apr 21, 2022 | Blog, Geen categorie, Music
I had the priveledge to record Ildo Nandja’s trio in Batavierenhuis in Rotterdam. With priveledge I really mean it. It’s just these kind of sessions that makes a sound engineers work not being work at all! Check it out! Rush Hour – YouTube, Lembranças da Vida – YouTube, Disciples – YouTube, Song for the last tribes –...
jun 21, 2015 | Blog, Music
How thing sometimes just seem to happen… I walked by the entrance of the museum and ran into Wim van Zon, initiator of the Jazz Museum Rotterdam. After the usual “how are you” and stuff like that he asked me if was interested i filming and taking photo’s of some famous Dutch jazz musicians for DJAZZ.tv. Of course I was interested! The concept was that six different photograhpers would interview and film selected musucians through the eye of a photographer as their point of view is different to a cameraman on film. Also we had to choose an iconic photo to inspire our set up. I chose a Duke Ellington picture sitting behind the piano with only a spotlight on him. What inspired me on this picture was to see the vulnerabillity of a musician and the guts to open themselves up to an audience, as a matter of fact, people you don’t know, have never seen before and actually still don’t see as the theatre is completely dark as if you’re looking into a black hole. So I chose my studio set up to be black and use only one spotlight a little from the side to create hard contrasts and keep the focus on the persons expression as they tell their story. On Thursday the 18th of June I had the first five musicians in front of my camera. So interesting to talk to such a variety of personalities! Everyone with basically the same story to tell as I asked all of them the same questions, but all with a different vibe, so far apart that you wont be...
apr 9, 2015 | Blog, Music
I am proud to announce that we will release Luke and my collaboration on the CD “The Universal Language” on april the 18th. It was a wonderful experience which took our friendship to a higher level too! I feel that this is only the beginning of a lot of creativity, good vibes and lots of fun to come! If you are able to come and to the release party, we would like to share the vibe we felt for the past couple of months in executing this project. To everyone involved in any way we would like to express our gratitude. Luke you are the best bro!...
jan 17, 2015 | Blog, Music
[:en]A couple of years ago, when I was still working in the WMDC, a student from the classical department came one Saturday asking for a room to study. His friendly smile and grateful attitude made me give him the best room with the best grand piano we had in the building at that time. Of course when he came down for a coffee break we had a some little small talk. Every now and then he came by to study or for a little chat. This went on till he graduated and not too long after that I had leave the WMDC to start working at the Circus department. Luke and I weren’t really like friends going out for a drink or so together, but it was in the back of my mind all the time. I started becoming more and more interested in recording on location in stead of the studio. Not that my passion for studio recording got less, but adding a new skill was just a new challenge for me. I started my research and by accident stumbled on an audio designer in the Netherlands who also happened to design his own microphones. After telling my good friend and partner in crime Alex Buurman who writes reviews about instruments and microphones after testing them, we went to interview Ad van Medevoort, the designer. I completely fell in love with these mics and bought the matched pair we tested there and then. While driving back from the interview I came up with the idea of recording a CD with only a grand piano. As you might have...
jun 15, 2013 | Blog, Music
Today Stef had a class reunion and he asked me if the Potatoes wanted to play on the venue. Of course we’re always in for some fun. As it’s been a while sin ce we had a gig, this was a good moment to get together again. We had a ball although musically we had to time to go on the automatic pilot. If was another great gig with the usual humour and lots of fun!...
mei 4, 2013 | Blog, Music
Being on the road with Drums United again, was some I’ve been looking forward to do again, as we haven’t toured for a while. We had to drive all the way to the South of Germany, a few km’s from the Swiss border. Bulu and I left Luca’s place at about 11:00 to pick up our light tech along the road and then drive for another 8 hours before arriving at the hotel in Reutlingen. After checking in, all e had to do was follow Bulu to lead us to a Chinese restaurant. How he does it, we don’t know, I’m not sure he even knows himself, but he always manages to find a Chinese restaurant near the venue! The next day after my morning jog, breakfast and some chilling out, we were off to the theater, which turned out to be a club with a very small stage. Some improvisation was needed to fit all the instruments and still leave some space for the musicians to move around. The show was good, not to many people in the audience, but as usual they were very enthusiastic and an overwhelming applause on the final song made the musicians return for an encore twice. Something I haven’t experienced with this band before. The next day, we had another two hour drive to Waldshut-Tiengen, which was even further South, close to Basel, Switzerland. It was quite a big hall, also used as a sporting facility, so there was no lighting ar audio equipment available. This had to come all the way from Holland which gave us a lot of stress as...
