In October of 1987 Longshanks no. 1 started
rehearsing for the recording of the song Cycles
& Circles. At that time only André
Kamer's guitar part and the first draft of the
vocals were written.
As André was not experienced enough to tell
the other musicians what to play, they had to write
their own parts themselves, in accordance with his
concept. To their credit that worked out amazingly
well and it resulted in some great parts, that elevated
the entire song to a higher level (e.g. the guitar
solo by Peter van Heijningen).
On saturday February 20th 1988 they spent the entire
afternoon and part of the evening (from 14:00 until
21:00 hr.) in the Don Bosco Sound-Studio in
Rijswijk (ZH) recording the individual tracks on a
16 track-recorder.
First they simultaneously recorded André's
guitar track and the drumtrack by Rob Boshuijzen,
leaving veteran recording technician Rob Rehorst
(sadly departed, allas) to wonder what all of this
was going to lead up to.
Next in line were Peter ten Haaft, Peter van
Heijningen and Jan van der Lugt, after which
Alex van de Graaf sang his part and André
Kamer 'rapped' the choruses.
Finally the sound effects (birds, splash) were transfered
to the mastertape.
The mixdown took place on the evening of thursday
February 25th (from 19:30 tot 23:30 hr.) and left
Rob Rehorst pleasantly surprised at the end product.
The song was released on cassette (in a very limited
edition) and attracted a very favourable review in
a magazine for symphonic rock (Sym-info no.14, Oct.
1988).
Afterwards they tried to convert the project into
an actual rock band, with Jeroen Steenbeek
replacing Peter van Heijningen, who was working on
plans for a band of his own. These attempts failed
in an early stage (due to differences in ambition
and musical skills) and Longshanks no.1 fell apart.
(read on)
