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Porta Romana

Apr 2012, 13

Hi Everyone, it’s been a while now, but I just came back from my first Italian tour. I must say it was quite an experience, 7500km and 16 concerts all over the country. I started in Milano and Roma, took a ferry boat in Napoli and ended up in Palermo. I had a great time there and met some really nice people. Among them was Fabrizio Cammarata, a great musician with the heart in the right place. He took me travellin’ through Palermo’s night life, where I met some of his beloved friends. One of them brought some of the finest Italian songwriters to my attention. Just to give you an idea, here is Porta Romana, sung on a special occasion by the great Lucio Dalla, Francesco Guccini and Roberto Vecchioni. 

After that I travelled on to Catania – where the concert and the comforting audience in La Chiave made me forget about my most terrible experience in traffic – and Mount Etna, which is the tallest active volcano in Europe. At one point I was at 2600m, but couldn’t get higher because of the snow.

So I went on to Calabria and then Roma again. I remeber Black Market there, which is a brand new place, and already one of the finest places to play. Then, up north again, I met Stefano and his lovely wife in Padova (I spent the night in their guest room filled up with 6000 records!). There, in Padova, I had one of my best concerts in La Mela di Newton. Not to forget the old train station Aurora in Ora, where I did the last concert before returing home. Actually, there’s still so much to tell and I know you don’t need to read every detail of this trip, but I just want to reach out to all the people I met in Italy and I want to thank everyone for being so open and kind. Those three weeks were a great inspiration and already influenced my writings. Bram

RAT Misery Hour in Switzerland

Jan 2012, 26

Hello. We just got back home from Switzerland and we’d like to thank you all for the wonderfull time we had. Especially El Lokal was a really heartwarming place. We met beautiful people there, we all played our songs, drank and had fun together ’til sunrise. We’ll never forget that evening. Maybe, when you go there too after three in the morning, you might find Steven singing his songs, and some others written by Hank Williams or Blind Lemon Jefferson or old forgotten troubadours. He himself calls this hour the RAT Misery Hour. Just listen. Bram