Woven Hand does legendary concert in Patronaat

Yesterday night God was in the house. The Patronaat for once gave in to its religious roots and made way for the sermons of David Eugene Edwards. The frontman of 16 hp has a side project called Woven Hand.
Woven Hand sounds old and wise, but uses the latest technology to achieve this goal: samplers, delays and reverbs make sure you hear more than just a drummer and a guitarist. He managed to keep me entangled in his web of fire and brimstone for two hours. Does anybody know what language he's speaking when he's chanting on this drone? I suspect it's something biblical, like Aramese.
A friend of mine was a bit upset by a tattoo on his left arm, displaying a David's Star with a cross in the middle. According to him, it could mean that he believes that the Jews have nailed Jesus to the cross. Personally I couldn't care less if he had fascist signs on his arm. I'm only interested in his music. Naturally, I made no friends with that remark.
Things I learned: use a sample loop with some drone sound to fill the gaps when you're tuning. When the audience started to chatter away, he simply upped the volume. What I see more and more, is artists singing off-mic. This way you look like a nitwit who's completely lost in his music, and you create a lot of dynamics. From loud (in the mic) to almost inaudible (away from the mic). The Evens do this as well, and some other acts I've seen.
Of course I shot a lot of pics. The best can be found here.

Thanks Marg

Do you know this joke about the drummer who went for the audition of Gram? He didn't go. Because his blog was too explicit. Marg called off the audition. My personality was too powerful. She had been talking to some people about me. Who? I hardly know anybody in Amsterdam! And she had taken a look at this here weblog. All in all enough reason to make her believe that it wouldn't work. That I would be too strong headed. She already had that experience in Seedling, and wanted to work with someone more docile. She said I should take that as a compliment. My god, she sounds like a CEO doing a layoff. I know what she wants. She wants a spineless drummer who changes into a crate of beer after the show. And oh irony, I though I was such a drummer!
So thanks Marg, for making me realize that I'm actually an interesting, vibrant person with his own opinions. It's good to know that months of therapy are finally paying off. And that this blog actually does a wonderful job. Even though it's not displaying the real me, the picture some people get is one of a willful artist who knows what he wants. So I guess it's high time I live up to that image. And even though I've been cursing you the whole night, I also feel eternally grateful. I wish you all the best with Gram. And if you do happen to find the perfect drummer, can I drink him up after the show?

Silent Minority for ever silent?

Is this true? Are they kicking eachother's heads in over there in Groningen? And why not. Sometimes I wish I was a bit more aggressive myself... But to call it quits and give up on such a good artists roster feels like the people at Silent Minority need to check themselves, before they start to do anything rash.
So, let's hope this is just a rumour from a panicking source. But if not, then I would like to know how serious this is.

So much drinking in so little time

I've been away from my blog for a while, to do good things. Like drinking, getting drunk, having sex, listening to great bands, trying a new drug, talking with my ex-to-be, doing gigs, jam-sessions, therapy, rehearsing, producing Reaganesk. And not feeling too miserable in between. So I'm doing fine.
But where do I begin? I guess I'll just start shooting. To begin with the concert of Labasheeda in Winston Kingdom. Great show, mixing The Breeders with Bettie Serveert. Her voice reminds me a bit of Carol van Dijk, that's why. Their bassplayer is really irreplaceable, adding some explosive sound eruptions to their music. They were a bit nervous beforehand, because their drummer had to leave for Italy. So they frantically rehearsed for a whole week with a new drummer. It really paid off. I don't know the original drummer, because this is the first time I saw them. But I like this one... Here are the pics of their gig.

Then, Music77 staying at the Fishbowl R&R Hotel. That's where I live, of course. With Carmenkata, I live in a commune in the Amsterdam suburbs. No parking fees, and enough space for a whole band to stay. Fiel Garvie, Audiotransparent and Music77 had already stayed with us. This was their second time. The coming week, Danish band Green Concorde will visit us.
Music77 did a concert for VPRO's 'De Avonden' radio program. Their singer Johann was really wasted. The day before, he got lost in Groningen. Their friends of Audiotransparent finally retrieved him in a shabby bar where they had kept feeding him drinks. Friendly people, because he had no money on him :) Next time, we have to get him drunk again. His music never sounded this pure before. Although some people missed the cello player, I thought it was an excellent show of Swedish melancholy.
They also had some drummer problems, though. This is to be the week of the untrustworthy drummer, for shure. On the very day they left for Holland, their drummer got ill. So they asked their driver if he could drum a bit. He happens to be a singer/songwriter. But could he turn out be a drummer as well? Johann kept telling me "next time we'll come with a real drummer", but I already saw one. And he could sing... Look at some pics I shot of their show. Especially the ones with the drummer are funny...

That night, after I guided them back to my place, I had to work in the Heineken Music Hall again. So no sleep for me, until 6 in the morning. But they were moving out at 9, and after that I had to rehearse with Robin Block and Carmenkata. He the poet and you know it. The rehearsal was for the gig in the Pakhuis Afrika, a squatters center in Amsterdam. Hurling a new poem towards the audience, we felt on top of things. This was a good test for the concert at the Wintertuin Festival. We'll be playing coming Saturday.

Last week I also made some great progress with the production of Reaganesk's new album. It's his birthday today, but he doesn't want to celebrate. I insisted on celebrating next week, when he'll be 27 years and 7 days... also a very special moment in one's life I think. You can checkout some of his music on his website. Naturally, we ended up in the bar drinking Guinness. But before that, we really mixed some life into his tracks.

And then came the Carmenkata gig in café The End. I especially invited Marg (ex-Seedling), because she's looking for new musicians to play in her new band Gram. She showed up, of course. Which means something had to go terribly wrong. And of course it did. What happened? The manager had decided in all his wisdom that it would be smart to completely mute the drums, and then trigger them. So that you would always have the same safe volume. And the same crappy eighties sound. Unless you're into New Order with your band, you have a problem. When I explained this to Marg and her guitarist Maarten, they felt very very sorry for me. But shall I be really honest with you? I actually enjoyed myself a lot! I figured, when you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So I made sure New Order and all kinds of eighties rock cliches were never far away. Needless to say, I prided myself in finding out if I could actually beat through the skins. Which was of course an utterly vain attempt. But it made fun.
I assume Marg was not immediately appalled by my drumming, because she called me a few days later if I wanted to audition! She confessed that she had no idea at all about my style, because the triggered drumkit effectively prevented that. But something must have clicked somewhere. It's next Thursday, and I'm so much looking forward to it! Wish me luck...

To make my life even more action packed, I decided to drive to Enschede and back on Saturday. By Sunday, we had to go there again. Enschede - Amsterdam is about 200 km. I know, I'm not so good at logistics when I'm not thinking straight. And there hasn't been a whole lot of straight thinking the last few months, I'm afraid ;)
I did some brainstorming with Daniëlle of [drga-drga], and we went to see We vs Death play in Atak. Of course I made some pics of their show.

And then finally yesterday was the jam session in café Jansen & Janssen. Carmenkata was invited as special guest. We played two sets. A lot of fans and friends showed up. In fact, our fans are our friends. Or they become our friends, for that matter. Ron v/d Boom of VPRO's 3voor12OV did some sort of an interview and made some pics. I'm curious if he'll post a story, I'll keep an eye on it.

Ian McKaye must love Scooby Doo

When The Evens arrived at Ekko, they soon found out that the cafe stage was too small for them. So we moved them to the "big" venue, and arranged a lightshow according to their wishes. Later on, they told us how surprised they were that we were so flexible and enthousiastic. I'm already getting used to these compliments, but it always makes me proud. Ekko has a great team of people.
The concert was very special. Intimate. He made us whistle along to the music. "Whistling is, after all, a universal language". It was fun to watch these hardcore punkfans - Ian McKaye is the frontman of legendary bands Fugazi and Minor Threat - sitting at candle-lit tables, nightclub style. They ate from his hands. "Lucky you have charisma", the drummer Amy said. At one time he made us sing out loud the words
"The police will not be excused. The police will not behave". You can download a video of this audience participation part, recorded with a handheld camera during a UK show. Ian really hates cops. When he was parking his van in front of Ekko- he drives his own tour, together with Amy - two policemen were watching his every move. He got so nervous about the cops, that he wanted to move to another spot when that was taken immediately by another car. What to do? That's when I helped him out and the parking went smoothly. I only have my license for half a year now and I'm really bad at parking so you won't hear me laughing...

The Evens are playing without PA, and without monitors. In other words, all they need is some electricity. They even got their own microphones and stands. They want to bring their music to new places. In the States, they never played in venues, but in museums, art galleries, churches, shops. Setting up their sound was fun to do. I was the only soundengineer in Ekko, because they didn't really need any. My job was to listen intently to the music they produced on stage. Were the vocals loud enough? Maybe they needed some more of that spring reverb? Stuff like that. They amplified their vocals through a Fender Twin Reverb, just like they did in the 50-ies. Ian was perfectly aware of that, and wanted to bring back the direct feeling of those liveshows. The drums were a bit muted, and miked. The drums signal was then processed with digital delay and reverb, mixed with guitar amp signal of Ian and amplified through yet another guitar amp. This is all getting rather technical, but you get the message. The Evens have a partly revolutionary, partly old school approach to making music. This results in a unique, haunting sound.

They believe in a free playing field. You can do whatever you want, no boundaries. Not only the lyrics and in-between stories reflect that philosophy. Also how they make multiple endings of their songs, like in the Scooby Doo comics. And then they ask us which one we prefer. Or the way they kept looping the ending of the last song, because Ian was striking the wrong chords every time. By the time he did it right, the loop had taken off on its own, almost feeling like a mantra. Leaving us with a few minutes extra of some of the greatest music around.

They don't have a cd out yet, but you can download their brilliant song 'On The Face Of It' on the Sonic Youth website. Unfortunately their vocals are not amplified through a good old spring reverb, so it all sounds a bit less haunting than it could. Don't make the mistake of trying to sound like a normal band, please!
You'll find a great review of a UK show that I totally agree with on Playlouder. I couldn't write it down that good. They didn't do the cellphone concert in Ekko, though.

You can still see The Evens in Paradiso, at Nov 19. They will be playing on a festival celebrating another band, The Ex.

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Going out with Reaganesk

After the bands in the Patronaat, we decided to drink some more in Amsterdam. It was not to be, we were too late for most clubs.
But Reaganesk was not too late to catch some blows from a security professional who was on his way to bed. Tapping on his car was just the excuse the moron needed to indulge in some 'useless violence'. More pics of this R&R intermezzo of our night out are here.

Club Funday Deluxe in Patronaat

Last Sunday I went to see some bands in Patronaat. They will put up some great acts, every Sunday during the winter months. This was the opening of the season. Including Kopna Kopna, M.A.S.S. and The Bloody Hollies. The last two bands carried the 'Approved by John Peel' stamp. I couldn't find anything on Kopna Kopna and Peel, so I guess they missed the boat. They're very good though. A combination of Tom Barman's voice and the disco of Zita Swoon, but then much better ;-)

O yeah, the entrance is free! You have no excuse to stay home next time...

You can find the rest of the pics here.

Arthur delivers refreshing note

Neatly tucked away in some corner, Arthur ten Cate played a few songs on live national radio. It was during a talkshow, which of course was mostly dominated by Theo van Gogh's brutal slaying. The overall tone of the discussion was reconciliatory. "Above all, we shouldn't rock the boat too much. We must pacify this dangerous situation our society is in." Needless to say, there were mostly opponents or outright enemies of Theo present.

The songs of Arthur brought us all back to a better place. A place too subtle for simple hatred, or intellectual cowardice.
At least that's what it did to me. I'm afraid the guests on the table were too occupied with themselves...

Ekko wins

Let's not talk about bands for a while, let's talk about venues. Due to a sudden fit of reverence for this great singer/songwriter Ben Christophers, I was in the unique position to visit all of his Dutch shows. They were in Ekko, Paradiso and Rotown. The music was the same, every house was packed and Ben made magic every time. So it was up to the venues to make the difference... And I found that not all venues are created equal.

Of course I applaud all three locations for booking Ben. So why came Ekko out on top, as the title suggests? Because for 9 euros (which is only 2 euro more than Rotown), Ekko was the only venue that booked two full acts instead of one! J Perkin (now also known as Solo) opened up before Ben Christophers. Paradiso had squeezed the concert in during the afternoon, so they had no possibility to book a second act.
The second reason why Ekko delivered the most value for your money was the outstanding lightshow, that helped the music reach emotional heights that weren't present in Paradiso or Rotown.

And may I something nasty about the audience in Rotterdam? They were very enthousiastic, but also frantically talking through the more serene parts of his music. Both the Paradiso and Ekko audiences were absolutely hanging on the lips of Ben when he sang such quiet songs as "My beautiful demon". With that song however, Ben managed to strike even the noisy Rotterdam crowd completely silent.

I have to finish with the remark though, that I started working for Ekko not so long ago. So my observations might be colored by that, that's not for me to judge... :-)

I just uploaded the pics of Ben Christophers. You can watch them here.

Do can actually sing!

I know, most people can't give a horses ass. But I saw her perform in the HMH tonight, and Do is actually amazing! I have seen a disasterous performance, live on MTV. After that I knew she had no talent at all. But tonight I'm afraid I have to change that opinion.
Backed up by The New Cool Collective, a host of Dutch artists were giving a tribute to Motown. The reason was quite mundane, to support T-Mobile. So I went with no expectations at all, invited by Robin Block who had free tickets. As it turned out, nobody had paid for their entrance!
Artists performing: Boris, Do, Gordon & Replay, Candy Dulfer, Lois Lane and Di-rect.

The artists didn't take it all too seriously, which was quite refreshing to see. The music was great, I never heard Motown's catalog played with such rich arrangements. Leave that to the big band of New Cool Collective! I won't bore you with the details, but it's fair to say that Lois Lane formed the worst, and Do the best of the evening. Candy Dulfer had guts for bringing some obscure instrumentals and a hot funky piece about sex. Gordon was feeling extremely comfortable in his role of gay jester. Replay had to make up for that with their musicality. They succeeded, though there were people who didn't buy into the Gordon foolishness, and couldn't look through the missed lyrics and failed notes to meet his genius. It was an interesting site.
I'm afraid I've figured Boris out. He's not able to make contact with the audience because of his sulky stage act. When he and Do were performing a duet, Do was naturally seducing him with her moves. What made it awkward, was his reaction. Any boy in any dancing knows better how to deal with it than he. Like some wooden John Cleese he was keeping distance, displaying an almost abhorred attitude. Of course, most boys in the crowd wanted to fill in for him and do it right :-) His voice is excellent, but that's not going to cut it.

Anybody still here, reading? I know, these are not your average indie artists. But they deserve to be blogged about, just like anybody else... Tomorrow I'll work for Rammstein in Ahoy'. Curious...

Blues Brother Castro live in Bitter Zoet

I still got some pics from Blues Brother Castro, live in BitterZoet. I don't know the name of the support act, so if someone could tell me...
You can check the other photos at my flickr site.

Theo van Gogh murdered

A goat-fuckin' terrorist has brutally slain Theo van Gogh, who championed free speech. I know, this sounds brutal too. But Theo liked to call muslims 'goat-fuckers', and a political leader today already wanted to call it a terrorist act... So who am I to stay behind?

This is the end of tolerance as we knew it in the Netherlands. And boy, am I happy I live in the Bijlmer, where there's a minimum amount of goat-fuckers around... And the ones that DO live here, get checked by streetwise blacks who are in fact quite easy to live with. Am I making sense, or is this just the rambling rage of a disappointed Amsterdam citizen?

I am not making sense, of course. But I'll let it stand. As a reminder of the anger I felt on this day. And the fear I now have for muslims. It wasn't like that, but they are starting to look like the maffia to me nowadays. So to make myself clear, I'm appalled by religious fundamentalism. Not 'racial' differences...

Something else: tonight I'll try to make some pics at the gig of Enon and Persil in Ekko.

The best photosharing site in the whole wide web: Flickr

I can't keep this info from you. Anybody who's interested in sharing pics and getting tons of features and flexibility for free, give Flickr a try. It's still in beta but it will be as famous as Google, Ebay and Amazon...

p2p to the rescue!

And now for something completely different:
When R. Kelly left the tour, Jay-Z had to come up with some artists to fill the gap. Sure, there were some artists around. But how on earth were they going to get their backing tracks? This is where p2p-filesharing steps in...

Usher shone a light on the bright side of file sharing, singing "Confessions" and "Throw Back" over backing tracks that were hastily downloaded off the Internet.