9/30-10/2: Hell, Trondheim, Oslo, Gothenburg

On our way to Trondheim we stopped in Hell, a small Norwegian town just across the Swedish border. It was incredible how drastically the landscaped changed once we got to Norway with beautiful mountain landscapes and trickling waterfalls. And then there was Hell. A small town with a grocery store, a train station and a little building bearing the sign “GODS EXPEDITION” which I guess is a typical sign to see at train stations because it translates to “expedition goods,” but in Hell it was quite harrowing. I felt a strange sensation come over me standing at the grocery store in Hell, and felt I had to do something criminal, so I stole some postcards and then feared that we would be cursed for the rest of the trip, but we weren’t.

We played a really cool show in an apartment and walked around Trondheim, where they too have a squatted neighborhood. Unlike Kristania, the squats in Trondheim are political and they have a collectively run bar, cafe, record store, infoshop and a couple housing projects. In Oslo, we played at a DJ night for a local all women run radio station at a cool DIY venue. The radio station is run out of a space called Blitz which is a permitted squat with a cafe, show space and infoshop, that the city recently renovated for free. It was funny to compare pictures of the building before the renovation when it had been painted all black and covered in graffiti to the sterilized white paint over the city had done. Still you can’t complain when the city pours millions of kronos into your anarchist social center, and they took the fresh canvas as an opportunity to invite artists from the Palestinian liberation movement, Zapatistas, the Kenyan queer movement, and Italian anti-fascists to come and paint murals!

In Gothenburg, I finally played a street punk show! It went better than I expected, and after the show a skinhead with an “oi!” tattoo gave me a hug. In Gothenburg the punks apparently buy full bottles of some liquor that’s meant to be drank in small portions before dinner as an appetite stimulator, and chug them giving their inevitable puke a bright red color. We’re told it’s what the Gothenburg punk scene is famous for, and indeed we witnessed red vomit left and right. One of these hurlers enlightened me to the truth about how Bush orchestrated 9/11 before he spilled his guts on the sidewalk. Notably, this show was the second that I’ve played that took place in a former office building, and the hallways still had a strange sterile feel to them.

Gothenburg was our last show with Lycka Till who we’d come to love for their understated Swedish humor and raucus musical spunk. One funny story about them is that one of their songs is about a anti-labor, pro Palestinian occupation parliament member named Frederick Federley who retains some sort of credibility for being a hip young person of some shit. The song was a nightly favorite for anyone who understood Swedish, and the lyrics to the chorus were roughly translated as “You’d be better off dead, I curse the day you were born. Out of some twist of justice Frederick Federley found out about the song and whined about it on his blog, which only served to introduce a score of new people to the band! Any press is good press, right?

9/30-10/2: Hell, Trondheim, Oslo, Gothenburg

On the plane to northern Sweden I had a conversation with the woman sitting next to me about Americans’ perceptions of the Swedish. I told her about the insane conservative backlash currently popular in the states, the great fear of socialism and how conservative American pundits scare their audiences (who know shit about social democracies) by telling them that if Barack Obama has his way “we might end up like Sweden!” I also mentioned how Americans generally consider Scandavian people to be especially attractive, and she tied the two points together with an interesting theory: her proposal was that there must be some genetic link to the fact that there are better social programs in Scandavia to the seemingly higher proportion of attractive people there. If social programs are better, she argued, people are less stressed out and therefore better looking.

In spite of obvious holes in the theory, it comforted me briefly, as I’d been a bit disappointed in myself because of how succeptible I’d been to the aryan beauty standard. You could attribute it to American socialization and the high number of Scandanavian models who are imported by the American beauty industry, but as soon as we got to Denmark, Jordan and I were both embarrassed to admit that everywhere we looked we saw beautiful people, men and women equally. For example, In Copenhagen a girl fainted suddenly on the bus. We stopped to wait for an ambulence, and after a few minutes two ruggedly handsome EMT’s rushed on the bus, both of them with muscular model’s builds shown off by tight white tee shirts. They gazed sincerely at the girl (who was really pretty herself) and asked “are you alright? Can you hear me darling?” It was like a scene from a soap opera unfolding in front of us.

When we got to Umea I shared my friend from the plane’s theory with our friend Viktor, and he shot it down immediately. “That’s bullshit that people are less stressed in Sweden! We have the highest suicide rate in the world! You’re so bombarded with this beauty standard from a young age. That’s the only reason people think Scandanavians are more attractive.” He was right. The high suicide rate in Sweden is interesting too. Some people we met attributed it to the idleness of a society where people have so many things provided for them, though I think it’s probably related more to the fact that in the winter there gets to be as little as 3 hours of sunlight a day, and people who work indoors can go a whole week without ever seeing the sun. But hey, I’m no expert.

The show in Umea was easily one of the best of tour – a house show in a town where house shows are extremely rare. From an American perspective, its funny to think that the fact that a show is taking place in house might be the main attraction, especially since the house show circuit in the U.S. sprung up mostly in response to the lack of available venues for underground music. But several of our European friends who had traveled in the U.S. expressed their respect for the U.S. house show scene. They described an admiration for the intimacy of the house show that was lost in squats and venues, and said they thought house shows were often more welcoming and condusive to building relationships and communities than squats where squatters who have developed their own culture can be unwelcoming to outsiders. It’s funny because the same criticism of exclusivity is leveled against punk scenes based around house shows in the states, and the fact that shows are in houses often is seen as alienating by people who are less comfortable with the idea of coming to someone’s private home than a more public setting. The problems of inaccessibility and exclusivity surely transcend the settings that their found in. Nevertheless, I did find myself more comfortable in the house show setting and the fact that 100 or so people crammed into the house didn’t hurt.

One of our shows in Sweden fell through, and we’d already scheduled a couple of off days to break up the long drives in Sweden and Norway, so we ended up staying in Umea for 4 nights which was a nice break. Whatever people say about the “idleness” of Swedish lifestyle didn’t seem like much of a problem, as everyone we met seemed always up for hanging out and working on creative projects. On the first day someone showed up at a house we were hanging out at and solicited Jordan and some others to be filmed for a scene in their music video. The next day we started a Swedish hardcore band, wrote two songs, one that sounded like Motorhead, and one that sounded like Warzone and recorded them with Jordan singing in Swedish. His attempts to pronounce the lyrics as a non-Swedish speaker were described as the ranting of drunk Frenchman, which everyone agreed gave the songs their own character. On the last day, one of our friends made a short movie starring Jordan as a lonely horse. We finally left Umea to drive for a few days with Viktor’s band Lycka Till and drove out to a cabin in Western Sweden that Viktor’s parents own. It was a nice little spot to spend the night, with a word burning stove and a sauna, though it was too cold for any of us to get motivated to use the sauna, so we drank tea and ate spaghetti.

9/25-30: Umea

For a brief few hours in Hamburg we walked through the red light district, surveyed the vast expanses of falafel shops, and played a show at a squatted bar occupied equally by punks and homeless people playing backgammon and foosball, but we had to get up early to catch the train to Copenhagen, so our Hamburg stay was unfortunately limited.

Everyone we talked to in or about Copenhagen told us stories of the old “youth house,” Ungdomshuset Jagtvej 69, a now legendary squatted social center, which had been evicted 2 years earlier in a devious turn of events when the city sold the building to right wing Christian fundamentalists. The event was a strong testament to the power of militant street action, as upon eviction the anarchists in Copenhagen rioted for some three months until eventually the city gave them a bigger building as a replacement. Between the various accounts we heard, we learned that anarchists and squatters from all over Europe had converged in Copenhagen, and after the initial three months, riots continued to break out weekly for several months to come. Various passersby would join in on the riots even if they hadn’t been involved with the squat, and anyone who didn’t know about Ungdomshuset beforehand, knew all about it after. A friend told us he’d be eating at a cafe and he’d look outside and be like “oops, a car on fire… must be a riot today.” Eventually the Copenhagen police called in Swedish officers to help handle the situation, but the victory was clearly in the hands of the squatters. Not only did they get a new bigger building, but the riots were really important for the international squatter scene. In other cities where there was repression against established squats, cities were forced to rethink their stategies out of fear of the precedent set in Copenhagen. On top of it all, when the Christians tore down Ungdomshuset they couldn’t find any contractors to rebuild it because no one wanted to risk having their construction supplies sabotage. The lot still lays vacant, and tags of “69″ (in reference to the youth house’s address) remain all over the city.

Hearing about the riots served as a good lesson about the importance of combining militant street action with establishing meaningful anarchist institutions. The fact that Ungdomshuset had been a center of activity for so many people in Denmark showed how important community investment was to creating a successful militant street action. Almost everyone we met in Scandanavia had at least been there, if they hadn’t had some deeper level of involvement with the space.

I played the new social center, Dortheavej 61, which was unfortunately further from the center in town, but still very active. In addition to two show spaces and an art studio, they had weekly people’s kitchens, free yoga, and an infoshop. We were told to visit the “free state” of Kristania – a walled off neighborhood in the center of Copenhagen, said to be the largest squat in the world. Depending on who we talked to it was described as a utopic inspiring autonomous space, or (and this was more common) a hippy neighborhood where people went to buy weed. It was a cool place to visit and impressive in so much as it’s self-organized and doesn’t pay the taxes or mind the laws of the state, but it did seem that the uniting politic was less in autonomous organization but more a desire to sell pot without being hassled by the cops. Still, I couldn’t imagine anything like it existing in the states, so kudos to Copenhagen.

9/23-24: Hamburg, Copenhagen

We had to catch the bus to Amsterdam by 5 in the morning, and the Strasbourg punks scrambled to formulate a plan to get us to the bus station by 4:30… After much drunken confusion we were offered a ride and we got to the bus stop in time for our 12 hour ride to Amsterdam. There were characters on that bus, though I drifted in and out of sleep all day. Most notable was the eccentric and probably stoned world traveler who the other passengers had dubbed “Einstein,” and “Baby Jesus.” At one point I woke up and Baby Jesus was sleeping in the overhead luggage rack, which I found out later was how the original bassist from Metallica died.

In Amsterdam we asked the first bus driver we found if his bus was going to where we were headed to, and as luck was with us, he was. We got to Joe’s Garage, a squatted storefront that had been evicted at a location across the street, but they’d re-opened after crossing the road and squatting another building and they were having their opening cafe night. The kitchen was run by a group of Israeli anarchists who made incredible food, and I played as after-dinner entertainment along with Dusty Awe who played the next few shows with me. The next night the same crew of cooks put on a people’s kitchen at a different squat in Amsterdam and again I perched on a ledge above the door to perform as after-dinner entertainment. The second squat was a cafe called MKz – part of a permitted complex called Ociii that had a few different buildings including a larger show venue, an infoshop, a bar, and one building I hadn’t expected to find at a squat. We were poking our heads around the pavilion and we peaked into one building to find a bunch of steamy naked people walking around. A worker explained that it was their squatted sauna, and after he found out we were performing at the cafe, he insisted that we come in for a dry sauna, a wet sauna, showers and a cold bath!

Now, I’ve heard conflicting stories about the weed in Amsterdam – everything from how mindblowingly strong it is, to how weak it is because of regulation, to how you can buy a joint that will perfectly fit any mood you’re in. I don’t usually smoke weed, but I thought I should try some in Amsterdam, and quickly fell into what I learned was a typical American tourist folly. After two small tokes of a cheap joint I was STONED TO THE BONE and completely useless for the next several hours. Fortunately, Jordan was sober and he navigated us to the various stops on our map: a queer bookstore with comic books featuring remarkably well endowed superheros and the anarchist bookstore. The worker at the anarchist bookstore was remarkably patient with me as I stammered through a couple disjointed sentences about the international anarchist network. Fortunately he came to the show later and told me he’d understood my situation immediately. “I’ve seen dozens of American bands come over here who I’ve been excited about, and then watch them stagger through their songs, barely able to play, they’re so stoned. At least you were sober enough in time for the show!”

After the show we went to another squat where we heard it was ping pong night. Not expecting much from ping pong night, especially since the squat was only accessible by a remote alleyway that was guarded by someone (who turned out to be the singer from Vitamin X) telling people to be quiet as they entered, we were surprised to find a huge bar with two rooms full of people and ping pong tables and enthusiastic tournaments in action. Our friend Helena, Jordan and I formed an alliance which for lack of a better name we dubbed “Team U.S.A.” We tried our skills against team Amsterdam, and team Japan, and Jordan and Helena both made it to the final round once each. The crowd at ping pong night didn’t seem particularly part of any squatter subculture, which was one of the many examples of how atypically swank the squats in Amsterdam were. Aside from the squatted storefronts, bars, and the sauna, we also met a girl named Rosa who upon introduction invited us to her squat which was directly on waterfront by the canal, and according to her was worth several million dollars if sold!

9/21-22: Amsterdam

In Lyon we arrived at what looked like an unlikely spot for the show – a giant office building. In years past, the squatters in Lyon had come to an arrangement with the city that they could have this building as a social center until it was demolished, at which point they’d get a new building. We wandered the halls looking at show posters for ten minutes before we finally found the people setting up the show. In spite of an incredibly well arranged show supporting the post-punk band Animals & Men, my guitar was suffering from the shifting climates and I played worse than any other show on tour.

Noam and Gilles drove us to Straussburg and then bid us a sad farewell. Here too we discovered that the punks in Straussburg had been given a huge building by the city with which to do as they may. The venue, Molodoi, had been contracted rent free as an underground music venue and infoshop 18 years ago and they were anticipating another 18 year contract on the horizon. I was on the bill with two crust metal bands and two math rock bands, all of whom were great.

Almost everywhere we’ve been in Europe we’ve visited long running sustainable independent music venues. Squats, legalized squats, collectively run venues that are decades old, etc… Compared to the United States, Europe has us well beat out on spaces for underground music. The few American examples are nationally famous in the punk world – Gilman St., ABC No Rio – but in Washington DC for example we’re lucky to have a venue for two years. Just before I left for tour two show spaces and two houses closed or stopped doing shows. In spite of it all, American underground music is still going strong and it’s interesting to see the evidence of it over here. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve met people excited about American music, playing American songs, wearing American band tee shirts. It makes you wonder how American music could be so widely appreciated when we live in a culture that doesn’t in any way nurture spaces for independant music to thrive?

The obvious and surely most accurate answer is that American cultural imperialism has created a USA-centrism that permeates even the smaller crevices of subcultures internationally. But part of it, it could be argued as devil’s advocate or maybe out of a deep seeded patriotic defensiveness, is that maybe American music benefits from its isolation in the same way that some of the best songs were products of depression. Maybe the artist in exile has a greater sense of urgency and it’s in that urgency that the creative impulse grows. Take the birth of jazz and the blues as examples of what kind of brilliant creativity can come out of impoverished conditions… living in the one world superpower is probably the bigger puzzle piece, though the second line of argument does make for a small consolation to the fact that Americans are so utterly lacking in resources to foster underground music compared to our counterparts abroad.

9/19-20: Lyon, Straussburg

We found in France and Spain, that the oft repeated “too soon” no longer applied to 9/11 humor. My September 11th flyer in Paris had brandished planes flying into towers, and the same image was repeated on the wall outside a squat in Barcelona. In Torello I saw someone wearing a tee shirt that I’d seen at a shop in Bordeaux. It was a variation of the popular “I heart New York,” design, but with a 9/11 skyline, planes and all. There’s something admirable about this, but I’m not sure what.

In Vic, a smaller Catalonian town that Ramon grew up in, there is a yearly weekend of outdoor live music. Since Ramon was a teenager he’d been throwing satellite illegal outdoor punk shows every year to coincide with the mainstream festival, and this year was the 10th anniversary. In the past ten years the idea of doing guerilla shows had really caught on, and walking around Vic, it seemed like you couldn’t turn a corner without seeing bands playing. Ramon’s show was the last one of the night – the only competition being someone blasting raver music across the street. In spite of the sonic competition my acoustic songs were met with almost comic enthusiasm by a crowd of people who’d spent the whole day drinking and dancing.

One of the bands playing told me that they didn’t have lyrics to most of their songs, they just sang in gibberish English and no one knew the difference. It was a strange idea, but I suppose most people in Catalonia are used to listening to music in non-native languages, and often don’t know what the singers are saying, if they’re saying anything. Stranger still, I saw some people singing along to this band, which led me to believe that they did have lyrics to their songs, but maybe not – during my set some people who had clearly never heard any of my songs were so enthusiastic that they’d start singing along as soon as they heard a pair of syllables repeated and keep singing them well past the refrain. Taking the lyrical element out of the songs makes for a total different way of appreciating music, where the music can mean anything your imagination wants it to. I remember listening to Os Mutantes and imagining anthems of Brazilian peasant revolts, only to find out later that they were love songs.

It was strange for me being such a lyrical based songwriter to meet this an attitude, especially since the melodic mood of my songs tends to be upbeat, in spite of downbeat lyrics. Even my attempts to breach the language barrier with translations of the lyrics and song explanations weren’t suited for the party-like atmosphere. At one point during a song that’s about avoiding suicide a group of kids formed a circle around me and started doing joyous traditional Spanish dance. I tried my best to roll with it and keep the party going. One promoter I’d e-mailed with had in a way warned me in a way when in response to my request for a show, they wrote back “you want to come to Spain to sing political songs in English to Catalan speakers? OK! Whatever makes you happy.”

9/17-18: Torello, Vic

All stereotypes regarding the Spanish being warm, friendly, and enthusiastic were proven true within our first few hours in Barcelona. We met our host Ramon, at his apartment where he showed me that he’d had some friends of his translate my song explanations into Catalan. I’d sent them to him but hadn’t heard about their progress, so I assumed I wouldn’t have translations in Spain. But we quickly made copies and prepared for the show. “You need copies?” Ramon asked “OK! There’s a copy store around the corner!” We ran there and it was closed. “OK! There’s an internet cafe around the corner! OK! Now we catch the train to the show!” That about describes the pace of the evening.

The show was at a cool little hole in the wall ex-squatted bar, and I was surprised to meet some friends from the DC there. They were playing Catalan Rumba on the PA when we got there, which is a type of music completely local to Barcelona, like DC’s go-go. I was the only performer so I played a longer set, but everyone kept yelling at me to play until I didn’t have any songs left. I’d say “I have one more,” and Ramon would repeatedly yell back “five more!” Then after 3 Billy Bragg covers, a Local H<.a> song, and a Green Day/ The Cars medley I said, “ok, this is my last song.” To which Ramon yelled “five more!”

The next day we set out to do some squatter sightseeing, but although I’d found the names and addresses of 4 or 5 squats that were open, none opened until 7pm when we were headed off to Torello so we took pictures of the murals out front. One of the squats was called Ateneu Maig 37, which is in reference to May 1937, when during the Spanish Civil War when the Communists attacked the Anarchists. Ramon called it “the civil war within the civil war.” He told me most people in Spain have a less romantic attitude towards the Spanish Civil War than people from the outside. He said, “yes, what happened with the collectivized land was very beautiful, but many people were dying in this war. We all have grandparents who died or knew people who died, and many people were fighting for personal reasons, not political. Even some who fought with the anarchists would join because they wanted personal revenge against people they knew who were fighting with the Fascists.” He talked about the anarchist movement in the 20’s and how strong it was.

By most accounts, the anarchist squatter scene in Barcelona has quieted down in the past few years – Ramon even referred to it as a stereotype – but we did get to see several huge buildings that were completely squatted and had been defended for years. Just getting off the train we were greeted by a banner that said “We Can Live Without Capitalism” hung above an info table on alternative visions for collective economies. The people running the table declined to identify themselves as anarchists, socialists, or communists, just that they are part of a collective called Crisi (translated: crisis). The Crisi collective has published accessible materials addressing the economic crisis from an anti-capitalist perspective and distributed them widely in Spain. Apparently their newspapers were so well distributed that you’d see business men on the metro reading them. One of the people running the table was named Enric Duran and he’d funded much of their publications through an act of financial civil disobedience where he took out loans adding up to almost half a million euros, and gave away the money for social programs, and then publicly defaulted on his loans to make a statement. What was especially coincidental about running into them is that the Institute for Anarchist Studies just decided this summer to grant a translation of some of their materials and when we exchanged pamphlets, the person from Crisi collective already knew what the IAS was!

Walking around for the day we visited three radical book stores (one run by the CNT, one run by Crisi collective), walked past guerrilla gardens, and sites of recent university occupations. If I could have changed our schedule, I would spent several more days of anarchist tourism in Barcelona. I was especially bummed that we didn’t have time to visit Can Madeu, a rural squat outside of Barcelona where they took over an old leper colony and planted gardens, make their own bread, and publish materials for others interested in starting rural squats. Everyone who told us about it said it’s amazing!

Oh, and somewhere along the way, I stopped to play with a yappy dog and the old lady who was walking it started talking to me enthusiastically in Catalan. I told her sadly “no parlo Catalan,” but she laughed and explained (still in Catalan) “you don’t need a translation for ‘arf!’” Dogs speak a universal language.

9/16-17: Barcelona

In Caen I played on the boardwalk to an assembled group of punks, as well as passersby coming home from an outdoor music festival. After the show we hung out at a squat that was one of two on the same block and home to a vegetable garden and an anarchist library where someone gave me two copies of the English translation of Call. Apparently someone had left them a box of books in English that no one could read. Our host, Simon, explained that he’d hoped that the show would bring together the punk scene and the activist squatter scene, by subverting traditional punk show atmosphere – doing a free show outdoors with free food, open to passersby. Unfortunately there was a meeting scheduled at the squat, and so the chasm remained unbridged.

We spent a day in Bordeaux with Noam and Gilles’ friend Seb who they had met over the summer as co-volunteers at an Emauss recycling center. The project is a recycling center run by mostly ex-homeless people who take up a trade at the center and have a place to live and eat. They said there were aspects of autonomy and collectivism to the project – anyone could chose to join by free association, people went into their own trades by their own volition, there were volunteer positions for outside community involvement and meals and lodging were shared collectively – but that it was far from anarchistic, as there’s one director who has the final decision making power on who lives stays and who goes. Anyway, we had a delicious dinner, Seb and I learned to play “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” and the next morning we visited a giant squat called Athenee Libertaire, the first of many we would seek out, only to find totally closed to the public.

In Toulouse I played a squat called Chaussas, one of several squats we were told about in Toulouse, but the only one we actually visited. There were two buildings, one residential and one for events and in between there was a park where people were having a meeting, a daycare center and a community garden. Apparently in the recent mayoral election, the leading candidate had promised to keep the Chaussas open and he ended up winning. This was the first of several “permitted” or “official” squats we’d end up visiting. The concept is a bit strange – when certain cities deem it appropriate, or when squatters win legal battles they are permitted to keep running their spaces autonomously and rent free, but the city owns the land. In some places they have to keep up with certain regulations to keep their permits. It’s interesting, because anyway you look at it, a free autonomous community resource is an awesome thing, but at the same time the blessing of the city in some ways neutralizes the political threat that squatting poses to capitalism. Or, using the terminology of Call, it no longer creates a space that’s “unmanagable” by capitalism. For example on the same block as Chaussas there were three condo developments under construction. That in no way negates the awesome work that the people there are doing, but I wonder what role permitted squats play in the gentrification of European cities.

9/13-15: Caen, Bordeaux, Toulouse

You just don’t realize how short a two and a half hour walk on the side of the highway is when you’re carrying heavy bags and risking disappearing shoulders until you’re finally picked up by someone who in under 10 minutes drives you right back where you started at 150km/hour. Needless to say, my impression of French port cities remains poor.

In Paris we were reunited with our tour partners from last summer, Noam and Gilles, who would take us in their little car for the next 10 days. They hosted us in their apartment and baked us vegan artichoke and spinach pizza while caught up on gossip from the U.S. Noam insisted that in my blog I refer to her only as Boobies, which I won’t do, but as per her request I will explain how she got this nickname. Noam is Israeli and in Hebrew her French nickname “No-No” translates to “Lo-Lo,” which when translated back into French is the equivalent of the English word “boobies.” Not a fantastic story, but a good introduction to the multi-linguism we’ve since experienced in Europe. We printed up French translations of my song lyrics as well as a zine of song explanations to distribute at the shows, and I learned how briefly introduce 5 or 6 of my songs in French. Every time I successfully completed a sentence in French that was longer than 5 words I was greeted by roaring applause, the most popular sentence being “I have cds, tapes, and t-shirts for sale for 3-8 euros.” Nevertheless adjusting to a non-English speaking audience was tough, given how heavily my songs rely on words as a point of engagement.

I played a show at a bar who’s owner was extremely offended that I sat on one of the tables outside his bar and forbade me in French from entering the bar. In spite of my newly learned excuse “je ne parle pas français,” he kept yelling at me until Noam intervened. Apparently he had been deriding my character, saying “what do you think this is, a brothel?” In response to me telling him I didn’t speak French, he said “Anyone can say they don’t speak French, I don’t care.” Eventually, my entree was negotiated and I got to see two great bands, Les Louise Michels, and Comite Defaite, before playing my songs.

After the show I was feeling homesick and so Noam, Gilles and I walked across Paris for a couple hours, while Jordan and his new friend Valentine went out dancing at hipster bars. Valentine had just learned the meaning of the word “hipster” in a recent trip to the U.S. and he loved it. He explained that though he was quite fashionable, “I couldn’t be no hipster, I still listen to NOFX!” He’d point to various people in the club and ask Jordan “is that a hipster?” and if Jordan said “uh, yeah, maybe,” he’d exclaim loudly “FUCK THE HIPSTERS!!”

9/9-12: Le Havre, Paris

From Cheltenham to Southampton we had an easier time hitchhiking than we’d expected and arrived there with time to spare. After a relaxed backyard show and some pasta we caught up on rest, got up early and caught a ride from a guy named Moses.

Moses had moved to the UK from Uganda to get an education, but he surprised us with how flippantly he dismissed his degree as an arbitrary piece of paper he kept in his closet. “I started working on my master’s degree,” he said, “but then I dropped out of graduate school and adopted more of a ‘fuck it’ attitude. It was too much thinking about things without doing anything.” He used to work with severely learning disabled men and he told us the story of Harry, someone he’d worked with who had the likeness of, and an affinity for, gorillas. He’d taken Harry to a safari to see the great ape, but the gorilla had no interest in any of the people at the safari. Harry called to it, and the gorilla turned around and looked directly at him. Harry met the gorilla’s gaze. “You could tell,” Moses said, “that there was an understanding.” Moses told us he’d once hunted a monkey in Uganda and he regretted more than anything else in his life.

We asked Moses if when he’d lived in Uganda whether he’d traveled to other parts of Africa and he told us “sadly, no.” He made an interesting point. He said, “until you’ve lived in a multi-cultural society you don’t consider that there are other cultures outside of your own, and so you’ve less interest in exploring them.” Having grown up in America, I can only take his word.

The remainder of the trip was with Angela, a truck driver who transported Bentleys to rich people. She was the most enthusiastic truck driver I’ve ever met and possibly the only grandma truck driver in England. She’d been driving trucks for 7 years and kept saying “best job in the whole world, it is!” She told us she’d drive down the highway and see stuck up rich people who looked at her as a contemptuous truck driver and she’d think “ha! I probably drove that car before you did!”

The bus into Southampton took us straight to the Homestead, a giant punk house that’s been doing acoustic shows for about 5 years. I actually played there in 2005. House shows are a fairly rare occurrence in the U.K. and all over England we met people who referred to the Homestead as England’s sole institution for gigs in the house.

Our host Jim Millipede met us at the Homestead, and since we had time to kill we went to visit the New Forest, a national park where ponies, pigs, and donkeys graze freely. Apparently the 140,000 acre park is all that remains of the former English tradition of common grazing land where farmers from all around would let their cattle graze freely and only round them up a few times a year. We had a particularly English experience, after chasing a yorkshire terrier we sat on a grassy knoll above a thatched roof house and a cricket field. We also sighted the rarest reptile in England (there are only 6 species), the smooth snake.

The show at the Homestead was a nice farewell to England complete with a funny moment where it was revealed that Jim used to be a police officer. He’d lived on the Falkland Islands for a few years (which explained his uncanny affinity for British wildlife) and when at first he couldn’t find any work he took a job as a cop for 6 months but managed never to arrest anyone. We need more cops like that in D.C. I dedicated a “fuck you” song to him in response to his former occupation but it was all in good fun. We stayed the night at his place and he woke up at 6am to drive us to the ferry – a story for another time!