Esprit de Corpse 5

Another day off… good for the neck, bad for the pocketbook.

We had a great time hanging out with Tomas and Lena in Vienna. These are two great Weiners. Alas, we had to leave their beautiful apartment and be on our way for a twelve hour drive to Nederland. Ugh.

On the way from Österreich to Nederland, we had to pass through Germany. Along the autobahn, there are always lots of signs indicating famous castles or other landmarks. Hmmm… this was a funny one: Walhalla. In the mountain beside we could see a giant classical style building beset with Greek style columns. Awesome! We didn’t have to die in battle, we could get into Walhalla with just a 3€ ticket! “Day off means mandatory sightseeing,” said our driver, Conny.

What was this building for? It’s a hall built in the 1800s to celebrate the glory of the Germanic speaking people. I’m sure the Kaiser’s words sounded a lot more patritotic and WAY less ominous before two world wars. Oopsy daisy, Deutschland!

Inside, I encountered a group of German soldiers. I guess they were doing history homework. Unfortunately, the place was slightly under reconstruction.

The room is full of busts of lauded German speaking folk, from old kings and queens, to generals (but not from THAT time period) to artists, writers, and philosophers. I found busts of Kant, Goethe, Beethoven, Bismark, on and on. That’s right, bitches, Wagner, Sewage, and Bach. Musical geniuses, all.

One odd thing… all these busts were done by master sculptors in the classical style. Except a very important German speaker, Albert Einstein. He looks more like a Simpsons cartoon.

Hmm… and he’s one of the only Jews present. I don’t wanna get all antifa and accusatory about it, but oi vey. The father of relativity deserves something better than what this lazy sculptor pooped out.

This was a nice mountainside attraction. We intended to camp out beside another, Drachensfel, an area that was famous for supposedly being the site where Siegfried slew the last dragon in the Ring of the Niebelung saga. I wanted to see this cave where the dragon lived where there was supposed to be a giant dragon sculpture.

If you’ve ever driven Interstate 10 in the U.S., you’ve probably seen the billboards asking, “What is the THING?” I stopped by the Thing once, paid entrance to see the Thing, and turned out the answer to the above question was “the Thing is a lame assed tourist trap.” This was the German version.

We hiked up the mountain, eschewing the 9€ fee for the train to an old castle tower. It had a nice view, but the castle was unimpressive, and there was a tourist area under construction. Where the fuck was this cave with the dragon?

We asked around and were told we’d actually passed the place. ? This was supposed to be some epical type history ‘n’ shit. Nope, it’s all in this one building, with a man made cave, some paintings, and a reptile museum.

Admitedly, the building looks kinda cool, but the lady running the place was a bitch and we weren’t about to pay her pfennig for this tourist trap. Ah well, the hike was nice.

Finally, we got to Düsseldorf and picked up our Merch King, Peter Povey. He’s joined us on several tours, and even though we can hardly understand his Brummie accent, we love our buddy from the English Isle.

Mr. Povey has accompanied Impaled and me and Sean on several tours. It was this night he found out he passed his entrance exam to university on his way to become a doctor. I had no idea he idolized Impaled THAT much.

We rolled into Vendloo, a Dutch town close to the German and Belgian borders. The club was Perron 55, and they were staffed by the nicest people who helped us load out, set up, got us fed… serious rock star treatment for some schlubs like us. A couple nights ago I had a dream where Mr. T, dressed in a red zoot suit, told me not to trust Dutch people. Surely, he must’ve been wrong. These people were ace.

Unfortunately, we also found out that one of their staff had just died, and they apologized to us if their smiles were not as normal. Give me a break! We felt so bad, they were apologizing to us for their grief. Really, too kind, and they were stellar all night. My hats off to them all, and my condolences. Did I mention they all worked for free in this club that was government subsidized? What. The. F.

I wish we could’ve returned the favor by attracting a huge crowd, but we managed some and they seemed to be pleased with us by the end of the night. And Dirk, ultra-friend on the last Ludicra tour who managed to see us four times on the first ever Ludicra Euro tour, showed up!

The first band of the night was Dictated, really excellent old-school brutal death metal. I liked them a lot. They also happened to have not one, but two amazingly beautiful young Dutch women on guitar. Of course that doesn’t matter, it was their playing that mattered, but knowing how labels work I imagine this band will be signed swiftly.

Next up was The Afternoon Gentleman, a grind band from England that I enjoyed immensely. Power violence meets His Hero is Gone with the snotty attitude of the Young Ones. Unfortunately, the low key and even keel crowd didn’t seem to take to grind all that well. Too bad for the crowd, this band was awesome.

Next was Collision, some fine local boys, then Psycho. Yes, the long running band Psycho from America. I have some old splits from these guys from when I was a teenager mail ordering 7″ records from Wild Rags Records. I never thought I’d ever see these guys, let alone play with ’em!

Finally, we went up, had a good time with the crowd, and an even better time hanging out after with the friendly staff and crowd afterwards. Our hotel was only a block away, so Conny had been able to drink and we were gifted an extra case of beer to round out our evening stroll to the hotel. Dank u, Perron 55!

I can’t say as much for the hotel we stayed at. Perfectly clean, but as soon as we touced the handle on the window, it came off, the window was hanging by a thread, the outlets were falling out of the wall, and when Conny touched the closet, the doors fell in.

The fire alarm blared in the morning and then went off (which I shrugged off in my laziness) and we were awoken by some kind of Dutch officials checking people’s I.D.s (looking for little girls hiding in attics, no doubt). Even though it was all falling apart when we got there, I’m gonna go ahead and say we partied like rock stars.

Doktor Ross Sewage
www.doktorsewage.com
The G.O.R.E. Corps Minister of Filth
reporting from field of battle: Europa