The More You Live, The More You Love

No-Man is the band of Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness and dates back to the late eighties. After playing in Karma and Pride Of Passion Steve Wilson decided to start his own band. The first release, From A Toyshop Window, of this band, called No Man Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man was released on the compilation album Exposure (1986). On this track Wilson plays all the instruments. It's a very progressive rock orientated song. On the Double Exposure album from 1987 the name is cut to No Man Is An Island, and ex plenty vocalist Tim Bowness and Stuart Blagdan on guitar have joined the band. Faith's Last Doubt is the track featured on this compilation. In 1989 The Girl From Missouri 12" is released which shows a hugh step forward towards the music No-Man is known for these days. Violin player Ben Coleman has joined the band and Blagdan has left. Later that year they change the name to No-Man and release the Swagger tape. From 1990 till today No-Man releases albums durin...

Last night, during the last weekend of October, it was time to put back the clocks for an hour. A strange phenomenon, decided in 1977, to give people more suntime during the summer. In winter time follows its original path, but in summer the clock goes an hour forward to have more sun during the day. Although the start of the winter is roughly two months away from now, somehow you get the feeling that it has started with changing the time. So I checked my collection to see if there was something to bring in those long evenings of the winter. Turned out to be a nice list of nice tracks. So now you can enjoy your winter evenings with a nice collection of wintersongs, while for example reading a good book and/or enjoying a good glass of (winter) beer. Winter Time Psyche - Love Is A Winter Freeez - Caribbean Winter Aztec Camera - Walk Out To Winter Big Country - Winter Sky Camouflage - Winter The Cure - Winter (studio outtake 1978) The Dolphin Brothers - My Winter English Evenings - Winter...

I'm very busy at the moment preparing for an exam, so just an upload of one of the volumes. Enjoy. Volume 4 Vince Clark & Paul Quinn - One Day Dial M - Secret Sound 3D - Break The Fix(ation) Zrra One - Rescue Me Human League - You Remind Me Of Gold The Light - Monument Big Audio Dynamite - The Bottom Line (parts 1 & 2) Les Enfants - Shed A Tear (there you go) Video - Somebody (hey girl) Artery - Into The Garden The Bible - Red Flag The Big Supreme - Don't Walk Troy Tate - Thomas Rheingold - Triad Diminsions Wire Train - Half A Lifetime Fashion - Too Much Too Soon The Farmers Boys - In The Country Dear Enemy - Computer One (US mix) Rouen - Young For A Day Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Once When I Was Six

A new volume of the series I created last year as an introduction to friends of mine containing more or less unknown tracks. Volume 3 3D - Dance To Believe Nik Kershaw - Elisabeth's Eyes Scary Thieves - Behind The Lines English Evenings - English Evenings Our Daughters Wedding - Moving Windows Red Bamboo - Dance Of Love H2O - I Dream To Sleep Siouxsie & The Banshees - Cities In Dust Act - Where Love Lies Bleeding The Messengers - The Semi-Professionals (theme no 1) Class Action - Blast Off Bill Nelson - Finks And Stooges Of The spirit Fra Lippo Lippi - Say Something Roman Grey - Shangri La De Film - I Saw Your Dream Pseudo Echo - See Through Blue Zone - Don't Walk Away A Drop In The Gray - All The Same Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy - Kiss Me

No-Man, Schoolyard Ghosts Tour de Boerderij, Zoetermeer 3 September 2008 Finally after years of waiting No-Man made it to mainland Europe. Playing their first gig at de Boerderij in Zoetermeer. At 8:30 their support Fear Falls Burning, which turned out to be just one man, Dirk Serries, tried to warm up the crowd. But listening to guitarloops played over samples for nearly half an hour isn't my kind of pleasure, so after a couple of minutes I returned to the bar to have another drink. At 9:15 No-Man kicked off when violinist Steve Bingham played his first string sample into the computer. Three samples followed and the string background of Only Rain played through the venue. Since Micheal Bearpark was having problems with his pedals, Bingham was given more time to play a nice violin solo intro. After five minutes, with the problems solved, the band finally took off. A nice set of songs was played in the nearly two hours that followed. Besides contributions from their latest album Sch...

After nearly twenty years it still is a treasure chest with undiscovered compartments. Although I’m interested in nowadays bands, I get more enthusiastic when I discover a band from my teens. Discovering B-Movie gave me more satisfaction than hearing a band like Snow Patrol or Keane. Don’t get me wrong I like them both, but discovering something new, for me at least, from the eighties gives me a kick. Volume 2 Bolland – Ouverture – You’re In The Army Now Philip Jap – Save Us When In Rome – The Promise (7”) Blanket Of Secrecy – Say You Will Frazier Chorus – Typical Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Annex Beargarden – A Seaside Song Paul Haig – Torchomatic Allez Allez - Valley Of The Kings Telex - L'Amour Toujours The Meteors - It's You, Only You Voice Of America - Seikou Dollar - Mirror Mirror The Armoury Show - Castles In Spain China Crisis - 96.8 Sophie & Peter Johnson - Television Satellite B-Movie - Nowhere Girl Human League - Marianne (remix) The March Violets - Turn...

My first contact with photography happened during my high school days. There was a photographic club which mainly worked with black and white films. They had their own darkroom in the cellar of the building near the big cellar room where we held our Friday tea club afternoons, with a lot of good music, and the class parties. I joined the club with a friend and had fun for several years making and developing my own pictures. Sometimes we spent hours in the darkroom to create, for us, the perfect picture. When I left high school and continued intermediate technical school I changed from black and white to full colour photos, but mainly made them during trips or while being on holiday. It wasn’t until halfway the nineties that I started to make pictures on a regular base again. During that period I wrote for a Progressive Rock magazine and visited a lot of concerts and did interviews with the artists. So it was easy to take a camera with me and make pictures during the gigs and after int...

A couple of entries ago I wrote about the re-discovery of eighties music. Since then I’ve been searching the net, the record stores, online stores, second hand stores and ebay to collect music from the eigthies. Last year I did a project which as a result turned into 60 discs full of eighties music found during the last five years. Most of it I wasn’t aware of at that time. So today I introduce you to the first volume of those discs. I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I had with creating them. In the next couple of months I hope to present one on a regular base. Volume 1 Two People - This Is The Shirt White & Torch - Miracle Zerra One - The Banner Of Love Bamboo Industry - Hypnotized Cee Farrow - Wildlife Romance (so ramantic) Cetu Javu - Have In Mind Data - Stop Eyeless In Gaza - Stay Icehouse - Icehouse Fra Lippo Lippi - Light And Shade How We Live - Working Girl (demo) Keep It Dark - Outsider Thomas Leer - International One (B-Movie) - I'll Wait So - Are You Sure...

After a couple of days of nice sunny weather, the weather gods decided that it was time to switch to a wet version for a change. I saw a colleague turn in soaked completely. Within the atrium of our building the rain is pooring along the windows as heavy as on the outside, so our facilities manager has some work for the next couple of days. The funny thing is that immediately you start associating the event with music. So some nice songs popped up which I had to share with you. Alphaville - Summer Rain The Blue Nile - Tinseltown In The Rain Boulevard - Rainy Day In London Crazy House - Burning Rain John Foxx - Europe After The Rain Freiheit - Kissed You In The Rain H2O - Who'll Stop The Rain Bruce Hornsby & The Range - Mandolin Rain Ice Cold In Alice - When The Rain Comes Down Modern English - Rainbow Ends Virgin Dance - Rainy Days The Weather Prophets - Why Does The Rain

During the day I was trying to come up with titles for further entries. Since I was paying some attention about the progressive rock band Marillion it was an easy step to Steve Hogarth their singer since 1989. Hogarth started his career in the new wave / synthpop group the Europeans, which consisted of Geoff Dugmore (drums, backing vocals), Ferg Harper (lead vocals, bass), Steve Hogarth (keyboards, lead and backing vocals), Colin Woore (guitars, backing vocals). The band formed in 1980 under the name Motion Pictures, but changed names in 1981 after Hogarth had joined through an add in the music press. They released three albums before the band broke up in 1985. However their first track "Drink Pink Zinc!" appeared on a compilation album titled "The Snoopies Album" from 1981. Hogarth was the keyboard player of the band and did lead vocals on five out of eight tracks on "Recurring Dreams" and on one the nicest track of their debut album "Vocabulary...

Half the country is on a holiday nowadays. Half the working building is empty and therefore I am able to play my music a bit louder than normal these days. In journalistic terms it's called cucumber time, and you can see it everywhere. The newspapers are slim, the news comes with items, that normally hardly make the news and which are blown up to items to fill the time. Well it seems hardly anything is happening in this country these days. Even the musical world seems a bit quiet these days. So I thought which sleeve describes these days the best way and I came up with Marillion's "Garden Party". Cos besides the cucumber time it's great weather for BBQ's and Garden Parties. It was the first twelve inch I bought of Marillion. Already being a fan of Genesis I fancied the great songs Marillion were making in those early days. I still consider "Script For A Jesters Tear" And "Fugazi" among the best albums made in the eighties. Other neo progres...

A couple of days ago I was finally putting my vynil records in a cupboard again. On the attic we have created a nice listening and relaxing room with my old audio tower, a television, a DVD player and my old collection of vynil records alongside my collection of music DVD's. Going through my special singles collection I discoverd that behind every single there's a story. In the mid eighties I organised trips to major Dutch cities with friends to go on record hunting. Those days it wasn't just the big chains of stores you have nowadays. The Free Record Shop, one of the biggest in the Netherlands these days, was a small one those days, which offered the music lover a lot of import 7" and 12" singles, mostly not available elsewhere and sometimes hardly heard on the readio (I bought all my regular Marillion 12" singles there). They only had shops in big cities then like Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht to mention some. Nowadays every small city has one and you fin...

The first time I got involved with music occured when I was about two or three years old. You wouldn't believe it but there was a concert of the Beachboys on the radio and my father had put on his taperecorder. This was around 1968-69 so you can guess by now how old I am. So dad had put on the taperecorder and I was singing along with God Only Knows and Barbara Ann. To be honest it became a legendary recording in my family. The only things I could sing was Pa pa pa and ba ba ba barbara ann as you can guess being only two / three years. It's fun to listen to the songs while typing this contribution to my blog. But small kids grow tall and ten years later I visit high school and get in touch with hardrock and progressive rock. To be honest I've never been a punk lover, and the punk scene somehow seemed to pass the Netherlands in the late seventies. My parents had tried to keep me away from modern day music by giving me Abba records every Sint Nicolasday and also uncles delive...

I never know how long I can obtain the returning updates of a Blog. I started one a couple of years ago and after a few entries ended it because I ran out of inspiration. This time I try to continu, although I can't promise anything. So what's the first thing to come up with to talk about. I love reading and I love music. the problem is for the first one I hardly have or find the time these days. This results in a bunch of unread books, that's on the shelf for some time now. Music is with me everyday. The first thing after turning on my computer at work is starting Winamp and run my eighties mp3 archive, which is on my hard drive. On last.fm you find the list of tracks I've been playing since I became a member in late April 2007. So what can you expect, or on the other hand what am I willing to write about. I have a vague outline for these pages, but will think it over for the next couple of days. For the moment enjoy a rare version of the title of this blog, which you ...