Korean Friendship Bell, San Pedro. Photo by Andrew Zappin
Tacos, Tequila, and Spider Bites.
Cezar & Justin Tour Diary 2019.
I first met Cezar Mora about ten years ago in Long Beach, California. We had a mutual Canadian friend, Vancouver artist and musician Justin Gradin. This creative Canuck introduced us. Justin Gradin would eat a California Burrito (carne asada with french fries) from Burrito King in Echo Park daily, but that’s beside the point.
Burrito King, Echo Park.
Cezar told me that we could make a lot of money playing low rider car shows as a Beach Boys cover band singing in Spanish. We called ourselves Los Long Beach Boys and attempted our first song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” in Spanish. The translation was difficult, the rhymes were difficult, we were both frustrated. After a couple sessions of attempting to kick off Los Long Beach Boys, we scrapped the idea and formed a band that played original songs instead. We called ourselves LA Drugz because our drummer James Carman said that the best music is like a drug.
LA Drugz outside of Harold’s Place, San Pedro. Photo by Emilio Venegas, Jr.
There was already a band called LA Drugs from Boston, so we called our selves LA Drugz with a Z. It was partially a tribute to The Plugz, and also LA Guns. LA Drugz recorded some fantastic material, released a 12″ EP and a digital EP and toured the west coast of America, but we were ultimately short lived. We reformed to tour from Texas to San Francisco with England’s Fat White Family, and that tour ended with our tour van being broken into, all of Fat White’s equipment, suitcases, and guitars stolen, and those guys basically left in windy freezing cold San Francisco all wearing their only item of clothing which were matching LA Drugz T-shirts.
Fat White Family on the first date of their UK tour, the only clothing not stolen out of their suitcases in SF being their matching LA Drugz T-shirts. Photo by Polly Braithwaite.
When I was a teenager, my Dad had a friend from Morro Bay, California named Fran. He was belligerent and a drunk and he would frequently get into fistfights with surfers on the beach. He would only date black women, citing his preference for their shapely asses. Fran loved blues and country music and when I told him I liked it too, he would tape me this radio show from one of his local stations. The cassette tapes that would arrive weekly in the mail would have stuff on them like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Lefty Frizzell. To me, blues and country were just as honest as punk rock. Country music was American rural storytelling, songs about all night drunks, failed marriages, lost jobs, broken hearts. It was a truly adult form of music as opposed to a teenage type of music like rock and roll or punk rock. I didn’t truly understand it until I was divorced in my early 30s.
I played in touring punk rock bands from 1998 til 2018. In my mind I wanted to play punk rock when I was young and country music when I was old. A few years ago I went to the White Horse in Austin, Texas and saw young guys with long hair and feathers in their hats playing real country music. I thought, “Jesus, if these guys can do it, then I can too.” What am I waiting for? It turned out these long haired guys were Croy and The Boys, Croy being a roommate of my old friend Mark Janchar of Hovercraft Records. Small world.
When I my relationship of 8 years ended in divorce, country music was one of the few things that helped me through it. All of these singers had felt my pain too. They drank to cope just like I did. They made mistakes just like I did. They fucked up and hit rock bottom just like I did. They got back up on their feet just like I did.
In Los Angeles I found a small but thriving country scene at venues like The Echo, Harvard and Stone, and The Escondite. At Cowboy Country in Long Beach I saw a great young pedal steel player named Kevin Milner. I got his contact information. I asked Cezar Mora if he wanted to play in a country band with me. He was one of my only friends I knew who loved both punk rock and traditional country music. We both really dig the Bakersfield sound, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and classic stuff like Ernest Tubb, Webb Pierce, Eddie Noack, Willie, Waylon, Loretta, George Jones, you know, the good stuff.
Angela Ramos from San Pedro surf band Bombon agreed to play bass, and Luis Herrera (from Rough Kids, Sonny Vincent, and many more) on drums. We called ourselves The Wayward Chapel, released a live album, and played 3 shows. Our debut on 4th of July we rode in on the back of my neighbor Francisco’s flatbed tow truck. It was truly epic. Then Angela had a baby, Cezar started a plumbing business called Camco Rooter, and I started freelance ASL Interpreting full time. We stopped playing.
The Wayward Chapel’s First show on top of my neighbor Francisco “Tow Life”s flatbed tow truck. 4th of July 2016
My little brother Jamie recently moved to Dallas, Texas and there was a loose plan for my family to visit him there for Christmas. I thought about going on tour solo, playing some acoustic shows on the way to help pay for gas. My second thought was to recruit Cezar Mora on 2nd guitar, harmonies, and some lead vocals of his own and we could do a stripped down country set of originals and covers. To my surprise. Lord Cezar Mora agreed to join me on this Los Angeles to Dallas journey. In the end I had a lot of trouble syncing up dates with Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Marfa venues, so the tour was booked as far as Tucson, Arizona, and Cezar would fly back from there. I’d drive the remaining 952 miles myself. This is our tale.
Friday Dec. 13th Los Angeles, CA @ Fais Do Do
A few hours before our LA show our promoter Ryan Platero got in touch to tell us that Fais Do Do had cancelled the show because they had no PA System. He scrambled and was able to move the show to the Grand Star Jazz Club in Chinatown. The other bands and DJs scrambled and posted on social media, texting people, frantically spreading the word about the last minute change of location.
Cezar and I donned our hats and boots and arrived a little early, schlepping our stuff up the flight of stairs. Little did we know, the downstairs bar at the Grand Star had a techno party downstairs. The blaring techno was drowning out the opening act Blanca, but as she was versatile, she was able to stomp her feet and adjust the tempo of her songs so that it matched the tempo of the throbbing kickdrum below. Cezar and I were up next and it was the first show we had ever played as a two piece. The techno totally drowned us out and I felt like I had to scream over it. Some folks in the crowd started talking and between the techno and their talking, it was all I could hear. I couldn’t hear myself, couldn’t hear my guitar amp, couldn’t hear Cezar, couldn’t hear our vocals. It was extremely difficult to get through. We played a cover of “Dead Flowers” and that’s when I got into my punk rock mindset.
My inner voice started chiding me,
“Man, what if this is the last show you ever play? How do you wanna go out?
You gonna give up?”
Luckily Ryan our promoter told us we only had time for a couple left. Ending that set was like ending torture trying to play over the techno downstairs.
Before we ended our set I said, “I don’t condone violence, but in this case I will make an exception. Will someone please go downstairs and shoot the DJ multiple times?”
I don’t condone violence but I did wish death on whoever was torturing our existence with bad house music. It was Friday The 13th after all. Did we pass the test? Who knows. We survived relatively unscathed. People seemed to love our Cactus t-shirts designed by Matthew “Snake” Davisand screen printed by Kid Kevin Carle at Calimucho Screenprinting and we sold a few.
Saturday Dec 14th Long Beach, CA @ 4th Street Vine
Our friend Jim Ritson owns 4th Street Vine in Long Beach and a couple other bars too. God bless him. Our good friend Paul Gonzalez had recently had his car stolen in front of the place while he was working. His records, turntables, and DJ Mixer was inside his car. It was devastating for him as DJing is his 2nd job and one of his loves. Long Beach rallied and raised a few thousand bucks for him on GoFundMe. God Bless Paul.
Cezar and Paul were drinking across the street at The Social. Cezar had his black Stetson Revenger on. He looked killer.
We had a couple drinks and then headed over to 4th Street Vine as we were on first. People seemed to really listen to our tunes. It was nice to not have to try and play over throbbing techno. Our set felt good, pure, the way the songs were meant to be heard.
Sunday Dec 15th Tijuana, BC @ Casa De Vilma
I picked up Lord Cezar at 10am at his pad in San Pedro and he wasn’t there. He had parked his van at his Aunt’s place in North Long Beach (down the street from Snoop Dogg’s parents’ house). So far the communication on this two man tour was off to an excellent start.
Made the 20 minute detour to North Long Beach, found Lord Cezar and his van the Green Goblin. Made the tetris pack into the back seat of my 2013 Honda Civic and we were off!
The drive to Tijuana was relatively painless. That stretch of 5 freeway near the San Onofre power plant and the view of the great Pacific Ocean is so beautiful. We stopped in San Isidro, the last US stop before Mexico to buy Mexican Car Insurance, the one thing that I forgot to do. Typically your US car insurance provider won’t cover you for accidents down in Mexico. We had our guitars and combo amps with us and I asked my insurance people about theft. Geico told me that I had to buy renter’s insurance to be covered for theft, but everything in both my apartment and my car would be covered. I thought it was a good deal, and remembering our good friend Paul in Long Beach and his recent theft of all of his DJ Gear out of his car, I went ahead and bit the bullet, buying renter’s insurance. Now that our car and gear were fully insured, we said fuck it and crossed into Mexico!
Our friends Marco and Gabriela’s pad is over in Playas Tijuana, and to get there, you cross the border and make a hard right which leads you through this windy, hilly freeway which parallels the massive border fence to the right. This fence is rusty corrugated steel and is about the height of 20 Honda Civics. In between the initial Mexican border fence is the death strip, and then the US border fence. You can see US Border trucks driving back and forth just on the US side of the fence. The huge fence leads all the way into the Mexican side of the Pacific Ocean which ends up right at Playas Tijuana.
In Playas the fence has these murals painted onto it. They’ve made it into a kind of park. I like it that they’ve done that. Turned this ugly steel fence into something a bit more pleasant. From Playas Tijuana you can literally see the skyline of San Diego in the distance. The border is such a farce, man. It’s literally for show. People who cross the border daily have family on both sides. It’s people’s aunts, uncles, grandparents, neices, nephews who are crossing to visit and stay with family on the other side. Gabriela, who lives with Marco in Playas Tijuana is studying to be a Veterinary Technician. She crosses almost daily to study in San Diego. Marco is studying to be an educational administrator and nearly has his Master’s Degree from one of the many excellent universities in Tijuana.
Our host Marco’s face after I convince him to try a little taste of Gran Centenario Plata
We found our host’s house and I cut my finger open on their sliding gate door. My friend Cezar told me that I was going to get tetanus or lock jaw and have to sing the rest of the tour through my teeth with my jaw stuck shut. Nice guy, isn’t he?
We met the doggie, Vilma who their house is named after. Marco was preparing a carne asada BBQ in their back yard. Playas Tijuana is mellow and pleasant and a nice breeze blows off the ocean. It was time for Cezar and I to get in our hats and boots before people started arriving the party. But first things first, we bought a bottle of Tequila Gran Centenario, Plata from the corner store nearby and enjoyed a tragito with our hosts.
Damian Fry aka Profeta de Ajo (“Prophet of Garlic”) opened up the show with some beautiful tunes from South America. He had an assortment of different instruments and he played and sang beautifully.
Damian Fry aka Profeta de Ajo. Photo by @isabeology (IG)
Up next were Los Rattlesnakes, Tijuana punk scene veterans who recently started an acoustic side project. The dudes later told me that they had called the band Los Rattlesnakes because of the theme of rattlesnakes in the Ritchie Valens biopic film “La Bamba”, which is also a favorite of ours. My old friend Sulli and I got Ritchie Valens tattoos on a trip to TJ awhile back and I told them the story about it. They were stoked.
Los Rattlesnakes
Your pals Cezar and Justin were up next, and the room full of TJ punk rockers surprisingly dug our set of traditional country western music.
Our set was followed by a lively afterparty and we managed this group shot before things got too rowdy! Gracias a Marco y Gabriela and all of our new friends! Saludos Amiguitos!!
Monday Dec. 16th El Centro, CA @ Strangers Bar
Our poor host Marco had to jet off to work at 6am for a 7am start at the school he’s working in. I loaded the Honda Civic as Cezar had disappeared off somewhere. Poor Cezar slept on the couch with no blankets. Someone finally draped some blankets over him. I had the guest room where their roommate had just moved out and repainted the room. At first I was alright, but halfway through the night the paint fumes got kinda overwhelming and I opened the window and let some cool Playas De Tijuana aire in.
First things first, breakfast. I remembered a place where Gabi and Marco had taken Irwing and myself on an earlier visit. We found the place.
El Heisenbergo aka Lord Cezar has his breakfast
After much deliberation I ordered the crab omelette. Cezar ordered chilaquiles with machaca. I had a freshly squeezed orange juice that was cold and mildly sweet. Goddamn, it may have been the best orange juice I ever had. The Crab Omelette was absolutely fantastic. They had this dangerously picoso salsa roja, and I put too much on my little crab omelette tacos I made with my side of frijoles. I was worried I might pay the price later. It wouldn’t be until Phoenix, but oh a price I would pay.
Our hosts in TJ mentioned that the drive to Mexicali might be dangerous. My personal experience driving in Mexico is to take the toll roads and drive during the daytime. That was the advice given to Clorox Girls during our Mexican tour in 2006, and this advice has served me well. Lord Cezar had some misgivings, but we decided “fuck it.”
We took the toll road past Tijuana, past Tecate, and into the rolling rocky hills before Mexicali. The drive was beautiful. I caught some shots of El Heisenbergo in his natural habitat.
Here’s what I wrote when I initially posted the photos.
Cezar and Justin made a succesful camino TJ a Mexicali y estamos en El Centro. The rock formations on the way to Mexicali were amazing. My shots of El Heisenbergo y las pinches piedras are here. The border is just for show, Los Mexicanos are our brothers and sisters. California was Native American, Spain, Mexico, THEN the US. We share history, food, culture, music, literature, art. It was our pleasure to share our music with our hermanos en Baja California. El Centro tonight with The Mellow Dicks from Mexicali at Strangers Bar. If you live here, come!
After a gorgeous drive and less than $6 in tolls, we finally hit Mexicali where we enjoyed some tacos. There’s something special about flour tortillas in the desert: stretchy, buttery, sanguine. I don’t think I’ll ever think of flour tortillas in the same way again. Viva Tortillas De Harina!
Our friend Ernie Quintero roadied for Clorox Girls during our Mexican tour in 2006 and he shot and edited this video.
Ernie is now a father and owns 2 businesses in El Centro, one being Strangers Bar. He told us that a Monday would be perfect, and said he’d donate all of his tips to us. What a good dude.
Ernesto had some pizza from his partner business Strangers West, and they put charcoal in the pizza dough making it dark and chewy. Definitely interesting, definitely good!
Charcoal pizza crust from Strangers West, El Centro.
Mellowdicks from Mexicali were a little nervous to play acoustic as this was their first attempt at doing so. They pulled it off!
Mexicali was where that stretch of the railroad came to an end, so there’s loads of Chinese Restaurants with Mexican ingredients. There’s also loads of lovely frauliens who are half Chinese half Mexican. A few beautiful frauliens were surprisingly at the bar in El Centro on a Monday night. As our set ended many of them left as we imagined they had work in the morning on Tuesday. It also could have been because where we were playing blocked the bathroom. Ernesto booked us a cheap hotel in El Centro where we were able to rest our heads after enjoying some pizza and beer at Strangers. Gracias, Ernie!
Tuesday Dec. 17th Tempe, AZ @ Yucca Tap Room
In the morning in our cheap hotel room, Cezar realized he had been attacked by spiders in the night. He had these insane spider bites all up his left and right arm. I was spared from the spider attack. Upon closer inspection we confirmed that they weren’t fleas, not bed bugs, not mosquitoes, definitely spider bites. Holy shit. Poor guy was itching and scratching until we finally got him some cortizone in Tempe.
In the morning in El Centro, we had to hit a drugstore for a stomach malady I had. Old men on tour. (Don’t know why we didn’t buy cortizone here?) Cezar made me a bet that they wouldn’t have a Nerf football in the drug store. I found a fucking football in there but Cezar claimed it wasn’t Nerf brand, so he didn’t have to pay up. Classic Cezar.
As we got into western Arizona, we waxed poetic on the marvels of the Saguaro Cactus. It never fails. It takes them hundreds of years to grow and they live forever. God bless the Saguaro Cactus.
Tuesday in Tempe was pretty quiet other than me dying a slow death in the Yucca Tap Room men’s room.
After my death, I had to get in the right head space to play – which required tequila and a couple beers. Sound was fantastic and it was amazing to hear ourselves through monitors. It may have been the first venue with actual working stage monitors. Thank Allah for stage monitors!
Our pal and promoter Harry Jerkface opened the show with his own tunes.
Michele Lane played next and unfortunately didn’t snap any photos. Her best tune was her ballad “I love you, Bob Cantu.” Was good to see Bob there, our old pal from Redwood Bar in Downtown LA.
After our set which felt great, Cezar and I saw two girls making eyes at us and whispering in each other’s ears, but I talked too long to the sound man about his funk band and they left. Yes, I blew it. And no, Cezar would not let me forget about it.
We burned a little midnight oil with Bob, Michele, Harry and DeMonica. DeMonica told us a bit about growing up White Mountain Apache and we tried learning some Apache phrases .
Cezar’s arms were looking pretty bad from the spider bites and DeMonica found some cortizone for him. She also suggested slicing open the bites with a razorblade and letting the poison drain out. We vetoed this idea.
In the morning Harry made us one of his Hawaiian classics, Spam and Eggs. I never had spam before, but it was kind of like a sausage.
Harry’s Spam and eggs were even more beautiful than this photo as he had a side of spinach and mushrooms. Great stuff.
I had to bite back the hair of the dog that bit me. I bit hard. This is called burning the midday oil.
Wed. Dec 18th Tucson, AZ @ Sky Bar
The drive from Tempe to Tucson was relatively painless at about 2 hours. We hit up Tacos Apson in Tucson which was just fantastic.
Again, it’s those desert tortillas de harina that are just absolutely wonderful. We would have a couple of sonora dogs later on. For those of you who don’t know about the Sonoran Hot Dog that originated in Hermosillo, Sonora, they typically have pinto beans, tomatoes, green salsa, jalapeño, mustard, mayonnaise, avocado and cotija cheese. Want one yet?
Down at Sky Bar we found out that it was open mic night and there were about a million dudes with acoustic guitars waiting to play. Cezar spotted a woman with a marionette who was also on deck to play. Cezar then spouted forth the best quote of tour:
“Fuck, now we have to play with a fuckin’ puppet show? What the fuck, man?”
Our buddy Issac Reyes from Lenguas Largas showed up with Matty from The Resonars (“Gone Is The Road” might be the best song of 2019) and our opening band The Gem Show. Apparently our show was separate from the open mic, thankfully. We had to fortify ourselves with some Tito’s and soda water in our tour van, the 2013 Honda Civic.
It was down to the 30s in Tucson, folks told us it was the coldest day of the year. We met a girl from Ireland who had one of those Gaelic names that are very difficult for us doltish Americans to remember or pronounce and her friend, Jenny Calento, who had black hair with bangs and a lovely smile. Jesus, this black haired bang thing really does me in.
We played our set followed by The Gem Show who were loud and excellent.
Sky Bar paid us very fairly and Gem Show even kindly donated their pay to us. God bless you guys. Ben Asher from legendary Bainbridge Island punk group The Captives showed up, it had been at least 20 years since I’d seen him. We didn’t get to chat too much. Sorry about that, Ben.
Afterwards we went to another bar with a couple of Lenguas Largas, Gaelic fraulien, and Jenny Calento. They were playing modernish country pop which Lenguas and Gaelic did not enjoy. Gaelic fraulien was friends with the bartender and asked me what traditional country music she should try to turn her onto. I told her to go with the classics like Hank Williams. I also noticed some Dwight Yoakam in her playlist so told her to keep it up with the Dwight Yoakam, and noted that some of Dwight’s favorite singers were Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and George Jones. Thought that was a good introduction to more traditional country music and the Bakersfield sound!
It was a birthday party at this little bar in Tucson and “Dirty Old Town” by the Pogues came on. The whole bar sang it. What a fitting end to tour.
Me and Cezar’s tour playlist top 2 hits were probably “Beer Drinkin’ Blues” by Eddie Noack and “A Million Miles From Nowhere” by Dwight Yoakam.
Give unto God what is God’s and give unto Lord Cezar what is Cezar’s.
After burning some serious midnight oil with Matty Resonar and him introducing us to the excellent Mike Judge animated series “Tales From The Tour Bus” (absolutely hilarious, you gotta watch it), I dropped Cezar at the Tucson airport and drove 526 miles to Pecos, Texas. The next day drove 421 miles to Irving, Texas to my little brother’s place. Had a family Christmas without much fighting or controversy which was a success!
Then drove 354 miles to Amarillo, Texas, and the next day 608 miles to Flagstaff. A couple of days later did 256 miles Flagstaff to Tucson. Then a couple of days later 485 miles from Tucson to Los Angeles. Those are some serious miles!
In Flagstaff I hit a snowstorm but was able to visit with some old friends Alex and Oakley and their 2 dogs. Check the snow out!
My wildest night was in Amarillo, but I won’t bore you with it here! Thanks for reading!
SUSPECT PARTS released our debut album in 2017 on Oops Baby Records in the USA and Taken By Surprise Records in Germany. In August/September of 2018 we returned to Berlin to embark on another tour and to record a new single with Dr. Smail Shock at his analog recording studio Smail Shock Produktion Studio B. In PART ONE I discussed my arrival a few days early in Berlin and my 3 day tour of the city. I enjoyed visiting the Stasi Museum, the Treptower Park Soviet Monument, Bernauer Strasse, Teufelsberg and more. You can read about my 3 day Berlin adventure in PART ONE
With Andru and Saskia’s flat in Friedrichshain as our home base. I decided to jump the gun and shoot a solo episode as the debut for Season 2 of our travel show Guten Morgen Deutschland much to the chagrin of my co-host Sulli.
German Vocab. 1:
Rampensau – “Ramp Sow” (Someone who is comfortable with strutting their stuff on stage)
Lass Die Sau Raus – “Let Your Sow Out” (Be comfortable with yourself onstage)
Du Giele Sau – “The horny pig?” “The cool pig?”
Menschen schlange – “People Snake” (a long line, “eine lange schlange”)
Geizig – Frugal, stingy
Spiesse – someone who is boring, a jobsworth
Speck Gurtel – a bacon girdle, a bacon belt – the area around a city – the suburbs
Du machst dich breit – you take up too much space
Sulli shot back with his own solo episode ofGuten Morgen Deutschland
Chris finally showed up and Suspect Parts were back in town!
The Boys Are Back In Town Photo by Sulli
We rehearsed like crazy for 3 days. We even did some “trudging” a la Black Flag for a 2nd day of practice for 8 hours. We practiced 3 new songs to record with Dr. Smail as well as rehearsing our hits like “Run For Your Life”
Practicing for 8 hours is rough on the back so it’s important to stretch.
While practicing for 8 hours it’s also very important to take an ice cream break.
Thanks to Berlin Blackouts for letting us use their practice room!
Suspect Parts and Berlin Blackouts
Perhaps most importantly, we had to get our fashion together. Andru decided to go with polk-a-dots this time around. Our band lampshade “Lampo” is wearing a blue vintage cowboy shirt with a “Timmy Whitey” sport coat.
Handsome Devil Andru Bourbon Photo by Saskia
We hit up some army surplus stores and I found 2 jackets that I liked. The jacket on the left was sorta like Inspector Gadget meets Gestapo and the jacket on the right reminded me of something Stephan Remmler from Trio would wear, so I got that one. It was affectionately referred to as “Remmler,” for the rest of the trip.
Inspector Gadget meets Gestapo?
If you’re unfamiliar with the genius of Stephan Remmler and Trio, besides their hit “Da Da Da” you should also check out their other material. A personal favorite of mine is this one:
My friend Tim Muller gifted me this white jacket which was affectionately referred to as “Timmy Whitey” for the rest of our trip
While practicing for 8 hours it’s also important to take a beer break.
Justin wearing “Timmy Whitey” enjoys a beer outside of the Ramones Museum. Photo credit: Sulli
As Suspect Parts are an egalitarian band with no designated leadership, we wanted Chris and Andru to sing at least one song each. We decided on a couple of covers. Chris decided to sing “IOU” by The Replacements and Andru “Hundsgemein” by Ideal. If you don’t know Berlin 80s new wave/punk band Ideal, you should definitely check em out!
HAMBURG @ KOMET
The Interior of Komet, Hamburg. What a great place to hang out!
Our favorite Schwebish guys Jens and Michael run Wild Wax promotions in Hamburg and also work with our favorite Italian, Franz of Otis Tours. They put together an annual festival in Hamburg right off of the beautiful Reeperbahn called “Get Lost Fest.” Jens was kind enough to ask us to play the pre-party at Komet Bar on Thursday night.
We jumped in the van with Tine our driver and tour manager, and arrived right on time to enjoy Jens’ chili (it gets better every time) and to enjoy Jens and Franz banter and argue. They are like a comedy duo – Schwebish and Northern Italian, you think it wouldn’t work well together, but it seriously does.
In the parking lot of an Aldi en route to Hamburg
We loaded in and sound checked in the Komet’s keller and got ready for a big night! The opening band were from Catalunya and had no gear with them so they had to borrow our drums, amps, and even guitar. They managed to break a string on our backup guitar and had to borrow my trusty ESP Viper afterwards. I didn’t mind too much but also noticed they had placed beers precariously on top of the amp. My anger began to run a little deep as I imagined the beer tipping over and spilling on top of my borrowed tube amp on the first night of tour before we played. Luckily no beer was spilt. Why cry over unspilt milk?
We managed to play for folks all over Deutschland and Europe. It was a fabulous 1st show. The crowd seemed to love “Alright With Me” and “Flowers of Evil”. Someone named Angie Action filmed us playing one of our new tunes “You Know I Can’t Say No”
Upstairs at Komet they were DJing fantastic music. Komet is one of my favorite bars I have set foot in. Upstairs they had these airplane chairs, great old movie posters, fantastic music, great Gin and Tonics. When “You’re Gonna Miss Me” came on, I had to cut a rug. I grabbed a beautiful fraulien and we burned some serious midnight oil on the dance floor.
Even Andru complimented me on my dance moves. My own band mate saying something nice and not making fun of me? What a great start to tour!
German Vocab 2:
Durchschnittstyp – average guy
Ich bin kein durchschnittstyp – I am not an average guy
Wir sind Dauergaste in den Hitlisten – we have a permanent slot on the hit list
Elefant im porzelan laden – Elefant in a china shop
Teufelskreis – Devils Circle (Vicious Circle)
Der rote affen arsch – Red ape ass
Der rote pavian arsch – red baboon ass
FRANKFURT @ Dreikönigskeller
We had a long drive from Hamburg to Frankfurt so we sat in the back enjoying ourselves, making bloody mary’s from our van bar, telling stories, making sandwiches, and inventing our own society, culture, and language.
If there’s one thing Suspect Parts excel in it’s supermarket shopping for our van kitchen and bar. Andru, our Minister of Mustard is excellent at picking out the best van food and drink. As it was incredibly hot, popsicles AKA “iced lollies” were a part of this list as well as various items for the van bar.
“Can I request a quick supermarket stop to get water? Water aka beer”
Andru, in the van
“I think if I was sucking my lolly, everyone would like to see that.”
Andru, outside Aldi
In a non-air conditioned van on a long drive it is important to stay cool. I recommend putting your head out of the window.
Pavianistan is the nation of Suspect Parts who speak a patois dialect of Pavianisch (a blend of German and English). Pavianistan is an egalitarian society with no designated leadership although appointed ministers do exist in this banana republic such as:
Minister of Mustard: Andru Bourbon
Minister of Media and Gherkin Handler: James Sullivan
Minister of Moving Schiesse: Chris Part
Minister of Maneuvering and Merchandising: Tine Ones
Minister of Müll and Miscellaneous Bag – Justin Maurer
The Pavianistani National Slogan is:
AFFENZEIT AFFEMACHT AFFENSTARK
Wo erdnusflips sind ist party
(Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Strong. Erdnusflips are party)
We also managed to shoot an episode of Guten Morgen Deutschland and were rudely interrupted by frigging wasps!
German Vocab 3:
Schiess die Wandan – “shit on the walls” (an expression used for general discontent)
Arsche Krampe – “pain in the ass” or literally “ass cramp”
Feierabend Bier – “beer that you would have at the end of your shift or when finishing a job”
Arsch Geige – “Anus Violin” (someone who is a pain in the ass)
Du bist eine echte arsch geige – “you are a major anus violin”
Da wird der hund in der pfanne verruckt – “There become the dogs in the pan crazy”
Schliessmuskel – Sphincter
On that note, we pulled into Frankfurt and Tine and I saw a very suspicious middle-aged couple driving a convertible BMW. We thought they might steal the equipment in our van. We also thought that their license plate said “FKK” (Freikörperkultur, the East German nudist and open body culture that was prevalent in the GDR and still exists throughout German culture).
Our hosts Dennis and Mieke made us a lovely dinner and offered us the local apfel wine and some apfel schnapps as well as some coffee. They had hosted friends of ours Red Dons, Piss Test, Macho Boys, and the Chemicals all from Portland, Oregon! (Germany is a bit obsessed with Portland, Oregon for some reason. They absolutely love The Wipers, Dead Moon, Poison Idea, and Exploding Hearts. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just interesting! Especially interesting to me ’cause my old band Clorox Girls also lived in PDX.)
After a great dinner, we headed down to the venue, Dreikönigskeller (3 Kings Cellar). We were warned that the bar owner Nico was a little bit strange and that he didn’t like it when people ordered multiple drinks at once. Apparently the secret was to order one at a time.
Justin and Andru in Frankfurt Photo Credit: Sulli
When we arrived the bar, Andru ordered 1 beer from Nico and it took about half an hour to get it. Nico was the only person working there and moved incredibly slow. We were told they (by they, I mean Nico) wanted us to soundcheck on the tiny stage, and we agreed. It took us all of 10 minutes to set up and we were ready to go. Nico was working at his own snail pace. It seemed like there might be a method to his madness, but then again, maybe not. He was shuffling behind the bar, not really getting anyone a drink, but just moving things around. The audience was already in the bar and we hadn’t sound checked yet. The DJ’s were there and had all of their gear set up. I told the DJs they should just go on. People started smoking in the cellar and I was worried it would fuck up me and Sulli’s voices (people smoke indoors at all shows in Germany. Most of these shows are in little windowless concrete basement venues. The audience especially loves to light up right in front of my microphone).
Nico told the DJs that they couldn’t start until soundcheck was done. He then looked towards the stage and said that we had to give the Veltins plastic beer crates that Sulli had stacked his amp on back to him. Sulli lifted his amp and I gave Nico back his beloved Veltins crates. Nico seemed pleased. We sound checked for about 30 seconds doing the “Na Na Na” part in “Land of 1000 Dances”
Nico finally allowed the DJs to start and the place filled with music and cigarette smoke. I wanted a fucking beer. Somehow Andru convinced Nico to give us 4 beers at once (Minister of Mustard strikes again).
We played our set, people seemed to like it. Afterwards DJ Dirk Klotzbach played some hits including “Food Fight” by Village People and “Big Time” by Rudi. Tine ran onto the dance floor to boogie to “Big Time” and I joined her.
A guy wearing a Harrington jacket was hanging out by our merch table. A few folks went out to the shop to buy us some traditional Apfel Schnapps (or was it peach schnapps?) and gave us the drink with the fruit soaked in it. We drank it. The schnapps itself was pretty harsh, but the fruit combination thing was decent. The Harrington jacket guy asked me why I was wearing a white denim jacket. I told him that Chris had a black one, Sulli light blue, Andru dark blue, and that we couldn’t all wear the same color. He said, “Maybe you are a loser since you are the one who wears white.“
Ah, sometimes I love Germany.
A woman from Frankfurt hung out by our van and told us her stories about going to Berghain, a notoriously debaucherous night club in Berlin. She said the first time she went there, her gay friend went into the pitch-black orgy room to get it on with some guys. She was on the dance floor and said that everyone whipped out their pimmels and proceeded to abspritz onto a slip-n-slide type thing then everyone slid around in the abspritz. This story got me laughing out loud. It was the best conversation in Frankfurt.
Dennis tried to buy a bottle of apfel schnapps from Nico at the bar and Nico said no. He would only sell him a bottle of Jim Beam. Is there a method to Nico’s madness? No one knows.
Someone from the techno/hip hop dance club next door partially blocked the driveway and we couldn’t get our van out. A motley crew of “helpers” from our show got in and out of the van all giving conflicting directions. Suddenly there were like 20 people in our van. This completely hammered Italian guy with dreadlocks kept opening the sliding door and stepping out, finally going to the drivers side and claiming he could do a better job at backing up. He tried to get back into the van and we wouldn’t let him in. The rest of the folks in the van got out and decided to get cabs instead. Luckily there was a very friendly Bavarian guy who rode with us to show us the way back to where we were staying.
In the morning, Dennis and Mieke made a fantastic breakfast out in our back garden and our very own Chris made some homemade hummus. It was a lovely and civilized breakfast and we enjoyed it immensely.
Suspect Parts and Dennis outside Tine’s “The Ones In Charge” van in Frankfurt
FREIBURG @ KIEZ 52
“How many minutes until we’re there?”
“11”
Andru begins immediately rooting around Mobicool Maxi for a beer to crack
Exchange between Andru and Sulli on the outskirts of Freiburg
Sulli’s mug on the Freiburg show poster
Freiburg is a wealthy town in the Badish region of south western Germany near the borders of France and Switzerland. We were told that the show would have to end pünktlich (on time) at 10pm. While a Saturday night show ending at 10pm seemed quite preposterous to those of us living in Berlin, London, and Los Angeles, we didn’t complain, it would give us more time to drink after our show. Tine our driver and tour manager pulled us in and we loaded our stuff quite early. We noticed a very beautiful girl on a bicycle who parked her bike and sashayed into the building next to the venue. I called her “Inge.” We hoped she would come to our show, but of course she didn’t.
Andru tried to decide which outfit to wear that would best compliment his handbag:
After loading in, changing into our stage clothes and shaving, Sulli and I had a beer outside hoping that Inge would come out, see how handsome we were, and come to our performance that ends pünktlich at 10pm which would give her plenty of time for any other evening plans she might have. We noticed this sign and I just had to break at least one rule in Freiburg.
Our show was written up in the cultural section in Freiburg’s local paper which brought out some norms to the show which was a completely welcome surprise. The little place was packed and people even danced! Dancing in Deutschland? Verboten!
We had a great time playing and finished pünktlich at precisely 9:58 pm. We were pleased with the exact calculation of our set (we’re turning a little more Deutsch every day) when one of the show organizers asked me where our driver Tine was. I told him that she was selling some records and t-shirts to some happy customers. He told me that she had to move our van immediately so that we could load our equipment out. The staff then began running around like mental patients hauling tables and chairs and trying to reset the bar interior while our equipment and the other band’s equipment was still in there. We heard a loud crash. The unsettling noise was clearly the sound of an amp falling down hard. Sulli and Andru went to investigate. Phew, it was only the 1st bands amp. Someone had knocked it over while rushing around carrying a table. Nice one. I’m sure rushing around to reset the bar is worth injuring someone or breaking a 1000 Euro amp.
I went with Tine to grab our van as the atmosphere in the place was a little intense and we parked in front of the venue. Someone immediately came out and said we had to re-park the van. As instructed, we began to load out our equipment, and someone else told us that we couldn’t block the bike lane that was on the sidewalk. I’m not sure how to load heavy objects from a door to a van without setting some of these heavy objects down on the sidewalk (which would temporarily block the bike lane), but some of the folks began to grab our equipment and move it out of the bike lane onto the street or the other part of the sidewalk. We all thought this was mental.
I began to sing “Life In The Bike Lane” to the tune of “Life In the Fast Lane” and danced at oncoming Freiburg bikers as to disrupt their right of way. Needless to say, they loved it.
The music in the bar was a bit erratic. They’d play 2-3 great tunes then 2-3 bad ones. We asked one of the promoters if there were any more rock n roll bars in Freiburg. He said not really. He then asked us why we would want to go anywhere else when we could drink there for free. We thought this was a very good point.
The bar was long but ordering happened at the far corner which blocked the stairway to the bathroom. This made it extremely awkward to wait in line for a beer. I wondered why no one was ordering from the other side of the bar which would clear the pathway for people going up and down the stairs to the bathroom. Oh well, when in Freiburg do as the Freiburgians do.
We played some fooseball (Do not set beers on the Fooseball table!) and I even won a game before getting unspeakably crushed by some locals.
We were staying in the apartment of a band called “Enraged Minority” I noticed that the guys in the band were 4 white guys from Freiburg. The irony of their name must have been lost somewhere. Their apartment had 4 rooms with a massive outdoor balcony. It was one of the nicest band flats I have ever seen. One of the rooms had thousands of Euros worth of fine single malt scotch bottles and even multiple bottles of designer cologne. The decorations in the place were posters of Karl Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and even an AK-47 hung on the wall. Next to the single malted scotch and the designer cologne was a piggy bank of Karl Marx’s head. Apparently the irony of this must have been lost somewhere. We found a children’s book and decided to read the story of Pippi Longstocking before going to bed.
In the morning one of the band members from Enraged Minority came to make us breakfast with his small daughter. The breakfast was lovely. As always, we appreciate hospitality and it was very nice of the guys to let us stay in their apartment and cook us breakfast. After returning to Los Angeles, I received a message from one of the guys saying that their Pippi Longstocking book was missing. The message was insinuating that it was stolen. For the record, Guten Morgen Deutschland never steals any props for our television program. For the record, we are an egalitarian movement with no designated leadership, we are not communists, but we are theoretical comrades in your struggle to free the working proletariat of his capitalist chains.
DRESDEN @ CHEMIFABRIK
We had a very long drive to Dresden and drank some bloody mary’s from our van bar
Under direct orders from our minister of nutrition, Udo, we drank some bespoke bloody mary’s in the van bar. Wodka, pickles, olives, and arugula with
Flash, a competent, sensible, and reasonable sound-man was our engineer in Dresden. Flash patiently worked with us during sound check while saying encouraging words along the way. He had our various levels on perfectly logical settings that fit the caliber of Chemifabrik, the concrete former chemical factory that we were playing. No one was deafened or frustrated. Multiple members of the audience complimented the professional sound quality of our performance.
They gave us some watermelon before the show which was a welcome surprise.
In the morning we met Bodie Johnson, an HB Surfer lost in Dresden:
The last time we were in Dresden, I almost pissed myself not being able to find the bathroom in the middle of the night in the pitch-black band flat. Tine told us a story about previously driving a band and one of the guys, drunk, pissed in a corner in the middle of the night. In her words:
“It would have been so great if he’d pissed on the promoter”
“I like your sense of humor”
Tine then Andru, describing the potential for confusion when searching for bathrooms in the middle of the night
Suspect Parts and Bodie Johnson with tour manager and driver Tine
BERLIN: RECORDING WITH DR. SMAIL
RIDING THE S-BAHN WITH DR. SMAIL
Wir steh’n in der M 10 …
MATCHING SP TATTOOS IN BERLIN
SHOOTING A MUSIC VIDEO IN BERLIN
Taking the S Bahn to shoot our music video. Saskia video producer and Lampo our most important prop in tow!
Taking the S Bahn to shoot our music video. Saskia video producer and Lampo our most important prop in tow!
BERLIN @ FRANKEN
Suspect Parts in the basement of The Franken, Kreuzberg. Photo by Imke Wagener.
We had to load an entire PA, speakers, mixing board, and more in and out of a van and set up everything ourselves. Special thanks to Mutti, Andru, Tine, and Hugo for setting up the PA. We moved all of the tables around at the direction of Franken owner, Alice, and finished moving schiesse. Imke Wagener took some photos of us after we finished setting up everything and checking sound.
Sulli and Chris have a quick rest outside of Franken with the staff of Mutti’s booking Buro and Alice, owner of the Franken. Mutti’s dog also there, but forget dog’s name. Sorry hund!
The show went really well and loads of friends came out. Franken was filled to capacity. Thanks Alice and thanks Berliner Freunden!
Sulli prepares for the Franken show. Photo by Imke Wagener
Sulli and Chris have a quick rest outside of Franken with the staff of Mutti’s booking Buro and Alice, owner of the Franken. Mutti’s dog also there, but forget dog’s name. Sorry hund!
Suspect Parts in Kreuzberg Photo by Imke Wagener
Sulli prepares for the Franken show. Photo by Imke Wagener
Suspect Parts in the basement of The Franken, Kreuzberg. Photo by Imke Wagener.
BERLIN @ TRICKSTER
Trickster is near the Ramones Museum so we joined our friends there for a coffee and some gin and tonics before the show.
Justin enjoys cake and a coffee at the Ramones Museum
Sulli and Andru enjoy some cake and coffee at Ramones Museum
At Trickster we played with Love Lanes. The place was packed and we played what was our best show of the entire tour. Everyone was singing along and clapping and dancing. It was a fantastic atmosphere. Thanks very much to Oihane and Laura and everyone at Trickster. We even did a “Down With Dons” photo shoot! We love you Berlin!
Tour Journal Outtakes and More German Vocabulary:
“Döner macht schöne – aber nur mit Soße” (Andru’s favorite Doner shop slogan)
Breznak beer = gut
“I was hoping for more of a Willy Wonka vibe rather than this Auschwitz vibe”
Sulli, outside the Berliner Luft factory
“That’s damn good Luft”
Sulli, after drinking a Luft
“Guten Morgen Deutschland is gonna get me laid”
Justin, considering his fraulein situation
Verzweifelt – desperate
Bumshöhle – fuck cave
Klöten – balls
“Nothing funnier than this”
Chris, on the death of Udo
“I like guzzing”
Justin, after guzzing a hund
“Man cannot live on erdnuss flips alone”
Chris, while eating erdnuss flips alone
Fusspils – road beer
Santa cantina
Posh teckel
Sommersprossen – freckles
Ukw
Bummeltriene – the last person to do something in general
Reudig – scruffy
Bun bo hue
Nickerchen – nap
Weichblase – weak bladder
Du miststück – you son of a gun (someone mischievous or slightly naughty)
A handful of skinheads swirled around the pit, shielding their eyes from my nakedness. For some reason we were playing in Aberdeen, Washington. The promoter was a chubby kid with a floppy green Mohawk named Phil. Phil seemed to have mild Down’s syndrome and he spoke with a stutter.
“Ther…ther… ther…are no real skinheads in America. The… the only real skinheads are in England.”
The Aberdeen skinhead crew didn’t take kindly to Phil’s remark and piled on him throwing wild punches. A couple security guards pulled the cueballs off of Phil. He rose and dusted himself off.
“You…you guys hit like a bunch of girls,” he smirked. A few of the skins charged again and the security guards chucked them out of the front door.
About half the skins were outside and half were still inside the hardwood floored community hall. I went up to Phil and asked him if he was okay. The remaining skins began eying me and sizing me up. I was a teenage beanpole with a footlong green liberty spike Mohawk. For the occasion, I had donned my sleeveless denim punk vest, my mom’s old Gap jean jacket that I hacked the sleeves off of. My Grandma sewed on some patches of local punk bands like Bristle and The Rickets. All the kids from my town who were into cool music wore high top Chuck Taylor’s and mine were navy blue.
My high school punk band was playing with The River Rats, a greasy garage punk band from Seattle and The Turn Offs, a surfy-garage band from Eastern Washington. Their reverb-soaked hit was called “Taking the Impala to Walla Walla.”
It was our turn to take the stage. We tuned up and I instantly tore into the skinheads. I taunted them from the mic.
“You guys are real tough jumping a guy 10 to 1. You’re real big men.”
Some middle fingers went in the air and like a mound of red ants they began to swirl around a little bit.
“Why don’t you guys come up front? If you don’t get up here, I’m gonna get naked.”
I don’t know why, but at the time my thing was stripping down to my boxer shorts or completely naked. I knew it would piss off the homophobic skinheads.
The skins weren’t into our music and I followed through with my threat, stripping down nude.
“Awww, fuckin’ faggot,” the skinheads yelled.
One of them threw a bottle and like a skilled English footballer I butted it with my head. The glass bottle shattered on the floor and the security guards threw the remaining skinheads out of the show.
Someone warned me that the skinheads were waiting for me outside.
“We’re gonna kill the naked guy,” was the apparent threat.
The older Seattle greaser punks told me, “We got your back Mo Cheeks.”
My nickname at the time was “Mo Cheeks,” a pseudonym I had borrowed from a 70s basketball player, Maurice Cheeks of the Philly 76ers who was a teammate of legendary star forward Dr. J. Along with the Doctor, I was a fan of classic basketball stars like Pistol Pete Maravich and Magic Johnson. At the time the Seattle Supersonics reigned with their triple All Star lineup of Sean Kemp, Gary Payton and Detlef Schrempf. It wasn’t very punk to like basketball, so I kept my fanaticism for the Seattle Supersonics under wraps, at least around suave older punks.
As we loaded up I had leather jacketed, slicked-back-hair Fonzie lookalikes around me sporting cymbal stands and hard shell guitar cases as weapons. “Let’s roll, Mo Cheeks,” they said.
My heart pounded as we carried the gear down the stairs ready to fight. Waiting outside the hall was the skinheads, dressed identically in their uniforms of thin red suspenders, rolled up faded jeans and Doc Martens. There was about ten of us and twenty of them.
They didn’t seem to recognize me even though I had a foot long green liberty spike Mohawk. I heard them muttering about “the naked guy.” One of the greasers patted me on the back and chuckled. We had outsmarted them without even trying.
It began to rain and we packed all of the gear haphazardly into the River Rats van. My band climbed into our bassist’s beat-up baby blue ’66 Ford Mustang. Strewn on the ripped-up leather of the back seat were hamburger wrappers, cans of purple Aquanet Hairspray and a half rack of warm beer. We cracked some cans of Ranier in celebration. As the sun set and the rain pounded down on the roof of the Thunderbird we made our way to the house where we were all sleeping.
Between towering cedar trees was our Bates Motel. It was a dilapidated two-story house on a heavily forested rural side street. We drank cans of Olympia Beer and the older boys teased each other about some girls they had slept with. I was still a virgin at 15, but I laughed along as if I knew exactly what they were talking about. We staked out sleeping spots and threw sleeping bags into dark rooms.
“Justin Maurer’s stories are filled with humor, horror and human insight. A strong new voice.”
– Dan Fante
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– Scott McClanahan
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– Chloe Caldwell
“Maurer sculpts very rich characters and depicts absurd situations in hysterical terms. An extremely clever and sincere writer.”
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“Justin Maurer has a real gift for storytelling…an expertly conversational feel.”
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