Sorry, sorry for the lack of updates, I will hopefully be back online properly soon.  In the meantime, I'm going to do what updates I can from my work PC!

Big sorry to Lefteris - he sent me in this cool mini-interview with Stef and we forgot to put it online! Go and take a look - he earns 'secret squirrel' status in the fan forum for managing to wangle that one.

Please, please send us some some stories about your encounters with the band - however old. Write to us if you're not sure whether we'll want your stuff. Anything Zita inspired/related is welcome.

Bert kindly sent me in this review of Carmen from DeMorgen last month. I had to OCR it, so sorry if there are any mistakes. Dutch only at the moment - any volunteers to translate it? He also sent me an interview with Stef, which I'll get online soon!

I forgot to post this a while ago, news from Koen (28/07/02) - "Carmen will come to belgium too Stef won't play in the belgian shows. he's only playing bass in the premiere shows in Holland. There's a band , 2 bands actually....switching every week or so, the pianists are Guy Van Nueten and Adrian Lenski. Stef's very busy, and they are going to start to work on the new album too. The concert in Dranouter folkfestival in a few days is very acoustic. Aarich made a video thing ...that they are going to use during the concert. No special performances."

"Stef did some vocals on the Rudy Trouve solo CD called 1999-2002 Quiets Songs. Check out http://www.heavenhotel.be for more info."

Article on De Standaard Online about Carmen - can anyone log on and send it to us, as the website is in Dutch and we can't understand it!

So, we haven't heard about Carmen from anyone yet, but the reviews haven't been good, "One of the projects' co-sponsors, Gerard Mortier, had intended to use the play at a festival he is organising, but now has said that he won't do it. He's very disappointed about it and was very negative about it." from Bert.

Lefteris, from Cyprus, who I met in Leuven earlier this year has sent me his autographed copy of the TMF session.

A little mention about last month's bad review of Carmen in De Morgen.

Apparently Carmen had a bad review in De Morgen - has anyone seen the show or got review they can send in?

Kevin tells us that Bjorn played at a concert in Koln, Germany with Calexico "he was introduced as "a friend of ours: Bjorn from the band Zita Swoon". Just for your interest: he plays "flamenco/country-ish lap steel guitar" on 'Sanchez' and on an unknown song." Does anyone else know more about Bjorn's link with Calexico?

Tom Pintens has updated his website http://users.pandora.be/tom.pintens/2000novelties.htm He includes the news that Flowers for Breakfast have officially broken up.

Meanwhile, Wolf sends us an update from www.deadbeattown.com on Aarich's movements. "Last Tuesday (16/04), Rudy Trouvé played a concert at the A.B. club in Brussels, previewing most tracks of his upcoming solo-album. Instead of a solo acoustic set, Rudy played with a band on stage : Aarich Jespers on drums, Elko Blijweert on guitar, Dimitri Daggelinckx on bass, and Sigrid van Rosendaal on keyboards.Make sure to try to catch some Rudy with his band on Thursday May 16th, Vooruit Kaffee in Gent. Concert is free, starts at 22.00h."

"Stef was at the Neeka gig @ AB some two weeks ago and came on stage for one song. " Thanks Dirk.

Apparently, SKC did backing vocals on the latest Neeka album. Neeka is also rumoured to be supporting Zita Swoon at the next concerts in Antwerp.

Some news about Carmen - but it's in Dutch. Anyone who can help translate it to English? Thanks to Ingar and Wolf for translating this!

Kim has sent us some pics from Zita's gig at Kaaiman last July. Thanks Kim!

Apparently Guy Van Neuten is rehearsing/playing with SKC - has anyone heard anything more about this or what it is for?

Wow - a quick response from Wolf..."Guy Van Neuten plays the piano for the Carmen score that SKC is working on. This week, Tom Pintens is master @ work on Studio Brussels (everyday a small interview at 1030 am and then Tom selects a song)...this morning he pointed out that Carmen will be probably in Dutch, so this must be the first time SKC is writing in Dutch" I can confirm this last point - Stef is writing in Dutch and is very happy to be doing so!

The telephone number for booking tickets for the Bourla (25th & 26th April) 03 224 88 44 - the second gig is almost sold out. Thanks to Pascale.

There is some news on the official site (www.zitaswoon.com) about an event in New York, but I don't really understand what it's about - can anyone help?

Wolf brings us the news that an interview with the band was featured on www.goddeau.com last month. He has also pointed out that Carmen is the much touted 'Amsterdam Project'. Ahhhhhh...

There are rumours of another semi-acoustic concert at the Bourla, Antwerp on 26th April - but this is not confirmed.

Bárbara has sent us the lyrics for 'Josiewitchgirl' - thanks to her. More additions to the songbook will be happening soon, including live songs.

Please join our new mailing list - we promise as many official updates as possible! You'll need to create a Yahoo ID.

In the meantime - the rest of our fan forum is getting on its feet, but it's reliant on submissions from YOU. Please take a look at what's available (bear in mind we're just starting it up) and see what others ideas you have for the forum. We'd love to hear any suggestions you have.

Boudewijn has sent us pictures of him and his girlfriend with Stef and Tomas at the recent show in Antwerp. It's nice to see photos of the fans that use this site! They also feature in our new close encounters section!

Thanks to Martin and Alison for their great photographs from the Borderline concert and a great picture of Stef at the Jazz Cafe. I've put these pictures in the concert guide (diary) as usual. Their pictures of Stef at the Jazz Cafe and Tomas at the Borderline go straight in at the top of the new Fan Art Top 10!

If you didn't know, I was fortunate enough to go on the road with Zita Swoon earlier this month. Have a look at the photographic tour diary.

If you were wondering what song Stef played at Leuven - alone with his guitar, he tells me that it is called 'Dare to Love' and he's sent me the lyrics. Stef has this to say about the 'improvisation' that they played at the end of all of their semi-acoustic shows...

"The other song is called "Good times and a twinkle in your eye" I wrote it when I was 16 or so, the lyrics aren't very good but the conclusion of every verse is "with nothing but your boots and your t-shirt on" It's a lust song and it's funky. We never recorded it, but we like playing it. The "love just can't be trusted..." line I stole from Prince. "

Doing some 'house cleaning' updating links etc.

Why didn't anyone tell me that the guestbook wasn't working?! I'm on the case now...

The songbook is being updated - tabs are being added courtesy of Avi, as well as lyrics for the last two albums. Singles will follow soon.

Full setlist for Leuven confirmed by SKC - with two new songs!

We are also setting up a fan forum - finally! At the moment, we're thinking about featuring fan art, autographs and fan photos - please let us know if you have any more ideas. For now, you can join up to the discussion list and get to the message board run by Baby Genius.

Here is an old article from De Standaard Online about SKC's exhibition in Rotterdam. Thanks to Quinten.

We have been updating the discography (finally) and various other bits of the site - thanks for being so patient with us.

Well...lots of news and lots of updates that I'll sort out over the next few days.

The three semi-acoustic concerts were sold out. Brugge and Leuven went very well, but the band are very tired now. SKC has bought a house in Antwerp and is working on a Flemish score for Carmen. He has a piece exhibiting in the Louvre at the moment and on the 17th March, his Ruddy Turnstone exhibition will be restarting in Brussels.

It's taken me a while to get round to putting it online, but here are some reviews of Tom Barman's concert in London a couple of weeks ago where SKC made a guest appearance. Thanks Martin and Alison!

SKC is working on a score for Carmen (yes, THE Carmen) for Amsterdam. He's composing on a computer. He has also bought a house in Antwerp and will be moving in the summer.

Carolina responds to Jose's review of the Lisbon show.

Zita Swoon's concert at Hallen Van Schaarbeek will be screened on Belgian TV on March 13th at 9.25pm

Zita Swoon seem to be partying on down in Portugal. Here's are reviews from Luis and Marta of last night's show in Porto.

A Zita performance was screened on SIC Radical today, a Portugese TV channel - thanks to our Portugese correspondent, Jose!

Some tidbits of information from Wolf "Bjorn is recording a solo album, the official Zita Swoon website has been nominated for an award, the Dutch leg of the Via Viola tour has been cancelled, apparently due to 11september reasons: people feel like there's a war coming and don't wanna spend money anymore on things like opera"

Marcel tells us about a surprise appearance that SKC did with Boo! at their 500th show at the Paradiso, Amsterdam on the 24th January. They did a Boo! song together called Anjils, a duet.

"For the new Boo! CD, Tom Pintens did the production for a new song, Rested Defence. The CD, Shooting Star is currently only available at the Boo! shows. Boo! will be soon working on their new studio album, which should be out just before summer. It will be followed up with a Summer Festivaltour in Europe."

I was there and there were plenty of the old fans - hi to Karin and Chris, Martin and Alison, Stefanos, Demitris and Stavros!! This is the setlist. It was a great gig - what a way to celebrate the 6th anniversary of this site!

Aarich is going to be a father again! Congratulations Aarich.