New VAN D. track! Album preview. “Be yOuRsElF!

Featuring Peter Dyer on Moog and various oscillator equipped space age equipment.

A tour diary (of sorts) from Austria: Aloe Blacc & The Grand Scheme I Need A Dollar Tour

Greetings from Linz, Austria!

The road is a wonderous place!  Filled with a new scenery everyday, new faces, new names, sights, sounds and smells.  Yet as time goes on, the sense of wonderment becomes dulled by monotony and the time moved fast or slow depending on which way you looked, names and places forgotten.  Without sounding grim, the heights and lows are drastic in comparison, the heights of the beautiful moments being amazing, from seeing the cathedrals and ever standing stones that built up a seemingly permanent Europe to the stages lit up with lights and faces of an eager audience as we hope to fill their hearts and ears with amazement and joy.

That is the goal, for me at least.  To bring people whatever gifts that music has inside of its beautiful vibrations, the intentions, the sounds, the emotions released, be it simple joys of the heart or the healing of pain or simply moving the human body to send blood to every limb that shakes to its rhythms.  Interestingly enough, the relationships of the musicians and their states of mind and heart flow through the music to the listeners, making each show unique.  The road tests these relationships, with character traits of each traveler coming to the foreground to either rage or to evolve to better understandings.  But in the end, for differences or otherwise, the show must go on and we must share the compassion of our hearts through the music.  Adapting and learning, creating bonds through which the proper vibrations may flow.

Aloe Blacc.  Is one of the hardest working individuals I have met aside from Pablo, our tour manager/front of house sound guy/backline tech/resident Welshman and walking punchline factory, some Pablo creations are:

“F*&^ my life”      ”dick bag”     ”sturdies”  and more…. he can also burp full phrases like “bollocks” or any of the previously mentioned

Anyhow, Pablo is killing it.  But now back to Aloe.  This guy has been doing promo almost every morning, waking up and going to bed earlier than all of the rest of the band going to countless interviews, of which most questions are almost exactly the same as the preceding ones and everyone wants of piece of the star, they don’t care if they wear him out.  While he has began to have fun and subconsciously mess with some of these poor questionairres.   By the time he makes it to the stage sometimes his energy wanes, but nonetheless Aloe is a tireless performer and is in his finest form when making onstage inside jokes with the band.  Mind you we have an ever expanding vocabulary of phrases that would mean nothing to the casual listener, be they codes, or meaningless until given purpose.  Murmors of “tiger woods” “soaking” “telling my questions” and such have been known to hit stage.  Sometimes jokes include meaningless banter for effect when in reality he might say to me in my ear “How’d you get so ugly?” in our opening notes.

The Grand Scheme is chilling as usual, what we do best, modifying the show on an almost nightly basis, trying to perfect presentation, show flow and such.  That being said, per usual music business shtuff, some folks standing off stage get to influence this process, perhaps just to “tell their questions.”   That being said, not including the roughly 20min opening set that the Grand Scheme plays nightly with Maya Jupiter, Aloe’s set is spanning around 1:15 compared to our last European tour in which we played a staggering 2-2:30 minute sets.  And we wonder why the audience is not completely warmed up at times.  The ending song before the a-typical leave the stage “fake ending” always feels like a joke to me.  We used to play another 3 songs after that one and give the audience their moneys worth before imposing a potential encore.  Anyhow, gripes aside I still love it.  However we play the set is still fine.

In other news: The other day in Cologne (Koln) I purchased a new guitar!  In trade for my stratocaster (which was feeling lonely as a mere backup guitar) I picked up a “Vintage” brand 335 copy.  Beautiful top and mahogany body, with a real warm “thickie lake” sound.  It has taken place for the moment as my main guitar, but the G&L still has a nice bite for specific tunes.  I have been loving playing the Mesa Boogie Mark IV (I was previously playing a Fender Twin, with mixed thoughts) and have realized that I need to get brighter colored guitar picks, with my name and website on them, for when I throw the pick at the end of the show to the audience members!  They don’t usually see these black picks flying at their heads and at times ends awkwardly lol.

Of all the places we have gone, Amsterdam and Utrechtt are my favorite!  Perhaps it is my Dutch blood, the fact the Weed is legal, their amazing pancakes, or a similar blunt and sarcastic sense of humor that I have become accustomed to through my father and his ways.  But these places feel like home to me, I would love to live in Amsterdam.  Just as well Brussells, Belgium is a great town.  While we were there we went to a blues jam around the corner and sat in with a west-african musician “Samba” and had a good ol time!  The people there are very friendly as well.

The weather is slowly turning warmer here in Europe and the birds are chirping most beautifully and the sun is making more and more appearances so I will leave you with a few pictures and be off to see this sunny day in Linz, Austria (at first glance doesn’t seem to be all that interesting but we shall yet see!)

peace, blessings and wishing safety to the beautiful people of this world in this turbulent time!

your friend, JVD, Joel Van D, Van Dizzle, Van Dijk… at your service.