A new band is born: Cripple Oak

Yesterday, exactly 100 years after the tragic sinking of the Titanic, we started a new band for the special occasion of the festival "Onderuit" in the Green Heart of Holland. While I was preparing for the festival, it got into my head to try and make 1+1=3 and when I asked John Cripplewood, he said "that looks big fun to me!". So a new band was born.

We will focus on the festival which is planned for the 25th till the 27th of May. There will be a play spread out over a couple of farm locations and in between that, various groups of artist will entertain the visitors, who will be wandering around the area in groups.

The preparation time is short, but John and I played a lot of songs together during the years that I also was a member of the famous Doggy Dike, as you can see on this photo.

Actually the 1+1 idea matured during the gig I had last thursday with some of my old Doggy Dike friends in the cosy little pub in the most beautifull place of Leiden called "Estaminet Schommelen". Though we didn't do one of my own songs, I wouldn't have missed that lovely night, singing and playing.

Sorry for not blogging for almost a whole year

Oops, not blogging for almost I year. Was I busy again? Yes, but I never stopped making music. I left some irregular notes on Facebook and published some new songs there and in Myspace this year. In February of this year, I wrote a song called "Stones On Steel" questioning how it feels to be a well trained soldier having to fight against his own people. The song was inspired after watching the Arab Spring protests this year in Cairo and thinking back to the unsuccessfull student protests in China starting on the Tiananmen Square in 1989. Un fortunately the topic is now hot again because of Syria.

Protests in Syria 2011

Today I published another new song called "Mary Connely" about a lovely girl that I dream to merry with. The subtitle could be "Dream On".

Mary Connely

Last month, I made some birthday songs in dutch. One for my best friend and a "dozen song" for my twelve year old daughter.

In September I wrote "Living Backwards" about the funny idea to start your life by rising from the dead and ending in an orgasm and I made a rendition of the sad song "The Blantyre Explosion". I also made a new love song called "The Macnas Parade", using the words of the existing The Saw Doctors song, but very different.

That's about it for this year. Hope you like my creative work. The year isn't over yet, so maybe there's more to come. We'll see.

Wishing you a good Sinterklaas, a Merry Christmass and a Happy New Year!

Still only 254 songs documented now

It's been a busy year, 2010, where work had more than even before to do with earning money to survive. Making music also helps a lot to survive, but making money came on the first place. Making websites about music is the least important for surviving, so only 254 songs documented untill now, but never mind, the internet still is a great resource.

If you like to publish your own songs, please send me your favourite songs in a Word document with a link to a nice rendition and I'll be happy to publish your song, also if it's not really traditional. If it doesn't fit in, I'll keep it in my songdocs-database for a next release with more categories.

Take care!

More than 200 Song Docs !

Wow, we've passed the magic number of 200 Song Documents today and I still feel it's just a start!

One of the latest traditional songs I discovered on YouTube is "The Banks Of Sullane", beautifully sung by Niamh Parsons. I also added Molly Ban today, which I never saw better performed than by Alison Krauss and The Chieftains. I'm trying to learn both songs which is quite a challenge. I wonder if I can reproduce the correct melody when I wake up tomorrow morning.

Talking about sleeping: don't forget to enjoy the old song "Heap Of Little Horses", a.k.a. "Go To Sleep Little Baby" sung by Patty Griffin and put in a magic atmoshpere by the good old Chieftains.

Good night, sleep tight!

The Road Not Taken

On a pleasant evening in June, browsing the internet, I discovered a beautiful poem about the choices that everyone makes in his life. The poem is made by Robert Frost, a famous American poet (1874-1963), and performances can be found on YouTube. However, I could not find a song on his text, so I gave it a try. Below is the link to the mp3 I recorded. I hope you like it. http://www.songdocs.com/RoadNotTaken.mp3

Angel Of Paradise

Do you recognize this? Sometimes you hear a song and it stays in your head. All you remember is just a few lines of the chorus, but you want to know all the words. That's what I had with Kieran Halpin's "Angle Of Paradise" last weekend. As a real Googler I tried to find it on the internet but: no true results. Luckily I found a YouTube-link in my favourites, so then I knew the singer and the title. However, although Keiran sings clearly, I couldn't figure out all the words. So I thought: "why not ask Kieran himself?" So I went to http://www.kieranhalpin.com/ and explained my serious problem.

Well, Kieran really made my day! Within an hour he sent me the song text of his beautifull "Angle Of Paradise". So now I can share it with all of you on http://www.songdocs.com/.

Thanks Kieran!

Music and agression - Gary Og's Irish Soldier Laddy

By far, most people are kind and friendly, I am conviced a 100%. However sometimes you end up in a place, where people are only friendly when you share their anger. Have a look a the embarassing discussing below this video of Gary Og:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=gwOmYNvISnM

Please give my reactions a "thumb up", if you're a normal person too.

The funny thing with YouTube is, that people with the same taste tend to find each other. Now, what you see here is that I, as an average person giving my moderate opinion to Gary's music and the aggressive fan-talk, only get thumbs down! Why? Because, IF normal people pass by this discussion, they all click away as soon as possible. Please don't do that this time, but support me with a thumb up!

Thanks and Power to the Normals!