Bobbo Byrnes

Hey everybody,

Just checking in. I've been hibernating a little bit for the past month. Well, not entirely - I did have that show at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles a couple of nights ago. It was a full on Hollyweird night too with Eric “they took my thumb” Roberts and Dean “Chainsaw from Summer School” Cameron in the audience as well as some other Hollywood actors. I mean, that's cool enough right there!

I'm coming out of my end of year perenial funk and booking stuff. USA Tour happening in April/May and heading back to Europe in September/October again. Oh and I'm making a documentary. I may have told you that already. 

Better update coming soon.

xo

Always lots going on here but I'm about to shut down for about two weeks of holiday type things. 

Before that happens though - here's what's what:

Tuesday, Dec 12, 2023
Instagram Live (here) with Miracle Laurie
10 am PST

Tuesday, Dec 12, 2023
TwoFer Tuesday at Kulak's Woodshed
North Hollywood, CA 

Thursday, Jan 4, 2024
Anaheim Public Library
Featured Speaker/performer
5:30 pm

Friday, Jan 5, 2024
The Hotel Cafe
Lost Angeles, CA 

xo
~Bobbo

Not a lot going on here show-wise. I tend to slow down towards the end of the year as everyone gets consumed by the holidays. That said I do have like 3-5 shows booked between now and the end of the year. One of those is this Saturday, October 21 at The Harp Inn, in Costa Mesa. Our buddy Ace from the band Coyote Moon has been doing these monthly songwriter shows and we'll be going on last, which I know sounds late but not this time. The show goes from 3-6 pm and we're on around 5 pm. Time enough to get a bite, a cold drink and very nearly be home before the streetlights come on. 

Saturday, Oct 21
The Harp Inn
17th St. Costa Mesa, CA
w/ John Surge, Mike Malone, Allendale Road and Coyote Moon. 

Tracy will be joining me and singing and playing as will our buddy and my guitar hero, Danny Ott.  

And if you've been following along, I've got all my albums back up on the streaming sites. It was very much a “Taylor's Version” type of thing. Over the summer I got all my master recordings back from the label that I was on and I am the owner once again of not just my solo work but of The Fallen Stars and Riddle & The Stars albums. So if you go streaming now, or buying online - the dough is actually coming to me (or us in some cases). I don't have a team of folks working on this, it took me quite a while to get all of it up there and working properly but man did it feel good when it was done!

In other news, a music library has reached out to me for a couple of songs that they think might work in some tv/movie placements and even though the deal is “non-exclusive” it's still hard putting the pen to paper again!

My album “October”* has now been out for just over 10 months and still getting good press and radio play around the globe: 
At the Barrier - UK based site
Lonesome Highway - Ireland based site
Folker World - Germany based site
American Songwriter - U.S.A. based magazine
Rocking Magpie Radio and review - based in U.K.

Last weekend I spent at the Far West / Folk Alliance music festival. I played a few times in some of the showcase rooms and had an amazing time hearing great new music and meeting up with friends I didn't even realize were going to be there. My next music biz thing will be the TAXI conference in L.A. and then hopefully getting to Durango Songwriters Expo in February. 

The past two days I've spent writing and editing the book I'm planning on releasing and then next week I start applying to festivals overseas and booking tours for 2024. 

I've been pretty active keeping up the “Bobbo Society for the Arts and Letters” blog page on the website - with tour diaries and all that. 

I think that's it. 

Oh wait! I've also written a dozen new songs that Tracy, Matt and I have been working on in the studio. It's been a few years since the last Fallen Stars release so the next album is going to fly under that moniker. Since we don't have a lot of shows booked in November/December - hopefully we can make some good headway on getting it recorded. 

Today's free song is an instrumental that very few people have heard. It's only on the vinyl release of October and it's not even listed on the album. It's a song I called Granby Row as that's where I was when I recorded it. Click here if you want to see the exact place I recorded it - 14 Granby Row, Dublin.

That's it for now. 

xo
--
~Bobbo
BobboByrnes.com
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*I now realize that I should've named the album “Two Days in October” as that's how it was recorded and is a much better name!

I released a new album this year called "October". It is not up for Grammy consideration. I don't know how those things happen. 

"October" was fully and independently released by me. I'm no longer on any record label. I was packing up and mailing out promo copies all over the world to press and radio. There were folks that helped me along the way like Tracy supporting everything I do. When I booked the studio time at Hansa in Berlin, my Mom paid for that studio time, she said it was a birthday present but really it was more than that. I have Patreon's that keep me going and co-writers and all the folks that let me sleep in their spare rooms and couches across the world. And PR in Europe with Peter Holmstedt. 

There's so much timing involved. Right before the pandemic I had 20 or so contracts for placing music in different tv shows and productions and then all of them shut down. I'm not egocentric enough to think that I'm the only one that this happened to - I know it happened to tons of folks working in the industry, my point is that something always feels just around the corner and then it's just...not.

Would I like a Grammy? Of course. Would I like a Grammy nomination? Yeah, that sounds great but I don't see it happening.
A lot of my favorite music never won any Grammy awards. The best thing one can say about the Grammys and being nominated and all that is that there is a sort of validation that goes with it. Many people will listen to music based on what wins and that's good. What's weird is how so many people need something, some piece of art to be validated by awards before they will check it out or agree that it is good. It's been proven time and again that most people do not trust their own tastes until someone else validates them.

When the song "Falling Slowly" from the movie 'Once' won best song at the Oscars in 2008 it felt amazing to watch a journeyman performer, songwriter, street busker Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová take that statue home. It opened up a new world for them. But anyone with two ears could tell that song was an incredible piece of songwriting and deserved to be a hit when it was released in 2006. Glen was 38 years old when this success hit for him, a has-been by most music biz standards.

What's my point? I don't know. It's just hard to be in the music business and try to keep your head up. I've had a good run this past year with "October", it's gotten great reviews from American Songwriter to The Alternate Root to the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy and radio play across the world. But I can't compete with big budgets. All I have are my songs. 

The brilliance of the time we live in is that it is a level playing field for musicians. We can all release music to the world. My "competition" is no longer just local musicians, my competition for ears, streams and likes is U2, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Is it the difference between equality and equity? I don't know but I don't for one second begrudge anyone else their success. 

No one is owed a career in the arts. No one is owed monetary success. I'm certainly not owed anything. 

I also know that I'm at a level of musician that many aspire to. When it's where you are though, all you can see is the next level above where you are. 

Recently I saw someone read from their poetry book, it was from the third volume of poems he had published about Halloween. This dude figured out what he loved and he honed in on it. There was that moment at first of "he wrote three volumes of poetry about Halloween????" But that slowly turned into "He wrote three volumes of poetry about Halloween!!!" There is a niche out there and an audience for just about everything and that's what is absolutely beautiful about art in the modern world right now. 

Currently I'm trying to find my next level.

Well first off, thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday yesterday. With all the challenges that social media brings - that is truly one of the most beautiful - being wished a happy birthday from all over the world, new friends and old. Thank you.
 
Today is the one year anniversary of me recording half of my new album "October" in Berlin. With that in mind, I invite you to scroll on over to www.BobboByrnes.com and you can download any of my albums there for whatever amount you want. Zero dollars? Sure. A hundred dollars? Sure. Anywhere in between? Of course. But know that free is also an option on the downloads. 

Today is also BandCamp Free Fee Friday - so if you prefer to use Bandcamp ( https://bobbobyrnes.bandcamp.com/ ) for your downloading - my stuff is there for the listening and/or purchasing.

If you're into streaming - I got most of my albums back up on the streaming sites this past week.  I'm real excited about this as it means all those fractions of pennies are actually coming to me now and not sharing with a label any longer. 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3YecRNzcRYaMhGBrzwdRfV
iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/bobbo-byrnes/1052098454
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BobboByrnes

Now I have a couple of wildly different things going on in the next few weeks. 

1) I've been nominated for "Best of the Net 2023" with my poem "favorite photograph" in the Anaheim Poetry Review. I don't know a lot about this one or where to direct you but it's super cool. Thank you to the Anaheim Poet Laureate Wendy Van Camp for nominating me.

2) Next Friday, October 13, I am heading to the Far West Conference in Woodland Hills, CA and have two performance slots happening. This, too, is new to me and I'm really excited to be a part of. It's one of the largest songwriting things in the country and I feel honored to be a part of. 

3) Sunday, October 15, I am hosting a backyard songwriter event here at our house in Anaheim. If you'd like to come to that, please shoot me an email and I will fill you in on the details. But roughly running from 4-7 pm. Ideally, you could bring your own chair and some food or beverage to share. 4) Tuesday, October 17, I'm one of the featured performers of Writers Round OC at Gunwhale Ale in Costa Mesa. A great night of songwriting from the local area. Starts at 7 pm. 

5) Saturday, October 21,  I'm one of the featured performers of The Coyote Moon Presents SoCal Songwriter Showcase at the Harp Inn, Costa Mesa from 3-6 pm. This show may feature more than just me but I don't want to give it away just yet.

Looking further out - I'll be at Bogart's in Seal Beach, Sat, Nov 11. LosCon in Los Angeles on Sun, Nov 26 (Firefly Show!), Kulak's in North Hollywood on Tuesday, Dec 12, The Nightowl in Fullerton on Sat, Dec 16 and finally Thurs, Jan 4, 2024 I will be the speaker/performer at the Anaheim Library Open Mic. 

This is probably the nicest bar I’ve ever slept in. 

By the time I wake up, Nathaniel has already been here, received deliveries and checked in on me. Breakfast is happening at 10 amand he has made Rare Tea Co’s Speedy Breakfast for me. 

As we east breakfast Nathaniel tells me about things in the pub and how some of the beams actually come from some other building and were repurposed for the Shakespeare Pub - this building dates back to 1730. That’s pretty cool. 

I pack up my bags, backpack on front and back and guitar and walk about 50 yards/meters to the city center and wait for my bus to Dortmund. I know this was only two days ago but already I have no memory of arriving in Dortmund other than walking out of the train station, crossing the street, climbing some stairs and going into another hotel room.

Touring is hard. 

It doesn’t matter if you are driving, taking busses and trains or planes. There is a feeling of constant movement and always having to be “on” that really drains you. I’ve been doing this for a good chunk of my life and I’m still not sure the best way to do it. I think in terms of touring a lot. And what I mean by that is I’m always trying to reduce my footprint. Carry fewer things, have equipment that can double for other things because I saw the economical side of traveling with less stuff. Someone like The Edge travels with 40 guitars on tour and his pedalboard and amps are so famous that even his guitar tech is famous - his name is Dallas. 

I still wish I had achieved a larger status than where I am. The idea of not carrying all my own stuff or stepping on a plane and my stuff being brought to whatever venue I’m playing next - that still sounds nice. But my DIY aesthetic will always kick in.  That said, I know so many other, more talented, folks that will never do what I’m doing now and so a certain gratitude sets in as I’m currently, at this moment, sitting in a hotel restaurant in Frankfurt, Germany drinking red wine and typing away. 

But still, the tour is over and one cannot help reflecting on the past month. 

———
My last show is at Wohnzimmer im Piepenstock in Dortmund. I’ve played this venue a few times and even a few times when it was in a different location. Marco runs the place and he’s a musician and actor here in Dortmund and quite a character. He’s big and bold and everyone loves him. 

From downtown I couldn’t figure out a bus to the Wohnzimmer so I opted for a taxi and I have a great a conversation with this driver who has moved to Germany from Tajikistan. Admits the U.S. is better with Biden but to most of his world sees no difference between him and Trump. “It’s all the same to us.” Which is telling and disheartening but I get it. He drops me off in front of the Wohnzimmer and I’m early, a few hours early. Marco won’t be here for another 90 minutes and I don’t go on for a couple of hours but I don’t have anywhere else to go or to be. I have everything on my back so I’m not about to start wandering around, shit gets heavy. 

So I sit on the front steps, take out my guitar and start working on some new songs. Across the street from me is a small park. More than anything else it’s just where some locals get together to drink and smoke outside. I can hear them laughing and joking and before long they wander over to where I am. 

I was quite content to just sit by myself but they won’t let me. They are so kind and welcoming. I’m offered a beer, a shot, pot, a smoke… They just want to hear a song. So I play them a song. I’ve just finished the chorus of the first song and the dude is freaking out. He’s pointing to his arm and I can visibly see that all the hair on his arm is standing straight up. “Gänsehaut.” Is what she says and points to her arm too. Goosebumps. 

They pick up my bags and make me come across the street to where their friends are and I’m hesitatingly following. I’m not a fan of folks grabbing my stuff and even well meaning…I’m skittish about such things. But they are all super nice, friendly and open and just want to share with their friends what I just did. It’s absolutely amazing. I play a couple of songs for them, one of them takes video and asks if it’s ok to put it on TikTok. We take pictures and it’s truly very pure, sweet and wholly unexpectedly beautiful. 

Marco arrives and I say goodbye to my new friends and cross back over to the Wohnzimmer and set up for tonight. 

Now the Wohnzimmer Live in Piepenstock is a music venue only. It’s got a bar, a stage and a Soundsystem. Sometimes plays get put on here. There’s a back line of amps if you need them and a piano on stage that if I had my stuff with me, I would’ve tuned. 

Soundcheck takes a minute and a half and it’s probably the some of the best live sound ever. Marco is an attentive soundman and adjusts reverb levels during the songs and I can hear him adding bits here and there as part of the performance. It’s nice. 

And then it’s time to wait for showtime. I take out my pillow, find a spot on one of the benches and lay down and fall asleep for about 30 minutes. 

Folks start filing in and I’m told that it’s going to be a thin night as there is a Football match here in the city as well as it being a museum night which I think means that the museum is free tonight and lots of folks going to that. It’s alright, I’ve learned that you play to the folks that are here and not the folks that aren’t. 

The first set is alright. I’m trying to read the room and it’s all folks sitting and listening. I test the waters with a bigger song, more aggressive strumming and they react positively. So when the second set starts I really turn it on and they react in kind. We hit a few nice high moments together and when I end, they won’t let me. Zugabe! I play a few more and call it a night. 

Thank you Dortmund. It’s been beautiful. 

Back at Marco’s, his wife Ingrid has made up a bed for me to sleep in. I sleep quickly and wake at 8 am with Marco asking me if I want breakfast. They have made me toast, tea and eggs. 

I am a lucky man.

xo
~Bobbo
 

I have played the Shakespeare Pub here in Herdecke (pronounced Head-aka) a couple of times before. One time with Riddle & The Stars when it was so hot, no one wanted to go inside for music so we just played busking style out in front of the pub. Then the next time I was there I couldn’t figure out why I had no memory of playing inside until someone reminded me of the outside playing the last time.

You see, there’s lots of gigs and it’s damn near impossible to remember everything from every gig. I’ve been going over some of my older tour diaries because I have an idea for a book and reading things I have written and experienced and have no memory of it nearly all the way through the reading. It’s my life but sometimes I’m watching the show too.

But last year when I played here I sat down after an incredibly long train trip where the trains were all canceled across Germany because of a terrorist attack and I had to figure out a way here* and when I walked up Nathaniel asked me if I’d like a cup of tea and he made me a cup of Rare Tea Company’s “Speedy Breakfast”** and that became my favorite tea ever.

Anyway.

Today, I get dropped off by the bus and walk the half mile here, mostly downhill even, drop my stuff and walk around the corner to an Italian restaurant and get some spaghetti and a glass of wine*** and I enjoy it as the skies open up and rain pours down. I eat and watch the rain from under a large umbrella outside. I’m the only patron not eating inside the restaurant and it’s so incredibly calming to me.

Back at the Shakespeare Pub my new musician friend from last year has been texting me and I’m chatting with Philipp. He’s an aspiring musician from Germany that taught himself to speak great English by watching Friends re-runs, loves country music, is wearing cowboy boots and is just a super nice guy. He texts me on WhatsApp every other month or so and he’s been really digging the new October album.

As I’m setting up, a dude in a Riddle & The Stars shirt walks in with about 6 friends and takes there place right next to where I’m performing. That feeling, of being somewhere remote or far away and wearing your shirt - it’s truly indescribable. Like, sometimes you look at a room full of folks you don’t know and it feels like starting from scratch but when there’s someone, even one person in the room that is already a fan - it feels like starting on third base.****

And then Alina Sebastian, Niklas Herzog, Jonas Vallan, and David Tarakona all show up. They are a band here locally from Osnabrück, Niklas has played drums with me and they have just put out a new album and she’s brought me a copy and I’m excited to hear it. I feel a connection to it already just by looking at the photos inside as they were visiting the US and borrowed my guitar for some pics - so my guitar is in their cd pics!  Woo-Hoo!

As I start off I feel like the little engine that couldn’t. I’m struggling. The table to my left is loud even though most of the rest of the place is listening - they’re oblivious. And when I say to my left - they are like one meter*****away. And it’s distracting me because I haven’t really had to deal with this much. At one point I’m playing a guitar solo and they get super loud during it and I just thrash away at the strings for a second to drown them out in volume. And it does work briefly to quiet them.

Then I’m able to center myself. Don’t play to the fuckers who aren’t here to hear you. Play to the ones that are. And I look to my right and see them all watching me and listening. I make eye contact with Alina and she’s digging it. Phillip is at the bar just staring at me. And I find it.

It’s amazing that after all this time that there’s still a struggle at some gigs to find yourself but the internal dialogue and the external indifference meet up in weird ways to distract the brain.

Oh and I only slept for less than three hours last night so I cut myself a little slack.

Then it was just on. I rocked, played loud songs, quiet songs and everything in between until I started going hoarse. Told some stories too. There is a physical difficulty of performing somewhere where folks are talking as you have to sing over them and you end up pushing your voice and I had to do that in the first set and I can feel my voice is getting tired.

I announce last song and then get two encores.

The second set of last night’s show was probably one of my best overall performances I’ve done in recent memory. I’m not saying it was technically perfect. I’m saying it was a great performance. I connected differently and floated. As I sang, I could hear Tracy’s voice singing her parts. I could hear Matt’s rhythm driving the song. And yet I was all by myself.

I miss my band. I miss my wife. One more show. It’s time to go home.******

There’s a woman that was here last year and she comes and buys a cd, I can’t remember how to pronounce her name but she is super nice and gifts me some chocolate after buying a cd. I only put out about 8 cds tonight as I wasn’t expecting a rush but they all sell and I have to run upstairs and get more.

I say my goodbyes and go upstairs and fall asleep. It’s not even midnight and I sleep for nearly 9 hours.

See you in Dortmund.

xo
~Bobbo.

*This is totally different from today’s long travel day here where I was just booked 450 miles away and had to take 11 hours worth of taxis, trains and buses. 
**This is NOT a paid promotion.
***Because the last time I was here Nathaniel didn’t have food and he bought me a pizza and I wasn’t up for pizza today BUT I’m an idiot because he does have food now and blerg… whatever. It was a good glass of wine. 
****Sorry to European readers for the baseball analogy. If you’re in the UK or Australia, it’s like starting with 2 wickets already knocked down. Germany, it’s like having Thomas Muller taking your penalty kicks. 
*****About 39” away or just more than a yard. 
******Don’t read anything into the band missed being before my wife. I wrote it both ways and felt it flowed better in this order. You say them the other way and tell me I’m wrong.

It’s a short walk from the flat to the bus stop to take the 1A into town and then it’s just 17 stops, get off and walk about 500 feet and I’m at the venue for tonight.

I don’t really have a frame of reference or other venue to compare Tjili Pop to.* It’s a small multi level bar. It’s two steps in off the street and then the main room with tables on the left and right with some bench seats on the left and chairs on the right. Further to the right is a narrow dedicated stage area, hanging PA speakers, mixing board all packed in tight. If you walk straight in from the front door you would walk up a couple more steps to the bar and from there you can weave your way either left or right to other adjacent rooms all designed for maximum leisure and hanging out conversing.

It’s really quite unique. The decorations are eclectic as well with a pair of old broken guitars adorning the wall above the stage. There’s a feel of hipster here but more like this place was like this before hipster culture would have appropriated this aesthetic and thus, at some point this place will be out of style with hipsters. Kind of like how wearing a flannel and ripped jeans in 1990 was just what you wore and then it was “Grunge fashion” in 1993 and then in 1999 when you were still wearing flannels and ripped jeans you were not cool again. Kind of like that.

Jacob greets me when I come in and again tonight I am the feature of an open mic. There’s a couple of familiar faces from the show the other night so that’s cool. We do a quick line check, I’m not using any pedals tonight. Keeping it simple.

I’m checking out these bottles of light soda, they are small bottles with fruit on the label, lime, peach, lemon, orange and this guy next to me just starts explaining all the different flavors and which ones he likes and which are good as mixers. I try to pick the orange one but get the peach one instead. They taste kind of like a carbonated version of those frozen treats that came in the long plastic skinny sleeves when we were kids.

There’s a good crowd here and Jacob does a couple of songs to start off the night and I’m paying attention to the chords of his first song and I’m normally pretty adept to just like following along but this song is skipping all the familiar progressions that I’m used to hearing. And I mention this just as an aside of like what music is like here. My ear is being pulled in a different direction from what I’m used to hearing and it’s really refreshing.

I play after him and I launch into it. Folks are digging me and it’s going well. I’m feeling uncomfortable with the sound as the speakers are in front of me and I’m just not feeling it. It sounds great out front but from where I’m standing, it’s a bit unfocused and a lot of this is likely just ME. I’ve been conserving energy all day for tonight and I still feel like I need about an 18 hour nap.

So with a couple of songs left, I unplug. I ask the folks if they’re ok with this and they are into it. I move the mic out of the way and walk down to be in with them in the room and just casually step on a chair and up onto the table in the middle of the room.

Ah, that’s so much better. No PA, just natural room sound. Also I have to really compliment this table as it is really solid and not wobbly at all. As soon as I’m up on the table I see a bunch of phones come out and video and pics being shot. I have to say that I wasn’t getting up on the table as spectacle, it just looked like the best place in the room to sing and strum and I was right.

From there I go around and talk to most everyone in the room and the next act sets up, a dude playing accordion and going from everything from Tom Petty’s “free falling” to the theme from MASH “suicide is painless” and the range is incredible. The rest of the night is just being amazed at all the talent that I just performed for. Roxy shows up after my set and we have a good hang. She asks me if I would be up for backing her up if she sings a couple of songs. Sure, of course. What do you want to play? She says she knows most songs and that’s just an absurd statement but the first two that I suggest she is like “I know those.” And we get up and do completely un-rehearsed, never before performed together versions of “Dreams” and “Tainted Love” and they go over great too. I talk with two sisters for a while, one sister performed and the other is an artist. They moved to Copenhagen from a small village in norther Italy and I love learning about how one sister got into pen and ink dot style art and the other became a singer songwriter. I compliment her chord changes too - as listening she seamlessly went from your regular chords to interesting jazz inversions while never sounding cliche or pretentious.** They just flowed naturally. I talk with another dude that has a great baritone voice and delivery (and plays in drop C tuning) and he asks me about getting nervous before performing and anxiety and all that. When he takes the stage you would never guess that he is nervous but when he sits back down his hands are still shaking. He’s trying to get to the place where he isn’t nervous anymore and that’s just great that he’s working through it.

I chat with some other folks and this was a great first time performing in Copenhagen as I’m encouraged about my next trip here as I’m given leads for and someone wanting to book me shows here as well.  I can’t get over how welcoming everyone has been to me.

Saying my goodbyes, we all promise to meet up next time and i walk the 500 feet back to the bus stop and take the 1A back to the flat and a bit of a re-pack of bags so I can travel with them again and before I know it, it’s closing in on 3 am. The 5:30 alarm is gonna sting.

———
Roxy is meeting me at the central station for a handoff of the apartment keys and she brought a friend for me to meet - her bearded dragon. Yes, she brought a lizard to the train station. I have never patted a lizard before and I kind of can’t believe that I’m doing it at 7 am in Copenhagen’s central station. Roxy is super sweet and she has gifted me a small present for me and Tracy. I give her a hug and say goodbye and board the first of my trains today.

As I sit down a woman with more bags and a much bigger backpack than me sits down next to me and that’s how I first meet Tessa from Netherlands who has been everywhere. Already 6 of the 7 continents and she’s on her way to someplace she’s never been ~ Osnabrück and weirdly, I have been there. We have a fantastic conversation. Beyond explaining things like the country of Suriname and the dish “Surinamese roti met kip” which sounds amazing. Her husband used to work for Amazon, she just got a job as a travel agent (I didn’t know that was still a thing but she’s going to be amazing at it) and how her grandfather was in a Japanese concentration camp after the end of WW2 and wrote a book about it.

I had been planning on sleeping on this part of the trip but before I know it we are rolling into Hamburg.

Tessa and I elbow bump goodbye and I go to my next train, Hamburg to Dortmund and other than a bit of last minute changing of gate, all is easy. From Dortmund, I walk outside, wait about 5 minutes for the RB52 bus to Herdecke and once I get to Herdecke, the bus drops me off a little less than half a mile from the Shakespeare Pubs and I just hoof it the rest of the way.

By the time I get to the Pub, I have been traveling for a little over 11 hours across two countries and about 450 miles. I drop off my bags upstairs in the band room**** The last time I was here, Nathaniel the owner of Shakespeare Pub, didn’t have food. Or maybe he had food but he still went down the street and got me a pizza. So I have it in my misshapen head that he doesn’t have food and I walk down to the city center, find a spot under an umbrella and order some spaghetti and a glass of merlot.

Just as my food is served, the skies open up and it is raining buckets. I am dry under these umbrellas and I actually really enjoy eating outside in the rain. I take a short video. And I sit there and finish my meal and just chill out for a bit before walking back to the pub.

The Shakespeare Pub has a PA system, it’s a couple of speakers on sticks, a small PA, mic stands and cables and it is an easy set up. I’m shocked by the graphic eq settings as I really hope no one was playing with those settings. (Everything from 1K and up is maxed out, if you don’t understand that, just imagine all the high end cutting through your ear drums. ). I dial in a good sound in about 30 seconds and I’m ready to go.

the night started slow but just kept picking up steam but now I must sleep and tell you about a truly fantastic show that is so fresh, my ears are still ringing from it.  Part 2 tomorrow.

xo
~Bobbo

*Oh and I found out the history of Literaturhaus where I played the other night and how at one point it was, and I’m going to get some of this wrong but, it was a church that was purchased by a couple who turned it into some kind of “sexual church”? Where parties would be held and…really, my brain kind of couldn’t comprehend anymore.
**Yes, chords can sound pretentious. And me stating that a chord is pretentious is bordering on me being the arbiter of cool and what’s acceptable and I don’t care. It happens, it’s a thing.
****The band room used to just have a comfy couch to sleep on but now there’s two single beds up here, a bathroom, a big screen tv and so many books.