MoldyPeachesColumn

05/16/02 7 hr. flight to Zurich proved treacherous as fuck. Landed w/o

incident, though. Presently waiting for plane to first stop on M.P. tour, Barcelona. We're slated to play Primavera Festival on Friday. Psyched to play. Kimya told me that Pulp is scheduled to play, and I am super excited to see them. The forests of Switzerland looked beautiful prior to landing, thick lush clumps of trees shat out and over and onto a mosaic of multitudinous shades of green. Listened to Steve Shiffman´s newly revised EP Tambourino, an instant classic. As the last track ended, we experienced some pretty hairy turbulence. Felt the plane dip, ears popped. The overhead lights on the plane went out, and the flight attendants promptly came around and closed the shades on everyone´s portholes. Completely terrifying, but the end result was landing in Zurich only to hop onto another plane for 2 hrs.

Goodshank: 05/17/02 Our festival show was fun as fuck. Lotsa kids came out to watch and sing along. The crowd seemed super-enthusiastic. It´s amazing to see fans so far away from home. I´ve never seen so many people raise both arms and proclaim, "The power of our dreams!" Later I got to watch Pulp. Was excellent. For anyone who may care, they played Feeling Called Love, Trees, Weeds Pt. 1, This Is Hardcore, E´s & Wizz, Fear, Help the Aged, and others whose titles escape me at the moment. Was an epic set. I highly recommend Different Class and This Is Hardcore to anyone who would care to familiarize themselves with that band. Anyways, was a great day overall. I love this band that I´m in, and i love all of my friends in it. Especially Steven. Monday we make for Italy.

Shank: 05/20/02 Played Milan's Transilvania Club last night. Small crowd, show was a blast. Cool fucking heavy metal bar. Coffin-shaped furniture abound. Joie/DBG played a great set. Goddamnit. Germany, soon. Nu-Breeders record sounds good.

05/21/02 Goodshank: Last night we slept at a beautiful castle in Italy, outside of

Milan. We are Schorndorf-bound today. Brent told me that we'd be driving through mountains approximately 7000 feet above sea-level, which I later found out are called

the "Alps." Two nights ago I had a dream that we were playing another show with Ben Kweller and his band. Ben gave me a hug as they prepared to take the stage. He and his band were chanting, "Ali, Bum-Ba-Yay!" repeatedly... I'm astounded by the wide variety of Haribo brand

candies available only in Europe: "Weinland," which are gummy candies that resemble baguettes an coins and had an illustration of a glass of wine on their wrapper; "Saure Frittes," which are sugar-coated sour gummy french fries; as well as an assortment of plain marshmallows and black licorice-filled marshmallows! I saw a tree while we were driving around which was missing a chunk of it's top leaves and branches that reminded me of Newtown, CT.

05/22/02: We have our Schorndorf show this evening. My allergies have been in full effect these past couple of days. I'm excited for to play tonight.

T.G. 5/23 Our show in Schorndorf, Germany went very well. We played well.

Another great set from Joie, too! Smoke machine kicked in during Always In Your Corner.

5/26 We played in Graz (a city in Austria) last night. The night before last we played in Vienna. I found both shows to be a fun time. Vienna seems like a pretty happening place.

We're sitting in our splitter right now, on our way back to Germany. Kimya just showed me a passage from a book which states that Walt Disney helped to produce a number of propaganda films in the 40's, one of which was entitled A Few Quick Facts About Venereal Disease.

Listening to songs from a cassette that Barry Bliss recorded in 1998. His music is important to me. We've extended the final section of Greyhound Bus at the end of our set lately, which makes me very happy. The six of us make a good team, it's fun to travel with Joie, and our friend and tour manager David is a goddamned saint. Boo-ya!

today i had a really hard time waking up. i feel like i never really get enough

sleep. the only down time is spent in the van, and it isn´t really big enough for us so we can´t even recline, let alone get restful sleep in it. i am having a great time though. the shows have been great. i am just so tired. it is weird playing in places i had never even heard of and having quite a few people there. especially people who know the songs. we had an interview today with stefan wagner from radio z. it is a great german radio station that plays tons of antifolk. if anyone wants to send him stuff let me know and i will give you his address. he´ll be psyched to get more stuff, and he´ll play it! we did a phone interview with him a year ago. it was good to meet him face to face. funny how any sort of familiarity is comforting. last night 2 guys bought joie shirts and put them on and danced right in the front row during our set. it felt like we were at the raven. i pretended it was hogan and bill(beau) johnson dancing. the posters last night just had a picture of me and adam on them. it has been really frustrating trying to get ourselves promoted as the full band but we are starting to turn down press that won´t involve everyone. we just won´t do it anymore. some austrian kids asked us to sign the posters and i said it made me sad that it was just me and adam in the picture. they said the original poster said THE MOLDY PEACHES, but the picture was of the strokes. that´s pretty silly. it is good to travel with good friends, playing songs i love to people who are excited to see us. it is good to have joie along. i wish we could bring everyone. there´s enough ham for all the kids.

hello from berlin! we are playing tonight at a nice club called knaack. on the 3rd

floor there is free internet and pool tables. joie goes on soon so this will be a brief entry. yesterday was insane. we were in hamburg and we had an instore first thing. when we got there the space was very small and it was frustrating. we weren´t quite sure how to handle the situation. we ended up playing with strictly just using his snare and drumming with his hands and jack and toby both on acoustic guitars. it sounded really good. now we know in these situations...instores and radio shows...we have an alternative way of playing that works well. and they gave us a discount so i got skee-lo the "i wish" single, sonic youth "sister", and fugazi "steady diet of nothing", and some bad bad bad NKOTB album, and station 17 (a band of disabled people that are all in the same hospital, all for 10!!! after that we had a marathon of interviews, all in a long room in the back of a pakistani restaurant. we have started to publicly cry out for the return of the jello pudding pop. it´s a funny place to start this campaign as the german kids have not heard of the pudding pop. by the time we get to a place where people miss pudding pops as much as we do we will have mastered the art of begging shamelessly. as of last night david kitt and his band have joined the tour. playing between us and joie. they are all really nice boys from ireland. tomorrow we have the day off for the 10 hour drive to göteburg, sweden. germany has been amazing but i am excited to head somewhere else now. in the room we are in the bartendress is watching "dude, where´s my car?" overdubbed in german. it sounds silly. the only english is "dude" and "sweet" a lot. and some young mc. god bless america.

Goodshank reporting, 5/27: Nürnberg was awesome! Great crowd. Tonight we

will rock the bald caesar in München.

5/28: In München! It's Adam's birthday! I dreamt last night that I was hit by a New York City Bus, and awoke to find that I had been sleeping in such a way that blood circulation had been cut off in my left arm! Saw my friend August Winter's doppleganger at a highway reststop! A few pieces of fruit were accidentally lost out of a window! Our evening culminated in Jack treating us all to an uncanny Cos treatment in the dark of the van.

5/29: Finally saw "Attack of the Clones" in Köln, Germany. I plan to view it again.

Goodshank, 6/2: Sunday morning, leaving Hamburg for to play in Berlin. The

place we stayed @ in Hamburg was part of a long strip of brothels and erotic cinemas. The homosexually-oriented erotic cinemas were called "Gay Kinos."

David Kitt and his band played last night and will be joining us for the remainder of the European shows.

6/3 Our splitter broke down on the highway en route to Sweden. We were an hour into our nine-hour drive. We spent the rest of our day @ a McDonald's restaurant and a gas station as we waited for repairs to be completed. The gas station sold Haribo-brand white gummy mice called "Weiss Maus" individually unwrapped out of a clear plastic bucket. Stayed in Hamburg again. Bought a black leather blindfold w/ removeable eye coverings.

6/7: We are in Malmo right now. Sweden is amazing. So is Norway. Great people. We've been playing well. The crowds have been singing along loudly. We have a larger splitter now, more seats n more space. Very nice. Watched Johnny Depp n Paul Reubens in the movie "Blow" today. I've been listening to some heavy metal music lately. Joie just told us that Dee Dee Ramone died. That shit is sad.

it is good to be back in england. the part of paris we were in was super sketchy

and i got really homesick. it was weird to meet andre herman dune. it's always weird to meet someone that people you respect talk so highly of. especially when they are RUDE!!! hmmm. anyway. merry old england. i am excited to play the UK shows. we were invited back to reading festival this year! on the main stage! first band of the day, it will be cool! a girl walked by today with a thundercats sweatshirt on. i looked back from further down the block and she was looking back too and smiling! so i waved!

goodshank 6/14: we're in nottingham, england right now. everything is super.

holland and belgium were both rad. we played a hot sweaty show in paris two nights ago. "the jam session was awesome," so to speak. we met andre heman dune there, who proceeded to help himself to our water and wine without asking. just two weeks left of our tour at this point. exciting summertime stuff in the works. i feel as though my health is improving.

Tobias Goodshank 6/17: In Glasgow, Scotland now. The sun is out for the first

time in days. i washed my unicorn costume for the first time in four weeks, i think. It was pretty much unwearable. It smelled like vinegar. I hate my tits. David will be taking us to see Sonic Youth in a few days. I'm super-excited about it. I will dry hump Jim O'Rourke. Tonight we will rock the fuck out for our Scottish fiends that we love. We'll be returning home in less than two weeks now.

steven: 6/18/02: last night we played in glasgaaaaae, and it was a blast. a whole

lot of kids came in costume and danced in the front row. i didn't realise glasgow was so far north, it got dark really late. had i delicious spinach pastry for breakfast.

got sick on stage the gig before in sheffield. barfed behind my amp. a couple of kids noticed in the front row and shouted at me, "you rock!" as they made the devil sign. i just felt embarassed. i read yesterday in a biography of kurt cobain that he barfed onstage too, but he did it on the audience.

goodshank 6/22: London was a great show. Highly energetic crowd. We all had

a terrific time. Fantastic!

We played in Brighton last night. Kimya and i rode a roller coaster called "Crazy Mouse," whose sharp turns threatened to shit us out into the sea every step of the way. We also payed a visit to a lovely carousel, where we rode atop a giant chicken. Also had an incredible show. We closed our set with "Who's Got the Crack," at which point zillions of excited kids decided to endanger our lives by storming the stage. Fortunately for everyone, there were no injuries and the stage did not collapse.

Tonight we play in Cardiff, Wales.

goodshank 6/24: We saw Sonic Youth last night. They played amazingly well. Was my third time seeing them over an eight-year period. I am still excited by their show. I did not, unfortunately, get to meet Mr.O'Rourke. I did, however, have a dream the night before about going to the show and meeting him. In the dream we sat on the floor of Sonic Youth's dressing room talking. I extracted the back cover to Jim O'Rourke's album "Insignificance," from my sketchbook and asked him to autograph it for my friend Jeeves. He busted out a Sharpie brand black marker and proceeded to scrawl the word, "JEEBS" in large capital letters across the top of the yellow-green cover.

This morning we got up around five in the morning and left Bristol on a plane for Belfast, Ireland. We will be playing a show in a few hours from now.