Club 3voor12 rulezz

I went to Club 3voor12 yesterday. Best networking event I had so far in Amsterdam. And it was fun! Marten of [drga-drga] asked me to take a Fiel Garvie cd with me, and give it to Helmut of the VPRO radio. Helmut played the single of the album once in his radioshow Flush. I was a bit worried about it, because I don't feel safe yet with these VPRO-people. They can be very negative about your music if they feel like it. I took the promo-package with me, but I wasn't sure if I could get the opportunity to slip it onto someone over there.
I hooked up with Maarten in front of the studios. I'm recording a cd for his solo-project Reaganesk. This guy has introduced me to a lot of interesting people already. He's living in Amsterdam a year longer than my six months. I heard of this night at club3voor12 from Dre. He's a guitarist whom I played with extensively back in Enschede, but he moved to Utrecht a few years ago. Now that I'm living in Amsterdam, we're practically around the corner again. Dre is playing for the moment in King Me. This band took up the idea to publish a cd with songs from women, played by male artists. Titled: 'More than a woman'. O well. The cd was presented yesterday in club 3voor12, so Dre had to play there as well. Together with a host of other cool bands that contributed to the cd: Mist, Coparck, Pfaff and DJ Jaap Boots himself. Jaap Boots is the presenter of the program club 3voor12.

I noticed that in the short time I'm in Amsterdam, I already knew quite a few people playing in the bands. Dre of course, but also Arthur, who's playing in Mist. And the members of Coparck, whom I visited in their homestudio. They were looking for a drummer. As it turned out, at the time of my visit they already found a drummer and were checking him out. He turned to be ok. No problem, I'm already too busy as it is.
Arthur I know from a recording session I had with Reaganesk. He did some background vocals and elevated the songs to a whole new level. I still want to see him play his solo-stuff live. He told me yesterday there's a gig coming up in my area! I love it that I'm always having my agenda on me... :-)

The first band to play was Darryll-Ann. I used to be a big fan, like 10 years ago. They did some great stuff, and some of it is still good. I can't shake off the notion however, that they turned into this 60-ies comeback-band. I mean, the beards, the plain clothes, the easy rock they're playing. The grandeur is still there, though.

After that came The Riplets, a female punk-rock quartet from Rotterdam. Man, they were hot! Poppy, girlish, simple and spontaneous. Janneke, the singing Riplet, announced the coversong 'Hey Mickey' with the remark that she was still looking for some more remixes for that song. They are going to issue a remix album on vinyl. "Just talk to me after the show", she said. I immediately had the idea of doing a dancehall remix of this song. If I could pull that off...

In between sets I talked with our distributor. I already thought as much. He had not understood that the cd of Fiel Garvie could be released a week ago, he was still waiting on a signal from us. We agreed to meet next week, to iron out these misunderstandings. I told him that the live show of Fiel Garvie was a positive surprise, and that it might be a good idea to put them on their festival in Paradiso. Talking some more, he told me that I gained quite some credibility for being a bit negative about the liveshow of Fiel Garvie at first. It showed him I was honest. Lesson learned: never lie about these things. People don't want to be put to shame because they sticked out their necks for something lame.

The Riplets remix-album was still buzzing through my head. OK, I'm not a great hit-producer, but I could give it another try. How to get in touch with the singer of The Riplets? I was already envisioning hard ways to make her talk with me, but no need. As I was conferring with our distributor, she came standing with us. After a few oblique but honest ravings of their show, I popped the question. Could I do a dancehall remix for their project? No guarantees of course. She was enthousiastic, totally living up to her spontaneous self. I should just send an email to the band, and I would get the stuff I needed. Deadline is the end of February. OK, I like that...

During the last set I talked with a female booking agent and bandmanager. She has quite some contacts, though she is just starting off herself. She could hook me up with a recording studio that has monthly workshops. That could be quite interesting for me, because I could still learn a lot on the production side of things. In fact, I'm a rookie on all aspects of the music industry... :-)

To top it off, Arthur introduced me to Rick of Live in the Livingroom. He's also the singer of Mist. I have been trying to get my band Carmenkata on their program of inhouse singer/songwriter concerts. A very cool initiative. He remembered, and was still waiting on a demo. I'll have to send that up this week.