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3 days of nausea - the attempt of an explanation
by Ihsan Sönmezoglu

Thursday
Everything that you are now about to read, happened absolutely in the way it is written. No exaggerations, no dramatizations, just pure shit.
So we met at our rehearsal room in cologne, loaded our stuff, packed our new merch in the cars and headed to münster. After a few hours, bad jokes and twenty cans of energy drinks, we arrived at the sputnikcafé, where we should be playing with THE AWESOME VENEREA! With vivid images of our childhood, skateshorts and fucked knees, we were excited to see those hereos of our old days. But there was no clue of them. They somehow fucked their bus 2 times on the road from sweden to münster and were forced to rent a new one, just not to let people hang, who showed up. No one knew if they would manage that or when the arrival would be.
So time passed by and finally the first band began to play. With a weird techno intro and even weirder costumes, masks, horns and so on, a band called SHORT entered the stage and played somewhat very short grindpunk. Quite amusing, but not my style, so I wasted my time with tetris, and wondering why no one would want to have one of our fancy new shirts.
Afterwards SIDETRACKED played a very wild show. Fast. Fast. Fast. But as fast as they played the show also ended quickly. So there we were, about to play at 9 o’clock and no trace of VENEREA. Rumors were told, and my last info was that they would arrive at half past eleven. So two and a half hours that had to be filled. Surprisingly the boys of STAND FAST who were organizing but actually not playing the show, were willing to play 3 or 4 songs with our equipment. ‘Hey we are LAVATCH from cologne, Münster totally sucks!‘ Tobi of STAND FAST yelled into the mic, and played with his boys the shit out of our gear.
When we had to get on stage, suddenly some people were getting mad from waiting for VENEREA. I tried to ignore, but at last people were throwing lighters and shirts, getting on stage, doing weird stuff with the mics and just fucking other peoples nerves. Thank you for that pricks, I hope you are reading this and are satisfied for blaming us, that the bus of VENEREA was wrecked. Nevertheless, we played two songs more, just to get some more time killed. Hell yeah, people hated us there, i guess it also looked kind of strange, when we had three giant boxes full of shirts with us but selled not a single one. When we finished, the dudes of SHORT decided to play another short set. But unfortunatly without the great costumes. Some drunk guy completly freaked out, yelled to SHORT that they were shit and should piss off, because he wanted to see VENEREA. Well if this guy would not have been 3m huge, I would have told him my opinion, but fuck it, it was almost midnight, and still no squeak from VENEREA, sure that people had to lose patience.
But finally VENEREA arrived at 12, got on stage and conquered all our hearts, with skatepunklove and whisky drained voice. They played like forever, a freaking LONG set, but people went nuts nevertheless and kept the party alive. A fat guy tried crowdsurfing, for like 10 times and did not understand, why people were not able to carry him. That made me smile. I’m a dick, I totally know. After 15 encore songs, VENEREA finally finished their set.
Quickly we packed our stuff, said thanks to the very kind guys of STAND FAST who really did their best, to protect this show from a catastrophy, said goodbye to the other guys and headed back to cologne. Everyone was content to get back home, except for Marco, who arrived at 4 in Aachen, where he lives, what a complete shitty circumstance was, because he had to get up at 7 to go back to work. His secret potion to survive this? 2 Liters of energydrink! Hell yeah!

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Friday
So I stayed at Jochens place and introduced him into the bizarre but fabulously world of chatroulette. We laughed for ten minutes permanently. Bored people, dancing people, people making out and oh yeah, a shitload of cocks in all variations.
Friday was our only show with the incredible and untouched Colonel Merch (Alex). Every second of his appereance is a complete blessing, for everyone in his nearness.
We were supposed to play with AN EARLY CASCADE from stuttgart and KNOCKYOUDOWNDEAD who we had met on a show before, pretty nice guys! But as we arrived at the location in lüdenscheid, Tim the organizer of the show and massive HEAD of MIDSUMMER RECORDS (check it out! I seriously recommend!!), explained us that KNOCKYOUDOWNDEAD would not be playing. We asked if someone of them got sick or stuff, but the answer was: their singer broke his arm during arm wrestling. This is not a joke. So KNOCKYOUDOWNDEAD were knocked down for this evening and we were, once again, forced to play an extra long set.
So the nice fellas of AN EARLY CASCADE arrived soon and we totally fell in love with each other. Those guys skills in turkish is overwhelming. I completly thought I was chilling with those guys in ankara and nearly ordered some tea, but we had some beers instead.
The soundguy Stefan was completely crazy. He made the best soundcheck ever, he even tuned the drums, which crazily no drummer who was supposed to play could handle. Simultaneously I met Christoph Neumann, the local photodude of the house. The first thing I said was ‘nice pink jeans, fella!‘ and he showed his real face. Asked me to pose for some portraits, and who am I to say no! Funny stuff. Then he went on, looked for weird stuff he could find, and we found two umbrellas, a blue and a orange one. He asked me to twist them around wildly, as fast and stupid as i could. And well, I was now absolutely trapped in his net, so I had to. At once Martin of AN EARLY CASCADE suggested to spill his coke on the umbrella, which I was twisting. Christoph said ‘DO IT!‘ and the whole sticky juice landed on my face. I’m pretty excited for those damn pictures.
However, we played a crazy set, I fucked my right hand completly by hitting brutaly the body of my bass, and so my beautiful cream-bass was all covered in filthy blood, as well as the floor of the location and the carpet on stage. Literally, it was raining blood. I’m sorry for that!
Then we moved from the stage, to let real musicians show their genius. AN EARLY CASCADE destroyed the whole location, I have no clue from which hidden world of awesomeness they are originally from, but I was so disgustingly impressed by those tight skills, those outragous special ideas and almost pervert finger-lickin-good performance. Fuck, if we were a good band, we would sound like them.
Meanwhile the colonel made a turnover of 120 bucks by talking so much shit, that people had to buy, buy and dammit buy! Great success! We totally need him, where ever we go. His appearance is so essential for our health and wellness. Too bad, that he could not make it to the next show.
The next point on the list was: Party hardy! With enough beers, a nice dj guy and no brains, i slammed myself accidently, almost backflip like on my tailbone, as I tried to imitate the process of feeding in a tampon. The size of the bruise is comparable to the size of bowling ball, but I’m not complaining, we had so unbelievable much fun with everyone who hang out there with us, danced to hits of passed times and talked bullshit with us. But since everything has a and, we had to leave somehow :(
So we drove to Jannis basement, Robert slammed his face on the ground, as he tried to carry our merchbox. We all shit bricks in our pants from laughing so hard. The only thing he said was ‘Shit, the merchbox irritated me!‘, so we went in and had our next beers. Since Jochen was so amazed by chatroulette, we could not get through the night without exploring the facettes of internet anonymity. ‘Hey were from sweden! What are you up to?‘ And yeah, Robert had very much interest in, well how could i call it? He was very interested in communicating with ladies. And as he found some, who did not skip immediatly, because of the fright, seeing 5 bearded guys with a pirate flag in the background, he asked them to do certain things. As they did, they wanted to see also something spicy from our side of the monitor. Robert could not get over it, he was so confessed that he had to do it, so he grabbed Jannis notebook, put it on the beer crate, dropped his pants, turned around and showed a very, very, very deep view into his……….. soul.

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Saturday
After a delicious breakfast at Jannis‘, we drove to Düren to play the cd-release show of BLACK THOUGHTS BLEEDING. Strangly enough, we were the only not metal band, so I felt a bit embarrassed with my too short hair and my aversion against meat. However, Jannis and me had loads of beers, were surprised that almost 200 kids showed up and that actually everything went fine so far (except that we were all missing the colonel very bad). Marco sat at the merchtable, as an old couple asked him if the concert had started, because their son was supposed to play today. The band before us (sorry, totally forgot the name) was playing, so Marco told it, and the old couple said that this is not their sons band. They pointed on one of our shirts and Marco just gave his hand and said with a grin ‘Hello Mr. and Mrs. Becker!‘. Yeah, Jochen parents showed up for the first time ever, thats pretty weird because Jochen playes in bands for like 15 years now. And they watched our set, completely. It was twisting and not so easy to handle this time, because the lights were flashing in red and blue colors, causing epileptic tendencies and making the string fraction hitting each other accidently. But we survived, yippieh! The BLACK THOUGHTS BLEEDING boys cared so much for us, to make the stage tech done well, fast and without damaging, that I felt sorry for being a dick, that I knew I wouldnt help them, because of my laziness. Sorry, sorry, sorry!! We all love you guys!
After us, LAST ONE DYING played, I couldn’t watch them and after a while the epic introduction of BLACK THOUGHTS BLEEDING banged out of the speakers. Fast melodic pickings, steamroller like moshparts and catchy hooklines is what those guys are perfectioning. I was impressed, but the set was too long for my taste. I have no patience. The next shows with those guys will be ace!!

Everything went so fast and in a single blink, the whole fun had an end. At this point, we want to thank everyone who was a part of it, cared for us so tenderly and had the guts to watch our not so great, second class shows. You have your spots in our hearts. Thanks.

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But……. the night was not over. Jannis and me went to the infamous underground, when we arrived in cologne, to celebrate the birthday of someone special. It was fun and blablablabla, a party like any other, so I called it a day and left. I jumped into the subway and tried to reconstruct the whole weekend filled with awesomeness in my mind, but at a sudden, a huge 3meter guy called a group of black people as ‘niggers‘. Those guys were not so amused about this unkindness and jumped with five ultra aggressive boys into his face. They teared him apart, punched him in his belly, kicked his head. Five guys just completely going nuts. Then they left, with disgusting spitting at the poor, but not so smart guy. There were two girls who had been hiding fearfully behind me, trembling from fright. They started to talk, asked me where I want to go now and I really really just wanted my bed, just simply getting home and be thankful, that it had not catch me. They would not let me go. Telling me strange things, where they are pierced and stuff and I completely said fuckit, ran to my train and now am happy to have survived this hell of a weekend.