Happy 2007 (+news)

Hi everybody,

I wish you all the best for 2007 and I like to thank you for the support, inspiration and the trust you gave me in this past year.

Latest news (releases/recordings/sessions. Not everything, just some highlights).

2006 was a very important year for me, because it became clear that I had to focus for 100% on my work in de studio. Mixing, recording, producing and mastering. For the last few years I combined this work with a part-time job for a music-venue (behind the scenes work). But thanks to the conversations I had with inspiring colleagues (like Michael Brauer) at the TapeOp conference in Arizona it became clear that I have to put all my effort into my real passion. So that's what I am doing now full-time.

Therefore I spent a lot of time in studio's for the last few months, and I was enjoying every single minute of it. I had a blast recording a festival like London Calling for VPRO. But it was also an honour to work with a creative and inspiring mind like Mike Patton once again. We recorded his liveshow with (one of his projects) Peeping Tom And there were more projects with well-known names. The highlight of the last few months was Lambchop; they played a magnificent concert with an amazing string-section.

But I also worked with yet unknown talents who still have to prove themselves in 2007: One of them is Jeremy's. A very talented punkrock band with a pop-flavour. Their album will be released somewhere in 2007. Thanks to guitarplayer Fokko, a young talent who writes all the catchy songs, and the strong performance of singer Katelijn this band can reach out to a big audience. Trend-setting radio-dj Giel Beelen ranked them as "Most Promissing act" in Hitkrant magazine. Jeremy's brings you the vitamins you need: energetic, powerful, catchy and fast songs with a sexy sauce of chick-vocals on top of them.

Heavens Devils are bound to do a lot of gigs in 2007; once promoters got to hear their new demo the bookings must be flying in.
The fundaments of this band are of solid Rock and Roll. Four men strong with a clear mission. Driven, passioned and with total dedication these gentlemen play highly energetic RNR you'll never forget. High voltage - Steamy - Razorsharp Rock and Roll with influences from the 70's rock were sparks fly off.
Think 'Danko Jones joined with Bon Scott as a singer'. The Heavens Devils are on fire! The future looks bright for these true rockers!! Known for there solid and audience focussed live shows!

As we speak I am working on a retro-rock cd with a band that combines The Who / Grand Funk Railroad / Led Zeppelin into a great groovin coacktail.

2007 is promissing. First I am working with a Bluesband with an amazing guitarplayer, and there's a lot more on the horizon.

One shocking fact I have to share with you: I am going to mix my first Death Metal cd in 2007!

That’s all for now; I hope to meet you all again. And please: stick out you neck in 2007!

GRTZ
Guido

That's all 4 now! I hope to meet you soon!!

TapeOp Con / Dolorous Daze

Tucson / TapeOp Conference 2006:

First of all: it was great; I've had a blast!
The conference was nice, insightfull, amusing, (and sometimes boring...)

I've met a lot of great people, and gathered some new contacts. As you might know, I went on invitation of Michael Brauer so it was nice to finally meet him in person after all the internet contact. Soon we were talking and laughing, drinking our favorite drink: Margarita's!
Lot's of stuff to talk about, and his workshops gave me more than enough material for the article I had to write for the (Dutch) magazine: Interface.

Michael also invited me for a dinner with some of his "friends"... as it tured out, I was gathered by hotshots that night. To mention just two:
Chris Athens, Mastering Engineer with Sterling Sound (they've probably mastered more CD's than any other studio in the world) and Dave Derr (the man behind the Distressor and Fatso, two of my favorite toys). We keep in touch.

Michael also invited me to come down to his studio on a mixing job he had to do, but my wallet would not co-operate on that one...

Dolorous Daze

I am working on a lot of different projects right now. One that recently stood out: the mixing of an 12-track album of a brand new Dutch band called Dolorous Daze... soon to be released??? I hope so, because it turned out great.

They recorded everything themselves. The vibe was good, but the recording quality suffered on some parts. So I had to do some creative editting/cleaning before I started mixing.
Bas (vocals/guitar) has a very unique voice and he is very good in controlling it. He's an amazing singer and he reached all those high notes without autotune or everything. And he does not need many takes to get it on tape!
The two other members (brothers Thierry and Caesar) are also very talented; they played a lot of different instruments themselves.
Right now the band is auditioning for a keyboard-player, and they might need an extra guitar-player in the future tooooo...

I'll give you an update soon..? Check em out on MySpace

BTW; I am fully booked for the next few weeks, so that's nice! Some great projects comming up with very talented bands!

The Junes / Jeffrey Foucault

The Junes / Movie

The Junes are doing very well lately. Remember them? I told you about this band a few months back when I did some mixing for them.

Last two weeks their song "For Life" (listen to it on their MySpace) was often played on Radio3FM. (The most important radio-station in this country). Not only that, but they were also invited to play one song live. I went with them to do the live-mix. They gave an excellent performance (under circumstances that were less than perfect).

But that's not all. 4 Junes-songs (When the rain starts, She's my world, Not bringing me down and No-one) will be starring in a New Dutch movie called "Afblijven". I mixed three of those songs.
So now I have to go to a movie-theater to check it out. Could be a fun experience ;-)

Safari...!?

This summer I went on a safari in Kenya and Tanzania. If you want to check out some (or a lot!) pics, please surf to : www.guidoaalbers.com/photo

Jeffrey Foucault

I had to work at the Blue Highways Festival in Utrecht (recording for radio).
And I have to tell you about a singer-songwriter who impressed me!

His name is Jeffrey Foucault and he has been compared to artists like Townes Van Zandt, Eric Taylor and Chris Smither. His dark-style reminded me of the "Ghost of Tom Joad" album by Bruce Springsteen.

Jeffrey is a young musician from southeastern Wisconsin whose songs display a maturity and talent that many find difficult to believe is the work of someone only 26 years old. Together with pedal-steel-guitarist Eric Haywood (Son Volt!) he played a collection of dark narrative ballads, starkly rendered love songs. Roots Americana with some folk and old country. The compositions have a style that is both literate and rough, and at the forefront of each song is Foucaults deep, burnished voice, smoky and sharp as whiskey.

Ladies and Gentlemen here is a singer that took my breath away! I see/hear a lot of shows, but it's not often that I am touched to the bone. So if you have a chance... please go visit one of his live-gigs, because it will probably move you. And if you are honoust: "When was the last time you've got moved by a singer?"
It's not that I do not like his new album... I do like it, but it's not as personal as his performance was.

Recently I played a few songs of the Blue Highways recordings after a long day of recording in the studio. Just to relax and reset my mind... After a few minutes the control room was filled with people, all gathering in front of the speakers to listen. None of these people had ever heard of Jeffrey Foucault, but they were all attracted by his touching performance.

That's all 4 now! I hope to meet you soon!!

London Calling, Danko Jones, The Strokes

Latest news (releases/recordings/sessions. Not everything, just some highlights).


 Together with engineer Frank Mathijssen and assistant Fanny Vermeer we worked two long days for 3voor12 with a lot of "English" bands at the LONDON CALLING festival. It was a tough job, because it were all "live-mixes" so no multitrack or anything: straight to tape. London Calling always gives you a good view on what's going to happen in the next year, because a lot of UK talent is featuring at this festival. In the past bands like Franz Ferdinand, Blur, Kaiser Chiefs, the Editors, Snow Patrol all played there BEFORE they made their big break-throug.
We recorded 17 bands (!!) ... here are my personal highlights:
• Bromhead Jacket: Punky popmusic with a great frontman. This guy jumped of stage, broke his guitar, got a cut on his forehead, was bleeding like hell and kept playing and singing like nothing happened. Great perforrmance!
• The Futureheads: think XTC, Wire and The Fall. But also a bit of Kaiser Chiefs. Good band, great musicians. But I don't hear a hit like "oh my god", so I don't expect them to reach the "Kaiser Chiefs-status" yet...
• The Cinematics: if you ask me (well you're not)... This was THE BEST BAND of the festival. These guys from Glasgow are tight, have some great songs and create their own atmosphere. All the summer-festivals should book this band. But... I am affraid that some media think they are not original enough... LINK
• Humanzi: Black leather jackets and rockin' guitars... that sums it up. A$$-kickin' performance. LINK
• The Kooks: Everybody had high expectations of this band from Brighton that mixes indie with reggae... and they didn't live up to that. I think that they spend to much time in the Amsterdam nightlife. The singer could not reach his normal level and the band was not tight enough. Still a talented band and I think they must be able to deliver a better gig than this one. LINK
• Mystery Jets: The expectations for this band were even higher. And they also could not deliver enough. Their set was a bit to chaotic to charm. Think The Killers meets Arcade Fire (or something like that). But who knows: maybe they will make their break on a festival like Lowlands this summer. LINK

Frank Mathijssen and I did a live recording of DANKO JONES for VPRO radio. It was probably the 5th (?) time that we recorded this Canadian powerrock group. Danko just made a new a$$-kickin' album that makes you drive harder when you play it in your car. The concert was in the Milkyway (Melkweg) in Amsterdam and Danko came, saw and won the crowd. ;-)


I teamed up with the Dutch "power-punk-pop" band NOU EN again to make a new special version of their hit. I am not allowed to tell you much about it, but it's gonne be fun!
Besides that I also mixed some live-tracks for them. Some of those tracks are gonne be on their new single "Galajurk". Please surf to www.myspace.com/nouen (here you can listen to 4 of their songs, all mixed by me. My personal favorite is the title-number of their debut-cd: "Parel voor de Zwijnen")


oh yeah.... Together with Paul Schoenmakers I did some live-recordings/mixes of THE STROKES. Awesome concert with good songs and a tight band.

That's all for now... see you later!




btw: WATCH OUT!! Brand new AUDIO-plugin:  The UNsuckPLUG ;-)

The Junes / Nou En / Greendive etc

Talent?! Yessss that description certainly fits THE JUNES. I started working with them on some songs before my summer holidays. Singer-songwriter-guitarist (the boy does everything except laundry) Bertolf Lentink knows how to write a pop/rock song and is not afraid to show it ;-) All bandmembers are outstanding musicians so working with them was a blast!
I did some pre-production with them, then they started recording when I was on vacation, and I catched up with them when they were 70% done with recording.
Once everything was recorded (including a string section for two songs and some trombone for another) we went to the studio to mix all 7 tracks. Right now we're in the process of talking to recordcompany's and publishers, so i'll let you know when there's news about a release. Be sure to check em out if you like one of these bands: Beatles / Radiohead / Supergrass / Saybia etc. CLICK HERE if you wanne listen to some of these songs.
This weekend I am going to the studio to record, produce and mix a new single by GREENDIVE. I did 2 songs on their debut album, and it's nice to work with them again. I'll tell you more when recording is done.
I told you about the Dutch "power-punk-pop" band NOU EN... (When I translate that in English you will get something like "So What".) The lyrics are in Dutch, so you won't see this release anywhere else in the world, but their music is pretty international: think Blink 182 meets Jimmy Eat World meets Weezer. So loud rockin' guitars and catchy popmelodies.
Finally their first single 'Gothic Meisje' (Gothic Girl) is released. And, believe it or not, TV clipstation TMF is playing their video pretty often (medium rotation) and even some 3FM dj's (Giel Beelen as always the first) played it. CLICK HERE to check their first single: Gothic Meisje.
CLICK HERE to listen to the title-track of the CD Parel voor de Zwijnen
I also mixed two demo-cd's for local acts: WILSUM and SWELTER (formerly known as Lampshade).