Two Thousand and Fourteen

That's it, this is the end my friends......another year vanished. Let's take a walk back into, mostly my musicyear.

2014: a year of the surprising and unexspected losses:
R.I.P. actors I have enjoyed, like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Williams, but so many in a short time! See a full list IMDB deathlist 2014
To many musicians I have admired, like Bobby Keys, Jack Bruce, Johnny Winter, Bobby Womack,  Jesse Winchester, Paco De Lucia, Phil Everly, Pete Seeger, Joe Cocker (!)
Full Ranker death musicians 2014

A "few" words on Jack Bruce, because he put me on another planet and back. Everyone surely knows Cream, that supergroup from the sixties. Eric Clapton was God (to his fans and media), pushed forward as the star of the band by his american  record label at the time (Atlantic).

Not everyone knows (guess after Jack's death everyone suddenly knows!) that Jack wrote the most adventurous songs and the main hits (with lyricist Pete Brown) for the group. After Cream, Jack pursued his own musical route and his main goal was to test the boundaries in composition and arrangements of a song. His unususal and complex songwriting was a commercial flop in many obvious ways. No instant hits, no white room with sunshine peeking through it. No glamour. Just adventurous music, to keep things interesting. Searching, that was Jack, who could play many instruments (cello, bass, piano, guitar) and used them in his own personal expressive way, often resulting in composing beautiful melodies. As a working musician he became a paradox of styles, as he often guested on other albums from extreme avantgarde (Carla Bley, Michael Mantler, Zappa), "pop" (Lou Reed) to almost straight hardrock (West, Bruce, Laing). The list goes on.


I was just a green kid when Cream played their last farewell concert in the Royal Albert Hall in 1968, so I was a late Jack discoverer. Indirectly, because it was not by listening to his solo albums that already took off in 1969, but through the very intensely and inspired works of Kip Hanrahan. Especially  his 1984 album Vertical's Currency did it for me. In the middle of the sterile eighties, it was such a welcome and organic contrast to discover. That beautiful soft, intense and sensitive voice of Jack's subtle singing, bossa nova styling in the midst of a ritmically masterful band and unexpected songstructures, the whole album oozes and breathes like the human spirit: I couldn't believe that this was the former Cream bassplayer. As if Kip knew how to stir up Jack's eclectic strenghts.
So I seriously went back into his work. I found a bridge to his second 1971 soloalbum, Harmony Row, because of a few new songversions from that on Vertical's Currency, like Smiles And Grins. I was immediately intrigued by the songstructures and eclectic style. After a wild and sometimes fruityless search (it was the bloody eighties remember?) I had all of his soloalbums explored, but at the same time around 1988 Jack was crimically overlooked and seemed passé.

I couldn't believe it. Luckely he came back and got the respect he widely deserved.
I insist you "meet" him. It's not an easy listen at first, but hey, take your time.
Thanks Jack, for your expression and inspiration.







2014: I Mimic Me, my latest collection arrived in april. I'm not as musical as Jack, let that be clear. He's an example for me. Who am I anyway? I can only be grateful that I can bring them albums out. Submitted a few songs to more internetradio than before. Created some funny vids. Lots of airplay, downloads & streaming again, nice words on blogs, reviews, thanks to the digital world. And thanks to you! So musicians: just stay at home folks and meet new people!


By november I put out a short instrumental album, only exclusively on Jamendo, which also specialises in license music. (backgroundmusic/ multimedia projects) So much stuff up there, take a look:
For Your Pleasure Vol.1  

2014: Same as it ever was. Time to listen? Yeah, I follow a few interesting blogs for the more obscure, artists from the past mostly. The missing pieces in my collection.  
The new 2014 albums? Good to see so many great young, talented and enthousiastic musicians these days learning from the roots. A critical note here. Too much to listen to. So many contests. But just too little to mention, sorry. Guess as you get older, you think you've heard it all, ha.  So many releases now are so highly acclaimed by some of the press- so the hashtags on their tweets make the stories popular, it's so ridiculous. Especially in the more "o so intellectual thinking" musicscene. Interesting, fresh, hip. Yes, I'm talking indie. No, I'm not an "indie" fan at all. Is it really Indie in Independent? Or in style? Post Rock? Post what? Empty, vague, confusing and hypocritic words. They talk about it all the time, so therefore it becomes commercial. For me the word "Indie" is just as boring mainstream as U2 became! U2? There, where the money goes. Industry sucks.
It's just music, listen to it. Don't talk just head. Same as it ever was.

Jack is one of the main reasons why I love the searching, the craft of songwriting. 
As Joe Cocker sang his heart out: that's the true artist.
And hey, my list of 2014 consist mostly (!) old "boring" veteran musicians with that consistent craft!
One thing they have in common: they don't have to scream to get attention.

Hipster albums of 2014:

Ben Sidran- Blue Camus

You don't have to shout to be cool! This is smooth, intimate, hipster to the core, very organic. 70(!) old  jazzy beatpoet Ben did it again and his son plays the drums. Hooray!

Leo Sidran- Mucho Leo

Talking about his son (aha the only younger hipster here), what a pleasant surpise to hear these warm, subtle songs.

Loudain Wainwright III- Haven't Got The Blues (Yet)

Nothing new, but still fresh with words. Loudon already stole my heart with his painful sense of humor. Typical: sometimes uplifting, but bitchy folksy, melancholic next. Reflective as a mirror.

Herb Alpert- In The Mood

Yes I'm in the mood. It works, if you're in need of some. Production surprises in colourful arrangements. Herb knows and blows: warm, easy, smooth, just too subtle to call it ordinary muzak.

Neil Young- Storytone

Some critics have slaughtered this cheesy album. I think it's his best since I don't know when. More ambituous productionwise (strings like on Harvest). The full strings/ orchestra is such a beautiful contrast to his fragile delivery.

Ben Watt- Hendra
                           

Everything but the boy. Ben creates a haunting, intimate atmosphere. John Martyn comes to mind.          

Jack Bruce- Silver Rails

Needs repeated listens. Jack's personal vision. Worth it.



Neil Finn- Dizzy Heights

Surprised by this atmospheric, trippy sound. Neil tries to lift up the songs, reaching many dizzy heights.


Quoting former post 2013:"And for the sensational background information, here's a few books I've read this year. As usual, mostly sleezy (auto)biographies. Recommended:"

Victor Bockris- Lou Reed
Donald Fagen- Eminent Hipsters
Graham Nash- Wild Tales 
Rod Stewart- Autobio
Tracey Thorn- Bedsit Disco Queen
Steve Martin- Born Standing Up
David Browne- Fire & Rain 1970
David Byrne- Bicycle Diaries
Don Felder- Heaven & Hell
Judy Collins- Sweet Judy Blue Eyes
Keith Richards & James Fox (Contributor) - Life
Paul Stanley- Face The Music A Life Exposed
Ace Frehley- No Regrets
Peter Criss- Makeup to Breakup
Nick Mason- Inside Out
Rob Chapman- A Very Irregular Head Syd Barrett
Harry Shapiro- Jack Bruce Composing Himself

Shockpopradio 2014 list

Yes, with that 2013 (stupid)song of mine. Ah, what the heck...



ShockPop play list November 30, 2014
Every Sunday, Noon to 2PM Eastern 
on www.ScrubRadio.com 
Podcast Mixcloud

ShockPop podcast - November 30 2014 by Shockpop on Mixcloud

... wherein we dig mostly 2014 releases! It's been a very good year...

1. ShockPop! - ON THE AIR with Sparkwood!
2. The Penguin Party - I Wanna Be A Cult
3. Dana Countryman - The Summer I Turned Seventeen
4. Ali Ingle - The Locker
5. Alex Highton - Everybody Loves You When You're Dead
6. Dead Heart Bloom - Broken Babylon (edit)
7. 8X8 - Stop The Madman
8. Paul Handyside - Love Lies Elsewhere
9. Paul Butler - She runs with the foxes
10. Captain Wilberforce - Johnny Depp Memorial Cafe
11. Les Bicyclettes de Belsize - Beatnik My Guest
12. The JAC (featuring the Christmas Crew) - Sweet Tooth Ache
13. JoosTVD - Stupid Song(s)
14. mylittlebrother - Lovers of Life, Unite!
15. Expo - Old Friends Don't End
16. The Big I Am - Clothes (Snippet Remix)
17. The Click Beetles - The Changes
18. James M Carson - Money (We Don't Need)
19. Joe Crookston - tuesday morning
20. Identical Suns - Show Me A Sign
21. Dermot - This Moment
22. Dave Caruso - I've Tried To Write You
23. Martin Newell - Ghosts Of Christmas
24. Gordon Weiss - Listening
25. Rick Hromadka - Dreams Of A Hippy Summer
26. Alexander Khodchenko - Children Descend To The Balconies
27. Butch Barnette - Good Hot Cuppa Joe
28. Nine Times Blue - This Time
29. Charley Says - Tabletalk
30. The Squires Of The Subterrain - Dr. Van Der Jagt
31. Biscuithead & the Biscuit Badgers - Our Dog
 32. Sonofold - The boil is up to you
33. Wim Oudijk - Tree stands tall at Times Square

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!

Promo & Preview "I Mimic Me" 2014!

Do we really only mimic ourselves?

                                                                      Promo 2014

                                                            Preview the whole album

As you can see, the album should be online by now (yes here: Spotify  iTunes ,
the rest will follow) and if not, keep checking!

Next: I Mimic Me, the songguide

New album 2014: I Mimic Me

Update! 
What time is it? Yes exactly time for a brand new TVD album!
Routenote has approved the album so distribution is on its way. 
I'm so excited about the songs!

Now keep your/my fingers crossed..... Still 4 to 6 weeks to go though, but iTunes & Spotify are fast, so check them and tell me!

In the meantime, here are the covers:

                                                                       

Front

                                                                
                                              
                                       
                                             
                                        About the Title I Mimic Me

Narcistic as hell that title. It sounds fun to me. "I do Lou Reed better than anyone" Lou Reed confessed to a crowd once. Well in my case, when you reach a sudden age (?), you've come full circle. You learn to accept what you've become (pros & negs) on your own level.

So on the frontcover there's a little me, about 10 years old, in a rare state of relaxing, grinning shyly and there's the grown-up old farty me, trying more or less, but fail to mimic the younger me. Mmmm...

Back

As you can see, 13 songs (+ song 14 is the instrumental promo version of song 1) again, just like last time. Yes, I've got lots of more songs in the bag, but these are chosen as the best buy.

Btw, I also got a few funny vids in the making for ya, so...

.... next time:  Teaser "I Mimic Me" 2014