We are in dresden,germany. We have one day off between now and march 5th. Then we get back to the states and hit the ground running. We are in another youth center/venue. These places are so amazing. America really could learn alot from Europe. My life is changing before my eyes and it's scary and exicting all at the same time. I'm not really in the best mood but that will change with time.

there will be much to say about my trip to europe...but right now...it is very hard to rationalize spending any time on the internet talking about europe when i could go out and actually run around in europe. today is a day off in paris (ugh...) and harpoon larry and i are staying with southern friends and setting out on a quest to buy new shoes, eat everything, and maybe touch teeth on top of the Eiffel Tower at sunset.

in the meantime, here is a very brief sampling of the first 5 days in germany. more to come (i have already taken like 600 pictures)...this will have to do for now:



Würzburg is german wine country, birthplace of Dirk Nowitzki, and once the home many a bad-ass bishop. the first show was underneath a castle, in a building that used to be a woman's prison...a fitting way to get the ball rolling i think? we stayed with the promoter Frank, who functioned as tour guide, concierge, and jet lag therapist...we couldn't have landed in a better place. i got to do some really wonderful late night wandering in this city the first night, followed by some really insane late night partying the second. I met some beautiful jerks...this was the best introduction i could ask for.


the Marienberg Festung was built in the 12th century...and i rapped under it in the 21st century



the dom-the main-a door



no escape-no dogs-no fun



a pony that bites-the woman's prison-the propeller

can you spot the texan?



Würzburg set the bar pretty high as far a scenery, so Mannheim didn't really knock off any socks in that department. What it lacked in rolling hills and towering fortresses, it made up for in urban hilarity. The promoter, Torsten took the title for character of the tour, and i doubt we will meet anyone who can snatch that from him. A middle aged punk, turned techno fiend, he was so agro...it was breathtaking. Just when you think he is about to break a bottle over his own head, he tells you about his new born son and you can see him melt. what a hurricane this guy was, he was literally leading the hesitant crowd in applause...i can't wait to see him again.


tricky ricky-i am kanadian-this is why they call it the Suite



i still can't wrap my head around the "bro-beds"



Trier stole my god-damned heart. The oldest city in Germany, it was once the capitol of the Holy Roman Empire, and it stood 1,300 years before Rome. Harpoon Larry chased me all around this city as i got all sweaty and out of breath from history overdose.

"how many fucking churches did we see today, andy?!"

to top it all off, the show was stellar, and the company afterward was top notch. Anytime you can stay up all night talking about world politics, ocean city maryland, and pounding german beers...that is a night well spent. "a hillbilly in the land of hobos"...i miss them folks already.


a McDonald's-all of the streets-frau prem is watching



all must pass through the porta nigra



spot the texan



the bones of a saint-the prayers for the children-the bishop in blue



brought tears to the eyes of this old Agnostic



the three wisemen (wifebeaterstylez)



alright...that is all for now. I have to go run around paris.
more to come including: Mayhem in Munich, Listless in Linz, The Italian Handshake is given to my new Italian brother, and much much more...

ciao!

*andy

We made it thru switzerland and now we are in France. We are playing with another
American band called Kill the Vultures (http://www.myspace.com/killthevultures)
The rapper in the group is cresent Moon. We know him from the Warped Tour days. He used to be Slug from Atmosphere's Hypeman. Show just be fun. It's at a youth Culture center. Andy and I are at the hotel. This is the second day we have had our own hotel room which is just insane. Last night in Düdingen,Switzerland we had our own rooms. It was like European Vacation with a community bathroom on the floor. Shit was so funny to me. The food we have been eatting has been homemade cook. Usually when we get to the venue they have snacks. Like fruit,cheese and bread. Lots of bread and cheese. Which is great. Then a main dinner before the show. We haven't been spending any money for the most part on gas only. So Europe is without saying hands down the best we have done moneywise. I don't think anyone is reading this so this is more or less just for me to remember this experience.

-brock

Italy was fantastic! Faenza was Andy’s best performance of the tour in my opinion. We made it thru the checkpoint in Switzerland with no problem what's so ever. It helps that we are in a small car and not a van with gear. Everything should be smooth sailing for the most part. We are at the Geneva venue and it's so rad. We have our own room on the second floor of the venue. Andy and I agree that venues with rooms for the bands are way better than a hotel. I have a feeling there will be so drinking going down tonight. Can't ask for much more in a city and a country we have never been to in our lives.

-b

So we are in italy. And we are one week into tour. Italy is great other than the fact that we stick out even more like folks not from here. At first i didn't notice. But tonight it's extra thick with rubber neckers. We were off yesterday so we decided to live it up and we went to venice. All I can say is WOW. We did it up. Andy has lots of pictures from this trip and I have video as well. We are meeting amazing people. Giacoma was our promoter at our first Italy show and I feel he will be a friend of ours for many years to come. One thing about Europe is English doesn't matter at the end of the day. Music is Universal. That has been amazing to me. We are 2 dudes and our music has us in a foriegn country. I get stressed crossing borders while driving but as so as we get into a new country with no problem I am able to relax. We are about to do our 2 show in Italy. Tomorrow we are off so we are going shoe shopping in Milan.

-brock

Europe Tour 2009 has offically started. Andy and I made it to Europe for the first time thursday morning. Got the rental car and started rollin to Wurzburg, Germany. Wurzburg is the size of the town I grew up in texas. It's 150,000 people. It's crazy how worried I was about getting here and wasn't exicted until I was driving. I became so relaxed when I was behind the wheel of the Opal Corsa. That's what we are driving. It's a 4 door. You can play mp3 cd's and it has an aux for an ipod. So other than not having Howard Stern in the car, which is weird for me. We are all good. The GPS is working good so far. The HD camera isn't though. We think we killed the battery on it. So we are going to charge it tonight, and cross your fingers it works tomorrow. Because we will have tonz of footage of this crazy thing we call our JOBS if the battery charges. Other than that everyone for the most part speaks english in germany which is a plus. We ate lunch at this resturant today and every song they played was an amercian song, from country,pop,rap, etc. Andy and I were just laughing out loud at how ridiculous it was to hear Kenny Chesney and then Pink right after each other in FUCKING GERMANY. The best part was our promoter wasn't going to be home until later in the day so we had like 4 hours to kill. We drove around looking a castles. Got some food and then we decided to just park and sleep in the car and wait. We slept so good in the car. We slept 2 hours past the time our promoter was going to be home. We are convinced that we get the best sleep in cars. Always have. All them days of sleeping in the Honda Element. First show is tomorrow at venue called Cairo. We forgot to buy the most important thing of the tour. A way to charge our laptops with all the different plugs for different countries. We meant to get them at office depot and we forgot. It's pretty important since it's how andy does his show. But our promoter says he knows where to get one so we will hopefully get one tomorrow. Wish us LUCK

-Brock