Because of car trouble the Johnston Brothers took a train to St.Gallen in Swiss.
Soundman Geert drove us to the venue overthere. Cinema Palace. The broken fancy car with the merchandise (say merch) is still waiting for a special tire in Geneve.
Cinema Palace in St Gallen is a great little theatre with a wonderful ambiance. I liked playing there and the audience was great.
Besides 'Help' in the Daniel Part, Daniel wants to play another Beatle song called 'She Said, She Said' or something. I'm not very fond of these covers but okay we'll try to make a Mowing Club version of the song.
At dinner I asked the venue guy about famous Swiss people. Apart from some DJ's I never heard of we decided Roger Federer was the most famous Swissman. Alberto Giacometti, the one with the skinny statues, one of my artschool heroes, he had never heard of. His head is printed on the 100 Frank bills.

Palace, St.Gallen. Swiss

The returning dream returned.
A man calls me on my cellphone. I recognize his name on my phone. Ang G. Lee.
This man starts talking about a painting i bought from him. I never bought that painting, but he keeps whining about it. I start getting aggitated and try to convince him. He wont stop.Till i get really pissed and wake up.

We arrived at the venue in Geneve and waited for the Johnston van. But the fancy GMC van had a blow out tire (klapband). Our soundman is driving this van so the soundman from the venue did the soundcheck. Someone else from this venue drove with our van to the Johnstons. We started our set in front of a crowded place full of people who first saw the Daniel Johnston documentary and then expected to see the show. When we were done and said goodby Daniel still did not arrive. The swiss guy who organized the evening asked us to play some more songs. But it didn't fell right. We told our story and we're not wind up music boxes.
Daniel arrived at last and the show went great.

No dreams today.
Leaving the Netherlands is like a chicken getting out of his egg.
Rob drove us to Paris. Cursing his way into the city.
A friendly welcome at La Maroquinerie. The venue where we had our best show so far.
Our second song "Mellevillepark" starts with: 'The Poison toad and the funny Frenchman were walking down the road.' It continues with a dialogue between the toad and the Frenchman.
then I realized i'm singing this in front of 500 frenchmen.
Thank god the Frenchman is the wise and independent thinker in the song.
It was a great audience. Civilized.
The Daniel part went great. He wanted to do 'Help' from the Beatles. I'm not much into covers and the Mowing Club sure ain't no Beatles. It felt kinda like Crazy Horse was doing 'Help' with Daniel Johnston.
I had some fun with Daniel afterwards in the dressing room. He wanted a light for his cigarette so I got a lighter and said: Here's a fire Dan! Daniel jumped up and started shouting WHERE, WHERE IS THE FIRE!
I should have said light instead of fire.
We had a good time in Paris!

Sean's next nightmare.
He was driving in his car with his girlfriend.
Then he suddenly heard a loud crack and they stopped.
He saw 3 bald man lying on the road. Like they were sleeping.
Then the 3 bald man jumped up and started to move towards Sean.
He found a bicycle and with his girlfriend on the bike's steering device (wat is fietsstuur in het Engels?)
they drove away fast with 3 angry bald man chasing them.

Each show there's a suprise. This time there was another support.
We're finetuning our setlist so the audience dont have to wait too long for what they come for. This extra support made the spanningsboog iets te gespannen.
Besides this we played well and I played 'The Singing Forrest' on the organ. A new non-autobiografical song about a mother and her son.
After the show strange men were sitting in our dressing room. They didn't introduce themselves but they were eating our tiny bag of chips and our mini candybars and drank our cans of beer. I asked around and they apeared to have something to do with  the sponsoring of an Daniel Johnston and a symphony orchestra tour next year. Roadmanager Henk kicked them out.
The hotel we slept in was very noisy. I noticed they attached little microphones on the walls outside. These mics pick up the sounds of the streets. Little speakers in our hotelroom blasted these streetsounds into our hotelroom. I still don't get why they do these things.
Early next morning we picked up our van at the venue's parking spot. A big nightliner was parked there too. It's a strange thought Heather Nova sleeping in there.

photos Mowingclub

Great photos Paradiso by: Katerina Plevkova

We're driving behind the big American GMC van of the Johnstons towards Amsterdam. (click on date for the rest of the blog)

We're driving behind the big American GMC van of the Johnstons towards Amsterdam.

Sean tells us about the nightmare he had last night. With his nut allergy he was eating a Nuts candybar and he fell the allergy sneaking in. Slowly loosing control over all of his senses. Fading out. Then i stabbed him with his anti-allergy injection and the adrenaline flew in his body. Then he woke up.

Rob created his own personal cinema set in the backseat and is watching Disney.
The show in the Paradiso Amsterdam felt good our show a felt a little too long but Daniel liked the Daniel Part so I stop having worries about it.
We're now in the hotel. Sean is playing 'alone in the dark', rob went to his own room and I had a bad.
I just don't get it. The cheapest hotels have free Wifi and this fancy hotel we're staying in now charge 22 euro to use the internet. They do have bathrobes.
Breakfast was fenomenal though and in the end breakfast is more important than internet.
In the morning the Johnston brothers are waiting in the lobby. Nobody told them the clock was set an hour backwards.

Today our European Tour with Daniel Johnson starts. I'll write a daily log about it.
For now I'll try to get some sleep. I have to pick up our Mercedes Vito early in the morning.

With the release of the new website, everything should be written in Engrish.

If you can read this, you have successfully installed PivotX. Yay!! To help you further on your way, the following links might be of use to you:

• The official PivotX Homepage.
• The online documentation at PivotX Help should be of help.
• There's always someone willing to help on the PivotX Forums

And, of course: Have fun with PivotX!