My name is Keegan McInroe, and I am a singer-songwriter from Lubbock who’s been living in Fort Worth off and on since 2001 when I began my four years of study at Texas Christian University. Over the course of my ten plus years writing, performing and recording original music, I’ve played hundreds of shows and traveled thousands of miles throughout the United States and Europe. My latest tour is a four-month trek and ramble north, east, south, and west around the Old World. Whether you’re a fellow musician, a fellow traveler, or simply a reader who loves a good tale from the road, Texas Troubadour Abroad –– my bi-monthly travelogue published here on the Weekly’s website –– will have something for you.
“I believe that all roads lead to the same place – and that is wherever all roads lead to.” ― Willie Nelson
I’ve seen countless new mornings this tour. Looking out the bathroom window a few minutes ago while relieving myself I realized I was seeing another.
The quiet afterparty continues.
Italian being spoken. In the house of my amico, James Castelfranco. Smoke. A bottle of what might be vodka or clear tequila has sat on the coffee table unmolested for over an hour.
“…italian….italian…bello…italian…ragazzi…italian…fanculo….italian…ciao…ciao…ciao…italian…italian….”
Earlier in what is now yesterday evening I played a show with HD Holden James’ band. His name is actually Christian. But he is James Franco’s doppelgänger and he lives in Castelfranco and so he is James Castelfranco. I mentioned this before when I was through here in June.
He strikes the lighter and inhales and laughs and whispers. I’m not sure why there is whispering to be honest.
Last night’s gig was the end of a four night run I did with Mr. Castelfranco and his band. Vienna, Austria. Ročinj, Slovenia. Gorizia, Italia. And finally Montebelluna, Italia, where we wrapped up the festa at Mattorosso several hours ago.
James hands me a smoking ashtray.
It was my fifth time playing Mattorosso since 2013. Once with Ms. Barbara Piperno on flute. Once with the two Spanish rascals from Moonshine Wagon. Twice solo. And now with HD Holden. The restaurant and live music venue is something resembling a large, brick beer hall inside with a nice big stage and plenty of good, Italian craft beers on tap. A nice size crowd assembled.
The night before is a blur of Jack Daniels sucked from beakers and Tennessee Honey and sweat and — somehow the ashtray has already come back around to me — and a gig at Osteria L’alchimista in Gorizia. Upon booking, the question was posed as to how many bottles of Jack Daniels should be purchased for the festivities and the four Italians in tow. I suggested two. Four were bought. I’m not sure what was consumed ultimately, but I helped best I could.
I know I ended up behind the bar and then behind the bar in the punk bar in between and then back to L’alchimista for the finale.
I slept at the bar owner’s flat on a wooden floor with my trusty leather satchel as a pillow. A chosen space. Happy.
The night before that we played in a particular version of heaven, Cafe Mojo. A multi-level wooden bar out on the outskirts of Ročinj. Everything I’ve seen of Slovenia is breathtakingly gorgeous. Rolling mountains covered in big, bushy, lush green trees. Aside Mojo runs the emerald green Soča River. James says the bar reminds him of what he imagines Louisiana to be like.
There is a bit of a swampy feel to Mojo — minus the topography, he might be on to something.
The bar’s owner greeted us upon arrival with a round of shots of Slivovitz, a clear Slovenian liquor — a type of fruit brandy similar to grappa or rokija — followed by a second, and then a handful of strong medicine that replenished itself the moment it ran dry. And beers. And there was some type of throw-the-coal-on-the-lid-and-heat-from-above iron pot wherein ribs and potatoes came to fruition for a feast. And there was no clock. And there was music. And there was groove.
And there was what-seemed-a-man saying he was here “to destroy humanity.” He looked a bit unhappy about the task, which he ventured nothing to elaborate on — resolved, nevertheless.
He spoke to me as if I understood. I’m not sure that I did. But I pulled from my beer and looked into his wild eyes and kept nodding, prodding, asking questions. We agreed that music is good. I pointed out that music — in the form we were speaking of — is created by various humans. Disturbed but seemingly undeterred in his strange and dark quest, he did grant me this.
We laughed — nervously — a bit and shared tokes from the rolled peace pipe. I don’t reckon he refers to it as a peace pipe. But it surely will delay him in his ultimate mission. So I’ve bought us all a little time, perhaps.
In both Gorizia and Ročinj, my friend Mojca Velikajne sat in and provided beautiful vocals on “Wild Horses” and “Ring of Fire.”
The rest of the band over these past four nights consisted of Sir Federico Fossi on drums and djembe, Mr. Stefano Sparisi on lead guitar, Signore Alessandro Brunetta on keyboards, sax, and harmonica, and one James Castelfranco on vocals, harmonica, and guitar.
I met up with the fellas in Vienna after a seven plus hour bus ride from Dresden four nights ago where we kicked off the tour at the cozy little Café Lassa. After our gig, we drove down south through the night in a Mercedes van packed to the gills with musical equipment and man flesh and beards to Slovenia, James Castelfranco covering 500 plus kilometers. A sleepless champion behind the wheel.
The sleepless champion has just informed me he is retiring to his room to get some sleep. Surely it’s time.
~
It is now that aforementioned new morning’s afternoon. I woke up around 12:30 p.m. I went back to sleep. I woke up around 4 p.m. As the others stirred, a simple tuna pasta was made for breakfast, followed by espressos. Now there is some electronic and acoustic guitar music making going on downstairs. I’m drinking water at the kitchen table. Coming to.
Two weeks ago, after sending off the last Weekly piece from the little cafe in Brugge, I walked the city awhile, taking in the famed beauty, eventually making my way to a beer bar I had been told by the owners of Comptoir Des Arts was a must. The name escapes me now, but the beer was good and I ended up meeting a nice young American woman traveling alone on a sort of thirtieth birthday adventure — if memory serves — and a funny local man who bantered with us over several hours and several bottles.
My new American friend and I combined forces for the rest of the evening for street food and drinks at the previous night’s venue, the aforementioned Comptoir Des Arts. Upon arrival, one of the owners approached me about doing a few songs for those at the bar who’d missed my show the night before. I agreed to this proposition and played three or four songs unplugged.
The effort earned me drinks on the house for the evening, and a very special gift: an autographed copy from the owner’s father of Brugge: Onthullingen Van Water En Licht — translated Brugge: Revelations of Water and Light according to iTranslate — a book of watercolor paintings he and another artist had done around Brugge.
Brugge is a worthy muse for such work, and Fernand Thienpondt’s — whose son owns the bar — and Door Aquarellist’s paintings are an impressive collection. I’ve found it very soothing and romantic perusing — much as the city, itself.
The next morning I decided to head north to Tilburg in The Netherlands to visit a friend I hadn’t seen since I met her at a show there back in the summer of 2013. We picked up from where we’d never had to leave off from and laughed and talked and laughed and talked and laughed and talked some more. And she gave me a salsa dance lesson.
Of course, no trip to The Netherlands is complete — for me, at least — without a sampling of the country’s finest herb. In Tilburg, unlike Amsterdam, one must be a citizen to even enter the coffeeshops. A friend of my friend’s had his identification on him and offered to serve as my shopper, though he himself does not partake.
“Ok,” handing over 40 euros, “I’d like the smallest amount of hash you can buy, and the smallest amount of weed. This ought to cover it.”
I stood outside bullshitting with the security guard, while he disappeared inside amongst the smoke and the musk.
A few minutes later he emerged with four bags of the store’s strongest brown and stinkiest green and zero euro cents leftover. Something was clearly lost in translation. Try as I did to get through those four bags — tried until nearly 5 a.m. — I couldn’t do it. I slept like a baby, left my substantial leftovers in The Netherlands, gave a lingering goodbye to the dancing magician, and headed to Germany to see another friend I hadn’t seen for several years in Cologne.
I arrived in the evening to a home-cooked meal of a variety of sausages, potato salad, beers, and good conversation.
The next morning it was off to Rudolstadt for my gig at the little Guinness pub, Kiedorf, which has become a regular haunt of mine since my first year playing the roots festival TFF back in the summer of 2013. I’ve probably played around seven or eight shows at Kiedorf’s by now, and it is always a great time and it is always an unplugged, acoustic show. Sometimes inside, sometimes outside.
It was a little chilly out, it had even rained a bit, so I played inside at the back of the tiny pub. With all the windows I was facing at the opposite end of the room closed and the door closed and smoking being quite legal indoors, I was choking with each inhaled breath for each next couple of lines of vocal projection.
My eyes burned.
I requested one of the smaller windows above the larger windows at the back of the room be opened. It was done.
I went into another song, eyes closed as is my tendency, but also from the burning. Opening my eyes I see the window closed again. I make another request to reopen the window. Into another song, eyes closed, choking, burning, trying to gather the air to push out words loud enough to compete with the room’s ongoing banter. Eyes open. Window is closed again.
I had a Guinness in front of me. And a strong whiskey. And they had similar friends going down the hatch before and after. Now, any drinker will probably tell you that they’ve learned over time that certain alcohol effects them in different ways.
Tequila has a tendency to make everyone crazy and naked, for instance.
I’m generally a very happy drinker, but if ever I am going to get salty, it’s likely to be on whiskey.
This continual closing of the window was putting me in a mood. Coupled with the burning eyes and the incessant chatter at volume, I began getting in more of a mood.
“Before I snap,” I thought, “I’ll try to bring the level down.”
I played a mellow song. Sang at a whisper. The room continued roaring. The window remained closed.
Internally: “Fuck this.”
I played the softest, most delicate version of “Georgia on My Mind” I could muster in my not-so-delicate state, put my guitar away, sat down at the bar, observed the window closed again, ordered another whiskey. One friend of mine had moved closer to try and make out the last songs.
I smiled at him. Someone who cared. We had some more drinks. Eventually he left, and I started feeling salty again about the whole damn thing. Everything I said came out with an unintended gruffness.
“You stay here with your friends,” I growled to my lovely friend putting me up for my time in town. “I’m going to bed.”
“No, no. I’ll come with you.”
“Really? Ok. Well. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I awoke feeling a little guilty.
“I’m sorry I got a bit sideways last night. It was just that damn closed window. I’m getting angry thinking about it now, even.”
“Ah, it’s ok. You were so grumpy. It was so cute!”
“If it was cute I was doing it wrong,” I thought — or did I say that?
That evening I played another show in Rudolstadt in the biergarten of the historic Gasthaus sum Anker. Some friends I made earlier in the tour — of “Like a sex machine! Like a bridge!” fame — own and operate the restaurant. It’s been under the same family’s stewardship for over 100 years.
Seeing as how I was in the open-air, there were no closed windows to piss me off. In fact, it was a night off big laughs.
During my second set, a young boy of about three or four came over to the cajon sitting unoccupied next to me and began providing percussion. This went on for several songs to the amusement of myself and the 80 or so people in attendance. From somewhere a tiny guitar was produced and he switched instruments, wielding the thing high and up in the air like Johnny Cash, putting on a show. Eventually, he found his way to my lap and the microphone.
When we weren’t making up blues songs together — I would give him a melody and he would howl or grunt or moan or sing something much cuter than a whiskey-drunk — he was regaling the assembled with what I could only guess was the funniest monologue anyone there had heard. People were in stitches.
It was all in Deutsch, so I didn’t understand a thing, other than I had a comedian perched on my leg.
But, his comic masterpiece was translated to me later. Here it is:
In a very measured, yet slow pace. The soft voice of a wee German child speaking: “My daddy shit his pants when he was drunk. But it’s ok. I shit my pants, too, because I am so young.”
Apparently, because the first round of this message received such uproarious reception, he simply continued repeating it, over and again while his poor dad sat red-faced in a corner, me oblivious and encouraging my little friend to keep ‘em coming.
He also used the word arschgeige multiple times which was roughly translated to me as ass-violin, a mild form of insult. I actually really like the word. Ass-fiddle, to Southern it up. But it’s got a great ring to it.
It’s unclear whom the referent was. Maybe me for being so oblivious.
The night ended with a much more enjoyable but no less intoxicated visit to Kiedorf where I was further intoxicated with freckles and more whiskey and probably more Guinness.
From Rudolstadt it was on to Freyburg, Germany the following day for my performance with my old harmonica-howling friend Florian Escherlor at Wein Rockt! e.V. I played the wine festival last year and made such good friends and had such a great time, it was a must for this summer’s tour, and again, it did not disappoint. I stumbled around grinning like an idiot for two days again with a little leather string and glass-holster around my neck full of a 2 oz. glass full of various wines, wine schnapps, champagne, and whatever else found its way in there.
Saturday night was our performance and the reconnecting with last year’s merry-making friends and wine, all capped by a beautiful firework display and a hard sleep outside in the light rain. Sunday began with new-wine and a wine parade, which I missed because I was too busy at the outdoor bar of my friend’s, and was capped with a jam where I led two songs — Bob Marley’s Soul Shakedown Party and Creedence’s Green River — and tried singing German lyrics in a group sing-a-long and a bottle of champagne on top of the day’s other imbibements and a long, lingering post-festival party.
Monday I headed to Dresden where I was to perform at a small music venue and cafe called Zille for a benefit show Tuesday night for the Syrian refugees in town who are in need of basic toiletries. This was the second week of the so-called Shampoo Shows, organized by a friend and local musician, Adrian Röbisch.
It was a very last minute booking, and Flo asked if I’d like to invite some of our musician friends to participate, a kind of Keegan McInroe & Friends type of evening, which I was quite keen on, so the invitation was out and before it was all said and done there were eleven of us up onstage playing and laughing together.
The line-up was myself, Flo, Adrian, The Voltz Brothers’,Tom Voltz, Stephen Voltz, and Chris Farnaby, Patrick Kearney, Frank Haussig, Sully Kaemmer, Tobias Fuchs, and Gunther Lietz. All extremely talented, good people.
One thing that struck me: even with eleven musicians on the stage at once, which is how the night ended, it never turned into a shit-show, never a train wreck. Everyone really listened and respected and created space and shared.
It was LOUD but it was good.
In fact, the music community in Dresden reminds me of what I’ve experienced in Fort Worth since back in the Catfish Whiskey & Friends nights at the now-sadly-departed Moon. From just a brief experience of the scene in Dresden, I’ve observed the goodwill between musicians, the rotating doors of various musicians sitting in and playing with various other musicians. Not so much ego. A real love of music. And a real talent for it. This area of Germany — the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), a.k.a. East Germany — has a strong and sometimes defiant tradition of blues music, in particular.
If I move to Germany — as I’ve been contemplating — Dresden will likely be the base of operations.
And so the Shampoo Show was good, two days later I traveled by bus south to Austria, through the Czech Republic, to Vienna, where my Italian fratelli would meet up and make merry over the next four nights down from Austria into Slovenia and west to Italy, where I now sit.
~
I would be amiss if I didn’t mention something in regards to last edition’s small political rant.
America is certainly bloated with problems and political and media and humanitarian immoralities and incest — but so are the governments of the world in their varied degrees and ways — with no complete exception I’m aware of. The countries that make up Europe certainly have their warts and toad politicians and greedheads and prejudices.
The facts and smoke and mirrors and erupting fountains of horseshit are familiar worldwide.
It had occurred to me that Italians are probably getting a kick out of this whole Trump thing because of their many years under the thirsting, powerful crotch and golden, bumbling tongue of one Silvio Berlusconi, who seems to share some sort of arrogant genetic deficiency as the Donald — and then I saw an Italian friend posting on just this comparison.
I find Berlusconi much more entertaining.
But I’m an American. America is my country, because I was born there. If I was born in Italy, I’d be an Italian.
I am in love with Europe.
But I was born in America. I’m an American. And I love many things about my country.
But I don’t love what America’s politicians do in our names around the world or at home.
One must look to their own eye before trying to drag a splinter from a brother’s or sister’s. I believe that.
When considering the large influence of the American Eye globally — in matters of peace and, particularly, war — it is an enormous responsibility of the citizenry to ensure that the power of that Enormous Eye is restrained and controlled, not unbridled and dominating.
I would argue it is a greater responsibility on the American people than for the citizens of most any other country on Earth.
When America takes a shit, the world is covered in shit. And it doesn’t wash away clean and easy. In fact, it clings and most of it piles up around the world in various manifestations and unfortunate mutations and dangerous repercussions.
I am a citizen of the world. The neighborhood I’m from is called America — specifically, a charming little hole-in-the-wall kind of joint called Texas — which I will be returning to in three weeks.
I am not sure what all forms it will take over whatever time I have here, but I aspire to work towards a more compassionate and peaceful future wherever I can, however I can.
One natural and appropriate place to work towards that end is back in the States.
Whew. Time for a drink — I believe there’s a full bottle of something strong and clear around here somewhere.
Keegan McInroe
September 21, 2015
Castelfranco Veneto
