AUTISTIK YOUTH BIOGRAPHY
Long ago, somewhere in the early nineties, Elko Blijweert and Tim Van der Poel first met through some mutual acquaintance. They talked about music, mainly discussing The Sex Pistols. When they met again some time later, Elko had started playing the guitar. Strings, whether they had 4 or 6 strings, immediately appealed to Tim. Elko even thaught one or two chords to Tim during some half hour tutorial. They made a few songs together, but no recordings exist of these futile attempts. Soon Tim’s interest in music faded and he wouldn’t touch an instrument for quite some time. Elko on the other hand continued his musical quest and he developed his skills as a guitarist, displaying his talents in way too many bands at the same time. All through these years Tim merely established himself as the backstage tourist par excellence.
Releases:
One day, early this century, Elko had set his mind on playing on a free podium in a pub called ‘Het Refrein’. He warned Tim that he would play something introvert on his acoustic guitar- he even used the word autistic as to describe his style. A few days later, at Elko’s place, Tim picked up a guitar; This had become some sort of a ritual, because Tim was still fascinated by the posibilities this particular instrument offers. Elko suddenly remarked that his style had something autistic to it as well. Elko even suggested they could record something onto 4-track one day. He probably had hoped that the mere suggestion of recording something would scare the living daylights out of Tim, but it didn’t. This encouraged Tim to play even more and resulted in him making up some tunes and uttering every thirty odd seconds “wouldn’t this be great to record ?”
During the following months they discussed this plan intensely. The name AUTISTIK YOUTH was suggested by Elko, though Tim tried to convince him for a while to opt for YOUTH AGAINST AUTISM. But AUTISTIK YOUTH it is. Due to circumstances Elko wasn’t able to play the guitar for a brief period of time, so he was released from most duties towards some of the groups he was in. He had programmed a beat and whilst listening to it, Tim picked up a ukelele. Hence birthed AUTISTIK DUB. Nineteen other songs were recorded onto 4-track during the following weeks, some directly onto minidisc. Eventually all songs were roughmixed onto minidisc. These mixes were given to Glenda, who downloaded them into protools. The three of them started editing the tracks, followed by several overdubs which were, contrary to the initial recordings, meticulously arranged. When mixing and mastering was finally completed and the track list was agreed upon, the result was brought to the attention of Heaven Hotel. They agreed to publishing the disc. Enter Dennis Tyfus, an infamous Antwerp based artist who fitted the profile. He was given total artistik freedom to create the C.D.-cover.
The result is simply stunning. As for the content ( fifteen songs, 44’11”), listen and judge !!
Some extracts of the album can be downloaded.
AUTISTIK YOUTH (HH020001) are Elko B. and Tim V.d.P.
This is part one in a serie of three.