The Bruises Are Going Down...

[Little Miss Risk]

I can tell when a tour is winding down - all the accrued bruises and marks on my body from nightly flinging myself around on stage and padding the gear with my body during load-out start to fade. I have a series of scratches that I have no recollection where they came from that are finally starting to fade away on my right wrist. Judging by the deepness and patterns I'd say I sucker punched a rabid ferret and they retaliated. Little buggers.

So it's been well over a week since I wrote anything in the blog. I chalk it up to our getting ready for the Sept/Oct tour of the USA and Canada (aka The Refreshing The Bruises Tour) and keeping on top of the day-to-day life of being on the road. We've had some days off, our friends Thomas and Petra who showed us the finer points of Koln - you know, OTHER than the cathedral - and we rounded off our tour with the Boss Hoss. We also took over Wilhelmshaven again.

The town is a small fishing village. I think that they have a hope it will be a larger port than Hamburg and Liverpool and inject some life into the town with new trade. As it is now it's a very pretty little place often times occupied by very strange people who come to visit - ie: the bands. I think most of the senior population have gotten used to seeing Darla's beehive at the supermarket, Brandy's tattoos, James' bike rides where he practices drum solos on the handlebars and BJB's hats. Me? I only get odd looks when I go jogging. With my beehive still up, more or less.

The last few Boss Hoss shows were a bit of a hoot. We had some of our friends attend them and it was nice, though brief, to see them all. One of the differences between having a large tour bus and having a bus/van is that you are unable to all drink and party the night away. On the larger buses, you can drink/party/smoke/snort your night away and sleep it off on the ride to the next town in your own semi private bunk. With the smaller bus, one person must draw the short straw and stay sober in order to get the rest of your drunk a**** to the hotel in one piece. On the other hand if you get drunk enough you just might wind up on the larger tour bus anyways. Without underwear too, which can be very disconcerting if your a guy.

Given that we were on the smaller scale, we seemed to leave the parties in Bremen and Dresden a little early. I'm sure if you Google "Boss Hoss Debauchery" at least one funny photo should come up from my camera... Our last night was a blast and boy, did we ever wind up finding the bottom of the bottle! We all arrived at the after party already on the way to loaded. We ladies has put on the nice outfits we had been dragging around on tour for just such an occasion (which proves even when you work with weight restrictions on luggage, have at least one "wow" outfit). The bar, Mad Dog, was a Coyote Ugly themed affair. I was disappointed to note there was no women dancing on the bar. Actually the closest anyone got to dancing on the bar was standing on a chair to open a window. Not the wildest party, but we all had fun. I can tell since I woke up in the shower (in my hotel room) and Darla was still drunk at check out time.

So now as another European tour draws to a close, I'll end this with the promise that I have got John's camera card, and I am currently importing some incriminating photos for your entertainment. In the meantime, we've got the new band photos up on the website and MySpace as well as a review from Chart Attack Magazine for you to read as well.

Muchas smoochas,

Little Miss Risk