I am the guitarist for Maida Vale, a heavy rock band based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. I have been around in the Utrecht music scene quite a while and created this page to make some of the recordings of my past available. I have an alternative career as well which some people find very intriguing. This is not the place to write about it but if you want to know, just google around.
When I started playing guitar I was heavily influenced by seventies hardrockbands such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. But I got my share of punk, metal, new wave, progressive rock and jazzrock as well and as a result my influences are many. Especially Ritchie Blackmore, Robert Fripp, John McGeoch, Toni Iommi and Steve Vai have had some impact on the development of my playing style.
I am left-handed and it has not been easy to find good left-handed guitars but I managed to collect some quality guitars over the years. Currently I am playing a Gibson SG Standard and a Music Man Silhouette Special most of the time. As for amplification I have been using the ENGL Savage SE for several years now and am still very satisfied with both the sound and the versatility of this amp.
'Over the board' by Accidental Gap was recorded in 1985 for the radio and broadcasted together with another track. There was a live interview as well by a well-known Dutch music reporter who made his radio debut that evening.
In the eighties I experimented quite a bit with the Roland GR 700 guitar synthesizer (the same one that was used by a.o. King Crimson and Andy Summers). An over the top example of this is 'Make me forget' by Accidental Gap (1985). It lacks an ordinary guitar sound, it's all guitar synth that you hear including the church-organ solo, a keyboard was not used.
'Encounter' is an earlier recording by Accidental Gap (1984), displaying the experimental side of the band. Accidental Gap was a special group. It was a great opportunity for me, being a young guitarist, to play with such fine and experienced musicians. I learned a lot in those years.
'This boring game' was the very first Accidental Gap song. It all started with the sequence lick on guitar. The track was recorded three times by 'The Gap'. This recording is the second one (1984), laid down in the winter-cold near a fireplace. Yes, it was very romantic to gather dry sticks and warm our sandwiches.
'Autumn' is a short instrumental piece that I wrote in the early nineties. This is a 4-track recording made at home in 1991 with the help of Accidental Gap drummer Ton van Dort who played drums and percussion on the keys of a keyboard, it was quite amazing to watch him doing that.
Finally, 'Love on the line' by Anthem was released as a single in 1982. Anthem was my very first band. We evolved from punk to hardrock. 'Love on the line' was a poppy single that in a heavier version is still played by my current band Maida Vale.
Please feel free to comment on this material. Many more recordings exist, especially by Accidental Gap. If you are interested other tracks can be made available. The music that I make nowadays is much heavier, both compository and soundwise. Recordings of my current band Maida Vale can be heard on the Maida Vale myspace site and on the band website .
