Hi there people , just a wee update on what i do . I just enjoy singing , simple as that , never claim to have the greatest voice , i do it for the enjoyment . Have a wee listen and let me know what you think :)

Dutch/American band based in California

 

ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER—and the most inspiring

Street of Street and Stone rediscovers his roots as far away from home as possible, producing the new album “Turn” 

 
Leaving behind what is vital to one’s well being: sometimes it has to be done.    From complex to simple—from Amsterdam to log cabin in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. One of Holland’s best bassists Peter van Straten, who worked with artists like Nina Hagen, Billy Preston and Eric Burdon, turns his back on his comfortable life and journeys west, in an attempt to get back to the roots of it all. 

“I had a good thing going, a great way to make a living but not to feed the soul.  ” says Street, the name by which van Straten now goes. “I needed to do something new, something less self-centered. I needed to meet new people and work with my hands in a different environment.”

Disregarding the music scene for a while, Street found himself doing manual labor in a vineyard. Realizing the growth he was experiencing, he purchased a piece of land with a log cabin on it—the place where the urge to write new music resurfaced. 

Next came the crucial moment in which Gerry Rafferty—for whom Street had played some of his songs—told him he needed to sing his own songs rather than write them for someone else. This was the turning point.

“I started writing with no particular end point in mind, just something different,” says Street. “For the first time, the journey was more important than the destination. It was about the joy of the moment.” After three years, this left him with nearly forty songs of which a mere 
twelve were chosen for “Turn.”

“All songs were now recorded at my home studio, and the idea of releasing an album suddenly seemed a necessity. To get it out of my system and into the world so to speak,” says Street. For the mixing and mastering, he contacted his friend and engineer, Frans Hendriks, in Holland. Frans had converted an old farmhouse into a studio. Just a few minutes from the place Street grew up, it seemed the perfect space to combine new and old—fresh inspiration and familiar musicians.

 

The farmhouse became Street’s “new home” for a few weeks. “The vibe was great,” he says. “Frans and I went over a list of musicians I knew from the past to see who we wanted to collaborate. It all worked out very organically, and made me realize that from now on I would work with a collective of musicians.” A link between solitude and the world out there...hence the transition from Street to Street and Stone. 

Thus, on “Turn”, the debut album of Street and Stone, we hear the Pedal Steel and Acoustic guitars of Rene van Barneveld (Urban Dance Squad), Wurlitzer Piano and Hammond Organs by Nico Brandsen (Kane), the unique Electric Guitar layers of Wouter Planteijdt (Sjako) and Drums by life long friend Leon Klaasse (Powerplay, Pilgrims).

Alex Ayuli of A.R. Kane / MARRS wrote most of the lyrics. This would be a surprise only to those who didn’t know Street and Ayuli had been collaborators for years. Street’s layered low end gracing a couple of the late A.R. Kane recordings. 
But that was then and “Turn” is very much now. 

So listen, listen. 
It’s time to TURN.





Steve Lukather’s new album Transition on Mascot Records strikes a perfect balance of style, power and imagination as he takes risks and challenges himself in ways most other players can’t even approach.

That’s been standard operating procedure for this high-wire artist of the six-string for nearly four decades, as his career has gone from the studios of Los Angeles to the world’s biggest concert halls to the helm of the multi-platinum selling group Toto and, recently, to ground-breaking tours with Ringo Starr, guitar geniuses Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and the reunited Toto, who have scheduled a follow-up 35th anniversary tour for 2013.

“I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, and now is a perfect time for me to take stock of that, which is part of what Transition is about,” Lukather says. 

Over the previous decade a series of trials including divorce, the death of his mother and business hassles had dampened his joy in music making — a passion that drove Lukather to excel since seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan as a seven-year-old growing up in San Fernando Valley. But today the guitar guru is happy, healthy and strongly reconnected to his muse, and the lushly expressive Transition, his second Mascot album, finds him at a creative pinnacle.

“I equate recordings to paintings,” he explains, “ and I wanted to make Transition a big, beautiful album with lots of fine details and shadings and colors. That’s what I do and what my favorite albums — Sgt. Pepper’s, Dark Side of the Moon, Electric Ladyland, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road — are all about. So if it’s a sin to make massive sounding records with huge production values, then I’m going to Hell.”

Fat chance, because Transition’s heavenly sonic architecture — erected with the help of such A-list musical friends as Def Leppard’s Phil Collen, superstar bassists Lee Sklar, Nathan East, John Pierce, and Tal Wilkenfeld, live band members Steve Weingart, Renee Jones, and Eric Valentine, along with mega-drummers Gregg Bissonette, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tos Panos, and Lukather’s longtime keyboard foil and co-writer / co-producer C.J. Vanston — actually weaves a tale of redemption. 

“‘Transition’ is a turning point for the album and a turning point for me,” Lukather explains. “As we were writing the songs, I was thinking about everything I’ve seen — all the people I’ve lost in my life, the great and the difficult experiences I’ve had, and how ultimately it was time to get it together and embrace things for what they are, because we’ve only got one life to live and we’ve got to make the most of it.”

Despite the album’s harmonic depth and sonic surprises, Lukather explains that he kept his guitar sound organic. “These days I like it simple and direct,” he says. “I plugged my new Music Man L-3 signature model guitar straight into a Bogner amp and miked it with an SM-57. Any effects were added at the mixing desk. I used a Kemper Profiling Amp for some of the weird sounds, and that was it. Live these days it’s just my guitar and amp and a couple stomp boxes — and I just go for it.”

“I’ve been working really hard on my vocals,” Lukather attests. “For me, these days it’s all about the song and the performance. I’m not interested in being the fastest gun in the West. I want to make beautiful music that means something.”

Lukather, Weingart and Vanston’s closing instrumental rendition of the Charlie Chaplin classic “Smile” has a very deep connection for the guitarist. “That was my mother’s favorite song,” he relates. “We’ve been playing it as an encore live, and it seemed like the perfect way to close the album, too.”

After seven solo albums, Lukather reflects: “I’d like to say this is the best album I’ve ever made, but that’s a cliché. But I do think I’ve realized my goal of moving forward, so let me say that Transition is possibly the best reflection of who I am in 2012.”

We're not the best, but we're pretty good.

Indie-artist based in Falun. With memories from the past and dreams about the future, Sugar Mae Baker will release her first album the 14th of June 2017.

Hi, and thank you for visiting my SoundCloud page. I'm a danish guitarist and composer.  I wrote my first music at age 15 and has done that on and off since. In 2006 I entered "The Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Southern Denmark" and graduated in june 2012. Since 2009 I have been composing new tunes regularly. I'll mostly use this site to share demo's, work-in-progress material, random live recordings etc. So stay tuned! :)

Ambient and Electronic musicproductions since 1981. Frank Klare aka Sternenmaschinefrank was also founding-member from SYNCO (1984) & Sternenmaschine (2007).


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