Category Archives: music

elephant songs #0 – surprise prologue

Madras, South India, 13 January 2012 A few days ago I had an enjoyable hour of chatting and playing on Yugi Sethu’s talkshow, in the company of friend & multi-talented singer Yogeswaran Manickam, also known as Yoga. The show is scheduled to be broadcast next Saturday, 21 [...]

Also posted in elephant songs | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

elephant songs #1, bangalore – today and tomorrow!

After a kick-off-in-style at the B-Flat Bar in Bangalore, the first official episode of Elephant Songs will play this weekend at the beautiful Plantation House and at the Fireflies Music Festival. Musicians are Maarten Visser on saxophones, Keith Peters on electric bass, Robbert van Hulzen on drums, [...]

Also posted in elephant songs | Leave a comment

oto.3 these days (and: movie edit!)

After editing the footage of riding through Nepal, included in “mountains! please?” iMovie was no longer the intimidating dark cloud that had stopped me from putting up clips of the oto.3 concerts in Amsterdam in the early summer. So here it is [...]

Posted in music | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

monday match

Dancer Irene van Geest and myself felt honoured being asked to curate a Monday Match, a night in the montly series of music & dance improvisation at the Amsterdam Bimhuis. We were very happy to get a large & inspiring cast together: Peter Cseri, Lily Kiara, Silvia [...]

Posted in music | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

underwear gig @ studio 7, 12 august 2011

Before rushing off to the Buurtboerderij to jam on Pumporgan tunes with Dirk Bruinsma, Jasper Stadhouders, and John Dikeman, I had the honour of playing in Sharon Smith’s rock band in Studio 7, put together by the inimitable Katie Duck. El Torrero on electric bass (an object [...]

Posted in music | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

dikeman & van der weide & van hulzen @ fat form, 6 august 2011

Breed begrip: an instant jazz trio on a rainy roof in Amsterdam Bijlmer. Enveloped by the smell of chocolate brownies, the sound of heavy summer (?) rain, and the curious attention of a varied audience, saxophonist John Dikeman, cellist Raoul van der Weide, and I, drummer Robbert [...]

Posted in music | Tagged , , | Leave a comment
  • ELEPHANT SONGS

    Elephant Songsis a band with an always changing line-up: new musicians join drummer Robbert van Hulzen each time he stops in an interesting place on his way from Chennai (South India) to Amsterdam (Holland) on a vintage Enfield motorcycle loaded with drums. Fourteen countries, 15,000 kilometres, who knows how many months.
    Elephant Songs is the optimistic inversion of the old story of the blind men and the elephant. Everyone experiences music differently, but we can always create a piece of music together, whatever we call it and wherever we come from. Each fresh combination of musicians plays music that is the result of a few days of working together, playing tunes from Robbert's Elephant Songbook and pieces brought by the other members-of-the-moment.
    Elephant Songs often involve odd metre rock grooves, filmic melodies, South Indian rhythm games, homespun harmonies, and an imperceptable balance between composition and improvisation.
    Of each meeting, a track is published on nocount.org; after arriving in Europe, a full album will be released.