Boss Tweed on Slovenian MTV

ah... Slovenia

last night we played a dynamite gig here in celje, slovenia. all our shows thus far have been outdoors. it takes some getting used to in terms of on-stage sound but with the weather being so nice, it's been a real treat. that is, of course, until you start swallowing bugs when you're trying to sing. our stage in celje was set up in front of some remaining outer walls of the old city built in the 15th century. we had a couple hundred people come out to see our performance. the crowds vary night to night but by and large these shows are open to the whole town and people of all ages come to see us. you can see our gear just under the steps:

carolyn and eric walking to the gig:
setting up:


a couple nights back we played idrija, slovenia... a gorgeous town up in the hills. it was founded some 500 years ago when mercury was discovered there. once again, slovenia has proven to be a beautiful country with incredible terrain and miles and miles of unspoiled forests and wilderness. here's a couple shots of the town:
this is a view of the main square. you can see our stage on the left:

freddy and eric shared a love bird dinner:

me digging into an artichoke and pickle pizza:

we had a chance to take a walk through town before the show:

setting up for the show:
freddy taking care of the van en route to nova goricia:

we had a 20 minute drive to velenje today and once again the weather is beautiful. we've got a couple more shows here in slovenia and then head south into croatia early next week. stay tuned!

Boss Tweed embarks on peace keeping mission to the Balkans

AND WE'RE... off?

well folks here we are, back in beautiful ljubljana, slovenia. Boss Tweed is back on tour with our delightful belgian tour manager, freddy spaepen. we're over here for a month working the summer festival circuit in slovenia, austria, bosnia, serbia and coratia. not exactly the kinds of places that might top your list of "countries i must see before i die" but this is a beautiful part of the world and the folks here love Boss Tweed. i'm sure david hasselhoff never planned on touring germany so much but hey... you gotta go where the money is.

we got off to a bit of a rocky start: i scraped my arm up on my flight case getting to the airport:

our flight from jfk was delayed which caused us to miss our connecting flight to munich out of london. upon our arrival in germany we were told that my guitar, carolyn's bass, eric's cymbals and carolyn's bag of clothes (which also had all of our merch in it) were simply left behind in london. no explanation... they just said a decision was made to leave them behind. thanks lufthansa! since we had our first show in maribor, slovenia that night we had two choices: miss the gig and just wait in munich to get our gear on the next incoming flight or race the 5 hours to maribor and hopefully borrow some gear to perform with... meanwhile trusting that the airlines were going to deliver our equipment safely to ljubjlana, slovenia the next day. so we crossed our fingers and sped off in the freddy-mobile. we literally made the trip just in time to hop on the stage and rock. the festival organizers were great and were able to round up enough gear for us to play (thanks sandy!)... carolyn lucked out and got a fender jazz bass on loan. i was not so lucky... ending up with a korean made samick with a floyd rose whammy bar and a laney half stack. for you non-gear heads, you would be hard pressed to assemble a guitar rig that would be farther from what i normally play. the set-up might be better suited to a metal band like slipknot or eeep! steve vai. here's me with the guitar backstage:

we did our thing and played a good show (all things considered) and yesterday we were able to retrieve all of our gear and baggage intact from the airport here in ljubjlana.

after doing a quick interview for slovenian mtv, we spent the afternoon walking around beautiful downtown ljubjlana yesterday. we didn't have much of a chance to explore this older part of town the last time we were here. this is truly a beautiful city, full of old world charm and elegance- hey look! they even have native slov-indian pan-flute street performers!


some of the succulent local cuisine:
some other photos:


we're off to another outdoor gig in idrija, slovenia tonight. stayed tuned!

Back in Brooklyn

well folks... it sure is good to be back in brooklyn. since Boss Tweed left for europe in early march, park slope has welcomed many new shops and restaurants from 20th street on up north to flatbush. we took in the 5th ave spring festival a couple weekends back and caught a great set from our friends in Nouvellas... a dynamite new band featuring ex-members of The Dansettes. it was pouring rain the whole time which was too bad... but fun was still had.

Boss Tweed played a fun set at union hall on may 16th... our first show back in the states. our friend, big drew, took this photo:

we've got some shows coming up with The Poor Man's Roses coming up which should be fun as well as some more Tweedness.

on an unrelated note, i was saddened to learn that chris gaffney of the amazing country-soul band, The Hacienda Brothers, passed away on april 17th. i had the chance to see the hacienda bros twice (once at one of their first shows together at the casbah in san diego and once here in nyc at joe's pub) i hung out with chris after the new york show and man was he just a sweet guy. he seemed so happy to be doing what he was doing and how can you blame him playing in a band with the likes of dave gonzalez of The Paladins and steel guitar maestro, dave berzansky? chris will be sorely missed by many and if you haven't checked the hacienda brothers out, i highly recommend you getting some of their records. apparently the haciendas are playing to continue on with our chris... best of luck fellas. a photo of chris:

and of course i have to mention the passing of music legend BO DIDDLEY... what a guy, huh? i mean c'mon... the man invented his own beat for chrissake!!! here's the man with his custom built gretsch guitar... damn:
he was one of those few early rock n' roll pioneers that really changed things up. simplicity and vibe dominates his early records and to me, that's what really turns people on their head. thanks, bo...

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!