Free Record Store

Updated the old "Grabbelton", changed it in my own (digital) free record store (well the old one in the Netherlands has closed its doors now). Open 24/7! Just search and you'll find...

Now what?

Take a holiday?
Yes that would be nice, but what do you do when an album is finished?

Walking Dutchman

Well, all birds that can, fly away. Babies grow up and leave you ultimately.
Songs? They will float in digital space and I'm content with that. After a year of explosive and enthousiastic writing, playing, recording, singing, mixing and videomaking, there's always that difficult phase/ moment I'm going through of letting them go. When I'm fed up listening maybe...haha.

A lot has happened since my last album came out though, like more radio airplay, reviews and reaching a few new listeners. All because of the way the digital world works these days. Happy now?
Well yes, but it's like a beautiful feelgood movie that has ended and you just don't want it to end.

Work!
So what mostly works for me when I cannot touch the old songs anymore and at the same time to create a little distance with them, is the "go ahead, write some new tunes" attitude. And so the whole proces begins again. Don't know where it ends though, but do I really want to know? It only makes you uncertain of what will happen (writer's block!?) and it can spoil the surprise of finding fresh melodies. And they always come unexpectedly! I'm already busy with capturing the right words to 2 songs I've completely recorded and arranged instrumentally. One has got fast-paced latin feel and the other has got a funky groove with a jazzy, romantic melody. Just what I needed!

Lou?

Next to all this soulsearching and songcatching inspiration, I'll be working on a video that will support "Velvet Shoes", my tribute to the late Louie Reed.
Before I became this addicted musician, I already did something with my creativity, something my parents used to demonstrate to me when I was a greenish little kid. I became especially fascinated with the technique of drawing faces.
As you already can see, these are a few portrets that I will use in comic-style, but there are a lot details that I still have to work on. Although I'm just another Youtube amateur, I' m very excited about it, so that will also keep me busy for a while.

Now what? Just that!

Magazine Wasser-Prawda

Download





Great!
(german)

Je größer die Zahl von Autorinnen und Autoren in unserem Magazin wird, desto mehr Vorschläge kommen, wie man unsere Arbeit verbessern kann. Das ist absolut großartig. Denn mit der Zeit entwickelt man doch eine Art Tunnelblick von Monat zu Monat, versucht lediglich, möglichst viele Artikel und Rezensionen zu bekommen. Und man denkt dabei zu wenig über die Zugänglichkeit der Inhalte und ihre Präsentation nach. Und wenn dann Fragen kommen, wie denn die Entscheidung für das jeweilige Album des Monats getroffen wird, muss man jedes Mal neu erklären. So werde ich ab sofort diejenigen Alben, die in der engeren Wahl zum Album des Monats standen, und die durch die Bank weg sehr empfehlenswert sind, nochmals gesondert präsentieren.

(english)
The greater the number of authors and female authors becomes in our magazine, the more suggestions come as one can improve our work. This it is absolutely great. Since, nevertheless, with the time one develops a kind tunnel look of month by month, tries merely, possibly many to get article and reviews. And, besides, one thinks not enough the accesibility of the contents and her presentation after. And if then questions come, how then the decision for the respective album of month it is dripped, one must explain every time anew. Thus I become from immediately those albums, in the narrower choice to the album of the month stood, and every single away are very recommendable, again
separately present arms.

Recommendations derRedaktion

1. Big Daddy Wilson Trio -
Live in Europe from Bremen
to Paris (S.
2. Dave Moretti Blues Revue
- Th ats Swing
3. JoosTVD - I Mimic Me
4. Mark Harrison - Th e
World Outside
5. Meena Cryle & Th e Chris
Fillmore Band - Tell Me
6. Th e Holmes Brothers -
Brotherhood
7. Th e KutiMangoes - Afro-
Fire
8. Th omas Stelzer - Fuff tsch
9. Tommy Schneller - Cream
of the Crop
10. Tweed Funk - First Name
Lucky

You can download as pdf and read that german review and many other cultural ditties, mine on page 51.

Thanks Nathan (journalist Wasser-Prawda)!

Croydon radio updates

Hai there,
It's always a pleasure to know that what you do is appreciated. There's a lot talent out there and I'm not here to win a contest, just wanna create songs! And I'm already busy with a few that will definately become future hits. Not in my lifetime, no.

I let my music spread as far and as wide as possible, but I guess it's just a raindrop that's reaching a few listeners, but what the heck...

Nice to be played on the radio though! Song?
Cowboy On The Moon

Here:
Podcast
Info (a lot of footbal talking):
In The Den (UK Croydon radio)

Update (12-09-2014): 

Playlisted and frequently played: Different Kind Of Cool

7th on the plays alltime charts Croydon radio, at least in Croydon right now! Thanks!

Last.fm charts 547 times played

I Mimic Me, the songguide

                                                                           A Quicky! The 14 song sampler

Ok, now it's out of the bag...
As usual (am I boring, predictable?), once a year I invite the listeners to read about the "inside" story of a new album. How I vanish into my reclusive hole and come back with some new, fresh & above all: haha, brilliant music. But hey, there's no hidden message here!. For me, music has to be fun, joy, melodic, funky, over the top, ironic, colourful and full of character. I Mimic Me.
After my last album "The Ballooning Brouhaha" floated through digital spaces, I immediately sat down to the work. Ideas "always" come quick, emotions keep pouring out of my fingertips. But how to shape them in attractive little ditties?
I always start recording with a basic track (rhythm pattern) and the first instrument (piano, guitar) I've chosen to write on. I want to record as fast as possible to capture the energy and/or the emotion of that particular "high" moment of inspiration. Record as if in "performance". Forget "studio".
Choices, doubts, solutions, inspiration going back and forth. Well, mostly for me, I'm working around the more technical shortcommings I have as a recording-in the flesh- musician. So the last few years I've been watching some show-off sound engineer pros showing their flashy studio stuff on Youtube. There are a lot of choices you can make, details you can alter with your workstation (Pro Tools is mine), especially in the mixing process, which makes the whole process even more challenging to keep things as organic as possible.
As long as it helps me further. But it all starts with a tight rehearsed performance, so what you can't fix....

Listen carefully!

Now, press on your application of choice (sorry no vinyl), like Deezer, Spotify or iTunes or maybe your free download and let those little stories stir up your imagination.


01.Cowboy On The Moon
Build around a chord progression I luckely found on the piano almost a year ago(!). I wrote a few countermelodies (guitar and woodwinds) that brought more layered excitement arrangementwise that I wanted for the song. I had lot of fun with this one, never stopped developping ideas in that department. Took a long time to write about cowboys-no indians-but moons though...
O U T L A W

02.Velvet Shoes
This took 3 minutes to write, but the vision to work it out, took a lot longer....
You can guess this is about Lou Reed, my indirect connection with him, expressed in a an uplifting, I hope, tribute song. His death and his music got me closer again to the legend and his work (my fave is 1973's Berlin). Yes, I tried to use some of his typical pronounciation (but "I mimic me" right?) and a few of his familiar lines (wild side, white heat white light). Fun song!
Btw, great read: two biographies of Lou and the Velvet Underground by Victor Bockris. 
N E W Y O R K

03.Buy (Bye Bye)
Topic: a pact with the devil/Faust: selling out in favor of becoming successful. Bye, buy...
I used this funkbeat for intensity, although I can never be that hypnotic like James Brown, but I can in a, uuh, funny JoosTVD kind of way.
F A U S T

04.Ballroom Blues
Overblown ballroom showstopper (took a lot of mindslapping working this out!) about windbags and other loudmouths. You know who you are. Now shut the f... up!
O V E R K I L L

05.Social Suicide
One of those fun songs that wrote itself and relatively quick both musically and lyrically. All 13 songs came quick, but mostly musically.The choice of intruments, how to colour the arrangements...they' re already there in my head when I wrote this song.
H A P P I N E S S

06.I Mimic Me
Here I go again! The same burst of creativity happened like song 5. Short and sweet. I really like that. Maybe the next time I can put out an album even quicker. Well.....these explosive moments are rare though. And I love what Jack Bruce did with Kip Hanrahan. (great album: Vertical Currency 1984)
M I R R O R

07.Different Kind Of Cool 
Yeah, a fast, funpowerpop rocksong. Something (rock) I do not do often, but it gives the album a different- rockier- colour.
O U T C A S T

08.Intermission Of Love
Hey lunch hour! A little (one minute!) Tin Pan Alley love song. Yes, I really love the creativity of Irving berlin and Cole Porter. These chords say it all: melodic, romantic. Ahh, my soft side...
S I N P A N A L L E Y

09.Cats (Walk With A Swagger)
One of the first tunes I wrote for this album. It gave me purpose of direction. A lot of funny (real cat sounds) stuff happening, surprising breaks and stops in combination with melodies. (thanks to Arto Lindsay & the Ambitious Lovers)
D O G G Y C A T

10.Sin Pan Alleyman
Unexpectacly, former musical mate Wijnand Brant (WB) helped me out with his unstoppable fingers & guitars on this forgotten instrumental idea, one of many I've piled up on my harddisk.
(C O N) F U S I O N ? !

11.Lovesong For The Ghetto
Wrote this relatively quick on guitar, sang the title (and liked the melodic refrain a lot) and voila...it's a bit dark (ghetto), but eased, counterbalanced with some eerie female voices, which I found fitting with my own low male singing.
G H E T T O

12.Coffin Song
Also one of the first more uplifting (listen to the guitar chords, variations in D), funky song I wrote, musically that is. The theme is a little dark though: "put the sickness in the ground". No, no cofee needed. A coffin with a "n". Not a special message I have here, it's just dark humor, sardonic wordplay.
C O F F I N

13.I See You
To counterbalance the more energetic songs, there' s always some sort of melancholic ballad I come up with- developped on the piano- after much rehearsel, this was recorded live. I've tried to come up with something uplifting, melodic, not too self-important or dramatic.
P I A N O

14.Cowboy In Your Room
Reprising song nr.1 here, it has got a few nice breaks in it, so the idea for an instrumental promo (see video post) was born.
P R O M O

Thanks again for listening!
Listen again!

Tanzen! Dance! JoosTVD on german radio

Tuesday evening, between 20.00u-22.00u

Listen here: Radio 98eins

Okay, here's the playlist for tonight:
1 Johnny Angel You Got Me Jumpin
2 Dave Moretti Blues Revue Good Morning Judge
3 The Holmes Brothers Stayed At The Party
4 Blue Ribbon Sweet Sixteen
5 Blue Ribbon Breaking Up Somebody's Home
6 Saidah Baba Talibah Revolution
7 Meena Cryle & The Chris Fillmore Band Take This Pressure Off Of Me
8 Meena Cryle & The Chris Fillmore Band Give It Back
9 Mary Washington Brooks Leave Your Checkbook On The Bed
10 Back On The Road If I Was No King
11 Albert Castiglia Sway
12 Andres Roots & Raul Terpe Pärnu Hambone
13 Jonah Gold & His Silver Apples I Can Tell
14 Big Daddy Wilson Trio Baby's Coming Home
15 Mark Harrison Hard Times
16 Maik W. Garthe Black Lemon
17 Brandon Isaak Gamble On Love
18 Brandon Isaak Up The Frisco Line
19 Thomas Stelzer Ev'rybody Loves Saturdaynight
20 Thomas Stelzer John & Mac In Dublin
21 Fabian Fritz Big Chief
22 The Kuti Mangoes Fire
23 Avner Strauss African Magician
24 Avner Strauss Blues Together
!!!25 JoosTVD Cowboy On The Moon
26 Dave Moretti Blues Revue That's Swing
27 The Holmes Brothers Amazing Grace

"Selfie" on Youtube

I only went to the bathroom, and well, um...here's the supporting video of the title track

Next: I Mimic Me, the songguide (yes it's coming)