Looking back on 2011 proves we had a busy year. We did around 110 shows, including the support for Boysetsfire on their reunion tour, for Rise Against on their biggest German show to date, and for De Heideroosjes on their farewell tour. 2011 brought us to new places like Russia, Greece, Hungary and Scotland, and saw us play at Eurosonic/Noorderslag, Riez Open Air and the Jupiter Singfest for the first time. The year started with our van passing the 500.000 km mark, and we ended the year with a steady 545.000 on the meter. This does not even include our trips to Russia and Greece, which we did by plane.

We sure made a lot of miles in 2011, literally and figuratively. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped make this possible: promoters, people coming to the shows, helping hands on tour, and in special Sylvia and Jacho at Destiny, Glenn and Sandro at Mighty Vision, Vladimir and Sergej at Play It Loud, Apostolis at WAK, Etjen at Just Like Your Mom for always thinking along and our steady tour-help Thomas.

Something we are neither proud nor ashamed of: this year we played with 4 different bass players (thank you Tom, Tim and stand-in Koen!), resulting in Glen as our steady new bass player. In 2011 we also released our first ever music video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j0PJpUmU50

2012

While we can look back happily on a busy and hectic 2011, we prefer to look forward and focus on what is yet to come. Here’s what we have planned for 2012 so far. More to come!

New Website

On January 1st we launched our new website, something we’ve been looking forward to for a while. If you want to know what is going on with us, listen to our albums, check our tour dates or just get in touch, our website is the most trustworthy place to go. Subscribe yourself to its feed and be up to date all the time.

Brazil

More new territory: On February 1st our latest album “Start From Scratch!” will be released in South America through Undermusic Records (Mute, Forus, End of Pipe). South America has been on our radar for a long time now, and we’re very glad to get our music out there. A South American tour will follow.

Upcoming shows

In the first months of the new year we will be playing in Germany a lot. These are our upcoming shows:

JAN 11 GER Münster, Lorenz Sud
JAN 12 GER Aachen, Headquarter
JAN 14 GER Lindern, Teestube
JAN 16 GER Mainz, Kulturcafe
JAN 25 GER Frankfurt, 11er
JAN 26 GER München, Glockenbachwerkstatt. w/ Grizzly Tours
JAN 27 AUT Innsbruck, PMK. w/ 7 Years Bad Luck
JAN 28 GER Regensburg, Alte Mälzerei. w/ Glorious Thieves, Red Button
JAN 29 AVAILABLE!
FEB 15 AVAILABLE!
FEB 16 GER Saale (Halle), VL Ludwigstrasse
FEB 17 GER Kamen, JKC
FEB 18 GER Braunschweig, B 58
MAR 3 NL Zeist, De Peppel. w/ The Living Daylights, Sidewalk, Life’s Too Short For Us
APR 14 GER Köwerich (Trier), Rock im Kabuff (Jugendheim). w/ Finding Faith, Corman, A Hurricane’s Revenge

Not close enough? Want to book us in your city? Email us! For an always updated tour-schedule, check out the tour section.

New album

Maybe the most exciting news for 2012 is that we will be working on a new album. We are currently writing new songs and playing them into shape. Recordings will follow next winter the soonest. We’ll be playing these new songs on stage too, so come hear for yourself at a show and let us know if you like it!

Support

If you want us to stay an active, recording band in 2012 please support us through our merch and albums available at our webshop. Other ways to make the world go round for an independent band: follow us on Facebook, Twitter or spread the word by mouth about all our music on http://music.antillectual.com (for free or pay-what-you-like). Much appreciated!

Thanks a lot for bearing with us in the past year. See you on the road in 2012!

- Willem, Glen and Riekus

On July 25 we announced our search for a new bass player. During the last 1,5 month over 30 people responded to our call; from North America to Italy, from the UK to Belgium and of course a lot of response from the Netherlands. We are incredibly thankful for all the applications, kind words and other support. We had to find someone with outstanding bass skills, singing experience, endless dedication and creative input; on and off stage. This process is something we never want to deal with ever again (headhunting, what a business), but we are really confident about the result.

Drum roll please: Glen is the great new addition to our band! He has been playing bass and singing in bands for over 10 years (we actually played one of our first shows ever with his former band), with a background in punk, hardcore and hiphop and experience as full time promoter. In stead of the usual high-fiving on the deal, we forced him to sign a contract for life.

You can read more about Glen in his interview for De Bassist (in Dutch) about joining our band. Even though Koen will play bass on our upcoming tour with Static Radio, Glen will join us as well. From halfway November we will be hitting stages with Glen. Hitting hard!

And for those of you still in doubt; if you feel like joining us or know others that should, get in touch with us!

To make clear what kind of input we expect from our future bass player and what he or she can expect in return, we have some points of interest:

Input:

• be a 100% dedicated member of a full time band, on and off stage
• play bass, do (backing) vocals
• weekly practice in Nijmegen
• preferably have a driver’s license
• preferably own bass gear, though we can sort this out in the beginning

Return:

• a steady touring schedule of around 100 shows per year, 90% outside of Holland
• the chance to travel the world, meet friendly people and play/tour with a lot of bands
• 2 dedicated fellow band members, and a reliable network of helping hands
• the opportunity to work on songs for upcoming albums
• an old but very steady-going Mercedes sprinter band van

To be clear: all upcoming confirmed shows and tours will be played, either by Tim or by stand-in Koen (formerly Of No Avail, Facing Down, Close Second).

“Our band could be your life!” Anyone interested in taking part, please get in touch!

Quitting something you love is never easy, so neither is this. For the last 15 or 16 months I have been a part of this touring machine and I will be a part of this until early February. In these months we recorded an album, did awesome tours to lots of countries that I haven’t played or even been before, played a quickie at Groezrock, went on tour with the great guys in High Five Drive and played with some of my favorite bands of all time. Besides that, I was able to play with some of the best musicians and best guys I know. I had a great time in this band, but the time has come for me to pull the plug. Putting my heart and head into this band is something I really loved, but I can’t find the time anymore to do it the upcoming year. Other things in my life ask more time than I have and that means I have to choose between different things. Unfortunately, a lot of things couldn’t continue without me, but the band can! And will! I’m happy that Riekus and Willem will continue this band and have already found another great guy to take over my duties. The last thing I wanted, was to give Antillectual a hard time, but it seems that touring a lot to promote the new album will be easier than ever!

And for me? I will focus on the things that need to be done and probably pick up a guitar when I have time again.
For now I would like to thank Riekus and Willem for giving me the opportunity to play in this band. Also thanks to Etjen and Thomas for helping out in so many ways. Although it was a short time, it has been a blast!

Ajuus!
Tom

Since we seem to be able to change our line up more often than Lady Gaga changes outfits, we haven’t given up hope and we will continue without Tom. For those of you that already knew of Tom’s departure, we also have news: a guy named Tim will take Tom’s place. Some of you may know Tim better as Tim van Tol. We have played together with Tim in the past and come across his name throughout Europe and even the USA. When we coincidentally got in touch with him we talked about Tom’s departure and he seemed willing to take his spot. Riekus and I are very happy to welcome Tim to our bass player-guzzling machine called Antillectual and we are looking forward to play shows with this gifted musician. Tim will of course continue his solo work next to playing bass for us.

Tom’s last show with us will be at the ACU, Utrecht on February 4. Other bands playing: Tim van Tol (the coincidence!) and more to be confirmed …

I could imagine that our stories bore you as much as my stories bore the rest of the travel crew, but we’re still with Willem, Riekus, Maltix, P. Titty and me. This last part contains our four last shows, all in France, featuring more police, Burlesque strippers… The complete tour report with videos and pictures is right here

Thursday February 11th 2010 – Bayonne, Basque country (the French part)

Pasaia to Baiona, should be 60 kilometers, so not that long. Luckily we left in time, cause it was snowing, slippery roads and a car crash on the peage highway, meaning: a traffic jam. It took us a couple of hours to get there. When we arrived, we could hang out at Manux’ place. Got some coffee and had some good conversations about punkrock. The show this night was part of a music festival in the city at different locations. We played at bar Embuscade. Sounds like a place for Dutch punkrock! Marnix and Manux got the van to drive it to the street, but they didn’t seem to find the right way. I have been waving for half an hour at the corner of the street and they passed me 3 or 4 times. Aaaaargh! I thought I was blind!

We were supposed to be the only band playing at the bar, but after two and a half song, the police thought that it was one band too much. Again the police showed themselves your best friend! Result, we had to quit. So we decided to get the acoustic guitar from the van and play some acoustic songs. After all, there were people that came for the show and we didn’t want to let the filmcrew of the local Basque TV channel down. Willem and Riekus were used to playing acoustic songs with Yvo. For me it was new, so I focussed on drinking whisky and eating peanuts and do an ocassional vocal harmony. Kinda weird, but fun. We drank some local Basque alcoholic drinks, got our picture taken with the bartenders and went back to Manux’ house, got some food and had a good night sleep.

Friday February 12th 2010 – La Rochelle, France

Today we were heading north again. The van took us to the beautiful city of La Rochelle. On our way we passed Cognac and since we got used to drink local schnapps, we got some this night! We arrived at Barbarella and saw two showposters for this night. One was the Antillectual tourposter, second was a Burlesque strippers poster. Huh? We went inside, got a beer from the bartender and he confirmed that there was going to be a Burlesque show that night. We got picked up by Antoine from Mel Team Plugs to eat at his place. After the food we were back in time for the first Burlesque show. Imagine you’re in the 50′s with pin-ups. Was weird to see that at the punkrockshow, but I guess there was a double booking. There were two local punkrockbands on the bill and after them, there was another pin-up show. We played as last on the small stage. Willem stood in front, I wanted to do the same, but people were standing in front. I decided to play on stage and during the first song, I fell off. Fail! I got up and continued the rest of the show as if nothing had happened. We got great responses during and after the show, which is always nice. We said goodbye to the rock ‘n roll bar and got back to Antoines house to spend the night. Drank the Cognac, busted the water reservoir in the toilet and went to sleep.

Saturday February 13th 2010 – Brest, France

We got up and took off to Brest, the most western part of France. I did not realise this city is more to the west than the largest part of Wales. We found the venue and met promoter Plume, the singer of Speedball. Unloaded the van, got some cheap gas for the van and had great food. The dessert was a vegan banana kiwi pie. Yummie! Petit sstarted to drink most of the wine and got a little drunk I guess. Firsts band played streetpunk with a couple of more influences. Not really my cup of tea. Speedball played melodic hardcore that reminded me of bands like Bane and O’Hara. Actually, Plume and his outfit reminded us all of Pitter O’Hara. When Riekus sent Pitter a textmessage, he turned out to be in Brest. We hooked him up with a guestlist spot and Pitter was right in time for our show. We played after Last Exit To Brooklyn, who played more modern hardcore. I was really impressed by the amount of people at the show. It’s always nice to play when there are lots of people. I saw some people dancing and we had to play two encores. Didn’t know my old body was able to do that. After the show we said goodbye to Pittter, met another Dutch guy who was a t the show and tried to get away from drunk girls. We slept at a friend of Plume and had to wake up really eraly. Tomorrow was going to be the last day of tour, meaning a 750 kilometer drive to Lille and after Lille the drive home, with stops in Lembeek, Breda and Nijmegen.

Sunday February 14th 2010 – Lille, France

Today was the last day of tour and the trip was tough. First we had to go from Brest to Lille. We drove through Bretagne and Normandy to get to Lille. On our way we past Dinan and Caen, reminding me of bad music. We arrived a little late in Lille, but we were in time for the soundcheck. Shared some backline with Fast Motion and Foolish and the show started almost in time. First band played music that sometimes reminded me of Swedish Smalltown. Like! Foolish was the second band and although the guys played pretty well, I will bever be a fan of ska music. Third was Fast Motion, a band that I really like. It had been a year since I saw them, so it was good to see them again. The guys told me they were going to tour Japan, awesome! We played as last and I guess we were a bit tired from the tour and longing to go home. There were not that much people, but we gave it our best shot. After the show, we quickly loaded the van, got some food and left for Lembeek, Belgium, where Petit lives. We heard horrible stories about the weather forecast and it started to snow when we left. Belgian roads are always bad, but this night they were even worse. We made it to Lembeek, dropped off Petit and continued our way to Breda. I got out there and waved goodbye to Willem, Riekus and Marnix who had to finish the last part to Nijmegen. After 16 days on the road, we were home again. Don’t think this will slow us down, this week has 3 more shows and next week we will be recording our new album. Oh, were also planning new tours. One with High Five Drive from Canada to France, Belgium and the UK and another one through a large part of Europe in spring. See you on the road!

It’s been a couple of days since you heard from us, dear followers. The last days we’ve been to Zaragoza, Madrid, Setúbal, Lisboa, Mouriscas and now we’re in Porto. Still curious what we did? Sure? Alright, don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Tuesday February 2nd 2010 – Zaragoza, Spain

We arrived at the venue in Zaragoza and it turned out to be some hardrockbar. We heard that Adhesive and Hot Water Music played there too. We met with Luis, the promoter and his wife, some of the most friendly people I ever met. Not only did they book the show, they gave us food, a place to sleep but they also hosted our friends in This Routine Is Hell that had a day off. The show was opened by a new band called Skeptiks. These girls played some nice punkrocktunes. Only two bands on the bill tonight. At midnight I turned 28, eh… 18 and Bon Jovi sang to me while I got a Tequila. Thanks boys!

After the show we went to the sleepingplace. I was sleeping in a room with 3 cats that jumped on me all night. Guess I made some friends. Before we took off, Luis provided me with some good Spanish punkrock music. Got back to the van and left for Madrid.

Wednesday February 3rd 2010 – Madrid, Spain

This is Madrid, not Barcelona. In front of the venue we had to wait for the promoter and the owner to show up, so we killed time with the remaining episodes of New Kids, verrekte mongol jonge! This night we would play with This Routine Is Hell again. The people at True Believers did a nice job. Again, great food and a wonderful looking venue with posters of great bands like AC/DC, The Who, Green Day, Ramones and Limp Bizkit. Did I just type that? Anyway, the show was nice, although we encountered some minor problems. Hey, it’s still punkrock! accidently called Madrid Barcelo… Sorry folks! Nab, a kid from Nice who booked us shows on some of our first tours, also showed up.

We loaded the van and drove to the sleepingplace. An awesome house in the outskirts of Madrid. Joris Tarrel destroyed a painting, I got attacked by a ferret, but we had fun. Playing some acoustic songs and went to sleep. Next morning would be early because we had to leave at 10.

Thursday February 4th 2010 – Day Off @ Madrid, Spain

First day off this tour. There are worse places to be on days like these. We took the metro to the city, which turned out to be a little disaster. We checked in, checked out, had to check in again. We didn’t check in enough, got stopped by security and we were only replying with “this is a 10 way ticket!”. Apparently, when you do that enough, it works! Took a little walk in the city centre, got some coffee and met up with Nab again. He took us to a Hare Krshna place. Not really our cup of tea, but they served great vegetarian and vegan food. Sweet! We said goodbye to Nab again and split up. Willem and Petit went for coffee and internet, Riekus, Marnix and me went for the Prado museum. Convinced that there were some Picasso paintings here, Marnix went to the reception and asked where they were. Wrong museum! Major lolz @ Marnix. Ashamed to stand next to him, we left for the Reina Sofia museum. I’m not really into this stuff and I was really amazed by a giant piece of poo with metal in it, the Dali painting of The Face of the Masturbator and some Joop Klepzeiker kinda Picasso cartoon with giant falli. Marnix and Riekus were impressed by the Guernica, some big painting that I could have made when I was 10 years old.

We got some dinner in the city and left for the van. We could sleep the night at Marga’s place but we were unable to park the van, unless we were paying 60 euros. We decided to get a cheap hotel instead. Sorry for the troubles Marga! When we were waiting on a parking space outside of the hotel, we met with the police. Four cars, 8 cops. They searched the van, searched our bodies, checked everying. I’m glad we could keep our pants on at 3 AM outside in the cold winter. There was really no reason for doing this, but I guess we had to respect their authoritaah. The 4 Skins were right after all, Acht Cola Acht Bier. We parked the van at the hotel and caught some sleep. Woke up, took a nice shower and left for Portugal. Never been there before, nice to see some new places!

Friday February 5th 2010 – Day Off

Unfortunately we didn’t have a show this day, but our friends in This Routine Is Hell are playing in a squat somewhere near Setúbal and we might be able to sleep there as well. First we went into the boring city of Setúbal. Got some pizza, almost got hit by a car with no lights on so I decided to take off with no lights either. Oops! The squat had no address, but we were picked up by the boys in TRIH and went to the show. Don’t ask how we got there, but we managed. Hellrides, yeah! When we arrived, one of the dogs was friendly enough to pee on the van. Obrigado! The show started really late and some of us got some sleep. The rest watched some nice hardcore bands and saw TRIH play an awesome show. These guys get better and better! Late at night, we all went to sleep. Tomorrow LisBoah is the next stop.

Saturday February 6th 2010 – Lisboa & Mouriscas, Portugal

Today is gonna be a tough day. There are two shows, one in Lisboa and one in Mouriscas. We left for a one hour drive to Lisboa and when we arrived at the venue, Marnix realized he forgot his bag with passport, keys and other important stuff. What an ass! We unloaded the Tarrel-van and Marnix and me took it and drove back to Setúbal. Within less than two hours we were back in the city centre of Lisboa. It reminded me of San Fransisco with the hills, the trams, with the Golden Gate bridge and Jesus on the other side of the bay. Oh wait, I never been to SF. The show was organized by Joao of Infected Records, who put out Testimony. This was our last show with This Routine Is Hell on this tour. We played at some old theatre that looked really nice. People seemed to enjoy the show. Albert Fish played after us and released their new record this afternoon. By the time This Routine Is Hell started playing, we had to leave to catch the next show. Waved them goodbye and took off for Mouriscas

When we arrived in Mouriscas we were picked up by Xico, the promoter of tonight’s show. We entered a large community centre and got some spaghetti and letuce. Good food! We were harrassed by the local dorpsgek, but that was kinda funny. First two bands, Shake Shake And Show Me Your Pussy and The Wild Ones played some rokkerol tunes. Sweet! The third band, Defying Control played fast punkrock songs. I thought they were pretty amazing! At the time we started playing, it was really late, but there were still a lot of people that seemed to enjoy the show. Afterwards, a guy said that I screamed like a girl and Riekus didn’t have enough muscles. Thanks dude! I think we gave a million autographs and even Petit and Marnix signed tourposters. Rockstar attitudes among merchguys, pfff! After a quick bite we went to sleep really late. Guess we really needed sleep. Got up and got fresh fruit and home made soup by the grandma of Xico After saying goodbye we got in the van and continued our way to Porto, where we had to be early for another afternoon show.

We promised you to post our year/decade lists. It might seem late, but it’s better than putting out year lists before the year/decade is even over! We will start off with the year list of our now more official than ever before new bass player Tom. Read, and you will understand why he fits this band so well.

1. Propagandhi – Supporting Caste
Hard choice between the new Propagandhi and Strike Anywhere record, both blew me away. But I love the combination between punkrock and thrash when it’s well done. Guess these guys are the only ones who know how to combine those two in a good way. And of course the lyrics, probably even more important than the music.

2. Strike Anywhere – Iron Front
I loved Change Is A Sound and Exit English. Dead FM was a bit disappointing, but with Iron Front, Strike Anywhere is back. Aggression, nice melodies, political lyrics. I love it! Listened to this one maybe even more than my number one of this year.

3. Megadeth – Endgame
Metallica released another abomination, Megadeth released another killer. Dave Mustaine is probably my favorite metal guitar player. Those riffs destroy! The ballad kinda sucks, but the rest is fucking awesome!

4. In-Sane – Trust These Hands…Are Worthless
I’ve been waiting a long time for the new In-Sane record. In my opinion the best European punkrockband at the moment. Awesome guys, great musicians. These catchy songs with heartfelt lyrics are worth the wait. Great record!

5. Over Stars And Gutters – Consider This Your Curse
Pretty new US band. Willem hooked me up with this one. Melodic yet raw. Pretty orgcore if you ask me. Hope to get my hands on the vinyl soon and hopefully this band will come over in 2010, because the record rocks!

6. Atlas Losing Grip – Watching The Horizon
After an excellent album, Atlas Losing Grip teamed up with Rodrigo from Satanic Surfers, one of my favorite punkrock singers. Good choice! The music is still fast and technical melodic punkrock, but with the new vocals it is absolutely brilliant! Must have for all melodic punkrockers!

7. Nothington – Roads, Bridges And Ruins
Didn’t get the chance to listen to this one a lot. Should have listened to it earlier. I already liked their previous one All In, but this one is better! Maybe less Leatherface and less Social Distortion than the previous record, but a more mature sound. Can’t wait to see them live in a couple of weeks!

8. Banner Pilot – Collapser
Fat Wreck still puts out great new bands once in a while. Banner Pilot is one of those. Bought this LP without really knowing the band, but it was recommended so I gave it a try. Didn’t regret a single euro. Good stuff!

9. Frank Turner – Poetry Of The Deed
The new Frank Turner is a really good record, but it can’t compete with Love Ire And Song, the previous one. That one really gave me goosebumps. This one is still good, although I was a bit disappointed. I was probably hoping for a new Love Ire And Song. Next time, less band, more Frank please!

10. Municipal Waste – Massive Aggressive
Hazardous Mutation and Born To Party are my favorite Municipal Waste records. The new one doesn’t bring you new stuff, but good old crossover thrash/hardcore. One of the few bands that I do like in this style. For everybody who is still into headbanging!

The past is written: 2009 has been a turbulent but all in all good year for us. We have played awesome shows with No Use For A Name, The Gaslight Anthem, and many others. We did cool tours together with Rentokill and After the Fall, resulting in 80 shows in 2009. We released our first acoustic EP ever and played some acoustic shows around that. Unfortunately a lot of cool Dutch bands have quit this year (Smash the Statues, 1000 Miles Ahead, Progress) and so did Yvo. Really too bad, but fortunately Tom from Smash the Statues was able and willing to take over the four strings, making him the third guy playing bass for us last year (a lot of thanks go out to Pitter for helping us out on tour!).

The future is unwritten, however: 2010 is going to be even busier than 2009 has been, if it’s up to us . In 1 week we will be leaving for a 3-week tour. 2 weeks later we will be entering the studio to record our 3rd full-length album. This summer we will release it and tour the shit out of it, throughout Europe and most likely USA, hopefully together with even more awesome bands!

In the next weeks you can find a small overview of the records and bands we enjoyed this last year and/or decade. To show off with our great and/or bad taste! Subject to discussion!

To conclude I wanted to emphasize one last time that we will be playing our “Good bye Yvo-show” this Saturday, January 23, at De Onderbroek in Nijmegen. OUR LAST SHOW WITH YVO ON BASS! Together with Smash the Statues’ last show ever featuring In-sane and The Acoustic Alarm (The Indecision Alarm playing acoustic). Come out and play! This is gonna be memorable. So far people from Belgium, Germany and Italy have announced to come over for this show. It’s gonna be awesome. See you there!

Have a good year!

“This is it, I quit! I could not combine my family life with the band anymore. I always gave everything I had for this band, and I wouldn’t want to give any less. As much as I love Antillectual, I want to focus on my family life now. They need me, I need them. It sounds as simple as that, but we all know decisions like this are tough … This is probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made in my life. Antillectual is the very first band I ever played in. When we started I never would’ve thought this band would have such a huge influence on me. On every single tour I was overwhelmed by the inspiring social centres we’d play, I was touched by the people and collectives taking care of us, I was moved by the late night talks and discussions. Beautiful landscapes and fucked up border cops. Endless drives and endless landscapes.

Above all, Antillectual was the proof of taking matters in our own hands. We wrote the songs, we screamed from the top of our lungs, we booked the tours, we brought political books to shows, we organized shows, we almost killed ourselves a couple of times. We trusted strangers on the other side of the world, we made friends who we might never see ever again. Why? Because it felt like the right thing to do. And that’s exactly the reason why I’m stepping off this crazy train ride. Antillectual was my place, my home, and my safe haven. I could say what I want, do what I want, I could be the person who I am. Something that can be hard in daily life I’ve discovered. I’ve read several articles and books describing Autonomous Free Zones. Well, Antillectual was one of those zones for me. At least that’s how I experienced it. Now is the time to create those autonomous zones/ spaces in daily life.

Even though a part of my world has crumbled into pieces, I’m also looking forward to new challenges. Raising my kids in a loving and caring way is the biggest, most intense and beautiful challenge of all. Next to that I’ve always said I should spend more time on political ideals so I’ll be working on that. So I hope to see you on the barricades!

I wish my dearest friends in Antillectual all the best in the world. Thanks to everyone.

Love & rage, Yvo”

Riekus and I understand Yvo’s decision, even though we would have loved to continue with him. We wish Yvo all the best in his future life and activities. In “true Antillectual style” Riekus and I have already been working hard on our next chapter. And with the break up of Smash the Statues it seemed the most logical step to ask our friend Tom if he felt like playing bass in our band. And he did. This makes us more eager and ready to go on than ever before. We are sorry for Yvo to leave, but Tom is the best replacement we could hope for. A lot of new perspectives are opening up to us. New songs are being practised; new tours are being booked.

Tom’s first show will be our next show in Walhalla, Sevenum (NL) on November 21. Yvo’s last show will be on January 23 in De Onderbroek in Nijmegen (NL), which coincides with Smash the Statues’ farewell show. Be there! We are playing all previously booked shows and we are looking for new shows to get both Tom and the newly written songs kicked into shape. Antillectual will continue to bring the Typewriter book distro to shows.