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).

Coldplay!!

Together with engineer Frank Mathijssen and assisting engineer Per van der Zande, I recorded another live-show from Coldplay. In April we did an intimate clubgig, this time it was a big stadium concert. The band played at the Gelredome Arena in Arnhem and it was a strange night. Why? Because the concert took place at the 7th of July and that same morning terrorists blew up bombs in London. So there was some sort of tension in the air during the concert. Once again the band proved to be up there with the best. They played a very intens set and the crowd loved it. After that I went to the studio for a couple of days to mix the whole concert for EMI Music. 7 songs are released in a special live box!!!


Together with (recording guru) Paul Schoenmakers I did a live recording of HARD-FI for VPRO radio. Hard-Fi is one of those new asskickin' bands from the UK.

oh yeah... and did I mention that I recorded at the Lowlands festival again? Well.... I did ;-) My personal highlights were: FOO FIGHTERS / FRANZ FERDINAND / KAISERS CHIEFS / QOTSA / GABRIEL RIOS. Keep in mind that I only recorded at the Alpha stage, so I have no ID how other bands were.