Sarah Borges: Diary

Returning home from the second to last tour of the summer; it's Fourth of July and we're in the van. We kept seeing fireworks while we were driving home, people probably having barbecues, and drinking beer, hanging out with their friends. And we're in the van. It seems like we always end our tours in one of the farthest cities from our hometown of Boston. Our record is Colorado Springs, CO, but I'm sure we can top that.

We started this trip in Pittsburgh, PA, back with our friend Eilen Jewell and her band. We love hanging out with these guys, and they're on tour all the time, so it's nice to commiserate with them about life in the van. Great show, hung out with our friend Yvonne, and our pals from WYEP. It poured rain during the van loading at the end of the night. It made me realize that as bad as I think the van smells during the dry day, it smells worse wet at night.

We moved on to Danville, IN, a suburb of Indianapolis, the next day. It was our first show in Indiana ever, we're quickly closing in on having played every one of the contiguous 48. The Royal Theater was beautiful, and there was a nice apartment above it for us to stay in. Weather started to look threatening just at show time, and by the time we started it was a serious downpour. We thought that the reason the electricity went out during the show (3 times) was because of the storm, but it was actually just a wiring issue. The sound guys fixed it right quick, and on with the show. Sometimes things like that are good; overcoming adversity in front of an audience goes a long way toward winning them over:)

We'd heard a lot about our next show, Summerfest Milwaukee, when we were there at the Pabst Theater in February opening for Carrie Rodriguez. So we were excited to come back. It's quite an undertaking, 11 days, multiple stages. It's like a little city unto itself, and I was glad to have not fallen off the golf cart being shuttled from the van to the stage, which was not close by.

All this buildup, and then...it rained. Thunder and lightning. In case you're wondering, in the realm of summer festivals, when it comes to weather the rule is 'show goes on unless lightning happens'. I can see the whole electrocution hazard thing, but what about damage to hair and makeup in the rain? Isn't anyone concerned about that?

The lighning stopped just in time for us to play, but it seriously hurt the audience size, everyone having taken cover and needing time to come back out.

Still a fun show, the Old 97s and Carrie Rodriguez were on the bill, we all had a ball hanging out.

We had three days off on this tour, which we never like because we spend money and don't work, and because we get lazy and grouchy. But we luckily holed up in Madison, WI with our friend Kiki. She's got an awesome place, huge music library, and ping pong in the basement. I love ping pong. Rob is the reigning champion of our band because he plays dirty, spiking the ball etc., and Binky and I are pretty well matched. Mike hasn't ever ponged, to the best of my knowledge. We went swimming at a pond with some of our friends from Blueheels, who we've played with a bunch. Basically we just pretended we were on vacation, and got eaten by a lot of mosquitoes. They're huge in Wisconsin. Maybe they eat a lot of good fresh dairy and get strong, I don't know, but they're positively Biblical.

We moved on to Chicago, to FitzGerald's American Music Festival. It rained (no kidding). But we played inside, and got to see Geno Delafose, from Louisiana, who's poisitively great. We got a nice notice in Time Out Chicago about the show, a quote from which is on the front page of this website.

After Chicago, 4 sets on a Thursday, lunch and dinner time in Kenosha, WI. Beautiful there, nice people, and as soon as we were done playing we started the drive home. Got back at midnight on the Fourth, just in time for last call and to hear everyone recount what a good time they had all day while we were in the van. And guess what, it didn't rain!

I know I've used this subject heading before, but it's true, and getting in the van is the only repetitive thing about our lives. We go to different cities, see different people (I guess we're probably pretty repetitive to each other here in SBBS-land, but anyway).
We're on our way to Pennsylvania, to stay with our friends the McMonigles, yet another fabulous family who've taken us in. We're going to Pittsburgh tomorrow, to meet up with Eilen Jewell and her band (Bostonians too).
It's finally hot enough to merit air conditioning in the van, which brings about our perennial argument about A/C vs. windows. I myself am a big fan of the windows; they're natural, you can smell the summer air, and our A/C has some sort of mold problem that makes me cough. A lot. Plus, the noise of the highway going by puts me in a kind of meditative state.
The boys are big fans of A/C, and I think they put it on when I'm not around. I'd use it if we could fix the mold thing -- I've thought about calling Car Talk to ask about it (loooooooove those guys!) but I just haven't gotten around to it. If anyone has an answer, email it to contact@sarahborges.com.
Passing Sturbridge, MA now, our gateway to Connecticut. Yesterday we got a new living room at Ikea. I'm really excited about it, just sad that I had to leave before it got put together. Now when I go home it'll be like I've walked into a new house that I won't recognize or know is mine.
At least the van interior looks the same.
SB

Today is our last German show, three of them actually. We’ll be doing an interview with Radio Bremen, a station that 1/3 of Germany listens to, as well as playing a show tonight that will be broadcast and another one that will be taped. Crazy. We wake up in the Best Western hotel in Bremen, which was about as easy to find last night in the dark as the Holy Grail. Bremen is beautiful this morning, actually probably every morning, and everyone goes his or her separate ways, shopping, sightseeing. I finally have enough German to go into a café and order myself tea and a croissant to go without feeling dumb. This is made easier by the fact that tea in German is ‘tee’ and croissant is ‘croissant’. I try to make it to go, but that part fails (so much for my German skills), so I get to sit and people-watch in the café instead,

Binky, Jeannie and I all go down to the Radio Bremen building, for what we think is a me and Binky interview, but turns out to be just a me interview. This would be ok, except I am still a little weak in the voice department and we do have to play two shows later. But Arne, who is the man running the show and doing the interview sets me at ease. U.S. radio interviews did not prepare me for this German one, which is two hours long and involves eating cake and tea. Arne’s questions are great, and his presence is so calming that I emerge from the interview feeling better than I have in days.

Off to the venue, Club Moments, where we’ll play. Binky’s bass amp has just been smoking and close to being on fire before I arrive, so the smell of burning electronics greets me when I open the door. After sound check we loiter and wait for people to come, which they do en masse, It’s great to have our last German date be to a packed house, and the first set goes by too quick. After a little break we tape the second show, which will be broadcast along with my interview in a couple weeks (we’ll let you know when). At the end of the last song I feel happy and satisfied wit our first German tour; Klaus is dancing like a madman to the band, Binky, Rob and Mike are smiling away, Jeannie’s selling cds like hotcakes, and everyone wants to know when we’ll be back. We don't want to leave, so they teach us to say 'bis bald' (bees byald), which doesn't mean goodbye so much as 'see you soon'. Hopefully very soon!

Club Moments, 5/19/08

Sunday May 18

Today we drive to Hamburg, where we’re going to tape a show for Yoomee tv, an internet tv station. The city is so beautiful, and Olli’s girlfriend Nora takes us on a quick tour. We see the Reeperbahn and the Star Club where the Beatles cut their teeth, and where one of the best live records ever, Jerry Lee Lewis, Live at the Star Club, was made.

Then it’s back to the loft where we’re shooting. It’s on the top floor of a brick building on the river, and we’re shooting in the window. A floor-to-ceiling window. With no glass. With our backs to the big drop. One wrong move and that’s it, Broken Single pancakes. We do it, some people gather on the bank of the river down below and applaud between songs, and what strikes me about that is not ‘how nice, they’re clapping’, but rather, ‘how scary, their clapping sounds so far away!’.

I lose my voice today, always the worst possible thing for me on tour, I would rather slam my own hand in a car door than lose it. But I wouldn’t rather jump out the window of a wicked high up building in Germany, so we climb back down all those stairs and head on to Bremen, our next stop on the SBBS German Express.

Saturday May 17

I wake up this morning and realize that the hotel we’ve been staying in since yesterday is on a lake. It’s directly under my window. It’s amazing how tour saps your ability to notice the obvious, not sleeping and beer and stuff’ll do that I guess.

Tonight is the American Western Saloon show, which I can’t quite picture since we’re in Germany, but we’ll soon see. We sightsee in Berlin all day and get caught in a flash rainstorm. The cathedrals and the sudden opening of the sky go together somehow.

We see our friend Bob again (of amp-lending fame) and he shows the boys around a little. He’s the picture of a German indie rock dude: scooter riding, black-heeled boot wearing cool guy. We met him at South by Southwest this year and he got us the show at White Trash Fast Food. See, lots of those tipsy conversations you have after shows where you agree to meet up again really do pan out.

We arrive at the American Western Saloon and it’s Texas. The signs, the food, the music, everything. When I go to Texas from Boston I can feel the change in culture and I feel a little out of my element. Now I feel in my element going form Berlin to German Texas. Weird.

I eat pizza for dinner, indulging my inner American. The show is super fun, two sets that fly by. The best part is the people, here’s a quick rundown of who we met:
-Our friends from Kilkenny Ireland who we met at yet another Texas themed bar (Paris Texas), that time in Ireland. They’ve come over for a brief holiday and we’re so happy to see them.
-Andy, who sings along from the front of the stage and makes us all happy.
-Rainer, who teaches me how to Texas two-step in Berlin.
-Frank, who runs the place and says of the lack of attendance at our Cologne show that there is an old German saying involving a farmer not knowing something (foggy now) which makes the whole thing o.k.

Lastly, we decorate a ceiling tile that they hang on the ceiling (no, duh) of the American Western Saloon. It’s right next to the tile of Torfrock, which is the band of Olli, our super-awesome sound guy. They are huge in Germany and I’ll tell you more about them later.

Happy happy, back to the lake hotel.

The ceiling tile on the ceiling.

Friday May 16

One of the things everyone told us about Germany ahead of time was ‘don’t drive on the Autobahn’. It’s got no speed limit, it’s like friggin’ NASCAR out there, and it’s no place for timid little Boston drivers. (that’s the first time Boston drivers have been called ‘timid’ in print. Usually it’s something followed or preceded by an expletive)

But there’s no other way to get places in Germany, so… Today we travel from Cologne to Berlin, a trip that should allow us plenty of time to get there before the show. But this is a cursed day. While trying to leave the hotel poor Klaus misplaces his hotel keys and the hotel lady is mad. She glares at him for 20 minutes while he searches high and low, and doesn’t go away until he locates them in the bowels of the rent-a-car. Then we proceed to encounter The Worst Traffic Ever. Traffic in German is ‘stau’ (pronounced shtau), and by the end of this trip we all were cursing stau like natural born Germans. Evidently a tourist bus hit a chemical truck on the autobahn going 100mph or whatever speed, and you can guess the awful rest, so traffic stopped for 2.5 hours. I never thought I’d walk down the autobahn with traffic going the opposite direction at high speeds so close to me, but it was like a picnic – everyone got out of their cars and hung out. In the US there’d be some ridiculous road rage going on, but the Germans embraced it and we all ate granola bars and said hello.

We didn’t think we’d make our show at White Trash Fast Food (yep, that’s what it’s called), but we did. Through no one’s fault the other band didn’t know we were coming though, and in keeping with the cursed day, we didn’t have enough amps, nice Klaus had to go with our friend Bob to borrow one (thanks Bob!), I broke a string in the middle of a short set and had to borrow a guitar from Heinrich (thanks Heinrich!), and after all that, while trying to pack the van, I managed to drop an entire case of beer out of the back onto the parking lot asphalt, where it shattered into one million pieces and gave me a beer shower. It also made it impossible to back out of our parking space until stepmom Joann, manager Jeannie and I spent a long time picking glass shards up from a pitch-black parking lot.

So this wasn’t the best day. But happy people and knowing that you’re on tour in a foreign country go a long way to making it better.
Onward ho!

Autobahn Parking Lot

Thursday May 15

Today we move on to Cologne, the Yard Club. We had heard some rumblings about ticket sales being a little low on this one (see May 14's entry on my feelings of nervousness about low ticket sales and you'll know my state of mind on this one), so that’s on our minds as we pull into town. Cologne is beautiful; we’re playing outside of the downtown, along a beautiful rural stretch of road. We don’t see much of the city except the hotel and the venue and the restaurant next door, but it’s picturesque, and the boys are excited because there’s a beer vending machine outside their room in the hotel.

The Yard Club is awesome, lots of great art and a cool hang, but show attendance ain’t that hot. We seize the opportunity and try out a new song that has no business being played yet. We call it ‘Setting Sun’, but it’s so not formed that it’ll probably be ‘Rising Moon’ before we’re through. The show is fun though, and we talk to everyone who’s there afterward.

Back at the hotel we realize we’ve got no corkscrew to open the bottles of wine we’ve pilfered from hospitality at the club, and I perform a miracle of women’s ingenuity by using a pair of manicure scissors as a corkscrew. Take that MacGyver.

Everyone sleeps well, and we look forward to the next two shows in Berlin.

You'd swear there were a million people at this show -- all heart.

Wednesday, May 14

First show today, in Marburg at Knubbel. We take a walking tour of the city during the day with Klaus’s daughter Svenja, who is a student in town. She has been selling tickets for our show at her school, and Klaus has been selling them to people he knows too. This is one of the things that always strikes me about tour; we have the luxury of just turning up in a city and waiting for people to show up, but Klaus and Svenja and anyone else who puts on these things, they do a lot of legwork ahead of time. Thinking about it this way makes me even more nervous to play, not because of the actual playing part, but because I want our performance to justify all of their efforts.

We go back to the hotel in the afternoon to get ready to play and head to Knubbel, which sounds like a NASA satellite. It’s just our kind of nice dirty bar, complete with a smoking room for Binky that’s encased in glass so we can look at him like a zoo animal while he puffs.

There are a lot of people at the show, it’s hot, sweaty and fun. Everyone buys a record and my lack of German language skills don’t stop me and Binky from trying to banter, 90% of which goes great, the other 10% is a complete failure.

Knubbel = great start to Germany tour.

Monday May 12

Today is the day we leave for Germany. Late afternoon flight and we’ll arrive tomorrow. I have no idea what to expect, we’ve never been on tour outside of the US before (other than a great festival in Ireland last year). Nervous, excited, sure I’ve forgotten everything I need,
Had lots of conversations this week about starting record three, all were pretty stressful, so looking forward to hiding in Europe for a bit.

Tuesday May 13

After leaving at roughly 6pm and getting here at 10am the next day, factoring in the time change, the jet lag, and the wine we drank on the plane because it was free, we are all in seriously rough shape. Klaus, our German promoter, picked us up at the airport, and he’s younger and funnier than I had imagined him. He seems like a great guy already, so scratch that worry off the list. We drive to Marburg, about 1.5 hours outside of Frankfurt to meet up with my dad and stepmom who have come over for the Germany dates, and our friend David who is from my hometown of Taunton but lives in Germany, and his friend Garby. Quite the entourage we’re rocking already.

We sit in the sun in Marburg and drink Fanta and wait to check into the hotel. They are seriously adherent to this whole check in at 2pm thing around here. We loiter in the parking lot, pretend we’re not tired as hell, and try to keep buoyant with excitement. I want bed, and not to be wearing cowboy boots still. I see some horses in a field across the street from the hotel and I’m wicked jealous of them.

We sleep a little and head to a bbq at Klaus’s house, German-style. Lots of pork steaks, sausages. Everything is great, so is the Hefeweizen beer. A bbq tool catches on fire and we bond over its passing. We meet Ollie, our sound guy, and love him. Klaus’s family is there and it’s a party. Happy and full we’re off to bed.

We know the best stories have corroborating evidence, so here are some blogs about our South by Southwest tour and the actual SXSW in which we're mentioned:

-My San Antonio (San Antonio Express News)

-You Be the Mouse(photos only)

-The Gobblers Knob

-Riverfront TImes (St.Louis)

-San Antonio Express News

It took us a while to drive all the way to Austin after leaving Nashville; for those of you who have done it, there ain't much to see.

Rob's been hard at work on these video diaries, they serve the dual purpose of passing the time while shooting, and letting our Boston homepeople see our faces. They're also a chronicle of our daily lives.

We're at the South by Southwest festival now, and we'll keep the video blogs going. Stay tuned for the next volume.
S