Here's Andrew assaulting his drum kit during a show in Germany.  We spent four weeks in the summer of 2001 traveling through Europe with Dead Moon. Most of this time was spent in Germany, but we also hit the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Belgium, and France.  The Germans are ferocious Dead Moon fans, and we met and interviewed lots of them who were very fun.  Many of them were old fans whom Dead Moon pointed out to us during their shows.

Here’s one of our favorite German interviewees, Knut, from the Bautzen show. He described Dead Moon as a beautiful bird when it is young, even though they “are so old.”

July 14, 2001 (Last night of european tour) Bautzen is an old East German city (1000 years) known for its towers.  The venue in town, Steinhaus, was particularly interesting as it was a large Youth Center. It had rooms all over the place for everyone to hang out after the show. It felt like a rock & roll orphanage….

These two young ladies stayed after the show partying with Dead Moon. We liked the blond one's Dead Moon tattoo and enjoyed some Russian style opera from Sarah, the one on the left with red hair. She had a good voice & a really passionate style. The song & her family were possibly Mongolian in origin. She then showed me the scar from a bone spur that at one time resembled a tail.  We had very little shared language but apparently her "tail" is considered a lucky trait in Mongolia & she seemed wistful that she had had it removed. She also sang "The Rose" a Bette Midler showtoony kinda song, -a very excellent experience.

These three shots top and bottom were taken at the show in Berlin.

A nice break with Dead Moon for some coffee and conversation to break up a long haul through Austria.  Blazing through high-octane shows night after night, and driving all day will make you jump at every chance for some quiet conversation in small roadside towns along the way.  At one of these stops Fred & Toody told us about the time in their lives (before Dead Moon) when they got bored with running their vintage music instrument store in Oregon.  They up and took off for Nevada with an old Roland drum machine which they had to kick to keep from constantly slowing down in the desert heat.  They rented roach infested motels in boondock towns, many of them old mining towns way out in the desert.  Fred & Toody made money by playing (just the two of them with the drum machine) in little bars all over the place, they played original (country influenced) songs & Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, and Johnny Cash covers for the lonely miners. This aspect of their lives seems as intriguing as their experience homesteading in the Yukon. They called themselves the Range Rats & have many ureleased recordings from these days, we really fell in love with the music & used some songs for the "Unknown Passage" soundtrack.

The above shot is from a totally crazy show in Hamburg, Germany. The walls were dripping sweat in the completely packed club. People had been waiting all day outside the venue, sitting on the curb and talking to each other. Very cool. The shot below was taken during the U.S. tour in Washington, DC. Dead Moon played two sets that night, and this photo of Toody and Andrew was taken in the dressing room in between the two sets as they looked at what was left to play.

This shot below is from an outdoor festival in Dour, Belgium. Not only did Dead Moon play this show in the afternoon, but after this show we loaded up and headed off to France to play another festival later that same night! This shot is a good example of how Andrew pushes his drum set to the edge of the stage, and Fred and Toody pretty much play behind and next to him.

This shot was taken on the side of the above stage in Belgium. Andrew got ahold of some spray paint and tagged the stage up. Note the "J&A" with the heart there. The J is for Jennifer (Andrew's girlfriend) whom he married not too long after this, back in the U.S.

These two pictures top and bottom were taken of Fred in The Netherlands. He was goofing around and started playing the song "Unknown Passage" on a guitar he had made by hand for Hans & Angela Kesteloo's daughter Linda's 13th birthday.

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