Europe Day 4

As I type this, we're driving between from Lund to Goteborg. The freeway, at least at this moment, borders the body of water that separates Sweden from mainland Europe. The countryside is littered with windmills, quaint farmhouses, and patches of snow. It's sunny and clear, and we're listening to a Swedish band called Logh, a product of Bad Taste Records. Not too fucking bad for a Thursday afternoon!

Last night's show in Lund was a bit of a challenge, but Grieves and I regained a bit of the composure we lost during the cross-Atlantic journey, and the crowd response seemed to be even more gracious than Copenhagen. The venue, Mejeriet, was a purpose built space fashioned out of an old Creamery. Two stages, a bar, a bunch of offices, and..gasp…on-site laundry(!!!) made for a really pleasant and welcoming experience. It's always nice to play in venues that are built as such…not a converted bar, or a club with a stage stashed in the back as an afterthought. Supreme warned us that Mejeriet was "the best venue in Sweden" and, after last night's experience, I think I agree. The one oddity was a stage that was about 5 1/2 feet off the ground. Nothing out of the ordinary for a stadium or large-theatre show, but in a 300 cap room, it created a rather awkward distance from the crowd.  After frying my guitar pedal in Copenhagen, I was excited/nervous to try out a new Boss amp modeling pedal. It's intended to replicate the sound of a 1965 Fender Twin Reverb…safe to say I'm going to have to spend a bit of time dialing in a useful sound, but I'm confident I'll get it close to where I need it. I'm also experimenting with Ableton Live as a Serato replacement. We've been using Serato since I started touring with Grieves, but…as I'm not much of an actual DJ, the turntable set-up was a bit excessive for my needs. Live is much much much more my speed, and it's been rock solid in our live set-up thus far. I'm pretty excited to explore more of its capabilities as I get more comfortable with the interface and layout!. We showed up a bit early, ran through soundcheck, and then sat down for a couple of interviews with some local folks. The journalists seemed to have some idea of who we were, which was a pleasant shock. Grieves had the awesome opportunity to sit down with a legendary Swedish radio personality (who's name has completely escaped me). The dude, who looked like a Swedish version of Paul Giamatti, recorded the entire conversation onto a massive old reel-to-reel machine that he lugs around with him. How a middle-aged Swede knew that much about American hip-hop and pop culture I'll never know, but the interview he conducted was one of the most engaging things I've ever seen. 

After the show, Grieves and I spent some time at the mercy table, talking with folks and signing shit. Such a friendly and engaged audience, and everyone with spoke with seemed genuinely appreciative that we were there.

The club shut down at 12:30. We should have gone to bed. We didn't.

Supreme had made the trip up from Malmo and, together with Johan, Grieves, and a few of Johan's good friends, we all made our way out into Lund. Not exactly a thriving metropolis to begin with, the small town of 100,000 was pretty empty in the middle of a Wednesday night. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), one of Johan's friends was a college student at the local university. She led us into a "Student Nation", a local bar that was open only to students and their guests. 

The dark basement room was something akin to bizzaro American frat basement, with throngs of drunk children wandering around dressed like pirates (a product, I assume, of some sort of themed party). Really strange, but the beer was cheap (due to a special liquor tax break offered to student-run organizations…) and the immediate company more than made up for the disconcerting surrounding. 

The Student Nation shut down at 2, and we all dragged ourselves back to Johan's place, where many open-face Knackebrod/butter/cheese sandwiches were constructed and, subsequently deconstructed. Two really, really interesting hours of conversation about city planning, Swedish straight edge music, the oh-so-odd touring habits of NOFX later, I passed out face first from exhaustion on Johan's floor. Ah, the touring life!!

Heading to Gothenborg right now, I'm excited to see a city that I've been to once before and remember really fondly, as well as to get a chance to hang out with Embee for a bit, and possibly check out his beautiful studio space. He's graciously offered to put us up for the night, and it will be nice to have the chance to catch up for a bit!

More tomorrow, dear friends.