Highlights of the Lowlands 2: Alamo Race Track Part 2
Alamo Race Track (Part 2) July 10, 2009, 10:50 PM Views: 672
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 Despite spending a lot of time abroad, Alamo Race Track never turned their back to the lowlands. In 2006, the band hooked up with Blues Brothers Castro, not only sharing the bill but also a single.
‘Leon (Caren), the vocalist of Blues Brothers Castro, is a guy who always organizes all kinds of things – organizes live music, organizes small festivals, a magazine that’s been released, monthly, I think, and he’s got a small record label he uses to release things. Just someone who’s organizing things all the time, on his own, without a record company. And they’re also from Amsterdam, so you run into each other. So one time it just happened. I think he was planning to release a vinyl single with a new song, and asked if we would like to put a new song of ours on the single as well. So that’s what happened.’
Moreover, Excelsior co-founder Ferry Roseboom came up with the idea of organizing evenings for Excelsior bands, just to have some fun.
‘It happened at Tivoli (Utrecht), not only on the big stage but on the small stage as well; the big stage, the small stage and the basement at Paradiso (Amsterdam). But, because there were so many musicians, the idea was to perform in the dressing room as well, as some kind of extra surprise for the audience. It happens all the time now – but back then it was completely new and the whole event was filmed – I don’t know who did that – but the film ended up on the Internet. And our French record company, Fargo, found out about it and – basically as a joke – put it on YouTube. Record companies back then only just realised that YouTube might be a good medium for promotional issues. So, either as a joke or as a test, they put it on YouTube to see what would happen. They told the people in France ‘you should see that film’ and suddenly, maybe because it was all so new, loads of people were watching it. When a film on YouTube is popular it’s on top of the list, and even more and more people were watching. So it just happened. We didn’t even know the film was put on YouTube and only found out about it when it was watched so many times.’
Another unconventional tour the band did was the Night Writers tour.
'It’s an initiative from a couple of writers. What writers usually do, readings in libraries and community centres, they wanted to make it a bit more fun, spice it up a little. That’s how Night Writers started. So writers didn’t read their work in libraries, but at music venues. And to make it a bit more fun, some of them invited musicians. So we did a small tour with them as well.'
In spite of performing everywhere, with everyone, a year in the life of Alamo Race Track is a bit more regular than one would expect. ‘ I think we perform in Holland, Belgium and France most often and recently in Germany as well; our new record – but the old ones too – will be released there. We play in France most of all ecause that’s the biggest country and it’s realizable logistically. Performing in the US is brilliant of course, but it’s so far away. You can only tour the US when you stay there for a couple of months and we never really wanted that. It’s just a consideration whether you can make it or not when it comes to time and organization.
Maybe we’ve been a bit spoilt as well because of the success in France. You got a great reception, good hotels, good venues. If you start a tour in the United States then – it’s such a big country – and if you’re not quite big yourself then you’re starting from scratch. You perform at small venues, where four other bands will perform the same evening as well. You’ve got to be tough if you really want to succeed. When there are festivals in Austin or New York, we just go. (But) we didn’t stay there for months; it was just back and forth. Every now and then just for a week. But apart from that it’s just too big an investment to be there for months.
It’s just the way things go. We never thought ‘we’ve got a new album out, let’s try to make it in England’. Things just happen. You get invited for something and once you’re there, you get invited for something else. And then it depends mostly on logistical issues and distance.’
In six months time the band will hit the stage again, but this time, it’s a different kind of stage.
‘At the moment we’re working on a new album, but we’re also making music for a stage show, a theatre production, 'Innenschau'. It’s going to be a dance performance, accompanied by our music, we’re going to perform there live and that’s also going to be released as an album but that one will be slightly different. So we’re working on those things simultaneously.’
‘(Concerning) the record – Ralph and I are both working on it. And we hope to record the songs we made at home in a studio, probably with the same musicians as before, but also with a couple of new guys. It needs to be recorded by September and will be released simultaneously with the première of the stage show. The promotion tour for the record is going to be after the stage show.
It’s mainly Ralph and I who writes the songs, sometimes with a little help from David. (This) record is going to be even more like that. So Ralph and I work together and in the end the band adjusts to the songs. The band is never really just the four of us anyway, there are always more musicians. For some time we’ve been joined by a violist, a cellist, a trombonist, a percussionist and two female singers. All of them will join us; sometimes all of them at once, at other times it’s just the female singers or the percussionist. It’s just what the music needs at that time.’
‘The (theatre) show will première in January, so I think the record may be released a bit earlier but it won’t be that much earlier. That’s the thing with theatres; it’s all been booked months ahead. The première was confirmed for January a year ago; same with the sixty performances in theatres after that, it’s all been confirmed. So from December to May we’re performing the stage show full-time. The record is going to be released by then as well and maybe we could give it a bit of publicity during the afternoons, or at evenings we don’t play. But the accompanying tour is going to start off in May.
We’re collaborating with director Jakop Ahlbom, he’s a young theatre producer who – after two, three years – is finally getting a bit more successful. And he’s got the budget to do bigger stage shows now as well. It’s not going to be a musical and it’s not going to be a theatre show with the usual script. The only lines used will be our lyrics. He’s someone who works with visual aspects and dance and décor. For a large part it’s going to be a dance performance. There are nine dancers and three actors in this theatre group. So it’s going to be a lot of dance and visuals. It’s not a story with background music, more like music and dance.’
‘This theatre show is a real challenge to us, because we have never done anything like this before. Just to see how it works and what’s different. And besides, we also play with other bands quite a lot. The perfect thing for Alamo to do is to get all the musicians you gathered around, to involve them all (with Alamo).’
Being in a small country in a time you won’t sell billions of copies of your albums means it’s not that easy to make a living as a musician. But being in a small country does have its advantages.
‘In the end you have to perform two, three times a week if you want to earn a living from music. It’s possible; it’s possible with Alamo too. It’s not possible once you’re working on an album, but then we’re all doing other projects so you’ll be able to survive. You do have to perform quite a lot, but that’s a fun thing to do, so it’s okay. Especially in the Dutch music scene, if you’ve been there long enough, you always know someone who’s starting a new project and needs a guitarist, or a vocalist. So that way it is possible.
I think it might be the same in the music scene of New York plus they have the advantage of being in a big country to perform. Holland is quite small. If you release an album here there are maybe thirty, forty main venues and that’s about it. So at times it is a pity it’s so small. You’ve been everywhere in no time. Especially with a band like ours you have to perform abroad, because it’s just too small here.’
To summarize the story of Alamo Race Track, things just happen and when they do, they happen to be good. They happened to be in a band who earned themselves national exposure and a record deal, they happened to be asked for showcases all around the world and even musically, things just happen as they go along. There must be something you could possibly say about the albums, despite not fitting in one specific genre.
‘I think the first record, ‘Birds at Home’, is more introspective. It was just what happened because of the things Ralph, David and I made up at home. The second album sounds more like a band. We wanted the record to start in the studio, not thinking about all kinds of layers, just something that needed to start life in one room. I think that’s the main difference between those two records. We played together in the studio for our second album, while the first one was done piece by piece.
I think the second album also sounds a bit happier, but that’s probably due to the way we worked. The first record contains a couple of songs that could have been on the second one. And the second one contains songs that could have been on the first one. The main difference is the way we worked. Whether you want to put everything together piece-by-piece or you want to grab the atmosphere, which makes it a bit happier. It makes a song change. I think that’s the main difference.’
'Innenschau', in theatres from January 2010
January 23 - January 27 - Theater aan de Slinge, Houten
February 1 - February 3 - Zaantheater, Zaandam
February 5 - February 6 - De Verbeelding, Purmerend
February 9 - February 13 - Toneelschuur, Haarlem
February 16 February 18 - Theater Kikker, Utrecht
February 19 - Schouwburg de Meerse, Hoofddorp
February 20 - Rabotheater, Hengelo
February 23 - Cultuurcentrum, Hasselt (Belgium)
February 24 - De Lampegiet, Veenendaal
February 25 - De Porterij, Zaltbommel
February 26 - Zaantheater, Zaandam
February 27 - De Lawei, Drachten
March 2 - March 3 - Theater aan het Spui, Den Haag
March 4 - Isala Theater, Capelle aan den IJssel
March 5 - De Lieve Vrouw, Amersfoort
March 6 - Theater Lux, Nijmegen
March 10 - Theater de Stoep, Spijkenisse
March 11 - Stadsschouwburg, Amstelveen
March 12 - Chasse Theater, Breda
March 13 - De Vest, Alkmaar
March 16 - Goudse Schouwburg, Gouda
March 17 - Theater Tilburg, Tilburg
March 19 - Arsenaaltheater, Vlissingen
March 25 - Odeon de Spiegel, Zwolle
March 26 - March 27 - Schouwburg, Rotterdam
March 31 - Odeon de Spiegel, Zwolle
April 1 - April 3 - Laktheater, Leiden
April 7 - De Veste, Delft
April 8 - Schouwburg, Almere
April 9 - Music Sacrum, Arnhem
April 10 - Agnietenhof, Tiel
April 13 - De Harmonie, Leeuwarden
April 14 - Parktheater, Eindhoven
April 15 - De Hanzehof, Zutphen
April 16 - Schouwburg Kunstmin, Dordrecht
April 17 - Schouwburg de Kring, Roosendaal
April 21 - Stadsschouwburg, Groningen
April 22 - Parktheater, Alphen aan den Rijn
April 23 - April 24 - Koningstheater, Den Bosch
April 26 - April 29 - Theater Bellevue, Amsterdam
May 1 - May 2 - Theater Bellevue, Amsterdam
Last edited by altsounds : July 13, 2009 at 10:42 PM.
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