Gone Before He Left is an interesting track – i don’t play the piano but i wanted to write a song in the John Barry tradition. I figured he’d probably wrote on the piano and so i tried – the song ‘Gone Before He Left’ is the result.

But the lyric had it’s own incentive: My friends Balder Westein and Patrick Raats, both animation directors had this character, a magician that constantly fails doing his tricks. I think he’s based on Tommy Cooper, but mixed with a dangerous stuntman. They asked me to write an opening track for their film and i thought it needed to be something ‘James Bond-esque’. I thought it would be nice to make a song about a ‘living disaster, who does not understand the consequences of his own failures’ and turn this guy into a mysterious phantom-like personality, as if he is a real bond-like hero. The film never made it, but the song was recorded with the Spinshots and the Red Limo Orchestra backing us up with their strings!

When the Spinshots presented ‘Gone Before He Left’ we threw a ‘spy’ party – with prices for the best dressed spies. We also just finished recording the mini soundtrack i wrote for the leader of the Dutch animation festival ‘Klik’ – and performed it live here. Since i did quite some editing I present this as a videoclip rather than a live presentation. The sound was recorded and mixed by Jan Jaap Snellen, video shot by Jelle Mulder and Nicolai van Nunen.

Promo picture for the Spinshots. I wanted to communicate a link with the 60s and Exotica without being obvious.

these are the offical pictures i drew for the design of the ‘Exotica’ dress for Flora Dolores. Later i used it as one of the dresses in the ‘Comic Sexy’ line ‘The Magnificent Seven’.

Credits go to Emanuel Wiemans, who drew this cover art after a sketch I made, probably on a beermat. Emanuel is really good at capturing this 50’s / 60’s look so his style fitted the purpose perfectly.