USA COUCH TOUR May 2001 - A sum up !

new york:
with fellow kitty-yo's peaches and gonzales who made the knitting factory sold out two times that evening. aha: these people from the I-D/Face fashion pages actually exist. we were happy that our equipment arrived in time. let's not talk about the second show: the audience consisted of raik+patrick from kitty-yo, donovan from matador and david grubbs.

amherst:
with trans am who brought their own beer and immediately put it on ice in a drum-case (good idea!). we learned that college-shows are only good for money (sorry, at least that's what everyone told us). our attempt to attend a college-party with the fitting title "bavarian party" failed dramatically because the booze was all gone.

boston:
first headlining show with two quite good local support bands. a women purchased 2 couch shirts: one for her and one for her daughter. which we thought was quite flattering.

montreal:
illegal bordercrossing without work permit is nothing we can really recommend. the border guy looked up "couch" in the internet and actually found some things but we were pretending that some other band stole our name. and stupid enough: it did work out. casa del popolo, a nice small club/vegeterian restaurant run by godspeed member mauro, was packed and we didn't try to speak french.

toronto:
with local postrocker white starliner. just a very good show. canada was good to us!

detroit:
everyone was telling us: "you are going to see the real america here". obviously the meant the crackheads parading on the streets. gold dollar is a great rock club with three surveillance cameras controling the parking lot and you can check them from the stage while playing. other band: black rebel motor cycle club. poor major bands have to bring their own microphones, light and fog (?). moreover: good detroit based band paik. the attempt to party was crashed by a guy at the best western who made us check in for hours and hours. our keyboarder stephanie forgets all her stuff and a little fedex drama begins but was brought to a good end by donovan.

chicago:
noise pop festival with l'altra. we met the booker who ended up not booking us. good show. 5 people in the front row seemed to make notes of michaels finger-movements. scary! the booker who doesn't book us invited us to the autechre show and we finally got to hear some death metal.

minneapolis:
early show as support for bevis frond and michael something from soul coughin. this place was huge. driving days: wow. north dakota is pretty flat, montana is awesome. we passed by white cloud the albino buffalo and got to see some wild life and waterfalls in yellowstone national park.

seattle:
with dub narcotic. calvin wears a cowboy hat and dub narcotic got a great new drummer. our show was one of the best of the tour. we stay at calvin's in olympia and the k people show us their universe and supply us with candies, purses, gloves and good vibrations.

portland:
opening for andy smith from portishead as dj. nice but a bit overstyled club without liquor license. why do americans WATCH djs spin?

san francisco:
we meet our booker christian from the kork agency. very nice. even if he almost kills us in a car accident while showing us around in sf. we open for bevis frond for the second time. these guys are funny! we stay at christian's who is living next to a crack dealer with a pitbull called "sin". but christian also got a pitbull.

Los Angeles:
we got 20 minutes to see the beach of santa monica. we meet jay from the matador office who has to bring back our car in a 5 day ride. good luck jay! last show. we can't believe it. this was great.

juergen soeder (COUCH)