 Sat., May 16, Habach, Germany - The Village-- We arrived back at The Village from Affalter around 10 p.m., and Dede, Joanna and I ended up in Joanna's room discussing the Phil matter. Dede's point was to get Phil as soon as possible, like fly him to Chicago. If we waited to pick Phil up in L.A., then Dede's plans for introducing the band to all her friends down there would be stifled because of Vic, plus Dede really thought Vic sucked on bass. Joanna's point was that by the time she got home, she had two days to buy a new van and break in a new bass player, and it was too much. Dede and I were both wearing our publicity hats, and were really hoping to get Vic out of the band ASAP after arriving in the States. Joanna started in on all the problems with getting a van, and Dede got a little impatient because in her mind, that was not the point. She left the room in a little bit of a huff. I gave Joanna Phil's number for the second time, and she tried to call him, but got his wife, Terry, leaving a message with her for Phil to call when he got back from his gig. I had no idea that Joanna was now actually angry at Dede.  The next day were preparations for a big birthday party at The Village being put on by a prominent music lawyer in the area. We were going to play at his party since we were there doing nothing anyway, and it was a way to work off the expenses we had incurred while living at The Village. As the hours flew by, it became a problem as to how to feed us, since there was no time to use the kitchen. A proposal was made to go to the Italian (of course) restaurant in town, but Dede hit upon the better solution to simply get some food to go from there, freeing up Petra do work on the party plans. As we ate hungrily (it'd been almost 8 hours since we'd eaten), Petra's mom stopped by. A very personable and attractive lady, she made interesting conversation while we chowed down, and she and Dede discovered common ground in the jewelry/gemstone business, which Dede had worked in for 10 years. Party time approached and by the time we were to play there were a couple hundred people there.  We performed a lively set and the birthday boy got up and blew some semi-accurate harmonica on a slow song, unfortunately. We ended the set, and invited the many musicians present to set up and begin a jam session. Instead, the disco records were dragged out and blown through the PA at full volume until 3:30 a.m. At 2 a.m. I went downstairs to see what I could do about the volume, since no one could possibly sleep through it, and found about forty people dancing their asses off. Marion suggested I go to her flat where it was quieter. Nah... We all toughed it out until the last car left shortly before dawn. Switzerland in a few hours!
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