css Zen Garden

1st day (27th of March)
At 8 pm, Dagoja bus arrives at our base –Trbovlje firehouse– and around 25 people come flooding from the bus (now I know why – Škvorc brought with himself some homemade šljivovica), with whom we breathed, ate and slept together for the next three weeks. Handshaking, toasting... on the way we stopped in Ljubljana, where we had interviews for a couple of television networks and by the invitation of Skabina we checked out a german band Maskapone (all participants on the ET2 had free entry).

2nd day (28th of March)
Driving through Italy – boring till' arrival on the coast of the Mediteranian. By the time we arrived to the Azure Coast, the sun was already shining, so the trip was getting really nice. Around 6 pm we were in Marseille and we got accommodated in a squot. Pizza, beer and an easy going party...

3rd, 4th day (29th, 30th of March)
29th of March
The gig in Marseille was cancelled, so just after we had some coffe that some nice people from the squot made for us, we headed for Toulouse. After arrival in this beautifull city, the locals and and crew had organised themselves and provided us accommodations. Marko, Jernej, Janez and I stayed at Ben's house. We stayed in Toulouse for a couple of days were Ben and his friends excelled as great hosts. French croissant with coffe in the morning, pasta in the middle of the night, lessons in french for our Jani... Once again, thanks for everything....All of you!

30th of March
In the early afternoon we headed for the scene of our gig with a 30 years old bus (speaking of buses; hats off to Les Bouches Confesses, Joke, Fizcus?!, Duberman, Les Skalopes and the rest of the Kosovo 05 tour crew for having the balls, to go with this same bus from Paris to Kosovo). The place we played at in Toulouse, was a small hippie farm, with horses, dogs, cats... The place was actually a small hall, renovated and painted by Toulouse artists. In this same night, we were »introduced« to music from two extraordinary bands – Antenat and Dbau iza djale. And they came acquainted with ours. With our approximately 45 minute long program our turn was after Antenat and before Dbau. Things began to warm up as the crowd started dancing…the crew couldn't stand still either. They were of great support. Solid gig.

5th day (31st of March)
In the morning we would take a leave off from our hosts and took of for Seclay. One whole day drive in the direction of Paris had exhausted us completely. We were all shocked over the temperature difference between southern and northern France. Anyway, Seclay is a small village, which is a small part of the Paris suburbs. We got accomodated in a place that was sort of a  living room with a small kitchen (also included a small backyard ).

6th day (1st of April)
We had a gig in Etampes today with an italian band called Mach Shau. The gig started at 8 pm with Mach Shau. We started our act after they finished at around 9.15. We played for some 45 minutes because the show had to finish at 10 pm. We did our best to make a few people dance while most of the visitors hung around the bar of this big hall. It could easily hold 1000 visitors. What a pity.
After the gig, we managed to get to Seclay where Dbau and Antenat were playing at Deja Minuit festival. Here we cought the act of one of the most famous french ska bands 100 grammes de tetes. Phenomenal!

7th day (2nd of April)
After a party on the 1st of April, our french hosts prepaired tor us a traditional french feast, where we got pissed with french wine and got stuffed with beef & potatoes. Of course, the french cheese wasn't missing. Along with the meal, we listened to the Yapa quartet. Great music, excellent musitians! Unforgettable!
On that afternoon, Dagoja took us to Paris. Some more drinking (started at lunch), a little fotoshoot...

8th day (3rd of April)
Around 10am, we went to club Radazik in Les Ulis, where we rehearsed for few hours and we also set to music a song called Vrbas, the lyrics for it were written by our dearest friend Dragan. Punk!

9th day (4th of April)
On this day, we headed for Radazik as the day before (around 10 am), where the recording equipment was already prepaired and where we were about to record some of our songs with Simon the guitarist. We were all quite shocked and pleasantly surprised to see, that Simon, whose masterful guitar playing we were admiring couple of days before on the Yapa concert, will work with us – he is also a guitarist from Joke. DJ Likweed and Bino the saxophone player (also both from Joke) joined in as well. All of this musicians appeared as special guests on the Fresnes concert. The whole thing was recorded during a live session, under the magic wand of our sound technician Fabien.

10th day (5th of April)
On this day we went to studio 111, where we were just sitting around doing nothing. Here we met the band members from Fizcus?! (Djeff, Paco and Bertrand) and just jammed with them for a while. They told us, that Mano Negra (now known as Mano Chao) comes from this town and so we told them, that we play their song Mala Vida. So the decision was made that we will perform this song with Paco on the vocals on our saturday night concert in MJC Fresnes. In the evening after dinner a discussion came out in MJC Palaiseau about problems concerning the organisation of events inside the European Union.

11th day (6th of April)
We were playing in Radazik with Dbau on this evening. Les Skalopes were supposed to show up as well, but they've cancelled the gig. If there wasn't for the Antenat crew and the rest of the gang, this gig would have been a disaster. Only a couple of locals showed up. Luckily, the crew  made sure, that the athmosphere was bubbling hot!

12th day (7th of April)
Today we were playing in club Kfet, which stands located in the middle of the student campus Bures. First what shocked us was the amount of drinks we were given and the great feast that was prepaired for us (thanks again for that)! We met Dogged Skankers, which opened the show and after them Mach Shau came on. Our turn came around eleven and the audience, already sizzling, began to dance just after a couple of chords. Soon things came down to heavy skankin' and when we tried to finish up after an hour the things got nearly out of control. We had to return to the stage for four times and we ended up performing eight more songs. The show ended an hour and a half later with Mala Vida, which attained it's purpose – making people burn! Dagoja Bus Culture Crew helped to sing it. Unforgettable!
And we shouldn't forget this chick, who was constantly bringing us beer on stage. Thanks, once again!

13th day (8th of April)
On 8th of April, we had a gig in MJC Fresnes, which is some sort of a cultural center with a very beautiful interier. It's a hall with 400 seats and in front of the stage there's a dancing space. The show was opened by Yapa at 8 pm and the hall was nearl full. Once again a great show from a great band. After Yapa it was Fizcus's turn, who warmed things up quite a bit. Such energy on stage! After Fizcus it was our turn and I felt quite nervous, remembering the discussion I had with Simon (Yapa, Joke) before. He told me, that being the last but one band to perform is »Royal timing« for a band to play in France. Joke gave us this great chance to fly. The hall was almoust empty. But as the audience outside began to hear the noise from the inside, the hall filled up imediately. Everybody was dancing with us and our guests (Simon, Likweed and Bino) after a couple of songs. Diving, pogo, skankin'… and everything that comes along with a good show. Once again we (kind of became our tradition while playing in France) ended up our show with Mala Vida and Paco from Fizcus helped us sing it.Yapa, Fizcus and Joke also came up on to the stage and wild-danced with us! »You make people burn!« was a statement from one of the visitors of the show. Crazy!
And Joke after us proved, that they are a band with a good reputationa with a good reason. Good musicians, playing with whole of their harts! And at the very end, Sony and Gal helped Joke with the song Le monde bouge as a combined brass section from Joke, Fizcus and Red Five Point Star.

14th day (9th of April)
All the groups, participating on the tour (Dbau, Antenat and us) had on this evening a gig in a club (bar) called Abracadabar in Paris. They have this »noise limit« in the club, so we were all a bit sceptical. We were playing first since this was our fourth gig in a row. So we prepaired a slightly shorter program. We began the show with songs which we predicted wouldn't exceed the noise limit. But we only have a few such songs, so we were (despite our short timing) »forced« to start »playing«. And soon we found out, that the noise limit won't affect the dancing, nor the singing. Abracadabar was packed full and the locals and crew were having a lot of fun during our show. And we were also very glad and honored to see our friends from Joke and Fizcus?! in Abracadabar. The show was ended by Antenat with the Dagoja bus song, performed with help from the crew. Fun!
The only thing, that was bothering us (and probably the locals as well), was beer at the price of 5,60 Euro (you can also get a pizza with that beer in our country for this money) and that the bouncers didn't let us to bring a couple of six-packs in – not even to the crew. (we wouldn't do that normally but 5,60 for a beer?!) – Marko couldn't get in the bar for a whole hour (luckily we've already played) when the gorilla at the door told him to go to bed or something and threatened Julien from Joke when he helped us smuggle through a couple of beers  - you rebel, you. They even wanted to stop the show, when the security found out, that someone from the crew was having »Notinthebarsold« beer. It all sort of reminded me of those redneck discos in Slovenija.

15th day (10th of April)
We took this monday off to relax (we smuggled beer in the bar after all, hehe) and went to Paris city, acting like tourists and stuff. We visited the »red light district«, took a walk to Louvre… Tiring. We had some dinner and a discussion about mobility of artists in the European Union in MJC Palaiseau. After the discussion, we were talking with Julien from Joke about the song Our van (which was written specially for this occasion) and were playing around with the idea of recording the song together (damo gor tudi linke za besedila: Urošs lyrics, Juliens lyrics)

16th day (11th of April)
Around eleven we went on to Rackam to record a couple of songs with Simon and Likweed from Joke. We  recorded three songs (live session), but we decided, that none of them is good enough to be put on the compilation, which will be released for this tour. Not even the song Our van, so we were all kind of worried. In the evening we've checked out the movies »Ca s'est fait!« (Projet Kosovo 05) and »Karavan za mir« in J. Tati cinema in  Orsay.

17th day (12th of April)
In the morning we came in the AJB studio, where we recorded Our van. We were recording the song for a couple of hours (we had some problems with bass drum skins, but luckily they had a replacement in the studio) and it was finished by the time Julien arrived. We knew where to put his vocals in the song, but we didn't know how he would do it. He prepaired his part of the lyrics in advance, read it to us and translated it. We introduced him with our ideas and he showed us his. He went into the recording room, Pierre (sound technitian) rolled him the song, he started and the whole lot of us got goose bumps. He conjured up a miracle in half an hour! We've been satisfied with the recordings so far, but his vocals simply put the song on a completely different level. He »used« us in the song as his supporting vocals (everybody but Pierre got in the recording booth to shout). Alors, we did it…! Thank you once again, Julien!
In the evening we had dinner in MJC Palaiseu and had a debate about alternative and institutional networks. We were also celebrating a release of  »Jus d'ananas«, a double DVD release (DVD about Kosovo 05 tour and live recordings from the tour), realised by »Alors on le fait«.
(Lyrics from Our van: by Uroš and Julien)

18th day (13th of April)
We knew, everything was almost over, so this was kind of a day off for us. We went in AJB with Antenat (they had some vocals to record) and we used Škvorc to record sax on Our van (thank you once again) which we recorded the day before. In the afternoon we went in Rackam, where we (Dagoja Bus Allstar Band) were about to record Dagoja Bus song. With a little help from our friends (Joke, Fizcus?!) of course. Fun, fun, fun!!! In the evening we had our farewell party. Unfortunatly (or fortunatly) I didn't bring my camera with me… We had a great time with our french hosts and spent the last night together with all the nice people we've met and we worked with… …and we all got shit-faced together.

19th day (14th of April)
Cleaned up in the morning we leaving in the afternoon. Along came also Bullet Bottleneck (a great rock 'n' roll band from Paris), to play at those gigs in Italy, Slovenija and Croatia. We picked up Dragan on the way in Lyon (he went in Marseille to visit his friends, who were recording an album there).  

20th day (15th of  April)
Around 2 pm we arrived in the suburbs of Milan, where Bloom is located. Expectations were big – Bloom is a worldwide known club (Nirvana, Queens of the stone age…played over there), but the crew has shown as the best public. There was little support from the locals. We also noticed the shitty flyers they made: dub and metal bands from Italy, Bosnia and Kosovo! WTF?!

21st day (16th of April)
There was only a couple of hours from Milan to Castelfranco, so we arrived in Castelfranco during the night. A place we could easily get used to, but the audience was (accept for a few exceptions)… well, there was no audience except the crew.

22nd day (17th of April)
Around 10 am we headed for Slovenija. The trip was only about three or for hours long and after the IT-SLO border I stayed in the lower part of the bus, because I had to give the drivers directions to Metelkova. It was a really great feeling to step on home ground and shake hands with Andrej, who waited for us in front of the Gala Hala. We made the soundcheck, invited Aki for a beer and soon after already hugging friends, girlfriends… It was a pleasure to see all that people (specially those from Trbovlje) that came to the show to support us. The show opened with Bullet Bottleneck and it didn't leave the audience cold. Then Dbau came on, who were raising the moods and the atmospfhere. After them it was Antenat who got people ready for our show. We started to play around midnight and lifted the party spirits 'till Simke from Dbau, the most easy going member of this expedition, started to spill everything and everybody (including us on stage) with beer. The whole Gala Hala was dancing (though it wasn't full) and we closed the show with Our van, with a help from Škvorc (Antenat) on sax and Pero (Dbau) on backup vocals. Crazy!

23rd day (18th of April)
We didn't knew if Dagoja could drive us back to Trbovlje (from the show in Zagreb), so Mambus picked us up in Ljubljana with a van that we also used to go Zagreb. Some members of the crew (as was my opinion) thought, that we wanted to cancel this gig in Zagreb (just becouse of this van thing). Colline was like: »Don't sleep or you won't wake up!«, but that wasn't our intention at all. Beside the fact, that this is one of our favorite destinations, we couldn't leave the crew withouth saying goodbye. And so we left Trbovlje early, around 1 pm (we usually never leave for Zagreb before 6 pm). And it was all due to the fact, that we'll see the crew for the last time and we wanted to spend some time with all of them. We crossed the border withouth problems (this time) and arrived around half past three in Zagreb.  We were all really happy to see each other, so the huggs, despite only a few hours of separation weren't missing. After our soundcheck we had some beer and we just chilled out and fooled around for the last time with the people we came to know so well this past few weeks. The Antenat crew and people from Kset made this evening really special – the amount of beer, which is not to be mentioned in public, lots of grilled meat, from which Dino from Dbau got meat shock and the fully packed club. Hats off! The show was opened by locals Lucy. Bullet Bottleneck played after them and both bands have already warmed up the public. After the guys from France it was our turn and we really tried hard not to dissapoint the visitors in Kset. Lots of dancing, skankin' and uproarious applauses had encouraged us to use every last atom of energy we had after the tour. And again, the public made us realize, that it's always nice to have a show in Zagreb. Škvorc and Pero helped us with Our van, we played Dragans song Vrbas for the last time and ended our gig with the traditional Mala vida. And everybody sang along! Now we were excited and happy. We also felt honored. After us it was Dbau who were rising the temperature in Kset and for the big finale, Antenat. The public knew all their songs and the whole club was jumping. Really nice reception from the people of Zagreb for Antenat!
After the concert, visitors were »send home« by security and the crew invited a few true hardcore fans to have a private farewell party. These were the last hours of having fun with our dearest friends from France, Bosnia and Croatia. Around 7 am it was time to say goodbye. Yann, Colline and Djeff with Bullet Bottleneck had to catch a plane for Paris, Dagoja left for Bosnia and we took a last goodbye from croatian team. It was emotional, it was sad, but we all knew that the whole Exchange tour 2 crew will meet again! Maybe on the next tour.
THANK YOU ALL, WHO MADE THIS TOUR POSSIBLE FOR RED FIVE POINT STAR AND EVERYONE, WHO PARTICIPATED IN IT IN ANY KIND OF WAY, BECAUSE YOU MADE OUR LIVES RICHER!!!!!!!!
Special thanks goes to organisation Alors, on le fait…?!
ITALIAN CREW David
MACH SHAU: Luca, Nicola, Gabriele, Marco
BOSNIAN CREW: Dragan, Aki, Robi, Koja
DBAU IZA DJALE: Pero, Simke, Dino, Đomla
CROATIAN CREW: Korana, Danijela, Kata, Vesna, Maja
ANTENAT: Bojan, Škvorc, Nenad, Kobi, Bare, Marko, Boris, Fiket
FRENCH CREW:     Yann, Djeff, Colline, Julien, Simon, Vincent, Bino, Ben and his friends (Toulouse), Djeff, Bert, Paco, Ludo, Celia, Tom, Loic, Victor, Alex, Fabien, Pierre, Kevin, Rico, Max, Thibault, Antoine, Francois, Guigui, Eric, Seb, Riko »DubMaster«, Gaelle, Yacine, Karin, Julie, Rico, Magalie, Sylvain, Popol, Romain, Phillippe, Momol, Severine, Antoine, Joel, Etienne, Marco, Nico, Annes-Laures, Philippe, Gaby, Jimy, Charly, Fuf…
BANDS: Joke, Fizcus?!, Yapa, Bullet Bottleneck, Dogged Skankers, Duberman, Les Skalopes, Stylnox, Aquatics
Thanx to Aki for pics!