Frans de Waard

Bye...

2010-08-04T00:56:00.000-07:00

I have new website/blog at wordpress now, which allows me to use fransdewaard.com, so I moving to there and this is the final post here... follow me...

Zebra in Venlo

2010-07-21T02:45:00.000-07:00

Titmachine

2010-07-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, so when I started to create music 25 years ago, the one thing I never was really interested in was playing in a band. Getting every week together in some stinky rehearsal space, to do those same songs over and over again, just simply seemed a drag. But then I never counted on no wave. One of my local favorites is the Titmachine who play a bunch of covers. Pascale and Jodi who play bass and drums pretty much keep things together and Jana screams the lyrics, while Djarmilla absolutely can't play the guitar but with a distortion pedal: who cares. So, I saw them a couple of times and their funny inept playing makes a great performance.
This week local synth pop meister Bertin said he and Titmachine would be playing at some art-do in 's-Hertogenbosch and said he place in the car for me, so why blow a chance to see the machine again? When we arrived it turned out that Djarmilla couldn't come, so Pascale and Jodi (while waiting for Jana), asked me to play her guitar... I said I never played guitar, let alone in public, it was even better for their no wave. I tried to lie a way out if, by saying I didn't know which songs they would be playing, but then got an ipod handed: go ahead and have a listen. So with a distortion pedal full on during the soundcheck, I decided to do it. It was pretty nerve racking, but its really like improvisation: you just react to what others do and try to stop all at the same time. There is a short film, which I will try to get hold of, but for now Bertin's pictures to proof the event.

Komeet

2010-07-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

I 'forgot' to tell you that the first release by Ezdanitoff was released by My Own Little Label, but this week Redbol, while designing the cover for the Kapotte Muziek 25th anniversary live cd (more later), gave me a bunch of comic books, digitally. Included was Agent 327 and the first one I read was 'Dossier Zevenslaper' and on page one we come across a small tribute to Herge's Ezdanitoff, see picture above. Order a copy of 'Komeet' here

Moon About

2010-06-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

No doubt I get into big trouble for posting this. June 11 at Extrapool Phil Milstein talks about Songpoems. This where people write a lyric and a band plays ad lib music to that. You could get in for free that night by handing a lyric. I was there with Elise, who didn't write anything when entering but then had an idea for a lyric. I wrote it down together with her name and lo and behold it was performed later that evening, of course with her name being part of the lyric. So I repost that song, about a cat, here
The complete concert by Moon About can be heard here

Corona Rewind

2010-06-21T09:54:00.001-07:00

Corona Rewind is the name of my latest release. I have been back in contact with Mark Schomburg, to some better known as Abo, and also the person who released the second Kapotte Muziek 'Utilities' in 1991. Off and on he returns and now he's back releasing tapes on his labels Incubator and Petri Supply. One of his old, ongoing projects is Composcila, in which he send some recording of 'electrical plasma' to the oldest person to remix, which I believe was David Lee Myers. Then it went onto Jeph Jerman, AMK, Achim Wollscheid, me - or maybe in a different order, it has to do birthdays. I remember doing a remix of it by playing a four track tape on end, so the whole remix I did lasts over an hour. I no longer have a copy. But the four track tape I still have, so on queensday I went into my studio and did an impromptu mix of that, resulting in a pretty dense and noisy piece (actually three). Mark did a really nice cover and its available in an edition of 100 copies. No website, but write to Mark: I have no copies (yet) for sale.

A Curious Coincidence

2010-06-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

I could bore you with some talk about how the concerts were in Rotterdam and Venlo (they were great actually, but also tiring, especially a long weekend in Venlo), but this is about something else. My father was born in Venlo and through a surviving brother of his, I found where he was born and which other street they lived. The first curious coincidence is that the B& B Roel and I were staying was on the same street as my father lived after moving from the street he was born. Sunday morning we spend driving to both addresses, and then went for a coffee at Roel's parents, who still are in nearby Velden. We talked a bit about my father and the fact he lived in Venlo and after a while, Roel's father asked me wether I knew 'a Jopie de Waard'. Obviously we referred to him as Joop de Waard, but I am aware in his childhood he was called Jopie. So I said he was my father and it turns out Roel's father and my father went to the same school in their childhood days. What wonders me, later on, is the fact that my father knew Roel Meelkop, but never mentioned he was in a class with Mat Meelkop - I am sure his memory didn't store that after all these years. Now we can no longer ask him.

Rotterdam & Venlo

2010-06-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

Next week I'll be playing a solo concert in Rotterdam at Foundation Bad's Aether #4. Also playing is DJ Pedagog from the UK and the lovely Mariette Groot from the excellent Worm shop tells us about five records that matter. More info here
I'll be staying in Rotterdam so Roel and me can prepare some for our concert(s) in Venlo on the 19th and the 20th. Apparently we play as Zebra on Saturday night and sunday (afternoon?) solo's and a Kapotte Muziek concert. Maybe things are different. The location is De Romijnen. I don't know a website to tell you more about this....

One Other Unpaid Job

2010-06-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

I was out this afternoon cycling. The weather is great, sunny but a bit windy, so my muscles hurt quite a bit. When I got back home the mail had arrived and brought me a copy of 'Transmission Nederlands', a compilation CD by Infrastation. It features The Dutch Cold Wave from 1980 to 1986 with tracks by Bazooka, Catastrophe Bizarre, Coitus Int, Das Wesen, Desert Corbusier, Ensemble Pittoresque, Flue, Mecano, Mekanik Kommando, Nasmak, Neon, Nexda, Pee Dee, Storung, The Gentry, The Visitor, Ton Lebbink and Vice. And 'liner notes' by me. I was in contact with the label when I bought their re-issue of Das Wesen and they asked me to write about this cold wave, which I did on various train journeys in the cold winter of 2010. This is the third release that has my liner notes of this year, and certainly one more to come. Its an unpaid job I like, especially when I can ramble about the old days. Its an excellent comp, great selection, of course its to be debated why these bands and not others, or why these tracks (why 'Stil Thuis' by Ton Lebbink and not his 'Voetbalknieen'). Anyway I recommend you all buy a copy! The liner notes are also on the labels website.

From Last Week

2010-05-30T13:01:00.001-07:00

another video, this time from the jamsession with Roel Meelkop, Claus van Bebber, Staplerfahrer, Wouter Jaspers, made by Joanne Linders, who will organise a concert by Staplerfahrer, Wouter Jaspers and Zebra on June 19th in Venlo

Ezdanitoff

2010-05-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

Its now official, the new name under which Wouter Jaspers and I work together is Ezdanitoff, named after the Tin-tin character. Our concert in Budapest went well, and we did some more hotel room recordings, so except some physical object soon, a 3"CDR 'Komeet' on My Own Little Label.

Sharing...

2010-05-25T04:30:00.000-07:00

Since Ottersum is not easy to be reached, or perhaps some couldn't be bothered, here is the full documentation. The Beequeen concert, the Kapotte Muziek concert and two films for Beequeen.

Its a Fine day:

The Honeythief:

concert this monday

2010-05-12T13:46:00.001-07:00

Ok, no doubt lots of news. We're still working on the new Beequeen CD, my record for Ini.itu is almost completed and in the weekend of the 22 and 23 of May, there is Kapotte Muziek (22), Beequeen (23) and a jamsession with Wouter Jaspers, Roel Meelkop, Staplerfahrer, all at Roepean, see my previous entry. There might be a concert in Venlo as Zebra on the 19th of June.
And, believe it or not, I'm seriously working on a novel. As yet untitled. To be classified as 'Fantasy'. Mainly because I kept telling people it would be easy to write. I like writing this, and have done maybe 1/4, 1/3 of it. I have two co-readers who advise and I read it as story to Elise, who likes it, and said it might be more of youth book thing.
But this monday there is a concert by Origami. Its organised by Ray from the Dots at trianon, down the road from where I life. I am spinning a few records there that night. Its an unlikely place for such a concert, I know, but if you are in the area, drop by!

Interview

2010-04-06T04:20:00.001-07:00

A new interview with me about Korm Plastics just popped online
This afternoon I will hopefully pick up the covers for the next cassette only release (and oh a download somewhere soon), 'Devascapes' by Edward Ka-spel. Limited to 100 copies only, so order today.

Concerts some forthcoming (and some not)

2010-03-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

A brief update on some concerts. Unfortunately the concert in Kalinagrad and the one in Vilnius have been cancelled. Vilnius has no money and in Kalinagrad the venue closed down. Also I was planning a short tour early May with Franz Fjodor/Wouter Jaspers, but in the end only one materialized in Graz. I looked very hard into this and its impossible to get there cheap, unless I take the bike. So that one is cancelled though. The good news is that Wouter and me play in Budapest on May 28th at something that is called 3. Relative (Cross)Hearings International Contemporary Music Meeting. also playing:

28-05-2010

BA Group (H)
Ivan Palacky & Filip Cenek (CZ)
Wouter Jaspers – Frans de Waard (NL)
Orrect LiveAct (H)

29-05-2010
Don't Eat Group feat. Ahad & Christian Skjødt (H/DK)
Violet (USA)
Rinus van Alebeek (D/NL)
Desert Chaos (H)

On May 23rd Wouter and me are part of a sound laboratory in Ottersum together with Roel Meelkop, Claus van Bebber and Steffan de Turck. On the same day, same place Beequeen will also play (full line up including Olga Wallis). Busy day that. More Beequeen concerts are at Lux in Nijmegen (perhaps June 11), together with The Legendary Pink Dots and The Use Of Ashes, also with a full Beequeen line up. Much later on, 12th November 2010 we play with Beequeen in Wroclaw. Depending on the cost of the travel there will be just me and Freek - we'll see. In November I might be delivering a talk about cassette releases from a historical perspective at Strp (if it happens) as well as solo tour in the UK. Get in contact if you think you can be of any help.

Second Life

2010-03-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

Last year I started to work with the IODA who are handling worldwide online sales of MP3s. Much of the Korm Plastics is available through their sources (Itunes, Amazon, Emusic and such like). Today I added some more, including many items from old releases which are long gone (such as releases on Bake Records and Microwave), so a second life for this great music. Here's a complete list of what is currently available:

- The entire Moll catalogue except Moll 036
- Goem albums "Reduktie", "Disco", "Lokatie", "FDW - Japan 2007"
- Freiband albums "Homeward", "Microbes"
- Beequeen albums 'Treatise', 'Sugarbush', 'Der Holzweg - 13th Anniversary Edition', "Seltenturm - Beesides 1989-2000", 'Gund"
- Quest albums 'Hic Locus Quest', 'Q.E.D.', 'The First Hour', "Recovered Files"
- Kapotte Muziek albums 'The Malevolent Ear', "Curing Without Killing", "Add"
- The Tobacconists 7"
- Mirko Uhlig's "VIVMMI"
- Frans de Waard albums "Omgeving", "Vijf Profielen", "Trein", "Klankschap 1999 - 2005"
- Edward Ka-spel "Trapped in Amber / Christmas on the Moon"
- "The Year 25 - 25 Years Of Korm Plastics"
- Francisco Lopez/Richard Francis - In De Blaauwe Hand
- Andrea Belfi/Machinefabriek - Pulses & Places
- Surge "Landslide" and "First"
- ~Slo-fi album from Microwave
- Captain Black - "Light The Pipe"
- De Fabriek - Neveleiland
- Felix Kubin & Coolhaven - Suppe Für Die Nacht
- Flim - "Holiday Diary" & "Ohne Titel 1916"
- Frank Bretschneider & Peter Duimelinks - "Fflux"
- Giuseppe Ielasi & Howard Stelzer - "Night Life"
- Greg Malcolm & Tetuzi Akiyama - "Six Strings"
- Joe Colley & Jason Lescalleet - "Annihilate This Week"
- Ralf Wehowsky & Johannes Frisch - "Tränende Würger"
- Jon Mueller & Martijn Tellinga - "Bowl, Hellicopter"
- Kapotte Muziek by Toshiya Tsunoda
- Kapotte Muziek by Peter Rehberg
- Kodi & Pausa - "In One Week And New Toys To Play"
- Paul Panhuysen - "A Magic Square Of 5 To Look At"
- Pick-up - "Loop End"
- Shifts - "Seven Dots", "Mechanica", "Afterthought 1-8"
- Kapotte Muziek by Stephan Mathieu
- Steve Roden & Jason Kahn - "Shimmer / Flicker / Waver / Quiver"
- The Legendary Pink Dots - "Crushed Mementos"
- Kapotte Muziek by Thurston Moore
- Epitaph For John

Korm Plastics 25!

2010-02-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

A busy week this is. Two concerts/events by Kapotte Muziek, celebrating 25 years of great music with visits from Howard Stelzer, Radboud Mens, DJ DMDN, Jos Smolders and Asmus Tietchens (only in Nijmegen) and Asra (in Amsterdam). In Extrapool there will be a small exhibition of CD/LP/Cassette covers and posters, and the first 25 paying customers get a free CD. That night is also the official launch of the another celebration, 25 years of Korm Plastics. The only thing I'm doing for that is to release a casstte, just like I started the label in 1984: a compilation. Its already out, so have peep here. It looks absolutely great! Also there are three new releases on My Own Little Label, including a collaboration 3"CDR with Machinefabriek, from our joint set from last week in Berlin. Have a look and listen here.

Koken Met Sneeuw

2010-02-03T07:25:00.001-08:00

Just back from my studio where I am busy preparing a so-called piece for 2010. I have serious intentions of playing live more than I did, solo or otherwise and therefore I am preparing one piece which is kinda open ended, leaving room for various interpretations. It will be not an exclusive laptop thing - we've seen that, right? - but also involves cassettes, contact microphones, an organ and a crackle box. The 'premiere' (ho-hum) will be on the 13th in Berlin as part of a Staalplaat showcase together with Machinefabriek. Rutger and I intend to play together as well, 'OHUA' live. Following concerts are planned in Vilnius (april 30th), Kallingrad (perhaps April 28th) and in may with Franz Fjodor on a small tour (please let me know if you want to book this tour!). And hopefully many more. So I got back home and found a CD 'Oude Koeien' by Roel Meelkop in the mail, which basically has the four records I released from Roel on Korm Plastics, plus his 7" of Beequeen reworking and a new piece. I wrote the liner notes for this, called 'Koken Met Sneeuw' - its been a harsh winter! Buy a copy of it today!

The 2009 Shareholders report

2009-12-31T01:58:00.000-08:00

Of all the things from 2009 the photo above shows the best thing. Scott and me in Germany with Till Kniola. A photo taken by Asmus Tietchens. The Tobacconists on tour in Europe. Smoking and drinking. Scott and I made what we think is a great Lp, and hopefully will be released somewhere in 2010. That was absolutely the highlight of the year. Other great things were the recent Zebra gig in Brussels (and also seeing A Certain Ratio a day later), Kapotte Muziek gigs in Leuven and St. Petersburg. Some fine releases on :Zang and Korm Plastics. I wish sales would have been better for some releases, but then its the economy, stupid. Next year there will be a concert in Enschede with Roel on January 13th, Rote Salon (Berlin) on February 13th (i hope that's not an unlucky coincidence), some shows with Franz Fjodor in May in Austria, and maybe Lithuania in April. We'll see. 'Dialogues' should be out on CD by Entr'acte, hopefully that Tobacconists LP, new work by them in the pipeline with Asmus Tietchens, Freek and I should conclude the next Beequeen CD, the Kapotte Muziek 25th anniversary event at Extrapool on February 26 (inc Howard Stelzer, Radboud Mens and more), repeated on the 28th at Occii in Amsterdam. And Korm Plastics will exist for 25 years also, so there will be a nice compilation cassette, which is now more or less half way being finished. I'm sure there is more, but I'll think of that another time.

ACR Last week

2009-12-20T06:13:00.001-08:00

The Old & The New

2009-12-15T03:27:00.001-08:00

Zebra headed to Brussels for two missions. The first was on friday night at The Public School. Kosten Koper organised a class about Martin Hannett. He compiled a film displaying various interesting angles about the late great producer. Then it was time for some live music. First I played 'One [Live] Aspect', using the 'In the Studio with Joy Division' as the source material, which went well, I think. Complete darkness made it not easy to see what I was doing, but perhaps that's part of the fun. After the break and more red wine, Zebra played their piece. We added a third part to what we already planned earlier and Roel and me think its a damn fine piece. Kosten Koper provided some light-show. First mission was succesful. The next day we walked all the way to the former Expo 58 site and looked at the Atomium. Nice building indeed. In the evening we walked to Plan K, a legendary place. Here Joy Division played the first time outside the UK, former home of Factory Benelux and Les Disques Du Crepuscule and god knows what else. On the programm was a Factory Night. Although we arrived quite late, we were still in time to catch the opening act, The Names (with a strings). The strings didn't add much, I think and it was more or less alright. The Wake followed. They were alright too, I guess, until some female keyboard player was added, and they looked and sounded like early New Order, but not as good. Back in the day I never heard Biting Tongues, who arrived too late in the 80s to catch my attention, but who were actually great. No wave funk music. Section 25 sounded more together than a year ago, but still the lyrics had to read off paper, which looked silly. Quite loud, heavy on the guitar. The main attraction, at least for Roel and me, was A Certain Ratio, who, despite some technical troubles, delivered an excellent set, highlighting their best songs: 'Do The Du', 'Shack Up', 'Flight', 'Knife Slits Water', 'Mind Made Up' and ending with an excellent 'Sir Fermir O Grido'. Our third companion Rincke has a small video of that which, once I have it, I'll put on youtube and here too.

Radio Beirut

2009-12-11T01:43:00.000-08:00

While browsing around looking for something I came across the BeirutFM radio sessions, an Italian programm, which broadcasts some nice music, including, lo & behold, all MOLL releases. Check out this:

live streaming, monday h. 20:35

blog

MOLL page

Klankschap 1999-2005

2009-11-28T03:26:00.000-08:00

Of course I knew yesterday that I would write again today, because I knew Sindre Bjerga and Jan-M Iversen, who played quite a nice set at Extrapool, were bringing a box of copies of my second (!) CD under my own name, 'Klankschap 1999-2005'. They hail from Stavanger and so is the label, :Zang who released this. Ok, I'll admit straight I fucked up. First of all 1999 is wrong, it should have been 2001 actually. I e-mailed back and forth with the :Zang guys about possible tracks, but I am pretty sure somewhere in the later mails I mentioned 2001. That's one. The second mistake is my own, it spells 'Werplaats #1' but in the finer print below, so you see it called 'Werkplaats #1', as should be. Otherwise, otherwise, I am very pleased with this. The six pieces are from that period in which I more and more started to work with field recordings (let's safely say from 1999, some of the sounds used) and had this idea for pieces with them. If a piece is called something like 'Wind' or 'Regen', it means nothing was done with it, but if it has the title 'Klankschap' its actually a collage of various bits. Later on I extended it with other titles. So on this CD, the opening and closing pieces are 'Werkplaats 1 and 2', based on sounds from various workshops Kapotte Muziek did over the years (since 1997), a bit similar to Roel's 'Workshop' piece on the split LP with me for Stichting Mixer. 'Klankschap #9' is a long, mostly soft piece of wind and sea sounds recorded in the small village of Veere, where my daughter Elise lives. Then there is the short piece 'Epitaph', which has sounds from John Watermann, for our unfinished collaboration, and that were later used for 'Epitaph For John'. Klankschap is a somewhat shorter studio version of a concert I did at JNR Record store in Tokyo, in 2001 for a very small audience. I always like that piece, but the recording I made over there wasn't great and perhaps a bit long. The first four pieces can very well be enjoyed as four pieces, but also as one I think. The fifth piece is 'Ramp', the Dutch word for 'Disaster', but of course a road thingy in English. In 2002 Kapotte Muziek toured the USA a bit with Jason Talbot and Howard Stelzer, in a small car and played a few times with the five of us, which we could 'Ramp' among ourselves. My piece here is an edit of various recordings we made that tour and originally everyone was going to do one, but I think in the end just Roel and me finished one. A more electronic piece at times, but also contact microphone stuff and field recordings, it fits well into this collection. It ends with 'Werkplaats #2', which puts you back to earth. Get a copy today! From me or from zang (www.zang.no). Thanks to Helge Olav, Pal Asle, Jan M and Sindre for this!

Martin

2009-11-27T05:10:00.000-08:00

On December 12th at Plan K in Brussels there is a Factory night with A Certain Ratio, Section 25 and whole bunch more. See here The night before Kosten Koper organises a small event about Martin Hannett, my favourite producer. Since I released 'Martin - Seven [New] Aspects' in 2004 on Tib Prod he asked me to come and do something. Its unclear as yet wether I have to play the CD or do something new (which I hope for), but later that evening Zebra will perform their own take on the work of Hannett. Roel and me prepared a thing already a few weeks ago, which I think is pretty great. It'll be the first Zebra concert in two years. Since the 3"CDR on Tib Prod is sold out, I decided to re-issue it on My Own Little Label, ready today, just in time to give one to Jan-M Iversen of Tib Prod, who will play at Extrapool tonight. More information on the Brussels' class here

Around The Corner

2009-11-10T04:16:00.000-08:00

Today I receive some copies of the latest issue of Gonzo Circus, with the 'luistertest' they did with me. A kind a like the invisible jukebox of The Wire, where people have to guess what is what and expand on that. The free CD comes with an exclusive eleven piece piece by Pick-up. The writer of the article Alex van der Hulst just send me the picture above, taken from Google view just around the corner where I live. Fucking hell! That's me and Elise. Big brother all around.

You Can't Put A Price (Prize?) On Beauty

2009-10-26T13:29:00.001-07:00

New releases then, for every wallet on. First, the normal prized item of today is the great first 7" by The Tobacconists. One track Scott and me recorded while the first was still in Nijmegen, using samples of that great DRS. P, a personal favorite of mine. Meeuw did a great cover, re-doing our favorite smokes from Russia (see above). Press voice for this:

THE TOBACCONISTS - THE DARK SECRETS OF DOCTOR PERATI / PROMETHEUS (7" by Plinkity Plonk)
The Tobacconists are no other than Frans de Waard (some of you may have heard of him) and Scott Foust (some of you may have heard of him as well), both of them notorious smokers and versatile musicians. The first quality is aptly expressed in the design based on Russia's cheapest pack of smokes, Belamor Kanal: very nice indeed. The last quality is expressed aptly as well on this 7". The side called 'The dark secrets of doctor Perati' is a kind of drony piece with long stretched synth sounds, but layered in that are all kinds of acoustic elements, varying from squeaking doors (?) to rhythmic pulses and with a great ending! The other side, 'Prometheus', sounds more open and dynamic, almost like a radioplay. The combination of both sides works well and offers a good impression of what
these two smokers can achieve. Certainly just as good as their 3"! (MG)

Available from info@kormplastics.nl

A bit more expensive and a bit more limited is the LP by Wander on Beam End of which this is the official press release:

WANDER – WANDER
Beam Ends records is proud to announce the release of the latest release by Wander (Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar of Beequeen). Like all previous albums, and, indeed, all tracks by Wander this is entitled WANDER.
We have done our best to make this new Wander album a special one. WANDER consists of the following: a clear vinyl (so NOT a Peter King/Lathe cut) hand-pressed album, which plays from the label to the rim (instead of the other way around), presented in back paper insert with Wander "band" shirt in a hand-made blue boxset (made by the same company that produced the boxes for Raymond Dijkstra and the recent Flawed Existence box by Nurse With Wound). Of this set only 10 (ten) copies were produced, signed and numbered by the makers.
The album features two tracks of beautiful drone ambience.
The price of this set is 100 Euros, excluding shipping to your location. Even though we realize this is a lot of money, we do feel this is worth the package. With 2 copies in our archives, this leaves 8 copies for sale. This is surely the most luxurious and most limited release by Beam Ends records so far.
You can order your copy via info@beequeen.nl

3 copies are sold already.

But if you have no money, then point your browser here
and get a free download from the Freiband concert from last thursday.

A Peter Zincken has just released a 3CDR set which is no doubt the best anthology of current Dutch noise, called Nedernoise. Kapotte Muziek has a track on there too...

Forthcoming Gigs

2009-10-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

Two gigs are forthcoming. First one is this week at Amsterdam's Occi, where I'll play a short concert at an evening which also includes Z'EV/KK Null, who are now recording at my Extrapool studio for a Brombon CD, Starving Weirdos and Nudge. It opens at 20:00 and I'm on at say 22:00. On wednesday KK Null and Z'EV play at Extrapool, on an evening with Stephan Mathieu.
The flyer you see if for a two day event in Den Haag. Kapotte Muziek will play on the fifth of November. Details on the the flyer, I guess.

Radio Activity

2009-10-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

My upstair neighbour is on holiday, so I am allowed to read his evening newspaper and his radio/tv guide (now there is a true nothing going on type of blogging), and what i do see, this saturday on VPRO radio 6? Cafe Sonore (which I remember as a real Cafe thing, where we played with Goem, Kapotte Muziek and Freiband) presents an hour of material recorded at Worm, recorded April of this year. The guide says: "The Tobacconists are Scott Foust (from a.o. The Idea Fire Company) and Frans de Waard (from a.o. Kapotte Muziek). After 20 years these two icons of the alternative electro scene play together again". H-ho-ho. You can tune in later if you want, it will be online after the 11th. I thought I had some nice pictures from this concert which Radboud made, but alas no more...

He's A Model...

2009-10-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Media attention for me! At last. Above you see the cover of the October number of a Russian magazine, which is called Electronic Music. Its not an independent magazine anymore, but a magazine in a magazine. It has a seven page article, basically based on the talk Roel and I did last at the Theremin Center of
Electroacoustic Music at Moscow State P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Vlad recorded it all, all three hours!, and worked into an article. Maybe if there is a translation I'll share it.
Last week Alex van der Hulst was here to do a 'luistertest' with me for the next issue of Gonzo Circus. Its something similar to 'The Invisible Jukebox' the Wire does. I didn't recognize my own remix of Andrew Liles, shame on me. I won't spoil the rest. There is going to be an exclusive Pick-up track on the Mind The Gap CD that will come alone with that magazine.
And since yesterday I have a new blog! check it out

More Handwork...

2009-09-21T09:25:00.001-07:00

This picture shows a bit of my floor where I laid out the 7" of The Tobacconists that arrived today. I am handstamping both sides with the title, plus on the b-side the catalogue number: 100 have 'plink 24' and 100 have 'swill 031', since its a co-release with Scott Foust's Swill Radio label. And so, I pressed 200. Covers should be here this week. Officially its out when I also release a LP by Edward Ka-spel and Mirko Uhlig, somewhere next month, but if you can't wait order a copy straight away. Its one piece Scott and I recorded when he was here, and one 'through mail'. Great pieces but that might be my own clouded opinion.

Fold/Unfold

2009-09-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Its tedious, I know, but I keep forgetten to post something here. Things have been busy with three new CDs: two in the Brombron series, by Andrea Belfi/Machinefabriek and Francisco Lopez/Richard Francis and 3"CD (not a CDR) by Freiband/Bass Communion. I am, as we speak (?) still folding the covers for the Brombron CDs, a small nightmare work. Also Beequeen's 'Ownliness' has been pressed by Infraction, with a better cover, no bonus tracks. All can be yours at Korm Plastics, the number one for shopping excellent music.
I completed, today in fact, a small tribute for a Phill Niblock for an Austrian compilation and still working on a split LP with Howard Stelzer and that gamelan LP.
A forthcoming concert is on October 22nd at OCCII in Amsterdam. I'll be taking KK Null/Z'EV there who will have completed a Brombron CD then. I hope. I have no ideas yet, but perhaps its going to be a Freiband concert.
On October 1st I will start an archival blog for Kapotte Muziek, which exists then for 25 years and post on relevant dates music and images. Perhaps I am better at that when there is some pressure?

Wander

2009-08-08T03:05:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. Late, late. But I always seem to forget to type a few lines here and there. Anyway, two great new Wander releases. We broke with our rule of one release per format, as Divine Frequency just released the 2nd full length release by Wander. Freek and I recorded this work last year, more or less in one go, using lots of tracks filled with warm analogue sounds. In the months after that I mixed it at home and John Deek of Divine Frequency, who asked us to do a CD for his label already some years ago, wanted to release this. Jake Blanchard made some nice drawing of the cover and Jos Smolders' mastering brought out tones I didn't hear before.

In that process of mastering Jos sent me some audio file which me, a total nitwit when it comes to all things computer wise, couldn't get rightly burned, but somehow this odd piece comes up in Itunes and a total noise mayhem of the CD is played. Of course I recorded all of this and Freek and I did wander into noise land for a nice 3"CDR for RONF Records, in an edition of 50. The cover shows a naked lady, like before, but wrongly downloaded too. Probably an one-off execursion in the field of noise for us.
Right now Freek and I are recording two new Wander pieces, to be released on Beam End as LP (8 minutes per side), spinning from within outwards, and to be released in an edition of 10. Possibly with the official Wander T-shirt. Most likely to be 100 euros a piece. And then we should get cracking at the next Beequeen CD for which some ideas have been recorded already.
I should be working on a LP for Ini.itu with gamelan music as the starting point and looking at the archive recordings I think I may want to do a Freiband noise work of some kind.
ZXZW from Tilburg are now called Incubate and this change also saw the change of their programm. The 25th anniversary of Kapotte Muziek is not happening there. They rather disconnected themselves from underground/counter culture in favor of being just another 'alternative' rock festival. So fuck them. I hate anything alternative and rock. We now will do the festival in whatever form at Extrapool and perhaps a few other places.
Soon, I'll be releasing a Brombron CD by Francisco Lopez/Richard Francis, and one by Machinefabriek/Andrea Belfi, a 3" CD (not CDR) by Freiband/Bass Communion and a great 7" by The Tobacconists.
I put a new floor in my house and a high bed for Elise. And its my birthday today. August 8, which is 2x4, which means I'm now 44. Oh dear. Time for a drink.

Back Up

2009-06-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

So we had a great and tiring time in St. Petersburg and it happened that Roel asked me again if I had the master CDR of his second 7" for Korm Plastics. He is compiling a CD of various vinyl releases for Korm Plastics, and I already searched for it. So when coming back, I looked and looked again. No luck there, but what annoyed me is that I have some sound carriers (DATs, CDRs, Mini Discs, Cassettes) with my own music, and since a big external hard drive doesn't cost that much it seems logical to put all on one drive. That's been a my main activity for 3 weeks now, copying and transferring all recordings known to mankind of Frans de Waard. Cassettes are the last, working on that now. Its now almost 300 gigabyte, but the good thing is that I found some interesting unreleased works, so perhaps I will release some historical material somehow somewhere. This lead to making one text file with my entire discography. When that is ready for the public eye, I'll post it. All of this work means postponing the work that needs to start on a Frans de Waard CD for :zang (which is a collection of old work), a gamelan LP for ini.itu and some Haters tribute John Wiese just asked me for. By sheer coincidence I found a tape I did with his old flexi, so I'll rework that in a short piece for him. The first thing to be done on the list. Any aspiring CDR labels looking for some old unreleased Quest music, harsh noise by Kapotte Muziek and such like, feel free to contact me: frans@beequeen.nl

All Sorts Of New & Old Things

2009-05-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

A bunch of new things happen or about to happen. First of all, Important Records released 'Mouthless', the long awaited LP by Pick-up, and effectively the first one Martin and me recorded. 100 copies are on orange vinyl and 200 on black vinyl, the latter may sound better. I don't know. Last week Martin and I played our second concert, in Theater Kikker in Utrecht and it fared much better than the first one. People enjoyed it very much and we are invited to play another 15 minute concert on June 6th.
At the end of this week I, together with Peter and Roel, will be off for one concert as Kapotte Muziek in St. Petersburg. The Experimental Sound Gallery exists for ten years and we are invited again, simply because they liked us so much last year.

Today I received a copy of 'Microbionic - Radical Electronic Music and Sound Art In The 21st Century', a hardcover book, 216 pages, written by Thomas Bey William Bailey. I haven't read it all of course, obviously (as I'm busy scanning stuff for a book on The Haters to be put out by John Wiese). There is no index and I guess there is not a lot of me in it, but the first 300 copies come with a free CD, which includes 'zes' from 'Stud Stim' by Goem, finally regarded as a classic I guess. The content of the book is about bigger names (like Carsten Nicolai, Leif Elggren, Merzbow, Pita and such like), but judging by its content it is quite interesting - a sure thing to read on the airplane? Thomas' next book will be about independent music releases and will have some more on my work. Get it here

And speaking about re-issues, I bought a CD of Das Wesen 'Embracing All, Vansihing All'. Das Wesen was from Nijmegen and releases three 12" records, which are all on this CD, but their split 7" with Bazooka is missing, unfortunally. Quite a nice imitation of Joy Division this band. Apparently the label will may be also be releasing Bazooka, a fellow Nijmegen band, so hopefully a complete job there.

Re-issues

2009-05-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

Normally I don't buy many CDs, but I do. Sometimes. Here I share some of my enthusiasm for some, plus some remarks. Recently I heard about 'World Of Rubber' by Second Layer being re-issued, by the original label Cherry Red. Great news. I tried to release it myself, as I think its a classic album of rhythm machines, furious guitars and great vocals - Adrian Borland's pet project as you may recall. I got the CD and it has the album, great, an unreleased piece, fine, but not the two earlier 7inches, which in my opinion could have easily fitted on there. The band did nothing else, so why this omission?
Also on Cherry Red is 'Acting On Impulse', 'the best of Five Or Six'. Now I think their entire recorded career could have easily fitted on a 2CD set, and it would be make an utter brilliant collection. I spoke with various members about it, and they would love that, but Cherry Red is against it, mainly because 'Another Reason' was used in some TV ad. O.k. so the best of has songs we have on CD already, like 'Portrait' and 'Theme' and some that weren't. This collection of merely ten songs show their brilliance, but it makes you curious about the rest. None of 'A Happy & Thriving Land' LP on here. A missed oppurtunity.
The best re-issue I recently bought is also something I wanted to put out myself, being a 2CD by Rotterdams The Rondos. One CD with all their releases on vinyl (well, except The Rotterdam Collection) and one CD with a rough live recording. The box comes with an extensive photo book, a comic, lyric book and a historical book. 'Mao? How could we know he was wrong?'. No, I don't agree with some of the lyrical content of The Rondos, but their music is all its simplicity still brilliant, especially the LP 'A Black & White Statement'. Cardboard sound, but with great energy. The lyrics... well, you should take those for granted. Merely 30 euros for a great box. get it here

Yesterday

2009-05-03T04:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I played a ten minute piece at the opening of the new print place of Knust/Extrapool here in Nijmegen. Totally empty space, but to give an idea how the space would sound with print machines in it, I created a piece with recordings I made (years ago) of various machines and two synths. Sounds bounced in all sides and the recording I made is a bit distorted, but hopefully I will get a better one from Jan van den Dobbelsteen and I may release it as a 3", along with a studio mix of the material. By far the loudest thing I did in years, making some small boy cry - sorry about that. The picture here was taken by Danielle Lemaire.

A small nice piece on our Tobacconists London show can be found here with a link also to the Entr'acte site for some hidious picture of me.

Smokers Age Faster

2009-04-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

Lots of action going on the last month, which I may easily call my busiest month ever. Of course there was Scott Foust, with whom I played as The Tobacconists nine shows in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the UK. Thanks to everyone involved in organising that. We had a great time. Also Scott & I recorded the same material for a LP release, some day somewhere. The 3"CDR which we sold on the road will be sold until I have no more covers. The above photo is by Ini.itu (for whom I will record a LP actually soon), made at the Bozar in Brussels.

On the release front there has been a fantastisc 2LP/10" by Bass Communion. The 10" contains 'Haze Shrapnel', and the Freiband remix thereof. Limited to 500 copies.

Sietse van Erve's Moving Furniture label released a Freiband CDR, called 'True Type', containing all four MP3 releases Freiband ever did, and I always wanted them to be released on a real CD(R).

Jake Blanchard designed the cover for the next Wander CD (out next month) and he also compiled a CD with a live cut by Beequeen ('Honeythief' from our show at Worm), and has pieces by bands I never heard of, such as Cam Deas, Hush Arbors, Winter Drones, Rivultes, The Skygreen Leopards, MV & EE With The Golden Road, Spoono, Jerusalem And The Starbaskets and Ben Nash.

The next gigs are:

May 2nd a short gig at the opening of 'De Broek' in Nijmegen at Knust printplace
May 7th Kapotte Muziek at 't Stuk in Leuven, Belgium
May 19th Pick-up at Theater Kikker in Utrecht
May 30th Kapotte Muziek at GAS in St-Petersburg, Russia

This speaks for itself

2009-03-25T04:21:00.001-07:00

More tour info

2009-03-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

As far as I can see this will be the tour with Scott, not all places are known yet, but who knows: maybe you know if you live in one of these cities.

march
28 Extrapool, Nijmegen (Here's To Love)
april
03 013, Tilburg (The Tobacconists concert and more)
04 De Player, Rotterdam (Here's To Love)
05 Worm, Rotterdam (The Tobacconists concert and more)
07 bremen
08 Rote Flora, Hamburg
09 Tilburg (The Four Accomplishments performance, Here's To Love)
10 Vrijhaven, Den Haag (Here's To Love, The Tobacconists concert)
14 Leverkussen (The Tobacconists concert) ?
15 Ludwig Museum, Cologne (Here's To Love, Frans as DJ, Asmus Tietchens concert)
17 Antwerpen (The Four Accomplishments performance, Here's To Love)
18 Extrapool, Nijmegen (The Tobacconists concert)
24 CinémaBozar, Brussels (The Tobacconists)
25 London Divus Gallery (The Tobacconists)
26 London Divus Gallery (HTL! & TFA)

The Four Accomplishments is a solo performance by Scott, Here's To Love is a screening of Scott's feature film and The Tobacconists is, well, Scott and me playing new music.

Smoking Kills

2009-03-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

Above is the first flyer I seen about the forthcoming tour with Scott Foust. He's over in April, and we have some gigs together as The Tobacconists. When he's here, we'll writing some songs to play live during a four day marathon song writing session and then the first gig will in Tilburg, of which is the flyer above. Other dates look like this:

28 March Extrapool, Nijmegen (film)
3 013, Tilburg (Tobacconists)
4 de player film
5 Worm, Rotterdam (Tobacconists)
13 Bremen (Tobacconists) ?
14 Leverkussen (Tobacconists) ?
15 Cologne? (Tobacconists)
16 Cologne?(Tobacconists)
17 antwerp
18 Extrapool, Nijmegen (Tobacconists)
24 CinémaBozar (Bxl)
25 London Divus Gallery (Tobacconists)
26 London Divus Gallery (HTL! & TFA)

plus perhaps dates in Den Haag, Vlissingen, Groningen and perhaps others

This Tape Is Supposed To Be About Love

2009-03-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

The diehard Beequeen fans of course recognize this as the opening quote by Edie Sedgwick on 'The Edie Three Step' from Sandancing. Important Records imprec 200 is a sampler which people get free with a purchase, or if you want to buy it for 2 dollars or so, and like with imprec 100, Beequeen is on it. Totally unaware of this of course, but fine enough. The quote is actually on the disc face, which is something we are quite proud of. And, more good news, the second Pick-up LP should be out in a matter of days. Also on Important Records.

The OId, The New & The Digital

2009-02-14T03:14:00.000-08:00

I released three new small, lovely (obviously) 3"CDRs on My Own Little Label. The first is a re-issue of 'Atem', the longest piece Beequeen ever submitted to a compilation,'Guru Means Slayer Of Darkness', back in 1996 on Manifold. Its been out of print for quite some time, but both me and Freek think this is a great old, and lost Beequeen piece, so we decided to re-issue it. It was made back when I lived in Den Haag, and uses multiple layers of a ventilator and a heating system. A fine lively drone piece.

The second release is also a re-issue of 2003 Freiband piece. It was back then released by Poland's Mik Musik, and part of a series of five (if I am not mistaken) remixes of source material I totally forgot about. Its a seventeen minute piece of laptop music processing.

My concert from last week in Heerlen. In 2008 I composed three pieces for compilations which all deal with the sound of hiss from old cassettes, and some 'field recordings' from faulty cassette mechanisms. Two of those pieces have been released already, on 'Lasting' and 'Tabl For Six', and the third will come later this year on a new UK label. All of the elements of those elements are reconfigured in 'Heerlen Hiss' and the recording is a mixture of a line recording I made myself and a live recording giving to me by Edward Ka-spel.

And if that isn't enough, I decided to put up some pieces as digital only releases.

This is also from last week's concert, where I played 'Spaarzaam' for a second time, so its a bit useless to release that on 3"CD. I don't like MP3s, so I put them up as a FLAC, but then I realized I may have some interesting pieces, so also the live recording from 'O Tannebaum' and 'Tonspur' are there.

All of this can be found here and here

I'm Sure Its On The DVD

2009-02-12T04:33:00.000-08:00

A bit of surprise recentely when I found out that 12K/Line were producing a DVD with a video piece by Sue Costabile, with music by Beequeen. That was created in 2005 for Tri-mix, and already released by Innova, but apparently Sue gave this to Richard Chartier who curated an exhibition called 'Colorfield Variations'. Actually no big deal for us at all, since we are proud to be part of a line up with: Steve Roden, Alan Callander, Frank Bretschneider, Stephan Mathieu, TeZ, Tina Frank + General Magic, Bas Van Koolwijk, Chris Carter + Cosey Fanni Tutti, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Sawako, Evelina Domnitch + Dmitry Gelfand, Ernest Edmonds + Mark Fell. Its a great DVD with many interesting films and music. I have some copies for sale in case anyone wants one. More info here

Hiss

2009-02-06T03:20:00.000-08:00

In about exactly 28 minutes from now I'm going by train to Heerlen to play a concert. I prepared for the Freiband set the usual Tonspur 2 piece and to make a difference with the Frans de Waard set I decided to play 'Spaarzaam' once again as Freiband. As Frans de Waard I prepared a new piece, called for now 'Heerlen Hiss' and its based on three pieces I recorded last year, all dealing with hiss taped from old cassettes. One of those pieces is already released on the EE Tapes compilation, and then one will be on a CD compilation from the UK, somewhere this year. The third piece 'Nijmegen Hiss' is released this week on a cassette compilation called 'Lasting', the final cassette release by Swill Radio, featuring those fine young man and women as Foust, Karla Borecky, Graham Lambkin, Emeralds, BRRR, Dead Girl's Party, Tim Gross, Asmus Tietchens, Ian Middleton, Vikki Jackman, Weyes Bluhd, Matt Krefting, The Collection Of The Late Howell Bend, Andrew Chalk and Idea Fire Company. A fine piece of work, and Scott thinks that cassettes will soon be no longer manufactured.
Oh and speaking of Scott Foust, he's going to be in Europe in April to screen 'Here's To Love' and we'll be playing together as The Tobacconists. I am very excited about this (although A Certain Ratio are playing in Tilburg on the 3rd of April, which I shouldn't miss). If anyone out there has more ideas where we can play, please contact me!
Lunhare from Italy already re-issued 'E.A.R.' by Kapotte Muziek, which was succesfull enough for them to ask me for another re-issue. 'EGG' contains three old tapes: Electrocute (which was already re-issued on 'Five Tapes' 2CDR by Korm Plastics, but no doubt no longer available. Latest news is that Staalplaat lost all printwork for their CDR labels, can you believe it?), Gematria and Gilles De Rais, which makes up a nice collection of my early work with the sadly missed Christian Nijs, who sings on one track - the even more sad 'Death Is No Life To Come'. I have some copies to sell of course, but you can always contact the label.

IJzig Vuur On You Tube

2009-01-28T14:00:00.001-08:00

Moll! & Forthcoming Gig

2009-01-21T13:57:00.000-08:00

After six months of silence I finally released two new works on My Own Little Label. The first is a business card with "Profieldeel Zeven", the soundtrack to a film by Jan Kees Helms, which now runs in Amersfoort as part of an exhibition. Once I have the You Tube for the film, I'll post that. The sounds were all recorded as part of 'Vijf Profielen' back in 2005, but a new configuration was made, hence number seven. Then I also released on a 3"CDR 'Verval', a slightly edited version of the live recording from Extrapool on January 10th. If you search for Tape Treff on You Tube there are various films about this event. I recommend the one by Florian Cramer, which is very 80s in editing approach.

Here is the also the flyer for a concert next month in Heerlen. I'll be playing two sets, one as Frans de Waard and one as Freiband. Robert Curgenven will also play. Come and see!

Tape Treff Again

2009-01-13T10:54:00.001-08:00

and more films on Tape Treff also on You Tube

A Concentration Of Work

2009-01-12T02:34:00.001-08:00

Very much like concentrated light, a lot of things came together. First there was the release of our long awaited split CDR Kapotte Muziek/Richard Ramirez. We use some of his sound material at our concert in Strahlsund 2004, which Peter later edited, and Ramirez used, if I am not mistaken a live recording from Dallas 1993. I might be wrong. Nice semi professional digipack release by Licht-ung
Then, on saturday I received 'f' in the Zelphabet series. I am on there, along with Francisco Lopez, Fin and Failing Objects. Quite proud of that. On sunday I travelled to Tilburg for my first studio recording with THU20. This is for the Zelphabet volume 't', which leaves us some to work on it more. In 8 hours we finished more or less 6 minutes, with ten more to go. Pictures etc here
In between I played a concert at Extrapool, at Tape Treff, an evening about cassettes. Though these days hi-jacked by not always stable noise makers who think its still shocking to run around naked and throwing up on microphones *yawn*. I played a new thing called 'Verval': it starts out with a regular sound from my laptop, which is picked up by three microphones on three individual cassette players. Then one is stopped and that sound is then played, then a second, then the third, but by then the first is recording again. The room becomes the resonating box and the cassette the processor of the sound. The recordings are ok, so yeah I may release them on My Own Little Label.

What's Another Year? - It Was 2008

2008-12-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

If you have been reading this years entries on this blog, you may think you don't need to read this years report. You could do just as well do read it. I don't think 2008 was any spectacular year, just another year, like so many. But surely some nice things were done.

Releases: there were many releases with my music and I must say I am still proud of them all. No highlights per se, as they are all highlights. The latest Beequeen, the first Zebra CD, the releases by Pick-up, the various releases by Freiband. All mighty fine.

In 2009 there will be more releases, such as the long awaited 'Mouthless' LP by Pick-up on Important Records and hopefully a third and fourth LP. The third one is done now, and had interest from a label, but we didn't hear back from them; work on the fourth one has started. In disrespect of what Wander said, one release per format, there will be a second CD, this time for Divine Frequencies, all played on analogue synths and some field recordings. Wander will also indulge in a 3"CDR with their one and only excursion in noiseland. No label yet. More releases on My Own Little Label, after a six month rest. Roel and me already did a bit of work on a new CD by Zebra, and have serious plans for a great christmas 7".

Concerts: highlight was of course the trip to Russia, apart from two trips into Germany, the only foreign expedition done. Fine gigs were also Freiband and Beequeen in Maastricht, the odd small concert at O Tannebaum and in Leeuwarden. Things could have been better at Extrapool, Lux and Worm, oh well. I wish I didn't went to Eindhoven. Next year, I have a concert on the 10th of January in Extrapool with a few cassette machines and perhaps on the 5th of february in Heerlen. I'd love to play out more. Contact me!

The Labels. Again proud of all releases I did this year, 'Outwaard' by Z'EV, 'Dislocation' by The Hafler Trio, 'Tilburg' by THU20, 'Loop End' by Pick-up and all the MOLL releases. Best sold release of this year was the 3"CDR by Bass Communion and Freiband, no surprise there. It will be released as 10inch vinyl by Tone Float early 2009 as part of a bigger package with other Bass Communion works on vinyl. Plans for releases include a new Brombron CD by Francisco Lopez/Richard Francis, a CD version of 'Fin de Siecle' by Illusion Of Safety, LPs by Mirko Uhlig and one by me (both highly limited), 'The Name Of Someone', by The Hafler Trio, ending my relationship with Andrew McKenzie and perhaps something by Jim O'Rourke - at last. I signed a deal with IODA to get MP3s on all the official sites, which should be going early 2009. I do hope physical sales will fare better, but hey 'its the crisis, stupid'.

Art? I was extremely proud of the film Harrie Timmermans did on me and my participation in 'Frozen' (which had a re-run in another Gallery in Amsterdam, which name eludes me right now, I'm sure it's on the CV). I just completed a short soundtrack for a film 'IJzig Vuur' by Jan-Kees Helms (the old man from Lor Teeps), which will be shown in January in Amersfoort. I hope to have it on a business card release before that.

Otherwise - it was great to meet Peter Hook, even though he just mailed me he still didn't hear my Zebra CD. Had some interesting new hallucination experience this year (well, three of them) - not to be repeated that often. Building now a new studio space at Extrapool - open for rental soon, if you love old analogue gear.

Future. I hate this time of the year, makes me always quite depressed, and it will be gone in a week from now. So thinking about the future is something I am not good at. But in 2009 both Kapotte Muziek and Korm Plastics will exist for 25 years. There might be some sort of celebration for the first and, if sales remain this bad, a burial for the second.

happy new ear

Seven Short Gigs

2008-12-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

I have not been doing this for several years, say 8 or so, but tonight I returned to play Sinterklaas again. Seven 15 minute house gigs for small children. Singing (me!) and telling, and giving presents which I didn't buy. The lower the social class the more religious they were, and the more they smoked in front of their children. Amazing as usual, although not the great stories as before, when I did trailer parks, pubs, restaurants and the local youth prison, but a fine gig as usual. Well seven to be precise.

Two New Releases

2008-12-03T05:46:00.000-08:00

Today I received some copies of a CD by Oba Masahiro, called 'Prot', which offers five tracks of ambient and sweet techno inspired remixes. Out of these five tracks four are remixed, one by me. It says 'Frans de Waard remix', which, honestly I would have preferred 'Freiband remix', since the musical style is rather from Freiband. Other remixers are by Set In Sand, Motorofaam and Aoki Shintaro. Quite nice, and of course I few some to sell. Labelwebsite

Not for sale by me, is the CDR release on Moving Furniture Records, a new CDR label by Sietse van Erve, Orphax fame etc. His first release is by Russia's Five Elements Music, with whom we travelled from Moscow to St. Petersburg and back. He took the Kapotte Muziek recording from St. Petersburg and created a new piece of it. Of course part of the big Kapotte Muziek by... series, yet not on Korm Plastics. Highly recommended for lovers of drone music. Labelwebsite

Doubts Even Here

2008-11-09T05:06:00.000-08:00

Last years main meet & no greet was of course Freek and me going to see Jonathan Richman, this year it was just me solo going to see Section 25 featuring Peter Hook in the unlikely surroundings of Oss. Unique only dutch concert is what they advertise with. The website said they'd be playing 6 Section 25 songs and 12 Joy Division/New Order. So who'd be singing those, I wondered. I am surprised to see that De Groene Engel is somewhat like my local Doornroosje venue, and bump in to various people I know, including Mark who tipped this event for me, and Mic, Jan and Jasper. A curious gathering of goths, old grey men, some with their teenager children. Support act was Kevin Hewick, of whom I bought his first Factory 7" in what was it, 1981, and thought 'oh shit, great artwork, but they also release shitty records' (and I never got into Stockholm Monsters either). Anyway one minute of a big oversized man with an acoustic guitar is pretty much enough for me, so I joined the smokers outside (as somebody said friday night, a non-smoker actually, 'at concerts you smell all the cheap after shave and farts, I wish people would smoke again at concerts'). Then Section 25 started, without Hooky on stage, with 'New Horizon' and within minutes you know why we have to regret the death of Martin Hannett: Larry Cassidy can't hold a tune in a bucket. His brother on drums, and two youngsters on guitar and bass, were great, really great. But the singing was a major let down. They played for about 35 minutes, more than six songs that is, when Hooky comes and plays 'No Love Lost' with them. The big moment has arrived. They play a bunch of songs ('Interzone', 'Shadowplay', 'Temptation', 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', 'She's Lost Control' (with a much too loud sample I must add), 'Dreams Never End' and 'Ceremony'), of which 'Dreams' was sung by Hook, which was great, but Larry sings the rest, which again is a let down. Its a bit like seeing a Status Quo cover band featuring Rick Parfitt, if you get my drift. When things are over, people cheer, and Larry says 'you have to do better than that' (proving Tony Wilson right, with Cassidy being a big whiner), two encores are played, with Section 25 first with too many sequences running from the mixing desk, which was rather painful, with the sound continuing and the band stopping. With Hook on vocals 'Doubts Even Here' (which seemed an appropriate ending). I lurked at the backstage and see on the screen that Hook will be DJ-ing for another hour, but I have to miss that. When the man comes out, I ask for an autograph but forget the 'please' at the end (remarkable that people who use the word fucking all the time, but also need the 'please' word - there is something I fail to understand about the english language), so Hook says 'only if you say please' and walks on. I follow him and say 'oh Peter, please can I have your autograph, please' which he then does on my copy of 'Get Ready', which happens to be my favorite New Order CD (though many disagree). I pull out also the Zebra CD and Hook says, 'what's that, it looks like my Hacienda book' and says its my band and I give him the CD. He shakes my hand (I wonder how many people give him stuff, and how much will land on the bottom of the canal) and somebody asks me if I can take a picture of him and Hook, which turns out to be a great picture, and he fucks up mine with Hook. See above. Oh, well another most memorable evening has come to an end (well, in Oss, as I continue in Nijmegen of course and see various people from the concert later that night in Merleyn). Fucking hell! I wish I had a recording.

New Compilation

2008-11-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

Today I received some copies of 'Table For Six: All Quiet? #3', which is an ongoing affair from EE Tapes. I know EE Tapes since the early cassette days and he released a Shifts CDR before and Shifts is on 'The Walls Are Whispering'. On this new compilation six artists have considerable longer pieces. My piece is entirely made from hiss taken from old cassettes, pieced together in a dramatic way. Very quiet and very loud. Its called 'Wortel (Root)' and is the companion of a piece to be released soon 'Root (Wortel)'. Other artists are Neuestrasse, Stormhat, Anemone Tube, Bruno De Angelis and (ad)vance(d). Fine line up, great CD. I have some copies for sale, or go to the label website

The workshop in Cologne was nice too, see picture above. Here is a link which includes all raw material as made by the participants, a rehearsal with them, the concert with them, and the full concert by Kapotte Muziek. Use or re-use freely. It is quite a big file. Perhaps a newspaper article will be published also.

Updates at last

2008-10-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

I know. I have never been good in keeping diaries, so my blog is a bit behind. The Eurovision noise contest was big fun. An endurance test for the jury, but soaked in wine, so it was good. See the evidence above.
I released two new LPs. One is a live recording from THU20 from last year's concert in Paradox in Tilburg. Not that this info on the cover. We all forgot to put it on. Also the very first LP by Pick-up on Plinkity Plonk is now released, and I am quite proud of that one. Great music, great cover. me thinks.
Last friday and saturday Roel and me worked on some new Zebra music, our album of classic (rhapsody, sonates, symphony and that kind of stuff). A tiring session, in many ways, but some satisfying result, we feel. I should post some MP3s on myspace, come to think of it.
While being in Rotterdam I also played with Beequeen, the full trio line up. For some curious reason the computer was a bit slower at the concert (though tempo was unchanged, maybe its the weather, electrical or ghostly activities - Radboud Mens, the expert at hand, also had no clue, so there is hardly a lesson to be learned), so the first four songs are off, but once restarting the programm things worked out well. Still seven nice songs. Download the entire concert
here
Next thursday Kapotte Muziek will be doing a workshop in Cologne, again at the Kulturbunker ('there is no reception in the bunker' a wise man once remarked while playing shortwave radio) for youngsters (16-18 years old). They will learn to solder and do field recording. Kapotte Muziek will also play solo and there is a concert of Tarkatak (and perhaps we'll do something with him too)
And much further away is a small concert at Extrapool's Tape Treff on January 10 where I'l be using two cassette decks and two microphones - I hope. Its about cassettes, so maybe should go as Kapotte Muziek. Well, enough time to think about it.

The Good & The Bad News

2008-08-24T05:46:00.000-07:00

I recently learned that Maria of Atak passed away in June, at the age of 30. This is very very sad news. When I was in Japan in 2007 at the invitation of Atak, Maria took care of everything, and I mean everything to make us (me, Evala, Pan Sonic and Keiichiro Shibuya) happy at concerts and in between concerts. Maria was certainly the best host one could have for such a tour. I think back with fond affection to her, and wish Keiichiro, her husband, all the strength he needs. I intend to make some music in her memory. More here

Last week I spend time to create a new blog with all known live recordings by Beequeen for free download. It shows our development, failures and success. I can't imagine anyone downloading them all, but there is some fine stuff, like our concert with Girlfriends, dream machine music, the AVE festival, Metamorphasen and if you want one good Beequeen concert from the USA (which are essentially all the same), I'd say download the one from Rochester.

On September 20th, I'll be part of a jury for the Eurovision Noise Contest."European countries compete against each other for the title of "The Best European Noise Act Of 2008." Every act gets 11 minutes to show their skills to the audience.
A professional jury constisting of Dr Bibber (performance), Frans de Waard (music) and A3 (costumes and outfits) will give a professional reply to what the act showed them. Your host for the whole evening will be Wouter Jaspers, who personally booked all the great acts. The winner will get a release on ZXZW Records and of course the honor of being "The Best European Noise Act Of 2008."
The Eurovision Noise Contest will be organised in collaboration with Vatican Analog."
More at the website of ZXZW

The Black & White Album

2008-08-10T05:12:00.000-07:00

It is with extreme pleasure that I can say that the first Zebra CD 'The Black & White Album' is now released by Symbolic Interaction in Japan. The general theme is 'music', running through the various songs, inspired by the great wonders of popmusic. Great design by mister Meeuw, great cover text by Roel. More or less released on my birthday last friday.
This weekend is spend on painting the covers of the first LP by Pick-up which Important Records will be releasing shortly. 350 individual covers are painted in 2 colors by Elise and me. It looks like this:

And this friday Beequeen will play at Zomeravonden festival in Maastricht.

Frozen

2008-07-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I visited the opening of 'Frozen', an exhibition at De Melkweg in Amsterdam, which is part of the 5days Off Festival. In this exhibition visual artists work with a music piece, and make a translation of the music into visual art. Marius Watz works with the music of Alexander Rishaug and Andreas Nicolas Fischer & Benjamin Maus, Leander Herzog and Daniel Widrig & Shajay Booshan all work with my Freiband piece 'Reflection'. The audience can choose which one to hear. It looks absolutely great, me thinks. The pieces show the structure of the music quite well. Below are pictures of the three pieces for my music. It's open until July 26th at the Melkweg Mediaroom, so if you are in that town, do something nice and visit it, I'd say!

Melkweg site

Benjamin Maus site

Cancelled

2008-06-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's Beequeen show has been cancelled, and probably rightly so. It's also football and Beequeen and football don't match up, I guess. We'll be going to Worm later in the year.
The film presentation went well, could be better on the small concert front, I guess. No Oscars yet.
There are 2 new releases on My Own Little Label. One is my concert in Leeuwarden of 2 weeks ago, and one is a release with Bass Communion. A new piece by him and a remix of it by me. It's out since a day, and its by far the best selling release on Moll. So these things go.
And the small Beequeen on You Tube inspired me to do a quick one, for that lovely small White Bike track:

All Beequeen News

2008-06-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

While I am getting a bit nervous for tomorrow's presentation of WYSISWYH, the film by Harrie Timmermans, which is apparently reworked so I haven't seen it yet, and to which I will play some live music, this is more concerned with Beequeen news. On My Own Little Label I did a re-issue of 'Long Stones & Circles' as a 3"CDR, Herbal Records from Maleysia re-released another old Beequeen, our 2nd: Time Waits For No One. I am very pleased with how the whole thing turned out. You may want to check out your old Staalplaat copy. Due to the glue used on the digipacks back then, they might no longer play properly, so you can replace it with a fresh copy. Thanks to Goh Lee Kwang for wanting to release this. Next Saturday Beequeen will play at Worm in Rotterdam. There is also film that evening.
And speaking of film, someone created a film to the demo version of the 'Maypole Song' from our latest Sandancing CD. Please do more, anyone is invited. Have a look here.

What happened next...

2008-06-02T00:42:00.001-07:00

I know I should have been updating this more in the last week, but after leaving for Petersburg, we have been travelling a lot, and internet wasn't always available, well, that, or we didn't look properly. The first picture you see is from Roel and me in front of the store that gave us the name Goem. At last! Anyway, on sunday night we went to the Teremin instititute and did a workshop/informal talk about our work, which went well, although the Q&A was something of a babylonic affair. Right after that we went by night train to Petersburg and I didn't catch any sleep, but was a good boy and marched past all the things to see there. At the Experimental Sound Gallery not many people showed up, but there were three from The Netherlands, whom I think were more attracted to the fact that we were Dutch than to the brilliant music we played. Ho-hum. The night train took us back and we waited two hours before hopping on the next train to Yaroslavl, again a totally different city that Moscow or Petersburg. Much more relaxed and calm. Roel played a soviet star during Kapotte Muziek, which many seemed to enjoy. Then we went back to The Netherlands. Spasiba!: Dmitry, Sergey, Artiom, Alex and Vladimir, and no doubt I forget a few.

No rest for the wicked as on friday I had to built up an installation '[untitled]' at the CBKN in Nijmegen. It's in the nuclear shelter basement and it's to announce the film presentation that is on the 15th, until which date you can see this. From thursday to sunday, 12 to 5. It's low on sound, stay at least 10 minutes to catch the drift. A slightly different presentation than at Tent two years ago.

Then on Saturday night Extrapool re-opened their doors with a long night of small concerts and performances. Martin Luiten and I played our very first gig as Pick-up, which I think, given the circumstances went alright. We played mono on a monitor speaker in one of the new bedrooms, with people talking alround. The picture shown here is taken by Elise, who is not yet the new Anton Corbijn. But she and some others seemed to like it. And now it's time to spend my entire time on the 50+ CDs for Vital Weekly.

Dziga is alive

2008-05-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

I'd like to prove I'm in Russia, but for now the batteries of my camera are dead, so I can't upload the pictures. Friday night we play at Dom for quite some people who loved the proceedings. Yesterday we did the tourist things and played Shtopor, which is a private club with access only by fingerprint but it looked like a great club, with various rooms. Goem and Slo-fi's music was in one room, but quite loud, but apparently people like it from a distance.
So I can't proof that we're here, except for this very nice film on You Tube. Enjoy this and if you like it come to the concerts of Monday and Tuesday.

From Russia With Love

2008-05-23T04:23:00.000-07:00

Roel and me have arrived in Moscow, where the weather is not as good as in The Netherlands, but we arrived safely and didn't do much until now, besides walking a bit around. If you are in the area, then come to the concert at Dom to night. There is a bit of promotion with a megamix for my music here
More and perhaps pictures later on..

The Touring Scheme

2008-05-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

ok, now I know what I'll be doing in the next 30 or so days... here it is:

23.05 - concert in DOM, Moscow (KM, Freiband, Roel Meelkop)
24.05 - concert in Shtopor, Moscow (Goem, Slo-fi)
25.05 - workshop at Theremin-center, Moscow
26.05 - concert in GES, St-Petersbourg (KM, Freiband, Roel Meelkop)
27.05 - concert in ARS-forum, Yaroslavl (KM, Freiband, Roel Meelkop)
31.05 - concert in Extrapool, Nijmegen as Pick-up with Martin Luiten
06.06 - concert in Leeuwarden as Freiband (I think), with Machinefabriek
15.06 - concert and film presentation in Lux, Nijmegen as Frans de Waard
21.06 - concert in Worm, Rotterdam with Beequeen

busy times indeed! Stop by if you are in the area!

i'm in love with a dutch film star

2008-05-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

o.k. so that last message may have been a bit cryptic, but in essence it's a radio show mix where i play some of my own music. It's not a remix, but a mix. This is the tracklist:
Past, present & future by and from Frans de Waard

0000 Beequeen - The Illogical Song (from CD 'Sandancing', Important Records imprec 177, 2008)
0016 Freiband - Fade In/Fade Out, remix of Mist (from CD 'Dangerous Words', Astro A081CDEP, 2003)
0259 Kapotte Muziek - Tweede Russelsheim (from CD 'Sonderangebot', Staalplaat, 1996)
0702 IFCO - Sunspots (from 7" 'Postcard', Entr'acte E51, 2008)
1141 Giuseppe Ielasi & Howard Stelzer & Roel Meelkop & Frans de Waard - Untitled (from CD 'Zondag', Port 003, 2007)
1458 Pick up - as yet untitled from forthcoming release
1907 Machinefabriek & Freiband - Oahu 2.1 (from CD 'Oahu', Low Point LP019, 2008)
2343 Beequeen - Beam Ends (from CD 'Ownliness', Infraction Records INFX 003, 2002)
2714 Goem - Untitled (from CD 'Atak 006', Atak 006, 2004)
2912 Frans de Waard - Vijf Profielen (from CD 'Vijf Profielen', Alluvial Recordings A26, 2007)
3128 Beequeen - The Illogical Song (from CD 'Sandancing', Important Records imprec 177, 2008)

mixed Monday April 14th, 2008 by Frans de Waard

The reason the previous post was a cut 'n paste job is that I posted it while working with Harrie Timmermans. We are commisioned to do a film together, or rather Harrie is. He was asked by Dziga in Nijmegen to do a short film on a musician and he proposed me. This week we shooted some material of me gathering sounds. Next week I'll be shot (!) composing with the material, and then on June 15th there will be the presentation and a concert with that material. All here in Nijmegen at Lux. At the CBKN there will be a presentation beforehand with some films by Harrie and one or two installation pieces by me.

There is more happening! Martin Luiten, who played guitar on the album with Machinefabriek, and I form a new duo called Pick-up and we completed our first CD and our first gig will be on May 31st at the opening of the re-build Extrapool.

Before that Roel and I will be a week in Russia (22-29 May). Two gigs are fixed:
23th May - Moscow (DOM cultural center, http://www.dom.com.ru)
26th May - St.-Petersbourg (GEZ-21 gallery)
which will be Freiband, Roel Meelkop, Kapotte Muziek and perhaps Zebra
maybe in Moscow in Stopor Club for 25th May, as Goem/Slo-Fi and maybe a gig in Yaroslav

Beequeen may perform at Worm in June, and Machinefabriek/Jan Kleefstra and me on the 6th in Leeuwarden.

John Wiese and I recorded some material at my studio, but mixing must wait some time..

Busy times

Tune In

2008-05-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

Frans de Waard mixes Frans de Waard

THE WIRE PRESENTS ADVENTURES IN MODERN MUSIC

The Wire's weekly show on London's arts radio station broadcasts
across central London on 104.4 FM, with simultaneous streaming at
www.resonancefm.com, every Thursday between 9-10:30pm. The show
features special guest mixes from a host of Wire-friendly musicians,
writers, DJs and so on.

website for live listening is http://www.resonancefm.com

All editions of Adventures In Modern Music are archived for online
listening.

*go to http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/the_wire_on_air/

interviews

2008-04-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

No less than two interviews have been published. First of all in the latest issue of The Wire, which is already out. I don't think I am allowed to make a scan and distribute it freely, but e-mail me if you wish to see it. But here is the cover. Funny of course that Goem's most danceable piece of music is a remix by Wolfgang Voigt. Everything somehow comes together.
Also there is an interview here and that's free of course, with an old, very old picture of me when I was more (or less) handsome

Postcard 7inch

2008-03-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

Finally the new and first ever Idea Fire Company 7" Postcard arrived today. It's released by Entr'acte in the UK, and it was recorded at my studio in 2005. Karla, Scott and me rehearsed for the IFCO tour there and everything was recorded. From the various takes of the various songs I melted together these two tracks, which I'm particularly proud of. Two hundred copies have been, so it will not chart on mTV, I guess, but who cares.
On My Own Little Label I released a 3" by Freiband, called Capture, which is a remix of the Audioscoop 2LP. It turned out quite nice also.

Take me for a ride

2008-03-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

What a day, oh dear diary. First I received the printwork for The Hafler Trio's 'Dislocation' which looks great. Than Idea Fire Company's Island Of Taste LP arrives, which also looks and sound great. Then the phone rings:

(US female voice): "do you have the e-mail address info@kormplastics.nl"
(me): "yes, m'am" (always polite on the phone, never in real life)
(US female voice): "you won a free trip to florida and bahamas. you'll be staying in the radison, go on a cruise, go disney ('one day i'll take you to disney land, boyd'), universal studios, free food. Just buy your plane ticket and the rest is free'
(me, innocent): "really?"
(me, flabbergast): "gosh"
(US female voice): "isn't that great"
(small talk continues for 10 minutes on how exciting this all is)
(US female voice): "I'll put through to my co-worker to run some details"

(US male voice, much more down to earth): "yes, Frans, I'm taking you through your coordinates"
(me, sky high): "ok"
(US male voice): "you have buy an insurance today for only 998 us dollars, which is, well, hum, exactly 600 euros, but its for up to 4 persons"
(me, going down): "and just for myself?"
(US male voice): "that would still be 998"
(me, hitting ground): "well, i can't spend that money today"
(US male voice): "goodb" - phone disconnects

God Damn America - I love it. Hey, Scott, God bless Captain Black.

Maastricht Rules!

2008-03-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

It's hearth warming (like a campfire) to see all the positive feedback on my 'I hate Galleries' post and Eindhoven: are you there and still not listening? I was in Maastricht last friday to present the Audioscoop 2LP set via small talk and some live music, and if it wasn't something that I didn't know, I could call this 'to hear a pin drop'. Eindhoven, are you listening? People like music and want to shut up. Nice evening there in Maastricht with some excellent performances of Titmachine, Rene SG (with whom the party continued well beyond closing time), Staplerfahrer and Feedback Society. The Audioscoop 2LP has a track by Kapotte Muziek as well as Asmus Tietchens, Andrea Neumann, MSBR, Sudden Infant and such like and is a very nice one. The remix I created will be released as a 3"CDR on My Own Little Label.

OAHU

2008-03-12T05:06:00.000-07:00

An Oahu is an acoustic lapsteel guitar, named after one of the Islands of Hawaii. My friend Martin Luiten has one and he provided a bit of playing the instrument to me and Rutger Zuydervelt, a.k.a Machinefabriek. We have been reworking the material into bits of thirty seconds which we bounced back and forth until we had enough rough material. It's hard to believe, but I completed my mix on Janaury 6th (Rutger some days before that), and today the finished CD land on my doorstep. Released by Low Point, with a nice Rutger cover. The original Martin track opens up, then it's me, then Rutger. I am amazed by this speed and it's actually a great CD too. I have some copies to sell!
With Martin I am working on some new music to, real time guitar playing and real time laptop. We are now mixing it and most likely we'll use the name Pick Up for our project.
This friday I'll be playing in Maastricht at the presentation of the 2LP compilation 'Audioscoop'. I am part of the official side of it, will speak a few words and do a sort of remix of the album - if i can get things finished before that. Kapotte Muziek is also on the LP.

Sandancing - what the liner didn't tell

2008-02-27T08:45:00.000-08:00

Never believe a musician when he writes 'this is the best thing I've done'. So don't take my word for it, but 'Sandancing' is the best work that has come out of my - well, our, hands as Beequeen. It's now released by Important Records, along with a lovely, utter lovely 10" of 'demos'. Here are some personal details on the tracks... 'A While A Way' (CD/10") started as the piece that is on the 10", with audience recordings from America, Bucla sounds from the EMS studios in Stockholm and airport sounds from Narita airport - if you are a while a way you have not much time to work on the music so you have to wait for the new Beequeen CD. The opening voice is indeed Howard Stelzer. Freek suggested to strip the piece and make it more jingle like, as an unobvious opener of the CD. 'Breathe' (CD/10") is mainly Freek's song, although I supplied a lot of the crackling sounds, 'taken from air' as it were. Olga sings lovely here, and Erik Drost - put him next to George Martin Hannett please - did some great mixing on the track, along with some great slide guitar by Kees Rietveld. 'Melt' (CD/10") is even more Freek's song and the very first Pink Dots guitarist Barry Gray supplied the solo guitar. Great double tracking of Olga's voice here. Our beloved Edie Sedgwick speaks on 'The Edie Three Step' (CD) and no doubt - Freek may disagree - this is the one true 50% Freek/50% Frans song on the CD. A complex piece, and certainly a bit grim, enlighted by 'The Honeythief' (CD/10"), of which I had no involvement. 'Tomorrow' originally had lyrics: 'tomorrow, tomorrow and oh, tomorrow', but we skipped them. It's longest instrumental piece on the CD. 'The Maypole Song' (CD/10") started as a pure Freek song, but through our concert last year in Arnhem, I added some more bits to it. Very dense piece, with up to 32 tracks. It's about dancing around may poles, I guess. The title cut (CD/10") has the voice of a well-known Japanese musician, and its more an inbetween song - appropiate to make the title track, since nothing is that simple in life. On the 10" demo version there is a bit of me playing guitar. 'There, It Has Been Said' (CD) is a standout piece of vocal charm, great organ playing and the screams are by Elise, whom we forgot to put on the cover. A great way to end the CD, had it not been for 'The Illogical Song' (CD), which is entirely a Frans piece and a radical Erik mix. Come to think of it, the long original could have been on the 10" too. As a bit of perversion, on the 10" there is also 'White Bike', as sung by Eva and as not on this CD, but on the business card My Own Little Label put out. If life would be easy, it would not be this long. So thanks to Olga, Barry, Kees, Erik, John, Elise and whom we forgot, for their input in the best release of 2008.

Replicas

2008-02-27T04:53:00.001-08:00

I'm very happy to inform you that the fourth official Freiband CD 'Replicas' is now released and available by Monochrome Vision. It's a CD that I wanted to make ever since the start of the Freiband project, and it involves the 'Daseinsverfehlung' CD by Asmus Tietchens, where all the pieces are called 'freiband'. I used every piece on that CD to create a new piece with exactly the same length. Roel Meelkop and me will probably in Russia to promote this and other delightful music at the end of may.
I'll be playing in Maastricht on March 14th at the presentation of a 2LP by Audioscoop, an irregular musical event. It's going to be, if all goes well, some spoken liner notes with sound samples.
Arturas Bumsteinas of the Quartet Twentytwentyone will perform (with the quartet) in Riga, Skanumezs festival on the 7th of May. They will perform a graphic score from 1990 '7 Constructions'. I am delighted. I don't think they fly me over to be present.
Thanks everyone for the warm response to the previous post. Hot as a campfire.

"I hate art galleries"

2008-02-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

oyeah, art galleries. i never learn any lesson, don't i? no, i don't. so in eindhoven it was the opening of some art space and i forgot my lesson at the fucking appel with wander years ago (sorry freek for being so blatantly stupid). but visual artists just don't like sound art, music. they want to be entertained. if not, they talk. on end. probably on their color schemes, multimedia projects or whatever abstract and theoretic they thought of now, but more likely how to skam any grant for their drinking habits. and there is always a fat guy turning down the volume because he can't himself talk. probably a 'musician'. well, a big fuck you to. may all art be erased right now. wiped off the face of the planet. the best music piece is an art gallery on fire.

At Last: News!

2008-02-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know I have been quiet here and wanting to write an update, but you know how these things go. Three weeks ago I was in Berlin for the opening of a new club O Tannebaum, run by the Ole Records people. I played the 'ouverture o tannebaum', which i may release on My Own Little Label. It's the picture shown here. Then I have been recording with Martin Luiten, formerly of Girlfriends and now of Uw Hypotheekadvies. We have a lot of material which we will start mixing soon. Quite spacious guitar music. Martin also provided some hawaiin guitar which me and Rutger Zuydervelt used for our collaboration as Freiband/Machinefabriek and which will be released by Low Point somewhere in the next 6 months or so. Tomorrow I will be playing in Eindhoven at the opening of the Onomatopee space. See site for details.
Then today I received some copies of 'Enhance Room Acoustics' which was a cassette on B/b in the mid nineties, but now it has been re-issued on CDR by the same people, new name: Lunhare. It looks great. As Freiband I created a remix of the material, which is now the bridge between both pieces, and hopefully a good antidote between the two.
Coming soon is a Freiband CD on Mononchrome Vision, who are also playing some concerts for me and Roel in Russia early May. Herbal Records will re-issue Beequeen's 'Time Waits For No One' soon, and 'Sandancing' should be out any minute on Important Records, as well as a 10" of demo's of that CD on the same label. Busy times indeed.

x-mess almost here

2007-12-20T04:35:00.001-08:00

Almost 3 years ago, Roel Meelkop, Giuseppe Ielasi, Howard Stelzer and me came together on a cold January sunday morning in my studio at Extrapool. The day afters Giuseppe and Howard did their Brombron presentation. We set up our gear and did a spontanous recording, right there. Roel played his roland sh 101, Giuseppe guitar and electronics, Howie played cassettes and me the Korg MS20. Everything was recorded on a multitrack and in the months after that I spend mixing the whole thing, which sounds quite far away from the original session. It's now released as 'Zondag' by Japanese Port label on a compact disc, and it looks and sounds great. It's perhaps the first time I mixed such a thing that had a minor involvement for me, and something will be released soon. The start of a promising producer career. Hohum. Get a copy today without delay. From me, or from Port
Christmas is there and I can lock myself away with the 500+ book on Dick Raaymakers, which I received yesterday. Without reading muchI already spent a whole day looking a pictures, diagrams and such like. Nice book so far.

pic of the day

2007-12-18T08:43:00.000-08:00

Today we did the Beequeen concert at the Radboud hospital. Frank read a nice story by Burroughs about a junkie and christmas, while we provide a musical environment and sang a few songs. No mp3 yet online since Frank made a mistake and perhaps we'll do a studio version anyway. But Miranda took some pictures of which this is nicest one.

New Freiband release, beequeen concert

2007-12-12T06:22:00.001-08:00

Today Freek and me rehearsed for our concert next week, and he asked me wether I was posting anything to my blog. Well, not really, I guess. Perhaps silence before the storm. But I got home and thought there are two goo reasons to post something. First of all there is a new Freiband CDR on Tosom. It's called '298', it has three pieces, which are dedicated to Phill Niblock. It has a great package too. It's a limited edition of 150 copies.
Then, next tuesday, at 12:30 in the afternoon, Beequeen will play at the local hospital, together with Frank Anthonie, who will read a story. Freek and I will provide the background music and do a couple of songs of our own. It's free. It's at 'Poliplein in gebouw Vrouw & Kind (richting Route 790)' - if you don't read dutch never mind. It means you won't make it anyway...

New DVD

2007-10-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

Today I received only a very small handfull of copies of 'Live DVD Atak Night 3', which is basically the concert at Unit in Tokyo, of Goem, Evala, Keiji Haino, Keiichiro Shibuya, Pan Sonic and a separate section of the next night which had a whole bunch of solo concerts by all of these people, and various collaboration, including a set by all of them (like Paul McCartney's Rockestra, but a little bit different). I have watch it all, but my stuff I checked and I look so great. Well, a bit, you know. There is a small portion on Youtube to sell it:

so erm: get it...

concerts soon

2007-10-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

October is less busy, concert-wise, than last month, with only one gig ahead. Wednesday THU20 will perform one their rare gigs in Paradox in Tilburg. I think their last concert was at least 5 years ago, well more perhaps. A while ago I was in Tilburg and met up with Jos, Jacques, Peter and Roel to talk about 'good times of the past', while they started discussing this gig, and I thought it was a good moment to have a smoke in Jos' beautiful garden. But they wanted me to stay and discuss with them. I played with THU20 before, in Parkzicht in 1987 (screaming for five minutes) and in Bordeaux in 1989 (which is all carefully edited out on the Merzbow/THU20 LP), so they asked me to join them for this one. Great. THU20 is one my favorite dutch bands...
Then on November 1st, Roel and me will head out to the Stubnizt, lying in Amsterdam for a long night of futuristic retro entertainment. I will play my Goem set, Roel will play his slo-fi set, we both play as Zebra and there will be some dj-ing by us. And if that isn't enough, Rechenzentrum will also play. Google stubnitz to see what they exact location is. Be there, it's going to be not so difficult music and loads of dancing.

Cuba, Munster

2007-10-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last friday Roel Meelkop had to play a concert in Cuba in Munster, Germany and asked me if I fancied coming along, to watch the road and such like. I brought my laptop, in case of you never know, and Till Kniola asked if I fancied to play. Of course I do. It was a long programm with Roel solo, Marc Behrens solo and the two of them in collaboration, so I played just 'Profieldeel Zes'. Funny thing was of course the presence of a journalist, who wrote the piece that comes along here, in german. If you can read that, too bad, but we look good right?

and free film

2007-10-04T10:23:00.001-07:00

The 'proceedings' in Tilburg have been captured on audio (more on that later) and film, probably a phone camera by the looks of it, and popped up on you tube. How strange the events looked is something you can now judge for yourself although it might not be easy to switch your computer in angle of 90 degrees.

free music

2007-10-03T04:12:00.001-07:00

My concert as Goem|FDW at The Warehouse in Washington DC is now available for free download from the ever so lovely Zeromoon website. I edited a little bit. The picture of the flags I made myself outside the FBI building in DC. have fun

http://www.archive.org/details/zero086

Jonathan Richman

2007-10-01T03:11:00.000-07:00

Obviously I could bore you with tales of Rotterdam and that Zebra was in great shape, but that was something that couldn't be said from the installation. So the example how things could be done was presented to the Plinkity Plonk A&R team (alcohol and restaurants) on friday night when Freek and I headed out to Cultureel Centrum Roepaen in the middle of a black hole, but still in The Netherlands, to see the man who made that great 7" in 1977 for which I headed out to buy my first record: Jonathan Richman, without the Modern Lovers but with a drummer. What a great concert, Richman on the acoustic guitar, singing is part sad part joyful tunes, with that twinkle in his eye. It's been a while since I enjoyed myself this much. Freek and I headed out to the dressing room to get my 7" and Freek's LP signed. Jonathan came out with a note that the docter ordered him not to talk post-concert, but kindly signed the stuff and we took the picture above, without saying a word. I made a recording of which I made a low resolution mp3 for whoever. If Richman doesn't allow this, I'll remove it. Two more pictures are in the folder, taken by Freek. What a great night!

enjoy the recording:
roepaen.zip

Video Killed The Radio Star

2007-09-28T05:39:00.001-07:00

When I was in Stavanger, the same night a young French man by the name of Lingouf played also, a two and half hour breakcore concert. He and his girlfrien videoed the whole event, and compiled a nice film of it. It contains them travelling, for monsieur Lingouf the very first flight actually, but also my little talk about Vital Weekly and my concert. Certainly worth watching!

ZANG : Frans de Waard et Lingouf @ Tou scene - Norvège
Uploaded by mrcarotte

Busking Tilburg

2007-09-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

Two more concerts last weekend and both by Kapotte Muziek. The first one, last friday, at Steim in Amsterdam was our usual set of cracks, electro-acoustic and silence. The space was quiet. I missed Noetinger/Marchetti, because I had to head back to Nijmegen, but I am told it was good. So different situation on sunday when we played for the very first time acoustic on streets of Tilburg. No electronics anywhere in sight. Before us was Vulvax who put on quite a performance, which of course the three elderly men don't do. It was short and highly flux like. Jos Smolders and me made recordings, and Jos will see if he paste them together. Our concert was part of Zxzw which was multiple day festival with loads of all sorts of alternative music. It seemed to me that The Netherlands finally have their own Sonar, and thank the lord it's not in that other city. It was crazy meeting all those people that I came across in recent years, like Dirk Serries, Sietse van Erve, Kasper van Hoek, Meeuw, The Hitmachine, Peter Zincken and bizarre enough G.X. Jupitter-Larsen, who I met too briefly after fourteen or so years. He gave me the standard Jupitter-Larsen ruler, so I am now re-measuring my house. Genesis P.Orridge walked about too, but in stead of watching Psychic TV I went to see Lewd, who played after eleven years again. Lewd is a heavy trio with my dear friend Jacques, and I must say his trio rocked. Much better than anything I heard from them on CD. Great.

The New Big Guy, Let Me In

2007-09-19T06:54:00.001-07:00

I know I am late. This is a long overdue recount of my current activities. So first on August 30 I went to beautiful Stavanger to play the day after a solo concert under my own name, which is actually a rare thing. I played three pieces, 'Profieldeel Zes', which is a remix of 'Vijf Profielen', 'IX (For Christian Nijs)' and a new piece, which has no name yet. Things went well, despite the fact that my ribs hurt like hell. I forgot to tell I fell off my bike in the rain, the week before that. A night of no sleep didn't speed up the healing process, but the plane went on six in the morning. Straight to Rotterdam, were I slept for an hour or so at Roel's house, before heading off to Deventer, to play as Zebra. Despite some technical problems things went well, even when no one but one danced. Audience response was low, where they were enthusiastic about the rock bands. It made us think: old guys play laptops, the young ones play guitars. Doesn't that seem odd?
Not much time to contemplate the answer as on thursday 6th I left for Washington. Immigration let me in, once again (what a nightmare that is) and I played three concerts at Sonic Circuits: on friday as Freiband,on Saturday as Goem|FDW and on sunday as myself. Schizophonica in optima forma. Friday and Saturday were packed nights, with lots of bands, some technical problems which affected Humcrush and Christoph Heeman, but it was nice seeing the latter as well as Kevin Spencer of Robot Records fame. 'Profieldeel Zes' from Washington comes as a 3" on My Own Little Label, and Zeromoon will have a MP3 of the Goem|FDW concert.
On 9/11 I took the above picture, which subtitle is: 'I'm the new big guy, let me in'. Looking around the corridors of power, I think it's most likely the only tourist thing I did this year.

new concerts, new release

2007-08-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

ok, so I have pretty good view of the forthcoming concerts. This should be it:
August 31 concert as Frans de Waard @ Tou in Stavanger, Norway
September 1 concert as Zebra in Deventer September 7 concert as Freiband at Sonic Circuits, Washington http://www.dc-soniccircuits.org
September 8 concert as Goem|FDW at Sonic Circuits, Washington http://www.dc-soniccircuits.org
September 21 concert as Kapotte Muziek @ Steim in Amsterdam
September 23 concert as Kapotte Muziek @ SXSW in Tilburg (afternoon)
September 29 concert as Zebra @ Stichting Bad.nl in Rotterdam
There might be another one or two concerts in the usa. Jeff Surak is working on that. If that's not happening than I guess I will be recording all extra nights with Jeff on new music.
Speaking of old music, if I ever had to choose one release from the past to be re-issued on CD I would probably choose the IMCA LP. That album was the product of endless tape exchange between me, Jos Smolders and Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, which in the end was mixed to the various pieces by Jos and me in the hot attic of the Smolders residence. I have good memories of that, learned a lot from the master. Jos lovingly remastered the LP and the previous cassette we made with John Hudak and the great Nicolas Malevitsis released it on CD and mister Meeuw made a great cover. As happy as I was with the LP when it came out, as happy I am with the CD version. Timeless classic stamped all over it.

forthcoming concerts

2007-08-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

The Frans de Waard concert in Stavanger, Norway is happening on August 31st. Don't know the location. Also playing that night is Zoviet*France, so hopefully there will be a re-run of them and me, from 1998, when we played at the Stubnitz together in Stockholm. I fly back the very next day, at 6.30 or so in the morning, since there is a Zebra concert on the 1st in the evening in Deventer. Then, if all goes well, I may head out for america on the 4th until the the 11th or 12th for a concert at Sonic Circuit in Washington DC. Also in September Kapotte Muziek will be playing at Steim on the 22nd and Zebra at the Momi festival in Rotterdam.
Just released is a gorgeous 5LP set by Fear Falls Burning. Each side is a rework/remix of Fear by one artist. As Freiband I also do a side. Great box!

Machinefabriek

2007-07-23T04:04:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I got a copy of the remix set that was put together by Machinefabriek. It's a double CD set, with loads of great names and loads of new ones, in nice, no great cover. I'm proud that Freiband is right on disc 1, track 2, following the piece by Machinefabriek we had to remix. I talked Rutger into doing 2 cds, so he's a bit worried that he doesn't get his money back. Buy one without a delay.
I might play in Stavanger, Norway on August 31st. More on that when I know more.

(g)rant

2007-07-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

Recently I applied for a grant at the FAPK (the Dutch institute for performing arts), for three concerts in the USA (Sonic Circuits, Princeton University and Issue Project Room). Today I got word that I don't get the money for three reasons. First only one of these places is 'respectable'. I have no idea which one they mean, but me thinks both Sonic Circuits as well as Princeton are well-known. Secondly the organizations in the USA don't pay enough (but 'we think that for such a modest tour Frans de Waard can pay for it himself') and lastly Freiband didn't present itself on Dutch stages in 2006 and 2007, so there for can't be 'an ambassador of dutch stage arts abroad' - despite the fact that I played in these years in Lithuania, Greece, Sweden, Canada, USA, Japan and oh The Netherlands (but the plethora of names I use work against me here, no Freiband in The Netherlands). Playing in The Netherlands is something that I indeed don't do very often, for the simple reason that concerts are in places that can't even pay the travel expense or are organized by the likes of former Barooni boss R. Spekle, who has received again the annual award of best reader of The Wire (where he bases all his work as a 'curator' on and never on independent research), and since I am hardly in The Wire ('we rather write about the new kid on the block with a record company that advertises here, thank you'), he doesn't bother about me and my music (until the very late nineties he kept measuring my work by the first (and probably last) cassette he heard of me in 1984). The only time he showed a bit of interest was when Freiband had a CD on Ritornell - now that was hip. And oh besides programming for all those places in Utrecht, Rotterdam and the city which name I hate to pronounce, he's... ratatatata on the committee that judges grants at FAPK for low time losers like me. Such expertise finely used through out the country.
And that concludes my rant for the day and my final grant application at the FAPK. There is a small chance that I may go anyway, since the Dutch Embassy in New York may have a bit of cash left. If that would work it would be great.
On the bright side, I am playing as Goem|FDW in Den Haag on saturday the 28th late at night at Gallerie King Kong as part of the Langweiligkeit Festival. You'll have to google that a bit. Zebra has two concerts, september 1 in Deventer and september 29 in Rotterdam and Kapotte Muziek the 22nd of september in that city at Steim. The total net income will be around 50 euros - all four together, but "hey man, it's good to your face on a dutch stage. You may now apply for a new grant".

Surround

2007-06-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

Unofrtunally I don't have a surround set-up at home, otherwise I could have enjoyed the release by Leerraum today better. It's, if I am correct, the sound to an installation Zimoun did in Switzerland for which he uses a whole bunch of sounds supplied by people they are in contact with. The forty minute piece includes sounds by me, Autobam, Bloom, FM3, Jason Kahn, Heribert Friedl, Kenneth Kirschner and others. I played it on my stereo and it sounded great - I even recognized my sounds! (www.leerraum.ch)
Also I received a CD by Kraig Grady today for Vital Weekly which blew me away. It easily matches with the best Phill Niblock CD (Music By on XI) and is a stunning stunning piece of work. Review next week, but this is an add for it. check out http://www.anaphoria.com for more details and get a copy right away.

The final (?) Shifts release

2007-06-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today I received copies of 'Trees/Leaves', a LP on Entr'acte. The first Shifts release with real liner notes, by me. There you can read this might be the final release by Shifts. I feel the whole concept of Shifts is done and said with, 'until I learn to play the guitar properly one day, this is it'. Well, after I wrote that I thought I should do a real final release, by burning the old 1 euro acoustic guitar I once picked up and make some field recordings out of that. I think I'll do that this summer some beautiful day. Maybe it's nothing and this LP is it. It looks great with orange paper and sealed like all Entr'acte releases. Next month they will also release a 7" by Idea Fire Company, which I recorded and mixed in my studio. Highly psychedelic drone music that is...

the new old one

2007-06-13T01:28:00.000-07:00

You can wonder how much time someone could need to release a simple CDR (white cover, attach with glue a full colour print out), but it to Evelyn Records about three years to release a Shifts CDR, 'Vertonen 14'. I already got one last year, but now they are out. Wow, couldn't believe that. Can't say I'm happy with that, but it's one of the better in the series I guess. How would I know?
I still feel uneasy of one day manual labor at Extrapool, my body is just not fit for any sort of physical slavery and a fall down of my bike, while not even driving the thing myself. I am old...

Moll

2007-06-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

Ah, last sunday. Despite making a very late and intoxicated night on saturday I stumbled out of bed to pick the phone and be rude to someone, which I didn't mean (sorry, Joep, hope all is well now), but it was good to get out and go the place where the farewell party of Dagpauwoog was planned. This local trio, including Maaike, whom I knew from Girlfriends and Rutger, of machinefabriek fame, made a CD and DVD, but called it a day and didn't perform. In stead they had asked five people to do something, which made, along with food and drink, a perfect sunday afternoon - a good way to recover a hangover. I played last, was a bit so so, but the good thing is, I made a 'studio' version before. My piece is entirely based on samples of their music, including drums, vocals, guitar and electronic bits. When I recorded this piece, which last in the studio 17 minutes and live 13, I thought it would be a good idea to do a CDR label. I enjoyed releasing CDRs when I did Microwave, Bake, Korm Plastics and all those others, but the new one is entirely devoted to my own music, MY OWN LITTLE LABEL, a.k.a. Moll. And why not release 3 to start with? So 001 is the remix of Dagpauwoog, the second is 'Ice Field' with six tracks originally recorded for a compilation by Ideal Recordings and the third one is a re-issue of the thingy Twenty Hertz once released. Three 3" CDRs by Freiband. The next three releases will be a businesscard CDR by Beequeen, one by Roel Meelkop and a 3" from me as Frans de Waard. The covers are designed by Rutger Zuydervelt and printed at the Hema on photo paper, and they look gorgeous. Rutger is brided to be Moll's own Peter Saville. I spent everyday looking 5 minutes at them. Go to www.kormplastics.nl/moll.html to see more.

robbed

2007-06-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

no no, i haven't been robbed, but it's the title of the goem cd. Not that the famous trio sat down to record, it's perhaps even unlikely that will happen, but it's title of the Goem CD produced by Roel Meelkop. Following my CD on Atak (in 2004) he took a CD, of which I am not at liberty to tell which, and sampled, well robbed, the hell out of it and created his version of Goem. Now it's released by Small Voices (who released the Wander as well, but that's an old story) and it has eigth tracks. I must say I quite enjoyed it. It's quite playful, more than the old 'goem-as-trio' version and has lots of funny sounds and approaches. The thing I don't like that much is that it's quite digital, which is not very goem-like. My Goem CD was only part digital, since lots of the sounds were taken of the analogue synthesizers. This CD doesn't break that much with the Goem tradition as I did (well, in my humble opinion), but it's overal a great CD. Get a copy today (www.smallvoices.com And let's hope Peter Duimelinks will do one too, as to complete the trilogy.

all work and no play?

2007-05-30T11:01:00.001-07:00

Still too busy with too many things, some of them even no fun. Was out camping with Elise, which was great (all play and no sleep). Today I got a copy of Dream Magazine number 7, which has an interview with me and Freek about music mainly and also a bit about dreams, on which subject neither of us to say anything I guess. On the CD there is a Freiband track which is called 'Rob's Beard'. It is one of those shelved remixes - I'd say be clever and make a good guess. The next concert is this sunday at 'Kunstuitleen Kunstwerk' in Nijmegen, where at around 7 i'll play a short concert, entirely based on samples of a local band Dagpauwoog, who say goodbye that day. Me, and others are doing a bit there. Should be fun. The second part on this to follow shortly

and Andrew, Asmus, Frans & Freek...

2007-05-10T04:20:00.000-07:00

Beequeen hardly appears on compilation CDs. You know. One of the good reasons is that we are very slow and precise when working on something and we rather keep it for our own full length CDs. Did I mention that our next CD 'Sanddancing' is nearly finished? All the music has been recorded, and just a bit of vocal(s) will be added by Olga this week and then it all goes to Erik Drost who will produce it for us, again. It's going to be a great CD, more song based than 'The Bodyshop', although there are two short pieces, well of sorts. You know. So 'Sanddancing' started out with recording a track called 'Where No Doves Fly' (Freek gave it a title, I keep thinking about the artists formerly known as simple), but it's not on there. We gave it to yet another compilation, called 'Listen To Something Different', which celebrates 10 years of a record shop in Rostock, called Ars Macabre. The only time I visited Rostock I really didn't like the city, quite aggressive people and such like, even at our concert in the port harbour (the Stubnitz was closed or something like that), but the only flickering light in this dreadful city was Ars Macabre, maybe a touch too gothic for my musical taste, but it had a great design, like an electric chair as a listening post. Come to think of it, it might be right after they opened when we were there? Oh no, this CD was compiled when the shop existed 10 years, but that was two years ago. Anyway behind the nice social-realism cover we find the old boys network: Muslimgauze (his tracks was submitted by Staalplaat), Ditterich von Euler-Donnerspeg, The Hafler Trio, Asmus Tietchens, Windfahnenamt, Troum, Inade, Columne One (it says so on the cover), Rapoon, Etant Donnes, Aube and Controlled Bleeding - well that makes Beequeen and Troum quite young. It's a dark matter this compilation, but not as gothic as one could perhaps anticipate. I'd say: buy loads! www.arsmacabre.de

Brian, KarlHeinz, Frans, Freek

2007-05-05T04:05:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. More than a month has passed and not a single entry in my blog. I was never good at keeping diaries. Many things have been done. Received an invitation to play in Washington early september, applied for a grant for that, had a large sale in the first two days of May and today I receive 'Otherness' a compilation CD curated (ho-hum) by David Cotner. He once flaked doing a Beequeen 12" ('Gund'), but perhaps to make up for that he invited us for his 'Otherness' compilation, about 'in betweenness' and such like. Hard to explain. It's part of the Sonic Arts Network series and besides our Wander track, it also features lesser known composers such as one Brian Eno, Karlheinz Stockhausen (you'll never be famous with that name), Roland Kayn, Conrad Schnitzler, David Toop and Eddie Prevost (all from the old people's home), but luckily also z'ev, Ramleh, Mick Harris, Faust and such like. Not every track is exclusive it seems, but it makes a fine listen, and hopefully they will all benefit from the sales power that Wander usually have. Nice one, David.

buzz

2007-04-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Although I hate to use the expression 'busy busy busy', things have been slightly crazy. The show at De Onderbroek went well, I got even a nice buzz on the dutch vpro 3voor12 site (http://3voor12lokaal.vpro.nl/magazines/news/index.jsp?portals=18019&magazines=18020&news=513040). It was nice evening that ended in quite a blurr for some, me included. The rest of the days were spent on assembling my latest three releases, a 7" by The Hafler Trio, a repress of The Hafler Trio's 'Kill The King' and a CD by z'ev, which is entirely based on sound samples I mailed him, and thus is called 'Forwaard'. It has a nice Wozencroft rip off cover. And oh, I approved a test pressing of the Shifts LP on entr'acte and even wrote liner notes for it, as it might very well be the final release I do as Shifts. No concerts in the immediate future. Perhaps a short one on june 3rd in Arnhem.

various things

2007-03-29T10:21:00.000-07:00

Lots of things to report. Yesterday evening I played a Goem solo show in Tilburg at the Batcave, which is part of 013 (sold out yesterday because of Fall Out boy, of whom I never heard). In the Batcave Vincent Koreman organised a Britney Spears theme event, with a Britney hairdresser and free CDRs (which I forgot to take). My thing went ok, except that Sickboy put out of my concentration with a stupid on stage question. I don't mind that breakcore artists may not apply any concentration - I do need it.
Good news on the release front is that Bertin send me a copy of a CDR he released with remixes of his Joyeaux release. I did a Freiband remix of 'Videorecorder', of which I am particular proud. There are also remixes of David Fenech, Gunter Adler, Roel Meelkop, The Hitmachine, Marieke Verbiesen, Rili Sun, Simone Zacharias, Uw Hypotheekadvies, Propeller and Danielle Lemaire - and yes that includes some new names for me.
Also released is a Kapotte Muziek vs Goem mini CD on Hushush. Already proposed in 2002 by Dimitri of Hushush that there should be some sort of mix between the two bands which have the same members. We actually recorded something keeping this in mind, which I edited into a piece that ended up on the 'Not Lost' 4CDR boxset. But Roel also did his piece, using a Kapotte Muziek live recording, adding Goem elements in the mix. It's quite a nice release, but you have to play it quite loud to hear the Goem elements. I don't like the cover, I must admit.
Tomorrow is the Goem solo concert at De Onderbroek here in beautiful Nijmegen. And I am working on assembling three new releases. But more on that later.