The demise of Longshanks 1 did not stop André
Kamer from writing more music. In the home studio
of multi-instrumentalist Jan van der Lugt they
recorded (on a Fostex 4-track recorder) the base tracks
(guitar, bass, synthesizer and computer-drums) for
several new songs:
- "On the Run" and "Into the Dawn" (February
1989)
- "Nightmare" (August)
- "The Awakening/ The Travelling-song, prt 1"
and
"The
Mourning After/ The Travelling-song, prt 2"
(October),
- "Marching towards the Battlefield" (November)
- "Sunset" and "Dreams" (February 1990).
These songs were all ment to become part of a concept
demo called "the Quest".
Longshanks had started to operate in the way 'The
Alan Parsons Project' always had: a core of two guys
of whom one would come up with the lyrics, the concept
and the basic musical track of the song (on guitar)
and the other had the musical skills to add the right
drums-, bass- and even synthesizer-parts. The advantage
of this way of working was that each song could be
individually styled exactly the way André had
envisioned it. Just like 'The Alan Parsons Project'
we had to rely on guest-musicians to fill in the final
parts: the vocals and the solo's.
Finding Solo guitar players in Delft wasn't very
hard. Both Jan and André knew several skilled
players and soon Jeroen Steenbeek and Martin
Krijgsman were laying down great solo's.
Recording the vocals for the various songs took quite
a bit longer, due to two reasons:
- multiple harmonics
- 'The Alan Parsons Project' way of work
The ambition to record the vocals with multiple harmonics
ment that they had to work with multiple singers.
Here the disadvantage of the way of working of 'The
Alan Parsons Project' became clear: due to the lack
of an organized band format, they had to rely on the
good will and the spare time of all those involved.
Anyone who has ever tried to synchronise five agenda's
on such a basis will know that this is very difficult
indeed..
Recording the vocals started somewhere in March of
1990, with Alex van de Graaf as lead-singer
and Alexandra den Heijer, Karin den Heijer,
Jan, Alex and occasionally André singing harmonies.
In 1993 all tracks were finished but one:
"The Mourning After" which turned
out to be too big a hurdle. The song was ment to be
a kind of Requiem, totalling 8 voices, and it proved
to be very hard to sing.
In the meantime Longshanks had evolved to become
more than a studio band: they had done several live
performances in O.J.V. de Koornbeurs and for
radio station Omroep Delft (mostly unplugged).
But Alex van de Graaf had started to lose interest
in the Quest-project and finally left the band to
pursue other goals. After that the project slowly
withered and it remains unfinished to this day.
So, Longshanks no. 2 also fell apart. (read
on)
