If all goes well, I should be getting today or tomorrow a box of copies of my latest release, ‘The Many Names Of Frans’, a cassette released by Vuz Records. I known Holger since the mid 80s when he had a label called Dill, and I participated on a compilation. This new cassette is his second release on a new cassette label called Maneki Neko Tapes and its basically a fifteen track compilation of various names I have used for my various musical projects. Below I copied all the liner notes. Actually today I should have been working with Martin Luiten on finalizing the mix of our third and final Pick-up LP, but the heavy rain all day prevents me from going out. I am sure Martin will do a good job. After sending out all free copies to fellow conspirators, I will have a few left for sale, contact me.
01 Zebra – Ouverture
After five years of talking about starting Zebra, Roel Meelkop and I finally started in 2005, albeit with a 7″ that had a solo track by each. We see Zebra as the logical extension of Goem, but then with more ‘fun’ and perhaps even more ‘concept’. We choose [or you could say “settle upon”] a theme, say the word ‘music’ and then look for popsongs that deal with ‘music’. ‘Ouverture’ is from our as of yet unreleased album that deals with songs with ‘Ouvertures, Rhapsodies, Fanfares and Symphonies’. This edit was created for a compilation that rejected our track on the grounds of copyright. Oh, and we used the wrong drum machines!
02 Kapotte Muziek – Rotterdam 1995
In 1995 Roel Meelkop joined Peter Duimelinks and me for the live line-up of Kapotte Muziek and after our first concert as a trio, we did some rehearsing. It was the only time we rehearsed. This particular recording is from one of these. Previously unreleased.
03 Frans de Waard – Klankschap 5
From the original notes written on September 9th 2002: “All sounds contained in this piece were recorded on my rather noisy bike – some screws et al aren’t attached right, so it makes noise while riding the bicycle. As my bicycle is always in Nijmegen, I opted for a personal note on Nijmegen, rather then a social picture of the city. Being born here in 1965, I returned in 1998, after having spent some years in Den Haag. We bought a house at Fagelstraat 40 address. In 2000 the relationship ended and I moved out and now at the Acaciastraat 11 address. But in the next two years, I went back and forth to the old address to take care of my daughter. This ended in August 2002, when my daughter moved out of Nijmegen and my active role as a father ended. The house was sold and upon the final day being there, I went back on my bicycle and recorded the source material while going to my own house. A small ride of maybe 7 minutes. On the soundpiece I transformed the sounds, keeping in mind the various curves and roads to follow. Two days later I had my bicycle fixed and it’s now all silent again.” Klankschap #5 was recorded for the project ‘Invisible Cities’ in Ireland and was before only available as a download.
04 Quest – Schnitzler mix
When I heard that Plate Lunch was to do a Conrad Schnitzler remix project I invited myself. Plate Lunch thought the track was good, but asked if the piano intro could be removed. I agreed, but shortly after that, the owner of Plate Lunch passed away and with him, this project, so here is the original version including piano. Quest was my solo project in ambient music in the 90s, and it differs from QST, which was me and Maurice van Dongen. Previously unreleased.
05 Captain Black – Scorn Mix
Captain Black, an US brand of pipe tobacco, was my remix alter ego. I remixed various bands and never asked permission. I released several of them on limited pieces of vinyl (Unitone HiFi, PWOG and Tortoise), CDR (Power Steppers) and much remains in the archive (WordSound label for instance). This remix of Scorn is previously unreleased.
06 The Whi – Untitled
Probably a one-off project of Ben Schot, Roel Meelkop, Puck Schot and me, using WII-Rock band hero set-up, computers and amplifiers. Recorded live in Extrapool on November 6th 2010. Previously unreleased.
07 Ezdanitoff – Bandwidth (Live In O Tannebaum 13-11-2010)
Ezdanitoff is Wouter, Jaspers and me. Started out in May 2010 with a concert and recording time in Budapest. This particular excerpt is from the first concert of our ‘Bandwidth’ project, mainly about radio waves and a rather free adaptation of ‘Imaginary Landscape #4’ by John Cage. Previously unreleased
08 Beequeen – Breathe
Since 1989 Beequeen is Freek Kinkelaar and me, with the addition of Olga for the last couple of years on vocals. We moved from ambient/industrial to, well, popmusic. This is a live recording from August 15th 2008 and was previously released on the double CDR, part of the ‘Encyclopedia Of Industrial Music Part 1’
09 Goem – Untitled
Goem started in 1996 by Roel Meelkop and me, with Peter Duimelinks joining in 1997. It ended somewhere in 2003 and existed as a solo project for me until 2008. One of the last pieces recorded (by Roel and me) was this commissioned remix of Esplendor Geometrico for a Japanese label but it was never released. Previously unreleased
10 Shifts – Rehearsal
Mainly Shifts was a studio project, exploring the depths of ‘guitars’ and ‘ambient’ music. But in 1998 I was asked to present it in live concert (in Stockholm, where Shifts also played with Zoviet*France, sadly never released). I did some rehearsals at home to see how it would work. This is an excerpt. Previously unreleased
11 Freiband – One Love, One Egg
Since 2000 Freiband is my solo name for anything to do with “music and computers”, to put it loosely. Various pieces were remixes, and this is to be understood as a remix of Zion Train. I do think they asked me for this, but in the end it was never used. Previously unreleased
12 The Tobacconists – Twilight
In April 2009 Scott Foust and I toured Europe as The Tobacconists, and recorded a LP for Hanson Records/Swill Radio (to be released in 2011). This piece was recorded through mail in 2011 and is previously unreleased.
13 Surge – 1
I tried to keep this as anonymous as possible, but I didn’t succeed. Surge can be seen as a ‘solo Goem’ and released two CDRs (on Bake Records and Microwave Recordings). This particular track was submitted to Audio.NL, but they didn’t release it. Previously unreleased
14 Pick Up – Untitled
In 2008 I started to work with a local guitarist Martin Luiten. He plays guitar, I process it live. We did a lot of recordings in 2008 and 2009 and released two LPs, with a third still in the making. This short edit comes from a finished piece from that third LP. Previously unreleased
15 Wander – Wander
After deciding on doing popmusic, Freek Kinkelaar and I thought it would be nice to have a drone project, which became Wander. All our pieces are called ‘Wander’ and we wanted to present our music in all formats only once. We didn’t succeed, as we’ve done two CDs already, besides a 7″, 12″, LP, cassette and various compilations – including this one. Previously unreleased,
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.
Frans de Waard 