Americans Abroad #2

Greetings brothers and sisters from Weisbaden, Germany. Its like 6 am and I have insomnia.

If you're just joining me, I am playing bass for a band called Fenix TX and am in Europe for the month of October. My good friend Rosey asked me to check in from time to time, so here we are.

Tour is going great so far, having the proverbial "time of my life"....but then again every tour is the time of your life (if it's not then you need to get out of music) so the fact that it's overseas is just the icing on the whiskey soaked cake. I digress....

So far its been about a week on the road and we've covered Switzerland, France and now Germany. We arent kidding around with this routing. Rather than try and recap everything play by play style, I'm just going to spout off random stuff as it comes to me.

- Switzerland is by far the most beautiful place i have seen. It doesnt look real, I felt like I was at Disneyland or something when I was walking around in it.

-So far the cutest girls were in France, but they were also the craziest.

-Speaking of France, the whole notion of the French hating Americans and everything American was totally non existant at least to me while I was there.....if that is the case, then they're doing a great job fooling me. Put it this way, when the French opening band is covering "Tick-Tock" by Ke$ha and are all wearing Hurley, DC, and American Eagle AND singing their own songs in English AND the crowd is going nuts over it all while looking like they just came from Orange County, well....you get the idea. The French kids love America, and they were great to us. I'm putting this whole "French people suck" thing to bed right now, it's officially over. French kids rule.

-The Eiffel Tower is huge. Stupidly huge. Yea, I'm a tourist, suck it, I went.

-The food in France sucks ass. Sorry, I'm just sayin. Now, I did not go to any fancy restaurants this is true, but I'm playing a punk rock tour here, we're not exactly fine dining our way to salvation on this trip. Any food reference I make is going to be in the context of street food, local stuff, cheap stuff. On that note, the food in Switzerland is AMAZING, especially any bread product...so good. Cured meats and cheeses for days, which to me is all you really need. Havent really eaten much in Germany yet so I'll wait on that.

- We have a huge Swiss-German stage tech named Lars who likes to sing Mary Poppins songs on the drives and could also probably end your life with one punch. Awesome.

-I want to get tattooed at some point over here, so if any of you know a good tattoo artist in Germany or the UK hit me up ! aaronthompson01@gmail.com

-Our sprinter we're traveling in is a Benz, just saying.

-In France , both shows we played were on a boat. I guess its the new thing to take these old ships and convert them to rock clubs.....Kinda cool to be playing and look out the portal window on stage and see the water line at eye level. Also kind of cool to have everything swaying and moving while you play. It's the little things, boys and girls, the little things.

Americans Abroad #1

Greetings from CHUR, Switzerland my brothers and sisters, I write you from a room at a hostel here (don't know the name) that currently is being co-inhabited by a bunch of fat naked old Euro dudes......um, yea. It's morning, we played a club here last night called Selig, it was a great show, the Swiss kids really get into music and know how to cut loose. Chur is very small (actually the oldest and first real town in all of Switzerland) and thus I guess "hotel" here means "hostel". No biggie, all the bands on this tour package got thrown into this large room with bunk beds summer camp style :) ....that is, no biggie until 10 huge European dudes all came into our room as well to sleep off shame from patronizing the many brothels on this street....who knew there was a red light district in Chur? Well, brothers and sisters there IS and it is verrrrry interesting. So now I'm listening to the gorgeous sound of old churchbells ringing from a block away coupled with the snoring of a very overweight senior Swiss man who apparently doesnt like to sleep with pants or shorts on.....Proscht! More to come, including pictures and a recap of Basel and Zurich!

Aaron Thompson Joins Fenix TX for European Tour

The other day I stopped in to Analog Bar and caught up with my old friend Aaron Thompson, who you might have seen in Pacific Magazine. Aaron ("A-Fresh") used to front The Stranger's Six and has been working on a new solo record for a while, but he shared with me that his friends in Fenix TX asked him to join them for a European tour. Apparently the band's bassist can't make the tour for whatever reason, so Aaron will be filling in with the pop-punk band. The tour is selling out all over Europe and Aaron has promised that he'll update us with photos and road stories.

Here are the tour dates and what Aaron has to see about the band.

October 1, 2010 Sommercasino Basel, Switzerland
October 2, 2010 Selig Chur, Switzerland
October 3, 2010 Dynamo Zurich, Switzerland
October 4, 2010 LA Marquise Lyon, France
October 5, 2010 Batofar Paris, France
October 6, 2010 Schlachtof Wiesbaden, Germany
October 7, 2010 Zwolfzehn Stuttgart, Germany
October 8, 2010 Het Front Vroomshoop, Netherlands
October 9, 2010 Chez Heinz Hannover, Germany
October 10, 2010 MTC Hannover, Germany
October 11, 2010 Backstage München, Germany
October 12, 2010 Garage Saarbrucken, Germany
October 13, 2010 Wild at Heart Berlin, Germany
October 14, 2010 Kaiserkeller Hamburg, Germany
October 15, 2010 Melusina Luxembourg, Luxembourg
October 16, 2010 Haus Spilles DüSseldorf, Germany
October 17, 2010 Magasin4 Brussels, Belgium
October 19, 2010 Wedgewood Room Portsmouth, United Kingdom
October 20, 2010 Rescue Room Nottingham, United Kingdom
October 21, 2010 Sugarmill Stoke-ON-Trent, United Kingdom
October 22, 2010 Fibbers, York York, United Kingdom
October 23, 2010 the Academy Manchester, United Kingdom
October 24, 2010 Cathouse Glasgow, United Kingdom
October 25, 2010 O2 Academy 2 Newcastle, United Kingdom
October 27, 2010 Slade Room Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
October 28, 2010 Corporation Sheffield, United Kingdom
October 29, 2010 Six Feet Under Newport, United Kingdom
October 30, 2010 Academy 2 Oxford, United Kingdom
October 31, 2010 Freeze Festival London, United Kingdom

Fenix TX came together on the north side of Houston, TX in the balmy southern autumn of 1995. Originally known as Riverfenix, the band moved their operation to sunny San Diego, CA in late 1999 and after a string of successful DIY tours the band released its first full-length album on Drive Thru Records. Riverfenix merged their association with the indie label together with MCA Records, after the album's first single “Speechless” hit full rotation on LA’s legendary rock station KROQ. The band remixed and rereleased their self-titled album with two new tracks produced by Ryan Greene (Megadeth, NOFX.) With a new album came a new name. Looking to leave behind the drug-free image of their former namesake, and also to avoid a lawsuit from the estate of the late River Phoenix, the band dropped the River and added the TX to become Fenix TX, paying homage to the state that spawned them. Fenix TX continued to tour extensively and 4 years later with a new line up, the band went back into the studio with producer Jerry Finn to work on their sophomore album “Lechuza.” Featuring singles “Threesome,” “Phoebe Cates” and “A Song For Everyone” the album showed the bands versatility and evolution towards a bigger and better sound. After a few more years of touring the world the band decided to call it quits while in the studio writing their next record. The band went their separate ways in 2003 citing creative differences as the reason for the breakup. Fenix TX reunited in 2005 to record the live album “Purple Reign In Blood.” They continued to tour with a better outlook towards the future. Since then the band has been busy in the studio and with individual side projects, but with the 10-year anniversary of their sophomore release ‘Lechuza’ in 2010, the band is commemorating by touring the world once again starting it all off in Europe!