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 ********WE-ARE-serious! We stumble, fall, and kick off our vintage designer heels 'cause doing it barefoot rocks. We write, play, sing, draw. End of 2003: moving from the visuals to the electrics and naked voices, Gam and Simone climbed on a small stage, played guitar (at some point with a brush ---- could't shake off our 'fine arts' heritage) and we worked with what we were lacking. It became our anthem: 'Just Walking Through The Mud, Really. What Are Skills Anyway? See You Around.' It's monotonous, repetitive and very, very seeeerious. Our words emerge from the swampy affair between guitar and bass, working toward a quiet spot, a space for improvisation. (And then we fail...... or we don't. It's all about the subject that we choose to mirror on.) We sometimes work with the occasional drummer boy, but we prefer doing it on our own. Things can get complicated with more than two persons involved, you know... anyway. Don't know if this is rock 'n roll, but it seems like unpolished and articulate freedom to us, at its very least.  ******** IN 2005 we had gathered all our notes, rages, dream fragments and descended into the lair of master rob, who enhanced his basement with digital recording equipment. this place, 3 sun recordings, became our sanctuary for some days, in the south of the southest. First we recorded 'VEILIGE HOES': after the Oddpop festival -local in its feel, streetwise in various orbits and which hosted our first gig- a compilation cd was made. Contributors were, amongst others, People Like Us, zZz, Felix Kubin, Candie Hank and The Skills. Then (light years ago, it seems) we went from basement to kitchen, from recording to listening, adjusting, having lunch breaks, rob playing the drums, we slowly moved into what would become the shape and force of our music: 'WHITE LEATHER JACKET' was born. Nine compact ones. We kept moving, sometimes slowly and painfully, sometimes restless and impatient. It turned out that being The Skills means a lot of constructing a form in which this life can take place: growing up in different cities, devouring email and telephone, let's just say we have learned to work with a physical distance included. And every time we unite we connect dots. We dance around not being too nostalgic, continue to braid memories and the things lying ahead in our hard-soft-hard words, playing, drawing. ******** UPDATE! THE END OF 2008 our two person army got expanded by the introduction of Kees: a beer can and last moment snare drummer. He had witnessed our show once, and immediately thought of collaborating and we are super glad about that. More will follow. 
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