Saturday, July 28, 2007
this will be our year
Odessey and Oracle was one of the flukiest (and best) albums of the 1960s, and one of the most enduring long-players to come out of the entire British psychedelic boom, mixing trippy melodies, ornate choruses, and lush Mellotron sounds with a solid hard rock base. But it was overlooked completely in England and barely got out in America ; and it was neglected in the U.S. until the single "Time of the Season," culled from the album, topped the charts nearly two years after it was recorded, by which time the group was long disbanded, for good.
All of the surviving members of the band have announced that they will tour in 2008 to mark the 40th anniversary of Odessey & Oracle.
All of the surviving members of the band have announced that they will tour in 2008 to mark the 40th anniversary of Odessey & Oracle.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
free concerts
Land of crappy taste or not: the Affaire is a good festival by any standard. I'm not just saying that because Nijmegen is the city I live in. It just is a very fine festival. Missed out on old friend Merry Pierce last Saturday, seems his second album is really coming out this september. Didn't enjoy Zita Swoon that much but really loved a very psychedelic set by Animal Collective last night! Tonight brings The Rapture, oh yes, which is actually the last act I'll see on this year's Affaire. Tomorrow I'm off on holiday to France. Will be back in a few weeks, looking forward to a good jam with the Spiders. Cheerio!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
going dutch
"For some reason Blur have never managed to make the slightest impression on the Dutch. They didn't like baggy, weren't interested in Britpop, the 'woo-hoo' thing passed them by completely (...)".
As says Alex James - Blur's bassplayer - in his autobiography 'Bit of a Blur'.
Don't worry, Alex. It's not Blur's fault. The Dutch have bad taste. This is the land of mediocre rock and dumb ass techno. So Björk didn't sell out her show at the Westerpark last Sunday. Neither did Sir Paul of the Beatles a couple of years before her. People preferred to go and see the Stones for the 10th time in fifteen years. Check our album charts, or the Pinkpop line-up for that matter: The Dutch don't really like anything arty or out of the ordinary. We like things to be plain and normal.
Our record can turn out to be total crap, it might as well be awfully good. People won't care either way. I'd be happy to get another decent review at KindaMuzik and play at the Valkhof Affaire next year. On the other hand, it would be nice to really annoy people with our music! That musn't be too hard 'round here...
As says Alex James - Blur's bassplayer - in his autobiography 'Bit of a Blur'.
Don't worry, Alex. It's not Blur's fault. The Dutch have bad taste. This is the land of mediocre rock and dumb ass techno. So Björk didn't sell out her show at the Westerpark last Sunday. Neither did Sir Paul of the Beatles a couple of years before her. People preferred to go and see the Stones for the 10th time in fifteen years. Check our album charts, or the Pinkpop line-up for that matter: The Dutch don't really like anything arty or out of the ordinary. We like things to be plain and normal.
Our record can turn out to be total crap, it might as well be awfully good. People won't care either way. I'd be happy to get another decent review at KindaMuzik and play at the Valkhof Affaire next year. On the other hand, it would be nice to really annoy people with our music! That musn't be too hard 'round here...
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
a family affair
Born on the 7th of july of the year 2007: Juliette Suzanne, daughter of Maud Coppens and Pieter Kloos. The kind of news that brings a smile on your face, isn't it? We wish Pieter, Maud and little Juliette a wonderful life together. As for Pieter, we are really looking forward to another great weekend at The Void, september 1st.
We've sort of started our holidays. There's not too much going on musically speaking. Ted and Boyke are far and away; myself, I'm not doing much of anything really, except recovering from an exhausting '5 days off'. Which in my case were only three days... Really enjoyed Villalobos and Trentemöller, but not as much as I enjoyed a brilliant performance by Björk at the Westerpark. WJP loved the concert too as you can see on the photograph above.
By the way, behind him is Irma, his sister in law. Family business indeed.
We've sort of started our holidays. There's not too much going on musically speaking. Ted and Boyke are far and away; myself, I'm not doing much of anything really, except recovering from an exhausting '5 days off'. Which in my case were only three days... Really enjoyed Villalobos and Trentemöller, but not as much as I enjoyed a brilliant performance by Björk at the Westerpark. WJP loved the concert too as you can see on the photograph above.
By the way, behind him is Irma, his sister in law. Family business indeed.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
stage fright
Seeing !!! performing a brilliant set in Doornroosje last Tuesday was great. It made me want to get on stage as soon as possible and rock the house. I'm not the biggest fan of playing live, to be honest. Don't get me wrong: It can be magic. More often it's quite boring, which is what bands often are to me. It can also be frightening and nerve wrecking. I've found out throught the years (being in bands for fifteen years now) you have to be at ease with your music and yourself when you're standing in front of an audience. Being on stage can be pretty uncomfortable if you're insecure. Practice makes perfect and so we have to get on stage more. With the album coming up, I'm actually looking forward to krautrocking our way through a fifteen minutes rendition of 'King James', or making the people move on 'The Charm'. We've got the material, we'll have to work on the attitude now.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
reactable
I like Björk a lot. She comes from a cool country and I think she makes great music. Because I'm going to see her live coming weekend I watched some live footage on the internet last week.
I was completely blown away by her perfomance of the song Declare Independence on 'Later with Jools Holland'. Not only by the song itself, which is evil punk-rave or something, but also by a crazy instrument called a reactable. Sir Paul who's watching, is also impressed...
What the hell is that thing? Basically it's just a modular synthesizer. But instead of using knobs to change and build up your sound, you have to move objects on a round display which looks like a table. These objects are called tangibles and each represent different modules and functions of a synthesizer. By moving them you create animations on the display, so you can see what you're doing. You can touch these animations to change the sound. The reactable can even recognise wave forms that a player draws on the table.
In other words: you just have to move some cool looking jigsaw puzzle pieces randomly on a futuristic blue table to make these totally weird sounds. As a bonus a synthesizer player no longer looks like a Pet Shop Boy or Rick Wakeman. Instead you become a sexy wizard practicing witchcraft from outer space!
Well, I wish Spider James could acquire such a 'beestig machien', but it's not yet available for normal blokes from dull countries. But we can watch some demonstrations!
I was completely blown away by her perfomance of the song Declare Independence on 'Later with Jools Holland'. Not only by the song itself, which is evil punk-rave or something, but also by a crazy instrument called a reactable. Sir Paul who's watching, is also impressed...
What the hell is that thing? Basically it's just a modular synthesizer. But instead of using knobs to change and build up your sound, you have to move objects on a round display which looks like a table. These objects are called tangibles and each represent different modules and functions of a synthesizer. By moving them you create animations on the display, so you can see what you're doing. You can touch these animations to change the sound. The reactable can even recognise wave forms that a player draws on the table.
In other words: you just have to move some cool looking jigsaw puzzle pieces randomly on a futuristic blue table to make these totally weird sounds. As a bonus a synthesizer player no longer looks like a Pet Shop Boy or Rick Wakeman. Instead you become a sexy wizard practicing witchcraft from outer space!
Well, I wish Spider James could acquire such a 'beestig machien', but it's not yet available for normal blokes from dull countries. But we can watch some demonstrations!
we like surprises
Enjoyed yesterday's get-together with the Spiders. Sadly, Boyke wasn't there, but that didn't stop us from having a pretty good rehearsal. Starting off with something new (a wonderful line of chords that just might lead to a new song) and ending our afternoon with full-force jamming.
As always the real work was done in the middle. We tried some different approaches for the vocals in 'King James' ('King James II', that is) and added some spice to 'Beatnik', inspired by RJ's recently recorded heavy, trip-hop drummin'. Speaking of drums: 'Morning Head' may not end as gently as we thought, judging on yesterdays developments. 'Umbrella', on the other hand, has gone all laidback and dreamy. And, oh yeah: 'Cold Comfort' seems to be back. We rediscovered the opening drone. Life's full of suprises.
As always the real work was done in the middle. We tried some different approaches for the vocals in 'King James' ('King James II', that is) and added some spice to 'Beatnik', inspired by RJ's recently recorded heavy, trip-hop drummin'. Speaking of drums: 'Morning Head' may not end as gently as we thought, judging on yesterdays developments. 'Umbrella', on the other hand, has gone all laidback and dreamy. And, oh yeah: 'Cold Comfort' seems to be back. We rediscovered the opening drone. Life's full of suprises.
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