Monsters Tour Novmber 2003
Argentina / Brazil / New York

If you want to play in South America there is a hell of a lot of preparation involved. Swan-Lee, our bearded drummer was handed this job. He had to talk to officials, organising the work permits and trying to raise money from different organisations, which we actually got. Pro Helvetia and the Town Council and State of Berne were helping us to finance the flights for the five lads as well as our equipment. Incredibly expensive!

Argentina
We started in Argentina, where we played Buenos Aires a whopping three times. Nico (who’s to blame for doing this tour in the first place) and The Human Turtle picked us up at the airport and drove us to our hotel and home base. Buenos Aires is a real cool place, around 3 million people, but economy-wise though’ this is bad news, unbelievable! Eating out for instance – we are talking „Churrasco-style“, T-Bone Steaks, Spareribs, wine, beer and liquors – all in all a five hour commitment just puts you back 4Euros a head!!! This means of course, that the fees are rather low, but the locals made it up with their hospitality – although everyone is skint, there is always enough food for everyone. Very impressive to watch them get by with nothing... very educating.

First gig up was at CENTRO R. LEONESA, a sparkling building from the good old colonial times. This is where the 2DayFestival BA STOMP was held. We headlined the first night, GUITAR WOLF were top of the bill the second night. We were worried, that the SouthAmericans would have problems adapting to this load of Trash and Rock’n’Roll, but we were completely wrong. They just went ballistic upon hearing the first feedback and Nico provided us with more R’nR-Lifestyle... two local beauties stormed on stage in the middle of our set and dropped their panties – pure bliss!!!! After some well needed testicle rearrangements while playing, the crowd just went mad shouting, singing and slamming.

The stage hands were rather busy at times... every time BeatMan threw his guitar into the crowd and jumped after it, these poor sods had to pick him up again and get him and his beloved six string back on stage. „This is SheeeeetHot“ was his reaction to this and it started again... over and over and over and...!!!! Sweet...He, he, he… same again the next night with GUITAR WOLF (and in Brazil and…)The band that impressed us most were THEE BUTCHERS ORCHESTRA from Brazil. GORIES influenced primitive Rock’nRollSoulBluesPunk. Fooking brilliant band with a drummer banging like a nuclear bomb. BeatMan spent all night drinking hard with the lads and ended up planning a release on his VoodooRhythmLabel.

THE TANDOORIES and ZORROS PETARDOS SALVAJES, both from Argentina were superbly great, mixing Surf and Rock’n’Roll with the RAMONES... and HISTORIA DEL CRIMEN – Nico’s band - played traditional OldSchool Psychobilly and Rockabilly coming straight from the mid80ies with a hint of the old EasternEuropeGroove. Both nights provided us with a full house and the audience was going mental, drinking and dancing all night long. Every single one of them was absolutely off the trolley, but compared to Europe there was never any aggression or a tense moment. Quite the opposite, the locals got friendlier and friendlier and everyone was having a ball... until the inevitable TechnicolorYawn!!! And ALL the girls were soooo stunning, rather nice to look at... the boys always scratching their scrotums... isn’t life beautiful?The next night we played as REVEREND BEATMAN supporting GUITAR WOLF. These Japs are completely insane, a mix of noise and japanese macho impersonation. Their songs basically consist of only intros and outros – nothing in between, except a healthy dose of noise, of course... ooh, behave... spent the rest of the night drinking with the „WOLFS“... they asked snow, we wanted fresh meat!!!! Coke and bitches more like...Next day we played a radio show on the national youth radio. 2million listeners, and we got to play 6 songs, did some interviews and the rest. The whole crew already visited our gigs beforehand – nice one!!! And they screened the playboy channel in the studio – thanx a bunch for this...

Sunday was football day. Boca Juniors vs. River Plate, the classic Buenos Aires Derby. The stadium was overcrowded, probably sold every ticket twice?? The supporters were singing from start to finish only to be disrupted when a goal was scored, then it was pogoing, and we are talking HardCorePogo on the terraces!!! 99% men, virtually no women – did you hear that? NO WOMEN in the ground!!! But they provided us with Tango before the game. Boca won and it was a great game. After that, back to our daily routine of meat eating... Monday we played a small, intimate gig at the beautiful „BOCEPHUS Club“.

Brasil
And on to Sao Paolo – approximately 25 million living there – one of the so called dangerous places on earth. Thanx to Paulo’s wreckless driving we were absolutely safe in this beehive of people. Colonial buildings next to shanty towns – that’s Sao Paolo for you. Our first gig was in a small town called Rio Claro, with about one million inhabitants. As expected, our support band HAL9000 played DeathMetal, the audience was very young (alcohol was VERY cheap!) 6 out of ten were female again. Every single one of them pissed as a fart. We usually had 4 to 5 support bands and they themselves didn’t start before 11pm. So by the time we got onstage, it was the wee hours of the morning, around 4am!!! You have dinner at around 10pm, go out and come back later for the gig... every night... all week!! Frigging paradise that is!!! We might as well move down there.

At the Rio Clara gig there was this 18 year old beauty dancing onstage and didn’t want to leave. She kept asking BeatMan if she could dance for another song, and another, and another... BeatMan started playing and fiddling with her – instead of his guitar - until her boyfriend got jealous and things started to get a bit hairy... but thanks to a few tunes and drinks everything was settled and soon the crowd danced and drank again, Brazil rules!!!The whole BrazilTour was organised by Vlad of the infamous OS CATALEPTICOS. Car and driver included (... and A/C of course).

The next day we played Sao Paolo itself, the legendary BLACK JACK CLUB was to be our host for the evening. This is where SEPULTURA started out. We played with THEE BUTCHERS ORCHESTRA (again), THE HONKERS from Brazil’s north and the ELEKTROBILLYS. THE HONKERS were incredible. Their lead singer – somewhere between PeeWee HERMANN and GG ALLEN crawled, stood, and stumbled butt naked across stage. He licked the floor, drank out of worn boots, completely and utterly insane. People ran away when he ran around with his shitbrown underwear... just simply un-fooking-believable. This band has to play Europe!!! A BlackAfroFunkBassPlayer, a TaccoVendor for a guitarist, a HeavyMetal drummer and above mentioned singer who’s a student and bricklayer who had one too many shots in the dark in prison... oh yeah, they played a fine mix of 77Punk, GaragePunk and Ska...Our base was in the Red Light District, where we suddenly lost track of our driver. He apparently spent the night with an unknown lady. To our pleasure we stayed at the same hotel as a whole bunch of models and beau queens – all of ’em with bulimia, starving kids with titties like the young Brigitte Bardot.

The drive to Londrina took around 8hrs, where we were stunned again. More girls in the audience than anything, this is getting ridiculous, phoweeee... The gig was actually kind of an OpenAirThing with loads of bands. One of them was FRENETIC TRIO, DeathMetal and PsychoBilly, or CELTIC FROST meets BATMOBILE, whatever suits you fine. But they rocked! For the first time on this tour we were a bit apprehensive... they wanted Psycho, we gave ’em T R A S H... too much for them ladeez... cackle!Next up was the TRANSYLVANIA EXPRESS FESTIVAL in Curitiba, where they expected around 700 people. OVOS PRESLEY were great, kinda LatinoPunkRock’n’Roll, as were OS CATALEPTICOS with their UltraSpeedPsychobilly. Our gig went down well with the audience mainly consisting of ladies shaking their booties onstage... we rocked like hell and did some requests as well. Vlad was chuffed sick. The day after, we went back to Sao Paolo, a whopping 35°celsius and lots of thinly clothed chiccas... we played at the FUNHOUSE as REVEREND BEATMAN (THE MONSTERS as THE NEW UNBELIEVERS). Thank God they cooled the place down to a nice 18°... Next morning was an early start!!! 8am, believe it or not, but we decided to hang out at the beach and then back to Curitiba to play another REVEREND-Set at the CAMORRA BAR. This sadly being our last gig in sunny Brazil.

New York
And then on to the Big Apple. Mike Decay picked us up in New York dressed as a monkey. 17 smelly people in a tiny 3 room flat... too small, one toilet and shitloads of hairspray. Thanks to Joshua we moved to another house the next morning.Our first gig was at the SIN-E, with the DEFECTORS performing a raving GaragePunkOrgy, next up THE BRIMSTONES... fucking marvellous, something in between HorrorMovieSoundtracks, Surf and GaragePunkTrash. Our first US-Gig went well and we sold loads of merchandise. We played all the 3 gigs in NY with EVIL DEVIL, an italian Psychobilly band (now you know where the hairspray came from...)

MAXWELL’S was the club, where we staged our next performance. VELVET UNDERGROUND started their careers in this very place. The club is now run by the Telstar manager and the food was delicious!!! One of the best acts that night were MONKEY BUTTLERS, an ultra TrashGarageShow. They were dressed up in monkey costumes and were real Trash!!! Loads of people. The ladeez were sweet and the guys had greasy hair but all of them drinking and partying hard. Again we played as REVEREND BEATMAN with THE MONSTERS as a backing band. The REV himself was in splendid form, simply because the audience understood his finely written lyrics (poor Mike, having to pick up the soap 26 times a day... in prison!!!) Good fight, good night!

We were looking forward to this gig for months on end... the legendary CBGB’s, but this place is run by a guy who should work as an accountant. It’s like working in an assembly-line production; you are treated more like a number rather than an artist. At least the beer was free!!! Being the headliner for that night we were the only band getting any money for playing and that made us angry, because the other bands were really great too. KINGS OF NUTHING for example, they drove down from Boston and back up again after the gig to get back to work, all this without seeing a single dollar for their effort, now that’s what I call a tough life on the road, and they rocked like Satan!!! This was probably the best gig of the whole tour. The amps onstage were at their maximum, blasting out their innards and Pumi the KnobFiddler brought the PA to a near collapse. The in-house technician nearly fainted, he, he, he... feeeeeeeeeedback!!!!!!!

The audience was stunned when we started and backed off a bit protecting their ears, but they soon got used to this sonic attack and started to shake all over. They appreciated us, we appreciated them, they appreciated us again, we app... aahhh, you get the picture, don’t you? For the first time ever, BeatMan changed his guitar strings without muting his amplifier, he, he, he... more feeeeeeeeeeeedback!!! A few beers later we listened to JENS-O-MATIC spinning the wheels of steel, dropping some of the best tunes we heard on this tour. At 2am – yes, you heard right – at 2o’clock they kicked us out! New York the city that never sleeps... too fucking right, don’t believe the hype. By the way, what’s wrong with that place? All the clubs are NON-SMOKING! Rock’n’Roll and NO cigarettes? Nope, that doesn’t work!! and I AM a NON-Smoker!!!Well, whatever, never mind!

That’s it folks! Three weeks gone in 60 seconds. Met very nice (and beautiful) people, saw cool bands and all this in Argentina – Brazil and NY. But what about all these tattoos, lads?We just pray to God that this wasn’t the last time......cya next time on the road!!!!!!!!!!

Thanx to:All those we forgot to mention, sorry!!
Nico, Sabrina, Flaco, Pirulo, Vlad &his Crew, Kendra, Mike, Jens, Josh, Mrs Petersen, Nr2 & Nr3, Cathrin Muenger, Christoph, Guitar Wolf, Historia del Crimen, Buffalo Billys, Kings of Nuthin, The Tandoories, Thee Butchers Orch., Zorros Petardos, The Honkers, Chernobillys, Evil Devil, Gutter Demons, The Defectors, Monkey Buttlers, Brimstones, Devil Spades, Lonesome Kings, Tombstone Brawlers, Plano Z, Hal9000, Dezakato, Memphis Mortitians, The Mummy, Zombie, Andrea, Ana&Edu, Max, Bufunfa, Claudia, Tom&Heidi, Delfor Medina

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