A week filled with old and new.

This week was all about picking up something I left behind me 4 years ago.
As you all know I’ve been working in a warehouse, but the job has been so demotivating I decided to dig deep in the back of my mind, find the bit of knowledge I had laying around about the web/print world and get back to what I used to love doing back in the days, graphics design and building websites.

I noticed I have a lot to catch up to since I have been out of the game for quite a while. But I am willing to study my way through online tutorials/articles to be on top of my game soon. I started working on my new website, and actually everything went a lot smoother than I thought. I’ve already thrown it online (except for the news, blog and media sections that are all under construction). It started a while ago when I designed my girlfriends new event companies logo and corporate identity / business card. She is going to be rocking Zwolle’s socks soon with an event. I won’t make it public yet, but I am also involved.

Logo for my girls brand spanking new company.

Design for my new website!

I was asked by Studentertainment to design a poster for a poetry/music/story night in a café and it’s about done and they’re purrrrty happy with it. So it’s going the right way I guess. I am just going to try and build up a nice portfolio and offer my services to starting companies or settled that need a revamp of their website or corporate identity.

I had some time on my hands (made sure I did) so I decided to record a new cover, Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team” was my choice and I am happy with the outcome. If you haven’t seen it yet, feel free to click the video below! I Worked with the chords a bit, throwing in some minor changes that were more “me” and somehow WE managed to grab together over 25000 views in 4,5 days. Thank you! AWESOME!

I went to chill over at my buddy and band member Tim de Wijk to play a little bit of FIFA on the Xbox360 and discuss some new music. We decided we need to freshen up the live set and switch up the covers we do, add a slow/minimal part in the show where I play ballads to let the vocal shine and also came to the conclusion that I really needed to get working on a bridge for a cool rnb/disco kind of tune I wrote with good vibes. Sounds like a weird genre when I type it out. But it is what it is and the song is called “Jealousy”. I wrote it with a guy from Sweden called Robert Habolin.

I asked my keys player Alexander Klement to work out a piano arrangement for True Friends, cause I am working on getting it released as a special Christmas download. A real recorded, mixed and mastered version of my song. With just piano (and maybe record live strings, still in doubt) and my vocal. He did a great job and I will be going back and forth with Guido Maat this week to add and adjust it a bit.

This next week will be all about studying some design, looking for a new J.O.B and also look for some possible clients to do some designing for, writing/finishing songs and planning the rest of December.

LOVE!

A.

PS I am also thinking about recording a new cover this week. I don’t want to leave you all hanging too long this time. I feel bad about the last couple of months.

Ed Sheeran – The A Team (cover by Aïrto)

Back with new video! Please share this on facebook or twitter! Let’s get some views popping!

Love,
A.

A day late.

First of all I want to apologize for being a day late with my blog. 2 weeks in and I am already messing up. Great. Ha! Blame it on the roster! Ill try my best to make a wrong right, so here we go as promised.

If you read last week’s blog I had a pretty stuffed week with gigs and even though it’s been good, I have been feeling a bit under the weather since Monday (yes I still am). But I’ve got lots to write, so let’s get to it.

Tuesday me and my band had a very nice day over at the Margriet Winterfair 2011 in the morning, we left around 10.30 am and everything went supersmooth before we had to go on stage. Ready, set, go in little over  5 minutes after we got on stage (soundcheck and all, awesome) and then we played a 30-minute set. It was all good. We stayed a bit after to chat with some people and watch “Lange Frans” take over the place! Did a little interview with nltracks.nl after that! Then went home and relaxed for a bit, keeping the rest of the week in the back of my mind.

The Margriet Winterfair stage!

I had a rehearsal in the morning on Wednesday for last night’s gig and played “Beatloos” later that night. The event was “spoken word” for rappers and I was the only singer there playing with backup. The location was beautiful. I hope I have a picture of the venue up later, so check back! It was an acoustic session, with my keys player Alexander Klement and Bas Schouten on guitar. We played some of my original songs and “Trouble” by Ray LaMontagne. I think they liked it, I hope they did!

Thursday I had a late radio session over at Radio 2, was invited to play an original song and 2 covers out of the top 2000 from 2010. We ended up playing another cover of “This Love” by Maroon 5. It was an extra, last minute, unprepared song. We got it though!  My guitar player was nice and funky, and I had the lyrics on screen so I wouldn’t mess up. LOL. Went home and was asleep around 2.30 am.

Over at Radio 2!

I have been looking for an audio file of what we did, but they forgot to tape it. Next time I’ll specifically ask for one so I can share it with you guys!

Friday I had a jam session in Amsterdam, Club Dauphine. It was my first time visiting this awesome night. (If you’re from the Netherlands, you should definitely go out and check out one of those nights.) It was filled with great vibes and awesome musicians. Some awesome singers lit up the room that night and we all had to sing 3 songs.  I sang my original song “Home”, “You Give Me Something” and “Superstition”. I had a little drink and dance before I went to bed at (again) 2.30 am.

Club Dauphine rehearsals!

Saturday I had a day to relax, but that was when I really started feeling bad. My stomach was acting up and got a sore back and neck. Like I gave myself permission to not feel good anymore. Luckily being on stage gives me a lot of energy so that’s what pulled me through last night’s jam session in The Livingroom, Zwolle. Lovely audience and the band added their energy too. Played some covers with 3/4^th of my original band and did some songs with a rapper too, Marloes van Ommen, candidate in The Voice Of Holland was part of the session too! all in all a fun (and definitely worth repeating some other time) session, just like Friday night by the way!

SO this was my week, not really a story blog but more of a sum up. I’ll add my monday to the blog as well 😉 I thought of a new cover and I added a little teaser below. Let me know if you dig and I will up the video tomorrow!

A-team – idea for tomorrow’s cover

I’m out! Stay tuned for a NEW blog and ofcourse a NEW video soon!

Cheerios + Love,

A.

Another week at the office…

of·fice — noun
1. a room, set of rooms, or building where the business of a commercial or industrial organization or of a professional person is conducted: the main office of an insurance company; a doctor’s office.

In my case you can add my home, the train and my parents house to the definition. Being on the way makes everything your office from time to time!

My week started out nice and easy on a monday morning.
Did a session over at Pelican Studios with Martijn Konijnenburg and Lisa Loïs (From now on referred to as Lisa). Always fun to be over there, lots of laughs and cool angles on songs. Came up with a song soon to be finished and was left untitled. Heard his band’s single “See this world” that’s going to hit the airwaves soon. Sounded coolio!

Pelican Studios / Writing

I’ve worked on (and finished) a piano ballad for Lisa. I am very happy with the end result. The people who’re involved in the project all loved the song as well, hopefully her vocal sounds great on the tune so it can be recorded soon. If not, I’m pretty sure someone is going to want it! I am going to do my best finding someone for sure. It’s a big pop ballad with a hint of Adele, Leona and even a little bit of Rihanna somewhere. Luckily she sounds like none of the previous!
The song is about getting that someone off your mind. Yup, a sad love song.
Here’s a screenshot of the project for the ones interested 🙂

Project File / Piano Ballad

I said on Facebook and twitter I would explain WHY I haven’t been very active on all this social media this week and the reason was because my mom had to undergo bypass surgery and I’ve been there a day before the (4 hour) surgery and stayed for 3 days. Luckily there were no real complications during or after surgery. She’s got 2-3 months recovering ahead. So I will be visiting alot, helping out. Hopefully she will feel a lot better when she’s back to her old self. Being healthy is so important.

Brrrainspin….
I feel like we’re going towards a world where we want everything handed out on a silver platter. We’re getting too lazy to actually put an effort into something. I mean, we take the car to go grab some groceries, when the store is a ten minute walk / five minute bikeride away or live on the sixth floor of an apartment complex and always take the elevator. Theres nothing wrong with walking, grabbing a bike or climbing a flight of stairs. Its important to get moving every day. Stay in good shape, make sure you do your best to NOT have any health problems (though I know some you can’t do anything about). Just know you did everything, so you can never say: “I should have…” because that is something you usually say when it is too late. Alright, I’ll stop with the parenting again. Ha!

I have a busy week up ahead filled with music! I’m playing on the Margriet Winterfair this Tuesday at 12:30, Beatloos in Zwolle this Wednesday, visiting Radio2 on Thursday evening/night, Club Dauphine on Friday and doing a jam session on Sunday in Zwolle. Rehearsals in between. And probably work a couple of days.

Forgive me for not putting up a lot of pictures this week but my mind was elsewhere. Will definitely take the cam with me coming week.

Love, Peace and Harmony!

A.

Hitting a low…

Here it is! My first official blogpost with a weekly update, or review. Ha! Whatever you want to call it!

I am working on a lot of new music lately, for myself but also for another artist called Lisa Loïs (check her out on YouTube). She’s signed with Sony and I’m working on putting together some songs for her second album. We’ve had some smashing sessions thus far and finished 2 serious songs already. We worked in the studio of drummer Jimmy van den Nieuwenhuizen who just had the most caring mom in the world. She cooked food for us and made sure we were all set everyday. I added a picture of Lisa detuning the bass during on of our sessions, lol! We also got to walk past this nice little bit of scenery every morning.

“SLAPPIN’ DA BASS, MAN!” (If you haven’t seen that movie “I love you, man”, you should)

Oosterhout scenery!

I’m writing music, lyrics and I might even end up being involved in the production later in the process. I’m very happy with getting the opportunity to be so closely involved in a project like this. I’ve been working in a big storage and it’s been really demotivating, I’m lacking the creativity and inspiration to make music when I get home, but “you gotta do what you gotta do to make ends meet!”

I started working on a big piano ballad last Friday, that I plan on finishing coming week.

All this goodness was disturbed by a little low. There’s always the low huh? Messing with you when you’re in that uppy vibe!
We all hit one from time to time, I think. I didn’t expect it so that is why it hit me even harder.
I have been looking forward to releasing my second single and last Tuesday I heard it was probably better for my single to be pushed back till January, because of big releases that are planned for December and the closing of radio playlists mid-December. All the positivity was punched out of my body. It felt like a real setback since I have been working so hard towards releasing it and letting you hear a new tune! Even though it got me, I decided NOT to let it mess with me too much and hold on to the positive! BANG BANG!

I’ll still discuss the opportunity to give you a snippet. But we might have to scratch that for now since the release will be in the new year and who knows we end up going for a different song!

I do want to give you guys something regardless. SO we’ve been thinking about a solution to fill the gap between the release and we’ve come up with a pretty neat idea. I will keep you all informed via Facebook. It involves a song, something for free.
I know I like free stuff, so I’m hoping you do too! 😉

I think it’s time I start looking for a new job, want to get back into graphical design a bit. I’ve been working on some print stuff last weeks and I see myself doing that a lot more. I might even start a course/study again, to get my degree and have something official.
This is me thinking out loud in the blog. I have this burning desire to write out something a parent would write out in their blog, so here we go:
DON’T DROP OUT OF SCHOOL OR COLLEGE!  (If you’re still in it ofcourse, to the ones who are not. It’s never too late to get back into it!)

I followed my heart trying to make it in music and grabbing the opportunity to do so, when I should have put in that extra year and a half to finish my study, I bet it would have made building this bridge to where I want to be (make a living out of music) easier!
I’m just writing out what I’m thinking here. I can do that here, right?

I ended this week with a meeting with my management about the next coming months. I’ve set goals to upload more videos to YouTube (I have been slacking, yes, I know…. ), finish songs I’ve got laying around and work on my album.

I guess this was about it for this week. Anything I forgot I’ll take with me to the next blog and pretend it happened that week. LOL!
I’ll have to remember bringing my camera for my next blog so I can include some more pictures and maybe even record some video of a random session!

Alright, we’ll chat later folks! 🙂

Love.

A.

Thank you.

If it wasn’t for facebook I probably wouldn’t be doing this. But there are weeks where a lot of stuff happens and I thought it would be cool to share that with you all. Wether it would be with writing, pictures, videos or maybe a combination. It would just give you a better view in what happens, when I am working on music and what I do beside all this crazy music. I hope to see you all back here every Sunday (YES, I’ll start this sunday). When I do a blog I’ll update on facebook so you guys won’t miss it.

Time for me to get working on some music now. I’ll share some of it very soon! 🙂

Love!

Blog, blog, blog away!

Welcome to my re-newed simplified website. This is where I will be posting up new blogs!
I’ll put them on the main page so you won’t miss them.

I’ll write soon.

edit: This message was written way before there was any design and/or website attached. 🙂 ….. Nice…..