July 25, 2003. Vysočany, Prague

Back at Motoraj (see July 10 entry). We just can’t seem to stay away...which is fine with me, because it’s a fun place to play.

Or, rather, would have been, had the cops not decided to pull the plug on us midway through our third song (“Sex”, for those who want to know). We were playing, and some guy from the club approached the stage, telling something to Barry. Which was thoughtful of him but; a) none of us could hear him, as we were a loud rock and roll band in the middle of a song and b) there wasn’t too much we could have done about whatever he was talking about anyway, for the reason mentioned previously. But, as relatives always say after handing out bad Christmas gifts, it’s the thought that counts after all.

Had we been able to hear through the noise and effectively decipher his Czech, we probably would’ve been able to catch at least “neighbors,” “police” and “stop playing.” We didn’t, so they took the initiative and yanked the power – unfortunately, just at the beginning of the crowd-pleasing instrumental build-up of the song. Damn.

But that’s rock and roll. At some point, the neighbors are going to get irate, they’re going to call the cops, the music’s going to be cut off...blah blah blah. It happens, what can you do?

Somehow, we ended up headlining, on top of three rockabilly bands including the one that hooked us up with this gig, Green Monster. They played a short set at the beginning, promising the crowd that they’d be back (the plan, I guess, was for them to play a grand finale after our set). It didn’t work out that way, thanks to the neighbors and the cops.

The other hitch was our equipment. Not only did we spend the better part of an hour setting it up and breaking it down afterwards – to play a grand total of two and a half songs – but due to a misunderstanding with Green Monster, we couldn’t transport it home to the studio. Instead, we had to cart all the stuff inside afterwards and keep it there for the rest of the weekend, praying all the while that it wouldn’t get ripped off. God or Buddha or Krishna or Jah Rastafari or whoever it is up in the sky answered our prayers, for the most part, but a camera got swiped from Barry’s briefcase. That was unpleasant, but at least they didn’t grab the amp cabinets or the mixing board. That would have caused us a lot of problems.