Transmission and other fun stuff

Alright. New post. A few things has happened!

After Ann Arbor we went to Cleveland, Ohio. Great town for us, beeing a town with a very large percentage of people with Hungarian descent. We played at Prosperity club after Stan, a Slovenian accordion man. The bar was full, and the music seemed to be very appreciated. We sold the largest amount of cd's so far.
We met the very friendly man Walt Mahovlich, who knew most of the songs we were playing. It turned out that he is a professional musician, playing clarinet and accordion. He invited us for Romanian and Hungarian music listening and jamming at his house with appropriate drinks and food. A huge thank you Walt, it was great meeting you and very inspiring. He also gave us bunch of valuable contacts, and told us to go see the awesome band Slavic Soul Party at Barbès in Brooklyn. So we did, but more about that later.

We set up a last minute gig the next day at the Raw Food Café in Lakewood, just outside of Cleveland. Great place, nice food, friendly people!

Then we had a pretty big drive ahead of us, all the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. We had a small concern about our tires at this point. They were in a really bad state. Also our reverse gear had started to act strange, but more about that later. It had started to snow. The day before Karin, Kjartan's mom, called us and recommended to get new tires. This turned out to be a very smart move. The snowing increased and the last part to Harrisburg was a hilly, snowy, slippery and very busy road. It would had been very difficult making it without those tires. We made it, and it was totally worth it.

Liz welcomed us and showed us their amazing art space. We ate pizza and drank beer, while doing the tour with Liz around the house. What a nice place, and nice people. And great bands!
Before us was Vulcans and then Bellows. They did a great job. Then we played, the crowd was all warmed up and ready to dance. And so they did. Like crazy. What an atmosphere these people created. We played two amazing sets, and then an extra acoustic-ring dance-rolling on the floor-screaming-healing-reviving-you name it-set. And then a very nice after party. The day after we were told to go busk at this cool coffee house. It was great. Thank you Harrisburg, we want to come back.

So we left Harrisburg in the middle of the day with the reverse gear now broken, but our confidence far away from beeing likewise. We headed for Brooklyn, New York. A nice drive, everything went smoothly on the highway. A little more difficult to park in the city later. First, there are lots of cars and a limited parking space. And then it's just a little more difficult to do parallel parking without a working reverse gear. But we managed. Actually, we are used to it now. We have done it a couple of times, pushing the car in to place. Right now we are convinced that a reverse is not needed. And, thinking of it, who wants to go backwards in life? We are trying to get forward, and that's working just fine.

New York, that's where we are right now. We arrived saturday, played at a big birthday party raising money for homeless people. We had our shortest set ever. Four songs I believe. Totally understandable, there were six or seven bands that night. Thank you Mina for inviting us to your party!

The following two days, we were basically just stupid and slow. We practised some, made terrible decisions, got a parking ticket, went to Manhattan in vain and ate some food. But yesterday we were good little boys. We got up early to move our car. We couldn't find a parking spot though, so we pulled in to an auto repair to see if they could take a look at our gearbox. They did. It's not good, they said. But as I mentioned before, going forward is not problem so far. So we are good for now.

Alright, we went to Manhattan to this big accordion store to look for microphones and try out some nice and cool accordions. Well, this is America, people don't play button accordions here. Johannes was looking for some nice small light weight accordions. There was one. It wasn't nice. But we got some useful information about microphones.

It was a very nice day, so we went busking. First in Washington square. Not so good. In rush hour we went to the subway. Good, until Mr. Police man appeared, told us we needed a permit. We left.
We went to Brooklyn again, to Barbès where Slavic Soul Party would be playing. We thought we could maybe play before them. We couldn't. So went to some bars and busked. Greatgreatgreat. Goodgoodgood. And then we came back just as SSP started to play. These guys are REALLY GOOD. We talked to them, and they agreed to let us play in between their sets. Yihaaa. It was great and the rest of the night as well.

This turned out to be pretty long post. Apologies. Right now we are in Jalopy Tavern in Brooklyn waiting to play in a few hours. Kjartan just slept on the floor for two hours. An Indian man on a painting is staring at me.

The pictures are from our show in Lansing, at Scene Metrospace. I don't know who took the photos. 

Take care!

Johannes