Tonight @ Spirit of 66

No Name will be present tonight when IQ is "back on the road" at Spirit of 66 in Verviers, Belguim.(Just to avoid any confusion, we will be there to enjoy the gig, not to play...)



We are very happy to see these guys again. So if you do not know what to do, just just join us. (Begin 18.30)
Link for more info: http://www.spiritof66.com/
Have a nice one.
Chris

Concert Confirmed

No Name is performing on the "Rock et" 2009 stage.

Location: Dudelange

Date: 27th June 2009

Further details to be confirmed.

News around 20 Candels

Let me begin with the following date you have to bear in you mind: 16th Apr 2009.

Kuffi will be present at RTL Television's show called "20 vir" (20 to) at 6.40 pm (which explains the name of the show) Don't miss it.

Further Kuffi uploaded a live version of "Mat enger Tréin" taken out of our 20th anniversary concert the 14th March 2009 @ "Op der Schmelz" on http://www.youmake.tv/ (Have a look it´s worth it)

Talking about http://www.youmake.tv/ , I did the same with a video used for the screen show on the 14th. I've chosen "Visions" for the first and some other will surely follow.

Last but not least, some negociations are done around some concerts and I will let you know as soon everything is confirmed.

Stay tuned.

Chris

20 Candles, The Show: Thank You All

Thousand thanks to all of you joining this event and giving us this huge and warm welcome. It was extremely motivating to see all these faces we knew since a long time and the ones, coming to this event out of sheer curiosity.





The show started with a chronological set, reflecting the songs from 1988 until 2008 followed by a set of songs we just love to play. All in all it was a more than 2 hours show and words fail me to express everything we experienced that exceptional day. I have to get together with the lads to discuss what impressions they captured. Yves came along, yestersay, and I had the impression he was still amazed about the event.Enjoying together a glass of good Italian wine, He gave me some really good feedback, he got from several people joining the event. (I heared nothing so far because I slept away nearly the whole Sunday an Monday...), and together we had a look on the, very poor, Video record I made of the gig, and some glint appeared in our eyes.



I will give a more detailed review once I had a chat with everybody, to consider all impressions and experiences of that very special evening.

This Blog will be continued with the same name until end of 2009. (Later I'll see how to rename it and let you know). Further you will have details of upcoming events and other things.

To see some pictures taken on Saturday, please simply click on the below image and enjoy.

Chris :o)

20 Candles: The Show

20 Candles completed

On Sunday, 28th February 2009, some champagne bottles have been opened at Tritone Studios to celebrate the end of a long journey. The mixdown and remastering have been finished. So by now we are quite confident that the disc will be available for the 14th March 2009 at our 20th anniversary concert.

Now our focus applies to this very big event and we had some re-hearsals already last week. Further, this concert needs a lot of engineering, in order to get it a worthy anniversary "party"

I will confirm our supporting act, tomorrow at this place.

Now I want you to put your attention on the following Radio shows where we will be interviewed:

Radio 100,7: Sat. 07-03-09 between 02.30pm and 04.30pm (Freq. 100,7)

RTL: Fri. 13-03-09 between 08.00am and 09.00am (Freq. 88,9)

DNR: Fri. 13-03-09 between 05.00pm and 07.00pm (Freq. 107,7)

Maybe there will be some more to confirm.

Have a nice one.

Chris

Big time at Tritone Studios

The warm welcome at Tritone Studios, Trier (http://www.audio.lu/tritone.php?lang=de&module=aboutus) was just the begin of a good relationship between them and us. On Monday, Alex took the whole day to get things started and after a really long session, Broken Heart was mixed down. Julio and Georges from Tritone were open to meet any exigences from the Band but never without investing their opinion, guidance and experience. After a few hours we made a good team, which I personally found one of the qualities to punctuate. The sound of the songs is full, dynamic and living. I know, some of you might say that this is the main goal of all studio, but beleive me, I had some opposite experience in the past.

(Georges (left) and Julio (right) in "action")

However, today will be the final mixdown. Alex had, I guess, a quite fullfilling week and he is surely happy that this load has been taken off him. Again I just want to thank him for all the work he has done the last few month. If everithing works fine today, tomorrow will see the remastering.

I'll keep you posted
Have a nice week-end

Chris ;o)

Recordings finalised

Yes, as promised, it's done. Finally we finished the recordings.

It was around 16.00 CET that we all met to take a look at the things we left out at the begin of the recording sessions. "Left out? How this?" some of you might ask. Well this is quickly explained: When recording sessions are in the beginning phase, everybody tries to start with the, let's say, more complex parts. And at the end of the recording period you have always something to play that you thought finished. However, now we are sure that our Album "20 Candles" will be available latest on 14th March 2009.

Kuffi opened the door to our rehearsal room this afternoon with the words: "Hi, the chants are taped" I can imagine that this took a load from him (and as well from Alex).

So, we went again to take some Band pics, followed by a last action from Yves. Mulles finished a "dum dum dum dum" (So did I too) and I was finishing a few more percussive things.
Now we are ready to rumble. The mixing phase is now upcoming. News will follow.
Have a nice week.
Chris

Today: Get things finished.

After a real exciting week, met the guys quite a few times, we now reached the last recording day. As promised Kuffi got all the songs done, since a while the guitars are on tape and about drums'n bass nobody is talking since a little eternity. Really?... well Alex discovered a blanc at the begin of Battlefield. This means that Mulles and I will have to do some quick takes this afternoon. Anyway, we will meet to take another few Band pictures by daylight.

So, tonight I will update the blog a last time from a recording point of view. Next week, we're in Trier at Tritone Studios to process the final mixdown.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Chris

No Name: A hard working Band

Yesterday, late evening, Kuffi, Mulles and I met together with Alex and Yves who have worked on the last outstanding takes. We arranged, as you can see, to take high professional band pictures.

Why to pay a photographer if you get the same result with a simple timer which is included in every digital cam? (These times are over for us by now.)

After the session we followed Yves, bringing in his solo part on First Night, reflecting a "Suitesch Portugues do Guitariniu bebida demais cerveja Sagres". (?)

We were really happy that this was more or less done by not mor than a half an hour and went to the Portuguese "Pub" next door to discuss about the really important things for our 20th anniversary concert: Catering and comfort!

No, seriousely now. We have still quite a few things to arrange and organise and the tasks have been allocated and need to be accomplished.

Monday the 23rd will be the first day in recording Studio for mixdown. I think I will get some more stuff to write down from there.

Enjoy Music,

Chris

http://www.youmake.tv/

http://www.noname.lu/

A fantastic evening

Oh yes, it was. Yesterday I enjoyed being a member of No Name, but first of all let me apoligise for breaking the promise I gave in my previous statement. I really tried to write this down, but didn't find the right words yesterday at all. (Maybe one beer too much...)

As you can see on the few pictures it was the time for us all to rectify, add and change some sequences.

Mulles did some real good work in adapting his bass in some parts of Orient Express. (Sorry, did I forget to tell you that this song will be part of the next CD? My Goodness, shame on me. So now you know.)


For me it was a great pleasure to come along with my acoustic snare (and some beers) to add some kind of rolls and stuff on Orient Express as well. Maybe the neighbors did not feel the same but I think we got it recorded before they thought about calling the cops.

After this we had a quite serious break with all kind of logistic and organizational discussions of our Concert the 14th March 2009 at "Op der Schmelz" (Routing will follow)

Than Kuffi came along, saying he wanted to finish sone songs and check the sounds out of an old thing called SPD11. (Whatever!)

So Mulles and I just modestly disappeared, not to say we ran away (Little joke). To be honest we only left because these recording microphones are quite sensible on any kind of noise they do not have to record.

Kuffi did some really long and hard sessions the last days together with Alex and I really like to thank them for this.

Now for the nex steps: Tomorrow, we will ALL meet to take some Band pics, an I will provide you, hopefully with some further news.



Until than, enjoy your time,

Chris

http://www.youmake.tv/

http://www.noname.lu/

Last rec. sessions before X-Day

Dear Prog-Rock Fans,

No Name´s discography is soon going to have one log more.

This afternoon we're finishing some of the outstanding stuff and modify some takes which didn't work out fine enough. However, the whole Band will be present and I' ll profit to take some pics and post them tonight when I'm back.

Further, I will put a little slide show in place, in cluding pictures of the las 20 years of No Name.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Chris :o)

www.youmake.tv

www.noname.lu

Kuffi on the fast lane

Hello All,

Kuffi is actually establishing new speed records regarding his chant recordings.

Yesterday he finished abou 95% of "First Night", means this song remains only another 2 sentences left. (Calculated drum beats: 16). Well this is not too bad. However, Kuffi is indulging in motivation and says that he will continue on Friday Night as well as nearly the whole Saturday to get the rest, and I this time he doesn't mean "First Night", done.

I will probably be in Friday's session to get some pics an comments.

Updates will follow.

Have a nice one,Chris

New Video

Evening All,

"Closing of the year", a song previewed to appear on our album "The Other Side", what for some reason it never did, was taped on video during an amazing evening on a German Progressive Rock Festival in Bruchsal near Karlsruhe in 1997. I thought it would be a good idea to cut this song out and put it on http://www.youmake.tv/

The song can now be seen there. For the next few hours probably on the main page but later on you have to enter "No Name" or the song's name into the research field to see it. By the wy, my user name on this site is "tag" (guess why) and you can find "Closing of the year" as well that way. Further, some other newer and older videos can be seen here.

So enjoy your stay.

Have nice dreams,

Chris

Baby boy born and retraining chant

Some really good news right at the begin:
I am proud to announce that Yves became father yasterday 22nd Jan 08 at 23.45. His wife and his son Lio are both in good health. I wish them a lot of fun in future.

Almost at the same moment, I spent some time in yesterdays recording session where Kuffi was doing a marvelous job. It was a real pleasure to hear him sing some of the older songs but I was even more impressed about the professionality he handled the songs, incorporating more feeling ever. I saw him enjoying the results and, of course, the beer...

Last but no least I'd like to take this occasion to thank a man who, shame on me, has not been put into the correcrt light until now: Alex.
He has spent around 300 hours yet on this project and he really deserves all our respect for this. Thank you Alex.
Very last thing to say for now is that we are getting closer to the mix-down deadline and some work still needs to be done. (As well from me I'm afraid) So the next few weeks we will experience some more or less stressful moments and I will be grateful to bring them to you on this blog...

Have you all, a nice week-end.
Cheers,

Chris

Fred at a glance

Dear listeners of stylish compositions,

There is a song in the progressive Rock environment called Broken Heart and it's one of my personal favorits ever. So, by checking all songs for the "20 candles" best of album, we found that this song is of a not to negligible need for a Sax solo, means it was obvious we needed a Saxophonist for this one. This is why we thought to get Fred Hormain on board and we knew he is the best choice. He added a big value to the song because his Solo is charming every ear. I think that this song will be a big surprise for all of you and I'd like to say thousands thanks to Fred for his amazing work.

Here his link to know a bit more about him and his music: http://www.fredhormain.com/

Than I have some news from the singing front. Kuffi, our most attractive singer, (note: we have just one. the autor) started to put his nightingale voice (!) on Merry-go-round. His first impression was that it is really strange to re-sing all this, but he thinks that he will have big time fun the next days. Today he's going on an I hope the neighbors will stay calm. (note: just a joke from the autor)

This is all I have for you tonight.

So enjoy your ..., whatever you like to enjoy and have a good time.

Write to you soon,

Chris

Hi All,

Somedays are absolutely determined to stay in bed.

After I thought that the best place to rehearse "in House" would be to put my Drum Kit into the cellar rather to kill the heads out of my attick, my Neighborhood seemed not really to be amused. Well, to be honest, I am not really the softest drummer in the world that's true, (I think I am more to find in the complete opposite direction...) but have you ever heard a Violin beginner? Or the same on Clarinette, Saxophone or evern worst ... Bagpipe? These guys have most likely not only a little issue regarding the timing or loudness with their intruments, but as well serious problems with the tones. A drummer does not care about tones. One hit and you got it, there is nothing to do wrong, I suppose. But allways rolling out the same old chestnut about the loudness is clearly driving me nuts one day.

Well, I think if I want to continue the training on my normal physical druming condition, I need to invest some money into drum dampers...

However, it was so cool to tell this to somebody ;-)

Enjoy your week and see you on the 14th here in Dude.

Chris

Good Day, Good News

Hi All,

Two Big Days are approaching and I feel a bit of flurry crossing the Band. Tickets are sold, more questions asked by people and more rush on the CD recording. The 14th March is not that far anymore. But another big Day is aproaching too. Yves will learnabout the happieness to be a father soon... So I welcome Yves into the club of sleepless nights, piddled T-Shirts, stinky nappies and... uncompromising love. However, he managed it to finish so far 5 songs completely and two only missing the solo parts. The plan is that Kuffi will take the relieve when Yves is not available...

I'll keep you posted.

Chris ;o)

Happy New Year

In the name of No Name (what sense does this make...?) I'd just like to take this occasion to wish you all a happy new year and all the best. May your kisses be hot and your beers well chilled.
Chris :o)