Sessions

Back in London…I’ll be shooting a music video in a couple of days and we rehearsed a lot because I had to learn how to dance! The video will be directed by Clemens Habicht from Nexus and he got his inspiration from the incomparable Fred Astaire. It’s virtually impossible to teach anyone how to dance like him, especially in a day, but wait – there’s a twist. Four professional dancers will be moving my arms, legs and even my head during the choreography. My day began with a fitting to see which old fashioned outfit would suit me best. 

Next up was an intense rehearsal with Natricia, our dance coach and choreographer. She basically tried to teach me to tap in two hours. Everything became clear when the dancers – two guys and two girls – joined us. I had to learn to tense my legs and hips -so they could sway me in circles while still relaxing my arms and fingers. We went on for hours, and my muscles started aching because I’m not used to dancing at all, but at the end of the day (or night, rather) we ended up with a cool choreography involving lifts, dance steps, tap moves and I’m sure the video will turn out to be really stylish. It’s such an honour working with all the dancers and Clement is a genius director. Natricia Bernard has worked with so many artists! I believe I am in safe hands. And I’ve got bruised armpits (because of all the lifting) , but hey, you don’t hear me complaining.

Lucky me…I get to go all over the place because of my job and today is my first time ever in Brussels, Belgium. I have a meeting with some music industry people who will be releasing my album next year. Exciting stuff, because although I live in the Netherlands -and Belgium is right next door- it’s virtually terra incognita to me. The weather today may be dreadful and I won’t be seeing much of the city because of my schedule, but Brussels does instantly strike me as charming and slightly Parisian. 

Cities make me feel right at home. After growing up in the Hague in Holland -a proper city- me and my family moved to a rural place, which had its advantages but I ultimately missed living in the city so much that I moved to the city of Utrecht as soon as I had grown up. Booking a relaxing holiday can be quite challenging, because although uneventful, remote areas might be best to find some inner peace, I always find myself considering a Rio de Janeiro, Stockholm or Mumbai. Which is silly but then – cities are like magnets for the restless….

Back to London later this week and I’ve decided to rent an apartment with a baby grand piano in Paris to write songs. The apartment is in Montmartre, the right place to write new songs. The last time I wrote a couple songs in the middle of nowhere in Holland, in a cottage surrounded by trees, frogs and rabbits. That works well, but it was very difficult to come up with some ‘up’ songs, Paris will help I think.

Wow, I really enjoyed the Jazz Cafe last night. It all went really well, the crowd was great and my band kicked ass! We all had some nerves but we had such a good time! Mark, my drummer last night, was filling in for Jasper, who is our regular drummer, but he’s touring Asia with another band, so this was Mark’s first gig in London ever. I can’t wait to play more gigs in the UK and my booking agent told me last night about plans for more concerts in January, so I’m looking forward to that.

I was talking in between two songs somewhere in the beginning of our set and mentioned my brother and his girlfriend who were supposed to be in the audience, and waited for him to shout ‘Here I am’ but nobody said a thing, so I probably came across as a crazy person with an imaginary brother! Turns out he missed half the show because the tube didn’t run, as they sometimes do in London, right? Funny… Lovely that he flew over all the way from Holland. We all wanted to go for a drink after loading the truck and dropping off stuff at the hotel and we had such a hard time finding a pub, but we did have a good laugh when we saw all the girls walking about in skimpy outfits, 5 inch heels and tons of make-up in the pouring rain and icy cold. Welcome to SoHo! Next time we really need a guide to take us to the right places… Anyone?

Where to start…? Well it’s a big day today. I will be playing at the Jazz Cafe in London tonight, the first proper gig in London! My band and technical crew have just arrived. Our group is rather large for a band that is just starting out here in the UK: band = Pieter, Sven, Rory, Gijs & Mark, crew = Frans, Jeroen, Donne & David. Funny thing regarding my tour manager Jeroen. He has just become a father, his baby girl Sam is only a few days old, so he’ll fly back straight after the gig so he won’t have to miss her for more than 24 hours! Our concert will be part of the London Jazz Festival, and our friends from New Cool Collective -also from Amsterdam- were here last week and really enjoyed their time in Camden. Of course the venue is famous for the amazing artists who have played there. Truly legends. We’ve played at venues like that in Tokyo and Amsterdam, but I never get used to the idea of being on the same stage where Abbey Lincoln, Freddie Hubbard or Herbie Hancock once performed. Makes me feel quite small and inexperienced, but then again, when I start singing my first lines I usually forget and simply try to enjoy every minute. Fingers crossed!

Played last night at Bimbos in San Francisco. We had a lot of anticipation for this show since last time we played Bimbos in January we had an amazing show. But we walked off stage extremely disappointed with ourselves. Somehow it just didn’t fly. Not that we did anything wrong… it just didn’t take off. It’s such a mystery sometimes what makes a show come together or not. I hope the audience had a good night nevertheless.
I did a little interview with music journalist Tom Lanham who came to see the show and has followed us and interviewed us since the very beginning when we released our first mine album “Whip It On”. Here’s what he had to say.

Sharin: You have known us since the beginning Tom. What has been your favorite rave live moment ever?

Tom: Is there such a thing as a ‘Favorite Raveonettes live moment’? That’s tough to answer, because the shows just keep getting better and better, sleeker and more sophisticated. But it’s always a delight to see the band strip back down to a duo again and hit the road, DIY style, as on that recent self-booked tour. It’s a sign to every young group out there that you don’t NEED a huge backing group behind you, or a monstrous major-label hype machine, to just get out there and present your songs, bare-bones, to the public, with maybe only a computer and/or a drum machine for support. The way they did it back in the punk rock ’70s.

Sharin: What was the highlight of last nights concert?

Tom: The highlight of last night’s concert — or this current tour set in general — was simply this: ALL OF IT. The most interesting facet of the Raveonettes (and it’s been a delight to watch evolve) is your dogmatic refusal to take the easy, paint-by-numbers route in concert. You could easily (heartbreak) stroll out and give the folks “Dead Sound,” “Last Dance,” “Love In A Trash Can,” 1,2, 3, A, B, C — run through a pedestrian reading of all the expected hits. Instead, those three songs were scattered like hidden treasures throughout a more challenging set full of rarities, oldies, and unexpected catalog gems that really made the crowd THINK. And it’s fun to see the audience reactions — the poseurs, who are only there because they maybe heard one Raves track on satellite radio one lazy afternoon and want to impress their date for the evening by attending a quantifiably ‘cool show,’ start shifting uncomfortably in their seats, or from one foot to the other, as you pummel them with complex songs they just don’t know, OR understand. This ends in only two outcomes: A) Totally confused, they leave early, or B) Totally won over, they stay till the white-noise finale and leave determined to pick up your entire brilliant catalog as soon as possible. But for the true fans, the gigs are like manna from heaven — they squeal with giddy excitement at the first chords of each obscure number, and immediately begin singing, dancing along. And that’s just the GUYS! But this is the JOB of any true artist — to challenge their followers, after challenging themselves, creatively, first.

Sharin: What was the low point of the show? Did it translate that we had a terrible show on stage?

Tom: Were there low points at a concert like this? How COULD there be? And if the band was having a tough time pulling it off, nobody watching seemed to notice. Or care.

Sharin: What would you like to see coming from the raveonettes next? What is yet to be done?

Tom: So what could possibly be next for the group? With “In And Out Of Control,” the band has finally defined its style, to the point where you can proudly refer to the music as ‘that Raveonettes sound.’ In the past, certain songs would bear traces of influence X, Y or Z — Phil Spector, girl groups, surf records, rockabilly, vintage Jesus & Mary Chain. Now, it’s all blended into one sugary confection that’s simultaneously retro, revivalist, nouveau, contemporary, and totally, completely Raveonettes. It’s a springboard from which to launch any and all future projects, which could run the gamut from, say, an all-orchestral experiment to an entire album of Southwestern trail songs, a la Marty Robbins. And they could be labeled as such: ‘The Raveonettes present R&B classics for your listening pleasure!’ The possibilities are truly endless. Maybe even a pared-down acoustic-duo disc, like those DIY concerts.

Sharin: We always get this question and it’s impossible for us to answer, but perhaps you can do it: for people that don’t know the raveonettes, can you describe the sound and the music?

Tom: How to describe the sound? F*** yeah, I just DID! Idiots and poseurs need not apply.

Soundcheck at Bimbos

Photo Credit: Mike Zagaris

Just performed the single live on TV for the first time on Ireland’s The Late Late Show. Excellent evening and also got to rub shoulders with Vince Vaughan! Attached a shot of us running thru the track at rehearsal… the video made its debut around the world this week via Playstation – how’s that work?? We’re assured the only artists played more than us last week were Alexandra Burke and Robbie Williams – so we’re not doing bad… The video should be everywhere now though.

The Blizzards

We had an excellent time yesterday at Hitchcon ‘09 at the prestigious Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank for the official launch of Eoin Colfer’s new book “And Another Thing” – the sixth installment of The Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy! An odd day of people dressed in bathrobes and rubbing shoulders with Clive Anderson and Andrew Sachs…

We performed our new track – also called “And Another Thing” at the event & nerves were running high as it was only the second time we’d ever played it live! On Friday night we did a show in Sligo & tried it out for the first time… It’s our first time to use a backing track system so it was all a bit new! But all went really well and we were thrilled with how it sounded!

We’re very, very excited about the video for “And Another Thing” which already made its debut yesterday (we used it as the backdrop for our performance). We’re gonna get it out to the masses via PS3 this week and then to the wider world! We’ll let you know when it’s up on the big bad internet!

Sore heads all round this morning. After much “encouragement” from Eoin, I ended up at the piano in the after party playing blues covers for about an hour… A proper little Irish shindig. Kinda.