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Last few months I have been very busy working on the start of a new musical adventure: The Blue Mask. Named after the 1982 album by Lou Reed, the band will focus on playing the album in full in theaters. The live performances feature, pictured from left to right, Stefan van Rijswijk on bass and vocals, me on guitar and vocals, Jeroen van den Berg drums and Maurice Snijders on guitar. The first show, a try-out, is planned for 10 January in Pand P in Eindhoven. More information about the performance can be found here. We intend to do more shows, starting in the summer of 2017. These shows will also feature visual aspects, such as films and slide projections. A new website http://www.thebluemask.nl will be online soon.

Other updates: I’ve recorded two songs, which might find their way out into the open later in 2017. Under which name they will appear is not decided yet. Brunnen? Beequeen? Freek Kinkelaar? The Smurfs? We’ll see. No rush.

A re-release of Korla Pandit’s best album ‘Meditation Volume 1’ has been realized for Lovington Industries. It is available on cassette; both a regular and a very special edition. Get your copies here. Meanwhile, ‘Korla, the movie’ featuring all of 30 seconds of me, has been released on DVD. Cool!

Picture courtesy of Johan Hahn, SKIDIZ

On Friday May the 13th, 2016 Wander performed at Extrapool in Nijmegen, The Netherlands supporting Andrew Liles. Despite the somewhat ominous date, it turned out to be a very special night featuring one of the best Wander performances so far. The recording has been made available via the Beequeen Bandcamp pages. Go. Go!

Recordings of that night’s performance were made by Frans de Waard, Freek Kinkelaar and Peter Johan Nijland, who also did the mastering. Edited by Frans de Waard.
Image provided by Terry Bennett.

STURMWIND- the video: best to go with a BLAST…. and return with a BANG…

Achtung! Beequeen goes pop. But Beequeen being Beequeen, it is not pop as we know it. Sturmwind, as the title suggest, is sung in German and probably the first single in history to paraphrase German Dada artist Kurt Schwitters in the chorus of “Du, deiner, dich, dir” from his famous poem An Anna Blume. Couple this with an existentialist lyric about overwhelming all-consuming love at the end of the world and an uplifting melody and rhythm and you end up with the typical surreal-twist that was also present on Beequeen’s latest album “Around Midnight”. And with this single the Beequeen bids us, after more than 30 years, goodbye.

Sturmwind was produced and mixed by Peter van Vliet (The Use Of Ashes) and was released on March 19 2016 as a limited edition 7inch (300 copies) in a numbered sleeve designed by Carl Glover.

Copies can be ordered via Tonefloat records

Feel free to spread this video on social media!

I am flabbergasted by this portrait Val Denham painted of me. It’s fantastic and I am amazed and touched. Val Denham is a very important artist who is probably best known for her artwork for album and single covers by Marc Almond and Psychic TV. Thank you Val!

In August last year a Kickstarter campaign was organized to finish the documentary filmmakers John Turner and Eric Christensen were filming on Korla Pandit. Within a brief period, the money needed was raised. Quite recently, the resulting film Korla, was entered in various film festivals in the US. Being filmed for the film, I had the privilege of viewing the film last night. Often hailed as the godfather of exotica, the film shows there is so much more to Korla Pandit that his turban and his incredible playing. The film is a revelation – in more than one way.

As you will understand it is impossible for me to spoil the fun for all you potential viewers by telling you about the content in detail, but allow me to say that I was both impressed and touched by the film. I would highly recommend everyone with an interest in Korla Pandit, his person, his music or a genuine interest in the workings of the human psyche to catch Korla at one of its appearances at film festivals. It’s a flabbergasting and very human story.

As ‘curator’ of the Korla Pandit website, I am in the film for maybe a minute. More than enough I’d say.

All you need to know about Korla the film can be found on the Facebook site, including screening dates and locations.

There are certain albums you remember buying, even after many years. Asylum is one of those albums in my collection. I bought this in June 1986 after I saw the Dots live in Arnhem. Even thought I had read about the Dots before, and had seen some of their cassettes on sale at the Ding Dong record store, I never heard their music. The performance was captivating. In fact, so captivating that the next day I went into town, went to the first record store I knew, took out the first album by the Dots I saw (Asylum), played it, recognized the first track on that album (Echo Police) from the live show, bought the album and started what seems to be a life-long connection with the Dots and their music. OK, so much for the introduction, on to the show…

A few months ago, Jef Benech of Mecapop records, contacted me about a compilation he wanted to do. We had worked together before, on his brilliant re-release of The Terminal Kaleidoscope, a live CD by Attrition and The Legendary Pink Dots. To celebrate 30 years of Asylum, Jef wanted to do a homage to the album inviting several artists to record cover versions (not ‘interpretations’) of tracks from Asylum. Was I interested, he checked. Were ducks yellow (I’m talking about ducks in children’s books here – not the real ones)? Sure, I was game. He then told me he had Golden Dawn for me in mind to cover. Talk about serendipity: my favourite track from the album! So I set to work and recorded what came out as a jazzy/bossa nova version of the song of which I am actually quite proud. The track will be released sometime soon on the compilation album “A place to escape from. A place to escape to” (the original subtitle of Asylum). With artwork by Stephan Barberi, who also did the original cover, it should be quite something!

The brand new Beequeen CD ‘Around Midnight’ is here! It has taken some time, but what joy it is to finally hold it in my hands! I am very proud of the work we achieved on this album. The cover looks beautiful – a job well done Catsun records! Copies are for sale for 13 euros including shipment. If you want to order your copy, please contact me at info@beequeen.nl and we will be TCB – that’s Taking Care of Business…

“Anyone who’s ever had a heart, wouldn’t turn around and break it”

Lou Reed has died. Poet and guitarist. A larconic voice – and personality for sure – but always real and human. Lou has always been my favorite guitarist and perhaps even favorite songwriter. “Anyone should be able to play my songs” he said. Think about that. There’s a huge storm in the Netherlands today. Lou is gone.

I know very little about this odd film, apart from the fact that “Sóhajt” translates as “Sigh” and “Sojt” as “Cheese”. What I also know is that it has been made by Csoma Emõke, who, apparently, is a Beequeen fan from Hungary. The third thing I know it that it uses the song “The Honeythief” to great effect. A surreal short film with an unhappy end. Nice to hear Beequeen in its soundtrack. Check out the movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTU4b-BB4hM&feature=youtu.be