24 July 2007
Drummer, drummer, drummer .... It has been a long while since we last inserted a little something into this section of our website... well, it's now time we did so! Quite a lot has happened in a year, some things were good, some were bad. I guess the worst that happened to us was to have to replace our drummer and friend 'Joe Mancuso', who could no longer combine his job activities with our weekly rehearsals. Joe is a brilliant drummer and a great bloke! Yet, we were turning around in circle week after week, wondering whether he would turn up or not. In most cases, he wouldn't. He's left the band but no doubt we will keep in touch with him and see him perform with his many other bands. Having said that, we were lucky enough to have Eric 'lucky man' join us as a drummer immediately afterwards. Eric was just fab. Within 3 weeks, he learned 8 songs, which allowed us to perform at the 'Francofolies de Spa' festival with success. Unfortunately, he only came to help temporarily, as he is very busy with his other band 'Hollograms'. HH has taken the responsibility for finding our next drummer. She is auditioning some of them as I'm writing this. Other than that, Velvet Avenue seems to have 'le vent en poupe'. We did very well at the Francofolies and chances are we will do a bigger stage next year. We have been approached by a label in Montpellier (France) and are currently reviewing their offer. HH and I have started work on our second album (hopefully coming in mid 2008). Our plans are to make it better than the first one and avoid some of the mistakes we did. Velvet Avenue has become very solid and is more than ever a strong part of our own lives... We are addicted. Our addiction is increasingly stronger. Commercially, we can't say how successful we will become... but artistically, we have only just started !

10 May 2006
I have always been a major fan of Pierre Rapsat. Pierre Rapsat, for those of you who don't know him well, was a great belgian artist whose songs still resonate in many ears. During his first big success wave, in the early 80s, Pierre was performing live with many fabulous musicians, including Jean-François Maljean, an amazing pianist who then formed the cult duo Maljean-Willems. Today, Jean-François Maljean has a solo career as a pianist, writing and recording "new-age" music, amongst other things. His current success often takes him to China where he fills venues many of us would love to. When I was younger, I really enjoyed watching Jean-François perform live with Pierre Rapsat, surrounded by his keyboards. About two years ago, I went to see him with one song "High on Love" and within a couple of hours, he put his talent and recognizable piano sound at our disposal. It was an awesome moment for me to work with a great musician whom I really admire. So I left Jean-François' studio with a disc containing the piano part of the song and added further arrangements in our studio. When HH put her voice on the song, it sounded better than I had imagined. She asked me to put a melodic heartbreaking type of guitar solo on it.

7 April 2006
We are improving with each concert we do. We learn to face any situation and play wholeheartedly in various venues, be it half-empty or sold-out, in front of an audience that listens to us or not. We have recently welcome a bass player. He has performed a few songs with us at out last concert. It's going quite well! Marc works like crazy to join us on the entire set as soon as possible. We have also gotten hold of a PA engineer, Ivan, who is the man you don't see much but hear alot. In control of his mixing desk, he is responsible for the quality of the sound. Step by step, we will add a drummer and a keyboard player, but one thing at a time. Let's first ensure that our partners are comfortable and our cohesion comfortable...

11 November 2005
We have been asked to perform as the support act for a cabaret-like show at the Centre Culturel in Auderghem (Brussels) last June. It was a real challenge for us as we had hardly started rehearsing a few songs in acoustic format. I recall spending 5 minutes on my own on this big stage, stretching my fingers in front of an empty venue that would soon host over 350 people. This was our first real show. The atmosphere was great and we enjoyed every second. Our friends Isabelle Loison and Laurent Franken joined us on backing vocals and keyboards respectively. There's nothing like sharing such moments with friends.