Affalter, Germany

The world is changing. Call me paranoid but last night we had a strange and unsettling encounter with some neo Nazis in an out of the way bar in the former East Germany. It was scary. In fact it was THE head honcho and his goons on the way to a big rally in Dresden on the 13th. The next day we heard on the news that a bus load of lefties clashed with a busload of some of the 5,000 NPD supporters. At least 4 people were hospitalized – it was quite nasty apparently. I’m not surprised, since what was going down in the bar was the ‘full program’. Don’t wish to dwell on it.


We are still trying to compensate for the loss of gear from the robbery in Berlin. We got Bob a temporary replacement amp, of course, but that blew up last night in Affalter and we had two abortive attempts to get going with the set, blowing breakers back stage. Eventually the amp, a 1000 watt beast, emitted a square wave sound like a super tanker’s fog horn, and promptly died on us. He is loving the Music man bass he aquired from a rental company though. It's a fabulous sounding instrument and he talked them into selling it to him. So he's feeling a lot happier.

This venue in Affalter, always produces some weirdness, being way out, quite near to the Czech Republic. We once had a stripper on stage for Ray Weston’s birthday. There have been massive snowstorms in the area and once, we spun our car out on some ice. (they are not big on sanding and salting the roads here). Another time we had a major vehicle breakdown.

The hotel we use, in Zwönitz, has photos of bands on one wall of the lobby but we have never, in over 10 years of performances, ever seen another guest in the hotel. That is until yesterday, when there was a strange group of day trippers, standing around a gentleman dressed in medieval clothing carrying a pike staff and no doubt explaining about the area’s ancient past.

Favorite beers sampled on this tour, so far ( in addition to my ‘usual’ Bitburger ) have all also been Pilsners- Ottakringer from Vienna and recently, Braugold from Erfurt. We enjoyed the real Budweiser from Budwar, in the Czech Republic. Apparently, the designation Pilsner comes from the town of Pilsen in Germany, where this particular brewing tradition started back in the 1200’s or something. Anyway, Bob and I just love the stuff.

Auf Wiedersehen ~ A.P.