Coffeebreak, reading a book!

Just wanted to share this while having a coffeebreak in between mix-adjustments. I had quite an unusual meeting last week with a chap called Simon Napier-Bell. Doesn't ring a, erm... Bell? Well, to be short; he wrote "You don't have to say you love me" By Dusty Springsteen (in itself enough to be immortal.), managed The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, T-Rex, Jeff Beck, Japan, Wham! and what not. I will spare you the gory details of the meeting (well ok, we finished three bottles of Pouilly Fumé at The Hotel Americain in Amsterdam, after which I had to go on to play a festival. It was either sober up or stay on the lucid vibe; I chose the latter.), but he gave me his book "Black Vinyl White Powder" and I'm halfway through it now... It's a must read! Brilliantest insight in the history of European pop-culture, Stones bio's, Beatle whatnot ever! Bye, JB.

New site launched oct. 1

As I've been really busy and mostly tweet whatever I'm up to via Facebook, the blog's a bit not so up to date. Anyway, the site's going to be renewed soonish and it's going to be a lot more detailed... What have I been up to? Ummm.... Well, the usual; daytime=studio, nighttime=gigs. Furthermore I'm crystallizing plans to get some solo-gigs done, but that's really really hard because my agenda's really really full. 'til next time!

New website and a lot of stuff happening

So, here's the quite definite albumcover. I'm really thrilled. Actually more thrilled than I thought I would be in the first place. And the thought of going to play this thing live is a constant thought. In meantime I did a little tour with Acda en de Munnik; that's finished now, because Dijk's starting up it's engines again. Daytime's all about Acda en de Munnik's new album and working on various less timeconsuming projects. By the way, I've uploaded two of my album's tracks on myspace/jbmeijers. For anyone interested in a listen and the new and, can I say rather brilliant AedM single... Turn on yer radio! And, oh, I will completely redo the website soonish.

Back from France

I had some really seriously chilled weeks in this fantastic house in the Perigord-Dordogne, France. I was planning to dive into the upcoming Dijk/Solomon Burke album as well as rehearsing my own tunes, but instead I dove headfirst into this great cookbook by La Mazille, written in 1929 about the Perigord cuisine.
So, my days consisted of figuring out what to have for dinner (and the day after), get the ingredients and hard labour in the very well equipped kitchen.
The Perigord is well known for its "farci", meaning stuffing. Furthermore it's truffles, canard, oie, lamproie and whatnot...
It was also an excellent time to take up ye olde mountainbike, golfclub and I even dusted off my tennisracket!
Anyway; the house was so inspiring I'm trying to get a (some) project(s) done there sometime(s). Hell, I even wrote two tunes in between!
Meanwhile I'm finishing the Acda en de Munnik (My holiday buddies and taste de cuisiniers!) album, writing for the Solomon album and also the new Dijk album. Also I'm really excited about what's gonna happen with Catching Ophelia the upcoming months; Wanda and I decided to combine our releases giving a hell of a party in Paradiso on oct. 12th. Hope you can be there too!

Mad year, and it will get crazier!

So... De Dijk finished the 1st half of this year's tour. Having a little summerbreak... And finished off a couple of albums, most noteably the new Acda en de Munnik one and my own...
The last days at ICP were pretty crazy too. Ken Stringfellow wrote something about it which pretty much sums up the vibe. What follows next is a little piece of Ken's blog:


7.04.2009
I had two amazing days (plus a get-in night) mixing Acda en de Munnik at the legendary ICP studios in Brussels. This is part of what's been a very fruitful collaboration with JB Meijers, which started with his invitation to have me sing on his upcoming solo album (which I've now heard as completed and it's outtasite--hitting on elements of Todd Rundgren, Neil Young, and even Alice In Chains...in a great way). JB is a kind of Todd, he can play all the bits, work a studio from any perspective, and organize complex music into...well, whatever he wants. First, we had to contend with the fitting in of a marvelous arrangement by Van Dyke Parks. I mean, basically JB was handing me a very big leg up, and I really didn't want to fuck it up. But how to prepare? I listened to a rough mix with a cheap keyboard rendition of the arrangement mixed in. OK. Got the basic idea...in the meantime, JB went around getting the arrangement done. I am not at liberty to drop names, but the first group of musicians, an orchestra, in fact, to take on the arrangement, basically walked out of the session saying it was unplayable. JB was unnerved--we were supposed to mix in a couple of days, but my attitude was: the last time an orchestral piece caused a riot it was Stravinksy, so we're in good company. Well, he found a way to get it done...and after discovering that they had neglected to use his click track or rough mix and recorded it at least 3-5 bpm faster than the track it was going to be on...a little editing and we were somewhat in business. I arrived, and the band, JB and I cracked some Pinot Gris and got to thinking. I told them my inspirations on the track, and they were liking what they were hearing. We made some ideas about chopping some of the arrangement out to make a kind of intro that foreshadows the upcoming full song, just a few seconds. We faked it out on the keyboard, and went to bed wondering how it would all go.

So up the next morning, and early to bed and late to bed would be the theme of these days--I swam, breakfasted and spoke on the phone about the Disciplines album to a journalist. Then it was work time. We dove in on building the intro, and I was jumping in as ProTools man, then adding the 3rd and 4th hands to big chords as we augmented some unlinked sections with some...other things. All the while we had Michel, one of ICP's longest running engineer, who worked on many of the classic albums done there, who did engineer the things we added to the track--organ, tambourine, etc....but I was cheeky enough to just jump on the computer and start digging in.

We got the intro sorted, I did some tweaking and went in sound by sound. Layer by layer. The vintage Neve console at ICP studio C is just...what you want. Enormous, rich, balanced and sturdy. Slapping vintage Altec compressors on the bass and kick drum instantly gave me a boingy, bouncy, vintage feel for the low end, and I was getting happier and happier. Still, I used the two days we had, tweaking tiny vocal sounds, tuning what I felt could be even more perfect-er, lining up doubles that could be even tighter, and of course, riding levels to give the song dynamics (guidance from the band was essential here). Morning of day two I was up for a swim again (yep, they've got a pool at this studio) and off to do interviews and back to mix, and later, did a radio interview at Pure FM, the French speaking national radio in Belgium. But, it was pretty clear by the end of night one that *I* was happy--and with the band listening the next day, they were really happy. It was a great mix of relief and pride when I got such positive feedback. I can't wait for you to hear it.

Acda en De Munnik are two guys--Thomas Acda (who is also an 'acta'--he is regularly featured in Dutch TV & cinema) and Paul de Munnik. They are described as cabaret, they seem to have done a rock opera, but everything I've heard is just well composed, duo-vocal songs...and you know from my career how I feel about harmonies-all-they-way-thru acoustic duos! I am in one, dammit. There are moments in this song that remind me of all the classics--CNSY, Cat Stevens, Seals & Crofts, even Chicago...but it's in the end this great sounding thing, thoroughly timeless and contemporary. I did the ultimate test today, and it sounded just huge on my home rig. With the extra time we had, since the mix was put to bed by 9, we zipped off a live acoustic session of me doing two Disciplines songs in the amazing studio D, with the Deutsche Gramophon Telefunken desk. ICP's mic collection is the world's sickest, most outrageous, hands down. So, everything I did would be thru some insane mic from the 40s or EARLIER. Wowowowowow. So there's a happy ending for ya.

...Nnnnice one, Ken! So, I dropped off Ken at the station (He had to go on play with Big Star in Hyde Park, London! Now, who's the Todd Rundgren here. Ken is just unbelieveable!) then went home, and did another four gigs with De Dijk.
I was so tired, but vampirizing on the audiences energy and sipping on some R 'n R-style Jack Daniels pulled me through I must say. All culminating to our final show at Heineken Music Hall.
A sold out show for about 6000 people! (Of which a large part ended up in the backstage area.)
I had to take some of my gear home, so I drove down with my car, but got in such a state after the gig it was not a good idea to drive the Volvo home.
I left it at the venue, not knowing Neyo was in next day.
So, Wanda, Stip (the dog) and I walked the 12 km down to the HMH in order to recollect my car and keys.
Of course the venue was in a full on hiphop-state: The smaller the group, the larger the trouble seems to be the credo in your average hiphop circumstances, haha!
So, I'm like there... Hello, I'm JB from the Dijk; picking up my car... And they go:"What's your problem, muthafucke? Why didn't you take your car yesterday, whiteass?" So I'm like: "You know, I'm a rockstar walking the dog, picking up my car because our crew was drunk too and stuff..." Fuckin' hilarious, that was, haha!
Got the car, drove home and had a diner for two with Wanda yesterdaynight. That had been ages and we were like two birds in love at the restaurant. Mmmmm...!

I've got some time off now, which gives me time to think about what's coming up; Dijk tour, Solomon Burke record, Dijk album, the release of Catching Ophelia, the incidental Acda en de Munnik gigs... Sa-weeeet!

And then...

I got home after a great gig with De Dijk. Blindin' really... Enjoying my new garden doors and chilling out after a very intense month mainly recording the new Acda en de Munnik album. So much things happened I don't even know where to start... Ummm... Let's see, well, we moved to ICP C studios which actually has my favourite desk; an old but very well maintained Neve broadcast desk, mainly consisting of 1091 modules, but with some routing and handy switching going on. It was such a difference to hear the tracks we'd layed down on the SSL 4000 through that desk. Much more openness, etc. June was pretty much either being in Brussels when not gigging.
I celebrated my birthday at ICP for the fourth time. I guess that says a lot.
Anyway; we had some pressure going on finishing the single, but we also had to finish the recordings...
And.. there was something going on with the single that needed some push over the cliff!
So, my first call guy Frans was in Curacao, building his rockstar retreat on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea. He was out.
Second call was Van Dyke Parks, which whom I'd worked on stuff a while ago. He was willing to write a VDP-style arrangement. And I got a date with the Metropole Orchestra. Third call was to get Ken Stringfellow in, whom I'd met while recording my solo-album (yeah, it's mastered, finished and due for release sept. 14th 2009 on V2 records!).
So, yeah, two pretty wild decisions! And guess what; this might be the best track I've ever done with AedM.
We had some tough hours with the Met Orchestra because of Van Dyke's insane yet beautiful ideas.
And I was so lucky to have a guy as talented as Ken on my side to be like really down to earth about it all and approached it so no-nonsense like. As he went through the tracks and kinda monitored him I knew quite soon it was going to work. After a while he asked if he could add some stuff like tambourines and a hammond. So I went; yeah...ok...let's see... All fuckin' brilliant. Bless him!
The ICP resources were pretty cannibalized because we had full on sessions going on in A and B; Ed Bueller doing a band which might just well be the band you all are going to like in a month or 3; some French famous dude full plugged in, and us having studio C and D for mixing and dubbing. The cooks were cooking their spoons off!
In between I had all these minor mixes and dubs for other people going on and in all honesty; I didn't sleep a lot over the last couple of months. But that's gonna change soon! Gonna take a little break in order to go full blast again from half august on. I just found out I'm basically pretty much booked (well, I've got the odd coupla days...) until december 2011. So I guess I'm fine crisis-wise!

Crazy crazy times

Aloha from Brussels, I'm producing the new Acda en de Munnik album. Again it's plain fun to work at ICP again. With so many great friends on my side. We're one happy family. Moke are in studio B; really cool to catch up with my old pal Felix again, although we're both working hard on our projects. Tonight we're gonna have a drink or two and have a good ol' time like in the old days, haha!
Excuse if I'm somewhat erratic in telling where I am and what I'm doing.
Today was pretty mad; after I camew home at 3.30 in the morning I set the alarm for 8.30 because I had a show at 11 a.m. with The Metropole Orchestra/Vince Mendoza to play a Ennio Morricone recital in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Awesome! I had done it before, but nevertheless... Fantastic!
I couldn't sleep so I really looked like Charles Bronson after 30 minutes of nodding off in my bed (with Wanda and Jazz sleeping like roses.).
So I went to the Concertgebouw, did my numbers, then went to Vince's room and nodded off, so I missed the final applause for which I had to come back. You know, Concertgebouw-stylee!
Had a little chitchat with Vince afterwards... Such a shame we couldn't spend a day off in Amsterdam together; the guy is such a musical mastermind. And a fantastic concuctor. I don't know what his secret is, but he really treats an orchestra like dough and still be a real friendly guy. You just want to do the best you can for him. I think I actually just unveiled his secret, haha!
Good fun! But I had to hurry because we had an early Dijk show in the south of Holland and had to go to Brussels straight after the show...
So I get out of the Concertgebouw and next thing I know I'm on the phone someone asking me if I would be interested in producing a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah-album. Sure sure! But, I had to hurry... They're gonna come over to Brussels somewhere this week to chat.
So I drove to Oosterhout, had a nap for 30 min. Saw The Sheer play an awesome set, met some old Doe Maar guys who play with Boudewijn De Groot these days, did a blinding Dijk set and fucked off to Brussels.
Mad day, but not too average, I must brag!
Meanwhile old chap Frans is mastering my solo-album and I'm really really proud of it. V2 were totally blown away. It's got good karma I suppose. We'll see what the future will bring... oh, we'll do a release party in Amsterdam somewhere half september. It's gonna be the people who played on the album and I might wanna expand the band with someone extra, who will have to be nameless now. I'm sorry. Tell you later.

Increase the peace y'all.

x JB