Hello from GUITARLAND. I will use this space to keep you up to date on the latest news from VANLAND. Check in often and leave a message for your friends on the message board!! Abientot!!! Please check the site for the cities we'll be taking our Texas "noise" to! Van JULY 26, 2007 Hello out there! We are gearing up for the September 2007 Euro Tour. Check the GIGS icon and also check in with www.tourwork.net JANUARY 2006 HAPPY 2206! I want to wish everyone a fantastic 2006! We have been busy promoting "Running From Ghosts". We did live performances and interviews on Austin stations such as KLBJ-FM and KGSR. We did KGSR's "Lone Star State of Mind" live from the Saxon Pub with host Bobby Ray. Lisa Tingle joined myself, Karen Biller on drums, Dave Ray on Bass and Josh Smith on guitar for a great night. Her incredible voice took the music to another level. Stay tuned for more events and come out to see us! JULY 2006 We are off the Germany and Austria for our Euro Summer Tour. Check out the gigs link for all the dates. Coming along is Karen Biller on Drums and Dave Ray on Bass. Also I'll be proudly playing my new Paul Reed Smith Custom 22 Guitar! Put together by none other than Paul himself! I am crazy about this new piece! Check out the August issue of Vintage Guitar magazine for a very cool interview. OCTOBER 2005 Hello out there. October finds us preparing for the U.S. release of "Running From Ghosts". We will be doing several radio shows and live appearances in Austin to get the word out. All the info is listed under "GIGS" on the web site. Hope to see you at some or ALL of these. Running From Ghosts has been getting great reviews in France, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. It was a fun album to make as the material is a bit more varied and eclectic that the previous records. I think you will know what I mean when you give it a listen. I used a 1954 Telecaster guitar for many of the tunes. A real departure for me since I am used to my old Gibson Les Paul and the occasional Strat. The May/June tour of France was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of old friends and made a few new ones. Of the many highlights of this tour was playing again in Tartas, France at Le Showbiz where my portrait hangs on the wall. What an honor to have a painting done by Brigitte Lalanne!! Another highlight was my 4th show at Dublin's Pub in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland. The place is always packed and the owner Alain always shows us a good time. The band consisted of Francis Campello on Bass and Vincent Duane on drums. We covered a lot of miles on this tour! Give a listen to the new cd by the Geezinslaws called "The Eclectic Horseman". I have the great honor to play guitar on their crazy-cool version of "Stairway to Heaven". Willie Nelson sings a couple of verses. This could only happen in Texas!! Another very important project that I am honored to be a part of is the "Finding the Cure" cd for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The disc features many top Austin artists. I wrote an acoustic song called "Miracle Road". Accompanying me is Jen Gaffney. A wonderful young guitarist and former student of mine, now living in Memphis. The cd is available thru www.jdrfaustin.org. Give it a listen! It is a very worthy cause. The end of August found us in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. We played the annual Texas Chili Cook-Off. Two years ago we were rained out but this time the weather gods graced us with a perfect day. The show was held at Bolongo Bay, right on the beach. We also played Jack's and the Beachcomer. What a great place to take our Texas Style Blues Rock!! We just returned from a two-day trip out West to Marfa, Texas. Home of the mysterious "Marfa Lights". I was asked to play for the opening of Marfa Public Radio. We flew out with the founders of the station Robert Walker and Katy Hackerman along with Texas Monthly Editor: Evan Smith. I had a great time playing on the street in downtown Marfa with Mark Pollock (who owns the very cool Trans_Pecos Guitars in Alpine) and the legendary singer/drummer/songwriter and joke teller: Doyle Bramhall,sr. It was definately "Grown Men with Electricity" as we played whatever came to mind. CHRISTMAS DAY 2003...AUSTIN, TEXAS Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays........... I hope everyone got all the "toys" they wanted! I know we did because we just returned from playing in the US Virgin Islands. We have been working and playing there since 1991 and it's always a treat to play our Texas Blues-Rock in that tropical paradise. More about this later.......... September was all jet-lag as we played in the mid-south of France in the beautiful village of St. Amans-Soult. We were happy to play with our good friend and guitarist Hugues Catalan. We played an acoustic show in the afternoon. The church bells were so loud we had to stop playing. That has never happened in Texas! But we made up for it by playing our noisy Texas Blues-rock the next night. I had the pleasure to play with Francis Campello on bass and Larry on the drums. Plus I got to share the stage with Big Ed Sullivan from NYC (very cool tunes and Tone!) and my English ex-patriot friend Mike Woods. And of course Hugues and Berangere playing with me on "The Spank"! After a few days in Texas we jumped over to the Virgin Islands for the 20th annual Texas Chili Cook-Off. With the direction of Paul Deaton (drummer, booking agent, and all around organizer) American Airlines flew us down and put us up at a beautiful beach hotel. We played Paradise Point, and Latitude 18 and would have played the Cook-Off but for the Wettest Tropical "monsoon" I have ever stood around in. I am still wet! But we are happy that Paul booked some great shows for us again in December... so Craig Nietfeld (bass) and I returned to the Islands the 2nd week of December. With Paul on drums we first played Latitude 18..Run by Alex this is one of our favorite St Thomas bars. It's the real deal with mostly locals. Incredible food and good vibes..........I always run into someone with a tie to Austin, Texas! Playing Paradise Point is a real treat and honor. Murray has built an incredible place with a view like nowhere else! I have been there many times as a tourist but to play music on that stage overlooking Charlotte Amalie is an incredible experience. So thanks for having us!! Driving on the Left side of the road and being constantly lost is a trade off for being in such a beautiful place..but while i was totally lost and bewildered the rent car radio was tuned into Pirate Radio and when one of my songs came on I was so jazzed I didn't care about being lost at all. I didn't worry about going from the Mafolie to Drakes Seat then Hull Bay and Guavaberry Hill until the song was over... Then I was worried!............... So thanks to all at Pirate Radio for playing the songs! This means Lou, Trey,(how do you wake up so early?) Kevin and of course Doreen for promotion and selling the cd's at Hull Bay. And thanks to Jennifer and Gordon Ackley...and their cool new club Pirate's Cove. We are lucky to have friends like Genie Lupo and Nita who run USVIP concierge (www.usvipconcierge.com). Their help in promoting our shows was priceless! The biggest "Texas Thanks Y'all" goes to my good friends Pam and John Parr and Little Dalton ...and Raider and Sadie..Thanks for my beautiful room and thanks for not grounding me for staying out late! JANUARY 24, 2004 The New Year finds us in the Austin School of Music Recording Studio laying down tracks for the new album from our fine French friend Romain Decoret. He is a Parisian and writes for "Guitarist" magazine. Chet Himes is at the controls and, as always, is turning all the right knobs in the right direction! AUGUST 1, 2003 BACK IN AUSTIN We are back in our own beds in Austin now after a quick trip acrosss the water to play with ZZ Top in Montereau, France. This beautiful little town is about an hour South of Paris very near Fountainbleu. The show was great and Billy G. even spent some time in the wings soaking up sounds from his fellow Texans. I must give many thanks to my good friend Olivier Galan for building a pedalboard for me and "teching" the whole show! And as always Hugues Catalan from the band "Lucky Lounge" took time out to run our whole show and make sure we were in tune and on time! Also thanks to my Parisian running buddy Pascal Graticola..the boss of BBS(Paris) for providing the coolest Flying "V" and the loudest Marshall stacks East of the Rio Grande!! We enjoyed Reverand Blues Gang and many thanks go out to Didier Cere for bringing us over. After the Montereau show we had some time to kill so we jumped a fast plane to London and a very noisy train to Bedford to visit our good friends and Webmasters Philip and Cheryl Broder. This is the guy that has singlehandedly put together this website. We Drove the English countryside seeing Princess Di's "place", and meeting her brother "Chuck" and visiting Warick Castle and then did a "guerilla Tour" of London. HMV.. (Her Majesties Voice) The big record store in England (this one on Oxford St) had a nice "Van Wilks" section with Soul of a Man and Texas Jukin'.. see you down the line!!! June 30, 2003 Hello from Guitarland!! We are gearing up for our show with ZZ Top in Montereau, France July 14th. It's Bastille Day and that means "Crazy Time" in France. Montereau is only an hour or so from Paris so we plan on seeing many of our Parisian friends. In the News from Home dept: Rumor has it that my first vinyl record "Bombay Tears" is being bootlegged and is now available at Waterloo Records. This is fine with me! I want the music out there! "Soul of a Man", "Koko's Hideaway" and "Texas Jukin'" are also available now thru my website and selected stores. We've had some great shows recently. The La Zona show with Ted Nugent was over the top. Ted even stopped his show twice to voice his approval (as only he can) of our set. Look for the "official stateside release" of "Texas Jukin'" after we return from Europe. (some time in August). I am teaching the world to play guitar at "Guitarland Studios" here in deep South Austin. I am still at the Austin School of Music as well. Give me a shout and let's make some noise! Hello from Guitarland! We leave Wednesday for our 5 week European tour. We hope to see some of you along the way. We will keep you posted on all the crazy things and people we meet. In the meantime....Spread the word about Texas Jukin'!!! FEBRUARY 1, 2003 A late Happy New Year and Bonne Annee to everyone. 2002 was a good one and 2003 looks to be even better! The European tour was great. We made a lot of new friends that we hope to see again on the next tour. The tour took us to Germany first where our wonderful road managers Manni and Klaus showed us around the country and got us to the shows on time! No matter how tired and cold we were. We were fortunate to play a show at the castle Burg Satzvey. The Count and Countess Beissel von Gymnich are fine hosts and playing our Texas Blues-Rock in a castle several hundred years old was a real treat. They invited us back to see the annual Christmas Markt. One of the largest in Europe. Check out their web site: www.burgsatzvey.de and go see it for yourself!! We were honored again as "Texas Jukin'" was included in the editors "Best Of" of 2002 of the Paris based GUITARIST MAGAZINE. Last Year Koko's Hideaway was awarded the same honor! The French part of the tour was another highlight. The food, wine and hospitality is never forgotten. We got to jam with friends like Pat O'May from Bretagne. We were on the cover of GUITARIST Magazine a few years back and it's always fun to make noise together. We played a lot of beautiful small villages and the people loved out Texas Blues Rock. Tartas and Ispagnac stand out as well as St Amans_Soult. Somes of these places aren't even on the map! Our good friends Hugues and Berangere helpd us navigate our way through France and Switzerland. They have a great band called Lucky Lounge and do their own fiery versions of "The Spank" and "Bleedin'For You". It's a real treat for me to hear my lyrics sung with a French accent! We were very lucky to be houseguests of Henri and Francois in the beautiful town of Mezamet near Albine. I feel fortunate to experience genuine French culture. And the food is beyond description! Merci, Merci!!!!! Another highlight was seeing Sylvie and Christian in Bordeaux and again in Biarritz. They are the owners of Alsace Gourmand in the lovely Atlantic seaside town of Seignosse. We have played there often and hope to get back soon. The Lag Guitare Company is working on the "Van Wilks Texas '51" model guitar. Very exciting. It's still in the planning stages but stay tuned for more info. It promises to be quite an interesting piece. More to come........................ Also I want to say many thanks to Phil Broder: my English guitar-playing buddy who is in charge of the site!! We are in the process of updating with new pics and whatever else we can throw in! Thanks Phil!! Paula Beard of Catbeard Graphics is busy scanning the new photos. Thanks to you Paula!! and your cats! Hello from Aachen Germany. The tour is going well but I miss the Texas sun! Our first show was at a beautiful Castle called Burg Satzvey. Check out their web site at www.burgsatzvey.com The local tv station filmed the whole show. The count and countess have invited us back for a visit to see their annual Christmas fair. See you down the road! Stay tuned for post Christmas update!! Hello from Guitarland! We leave Wednesday for our 5 week European tour. We hope to see some of you along the way. We will keep you posted on all the crazy things and people we meet. In the meantime....Spread the word about Texas Jukin'!!!