Bordeaux, France

Leaving Belgium, I entered my last country of the trip: France. I only had one show left to play, in Bordeaux, though I spent my last couple of days relaxing in Paris before flying home. I made the trip to Bordeaux because a good friend of mine from Madison had moved there to teach English, and offered to host a house concert at her place. Bordeaux is in southern France, very close to the Atlantic coast, and is famous for wine. Below are some pictures I took while Caitlin showed me around town, as well as a couple I stole from her of the house concert.

Lovely Bordeaux by the river, and it was the nicest day of my trip yet.

A neat wooden bridge over the road.

This space is apparently usually a reflecting pool, filled with water, but being winter and all, it was empty.

House concert.

My hosts for the evening, Caitlin (middle) and Sai (right). On the left is a random drunk Frenchman giving a rock symbol.

The last show of the European Tour was really fun, and a fitting end to a very successful tour. I love playing shows in Europe, and plan to do this once a year as long as I can. I still have one or two more posts to make covering my last two vacation days in Paris before flying home, but this does it for the tour. Here's to EuroTour 2011!

The Berlin House Concert

I am very fortunate and honored to have the privilege of playing house concerts in people's private residences.  The idea of a house concert is that a host will have a living room space or somewhere that would suit an acoustic concert, and then invite friends.  Most of the house concerts I do are set up through couchsurfing, and so they become also couchsurfing meetings for the local hosts and traveling surfers to attend.  I already had played a wonderful concert in Prague at my friend Rolf's place, and this one in Berlin was the second of the tour.  I still have two more to do, one tonight in Antwerp, Belgium, and in two nights in Bordeaux, France.

While I was honored to have such a great audience for my concert, the best part of the evening, for me, was meeting all of the locals and travelers from so many different countries.  Enjoy the pictures from the after party...


We decided to have an international guitar exchange, and so everyone who could play anything at all was required to show everyone else something from their country.  This crazy Ukrainian guy sang some rowdy Russian songs.  Other nationalities I can remember sitting around this circle: Indonesian, Bulgarian, South African, and of course, German.


Hearing some German children's songs!





Sophie packing some strawberry flavored tobacco into the hookah, while Alice watches in amazement.


At the end of the night, and Fachreddin is ready to pass out.

Thanks, Berlin!

More pictures from Alaska...

Performing at the Whole Wheat Radio House Concert in a cabin in Talkeetna. Pay a visit here to check out this amazing concert space. Jim and Esther open up their home to have musicians perform. While there was a great, intimate audience, there were also people listening in over the internet. Thats where the 'Radio' part come in, Jim broadcasts the concerts via internet radio, and anyone, anywhere can listen in and interact. We even had listeners that night in far away places like Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, and a few European countries, as well as a number of American states. This was probably the coolest concert experience I've had to date, and I hope to make it back soon.

Stopped at this mountain lake on the way back from Talkeetna with Matthew and Olga, pictured above with their dog.

Enjoy the scenery...

What I've Been Up To on the Road...

So I know that I still have a few more posts to finish up from the Europe Trip, but I thought that you might like to see what I've been up to on my month-long Spring Tour out west. I am currently in Los Angeles, and heading up to San Francisco today, but here are some pictures from where I've been so far...The first stop was Chicago, and I got to share a show with some good friends of mine, Flame Shark. We did a radio spot at WNUR before the show, and the picture above shows Justin Jahnke of FS and myself preparing to infiltrate the Chicago radio waves.

Driving through Kansas I decided it was time for a clean-up, so I shaved off most of my facial hair and got a haircut in Emporia, KS. It was the longest haircut of my life, the old guy used only scissors, but he did a bad-ass job.

Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo, TX. I stopped for a bit of hiking on my way through, as my brother and I had enjoyed this canyon last summer on tour. I believe that it is the 2nd largest canyon in the U.S. after the Grand Canyon.

I spent a weekend playing shows in New Mexico: at a roadhouse in Madrid and then a house concert in Placitas. DeeDee (pictured above) and her mom were kind enough to put me up for the weekend as couchsurfing hosts, and they threw one hell of a house concert/party on Saturday night. Here is DeeDee modeling a Mexican wrestling mask AND a John Statz t-shirt. Yes, we both ended up with masks (see my Facebook profile picture).

The house concert in Placitas, NM. I really had a good time and met tons of fun people. Thanks DeeDee and Michelle!

Rolf's Party/House Concert!

Rolf, my host in Prague, was kind enough to throw a party and house concert in my honor! He invited friends and other couchsurfing hosts from around Prague, and I believe we counted 11 different nationalities in attendance: Czech Republic, Great Britain, Sweden, USA, France, Italy, Russia, Venezuela, Portugal, Kazakhstan, and Canada. It was a really wonderful night, and a treat to have such a mix of nationalities in one room. Below are a few pictures of my performance and the rest of the party as well. Thanks again so much, Rolf, for the wonderful stay in Prague!

Danny (UK) teaching Lazzat (Kazakhstan) the C chord I believe.

Danny is showing the proper way to prepare absinthe. Yes, absinthe is perfectly legal in the Czech Republic, and I picked up a small bottle of the strongest stuff you can get!

Rolf and I. You wont find a kinder human being, hope to see you soon, friend!