Polemics for everybody!

For all you former debate-team enthusiasts and music lovers alike: Here's the first episode of a little polemic I'm working on in collaboration with fellow BAMMster Christopher Davies from London for the blog. First one's about the new Justice album Audio, Video, Disco which has lead to a large variety of critical response good and bad.

Me: "In a classic showcase of ‘no guts no glory’, the Parisian duo dig knee-deep into 70’s hardrock while adopting a more subtle, songlike approach for their second album."

'Mister Conservative Music Critic 2011', Chris D: "The whole record is deeply in thrall to the keyboard-wielding electro-epic forefathers of the late 70s – but it doesn’t do anything else with the sound"

Read all about it at the BAMM.tv Blog

Trendy?

Some peer-to-peer reviewing to feast your eyes on. Dress, the long-running Amsterdam indieband I've been partaking in for the last year or so got a very nice review by Incendiary Mag's very own Richard Foster.

"In fact Dress, (and maybe these unprepossessing Bollenstreekers don’t know this), with their widescreen soundscapes and tales of agro-industrial pyscho/socio dramas sound very trendy indeed"

Read more about it right HERE

Thanks to Corno and all at Next To Jaap studio for all their kind attention and welcome. Very much appreciated.

Dress (photo by Joni Spaan)

Life is imitating art

I've been reading lately. It's something I haven't done for a long while and then I got back into it somehow. It may have something to do with my aversion to the academical in recent years where they force you to feed on information you may not be looking to digest. Or perhaps it's my ongoing digital romance, not taking any time off from my computer than to sleep, fuck or make (analog) music. There is no way I can state here that I've broken up with my computer, but after a little re-evaluation of what my brain really feels like taking on, things are more in perspective. It goes for gastronomy, social contacts, wandering about the city but most certainly also for my daily dose of literature.

So, in a way you could say the subtitle of this chapter could be Philistine Reads A Book. It wouldn't be far off. But there's more going on here. Maybe I forgot how books change your perception of the world around you, or maybe after such a long absence one is more susceptible to the influence of the written word. But it seemed my environment changes with every book I read. As if my books are not only windows to other worlds, but as if they transpose themselves to my actual situation. Reading a Tom Waits biography, I suddenly find myself among all kinds of strange cats wherever I go. Even more poignant, reading a collection of Hemingway stories one day and standing 20 feet from a European Buffalo the next. Is it a trick of the brain? Most probably. But the bull was there, in National Parc Zuid-Kennemerland.

I could see the contour of the arena, the sand beneath my feet, my coat becoming full of golden embroideries and tassles, with the cold steel in my hand. And in the same instance my cloths turn kaki, I find a carrabine in my hands, my eyes peeled on the buffalo, ready to pull the trigger.

Life is imitating art I tell you, and sometimes it's hard to not let it take you for a ride.

Thankfully, my books did not spoke of the Indian Summer going on outside. Still, I was supposed to see Ozark Henry at the Paradiso last week... But I'll write my own songs about the blue skies and the leaves on the trees at the Oudezijds Voorburgwal. For this good mood is all my own and I'll sing when I want to.

Meeting people is easy

In answer to a question that was never asked.

I guess you could say I have pretty schizofrenic livestyle. Getting on the road and do the musician thing one day, then turn it inside out and do the journalism or the wandering bozo routine. Only to change it up the next day and getting some music industry business done. It would appear most of these activities take a large and varied skillset, when in fact it doesn't. Basically what I do is talk to people. There's not a lot more to it. Somehow I've found a sort of impunity when it comes to approaching people that I don't know and shouldn't feel comfortable talking to. Don't know where it comes from, but my total lack of scrupules goes a long way here.

Still, it's not for everyone. Even among peers it can be hard to feel at ease sometimes. And then there's weeding out the bullshit left and right that people tend to sell you on first encounters. I guess most people don't feel secure about who they are so they represent themselves as something bigger. In a way, they are as schizo as my lifestyle, but I don't change my routine. Even if it is different or bigger than my true self, I'll keep it consistent so people don't freak out.

Check out this scene from the amazing motion picture "Coffee And Cigarettes" by Jim Jarmusch featuring Tom Waits and Iggy Pop and you'll know what I mean. Off course with these artists there's a much more complicated scheme going on as they are in fact performers acting in a field of art where authenticity is perceived as the greatest virtue of them all. Maybe I'll get back to that topic sometimes. For now, enjoy the vid.

On the road with Gerhardt pt. 1

This is me recovering some of the alcohol-soaked, blurry memories from the past two months of touring...

So, we've been traversing the plains of The Netherlands in a van to bring our gospel to pop venues, dive bars, festivals, theatres, discotheques and what have you. It's the Gerhardt funky soultrain to pop paradise, and it's catching on. Without the funky soul part, that is.

Starting the tour off with new axeman Bernard on the electric sixstring, everything was fresh and new. Over the course of very few rehearsels we quickly established that we were heading in the right direction. More focused and motivated than ever before, we played our first string of dates. Just one gig in, during a hailstorm at Magneetfestival, my bass malfunctioned and I had to find one to borrow. Great. Luckily we had very little technical fuck-ups, just challenges. We had the honour of opening the Popronde festival in Nijmegen in a very nice little coffee place were we did an impromptu, highly improvisational semi-acoustic thingy. It worked out great! We later repeated it in Den Bosch at a promo-gig at a community college. Somehow when we're not too focused on cues and arrangements, things fall into place. In that sense, Gerhardt's songs seem to work best when you just play them without a lot of fuss about it. Simplicity really ís a virtue, I guess.

(this one's shit soundwise, but fun to watch)

Another impressive notion was the fact we were travelling to all these rather quaint towns I hardly ever been before, such as Zwolle, Maastricht and Deventer. I was rather smitten by so many charming historical city centres. We didn't see much of it though, as more often than not we were playing several gigs a day just to cover our costs. So my most vivid memories touring are from the van and the gas stations we frequently visit just to stuff our faces with whatever's available (the big ass meatballs coming back from Rotterdam deserve special mention here). I'm usually not the type for spending any lenght of time with people stuck in the same room. Thankfully thankfully I'm surrounded by hilariously unfunny jack-offs in this band, and we get along quite well.

In the last few weeks we had the pleasure of playing at the NS Tryout Festival, organised by the Dutch railways as a polite thank you to their customers for continuing to keep up with them (at least, I reckon this must be the case). As it turns out, it was incredibly well organised, and they were very keen on the time schedule (oh, the irony...). Despite the sometimes challenging acoustics in the room, we managed to pull it off quite well. Especially our gigs at the trainstation in Arnhem were a joy, selling and signing over 20 cd's on the first day and ending up late for our second gig of the evening because of it (it's a hard knock life, yes it is...). Lastly, I have to mention the fun time we had in Gerhardt's second home of Hoorn playing at the Pop @ Het Park festival in the local theatre. They've got an interesting little scene going on there, with Tim Knol and Beans & Fatback (Gerhardt's 'other band')

my mother made this one... big fan.

(I actually forgot to mention... we were on TV too! Quite a memorable nighttime thing, playing to people who were trying to break the world record watching TV)

As it is, we've had some 20+ gigs under our belts in 7 weeks. Definitely a crazy amount in such a short time, but I must admit we're faring pretty well. People seem to like the energy that we're emanating from the stage, and we're honing the songs with every performance. Now, we're having a short break before returning to the road for our last string of Popronde dates. I'm definitely looking forward to getting back on stage with these guys, and playing some of the new songs we've been working on...

New Reviews!

Hello everyone,

sorry for being so absent recently, but I'm reviving the blog shortly. For now, there's a few new reviews I want to share with you.

Signe Tollefsen - Hayes


"... Hayes makes for an exciting listen that may take some getting used to for the long-time fans, but is well worth the time invested."

read all about it on the BAMM.tv blog:

http://blog.bamm.tv/2011/10/03/bammsterdam-review-signe-tollefsen-hayes/

Awkward I - Everything On Wheels


"... Sophomore release “Everything On Wheels” does nothing to discard Awkward I’s wayward persona and bleak world view, but does so in a grander, more extravert manner."

check it out:

http://blog.bamm.tv/2011/10/07/bammsterdam-review-awkward-i-everything-on-wheels/

dEUS - Keep You Close


"...one of their most cohesive efforts, with very clear artistic outlining from start to finish"

badaboom:

http://blog.bamm.tv/2011/10/17/bammsterdam-review-deus-keep-you-close/

also, check out this very nice EPK on their latest album.



COMING UP:
- more reviews
- stories from the road with Gerhardt
- attempts at sharing an opinion on current (music) affairs