| CD REVIEW Denvis & The Real Deal |
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Band : Denvis & The Real Deal Ggrrmmmm...I've been wondering how to start this review, and I've come to the conclusion that the only proper way would be to talk to you first of the diversity of the person that goes behind this band's frontman. You see, Denvis is the alternate personality of one Dennis Grotenhuis, Dutch singer, guitarist, songwriter, and television show producer! After a somewhat failed basic school training he gets his first “experiences” in life playing in some local bands of the Eindhoven area. He then tries his hand at acting school, but is turned down. So, together with friend Richard he packs up his guitar and a photo camera, and starts traveling, that first time to Barcelona. After a return home and a period as social worker at his hometown's youth center, he again gets the travel shivers, and again with Richard first visits Central and South America, and 1 ½ years later finds himself in Thailand, where (again with Richard) he starts a bar...which exists for exactly 2 weeks, after which the duo find refuge in a Japanese asylum for not being able to fulfill their financial obligations. On his return to Holland Dennis decides time has come to look for a decent job, namely as stage technician for a traveling musical. At the same time he enlists in the Nederlandse Film En Televisie Academie (a school for people wanting to work in movies and television) for which he moves to Amsterdam. Meanwhile he continues to play in his Rough 'n' Roll/ Garage Rock band, then called The Wankalots. For commercial and marketing reasons, that name is however eventually changes to The Spades (Phlouf...Blitz! Is that the sound of some people's proverbial lamps starting to burn?)... a name which would slowly but surely start to make a buzz on Holland's club circuit. In fact, Dennis has several releases with the Spades to date, but let's leave that story untold for the moment, shall we!? Meanwhile Dennis graduates from the academy with a short movie entitled Trash TV. His short flick Hellmond is even nominated for De Avond Van De Korte Film, which leads to him making a well-received half-hour program for BNN during 2001. Around that time The Spades also release their debut single, and start working on their debut full-length. Dennis then starts making videos for the likes of Peter Pan Speedrock, becomes musical director for the Kink TV show on the new Veronica channel, which is bankrupted 3 months later. The Spades are doin' better and better by this time, even do a European tour, and also play at the renowned Lowlands in 2003, where Dennis even records 6 short films for Dutch VPRO tv-channel, which would culminate in him making even more short films for that tv-channel later on. The Spades' Lowlands show would turn out to be a temporary high note for the band, and after that Dennis is found at Special Appearances at Special Locations for Special People And Invites, performing acoustic sets with a bunch of friends. And in the meantime his career for tv was again booming, bla, bla, bla... In 2005 Dennis finds himself new musicians, and gets the Spades to play at the infamous SXSW in Austin, Texas. In 2006 Dennis, under his surname Denvis, and together with those acoustic buddies of his, releases his debut solo album Comin' Home. In 2009 journalist-writer Leon Verdonschot (also Dennis' good friend and partner-in-crime for a series of entertaining and musically/ literary evenings which they've been doin' for a couple of years) releases his book Denvis, Een Rockroman, a fictitious biography. But...let's go see what's happening in the circus, shall we? If Comin' Home was indeed an acoustic statement (I'm sorry I cannot confirm the musical direction of that album, as I've never heard it!), then Join The Circus is an ode to the swinging US Blues Rock big bands of the late '70s and early '80s, a “style” which was usually popular enough on local levels, but never broke out in the mainstream. Somehow, I guess the genre's resurgence came at a bad moment, a time when people were looking for simpler uplifting music! In fact, these bands usually had a somewhat complex build-up with twin guitarists battling with each other constantly, a keyboardist adding either atmospheric organ or note-fucking piano pieces on top, and horn players adding to the musical furnace! Regretfully, musical history is literally strewn with bands which struggled for years before being able to release one (or even occasionally two) album(s) before having to go belly-up! Still, they left us a nice collection of interesting albums nevertheless. Nothing I can pin-point at first though, because none of the bands ever amounted to much more than local or regional popularity, but in spite of that I've got quite a nice amount of albums by such bands in my collection, thanks to a very open-minded picking of new purchases at the second-hand store! As you will be able to hear from listening to the 4-some of songs posted at myspace.com/denvis, the new Denvis album is everything but acoustic, and indeed follows that kind of frantic musical style for a large part. There's a couple of calmer songs, also songs which are lacking in horns, and occasionally you even have a track in which the guitars are used in the background only, tracks where the style is Countrified somewhat...but overall this album is great fun from start to finish, and back again, not in the least because of Denvis' peculiarly nasal type of vocals! Being' sure I've inadequately expressed myself in describing this album, I can only say...go check out the complete album at your local record store! If you've taken the effort to read on thus far, I doubt whether you'll be able to leave the store without buying the album! Yeah, I like this, alright, and that's why I'm placing Join The Circus in my year-lists, okay? 98/100 Tony. |
