Just back from his tour through Austria, France and Germany, Th’ Mole gives us an update on his wacky adventures, along with new live video footage, photos, and the first leak from his upcoming album.

Th’ Mole “Go Horsie (Live)” video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CLDigIkSsc&NR=1

This tour made me believe that I might be cursed, or that I may have some sort of screwy electrical field that causes equipment to malfunction.  Either way, lots of bad things happened to me, but all-in-all it was still good fun.

Things That Went Wrong:

* My connecting plane in Chicago (on the way from Portland, OR) had “electrical problems”. After sitting on the plane for a few hours (in eager anticipation of dinner) it was announced that the plane would be cancelled until the following day. This meant an extra 24 hours of waiting in Chicago, and the cancellation of the first show of the tour in Toulouse.

* Once my plane finally made it to Paris, about 26 hours late, I had to take a train to Austria for my show in Vienna.  This would have been a long journey anyway, but since I misunderstood the guy at the ticket booth I neglected to switch trains when I was supposed to.  So after about 17 hours of being on the train, thinking that I was half an hour away from Vienna, I was kicked off by a man who spoke not a single word of English.  I had no idea where I was; all that I knew was that it was 5 in the morning and there was lots of snow.  After some time I found out that I was in a small town in Slovenia, over 9 hours away from Vienna.  (Luckily a few extra euros and lots of waiting got me to the proper destination in time to fix my broken MIDI key-tar and play the show.)

* More electrical problems.  Following the problems with the airplane, I experienced the following unexplained electrical problems: 1. In Vienna, for much of the night, each time the sound guy did so much as lay a finger on any part of the sound board, an extremely loud and terrible noise came out of the speakers.  2. At the next show, in Berlin, during soundcheck, half of the electrical circuitry in the building stopped working and two different power converters were destroyed.  3. At the next show, in St. Etienne, I decided to drape some christmas lights over me while I played, and when I also picked up a battery-powered light I was shocked with 220 volts.  4. At the next show, in Nantes, I was interested in the strange-looking power supply, so I pressed the power button, just out of curiosity, and then it stopped working and wouldn’t turn on again.  5. In Paris, during soundcheck, DJ Bizkid’s turntables were being strangely unresponsive, but then mysteriously started working normally again.  6. At the last show, in Strasbourg, the other band, Pad Brapad, had problems with the monitor speakers, forcing the venue to find new ones.  7. My travel companion, DJ 0.000001, had numerous unexplained issues with his MIDI equipment. (Somebody told me that maybe it’s not a curse that I have, but a magical super power which I have yet to learn to control.  That would be neat!)

* In Bordeaux it proved impossible to find a train reservation so that I could get to Strasbourg in time for my show, so I decided to sneak my way there via the toilet stall.  After a couple hours of people banging on the door and me using my mongrel French to say, “I’m sorry, I’m sick!” the ticket checker busted in and demanded to see my ticket.  I had a ticket, but not a reservation, which is compulsory on most French trains, but for some reason the guy didn’t ask for my reservation, so it turned out okay.  But still, it was a pretty stressful and stinky couple of hours.

* I mis-planned my bookings, scheduling a show in Denmark followed the next day by a show in central France, which would be impossible to do by train, so I had to cancel the show in Copenhagen, which was going to be ON A BOAT!  Dangit!  (Also an extra show in Bordeaux was cancelled, along with one in Poland – dangit two more times!  That means a total of 4 shows were cancelled on this tour, and a hefty sum subtracted from my wallet.  Ouchy.)

* Also, I got sick, and my e-mail stopped working for a few days.  But luckily I’m INVINCIBLE!  NO CURSE OR ANY AMOUNT OF BAD LUCK CAN STOP TH’ MOLE!!

Things That Went Right:

* I didn’t lose ANYTHING on this trip!  This is a major accomplishment for me, which you can verify by my last tour report, in which my list of things lost was super-hecka long. See… http://dalycityrecords.blogspot.com/2009/06/th-mole-tour-report.html

* I sold out of my CD’s.  (But I didn’t bring that many..  cause the time before I brought way too many.)  I then spent hours making more burned ones to sell, but I don’t think I sold any of the burned ones. But then I gave them all away at the last show, which was fun.

* All the shows were lots of fun, and went pretty well.  (Besides the show in Bordeaux which was horrible in ever so many ways, thanks to the worst booker I have ever dealt with.  If you’re reading this, mister, you know who you are; you should get out of the business.)

* I recorded two pretty cool songs in Bordeaux with Le Pingouin and friends.

* Lots of nice people took me into their homes, fed me, and showed me around.  Thank you!

Stay tuned for Th’ Mole’s new multi-media album, Superman Vs. Gremlins, coming out on Daly City Records in May.  Meanwhile, check out the first (un-mastered) leak from the album, “Black Helly ft. Oskar Ohslon & Cartoon Monster”: http://dalycityrecords.com/the_mole/Th’%20Mole%20-%20Black%20Helly%20ft.%20Cartoon%20Monster%20&%20Oskar%20Ohslon.mp3

Order Th’ Mole’s latest album: http://www.dalycityrecords.com/merch/?p=341

Official web page: http://www.dalycityrecords.com/thmole

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thmole

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thmole

YouTube: http://youtube.com/thmoletv

Press photos: http://www.dalycityrecords.com/the_mole/presskit/Th’%20Mole%20-%20promo%20pics,%20cover%20art%20&%20logos%20-%202009.zip