter and MORE FREE BEER. This was all around half past three, at which point we slowly began to give up hope of sleeping downstairs. At last, at 4.45am with the pub emptying but nowhere NEAR empty, we decided to go to bed.
Or, rather, go to THE bed. Martin, quite reasonably, decided to set up a duvet and some cushions on the Lower Level on the apartment, so that it was me, Frankie and Tim who clambered up the wooden steps to our SINGLE BUNK BED and snuggled up together... i mean, lay down making HUMOROUS REMARKS about the Life On The Road Situation. "It's nearly 5am" said Tim, so we waited as he counted down to our ROCK BEDTIME - we're not too old YET to want to say "We didn't go to sleep unto FIVE O'CLOCK!!". The hour passed and within 10 seconds we were snoring.
An hour or so later either Frankie woke me or I woke him by getting up. We both needed the loo so decided to set off together, for SAFETY. Downstairs we found two bloked - one of whom was probably the proprietor - sat at the bar, rather surprised to find two men strolling by in their PANTS. "Ah! Piss, Ja?" said one of them. "JA!" we replied, as we went towards our business.
Three hours later we were woken by the THUMP THUMP CRASH, THUMP THUMP CRASH that is the International Sound Of Drums Being Soundchecked. None of us had fallen down the massive hole at the end of the bed, and another day had dawned. A day ON THE ROAD.
We were a bit worried about how these gigs were going to go - I'd never met Martin, who'd booked it all for us and had no idea if he'd be Actually All Right, what sort of places we'd be playing in (well, a little bit, but we weren't personally familiar with the venues) or whether it really WOULD be OK to turn up with no instruments at all.
Our fears were put to one side tho for some more ON TOUR HILARITY: once we'd bought our tickets on the u-bahn (the three of us gathered round the ticket machine shouting our advice to each other, like it was a QUIZZER) we had to validate them. YES WE TOOK PHOTOGRAPHS!
We got a bit lost when we emerged at the other end, but we had the first of MANY examples of why travelling with The Validators is so ACE. In other groups of people I might expect piss-taking or recriminations or arguments, but with The Validators we just got on with working out where we were and GOT THERE. It might sound a bit daft to some, but I do find that in many Activity Based Social Groupings (ESPECIALLY all-male versions) there's often LOTS of competition/low level aggression, as if you've never left SCHOOL. Not with The Validators - there is obviously a SOUPCON of inter-group MICKEY TAKING, but never anything unpleasant and you always feel you can TRUST each other. It's brilliant!
ANYWAY we got to the venue and found our way in... to discover NO GEAR AT ALL and no Martin. I spoke to the soundlady who after a couple of minutes said "Don't I know you from somewhere?" I NEARLY said "Why, perhaps my YouTube appearances" but instead, only SLIGHTLY less dickheadedly, said "There's a big poster of me on the door, maybe from that?" "No", she said, "Didn't you play at The Bowling Alley the other week?"
For LO! It was Jasmina Machina, who also did the SOUND at the John Peel all-dayer. AHA! Everywhere you go there is someone who knows George (who'd booked her and got her to do the sound too), and i'd foolishly not realised this.
After a few minutes there was a knock on the door and there was MARTIN! With a car FULL of musical equipment! HOORAH! I was EXTREMELY relieved, and between us we LUGGED the whole lot onto the stage. Martin is a drummer so he and Tim got it set up together, tho not before he brought us over the first of MANY MANY MANY free beers. My favourite kind of beer!
We finished, drank some beer, soundchecked, and then FREAKED OUT because people were smoking. INSIDE! We heard many versions of the rules in Germany, but basically it appears you're not meant to smoke, but if you want to you can. It wasn't like being in a pub in OLDEN TYMES when half the clientele were at it, but there was still quite a bit going on, and it never ceased to seem WEIRD.
We had a beer to calm down.
Then we popped out for tea, decided to have SAN PELLEGRINO with our meal as it seemed foolish to PAY for beer. Back at the venue we had MORE beer, occasionally glancing at out watches. We'd been due on at 10.30pm but by that time the first band, Michael Knight had only just gone on. I was a bit worried but was assured everything would be FINE, and I relaxed enough to rather enjoy their big, a bit early Divine Comedy, sound. There were a LOT of people playing a LOT of different instruments on stage!
And then, just after eleven o'clock, it was time for US to go on, and we did THIS:
I broke a string in the FIRST SONG! Luckily Martin's pal Christopher was on hand to go and borrow another guitar on my behalf and mend the broken one - thanks chap! I always have trouble with telecasters... anyway, we took a little while to get ourselves going but once we'd WOKEN UP a bit we had a GRATE time. The sound with just the three of us sounded TAUT and in my mind we had become a MOD band of some sort. I am sad to report I did quite a lot of DANCING.Things'll Be Different (when I'm in charge)
The Gay Train
Never Going Back To Aldi's
Billy Jones Is Dead
Fucking Hippy
We Are The Giant Robots
Clubbing In The Week
My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once
If You're Too Turned On
Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid
Do The Indie Kid
Easily Impressed
The Lesson Of The Smiths
Hey Hey 16K
I wasn't the only one doing so tho - there were others jiggling daintily and also SINGING ALONG! Yes, SINGING ALONG! Years ago a chap called Matti (who came to the gig too) had put out a cassette called, i think, "Recoute Mark Hibbett" - it's not included on the Discography (this will change!!) because, to be honest, it seemed so unlikely that I'd assumed he'd just done three copies and sent two to me, but NO! I met SEVERAL people over the course of the weekend who'd had a copy, and TWO of them said "Are you going to play 'Post-Jazz Prog-Rock Virgin' tonight?" Nobody has EVER asked that before!!
There was going to be an "electro-pop" party afterwards so we packed up our gear and... er... lurked around for a bit drinking our favourite kind of beer. Eventually we set off, with Martin taking the gear home and the rest of us following Christopher on a slightly tiddly Guided Tour of East Berlin on the way to Kim's Bar, where we'd be playing on Saturday.
It was Matti's bar and, lovely chap that he is, he gave us MORE free beer. Martin arrived and we settled down for the CHAT and the BEER and the general good times - it turned out we needn't have worried at all, he was the magical combination of LOVELY and also ORGANISED!
We left the bar shortly after 2am, with Tim VERY excited about getting the Kebab he'd been waiting for all night. We'd earmarked a place on the way into town, Maximillian's, and so popped in to find the food was served NOT in pitta but in TIM'S BREAD! Other people may know it as Turkish Pid (sp.) but in our house it's known as TIM'S BREAD because he introduced it to us when The Validators stayed out our house on tour. I can't vouch for its suitability for Kebab Meat, but for Felafel it is DELICIOUS!
Being a ROCK MONSTER Tim got all excited about the fact that they sold BEER in the shop, but Frankie and I managed to RESTRAIN him, pointing out we had LOADS of beer back in the flat, which we could have when we got back.
When we got back it was 2.45am. We went straight to bed! It had been a BRILLIANT evening, but we were KNACKERED!