Genius Loci

we've been relaxing in the italian countryside for 4 days now. life here is certainly slower and more peaceful here than at home... and that's quite an understatement. our day to day routine has been sleeping in 'til 10am or so, and then getting up to enjoy the day. i've been keeping my butt in shape by running through the hills in the morning an working out on the porch overlooking the valley. last night we went to an old restaurant on the top of the hill Assisi is built on (as in saint francis of assisi) there is a huge cathedral built there in his honor and he he buried beneath the massive complex. we will we traveling back there (it's only 18 km from genius loci and the town is one of four medieval towns visible from the inn) in a few days to see more of the town. here's some photos:

this is the inn itself just after you come through the gate at genius loci. the main entrance is the double door on the right side of the narrow end of the building. mike tells us the complex is a former farm house that dates back to the mid 19th century. there are strict laws in italy regarding the preservation of older buildings and mike and his family have gone to great lengths to preserve and maintain as much of the original structure as possible. this is the southwest corner of the inn... the side not visible faces north across the umbrian valley.
this is mike's private house. this is a new structure built and designed by our host himself. in the foreground is a small herb garden which we raid for our daily meals. you can just see the northeast corner of the inn on the left.
inside mike's house:
across his kitchen, living room and dining area:
one of four fireplaces at genius loci that mike built with his father. the other three are in the inn itself. they're all fully loaded and ready to cook meat and veggies on.
mike and carolyn in the kitchen:
the view of the valley from mike's living room window. this photo probably doesn't give the slope of the hill justice... it's steep! we walked down in the genius loci vineyards yesterday and i would say the slope is at least 30 degrees. mike and his family produce around 7000 bottles of vino every year from these small vineyards... that's after they sell off the majority of their grapes to local wine merchants.
a view up the hill of genius loci:
carolyn on a walk down into the valley. it's been on the cooler side since we've been here and kinda cloudy.

me in the vineyards:

tonight we are celebrating mike's 31st birthday. more photos soon...

ciao for now!

Fin

well friends... we finished out our tour sunday night. 28 shows in 32 days if my math is correct. here's our stage at the wir war club in tunhout, belgium:

some folks hanging out after the gig:
our new friend, skip, who jammed with us on his harmonica for a song during our second set that night:
freddy's house in kasterlee, belgium:
as i mentioned in some earlier blog postings, Boss Tweed spent its last few days in belgium in a studio recording 4 songs for lisa clark (below) freddy is managing her and has big plans to make her a superstar in belgium. she's an innocent 19 year old, she's got a sweet voice and she's a lot more attractive than the other belgian 'stars' on the scene at the moment. she currently gigs with a karaoke setup since she doesn't have a proper band (that's where we come in) we got to see one of her gigs last friday at a goodwill store a couple villages over from kasterlee. her she is belting out dolly parton classics:before lisa performed there was a square dance for some of the local elderly folks. quite a scene:


i couldn't resist taking this picture outside the goodwill store. the yellow sign is an ad for lisa's show. the other sign advertises a donkey for sale. ah belgium... some pics from the studio... here's freddy hard at work producing the record:
carolyn laying down tracks in the vocal booth:
hamming it up in the control room:

it was a great experience. freddy did a good job booking the tour and Boss Tweed delivered night to night. we got to play in areas of the world we probably have no business being in and enjoyed meeting all the folks along the way. here's a few more random photos from the road:

eric's pre-show warm up routine in lugano, switzerland:
me warming up before the gig in lucera, italy:

me bored at freddy's house:

a view outside our hotel the morning we left slovenia. the mountain in the photo is in austria, we were about 4 kilometers from the boarder.i s'pose that's about it! i'll post more photos when i get a chance to go through them all. on the 14th, eric flew home to nyc and carolyn and i flew to italy to visit our friend, mike tacconi, at his amazing country inn located in the hills of folignio, italy, in the umbria region. click on Genius Loci for link to his inn's website. i had the pleasure of driving this car from rome to foliginio. mike's place is up in the hills of folignio so it was a blast to zip around in a stickshift. this thing was tiny... small enough that we barely got all of our gear and baggage in the back.
below... one of the 3 rainbows we saw yesterday from mike's house. this place is amazingly beautiful. you can see 4 medieval towns in the valley surrounding the inn... gorgeous. i'll post a bunch of photos of the italian countryside soon.
ciao for now!

Puppies and Sea Monsters

the other night we played freddy's local haunt, folia. this pub is one of those beautiful local spots you always hope to find, a place filled with unique decorations and bizarre people. below is our friend marc, who came to see us last year at folia on his birthday. apparently he had never seen a gretsch guitar in person before. behold the awesome power of the gretsch as it morphs our friend into a freakish sea monster:
ok maybe that's a bit much... the guy was just very excited. can you blame him? we owe marc a big thanks for lending us his PA for the gig. here he is with his girlfriend and his pal, chris, off to the right. the seering look of envy on chris's face is due to the fact that we gave marc our last Boss Tweed work shirt for his birthday.
we've been spending our daytime hours over the last few days cooped up in kasterlee's most exclusive recording studio. we are cutting tracks for belgium's next singing sensation, lisa clark. we've written a couple new songs for her and are also contributing a Boss Tweed tune for her first release. here's carolyn in the studio:
and if you couldn't tell from my previous posts, i love animals, especially dogs. here are the puppies that reside here with freddy:
tonight's our last night off before our last two shows of the tour. we're going to see lisa at her gig nearby. ciao for now!

Boss Tweed rocks a backyard in The Netherlands

hello friends! well here we are relaxing at freddy's house in quiet kasterlee, belgium. Boss Tweed has three more shows on this tour. here are some recent photos. below is a poster that was made for our show in jena, germany, last saturday. i love that they call us 'darkside blues' as if we're darth vadar's kind of blues band:

we played a great show at jena last year. when we first arrived we were introduced to our host (below) i whispered to carolyn that he looked like his name should be Lothar. sure enough, his name IS Lothar! he's an amazing guy and somewhat of a local hero. when we arrived at jena last saturday, he had just come back from an anti-nazi protest where he was arrested for simply being there. the local authorities know him as an activist and apparently arrested him before he could start any trouble.

after we played jena we took a long drive across germany to the netherlands. this was a venue that freddy had never been to before and we had some trouble finding it. below is a photo of the dutch countryside:
here are some dutch fans of ours riding their bicycles to the show:
our show here was not in a traditional venue by any means. it turned out to be one of the most fun nights on the tour. basically our host, jan, built a small club behind his house. it started as a rehearsal space for his band but then he started throwing parties with live music there. now he and some friends organize one show a month for their friends and other people in town. they charge a flat rate for the band and all the food and drinks you want. it was sort of like a social club with Boss Tweed as the center of attention. we had a blast and the folks there went nuts for us. certainly an unusual show for us but that why this whole experience has been so incredible. night to night we're never sure what we're getting ourselves into. below is me playing with jan's dog, yippee:
rockin' the gretsch:
eric showing off his patented stare-of-death:

carolyn batting her lashes for the dutch crowd:

hanging out with jan after the gig. viva la tweed!


ciao for now!

so long, slovenia!!

we had a blast this country. four great shows in as many days... plus we were interviewed for tv and radio here. the people are cool, the food could use some work but we're happy and making friends. the town we played tonight was built around a steel mill years and years ago. it's interesting to see a town built up around one industry... a place where the majority of the population works. they had a lot of cute dogs and cats here i must say. anyway, here's me and eric during soundcheck tonight:



and after the show, packing up... that's freddy, eric and me:
freddy chatting up the show promoter for the gig tonight:
if you can make it out, some of the worst and most amusing language translation of any foreign menu we've encountered: (from our pre-gig dinner)
ciao for now!

Onwards to our last show in Slovenia...

above... a picture from the van of the slovenian countryside.
last night we rocked the orto bar here in ljubljana. here's a photo of our opening band, cry baby. these dudes are 4 of maybe 50 'true rockabillys' in all of slovenia by their estimation. i don't know if you can get an idea for it from this pic but their hair must have taken a couple hours to put in place. it's a funny thing to watch a band which has obviously copied american music so much, learning to sing in english, wearing the rockabilly costume etc and then addressing the crowd in slovenian between songs. kinda reminds me of mini driver singing 'stand by your man' as a russian showgirl in that 007 movie 'goldeneye.' if you haven't seen it, check it out... a dynamite bond flic...
here's a photo of this sort of underground party area in town. we were taken here after the gig for late night dancing with the locals. this whole area is like a small city center but reworked by punks and artists :and here's the cappuccino i drank as i typed this blog...

ciao for now!

Maribor, Nova Goricia, and some pics from Italy

well friends, slovenia has been quite good to us. on our first day here we were interviewed for carli tv, slovenia's big music television network. we also did a couple radio interviews to promote the shows here. slovenia is a smallish country of roughly 2 million people but they have proven to be big music fans. but first some pics to keep you updated. please note that you can click on these photos for a larger view.

eric feeds a donkey in the south of italy:that's me on the left of this photo. i'm standing at the edge of the mediterranean sea in la spezia, italy:
our intrepid tour manager consults a map while pondering the true meaning of his existence:

eric, freddy and an italian man showing off his tonsils:

we spent a couple hours wandering around a large shopping complex in ljubljana, slovenia. the slovenians are an open minded people as evidenced by their willingness to place a gun shop next to a children's book store... yipes. in this weapons and warfare shop you can buy an uzi, a sniper rifle, a fully automatic paintball gun, a samauri sword or a remote controlled car. the woman behind the counter explained to me that these are all considered 'hobbies' in slovenia.
eric making his way through the city center of maribor, slovenia:
here we are rocking the satchmo club in maribor:
the next morning i woke up early and took advantage of the health club across from our hotel. i squeezed in a solid workout in the gym, swam some laps and cleansed my pores with a sauna before we left for nova goricia. something about me must have screamed "AMERICAN!!!" since the other folks in the club stared at me like i was an alien... we've had a lot of that on the tour. maybe they had never seen the backstroke before? anyway, here's a view of the countryside behind our hotel that morning:




a view of the world from eric's eyes... here is a pic he took from behind his kit during sound check at our show last night:


carolyn got this photo from the top of the venue before the show. the kultrni dom is a theater that holds 150 or so (we packed it thanks to our quality slovenian promoters... thanks paula and sandy) you can make out my amp on the left with the red jewel light, eric's kit in the center and carolyn's amp to the right:


today we head back to ljubljana for our part in the 'orto fest'... a festival which also has legendary bands like fishbone and agnostic front on the lineup.

ciao for now!