When I record music, it seems to be mostly me, myself and I, and a lot of instruments, non-instruments, and whatever I find usefull to make music...
Live it's just me and my guitar, sometimes being helped by some very cool people... The current line-up of the Contemporary Christian Muzak collective consists of people like Myself, Bram B, Micha M, Dirk Banken, and maybe also Fleur or Nicky Lauwerijssen:
Influences
In semi-chronological order from my teen years till now: the cranberries, nirvana (unplugged), Bob Dylan, U2, sting, madness, mark knopfler/dire straits, John Lennon, dEUS, moondog Jr, sixteen horsepower, think of one, larry norman, Elly & Rikkert, stef Bos, soul-junk, Johnny Cash, wovenhand, John Michael Talbot, nederbiet-muziek, pedro the lion, Irisch folk music, Tuvan throat singers, white stripes, spinvis, sigur ros, sufjan stevens, danielson, half-handed cloud, psalters, anathallo, rosie thomas...
One fine day a guy named Bram Cools started to play on an old crappy guitar, and the obvious next step for him was to make his own songs and record them onto a tape. To do that he didn't only use the guitar, but sometimes he tried other instruments to make some sounds with them that could by some be described as music... So there were some tapes of which he made very few copies ('Bram C: avonturen in lofi', 'BRAM: ....@<%>@**][' and finally some kind of compilation tape with the name of 'the irresistible 21st century virgin boy') which contained a lot of not so wel-recorded lofi singersongwriter-stuff and some weird experimental interludes... Not much sound quality and sometimes a bit out of tune, but hey, lofi is cool!!
When you make music you also have to play it from time to time, so the obvious next step here was to play this music live, using different names, usually as 'the irresistible 21st century virgin boy' or just under his own name, and one time he formed a duo called the 'pro-christ antifolk revival', but that name did only last for one show (at the startforum festival '04) Later it just became Bram C(ools) or 'the irresistible 21st century virgin boy' even there were more people there to play the songs...
He learned how to play and sing better til it was kind of acceptable, and he found out how to record his music with different tools and then put his music on CD instead of the old tapes. Still lofi and not too professional but a lot better for most of the people sinds cassete tapes are so old-fashioned these days... But some of the old songs are still being played now... Songs in english, songs in dutch, songs about people, songs about love, songs about this society, songs about girls, songs about God... Playing live he also sings some songs written by Bob Dylan, 16 horsepower, Stef Bos, daniel Johnston and occasionally even soul-junk.
He also formed a new ensemble to play some of the more "God-focussed' songs -which were sometimes recorded with a lot of instruments- in a bigger format, and so the 'Contemporary Christian Muzak collective' (CCMc) was born, with some great musicians -being great friends too- who like to have fun and try to play some beautiful intense music that may make a connection bethween the listener and his Creator...
Bram is still living in a quiet little village close to the city of Antwerp, and still writing, playing and recording songs, and wondering about music, life, God and love... The irresistible 21st century virgin boy is still singing his soings on this hostile and fallen planet, and his CCM collective is still trying to make some creative noises for the Father of Creativity and for human ears who want to hear them...
the story is surely to be continued one day...
view www.bramcools.tk for more info (under construction) !!! my new CD "BRAM COOLS presents CCM III: sketche for LITURGY" can be downloaded there right now !!!!
shalom
Hey Bram, enjoyed your new song -- good humor :-) Hope all is well with you. I am still back and forth to Antwerp so one of these days we'll meet up. Keep me emailed with shows you are doing?
And maybe check out my friend's new Hot Yoga studio sometime, on Lange Klarenstraat off the Meir: Hot Yoga Antwerp it's a totally new way of working out :-)
Hoi Bram, eindelijk is het zover: in september ga ik de studio in om m'n eerste single op te nemen. Ik zou graag willen weten welk liedje, van de zeven die nu op m'n pagina staan, volgens jou het meest in aanmerking komt. Onder de respondenten verloot ik tien singles. :-) Groeten, Sven
We bereikten zonet #9 in "De Afrekening" met onze nieuwe single "Yesmen". Beluister en bekijk de video op onze myspace pagina! En stem gerust even hier: http://www.stubru.be/node/613 :)
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