Terwijl ik voor het eerst sinds 25 jaar weer vissticks eet en Boudewijn Buch een Planetoïde met een diameter van zo'n 4 kilometer is geworden, ben ik driftig op zoek naar een galerie in Austin, Texas.
De komende expositie in New York, het optreden op het SXSW festival in Austin en de release van de nieuwe John Dear Mowing Club CD annex boekje met tekeningen, lijken me een goede aanleiding om wat galeries in Austin aan te schrijven.
De nieuwe link 'Art' op de Mowingsite (op het weblog nog Gallery) stuur ik mee met mijn mail.
Van Peter Schuyff, de in Amsterdam woonachtige kunstenaar en liedjesschrijver uit New York, heb ik eens gehoord dat mijn werk meer in San Francisco op zijn plek is, maar Austin is eerst aan de orde.
Tips zijn overigens van harte welkom.
Ook heeft een aardig iemand mijn 3 vorige Engelse introductie teksten bij de nieuwe liedjes voor in het CD boekje verbeterd. Dank daarvoor. Hier de rest van de introductie teksten.

The Singing Forest.
Written after making drawings of singing trees. Daan van Diest on drums
and Hans Custers on the bass.  My Ingwie Malmsteen days are over but after
10 years of playing acoustic guitar I played the electric guitar again. My
brothers Fender Stratocaster.

If The Phone Doesn't Ring It's Me.
Recorded in the middle of in the night. First recorded it with MTfeet, my
first real band. Must have recorded it over 25 times since then. The song
is about an invisible boy trying to reach a girl he loves. The title comes
from a movie. Now, while I’m trying to find the title of the film on the
Internet, I see Jimmy Buffet wrote a song with the same title in 1985. The
movie title is untraceable. The great voice of Karin Kamerik is helping me
across the bridge.

The Answer.
My mother plays the flute on this song. She brought along a suitcase full
of flutes. We recorded them all. The result sounds a bit like a scared
school class rehearsing. It kind of matched the childhood fears this song
is about.

It's OK.
An autobiographical story. Memories of a wolf called Studebaker and the
log cabin where I grew up. Bumblebees were living under the floor. Stamp
your feet! The cello is played by the Jan Willem Troost.


THe Best Dog.
Written in a holiday home in the Ardennen in Belgium. An escape after we
recorded the first John Dear Mowing Club album. The whole band thing
brought me down. It became a routine. Lost my voice during shows and did
not recognize my own songs.The best dog I ever saw was a piece of wood,looking like a dog.

Living in Parts.
The book part I wrote after reading the biography
'Shakey' about Neil Young by Jimmy McDonough. In the beginning there were
lots of similarities with my own youth. Act like a clown to make them
laugh the demons away. But when Neil Young moved from Winnipeg to L.A. I stayed in my suburb. The violin is played by Simone Manuputty

Devils.
I wrote this song after touring with Daniel Johnston in Europe. He was
stuck in my mind for weeks. This strange cult around him he’s not aware
of. An angel who doesn't know he's an angel. Well... I don't know but it triggered something in my mind and became one of the reasons to record my songs in
my own way. I visited Daniel at his house in Texas and recorded him
singing along, while his sister was sorting his comic book collection.

THe FIsh That Couldn't Swim.
A song I wrote years ago about feeling insecure as a kid, the ways you
figure out to overcome this, and the 2 people you become when practicing
these. It has a Roland system 100 synthesizer in it. Mowing Sean who
helped me a lot with the recording process could actually produce sounds
out of it.

Underneath The Tree.
My poet friend the Frenchman sings along with this song. He was the first
one I dared to record in my home-studio. The squeaking and rattling of the
harmonium sounded to him just like the ferry boat to the underworld
crossing the river Styx. I wrote a lot of songs in the park near my house.

The Way It Goes.
When a song is recorded and released its public. When people write about
these songs for me it's like strangers talking about my girlfriend. For me
each song is a necessary step to the next song. Each CD is a necessary
step to the next one. People interfere in this process. Producers,
musicians, critics and listeners are part of the story. A great deal of
the process for me is not looking up to these people and trusting myself.
That's what I learned making this CD.