9 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF A sound man ON THE ROAD WITH PSYCHASTORM FROM ENGLAND September 24th to October 2nd 1994 by mark von sound INTRODUCTION .. The year is 1994 the band I was on the road with were called Psychastorm they never got lucky with getting signed .. someone always quit at the wrong moment but that didn..t stop us getting in the van and heading off for adventures .. It was our third European tour .. after three successful weeks in Holland, Switzerland and Germany we had a string of seven consecutive shows in Poland .. Our van was a transit van with a huge acid smiley face on the back doors .. inside was nice .. three people sat up front and four crammed on a red velvet sofa in the back .. behind that a wall with all the band equipment in the very back .. 1. TOILET PAPER WAS SO SCARCE DAY ONE .. our first show was just across the Polish border from Germany in Szczien .. none of us had ever been to Poland before and it was a real culture shock to us .. as we drove across the border each side of the road for several miles were simple outdoor shops, stalls I guess you would call them .. half sold cheap Marlboro cigarettes .. and the rest sold garden gnomes .. this confused me but I accepted it .. and scattered liberally along the Gnome and cigarette road were many prostitutes looking for the many truck drivers who passed through .. Poland in 1994 came across as a really basic and poor country so someone who lived in a shared house full of drunks and a Manhattan skyline of washing-up .. everything seemed so cheap to us .. a pizza that was so huge it fed all seven of us cost the equivalent to a mere £1 .. a litre of vodka £2 .. a beer just 10p .. we had quite a few beers .. but what was the real eye opener was that TOILET PAPER WAS SO SCARCE everyone carried their own .. this was unknown to us but we did manage to buy a roll .. but unfortunately it was the hard and shiny variety and as absorbent as glass .. I really do not need to describe why this is not the best .. but after a strange but good show and a fiver spent on beer we drove to Gdansk .. that was my day September 24th 1994 2. POLISH POLICE CELL DAY TWO .. We had just got to Gdansk city limits and headed in on the main highway, the car in front of us was a taxi .. we were travelling at about 40 mph .. well this taxi just stopped without warning in front of us to turn left .. Matt our driver slammed the brakes on .. we came skidding to a halt .. but we drove straight into the back of it .. but only just left a small dent .. the taxi driver phoned the Police and the officer who came out we discovered afterwards was his brother !! .. So we were in the middle of Poland not knowing what the f*ck was going on Matt was arrested and cuffed and taken away .. he mustve been shitting himself .. he had done nothing wrong but we had to get him out .. it turns out we had to bribe the Police one million Zloty (£27) to get him back .. and to get Matts driving licence and passport back a further two million Zloty (£54) then had to give the taxi driver two million Zloty .. they had put Matt in a cell .. can you imagine being in a POLISH POLICE CELL where no-one spoke English .. But we got him out and we were all re-united and ready to continue our adventure .. That night we stayed in a cheap hotel and had to celebrate Matts freedom .. at the hotel bar we drank the equivalent of a Polish workers yearly wage .. and I witnessed a sight I have never seen before or since .. Matt drank a huge glass of vodka and within seconds projectile vomited ten feet across the room into a rubbish bin the other side of the room not getting even a splash over anything else .. what a shot .. just a shame it had holes in the bottom .. no-one could accuse him of having a weak stomach !! .. that was my day September 25th 1994 3. TEN MILES FROM THE LITHUANIAN BORDER DAY THREE .. On our way to Suwalki we were again in trouble with the Police .. this time for speeding .. if any of you has driven in Eastern Poland you will know the roads you are not capable of going too fast in a Ford transit van full of band equipment and seven burley Englishmen .. So the bribe the Police wanted this time was two of the bands demo cassettes .. we jumped at the chance .. these cassettes I had previously copied in my bedroom on my twin deck and photocopied the covers .. they cost us next to nothing to make .. on handing over the two cassettes they told us there were no more Police for another 20 miles so we could go as fast as we wanted .. Suwalki is only TEN MILES FROM THE LITHUANIAN BORDER .. we were only the third non-Polish band to ever play in this town .. the crowd went ballistic and were diving off the balcony .. it was insane .. even I mustve signed a stack of autographs .. but as we loaded out the Police turned up again .. again to avoid being arrested we had to give them a cassette .. so what crime had we committed ? .. being English I maybe ? .. I remember the English helped out the Polish back in 1939 when some very bad German guy invaded but I guess the Policeman had forgotten this or was friends with the very bad German guy ? .. that was my day September 26th 1994 4. DEATH THREATS DAY FOUR .. today we entered the miserable grey depressing shit-hole of Bialystock .. in the area of the there was a big problem with fascist skinheads .. we were distressed to see Nazi graffiti everywhere .. this was especially an issue as our guitarist Zak was from Western Indian origin which had caused us to get DEATH THREATS from them .. and so the bouncers at the show all had guns and truncheons .. this freaked us out but they explained it was to protect us .. holy shit !! where have we been sent ? .. they even had a guy stood on the side with a gun watching the crowd for any trouble .. thankfully the skinheads stayed away .. the kids here were nuts and made it such a great night .. at the end of the show they started drinking shots of vodka like it was going out of fashion .. all drunk and excited and asked us if we wanted to go with them and find the skinheads to fight side by side with them .. it was a noble fight of good against evil .. but decided f*ck that for a game of soldiers .. that was my day September 27th 1994 5. THE DEAFENING SILENCE OF DEATH DAY FIVE .. Zdunska was our destination .. During the day we strolled around the town .. on the way back to the venue .. travelling passed was a tram full of Polish people going home from work .. Zak was with us .. everyone inside the tram all dashed over to one side to look at us or rather at Zak as we believed they had never seen a black man in their town before .. living in England such a multicultural society you just dont think about it .. I imagined the weight of everyone moving to one side wouldve tipped the tram over .. it would..ve been carnage with bodies everywhere .. but it luckily just stayed upright .. The show was crazy there with many a mad stage diving nutter and more autograph signing for me .. Hilarious to think that there must still be people in Zdunska with my autograph .. That night we stayed in another hotel .. it was right next to a slaughter house .. it took a while to get to sleep due to the deafening noise of Chickens screaming before their untimely end .. not a sound in the morning .. just THE DEAFENING SILENCE OF DEATH .. that was my day September 28th 1994 6. NOT EVEN A TOILET DAY SIX .. Lomza has probably the grottiest venue I have ever been too and Ive done gigs some real shit-holes .. they had put a very dodgy stage in the corner of a disused factory .. thankfully it was in the corner that had a roof .. it was freezing cold with rubble everywhere .. there was no bar, no dressing room, no shower and NOT EVEN A TOILET .. when needing a piss people just found their own dark corners of the derelict factory to relieve themselves .. I dont even want to know what goes on if people need a shit .. oh dear .. change the subject .. there was no electricity here so the power was from a very old diesel generator which when it started to run out the shitty sound-system got quieter .. frantically someone would pour fuel back into it .. the sound got louder and the crowd cheered .. we couldnt wait to get away from this abortion of a gig .. By this point we..d been on the road in a van for over a month .. and with just one more show we were ready to go home .. that was my day September 29th 1994 7. IN POLAND FOR THE REST OF OUR WRETCHED EXISTENCE DAY SEVEN .. here we were in Wroclaw for the last show of the tour .. the venue was a cellar bar .. we arrived to find out it was flooded from a burst water main .. they had a dozen hose pipes and pumps going in trying to remove the water in time for the show .. just before the doors opened there were even people walking up and down on the dance floor with sponges stuck to their feet to mop up the last of the puddles .. The show was sold out and a great way to finish a real adventure of the tour .. on the tour we had played to so many great crowds .. we met a lot of genuinely good people .. back in 1994 not many bands got over top Poland .. Meet Chris one of the crew guys had been partially deaf in one ear for a couple of months .. on returning from this tour he was gonna go to the doctor .. but during this day he got cured .. a green and black lump an inch long came out of his ear and he could hear properly again .. a miracle .. he said it was like surfacing from being underwater for a couple of months .. it turned out that on the previous tour in Ireland whilst he was passed out drunk he had dry tea from a tea bag put in his ear for a joke .. well he didnt see the funny side of it .. but I did .. it wasnt me as I was also passed out drunk .. 57% Vladivar Gold vodka does that to a man .. After the show we started the mighty one thousand mile epic journey back home .. As we left Wroclaw we got to the Poland only major highway out of the country built by a certain German guy in the 1940s .. It was made of huge concrete blocks with pot-holes .. Our poor old van was shaking to pieces .. we over took a big truck which was equally shaking to pieces .. one of the rear wheels literally vibrated off .. we watched it bounce past us like a huge beach ball .. these five seconds seemed to last an age as we all imagined it bouncing straight into the front of the van .. we would all die for sure in a van wreck of twisted metal .. We were all breathing a huge sigh of relief .. when disaster did strike .. our gear-box rattled to death .. the gears went one by one until we were left with only the fourth gear .. but had to keep moving .. we were screwed but a back up plan .. if we got to Germany we were covered for breakdown recovery so we had to get across the border .. but things got worse for us .. we took a wrong turn and ended up in a village .. we managed to escape and keep moving .. but took another wrong turn as we tried to head back to the highway .. so we were stuck in a Polish country lane in the pitch black of night .. our van was painted army radar reflective matt black paint .. there were cars coming from both directions and they couldnt see us .. we had no reverse gear so everyone out of the van to push it in a three-point-turn to face the right way .. the traffic narrowly missed us and slowly we continued on our fated journey .. we started picking up the signs for the border .. we started to smell the scent of freedom .. but just three miles away we had a puncture .. f*ck f*ck F*CK !! .. we just couldn not believe our luck or lack of it .. we had a spare tyre .. so far so good .. but no jack .. we tried in vane to flag down vehicles but no-one stopped even a couple of cars with British number plates .. surely they would help fellow British travellers in their moment of need ? .. nope they just drove passed us .. bastards .. we were here for hours and starting to lose the will to live and starting to believe that our destiny was to be peasants picking mushrooms and making shoelaces IN POLAND FOR THE REST OF OUR WRETCHED EXISTENCE .. and remember this was 1994 and before we had mobile phones .. and wondering what our next move was .. Then out of nowhere like knights in shining armour our rescuers arrived .. they had been a thorn in our side for a week but now we were so pleased to see them .. after realising our predicament they disappeared off to return with a truck mechanic with a jack .. so with the tyre changed we limped the van very slowly across the border .. we stopped at the first services near the town of Cottbus .. Next task was to talk to the van breakdown cover people and get the rest of the way home .. we had made it .. or had we ? .. all day on the phone but they refused .. it was our only shot at getting home and eventually they gave in and we were provided with two hire cars .. the van was recovered with all the equipment and returned within a few days .. we drove non-stop .. it took 24 hours to get back .. we were f*cked .. but we were home and that was better than the best ever .. that was my days September 30th through October 1st and on into October 2nd 1994 .. In conclusion .. This tour was a hell of an adventure and eye opener .. had never done nothing like this before .. in other journals my vivid imagination may run away with me a bit .. this one is all true .. thanks for reading ..