colour me in

Next Thursday we’ll hit The Void again. We won’t dissappoint Pidah: two months of weekly rehearsing paid off, and now the new King James sounds as solid as a rock. Besides King James (revisited) we hope to record a new version of Kam. If we still have some time left, we might also try some ‘sketches’ and 'colouring in' On A Breeze, Morninghead and Umbrella.. It’s only a wishlist, and two days of studiotime isn’t that much....

scream thy last scream

Saturday we rehearsed only with four of the guys: Rob, Boyke, WJP and myself. We worked on King James (again). Tried to focus more on the groove, and less on the funk. Patrick wasn't there and we couldn't recall the lyrics except for one line: "You give what you got and you find that it's never enough". So we yelled that one, 'til our throaths got sore. I guess it sounded a bit like primal scream therapy. Don't know if this is the right way to go for King James, but this version really has energy. And by the way: we actually did manage to kick out James Brown.

freak out!

"On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole. Less perceptive individuals have referred to us who have chosen this way of thinking and FEELING as "Freaks", hence the term "Freaking Out".
(f. zappa)

sheer beauty

It's always nice to look back at your favorite albums of the year - we all like charts and lists, don't we. As Patrick already mentioned: The Roots, Phoenix, Beck, Thom Yorke and TV on the Radio are some of my 2006 favorites. I would like to add the albums of Midlake (the melancholic Trials of Van Occupanther), Los Lobos (as good as ever on The Town and the City), Boards of Canada's subtle Trans Canada Highway and the re-issue of Eno and Byrne's 1980 masterpiece My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
The artist whose work really hit me this year was the Duth jazz bass player Eric van der Westen. His albums - Naala and Rush Hour - are wonderful. Both albums aren't new releases (they're respectively from 1999 and 2001), but I discovered them only last summer. Sheer beauty...