Genoa

On our way to Genoa, we impulsively stopped by Tortona for a pik-nic.


An old man living the Italian dream came by, he did not speak English, but we managed to understand that A) the tap water by the road is drinkable, and B) this weekend was the Italian elections. The latter affirmation was revealed on the nearby political propaganda panels, which looks quite dominated by the Communist Party.


As we arrived in Genoa, we quickly notice how the city was built on a cliff by the sea. We also notice the excessive abundance of scooters, gathering around the cars at the red lights, scouring to get ahead of everyone, to then speed up like bike gangsters ahead of the cars --- which is quite funny because well, they're scooters. Kudos to Leah for successfully driving in this crazy city, those temperamental Italians just think they own the roads! (Well, they do).


The venue, La Burrida, seems to be part of a big artist squat-like complex. We played with local ambient/psych-band Nant, composed of members from Vanessa Van Bastien on Consouling Records. For the first time of the tour, I played standing and it felt more engaging. Pretty good response from the crowd for my set --- though it was a pretty sketchy crowd in general. Not sure how to describe it, perhaps like a crowd that have certain cliché expectations of a "metal"-oriented band like Nadja, but are confused to see what they look like, and how they don't play through amps nor have a drummer --- something like that, a bit stiff, maybe a little disappointed, maybe greatly surprised. Some people I talked to didn't understand how I was an Asian living in Canada either, they thought I was maybe from Japan, or if really from Canada, then... Alaska (?!). There was a lot of people though, got paid well.


We were served pasta, bread and something else that I can't remember. The beer was not very good either, I wished I kept logs of the names (to be avoided in the future). However, we were put in a nice hostel on the top of the hill, where we had the view of the boats in the port and the sea. Here are some shots of a little walk we took between soundcheck and show time:

Brescia

On our way to Italy from Germany, we went through Switzerland. The landscapes were gorgeous enough to make the eight-hour ride quite enjoyable:


How we ended up in Brescia, I have no idea - we were probably secretly wishing that we were in Milan instead, which is located an hour an half west of. But a gig is a gig, even in a little smalltown. However, it is often in those nowhere places that we have the most to tell about, Brescia was no different.

We felt like we were invading a smalltown community located in Southern California, whose main evening activities revolved around ping-pong, cards and boards games, and have never heard this kind of music before, nor did they care for it. The concert took place in this small restaurant/bar called Enosteria located at the bottom of steps under a large apartment building.


What kind of drone/doom/noise show could be held in those quarters? Answer: a really quiet one. To top it off, they could not turn on the projector when it was time for me to play, and it was quite the scene between the owner, sound guy and promoter, trying to make it work (even though it did work during soundcheck)... So I said fuck it, and I played a completely improvised set because that's how much I cared about this gig.


What's funnier is that Nadja were treated as the "hired band of the evening" by the owner, as after they finished playing the dreadful gig, he requested them to play another one "for the people who just got in"... twice! I should also mention that the gig was free. It was later explained to me by Anna (hey, if you read this - write me!), an American girl from Myrtle Beach, SC, living in Brescia (?!) that they have these sort of associations were people can get memberships and have access to free food and shows all year long, and this place was one of them. On the upside, the food served was excellent, consisting of stuffed clams and risotto.


I also made a video exposing the silly context of the gig, watch it:

We slept at the restaurant owner's apartment, which took a while to get there as he was having too much fun with his people and we were getting tired and bored.


As if it wasn't enough, he showed us a single room with a double-bed for all four of us to sleep in (Aidan, Leah, Hlg & me); I slept on the floor. Even weirder is that he mentionned that his grandmother was sleeping in the next room, then he left us to go back to the restaurant. The next day, we found him sleeping in the next room (which was quite fancy) and we tried waking him up but he was sleeping like a dead duck. Or dog. Whichever. We stormed out of there, got some coffee and groceries for the road.