The Snake & little Nora
This week was pretty stressful
for me with all the preparing for the tour, taking care of bunch of the dogs
(but remember, the dogs do bring joy to my life), having bunch of
rehearsals, playing shows, recording bunch of Ugly Fucks tapes, having minimal
sleep and so on. But it´s all worth it, all the stuff I´ve mentioned are what
keeps me sane and what´s fulfilling my life.
I played two shows with
RULES this week, so here are few words about those shows. The first show was on
20th April, during the week in Močvara club in Zagreb. Red Gloves and The Irradiates
(both from France) also played. Organizators didn´t expect too much people on
this Wednesday night, so the show wasn´t on usual stage, but it was placed in
the bar section of the club which was cool. And indeed there wasn´t much people
on the show so the show felt pretty intimate. The driver of Red Gloves and The Irradiates
was Lucien who used to sing in Lost Boys and guitar/bass player of Red Gloves
and The Irradiates also played in Lost Boys, so it was nice to see those dudes
because in 2008. we played some shows together in France when I played in
Vaseline Children. I also saw Lost Boys few times when they were playing in
these parts of the world and they were always a fun band. Rules played first.
The sound was really good and there was enough of the lights on, haha, so I
felt really relaxed playing this show. Sometimes I just don´t know what to
write about Rules shows. It is pretty much always the same, we play our set
without too many breaks in between, we say few thank yous and so far there
wasn´t any rampage atmosphere on our shows. So, this show was the standard
Rules show, only that less people watched us and we played one brand new song
and played it really good. Red Gloves played second. I like them alright, they
play kind of 90´s influenced emotional post punk rock. Some songs reminded me
on Samiam which is a good thing in my book. So, I pretty much enjoyed their
set. The last were The Irradiates. They play surf punk rock but they do it very
fast (except for a few slower songs) and nervous sounding. They were great, all
the members are great musicians which shows in their performance. Most of their
songs are instrumentals but at the end of the show, they played one song with
Lucien on vocals. I´m not sure, but I think that it was a Lost Boys song, or
maybe it was a cover of some other band. I´m kind of embarrassed that I
didn´recognize the song, because they dedicated the song to Rules and Vaseline
Children. Gee, thanks guys! Anyway, despite the lacking of more people on the
show, it was a nice hanging out and both Red Gloves and The Irradiates played a
great show.
RULES
RED GLOVES
THE IRRADIATES
The next show was on 23rd
April in Rijeka, in Podrum which is a DIY punk place for shows that exists from
2008. We didn´t have a transport for this show, so we decided to split and go
with bus (PavleXXX and me) and hitchhike (CursedXD and Iceman). Our pal Panda
drove our equipment to Rijeka because he was going there the day before the
show so it was not that big of a deal. Also Eaglehaslanded from Belgrade,
Serbia played this show and this was their second show of their European tour.
It was really nice to see Eaglehaslanded guys again and the crew that came with
them is also a bunch of nice people. I will cut the shit and go straight to the
show. Not that many people came. I gues both Rules and Eaglehaslanded are not
popular bands which is just fine with us. Despite the problems we had with the
electricity during the sound check, I won´t be a bit modest and I will say that
both Rules and Eaglehaslanded killed on this show. We played first, it was a
cool show, very energetic and raw sounding. The same can be said for
Eaglehaslanded, emotional, energetic, raw and nervous hc/punk and altogether a great
set. After the show it was a cool hanging out between Rules, Eaglehaslanded and
their crew, we talked a lot and it seems that we share some of the same
feelings about hc/punk and shit like that. Well, this is what we do and I must
say that for me, I usually feel mostly complete when I play hc/punk. And it is
not about the ego and about people watching me play, it is about releasing all
the negative shit and positive energy through playing energetic hc/punk and for
me there is no match to what I feel when I´m
doing that. Also, some talking between the Rules members was cool.
Concerning all the today world problems and from someone elses personal
perspective the things we discussed could sound kind of trivial (touring,
hc/punk, people dropping out of hc/punk etc.), but that´s what we feel and
that˙s what we are: hardcore punk (straight edge) „kids“ and this is our world.
So, to be part of that is a special feeling for me and all the stress and life
dramas can suck it, because all that shit means nothing to me. Oh yeah, we also
wondered why the hell more people didn´t come to see the two most handsome recent
Balkan hc/punk bands, haha! I didn˙t slept that night at all because PavleXXX
and I were going back with the bus in 4:55 in the morning. So, that was a very
nice gathering with our Serbian/Russian brothers and while writing this I can
only say that I feel better already.
The Snake
PS – I still don´t have any
photos from the Rijeka show, but when I get them, I will put them on the blog.
