Jonah Aspler’s European tour diary part 5: doing squats

Montreal punk institution Jonah Aspler (…And the Saga Continues) has been documenting his recent European tour playing bass with Jon Creeden & The Flying Hellfish and Chris Snelgrove & The Last Mile (Prevenge) for Bad Feeling, which continues with this latest installment, covering the punk squat scene.

You can read Aspler’s prior entires here.

Touring Europe- Part 5: Doing Squats

We arrive at the Kochareal squat in Zurich, Switzerland in the early evening, before all the other bands, and are greeted by Fabian, one of the older punks who keeps the micro community running smoothly. Because we arrived in town at 5:00 am this morning after driving all night, we’re not late for once.

Walking around the giant complex, we see that hundreds of people live in Kochareal. There are also stations to fix cars and bikes, many kitchens and of course, the venue where we’ll be playing tonight.

There is a much larger squatting community in Europe than North America. Differing laws and mentalities allow people to re-inhabit abandoned buildings throughout the continent. During the previous two European tours I did with Hard Charger, we played many squats. Those are often the best places to play, as they are very well organized. In my experience, they always feed you incredibly well, give you as much beer as you can drink and provide you comfortable sleeping accommodations.

The promoter for the show, Gabbi, arrives as we finish our tour of the squat. She asks if we can give her a hand bringing in beer and food. We go to her car and carry all her groceries into the bar area of the venue.

Once we bring everything in, Petrol Girls from England and Ants from Graz show up. I say hi to Tom and Jack, who we had stayed with in Graz. The members of both bands introduce themselves; when you meet eight people at once, it’s hard to remember everyone’s name. We discuss what gear will be shared and load the equipment into the venue.

After sound check, all the bands sit at a bunch of picnic tables that have been put side by side in the bar, making a giant table for everyone to dine together. We eat, drink and talk. Chris seems to have disappeared; he doesn’t come to the eating area until all the food is finished. He was talking to some girl about car mechanics.

Even though there’s a local metal band playing the show, because we had put our stuff on the stage first, The Last Mile are starting things off. Tonight, both bands have to play short sets with no break in between.

The Last Mile play a tight set before a good crowd. The Flying Hellfish play really well too, but the monitors aren’t working properly making it so Jon can’t hear his vocals. After the set, Jon is pretty upset, thinking he sung badly.

When we had stayed with Jack in Graz, he described his band Ants as really chaotic. Watching them, they’re not chaotic at all, they’re extremely tight and an excellent punk band. Petrol Girls headline the show and are awesome raging, feminist, post-hardcore. It feels good to play with other bands, especially good bands.

“Now that the show’s done,” I tell Glenn. “The dance party’s going to begin.”

“Dance party?” Glenn asks.

“In European squats they almost always have dance parties after the show,” I reply. “They’ll probably play Michael Jackson.”

Sure enough, a couple minutes later, “Beat It” blasts from the PA. A few members of Ants and Petrol Girls, as well as Glenn and myself, start getting down in the bar. The music’s leaking outside, so we move the party into the venue room.

I notice Jack sitting around not dancing, so I go and talk to him. He has a penchant for weird shorts—I tell him about Zubaz which are bright multi-colored zebra shorts that were big in the 80’s and early 90’s. He seems very interested in obtaining a pair.

Jon and Glenn are pretty wasted—they’re heading back to the Überyou apartment with Chris. I’ve decided to stay and party, I’ll crash upstairs in the band room and meet up with them tomorrow.

Before they leave, I go to the van and grab the 40-ounce bottle of strawberry flavored Slovakian booze I had bought a few days ago for six Euros. It’s not sweet liquor; it tastes like they dipped a strawberry in rubbing alcohol. I offer sips to Jon and Glenn and they both take one, making faces like they just chugged a bottle of lemon juice.

The three of them head out as I go back in. I pass the bottle around to the remaining partiers. They don’t seem too enthused by the flavour. We dance some more and go upstairs to the sleeping area.

A few of us decide to go to the roof. We search for the way, but can’t find it. One of the residents wakes up and tells us we shouldn’t go up there because we’ll wake people up. In a drunken state, I convince him we should. “We’ll be really quiet,” I say. He agrees and opens a large window for us to exit.

We climb up the sketchy ladder and lie down, looking at the stars. After a few minutes, I decide I’m way too drunk to be up there. I go back down to the kitchen outside the sleeping room. Jack is sitting with a bottle of Jameson talking to the guy who had made the food earlier, Rufi. I sit, swig down whisky and talk for a while.

I realize I’m a lot drunker than I thought, damn Slovakian liquor! I go to find the mattress I had put my jacket on, but someone’s taken it. There’s another mattress free, so I jump on that and fall asleep almost immediately.

The next morning, I wake up around 11. One of the guys from Ants is opening up a window above me, which is good because it smells like 10 drunken punks in a very enclosed space. I have a bit of a headache, I’m wrapped in someone else’s sleeping bag and I’m fully clothed. Everyone else in the room is fast asleep.

I get up, brush my teeth and go downstairs. Fabian is cleaning the venue. He offers me some orange juice, which I readily accept. We talk for a couple hours, about how his squat got started, politics, punk rock, all sorts of things. He’s a really smart, well-spoken, nice guy. I finally receive a message from Chris—they’re awake. Now I have to go pick the guys up, come back here, load up the van and then we go to Frauenfeld, Switzerland. For once this tour, it’s only a short 45-minute drive.

Up next: We play a show with the band that Jon toured Europe with last year, Toronto’s Brutal Youth.