Reaganesk in da house

Today I recorded Reaganesk again. No, he still has no website that I know of... Some ex-employee of Excelsior wants to sell it to them. My hopes were'nt that high, but after the affair with Benjamin B, I think it's going to be tough. You can read more about it here.
We completely altered the sound of some songs by adding live percsussion. I need to edit it a bit, because it sounds unstable sometimes.

Live in the Livingroom

Wow, the weekend was so action packed with music, I can hardly keep count. But it must have been Sunday evening when we played in Haarlem for the 31st edition of Live in the Livingroom. You can find a review of that particular evening here. It's in Dutch. Pics are here.

Sander vd Berg also made pics. They're not available on his website yet, but I'll keep track of it.
The Live in the Livingroom evening was very inspiring. 25 people in an ordinary living room. The host only removed a few tables, and Kees of LitLR brought in some extra chairs. For most of the people, this was their first time. The audience was as nervous as the artists, can you believe that?
LitLR is looking for agents in the eight different cities, because it's becoming too much work for two people. Naturally, I'm interested. As it turns out, there's already someone available. Maybe we could do it together. I told Kees of my connections with Norwich. I could get Norwich bands to play for LitLR, and maybe organize something like that for Dutch bands in Norwich... who knows? Hopefully Fiel Garvie can play for LitLR some day. I think they will enjoy the amount of attention. Something they didn't really get last weekend, I'm afraid...

I'm so tired...

You know that song of The Beatles? That's how I feel. Last Friday was devastating, with the Arnhem radio interview and organizing the [drga-drga] festival in Bosch. We focused on art students showing up, but they didn't. It turned out there was a huge party of the Art Academy elsewhere in Arnhem. Bummer... With only 28 paying visitors, the festival was a financial disaster. The financial side is a thing we're not good at, but we have to learn. Next time, we'll only organize a festival if we can get all expenses paid. There's one coming up in June, but if we can't get the budget we want we'll drop that date.
Of course we want to get funding, but it takes time to secure that. I don't know if we can be on time for June... But it is our intention to write a plan for several festivals in a row. If we can get funding for that, we can set the dates later on. Feels safer that way.

But the festival was good, though. Fiel Garvie and We vs Death played well, my own band Carmenkata got good feedback. Bertin told me to go for a less pumped up sound. I agree with him. It all depends on the FOH-mixer: he can make or break your sound. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit too hyped up. I think most of the audience didn't care, though.
I was happy to notice Martijn of Think Small was there, and André of LVR records. The promoter of the Valkhof Affaire was also there, and he enjoyed it :-) Pity though that he just lost access to the more intimate stages of the festival. Extrapool is now organizing them. We know them very well, but we also know that they're very much into experimental electronic music. Bummer for da Garv and Carmenkata, hurray for Commando Cauldron and Prank Aggressor!!

Some people have reacted on the festival... Check Gé for a review in Dutch. He didn't quite like Carmenkata :-(

Uncle Ro

Today I turned into an uncle. I know something is changed in my life, but what? As a present to the baby, Carmen and I are recording a children's song Carmen wrote a few weeks ago. It's called 'The way you are'. Tomorrow it has to be finished... We'll also play the song on the Arnhem radio as a gift :-)
We won't do it live, though. Organizing a festival, visiting a baby and doing a radioshow seems to be a bit too much on the same day...
Tomorrow I hope to see a lot of people on the festival in Kultuurhuis Bosch, Arnhem. It's gonna be a blast, with Fiel Garvie, We vs Death, Carmenkata, Havelaar and loads of interesting art.

Lawn on vinyl almost ready...

We've been waiting for it for too long, but it is coming: the last album of Lawn will be on vinyl! [drga-drga] is taking care of the vinyl, while My First Sonny Weissmuller Recordings is doing the plastic. I had to do the communication with the Czech vinyl production plant. They're pretty good, by the way.
It's funny to notice that the Czech people have no trouble at all with pronouncing the name [drga-drga]. It's like second nature to them. I actually found out, they have people called 'Drga' in Czechya!

Riplets live

The Riplets were very cool in Hilversum. It's four girls, but all with a different attitude. The girl that plays the keys looks a bit afraid and sweet, whereas the singer has a cool R&R attitude.
The rest of the bands were ok, but I came for them. I hope they're going to be big. They could be, I think they got enough attitude. What I admire, is their way of doing business. Whenever they have a crazy idea, they immediately act upon it. That way, something small like a cover-song "Hey Mickey" can grow into this remix project with some great DJs involved. Including me... :-) They're planning to release the remix 12" vinyl at a special release party in Rotterdam.
While being at their gig, I was invited to play a role in an upcoming documentary about groupies for the VPRO. I did the acting on the spot. It involved some indignities, which I like when I can't think too long about it.

Action packed days

Went to Metropool yesterday to discuss the upcoming [drga-drga] festival we organize over there. This will take place on the 4th of June, so there is still enough time. I found out that later that night, Baron Saturday will present their new demo in that venue. It so happens I helped produce that record... Unfortunately I had no time to stay.
Almost every night there's something I need to go and see. Yesterday brought the Unsigned Tour to De Melkweg. A handful of College Radio bands, including Moss, Woost, Gem and Voicst. I especially liked Moss. Their manager Jacqueline is really proud of them. She should be, because they have great songs and know how to sound well.
I gave a Carmenkata sampler to Jacqueline. She has loads of contacts. It might get us some gigs and introduce us to a few more interesting people.
Tonight I'll go see The Riplets again. After the failed visit a week ago, this time I should be able to get to the gig on time. After a week of waiting for a reply to my remix, I asked myself. They thought it was cool! I realize now that in the real world, this means that they actually really like it. Or at least I hope so...

Last Wednesday was interesting too. I talked to Marcel and Arnold of the Transformed Dreams label. I'm organizing an exchange of English and Dutch bands. The English bands are all from Norwich: Fiel Garvie, Bearsuit and Magoo. Carmenkata and Zea are the Dutch bands so far. The idea is, that the Norwich bands will do a show in Paradiso for the monthly k-tsjoem festival. The Dutch bands will play in Norwich in return. I knew Marcel was enthousiastic about it a few months ago. And he still is! It will take place in August, and we'll play in Norwich somewhere during the Fall.


BTW, bought a great dvd from LoVid at the festival. Very experimental, very disturbing...

You can now hear my music

I've put up some Halfhide music on the web, through Soundclick. It took a while for them to clear my page, but here it is!

Halfhide on holiday

Carmen and I had a couple of days off in Scheveningen. On Thursday we got invited to the Jack Daniel's Rock Night in the Paard van Troje (Trojan Horse), The Hague. It was the first time I went to this legendary venue. It started at 8! That's when The Riplets kicked off the festival. But we weren't there at that time, of course. We are sane people. The reason why they had to start at such disrespectful early hours, was because the dance-party had to start at 12. This doesn't sound very Jack Daniel's to me. Next time I'll be a bit earlier, and the Riplets will play a tad later. That'll be in Tagrijn, Hilversum on the 12th of March.
So I didn't see the Riplets play. But I managed to give the remix to Janneke Riplet. I'm very pleased with the result myself. I hope to post it one day. If the Riplets haven't done that earlier...
Though I didn't see the band, I saw a lot of Riplet look-a-likes in the crowd! That's all very promising... Janneke asked me to play a short part in their upcoming video for 'Hey Mickey'. All I had to do was put on a t-shirt with 'Mickey' on it, and dance like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Then and there, of course. I did my best ;-) She had to really convince other people to do the same thing. I got some murky pics of it:


Janneke Riplet trying to convince someone to pose for her videoclip ... She finally made him do it... now that's having a drive!

Rene of the coverband The He-Devils asked me to help out with a studiojob. I used to do that every year with him, but now that he has another drummer I didn't expect that to happen anymore. The other drummer had his priorities elsewhere, however. So I'm back with the old devils. But this time in a bigger studio. Maybe I'll see Grad Damen there...

Carmenkata Live in the Living Room, and more

So much is happening right now. The promo-cds we mailed out are bearing fruit. Carmenkata got selected for a gig with the Live in the Living Room project. It's a very cool idea. Just let singer/songwriters play in somebody's living room. Make a website where you let the three parties come together: the hosts, the artists, and the fans. We're really proud to be selected for this. We're talking about high quality artists like Spinvis, Hans van den Burg and J Perkin. These people have all made hits. But they want to share their songs in the one of the most intimate places imaginable: someone's living room. Carmenkata will be playing with Kirsten and a third singer/songwriter, yet undecided. I hope they will try to make this a true ladies night... :-)

Another gig that came up for Carmenkata is a very short one: doing the GRAP singer/songwriter contest in KHL Koffiehuis, Amsterdam. She'll only be playing for 15 minutes. It still sounds like a joke to me, though I know this is normal for contests. I've done quite some myself :-(