due to the kid's luck

hello everybody,,!!

and a happy new year!!! i'll keep it short, the VPRO 3voor12lokaal website has written a masterpiece of report about the Lucky Fonz and M-Jo gig two weeks ago in the Doors Palace. Click on this link to read the page...

M-Jo is going to play probably somewhere in februari in café Bax, in Amsterdam, but more information about that will come soon....


shiny wishes to each and everyone of you

Poolsticks

Yesterday M-Jo played their second-ever gig in The Doors Palace in Amsterdam. Interesting environment, it was a night with several performances of different artists, organized weekly, and we had the privilige to share the stage again with Lucky Fonz III. An interview with Lucky Fonz III has been published online on http://3voor12lokaal.vpro.nl/amsterdam, in which M-Jo is mentioned! So, Lucky kicked off the evening with a blasting set with support of me on one song (singing the great old eternal traditional Silver Dagger), and another contribution of Uriel on solo guitar in Lucky's original Poor Carolina. Over his shoulder a TV showed us a live registration of the soccer game between Eindhoven and Ajax (1-6). But Luckily Lucky pushed the on/off button after a couple of songs and no-one really bothered. Ultra-hip hipster Tony Chapman even saw time and space to attain this musical night. We spoke about sincerity in music and how easily one could pick it up, once opened for it. Anyway, two guys who were to play after Lucky didn't show up until late, so Lucky played on and on, astounding everyone around. After a while he gave the stage to other people, most of them singing one or two songs. It was waiting for Ro to show up before M-Jo could start!!
One of them was the lovely dutch female singer Amarins, also connected to the Amsterdam Songwriter's Guild. She and me sang Give me a kiss, and immediately by hearing a girl singing guys upstairs left their poolgames or whatever they were doing upstairs and stood on the balcony-kind-of-thing, poolsticks in hand, staring. I could just see that through the thick clouds others were making with their sticks of another kind..
Hoping the bikers wouldn't kick us out, Amarins and me did one more song together, the giant smashing lovehit Someone loves you honey, (June Lodge), and to our pleasant surprise the coolest unmoving biker/pirate guys at the bar mimed along happily with the addictive verse. That was one of the greatest moments. Everyone happy. And us singing, looking at the people's faces, as wanting to say 'you gotta believe it, it's really true'. After that Amarins sang two more, Billy Jean and her own You cheered me up. I'm not really sure who sang after that but around 23 Ro showed up, coming from a gig in Den Haag, and we installed our equipment and were a bit in a hurry cause the guy told us we could play for only half an hour,because of complaining neighbours. That's really an Amsterdam architectural lack, they should have thought of this in the 17th century. Anyway Ro lit the two Jesus candles and put our lights on, and the gig was great as well as the response. People start asking for recordings now, and i think recording is one of the first things we're gonna do in the happy new year.
We played seven songs, of which two covers, the others from my hand. By the last song, we were just getting into it, then we had to stop. Too bad, but the vibe though short was great. When we got kicked out finally we ended up in sub-dimensional snackbar Ten Have, with ten or so people, repeatedly placing immense kaassouflé orders. Everyone walking in and out went happy because of the singing, bluesharp-playing and Étienne's blues guitar. We had great conversations with 'night people', and time stood still. After what seemed like hours i managed to pull myself loose and headed for home.

M-Jo's short little set:

Lemonaide Kid
The City
My Little Red Book
Shiny Wishes
The Golden Sun
Honey
Sandwich Girl

Too bad i made no pictures yesterday but here's some others from the M-jo diary:

lovely dutch singer Amarins and me in a supermarket store somewhere in Amsterdam


hereby and as a special Christmas gift the picture so many fans have been asking for lately



..and two more crazy pictures from that Lennon tribute night, me getting onstage

Yeah yeah yesterday was the John Lennon tribute in café Bax in Amsterdam, it was amazing and funny. At some point in the evening there was a lady resembling the great dutch singer Anita Meijer, singing along Ken Parsons' rendition of 'Obla-di Obla-da', holding a tray of bitterballen in her hands, even replacing a word she didn't know by the word 'bitterballen'.. Many people were playing beatles and lennon songs, some with keyboards, most of them with guitars. Prize-winning Lucky Fonz III was there, too, but he couldn't play because there was no time or something. Never mind, because Lucky as well as M-JO is invited to come and play in café Bax coming januari or februari! That's gonna be some hell of a night... Too bad yesterday the other half wasn't there, but still i wanted to place just one picture of yesterday night.

My set list:

Anna (written by Arthur Alexander)
Ask me why
All i've got to do
You've got to hide your love away
I'm so tired
Julia

PS: note Claus in the center of the crowd.
picture taken by Dries Camp

Here we are standing. Next to the pinball machine. We had to wait setting up our equipment until an older guy finished his game. Ro halfhide (on the left) and me (Mary Joe Jones) on the right. Discussing which song to play next. Our debut gig last thursday december 8th 2005 in bar Soundgarden, Amsterdam, consisted of over one hour and a half of music. We are very happy that we exist. I've been tuning my guitar during the whole set, and at some point Marijn (singer/guitarist of Dutch band Nuff Said) permitted himself to tune it with his free hand, the other rolling a cigarette, while i was playing. The funny thing was, though, that the tuning thing successfully became part of our act. Some songs, like Lowell George's Find a River was so out of tune that the strings started to interfere with eachother in a special way and it gave the song's sound the right amount of weirdness, as someone in the audience mentioned after the gig.
The bartender, impressed, asked me after playing who was my biggest influence, and gave me the choice between Velvet Underground/Lou reed, or Syd Barrett.. Of course i couldn't answer him right away but luckily i remembered that once i have been awarded the Syd Barrett No-fi award by a Dutch music magazine (i forgot which!). He said he could understand that very well. Unfortunately this award never found its way to me.

pictures taken by pietje puk

M-Jo will be the best band of Amsterdam

Don't say we didn't warn ye!