Kiwifolk.com
Folk and Acoustic Music in New Zealand
Folk and Acoustic Music in New Zealand
Lubeck is biggish modern port city surrounding a tiny medieval town on an island in the middle of the river Tave that runs to the Baltic Sea. The old town centre is dominated by seven church steeples, the oldest being the Dom and the Marienkirche (Saint Mary's) from the 13th and 14th centuries. Once the town could only be entered by passing one of four town gates, of which the Holstentor is the best-known. The entire old town has kept a medieval look with old buildings, narrow cobbled streets and quaint market places. It was here I posted my box.
We stood in the drowsy summer heat and watched a Russian brass ensemble play. Marcus found a huge shop totally dedicated to selling marzipan! Marzipan everything: pigs, dogs, trains, sex toys, marzipan boxes, frogs, bags of marzipan shells, whole marzipan cakes, marzipan mousse, marzipan shampoo and toothpaste... The legend goes that it was developed here during a siege or a famine when all the town had left was a warehouse of almond nuts and sugar.
I booked into a fairytale-kitsch pension with an obliging Frau who would drive me to the airport in the morning. The Chaps gave my room an approving once-over after helping me drag my gear up the stairs. This was it. The end of our four-piece adventure. After the obligatory jokes and displacement behaviour we got down to the business of our farewells. Six weeks of frustrations, vexations and irritations with these bastards melted away to nothing as I hugged each in turn. The door closed and I sank into the stupidly over-puffy duvet on my bed and, inexplicably, to my total surprise, I wept.
I spent the evening wandering the warm suburban streets and found a Greek restaurant where I tried to memorise as much as I could of the menu as a last chance to reinforce what German words I had learned. Tomorrow I would be in Scotland, in the Highlands, the Isle of Skye no less, with family and friends.
As it happened, Scotland was fantastic! But that's a whole nuther story.
Mike Moroney, 2006.
The Chaps are Hyram Ballard, John Dodd, Marcus Turner and Mike Moroney (the author of these pages), an acoustic string band featuring original songs and odd material from last century. Find out more about The Chaps here and listen to some of their music on their MySpace site here
