Delta Moon Ramblings

Black Cat Oil Tour – 6

Tom Gray — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:51:42 +0000

From our rolling seats on the highway we can see the rain coming for miles across the big Dutch sky, falling on flat fields and thatched farmhouses and old-fashioned windmills and glass factories and stores. I’m in the front seat of the van with a journal in my lap, eating Ricolas and scribbling to the beat of the windshield wipers.

Our drummer, Marlon, had a previous commitment for a two-week European tour with his rock band, Ill. So after Delta Moon’s show in Habach, Bavaria, he caught a ride into Munich to make the 6:00 a.m. train to Paris. A day later we got a photo of Marlon hanging out with Sade.

Meanwhile back in Bavaria, we took a few badly needed days off to do laundry, eat schnitzel and spargel, and hike around the countryside until we wore the tread off our shoes.

Our friend Sam Kelly has flown down from London to play drums with us this week. Since picking him up at the Zurich airport, we’ve been through four countries in four days. The picture at top was taken on the Neckar bridge in Heidelburg, a town I’d love to visit again someday. When Sam saw the photo he said, “We should have done a checkerboard.” But we’ve decided we like this arrangement. We’re calling it the Delta Moon Double Stuffed Oreo.

Last night in Eindhoven, Netherlands, we played a show with Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart. It didn’t take long to learn we have a lot of friends in common in Tennessee and New York and other places. Stacey and Mark are playing 50 European dates in 60 days (this was number 37), and they’re doing the whole tour by Eurorail, rolling their acoustic guitar cases on little carts, like a pair of old-time vaudevilleans. I enjoyed their show. It was good to hear voices from home.

Now, just when I’ve picked up enough German to fake my way through little everyday situations, here come menus in Dutch. Fortunately, most of the people here speak at least some English. Somehow, as long as we’re not afraid to look foolish, we manage to get along just fine.

Black Cat Oil Tour – 5

Tom Gray — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:00:40 +0000

Friday afternoon we played at the prison in Geissen, Germany. The show was not listed on our website because it was closed to the public. But, really, who would want to go there? I’m sure the whole audience would rather have been somewhere else.

We had to surrender our cellphones and passports before entering the prison, so we couldn’t take any pictures. I copped the photo above from the Geissen JVA website.

Peter, the man who had booked the gig, said, “The rest of the day will be good, because these guys will go back to their cells happy. But they are very cool. They will not come to you, even halfway. You will have to take it to them.”

As the audience filed in they separated in to several distinct groups. To our right, a guard later told us, were the Germans. The back row on the right reminded me of the bad boys in the high school assembly, laughing and cutting up and tossing out pingpong balls. In front of them was a large group that, according to the guard, had mostly American GI fathers. They seemed to follow English well, and when I introduced “Clear Blue Flame” by saying moonshine was something like schnapps, a stir went through that part of the room.

“Schnapps!”

“Ja, schnapps!”

The men on our left were another story. They sat stolidly with their arms crossed in front of them, faces screwed shut like doors not just locked but boarded over. The guard later told us these guys were eastern Europeans, mostly Lithuanians and Russians.

It’s hard to know how to perform in front of a crowd like that. I started with a smile and a bright “Guten Tag,” and knew immediately I’d struck a wrong note. So I decided to let the music do the talking.

The improvised double slide solo that Mark and I do on “Going Down South” has an element of danger to it. We never know where it’s going until we get there. Sometimes it flows and sometimes it feels like we’re fighting each other. But on this day we connected and the notes rang true like magic. When we finished the whole room burst into applause. As we walked to the side of the stage, Mark said, “I think we’re in.”

Marlon’s drum solo went over even better.

Then came “I’m a Witness,” which I start with a guitar riff as Franher leads the crowd in clapping to the beat.

“Don’t clap,” Mark called.

Franher said, “Man, I’m clapping.”

And then the whole room was clapping, the guys on the right loosely, the guys on the left with military precision. Although the most closed faces never really opened, we did see them relax a little.

After the show, two prisoners helped us carry the gear to the van. As soon as the van was packed, they threw themselves onto the narrow strip of grass between the driveway and the wall. They rubbed their hands in the grass and raised them to their faces to smell. I remembered then that the courtyard inside the prison had been completely paved. Grinning, both prisoners plucked small daisies and stuck them behind their ears.

Black Cat Oil Tour – 4

Tom Gray — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:59:02 +0000

Yesterday was the First of May, a holiday here in Germany. They call it Workers Day. We drove five hours across the country and arrived in Bavaria late in the afternoon. Every village had its blue and white striped Maypole surrounded by the remnants of a May Day party: lots of beer and lederhosen.

Our hotel was called in German “The Beautiful View,” and it lived up to the name. I took the photo above from the terrace where we ate dinner.

It was so pleasant there that after our meal we never left the table but started chatting in half-English, half-German with other people on the terrace. The sun went down and lights came on in the towns of the valley below. The chef came out and bought us a round of schnapps. At some point our party grew to include a couple of young Bavarians, Dom in lederhosen and full Bavarian regalia and Tom barefoot in shorts and an AC/DC T-shirt.

“We started drinking beer at 9:00 this morning,” said Tom, “and now we have reached a good level.”

Dom showed me a photo of his brother, also dressed in lederhosen, on what looked like a motorized tricycle with cases of beer stacked high behind him. “He is not drinking all this himself,” Dom explained. “He is also riding around giving beer to other people.” Somehow I got an image of him delivering to the shut-ins. “He drank thirty liters of beer today. Then he fell in the grass and went to sleep.”

Dom lit up when he learned we were Americans. “Eisenhower did the right thing when he conquered Germany,” he said. “My Grandpa was in World War Two. He was shot through the neck at Stalingrad, and then he was fifteen years in Siberia. But he was not a Nazi. He had only two choices: fight or die. Hitler was scheiss. War is scheiss. Because of World War Two people think we are bad people.

“I am proud to be a Bavarian. This is the most beautiful place in the world. We have the finest beer in the world. This is not just German beer. This is Bavarian beer. Bavaria is where I live, and this is where I will die. Ee-yah-hoo!“