January 26th, 1999
Berlin, Germany

We just played our show here and it was pretty cool. I have a new favorite band. They are the Heideroosjes from Holland. We played with them in Brussels last week but I missed their set, so tonight I was very pleasantly surprised by both their quality of songs and their level of energy. I mean these guys are all over the place. Imagine the energy level of NOFX and then multiply it by the level of Rage Against The Machine, and that's about where these guys are. They finish their set with a Spice Girls, AC/DC, Rammstein medley that is both hilarious and rocking. Check them out if you ever get the chance. I told my friend, Naughty from Disaster Area, that these guys made me feel old. He said, "you are old." Fuck you, Naughty!

Our last two shows, before tonight, were in Hamburg and Tilburg, Holland. Normally we'll play in Amsterdam in Holland, or maybe Rotterdam, but the club in Tilburg was pretty cool. Hamburg's show was awesome, by far the best crowd we've ever had there. The club was the Grosse Freiheit, which we had been to before with the Lunachicks and The Vandals. Hamburg is a cool city with lots of history. Especially the Reeperbahn section which, for those of you who don't know, is the "red light" district wherein anything can be purchased if you are willing to pay the price. But the music scene has always been lively in Hamburg with many clubs hosting modern rock music. The Beetles cut their rock and roll teeth in a couple of Hamburg clubs that still stand today.

After the show we went to this club where some of Frank Kozik's artwork was being exhibited. Kozik is the guy who did all the artwork for Americana. I was hoping to meet him, but he wasn't there. A lot of the audience however, was there including the drunk guy who knocked my guitar out of tune while trying to do a stage dive (It had to happen on "Bad Habit" of course, when I'm alone on guitar). Some kids showed up who had driven down from Denmark. They were pretty funny. One of them was drinking Jagermeister from his side pocket. I'm betting he puked later that night. He wasn't looking to good. I wasn't drinking so I went back early, but the rest of the band, and much of the crew, stayed there till about 5:00 a.m. when they were forced to leave.

Dexter is feeling much better, but for a while there it was touch and go. We thought we might have to fly out his "double." By the way, because of the position "Americana" reached on the U.S. charts, we are referring to this tour as the "smells like #2" tour '99.

See ya later,
Noodles.