Frans de Waard

Villa Fiasco

fransdewaard — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:22:37 +0000

I have no idea actually why this is called Villa Fiasco, but this is a limited CDR release, subtitled ‘The Act Of Sampling’. A small booklet with a text by Herman van den Muijsenberg, Jos de Mol and me (the only one in Dutch, but in my defense, I thought it was all in Dutch). The CDR contains works based on a sample from a Vietnamese record. I have three remixes and last week I melted all of my samples into a live set, which I played at the presentation. Since I decided it all quite last minute its not on the poster (above). Who cares anyway? Classic click and cut music! You can listen to it here

Smoking

fransdewaard — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:01:14 +0000

Alright, so it seems I am pretty ;azy, maybe even I am. But work is hard, life is hard, winter is cold blah blah. Just to fill you on what I have been doing. I am working very hard (besides all the other things I always do, like Vital Weekly) on gettting our Tobacconists tour together. So far we have this:

April 4th Extrapool, Nijmegen
April 5th Worm, Rotterdam
April 6th Tape, Arnhem
April 7th Melkweg, Amsterdam
April 8th
April 9th GUNTHER, oudaan 15, ruimte 33, antwerpen
April 10th Sonic Protest, France
with some more dates coming, most likely in the UK, whenever somebody over there wakes up. We’ll be performing our ‘Smoking Is Green’ radiophonic work as an onstage opera. More Robert Ashley than Richard Wagner. The Tobacconists will be Scott Foust and me, obviously, and Mike Popovich of The Pickle Factory.
I have been creating some new work for us, like a new track for Sonic Protests double CD and a CD compilation for WFMU benefit (to be released by Nihilist) and a short 1 minute noise track for a US cassette compilation. When the boys are in town we will also work on our second LP, for which I already laid down seven new sketches.

This saturday I bring my laptop down to Extrapool to present some of my samples for Villa Fiasco. I participated in that project of sampling. Maybe some of the kids are interested. You never know.

Magazine

fransdewaard — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:11:10 +0000

I know this must sound odd, but I very rarely read music magazines. I do always have books on music at hand when I am listening to music, and every year read all old copies of Vinyl magazine and other old stuff, I never go out and buy new magazines. One exception though: I always receive a free courtesy copy of Gonzo Circus, that great great Belgium/Dutch magazine, who have always been very kind to whatever I do. In the recent issue there is a very nice review of the new Beequeen CD. I was looking if its online, but their site is down. Well, do it yourself and look for it.

Last friday I was waiting in line for the post office with my parcels, always passing the magazine stand, the far end for kids and music. Easy to pick one out and read while waiting, but they always look so boring. But lo and behold, New Order is on the front of this months Mojo and there is no secret in the fact that I am big fan. Comes with a cover mounted CD (all for 9 euros) of bands playing all the tracks from ‘Power Corruption & Lies’, plus a bunch of boni (plural for bonus) inc a great Biosphere rendition of ‘Blue Monday’. So I’ve spend my hangover sunday afternoon reading an old fashioned music magazine, learning all about drummer boy Ringo, Bowie and Tim Hardin – even listening to bit of the latter. Time to move out of the house and see a concert at Extrapool.

That Was The Year That Was

fransdewaard — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 11:35:07 +0000

Ok, so never write the year report until the year is finally over. You may never know what happens in the last days. This is what happened. Today I received a package from Suitcase Recordings. Somewhere in 1991 Suitcase’s Erik Blevins (All Fours), Tom Cox (TAC) and me started to work on an extensive project of material exchange, music and visual. I did a track for a compilation which was basically a small sound installation, and did another one. In 1993 I played live with Eric in Atlanta, which was also be included in the LP as planned. But then things went quite and Eric and I lost contact. But a few years ago he returned, first releasing ‘Paper & Plastic’ on a double CD (instead of the original cassette) and then started working on our joint project. Sometimes I feared Eric got lost again, but then out of the blue this beautiful item arrived. A gatefold LP sleeve, with ‘material’ stashed into it, a CDR and cards explaining the work, all lovely designed by Abo of Yeast Culture in your usual Yeast Culture way. I have one for sale.

So, then I can write about the year that was… An odd year, with concentrated work in the first half, including touring Denmark with Wouter Jaspers, and a lecture tour with him in The Netherlands. Concerts by THU20, Zebra, Kapotte Muziek and solo in the first half. But then in the second half things went quite and the only concerts were the three by Beequeen and the three by Wander. Odd. I never got my 770 euros from Andrew from the Venlo disaster december 2010. I will seriously hurt him, when I bump into him.

Also in the second half year I didn’t create a lot of new pieces, just a Bad Sector remix and a remix for an upcoming project by Jolijn Ceelen. Also before that I didn’t do a lot of music, but I did the radioplay with Scott Foust for Dutch radio, which I am extremely proud of. Hopefully you’ll be there when we perform that in April 2012.

Releasewise I am very happy with all things that were released, especially Ezdanitoff’s ‘We Bring Light’, Beequeen’s ‘Portout Starboard Home’, Freiband’s ‘Stainless Steel’ and ‘The Many Names Of Frans’. Early 2012 another great piece will see the light of day: the LP and CD ‘Smoking Is Green’ by The Tobacconists. Of course I hope 2012 will see some more CD sales for Korm Plastics – maybe I will just give in and stop the label.

The best concert I saw was Main at Incubate. Peter Hook’s performance of ‘Closer’ was a shamble. He should stick to what he is good at: playing rock music. But all the reviews I saw where positive, so I must a miserable old sodd.

Happy new year!

End Of Year List Of Favorites

fransdewaard — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:22:29 +0000

because I was asked to… in no particular order:

Stephan Mathieu – A Static Place & Remain (Cds, 12k & Line)
Illusion Of Safety – Bridges Intact (Cd, Waystyx)
John Foxx & The Maths – Interplay (Cd, Metamatic)
Lionel Marchetti – Une Saison (2cd, Monotype Records)
Idea Fire Company – Music From The Impossible Salon (Lp, Kye Records)
Francisco Meirino – Recordings Of Voltage Errors, Magnetic Fields, On-Site Testimonies And Tape Tension (Cdr, Neus-318)
Fever (Lp + 7”, Ultra Eczema)
Antoine Chessex – Dust (Cd, Cave12)
Jim O’rourke – Old News #6 (2lp, Editions Mego)
Roel Meelkop & Takanobu Hoshino – Fukushima (Cd, Obs)
The Pickle Factory – Our Anthems (Lp, Twisted Knister)
Chris Watson – El Tren Fantasma (Cd, Touch)

Re-Issues
Van Kaye & Ignit – Anthology 80-85 (5lp, Vinyl On Demand
Flue – Vista (Cd, Infrastition)
Dmdn – Agonistes (Lp, Supreme Tools Supplies)
Xx Committee – Steel Negro Music (Cd, Trash Ritual)
Moha! – Meiningslaust Oppgulp (Cd, Rune Grammofon)
De Brassers – 1979-1982 (2lp, Onderstroom Records)

best concert:
Main at Incubate

We Bring Light – indeed

fransdewaard — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:24:43 +0000

I just received copies of the very first Ezdanitoff CD ‘We Bring Light’. In Seeptember 2010 Wouter visited Nijmegen a couple of days, preparing some things which I forgot, and we stayed a day of 2 (or 3, perhaps) in my studio at Extrapool recording with analogue synthesizers and sound effects. Wouter mixed a couple of tracks which we released as a 3″CDR to sell on the road in Denmark and Lithuania, and then early 2011 I mixed those four plus 3 more for the ‘complete’ version. So these are a bit different. I added some more synths, some more effects, field recordings and superimposed two pieces into one (‘Our Russia’) and think this is a great CD. Jos Smolders did the master, Rutger Zuydervelt created a fine cover, and Silentes from Italy released it. I have some copies to sell. Synthimental love songs!

At Home At Last

fransdewaard — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:53:46 +0000

My Beequeen partner Freek runs a very private label called Beam Ends and he asked me for a cassette. The one I recorded for him, ‘Kubus’ wasn’t what he wanted, so I gave him access to all the unreleased Freiband pieces, from which he choose six and its now available. The first edition is 30 copies and it looks great! But alas no extensive liner notes – see them below. Order a copy from or get one from me – same price.

Freiband – At Home At Last Official liner notes

As there was no space left on the cover and I really wanted to say something about this new release on Beam End – here are the liner notes, so you know what you are hearing. As the title suggests, these are old pieces, which for whatever reason never found a home. The first is ‘Kapotte Muziek By’ which is the first sketch of a various pieces Freiband did, using sound material by Kapotte Muziek. It was, somewhere in 2007-2008, also presented live in some form and another version was released by My Own Little Label. This piece was for a compilation cassette with one minute songs, but they didn’t take mine, but Wander is there (with a rare noise piece actually). One of the first Freiband ‘goes computer’ pieces is ‘Well’, which of course is the German translation of Brunnen, Freek Kinkelaar’s project. I have no idea why I did this remix, perhaps as a bonus for some re-issue of his work, or some such. It was in the hands of various people for a compilation, but that also never happened. ‘BCN’ stands for ‘Bacon’, which I recorded for Spekk’s ‘Small Melodies’ compilation, and ‘spek’ is ‘bacon’ in Dutch and it uses sounds from bakings well, you get my drift. I always liked this piece and sadly was not included on that compilation ‘Unter Den Linden’ is also a very early piece by Freiband, for a remix project by Bastet, of a band with the same name. That never happened. I am not sure about the date though. I do remember Stephan Mathieu really liked this one. If you are still with us, and turn the tape over, you’ll find ‘Tilos’. Kapotte Muziek was late 2001 in Budapest for a workshop and concerts and we were invited to come down to a radio station called ‘Tilos’ to present our work, and we all did a solo live piece. This particular piece includes some Joy Division/New Order samples, if I remember correctly, as I was busy working on ‘Homeward’. In 2002 I did a slightly different studio version, which is the one of this tape. Tilos Radio still exists and was recently under attack from the new laws on media in Hungary. Tongue in cheek is the last one, as I was not invited to a compilation that was to be released with remixes of Ptose, an old French band, but I bumped into someone who had source material. I did this piece, which I recently titled, which I never thought was completely done, but apparently Mr. Beam End likes it, so there you go. And aspiring young labels: there is plenty more where this came from, the freivaults are not empty. Frans de Waard – 30-III-2011

Bad Sector

fransdewaard — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:48:49 +0000

Sometimes, through the pages of Vital Weekly I complain about remix CDs, but privately I’d like to take part in them, simply because I like doing music and doing a remix is a fine enough reason. Bad Sector I remember from my staaldays and although I was never blown away, I like certain aspects of their music. They toured Germany last month and Vuz Records asked a few people to do a remix. Its now available as a 3″CDR and has besides Freiband also If, Bwana, Hypnoskull as 33mhz and dEmutE. Nice one! I have some copies.

Smoking = Death

fransdewaard — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:13:16 +0000

Portout Starboard Home

fransdewaard — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:51:41 +0000

While packing up stuff for Russia this week, the postman delivered, thank god for that, copies of the latest Beequeen CD ‘Portout Starboard Home’ and to fit the ‘travel’ theme we travel. Three concerts as Beequeen, and two as Wander:

12th October Wander in St. Petersburg (at Sigmund Freud Dreams Museum www.freud.ru)
13th October Beequeen in St. Petersburg (at GES-21, support act to Beequeen: Badoseneticcube)
14th October Beequeen in Yaroslavl (at Dom Muz)
15th October Wander in Moscow (at Ex Libris www.exlibriscafe.ru)
16th October Beequeen in Moscow (at Dom www.dom.com.ru/events/254/)

I can still mail out copies of this great CD (13 postpaid worldwide) until tuesday the 11th, 12:00