Hazel plays Europe. Holland to Slovenia :. Jet-lag, sleep-deprivation, and normal pre-performance derangement have me very gradually waking from a mid-afternoon nap. In hypnogogic thrall, I'm hearing a dream-fragment voice warning me, "It's not a dressing -room - it's a killing -room. Jet-lag aside, it's normal to feel sick, depressed, afraid, angry and irrational before a gig. In fact, it makes for a good show - clearly tensions to resolve.
Tonight, our performance is barely adequate. We have to get used to Laurie sitting in for Brady on bass, the space is cramped, the audience small and stiff. There is for me one small high point. The room is decorated with replicas of automatic weapons hanging on strings from the ceiling, in anticipation of August's hosting upcoming "Euro-Top" European unification summit - the posters all spell it "eu-Rot-op" demonstration activities, for which this show, in fact, is a benefit.
So I'm able, as our set winds to a climax, to pull out my concealed 9-millimeter pistol, threaten audience, bandmates, and myself - then, what the hell - eat the thing in about 6 bites. A killing-room, indeed. At Siegen, a male voice from the crowd: "You hahve a fucking excellent dahn-sah! In Nuremburg, I know we're on a rock-tour when some of our women see something in a local publication and start cracking witticisms about riding black pony-dicks.
Is this racist as well as gross? Why is it funny? At home this would not be funny. Michael Jackson is playing Bremen this same night; we pass the migrating hordes as we wind into town and along the river Weser to our tiny delightful club.
It's wreathed in astounding graffiti, encircled by bicycles, and operated by seriously punk-rock-loving women. At dusk, and continuing into the evening, we can hear the bass-line wafting from the stadium a couple of kilometers upwind. Across the street from the vintage apartments that are our lodgings for the night, in an otherwise completely residential street, there is a full-sized, pedestrian-level billboard advertising the Jackson tour, so in all innocence, I ask one of our hosts what is the German translation of the term "child-fucker", only for my incredulous ears to find that it's "kinder-popper".
