Hello world !
After moving from Belgium (where the f*** is Belgium ?) to France I had too much time on my hands, but luckily, a guitar at hand !
I started out in 1986, after terrorising the neighbours for quite a while, to sing and play guitar in a "electric-repetitive-acoustic-folk" duo. We got some airplay on the national Belgian radio and TV, and in the meantime I joined several coverbands which remained aptly and happily unknown. The duo broke up and I started another coverband that, after playing in the most unlikely places and before the most unlikely audiences (our biggest and fondest memory : a gig in a retirement home = we ended with "Twist and Shout" and the patients rock 'n rolled with wheelchairs & all !)broke up as well. A brief period of reflection enlightened me and I enrolled for a workshop on singer/songwriters with thé artist Bram Vermeulen from Holland. Then I started a next band, wrote my songs in Dutch (or Flemish), got myself into contests & all, got some airplay, lots of doors smacked in the face & all, had a lot of trouble with the band members (when are we gonna make our big break ? - and all that crap) and finally decided to throw everyone out. There I was on my own again, and I worked very hard on getting a song catalogue, retuned my guitar to a drastic Eb-open, in the meantime met my girlfriend who happens to be an accordeon player, met Big Bear Hug James & Jenny (also two bluegrass-fans from Brussels, Belgium) and jammed with him regularly, started another coverband ("The Texas Troubadours & Laure") with my girlfriend and our dear friend Niklas Oberfeld (who recently moved to ... yes ... Texas !) and had lots of fun mainly. In 2002 we packed up our little furniture & instruments and moved out to the south of France where I keep up the songwriting (maybe in French in the future) and we still have lots of fun !
Yes. But after my moving to the south of France we installed ourselves in the departement de l'Aude and as there are only 35 inhabitants there and the nearest town is about 15 miles and I still haven't got my driver's licence I am kind of grounded.
And yes, I liked playing live while I was still living in Belgium and the most special moment was my first gig back in 1986.
Uncle Dave Macon Tony Rice Johnny Cash John Prine Jimmy Webb Bram Vermeulen The Band Bob Dylan The Moonshine Playboys (the best band this side of the ocean : Europe's that is !)
A single acoustic Taylor, a voice and some mouth organs
You can check out my website :
http://www.geocities.com/pdl4a
be warned : it's in Dutch but there's some pics online for you to enjoy !
