...Then we went myspace

Hi everybody
according to this blogspot things seem to be laying still etc. but luckily that's not at all true. We've had a couple of good nice gigs around Holland and we are going to have our first radio interview in two weeks, and also we seem to get known more and more around Amsterdam, which means more gigs in the near future which basically means more future! i just want to direct people to our myspace to keep in touch with where we are playing and how late, and sometimes for how much.

www.myspace.com/mjomusic,
you can also click "Hear Our Songs" on the right side of this page to get there



many kisses to everybody,
Shiny Wishes

M-Jo on the radio, internet and telly

http://3voor12lokaal.vpro.nl/magazines/news/index.jsp?portals=21861&magazines=21866&news=272467

This is the link to the webspace where you can read how the interview went between me and klazien from 3voor12 lokaal amsterdam. We have played for lovely people in Studio 80 last thursday. Reaganesk was supporting us, mainly on slide guitar and we played for about an hour. The gig was recorded for the internet by the VPRO, and we did a rock n roll radio interview afterwards. When the time is there, it will be online accessible to your ears. We shared the stage with Sweet Sweet and half of the Ghost Truckers. It was great!

Another important thing is our link in the right top of this page 'hear our songs' because we have openend our myspace account, where from now on you can hear as well as download three of our songs. Our titles presented on the myspace page will continuously change.

Another thing worth mentioning is that last wednesday we were on television, together with Lucky Fonz III for at least 1.5 second, on Nederland 3 in a LLINK item. It was about this guy in Belarus who seems to have been re-elected to lead the country. There were interviews with Amnesty people on the Dam square and we were playing and dancing in between!

pictures taken by our "management"

see you soon!

MORE AND MORE AMNESTY

As If Your Life Depends On It

Hi, here!
shit we're always a bit late reporting about our amazing spazey adventures but hell there's time for everyone, We Are All Saved. Last monday the 6th of March saw the appearance of M-Jo as well as Lucky Fonz III as well as my mom, some friends, amnesty people and related students and some politicians, a gun, doves, a couple of mime acting creatures, a hotdog mobile kit, passengers and a dog on the Dam square in Amsterdam. We stood in front of the palace of the queen; Ro in the middle of me and Lucky Fonz III. Ro slamming his snare and some percussion and thereby accompanying our guitar strumming-wildness and the shouts from all three of us. Students were going to hitch-hike to the border of Belarus to draw attention to the fact that there is a guy leading the government in Belarus who shouldn't lead the government over there or anywhere else. Amnesty were the organisers and they asked us to come and make noise, just as they invited two politicians to come over and talk. Their talks were embedded in our playing, and people from newspapers were making notes and other people with headsets and microphones tried to get as close as they could to in someway or the other capture our muselectrifying mindbuzzing bonfire, for all our favorite muses appeared to have travelled with us to or at least decided to gather on the Dam square last monday. With their help and guidance, it was amazing what us three could do without having spoken about it before we did. We played and sang and one of the people making notes wrote the next day in dutch newspaper Het Parool that we were playing as if our life depended on it. That to me is the best thing anyone can ever write about me, or about anyone else who plays. Hug to you, Frenk der Nederlanden! It's the only thing that matters. Play, do anything in life, as if your life depends on it. And in this fashion we played for instance Iris DeMent's Old time religion and we played our own pieces, Lucky's Painter , M-Jo's ode to the universal energy Don't you ever leave me, a cop arrived on a bike saying something complicated about if we were allowed to have drums, so i sung my answer 'Warden warden warden/won't you break your lock and key' and the Lady with the Beercan (i'm writing the song) agreed i guess, she was the one who brought the whole almost frozen happening to life, shouting at virtually everybody present. As if her life depended on it. Her shouting to which we responded Don't let me down. She kept asking for us playing Help so we did, be it in a slow blues fashion. Finally, when Aboutaleb swung his gun and students were given a ride by horse, geisha, truck, bakfiets and so on, we played On the road again and the Lady with the Beercan (shhh... don't tell anyone,, it's hidden in the sleeve of her coat) sang along, shouting cool stuff, not always i could understand exactly her words, but everytime she finished her shout we agreeingly answered triplevocally 'on the road again'.

The lesson for me to learn was that for the electricity of the happening the choice of our songs didn't really matter at all, i mean instead we could have played the Mannenkoor Karrespoor-oeuvre; the thing was we did it as if our lives depended on it. And all the Amnesty people plus students stood there too as if their lives depended on it. Needless to say - if i may speak for Ro, Lucky and myself- our lives do depend on playing music!! And so, ever since monday it makes me very happy that people seem to be able to pick that up and even spread that news by legal media.

Now here's the great great pictures and the guy missing on it made them, i've been overthinking putting cynical-y comments under one of them, i decided not to. If you feel for it, you might think over this question:

What does your life depend on?

You are invited to write down your answer as comment under this writing, and perhaps we can build a bonfire right here on this page.. Wouldn't that be amazing?


GReets,

MJ

11-02-2006: Haaksbergen turned into The Tropics

We were great. We were heroes, in Haaksbergen. We played for almost three hours in a row. Playing our parents record collections, occasionally freaking out in Teenage-Mary slide solo's amusing the 40+ as well as the minus 20 crowd. Playing whatever the people wished. Haaksbergen, with the pentagram as town shield. With the Grand Café Centraal as the place next to the church. We played together with Erik, for this occasion named Erik the Floater (referring to the great MSX video game Eric and the Floaters). M-Jo + Erik = The Tropics. I wrote a small piece of text about us which was sent to the local newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Part of this bio was put on a poster and this poster decorated the wall in the men's room. After visiting a family birthday party in Enschede we met at Erik's home and put together a set list. Then we went to the Grand café, set up all the stuff, and started playing. During the gig, again there was a guy trying to tune my guitar in-play, but this time it wasn't at all out of tune so i gave him the evil look and sung "The cars hiss by my window" so furiously that he left. Needless to say, the night ended getting a bit drunk and dancing with your mum, spinning around on the dancefloor singing wooly bully or something alike.

Let the pictures speak for themselves.



The Tropics

african rhythm

HELLO!

This is us in our rehearsal space yesterday. We found a new way of recording and we wrote two new songs on the spot, both three fourth-time, and in one Ro played an exciting rhythm that i never heard before, really interesting. He told me it was African (??) anyway we have been playing very well yesterday and we seem to connect more and more rhythmically, which sometimes results in almost incomprehensible structures, that only fit mathematically but hardly hearable for the ear (and human brains) anymore. I don't know exactly why i am writing this peculiar information but if you came so far reading it has to make sense in some way.

Keep in mind this coming sunday when Ro and me and Lucky and Reaganesk and more people will be filling the Babel place (Utrecht) with great sounds.

Good luck and many kisses

two more appearances, write down 22nd and 26th of januari

Hello and again,

Ro Halfhide as well as Mary Joe as well as other great artists (Lucky Fonz III, Reaganesk!!) are going to play on the 22nd of januari (one week from now) in Babel, Utrecht. Read about it on the ASG blog. Halfhide added a new field to our site in which we present our upcoming gigs. Another appearance of the M-Jo crew will be on the 26th of januari, in the Openbare Bibliotheek, keizersgracht 19-21 Amsterdam. This will be together with dutch poet and homie Robin Block. M-Jo and Robin featuring each other is called the Wildeman-project. It will be soon that you will hear everywhere of this groundbreaking music/poetry project, but we won't give away details yet..

Hereby a picture of Mary Joe performing in Sappho, the place (need i say) where the ASG arranges an open mic presentation of the finest Amsterdam artists, every week on tuesday, Vijzelstraat 103. This picture was taken by my London-based great friend and musical anthropologist of the dark alleys Laurens Steenbergen, on the 3rd of januari, just to show you the intimate atmosphere Sappho can breathe.


cheers, it's sunday