As I didn’t really take anything other than mental notes all this is taken from the deep dark dungeons of my memory of the tour we just ended with Junior Senior.

As some may know we have visited the States a few times before but this was the first time we got to go through the whole country in 40 days and 30 shows and play for ”the people” and not ”just” ”the industry”. We all had our doubts if people would know the music apart from ”Move Your Feet” which was a hit on the radio over there, and we had the feeling that we might end up playing for some semi-interested people just waiting to see The Electric 6 with whom we toured on the first leg of the tour. But in all cases I think everybody was set for a great interesting journey. One which very few bands from little ol’ Denmark get to take.

The tour party consisted of:


Junior: Guitar and vocals

Senior: Vocals, handclaps and various percusion

picture: taken at an Indian rest area in the petrified forest, Arizona. They bought these hats in order to achieve a new and more rugged image.

The Rhythm Prophets:

Filip: Bass

Yebo: The drums

picture: by the Mississippi in New Orleans

The Unisex Backing Singers and Percussion Roadies:

Lars "i lommen" & Joy

picture: the view I had on several shows sitting behind the backing singers on pretty cramped stages

and the crew was:
Perry the Driver
Steve the Tour Manager
Mads the Sound Tech

THE MIDWEST part 1
Milwaukee, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City

We Danes landed in Chicago full of expectation and got picked up by the tour bus. Our home for the next 6-7 weeks. It was a pretty nice vehicle with a lot of tacky 80´es kinda big screen TV’s etc. Comfy and spacious enough for 9 people . We were all pretty tired when we got to our first destination: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We got us some food and hit the sack..

Wisconsin has a lot of Danish, Scandinavian and German decendents and it actually looks very much like a Danish landscape. Everybody we met had a Danish relative, and as Milwaukee is the beer capital of the US we found ourselves right at home. We met The Electric 6 at the Cactus Club where we were to perform. A small club in a residential area. Not flash or glamorous in any way. Kinda like the clubs we know from provinsial Denmark. The E6 guys were really nice people and even though we had some difficulty getting the names right (3 Chris’es) we got along fine and throughout the tour developed a great friendship with these wacky Detroitians.

All our fears about people not wanting to see us play was put somewhat to rest on the first night and the subsequent Midwest dates. ”The people” reacted with great enthusiasm. And the fans knew almost all the songs and chanted along. Really great to experience. It was also good to see that the band could play a really convincing show with only 2 monitors and quite shabby conditions, as we have been used to pretty luxurious PA systems, and especially Junior and Senior are very sensitive regarding monitors. We did what had to be done with the tools we had and kicked everybody’s asses. It was Friday night. People were drunk. It was a beautiful start of the tour.

Next day was in Chicago and we rode there in the night. We woke up at friggin’ 6 am after only 3-4 hours of sleep to play ”Shake Your Coconuts” live on Fox News. Pretty psychedelic experience, but it went rather well. The show at the Double Door club at night was sold out, went great and we had a really good time. Unfortunately Junior had a sore throat and even had to do 1,5 hours of Australian phone interviews after the show. So the next day he was sick and unable to sing more than a couple of songs.

picture: two cool Chicago high rise buildings with apartments on top, garages in the lower floors and boat docks in the basement by the river.

This was something that haunted us for the next few days playing Madison, Minneapolis, Kansas City and Oklahoma City. We had some really good shows but Junior could only play his guitar and sing very few songs. A real bummer but luckily we had Lars to cover for some of the shortcomings, and Senior also sung some of Junior’s lines. It was really annoying that we had to cut the set a little short – especially in Kansas City, but it seemed like the audience had a good understanding that we were doing the best we could, and at least Junior played his guitar and danced like a crazy person.

Joy had her 20th birthday on our off day in Kansas City and we went out to a fondue restaurant that was really really good – and expensive, too.

pictures:
1: Filip and Joy (who is illegaly drinking a dangerous drink! Only 20!)
2. Mads, Yebo and Steve getting into the fondue thang
3. Steve, Joy's balloons and Lars

THE SOUTH
Dallas, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Charlotte

As the weather got better, Junior got worse. We hit Dallas and Junior was still only able to sing a song or two each night, but Lars was getting really good at doing Junior’s parts and it seemed like we were doing pretty good. It was a great treat for me personally seing the spot where JFK got shot and standing on the grassy knoll behind the picket fence where the killing shot might have been fired.

picture: Jeppe givin' Joy's new hat she bought in Austin his own personal thumbs up

The day after we got to Austin, one of the only cities we had played before at their SXSW festival. We were there in March and had a great time at the Crunchy Frog show case with The Tremolo Beer Gut, The Mopeds and Crunchster in spe PowerSolo. We were all looking forward to going back, but at this time both Junior and I were feeling quite sick (goddamn air condition!). We had an in-store show at a very cool record shop called ”Waterloo” and we got to play the legendary super cool club EMO’s. We played the big room and close to 1000 people came out to see us. This was probably the best show on the whole tour, I think. Even though I was sick it was just such a great crowd and the band just rocked that night. A GREAT night that I will remember for a long ass time.

pictures:
1. Jeppe and the crowd
2. Myself at EMO's having the time of my life

Houston was weird. They seemed to still be building the club when we arived, but magically they got it almost completed by nightfall and we had a fun show very close to the audience in a gallery more than a real club. The sound was shit, but it was good fun, and there were a lot of freaky girl fans that was dressed up and – frankly – messed up too.

picture: Junior hanging out - sober as a motherfucker - in the bunk area in front of his boudouir. He's wearing some pants Senior got as a present.

Now, on this tour we had agreed that we would have a strickt non-alcohol policy on the tour bus. This mainly due to the hard schedule but mostly because of Junior’s body chemistry which dictates that if he gets really drunk he have to sleep for 3 days and looses his voice instantly. So it was very important that he, Senior and myself (who was working for the CF label the whole time on my cell phone and laptop) could get some rest without drunk idiots on the bus. This meant that if people wanted to go drinking they would have to stay off the bus until they wanted to sleep, basically. Well, during the tour we all decided that it would be quite OK to have a couple of drinks before the show to get in the mood, and that was actually all the alcohol most of us consumed on the tour.

Untill we hit New Orleans!!!

Let me tell you about New Orleans. It is a town in which it is practically impossible NOT to get drunk. I think Junior managed, but this is probably more due to him being sick than straight. In New Orleans you have to eat and drink and enjoy life. It was Saturday night and everybody was in a good mood even though for some reason this was one of the worst attended shows of the tour. Afterwards we went to town with E6 and some locals and got pretty drunk. As we passed a gay bar (what a coincidence) they were playing ”Move Your Feet” and I got pretty excited and started shouting ”Bøssefar, Bøssefar” (which means "gay dad" in danish - a nickname for Senior) and we got invited in by the owner and got Jaegermeisters for free. Filip got a lot of C.R.A.Z.Y footage on his video camera this evening. It will probably be included in some sort of documentary we’ll do sometime soon. I shot about 20 hours of video on this trip and Filip and Mads probalby another 10. Stay tuned for the DVD! Candid photography. Nudge, nudge!

pictures:
1: Joy with Corey and John from E6 at a bar in NO.
2: Senior (sporting a bandana), Lars (giving his Kim Larsen impression) and Yebo drunk off their asses on the street outside the tour bus.

Off-day in Atlanta with major hang overs. We watched ”Bruce, Almighty” on pay per view at the hotel room. It sucked. Jim Carey’s worst film. We are a lot of Carey-fans in this band, but we were really disappointed. Junior had to take a trip to the hospital to get a salt water and antibiotic shot as his condition just kept getting worse. Next day we played a good show in Atlanta and afterwards one of Senior’s girlfriends called Elhaam threw an after party for us, where Senior and Filip DJ’ed and Joy broadened her horizon on the dance floor.

The day after that Junior was so sick that he couldn’t perform. The Jr Sr show was cancelled and the rest of us went bowling. That sucked. Hard. But guess who won a free dinner and had the highest score. That’s right punk! The Yebinator!

THE EAST COAST
Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Hoboken, Pittsburgh

”Washington DC – It’s paradise to me” as The Magnetic Fields sing. And what a great show we had there. Everybody got to see some sights in the daytime (except me working away in the hotel room with Crunchy business – boohoo). The Black Cat Club was a cool place and we had a great crowd. By now we had the show without Junior down pretty good and was able to rock without thinking about the missing voice all the time. The same went for the next two dates in Baltimore and Phily.

picture: Lars going at it, and behind him you can spot Joy in her cheer leader dress.

We spent Halloween in Philadelhia and the club was in a poor black neighbourhood. It was interesting and nice to see that despite obvious poverty, people in the streets were able to come together and celebrate Halloween together and make it a special night for the kids. The people at the show was also dressed up, as were Joy in here brand new cheer leader outfit. A little weird show under tough circumstances, but I think the audience dug it al the same.

Now it was time for NYC; The big old crazy apple that we had visited several times before. A sort of home-coming. We were excited to get to play at The Bowery Ballroom which was sold out. It was Saturday and Junior’s voice was back on track. Everybody was psyched up for the show and I think we did a really good job. The most legendary event of the evening was when Senior danced backwards into Filip knocking him over and breaking his bass arm against the drum riser. Filip’s bass arm was simply broken off, and he had no way of continue playing. Luckily this was during our last song, ”White Trash”, but it was in the beginning. I think the audience must have seen Filip starting to just bang his bass into the floor like a maniac and think: ”This guy is a FREAK! –Why doesn’t he wait until the END of the song to break the bass?”. It was definitely weird and fun and made the show memorable. Of course this was the one thing we did not get on video tape as Mr. Footage Wizard Nikolic forgot to change the tape. Nice one, Fil!

The same morning we had to leave for Boston at 6am due to the NYC Marathon. At 6 am Senior hadn’t shown up and we waited 4 hours before we had to go. Ian Zaider the band’s US manager jumped off the bus and stayed behind to try to locate Senior (you should know that Senior have a tendency to loose everything, especially his wallet and clothes, so he just might be in a tight spot somewhere on Manhattan). By the time we got to Boston Ian had found Senior but now we noticed that Lars was also missing. Everybody thought he was sleeping in his bunk… Well, like Senior, he had found a romantic interest somewhere in NYC and decided to spend his off day in bed.

The Boston show was GREAT. We played in Cambridge, and even though it was on a Monday we had a full house and a long line outside the Middle East Café. If not Austin, then Boston was the best show of the tour. totally dedicated fans and the band was at it’s best. Total victory!

BUT…

Just now that we were in our strongest line up, what happens? Senior got sick. Same deal as Junior. No voice, feeling ill and even had a high fever. He also had to go to the hospital and get medicated, and the rest of us had to decide what to do in Hoboken. We all agreed that it so sucked cancelling in Charlotte and Senior gave us his blessing to play without him. Whoah… what a challenge. Junior and Lars went straight to the bus and started rehearsing the lines. By now Lars knew most of Junior’s lines in the patented Jr Sr call and response recipe, but now he had to reverse the whole thing. So we went on stage pretty nervous and tried to do the show without the Big Man. I sucked! From our point of view it was really not a good show. A lot of the audience said they loved it, but it was easy to spot the difference as Jeppe is the great party maker and toast master. Junior did the best he could, but we all felt we had a lousy show. Unfortunately we had to play both Pittsburgh and Columbus without Senior as well while he got better in NY, but these shows went much better. Lars once again saved Junior Senior’s ass.

THE MID WEST part 2
Columbia, Cleveland, East Lansing, St. Louis, Lawrence

Rolling back into the Midwest we played a show without Senior in Columbus, the state capital of Ohio. Went pretty good, but we couldn’t wait to get to Cleveland where Senior would join us again. We played the Grog Shop and I gotta tell y’all that it was a great reunion. Senior sang the whole show and it was just good to be 6 again. We had a good show and the owner of the venue was so nice to us, gave us great food and set us up with free drinks all night. The best treatment on the whole tour (together with the Troubadour in LA). A great experience. Hopefully we will be back.

pictures:
1. Junior sucking the tentacles at the Mongolian BBQ restaurant in Cleveland
2. the space ship auditorium
3. E6 on stage. Chris, Chris, Zack and Tyler

Michigan State University in East Lansing was the last show together with The Electric 6. We had a great time with those guys, and this was their own home turf only 1 hour from Detroit. We had to play in a big booming auditorium and at sound check it sounded like Phil Spector had come to haunt us, talk about a wall of sound! Luckilly the show sold out and about 500 non-alcoholic, non-smoking students made the room much nicer sounding. We had a good show and Tyler (Dick Valentine) from E6 came up and helped the backing vocals on ”White Trash”. In return most of us entered the stage during E6’s ”Gay Bar”. They had tried to convince Senior to do it for obvious reasons several times, but this night we took the stage by storm and had a ball. We hugged our new friends good bye and got on the bus to go to St. Louis for an off day. We’ll catch up with E6 again in a few weeks to play Brixton Academy in London by the way.

After a nice day off we got to the Creepy Crawl in St. Louis. This would be the first show together with IMA Robot. The venue was a heavy metal / punk / hard core club and it probably had the shittiest sound system on the tour.

picture: Lars "i lommen" chillin' in the only furniture in the back stage room at CC

I only knew Justin from IMAR from before. He plays the bass and used to play with Beck’s band, and both Senior and I met him when Superheroes played with Beck in Stockholm a couple of years ago. I was managing Superheroes and Senior was guest starring on ”Johnny and I”. It was nice to hook up again with Justin and his crew from IMAR. Again we got along really great with the other band, and it was a pleasure embarking on this trip with them. For some reason we again had an awesome show under bad circumstances. The crowd was wild and we just let it rip. we tried to impress IMAR I guess, and we succeded. IMAR was a great experience live as well, they have a certain mad energy that you just gotta love.

picture: The Rhythm Prophets with prospect member Justin Meldal-Johnson

Lawrence was fine, but again it seemed like Kansas isn’t the state with the most Jr Sr fans. But the ones that came out were great and we had a good time with them.

MOUNTAIN TIME
Denver, Tempe

Just after the show in Lawrence we got on the bus and headed out for Denver. A pretty long drive, and we woke up lightheaded in the mountain air of Denver. First we thought we were all hung over, but it seems that the height tends to screw with you. We got dizzy and nautious very easy. The show was at a hole-in-the-wall that didn’t even look like a club. Before the show we had a couple of drinks and – probably due to the height – we all got very silly. We decided to ”punk” Senior (like the MTV-series ”Yo Dawg! You been PUNK’D duuuuuude!”) and tell him that everybody left after IMAR had played. Senior is always a little anxious about the crowd and he was getting a little freaked out that the audience left. He was setting himself up for a bad experience, but as soon as he entered the stage he knew, oh yes he KNEW! He had been PUNK’D!! DAWG!!!! He he. You gotta have your little fun on tour. The Margaritas tasted great in the mountain air that night.

Next up was a long travel day on the way to Arizona. We made the drive to Alberquerque where we hung out at the Wyndham in order to get our driver Perry time to sleep. Senior, Filip and Mads spent 9 straight hours on the internet, I had a swim and a sauna, Junior slept and did some phoner interviews and we all just had a lazy relaxed day.

We were supposed to get to Tempe, Arizona the next day in the early afternoon. We left at 3am but only after one hour there was a big BANG and the heavy bus started to swerve on the road as the air filled up with a burnt smell. The right front tire had exploded at 60 mph. Extremely dangerous situation, but luckily our driver managed to stop the bus at the side of the freeway without anybody getting hurt… or waking up for that sake. Actually only Filip woke up during all this. He and Perry went out and looked at the damages, and they were both pretty shook up the rest of the day. Well, it delayed us about 6-7 hours and we didn’t really get a sound check in Tempe when we got there.

On top of all this on this jinxed day our hard disc recorder went bust in the change over between the bands. CRAZY day, and as a result we played our worst show EVER. It really sucked for The Rhythm Prophets, but Jr and Sr did the best they could to entertain the audience and we pulled through it. I had to stay up most of the night trying to recover the hard disc tracks while everybody else went drinking. There was an after party set up where Filip and Senior DJ’ed, and I guess that was a lot of fun. For the others. While I toiled over the hard discs. No thank yous to poor old Yebo of course. Boo hoo.

PACIFIC ROUND-UP
San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle

After the hellish day in Arizona it was nice waking up in San Diego in warm weather and with time to go have some authentic Mexican food. I shaved my beard so I had a moustache and tried to blend in looking like a mexican greaseball, hadn’t got the tan for it though. We got the hard disc working again and we were all set to do the West Coast… West Coast style.

pictures:
1. El Yebo
2. Mads and the best Mexican food

By the time we hit the Pacific coast the whole non-alcohol policy had gone down the drain – or down the hatch so to speak. This was mainly due to the fact that the end of the tour had a lot of off days compared to the start where we did 6 shows in a row, one day off and then 6 more. It simply isn’t possible for this band to do 6 dates and drink at the same time. Actually we had never done 6 straight dates before this tour.

The next day we hit LA. We got there in the morning and spent the day shopping and wandering around. Ate at Sizzlers which was a fun thing. Everything is all you can eat, and we challenged ourselves to eat way too much. We had a good time though. Walked it off. In the evening our friend Alexis stopped by and people got a little drunk. Junior and Senior did a lot of interviews and I watched ”L.A. Confidential” – read the book a couple of months ago. Great stuff. James Elroy is a favourite.

Next day was the show at the Troubadour. It was nice to come back to this venue. We played there before and we got along great with the ladies running the club. This time they had made special ”We love Jr Sr”-T-shirts for themselves and a ”I love Troub”-visor for Senior. So sweet. They also got us the largest bottle of Stoli they could find and some porn for Senior (who is a collector). Cool to be back. L.A. is the home town for IMA Robot, so we had high expectation for the show. A lot of friends on the guest list and a sweet after party set up. The actual concert went really well, but we thought the crowd wasn’t really that responsive. We had a hard time getting their asses in gear, but in the end everybody danced and cheered. Afterwards the guys from IMAR said that they had never seen an L.A. crowd go crazy like that, so I guess we had them going after all.

picture: IMAR + JS in the smoke filled dressing room at Troubadour. Back: Alex, Ollie, Scott, Senior. Middle: Justin Yebo, Timmy, Filip. Front: Some girl, Lars, Junior.

The IMAR guys had set a party up at Star Shoes, and we had a ball. We convinced our tour manager to let us stay for the night because we had an off day the next day, so we even got to sleep at the hotel and not on the bus.

Next day it was off to San Francisco where we arrived in the evening and had a quiet night before playing Bimbo’s. This was probably the best and most beautiful club on the tour. Nice tables, red plush interior, gold fittings – like a 30’es night club. Nice vibe. Afterwards we had (yet another) after party where Senior and Filip DJ’ed. We had free drinks all night and had a great time. San Francisco is a favourite of all of us. A lot of crazy and sweet people. Gay Dad had a whole collection of BEARS out looking at him at the show, and they also came to the party. I almost regretted having a ’stache at this point, but I avoided getting grabbed too much. A great night out once again. And once again nice we had a travel day afterwards to relax. We stopped in Portland Oregon and had a kind of farewell dinner for everybody on the bus. We went out to this steak house with the band, Mads, Steve and Perry. The best fucking steak I ever had. Nice to have this kind of family style dinner and just raise our glasses and say thanks for a great tour.

The last supper (counterclockwise from 7 O'clock):
Steve, Perry, Lars, Filip, Jr, Sr, Yebo, Joy

picture: Junior singing against all odds at KEXP

Last day in Seatlle. We did some live songs at KEXP radio station in the morning. Hard to get up to it when it was so relatively early, but it turned out great. You can hear the recordings HERE. I spent the most of the day videotaping a lot of interviews with the tour-members, trying to get enough good material for our big documentary project. At this point Filip was starting to feel ill, so he spent a lot of time trying to get in shape for the last show on the tour, which just HAD to be great.

As it turned out we had a sold out show. IMAR rocked the house and we got ready to do our business. Filip never got in a good shape for playing and said he had the most feverish psychedelic show. He played well, though. As an encore we did ”White Trash” with Timmy, Justin and Alex from IMAR thrashing the stage. Total mayhem, and a great end to the tour.

picture: IMAR on stage the last night

The day after Junior and Senior flew to tokyo to do 2 weeks of promotion and the rest of us flew back to good old Copenhagen. What a great trip. We had some hard times but even more good times. We ate great food – loads of sushi and had a bit of a dreeenk. We had sun, rain and snow, and most of all we met some really cool people. Not in the least in the bands we played with. Stay tuned for the DVD!

The Yebinator

Check out the band's account of the Tour of France
Now we’re back from France. It was a blast and right below you can read things we wrote during the tour.

Asger Tarpgaard, 20th October:
18/10 – Roubaix, La Cave aux Poètes: very small venue. We (I) couldn’t stand in upright position because of the roof was low. For this tour we had to re-make backing tracks for the hard disc recorder (see October diary to find out why) and at this concert we had to play with the new tracks for the first time. We hadn’t had time to rehearse with the new backing tracks so we played quite a few mistakes. Fine night though. It was also the night where we met Laurent, a representative for our French label, Spirit Of Jungle, and he should follow and help us during the whole tour (actually we left him at a gas station on the second day, but it was NOT on purpose!)

19/10 – Amsterdam, Paradiso: 3rd time we visited the place. It’s really a fine place and a lot of people showed up even though Access To Amsterdam (a big music convention) was going on and Paradiso wasn’t a part of the convention. The night was 100% success! When we go to Paradiso it’s almost as being home.

Lars Hovendahl – 30th October:
20/10 Reims, Festival Octob-Rock: quite a big venue and the stage crew were very nice and professional. For the first time on the tour we got the chance to check our e-mails, but the dial-up connection was very slow...

21/10 Dieppe Festival Juke Box: Nice venue though the stage manager was smoking the largest joint I ever saw. It seems like all the French are smoking a lot of weed.

22-23/10: 3 off days in Paris. What a beautiful city. It was wonderful to be back!

24/10 Paris Le cafe de la Danse: After a few days off in the “ city of love“ we played a really great concert and the crowd was really into the music. We also saw this amazing band from Belgium “ Das Pop “ They played it real cool!

During the days off our managers and Asu did a heavy pub crawl in the famous red light district Pigalle. Actually they got so drunk and stupid, that they went into several stores and fun houses. Yebo stole an enormous vibrator from a hardcore sex shop. I was told that he carried it in his pants!!! I'm sure they had a great time. The other off days were also used for shopping a lot, records, clothes and we went to several tourist attractions and made a few interviews. Nice to have some days off...!

25/10 Nantes L´Algodon: this was a very small venue. The stage wasn't more than 12 M2 and it was triangular. The only way we could fit on stage was in this stupid line, like the 50´s bands. We just missed the moves. It must have been really funny to watch. This day was the 5th day with chicken for dinner. Bjarke, Thomas T, Asu and Thomas C went out for something else. They got a “Le Salade Bizarre” (nickname for a pretty bizarre salad).

26/10 Tulle Festival Oh les Choeurs: Very nice city surrounded by hills and a river. When we arrived it was like 25 C and sunshine. The venue was great, we had a great stage sound. Thanks to the stoned stage manager. It seems like the further south we are getting the more unknown we are. It was almost like the start in Denmark when nobody knew us. Bjarke, Yebo, Laurent and me went to a laundromat to do some washing. We were told that we could leave it and pick it up before 9 PM. We went there 8PM guess what...Yep! no man and worst of all, no laundry. The festival did some work and we got it back in the morning before we left. After the show Thomas C and I was drinking a lot backstage and the other bands was also very drunk. At 4 AM they began to trash the backstage area with a football. This was also the day where Thomas C got his hearing back. He had some strange alien alike in his ears so eventually he had the opportunity to see a doctor...

27/10 Lyon Le Ninkasi: Probably the worst place we ever played and we will for sure never return. They had a limit of 95 DB and that's impossible to stay under. So listen up we will never do another show in such a place...actually they had their own brewery and they made a great beer!!!!

Thomas Troelsen, 31th of October - Halloween Night:
I think the tour so far has been a success and we’ve got very good response on all the concerts. The only problem is that a new EU dictated law forced the venues in France (and in the future the rest of EU countries) to play under 105 db! From my point of view this is simply NOT possible for medium sized venues and it will be very difficult to get good sound in the future. When I go to a concert I expect the sound to be loud and punchy and I’ll probably never enjoy rock concerts (that has to be loud) unless the venue has a huge range of speakers placed in it.

We had two wonderful days off in Paris where I went shopping records and gadgets and we also had one of the best show there.

Our shows only last for approx. 1h 15m so there is a lot of time to kill. We always go see the cities that we visit but most of the time we sit in our tour bus playing Nintendo, cards and watching tv: Woody Allen: Play It Again Sam and Manhattan Murder Mystery, Austin Powers, a lot of Simpsons shows, David Lynch: Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twisted Sisters Live Concert, Stenbroens Helte, Friends and of course the ultimate ‘on the road’ movie Spinal Tap!

So as you might imagine – we’re having a lot of fun on the road here in France and sadly we’ll already be home in only 4 days.

Asger Tarpgaard, 4th of November:
Clermont Ferrand on 28th was cool. We played right after a guy called Mano Solo had played on another stage. Nice city surrounded by a couple of vulcanos.

The 29th was an off day in Bordeaux. Its pretty far south and the weather was great! The next morning we went to the beach. We had to walk a big sand mountain (the biggest in Europe – 115 m) and we thought we couldn’t make it, but of course we did (just look at our band name!). It was nice with a little taste of summer. We were bathing and building dams and stuff in the sand... just when we were children. The concert at Le Cat was fine though the monitor guy was enormously stoned, so he was worth nothing. In generally French connected to music venues smoke very much and apperently not everyone gets better doing his or her job.

The Colmar and St. Quentin festivals on 1st and 2nd of November were OK. Not really anything to write home about. Great treatment, nice food...

The last concert: the 3rd we should play in Vendome at Festival Rockomotives. What a fine night!!! Lovely audience! After the concert we celebrated the fact that it had been a great tour. People got so terribly drunk. Unfortunately we had to begin the long drive home so couldn’t stay that long. Bus driving and booze isn’t always a good combination: Bjarke fell out of the bus on his way up and started talking to his shoes, and Lars woke up and had to puked all over the bus. The next day (today!!) people were so hung over and wouldn’t believe your eyes, and to make everything worse we had to kill 8 hours in Essen, Germany, because our driver Leif had to sleep. We ended up renting a hotel room and watching German boring TV. Back in the bus we watched yet another movie, went to sleep and BOING – we are back in wonderful Copenhagen

..

Here you can see our tour bus and the mad driver, Leif unloading some stuff!

Love, Superheroes

On Saturday April 15th we gathered in Kastrup Airport. Our destination was London! A very big thing had happened.... The Man Himself - The King - The Godfather of Us All - Mr. Jon Fucking Spencer and Mrs. Christina Martinez had asked us to play with Boss Hog on the North European leg of their tour. Without hesitation we accepted the offer, scraped together a bit of the ol' cash, said bye to family and friends and found ourselves there at the airport of Copenhagen.

Right from the start, this week of our lives turned out to be very interesting, a week where we learned a lot about ourselves and - even more so - a lot about eachother! When the plane took off from Copenhagen, 5 happy people leaned back and enjoyed themselves. The only problem being that we had booked 6 tickets for this flight, and this is where Per Sunding enters the equation - and he will do so many times in this story. Per Sunding aka "The Swede" did not make the plane!!!! Curiously, nobody had the slightest idea where he was.

An hour and a half later we found ourselves in Heathrow - one bassist short - in dire need of a fucking Pint! Per arrived on the next plane and we spent the rest of the evening under the influence of alcohol! At this point I have to point out, that none of us has ever been the object of such a quick flow of nick names as did Per aka "Verschwunding" aka "Liget i Øresund" aka "Øresunding" aka "The Psychopath"....

On monday the 17th we were on stage in London - the first gig on the tour. London Astoria 2 was packed with eager Englishmen and ladies, and they got their Pounds worth. A Team of Tremolo in very good form entered the stage in such a fucking wild manner that even the most boring Limey bastard had to succumb to our charm and enthusiasm! In other words.... We kicked the ass of the Brits! Boss Hog did a nice show too, but anyone that had just witnessed a killer Tremolophonic outburst knows that.... need I say more?

As we sat on the plane to Amsterdam the next morning, we again had to realize the astounding genius of Per

Sunding. During the night he had lost his suitcase and all his treasured belongings in a taxi cab in London! As we flew over the English Channel we were in a hung over state of euphoria, and we had to take to the small bottles of Wine (Swine) the Brittish Airways so generously distribute to perverts like us. After all this is the patented Sune Wagner cure for heavy hang overs!

When we arrived in Amsterdam we were pretty inebriated and it was just after Noon. Amsterdam was so inviting in the nice spring sunshine, that Yebo had to do the only right thing to do: Order 5 big Heineken, which we enjoyed at the airport. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the town square near the Melkweg venue, where we had more beers and exotic Dutch dishes such as Garnalen and Lapping.

The Show that night was once more an actionpacked megasucces and the stoned Dutch audience witnessed a show of the most delicious kind! After the concert Jengo and Yebo got a crash course in the local herbs and stole 2 double whopper meals at the nearby Kurger Bing.

Once again, very very early the next morning, we sat in a plane. This time heading for ol' CPH. We had a few hours in Copenhagen to get some strings and Yebos drums and some new "Surfer Girl" t-shirts. Unfortunately we were not playing in Copenhagen, as Boss Hog had booked the only Scandi gig in Malmö, where Per was on solid ground on his own turf .... NOT! The Swedes chose to stay home and... and ... what the hell do we know? KB wasn't even half full and we played a

half shabby gig - and

the audience loved it

anyway! Leaving all that aside we ended up back home in copenhagen at Hong Kong in Nyhavn dancing and drinking

like crazy!

The Beer Gut had flown enough, and the next day Sunding picked us up in a top notch Swedish car with OK leg space - and he even got there on time!!!!! Rud - our main man - joined the group as driver, and we set out for Hamburg loaded with buckets of high spirits and a few bottles of Swine!

In Hamburg 2 hard core Tremolo-fans Heike and Crille (we love ya) had arranged a big The Tremolo Beer Hog After Party.
The German audience showed to be very supportive even before the show, and - o! - what a wonderful show! The Markthalle was filled with cool Germans on this evening (Hitlers Birthday as it turned out - we thought of a lot of Hitler jokes but decided against using them...). We felt success in the air as we entered the stage with a bang, and our expectations of the Germans came true: they were chocked and shaken as you can understand. They especially loved our respectful version of Kraftwerk's "Das Modell" and also the cover of Sonic Youth's "Death Valley '69". Christina Martinez from Boss Hog had promised to do this song with us, but didn't make our show, but we got our revenge the night after in Berlin!

Boss Hog did their very best show in Hamburg and there were plenty of reasons for a intensive night "On the Bottle" at our very own party at the

Repperbahn: The Tremolo Beer Hog After Party. The Germans were certainly not shy about putting a lot of booze into their cocktails. We all mingled with Spencer and Co. and had a terrific time at the dance floor and on the tables!

Man of the day must be Yebo who passed out on the edge of his bed after a delinquent visit to a Türkish Döner Shop - almost naked in his shorts and with his pants hanging from his right foot. A perfect end to a fabulous night!

Berlin - last gig on the tour (for our part) - turned out to be in a league of it's own. After a 20 minute version of "Death Valley '69" where Christina once again "didn't make it" to the stage, we had to see ourselves beat... we thought. But when Boss Hog ended their encores under heavy applause, the audience refused to stop clapping and cheering even though the houselights went on, and they put a tape on the PA. After 15 minutes of this, we realized we HAD to go back BOTH bands and do the long awaited version of "Death Valley". Spencer chose to do the front of the house sound on the superior constellation of The TBG featuring Hollis and Christina on vocals, Mark on keyborads and Jens watching from the side - smiling (for once!!!).

And - O! - what a magnificent version we did, an orgy of all the rules of noise, a pearl, no less! Sonic Youth would have been proud as popes had they witnessed such an intimate, intense masterpiece, lasting half an hour. [The last bit is in Danish as it is not translatable] Lydeffekter fløj som de fucking for vildeste kamikazepiloter rundt i salen, det var - i ordets egentlige forstand den fucking for vildeste optur siden farmor døde!!!

by Sune Wagner

We - the merry men of tothe International - have always had a weak spot for the Swedish band Dipper. In the past we have played and toured together many a jolly old time, and we seem to fit together perfectly both as bands and as people.

We all remember legendary back stage parties such as the one in Haderslev where we had a lemon jello fight and everybody lost their pants, Dipster Jochim Leksell got buck naked and Smartin put a rose through his penis (his own penis!). God damn, those were the days.

Well, as Tothe was setting out to play some Danish dates after the release of our latest album "The Slow Light Thory" we of course asked Dipper to tour with us again. And it turned out to be a great idea!

We played some truely great shows all over Denmark and got pretty damned drunk and hung out 'till 67 in the morning and promised each other that we would never part, and that we have to do a record together (maybe/maybe not called: They Might Be Joints or Berberi StressAnd or just Backstreet Bajs). The only problem I have doing a diary about all this, is the simple fact that it's pretty blurry... what happened first and then what...? From the first leg of the tour I just remember fun fun fun 'till my daddy takes my T-Bird away.

So on the next leg of the Interdeepshitional action man tour I brought my trusty camera (Where's my camera? Instant camera?), so the pictures could revive my memory - and they sure did.

THE BEST AFTER PARTY ON THE TOUR!
The last week end we played 2 shows. The first was at Rytmeposten in Odense. A really cool place where the audience is always nice, interested listeners who's not afraid to drink a beer or two. On top of this they have the nice local Albani Brew that both Dipper and Tothe has grown quite fond of.

This friday night a good crowd of people had decided to come out and listen to some loud and groovy music, and we gave them just that.

Dipper opened with a set of their action packed new wave punk garage whatchammacallit-songs and leadsinger Joachim (by tothe dubbed Jolle XL - which meanse Extra Large Joint in Swedish) thrilled everybody with his bag of stage tricks such as the old beer-masturmation, the rattlesnake-gymnastics and a generally nice and spastic performance. 

After that we gave it our best shot to live up to the magic of Dipper, and I think we came close (I even did an oral theremin-solo an "Midnite & the Medicine"). When the koncerts were over, we hung out with the friendly people of Odense and drank quite a few of the Odense Pils + some vodka and Martini we'd bought. Don't know why, don't know how, but everybody was in a relly exceptional mood, and it turned out to be the best after party I can recall for a long time!

First row: Magnus, Show, Yebo, Nalna, second row: Patrick (Pot-drik) and Matt, and behind us - ready to mount the pyramid: Tor, Jolle XL and Scary

At the height of the party, Tothe and Dipper decided to symbolize our brotherhood by a human pyramid. Although the picture doesn't show it, we actually succeeded in doing it! But as everybody was pretty damned inebriated at the time the pyramid was swaying back and forth, and when it suddenly broke down, Mr. Harri Kolari (Scary Kolary) of Dipper fell down and twisted my foot. THIS HURT LIKE HELL!!!

We quickly got a lot of ice to relieve the agonizing pain I was feeling through all the Odense Pils, vodka and Martini, and it helped a whole lot!

Martini straight up and a foot on ice!

And then the party took off!

THE VEJLE SHOW! 
Oh yes. The next morning did come, and we all felt pretty bad. Especially me with the foot and all. I couldn't walk on it and had to go to the emergency room at the hospital in Vejle - the next stop on the tour. No bones were broken, but it still hurt quite a bit.

The night in Vejle turned out to be quite different (apart from the drinking) as almost no people came out to the show. This didn't stop Dipper from giving another one of their super cool koncerts. Those guys just rock so friggin' hard! 



After Dippers inspiring performance it was a joy to go on stage with Tothe, and it turned out to be a really fine gig for us too. We didn't hold anything back and just played our asses off. I of course had to watch "the foot", but still managed to play...

Only embarrasing moment from the show? After the set, the rest of the band left the stage for the ritual "encore"... well, not being able to walk very well, I decided to just hide behind the drums, so I didn't have to climb off and onstage... A good idea, I thight... But the other guys didn't notice this (or else they were just plain evil) and wouldn't go back onstage because I was missing (they thought I went out to pee). So all this time I was squating on the floor behind the drums, and the damned bastards didn't bother to come back for encores. 







Finally I had to just face the embarrassment and call out to the guys where I was, and everybody had a jolly good laugh at my expense... Yeah.. and that's that.

They of course got a snapshot of it...