After about a four-hour morning drive to Berlin on Wednesday, we met up with a cheerful bearded fella on a bike. This is Flo. Flo is great - but we were in a rush. He gave us a quick rundown, then sent us on our way to the radio station. He left us the entire apartment to ourselves for two days in Berlin. We can sleep in the same bed, shower in the same shower, and actually buy some groceries for once! What a world!
From there, we ran to Deutschlandfunk Kultur for a fancy interview and live session. A tall man named Henri engineered the session. Dan asked him how long he had worked in the studio. He laughed, saying that everyone always asked him that question. And that’s how an older man avoids questions that he doesn’t want to answer. A super attentive Bettina conducted the whole shebang - leading us to and fro, and even wrangling this sick boy some tea.
Vivian Perkovic interviewed me for the segment. And dang. I thought I was prepared, but she came more prepared. She had some really thoughtful questions, looked up our blog and drew connections between Trump and the AFD through the lens of our experience in Chemnitz a few nights ago during the Neo-Nazi rally.
She asked if I invented to keep sharing detailed personal things about my life, and I didn’t see why I wouldn’t. But, when she asked that, it kinda lit a fire under my ass to make sure I sat down to walk through the past couple days.
We went home, heard the interview, and fell promptly asleep before this night’s show at Ä.
At the show, we met Clio and Maurice. They’re a Milan based duo. He plays the violin, she sings. It’s just dang beautiful and really fills up a room. Clio’s first year of sobriety was tonight, and her birthday was yesterday, so there’s a lot to celebrate, even though it was a pretty empty room.
Tanno engineered and was wonderful and helpful, gently pressing the importance of very soft drums so that they can continue to have music here. Akis was a kind host. After getting my third water, he said, “what the fuck with you guys?” (I’m getting over a cold, and my three free drinks probably wouldn’t help me recover any faster.)
I’m going to sleep hard tomorrow. We’ll get up in the morning. We’ll go see a few things, do another radio interview, and meet back up with the Wayne Graham guys.
And then the next day, we stopped by ALEX Berlin for another radio interview with Lele and Madlen, and filmed a live video for “Ohio.” ALEX is an amazing public service - anyone in Berlin can use their top-notch audio and video equipment to run their own podcasts, radio shows, and more. It’s really a gem - like a tool share for multimedia work.
We stopped by the Jewish Museum for a few hours, and then had so much fun with Wayne Graham at Art Stalker - it was great to reconvene at a show when we all had gotten over our jet lag. It feels great to fall into a rhythm with Dan and fill up a room with two boys from Ohio.
We played a Killers cover that I thought was on the first album. I announced it as such, and then a nice couple corrected me after the show - “Read My Mind” is on Sam’s Town, their second album. Then, we chuckled and smiled, and they signed up for the email list. Also, a nice man named Berndt asked us to sign our record - he bought it from a local shop in Berlin. He even gave us some guitar picks from a local shop in Berlin. He said our music touches him in the heart, and he'll be there next time we're in the city. We shared a big ol' hug. If we break the guitar before we leave, I’m sure we’ll take it to his friend’s place.
W e pack our lives back into our little Volvo and head out to Dresden today. Three cheers for kind people, hard questions, and good stories.
