Gram Rocksite

All the inspiration & frustration on making GRAM album no. 2

26-12-09
Ooh.. Pieter 'Pidah' Kloos casting his most intens look into the camera, standing next to his beloved vintage analogue multitrack tape recorder... Yes, we had some acoustically divine days at the Void studio in Eindhoven. Every day stuff happened that made me prick up my ears, while my heart was skipping beats from joy and amazement. Huge tape echo on the beats of 'So Animal'? Trippy! Five of us playing the percussion part of 'Play Me'? Yippee! Half-time hiphop drums over my pain-stakingly written orchestrations of 'Statues'? Uh... initially hard to take, then even harder to let the fantastic idea go. All around us the world got snowed in, I slipped with my car, Laurens (upright bass player) damaged his car bumper, I trashed my fellow band members to pieces via the old X box, and by day four everybody was ill. Our mystery co-producer started the whole sniffing cult, and his record-breaking consumption of the Lemsip-like anti-flu drug Hot Coldrex promptly got him the name 'Vitamin C'. That, and his healthy influence on the band sound of course :-)

27-11-09
I booked a studio, yes I did. We're gonna record the bass, guitars, drums and some more things medio December at the 'Void'-studio, run by Pieter Kloos. It is vintage gear heaven in the center of Eindhoven. I've been there before a few times, but never for one of my own records. So now it's great to finally 'end up' here, by happy accident. Only problem is, I'm not gonna drive all five of us up there every day. Hence, we are gonna need acommodation, but the budget has no room for hotel rooms. Sooo... I got ourselves a little bungalow. Yes, a real one, in a true family holiday resort, only a 15 minute drive from the center of Eindhoven. I think it's hilarious, but I do think it's also a very relaxed solution.

11-11-09
I'm reading some old blogs. About the whole idea behind the webcam project: from Artist to Beholders, that later became from Alone to Band, from Acoustic to Beefed-up orchestration. Add a theme song to the whole thing, entiteld 'From A To B', tralala.. nice little concelpt, I'd say. But after saying A and b, maybe after more than a year it's time to add a C to this personal alphabet. Artist and band need a Co-producer. Am I afraid to jinx things? Definitely. So let me just whisper it very softly: I think I found that C.

05-11-09
Well well well. I'd say someone is running-running-running from psychology lecture to making youtubes to being ill in bed to making new arrangements for the record these days. And that's why my fridge contains only ready-meals right now. Quite something different from earlier days. From personal research I believe there is a strong relationship between producing a record and cooking. I've been having dinner with quite a few (home-)producers, and they all make a mean pasta bolognaise. I'd say it makes sense: on one hand cooking and producing is very much alike, it's all about the right amounts of ingredients, timing and concentration. On the other hand cooking is actually so different: after a whole day of listening to music, you really long to put your other senses to use. And after 3 years of working on the GRAM debut album, I sure could cook anything from asparagus risotto to zabaglione.
But not these days: I've been living on ready-meals for quite some weeks now, and I don't feel 'guilty' about it anymore. This week I vowed I wouldn't cook anymore until we enter the studio. And after that oath I left for the supermarket and bought 10 meals in one go.

14-10-09
The past few weeks, more and more tweets are actually not about the music, but about my other - a bit hidden - identity. If making music doesn't get you enough money to buy guitars AND bread, you have no choice but to get an extra job, preferably as less time-consuming as possible, so you can still live the musician's life most of the week. Romantic souls would certainly approve of an extra job as long as it involves a. working in a record store, or b. working in a (coffee) bar, or c. flipping burgers. But a. record stores are almost extinct, b. I wouldn't be able to work with just coffee or party people around me, and c. I hate MacDonalds. But I'm not complaining: 3 days a week I turn into Master of Science M.A. van Eenbergen, entertaining first year students at the University of Amsterdam with interesting stuff about psychology and methodology. It's a truly great job (sold-out venues every week), but I'll be honest... The past few weeks it's been quite a demanding job, and I'm dog- and dead-tired. And my heart really still belongs to music.

09-10-09
A laptop is a girls' best friend... Ever since the Mac came into my life, I haven't been able to take my hands of him. But I spent so much time with him, I didn't realize that in some dark corners of my studio my guitars, flute, piano and percussion stuff were gathering dust, while silent tears rolled down their mostly wooden cheeks. But they had their revenge: right now my ability to play an instrument is at an all time low. Well I thought, making music is just building blocks in Logic, on stage I mostly loose my head to dancing anyway... why focus on guitar playing? But then again, I really want to PLAY with my band, so Sander hooked me up with his buddy Reinier Scheffer for guitar lessons. First few times with him were pretty confronting: apparently I've been handling the guitar wrong in every way all my life. Now I'm practicing with different plectra, different hand positions, different everything. It feels like I'm trying to write with my left had while being a right-handed girl, and so I'm cursing all the time. But left was the new right and I lost direction anyway these days, so I'm just gonna hold on.

01-10-09
You know it will happen, but it always hurts when it actually does. 'Killing your darlings'. Yes. Only 10 or 12 songs will make it to the album, the rest will go up to meet that great producer in the sky. As usual I wrote songs that only could come from multiple musical personalities, but this time around I really wished to make a CONSISTENT album. So me and the band and people-who-know-these-things tried to find some common grounds in the material. We came up with 3 entirely different records: electro-rock, sit-down-and-listen songs, or sixties pop. Loads of bands just write 12 songs in 3 years, and that'll be it. I must say, that's how things were for me usually as well. But now a lonely tear drops from my cheeck, as I look to the computer screen that shows 65 folders with clusters of song ideas. I do understand one has to kill her 'babies', but these 24 songs... dammit, I demoed them so thoroughly, they're adolescent by now! Grrrr, half of them have to go. This isn't 'killing darlings' anymore, this is wiping a whole population from the face of the earth. And those 5 songs I was working on right now.. I'm gonna lock 'em up, put them far away in a dark closet, and just hope they won't scream too loud at night.

23-09-09
Pleased to meet you, just call me Remi. Alone in the world. Well, uh, it's just that I dunno what happened, but something must have happened, cause since half my band is gone on tour, I'm spiraling down into the dark depths of apathy (don't even write regular blogs anymore). What's going on, girl? I was really working at a steady pace, everyday in my studio, and now... I just find myself lying on my couch each night, mindlessly changing TV channels. Apparantly I need to get some feedback every now and then, just to keep me going, and the illuster guys that go by the names of Jochem van R, Niels T and Sander B are quite the positive/ critical people that can do that for me. So, I fled into the woods for a couple of days again, and made some decisions. It's time to focus on the things I CAN do while they're gone, not just keep looking at everything I can't.

04-09-09
Do you know that feeling? Some 6 month ago you graduated, but you still have to sign your name on a piece of paper and pick up the actual diploma. Just a formality, something to do on a dull Tuesday afternoon. Well, last Tuesday afternoon it was that attitude that I had on my mind when I went over to the Friendly Fire office. This management/ bookings agency is run by three gentlemen I've know for quite some time now. Especially Rense van kessel; when Gram and About were still booked by The Alternative, he was just about the only guy I ever really saw. So when these three started the new agency at the beginning of this year and asked me if I wanted to 'come along' it only took me a secong to say 'Yes, please!'. But you know, we still had to put something on paper, formally. We negotiated, I had a lawyer look at it, everybody was satisfied... only the signatures were missing. So, on this Tuesday I'm going over to the office with the smallest bottle of champagne (more as a good luck symbol), expect to be outside the door in five minutes, and by the way: maybe I'll go to the supermarket on the way back. But when I get there, I am pleasantly surprised to see they did actually buy a big bottle of bubbly stuff and they're filling up the glasses. A lot later than expected and pretty intoxicated I'm walking out the door. I tell my twitter friends, receive some unexpected congratulations, and later that night, sobering up on my couch... a giant grin appears on my face. Sure, make fun of this blog when in 3 years I want to burn this very contract, crying and yelling in some court room. But at this moment I am super satisfied. For the first time in my life I have management. And it feels good.

27-08-09
I always felt quite ambiguous about going on holiday. My thoughts never know how to take a break, and to tie yourself to a beach towel for a week just doesn't do it for me. And I'm afraid of flying. Still, I was about to explode, I had to go to keep my sanity, and the week abroad turned out to be quite a (nice!) surprise. It was 7 days of doing exactly all the things I love: eating huge Italian meals with nice people, drinking lots of wine, dancing every night, and then some more... And the highlight of every day: sailing on a catamaran, on the beautiful Sardinian sea. When I was hiking or cycling by myself, I still got ideas for songs in my head. Sailing seems to be the only activity where I have to stay focused on doing one thing at the time, that it's finally possible to shut down the music part of my brain. You can't let your thoughts wander, cause every second the wind or the sea might change (I'm really a rookie still, clutching the jib line with a pounding heart whenever it's 4 Bft.) I guess your mind would only be able to start wandering if you are, say, some one like Jolien Boot, if you've been catamaran sailing all your life, and you just won The Round Of Texel in your class this year. Yep, she was my sailing teacher all week. I loved it!

12-08-09
That's it. I really crashed and burnt. Last year I promised myself a sailing lesson for every song I finished. Well, in the past few weeks I wrote so many songs and finished so many new band demos, I think I deserve just about a whole week of catamaran lessons. Good for me, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I know this insane schedule is my own plan, and I'm not complaining. But even I break at some point: frustration over producers, planning of the record, commercial tunes that don't work out the way I want them to, and at the same time everybody around you is traveling to places you wish you were right now. So it's time to get the boat shoes and pack a suit case. I'm taking a plane out of here. Bye.

07-08-09
Summer 2009. Incredibly little sleep. Some mixing in the morning, before it gets too hot in the home studio. Avoiding sunlight in the afternoon by spending the time in the rehearsal cellar, recording with the band. Editing the recordings in the evening. Nights are for dancing and drinking. And the next day it starts all over. Right now, we are re-producing the A-list of songs, how would the current selection sound if we just played the songs the way we play them live, without my big box of Logic tricks? Very insightful, but also quite a juggling act, time-wise. Sander has been touring the Dutch wadden Islands the past week with another band, Niels is on the road with Life Of Agony since yesterday, and when he gets back, both him and Jochem have 4 days till they go on tour with Keith Caputo again. I'm keeping a little piece of paper with me at all times, with a list of all the songs and all the parts we have to record, making sure I don't forget to record any part. But the work is done now. My extra pair of ears (attached to Jochem's head) is checking the mixes right now, and then I'll send the new demo's to potential producers. And then I think I deserve a holiday, don't you agree?

28-07-09
I guess I should write just a little piece about this new obsession I've got, since it's starting to leave its mark on the record: Argentinian Tango. Especially the last couple of weeks have been insane, dancing 7 or 8 hours straight on stiletto heels. Next morning my mind will be racing, and lots of lyrics about excess, or that use dance metaphors come pouring out. Rest of the day I keep my iPod on for a thorough shot of techno beats to keep the energy level up, and at night playing with the band, we just wanna rock-rock-rock. About a day and a half every week now, I literally want to chop my feet off and put 'em in the freezer, but I'm a happy girl: there's a nice musical stew simmering in my head and I like the results.

18-07-09
Bad karma? Low-pressure area? What the &%$# was in the air this week? It's the tiny-tiny things like some guy stealing your towel while you're out swimming (It had 'Marg' embroidered all over it. Don't tell me you've got a niece with the same name), and it's the bigger things (like not being able to use the right half of your brain for days on, because the root of a tooth is going thru a death struggle)... Either way, you'd better not be in my vicinity on days like these. But this blog is about music, and there were actually quite some musical highlights in the midst of all this. First: I respond quite heavily to even mild substances, and a mixture of antibiotics, pain killers, coffee and 'other stuff' really sent me flying, resulting in a complete new song that I recorded fast and I'll work on in the next couple of days. Second: the one demo song none of us had faith in to turn into a real GRAM song, turned out so "RAAAWWK!" in just 1 rehearsal that I think it might even replace 'This Is Tonight' as everyone's favorite. Hooray. The identity of the one band member who dared to call the demo version a bit 'Sound Of Music-like' will be revealed only after he can handle his 36 keyboard and sample parts without cheating :-P

14-07-09
Dear Susanne Clermonts. The rest of the world probably knows you best by your alias 'Krause', but I get to call you Susanne :-P Wow, it was so great, last Friday night, our last Catfight performance: half the dressing room was decorated in red, the other half in blue. We had the cat-shaped candy, lots of caramel pudding in the fridge (gna gna), the hall was decorated with cat images, even the people behind the bar wore fake cats ears. But the greatest part of it all was YOU. You're awesome, and I love the months we spent working together. I'm looking forward to the release of your debut album in October, and I wish you all the success you can handle. Hope to see you somewhere on or off stage in the near future. Love, mrg (photo: Ciska Swaak)

09-07-09
Why do I keep blogging about stuff? I guess it's because material things sometimes can make you very happy, if they let you do the things you really wanted to do. Like my favorite audio software, Logic 7. By now it feels like a lovely pair of old shoes, but I switched to Logic version 8 this week. So
- Sander and I can be completely in sync, software-wise
- I don't have to insert the Logic stick into the laptop everytime I want to work (see photo)
- I'm sure the new version has fabulous new features that I cannot live without, but don't know it yet.
But I loved my old Logic, my perfect pair of shoes. First week of working with the new version will surely get me some mental blisters. Fortunately there's a Catfight coming up tomorrow, to bring a smile to face.

01-07-09
Djeez, what a week. And I finally got to make some real decisions. Ever heard of A&R? Well, at a record company the Artist & Repertoire manager is the person who decides together with a band which direction they want/ should go with the next record, is there enough quality song material, do they have a single written yet? In these times, where record companies are crumbling like sand castles, a lot of A&R people started their our free-lance company. Niels Aalberts from EHPO is one of those people, and I've been seeking his very critical advise for about a year and a half now. It's a good thing, cause as the writer of the song you will never be able to really tell if a song is a single or not. Anyway. Apparently something has happened in my recent song material (I've got a BAND?? I LIKE my life these days?? duh...) and now Gram has enough songs with a distinctive sound to fill a record, and we might even have a little hit single. Hooray. So only now I've got a real idea of what kind of producer I should start looking for. Well, from today on, the search is on. Officially.

18-06-09
It's definitely rush hour at the Pop department of the Amsterdam Conservatory. I'm always mocking Jochem and Sander about being 'conservatory patients', but these days even I am watching them play along just about a zillion temporarily bands every week, helping out their fellow graduating students. I still think it is strange to watch them play with so many bands ('cheat on me', I say), cause I've always been pretty much a 'one band woman', but by now I'm starting to appreciate the fact that as professional musicians they sort of have to play around. And the worst is yet to come: this Monday our gig at the Wilhelmina Pakhuis doubles as Jochem's graduating gig. That means a room full of people who play better guitar than me, and also sing better. Maybe I should practice even a little more, hm hm. Either way, come along next Monday, we'll play around 9:30PM, it's a free gig, and then you'll be the judge...

13-06-09
I guess lately I've been outdoing myself, running around to make up song lyrics, and I guess maybe that jumping off stage with Susanne Krause wasn't such a smart idea after all. And now my right knee is really, really screwed up, and it's my own fault. My punishment consists of doing knee exercises for 5 weeks, special massages to get rid of chalk exces in my joints (huh, what?!), and they put tape around my knee. Well, I thought I was gonna be all in bandages, but all I got was a small piece of blue high-tech tape, that apparently sends painkilling medicin to my skin non-stop. Great, let's hear it for medical innovations, swimming is the new running, and I'm sure by July 10th I'll be diving off that P60 stage with Susanne again. Ha!

06-06-09
Yes, another iPhone owner. How many does this world need? Well, this one is getting pretty hungry, looking around to see what kind of v-e-r-y essential applications already exist for this (professional musician's) gadget. 16 Gb: how many songs ideas can I sing into this new thing?

03-06-09
Sometimes I wonder how I got thru the day without that constant Twittering. Friends start making cynical remarks like "A day without Twitter/ Facebook/ etc, is a day not lived". 2009: I twitter therefore I am? Last holiday weekend I had a whole day of doing nothing, taking the day off, and I caught myself thinking I should twitter that I DO have a life, and that I DO sometimes just take a day off from music. 5 Seconds later I realized with regret that in fact by thinking about this twitter stuff I wasn't having a real day off at all. So I took my bike and just got lost in the Dutch countryside. I DON'T twitter, therefore I am...

26-05-09
Alright, say hello to my new musical hero: Giorgio Moroder. It's been weeks now that I wake up with a sixteenth-note pattern in my head over a pumping four-to-the-floor heen. How much closer can one get to the essence of disco/ techno/ trance? By now this fascination already led to band favorite 'This Is Tonight', but it won't stop there. And let me tell you: I believe a Giorgio M revival is on its way! He's hip, hot and happening, just listen Soulwax, YeahYeahYeahs, Killers etc. But it also makes me wonder if that infamous moustache-look will make a comeback. In that case I've got a long way ahead of me...

20-05-09
Fucking unbelievable! My down-down-downstairs neighbours cut down THE tree. That's MY tree, the one I've been staring at for years, dreamily, whenever I'm stuck for ideas (see the first YouTube). That tree was even higher than the 4 story building I live in. Why for fucks sake would anyone cut a tree like that? &%$#!! Well, goodbye to my inspiration tree. And now also all my neighbours can look into my studio while I'm working. Bloody brilliant. Bloody bloody... aaargh.

13-05-09
Phew, it really took a few days to come down after the first Catfight weekend. Make no mistake: we've been rehearsing our asses off all Friday and Saturday, then paid a visit to the 3 FM radio show Move Your Ass on Friday night. And by the way, those guys are so great, they let each of us play an extra song of our own to avoid real fighting, ha ha. For the rest of this story: see this weeks YouTube. But then the first fight was on, on Saturday night at the Alkmaar stage. Half of the stage was coloured blue, the other half red. Two laptops, two guitars, and finally it was ALL SYSTEMS GO. Susanne and i sang, played, danced, jumped into the audience, screamed like two mad cats who were finally released. I always knew there was chemistry between us, but this time we could finally show it to everyone. And that free remix mp3 quickly found its way to the audience, on USB sticks, iPods and especially cell phones. Thank you, Bluetoooth! (photo: Marko Hoven)

07-05-09
Tomorrow finally the first fight with Susanne Clermonts, Miss Krause that is. Guess we have to rehearse about 600 times tomorrow, but then we're off the the 3FM radio studios, playing live at 10PM. Our own songs yes, but also the Blokgolf remix made of the track we wrote together. Those Blokgolf guys really saved the day: without their funky sounds, things between Gram and Krause might have become really ugly, ha ha. And then Saturday the premiere of our hour-long DJ-like live set. I don't expect any troubles there: we asked for a bottle of wodka with a blue label (for Susanne) and one with a red label (for me). No fights over drinks there then! And those 2000 flyers that said 'Bitch fight' instead of 'Cat fight' have dissapeared from this earth. I mean, come on: a 'bitch' is something completely different than a 'cat'....

03-05-09
Okay, the idea was to go to the Belgian Ardennes to write songs AND to unwind a bit. Nice food, watching a DVD, walking, sleeping... that was alright for 1 day. But already during the drive to the South, ideas started popping up in my head, and they refused to stop popping. Even when I went for relaxing walks in the woods, I came home every time with another 28 ideas I had been singing into the telephone. Chaos of song onsets, I tried to cluster them, tried to make whole schemes of songs on pieces of paper. Didn't work. My mind had gone in overdrive, and now I'm back in Amsterdam it feels like I'm gonna need days and days to recover from my 'holiday'. Hm. I wonder if even one the 13 new songs will make it to the album. I dunno. Hm.

28-04-09
Thursday: first liveshow with the band. 11 songs, and I already had 18 demo songs. This is going pretty okay, I thought, that album will be finished in October. But then over the weekend some people-who-should-know told me that I have only about 4 or 5 songs that are good enough for the album we intend to make. Sunday night: we're trying to rehearse, but don't even get up from the couch. Jochem scrolls thru his collection of albums in I-tunes (1137 and counting!) and I just keep staring at my list of demosongs. After a while I can't even see 4 songs that are good enough anymore. Everybody knows how this process in your head goes, and it's depressing. Next day I don't hesitate: I take laptop, guitar, car and coffee and leave the country. So, here I am, in a solitary farm somewhere in the south of Belgium...

24-04-09
Finally the first gig with the new GRAM yesterday. Really weird, when everything is new again: the band, different instruments, all songs are new. Didn't know what to expect, but the venue was really full, we played well with those very typical hilarious first-time-mistakes, great night in all, and the best thing: only now we got some real feedback, which songs worked yes or no. We Drive, All For One, Tonight... From A To B went really well live. I was quite confused all day on the 'day after'. Do we really still call this band GRAM when everything is different anyway?

22-04-09
When you're 14 and you start playing (bass) guitar, you sometimes worry about your callous fingers, and about the fact that you'll never have beautiful feminine long nails (oh, the peer pressure of girl cliques!). Now I'm biting my nails for days already, think I'm getting nervous about tomorrow. No, it's not really nerves, it's excitement. The kind you used to have when you were young and about to go on holiday or something. I just can't wait for tomorrow, the live debut of GRAM 2.0.

14-04-09
No, writing a blog is not some sort of therapy. But sometimes I think this blog doesn't do music itself enough justice. Music is more than complaining about gear or the business side of making records. It was the one thing that spoke my own language when I was a little girl, and whenever I'm insecure it is still my best (imaginary) friend. "How can music be both treatment and disease?" I think the answer to that impossible question is that music is the most ultimate form of escapism. It sure is to me. And I love the way how I can always let that knight in shining armor enter my head thru my dear black Sony headphones. Oops, there I go again: talking about gear again...

10-04-09
INSPIRATION. I-n-s-p-i-r-a-t-i-o-n. Isn't this whole website actually about it? I reflect on it in blogs, try to capture it visually every week in a YouTube, and those who really follow all the Twittering and who watch the webcam, can sometimes really see/hear a song develop over a few days. Right now, the muse-machine is frantically spinning its rounds, so yes: I think that right now something is really 'breathing in to me'(I think "in spirare" is Latin for 'to breathe in", but correct me if I'm wrong). Either way, a few weeks ago Niels Aalberts from the very nice Dutch EHPO-blog asked me to write a piece on inspiration. So if you always wanted to how I got to write a song like 'We Drive', get a Dutch dictionary and read it here: great fun at Easter, especially the mp3 of ideas that I'm singing into my cell phone :-)

07-04-09
Ooh... don't we just look really sensuous? Well, 'knackered and with a lot of make-up on' gives about the same result I guess. It just seems that every time Susanne Krause and me are in the studio together we're tired, beaten and hung-over. Maybe we're just partying too much (together, mostly), while we really should be working hard. We're about to do a short tour (read all about it in Dutch, sorry) and right now we're working on a song together online. Our musical love child is baptized 'One Track Mind', and it's about... partying too much of course. Oh my god, how will this combination explode on stage?? My Twitter Twin really brings out the worst in me. Somebody start filling that fridge with Redbull-wodka.

02-04-09
No April Fool's Day joke, and I really wasn't laughing: I spilled about a whole mug of coffee over my new laptop. It's a miracle almost no fluid got actually IN. Then again, maybe it's time for me to admit that I might be just a wee bit tired. I let everything drop frim my hands these days. Maybe I should re-read my own blog of January 19th, about living regular life, according to Joe Jackson. This Sunday, a friend of mine gave me te very same autobiography, that I lent to Tjeerd 18 months ago. I should take it as a sign, to really re-read it. Oops. I just gave the book to Niels already. Hope he won't keep it for 18 months, ha ha.

23-03-09
Another blog on gear. For about a year I've been carrying my midi footswitch in its original cardboard box. Cragging around your valuable stuff like that is not something my dad can approve of; he calls a paper wrapper like that a 'Belgian flight case'. But these days the footswitch finally has its own mobile thrown. And more gear talk: via my dad I also got to buy a multiple microphone pre-amp and a set of drum mikes. I can't screw up Jochem's demo drum takes another time...

20-03-09
Brain dead. The center of all my laptop, sound card, and electronic activity ('the brain' to its friends) has not survived the latest flood in the rehearsal space. Speaking of casualties, my amp turned out to be passed out as well this week, even afer a month of nurturing care and dryness and warmth in my studio. So I took it to the amp doctor. But this lifeless output board on the brain is a bigger problem. How am I gonnan get it fixed before my last solo gig, tomorrow in Leeuwarden?

16-03-09
The golden songwiter's age I experienced last summer seems to be back, I can't stop writing right now. 'The new song I'm working on right now is temporarily baptized 'The Magic Line', and won't leave my head for a second. Wall of sound made up from '60 music samples? Check! Sort-of-hiphop beat to go with that? Check! Overdose of string parts in imaginary key? Check! Lyrics finished, now let's do vocals... And bam! I fall flat on my face again. Dusty Springfield I am NOT.

10-03-09
On Wednesday Edwin took me out to see modern ballet. Thursday night was all about dancing Argentinian Tango as usual. Saturday night I stayed dancing until 5 at some house party, and on Tuesday I had my weekly salsa class. Dancing is a necessity in life. Or, as the great philosopher M. Ciccone has always sung: "Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free". Did I write enough danceable songs lately?

05-03-09
This is my drummer’s right arm. And my drummer is my right arm these days, as they say. And my keyboard player is 6 left hands all at the same time. (and of course Niels has been my conscience for 2 and a half years, but everybody already got that). Why do keep acting mysterious about the new GRAM people? I guess I’m afraid to jinx things, hm. Well, I think about revealing all in Sunday’s YouTube. Oh, and about those tattoos? He just got them to hide all the scars he was left with, after Niels and I made him sign a contract in blood...

02-03-09
24 hours with Krause (Susanne for friends) are pretty exhilarating. Susanne was in Amsterdam, so she dropped by at my studio: first we explored our pretty different use of Ableton Live software, and then we started working on a track. Okay, so she lives in Groningen - not my neighbourhood, but I guess with the help of internet we'll be very much able to finish this song. And then she stayed for dinner. And then we went to a party. And then a lot of bubbly wine came along. And then I lent her my bike. And then I didn't understand how we ended up at my place at 3:30AM, independently of eachother.... But it surely was fun!

25-02-09
Oh my god, are we back at the computer hell again? No, I have a Mac now. Yeah, it refused to start up for a couple of days, so it has to be fully reinstalled. DAMN. I don't really like pushing 'erase and install' buttons. That'll be another full day of reinstalling everything, including all my music software (got some time for me, mac guru Edwin?). Thng is, it doesn't really upset me anymore. I played live with Niels again last night. I've got a band. And to fully 'erase and install' a band is a whole different ball game.. but we're heading in the right direction :-)

18-02-09
I've been really working hard. Yeah, I sanded some doors, but I also finished yet another new song. The one that I called 'rocksong' for the past couple of weeks, I now batized it 'All For One'. And of course, the next day I'm behind a car... with that term! So here it is: a song for anyone who can use a little bit of that Three Musketeers Spirit once in a while. By the way, I was quite shocked by the positive vibe of the lyrics. I'm not used to that. Am I turning into a hippy??!!

12-02-09
Lately, in London, I finally got the idea for a song title for the electrosong I've been working on: with all those camera's around me.. I baptized it 'My CCTV'. Yesterday I spent 4 hours (!!!) messing around and expermenting with the voails, trying to get an alienated effect without using hardware or computer effects. Just by layering different voices. At one point I was dubbing synthesizer melodies in a mariah carey kinda dolfin way. My neighbours must really love me. And, did it work out as planned? I dunno. Maybe I sound like a sexy choir of mermaids. Maybe I sound like Smurfette, backed by some chipmunks.

10-02-09

If I were a shop, I would have been carrying a 'closed, due to circumstances' sign around my neck this week. That's why there was no new blog entry. That's why I have been playing a lot of guitar this week (well, most of my guitars were staying at my house anyway, after the latest flood). And then it turns out that playing guitar for an hour works soooo must better to get on with your confusion than an hour of... laptop would have been. And by the way, I should be playing more guitar anyway, since my band is showing me every corner of the room when we're rehearsing :-/

02-02-09
The Eurostar train back from London to Amsterdam. Yeah, I went from A(msterdam) to B(rittain) and back again this weekend. At least I think by now I am the biggest European star when it comes to planned escapism. But I thought things were going so well this week?!

24-01-09
Monday: no rehearsal after I find the rehearsal space is totally flooded again. Tuesday: evacuating the last guitars from the place. Wednesday: place drying machine (see photo). Friday morning: cleaning the place for 2 hours. Friday evening: rehearsing in the studio of Niels' other band, Heist. Oh well, the flood of the month. Who cares. I've got a drummer!

19-01-09

Detox, early night, being a good girl... BLEH. But I know I have to get a grip on my life again. One of the best autbiographies I've ever read, is 'A Cure For Gravity', by Joe Jackson. Even if you don't know the man, or even if you hate his music... read that book!!! Especially if you're a musician!! One of the things he descrobes is how young and wild Joe became a piano player at a Playboy bar (really). He lived a very regular life for a while and wrote his entire breakthru debut album in that period. maybe I should re-read that book. Hey Tjeerd, give me my book back!

15-01-09
This is a very expensive cup of coffee at the Amstel hotel, last night. I was still hungover from all the days before. Maybe I should stop partying for a while. Maybe I should just go to bed at a decent hour for a while. Maybe I should just get to work again. Maybe I should stop whining and just open up the old laptop again. Maybe something will just come out of it.

11-01-09
And there I was again, in Berlin. Seems I'm taking this "going from A(msterdam) to B(erlin)" pretty literally these days. Am I running away from Amsterdam? And why am i always running back so fast to that same town? I worked my ass off lately, I partied till I dropped, but I keep postponing working on the record. And let's state it officially now: running away does not work. In any way.

07-01-09
Soo... right after the Van Gogh night, I got up really early and worked all weekend: I produced 7 versions of 1 seven-second-melody, to be used in a 'bumper' for 3voor12 On Demand TV. Or something like that, I'm not exactly sure. But it was great, and I loved doing it. Going back and forth, new feedback, new alterations, everything timed very exact. But the highlight of the process was the moment where I tried to remake zZz's Bjorn's Very Famous Grunting Sigh. Yep, I 'sang' it myself ;-) Can't wait to see and hear! the bumper on VPRO's 3voor12. (photo: Khaotikit)

04-01-09
It was g-r-e-a-t! Playing as an eight-piece band, including the Berlage string quartet, at the Van Gogh museum. Okay, it was a bit difficult sound-wise, but the atmosphere was wonderful, there was really quite a crowd, and then to play those arrangements I had worked so hard on, for the first time... A big thanx to the 7 musicians, now all I want to do is go on tour with them, ha ha! And a big thank you to Almar Kok, who usually writes arrangements for movie and plays, and who gave my orchestrations a final check, so I could hand them to the string players with confidence. THIS IS WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO. EVERY DAY. (photo: Sven Woodside)

27-12-08
Yes, I really had a relaxed time at Xmas (just look at all the decorations on my laptop): I reconsidered the Flick The Switch remix, wrote new lyrics for a song for the Van Gogh performance on Jan 2nd, and I even blurted out a complete new song on the piano! But don't worry, I DO have a social life: right now I'm just enjoying food, wine, nice people, and the great big nothingness. Don't expect to see me around for the next couple of days....

24-12-08
So here's a little picture from our rehearsal with the Berlage string quartet. Yeah, it was early morning, but how cool is it, to be rehearsing, the eight of us amidst all those Xmas decorations? And then Niels and I played live in the afternoon, works really well just the two of us. One thing I know: next record I won't be making alone.

20-12-08
Woohoo! Tomorrow I'm finally performing with Niels! The past few weeks we've been rehearsing in my little studio, just new songs, and it was great. Thanx to Niels I think I got my love for guitars back :-) So if you want to hear how GRAM sounds as a twosome: make a reservation via pfaff[at]musicweb.nl, and come around tomorrow at Bankastr. 36hs. It's 10 euros for food, drinks, other performances... And spare a thought for me tomorrow morning when at 9 I'm already on my way to the 8-person-rehearsal including the Berlage string quartet. For jan 2nd at the van Gogh museum!

14-12-08
When I was a very little girl, just moved to Amsterdam, I once saw the Sultans of Ping (from Ireland then) play at the Paradiso. I guess it was somewhere amidst the whole Britpop hype thing. A lot has happened since, and I'd like to call some of the Sultans my friends. And now it's several years later, and I finally see a secret wish come true: I got to be their guitar tech and chauffeur for half a weekend. Who could have known I would make it this far? :-)

10-12-08
It's gonna be 8 of us as 'Gram' at the Van Gogh museum on Jan 2nd, that's including a string quartet yes. But let's not forget: Jochem Klijnman on piano, Jochem van Rooijen on drums (and glockenspiel, gna gna) and of course Niels on guitar and bass. Last Tuesday we practised together for the firts time, just the four of us. And since everyone is doing new stuff for this gig, I feel I should stretch myself as well. So I started practicing playing flute again. My neighbours aren't pleased. No, thery're not.

06-12-08
Sugar Factory gig: some problems with the sound card, but the electro-midi-set really really rocked, Krause/ Susanne is officially super okay, and I had a lot of drinks with Niels again. The day after: pretty hungover, but with an even bigger grin on my face. And all throughout the house I find post-it memos, telling me to do some serious back-upping. Still happily humming I mess about with external hard disks for a couple of hours. Later that night my smile disappears though, when it hits me that I haven't backed up any NEW songs. Again.

03-12-08

So, this is my whole live setup laid out in my cozy home studio. Bummer... now that I had finally finished a real deafening electro set, I couldn't rehearse it properly, cause the rehearsal space was flooded. I had to practice it last couple of days at whispering level. I think I will explode at the the laptop gig tomorrow, when I finally hear the songs at their normal volume....

01-12-08
Dunno if you can really see, but this is the mess my internet provider left me with. Now already for weeks, all that is working is the webcam, and I can't even check my email at home. And then the rehearsal space was flooded thhis week, so Niels and I had to rehearse in the hoe studio, in front of that damn cam. I also have to rehearse my solo set there now. It's pretty bizar, pretty pretty bizar...

26-11-08
These are my running shoes. Rain r shine, inspired or frustrated, I'm going for a run. Too often that little hour in the Amsterdam forest is the only moment that I leave the house that day. But running is the perfect way to finish lyrics: the rhythm of the running feels like the music of the music. At home, I then run straight to my computer to jot down the ne ideas. But I don't know if the soles of these shoes will make it till this record is finished..

18-11-08
It has not resulted in new songs yet, but: YOU GUYS AND GIRLS ARE BLOODY AWESOME!! All those suggestions! All those mp3s you sent me! My iPod is getting fuller and fuller. I've got a permanent smile on my face, and I'm walking thru my house singing, every day now :-D

15-11-08
Wow! I received so many suggestions since I asked for musical help. I checked a lot of the musical suggestions already, and then yesterday... I got a tip to go see Ladyhawke perform at the Paradiso veneu that very night. But that was sold out. So I moved every mountain known to me, and finally got on very desired spot on the guestlist. Ladyhawke herself played a bit shy, but also very catchy. And let’s not forget the other great bands I saw: check out White Lies on this summer’s festivals. I want more more more of these nights!

12-11-08
In the desert with no inspiration, fortunately there re always still some chores to do. So, I'm already checking and changing the horn parts with Loes Rusch, baritone sax player for Voicst en Double Espresso a.o. Dropped by her house for the second time this morning, and she played all the alt and baritone parts. We changed her music room into a real studio with sound muffling pillows and duvets. What a difference between the horrible computer sounds and the real thing! I'm starting to like my own songs again...

09-11-08
January 2008 I played with GRAM-as-a-band in Liverpool, and it just so happened that by sheer coincidence Dutch movie and theatre composer Vincent van Warmerdam was in the audience. He sent me an email, and I saw a chance to meet this interesting musician, and talk music with him. So last Friday I finally went by his studio which has the fantastic nam 'The Sleeping Dog'. We did talk music a lot, played my 13 song demo, and he also pointed out a few 'elephant's in the room' that I had been trying to ignore the past couple of months. Dammit yes, I AM really a pop girl and I really WANT a band. But no sign of improvement in the writer's block thing, so I spent all weekend just going out-out-out....

06-11-08
I'm really trying to stay positive here, but maybe it's time to admit that not everything is coming up roses. After a few months of working very nicely, I'm finally hitting a wall. Or is it a block, a real writer's block? Apparantly I can only wrote a song these days if I lock myself up in a cabin in France for a week. I've got some orchestration chores left to do, but else.. nothingness. Spent all yesterday evening at my laptop again, and nothing happened. At this stage of the album I should be writing-writing-writing. NOW WHAT???

31-10-08

I was in Groningen last Wednesday, in the North part of Holland. Ended up at the town's best live venue: Vera. Ended up watching Australian band Pivot play live. Guitar, drums, and of course a laptop running Ableton - the music software just about any band uses these days. Including myself of course, Ableton is my only live band member these days. Unfortunately, the Pivot guys didn't really impress me with their Ableton skills. Sorry to blog about it.

26-10-08

Ever heard of those 'Crazy Five Minutes'? You know, that's when cats start running around the house like mad, just when it is supposed to be bedtime. Well, I very much have the same problem. Even in the midst of shitty personal times, a ruined weekend.. here I am, walking around the house. With the headphones on, yeah. Marg + music = Marg happy.

22-10-08
No, they hardly have internet around here. But they do have great food, even better coffee, little holiday homes ('gites') that are totally abandoned right now, and so there's also a lot of nothingness around here. After a pretty gruelling trip passing some towns where Van Gogh used to live, I now settled in a nameless little village, somewhere halfway thru France. No neighbours, no beats, just a totall relapse back to my addiction of writing chanson-like arrangements. Inspired by Van Gogh? Well, let me tell you: if there ever was one person who restlessly moved from one town to the other, it has to be our Vincent. I guess I'll leave Paris for another time, say... next month?

18-10-08
Ha! This is all I needed after all that stupid internet business: an excuse to leave the country. 2nd of Januari 2009 I will play a special performance at the Van Gogh-museum in Amsterdam, so it's time for another roadtrip. I'm gonna chase Van Gogh's trail: Nuenen, Cuesmes, Paris... and after that I'll lock myself up in a French cabin to write some songs inspired y the trip. Vive la France....

16-10-08
Good times, bad times. The bad news is that these days I'm spending more times trying to fix my internet connections than making songs. This is not how is was supposed to be! It makes me grumpy as hell. But the very second I do get connected to the outside online world again, there's good news right away: an email from the village of Gram, in Denmark. Apparently YouTube no. 4 has made it's way to the people over there, that is just great. This really made my day. But it also makes the call to leave the country again stronger and stronger.

12-10-08
Alright, so these are officially some less inspired times. Working on three songs at the same time right now. And that just doesn't work: you gotta stick to 1 at the time, for at least a week. But I can't seem to stick with any song these days. I go thru my -very well digitally organized- list of ideas, and nothing appeals to me. I think I should leave the country again.

06-10-08
Sometimes it seems that writing songs for a record is just one, happy, on-going process. I said I would go on until I had at least 20, but today I already pulled one back. It had lyrics that were inconsiderate in I way I had totally overlooked, and still can't believe I actually did overlook. Yeah, one can say "Its just a song, fiction, everything for art's sake, right?" Doesn't work that way for me though. So I dropped the song from the list. Even though the demo was 100% finished. And even though I spent half a day making a YouTube about it. But there will be new songs, I'm sure. Just gotta hurry up a bit making a new YouTube for this week, though. No idea what it will be about. I need a good night sleep. These are high-priced mistakes.

02-10-08
Oke, 2 new back tires, 1 front tire repaired, 9 hours of driving towards, and 9 hours of driving back, pretty exhausted, little bit ill still, but happy: first time playing solo in Berlin, as part of the Flachlandfest. By sheer coincidence and hard work from Peter Bijl, who organized it, it turned out to be a real girls night: Gram and Lillian Hak at the King Kong Klub. And all of the bicycle saddles seem to be turning orange these days... which I like. As I like Berlin.

30-09-08
Day before getting up half an hour early, park car next to rehearsal space, work-work-work, rehearse, eat, rehearse again, pack stuff, sleep, get up early, pack more stuff, work, drag amp and guitars and cases into car, drive off... to Berlin?? No. Left back tire flat, curse-curse-curse, cuppa coffee, call everyone in Berlin, find garage, take car there, walk back home... Write new song right away. Tomorrow it's gonna be new tires, new chances.

26-09-08
Let's hear it for coincidences. I need them, I love them. So when a friend asks me out of the blue to come along to a concert or something, I should really say yes more often. You never know where you'll end up. Like last Friday, you could have found me at the Van Gogh museum, listening speechless to Dorit Chrysler - a wonderful female theremin player from the US. The previous record also features a song with real theremin recordings (The Joke Is On You), but what she did... Oh My God... And then two days ago, I ended up at a Lykke Li concert, sort of by accident as well. And yes, I like Lykke :-)

23-09-08
This is a piece of a wall in my house. It is green. And right now I'm super satisfied about a lyric I just wrote, and in which this very wall is mentioned. 'This House Is Now A Home' is finished, and everything I didn't expect, has happened with this song: pure pop music, lots of guitars, exactly three minutes long. No idea where it all came from, but I'm glad it did.

19-09-08
A befriended A&R guru (Niels Aalberts, check his blog!) once told me a very important philosophy for musicians > You may want to break the world record in domino toppling (SBS6's 'Domino Day' and the likes), and humour the viewers with beautiful figures, layed out on the floor of this giant hall. But: while all those artistically set up coloured stones are claiming the TV camera's eye, a giant row of thousands of anonymous stones (called the 'aorta') will keep on falling down, to make sure that if one of the beautiful branches doesn't topple the right way, the record breaking attempt will still continue. And a musician HAS to keep his/her own aorta flowing at all times as well. A musician's aorta lies in his own musical development, a life-long search for/ development of his own signature style. In a way, my home-studio really is the heart that will keep my aorta flowing. No matter what stones are tumbling elsewhere, this is where the blood really pumps.

16-09-08
Once bitten, twice shy, and even a third time I just won't listen. Today my external hard disk crashed, with e-ve-ry-thing on it of the new song 'This House Is Now a Home'. Which of course, I hadn't backed up yet. And I should have know better, because this was the very hard disk that crashed a year ago, and I just started using it again after a very expensive recovery. I even had a sticker on it, saying: "crashed before". This morning I was moaning that I wanted to start a new song instead of finishing This House. It goes to show: be careful what you wish for, girl...

14-09-08
Once upon a time I did a gig with About, which included a fatal combination of alcohol, some crazy guy, and a very solid beer bottle. After that night, I had to call my dentist to order two new front teeth. No kidding. But ever since I make quite a hissing sound when I sing something with an 'S'. So, at home I've got two (!) of these 'spit nylons' in front of the microphone. It's either that, or never writing lyrics like "JuSt the Site of the bonnet makeS me burSt out in a Sonnet when inSide"...

11-09-08
Let's talk lyrics. Yesterday, I was discussing my new lyrics with Robb (friend and singer of London-based band Belter). Dunno if our conclusions made any sense, since we were both pretty intoxicated. And then today I wrote the entire lyrics to a new song, called 'This House Is Not A Home'. Very pleased with them, I tried to address a very personal issue without using the words 'he' or 'you', just mentioning places and stuff.

09-09-08
Oh well...

08-09-08
The effect of having a picture-in-a-picture-in-a-picture, is what we call the 'Droste effect' in Holland. That's because of the packaging of a brand of cocoa powder called 'Droste' which feateres a picture-in-a-picture-in... You get the idea. And I feel like blogging about my blogging is a bit like that Droste effect. So I'm very glad that from Wednesday on, this very blog will be about music only again. Not about those banal, plain things like 'How do I get a YouTube account?' and 'Is that USB cable long enough?' I'll leave the blogging about blogs to the professional bloggers again.

07-09-08
I put the first YouTube online today, but mostly made music again. Got all these Dusty Springfield-like melodies in my head, must be because of that 'Gold' album I just downloaded: 44 top songs! What a bargain! And I just played Dutch radio 1. First time playing 'We Drive', although I could hardly remember the chords yet. So if you see me looking at the camera while playing live at four on Friday afternoons, it just might be I'm checking on a little note with chords written on it. It's just that these songs are still so new...

06-09-08
It's good to have a temporary title for a record, it gives you focus. And I like the idea 'From A to B and Back Again', but there's also an old Dutch saying that goes 'One who says A, has to always follow it up with B'. I dunno what B will be, but I'm glad I'm also my own record company, so no one has to be afraid unexpected Lily Allen or Sandi Thom stories will turn up.

05-09-08
That's what friends are for: I'm very fortunate to know some people who are willing to sit down with me for hours to explain all about movie editing software program Final Cut. Wow, great, I love you guys! Dunno if I'm still cheering making YouTube no. 39 in 9 or 10 months, but I'll cal you from the mental institution, okay? Also nice stuff: Radio 1 ("Llink") called, and invited me to play on their show this Sunday at 6:30PM. Sure guys. Hope I finished that first YouTube by then, in time. Yay.

03-09-08
I don't live alone in this house, so I had to tell my flatmate about the project. I was surprised to find... she wasn't surprised at all about the whole idea. She's quite a bit younger than I am, and to her the whole experiment just seemed like a logical next step in this world of internet and bands etc etc. I'm glad.

03-09-08
For all those of you who'd like to conduct the same kind of experiment, email me for a practical checklist true-DIY-style. One of the first things you'll find out after you bought a cam and cables, is that you have to call your internet provider to maximize your bandwidth. Grr... as soon as I started testing the Ustream broadcast I hardly could use internet for anything else. If I'm gonna lock myself up in this studio voluntarily, the last thing I need is prehistoric page loading times, just checking regular email. Second: I also had to change my text messages subscription to the maximum amount, since I expect to send quite some Twitters. I've already got followers on my Twitter page :-)

02-09-08
Let's quit all the hint-dropping and word games. My little experiment goes like this: I'm gonna set up a webcam in my home-studio, that will be broadcasting 24-7. Why? Cause I love what I do in that little studio of mine, and I would like to show you what it feels like when a song enters your head, and you can't stop working on it for the next three or four days. I will show you how a song develops over time (sometimes months): from a little melody I play on the piano with two fingers, into a full demo version with lyrics and arrangements, into the finished product. Cause usually that's all you, the audience, get to hear: the end product on CD or as download. And I'm fortunate to be in a position to do this, since I work most of the time alone, in a very limited space. If I were in a band, I wouldn't do this for all the money in the world. The horror!

31-08-08
Oh, Sven from Voicst did it again: he really captured the essence of playing 'The Joke Is On Me' live. The show at De Beschaving was splendid, and afterwards I had a lot of fun with people from the audience who came to say hi, and with everybody I met backstage. Great atmosphere, great festival!

30-08-08
I hadn't played live in such a long time, I really needed to start loving that damp rehearsal basement again, cause today I will play at De Beschaving festival. So, it's just a Monday to Friday job: I've been rehearsing every day this week, with a large cafe-latte-two-shots as my loyal companion.

28-08-08
I'm gonna need a lot of friends. And a buck load of good advice and courage. There's this well researched social psychological phenomenon, it goes like this: Things you intent to do always look more appealing in the long-term. But when the realization of your plan comes closer, the downsides start looming larger and larger. That's why people who really have been looking forward to get married, usually get second thoughts just at the last minute. And now I'm contemplating some form of long-term commitment, and yes: I'm seeing quite some downsides to the upcoming experiment. Last doubts, last chance to get of this train, to boldly go where no (wo)man had ever gone before? Ha ha ha....

26-08-08
"I'm gonna need a lot of stuff", I recall that line from a Footlocker commercial from years ago. And indeed I'm gonna need a LOT of stuff: a webcam, extra-extra long USB wires, an old PC, a stepladder. Confused? I'm thinking of ways to put my 'A to B' resolutions to the test. It would be a nice experiment to see how me, the 'A'rtist, can really come closer to you, the 'B'eholders. Without even leaving my beloved studio. And truly D.I.Y. style. Now, where's my hammer?

23-08-08
Spent all morning capsizing on a one-person Laser boat, then got hit by a van riding my bike. Both my bicycle and my left hand will be pretty much out of order for the next couple of days. Now I can't play guitar, only laptop. See 10-08-08: is this some malign (divine?) intervention to get me back to the so-called 'un-pure' songwriting?

19-08-08
The concept of 'going from A to B and back again' is growing and growing in my head. Looking back on the past year, I'm always traveling to some place 'B' and then end up turning the experiences into songs in my studio in 'A'msterdam. But there's even more to it. Although the act of writing songs and arrangements is mostly a solo thing, I know now that I could never be a true musical hermit ('kluizenaar'). I need you. I want interaction: between me, the 'A'rtist, and you, the 'B'eholders (Believers?). "From A to B and back again", and back again, and again. Yes, that is also the title of one of Andy Warhol's published diaries. I got quite obsessed with mister Warhol's art and life style, after he died exactly on my birthday.

14-08-08
Ever since the catamaran thing happened, I promised myself a sailing lesson for every song I finished. Hardly needing any external motivation, it's like an extra reward to mark the occasion, and a way of reminding myself of why I'm doing things the way I'm doing them these days. So today I rented an almost 8 meter long mono-hull sail boat (with skipper!) to celebrate finishing the pre-production of 'Eager Amigo'. The song has a French sixties pop feel, with gutsy horns and lyrics about cheap-but-highly-intoxicated nightlife. The subject couldn't be further away from where I am right now: at the rudder on the beautiful 'Vattern', the second biggest lake in Sweden.

12-08-08
It took an electrician, an afternoon of frantic phone calls (my neighbour Johan is my hero), 3 hours of driving, and quite a lot of Swedish money, but now I've got a new laptop adapter. I'm back in business! So I can finally start arranging that happy Swedish kinda pop song, that I've been playing for the past couple of days. Yes, I'll leave the acoustic guitar in the song, I promise. I just can't quite understand why all of a sudden I'm on this Francoise Hardy/ Serge Gainsbourg listening binge?! I'm all mixed up; I'm a Dutch girl in Sweden who can't stop listening to French pop songs from the sixties. Couldn't help myself, I added some backing vocals that literally went "ooh la-la-la-la-la" to the song...

10-08-08
Look at this evil electricity box, that's attached to the shed next to 'my' house. It's been raining so much, the inside got rusty, causing the electricity to go mad. All of a sudden it was 400 Volts pumping through my adapters instead of the usual 230. Hey, what's that smell? Smoke came from my burning adapters, and I was only seconds away from roasting both my sound card and my laptop-with-everything-on-it. Now I'm stuck here. No electricity, no water, no cooking. No laptop, no watching DVDs, no listening to music. It's already three days now, and all I can do is play acoustic guitar. Is this some kind of divine (malign?) intervention, to get me back to the so called 'pure songwriting'??

08-08-08
A few days ago I headed for the countryside: I'm in the heart of the center of the middle of nowhere, in Sweden. Don't try to find me, cause even my car navigation system tells me I'm on a 'nameless road', and houses have no numbers here ("You'll recognize the house from the picture" - and I did). It's an overload of lakes and trees and deafening silence. I got my laptop and my acoustic guitar and a mike. I can scream and sing as loud as I want to. No one will hear.

06-08-08
Got myself a triple anitdote to beat the blues. 1: I bought 'A Long Way Down' by one of my favorite writers, Nick Hornby. It's good to read about four people who try to commit suicide on the same spot at the same time, because it makes you laugh about your own ridiculous situation. 2: in the same vein, I also bought a DVD with the Metallica documentary 'Some Kind Of Monster'. Oh, how I can't wait to see that one, ha ha. 3: And for some poetic nurturing, I went to see the Patty Smith movie 'Dream Of Life' with my friend Emma. Slow pace, beautiful photography, and just about no story line. I'm ready for the world again.

04-08-08
So this is Stockholm. I've been walking around for hours and hours, chippy-cheery-eyed making little movies about 'finding the true musical spirit of the main capital of pop music'. But now I find myself crying in a desolated corner of the steps of the Royal palace (oh, the cliche!). I'm just exhausted after driving for two days straight, then all this walking, all these people. I'm fucking tired and bloody lonely. This is not pop. This is the blues.

02-08-08

Things are getting quite a bit philosophical down here, so I guess a little soul-searching wouldn't hurt. Well, let's start with the most basic questions then: Who Is Gram? What Is Gram? Or maybe even: Where Is Gram? This last question is one that demands an immediate answer, so I borrowed (indeed) a car, and drove 700 km to Denmark to visit a village called... 'Gram'. And here I am, this is Gram. Now the only things left for me to do, is to leave. Again.

31-07-08
So 8 songs into the new album, number 9 is presenting itself as 'the anthem'. I thought after my inspiration marathon of the past couple of weeks I was finally hitting a low last Monday, but this song almost wrote itself. I gave myself strict orders to write a pulsating 6/8 waltz, and I kept hearing the line "From A to B and back again" repeating in my head, day and night. 48 hours later I recorded backing vocals this morning, and was totally dumbfounded (insert image of my eyes popping out of my head here) to find that the vocal melody was made up by two notes being... "A" and "B". This just has to become the album's title song.

28-07-08
I said goodbye to my car today, my little blue symbol of freedom and independence. But pieces of the puzzle that is 'the back-beat song' are falling in place: I wrote a lyric that is actually a love song about having a car, entitled 'We Drive'. So the song turned out to be very laidback and positive, at a 130 BPM, cause that is what driving feels like.

25-07-08
I can't sleep, I can't eat, and my ears can't stop ringing. My whole body aches, I look like a mess, and I'm feeling absolutely great. Songs are pouring out as if some flood gates just opened. Can't keep up with myself, so my espresso machine is doing overtime. Went by my favorite coffee bar 'Brandmeester' and showed them the ELLE Girl article, featuring their Sodade blend. And yes, I got a week supply of espresso for free, hi haaa. I'm gonna need it, cause I gotta hang on to this inspiration marathon as long as it lasts; the dry deserts of writer's block could be around the corner any day... Still gotta be careful with the back-beat song: if I don't pull it off, I'll end up with a cheesy variation to Kelis' 'Tricky'. I'm hoping for something more like Grace Jones' 'I've seen that face before'. Hm.

22-07-08
Just saw a BBC documentary on Damon Albarn & Jamie Hewlett from Gorillaz, composing and designing the opera 'Monkey'. Albarn worked with some sort of mathematic formula, using only pitches of the pentatonic (5-pitch) scale, making it sound 'Chinese'. The scale is also used in Celtic and Hungarian music. That sounds like what I would need right now, because I'm working on this back-beat pop song, and I'm not comfortable with the ragga, reggae thing, whatever. I'm too white. Something alien has to be thrown in. Maybe the answer has 5 pitches.

19-07-08
Trip to Italy is working out great, cause within 72 hours of returning I finished a new song called 'COME ALONG'. No strings, and certainly not a ballad: clocking in at 2 minutes 15 sec at a BPM of 160, it's a feisty little number with just 5 horn parts and percussion for orchestration. Floor of the studio is scattered with just about every percussion instrument I could find. Lyrics and arrangements hint at the Funny Girl song 'Dont Rain On My Parade'. Hey, didn't my old love Japan cover that one horribly on their debut album?

17-07-08
I'm flattered again... (blushing)... Another page on the visual style of GRAM, this time in the August edition of 'ELLE girl' magazine. I'm also glad it's mostly about the music side of style. And by now I've been advertising Brandmeester coffee so many times publicly, I think I deserve some sort of sponsorship from their side!

15-07-08
Pretty much out-of-the-blue I took a course in catamaran sailing. Got hooked, got cuts & bruises, and got a sailing license. But I also spent the week on a boat wracking my brain about ways in which sailing resembles making music. Hardly found any, except that perhaps
a. sailing is a bit like drumming, with four limbs and all, and
b. although I made GRAM album no. 1 on my own, deep down I'm just not a solo surfer.
I prefer 'cataMarg'.

12-07-08
Reading, hiking , and (re)writing song lyrics like mad. Even combined a metaphor on playing domino and the sad story of former Manic Street Preachers' guitarist Richie Edwards in one song. Don't be fooled by Richie's bloody image, pictured right, though. The song turned out to be very uplifting. But then again, the sky is blue and we've got a south wind a-coming...

09-07-08
Finished demo with first 6 songs, worked and worked and worked till my ears were fried. Bit heavy on the strings and ballad side, though. So I took a night train to Milan, a one-way ticket to the land of superficial disco and a deep love for coffee.

06-07-08
Just got back from playing the Via Ventosa festival in Einhoven, solo again. Great atmosphere, all kinds of art forms, good food (but hey: this is the south of Holland, where I was brought up!). Lots of kids too. How about these beautiful creatures, my two little nieces? Got them to work as stage-hands immediately. Can't start young enough.

03-07-08
Met up with Peter 'Mitte bitte!' Bijl yesterday: Dutch guy who is organizing all kinds of stuff for Dutch/ Flemish artists in Berlin. Great ideas, I really want to be involved, and since the new songs are so heavily influenced by traveling back and forth between Amsterdam and Berlin for the past 12 months, I think I should really play that city.
Also did the vocals for 70-glam-rock-pizzicato-strings-galore song THAT'S WHEN today. Wasn't really in the mood for a sulky, sensual song, so I put on the right 70s boots. Ridiculous trick, but it worked :-) Song is starting to sound like cats, tip-toeing... Reminds of the 'Peter And The Wolf' music, want to check that out again.

01-07-08
Perfect view (not) at the Radiohead show. Morty, a dear friend from back in the Seedling days, works for the band, and got me and some friends on the guest list. Great, great show. It hardly ever happens that I really cry at a show, but halfway thru 'Lucky' I had to hide the tears behind my sun glasses. It's always the C# - D- C# - B - A - G - E of the guitar in the chorus that gets to me.

26-06-08
Strange and great. Four pages about me in Dutch 'Elle magazine'. Bought a copy for my.. archive. The report is all about style and stage wear, sure. And I love to dress the part on stage, true. But right now I'm sitting in my little home-studio wearing just baggy pants, a borrowed t-shirt, and my hair in a messy knot. Oh, the glamorous life!

23-06-08
Getting quite obsessed by this whole Oblique Strategies thing, it's getting nicely out of hand (thanx for telling me about it, Sjoerd!). Found you can install a widget on your Mac dashboard as well, which gets you a new random card whenever you click it. Today mine told me to "use something nearby as a model". Of course these things work just as horoscopes: you can read in it whatever you want to read. Today's song (working title 'That's When I Need You') is maybe heading too much towards 70s glam rock (yes, really). So, let's go back to the original plan, the chanson-versus-electronic sound. Gotta keep using that as my nearby model. Chucked out the glam guitars and replaced them by pizzicato strings. A bit weird, but it works. Want to read more background info on these Strategies if I keep using them.

18-06-08
Bought this pretty little creature today: I'll be able to make better pictures from now on, even short movies, ha ha. Perfect for the blog thing. I'm sure my laptop and my camera will become best friends. You know what? Even though I'm writing songs continuously, today I will officially start working on the new album. This calls for champagne!

15-06-08
It's late, but I want to keep on working. When inspiration is knocking at your door, it's a crime to leave it standing outside. So come on in, I'm working on a song called Insult To Injury right now. I checked Brian Eno's 'Oblique Strategies' today, and the virtual random card I drew told me to "Go slowly all the way round the outside". Slowly, huh? Outside, eh? Okay, lyrically I'll will not directly address the subject, and I'm rewriting the arrangements so the song turns into a slow tango.

13-06-08
Friday the 13th, eh? Well, just put me on a stage at a student festival anytime, especially when it's all students of Industrial Design at the Technical University of Delft, NL. Never had so many people checking out my foot switches, laptop and other gear. Loved it! (Photo by Hanne Nijhuis)

06-06-08
Nahuel, tour manager of Voicst, called if I could help them out, tuning guitars and stuff at a festival in Delft. I jumped into the car, it was great seeing them all perform again. But maybe stage-hand is not really my job; next day I was covered in bruises, never showing anybody that some of the flight cases were just to heavy for me...

31-05-08
First time performing with a camera (check the screen behind me), showing the audience all the moves I make: with my feet I'm handling the laptop, but that's usually hard to see with the monitor speakers blocking the view. First time also with the dress-that-looks-like the glove-on-the album-cover; I pressured my mom to finish it that very day. Photo by Marko Hoven, thanx!

23-05-08
Lunch at the 3fm studio, playing live at Dolf Janssen's show 'Leuk Is Anders'. Something went wrong technically during my live version of The Joke Is On Me, but you know how it goes: I was probably the only one who noticed ;-) The people at the radio show were the greatest, and I finally got to show everybody thru the webcam the amazing t-shirts that Hans Ubbink en Jeroen van Tuyl designed for me.

10-05-08
So I made all these string arrangements for the 3voor12 thing. But my planning went wrong, and I had to ask Voicst baritone sax player Loes Rusch to step in last minute. We only had one rehearsal, but she and Fender Rhodes man Jochem Klijnman were really great. We pulled it off! Such a relief, and the people at the CODE Gallery Store were great too. They had champagne arranged for us, right after the shoot :-)

29-04-08
All alone in the dressing room of Theater Romein in Leeuwarden. Only yesterday I got a call if I could play here tonight, a full 45-minute set, solo. Quite a few hours of preparing the laptop for this unexpected long set, and a lot of rehearsing, and here we are. We? Well no, I even drove here alone... I'm a real one-woman party tonight. But how about this great outfit by Supershirt! It's got the Dutch patriotic lion on it; I thought that would suit the occasion, cause in a few hours it's Queens Day in Holland.

26-04-08
I went looking for photogenic ex-bordello's (yes!) today, with Rens from 3voor12/Amsterdam. We checked about 20 former brothels-turned-fashion-shops, and of course the first one we saw turned out to be our favorite: this is the CODE Gallery Store. On May 10th we'll play acoustic chanson-like versions of GRAM songs, especially for 3voor12's 10 year anniversary. I think a brothel in the heart of Amsterdam will fit the chanson atmosphere perfectly.

16-04-08
Locked myself up in some holiday cabin that I rented for a week. Seven days of solitude, writing new arrangements for old songs. A song just never stops, you can always totally remix and rewrite it. Outside, it's all hills and grass and dogs and trees. Inside, it's home-made pasta dishes and my dear Logic software, this girl's best friend at orchestration times. I'm finally coming to some conclusion as well: the next album will be a combination of the two genres I love the most, being chansons and dance. Just piano, strings, woodwinds and horns versus synths and samples. Hm. How will this sound? Got no clue yet. Sure I'll find out by trying.

08-04-08
Dutch ELLE magazine dropped by today, for an interview about GRAM's style. It was great fun, with a stylist and a photographer rearranging stuff in my house so it all looks pretty interesting. I even got to pose in one very cheap H&M dress, that I also wore at the photo shoot for the album cover, the shoot with Katerina Plevkova. She certainly captured the darker side of my personality, let's see how cheerfull the ELLE shoot will turn out.

22-03-08
We played really late with the band, tonight. Then we had to drive home, get all the gear back to the rehearsal space. Then I got the guys home. Then I had to bring the van back to the rental place - that parking space is quite desolate indeed, not a place a girl should be on a Saturday night at 5 AM, all by herself. But it's business as usual, you know. Except this time, the lock on my bike was frozen (it's end of March, dammit!!!). I broke. A few tears were shed, walking all the way home.

28-02-08
Great show at Vera, one of my last shows supporting Voicst. It's been an amazing experience working with this great team of people. And watch my favorite fashion accessory: my in-ear monitor plugs. This is truly a great picture, Sven.

23-02-08
I'm playing with About in Budapest tonight. Somebody thought it would be a great idea to drive us around town in a gold-painted former garbage truck. About 5 or 6 times we stop somewhere in Budapest, the truck opens, and we play 2 or 3 songs. Sometimes, there's just no people there when we start. Except of course for photographer Nick Helderman. But then again, he's always everywhere. I'm not surprised.
At all.

01-02-08
Playing in Purmerend, with Voicst. Sven is a really good photographer, you know. See how he captured my soul again, looking in a dressing room mirror. What's on this woman's mind...?

25-01-08
Writing down my set list for the evening, playing at Doornroosje. It's a tribute to former Seedling bass player Bas Jacobs, who used to do this sometimes. So, let's see: tonight I'm playing Hard Too hard, Flick The Switch and Cut It, then I'll have to switch sessions in the computer program I use, then on with Choo-choo...

12-01-08
Only six gigs ever with the band, and now we're playing at the prestigious Noorderslag festival. Very hectic night, with Voicst playing in one of the big halls, and we're sharing the same sound engineer.

04-01-08
We've hardly played live with the band. So we take off to play a few gigs in the UK. It's strange, leaving the country to let the band develop. Visiting my friend Robb, who has been doing rock websites for so many years, and whose kitchen has turned into a regular meeting place of all kinds of Dutch bands.

23-12-07
My laptop keeps moving when I'm playing live, so I glued some big strips of velcro on my sweet pet computer.

06-12-07
Backstage at the Voicst try-out in Speakers, Delft. Tim (Timmy!) van der Does attaching the wires of my in-ear monitor plugs. This is going to be my first time ever working with an in-ear system. Another candid moment captured by Sven.

30-11-07
Only a few hours ago I got confirmation that I would be supporting Kate Nash in a sold out Melkweg tonight. I started at 19.30h, which was was the time Kate was supposed to commence. I swear some people must have thought I was HER, because there were quite some laughs and surprised talk when I introduced myself in Dutch after the first song :-)

03-11-07
First time playing with the band! We're rehearsing all afternoon in what used to be my main source of live rock music: the venue 'De Bunker', in the village of Gemert, where I'm from.

01-11-07
I head a friend of mine design some unique shirts, where the 'I Amsterdam' logo is turned into the same logo, saying 'Gramsterdam' (of course). The t-shirts arrived today! I'm really pleased with them, I'm going to hand them to all the people who helped me with the album, but who I could never really pay.

10-10-07
I'm over the moon. Been working with my dad on this flight case that holds all my gear; all my technical stuff in one box, everything a girl would dream of. I can now push all my stuff on stage like a shopping cart, and with just a few plugs I'm ready for take-off.

22-09-07
Debut as GRAM at the ZXZW festival. Two years ago, we played one of the very first gigs as About at his festival as well. I was nervous, but really glad to play the first ever gig here.

09-07-07
Just have a look a this, this is insane! So, Jen Ray designed the lion that will be on the cover of the record, and the lion was wearing a strange 70s kinda glam glove (like any sensible lion would wear in the jungle, right?). I figured I wanted to have a connection between that lion and my press portrait. Soooo... why not make the glove?! Easier said than done, the truth is: in the end I had my mom make it. I kept screwing up the gloves. I'm not good at his, I'm a musician dammit!