September 3 Nurnburg, Germany

  Arrive at the airport, Pierre from Gerber str squat in Wiemer picks us up in the Orange bus which the squat is letting us use again.  We were supposed to pick up our friend Eric, who was flying in from England, but he was know where to be found at the airport.  We found out later his flight arrived two hours later.  We never met him again.  He was not happy, as he knew no one in Germany, and spoke no German.  We drove down to Nurnburg for the first show.  It was nothing spectacular, but we got to meet up with RadioaActive Toys from Koln, whom we toured with for a few weeks last year.  I remember in the daytime Ben (singer) was naked in a pond in some village we stopped at, looking for a soccer ball one of us kicked in accidentally.  Later at night we practised our Kicker skills at Kalle from Rejected Youth’s house.

September 5  Kranj Slovenia

  Well Austria sucks, and both shows fell through so we arrived into Kranj early to meet up with Schulz, who is one of the funniest people in all Europe.  The Izbruhov squat, also known as the Swimming pool, was full of the local punks, and beer.  After the show Laibach was playing a free concert, which I was thinking of going to, but for some strange reason, many Laibach fans in Slovenia (where Laibach is from) are fascists and Nationalists.  Strange, everywhere else in the world they are generally left-radicals, industrial kids, or artists.  So, finding out no one else was interested in going, I stayed in the squat for the party.  Schulz busted out some home made Slovene wine.

September 6, Ljubljana Slovenia.

  This was the 102nd anniversary of Czolgosz assassinating President McKinley.  We stayed at the squat which replaced AC Molotov, but found out they would be evicted in a few days.  Someone had mountain climbing ropes, and attached  them to the Barn and the main building.  Then began the new game.  Someone would strap themselves into the gear and sit on 3 beer crates, while someone competent spotted them with the safety rope.  Then a third person would hand them a new beer crate, which they would place under their butt while still balancing on the tower of other crates beneath them.  I think the highest altitude reached was 30 crates, which was level with the top of the house.  Czolgosz tried out the game, and Derek got to the maximum distance before Matty threw a crate into the tower Derek balanced on, and all came crashing down.  No one was hurt, don’t worry.

   We played in one of the last political, and still somewhat squatted buildings on Metalkova street.  The Basque group Pekatral Attack opened up, all masked up, and were like a sped up version of Beriour Noir.  We played to a wonderful mix of drunk punks, anarchists, and other assorted types.  Towards the end, we found out our equipment for tour was not so good.  The bass kept fading out.  As we tried fixing it, several extremely drunk punks kept begging for Black Flag or GG Allin songs.  Keller kept them happy with a few Slayer riffs.  I got showered with cheap Slovene wine for refusing to sing Slayer.  After, played the disco-punk-frenzy Miss Helium, who led a fucking great dance party.  They warmed up to us after the show, one of them actually said to us, “I have never heard an american band really criticise the USA until we heard you on stage.”

  Metelkova street is amazing.  Once upon a time it was a fully squatted street full of anarchists, rockers and artists all creating spaces.  Like many squats in Europe they eventually cut deals to legalise the spaces.  It is like an alleyway walled in with a gated entrance on either end.  The first space is a club which some big yankee pop-punk band played in (they had some huge tour bus, which was a stark contrast to our orange van which was once used in the old East Germany to drive street workers and supplies out to the highways).  Across the street was a Gay Club overflowing with the local scene.  Further down was some practice spaces and art studios.  Then there was an outdoor pizza stall followed by a falafal stand/bar permanently set up on the street.  People had attached tables around telephone poles for drinkers to lean against.  Next was where we played, which when I been there in the past, seemed to have some kind of jazz/poetry night going on.  Towards the end of the street were two more buildings, one holding a strait-out-of-the-80’s Heavy Metal club, full of velvet AC/DC posters and upside-down TV’s showing Judas Priest concerts.  The next door was a barren central american style Latino jazz spot, serving wine and playing some amazing music.

   The nights was great, as I also met up with many central Europeans whom I had spent some time with earlier in the summer in Thesseloniki Greece.  So we had a lot to talk about with the Salonika 7 and other state repression.

The Next Few Days,

  Were in Croatia.  One show was canceled on us, as there was some hard feelings against me from the summer tour when I was playing bass in Guardia Negra, and we did not make a gig there.  So we stayed in Zagreb for two days.  Not much interesting, except Pierre busted out this amazing pasta dish with salami (rare for him to cook meat as he is a vegan).  The whole squat was thrilled at not only good food, but with meat.  I guess most people there were not vegan, but had a vegan diet for some reason.  In the morning a friend of mine showed up.  When I went out to meet him another person was there.  The past summer with Guardia Negra we had gotten in a row.  Although he claimed he was an anarchist (he does do solid work, and every comrade speaks highly of him), and that he helped organize the first gay rights march in Zagreb, he went up to us and kept shouting “Faggot Immigrant”.  In Guardia Negra, everyone is an immigrant but me, and we were with Gabby from Molotov Cocktail, who is also an immigrant.  So we politely explained to him he was talking shit, and he wouldn’t quit, so he got roughed up a bit.  So anyway, I show up again in Zagreb 4 or 5 months later, and he just laid into me verbally like this all happened last night.  I was hung over, and was more interested to speak to some other people I liked.  What a mess.

September 9-10 Subotica & Kraljevo, Serbia.

  Subotica is located in northern Serbia, and is full of people with Hungarian descent.  So I could speak to locals in my bad Hungarian and help out when we were lost.  The show coincided with the release of the comic Zine “Shut U Muzak”.  There were many folks who came up from Belgrade, whom we had not seen since we were there in 2001.

   The next night was in Kraljevo, south of Belgrade.  We stopped in Belgrade for a quick chat with the famous Rata who can be found in many anarchist web discussion boards. 

   Outside of Kraljevo the small village cops pulled us over.  We knew they were trying to get a bribe with us, but just pretend not to understand them (they spoke no German or English, and we have no Serbo-Croat under our belts either).  Right when the “fine” had gone down 10 euroes, and we thought they would shortly get frustrated and just let us go, along came a car with German plates.  The cops pulled them over, they were Serbs who had lived in Germany and were back visiting their village.  So they translated to Pierre that if he wanted his passport back, we had to cough up 20 euros.  Not bad, considering we knew they wanted 50 euros at first.

  In Kraljevo, the show was a show. But there were all these model types who kept showing up and snorting coke on the hand sink outside of the bathrooms.  I asked the punks who organized the show about why these girls came to a punk show. 

   “Well, they pay to come in, so it helps to subsidize the concert, that way we can get money for out of town bands.  And they like to say they hung around musicians all night.”  Well, they hung around us, but certainly not with us.

September 11-12 Macedonia

  We had planned to play in Belgrade again for September 11th.  But the club there was still not open after the summer shutdown which happens all over Europe.  So we drove down to Macedonia a day early.  We had to go the long way, as the direct highway to Macedonia had recently been trouble with KLA attacks and muggings.  So we went the long way.  We met up with M__, M____, and M___.  We had a few drinks at the bar we would play at on the next day, then went out to one of the girls family weekend house outside of the city.  There we had a glorious dress up party.  The parents were some kind of hipsters in the 70’s and kept all their old clothes.  So we went all out for a drag party and danced to endless CD’s of NOMEANSNO, whom they liked very much.  In the morning we scoured their garden for vegetables, Matty gave M___ a hair cut in the garden, and some old women gave Tate and me apples when we walked down the street (if only she had seen us the night before!)

   The next night was the show.  Because the club in Skopje got shut down, the gig got switched to a bar in Kumarnova.  All of the local mafia came to the show, as did some of the heads of Macedonia mafia.  They were all into the Doors and that type of rock n’ roll.  One of the heads came up to the merch table with a big, I mean very big, guy.  I could only speculate on his profession.  He bought any XXL black T-shirt we had, which included our Czolgosz shirt, an ANTIFA HOOLIGANS shirt with baseball bats and a red and black star, and a Northeast Antifascist shirt.  They paid western prices for them. 

  We played with CHOICE OF MY OWN from Skopje.  They were like Chain of Strength or Verbal Assault.  Fast old hard core, each song ending under a minute.  They were all 13 years old except the singer, who was 12.  They rocked!  When we played, the singer came up half way through the set, interrupting us and shook our hands, “Nice to meet you, but I got to go, my mom brought me here and she has to work in the morning, so I got to go.”

   After the show we were brought to a late night bar.  It was full of super-model types.  The local mafia head was there.  He told us the others like him loved our band, but not many could make it to the after hour party.  Also, all the beer was on him.  He spoke no English, so whenever we wanted  a beer we would just look at him and give him the satan/metal index and pinkie finger in the air symbol, and he would get us a round.  When AC/DC came on the radio he jumped over the bar, blasted the music, jumped up on the bar and started rockin’ some serious air guitar.

   Pierre and I left early, sick of all the super-models.  Pierre crashed in the flat, and I took my turn sleeping in the car.

  The next morning, there was no sign of the boys.  Two mafia dudes finally came to our van a told us to drive with them to the police station.  Everyone was in jail.  There were charges, like building a barricade, disorderly conduct, setting fires, and “making strange body movements in public”.  At first the judge wanted 400 bucks for each person (3 musicians, and one roadie, meant $1,600).  But then someone spoke with the judge on our behalf in a private meeting, and everyone just had to pay like $70 bucks and were free, but late for the gig in Bulgaria.

That is all I can say about that.

September 13 Sofia, Bulgaria

  The show was part of the first ever Antifa Action Weekend in Bulgaria.  We arrived 20 minutes before the movie house would shut down.   I was greeted by some Greek friends from Thesseloniki, and friends from Sofia in a state of panic looking for us.  They were angry or concerned at our tardiness, but could understand our reasoning, that most of the band was in jail that morning.  The movie house was out of the 1930’s.  A stage in front of the screen, wooden row chairs set back about 20 feet from the stage, so there was an amazing circle pit.  We could not see beyond that because the room was so full of cigarette smoke.  Odd, they gave me a wireless microphone to use.

   In most places, and Antifa festival does not draw a lot of attention, but in Bulgaria it did.  Word spread that fascists from all over Bulgaria were hanging around the city to disrupt the march the next day.  Police were certainly not sympathetic with the antifas.  After the show, a spontaneous march broke out, in theory to go nazi hunting, but I think in reality, everyone felt the strength and enthusiasm of their numbers, and a purpose, and did not want to just go home and end the night.  The strategy was, to send one punk holding a red and black flag a block in front of us.  He was dancing, yelling and waving the flag.  The idea was, nazi’s would see one anarchist and go attack him, and then find that 300 of us were behind him.  In the end, there was no confrontation.  There were a few boneheads in a park which quickly ran at the sight of us (our decoy did not work on them).  We then retired to a office/flat with the Greeks and some Sofia comrades we knew to sample the local brew.

September 14 Craiova Romania.

   Despite Craiova being less then 400 kilometers on the map, the drive would take us about 10 hours, so we could not stay for the workshops or legal demonstration.  We had to avoid the river and go through Serbia where we could take a bridge to Romania, otherwise we would have to pay close to 100 euros (foreigner price) to get on a ferry across the river.  There were no bridges over the Danube on the Bulgarian-Romanian border.  When exiting Bulgaria, we made sure our papers were in order (something that Guardia Negra did not do earlier in the summer, and we had to cough up allot of bribe dough).  After the 3rd or 4th official to check our documents at the border the last one insisted we were missing something and had to pay 40 euros.  I was in a pissed off mood to begin with (and slightly hung over) and was elected to deal with this official.  I began yelling and screaming, cursing this border cop, refusing to pay him anything.  He yelled at me in Bulgarian and pointed to the border papers in my hand (in Bulgarian Cyrillic) as I spouted out some classic Bostonian English insults. We both found the metal counter-top perfect for banging our fists on. In the end I think he told me or my mother to fuck off, threw some documents at me and waved me on.  A victory.

   That night we pulled into Craiova, Romania.  Our home away from home.  The new infoshop was open, Rocco (Terror Art) and Roxanna were holding their first child, C.A.F. was there, Critica Radicala was ready to play with their new singer Nikitcha (Formerly of Terror Art), and we were to play at the Irish Pub owned by some Irish socialist with sympathies towards the anarcho-punks.  The beer was pouring all night, SKANDAL played as well, and all was normal in the world.  Craiova has one of the best anarcho punk scenes in the world, and like I said, is our home in Europe, every tour we do in Europe we take two days off to relax, drink and hang out in Craiova. 

   C.A.F. was putting out two zines, one of them LOVE KILLS is easily the first left-wing, let alone anarchist, magazine dealing with women issues in the country.

September 17 Cluj, Romania

  This was a weird show in some air-less dungeon with one light, no water, no toilet, and a partial PA system.  There was a second room with no light full of broken bottles, condoms, and human feces.  It was poorly organized and, I don’t want to talk anymore shit.  But, there were some very cool people who wanted a picture with Derek pantless.  So everyone dropped their pants for the photo, and Derek had long since run out of panties, so the photo became R rated.

September 18 Timisoara, Romania.

   We met with Tave, who is one of the most active punks in all of Romania.  As usual he organized a great show, with CRITICA RADICALA (who would play with us for the rest of the tour) and NOMANSBAND from Timisoara who also kick ass.  There was some nervousness, as after the last punk show in Timisoara a few weeks before, some nazi boneheads waited till the end and jumped the two organizers who were there late cleaning up the place.  There was no problems that night.  The place, I.N.C.A. is part of a 15th century Castle wall.  Darko and Roxy were there and we danced to gypsy music late into the night.

September 19 Budapest, Hungary

   I used to live in Budapest, so I spent most of the night on the street drinking with old friends.  I missed the sNOBS who sound fucking great on their releases, something like the SKABS meets THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282.  I got to sing our Hungarian song, UZLET EMBEREK.  All my friends pointed out how awful my Magyar is.

September 20 Bratislava, Slovakia.

  At the Hungarian-Slovak border we were stopped.  It was the longest and most thorough search I had ever been in.  The cops spoke no English or German, and the only Hungarian I could understand were the insults (which were many) they called us.  They set aside all our anarchist propaganda, pins, and some CD’s.  They were comparing it with a list of symbols which are illegal in Slovakia (and I guess Hungary too.)  It looked bad for a while, but in the end they motioned us to go.  At the end of a bench was all the propaganda.  When all the cops had their backs turned we threw that in the van and took off.  We still don’t know if it was supposed to be confiscated or not.

  Some guys from Czech & Slovak Anarchist Federation set up this show.  Unfortunately it is a hard thing to do in Slovakia.  We arrived at the bar, after getting really lost.  The street literally had no name.  Even on the city map, no name was listed. No one at the bar new the name of the street, there were no signs.  Anyway, outside the bar were a bunch of punks drinking.  In the concert room were 3 people playing bad rock n roll.  Somehow they convinced the owners to let them play instead of the scheduled punk show.  So at the last minute it was decided we would play the garages.

   In the outskirts of Bratislava are rows and rows of 6 feet high single car garages.  In one of them is a practice space for one of the local bands.  They open up the door, and the drummer is in the space, while the band is on the road with the crowd playing.  ILLEGALITY, from Czech, played with us, they are great, along with Critica Radicala.  During Critic’s set, some of the unruly punks and skins climbed up on the garage row opposite the “stage”. They began setting small fires on the garages, and dancing around it.  When we got on, they pulled down an electricity wire, set it on fire, and began swinging it over their heads, sending sparks into the crowd, who were pleasantly liquored up, dancing away.  After the show we were hanging out by the merch table (the hood of someone’s car) when we heard this awful screeching.   The sound got closer and soon we saw a dozen punks and skins counting off and flipping some abandoned car.  They rolled it down to where the show was, and the crowd began lifting it, and threw it on top of the garages.  Punk fucking rock!

September 21-22 Brno & Prague, Czech Republic.

   When I was younger I went to a great 3 day anarcho punk festival in this crazy-huge squat in Brno.  Davovo Psychoza, Doom, Non Conformist and bunch of bands played for 3 nights.  It was the only time I had ever been in Brno, and I always figuered it was some punk Mecca.  The show was in a nice enough pub.  The organizer was cool as shit, and in the day she showed us around the city and brought us to the local pubs for the Brno beer.  And we stayed at Illegalities house, which was the first real domestic situation we had been in, in a while.  Shower, breakfast, apples picked from the trees, tomatoes and peppers freshly picked out of the garden.  It was no punk Mecca like I expected, but it was a welcoming refreshment.

   The next day was Prague.  The Papirna squat, is one of the only squats we have played in all three tours.  (Papirna squat has since been evicted in the winter of 2003-2004, shit!)  Lots of friendly and familiar faces, Absinthe (yes we are tourists sometimes!!!) and phenomenal pilsners.  The basement where the squat has its concerts is like a decaying dungeon.  The first year I slept down there (passed out really) and had difficulty breathing the next few days.  I ran into some old friends from Slovakia I had not seen in years, and spent most of the time with them.  The show had to be over by 10 to avoid a police shutdown, but a great party always follows well into daybreak.  I slept the next day, while the others went into the city.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS

  were in eastern Germany.  The show in Dresden got canceled, which sucked because it was great last year.  We stayed in the Gerber strauss squat in Weimer, out other home from home, ate bratwurst, drank beer and played.  Critica Radicala recorded 8 songs in the squat, which will be released later this year as a split CD with Czolgosz.  The Gerber Strauss squat is two old buildings in the historic district of historic Wiemer.  A city full of history, ugly and brilliant, artistic and fascist, the home of the Wiemer Republic, Bauhaus, Shiller, Goethe, and the best Bratwurst in the world.  Tourists on horse and buggy, and school field trips walk by the squat which is properly spray painted and bannered, including a giant mural in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal.  It has Two concert rooms, a local pub (where more than just punks and lefties hang out), a recording studio, a youth self-managed cafe, a wide screen movie cinema, an office, two meeting rooms for grass roots groups, living quarters for over a dozen, a guest room for up to 12, two kicker tables and a ping pong table, an outdoor movie cinema, a bike workshop, and two vans which are used for everything from the PA holding car in ANTIFA demos, to carrying around yankees and Romanians on tour.  Everyone is very active in local and international events.  And they cook some amazing food.

September 25 Berlin K.V.U.

   This is some Christian center that looks like a squat and is run by punks and the Christian left.  Despite their religious beliefs, there are some cool people there, they have a great live recording system, pay very generously to foreign bands and also cook a deadly meal.

I split before dinner and walked to my good friend Dominic’s house.  I grabbed him and a couple of polish friends, who busted out some vodka.  The show was nice, it was dark, and then we prepared for Poland by knocking back some cheap polish vodka.  I asked Dominic to come before we began drinking, he explained he could not.

   Critica could not come with us to Poland, because they were feared it would be difficult for them to leave the Shengin states and then re-enter.  Romanians still have a difficult time with visas in Europe.

   After the show, late at night, we began our drive to Poland to try and avoid the morning traffic jam at the border.  I remember  nothing.  I went to sleep on the floor of the van.  I am told that at the border I was asked for my passport and just yelled out at everyone, “Fuck off, you already got my passport!”  Keller picked my pocket and gave my passport to some laughing border cops.  Later we needed some money for gas.  I was elected treasurer that day and so had all our money.  Again I told everyone to fuck off, if they wanted money they could sell my passport.  Shremmel and Pierre (the German drivers) thought this a good idea, but Matty picked my pocket for cash this time.

   I woke up and threw someone’s feet off me.  It was Dominic from Berlin.  It was never made clear if we kidnapped him or if he passed out in the van in Berlin, or that in a drunken blur decided to say “Fuck it, I am going to Poland.”  At that point it did not matter, he was another roadie of ours.  Including Shremmel who we picked up in Wiemer, Pierre, our driver and co-organizer of the tour, and Tate, our infamous roadie from Gainsville, Florida, we were up to 8 people, and none of us had ever been to Poland before.

September 26 Warsaw Poland

  We played in the factory squat, which was huge. We found out that the Polish guys helping to put together the polish part of tour also were organizing DEVIATION from Belarus, and we would playing with them throughout Poland. I love DEVIATION, a great anarcho-punk band from Grodna.  They are banned from playing in their own city, the singer writes for the now banned independent satirical magazine NAVINKI, has been arrested and banged up by the cops, and they all are great drinkers.  We had planned to go to Belarus for three gigs but were denied cultural exchange visas, and could not get tourist visas.  The fucking dictator Lukashenko is obscenely xenophobic, and the repression in Belarus are easily the worst in all of Europe.  Belarus is the last openly dictatorship system in Europe.

   However, for a variety of reasons, which I wont go into, DEVIATION could not come to Poland. 

  As for the show, everyone was dancing.  The slamming was kicked off by this cool crew of punk girls.  After the show we went to stay at Symon’s house who lived in the north side of Warsaw so we could get a jump on the drive to Bialystok.  Symon, who helped organize most of our gigs in Poland spoke no English, but decent Spanish.  So my terrible bastardization of the Spanish language was the only way to communicate.

September 27 Bialystok Poland

   5th annual GIRLZ IN ACTION party.    We arrived at the squat in the afternoon.  We were immediate approached by some of the squatters to unload quickly, and pay for a security controlled parking lot.  There was a futbol match, and surely there would be problems with fascists and regular futbol hooligans.  The match was to end shortly, so we went to a market on the other side of a block house building adjacent to the squat.  I left the shop first and saw the van pulling away and so ran over to say something to Pierre leaving the others in the market.  I started to talking to one of the punks hanging out in front of the squats on a sort of “security detail”.  He held a huge, at least 15 inches long, canister of mace.  As I was asking him if he thought he would have to use it, a bunch of punks burst out of the squat saying there were nazis right up the alley way in front of the block house.  We ran up to attack.  As we saw the boneheads ahead of us running I noticed the rest of Czolgosz in the alley way.  I ran to them to tell them what was up,  But they already new.  About a dozen masked up boneheads jumped them when they left the store.  They held themselves well enough, but one of us had been hit in the head by a beer bottle and was bleeding pretty bad.  We ran back to the squat to clean it up.  Coming down the stairs was about 50 other people heading towards the fight.  They were all too late.  The other punks had attacked the nazis, letting loose most of that giant canister of mace.  But then other regular futbol hooligans saw the fight and assumed the redskins beating up the nazis (who were wearing the local team’s colors) were from the opposing team and attacked them.  So the nazi’s finally got away.  The cops showed up at the squat and wanted to come in, but the punks barricaded up the steal door, reinforced it with an elaborated system designed for such defense and refused the let police enter.  The cops finally left, the cuts and bumps on Czolgosz musicians were cleaned up, and the beer and vodka began to flow.

   We were to play with Deviation, as well as Dissent from Minsk and a couple more Belarus HC bands.  So, despite Deviations absence, there was a strong crew of maybe two dozen kids from Belarus.  They were cool as shit.  In fact this was probably one of the coolest squats we had ever been in.  The second floor had an art exhibit.  The third floor was closed off, I don’t know what was there.  The fourth floor was the kitchen and living quarters, and the top floor was the club and bar. Jiheart (Belarus), Sero Buntu (PL), Dissent (Belarus), Fresceusn (Belarus) all kicked ass, they were all somewhere between  hard core and crust, but original.  We played last.  There was no stage, and we were basically set up in the middle of the crowd.  People were jumping off of anything they could to stage dive.  Myself and Matty were grabbed and thrown up on the crowd several times, it was madness.  Keller played with some makeshift bandage held on his skull with something resembling fish-net stocking.  When we finished the crowd wanted more.  Someone asked why we were not playing in Belarus, I went to say a few things and finished with “Fuck Lukashenko”  the Belarus kids went nuts.  So we played a simple song we have called “Fuck Bush” to which some Belarus kids said, “Sure, OK, Fuck George Bush, but why not ‘Fuck Lukashenko?’”  So Keller wrote a riff on the spot and everyone joined in to sing “Fuck Lukashenko!”  It was great to see so many people with different styles and attitudes dancing without any machismo, accidents, or fighting.  Afterwards  GIRLZ IN ACTION put on a performance, then everyone went out to the courtyard to see crusties play with fire.  Somehow during the spitting of fire and the twirling of fire, some fire got into the locked abandoned building on the other side of the courtyard.  It set on fire.  We all gathered around it, unable to figure how to put it out.  Some kids ran out with a giant cauldron of dirty water they were washing dishes with, and we lifted it up to a window above the fire and put it out.  The rest of the night was a brilliant party which many people did many wonderful things which we do not write about in magazines.

September 28-30 Olsztyn Poland

  We played in a fucking old castle, at the base of it’s spiral tower.  ALIANS who was once one of the better known polish punk bands, has since switched to a popular ska band.  Another Polish ska band played, DEVIATION canceled, so we were the only punk band to play.  We were late in leaving Bialystok, so late to the show.  We wanted to play first, and have the fun-party-ska bands after us, but instead had to settle on going on last.  I wont talk too much shit about ALIANS, but they did some whining, and had a bit of rock-star attitude about them.   We could really give a fuck about that, or when anyone’s time slot is, but they insisted that they play at their scheduled time at midnight, and we just have to play after them (when it was figured most people would leave, because is was a Sunday).  There was lots of college types at the bar.  Some super-model type girls attached themselves to the roadie and rhythm section of Czolgosz (but there was no messing around, get your head out of the gutter) during the show.  I was amazed, because we were all in rough shape, and surely stank like shit.  When we got on stage it was late.  Alians put on an amazing show, it was full of energy like a Mighty Bosstones show.  The walls were dripping with sweat.  We figured everyone would split, but instead all these punks came out of the walls, and there was a huge crowd.  The crowd was very drunk.  At first, a few tough guys started high-kick dancin’.  We gave them some shit about it, but in the end they calmed down because they were so exhausted and drunk.  These tough guys would fall down on the stage, seemingly passed out, then we would start a new song, their hand would point into the air, their mouths open in a scream and up they went into the crowd.  At one point one of these semi-conscious tough dudes was on the floor of the stage.  Both Matty and I saw him lean up and grab a girl onto him.  We were about to start kicking the guy when we saw the girl recognize him and begin kissing him.  They were making out on stage while we sung about Class War.  They rolled over each other onto Keller’s leg, messing up Derek’s drums.  In the end it was debaucherous fuck fest of a show, in a 500 year old castle. 

   We went back to the info shop, where some anarchists were waiting for us with food and vodka.

October 1 Torun, Poland

  Torun is over a thousand years old.  The Pilon Pub is set in the wall of the old city under a bridge.  Near the entrance, on the wall, are lines showing the hieght of serious floods, some 700 years ago. The bar space was probably used over the decades for a maintenance station, and probably even earlier to house the city-wall guards.  But for the last several years has housed a punk bar.  The bartender gave me an original 12” of Dezerter’s first LP, which if fantastic.  Like the rest of Poland, Vodka seems to be consumed like beer.  The concert was great but I was starting to wear down.  After the set when the people wanted more (we were the only band to play because of DEVIATION canceling) people cried out “Kulva Bush” (which is something like Fuck Bush, but more profane).  So Keller made up a riff, and a few kids began singing.  They did 4 or 5 improv punk songs, and that was that.  Later on we did a blurry night staggering tour through the old city in search of Kielbasa.  We went back to someone’s house where they rigged up some contraption to do things I will not write about. 

  The next day we stopped in Inowroclaw, where Leon Czolgosz was from.  Some people told us there were relatives still there, but we could not figure out how to find them.  I doubt they would have wanted to meet us anyway.

October 2 Poznan Poland

  This was the coldest night so far on tour and was a Thursday, which means not many people go out in Poznan.  The squat was very elaborate, a whole compound with a few bars, an info shop, meeting spaces and many other buildings which I did not explore.

October 3 Berlin Kopi

   Kopi, 10th year anniversary two day party.  For the punk world, Kopi can be equated to CBGB or Gillman street, only a legalized squat and much better.  It puts on some of the best parties in Europe.  The bill was CRITICA RADICALA (who we were excited to see again), CZOLGOSZ, and the SUBHUMANS, the next night would be CITIZEN FISH and some big west European punk bands.  We arrived and met up with Megan and Gretchen our friends from Boston.  We still had Dominic, and took Symon from Warsaw with us.  In Kopi we met up with many other friends we new from the punk scene and the anarchist world, so even before the party began we had a nice crew going into the night.  I was looking for a poster for the concert to keep for memory, but there were none.  The concert was not promoted at all, in the Kopi Fanzine it just said “Special Guest”.  Promotion was not needed, the place was packed overcapacity.  While outside, despite the rain, there was about 100 people hanging out and in the bunker bar were even more people packed in. CRITICA RADICALA sounded great, it was probably the best equipment they ever played through.  In fact it was probably the best equipment CZOLGOSZ had ever used.  It was nice to play in front of such a big crowd, on such a big stage, with a whole contingent of friends up front hollering, heckling, and dancing.  As many people as could fit into the place were there for all 3 bands, not just the SUBHUMANS, who also kicked ass.  It was nice to see them in Kopi, a place more befitting to them then AVALON in Boston, some discoteque for rich kids.  The admission price started at 4 euros, once they got enough money for the bands they dropped the price to 3.50 euroes.  At Avalon in Boston I think it was $15 to see the Subhumans.  It was a glorious party.

October 4 Arndstadt Germany

  Arnstadt is a small city in east Germany listed on few maps.  P20 is a house bought by the collective efforts of a few older punks.  It is used for living, activities, and mostly a place for poor youth to hang out, learn self-management and progressive left wing ideals, and thus get them away from the fascists who do the same thing in poor cities, but with more financial backing.  Places like this is one of the few outlets for working class youths.  Unfortunately as many grow up, become disillusioned with the system, and to beaten down to organize and resist, some turn to the Fascists for a quick fix of false power and identity.

   Aside from the political importance of P20 (as it is the only thing like it in Arnstadt), it is also where some great friends of ours live.  Molle, who roadied our first tour lives there as does ex-Terror Art keyboard played, Quay from Romania. ILLEGALITY form Czech played with us as well.  Members from HANGMEN whom we toured with in 2001 showed up, so we had another big party, and concert.  The vodka flowed like in Poland.  The continually attacked and carried around CR as they played, and in the end of the night, CR, members of HANGMEN and CZOLGOSZ, all performed TERROR ART’s “ALERTA ANTIFASCISTA”.  At one point Gretchen jumped on Eddie from C.R. and the fell down, cracking open Gretchen’s chin.  We put a makeshift bandage covered in vodka to clean and stop the bleeding.  Eventually we made it to a hospital where the doctors joked about how americans can’t handle german beer.  The doctors kept cracking jokes to to our german friends while stiching her up.  After the operation, Gretchen bolted out of the operating room and left Molle (Of P20) and I to deal with paperwork.  We left the room and found Gretchen sprawled out in the Hospital hallway happily asleep.  We picked her up, went back to the party and everything after that is a blur.

October 5-7  Wiemer, Koln, Siesburg

  The end of the tour.  We went back to Wiemer.  Everyone was exhausted from the weekend parties/  We listened to the final mix of CR’s stuff, and played in the new concert room.  After that we went to Koln.  Aside from Nurnburg, after three tours in Europe, Koln would be our first cold war West European gig.  Everything looked different.  Even though we have played dozens of shows in Germany, it was always in what used to be East Germany.  In Koln we were in the west, modern buildings, no block houses, all the utilities seemed to work, everything was modern.  Well, it was boring.  This was the city of Radio Active Toys, our friends from the last tour.  We saw them the first and last two days of this tour.  Funny, we were in the west, yet there was no place to organize a punk show.  Koln, I was told, used to have a big punk scene in the eighties.  I think after unification most of the punks went east.

   Also, Jonny from APATIA NO was supposed to meet up with us.  But he was an asylum seeker, and under pathetic German laws is not aloud to leave a 90 kilometer radius from his city.  He would have, and dealt with the fine, but his case was coming up soon, so we missed each other.

  Anyway, we played under a bridge.  It was fucking cold.  We all wore many layers of hoodies, jackets, and scarves when we played.  It was under a highway bridge.  We looked out on the Rhine river.  They brought a generator for electricity and for a grill to make a warm red wine drink.  There were over a dozen little beer kegs, and boxes and boxes of cheap red wine to mix with.  I figured no one would come to an illegal show, under a bridge, when it was in the 40’s and windy.  But lots showed up.  No cops showed up for our set.  During CR the cops came, treed speaking with the band, Nikitcha spoke terribly bad German to them, which  the microphone picked up, and was funny.  The cops left, and the Toys went on.   The cops showed up again, and shut down the show, and gave us all 30 minutes to leave.  We went to the pub to warm up.

  The last night was in Siesburg, and well, it was our last night.  Nothing glorious, we drank the bar dry, and slept on the stage.  The next morning at the airport, somebody’s bag got thrown from the van to the curb and a bottle of Absinthe smashed.  Matty and Tate dumped all their garbage from their bags out, Keller and I discarded all our tour socks, and thus we made a nice little mess in the perfectly clean and orderly Frankfurt International Airport.