In the span of one week I was pulled over twice by the cops. I wasn’t doing anything wrong but they were just picking random people and hassling them looking for drugs and whatnot. It’s what they call an Allgemeine Verkehrskontrolle.

The first instance was last Tuesday morning while driving through the lovely village of Wetzen on my way to work at 8:45. They checked my papers and stuff and asked me when the last time I had done drugs. I don’t know what on Earth would make them think I have ever done them at all, but I answered with the totally truly truthful answer of, “Hmmm, let’s see. This is 2008……Hmmmm….Years ago.” He kinda gave me one of those “yeah, right” looks. I don’t understand why. He also wanted to know if I had drunk alcohol within the last 24 hours. Nein. It was two cops. The older cop was about my age and the younger one looked like his voice just changed and it was his very first day on the job. They said thanks and I was on my way.

The second instance was last Saturday night on the way back from Hamburg. The police blocked the entire Autobahn and diverted all the cars into a rest-stop and ordered them to park. They were checked for proper license and registration, first-aid kit, Warndreieck and signs of drugs and alcohol.

German cops think it is funny if you say things like, “I’m reaching into my glove compartment”, or “May I exit the vehicle?” He asked to see my Warndreieck (which I stupidly keep in the trunk, affording them a look without needing a warrant Say, what are all those bricks wrapped in duct tape?). When I asked to get out he replies, “Sure, we’re not in America.” Uh, ha ha ha. “I know, but I am American and that’s how I do it.” *looks at my license* “Ahhhhh. Alles Klar. That’s why you are acting so cautious.”

“How long have you been in Germany?”

“Almost 7 Years.”

“You speak very good German.”

Usually my standard answer to this remark is, “So do you”. However, considering that we were engaged in this idle chitchat while he was getting the breathalyzer machine set up, I decided to just say thanks.

Needless to say, I passed the breathalyzer with flying colors.

Good thing they didn’t do a cavity check though.

Zing!!

I kid, I kid. War nur ein Witz!

You know how American celebrities do strange advertising campaigns in foreign countries? Snoop is no exception.

Biker Turf War Escalating in Germany

The Bandidos and the Hell’s Angels are waging all-out war for dominance in Germany. Court testimony by a former member — who crossed his gang and is now living in protective custody — is providing frightening details about these secretive societies.

Uh…The Bandidos? Rumor has it, they like to shoot bazookas at rival gangs’ clubhouses.

We got back into Hamburg last Saturday at around noon. The jetlag killed me for a few days but I’m back in action. The last few days in Connecticut and New York were a bit of a whirlwind. Sorry if I didn’t get to see you when I was in town. There was a lot of running around.

Thanks to everybody who let us crash at your place or lent us a car or bought us food and drinks. It was good to see you all. You know who your are.

St. Patrick’s Day in St. Louis. My parents flew in for the celebration. It’s kind of fuzzy but fun was had by all. It rained like crazy while we were there. We bought records down in University City at Vintage Vinyl. It was great to see all the family.

In Chicago it snowed about 7-10 inches after we arrived. We went to the old neighborhoods and I saw a lot of old friends. We went to the Art Institute and saw the Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer exhibits. Cool stuff.

Now we are on our way to Connecticut and New York.

I am not one of them. I lack the required amount of ironic T-shirts and tattoos.

I swear, half of Williamsburg was on the plane from NYC down to Austin.

We are here to visit my sister, brother-in-law and their family.

While we were here the South By Southwest music conference has been going on. Naturally we checked out a couple of shows. We have seen and heard a lot of great music this week. This fest is unlike anything I have experienced before. We’ve seen Hopewell, Witch, The Black Angels, Blood On The Wall, The Raveonettes, The Noisettes, Yo la Tengo, The Atlas Sound, Phosphorescent and Shearwater and many many more.

Yesterday was a Texas day. This is a day on which all of the following must happen: shooting of various high-powered firearms, eating barbecue and seeing Willie Nelson perform. It was awesome. My sister Betsy even got to shake his hand.

Tomorrow we fly to St. Louis to see what kind of trouble we can get into.

My buddy Jens and I are leaving tomorrow to do another trip through America. Itinerary looks like this:
Austin–>St. Louis–>Chicago–>NY/CT

We are gonna check out sxsw and what else Austin has to offer. Rumor has it, there might be some BBQ, Willie Nelson and some firearms involved, but you didn’t hear that from me. Well, okay, yes you did. St. Patrick’s Day may involve drinking in a family owned drinking establishment. Chicago is gonna be awesome. It has been 8 years since I’ve been there and I miss it terribly.

If I get near a computer, and if I feel like it, I will report back from the road.

Bonus blog post
I signed up last month for the RPM Challenge. The deal is, you have the month of February to write and record a whole album’s worth of music. As far as the challenge goes, I failed miserably. I recorded 3 songs but only finished one. The song is called:

Urban Pleasure.

The lyrics are not meant to be taken literally, but rather it is a reflection on some of the expereinces I have had living in various urban environments. I used the opportunity to work out a lot of what I felt about these experiences in song form. My friend Henning Thomsen helped out on drums. He also helped me out on the remix of Hot Bitch Arsenal’s groovy masterpiece, Failure.

Here is an interesting article in the New York Times about the graffiti scene in Berlin.

Nearly everywhere you go, from the cafe-lined streets of Kreuzberg to the leafy schoolyards in Grunewald, hastily drawn “tags” stream across the sidewalk and crawl up the side of buildings, in an elaborate zigzag of cartoonish graphics, puffy letters, photo-like wheat pastes and bold stencils. Parts of the city look as splattered as a New York City subway car from the 1970s.

Check out the accompanying video.

Soundtrack by Sido.

I consider myself pretty experienced when it comes to the audio recording process. The only stage of which I am quite ignorant is the final stage: mastering. This is where you transfer your final mix to whatever format on which you are going to issue your music; vinyl, CD, 8-track, etc. It sounds easy enough but it is a bit more complicated than that. Each format has its own recipe of sorts that needs to be followed in order to create the best transfer for that particular format.

This especially true for vinyl. If you add too much treble, the needle will jump out of the groove. If you add too much bass, the needle will jump out of the groove. If you have too much of some element in one channel, you guessed it, the needle will jump out of the groove. In order to compensate for this, you have to calculate how much space there should be between the grooves. For a ≈40min 33 RPM LP you’ve got to squeeze those grooves together. The closer together the grooves are, the more the audio quality suffers to the decrease in the sound to noise ratio. Still with me? OK.

To be honest, most audio and recording engineers are only conceptually knowledgeable about the process. This goes for me as well. All that mumbo jumbo I just spouted is just what I can remember off the top of my head from school. It is a very specialized field. Ever heard of Bob Ludwig? Chances are, you have something he mastered in your music collection. He and a few other guys are the best in their field and master most of the high-profile big name stuff that the major labels release. You need really good ears, experience and lots of expensive and properly calibrated gear to do it well.

In this digital day and age the straight transfer from analog master tapes directly to vinyl is a rare occurrence indeed. However this is exactly the route taken by Matador when re-mastering the vinyl rerelease of Mission Of Burma‘s^ old LPs. Matador has started a video series on their site documenting the process. There is only one clip up now, but there should be more to come. Check it out. It’s cool.

I like how that particular master tape playback machine (Studer) has 2 playback heads. The first one sends the audio signal to a computer in the lathe one second before the actual signal to be recorded arrives. Based on the computer’s analysis of the first signal, it determines how to cut the grooves when it recieves the second. Crazy.

This is a blurry picture of a cheesy-grin-wearing Chillmost standing next to Academy Award Winner and lead singer of The Frames, Glen Hansard. In January, Glen Hansard came to Hamburg for the German premiere of Once. After the screening Glen talked about the movie and answered a bunch of questions. After that he played a few songs on his guitar. Along with Marketa Irglová, he just won an Oscar for best original song for the number "Falling Slowly".