Frogcircus featured on screen... again

Another year comes to an end, another short movie that features Frogcircus on its soundtrack. We're very proud to be part of the short film Migas de Pan (Bread crumbles), which features What's The Voltage William and If You Only from the new album Not Completely Clean.The short film is produced by the Spanish Red Cross' Youth department (Cruz Roja Juventud) and can be watched on www.cruzroja.tv. Just click on the right side of the screen on the Migas de Pan banner and watch out for the froggy tunes blasting. Thanks a lot to Ylia Aguilar and Cristina Ferrero from the Spanish Red Cross for counting with us for this one.

On the more festive side, we wish you a Happy New Year 2009, let's hope it's as good for everyone as this one has been for us, really.

The Mallorca Weekend

Hey, how'ya doin'? We're back from our little weekend of mayhem in Mallorca, Spain, home of the sobrassada, the ensaïmada, the empanada and a lot of other yummy things that end in -ada. I'll try to sum up the weekend in as few words as possible, but given my natural talent for verbal diarrhea I can already see myself failing miserably. But here's my try at it anyway:

Friday, Nov 21:

03.00: Wake-up call. Oh, no, fucking hell, it's much too early and much too cold to stand up. Outside it's fucking snowing (a lot!), and I've gone to bed just three hours ago, after getting my shit in a much-too-small suitcase and with the ears still ringing after last night's rehearsal. I couldn't find my eyes to put my contact lenses even if I tried hard. The fuckers just won't open, so I decide to step out to the outside world as a bespectacled-wannabe-rocker. Great. Our plane leaves at 06.00 from TXL, so there's no other choice. Which kind of idiot could book flights at such an intempestive time? Oh, hold, I did it, bugger.

04.10: Jorge arrives and then we leave to pick up Tobi at home, where he has a special encounter with a neighbour who was doing something at the door his girlfriend would not be so happy to know about. The masculine code of discretion prevents any of us of telling more...


05.00: We meet Timo at the terminal and after not checking our precious instruments (the guitars, I mean) we crawl to the nearest bar and I order what's probably the tiniest coffee I've ever seen with the driest croissant ever. Two world records in just one tray. Well, three if you count the record price paid.

06.00: We board the plane and everyone bar me directly falls asleep. I envy people who can sleep in a plane, I'd love to shake them so they are as bloody awake and tired as me, but I'm a good boy and don't. So I produce the book I've brought this time, which is Fight Club, by Chuck Palahmiuk. Which by the way starts with the narrator describing horrible plane crashes and the like. Grrrreat stuff to be reading while your ass is hanging somewhere over France in a flying sausage.

08.40: We land at Palma de Mallorca and we find Bernat and his girlfriend Ana waiting for us outside. Bernat is the guitarist in Alterego, the band we're playing both gigs and the one who started all this crazy idea of this little band going to Mallorca to play there. Great guy and great guitar player. He's taken the day off at the office to drive us around the island and show us around a bit.
09.30: Crammed into a car with all our guitars and shit we drive to Palma to have breakfast and take a look around the city. After a while we find a way cool bar in the old side of town serving the best bocadillos ever, which, hungry musicians as we are, is the best that can happen at the time. It's sunny here, blue skies and all, and though we're in November, we've got quite mild temperature during the day. Coming from the cold we're so grateful to the weather gods...

11.00: We take a stroll through the center and I'm amazed about how clean and tidy everything here is, coming from Berlin and its dog shit all around it's a nice change. You can even look up to the nice modernistic buildings and not just to the pavement so as not to treat on a dog mine. Walking through the narrow streets we find a lot of cool shops with sausages hanging like, well, sausages, and Tobi takes the chance to buy some parfume to mascarade his bodily odours after drumming and tries to invite a nice shopkeeper to the gig tonight. Too bad he has no fucking idea where we are playing. Flirt cancelled, abort mission, meec!!

12.30: Still taking a stroll, all of us start noticing the lack of sleep and decide to sit somewhere and have a cold beer. Or two, or more multiples of one. Just below the cathedral we find a nice terrace to relax and order those beers, while our friends in Berlin text us about how fucking heavy it's snowing right now there. Ah, it's such a great feeling knowing someone else is freezing their ass off while we're sitting here in a T-shirt enjoying the warmth of the sun and doing nothing...

14.00: We meet with Ana again to lunch at probably the best Italian restaurant in town (it can't get any better, really), decorated with famous mafiosi names and the like. The pasta is superb and the waitress sexy. What more can you need? Timo is so tired he's falling asleep over his whateveroni, fucking funny espcially when he's woken by a waiter asking for dessert. A priceless face, I must say.

15.30: We all go back in the car and drive to Manacor, where we're are staying at Bernat's house. It's a 45 m inute drive that some of us (no names) use to take a look at the inner side of their eyelids. Too bad there's a camera around...

16.20: We arrive at Bernat's place only to discover it's a fucking amazing piece of house which overlooks the sea. The lucky bastard. A positive contrast to last time's pad in Uelzen... Tobi falls in love with one of the cats this time. Asked about how he felt about it, the cat decided not to comment. The tiredness finally takes over us and we take a nap until the evening... God, this bed feels sooo good, mmm...

20.00: After waking up and taking a shower, I remember I still have to change the strings on the Les Paul. Bollocks! I hate to do it, but safety comes first... Tobi doesn't have to change any strings so he uses the time to convince the cat that theirs can be a very stable relationship. The cat still thinks otherwise.

20.45: We drive over to Alterego's rehearsal place and finally meet the other band members, Luis, Llorenç and Manolo. All of them are funny as hell, but Manolo (the singer) definitely wins the contest by far. I'm telling Tobi & Timo all the time it's such a pity they cannot understand him, they would be rolling on the floor laughing as Jorge and myself are.

21.15: We drive back to Palma and load in the gear into the club. Festus Place it's called. They have rock gigs on the weekends until 2 in the morning, and then disco with Nigerian music. That's what I call maximizing resources. It's a club in Cala Major, one of the more touristic sides of Palma, and Timo swears he was staying here 10 years ago (yes, yes, I remember this, I was here!) but as he says this almost once every 5 minutes we don't take him very seriously. I mean, we normally don't either, but that's another story.

23.40: Between loading in, setting up all the shit and briefly soundchecking it's almost showtime. We have exactly 20 minutes to go and we still haven't had dinner, for fuck's sake, we're hungry musicians, don't mess with us! The only available option is a döner kebap restaurant right on the other side of the street. I can't fucking believe it. We fly all the way from Berlin to Spain and end up eating a fu-cking dö-ner ke-bap. Though, it was quite tasty and hot as hell. The best for screwing up your voice before a show.

00.00: Showtime! Alterego take the (tiny) stage and rocks the shit out of us for 40 minutes. Llorenç the bass player is playing outside the stage most of the time, he reminds me of Flea, always jumping here and there and making funny faces. Then later we go onstage and treat the Palma audience to a mixture of loud rock and louder roll. And they seem to like it, although the Nigerian owner is looking rather unamused by the whole loud rock stuff. His face clearly says he prefers the sounds of Bob Marley to ours... can't blame him, really.

02.00: After we're finished (and huddle all in the even tinier backstage) it's time for a few beers. Well, at least the ones that Manolo has left... which can be clearly noticed when it's time to load in all the gear again and we all start horsing around, taking silly pictures and goofingly laughing. Manolo even takes the chance to promote our latest record in the worst possible way, hehe.

03.30: After 24 hours awake, the tiredness finally catches us on the way back home and some of us (especially T__o) use the 45 minute car ride to rehearse some new snoring techniques, which is only interrupted by a police control we all pass with flying colours, ehem. And then it's off to never never land...

Saturday, Nov 22:

12.00: I wake up friggin' late, and while trying to control my hair, Tobi tells me he's already been down to the beach. Tourists... Bernat has brought some delicious breakfast that we all devour while chilling out in the terrace and enjoying the sun. We hear it's still snowing in Berlin, which makes us feel even better.

14.00: We all drive down to Manacor and meet Llorenç at Ca'n March, a restaurant that serves probably the best paella I've ever had, and I've had quite a few, believe me. Superb local red wine and tasty food. And plenty of it, and I mean plenty. A fucking lot of food we cannot stop eating even though we're so full by now that it almost reaches the puking point. But simply amazing. After that the only thing a sound person would do is go to bed again and take a long siesta. And that's exactly what we do. You are not really able to do something else at the moment...

19.00: Waking up again. Twice the same day, funny feeling. We're off to Artà tonight, a small village in the middle of the island where we're playing. We arrive there and are amazed at the veue, an old train station refurbished as a pub with a stage at one end and an impressive wall of CDs behind the bar. During soundcheck, we take the chance to play darts and do all the typical stuff you do at a pub, with disastrous results...

22.00: The ritual before the show: find food! Sometimes I feel like a caveman tracking down a mammooth on theses gig days. You finish checking and the you have this slot of time to find a place to eat, rush the food into your stomach and be back in the venue on time. We find a bar in the town serving tasty typical Majorcan tapas (and with a full-blast TV with football, ah, it's great to be back home in Spain) and a waitress just as tasty as the food itself. Tobi, normally a guy unimpressed by women (ehem), falls in love just once again. As he does about 2-3 times a day, even with cats if no woman is around.

23.30: Showtime again! After a really powerful permormance from Alterego (Bernat decided to bring out his Les Paul too, not wanting to be the only non-Les Paul player in the two bands), the bar is set quite high. We do our best, we feel more at ease tonight, less tired probably, which makes it a better show than the night before, energetic as hell. And most important, we're having a lot of fun onstage.

01.30: Around half past late after the gig, and fueled by large amounts of beer, the Alterego guys and us celebrate the end of the tour (!) by taking part at an impromptu photo session backstage where nipples and bums start flashing out as a legacy to the future generations... Loading in of the gear becomes a Chaplin movie, with little musicians falling down and standing up again and bumping into each other and all that. Still, we arrive safely back home. Don't ask me how, I can't remember clearly.


Sunday, Nov 23:

10.00: We wake up, pack all our shit and say goodbye to Bernat and Anna, who have been really nice to us, letting us stay at their home, eat their food, use their beds and rape their cat. We're very grateful for all they've done to make us feel at home. Gracias.

12.00: Bollocks, we have to take a plane back home...

Phrase of the weekend: ¡De puta madre!

The FrogCircus at the FrogFish

Right on, it's 0:58 of a Friday night (technically Saturday morning if we get picky) and I'm bound to bed in a minute or two, but first things first, our silly little diary is here again. I promise I'll continue writing tomorrow, I'm dozing over the keyboard and probably nonsense is the only thing that will come out of it right now (as if you hadn't noticed by now!). Good night...

[Saturday morning, back to life again]
Here I am, freshly awaken and with my eyes still not completely open. Yesterday's gig was one of the funniest, most relaxed and laid-back I've done with these guys. Being an almost private gig, invitation-only, film studio inauguration night, there was really no pressure at all. And we took it to our advantage.

We had prepared a set with more old stuff than usual (Blue Ice, Growing Older, Weekend Lover...) that we've been rehearsing lately, and it paid off well. We bloody nailed it, I'd never believe it after all that time.

Tobi was supposed to bring in a cajón, but instead appeared with the kind of mini drums you normally give your 5 year-old nephew for Christmas. It looked so incredibly silly that it was an instant factor of coolness for the whole band. There we were, acoustic guitars in the hand, an electric bass and a toy drumkit that sounded ridiculously cool. And off we went.



Our little bunch of froggy-friends managed to get invitations and appeared with the mandatory new Frogcircus t-shirts (wear them proud!) and used the occasion to fill their bellies with the free drinks (tasty cocktails by the way) and the free food (tasty schnitzels, tasty mousse-au-chocolat, tasty everything really!). Nothin better than to give your stomach a good treat when listening to the best thing for your ears, huh?

We were playing two short sets, the first one went down pretty well, and even managed to survive "My Hero", the Foos cover we hadn't really rehearsed. But the second set was simply smoking. When we came to the last verse of "Titanium" the energy between us four was amazing. We might have blown up a lightbulb or two in the process, if you ask me...

The FrogFish guys put a huge screen of ugly faces as our backdrop, and were also taping the whole thing, so don't be surprised if you find some footage of the evening while youtubing around... I sure will.


Thanks for wasting your time reading this little piece of mental diarrhea.

Yours truly,

Stone

Phrase of the day: "Shit, where's my beer?" (Jorge, panicking 30 seconds before starting the gig)

Uelzen café komma 04.10.2008

Einen wunderschönen wünsche ich euch, ich heiße Sunny und bin eine zu Papparazzozwecken verwendete Freundin von Frogcircus. Zur willkommenen Abwechslung wollte ich jetzt auch mal meinen Senf zum Besten geben...

Tja, Uelzen sagt nicht gleich jedem was. Verständlich, es ist mit Abstand das abgelegenste Örtchen. Weit ab jeder Autobahn.
Und wenn hungrige Rockstars, nach einer durchzechten Nacht, nächsten Tag zum Frühstück möchten suchen sie ne ganze lange Zeit. Aber Dank spanisch sprechenden Navi ist die Heimfahrt trotzallem gesichert, also nix problemo...

Aber um zum Wesentlichen zu kommen, der Gig an sich, sowie Location und Besucher waren echt der Hamma. In jeglicher Hinsicht.
Trommeltobi hat es gerade noch geschafft den Gig zu retten, da er in seinem Super- Flitzer die Lachgaseinspritzung gefunden hat. Er ist so busy und an keinem Ort länger als nötig -> was für ein Glück für ihn, zu Hause schlafen ist immer noch am Schönsten....
Und der Rest, auch Stone, Horsti, Timo und Sunny genannt, fuhren gemeinsam mit der Harmonie im Einklang ins Café Komma.


Wir wurden nett und freundlich mit Kaffee und Tee begrüßt.
Nach und nach, als alle benötigten Gerätschaften zum Spielen organisiert waren, haben die Männer alles aufgebaut (das übliche Leid aller unterdrückten Rockstars ;) )
Nun ja, darauf folgte ein Soundcheck der ebenfalls aufs Nötigste beschränkt wurde.
Da die Fahrt sehr lang war von Berlin nach Uelzen, waren wir natürlich mal wieder hungrig. Also war Knut (Chef des Ganzen) so nett und organisierte was zum Futtern.
Nach der leckeren Stärkung, traf so ca nach ner Stunde (oder 2...) Tobi ein und es konnte losgelegt werden.



Frogcircus war am Start. Eine ganze Reihe an Songs wurden gespielt und einige der anwesenden Gäste kannten sie gut. Und die, welche Frogcircus erst kennenlernten, waren auch angetan. Zumindest wurde die neue Platte Not Completely Clean gut an den Mann / an die Frau gebracht.
Schön war auch, dass Hans wieder da war und begeistert schien...
Als der Gig vorbei war haben wir uns noch gut mit den Besuchern unterhalten. Desweiteren schauten wir uns um was das Uelzener Nachtleben noch so zu bieten hatte.
Und das hatte eine ganze Menge zu bieten...



Die Nacht war kurz, sehr kurz und sehr anstrengend...
Aber ich muss sagen, bzw. schreiben, Uelzen ist immer wieder eine lange Fahrt wert. Die Leute sind echt super nett, und es macht einfach Spaß dabei zu sein!

So long, es grüßt euch ganz lieb

die Sunny

UELZEN 04.Oct.08 Café komma

After a long run from Berlin we got to Uelzen. I didn't believe it until then, but it's true: Uelzen is like 90km away from the closest highway. Yes, in Germany.

If you like fairy tales you'll feel good in Uelzen. A beautiful village where every house looks like a chocolate shop.

Café Komma is a little club that has all you need to have fun. Yes: All.

We got there at the right time and everything was ready. Well, Tobi was at the other side of Germany so he got to the bar, let's say just before the show, so we had to check the sound without him. Not a lot to check, really. We just got sure everything was ok and that was it.

Then we had some food, some drink, and waited for our moment. I have to say Tobi is a real gentleman: he arrived when we were waiting for him. Not sooner. Not later.



Not a lot of people for the gig. But they all wanted to have fun and we tried to satisfy them. Well, don't take that last sentence too seriously.

The sound was good and nothing failed, if we don't count the things that failed. We played that new song that I had never played before (Seattle Girl) and... it was right (Hahaha).

So we ended the show and did what we use to do in that situations: to drink until we can't say "parallelepiped". It was easy: they didn't let us pay for anything. And not happy with that they systematically gifted us with the strangest and most varied shots. Drinks whose names I can't remember. And beer. And a neverending stream of cuba libres. Stone and I tried to escape from this going to the closest bar around and drinking a pair of beers like the locals. It was impossible. We didn't look like them. So we went back to the Café Komma and, as some of them wanted to refine their Spanish, gave some advices here and there. I just hope they won't use what they learned there to get a job... Unless that job is in a "Spanish for drunk people academy". The line between "A smart Spanish accent" and "drunk's verbiage" can be very thin, you know.

And... suddenly I noticed that all the other band members had gone to sleep. Well, Tobi, not happy with the 600km he had driven 'till there, went back to Berlin right after the show. Well, right after three or four beers after the show. Just to rehydrate his tired drummer body. Timo and Sunny had gone to bed long ago and Stone just disappeared. Fortunately everybody (but me) knew where we had to sleep so, after they told me, I said goodbye in my best German to all the nice people we met there and drifted to the house in the most traditional sailor way. I knocked the door once and again... and again... and again and when I started thinking I'd have to go back to the bar in the cold night (well, it was like 30 meters away from the house), Timo heard me and managed to drive himself to the door and opened it for me (Timo, I'll never forget it).

We woke up in the morning covered with dog hair. I'm a little upset with that... poor dogs... Where did they sleep? It was a cold night. I hope they survived.

We tried to have breakfast but it wasn't easy. We found a bowling club and asked for something from the strange menue. We all asked for the same thing that resulted to be a tortilla of like 9 eggs (for each one), after that, we drove to Berlin, downloaded the gear and, somehow, I woke up the next morning in my room (well, in Diana's room. Thank you, Diana. One day I hope I'll be able to do something for you and show you how thankful I am).

I don't want to say goodbye without thanking each and everyone in the Café Komma for being so nice with us, and each and everyone who came and helped us to have a real funny night in Uelzen.

And... that's all folks. Don't forget not to forget to forget this: Life is to short to spend it reading my rock star experiences. Go, join a band and you will also have something to tell to people who aren't really interested in it. As Elbert Garmundel(*) said: If you don't take the risk, don't expect to fail.

* Dr. Prof. Elbert Garmundel is, officially, the most famous unknown person alive, and unofficially, our guru and inspiration in all the fields of alternative reality.

Unity and all that...

It's Reunification Day here in Germany, and to celebrate it, we have just added two new t-shirt designs to our little shop of horrors. Both with the new logo, and just for silly € 15,00. To order, just mail us at info(at)frogcircus(dot)com stating the size (XS, S, M, L, XL), the colour and the motive of choice (faces/logo).