2009

Our new Album EL DORADO is released by the end of January. Our grand 2009 tour starts on the frozen East Coast of America! With temperatures rapidly falling to below minus 22 F (not even mentioning the snow, and the wind ... ) we drive (and play of course) all the way from New York City, via Montréal to Chicago, and Milwaukee. Did we mention ... we drive. Ourselves. In hired cars. Everyone in North America seems to be so "moderate" about everything ("cool" somehow sounds wrong under these circumstances) "You guys from Germany call this winter? This is nothing ... " We admit, we're wimps ...

February and March sees us on tour in Germany, playing 30 gigs across the country (oh, and our first ever concert in Luxembourg!) And ... starting in January Daniel "Danda" Cordes replaces Carsten on bass. Carsten wants to spend more time with his family! At first it was not easy for all of us ... to realise that a musician, who has played with us from the very beginning, will not be joining us as usual ... on the other hand, a new musician, especially one filling such a vital position, opens up new opportunities ... anyway, the tour is great... Danda's our man!

The global financial crises somehow passes "us" by! "Us" meaning our audience, and us (the band) ... well we all seem to enjoy hanging out together!

Summer kicks off with our annual 17-Hippies-Tour flyer:

Our summer count-down starts in Madrid (bottom left), and finishes with us playing in Tel Aviv (top) in November.  In between the two, we play concerts in: Spain (a second time), Germany, France, China, Germany, France (again) , Germany (yet again), England, Spain (again and again), USA (this time we drive from Phoenix via California to Madison), Germany, Switzerland, and ... Belgium. Phew! Ahead of us are: Amman, Paris, Hamburg and for the third time that year ... Berlin

You may ask, "will all this be too much"? Well, you may ask ... but to tell the truth, we have this amazing privilege to travel the world, meeting all these wonderful people, while playing our music. What can one possibly want more?

Our highlights in 2009 undoubtedly are: the WOMAD-Festival in England, playing on the main stage and we're guests of Charlie Gillett on the BBC3-live stage, the Schleswig-Holstein-Musikfestival, our concert at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and our sold-out performance at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris …

But as you know, it’s not always those big events that make our day ... more often it's the unexpected meeting or the quite moment that has this magical quality: the cooperation with our friends of “Boom Pam” in Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, the bus journey from there to Jordan, jamming with the Jordanian band “Zam Za’atar“ (Sign of Thyme) in Amman, and of course those late night (early morning realy) concerts in the Basque country, and meeting up with friends during various festivals in France ...

Then by coincidence we happen to be in Berlin when “Whisky mit Wodka“ is premiered – a new film by Andreas Dresen, featuring us in a short scene as a 20ies Tango band (completely dressed up in wigs, suits, and fancy clothing!)

We end this special year, yes, we played over 100 concerts in 15 countries, by reopening our traditional, and legendary “Hippie-Haus-Tanz” for two nights. We are supported by a very special Musician from New York ... Elyas Khan!