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Vulvathrone / Blog

Here cumes the vulva (Russian mini tour)!!! Part 4

After the gig we spent the night at Anton’s woman friend’s place, where we also had breakfast in the morning. In the afternoon we went out for a walk and a tour of the famous tourist attractions of the city. Time flew by fast and at 5 pm we had to go to the airport. The flight was delayed because of snow, so we arrived at Vienna an hour and a half late.

In conclusion, I would like to say that we met many kind and outgoing people in Russia and have never had so many pictures taken with our fans before. If you see a person on the subway with a drink in their hands, it’s usually alcohol. The entire trip was an interesting and beautiful adventure, without any complications at either the airports, on the borders, on the train or in the cities.

A short summary then:

Visa 35 €, airline ticket 201 €, night train 80 €, lunch in Moscow 10 €, but hearing someone yell ‘VULVATHROOOONE’ while on a quiet Sunday walk through Moscow, a city with 10 million inhabitants, then seeing a bloke come over to you to shake your hand, more excited than a child getting ice-cream, that’s priceless. I wish to thank everyone in Russia who came to hear us play, I want to thank Rocky Maniac and Anton for inviting us and I hope that this was not the last time Vulvathrone visited Russia. Thanks everyone!

Here cumes the vulva (Russian mini tour)!!! Part 3

It was time for us to stop making our signature infernal racket and catch our night train to Moscow. That’s the most common way of getting from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The train left the station at 23.30 and arrived in Moscow a bit after 6 am the following morning. The beds on the train were stacked one over another and I have no idea why Herman didn’t choose the top bunk. I guess he just liked the idea of wiping his chicken fat stained hands on my scarf, which hung down from my bed. The lowest bed also had no matress, so he just slept on the leather that holds the bed together, using a blanket for a matress. Really, why didn’t he choose the upper bed, neatly prepared and made? (If you really want a short and concise answer to that question, just search your imagination for the image of Herman trying to actually climb onto the top bunk.)

In the morning we were met by Anton at the Moscow train station and taken, by subway and on foot, to his friend’s flat. We arrived at around 9, while it was still dark outside, to find an outstretched couch where we could take a nap and wait out the day until it was time for the show. We headed out to the venue in the afternoon. The club was nicer and bigger than the one in St. Petersburg. Everything started quite early here as well, as the first band took the stage at 7 pm. The crowd quickly gathered and the fun could begin in front of the stage. Before the beginning Anton had shown us where we could sit (they had booths in the club) and it was there where we also set our merchandise stall. The stall next to us was used by Coyote records, our promoter in Russia. We were a bit bemused to find they have Vulvathrone magnets on sale - an item we hadn’t even known existed. The local bands and the locals made sure the stage shook not only beacuse of guitar and drum vibrations. Some 300 people (Anton even said 1000) gathered there, and even though most of them were seated at the tables, the odd 100 before the stage (and some on it) showed us what Moscow is capable of. The bands (Penis Amputator, Morgues Child, Shredded Cunt, Defame in No Drochens) we played with were all more or less your average run-of-the-mill grind, so once again, as the day before, we really stuck out with our style of playing. Four bands played before the time came for us to take the stage. We hardly stepped on the stage when the crowd was already in front of it and even on it. They went absolutely mad from the first few chords on until the very end. Matko: ‘’I’ve never had to pick up a cymbals stand after every song, sometimes even both of them’’. It’s also a rare sight to see Herman having to cling onto the microphone stand, as it kept being tugged into the crowd. Jure had to give the mike a blowjob, cutting his lip in the process, and the security guard (yes, we had a security guard) had to throw people off the stage to keep it from collapsing. Crazy, insane, utter madness.

Here cumes the vulva (Russian mini tour)!!! Part 2

Upon landing in St. Petersburg we were met by Kiril, a friend of Rocky, who was the organiser of the events. Kiril was to be our babysitter until the afternoon. We took a bus and then a subway train to his flat. The subway stairs, falling steeply 50 metres into the ground, make you wonder whether you’re trying to catch a train or descending into the lowest pits of Hell. The whole journey took about an hour and a half. St. Petersburg is a big city, but looks like Ljubljana at the start of the nineties. Upon arriving at Kiril’s flat we immediately utilized its sleeping facilites. In the afternoon, we drove to the outskirts of town where we were met by Rocky Maniac and together we went to check out the concert venue. We only stopped ever so briefly on the way there to buy some booze. In their stores, you pay for a desired number of beers at the cashier’s and only then can you take them out of the refrigerator, which is electronically linked to the cash register, so the cashier can open it for you. The show was to take place on the third floor of some abandoned factory. Walking down the hallways, we could hear the thunderous sounds of drums and guitars coming from behind every door; it seems the local bands were practising. When we arrived at our door, we were informed by Rocky that we have our own backstage, separate from the other bands. We could see the logic behind it; it was barely big enough to accomodate the three of us. Where they would put the other bands we had no idea. The show itself started early. The first band went on at 7 pm, but their show was attented by one girl and a bartender at the bar. The duet (guitar and vocals, bass and prerecorded drums) played grind with trash vocals, which is not the best of combos, especially as the drums were too loud, so the whole thing was not pleasant to the ears. The second band, Goreanus, was another duet, but this time more in the line of our own Tenacious Zhgantsi (bass and vocals, drums). Who was first can be left to TZ and this band to decide. With humourous inserts between the songs Goreanus played to a slightly bigger crowd than their predecessors and were much more easy on the ears. We skipped the third band as Herman set his eyes on a 12-year-old boy and together they did a disappearing act, while Jure and Matko were getting ready for the show. After we had set all our gear on the stage, two dozen or so St. Petersburg metal maniacs assembled before the stage, yearning for some Slovenian porno-death grind tunes. The preceding bands did their best to warm up the crowd and the bass player/vocalist from Goreanus even joined us on stage for two numbers - respect to the man.

Here cumes the vulva (Russian mini tour)!!! Part 1

The year was 2010. New Year’s Eve, to be exact, when the three of us innocents headed over to the Russian embassy to get our visas for the concerts we had been invited to put on in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Now, getting a visa was no child’s play; first we had listen to the kind gentleman over at the embassy guessing if we were some sort of millionaires, seeing how we had an invitation to stay at a hotel for a month. He decided we looked a little too worse for wear to be rich and thus accused us of having a false invitation. But we soldiered on and filled out all the various forms that had been thrown our way and then started playing the waiting game. The visas finally came through on 11th January 2011. This is the date that will go down in history as the day the ‘throne of the vulva’ started its infamous journey to Russia. After having acquired our airline tickets, we departed for Vienna airport on 20th January, from where a night flight would take us first to Moscow and then on to St. Petersburg. There were no further complications at the airport, if we neglect the fact that Herman had to endure a thorough examination of his anus... oops, I mean, his guitar case. I mean, it’s an honest mistake thinking a guitar case to actually be a gun case, now isn’t it? The actual flight was quite pleasant; the food was nothing to write home about but could feed a hungry man. We didn’t get much sleep on the plane, what with the 2 hour time difference and all the excitement in the air. We left Vienna at 00.30 and landed at Šeremetjevo airport at 5 am local time. Upon landing in Moscow we had to wait for a connecting flight to St. Petersburg, but time flew by quickly as we all took a nap while waiting.