Winter 2005 Tour Journal

writing from geneva, switzerland…we played our last show of the tour last night and are driving back today to amsterdam where jack and i will fly back to l.a. we are so frickin’ happy to be getting back and while the tour was great, we are ready to put a fork in it–or rather a swiss army knife … HELLO. man that was stupid–did i just write that out loud? the audience was the smallest of the whole tour last night, and supported my plan to barely crawl to the finish. actually they were cool and the show was fun. it was snowing tons yesterday so it may have dissuaded some from coming out.  this morning the sun is out which will make our 10 hour drive to amsterdam a little easier at first. there’s been snow on the ground for the last two weeks in all the cities where we’ve been, so i’m sure we’ll hit some on the drive up north.  eleni’s drummer, kevin fitzgerald, a swell guy as well, grew up in alaska so has experience with driving in snow.  he has done all the driving for the entire tour. it made me feel like a princess. i got some really nice emails from people who saw us along this tour and i wanted to say that it helped our spirits immensely.  hopefully we’ll be coming back at some point later this year, but with the whole quartet this time. thanks from jack and me for the support of our families and friends while we were away. we can’t wait to see everyone. it’s been a long month.  peace out.

winterthur, switzerland. last night we finished our last show in germany to a sold out crowd of 220 in munich. super fun and the show went well. we stayed in a cool old hotel that had a wonderful bar downstairs. we were there for two nights and the first night we drank too much, so the next day, the day of the show, we were all a bit exhausted…the promoter from the munster show drove 10 hours to the munich show so we had a drink with him as well. he is very cool. also, a radio dj from frankfurt came on a 4 hour trainride to the show and to interview me for his show. it was a great interview and he’s going to send me it when it is completed. he has to go back and re-record all his questions into german and then edit in my answers. the night before munich, we played in vienna. here’s the weird thing about austria though–we didn’t see one frickin kangaroo, and when i asked for a fosters they had no idea what i wa…oh, you know i think that’s australia. oops. well, i better go try and throw up this vegemite. we have 5 shows left, all in switzerland, and then we’ll drive 9 hours back to amsterdam on the 7th and 8th. jack and i will fly out on the 8th back home and eleni’s band is flying to venice to do one last show before they come back as well…i’ll try to write again.  hope all is well with everyone reading this..

writing from vienna. the last few shows have been really great, but mostly all of them have been…last night we played in wendelstein, germany in the upstairs gymnasium of a kindergarten. a really cool old building and at night they set up chairs and tables. it was sold out. after the show we fingerpainted and then jack showed everyone his butt…apparently, the quartet got airplay on indie 103.1 in los angeles, so all of the l.a. people reading this, call and request the record (the song they played was “los angeles”).  we sold a bunch of records last night and it was really a fun show. vienna is super super cold, but jack and i just walked downtown. great city. tomorrow we’re off to munich and then to switzerland for the remaining 5 shows. amazing that it’s coming to an end. not much more news, but i’ll hopefully write again in the next day or two…best to everyone.

writing from tuttlingen, germany which is basically this beautiful little ski town of some sorts. the show we played here last night was really fun, but a little odd as it was in basically a restaurant lodgey sort of place. in cologne jack and i had no show because eleni’s band was opening for a supposedly “beloved german pop star” who i swear not one person whom we asked had ever heard of. anyhow jack and i had made plans with a couple of people we met in munster to meet in cologne by the cathedral (they live in cologne, but had come to munster for the show). we were late, but through a very weird series of events involving the cathedral tower and a unicycle, we ended up finding them (not true about the unicycle) and they showed us around cologne and we had an incredible time. so thanks to florien, claudia, and andreas. they were so cool. that night we all went to a club downtown for a record release party of another trocadero records artist (fink). we met the owner of trocadeo and had some drinks and then left to go to another bar. very very fun…we’re off today for our first show in austria. we have a long drive ahead, so i’m signing off for now.

writing from frankfurt where jack and i are playing two shows.  the shows in munster, bielefeld and geislingen were great. in munster the venue promoter and a small group of folks there took us out after the show to a little pub and we had a great time with everyone. the venue in frankfurt is super cool, but really small. they had to turn away people at the door last night, but we’re playing again tonight so hopefully they’ll get a chance to see it. it is basically in a cellar and it was so crowded that it took a few minutes just to get to the stage to play. the crowds have been really responsive to us and are coming up to us after the shows and voicing their support…it keeps us going in a big way. two days ago, jack and i took off for the day by train to ulm where we were picked up by the daughter of the family i lived with back in 1990 (the schreibers). she drove us back to the town, munderkingen (where i lived), and we spent the day with the whole family. it was strange to be back after 15 years.  but it was so much fun and they are really wonderful people. we had great german food and beer all day, went sledding and walked around the town. the children, heike and frank, are now in their mid 20’s and are really great and tons of fun.  there are only 5000 people in munderkingen so it was a great depature from the cities we’ve been playing in. the only thing is that it made us pretty homesick being with a family and in a home.  at the end of the day we took another train to frankfurt where me met up again with eleni’s band. tomorrow we’re off to cologne. jack and i are meeting a couple of people we met in munster at the cathedral in cologne which is supposed to be incredible. we feel like we’ve been on tour forever, but we’re just reaching the half-way point. we miss everyone, and appreciate all the e-mails etc. i will write again hopefully from cologne. we send our best to everyone…