The genesis of a new musical adventure
After getting back from the
Blue Man Group auditions it was off to Belgium to the studio at my friend Werners house...
Werner is one of THE most gifted musicians I have ever had the pleasure of working with and one of the few musical soul-mates I have discovered this lifetime...
We used to play in a formation together called '
Triple X' (
click here for mp3) but for one reason or another that came to a halt....
We have been meaning to work on something ever since though... and finally after many years we have both managed to find time (or should I say make time) to get the ball rolling again...
His place is set right in the middle of the country side and making music there is like a dream come true...
...no distractions....
...beautiful clean air....
...lots of space...
...cool animals...
... lovely family.... great food...
... what more can one ask for???
We got a lot of preliminary stuff done... it was mainly about checking out software possibilities and like I said earlier: getting the ball rolling.... we are planning on doing this on a regular basis and once we have music ready to listen to, you'll be hearing about it here.... as usual :)
Blue Man Group auditions
Just over a week ago I checked my emails as usual and to my surprise I had an email from
Blue Man Group asking me if I would be interested in auditioning for them as a drummer for a new production opening in Oberhausen, Germany which is to open alongside their
production in Berlin...
I was so excited and immediately agreed... it's not everyday you get that kind of invitation... so I booked my flights and then got straight to practicing during the remaining days... and then all of a sudden it was here... the day of truth LOL!
So I got up really early this morning and drove to Maastricht airport and from there flew to Berlin...
Once I got there I decided to have a walk around as I did have a few hours to kill... so I decided to go to the
Jewish Holocaust memorial site...
I had been there once before and was so moved by it that I had to take the opportunity to check it out again.... I highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in Berlin... it is an experience, that is for sure...
After that I thought I had better make my way to the Potsdamer Platz to make sure I got there on time... when I did get there I still had a few more hours to kill so I took myself off to the nearest Haagen Dazs ice cream shop - got myself a BIG chocolate milkshake and worked on some tracks that we will be doing in the studio tomorrow...
And before you knew it was time to go to the audition...
It was at the
theatre were Blue Man Group is currently playing...
When I got up there, there were about 8 other musicians ready to audition...
Once it was 3pm we were all called in to this huge rehearsal room that was just FULL of all types of drum set-ups used within the production... was very impressive! Anyway we were all asked to play one of the songs from the show with the guitarist and bassist...
One after the other... there was definitely a real sense of electricity in the air.... everyone was on edge ready to do their best I guess...
Funnily enough one of the other drummers auditioning was the drummer of
AK 4711 who we played with at
Basel last year... once we had all played we were asked to leave the room for a few minutes... then one of the guys came out and asked three of us to leave and the other 5 to come back in for the next round... this continued until there were only two us left... finally I was called in on my own and they said they were happy with how I played and if I would be up for coming to the final audition at the end of September in Amsterdam... How cool is that?!!?!? I was over the moon to say the least and pretty much just floated all the way back home for the next few hours... so now it is just a matter of practice, practice, practice... stay tuned!
