macedonia

hello world. tonight MG played in skopje, macedonia at a club. the show went very well. there were a lot of stage dives, eastern-european moshing, and circle pittin'. also another guy (besides me) knew the assuck cover. hot. before the show started, i felt the need to go jogging around a little bit. i had a 'donat' (as it was spelled...) this morning that was the end-all of greek pastries.

oh speaking of greek food... feta cheese. that's what's up.

but back to my jogging experience. so i was around 1/4 of a mile away from the club and this crazy old gypsy woman comes running after me screaming, "SIR! SIR!" i kinda slow down a bit to see what she wants, and then i kind of decided it would be best if i just continued to burn a very small fraction of the calories from my donat, right.... but this lady had no intention of letting me go. i looked behind me and saw her sprinting after me. WTF. i picked up the pace on my part a little bit and even jay-walked through a busy ass intersection. "there's no way that old lady could have gone through what i just did," I thought. WRONG. she was inside of the club looking for me. WHAT THE FUCK. i hid under a table and had chris check it out for me. he finally let me know when she was gone.

other than that things have been solid. a few days ago we saw the ruins in athens. we played with an awesome band called HIBERNATION who have been around since 93 (and are called, "legends" by the locals). speaking of things being solid, so are all of our turds. RJ was very backed up before today... 36 hours in fact. i informed him about how great frozen peas can taste in the frozen state. he dug it and then was able to shit to some degree at a rest stop in northern greece. those toilets were so weird. you have to stand up and shit into a tiny little hole. WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? there were a rack of flies in there too. no TP. so i opted for the more 'natural' approach to shitting and pooped in the grass behind the gas station. it worked out for me pretty well. it's a humbling experience to watch your shit hit the ground like that.

other than that, all is well here in camp MG. we play serbia tomorrow. now that ivan took his records out we feel like we have enough room to raise a small family in the van.

-nicktape

a few things to add:

1) the guy who shot heroin next to us injected it into his balls
2) everyone has had diareah except for chris. I had it first, and the rest followed
3) all the guys claim that i am a germophobe because i use hand sanitizer religiously. rj claims that my hand sanitizing is "all mental" and then he said a bunch of stuff about resistances to bacteria and whonot. all i know is that my hands smell orangy-fresh when i'm done
4) greece is scorching
5) a lot of guys here look like jay leno and/or christian slater.

-nick

GREECE!! FINALLY....

• Its about almost noon, i think and we're in Thessalloniki, Greece.. Two days ago we went swimming and hung out at the beach on the Black Sea ALL day (see picture to the left). It was a mini-vacation in a vacation, ruled soo hard!! was soo chill, everyone in Europe don't give a shit about showing off parts of thier bodies, really shows how prude and uptight Americans trully are, because if you did that in the states, the man takes you off to jail.. man do i love it here!!
  

Once we got to the Bulgarian/Greek border everthing went smooth, we were through customs and everything, then the police signed us to pullover maybe 15 feet after we got our passports handed back... man was it a thorough search, the most brutal yet.. after about an hour or so we we're finally on our way... Greece is so damn beatiful.. when we got to the city we rolled up to a huge gathering, which is part of a two day festival/benefit show for political prisoners which we are playing today on a college campus.. it was a squat in the middle of this campus, tons of people just chillin hang, drinking, smoking joints while some local experimental acid jazz band started to play just as we rolled up and started eating.. it was 11pm, 6 bands to go and it had just started!! being in the blistering son, driving all day with no AC makes you extremely tired, so waht other choice did we have since the girl helping out couldent leave till it was done, then to start drinking, haha.. Nick and I (Avi) walked off adn there was another outside concert party on the campus close by and as we rolled up there were a whole bunch of Greek college kids drunk dancing and singing along to a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band, wow!! and then we saw some dude shoot up heroin right next to us while we were relaxing on some dorm steps, what a night..

Avi-

we are now in bucarest, romania. it took us 22 hours of straight driving. we only took a few short breaks. pintxos was the steel man behind the wheel running on no sleep and only a few small joints of hasheesh!!! we got stopped at the hungarian border at 6am and had to empty out the van. everything. we almost ended up in jail. who knows what sort of cavity searches would have been conducted.

in other news, chris has a sugar daddy back in sweden who gave him 10 euros. this man also has a lazy eye and fake teeth (at least that's what crazy ivan claims).

driving through the romanian country side was quite an experience to say the least. have you ever:

A) seen borat
B) been on a roller coaster when you are not sure if you are going to make it off alive?

we saw all sorts of species running freely including: horses, chickens, cows, and big piles of dried up grass that look like turds with sticks in them. amaazing.

it should als be noted that southern poland has a beautiful sunrise. aww yeah we saw dat shit.

last night when we got lost trying to find the venue here in bucarest, we asked some crazy old drunk french man who kept yelling, "avanti!" that means "straight" in french. we didnt know what the fuck he was talking about so we just kidnapped him and put him in the van. chris was very displeased by this, but we got directions either way. once we found unarii square, we promptly released the drunk french man at a closed mcdonalds. and yes, they have quite a few mcadonalds' in romania. word.

yesterday at the show, apparently 20 nazis came out and left before we got there. lucky for them, because we are straight nazi killas.


when pinxtos was asked what the meaning of life was, he simply replied, "mierda". truer words have never been spoken.

today the ivan-man treks back to skopje. we will meet up with him once again, and i'm sure that when we see him next he will have more to report to us about the happenings of worldwide hardcore/punk/grind/and everything else. i don't know what the world has been doing without his wisdom for the past 2 weeks.

until next time,
-MG ROAD CRU-

POLAND

today is the second day of our 2 days off. yesterday was kinda wasted as we bummed around Berlin and rotted while trying to figure out how to get the lps that we sent via mail (too late, unfortunately). they were at a record store, and we were at the store too.... but it was closed on Sundays. without any luck, we trekked on to pol and. we immediately noticed a few changes in Poland.... for one the roads absolutely suck ass. it was the bumpiest highway I've ever been on. that shit was like.... abortion inducing. also, people here don't speak English as well (for the most part, at least). getting lost every night looks like it will be an even bigger problem when you have the language barrier even more.

pinxtos is still holding out. he's venting his stress by doing handstands and other crazy acrobatic moves at gas stations. that man never ceases to amaze. Ivan has bought enough records to open up a record store. yesterday avi scratched his sweaty balls and put his fingers under my nose. god damnit.

tomorrow we have a drive to Romania that, depending on who you ask, will take us between 12 and 20 hours. cool.

in oslo norway!!

right now we are in oslo norway at a squat accross the street from the bar where the show is. the bar itself is tiny and reminds me a lot of the Blue Nile Bar in DC that used to have shows. the drive up here from Denmark was absolutely beautiful. the sky here looks like the sky on the Simpson's logo, if you know what i mean. bright baby blue with white ass clouds. for some reason we cannot find one postcard in this entire continent. also, the water has bubbles everywhere and it's pissing all of us off.

pintxos' temper is surely but slowly deteriorating. the frequency of his "whatdafucks" and "you modafuckas" is definitely increasing. we get lost every day as well. even when we have solid directions we get lost. oh well. that's part of the experience i guess?? we are trying to get better at it though.

the squat i'm in right now also has a skatepark in the basement. fucking sweet. this is the second showspace to have a skatepark in a row. the promoter showed it to me and asked if he could take some pics. we started skating and then an angry Norwegian lady came up and said something to him. oops, it was girls night to skate. even though i was bummed out that i couldn't skate, it was fucking awesome to see so many girls skating. it was like an Elissa steamer video part, but multiplied times ten. i'll go back at 11 when that ends. we're also crashing here tonight so there's a good chance i just won't go to bed. pictures will definitely be posted in a few days. we have been great about TAKING pics, but are slacking on the uploading. but yeah, we'll get better.

ivan has been buying a shitload of records and has definitely already dropped a few hundred euros. damn, this dude doesn't fuck around.

oh, one last thing about pinxtos- today i walked into the bathroom half awake and started taking a dump. midway though a butt naked ass pinxtos walks out of the shower that i thought was empty and in all of his glory and remarks, "AAHHHH MODAFUCKA!" it was a humbling moment for both of us. he was not circumcised.

were in copenhaggen right now. its bright as all fucking shit outside. pinxtos got angry for the first time yesterday after we drove for 10 hours and got lost... we had to ask for directions, and avi picked the most beautiful girl within the 50 m radius. she said she couldnt help us out and that she wasnt from around here. avi proceeded to ask her "so, where are you from?" and pinxtos nearly flipped. he said "modefucka" a few times and sped off. but we played the show last night here and it was good. kids bought a good amount of merch as well. the shows thus far have been pretty solid. the hospitality has been more than solid. every night we get full blown, home cooked dinners with whatever we want to drink. last night avi and RJgot a free case of beer

magrudergrind - who and what?

right now we are in leipzig, germany. the show should be starting in about three hours. last night we were late to the show in versmold and didn't get to play, but the promoter was kind enough to feed and house us none the less. awesome hospitality. it was just in the middle of buttfuck germany. there were tons of cows, farms, and corn fields. but unlike those in america, these were actually good lookin'

so who's on this tour, and what is their role?


AVI - 21 years old - singer. when asked if he wanted to drink every beer he saw in europe his response was, "yeeeeeah. fuuuuck yeeeeah." he enjoys shirtlessness and has a strict workout regiment here in europe. he is taking nicktape under his wing in that respect, but he still can't find his protein powder. he's kinda freakin out about it- "YO MANNNN, YOU SEEN MY POWDER!!?"


CHRIS - 21 years old - drummer. loves club botte and sips the shit out of it pretty much any chance he's got. he has a really nice knife, but it got vegan cheese oil all up in it. he also fell in love with a banana drink today. he is going to think this description is really lame, but he knows the password to the blog...


RJ - 21 years old - Guitarist. soft spoken but enjoys the brewskis. he is extremely professional and refuses to get crunk before he plays. however, once the show is over, watch out!!!! between you and me, he's not really that good at foosball. well, he's better when he's not playing goalie at least. he is by far the best speller in the van.


Ricardo "Pintxos" Enriquez - 36 years old - Driver/van owner. he drove 3,000 km to pick us up in Berlin from his hometown in rural Spain. HES A FUCKING BEAST. His nickname is Pintxos, but it is pronounce 'peen-chose'. He has a glorious physique and makes other people laugh any time he laughs. we refer to it as contageous!! He uses the phrashe "what de fuck" very often. today he changed into spandex pants with no underwear and no shirt. let's just say it "fits very well." he also has a very very tight looking buttocks. he fuckin rules. he also has a tattoo of two leprochauns on a magical mushroom. holy shit he rules. he is also quite a beast at foosball. god we love him so much and we're going to miss the fucking shit out of him when we have to say our goodbyes. nick has a total man-crush on him says avi and agrees nick.


Ivan (Ivanskie) - 23 years old. he set up the first portion of the tour. he knows just about every hardcore,punk,thrash,grind, or sludge record ever pressed. he has a better understanding of shit going on in the US than most kids in the US do. He's from skopje, Macedonia. he also loves comic books/star wars and definitely bonded pretty hard with RJ over some comic shit in the van. when he was asked if he liked raggae his response was classic... "FUUUUUUUCK NO" too bad we still put it on much to his dismay. when we put on tupac he tried to slowly turn the volume down to zero. he was promptly asked "why he's gotta hate" and then just turned it back up.


Nicktape - 20 years old. rockville maryland hailing roadie. laptop owner, photo organizer, and dancefloor fisherman. after the show in berlin (which ended at 3am, mind you) the entire room morphed into a huge club. avi claims that it was not so much as a club, but rather "nicktape's dance floor / nicktape's party house" dont mess. he also does the merch directly after MG plays, and so he better learn how to make change in euros pretty quickly... maybe his econ background can help? but probably not.

shizer

today we are in berlin!!! the flight over fucking sucked. on the first one we watched the simpsons and some movie with will ferrel where he wasnt supposed to be funnz. wtf<111

keyboards over here fucking suck. the zs and ys are mixed wtf.

we had some some v3gan kabob thingys that were cheap and tight. food here is ridiculously tight. it's pretty cheap too, but the exchange for the euro kinda blows. it actually sucks the big one, avi claims. chris almost got bit by a poochz on the street zesterday. we met our driver. his name is pinchos, and he drove 2,600km to get us. thats like driving accross the US!

we also met up with ivan, pronounced even btw, who set all the shit up. he looks like mario. heäs cute. look out for pics comin soon!!!!

tonight is the first gig at KOPI (a local legendary squat)

europe is awesome. people here are all very nice, hospitable, and tight in general. not looking forward to returning. last night we stayzed at sven from yellow dog records' house. we at a tight thai place and it had beck's lemon lime beer. right now he is in some bootyz shorts fixing us tea. all is well here in camp magrüdergind. we ate a

RJ is currently a naked american.

well update more later when we find a kezboard that iznt whack!!! touche!!!

-avi and nick

pics to come later. see you at the shows, euros

broken down and stuck..

So we were on our way to the Santa Barbara show and when we got off the exit the van just shut off. We've had to stay in this little CA town called Santa Maria which is the most boring place I've had to spend more time then 2 days in, in my life. We've stayed at this cheap motel, went swimming, chilled in the hot tub, and ate at this little Thai place that is the first AND only Thai resturant in this town, wow. So we've had to cancel the rest of our west coast dates w/ I Object, super bummer! But its been a great time and had some great shows, sorry to kids in Santa Barbara, Phoenix and Tijuana. So we'll be heading home for A single night and half a day and then off to Europe, so we're all super stoked. OK, sitting in the sun all day is hard work, so its time to pass out.

Avi-

Tour has been fucking amazing so far! All the shows have been great, lots of awesome bands, cool people, and amazing eats. We played 924 Gilman last night with Noisear, Superbad, Acts of Sedition and Godstomper. Tonight we played with Punch, Instant Asshole and some other bands that hopped on the show last minute. shti ripped. Athena and Jeff from six weeks brought us coconut curry, jasmine rice, and watermelon. DELICIOUS! Tomorrow Santa Barbara. Oh and if you are wondering who's boogers are getting picked, it is Joser from Outraged/In Disgust. Be prepared for the WIZARD in Phoenix. Here are the rest of the tour dates with I Object. If you do the myspace thing, there is more information there. www.myspace.com/magrudergrind

Chris-
-

3 Jun 2007 8:00 P	CASA DE LA RAZA w/ I OBJECT	Santa Barbara, CA
4 Jun 2007 8:00 P	THE CHAMBER w/ I OBJECT	Phoenix, AZ
5 Jun 2007 8:00 P	CASA DE LA 9 w/ I OBJECT	Tijuana