M-Jo: Let's make things better

...Then we went myspace

2006-04-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody
according to this blogspot things seem to be laying still etc. but luckily that's not at all true. We've had a couple of good nice gigs around Holland and we are going to have our first radio interview in two weeks, and also we seem to get known more and more around Amsterdam, which means more gigs in the near future which basically means more future! i just want to direct people to our myspace to keep in touch with where we are playing and how late, and sometimes for how much.

www.myspace.com/mjomusic,
you can also click "Hear Our Songs" on the right side of this page to get there

many kisses to everybody,
Shiny Wishes

M-Jo on the radio, internet and telly

2006-03-27T02:01:00.000-08:00

http://3voor12lokaal.vpro.nl/magazines/news/index.jsp?portals=21861&magazines=21866&news=272467

This is the link to the webspace where you can read how the interview went between me and klazien from 3voor12 lokaal amsterdam. We have played for lovely people in Studio 80 last thursday. Reaganesk was supporting us, mainly on slide guitar and we played for about an hour. The gig was recorded for the internet by the VPRO, and we did a rock n roll radio interview afterwards. When the time is there, it will be online accessible to your ears. We shared the stage with Sweet Sweet and half of the Ghost Truckers. It was great!

Another important thing is our link in the right top of this page 'hear our songs' because we have openend our myspace account, where from now on you can hear as well as download three of our songs. Our titles presented on the myspace page will continuously change.

Another thing worth mentioning is that last wednesday we were on television, together with Lucky Fonz III for at least 1.5 second, on Nederland 3 in a LLINK item. It was about this guy in Belarus who seems to have been re-elected to lead the country. There were interviews with Amnesty people on the Dam square and we were playing and dancing in between!

pictures taken by our "management"

see you soon!

MORE AND MORE AMNESTY

2006-03-13T07:48:00.000-08:00

As If Your Life Depends On It

2006-03-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

Hi, here!
shit we're always a bit late reporting about our amazing spazey adventures but hell there's time for everyone, We Are All Saved. Last monday the 6th of March saw the appearance of M-Jo as well as Lucky Fonz III as well as my mom, some friends, amnesty people and related students and some politicians, a gun, doves, a couple of mime acting creatures, a hotdog mobile kit, passengers and a dog on the Dam square in Amsterdam. We stood in front of the palace of the queen; Ro in the middle of me and Lucky Fonz III. Ro slamming his snare and some percussion and thereby accompanying our guitar strumming-wildness and the shouts from all three of us. Students were going to hitch-hike to the border of Belarus to draw attention to the fact that there is a guy leading the government in Belarus who shouldn't lead the government over there or anywhere else. Amnesty were the organisers and they asked us to come and make noise, just as they invited two politicians to come over and talk. Their talks were embedded in our playing, and people from newspapers were making notes and other people with headsets and microphones tried to get as close as they could to in someway or the other capture our muselectrifying mindbuzzing bonfire, for all our favorite muses appeared to have travelled with us to or at least decided to gather on the Dam square last monday. With their help and guidance, it was amazing what us three could do without having spoken about it before we did. We played and sang and one of the people making notes wrote the next day in dutch newspaper Het Parool that we were playing as if our life depended on it. That to me is the best thing anyone can ever write about me, or about anyone else who plays. Hug to you, Frenk der Nederlanden! It's the only thing that matters. Play, do anything in life, as if your life depends on it. And in this fashion we played for instance Iris DeMent's Old time religion and we played our own pieces, Lucky's Painter , M-Jo's ode to the universal energy Don't you ever leave me, a cop arrived on a bike saying something complicated about if we were allowed to have drums, so i sung my answer 'Warden warden warden/won't you break your lock and key' and the Lady with the Beercan (i'm writing the song) agreed i guess, she was the one who brought the whole almost frozen happening to life, shouting at virtually everybody present. As if her life depended on it. Her shouting to which we responded Don't let me down. She kept asking for us playing Help so we did, be it in a slow blues fashion. Finally, when Aboutaleb swung his gun and students were given a ride by horse, geisha, truck, bakfiets and so on, we played On the road again and the Lady with the Beercan (shhh... don't tell anyone,, it's hidden in the sleeve of her coat) sang along, shouting cool stuff, not always i could understand exactly her words, but everytime she finished her shout we agreeingly answered triplevocally 'on the road again'.

The lesson for me to learn was that for the electricity of the happening the choice of our songs didn't really matter at all, i mean instead we could have played the Mannenkoor Karrespoor-oeuvre; the thing was we did it as if our lives depended on it. And all the Amnesty people plus students stood there too as if their lives depended on it. Needless to say - if i may speak for Ro, Lucky and myself- our lives do depend on playing music!! And so, ever since monday it makes me very happy that people seem to be able to pick that up and even spread that news by legal media.

Now here's the great great pictures and the guy missing on it made them, i've been overthinking putting cynical-y comments under one of them, i decided not to. If you feel for it, you might think over this question:

What does your life depend on?

You are invited to write down your answer as comment under this writing, and perhaps we can build a bonfire right here on this page.. Wouldn't that be amazing?

GReets,

MJ

11-02-2006: Haaksbergen turned into The Tropics

2006-02-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

We were great. We were heroes, in Haaksbergen. We played for almost three hours in a row. Playing our parents record collections, occasionally freaking out in Teenage-Mary slide solo's amusing the 40+ as well as the minus 20 crowd. Playing whatever the people wished. Haaksbergen, with the pentagram as town shield. With the Grand Café Centraal as the place next to the church. We played together with Erik, for this occasion named Erik the Floater (referring to the great MSX video game Eric and the Floaters). M-Jo + Erik = The Tropics. I wrote a small piece of text about us which was sent to the local newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Part of this bio was put on a poster and this poster decorated the wall in the men's room. After visiting a family birthday party in Enschede we met at Erik's home and put together a set list. Then we went to the Grand café, set up all the stuff, and started playing. During the gig, again there was a guy trying to tune my guitar in-play, but this time it wasn't at all out of tune so i gave him the evil look and sung "The cars hiss by my window" so furiously that he left. Needless to say, the night ended getting a bit drunk and dancing with your mum, spinning around on the dancefloor singing wooly bully or something alike.

Let the pictures speak for themselves.

The Tropics

african rhythm

2006-01-18T04:30:00.000-08:00

HELLO!

This is us in our rehearsal space yesterday. We found a new way of recording and we wrote two new songs on the spot, both three fourth-time, and in one Ro played an exciting rhythm that i never heard before, really interesting. He told me it was African (??) anyway we have been playing very well yesterday and we seem to connect more and more rhythmically, which sometimes results in almost incomprehensible structures, that only fit mathematically but hardly hearable for the ear (and human brains) anymore. I don't know exactly why i am writing this peculiar information but if you came so far reading it has to make sense in some way.

Keep in mind this coming sunday when Ro and me and Lucky and Reaganesk and more people will be filling the Babel place (Utrecht) with great sounds.

Good luck and many kisses

two more appearances, write down 22nd and 26th of januari

2006-01-15T06:30:00.001-08:00

Hello and again,

Ro Halfhide as well as Mary Joe as well as other great artists (Lucky Fonz III, Reaganesk!!) are going to play on the 22nd of januari (one week from now) in Babel, Utrecht. Read about it on the ASG blog. Halfhide added a new field to our site in which we present our upcoming gigs. Another appearance of the M-Jo crew will be on the 26th of januari, in the Openbare Bibliotheek, keizersgracht 19-21 Amsterdam. This will be together with dutch poet and homie Robin Block. M-Jo and Robin featuring each other is called the Wildeman-project. It will be soon that you will hear everywhere of this groundbreaking music/poetry project, but we won't give away details yet..

Hereby a picture of Mary Joe performing in Sappho, the place (need i say) where the ASG arranges an open mic presentation of the finest Amsterdam artists, every week on tuesday, Vijzelstraat 103. This picture was taken by my London-based great friend and musical anthropologist of the dark alleys Laurens Steenbergen, on the 3rd of januari, just to show you the intimate atmosphere Sappho can breathe.

cheers, it's sunday

MEAT MEAT MEAT

2006-01-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

the joke of the day is i went to a kind of a institutionalized employment market and saw a vacancy for working on a farm in Iceland. It read that having a driver's license would be an asset, and that if you wanted the job you had to be a non-vegetarian

the last pictures of our fabulous debut show, december 8 last year in Soundgarden, Amsterdam:

telling the people some more of those crazy jokes

fans cry

Here we see the back of Nuff Said's Marijn (my onstage guitar tuner) with his overnight infamous petje, a typical Dutch way to pimp your head, and he's so cool with it, and the petje is very cool with him

ciao lovers

due to the kid's luck

2005-12-30T13:51:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-11T05:18:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

Don't say we didn't warn ye!