...after a rather wet summer. I know I always plan to write a whole new album of songs, but somehow I never get round to it. Must be the loads of other stuff I need to do. And don’t do in the end. Like reading, watching great DVD’s and playing the banjo. Anyway, yesterday I attended the Zinin Festival in Utrecht. Actually, I also performed there together with the three other alter egoes known and feared as the Gasoline Brothers. There always seems to be be some kind of “looseness” around these things, a thing that does not automatically seems to do with the intake of beers happily accepted from a bunch of friends. The festival atmosphere was great, with a good variety of bands, some overwhelming, some painstakingly playing while forgetting that they’re in front of a good-natured and much-forgiving audience.
Great surprise was a Danish band called Broken Beats, who gave a stunning performance of say 40 minutes. The lead singer, who looked a bit like a deranged social worker or Vincent van Gogh after hospitalisation, turned out to be a great story-teller as in words as much as in music. His songs were performed with humour, drama, sung by him and a Tina Wymouth-like bass player (a girlie, that’s right) another guy dressed like an 19th century aristocrat doing great licks on his guitar and a drummer beamed to us from 1966. Songs came and went, were half-way interrupted for the sake of suspense and lo and behold! Lead singer Kim, dressed in a kashmir sixties outfit, did a accurate and awe-inspiring somersault on stage in the instrumental outro of one of the Broken Beats songs. Now that’s something!
Humbly stepping aside for cool perfomances like these, me together with the other Paper Mooners will do a gig in Amsterdam on September 10 (see our dates site). We will do a couple of new songs then. No somersaults there I guess. After that , we really have to concentrate on writing and finishing some new songs and not only keep blabbing about them. I am as much a culprit as anybody else, I know. Hope to see some of you there.

It took us so long to write an update that some of you might have thought we were dead. Far from it. The Paper Moonios are very much alive and kicking. We have spent the last half-year writing and recording new songs in Utrecht and Elspeet. This resulted in a demo with seven new songs that might make it on our new album. Some brand new songs are already in the making so we spent the last couple of rehearsals mainly to work on that. We are obviously used to playing together, for when we pick up an old song we often surprise ourselves with the feel and preciseness of the playing and singing. Right now, we are all going on holidays and from the end of August we will rehearse the new set for our gig in Amsterdam on September 10th. We plan to play mainly new stuff there, so be sure to check it out. There’s another reason to come ‘cause there’ve been some make-over’s, folks ! Hair has dissapeared from the heads of some bandmembers while others have grown hair in unexpected places. Tatoos, piercings, Prince Alberts, the lot! See this picture for an example. There will be some nice surprises, next September. We’ll keep you posted and please have a great summer!

That’s basically what we’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks: recording (or pre-recording, if you’re one of those musical-technically inclined people) all our new ideas at Ace’s Place. We’re preparing for the new album and actually taking all the time it needs. Consider yourself making a dish for some of your best pals who may turn up in half a year but who will definitely not arrive tomorrow. That’s what we are doing just now. Well, that may be a bad comparison given the peculiarity of food to go mouldy and rot away. In any case, we are laying down all the new songs that have been buzzing in our beautiful heads for the last months.
Just to distract you from this god-forsaken place and time of musical mischief we have added to our “music” page a live version of “Polaroid Girl” as recorded on Dutch Radio 2 for a program called Muziekcafé. Many thanks to Mirjam, Hanneke and Carin for adding strings to this tune. Scroll down to “bonus material” and hear ye all!

Toni Peroni, the infamous Utrechtian culthero, did an item about Stacey and us on his show Lekker Belangrijk TV, which airs every Wednesday at 21:30 on The Box. If you wanna know how our drummer Jeroen combines urinating with his musical career, check out the video.

And last Thursday, before we played our last gig of this year in Hilversum, we did an interview and live session on Radio Noord Holland. Here's a link where you can listen to the show.

During the last months, Brittle Hearts has got some very neat reviews in the Dutch press and on the Internet. Here can you can read them. It’s only in Dutch, but in due time they will be translated in English. In case you can’t read them, believe us: they are spine-tingling. We are doing a couple of acoustic and electric gigs to promote the album and to have some fun with you guys, so check us out (see the dates section). And for our Dutch audience, check out our new weblog!

We created some sort of jukebox player so you can hear some snippets of tunes from 'Brittle Hearts' and of course we would like to know (in our new guestbook) what you think about the album! While you're listening you can check out these links (all in Dutch):

• André kept a diary during the week of the Ekko gig, read all about it here.
• an interview about how, when and why for GUN Magazine, the Utrecht guitar pop magazine.
• Vote for us at the Lowlands Top 25 every day and help us to the top. While you're there, don't forget to vote also for Dutch Delight Vol. 2, a CD which has been compiled by Stacey, our record company boss.

We had a fab time in a fully packed Ekko last Thursday. What a thrill it was, Playing with a string section and two brass players. GUN Magazine has written a review of the night, you can read all about it over here (it's in Dutch actually). In the meantime, the first reviews on 'Brittle Hearts' have come in too. Keep checking the Reviews section for updates.

Well, there it is: the special day we’ve been waiting for and hopefully you as well: the release of our first full-length album called Brittle Hearts. On September 16, at 2100h, our pride and joy will be presented at Ekko, Utrecht (at the Bemuurde Weerd WZ 3, see also www.ekko.nl). To celebrate this, we invite you to see support-act and locals Pondertone kick off the evening with some cool music, and, after that, to check out, well, Paper Moon, who will bring you a nice blend of bittersweet melancholy, nice tunes and good fun. We will also bring some musical guests on stage and hey, who knows you will make some interesting friends!
That evening, you can also buy Brittle Hearts, of course. The album will be released by Stacey Records and distributed by BMG in the whole of Western Europe. So if you live in Reggio di Calabria or Aarhus: we don’t mind you not coming along but in any case you can order the CD at your local shop.
Entry at the Ekko is free, some come on up to the house!

We recorded a couple of new songs at Ace's place (read all about it) and put a couple of fragments online for y'all. Check our Music section to listen to 'Talking To The Rain' and 'Shoes And Shells'.

Next Sunday, 16th of May, we will be playing 2 songs live on the Radio 1-show 'Opium'. Tune in at about 19:00!

There is a nice article about us in FRET, the magazine of the Dutch Pop Institute (NPI). Contrary to what has been written there, though, we have decided to postpone the release of Brittle Hearts until September. We would like to concentrate on the mastering and PR, and it seems that, if we finished the album this month it would be a rush job. As you probably all will be on holiday during the summer months, the best thing to do is to present the album in September. To be more precise, we will have a release party on September 16 at the Ekko in our hometown Utrecht. We will undergo your floods of abuse shame-facedly and meekly ask for forgiveness. And, needless to say, we'll keep you updated.

Our first full-lenght album is due to come out in May. It will be titled Brittle Hearts and will contain some oldies (including re-workings of some of the songs on the EPs) and ofcourse a bunch of new songs. Check out this site regularly as we keep you informed on the exact release date.
To kill some time in-between, you can expect some acoustic versions of Paper Moon songs in our Music section pretty soon.

Our record company goddess, Stacey, has put together a Dutch Delight Tour for a couple of her bands. Of course, we are one of them so we have a great set of gigs ahead of us. Check out the dates section of this site to see if we're coming to your town this winter. See y'all there and don't forget to keep up with our recording stories at our weblog.

We finally have started the recording of our first full-lenght album right in the middle of nowhere of Holland. Recordings are due to be finished in December. Wanna be a witness of the latest gossip, scandals and fistfights during the recordings and learn something about Dutch verb and noun structure? Read our Dutch language only weblog diary here. Enjoy or be totally annoyed, in any case take a look and leave a comment.

We're glad to announce that two Paper Moon tracks have been selected for a compilation cd called “Dutch Delight”, soon to be released by Holland’s youngest record company called Stacey Records. The tracks selected are ‘(So Very) Stella’ and ‘The Lost Parade”. The name of initiator of this project is….well, Stacey. You can find more about her successful endeavors on www.staceyrecords.com. Stacey is planning to hold a release party in due time. We’ll keep you informed about that.

From now on, you can listen to the two other tracks of ouw first EP! Download "So Very Stella" and "Tours Around the Lighthouse" by clicking on the Music link on this site. Enjoy! Speaking of which: our new EP called "The Lost Parade" has been recorded, it will be available from february 2003 .... and is highly enjoyable! Just wait and see.

Paper Moon headed straight to the second (!) place on the Lowlands Top 25, the monthly chart of the National Pop Institute, thanx to your votes! You can still vote for July, by sending an email to gert@npi.nl and include "I vote for Paper Moon / Stella" in your message body.