Bonkers 'on tour' in Germany again: The scented bit

This post rewinds to the beginning of my recent German trip, charting its various scented aspects (more or less) as they occurred...

Semi-comatose airport sniffing

Following the crushing disappointment of the fried bread impersonating French toast incident, I decided to self-soothe in the perfume section of the Duty Free, as you do.  Mind you, at this plateau stage in my perfume j****ney and at that ungodly hour of the morning, I was a little zombified and milled around aimlessly, completely blanking the latest Marc Jacobs or Issey Miyake flanker - assuming I have even correctly remembered that it was those brands that had one.  There was a flanker in a jagged bashed concertina-type bottle - you would think I would remember whose that was - but no, nothing penetrated the mental fog of a semi-saturated sniffer who had been up since before she went to bed, or so it felt.

Then I had an idea: 'Why, I'll check out the Dior Collection Privée!  Give Mitzah another spin - I might be ready for it now!', before I remembered that Birmingham airport stocks the Chanel Exclusifs range, not Dior. And then Birgit's personal mantra of 'If in doubt, seek Hermès out' came to me, and I trotted off to that fixture, where I was able to try Jour d'Hermès again on skin, together with B's new scented squeeze of Eau de Narcisse Bleu. Jour d'Hermès I thought striking, in a tart yet sweet, rhubarb and pretty floral kind of a way, but it was too specific a scent to impress me.  Too singular, even.  Not remotely comforting, and the weather was still cool enough for me to crave that quality in a perfume.

Source: fragrantica.com

The Eau de Narcisse Bleu, meanwhile, opened with a fresh and bracing whoosh of galbanum, but the musky woodsy drydown came a tad too quickly and the green aspect was rendered indistinct - I don't normally complain about perfumes being 'fuzzy' in character, but I wanted the narcissus note to hang around a bit longer.

Channelling Geza Schoen!

So....as noted in Part 1 of 'The travel bit', the first gig was at Monarch, a chic but smoky club in edgy Kreuzberg.  I wore Ormonde Jayne's Ta'if as my SOTE, just because I reach for it more or less on auto-pilot when I am going out.  Imagine my surprise when Anka, a Berlin-based reader, wrote this comment on my post:

Monarch (upstairs) - in Geza's 'hood!!

"And the Monarch is a place I know quite well, too.  About a month ago I was there and listened to a 'fake' talk show; one of the guests was perfumer Geza Schoen who lives round the corner."

Whoo! I had unwittingly picked a Geza creation to wear that night, with no clue about the venue's connection to one of my favourite noses...;)

And Anka went on to tell us more about the event she attended, also confirming Monarch's offbeat charm and gloomy ambience:

"Yes, Monarch is a funny, dusky place!  This particular evening with Geza Schoen was, as an exception, a non-smoking event and we all had a great laugh when the perfumer reported later on that he himself occasionally enjoys a smoke....And I learnt that his most detested smells are coriander, oysters and truffles."

Wow, if I had known that Geza Schoen - to whom I feel a particular bond because he once scented my home city of Belfast (full report on that novel project here) - was a Kreuzberg resident, I would have spent longer hanging out in the falafel parlours on Skalitzer Strasse.  I did have a couscous in a tagine restaurant on Lausitzer Platz, and a mushroom pancake in a cafe on Oranienstrasse, but there was no sign of his distinctive rangy form in either eaterie.

The Méharées handover, and the focus group in a kebab shop 

That first night in Berlin also saw the handover by Jane (who FYI rocked Gorilla Perfumes' heady floral, Sikkim Girls, all week) of the bottle of L'Erbolario Méharées, which they had kindly bought for me in Bologna the previous weekend.  Thus it was that when I adjourned with the band to the kebab shop near their digs, I still had the bottle of perfume in my hand, and it was ceremoniously plonked on the table, next to the condiments - before I had the idea to ask them what they made of it, and passed the bottle around, inviting them to sniff the nozzle.

Guitarist: 'It's quite sweet.'
Bass player: 'It's nice - is there really just myrrh and dates in there?'
Singer (in a slightly incredulous tone): 'Whoever thought to put myrrh in a perfume?!'

Later in the week, the bass player suggested that I - or someone - should invent a perfume and call it 'Incorrigible', adding brightly: 'That's a good unisex name - you'll be onto a winner!'  Givenchy take note.....

L'Occitane Eau des Baux and the fragrant Friedrich Sunlight singer

In Augsburg, at the 'secret gig', I got chatting in between sets to the singer from the support band Friedrich Sunlight, whose name was Kenji.  I think I opened the conversation by boldly remarking on the fact that he smelt rather lovely, and he revealed that he was wearing L'Occitane Eau des Baux - a masculine scent that was completely off my radar - and kindly let me lean in and sniff him more comprehensively.  Reader, for all vanilla fans especially, this one is utterly swoonworthy and easily wearable by a woman.  I urge you to watch Katie Puckrik's video review of Eau des Baux here.  It is a woody, incensey, softly spicy, warm and vanillic fragrance that I see the (mostly) men on Basenotes have also given a resounding thumbs up.  Along with cardamom (which always reels me in), there is meant to be a cypress note in there which I barely detect, and on my skin the vanilla drydown is the most striking part of the scent's development. I imagine Eau des Baux might read as too sweet for some men, but I couldn't get enough of it.

Les Baux-de-Provence ~ Source: ignis via Wikimedia Commons 

Oh, and in the course of my research about Eau des Baux, I discovered this review by a blogger who was new to me, and whose blog rejoices in the name 'Villainous Smells and other Olfactory Decadence'.

As it happens, I have actually been to the village of that name - Les Baux-de-Provence - and clapped eyes on the ruined hilltop castle which inspired the fragrance, but it was..er...35 years ago when I lived on the Riviera, and the memory is sadly dimmed with time.  Kenji's signature scent continued to haunt me for the rest of the trip, and at the airport on the way back I made myself a tiny sample to take home. Should have just bought the bottle and been done with it, but there you go!  For even though I picked my daily perfume throughout the tour with studied care, it is Kenji's sillage of Eau des Baux which is the standout scent highlight of the week.

Visiting Parfümerie Naegele, Augsburg, with nary a sniff

The Friedrich Sunlight guitarist - who I later learnt was called Florian, though I had been calling him Brian throughout my visit - gave some of us a lift back from the 'secret gig', and on the way I asked if he could suggest a high end perfumery in town.  He was unsure himself, but promised to put out feelers.  And how! The inter-band bush telegraph must have been positively humming, because by lunchtime on the following day the keyboard and bass players in Friedrich Sunlight had received messages from Florian and taken up the challenge of finding me a Parfümerie commensurate with my exacting standards.  But it was Kenji who finally came up with the name Naegele, and by mid-afternoon I had struck out on my own to the humorously named Fuggerplatz area to suss out the selection of niche fragrances this exclusive perfumery carried.

Well, quite a few, as it transpired, including a whole wall of By Kilians and the bespoke line of Keiko Mecheri - which I don't believe I have seen anywhere, but at 282 euros a pop I couldn't bring myself to try any of them. Unfortunately, I was listless and tuned out to scent again, and ended up just taking a few photos, inquiring after a particular Bobbi Brown eyeshadow (predictably discontinued), and heading across to a cookware store to buy a comedy chicken for my friend's husband's birthday.  He is called Chick, for one, plus I was sure I could pass it off as a poultry-shaped executive stress ball on account of its satisfyingly squidgy bottom.

But going back to my temporary indifference to perfume, I had a similar experience in Berlin in 2012, when I drifted round KaDeWe, only actually smelling the April Aromatics line in the end.  I thought then - and think now - that because of the whole premise of the tour I was suffering from sensory overload already of the auditory kind, and I just didn't have the headspace (no pun intended) to focus on the olfactory as well.

Mr Chick's birthday present ~ Source: Clare Chick

Berlin - epic fumehead trail fail - times two!

I fully intended to make up for this lacklustre attitude on my return to Berlin.  I had the whole of Sunday and half of Monday on my own after the others had gone back, which should have been ideal for a complete re-immersion in Berlin's high end perfume scene.  But I had forgotten that on Sunday all the shops are closed(!), while by Monday I was so tired I used the morning to catch up on some much needed kip (as per the sign at the bottom of this post).  So instead, on the Sunday I mooched around the trendy quarter of Prenzlauer Berg, whiling away the hours in a variety of eclectic cafes.

And it was in one such cafe that I had another scented epiphany - not with a perfume this time, but an 'extra extra virgin top of the range high premium cat's pyjamas' olive oil, called Ladi Biosas.  It was fragrantly floral like no other oil I have ever sniffed or tasted (I had a little bowl of it for dipping the bread that came with my soup - what an inspired marketing ploy).  Reader, I walked out with a 14 euro bottle proudly tucked under my arm.  But this Ladi Biosas stuff is amazing - I would neck it straight from the bottle if it wasn't so darn expensive! Seemingly, the cafe in question is the only stockist in Germany, but if you can get hold of it somehow it truly is liquid gold.  And that means a lot coming from someone like me who is not remotely foody, and perfectly happy with a 99p loaf with the odd pumpkin seed on it, as opposed to balsamic garlic and parmesan flatbread or artisanally hand kneaded spelt focaccia with walnuts and gohji berries and what have you.

Here is some info about the oil - I wish I could gain such 'clear-sightedness' after 'remaining undisturbed for 50 days'.

Bonkers 'on tour' in Germany again: The travel bit - Part 3: Augsburg & Berlin

Augsburg (continued)

The next day was mostly taken up with switching hotels and sightseeing - partly on my own and partly with the hospitable support band, Friedrich Sunlight, acting as tour guides. These walkabouts included a good deal more 'standing on street corners' - not to hail a taxi as in Hamburg, but simply to wait for the 'green man' at a pelican crossing.  For the German authorities take a dim view of jay walking, even at 3am with not a car in sight, and most locals are law abiding in this regard.  

That evening, the 'official' Augsburg gig was held upstairs in the achingly stylish City Club.  Its peeling paint and plaster were reminiscent of the therapy room from The King's Speech, while the cafe downstairs thoughtfully provided bike storage at the bar, along with customer mattresses suspended from the ceiling.  

At this venue, the door in the ladies' toilet had been 'customised' to fit the cubicle, but the sink was sadly lacking a tap, prompting me to sidle over to the men's loos instead, emboldened by their conspicuous lack of a door.  

There was no dressing room whatsoever, not even a nanosized cavity, so for any fan who had worked this out for themselves, the area just outside the men's toilets afforded the best glimpses of semi-clothed musicians.

This gig was characterised by that ever present problem of 'very tall German man syndrome', notably in the front rows.  There were in fact some very tall women there too.  Apart from the atmospheric surroundings and the lofty and appreciative audience, the City Club gig will forever stick in my mind - not in a good way - for a misunderstanding between Steve the drummer and me, dubbed 'The Towel Incident'.  

About two thirds of the way through the set, Steve - who wasn't playing throughout a particular song - leant forward over his drum kit, displaying a small towel stretched tightly between his hands.  He caught my eye with what I can only describe as a stern and meaningful glare.  Or it would have been meaningful if I could have discerned his meaning.  And you need to know that it was stiflingly hot in the venue that night - perspiration could be seen pouring off the faces of the players on stage, and many of the audience, so my first thought was that he meant: 'My towel has become sopping wet and disagreeable to use - please fetch me a fresh one at the double.'  

Accordingly, I burrowed my way through the crowd to the bar, where I explained to staff that the drummer needed to wipe his head with a fresh towel as a matter of urgency.  After extensive rummaging, the bar tender could only produce a sticky wet dish cloth, so I ran to the merch table and asked Jane for advice. 'What about a jumbo roll of toilet paper?' she suggested brightly, and we promptly went and stole one from the Ladies.  'Hmm, actually I think he might have problems manhandling that', I replied, 'Why, it's bigger than his snare drum.'  So in desperation we decided to sacrifice a brand new T-shirt from the merch stall. 'Quick, quick, Jane - what's the slowest seller?' I asked. 'Women's small!' she exclaimed, as she ripped open a plastic bag and handed one to me.  Moments later, I had lunged forward across the stage and tossed the T-shirt on the side of a drum, my life and death mission seamlessly accomplished. Strangely though, at no point did Steve retrieve the T-shirt during the remainder of the set.  What had I done wrong?  Could it possibly be that he did not want something approximating to a fresh towel after all?

Reader, he didn't.  I later learnt that he was merely trying to show me the logo on his towel, which commemorated the ill-fated Titanic steamship - he had got it at the museum in Belfast, and - knowing that was my home town - thought to draw my attention to it mid-song.  I would never have seen that coming, not in a million years.  'But...but...', I protested, when we held a post mortem about the incident later that evening; 'I thought it was an emergency.'  'Trust me', the drummer intoned solemnly: 'If I ever do have an emergency, you'd be the last person I would ask for help.'

Berlin

Saturday was the final day of the tour, and we set off early on the long train journey to Berlin.  Though not before Jane had kindly brought my red hair brush from the Grand Hotel Cosmopolis, where it had almost got irretrievably lost in the all-encompassing pink and red decor of my room.  'I have Herr Brush!' she texted cheerily from the tram on the way to the station.  Herr Brush in a little paper bag no less, with my room name on it and 'The Monochrome Set'.  It might be stretching a point in my own case, but Herr Brush is evidently 'with the band'.

On the train up to Berlin I carried on knitting wrist warmers; people read or slept or played silly travel games.  At one point the bass player showed us his unfeasibly large banana, of the existence of which we had been apprised the day before, following his latest fruit-buying spree.  That also morphed into a predictable game of: 'Guess the length of the banana.'  Steve was the winner with his intriguingly precise guess of nine and three quarter inches...

Jane's husband adjudicating the banana challenge

The final gig was at a fast food restaurant called White Trash.  It was always understood that the punters were going to be there primarily for the burgers, but even so, a very respectable crowd of (mostly) first timers formed and a few new converts to the band's music were made by the end of the night.  The White Trash gig was also notable for another toilet-related incident, namely the unexpected presence of a man in the Ladies.  When I remonstrated with him, he explained that his girlfriend was in a cubicle and very ill.  'I have diarrhea!' she exclaimed helpfully through the door, 'and I can't get off the loo'.  It must have been serious, for eventually the paramedics were called, and the blue lights of a waiting ambulance flickered through the window for much of the main set...

Steve waggishly showed me his towel again in another non-drumming moment, but I saw him coming this time.  This one had a little Berlin Ampelmann on it - I smiled and gave him a thumbs up.  The thought occurred to me that if he ever does want someone to fetch him a clean towel mid-gig he is going to be pretty much stuffed.  Oh, and the 'Bunny Lady' was back!  I quizzed her some more and learnt that she is an artist, and that her business has a rabbit for its logo - the whole dancing bunnies thing is in fact an ingenious PR stunt.

The bunnies checking out the burger selection

All too soon, it was the parting of the ways at the tube station nearest our respective hotels, where abrupt but warm goodbyes were exchanged.  The guitarist said I had helped the band 'immeasurably' - presumably for my ad hoc translations and analysis of 'train composition' to determine the most ergonomic spot on the platform for the band to stand with all their luggage and gear.  There again, he had just downed a margarita that he said tasted so strong it probably equated to three.

Herr Brush and his travel bag

For anyone feeling a bit bemused by the last three 'pure travel' posts, perfume-themed blogging will resume shortly!

Bonkers 'on tour' in Germany again: The travel bit - Part 2: Cologne & Augsburg

For anyone with the capacity for more 'band on tour'-style travel trivia, read on - this is the report from the middle section of the itinerary - I have had to split it into three parts!  For anyone else, there will be a perfume-themed post from the trip along soon, plus a report on Neil Chapman's talk on vanilla scents at the latest Perfume Lovers London meet-up...

Cologne

While we were in Hamburg, a glowing review of the Monarch gig appeared in the online version of Die Welt, a German broadsheet newspaper based in Berlin and comparable to the UK's Times.  In a happy turn of events, Frank Schmiechen, the deputy editor-in-chief of Die Welt, was in the audience and felt moved to write about the show. By Wednesday morning, his review had also appeared in the hard copy version of the paper, occupying some two thirds of a page in the Culture section.  The photo used was a few years out-of-date, mind - anyone coming along to a gig and hoping to see a male keyboard player in a red velvet dress would have been sorely disappointed.

Before we set off for our next destination of Cologne, I volunteered to buy a job lot of Die Welts so that everyone could have their own souvenir copy. Any brownie points I earnt by legging it to the newsagent's at the station and carting off armfuls of the compact version were quickly offset by my treading on the drummer's toe, and nearly poking our entire party's eyes out with my knitting needles, which were casually sticking out of the top of my rucksack.  The dodging of sharp objects was clearly going to require constant vigilance on this trip.

The venue in Cologne (King Georg) was a cosy and wonderfully retro 60s cocktail bar, all done out in pink, with leather banquettes and a stage 'in the round'.  Jane took a complete set of photographs that she conceded would only appeal to people with a fetish for right ears.  I managed slightly better from where I was standing, but it was still a stupendous feat of geometry to incorporate all four band members in a single shot.

The Monochrome barflies ~ Source: Jane Barnes

I spied another dog at this venue too, sitting on the counter by the entrance - one of those sweet shitsu-type breeds at the opposite end of the size spectrum to Hamburg's labrador(?).  I remarked on this recurrence to the bass player, who replied in a deadpan tone: 'Yeah, I know - dogs are on the rider.'  Also worth mentioning is the fact that the walls of King Georg were clad in wood panelling, while I was wearing shiny black trousers. These had served me well in Hamburg in the 'coordinate trouser fabric to wall covering' game, because it was so dark there that the walls could have been shiny black for all any of us knew - and I was generously given the benefit of the doubt - but Cologne proved a textural challenge too far.

Augsburg

The next day, in a bid to make myself useful at the train station again, I went to buy tea for the bass player and me in a nearby McDonalds.  Slavishly following the sales assistant's outstretched finger in the direction of the milk and sugar, I walked smack into a glass wall, spilling about a quarter of the tea over my hands, and scalding myself in the process.  The bass player was most gracious about being shortchanged in this way, and I made a mental note to pick up a couple of lids next time.

Frauenzimmer - my rather girly pink room at Grand Hotel Cosmopolis 

Exceptionally, our whole group was staying in the next hotel in Augsburg - for the first night at least. Formerly a nursing home, the Grand Hotel Cosmopolis has undergone an extensive conversion and is now part quirky art hotel, part social project.  For the first three floors of accommodation are reserved for asylum seekers, while the top two consist of individually designed bedrooms showcasing the work of local artists. The rooms are not en suite, however, as such modern amenities would have constrained the eclecticism of the room designs. ;) I took to using the bathroom on the top floor though, to minimise the risk of bumping into band members using the facilities on the floor I was on.  Even so, I opened my door a crack the next morning only to hastily close it again, having glimpsed a man in pyjamas just feet away.  This brief sighting was later confirmed as the bass player, hanging out his laundry on a communal balcony.

I never did like those integrated hangers with the metal clips...

The top floor bathroom deserves a special mention in fact for its unique 'usage instructions' - these were painted on the wall by the shower in cursive script, and went as follows (I am translating loosely):

1. Please do not turn the hot tap all the way, or the water will go cold again.
2. We are high up here and the hot water takes a while to come through - please be patient!

And then the kicker, assuming you had managed to comply with 1 and 2:

3. We wish you a successful stay in the bathroom.

In all my years of travel for business or pleasure, I have never seen a sign like that.  I did manage to coax the hot water out in the end, but I sense that a non-German speaker's stay may have been less successful.

That Thursday was technically the band's night off, but the support act (the very wonderful Friedrich Sunlight) had invited us all to a 'secret gig' in their rehearsal room, to which they had invited all their friends - so not so very secret then ;) - and those of another local band, and everyone ended up playing a short set. The space in question was not unlike a youth club or community centre, and was notable for its juxtaposition to a Vileda trade outlet, Vileda being of course the Rolls-Royce of squeegee mops and dusters.

Source: vileda.com

'Secret gig' next door to Augburg's premier mop destination