Nov 12 2006: Hendrix Tribute:
Guitarist Vreny Van Elslande from Ieper left to the USA a couple of years ago to study at renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. He finished his 5 year intense study program in only 3 1/2 years time, and graduated Summa Cum Laude. After finishing up his music studies in Boston, Vreny moved to Los Angeles. In Hollywood he established himself as one of the top guitar instructors in LA and a highly respected session musician.
Every year Vreny comes back home to Flanders to celebrate Christmas and New Year with his family and friends. With each of these visits, he always makes it a habit to perform a couple of shows with old friends and known colleague musicians he worked with in the past.
Last year Vreny realized one of his old dreams: performing with a "Jimi Hendrix Tribute" band. To make this happen, Vreny hooked up with the solid and strongly groovin rhythm section of "Karma Depth", considered one of the leading Belgian progressive rock bands. This rhythm section consists of Hans Mahieu on drums and Hans Berten on bass and vocals.
These 3 guys together are known to rock the house and put the roof on fire with their driven renderings of Jimi's powerful music. Since this is exactly what they did in their shows last year when Vreny was in town, the overwhelming success of last year's performances led to clubs asking Vreny to get this band together again for another set of Hendrix Tribute shows this year. Because the band had so much fun doing this last year, they were more than glad to get this going and get the band together again.
This "Jimi Hendrix Tribute Band" strives to copy Jimi's authentic sound, vibe and guitar playing very closely, while maintaining some freedom in the performances of Jimi's compositions and extending into jams when the musicians feel like going crazy in the heat of the musical action. And this band promises to deliver lots and lots of heated action and moments.
Don't miss this chance to check out what the buzz is all about and to rock out on 2 hours of non-stop, high-energy renderings of Jimi's timeless masterpieces.
You can book this amazing act from: 22th Dec 2006 up to 18th Jan 2007.
Contact:
Berten Hans: 056/420735 of 0486/665832
hans_solidsound@hotmail.com
Or: vreny@vreny.com
Website: www.vreny.com
We have been interviewed by rock FM. This interview, in which Jeroen pictures Hans Berten as a hard-rock freak, will be broadcasted on saturday november 11, at 21:30h. Our interviewer, Noel, is taking interviews with each of the A tast of Belgium bands, the Belgian prog-compilation of 2006. You can listen to rock FM at 107.7 fm, or on the internet.
We are composing our very best, to present a brand new song on our next gig in Verviers december 17. Hope to meet you there!
What no one ever feared has happened: Lorenzo Petralia, the best guitarplayer in the northern hemisphere no longer plays with Karma Depth. He leaves the band in spite of all our attempts to change his mind. But let's make one thing clear: Lorenzo leaves us as a very good friend (for reasons only he can explain). We can only hope that his genius musical thoughts and aspirations will reach you in other ways.
We would proudly like to welcome the new best guitarplayer in the northern hemisphere: Jeroen Vanryckeghem. Jeroen plays with Isopoda and The Occasional Band but still has time and creativity left to invest in Karma Depth.
Jeroen has a warm and strong personality but is perhaps still a little too modest. He pretends to be 'no shredder', but don't worry yet, we will teach him!!
Yet, he will enrich us with new influences as, being a completely 'different' guitarplayer as Lorenzo is, we are convinced that his style of playing will influence the sound of Karma Depth.
You might have read it already on our website: 8 belgian prog-bands appear on a compilation-cd, entitled 'a taste of Belgium'. For this occasion, Karma Depth recorded a new song in their own rehearsal-room: Second Chance. This CD could be yours for 12 euro by placing an order on our site.
The new Karma Depth line-up will go on stage for the first time on the 17th of december 2006 in Belgiums most famous progtemple The Spirit Of 66 @ Verviers.
On saturday the 10th and saturday the 17th of december, all bands that made their contribution to the CD will be performing at this club!!
Aug 02 2006
We're proud to announce the release of a new compilation cd "a taste of Belgium", presenting 8 belgian prog bands.
Karma Depth has contributed one brand new song called "Second Chance".
The CD is available for sale (12 euro) with us. If you're interested, send me a mail: dieter@karmadepth.org.
The absolute highlight as far as Im concerned is brought by Karma Depth. Second Chance is an extremely strong composition adding an extra dimension to the idea of progressive rock. The music is so full of art, with every instrument in an extreme balance with the others. Hans Berten has a voice with which he must make a lot of singers very jealous. Powerful, very manly and full of passion. This is neo-prog with jazzy elements that at times give you the idea to be listening to lounge music before the rhythm starts to pound and the melody seems to suck you into the speakers. The song is full of changes and its amazing how you are aware of every single instrument throughout the songs. Seldom have I heard the guitar being played with so much passion! Also the way the piano imposes itself during a gentle guitar solo towards the end of the song shows great musical feeling. This song really blows you away.
- Prognose
(in dutch) -
June 03 2006
More movies... recording of (yet unreleased!) "second chance", april 2006, can be found in the media > vision section...
April 18 2006
Lorenzo has uploaded some movies of us:
March 24 2006
http://www.progwereld.org/progvizier/progvizier30.htm
March 24 2006
The Belgian prog and sympho scene is doing quite well : a heap of new quality bands are following in the footsteps of renowned predecessors like Irish Coffee, Machiavel, Isopoda, Now, Univers Zero and many others - one can easily say that there is a revival of the musical style in spite of the lack of attention and respect from the mainstream media.
Together with Geert Fieuw, guitar player for the band Beyond The Labyrinth, initiator and coordinator of the project, Prog-Nose vzw and Prog-Résiste asbl are compiling a CD to present some of the bands in this scene. These are the confirmed bands until now :
A Taste Of Belgium is planned for release in the month of May, and will be exclusively available through Prog-Résiste and Prog-Nose (in pre-inscription), and through the participating bands (after the period of pre-inscription)
Prog-Nose vzw : http://www.prog-nose.org
info : jany@prog-nose.org
Prog-Résiste asbl : http://www.progresiste.com
info : dominique.genin@progresiste.com
Geert Fieuw : geert.fieuw@telenet.be
January 3 2006
December 24 2005 : a Karma Depth / Vreny / Hendrix gig
It has been a while since you heard from us... but don't worry, we're still alive and rocking! We're writing new songs, and take time to jam, experiment with sounds, styles, atmospheres (wow)... We believe, by doing so, suddenly a song will emerge, refactored out of the magic moments we share, rehearsal after rehearsal, these very moments when a stupid "ow yeah having fun lala play some hiphop" turns into a tune that takes our breath away...
There's a gig coming up, december 28th, 21h30 in "De beiaard" in Poperinge. Vreny Van Elslande will do a Jimi Hendrix tribute, together with Hans and Hans (Karma Depth), talking about a power trio! You're all invited! [Dieter] [spelling mistakes fixed by Dirk! THX]
Hey, i've uploaded some pictures of the gig in Rollegem "vive la Fiete". These pictures we shot by Dirk our first and most loyal fan. People were very happy after that concert, even though is was quite late. Thanks for staying late guys (and girls), and thanks to Ruth for giving us sound.
We wish you all a pleasant summer, and invite you to our concert in Ieper on friday 19th of august at 19:30 at the Lapidarium. That's a very special and cosy open-air place in Ieper, in the shadow of the cathedral, between the ruins of a monastery. Another gig is coming up on september 16th in Rollegem again.
We had a visitor at this weeks rehearsal.
Our friend Bobo went to the Arrow Classic Rock festival, where he talked with
the guys from Dream Theater.
And guess what he brought us... yes this very cool picture of Jordan Rudess
receiving our debut cd. Click it! If that isn't cool, then I don’t know what is.
He also brought a 'framed' personal message for our drummer Hans, that he
received from
Mike Portnoy. What a blast that was. Cool thing is we didn't know abut this
at all so it was a very big and pleasant surprise.
Thanks John for your support and friendship!
Hi there,
we did a very cosy concert last saturday in Rollegem.
Thanks for everyone who showed up to be with us.
I had a great time, and i believe you all had.
About half an hour before the concert started,
I discovered
that I announced the wrong date in our
mailing. We're very sorry to tell you there is
NO concert at the 4th of july.
That concert actualy already took place on the 4th of june. >:]
Of course, we'll be playing again soon, to make up for this
stupid mistake.
In the mean time, people and magazines keep on reviewing our music,
which is great of course, because each one of them is very positive.
Dieter
9 may 2005
Hi, we would like to remind you, we're playing in Rollegem, the 4th of june. It's going to be a very special concert, because Rollegem is the place where Karma Depth was founded. The set contains Resilience, and of course some surprises.
27 april 2005 - Prog-nose review
Saturday we opened for Pain of salvation... what a thrill that was.
We had a 40 minute set, and played Glow/price/ask yourself ... what do you expect with song lasting more than 10 minutes... Anyway sound was great. The audience was even better. And although it was still very early, there was a good audience.
So thank you www.conc.be for letting us play. Thank you all you people who showed up early enough to see us play. Check out a prog-nose concert review in the ‘press’ section.
We taped the show on dv-video and hope to put some footage online soon. Check back often!
Toedeloe... from the karma gang
Karma depth debut Resilience was album of the week on www.boborocks.be
We did it, We survived our cd presentation. Saturday 9 april was the official public presentation of our debut. And what a blast it was... We found a cozy concert hall in Menen, wich holds about 150 person (very intimate place). The place was full. Reactions of the audience was really cool. We played all the songs on the cd , in the order in which they appear on the cd. And for bonus, we added our now worldfamous (in west-flanders anyway) Dream Theater medley. Anyway lots of fun... and that's what it's all about. Check out the 'vision' section for some pictures of the event. We will add some video footage as soon as possible.
Greetz... Lorenzo
PS don't forget: saturday 23 april we open for Pain of Salvation together with Casual Silence, Beyond the Labyrinth, and Dark Suns.