Texas Mike Journal Page........
Dec 15, 2006
Hey hey....on my way to america this morning......going to nyc to see my daughter Julia, who is living in brooklyn no. She has moved there thhis fall and i have not seen her house, but i will be sleeping on the same couch as i selpt on in texas at her house.....good couch for sleeping....speaking of sleeping, i have been working solid everyday for 3 weeks now and think some good sleep is in order.....
This last month has been so full of big and new things.....Texas Mike shows at thw Winston and Maloe Melo, with Jaromir, Tim, Bart, & Marynka....at the winston Frank marstokk flew down from norway and played drums...it was great. i love frank.....at maloe melo Aaron played drums and it was monster psychedelic rock night....really....han came and sang "your gonna miss me" got drunk the only night this last month......
I recorded with Joep Pelt for 5 days to make a sort of acoustic cd.....the whole tower became a recording studio for these days....and i was up and down the steps about 100 times.....maybe this is why i am so tired.....it is a good recording.....joep is a very good slide player and sang and played everything live......live with a vocal/bass/mandolin tiro....live with guitar/drum duo....live with andro playing a big gourd and acoustic guitar....very cool sound this...
I got to see the flim i made for marynka and her russian improv absurdistic troupe...they used the film on a big screeen as a backdrop to their performance.....it iwas fun and funny...saw two shows, rotterdam and amsterdam.....nice little film if i do say so myself.....
I have been very busy with helping marynka organize a big show planned for paradiso on international women's day mini festival on march 8...this is a big deal and deadlines are comign fast for print and posters and press...but this will be big and cool thing
well happy new year to whoever reads this.....next year will be big and fast...i can tell...
Nov 24, 2005
Well I am not keeping up with my goal to write often....but I am also very very busy......since writing here last, I have made a film for the Daniil Charms anniversary, started the mastering process for the final version of Marynka's new cd... I went on tour for 10 days with Jon Dee Graham in NL, BE and the UK (which was loads of fun); rehearsed with TEXAS MIKE AND THE REPEAT OFFENDERS, at least 5 times; I was sick for 3 days and somehow got enough rest and did enough work to keep the rest of my life going.....
Oct 3, 2005
I am now going through the "quit smoking thing"...... I have done this before, sometimes not smoking for months and always coming back...this time feels different, but i am only 5 days into it and really facing the feeling of my lungs "burning" and the feeling of change in my body chemistry, which is uncomfortable, and which those of you have smoked and quit, know what i am talking about.....ahh well.....i am happy to consider this with a hopeful mind, when i think about emphysema and general energy level.....moment by moment....
I have doen and seen a lot of intertesting things this last week: I went to the Sonic Rondezvous 15 year/Belmont Bookings 10 year combined annivesary party at Paradiso....lots of bands.....but for me it was mostly seeing a lot of people who I have not seen in awhile.....like Jan Donkers and the lovely Annieke, Rick and Jan the Lazyman, Alex Tobin (international secret agent man), Ankie.....was a nice night for me.....I got to personally invite a lot of people to the upcoming Jon Dee, Marynka, Tom Shore show.....
I also saw a great program on testosterone levels in the womb during fetus development......fascinating..........some behaviorall scientist was predicting the outcome of races and test and contests by comparing the length of poeple's ring fingers with their other fingers.....and he was always right....pretty impressive.....i have been looking at people's fingers for the last 4 days a lot....
Today I met with Marynka and Lena about helping them do a film for a performance thing they are working on based on the short stories of Daniil Charms.... ( which the russians pronounce with the C silent) .....Charms is an absurdist writer who lived in Russia 1905-1942.......I can find little of his writings translated to English, but the ones I have seen and the ones that have been translated to me are very cool.....he has a deep sense of the average Russian person, very alive in his stories and the book I have seen also have the most fantastic drawn art that goes along with the stories..... here is a simple example of a short Charms story.......
<<<<There was a boy who was small and could not see the picture about the fireplace......and he always dreamed he could fly up a little bit off the ground so he could see this picture......he dreamed and dreamed and tried to rise up, and eventually was able to rise up a bit, but not enough.......so he dreamed and wished and one day he was able to rise up enough to see the picture......when he finally saw it, he realized it was a picture he had seen many times>>>>... That's it!!!
I will try to find one that is short and more funny......he has this great absurdist view of the Kafka or Beckett "fatalistic; no exit thing"!!!!
I have also reminded my self this week that I should never sit down at a drum kit.......maybe I am the world's worst drummer, weird, since I can do percussion pretty good, but drum kits''''arrrrggghhh!
I have a very busy week again....every moment from here forward is filled with recording, mixing or rehearsing music; making or editing a film; having meetings about doing all of this.......going to the opening of the Dood & Rauw film we did music for.........
woo woo here I go.....MIKE
Sept 23, 2005
It looks like I will get to writing this "blog" about once a week.....and also while i am thinking about it, I have so many problems with using upper case and lower case and keeping my fingers going on the keyboard.....what a putz! so rude comments about typos and case use will be sent to the relative internet police departments as potential psychological assault cases.....i sound like a prety tough guy....
My dad, who lives in Oklahoma City, fell this week, from a small ladder and fractured his spine and bad bruising to one of his hips.....it is not really extremely bad, but he is 85 and anything little thing could be bad really.....it is funny how my father always thinks he will outlive my frail mother by many years, but in the end who can say about living or dying, eh? I think he will live a good long time yet, if for no other reason than to give us all a lot of shit about anything he does not like....that his style!
HURRICANE RITA: Jeeeze, how many of you have ever been to Houston? Houston is a nightmare for traffic on any normal day of the year.....for years bands travelling to or through Houston have had to plan their trips to avoid the big traffic times......go early to gigs to avoid being late, etc......so all of sudden the local, state and federal governments, in paranoid response to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, order a manadatory evacuation of an area where 3-8 million people are affected.....when in actuality only the coastly regions are in danger.....so maybe only 1 million tops needed to be evacuated......this is so stupid! creating panic among 8 million people is as horrible a disaster as the real potential of the storm..... I can understand their fears and caution, but the current administrations in Washington and Texas governments are just stupid people who will fluff their feathers up real big to keep power.....and who suffers? the people.....this is crazy......
In 1952 in the Netherlands their was a big storm where some big sea walls broke and a large area of land was flooded....over 5000 people died, mainly in the south...as a result the Dutch government spent the next 50 years, building and shoring up the current sea and storm surge protection systems.......it would seem the US could take some lessons and even buy some help and technology from the Dutch, and should do so! But they need to be serious about it being a long process......however in the American way to doing things, the people will pay and pay for this......I am a capitalist at heart, but in the end the fixed taxation regualtions of the small countries of Europe seem to do more to protect the people with out having to constantly have to raise taxes......AND LETS NOT EVEN GET INTO THE NATIONAL HEALTH CARE IDEA!!!
This last week I was consumed with mixing a soundtrack for a film about the history of the Dutch financial system, fincanced by an investment bank (BINCK BANK)......yes it was a little boring for me, since I mainly do only creative projects, but the images were interesting and filmed great and the music (written and recorded by MARYNKA and MAX) was really great, sound FX were really fun......long hours, hard work, but at the end a good pay check.......
I had a good meeting with a band called ELECTRIC FANS, about producing them, it was good meeting......I think this will happen, they play a clever mix of ChillPeppers, Deadmilkmen, Ween....and a little bit of Hard Trance......this will be a fun project.......somewhere along in the discussion Aaron, their drummer, volunteered to be the drummer for the TEXASMIKE band and MARYNKA's band until we can find drummers of our own.....he is very good, very musical and is American, from LA.....something about American musicians......i guess we understand each other at a primal level......
I also went to a rehearsal of KILLING SPIRITS (new name for jewel in the mire).....tim and bart and roel have written a whole new batch of songs, that are fresh and good....they are 6 songs into this new project since sept 1st.....and appear to be full of energy and ideas to keep it rolling......the band is a 3 peice now, so tim has a larger role, but he is really up to it......last year i told him that i thought he was good enough to carry the band as guitar player and he seems convinced of that now.....fun to see him grow and playing his ass off..... we might could record before end of year if they keep up the quality of songwriting the next few weeeks.......oh yeah, they bought a mid 80's Chevy van for their band vehicle.......funny for me to ride around Holland in a Chvey van....
It is friday and I am going over to Tim and Jougines place for dinner......i love Jougine....she is Suriname in origin......she is smart and funny.....she is also very sick.....some kind of cysts have formed in her brain, in clumps like tumors.....it is not cancer, but she has been in a lot of pain for 2 years now and her legs do not function well......if i could i would carry her to ND Anderson hospital, where they work miracles.....the Dutch doctors have not been able to really help her.....funny thing though, ND Anderson is in Houston TX......the circle of pain and struggle and real life goes round and round.....
Plans for this week include:
- scheduling a weekly poker game.....( i have been intending to do this for 3 years)
-rehearsing with Jaromir for more Texas mike stuff
-learn some of Jaroman's lap steel trio songs
-complete the final master for the ALAN TYLER solo acoustic record
-when MARNKA gets back from Moscow on wednesday, make a schedule to complete her cd by mid october.....
-get a lot of sleep on my new pillows ( a nice gift to myself)
I wrote 3 song some how during this last busy week and now I curse or bless you with lyrics from one of them called "JUST LET IT GO" ........so here you go, signing off......
LOVE PEACE RESPECT, big mike
i was born to struggle
i was fightin when i hit the ground
nothing's changed in my whole damn life
same ole thing round and round
let go i tell myself
find a different way to live your life
roll with the changes....nice and slow
get out the way of all the pain and strife
JUST LET IT GO X4
last month my daughter had a baby
named her scarlett and birthed her good
the whole experience freaked me out
look at all the things i've said and did
i wanna sit down and tell that baby girl
take it all easy....go with the flow
find a way to put away the struggle
and ride through life lettin it go
JUST LET IT GO X4
Sept 15, 2005,
Well for any of you freaks out there who may actually read this, here we go>>>>> Tomorrow is my birthday....yup i am a virgo...if you know me it makes a lot of sense.....I am back in Amsterdam from my London trip....the party at Norton's house was great.......lots of happy crazy 5-10 yr old kids going wild and being kids......late after all the kids had gone home..we had a poker game, out in the back garden, under the tarpaulin in the pouring rain.....it was absurd.....playing poker in the rain for 1.5 hours. totally fun....
I also went to ALAN TYLER'S club in Camden called COME DOWN AND MEET THE FOLKS........this is a sunday afternoon club, that leans heavily toward americana and is always full of people.....Alan asked me to sing some songs so did......it was good.....I am definitely over my stage fright, happy about that.......also, Ihave now performed for the first time ever in London in my life.....historical moments are happening every week for me....Alan's band THE SONS OF LITTLEFIELD played. They are a very good "kind of country" band.......
I came back to a lot of work.....MARYNKA is trying to finish the music for a small film and I am adding the finishing mastering for the audio.....it is a big job and the deadline is too soon and well kind of crazy situation actually, but trying my best to be there as she and MAX finish the music.....
......also today was a day of meetings....I met with the band AFRO-SAVVY, a new band formed by the bassist from TRUCKED UP.... they have lots of ideas, so many ideas in fact, that my first job will be trying to synthesize and organize the ideas into something that is possible to record in a reasonable length of time......maybe this will work, ROBBERT, the singer is great and has a good collection of songs......and I am pretty good at this synthesis/organizing thing......it always worries me a bit however, when bands are full of too many ideas.........( hope they read this)
My daughter SARA sent me some new fotos of her daughter and my granddaughter SCARLETT, who is 4 months old next week.......she is a little doll and the fotos show it....
Got some really good news today......that JON DEE GRAHAM has said yes to be added to a show we are doing with JON, MARYNKA and TOM SHORE on Nov 4 at the WINSTON.......singer-songwriters from Austin, Moscow and Perth trading songs for 90 minutes.....I love stuff like this.....multi-cultural show with great songwriters doing what they do up close and personal....JAROMAN and I may join them for a few songs as a band...this will be a cool night.....
Tonight I saw several friends at the Winston when i went down there to see PAUL VAN DIJK about a few things. I ran in to NADINE, who is a DJ there regularly and she told me she reads my journal and too keep it up....so this is for you Miss N.....dank u wel for theencouragement.........I supposed journaling or blogging is rather theraputic if you let it be.....I can say whatever I want eh?
I am looking forward to Sunday, which begins the pre-production rehearsals with KILLING SPIRITS. This is the resurrection BY TIM, BART and ROEL, of JEWEL IN THE MIRE....we will probably record in late NOV at DE MUHLEN DE FRUENDSCHAFT in OSNABRUCK, GERMANY.......I love these guys and really hope to make a great recording with them.....
And last on the list is the finishing of the MARYNKA cd.......we are very far along with this and just need to spend some Zen time with the very new songs, finish singing a couple and finish the mixes....I hope to say this is complete by early october........keeping on the schedule of it coming out in the spring.....oh yeah and her 1st cd PRIVET is scheduled to come out in the UK Oct 24.....big news actually.......the label is CADIZ MUSIC and they seem pretty optimstic about developing some interest in MARYNKA...
Jeeze, what will tomorrow bring??????????????? ciao
August 31, 2005,
Ok I have been cleaning the TOWER, going on a some dates (Woo Woo!!!!!), waiting for important people to return from their hoildays, enjoying the warm weather in amsterdam.....this town is very nice in the summer, and september promises to be a beautiful indian summer.....I also have written 2 new songs last few days.
I got an email from my good friend and jounalist ROB PATTERSON, who has been a music jourmalist most of his life. he has written a piece about CINDY SHEEHAN, who is the woman who has been keeping a protest vigil outisde of Pres. Bush ranch in west texas since her son was killed in Iraq......her protest seems to be solidifying an certain element of the anti-war citizens of the USA....good for her, this is a well written piece from ROB. It was made following several interviews he had with her.....here is the link
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/31/casey/index.html
You will have to look at a very short advertisement but it is for a good cause once you get to the article...I will state now for all records that I am firmly against the war.....I feel it is an illegal and immoral war and American soliders are dying under this circunstance which is sad.....I also agree that Saddam was a bad man, confusing certain issues, but all in all the US should not be in this situation....too reminsicent of Vietman for me....
Next week I am going to London to complete work on the TOM SHORE project and help my good friend and music producer NORTON BLUE, with a big party for his daughter ARIEL. NORTON is having some health difficulties and this is a moment for me to pay him back for all the help he has given me over the years......
August 29 2005,
Well this week begins a lot of new thoughts and thinking with me....this summer in general has been one of major change. My daughter SARA STEWART had a baby girl. Named her SCARLETT. She is a pretty, well mannered baby and yes it means I am a granfather now....really big news eh? in a cycles of life sort of way......
I am in Amsterdam now for 2 months, having been to Austin for a few months around the birth of SCARLETT. I have been really thinking this last year to get my ass up and do some performances of the songs I write.So I am doing it......last night I played at MALOE MALOE with JAROMAN (my stage name for JAROMIR FERNIG) on guitar and me on bass and singing.....I was terrified, having not been on stage singing since my mid 20's making it 30 years probably. but it went well and we are moving quickly to make it a band and do some more shows soon....I enjoyed it, we played walk into the sun; 1 2 3; just cant wait; get on my way and when the morning comes.....I think this will be a great thing in a few months, but for now it is enough that i got on stage and did it....
I am looking forward to JON DEE GRAHAM coming over in november. We will finish a new MARYNKA cd by end of sept....SKIP THE RUSH and JEWEL IN THE MIRE begin recordings with me this fall also....I also finished a project with TOM SHORE....and Aussie living in London who has great songs and a silky voice....JAROMIR was the secret weapon again on these sessions...thank god he is around...we did these sesssions in the tower room with loops and some wild playing. it was a fun session.
I am gonna try to keep this journal up every few days....cheeers Mike