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THE EVENTS THAT CAME ACROSS
2004, April, the 2nd & the 3rd ---- Gig at the Doom Shall Rise II Festival, Göppingen, Chapel Dude, we're not gonna tell you a whole festival-story, just visit their website… After a rather stressy ride we still found some necessary time to relax, greet some friends like Theby & Axel, Versus The Stillborn Minded, Johnston's Meisenmann & Worz, our webmaster Bauer and their host Deubelelel, who lost a bet with Jan & York on the question if David Cronenberg or David Lynch directed ‘Naked Lunch'. Two hours later we had to be on stage -- the gig could hardly have been better for us !! A crowd of 500 people, great sound (and a great tech-crew!), very few mistakes and overall enjoyment made up an amazing experience, still can't believe it ! Also met Thee Plague Of Gentleman, the doom warrior Heiliger Vitus and our probably oldest fan Kalle, who puts in our cd when his 15-year-old son listens to Pearl Jam or Nirvana !!! Wow… The whole weekend was nothing but pure fun, pretty much everything about it was simply great -- the coolest bands in our opinion being Count Raven, TPOG, Penance and Orodruin. Kappe totally freaked out about having the chance to see the Raven. Some hours before they entered the stage he already was close to exploding out of sheer happiness !! Thanx a million to Frank, Foppi and Roman for this incomparable event !
---- Gig at Fire-Abend, Braunschweig, Germany So after quite some time we wanted to rock Braunschweig again, this time at a new location where they set up shows for different kinds of Punk/Hardcore/Rock/Metal-bands on the same billing. Well, the other bands weren't that interesting, but about 400 people attended that show and with us having a local bonus many friends were there. Although it wasn't our best performance, it still turned out to be a great party !
---- Demo recording in Bremen, Germany So except for Markus who would have to wait for his turn anyway we travelled to Bremen to record in the rehearsal room of Kaptain's other band Johnston. Our master of sound and patience being Mr. Johnston Meiserati himself -- feeding on nothing, but beer, weed, and choco bars, surrounded by lotsa Salma Hayek – giant posters. Appropriate atmosphere, I'd say… Kappe and Jan both came from Braunschweig, bringing the equipment and – of course! – being several hours late. First, Jan had to buy underpants as he forgot to bring any, later they missed a coupla highway exits without noticing ‘cause they were listening to the new Exodus – lp very dedicatedly ! Now that's an excuse… After recording the drums on the second day Kappe, Jan, and York - together with our friend Jamaik – went to a nice bar called ‘Eisen' (Iron). The bartender was singer of an old hardcore-band and publisher of a well-humoured fanzine and played many of the bands we asked for -- don't remember a lot though…AC/DC, Danzig, Maiden, Slayer, Poison Idea. Kappe told him he'd wipe the bar if he played Saint Vitus (after finding out he actually got their records, however, not at this place). Well, what our bassist didn't know was that the guy was living next door ! So when Kappe went to the toilet the bartender fetched ‘Born Too Late' – and Kappe gladly wiped the place. We drank way too much, so in the end – when Anthrax rushed through the stereo – York, was to be found on the counter, Jan fell from his chair and Kappe used the broom as a guitar. Needless to tell next day we all felt like shit, York puked ‘til late in the evening. Like little teenagers who don't know how much they can take… The next days of recording appeared to be pretty straight though. A week later the instruments all had been recorded, we received an amazing new banner and Jamaik gave us a ride to Braunschweig, where we were to play that evening.
----- Gig at Kunstverein, Nuernberg, Germany with VERSUS THE STILLBORN MINDED, THEE PLAGUE OF GENTLEMAN and LOW MAN´S TUNE Another 8 months had passed since our last gig, so we were quite eager to get on stage again. Of course there was a huge amount of bullshitting about Bavaria and its
people's dialect (beware: the people of Northern Bavaria don't like to be
called Bavarians!), but foretunately everyone involved understood our well-meant
irony and joined in having lotsa fun.
About 120 people attended, quite some of them well-known in the doom-scene,
so it was a real happening.
Next door in the same building and sharing the same entrance was a muslim
party about a boy getting some "dick-cutting" with several hundreds of people,
but apparently they didn't feel disturbed.
The show had been set up by the cool guys of Versus The Stillborn Minded
who also opened up this long night of ultra heavy doom.
And boy, the sound was huge and they killed -- we felt like shit being expected
to play later ! Next were Low Man's Tune and then Belgium's Thee Plague Of Gentleman with
a fierce performance of ripping Conan-Doom.
It must have been 2 o'clock when we finally started our set, but foretunately
most of the people had stayed, and apparently they liked it.
After Kappe, Jan and York had been listening to Saxon's "Denim And Leather"
during the ride to Nuernberg about 6 times we actually wanted to use this
great song as an intro, but sadly the PA-system didn't include a tape player.
Oh yes, we totally enjoyed the possibility to play again, had lotsa fun
and probably played one of our best sets so far...well, according to ourselves,
hehe... ----- Gig at Bands Battle Festival, Stavenhagen, Germany We were supposed to play as the last band of the second day at 01:45 in the morning, after the headliners. One band had to cancel so it was 01:00. Then Master had to cancel, too, which caused the second day to have no real headliner. Maybe this really shitty true metal band before us, but they didn't do it…so when we entered the stage some time after midnight there were only 50 or so people left, but, dude, they were hungry ! And we were eager , too ! Our playing wasn't good actually, but they partied like hell, making us feel like goddamned rockstars (well, kinda…) ! We even had to play two encores, the second one being required by the organizer himself. So the 30 minutes the original running order allowed us to play turned out to be about 60. Thanx a lot everyone !
----- Gig at G-Punkt, Merseburg, Germany with HELLBLAZER, SKR8 and BATTLE ROYALE
As cool as the last gig as shitty the next one ! It was fun to play with York's other band Hellblazer for the first time, meeting SKR8 again, who set up the show we played in Halle and Battle Royale's bassist raised his arms the Joey DeMaio way. The place wasn't really cool, the sound neither and the 30 or something people who showed up rather sucked. And I guess it wasn't our best performance as well…funny enough, the local organizer asked us if it was normal that we played that slow (I tell you, we didn't ! He should experience us when being really slow !), if there also were other bands like this and what this style is being called. Well, being asked that kinda question at some place for extreme punk/hardcore/metal is…at least he was a nice guy. Our rhythm section got pretty wasted after the gig and was bullshitting around like never before (this really means something !) causing Hellblazer vocalist Olli to announce that he'll never ever play a show with Spancer again ! He actualy did 2 months later…what a relief to realize that even after a shitty gig we can have so much fun !!
----- Gig at White Pig, Bad Frankenhausen, Germany with DUST 100 people attended this show, a cool club and a great time, plus the second gig we got paid for more than we actually needed -- how could you not be happy about such an event ?! Both the local organizers and the other band, DoomRock fellows Dust, were nice and funny lads. 5 minutes after meeting each other for the first time York addressed Dust with the question: ”So who of you little pissheads is the most gay wanker ?” (Note: we all are 173 cm / 65 kg – type a guys while some of Dust and their numerous friends are twice as big, especially their vocalist looks like he's actually from Lynyrd Skynyrd !) Of course the others chose him as the answer, but they initially understood our ironic sense of humour which made us continue bullshitting the whole night through, having so much fun ! Some months later Jan described this as one of the best nights he ever experienced in his life ! Kappe puked on some gas station the next day…
----- Gig at Kaffee Zentral, Braunschweig, Germany After not playing Braunschweig for 13 months we finally gave it another try as Chrissie of the Zentral really approached us to ask if we'd like to play -- and hell yeah, we were eager and it turned out to be the best gig ever !!! It was just us (our first headlining show, haha) in a really small cafe right in the center of the city. The whole place was crowded as well as the street outside, 70 people showing up, hardly anyone attending that not at least one us knew, the whole evening being so much fun, everybody enjoyed it ! We played 70 minutes, presenting two new tunes, were really loud, really slow and played better than ever before -- for the first time we were quite satisfied...
----- Gig at VL, Halle, Germany with VERGE ON REASON and AGNES KRAUS This was meant to be a benefit for the vegan restaurant in the same house so there was some really good food, but unforetunately it was only 11 people attending this event -- of course there wasn't any benefit at all ! But the day itself was lots of fun. Traveling to another city again, meeting some friends as well as two other nice bands, playing way too fast, but the few people (mainly the other bands and organizers) enjoyed it.
----- Recording the debut album So we finally approached our first real studio recording -- didn't actually know how many songs we were going to record, but it turned out being our complete set of that time resulting in 36plus minutes, which I guess can be called an album. We entered Loewenhertz Studios, a part of the B58, being really cheap and invented by the city to help young unsigned bands with their first recordings. Of course we didn't really get the sound we aimed for, but engineer Hamsta was quite a cool guy to work with, and we had a fucking relaxed time. Master File God was being played too fast as it finally reached a running time of less than 8 minutes (shame on us!), Jan set the accentuation for the intro part of Asunder in the opposite direction and confused York that much that he let Jan play it himslef -- I suppose that was the drummers plan from the beginning on, he just longed for some guitar input !! -- but apart from that everything went really smooth. Kaptain spent endless nights with our friends Tobi and Chris to do all the layout, after we had been checking out and discussing various material for weeks. The final product from the pressing plant was being delivered on October, the 23rd .
----- Gig at B58, Braunschweig, Germany with SPIRIT CARAVAN and DUKES OF NOTHING So it became real -- what we had only dreamed of was destined to happen, we got to play with our big faves Spirit Caravan. They had already been to Braunschweig 1,5 years before and it was such an amazing event. Seeing them and especially Wino on stage just a step in front of us came as close as seeing Saint Vitus as in any way possible at that time !! Kappe said, “If we ever get to play with them we can quit afterwards.“ After a longer tour half a year before they returned again for a short trip and tried to set up another show in Braunschweig. The organizer of the previous gig didn't want to do it again, York heard about it and was fast to take the chance, checking out all of Braunschweig's possible locations to finally be successful at the B58. Kaptain and him drove to Hamburg the day before to talk about the final questions of organisation and check out the Dukes -- drunken English bastards, celebrating dirty ass-kicking rock and having quite a funny evening. So next day occured to be pretty relaxed, everything had been checked before and there were no problems to discuss. When we set up our stuff on stage they thought we had three basses and wanted to play them through their guitar speakers ! They were pretty relieved when we told them it's just two basses and none of them would be played through the wrong cabinet. The only problem was the number of people showing up -- when we got on stage it looked like it's 30 people and York being financially responsible already expected to be totally broke the next day, but during our performance the place got crowded a bit, so there where about 70 in the end, nearly bringing in all the money being required. It was a great evening, everyone got along fine, the guys even liked our set and when Wino met his old time mate Chrissie from Braunschweig there was lots of storytelling going on.
----- Gig at Mumpitz, Wolfenbuettel, Germany with GANGRENA GASOSA Yeah, it's the Mumpitz & Wolfenbuettel once again (York used to set up shows there), but probably for the last time. Something like 40 people attended this show, maybe 20 while we were playing, but it was pretty cool ! The driver of Gangrena Gasosa asked how it's possible to play that slow, so we had to confess that we had been way too fast !! But he liked it...then the Brasilian guys...and they kicked ass !! What York had partly realized on the promo tape now evolved to full blossom -- a really great grinding HardcoreMetal band with South American percussion full of energy. There were only 40 people, but I guess everyone enjoyed it and partied. The guys stayed at Jan's place and we had a great time.
----- First gig in our hometown at B58, Braunschweig, Germany with INHUMATE and ABORTED OK. Braunschweig could rather be called our homebase than hometown as York is the only one being born there and back then Kappe & Markus were still living elsewhere, but you get the picture. Due to this event we got full colored foto appearance in the daily newspaper. Of course we played w/ bands that were not a bit similar to us and in front of people who mainly never listened to doom, but that's what we are used to. And there was a small number of chosen ones among the approximately 70 people who appreciated us alot. We planned a great intro and it went totally wrong -- Kaptain got on stage and started playing. York expected him to play forever and everyone having quite some time getting on stage, starting feedback, being fucking doom, but the rest got on stage really quick and started playing like the song in its actual way was meant to be -- even Markus started singing before York got on stage !! Must have looked quite disturbing... Inhumate were the winners of the evening -- the vocalist smashed the mic against his forehead several times, the bassist looked like Steve Harris and when York got back from a short trip to the toilet some songs before the end he found the stage being overpopulated by everyone, Kaptain being drunk somewhere in the middle of everything. “Steve H.“ even had to leave the stage's main part and hide behind the curtain where the other instruments were being storred.
----- Gig at Zoro, Leipzig, Germany with EBOLA (UK), Y, ERADICATE, 8 DAYS OF NOTHING and TRAPDOOR FUCKING EXIT What a great weekend !! Local punkrock fellows Cobra Gang & Soleil Noir were to hit the road to Italy a week later and had already organized a sound foundation van, a new VW that was way too good for us and for free !! So after visiting some anniversary day of the local tank battalion (it was soo funny !!) S.N. - guitarist Harms gave us the ride to Leipzig -- we listened to BangBoomBang (our favorite movie that York taped on cassette), Gang Green and I don't remember what, had lots of fun just on our way there and arrived at the prime punk place of the city with our luxury van. And what a cool venue the Zoro is -- York knew it before, but the others were totally overwhelmed, the food was so good and so much, everything the vegan mind desires !!! And if we thought lunch was amazing, I think breakfast was even better -- York wished to have the possibility of putting everything in small food boxes and taking it home, Markus said stuff like “Thanx for the great food“ and “The cook is so great“ so much, people there already felt annoyed. The performance wasn't too good, Kappe walked through York's pedals quite often, more than once causing his signal to die, but some people really enjoyed it. Can't tell how many attended this concert, the Zoro is pretty dark, but it must have been something like 150. Ebola had a new bass player, so York didn't meet Andy again, but pretty surprisingly Duane instead whom he had met before, too, and who does not like Sleep a lot ! Shame on you, double lard bastard... I guess some people must have been pretty confused about us as we were just citing BangBoomBang all the time, and the more beer we drank the worse it got. But Eradicate were quite cool and could laugh about it.
----- Recording the demo We set up with Mike (from Markus' other band Blackspring) at our rehearsal room, spending quite some nights there. It was really relaxed and everyone enjoyed it -- York didn't have any lines for his solos, so he just got stoned & drunk, went outside to try out some ideas while the others were still recording, got back and recorded one track after the other adding them all together for some weird solo noise. Well, why not... The seperate sounds of each track were good and the mix was as well (apart from the fact that somehow a vocal and a bass part were missing), but when we got the final result (which could not be changed) on cd-r and listened to it we had to realize that Kaptain's stereo was not a good choice for the process of mixing. Mike's good work now sounded like crap, so after sending out only very few copies (receiving a pretty bad review in German metal zine Legacy -- not that they are the competent dudes to talk about doom...) we stopped working with it, which is the reason why Spancer actually do not have a demo. However, the cover artwork looked really good...
----- The second gig ( the first one with Markus ), at Juze Harztorwall, Wolfenbuettel, Germany with KRABATHOR, GROINCHURN and SANITYS DAWN Yeah, we liked Wolfenbuettel, didn't want to play elsewhere. But seriously, the guys of the clubs where really cool with allowing us to set up the shows there... Approximately 100 people attended this show, and it was pretty cool, this time the real debut -- we had our vocalist, our own songs and quite a number of different people got to see us. The last song was played totally wrong during half its time, everyone playing something different, but somehow nobody in the crowd realized it. Groinchurn were really cool guys and the vibes between the bands were pretty good.
----- The first gig at Mumpitz, Wolfenbuettel, Germany with HARD TO SWALLOW and some ska-punk-band that sucked (don't remember the name) Approximately 30 people attended this show, HTS were late on time so we couldn't use their speakers and had to switch on a small guitar combo, thus were not very loud, but it was lots of fun. The first time ever a doom-band (we're talking s.l.o.w., baby!) played the tiny room, but the vibes were great. Still as a four piece with Kappe on vocals performing Patra and Jack Frost by almighty Saint Vitus. Our friends liked it, other people hadn't come. Hard To Swallow (UK, feat. Iron Monkey - members) kicked ass even though it was kinda instrumental as the vocal p.a. didn't have enough power. When they started their last song with Hell's Bells as the intro even Kappe, who didn't like their style was being witnessed standing on the counter, a bottle of wine in one hand screaming “AC/DC ! AC/DC !“. By the way, we didn't have a name back then, so we wrote Chandler on the flyer -- several months passed until January, the 14th of the next year when we finally agreed on Spancer...
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