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Bastardi Di Blues
Dutch bio

BASTARDI DI BLUES: A PIG-HEADED POWER TRIO

 

 

Bastardi Di Blues is a Dutch bluesrocktrio from Limburg the most southernly part of The Netherlands. The band was formed early 2009, in a harsh winter, when the world was being hit hard by the most severe economic crisis since the Depression era of the 1930’s.

Hard Times.

Down and Out.

Such times used to form the cradle of blues. As far as Bastardi Di Blues (Italian for ‘Blues Bastards’) were concerned, they were cradles of blues yet again. Bastardi (originally Bastardo di Blues) was a frivolous concept that came up during dinner in Rome in the summer of 2008 when guitarist Johan van de Beek decided to pick up his guitar after years of not playing. Seeing a street musician playing blues on a piazza made him change his mind.

 

After posting some solo/webcam-music clips on websites like Youtube.com and Dutchbased Hyves.nl he was spotted and contacted by drummer Rene Vlems who suggested a jam session to feel out if there was ‘a connection’ between the two of them. The mutual love for the old bluesmasters and the enormous respect for innovators of the genre like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan immediately brought them together.

Soon after their first session they were joined by bass-player Monique Demarteau who completed what sounded like a promising and solid powertrio.

 

Monique Demarteau played in bands like Harvey Wallbanger, Black Rabbit and The Wanted. Rene Vlems played in various jazz and (blues)rock bands and worked with The Bonel Band, Deepwater, The Wanted, Skinwheels, Still Believe and Dizzy Robby and The Blues Raiders. Johan van de Beek, who learned to play guitar ‘by ear’, however, has little stage-experience.

 

Already after a few rehearsals the three musicians recorded five tracks at the Art Sound Studio in Houthalen (Belgium). They did that ‘live’. Engineer JP Kerkhoffs (Triggerfinger, Das Pop, Millionaire, DeWolff) did a very fine job. Just like Eddy Bopp (guitar-player  Vandale) and Ernst van de Kerkhof (keyboard-player Vandale, producer/songwriter), who mastered the songs at their Cloud 9 Studio in Sittard, in the south of Holland. Bastardi Di Blues’ demo-CD ‘Everything Is Electrified Nowadays’ is released on December 22, 2009. Their single ‘Ghost Clinic’, a rock cover, is also released on the Fuzztones Tribute-album ‘Illegitimate Spawn vol. II’, a double CD collection (Twist Records, released on 26-11-2009). BDB by the way is the only Dutch band with a track on this album, featuring other well-known artists and bands like Ian Astbury (The Cult), Doll Squad, Boss Martians and The Urges. In August 2011 the band released the single ‘The Falling Man’, a tribute to ‘the jumpers’ from the Twin Towers in New York after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

 

In the meanwhile Bastardi Di Blues have written a bunch of new songs - played in a hard hitting style, interspersed with Hendrix-psychedelica and samples of ‘outré’ genres like punk rock, urban and jazz - for their next album ‘Voodoo Voyage’, which probably will be out at the end of 2011. So stay tuned.

 

Bastardi Di Blues are:

 

 

Discography:

 

 

BDB on the Internet:

 

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