4.11.06 Germany: Munster

Things lightened up considerably after Weimar. The drive to Munster was one of our longest, but I think we were both happy to put the experiences of the previous day far behind us.

The screening was at an upscale arthouse cinema (cleverly named "Cinema Munster") and we had a 50+ person crowd. Johannes and I remarked at what a wide variety of venues we've screened in on this tour...everything from broken down squats to fancy art cinemas to music festivals and concert venues. How wierd! Somehow we've managed to get by in all of these different environments.

The guys who put on the show were really cool--Muscha and Carsten (one of those tall, blonde, attractive guys who tries to make himself into a nerd by wearing thick horn-rimmed glasses), from Green Hell Records. Green Hell is one of the largest indie music distributors in Europe and Johannes was saying there must be something in the water in Munster because it is the hub of so much German punk activity.

Carsten also worked for one of the best known venues in town, the Gleis22, so we headed over there after the screening to catch the end Swedish pop outfit "The Shout Out Louds" set. It's awesome to have made a movie that pairs up so nicely with live music, because we've screened prior to so many band performances. At the festival in Bregenz, we got to see Irrlicht, the Austrian punk band with occasional tuba interjections and a wild Cologne-based screamo band, Das Krill. I already mentioned Dog Soldier, the Portland punkers who followed us in Neuebrandenburg. And lest I forget the energetic Berlin/Montreal funkpunk duo The King Khan & BBQ Show who played at our Solingen venue or the female-fronted, Polish, hardcore-with-violins band who played after us in Weimar. It kind of encourages me to make another music doc.

(Irrlicht at the Never Conform Festival)

We got a chance to see some of the city in the morning. It seemed to be the bicycle capital of Germany, with two-wheeled vehicles piled up outside every door, and despite the fact that I was devastated to discover there is actually no such thing as Munster cheese, I really enjoyed the time we spent there before heading off to the final leg of the tour. As we explored the old city together arm in arm, it dawned on me what an amazing friend Johannes had become, and how much I was going to miss him when I returned to the US.