Carmenkata joins Chinese Whispers game

We did a recording this week for a new project called Chinese Whispers. It's all about that ole game we did as children: one person starts whispering a word to someone else and then that person whispers what he hears to the next and so on. You figure what will be the result of that form of 'communication'...
This time it's a bit different. We got visual art from someone and let ourselves get inspired by it. We then made some music as an answer to the art and gave it to the next in line, who is in turn a visual artist... you still with me? The music acts involved are Commando Cauldron, Carmenkata, Ottoboy, Erectromorph and Audiotransparent. I'm responsible for the coordination of all the musicians. So far everything is going alright. I'll keep you posted on this.

Reaganesk in da house

Did some production and recording of Reaganesk, the always good humored and very talented singer/songwriter Maarten de Mink. I lost a project-file along the way, though. That's the first time that ever happened to me. Now I have to rebuild that lost song again. I still have the recordings of course. I must make sure that never happens again... :-(

A new era as a singer?

It's the day after and I've done three gigs in a row as a front singer. The last one was in front of about 2000 people... everything fell into place that night. Bitter Sweet is a good band to play with. Their singer wil leave in a month from now. I hope they'll ask me some more. You never know... At least this was a good way to get a lot of experience and repertoire in a short time. Now it's time to detox for me, since these days were quite devastating for me. And in a few days off to Barcelona... Claro que si!

Me the front singer

I've been studying like crazy to get the lyrics in my head for the past week, but it's starting to sink in. Tonight I'll be having the first of three gigs with Bitter Sweet, a cover band. And I'll be fronting the band as the singer! Ain't that cool! The original singer is on holiday and they asked me to fill in. It's a new challenge for me and I hope it works out ok. I know it will. If I just get all these Robbie Williams songs into my head...

New bassist for Carmenkata rocks

Had a rehearsal with Carmenkata today, and our new bass player Rick Kup is starting to fit in just fine. We encourage him to play the bass like it's a guitar, with high distorted notes. That way, Carmen's guitar gets more chance to play...
The first gig with Rick should be in Norwich, September 10. Be there!

N.E.R.D. coolest band ever

I worked for N.E.R.D., and boy how they rocked. They played in the HMH
on July 3rd. When the band did their soundcheck (without Pharell), they
already feasted me on some great songs. But when they played live, it
was awesome. Pharell got the audience to sing a song without the band
playing, for 2 minutes at least! They did a wonderful new version of
'Provider', with an anti-war ending. I got a setlist from their
concert, pic to the right.

Doing a wedding

Yesterday I drove all the way to Maastricht for a gig at a wedding. It's Hobbit-land over there, the country around Maastricht reminds me of The Shire in LOTR. I was playing with Moon About, my acoustic trio. Some extraordinary things happened there. I met a blues harp player from Paris, and he played some songs with us. Great sound! We improvised 'Mannish Boy' from Muddy Waters. I made up some lyrics about the bride and groom... Second thing was that while we were playing 'La Bamba', a woman started to dance vehemently. Her timing was superb, and that lead to some ideas about how to play the song better. It's amazing how dancers can give musical ideas to musicians. I could never have played the song that good without her dancing it. I thanked her for it afterwards, and she understood completely.
The blues harp player will try to book us in Paris. Would be fun!

MS soccer

The Microsoft Tech·04 conference was still in town, I reported on it earlier. This time there was a party going on, and I had to run the cables for one of the cameramen recording the variety show. The show was built around the soccer game that was coming up for Euro2004: Greece vs Czech Republic. Later on we played some soccer ourselves, when the crowds were gone and the work was done. The other pic shows the huge screen at work. Programmers are quite a boring crowd, by the way.

New venue, old colleagues

Drove to Ahoy' in Rotterdam to work for Cher. I never worked there before. I made sure I got there late, so I didn't have to see the show. I didn't think it would be fun to watch. But I was wrong! I got taken away by the tongue-in-cheek, slick show.
The audience consisted mostly of housewives and gays. What a combination, and they were united by their reverence for Cher. I was making pics of the show, when a security guard came up to me. He asked me to stop, because the personal bodyguard of Cher was getting edgy. The bodyguard looked like he walked away from a martial arts movieset. He was bent on keeping Cher safe, even from the hands of an innocent mother who tried to shake her hand. You don't want to mess with him. Later on I heard from a security guard that he was kicking around tables and chairs in the backstage area, when he couldn't get his way. I would have imagined him to be a bit more in control.
Later on, I got some insight in the American mind. I was working with some roadies to load a sea container. It was their last show, and they wanted to go back home. Sometimes the roadies would lash out at eachother, almost getting physical. But after a second, they'd have completely forgotten about it... working along as if nothing had happened. Very much like animals do. For Europeans, that's hard to grasp. After a while, I realized the meaning behind it. Their cursing and aggressivenes kept them focused on the job. It was nothing personal. It made me think about how they go about in Iraq. Yes, I'm a philosopher :-)



Some pics I could make of the Cher show. Notice the red wig and the trapeze acts...



You can see her personal bodyguard as a brooding shadow; the sailor's hat she got from a gay in the audience