They're waiting for oilballs in my hometown Rijswijk.
Its a surreal ritual every year. I can't find any reason to stand in the cold for hours waiting to buy oilballs but these people can.

Deblogging for a couple of days.

Merry Chrismas.

Here's the first draft for the 7 inch label.

I bought a mini accordeon on Markplaats (Dutch ebayish site)
The price was right. So i drove to Oud-Alblas, bought the thing and drove away. Dreaming 'bout me playing the mini accordeon. Really impassioned. No more acoustic guitar or missionary organ. Just the mini accordeon! The only way to accompany songs. Me and my mini accordeon in front of thousands of people.
Back home I unpacked the thing and started to play. Awfull sounds came out  of the mini accordeon. I played with the enthusiasm of an experienced mini accordeon player, not one fine tune got out of it. The sound of an old squiking smokers lung. HUUiii-HUUiii-HUUiii  Girlfriend Ilse asked to practise the mini accordeon on the attic but I was not ready for such a defeat. I kept on pushing and pulling the mini accordeon and besides the HUUUiiii-Huuiiii- a strange smell came out of it. The cauliflower smell of the former owners. I almost puked.  The look on girlfriend Ilses face was  as if she heared the dying breath of an elephant and I dicided to take my loss and put the smelly mini accordeon back in its case. Maybe I make a drawing of the mini accordeon one of these days.

Yippieyeah!!! JOHN DEAR MOWING CLUB live und exklusiv in Aschaffenburg

Yippiayeah!!!! Endlich! Die Cowboys aus den Dutch Mountains headlinen das 8. Roadtracks Festival am Sa. 28.02.2009 im Jukuz in Aschaffenburg. Großartig, traumhaft, wundervoll.....als wäre Townes Van Zandt wieder auferstanden. Zuletzt als Begleitcombo des großartigen Daniel Johnston unterwegs, jetzt exklusiv mit neuer Platte im Gepäck bei uns auf dem Festival. Mit dabei das BLACKFACE ORCHESTRA die dreckigen Garage Blues zelebrieren und die wundervolle EVI WONDER. We'll see you!

from Roadtracks

Today i bought a map of Europe and a cheap Samsung laser printer.
On the map i will draw the tours the Mowingclub made throught Europe. While writing this it comes to my mind that it is something my father would do, but that okay, after all i am his son. Drawing lines from city to city makes it more touchable. I need this because after a tour it seems like a dream, as if it did not really happen.
The laser printer i bought because my printer ran out of ink and with new ink cartridges the printer did not print properly. Then i kicked the thing and the damn thing went bezerk. I kicked it again and it refused to start up.
So, screw inkjets. Don't need color anyway.

From the photo collection 'people wearing a John Dear Mowing Club T-shirt' . part 1.

Rob.

3 organ songs in the old city of Saarbrucken. 'Devils' 'The Singing Forrest' and 'Lover'. Sparte 4 is a great vennue with a great atmosphere. A lot of nice people showed up and it was a perfect show to end our tour in Germany with. Too tired to write any further.

More photos: here

On the road to Saarbrucken the police pulled us over to the side of the road. Control. Everything was allright except Rob had to step out of the car and follow the policeman into their car. It took a while. Sean and me were speculating. Rob may be a spy for the Russians or it could have something to do with Rob working as a cook in Stuttgard for years. Rob came back with a smile. The policemen gave him a little music box. He was told each time he wind up the music box the police will appear.
A little later we were eating burgers in a roadhouse. Rob made strange noise. Then he pointed to the road. A man had fallen flat on his face. He laid there motionless. Rob stood up, got the music box out of his bag and started winding it up. As soon as the music started, out of the blue the same police men appeared. Reannimated the man and drove away.

tonight we played at the Hazelwood studio in Frankfurt. The studio were we recorded the album.
We played with a band called Kim & The Cinders.

that's it. Like playing in a Jiskefet scene.

Jena, Germany. A place called Rosenkeller. The real good scottish band called Hobotalk played before us. Great lyrics, great vocals and great musicians. The hole venue was inside an old dungeon. I got the feeling it was more a metal bands kind of place but we managed. Its like we experience the last days of underground live music in Germany. I'm glad to be part of it. In Holland this live music culture died a few years ago.

Im writing this in a nice hotel, a contrast to where we 'slept' last night so...goodnight.

Jena, Rosenkeller

More photos

Rob drove us to Marburg in the Renault Traffic we hired from Ramses.
We played at a venue called Trauma, an old gas building with the band Nervous Nellie. Very nice guys.
We tossed who'd play first. nice guys.
It wasn't too crowded, but that's all right. The less people the more quit.
Sean and me put a sofa we found in the hall and placed it on stage, very cozy. Another thing i learned. If it isn't what you want it to be, changed it the way you want it to be or at least change it a little and make it a little yours.

For dinner there was soup. The venue guy said the caterer messed the catering all up and now there was soup only and there were not enough spoons. He ordered some pizzas. I think he'll say this to every band because the soup looked very old. I had a nice evening. Now were going to our motel, if there is any Wifi i'll check te spelling.

Tomorrow we'll go to Germany again. But first i have to go to the hospital. The (ontsteking) infection? in my nasal cavity never was gone but it was bearable. Till now. Its back. Maybe its an anti touring in Germany infection. It sure is an anti I feel self assured infection. My lip is all swollen up or at least that's how it feels because in the mirror it's almost invicible. So its surgery next year and tomorrow morning there will be a narcosis intake talk or something.

Well...I guess I'll survive that talk, so I'll try write about the tour in Germany.

The first two Melleville songs are mastered. The song "Devils" with Daniel Johnston and the song "Secrets Are Like Gasoline" will be released in Februari on vinyl.

Henk Koorn mastering the first two Melleville songs in the Sahara Studio

Just came back from a solo show in a bar in Deventer. Solo shows in bars seldom are fun but i won't learn. Most bars are for drinking and talking, not for sensitive songwriters. The afternoon starts with a corps student who asks me to play blues songs and after the show a drunk babyboomer comes up to me to tell me how he liked it and that it sounded just like Neil Young. I'ts really meant as a compliment. In his world someone with a high pitched voice and an acoustic guitar sounds like Neil Young. The words of the songs doesn't matter. He didn't even listen to the songs cause he talked through the whole show.  It's  a curse. 

And then a woman came up to me. She had been listening the whole time. Told me after a 12 year relationship she broke up with her boyfriend some days ago. She found some strength in the songs. I gave her a CD.

So, now i'm going to my favorite bar, drown my sorrows in beer and talk through the fragile songs of the nervous songwriters at that place.

Tomorrow i'm mastering the first two Melleville songs in the Sahara studio with Henk Koorn.

Before the show:
you never know what you can expect when you go somewhere for the first time. The awkward meeting, the first impression. This time it feels good. Like i've been here before. Billytowns little brother. Spedition. A former luggage transportation depot building, now runned by artists. No small minded bar owners who measures the succes of the evening by the amount of sold beer, no, fine young artists rule here, who organise festivals and exhibitions for good reasons. The DJ even played some Gram Parson songs.
I did not play yet, so maybe i'm a bit too enthousiastic. We'll see...

In een keuken kabbelt een telefoongesprek in een taal die ik nauwelijks volgen kan zo rustig door dat het mij ook geruststelt.
Ze fluistert iemand met zorgen tot kalmte.
Het sombere voor programma kabbelt ook door, monotoon, in de zaal ernaast. Radio Dood.
Ik denk dat wij zo moeten.

After the show:
Most of the energy we'd put in the songs came back from the audience. I really liked it. Afterward I went to the kitchen and felt touched by the whole thing. A feeling I missed a couple of years. A fragment of the reason why I'm doing this. Thanks Bremen.

Kitchen Spedition, Bremen

More photos

Tomorow I'll go with Mowing Rob to Bremen in Germany. We'll do a show at the FolkArtNow festival. I was told the WDR(German TV) used a John Dear song to announce the festival, so i assume the people of Germany will welcome us with the sound of trumpets.
I'll write about it tomorrow.
I had a nice time with Henk Koorn in Lokaal yesterday. I brought my old Neil Young Song book, a birthday present my dad gave to me years ago. We played songs as if we were playing in a livingroom. I guess it's kind of scary to see so much people in your livingroom, but it was an example to explain the situation. We played Neil Young, Daniel Johnston and some Velvet underground songs.
I'll hope we can do this again sometime with some more preparation time.
Now I can't find the cover of the Neil Young songbook. It got lost in the last couple of years. In my remembrance it was a photo of Neil Young as if it was painted by Rembrandt. When I find it I'll put it on Flickr.

I read my 'daily' Lefsetz letter and Bob Lefsets is writing about Neil Young too today. There's a link where you can listen to Neil Young live at Canterbury house in 1986. Apart fromt the songs, the talking between the songs, the raps, are nice to listen to.

Hello Melle,

Will you play 2 separate solo sets 3 december with Henk Koorn in Lokaal Vredebreuk, or do you play songs together?  It is not clear to me what  a duo-show exactly is…

Hi,

We will play songs together, although we do not know not exactly how or what. A couple of my songs, a couple of Henk's, a couple of Neil Young and a couple of Daniel Johnston I guess. Normally i'm not into covering, but I think it's okay to play them with Henk and we don't have much practicing time. Need breaks law. 

Best,

Op 3 december spelen Henk Koorn en ik samen in Lokaal Vredebreuk in Den Haag om 21.00 uur.

I finally managed to ruin the John Dear MySpace site. It's to much hustle to use this monotony sausage for promotion besides the real Mowingsite and I don't want to make publicity for things I don't want to make publicity for with all these integrated advertisements.

This way it's used as a link to the real mowingsite and i don't have to say goodbye to all my friends.