meek

a dear old friend of mine came to see me last week, with her one-and-a-half year old daughter lena, who i hadn’t seen yet. she brought a cd with her with some music she and her boyfriend made.

now, i knew she was a woman of many talents. i got to know her when working for the amsterdam local radio station amsterdam fm, after she went on to work for dutch national radio and now, tv. she used to date a guy who was in a band that bore his name [nothing good can come from that. bands called “the (fill in name of band leader) band” or something along those lines are usually crap. except for the jon spencer blues explosion, whose concert in antwerp i missed yesterday because it was sold out], and i remember she sang on one of their tracks. but it wasn’t anything anyone would remember. so i didn’t know quite what to expect of this demo she gave me. i heard a couple things her boyfriend showed me about two years ago, but those were instrumentals, and it was very raw material. he used to be in a great band called kong, so i assumed it would be good musically. kong rule.

i didn’t want to listen to the music with her sitting in front of me, so i waited until she left.

actually, i waited until later this past week. i forgot about it, to be honest. until she sent me a mail asking me what i thought of it.

so i started to listen, and i was surprised. it’s yummie stuff. the music is kind of cold, but in a good way, like autechre or boards of canada, and her voice sounds really good with it. she sounds like a cross between nicolette, louise rhodes and skye edwards.

apparently they have sent their cd to various labels, mostly in holland, but so far no-one has responded. now she has asked me to be their manager. i’m honoured, but i find it really weird. “manager” of a band. it doesn’t sound good. i don’t want to be the manager of any band. managers of bands are mostly assholes, and i don’t want to be an asshole.

but i don’t want to turn them down, either. i do want to help them get a record deal, become famous and all that.

so i’ll be “just a bloke helping some friends out”. how’s that?

and then, when they become really famous and filthy rich, i’ll take my 50% and be the asshole they always wanted. heh.

audio: meek – demo