The Mad Red Motherf**ker World Tour.
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My first day with the MRMF is in the books.
Looking back, I noticed that I never posted any proper introduction on the forum, but just casually slipped in a while back.
So let's use this opportunity to remedy that.My name is Thomas, born 1978, thus currently 45 years old.
Married with 2 kids, boy currently 11, daughter currently 7.
I am a lawyer by trade, certified in the field of IT-law (information technology), but also working in the field of IP (intellectual property).
As of yesterday, I had my license for 19 years. I am self employed, basically running my own law firm as a one man show, with one employee. I do share the office space with other colleagues working in the same field, though.
The pictures I regularly post in the WAYWT today thread are taken in the entrance to the office building.
I'm sure the MRMF is fit for doing the lord's work, but today it had to to the law's work
My office is based in Cologne, Germany, where I was born and have lived for many years.
But, as so many do with kids, I heard suburbia call, and we now live roughly 25 mins outside of the city.The cologne cathedral is in walking distance, so I took a quick stroll during my lunch break.
Here it is in all it's glory:
There's not much I can tell you that you wouldn't be able to look up on wikipedia anyway.
But there's one small detail you probably won't find ( @endo knows it already). It has an actual street address, Domkloster 4, and thus - a house number:
House numbers are a funny thing in Cologne. That little french guy with the crazy hat, Napoleon, thought it would be appropriate to re-number every house in the city once he had conquered it. The one where the Eau de Cologne was produced received the 4711, and they kept that number as a trademark.
Stay tuned, more to come in the next days!
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For today's installment, it is really @neph93 who has all the bragging rights. I suggest that you take a trip back to the Iron Cast S1 EP8 to revisit what he had to say about this topic.
You know by now that I am a lawyer, and quite often I wonder how I ended up there. Subculture music scenes got a hold on me at a fairly young age.
In the early nineties, new music styles were breaking everywhere. As a young kid, much of this blew me away. How can it be that I have a very vivid memory of where I heard 'Bullet in the head' by RATM for the first time? (Photo of the location will follow in due course).
The first concert I ever went to was an open air show in mid 1993, meaning i was 14 at the time. A german rock band 'Fury in the slaughterhouse', touring for the release of their now classic 'Mono' album. My parents accompanied me, but just stayed around the perimeter and let me roam to the front of stage.
The second show was much wilder, 20th November 1993, a german punk band 'WIZO' which gained short lived international attention when they worked with Fat Wreck Chords by Fat Mike of NOFX. I have no idea why my parents let me go. I was a smart pupil, but was heavily bullied in school. Maybe they wanted to make up for something I was missing, I don't know. I guess my personal situation explains why I was always leaning towards the outcast.
From the punk scene, I went into Streetpunk/Oi! (think Cock Sparrer) and Ska with my hair cropped considerately shorter, boots and braces and all.
The came Psychobilly (think The Meteors), which is probably as outcast it gets in terms of subculture. If you have been there, you probably have seen it all.Now, back to the MRMF. I took it to a New Model Army show yesterday.
Many of you will know them trough their epic 'Thunder and Consolation' album, and Vagabonds is an all time classic.
Their career spans 40 years, and the first time I saw them was 25 years ago in 1998. @neph93 is the one who could go on forever talking about them, having followed them as a hardcore fan for years, even earlier on.They regularly stop by in Cologne for a Christmas show at the Palladium.
It nearly fell flat with one of our kids falling sick, but we managed. We even were able to have dinner out and a cocktail before. The MRMF even looks good thrown over a barstool!
I could go on a long rant on the gentrification of cities, and the area the Palladium is in is a far cry from the old industrial heritage. The company Felten & Guilleaume used to make steel cables there, nowadays it's been fully remodeled to an office area with hipster bars. Is that some sort of street art? Who cares, it was a decent photo location:
The show itself was packed, 4.000 capacity and sold out.
So we did what old people do at rock concerts - stand in the back.
I'll leave you links to music videos of the bands mentioned above, in case you're interested.
Fury in the Slaughterhouse - Radio Orchid
WIZO - Quadrat im Kreis
Cock Sparrer - Take 'Em All
The Meteors - Slow down you graverobbing bastard
A band that I have followed through all these years is Good Riddance, a Hardcore Band from Santa Cruz. They put it best in 'Libertine':
"With you I've never felt alone
And as I stumble through these days
I hope you'll understand
It's so much more than a phase
It's everything I am
When I've strayed in darker times
When I'm feeling left behind
You're always there
The music somehow seems to get me by" -
@tody great write up dude. Very cool getting a glimpse into life in Cologne. I really dig how so many of us have such a similar back story with subcultures and punk rock. It’s so rad how those experiences have somehow led us all here to this iron heart subculture.
I felt like I was hanging out with you at the bar and the show. MRMF has punk rock in its DNA!
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Thanks, guys. I'm happy to take you along.
The wife was a little amused at first, but I have shown her a little of this thread, and she came to really appreciate what the tour is all about.
She's fairly deep down the rabbit hole herself - Hen's Teeth, Scartilab, A piece of chic. She can admire the quality of the jacket, and is also amazed by the goatskin. I guess it's the colour and also the motorcycle/perfecto cut of the jacket that is holding her back. -
@tody said in The Mad Red Motherf**ker World Tour.:
it's the colour and also the motorcycle/perfecto cut of the jacket that is holding her back.
a woman with impeccable taste
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It's been a week. A very busy week, too.
We're off to the Netherlands on Tuesday, so I had to get everything squared away in the office. That sort of worked out ok, but man - I need some rest.
Thelast yearlast ten years have been stressful, being self employed comes with a price, being a lawyer and the need to keep deadlines, too. The last year has been extreme, though. As some of you know, my dad passed away in late 2022. It has taken me a long time to get back on track, and a few other issues arose during the year, such as our son getting bullied pretty heavily at school. There were some other factors that added to this as well.
Today, everything came to a full stop, sort of. Took the family for a trip to the city, went to do some shopping (see the Andersen & Andersen thread).
The Cologne Zoo hosts a 'China Lights' festival every year where we went after going out for dinner.
The only animals awake were the trash pandas (aka raccoons).
The Mad Red looked pretty good.
For the next bit, I wanted to take some more photos on a different location - I couldn't find the time to drive there yet, though. It was supposed to be a practical joke on the origins of the jacket. So we need to talk about: football (soccer for the yankees).
Cologne. FC Cologne. A club of which you need to be a fan. Second last in the Bundesliga. Just sacked the coach. The Sports arbitration court sanctioned them with a two period transfer ban. BUT: they have an excellent mascot:
They have an actual goat which is in the stadium at home games. The rest of time - you have guessed it by now - he is kept at the zoo.
So the question is - who wears the goatskin better?
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@tody
great pics and the jacket suits you extremly good ! You should think of getting a double rider kind of jacket for yourself.
merry christmas for you and your family mate
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Here's the next installment - finished the Christmas celebrations and straight off to the Netherlands we went! Yesterday we were at the in-laws, today at my Mother's. We drove straight to Den Helder from there. This is where the ferry to Texel leaves, to the first and largest of the West Frisian Islands.
It's the place we go on vacation, sort of our safe space and sanctuary.
I first went there with my parents at the age of 12, and have spent at least a few days every year there ever since. It was the perfect vacation spot when I was a kid, and my parents bought a house there early on - thus we went on every occasion we could. I was the only one from our family who kept on going there regularly, but still my parents decided to sell the house some years ago. Still, we kept going, renting a place in the same holiday park.
I had been trying to get my own place there ever since my parents sold theirs, but when there's a waiting list three pages long at the reception in that park alone, it's not an easy undertaking. We had incredible luck two years ago, when an opportunity arose, a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We jumped on it, and now go there as often as possible.
It's an 370km drive to the ferry, that is anything between 3 and 6 hours (mostly 3, but it can be bad on a Friday afternoon). That's a little too far for 'just' a weekend, but everything that is longer - public holidays leading to longer weekends, and every school holidays there are we go there.
It is beautiful to see the island changing throughout the year, things you wont see if you're a 'regular' tourist. I'll show you some spots during the course of the next two weeks.Here's the Mad Red at and on the ferry:
We had a full moon tonight:
Our place is the one with the lit windows:
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Forgot one thing to add: it was right at that ferry terminal where I heard 'Bullet in the head' by Rage against the Machine for the first time, see my music related post above. Must have been the spring of '93. Blasting from a VW bus driven by a couple of surfer type guys. Looks like it had a lasting impression on me.
