Stendal Blast plays in San Francisco

Update: we now have PICTURES!!!!!!: My pics, Erin's SF pics on her LJ & Dave's pics

10-12-05: Ok, I got to the airport, met Dave & Marla & then Erin at the hotel. We ate, came back, went over our Stendal Blast interview questions & bought a large amount of alcohol!!! Dave got very drunk even before the show but he was ok after awhile I think... We were scheduled to meet the band at 8pm so Erin could do an interview with them (which will be on her college radio show on a Friday night in the future at http://www.walfradio.org/ 8-10pm EST). We found the band outside, well, Kaaja, Valek & their sound man Markus, anyway... we stopped & talked to them & then Arndt from Radio Goethe came out & told Erin he had a bag of CD's for her to use for her radio show so they got those & Dave walked them back to the hotel. Everyone went inside but I stayed outside waiting for Dave & Arndt hung out & talked to me for a bit until Dave got back...

We then went inside & Erin & Marla were sitting with Kaaja & Markus. Arndt had a mini disc recorder which he set up & the interview began. It went quite well, Kaaja is great fun to talk to, very friendly & open with a great sense of humor!! When Erin was done & the recording device was put away I also asked some questions that we didn't include in our list. His answers were great so it's too bad we didn't just include them but that's ok... We then went downstairs looking for alcohol. SF is VEEEERY expensive when it comes to alcohol!!! Arndt was upstairs playing music & I tried to get a pic using Erin's camera but it was too smokey (not from cigarettes, though, since one isn't allowed to smoke inside even in a bar in CA, stupid CA!!!) This guy had a questionnaire about German music for his school that we filled out in near darkness, that was interesting! So we just kind of hung out until the band started. That was alot of fun, they really did a good job & didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that there were maybe 50 people in the crowd... Great songs & they played for about 1.5 hrs. People were kind of dancing, if swaying in place is considered dancing (no one was quite willing to make the big plunge into actually dancing around & I really found myself a bit too shy even to do it myself *sigh*)... I tried to make Erin dance but she told me I was EVIL!!! Damn right I am!!! So after the show there was supposed to be more music playing but instead we were told we had to leave :-/ Apparently the crowd was too small so the 2am thing didn't come to pass... Erin still got a few pics w/ the band before leaving & then we just went back to the hotel.

10-13-05: Erin had to fly home :*( So after Dave got back we did some touristy stuff while waiting for 8:15pm which was when we could go visit Arndt & the band in the KUSF studio. We make it to the college but keep wandering back & forth trying to follow people's directions to KUSF & failing miserably!!! We finally get there & sit about while Arndt does his show & interviews the band. It was really weird... Arndt was in this one room that had a glass window looking into another room with microphones which was where the band was hanging out & they had to listen to him through a CD player!!! I was kind of amused that a couple of Arndt's questions were very similar to the one's we'd written for Stendal Blast the night before!!! He was being kind of a smartass, too, lol & at some point during a song Kaaja goes, "Ich hasse dich" & I just busted up laughing!!! I finally NEEDED a smoke so head out & see Charles Vickers sitting there... I talk to him a bit (he asked if I was an Arndt groupie to which I said "No" & he goes, "Ouch!!!" as only he can, lol). I said I had to go smoke & he said, "UGH, Leukemia & death that way!!" & pointed to the door, lol! I came back in & said, "I've just contracted leukemia, call me a doctor!". He wasn't particularly amused... I go back in & start telling Marla & Dave about my Charles experience & it appears Arndt had just turned on the "on the air" light so he's telling us to shut up out there, haha, well, no one had told ME I had to keep quiet in the hallway!!! After the radio show we meet all of them at this bar & hang out for about an hour (we had to get up EARLY for my flight the next day...) Mostly talked to Arndt & Kaaja & I got to wear Kaaja's glasses, w00t!!! He's not that blind really but I love wearing other people's glasses... I dunno, whatever ;) Anyway, after awhile we said our goodbyes to everyone, even those we'd never talked to, like Bernhard, the super quiet Stendal Blast member, & headed back to the hotel...

Anyway, it was alot of fun & thanx to Arndt & the band for putting up w/ us!!! :)

More at:

• Official
• Stendal Blast interview!