Get Your Kicks at the It's

Enschede is a small city close to the German border. Whenever we tell a Dutch person we're playing a show in Enschede, their reaction has become predictable and usually sounds like: "Ugh, why are you going there?"

Granted, busking in the centre has proved to yield normal looking people giving us petrified stares and little coin;
But the flavour of the city probably comes from AKI, a free-structured art school full of charismatic students. Stephen studied there, using the facilities to make albums and movies.

We've had some great shows in Enschede, playing at the AKI festival, at Attack (btw, Ween played there too!) and at the OFFMESS, an enormous squat outside the city that Stephen used to live in.

Some Dutch squats are amazing works of art and I wish Canadian laws would allow squatters to take over unused buildings.

The It's is one of these amazing squats. We stayed in it last year, and this tour we got to play at two of their parties. The inside of the squat holds galleries and studio space and is covered in creative decor made from trash and found objects. The party room has cushioned islands, a skate-park, black-lit structures and murals on the walls.

Unfortunately, Dutch laws are threatening to become more conservative, and squatters rights are being reconsidered. People living in the It's were recently informed by firemen the building is hazardous and that if there were a fire, no firemen would risk their life to save anyone in the building. They were also informed that the hospital down the street actually owns the land the It's is built on, and everyone has to leave in August. So, after squatting and re-modeling the building for five years, It's almost time to go.

Daniel (a sweet-ass dj, who spent yesterday showing us the awesomeness of Ableton Live, and is gonna remix some of our songs) decided to throw a huge party and invited us to perform.

The party was circus themed, we performed to hundreds of drunken clown-faces, and had a crazy time. Beanhead gave me an orange boa, and Maddy lent me a roaring shirt, so I got to dress up as a lion. (I ended up getting whipped by someone dressed up as a lion-tamer, but it was worth it.) We saw Hanan, and got to show her the t-shirts we designed with her drawing . Colourful balloons with laughing gas were passed around for a little while and George, a teacher from the AKI who must be in his 60's or 70's managed to stay up longer than I did.

We stayed in Enschede for a few days before going to Amsterdam to busk and hang out with Haruka and her room-mates, who share Stephen's love for bitteballens and good music.

Then we headed to Rotterdam to visit RRRRRRon and Gizmo and get some music files from him so we can re-work the music tracks while we're on the road. He drove us to Tiel and was our sound-man for the night as we played to an unimpressed crowd. One person did the Trikey, and we ended up partying with him.

The It's was throwing an outdoor, kid-friendly festival the next day, and we were invited to perform. Kids were painting, making t-shirts and playing soccer. Jaap and Jelle walked around on stilts and painted the brick wall behind us while we performed. We played three sets (Stephen doesn't quite remember the third set, cause the beers flowed like rain). Press came and gave the It's a sweet article.

Now I'm on the bus to Berlin. (All potential drivers fell through, and I'm carrying all our t-shirts in an enormous back-pack Jaap gave me. My shoulders are threatening to become body-builder-sized.) Stephen is tweaking our live recordings to make a live cd with some recording Beanhead made. We're in a traffic jam. I'm drinking coffee. Stephen is singing. The bus-driver got mad at us. He has a red face and a big belly. He almost threw us out of the bus. It was scary. But we're safe now. I hope these short sentences aren't annoying. I'll stop. Now. Bye. (Stephen is a butt-rack).