Month: February 2022

Saturday February 26

Mark:

We did um and ah quite a lot before deciding on coming straight to Hamburg. We’re aware Corona restrictions are still in place and won’t be relaxed until next week, but we’ve thought it could be good to chill and get our bearings for a while, then when things do open up we can kind of hit the ground running so to speak.

We’ve only got two relatively short drives to get to Hamburg from Stockholm. A few hours to the Swedish port of Nynäshamn, then two hours or so the other end from Rostock to Hamburg. In between is an eighteen hour ferry trip. We weren’t able to book a cabin so we’ve resigned ourselves to what might not be the best night’s sleep on some kind of couch thing somewhere, should we be lucky enough to snag something like that. But no. This isn’t that kind of ferry. Instead, all the seating is on one deck of the nine it’s made up of, meaning aeroplane type seats in huge rows all over the deck. But somehow we’re one of the first people on which means we’re able to get ourselves a row of four seats right at the front of the deck in front of the huge windows looking out to sea. Not only that, but we’re able to inflate the double airbed we’ve been able to bring. We’ve also brought sleeping bags and pillows. With that, we essentially have a cabin right at the very front of the ship and now feel like we’re travelling in totally relaxed luxury. As the ship sets sail, we sit in our seats, reclined with our feet on the bed, and pour ourselves cups of some kind of Japanese citric wine. Yeah. We can manage 18 hours like this. We chill for the evening, then as night falls, it’s in bed to sleep until the sun comes up bright and spectacular in the morning. In between, at 10pm, four hours after leaving, we make a scheduled stop at Gotland, a Swedish holiday island, where just about everyone gets off and hardly anyone else gets on. This creates a bizarre situation where, for around an hour, we’re the only people we can see. Alone on a ferry in the middle of the sea. Even once the new arrivals are on board we’re able to stand at certain points and look all the way down from front to back and not see a single person. Pandemic and upcoming European crisis may have just combined to make this happen with people still holding off on travel plans. We don’t know but it is all very strange.

When morning comes, by 9am-ish we can see distant landfall and have a wonderful chill on the bed in the sun watching the busy sealane while contemplating the gradual encroaching landscape before us. There’s none of that usual travel feeling of, ‘Are we there yet?’ No. We could quite happily stay here all day and another night. As it is, we casually pack up and leave for the car around noon for the drive to Hamburg.

Maja:

I have long lost count on how many ferries I’ve been on, but the whole concept of even being able to buy a ticket for a longer trip without a cabin is new to me. Usually when I get on a ship I like to spend the majority of the time in the cabin sleeping and preparing for the adventures the next day but today we don’t have that opportunity. Having learnt our lesson from our first ferry to Ireland, Mark waits with the car while I get to reception as quickly as possible to try to get to the top of the list for possible cabin cancellations. Standing in line there, I overhear the receptionist explaining to an eldery woman that they’re fully booked. The inquiring lady then asks, in that case, would it be OK for her to inflate an air mattress. The receptionist replies that that would be fine. Yes. This is perfect. I ask the receptionist the same thing, just to inform her that I plan on inflating my air mattress as well, and she is apologetic and encouraging. Great. So we manage to get some seats right at the front of the ship as the other seats are slowly filling up. There seems to be a high school trip to Gotland, and the ship is very lively with a lot of youngsters making a lot of noise with a fair bit of drinking going on as well. Children are running around, crying and the guys on the school trip are talking very loudly just behind us. And then I go forward and inflate a big air mattress. The pump is loud and I can feel the stares in my back but I don’t care. It’s better to get this over with before people fall asleep. As soon it is inflated I lie down on it and just internally laugh at the absurdity of the situation. It is actually quite fun. I’m the only person comfortably lying down in this area. Also, the cost of the air mattress and sleeping bags are cheaper than the cost of a cabin, and this is way much more fun. In a bizarre way. 

Some strange japanese liquor in our cups and we talk the evening away and sleep wonderfully the whole night. In the morning we warm ourselves up by singing a couple of songs and playing some guitar while watching the horizon as Germany gets closer. What an amazing part of the trip this has turned out to be. 

Mark:

We are totally giddy with excitement in the car as we get closer. Then, shortly after 3pm, we’re suddenly on the Reeperbahn on which our hotel is situated. Wow this is bringing back memories. I was here twelve years ago in 2010 with my Madrid pop punk band Drunken Monkees. That time when we were fresh off recording our album and thought a German trip, starting in Hamburg, would be the way to try to break ourselves, or at least get something going. We had a wonderful time here and made quite a few useful contacts before we realised that the shoulder injury I was carrying wasn’t going to go away and I wasn’t going to be able to play at all. So we called it a holiday, stayed a while longer then headed back to Madrid without having played a single show. And where the first thing I did was go and get shoulder surgery in which some kind of calcium ball about a centimetre wide was removed from between the bones of my right shoulder. No wonder I couldn’t move the thing. But we still managed to create a lot of memories and make friends, and here I am again. We find our hotel and unload our gear – on the first floor this time. Result. Then it’s off to find a parking spot, a task that takes a frustratingly long time and we still don’t manage to find a free area. But we eventually find a reasonably priced place a little walk from the hotel, so we accept that for now, go back for shower and rest, then take a walk out to have a look at this place.

Maja:

Hamburg is vibrant.

HELLO HELLO!!! The Reeperbahn is breathing life like a monster. It’s alive. It’s been a while since I saw this many people and everyone seems to be after a good time and a good night. We walk to a kebab place for dinner, and then off to the London Pub for a celebratory pint. Tonight we’re celebrating arriving in Hamburg and hoping for as much success and experience as we can get. And I get to hear a lot of stories of when Mark was here with The Drunken Monkees. 

On our way back to the hostel we take a walk to the BeatlesPlatz and down the street next to it which is full of nightclubs. All around is crazy but this street is absolutely deserted. It is clear to see that Hamburg is still suffering from the Covid restrictions which we knew, but it is feeling a little bit strange. So the town feels really vibrant and alive. The streets are totally full of people, but dancing is still banned so the clubs are closed. I’m not even sure why there are so many of the people here or what they plan to do, but since the pubs are open I guess that they make do with that. The whole thing gives me a bizarre feeling. The combination of things being closed and alive at the same time. And little do I know, but this feeling will soon get stranger.

Mark:

The nightclubs might be closed but this place is still alive, alive, alive. And I’ve never seen such a concentration of entertainment venues like the Reeperbahn and its nearby areas. I’m sure there will be a lot of cover band activity, but it really seems like almost every second venue we pass is a potential place for us to play. On the immediate face of it, I’ve never seen so much possibility.

And, for people of a certain stripe, there’s an abundance of possibility of another kind. This place is full, and I mean, full, of sex bars of all kinds of varieties. It’s so open and full on, you can’t really even call it seedy, although what goes on in these types of places I have no idea and I have no intention of finding out. 

Oh, but our hotel room looks out right into the back of one of those sex places, the very biggest one with silouhettes of naked girls in various positions plasted over all four stories of its pink walls. Turning our back on this scene we head out into the night to get a closer look at the city and begin our participation in it. We’re not quite in the mood for a packed and crazy place so I decide to head to The London Pub, first for what I remember being its more chilled vibe, and also because I hung out in here a lot when I was here and got to know Tina, the owner, quite well. I wonder if she’s still here. Unlikely given the time distance and whatever Covid has done to these businesses, but you never know. If she is here, I’m hoping for a friendly face in a strange town and maybe maybe someone to help us get a bead on how things are round here and what kind of places might be good to focus on. No surprise that Tina is no longer here. Left a good few years ago, but the new boss is a good friend of hers so the connection is still there. And while the place is relatively chilled enough for us to get a comfortable spot at the bar, it’s still busy enough for the two staff to be kept rushed off their feet so there’s very little chance for chat beyond a snatched word here and there. Just the one drink here and we discover we’re starting to hit the wall. So back to the hotel it is. We’ll have another look at this place tomorrow. 

Right. That Drunken Monkees Hamburg thing, and the Drunken Monkees experience in general. If you’re interested in reading about that, I covered it in detail in Mark’s Diaries along with the whole of my six years in Madrid in a breakout section. You can find that here: https://marksdiaries.wordpress.com/category/professional/2017/september-2017/

To find the beginning of my time in Madrid just search for ‘The Madrid Story’

Hamburg begins at part nine. Or you can search ‘Album done, summer here’

Day one

Sunday February 27.

Mark:

After a mercifully slow morning we’re out early afternoon but everywhere around the Reeperbahn is closed. Everywhere. Oh well. We give up and come out to try again around 7pm. But again, most places are still closed. After the fully pumped up environment we found ourselves launched into last night this is a confusing and frustrating experience. But we find two possible venues where the people we speak to make positive noises but it’s more, come back in a day or two when the manager might be around. In one of them is some kind of test the power of your punch boxing machine with a few enthusiastic participants playing it. This creates a quite annoying punctuation of aggression every now and then which makes talking to the assistant manager quite difficult and, when we leave, we’re not entirely sure we would want to play there anyway. This is added to the guy talking to us about playing a three hour set. Or at least playing a few sets in a three hour period taking the bar deep into the night. We do not do covers so that wouldn’t work for us; no-one wants to see an originals band for three hours. Even in famous land, only the very top top and legendary acts play for three hours or more. More often, you’re looking at an hour to an hour and a half.  We have a slight language barrier along with the sounds of that mad boxing game so he doesn’t quite grasp all this. But he still seems positive and he does come round to the possibility that we could play for an hour or less while another act takes the rest of the night.

Maja:

How can a city have felt so alive just yesterday and today feel like a ghost town? I don’t understand it. I just don’t get it. Someone, please come here and explain to me so I really understand. This just does not make sense. At all. 

Maybe it’s a German thing? When we were in Berlin a little while ago, the whole city was closed on Sundays as well. It was so closed that even the supermarkets weren’t open. Come on guys. Seriously? Do you need to close down the entire country every Sunday? Even my little city of Stockholm is alive on Sundays. Walking around here seeing everything being completely closed makes it feel like I am in this little town in the countryside with everything being closed so the people could go to Sunday mass. Only the things around is a club town with music and sex clubs everywhere and that is very much not fitting my image of being in the countryside. 

As we do the second round out in the evening some bars are starting to open up, which gives me a little hope. Maybe it’ll come alive soon. I am giving this place the benefit of the doubt, the restrictions in Hamburg have been very strict and many places are still completely closed because of covid. Let’s see how this develops.

Day two

Monday February 28

Mark:

Almost everywhere is still closed. Still. This has gone from excitement to mild frustration to perturbance bordering on actually quite annoying by now. What’s going on and when  will places be open? 

But today we take a walk to the far end of the main strip for the first time and in a bar called Cowboy Und Indianer we are greeted by the owner, Sven, who is very enthusiastic when we introduce ourselves. He says places are still waiting for the weekend and the relaxation of Covid restrictions before they open. Makes sense and we kind of knew Hamburg would be quiet enough this week but that doesn’t massively help our levels of slowly mounting impotent frustration. This comes again when, after saying, yes, we could play in here, like the guy yesterday, he brings up the three hour thing. Oh dear. When we tell him a bit more about what we do, he says he could be open to our suggestion of maybe playing part of a night and leaving the rest of it to someone else. So OK. Another tentative lead. Let’s see. 

Another place we think we might just have a lead, or at least a chance to network, is a  cool looking nightclub type live music venue at the end of our street called Molotow. It’s advertising a show tonight by a guy who plays more or less in our ball park. Could be cool to check out. But when we get there it is, yes, you’ve guess it, closed. However, there are some people inside painting and organising and we get the attention of one of the girls. At first she’s like, go away, we’re closed. But we’re insistent that we would like to talk, so she agrees to come to the door. Once she’s opened it and is face to face with us and we’ve told her what we’re about, she’s all friendly smiles and is very happy to help. She tells us that this place is closed for a little while longer yet but she does give us the names of a few places we could try. We’re very grateful and let her get on her way but they don’t seem right for us. They’re more venues for established acts to play. But still. You never know. The right email to the right person and we might just be able to rustle up a support slot one night which, apart from anything else, could open up a contact or two.

Maja:

We’re just walking. Back and forth. Up and down and the right way around. How long can you even walk trying to hustle gigs? My feet hurt and our mood just keeps on getting worse and worse. We can’t even talk to anyone, everywhere is completely closed. At least we’re building up a view of which venues where it would be possible to play in once they open up. Often we take a look inside a venue, a bar or a restaurant and we’re able to screen the place even if it is closed. Our screening often goes like this. ‘Oh Mark, look at this place.’ ‘Yeah.’ And we go lean forward to look inside the window. ‘Too small.’ We say pretty much simultaneously. Or it’s the wrong feel of the venue or something else. Like if we get a really bad feeling about the place or the clientele there’s no point trying to get a gig there. So we walk around and build ourselves a picture of where we’d like to come back to once they’ve opened, and if there’s anything remotely interesting we go in and ask them if we can play there. 

This is how we hustle. Until we drop from exhaustion.