chicks rule

When I started writing for Coolgrrrls I used to be at some major skateboard event every weekend. So Frank told me to do some sort of a contest diary... well, it’s not that I don’t like skateboarding anymore. There’s just nothing going on in Europe at the moment so I spend my time and energy on going to cool shows and stuff. That’s why I should probably call the following update my show diary. Hehe. I hope you have fun reading it!

I promised the Avery guys to do a report on them a long time ago but they never managed it to play in a town near where I live so I had to travel to their place. That means: On thursday I drove from muenster to berlin (which took me like 6hours coz I got totally lost on my way...), on friday I drove another 3 hours to see the show in hamburg, went back to berlin the same night (another 3h car drive), hardly slept due to Thorsten’s cats and drove to munich (5h car drive) on saturday. Yeah... more than a 1000km within one weekend. I think I need an own tourbus myself! Or at least a chauffeur. Any volunteers? ;-))

But let’s come to the point! Avery is a really awesome hardcore band because they got their very own, very specific sound. On the one hand it’s definitely hardcore and on the other hand there is this fantastic rock’n’roll touch to it. Curious? Check out their HP www.averyrock.com and download some MP3 files then you will know what I’m talking about. On friday Thorsten took me to the band rehearsal and I was really astonished. I liked the record („lie, cheat and steal") a lot but they sound so much better live! Then we took off to Hamburg. The Molotov is in the middle of Hamburg’s world wide infamous red light district (the Reeperbahn) so it was already exciting (in a way) even before the show started. Avery were set up first. But Caliban also played a show the same night in Hamburg so there were hardly any people around to see Avery. Anyway. They rocked, screamed and partied the stage down and got me all heated up. An Avery show is definitely a very energetic experience! But let’s hear what the boys have to say for themselves:

Thorsten: Hmm.. complicated... Avery has been around since 1999. But Nico and me are the only two people who stayed with the band from the first day on. The newest bandmember is Faby. He joined us by the end of last year.

Which other records would you recommend somebody to buy if he likes the sound of Avery?

Thorsten: We wanted to make a really tasty cake. So we took only the best ingredients, put them in a bowl, stirred them, put the result in the oven and put some chocolate on top. Et voilá! That’s why that cake tastes that good now!

Alex: Actually I would recommend most of the hardcore and rock music from Sweden. Our müsic has got such a scandinavian touch to it (Alex is from Sweden).

Aren‘t you sick of travelling such a long distance and hardly get paid at all?

Alex: Well, that’s difficult to answer. We already played a couple of shows which didn’t get us any money but if the show was really awesome and the audience was great then I don’t mind. I personally think, just a little example from Sweden, if a band plays only covers then they earn like 800¤ per show. And we sit in our rehearsal room like 60h a week, do songs at home and stuff and we get like 1/10 of that!

Alex: Then we wouldn’t get any ahows. I think that’s the hardcore mentality...

Alex. Yes. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to make some money. One has to calculate: like today, 150¤ for that show minus gasoline and the rent for the van. And we rehearsed that much! So we earn like 0,3 cents an hour. I’m no eager worker! So, more money!

Thorsten: Even it’s no real work in that sense... That’s why we really want to play different shows. Everyone of us played in some other hardcore bands before Avery. So we’re pretty glad if we don’t have to play metal-hardcore-shows all the time. A line up like today is something different. It’s a chance, you know.

Alex: Personally, I prefer to play with some popbands, rockbands, whatever, but please, no more metalbands! Somehow this is following us since day 1! Like Avery and then 200000 pounds of metalbands! Hey I like metal but enough is enough.

Thorsten: I‘d rather play in front of a non-metal-hardcore-audience then making more money. I’m through with that. So intolerant folks!

Alex: it’s an attitude thing. The HC scene has lost ist.. how can I say.. foot-grip?!

Alex: No!! They are so narrow minded. They are around for such a long time and if it’s not metal then they don’t even understand it. A lot of predjudices! Well, I don’t really care about those people. But they spend so much time and energy on talking bullshit about bands that they don’t like. That’s why I’m so sick of the HC scene in Germany. It’s somehow really childish. I don’t understand that anymore. The orginal idea what hardcore is all about got totally lost!

Faby: You know, HC is just some kind of trend at the moment. It’s chic. Boah, how long have you been straight edge now? Boah, just 3 years, nah, no way man! And where’s the double bass and the second guitar?? That can’t be metal!

Thorsten: One got to keep in mind that we’re doing that for a pretty long time now. And sooner or later you get kind of sick like oh no, not again a DIY show. Travel 1000km for 50¤, bring your own backline, eat cold pasta with some disgusting tomato sauce and then you have to play in front of 20 people because they forgot about the advertisement. Well mhhmmm. Actually I can do without that... I’d rather stay home and take the cat stray out.

Why didn’t you get Jan (the former drummer) up on stage to play that one song with you guys?

Thorsten: I wasn’t in the mood for it. Usually it’s a taking and giving. If you step on stage then your motivation is like on a 100%. Like, yeah, now we will kick some ass for 40minutes. Then you play the first 2 songs and you can keep up that level but if you take a look at the audience and they are like 5m away from the stage and your level is slowing down minute per minute. If we did stuff like changing the drummer out motivation has to be up 100% the whole time.

Faby: If the audience is having a good time, they clap their hands or at least they are glad that it is not the usual live set. But today, nobody would have cared except those people who know Jan.

Thorsten: I personally think that an audience has to qualify for a good live show.

Alex: We are entertainers. If there was no audience at all we would play with 80% and the last 20% have to come from the audience.

Puffball were up next. They sound like.. I’d say.. they actually are the Swedish Motörhead. But since the audience was so lame and due to the fact that they got hammered before the show it wasn’t their best show I’d say. They were also willing to answer some questions.

Forsberg: We started in 1995. We did a demo tape. We were 3 guys in the beginning: me, Forsberg, I'm the drummer. Tossa, the guitarist and singer and we had another bass player, Hojas. So we were 3 guys. We got a contract with Burning Heart Records in '96. After our first record the other bass player quit so we got another bass player called Linkan and P-O Söderback as our second guitarist. Since then we've done 4 full length albums, 1 more minicd, a couple of 10'', a couple of 7''...

Forsberg: Me and Tossa are into American muscle cars. Tossa has got a really nice Plymouth Sport Satellite `69. The car thing is pretty lame actually because it's such a big cliché. You know, Action Rock, cars on the cover, eightballs and flames... but we like muscle cars so what can we do.

Which records by other bands would you recommend someone to buy if he likes Puffball?

Aren't you getting sick of being on tour. I mean, being on tour with all these sweaty guys, getting hardly paid at all and driving in a small van for days....

Forsberg: Yeah we like it but we get paid pretty low. Well, Puffball isn't a band that we can live on so everybody works back home. Then we're on tour again for a couple of weeks...

But still you have growing success over the years. Do your friends and families like that or are they like, oh no, now they're on tour all the time!

Forsberg: Oh no, coz we are not on tour all the time. We are not on tour as much as we want to coz since we got families and jobs we have to be home a lot.

Forsberg: No, we're pretty boring if you want a rock'n'roll band who are on tour all the time and does drugs and that stuff. That's just a cliché. We are not like that. But we love to be on tour. To get out there, get free beers and play 40 minutes on stage.

Forsberg: I would say on a good night as long as we are not sick or too drunk I guess a Puffball show should be better live than on a record.

We went back to Berlin straight after the show. Thx a lot to Thorsten for his hospitality! Hope to see you guys soon! It was a great weekend!

The show was alright but the audience was really really lame! Shame on you!! As you probably already know Micha is the lead vocalist and guitarist of the Hi-Tops. Their bubblegum punk is pretty cool and funny. They should be on the next CGs compilation. Apart from that Micha is playing drums in my band. Soo.. I just had to mention her on my page. And take a look at the pictures: She is wearing a Coolgrrrls wifebeater (in her case boyfriendbeater I’d say.. hehe)! Yeah!

Hell yeah!! What a great party! Sandra was obliged to do some cool pics for OX fanzine. She might even get the cover pic so it was pretty important for her to get some good shots. Actually Sandra was really really nervous but there was absolutely no need to be nervous. The guys were really nice and supportive. Kevin was so supportive that he hurt his hand on a stinging nettle when he tried to get the plant out of the shot. Yeah, wicked wild Germany.

For all of you who don’t know the Turbo A.C.s (shame on you!!) it’s: „The finest surfguitar injected punkrock since 1996". At least that’s what my shirt says ;-) . It’s their 8^th time now in Germany. And I was really glad that I had the pleasure to see their wild energetic show. It’s the best greaserpunkband I know. They are from NY so I think some of you have heard of them before. I tried to tape the whole show on Kevin’s digicam but somehow I pressed the wrong button and everytime I zoomed in it got kind of blurry. I hope they can use at least some part of the material...

The Turbo A.C.s have got a new record out. It’s called „Automatic". I think it’s one of their best records and I will hopefully get a copy soon so I can review it for CGs.

Sandra and me stayed at the party up to 5 or 6am. I had to drive back (of course!) so AGAIN no sleep for me. But It was worth it. We had a lot of fun in Cologne!

April: „I used to fuck people like you in prison" records eastern festival tour 2003, Germany/Netherlands.

Usually if you want to report on something you go and see ONE show... I saw like 3 or 4... and in 2 different countries... and I had to drive all the time... no, I’m not complaining, I’m just putting down facts. But I don’t want to bother you with that so I just take down a review on 2 shows.

University had started again so I took straight of to the show after my lessons (yeah, guess what, no sleep. I should change my name into:No Sleep) Of course, I arrived later than I wanted to and the day wasn’t getting any better... Sandra and me got kicked of the MAD guestlist last minute because.. well, that’s another long story, so let’s just recap that we had to pay. Actually it is no big deal for us to pay because hey, if we want to see a cool show, damn it, we’d pay for it! Of course! But what was starteling us was the fact that we were allowed to take pics, do interviews, hang out backstage but: They wanted our money?!! This is a really strange world we live in...

Anyway... The Heartaches were set up first. They do really nice punk rock. It’s not really new and

innovating but if you like U.S. Bombs, Rancid and stuff I’m sure you have fun watching them. I remember that Sandra and me saw them before at the European Hardcore Party about a year ago. But seriously, I couldn’t recall the faces or at least one song. I just knew that we had seen them before because I have a t-shirt of them. And that’s actually one of my fav shirts... whatever. I think I’m loosing a bit of track here... so let’s hear what Leroy, the lead vocalist had to say for himself and about the band. (maybe just a little anecdote her: Me: Can we do the interview now? Leroy: Of course —INTERVIEW- Me: Would you like to add anything? Because our readers are mostly girls. Leroy: Oh, it’s a girl magazine?? Can we do it all again??!!)

Leroy: We played a show with the Generators 2 or 3 years ago. Kinda got in contact with them. Then we had some band changes. Some line up changes and last year we signed to PLY.

Do you like playing with bands like The Bones or Mad Sin? Or do you prefer playing with more unknown bands?

Leroy: It’s all the same to me. As long as they are cool people it’s good for me. But of course, it’s better to play with a band that you really like than with a band that you don’t know.

Leroy: I have to say I prefer Germany. I don’t know why. Probably because of the atmosphere. In the Netherlands people are just too slow. They don’t do anything. They just stare at the show that’s all. It’s always the same in Holland. Except if you play in front of a really young crowd. But like today these people just stand there.

Leroy: The Generatos canceled the tour two days before we were supposed to leave. Then The Spook canceled for the first part so we hopped on the PLY tour. It was our only chance to do a tour this half year.

Have you got a certain line or saying that you live by? Like a certain concept of life?

Leroy: Play the show tomorrow, go home, try to record an album before the end of the year. Hopefully also do a tour before the end of the year but it always depends on the situation of the people in the band.

Set up next were the guys from The Spook. I think I mentioned them in one of my earlier updates. It’s no big secret that they are really cool guys and great friends! So I was really excited to see the show in Dortmund. They have got a nice creepy intro now at the beginning of the show. The first song was „Ready to Radiate". A classic! It just blows you away! They are my favourite horrorpunkband (besides the Misfits, of course). They also dress up in rags, with white make up and fake blood all over, so yeah, it was cool. As always. At the end of the show they played a new song that‘s not on the „Some Like It Dead" record called „Gods and Monsters". It was a little like a rough football hymne... whatever... I nailed down their singer Lou Gosi for a short interview. Here you go:

Lou: Ok, rhythm guitar Karl Off, keyboards Terence Tula, lead guitar Ross Feratu, drums Jack Ill, bass Lester Vail and Lou Gosi.. uhm...chirps.

Lou: Because Lester had some extreme health problems. We tried to reanimate him. It was a little problematic. So we had to cancel the first part of the tour. We’re really sorry.

You are a band with a very spectacular live horror show. How do you try to get this concept on a record?

Lou: I have to say that I’m ok with the last record when it comes to the songwriting but the sound on „Some Like It Dead" is not exactly what we imagined it to be like in the end. And I can already tell you that the next record will get pretty raw. We have done 3 or 4 new songs already and everything sounds way tougher and harder. We will definitely put some punk rock songs on the record but ,of course, our own Spook-sound as well. And there will be maximum one ballade on the new record. Maximum!

Lou: Well, we have already updated a part of it! I have to excuse myself to all our fans that it took us so long! But now we even got a forum on the homepage and stuff. It was a little problematic to update the old version because we simply had no time to do it.

Lou: Tarantula! And Frankenstein, of course. A classic! The first adaption of Mary Shelly’s book by Boris Karloff in 1931. Nosferatu for being an art figure. The same is valid for Shadow of the Vampire that has recently been in the theatres. It’s my favourite movie! It is unbelievable! Yes, I have to admit that Shadow of the Vampire is definitely my favourite movie!

Lou: We will be working hard on new songs. We have got a new manager, Budze. A great guy! We recorded two new songs, just for fun. Gods and monsters and Reanimated. We have been playing Gods and Monsters at the tour. We re-wrote Reanimated a little. Those two songs are steady now. I have to talk to PLY but, although the Misfits are pretty fucked up, I would like to try a split single with one or two new songs with them. That’s my personal wish. Well, apart from that, we will keep on writing new songs. That’s it.

The Revolvers were up next. They are actually from the Ruhrpott area so a lot of their friends and fans came to see the show. It’s always good to see people having a good time in the audience. Usually they just stand around and stare at the stage. So the Revolvers were glam-punk-rocking it up! It was a cool show but I have to skip them here a little. I’m sorry guys, it’s nothing personal, you know ;-)))

Mad Sin canceled their performance last minute because the voice of Koefte (their lead vocalist) was gone. I think it is a real pity because I’m sure a lot of people only made their way to Dortmund because of Mad Sin. Well, I had just seen them a couple of times in Ebersberg (shitty sound), Osnabrueck (lame audience) and Berlin (Hell! Awesome!) so I wasn’t too upset about it. I’ll come back to them later on.

Because Mad Sin dropped off The Bones were up next. I think you still remember them because I mentioned them in my last update. Because Mad Sin couldn’t perform themselves the Swedish guys wore their t-shirts on stage. Even punkrockers got a heart! The crowd really freaked out when they played „Denial" and „Screwed, Blued and Tattooed". It was a blast! I personally prefer their old LP „Screwed, Blued and Tattooed" but those 2 songs are burning gasoline for my punk’n’roll soul! Hell yeah! As they had been on tour with Die Toten Hosen recently I was a little worried that a lot of really young kids would be in the audience and stuff.. but nope.. I’ll guess they will stick with us underdogs for some more. Hehe. God bless. But I guess some people in the audience had a different opinion when Boner came up on stage and said: Hellooo Cleveland! I should excuse those guys a little but they had been constantly watching Spinal Tap on the tourbus. So I guess the temptation was just too big.

Ok, I have to admit that Sandra and me were a little lazy and a little slow that day. We arrived at the El Effenaar by 10pm. Not very professional but hey, who cares anyway?! The Bones were already in the middle of their set list when we entered the place. But as we had just seen them 2 days ago we didn’t really care. I have to say that the Dutch are a pretty quite people. They hardly moved at all but that suddenly changed when Mad Sin popped up on stage. Koefte finally got the crowd going! Well, he’s a big entertainer. Literarly and metaphorically. They played a lot songs from their new record „Survival of the Sickest" and they hellbillied the stage down. Actually they literaly set it on fire. By the end of their set they did that great Meteors cover „My Daddy Is A Vampire". During that song they put their announcer Hellvis on stage and he was the firestarter.. in a way... Hellvis spit fire on stage (spit fire? I’m not sure if that expression exists in English but I couldn’t find it in my dictionary. It’s kind of a circus trick. S.o. puts a flammable substrat in his mouth spits it in the way of a torch so it looks like a burst of fire is coming out of his mouth. Do you know what I mean? If not, maybe you should keep on watching Jackass. I’m sure Johnny Knoxville&Co. will do that sooner or later..). Mad Sin are one of the best punkbilly/hellbilly/psychobilly bands in Europe. They are a real experience live and they are coming your way! Make sure to check out one of their shows as they are just coming on US tour to a town near you:

Jun 20, 2003 Mad Sin US-Tour 2003
Phoenix, AZ (USA), Mason Jar Error! Bookmark not defined.

They didn‘t force me to do a little advertisement. I just really like the band. After the show the real partaay started. We went to some Irish pub with the worst cover band ever. It was simply hilarious. It almost felt like back in the day when Jake and me used to hang out with Mike Crum & Duffy. It was so much fun! Sandra&me left the place by 6 or 7am and headed back to Essen. Woah! The hell of a night but we had no time to rest...

Ps.: Thx to everybody (especially the Bones & the Spook) for having us on board! It was awesome!

Yeah guess what... no sleep... after a short nap we hopped back in the car and made our way (another 2 or 3h cardrive) to Belgium. We hooked up with Melle on the way and went to the Groezrock. Thx to Theo Noizz we had backstage passes. Whoa. I guess otherwise I wouldn’t have survied! I was so damn wasted! So thx a lot, Theo!! The Groezrock is THE mayor hardcore/emocore festival in Europe. Just the line up of the bands got my motivation level up again! Seriously check that out: (Germany@Nite Marion I KNOW you envy me now)

As you can see this is the creme of the crap! And it’s pretty hard for me to focus only on a couple of bands because they are all great and all worth some words...i.e. Flogging Molly is such a great band from Los Angeles. They are becoming pretty big at the moment over here. Their music is inspired by the Dubliners and the Pogues. They are great and it’s just so cool to have Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys at the same festival. Another band I just HAVE to mention is Hot Water Music. Unfortunately I missed them on their Euro tour last summer so I was really happy to see them at the Groezrock. They are from Gainesville, Florida and are around since like 1994 or something. I would say they do sort of punk music but just sort of. It’s probably punk and guttural rock. And although one of them couldn’t attend the show the 3 of them did a great concert! And I was so glad that the audience really appreciated what they did. Well, yeah, it’s so hard to point out only a few but otherwise I would probably extend that update too much (as I probably already did...) Biohazard are worth mentioning simply because they are around for such a long long time. A Biohazard gig was one of my first shows. I was like 16 when I saw them for the first time. I have to say that Billy got really old but Evan is still looking exactly the same. Whatever. Do I really have to say anything about them? I guess not. Maybe: Their 7^th studio album is called „Kill or be Killed" and they played a couple of new songs at the show. The audience was just one boiling pit during the whole show. And I have to say just a bit about the Dropkick Murphys.I mean, they got real fans. Even two hours before they were up on stage the fans shouted „Let’s go Murphys" slogans. Awesome. The band is from Boston, MA and they have got that great sound. A blend of punk, irish folk, rock and hardcore. They did a very professional but also very energetic performance on stage and I’m sure everyone was having a good time. Yeah, well, I could go on and on and on and on but I guess I shouldn’t stretch that update any longer. Because of our bad stamina we spent most of the time at the merchandise tent and did what we really like (yeah, remember my California update?) shopping! By 1 or 2am we headed back home and I was just soo happy when I lay down in my bed eventually. It was a great but very exhausting weekend.

If you want some more info on the Goezrock festival just check out: www.groezrock.be

Ok a big THANK YOU goes out to Trikkie for sending me his Poison The Well pics. If you like his work you should drop him a line: kiss_me_or_kill_me@hotmail.com

The other photos are token by Sandra Steh, of course. Our all time favourite photographer. Check out www.steh.de

Thx to Thorsten and Niklas for their hospitality! Berlin is the hell of a city! I’ll be back for sure!

Yeah.. now that was really a long update... can’t wait to hit the road again so I got some more stories to tell!

December 23, 2002

The really, really, really, BIG update.

Chapter 1: Intermot, September, Munich, Germany

I should at least mention that I was around. The Intermot is one of Europe’s biggest motobikes&scooters tradeshow. They had a really nice outdoorpark where everybody was able to ride on the newest MX bikes. But they wouldn’t let me do it since I got no driver’s licence for motobikes. They also had a smaller parcour for kids. It was really fun to watch those little ones riding their tiny bikes. They also had different kinds of shows going on. They had a trail show there and an FMX one. Riders like Kris Brock, Basti Wolter and Steve Cussins were around. The niveau was set pretty low since there were no real pros around. I also met Jake there which was fun.

Chapter 2: BoomBoomHuckJam, October, San Diego, California

I think this is what most of you expected me to write about. It took quite a while to finish it if you want to know why just check out my postings on the message board.
Some time by the end of September I wrote Tony an email because I got my own band now and I wanted to know which band-name he’d prefer: Blood Runs Black, Loaded With Sin or The Cherrybombs. He replied:

Cherrybomb is definitely the best. Have fun in the Zurich rain...

Our tour starts in a week - holy shit. 24 cities in the U.S. Check out
www.boomboomhuckjam.com if you're interested.

Stay raw,
Tony

I immediately checked it out and I was simply amazed. Tony put a huge event together. Just take the best skateboarders, FMX and BMX riders in the world, a halfpipe that costs 1mio US$, some of the best punkrockbands alive like Social Distortion, Devo or Face to Face et voila you got the BoomBoomHuckJam (which is quite a goofy name, I think...)
I called up Sandra and asked her if we should go there. She was up for it. Together we put somekinda plan together how we could get there. I emailed Frank and he was up for letting us stay at the Coolgrrrls headquaters. Tony agreed on an interview so we could sell it to some German mags. So we went to LAX on the 18th of October where Frank picked us up. He showed us around town and pretty much around everywhere in Orange County within such a short time. We also went to the Lucky 13 headquaters where we got to know Bobby and he showed us the whole place. It’s really amazing. It’s huge. They produce their stuff there completely by themselves. And the whole interior is designed like the graphics on the shirts; kitties, swallows and skulls everywhere. I want to work there! Then we were also allowed to grab some shirts and stickers which was way cool. On the second day after our arrival Frank took us to Webster‘s memorial. He died in that horrible terror attack in Bali, Indonesia. If you want to know further details just check out Frank’s own update. It was very emotional and a lot of surfers and friends showed up. (btw: hi sean!).
I could go on forever like this, but maybe I should cut it short. My highlights:
Shopping:
The hello kitty store, the electric chair, ron jon’s surfshop, vans store, the orange county fleamarket (there are a LOT of grrreat places to go if you got money to burn, I got broke within one week).....
Eating:
The mexican restaurant close to the pier in Huntington Beach, the mexican one in San Diego and Frank’s BBQ.
Places:
Laguna Beach (beautiful beach, very clean, very nice town), Melrose (very arty, a good place if you need some inspiration), San Diego (a very very nice city), Newport Beach,... actually I like all the places I been to. We also went to Hollywood, Costa Mesa, Venice Beach,... we went like EVERYWHERE.
Things I’ve seen so I can show off:
The walk of fame (I’ve seen Johnny Cash’s star and the one of Lassie), the new Jackass movie which was simply hilarious (and it’s not yet in the cinemas overhere in Europe so I can really show off). We also went to the Vans skatepark where we met Steve Caballero. The Vans park is so sweet. I love love love it. There is a very nice halfpipe, a lovely streetcourse, a couple of really good miniramps, a pool and an outdoorpark. We went to the Getty museum, we been to some party where Sandra got to know two guys. They invited us to their pimp’n’hoes party. Well, everytime I tell my male mates overhere about the outfits of the girls at that party they all envy me. Hehe. And we met that super nice girl from Newport Beach: Jessy! She rocks!
Things that impressed me:
The public toilets are very clean, everybody from ages 5 to 50 is wearing fox racing gear shirts, super cool cars EVERYWHERE (pontiac, chevy, ford,.... all those really old, really hot cars), motoX riders, surfers, skateboarders EVERYWHERE....
We saw sooo much in such a short time and we had sooooooooooooo much fun. Thanks to Frank coz he took soooo good care of us. But I think I should start know with my report on the BBHJ (if you got some more questions concering my time in CA don’t be shy and email me). Thanks to a lot of margaritas and beers time went by very quickly and on Thursday, Oct. 24th Frank, Sandra and me hopped in his Jeep and drove off to San Diego. When we arrived at the San Diego Sports Arena, everybody was there except Tony but he showed up just when I started complaining. Unfortunately he didn’t have much time as all the athletes had to do their practice now. They had only one hour to prepare for the show. When the will call office opended eventually (we were waiting about 2 hours in front of it) a nice girl called Kristine showed up and she took care of all us press people. She led us to some kind of lobby with little tables and chairs around them. We were then supposed to choose a table, make a list with people we’d like to interview and she’d bring them to our table. I mean... hey... what was that? I didn’t expect that?! I thought it would be just like always you’d walk up to the guys and ask them if they were up for an interview spontaneously.. but nah.. everything is a little different in the US. So when she asked me who we’d like to interview I’d go like „uhm... just everybody...". Then she left. After a few seconds a BMXer called John Parker showed up and we talked a bit about his wife and the show. He felt a little out of place just like I did so that was kinda nice. Then Kristine showed up again and with her an all-over-tattooed guy called Ronnie Faisst. I realized that I had seen that face before. Jake, me, Ronnie and Mike Cinqmars put a fire-extinguisher out on a loaded BMXer in Zurich about a year ago (read the whole story in one of my earlier updates). When I told Ronnie about it he laughed and could remember the whole thing pretty well. After that we did an interview:
After that Tony enterd the room and set next to us. We chatted a little and then we started the interview. Unfortunately I can’t post the whole interview here but I will post it as soon as it’s published in Germany. But here are the Q&As the coolgrrrls wanted me to ask him:

What do you think of girl skaters? Who is your favourite girl skater?

My favourite girl skater is.. uhm...Vanessa Torres... is that right?

Yeah.

She’s good. She‘s got good style. She’s young and she’s got the gift. I think a girl like her can really push girl skating into the limelight. You can see what’s possible at a young age. She can compete with the guys.

Will you have a girl skater as part of your entourage?

Maybe. I think if,... I’m not sure about it in this setting. Coz there’s not a lot of really good girl vert skaters but if we did the skaterpark tour again there’s gonna be some we would incorporate but honestly I don’t think we’ll do a skatepark tour again.

Frosted flakes or lucky charms?

Frosted Flakes.

Uhm... why does it say Marlin here, Frank? I think it should be Marylin Monroe since Marlin is a fish.... so Marylin Monroe or Madonna?

Uhh... gosh... I think Madonna. She just changes her looks so much. And she’s still alive.

If you weren’t a skater what do you think you’d be doing for a living?

Uuh. I don’t know. I’d probably be sitting behind a computer doing videoediting or webstuff. Something 9 to 5. Boring.

How’s becoming a father changed you?

Uhm. It just gave me a different sense of priorities and maybe just realized that there is more in life than just riding a skateboard

As I already said, I’ll post the whole thing later. But for those of you who can read German you can check out the link below and have a little look at what it looks like in whole length and full effect (but unfortunately in German):
www.unclesallys.de

After that we left that place of strange encounters and went to see the show. First of all Sandra and me wanted to buy some beers and we had little cultural difficulties. In Germany we have this very popular drink which is called Radler or Alster. The English word for it is Shanti but nobody (except Diane) seems to know it there. So I was like:

„I want a shanti."
„A what?"
„A shanti. Half beer and half sprite."
„Half beer and half sprite? Are you sure?"
„Yeah."

So, if some of my American readers doesn’t know that drink yet, check it out it’s really tasty and refreshing. Frank and me watched the show at the press area while Sandra was down stairs, next to the ramp, taking pictures.
At first they had some kind of group sessions so the skateboarders (Tony Hawk, Andy MacDonald, Brian Howard, Bucky Lasek, Sergie Ventura, Lincoln Ueda and Shaun White) showed some tricks, then the BMX guys (Mat Hoffman, Dave Mirra, Kevin Robinson and John Parker), then the Moto guys (Ronnie Faisst, Mike Cinqmars, Carey Hart and Dustin Miller) and Rick Thorne hosted the whole show. After thshowing their vert skills they rode the big jump ramp. Shaun White did some really nice melon 360ies and Kevin Robinson almost killed himself when he tried a backflip. After the break DEVO played on a seperate stage while the riders did a freeridesession in the vert ramp. When DEVO played Tony’s favourite song „gates of steel" he got heated up and tried to do a 900. He bailed the first 4 or 5 attempts but when DEVO played the last part of the song he threw one down. The crowd was cheering, he was happy, we were happy, this was going to be a great night out. Then they had the grand finale when all the riders did some tricks in the vert ramp (all at the same time, of course) and the moto guys flew around them. It was a little to confusing for me and reminded me more on a popcorn machine then on a sports show but it was very entertaining. After the show we headed back to Huntington Beach with Frank „the cool uncle" Davern.
As I promised to publish an interview with Tony on my page here’s an exclusive one which I did after the whole BBHJ tour:

Would you say the tour was a success?

Definitely. We even sold out a couple of shows at the East Coast. Most of the athletes didn’t want it to end as opposed to being sick of travelling (like we usually are).

Was it like you expected it to be?

Better. I thought the shows would be repetitive after a while, but the riding continued to improve over the six-week period.

Where was the best show?

Boston. It was our biggest and loudest crowd.

Where was the biggest turn out?

Boston – 12,500 in attendance.

Did you enjoy the Social D performance?

Very much. Every show with them was a bundle of energy. Even though we did five shows in row, we never lost our enthusiasm.

What was your favourite band on the tour?

I have to go with Devo because I grew up listening to them and I never got to see them live before our tour.

Did Carey Hart’s girlfriend, Pink, show up?

She came to a couple of shows and even rode the bus between cities.

Was she cool and all raw?

She is cool and she can definitely hang on the road.

Sandra and me spent the rest of our time in CA with what we like most of all. Shopping, shopping, shopping, drinking beer and eating Mexican food. Thanks again to Frank for EVERYTHING, to Andy for showing us LA, to Diane, to Jonas from the Lonely Kings (although we didn’t make it to the show in Santa Cruz) and everybody how came to see us.

Chapter 3: Night of the Jumps 2, October, Oberhausen, Germany

Sandra and me flew back to Munich on Oct 26th and it turned out to be a really rough ride as we had some kind of a hurricane blowing over Europe. 26 people died, fortunately we survived somehow. Just one week after our arrival we went to one of Europe’s biggest FMX events, www.ifmxf.com. A lot of really good riders showed up. Even Mike Metzger was there and Metal Mulisha Jeremy Steinberg. As I knew the Metz was around, I knew I was going to see my first back flip on a moto bike ever. I was all excited. But then bad news came our way. Mike did 6 backflips before the show started and bailed the last one. The thing is. You just can’t bail a backflip on a moto bike. So Metzger smashed and got a serious concussion. He couldn’t take part in the contest and I was really pissed. But whatever. The level was set very high especially because that crazy Australian Dayne Kinaird was around. He does combos (!!!!!!!) on a moto bike. I mean, combos like: shaolin bar hop to cliffhanger to whatever. It was sick! So sick! I almost forgot my disappointment about the missed back flip. Dayne won the contest which was really no surprise. But the rest of the riders were really good as well. Especially the high jump contest turned out to be one of the most entertaining parts of the show (usually it’s the most boring one) as the two riders just seemed to have rockets in their turbo mufflers and they just couldn’t set up a winner after both aired a height of 8, 20metres. So both of them won. After that we went to the obligatory after contst party which was a lot of fun but I guess we were all too tired so we couldn’t party that much.
Thanks to Quirin, Hannes, Clemens, Niki and Lukas for showing up.

Chapter 4: Resistance Tour, November, Munich, Germany
www.resistancetour.com

As you can see I was on the road almost every weekend. It was an all-girl-weekend. That was a lot of fun. Sandra, Melle, Carla and me drove from Essen to Munich to spend a few days with stuff that we luv. A great HC show, shopping and party.

The line up was:

Biohazard
Agnostic Front
Hatebreed
Discipline
Born from Pain

Unfortunately Death Threat had to cancel their appearance but it was fun anyways. My personal favourite was Agnostic Front. They just got some cool songs. You can also check out one of my earlier updates where I already reported on them. Biohazard got a new guitar player (again). I don’t know, how often have they changed their guitar player now? 5 or 6 times? The audience liked Hatebreed most of all. I also met Jake there and the after show party almost ended up disasterous again (remember my ISPO update) but fortunately we didn’t drink vodka & whiskey triple shots this time.

Thanks to Rosi from Ballroom concerts! Check out www.ballroomconcerts.de

Chapter 5: The Bones &the Spook, November, Duesseldorf, Germany

I went to see two of my all time favourite bands. The Spook are kind of a Misfits like band. They also dress up in rags and put white make up on. Their shows are always very entertaining and except that they are great guys, good friends and a lot of fun to hang out with. Check out http://www.thespook.de

The main act were the Bones. An all punk’n’roll-party-band. Very energetic, very good looking and just wild. They are friends of Lisa Darling so maybe you just check out her page and find some backround info about them. Or check out their website: http://www.bonesrocknroll.com

Bones Interview:

How’s playing in Germany? Do you like it here?

Yeah, hell yeah. It’s a fucking great time.

What was the matter with Boner? I heard all kinda different stories.

Yeah, we had to take his brain out because he was so drunk. Then we put it in the microwave and left it there for a couple of days. Then we had to wash it but now it’s back in place.

Did you put the same brain back in there or maybe another one?

Well, he’s got a small one.

A small one?

Yeah, a really really small brain. We couldn’t find any smaller one than that so we had to put it back in.

About what size?

Oh, the size of a peanut.

(Boner disturbed the interview at that point and said that his penis looks like a raisin. Whatever.)

Do you think your sound on the new album developed in any way? Is it more straight forward rock’n’roll or more punk?

I don’t know. I don’t know. We...uhmm.. we have always been doing kinda like the same stuff. Punk’n’roll. I mean, we been like this for many years and in the end it’s the same shit but different songs. At least we had a bit more time in the studio this time. It took more time to produce a better sound, you know.

Do you think your live sound is more energetic? Is it better live?

It’s always better live. You can never put that on a record, you know. Because you can see us beautiful guys at the same time.

Was that Motörhead cover a request of your bass player? Cause he looks a little like Lemmy.

Yeah. Without the warts.

Yeah.

It was kinda like a tribute to Ramones and a tribute to Motörhead. Two bands that we really like, you know. And yeah, he looks like Lemmy.

What are your recent plans? Bigger tour? New record?

Now we gonna get drunk cause we’re leaving to Switzerland in two hours. We are on tour at the moment with Die Toten Hosen and they got a day off so we got to play anyway. We wanted to play Düsseldorf. And tomorrow we meet up with those guys in Switzerland for 2 more shows. We already did 6 shows with those guys all over Germany. Now we’re going to Switzerland for 2 shows then we’ll go back to Sweden for 3 weeks cause we want to spend some time with our girlfreinds before Christmas because we’re on the road on Christmas as well with the Toten Hosen.

Do you like those guys?

Yeah fucking great guys. Yeah really nice guys. I mean, I have been listening to those guys for like 15 years or so.

Does the audience accept you?

Yeah, actually they really do. It’s kinda like a big party every night. It’s a little strange to play in front of thousands of people every night but the people are fine with it and they give us a really good time. They are really nice to us. We’re having the time of our lives, you know. And even more free beers as well.

Ok, thanks.

Chapter 6: Meet&Greet with Tony Hawk, December, Cologne, Germany

THAT was just soooooo fun! It was 1am when my phonebell rang and I was just like „who the hell is calling me up at 1am on a Tuesday night?". It was Sandra. She was like: „Hey, do you think it is possible that Tony is in Cologne on Thursday?" I didn’t know. I emailed him and he said he would be there but he would be there only for a couple of hours. Sandra told me that you could win a personal skateboard training with him thru Einslive (a local radio station) and guess what. I won. So I went to Cologne on Thursday and we met up at the Dome sports skatehall. I got there too late but he was still around. One of the reporters accompanied me to the backstage area where she introduced me to Tony. Of course, we already know each other so we hugged and he asked e what I’d be doing here. When I said I won this. He just laughed for 4 or 5 minutes and then we chatted a little. It was really funny. Well, we didn‘t really skate together. It wasn’t possible because they had build up a really shitty somewhat skatepark in the backstage area. They had two small jumpramps, a curb and a rail... nothing that I could make use of. Tony ollied the jump ramp but that was it. After our „date" Tony did a demo in the vert ramp (but the vert ramp was too small and he almost killed himself) then Activison gave me all kinda Tony Hawk’s pro skater 4 stuff. A t-shirt, posters, whatever,... I gave most of the stuff to my friends. Except a big paper exhibitor (I don’t know if that’s the right expression but I’ll send in a pic) that’s decorating my room now. It was really a lot of fun and very spontaneous.

Rock on, girlies!
-Sabine Schenk