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epo-555 and PowerSolo tellin' it like it is
As
promised here are the honest to Thor true accounts from Mikkel Max and
Kim Kix about the Crunchy Frog all star journey to Reykjavik and New
York City. Max and Kix from epo and PowerSolo respectively divulge
their thrills, chills and spills from both continents and a vulcanic
island in between. A sordid but interesting tale laced with Vodka
Lemonade and Rock and/or Roll. Read it and weep (if you weren't there
yourself).
(Just to set the chronology and facts straight: PowerSolo
and epo-555 like the royal family took seperat planes. Therefore
PowerSolo arrived in Reykjavik and New York a day before epo.)
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Thursday October 7th
Kim Kix:
Thursday the 7th. Oct. Bo and I boarded the ferry boat to Zealand as we
were heading for Papa’s (The Great Nalna) place to hook up with him and
eat a good roast pork sandwich before driving to the Copenhagen
Airport. We met with Jens, Yebo and Jessica and boarded the plane to
Reykjavik.
A quick 2 ½ hour flight, a couple of drinks and a plastic
meal. Of course the meal consisted of 96,3% cheese and only 3,7% non
lethal products.
We arrived to Reykjavik in the evening. It was really
cold so we were all happy to see Thor’s apartment (Thor was our great
Icelandic host). We’d bought some bottles of wine and a flask of
Tennessee for Thor, but we ended up drinking all of it and hit the bed
way too late (early?) around 5 in the morn. Didn’t see anything of the
Great Iceland…. But! We had some of that dried fish.
HWUUAaaaahh!!!!!????
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 PowerSolo
and the Crunchy chaperones (Yebo, Nalna and Jessi) doing an interview
with the major Icelandic newspaper Morgunbladid on the stop over in
Reykjavik to hype the show the next week.
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Friday October 8th
Kim Kix:
At 7 O’clock we landed at JFK airport in New York. We were all a bit
busted after the flight so it was really nice to answer 584 questions
and have two fingers in you asshole at the US-immigration. Papa, Bo and
I had a pretty wet flight. In lack of good food we’d ordered good wine
instead. There was a stupid movie on the screen which we didn’t see and
to avoid getting a numb ass and getting too bored – advice no. 1 is:
Alcohol.
One of the stewardesses reminded us at a time that we’d already
had ordered 18 bottles – we told her that we were nervous of flying so
we ordered three more and that was it.
We checked in at the Sohotel (Soho) and headed for some
schweinbrat. The heavy brothers (Papa & Yebo) recommended the Great
Jones bar and restaurant. Having been regular customers there for more
than six years they should know. We all had some bar-b-q, chicken and
pork. And after the very delicious meal we drank some of the great
Jones Vodka Lemon (80% vodka 10% lemon, the rest is in your head!!!).
Aaaaahhh they sure can make goooood drinks at Jones – my new favourite
place!!!
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 The first night in NYC at Jones. A couple-a-beers and then straight on the vodka lemon!
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Saturday October 9th
Mikkel Max:
Having spend an intoxicating night at our Icelandic friend’s in
Reykjavik we arrived in New York City and headed straight to the bar in
which the Frogs and Powersolo had been studying the drinks’ menu
intensely for a day only to discover that Powersolo had gone home,
drunk and unsavoury and the Frog and Frogette were toasted, roasted and
boasted. We were soon to learn why: Great Jones’ Vodka Lemonade. The
most nutritious drink in the world, the diamond dew on naked virgins’
nipples, oh yes, and it is through the lense of this monkey business
that the tour is to be viewed.
Kim Kix: Having two days to spend before the first
show at Pianos we thanked the Lord for giving us jetlags. Both Saturday
and Sunday we woke up at 6 am. Except Jens of course, he can sleep
anytime anywhere, ha, ha. Oh… I almost forgot that we spent the
Saturday night at the Great Jones again. Only this time we never got
anything to eat. When we got there, we went to the bar as we were
waiting for Jens who was buying a new pair of slacks. We didn’t even
have to wave before the bartender slammed three Margaritas on the desk.
We thought: WOW! He’s nice, offering drinks while we’re waiting for a
table. We fools, the bartender excused that he’d make us believe the
drinks were free. He just thought that it was our ordering. What the
hell – he picks a drink for us, we’re gonna finish it. But when you
start with margaritas at the Great Jones Bar and Restaurant you finish
with margaritas. So in the first hour Papa, Bo, Jens and I had four
drinks each.( Jones margarita: 80% Tequila (good tequila), 10%
Cointreau, 9% lemon. The rest is in your brain). By the time Jessica
and Yebo came we were all completely pissed drunk. I think we ordered
some hot wings and a couple more drinks – but around 8 pm I was too
fucking drunk to talk or to smile, so I just took off in running pace
towards the Sohotel where I threw up and went straight to bed, ha, ha…
Jesus. What a fucking night. Bo fell off the bar stool half an hour
after I left. He was even more drunk than I was and Papa was worried
that Bo wouldn’t make it to the hotel, so he walked him home, leaving
Jens to pay the last drinks and the hot wings. Poor guy, we owe him one
I guess.
Mikkel Max: OK, Saturday, arrival. We got ripped
off in a taxi bringing us to Brooklyn and then Manhattans Lower East
Side. $130. Phew! But then again, we weren’t paying for the cool
apartment that we were borrowing for a week. Ron Pompei, the owner whom
we’ve never met, had been so kind as to show us complete and utter
confidence. Unpacked and ran to the bar. The Solos had gone, but that
just left us with more drinks to exterminate, digest and forget about.
Vodka Lemonade, you evil friend.
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 Back
at Jones again. Here's the bartender preparing a line of stroooong
Margaritas. And Bo after a lot of these, collapsing on the bench
outside. Another great saturday night on the ol' bottle in NYC...
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Sunday October 10th
Kim Kix:
Sunday morning Bo, Papa and I woke up at 6 am. Again! By 6.30 we were
walking on the Manhattan Bridge. The weather was really nice and the
city was still asleep. Walking around Soho, NYC at this time of day is
really special. It’s so calm that it is almost spooky, but you get to
see the city in a whole different way. When you watch the people… It’s
like one of those zombie movies where the living dead walk in the
streets in slow motion….MWAAAAooorrg!!?. Anyway we walked the whole way
to Brooklyn and had breakfast there. Killer breakfast I must say. Steak
and eggs and lots of (weak) coffee.
After a smoke and a break, we walked over the historical
Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. What a building. I saw a documentary
on making of the bridge a few weeks ago, and it really impressed me how
detailed it is when you come close to it. Many workers lost their lives
in the pressure chambers under the water during the building period. It
must without doubt have been one of NYC biggest construction
achievements in the city’s history.
After that Papa wanted to show us Jeremy’s Alehouse, Lower East
Side I think. A place where you get the biggest and heaviest drafts in
NYC. Unfortunately it was closed.
Then we took a stroll up Wall Street to Ground Zero.
In
the afternoon we went out to put posters for the Piano’s show the next
day. After hard work we rewarded ourselves with a visit at NYC
swampiest bar. The Mars Bar. One little rectangular room with a wooden
bar desk with messages, names and dirty words carved in the wood and a
big sign saying: “My bush would make a better president”, and of
course, the VERY cheap Tennessee. They had a jukebox with all the
Railthin’ Bros’ (Bo & I) favorites. The Cramps, Hank Williams, Dead
Kennedy’s and even Thin Lizzi, ha, ha… Jens kept on playin’ a TL song
over and over again and it pissed off the other costumers pretty much.
To my joy there was a Godless Wicked Creeps record (my former band) in
the juke. Someone had picked the “Sound of Speed” song from the
Hystereo album.
Mikkel Max: Sunday…hmmm…late breakfast at Katz
where some apparently highly skilled actress once faked an orgasm.
Maybe because of the enormous amount of sausages and syrup that left
our poor stomachs in doubt of the reason to live. We met Yebo and
Jessie, los Froggies Supremos, who demanded that we be their slaves for
a day. Naturally, we complied and left all of East Village wrapped in
posters of our drop-in-the-ocean concerts so as to leave no doubt of
our extreme sexiness. We love it! To show our gratitude we joined hands
and mouths with our masters and the PowerLocos at Legendary Carmine's
where the plates are bigger than sombreros and more loaded with food
than monkeys in heaven. This, of course, was beautifully garnished with
a fine twist of that adorable lemonade at Great Jones’.
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 Jessi,
Bo and Kim partying down at The Mars Bar at their cool jukeboxxx. The
Solo stayed all day and later got into a fight at their hotel room.
Much later in the evening it was time for (more) drinks and a fabulous
dinner at Carmine's where the Manhattan's are good and healthy.
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Monday October 11th
Mikkel Max:
Right, so Monday was our first day of real work. Pianos’ in Ludlow
Street 5 min. away from our apartment was the target. Everything was
bound to be dead easy. Like peaches in cream. Like butter on corn on
cobs. Like cows in the barn. Ok, first the keyboard won't work; refuses
to, in short. It turns out that airport security had dismantled all of
Camilla’s gear and given it a “proper” treatment. After all, a neatly
reassembled keyboard might jeopardize the safety of the land of the
free. We fixed it like the true mechanics we’ve always been. Of course,
we would have to have European voltage power. But the bastardos in NY
left evil barriers to our true hero, Doc. Yebo. So he was late. And the
band that was to warm up the coldness of the club stole, say, pretty
much all of the time to test the sound, and every sound engineer in the
world knows that we in the band are maddeningly time demanding, due to
our complexity, some say. So, no sound check for us. However, these are
merely bad excuses for our rude behaviour. Suffice to say that we
played hmmm…a job that was…forgettable. Yes. No more no less. Plain
boring. Not bad, but…well.
Kim Kix: The day of the first show at Pianos,
Soho. It was going to be exciting to see how many people would show up.
It was the Crunchy Frog label showcase so many label/business people
were invited to the show. The line up was first, The Burning Primitive,
then PowerOslo and epo-555, then after that a late showcase with some
horrible shit. One beer ticket per person is what you get there, so a
good advice is to keep that ticket in your pocket until you’re broke.
The shows went well. We kicked the devils ass once again
and got new fans and a couple of enemies. Yebo and Jessi talked to a
bunch of suits. But none of them was waving a check. At least not a
valid one, ha, ha… Maybe there were 60 people all in all, and that’s
pretty good for a Monday I guess. So a good night it was. Later Papa
and I headed for the Great Jones. It was a really nice and quiet
evening there. We had a couple of margaritas and we got to meet and say
hi to Mark Eyeball (former Pavement bass player) who was working there.
Nice guy.
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Tuesday October 12th
Mikkel Max:
Tuesday lies in blur. Everybody went around like ants looking at the
wonders of NYC. Ebbe and Manja wanted to see Central Park and walked
from Empire State Building and south for two straight hours before I
met them and set them straight. OK, I know that not everyone can know
where things are in the City of Monkeys but they had a map and a
compass and Central Park is probably the single biggest thing in New
York and the streets are divided into 1st, 2nd, 3rd street and so
forth. They’re so sweet but damn…I’m happy that Ebbe is on a chair for
our concerts. OK, enough of that mocking business. I myself managed to
get my Visa Card maxed out that day which is not advisable in the City
of Loads of Goodies so I shouldn’t be teasing. We had Indian food for
dinner.
Kim Kix: Day off. I had some huge hangovers that
day and the rest of the guys weren’t too alive either. We decided it
was gonna be a no booze day. I spent most of the day at the hotel. I
really needed to catch up a bit. Jens, Bo and Papa did some sightseeing
around Manhattan. They went up the Empire State Building after qeueing
for an hour and a half. They told they couldn’t see much because of the
fog or the mist or whatever. Anyway I think they probably had a much
much better afternoon than I had.
At the hotel we decided to go out and have a good steak. There was a restaurant guide in Jens’
“Welcome
to NYC” book that was called Gallagher’s. An old famous restaurant,
near Time Square and the Ed Sullivan Theatre. So we pretty much knew
that it was gonna cost a fortune. Gallagher’s is an old restaurant
since the 30’ies with a hall of fame known for it’s well hung T-bones
and it’s long list of famous sportsmen and women, politicians,
gangsters and movie stars who’s visited the place through out the
years. We all had a 500 gram T-bone steak with mashed potatoes and
mushrooms. It was a heavenly meal, and… yes! It cost a fortune to eat
there but it was worth it.
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 Manja, Ebbe and Tha Milla having a bit of a wee drink on the off day. Every chance they get...
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Wednesday October 13th
Kim Kix:
First day of the CMJ Music Marathon and second show for epo-555 and
PowerSolo in the Empire State. The Crunchy showcase was to take place
at the legendary Knitting Factory on lower east Manhattan. A big venue
with three stages, on three different levels. We were playing in the
smallest (100+ capacity). Kind of a dungeon but pretty cool with a
shitty PA or almost none. We decided not to do any sound check before
the show as it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Worse for epo-666
who are really depending on good monitoring, they have an in-ear
monitor system which they keep forgetting in a bag all the time, but
when they have them it apparently works.
This night was a two beer ticket night – so it was gonna
be alright. Yeah! We felt good and were ready to kick some butt. Jens,
Bo and I had a good Mexican meal. Burritos, beans, burgers and chili.
Just lay a good bottom before the show and the drinks.
emu-555 were starting the show at 8.00pm – it was gonna
be exciting to see how many would show up. Fred Schneider of B52’s was
there. He knows Yebo from when he was drumming in Junior Senior. Fred
is a nice guy and he really hates Bush. No surprise. 8.00pm there’s
about 30 people in the room. ebo-555 starts playing and people start
coming in. eros-555 has a surprisingly good sound. Jesper (epo’s sound
guy) must have been pulling hair during their 1 ½ hour sound check. But
it worked and people, about 50+ were having a good time. So did
epo-5555.
Mikkel Max: Energy is what comes of a boring
concert. That is for us. If we’ve done something that we’re not too
proud of we’ll of course want to prove that we are better than that.
And Wednesday was no exception. We were going to play at the legendary
Knitting Factory. How cool is that? Very! And Frog and Frogette had
been working like neat little vibrating pleasers to heave the very
best, cool and powerful people to the show. And who did we have to
beat? Well, there was another show in town. The last debate between
Trigger boy and Mr. Kerry…but hey, we’re almost a bit known in Denmark
so why not? And I’ll be damned! People did show up and the ones who did
got what they came for and then some. It was a night of glory and of
heavy drinking. Of shaking hands with some of the coolest people in the
whole wide world. Of more drinking. Of getting home somehow. After
Vodka Lemonade at Jones’? I can’t remember. I seriously can’t remember.
Kim Kix: 8.45pm. 15 min. change over. 9.00pm. DONE!
Rock’n’roll!!!! Playing backline equipment only. No front! First song
was Baby You Ain’t Looking Right. I felt like this was gonna be the
night of no return. I was sweating after the first song. That’s usually
a good sign. The Atomic Child had this frantic look in he’s eyes, so I
knew he was pure TNT. JC Benz was bent over his drum set, kickin’ and
pounding like lobster in boiling water. Papa probably did one of his
best soundman performances ever for PowerSoen. He couldn’t control
anything from the deck so he was running back and forward every time
there was a guitar part that had to be louder and turn the volume up on
the amps. It was really funny ‘cause the stage was only 2 x 4 meters
large. We played a very tight 40 minutes show. Too short if you ask me,
I like it at least 50 or 55 minutes ‘cause I get warm after 15 min. hot
at 35 min. I ignite at 50 and explode at 51 minutes in the show…. the
time schedule was very tight, so that’s the way it was but people
really got into it.
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Thursday October 14th
Mikkel Max:
Thursday…the last night in the land of Donkeys. And what did we do? We
took the ferry to Staten Island and back because it’s just about the
only free thing to do in New York and we were getting as poor on money
as Europe on foreign policy. But hey…it was the last night, so we
closed our eyes on monetary facts and had a wonderful dinner at Acme
with the Powertools and the heavenly blessed Yebsica. Plenty of ribs,
chicken, beer, drinks, TUNA, hot sauce, smiles and more. And then
where? Of course…Great Jones’ VL…hmmm! For Camilla and Ebbe the night
ended in a freakish party where they had their free vodka-shots poured
from Camilla’s high heel shoes.
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Friday October 15th
Mikkel Max:: Transportation is boring and even more boring to write about.
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 Finally
back in Reykjavik on the way home from NYC. Here we have the Railthin
Chickens and the Brotherman in front of the venue Grand Rokk.
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Saturday October 16th
Kim Kix:
We flew from NYC at 8.00pm and landed in Reykjavik at 6am. Thor (our
fantastic host) picked us up and drove us to his place. We went to bed
early so to speak, but it was really important to get a couple of hours
before the sound checks and all that.In the evening Thor had arranged a
big Icelandic bar-b-q for us all. His uncle had helped him slaughter a
lamb. He’d chopped it up and marinated it early in the morning so that
it was ready to cook in the evening. I never tasted so delicious lamb
before in my life, we had many bottles of good wine and there was
enough beer and whiskey too. It was the best start on an evening that
was going to by legendary.
We had done interviews with the national newspapers and
radio so the show was well exposed. Grand Rokk is a real cool venue
with two bars, one down stairs and one upstairs inside the venue. This
was the first night on the tour we got free beer. Woohoo!
There was a support band called Dikta, then epo-555 and then
us.Very nice guys those Diktas. They provided full backline. Thank you
again for that!
The shows in Reykjavik are usually very late and no different on
this night. Diktas started at 11.30 and epo-565 at 12.30 and then us at
2.00 am. We had a special treat for the Icelandic people that night,
but it was all stopped before it began by our label, earlier in the
evening when somebody had leaked top secret information from the
Powerso inner circle.
Fuck! Our plan was to dress up SM muscle homo style – leather
suits and rivets and big oily boots, (that’s what people want!!) but
unfortunately Crunchy Cock didn’t let our artistic freedom untouched.
Mikkel Max: We slept on the plane. And when we got
to Reykjavik we slept some more. When we woke up we went straight to
Grand Rokk to make the sound check, which proved to us that we are not
the only ones that sometimes need a bit of time to make our sound
tolerable. Powersolo spend nearly two hours which again meant that we
had to wait intolerably long to get to the Lamb BBQ Supreme that Thor,
our Icelandic God had slaughtered with a sabre of lava.
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Mikkel Max:
OK, maybe the missing house sound engineer had something to do with the
delay too, but harassing Powersolo about being sissies must be the
meaning of life. The one that our sausages and syrup in Katz had
disturbed so well. What is left to say? Well, the job in the club went
absolutely schmungoodilligood. I believe we showed the Icelandic people
that music does not only derive from cold islands.
Kim Kix: Well, I’m not gonna review the shows, but
I can tell you that we were fuckin’ good. The venue was full and the
audience was sweating, drinking, yelling, laughing and moaning. The
owner of the club kept serving us beer so that at a given time JC, Bo
and I had four or five beers each. So we started poring beer to the
people. We played a 1 hour 45 min. set and it got crazier and crazier.
We even did two brand new improvisations – a boogie and some offbeat
blues fucker tune. When we played “Party In A Box” Yebo came up and
started playing the floor tom along side with JC. The room was boiling.
I remember thinking that if some crazy girl from the crowd would jump
on me and start sucking my dick, she would drown in balls-sweat..!
We did the “Juanito” song a second time on request from
the owner. He said “- If you play Juanito one more time for me, I’ll
book you again in December and I’ll pay well!-“ So we just played the
fuck outta Juanito one more time (we’re in it for the money!). We
played an Extreme Living Room version and I threw my guitar on the
floor and started undressing while two or three ice cold Reykjavik
chicks started licking my salty torso. Bo and Jens just took it to
hell! We all exploded in “Mean Ole Cat”, the last song. BOOM!
WE LOVE ICELAND!!!?
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Sunday October 17th
Mikkel Max:
That’s it. We’re back. It’s weird. Denmark is definitely not New York
City and most certainly not Reykjavik. But we brought home a tiny bit
of every place in our memories. Isn’t that nice?
Kim Kix: It’s been really good days and if Crunchy ask us to do it again, we’ll probably say: “-…OK…“
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--- and here from Crunchy HQ let's once again clap our hands in honour of Icelandair who gave us wings to cross the oceans and supply both the Vikings and the Yankees with some crisp sounds.
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