Spain and the final recordings

It's been a mad time and then it got even more mad! Went out to Andalucia to record some bits with Ken Stringfellow at El Cortijo; a very very nice studio. Now, the owner, Trevor Morais is a really vibey, chatty guy and he made sure we were treated like royalty; awesome food and really nice, if not overly nice bedrooms. Not to mention the studio! Ken added more than I was hoping for; his distinct vocal cords gave a lot of silkyness to my songs. He also put on some piano (a really peculiar piano, almost harpsicord-like, but great sounding one!) and bass on a couple of tracks. In between we got to hear many a story from old Trev; a bit like that roadie in Wayne's World II. The guy's been around the block obviously. The food was just amazing; not in the last place because of Ken's suggestion to have a paella with rabbit. Never heard of that, but the Cook Anita said "no problemo" and ordered her hubby to shoot one in the Andalucian hills. Poor Fluffy... Can't wait to get on with the mixes, but now I'm happy to be stuck for a day in Malaga; gonna see the Picasso museum and catch Big Star play in an old theatre tonight! Guess who's on the guestlist! Yesss!
x JB

Busy times...

Hello y'all,

A small update from me; I've been busy with a lot of stuff recently. Main focus of course is my first solo-album (if you don't count the countless tracks and albums I did that actually feel like solo efforts too...). We spent an amazing time with the ICP family earlier in March. I had Harry Bum Tschak on drums. He's an amazing player and an awesome dude to have around. I met him when I was working in Germany. He became an awesome friend and as I was writing a lot at nighttime in my hotelsuite he just was the no. 1 choice for the project!
He's also got an excellent knowledge of Neue Deutsche Welle music. I have a weak spot for that! Remember the genius of Trio?
Anyways, I tied him to my old friend and guitarbrother Wouter Planteijdt. What a guy! If he'd packed his backs back in the hairband days he would have George Lynched out the whole LA scene. I'm not kidding you! Luckily his tastes focus to stuff like The Band and the lot, Miles Davis and just plain good music.
Man, what a combination! Like Shelle, the inhouse ICP engineer said, it was the perfect combination of tremendous fun and in the middle of the night noticing the incredible amount of work we'd done that day!
Add the top notch food and some leisural wine intake on top of that...
I'm going through it now, trying some mixing options... leaving stuff out... adding stuff... You know...
I've also booked an amazing studio in Spain, called El Cortijo to record some backing vocals and basses with Ken Stringfellow of Posies, R.E.M., Big Star, Disciplines and what-not-fame. I've always been a big fan, so you can imagine I'm quite excited about that.
I'll finish mixing right after that because I got the call to produce a new Acda & De Munnik album. Exciting, because we're (again) taking a new direction here. Always great to be in the studio with some of your best friends.
In meantime De Dijk's on full touring blast, so I thank Digidesign and their Mbox Micro 2 for keeping me at pace studiowise. Literally mixing at 110 mph!
Which reminds me; I gotta finish the Perneau mixes too. Exciting new band from Holland doing the bam bam guitar and drums thing.

Cheers from Amsterdam!

Love,

JB