peter van straten

Het lijkt me wel een toepasselijk moment om dit te posten.

Het jaar wil ik van af wezen, Jan van der Mey en ik speelden in Vitesse en The Wild Romance was net uit elkaar.

Herman (Brood) en Koos (van Dijk) doken regelmatig op in den lande, vaak precies op het moment dat wij een toegift deden. Hoe ze het voor elkaar kregen qua timing, geen idee, maar net als wij opgingen stond Brood ineens op het podium.

Je kunt je voorstellen dat de zaal op zo’n moment uitzinnig werd. Het protocol was dan dat Brood mij op de schouders nam (hij was oersterk) en dat er dan een Vitesse/Brood nummertje gespeeld werd zoals bijvoorbeeld: ‘Mr. Speedo’.

Na afloop nog wat gehang en geklets waarbij Herman Brood mij soms terloops iets toe- mompelde als: ‘Ventje, jij bent altijd zo vrolijk, vertel me jouw geheim..’ of: ‘Als ik een meisje was wist ik het wel, ventje!’ en weg was ie. Op dit soort avonden vroeg Koos van Dijk dan tussen neus en lippen door aan Jan of mij: ‘Wat zouden jullie ervan denken als we eens een leuk bandje met Herman gaan beginnen…?’

De ‘andere’ Herman (van Boeyen) voelde natuurlijk de bui al hangen en slim en pragmatisch als hij was vroeg hij Brood om bij Vitesse te komen. Aldus geschiedde; er kwam een artikel in de Telegraaf van Henk van der Meyden waarin stond dat Jan van der Mey en ik de beide Hermannen beloofden niet aan de drugs te gaan… nee, ik verzin dit niet!

Het avontuur heeft niet erg lang geduurd maar was wel ontzettend leuk en spannend.

In het prachtige busje van Koos naar Duitsland (er mocht niet gerookt worden!).

Koos had een mobiele telefoon! Een apparaat van enorme afmetingen. We speelden in Hamburg en na afloop reden we de hele stad door van club naar club, Koos belde dan de niets vermoedende eigenaar en in steenkolen Duits vroeg hij dan of we die avond even mochten spelen. ‘Aber Naturlich, Toll!’ De goede man wist natuurlijk niet dat we al voor de deur stonden.

We renden naar binnen met onze gitaren om de nek, het bandje van die avond moest onmiddelijk ophouden en we namen de tent over, twee liedjes en wegwezen.

Brood was in die tijd geobsedeerd met het schrijven van een Carnaval’s kraker. Tussen de bedrijven door was hij voortdurend in de weer met papier en pen, vaak liet hij het liggen in de kleedkamer en soms nam ik het dan mee. Waarom ik het altijd bewaard heb weet ik niet, misschien omdat ik het zo grappig vond wat hij schreef.

Bij deze dus een voorbeeld, veel te ingewikkeld voor een echte meezingert maar wel te leuk.

Al dat geschrijf zou uiteindelijk resulteren in: ‘Maak van Uw scheet een donderslag!’

Het avontuur duurde slechts een paar maanden, Jan en ik vonden de beide ‘Hermannen’ maar ouwe lullen ( ze waren immers al in de dertig) en Koos had het al lang gezien: ‘Dit wordt ja een ‘praat band!’

When I started writing for 'Turn', my first solo album, I never intended to include any covers.

Then I saw the documentary 'I am Trying to Break your Heart : a Film about Wilco', and there was this dressing room scene with Jeff Tweedy humming a tune, it immediately fascinated me, and by googling the only audible line 'be not so fearful', I found out that he was playing a song that was written by Bill Fay.

 What a song ! very frail and tense.... it turned out that Wilco never recorded this song although I found a live version by Jeff Tweedy on YouTube. I decided to record it and see if it would fit on the album....

First time for me to do a cover, the great thing about recording someone else's song is that you don't have to think about form and structure anymore, you don't have to write the lyrics, you just have to love them..all you have to do is find a way to fit yourself into the song, make it your own or, as Johnny cash puts it;

"When I record somebody else's song, I have to make it my own or it doesn't feel right. I'll say to myself, I wrote this and he doesn't know it!" 

A few hrs to kill on Minneapolis airport on my way from San F to Amsterdam, airports and martini's go together well,  People are more friendly when they are not on their own 'turf', could be the martini's ....

I have been here many years ago, looonnng carpeted 'tunnels' from gate to gate, but today...amazing ! restaurants and bars every where, each table has a waitress in the form of an Ipad, there must be hundreds of them.

Time to write  about Maya Mercer and Skid Row......

Maya produced the cover for my debut album 'Turn', she is an exceptional artist and so is the cover, exceptional that is...

The photograph was taken on Skid Row, Los Angeles, the largest population of 'homeless' people in the United States.

She named the shot; "Downtown LA Angel", it is full of contrast and amazing colors and I feel it fits my music.

Fortunately she made many photographs that day so I we had enough material for the art work.

On "TURN" , my debut album, most of the lyrics were written by Julien Hart and Alex Ayuli.

With Alex I have worked in the past playing bass on a couple of the late A.R. Kane recordings.  Alex wrote the classic "Pump up the Volume"     ( nominated for the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance) for the British group MARRS .

The way I work with Alex is quite different from working with Julien;

Alex usually brings his labtop and we sit together for hours, I play and hum the song over and over, throwing in a word here and there, while he quietly works his way into it. Usually I don't get to see the lyrics till they are finished. Sometimes I give him a subject, often it is free form writing. I love his directness and often things come out very catchy.

Julien is a wild poet, incredibly talented, and very productive. He usually has a stack of lyrics already written and so it's the other way around; I go to work with the lyrics till the song comes out. 

Wordsmiths, both of them....

Alex

Julien

 Street of Street & Stone rediscovers his roots as far away from home as possible, producing the new album “Turn”

 Leaving behind what is vital to one’s well being: sometimes it has to be done.    From complex to simple—from Amsterdam to log cabin in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. One of Holland’s best bassists Peter van Straten, who worked with artists like Nina Hagen, Billy Preston and Eric Burdon, turns his back on his comfortable life and journeys west, in an attempt to get back to the roots of it all.

 “I had a good thing going, a great way to make a living but not to feed the soul.” says Street, the name by which van Straten now goes. “I needed to do something new, something less self-centered. I needed to meet new people and work with my hands in a different environment.”

 Disregarding the music scene for a while, Street found himself doing manual labor in a vineyard. Realizing the growth he was experiencing, he purchased a piece of land with a log cabin on it—the place where the urge to write new music resurfaced.

 Next came the crucial moment in which Gerry Rafferty—for whom Street had played some of his songs—told him he needed to sing his own songs rather than write them for someone else. This was the turning point.

“I started writing with no particular end point in mind, just something different,” says Street. “For the first time, the journey was more important than the destination. It was about the joy of the moment.” After three years, this left him with nearly forty songs of which a mere twelve were chosen for “Turn.”

“All songs were now recorded at my home studio, and the idea of releasing an album suddenly seemed a necessity. To get it out of my system and into the world so to speak,” says Street. For the mixing and mastering, he contacted his friend and engineer, Frans Hendriks, in Holland. Frans had converted an old farmhouse into a studio. Just a few minutes from the place Street grew up, it seemed the perfect space to combine new and old—fresh inspiration and familiar musicians.

 The farmhouse became Street’s “new home” for a few weeks.  “The vibe was great,” he says. “Frans and I went over a list of musicians I knew from the past to see who we wanted to collaborate. It all worked out very organically, and made me realize that from now on I would work with a collective of musicians.” A link between solitude and the world out there...hence the transition from Street to Street & Stone.

 Thus, on “Turn”, the debut album of Street and Stone, we hear the Pedal Steel and Acoustic guitars of Rene van Barneveld (Urban Dance Squad), Wurlitzer Piano and Hammond Organs by Nico Brandsen (Kane), the unique Electric Guitar layers of Wouter Planteijdt (Sjako) and Drums by life long friend Leon Klaasse (Powerplay, Pilgrims).

 Alex Ayuli of A.R. Kane / MARRS wrote most of the lyrics. This would be a surprise only to those who didn’t know Street and Ayuli had been collaborators for years. Street’s layered low end gracing a couple of the late A.R. Kane recordings.

But that was then and “Turn” is very much now.

So listen, listen.

It’s time to TURN.

  Copyright photos by Joep Bruijnjé and Rosanna van Straten ©

check out Street & Stone's album Teaser;