Erstellt am: 11. 12. 2011 - 13:34 Uhr

Five noteworthy things on the FM4 Soundpark Tour

Erin Stewart, bassist from Luise Pop about a boys choir, car breakdowns and wild audiences.

by Erin Stewart

And what better to include said boys in our introduction? This idea developed further at the post-show drinking after playing Weekender in Innsbruck, where the neighbouring bar beckoned us with the smell of tiroler Bergkäse to the ‘Mäusefalle’ or Mouse Trap, complete with fake trees and schlager dance hits. Three quarters of each of our bands found ourselves under the canopy of plastic ivy to continue the post-show celebration. There the ‘Luise Edges’ were founded, if only for one song. The ‘boys’ were to sing backing vocals, which primarily consist of the title word.

Erin Stewart

This came to fruition in Dornbirn, where all eight of us graced the stage together for the first time. A historic moment to be sure, the stuff that Dornbirner legends are made of. Klagenfurt and Linz were also privy to this scene, with a full-on mosh pit of crazy in Klagenfurt and screaming fangirls in Linz.

2. The ÖAMTC

The luchs had some issues. Our white steed, the 1998 Ford Galaxy, that speeds us across the European landscape from one divey wateringhole to another, struggling to make a living on a broken guitar and a bad attitude... Or the well-outfitted venues we’ve had the chance to play, but where’s the hardship in that? Our ga-luchs-y has had some Pech: a thief took the liberty to help himself to the luchs’s side mirror and most of the plastic casing that housed it, leaving only wires holding tenuously onto the carcass of our reflective safety device.

Erin Stewart

Whipping down the highway toward our second destination of Innsbruck, what was left of the mirror tore loose from the gaffer tape holding it in place, and rapped against the window like a deranged zombie.

As the rain sheeted down, our windshield wiper took cue from the undead mirror and gave up the ghost somewhere outside of Linz. A gas station mechanic and a screwdriver later, we were back on our way sans mirror and right wiper. Somewhere along the way, the disease spread to the motor, and the luchs transformed from an American minivan into the German peoples’ car, original version; sputtering and smoking we made our way further west than this mortal coil had ever brought me in my adopted homeland.

Erin Stewart

At the farthest outpost on tour, Spielboden in Dornbirn, luchsy simply refused to start. We had a screw loose, in the literal sense, leading us to our first encounter with the ÖAMTC, who would become our best friends on this tour. Later that evening, our second call to the saviours of the roadside stranded brought us a mechanic who repaired what the first one had damaged, ‘fixing’ the initial problem. The motor roared to life, bringing us to the hotel wayyyy across town (at least two kilometers, Dornbirn ist riesengroß). However, it was not to last. The trouble-free drive to Kärnten was a tease, as the morning after in Klagenfurt involved a chugging engine to no avail. Thankfully, the Klagenfurt ÖAMTC was fast as lightning, and a rolling start later we were Linz bound.

3. Klagenfurt’s audience

Kärntners sure know how to make a band feel appreciated. From the very first note of ‘Speedboat’, our intro tune, the crowd was in motion. The room was pretty full, with those at the front going totally apeshit at every tune they could dance to. The aforementioned ‘Boys’ choir was especially a hit, greeted with a full-on mosh pit in the front including a couple of people doing an extended whirly-gig spin that would have made me collapse in a pile of dizzy.

Erin Stewart

Even the sound problems, apparently ‘unfixable’ by the less-than-stellar sound technician with David Hasselhof circa 1988 hair and a very noticeable - ahem - aroma, couldn’t get them down. The Beth Edges had the crowd in full motion throughout their entire set, and a few dozen people stormed the stage to get into the groove alongside Ogris Debris.

Erin Stewart

My most rockstar moment of the tour was thanks to a girl who had been dancing up a storm during our set. In packing up afterwards, she saw me collect the pick I’d tossed aside with the last note of Boys, and asked if she could have it. Klagenfurt girl, I liked your glasses and your cool haircut, please do some rocking with that pick.

4. A Canadian in a Wiener band touring Austria.

I know my German isn’t fabulous but it’s gotten pretty decent in the three years since I stepped off the Vienna-bound plane to my new home, equipped with little more than ‘wie geht’s? Ich heiße Erin, ich komme aus Kanada’. In using my adopted language with everyone from people at the merch stand to the randoms outside the venues to the other bands, I was mistaken for French, Australian, English, and most surprisingly, German. The girls in Klagenfurt even misunderstood my ‘aus Kanada for ‘aus Kärtnen’ and asked me incredulously how I could be one of them.

Erin Stewart

The ÖAMTC experiences were particularly unintelligible, not only is my mechnical German rather limited, throw in a Voralberger or Kärntnerisch accent and they may as well have been speaking Klingon. Sozusagen, I was extraordinarily happy that my bandmates are native speakers of the Austrian variety. Hearing from Grazer Martin that R. Urschitz from the Klagenfurt ÖAMTC was also difficult for him to understand was reassuring to say the least!

Erin Stewart

Ogris Debris on Stage

In Innsbruck, lyrics translation of Luise Pop songs hat auch Spaß gemacht, somehow ‘Ich bin geboren und aufgewachsen in verzweifelten Zeiten’ doesn’t flow quite as well as ‘I was born and raised in desperate times’, but then German is a tougher language to sing in Ernst without being too ernsthaft at the same time, to be sure. I had a nice conversation with Beth Edges front man and English major Tobi about writing words in your second language, and as a former English teacher, I can vouch that y’all do it quite well.

5. ‘Oh, it’s a gay bar!’

The tour wrapped up at the Posthof in Linz, 5 days and 5 Austrian states later. The sense of comradery grew stronger over our ‘Ski-Ausflug’ together (swap skis for instruments here) and knowing that we were soon to part ways and return to normal life required one last blowout.

We hopped the Posthof fence (the place is a compound, it’s just missing Schäferhunde, I swear), and followed the pounding beats to the bar around the corner. As Steven Malkmus so elegantly put it ‘We Danced, We Danced’. Only Ogris Daniel and Edges Gabriel were missing (although he had a doppelganger present), and the whole lot of us shuffled our feet to the techno beats. I made an unsuccessful attempt to teach the rhythm section of the Beth Edges how we do it in North America (line dance style) to a song whose only lyrics sounded to me like ‘genau like the backspin’. Such is my deunglish these days.

Erin Stewart

It must have been a good hour before I realized that everyone else in the bar was accompanied by a well-dressed person of their own sex, an epiphany of sorts when I came to the realization that our rag-tag pile of musicians kind of crashed it. The Prince of Linz should have tipped me off, the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince found his duplicate in female form in the front room, but nope. It was quite a snazzy place, decked out with live plants and sailor paraphernalia, on a side street in the industrial part of town. There we revelled in our trans-Austrian rockitude, bidding a fond farewell to one another and life on the road. Until the next time at least!

It was voll großartig, rad, wicked, kickass urleiwand awesome, I cannot thank enough my own liebe band, The Beth Edges, Ogris Debris, our tour manager Reini, the ÖAMTC, the wonderful fans, and of course, FM4, for putting on the second annual Soundpark Tour. Bis nächstes Jahr!

Liebe Grüße,

Erin, die Bassistin von Luise Pop