Name: André Kamer
Date & place of birth: 6 April 1962, Utrecht
Longshanks founder
Autobiography:
As my parents met while singing in a classical choir,
I was raised on classical music and was a regular
visitor of concerts by the time I was ten years old.
At the age of eleven, Elementary School brought me
into contact with pop music. Coincidently (the year
being 1973) a lot of the pop music of that time had
their roots in classical music in one way or another.
I took more and more to pop and rock music and lost
interest in "true" classical music.
In the years to follow my taste evolved from (glam)rock
via hardrock to symphonic rock and from there I came
full circle, back to classical music again by the
time I was nineteen.
I always had been fascinated with playing a musical
instrument and every now and again I had experimented
on piano or organ.
Inspired by symphonic rock band Rush (mainly by their
albums: "Hemispheres", "Permanent Waves" and "Moving
Pictures") I bought an electrical guitar (in 1983)
and learned how to play. My goal: writing my own music.
In 1987 I founded the studio band Longshanks. Between
1989 and 1993 we recorded some 10 songs, which are
currently (after much delay) being digitised for release
on CD. Some of them are already represented here on
the Music page along with some more recent material.
Though for the outside world the band ceased to exist
after 1993, for me it never did. That was because
right from the beginning it had, for me, been one
way to express my creativity (painting was another
one). The fact that I was the sole remaining band
member did not stop the creative flow. It just ment
that I had to record all of the parts myself! The
advent of the PC, with software like Cakewalk (now
Sonar), made it possible for me to do exctly that.
Ofcourse I'll never write a bass-track or a drums-track
like a real bass player or a real drummer would, but
then again I've learned it the same way as they would,
that is: by listening to how other musiscians have
written their parts in songs that inspire me. Still,
there remained one part that I could never fill myself:
the vocals (my singing is hopless).
Over the years I've taken part in several one-time
projects (mostly live) and in an improvisation band
called The Masters of Periodicity.
From the beginning of the nineties I have also ventured
into classical music, inspirators here were Bach,
Verdi and Mahler. Many of my compositions have been
labeled 'soundtrack' material (which isn't very strange,
considering my fascination with both images and music).
A major project (in the last 10 years) has been the
writing of a Requiem, which still needs some orchestration
to be done. One (instrumental) part of this Requiem
can be found on the Classical Music page of my "imagesandmusic"
website.
Another project that is still ongoing is the writing
of a "Bridal Duite": three parts are finished,
which leaves three to go.
But with the return of Alex, my focus ofcourse has
turned to writing symphonic rock for Longshanks....
