Selling Out in Denmark

Copenhagen airport

After a month of driving our van from town to town, playing clubs, the High Life tour was topped off by an odd non sequitur finale: taking a plane to Copenhagen and playing a Tommy Hilfiger party.

I was devoted to punk rock in high school, and I’ve done a lot of the thinking about the preciousness and purity of music, and consequently, a lot of thinking about selling out. Obviously, I’ve always thought selling out is lame. For me, music is about emotion, passion, healing, about creative weird people coming together, sharing stories, and celebrating life. To merge music with the sale of products is to taint it. This is not even to mention that, on November 12, our band was linking up with a clothing brand that, at least in the 1990s, belonged to the kids who wanted to kick my ass.

It’s funny, when I used to imagine what the process of selling out would look like, it seemed more intentional and cowardly. But two days ago, it played out much differently. I found myself on the tour of my friend Darwin, a tour which I have limited control over. Darwin makes some decisions, Stephen at Lucky Number makes some decisions, there’s agents who handle the booking, other people who handle radio promotion, others who handle internet stuff. Being on a tour of this scale is more like being strapped into a fun house ride, jerking down the tracks, zooming past clown faces and jack-in-the-boxes. So when, during the home stretch of this funhouse ride, I realized it was time to wake up with a couple hours sleep, jet over to Copenhagen, play some weird fancy clothing brand party, and then shoot back to the United States where everything would feel infinitely far away and astoundingly dreamlike, it seemed… amusing. Kinda comedic, curious, stimulating, bizarre. So our band shrugged and went for it. “Technically, we’re only selling out in Denmark,” we sarcastically assured each other.

band orgy in lobby of artsy hotel

A smiling driver in a suit carted us from the airport to the Tommy Hilfiger store downtown. Loaded with free clothes, we continued our drive through enchanting Copenhagen. The car happened to roll pass an enormous billboard with the words “Darwin Deez.” Surreal. Next stop was an elaborate artsy hotel. Then, on to the venue, where we were interviewed by Danish MTV. As the camera rolled, Cole, Darwin, and I held and caressed each other, homoerotic for no clear reason (Tour exhaustion? An effort to keep interviews interesting? Sincere man love?). I took a nap while Cole and Darwin were thoroughly impressed by the Beach House concert next door (Darwin described Beach House’s successful sound formula as: “Coldplay, chopped and screwed, no lyrics, and female vocals.”) After our set, my night plunged into a paradise of Danish damsels, whose physical beauty and sexuality are unparalleled. No one slept.

Before I knew it, a Copenhagen cab driver was carting me back to the hotel, asking me if I knew the Lord Jesus. And then I was aboard Virgin Airlines, weeping uncontrollably to Toy Story 3. And soon, I was dragging my green suitcase up the stairs of my apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, still wearing jeans and no underwear. I slept, woke, dragged myself to the church where I work as an organist, and in that familiar post-tour sort of way, it indeed felt like none of it had ever happened.

Darwin Deez lands at JFK airport, November 13, 2010
after 4 and a half months of touring

Fart Boat

The Deezes stayed up all night in Belfast at a thoroughly inebriated Irish house party. On our ferry ride back to England, we didn’t have cabins and bunk beds like the last one, but what we did have was unlimited mounds of free food. At 10am, in a state of sleep deprivation that was equal parts zombielike and jolly, we lined up our trays at the boat’s cafeteria and received giant helpings of baked beans, eggs, and assorted colored packets of mayonnaise (blue), ketchup (red), brown sauce (brown), tartar sauce (light blue), mustard (yellow), and French mustard (gold). As soon as the last bite was swallowed, the six of us stretched out on the floor between the breakfast tables and passed the fuck out.

I was the first one to awake. A curious scenario was taking place in the cabin. Every last one of the passengers was asleep in the middle of the day, right out in the open. This was not just our group of young vagabond nightlife freakazoids, but also conservative, mild, middleaged and elderly passengers, stretched out all over the quiet room, on available couches and on the floor. You’d think that some of these regular folks would be reading books, watching the televisions, cranking the slot machines, but there had been a unanimous choice that slumber was by far the most interesting activity.

I stepped outside and took in the green green endless ocean, the blinding sunlight reflecting off its surface, the clean breeze. Then a funny thing happened. I opened the door and returned to the stale, uncirculating air of the cabin, which smelled strongly and unmistakably like a giant FART. We passengers, about 20 or 30 in number, had been crammed full of baked beans, and now our 20 or 30 bellies were all collectively processing, breaking down the proteins, and releasing the consequential gases. It was kind of disgusting, but there was also something so innocent and natural and unconscious about the whole thing.

Thus, I made my peace with our stinky, but ultimately harmless, fart boat.

C*NT

Andrew Deez  uses Ireland's rad vintage payphones

One thing about Ireland, there is an entirely different connotation to the word “cunt” over here. In America, only Bukowski says cunt. It’s dirty, dirty territory. But here, the C-bomb is dropped freely. In Cork, I waited at the entrance of a closing pub in the wee hours while one of my tour mates did some kissing. To pass the time, I turned to some of the other night owls. “Teach me some Irish slang. How do I tell my friend to stop making out so we can walk home?” The phrase these two girls came up with was, “STOP MEETIN’ ON YA ONE, YA MOTHAFUCKIN’ CUNT!” (meeting = kissing. one = significant other) They belted it back and forth, as I failed dismally in impersonating their Irish vowels.

The next night in Dublin, we were beckoned to a Tuesday night party across town called C.U.N.T (an acronym for “C U Next Tuesday”). Bukowski would love Ireland.

A wonderful piano driven pop rock band called Ram’s Pocket Radio is playing 3 of our 4 Irish dates. The are an incredibly physically attractive bunch. The boy lead singer and the girl bass player are dating. Our band is plotting to get them to make out in front of us. Here is a clip of Darwin merging Irish rock and freestyle rap.

I’ve been playing sweat drenched show after sweat-bath show without ever washing my bass guitar strap. It smells like a really nasty locker room, or a very fine aged cheese.

Unhappy Birthday, Cole!

Cole, not having a happy birthday. With birthday banner

For Cole’s birthday yesterday, the band made a little banner installation in our van. It said, “Welcome to Earth, Cole!” Unfortunately, the city of Galway had conspired to gloom all over the poor guy. Our guitarist was assailed by every kind of Cole kryptonite known to man: accordions, open string chords strummed on acoustic guitars, cold and rainy weather. To top it all off, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone happened to be playing a separate show in the upstairs room of the venue, Roisin Dubh, which seemed like it would be a birthday treat. Our fatal mistake was that we had forgotten that Casiotone’s specialty is making you feel PAINFULLY ALONE. Poor Cole finished the night spiraling into a miserable birthday sleep.

folk musicians turning Galway into Cole's private hell

Fortunately, I escaped the Casiotone room before his sorrow potion had taken its full effect. I wandered back to the dance floor, where I, at last, encountered my first hookup of the High Life tour. I kept trying to tell her nice things like, “you’re so pretty” and “you’re the only girl I've done this with all tour” but she would only wrinkle her nose and mimic my words back to me in a mocking tone. “What? You don’t like when boys compliment you?” I asked. “Not when they’re liars!” she shot back. This Galway girl was convinced that I'm with a different girl every night. It was the strangest dynamic for a hookup. Kinda cute, in a way, but awfully strange.

Darwin searches for Balderdash in a toy store in Kilkenny

A GOOD CLIP

After 16 hours afloat, our indie pop tribe has landed in Ireland.

We drove to the coast of Normandy to catch the ferry. How strange it is to finally arrive at the places bearing these famous names from the history books. Such a short time ago, Westerners were slaughtering each other here in bloody battles. These same locations are now so bafflingly calm, sane, civilized. Our van passes quiet rows of grey houses, with people politely going about their daily errands. We park at a modern grocery superstore that sells couscous and carrot salad in brightly lit, clean aisles. Is it naive to suggest this shows there is some hope that a similar transformation could someday take place in all corners of the globe?

Darwin poses on ferry, Cole lugs in Peroni case

Cole lugged dozens of venue beers onto our ferry voyage. An employee told him this was not allowed. “It’s full of water” Cole told him, struggling under the weight of a giant case loudly labeled, “PERONI.” The worker let it slide (perhaps our first taste of Irish alcoholic solidarity?).

Darwin and I scrambled onto the windy deck of the barge and couldn’t contain whoops and squeals as we watched the black frothy waves rise high into the air. “WE’RE REALLY GOING AT A GOOD CLIP!” Darwin screamed, an observation he repeated several times throughout the night. The band cuddled up in front of a laptop and soaked in the glow of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. “There’s always a twist!” Darwin praised as the plot thickened. 

Not everyone enjoyed the sea’s motion, but I was in heaven lying in my bunk. It felt like the entire Atlantic was rock-a-bying me to sleep.

Joanna and Leonie

Joanna and Leonie

In September, the Deez gang met two cool blonde teenage girls at our Munich concert. We met up with the duo again in Amsterdam, and although I was skeptical about a 9 person van ride to Paris, we brought Joanna and Leonie along with us. Somewhere in the midst of Paris, they endeared their way into my heart. I have never met a more dry-witted pair of teenage girls. They tickle me to no end as they slump in and out of backstage with completely deadpan faces, decked out in leopard print, spouting endless sarcasm in German tinged English. Darwin described them as “a cross between Grey Gardens and Rushmore.”

Outside of our venue, a couple blocks from the Moulin Rouge, we passed a seedy sex store, and Joanna recited to me matter-of-factly, “This is actually an important historical building. It was built in 1851, and the first person who lived there was the King.”

Leonie and I developed a game of playing air guitar and air drums. She declared that we were starting a new band that night, and that it would be called Gay Birds Flowers.  We effortlessly chose suitable stage names. Leonie would be “Crap Bag” and I would be “Shitpagne.”

“We eat meat. If you ever need someone to shoot and kill an animal for you, call us,” they instructed me. “Our number is 911.”

Darwin Deez soundcheck at Le Boule Noire

Darwin in an interview backstage
at Le Boule Noire

Transportational Turducken

I lived my whole life unaware that there is a giant train shuttling endless parades of cars from England to Europe. As our Sprinter rumbled into the Euro Tunnel, Darwin observed, “If you sat on a bike inside of the van and went through the Euro Tunnel, you’d have the transportational equivalent of a turducken.”

Darwin and our tour manager, Ben,
waiting for delicious Belgian Friets

It’s wild what a difference a quick journey under the English Channel makes. Our British leg of the tour was sold out from start to finish, an incredible treat for us. In stark contrast, only a third of the venue was full in Gent, our first date in Continental Europe. Despite the band’s popularity in the UK and Germany, it appears our reputation has not yet fully penetrated the French music media.  I did not mind one bit. We were too busy loving life, dashing through Belgian streets crammed full of deranged cartoon graffiti, to a chip shop where Darwin and I dug into giant piles of friets and falafel. Here they serve the world’s most perfect friets (“chips”, “fries”) smack inside the middle of your sandwich.  We dipped our greasy potato wedges into a limitless array of decadent mayonnaise derivatives, including Looksaus, Curry Ketchup, Hawaiian Saus, Samurai Saus, Thai Saus…

Perhaps one goal of roaming around the earth spreading music is to increase your audience, but I have to admit, I almost prefer balancing out our sold out shows with sparser nights. In Belgium, Darwin didn’t have to hide backstage from the barrage of autograph and photo requests. He was able to peacefully take in the opening band along with the rest of the showgoers, without interruption. Even though it was Darwin, and not me, who was the subject of this change, I still somehow felt a personal sense of relief. When we took the stage, there was a feeling that nothing was yet granted to us. We had to convince these strangers that we have magic inside. We had to win their hearts. During the set, I watched my bandmates’ feet kicking and faces sparkling. The performance came from a well of hunger and a love for a challenge, distinctly different from the vibe on the UK stage.  As infinitely grateful as our band is for the support of our England listeners, it’s fun to be a bit of an underdog again. It’s inspiring to be back in mainland Europe.