Longshanks news archive

December 23rd 2014:

The Return of Longshanks now on Spotify

For those of you who hadn't noticed yet: our CD can now be played via Spotify (courtesy of our friends at CD Baby). And since the last post our CD has become available at a number of websites (again via CD Baby), e.g.: Amazon, Google Play, Great Indie Music, Media Net, Xbox Music and Mix Radio.
We've also updated the individual track pages on our website with a new player, that has a direct link to the CD Baby music store.
We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we hope we can release some new songs in 2015!

January 15th 2012:

The Return of Longshanks now available on iTunes

As of now the album can be downloaded via the iTunes store, either as individual songs or as an entire album.
This is due to registering with CD Baby, where Longshanks now has its own page.

October 26th 2010:

The Return of Longshanks Podcast!

Not only did Woody Harris write a splendid review for the Dutch Progressive Rock Pages, but, as he was so immersed in the album at the time, he thought it would be worthwhile to dedicate an entire podcast to the album.
He took the topics from the various songs and sought songs with matching themes to complement them.
Listen to this amazing dedication in episode 207 of Soundscape.

October 25th 2010:

The seventh CD-review is online...

We were warned in advance: it might take several months before the DPRP (Dutch Progressive Rock Pages) would be able to post a review (due to a big workload of reviews each month), but it is there finally! And it was well worth waiting for! A very positive review indeed! Thanks DPRP, and thank you Woody Harris!
Read it on the DPRP CD-review pages

July 14th 2010:

The fifth CD-review is online...

Here's a postive review in the Norwegian language...
A big "Thank You!" to Ulf Backstrøm!
Read it on Merlinprog.no

July 12th 2010:

The fouth CD-review is online...

This one is in French and rates the CD 5.5 out of 10, so not very good. Besides that, according to this review Bregje is married to André instead of Alex! LOL!
Read it on Musicwaves.fra

July 5th 2010:

The third CD-review is online...

(The second was in Dutch) It's slightly less positive than the first, but still OK (despite several unnecessary typo's and other mistakes). Read it on Backgrond Magazine.nl

May 27th 2010:

The first CD-review is online...

And what a review it is!
Thank you very much, Costas!
Read it on Rockpages.gr

May 24th 2010:

The Ferman Show, episode 26

Sunday May 23rd a special episode of The Ferman Show was recorded featuring Longshanks.
Though the podcast itself is in Dutch and so of not much interest to the non-Dutch fans, one item in the podcast may interest you after all:
there was a LIVE-PERFORMANCE of "The Travelling Song, prt.3", which has been recorded on video as well!
The video can be watched on YouTube!

May 18th 2010:

R.I.P. Ronnie James Dio

Sunday May 16th Ronnie James Dio passed away at the age of 67. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer at the end of last November. He was one of the greatest singers to emerge from the 70's, being front man for Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio. Only last year he released an album in a reunion with former Black Sabbath mates, under the name of Heaven and Hell, named after the legendary Black Sabbath album. But maybe he will be remembered best for inventing the 'horned hand' symbol...

April 26th 2010:

Release of the CD "The Return of Longshanks"!

Saturday April 24th at 19:00 hours (GMT+1) the long awaited moment finally arrived:
in the company of Bregje, Inge and some close friends André, after a short speech, presented the first CD to Alex.
After that, everyone was presented with a copy and a champagne toast was given to the succesful conclusion of this project and to the start of many more to come.
Then it was time to upload the new and updated pages to the website (the TRoL-CD page, the Home page and the Music page) and, of course, to play the CD!

From today the CD can be ordered via the website!
To do so, visist the Music page.

April 15th 2010:

The CD is coming!

Today the last part of the artwork for the CD, the booklet, has been sent to the printers. As a result some changes have been implemented on the website as well, most notably some images have been updated.
The illustration for "In the Desert" has been modified: storm clouds have been added, and a bolt of lightning as well.
The painting for "The Bath Song" has been replaced by a selfmade image (a 3D-modeling project in Lightwave-9)

Besides that, obviously the front cover of the CD has now been finalised. It consists of an image that has been made using mixed techniques:
- landscape modeling in Terragen
- additional 3D-modeling in Lightwave
- 'old school' painting in the foreground
- compositing in Photoshop
Curious for the result? Click here!

April 11th 2010:

Release of "I Love the Road"

At last!
With pride we present the last song for the CD "the Return of Longshanks": "I Love the Road".
This 5:08 minutes song is a true 'road song': an up-tempo rock song with musical influences from Micheal Schenker. A song that'll make you push the pedal to the metal!
The song will be placed inbetween "All My Days" and "the Travelling Song, part 3" on the CD and thus restores the balance between rock songs and ballads.
Alex' sister Anita van de Graaf again makes an appearance on this song.
At the moment all is being done to finish the CD: mastering all of the tracks has been done, the artwork for the CD-booklet is nearly finished. This week everything will be sent to the printers...
The release date has been set for sa. April 24th !

November 24th 2009:

R.I.P.: Pim Koopman (1953-2009)

We are saddened by the news that on Monday morning November 23rd Kayak drummer and composer Pim Koopman has suddenly passed away, due to heart faillure.

In 1972 Pim Koopman and Ton Scherpenzeel founded Kayak, having played together in local bands from 1968 onwards (Balderdash en High Tide Formation). On the first three records by Kayak there are several songs he wrote either by himself or togeteher with (e.g.) Ton. Among these are the single's "See See the Sun", "Mammoth" and "Wintertime". In 1976 Pim left Kayak and started to work for EMI as a producer and composer. He enjoyed major succes with acts like Pussycat, Maywood, Time Bandits and Sandy Coast.

In 1979 Pim formed another band of his own, resulting from a hobby project from 1978: Diesel, together with e.g. Guitarist and singer Rob Vunderink (Vitesse).
In 1980 Pim left Diesel. From 1983 to 1985 he played in The President. After that he was involved as producer with albums by Robby Valentine, Valensia and Petra Berger.

In 1997 Pim was asked by the TV-show Classic Albums to perform once more with Kayak. This reunion inspired the band to record a new album in 1999: "Close To The Fire", which was followed by several other CD's, e.g. "Coming up for Air" (last year). Recently the band issued the double-CD "Letters From Utopia", which led to a full-scale Dutch tour from October onwards. André was present at the concert Kayak gave Friday November 6th at "de Boerderij" in Zoetermeer, and had a short conversation with Pim afterwards. He describes the news of Pim's death as "bizarre" and "unreal".

Visit Kayak's website

November 14th 2009:

Release of "In Dreams"

The 6:47 minutes song "In Dreams" takes a different approach to the theme 'setting out on a journey'. This time we will journey inside our dreams and we'll seamlessly and incontrollably flow from one scene into another.
In this song Alex and Bregje are joined on vocals by a true opera soprano: Alex' sister Anita van de Graaf, who can be heard in the 2nd and 3rd choruses.
Now all that remains to be done before the release of the CD is recording the last song: "I Love the Road".

September 22nd 2009:

Organ version Wandering Merchant recorded

Last saturday, september 19th, Alex and André visited Aad de Vogel to make a 'car-free' recording of the street organ version of "The Wandering Merchant" (see news item below). The recording (4 mics) has been mixed down to a stereo track and the second half of it now appears at the end of the new version of "Leave Me Alone".
In the process that song has also been remastered and now has a clearer and more vibrant sound.
Over the next two months the other tracks will also be remastered prior to their release on CD.
At the moment the last two songs are being recorded:
"In Dreams" and "I Love the Road".

August 5th 2009:

Surprise!

Last saturday, August 1st, Alex celebrated his birthday, he got a surprise he won't forget anytime soon: suddenly a street organ appeared outside his house and started off by playing a "Happy birthday to you.."-medley, followed by... a version of Alex's first true composition: "The Wandering Merchant", arranged especially for this occasion!
Compliments of Bregje, Inge and André.

June 17th 2009:

Release of "In the Desert"

At 7:55 minutes "In the Desert" is the longest track for the new CD yet. This epic song describes the adventures of the traveller after he has fled the pushy salesmen in the city (Leave Me Alone), to find some peace and quiet in nature, which of course turns out not to be so quiet and peaceful at all...

May 15th 2009:

The new band photo

Sunday April 26th a photo shoot was held at several locations in Amersfoort to obtain a more up-to-date photo of the band, to replace the well known photo from 1988. The photographer was the same guy as back in 1988: Rijk-Willem Schmelter. The band members and the photographer were unanimous in choosing the best photo. This photo was taken at one of the old gates to the city: the Monnikendam

May 11th 2009:

"The Bath Song" on internet radio

Saturday May 9th (less than 12 hours after its release) "The Bath Song" was first played by Ferry Molenaar in his show "Your Weekend Action" at ActionRadio.nl. One day later the song was played by Woody Harris in episode 155 of Soundscape.

May 9th 2009:

Release of "The Bath Song"

In "The Bath Song" J.R.R. Tolkien has Pippin Took singing on the joys of a hot bath at the end of a long day of travelling. Obviously these lyrics fit in perfectly with the "travelling" theme of the CD "The Return of Longshanks".
The music is iïnspired by The Dubliners and clearly has a "folk" character. The melody was written by Alex.
Recorded live at "The Prancing Pony" in Bree...

April 6th 2009:

Release of "The Wandering Merchant"

"The Song of The Wandeing Merchant" is the first Longshanks track for which Alex provided the basic ideas (melodie and lyrics), more on this subject via the info-link on the page dedicated to this track!
With this song and with the next one, that is currently in its mixdown phase (The Bath Song, with lyrics by Tolkien), the band has chosen to definitely promote the "travelling" theme to the main theme of the CD "The Return of Longshanks". As a consequence the band has decided to remove the songs "I Have A Dream (2008)" and "Wanted D.O.A." from the track list and to save these songs for a later release. At this moment, work is in progress on two replacing songs, that will fit the theme.
The 'international release' of The Wandering Merchant took place last sunday night on episode 150 of Soundscape (also celebrating André's birthday at the same time).

February 25th 2009:

Release of "The Travelling Song", part 1

Celebrating the release of "The Travelling Song, part 3" and the 21st aniversary of the release of "Cycles & Circles" there now is the back-catalogue release of
"The Travelling Song, part 1", rescued from the old box of demo tapes, washed and polished. Henceforth to be found at the same page that already housed part 2.
There has also been an update of the mp3 player on all pages (now you'll only find navigation buttons if there is more than one song present).

February 21th 2009:

Release of “The Travelling Song”, part 3

Was the process of recording and mixing "Leave Me Alone" a difficult and time consuming one, not so with this sequel to the two previous Travelling Songs:
the entire song was recorded within one hour, and mixed and released within one day!
Well, with one acoustic guitar and three voices...
"The Travelling Song, part 3".

February 11th 2009:

Release of “Leave Me Alone”

'Only three months late of the originally intended release date' Longshanks today presents the next song for their upcoming album "The Return of Longshanks": "Leave Me Alone".
The song is about a traveller who visits a city in a foreign country and has to fight off lots of pushy salesmen (rings a bell?).
Click the link above for the mp3, the lyrics and some inside information.
The international fans had a chance to hear the 0.99 version of the final mixdown in last sundays episode of Soundscape (Tangential Drift, Feb. 8th).
The Dutch fans will be able to hear it played by Ferry Molenaar in his (Dutch) podcast/vodcast that will be recorded next saturday. He will also play the track live at ActionRadio.nl in his MolenMotion show next thursday (Feb. 19th).

December 8th 2008:

“The Web of Life” and "Cycles & Circles" in "MolenMotion" on Action Radio

Since November 13th our good friend Ferry Molenaar has his own radio show, MolenMotion, on the internet radiostation Action Radio. Right off, in his very first show, he played "The Web of Life" (halfway through the first hour) and in the show from December 4th he played "Cycles & Circles" (halfway through the second hour), and also anounced our taking part in the "Serious Request"-action "Demo of the Day". These shows can be heard at Ferry's website (in Dutch only).

September 11th 2008:

“All My days” in "The Ferman Show"

Back from absence Ferry Molenaar today has reacted very enthousiastically to "All My Days", which he featured in "Mad-Minded-Music" in his podcast at Boomr.nl: "The Ferman Show". To be heard in episode 17 (also available via his new website)!

August 13th 2008:

“All My days” and "Web of Life"
played on American Internet radio!

In last nights episode of the internet radio show Soundscape (no. 122, Aug. 12th) Woody Harris picked up on the anouncement of the release of "All My Days" and during the show received an mp3 for playing. Consequently "All My Days" was played, hot from the needle, back to back with "Web of Life".
The show will ofcourse be available for downloading as mp3 (or streaming) from the Soundscape website.

August 12th 2008:

Release of “All My Days”

Only two weeks late of the originally intended release date Longshanks today presents the next song for their upcoming album "The Return of Longshanks": the funky symphonic ballad "All My Days".
Click the link above for the mp3, the lyrics and some inside information.

July 5th 2008:

“Borderline” and "I Have a Dream - 2008"
on American Internet radio!

In episode 116 of the internet radio show Soundscape (June 25th) the song "Borderline" was played because it fitted the central theme of that episode. One week later in episode 117 Woody Harris played the 2008-version of "I Have a Dream" and also used the jingle, that André had made for his show!
Both shows can be downloaded as mp3 (or streamed).

June 11th 2008:

“I Have a Dream” in new version

After finishing the recordings for "The Web of Life" both Alex and Bregje have asked André whether they could record a new version of the instrumental song "I Have a Dream" from 2004, with vocals added to the mix. All of this to save this song and to include it in the song-list for the new CD.
April 19th the first concepts for the lyrics and the melody were e-mailed to the singing couple, and already the next day the first try-out came back!
Yesterday evening André has e-mailed them the last two versions of the mixdown. As both Alex en Bregje chose the same version as André, today we can present you with the final version of: "I Have a Dream - 2008".

May 16th 2008:

“Into the Dawn” now digital

Almost lost in the hectic events around the Soundscape broadcast and yet already present in the news item below was another piece of important news:
last monday we saw the long expeced digital release of "Into the Dawn". According to both Alex and André that was one of the best songs from the concept-demo "The Quest" (and with 9 minutes the one but longest song from that demo). Needless to say both were very happy with this release, that was hastened by the Soundscape broadcast.

May 14th 2008:

“Web Of Life” on American internet radio! prt.2

Episode 110 of the internet radio show Soundscape by DJ Woody Harris really did feature Longshanks: not only did he play "The Web of Life", but six other songs as well! You can download the entire show as mp3 (or stream it). Longshanks is right in after the first song (Styx - "Grand Illusion") and is represented with:
- Prelude
- Courante
- Tango
- Cycles & Circles
- Into the Dawn
- The Travelling Song, prt.2
- The Web of Life
Longshanks sincerely wishes to thank Woody for the airplay and support!

May 1st 2008:

“Web Of Life” on American internet radio!

On May 13th "The Web of Life" will get airplay on the internet radio show Soundscape by DJ Woody Harris from Kennesaw, Georgia (USA). He has found Longshanks via a news item on the release of the CD-single in the Dutch Progressive Rock Pages (DPRP) and immediately contacted us to get hold of an mp3 of the song.
To be continued...

April 29th 2008:

LONGSHANKS relic-hat-trick news

In the 1988-October isue of symphonic rock magazine “Sym-Info” there was a review of Longshanks’ demo tape "Cycles & Circles". Very proud (justly so) of the very favourable review André showed the magazine to Alex at the end of 1988. Strangely it had gone missing without a trace ever since…

Until Alex payed a visit to his parents (in March of 2008) to rummage through his old photo archive, and doing so came across: The Sym-Info from 1988!
Shamefaced Alex returned the magazine to André at the beginning of April 2008… (but not without striking the deal that André is to lend the magazine to him again in april 2028, for another 20 years… :-)

April 8th 2008:

LONGSHANKS NEWS FLASH

By reporters: Alex, Rixk and Bregje.

CD-'single' presentation “Web Of Life”

Last Friday, 4th of April, Longshanks founder André Kamer celebrated his 46st birthday, in Amersfoort. Besides a well received party for his own birthday, it also was a special birthday party for Andrés band Longshanks.

After having released the first Longshanks song "Cycles & Circles" 20 years ago (Feb. 1988), André anounced the official CD-release of Longshanks latest song: "The Web of Life", on April the 4th, in the intimate company of his closest friends and his beloved Inge. The official scoop of the internet release had already been given over a month ago to internet podcaster Ferry Molenaar from “The Ferrman Show”, who also interviewed André by phone at that occasion.

In the presence of this company André made the solemn pledge that they are to see more releases by Longshanks in 2008 and that the gathering for his 47th birthday is to become the scene for the release of a full Longshanks-CD with multiple new tracks !!!

Well, André, a promise is a promise (and there were plenty of witnesses)!!

The Longshanks “Web of Life” CD-single comes with a 4 page booklet, which shows some fine artwork by André on the cover (for insiders: it gives a sneak preview of the location for the story of the next song to be released...), and contains the lyrics and the history of W.O.L.
The CD-label shows a close-up of our own planet Earth, refering to the theme of the song: “The Web of Life”.

The CD can be ordered via info@longshanks.nl

March 26th 2008:
Today we launched the new website for Longshanks.

Februari 25th 2008:
On saturday Februari 23rd 2008 we did the mixdown of our new track "The Web of Life", today André was interviewed on the phone by Ferry Molenaar of "The Ferman Show"-podcast: broadcasting tomorrow! Show number 7 (only in Dutch, unfortunately...).

Februari 8th 2008:
Show number 3 of "The Ferman Show"-podcast is online at Boomr.nl, featuring our song "Borderline" as ultimate track in the show! Check it out (if you understand Dutch...) and vote for this guy!