--------------BELGIAN PROGRESSIVE ROCK presents :------------------------------- 
---------------------MINDGAMES & WALLPAPER POETS--------------------------------

1. INTERVIEW WITH BART SCHRAM, MINDGAMES (AND EX-WALLPAPER POETS)
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In Flanders there are only two groups to be known to be involved with and with 
interested in symphonic music, Mindgames and Wallpaper Poets, both from 
Antwerpen. There is not much interest yet for this genre. Flanders never had any 
real progressive music scene to be stimulated as a movement. There are a few 
clubs that accepted such music, there hardly was any interest. Famous music 
magazines, Bart confirmed, rather prefer to talk about progressive rock as 
"these old dinosaurs" than to take even old groups, like Jethro Tull, very 
seriously. It is as if such music that was typical for the seventies can't be 
made any more. Bart told me it were new groups like especially Flower Kings° and 
Spock's Beard that stimulated them to continue with this kind of music. Luckily 
thanks to the upcoming interest for labels like Musea Records there are created 
new possibilities.
Bart Schram was / is involved in both groups I mentioned before. Where Wallpaper 
Poets evolved to a one-man group, Mindgames now became the only existing 
symphonic music group from Flanders. In Wallonie there is much more interest for 
the genre. The group is also invited by the famous Spirit of 66 (Verviers).

PVHF : Talking about your influences, Flower Kings, the Swedish new symphonic 
group inspired by Genesis / Marrilion with emphasis on the guitars also have a 
certain tendency to emphasize a certain melodic part of the music. How much is 
there a balance in your group with the melodic part ?

BS : Not all progressive groups have that same attention for melody. Other 
groups for instance like Anekdoten have other inspirations, like metal. But we 
preferred to bring the melody back to the fore.

PVHF : It still is strange that a group like yours came to existence in Belgium. 
You yourself were involved longer in symphonic music -(referring to The 
Wallpaper Poets)-.

BS :  Since 1995 I was part of The Wallpaper poets who on that time was the only 
group in this genre in Flanders. After that I searched for other people that had 
interest in this genre to make similar music. It took a while to find them. 

PVHF : Does the other members have its former progressive music personal history 
and interest ?

BS : No, they didn't have any personal history but they had their interest. I 
found them trough some announcements in "Koopjeskrant"° (a national newspaper 
made especially for announcements).

PVHF : Did you work a long time on this project ?

BS : Since 1997 we were busy to recruit members. At first it were only Eric, the 
bassplayer and me. We had the goal to create progressive rock with long tracks, 
in a symphonic way. So candidates should have the same interest.

PHFV :  How do you create / compose such songs ?

BS : It is a process comes to creation trough the cooperation in between the 5 
members. Everything is written by the 5 members. There is no particular 
composer. Mostly we start from an idea from a member (a riff on 
guitar/keyboards,..) and trough building up new ideas the whole composition 
arises like building up a puzzle.

PVHF : How much studio time did you use to record your CD ?

BS : In 5/6 weekends we recorded everything, and for the mix itself another 8-10 
days.

PVHF : Who write the texts ?

I do, because as a singer, improvising on the melody, it becomes evident I 
become to write the text lines also.

PVHF : The text from "Selling the moon" especially seems to me digging very 
deeply in a very personal vision, I assume ?

BS : Yes it is. I have an interest in spirituality and a deeper involvement went 
astrology. I adapted various symbols into the text. In the vision of a free 
yourself from materialistic goals trough an anti-materialistic wave is compared 
with the symbolism of the moon, being itself symbol for the personality, 
connected with the 4th house etc.. In such a way this is being expressed.

PVHF : Did you work differently before with Wallpaper Poets ?

BS : Yes, because that group was especially Gerd Willekens group. Now he works 
independently on his own. Before that with the group he also wrote all material. 
Now, with Mindgames it is a composition of the group.

PVHF : Why and how did you choose Musea Records ?

BS : We contacted them. Everybody with interest in progressive music knows the 
label. I think they are the most known label of the genre too. After having 
released our demo CD contacting them had been our first goal. SPV was the second 
we contacted, but it was Musea Records who released it.

Bart explained to me also that the demo was not just a demo released to contact 
the labels, but it was a completely finished product. Musea only added their 
logo. Jean Richo, acquaintance of the drummer Benny, an artist had made a 
painting which struck him. The full group agreed it fitted perfectly with the 
already know title (inspired by Bart) of the album, "international daylight". So 
it was chosen.

PVHF : I also choose for airplay "Factory of Illusions". 

BS : On the CD you can still hear an evolution. In the beginning they didn't 
have a guitarist. So only the first half year of rehearsing they found the 
guitarist. "Factory of Illusions" was the first song that worked with all 5 
musicians. It the most accessible song of the album.

Bart told me the group hoped they also could play in Flanders as well. They have 
worked out a show, complete with lightshow.
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Contact the group : www.mindgames.be  ; Bart Schram : Bart.Schram@egemin.be
My review : http://progressive.homestead.com/prog.html
http://www.prog4you.com/cd-review/mindgames.htm
English : http://www.prog-nose.org/engels/albums_2002/mindgames_international_daylight.htm
Dutch : http://www.prog-nose.org/nederlands/albums_2002/mindgames_international_daylight.htm

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2. INTERVIEW WITH GERD WILLEKENS, WALLPAPER POETS LEADER :
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- Always wondering how much was known to Belgian musicians of the small 
progressive Belgian scene I also asked Gerd from Wallpaper poets what he knew 
about it :-

Gerd : "For the moment it's more a period of looking back. Machiavel just 
released their new CD. But the only really meritorious progressive release to 
mention is Mindgames. Progressive music in Belgium is still unrecognised. From 
the early days only Isopoda, Machiaval are known to me."

Wallpaper Poets had a demo recording in 1998. This was symphonic progressive 
rock with a certain complexity in structure but also a spontaneous performance, 
with a female singer. I asked Gerd about the historical background of the group.

Gerd : "We started this project trying to make more inevitable music, and 
recorded it with a very small budget, all live on DAT in one track except for 
some additional percussion and voices, which were added with help of the studio 
engineer. The result was quiet dynamic. And we succeeded to perform this 
dynamism live."

I asked about some of the songs we played in the show. "Animal in the Machine", 
to start with.

Gerd : "When I was writing the music suddenly in a stream of consciousness I 
thought of the sentence "Shut down your head is falling". The actual text was 
written by a friend musician of mine in England, Peter Richdale, who often has 
absurd text ideas. I had written him a letter (-in those days we still couldn't 
mail but had to write him a letter in the old fashioned way-. I told him about 
the song and the story behind it. It was supposed to be about someone who was 
chatting in cyberspace, fell in love with his chat partner who turned out to be 
a monkey." 

I imagined immediately a powerful video of a song like this but told Gerd that 
sadly we couldn't expect any company to promote such a big project like a video 
with such a song in Belgium. 

Gerd : "The song was often asked or appreciated as a bis number at the group's 
shows. It starts with a recognisable riff in the beginning, has a sudden 
structure change, but then comes back to the earlier musical theme."

PVHF : "Who's the female singer ?"

Gerd : "She was called "Pots" (English = cap). I know her first name was Veerle, 
but everyone called her "Pots" because she worked at the "post"-office and 
always wore a "pots" (= cap)*"

* note : in Dutch the pronunciation of "pots" and "post" is almost the same. 

Gerd had also told me she sang in the opera, but her singing style was a bit 
more influenced by Siouxie & The Banshees. 

PVHF : "Before "Pots" you worked with singer Carmen from (the former) April Sky 
(- note : this was the only psychedelic Folk Pop group in Belgium I know of ; 
the group disbanded in the end of the nineties-) ?"

Gerd : "When Bart Schram left the group Carmen took over his place. I still 
regret it we didn't gave Bart more time in those days. We were so impatient and 
ambitious then. But Bart still is a very good friend, and we have many similar 
ideas. In near future we plan to start with a duo project that we're going to 
call "Individual Intersections".."

PVHF : "What can you tell me about the song "Tried to scare me" ?"

Gerd : "This is one of first songs I composed. It was at first recorded on my 4-
track recorder. We worked it out with the group afterwards. I had the luck to 
have in my group Vladimir Gouskov, the an extremely talented but a very 
difficult person to work with, still a very good friend of mine. I'm still 
working with him. I still regard him as the best guitarist in Belgium, a genius. 
Secondly I had a very strong rhythm section, with bass player Jo Liegeois, and 
drummer Ivo Tops. This very good combination really worked as firework, willing 
to experiment. Take for instance the entry at the song "Drill". I knew Jo 
Liegeois had a bow for his 5/5 string Warwick bass. I asked him to take it with 
him to try it on it. This created that wonderful effect. That's an example how 
we sometimes experimented. Also Vladimir came with his ideas (Gerd now imitates 
Vladimir's suggestions with a heavy Russian accent). The drummer played with a 
metronome on his ears. Vladimir asked then to put the delay in order to the 
metronome. Sometimes it became almost too technical, not always as much 
stimulating for the musical creativity. We often were busy half an hour with 
technical details before we could start to play. That gave conflicts sometimes. 
Half of the group really wanted to start playing live, which was already not 
evident with this kind of music (in Belgium). Vladimir kept on experimenting 
with new sounds all the time, annoying the others. It finally led to the split 
of the group. The time-consuming thing was not so evident for everyone. 
Also : because there was no real scene for our music where we could perform our 
music, and by hanging around day in day out in our rehearsal room this was also 
a challenge for our motivation.

PS. The rehearsal place they used was a professional rehearsal studio in 
Antwerpen, which I knew did also cost a lot for each member each month to rent.

PVHF : "Are there any noticeable influences from other musicians with each 
member's personal style ?"

Gerd : "Vladimir was a big Malmsteen adept. I'm glad this influence never came 
to the fore, because I personally don't like this kind of bloated virtuosity. 
Ivo Tops had won his spurs before in the Belgian scene. He liked to listen to 
big bands (Buddy Rich,..). He was also impressed by Bill Broofer (?) without 
ever imitating him. Jo Liegeois not only played acoustic guitars, but also bass, 
sometimes bowed, he also sang. He was a big Pink Floyd fan. "Pots" liked 
especially Siouxie & The Banshees. Myself I listened a lot for a great deal of 
my life to Yes, without ever wanting to copy anything or to play in their style. 
Musically, as keyboardplayer, I see a great example for Hammond and piano Keith 
Emmerson (note : -both for his work with The Nice and ELP Gerd told me later-). 
But as a complete musician I like very much keyboardplayer Lyle Mays from (the 
jazz fusion group). The Pat Metheny Group. He is not only a virtuoso but he is 
also able to put it into emotion in a perfect way, even it's only with one not 
then it's still perfect. I am still amazed by his orchestral arrangements he 
does with his keyboards, much more than what I experienced with the prog icons, 
like Rick Wakemann or Keith Emmerson,..

PS. Further in the interview and radioshow I noticed some other influence from 
Gerd. He brought with him the orchestral works from Joe Jackson, ("Heaven and 
Hell") and the latest CD from Peter Gabriel, (-worked a long time with his 
former group Genesis, chosen by Gerd here also for his perfect studio work -in 
his own real world studio's- ; -we also talked about the very good studio 
drummer Manu Gatche with whom he did good work in various of his solo releases-). 
This kind of uncategorisable arrangements have similarities in style to what 
Gerd evolved to with his new version of the Wallpaper Papers, and also with his 
newest recordings.

PVHF : "The long track "Drill"...?"

Gerd : "This is our "piece de resistance". I spoke already about the intro of 
this song. It starts with a strange effect sounding like little dogs, played on 
an electronic drum part, by Ivo Tops combined with Jo's bow on his bass. This was 
followed by a soundscape by Vladimir, who was the master in creating such moods 
on his guitar. It seemed that he more often played synthesizer on his guitar 
than guitar. The choir part in the middle part is in fact a small earlier 
composed piece I composed for the St.Jans Choir for computer, sax, synthesizer 
and piano. I added this part to create a point of piece wherefrom the song has 
been restructured again towards the finale and coda."

PHVF : "Now about the new Wallpaper Poets. Did you take a distance from 
progressive / symphonic rock ?"

Gerd : "I can still enjoy it. But tried to find more access to loops and 
sequencing with still a human touch before it sounds too electronic. That's my 
attention and mere interest."

PVHF : "Your new CD, "The Other Side of May Be" is ready. You worked on it for a 
very long time."

Gerd : "One and a half year to be precise." 

PVHF : "You obviously worked hard on the suite. It contains different guest 
musicians with each part. Some earlier Wallpaper Poets musicians participated. 
The part "When the city sleeps" still dates from the earlier period., the other 
parts are new.

Gerd : "It's a piece with some repeated musical themes worked out in different 
combinations."

PVHF : "It's still symphonic, but may be to be called "modern symphonic" ?"

Gerd : "I can deal with that description."

PVHF : "Textually and thematically, what is it about ?"

Gerd : "The piece was meant, with "The Blind God" and "When the city sleeps" to 
show the disproportion/disparity between the individual and religion. People can 
have an uninteresting life living in hope for "the other side of maybe" where 
they might find satisfaction one day. In fact it should be the other way around, 
therefore also "the other side of maybe". Why stop living now when the afterlife 
is assured any how ? The cover of the CD illustrates this idea very well. I 
found the picture(s) for it accidentally on the net.  It was on a site of an 
American Photography company, and they gave me the permission to use the 
pictures. They're about the 11th pin of a bowling game. These are pictures of it 
on deserted places, somewhat symbolising the loneliness of the individual in our 
society."

In the show we also added the song "Something strange about Today" because it 
had very different arrangements (with brass,..).

Gerd : "The text was written by an English friend of mine. Someone wakes up and 
see his girlfriend being gone. He has to restart his life.

PVHF : "Thanks for coming over to the studio. Good luck with your new project !"

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General page : www.radiocentraal.be/psychevanhetfolk
More detailed entry page : http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com/