unflugged

quote

They say the true measure of a great song is whether it still sounds as good when you strip the accompaniment down to a solo acoustic guitar. They, of course, are full of shit.
Marc Hogan (Pitchfork) reviewing José Gonzáles' (rather excellent) new album 'In our nature'.

kinky

a thousand hits

checking into http://www.myspace.com/spiderjamesspiderjames I discovered that we've reached a new mile stone: 'del. kinky' has been played more than a thousand times. Yes.
This may not be a big deal if yr in some major league band. We're Spider James. We're humble people.

untitled

for what it's worth

Strange session Yesterday. As Ted, WJP and I continued the vocal studies we started last week - focusing mainly on the melodies of 'On a breeze', 'Umbrella' and 'King James' - our thoughts were really with Boyke. His mums illness makes one realise that there are things in life much more important than being in this band. Our love is with the Kooijmans family.

back to mine (15)

sing this all together

Being in Spider James doesn't feel like being in a six-piece band at all. We never show up at the same time. Yesterday there were four of us. Rob injured his foot. Hope it's not too bad. Ted's in Glasgow. At a congres apparently, we fear he has joined Franz Ferdinand.
The rest of us had a good talk about the recorded vocals so far and our approach for work to come. We may not agree on The Charm, but we do seem to agree about the vocals in most of the other songs. Instead of talking too much, we sang and not so bad if I may say so. Lots of harmonies and effect driven madness. Told Pidah we're coming over to finish the vocals on October 26th and 27th. We would rather return to The Void as soon as tomorrow, but we simply can't afford it. We'll just have to be patient.

the charm

studio one

Last weeks trip to Pidah didn't turn out as I had expected. After recording new drum and bass for The Charm with Rob, and doing a pretty good job, I fell sick. Serious stomach ache. Had a terrible week. Approached positively: It makes one feel alive. Anyway, I missed out on the work Spider James did on Sunday. Happily JL brought me a cd, which I've listened to a lot. There's good stuff on it. WJP and Boyke recorded some great synth parts. The freaky intro of King James II is just awesome. MKMV already is an excellent piece of retro futuristic krautrock, and we've only recorded drums and guitars yet...