Released!!!!

From today, July 1, the new Diftong album, Flight no6, is available on Spotify and Apple Music. It is temporarily in a separate Diftong account on Spotify. They will merge the two accounts, but I did not want to let you wait for that.

 

Let me introduce you to the people that play and sing on the Flight no.6 album.

 

Diftong wrote the songs, plays guitar and sings

JeeWee Donkers plays guitars, bass and mandolins

Peter Holen plays keyboard, accordion and harmonica

Remco Hendriksen plays drums and percussion

Jurriaan Westerveld plays the cello on the song Radio Waves

Maya Willemse plays the piano on Radio Waves and sings backing vocals

Jes van Wijngaarden sings backing vocals (and did the artwork)

 

Find out more about them by clicking on their names.

 

It was such a pleasure to work with these people. Work is the wrong word in this case. Work is something you do for food and shelter for the body. Making music is beneficial for the soul. This doesn’t mean we will not accept payment ;-)

 

There is also a CD with beautiful artwork and a booklet with all the lyrics. In due time we will have a presentation party. I will keep you posted.

 

Listen to the album! It will tell you more than a million words.

Bedouins

Despite all casualties, we managed to get past the speed bumps and we were flying. Flight no.6 is the sixth Diftong album and the web release is set for July 1. This album is full of identified flying objects. They appear in most of the ten songs that I wrote for the album. I have no clue why that is so. It just happened.

 

Partly recorded in what appeared to be Bedouin tents, it again has a real “band feel”, but it is a much more acoustic album than A Hell of a Time. We were in a big room and needed some acoustic separation. So we carried in blankets, feather beds and mattresses and built two separate tents with those.

 

I once co-wrote a song in the desert with a guy called Derek James Ritz. It had the following chorus:

 

I bought me a Keffiyeh and I grew me a beard

The boys at the office think I’m acting pretty weird

But they don’t know where I’m coming from

They don’t know where I’ve been

Going back to the desert, gonna be a Bedouin

 

I don’t remember how the rest went and (luckily) there are no recordings of the song. The only thing left is a blurry picture of me singing that song, totally drunk.

 

The CD of Flight no.6  has a great cover and a booklet with all the lyrics, but you will have to wait for that. Given the current state of the world, we don’t know when the release party will take place. Before you ask, I hate the idea of a social distancing audience. To think that you can play live music before an audience that don’t feel or smell each other… Also I don’t like live streams. I won’t mind doing those, but it is not the real thing. It’s like smelling a glass of whisky, without being allowed to take a nip.

Be patient and take care!

Ralentisseur

Flight no 6. My sixth attempt to fly: ten songs, a booklet with lyrics, artwork, the whole shebang. It started on a hike in the south of France in September 2015. My left leg was giving me trouble and I knew something was going to slow me down dramatically. It made me think of a speed bump or ralentisseur in the French language. I typed that word ralentisseur in my phone, not sure what I would do with it. In the time between that hike and the moment I am writing this, I was seriously distracted. By the actual speed bump, by the making of an album called A Hell of a Time, by the loss of two people that were dear to me, by meeting old friends, by many more hikes. And, in the last few months, by a pandemic. So here we are, with a virus and a new album on the shelf. Damn! It has been three and a half years since the release of my last album and now this. I guess we will have to be patient. Ralentissez!

A Hell of a Time

The road to the release was not paved with roses. Band members down with the tummy flu just before. Cars breaking down. Last minute instrument repairs. Rodents nibbling the wires. Still, somehow, we managed to get on that stage. It was definitely not a case of "Just do it". More like "Do it anyway".

But what a blast it was! Thanks to those who came and made it a party. Thanks to those seven people who climbed on stage with me. It was my first time ever as a singer in a rock band and I loved it. We played all twelve songs of the album A Hell of a Time. Drums, bass, guitar, keys, three singers and me. We made some noise.

And so, there it is: A Hell of a Time by Diftong & the shipwrights featuring the listless angels. The CD is for sale. On my website you can order it. Or you can go to iTunes or Spotify. And I am going to sleep for a month.

By the way, this is probably the last post in the Rocket Swing blog. Soon I hope to start a new blog on my website, where I will write about music in some general kind of way, instead of blabbering about myself all the time.

Thanks for reading this. See you some other time in some other place!
Diftong website
Diftong on Spotify
Diftong on iTunes/Apple Music

Voice-over

These days I am a singer in a rock band. Although my profession is singer-songwriter, that is a strange thing for me to say, because I consider myself more of a songwriter than a singer. Mind you, I like to sing, but I never felt inclined to really learn the skills that ‘professional’ singers have. Also, I like punkrock and Patti Smith and Neil Young, Lou Reed and Nick Cave. That should tell you something.

There are people in this world who never really get used to their own voice. I am one of them, but not the only one. I remember a documentary on 16 Horsepower, where the singer was saying the same thing and he asked his grandfather, who was a preacher, ‘Do you like to hear yourself preach?’ The answer was a short and clear ‘No!’.

Sometimes, we have musicians staying in our house for one or two nights. We talk about music, obviously, play music and basically live in the music in those days. And sometimes, I play my guests a song of mine, when I have had enough wine. Like last weekend when I was told I have a good voice. Unfortunately, I did not record that remark or I would have listened to it again and again.

Anyway, I decided to re-record some of the vocals on my new album. And it was a good thing I did, because I greatly improved on my earlier performance. I may even start to like my own voice!

Now all we have to do is finish the mix (we made a lot of progress there), do the mastering, finalize the artwork and kick the bastard into the world.

Sunday Sessions

For the first time since December 2015 I played live for an audience. I had stopped playing because two fingers on my left hand played other notes than I had in mind. Frustrated, I started writing songs for a new Diftong album last winter. During that period, I discovered that I could still play a bit of guitar if I kept looking at my left hand. And well you know, an addiction is an addiction, so I decided to give it a try again, which is what happened on Sunday September 18 at Ned Egan's Easy Sunday Sessions.

So there I was, back on a stage, playing my songs. I have done this many times before, but as you can imagine, I was more nervous than I used to be. The what-if-factor. What if my hand refuses to do the job? What if I put the wrong date in my phone? What if nobody shows up? But it was the right day. They showed up. My hand did the job.  And… it was magic. I had almost forgotten how it feels to play for a room full of people you love. It felt really really very good. So to all of you who were there: thank you! To all of you who could not make it: never mind, life is beautiful anyway. And to the rest: I guess you missed something. No worries, I will do this again. Starting this Sunday October 2, on a pop-up stage that is part of an art exhibition in my home town. And there will be more. Although I don’t know when and where yet.

Meanwhile, the recordings for the new album are almost finished. Two more backing vocal tracks to go, and we can start mixing. I can hardly wait to let you hear it, because I think it is very good and also very different from what I did before. This time, I will only make a limited number of physical CD's. If you are interested in buying one, pre-order your copy, by sending an e-mail to diftong@diftong.nl. Of course, the album will also be available for you to download. I will let you know when. Our aim is November.

Something White

We are wrapping up the recording of the new Diftong album. I say Diftong album but it is actually a band that is performing my songs. And we did with enormous fervor and gumption. So I'd like to start with a word of thanks to Budi, Dirk, Jeewee and Peter. We played some fine seventies rock with a bit of roll.

We managed to record twelve songs. Eleven are brand new and one is an oldie called Something White. I wrote it after watching a TV program about a populist party in Denmark in 2001 or 2002. At the time – it must have been not long after 9/11 – I could never have thought that it would be so relevant 14 years later. Though I made some changes to both the lyrics and the music, the idea of the song is the same. And now populists seem to rule the media. Here are some of the words:

Here they come again and they won't listen
They swing their crowbars, draw up their lists and
They start waving flags
They start sticking on the tags

There is something white fluttering in the corner of my eye

Keep watching for something white and don't let the big words get to you!

Cornfields

Wednesday July 20 2016. A small abandoned house between cornfields in the middle of somewhere. Five guys with their instruments, an incredible amount of cables and a lot of blinking lights. It was hot outside. It was even hotter inside. We were all in good spirits, but there was one spirit in the house that made an annoying squeak through all the amps. Never mind, we came to record bass and drums and will do overdubs of the other instuments later.
The drummer counted to four. What we heard then, was a smooth funky rock sound I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams. We kept it going for three whole days and finished way before the deadline. Twelve songs with a groove were etched on the harddisk. I sang 'The ways things were going they could not go on'. True. Not because we we didn't want to, but because we were exhausted. Twelve is enough.
There was the music before July 2016 and there was the music after that. Those of you who expect the fifth Diftong album to be anything like the previous ones are in for a surprise. I might call the album Exile in Cornfields. You never know.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to get some sleep.

Scribbles

Last week, it so happened that Lynne Hanson sat in my kitchen, working on some new songs. We started talking about writing songs and I played her one of mine and asked what she thought of it. She said she liked it, but had reservations with me using the same word twice in the chorus. Normally I would think so what, but hey, this was Lynne Hanson. After struggling with that chorus for a few days, an alternative suddenly came to me. And it is a big improvement, I can tell you!

The words for the new album are finished by now. At least, that's what I tell myself: the lyrics are finished. It starts with scribbling words and phrases in a notebook. I also use napkins, the back of receipts, i-phones, desktop computers, whatever is at hand. If I think what I wrote is any good – in about  1% of the cases – I will use it in a new song. I make a lot – and I mean a lot – of draft versions. After a while – a while can be anything from 10 minutes to 2 years – I approve of my work, type it on the computer and print it. The printed version always looks very pretty and I'm satisfied. I really am for a while. Then I take a pen and start crossing out words, replace a whole verse or add one and change the chorus. I might keep on doing that until just before the song is recorded. And still there are people who think the life of a songwriter is not stressful.

Meanwhile the graphic designer in the house, who is also my wife, is working on a book with lyrics I wrote in the last 30 years. It is strange as well as exciting to read all the old stuff. We came across a whole range of other things too, like the picture above. This is an album cover of an album that was never released. The title song was Icarus, about me flying an airplane high above the Earth's troubles. The picture shows my modest attempt at hang-gliding, jumping from a two foot sand hill with a kite in my hands. Those were the days.

I got my airplane instruction set
Got all supplies that I could get
Oxygen for high altitudes
And a radio to contact you
Got a radar to protect my back
Enough ammo to fight off an attack
Got a fur lined flier’s suit
And I got my parachute
Up here in my aeroplane
I’m flying high above the rain
I’m free in my aeroplane
All efforts to ground me were in vain

And some day I’ll come tumbling down

I know I will be elated, that the book will be something to be proud of. All these messy notes contained in a book that looks beautiful. Let's just hope that I will not pick it up, take a pen and then…

By the way, listen to Lynne Hanson's music here.

Good Vibes

High time to fire up this blog. I have neglected it, but I am full of good intentions. I am not changing the name of the blog because I love that and all the memories that the name holds. And of course, I love the album The Rocket Swing, which is still for sale by the way.

This summer I will be recording a new album with some fabulous musicians. If you know my previous recordings, you know all of them but … this time we formed a supergroup. I have twelve new songs that I am very proud of and I am still writing. Fact is, that I am writing so much stuff, I am running out of notebooks. The new album, no title yet, will be a rock album. I might even ask for guitar solos that last longer than two bars. Brace yourselves!

Our plan is to record the basics in July and add some fancy stuff later this summer. The lyrics have been approved by a native speaker. The band is doing homework and sending me their ideas. I am thinking about arrangements.

Everyone tells me that cd's don't sell anymore and don't I know it. We will think of another way to get this music to you. If you have any wishes or suggestions, let me know.

By now you will be wondering: "Who is that woman and what is she doing here?" That woman, ladies and gentlemen, is Joyce Willemse. She is the poet laureate of my hometown Veenendaal. I had the honor to co-write a song with her. She wrote the words, I put them to music. You will have moist eyes by the end of the song. Just don't say I did not warn you. Click here to find a rough demo. I just sat in front of a microphone with my guitar and played it. A studio recording will be made later on.

But first the rock album. As you can guess, I am full of good vibes. If I have any news, I will keep you posted. Have a great summer. Rock!

Triggered

I wrote twelve new songs and it does not look like I am finished. A lot of inspirational things happened. Bad things, like a disease that won’t go away and a world that now seems to be dominated by people shouting hateful things at the top of their voice. But also good things like the discovery of some great music and an old crappy guitar saved from the trash, that reminds me of Willy Nelson’s Trigger (complete with holes and everything). I used that to write some of the songs. To give you a sneak preview, here’s part of a new song:

Are hate mail and death threats all you can come up with

When the sword of justice fails to make a clean cut

Don’t you understand that sword is all we’ve got

It’s all that keeps us from the big black nothing

Can you tell, Can you tell,

Can you tell a black crow from a white dove at a crossing

All we know for sure is next to nothing

If I can get it organized I’d like to record a new album in the summer with a band. I only have to find musicians, a place to record and a way to release this album. And all I have to spend is next to nothing J

Grumpy?

The year 2015 is gone. It was the best of years. It was the worst of years.
The Rocket Swing was released in February. It had a ton of good reviews. I played a bunch of shows, first with Jeewee Donkers and then with a trio featuring Jeewee on guitar, lap steel and mandolin and JD Dekker on bass. My wife started singing backing vocals. You can see and hear some of it on my youtube channel: http://tinyurl.com/jmcuqyn
And then I was losing control of two fingers on my left hand due to an ailment that also drains my energy. I can play guitar, but not good enough to play on stage and I had to cancel the shows for 2016. But who says you cannot be a singer-songwriter when you are not playing an instrument. So I am writing new songs. After all, that is what makes me tick. I don’t know yet what I will do with them. I will probably record them in one way or another and get them out on the internet. I will keep you posted.
One of the things that are nagging me, is that I was selling cd’s at shows. Now that I don’t play shows anymore, I am left with a whole bunch of them. So, if you know people who might be interested in buying one, please tell them they still can.

For Europe @ Lucky Dice http://tinyurl.com/rocketswing

For North America @ CDbaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/diftong4

Who the Hell is Dow Jones

In 1992, I wrote a song that suddenly connects to the grim reality of today. To quote Brian Hansford (UNHCR Spokesperson in Washington): 'Refugees are part of humanity and we can't leave them behind'. That's it. There are refugees. They come from the worst of circumstances. As long as there is a chance of a slightly better life somewhere else, they will go somewhere else. So would you.

You can find the song on youtube.

The lyrics of "Who the Hell is Dow Jones"
Copyright Diftong 1992

Spokesmen of the government complain
They have no money in their purse
Social security costs to much
And the situation is getting worse, they say
Shiploads of refugees coming in
All asking for their share
Economic growth not fast enough
The costs are more than we can bear, they say

They show us graphs on the news
Lines going up and going down
No smiling faces at the stock exchange
They got reasons to frown, they say
They show us pictures on the news
Of people skin over bone
And then they tell us it’s too hard
To get some food to the war zone, they say

Who the hell is Dow Jones anyway
Someone I should know
Can I get him on the phone
Can he tell me where the money goes

Don’t bet your money on the wrong horse
You’d better save it for the right cause

And then there were three

Diftong revisiting Goudargues

On July 2, the fantastic e-zine Americana-UK, the UK home of Americana music, honored me by publishing an interview with Rudie Humphrey. Who could wish for a better start of the summer? A summer spent rehearsing my new and old songs with a trio! I already played some shows with Jeewee Donkers on guitar, mandolin and lap steel. Now, JD Dekker, my companion in The Understate Men, has joined us on bass. Our debut will be on October 8 at De Bunker in Gemert. There will be a mystery guest involved and a new version of my old song "Who the Hell is Dow Jones" that suddenly gained relevance in the current fuss about refugees.
After a refreshing vacation in the South of France, I am really eager to play. Especially after visiting Goudargues on this trip, the lovely French town where I played the Goud'acoustic Festival in 2008 and where I return once in a while to have a good meal, enjoy the atmosphere, visit some friends and play some songs.

I hope to see you at one of my shows.

Anniversary

Opening for Christina Martin on May 20, 2015

It has been exactly one year since I was in Nova Scotia, recording The Rocket Swing with Dale Murray. A lot has happened since then. The tragic passing away of Fleur Mainville who played fiddle on the album. The release of the video of Dying of the Light on Dylan Thomas' 100th birthday. The album release on February 1, 2015. The appearance of a whole bunch of good reviews in The Netherlands and in Belgium. The booking of a tour in the Netherlands. The bandcamp release of Wakeman's Peace and some heartwarming reactions to that song coming from Canada. And as the icing on the cake: Diftong and JeeWee Donkers opening the show of Christina Martin and band in my hometown. Where I had the honor to play The Rocket Swing with Dale Murray on lap steel.
All in all, it has been a great year for Diftong and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning. A good moment to thank all who supported my music in the last year. I will see you whenever and wherever our paths cross. Thanks!

Don't forget to check my website for the tour schedule and the latest news: http://www.diftong.nl

Seven decades of freedom

On October 5 in 1944, Canadian flyer Harold Frederick Wakeman crashed near my hometown Veenendaal. He was only 22 years old. His squadron was bombing a train, when one of the bombs hit the tail of Wakeman's Typhoon plane. When I heard the story from local journalist Sjoerd de Jong, I decided to write a song about this tragic event. And so, after 70 years, I was present at the annual commemoration by Wakeman's grave, under a blue sky on a beautiful October day.

R.I.P. Harold Frederick Wakeman.

The song is called Wakeman's peace. It is on my bandcamp page:
http://diftong.bandcamp.com/track/wakemans-peace
Here you can listen and if you like it, you can download it for free.

Wakeman’s peace

This is the story of two fliers
And a girl witnessing their fate
Filed under friendly fire
One down, one devastated

Typhoons, still with their deadly load
Came flying back from the East
People wondered, friend or foe
One girl dared to wait and see

An aborted mission made them eager
They dropped their bombs on an empty train
There was a slight miscalculation
One of those bombs hit Wakeman’s plane

After the crash she saw him lying
On the road as she came near
Surprised to see his face so peaceful
Without a single trace of fear

Back in October ‘44
The sky was the same shade of blue
A cold hungry winter still in store
Before the war
Ended without you

Under a blue October sky
We are standing by a grave
In a moment of silence
We appreciate
Seven decades of freedom
Seven decades to date

Radio and live shows

Picture by Betty van de Bunt

A long time ago, radio was the only way to get to hear new music. These days, there are many other ways. Internet radio, streaming services, you name it. So, don’t complain about radio, turn the thing off and use the time to find music you like. Find friends that share your tastes. Go to one of the few remaining record stores or order your music at a small expert webshop, where you will find the good stuff. And the best way is to go to a live show and buy your CD from the artist.

Two months after releasing the Rocket Swing, I have had several very good reviews, some airplay on internet radio, a ton of praise from a ton of people and bookings for live shows all the way up to February 2016. See the calendar on my site: http://diftong.nl/live.php

If you are on facebook, don’t forget to like my Diftong page: https://www.facebook.com/diftong

You can buy my CD and loads of others here: http://www.luckydice.nl/

You can read The Rocket Swing reviews in Dutch:

http://www.bluesmagazine.nl/recensie-diftong-the-rocket-swing/

http://www.ctrlaltcountry.be/Pagina1.htm#Diftong

http://rootstime.be/CD%20REVIEUW/2015/FEB1/CD77.html

http://www.altcountry.nl/blog/2015/03/diftong/

http://barnowlblues.punt.nl/content/2015/03/Diftong-The-Rocket-Swing

http://www.thenextgig.weebly.com/albums.html

http://muziekis.nl/singer-songwriter/diftong-the-rocket-swing/

CDbaby

Since about 13 years I am putting my music up for sale at CDbaby in Portland Oregon. They have a cool website that explains what you can do and how to do it in such a user-friendly way that even I can handle it and I am a VIP (very impatient person). They send you all kinds of cool suggestions how to sell your music. They answer your questions. They even pay you for your sales.
With my latest release I ordered download cards. These are fun. It is a kind of business card enabling the receiver to download my music from the CDbaby site with a unique code. I got a discount and paid very little for them. However, when the DHL man brought them, I had to pay about twice that amount on VAT and another 80% of the amount on administration costs. Flabbergasted, I e-mailed DHL asking why and got a long standard reply I couldn’t really figure out. No specific explanation. No options. They just told me to take my complaint to the sender.
So I wrote to CDbaby. They answered straight away, explaining that EU tax rules had changed as of January 2015 and that this was a new problem they would try to tackle. In the meantime they would refund my extra costs. I was flabbergasted all over again. Now, putting all money, tax rules and market-mechanisms aside, I must say this: it is a relief that there are actually people in this world whose reply to your message deals with your problem. Wouldn't it be great if this was the rule rather than the exception.

Thank you CDbaby! http://www.cdbaby.com/

Released!

Pictures by Pim Molemaker

I would like to quote Otis Gibbs from his great podcast Thanks for giving a damn:
 - There are only two people in art that matter: There's the creative individual and the person experiencing it. Everything else is an artificial filter. -
His words exactly cover my perception of The Rocket Swing release party. On Sunday February 1, 2015 thirtysomething people were listening to me and JeeWee Donkers performing the songs from The Rocket Swing in the beautiful art workshop of Suzanne Visscher and Pieter van Slooten. There was art on the walls and on the workbench. The stove was burning. The audience was perceptive (during songs) and cheering (after songs) and JeeWee and I were flying.
My wife Jessica introduced us and compared the event with a Tupperware party. Meant not only to sell a product, but also to inspire people to organize their own party, invite friends and spread the word. I like that idea, because I would like to play this way as often as I can.

Thank you for coming, for listening, for buying the cd, but most of all for your vibes. Special thanks to Suzanne and Pieter for being beautiful hosts and JeeWee for lifting me up.

All we had to do is play and we had wings.

More on:
Suzanne Visscher
Pieter van Slooten
JeeWee Donkers
Otis Gibbs podcast

You can buy The Rocket Swing @ Lucky Dice when you are in the EU
and @ CDbaby when you are elsewhere

The calm before the storm

The question is, will there be a storm, or will it stay calm?
The Rocket Swing was made with a bunch of  Nova Scotians and with a guest from Toronto. And I am happy to announce that JeeWee Donkers will accompany me on various string instruments on the release party on February 1.
The Nova Scotians Christina Martin, Dale Murray and Brian Murray were busy with an album around the time we recorded mine. Christina Martin’s It’ll be alright will be released on February 24 in Canada and on March 20 in Europe. They will tour Europe in the spring and play my home town (!) on May 20.
Matt Epp from Toronto sang a guest vocal and recently released his EP Luma. He will tour Europe in the spring too and play at Live Stage Marnix in Ede on April 16.
And finally, JeeWee will release his new Live Poets Society album The Road Ahead with Peter Holen just before or just after this summer.
When you do the math, you can see why there will be a storm. Hold tight!

Christina Martin:
http://www.christinamartin.net/
http://www.theaterzaalspectrum.nl/programma/christina-martin-itll-be-alright/

Matt Epp:
http://www.mattepp.com/
http://livestagemarnix.com/

JeeWee Donkers:
http://www.sugarbeat.nl

Diftong:
http://www.diftong.nl