July 2004 Archives

This entry was originally posted at Homogenized and later merged into Neckbeard. Images and links may be broken. Sorry.

The Montreux Jazz Festival seems to be a jazz festival only in name. The two week festival features over one hundred acts on its three main stages, and countless others in the “Montreux Under the Sky” venues. The Under the Sky stages are all outdoors and all completely free of charge. Out of the hundreds of artists, I heard maybe 4 that were real, honest-to-God jazz in the four days I spent in Montreux.

But no worry. Though I love the few jazz artists that I consistently listen to, rock is really my bag. And there was definitly no shortage of that. One of the most entertaining was some sort of Francophone rockabilly-punk band. I’ve always thought about punk as a uniquely American and English style of music, but this band managed to put more energy and entertainment into their show than I imagine most contemporary American “punk” ever would. And despite playing to a crowd that, for the most part, had never heard a single one of their riffs, they got a bigger ovation than several indie rock bands do from their devoted fans that fork over $15+service charges. And a hell of a lot more dancing too. Perhaps that says something more about the state of the American music scene than that of the Swiss, but I found it interesting regardless.

Apart from the music is the party. Several kilometers of the lakefront of Lac Leman become home to a huge mass of jewelry booths, t-shirt stands, tattoo parlours (yes, tattoo parlours) and food (including sushi). Basically, the entire waterfront becomes a huge street fair/block party. The entire event just feels alive, which is definitely more than I can say for the American summer festival scene, which are either so far away from civilization that you have no choice but to bend over and take it from the festival organizers, so restrictive that you are not allowed to leave the venue for the duration (which can be upwards of 10 hours) or both like the Coachella festival, a thoroughly disatisfying event despite having one of the best line-ups I’ve ever seen.

More dispatches re: Europe to come later.

This entry was originally posted at Homogenized and later merged into Neckbeard. Images and links may be broken. Sorry.

It’s been a while since my last post. Far too long in fact. But what better place to post a new item than from Europe?

My itinerary has thus far included onlz Switzerland, but it is everything I thought it could be. Aside from the fact that their keyboards suck (y and z are transposed, ctrl-alt-2 for @) Switzerland is one of the finest places I’ve ever seen. After a quick layover in Amsterdam (no time to visit the red light district, that will have to wait I suppose) we hopped a plane to Zürich, a large metropolitan area. There our group was introduced to René (make sure to roll that first ‘r’) who would drive The Bus for at least the entire tour so far. He is a Dutch national still struggling with English a little bit which results in stifled-laugh concoctions such as “if you would like to leave some bags on the bus…that would be possible?” René is a great guy and I have yet to see him without a smile on his face.

From Zurich we drove to Luzern, which even after a week in Sweizz has been one of the most gorgeous cities I’ve ever seen. Our hotel was less than a block from the famous old bridge with its ancient guard tower that spans the river. While staying in Luzern a trip was taken to nearby Mt. Pilatus, elevation 7000 feet with cliffs looking every inch of it. It was certainly a harrowing experience for a near acrophobic like myself.

As lovely as rocky Mt. Pilatus was, the view from Grindelwald blows it out of the water. The small tourist trap sits high in the Swiss Alps, with a fabulous view of the triplet peaks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau towering above. A “cable car” (gondola) takes visitors up to a point approximately halfway between the town and the peak, and it was up to us to make our way further up or down. As we had not been planning on extensive backpacking and hiking (indeed I had only my camera and not a drop of water among our group) we took a more direct route, east across the face of the Schreckhorn, and down. A leisurely two hours later and we were back in Grindelwald.

The scenery in Grindelwald is fabulous although I can not say the same for the town itself. The largest and most obvious tourist trap in the US (biggest ball of twine, those dinosaurs in the California desert) can not hold a candle to Grindelwald. It simply does not feel like a real city, and how can it? The only establishments are hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops. In addition the souvenir shops all sell the exact same things which I shall relate presently:

• swiss army knives.
• swiss watches.
• swiss cuckoo clocks.
• swiss t-shirts of which there appears to be only one manufacturer but who, at least, has the good sense to make them funny like the take off of Puma with a jumping cow.
• postcards.

Now as I write I am in the fabulous Montreux, a Francophone city on the far East end of Lac Leman. Genéve is on the other end, nearly on the French border and it is there that we attended an American Independence Day celebration, because really even when you’re in Europe you can’t miss the Fourth. It was replete with Harley Davidsons, swing dancing, more American military Jeeps than I’ve ever seen in the US and even churros, the one Mexican confection that says “American fair” better than anything I can think of. The festivities themselves? Eh, they were alright.

Now that I have nearly caught up to the present I shall stop. My next entry will be on the ongoing Montreux Jazz Festival, which is how festivals really were meant to be. (I’m looking at you, Coachella.)

Au revoir.