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
haha enjoy your little flamethrower mate 😉
Awesome to have you here. it was great to meet you lot again.
Be safe and enjoy the few more days in Europe! 🙂
Haha Stayed at that hostel too