See Keri's blog on MySpace

I just don't have the patience to write a very descriptive blog, so please go to www.myspace.com/rowdykatemusic
and scroll down until you see the blog entries. I figure I will just try to do the photos and maybe the occasional entry about something more technical and boring. Here something not technical: I just opened a brand new liter of milk, and apparently I don't read Flemish. Whatever that stuff was did not taste like milk, it was something sour, so they either drink some kind of sour milk for good health (kind of like a Klingon drink), or it was simply just sour. That was aweful! So black coffee and toast, again. For food yesterday it was toast, a pastry, salami and cheese on toast for lunch and dinner (see yesterdays blog about the rain). OK, later, got to get ready to go to Antwerp to walk around.

Second Day off part 2

Here is a link to the photo albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/carr66

Today started out nice, went on a bike ride in town, picked up some pastries at one of the 3 bakeries on the main street.  Hung out in the house with Dana, watched some Belgium TV.  I walked with Dana to the bus stop (so he can get to the nearest train station in Herentals), and it started raining.  We waited for the bus, it rained harder, no bus.  Finally, bus.  We were soaked.  Went to the grocery store and bought a few things and came back here to hang out with Keri.  The rest of the guys are in Antwerp checking things out.  So that's about as boring as you can get.  What really sucks is that we have little food, no transportation, nothing is open, and it's raining.  No beer either, unless I go back out there again.  Dang!  

Tomorrow we hope to go to Bruges to see some cool stuff.  Hope to have something more interesting to report.  Check that link for more photos later.

Back to bloggin'

So, we had a great gig on Monday night at place called Cafe De Blauwe Wolk in a little town called Zottegem.  It is a small place,  it had tons of pictures and memorabilia of musicians and bands all over the walls.  I guess you could call it cozy, like a little pub.  The stage was tiny,but we made it work.  The crowd that showed up was a little older, but they knew the music.  We a had a lot of people packed in there, and they showed their appreciation.  Philip the owner, was really nice to us, he made a great dinner for us, and supplied all the beer and whiskey we could drink.    During our set, we had a toast to two musicians that recently passed away - Chris Gaffney (Hacienda Brothers), and Sean Costello (blues guitarist).  Phil came up on stage and said a few words about Sean, I guess he played there recently, and he then offered drinks on the house after our set.  After we loaded up, Gert let us hang out a little for one more drink!  Phil  hooked us up, everyone had beer except for Dave and myself, we had some Jameson's.  We went home and talked about what to do with our three days off.  Yesterday, Robert and I met our friend (and producer of our CD) Dana Gumbiner at the train station in Herentals.  Later on, we all went down to the tavern and drank beer.  We were basically the only ones in there, so getting dinner was tough.  They had to call a lady at home to come down and cook for us.  So dinner was all based on ham and cheese sandwich.  Bolognese sauce over it, gravy and chicken, eggs, etc.  I have a picture to prove it!  Speaking of pictures, I have decided to set up a separate photo blog, I will post the address shortly.  

A few photos from the 18th.

A very nice lady, Annemie, who happens to be a journalist who wrote about in a Brussels paper, took some photos of our gig on the 18th in Brussels.  The promoters and Annemie took us to a cool pub down the street.  They said it was a very typical place, where they served beer, dinner, people sat around and played cards, and of course smoked.  We all had beer and a very good dinner, courtesy of Gert.  I had the steak and frites, a common dinner.  It was very good, especially with a Duvel beer!

The gig went really well, not a ton of people, but they really liked it and we did and encore.  I think the whole country is in love with Keri, she cannot make it out of a gig with out most of the people trying to talk to her.  Overall it was a good time, the venue was really old, and they treated us like royalty.  There was this one older guy who came up on stage in the middle of our set, we thought he was like an owner or someone that was part of the place, but turns out, he just grabbed the mike, and started saying that Keri was great, but she is being drowned out by this terrible noise behind her (us).  We kicked him off stage and played more, but he tried it again in the second set.  It's very un-cool to jump on stage, he would been thrown out of the club in the states.  At least he bought a t-shirt.

I have more photos from that night on my camera,  I will upload them later.

Getting settled in.

I have not been keeping  up with this blog so far, I have been sick for the past two days, just my luck.  To fill in the gap, see Keri's blog on our myspace site.  She has a different perspective on things and is a better write than me. 

So yesterday no one gets up until the afternoon, Robert, Dave, and Geoff wen to the pub the night before until 5 am and went to bed at 6.  We get picked up at 7PM be Gert, and go to this cool little town about 30 minutes away.  We walk in to set up and are immediately inundated by smoke.  Just what I need when  i am sick with this throat, sinus, lung thing I have going on.  The gig is for a pub crawl - about 10 pubs/bars and bands, all playing at semi-staggered times. So I thought no big deal, we start at 10 and do 3 45-min sets, and get out of there.  However, we did a set, took an hour break, another, and so on, stopping at 3 am.  Early in the evening, we had some dinner after sound check, and there were only a few people in there.  When we came out from the back room, before our set, it was just about packed, like a tide rolled in.  We played good, and people really dug it.  The place would empty out, we had an hour off, so we walked down to another bar and saw a really good rockabilly band called the Hometown Gamblers.  That joint was packed too, so we did not stay long.  It has been kind of rainy and cool, so walking around was not exactly something I was thrilled about considering I do not have a really warm jacket with me.  But it was worth it, saw another band that was really good rockabilly band called Cat Slappin' Chrissy with a great female vocalist.

Got to bed finally at 4 am, and we are now up and ready to be picked up Gert and Ann to go to the Gypsy Horse Ranch.  Weather is nice, some sun, a little warm.  I will post photos soon!

So far, so good...

Don't have much time to write this, so I will make it brief.  The flight over was surprisingly painless, however, the train ride to the town where they picked us up at (Herentals) was aweful, not the ride, but dragging our luggage on and off the train.  In fact we missed our stop because we had so many bags and the doors shut before we could get them out.

The first show went good.  The bar was nice, the owner even nicer.  The first set was a little rough, second set was nice and loose.  I think the promoter Gert likes us (well, actually he told us he did), so I think we are off to a good start.  We are going to be picked up at 4:30 today to be taken to our next gig.  Geoff and I just rode bikes into town to get Keri a new curling iron to replace her broken one (50 euros!  ouch).    It is kind of chilly hear but no rain!

I will post photos tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by.

PS - The beer lives up to the hype. 

Preparing for our tour of Europe

We will be leaving on Tuesday night to SF, flying out of SFO Wednesday morning. Robert and I figured out the merchandise situation - CDs and t-shirts - we are taking half in our luggage, and ship the other half. That sounds like a simple task, but no, we had to make it a two hour event. The promoter (Surfingairlines) just added another show to the tour. That brings the total to 21 shows in 16 days, one day off. Doing a gig tonight in Rocklin, will test the waters with our merchandise, hereto know as "merch". Threw in some pictures of us still in one piece. Lets see how we look at the end of this ordeal.