summertrip2012

Hello friends of Electric Moon!

Here comes a little report about this summer and the fantastic gigs and about our trip to UK and DK and everywhere and about great people we met! By the way, it's Dave here (Sula) and maybe I write this in some parts... let's see, it's improvised like our music!
OK, let's start at the day Lulu and me left home to go to Kozfest (incredible festival in UK!!!). Day one...
was only on the road to Calais (700 KM), to spend a night at the cool campingsite close to the harbour and go to Dover next day. The whole day the sun burned us in the car and the air-condition broke, so we got toasted... or roasted... or boiled... well done...

Calais in the morning

But anyway, we reached Calais and had a nice evening/night there, surrounded by the cooooool seagulls, and the sound and smell of ferry-boats. Next day we arrived in Dover and it was the first time for me to drive on the wrong side of the road, hehehe. But it worked better than expected! We tried to find a campingsite near the south coast and had some problems with it. Anyway, we drove to Brighton and looked out till night... found a place to sleep (a great place, far away from Brighton) and went on next day. That day we found a proper campingsite and relaxed the evening. Then we took the last somehundred kilometers to Kozfest... making a stop at the incredible beautiful Westbay coast.

Lulu at Westbay

Westbay

As we arrived at Kozfest we were really powered off. The sun and the fuckin small british roads made me crazy. Of course the left-side-traffic still as well! But we arrived, yeah! First we met John, one of the great organizers of Kozmik Ken´s festival, checked out a nice place in the shadow and started to get into the festi-vibe...

Kozmik Ken

John and Woodbine

We also met Iain (Schroedingers Cat), and had long chats with him. Or, better, he talked to us... talking... talking... talking... a really nice guy!!!

Iain (Schrödingers Cat)

Also we met Ken, Dani Speakman (PinkWind, Timelords, The Starfighters...), Dave (Hawklords merchguy), Kozmik Andy and Tim Crosby (Spiral Navigators) and many more. What a great bunch of freaks there!!!!

Tim Crosby (in the middle :-)

Great bands were playing, Omnia Opera, Litmus, Ron Tree and Dani and the Djembe-Lady (sorry, don't know your name!), Spiral Navigators, Green Ritual, Iain and many more!

Ron Tree

We also met the great Garry Lee (from Starship Overflow radio) and his "wife" Lynne Cox!!!

Lynne and Garry

Also we met a guy called Michael Orloff, who was supposed to be our drummer for our gig there on Sunday. And now he became our new drummer (in the meantime we played some amazing gigs with him in Germany!)! YEAH!

Michael Orloff

Electric Moon

But anyway, we played there and the coool dome-like tent was packed and everyone had a nice trip!

Electric Moon live

Thanks a lot to the great people who helped us there, especially Deviant Amps (for organizing so much, including great bass-amp-support!!!! Woodbine!!!!!), Ken, John, Mr. Watt... !!!!! What a relaxed and peaceful festival!!!

merch... merch...

Also I had a big hello with some guys I haven't seen for many years: Tribe of Cro!!! They played there as well and we talked a bit. Not enough... time is always running away toooo quick! It was so coooool to meet you guys again!! On monday we left and met Garry and Lynne again for a camping-night near Avebury. We had really nice spaced out talks about one-legged cider spiders in cider-space and so on. Great last night in UK!!!!! Totally crazy! Next day we took a little walk thru Avebury and then we left to get the ferry in time.

leaving Dover...

After almost one week we arrived well in Calais again and went to the camping very early in the morning...
THIS was a great trip, and we will be back on the island in summer 2013! Can't wait to meet all the nice people again!!!!

From Calais we went to Denmark with a overnight-stop at the very nice place of Will and Marco in Münster. They made some delicious food and filled us with beer and music, hehehe, we had a nice evening there! Thanks again!!! After a much too short night (like most on this tour) we went to Hamburg, to pick up Rosi Diamond, and went on to Denmark. Ah, by the way: There was a terrible traffic in Hamburg and we were close to a crash with another car, also we almost had a crash in Holland, but nothing like this in UK! British drivers are really relaxed! Yeah! OK, we arrived at Kildemose Festival (near Nyborg on island Fyn) at late evening and were a bit frightened first, but then, after much beer with some guys of Troldmand and Papir we felt much better! Also later at night, when we picked up some beer at the bar, one man was falling to the ground, too drunk.. it was the owner of the brewery... :-) but he went on drinking some seconds later...
For us this Festival developed to a very nice one! It was on the area (a beautiful one!) of a little brewery with great beer (ale no. 16!!!!!!!!!!!), and organized by the lovely Jan Dyrlund! Thank you for everything!!! We saw some great bands there (Papir, Troldmand, Øresund Space Collective, Fjodor, Elevatorfører...) and did a nice gig with Papir's Christopher on drums! Also we met lovely people and got many new friends (Fjodor, Papir, Troldmand, Elevatorfører...!!!!). Check out these bands!!! Also we met my old friend Michi who always carry some nice mindfood in his bag! :-)
After Kildemose we went to the north of Fyn to have some days off. Holydays... But unfortunately these were the only days on the whole trip with really bad weather! Storm and rain... shit! But our huge tent made it! Yeah!
Then (on Wednesday) we went to Copenhagen, to relax an evening and make a jam with some guys on Thursday. First we visited Christiania and then we were setting up our stuff at Dragens Hule.

Christiania

Jam at Dragens Hule

Lulu and me were joined by Papir (Nicklas, Christian and Christoffer) and Mogens (Keyboarder of Øresund Space Collective). We invited some more friends (Hobitten, Scott, Magnus...), but a horrible and very sad thing happened: Ralph passed away. He was a great guy and the soundmaster and good friend of the whole Copenhagen based psychedelic-scene! So our friends didn't show up. And I was in a very strange mood. Ralph was a great guy. I didn't met him really often, but here and there for many years! So we started a jam in a sad mood, and the result was totally mindblowing! Christian recorded it (thanks soooo much!) and made some good rawmixes and we really like to release this kind of a farewell for Ralph on vinyl early next year!
On Friday we had the gig at Dragens Hule. It was totally crowded and we met some people we knew from Kildemose Festival! We played first, a great set with the amazing Christoffer on drums.

Electric Moon live

Followed by a fantastic psychedelic and powerful set by Papir and last band was Fuzz Manta. Thanks to the great great people there, who helped us all the time: Mogens and Kasper!!!!! Magnus (and Sonja)!!!!!! We love you!!!! Thanks for this great time in Copenhagen!!! We will be back!
:-)

Mogens...

On Saturday we started our way back home...

on the road...

on island Fyn

After 4500 Kilometers on the road and filled with phantastic impressions (see more pix in the UK-DK-tourfolder of Lulu's facebook site: https://www.facebook.com) we arrived home and got tons of work. And after just 3 days (of hard work, not relaxing) we went to Yellowstock-Festival in Belgium...

OK, after a too short night we worked till Michel arrived. He's a good friend of us, and he picked us up (with all our gear and stuff) with his VW-bus, and drove the whole way to Yellowstock (and back! THANKS, Michel!!!)! Including a 2 hour trafficjam near Siegen...
Gladly we started late, so we didn't got roasted by the sun, but arrived at Yellowstock after midnight.
On Friday we saw some bands and try to get out of the sun and the heat (around 33 degrees). All in all we saw less bands then planned, but we had serious problems with heat and sun, so we missed Naam, Gnod and some more. But we saw a great gig of Baby Woodrose (hi Guf!!!), Spectrum, Monomyth (hi Sander!!!), Seven That Spells (hi Niko!!!), Obelyskkh and some more... Steffen, the drummer of Obelyskkh, played the drums in our show. Thanks so much for this, Steffen!!! You are a great guy and Obelyskkh is a great band with funny people!!! See you again at Doom over Bielefeld!!! Yeah!!! Anyway, we played a long show (100 minutes) at 40 degrees in the venue. Sweat!!! Obelyskkh and Seven That Spells went to Aquamariafestival after our gig (around 4 in the morning) (you are animals!!! real fighters for music!!!) and we decided to chill a while before going to sleep, as Chino (La Ira De Dios) showed up and spent some time with us at the bus. Space out... That was the start or a friendship, that became very intense the following weekends...
On Sunday we had nice talks to many friends at breakfast, meeting Jan and his friends again (hi Jan!!!!), Minimu and Richie, Fränk, Manu and the Dusty Brain clan (hello to everyone!). A warm hello also to the breakfast crew from Holland!!! And of course biiiiiig thanks to Freek and Juri and all the helping hands there!!!! Yellowstock is for sure one of the best festivals in Europe!!
Then we left, at almost 38 degrees, sun, and a empty autobahn! With lot's of milkshakes and warm water...
Nice weekend!
The following days were filled with work and on Thursday the Seven That Spells LPs arrived here and Friday noon the Sula Bassana LPs. Our home was packed with vinyl!
After storing the Sula LPs and picking up our car at the garage (one spring was broken, tyres were down etc.) we started to Zytanien Festival, to meet our new drummer Michael from London, who came to Germany for a weekend, to play in Electric Moon! Yeah! YOU live for the music as well!!!! Also Chris came with him, another great guy!!!
Zytanien is on a great area, but on the mainstage only bad bands were playing (for my taste). But there is a absolute beautiful hall, called Weltraum (Space), that is organized by the guys of the band Weltraum (coool improvised space-trance-electronic-rock!), were we played. First Burn Pilot played, very nice people! Than we did a powerful, very psychedelic and trancy set, that will be released on a CD-R later, when I mastered the stuff. Then Blotch played, a sideproject of Weltraum with Dennis and Dora. Thanks to Dennis, Dora and the Weltraumfriends for inviting us and helping us, and to Denise for the rest! Nice catering by the way...
Next day we went to Arendsee, for the Rockt Den See Festival. We hoped to see La Ira De Dios on the boat, but arrived too late and were setting up our tents and equipment. The whole day it was raining a bit here and there and the stage was not completely covered by a roof, so we decided to put all the effects as close to the drums as possible. So Lulu and me played with our back to the crowd. That was a bit strange, but it was OK for everyone. We rockt a lot and psyched and had a nice gig (will be out on CD-R as well!). Also we met some old friends (hallo Bohne und Blume und Willy!!). Kadavar came next (not really my cup of tea, only some parts kept my attraction) and Coogans Bluff played last. Some of their tracks were really great! Also they had a great power! That night we got seriously drunk and high and talked a lot with the La Ira De Dios guys, and of course Michael (our new and much loved drummer!!!) and Michi (the guy we also met at Kildemose. Hi Michiiiii!!!). A very nice night! Next day we took a loooong breakfast with our friends. Ah, yeah, our friends from Leipzig also showed up (hi Stephanie, Maik, Marco, Almandin)...
We went back home. Michael and Chris went back home...
But we will meet Michael soon, have some gigs together very soooon!!! Yeah!!!
After some days at home, packing many many packages full of vinyls, we started to Misty Mountain Festival close to Nuernberg. Steffen (from Obelyskkh, also one of the main organizers of this nice festival) was playing the drums for us again, but he was at the site for some days and was losing a lot of power. But as I said before: He is an Animal and lives for the music! So we had a nice gig together! The venue was cool! A little airport on a mountain. But it was very cold and stormy there. Stormy Mountain would be better than Misty Mountain. But the gigs took place in a hangar and there was a lot of space and a big stage. We met a lot of friends there, the Obelyskkh guys, La Ira De Dios, Alex (our old drummer) and Elli, Fred, Domenico, Michel (yeah!) and Baba Lali!!!!!!!! Boom boooooom! Also we met the new La Ira driver James Schmidt, a great guy from Berlin. And of course Green (aka Grüni, Mr. Brown...)! On Sunday we went back home together with La Ira, Green and James to have some relaxed days in our house. That was a great time. We chilled, watched movies, recorded some really far out jams, and became real friends!!!!! James was drumming in some jams (what a great drummer) almost everyone made wild noises with synthesizers... and we changed the instruments a lot. Kiko played Bass or Guitar, Chino Guitar or Synth, Lulu Bass or Synth, James or Pepe (a absolute killer drummer!!!) on drums, me on synth or guitar... be prepared for a spacey and wild kraut-record!!!
Now they are touring again and we are at home, working like hell... missing our new friends so much, and trying to get as much gigs together as possible! But at 22nd of September Michael is joining us for a gig in Wuerzburg! Yeah! And then we hopefully have more than this one gig in Frankfurt, together with La Ira and maybe more also with our friends from The Pancakes!!! Offers welcome! :-)

Stay mooned!

Dave/Sula Bassana