Episode 8. 'No Crows' on tour'.

=Hi, everyone and welcome to the 'World According to Gemini, life on tour' mobile edition. I'm on the move, going from country to country, from town to town, playing gigs, getting lost and annoying my compatriots from the 'No Crows'. What you hear is a running commentary of our tour recorded straight into my iPhone. So, noises, dogs barking, doors closing and opening...I hope you understand. I might cut out the most offensive parts later, and will try to improve the sound when I'm back into my cosy and nice studio. But for now, it's just an iPhone. Now, just to let you know, the tour is long over. It took me a lot of effort to find and put together all audio snippets and parts and to make sure it makes sense. It doesn't. I listened to the whole thing. It's chaotic. There's no story, no structure, just a stream of whatever is coming from my mouth. So, on the road again. Do you remember the donkey from the Shrek? That's me. I'm not allowed to drive anymore. And, 'Are we there yet?', is my only meaningful contribution to the traveling process. That and, 'Can we stop for coffee, please?' Part one, Switzerland. I am on tour with the 'No Crows' from Sligo, Ireland, and if you don't know who 'Crows' are, you should get out more often. (Sounds of applause. Steve is announcing the band): 'So we live in Sligo, which is a little town in the northwest of Ireland, and we come from different places. Felip is from Spain, Oleg's from Russia, Anna's from Switzerland. I'm from Dublin. Ray's from Sligo, and Eddie's from Sligo, the town of the west. We play every Wednesday night, most Wednesday nights, in a little pub called 'Shoot the Crows', and that's where we got our name, no crows'. [00:02:34] Speaker A: We are called the 'World music Orchestra'. 'World' means we play the most eclectic set of pieces you can imagine. Irish, Latin, Arabic, Balkan, Jewish, Rock, Blues, Gypsy, and God knows what else. Usually, it's not a good thing, but in Crow's case, it, uh, somehow all sounds organic for some reason. Probably has something to do with the personalities in the band. So no crows are. I will start from the stage left. Felip from Majorca on guitars and vocals. Now, Felip's primary function on the tour is to make sure that I don't get lost. Also, he's our luggage master. He's the only person on the planet who can stuff 24 bags, two guitars, three violins, 20 CD boxes, a cello and a double bass into one little car. Also, he's the only person on a planet who is able to communicate with this highly annoying 'Katie' character from our GPS navigational system. Felip and 'Katie' have a very special relationship. Felip insists on having her switched on, but never follows her directions and routinely calls her, 'You stupid cow!' in a beautiful Roscommon accent. What else? Felip is a hidden extrovert. He loves everyone, and everyone loves Felip. He has great stage presence and sounds like Barry White with hangover. Felip has a bunch of great stories about his tunes and actually his piece, 'Why Us' is one of my favourite pieces of music ever. The next one on the stage is me. I'm the only one on the stage without the microphone as I talk too much. Apparently. My main function during the tour is to annoy everyone and not to get lost too often. Next, we have our beautiful Anna on cello, mandolin and vocal. Anna is Swiss. She's from Bern, and she is a voice of reason in 'No Crows'. She is an impossible combination of a highly creative hippie and a highly organized Swiss girl. She looks soft but carries a punch. You don't argue with Anna, ever. Anna is the one who tells me what tune we play next, where I'm going to eat and when I have to be on the stage. She is the one coming to the dressing room to kick everyone out, to go and to sign our cd's after the gig. Also, she's organizing our cultural activities during the tour. Usually it sounds like this. 'Hi, everyone. We are going for a 200 km walk in the Alps tomorrow morning. We will wake up at 07:00 a.m.. will leave at 7.42, at 12:00 p.m, we will stop for the photo shoot. At 02:00 p.m we will visit the local museum, at 03:00 p.m we will have a lunch, and we will be back for the rehearsal at 05:00 p.m.. 'Anna, I don't have a coat. It's too cold'. 'I have a warm coat for you' 'Uh, Anna, my boots are leaking'. 'Don't worry. I got a pair of hiking boots for you'. 'Anna, to be honest, I'm not feeling well. I think I have a flu'. 'I will have your Panadol in the morning. And anyway, the fresh air is going to do you a lot of good'. 'Oh, Anna, I just realized, um, I have to do a bit of work tomorrow'. 'You. Are. Going'. So in the morning, there's a mug of coffee, my new coat and boots waiting for me outside my door, and yes, I am going. During the gig, Anna is sitting mostly. Sometimes she stands up and turns into Jimi Hendrix on acid, then she sits down again and turns back into a well behaved classical lady. Next we have Steve on violin and vocals. Steve is our frontman. He's a pacifist and introvert. Steve and me are usually trying to sneak out after the gig to get to the hotel and to go to bed while Felip is saying his goodbyes to every single member of the audience for the third time in a row. Steve went around the world many times over. He played with everyone who is anyone and has fans in every city and town in the world. He has 75 projects going on at the same time. Gigs, theatre plays, poetry, you name it. He's a great musician, but usually takes a backseat. Also Steve is a beekeeper, which has its ups and downs. Once he came to the gig with a half of his face swollen and hanging off. 'A bee got me', he said, then took out seven jars of honey out of the bag. 'Here's a little something for you'. Next we have Ray, a Blues Rock connection. He's a youngest Crow and therefore still has some hair left. A hippie and a troubadour of a few words he is. Ray with his songs broke more hearts than I broke my bows. Ray speaks little, but when he does, it's better to listen. I stayed in his house once. He left a note on the kitchen table for his housemates. It said, 'If you find a Russian upstairs, don't be alarmed. He is leaving soon'. Ray writes beautiful tunes, but doesn't like to talk about it. And when Ray and Steve play tunes before the gig, this is where real music is happening and if there's Felip and Anna joining them, it's incredible. I'll put a camera in a dressing room one day and then we will have a best selling record ever. Stage right, we have our bass extraordinaire Eddie. He plays Rock, Jazz, Blues, Trade....everything, you name it. Eddie is a groove master. Can't really see Crows without Eddie. Me, I'm replaceable. Eddie, absolutely no. Eddie runs a Jazz festival, one of the best Jazz festivals on the planet and routinely loses 15-20 kilogram during the festival week. Also, he is an incredible photographer who runs exhibitions and sells his masterpieces to the ever appreciative Sligo natives and visitors. Eddie is the one who is responsible for this podcast. A year ago, we were driving to the gig, I was talking, and Eddie didn't know how to shut me up, so he put on a podcast from someone called a Blind boy. By the way, look this dude up. He is absolutely brilliant. Now, uh, what else? Uh, we all do a bit of talking on the stage. Everyone is different. Felip growls, coughs and curses. And after the third encore, he might say something like, 'Have you no homes to go!!?', but everyone loves him anyway. Now, Anna. Anna is very straight and to the point. 'We have our cd's for sale, and we will be selling them after the gig. You know what to do'. Steve's approach is very theatrical. He might say something very poetic, like, 'Have you seen a rainbow during the night? Here's a little tune I wrote while watching the night sky'. Ray doesn't do much talking. He might occasionally tell a story about the time when he decided to write a tune, ran away, and left his student hanging and waiting in the house. I don't think he ever saw him again. When I have a chance, I would usually start with one story, go into another, and will only stop when Felip starts making snoring noises into the microphone. Very mature, my friend Felip. Eddie announces his pieces in a very quiet voice. When Eddie speaks, he practically whispers. But somehow everyone gets very attentive. I don't have a clue how he does it. I'll have to try it one day. We are lucky to have two incredible sound engineers, Ray and Urz. They are our heroes. They are not just great engineers. They know our every note and every move. Actually, they know our music much better than we do. And, uh, if you are a musician, you know how important it is. A sound engineer is someone who can turn your gig into a masterpiece. And he also can ruin your gig regardless of how good the band is. On this tour, we have a big problem, Ray got Covid one day before our first gig. I have no idea how it's going to go. Urz can do only one gig, and I think two or three gigs are acoustic, but the rest is going to be tricky. Now, uh, what else? We have a bunch of friends who help us with everything. They put us up, they drive us, they cook for us, they follow our gigs, they support us, and they make our time in Switzerland great. Beautiful Christine, Hooky, Stef, Urz, you know, I will stop with the names. You don't know them, but we do. And if you listen to this, my dears, we love you. Uh, what else? Everyone except of Anna has a white beard. Okay, I'm signing off for a moment. Part two, Spain. We are on the fourth day of our tour, which started in Stidges, Spain. We took an uneventful flight to Barcelona, where the only exciting part was trying to bring my violin on board the Ryanair flight, which is always hit and miss. If you are unlucky, your violin will be taken off you and put in a hold. And Ryanair is notorious when it comes to dealing with musicians. There are hundreds of stories of instruments being lost or smashed to bits.. Many years ago we were coming back to Dublin from the tour with a band called Yurodny. We were walking towards the passport control and I saw through the window of little overpass our luggage being unloaded and our cello being thrown on the ground. I turned and said to our cellist, 'Kate, dear, check your cello when you get a chance'. So she did. She opened the case and found a massive crack across the top of the cello. Ryanair offered to pay a compensation. They calculated the weight of the instrument and came out with a sum of eight or so euro per kilogram. I think Kate got like 20 or €25 in total. And just to let you know, to fix this crack, Kate had to pay four and a half thousand UK pounds, if I remember correctly. So, every time I fly, I hide the violin behind my back and pray that nobody notices. When I am in the queue to board the plane, I just look at the person at the gate and say in my head, 'Don't you dare. Don't you dare. I'll kill you!!!'. So, we flew to Barcelona, got off the plane, met a driver, drove to the hotel, all very uneventful. When we arrived, our receptionist told us there was a little problem. During the last year festival, we had Trad sessions in the hotel going till six, seven am. Every day. It was Irish music festival. An official complaint from the residents was lodged to the town administration. And if you know anything about Irish trad sessions, you would understand why. If you've never been to one, I wouldn't even bother explaining because you wouldn't believe how insane it could get. And, musicians were banned from the hotel. So we went to the session in town instead. There was a riot, a musical riot. Hundreds of Irish musicians. Sessions everywhere, in the pubs, in the restaurants, on the streets, on the corners, everywhere. And everybody was drunk. When we approached the session area, I was ambushed by the lady dressed up as a catholic nun. She had a pint of beer in her hand and she kept saying, 'God bless youze'. She was completely drunk. Somebody gave me a hug, somebody gave me a glass of whiskey, somebody pat me on the shoulder and said, 'Hi Gerry, how are you?', someone told me, 'A good gig yesterday!'. I didn't have the energy to explain that we just arrived. Wouldn't, uh, matter anyway, as everybody was delightfully drunk. Don't remember much after this. Somebody brought me back to the hotel. I think it was Anna. Um, the next day I had our first gig with a couple of friends from Dublin in a place called Queenz, the biggest gay club in Stidges. Everything was as usual. We came in, said 'Hi', did a quick sound check, and then I asked the manager if they had a dressing room we can use. Just put the cases, to change and so on. There was a moment of silence. The manager made a face and said, 'Nooooooo'. I was too tired to ask why. So I just said, 'Okay', and went outside for a bit of sun, smoke and some mojitos. And there our guitar player explained to me why the dressing room was off limits. Apparently a band from Dublin, (no names,) had a gig in 'Queenz' at last year's festival. The manager let them into a dressing room and asked them not to touch anything because the room was stuffed with costumes for the drag show. Sparkly dresses, leathers, studs, feathers, high heels, wigs, makeup kits, all works. And, uh, everything was very expensive, obviously. And musicians, they went straight for the costumes. Well, obviously! They put on some wigs, heels, leather coats, sparks and feathers, makeup. And that's how they went to the stage. Someone showed me a video of their antiques. God!! It was supposed to be a Jazz gig. They did Cancan as their opening act. There was a scandal, obviously. So no, we were not allowed to use the dressing room. Well, fair enough, I understand completely. But to be honest. Come on, what do you expect if you say to the bunch of musicians, 'Don't touch anything'. Really? Have you ever met a musician, any musician who is mentally older than twelve years old? Have you? Well, I haven't. Anyway, the gig was 1 hour late. We had enough time for four or five Mojitos and played without any incidents. No Cancan. And, after that I had 30 minutes to run to our No Crows gig, which was a main event of the evening. Felip, who organized the whole thing, was sick from worry. It was his land, he had his relatives and friends in the audience. His daughter Maria was singing with us. So he was hyperventilating for the whole evening, poor thing. Before the gig, there was an official speech from the organizers in English. We were waiting behind the stage while Felip was translating the speech to Spanish. It was the usual, 'We are so happy to be here. We would like to give our thanks to this and to this and to this council and to this politician'. All was going well and then the audience started to laugh a bit. Maria whispered in my ear, 'Dad is making a little interpretations....' Just to make it less boring, I guess. Anyway, the gig was incredible. There was an old lady who came to me after the gig and said, 'Well done, well done. You were amazing. Where did you learn to play guitar so well? '. I play violin, by the way. Then, for those of you who think that the life of a touring musician is all glamour and roses, we had to be up at 03:30 a.m. to get to the airport. So our next bunch of gigs is in Switzerland and Germany. Two weeks altogether. See ya. Hello everyone. Zurich. This is our first day in Switzerland. We are in a hotel. We have a kitchen in every room so we decided to cook instead of going out. As we are in Zurich, eating out would mean we will starve for the rest of the year. Anna volunteered to get some eggs, bread, cheese and stuff, Steve and Heidi offered us their kitchen, Eddie volunteered to do the cooking, and the rest of us volunteered to help, which means we were getting in the way a lot. Eventually Eddie politely suggested we fuck off to the balcony, which we gladly did. Steve wanted his egg boiled, but nobody knew exactly how many minutes it will take. And then we made a discovery. You chuck the egg in the boiling water and go for a smoke. When you come back, your egg is ready. After the breakfast, we had a group meeting. We were supposed to discuss our rehearsal schedule, travel plans, finances, transport, and also we were supposed to work on our new pieces. I love to work with No Crows, as they have proper understanding of the creative process. After the brief discussion it was decided that the most productive way to spend the day will be going back to sleep and meeting up in the evening. True professionals they are indeed. So I will go back to bed now and we'll continue in few hours. Good evening, everyone. So, Switzerland. You know, one of the hardest things for touring musician is to adapt to the local sense of timing. There are, of course, so called 'Cultural differences', but timing is, uh, most important factor to keep in mind. Do you remember I told you about our first Spanish gig in the 'Queenz?'. It was 1 hour late, and it was perfectly fine. Everyone was sitting outside, including the audience, enjoying the sun, smoking, drinking, and I was just told to relax. 1 hour, 2 hours. Who cares? Now, in Switzerland today, we were told we will be fed at 06:00 p.m. And I was 2 minutes and 24 seconds late. When I walked in, there were two tables set. One for the musicians and one for the Swiss crew. I was greeted with silence and disapproving glances from the Swiss table. And when I sat down, I saw few missed calls and a message from Felip, 'Where are ya? The dinner has started!!!'. So, the timing. Everything here is on the clock. I heard that five or six years ago, one of the trains in Switzerland was late for six minutes. It was a scandal, I think the transport minister was fired the next day, and also the train driver and his family were deported and sent to Mongolia. So, that's timing. Uh, what else? Ah, the streets here are unnaturally clean. I live in Dublin, uh, in the area called Drumcondra. Even though there are very few dogs in Drumcondra, the streets are permanently covered with a dog shite. In Zurich, there are millions of dogs and not a smidge anywhere, which doesn't make any sense. I shared my thoughts with our friend and a sound genius Urz. He said, 'The Swiss dogs and their owners have to be extensively schooled. If you want to have a dog in Switzerland, you both have to attend a course where dogs and their owners are taught how to behave'. Now, it seems they are taught not to defecate in public and not to bark outside the barking hours, like from 10:00 p.m. till 08:00 a.m. You probably heard a dog barking about ten minutes ago. I'm outside now. Well, I think the police will arrive in a few minutes to arrest the dog and to deport his owner back to Albania. Obviously, they are foreigners. Natives are well disciplined. They know when it's time to bark and when it's time to use the bathroom. Foreigners, on the other hand, don't. They will spell the end of this cosy, rich, comfortable, and orderly land. They don't understand how to conduct themselves in Switzerland. You really have to be severely schooled in order to fit in, or at least to understand how they 'Roll' over here. And it's not just about your toilet and barking habits. It goes much, much deeper. For example, I was coming to Switzerland for more than 30 years, and still there are things which I don't understand. Like yesterday I was passing the Zurich Hauptbahnhof and I was approached by the well dressed gentleman. He was wearing a set of designer clothes, and his watch was probably worth more than everything I own at the moment. He had an expensive haircut and his perfume was priced somewhere in a triple figures. So, he asked me something. I apologized and said, 'Sorry, I don't speak Swiss'. He immediately switched to English. A, uh, perfect Queen's English. He spoke like a British lord. It turned out he was a local junkie. He inquired if I would like to sponsor his habit for a day or two. I declined, and he turned around and went away to get himself an espresso. And, uh, as you know, the average price of a single espresso here is somewhere in the region of 187 Swiss Francs. But the coffee is excellent here. It doesn't really matter if you get it in a restaurant or in a small café in the train station. It's excellent. Well, it should be for this kind of money. You can buy a car in Romania for the price of a dinner in a Zurich train station, but it looks like the locals can well afford it. I didn't have time to look closely at the watch my friend was wearing, but I'm pretty sure it was a Rolex. I don't feel guilty about refusing his offer, as it would probably cost more than a yearly budget of Armenia. Which brings us to the next part. Money and cultural differences. You know, I walk in the streets of Zurich and memories are flooding in. I came to Zurich first time 30 or 35years ago. I had a long hair. I was wearing cowboy boots, leather pants, and I looked like a drag queen. Now, Swiss audience loved it. They thought it was romantic. I was fresh out of Soviet Union and obviously didn't have a slightest idea of how the Western world operates. Everything was a revelation or discovery. And, um, that's when I first heard about the 'Cultural Differences'. My road manager was tasked with introducing me to the civilized world. Slowly. His, uh, duty was to accompany me everywhere and to make sure I don't embarrass myself too much. So one day we were walking, and we ended up, uh, walking into the set of apartment blocks. It was a Swiss council estate. Now, if you know anything about the council estate culture in Great Britain or Ireland, this is where you buy cheap drugs, have your head kicked in, and this is where you find your car after it was stolen. Burned obviously It's not a place to take a stroll unless you have a death wish. Originally, it was Margaret Thatcher's clever idea to put British proletariat elements together and to shove them into those estates. Immediately the crime rates skyrocketed. And the reasons for this policy are very unclear. But as you know, British and European governments, they just love to play with those ideas of unity, integration and other nonsense. You know, the results, I'm sure. We have one of those estates in Drumcondra. If you pop in, you will have your head cut off straight away. The council estate I saw in Zurich was somewhat different. It was well built, it was luxurious, spotless, clean. It was rich, well taken care of, it had beautiful courtyard, well maintained garden and playground, trees, flowers. The only weird thing was, it was covered with graffiti saying, 'Death to the capitalism. Viva la revolution. Viva Karl Marx. Lenin. Viva Stalin. Glory to communism. Workers of the world, unite', and all this rubbish. He told me this was where Swiss revolutionaries and anarchists lived. They were unemployed, obviously, because they were too busy fighting their own government which was giving them money, paying their bills, health insurance, food and so on. And obviously, those apartments were provided to those 'Revolutionaries' for free. Interesting, huh? Now, do you remember I mentioned Western, uh, European governments who love to play with those 'Integration' and 'Multiculturalism' ideas? Now, anything multicultural or anything which mentions integration or assimilation is a goose shitting golden eggs. If you are a politician you can make a career out of this. And, being musicians, we are constantly approached by or politicians or well meaning individuals who try to peddle those ideas in order to get a grant from the government, to make a career move, or to simply improve the world. So, many years ago, I used to live in Glasgow. And at the time, the local politicians were obsessed with this 'Integration' thing. Glasgow was full of immigrants, foreigners. But for some reason, at that particular time, the Roma community was a theme of the day. Politicians were trying to show to the world that Gypsies and Scottish are brothers and sisters. And all they need is a little push towards each other, a little bit of a multicultural integration in other words. So they got an approval from their ideological masters in the Scottish government and got a pretty solid grant. A good friend of mine called me and said, 'Oleg, we are doing a gig for your brothers, for the gypsy community'. 'And whose idiotic idea is this?,' I asked. 'There is a grant', he said, 'We are getting paid, so shut up and let's do it'. Very soon it became clear that my 'Gypsy brothers' have no interest whatsoever in any so called 'Multicultural' activities. They were quite happy to be where they are. So the Arts Council proposed to make this concert free of charge. It didn't change a thing. Nobody was interested, except of maybe five or six local activists who would go to any arts council event anyway, be that protecting penguins, supporting Albanian lesbians, building an ice skating ring in Liberia, or organizing a psychotherapy session for the local vegetarian club. They would come anyway, as they had nothing else to do, but it wasn't enough to fill the venue up. Then my friend got an idea. He said, 'We should announce that we will have a free food for everyone. Of course they will come!'. I said it was stupid idea, but being a hypocrite, I agreed to play anyway. So at the day of the event, camera crew arrived, sound system, light, dignitaries, journalists, guests, fish and chip stalls. Everything to support and unite. And soon, gypsy kids with the shopping bags started to arrive one by one. They went straight to the food stalls, filled up their bags and went home. None of the adults showed up. They just sand their kids to get the food. The stalls were cleaned up in ten minutes, completely. Politicians, they didn't care. They made their 'Multiculturalism' speeches in front of the cameras, made few photos, then we played two or three tunes for the members of the local vegetarian society, packed our instruments and went home. Politicians got their pictures in the newspapers, my gypsy brothers got free food, vegetarians were immensely proud of making the world a better place, we got paid, and everyone was happy. Multiculturalism, indeed. Hi. Today we are in Ravensburg, Germany, playing in the venue built in the year 1300. Yes, it's old, and so are we. Something happened yesterday which made me realize how ancient we are. Every band goes through the different stages. If they survive the initial challenge of rehearsing, performing, touring, driving, staying in the hotels for, like, ten months, a year without killing each other, then the next step would be to record an album. We recorded five or six, and we have survived 18 years of gigging and touring. So we decided to produce a vinyl album, LP. You know, those big, black plastic pancakes which you play on turntables, a real deal heavy duty mechanical devices which take ten minutes to warm up. What made me to realize how old, or even ancient we are was me looking at the young girl who bought our vinyl album after the gig. She was standing there, looking at this LP, turning it around and trying to understand what is this thing and how it works. Maybe she was looking for a cable connection, digital display or a power button. She looked very puzzled, even confused. She didn't know what an LP was!!! She bought it because everyone else did. And I completely understand. When I was her age, there were no CD players, no mp3s, no computers, no USB sticks, and none of this. And now I understand my granddad and his eternal distrust of our TV set. He didn't like the fact or concept of the person sitting in a box, moving, talking, but not really being alive, not being there. Anyway, Ravensburg. It is so interesting to play in the venues you already played 20 or 30 years ago. You go on the stage, and you are immediately transferred back in time. I played a gig in Munich a few years ago in the venue I played long, long time ago when I still had hair. It was bizarre. It felt like I was 20 again which, in turn, led to the biggest embarrassment I had in years. Our manager told me before the gig, 'Oleg, there's a woman who wants to see you. She says she's your fan. She's even wearing everything leather like you used to'. 'Wow. Fantastic!', I said, 'Let her in'. So I'm walking down the corridor towards the dressing room, and I see this young leather clad girl, uh, maybe, I don't know, 20, 22 years old..? She's walking towards me. And I, uh, never had a good memory. And very often I would run into someone saying things like, 'Oh, hi, so great to see you!', while not having a slightest idea of who those people are. But in this case, I was forewarned. So I put on the biggest smile and said, 'Wow, hi, so good to see you again'. Um, she looked very surprised. And then her mother came out behind her. Jesus!!! The mom looked like an old age pensioner. Like me in other words. She was the fan, not this young thing who turned out to be her daughter. (And by the way, nothing to do with me). It felt to me like we were the same age. Very embarrassing. But the best one happened a month ago when we played with No Crows in Dublin. A very nice lady came to me and said, 'Oh, we were your biggest fans, me and my husband. We saw maybe 20 or 30 of your gigs'. 'How sweet! And, uh, where's your husband?, I asked, thinking he might be getting the drinks at the bar. 'Oh, he's not here. He died eight years ago'. Anyway, the age is a fiction, especially if you are a musician. We don't age. Or rather, we don't grow up at all. Right now we are in Bern playing in a beautiful venue called 'La Capella'. We just had a photo shoot. Just to make it clear... a photo shoot. A picture. No sound, no movement. So our photographer is waiting for the band to assume their positions on the stage and No Crows started to discuss what we are going to play.... on the photo shoot! Yep. So after the long discussion, it was decided that we all will play a different tune each at the same time. So we did. Steve said it sounded a bit like Stravinsky. Yeah, right. Then our photographer Stef said, 'Crows! Come on, move closer. Don't be afraid to touch each other', which was immediately followed by a scream, 'Ray, get your hand off me, arse!!!'. Yeah, musicians don't age well. Talking about the cultural differences. Here all good Swiss people have perfect English, but obviously they are accents. When we came to the venue and said our greetings, a very stern looking gentleman came to meet us and asked, 'And what about cocaine?'.. It took us a good couple of minutes to realize that what he actually asked was, 'And what about cooking? What do you want to eat?' His next question was, 'What did you eat today, each of you?' Again, as we were a bunch of barbarians, it had to be explained that because he's going to cook for us, he didn't want to cook something which we already ate. During the dinner we had a discussion about practicalities of feeding musicians. In the Soviet Union it was simple. We had a motto, 'A hungry musician is a better worker'. Here, musicians are treated in a more humane way, the venues usually provide a meal. The only question usually is, do we eat before or after the gig? And it was discovered that if you feed the band before, the gig is going to be longer because, uh, after two, three glasses of wine accompanied by three course dinner, musicians are going to play much slower. Yeah, it's true. If you want a faster pace and more energy from the band, you should feed them after the show. I suggested feeding musicians before and after the show, but, uh, it was universally ignored. Hello again! uh, driving.... directions. This is a next part of this stream of consciousness. What do you think musicians do when they are on tour? Mad parties, fans, girls, drugs, this sort of thing? No. Well, we all did a bit of this 'Throwing a TV set from the hotel window' thing at some stage. A little. Mad parties? Well, we did... kind of and still do sometimes. In Stidges I met one guitar player who was partying nonstop for three days and then spent the last morning going around asking if anyone found his tooth filling.. Interesting! So we had our coffee in the morning and one of the ladies who passed our table said something like this, 'I might have your filling, darling, let me pop to the bathroom, I will check'. Well, No Crows, we don't do things like that. Well, we occasionally drink. Me personally, I mostly try to sneak out, to get back to the hotel and go to sleep. And except those 'Musical adventures', what do we do? We drive, like four, five, six hours a day. That's a very exciting process. You would think that the driver would be the one deciding which route to take, right? No. As we all have our phones and GPSs, everyone has to take part in plotting the course, which results in a very animated discussions. So, five phones, five different routes, and everyone insists that his route is the best one. And, uh, I was told by one of the computer geniuses long time ago that Google maps used the same satellite which US forces were using for their so called 'precision' bombing raids in Afghanistan. And, uh, well, we all know how 'precise' they were. Like bombing the wedding in Peshawar, 10 miles from the intended target and killing all 300 guests. So, uh, it didn't work in Afghanistan and it doesn't really work in Switzerland. Also, Google Maps app has this female voice giving you directions. It can be of some limited help because it warns you about upcoming turns in advance. The problem is that this lady is so incredibly annoying that you have no choice but to switch her off after 20 minutes of this pseudo British upper class accent. And then you have to watch the GPS screen where everything is slightly late. So obviously you keep missing turns and this infernal thing starts to reroute, telling you to go in the opposite direction. On one occasion we were trying to reach our car number two, to see where they were and received a text, 'All good. Going through Austria now'... What? Why Austria? So, um, after driving through the fields for hundred miles and ending up in Liechtenstein, of all places, you have no choice but to switch this GPS lady back on. It's an interesting experience to hear four adults hurling insults to this lady, calling her a 'Stupid cow, a 'Moron', and shouting, 'Where are you sending us, you idiot?' Disturbing. Oh, yeah, autographs. We are in a birthplace of H.R. Giger, the father and the creator of all those nightmarish creatures in the 'Aliens' movie. I don't know much about the Giger's background and, uh, honestly can't understand where he got the inspiration about those mechanical, sexualized cyborgs because, his birth town actually is, uh, one of those cosy, clean, quiet and orderly Swiss towns where even dogs smile at you and say, 'Guten Morgen. Wufff'. Now, the only people who looked like those alien creatures were some of the Crows when they crawled out of their beds and met at the breakfast table. I went straight to the hotel yesterday after the gig, but the rest went out in a search of adventure. So when we started to drive this morning, it was, 'Uh. Oh, look, they kicked us out of this one. Oh, look, I remember this one'. Eddie mentioned a heavy metal karaoke bar. How very Swiss! Anyway, before we went, it was signing time. That's, uh, another part of touring. You have to sign literally hundreds of cd's, posters, leaflets, beer mats, t-shirts. It might sound exciting, but it is not, believe me. Well, it could be. Many years ago, a young and pretty thing asked me to sign her very breast. I mean, her breast was 'very'. Me being a, um, boring fart, I gave her a lecture instead. I said, 'Honey, really? This marker you're going to use, it's full of chemicals. Do you really want this on your ....skin? It will go straight to your blood, to your liver and so on'. She wasn't impressed. I still don't get. What is this with ladies and their breasts? In my innocent years, quite a number of bras of various sizes were regularly thrown at musicians. Uh, ladies, dear ladies, maybe one of you can explain this to me. I never had a male underwear thrown at us. It's always ladies. Once I caught a massive bra in mid-air flight with my bow. It was big, heavy, and obviously very expensive. And nobody claimed it after the gig, so we left it on the top of one of the speakers. So, ladies, why? I remember the time when, ah, a male threw a shoe at Mr. Bush once. But apparently there was a clear message behind this gesture. So, ladies, what is the meaning of throwing an expensive piece of underwear at musicians? Please let me know. Goodbye. Okay. Cultural differences, part two. 'Shit Fart'. Yep, you heard it right. It's not me being rude. It's the name of the Swiss restaurant. We were driving for hours trying to find some food, but nothing was open. Uh, and then we saw this 'Shit Fart' place. Obviously, it means something else in Swiss, I still don't know. And we didn't mind the name. We were hungry, so we came in. No luck. No food, only drinks. It was too early, so we went back to the car. We drove for a while in silence, then suddenly Steve said, 'You know, I'm rather glad we didn't eat in a place called Shit Fart'. Indeed. I think I will start collecting those phrases from Crows. Those pearls of wisdom. A few days ago, we had an hour to kill in a train station in Zurich. We walked for a while and obviously we started to look at the shop windows. I started to feel this urgent need to buy something, uh, anything at all, a pair of socks, for example. Some people measure their wealth and social status by the make of the car they drive or, by the salary, or their position in the company. I measure someone's social status by the amount of socks they own. For example, Nick, my flatmate and uh, frontman of our band Yurodny, He is wealthy. He owns at least twelve pair of socks. Me, I'm a lightweight. I have three pairs and they don't even much. So obviously when we're walking around those shops, I started to feel an urgent need to acquire a pair of decent Swiss made socks. It would mean that I would go without food for two weeks but I didn't care. Felip suddenly grabbed my hand and said, 'Oleg, let's go outside. Now!'. 'Why?' 'The more you walk, the less you spend'. Brilliant! So it's because of the Felip, I'm still eating. On the other side, or the next few sockless days I was very aware of my pitiful social status, but someone was watching over me. Two or three days later we had a gig in Bern. We were having a dinner and our dear friend Christine announced that she got us each a little present. She got us a pair of socks each. Not just any socks. They were pure cotton, 100% organic, dolphin friendly, Swiss made socks which probably cost 200 francs each. Each sock, I mean. And, they were personalized. Felip got a pair featuring chili peppers. Very appropriate. Ray got something with music symbols and I got a pair which looked like gay Kamasutra socks. They featured at least ten pairs of young men in the various positions. I was delighted. Now, Ray, who is much younger than me and can therefore see with both eyes, told me that, uh, it wasn't what I thought it was. Apparently it was a scene from the Swiss national sport where men wear rather tight pants and wrestle with each other. Well, I'm still happy. Nick can have his 20 pair of socks, but mine are special. Wearing them is like driving Aston Martin Vintage, powered by the 7 liter V8 engine. It makes me feel proper, it makes me feel like I belong. Um, I'm a 60 years old man, but deep inside I still feel like a 20 years old Soviet musician in the West. I was very insecure. I felt that everyone around me was judgmental. Not anymore, as I have a pair of very expensive socks. Christine, thank you! Uh, we had a little dilemma three days ago, while trying to decide who takes the car and who goes by train. Obviously, all bags and instruments were going in the car, and, uh, the rest would take a train. So there was one place left, and we had to decide what goes in, a suitcase or me. Anna. 'A suitcase doesn't have legs. Oleg, come with us'. Felip, 'A suitcase doesn't talk. Oleg, come with us'. Dilemma, this... Something we learned yesterday. Swiss farmers don't hug, ever. Anna saw a farmer's family at our last gig. Father, mother, and daughter. When they were saying goodbyes to each other, they exchanged handshakes, no hugs. It was explained to us that hugs are considered a bit too personal here, even between the family members. Tonight, we are playing in the venue where we always have a local character in the audience. I don't know him very well. I don't even know his name. I think he's a musician. Somebody told us that he's not coming. A very dramatic story. Apparently he got a dose of COVID which was so bad that he was put in an artificial coma. And in two weeks time, he was woken up, and to everyone's surprise, he woke up a completely different person. He started to insult everyone and even tried to hit the nurse, which was completely out of character. And the, uh, doctor came to see him, and our friend called him some nasty names and told him he's going to kill everyone. Um, doctor thought for a while and said to the nurse, 'Put him back into coma. Bring him back in a week'. Well, I told his story to my friend who's a doctor, and he said, 'Doesn't sound real to me. Sounds like one of those anecdotes doctors tell at the parties'. I agree, it sounds too good to be a true story. Hello. Um, somehow I missed four days of recordings. We were too busy traveling, rehearsing and performing. Also, we are getting tired. Long gone the days when we did 30 gigs in a row, traveling 700 miles in a day and partying till 6:00 a.m. I still remember the day when I went from Dublin to Frankfurt in one go, in one day on a motorbike, I took a 6:00 a.m. ferry, crossed UK in 4 hours, took a tunnel in Dover and ended up at my friend's house in Frankfurt at about 1:00 a.m. He had a party in my honour, which means I had to take my violin out, and we had a gig in the Frankfurt Opera the next day. Now, if I attempt to do anything like this today I will end up in a hospital. Now we are getting cranky after just one week of traveling. A few days ago I was walking past the Felips's bed at 2:00 a.m. when he suddenly turned and said, 'Oleg!!! F*** off!!!'. In the morning he swore he doesn't remember saying anything like this. So, tomorrow is our last gig. I can't record anymore. I'm tired. We all are. I just want to go to my place and sleep for 24 hours. I had it with the hotels, driving, sound checking, looking for the food, getting lost and with all this touring excitement. And you know what? Give it two or three days and we all will start wishing we are on tour again......me including. Missing you guys already. You are the best. Goodbye.