The idea was to have a band called 'The General Assembly'. It was much like those people who already know the names for all their children before they even find someone to conceive them with. Thus, all I had was that name -- no songs, no musicians, no idea what the music of that band 'The General Assembly' would even sound like.
I had been a member of the alternative rock band 'Jester Hat' for more than 10 years and -- since we were living in different parts of the country -- we hadn't played much lately. In fact, our last recordings were from 2004, our last live performance (for a radio show) was in early 2005. I had no intentions for 'Jester Hat' to split up because, whenever we
were actually playing together, something good came out. Anyway, waiting for 'Jester Hat' to play again was not an option, a new band had to be formed. But how? Looking around in the city I live in, there appeared to be like a million singer/guitarplayers -- unfortunatelly one of them being me. However, drummers, bass-players and other musicians were a rare species. And -- were they really waiting for someone to ask them to play in a band called 'The General Assembly' that, by then, only existed in my head? No songs, no gigs, no rehearsing room, nothing?
I could do something about the songs, though. I wrote, edited and re-wrote some old 'Jester Hat' and 'Not-Liked-By-Jester-Hat' stuff. Since I was always more fond of recording than of performing (I am also more fond of listening to CDs than going to concerts), I started recording some of the new stuff. Along the way, I discovered the possbilities and the pleasures of home recording. Bit by bit, the idea of making real songs out of the demo recordings all by myself grew stronger. After all, I had always liked the music of home recording artists such as 'The Mountain Goats' , I also always loved David Gray's 'White Ladder'-Album and had with great respect listened to the works of e.g. 'Get Well Soon' , and 'Sir Simon' . Besides, the music of 'The General Assembly' was particularly inspired by the album 'A Tale of Two Cities' by an english band called 'Mr Hudson & Library' and the music of Daniel Benjar aka 'Destroyer' .
A small digital audio device with two inputs (Mic/Instrument) then formed my ticket to the joys of 'Garage Band'. Also, I made a dream come true by buying an Epiphone EB-0 bass guitar which is based on the Gibson SG electric guitar -- an instrument I like to refer to as "my secret love". One song followed the other and when I had six of them together, I decided to release them on
myspace as a mini-album which I called
Speelgoed voor de happy few.
Ironically, as it turns out, 'The General Assembly' became a one-man-band.
