Nietzsche with Straightjacket Nation in Slovakia

From SJN European Tour 2010

The following is from my Zagreb Book Review Column published January 2020, based on a tour of Europe I did with Straightjacket Nation in 2010. Read the intro to my columns about reading and travelling here.

This tour of Europe came after a Total Control / UV Race five week tour of the USA and was one of the most turbulent periods of my life. I had just completed a philosophy degree after a decade of absence from university, and this tour was what made me decide to stay away from university and focus on educating myself, because this was the time of my life I had my second meeting with Nietzsche, in a basement bar in Slovakia.

I had a copy of The Birth of Tragedy that I’d read while driving across the US, and on a fat lil iPod, Beyond Good & Evil. I would read Birth of Tragedy until the light ran out, and then I’d listen to Beyond Good & Evil. It’s a general rule of travel that the driver of the tour van has control over the music we listen to, and it’s a general rule of tour drivers tha…