Hey folks-

sorry about the silence the last few days; the website was down. Back up now, so time to update…

last night, we played The Ace Cafe in Rumst, which is sort of a neighborhood/village outside of Antwerp. You wouldn’t know that, however, by looking at it. The Ace could’ve been in New York, Austin, San Fransisco…or anywhere else in the states for that matter. Lots of American memorabilia on the walls, old gas pumps, various vintage pop culture signs, etc. Great little rock and roll bar, felt right at home.

Friday night wins for the ultimate in really awful load-ins; two flights up narrow assed-rickety stairs with full P.A. It was kind of a jazz venue, so we had to play VERY quietly, which sucks for us, as you could guess. All in all my least favorite show thus far although Lier, Belgium is a beautiful town. The town hall there dates to 1369 AD. It was as old as our whole country when Columbus walked the earth. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.

Today we have two shows, in Breda, Holland and Mortsel, Belgium. Mike A. has gone off to Brussels to meet his girl and then meet us in Breda. Tomorrow, Abby and I are off to Paris for a couple of days. I haven’t been since I was a wee pup, and we’re really looking forward to it. Hoping to catch a rock show in addition to the usual tourist attractions. I guess Springsteen is in town tomorrow, although it’s sold out and I’m sure the scalped tickets will be far beyond our pedestrian means. One could hope, though. Most likely, we’ll find some crappy little joint and see some french rock and roll. Should be interesting. Glen will be around, and hopefully over the next couple of days he’ll blog up for y’all. We’ll be back Wednesday.

Chris

have been a study in contrasts.

Saturday night we played a ranch, cleverly named the ‘Double D’. Pretty good sized place, complete with stuffed game on the walls (including a moose). Mike A. snapped some cool photos, which we’ll upload sometime soon.

There was line dancing happening; pretty surreal that THAT particular americanism has taken hold here, but it has. Before our set, in between sets, and afterwords there were belgian line dancers that we were convinced just wanted us off the stage so they could dance to Kenny Chest-implants-ney or whatever. Talkin’ ten gallon hats, ropers, and pressed jeans. The whole deal. We were going to play a Loretta Lynn cover to try and break the ice, but when Abby asked the crowed who knew who Loretta Lynn was, nobody knew. So we skipped it. While we played, they just sat at their tables and watched. as soon as we were done and the young country hits of the day started playing, they were up and dancing en masse.

Then, when we were finished with the second set (played hard and loud…’cause that’s what you do in that situation) they lined up and bought CD’s. Weird.

Sunday we played this little bar in Bonheiden called Den Bromfiets. Small, small stage. By showtime it was nuts-to-butts packed with people who love music. No linedancers (even advertised as ‘no lines’, or no linedancing). Just a good, rowdy crowd having a good time. Great fun.

Today we are off; we’re thinking of going to visit a concentration camp nearby that is a museum now, but we’ll see. I’m a WWII buff, so that’s what I’m pushing for. Of course, we’re very near to lots of landmarks from that war, and the first as well. I understand KC is getting hammered with ice and snow right now; here it’s 40 degrees and rainy. The old-timers say that winter doesn’t come here anymore and that it used to be bitter cold in December with lots of snow. Having been here in February a few times and now December, I tend to think they’re right. Global warming indeed.

We’ll chat again soon,

Chris

Well, that was fun! Holland is home to some of the most beautiful people in the world. Flat out beautiful. L.A.’s got nothing on em’. We played a little joint in a town I cannot pronounce at the moment but cherry beer will do that to anyone. The load in looked to be the worst on planet earth, however, leave it to the Dutch to figure out how to rig up a collapsible elevator thingie to move heavy things up and down stairs. I got to push the button. It made me giggle. The bar was an “English bar”, lots of hunting prints and dead animals etched in glass (brace of pheasant, etc., etc.) with a sparkling, shiny circular bar. Polished brass and candy dishes and books behind glass. Needless to say our scruffy bunch felt mildly out of place, but after 9 courses of various chinoise deliciousness at the restaurant upstairs, the bar filled up and we slipped in and felt right at home.

The drinking age is 16 here. I love that. Kids learn how to drink before they learn how to drive and that is brilliant. It takes longer to learn how to drink. The drug laws are also more, hem, liberal, in Holland but I was talking to a tall (very good looking cause he’s Dutch) fellow about that and he said “Americans come to Holland and smoke pot, but we can smoke pot always so it isn’t a big deal. You smoke a joint or two when you’re young. No big deal.” Apparently, it isn’t a “big deal”. Legislating mutherscratching everything is silly. Have I mentioned that none of the playground equipment is made of nerf either? Get up and rub some dirt in it, dank u!
We will attempt to get up early tomorrow and ride the bus into Turnhout to the market in the square. Then we will go to the kaaswinkel and I will be in heaven.

Tomorrow night, the double d ranch. Lawsy help us. There may be ponies and I may be forced to ride them. Goedenact, ya’ll.

xoxox Miss A.

Hello everybody and greetings from Belgium!!!!

Well, we just finished the opening night of the European tour and we came out swinging (did you expect any less). If tonight is any indicator, this will be our best tour yet–YAAY!! The bar was called the Bacchus Cafe and is definitely aptly named. Libations were flowing, faces were smiling, hands were clapping. All the ingredients for a good time. Let me give kudos to Mike A. for stepping up nicely and holding it down with me in the rhythm section, he’s kickin’ ass. Abigail delivered an awesome show–the pipes were wide open and sounded rich (maybe it was the whiskey?????) Chris gave his usual tasty performance and the crowd was fun, What more can you say? The weather is what you might expect, rainy and cool but not cold. Seems the “theory” of global warming applies here too!

We will be headed to Holland tomorrow (one of my favorite countries) so to the coffee shop I go. We got to sign the wall in the club tonight, an honor not extended to just anyone according to Peter the owner, so that was awesome. Mike is documenting everything with his fancy picture making machine, so hopefully we’ll be able to get those shots up soon. If you’re looking for stories of mischief and mayhem, just stay tuned. After all we’ve only been here a little over 24 hours. Don’t worry, we won’t disappoint, but we may not go into detail either to protect the guilty. Well, enough of my rambling. Take care, see you tomorrow right here at thegaslights.com

xoxoxoxoxo,

glen

We took a rather harrowing cab-ride to the airport, arriving at noon-ish for our 3:55 flight. We figured that we’d get there, check in early and have time to deal with any unforseen curveballs that the airlines might try to throw at us.

Checked in and went to the Bryant’s barbeque/sportsbar thing, thinking that barbeque was one thing we weren’t going to get for the next several weeks.

(By the way, the Bryant’s at KCI…not anywhere close to the real thing at 18th and Brooklyn. But still not bad.)
So it’s 1pm, we’re all checked in, luggage checked, etc. I think Glen and I cutting our hair may have helped things; I was not hassled one bit the whole way here. We’re having a sandwich…

and the lady from the airline comes over and says,” Your plane is going to be late. We’re going to move you over to this American Airlines flight instead.” So we’re like okay, she takes our tickets and runs off and does the transfer stuff. Turns out the new flight is at 2:00, and at another terminal. It’s 1:30 at this point.

So it’s Keystone Cops time, we’re throwing guitars onto the bus to take us to the new terminal, and then running through the terminal…eh, we make it. Just barely. Like they let us down the gangplank and shut the door.

All is well. We arrive in Chicago. No place to exit the building, so no smokey treats for Abigail or I. No time to get extravagant, as we made our connecting flight by 20 mins.

Man, I’m not sure where the airlines get this stuff they call food, but I suspect it might be the Alpo plant.

Anyway, we make it to Brussels, and after a bit of a wait, Gert Geluykens, The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla arrives with the Opel version of a Dodge Sprinter that functions as the bus for Surfing Airlines.

We get to the house, all is well-all guitars are kosher, everything is as it should be. We walk to the grocery store, get some spaghetti fixin’s and various snack foods to gorge and sleep. I get buttermilk by mistake. Don’t drink buttermilk. It’s really not for drinking.

What IS for drinking, however, is this wonderful Kriek beer. Not that stuff you can get in a bottle at Gomers. I’m not sure What that stuff is. Here, Kriek is beer made from Cherries. It’s sweet, tart, and bright red in color. Kind of acts like champagne if it were made from Cherries. If they marketed THIS stuff in the U.S. they’d make a mint.

A few of those and back to bed, which now has me up at 6am with the rooster that roams outside our window. Today is gig day 1. I think we’re in Geel, Belgium, at a place called Bacchus Cafe. I don’t think we’ve played there before; I didn’t recognize the pictures on their website. Maybe we have, though, things tend to blur out here.

Anyway, I know some of you were curious, so I’ll try and have Glen, or Abby, or I put one of these up daily. Probably not with so much detail…nyuck, nyuck.

See you soon!