three

And then there were only three last Saturday. A case of no show from the DB-camp. Something to do with books, islands, the flu and wedding bells. We missed 'm, sure, but shit simply happens and the remaining three of us did manage to have some very fruitful hours. Rob brought his 8-track and we worked on some (of his) material. Rob's track 'Alley' (dark and dubby) seems to fit perfectly with my reggae-ish 'Illuminate', which makes it a song. Hoorah. 'Cottbus 9' and 'Say Smith' are instrumentals and could become more than worthy successors to 'Kam'. That's all for new music. Coming Saturday it's back to business. Next stop's The Void.

70

white easter

Fact. Yesterday two of my all-time favourite musicians - Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz etc. etc., 1968) and Holger Czukay (Can, 1938) - celebrated their birthdays. You wouldn't have guessed it, due to all the rain, hailstone storms and snow, but it was also the second day of Easter. I didn't find any hidden eggs. I did travel to Den Bosch and joined Ted and WJP to work on the backing vocals which resulted in some beautiful harmonies that will give the intro of 'On a Breeze' a touch of pastorale sixties psychedelia. 'The Charm', on the other hand, was given a less listener-friendly treatment. It will be hard to distinguish WJP's spaced-out vocal from a noisy distorted synth. It's the total opposite of 'Breeze'. Come to think if it, that does sound rather schizophrenic.

boyke-in-a-void

good friday

No rehearsal this Saturday, which is a shame. Some of us will see each other, as we're getting together in 's-Hertogenbosch for another round of doing backing vocals. Don't expect your typical oooh's and aaah's. We will fuck things up. Promise. Of course there will be room for some Beach Boy-style harmonies. You can't beat your Diasy Glaze out of your Spider James. We will drench WJP in reverb though. It sooths him.

spiderman is having you for diner tonight

six

Spider James rehearsed today and, for the first time in months, all six of us were there. I wasn't up to singing yet, so WJP took over. We messed about, played a bit of The Cure and worked on our 'live versions' of Del Kinky and Make a Move. All went well, considering we hadn't played together for ages. The last hour or so we spent on WJP's backing vocals as we're going to record the man (well, his beautiful voice) on April 5th. That's our last recording date and from then on we'll finally be mixing and mastering our album. Can't blame you if you believed if would never happen, but we're actually there. Almost almost.

back to mine (23)

the visitor

Still recovering from the removal of my gall bladder, a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't up to playing along with the James last Saturday. Did pay a short visit to our rehearsal room though. Witnessed an impressing opening jam: Boyke was doing some great chord changes on rhodes - reminding me vaguely of Portishead or, even more, a stripped down Boards of Canada (think: hi-scores) - backed by Rob's solid drums and with JL and Ted just freaking out. I only stayed for one cup of coffee and a nice chat. Left as soon as the guys resumed their work on the revived Beatnik. One should never interfere with men at work.