sibot tour diary

28th April Geneva

Every tour has its low points and sadly sweet Geneva let us down big time. My first Geneva experience was last easter when Spoek an I flew in just for festival Electron over easter and had an incredible gig and too much fun, Mujava didn’t rock up and so me and this Baltimore DJ stole his slot….twasepic. It left such a good taste in my mouth that I must say this was probably the gig I was looking forward to the most……… How wrong I was.

Hi guys you’re gonna be playing eating and sleeping in a squat……what’s that !!!!!!

It was something outta mad max, a restaurant filled with neo cyber punks, every surface of this building covered in stickers and a slight smell of urine through the post apocalyptic café.

Don’t get me wrong it’s quite an incredible venue on the river and our host was awesome but the gig sucked so HARD. I think there were about 8 people there …..NICE. To add to it I had to share a room with 4 guys and one decided to share his bed ……

Funny thing is the 8 people there managed to buy all the vinyl and cd’s we had.

29th Lyon

Meet the leonizer team [click]…. This is our new record label that released the Bubble and Freeze EP [CLICK]. We toured and played with Audrey catz (ex comedian, rocking that 90’s sarcasm..hahaha… she got some laughs . . I think) Leonard and Stern.

Sturn just dropped an EP on Leonizer [click].

Lyon was pretty cool, we played in a boat and Spoek puked in the cab ….Usual tour stuff.

We did get some sweet head phones thanks too WESC.

I gave spoek the double bed and this is how he uses it …..batty man.

30th April Paris

So Thursday Friday and Saturday are all Leonizer release parties and we always knew Paris would win……… It did.

We played at Nouveau Casino at about 3 in the morning and it was sweet…..

1st Berlin Nazi day

Sibot :: Here come the cops! from dont party on Vimeo.

1st of may in Berlin is kind of a big deal, it’s the day all the fuck head Nazi’s get out in the street and burn dustbins throw shit at cops and wreck cars, it’s also the day the anti fascists come out and kick the fuck head Nazis in the teeth.

Arriving in Berlin wasn’t easy, we kept dodging groups of people and most of the roads were closed …..Spoek was scared.

We played at an illegal club in Berlin called the the villa, Sweat X have played there a couple times … except for the limited sound system it’s a pretty sweet club. They have the coolest dance floor by the toilets …. It’s a pole in a small place with a tiny disco ball and a lil whole with a DJ in it, you can only fit 3 people on the floor and they only play top 10 hits from 90 – 99 ….so coooool. I want one in Assembly.

We played with a lesbian electro group …what lesbians and electro !!!!! …… FRESH!

… They sucked by the way

After the gig we missioned to Burgheim. It’s the mega club of Germany, maybe even Europe ….. It was 6:30 in the morning and we stood in a Q for 1 and a half hours waiting to get in……and the whole time you don’t even know if you are. The funniest thing was watching these 2 girls get to the front and the bouncer was like ….mmmmmmm….. nah. The walk of shame passed the Q ..hahahaha. So we get in …strictly no camera policy but wow ….epic. The cloak room is bigger than the Pep store off Adderly street and they have an ice cream parlour on the top floor and probly the BEST sound system I’ve ever heard …. Custom built and arranged function 1 system …… so loud.
After hanging a couple days in Berlin. Look at this hot dog guy, we head to Rotterdam.

6th May Rotterdam

Now this is where I need to have a lil bitch about a certain type of youth in Europe …. What the fuck is up with this ‘I’m owed something for free, fuck the government and money and the police and washing bullshit’????

So we arrive in Rotterdam to this incredible building on the river that cars can drive through…… yip another fucking squat !!!!!!

So the story goes that some American made a lot of money through exploitation and general shadiness and built this building but had to run back to America where he died. SO the punks in the 80’s stole the building cos it belonged to a dodgy American and have lived there ever since. So about 30 people still live there and pay very lil rent and have their own club down stairs.

They recently lost a court case to a young entrepreneur who just bought the place but on appeal the poor guy lost and has to leave these ‘gimme shit for free’ freeloaders in his building.

So we play our gig …was ok people dug it and I had fun so that’s cool … but here’s where the party reaches and epic high ….. So we’re like fuck staying here lets get the money and run…… now this experience genuinely made me question what I do. We waited for 45 minutes for the cash when one of the squatter’s started tryna cut deals … fuck that Spoek says … you have a bank card? Let’s go to the ATM……So we escort these guys to the ATM to get payed …awesome. When we get to the ATM there’s a problem and the one fucks off on a bike and we’re stuck in the cold waiting to get payed ….eventually he returns 1 hour later to pay us in 10 euro notes and coins ….a shit load of coins….. fucking coins! Note to self and agent …..No squats please……the 2 worst gigs on the tour were both squats.

Something sweet came outta Rotterdam though, we saw a Karaoke taxi drive past !!!! like one of those yellow American school busses but as big as a combi on failing to flag that down a limo taxi pulled up, one with 3 rows of seats ….was super sweet.

7th May Zürich

10 hours of travel …note to agent…..thanks.

After Switzerland letting me down so bad I had a shitty feeling about going back but how wrong I was.

The team in Zurich is called Motherland cos 2 of the girls come from Ivory coast and they love Africa. Their concept is so strong. They have a country called TAM TAM so when you arrive at the gig you have boarder control sign telling you your leaving Switzerland and so you have to go to immagration and sign to be a citizen and choose your name and job.

They have a president and a super charismatic boarder officer who announces the new citizens.

On top of that fun, the club we played in has the best back stage ever.

Look at their music VHS and DVD collection…

Spoek and I spent most the night watching old school rap and prince videos…….so good.

Even though we”ve had bigger and maybe crazier gigs … this was the best on the tour ….Spoek and I were ON. We recorded this gig and want to to put it up here.

8th May Sierre

Took a train threw the country side to find places that look like that cartoon Heidi…. Really one of the most idyllic places ever. I’m in love.

I was collected by a sweet ass Volvo with leather seats and taken to a small town called Sierre only 14 000 people live there but this town is famous for people partying, even old ones. By now I’m just sighing every couple of minutes like haaaaaaaaa mountains, snow, cottages.

We play our gig in and old abattoir and funny enough they served us traditional tartar which was amazing !!!

Spoek and I met this balloon expert who can make anything outta balloons.

We’re playing the biggest swiss festival in july called paleo [click] and we cut a deal with him to do our stage plan made outta balloons.

SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT.

…Might even shoot a lil vid.

Anyways our playdoe show was super tight with a good amount of in prove … what a great way to end the tour.

My favourite youtube clip of the tour …. I WATCHED IT EVERYDAY ….TO FUNNY.

UNTIL NEXT TIME…  probably Paleo festival Switzerland.

Catch you at A1 bassline

THANKS FOR READING!

$ibot

Entry 2

22^nd April Glasgow “TAPS AFF” DJ gig

Today I headed over to Glasgow, felt like I dodged a bullet with all this volcano queuing going on kinda just slipped passed and headed over.

Customs sweated me as usual and I was the last guy in the terminal, they wanted to deport me for not having a business visa but let me through cos I was honest the whole way and told the same story to the high commissioner……. So keep your facts straight …. They know what you said.

For those of you who don’t know him meet Boom Monk Ben.

When Ben was a wee boy he saved for 9 months to buy this yoda cast from the mould of the original yoda used in the original star wars ….. crazy.

23^{rd April}

Last night was nuts. Scottish people are awesome !!!

On my 3^rd track a couple kids rushed the stage, which lead to more and more kids rushing the stage until I was surrounded by a gang of moshing kids thirsty for my blood or a chooon. The bouncer made me turn off the music so he could regain control of the situation.

Track of the night for me would have go to Haezer for his fucking smashing track Gangster PART 1 … now I checked his soundcloud and there is a track called gangster shit, I’m not talking about that one… but have to say the simpler gangster part 1 is a CHOOOOOOOON. Good on ya haezer.

24^th April RENNE

Tonight its on!!!!! Jahcoozi and Feadz are opening for us …. crazy!!!!

This awesome circuit bending band is playing before us …. They need 52 batteries to run all their gear and they’ll change them at least once during the set.

Undead Toys

25^th April

Feadz is a fuckin hero!!!! Shit he’s an amazing dj full of 3 cdj tricks and such a nice guy.

We were a bit worried about playing after him cos we thought he would totally mash it and then we’d have to play live after him, but it all worked out.

People really dug it !!!!!

Next up we got quite a heavy week  Wednesday in Geneva, Thursday in Lyon, Friday Paris, Saturday Berlin.

Catch up with you after that.

$ibot

FRENCH TOUR DIARY

15^th APRIL. [Colmar @ Grillen]

After an awesome 20 hour flight to Paris Spoek and I headed west through the blossoming country side to colmar on the boarder of Switzerland to play our first show

Thesis Sahib [myspace click]

and B.Dolan [myspace click] (Sage Francis’s label) opened for us.

16^th APRIL [Amsterdam @ Paradiso]

Show was proper last night, bit of a conservative venue but people got LOOSE. I caught Spoek thrusting the monitor after I told him he didn’t get wild enough…haha. He told me he was gonna break his stage diving virginity, didn’t happen then but hopefully somewhere on this tour…

Volcano ash is cancelling flights all over Europe and we need to get to Amsterdam….

Our first gig at paradiso FUCK YEA….

Hopefully Spoek’s gonna get into the crowd tonight.

17^th APRIL [Bourges @ Printemps de Bourges]

Yesterday was fucked, volcano hell made us catch 4 trains to get to Amsterdam, we got in at about 10 .. at least we made it.

Paradiso, what a epic venue, 3 floors and a back stage network under the club that wraps one dance floor. We played with skip and die, birdy nam nam and boem klatsch and got no sleep! Spoek never stage dived and to add to it Volcano has stranded Markus in München and there’s no way for him to get to France, so our trio mash up of Real Estate, Sweat.X and Playdoe is not gonna happen.

Today we head to Le Printemps de Bourges festival where a bunch of South Africans have played including Blk Jks, 340ml, Tumi and Gazelle.

We be heading down will Raiko and Ben Sharpa in our sweet van.

This festival is amazing!

I was stuck in interviews and all I saw of Daniel Johnston was his hard case.

Saw some cool bands there:

Brian Jonestown Massacre

Twin Twin

And Chain and the gang [click] (didn’t get a pic but these guys are awesome !!!!)

These guys Solillaquists of Sound [click] are crazy … well especially DiViNCi he plays 3 mpcs and actually does full drum solos on 2 at the same time with 4 fingers on each hand playing pads !!! He has this guitar solo that destroys live and the guitar is processed from a fucking snare …. OMG this guys is by far the coolest mpc guy out there with Araab MUZIK close in second.

“These guys Solillaquists of Sound are crazy … well especially DiViNCi he plays 3 mpcs and actually does full drum solos on 2 at the same time with 4 fingers on each hand playing pads !!!”

jesus this might be HELL:

Bloody Beetroots

Mr Oizo

18^th April

The show was so hype last night, Spoek did his first stage dive!!!

Sibot Tour Diaries :: Spoek Stage Dive from dont party

But my highlight would have to be when Raiko pushed a pick pocketing 19 year old in the mud …. Whahaha.

If this volcano decides to stop fucking up the world I might make it to Scotland Thursday for Boom Monk Ben’s Thursday regular, watch this…

SIBOT.