9/24/12
Gottingen, DE
A real looker of a day
5pm
Tonight, we play the city in which our stinky, snoring, loving, and smiling travel comapanion lives. When not taking care of hapless traveling bands, Christian works at a collectively run cafe. The Kabale, also doubles as a venue—our venue for tonight. The Kabale feels like a home away from home. The friendly faces are familiar, and the setting is as comfortable as can be. It's the type of place that makes you want to grab a good book, order a beer, and settle in.
The Kabale is a picturesque cafe that also has a cinema. The actual venue is located in the basement, but tonight the show is being held in the cafe. It should be a small, intimate show. I’ve played here on the last two tours, and we always have a wonderful time. I think it has to do with the overall aesthetic at The Kabale, or the fantastic friends we've made in Gottingen over the years. Tonight has a bitter sweet air to it. It will be our last night with our trusty tour-mate, Christian. The Kabale needs him back, and we’re hesitant to part with our dear friend. The one saving grace to this is that we get to swap him for another good friend/tour manager,Thorson.
Thorson looks like the quintessential German. His Face looks to be cut of stone, he’s attractive, and he has a deep baritone voice. We’ve come to affectionately call him “The Thorganizer”. I’m beginning to realize how fortunate we are to have made these friends, and had these experiences all over the world. Alissa and myself will more than likely never be wealthy, but the wealth of experiences that we’ve accumulated through our journeys could not possibly be rivaled by any monetary value. Some things are beyond the trite, humanistic desires of materialism. Some things are incendiary, and burn with the passion of our hearts. Daring to sap the wonder from this world—live now, ask questions later. It can’t be said how long one will live, best to grab this life by the throat and not be afraid to squeeze (that previous statement makes me feel like a warped motivational speaker).
I remember as a child, staring at the globe that I had next to my bed, it sat, or sometimes spun, on a dull brown, scratched up desk. I remember how I would often look at the unknown world through my young eyes—never fully grasping the scope of it all. The country and city names were all so far out of reach for a dirty blonde haired runt, like myself. I would trade nothing. But as is with most things, there is a price to be paid for such rewards—for the mysterious world to become a little less mysterious.
The fact that we got to The Kabale so early has left us a good amount of time to catch up on some of the little things. I finally got to change my strings, play a few songs that I’d written before tour, and settle into my thoughts. Alissa is catching up on her e-mails. Ever the busy bee that one. Speaking of new songs, I forgot to bring my notebook of lyrics, one of those things I’d said hurts like hell to forget. So I keep having this feeling that I’ll forget all the songs I was working on before I left. The truth is... I've never really needed to write them down. Writing down songs is a security measure. In the event that I actually do forget the damn things, I would have had a back up plan. What a Dummy.
While Christian catches up with his friends at The Kabale, speaking in his enthusiastic, high pitched, welcoming voice that I've come to love, and Alissa is e-mailing away—I’m writing to you. The voice in my head. It feels cathartic, but strangely unnerving to put our day to day down on these pages. Who will read this? Maybe just me. Maybe when Alissa and I are old and bat shit crazy we’ll pull this slender black book out of a box, covered in the dust that years leave on everything... Maybe.
The show last night in Heidelberg was at a tiny, leftist cafe. We arrived just in time for Voku. Voku translates into “The peoples kitchen”. During Voku, meals are served for a suggested donation. Some eat for free, others pay more than the suggestion. A true sliding scale. The cafe was packed for the show, which would not take many people to achieve that claustrophobic feel of a well attended show. After each song a jovial/drunk fella in the audience would yell out that it was my best song. This gave me the fodder to proclaim before each song ,that it was in fact, my best work. With my next level comedic skills, I was able to bring the house down in laughter. A comedian? Songwriter? Clown? All of the above, Thank you.
After the show we stayed with an old friend of Christian's. Jan is an outwardly friendly guy with a kind smile. He has a very normal loom about him. I would guess him between 27-32 years of age. His flat is modern looking, clean, and spacious to boot. The only random thing I can find about Jan is that despite his apparent normality, he has two free roaming rabbits. They just co-exist. Tearing ass from room to room, without a care in the world. I started to think that I’d like to shake Jan’s tree a bit to see what else is loose.