PLAN B'S EUROPEAN ADVENTURE TRAVEL DIARY
MARCH 2005
Diary by Leigh Gable(and a couple entries by James)
-----------------------------------------
Contents
March 1st, 2005 • Paris, France • "Plan B and Metronomic present in Paris"
March 2nd, 2005 • Paris, France • "Sarah joins the lifestyle"
March 4th, 2005 • Geneva, Switzerland • "Plan B vs. Skalpal(ninja tune)"
March 10th, 2005 • Berlin, Germany • "Plan B in Berlin, Germany"
March 11th, 2005 • Dusseldorf, Germany • "Plan B with Flying Steps, Joker and Magic"
March 12th, 2005 • Berlin, Germany • "Plan B in Berlin, Germany"
March 13th, 2005 • Berlin, Germany • "Back to Dusseldorf in our Little Red Car"
March 14th, 2005 • Berlin, Germany • "O.K. Everybody Split Up"
March 19th, 2005 • Berlin, Germany • "Plan B vacation in Barcelona"
March 20th, 2005 • Berlin, Germany • "Plan B vs. Fransisco Monks"
....................................
March
20, 2005
"Plan B vs. Fransisco Monks"
Gonzalo picks us up at the Placa Catalunya at 11 a.m. Montserrat is a
tall spire of rock about an hour outside Barcelona. At the top, the Fransiscan
monks built a Monestary. Gonzalo isn't sure, but he knows it's old, "The
12 or 15 hundreds?" We find a section of wall in the courtyard outside
the cathedral much older than the rest of the structure. The courtyard
is ringed by the crypts of Aragonian kings. In their statues they hold
long-swords like some character from Tolkein. James and I hike part of
the way up the spires that ring the monestary. High, high up top I can
see where little verandas have been built for the monk's contemplation?
March
19, 2005
"Plan B vacation in Barcelona"
Sarah's friend Gonzalo meets us at the Contemporary Art Museum not far
from Chico's. Chico catches up to us on his ever-present skateboard as
we're waiting. Skateboarders numbering about 35 people, are criss-crossing
the square. The hop up onto the sloping curbs, ollie down the steps, and
hang out talking between tricks. Chico points out some French guys he
recognizes from skate videos. Barcelona in general and the MACBA in particular
are famous for skaters. The police here don't care about skaters, and
the whole town is mostly smooth squares. It's dry most of the year round.
They come with a deck of boards and jam 20 of themselves in an apartment.
Gonzalo arrives directly from a family function. We go together to a little
bar to get Caipiroskas. Chico's greek friend meets us on the way. We're
the first people in the bar at 8 p.m. when we walk in. The greek has taken
a post as the caretaker of a small town train station outside of Barcelona.
This after years in squats around Barcelona. He was apparently a militant
squatter, like the folks entrenched in the little house near Parque Guell
who wrote, "okupa y resiste." Now he lives in his little train
station and paints. We make plans to have a barbeque. He talks about roasting
eggplant and leg of lamb. The though of something like this, cooked by
a greek national, sets my mouth watering.
Gonzalo is an immediately likable sort of guy. He's relaxed and open-minded.
Both sides of his family are Catalan from way back. His aunt's family
was directly related to Dali. He gripes a little about all the family
duties he has, "Everyone was born in March. I was born in August.
I don't bother everyone." But his complaint is more self-mocking
than genuinely perturbed. We make plans to go to Montserrat the next day.
Tired from a punishing work schedule, he returns to his place to watch
the Barca Deportivo de Coruna match.
We go back to Chico's also to watch the match. None of us can really muster
the kind of interest Chico displays. We eat a meal, and then with Suriya,
we head out in search of some dancing. We criss-cross Barcelona, but we
don't find the right places. At one point we stand open-mouthed in astonishment
at an all-request night at the Heavy Metal bar. On the way out James notices,
"There were four different guys serenading their girlfriends with
the solo from that Deep Purple song. 'No it's boo, doo, doo, doo, dee,
dee, doo...'"
Walking by a little bar filled with locals Chico looks reflective. "I
love those places. In Portugese we call them "Tasca." Lisbon
is all those places with the same old guy behind the counter, He's so
sure about everything. Everything is an eternal truth. In fact he's probably
mostly wrong, like that old lovable fascist in the football bar here near
George Orwell..."
Finally we end of in a lame, but packed club. The DJ is spinning a nauseating
mix of techno and disco. James, Chico, Suriya, and I all end up dancing
like idiots. James dances with his hands in the air screaming, "The
bathroom's this way!" We found a spot near the back, but we're constantly
buffeted by people heading to the restrooms.
March
14, 2005
"O.K. Everybody Split Up"
Sarah
heads to Amsterdam in the morning for a little side trip of her own. I
take off to get a day in Paris before continuing to Barcelona, and James
stays in Dusseldorf. We all go to the train station in the little red
car for Sarah's early departure. It takes twenty minutes to get reservations
for our various trains, and then two hours for James and I to find our
way back to Rut's apartment. We are laughing at our own stupidity when
we finally find their street.
I get into Paris at 11 p.m. and take the metro to Roland's place. One
of the wheels on my roller bag breaks, so it's scraping the pavement all
the way up the Rue des Pyrenees. At a small side street a blind woman
is waiting with her seeing eyedog sitting patiently at her side. I cross
against the red light and the dog immediately follows. Ooops. "I
think I set a bad example for your dog," I tell her.
"Why?" she asks.
"I crossed against the light, and he followed me."
"They only do what we ask," she replies in a tone that ends
our little interchange.
March
13, 2005
"Back to Dusseldorf in our Little Red Car"
We drive back to Berlin in the early evening after spending some time
with Karla and Michael. This time we don't hit any traffic jams. In Hannover
we miss out exit and end up on some strange rural highways for a while.
Finally we get back en route, getting into Dusseldorf at 2 a.m. Miraculously
James hits the right buzzer at the door to Rut's building, saving us having
to wake the whole building looking for their apartment.
March
12, 2005
"Plan B in Berlin, Germany"
Plan B international(Guitar/Laptop: James van Leuven, Bass: Leigh Gable,
Violin: Sarah Standard).
103, Berlin, Germany with house DJ's.
I wake with a start in the morning. We were up most of the night, but
in the loft above Rut and Andres' apartment, there is so much light on
this unusually sunny morning, that I have to get up. I shower, then read
some of their books. I try two different Rilke books, but the German is
too difficult. I get one sentance out of Rilke, in the second book. He
says something like, "Life is not something that is earned. One can
learn everything it has to offer in one evening, or spend their whole
life in their room simply dying." Finally I grab a book of "Italianishes
Kuchen." I become unexpectedly engrossed in the thing, reading about
all the anti-pasti, the pasta dishes, and some of the main courses. I
especially like the straight forward recipe for octopus simmered in olive
oil, parsley, and lemon juice, and the figs in orange sauce. I learn exciting
new German words like "sud" (sauce).
After a shower, Andres and Rut emerge with beautiful milsch-kaffees. It
scares me sometimes how much I love good coffee.
We leave for Berlin in the early afternoon in Rut's mother's car, a little
red Opel hatch-back with a 4-cylinder engine. This is less than ideal
for a 1000 kilometer round trip on the autobahn. During the day, people
are pretty restrained, going approximately the same speed as a highway
in the US. After dar however all similarities with a US highway disappear.
In the little Opel we stay hard in the far right lane. The needle hovers
between 120 and 140 kilo/hr. In the far right lane BMWs and Audi A6s whip
by at 200 or 210 km/hr. Their bright blue halogen lights seer our retinae.
"Fuck the blue lights," becomes our mantra. It's a class thing.
Outside Hannover, a semi flips just a few hundred yards in front of us.
It's totally blocking the freeway. We don't realize what's going on until
we've sat for an hour. I'm outside the car standing in the rain when I
see a green and white police car slowly clearing the middle two lanes
for a giant autowrecker. The police pass us. A female officer is shouting
through the megaphone, her voice impatient, lacking even a vestige of
faith in humanity "The faster you all move, the faster we can get
out of here."
We hit another traffic jam, this one due to rush hour, a couple hours
later. Six hours later pulling into Berlin, it's past load in time at
the club. We though we'd be hours early.
The club staff at the 103 are finishing their opening preparations. Sarah
and I have left James at Kim's. We start setting up in the show room.
Sasha makes us espresso on the big machine behind the downstairs bar.
The theme tonight is "jungle." In the room where we are playing,
projected silhouettes of birds and animals are all over the walls, reflecting
through the windows. The overall effect is very disorienting in a pleasant
way. Every few minutes the train to Warschauer Str. goes by level with
the window. It looks like a set piece, a model train for children in a
department store display.
James shows and we finish up a quick sound check. The show is a little
ragged. For the club the night is not going so well. What for most clubs
in Berlin would be a decent night, here is light. The staff are a little
stressed. This rubs off on us, and also we are aware that our sound is
very "ruh" or quiet for what this place usually programs. At
the last minute, we've been asked to finish up with a DJ set until 4 or
5 in the morning.
We play to a room of friends and acquaintances. Couches and things have
been cleared out, but no one is dancing. People sit in the remaining couches
and look self-conscious. The sound guy keeps turning us down, ruining
the dynamics of the song. Then he starts EQing the guitar until it's feeding
back continuously. James finally turns to him and says, "Stop it!"
He doesn't really speak English, but I think he gets the point of what
James says to him.
James sets about DJing. We aren't really equipped to rock the party, given
that they asked us to "steer clear of hip hop." So James sits
on stage trying to DJ with a cracked copy of dj software, and not enough
mp3's. He toughs it out until about 3:30 a.m. and then he starts making
a house beat on the spot. Sarah comes up on stage, then I go up. We jam
to a house beat, and it's unexpectedly fun. The audience, this time made
up mostly of strangers who have arrived later in the night starts to perk
up. Hmmm...
Michael and Karla are in Berlin from the US. They have rented one of Sasha's
rooms for the month, and we all go back there to sleep. There are five
people and all our gear in the Opel on our way from Kreuzberg where the
club is, to PrinzlauerBerg. We end up sitting in the kitchen. With Sasha's
roommate Gudrun until the sun is up, and businesses are open. Laying down
to sleep. James, Sarah, and I are laughing at the absurdity of sleeping
at the start of a bright sunny day. James puts the arm of his sweater
over his eyes and passes into a deep sleep.
...
March
11, 2005
"Plan
B with Flying Steps, Joker and Magic"
Plan B international(Guitar/Laptop: James van Leuven, Bass: Leigh Gable,
Violin: Sarah Standard).
Club Iguana, Dusseldorf, Germany with DJ Casper and Flying Steps, Joker
and Magic
We miss a train, then take another faster train in which the controller
extorts extra money from us. It's a "spezial" train. She almost
gets hysterical when try and find out if it's worth just not paying, and
getting kicked off the train in Hannover. I just want some information.
"So do we like, get arrested or anything really serious?" Finally,
weighing all the factors, we pay up with the last of our cash, and ride
in comfort. The controller is slowly gathering her composer after shouting
at me for the last 50 kilometers. I hand over the money and ask her in
German, using a phrase Daniel taught me, "So are we dating now or
what?" At first I think I am about to get punched, but after a slight
pause she bursts out laughing at the absurdity of the situation. I invite
her to the show in Dusseldorf and she politely declines.
We pull into Dusseldorf more or less on time. Andres yells for us as we
are heading down the stairs. He takes us in his fast car with the heated
seats. Rut is already at the club. We go to there straight away. Sarah
appreciates the warm seats in Andres' car. "My ass is on fire,"
James says matter of factly.
The club is one of those mercenary, commercial places. There are two main
rooms, a lounge with a bar, and another larger room with a roped-off VIP
area, and another bar. The staff are staff. There are menacing security
guys who stick together murmuring together, and somber barstaff stocking
the shelves. I am so used to things on the DIY scale, like Falko and Holger's
night at Coffee in Berlin, that I am unnerved by the pioneer square atmosphere.
But the club starts to fill with Rut, Andres, Joker, and his friends from
the hip hop dance scene in Holland and Germany. They are all incredibly
friendly people. Joker and Magic are two Iranian immigrants who had started
dancing to hip hop in Iran, and eventually had to flee the country in
order to continue dancing. They took separate routes, thinking they would
head to NYC and immerse themselves in the birthplace of hip hop. The US
government thought differently. They ended up getting stuck in Europe,
one in Holland, the other in Germany. There is such tremendous support
for the arts in these two countries, by American standards anyway, that
they are able to pursue their art under an umbrella of grant funded b-boy
battles, and dance/theater projects. It's for a couple of these projects
that Rut has been coordinating things.
We're playing in the lounge earlier on in the evening, then later there's
some vague talk of us jamming with a house DJ from the netherlands. We've
almost finished setting up when James' drums arrive. This is a little
different then Geneva. He's got a high tom stand with a set of roto-toms
and a cymbal. Later, I get some precious footage of James playing roto
toms to booming house tracks. Andres, who's a photo journalist, has his
ever-present camera and gets an amazing shot of James leaning over the
toms. It's shot from beneath, either purposefully or coincidentally mimicking
a famous shot of Tito Puente.
The first half of the set is really nice, but we started late. Halfway
through, the house DJ starts in with his set. The two rooms aren't adequately
separated, and we end up in a battle of volumes, until finally we quit.
...
March
10, 2005
"Plan B in Berlin, Germany"
Plan B international(Live Drums/Laptop: James van Leuven, Bass: Leigh
Gable, Violin: Sarah Standard and Daniel Spindler(Berlin): Guitar).
Bastard Club, Berlin, Germany with Mark Boombastik and Goldmund Soundsystem
We've been freezing in Berlin for days. It's warm and nice in Daniel's
apartment, but out on the town wind drives snow and hail horizontally
into our eyes. The Warshauer Bridge has become my nemesis. The snow covered
gulley that the trains take on their way through Berlin, is a man made
valley. The wind howls down this thing, picking up speed for the little
pedestrians who cross the bridge with no shelter to protect them. Two
years ago the S-bahn entrance was ugly, but the blocky concrete stairwell
provided some sort of shelter. Now it's been replaced by a very designer
minimalist set of platforms that are completely open to the elements.
March 5,
2005
"Train Trouble"
I am praising Laurent in the morning. He went ahead and told the hotel
to give us a late check out. We are up late, and showered even later.
It's just shy of two when we drag our bags downstairs, store them at the
concierge, and greet the not so new day in Geneva. Just to be organized
for once, we stop at the train station to make reservations for the Geneva-Basel-Berlin
leg of the trip. One thing about the otherwise wunderschoen multilingual-ity
of Switzerland is that the citys have drastically different names in the
different languages. Geneva, Geneve, and then something like Gern? Basel
or Baal? Lucerne, Luzern? And so on.
At the train station we receive a shock. Our ticket, which clearly says,
"Geneve, Basel, Berlin" isn't actually good in Switzerland.
Apparently, we are supposed to turn around in Geneva, which although its
in Switzerland, is a border town and somehow doesn't count. We end up
jumping on a train, being worked over by the controller, making it to
Basel anyway, where a friendly ticket agent performs a mysteriously easy
operation called a "route change" and we are good again. Why
this wasn't possible in Geneva, or why it is possible here in Basel at
all is, and will, remain a mystery.
In the morning pulling into Berlin, the other passengers are insistently
trying to get us to give them our "punkts" which are points
you get for sleeper car reservations. When you get enough, you get a free
trip. One woman on the platform really gives it her all, her big blue
eyes brimming. "No, we'll keep our points. We need them." I
tell finally tell her in halting German.
...
March 4,
2005
"Plan B in Geneva Switzerland"
Plan B international(Live Drums/Laptop: James van Leuven, Bass: Leigh
Gable, Violin: Sarah Standard).
L'uzine in Geneva, Switzerland with Skalpal(Ninja Tune, u.k.) and Doctor
Flake(Switzerland)
We're in a TGV bound for Geneva. Patrick accompanied us to the Gare de
Lyon. We had a little trouble getting reservations for the bullet train,
so we end up getting on the 2 p.m. train, an hour later.
We arrive in Geneva and after a disorienting run through customs (oh yeah,
Switzerland) we are met by Laurent. He's a big guy with jet-black hair.
He's got just enough trimmed facial hair to come off a little pirate-like.
The first impression is of someone who is very professional, good at his
job, and also a nice guy. He leads us out the station and over to our
hotel, which is just next door. We run up to the room, drop off all our
non-essentials, and are whisked off to the venue.
The l'Usine is next to a canal, or a river of some sort. I guess it's
the source of the Rhone? There are mountains all around the town but not
spectacularly close like Luzern or Salt Lake. Answering my question, Laurent
explains that no, the venue wasn't a squat exactly. Tired of kids squating
everywhere else, the Swiss government offered the building as a sort of
bribe. It's got two 500-700 capacity show rooms, a bar/restaurant, and
apparently offices and living areas, but we didn't see any of that directly.
We enter the concert hall, and a couple members of the crew are assembling
a drum kit straight out of the box. James' rider said drum kit, so here
it is. Damn.
The show goes well. The sound system is great, the young sound guys are
enthusiastic and work hard, and a crowd has shown up to see what Laurent
calls "Abstract Hip Hop." The live drums add something that
the show is missing. For one, playing drums is a very dynamic thing. It
gives the crowd something to look at and to which they can react. Also,
the feeling I get as a bass player with live drums really puts into relief
how flat sounding electronic beats are for the most part, even the well-produced
ones.
It turns out this the upper of the two venues is almost exclusively for
electronic music, hop hop, and DJs. It's a strange feeling for us, the
band that is usually so out of place on the bill, to fit so well with
a crowd and a club. The headliner for the night is a Ninja Tune artist,
a DJ/Producer named Skalpel. He arrives late in the night while we're
playing. After we're done, backstage, he looks at the big bottle of Scotch,
shrugs and pours a big cup for himself. We talk briefly about playing
instruments. He says something about learning to play piano. We talk a
little more, but his big smile is very distracting after Paris and I miss
most of what he's saying.
It's after 11 a.m when Skalpel goes on, and James, me, the other opener,
a talented French producer/DJ are all horrified. The production is bad
to horrible, and it's the most tasteless pandering party music imaginable.
It sounds snobbish, and much of the crowd was enjoying it, dancing away
oblivious to anything but the up-tempo-ness of his tracks. But his hooks
were lifted off soul and funk tracks that have been sampled at least four
times since the eighties--like the dirty organ line da-da dah, da-da dah,
(slight pause) dah dah dah. Whatever, but for a label like Ninja Tune,
which was putting out such ground-breaking stuff in the early ninties,
it's sad. It reminds me of the "experiemental" Ninja Tune night
we saw in the WUK two years ago where the crowd was psyched but the music
actually just sounded like the preset track that comes with Reason, or
maybe the one for Live.
...
March 2,
2005
" Sarah Standard arrives to join the lifestyle"
Sarah has joined us
from Seattle. She spends two days in Paris. The first day she bravely
walks across Paris to Place Republic before turning wobbly from jet lag.
I take her to Molly's place and she sleeps for nearly three hours while
I help James with his mini-DV camera shopping.
The next day, the freezing rain is light. The crystals blow about in the
wind stinging the eyes of anyone foolish enough to be walking around.
James, Sarah, and I take a walk through the jardin des tuilleries, then
along the Seine to the Ile Saint Louis. We huddle under a bridge on the
left bank side of the island drinking Jim Beam out of James' flask. I
stand out on the tip to the Island looking out at the choppy gray water
pretending I'm on a boat.
...
March 1, 2005
"Plan B and Metronomic in Paris"
Plan B international(Gutar/Laptop: James van Leuven, Bass: Leigh Gable,
Bass: Julien Chailloux(Paris), Vocals: Elisabeth Perle(Paris)).
Truskel in Paris, France with Brendan
Benson
Our next show is at a strange venue, an Irish Pub looking place lost
in a little street behind the French Stock Market. Somehow this little
bar has become a rendez-vous for late night scenester types. When the
Pop In closed after our other show, as we were loading our gear into Djoule's
borrowed car, people were asking for rides to the Truskel. Part of the
allure is probably that drinks are relatively cheap, it's pretty dark
inside, and it's open until 5 a.m. It feels strange to play here, like
we should be an Irish folk band, or something. It takes a pretty jarring
clash of aesthetics to throw us off stride. We've played rock shows, hip
hop shows, bars, DJ clubs, art museums, living rooms, restaurants, you
name it. It would be difficult to find some musicians who have been more
consistently out-of-place than Plan B. The out-of-placeness of the Truskel
is compounded by the other act we're sharing the room with. He's an american
singer songwriter with a label, a tour manager, a hired sound guy for
the night, and he's playing this little place... It seems a little excessive
but later on in the evening, Roland and Minius manage to convince the
sound guy to stick around for our set. Liberated from having to play through
the house system, we have a great time playing. It's cramped up on the
small stage, but we can all hear each other, and everything really gels
between James, myself, Elisabeth, and Djoule. James pulls out a new track--the
hussy grind--at the end of the show and Minius perks up.
- by Leigh Gable
Patrick
Volve has finished his last edits fo the Plan B video "Double Crossin
Little Rat!" just in time to present it for our friends at our show
at Truskel. For the show Patrick prepares video loops and images to VJ
for the Plan B set. He's been playing with a new video mixing program
called ArKaos, and tonight he gets to put it to work. Patrick worked all
day getting everything finished for the show, and when he showed up at
the venue for sound check he told me that he was so busy that he forgot
his jacket, wallet and cigarettes. So i offer up my pack of cigarettes,
and we have a drink together while he continues to prepare for the show.
All hail Patrick!
Our performance was great! Strange as Leigh explains, but a really fun
show. Elisabeth and Djoule sound like we've all been playing together
for years. After our set, we all headed over to the other room to watch
the Plan B video. The video was presented on a huge tv video screen. Patrick
did a fantastic job and i feel honored to be friends with so many amazing
people away from home.
- by James van Leuven