STEF SPEAKS OUT Dagblad de Limburger, a Dutch newspaper, published this week an interview with Stef in which he tells about his renewed collaboration with Tom. They wrote songs together some time ago (there was something about it on this site in the summer of 99), and one of those songs will probably end up on Tom's solo album. Yes: it seems that this rumour is now a fact, and it's expected for release later this year ! (thanks to Maarten Dings)

FREE ZITA GIG And this will be of interest to (some) Zita fans : they will perform a free showcase gig at the FNAC recordstore in Antwerp at 14:30 on Saturday, March 17, the day after their new album Life=A Sexy Sanctuary is released. To get tickets, there's only one way : on Friday 16, the 150 tickets will be hidden inside Zita albums (those sold at FNAC Antwerp, of course). The store will open half an hour earlier, at 9:30, be there early if you want to take a chance. Don't feel like fighting a crowd ? Then connect to www.zitaswoon.com, www.wanadoo.be or www.fnac.be on D-day and enjoy the show through live webcast !

KILL ALL HIPPIES First of all, sorry for leaving you without any news for more than one month. I'm afraid this site is maintained by a professional slacker... I have also had problems accessing my mailboxes at university, which means that I've just received messages from two weeks ago. One of them is EXTREMELY interesting, by a guy from RTBF (French speaking state-owned TV & radio).

2001: A TOM ODYSSEY RTBF webreporter Emmanuel Debiève sent me a message on Valentine's Day in which he told me that he'd just published an "instructive" interview with Tom made on the day before. He also wanted to say how much he loved W.W.W.C.S. (3Rd dRAFT) -what a stupid name, it takes too long to type- and that it provided him very useful info before going to Tom's place. I thank him for publishing the URL of my site on RTBF's website, and also for sending me his kind mail. I curse myself for not trying harder to check my mailboxes in due time. Enough of this personal shit, here comes the news :

- Tom will NOT write the music to his film, and he's afraid to see his first movie project surrounded by such huge attention : he doesn't want to be denied the right to fail, although he sees this as recognition. He also describes Friday, Friday Evening as a "soft-neurotic urban comedy".

- Tom is working on a project with CJ Bolland and Peter Vermeersch, but he won't say more. And Steve Dub, the Chemical Brothers sound engineer, asked Tom to sing on his forthcoming dance/big beat album. Tom bought CD's like crazy in 2000.

- Now, to the VERY interesting bit : the interviewer said he gathered information from my site before going to the interview, and he had a WONDERFUL idea. He asked Tom to explain why he said that 2001 would be an exciting year for dEUS fans. Here's the extract : " Normalement, il y a plusieurs trucs qui vont sortir. Millionnaire, le nouveau groupe de Tim Vanhamel, et Vive La Fête, celui de Dany Mommens, vont sortir un album. Ce projet pour lequel j'ai collaboré avec Steve Dub va sortir, c'est sûr, et peut-être aussi celui avec CJ Bolland et Peter Vermeersch, mais ce n'est pas certain. Enfin, dEUS pourrait sortir un coffret en fin d'année avec des inédits, des faces B, ce genre de choses. Peut-être un box de luxe avec les trois albums. Il y aura donc quand même quelques signes de vie, en tous cas plus que l'année passée. "
Which means : "Well, several things will be released. Tim Vanhamel's new band, Millionnaire, and Danny's Vive La Fête will both release an album. The project on which I worked with Steve Dub will definitely be released, and perhaps also the one with CJ Bolland & Peter Vermeersch, but nothing's been confirmed. Finally, dEUS might release a box by the end of the year with unreleased tracks, B-sides & stuff. Perhaps a luxury box with our three albums. So, there will be signs of life, more than last year anyway."

- And about the next album : Tom would like it to be what The Ideal Crash should have been - they started with the idea of making something definitely "uptempo, 'in your face', dancy, funky". He wants the next album to sound as if it was not a group's work, something different (reminds me of Radiohead's Kid A), but "Craig was against the idea. Now he's gone ..." They'll start recording in late 2001 or early 2002, as was said before.

- The rest of the article is more about Tom's relationship to music, how he's in awe of Jacques Brel, how he enjoys covering Nick Drake, how much he likes to do many different things ...

I'll translate the whole article tonight or tomorrow.

STILL UNPLUGGED And there's more Tom to come: Saint Amour may be over, but he'll come back soon. On March 2 he'll be in Sint Niklaas, there's some kind of rock exhibition there, but I don't know whether he'll be deejaying or singing. And he'll be back on stage in Rotterdam on March 30, along with other Belgian acts including Gore Slut, Das Pop... Then, there's this bit from the dML: a Greek guy who uses "Brett Tom" as a pseudo says that dEUS will play in Greece in the summer, it's from a good source and he wasn't supposed to talk about it. It's highly unlikely, but if they did, they'd deserve death - why the hell play in Greece and not here ;)

GUTEN ABEND Great news update, hey? Well, this is what you get when you mess with mailboxes. Two weeks ago Belgium All Stars were on German radio talking about the Belgian scene and other stuff. The show was called 'Große Stars für ein kleines Land - Rockmusik aus Belgien' on Rock et cetera, a program from Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio (I might be wrong). Here's a summary sent to the dML by Dirk from the Belpop Archives :

- Tom Barman "the thing in common of all the band from the Belgian scene is perhaps being open to all kinds of influences, and to look on them with a certain surrealism"

- Frank van der Linden about him "discovering" dEUS at the Rock Rally : "in those days you couldn't sell dEUS to any record company, because they were too chaotic. But only a few months after, every record company wanted to have it's own dEUS"

- Tom again "deus was like a sort of cork that came off a bottle. But it is not correct to think that all the bands after us came about because of dEUS. We just gave them a bit of confidence"

- Stef Kamil :"we lived in one house, we made music all the time. I don't know what else to say about it, it was chaotic but beautiful."

- Joost Zweegers of Novastar "I didn't think too much of dEUS, until i once saw a show where Tom Barman & Stef Kamil Carlens played a few encores, just the two of them on piano & guitar. There has never been and probably will never be a better Belgian band than dEUS. But it was not a typical Belgian thing. It was just the magic that happens when two individuals meet. Perhaps the comparison is a bit off, but it was like the magic that Paul McCartney & John Lennon had in the Beatles"

- Tom Barman "I am glad there a still good bands about, but they are a bit "nice", you know. Novastar, Arid ... they don't have the sense of adventure like Soulwax, Zita Swoon, Rudy Trouvé ... us ... Novastar is just Crowded House with more guitars, K's Choice is Skunk Anansie or whatever ... but nothing new. I think it's very positive that they are here, but I want something more from art ... Like Beck manages to do. The next album of dEUS, for 2002, will be a more pop thing. It must be an album you can dance to and have a party with."

- Tom Barman "I earn my money with DJ'ing now! Strange, not. Because I'm not a DJ. People think that because we take a year off, this means we can afford that. But they don't have a clue. When we're touring with dEUS, we can live from it. But now ... But we don't want to make a record because we need money. It has to mean something"

music was of dEUS, Zita Swoon, An Pierlé, Hooverphonic, De Mens & Novastar.

DOTCOM ROCKS And Arthur's excellent dEUS site, formerly known as dEUStheband.com, formerly known as Endless, Nameless: dEUS has a new URL and a new name: say hello to I Suffer Rock (www.isufferrock.com), named after the best dEUS B-side ! The design hasn't changed, but there are several new message boards (the "I Suffer Rock Community") about dEUS of course, but also Zita Swoon and other related fora.

CYBERSTEF The official Zita Swoon website is online, and it's a thousand times better than www.deus.be. Extremely flashy(r), easier to use than the Soulwax site, but at least as funny - just try the Audio Lab section, we want more ;) The new single Hot, Hotter, Hottest was released 9 days ago, the new album Life = A Sexy Sanctuary will be out on March 16, and one week ago, Zita Swoon played a private gig in Ghent. Marie Man (the Unofficial Zita Swoon Page) reports ...

It was in the Minard, a small theatre in Gent. There were a couple of hundred people there. Looked liked lots of locals were there. It turns out that they were mainly friends, including the ex-guys of Musickness and Koen from Plage tattoo.

Above the right side of the stage was a huge painting of a skull - the new Zita logo?? Soon enough the band came on and broke into a series of new songs. Quite rock - punk rock my friend says! The stage is lit up with lots of LED style lights - flashing arrows, circles of light....shame about the rest of the lighting!

The new songs were very full on and guitar based with a good dose of sampling...more in the direction of Disco! They played about 4 or 5 of these, and a song from Circumstances - comparatively mellow. Maybe I can try to do a tracklisting later. After that they did what I think is the B-side to the new single, 'Moustache' - it's almost spoken like some of the Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart songs. About being in the back of a car where the driver and his girl are kissing, then kissing more than driving and you think they will crash. But eventually it flies...psychedelia!

For the encore they did an excellent reprise of a 'Greasy Feather' song - I can't remember which (I enjoyed this the most), but will find out, another new song I think, then Disco! I was surprised by this.

After about an hour - the concert ended and there was a mini-party. I didn't really know anyone there - except Rudy and a girl that was going to be in Plage Tattoo, but then I really don't know so many people from Belgium, so...

I guess that's all for now. Anyone with anymore Zita news, send me a message and I'l lgive you credit on the site. I have a big headache, so'll be off for now...

The Swoons will be on tour in Europe very soon, they are back in Ghent on 28 Feb. and they'll rock Brussels on 5 April. By the way, tickets are very expensive, they're nearly as dear as dEUS ones. But ZS gigs are among the best live performances you'll catch !