I enjoyed playing in Germany when I lived there. German audiences are great, but a lot less expressive of their likes. When I did solo acoustic shows, I'd hear silence for a couple of hours, but when I started packing up, they'd come in numbers to ask me to keep playing. It took a while for me to get used to that.

This is a photo circa 1996 from a club out in the German countryside. It was owned by a cop who loved playing guitar, so he bought this building and turned it into a private club. He was a pretty cool guy. He caught me smoking a joint backstage, laughed, and looked the other way--it was not decriminalized at the time.

My band, Uncle Torchy's Yank Time Band, enjoyed playing there. Now there, the audiences let their hair down.