Frank van der Helm (guitar, bass guitar, vocals, lyrics, programming)
Friends for making music Smietsie, Laura, San,
Influences
All music and noises that surrounds us. Albums I bought recently or play a lot are Ane Brun, Goran Bregovic, Edmiliana Torrini, Morcheeba, Portishead, Jeff Buckly, Jack Johnson, Gogol Bordello, Louis Armstrong, Ray Lamontagne, Gabriel Rios, Maria Mena and Royksop, James Brown, Michael franti, Ben Harper, Mala vita, Bebel Gilberto and many more.
Sounds Like
Home brewn singer-songwriter 's stuf
Watch more Bojev van Winden collective video's by searching Bojev on You tube
The name Helmlet is given to my by two frieds making fun of me when I was writing my first song. Looking back on it they quite right to make fun of me. I now use this name to remind me not to take things to seriously in all creative things I do.
Singer Songwrtiter
I started writing songs as a bass guitar player in my first band Miscellaneous back in 1996. In 2004 I started playing and recording some of the songs I had written. I felt earlier that some of my songs were just to much me, but it had taken me many years to learn how to sing and play guitar.
The songs I write always show a strong link between lyrics and music. It are more or less adventures and thoughts put to music, short stories that visualise images while listening.
Stories about love, politics, visions on life in this strange ugly beautifull thing called human society. Like the story about the man that misses his train, starts playing his guitar and receives some change from a vagebond.
Another story about a little fish that ends up infertile by undersee nuclear tests.
Recently I started writing my songs both in English and Dutch. Writing in english offers me a distance to achieve completing the lyrics, translation to Dutch confronts with the full emotion en shows the essence of the lyric.
Bands
My first instrument is bassguitar. I have played bassguitar in Miscellaneous, Scrambled, Stereotype and E*line. I have tried to play cello a bit in Cortege du sage and right now I am drummer in a rockband called Bojev. You can watch Bojev and Cortege du sage at http://www.youtube.com
DJ
I have been a DJ for more than 12 years now. There were times I played music weekly at Nederland 3, alternative 90's mainly then. Since I like many more styles of music I like it best to glue these styles together. Styles I use are alternative festival music, genuine 50's rock and roll, surf, funk, hardcore, punk, chemical beats, soul, drum n base, lounge, jazz, Balkan folk, trip hop, reggae, hip hop, dance classic's and salsa. These days I play mainly in pub's and at parties.
Art
As in my songs the inspiration for my art projects comes from nature, society, love and other emotions I experience. I give away paintings or just drop them somewhere in the city. Sometimes I make constructions like a television that I have turned into a puppetshow or a windmill promoting people to think about our energy supply. This object you can see on the web at www.watstaatdaarinhetpark.nl.
Poetry
Sometimes I try to put the essence of my thoughts in a song but it ends up being something more a bit like poetry. Some of it you can read as a blog entry.
Delighted to be friends. In case you like the likes of Pogues, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys & Gogol Bordello, you are well advised not to miss out on CIRCLE J (Holland) and DREADNOUGHTS (Canada) on their joint tour:
Hallo Helmlet, Tot 14 november 2008 kan er digitaal ingeschreven worden voor de GPZH 2009. Er zijn prijzen in de categorieën Dance/Producers, Urban, Singer/Songwriter en Bands. Please spread the word!
Heeey! Was leuk om je weer te spreken, wel even laten weten wanneer je er vandoor gaat he! Ga thuis je liedjes even beluisteren :) ben beniewd! gr. Esther
Merci pour l'ajout et a bientôt sur la route Dionysos
Nous reprenons la route pour 5 derniers concerts : 17 Octobre : Istres 18 Octobre : Lausanne 24 Octobre : Le Havre 25 Octobre : Amiens 3 Novembre : Paris Zénith
Vrijdag spelen wij in Delft in Café Verderop (met supportact). De eerste band zal om 23.00u spelen en wij ergens daarna. Het adres is Westvest 9 (tegenover het station).
Vrijdag 29 feb treedt LJT op in NL3. Na afloop van de set gaan we lekker vrijblijvend jammen met band en liefhebbers. Mocht je zin en tijd hebben, kom je dan ook meespelen??!!!