November 10 to 25 1997, Ball Of Fire tour

The Ball Of Fire tour continued After Berne, I had no contact with The Skatalites and the Ball Of Fire 1997 tour until tuesday 26th of November, when the tour was in Paris, where I meet them for the last show of the tour. Stuttgart (LKH), Erlangen (E-Werk), Leipzig (Connie Island), Hamburg (Fabrik), Dortmund (Live Station), Den Haag (Paard), Cean (La Fonderie) And then The Skatalites went for the very first time into Africa. La Reunion is a french island close to MadagaSKAr. That was a great moment specially for Rolando Alphonso, as he told me later. Island of La

November 18, 1996, Monday, travel back home

34th day, Antwerp, Belgium, Monday, 18th of november 1996, travel back home day The Skasplash tour 1996 is over. Over for me. The rest of the crew is leaving for London. I won’t be part of the team. Nobody really understand that. I know that money is part of the understanding. The vans are leaving in the morning. Nathan says goodbye. I remember, that he said, I was important for the succeeding of the tour and that I made the tour nicer. All the goodbyes are from the heart and full of hugs. I just go back into the hotel to pick up Rolando

September 28, 1996 – Café Mokka, Thun

Today, 20 years ago there is this very nice invitation to a fantastic club in the beautiful city of Thun. It is the last preparing event before the Skasplash tour starts. I know the club already, because 6 years ago (in 1990) I was there with my bicycle to meet Laurel Aitken and asked him to show up in Lucerne for The Roots Connection. In the cellar of this very nice place, there is a disco. While upstairs the german Ska band “No Sports” is playing, I’m almost alone downstairs. But after the show, the place is more than full. Later that evening, the

September 14, 1996 – Peacestreet | Peacestreet

What is Peacestreet? Peacestreet is a band from Lucerne, Switzerland (1990-1995) Peacestreet is also the address of our flat (in fact it was René’s) in Lucerne (1989-1996) What have Peacestreet to do with Skasplash? Without Peacestreet I would never be a part of the Skasplash. Our band is called “Peacestreet” 1990-1995 (take a look at rootsconnection.ch) (Simon [drums], René [bass], Nonsi [guitar] and I [flute, trombone] are still together as part of Der Transformer). There is one release of Peacestreet on the Benno Riedmann compilation “Skampler 2” and we play shows all around Switzerland. But the source of our band’s name

July 27, 1996 – Paleo Festival, Nyon, Switzerland

20 years ago, I went for the first time to the Paleo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland. I was invited by The Skatalites. I remember, the show was inna tent. After the show, we went to a Hotel in Nyon, where some polish people blocked our Hotel rooms. It was in the middle of the night, and these heavy men had to leave their rooms. I was aware of a big fight with them. Can’t remember how, but finally everything was fine. The 1996 festival is still online here. It was a great event, because there was a nice meeting with