Zen Arkade

I know it's shitty but I don't know how to host mp3's so I think I got a pretty good excuse. well actually I can't find any reason not to do it this way since I got no content or money for a website anyways so here it is...

Zen Arkade

Messages sent to that page will be replied by my buddy Bakkie Beekstraat who's one of the most interesting people you'll ever talk to so hit him up. He's the drummer and real good at it.
all of it is in dutch so the rest of the world can't understand any of it (besides half of Belgium). Next week should see a new song up which in my opinion is better but since I'm in the US I had no say in which song was to be mixed first.
Besides entering our local highschool's bandcontest Zen Arkade has no real future plans right now. If you have any please hit us up, maybe we can trade places.

Tour's over

Yesterday our van blew up and we had to cancel the rest of the tour, big bum
out. We left our van somewhere in colorado and drove back to Iowa in a Uhaul
truck, which was kinda funny.
The last week has been very interesting like that. We did 2 sold out shows
at the Chain Reaction in Annaheim which was awesome, both shows were insane.
After that we did a show in vegas where kids tried to ruin the fun by
punching Uncle Bobby, and then had the guts to complain about the bands not
wanting to play. Way to make us feel welcome Vegas.
After the show we went and got a couple beers and hung out at the strip all
night where I lost all my money playing roulette. The next day we drove to
Denver and went to Bill Stevenson's 4th of july barbeque. Me: starstruck. We
blew 2 tires to get there and had to call some guy in the middle of the
night to fix us a new one.
and then after the denver show our engine blew out so no I'm back in the big
M and I'm tired so I'm off to bed!

Oh, I got a first mix of a Zen Arkade song and things are looking good.
Expect MP3's soon!

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Duran Duran Duran

I just got word Duran Duran Duran is doing a set in holland at nighttown, rotterdam in august. needless to say i'm gonna do everything in my power to be there. yeeeeha!

youtube

search MLIW on www.youtube.com and you'll get footage of this tour.

(i don't wanna be that guy but there's a new song up there)

late news breaking, this just in

the dutch government resigned, hopefully I'll be back home in time to vote. fucking harry potter and his politics was driving me insane, for real.

yesterday I hung out with johannes from holland, it was great seeing him again. he got implants now and they looked awesome... I want!

I love outbreak so much I licked chris's sweat straight of his body, it was real salty, really.

what else... uhm... long drives are driving me crazy. I listened to every single song on my ipod a 100 times now, I need new stuff so i'm taking suggestions now, advise me on new music , please. I like everything.

one of my friends is expecting a baby in august, that blows my mind, and yesterday johannes told me this other guy I know is gonna be a father too. I guess I reached that age... that same age where everything I eat puts on wheight.

today daXmila made me an awesome proposition I will tell all of you about it later, but I just wanna say i'm supersiked. I told my mom so if you really wanna know drop her a line.

the zen arkade songs are being mixed as we speak, I hope i'll be able to put mp3's up here soon.

my body finally doesn't hurt anymore. it kinda was another wake up call that i'm not 16 anymore but i'm back in shape now. nerdie fact: I got 12 jumps in during dead ramones. I had to count 'm haha.

tomorrow and the day after we play two shows in a row in annaheim and presales are amazing. this'll be my claim to fame.

allright, gonna watch bane now. this tour is the best one I ever done where I love every band on it.
keep posting comments people.

Oh! I forgot to tell you...

...some of the guys from Only Crime came to one the shows in texas, and turns out one of those guys was in GWAR. that's awesome right?

wooooohooooooo!

free drinktickets in albequerque, new mexico! woooooooohoooooooooo!

jeff looks like bayou billy and nate outbreak looks like axl rose. he's so hot right now.

ya'll want a bite of my corndog?

The more I think of the game the more it pisses me off. 14 yellow cards and 4 red ones is just ridiculous.

in other news: while playing my cabinet lit on fire. there were literally flames coming out of it, big flames. we had to use water to put it out. Zach from Bane tried to blow it out which was kinda funny, if my cabinet wasn't actually on fire. John's cabinet to be more precise, it's his but I was playing it. I don't know what caused it, I never seen anything like that before. If anybody knows why this could've happened let me know.

Other cool stuff that happened.... uhm, we went to bourbon street in New Orleans. New Orleans so far is probably the most beautifull american city there is and it looks totally european. Bourbon Street is in the french quarters, you may have seen it on Mardi Gras video's. It was a cool mix of stripclubs and bluesbars, and me and chris watched this bluesband play while having some beers. They did Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Otis Redding and Marvin Gaye and way more stuff. Plus their classic originals 'Going Back To New Orleans' and the tearjerker 'Phonecall from Memphis'. In the near future I definitely wanna try and spend more time there, like a weekend or something.

Yesterday in Corpus Christi after the show me, Chris and Mike (bane's merchguy) decided to go to a bluesbar before going to the hotel and at the bar we met some people who invited us to their afterparty. When morning came they decided to take us to the beach to watch the sunrise. So somewhere between seven and eight we were on the beach by the Gulf of Mexico watching the sun come up while Abel was passed out in his car, Mike and Kadie were swimming and me, Bobby and Chris were in the back of his pick up truck, it was beautifull.

These girls from Orlando decided on a whim to get in their car and follow us. weird. They're wrestling eachother in a room down the hall right now.

Josh got the most intense sunburn I ever seen. His skin looks all blistered and crazy, it hurts a lot to he says, he screams when putting aloe vera on it.

Oh, I started a European straight edge band with the Outbreak guys, we're called XcrucialfingerjumpingX, expect a 7" soon.

Aight, I'm off to bed, gotta sleep now if I wanna wake up on time to catch my free continental breakfast tomorrow morning.

Holland's out

The portugese fought dirty, the ref didn't let anyone play and now Holland's out. What am I supposed to do now?

...

I got a hat that says made by, paid for by, worn by....Americans!!!
that's right, three exclamation marks. all that over the american flag.

The dirty south is great. we met the (supposedly) guitar player from Lynyrd Skynyrd. he offered us drugs and then he went to get us girls in the projects. we never saw him again. Southern Belle's are truly Southern Belle's.

I love outbreak.

Other bands I saw on this tour besides the package:
-tarpit
-when tigerZ fight
-ruiner

Listening to and why:
Daniel Lohues (for obvious reasons)
Opgezwolle (wie behartigd je belangen? uhm..)
Winne (pomp die shit net als een lekke band)
The Shins (put me to sleep)
The Doves (just got this from John)
Mew (I love their latest record, I can't stop listening to it, amazing)
Twilight Singers (the new record which is unbelievable)

I want you to find out about The Beatstrings, Old Scratch Revival Singers and All Rattle And Dust. I know there's people reading this so do it allready.

I wrote a bunch of folksy songs in dutch again, can't wait to play 'm for my boys back home.
MLIW is roadtesting some new songs, I love playing those, it's a lot of fun. On that note: I started doing back up vocals which is fun too. Other fun stuff: I party a lot, I'm not letting my back stop me. My back hurts, seriously.

There is no better life

Right now I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. last couple days were interesting and fun, been to florida, saw lizards, we thought the van was stolen but it turned out to be towed, had party's, I won a dance-off, my back is killing me, outbreak are crazy, the airco in the van is broken, we got it fixed but it worked for only about 10 minutes and I wasn't even there.

not much else going, my sister got her first tattoo. sorry mom.

oh yeah, anybody that has any pictures of any mliw shows, hit me up!

Comfortable chairs, comfortable temperatures

not much time to update this. I'm having tons of fun though. Holland won, US got crushed. 3 more days till the next game. Check out the new sticker on my guitar. All this pics taken from the B9 board. Search mliw on there and you'll find tons more.
In other news, the van smells like shit.

U.S. Bombs

Tonight I saw the US Bombs and now I'm convinced Duane Peters is Elvis and the US Bombs are the best rockband on the planet. Their encore was Tora! Tora! Tora! and Jags, I was pleased.

Also, I got tattooed again today! Darius, who does posters for shows (which you can see on Jeff's blog, witness in the link section) and a bunch of our new shirt designs hooked me up. So now I have 'MADE IN HOLLAND' on my ribs, it's great! Sorry mom! Pics will be posted as soon I get a chance to take 'm of my camera.

Check out his work here:

www.qojak.com

Yo guys, check this out.

Angie Lins got a blog, I want you to read it.

Moon Chaplin

Here's what she posted about me on her myspace blog the other day:

"So, harm is staying at me and Johns house. He is so cute. I feel like he is kind of our son, because John and I scream at each other all the time in front of him...and thats pretty much what my parents did...oh god, I am my parents!
Anyway, funny story. Tonight Minnie was barking because she thinks she is a great dane or something...and Harm busted out, "Shut up Minnie!" Fucking made me pee a little! I felt like we were setting a bad example in front if our son. He always will have a frightened look on his face when John and I destroy each other. But none the less, Harm is great company and I enjoy having him around. He already asks me what time I go to work and get off work. So I came home a little early to check on him. I took him to Salvation Army and we bought books. When our little Harm gets himself into a book, he is in his own little world. I think my son will grow up to be a respecting young man. And maybe even a doctor?!
I have be away on business Thursday evening all the way into Friday afternoon and I dont want to leave him. I hope he can tuck himself in for just one night. I will make him monkey bread again when I get back, because it is his favorite."

Monkey bread IS my favorite, I will bring it back to Europe.

The past week...

..was all about lifting wheights at the Y, riding bikes and midnight swims at the lake. The temperature must be around 30 C constantly. I have pictures which I will put up at a later time because I'm tired now.

Famous Marshallltown people:
-The guy who designed the swoosh and the now designs dunks
-One of the munchkins in the wizard of ozz
-The guy who created The Sims
-This one guy who took of to Colarado to smoke pot and play in a folk band. He got a write up in the local newspaper and is therefore more famous than other semi well known musical acts hailing from Marshalltown
-The lady who played Joan in the first Joan of Arc movie
-Frog, who jumped through the window of C.J's house and got mentioned on various blogs and messageboards
-The littlest girl on the brady bunch, she grew up across the street from Angie's dad
-All cast and crew of Marshalltown's furious karaoke battles

Reading and stuff

2 days ago I found the letters of abelard and heloise and was so excited I pretty much finished it in two days. Great story, perfectly written and the translation I got is awesome too. I also found the Cirano book which was a good find.

Right now I'm on the lookout for anything by Ovid but especially metamorphosis so if you have some books of his laying around and wanna get rid of it hit me up.

4 more weeks until Holland's first match.

A genius belly dancer

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Genius Belly Dancer. Where You Lived: Korea. How You Died: The Plague.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Sorry mom....

Just had this one done. It will probably fade after a while since it's on the inside. This happened only a couple hours ago so it's still a bit dirty.

Hot tubbin'!

Hot tubs, Europe needs to get in on them.


You can sit in them without a shirt on and make funny faces.

Random pictures post

Last weekend we played 3 shows with Spanish Bombs, and they had these yellow sweatshirts. It has a wolf on it and says 'fuck responsibility'. I just had to get one. Spanish Bombs are an awesome band by the way, I suggest you check m out. They have ex-members of let it burn and the break. and Danny knows Aart, sike!


I always have the spot on the back bench, behind the black window. My cup holder fits a 44 oz cup and I always have the shades pulled down.


This is Chris asleep in the green limousine on the way to our show in Quad Cities yesterday. The show was a blast, the kids went nuts and I busted out my Keith Richards moves (well, I tried... once). While playing I decided my A Life Once Lost shirt is gonna lose it sleeves soon.


Angie is gonna be the next Janis Joplin. She's got a great singing voice so I suggest you all come to the Blue Cactus when she's there doing karaoke. Recently we decided we're gonna write songs for her to sing.


This is Big Joe, the biggest of the Joe's. He's the guy who runs Lifeline records who puts out MLIW vinyl. This one time he got me Stroopwafels which was amazing.