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July 7, 2007

Tour Blog: Permanently Banned from Tremorden Castle and Ruisrock

Written by Girth McDürchstein on July 7, 2007 7:22 PM
Permalink |  Splitcock Tour -- Europe & Japan '07  | Digg It

The plane ride was uneventful but excruciatingly long. We made two stops for refueling, one of them in England, so I insisted on visiting Tremorden Castle, the former U.K. headquarters of Kelleystein Recordings and the site where we recorded our 2002 masterpiece, Girth McDürchstein’s ‘The Hedge.’ Unfortunately, the band and label’s recent financial problems forced us to sell the castle to an unattractive Scot who insisted on turning it into a restaurant/medieval theme park.

I was embarrassed to discover the castle is no longer a castle at all—the first thing I noticed as the private limo arrived was an enormous Ferris wheel rising high in the sky behind it. A huge parking garage had been erected at the base of the hill, and as we pulled up toward the castle, a neon sign shrieking MEDIEVAL EMPORIUM OF SWEET TREASURES nearly blinded me.

Could this be the small Cornish castle where I’d spent five months recording a brilliant double album? It was nearly unrecognizable. Margo, who accompanied me on the trip, suggested we go back to the airport, but I demanded to speak with the Scot I’d sold the castle to.

“What do I look like, her secretary?” Margo snapped. She was irritable after the long flight. We’d agree to spend as much time as possible in our private quarters, making love, but that stopped being fun after half an hour. We spent sixteen hours on opposite ends of the plane. I watched a video of Shining Time Station with Little Riffs Nicky, after which we debated who was the better conductor, George Carlin or Ringo Starr (my vote: Carlin). It would have escalated to a fistfight if Carl hadn’t stepped in.

I stomped up to the castle door. A short girl with a perky smile and black curly hair tumbling down past her waist stood at the door with a rubber stamp. “Ya goin’ in er wha’?” she snarled in a Scottish accent.

“I’d like to speak with Ms. Joanna Macfadyen,” I demanded.

“Aunt Jo ain’t here, sir,” she said. “She gone to Dunedin for a month.”

“She ruined my castle!” I screamed.

“Are ya goin’ in er wha’?” the girl repeated.

“I guess so,” I muttered, extending my hand to get stamped.

“Twenty pounds, mate,” she groaned.

I sneered at her, reached into my pocket, and pulled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. I didn’t have any wasteland money, so I stuffed the balled-up bill into her free hand and said, “Keep the change.”

She gave me an odd look and reluctantly stamped my hand. “Enjoy yer stay, Cap’n.”

I stormed past her inside the castle and discovered, to my horror, that this was no ordinary restaurant/medieval theme park. A series of colorful intelligent lights spun and whirled through a thick, artificial fog. A diverse, sweaty crowd pulsed and thrummed to phat hip-hop beats. Several women (possibly men) dressed in black ninja outfits danced in go-go cages suspended from the ceiling, 60 feet above us. In one corner, three men railed a naked, semi-unconscious woman in each orifice, while a fourth snorted lines of cocaine off her exposed belly. In another, two toothless, greasy-faced women cooked up a new batch of crystal meth.

I had never seen a better club in my life, and I wanted to dance! Raising my arms and shaking to the rhythm of the early afternoon, I made my way into the dance floor. I don’t know how long I gyrated and pressed my package up against women half my age. I lost track of time after the first two E’s I downed. It must have been a long time, though, because eventually Margo stormed into the castle, and she looked pissed!

First thing, she breezed right past me, climbed up the strange scaffolding platform the DJ spun on. She dove over his turntable and tackled him to the platform floor. It took a bit of pounding, but when he lost consciousness, Margo—unharmed, with not even a hair out of place—snapped the music off. The patrons continued to dance.

“Girth!” she shouted over the clacking and heavy breathing of the dancers. “What the fuck?”

Margo did a backward-flip off the platform, shoved carelessly through the throng of dancers, and hammered my dance partner in the face with her foot.

“What the fuck?!” Margo repeated to me.

“I was just having a good time,” I said, wiping the mist of blood from my eyes.

“Well, it’s costing you two thousand dollars an hour to keep both the plane and the limo parked, so let’s get the fuck outta here, huh, asshole?”

“What the hell’re ya doon?!” a female voice roared from the second-floor balcony. It was Joanna Macfadyen. I couldn’t say I was surprised she was there all along. When she saw me, Joanna gasped, “Girth?!”

“Awesome club,” I said.

“Ya killed my D.J.”

“He’s probably not dead,” Margo said, rolling her eyes.

“Get th’ hell outta here, both a ya! I don’t want ta see yas ever again.”

I slide my arm around Margo’s waist as we went toward the door.

“You want some LSD?” I asked.

Margo considered. “Yeah, okay.”

The leg of the journey from England to Finland was much more relaxing and interesting, full of rainbows and nude women, until Carl kept telling me to watch out for all the giant cockroaches. That ruined the whole buzz.

Turku is a city about the size of my hometown, Cedar Rapids, but with much more history. Like most touring musicians, however, I didn’t get a chance to soak in the culture. We went right from the airport—which, from the tarmac, looks like every other airport on the planet—to the festival grounds on the island of Ruissalo.

As the rented truck full of equipment and props pulled up to the rear area of the stage, two huge, unshaven men in fluorescent yellow vests labeled SECURITY in several languages approached the van.

“Who are you?” one of them, with orange hair and a buzzcut, demanded.

“I’m legendary singer and guitarist Girth McDürchstein,” I said proudly.

“Are you with the band?” he asked.

“Yes!” I snapped. “Yes, I’m with the band.”

“Which?”

“Abysmal Crucifix. We’re playing at eight o’clock.”

The two security men exchanged weary glances.

“Why did nobody tell you?” the other security man asked.

“What were they supposed to have told me?”

“They bumped you. Weeks ago.”

“What?!” I roared, prompting the orange-haired guard to whip out his taser and aim it at me threateningly.

“They finally got confirmation from Don Johnson Big Band,” the other guard said.

“Don Johnson Big Band? What the fuck is that?”

“They play Finnish hip-hop,” the orange-haired guard said, a pleased smile forming on his face as if remembering something fondly. “Very good.”

I leaped out of the truck and tackled the guard. I had nearly wrestled the taser out of his hand when the other guard jabbed me in the back with his own. After a momentary sensation of heat and nausea, I discovered that I was flat on my back, with the orange-haired security guard kneeling on my chest and growling at me. It reminded me a lot of high school.

Out of nowhere, the orange-haired security guard fell aside. Behind him stood Little Riffs Nicky, a block of wood in one hand. He extended his other to help me up.

“Thanks, Riffs,” I said.

Riffs simply nodded.

As more security guards ran toward us, Riffs and I got into our fighting stances and I screamed, “I NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOUR BOOKING AGENT!” The guards kept running, tasers and clubs in hand.

In a small, makeshift security prison somewhere behind and under the stage, we finally got our chance to speak with the booking agent. She was a typically attractive Finnish woman who spoke flawless English with almost no accent.

“I apologize for the confusion, Mr. McDürchstein, Mr. Kaplan,” she said, nodding to each of us. “Somebody from my office should have contacted you a month ago. Unfortunately, when you have a big name like Don Johnson Big Band, you cannot turn them down.”

“I understand,” I said sadly.

“On a related note, we have banned you from this festival permanently. Out of politeness, we’ve booked your band two rooms at the Sokos Hamburger and City Bors in City Center, to ensure a comfortable stay until you leave for Helsinki. After that, we wish never to see or hear from you again.”

I sighed. “Can we go now?”

“Will you apologize to our wounded security guards?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She gave me a nod that said, I like your style. She opened the cell and stepped inside.

Twenty minutes later, I zipped my pants, she slipped back into her power-suit, and Riffs put his digital camera away. The booking agent and I shook hands and she let us go free. As Riffs and I walked down the narrow hallway away from the security brig, I turned back and asked, “What’s your name?”

She tousled her hair and asked, “Why? Do you want to tell your wife?”

I glared at her. She smiled and waved and went down another hall, disappearing from my life forever.

“Come on, Riffs,” I said, putting my arm around.

As we left the backstage area, Riffs showed me several of the photos he had taken and asked me how I accomplished certain positions. I explained it to him on the way back to the truck.

Riffs got into the back with the others, and I got into the cab with Margo. She sniffed casually. “You smell like a cheap hooker,” she said suspiciously.

“I was just in the backstage jail at a rock festival,” I snapped.

“Right,” she said, rubbing my shoulder. “What happened?”

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll explain on the way to the hotel.”

Next Up: Kyrpien keskitalvi in Helsinki. Let’s hope this goes a little better…