Category: Music

This is the point.

Here we are, and about fucking time! I’ve wanted to play the Obscene Extreme Festival for a damn long time, and we finally made it. Check out the lyrics of the love song “To Die For” on Mondo Medicale, because our lyrics are so cogent and relevant to a bunch of drunk headbangers. There’s a line about a gore hound (my lovely ex) being obsessed with the extreme and obscene. I’ve been making shout outs since 2002. It only took 9 years for it to all work out.

Obscene Extreme is a mostly grind core festival that’s been running since 1999 in Trutnov, Czech Republic. It’s steadily grown in size, but maintains the same ethos for a raging good time. Stage diving is actually encouraged here. There’s a good meter of the stage from the bands’ monitors to the front, dedicated for people to come up, dance a bit, and dive back into the crowd. There is security, but no barriers between the band and the tigers in the crowd.

Just a touch of history: the field that this fest has been held in all but one time (I think) is known as the Trutnov Battlefield. It was in 1866, during the Seven Weeks War between Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia, that the Austrians won a victory against overwhelming Prussian forces here that were in disarray after crossing the mountainous terrain. Prussia won the war eventually, though, which would lead to the confederation of the northern Germanic kingdoms into one. Austrians aren’t that good at winning wars, but they excel at body building and fighting Predators.

The actual town seems quite nice, though it is now beset by crusties and metal heads.

We arrived a bit late on the second day of the fest. The biggest bummer about that was for our friend Brad, who’d come using his many frequent flyer miles after working for Green Day the past few years. He came to hang and vacation after, and as a bonus, do our sound. Our plans had changed, though, so poor Brad arrived in Prague with no ride and no idea what to do. He bussed to Trutnov, and eventually via text we got him into the fest. He had no place to stay. There are campgrounds, but he had nothing. Curby, the main man behind Obscene Extreme, did his best dealing with everything else and then to help our poor friend. It was only after Brad stayed up all night drinking vodka with strange ozzies and poles that Curby could finally find him an open room at a hostel. Hopefully our ravaged friend would wake up in time for our set that night! Impaled, ruining lives since 1997.

When we finally arrived, we got sorted by our friend Curby as well. Passes, beer, vegan food, nice hotel… not to mention that this guy was dealing with the gazillion bands on this fest, but he had helped to set up our tour as well. It was the only way we could afford to be here at all. Hats off to you, buddy. We are happy to be in your operating theater.

The grounds are pretty enormous with lots of camping. That filled up, evidenced by crusties camping at the gas station across the way. We were able to nab a table on advice from Brutal Truth and just DIY our merch sales outside the main merch market. And, bully for me, the excellent Czech beer (my fave in Europe) flows like water and the food is all vegan!

I got to see a bit of the Varukers, some great punk rock, some of Skitsystem, and Rotten Sound. I watched Brujeria absolutely slaying the crowd from behind the stage as I practiced like a kid staying up all night before the S.A.T.s. They finally finished, and as I was walking up, they started up their version of “Macarena” over the PA, the entire crowd screaming “Marijuana.” About half the crowd joined them on stage and were dancing as I was setting up. Oi vey. It was funny, but now I knew we were more like a clean up crew for these guys. Oh well, we were still gonna rage it.

As I was setting up, the bassist from Brujeria says to me, “Good luck!” It sounded more ominous at the time than helpful. “Thanks, we’ll try,” I say. Hmm. This is Jeff Walker of Carcass playing bass for Brujeria. “Are you in Impaled?” he asks. “Yeah,” I reply, “and I guess I should thank you for all the riffs.”

Our set started kind of tame, frankly. At this point, I was hating that meter of space between us and the tigers, because it was empty. So we all just kept walking up to the crowd anyway between singing. I’d say about four songs in, we finally had them going. They started having a good time, really head banging and having fun again. I didn’t think it would be so hard for Impaled to win over a grind crowd, but I think we did okay.

Afterwards, I got to see some of Gronibard absolutely capturing the spirit of the fest by quite literally rocking out with their cocks out. The requisite dudes in banana suits at the fest danced wildly. I was particular to Interment who followed, however, who nailed the old school Swedish sound and jammed hard. Then it was my watch on the merch table, and we eventually packed it up to get some sleep for our next day at OEF.

A leisurely morning was had, followed by a stressful talk concerning finances. Summer touring in Europe during festival season is hard. There’s less shows to be had and the plane tickets are outrageous. We packed up our merchandise and headed to the fest in hopes of filling the hole a bit.

When we arrived, Mesrine was already on stage. We’d already missed 11 bands. This fest starts at 10 and ends at 3am… that’s a lot of grind. Mesrine rocked some good crust punk.

I walked through the non-band merchandise area to see what I could find. There was an antifa shirt with a pic of Schwarzenegger that they did not have in my friend Aesops’ size. Too bad. Then I saw the ugliest Dystopia bootleg I’ve ever seen. What the fuck. Was this an Illustrator trace of a 10k gif? Yipes. Get some pride, bootleggers.

Next was Visions of War, ultra leftist crust grind so far as I can tell. They called out a few other grind bands about them not being true enough. Factions against fascism. A break, and then I caught Instinct of Survival. I could imagine all my crusty friends in Oakland being super into this band back when drinking was more important than cocaine. The funniest part was when a dude mooned the crowd on stage and then back planted his ass crack on his friend’s head. Ah, the homoeroticism never ceases at OEF.

Inhumate is the kind of noisy, balls out, loose grind core that gets this crowd going. Everyone was on stage dancing. Funny the singer should complain that the crowd was not bleeding, but then gently warned them when they got on stage to look out for a bit that was broken so they should not hurt themselves. Hey, even anarchy can get TOO crazy.

For a bit more controlled anarchy, in the U.K. (see what I did there?) they have the Rotted (formerly Gorerotted). I guess they dropped the gore in their name because they were battered when Al and Tipper split. Now they deliver blistering grind core with a precise edge.

The rest of the night continued with the headliners like Lock Up and Brutal Truth, followed by some bad assery from Dropdead. Le Scrawl was a huge hit, getting folks dancing so late into the night. Then, I hit a god damned metaphorical wall after I was bought a shot of some local liquor that tasted like Christmas. I wish I could remember the name… or how I got back to the hotel.

Thanks, Obscene Extreme. And thanks to the Old World for once again hosting Impaled. Esprit de Corpse c’est fin.

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

The Battle of Nations was to commence again in Leipzig! Featuring Impaled comprised of Italian / German / Irish / Mexican / Polack members with a Brit in tow, Furnaze with Austrian / Belgian / Croat members, and the all Deutsch Death Embrace. Okay, the battlefield was much smaller, like WAY smaller. Metal Schuppen is a teensy tiny club in Leipzig nestled behind an apartment building. Just imagine your dettached garage as a venue, only it’s made of stone. No matter the actual attendance, this place would be packed! Fun!

The evening was smoking, in that this tiny bar was packed with Germans smoking. I’m surprised no neighbor called the Feuerwehr with all the smoke pouring out. Oh, there was also this cute fuzzy bottom kitty hanging out.

First up was Death Embrace from Leipzig, a solid metal act with tinges of modern hardcore.

Next was Furnaze, and let me say, I was blown the fuck away. The musicianship in this band was disgustingly good and made me feel the fool to have to follow it up. Matt, the Croatian drummer, was like a drum machine. Olivier the guitarist was shredding like an out of control lawn mower. And of course I had my eye on the bassist, Andie, a most unlikely candidate for major rager on the four string mother fucker, what with her kindly demeanor and gentle appearance. She is one of the few metal bassists I’ve ever seen really nailing sixteenth notes with her fingers, not to mention groovin’ bass lines. God damn talented people! They make me so mad!

The night before in Berlin, we had discovered that Sean’s 5150 had a blown tube. Furnaze lent us a Krank amp, model unknown (I shoulda gotten a photo). Too bad, because this goofy looking little amp was a powerhouse that impressed all of us. Light enough to have as carry on luggage, Olivier extolled us all the virtues of this as a travel amp like some kind of Krank salesman. Variable voltage from 110-240, two power tubes for 50 watts (plenty for almost any size venue Impaled would play), thick and creamy distortion, and a mic simulator DI out for easy board mixing. Jason and Sean have both put this amp on their Christmas lists, like some kind of salivating children looking at an XBox.

I was happy to lend Andie the SVT 3 pro I’ve been running, and she loved it. More credit to Ampeg, at least up to the SVT 3. I made peace with this model awhile ago at a fest in Mexico. It made me decide I could stop being a tube snob, at least abroad, and save myself lugging any of the SVT 3’s 80-100 lbs. older brothers around. My bandmates’ backs have thanked me. It really receives my modded-for-bass ProCo Rat2 I’ve been using well, with more of a tight, thrashy gain. Would that I could try the non-pro version, I’ve heard the preamp is a bit tastier. Maybe something is going on my Christmas list a well.

The next day after some raucous carousing, we decided check out the actual Battle of Nations. History ‘n’ shit. Here in Leipzig, in 1813, Napoleon and his Grand Armèe met a grand defeat when Prussia, Austria, Sweden, England, and Russia got sick of his short guy complex and teamed up against the little man with the big plan. It was the first really international battle in recorded history. The Völkerschlachtdenkmal is about as epicus doomicus metallicus a war memorial as one can ever see.

This memorial is ringed by burly, big stone warriors inside and out. You pass under a gigantic edifice featuring depictions of the dead and dying being overseen by St. Michael, the warrior angel, holding a sword. Horns the fuck up, bra!

I guess we got lucky, as they’ve only just removed the bulk of scaffolding around the building for the ongoing restoration. You can see the important stuff for free, the big statues inside and down into the crypt, but I opted for the 6€ ticket to see all floors, climb to the top, and see the adjacent museum.

It’s kind of hard to think about the people who died in this battle when jackhammers are pounding away still cleaning up. Plus, a battle so long ago and far removed from myself makes it hard to feel any kind of heaviness. But I can appreciate the strength and steadfastness of the soldiers that the builders tried to engineer into the art here.

We left Leipzig and headed for short drive to Reisa, still in Germany. We had a date with a ship.

Originally, we’d intended to attend all three days of Obscene Extreme festival in Czech Republic, but our driver extraordinaire, Conny, got us another opportunity to play the free pre-show for the In Flammen festival… on a boat traveling down the Elbe. Full of metal heads. Drunk, German, metal heads. Oh boy.

We were billed as a “surprise band,” to play after a local and a cover band. That way, we didn’t mess up our nearby show in Leipzig. Even the promoter from Leipzig, Niebe, was surprised to see us the next day when he boarded. We had a good laugh about that. The biggest surprise for the people, though, was that the majority had no idea who Impaled was. Surprise!

The boat quickly filled up, and we kind of took cover in the back. It quickly turned into a really fun experience, listening to metal, drinking, and waving and yelling at the people on the shore who all waved back. Even die Polizei gave us a shout out with their klaxons.

Every party needs a pooper, though, and that’s why one jack ass took a dare and jumped of the boat. Okay, I thought it was funny, at first, until the boat had to turn around and I found out the promoter, Tomas, would have to pay extra and do paperwork with die Polizei.

The show went on, though, and what a weird and awesome show it was. We eschewed the normal trappings of our now intolerably stinky costumes and just rocked the fuck out. Jason and I resurrected our characters of Captain Buttbeard and first mate Stinky (if you know what that’s about, you’re hard core G.O.R.E. Corps) and announced the entire set with pirate jargon. Avast ye, head bangarrrrrrrs! Maybe the bad jokes were why karma dictated Jason and I needed to get moshed into (on a boat) and knock over half of Raul’s kit. Fun!

The next day, we headed to another battlefield, that of Trutnov in the Czech Republic, where the obscene and extreme would test their metal.

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

We had such a lovely day in Venlo, heading to the city center and having some coffee and breakfast. Eveything was symmetrical with 4 coffees, 2 English teas, 2 tuna sandwiches, and 2 French onion soups. It’s a curious thing about the Netherlands, everything is symmetrical. Look in the windows. Lots of 2 vases or 2 lamps. Lots of square rooms. Hmm… a curious thing about the Dutch.

We headed toward Germany where things were more chaos and headbanging. We went to Wirmelskirchen, to club Bahndamm.

Tonight was supposed to be a good show, with a Mexican gore grind band (they cancelled), Afternoon Gentleman and Psycho again, and World Downfall. It WAS a good night, but there were lots of apologies about conflcting shows with Deicide and the “Big Four” of metal. Whatevs. Cool people came out, and we had a great time.

Afternoon Gentleman opened the show, and they turned out to be evening as well as morning Gentleman. A stellar punk band and great folks.

World Downfall was up next, and I must say I was blown away. They were amazing death grind, and vocalist Lohm had some very dynamic vocals. A true delight to witness this German delicacy.

The legends, Psycho, followed and then we had a really fun show. Now, a word from our sponsor: us.

Guitar gear. We got our backline in pieces, part from SkullCusher club in Dresden and part from Nomads of Prague, the backline rental place. For guitar, a couple good cabs and for both Sean and Jason, some Peavey 5150s, mark 1.

A handy tip, that I forgot for a couple days, is to put your half stack on top of the amp case after unpacking. You get a little lift on your sound, you dont have to find a space for that empty case, and you don’t look as much like a puss playing a half stack.

We tested both Peavey 5150 1 and 2s and the mark 1s definitely had better death metal tone. Supposedly, this was a problem for Mr. EVH, because the clean channel and distorted channel had the same pre amp, so they seperated them in the Mark 2 and lessened the distortion.

Problem: both heads are randomly dropping volume. This is corrected by quickly unplugging and plugging either the speaker cable (bad idea) or the preamp cable Raul is using for his in-ear monitors. Weird and unfortunate. Could be a bad design, or perhaps these are just road worn amps.

Jason is rockin on a Boss Super Shifter to add some octave harmonies to some lead parts, and a Wah Sewage, the Crybaby wah I modified. He also has a Boss Tuner and Noise Supressor (good enough for tight stops), same as Sean. Jason also has the SupaCharger pedal power brick, which is cool because you can swap the plug out and run at 240 volts or a trip to Europe. Voodoo Labs power brick lacks this one function, so even though it is supposedly better and made in the USA, it’s an epic fail for a touring musician. The power brick is good because it allows each pedal an isolated ground to hopefully eliminate electronic hum.

Jason also added some nice wheels to his guitar road case. I assume because he hates lifting things and he’s lazy. They work nicely.

Onto Rotterdam!

Baroeg is bad ass club that’s been going since 1981. I played here on my first trip to Europe waaaay back in 1997. I’m old. Good to be back!

This was a matinee show, typical of a Sunday here, I guess. We showed up directly before the first band was going on. Classy of us.

We met some mighty Ghoulunatics outside, but there’s no accounting for taste. Weird they should come to see Impaled, but I guess they have at least a little taste left. Alco, the crazy sexy Spaniard head of Ghoulunatics NL even gave me a nice gift for my tour-ture tool kit: a butane torch that’ll melt metal at 1300 degrees! Bad ass!

Sly from Fondlecorpse also came by! Good to see the little guy again for the first time in 5 years.

We had a fucking great show, enjoyed the hell outta Cliteater from Netherlands, and came that much closer to meeting our bills. Great success! Thanks Rotterdam, you rule!

After the show, we stayed at the weirdest hostel ever. Who fuckin builds something like this?

Great use of floor space, upending a cube. The “coffee” shops here in Rotterdam sure must have some kind buds.

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

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

I’m gonna write this while totally drunk.

Okay, where did we leave off? Pulling into Wien on the 28th, aka Vienna. We met our friends Tomas and Lena at their apartment. Tomas had arranged our show in Wien to be opening for Malevolent Creation at the Viper Room. Very nice of the little guy.

We had a few beers at Tomas’ amazing apartment and then headed to the show. Dinner was of course some schnitzel and sausage, which Sean had cut for him by Tomas.

It was a pretty fun show, but Death Feast had just happened, Black Dahlia Murder was playing this night somewhere else in Austria, and Judas Priest’s farewell tour was the next night in Vienna. All this conspired against us, but we carried on as did the sparse but dilligent crowd. The Austrians who arrived were entertained to their fullest.

A good night was had with Malevolent Creation as well as with Martin of Pungent Stench and Hollenthon (a personal god and god damned HERO).

The next day was mostly spent sleeping, hard cheese for the bassist who invariably wakes up at 10am. About 4-5 hours later, once everybody was FINALLY ready to go, Tomas and Lena took us to the MQ of Vienna, or the Museum Quartier.

We saw a nice exhibit of Salvador Dali, but unfortunately our late waking asses had to get to… dun dun dun… Judas Priest’s last ever tour along with Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy. Time to get to grubbin’ before the show!

Dammit, we missed Falco and Beethoven’s grave. Which is more important? I can’t decide.

Outside the arena, we hunted for cheap tix. We kind of found them, although some decided at the last minute they didn’t want the tix already paid for by our hosts Tomas and Lena. I paid the difference as a sort of “don’t whine to me tax.” Fuck it… We are here, Rob Halford is queer, get used to it.

The show was great… Okay, I mean, Whitesnake is like the worst band ever, but Priest had pyrotechnics and shit and played a full range of material, so fuck it.

Tomorrrow, we head towards Vendloo, over 11 hours drive. There, we meet our Brummie Pove, the Merch King, the day after. Tonight, we contend with metal heads on the train. It’s totally verrückt!

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

When you wake up in a beautiful European apartment with a god damned 300 year old fresco in the living room, and you enjoy an espresso and cigarette on a balcony overlooking a historic Italian neighborhood, you have to ask: what have I done right, OR what have I done wrong with my life?

That’d be my entry into the amateur General Foods International Cafe model contest. What was the name of that waiter? JEAN LUC!

We woke up at Filipo and Allesandro’s apartment in Turino. These are two super cool guys who not only had amazing gorgonzola cheese and bread awaiting our late night arrival, but also had mattresses out and ready in their living room. They are supporters of the arts, evidenced by their immense rock poster collection all signed by former guests, and also very astute activists in Italian political actions. They had this amazing apartment, full of antiques, refurbished wood furniture, and a shit-you-not 300 year old fresco just chilling out. Sean was ready to move in.

We had kept our gear in the club. It was nice of them to allow it, in order for us to feel safe leaving the van in the street with no one having to take the hit and sleep in it. A leisurely afternoon load out preceded our journey to a show we had been added to just days earlier in Padua. There were some folks skeptical about the show. I was one of them. What were our chances with two to three days promotion on what I was told was a stoner rock show?

We pulled into Padua and met with Brandy the promoter (a dude) and he was wearing an Impetigo shirt. Okay, this show could be good. The headliners, whose show we had jumped on, were Karma to Burn. I imagine the cold stares we got from them might have been because of this flyer:

Ai yi yi. I felt kinda bad about that. This was THEIR show we jumped on, and one where we might’ve expected an epic fail. To add to it, Canadian punkers Hard Charger had also shown up after they had a show cancelled in Bologna and were also added to the bill. Karma to Burn must’ve been getting annoyed.

Hard Charger was quite good post-millenial crust punk, though they had a rough time as the crowd just wasn’t there yet. Then the crowd did show up, bedecked in Napalm Death, Hirax, and other death metal shirts. All of a sudden, I felt better about our upcoming set.

Local band Volcano Heat, sounding kinda like White Stripes, played next on this odd bill. We headed up and found we were doing our own sound on a four channel mixer with only two working microphones. Luckily, Raul had his goofy mixer set up and was able to output some drums to the board. I got the task of doing Jason’s vocals. And we sounded fucking GOOD. Weird, sometimes the more punk the set up, the better we sound. The tigers who’d shown up, a decent amount, danced and headbanged and screamed loudly when I yelled, “Porko Dio!” We gave our propers to Karma to Burn and they had a good set, too. Everyone ended up having a decent time. The warm beer flowed.

We were told we would sleep in the club, which was fine, they had mattresses ready for us. Problem was, they were open until seven am. Have you ever tried to sleep while a Wasp promotional video is playing and the music is cranked through a PA? It’s not so easy. Me and Conny opted to sleep on the sidewalk across the parking lot, where we could still hear Wasp, but at a reasonable volume. Jason, Raul, and Sean “slept” in the club… until seven am. Tiku Tiku Music was closed for business and kicked them the fuck out. After a lovely three hours sleep, we were on our way to Croatia via Slovenia, where the festive border crossing sings to you “la la dee la la RAPE.”

Croatia is not part of the European Union yet, so we had some papers to deal with. The worry was about the backline and getting it in and out with an official stamped list. We stopped on the Slovenian border and tried to ask the Policja what to do. They pointed us towards a building with a bunch of doors marked only in Slovenian. Conny and I entered one door to find a bank. Then another door didn’t open. The next door we entered had a huge group of older Eastern Europeans staring at us with dead eyes, looking like something out of an old Polanski film. One of the pair of dead eyes stared into my soul and then just pointed me to my right. Ooookay. That led to the exit, and so we tried another door that held the policja inside, and they kept telling us, “not our job” and pointed us back to the other door. Kafka, much? We finally saw a customs official and followed him in the formerly locked door, which we weren’t supposed to do. Back to the Polanski room, which was now empty. We waited 15 minutes or so, and finally a customs guy comes up and looks at our paper and says “nyet official, I cannot stamp. Just go aend maybe you having loock tomorrow coming beck.” Sweet. Into Croatia with fingers crossed and thumbs pressed.

We arrived at Autonomni Kulturi Center in Zagreb. It sounds real official right? With a nice letter head and logo and everything.

It’s a squat. It’s located in an old pharmaceutical factory, so our health was in check. Just like all European squats, it was replete with all the psychic vaccumming of overbearing urban style graffitti. Hip hop and ya don’t stop.

The club in the squat was called Attack! (the exclamation point is part of the name) They’d asked us to arrive nice and early around four because they were so concerned about the drum set only partially being shared and time constraints. Good thing they showed up two hours later around six and took about two hours to set up cables. I was falling asleep standing up with none of the local currency to buy a coffee by the time we finally sound checked around eight. With all that concern about time, you’d think they’d skip a full sound check for the other three bands playing, but no. Full sound checks for all, and a show that’s starting one and one half hour late! Come on in!

That said, Igor (not making fun, that was his name) and crew did great sound for all the bands. So much as they were worth listening to. I did quite enjoy the band right before us, Krlja, grinding death metal in an old school tradition.

We had been warned about the Korn concert in Zagreb interferring with ours, because you know Impaled and Korn has a real crossover listenership. A ton of people showed up, some just to hang out drinking at the place, and a healthy amount of crusties and metal heads. The metal heads were surprised we would play this place for such cheap entrance and that our merch prices were so low. The crusties wanted to haggle over our cheap prices like a middle east bazaar, as crusties are wont to do. Of course, the cheap entrance ended up fucking us, as apparently the gig organizer wasn’t there, and we had one email telling us one guarantee price, and the people working had another one that had a significantly lower guarantee. We are not the types to drive people to their ATMs, however. Sucks for our pocketbooks.

We still had a very fun show, though it seemed evident the crowd was a little wiped out after the late start and the numerous bands. We got to hang out late afterwards drinking and partying with some cool Croatians. According to one, “In America, you have Fourth of July. Now I have June Twenty-Seven, the day Impaled play Croatia!” Hell, even our resident tetotaler, Dr. Kocol, joined in the libations.

The next morning we loaded our gear out after sleeping in the squat. Back to the border between Croatia and Slovenia on our way to Austria, and back to some official bullshit. Slovenian customs decided, as offical heavy metal emmisaries of California, we HAD to have some weed. The guard sniffed pouches of tobacco personally, before he brought out the dog. I was expecting a gnarly German Shepherd, but the dog they had was super cute! No photos of course, I wanted this to be easy going. The dog hopped in the van, sniffed to his satisfaction, and got out. Apparently the guard didn’t trust the dogs nose, which is 100x better at smelling than his, and kept forcing the dog back inside and around the van. He even sniffed stuff after the dog. He opened bags, took stuff outta the back… I mean, really, did he expect some drug smugglers shipping bricks of hashish would use mules that look like us? How about them old folks that you just waved through with their giant caravan? All he might’ve found in a band van would’ve been a couple joints, and the drug war could be won to his satisfaction. As it was, he was visibly disappointed that he pulled over Impaled, the squarest death metal band around, and found nothing. At least he brushed off the seats and table.

Onto brüderchen, Austria!

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

I’m fairly certain that getting my last post up cost me upwards of $90. I was trying to buy wifi time at a rest stop, and first hit a button to buy the time, which didn’t go through, oddly I thought. So I did it again and then my credit card company called me about an odd charge that they blocked. Presumably, they thought it odd I was suddenly in Germany. Thanks, BofA, your due diligence in monitoring my card activities cost me 60 irretrievable dollars, because I never got a chance to get my login password. After talking with a machine, I finally made a third charge and got online. Fuck my life. Travel tip: call your bank and credit card companies in advance of traveling and remind them not to fuck you in the ass.

Impaled had two days of travel ahead of us to make the show in Torino. We stopped for supplies late in the night in Germany on our way to camp out in Switzerland.

At Kaufsland, the German version of Wal-Mart and every bit as classy, they sell soup made of Smurfs. We arrived to the checkout counter at 10:02 pm. They stopped selling alcohol in this county at 10:00 pm. Fuck my life. Camping with no drink? Conny sturmed out, and after she calmed down, I asked her to sturm back in and ask someone about this. Well, apparently gas stations get around this law by having a bistro license. Basically, they have table inside no one uses nestled in next to porn DVDs and stickers of Calvin peeing on something. The evening was saved! Never give up, never stay dry.

We drove into Switzerland with no passport checks. Odd, but great. We drove in the night to camp put in a parking lot next to the village of Gruyères. The village is famous for fine dairy products, evidenced by the cow bells we heard all night long, and penis collage artwork. Yes. It just happened to be on our path, a checklist for my bucket list that I’ve missed out on time and time again: the H.R. Giger museum and bar. Hells. Yes.

In the morning we awoke after some hard drinking and found a bunch of rich people parking next to our sloppy asses in fancy antique cars and sweaters tied around their necks. I guess these Swiss organized a fancy car show with money from the gold fillings they collected.

A short walk up a beautiful hillside from our campsite in the parking lot, and I entered the castle gates into the most quaint village full of lively people and totally overpriced coffee. I walked about a quarter of a mile, and then staring me in the face was a Giger baby bullett, totally out of place amongst the serenity. Like I was, if the stares were any indication.

The museum and bar are right across the path from one another. I highly recommend sitting in a Harkonen chair at the bar and getting the Alien Coffee, which includes the coffee, some thick, genuine Gruyères cream, a few merengues, and a shot of Grand Gruyères, a delicious green local liquor that is like a spicier Schnappes. Sköl!

After that coffee, and waking up in a parking lot, you’re probably ready to poop. The WC is across the way next to the museum behind an unassuming black door. Make sure to have a porcelain visitation, because hidden in there is this:

The Giger Bar… A great place for kids… hung up on walls.

Actually, good for people of all ages.

It really was an amazing museum: two stories filled with Giger originals, like Alien production paintings, huge triptychs for his Necronomicon, the Species Ghost Train, and the full Harkonen table and chair set. I was like a little kid again, sleeping with my Kenner Alien doll from the ’70s. Yeah, I was a weird kid.

On our way out of Switzerland, we got to see another landmark: Montreux and Lake Lèman, where there was Smoke on the Water. Frank Zappa and the Mothers weren’t there anymore, and the lake was more beautiful than smokey. A nice bit of rock ‘n’ roll history to note nonetheless.

We finally arrived in Torino around 6pm. I was hoping for a Gran Torino, but Clint Eastwood masterpieces aside, this is a… city. We had time enough today to finally check out all our gear and dial it in, and it sounds pretty good. Of course we had time, the show was to START at 11pm. Ah, Italia, where there’s never a rush. Anyway, I’m particularly pleased with my bass tone, considering I really didn’t enjoy these same Ashdown bass cabs a scant two months ago. Maybe it’s the different head and pedal, I dunno.

You know what stinks reeeeal bad? A room full of Italians on a muggy summer day. My people, we Italians have an amazing ability for stench. Porko dio.

The crowd airs out their olive pits.

We had two tragedies today… Jason threw out his back and the food dye we bought here sucks. So we are still very clean doktors in our surgical gowns. Conny say she misses our uniforms. Of course she does, she’s German. As for Jason, now he gets my vicodins that were a present for a “good time.” Le sigh.

A curious thing that a lot of Americans are surprised at here is backline sharing. In Europe, the headlining band, who has rented all the gear, is expected to share it with the opening bands. I first encountered this with Wolves, and later with Ludicra. Raul was especially none too pleased, but we talked him into it, so long as it’s just toms and kick. Those stands are not to be touched, and understandably as they take too long to adjust later. Really though, Europeans probably need to know this is a foreign practice to Americans, and springing the news after the tour is started is no good. Any Americans reading this, consider yourselves warned. The trade off is all the awesome food, better pay, and free accommodations.

We had a good show with Infected and Bribe from Italy. I was really impressed with Bribe’s ability to throw 15 artificial harmonics into each riff. We played an incredibly long set, rife with the technical foul ups, bleeps and blunders we should be famous for by now. The tigers danced the night away, though i think we tired ’em out towards the end. Considerations of shortening the set may be needed. And now it’s time for me to start drinking some beer. If there’s any left.

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