Description

Chronicles an anarcho-rock’n’roll cabaret band touring the hard way–in a crowded van.

When the internationally acclaimed rock’n’roll cabaret band Rhythm Activism toured Europe in order to promote their newest CD, it was through a Europe in transition that they traveled–a Europe marked by political and racial tension. Being equally at home in hard core clubs, poetry festivals, soup kitchens, the netherworld of squats, or urine drenched dives and youthfully, defiant haunts where cultural resistance rules, they drew immediate followers. The Anarchist and The Devil Do Cabaret is an amazing portrayal of that tour, told with a sense of humor, a down-to-earth perception, and in the tradition of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road or Henry Rollins’ Get In the Van.

Inspired by encounters with Europe’s new multi-racial underclass– the working poor, street people, immigrants, refugees, marginalized youth, the aged–this book is not merely an insider’s look into the state of rock’n’roll, it is, as well, a commentary on the state of Europe in the late 20th century. In a wonderful reversal of tradition, every so often Nawrocki slips from his chronicles of life on the road into short fiction pieces. These stories, real and exaggerated, are filled with a cast of friends, lovers, and fellow travelers–panhandlers and anarchists, the unemployed and underemployed dreaming of better times, neo-Nazis and skinheads trapped in hateful lives, prostitutes risking everything, gypsy ghetto boys fighting racism, and even the sometimes riotous band members themselves.

Table of contents

Introduction

I Holland & Belgium

•An Anarchist Rock’n’Roll Story
•On This Corner
•Welcome To Our Road Show
•Raising Hell
•Street Cleaners
•What’s Ailing The Music Business
•I Bought the Devil…
•Squat The City
•Get A Life, Canadian
•Whiskey Love
•Night Birds Talking
•Showtime
II FRANCE

•Loverboy Of St-Malo
•The Artist, The Vulture, The Beggar
•The Indie Hospitality Queen
•Rapture In Dijon
III SWITZERLAND

•Snoring In Zurich
•Duck Soup
•’Politicos’ vs ‘Culture Vultures’
IV AUSTRIA

•Apple Strudel
•Spin Cycle
•I Bought the Devil…
•Tour Van Cranky Head
•The Man, The Crow, The Dachshund
V GERMANY

•Play, Sell, Count
•Mother, This is the Truth
•The Clown, The Fiddler, The Father
•I Bought the Devil…
•The Pippy Longstockings House
•One Night in Berlin
•I Bought the Devil…
•Cat Woman, Dog Boy and Snake Man
•German Border Payback
VI HUNGARY

•Welcome To Capitalism
•Hank Williams In The ‘Hotel Lucky’
•Madame Pompomalour
•Sanitarium
•Learning To Insult
•Red Pepper Bureaucrat
•Roma Country
•The Hypocritic Oath
•The Musical Vortex
VII CZECH REPUBLIC

•Pilsen, The Beer Town
•Piss It Away
•The Right Time Please
•I Bought the Devil…
•God’s Creation: Valdimir
•Those Chocolates
•Dragon Women Warriors
•Cirkus Berousak
•Elizabetha
•’God Damn Gypsies’
•On The Road To Dubi
VIII GERMANY

•Tom Waits Goes Zapatista
•Amp On Fire
•Mayday Anarchist
•No Present, No Future
•On The Road To Gotthard
•Gnomes For Sale
•The Pump, The Puppet, The Piano
IX ITALY, HOLLAND, FRANCE

•Bakunin’s Birthday
•I Bought the Devil
•Beside A Child’s Coffin
•The Masks Are Off
•Dancing In LeHavre
X CZECH REPUBLIC

•Frank Zappa’s Kiss
Discography

NORMAN NAWROCKI is a Montreal-based author, actor, musician, and activist who has toured the world since 1986 with his music, his poetry, and his solo, educational, anti-sexist, ‘sex’ comedy cabarets. He is the author of four books of poetry, has over 45 releases with his bands, and has produced two documentary videos. He gives workshops about ‘creative resistance’ and how to use theater, music and comedy for radical social change.