Songwriters Guild Live

Rose Marin lives near Alkmaar, Netherlands. She makes a fusion of folk, country and pop. She writes great songs and I'm happy to have her on the show! Paolo Morena is on tour with Magnapop, and can't stop talking! That makes for great radio, but he also has a great voice so his songs are excellent. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Seven-time San Diego Music Award nominee Gayle Skidmore has written over 2000 songs since she began songwriting at the age of 8. Her natural ability and innate passion for music made her music career inevitable, and her tumultuous life has given her plenty of inspiration. Translating her experiences into song has been more than just personally fulfilling. Gayle Skidmore won Best Pop in the 2015 San Diego Music Awards, Best Pop Album for “Sleeping Bear” in 2014, and Best Singer-Songwriter in 2013. Classically trained on the piano from the age of 4, Gayle Skidmore also plays over 20 other instruments, including the mountain dulcimer, banjo, folk harp and balalaika. Stefano Fucili is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer and arranger who collaborated with Lucio Dalla, his producer in the late nineties, writing with and for Dalla the song Anni Luce in 2001 from the so-called Luna Matana. Composer of instrumental pieces from folk, pop, celtic, rock sound. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Wouter Marijne is a singer-songwriter from Utrecht, The Netherlands. After more than 100 gigs with his band Sailing To Suez, he finally has found some time to fulfill one of his dreams: creating a solo EP. This record, called “Laughing Man” was inspired by singer-songwriters such as Jeff Buckley, Pete Doherty, John Mayer and Ryan Adams but also by bands like Oasis, The Smiths and R.E.M. Because of this, attention is being paid on strong choruses rather than songs for tearing up, and funky guitar playing instead of epic harmonica solo's. It all should remain a little rock 'n roll, anyway. Tennyson King – it’s a name that evokes notions of classic, literary depth and majesty. But it also has the hallowed ring of the gritty, earthy roots of rock and roll. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Rufus Kain.

Ryan Gaughan is a travelling musician who plays in a solid rock band called Among Criminals. You can tell by the way he dives into his solos: taking no prisoners. He's got a lot of good things to say about the life of being an artist, going for broke. Marijn Slager is well known in the Netherlands as frontman of rock band Nuff Said, and other outfits. Now he's taking a solo acoustic turn with his music, and he's talking about how that changes his songwriting. He also says some things about scoring for film, but we'll ask him a lot more in the future, when I plan to have a full dedicated episode about writing music for movies! Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Aad Luymes (61) is a late bloomer with just his first solo album in his pocket. In daily life he is an editor at the press agency. As a journalist, he visited many countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. But also the musical adventure drew. Aad Luymes has been playing in the Zaanse band Trefik (for which he wrote the most songs) for ten years before he decided in early 2016 to record his own solo CD with his self written Dutch songs. He collected a number of musicians and went into the studio. The songs are recorded live. The result is the Dutch-language CD ''Geef Je Me Nog Een Kans?'' Twelve mostly melancholic songs of melancholy and longing, with the occasional banter in between. Some songs are reminiscent of gypsy music or the music of Django Reinhardt, while others sound more jazzy or Latin-like. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Frank Schagen has been writing German-language songs for two years under the name Klausing. The music of Klausing is quirky. It is a melting pot of a musical journey through, among other things, flamenco, classical, jazz and world music. The texts are direct and poetic. Some descriptions of listeners are: "Schubert goes jazz", "all Zen" "the music is sometimes oppressive, accentuated by carefully chosen dissonants" and "classical avantgarde Rammstein". As a guitarist, Frank received an education at the Fontys conservatory in Tilburg. Within the duo Emunah, he has been writing and performing for more than 10 years with his own instrumental music. Now with Klausing, Frank enjoys the creation space, in which sound and language expression go hand in hand. Besides making music, Klausing gives yoga classes, guitar lessons and improvisation sessions in the rhythm of the week. He has also been teaching German in special secondary education for two years. Often the experiences in these fields of work offer Frank gems for a next Klausing song. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Dutch Cassidy: a little bit country, a little bit rock’n’roll. Songs that don’t shy away from describing intimate personal challenges and crossing lines. Hey, it’s cheaper than therapy!” is how this singer/songwriter describes his songwriting. Stephen James Howard is a forty-something English bedroom singer-songwriter and former street busker still tinkering with home recording and live performance. He first played bass guitar in bands at school and college in Basingstoke in the 1980s. His amateur songwriting on acoustic guitar started at this time, continued through his university days at Manchester in the early 90s, but fell dormant during lost years of sporadic performance as a busker and karaoke party trick – including several months playing the Paris metro. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Rufus Kain.

Jasmine Karimova is a multimedia artist working primarily within the fields of music and the visual arts. Accompanying herself on guitar and piano, Karimova’s music is fueled by her background in classical piano and her love for lyrical imagery. Walking the tightrope between strength and vulnerability, Karimova’s music is a juxtaposition of the darker and lighter corners of human emotion. Often compared to Regina Spector and Fiona Apple, Karimova’s voice is compelling and moving, in turns provoking and comforting. We also have an interview with Nancy Makiese, where she tells us all about the new openmic session that the Amsterdam Songwriters Guild is organizing in VIA Hostel, Diemen. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Rufus Kain.

The radioshow of today, with StarFishTaxi as our live guest. StarFishTaxi is a singer-songwriter who enjoys playing solo, but also doesn't flinch from playing with a loud band. He keeps on tinkering with his songs until he's fully satisfied! We also played songs of Terence Roelofsen and Folk Road Show, who played here last week. I played a song of Chinup live at Vondelbunker, that's a first! Other played artists: - Kim de Stella, who releases her debut album tonight at Splendor - Roelie Vuitton, who played on our show a year ago - Chris Pureka, he played in the first year of our existence, 7 years ago! - Jasmine Karimova, she'll be our live guest next week. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide. Enjoy!

With the amazing Folk Road Show, intimate and lovely Terence Roelofsen, and the always sweet Leendert Roosenbrand for his Aardbei movie. Folk Road Show is an international group of singer-songwriters, who tour around the world, and sound like CSNY but younger, edgier, and with a trombone. Plus I have to assume they actually like each other! Terence Roelofsen is an intimate and poetic singer-songwriter who writes in Dutch. He just started out, but he's already impressing people with his robust and adventurous songwriting. Leendert is talking about his new movie project Aardbei, which you can still crowdfund. I hope to bring him on the show another time to talk more about songwriting for movies! I also played music from Max Poolman who played last week, interview with Roy de Smet of Volendam Songwriters Guild (PXSG), StarFishTaxi who plays next week, Suzewind who's writing music for the Aardbei movie, and The Sugarettes, who played on the show more than 5 years ago. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide. Enjoy!

Max Poolman is new on the scene, only songwriting for the last 1,5 years. But you wouldn't hear it in his songs: they're absolutely fabulous. And his voice sounds like he's seen it all. Great indiefolk talent! Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Robert Cline Jr. is a songwriter and performer who strives to write songs and shares stories that tell the truth and make people feel what you feel inside. Robert Cline Jr.’s career began as a collaboration with members of The Subdudes, and continued his career playing and writing with members of the Muscle Shoals community, one of the legendary birthplaces of American music. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Rufus Kain.

Aaron English & Elizabeth Hareza are a songwriting duo from Utah. They tour around the world and don't skip places like Uganda while at it, picking up traditional songs along the way. Dusty Stray is an indiefolk artist who, after a year of living in his motherland USA, came back with a handful of protest songs. The EP 'USA' came out yesterday, precisely a year after the election of the Orange Man. We also had the last part of the interview with Judy Stakee, legendary A&R manager of among others Gavin DeGraw, Sheryl Crow and Katy Perry. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

Two hardened indie country stars are making their way into our studio today. Douglas Greer and Dick LeMasters both get some cues from hardcore troubadours like Steve Earle, but make the genre wholly their own through meticulous and deep songwriting. They give us some great insights on how to achieve those stellar lyrics. Talking of stellar: Petra Jordan interviews Judy Stakee again on songwriting. This time she asks what it takes for her to come over to the Netherlands and help us out over here with songwriting. It turns out we have to do a lot more than just dreaming about songwriting: we have to actually work hard at it. Songwriters Guild Live is a weekly radioshow in Amsterdam, focussed on singers who write songs. This week your host was Ro Halfhide.

This time we had an amazing amount of 4 great live acts! Timothy Hull is a great singer-songwriter from the upper West Coast of the US. He's a regular guest of the show and always brings a lovely sound. Alex Hedley is from the UK, and brings a vibrant, indie rock sound to his songwriting. He can play rock on an acoustic guitar and make it sound really deep and heavy. The Partisan Seed hails from Portugal and is a quiet and dark poet who likes to work with soundscapes and instrumentals to tell his stories. Maggie Brown is an indie band from Amsterdam who dropped by as a duo, and know how to still sound like a band. Of course, we also have part 2 of the stellar interview Petra Jordan did with Judy Stakee. In this part, we find out what was the inspiration behind the retreats, what are the main takeaways for the participants and what happens after the retreat. Enjoy!