I'm sitting in a hospital emergency room in Bojonegoro, Central Java. Jackson has barely slept for two days and hasn't been able to keep down any food or liquid since this morning. After he was forced to stay at the motel and experience hallucinations of alien shamans surrounding his body and alternate dimensions morphing out of the motel room wall, we played a secret show on a farm as a four piece (more on that later), and upon getting back to our motel it was clear that his condition needed to be taken care of urgently in order for the tour to continue. I made the call that he needed to go to hospital about two hours ago and we had to wait for our trusted Indonesians to return. We both jumped on the back of some scooters (no helmets for us), tapped out into a car halfway there, and while I steadied his shaking body he just received an injection that we can only hope will cure what ails him. Anca's just gone to buy some water and Pocari Sweat so I am assuming what they just gave him is an anti-nausea agent and that he will soon be able to remain hydrated.
Let's rewind from where we last left off...
After leaving the house where the last entry was written, the rest of the band got in the van with The Shantoso and I jumped in the car with Yoga and co and continued my evil plot of spreading the word of Australian metal. We turned the car into a bit of an smoke oven and made our way to the show in Depok, which was on the top level of some kind of grocery store type place in a moderately sized shopping complex. We caught up on some much-needed internet time at an adjacent coffee joint called 'Starmugs', a completely unabashed Starbucks rip-off, and then I continued sampling every bottle of rice wine that it seems every third person there had and wanted me to have. Tonight also marked the first time I've ever been offered a tomato at a show by a crust punk - I attempted to eat it like an apple, but could only make it through two thirds before I couldn't stomach the raw taste anymore.
A couple of 'emo-violence' bands played as promised, but also a number of death metal and grind groups. We were also witness to the tour's second cover of Hatebreed's Live For This, and saw Eric and Yoga's two-piece grind band play with two humans for microphone stands. By the time we took the floor maybe 15 bands had already played, and a large number of the hundreds of kids in attendance had bailed. We still opened up a significantly more active pit than we've ever experienced at home. My keyboard's power supply kept falling out of the socket in the wall and eventually I gave up on it. The microphone was also completely dodgy and by the last couple of songs of the set I gave up on that too - it didn't matter too much though, as the guitar cabs weren't all that powerful and my raw screams could still be heard above the music. Fucking punk, man.
While hanging out in the car park, the promoter Ricky told me how he had to pay the police $50 AUD every time he wanted to put on a show here. He also told me about the time the pigs pulled him up, planted cocaine and weed in his pocket, and subsequently spent a night in jail before bargaining his way out. Another story involved a friend of his being caught trafficking two ounces of weed in his car, but by the time it made it to the courts the official story was that there was only one ounce. Corruption here is clearly out of control.
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I fell in love twice tonight; once with the sick drummer from one of the grind bands, a pure-faced, almost perfect specimen of a man who had pretty decent English, largely thanks to wanting to know what Nasum's albums were all about. The guy was full-on metal lord, but loved our set and said he'd never heard anything like it. He supposed the reason we're not selling as much merch as we expected is because there are absolutely no bands like us in this country, and we were "a new sound for everyone". The second instance involved an amazingly beautiful, husky-voiced girl who had even better English, and as it turns out was a presenter of a digital radio station that played all kinds of heavy and electronic music. While I was drinking in a car later on with some of the dudes they caught me checking her out. "You like this girl?" one asked. I told them that she was the prettiest chick I'd seen so far and then they started laughing their heads off - turns out she was only 15 years old. Fuck! She was definitely very mature. Ricky and Yoga had actually arranged for a “party girl” to come to the show to “make sex with” me but let's just say I really wasn't feeling that one and shit was awkward.
I got chatting with Yoga about our lives for a moment things got pretty real. He has lived with his parents for the last few years, having moved back to Depok after the tsunami hit the coastal town where he used to live. I asked him if he knew many people that had died in the disaster and almost immediately felt like the most insensitive human ever - the colour drained from his face as he told me that he'd “never seen so much fucking destruction, man – there was nothing left, fucking nothing, just dead bodies everywhere.” I quickly steered the conversation back towards grindcore and the vibe improved.
We actually managed to sell a few records tonight, a rare commodity in Indonesia, and after a million crew photos and merch trades we were on our way. We were meant to head to Kudus first, but the show had been cancelled due to the police finding out about it and demanding the equivalent of $700 AUD in order for it go ahead. It was a bummer, but it meant we had an extra day to hang out in Magelang. Yoga hooked us up a little Xanax to help with sleeping in the van, Anonymous B soon turned into Belligerent B and I more or less laughed myself to sleep.
The next day I awoke to scenes of farming and a seemingly endless, only slightly-dodgy highway. Two cops on the one motorcycle drove up beside us and motioned for us to pull over. It was a little worrying, but after our drivers handed them a small wad of cash they didn't bother with giving us any trouble. We stopped for lunch at a shopping centre and Scotty finally got his wish of Indonesian KFC. “KFC for Scott!” declared Anca. Turns out their fries are pretty rubbish, most meals come with rice mounds shaped and packaged like cheeseburgers, and the breakfast wrap I got was absolutely tiny. I paid 1000 Rupiah to take a dump in the complex, grabbed some supplies for dirt cheap from a supermarket, and we began moving again.
The scenery became more beautiful and incredible as the journey progressed. The highway eventually turned into a thin road that wound its way around mountains and villages; despite the seemingly remote conditions, the traffic and never-ending trail of roadside stalls didn't seem to end. We eventually made it to Magelang – the Temple City. It was the first time any of The Shantoso boys had been to this place, so it was new faces for everyone as we tried to find somewhere that could give us a roof for the evening. After showering and resting up at a house I thought we were going to sleep at, we moved on and found some street food. I had promised myself to approach this trip with an open mind and try every weird and wonderful food that came my way, but I just could not bring myself to touch the fried beef tongues and boiled chicken feet, and stuck to the curried tempeh, eggs and rice.
We pulled up at a local motel, but it was booked out. Unaware of what the deal was, we were idle for some time on the street. Scott and I began cracking increasingly vile jokes that would make our mothers want to go back in time and abort us, as Jackson sat across the road with his head in his hands and we pondered where his happiness had gone. After about 20 hours on the move, the exhaustion was starting to catch up. An hour or so later we moved on to the local hardcore hangout - picking up some beers for Brendan's 26th birthday along the way - and got to the front steps of a supermarket that was all sorts of NYHC, Wu-Tang Clan and Deez Nuts. The rice wine and cigarettes flowed, like I even need to mention that anymore, and I proceeded to get quite intoxicated as everyone else tapped out of their excessively low-key birthday celebrations. Hit with the sudden urge to evacuate my bowels, it was then that I enjoyed my first Indonesian scooter ride. Without a helmet I was taken down the road to a disgusting service station bowl. It was super fun – the scooter trip that is – and I knew I was going to have to get on the bikes more often.
Finally, a place to stay was arranged and we made our way to the outskirts of town. Things started to get a little rural again, and we pulled up at a professional boxing club with a large adjacent house. The rest of the band hit the ground before you could say “anyone want some cui?” and The Shantoso, myself and a few locals continued with the rice wine domination. I think it was on this night that Anca and I really clicked; we shared stories of family members not understanding our desire to dedicate our lives to music and the touring lifestyle, our beginnings in heavy music and stories from the road while the rest of the guys mainly just listened in. I learned that he doesn't have a real job or a home, and makes his living on the road, accompanying overseas bands and printing their merch. He also informed me that not only was this the longest tour that The Shantoso had ever done, but this is apparently the longest and most extensive tour that any international band had ever done of Indonesia - most bands only play Jakarta, sometimes one or two more cities if they are feeling adventurous. Nuclear Summer was literally pioneering in the Indonesian touring circuit. We got stuck into philosophical discussions on religion (Anca has a giant tattoo of a crucified Jesus on his back) and the universe, and before I knew it, I was blackout drunk. Jackson says that he was awake the whole time, and that by the end of it I had exactly four different sentences that I would cycle through. The best one was, in his opinion, “If I was God, I would think you're a sick cunt.”
The sudden onset of the morning hurt. My eyes were like giant rice puffs and my body was as dry as a nun's. Brendan, on his three quarters of a tallie, had fared much worse – I awoke to see his whole body covered in long, symmetrical abrasions that the drivers has applied with a coin and rubbed oil into as a remedy for his feverish vomiting. Scott was also quite below the weather, sweating probably just as much as he was shitting. Oddly enough, I'm the only member of the band that didn't get any shots or vaccinations before leaving Australia, as well as having been eating more meat than anyone else, and I've managed to maintain the best health. I think it is the wine I've been drinking every night that has prevented me from falling victim to these stomach bugs – the shit is potent as hell and would probably kill any suspects. Either that or modern medicine is full of financially driven lies and the flesh of other beings makes one strong. The view from the roof of our granny flat was incredible - rice fields all around, and an incredibly massive, apparently sometimes-active volcano loomed in the distance. After getting a bunch of photos with and signing the schoolbooks of a handful of the kids at the house, our host's mother served up some super chilli mi goreng for lunch and my early proclamation of “I'm going to live forever” rang hollow as my stomach began to cramp for the first time. I held it down with some aspirin, Panadol, and an anti-nausea tablet just in case.
After requesting some internet, I jumped on the back of a bike for the second time, thankfully with a helmet, and was escorted to a local internet cafe. Upon entering I caused quite a stir – I was asked for photos with every second person there, and the guy at the desk pumped through our video clips and I was soon forced to listen to the entire stream of our album as I caught up on some emails and Facebook. Alright, alright, I admit it, I enjoyed it.
Rather than overstaying our welcome, we moved on to a motel that was right next to the local hardcore supermarket hangout. My stomach cramps returned, this time with a feverish sweat, hallucinations of giant rice-cracker-faced men encircling my bed, and bizarre dreams of touring Indonesia while running into all sorts of bands from around the world and back home. A few hours later Nate and I got down with the supermarket, and upon doing my business on a REAL THRONE and downing a couple of oranges, my health was sorted. We ran into The Shantoso and their local entourage, and were given the tour of a nearby car park where the show was to be the next day. Once back at the motel, the rest of Nuclear Summer zonked out, claiming our large single bed for themselves, and I went back to the hardcore chill zone. We drank more wine, talked about sex and perved on/laughed at passing ladyboys for an hour or so before I crashed out in the van.
The next morning was a Sunday. I was awake before everyone else, and decided to head off to check out the show which had started around 10am. Having assumed that we were going to be playing some kind of illegal show on the bitumen, I was surprised to see a huge tent and stage had been erected, professional security guards chilling politely, and hardcore and metal kids arriving in swarms. After being treated to a few cans of 0% Bintang at an all-ages show that also had a desk dedicated to cigarette sales, one of the locals requested that we go and get everyone else from the tour party. On the back of a scooter I jumped and soon we were all at the show, which was growing larger by the minute. Every gig here has an MC between bands, psyching up the crowd and introducing the next performers, but today's guy had a particularly big personality. A huge banner adorned the stage 'TCHC – Temple City Hardcore' – and it felt like we had walked into an early 2000s Hellfest DVD. 'Beatdowns' galore. The kid from the boxing club's band even pulled out a sweet cover of Madball's Heaven & Hell. Much to the delight of the locals, I pulled a few stage dives and had a mosh to The Shantoso, grinning like a fool.
By the time we took to the stage the tent was absolutely overflowing with kids – I would approximate at least 600 or more were in attendance. It was to be unlike any show any of us ever expected to play and Nuclear Summer opened up not one but two massive pits that saw kids fight dancing and two-stepping their guts out. With every show we play here I can feel my showmanship and confidence going forward in leaps and bounds, and I'm even unintentionally adopting a more traditional hardcore steez with my presence. We are but products of our surroundings. That said, I could probably pull my shirt over my head and yell a bunch of nonsense and kids here would still think I'm cool.
After the set we were absolutely swamped with photo requests, which were already pretty full on before we had even played, and I made the mistake of handing out a few badges for free. I was literally mobbed and struggled to break free from the swarm of children - handfuls of badges were snatched from the bag, and some kid even stole the new 'Fabric X Cloth' hat that a local clothing dude had given me two hours prior right off the top of my head, before Anca helped me escape to the safety of the merch tent. The rest of the badges were put away so that we would have a few left for the rest of the tour, but the stash had been largely decimated.
We were being treated like proper famous rockstars, and sitting amongst industrial remnants maybe 30 metres from the tent, the rice wine didn't stop. This was unfortunate for Scott, who was having the best time of his life before having a little too much fun on an empty stomach. After a few solid hours of drinking he flopped into the van and demanded to be given a plastic bag so that he could kill himself. After seeing him put the bag over his head I was momentarily terrified that he was actually going to cause himself to cease, but after panicking and pulling the bag away my pants and shoes as well as the van were splattered with his foul stomach contents. Great. We took Scott back to the motel, where he had his head placed inside an extremely dirty bin to empty the last of his bile, and one by one we all dropped off to sleep. Once again, I drank rice wine at HxC central, and was the last of the Australians to flake.
Most of the next day was spent relaxing and recovering. That evening I went across to the giant shopping complex to write my columns for the week, and not long after getting back to the motel, discussing Throwdown and all sorts of breakdown-heavy bands with a few local kids to whom it seems discovered Victory, Trustkill and Ferret Records a few years later than the rest of the world.
The next day we arose early and headed to the site that saw Magelang worthy of its Temple City moniker. This day also marked the very first time we had seen any other white people since leaving Jakarta airport, probably because it was the first time we partook in any particularly tourist-like activities. The temple cost $20 US to get into, possibly the largest expense since being on the ground, but the sights were breathtaking and completely worth it. Supposedly the largest Buddhist temple in the world, the architecture of this giant stone structure was truly remarkable and the level of detail in the walls and endless views took our collective breath away. After stopping off at a local kid's house for a huge lunch spread and some traditional ice cream from a passing vendor, we began to make our way to Yogyakarta.
It was along this drive that tensions between The Shantoso and the drivers started to become clear. While they were still quite buddy-buddy with us, arguments began to break out between the Indonesians about directions and other things we couldn't understand. The money transfer I had sent to Anca before leaving in order to pay for the van still hadn't come through to his account, and he had run out of cash to keep paying for fuel and their wages. As it turns out, they had no connection to anyone other than just being employees of the hire company, and they were starting to get the shits with the lack of a full payment. We went to a Commonwealth Bank to try and work out what had happened, but turns out their systems are not connected with Australia and we would have to wait until the next day to get on the phones and sort it.
Yogyakarta is the second biggest city in Java, and much like Jakarta we were unable to escape the smog. Our next destination was to be a local tattoo shop, which turned out to be a mildly dirty room in the front of a dude's mother's house. Anca and I both got matching tattoos – this duck-headed ghost thing taken from our tour tote bag – and it marked a few first time tattoo experiences for me. Never before had I not only been able to smoke inside a parlour but actually been encouraged to do so, never before I had I fallen asleep listening to Motörhead's Ace of Spades whilst being tattooed, and never before had I had bugs drop from the ceiling onto me while on the chair. The house was also full of dogs, including four baby pugs, one of which Nathan accidentally half stepped on while on his way to the toilet – nothing too severe though. My ink was sealed with a swab of pure alcohol and that's about all they do for tattoo aftercare here. I no longer wondered why tattoos appeared to be so faded over here.
With a couple of the other Indonesian dudes remaining behind for various ink – Gapet became the first person outside of Nuclear Summer to get our trademarked NCLR SMMR tattoo – we headed off to catch Touché Amore from the USA. They were playing in the front room of an extremely American-styled clothing store, full of Atticus, Afends, Macbeth, Dickies and the like, and having opened for the dudes at Sun Distortion in Brisbane only a few weeks prior, I was thankfully able to escape into the air-conditioning out the back to hang out with and trade South East Asia tour tales with their bassist and overall super friendly dude, Tyler.
He had some pretty cool stories to tell, but it was evident that their only two shows in Indonesia didn't quite compare to the craziness we had been experiencing. Turns out the majority of our shows had been in larger venues than theirs, and we had been playing to a lot more people most nights. Their shows were however about four to five times the cost of ours to get into, they were playing through much more consistently legitimate gear, and unlike us I suspect they were being paid for their performances. None of the bands appear to have been paid at any of our shows so far, not even us or The Shantoso, with the small cover charges going to cover gear hire and police payoffs, with every single show reportedly running at a loss. The stage setup was extremely disjointed and awkward, but it didn't stop the bands from ruling and the crowd from losing their minds, and it was a certified sweatfest.
After saying farewell to Tyler, clearly the most approachable and stoked-to-be-there guy of the group, Jackson, Nate and myself jumped on the back of some motorbikes and the van followed us to some delicious street feeds. Once more without a helmet, I was rather concerned by my guy's ability to drive with one hand, smoke with the other, and try and educate me on local language all the while overtaking other cars and bikes.
Scott was still dead from the night before and remained in the van the entire evening. We managed to sell a whole bunch of Monolith releases out the back of the van to my bike rider, who was a really educated and super cool local guy who had actually looked after the Night Hag tour, and then began our treacherous journey to Bojonegoro.
This drive was truly terrifying. After pulling my trademark 'legs in the air, back on the set' van sleep style, I awoke to massive rumbles and jarring movements. Panicked, I believed my back was about to be broken, and it took me what seemed like an eternity to remove myself from my precarious position without booting anyone else in the face. We were driving through mountains on some extremely degraded, often plain-dirt roads, with the weather around us dominated by fog and subsequently excessively poor visibility. Clearly still shitty about their financial situation, the drivers weren't really taking much care, and our movements were perhaps more intense then they needed to be. Everyone was jolted awake from their quasi-sleep after a wheel slipped off the road, the van became momentarily hitched and we all thought we were going to die. We arrived at our motel shortly after sunrise and I crashed out for a few hours.
The money situation needed to be taken care of, and after a short rest Nate and I were escorted to a local cafe where we hung out with the locals, got on the Wi-Fi and struggled for a long time to enable communication with the Indooroopilly branch of the Commonwealth Bank. Eventually we were able to get Skype working and were informed that the money had been frozen on the Indonesian bank's end; turns out I had gotten the account name slightly wrong, and that Indonesian banks are very strict about that sort of thing. I needed to be faxed a form to sign and fax back in order to get the money back into my account (it's 2012, emails anyone?), but after hours of back and forth I managed to break the phone at the local internet/fax place that I had been ferried back and forth from on a scooter, the bank in Australia closed, and we had to put it off until the next day. At least we now knew what had happened to the money, and that some random Indonesian dude hadn't gotten lucky with a surprise deposit. Today also marked the first time since arriving that I have been taking consistent, smooth dumps like I would back home – unless you've lived off local cuisine here yourself, you couldn't possibly understand how happy this has made me. I have evolved.
Soon after, we were required to make our way to the gig. Turns out Jackson had been spewing all day and was unable to hold down any even water, and decided that he was unable to play the show. Originally I was a bit miffed by this call, but it wasn't until later that I realised the true severity of his illness. The tour manager in me still says he should have done it, but I can't push the issue when we're not operating on a truly professional level. In order to avoid police detection, the gig was in a secret location that had been revealed only a couple days before. Despite that, we were quite surprised to be greeted by a couple hundred kids and a massive array of parked motorcycles and scooters once we got to the undercover patio on the farm we were playing just outside of town. The show overlooked a massive dam, with pens of ducks, chickens and goats only a short walk away. After only five bands of various punk, metal and hardcore styles (10 bands is considered a small show here) a heavy storm hit, power to the entire area was lost, and the surrounds became a pit of mud. We hung around for a few hours in the hope that electricity would return, with the others mainly resting up in the van while I again drank and featured in dozens of photos with kids. The promoter became progressively more and more wasted, and continued to apologise profusely like there was something he could have done about the weather.
Not long after night fell we decided to head back to the motel. Jackson looked like a ghost and informed us that he had in fact shit the bed in our absence. He was nice enough to flip the mattress however. It wasn't very long at all before Anca returned to say that the promoter had decided to hire a generator in order for the show to continue. We grabbed a bite to eat and some coffee around the corner, got some photos with some curious locals who mistook us for famous rock stars, and made our way back to the mud fest.
To our surprise at least half of the kids were still there, and as it turns out a good portion of the other bands had all come from out of town and were all hanging for their chance to get up and play two or three songs each. We got up and played four songs without Jackson, and despite his absence things went down well enough. It seemed almost everyone there thought we were the best thing since punk rock and/or breakdowns were invented and again the fan photos seemed like they would never end. I've become a master of rotating between metal horns, fists, hang tens, stick tights, black metal poses and making sexual references with my fingers.
Jackson is doing much better now and I am feeling rather fatherly. He's been able to hold down some liquids and was given a whole bunch of various medications to take over the course of the next few days. Despite his insistence, Anca wouldn't let him pay for a cent of the medical bill, which came in at a total of about $14 AUD. I was provided with more dinner than I could fit, and a bunch of kids came back to the motel to hang out and buy some of our merch, but they've finally all shaken my hand and gone home. Everyone's resting up inside now while I tap away out the front of the rooms, and the giant rats have come out to feast on our scraps. My eyes are heavy like bricks and I'm really looking forward to packing up and passing out. Until next time...
