About me and my music

My love for music started at a very young age.  Too young to know how old I was. Let's make it three or maybe four.  Somewhere in the late seventies. Both my grandma's had organ's (the musical kind) in their homes. Whenever we went visiting, I would hit the organ. Hitting pots and pans also sufficed.  In the 8th grade (standerd 6 for the old timers), my parents sent me for formal music lessons (still with the organ). That lasted a full 2 sessions. I told my dad it's @&@. He said it's OK not to go again.

Life was sweet.I watched way too many music videos, like any other kid. But I focused on the structure of the songs, not just the melody and lyrics. Listening to what each instrument did, when it did it, how long, how loud, etc. It all made sense.  My father showed me 3 chords on his old guitar. A, D and E. My cousin showed me two more, C and G. Around the same time my mother bought me a Casio keyboard (one of those small, but powerful ones). It was like having a whole band at my disposal. Again, life was sweet, but this time a composer was born. It took me all but half an hour to come up with a tune decent enough to kick butt. I tried my best to convince all my closest friends to buy instruments and start a band. It didn't pan.  One of my best friends (Bekker) got a guitar though.  The first recording session was 1989 at the SABC in the 10th grade (standerd 8 for the old timers).  I was too nervous to do it alone, so I convinced Bekker to record with me.   We recorded 3 of my songs.   A very proud moment.  I continued to write music (just for fun) all the way to Potch University. Barries played my little Casio keyboard and his own, while I played on my dad's old guitar.  Soon we held auditions and we had a full band "The Clan".  Martin on vocals, William on drums and Gretha on bass. We played coffee shops, bars, the student centre and parties. Recorded demos at Sunset Studio, SABC and Downtown Studio. Nolla joined the band and we played street festivals, functions and pretty much any place that would allow us to set up.   And then we all had to grow up and face the real world with it's eight to fives.  To this day, we continue writing music, keeping the dream alive.  This is my version of it!

Usually I write in English, but I tried something new.  Writing in my native language, Afrikaans (spoken in South Africa).  So the few songs you'll hear on Reverbnation are the Afrikaans ones.  This was truely a one man effort. I wrote all the songs, played all the instruments, did the vocals, did the mixing and mastering and did all the other things sound engineers and producers do. It took quite some time to finish. I need to redo my English recordings before I can post it here.