getting Anthrax into Russia

We had all the paper work together except for one guy 'Paddy',also known as 'babyhead' (because his head looked like a huge..babyhead) our 6'5" British monitor guy and it was just a matter of going into the Embassy and giving them something like $150 to process the paper work and have the invitation letter stamped in advance..Seems easy enough..No Problem..We where playing, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki. All of them had Russian Embassy because they are all capitols..

What I did not know was that all the Russian embassy have totally fucked up hours. What the fuck? You have got to be kidding me...That was Paddy and me on the first day in Copenhagen after we leisurely showed up at 11:00 AM and where met by a locked gate.. The fuckin things are only open from 8:00 AM to 9:30AM...

..Oslo we get there way to late to even think about going to the freakin' embassy..Stockholm is it..Short drive we split Oslo in time to get us in to 'Stocktown' by about 8:00 AM me and Paddy jump into at cab and head to the embassy on the other side of town from wear the hotel is. We get there at about 9:02AM and its fuckin closed (Hours 7:30-9:00AM).

Babyhead goes Bizerk and is standing on the corner in Traffic giving it the finger and screaming "FUCK YOU!!!FUCK YOU!!!" at the embassy I'm trying to remain calm but am feeling a psychotic rage coming on, a woman stopped and took pity on us asked if she could help? "...huh?..A..No.. Thanks..Though"..OK Helsinki ground zero it has to happen or we don't have our monitor guy, and I'm probably fired.


We get the hours of the Helsinki Embassy (a brilliant idea) its open until 9:30AM our hotel is fairly close to it. Get into town with plenty of time (comparatively) to get there..There is a line of about 35 people outside waiting to get in, as an armed guard lets in 1 person about every 10 min..babyhead was starting to freak and I'm hoping he can maintain composer until we get past the guy with the gun.

As we get closer to the front of the line our time is running out. I made several calls to the Russian Promoter to let them know what our status was. Finally Paddy gets in but they won't let me in because there closed (9:30AM to the second)! He was standing a head of me in line..The guard closes the gate in my face I try to put my foot in the gate before it shuts and the guard points his automatic rifle at me and I realize how stupid that was And pull my foot out with my hands up saying: "It's cool It's cool". Then I start explaining how "I'm with that other guy with the huge head and, I have the money and some of his paper work and stuff" Guard does not care. Now Babyhead is inside with half of the information and no money. I call the Russian Promoter and explain what has happened and can they call anybody inside the embassy to help us. About..10 min. Later the guard comes back out and says "YOU!" and points at me..and opens the gate and lets me in.

Inside it takes about 5 min. to pay a bunch of money and get three documents stamped and off we go.


..Getting into the country is a trick. It doesn't suck as much as..say..Canada where they seem to have a different set of rules, regulations and taxes every time. But it sucks in a totally different way: unbelievable bureaucracy. (Beaten out only by the United States getting somebody into this country is the worst thing you can imagine and it cost about $5000 for a permit).

Russia, the First thing you have to do is get invited, then you take your invitation and your passport to the Russian embassy for stamping and approval and then several other documents that say your not a criminal (or not that much of a criminal) your not an enemy of the state, you will not stay in the country past your approved invitation, with out paying somebody a bribe..shit like that.


It had taken us a while to get everybody papers in order.. including me making a mad dash out to LAX in rush hour traffic because after soundcheck,.. I saw my assistant Jeff walking around with a fed ex package that I had sent him to fed ex with about 3 hours earlier with one of the guitar techs passports (that had not been approved until that morning and we where leaving in 2 days for Europe) so now our only hope of getting him into Russia was by bringing it to the airport in person and putting it on a plane to the office to get to the embassy.

Unfortunately another member of the European crew (not included in the original crew list) had not made it the embassy himself (Babyhead) and we where going to have to get it done during the first week of the tour in Scandinavia before we crossed the border into Russia. And you know how that went.

Hands down my favorite place I have ever been in Europe and as soon as they get there tourist trade figured out---like maybe opening their fucking Embassy until---Lets say Noon for starters---I would love to go back there.