Second String Band

Week 4: Germany and The Netherlands

Our arrival to Berlin marked a turning point in the tour as we were put to work to earn our keep. Our host Stefan lives in a ground floor apartment with a group of artists and musicians who are renovating the space one tile at a time. 

We’ve been on the road for four weeks and one question we often get from the crowd is How did you all meet? By interviewing band members, going through archives, and flying in an expert on the Second String Band, we’ve come up with the following story:

Sam and Sophia, who had met previously on the same ultimate frisbee team, were invited to a party by a mutual friend. They walked upstairs to the second floor apartment, into a dimly lit room. Standing in the corner was an incredibly tall man wailing away on a fiddle, a woman strumming a guitar, and a couple of people dancing to the music. Sam picked up an upright bass lying on the ground and Sophia unpacked her mandolin, and soon the four of them were jamming along. The woman eventually wandered off, and before long, with the giant with the fiddle, Sam thumping on bass, and Sophia singing high harmony, they found themselves alone. The fiddle player introduced himself as Jake, and as they started playing another song, in walked a man with bright blue eyes and a banjo strapped to his back. As the trio played he pulled out his banjo, and without a word he started plucking along. “I’m Phil,” he said as we packed up for the evening. “Can we do this again sometime?” Even in the magic of that first night, none of them had any idea that, two years later, they would be tuning up for the first of two house concerts in Berlin. 

The first house concert in Berlin, hosted by Stefan and Abbas, was a reminder of that first night in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. It was a regular hootenanny: band members standing on chairs, audience members whirling each other around; even a cat got into the action! We also spontaneously debuted a three song medley that left our fingers bruised. But we couldn’t help smiling at how that unplanned musical adventure has mirrored our trip so far. 

In between bucket showers and bratwurst we busked the streets, competing with sirens and a slow, unwieldy parade of pro-hemp activists. 

Through a contact at one of our last house concerts in DC, we were introduced to Kristian and Sam who organize the Sofa Salon house concert series in Berlin. In the bedroom of Kristian’s apartment, we were moved by our audience’s participation. Not only were we playing for new faces who had only heard of us hours before the show, but we were honored by the number of people who returned for a second helping after the previous night’s concert. Sam learned the Lindy Hop and Sophia received her first post-performance bouquet of flowers. 

Amsterdam. How do we begin? Row after row after row of bicycles, canals lined by beautiful house boats, pear juice in delightfully small bottles; with only two days, you were too short an affair. 

After an incredible house concert at our delightful hosts Anna and Robert’s apartment (more Lindy Hopping!?! Yes, please!), we biked to the old town to get back to some busking. Harangued by rain, we played four sets scattered throughout the city. We splurged on a hot meal, and then went right back to the streets to play a quiet nighttime set. 

With less than 24 hours to spare, we met up with Chris, a friend of Jake’s from college, in Rotterdam. He organized a show for us at a spiritual center just outside the city, and boy did we feel the spirit! 

As we close our post, a big thanks to Chris and Julie as well as all of our other house concert hosts. We expected that wandering through these European cities would be the most exciting. However, the true blessing has been the ability to connect with so many different communities on our tour. 

13 August 2011 ·

Week 3: Italy and Czech Republic

We are half way through the European Dream Tour and we are humbled by the amount of support folks are giving us each time we play our music. There is a thrill of arriving to a new city after hours on a train, not knowing what to expect, and finding ourselves constantly repeating outloud to one another, “Can you believe this?!” When we found our host, Manu, in the Porta Genova neighborhood of Milano where canals designed by Da Vinci are bordered by hip bar after hip bar, she handed us a set of keys and invited us to meet up with her friends for aperitivo. Little did we know aperitivo in Italy is an all-you-can-eat happy hour for the cost of one drink. And little did Italy know, we were going to eat like Americans.  

After our first night of delicious food and dancing, we woke up to an offer from Manu: a scenic ride to Lake Como. The views around the lake are absolutely beautiful and we are still in disbelief that we spent the day swimming in the water and eating gelato. 

We were 24 hours into our stay in Italy when we played our first set on the canals in Porta Genova. Lucca, a waiter at the restaurant La Coccio, approached us with an offer to play a show there the following night. Outside of the Mas Pinet concert, this was our first gig, and we couldn’t be happier as we played a picturesque show to a sea of smiling faces, clapping hands, and dancing feet. 

The next morning as we walked to the metro to busk again we were overwhelmed by the recognition of familiar faces—the Internet cafe guy, Benni and Lucca at La Coccio, and the Tennessee girls we met while busking. We realized that when we spend several days in one place, we start to feel like we live there. The enthusiasm from the crowd and the warmth that they share as they come up to us to find out more about who we are has made us feel right at home.

Of course, Italy would not have been Italy without pizza. A meal we will never forget: arugula and truffle, gorgonzola and hazelnut, and olive, mushroom, and artichoke pizza split four ways at 1:00 in the afternoon. 

For Sam especially, Italy has never felt more like home. 

And Manu, we thank you for literally giving us your home and showing us a side of Milano we could not find in our Lonely Planet tour book.

As hard as it is to leave a place that fills us up with so much love, we always anticipate our next stop. What better way to celebrate Jake’s 25th birthday than on an overnight train to Prague?

We’ve been looking forward to Prague for many reasons, particularly because it’s just so cool and Phil would finally join us! Complete at last, we took to the streets to play regardless of the street performance restrictions. 

Permit or no permit, we figured high up by the Ruzovy Sady we would be safe. We started busking and quickly an audience formed and stayed for the whole set.

It’s so great to have the band all together, even if we accidentally break each other’s sunglasses. Sorry Sam, at least it wasn’t your towel!

We stayed at an effortlessly funky and well-run hostel, Sir Toby’s (thanks Mike!). In exchange for a free night we played a show in the basement pub to an international audience of young travelers like ourselves. We were so excited to finally play together as a full band, we played three sets and spent the night getting to know the crowd. 

We’ll be posting some videos of our tour soon. Berlin here we come!

4 August 2011 ·

Week 2: France and Switzerland

We are 14 days into the tour and it feels like we’ve been on this adventure for months. And we can’t get enough. This is all due to the fact that we have been filling the days with so much love— love for delicious food, gorgeous sites, new friendships, and passionate music.  
 
Our first stop in France was in Montpellier where we stayed with two lovely hosts—Jeremy and Laurianne—who have hosted 75 travelers in their home since November. They are building their credit for a two year long world tour, and we look forward to the day when we can reciprocate the hospitality. After our first home-cooked meal of rabbit and wine, we hit the plaza and played a set until the sun went down. Did we mention that in Europe the day officially turns to night at 10pm?
 
Anxiously awaiting Sam’s arrival, we caught the train to Grand Combe, a small village in southern France. We were picked up by Jade, a friend of Nick Cowles from Shelburne Orchard, and taken to a 350 year old monastery turned artists’ retreat called Mas Pinet. Once we put our packs down in our tipi, four-year-old Raphael led us on a hike around the grounds and helped Jake practice his French. With Sam now on board, we played a house concert for some locals, swam in the nearby lake, crashed a farmers’ market, ate like kings, and walked the high wire that crosses the valley. We were truly in heaven.
 

In the midst of the six trains that took us from Mas Pinet to Ostermundigen, Switzerland, we took advantage of a two-hour layover in Nimes and played in front of a coliseum built when the Roman empire used Nimes as an outpost in their Caesar-led conquests. It must have been the combination of the lingering Mas Pinet spirit, the crowd’s enthusiasm, and the perfect weather that made for such a solid set.
 


We arrived in Bern, Switzerland with only an address of a young man named Philipp. By the kindness of two strangers, we were escorted through Ostermundigen, a landscape best described as the illustration of a childhood folktale. Our three night stay in Philipp’s house reminded us of home in DC—a collection of young adults sharing meals and laughs. To say thanks, we cooked an American meal of cheesy rice and beans, roasted-garlic mashed potatoes, cornbread, and Kenyan inspired collard greens from the garden.
 
After our first set in the streets of Bern, we learned quickly that street performances are permitted if you “perform at the utmost during four days monthly and do not sell cassettes or similar articles.” And of course, no street performances:
-on Sundays
-in groups of more than two persons
-from Monday to Friday between 1400 and 1700 hrs in the restricted area
-lasting more than thirty minutes
 
Of course these are only rules; and rules are meant to be broken. If necessary, we were ready and willing to play the ignorant tourist card and move along. But, Bern, your bark is worse than your bite, and we managed to get through three renegade sets without being shutdown, as well as an acapella session on the top of the cathedral in the center of town.   

As we travel through each city we have been asked quite a few times, “Why Bern?” Coined one of the most underrated capital cities in Europe, we chose to go to Bern because Sophia’s uncle Kenny lives there. Uncle Kenny was a stellar host. He took us to the rose garden where we played a relaxing set, out for a Swiss lunch, up to the top of the cathedral, and invited us for dinner where he played the piano before we said goodbye.

Thank you to all of our warm and welcoming hosts! We are trying to maintain an open-mind and moderate our expectations, but the further into the journey we go,  we find ourselves continually experiencing moments of pure bliss and we often recognize that we can spend our whole six weeks touring and playing our music in each place we stop.

28 July 2011 ·