bang bang

Jahresuberblick 07

I enjoyed the albums released by Björk, LCD Soundsystem, José Gonzales, Caribou, Fennesz and Feist this year. I was pleasently suprised by the works of a few artist I had never even heard of a year ago: tormented singer songwriter Phosphorescent; alternative hip hop outfit The Shape of Broad Minds and Norwegian trumpeteer Arve Henriksen. When push comes to shove though, these are my ten favourite ten albums of 2007, alphabetically ordered.

AMON TOBIN the foley room
JAMES BLACKSHAW the cloud of unknowing
BURIAL untrue
PANDA BEAR person pitch
PJ HARVEY white chalk
POLE steingarten
RADIOHEAD in rainbows
RICARDO VILLALOBOS fizheuer zieheuer
ROBERT WYATT comicopera
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE QUEEN same

Happy New Year to everyone!

up close

in retrospect

Was 2007 a good year for Spider James? Some of us have had their ups and downs, that’s for sure. As a band? I’m not so sure. We didn’t do any gigs, like bands are supposed to. Do we care? I can only speak for myself: ‘No. I don’t’. I’m pretty thrilled with most of the stuff we have recorded with Pieter Kloos in Eindhoven. But we’ve not finished, it’s not an album yet. I’m not gonna be satisfied with it if the music is just ‘okay’. It has to be exciting, class A stuff. Why bother releasing it, if it isn’t? Make no mistake: I’m optimistic.
For Spider James it will all come down to the next couple of months, starting next Thursday - January 3th. I’m eager to finish the job. I want us to be proud of the result so we can finally get back to actual playing and working on new, fresh material. There’s lots of it laying around.

gently weeps

happy birthday!!!

JL Rouvroye, 'man van het betere gitaarwerk', celebrates his 31th birthday today. Cheers.
When I first met him back in 1993 (yes, 1993) he was skinny kid in a scary metal shirt, blowing me away with some of the loudest guitar work I had ever heard in my life. Apart from a six month hiatus in 1995, we've never stopped playing together; in Spider James, Merry Pierce and again Spider James. I've watched him develop his musical technique and style of playing and going through different phases: blues, psychedelia, lo-fi indie, surf, soul, dub, afrobeat. JL has a undeniable talent to bring little pieces of these influences into a style that's really his own. He never stops suprising me.

good girls (4)

araignée jacques mixtape # 6: MMVII

So it's almost Christmas, and what have we done? Well: here's a mixtape thing with songs from last year. Some novelties, a couple of guilty pleasures and a bongload of instant classics. At least, I think they are. You may think otherwise and skip the Bright Eyes track...

side a
side b

good girls (3)

covered up

No RJ today. Get well soon, man. Boyke was there though. For the first time in months. Yes. Our friend Mischa, the King Bee, dropped by for a few cups of coffee and watched us trying to make sence out of 'Lullaby'. Mischa left - head over heels - when we considered to play 'Trampled underfoot'. The man absolutely hates Led Zep. We've dropped the idea anyway. As for playing other peoples music: I would like to do 'Albatros' in a Peter Green meets Boards of Canada sort of way. See what the others come up with.

good girls (2)

peaches and cream

Could be there's a complete, six-piece Spider James get-together tomorrow in our practice room in Nimwegen. First time in who knows how long we all get together for a little jam. Don't get too excited though. RJ is ill and a band a is no band without its drummer. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a quick recovery.
If you DO want to get really excited: check out 'Peaches'. The legendary Portishead have finally returned.

good girls (1)

dirge

Just a short note to break the silence. No news from Spider James what so ever. No news is supposed to be good news, so that's okay. On a personal level there only seems to be bad news. Ongoing gall bladder pains have kept me up for a couple of nights. Been to Vlissingen to catch a cold. Been feeling shitty for days now. I was supposed to go to Londen coming weekend, but bad health forces me to stay at home. This does mean (to end this elegy sweetly) that there's time, perhaps, for some jamming with the spider men.

fuzzy

is this rock-'n-roll?

According to Pieter Kloos (who is currently touring in Norway with Motorpsycho) Spider James does not know how to rock. Pieter is a rock fanatic and he has recorded more than half a dozen Spider James songs. He knows what he's talking about and, yes, he is right. We don't use guitars in a rock-'n-roll manner. Not often anyway. No riffs, thank God. No boring solo's. We do have our moments of fuzz box glory though. Last Saturday Ted and JL did a guitar battle New York style, while Rob and me provided a 'Suzie Q'-like groove. Psychedelic, arty stuff (we are talking Spider James here) that could make a real fine piece of music.