AntiProduct Tour Diary – Entry #8, 8/19/05

AntiProduct has just been on tour in Europe, including some former Eastern Block countries! They’re off the road now, but that has only given frontman A.Product (aka former Life Sex & Death guitarist Alex Kane) time to collect his hazy thoughts and recount them just for you! Whenever he has an update, Mr Product will give us tales from the grottos, gypsy camps and gulags that dared to book AntiProduct on their recent tour.

PART EIGHT

Hello Slags,

Right. Sorry if I?m not being less flowery and verbose as I was at the start but it?s just a time thing and I?m the kinda guy who needs to finish things or I go insane but I got festivals happening and more European dates and when you?re indie, fuck you can almost get everything done other than hygiene and eating, then again I just heard from an American Mom who?s the mother of two sets of twins so my life is cush by comparison. Isn?t that some kinda something from the Omen anyway?

I do wanna thank all you guys with WAAAAY too much time on your hands who?ve sent me such flattering and frankly touching emails. It?s nice to know some of my life and experiences actually connect in an awesome way with you guys. That?s not why I do these. Then again, have no idea why I do these but I do. Artistic pretensions, probs. Anyway, thanks for sharing yourselves with me and I have met some very interesting epals by virtue of having written this stuff down. Now back to our story?but first a brief message from our sponsor?

Go to www.antiproduct.com and fall in love with life. Get your credit cards ready because you wanna buy, buy, buy?

April 13th, Worgl, Austria

So Plan B is in effect which means, ditch the digs we are meant to sleep in and see what happens next.

Somehow, someway, after spending about 10 hours sitting in a service station in Germany a few days ago as the guys who worked there called all around Germany looking for a remote that would make our DVD player work, the strain of NOT having a DVD player in the van became just too much for me to bear and I splashed out for a brand new one. The alternate plan was we leave the broken player in the town we were in, drive three hours to the gig, finish the gig, drive back to pick up the fixed player and I finally snapped and said, ?It?s free anyway. Put on the card!? Oddly enough, as I went to buy the thing, the crazed look in my eyes must have been too much for the sales guy as he, without any provocation from me, knocked $100 off the price. Weird, I know but I did not argue.

Call it spoiled, call it sanity, call it a cab, I could give two shits. If I?m stuck in a van with 9 people, 4 of them girls with a propensity for menstruation, one Shakespearean comedic relief, a world class super successful drummer going ?Help me, Mr. Wizard? as he pays an all new set of dues in East Block countries and squats where time still hasn?t caught up to White Lion, a Dutch kid learning the ropes and English simultaneously, a lunatic driving who can not drive or be sane, one normal man in the shape of Julian the Magnificent who?s starting to fall for the lunatic non-driving driver, I?M GONNA NEED DVDS!!!! So anyway, to while away the hours, we watch? dun dun duhhhh?Anchorman over and over and over and over until now not only do all 9 of us know every line by heart but somehow by osmosis our families know the thing too, saving themselves the time and trouble of having to rent the movie as we sit around family dinner tables giggling to ourselves for no reason, but I digress.

So we?re off on another run in the night (copyright Dokken 1982) to nowhere. Our next gig is in Austria, somewhere. But now it?s dark and we?re driving through bad neighbourhoods in the Czech Republic. I?m missing Ales and his homey and hospitable bowling alley bad by now as I find not everywhere in the Czech Republic kicks ass. So first plan of action. Let?s find somewhere to sleep. AntiProduct is an extraordinarily active and visual band. In all my years of being a rock music fan, I?ve never seen a more visual and physical band in my life. Not even Amen in their prime approaches the sheer visual overload we pour into our viewer?s minds. Now, yea, the songs come first but making Good Vibrations (which we play live) a metal song and playing it to make it look like it?s as easy as Wild Thing is some thing we take pride in around these here parts. But you gotta get some sleep, particularly when there?s girls involved. And you?re lost. And you?re in Eastern Europe, etc, etc, etc. It?s ALL about the show and everything else, including our health and safety obviously, is secondary. The fact that we NEVER fail to get a reaction and most usually go over like the second coming is only a testimony to the regard we hold the viewer in. He/She is the fuckin boss and my ego can go suck a dick. I?m here to provide a service and that service is a good time. Anyway, to perform at max operational capacity you gotta take a degree of care with your body when you?re not asking it to scream, run and swim in a sauna all at once. So, rest we seek.

But we?re totally clueless as to where we are and it?s 2:30 am in the Czech Republic and we speak no Czech. Fookin? Greet, as the Scots would say. We pull into a gas station, expecting the worst and, of course, we find the best. After the befuddled look of the people working there has ceased to make me angry after tonight?s SHIT GIG, a semi-attractive girl comes up and asks in German if she can help us. I?m thinking, some head would be awesome right now, as she?s got that ?You know I love sucking cock? vibe about her, but instead, responding in German say, ?HELP!? And she ends up being the sweetest most helpful stranger you could ever expect to find in a service station in the middle of the night in the Czech Republic and goes so far out of her way to be helpful that everyone working there is no longer giving us the evil eye yet now has more of a bemused curiosity about them. She directs us to a hotel (which ended up being fully booked?beats me, convention or something, I guess, or they hated the looks of me). Most importantly, once again we here at AntiProduct find the soul and heart of people beaming right after we see the squalor and hostility of man and there is a lot to be said for Yin and Yang and what you an learn from the weirdest places at the weirdest times. Anyway, she did blow me later in the men?s room, filthy little whore. God I miss her?

So the hotel is full like I mentioned and we?ve done this before so we do it again. On goes Anchorman and off goes the van. It?s about 6:30 am when we wake up as the van has stopped. I don?t know if you?ve ever experienced this but when you?re on long journeys in a van and you stop, you wake up. Every time, like there?s gonna be something really good about to happen. Then you just go pee but at least it?s different than sitting there, I guess. Anyway, we wake up and both (censored) and Cwej are sweatily staring at a map, which they are holding upside down.

Me: So, we?re lost then I take it. Cwej (rapidly): Well, we took the turn and then there was construction and now there?s a bad man chasing me and? Me: Calm down. Where are we? (censored): I wanna diiiiiieeeee? Me: OK, I?ve never head of that City. Are we still in The Czech Republic? (censored): Everybody hates meeeeee? Me: Hey Julian, maybe you should take the wheel for a bit. (censored): NO! Do you understand? NO! Me: Are you having a nervous breakdown by any chance. (censored): Fuuuuuuuck youuuuuu.

Once sanity again was able to take hold, Cwej (whom I love though I tease) and (censored) (who should get some help) sulk quietly to each other about how misunderstood they are. Julian is now driving and Marina and Milena have taken over the navigation. All these unfoldings ended up being bad. We spend about 3.5 hours in what is certainly a lovely city (Prague) trying to find the road out of Prague to Austria. Me, in peacemaker mode, ?Wow! The architecture here sure is great, huh guys?? Under normal conditions this particular platitude would be a bit stupid, although entirely true-Prague is a great city and certainly the six blocks we spent 3.5 hours circumnavigating have become like a second home in my mind. ?Hey look, there?s the miniature train again.? ?Hey, there?s that awesome bridge again. Great fuckin? architecture, huh?? We?re so lost even the service station attendants gotta laugh as we see them or the third time. By now, we?ve started sending little Mily in because she?s young and cute and doesn?t carry my vibe or the head wounds and limp. People like to talk to her. Me, well?

Somehow we manage to get outta Prague just when it seems it?s about to turn into an episode of the Twilight Zone and Cwej has taken to laughing to himself as we get more and more lost and see the same fuckin? overpass a zillion times. This doesn?t go over too well as I say ?If you?ve ever wanted to shut the fuck up, now?s the time,? and he goes quiet as a board. I feel bad about that now but oh well.

We eventually get the German border by using the force more than anything. This is where things get cute. We?re still hours away from Worgl, Austria where today?s gig is but we have to cross through Germany to get there. Keep your WWII jokes to yourself please. Anyway, we pull up to the border and I shit you not, it?s a chick straight outta some dirty as shit hot fetish porno looking way too hot with too awesome a body for me not to be hallucinating who?s our border guard. ?Me, me, I?ve got drugs. Search me first. Greg?s next. Monno, you have drugs don?t you? Hey Julian, buddy, don?t you have some weed on you, good buddy?? We?re basically lining up with our trousers around our ankles, me and the guys. One of the girls too but it?s better if I don?t name names. Just picture it for yourself. ?Intrude on my civil rights,? we bellow as one.

Very hot fine stacked and way too sexy German border Guardess: You vill be pulling zis fan ova for zee opening. Us: Oh yea, baby!

Out come the dogs and for once Clare doesn?t actually have anything on her (when we did Ozzfest, we crossed over into France and were pulled over and the dogs just couldn?t get enough of her. She played it off like she?s a dog lover-which she is-but then admitted to having forgotten a tiny lump of hash she got off one of the guys in Soil in her pocket.). Sniff, sniff, sniff go the puppies and I?m spreading my ass cheeks awaiting my deep body cavity search by Mistress Helga of the Border.

Very hot fine stacked and way too sexy German border Guardess: Zea iz nossink in zea for me to vant. You may now go. Us: Aw, shit. Don?t you wanna look again?

And we?re off again. Few hours later we turn up in Paradise, Austria. We did the drive through the night thing, having learned we could from our Polish flight and end up at the venue right on time. Good thing we didn?t sleep.

We?re in the Austrian fuckin Alps here and to say it was beautiful is a waste of words. It was astonishing. We ask the promoter where we are staying as the crew (soldiers and warriors that they must be) will build the stage while we shower and get our heads together for tonight?s big rock show. We take off for the hotel, which is essentially heaven, nestled in the Austrian Alps with a view that makes postcards ashamed to not be the real thing. Seriously lovely. We get cleaned up and marvel at the daily complete shift of reality in our lives. One day heaven, the next squalor and terror, the next ancient ruins and modern reconstruction, the next inner city ghetto and now Austrian Alps with a view on God?s work. It?s like a movie that has been randomly edited together out of pieces of several completely unrelated pieces of other movies. Crazy shit and now I know why I signed up for this job.

We get back to the venue and do sound check. The stage is huge, the PA rocks like fuck, the sound guy seems to know our sound better than we do and we are rocking feeling like Gods. (censored) hasn?t set up the merch yet so Mily and Marina (they?re becoming a matched salt and pepper set by now) do and I?m wondering why (censored) is even here except to piss me off a lot. Can that be a job description?

Aside from this and not having slept everything seems perfect. Too perfect if you ask me. Was this all just a cover to mask some horrifying eventuality that would bring this idyllic dream to a crashing halt?I wonder?

www.AntiProduct.com