Trike's Blog

Hey,

I recorded a song today. Thought you might like it. It’s a slower, more emotional kinda ballad called “The City Swallowed You Up”.

Lyrics:

I didn’t want you to go

But you flew out the door

Almost in slo-mo

I’m left begging for more

Couldn’t stop the blood

Couldn’t stop the flood

I was knee-deep in mud

My body covered in sores

Life is pain and death\and the occasional smile

The sun has fallen asleep

I’ve trudged a billion miles

I didn’t want you to go

I’ll never see you again

The city swallowed you up

It’s tie to pay my rent

It’s time to pay the piper

Time to pay my bills

My future’s nothin but regret

And endless bottles of pills

I thought I saw you last night

But it was just a mirage

This concrete jungle’s full

Of people in camofluage

I went back to the club

Where we danced til dawn

It was empty and the bartender cried alone

I went back to the field

Where I kissed your neck

Under the golden sun

And my head was a wreck

But they mowed it down

Yes, they mowed it all

Trees were wimpering

The summer’s turning to fall

(chorus)

I tried to give you a call

But you changed your number

So I drink alone

Getting number and number

Wish I knew what I did

Wish I knew what I said

Wish I had some balls

Wish I had street cred

I wish you loved me again

I wish you never left

I can see your impression

On the side of the bed

(chorus)

Go here to get the song for free:

Don’t forget to purchase our album TRIKE AND THE VIKINGS at the Cheap Satanism website. And I will post our cover of ACDC’s “Highway to Hell” in a couple of days.

Indulging in moments of depression can be so alluring, drawing me in like a dog’s nose is drawn into another dog’s asshole.
So seductive, so sweet, so repugnant.

The beginning of this week made me feel cursed. I felt tempted to let myself get sucked into sleeping in, watching movies and feeling sorry for myself. But instead, I shook myself out and pushed forward.

The Gentse Feesten is 10 days of beer, fries, music and lots and lots of people (with lots of coins in their pockets). Every year over 100 buskers register with the city, hoping to leave the festival with buckets of change.

Last year we got a permit, busked for a couple hours a day, drank ourlseves into oblivion, and made lots of Belgian friends. It was a Utopian experience. We told ourselves that if we were a bit more serious about busking, and came prepared with more cds, we could make a fortune.

A few weeks ago, I emailed the city about a permit, and got an email back telling me that all the permits had been given out. I wrote back and said that we got a permit last year, and I got another email that read something like this:

Hi Xania

You can get a ‘wildcard’ the day you come to the festival. We give such wildcards – 5 a day for the first 4 days.
Greetings

We started our trek from Hamburg to Gent, determined to get one of the ‘wildcards’. On the u-bahn in Hamburg, Stephen’s face when pale when he looked down at his bag. I followed his gaze, and saw that his bag was completely soaked with strawberry juice.
“Your laptop!!” I screamed.
He pulled out the computer and it was doused to the core. He held it up and fruity liquid dripped out of it and onto the quivering seats of the moving train.
“SHIT SHIT SHIT!!”
We decided not to turn it on in hopes that it would dry and work properly, but we assumed it was dead.
Stephen was silent for a while, greiving for his lost computer.
“No Friday song. No Friday video. Now we really have to busk a lot, so I can buy a new laptop,” he said.

We went to the train station with Bjorn, who quietly said to me, “He seems to be taking this really well,” I thought so too.
We bought a weekend ticket. The weekend train in Germany is the cheapest way to travel. It costs 39 euros for a ticket that 5 people can ride on, and it takes you anywhere in Germany. The only problem is that you have to take local trains, which are unreliable and fucking SLOW! So what should be a 5 hour drive according to google maps, will take you 12 hours on the weekend train, with 6 changes.

We boarded the train with our first stop in Rotenburg (home of the famous German cannibal who ate a willing victim he met online). I got off the train, while Stephen gathered his keyboards. I waited for him on the platform, when the doors quickly shut and the train hurried away with him in it, leaving me alone in the creepiest town EVER. An oversized, cross-eyed man in a checkered shirt smiled at me, and all I could think about was how many meals his hefty body would amount to.

Stephen showed up feeling a little sour, but we were determined to get out of the eerie town. When I checked the schedule, I was horrified to learn that we had a two hour wait in Rotenburg, and that we wouldn’t be able to make it into Belgium that day. We’d have to spend the night on the road, and continue our journey the next day.

Stephen pulled out his keyboard, and we wrote a song about cannibals:
“You look so scrumptious tonight,
You’re skin is looking so tight,
Please don’t put up a fight,
As I eat you alive.”

We made it into Aachen (a German city right on the Belgian border) before midnight, but we had no place to sleep. Luckily, we were stranded in Aachen before, so we had the phone numbers of a few couchsurfers in the area. Christophe, a fresh-faced Mechanical Engineering student let us sleep in his living room, where we were happy to find a comfortable bed.

After two days of travel, we finally made it into Gent, and walked over to the busking-license-office to see if we could get one of the wildcards. It was the third day of the festival, so there should’ve been between 5-10 lisences left.

A pretty blond woman with enormous eyelashes told us that her co-worker accidentally gave out all the licenses on the first day, and there were no licenses left!
“But we travelled all the way from Berlin to play music here!”
We were shocked.
She curtly said there was nothing she could do, and no way we could get a license.

We had to busk, to at least make back the money we spent getting to Gent, but if we were caught by the police we would suffer serious consequences.

“They will take away your instruments if they catch you without a license,” the woman said. Her pretty eyes were cold and seemed to dismiss us.

We decided to risk it. We still had last year’s license, which looked almost identical to this year’s, so we set up on Bibliotheekstraat and played for a few hours. Perhaps our frustration showed in our performance because we didn’t manage to make very much money. We were distraught, and nervous about being caught. We made about 40 euros, half as much as we would make in Berlin in the same amount of time.

“Why did we come here? We should’ve just stayed at home,” Stephen said. He tried contacting the friends we made last year, but no one was responding. The festival was so fun last year, and seemed so miserable this year. Were our expectations too high?

We got sucked into two days of movie watching and sleeping before picking ourselves up again.

We got a slight boost in confidence when a festival worker told us it’s a good idea to keep last year’s lisence in full view, and that the police shouldn’t bother us. We started busking again, and, one by one, the friends we made last year started popping up out of the crowd to say hello.
Maarten, a calm, mohawked Belgian bought us some drinks, we played our hearts out, and started raking in some serious money!!

Finally our luck was changing! At least we thought it was… until an undercover police man with a Scottish accent walked up to us and calmly asked to see our lisence.
We hesitantly handed over last year’s license, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the numbers 2 0 0 9. But he noticed. He told us he played the bagpipes, and he loved musicians and we thought all was well until two other police officers came, asked for our instruments, and told us to follow them to the station.

We were brought to the chief of police’s office.
He pointed to a sign on his desk that said ‘The Punisher’ and said, “That’s what they call me, THE PUNISHER!”
It felt like I was in a bad movie. I got really scared.
He held up the 2009 license and said,
“Don’t you know that this is expired, I mean, is it still 2009 in Canada? IS IT?!!”
He was very rude to us, but instead of spitting in his face, I stayed passive and frightened.

“I’m going to have to fine you two 250 euros.
Was it worth it? WAS IT?!”
“No,” we said quietly.
“But we were supposed to get a license, we really tried,” we said.

He made a phone call that verified the fact that I had been in email contact with the city about a license.

He spoke on the phone in Flemish, which I couldn’t understand, but Maarten later told me that he was giving the person on the other end a hefty dose of shit for not giving us a lisence.

I started crying, still thinking we were in trouble, and the Punisher softened right up.
He brought us to the buskers office, where the same cold woman with giant eyelashes was working.
He made her give us a new license which he signed himself. Suddenly she wasn’t so cold with us, and she grinned politely.
“I’m gonna slap that grin off of her face with my dick,” Stephen whispered to me. We felt proud and happy.

So we busked and busked and sold cds and made new friends. Matt & Linda hitchhiked from Belrin to visit us, and we stayed the whole week with Lai Ting, a sweet Dutch girl we met last year.
We tried turning on Stephen’s laptop (now nicknamed ‘Strawberry’) and it worked!! So we recorded a new song ‘Dance to Trance’ with Michael on banjo, and me tap-dancing for the beats in the chorus.
We ended up having an amazing week full of magic.
Like my mom always said, “Shit makes good fertilizer.”

This week’s video, shot in Gent:

Trike's Blog

I Want To Be A Doll (FS#35)

Michael Jackson’s Fantasy Life

City Swallowed You Up – Friday Video!

Double Rainbow Justin Bieber FAIL!

Sex, Murder and Jewish Humour!!! Friday Vid #32

TRIKE COVERS AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell”. Enjoy!!!

The City Swallowed You Up – Free SONG

GOODBYE

Arrested in Gent

This is a STICK-UP! BANG BANG BANG! (Dance to Trance)

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