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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andrea Van Cleef

Posted in Questionnaire on May 26th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

Andrea Van Cleef

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Andrea Van Cleef

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

For me, it’s all about creating a different reality from the everyday life experience. Much like the science fiction I adored as a child (wait, I still do), it’s an opening towards a world made of all the things that I need, a world I can be comfortable in, where I can relax and forget all of the bad stuff.

Describe your first musical memory.

I think it’s listening to the opening theme of “Goldrake”, a cartoon show that was very popular in Italy at the beginning of the 80s.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

I was 16 and listening to Yes, I think it was “and you and I” from “close to the edge” and I suddenly realized I didn’t want to gi to church again, because my religion was music and art.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

All firmly held beliefs sooner or later are tested by the constant need of money that the world is forcing on you. Choosing music as my main job is a constant challenge, I am tested every given day.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I think it should lead you to a constant evolution. Even if it’s not always a straight path. You can go back sometimes, because it’s what you need to evolve further. But progression is change, a constant change to better understand who you really are.

How do you define success?

Being able to make the things in your mind a real thing.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

I’ve seen bad things happen to good people. Sometimes I’ve been able to help. Wish I could help all the time. I can’t.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I’d like to make a record that can express all the different sides of my mind, listening to it, people who know me would say “hey, that’s really him!”. Maybe I should write a novel. I’ll never have the time or the craft to write a novel.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

I think art is the best entertainment ever. It has the ability of entertain you, while at the same time it can elevate you and your conscience of yourself and of the questions we all have about the great unknown.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

I want to be remembered as a good father. I love being a father. I am very close to my son, Martin, and to my family. I think it’s the only thing I’m really good at, being a father, I’m pretty terribile at everything else. But wait until my son is 16 or 27, he might have a different opinion!

https://www.facebook.com/avcrocks
https://www.instagram.com/andreavancleef/
https://andreavancleef.bandcamp.com/
http://www.andreavancleef.space/

Andrea Van Cleef & The Fuzz Resistance, “Apache Road” official video

Andrea Van Cleef, Folksession Live Official Bootleg (2022)

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Andrea Van Cleef Posts “The New Earth” Video From Shine Live Album

Posted in Bootleg Theater on January 11th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

andrea van cleef (Photo by Gigi Fratus)

Not a ton of mystery here, and that’s just fine. Andrea Van Cleef, known for his work as vocalist/guitarist of Brescia, Italy’s Humulus, has done solo shows in various guises for years. His most recent studio album, 135, was released in Jan. 2020 as a series of three 7″ platters billed as Andrea Van Cleef and the Fuzz Resistance. For the newer-released-but-earlier-recorded live album, Shine, it’s Andrea Van Cleef and the Forever People, and indeed, Van Cleef — who of course is not to be confused with Napoli outfit Lee Van Cleef — has a full band behind him for the six-song set, including drums, backing vocals, keys and bass, all of which lend the fuzzy “I Wanna Be Like You” a desert-psych vibe that Shine mirrors with its cover art.

The set begins with the melodic flow of “I Passed Away,” and moves through “I Wanna Be Like You”andrea van cleef and the forever people shine and the noisier Morphine cover “Thursday” before the momentary freakout that is “Friday” — fitting it should be after the day before — and the seven-minute, organ-laced “Shine” before arriving at the closer of the recording, which is “The New Earth.” At 12 minutes, it is both culmination of the set — though apparently the recording is incomplete, so whether there was more before or after, I don’t know; what is time, anyway? — and summary of the total journey, beginning with an early sunrise of guitar and stretching out into a work of melodic psych-prog the fullness of which is not at all undercut by the fact that it’s a live recording. One imagines that, if you were standing in Pavia that April night in 2018, it would’ve been quite a moment to witness.

A video? Don’t mind if I do. Counter perhaps to expectation, the clip is not of “The New Earth” being performed live as it happened, or even assembled from other shows, but the track put to some archival NASA footage that, honestly, fits just as well. You were going to space one way or the other.

Shine is name-your-price and streaming in its entirety at the bottom of this post, because why wouldn’t it be? Van Cleef offers some comment below the video.

Please enjoy:

Andrea Van Cleef and the Forever People, “The New Earth” official video

Andrea Van Cleef on “The New Earth”:

This year’s been a bitch. Sitting at home with nothing to do and browsing thru my personal music archive, I found this .zip files with soundboard recording from a show I played with my solo band two and a half years ago. We played soft psychedelia and classic rock, it was (my second solo album) “Tropic of Nowhere” tour. The recording — albeit incomplete, only part of the set was included — sounded really good, so I decided to mix and master those songs and put out a live album, available on Bandcamp as “name your price” offer: https://andreavancleef.bandcamp.com/album/shine-live-in-pavia-april-12-2018

Then the drummer of the Forever People (my “solo” band) told me that NASA has got a wide archive of amazing footage, which I thought could make a good match with the last song of the album, the Pink Floyd influenced “the new earth”. This is how this video came to light. I hope you guys enjoy the trip! Take care!

Written by Andrea Van Cleef, performed by AVC & The Forever People (AVC: guitar, vocals; Giorgio Finulli: bass; Matteo Melchiori: drums; Andrea Braga: keyboards; Sara Gozzi, Daniel Rosa, Marco Pasetti: backing vocals)

Recorded live at Spaziomusica, Pavia, ITALY on April 12, 2018.

Free footage courtesy of NASA, JSC PAO Video Collection –
NASA Johnson Space Center Public Affairs Office.
https://www.nasa.gov/

Photo by Gigi Fratus.

Andrea Van Cleef and the Forever People, Shine: Live in Pavia, April 12, 2018 (2021)

Andrea Van Cleef on Thee Facebooks

Andrea Van Cleef on Bandcamp

Andrea Van Cleef website

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