Day 1: "Fuck" 

Leo and I fly out to Frankfurt to meet Bob and Ken, who flew out a day earlier. The logistics of the Euro tour are always kind of a hassle. You need to rent gear as 1) they have a different electric system and 2) you couldn't afford to ship your gear over there anyway. Our faithful Swabian driver Christoph has secured the van, so we know that would be handled. Christoph is the perfect German tour manager. He is precise, detail-oriented, distrustful of anyone different than himself, and cheap beyond measure. When Leo and I land, I am 100 percent confident that The Little Commandant will have the van/Ken/Bob/gear waiting for us exactly as scheduled.

We land in Frankfurt at 9:30 a.m. We have a show scheduled that day in Uden, Holland, so the only real course of action is to stay awake and power through the day. The plan is to wait for the van to get us at about 11 a.m. But 11 comes and goes, and we start closing in on noon. Then 1 p.m. I am leaning against a giant duffel bag of merchandise in that overtired haze wondering how it is possible anyone from Germany is late, much less Christoph. It was right about then Leo said "Fuck." When you hear "fuck" in an international airport, it's never a good thing.

As the drummer, Leo only has to pack four things: sticks, cymbals, bass drum pedal and snare. At 1 p.m. he realizes he's forgotten his pedal and sticks, or literally half of the things he was supposed to bring. I can see forgetting the pedal. But sticks? You are flying halfway across the planet to play drums, you figure sticks might be top of mind.

Around 1:30, the guys show up with a large white van with "LSD Trips" (the name of the rental company) painted on the side. Hey, what are the chances of getting pulled over in this? Let's put some illegal immigrants, a pound of cocaine, pornographic movies and a couple pandas in the back. Maybe we can make it across Germany without having our body cavities stretched open with a flashlight!

The rest of the day is spent hop-scotching across small German towns looking for a place to buy a bass drum pedal and sticks. This is proving to be difficult because no stores in Europe are ever open. Everything closes early on Saturday. And on holidays. And weekdays that start with "T." Don't even think about Sundays. Finally in Cologne we find an open store and score the last of the gear we need.

The club in Uden is really nice — big stage, good lighting rig, enthusiastic young staff. We play with some metal band whose singer does the Cookie Monster-style vocals. Our show goes OK, but I have to admit I am pretty hazy due to lack of sleep. Our saving grace is that we sell all 20 shirts I printed up with Leo's mug-shot-looking passport photo on it. Leo has somehow become a local celebrity, and is posing for photos while smoking hash with the patrons.

Day 2: Amsterdam and The Spider Hole

I hit that peak of fatigue when you are too tired to even sleep. The club puts us up in this nice little hotel above a restaurant in the main town square. I wake up every hour or so in the tiny single bed and try to figure out where I am. At 10 a.m. I head downstairs for the all-encompassing Euro breakfast. No matter where you are on this continent, they like to serve you the exact same thing: cold cuts, hard rolls, a hard-boiled egg, jam, nutella and a tiny orange juice. I happily knock back the breakfast while we hatch a plan to stop at Amsterdam on the way to this evening's show in Den Helder, Holland.

Amsterdam is well known for beautiful canals criss-crossing the 1600s-styled row houses, world-class art galleries, and, well, weed, prostitutes, junkies, live sex shows, and overall debauchery. We park the van in a lot where it's least likely to be broken into by a spindly heroin addict, and quickly blend into the crowd of buzzed gawkers and Dutch flotsam.

This seems as good a time as any to address the Big Questions.

We do not go to any prostitutes. All of us are in relationships, so I suppose that if we did we wouldn’t admit it anyway. But we didn’t. Seriously. Plus, Sunday afternoons are not exactly when you see "Grade A" working girls. The temptation factor is pretty low. But if you ever wanted to have paid intercourse with a middle-aged, overweight Asian or a late-teenage Eastern European girl, that's the time.

We do visit a "coffee shop." Let's be honest — what red-blooded American rock band with five hours to kill in Amsterdam isn't going to take advantage of the day? Leo heads up the purchase at the coffee shop, opting for the recommended "house blend." He and Bob melt into their café chairs watching the small boats drift by in the canal. Ken and I walk are not very “rock and roll” and instead around town with Christoph. When I return, Leo starts up a discussion about buying some mushrooms at a Smart Shop. These are basically ordered like chicken wing sauce from a menu board on the wall. In this particular shop the options were as follows:

Hawaiian: Produces laughter and overall body buzz, good for beginners.

Malaysian: laughter with slight visual hallucinations, best if split between two people.

And finally … (cue ominous music): GOLDEN TEACHER: Should only be taken by experienced people. For God’s sake, DO NOT take more than the recommended portion! (Shiver me timbers!)

Avoiding a new life spent busking for change at the train station, we instead leave the Golden teacher behind and drive the two hours to Den Helder to play the show. The town is small, somewhat desolate, and is sitting below sea level near a dike by the ocean. I can smell the salt in the air as odd-looking seagulls make a croaking "whoop" sound as they circle our heads. The club is called Blissken and is best described as about the size of your average American living room but with three Amstel taps inserted in the wall.

IN EUROPE - They drink a lot of this.

After a night of sleep, this show is much better than the last. We sell plenty of merch to the patrons as almost everyone in the club seems to have one of our "chopper ape" T-shirts on. I meet Neil, a British nuclear attack submarine first mate. Den Helder is a port for the British Navy, and he and his crew have the night here. He tells me he spends about 10 months out of the year underwater, which might explain why he is drinking beer like James Worthy chugging Gatorade in the fourth quarter of the NBA Finals Game Seven. It's a tough break to have only 60 days on land and have some of them here. The people are really nice, but it's not quite San Francisco or Hawaii. Besides getting shitfaced, there is not a lot to do.

Our sleeping accommodations at first seem like a joke. We are instructed to go to the back room of the bar and climb up an aluminum extension ladder into a hole cut into the ceiling. This is immediately dubbed "The Spider Hole" after the spot the Marines found Saddam hiding in. In the attic I find multiple mattresses strewn on the floor amongst the clutter of a hundred garage sales. There is no bathroom. This becomes an issue at about 5 a.m. when the 684 Amstels I had at the bar want to come out. It seems unlikely I can successfully climb down the ladder to the now-filthy club toilet, so I decide on option two. Very rarely does a man feel more pleased with himself than when he sees his urine arching over the Dutch countryside from an attic window.

Day 3: Belgium and freedom

We head full-steam into Belgium for two shows while I attempt to rebound from a horrible hangover. The first show is inside a giant circus tent at a music festival put on by the guys from The Pits in Kortjik. There is no better feeling than jumping around in an 80 degree tent with non-moving air while enjoying a hangover. Good times. The band plays really well, and I don't embarrass myself. (I think.) Afterwards we reconnect with some old Cowslinger fans that saw us play in town a number of years ago, and sign a surprising number of CDs.

Manny and Carmen from our booking agency attend the show, and it's nice to finally meet the people we've spent so much time communicating with via e-mail. Manny has a laid-back, wry sense of humor that is key for success in that business. Carmen is a petite, super-cute girl who can confidently handle herself in the fucked-up situations that a tour finds itself in almost daily. I like both of them immediately. The details of the next show are hazy, but it seems to be some kind of holiday party this biker bar throws annually. We are assured it should be cool.

The scene when we arrive is already chaotic. The main action is outside the small club where a grill, table and chairs have been set up in the gravel parking lot. Twelve to 15 hairy, rough-looking bikers are shockingly drunk. A gangly blonde guy on a scooter careens into the parking lot with his white eggshell helmet tilting crazily. A Hell's Angel extra and a skinny Lemmy-lookalike attempt some ill-advised home repair with a power drill, garbage bag, and wood screws. They are sharing a joint the size of a baby's arm. The repair ends horribly. A plastic chair gives way, and the victim is trapped within the broken remains like a turtle on its back, flopping around in the gravel parking lot wailing in outrage. A gigantic bearded man belly laughs. Thin, worn blond women tilt against the wall, looking for lights for their cigarettes. A small tough-looking dog scrounges around for scraps from the grill. Welcome, my friends, to the second show.

Los Putas open for us, and they have a Nashville Pussy-meets-Blood On the Saddle sound. The room is small, crowded and really loud. We take chairs outside at the edge of the chaos and wait for Los Putas to finish their set. When it's time for us to play, it takes longer to get going than expected as everyone from the club is either a) drunk, b) stoned or c) possibly tripping. We finally get going and the crowd slowly creeps closer to the stage as they catch the groove. Our set is very well received, and two things occur that are worth mentioning.

First, the bar runs out of bottled beer. This results in Lemmy getting into his dilapidated Frankenstein car, assembled with the body parts of a Focus, Peugeot, Opal and maybe a Maytag washer. About 15 minutes later he power-slides back into the still-crowded parking lot with his fist raised in triumph, scattering the crowd and sending dust flying. He has scored about 10 more cases of beer.

Second, a guy dancing up front looks like one of those Hell's Angels from that Stones movie Gimme Shelter. You know the ones that are cranked up on meth and beer, looking like trouble on the stage? He has a padlock on a chain around his neck about twice the size of Sid Vicious's, and it's swinging around his neck as he dances more and more aggressively, trying to provoke someone — anyone — into a dust up. He leaves, but comes back later with a bloody gash on his forehead. He dances for awhile again, but disappears for good shortly afterwards.

After the show I find out he had head-butted someone outside to produce the first set of gashes. When he went back out to the parking lot the second time, someone punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. The best part was that he fell unconscious directly into the road at the exact moment a car was passing by. Every head turned when those brakes screeched. His head would have been cracked open like a cantaloupe!

After we finish the crowd returns to some serious beer drinking, and driving their motorcycles into the surrounding countryside. Lemmy heads up a big circle of folks handing out giant strong beers and God knows what else. As I take it all in, the rough bearded guy who had been running the grill sidles up and says, "It is good here. We have a lot of freedom."

Day 4: Cologne has the smokiest bar in the world

Our accommodations are at Bux's house, one of the promoters for the show. We follow him in the van as he weaves through the tiny streets and stone fences of the Belgian countryside on his homemade motorcycle. I wouldn't have made that ride after all those beers, but he appears to be a real pro. After the Spider Hole, we are prepared for the worst, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that Bux has an amazing country house with exposed stone, antique wood beams and a brick patio complete with a fire pit. I had heard that Belgians are kings of the deep fryer, and Bux cooks up a never-ending string of deep-fried delights. Shrimp rolls, cheese sticks, French fries, sausages — all went into the fryer as we opened some special chilled Belgian ales.

Early the next morning, the neighbor's rooster starts crowing his friggin' head off. That rooster has decided it is time for us to return to The Fatherland.

The drive to Cologne is marred by the now traditional traffic jam at Antwerp. Adding to the travel time is a quick side trip to pick up our European label head, Mosh. Mosh has been making primarily hardcore punk records in Germany for 20 years, but our twisted-up blend of American roots and trashy garage punk has had him on board with us since Ken/Leo/I were in The Cowslingers. Mosh and his Spanish wife Pilar meet us outside of Knock Out Records HQ, and I set off on my quest for a working camera, Euros, a cheap watch so I actually know how long we could be on stage each night, and mobile phone access.

Pilar walks with me to the main shopping district and I tick the items off my list one by one, despite the unbelievable Euro-to-dollar exchange rate. (Don't kid yourselves. Today, having dollars is like having a pocketful of pesos. We have become a Third World nation. Thank you, Bush administration!) In 20 minutes I feel like I have gone from a naked baby crawling in the woods to the mighty grizzly bear. I now can take your picture drinking a beer I had bought you with Euros while telling someone else what time it is into my cell phone. The power is intoxicating.

We play the Sonic Ballroom, recognized as "the cool place to play" in Cologne. This must be due to the standing rule of rock clubs: The worse the bathroom, the better the club. This club must be the CBGBs of Germany, because the bathroom is a horror show. Even the hallway outside smells like a porta john at Day 3 of Bonaroo.

A small but very enthusiastic Tuesday crowd first watches and then bobs their heads. That is the test for when a German crowd is rocking out. When you see the heads bob up and down slightly, it is the equivalent of a mosh pit at a frat party. Despite the relatively small crowd, it is so smoky it's like the place is on fire. We play our best show so far, and have a great time hanging out with Hack Mack Jackson, our touring partner last spring.

LEO P. LOVE - Contemplates his next drink.

I get a strange compliment from three separate people: "It was great. It was very professional." This strikes me as funny. I can see it now: You meet the German girl of your dreams. A long courtship follows. The sexual energy between the two of you crackles into a passionate night of love making. As your little fraulein nestles into the crook of your arm in the warm afterglow, she whispers into your ear, "That was so professional."

Before going to sleep in the band quarters upstairs, we decide to make a side trip the next day to swap out Bob's Fender Twin at the gear rental place, The Navigator. Like all Euro rental gear, it's kind of fucked up. Bob's amp has the added feature of having the volume/power ebb up and down randomly. Not ideal.

As I lay down at 3:30 a.m., I hear Leo scream to someone he's drinking with (in his "outside voice") "Ohhh! That's so fucking funny!" I hope I fall asleep soon. We leave at 9 a.m.

Day 5: Rock ’n’ roll in Switzerland

It's a very long drive to St Gallon, Switzerland, made even longer by the decision to switch the amp out. The up side? A great leberkäse sandwich at the local butcher shop. And who wouldn't drive an extra four hours for a $1.50 glorified bologna sandwich? We spend about 10 hours in the van, including a Swiss border cross led by a panicked Christoph, and being pulled over once by German cops for no particular reason (except the "LSD Trips" painted on the side of the van of course). In Germany the police can pull you over and ask you questions whenever they like. It does get your pulse going to have a uniformed German ask you for "your papers" in that accent.

We are set to play with The Black Halos, a Canadian glam punk band that has the NY Dolls/Heartbreakers/D Generation playbook memorized. As soon as we load in, Black Halos singer Billy Trouble begins talking in a monologue that is still going as far as I know. You could say Billy is a bit of a talker. The Halos are booked by the same agency we are, and we get to share their backline. Translation: We don't have to unload any of our gear into the club. Nice. Another pleasant surprise is that the Black Halos driver is a Saft'n, a great guy we stayed with in The Cowslingers years before. I remember his house having about 13 cats running around all over the place. He may want to tone down that cat thing.

We draw the opening slot. The crowd likes us so much they make a big ruckus for an encore, but we defer to the Black Halos. I hang out at the merch table for a while and talk to the crowd, including a very large guy who wants to impress upon me that he thinks "Lemmy … from Motorhead … is very cool … Yes?" I retreat to the large backstage area equipped with Internet, lumberjack-style bunk beds, a set of disinterested teenage girls, and some horrible Rose Tattoo knockoff band playing endlessly over the sound system.

The real action starts after the gig. The Black Halos guitar player and drummer are really nice guys in the way only Canadians can be, laid-back, totally relaxed. This is in complete contrast to their singer Billy, who is ping-ponging around the room like a hyperactive kid, reciting Young Frankenstein dialogue, changing into costumes, and telling a confusing story about Paul Stanley in Munich. One of the Black Halos guys has sex in the toilet stall with the heavily tattooed Swiss girl who made the backstage food. That's much more rock 'n' roll than me, as I slink away at first opportunity to try to get to sleep at about 2:30.

The next morning I wander downstairs to find Mosh and a skinny girl from the club who looks like Joan Jett's homely cousin drinking beer. Mosh has now been pounding beers for about 14 hours straight. This man is a professional.

Day 6: Holding In Switzerland

We have a short drive today and we decide to check out the picture-book Swiss town of Appenzell. I cannot stress enough how beautiful it is here, like falling into a goddamn Swiss Miss TV commercial. Bells lazily ding-dong as cows graze on the hillside. The snow-covered mountains in the background only bring into sharper focus the vivid colors of the wild flowers blooming everywhere. A crystal-clear stream flows by a 400-year-old church.

We get out of the van and everyone gives us the eye. Mosh is still in full swing, knocking back a pint of local beer. Everyone gives a wide berth to the 6-foot-3, obviously intoxicated German with the shaved head and the sleeve tattoos. Pippi Longstockingville didn't sign up for this.

We sit down at a bier garden and order lunch. Service is relaxed, to say the least. Five waitresses sprint around looking harried, despite the lack of evidence that anyone is getting any food. I order a sausage and potato salad plate. When it arrives I am quickly chastised by Christoph and Mosh because a) you should never order this type of sausage after 1 p.m., b) my technique in eating it with a fork is all wrong, and c) my mustard application is also "not correct." I point out that the sausages are on the lunch menu, but the Germans, as always, remain inflexible. I can't imagine the howls of protest I would have received if I'd ordered the eggs.

The first rain of the trip moves in and adds to the overall sleepy feeling after a heavy lasagna dinner. The gig tonight is at Glabenhalle, a typical club. The crowd is pretty rowdy by Swiss standards, and includes three young girls in blonde wigs who start dancing immediately. I think that it's the costumes that allow them to cut loose in a way that would be impossible under normal circumstances. The social mores are just too strong.

Leo's voice is almost gone. (If you go on tour with a cold, smoke joints at every opportunity, and party until the sun comes up every day, you might lose your voice. We have been to Europe four times. Leo has lost his voice all four times. He has learned no lesson.) Despite the good crowd, our show is lackluster. My voice is about 75 percent, and I keep slipping on the stage. I also get mad at Bob because I see him going into "lowest common denominator" mode. About two seconds after we finish playing, I say, "Dude, could you have phoned it in any more?" That's probably not what you are looking for immediately after playing.

After the show I meet people by the merch table, including a young guy with a Bob Marley T-shirt who hands me a giant bud of weed and says, "I enjoyed your show very much and wanted you to have this." I'm very excited about this development. Not because I smoke pot — I can be tired and paranoid on my own. The exciting thing is that I will be able to lord this over Leo and use 1960s drug slang. I can say things like, "Has anyone seen my lid of grass?" and other phrases I've heard on Dragnet reruns.

I head backstage and join the rest of the band and some club employees. I calmly sit down, look at Leo and say, "I am holding." Leo's head swivels around. "What is it? Is it hash? Let me see it? What is it? You don't even smoke! Give it to me! They probably meant to give it to me! Let me see it!" I stare at him calmly holding my "stash" (Like I told you, I love that jargon).

After a lengthy debate about my "weed," I tell him I will allow him to have it only under the conditions that I supervise, and that the usage of it is only at a time I deem acceptable. Leo and I both know that I will create a multitude of hurdles for him, but he can live with these conditions. He saunters back out front satisfied with the arrangement.

GREG MILLER - Shows you the sights of Appenzell, Switzerland.

In about seventeen seconds Leo returns backstage with his new "friend," an English guy who looks like he will take Leo's wallet, car keys and the title of his house if he gets the opportunity. This guy is playing the part of "charming ex-pat raffish English rogue" to the T. It takes about 30 seconds of conversation to recognize that he has been scamming his way around the fringes of various nations' artistic communities until they tire of his bloodsucking ways and send him tramping down the road to his next set of victims. Leo demands the weed to smoke with his new best friend. He takes it from Leo and feverishly starts to work it out. Alas, my "stash" is gone.

Day 7: Stuttgart Rock City

I wake up in the apartment of the local promoter, Andre. It's a third-floor apartment overlooking what Bob and I christen "Milf Park," where very attractive blond Swiss women set their kids loose in a small playground. The apartment has many different angles, half steps and crazy doors. It was once three apartments when it was originally built in the 1700s, but has since been modified to the current fucked-up layout.

We set out for Stuttgart after making yet another "merch drop" in extremely remote farming areas of southern Germany. This is Christoph's plan for foiling Swiss border authorities. Every time we cross the German/Swiss border, we leave merch in Germany to avoid fronting taxes. This results in these bizarre stops in tiny villages to drop off bags of CDs and T-shirts to people only Christoph meets. We are instructed firmly not to leave the van.

Our friend Robin is putting on the show in Stuttgart, so we expect it to be good. It is at the Keller Club, and features the Johnny Trouble Trio as openers. They do a Big Sandy take on American roots music that is expertly executed. They are easily the best European band we have ever played with, although I keep referring to "Johnny Trouble" as "Johnny Question" and there are five guys in the trio.

The room is packed when we start, and we're playing with a lot of fire. Then Ken blows his bass cabinet. In the middle of one of our songs, sounds like two-way radio traffic wash over the room. I'm thinking, "What the hell is that," and turn to see Ken frantically twisting knobs and pulling chords. Navigator 2, Daredevils 0.

A quick patch into the mains and we're off and going. Bob is on fire tonight, and the crowd up front is really responding. We get several encores. During "Greasy Box" Bob starts playing slide while leaning into the crowd. While switching from his slide to finger a part, his slide falls onto the floor. Eyewitness accounts say the slide "skittered off like a frightened mouse under the stage." Someone up front hands him a lighter, which he employs with surprising efficiency. At the end of the solo, Bob hands the lighter to a girl up front to give her a chance to play the slide. Confused, she decides that Bob must want her to set his guitar neck and fingers on fire. After some coaxing, and putting the lighter out, she gets it together.

Day 8: Camp Nine

We have to get Bob a new slide and find a quick fix for Krusty's bass cabinet. This sets an avalanche of German planning into motion. In the States, we would drive to a music store and buy what we need. But that's not the way you handle things here. We learn to embrace the phrase Christoph utters every 20 minutes, "The problem is…"

Christoph asks Robin if the music store is open. Robin asks his wife if she thinks it is open. They all confer deciding it is probably open, but opt to call in advance to make sure. Multiple phone calls are made to various Stuttgart residents to find out if the store clerks are trustworthy. Additional calls are made to check out the reliability of the reports they have just received. Another call is placed to the store itself, warning them we are on the way. Christoph, Robin and Robin's wife reconvene to discuss the merits of our plan to drive to the music store. It is agreed we will take the chance and drive to the music store to see if they have what we need. They talk about it for 50 minutes. The music store is probably 20 minutes away. As this is happening, we sit in the van, about to lose our minds.

After the successful purchase of the gear, we head to Switzerland and yet another merch hole. Two elderly rural Swabian strangers take into their possession a duffle bag with CDs, work shirts with skulls on them, and T-shirts with monkeys on choppers. If I'm confused, I can't imagine what they are thinking. We head to Schaffhausen to play a club called Classen, a modified bomb cellar with one of the worst load-ins imaginable: three flights of steep stairs down after a long walk from the street. The show is with Man Made Monster from Austria, a guitar and drums combo dressed in latex, bone necklaces and bondage masks. Just a guess, but I bet they don't play too many corporate gigs.

The club has a very young crowd of psychobilly fans, and they first eye us with suspicion. We don't wear the Official Psychobilly Uniform or have an upright bass, so that shrouds us with a cloak of questionable authenticity. We respond by playing what I think is our best show of the tour so far. It is always a good indication when the crowd moves from standing 10 feet back with crossed arms to pressed right up against the stage. Bob in particular is dialed in and really knocks out the crowd. I don't think they have seen this level of roots guitar playing before.

The highlight of the post-show scene is when a drunk takes a header down two flights of the stairs, leaving an impressive trail of blood behind him. In the States it's a lawsuit, but here it's just good clean fun! Drink up, little fella! As we check out the carnage, two young girls start making out in front of us. Ken remarks, "They are just enjoying their freedom." They must be from Belgium.

Tonight's accommodations are in a hostel deep in some sort of haunted forest. On the approaching street shadowy figures smoke cigarettes in the mist. Ken and Christoph walk alone onto a dirt path deep into the woods. An old four-story mansion sits untended in the dark. It feels like someone is going to cut my head in half with an axe at any moment. A side door squeaks open to reveal three bunk beds and an ancient furnace. Bob asks Christoph what the ancient furnace is for. "To hold what is left of you." Welcome, my friends, to Camp Nine. Sleep tight.

Day 9 What's with the Turkish Mullet Kids?

We drop Mosh off at the Zurich airport. He'll rejoin us at the end of the tour in Berlin. He is an absolute animal who can drink more beer than almost anyone I have ever met. With the exception of sleeping through one of the shows, he has been on the frontlines all day, every day. A little rest will do him good.

We make a quick stop at the Rheinfall, a spectacular waterfall on the Rhine River where it originates after coming out of the Swiss Alps. Many Eastern Europeans and Japanese pose for photos in the drizzling rain. As an aside, what do you think these Japanese travelers do with all these photos they take? When you go over to someone's house in Japan, do you have to look at page after page of photo albums of them expressionless at world monuments? How much sake do you need for that to be fun?

After driving through a never-ending tunnel cut into the Alps, we arrive in Austria. A dismal rain spits on us as we unload at the club called something that translates to "Slaughterhouse." It is one of those multi-purpose venues that is equal parts youth center/coffee house/Internet café/bar/education center. The promoter, who we gloss as Johnny Depp, is super friendly and helpful. We play with The Secret Agents. The singer's wife looks like a Euro version of Courtney Love if she hadn't ensnared Cobain. The bass player is a very thin, severe, black-haired girl with four-foot legs in skin-tight red leather pants. The guitar players sport Meteors T-shirts. This town is some kind of Meteors fan club home base.

THE HAZARDS OF THE ROAD - Ken v. amp in Stuttgart.

The reserved Austrian crowd watches intently as I hope my jeans don't fall off. It's pretty distracting when your pants are so stretched out that they are almost an obstacle in movement. It’s tough when you are singing to be thinking in the back of your mind, “I wonder if my ass crack is showing?”. I gotta wash these pants. We play OK and sell a whole bunch of small Daredevils gear to small guys. We sleep in some kids activity room lined with computer stations with mattresses on the floor. The glamour of rock 'n' roll is all around us.

Day 10: Let's move to Ravensburg!

The noise starts early at the youth center part of the facility. I groggily walk out of our room in my underwear to find Turkish kids in mullets playing foosball, and some horrible rap music blaring down the hallway. Leo takes advantage of the laundry facility by throwing in a couple quick loads of laundry. Despite being the last one asleep again, he is all cranked up on some rocket fuel coffee Johnny Depp made him. At this point he's like a scary Martha Stewart on speed. These "quick" loads of laundry wind up taking five hours. Sears better get over there and sell those Austrians some good home appliances.

It's a quick drive to Ravensburg, a striking medieval village in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany. Multiple old homes with ornate gables, tall church spires and an extensive cobblestone market complex make this one of the prettiest towns I have seen in Germany. The club, Café Balthus, is in the very midst of the old town. Christoph makes the greatest parking job in the history of motor vehicles when he drops the van into a space with four inches of leeway on either side. The load-in is a horror show with a set of steep stairs into a Cavern Club-style basement. Jasmine, the bartender, sets us up with the best beer of the tour, Farny. "Just had a terrible load in? Reach for a Farny!"

Our expectations are low. It's a Monday night in a small town we've never been to, for God's sake. Out of nowhere punk rockers, long-haired Mathius Jabs-looking guys and young girls materialize, and the place is packed. We play what Christoph says is our best show, and receive thunderous applause for encores. Disclaimer: The applause is probably thunderous because the ceiling is curved stone.

After the show we are served some kind of tomato juice/Tabasco/liquor shots that are a big deal in the bar. They don't have much of a kick, so I do a few of them. We sign lots of CDs, and are told in true German fashion, "That's the best show I have seen in seven and one half months." As we leave the young girls want to "kiss da cowboy," and Bob falls into a crowd drinking some sort of apple grappa that could take the paint off a Buick. It's good to be BMOC in Ravensburg.

We stay with a friend of the promoter's, Chris. When we set out for his place after parking, Leo and Christoph fall behind due to a luggage snafu. This results in them walking into a stranger's apartment by mistake. And I ask you, who doesn't want an evil leprechaun and little Swabian commandant poking around their home at 3:30 a.m.? When they open the bedroom door to find the senior citizen homeowner sleeping, they hastily make their exit. Good thing the gun laws are tougher here.

Day 11: Munich: the vacation city!

We drive to Munich the next day for our one day off on the tour. The idea I had was to stay at a four-star hotel, check out the marketplace and hang out in one of the bier gartens in the area. The plan is solid. I booked the Hotel Fleming over the Web, liking the location combined with the sleek contemporary design of the rooms. I was especially keen on the large (by Euro standards) shower for a mid-tour scrub down.

When we check into the rooms everything is as advertised. Kind of. The large shower is just like the photographs online: a large, fully glass compartment sits atop a marble pedestal with a huge shower head. It looks perfect — except that it's situated right next to the twin beds and fully visible from anywhere in the room. The only way you could be more on display in that shower would be if there were a strobe light flashing with techno music when you climbed into it. Additionally, the toilet area has a smoked glass pane instead of a door. The effect is some kind of shadow puppet theater show. "Looking for a little less privacy on your next hotel stay? Try the Fleming!"

Ken, Leo and I set out for Munich while Bob stays back. (Personally, I believe he wants to shower alone instead of putting on some kind of homoerotic performance for Leo and Christoph.) We bum around and drink a couple garbage-can-sized beers at the Augustiner Bier Halle. Then I go back to the hotel to crash out, while Ken and Leo visit a few scary local bars and a wildly expensive gentleman's club. All and all, the day is kind of a bust.

The tomato juice/Tabasco shots make their triumphant return scorching their way out of my ass. I have to handle this situation behind a thin piece of glass. Who the hell designed this place?

Day 12: Bielefeld: the Toledo of Germany

It's a long drive to Bielefeld, and traffic is bad due to yet another unnamed German holiday. I find it odd that the entire country can have the day off, but no one knows or even cares what the holiday represents. I am not exaggerating. No one knows why they have Thursday off. We are running behind and frantic phone calls start coming in from the venue. "When will you be here?" "In seventeen minutes." Three minutes later: "How long until you get here?" "In fourteen minutes." "OK. I will call back in seven minutes."

Our friend Mirjana is putting on the show. She is tall, slender, cool and possesses a natural Eastern-European beauty that betrays her Serbian background. She is nervous no one will come, but the Mom and Pop bier stubbe fills easily. Our friend Tobi's country/roots band the Hangover Hearts open up, and they are really good. They have a lot of great vintage gear and they provide the PA as well.

We take the temporary stage and quickly discover the vocal PA will not be able to handle our stage volume. I switch over to another microphone and try to make adjustments to the odd Vox system. Since I don't have my usual Sure reissue mic, I am holding a strange microphone like an unholy union of Robert Plant/Henry Rollins/Tony Bennett. We play OK. Some days you have it, some days you don't. The Herforders are flowing hard, and we hang out with our many friends in the area. It is then that two plans are hatched.

A prominent local tattoo artist, who I remember talking to last year about the exciting lifestyles of soccer hooligans, suggests, "We go make party at other club." Bob, who has just finished what can only be described as a tumbler of Jack Daniels, is "in." Leo, who is always up to "make party," also quickly agrees. Additionally Leo thinks he should get a new tattoo in the morning from his new pal after the all-night "make party." He asks me to sketch out a cartoon Leo head I always draw on the set lists. Despite thinking this has set a terrible series of events into motion, I quickly draw them out and send him on his way. I have a fear about winding up in some seventh circle of hell involving techno music, and decide to instead go to Mirjana's house with Evil, Tobi, Christoph and Johan.

Ken is nowhere to be found. He has attached himself to a woman known as "Psycho Lawyer," and has cobbled together some half-baked idea about hanging out with her and her husband/boyfriend (it isn't clear). I don't know if it's a good idea to climb into a car with a giant guy with a tattoo of a screaming skull on his neck and a woman known as "Psycho Lawyer," but he does. Hey, live the dream.

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK Bob salutes you.

Day 13: Wurzburg: the hottest room in Europe

I get the best night sleep of the tour in the cozy front room of the apartment. Leo and Bob return from the "make party," and Leo is sporting his new tattoo, a ring of Leo faces around his left wrist. What time is it? It's Leo time!

We make the long drive to Wurzburg to play Immerhin, a club roughly the size of a standard one-bedroom apartment. We get into the giant local beers and watch the Dirty Schazmann and Evil play punk covers in an acoustic country style. The crowd likes them and you can tell they are really funny. I wish I could understand what they were saying!

The room is packed when we play. No air moves at all, and it gets really hot, really fast. I sweat so much my fingers prune and I almost trip on the sweat puddle by the mic stand. Bob's hands turn black from the guitar chord melting in his hands. The band plays really well again, but the PA sucks and I can't hear anything.

There's a weird situation after the show when the club apartment key can't be located. Instead of staying upstairs, we are sent across town to one of the bartender's apartments. It's a railroad layout, and Leo/Ken are sleeping in the kitchen on mattresses. The bartender's roommate wakes up, and shuffles out in his underwear to find Leo with a case of beer in his hallway at 3:30 a.m. Leo quickly introduces himself and makes the guy stay up and drink with him. One minute you are sleeping comfortably with your girlfriend. The next you are listening to a crazy-looking red-headed American tell you a confusing story about his new tattoo. Life is funny that way.

Day 14: Who doesn't love Dresden?

We almost collide with the opening band's van as we pull into Groove Station, located in the "funky" section of Dresden. The old part of the city is beautiful, with completely rebuilt grand buildings on the Danube. You might have heard of an ugly little incident in which the British fire bombed the city for no apparent tactical reason in 1945. No matter, we're here to play rock today! The club is good, the sound system crisp, and the stage is nice and we have a never-ending supply of beer with an unpronounceable name. Duppulfromager, Dusendeforder? Whatever, it's good.

We have a great traditional dinner of cabbage rolls and pork cooked in a nice club apartment. The people putting on the show remember that I said I preferred to eat local back when the Cowlingers played here in 2000. I can't believe he remembered. The guys from the opening band, the Cellophane Suckers, are really fun. They are around our age, and have been toiling in the seedy underbelly of indie rock as long as we have, so we have some shared experiences. Marcus, the singer, and I get along really well right away.

The Cellophane Suckers are really good. They remind me of a cross between the Nomads/Hellacopters/New Bomb Turks. They are my new favorite Euro band. We will have to step up tonight. The show goes by very quickly, and the crowd loves it. The last time I played here I pulled out every cheap circus trick I could think of to get a reaction but nothing worked. Everyone just stared at us blankly. Tonight it's firing on all cylinders. As we're playing I'm thinking about how Mosh had called to say we would be recording tomorrow's show in Berlin, and I'm wishing this is the one that could have been recorded. We get three encores and then must stop playing due to local noise ordinances. It's a fun night.

Outside the club is a bier garten. Downstairs is a dance club. There's another space in a doorway by the club apartment. People are everywhere and everyone is liquored up. Some locals ask me if I'm from Texas, as I am wearing a cowboy hat. I decide to make up a crazy story, and in the end they believe I am a sheep rancher from Corpus Christi of Greek descent using monkeys as ranch hands. Even I am partly convinced.

Ken disappears into the night with some students from Kent State who are here to teach English. In the morning he tells us an embarrassing story that I can't really get into here. As his older brother, it would be irresponsible of me. Feel free to ask him about it though.

Day 15: Berlin and the Wild at Heart

We roll into Berlin early enough for Leo and I to check out the modern art at the Neue Nationalgalerie. Afterwards we head over to the Tiki Heart for dinner with the whole crew. Evil and Tobi will open for us tonight, so they brought Johan too. Mosh is in town and has readied the live recording. Mirjana is here with a friend. The whole team has been assembled.

It's my birthday, but I am hesitant to go too crazy. I have a flight booked at 0900 and the Wild at Heart is well known for being a late bar. They stay open until 9:30. Yes. In the morning. I knock back a shot of Fernet and we hit the stage. It's a good crowd, and we play OK. I keep thinking about how I wish we could have recorded last night. I feel sluggish and my voice feels tired. Everybody else is playing really well, though. Hopefully when this comes out it will sound good. With live recordings you just never know.

I get trapped up front after the show manning the merch table. Christoph has this grandiose plan about getting loaded out quickly and back to the hotel at a reasonable hour. Those guys have to drive all the gear back to Frankfurt tomorrow, so their day is no picnic either. I get into a confusing conversation with a drunk woman: "You are sexy man. You see that man? He is my husband. I love him. Do you like the Fuckemos? You are sexy man." Meanwhile a guy with long brown hair dressed in a leather vest is sitting directly across from me with two dark-haired girls. They are obviously on ecstasy because they keep stroking each other's arms obsessively. It gets really distracting when the two really attractive girls start making out and feeling each other up while the guy asks me opinions about music.

The best-laid plans have once again gone awry. By the time we get out of the club it's about 4 a.m. There is only one thing to do. A late-night kebap stop is in order. The sun starts to come up as Mosh materializes out of nowhere with an old friend of his. I don't know who this guy is, but I give him a wide berth. He looks about 60 years old, with tattoos all over his shaved head. He's wearing a punk rock hoodie and Chuck Taylors and is rangy like a fucking mountain lion. When a group of loud drunks starts down the street, he approaches Ken and says in German, "Let's go start a war." He runs over to the group. There are about 10 of them. I don't know what he says, but they all shut up and scatter quickly out of the area. Yikes!

By the time I get to the hotel, I have enough time to sleep for an hour or so. The alarm goes off and I grab my crap and wheel to the airport. You want to know the differences between Europe and the US? In Berlin I am ticketed in a professional and courteous manner. "Thank you, Mr. Miller. Right this way sir." Ten hours later I land in Newark and have to re-check my bag after customs. Continental sends you down a line that has three signs saying "Recheck bags for domestic flights here." Meanwhile, employees scream at you to put your bags in the area that all the signs say not to go to under any circumstances. "Hey! Hey! Put yo bags ova here! Hey! Get that douche bag to put his bag ova here!"

Welcome home Douche Bag!