Another day, another review of “Enjoy it While it Lasts.” Definitely not as favorable as most reviews I’ve read, but still very complementary. Check out Prog Archives’ review Here.
Here’s Tyler Gould wearing the new T-shirt design! For those of you who don’t know, Tyler is the photographer that took the cover photo for the album. Thanks Tyler and Enjoy your shirt 
Henk edited the cover art to “Enjoy it while it lasts” and created a really cool graphic-tee that you can buy HERE.
Check it:
I got mine!
Henk from my prog-pop band “Philhelmon” wrote a very touching song for his wife which we recorded a few months ago, and it’s now available on iTunes. I sang the song, and Henk played all the instruments so it’s technically a Philhelmon track, but I also managed to get Dustin Rose and Austin Wilson to sing harmony since they’ve been out to my studio a lot finishing the upcoming Wilson, Fifer, Rose album! So I guess this could also be considered a Wilson, Fifer, Rose recording! Buy the song here.
Henk also sent me a scan of a German Progressive rock magazine where “Enjoy it while it lasts” got a quick write up! I’m sure there is something lost in translation since it sounds sort of abrupt - I’m not sure that the quote “With singer Ky Fifer, Bol has certainly made no bad choice” sounds as complimentary when directly translated to English, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!
TRANSLATION (provided by Henk because he actually speaks German and google translator is an absolute disaster!)
Philhelmon is the Dutch multi-instrumentalist Henk Bol. What this name means must not researched, it’s simply his second first name. However, you won’t get Instrumental work in the style of Mike Oldfield. “Enjoy it while it lasts” acts as a great multitude of guest musicians on the album. Sometimes Philhelmon’s album reminds me of the music of his fellow countrymen Arjen Anthony Lucassen (Ayreon). There are a lot of musicians playing on this CD, but the only name on the long list of collaborators I know, is Cleem Determeijer on keyboards (ex-Finch and indeed was also involved on some Ayreon Albums). The nearly 8-minute opener “The Final Frontier” offers solid, mainstreaming rock with prog tendencies. With singer ‘Ky Fifer’, Bol has certainly made no bad choice. Up-tempo songs where sometimes fine guitar- and synthesizer solos are represented as well as ballads, the latter sometimes for my taste a little to sweet. The Prog-factor is not too high, but to be fair one should say, as the artist writes in the liner notes, he refers to it more as a Progressive Pop. That said, with the rich guitar work there is quite a lot of rock to offer. And so is my review not written from the prog view, rather an overall impression without progressive ulterior motives. JM
Philhelmon has recorded a fun cover of the Genesis song “Paperlate” which was included on this radio show! Feel free to download the mp3 of this fun little oddity here.
Also, Henk sent me a copy of I-O pages, which is a very high quality prog-rock magazine from Holland. I posted a picture and translated it for you previously in this post, but now I actually have a copy! I can hardly believe this magazine’s composition. It’s extremely well made. Shiny, glossy, pages, larger than standard dimensions. What an honor to be written up in it! Thanks Henk!
Since I’ve had so many requests for it, I’ve managed to find an app that allows me to post upcoming performances. So many gigs are last minute, but I’ll do my best to let people know about them from now on. In the upper right corner of my page, on the menu bar, you’ll see it says “Upcoming Performances.” This is where I’ll be posting future gigs, whether they be Wilson, Fifer, Rose, Musical theatre, or whatever else I’m doing on any given day. It’s a good way to keep up!
Philhelmon continues to hit the airwaves in the Netherlands. I’ve managed to get my hands on some of the radio shows, and edited them for your listening pleaseure!
Click the show’s icon to listen to each snippet from the radio show.
Paperlate 750th Anniversary Show (Jan 2013)
1. Henk interview (in Dutch)
2. In the Forest (off of Enjoy…)
3. Ky’s Pre-recorded message
4. Dance the Night Away (off of Enjoy…)
5. Ky’s pre-recorded message
6. Paperlate (Genesis cover song recorded for the show)
Xymphonia (Jan 2013)
1. Breif introduction (in Dutch)
2. Warchild (off of Enjoy…)
3. Ulumka’an (off of Enjoy…)
Radio Groesbeek (Jan 2013)
1. Breif Introduction (in Dutch)
2. Golden Days/ Strange Kind of Song Revisited (off of Enjoy…)
I’ll post more as I become aware of them!
December is upon us! As most musicians know, it is the most busy time of year! I for one wouldn’t have it any other way! Interviews, music videos, new songs and albums… all these things have been brewing. Check it:
Wilson, Fifer, Rose:
Well, the final talley for our kickstarter campaign was:
$4,226!!!!
Not bad considering we only set out to get $2,500. Rest assured, all the money will be used to ensure that we get a better product.
Yes, that’s a lot more than we thought we’d get. Naturally, we’re absolutely exstatic. What next for the album? Well we are currently in the process of auditioning mixing engineers. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Hopefully we’ll have that sorted out before Christmas. Then once the tracks are all mixed (ideally by January) we can send them off to be masted, and then comes production, album art and so forth.
Austin and Dustin and I will be meeting over break a few times to fulfill our promised incentives to our backers which include things like cover songs and so forth, not to mention tidying up a few tracks for the album that need some finishing touches. More on that soon!
Philhelmon:
The members of our little internet Prog-pop project have been very busy doing radio interviews and a few new recordings here and there. Here’s the latest review of our album from ProgRock Magazine’s IO pages – Can’t read Dutch? No Problem, we translated it for you (see below):
Philhelmon is kicking ass with Enjoy it while it lasts. What do you do when you become sixty years old? Maybe make a deposit for a shiny new walker? Start polishing the old walking stick for later use? Purchase a new pair of slippers for sitting in front of the fireplace? No, there’ll be none of this for six-decade-young Henk Bol who released this piece of homecraft to the world on the very day of his sixtieth birthday. Together with his righthand vocalist Ky Fifer, a crowd of musicians he met over the Internet and old friends like Cleem Determeijer (Finch, Ayreon), this album suprasses similar projects. Surfing the internet on websites like V-band, Henk searched for people who shared his musical ideas. Sending back and forth audio files over the internet can give awkward results – I know all about it, it’s a stumbling block – but the music that all these musicians created sounds like it was recorded simultaneously in one studio. Undoubtedly Henk’s productional background played a role in this case. Henk himself, prefers to call this genre ”progressive pop,” maybe because the melody lines are accessible, there are uncomplicated drums, and an especially fine voice in Ky Fifer. A shortened version of ‘How Wrong’ once on the radio as a kind of alternative Time Bandits would be great. The next song ‘Dance The Night Away’ can be released as a single. The uptempo “You Never Look Over Your Shoulder” sounds like it might come from the Buggles repertoire, ‘How I Love My iPad “in which the song is sung thru a horn in pure Trevor Horn-style. Henk, if you read this review I have a point of criticism: the album is a little too long to hold our attention. You want as many songs as are months in a year? Try a year with the four seasons as Vivaldi did! You obviously thought it would be your last project, but it tastes like more are on the way. ‘Never change a winning team’, so I would most definitely maintain your musicians and especially Ky Fifer. On to more recognition … Grandpa!
Want more info on ProgRock Magazine? Check out this link: http://www.iopages.nl/indexnl.html
Redtop Medusa:
Greg and Tiger at Portly Pig Studios have finished a video combining stop motion and flash animation to one of our songs from the Redtop Medusa Project. Check it out:
RedTop Medusa – Nothing At All from Portly Pig Studios on Vimeo.
This is hopefully the first of many videos to come for the Redtop Medusa Project… I know of at least one other one in the works, so stay tuned!
Philhelmon:
We’ve been voted number 6 on Progworld’s website!
Here’s the link if you want to check out Porgworld:
http://www.progwereld.org/cms/de-wereldse-10/
Wilson Fifer Rose:
Our kickstarter, as of the time of this writing, has reached $3,724. Despite the fact that we have one week until it expires, I am extremely thankful to everybody who has supported us. It’s more than I expected and I’m very humbled.
I added Ukelele this week to one of Dustin Rose’s songs and have been tweaking arrangements quite a bit. My goal is to have everything done (as far as recording) by the end of November. Most recently, I’ve been recording Randy Gerhart’s exquisite bass guitar. He adds a great deal to our songs and we are thrilled to have him.
The goal for December is to find a mixing and mastering engineer, finalize album art/ design/ layout and get this thing produced. More on that as things develop!
Star Wars Uncut:
I’ve been working with Greg Nishikawa and Tiger Brooke at Portly Pig Studios on a scene from the new Star Wars Uncut project. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the project, you can read about it here:
Basically they’ve cut the movie Star Wars into 15 second pieces. Each piece is then assigned to/ chosen by an artist who re-imagines it in any style or medium they choose. For our scene, Portly Pig Studios chose stop-motion animated paper puppets. My task was to record the vocals for the updated dialogue and add all the sound. If our scene is chosen to make the final cut, they’ll then overlay the original score. A super fun project that was short and easy. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of those!
“Yoda surprise”, Star Wars Uncut Scene 182 from Portly Pig Studios on Vimeo.
I’ve done a few live Gigs with Dustin Rose and his lovely wife Andrea. Here are a few pictures:
More to come soon.
WILSON FIFER ROSE:
The Wilson, Fifer, Rose kickstarter has launched with great sucess. Here’s the documentaary style video from our kickstarter site:
We met our modest goal of $2,500 within the first 7 hours of launch thanks to a few very generous backers. We are extremely grateful to everybody who has pledged so far. I want to make it clear to all who will pledge and have already pledged that every dollar we get will go towards making the best product we possibly can. Specifically, the guys and I would love it if we could put more money towards mixing and mastering.
Fortunately (and unfortunately) there’s a plethora of affordable companies of varying quality that provide these services. Any money we have will go a long way in paying for a better sounding album. To say we’re stoked is an understatement.
Although we’ve technically met our goal, we were planning on having to cut all kinds of corners just to keep the goal of $2,500 so low being as that’s only about half the cost of making an album the way we’re trying to do it. I’m so suprised by the support we’ve already gotten. It really means a lot to us.
Naked Winery Gig:
No, we wont be naked! That’s the name of the venue! Dustin Rose, his lovely wife Andrea, myself, and possibly some other friends will be playing at the Naked Winery in Hood River on Friday 10-26-12 from 7pm to 10pm. Come check us out. We’ll be doing originals as well as covers with as much vocal harmony as we can possibly squeeze in.
Philhelmon – Radio Interview/ Record Stores:
I’ve been contacted by Rob Kraak from DRTV and RTV radio in Europe for an interview! Henk’s been pushing ”Enjoy…” to radio stations with much success. Evidentally Mr. Kraak works for two regional radio stations in the NL and he’s doing a program on the making of our album! I’ll be inverviewed over Skype with Henk sometime in the next week or two! As soon as the program airs I’ll try to post it.
Henk’s also managed to make contacts in Japan to distribute our album! Progressive rock doesn’t seem big in the US right now, but I’m glad to see that it’s thriving in other countries because it’s always been one of my favorite genres.
That’s it for now!
Live Gigs:
I’ve had some live gigs lately and a few people have informed me that they would have come if they had known about them. Whoops. My bad.
These gigs have been kind of funny in that I’m not really seeking them out right now. Lately they have a way of finding me, usually because a buddy asks me to sit in with them on short notice. I’ll find a way to post upcoming live gigs in the future on this site.
Here are some pics from my most recent live appearances:
Dustin Rose & I @ Starbucks 8-10-12
Alex Arrowsmith & I @ The Party In the Trees (TWO) 8-19-12
Enjoy It While It Lasts/ Henk stuff:
Currently Henk is working on a way of getting the album onto Itunes. For those of you that aren’t fans of CDs (tragic in my opinion), this’ll be your ticket to score some sweet tunes for download!
Also, Philhelmon hasn’t stopped producing songs even though “Enjoy It While It Lasts” has been completed. I’m still doing some musical odds and ends with Henk under that moniker. The man is a fountain of music, and he is still interested in having my input/ voice for some of his songs. The next tune will probably incorporate Dustin Rose and maybe some other rad peeps from my ever expanding circle of musical buddies. Stay tuned for that.
That’s it for now!
I received my shipment of “Enjoy it While It Lasts” cds in the mail, and have mailed them out to all of my fantastic kickstarter supporters! Expect to recieve them before August 1st!
Simply put, the packaging is stellar. I can’t believe how great it all turned out. I’ve always been a big fan of album art myself. I loved taking out the inserts and reading the lyrics, and seeing who played what instrument, and who wrote what song etc, despite our living in a world of itunes and amazon downloads. I’m a huge fan of album art and physically being able to hold an album. It’s very satisfying.
Did I mention that the CD sounds great too? Want to get your hands on it? Go here.
