this is the end

well… that was it… unfortunately… we’re back in munich again. last show in wakefield was ace. we’ll be there again in november! :)

the way home was terribly long… took us more than 24 hours… but we’re really proud of our new van. did i already mention that it’s our own? absolutely reliable… not the tiniest break-down!

this is a funny sign from a belgium service station:

i took the next picture while i was driving. must’ve been 4 or 5 a.m.. can you find frank on it? :) (he’s probably gonna be mad at me for posting this pic… hehe…)

well, i’d like to send three big thank yous to al from the x, nav and james for letting us stay at their houses (again!). we’re looking forward to the next couple of gigs here in germany and austria… it’s hopefully gonna be some more in the next few weeks. and we’re happy to announce that we’ll be back in the uk for a short one week tour in october / november.

much love,
nick

the end is near

lobby of etap hotel leeds again. yesterday manchester. awesome show! very small venue and no big crowd but the sound was great and the audience loved it. beautiful landscape between leeds and manchester! typically english, almost how i imagine scotland but i think it’s even much more beautiful up there. we drove on the highest motorway in england… 372 meters… sounds a bit funny for us bavarians living near the alps… even munich is higher. :)

we stayed at the hatters hostel right in the center of manchester. if anyone plans to go to manchester and doesn’t know where to stay go there! it’s fantastic! clean, quiet and cheap. plus you get toast, tea and coffee 24 hours for free.

went to see foals at the roadhouse after our show because the promoter there put as on the guestlist. never heard of them before but they really really kicked ass!! f***ing brilliant!! check them out: myspace.com/foals.

leeds was ace as well! the mixing tin is pretty small and right in the centre of leeds. the crowd was amazing, we had a lot of fun! went to a couple of clubs after the show with james from duels. maria and frank got really wasted. i was the driver… arrrghh… but it was fun anyway… (no one actually needs alcohol to have fun). stayed in duels house again that night. they had to get up very early because they had to go to london to play at the 93 feet east but we could sleep in anyway.

the music here in the lobby sucks… ibiza sound… just bought ruby on itunes and listen to this now. :) brilliant song!! and finally bought sabotage as well hehe. :)

looking forward to wakefield later on. legendary club night with an amazing band headlining. should be a good one.

xx
nick

hanging out

after sitting in the hotel lobby for probably 4 hours we finally went to the city centre again. had some pizza and cocktails. still didn’t see the nasty side of leeds. :)

there isn’t much more to say actually but we took some nice pics.

good night,
nick

live at the x

many thanks to jed who took and sent us this pic! we played with his band ‘monkey puzzle’ in oxford.

a day in the life of a pc user

for your pleasure:

xx maria

leeds

we’re sitting in the lobby of the etap hotel in central leeds drinking tea, hot chocolate, orange juice and surfing the internet – all for free!! :) well… actually it’s only maria and i who are surfing the internet. frank doesn’t get connected with his crappy pc laptop once again… haha! :)

this hotel is awesome. it’s brand new and really central and cheap and we have a flat screen tv and… yeah… just great!! :)

we had sushi for lunch in a restaurant where they offer unlimited miso soup and green tea!! why isn’t there something like that in munich?! after that a little, very very tasty dessert at a pret-a-manger and after that a coffee at starbucks – venti size. what else can one dream of?! :)

leeds is such a nice city! we heard a lot about leeds being rough and scummy (mostly from people from the south…) but everything we see is pleasant! the people are friendly, the streets and houses in the city centre look beautiful, lots of nice flowers… we’re so comfortable here. i assume there must be an ugly side to leeds, what else are kaiser chiefs singing about…?! but i couldn’t see it so far. maybe we really move here at some point…

here some photos of us trying to look cool in front of a fancy door in leeds. :)

xx nick

waiting in barnsley

arrived in bransley an hour ago. already set up. now waiting for the sound guy to turn up. you spend most of the time on tour with waiting… for the tech, for other bands, for the sound check, for the gig, for getting the stuff back in the van… almost the rest of the time you spend driving from one gig to the other. oh yeah and then there’s also some 30 minutes in which you can play some songs. :)

maria and frank are fiddling around and i use the time to write these few words. yesterday our last london gig. we played with two really heavy rocking bands. one was from austria called loxodrom. both were really good though it’s not so much my style of music. the gig was really fun though. here some pics of the venue before the show:

it’s a bit annoying that we can’t show you any pics from us playing. but we’re here “alone” and we don’t have anyone taking photos while we’re playing. it’s a pity. i’d also like to take a live video. i brought my camera but there’s just no chance to place it when we’re playing.

frank is again fighting to get online with his pc laptop. haha! :)

really looking forward to the last four shows. everyone says playing up north is much more fun than london. well, we’ll see.

so long,
nick

bull and gate

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i’m sitting here at bull and gate and the headlining band is sound checking. they are frecking loud…we’re on first today which is perfect as we do the smoothiest thing today. :))
we went to camden market before which was really cool. i bought three t-shirts handpainted style. all in all a very sunny day with lots of things to see.

tomorrow we head up north..i’m really looking forward to that…especially manchester as we have have never played there before but also leeds cause we meet duels again..should be a great rest of the week. the last show will be louder than bombs, i’m really looking forward to that as this should be a very busy night and we’ll do the show with komakino….check them out, they are a really really good band!

xxx maria

day off in london and shopping

our second day off today.

took a train to victoria and went to east central first to do a little sight-seeing: bank of england, mansion house, the diagon alley (!), the monument.

then split. frank went on sight-seeing round shoreditch and jack the ripper territory. maria and i went to topman at oxford circus and shopped for about 3 hours. bought tons of great stuff! :)

in the evening we had dinner at a garfunkels restaurant. i tried cottage pie. traditional english food: beef, mince sauce and mashed potatoes. was pretty good but i didn’t taste any mince.

tomorrow bull and gate. will go to the camden town market before the gig. hopefully it’s open on easter.

well, have very good night and happy easter to y’all!
xx nick

diary..here we go..

hey everybody,
we are at a hotel in croydon/london where we can stay two days which is really relaxing. we have internet access and a clean room. :)))
yesterday we did a show in wimbledon which was really good. it was the third time we played there.
two days ago we did a show at 93 feet east..i really enjoyed it although there were not so many people.. it was fun anyway! hope we can play there again soon! it’s a really trendy club in shoreditch and so many great bands are playing there…on the 12th duels will have a show there, get down to see them, they are brilliant!
yesterday morning we had a photo shooting at 6.30am…so we had to get up really early. all in all we had about 3 hours sleep that night. the shooting took place at the docks in london. i think the photos will be fantastic! migue took them, he is an amazing photographer!! check out his work here: myspace.com/mmigue – i’m a big fan of his work!!
as always we meet a lot of really nice people and it’s just wonderful being on tour although we’re sometimes very tired.
a few of our myspace friends asked us to come to the usa. we would go there straight away but that’s a lot to expensive at the moment. first we need to get a cd out and make more pressure in the uk and in germany to earn more money to hit the road in the usa! :)
as i said we have to days off now…nick is sleeping and frank is treating his pc laptop… nick and me bought us a mac book recently and wherever there is a wireless internet accsess we are straight in the internet..and frank needs about 15min to get connected, so we banter him about this. :) you should watch the apple ad videos on apple.com…then you imagine whats going on here.
so far so good… here are some photos for you taken in london and birmingham. we also did some videos with nicks mobile but at present we can’t find a converter into mpeg or something and so we can’t load them up to youtube. we try to fix that problem!

ok, this is not really interesting but i like the colour of that donut… and of course it was delicious

this is me at the barfly birmingham working working working.. ;)

93 feet east….

and in the end..a cute chubby bird. i took that picture in someones garden where we slept today… what a sport.

thats it for today… xx maria

coffee in wimbledon

another of the very few opportunities to add a little blah to our tourdiary. i’m sitting in a coffeeshop right in the middle of wimbledon. maria and frank are sleeping in the car and i’m very very tired as well. we had a photo shooting this morning at 6:30 and had to get up at 4:30! which meant we only had about 3 hours of sleep…

a myspace friend of us took the photos. his name is migue and we think he’s brilliant! we’re so much looking forward to getting the photos!! we went to thames barrier and shot some pics there.

yesterday at 93 feet east was cool. great and very very nice sound engineer! the neighbourhood was very exciting. pretty trendy but very pleasant anyway. :) jack the ripper used to murder around this area. :)

here are some photos.

as you can see this is us having breakfast on a meadow. :) it’s at the rear of our hotel in london barking and we’re having delicious tesco-sandwich-crisps-fruits-doughnuts-and-eclair-breakfast. :)

this was in a very good but affordable japanese restaurant in central london, near picadilly. we went there on our first day off on sunday.

and this is upstairs at the hope and anchor.

fish ‘n chips

hey there,

we’re back in the uk having our first fish & chips in dover.

actually now as i’m writing this post we’re already in birmingham waiting to play our third show. but we just didn’t have internet access earlier. and now the battery is low so the post won’t be long. but there are more to follow very soon! promised!!

the first show in oxford was awesome. again. the shows there are always something special for us. almost feels like coming home. :) islington was good too. very small venue but really cool. claims to be londons most famous live venue.

have to stop now. no power…

more soon.
xx nick