3. Chelsea Monday
16 November, 2015
1: Childlike faith in Childhood’s End
1 December, 2015
My career as a musician is short, basically due to a lack of constancy and discipline. Although I must say, I did not lack imagination and passion for what I did. I started programming rhythms. You can find an example of the group’s beginnings in a song that was released in the famous Dutch compilation “Exposure III”, from where musicians such as Steve Wilson (Exposure I-II) who were unknown at the time, have emerged. Once we had the drums, we brought out our first vinyl LP and CD. It was completely self produced and financed and as a result we were flat broke. The truth is that making symphonic and progressive rock is always very gratifying, but producing a record in my small country in the 90s, risking ours and other people’s money is close to being surrealistic. We played our first concerts in some bars in our city almost for free. We would take our equipment, our slide projector and so on. Lots of love and caring, eagerness, and lots of good and memorable moments, but the little money we had all went down the toilet. We were bankrupt.
Actually, one of my favorite anecdotes as a musician is from those days. We were completely entranced playing our 20 minute long theme song. In the central part of the song (not at all appealing for most humans), we were projecting slides from the original black and white film Nosferatu, from 1914. When the song (and the concert) finished they turned on the lights. As we waited for the applause, there was no one besides our girlfriends and a captivated complete stranger who was as excited as if he had been watching Pink Floyd in a London joint in 1967. In reality, we were four Barretts with their girlfriends and another Pink Floyd member watching us. The owners of the bars where we played still pretend not to notice when they see me on the street … oh well …
