That's it for now, people.
Listen to the O'Jays.
Cheers,
Rene
Hello people of good taste!
What?! An update so soon? It's been only four months! How did that come about?
Well, quite a lot happened after we recovered from our massive hang over from the party.
After our little celebration we carried on with our Dutch tour with Jaya The Cat and San Andreas which we wrapped up quite well at the W2 in Den Bosch.
Then we went on our second tour of South Africa at the end of April, beginning of May. Like the first time it was an amazing experience again. And I would like to take the opportunity to thank a couple of people who made the two week trip such a blast.
First of all, of course, our South African manager (the only one we have.....) Leon Retief. Second, our tour manager extra ordinaire Albert Meintjes. And third, all the bands we played with: My Favorite Weapon, Japan And I, Black October and our good friends Hog Hoggidy Hog. It was legendary again!
When we got home we did our best show ever in our home town The Hague at the Kade Rock Festival. The place was steaming and we were sweating.
Shortly after that we got a phone call from Leon telling us that we were confirmed for the Oppikoppi Festival in South Africa! Yes, we are asked back again! We will play the Most Amazing Myn Stage at the festival on Saturday August 11. Before that we will play a warm up show at Cool Runnings in Melville Johannesburg. How about that?
After this little tour we're planning on a couple of things for this fall. Most importantly finishing writing for our new, fifth, album. We're about eight songs into the process and working on another five or so, so we're getting there. Slowly, but we're getting there. We're planning on recording in December or January.
Ok, we're off packing.
Listen to the new Bifffy Clyro.
Cheers,
Cooper
Dear listeners,
Yesterday we celebrated our 15 years
of existence here in The Hague.
The good people from Kung Fu Records Europe arranged everything and we didn’t know shit until in the last week before the 8th we got weird questions from people like, ‘Could you mail we the lyrics for ‘C’mon Give It Up’, or ‘What exactly is that chord you play there in ‘Ship Ahoy’? Obviously we knew something was going to happen, but what?
Well, let me assure you that it was the best night we ever had!! The place was packed with friends and bands and everybody was really happy.
Some highlights? The whole night was a highlight, but here we go:
And that’s why we want to thank all the bands and people who made this possible from the bottom of our hearts:
Didi, Lenneke, Remco, Boozy, Peter,Jeroen, NRA, The Undeclinables, Green Lizard, Di-Rect and Burma Shave.
Thank you so much for doing this! It really was the best night we ever had!!
Cooper
When it's close to a year since your last site update, it's about time to write something, isn't it?
But that's the thing with MySpace, you spent time on that site approving friend requests and everything and so you have the feeling your updating everyday, but you're not.
Anyway, what happened the last couple of months? After we came back from South Africa, we did a short tour in Italy with a great band called Afterhours and our old aquaintences from Linea 77. To make a long story short; We LOVE Italy! Whether it's the food, the people or the bands. Everyting's great. There are plans to go back there in July, so let's keep our fingers crossed.
We also did a fantastic show at our friend Toby's place the Stockumer Schule in Voerde, Germany.
Then we went to France for the first time in years. It was the first time for Jeroen to come with us as understudy for Bertus and he had a blast. He did great as well, by the way. In France we met the Rebel Assholes, who arranged all the shows (Thank you Matthieu!) and The Uncommonmenfrommars both bands were great and lovely people. We also did a show on our own in Limoges. That took us an eight our drive, but it was well worth it. Especially the food afterwards. We will come back soon, we promise.
In the meantime in The Netherlands we did shows with our friends Green Lizard and San Andreas and worked on new songs. We're about eight songs into a new album and are demo-ing to see where we are right now. In January our blood brothers from Hog Hoggidy Hog from South Africa did their second European tour and did four shows in The Netherlands. It was really good seeing the again and playing with them again. We're working on going back to their country as well.
And right now we're in the middle of the Converse Choose Your Weapon IV tour with (again) San Andreas and ska-busters Jaya The Cat. The tour is going great and we're having a lot of fun with the bands. It's also our first real tour of the Netherlands in about ten years. So, you could say it was about time.
And that was the live of your favorite chamber orchestra Cooper of the last half year in a nutshell. Not bad, ey?
Let's just hope it won't take me this long next time.
I'm listening to a band called Chomsky. They seem to have split, but their album Let's Get To Second is downright genius!
Cheers,
René
Hello Everybody!
Here's the annual newsletter of your favorite bluegrass combo Cooper.
So, what have we been doing?
We did our first tour of South Africa. And it was absolutely
fantastic!. We've been treated very well by all the South African
people. You can read a full report above. But I want to use this space
to thank a couple of people specifically: Leon, for making it happen,
All the Hogs (and that includes Tim) for being the great people they
are, Huge Bill, Ampie from Fuzigish, Melissa from Blunt Mag and
everyone at K-TV.
After that we went to Italy to play with Afterhours and Linea 77 which
was also great thanks to Cecca (and everyone at Mescal) and both
bands. There will be pictures from both tours up soon.
In the meantime we've been doing a couple of shows with Green Lizard
and San Andreas and those are a tremendous amount of fun, so there'll
be more of those in the near future, To begin with May 11 in Delft
with Green Lizard.
In other news: Cooper's up on MySpace (finally) and the address is: http://www.myspace.com/coopertheband.
Check us out and become our friend! And thank you Lenneke. Vincent's computer is still making overtime rendering all the things he recorded for the video. But he's getting there. And to proof it here's a still.
That's it for now, people.
Listen to the O'Jays.
Cheers,
Rene
Hello people!
So, we're about to leave for South Africa and we're looking forward to it!
For all you Dutch Cooper listeners: I'll be writing a diary for www.3voor12.nl
and will update every day.
Talk to you in about two weeks!
Cheers,
René
Hello people!
Your favorite free jazz combo Cooper needs your help.
We are currently on the playlist of South African indie radio station Tuks FM.
This is really cool, but we want to hit the South African top 40!
And for that we need you, as loyal Cooper devotee, to send an e-mail to trt@tuksfm.co.za and request 'C'mon Give It Up' from Cooper.
Cooper in the hitparade.....that'll be the day.......
Cheers,
René
Hello Cooper Listeners,
From now on I won't apologize anymore for being late and/or sloppy
with my updates. I will never change, so there's no use for apologies
anyway.
What have we done since November? We've made some new friends in the form of the young and upcoming Dutch band San Andreas. It's always good to see a new band getting it. To see a band doing it just right. See what I mean at: http://www.sanandreas-web.com. We did a show with Green Lizard and San Andreas in Tilburg, which was nice, eventhough my voice sucked that night. The show in Utrecht at the Stairway To Heaven was really cool as was our last show of 2005 in Rotterdam with Fifth Column and (again) San Andreas.
But, there's more coming up.....from March 3 'till March 11 Cooper will join South African friends Hog Hoggidy Hog on a tour in their country. Yep, that's right; Cooper is going to tour South Africa! We will see cities like Johannesburg and Cape Town, we will play places like Mystic Boer.
And, no that isn't enough, because your favorite baroque ensemble Cooper will shoot their first ever video! The song will be 'C'mon Give It Up' from our latest album 'Makes Tomorrow Alright' and it will be partially animated/partially 'flesh and blood'. It's directed by Vincent Fitz-Jim who also did the Beyond 93 clip. As soon as it's finished we'll put it up here for all you people to watch.
And las but not least; new Italian dates are coming up for end of March/beginning of April. Stay tuned for details.
I've been listening to the new Cardiacs live albums for the last two months and everyone has to buy them....NOW! (http://www.cardiacs.com)
Cheers,
Rene
Hello music lovers!
Yes, I know, I’m late again with informing you on the adventures of your favourite death sympho trio Cooper.
Well, we finished our summer tour of Europe in september. We saw a lot of highway and made a lot of friends. The tour with Social Distortion was incredible! We’ve been treated so well by everyone on the tour. Wether it was Social D. and their crew, Backyard Babies and their crew or all the local promotors in England, Germany and Switzerland everyone was great. When we said goodbye to all those lovely people we went on to play with The Real McKenzies and Far From Finished in Cologne, which was great fun again. We also did two Swiss shows and there we met Hog Hoggidy Hog from South Africa and Nguru from Switzerland. A big thank you to the people from Leech*Redda as well for everything they did. Last but not least; we ended our summer of rock in Bologna, Italy where we played with Linea 77 and almost drank oursleves to death.
A special announcement for all the people in Leeuwarden: We DO exist, it’s just that apparently there is some bigger force preventing us from playing in our lovely (old) home town and I’m really sorry we had to cancel again. We will do our utter best to make up for this, I promise.
On the sunnier side of things: We are very pleased and honoured to be one of the bands to play on the CD release party of Green Lizard on the 3rd of November. Hope to see you there!
Cheers,
René
Good Day Friends!
Help us beat the French, Brits, Italians and Austrians and vote for
your favorite beat band right here: www.europunk.net.
Thank you so much!
Cheers,
René
Hello listeners!
It was about time I wrote some words to inform all you beautiful
people about the latest developments of your favorite free-jazz combo
Cooper.
Ok, so what's been going on?
After I left the hospital on wednesday we did our first show in
Dordrecht on friday June 10. This was a truly great show if only for
the mere fact that I was there. But it was also a great show because
it felt as if Dordrecht is our hometown, instead of Den Haag. Thank
you people from Dordrecht!
The show with Anti-Flag on the 22nd was a weird one. We played alright, but during the songs everybody was just looking at us as if we were from another planet. So, we were thinking 'they hate us'. But when a song ended the cheering was quite loud. Besides that I got in a little quarrel with a guy, because I apparantly spit on his girlfriend. I said sorry when he pointed it out to me, but that didn't seem quite enough for the young punker, 'cause he spent the rest of the show giving me dirty looks (you can get killed for that in my neighboorhood, by the way). His girlfriend didn't seem to mind that much, though. And his friend had to laugh as much as I did. But still, sorry mate, won't happen again.
A week later we left for Ireland to do four (turned out three) shows with our good friends The Pennywhores. There will be a full report on those dates on this site soon, but I would like to take the opportunity to thank Niall, Eric, Niallo, Steven, Eoin and Kirsty, Mr. and Mrs. Quinn and all the other good people from Limerick for three absolutely fantastic days in their beautiful country. We'll be back!
Right now we're getting prepared for our little holiday with Social Distortion and The Backyard Babies. This is going to be such a blast! I will keep you posted as much as I can with a tour report on this site. In the meantime come say hi to us at the Social D. shows. We'll be hanging around the merch stand, I think.
I've made a new guestbook, because the old one was being spammed and I had lost the passwords to manage it and get rid of that junk. Please make us look populair and sign it, we love that. And listen to Louis XIV (Best Little Secrets Are Kept) as well.
Cheers,
René
Hello there music people!
So, I'm back. Alive and well.
What happened? Last friday ,June 3, I suffered from a mild stroke
called a TIA. This means that for a short period of time part of the
brain doesn't get enough blood. When it happened I called 112 (or 911,
whatever you want) and the ambulance took me to the hospital. They
took all tests known to man just to discover that there was nothing
wrong with me! Apparently all this was 'just' bad luck. Bad luck that
scared the living shit out of me, but especially everyone around me. I
was released from the hospital last tuesday and now I'm home mainly
figuring out what the fuck happened! Consequently Cooper had to cancel
last weekends shows. Sorry, 'bout that. We'll make it up.
I want to thank everybody for all the support and all the 'get well'
messages that reached me through every form of digital commmunication.
That really means a lot to me!
And now on to the good news. And good news it is.
Hold on to your seat, because............
Your favorite skiffle group Cooper will be support act on the whole
European tour of.....SOCIAL DISTORTION!!!!!!!
Yes, that's right we are going on tour with Social D. and Backyard
Babies in August!! I'll keep you posted about the details which will
follow soon.
Can you fucking believe it???
Me neither......
Life is full of suprises, but isn't it beautiful?
Cheers,
Rene
Good Day Listeners!
Here's a little update from your favorite AOR trio Cooper
As you can see new dates are added vitrually every week. And we've
done some already of which the show in Oss and the one with
Millencolin were the most interesting. The first because bass guitar
duties were handled by Danny that day and he did a truly marvelous
job! You can see him rocking out on the pictures from that show on the
photo section. Danny will do it again on June 8 at De Bazart in The
Hague where Cooper will play with Israelian labelmates Useless ID and
French punkrockers Straight Away. By the way; wouldn't it be funny for
'De Groene Engel' (the venue in Oss) to organize a festival called
'OssFest'? I think it would. The Millencolin show was interesting,
because we broke the record in loading in, setting up, soundchecking,
playing, loading out. Everything within the hour! There are some
really nice pictures taken at that show by Tim.
In July we'll be heading for our first Irish (mini) tour! Our good friend Niall Quinn set up three shows with his Pennywhores. You can see the dates and venues in the little amp on the left. In september we'll do two shows in Switzerland with NGURU. Details of those dates are in the Marshall cabinet as well. In the meantime Kink FM radio is supporting us every way they can and we really appreciate that. Thank you! However, that other radio station, Radio 3, isn't ignoring us either. That's why we're asked to do a live session at VPRO radio/Club 3voor12 on June 1st. Tune in or come see us. It's free!! We also made a new 'press' section on this site. Check out what other people think about us and the new album.
Ok, that's it for now. Hope to see you at one of our shows. Come and say hi. Listen to The High Speed Scene....now!
Cheers,
Rene
Hello there music lovers!
Ok, so we have some news to share. First, we've been added to the bill of the
Millencolin show next wednesday April 13 in Paradiso in Amsterdam! Besides
Millencolin we'll be sharing the bill with Lawrence Arms and Street Dogs.
Second, we'll also be playing the Anti-Flag show on June 22 in Melkweg in,
again, Amsterdam. Third, Our 'single' 'Ship Ahoy' entered the Outlaw 41 charts
on Kink FM at 28! Fourth, 'Makes Tomorrow Alright' has been made album of the
week by the good people of the Live XS show on that same Kink FM radio station!
(Thanks for your support!) They'll be playing tracks of the album all week,
will give away tickets for the Cooper show with Millencolin and I will be
interviewed live on the show tonight, so make sure you tune in.
Ok, that's it for now and don't forget: 'Makes Tomorrow Alright' will be in stores in Europe this monday, April 11!
Cheers,
René
Hello everybody!!
Welcome to the completely new and improved Cooper Head Quarters Website!
We have loads of news, so here we go…….
As most of you know by now we recorded our fourth album with none other then Bill Stevenson. We recorded it in The Hague and then Bill took the tapes (well, hard disk) back to Colorado to mix everything in the infamous Blasting Room. After a while mixes flooded our inbox, while Bill sent them as Mp3 for us to listen to it. And, obviously, they sounded GREAT! Of fifteen songs we had four minor things we wanted to change in the mix. Just four little things in fifteen songs.
We quickly came to a sequence of twelve songs and a title. Cooper’s fourth record will be called ‘Makes Tomorrow Alright’. Bill mastered the record. And then it was ready. Ready to be sent to all the record companies we had on the list. On top of the list was Kung Fu Records, while Kung Fu owner (and Vandals bassist) Joe Escalante had already shown interest when he heard that Bill Stevenson was going to produce the record. And we would love to be on a great label like Kung Fu. Because Bill and Joe know each other we asked Bill to sent two masters out. One to us and one to Joe. A couple of days later we received a one sentence e-mail, saying: ‘Sounds great, what’s the plan?’ A deal was born. And that’s why we can officially call ourselves a Kung Fu band from now on. The great Tony Vitali at Kung Fu US made the unbelievably beautiful artwork for ‘Makes Tomorrow Alright’ (which you can see as artwork for this new website). The record will be released on April 11th on the continent and May 9th in the UK and Japan. Can you believe that??? Don’t worry, we can’t either….
To support the release of the record we have already booked some shows which you can find in the little boy’s amp. There’ll be more added all the time, so keep checking in.
Ok, that’s it for now; I should think that’s enough for one news flash. We’ll be back soon and in the meantime listen to the new Biffy Clyro record. Until April 11th of course…….
Cheers,
René